Class. E - Book. \~* Copyrights CQHBIGHT DKPOSfli LETTERS FROM MANY PENS fHacmtlian's Pocket American anlr l£ngiisf) Classics A Series of English Texts, edited for use in Elementary and Secondary Schools, with Critical Introductions, Notes, etc. i6mo Cloth 25 cents each Addison's Sir Roger de Coverley. Andersen's Fairy Tales. Arabian Nights' Entertainments. Arnold's Sohrab and Rustum. Austen's Pride and Prejudice. Austen's Sense and Sensibility. Bacon's Essays. Baker's Out of the Northland. Bible (Memorable Passages). Blackmore's Lorna Doone. Boswell's Life of Johnson. Abridged. Browning's Shorter Poems. Mrs. Browning's Poems (Selected). Bryant's Thanatopsis, etc. Bulwer-Lytton's Last Days of Pompeii. Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress. Burke's Speech on Conciliation. Burns' Poems (Selections). B)Ton's Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Byron's Shorter Poems. Carlyle's Essay on Burns. Carlyle's Heroes and Hero Worship. Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonder- land. 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Longfellow's Miles Standish. Longfellow's Miles Standish and Minor Poems. Longfellow's Tales of a Wayside Inn. fHacmiiian's docket American anU lEnglisij Classics A Series of English Texts, edited for use in Elementary and Secondary Schools, with Critical Introductions, Notes, etc. i6mo Cloth 25 cents each Lowell's The Vision of Sir Launfal. Lowell's Earlier Essays. Macauiay's Essay on Addison. Macauiay's Essay on Hastings. Macauiay's Essay on Lord Clive. Macauiay's Essay on Milton. Macauiay's Lays of Ancient Rome. Macauiay's Life of Samuel Johnson. Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur. Milton's Minor Poems. Milton's Paradise Lost, Books I and II. Old English Ballads. Old Testament Selections. Palgrave's Golden Treasury. Parkman's Oregon Trail. Plutarch's Lives of Caesar, Brutus, and Mark Antony. Poe's Poems. Poe's Prose Tales (Selections). Poems, Narrative and Lyrical. Pope's Homer's Iliad. Pope's Homer's Odyssey. Pope's The Rape of the Lock. Representative Short Stories. Rossetti's (Christina) Selected Poems. Ruskin's Sesame and Lilies. Ruskin's The Crown of Wild Olive and Queen of the Air. Scott's Ivanhoe. Scott's Kenilworth. Scott's Lady of the Lake. Scott's Lay of the Last Minstrel. Scott's Marmion. Scott's Quentin Durward. Scott's The Talisman. Select Orations. Selected Poems, for Required Reading in Secondary Schools. Selections from American Poetry. Selections for Oral Reading. Shakespeare's As You Like It. Shakespeare's Hamlet. Shakespeare's Henry V. Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. Shakespeare's King Lear. Shakespeare's Macbeth. Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice. Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream. Shakespeare's Richard II. Shakespeare's Richard III. Shakespeare's The Tempest. Shakespeare's Twelfth Night. Shelley and Keats : Poems. Sheridan's The Rivals and The School for Scandal. Short Stories. Short Stories and Selections. Southern Orators : Selections. Southern Poets : Selections. Southey's Life of Nelson. Spenser's Faerie Queene, Book I. Stevenson's Kidnapped. Stevenson's The Master of Ballantrae. Stevenson's Travels with a Donkey, and An Inland Voyage. Stevenson's Treasure Island. Swift's Gulliver's Travels. Tennyson's Idylls of the King. Tennyson's In Memoriam. Tennyson's The Princess. Tennyson's Shorter Poems. Thackeray's English Humorists. Thackeray's Henry Esmond. Thoreau's Walden. Trevelyan's Life of Macaulay. Abridged. Virgil's ^Eneid. Washington's Farewell Address, and Webster's First Bunker Hill Oration. Whittier's Snow-Bound and Other Early Poems, Woolman's Journal. Wordsworth's Shorter Poems. THE MACMILLAN COMPANY NEW YORK • BOSTON • CHICAGO - DALLAS ATLANTA • SAN FRANCISCO MACMILLAN & CO., Limited LONDON • BOMBAY • CALCUTTA MELBOURNE THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd. TORONTO C& Oh** J&Jf* ft****. OK**, yyJ^^U urfcc^Z, JfL**&eU, Ottiy^M £» ^^ujj^ M(T^ £'***• <3& ^" REDUCED FACSIMILE OF LINCOLN'S LETTER TO MRS. BIXBY LETTERS FROM MANY PENS A COLLECTION OF LETTERS CHOSEN AND EDITED WITH INTRODUCTION AND NOTES MARGAKET COULT HEAD OF ENGLISH DEPARTMENT IN THE BARRINGER HIGH SCHOOL, NEWARK, NEW JERSEY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1917 All rights reserved 6 COPTBIGHT, 1917, By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. Set up and electrotyped. Published March, 1917. MAR -8 1917 NcrfocotJ ipress J. S. dishing- Co. — Berwick &'Smith Co. Norwood, Mass.. U.S.A. © 5854 ^ CONTENTS INTRODUCTION : Some Prefatory Words to the Reader Biographical Notes Mechanical Form of a Letter Acknowledgments .... PAGE xvii xxix li lv LETTERS : I THE DAILY COURSE OF LIFE. — CHAT ABOUT HOME MATTERS (1) Hawthorne to His Sister Life at Brook Farm. (2) Louisa Alcott to Her Sister Nan Early struggles in Boston. (3) Mrs. Browning to Miss Mitford Life at Casa Guidi. (4) Mrs. Carlyle to Mrs. Aitkin Life at 5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea. (5) Carlyle to His Mother Life at 5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea. Book (6) Matthew Arnold to His Mother Lucy and the cat. (7) Lamb to William and Dorothy Wordsworth Mary and tobacco. (8) Lamb to Robert Lloyd Celibacy versus marriage. V 8 13 17 19 22 VI CONTENTS (9) Carlyle's Father and Mother to Him Affectionate letters from unpracticed hands. (10) Gray to Walpole Life in Buckinghamshire. (11) Washington Irving to Mrs. Kennedy . Life at Sunny side. (12) Rossetti to His Mother Life at Kelmscot — "Dizzy" in disgrace. (13) Thomas Hughes to Alexander Macmillan Between old fellows. PAGE 24 25 27 30 32 II YOUNG PEOPLE TO THEIR ELDERS (14) Louisa Alcott to Her Father . . 35 Birthday of father and daughter. (15) Longfellow to His Father 37 Ambitions at seventeen. (16) Helen Keller to John Greenleaf Whittier . . 38 Love of his poems. (17) Helen Keller to Phillips Brooks ... 40 Very serious thoughts. (18) Rossetti to Aunt Charlotte ..... 42 Youthful poet to sympathetic aunt. (19) Young Carlyle to His Mother .... 43 With a little gift and much appreciation. (20) Young Carlyle to His Mother ... 45 With a bonnet of his selection ! Ill GROWN PEOPLE TO CHILDREN (21) Phillips Brooks to Gertie About Berlin. 48 CONTENTS Vll (22) Phillips Brooks to Agnes About Wittenberg. (23) Phillips Brooks to Gertie About Christmas presents. (24) Phillips Brooks to Gertie From India, about nose-rings, etc. (25) Phillips Brooks to Tood From London. (26) Tennyson to His Son, Hallam Be a good boy. (27) Carlyle to His Little Niece, Jane Not the least of his friends at Mainhill (28) Lewis Carroll to Gertrude On the drinking of healths. (29) Lewis Carroll to Gertrude The complaining postman. (30) Lewis Carroll to Ada Apropos of a name. PAGE . 49 . 51 . 53 . 56 . 57 . 58 . 59 . CO . G2 IV TO STRANGERS (31) Mrs. Stowe to Mrs. Follen . Who she is, how she lives, how she writes. (32) George Meredith to Tennyson . Thanking him for "generous appreciation." (33) Huxley to G. S To a stranger, who, as an ignoramus, apologizes for asking advice. (34) Carlyle to W. Lattimer, a Laboring Man . Books and reading. 04 71 ri Vlll CONTENTS STIRRING EVENTS <35) Mrs. Carlyle to Her Aunt, Mrs. Welsh A stagecoach trip. (36) Mrs. Carlyle to Her Uncle, Mr. Welsh House-cleaning and the tent in the yard. (37) Mrs. Carlyle to Her Husband A domestic cataclysm. (38) Mrs. Carlyle to Her Husband Very thrilling. (39) Thomas Carlyle to His Brother . The burnt manuscript. (40) William Prescott to His Wife Presentation to Queen Victoria. (41) Walpole to Horace Mann Lord North's Conciliatory Proposals. (42) Walpole to Horace Mann Danger from France — Europe seething. (43) Walpole to Horace Mann Peace with America. PAGE 75 79 82 86 90 95 96 99 101 VI SKETCHES FROM MANY LANDS (44) Phillips Brooks to His Brother . The Rhine. (45) Phillips Brooks to His Brother . Rome — Florence. (46) Mrs. Browning to Miss Mitford The Baths of Lucca. (47) Lady Duff Gordon to Her Husband . Embarking on the Nile. 103 108 111 116 CONTENTS IX (48) Lady Duff Gordon to Mrs. Austin The crew — An Egyptian village. (49) Lady Duff Gordon to Her Husband . Thebes — Arab manners — Nubian women. (50) Lady Duff Gordon to Mrs. Austin Philae. (51) Lady Duff Gordon to Her Husband A little black slave. (52) Lady Duff Gordon to Her Husband An opinion on the English Hareem. (53) Huxley to Tyndall .... The Nile — Vesuvius. (54) Huxley to His Daughter Art galleries and mustard. (55) Huxley to His Youngest Daughter Italian spring weather and trains. (56) J. R. Green to Mr. and Mrs. Humphry Ward Capri and Spring — Love and the Madonna. (57) J. R. Green to Freeman Through Italy — Rome. (58) J. R. Green to Mrs. a Court Rome — the Campagna. (59) J. R. Green to Mrs. Humphry Ward Great things. (60) Thomas Gray to Richard West With Mr. Walpole in Paris. (61) Gray to His Mother With Mr. Walpole in Florence. (62) Gray to Mr. Nicholls . June in Kent — Mothers. (63) Lamb to Manning The English Lake Country. X CONTENTS VII INVITATIONS — REPLIES — REQUESTS, ETC. PAGE (64) Elizabeth Barrett to Mr. Kenyon . . .173 A slip from Wordsworth's garden. (65) Rossetti to Aunt Charlotte . . . . .174 An earnest appeal to kind Aunt C. (66) Lamb to Coleridge 177 To visit Coleridge at Stowey. (67) Lamb to Coleridge 178 Upon returning home. (68) Lamb to Manning 180 To eat oysters. (69) Lamb to Wm. Godwin 180 To say that Mary cannot come. (70) Matthew Arnold to Lady de Rothschild . .181 Accepting an invitation for the boys. (71) Huxley to Tyndall 182 Returning borrowed money. (72) Carlyle to G. Remington 183 The objectionable cock. (73) Carlyle to R. Browning 184 Tea at six or half past. (74) Cowper to His Cousin, Lady Hesketh . . .185 Oh, come to see me ! VIII "QUIPS AND CRANKS (75) Lamb to Manning .... Adjuring him not to go to Tartan . (76) Lamb to Manning .... Praising brawn and a giver of brawn 187 189 CONTENTS XI (77) Lamb to Manning .... Incredibly sober and regular. (78) Huxley to His Youngest Daughter Barometers and thermometers. (79) Huxley to Mr. Kitton . The Cat Oliver. (80) Huxley to His Daughter More about Oliver. (81) Huxley to Babs The fountain pen. PAGE 191 192 193 194 195 IX ABOUT PEOPLE AND BOOKS (82) Mrs. Carlyle to Helen Welsh Tennyson. (83) W. W. Story to C. E. Norton Mrs. Browning. (84) Thackeray to Tennyson "The Idylls of the King." (85) Tennyson to Thackeray Appreciation and friendship. (86) Huxley to Tyndall Tennyson. (87) S. O. Jewett to Mrs. Whitman Tennyson. (88) Fitzgerald to Tennyson The discovery of Omar. (89) Fitzgerald to Mrs. Tennyson The "paltry poet" — Omar. (90) Washington Irving to His Brother Enthusiasm for Scott. 197 198 204 207 208 209 213 214 216 Xll CONTENTS (91) Washington Irving to His Brother Scott and his family. (92) Irving to Paulding More praise of Scott. (93) Walpole to the Countess of Ossort Two paragons. (94) Walpole to the Misses Berry An appreciation. (95) Lamb to Dorothy Wordsworth . Appreciation of a sister. (96) Lowell to Lawrence Godkin An appreciation of "The Nation." (97) Lowell to Mrs. Godkin Every inch a man ! PAGE 219 221 225 229 230 233 234 X DE GUSTIBUS (98) Lamb to Wm. Wordsworth . Love of London. (99) Lamb to Coleridge A modification. (100) Celia Thaxter to Whittier Love of her island. (101) John Ruskin to C. ... Letters long and short. (102) J. R. Green to Mrs. Humphry Ward Sunshine — A wife — The Caprese. (103) Walpole to Wm. Mason Strawberry Hill — English literary taste. 237 239 240 241 245 250 CONTENTS Xlll (104) Walpole to the Countess of Ossory . Letter-writing. (105) Walpole to the Countess of Ossory More about letter-writing. (106) Lowell to Lawrence Godkin . The "ball and chain" of professorship and editor- ship. (107) Lowell to Lawrence Godkin . The joy of a grandson. XI COUNSEL AND ADVICE Chesterfield to His Son, Philip Stanhope Letter-writing. Chesterfield to His Son More about letter- writing. Chesterfield to His Son Manners at dinner. Chesterfield to His Son Polish of manners. (108) (109) (110) (HI) (112) (113) (114) (115) (116) George Hughes to His Son Advice to a Rugby boy. Huxley to His Son Eighteenth birthday thoughts. Theodore Parker to a Chance Acquaintance , How to make up for lack of opportunity in educa- tion. Mrs. Tennyson to Her Son . God first. Matthew Arnold to Mrs. Forster The education of a girl to cultivate perception. PAGE 252 254 258 259 261 262 264 266 269 271 271 273 274 xiv CONTENTS PAGE (117) John Ruskin to C. 276 Advice about drawing. (US) Lincoln to John D. Johnston .... 279 Get to work ! XII FROM A FULL HEART (119) Louisa Alcott to Her Aunt, Mrs. Bond . . 282 Resignation to inaction. (120) Charles Lamb to Coleridoe .... 2S3 The death of his mother. (121) Elizabeth Browning to Mrs. Martin . . 2S4 Her marriage. (122) Rossetti to His Mother 292 Flowers and love. (123) Matthew Arnold to His Sister, Mrs. Forster 293 The death of his son. (124) Matthew Arnold to His Mother The settlement of his thought. (125) Brooke Lambert to Alexander Macmillan Thanks for last kindness to J. R. Green. (126) Mrs. Piozzi to Dr. Johnson . About her marriage. (127) Dr. Johnson to Mrs. Piozzi His reply. (12S) Dr. Johnson to Lord Chesterfield The true meaning of "patron." (129) Thomas Carlyle to His Mother . Ou the death of his father. (130) Lincoln to Mrs. Bixby The thanks of the Republic. 294 295 297 298 299 301 307 CONTENTS XV XIII OTHER TIMES: OTHER MANNERS PAGE A Greek letter (fictitious). (131) Aspasia to Cleone ....... 309 As Landor fancied that she might have described the playing of "Prometheus." Roman letters. (132) Pliny to Hispulla 311 Praising his wife Calpurnia. (133) Pliny to Cornelius Tacitus . . . .312 The eruption of Vesuvius. (134) Pliny to Fuscus 317 Life at his villa at Tuscum. (135) Cicero to Calls Cassius 320 Sympathy with him and Marcus Brutus. A mediaeval letter (translated from the Latin). (136) Stephen of Blois to His Wife, Adele . . . 322 Battles of the Cross — Care for his home. A fifteenth-century letter. (137) Margaret Paston to John Paston . . . 324 Concern for her husband, sick at London. Seventeenth-century letters (spelling modernized). (138) Margaret Winthrop to Her Husband . . . 320 From sad Boston, but looking upward. (139) Dorothy Osborne to Sir William Temple . 327 Cromwell's great affairs. (140) Dorothy Osborne to Sir William Temple . 329 Life in an English country house. Eighteenth-century letters. (141) Richard Steele to Prue, His Wife . . , 332 To take a ride. XVI CONTENTS PAGE (142) Richard Steele to "Madam" .... 332 Reproaches. (143) Richard Steele to Prue . 333 Hardly a compliment. (144) Richard Steele to Dear Prue .... 333 Very affectionate. NOTES 335 INTRODUCTION SOME PREFATORY WORDS TO THE READER The average person is called upon, in the course of his life, to write letters more frequently than to execute any other sort of literary composition. Very few write books; not many write articles for magazines and newspapers; every one, comparatively speaking, writes letters. And upon the character of these letters many important interests in life may depend. Clear- ness, good sense, and courtesy, or the lack of these qualities, in a business letter may have an important bearing upon the material concerns of life ; the faculty by your pen to convey to a friend your impressions of novel scenes, of the interesting aspects of life around you ; to beguile the langour of a distant sick room with lively narrative or amusing small-talk, conveyed thither by the post, — in a word, to make the friend who is separated from you feel your presence as if you were near — all this certainly adds to the pleasantness of life. The skill to communicate thus by letter is an art worth gaining. While knowledge of the principles xvii X vill I NT ROD UCTION of rhetoric and ability in general essay-writing will minister to success in letter-writing, the letter is a rather distinct literary form, with virtues of its own. I have known pupils of more than ordinary skill in formal composition to express themselves most un- fortunately when attempting to w r rite a familiar letter. Frequently young writers are discourteous, not from any lack of good-will, but because they are unfamiliar with the fashion of letter-writing. Obviously, the best way to remove this hindrance is to read good letters. To bring before those that wish to gain skill and ease in letter-writing a collection of helpful letters is the first aim of this little book. The letters herein contained are divided, rather roughly, into groups. No attempt has been made at an exact classification. Letters appearing in one sec- tion may contain matter that might list them under another head. The prevailing character has decided the grouping. The groups present the common themes of correspondence. Naturally, theme modifies style. Let us, for a moment, consider the groups into which these letters fall. The first section is made up of letters, written by people of a good many different sorts, telling about what they are doing from day to day. They know that w T hat interests them will interest the friends to whom they write, and so they talk, simply and unaffectedly, about home matters. Simply and unaffectedly — those words INTRODUCTION xix mean much. Carlyle says that the bane of literature is affectation, — assuming an interest in what does not really interest you, — certainly it is the bane of letter- writing. Lord Chesterfield wrote to the son of whose education he took so much care, "To write well, we must write easily and naturally. For instance, if you want to write a letter to me, you should only consider what you would say if you were with me, and then write it in plain terms" ; and again, "most persons who write ill, do so because they aim at writing better than they can, by which means they acquire a formal and un- natural style." In a letter to Miss Susie Thrale, Dr. Johnson advises the little lady not to search labori- ously for material in writing to him, but to write, for instance, about the book that she has been reading, or about the people that have lately visited their home. Now, if the advice about simplicity of style ever applies, it applies certainly to chat about home matters. An easy style, however, does not mean slang, and it does not mean incorrect English. It does mean idiomatic English, the sort that one would speak, talking freely. The second group is of letters of young people to friends much older than they. This is a sort of letter often somewhat difficult to write. The respect felt by the young writer for his correspondent often stiffens his style; but perfect confidence in the goodness of heart of the older friend "casts out fear." Helen Keller's peculiar position (see biographical note) took XX INTRODUCTION away entirely the troubling self-consciousness that is so great a bar to genuine simplicity. Her letters to the two great men that were so far beyond her in age and experience are absolutely trustful. The letters of grown people to children, if they are right, are particularly charming. It takes great grace for the grown man or woman to meet the mind of a child, and nothing less than this completeness of sym- pathy is a true letter to a child. In reading the letters of Phillips Brooks and of "Lewis Carroll" to children, no one can question that they were at one with their correspondents. How delightfully companionable they must have been to children ! how excitingly unexpected ! how stimulating ! If it requires sympathetic understanding to write well to a child, it requires faith in human nature to write well to a stranger. You must believe in your correspondent, and take for granted the friendliness that is the habitual attitude of mind of really fine people. Even though you may, in your supposition, have over- estimated the person whom you do not know, you have done him a compliment and have kept your own poise correctly. Note the genuine simplicity of heart of Mrs. Stowe's letter to Mrs. Follen ; it is a fine lesson. Note, too, the true brotherly kindness of the letters of Huxley and of Carlyle, the respect, mingled with quiet dignity, of George Meredith's letter to Tennyson, — significant revelations of the character of the writers. INTRODUCTION XXI Often, in our letters, we wish to tell " how it all hap- pened/ ' The little thread of story many a time is a slight one ; but of such threads is made up the texture of most of our days ; and it is the life of our days that we want to catch in our letters. No one is better at this narration than Mrs. Carlyle. She said herself that she had a "talent for the narration of stirring events," laughing at the way in which she made a thrilling story of the taking down or the putting up of her "red bed," or meeting or missing a friend at an appointed place. Whatever she tells has a "go" to it. A talent for such narrative is worth acquiring. As surely as you will want in your letters to tell how things happened, you will want, on occasions, to tell how things look ; that is, to sketch in words your surround- ings. The letters in section six are from many lands, but whether you write of what you are seeing in Egypt or in Italy or from your back door, if you can make people see what you see, and feel what you feel at the seeing, you will please. Let us stop a moment over that second condition, if you can make people "feel what you feel at the seeing." If the thing that you are attempting to describe has not made you feel, give over the attempt at description. Letters of travel can be deadly dull. It is the personal touch that gives them their life. If Lady Duff Gordon can take you in her Nile-boat with her up the wonderful river, and make you see the strange life of Arab and Turk and Copt, XX11 IN TROD UCTION and arouse in you the quick sympathies that touched her heart, then she has written genuine letters of travel. In section seven, we turn from our wanderings to a set of letters that seem to me valuable examples. They are the little notes of invitation, reply, request, and the like that we all wish to write gracefully, but are not always able to make graceful. In fact, such notes are often unwittingly discourteous. For instance, a pupil ended a note of request, written to the principal of his school, thus : "I hope that you will give this matter immediate attention/' If the young