Chapter 29

DEAREST MR. FIELDS: You will think that I persecute you, but I find that Mr. Dillon, for whom Mr. Holloway is illustrating my Recollections so splendidly, means to send the volumes to the binder on the 1st of November. I write therefore to beg, in case of your not having yet sent off the American autographs and portraits, that they may be forwarded direct to Mr. Holloway, 25 Bedford Street, Covent Garden, London. It is very foolish not to wait until all the materials are collected, but it is meant as an offering to Mrs. Dillon, and I suppose there is some anniversary in the way. Mr. Dillon is a great lover and preserver of fine engravings; his collection, one of the finest private collections in the world, is estimated at sixty thousand pounds. He is a friend of dear Mr. Bennoch's, who, when I told him the compliment that had been paid to my work by a great city man, immediately said it could be nobody but Mr. Dillon. I have twice seen Mr. Bennoch within the last ten days, once with Mr. Johnson and Mr. Thompson, your own Boston artist, whom I liked much, and who gave me the great pleasure of talking of you and of dear Mr. and Mrs. W----, last time with his own good and charming wife and ----. Only think of ----'s saying that Shakespeare, if he had lived now, would have been thought nothing of, and this rather as a compliment to the age than not! But, if you remember, he printed amended words to the air of "Drink to me only." Ah, dear me, I suspect that both William Shakespeare and Ben Jonson will survive him; don't you? Nevertheless he is better than might be predicated from that observation.

All my domestic news is bad enough. My poor pretty pony keeps his bed in the stable, with a violent attack of influenza, and Sam and Fanchon spend three parts of their time in nursing him. Moreover we have had such rains here that the Lodden has overflowed its banks, and is now covering the water meadows, and almost covering the lower parts of the lanes. Adieu, dearest friend.

Ever most faithfully yours, M.R.M.

Swallowfield, October 13, 1852.

More than one letter of mine, dearest friend, crossed yours, for which I cannot sufficiently thank you. Nobody can better understand than I do, how very, very glad your own people, and all the good city, must feel to get you back again,--I trust not to keep; for in spite of sea-sickness, that misery which during the summer I have contrived to feel on land, I still hope that we shall have you here again in the spring. I am impatiently waiting the arrival of portraits and autographs, and if they do not come in time to bind, I shall charge Mr. Holloway to contrive that they may be pasted with the copy of my Recollections to which Mr. Dillon is paying so high and so costly a compliment. Now I must tell you some news.

First let me say that there is an admirable criticism in one of the numbers of the Nonconformist, edited by Edward Miall, one of the new members of Parliament, and certainly the most able of the dissenting organs, on our favorite poet, Dr. Holmes. Also I have a letter from Dr. Robert Dickson, of Hertford Street, May Fair, one of the highest and most fashionable London physicians, respecting my book, liking Dr. Holmes better than anybody for the very qualities for which he would himself choose to be preferred, originality and justness of thought, admirable fineness and propriety of diction, and a power of painting by words, very rare in any age, and rarest of the rare in _this_, when vagueness and obscurity mar so much that is high and pure. I shall keep this letter to _show_ Dr. Holmes, tell him with my affectionate love. If it were not written on the thickest paper ever seen, and as huge as it is thick, I would send it; but I'll keep it for him against he comes to claim it. The description of spring is, Dr. Dickson says, remarkable for originality and truth. He thanks me for those poems of Dr. Holmes as if I had written them. Now be free to tell him all this. Of course you have told Mr. Hawthorne of the highly eulogistic critique on the "Blithedale Romance" in the Times, written, I believe, by Mr. Willmott, to whom I lent the veritable copy received from the author. Another thing let me say, that I have been reading with the greatest pleasure some letters on African trees copied from the New York Tribune into Bentley's Miscellany, and no doubt by Mr. Bayard Taylor. Our chief London news is that Mrs. Browning's cough came on so violently, in consequence of the sudden setting in of cold weather, that they are off for a week or two to Paris, then to Florence, Rome, and Naples, and back here in the summer. Her father still refuses to open a letter or to hear her name. Mrs. Southey, suffering also from chest-complaint, has shut herself up till June. Poor Anne Hatton, who was betrothed to Thomas Davis, and was supposed to be in a consumption, is recovering, they say, under the advice of a clairvoyante. Most likely a broken vessel has healed on the lungs, or perhaps an abscess. Be what it may, the consequence is happy, for she is a lovely creature and the only joy of a fond mother. Alfred Tennyson's boy was christened the other day by the name of Hallam Tennyson, Mr. Hallam standing to it in person. This is just as it should be on all sides, only that Arthur Hallam would have been a prettier name. You know that Arthur Hallam was the lost friend of the "In Memoriam," and engaged to Tennyson's sister, and that after his death, and even after her marrying another man, Mr. Hallam makes her a large allowance.

