Chapter 15

"March 3. 1814.

"My dear Friend,

"I have a great mind to tell you that I _am_ 'uncomfortable,' if only to make you come to town; where no one ever more delighted in seeing you, nor is there any one to whom I would sooner turn for consolation in my most vapourish moments. The truth is, I have 'no lack of argument' to ponder upon of the most gloomy description, but this arises from _other_ causes. Some day or other, when we are _veterans_, I may tell you a tale of present and past times; and it is not from want of confidence that I do not now,--but--but--always a _but_ to the end of the chapter.

"There is nothing, however, upon the _spot_ either to love or hate;--but I certainly have subjects for both at no very great distance, and am besides embarrassed between _three_ whom I know, and one (whose name, at least,) I do not know. All this would be very well if I had no heart; but, unluckily, I have found that there is such a thing still about me, though in no very good repair, and, also, that it has a habit of attaching itself to _one_ whether I will or no. 'Divide et impera,' I begin to think, will only do for politics.

"If I discover the 'toad' as you call him, I shall 'tread,'--and put spikes in my shoes to do it more effectually. The effect of all these fine things I do not enquire much nor perceive. I believe * * felt them more than either of us. People are civil enough, and I have had no dearth of invitations,--none of which, however, I have accepted. I went out very little last year, and mean to go about still less. I have no passion for circles, and have long regretted that I ever gave way to what is called a town life;--which, of all the lives I ever saw (and they are nearly as many as Plutarch's), seems to me to leave the least for the past and future.

"How proceeds the poem? Do not neglect it, and I have no fears. I need not say to you that your fame is dear to me,--I really might say _dearer_ than my own; for I have lately begun to think my things have been strangely over-rated; and, at any rate, whether or not, I have done with them for ever. I may say to you what I would not say to every body, that the last two were written, The Bride in four, and The Corsair in ten days[20],--which I take to be a most humiliating confession, as it proves my own want of judgment in publishing, and the public's in reading things, which cannot have stamina for permanent attention. 'So much for Buckingham.'

"I have no dread of your being too hasty, and I have still less of your failing. But I think a _year_ a very fair allotment of time to a composition which is not to be Epic; and even Horace's 'Nonum prematur' must have been intended for the Millennium, or some longer-lived generation than ours. I wonder how much we should have had of _him_, had he observed his own doctrines to the letter. Peace be with you! Remember that I am always and most truly yours, &c.

"P.S. I never heard the 'report' you mention, nor, I dare say, many others. But, in course, you, as well as others, have 'damned good-natured friends,' who do their duty in the usual way. One thing will make you laugh. * * * *"

[Footnote 20: In asserting that he devoted but four days to the composition of The Bride, he must be understood to refer only to the first sketch of that poem,--the successive additions by which it was increased to its present length having occupied, as we have seen, a much longer period. The Corsair, on the contrary, was, from beginning to end, struck off at a heat--there being but little alteration or addition afterwards,--and the rapidity with which it was produced (being at the rate of nearly two hundred lines a day) would be altogether incredible, had we not his own, as well as his publisher's, testimony to the fact. Such an achievement,--taking into account the surpassing beauty of the work,--is, perhaps, wholly without a parallel in the history of Genius, and shows that 'écrire _par passion_,' as Rousseau expresses it, may be sometimes a shorter road to perfection than any that Art has ever struck out.]

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