man had caught his style of letter-writing from something more reliable than bad types of business letters, he would probably have been less peremptory. Sections eight, nine, and ten offer some interesting kinds of letters. Section eight shows how the pen of the letter-writer may caper. Minds "with a diverting twist," to use Lamb's phrase, express themselves thus. We can read and enjoy, but probably we cannot do likewise. Dr. Johnson told Susie Thrale to write about the books that she was reading. Expressions of opinion upon books and people should be based upon careful thinking, clearly and tolerantly expressed. We may well read with care the estimates of men and women and of literary work given in section nine. And there will appear in our letters the filmier stuff of our likings and dislikings, sometimes vagrant enough, but belong- INTRODUCTION XX111 ing to the very texture of our personalities. The letters in section ten bring us very close to the writers. Under " counsel and advice " we shall find matter for thought. Compare the counsel that the worldly- minded Lord Chesterfield gives to his son with the few earnest words of Huxley to his son or the tender ad- monitions of the great poet Tennyson's mother to him. As a counsellor for the great issues of life, Lord Chester- field is superficial, but his words of kindly advice to young Philip Stanhope upon manners, taste, and study show his good sense and graceful tact. The ease of his style demonstrates that he drew his precepts to his son on that score from his own practice. The letters in group tw T elve are very different in character from Chesterfield's well-bred, lightly touched essays upon conduct. These are the earnest words of writers whose hearts have been deeply stirred : — the outpourings of Elizabeth Browning's heart, shaken by a great experience, to her trusted friend; the broken words of Charles Lamb — words that bleed — to the person to whom he instinctively turned in the dark hour that had fallen upon him; the simple, tender words of Matthew Arnold upon the death of his son — "even so great men great losses should endure"; Thomas Carlyle's words of consolation to his mother, words touched with an apostolic fervor, now and again swept into poetic beauty of style; and Lincoln's ma- jestic "thanks of the Republic" to the mother who had XXIV INTRODUCTION "laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom." All of these examples show how real feeling ennobles speech. The last group is interesting as showing some sample letters of distant times. They come down to the eighteenth-century letter, exemplified in Richard Steele's letters to his wife. When we reach Walpole, Gray, and Cowper, letter-writing is essentially modern. Indeed, when we read the older epistles, while we find peculiarities of form, we are struck rather by the kinship than by the differences that times and seasons bring. Now, as we leave this view of the contents of our little volume, here is just a practical word about the reading of these letters to improve one's own style of letter- writing. Note the ways in which these writers begin and end their letters. They do not waste much time upon introductory, explanatory, or apologetic matter at the beginning. They have something to say, and they set about that something at once. Pupils are sometimes troubled by curious old rules, of obscure origin, but often deeply ingrained in the youthful mind. One of these is : Do not begin a letter with 7. Such letters as we have in this book make style in letter- writing. Are the writers of these letters afraid to begin with I, if I most directly begins what they have to say ? Beginnings and endings are always significant parts of any composition. Note the variety of beginnings in these letters, and avoid a monotonous form in your INTRODUCTION XXV own use. Note, also, the endings. I have read many letters ending with a participial expression like, " Trust- ing that we shall meet again next summer, I am, etc." Examine the closing phrases of the letters in this book to see whether this form once occurs. If not, it will be safe to avoid it in your own practice. There is a still more objectionable close sometimes found in a letter making a request. "Thanking you in advance for granting the favor that I ask of you, I am etc." It is hardly good taste to presuppose that a request will be granted. In general, we may say avoid trite, wordy, meaningless phrases; so we return to the point at which we began : be simple, direct, and natural. Passing from the consideration of these letters as aids in acquiring a good style, we find that they have a second interest. They make us acquainted with men and women worth knowing. The importance of intimate knowledge of the lives and the characters of the good and the great can hardly be overestimated. All who have read Ruskin's "Sesame" have, I am sure, been impressed by what he says upon this subject. Now, nothing brings a person so near to you, next to hearing him speak, as reading his letters. Sarah Orne Jewett, speaking of one of George Sand's letters, said, " Nothing ever made me feel that I knew Madame Sand as that letter did." In the "biographical notes" will be found short sketches of the persons whose letters appear in this volume, with cross references to the letters them- XXVI INTRODUCTION selves. For this study of personality and character, take the letters of each author, arrange them chro- nologically, and read them thoughtfully. You will find, too, that as in the dramatic monologues of Browning you always have in mind not only the speaker but the person addressed, so here you will get impressions not only of the writer but of the person written to. Lamb's letters to Coleridge, for instance, are eloquent of Coleridge. If you should happen to sit in a railway train just behind two famous persons who were carrying on a conversation, would you not listen "with ears pricked up"? Well, these letters give you much the same opportunity, perhaps a better one, for they do not present chance conversa- tion. Take the three letters of Louisa Alcott ; the first two showing her in her years of gallant struggle in Boston, buying with her stories and her plays shoes and stockings for the family and carpets for the house, — in truth, the "hub of the family wheel" ; then the last letter in her " shut-in " days, when she was learning "to be still, to give up, and to wait patiently." How graphically these three letters present the life of that noble woman ! The interest that these letters awaken ought to lead readers to the more detailed accounts of the lives of the writers and the more complete collections of their letters. This dwelling in imagination with the good and the* great has an ennobling effect upon life. I must speak briefly of another value of these letters, INTRODUCTION XXV11 — their use as material for the study of history and manners. Our slim collection can only suggest their value along this line. The letters of Walpole concern- ing the American War of Independence are illustrative. His published letters form eight or nine bulky volumes, but a detailed table of contents, arranged chronologi- cally, makes it easy to find what one wants. Dorothy Osborn's letters should be read in full. They are entertaining for the story they tell, and interesting for their revelation of life and manners in the time of Cromwell. Finally, these letters repay study as literature. The "Essays of Elia" are not better samples of the English of Lamb than are his best letters. For arousing thought, sharpening the wits, giving facility of phrase and resources of vocabulary no reading could be much better than carefully selected letters. Such reading comes very near in value to intimate conversa- tion with clever people, this last a privilege from which many people are shut out. Literary style is modified by three forces: the author, the persons addressed, and the theme. The more clearly the personality of the writer shows in the theme written, the more vividly he has in his consciousness the persons addressed, the more at one he is with his subject, the better will be his style. Perhaps these facts account for the superior style of good letters. The writer lets his personality show from the very nature of a letter. He XXV111 I NT ROD UCTION knows the mind that he is addressing, as the writer for the public cannot know his audience ; his subject- matter is a part of himself. These three forces in happy combination produce happy results in style. So, in our reading of letters, we read not only to improve our own letter-writing, or to gain information concern- ing people and things, but also to train and to delight our literary taste. BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES (The lists of numbers of letters are arranged chronologically.) Alcott, Louisa May. Born at Germantown, Pennsylvania, 1832 ; died at Boston, 1888. Louisa Alcott's father, A. Bron- son Alcott, was a philosopher, who found it very difficult, by his teaching and his lecturing, to support his family. His more practical daughter early took the burden upon her own shoulders. She taught, she wrote stories and plays. In 1862 and 1863 she was a hospital nurse in Washington. All of her experiences she turned into material for her stories, one of her most popular books, " Little Women," being a transcript of her own family life. Recognition came to her as her career developed, and, with the recognition, money that it was her delight to use for the good of those that she held so dear. Her last years were saddened by the loss of many that she loved, and by physical infirmities that made it necessary for her to sit with folded hands when she longed to be up and doing. Her courageous spirit, however, burned bright to the last. The story of her life should be read in full, for its lesson and its inspiration. Letters 14, 2, 119. Arnold, Matthew. Born at Laleham, Middlesex, England, 1822 ; died at Liverpool, 1888. Critic and poet, the son of Thomas Arnold, the head master of Rugby, so enthusias- tically described in Thomas Hughes's "Tom Brown at Rugby. " Matthew Arnold, as inspector of schools, labored earnestly for the welfare of the public school system of England, regularly xxix XXX BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES visiting schools, marking papers at the rate of twenty-five a day, "Sundays and holidays not excepted," and making an exhaustive study of the school systems of the more important countries of the continent. All this he did, although his natural bent was towards criticism and poetry. "Sohrab and Rustum," "The Scholar-Gypsy," and "Thyrsis" are some of his best-known poems. His "Essays in Criticism" contains significant studies of great writers. His affectionate nature and genuine simplicity of heart are shown in his letters. Letters 70, 116, 6, 123, 124. Aspasia. Born at Miletus, Ionia. This celebrated woman, renowned both for her beauty and her genius, is inseparably connected with the fame of Pericles, sharing both his counsels and his intellectual interests. Aspasia came to Athens in her youth. Walter Savage Landor has made her live again for us in his "Pericles and Aspasia," composed of letters pur- porting to have passed between this man and woman of the Golden Age of Athens. Letter 131. Brooks, Phillips. Born at Boston, 1835 ; died there, 1893. A bishop of the Episcopalian Church, and for many years the much loved rector of Trinity Church, Boston. He was a man of deep spirituality and of great power as a preacher. As a writer he is remarkably direct and unaffected. His winning personality and love of fun are evident to any one who reads his letters. Letters 44, 45, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25. Browning, Mrs. (Elizabeth Barrett). Born at Durham, England, 1806; died at Florence, Italy, 1861. Elizabeth Barrett was a confirmed invalid during the greater part of her youth and early womanhood. Her marriage with Robert Browning was a secret one, on account of the stubborn deter- BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES XXXI urination of her tyrannical father that none of his children should marry. Mrs. Browning tells the romantic story of her marriage in her letter to her friend, Mrs. Martin, p. 121. The greater part of Mrs. Browning's beautiful married life was spent in Florence. There her one child, Oscar, — Pennini, his mother called him, — was born. There Mrs. Browning entered, heart and soul, into the Italian struggle for independence. The Browning home, Casa Guidi, is made famous by Mrs. Browning's poem, "Casa Guidi Windows," in which the poet follows the fortunes of the Italian cause. Mrs. Browning is buried in the Protestant Cemetery at Florence. See W. W. Story's letter to C. E. Norton, p. 198. Letters 64, 121, 3, 46^ Carlyle, James. The father of Thomas Carlyle. James Carlyle was first a stone-mason, later a small farmer. Of his education, his son says, "I believe he was never more than three months in any school." He was, nevertheless, a man of much intelligence, of vigorous and pithy speech. "I call my father," Thomas Carlyle says again, "a brave man. Man's face he did not fear; God he always feared. . . . Religion was the pole-star for my father. Rude and uncultivated as he otherwise was, it made him and kept him 'in all points a man." James Carlyle married, as his second wife, Margaret Aitken. Of her, her famous son says, " She was a faithful helpmate to him (her husband), toiling unweariedly at his side; to us the best of all mothers; to whom, for body and soul, I owe endless gratitude." Letter 9. Carlyle, Mrs. (Jane Welsh). Born at Haddington, England, 1801 ; died at London, 1866. Mrs. Carlyle was a woman of great wit, clever both with tongue and pen. The charm of her conversation seems to have drawn people to 5 Cheyne Row, XXX11 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES Chelsea, with as strong an attraction as the fame of her great husband. How bright her conversation was we may gather from her letters. Letters 4, 35, 82, 36, 37, 38. Carlyle, Thomas. Born at Ecclefechan, Scotland, 1795; died at Chelsea, London, 1881. Carlyle's father was a stone- mason. The humble character of the early home of the great writer may be gathered from the letters of his father and mother to him (p. 9), and from Carlyle's early letters to his mother (pp. 19, 20), written shortly after he left Edinburgh University, during a period of struggle, before his marriage with Jane Welsh. Thomas Carlyle and his wife spent some of the first years of their married life on a barren little farm belonging to Mrs. Carlyle, called Craigenputtock. Here Emerson visited them. In 1834, they established their modest home at 5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea, a section of London. Carlyle' s fame as a WTiter was assured by the publication of his "French Revolution,"- the accidental burning of a part of which, in the manuscript, is the subject of Carlyle's letter to his brother, p. 90. Many of Carlyle's letters have been published, his long correspondence with our Emerson, his letters to his home people, particularly his mother and his wife, besides letters to his famous contemporaries, among whom were several close friends. Letters 19, 27 20, 129, 5, 39, 73, 72, 34. "Carroll, Lewis " (Charles LutwidgeDodgson). Born in 1832 ; died, 1898. An English clergyman, mathematician, and writer. A treatise upon Plane and Algebraical Geometry and "Alice in Wonderland" seem contradictory productions of one and the same mind; but Charles Dodgson, the mathe- matical lecturer at Christ Church, Oxford, was also "Lewis Carroll," the devoted friend of Adelaide, Gertrude, and the BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES XXX111 rest. The pseudonym is better known than the rightful name, and "The Hunting of the Snark" and the "Adventures" than the books on Euclid and the sermons. Lewis Carroll must have been a friend to delight any child's heart. Letters 28, 29, 30. Cicero, Marcus Tullius. Born 106 B.C. ; assassinated, 43 B.C. Orator, statesman, and philosopher. Cicero was devoted to the old Roman republican ideals ; but was unable to make himself permanently effective in the troublous times in which his lot was cast. His kindly and tolerant temper led him to compromise and to seek the politic rather than the heroic course. He attained his clearest success when he checked the conspiracy of Catiline against the state, and was acclaimed "Father of his Country" (63 B.C.). In the gather- ing contest between Caesar, the head of the popular party, and Pompey, the head of the senatorial party, Cicero attached himself to Pompey, as conservative of the older order of things; but neither Pompey nor Caesar gave Cicero any cordial support. When Pompey fell, and Caesar had estab- lished his power in Rome, the clemency that the new ruler showed won Cicero, so that he declared warmly for him. Cicero was not concerned in the assassination of Caesar ; but, when the deed was done, his political principles naturally in- clined him to the cause of Brutus and Cassius, with whom he joined heartily (see his letter on p. 320), pronouncing a series of orations, to which he gave the name of Philippics, against Antony. Young Octavius put himself apparently under the direction of Cicero. The coalition of Antony, Octavius, and Lepidus, as the Second Triumvirate, was the undoing of Cicero. When the bloody proscriptions were drawn up, upon the arrival of the triumvirs in Rome, Antony demanded the head of Cicero, and Octavius gave him up. Cicero lied XXXIV BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES from Rome, and some weeks later was slain by a hired assassin. Octavius, when he was the Emperor Augustus, said of the man whom he had betrayed, "He was a good citizen, who really loved his country." Lord Chesterfield, writing to his son (p. 261), calls Cicero's letters, of which many have been pre- served, ' ' the most perfect models of good writing." Letter 135. Cow per, William. Born at Great Berkhamstead, Hertford, 1731 ; died at East Dereham, Norfolk, 1S00. Cowper's life was overshadowed by melancholia, passing at times into fits of temporary insanity. Throughout his life he deeply re- gretted the loss of his mother, who died when he was a mere child, as his poem, "Lines on the Receipt of My Mother's Picture," tells us. He derived his greatest pleasure from country life, from his garden, his flowers, his poetry, and, above all, from the society of a good and kind woman, Mrs. Unwin, the wife of the Reverend Morley Unwin, of whose family Cowper was long a member. Cowper's mind was in its healthiest state when he was busy at his poetry ; he trans- lated the "Iliad" and the "Odyssey" into blank verse, and wrote a long poem, "The Task," besides many short poems. It is pleasant to think of him as the author of the rollicking ballad, "John Gilpin." Cowper was a copious letter- writer. Much of his correspondence has been preserved. None of his letters are more charming than those to his favorite cousin, Lady Hesketh. Letter 74. Fitzgerald, Edward. Born near Woodbridge, Suffolk, 1809; died at Merton, Norfolk, 1883. A scholarly man, of rather peculiar temperament, devoted to literature, and to a few choice friends. His letters to the various members of the Tennyson family show the warmth of his friendship. He defends with generous zeal the fame of Alfred Tennyson, BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES XXXV against all competitors, holding lightly his own claims to poetic honors as the translator of Omar Khayyam, although his "Rubaiyat" is so free a rendering of the old Persian poet that it is more an original poem than a translation. Fitzgerald's letter telling of the "discovery" of Omar is interesting. Letters 88, 89. Gordon, Lady Duff. Born at Westminster, 1821 ; died at Cairo, Egypt, 1869. A woman of remarkable energy and force of character, a fine example of the best type of high- bred Englishwoman. Lady Duff Gordon was a writer of some prominence, chiefly a translator. A weakness of the lungs compelled her to spend most of her time out of England. Her daughter, Janet, married a gentleman whose business took him to Alexandria, Egypt. Lady Gordon determined to try the climate of Egypt. Her residence in Egypt no doubt prolonged her life, but failed to check her disease. She could make only short visits to her family in England. The letters that she wrote to her husband and her mother give vivid accounts of her experiences in Egypt. She grew very fond of the Arabs, championed their cause with the English government, and did them signal service. She died in Egypt, no member of her family with her at the last. Letters 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52. Gray, Thomas. Born at London, 1716 ; died at Cambridge, 1771. A scholar, poet, and famous letter- writer. He early formed a close friendship with the brilliant Horace Walpole, with whom he made a tour through the principal countries of Europe. By some chance, the tw r o young men were estranged. On his return to England, Gray settled at Cambridge, where he became professor of modern history. At Cambridge, he lived in scholarly retirement, spending a part of each summer XXXVI BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES with his mother at Stoke-Pogis, a little country place near to Windsor. It was the churchyard of the Stoke-Pogis church that inspired his "Elegy in a Country Churchyard/' In that churchyard he was buried. Letters 10, 60, 61, 62. Green, John Richard. Born at Oxford, 1837; died at Mentone, in the southern part of France, 1883. An historian, best known, perhaps, as the author of "A Short History of the English People." Infirm health compelled him to spend much of his time in a kindlier climate than that of England. His letters tell of his delight in the island of Capri, just off the bay of Naples. He married late in life, 1877, living but a short time after his marriage. His letters reveal a delightful per- sonality. Letters 102, 56, 57, 58, 59. Hawthorne, Nathaniel. Born at Salem, Massachusetts, 1804 ; died at Plymouth, New Hampshire, 1864. Hawthorne joined the Brook Farm Association when he was about thirty- seven years old. This famous socialistic colony, established