We have just escaped a signal misfortune; my dear pretty pony has been upon the point of death with influenza. Would not you have been sorry if that pony had died? He has, however, recovered under Sam's care and skill, and the first symptom of convalescence was his neighing to Sam through the window. You will have found out that I too am better. I trust to be stronger when you come again, well enough to introduce you to Mr. Harness, whom we are expecting here next month. God bless you, my dear and kind friend. I send this through dear Mr Bennoch, whom I like better and better; so I do Mrs. Bennoch, and everybody who knows and loves you. Ever, my dear Mr. Fields,

Your faithful and affectionate friend, M.R.M.

P.S.--October 17. I have kept this letter open till now, and I am glad I did so. Acting upon the hint you gave of Mr. De Quincey's kind feeling, I wrote to him, and yesterday I had a charming letter from his daughter, saying how much her father was gratified by mine, that he had already written an answer, amounting to a good-sized pamphlet, but that when it would be finished was doubtful, so she sent hers as a precursor.

Swallowfield, November 11, 1852.

I write, dearest friend, and although the packet which you had the infinite goodness to send, has not reached me yet, and may not possibly before my letter goes,--so uncertain is our railway,--yet I will write because our excellent friend, Mr. Bennoch, says that he has sent it off.... You will understand that I am even more obliged by your goodness about Mr. Dillon's book than by any of the thousand obligations to myself only. Besides my personal interest, as so great a compliment to my own work, Mr. Dillon appears to be a most interesting person. He is a friend of Mr. Bennoch's, from whom I had his history, one most honorable to him, and he has written to me since I wrote to you and proposes to come and see me. _You_ must see him when you come to England, and must see his collection of engravings. Would not dear Dr. Holmes have a sympathy with Mr. Dillon? Have you such fancies in America? They are not common even here; but Miss Skerrett (the Queen's factotum) tells me that the most remarkable book in Windsor Castle is a De Grammont most richly and expensively illustrated by George the Fourth, who, with all his sins as a monarch, was the only sovereign since the Stuarts of any literary taste.

Here is your packet! O my dear, dear friend, how shall I thank you half enough! I shall send the parcels to-morrow morning, the very first thing, to Mr. Holloway. The work is at the binder's, but fly-leaves have been left for the American packet of which I felt so sure, although even I could hardly foresee its value. One or two duplicates I have kept. Tell Mr. Hawthorne that I shall make a dozen people rich and happy by his autograph, and tell Dr. Holmes I could not find it in my heart to part with the "Mary" stanza. Never was a writer who possessed more perfectly the art of doing great things greatly and small things gracefully. Love to Mr. Hawthorne and to him.

Poor Daniel Webster! or rather poor America! Rich as she is, she cannot afford the loss, the greatest the world has known since our Sir Robert. But what a death-bed, and what a funeral! How noble an end of that noble life! I feel it the more, hearing and reading so much about the Duke's funeral, which by dint of the delay will not cause the slightest real feeling, but will be attended just like every show, and yet as a show will be gloomy and poor. How much better to have laid him simply here at Strathfieldsaye, and left it as a place of pilgrimage,--as Strathfield will be,--although between the two men, in my mind, there was no comparison; the one was a genius, the other mere soldier,--pure physical force measured with intellect the richest and the proudest. I have twenty letters speaking of him as one of the greatest among the statesmen of the age. The Times only refuses to do him justice. But when did the Times do justice to any one? Look how it talks of our Emperor.

Your friend Bayard Taylor came to see me a fortnight ago, just before he sailed on his tour round the world. I told him the first of Bentley's reprinting his letters from the New York Tribune; he had not heard a word of it. He seemed an admirable person, and it is good to have such travellers to follow with one's heart and one's earnest good wishes.

Also I have had two packets,--one from Mrs. Sparks, with a nice letter, and some fresh and glorious autumnal flowers, and a collection of autumn leaves from your glorious forests. I have written to thank her. She seems full of heart, and she says that she drove into Boston on purpose to see you, but missed you. When you do meet, tell me about her. Also, I have through you, dear friend, a most interesting book from Mr. Ware. To him, also, I have written, but tell him how much I feel and prize his kindness, all the more welcome for coming from a kinsman of dear Mrs. W----. Tell her and her excellent husband that they cannot think of us oftener or more warmly than we think of them. O, how I should like to visit you at Boston! But I should have your malady by the way, and not your strength to stand it....

God bless you, my dear and excellent friend! I seem to have a thousand things to say to you, but the post is going, and a whole sheet of paper would not hold my thanks.

