My dearest Hal,
Those pretty French lines I sent you are by Victor Hugo, a man of great genius, but almost the most exaggerated writer of the exaggerated modern school of French style. Some of his poems, in spite of this, are fine and charming; and, indeed, there is not much better French to be found than the prose of some of the French writers of novels and essays. Madame George Sand, Merimée, Ste. Beuve, write with admirable simplicity and force.
I sent my young adorer back, in return for her quatrain, Millevoye's lines on the withered leaf—a far more appropriate image of my peregrinations. These, no doubt, you know, ending with four pretty lines—
"Je vais où va toute chose,
Sans me plaindre, ou m'inquiéter
Où va la feuille de rose,
Et la feuille de laurier."
... You ask after my audiences. At Bath the same singular-looking gentleman, who is beautiful as well as singular looking, and wonderfully like my uncle John, came and sat at my last morning reading in the same conspicuous place. He is a helpless invalid, and was wheeled in his chair through my private room, to the place which he occupied near my reading-stage. His name is C——, and he and his wife were intimate friends of John Kemble's, and sent to beg I would see them after the reading. As I had to start immediately for Cheltenham, this was impossible, which I was very sorry for, as I should like to have spoken to that beautiful face.
You impress upon me the value of the blessing of health, and I think I estimate it duly; for although I said it mattered little how I was, I meant that, isolated as I am, my ill health would affect and afflict fewer persons than that of some one who had bonds and ties of one sort and another.... My work goes on without interruption, and I think with little variation in my mode of performing it; and I make efforts of this kind, sometimes under such circumstances of physical suffering and weakness, that I am almost hard-heartedly incredulous about the difficulty of doing anything that one has to do—which is not very reasonable either, for the force of will, the nervous energy, which carries one through such efforts, depends itself on physical conditions, which vary in different temperaments, and in the same temperament at different times.
The first day of my arrival in Cheltenham I received a note from Miss A——'s mother—a very touching expression of thanks for what she calls my kindness to her child, full of anxiety about the training and guiding of her mind and character, accepting with much gratitude my offer of personal acquaintance with her daughter (personal acquaintance is an excellent antidote to enthusiasms), whom she brought herself the next day to see me.... In our conversation I insisted much on the importance of physical training, and commended to her, after the highest of all help (without which, indeed, none other can avail), systematic and regular exercise, and systematic and sedulous occupation, both followed as a positive duty; all possible sedatives for the mind and imagination; and the utmost attention and care to all the physical functions. I gave her the wisdom which I have bought; but she will buy her own, or I am much mistaken.... I went on Sunday to the cathedral to hear afternoon service, but was late, and did not get within the choir, but sat on a chair in a lonely corner of the transept, and followed the service from without the pale. Yesterday, at my usual hour for exercise, I went to walk by the river; but rain came on, and I finished my walk under the cloisters, which rang from end to end with the shrill shouts of a parcel of school-boys, let out for their noon-day recess. Last night the weather was fearful, a perfect storm of wind and rain, so that, though my audience was small, I was agreeably surprised to find I had any at all.
I have not seen the letter you refer to in the Times, but think it very likely Charles Greville should write such a one, as I heard him say he should give the public a piece of his mind on the subject, and he occasionally does write in the Times, and his views are precisely what you describe those of "Carolus" to be.
Good-bye, dear. I have a bundle of violets from you this morning, for which many thanks. Love to dear Dorothy.
Ever as ever yours,