on a farm near West Roxbury, Massachusetts, drew together many interesting people. George Ripley, Hawthorne, and Charles Dana were inmates. Emerson made occasional visits. The life of the colony is amusingly described by Hawthorne in the letter to his sister given on page 1. Later Hawthorne turned his Brook Farm experiences into a story, "Blithedale Romance." Letter 1. Hughes, George. Brother of Thomas Hughes. Like his brother, he was devoted to Rugby. Letter 112. Hughes, Thomas. Born in Berkshire, England, 1823; died, 1896. He was educated at Rugby under Thomas Arnold, the father of Matthew Arnold, and later at Oxford ; but it was Rugby school that made the greatest impression BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES XXXvii upon Thomas Hughes. Later he became associated with Charles Kingsley and F. D. Maurice in the movement for the improvement of the condition of the poor, known as "Christian Socialism." He lectured in the United States in 1870, and in 1880 founded the "Rugby Colony" in Tennessee. "Tom Brown at Rugby" is his best-known book. Letter 13. Huxley, Thomas Henry. Born at Ealing, near London, 1825; died at Eastbourne, 1895. A biologist, one of the foremost scientists of his day. His letters are charming — easy, enthusiastic, often whimsical. Those to the various members of Ins family endear him to the reader. They show us that the great scientist wore his " weight of learning lightly as a flower." Letters 53, 113, 78, 54, 55, 81, 86, 80, 79, 33. Irving, Washington. Born at New York, 1783; died at Sunnyside, Tarrytown, 1859. When Irving, a young man with his literary reputation still to make, was traveling in England and Scotland, Walter Scott received him with great kindness, giving him much practical assistance in regard to the publication of his "Sketch Book." After his long resi- dence abroad, Irving returned to America, full of honors, spending his last years at his country home, "Sunnyside," near Tarrytown, on the Hudson. Letters 90, 91, 92, 11. Jewett, Sarah Orne. Born at South Berwick, Maine, 1849 ; died, 1909. As the daughter of a well-known country physi- cian she had much opportunity to observe types of character, and she was early stimulated to express what she observed. When she was but twenty years old, a story of hers was accepted by The Atlantic Monthly. From that time on, Miss Jewett wrote many short stories and novels, concerned mainly with New England life and character. Many of her XXXV111 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES stories are for young people, as the old files of St Nicholas will show. The richness of her personality, the warmth and meaning of her friendships, the ease and charm of her style, are revealed in her letters. Their value deserves fuller representation than has been possible in this little book. Letter 87. Johnson, Samuel. Born at Lichfield, 1709; died at Lon- don, 1784. Samuel Johnson's fame was established by the publication, in 1755, of his dictionary, the first adequate dictionary of the English language. The immense labor in- volved in this task Johnson accomplished almost single- handed. He had looked to the celebrated Lord Chesterfield for patronage, but had, he thought, been coldly neglected. Upon the publication of the dictionary, Johnson wrote to Chesterfield a letter, which, with great dignity, set forth the history of his relations with that nobleman. Though Johnson grew in honor as his years went by, he was weighed down, in his last days, with many griefs, not the least of them being that his old friend and favorite, Mrs. Thrale, three years after the death of the esteemed Mr. Thrale, took a second husband, Mr. Piozzi, an Italian musician. Dr. Johnson remonstrated with the lady ; Mrs. Piozzi defended her course with firmness and spirit. The letters that passed between the one-time friends are full of interest. Letters 128, 127. Keller, Helen. Born at Tuscumbia, in northern Alabama, 1880. The story of Helen Keller's life is a wonderful revela- tion of what can be accomplished in the development of the mind and soul, by persistent effort, under the most disad- vantageous circumstances. When she was a baby, less than two years old, Helen Keller was attacked by a terrible illness, winch the doctors called congestion of the stomach and brain. BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES XXXIX Through this disease she lost her sight and hearing. Conse- quently she grew up dumb as well as deaf and blind. Her parents appealed to the Perkins Institute in Boston, for the education of the blind and deaf, for a trained teacher who might awaken the afflicted child's mind. When the little girl was seven years old, Miss Anna Sullivan took charge of her development. Through the patient and skillful teaching of this lady, little Helen was made to realize what language is, and taught to spell words upon the hand by the finger alphabet. Later, Miss Sullivan took the child to tine Perkins Institute, where her development progressed. When she was ten years old, she was taught to produce articulate sounds. Guided by the movements of the lips and throat of a person speaking, movements which she detected through her finger tips, she produced with her own lips and throat the movements of speaking. This speech, understandable at first only to those that were familiar with it, Miss Keller has so developed by persistent effort that to-day she speaks in public to large audiences that understand her with perfect ease, though the sound of her voice is still unnatural. Miss Keller learned to use the typewriter with rapidity, to read the books of raised print written for the blind, and to read and write in the Braille system for the blind. Thus equipped, and aided by her tire- less friend, Miss Sullivan, she prepared herself for Radcliffe College, passed her examinations, and completed the Rad- cliffe course, 1904, doing particularly fine work in English and in German. Though, from the difficulty of apprehending symbols and carrying problems in her mind, mathematics gave her more difficulty, she accomplished the required work. Many distinguished people have been Miss Keller's friends, won by her affection and by the nobility and the sweetness of her nature. Among her friends, none was dearer to her than Phillips Brooks. The peculiar circumstances under which xl BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES Miss Keller's inner life has unfolded have made her a sort of Miranda growing up in Prospero's enehanted island. Letters 16, 17. Lamb, Charles. Born in Crown Office Row, in the Temple, London, 1775; died at Edmonton, near London, 1834. The whole course of Charles Lamb's life was affected by the fits of temporary insanity to which his well-beloved sister, Mary, was subject. In one of these seizures, Mary Lamb killed her mother. To save her from being committed to an asylum, Charles Lamb made himself responsible for his sister's future conduct. Mary Lamb, much of the time, was entirely nor- mal ; then she was the dearest friend, the consoler, and adviser of her brother. At uncertain intervals Mary's malady came upon her. There was always premonition. The brother then took his afflicted sister to an asylum, where she remained until her mind was sound again. The tragedy of these experiences is revealed in the letter of Charles Lamb on page 230. Though his sister was closest to him, Lamb had much delight in other friends. His letters show his warm friendship for Wordsworth and Coleridge, the stimulus that he gained from interchange of thought with them, his love of the people and the places connected with them. Letters 120, 66, 67, 69, 98, 99, 63, 75, 8, 76, 95, 77, 7, 68. Lambert, Brooke. A clergyman, a particular friend of John Richard Green. Letter 125. Lincoln, Abraham. Born in Hardin County, Kentucky, 1809 ; assassinated at Washington, 1S65. Although Lincoln's school education was lamentably slight, he read industriously and carefully. He was called upon during his eventful life to write much. His speeches, addresses, and letters are BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES xli marked by shrewd good sense, directness, and vigor. In those cases in which, as he wrote, his whole nature was fused by intense feeling, his style is high and fine, controlled by a measured eloquence. The Gettysburg speech and the letter to Mrs. Bixby have an almost classic beauty. Letters 118, 130. Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth. Born at Portland, Maine, 1807; died at Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1882. The letter printed on page 37 shows that Longfellow, at seventeen, had set his heart upon a literary career. Boyishly, yet with a simple dignity, he wrote to his father of his ambitions. It is pleasant to think that his high hopes for the future were not vain. Letter 15. Lowell, James Russell. Born at Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1819; died there, 1891. Lowell, during his whole life, threw himself with energy into public causes. He was never afraid to stand in what he considered "the right, with two or three. ,, His high ideal of the mission of the journalist is shown in his letters to Lawrence Godkin, for many years the editor of The Nation. These letters show us, too, Lowell's fresh, vigorous style as a letter-writer. Letters 96, 97, 106, 107. Meredith, George. Born in Hampshire, England, 1828; died, 1909. Meredith is better known as a novelist than as a poet, although it was as a young poet that he wrote to Tenny- son the letter printed on page 71 — very modest words, very gracefully set down. "The Ordeal of Richard Feverel," "The Egoist," and "Diana of the Crossways" are as well known, perhaps, as any of Meredith's novels. Letter 32. Osborne, Dorothy. Became, probably about 1654, the wife of the famous Sir William Temple, for whom Dean Swift, in his xlii BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES youth, was secretary. The marriage of Dorothy Osborne and Sir William Temple was preceded by six years of troubled courtship. Many adverse circumstances disturbed the course of true love, — political differences of the two fathers, dissatis- faction of said parents over marriage portions, hostility of relatives to the match, and, finally, rival suitors of the fair lady, the most considerable of whom was Henry Cromwell, the younger son of the Lord Protector. Dorothy Osborne's choice remained firmly fixed upon Sir William, with whom she corresponded industriously. Sir William's letters have been lost; Dorothy's fortunately have been preserved. These letters. of hers form a most interesting record of the life of a country family in seventeenth-century England. W T e learn from them how far the minds of the young ladies "were cul- tivated, what were their favorite studies, what degree of liberty was allowed to them, what use they made of that liberty, what accomplishments they most valued in men, and what proofs of tenderness delicacy permitted them to give to favored suitors." Dorothy Osborne' is no Belinda. If you will compare her with Pope's typical eighteenth-century lady in "The Rape of the Lock," you will find her almost modern in her common sense, energy, intelligence, and quick wit. The spelling of her letters is modernized. The whole series of her letters deserves to be read. Letters 139, 140. Parker, Theodore. Born at Lexington, Massachusetts, 1810; died at Florence, Italy, I860. A noted clergyman, lecturer, reformer, and author. As he could not afford to go to college, Theodore Parker taught school, studied by himself, following the courses at Harvard, and took his examinations each semester with what would have been his class if he had been able to attend college. He accomplished the work in the given time, passing all of his examinations, but by the BIOGRAPHICAL N01 xliii rules of the college was not given a degree. In tin way he accomplished his theological training, and was afterwards given by Harvard an honorary A.B. and A.M. He was a powerful preacher and a vigorous advocate of the abolition of slavery. His kind helpfulness to all who needed help made him much beloved. He is buried in the Protestant Cemetery in Florence. Letter 114. Paston, Margaret. A member of a family of Norfolk county, England, whose letters, written between 1424 and 1509, have been preserved. These letters are a valuable record of English life in a far-off time. They go back almost to the time of Chaucer, and cover the time of the Wars of the Roses. They are a storehouse of authentic information. Margaret Paston seems to have been a dutiful wife. Letter 137. Piozzi, Hester Lynch (Mrs. Thrale). Born, 1741 ; died, 1821. A clever English lady, said to have been well educated in Latin, Greek, and the modern languages. In 1763, she married Henry Thrale, a rich brewer of Southwark, as London south of the Thames was called. As Mrs. Thrale, she became the devoted friend of Samuel Johnson, who spent much time at her home. Mr. Thrale died in 1781. Three years later Mrs. Thrale married an Italian musician, named Piozzi. This marriage deeply grieved Dr. Johnson. The letters of reproach and of defense that passed between the philosopher and the lady are full of interest. Letter 126. Pliny, "The Younger." Caius Plinius Cheilitis Secundus was born at Como, Italy, 62 a.d., and died 113. He was a student and author, a nephew of the elder Pliny, who was killed by the great eruption of Vesuvius, in 79 a.d. The xliv BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES younger Pliny was a graceful and vigorous letter-writer. Many phases of Roman life appear in his letters. Letters 132, 133, 134. Prescott, William Hickling. Born at Salem, Massachusetts, 1796; died at Boston, 1859. American historian, his prin- cipal works being "History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella," "The Conquest of Mexico," "The Conquest of Peru." On a visit to England, he was received with dis- tinguished honor. His presentation to Queen Victoria he describes in a letter to his wife. Letter 40. Rossetti, Dante Gabriel. Born at London, 1828; died at Birchington, England, 1SS2. Rossetti is about equally renowned as poet and as painter. His father was an Italian, who fled from Italy on account of political troubles, and established himself in England, there marrying Frances Poli- dore, English on her mother's side. Lack of money made it difficult, in the beginning, for young Rossetti to obtain ade- quate artistic training. With the help of his sympathetic aunt Charlotte Polidore, however, he put himself under the in- struction of Ford Madox Brown, a painter whose work had strongly impressed the young artist. Rossetti had a long period of struggle, both as poet and as painter, but when recognition came, it was emphatic. Ruskin was a great help to Rossetti during the years when he was striving to make his way. With John Everett Millais and Holman Hunt, Rossetti established the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. This little group of painters looked for inspiration to the Italian painters before the time of Raphael, such painters as Botticelli. Rossetti was a friend of William Morris, with whom he lived for a time at Kelmscott. Letters IS, 65, 12, 122. BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES xlv Ruskin, John. Born at London, 1819; died at Coniston, 1900. Ruskin's first interest was painting. Later he devoted himself to architecture, to geology, and to sociology. His letters to C. were written while he was still working for his degree at Oxford. He took his degree in 1842. That he had already studied deeply and thought much upon the subject of art is proved by the fact that he published the first volume of " Modern Painters" the year after he graduated from Oxford. Letters 101, 117. Stanhope, Philip. (Fourth Earl of Chesterfield.) Born at London, 1694 ; died, 1773. An English politician, orator, and writer, famous as a man of fashion. He took infinite pains with the education of his son, Philip Stanhope, writing to him letters of instruction, counsel, and advice. The ambi- tious father was doomed to disappointment, for the son married abroad without the father's knowledge, and, a few years after, died. Two little boys were left to their grand- father's care. With admirable spirit, Lord Chesterfield be- gan once more, writing to his grandsons in much the same strain that he had written to his idolized son. Letters 108, 109, 110, 111. Steele, Richard. Born at Dublin, 1672; died, 1729. The friend of Addison, founder and editor of The Tatler and, next to Addison, the chief contributor to The Spectator. He was warm-hearted and generous, but lacking in judgment and stability. His letters to "Mrs." Scurlock, afterwards his wife, his "dearest Prue," show him as an ardent lover, but a rather ill-regulated husband, not altogether a domestic joy, one fancies. Letters 141, 142, 143, 144. Stephen, Count of Blois and of Chartres. One of the leaders of the first crusade. His letter to his wife, Adela, or Adele, xlvi BIOGRAPHICAL XOTES the daughter of William the Conqueror, is considered "one of the most important documents for the history of the first crusade." From this letter, the Count of Blois appears to have been not only a zealous crusader but a courteous gentle- man. Letter 136. Story, William Wetmore. Born at Salem, 1819 : died, 1895. A sculptor and poet. Story spent much of his time in Rome, where he was a member of a most interesting group of literary and artistic Englishmen and Americans. For Story's little daughter, who at the time was sick in Rome, Thackeray wrote his delightful "The Rose and the Ring." The Story s and the Brownings frequently spent their summers together. Perhaps the best-known pieces of sculpture by Story are his "Cleopatra" and his "Semiramis." Letter 83. Siowe, Harriet Beecher. Born at Litchfield, Connecticut, 1812; died at Hartford, 1896. Mrs. Stowe's arduous life is vividly described in her letters. Though it was often a life of exhausting toil, it was full of satisfaction. Mrs. Stowe's toil was ungrudging; her spirit ardent and buoyant. Her famous "Uncle Tom's Cabin" was published first in serial form in the Washington National Era, in book form in 1852. Her "Oldtown Folks" and "Sam Lawson's Fireside Stories" are records of New England life a generation ago. Letter 31. Tennyson, Alfred. Born at Somersby, 1809; died at Aldworth House, Surrey, 1892. "The Life of Alfred, Lord Tennyson," by his son, Hallam. gives a most interesting account of the poet's life and work, of his friends and his surroundings. The person and bearing of Tennyson must have been worthy of a poet. He was distinguished without being in the least BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES xlvii ostentatious. He held himself a little remote from the casual acquaintance, but inspired devotion in his intimate friends. His letters give a pleasing impression of his personality. Letters 85, 26. Tennyson, Elizabeth Fytche. The lovely nature of Alfred Tennyson's mother shows in the letter to her poet son, printed on page 273. Letter 115. Thackeray, William Makepeace. Born at Calcutta, 1811; died at London, 1863. Though born in India, Thackeray was brought to England in his fifth year, so that his connection with the land of begums must have been little more than sentiment. Unlike Tennyson, Thackeray was fond of society, of chit-chat, and of dining out. The author of "Vanity Fair" and of "Pendennis" must, of necessity, have been interested in oddities of character, in revelations of motive — in a word, in all that goes to make human experience. James T. Field, in his "Yesterdays with Authors," gives us a delightful impres- sion of Thackeray's effervescent humor and his warmth of heart. Letter 84. Thaxter, Celia Leighton. Born at Plymouth, Xew Hamp- shire, 1835; died at the Isles of Shoals, 1894. Mrs. Thaxter holds a high rank among the lesser American poets; but an even higher rank as a noble type of womanhood. Mr. Leighton, her father, for some reason out of accord with the world of men, settled his family upon the otherwise unin- habited island of Appledore, one of the Isles of Shoals, off the coast of New Hampshire. Celia Thaxter loved the Isles with an intense devotion; a biographer says, "If it were ever intended that a desolate island in the deep sea should be inhabited by one solitary family, then indeed Celia Thaxter Xlviii BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES was the fitting daughter of that family." Mrs. Thaxter's collected letters should be read in full. They are admirable in style and most interesting as a record of an unusual life. Letter 100. Walpole, Horace. Born at London, 1717; died there, 1797. He was the third son of Sir Robert Walpole, the first Prime Minister of England. He early formed a friendship with the poet Gray, with whom he traveled through France and Italy, visiting in Florence Horace Mann, for forty-six years the British envoy to the court of the Grand Duke of Tuscany. Through the distinguished position of Walpole' s father, the two young men had exceptional opportunities to enjoy their " grand tour." Amicably as the experience began, the two friends, while in Italy, had a serious difference, which caused them to separate. Walpole later took all the blame of the unfortunate occurrence upon himself. Though a nominal reconciliation was effected in 1744, and Walpole always expressed the greatest admiration for Gray and his poetry, the old relations were never resumed. Shortly after Ins return to England, Walpole purchased an estate called Strawberry Hill, on the Thames, near Twickenham. This place he made famous, turning the modest cottage into a Gothic villa, in the questionable taste then prevalent among the fashionable literary circle of London, of which he was a leader. At Strawberry Hill he surrounded himself with works of art in the style which he approved. Here he studied and wrote, printed his books on a private press that he had set up at his house, and here he entertained his chosen friends. He was a great figure, too, in London life. His long Parliamentary career, 1741 to 1768, covering the troubled times of the American Revolution, put him in close touch with the political life of England. All these varied phases of the life of his times BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES xlix are shown in his voluminous correspondence, making the nine bulky volumes a rich mine for the student of history and of life and manners. His letters, written with admirable ease and spirit, are as amusing as they are instructive. Letters 104, 103, 105, 41, 42, 43, 93, 94. Winthrop, Margaret. The wife of John Winthrop, a gov- ernor of Massachusetts colony. John Winthrop came to New England in 1630. Margaret Winthrop joined him in 1631. The letter of Margaret Winthrop to her husband was written in 1637, when John Winthrop was chosen for the fifth time governor of the colony. He was then in Newtown, where the election was held, instead of Boston, on account of the party strife at that time stirring Boston. Henry Vane, the former governor, had supported Anne Hutchinson, whose religious beliefs had aroused much opposition. John Winthrop op- posed Anne Hutchinson and Henry Vane. Winthrop was chosen governor, and Anne Hutchinson was banished from the colony. Margaret Winthrop, at the time that she wrote the letter to her husband in Newtown, was much distressed by the agitations in the colony, and much exercised over the part that her husband was playing in them. Letter 138. THE MECHANICAL FORM OF A LETTER The mechanical form of a letter is important. Ig- norance or carelessness in regard to the position of place and date, margins, and so forth produces a very un- favorable impression. Let us draw up some specifica- tions in regard to the form of a letter. Choose white, unlined note paper, without ornamen- tation, and envelopes with no eccentricity of shape. The address, plainly engraved at the head Ps.D6r of the note paper, is in good taste ; but perfectly plain note paper, of good quality, is in just as correct taste. Make your penmanship legible and regular. Legi- bility depends upon four requirements : to form each letter truly, to unite all the letters of a word, Penman- to leave a distinct space between words, not ship to let the loop-letters of one line interlace with the letters of the line above or below. If you obey these four rules and keep your writing regular, your penmanship will be both clear and comely. Learn to keep your lines li lii THE MECHANICAL FORM OF A LETTER straight on unlined paper. If you cannot do this surely, place a heavily lined paper under the paper upon which you are writing. Use black ink. Note the following : Placing and 560 Broad Street Phrasing May 30, 1916 My dear Mrs. Reynolds, May I keep, for another week, the copy of Chesterton's "All Things Considered" that you lent me? I want etc. Sincerely yours, Francis Halliday. Do not begin too near the top of the page. If the note is to take up a whole page or more, begin on the second line space. If the note is to take up only the middle of the page, begin lower. In writing the place and the date, do not abbreviate, unless the complete words would make the lines awkwardly long. In general, avoid abbreviations, except the regulation Mr., Mrs., Dr., etc. No punctuation is needed at the end of the place or the date. A comma, of course, is placed between the month and the year. Write May 30, not May 30th. Keep two equal and even margins, the width depending upon the size of your paper, usually about half an inch. The end of the date establishes the right-hand margin ; the beginning of the salutation, THE MECHANICAL FORM OF A LETTER liii the left-hand margin. Write the salutation in the line- space next below the date. It is awkward to leave a space between the date and the salutation. This is a common fault. The salutation should be followed by a comma or a colon, comma preferred. "My dear" is more formal than " Dear." If you write " My dear," be sure not to capitalize dear. The first line of the body of the letter may begin directly under the comma at the end of the salutation, or about halfway back. Other paragraphs should be indented twice the margin. End your letter with a complete sentence. For the complimentary close, as it is called, there are several phrases that are in good taste : Sincerely yours, Truly yours, Sincerely your friend, I am, sincerely yours, etc. The first is as good as any. It is better not to attempt to be in any wise unusual in this little phrase. Con- vention decides the form for us, except with our most intimate friends. If you use the form / remain, be sure to use it sensibly. You remain sincerely, etc., if you have been a friend for some time. To a compara- tive stranger, the form would be / am, sincerely, etc. It is nonsense to write I remain, your son, or your daughter. Place a comma after the complimentary close. In going from page to page of your note paper, follow the order regularly, first, second, third, fourth, unless you are writing a note of only two pages, then write on the first and the third. liv THE MECHANICAL FORM OF A LETTER Observe the following address of an envelope : Mrs. George Reynolds 65 Franklin Street Arlington Massachusetts The address of an envelope is a problem in spacing. If the spacing is not good, the effect is very unpleasant. The Address ^ person should take pride in addressing an of the envelope well. The name should be placed a Envelope little above the middle of the envelope, re- membering that the stamp and the postmark will fill the upper space. The space to the left of Mrs. should be about the same as the space to the right of Massachu- setts. The address should not be cramped, nor placed too high nor too low on the envelope. It should be kept straight. Xo end punctuation is needed. Do not abbreviate, except titles. The forms and the phrases that we have discussed admit of considerable variety. The directions herein given set forth one correct style for the form of a letter. Others are allowable, but this one is safe. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The editor acknowledges gratefully her indebtedness to Mr. John S. P. Alcottand to Messrs. Little, Brown,, and Company for permission to reprint three letters from "Louisa May Alcott : Her Life, Letters, and Journals," edited byEdnah D. Cheney; to Miss Helen Keller and to Messrs. Doubleday, Page, and Company for two letters from " The Story of My Life " ; to Messrs. Little, Brown, and Company for four letters from "Dante Gabriel Rossetti : Family Letters," edited by William Rossetti; to Messrs. Doubleday, Page, and Company for extracts from Lady Duff Gordon's "Letters from Egypt"; to Messrs. Dodd, Mead, and Company for two letters from "Letters from Dorothy Osborne to Sir William Temple," edited by Edw T ard Abbott Parry; to the Century Company for three letters from "The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll," and for two letters from "The Complete Works of Abraham Lincoln," edited by John S. Nicolay and John Hay ; to the John Lane Company for two letters from "Dr. Johnson and Mrs. Thrale," by A. M. Broadley, and for three letters from "New Letters of Thomas lv lvi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Carlyle/' edited by Alexander Carlyle; to Messrs. Longmans, Green, and Company for six letters from "Letters and Memorials of Jane Welsh Carlyle," edited by J. A. Froude ; to Messrs. Houghton Mifflin Company for one letter from "Nathaniel Haw- thorne and His Wife," by Julian Hawthorne, one letter from "Life and Letters of Harriet Beecher Stowe," edited by Annie Field, one letter from "Letters of Sarah Orne Jewett," edited by Annie Field, one letter from "Letters of Celia Thaxter," edited by A. F. and R. L., one letter from "Life of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow," edited by Samuel Longfellow, one letter from "William Wetmore Story and His Friends," by Henry James; to G. H. Putnam's Sons for four letters from "Life and Letters of Washington Irving," by Pierre Irving; to G. H. Putnam's Sons and The American Unitarian Association for one letter from "Theodore Parker," by O. B. Frothingham ; to Messrs. Appleton and Company for four letters from " Richard Steele," by Austin Dobson, copyrighted by Appleton and Company ; to Messrs. E. P. Dutton and Company for seven letters from Phillips Brooks's "Letters of Travel," copyrighted by E. P. Dutton; and to the Macmillan Company for extracts from "Life and Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning," from "Letters of Matthew Arnold," collected by W. E. Russell, from "Letters of Charles Lamb," edited by Alfred Ainger, from "Letters of John Richard Green," edited by ACKNOWLEDGMEX T8 lvii Leslie Stephen, from "Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley," by Leonard Huxley ; for a letter by Thomas Hughes and a letter by Brooke Lambert from "Life and Letters of Alexander Macmillan," by Charles Graves ; for a letter by George Hughes from " Memoir of a Brother," by Thomas Hughes ; for one letter from " William Hickling Prescott," by Harry Thurston Peck ; for four letters of Lowell from "Life and Letters of Lawrence Godkin," by Rollo Godkin ; for one letter of Thackeray, two of Tennyson, and one of Mrs. Tenny- son, from " Alfred Lord Tennyson," by Hallam Tenny- son ; for two letters of Fitzgerald and one of Meredith from "Tennyson and His Friends," by Hallam, Lord Tennyson ; for two letters of Ruskin from " Letters to a College Friend." The letter of Stephen, Count of Blois, is from " Trans- lations and Reprints" of the Department of History of the University of Pennsylvania, Vol. I, No. 4; the letters of Walpole from "Letters of Horace Walpole," edited by P. Cunningham ; the letter of Margaret Paston from "The Paston Letters," edited by James Gairdner ; the letter of Margaret Winthrop from " Life and Letters of John Winthrop." Thanks are due to the staff of the Newark Public Library for kind assistance in the preparation of this little book. COLLECTION OF LETTERS FROM MANY PENS I. The Daily Course of Life — Chat about Home Matters (1) Hawthorne to His Sister Louisa Brook Farm, West Roxbury, May 3, 1841. As the weather precludes all possibility of ploughing, hoeing, sowing, and other such operations, I bethink me that you may have no objections to hear something of my whereabout and whatabout. You are to 5 know, then, that I took up my abode here on the 12th ultimo, in the midst of a snow-storm, which kept us all idle for a day or two. At the first glimpse of fair weather, Mr. Ripley ° summoned us into the cow-yard, and introduced me to an instrument with four prongs, 10 commonly entitled a dung-fork. With this tool I have already assisted to load twenty or thirty carts of manure, and shall take part in loading nearly three hundred more. Besides, I have planted potatoes and pease, cut straw and hay for the cattle, and done 15 various other mighty works. This very morning I milked three cows, and I milk two or three every night and morning. The weather has been so unfavorable 11 1 2 COLLECTION OF LETTERS that we have worked comparatively little in the fields ; but, nevertheless, I have gained strength wonderfully, — grown quite a giant, in fact, — and can do a day's work without the slightest inconvenience. In short, 5 I am transformed into a complete farmer. This is one of the most beautiful places I ever saw in my life, and as secluded as if it were a hundred miles from any city or village. There are woods, in which we can ramble all day without meeting anybody or 10 scarcely seeing a house. Our house stands apart from the main road, so that we are not troubled even with passengers looking at us. Once in a while we have a transcendental visitor, such as Mr. Alcott; but generally we pass whole days without seeing a 15 single face, save those of the brethren. The whole fraternity eat together; and such a delectable way of life has never been seen on earth since the days of the early Christians. We get up at half -past four, break- fast at half-past six, dine at half-past twelve, and go 20 to bed at nine. The thin frock which you made for me is considered a most splendid article, and I should not wonder if it were to become the summer uniform of the Com- munity. I have a thick frock, likewise; but it is 25 rather deficient in grace, though extremely warm and comfortable. I wear a tremendous pair of cowhide boots, with soles two inches thick, — of course, when I come to see you I shall wear my farmer's dress. COLLECTION OF LETTERS 3 We shall be very much occupied during most of this month, ploughing and planting; so that I doubt whether you will see me for two or three weeks. You have the portrait by this time, I suppose ; so you can very well dispense with the original. When you write 5 to me (which I beg you will do soon), direct your letter to West Roxbury, as there are two post-offices in the town. I would write more, but William Allen is going to the village, and must have this letter. So good-by. I0 Nath. Hawthorne, Ploughman. (2) Louisa May Alcoit to Her Sister Boston Bulletin, — Ninth Issue Sunday Eve, November, 1858. My blessed Nan, — Having finished my story, I can refresh my soul by a scribble to you, though I have 15 nothing to tell of much interest. Mrs. L. is to pay me my "celery" each month, as she likes to settle all bills in that way; so yesterday she put $20.85 into my willing hands, and gave me Saturday p.m. for a holiday. This unexpected $20, 20 with the $10 for my story (if I get it) and $5 for sewing, will give me the immense sum of $35. I shall get a second-hand carpet for the little parlor, a bonnet for you, and some shoes and stockings for myself, as three times round the Common in cold weather conduces 25 1 COLLECTION OF LETTERS to chilblains, owing to stockings with a profusion of toe, but no heel, and shoes with plenty of heel, but a paucity of toe. The prejudices of society demand that my feet be covered in the houses of the rich and great ; 5 so I shall hose and shoe myself, and if any of my fortune is left, will invest it in the Alcott Sinking Fund, the Micawber R. R., and the Skimpole three per cents. Tell me how much carpet you need, and T. S. will find me a good one. In December I shall have' another to S20 ; so let me know what is wanting, and don't live on "five pounds of rice and a couple of quarts of split pease" all winter, I beg. How did you like' "Mark Field's Mistake"? I don't know whether it is good or bad ; but it will keep 15 the* pot boiling, and I ask no more. I wanted to go and see if "Hope's Treasures" was accepted, but was afeared. M. and H. both appeared ; but one fell asleep, and the other forgot to remember ; so I still wait like Patience on a hard chair, smiling at an inkstand. Miss 20 K. asked me to go to see Booth for the last time on Saturday. Upon this ravishing thought I brooded all the week very merrily, and I danced, sang, and clashed my cymbals daily. Saturday a.m. Miss K. sent word she couldn't go, and from my pinnacle of joy I was 25 precipitated into an abyss of woe. While in said abyss Mrs. L. put the $20 into my hands. That was a moment of awful trial. Every one of those dollars cried aloud, " What, ho ! Come hither, and be happy ! " COLLECTION OF LETTER 5 But eight cold feet on a straw carpet marched to and fro so pathetically that I locked up the tempting fiend, and fell to sewing, as a Saturday treat ! But, lo ! virtue was rewarded. Mrs. H. came flying in, and took me to the Museum to see "Gold" and 5 "Lend Me Five Shillings. " Warren, in an orange tie, red coat, white satin vest, and scarlet ribbons on his ankles, was the funniest creature you ever saw; and I laughed till I cried, — which was better for me than the melancholy Dane, I dare say. 10 I'm disgusted with this letter; for I always begin trying to be proper and neat ; but my pen will not keep in order, and ink has a tendency to splash when used copiously and with rapidity. I have to be so moral and so dignified nowadays that the jocosity of my nature will 15 gush out when it gets a chance, and the consequences are, as you see, rubbish. But you like it; so let's be merry while we may, for to-morrow is Monday, and the weekly grind begins again. (3) Elizabeth Barrett Browning to Miss Mitford May 28, 1848. 20 . . . And now I must tell you what we have done since I wrote last, little thinking of doing so. You see our problem was to get to England as much in our summers as possible, the expense of the intermediate journeys making it difficult of solution. On examina- 25 6 COLLECTION OF LETTERS tion of the whole case, it appeared manifest that we were throwing money into the Arno° by our way of taking furnished rooms, while to take an apartment and furnish it would leave us a clear return of the 5 furniture at the end of the first year in exchange for our outlay, and of all but a free residence afterwards, with the privilege of making it productive by under-letting at our good pleasure. For instance, rooms we paid four guineas a month for, we could have the whole year 10 unfurnished at ten or twelve — the cheapness of the furniture being besides something quite fabulous, especially at the present crisis. Laying which facts together, and seeing besides the all but necessity for us to reside abroad the colder part of every year, we leapt 15 on our feet to the obvious conclusion you have before you, and though the temptation was too strong for us to adopt quite the cheapest ways of the cheap scheme, by the dense economy of preferring small rooms, &c. — though, in fact, we have really done it magnificently, 20 and planted ourselves in the Guidi Palace, in the favorite suite of the last count (his arms are in scagliola on the floor of my bedroom) ; though we have six beautiful rooms and a kitchen, three of them quite palace rooms and opening on a terrace; and though 25 such furniture as comes by slow degrees into them - is antique and worthy of the place — we yet shall have saved money by the close of this year ; while for next year, see ! we shall let our apartment to go to England, COLLECTION OF LETTERS 7 drawing from it the product of 'furnished rooms/ Now I tell you all this lest you hear dreadful rumors of our having forsaken our native land, venerable institutions and all — whereas we remember it so well (it's a dear land in many senses) that we have done this 5 thing chiefly in order to make sure of being able to get back comfortably. My friends the Martins used to have a home in Normandy, and carry the key of it in their pocket, going there just every year at fishing time. A corner in Florence may pass for a still better 10 thing, even without the terrace, and the orange trees and camellias we mean to throng it with. A stone's throw, too, it is from the Pitti°; and really, in my present mind, I would scarcely exchange with the Grand Duke himself. Our rooms are delightful, and Flush ° 15 agrees to praise them, all but the terrace, which he con- siders full of risks. There he will go only by himself or with me. To walk there three at a time may in- volve a pushing off into the street, of which he has a lively sense in his imagination. By the bye, as to street 20 we have no spectators at windows — just the gray wall of a church, called San Felice for good omen. Now have you heard enough of us? What I claimed first, in way of privilege, was a spring sofa to loll upon, and a supply of rain water to wash in ; and you should see 25 what a picturesque oil jar they have given us for the latter purpose. It would just hold the captain of the forty thieves. As to the chairs and tables, I yield the 8 COLLECTION OF LETTERS more especial interest in them to Robert. Only, you would laugh to hear us correct one another sometimes. 'Dear, you get too many drawers and not enough washing stands. Pray, don't let us have any more 5 drawers, when we've nothing more to put into them/ There was no division on the necessity of having six spoons — some questions pass themselves. Now do write to me, and be as egotistical. . . . May God bless you, my beloved friend. Write soon, and of yourself, 10 to your ever affectionate Ba.° My husband's regards go to you, of course. (4) Jane Carlyle to Mrs. Aitken Chelsea: Aug. 1835. My dear Jane, — Even the doubt expressed in i 5 your last letter about the durability of my affection was more agreeable to me than the brief notice which you usually put me off with, 'remember us to Mrs. Carlyle,' or still worse, 'remember us to your lady.' I have told you often that it afflicts me to be always, in the 20 matter of correspondence with you, obliged, like the Annandale man, to thank God ' for the blessings made to pass over my head. ' It ought not, perhaps, to make any difference whether your letters be addressed to him or me, but it does. You never in your life 2s answered a letter of mine (and I have written you COLLECTION OF LETTEI, 9 several), exeept little business notes from Dumfries, which eould not be considered any voluntary expression of kind remembrance. Had you even expressed a wish to hear from me since I came here, I would nevertheless have written, being of a disposition to receive thankfully 5 the smallest mercies when greater are denied ; but, as I said, you have always put me off with a bare recogni- tion of my existence, which was small 'encouragement.' The fact is, we are both of us, I believe, too proud. We go upon the notion of 'keeping up our dignity, Mr. 10 Arnot/ You have it by inheritance from your mother, who (as I have often told herself) with a great profes- sion of humility is swallowed up in this sin ; and I have possibly been seduced into it by her example, which I was simple enough to consider a safe one to 15 imitate in all respects. For my part, however, I am quite willing to enter into a compact with you henceforth to resist the devil, in so far as he interferes with our mutual good under- standing ; for few things were more pleasant for me 20 than to 'tell you sundry news of every kind/ nay, rather ' every thought which enters in within this shallow mind/ had I but the least scrap of assurance of your con- tentment therewith. Now that my mother is actually coming, I am more 25 reconciled to my disappointment about Scotland. Next year, God willing, I shall see you all again. Mean- while, T am wonderfully well hefted here ; the people are 10 COLLECTION OF LETTERS extravagantly kind to me, and in most respects my situation is out of sight more suitable than it was at Craigenputtock. Of late weeks Carlyle has also been getting on better with his writing, which has been 5 uphill work since the burning of the first manuscript. I do not think that the second version is on the whole inferior to the first ; it is a little less vivacious, perhaps, but better thought and put together. One chapter more brings him to the end of his second ' first volume/ io and then we shall sing a Te Deum and get drunk — for which, by the way, we have unusual facilities at present, a friend (Mr. Wilson) having yesterday sent us a present of a hamper (some six or seven pounds' worth) of the finest old Madeira wine. These Wilsons are 15 about the best people we know here; the lady, verging on old maidenism, is distinctly the cleverest woman I know. Then there are Sterlings, who, from the master of the house down to the footman, are devoted to me 20 body and soul ; it is between us as between ' Beauty and the Beast' : — Speak your wishes, speak your will, Swift obedience meets you still. I have only to say 'I should like to see such a thing,' 25 or ' to be at such a place,' and next day a carriage is at the door, or a boat is on the river to take me if I please to the ends of the earth. Through them we have COLLECTION OF LETTERS 11 plumped into as pretty an Irish connection as one would wish. Among the rest is a Mr. Dunn, an Irish clergy- man, who would be the delight of your mother's heart — a perfect personification of the spirit of Christianity. You may take this fact to judge him by, that he has 5 refused two bishoprics in the course of his life, for con- science sake. We have also some Italian acquaint- ances. An Italian Countess Clementina Degli Antoni is the woman to make my husband faithless, if such a one exist, so beautiful, so graceful, so melodious, so 10 witty, so everything that is fascinating for the heart of man. I am learning from her to speak Italian, and she finds, she says, that I have a divine talent (divino talento). She is coming to tea this evening, and another Italian exile, Count De Pepoli, and a Danish 15 young lady, 'Singeress to the King of Denmark,' and Mr. Sterling and my old lover George Rennie. 