Ever yours, M.R.M.

Swallowfield, November 25, 1852.

My Dear Friend: Your most kind and welcome letter arrived to-day, two days after the papers, for which I thank you much. Still more do I thank you for that kind and charming letter, and for its enclosures. The anonymous poem [it was by Dr. T.W. Parsons] is far finer than anything that has been written on the death of the Duke of Wellington, as indeed it was a far finer subject. May I inquire the name of the writer? Mr. Everett's speech also is superb, and how very much I prefer the Marshfield funeral in its sublime simplicity to the tawdry pageantry here! I have had fifty letters from persons who saw the funeral in St. Paul's, and seen as many who saw that or the procession, and it is strange that the papers have omitted alike the great successes and the great failures. My young neighbor, a captain in the Grenadier Guards (the Duke's regiment), saw the uncovering the car which had been hidden by the drapery, and was to have been a great effect, and he says it was exactly what is sometimes seen in a theatre when one scene is drawn up too soon and the other is not ready. Carpenters and undertaker's men were on all parts of the car, and the draperies and ornaments were everywhere but in their places. Again, the procession waited upwards of an hour at the cathedral door, because the same people had made no provision for taking the coffin from the car; again, the sunlight was let into St. Paul's, mingling most discordantly with the gas, and the naked wood of screens and benches and board beams disfigured the grand entrance. In three months' interval they had not time! On the other hand, the strong points were the music, the effect of which is said to have been unrivalled; the actual performance of the service,--my friend Dean Milman is renowned for his manner of reading the funeral service, he officiated at the burial of Mrs. Lockhart (Sir Walter's favorite daughter),--and none who were present could speak of it without tears; the clerical part of the procession, which was a real and visible mourning pageant in its flowing robes of white with black bands and sashes; the living branches of laurel and cypress amongst the mere finery; and, above all, the hushed silence of the people, always most and best impressed by anything that appeals to the imagination or the heart.

I suppose you will have seen how England is flooded, and you will like to hear that this tiny speck has escaped. The Lodden is over the park, and turns the beautiful water meadows down to Strathfieldsaye into a no less beautiful lake, two or three times a week; but then it subsides as quickly as it rises, so there is none of the lying under water which results in all sorts of pestilential exhalations, and this cottage is lifted out of every bad influence, nay, a kind neighbor having had my lane scraped, I walk dry-shod every afternoon a mile and a half, which is more than I ever expected to compass again, and for which I am most thankful. But we have had our own troubles. K---- has lost her father. He was seized with paralysis and knew nobody, so they desired her not to come, and Sam went alone to the funeral. After all, _this_ is her home, and she has pretty well got over her affliction, and the pony is well again, and strong enough to draw you and me in the spring,--for I am looking forward to good and happy days again when you shall return to England.

Your magnificent present for Mr. Dillon's book was quite in time, dear friend. I had warned them to leave room, and Mr. Holloway and the binders contrived it admirably. They are most grateful for your kindness, and most gratefully shall I receive the promised volumes. I have not yet got "the pamphlet," and am much afraid it is buried in what Miss De Quincey calls her "father's chaos"; but I have charming letters from her, and am heartily glad that I wrote. You have the way (like Mr. Bennoch) of making friends still better friends, and bringing together those who, without you, would have had no intercourse. It is the very finest of all the fine arts. Tell dear Dr. Holmes that the more I hear of him, the more I feel how inadequate has been all that I have said to express my own feelings; and tell President Sparks that his charming wife ought to have received a long letter from me at the same moment with yourself. Mr. Hawthorne's new work will be a real treat. Tell me if Mr. Bennoch has sent you some stanzas on Ireland, which have more of the very highest qualities of Beranger than I have ever seen in English verse. We who love him shall have to be very proud of dear Mr. Bennoch. Tell me, too, if our solution of the line, "A fellow-feeling makes us wondrous kind," was the first; and why the new President is at once called General and talked of as a civilian. The other President goes on nobly, does he not?

Say everything for me to dear Mr. and Mrs. W---- and all friends.

Ever yours, M.R.M.

Swallowfield, December 14, 1852.

