Part 8 (2/2)

Though I date from this place still, I have been away from it at my own Woodbridge house for two months and more; only returning here indeed to help make a better Holiday for a poor Lad who is shut up in a London Office while his Heart is all for Out-of-Door, Country, Sea, etc. We have been having wretched Holyday weather, to be sure: rain, mist, and wind; St. Swithin at his worst: but all better than the hateful London Office--to which he must return the day after To-morrow, poor Fellow!

I suppose you will see--if you have not yet seen--Tennyson's Q. Mary. I don't know what to say about it; but the Times says it is the finest Play since Shakespeare; and the Spectator that it is superior to Henry VIII.

Pray do you say something of it, when you write:--for I think you must have read it before that time comes.

Then Spedding has written a delicious Paper in Fraser about the late Representation of The Merchant of Venice, and his E. Terry's perfect personation of his perfect Portia. I cannot agree with him in all he says--for one thing, I must think that Portia made 'a hole in her manners' when she left Antonio trembling for his Life while she all the while [knew] how to defeat the Jew by that knowledge of the Venetian Law which (oddly enough) the Doge knew nothing about. Then Spedding thinks that Shylock has been so pushed forward ever since Macklin's time as to preponderate over all the rest in a way that Shakespeare never intended.

{77} But, if Shakespeare did not intend this, he certainly erred in devoting so much of his most careful and most powerful writing to a Character which he meant to be subsidiary, and not princ.i.p.al. But Spedding is more likely to be right than I: right or wrong he pleads his cause as no one else can. His Paper is in this July number of Fraser: I would send it you if you had more time for reading than your last Letter speaks of; I _will_ send if you wish.

I have not heard of Donne lately: he had been staying at Lincoln with Blakesley, the Dean: and is now, I suppose, at Chislehurst, where he took a house for a month.

And I am yours ever and sincerely E. F.G.

x.x.xI.

WOODBRIDGE, _Aug._ 24, [1875.]

Now, my dear Mrs. Kemble, you will have to call me 'a Good Creature,' as I have found out a Copy of your capital Paper, {78} and herewith post it to you. Had I not found this Copy (which Smith & Elder politely found for me) I should have sent you one of my own, cut out from a Volume of Essays by other friends, Spedding, etc., on condition that you should send me a Copy of such Reprint as you may make of it in America. It is extremely interesting; and I always think that your Theory of the Intuitive _versus_ the a.n.a.lytical and Philosophical applies to the other Arts as well as that of the Drama. Mozart couldn't tell how he made a Tune; even a whole Symphony, he said, unrolled itself out of a leading idea by no logical process. Keats said that no Poetry was worth [anything] unless it came spontaneously as Leaves to a Tree, etc. {79} I have no faith in your Works of Art done on Theory and Principle, like Wordsworth, Wagner, Holman Hunt, etc.

But, one thing you can do on Theory, and carry it well into Practice: which is--to write your Letter on Paper which does not let the Ink through, so that (according to your mode of paging) your last Letter was crossed: I really thought it so at first, and really had very hard work to make it out--some parts indeed still defying my Eyes. What I read of your remarks on Portia, etc., is so good that I wish to keep it: but still I think I shall enclose you a sc.r.a.p to justify my complaint. It was almost by Intuition, not on Theory, that I deciphered what I did.

Pray you amend this. My MS. is bad enough, and on that very account I would avoid diaphanous Paper. Are you not ashamed?

I shall send you Spedding's beautiful Paper on the Merchant of Venice {80} if I can lay hands on it: but at present my own room is given up to a fourth Niece (Angel that I am!) You would see that S[pedding] agrees with you about Portia, and in a way that I am sure must please you. But (so far as I can decipher that fatal Letter) you say nothing at all to me of the other Spedding Paper I sent to you (about the Cambridge Editors, etc.), which I must have back again indeed, unless you wish to keep it, and leave me to beg another Copy. Which to be sure I can do, and will, if your heart is set upon it--which I suppose it is not at all.

I have not heard of Donne for so long a time, that I am uneasy, and have written to Mowbray to hear. M[owbray] perhaps is out on his Holyday, else I think he would have replied at once. And 'no news may be the Good News.'

I have no news to tell of myself; I am much as I have been for the last four months: which is, a little ricketty. But I get out in my Boat on the River three or four hours a Day when possible, and am now as ever yours sincerely

E. F.G.

x.x.xII.

[_Oct._ 4, 1875]

DEAR MRS. KEMBLE,

I duly received your last legible Letter, and Spedding's Paper: for both of which all Thanks. But you must do something more for me. I see by Notes and Queries that you are contributing Recollections to some American Magazine; I want you to tell me where I can get this, with all the back Numbers in which you have written.

I return the expected favour (Hibernice) with the enclosed Prints, one of which is rather a Curiosity: that of Mrs. Siddons by Lawrence when he was _aetat._ 13. The other, done from a Cast of herself by herself, is only remarkable as being almost a Copy of this early Lawrence--at least, in Att.i.tude, if not in Expression. I dare say you have seen the Cast itself. And now for a Story better than either Print: a story to which Mrs. Siddons' glorious name leads me, burlesque as it is.

You may know there is a French Opera of Macbeth--by Chelard. This was being played at the Dublin Theatre--Viardot, I think, the Heroine.

<script>