'The victualling' of so many people is here a trifle, or rather a mere affair of the imagination : tea is put dow T n, and tiny biscuits ; they sip a few drops of tea, and one or two 20 sugar biscuits * victuals ' a dozen ordinary eaters. So that the thing goes off with small damage to even a long- necked purse. The expenditure is not of one's money, but of one's wits and spirits ; and that is sometimes so considerable as to leave one too exhausted for sleeping 25 after. I have been fidgeted with another change of servants. The woman recommended to me bv Mrs. Austin turned 12 COLLECTION OF LETTERS out the best servant I had ever had, though a rather unamiable person in temper, etc. We got on, however, quite harmoniously, and the affairs of the house were conducted to my entire satisfaction, when suddenly 5 she was sent for home to attend a sick mother ; and, after three weeks' absence, during which time I had to find a charwoman to supply her place, she sent me word, the other day, that, in the state of uncertainty she was kept in she could not expect her place to remain 10 longer vacant for her. The next day I lighted on an active, tidy-looking Irish Roman Catholic in a way so singular that I could not help considering her as in- tended for me by Providence, and boding well of our connection. She is not come yet, but will be here on 15 Wednesday ; and in the meanwhile my charwoman, who has her family in the workhouse, does quite toler- ably. One comfort is, that I have not to puddle about my- self here, as I used to have with the 'soot drops' at 20 Craigenputtock ; the people actually do their own work, better or worse. . . . For all which, and much more, we have reason to be thankful. I must not finish without begging your sympathy in a disaster befallen me since I commenced this letter — 25 the cat has eaten one of my canaries ! Not Chico, poor dear; but a young one which I hatched myself. I have sent the abominable monster out of my sight, for ever — transferred her to Mrs. Hunt. COLLECTION OF LETTERS 13 With kindest regards to every one of you, prattlers included, Yours affectionately, Jane Carlyle. (5) Thomas Carlyle to His Mother 5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea, London, 5 5th August, 1834. My dear Mother — ... Life here in Cheyne Row ° goes on in the steadiest manner ; nothing to glory in ; much to be glad of, and humbly thankful for. Our House is all settled and swept long ago, and proceeding 10 at a fixed rate, our accounts all paid off ; so we know in some measure what we have to look for. Living is really not very much dearer than at Puttock ° ; one has a less plenteous supply in some things ; but on the w r hole what it amounts to " ultimately " is no such grand 15 matter, "after all." We calculated that we could live here, everything included, for £200, and seem as if we could for less. At all events there will be no more " fif- teen pounds for fodder" or other provoking items of that sort to pay ; but for one's money there will be real ware 20 of some kind. In all other respects, as you at once judge, I am much better off, and feel habitually that here or nowhere is the place for me. Old Annandale itself seems lovelier than it ever did : often in the still sunset, when I am alone, it comes before me with its green 25 14 COLLECTION OF LETTERS knoices and clear-rushing burns, and all the loved ones that I have there, above the ground and below it ; and I feel a sweet unsullied affection for it all, and a holy faith that God is there as here, and in His merciful hand is 5 the life and lot of every one of us for Eternity as for Time. Unspeakably wearisome, in such seasons, were the light cackle of the worldly-minded : but indeed I am not much troubled with that. Once for all one should "set his face like a flint" against the idolatries of men, 10 and determine that his little section of Existence shall not be a mad empty Dream, but as far as possible a Reality. I have not w T ritten anything whatever for Reviews or Magazines since we came hither ; and am not likely 15 to write. In fact, it is rather my feeling that I should abandon that whole despicable business, and seek diligently out for some freer field to labor in. Nothing can exceed the hollow frothiness and even dishonest blackguardism of literature generally at present: but 20 what then ? This is even the very thing thou art sent to amend! Mill's Review is to go on, about New- year's day next ; there, it is possible, I may contribute something: but there too I wait till I see further before taking any very fixed hold. My former Book, 25 that came out through Fraser, is happily at last all printed within these last days : I hope to send you, and some others of them, a full copy of it about the begin- ning of next month by the Dumfries Bookseller. You COLLECTION OF LETTERS 15 will have leisure to peruse and consider it ; and finding it very queer, may not find it altogether empty and false. It has met with next to no recognition that I hear of in these parts ; a circumstance not to be surprised at, not to be wept over. On the other hand, my American 5 Friend (you remember hearing of him at Puttock) sends me a week ago the most cheering Letter of thanks for it (with two braw American Books, as a present), and bids me go on in God's name, for in remotest nooks, in distant ends of the Earth, men are listening 10 to me and loving me. This Letter, which did me a real benefit, and will give you (the Philosopher's Mother) great pleasure, shall be sent to you : I would send it to-day, but that I fear the frank will be already too heavy. The vain clatter of fools, either for or 15 against, is worth nothing, for indeed it is simply nothing : but the hearty response of earnest men, of one earnest man, is very precious. Meanwhile I employ all my days in getting ready for the new Book (on the French Revolution), and think, if I am spared with health, 20 there is likelihood that it will be in print, with my name to it, early in spring. I will do my very best and truest ; give me your prayers and hopes ! This task of mine takes labor enough : I am up once or twice weekly at the British Museum for Books about it ; 25 these are almost my only occasions of visiting that fiercely tumultuous region of the city, which is at least four miles from me. I walk slowly up the shady 16 COLLECTION OF LETTERS side of the streets ; and come slowly down again, about four o'clock, often smoking a cigar, and feeling more or less independent of all men. Several of our friends (the Bullers for instance) are 5 gone out of town. We have made, at least Jane has made, a most promising new acquaintance, of a Mrs. Taylor ; a young beautiful reader of mine and " dearest friend" of Mill's, who for the present seems "all that is noble" and what not. We shall see how that wears. 10 We are to dine there on Tuesday. . . . Hunt, nor the Hunts, does not trouble us more than we wish : he comes in when we send for him ; talks, listens to a little music, even sings and plays a little, eats (without kitchen of any kind, or only with a little sugar) his 15 allotted plate of porridge, and then goes his ways. His way of thought and mine are utterly at variance; a thing which grieves him much, not me. He accounts for it by my "Presbyterian upbringing," which I tell him always I am everlastingly grateful for. He talks 20 forever about "happiness," and seems to me the very miserablest man I ever sat and talked with. . . . Coleridge, a very noted literary man here, of whom you may have heard me speak, died about a week ago, at the age of sixty-two. An apothecary had sup- 25 ported him for many years : his wife and children shifted elsewhere as they could. He could earn no money, could set himself steadfastly to no painful task; took to opium and poetic and philosophic COLLECTION OF LETTERS 17 dreaming. A better faculty has not been often worse wasted. Yet withal he was a devout man, and did something, both by writing and speech. Among the London Literaries he has not left his like or second. Peace be with him. 5 Here then is the end, dear Mother! My kindest brotherly love to all, including Jenny ; Jane is not here at the moment to add hers, but would grieve much if it were not habitually understood. All good be with you all ! 10 Ever your affectionate Son, T. Carlyle. (6) Matthew Arnold to His Mother West Humble, June 30, 1866. My dearest Mother, — Your long double letter and anecdotes deserved a speedier answer. Every- 15 thing about Wordsworth and Coleridge is interesting. Papa's letter was curious. Certainly if one of our boys now wrote such a letter we should call it prim, if not priggish. Much is due, no doubt, to the greater for- mality of sixty years ago, but I imagine that it really 20 was not till after he had grown up that papa got that freedom of nature and humor which we all associate with him, and which were so charming. In return for your anecdotes I must tell you one about Lucy.° She was on the lawn with Flu° and Mrs. Slade when the 25 c 18 COLLECTION OF LETTERS cat jumped out of the bushes with a bird in her mouth. Mrs. Slade called out, "Oh, that horrid cat has got a bird"; but, as she herself says, for a thousand birds she should not have ventured to interfere. Lucy 5 sprang on the cat, seized it by the throat, made it drop* the bird, pushed it away, and stroked and smoothed the bird for a minute or two till it flew off quite happy. The charming thing is, she had not a notion of doing anything remarkable, and is troubled 10 about having given the cat a violent push from her, and says, " I couldn't help giving the cat a slap, but I hope I didn't hurt it, because you know, mamma, it was its nature to kill birds." Dicky ° came home yesterday, looking splendidly well. 15 To-day he goes with me to Wotton, to fish and bathe in the bathing-house. We had a beautiful drive yester- day between slopes red with the wild strawberry ; and the wild flowers are so abundant and so curious, this confluence of the chalk and the greensand being ex- 20 traordinarily favorable for them, that I often wish for Fan° to see them with me. We have got Miss Pratt's book, and verify unceasingly; but a third volume is much wanted, as so many flowers are absent from the two published ; for instance, there is not a single 25 saxifrage in them. ******* Dicky has just come in in trousers. It breaks one's heart to think of his changing the dress that one knows COLLECTION OF LETTERS 19 him so by. Budge does not come for a fortnight. My Report plagues me dreadfully. Your ever affectionate M. A. (7) Charles Lamb to William Wordsworth September 28, 1805. 5 My dear Wordsworth (or Dorothy rather, for to you appertains the biggest part of this answer by right) — I will not again deserve reproach by so long a silence. I have kept deluding myself with the idea that Mary would write to you, but she is so lazy (or, which 1 10 believe is the true state of the case, so diffident), that it must revert to me as usual. Though she writes a pretty good style, and has some notion of the force of words, she is not always so certain of the true orthography of them ; and that, and a poor handwriting 15 (in this age of female calligraphy), often deters her, where no other reason does. We have neither of us been very well for some weeks past. I am very nervous, and she most so at those times when I am ; so that a merry friend, adverting to 20 the noble consolation we were able to afford each other, denominated us, not unaptly, Gumboil and Tooth- Ache, for they used to say that a gumboil is a great relief to a tooth-ache. We have been two tiny excursions this Summer, for 25 20 COLLECTIOX OF LETTERS three or four days each, to a place near Harrow, and to Egham, where Cooper's Hill is : and that is the total history of our rustications this year. Alas ! how poor a round to Skiddaw and Helvellyn, and Borrowdale, 5 and the magnificent sesquipedalia ° of the year 1S02 ! Poor old Molly! to have lost her pride, that "last in- firmity of noble minds/' ° and her cow. Fate need not have set her wits to such an old Molly. I am heartily sorry for her. Remember us lovingly to her; and in 10 particular remember us to Mrs. Clarkson in the most kind manner. I hope, by "southwards," you mean that she will be at or near London, for she is a great favorite of both' of us, and we feel for her health as much as possible 15 for any one to do. She is one of the friendliest, com- fortablest women we know, and made our little stay at your cottage one of the pleasantest times we ever past. We were quite strangers to her. Mr. C. is with you too ; our kindest separate remembrances to him. 20 As to our special affairs, I am looking about me. I have done nothing since the beginning of last year, when I lost my newspaper job ; and having had a long idleness, I must do something, or we shall get very poor. Sometimes I think of a farce, but hitherto all schemes 25 have gone off ; an idle brag or two of an evening, vapor- ing out of a pipe, and going off in the morning; but now I have bid farewell to my " sweet enemy," Tobacco, J shall perhaps set nobly to work. Hang work ! COLLECTION OF LETTERS 21 I wish that all the year were holiday ; I am sure that indolence — indefeasible indolence — is the true state of man, and business the invention of the old Teazer, whose interference doomed Adam to an apron and set him a hoeing. Pen and ink, and clerks and desks, were 5 the refinements of this old torturer some thousand years after, under pretence of " Commerce allying distant shores, promoting and diffusing knowledge, good," etc. etc. I wish you may think this a handsome farewell to 10 my "Friendly Traitress." Tobacco has been my evening comfort and my morning curse for these five years ; and you know how difficult it is from refraining to pick one's lips even, when it has become a habit. This poem is the only one which I have finished since 15 so long as when I wrote " Hester Savory." I have had it in my head to do it these two years, but tobacco stood in its own light when it gave me headaches that prevented my singing its praises. Now you have got it, you have got all my store, for I have absolutely 20 not another line. No more has Mary. We have no- body about us that cares for poetry ; and who will rear grapes when he shall be the sole eater? Perhaps if you encourage us to show you what we may write, we may do something now T and then before we ab- 25 solutely forget the quantity of an English line for want of practice. The " Tobacco," being a little in the way of Wither ° (whom Sou they ° so much likes), perhaps 22 COLLECTION OF LETTERS you will somehow convey it to him with my kind re- membrances. Then, everybody will have seen it that I wish to see it, I having sent it to Malta, I remain, dear W. and D., yours truly. s C. Lamb. (8) Charles Lamb to Robert Lloyd September 13, 1804. Dear Robert, — I was startled in a very pleasant manner by the contents of your letter. It was like your good self to take so handsome an opportunity of io renewing an old friendship. I thank you kindly for your offers to bring me acquainted with Mrs. LI. I cannot come now, but assuredly I will some time or other, to see how this new relation sits upon you. I am naturally shy of new faces ; but the Lady who has 15 chosen my old friend Robert cannot have a repelling one. Assure her of my sincere congratulations and friendly feelings. Mary joins in both with me, and con- siders herself as only left out of your kind invitation by some Lapsus Styli.° We have already had all the 20 holydays we can have this year. We have been spend- ing our usual summer month at Richmond, from which place we traced the banks of the old Thames for ten and twenty miles, in daily walks or rides, and found beauties which may compare with Llswater and 25 Windermere. We visited Windsor, Hampton, etc. etc. COLLECTION OF LETTERS 23 — but this is a deviation from the subject with which I began my letter. Some day I certainly shall come and see you in your new light ; no longer the restless (but good) ( ? single) Robert ; but now the staid, sober (and not less good) 5 married Robert. And how does Plumstead, the im- petuous, take your getting the start of him? When will he subside into matrimony ? Priscilla has taken a long time indeed to think about it. I will suppose that her first choice is now her final ; though you do not 10 expressly say that she is to be a Wordsworth. I wish her, and dare promise her, all happiness. All these new nuptials do not make me unquiet in the perpetual prospect of celibacy. There is a quiet dig- nity in old bachelorhood, a leisure from cares, noise, 15 etc., an enthronisation upon the armed-chair of a man's feeling that he may sit, walk, read, unmolested, to none accountable — but hush ! or I shall be torn in pieces like a churlish Orpheus by young married women and bridesmaids of Birmingham. The close is this, 20 to every man that way of life, which in his election is best. Be as happy in yours as I am determined to be in mine, and we shall strive lovingly who shall sing best the praises of matrimony, and the praises of singleness. 25 Adieu, my old friend in a new character, and believe me that no "wounds" have pierced our friendship; only a long want of seeing each other has disfurnished 24 COLLECTION OF LETTERS us of topics on which to talk. Is not your new for- tunes a topic which may hold us for some months (the honey months at least) ? C. Lamb. (9) To Thomas Carlyle from His Father a?id Mother 5 Mainehill, 28th December, 1823. Dear Son — I have taken the pen in my hand to write a few lines to you to tell you how I come on, but indeed I, for some years, have written so little that I have almost forgotten it altogether, so I think you will io scarce can read it, but some says that anything can be read at Edinburgh, so I will try you with a few lines as is, and if it is not readable I will try to do better next time. I begin then with telling you the state of my own 15 health, which I am glad to say is just as good as I could wish for at my time of life, though frailty and weakness which goeth along with old age° is clearly felt to increase; but what can I say? that is natural for all mankind. But I must not leave this subject 20 that way, but tell you that I have not as yet taken the cold that I was troubled with in some former winters ; and that I can sleep sound at night and eat my meat and go about the town, and go to the meeting house on the Sabbath Day, so that I have no reason for com- 25 plaint. I go on next to tell you about our Crop, which COLLECTION OF LETTERS 25 doth not turn well out, but our Cattle is doing very well as yet, and we do not fear to meet the Landlord against the rent day. I was down at Eeclefechan this day, and was very glad to find a letter in the office from you, as we were beginning to look for one, and 5 Sandy was preparing a letter for you, and we thought best to join our scrawls together. If there is any news, I leave that for Sandy to tell you all these things, and I will say no more at this time, but tell you that I re- main, dear son, your loving Father, 10 Jas. Carlyle. Dear Tom — I need not tell you how glad I was to receive your kind letter, for I began to be uneasy. . . . O my dear Son, I have many mercies to be thankful for, and not the least of these is your affection. We 15 are all longing for February, when we hope to see you here, if God will. Do spare us as much time as possible when you come down; in the meantime let us be hearing from you often. Your affectionate Mother, 2 ° Margaret Carlyle. (10) Thomas Gray to Horace Walpole I was hindered in my last, and so could not give you all the trouble I would have done. The description of a road, which your coach wheels have so often honoured, 26 COLLECTION OF LETTERS it would be needless to give you; suffice it that I arrived safe at my uncle's, who is a great hunter in imagination ; his dogs take up every chair in the house, so I am forced to stand at this present writing. . . . 