Miss Mitford’s note appears to have been none of the wisest—indeed a phrase or two I heard, were purely foolish: H. was said to have practised ‘Ion’s principle’!
T. had known Haydon most intimately and for a long time: he does not believe H. was mad—of a mad vanity, of course. His last paper ... ‘Haydon’s Thoughts’ ... was a dissertation on the respective merits of Napoleon and Wellington—how wrong Haydon felt he had been to prefer the former ... and the why and the wherefore. All this wretched stuff, in a room theatrically arranged,—here his pictures, there ... God forgive us all, fools or wise by comparison! The debts are said to be £3,000 ... he having been an insolvent debtor ... how long before? His landlord, a poor man, is creditor for £1,200.
Here I will end, and wait: this is written in all haste ... and is so altogether no proper letter of mine that I shall put the necessary ‘Private’ at the top of it. My letter shall go presently, if I do not go, to my own Ba—
R.B.
Should you write to your brother ... will he need reminding that Talfourd is only to know we correspond,—not that we are personally acquainted? Had you not better mention this in any case?
God bless you, dearest,—what a letter from me to you—to Ba! Time, Time!
R.B. to E.B.B.
Thursday.
[Post-mark, July 9, 1846.]
My own darling, my Ba, do you know when I read those letters (as soon as I remembered I had got them,—for you hold me long after both doors, up and down stairs, shut) when I looked through them, under a gateway ... I was pricked at the heart to have thought so, and spoken so, of the poor writer. I will believe that he was good and even great when in communication with you—indeed all men are made, or make themselves, different in their approaches to different men—and the secret of goodness and greatness is in choosing whom you will approach, and live with, in memory or imagination, through the crowding obvious people who seem to live with you. That letter about the glory of being a painter ‘if only for the neglect’ is most touching and admirable ... there is the serene spot attained, the solid siren’s isle amid the sea; and while there, he was safe and well ... but he would put out to sea again, after a breathing time, I suppose? though even a smaller strip of land was enough to maintain Blake, for one instance, in power and glory through the poor, fleeting ‘sixty years’—then comes the rest from cartooning and exhibiting. But there is no standing, one foot on land and one on the waves, now with the high aim in view, now with the low aim,—and all the strange mistaken talk about ‘prestiges,’ ‘Youth and its luck,’ Napoleon and the world’s surprise and interest. There comes the low aim between the other,—an organ grinds Mr. Jullien’s newest dance-tune, and Camoens is vexed that the ‘choral singing which brought angels down,’ can’t also draw street-passengers round.
I take your view of H.’s freedom, at that time, from the thoughts of what followed.