Letters of Edward FitzGerald | Page 5

Allen.
FARLINGAY: WOODBRIDGE, June 2/60.
DEAR MRS. ALLEN,
Your kind Note has reacht me here after a Fortnight's abode at my old Lodgings in London. In London I have not been for more than a year, unless passing through it in September, and have no thought of going up at present. I don't think you were there last Spring, were you? Or perhaps I was gone before you arrived, as I generally used to get off as soon as it began to fill, and the Country to become amiable. Here at last we have the 'May' coming out: there it is on some Thorns before my Windows, and the Tower of Woodbridge Church beyond: and beyond that some low Hills that stretch with Furze and Broom to the Seaside, about ten miles off.
I am of course glad of so good a Report of John Allen. I have long been thinking of writing to him: among other things to give his Wife a Drawing Laurence made of him for me some four and twenty years ago: in full Canonicals--very serious--I think a capital Likeness on the whole, and one that I take pleasure to look at. But I think his Wife and Children have more title to it: and one never can tell what will become of one's Things when one's dead. This same Drawing is now in London (I hope: for, if not, it's lost) and you should see it if you had a mind. For you don't seem to find your way to Frees any more than I do: I should go if there weren't a large Family. Mrs. John is always very kind to me. I do think it is very kind of you too to remember and write to me: at any rate I do answer Letters, which many better Men don't.
Please to remember me to your Husband: and believe me unforgetful of the Good old Days, and of you, and yours,
EDWARD FITZGERALD.
FARLINGAY: WOODBRIDGE, Septr. 9/60.
MY DEAR MRS. ALLEN,
It is very kind of you to write to me. Ah! how I can fancy the Stillness, and the Colour, of your pretty Tenby!--now eight and twenty years since seen! But I can't summon Resolution to go to it: and daily get worse and worse at moving any where, a common Fate as we grow older.
Your Note came in an Enclosure from your Cousin John, who seems to flourish with Wife and Children. It is Children who keep alive one's Interest in Life: that is to say, if one happens to like one's Children.
I have had to stay with me the two sons of my poor Friend killed last year: he whom I first made Acquaintance with at your very Tenby. As I haven't found Courage to go to their Country, their Mother would have them come here, and I took them to our Seaside; not a beautiful Coast like yours--no Rocks, no Sands, and few Trees--but yet liked because remembered by me as long as I can remember. Anyhow, there are Ships, Boats, and Sailors: and the Boys were well pleased with all that. The place we went to is called Aldborough: spelt Aldeburgh: and is the Birth place of the Poet Crabbe, who also has Daguerrotyped much of the Character of the Place in his Poems. You send me some Lines about the Sea: what if I return you four of his?
Still as I gaze upon the Sea I find Its waves an Image of my restless mind: Here Thought on Thought: there Wave on Wave succeeds, Their Produce--idle Thought and idle Weeds!
Adieu: please to remember me to your Husband: and believe me yours ever very sincerely,
EDWARD FITZGERALD.
To George Crabbe.
MARKET HILL, WOODBRIDGE, Decr. 28/60.
MY DEAR GEORGE,
. . . I forgot to tell you I really ran to London three weeks ago: by the morning Express, and was too glad to rush back by the Evening Ditto. I went up for a Business I of course did not accomplish: did not call on, or see, a Friend: couldn't get into the National Gallery: and didn't care a straw for Holman Hunt's Picture. No doubt, there is Thought and Care in it: but what an outcome of several Years and sold for several Thousands! What Man with the Elements of a Great Painter could come out with such a costive Thing after so long waiting! Think of the Acres of Canvas Titian or Reynolds would have covered with grand Outlines and deep Colours in the Time it has taken to niggle this Miniature! The Christ seemed to me only a wayward Boy: the Jews, Jews no doubt: the Temple I dare say very correct in its Detail: but think of even Rembrandt's Woman in Adultery at the National Gallery; a much smaller Picture, but how much vaster in Space and Feeling! Hunt's