O my very dear friend, how much too kind you are to me, who have nothing to give you in return but affection and gratitude! Mr. Bennett brought me your beautiful book on Saturday, and you may think how heartily we wished that you had been here also. But you will come this spring, will you not? I earnestly hope nothing will come in the way of that happiness. Before leaving the subject of our good little friend, let me say that, talking over our own best authors and your De Quincey (N.B. The pamphlet has not arrived yet, I fear it is forever buried in De Quincey's "chaos"),--talking of these things, we both agreed that there was another author, probably little known in America, who would be quite worthy of a reprint, William Hazlitt. Is there any complete edition of his Lectures and Essays? I should think they would come out well, now that Thackeray is giving his Lectures. I know that Charles Lamb and Talfourd thought Hazlitt not only the most brilliant, but the soundest of all critics. Then his Life of Napoleon is capital, that is, capital for an English life; the only way really to know the great man is to read him in the _mémoires_ of his own ministers, lieutenants, and servants; for _he was_ a hero to his _valet de chambre_, the greatness was so real that it would bear close looking into. And our Emperor, I have just had a letter from Osborne, from Marianne Skerrett, describing the arrival of Count Walewski under a royal salute to receive the Queen's recognition of Napoleon III. She, Marianne, says, "How great a man that, is, and how like a fairy tale the whole story!" She adds, that, seeing much of Louis Philippe, she never could abide him, he was so cunning and so false, not cunning enough to hide the falseness! Were not you charmed with the bits of sentiment and feeling that come out all through our hero's Southern progress? Always one finds in him traits of a gracious and graceful nature, far too frequent and too spontaneous to be the effect of calculation. It is a comfort to find, in spite of our delectable press, ministers are wise enough to understand that our policy is peace, and not only peace but cordiality. To quarrel with France would be almost as great a sin as to quarrel with America. What a set of fools our great ladies are! I had hoped better things of Lord Carlisle, but to find that long list at Stafford House in female parliament assembled, echoing the absurdities of Exeter Hall, leaving their own duties and the reserve which is the happy privilege of our sex to dictate to a great nation on a point which all the world knows to be its chief difficulty, is enough to make one ashamed of the title of Englishwoman. I know a great many of these committee ladies, and in most of them I trace that desire to follow the fashion, and concert with duchesses, which is one of the besetting sins of the literary circles in London. One name did surprise me, ----, considering that one of her husband's happiest bits, in the book of his that will live, was the subscription for sending flannel waistcoats to the negroes in the West Indies; and that in this present book a certain Mrs. Jellyby is doing just what his wife is doing at Stafford House!

Even if I had not had my earnest thanks to send you, I should have written this week to beg you to convey a message to Mr. Hawthorne. Mr. Chorley writes to me, "You will be interested to hear that a Russian literary man of eminence was so much attracted to the 'House of the Seven Gables' by the review in the Athenaeum, as to have translated it into Russian and published it feuilletonwise in a newspaper." I know you will have the goodness to tell Mr. Hawthorne this, with my love. Mr. Chorley saw the entrance of the Empereur into the Tuileries. He looked radiant. The more I read that elegy on the death of Daniel Webster, the more I find to admire. It is as grand as a dirge upon an organ. Love to the dear W----s and to Dr. Holmes.

Ever, dearest Mr. Fields, most gratefully yours, M.R.M.

1853

Swallowfield, January 5, 1853.

Your most welcome letter, my very dear friend, arrived to-day, and I write not only to acknowledge that, and your constant kindness, but because, if, as I believe, Mr. Bennoch has told you of my mischance, you will be glad to hear from my own hand that I am going on well. Last Monday fortnight I was thrown violently from my own pony-chaise upon the hard road in Lady Russell's park. No bones were broken, but the nerves of one side were so terribly bruised and lacerated, and the shock to the system was so great, that even at the end of ten days Mr. May could not satisfy himself, without a most minute re-examination, that neither fracture nor dislocation had taken place, and I am writing to you at this moment with my left arm bound tightly to my body and no power whatever of raising either foot from the ground. The only parts of me that have escaped uninjured are my head and my right hand, and this is much. Moreover Mr. May says that, although the cure will be tedious, he sees no cause to doubt my recovering altogether my former condition, so that we may still hope to drive about together when you come back to England....

I wrote I think, dearest friend, to thank you heartily for the beautiful and interesting book called "The Homes of American Authors." How comfortably they are housed, and how glad I am to find that, owing to Mr. Hawthorne's being so near the new President, and therefore keeping up the habit of friendship and intercourse, the want of which habit so frequently brings college friendship to an end, he is likely to enter into public life. It will be an excellent thing for his future books,--the fault of all his writings, in spite of their great beauty, being a want of reality, of the actual, healthy, every-day life which is a necessary element in literature. All the great poets have it,--Homer, Shakespeare, Scott. It will be the very best school for our pet poet.

Nobody under the sun has so much right as you have to see Mr. Dillon's book, which is in six quarto volumes, not one. Our dear friend Mr. Bennoch knows him, and tells me to-day that Mr. Dillon has invited him to go and look at it. He has just received it from the binders. Of course Mr. Bennoch will introduce you. I was so glad to read what looked like a renewed pledge of your return to England.