5 He holds me mighty cheap, I perceive, for walking when I should ride, and reading when I should hunt. My comfort amidst all this is, that I have at the distance of half a mile, through a green lane, a forest (the vulgar call it a common) all my own,° at least as good as so, 10 for I spy no human thing in it but myself. It is a little chaos of mountains and precipices; mountains, it is true, that do not ascend much above the clouds, nor are the declivities quite so amazing as Dover cliff; but just such hills as people who love their necks as 15 well as I do may venture to climb, and craggs that give the eye as much pleasure as if they were more dangerous. Both vale and hill are covered with most venerable beeches, and other very reverend vegetables, that, like most other ancient people, are always dream- 20 ing out their old stories to the winds, And as they bow, their hoary tops relate, In murmuring sounds, the dark decrees of fate ; While visions, as poetic eyes avow, Cling to each leaf and swarm on every bough. 25 At the foot of one of these squats ME I (il penseroso) and there grow to the trunk for a whole morning. The timorous hare and sportive squirrel gambol around COLLECTION OF LETTERS 27 me like Adam in paradise before he had an Eve ; but I think he did not use to read Virgil, as I commonly do there. In this situation I often converse with my Horace, aloud too, that is talk to you, but I do not remember that I ever heard you answer me. I beg 5 pardon for taking all the conversation to myself, but it is entirely your own fault. ... I shall be in town in about three weeks. Adieu. September 1737. (11) Washington Irving to Mrs. Kennedy Sunny side, March 11, 1853. 10 My dear Mrs. Kennedy : — I was really sad at heart at parting with you and Mary Kennedy at Washington. Indeed, had not your establishment fallen to pieces around me, I hardly know when I should have gotten away. I could almost have clung I5 to the wreck so long as there was a three-legged stool and a horn spoon to make shift with. You see what danger there is in domesticating me. I am sadly prone to take root where I find myself happy. It was some consolation to me, in parting, that I had Mrs. 2 o H — and the gentle Horseshoe for fellow-travellers. Without their company, I should have been completely downhearted. The former was bright, intelligent, and amiable as usual; and as to " John," you know he is a 28 COLLECTION OF LETTERS sympathizing soul. He saw I needed soothing, so he cracked some of his best jokes, and I was comforted. I arrived in New York too late for the Hudson River Railroad cars, so I had to remain in the city until 5 morning. Yesterday I alighted at the station, within ten minutes' walk of home. The walk was along the railroad, in full sight of the house. I saw female forms in the porch, and I knew the spy-glass was in hand. In a moment there was a waving of handker- 10 chiefs, and a hurrying hither and thither. Never did old bachelor come to such a loving home, so gladdened by blessed womankind. In fact, I doubt whether many married men receive such a heartfelt welcome. My friend Horseshoe, and one or two others of my acquaint- 15 ance, may ; but there are not many as well off in domestic life as I. However, let me be humbly thank- ful, and repress all vain-glory. ... I sallied forth to inspect my domains, wel- comed home by my prime minister, Robert, and my 20 master of the horse, Thomas, and my keeper of the poultry yard, William. Everything was in good order ; all had been faithful in the discharge of their duties. My fields had been manured, my trees trimmed, the fences repaired and painted. I realty believe more 25 had been done in my absence than would have been done had I been home. My horses were in good con- dition. Dandy and Billy, the coach-horses, were as sleek as seals. Gentleman Dick, my saddle-horse, COLLECTION OF LETTERS 29 showed manifest pleasure at seeing me ; put his cheek against mine, laid his head on my shoulder, and would have nibbled at my ear had I permitted it. One of my Chinese geese was sitting on eggs ; the rest were sailing like frigates in the pond, with a whole fleet of 5 white topknot ducks. The hens were vying with each other which could bring out the earliest brood of chickens. Taffy and Tony, two pet dogs of a dandy race, kept more for show than use, received me with well-bred though rather cool civility; while my little 10 terrier slut Ginger bounded about me almost crazy with delight, having five little Gingers toddling at her heels, with which she had enriched me during my absence. I forbear to say anything about my cows, my durham 15 heifer, or my pigeons, having gone as far with these rural matters as may be agreeable. Suffice it to say, everything was just as heart could wish; so, having visited every part of my empire, I settled down for the evening, in my elbow-chair, and entertained the 20 family circle with all the w r onders I had seen at Wash- ington. To-day I have dropped back into all my old habits. ... I have resumed my seat at the table in the study, where I am scribbling this letter, while an un- 25 seasonable snow-storm is prevailing out of doors. This letter will no doubt find you once more at your happy home in Baltimore, all fussing and bustling at 30 COLLECTION OF LETTERS an end, with time to nurse yourself, and get rid of that cold which has been hanging about you for so many days. And now let me express how much Lfeel obliged to 5 you and Kennedy for drawing me forth out of my little country nest, and setting me once more in circulation. This has grown out of our fortunate meeting and sojourn together at Saratoga last summer, and I count these occurrences as among the most pleasant events ioof my life. They have brought me into domestic communion with yourselves, your family connections and dearest intimacies, and have opened to me a little world of friendship and kindness, in which I have en- joyed myself with a full heart. is God bless you all, and make you as happy as you delight to make others. Ever yours, most truly, Washington Irving. (12) Rossetti to His Mother Kelmscott, Lechlade, 27 March, 1873. 20 My dearest Mother, — I hear with great anxiety from Maria that you have been suffering from an attack of influenza, and that you are still in bed. I hope Maria ° will continue to let me know regularly how you are. I trust, however, that the next news may be de- 25 cidedly favorable. COLLECTION OF LETTERS 31 The weather is very much finer here within some'da past, and I suppose the same is probably the case in London, so I heartily trust that this may have a benefi- cial effect upon a complaint like influenza. ******* I am meaning to dedicate to you the new edition 5 of my Italian Poets. The first was dedicated to poor Lizzy, and I had some thought of retaining the dedi- cation with date; but this seeming perhaps rather forced, I shall substitute your dear name in the second edition. 10 Hoping to hear a better account soon, I am ever Your most loving Son, D. Gabriel R. P. S. — I must really tell you about Dizzy, George's ° 15 dog. Some evenings back he was lying by the fire in my studio, when George, who was going to bed, roused him to accompany him, as he generally does. Dizzy however, w r as unwilling to quit the fire, and at last got so nasty and wicked that he bit George in the thumb. He was 20 then locked up in the coldest place that could be found. In the morning he trotted into the breakfast room as usual, but was received with shouts of obloquy, upon which he turned tail at once and fled. At dinner the same day he reappeared ; whereupon we tied him to the 25 leg of the piano and had in another dog who is here, called Turvy. We set a plate just out of Dizzy's reach 32 COLLECTION OF LETTERS and fed Turvy with three successive helpings of beef and macaroni, between each of which Dizzy's feelings found vent in "voci alte e fioche." After this Turvy was much caressed, and every now and then left us, 5 to walk round Dizzy and survey him as an accessory deserving of passing notice. Dizzy has been a convict ever since, and knows it. This morning, on entering the breakfast-room I found him rolled up on the mat before the fire, and, being occupied with other things, 10 for the moment forgot his position. On my appearance he raised his head in doubt, but, when I sat down and said nothing, he let his head drop again on the mat with an air of luxurious relief. This served as a re- minder, and I shrieked, "What, not Dizzy!" in such 15 tones that he arose and fled to the shades with an ex- pression of anguish which cannot be described. I think the ban will soon have to be taken off him now. At present the only relaxation is that he is allowed to ac- company us in our walks, but without recognition from 20 us. One only has to show one's thumb to him, and his sins fall back on his head in a moment, and drive him into solitude. (13) Thomas Hughes to Alexander Macmillan October 29, 1892. Dear Mac, — Can't help beginning in the old style, 25 tho' no doubt Mrs. Grundy would shake her head and COLLECTION OF LETTERS 33 say " Silly old fellows of 70 to be talking to one another in endearing diminutives." Never mind. Blow Mrs. Grundy ! We didn't heed her much in the forties, and I have been strengthening in that unbelief ever since. What a wise old boy he was — Scotch wasn't he ? — 5 who wrote up in stone letters over his front door " They say. What say they? Let them say." Well, but how are you ? And your wife and bairns ? And your roof-tree, and your oxen and asses, and all that is yours ? I haven't written these last months because ic I could see by the handwriting of your last how great an exertion it must be to you to answer, as I knew you would try to do (don't try again !) in your own hand, and you ought to make no exertion, but sit back easily in your big arm chair and think over no end of good times, 15 and as well spent a life as all but prophets like Maurice ° can reckon over in this tough old world — and then too the dear prophet was quite unable to think of any good times he had ever had or good he had done, but only of the wretched mess the poor old world had 20 blundered into, which he had been set specially to pull her out of and hadn't done it. So after all we are better off in our seventies than the prophets on this side the veil, however it may be on t'other. Good gracious, what a rigmarole I have been reeling out ! Fact is 25 I've got a wonderful new pen discovered by one of my registrars, which runs along all by itself, and is more than half responsible. I don't mean to read it over, 34 COLLECTION OF LETTERS but am sure it won't construe. The head-masters seem waking up to the need of teaching the dear boys who are coming on the English language ! More power to their elbows ! but I am too old to go to that school, 5 and when the boys have all learned to write like Julius Hare ° or Matt. Arnold or Goldwin Smith, I doubt if they will make or play a better hand for the old country than our lot did who only learnt our English by hap- hazard. . . . Here is Carrie in for the third time since 10 I started this to say tea is ready in the drawing-room, and that my commanding officer insists on my going in to partake of that meal and then to read Hole's ° Reminiscences aloud to her. Who is Hole ? We ought to have known him, as he seems a good broad Christian 15 and manly fellow who ought to have published in Bed- ford Street. So good-bye; you are always in our minds, and would be even in the absence of the capital picture by dear old Lowes Dickinson which, thanks to you, hangs at the end of the dining-room. Love and 20 all good wishes of Xmas and New Year from all of us to everybody. Ever affectionately yours, Thos. Hughes. II. Young People to their Elders (14) Louisa May Alcott to Her Father Boston, Nov. 29,° 1856. Dearest Father, — Your little parcel was very welcome to me as I sat alone in my room, with snow falling fast outside, and a few tears in (for birthdays are dismal times to me) ; and the fine letter, the pretty 5 gift, and, most of all, the loving thought so kindly taken for your old absent daughter, made the cold, dark day as warm and bright as summer to me. And now, with the birthday pin upon my bosom, many thanks on my lips, and a whole heart full of love io for its giver, I will tell you a little about my doings, stupid as they will seem after your own grand proceed- ings. How I wish I could be with you, enjoying what I have always longed for, — fine people, fine amusements, and fine books. But as I can't, I am glad you are ; for 15 I love to see your paper first among the lecturers, to hear it kindly spoken of in papers and inquired about by good people here, — to say nothing of the delight and pride I take in seeing you at last filling the place you are so fitted for, and which you have waited for so long 20 35 36 COLLECTION OF LETTERS and patiently. If the New Yorkers raise a statue to the modern Plato, it will be a wise and highly creditable action. 1* »r* *|* 5jc jjc rjc 5j» I am very well and very happy. Things go smoothly, 5 and I think I shall come out right, and prove that though an Alcott I can support myself. I like the in- dependent feeling ; and though not an easy life, it is a free one, and I enjoy it. I can't do much with my hands ; so I will make a battering-ram of my head and io make a way through this rough-and-tumble world. I have very pleasant lectures to amuse my evenings, — Professor Gajani on "Italian Reformers," the Mercan- tile Library course, Whipple, Beecher, and others, and, best of all, a free pass at the Boston Theatre. I 15 saw Mr. Barry, and he gave it to me with many kind speeches, and promises to bring out the play very soon. I hope he will. My farce is in the hands of Mrs. W. H. Smith, who acts at Laura Keene's theatre in*New York. She took 20 it, saying she would bring it out there. If you see or hear anything about it, let me know. I want some- thing doing. My mornings are spent in writing. C. takes one a month, and I am to see Mr. B., who may take some of my wares. 2s In the afternoons I walk and visit my hundred rela- tions, who are all kind and friendly, and seem in- terested in our various successes. COLLECTION OF LETTERS 37 Sunday evenings I go to Parker's parlor, and there meet Phillips, Garrison, Scherb, Sanborn, and many other pleasant people. All talk, and I sit in a corner listening, and wishing a certain placid gray-haired gentle- man was there talking too. Mrs. Parker calls on me, 5 reads my stories, and is very good to me. Theodore asks Louisa "how her worthy parents do," and is other- wise very friendly to the large, bashful girl who adorns his parlor steadily. Abby° is preparing for a busy and, I hope, a profitable 10 winter. She has music lessons already, French and drawing in store, and, if her eyes hold out, will keep her word and become what none of us can be, " an ac- complished Alcott." Now, dear Father, I shall hope to hear from you occasionally, and will gladly answer all 15 epistles from the Plato whose parlor parish is becoming quite famous. I got the "Tribune," but not the letter, and shall look it up. I have been meaning to write, but did not know where you were. Good-bye, and a happy birthday from your ever 20 loving child, Louisa. (15) Henry W. Longfellow to His Father December 5, 1824. I take this early opportunity to write to you, be- cause I wish to know T fully your inclination with regard 25 38 COLLECTION OF LETTERS to the profession I am to pursue when I leave col- lege. For ray part, I have already hinted to you what would best please me. I want to spend one year at Cambridge 5 for the purpose of reading history, and of becoming familiar with the best authors in polite literature; whilst at the same time I can be acquiring a knowledge of the Italian language, without an acquaintance w T ith which I shall be shut out from one of the most beautiful 10 departments of letters. The French I mean to under- stand pretty thoroughly before I leave college. After leaving Cambridge, I would attach myself to some liter- ary periodical publication, by which I could maintain myself and still enjoy the advantages of reading. Now, 15 1 do not think that there is anything visionary or chimerical in my plan thus far. The fact is — and I will not disguise it in the least, for I think I ought not — the fact is, I most eagerly aspire after future eminence in literature ; my whole soul burns most ardently for 20 it, and every earthly thought centres in it. There may be something visionary in this, but I flatter myself that I have prudence enough to keep my enthusiasm from defeating its own object by too great haste. Surely, there never was a better opportunity offered 25 for the exertion of literary talent in our own country than is now offered. To be sure, most of our literary men thus far have not been professedly so, until they have studied and entered the practice of Theology, COLLECTION OF LETTERS 39 Law, or Medicine. But this is evidently lost time. I do believe that we ought to pay more attention to the opinion of philosophers, that "nothing but Nature can qualify a man for knowledge/ ' Whether Nature has given me any capacity for knowl- 5 edge or not, she has at any rate given me a very strong predilection for literary pursuits, and I am almost con- fident in believing, that, if I can ever rise in the world, it must be by the exercise of my talent in the wide field of literature. With such a belief, I must say that I am 10 unwilling to engage in the study of the law. Here, then, seems to be the starting point : and I think it best for me to float out into the world upon that tide and in that channel which will the soonest bring me to my destined port, and not to struggle is against both wind and tide, and by attempting what is impossible lose everything. (16) Helen Keller to John Greenleaf Whittier Inst, for the Blind, So. Boston, Mass., Nov. 27, 1889. Dear Poet, — I think you will be surprised to receive 20 a letter from a little girl whom you do not know, but I thought you would be glad to hear that your beautiful poems make me very happy. Yesterday I read "In School Days" and "My Playmate," and I enjoyed them greatly. I was very sorry that the poor little girl 25 40 COLLECTION OF LETTERS with the browns and the "tangled golden curls" died. It is very pleasant to live in our beautiful world. I cannot see the lovely things with my eyes, but my mind can see them all, and so I am joyful all the day long. 5 When I walk out in my garden I cannot see the beautiful flowers but I know that they are all around me ; for is not the air sweet with their fragrance ? I know too that the tiny lily-bells are whispering pretty secrets to their companions else they would not iolook so happy. I love you very dearly, because you have taught me so many lovely things about flowers, and birds, and people. Now I must say, good-bye. I hope (you) will enjoy the Thanksgiving very much. From your loving little friend, 15 Helen A. Keller. To Mr. John Greenleaf Whittier. (17) Helen Keller to Phillips Brooks Tuscumbia, Alabama, July 14, 1890. My dear Mr. Brooks, — I am very glad to write to you this beautiful day because you are my kind friend 20 and I love you, and because I wish to know many things. I have been at home three weeks, and Oh, how happy I have been with dear mother and father and precious little sister. I was very, very sad to part with all of my friends in Boston, but I was so eager to 25 see my baby sister I could hardly wait for the train to take me home. But I tried very hard to be patient COLLECTION OF LETTERS 41 for teacher's sake. Mildred has grown much taller and stronger than she was when I went to Boston, and she is the sweetest and dearest child in the world. My parents were delighted to hear me speak, and I was overjoyed to give them such a happy surprise. I think s it is so pleasant to make everybody happy. Why does the dear Father in heaven think it best for us to have very great sorrow sometimes? I am always happy and so was Little Lord Fauntleroy, but dear little Jakey's life was full of sadness. God did not 10 put the light in Jakey's eyes and he was blind, and his father was not gentle and loving. Do you think poor Jakey loved his Father in heaven more because his other father was unkind to him? How did God tell people that his home was in heaven? When people do very 15 wrong and hurt animals and treat children unkindly God is grieved, but what will he do to them to teach them to be pitiful and loving ? I think he will tell them how dearly He loves them and that He wants them to be good and happy, and they will not wish to grieve 20 their father who loves them so much, and they will want to please him in everything they do, so they will love each other and do good to everyone, and be kind to animals. Please tell me something that you know about God. 25 It makes me happy to know much about my loving Father, who is good and wise. I hope you will write to your little friend when you have time. I should 42 COLLECTION OF LETTERS like very much to see you to-day. Is the sun very hot in Boston now? this afternoon if it is cool enough I shall take Mildred for a ride on my donkey. Mr. Wade sent Neddy to me, and he is the prettiest donkey 5 you can imagine. My great dog Lioness goes with us when we ride to protect us. Simpson, that is my brother, brought me some beautiful pond lilies yester- day — he is a very brother to me. Teacher sends you her kind remembrances, and 10 father and mother also send their regards. From your loving little friend, Helen A. Keller. (18) Rossetti to Aunt Charlotte 50 Charlotte Street, Sunday ? June, 1848. Dear Aunt Charlotte, — Ever since I received 15 your last letter (which I fear is very long ago) I have kept it lying on my table as a memento. The fact is that I should have answered it long ago, had I not wished my answer to be accompanied by the poem which I enclose, and which wanted a few finishing 20 touches. ... It is the one of my precious per- formances which is, I think, the most likely to please you as to style and subject. All the others are of course completely at your service, and shall be sent, if you so desire, immediately upon an intimation from you to 25 that effect. I only refrain from doing so till then be- COLLECTION OF LETTERS 43 cause I do not wish you to pay heavy postage for things of such a little value. I hope you will not be displeased at my adding that I should not wish the verses to be seen by any one but yourself, as I think an unpublished poet is always rather a ridiculous character to appears in before strangers. I continue going to the Life-school in Maddox Street, where I enjoy my studies much. During the day I paint at Mr. Brown's, who is an invaluable acquisition to me as regards the art, and moreover a most delightful 10 friend. We are already quite confidential. His kind- ness, and the trouble he takes about me, are really astonishing; I cannot imagine what I have done to deserve them. Yesterday I showed him some of my poetical productions, which he seemed to like much, 15 especially the one I send you. Indeed I think myself that it is perhaps the best thing as yet, being more simple and like nature. (19) Thomas Carlyle to His Mother Edinburgh, Wednesday evening, (December 1821.) 