Volume I Part 3 (1/2)

So, lifted high, the Poet at his will Lets the great world flit from him, seeing all, Higher through secret splendours mounting still Self-poised, nor fears to fall,

4. Hearing apart the echoes of his fame--

This is in his best style: no fretful epithet, nor a word too much.

[CASTLE IRWELL]

MANCHESTER, _February_ 24, 1833.

DEAR ALLEN,

. . . I am fearful to boast, lest I should lose what I boast of: but I think I have achieved a victory over my evil spirits here: for they have full opportunity to come, and I often observe their approaches, but hitherto I have managed to keep them off. Lord Bacon's Essay on Friends.h.i.+p is wonderful for its truth: and I often feel its truth. He says that with a Friend 'a man _tosseth_ his thoughts,' an admirable saying, which one can understand, but not express otherwise. But I feel that, being alone, one's thoughts and feelings, from want of communication, become heaped up and clotted together, as it were: and so lie like undigested food heavy upon the mind: but with a friend one _tosseth_ them about, so that the air gets between them, and keeps them fresh and sweet. I know not from what metaphor Bacon took his 'tosseth,'

but it seems to me as if it was from the way haymakers toss hay, so that it does not press into a heavy lump, but is tossed about in the air, and separated, and thus kept sweet. . . .

Your most affectionate friend,

E. FITZGERALD.

_To W. B. Donne_. {22}

GELDESTONE, _Sept_. 27, [1833].

DEAR DONNE,

. . . As to my history since I have seen you, there is little to tell.

Divinity is not outraged by your not addressing me as a Reverend--I not being one. I am a very lazy fellow, who do nothing: and this I have been doing in different places ever since I saw you last. I have not been well for the last week: for I am at present rather liable to be overset by any weariness (and where can any be found that can match the effect of two Oratorios?), since for the last three months I have lived on vegetables--that is, I have given up meat. When I was talking of this to Vipan, he told me that you had once tried it, and given it up. I shall hear your account of its effect on you. The truth is, that mine is the wrong time of life to begin a change of that kind: it is either too early, or too late. But I have no doubt at all of the advantage of giving up meat: I find already much good from it, in lightness and airiness of head, whereas I was always before clouded and more or less morbid after meat. The loss of strength is to be expected: I shall keep on and see if that also will turn, and change into strength. I have almost Utopian notions about _vegetable diet_, begging pardon for making use of such a vile, Cheltenhamic, phrase. Why do you not bring up your children to it? To be sure, the chances are, that, after guarding their vegetable morals for years, they would be seduced by some roast partridge with bread sauce, and become unG.o.dly. This actually happened to the son of a Dr. Newton who wrote a book {23} about it and bred up his children to it--but all such things I will tell you when I meet you. G.o.ds! it is a pleasant notion that one is about to meet an old acquaintance in a day or two.

Believe me then your most sincere friend,

E. FITZGERALD.

Pipes--are their names ever heard with you? I have given them up, except at Cambridge. But the word has something sweet in it--Do you ever smoke?

7 SOUTHAMPTON ROW, BLOOMSBURY, [_Oct_. 25, 1833.]

DEAR DONNE,

. . . As to myself, and my diet, about which you give such excellent advice: I am still determined to give the diet I have proposed a good trial: a year's trial. I agree with you about vegetables, and soups: but my diet is chiefly _bread_: which is only a little less nouris.h.i.+ng than flesh: and, being compact, and baked, and dry, has none of the washy, diluent effects of green vegetables. I scarcely ever touch the latter: but only pears, apples, etc. I have found no benefit yet; except, as I think, in more lightness of spirits: which is a great good. But I shall see in time.

I am living in London in the quarter of the town which I have noticed above: in a very happy bachelor-like way. Would you would come up here for a few days. I can give you bed, board, etc. Do have some business in town, please. Spedding is here: taking lessons of drawing, before he goes for good into c.u.mberland: whither, for my sake and that of all his friends, I wish he never would go: for there are few such men, as far [as] I know. He and I have been theatricalizing lately. We saw an awful Hamlet the other night--a Mr. Serle--and a very good Wolsey, in Macready: and a very bad Queen Catherine, in Mrs. Sloman, whom you must remember. I am going to-night to see Macready in Macbeth: I have seen him before in it: and I go for the sake of his two last acts, which are amazingly fine, I think. . . . I am close to the British Museum, in which I take great pleasure in reading in my rambling way. I hear of Kemble lately that he has been making some discoveries in Anglo-Saxon MSS. at Cambridge that, they say, are important to the interests of the church: and there is talk of publis.h.i.+ng them, I believe. He is a strange fellow for that fiery industry of his: and, I am sure, deserves some steady recompense.

Tennyson has been in town for some time: he has been making fresh poems, which are finer, they say, than any he has done. But I believe he is chiefly meditating on the purging and subliming of what he has already done: and repents that he has published at all yet. It is fine to see how in each succeeding poem the smaller ornaments and fancies drop away, and leave the grand ideas single. . . .

I have lately bought a little pamphlet which is very difficult to be got, called The Songs of Innocence, written and adorned with drawings by W.

Blake (if you know his name) who was quite mad, but of a madness that was really the elements of great genius ill-sorted: in fact, a genius with a screw loose, as we used to say. I shall shew you this book when I see you: to me there is particular interest in this man's writing and drawing, from the strangeness of the const.i.tution of his mind. He was a man that used to see visions: and make drawings and paintings of Alexander the Great, Caesar, etc., who, he declared, stood before him while he drew. . .

Your very affectionate friend,

E. FITZGERALD.