Letters of Edward FitzGerald to Fanny Kemble | Page 6

Wife have stayed there for some weeks for the last two years; and Donne and Valentia were to have come, but that they went abroad instead.
And so, while I should even deprecate a Lady like you coming thus far only for my sake, who ought rather to go and ask Admission at your Door, I should be glad if you liked to come to my house for the double purpose aforesaid.
My Nieces have hitherto come to me from July to September or October. Since I wrote to you, they have proposed to come on May 21; though it may be somewhat later, as suits the health of the Invalid--who lives on small means with her elder Sister, who is her Guardian Angel. I am sure that no friend of mine--and least of all you--would dissent from my making them my first consideration. I never ask them in Winter, when I think they are better in a Town: which Town has, since their Father's Death, been Lowestoft, where I see them from time to time. Their other six sisters (one only married) live elsewhere: all loving one another, notwithstanding.
Well: I have told you all I meant by my 'Half-Invitation.' These N.E. winds are less inviting than I to these parts; but I and my House would be very glad to entertain you to our best up to the End of May, if you really liked to see Woodbridge as well as yours always truly
E. F.G.
P.S.--You tell me that, once returned to America, you think you will not return ever again to England. But you will--if only to revisit those at Kenilworth--yes, and the blind Lady you are soon going to see in Ireland {19a}--and two or three more in England beside--yes, and old England itself, 'with all her faults.'
By the by:--Some while ago {19b} Carlyle sent me a Letter from an American gentleman named Norton (once of the N. American Review, C. says, and a most amiable, intelligent Gentleman)--whose Letter enclosed one from Ruskin, which had been entrusted to another American Gentleman named Burne Jones--who kept it in a Desk ten years, and at last forwarded it as aforesaid--to me! The Note (of Ruskin's) is about one of the Persian Translations: almost childish, as that Man of Genius is apt to be in his Likes as well as Dislikes. I dare say he has forgotten all about Translator and Original long before this. I wrote to thank Mr. Norton for
(Letter unfinished.)

IX.
[1873.]
DEAR MRS. KEMBLE,
It is scarce fair to assail you on your return to England with another Letter so close on that to which you have only just answered--you who will answer! I wish you would consider this Letter of mine an Answer (as it really is) to that last of yours; and before long I will write again and call on you then for a Reply.
What inspires me now is, that, about the time you were writing to me about Burns and Beranger, I was thinking of them 'which was the Greater Genius?'--I can't say; but, with all my Admiration for about a Score of the Frenchman's almost perfect Songs, I would give all of them up for a Score of Burns' Couplets, Stanzas, or single Lines scattered among those quite imperfect Lyrics of his. Beranger, no doubt, was The Artist; which still is not the highest Genius--witness Shakespeare, Dante, AEschylus, Calderon, to the contrary. Burns assuredly had more Passion than the Frenchman; which is not Genius either, but a great Part of the Lyric Poet still. What Beranger might have been, if born and bred among Banks, Braes, and Mountains, I cannot tell: Burns had that advantage over him. And then the Highland Mary to love, amid the heather, as compared to Lise the Grisette in a Parisian Suburb! Some of the old French Virelays and Vaux-de-vire come much nearer the Wild Notes of Burns, and go to one's heart like his; Beranger never gets so far as that, I think. One knows he will come round to his pretty refrain with perfect grace; if he were more Inspired he couldn't.
'My Love is like the red, red, Rose That's newly sprung in June, My Love is like the Melody That's sweetly play'd in tune.'
and he will love his Love,
'Till a' the Seas gang Dry'
Yes--Till a' the Seas gang dry, my Dear. And then comes some weaker stuff about Rocks melting in the Sun. All Imperfect; but that red, red Rose has burned itself into one's silly Soul in spite of all. Do you know that one of Burns' few almost perfect stanzas was perfect till he added two Syllables to each alternate Line to fit it to the lovely Music which almost excuses such a dilution of the Verse?
'Ye Banks and Braes o' bonnie Doon, How can ye bloom (so