20 My dear Mother. — I have but a few minutes to give you at present ; but here is a little sovereign, which I got a while ago, and must write three words along 44 COLLECTION OF LETTERS with, ere I send it you. It is to keep the Fiend out of your Housewife (Hussy) in these hard times, and to get little odds and ends with in due time. If I were beside you, I should have to encounter no little moles- 5 tation, before I could prevail upon you to accept this most small matter : but being at the safe distance of seventy miles, I fear it not. You would tell me I am poor and have so few myself of those coins. But I am going to have plenty by and by : and if I had but 10 one, I do not see how I could purchase more enjoyment with it, than if I shared it with you. Be not in want of anything, I entreat you, that I can possibly get for you. It would be hard indeed, if in the autumn of a life, the spring and summer of which you have spent well, in 15 taking care of us, we should know what could add to your frugal enjoyments, and not procure it. Ask me, ask me for something. I am very busy at present, as Alick° will tell you; and therefore moderately happy. If health were 20 added. — But there is always some if. In fact, I ought not to complain, even on this latter score. I think I am at least where I icas, when you saw me : perhaps better on the whole ; and I hope frosty weather is coming, which will make me better still. The other 25 day I saw one of my constant walks last summer; and I could not help accusing myself of ingratitude to the Giver of all good for the great recovery I have experienced since then. COLLECTION OF LETTERS 45 I intend to labour as hard as possible throughout the winter, rinding nothing to be so useful for me every- way. I shall make occasional excursions into the country, by way of relaxation. I think of going to Kirkcaldy (whither I am bidden) for a day or two about 5 Christmas : and I have a standing invitation, from a very excellent Mrs. Welsh, to go to Haddington, often, as if I were going home. This is very pleesant, as Ha'- bank ° said. My Father is to write me next time : and what 10 hinders Mag and Mary° and James the Ploughman? I shall (be) very angry with them if they keep such silence. Tell them so, one and all. My love to Jean and Jenny : ° they cannot WTite, or they would. I long to hear of your own welfare, my dear Mother, 15 particularly of your health, which costs me many a thought. I am always, your affectionate son, Thomas Carlyle. (20) Thomas Carlyle to His Mother 3 Moray Street, Saturday, (May 1822?). 20 My dear Mother — ... You will find here a bonnet of Imperial chip or Simple chip, or Real chip, or what- ever it is, which I hope will arrive safely and be found to suit you. I think it looks like your head. I wish 46 COLLECTION OF LETTERS it were fifty times better for your sake : it would still be the most feeble testimony of what I owe to your kind affection, which has followed me unweariedly through good and evil fortune, soothing and sweetening 5 all the days of my existence, and which I trust Provi- dence will yet long, long continue for a blessing to us both. I know you will fret about those things, and talk about expense and so forth. This is quite erroneous 10 doctrine : the few shillings that serve to procure a lit- tle enjoyment to your frugal life are as mere nothing in the outlay of this luxurious city. If you want any other thing, I do beg you would let me know : there is not any way in which I can spend a portion of my earnings is so advantageously. Tell me honestly, Do you get tea and other things comfortably? I should be very sorry if you restricted yourself for any reason but from choice. It would be a fine thing surely, if you that have toiled for almost half a century in nourishing stalwart 20 sons, should not now by this means have a little ease and comfort, when it lies in their power to gain it for you ! I again entreat you, if you wish for anything within the reach of my ability, to let me hear of it. I entrust you with my affectionate remembrances 25 to my Father, and all the family, every one. They owe me letters now, which they cannot pay a minute too soon. Bid the Carrier be sure to ask for the box° COLLECTION OF LETTERS 47 next time he comes ; it will be in readiness for him. At the present, I do not want anything. I shall give you proper notice when I do. Farewell, my dear Mother ! May all Good be with you always ! Your affectionate Son, Th. Carlyle. III. Grown People to Children (21) Phillips Brooks to His Niece Hotel du Nord, Berlin, September 10, 1882. My dear Gertie, — This is Sunday morning. It is just after breakfast, about a quarter before nine o'clock. In a shop window on this street, I see a great big clock 5 every time I go out. It has seven faces, and each face tells what time it is in some one of the great cities of the world. The one in the middle tells what time it is in Berlin, and all around that are the other great cities ; it has not got North Andover, for that is too io small ; it is not one of the great cities of the world, but it has New York. Yesterday, as I passed it about one o'clock, I saw that it was about five in New York, so I know now that it cannot be quite three in North Andover. You will not go to church for a good while 15 yet, so will have time enough to read my letter twice before you go. I came here last Wednesday, and am going to stay for some time. In fact, I feel as if I lived in Berlin. I send you a picture of the house, with a line drawn 48 COLLECTION OF LETTERS 49 around my two windows. The children at the door are not you and Agnes. I wish they were. The children in Paris all wore blouses, and the children in Venice did not wear much of anything. Here they all wear satchels. I never saw such children 5 for going to school. The streets are full of them, going or coming, all the time. They are queer little white-headed, blue-eyed things, many of them very pretty indeed, but they grow up into dreadful-looking men and women. They wear their satchels strapped 10 on their backs like soldiers' knapsacks, and w T hen you see a schoolful of three hundred letting out, it is very funny. Only two houses up the street lives the Emperor. He and his wife are out of town now, or no doubt they 15 would send some word to Toody. Affectionately your uncle, Phillips. (22) Phillips Brooks to His Niece Wittenberg, Sunday, September 24, 1882. My dear Agnes, — I was glad to get your letter, 20 which reached me a few T days ago in Berlin. I think you were very good indeed to write me, and it was a nice letter. . . . Did you ever hear of Wittenberg? You will find it on the map, not very far from Berlin. It used to be a 25 E 50 COLLECTION OF LETTERS very famous place when Martin Luther lived here, and was preaching his sermons in the church whose clock I just now heard strike a quarter of one, and was writing his books in the room whose picture is at the top of 5 this sheet of paper. I am sure you know all about Luther. If not, ask Toody, she knows most everything. In the picture, you can see Luther's table, the seat in the window where he and his wife used to sit and talk, the big stove which he had built to warm his cold room, 10 and the bust of himself, which was taken just after he died, and hung up here. With the exception of that, everything remains just exactly as he left it, over three hundred years ago, before your papa, mamma, or aunt Susan was born. 15 It is a queer old town. Just now, when it was twelve o'clock, I heard some music, and looked out and found that a band of music was playing psalm tunes away up in the air in the tower of the old parish church. My window looks out on the market-place, where 20 there are two statues, one of Luther, and one of Melanchthon, who was a great friend of his. Gertie will tell you about him. And the houses are the funniest shape, and have curious mottoes carved or painted over their front door. I came here from Berlin 25 yesterday, and am going to travel about in Germany for a few weeks, and then go back to Berlin again. Berlin is very nice. I wish I could tell you about a visit which I made, Friday, to one of the great public COLLECTION OF LETTERS 51 schools, where I saw a thousand boys and a thousand girls, and the way they spelt the hard words in German would have frightened you to death. Tell Susie that I thank her for her beautiful little letter, and hope she will write me another. You must 5 write me again. Give my best love to everybody, and do not forget your affectionate uncle. P. (23) Phillips Brooks to His Niece Grand Hotel, Vienna, November 19, 1882. Very private !! 10 Dear Gertie, — This letter is an awful secret between you and me. If you tell anybody about it, I will not speak to you all this winter. And this is what it is about. You know Christmas is coming, and I am afraid that I shall not get home by that time, and 15 so I want you to go and get the Christmas presents for the children. The grown people will not get any from me this year. But I do not want the children to go without, so you must find out, in the most secret way, just what Agnes and Toody would most like to have, 20 and get it and put it in their stockings on Christmas Eve. Then you must ask yourself what you want, but without letting yourself know about it, and get it too, and put it in your own stocking, and be very much surprised when you find it there. And then you must sit down 25 52 COLLECTION OF LETTERS and think about Josephine De Wolf and the other baby at Springfield whose name I do not know, and consider what they would like, and have it sent to them in time to reach them on Christmas Eve. Will you do all this 5 for me ? You can spend five dollars for each child, and if you show your father this letter, he will give you the money out of some of mine which he has got. That rather breaks the secret, but you will want to consult your father and mother about what to get, especially io for the Springfield children; so you may tell them about it, but do not dare to let any of the children know of it until Christinas time. Then you can tell me in your Christmas letter just how you have managed about it all. . . . is This has taken up almost all my letter, and so I cannot tell you much about Vienna. Well, there is not a great deal to tell. It is an immense great city with very splendid houses and beautiful pictures and fine shops and handsome people. But I do not think the 2oAustrians are nearly as nice as the ugly, honest Germans. Do you ? Perhaps you will get this on Thanksgiving Day. If you do, you must shake the turkey's paw for me, and tell him that I am very sorry I could not come this 25 year, but I shall be there next year certain ! Give my love to all the children. I had a beautiful letter from aunt Susan the other day, which I am going to answer as soon as it stops raining. Tell her so, if you see her. COLLECTION OF LETTERS 53 Be a good girl, and do not study too hard, and keep our secret. Your affectionate uncle, Phillips. (24) Phillips Brooks to His Niece Jeypore, January 7, 1883. 5 My dear Gertie, — I wish you had been here with me yesterday. We would have had a beautiful time. You would have had to get up at five o'clock, for at six the carriage was at the door, and we had already had our breakfast. But in this country you do every- 10 thing you can very early, so as to escape the hot sun. It is very hot in the middle of the day, but quite cold now at night and in the mornings and evenings. Well, as we drove into the town (for the bungalow where we are staying is just outside), the sun rose and the 15 streets were full of light. The town is all painted pink, which makes it the queerest-looking place you ever saw, and on the out- sides of the pink houses there are pictures drawn, some of them very solemn and some very funny, which 20 makes it very pleasant to drive up the street. We drove through the street, which was crowded with camels and elephants and donkeys, and women wrapped up like bundles, and men chattering like monkeys, and monkeys themselves, and naked little children 25 54 COLLECTION OF LETTERS rolling in the dust, and playing queer Jeypore games. All the little girls, when they get to be about your age, hang jewels in their noses, and the women all have their noses looking beautiful in this way. I have got a nose 5 jewel for you, which I shall put in when I get home, and also a little button for the side of Susie's nose, such as the smaller children wear. Think how the girls at school will admire you. Well, we drove out the other side of the queer pink 10 town, and went on toward the old town, which they deserted a hundred years ago, w^hen they built this. The priest told the rajah, or king, that they ought not to live more than a thousand years in one place, and so, as the old town was about a thousand years old, the 15 king left it ; and there it stands about five miles off, with only a few beggars and a lot of monkeys for in- habitants of its splendid palaces and temples. As we drove along toward it, the fields were full of peacocks and all sorts of bright-winged birds, and out of the 20 ponds and streams the crocodiles stuck up their lazy heads and looked at us. The hills around are full of tigers and hyenas, but they do not come down to the town, though I saw a cage of them there which had been captured only about a 25 month and were very fierce. Poor things ! When we came to the entrance of the old town, there was a splen- did great elephant waiting for us, which the rajah had sent. He sent the carriage, too. The elephant COLLECTION OF LETTERS 55 had his head and trunk beautifully painted, and looked almost as big as Jumbo. He knelt down, and we climbed up by a ladder and sat upon his back, and then he toiled up the hill. I am afraid he thought Americans must be very heavy, and I do not know whether he 5 could have carried you. Behind us, as we w T ent up the hill, came a man leading a little black goat, and when I asked what it was for, they said it was for sacrifice. It seems a horrid old goddess has a temple on the hill, and years ago they used to sacrifice men to her, to make 10 her happy and kind. But a merciful rajah stopped that, and made them sacrifice goats instead, and now they give the horrid old goddess a goat every morning, and she likes it just as well. When we got into the old town, it was a perfect wilder- 15 ness of beautiful things, — lakes, temples, palaces, porticos, all sorts of things in marble and fine stones, with sacred long-tailed monkeys running over all. But I must tell you all about the goddess, and the way they cut off the poor goat's little black head, and all 20 the rest that I saw, when I get home. Don't you w T ish you had gone with me ? Give my love to your father and mother and Agnes and Susie. I am dying to know about your Christmas and the presents. Do not forget your affectionate 25 uncle Phillips. 56 COLLECTION OF LETTERS (25) Phillips Brooks to Ills Niece Westminster Palace Hotel, London, June 3, 1883. My dear Tood, — Your wicked papa has not sent me any letter this week, and so I am not going to 5 write to him to-day, but I shall answer your beautiful letter, which traveled all the way to London, and was delivered here by a postman with a red coat, two or three weeks ago. He looked very proud when he came in, as if he knew that he had a beautiful letter in his io bundle, and all the people in the street stood aside to make way for him, so that Tood's letter might not be delayed. How quickly you have learned to read and write! I am very sorry for you, for they now will make you read 15 and study a great many stupid books, and you will have to write letters all your days. When I get home, I am going to make you write my sermons for me, and I think of engaging you for my amanuensis at a salary of twenty cents a month, with which you can buy no 20 end of gumdrops. If 3011 do not know w^hat an amanuensis is, ask Agnes, and tell her I will bring her a present if she can spell it right the first time. Poor little Gertie ! What a terrible time she has had. It must have been very good for her to have you to 25 take care of her, and run her errands, and play with her, COLLECTION OF LETTERS 57 and write her letters. I suppose that is the reason why vou hurried so and learned to write. It was a great pity that I never got her letter about the Christ- mas presents, but I am very glad that you liked the coupe. What do you want me to bring you home from 5 London? Write me another letter and tell me, and tell Gertie I shall be very happy when I get another letter from her written with her own little fingers. I want to see your new house, wdiich I am sure will be very pretty. I wonder wdiere you are going to be 10 this summer? Now, I am going off to preach in a queer old church built almost a thousand years ago, before your father or mother was born. Give my love to them, and to Agnes, and to Gertie, and to the new doll. 15 Your affectionate uncle, Phillips. (26) Tennyson to His Son, Hallam Tintagel, Aug. 25th, 1860. My dear Hallam, — I was very glad to receive your little letter. Mind that you and Lionel do not 20 quarrel and vex poor mamma who has lots of work to do ; and learn your lessons regularly ; for gentlemen and ladies will not take you for a gentleman when you grow up if you are ignorant. Here are great black cliffs of slaterock, and deep, black caves, and the ruined 58 COLLECTION OF LETTERS castle of King Arthur, and I wish that you and Lionel and mamma were here to see them. Give my love to grandpapa and to Lionel, and work well at your lessons. I shall be glad to find you know more and 5 more every day. Your loving papa, A. Tennyson. (27) Thomas Carlyle to Little Jane Carlyle 3 Moray Street, January (1822). Dear Little Jane, — Thou never wrotest me any io kind of letter, yet I would be glad to see one from thy hand. There is in that little body of thine as much wis- dom as ever inhabited so small a space ; besides thou art a true character, steel to the back, never told a lie, never flinched from telling truth; and for all these 15 things I love thee, my little Jane, and wish thee many blithe new years from the bottom of my heart. Does the little creature ever make any rhymes now ? Can she write any? Is she at any school? Has she read the book we sent her ? Tell me all this — if 20 thou hast power even to form strokes, that is, to go through the first elements of writing. I am living here in a great monster of a place, with towers and steeples, and grand houses all in rows, and coaches and cars and men and women by thousands, all very grand; 25 but I never forget the good people at Mainhill — nor COLLECTION OF LETTERS 59 thee, among the least in stature though not the least in worth. Write then if thou canst. I am very tired, but always thy affectionate Brother, Th. Carlyle. Give my compliments to Nimble, that worthiest of 5 curs. Is Jamie Aitken with you still? I reckon him to be a worthy boy. (28) Lewis Carroll to Gertrude Christ Church, Oxford, October 13, 1875. My dear Gertrude, — I never give birthday presents, but you see I do sometimes write a birthday io letter: so, as I've just arrived here, I am writing this to wish you many and many a happy return of your birthday to-morrow. I will drink your health, if only I can remember, and if you don't mind — but perhaps you object ? You see, if I were to sit by you at break- 15 fast, and to drink your tea, you wouldn't like that, would you ? You would say " Boo ! hoo ! Here's Mr. Dodgson's drunk all my tea, and I haven't got any left!" So I am very much afraid, next time Sybil looks for you, she'll find you sitting by the sad sea- 20 wave, and crying " Boo ! hoo ! Here's Mr. Dodgson has drunk my health, and I haven't got any left!" And how it will puzzle Dr. Maund, when he is sent for to see you ! " My dear Madam, I'm very sorry to say 60 COLLECTION OF LETTERS your little girl has got no health at all! I never saw such a thing in my life!" "Oh, I can easily explain it!" your mother will say. " You see she would go and make friends with a strange gentleman, and yesterday he 5 drank her health!" "Well, Mrs. Chataway," he will say, "the only way to cure her is to wait till his next birthday, and then for her to drink his health." And then we shall have changed healths. I won- der how you'll like mine ! Oh, Gertrude, I wish you 10 wouldn't talk such nonsense ! . . . Your loving friend, Lewis Carroll. (29) Lewis Carroll to Gertrude Christ Church, Oxford, Dec. 9, 1875. My dear Gertrude, — This reallv will not do, vou is know, sending one more kiss every time by post ; the parcel gets so heavy it is quite expensive. When the postman brought in the last letter, he looked quite grave. "Two pounds to pay, sir!" he said. "Extra weight, sir!" (I think he cheats a little, by the way. 20 He often makes me pay two pounds, when I think it should be pence.) "Oh, if you please, Mr. Postman ! " I said, going down gracefully on one knee (I wish you could see me go down on one knee to a postman — it's a very pretty sight), "do excuse me just this once! 25 It's only from a little girl !" COLLECTION OF LETTERS 61 "Only from a little girl!" he growled. "What are little girls made of?" "Sugar and spice," I began to say, "and all that's ni — " but he interrupted me. " Xo ! I don't mean that. I mean, what's the good of little girls, when they send such heavy letters?" 