Chapter 43

"Ravenna, July 5. 1821.

"How could you suppose that I ever would allow any thing that _could_ be said on your account to weigh with _me_? I only regret that Bowles had not _said_ that you were the writer of that note, until afterwards, when out he comes with it, in a private letter to Murray, which Murray sends to me. D----n the controversy!

"D----n Twizzle, D----n the bell, And d----n the fool who rung it--Well! From all such plagues I'll quickly be deliver'd.

"I have had a friend of your Mr. Irving's--a very pretty lad--a Mr. Coolidge, of Boston--only somewhat too full of poesy and 'entusymusy.' I was very civil to him during his few hours' stay, and talked with him much of Irving, whose writings are my delight. But I suspect that he did not take quite so much to me, from his having expected to meet a misanthropical gentleman, in wolf-skin breeches, and answering in fierce monosyllables, instead of a man of this world. I can never get people to understand that poetry is the expression of _excited passion_, and that there is no such thing as a life of passion any more than a continuous earthquake, or an eternal fever. Besides, who would ever _shave_ themselves in such a state?

"I have had a curious letter to-day from a girl in England (I never saw her), who says she is given over of a decline, but could not go out of the world without thanking me for the delight which my poesy for several years, &c. &c. &c. It is signed simply N.N.A. and has not a word of 'cant' or preachment in it upon _any_ opinions. She merely says that she is dying, and that as I had contributed so highly to her existing pleasure, she thought that she might say so, begging me to _burn_ her _letter_--which, by the way, I can _not_ do, as I look upon such a letter in such circumstances as better than a diploma from Gottingen. I once had a letter from Drontheim, in _Norway_ (but not from a dying woman), in verse, on the same score of gratulation. These are the things which make one at times believe one's self a poet. But if I must believe that * * * * * and such fellows, are poets also, it is better to be out of the corps.

"I am now in the fifth act of 'Foscari,' being the third tragedy in twelve months, besides _proses_; so you perceive that I am not at all idle. And are you, too, busy? I doubt that your life at Paris draws too much upon your time, which is a pity. Can't you divide your day, so as to combine both? I have had plenty of all sorts of worldly business on my hands last year, and yet it is not so difficult to give a few hours to the Muses. This sentence is so like * * * * that ----

"Ever, &c.

"If we were together, I should publish both my plays (periodically) in our _joint_ journal. It should be our plan to publish all our best things in that way."

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In the Journal entitled "Detached Thoughts," I find the tribute to his genius which he here mentions, as well as some others, thus interestingly dwelt upon.

"As far as fame goes (that is to say, _living_ fame) I have had my share, perhaps--indeed, _certainly_--more than my deserts.

"Some odd instances have occurred to my own experience, of the wild and strange places to which a name may penetrate, and where it may impress. Two years ago (almost three, being in August or July, 1819,) I received at Ravenna a letter, in _English_ verse, from _Drontheim_ in Norway, written by a Norwegian, and full of the usual compliments, &c. &c. It is still somewhere amongst my papers. In the same month I received an invitation into _Holstein_ from a Mr. Jacobsen (I think) of Hamburgh: also, by the same medium, a translation of Medora's song in The Corsair by a Westphalian baroness (_not_ 'Thunderton-Tronck'), with some original verses of hers (very pretty and Klopstock-ish), and a prose translation annexed to them, on the subject of my wife:--as they concerned her more than me. I sent them to her, together with Mr. Jacobsen's letter. It was odd enough to receive an invitation to pass the _summer_ in _Holstein_ while in _Italy_, from people I never knew. The letter was addressed to Venice. Mr. Jacobsen talked to me of the 'wild roses growing in the Holstein summer.' Why then did the Cimbri and Teutones emigrate?

"What a strange thing is life and man! Were I to present myself at the door of the house where my daughter now is, the door would be shut in my face--unless (as is not impossible) I knocked down the porter; and if I had gone in that year (and perhaps now) to Drontheim (the furthest town in Norway), or into Holstein, I should have been received with open arms into the mansion of strangers and foreigners, attached to me by no tie but that of mind and rumour.

"As far as _fame_ goes, I have had my share: it has indeed been leavened by other human contingencies, and this in a greater degree than has occurred to most literary men of a _decent_ rank in life; but, on the whole, I take it that such equipoise is the condition of humanity."

Of the visit, too, of the American gentleman, he thus speaks in the same Journal.

"A young American, named Coolidge, called on me not many months ago. He was intelligent, very handsome, and not more than twenty years old, according to appearances; a little romantic, but that sits well upon youth, and mighty fond of poesy, as may be suspected from his approaching me in my cavern. He brought me a message from an old servant of my family (Joe Murray), and told me that _he_ (Mr. Coolidge) had obtained a copy of my bust from Thorwaldsen at Rome, to send to America. I confess I was more flattered by this young enthusiasm of a solitary trans-Atlantic traveller, than if they had decreed me a statue in the Paris Pantheon (I have seen emperors and demagogues cast down from their pedestals even in my own time, and Grattan's name rased from the street called after him in Dublin); I say that I was more flattered by it, because it was _single, unpolitical_, and was without motive or ostentation,--the pure and warm feeling of a boy for the poet he admired. It must have been expensive, though;--_I_ would not pay the price of a Thorwaldsen bust for any human head and shoulders, except Napoleon's, or my children's, or some '_absurd womankind's_,' as Monkbarns calls them,--or my sister's. If asked _why_, then, I sat for my own?--Answer, that it was at the particular request of J.C. Hobhouse, Esq. and for no one else. A _picture_ is a different matter;--every body sits for their picture;--but a bust looks like putting up pretensions to permanency, and smacks something of a hankering for _public_ fame rather than private remembrance.

"Whenever an American requests to see me (which is not unfrequently), I comply, firstly, because I respect a people who acquired their freedom by their firmness without excess; and, secondly, because these trans-Atlantic visits, 'few and far between,' make me feel as if talking with posterity from the other side of the Styx. In a century or two the new English and Spanish Atlantides will be masters of the old countries, in all probability, as Greece and Europe overcame their mother Asia in the older or earlier ages, as they are called."

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