5 "Well, they're not much good, certainly," I said, rather sadly. "Mind you don't get any more such letters," he said, "at least, not from that particular little girl. I know her ivell, and she's a regular bad one /" That's not true, 10 is it? I don't believe he ever saw you, and you're not a bad one, are you ? However, I promised him we would send each other very few more letters — " Only two thousand four hundred and seventy, or so," I said. " Oh ! " he said, " a little number like that doesn't signify. 15 What I meant is, you mustn't send many.'" So you see we must keep count now, and when we get to two thousand four hundred and seventy, we mustn't write any more, unless the postman gives us leave. 20 I sometimes wish I was back on the shore at San- down; don't you? Your loving friend, Lewis Carroll. Why is a pig that has lost its tail like a little girl on the seashore ? Because it says, "I should like another tale, 25 please." 62 COLLECTION OF LETTERS (30) Lewis Carroll to Ada° Christ Church, Oxford, March 3, 1880. My dear Ada, — (Isn't that your short name ? "Adelaide" is all very well, but you see when one is dreadfully busy one hasn't time to write such long 5 words — particularly when it takes one half an hour to remember how to spell it — and even then one has to go and get a dictionary to see if one has spelt it right, and of course the dictionary is in another room, at the top of a high bookcase — where it has been for io months and months, and has got all covered with dust — so one has to get a duster first of all, and nearly choke oneself in dusting it — and when one has made out at last which is dictionary and which is dust, even then there's the job of remembering which end of the 15 alphabet "A" comes — for one feels pretty certain it isn't in the middle — then one has to go and wash one's hands before turning over the leaves — for they've got so thick with dust one hardly knows them by sight — and, as likely as not, the soap is lost and the jug is 20 empty, and there's no towel, and one has to spend hours and hours in finding things — and perhaps after all one has to go off to the shop to buy a new cake of soap — so, with all this bother, I hope you won't mind my writing it short and saying, "My dear 25 Ada"). You said in your last letter you would like COLLECTION OF LETTERS 63 a likeness of me : so here it is, and I hope you will like it — I won't forget to call the next time but one I'm in Wallington. Your very affectionate friend, Lewis Carroll. IV. » To Strangers (31) Harriet Beecher Stowe to Mrs. Foil en ° Andover, February 16. My dear Madam, — I hasten to reply to your letter, to me the more interesting that I have long been ac- quainted with you, and during all the nursery part of 5 my life made daily use of your poems for children. I used to think sometimes in those days that I would write to you, and tell you how much I was obliged to you for the pleasure which they gave us all. So you want to know something about what sort of io a woman I am ! Well, if this is any object, you shall have statistics free of charge. To begin, then, I am a little bit of a woman, — somewhat more than forty, about as thin and dry as a pinch of snuff ; never very much to look at in my best days, and looking like a 15 used-up article now. I was married when I was twenty-five years old to a man rich in Greek and Hebrew, Latin and Arabic, and, alas ! rich in nothing else. When I went to housekeep- ing, my entire stock of china for parlor and kitchen 64 COLLECTION OF LETTERS 65 was bought for eleven dollars. That lasted very well for two years, till my brother was married and brought his bride to visit me. I then found, on review, that I had neither plates nor teacups to set a table for my father's family ; wherefore I thought it best to reinforce 5 the establishment by getting me a tea-set that cost ten dollars more, and this, I believe, formed my whole stock in trade for some years. But then I was abundantly enriched with wealth of another sort. 10 I had two little curly-headed twin daughters to begin with, and my stock in this line has gradually increased, till I have been the mother of seven children, the most beautiful and the most loved of whom lies buried near my Cincinnati residence. It was at his dying bed 15 and at his grave that I learned what a poor slave mother may feel when her child is torn away from her. In those depths of sorrow T which seemed to me immeasur- able, it was my only prayer to God that such anguish might not be suffered in vain. There were circum- 20 stances about his death of such peculiar bitterness, of what seemed almost cruel suffering, that I felt that I could never be consoled for it unless this crushing of my own heart might enable me to work out some great good to others. „ • . 25 I allude to this here because I have often felt that much that is in that book (" Uncle Tom") had its root in the awful scenes and bitter sorrows of that summer. p 66 COLLECTION OF LETTERS It has left now, I trust, no trace on my mind except a deep compassion for the sorrowful, especially for mothers who are separated from their children. During long years of struggling with poverty and s sickness, and a hot, debilitating climate, my children grew up around me. The nursery and the kitchen w^ere my principal fields of labor. Some of my friends, pitying my trials, copied and sent a number of little sketches from my pen to certain liberally paying "An- ionuals" with my name. With the first money that I earned in this way I bought a feather-bed ! for as I had married into poverty and without a dowry, and as my husband had only a large library of books and a great deal of learning, the bed and pillows were thought 15 the most profitable investment. After this I thought that I had discovered the philosopher's stone. So when a new carpet or mattress was going to be needed, or when, at the close of the year, it began to be evident that my family accounts, like poor Dora's, " wouldn't 20 add up," then I used to say to my faithful friend and factotum, Anna, who shared all my joys and sorrows, "Now, if you will keep the babies and attend to the things in the house for one day, I'll write a piece, and then we shall be out of the scrape." So I became an 25 author, — very modest at first, I do assure you, and remonstrating very seriously with the friends who had thought it best to put my name to the pieces by way of getting up a reputation ; and if you ever see a wood- COLLECTION OF LETTERS 67 cut of me, with an immoderately long nose, on the cover of all the U. S. Almanacs, I wish you to take notice that I have been forced into it contrary to my natural modesty by the imperative solicitations of my dear five thousand friends and the public generally. 5 Ome thing I must say with regard to my life at the West, which you will understand better than many English women could. I lived two miles from the city of Cincinnati, in the country, and domestic service, not always you know to 10 be found in the city, is next to an impossibility to obtain in the country, even by those who are willing to give the highest wages ; so what was to be expected for poor me, who had very little of this world's goods to offer? Had it not been for my inseparable friend, Anna, a is noble-hearted English girl, who landed on our shores in destitution and sorrow, and clave to me as Ruth to Naomi, I had never lived through all the trials which this uncertainty and want of domestic service imposed on both ; you may imagine, therefore, how glad I was 20 when, our seminary property being divided out into small lots which were rented at a low price, a number of poor families settled in our vicinity, from whom we could occasionally obtain domestic service. About a dozen families of liberated slaves were among the number, 25 and they became my favorite resort in cases of emer- gency. If anybody wishes to have a black face look handsome, let them be left, as I have been, in feeble 68 COLLEGTION OF LETTERS health in oppressive hot weather, with a sick baby in arms, and two or three other little ones in the nursery, and not a servant in the whole house to do a single turn. Then, if they could see my good old x\unt Frankie 5 coming with her honest, bluff, black face, her long, strong arms, her chest as big and stout as a barrel, and her hilarious, hearty laugh, perfectly delighted to take one's washing and do it at a fair price, they would appreciate the beauty of black people. 10 My cook, poor Eliza Buck, — how she would stare to think of her name going to England ! — was a regu- lar epitome of slave life in herself; fat, gentle, easy, loving and lovable, always calling my very modest house and dooryard "The Place," as if it had been a 15 plantation with seven hundred hands on it. She had lived through the whole sad story of a Virginia-raised slave's life. In her youth she must have been a very handsome mulatto girl. Her voice was sweet, and her manners refined and agreeable. She was raised in a 20 good family as a nurse and seamstress. When the family became embarrassed, she was suddenly sold on to a plantation in Louisiana. She has often told me how, without any warning, she was suddenly forced into a carriage, and saw her little mistress screaming 25 and stretching her arms from the window towards her as she was driven away. She has told me of scenes on the Louisiana plantation, and she has often been out at night by stealth ministering to poor slaves who had COLLECTION OF LETTER 69 been mangled and lacerated by the lash. Hence she was sold into Kentucky. . . . Time would fail to tell you all that I learned incidentally of the slave system in the history of various slaves who came into my family, and of the underground railroad ° which, I may 5 say, ran through our house. But the letter is already too long. You ask with regard to the remuneration which I have received for my work here in America. Having been poor all my life and expecting to be poor the rest 10 of it, the idea of making money by a book which I wrote just because I could not help it never occurred to me. It was therefore an agreeable surprise to receive ten thousand dollars as the first-fruits of three months' sale. I presume as much more is now due. Mr. Bos- 15 worth in England, the firm of Clarke & Co., and Mr. Bentley, have all offered me an interest in the sales of their editions in London. I am very glad of it, both on account of the value of what thev offer, and the value of the example they set in this matter, wherein I think 20 that justice has been too little regarded. I have been invited to visit Scotland, and shall prob- ably spend the summer there and in England. I have very much at heart a design to erect in some of the Northern States a normal school for the education 25 of colored teachers in the United States and in Canada. I have very much wished that some permanent memorial of good to the colored race might be created 70 COLLECTION OF LETTERS out of the proceeds of a work which promises to have so unprecedented a sale. My own share of the profits will be less than that of the publishers, either English or American; but I am willing to give largely for 5 this purpose, and I have no doubt that the publishers, both American and English, will unite with me; for nothing tends more immediately to the emancipa- tion of the slave than the education and elevation of the free. 10 I am now writing a work which will contain, perhaps, an equal amount of matter with "Uncle Tom's Cabin." It will contain all the facts and documents on which that story was founded, and an immense body of facts, reports of trials, legal documents, and testimony of 15 people now living South, which will more than confirm every statement in "Uncle Tom's Cabin." I must confess that till I began the examination of facts in order to write this book, much as I thought I knew before, I had not begun to measure the depth of 20 the abyss. The law records of courts and judicial pro- ceedings are so incredible as to fill me with amazement whenever I think of them. It seems to me that the book cannot but be felt, and, coming upon the sensi- bility awaked by the other, do something. 25 I suffer exquisitely in writing these things. It may be truly said that I write with my heart's blood. Many times in writing "Uncle's Tom's Cabin" I thought my health would fail utterly ; but I prayed earnestly that COLLECTION OF LETTERS 71 God would help me till I got through, and still I am pressed beyond measure and above strength. This horror, this nightmare abomination ! can it be in my country ! It lies like lead on my heart, it shadows my life with sorrow ; the more so that I feel, as for my 5 own brothers, for the South, and am pained by every horror I am obliged to write, as one who is forced by some awful oath to disclose in court some family dis- grace. Many times I have thought that I must die, and yet I pray God that I may live to see something 10 done. I shall in all probability be in London in May : shall I see you ? It seems to me so odd and dream-like that so many persons desire to see me, and now I cannot help thinking that they will think, when they do, that God hath 15 chosen "the weak things of this world.'' If I live till spring I shall hope to see Shakespeare's grave, and Milton's mulberry-tree, and the good land of my fathers, — old, old England ! May that day come ! m 20 Yours affectionately, H. B. Stowe. (32) George Meredith to Alfred, Lord Tennyson Sir, — When I tell you that it would have been my chief ambition in publishing the little volume of poems you have received, to obtain your praise, you may 25 imagine what pride and pleasure your letter gave me ; 72 COLLECTION OF LETTERS though, indeed, I do not deserve so much as your generous appreciation would bestow, and of this I am very conscious. I had but counted twenty-three years when the book was published, which may account for, 5 and excuse perhaps many of the immaturities. When you say you would like to know me, I can scarcely trust myself to express with how much delight I would wait upon you — a privilege I have long desired. As I suppose the number of poetic visits you receive are 10 fully as troublesome as the books, I will not venture to call on you until you are able to make an appointment. My residence and address is Wey bridge, but I shall not return to Town from Southend before Friday week. If in the meantime you will fix any day following that 15 date, I shall gladly avail myself of the honour of your invitation. My address here is care of Mrs. Peacock, Southend, Essex. I have the honour to be, most faithfully yours, George Meredith. 20 Alfred Tennyson, Esq. (33) Thomas Henry Huxley to G S Hodelsea, Nov. 9, 1893. Sir, — We are all "ignoramuses" 3 more or less — and cannot reproach one another. If there were any sign of conceit in your letter, you would not get this. 25 On the contrary, it pleases me. Your observations COLLECTION OF LETTERS 73 are quite accurate and clearly described — ■ and to he accurate in observation and clear in description is the first step towards good scientific work. You are seeing just what the first workers with the microscope saw a couple of centuries ago. 5 Get some such book as Carpenter's "On the Micro- scope" and you will see what it all means. Are there no science classes in Southampton ? There used to be, and I suppose is, a Hartley Institute. If you want to consult books you cannot otherwise 10 obtain, take this to the librarian, give him my compli- ments, and say I should be very much obliged if he would help you. I am, yours very faithfully, T. H. Huxley. is (34) Thomas Carlyle to W. Lattimer ° The Grange, 15 Deer., 1853. Sir, — I myself hear nothing practical as yet about that cheap edition of my Book; and am inclined to think it may still be a year or two before any such edi- tion actually see the light. This is all the intelligence 20 I can send you on that subject. As you seem to be a studious enquiring man, I will recommend you to read well what good Books you have at command, and to reckon always that reading well is greatly more important than reading much. Not to 25 74 COLLECTION OF LETTERS say that the best wisdom, for every man, does not lie in Books at all, but in what conclusions he himself can form, and what just insight arrive at, from all manner of suggestions and helps, whereof Books are 5 but one sort. With many kind wishes, I remain, Yours sincerely, T. Carlyle. V. Stirring Events (35) Jane Welsh Carlyle to Mrs. Welsh Chelsea : Sept. 5, 1836. My dear Aunt, — Now that I am fairly settled at home again, and can look back over my late travels with the coolness of a spectator, it seems to me that I must have tired out all men, women, and children 5 that have had to do with me by the road. The prov- erb says 'there is much ado when cadgers ride.' I do not know~ precisely what ' cadger' means, but I imagine it to be a character like me, liable to headache, to sea- sickness, to all the infirmities 'that flesh is heir to,' 10 and a few others besides ; the friends and relations of cadgers should therefore use all soft persuasions to induce them to remain at home. I got into that Mail the other night with as much repugnance and trepidation as if it had been a Phalaris' 15 brazen bull, instead of a Christian vehicle, invented for purposes of mercy — not of cruelty. There were three besides myself when we started, but two dropped off at the end of the first stage, and the rest of the way I had, as usual, half of the coach to myself. My fellow- 20 75 76 COLLECTION OF LETTERS passenger had that highest of all terrestrial qualities, which for me a fellow-passenger can possess — he was silent. I think his name was Roscoe, and he read sundry long papers to himself, with the pondering air 5 of a lawyer. We breakfasted at Lichfield, at five in the morning, on muddy coffee and scorched toast, which made me once more lyrically recognise in my heart (not without a sigh of regret) the very different coffee and toast iowith which you helped me out of my headache. At two there was another stop of ten minutes, that might be employed in lunching or otherwise. Feeling my- self more fevered than hungry, I determined on spend- ing the time in combing my hair and washing my face 15 and hands with vinegar. In the midst of this solacing operation I heard what seemed to be the Mail running its rapid course, and quick as lightning it flashed on me, ' There it goes ! and my luggage is on the top of it, and my purse is in the pocket of it, and here am I 20 stranded on an unknown beach, without so much as a sixpence in my pocket to pay for the vinegar I have already consumed ! ' Without my bonnet, my hair hanging down my back, my face half dried, and the towel, with which I was drying it, firm grasped in my 25 hand, I dashed out — along, down, opening wrong doors, stumbling over steps, cursing the day I was born, still more the day on which I took a notion to travel, and arrived finally at the bar of the Inn, in a COLLECTION OF LETTERS 77 state of excitement bordering on lunacy. The bar- maids looked at me 'with weender and amazement.' 'Is the coach gone? 5 I gasped out. 'The coach? Yes ! ' ' Oh ! and you have let it away without me ! Oh ! stop it, cannot you stop it ? ' and out I rushed into 5 the street, with streaming hah* and streaming towel, and almost brained myself against — the Mail ! which was standing there in all stillness, without so much as horses in it ! What I had heard was a heavy coach. And now, having descended like a maniac, I ascended 10 again like a fool, and dried the other half of my face, and put on my bonnet, and came back 'a sadder and a wiser' woman. I did not find my husband at the 'Swan with Two Necks' ; for we were in a quarter of an hour before the 15 appointed time. So I had my luggage put on the backs of two porters, and walked on to Cheapside, where I presently found a Chelsea omnibus. By and by, however, the omnibus stopped, and amid cries of 'No room, sir,' 'Can't get in,' Carlyle's face, beautifully 20 set off by a broad-brimmed white hat, gazed in at the door, like the Peri, who ' at the Gate of Heaven, stood disconsolate.' In hurrying along the Strand, pretty sure of being too late, amidst all the imaginable and unimaginable phenomena which the immense thor-2s oughfare of a street presents, his eye (Heaven bless the mark !) had lighted on my trunk perched on the top of the omnibus, and had recognised it. This seems 78 COLLECTION OF LETTERS to me one of the most indubitable proofs of genius which he ever manifested. Happily, a passenger went out a little further on, and then he got in. My brother-in-law had gone two days before, so 5 my arrival was most well-timed. I found all at home right and tight; my maid seems to have conducted herself quite handsomely in my absence; my best room looked really inviting. A bust of Shelley (a present from Leigh Hunt), and a fine print of Albert 10 Diirer, handsomely framed (also a present), had still further ornamented it during my absence. I also found (for I wish to tell you all my satisfaction) every grate in the house furnished with a supply of coloured clippings, and the holes in the stair-carpet all darned, 15 so that it looks like new. They gave me tea and fried bacon, and staved off my headache as well as might be. They were very kind to me, but, on my life, every- body is kind to me, and to a degree that fills me with admiration. I feel so strong a wish to make you all 20 convinced how very deeply I feel your kindness, and just the more I would say, the less able I am to say anything. God bless you all. Love to all, from the head of the house down to Johnny. Your affectionate, 2S Jane W. Carlyle. COLLECTION OF LETTERS 79 (36) Jane Welsh Carlyle to John Welsh, Esq. Chelsea : July 18, 1843. Dearest, dear only Uncle of me, — I would give a crown that you could see me at this moment through a powerful telescope ! You would laugh for the next twelve hours. I am doing the rural after a fashion so 5 entirely my own ! To escape from the abominable paint-smell, and the infernal noise within doors, I have erected, w T ith my own hands, a gipsy-tent in the garden, constructed with clothes lines, long poles, and an old brown floor cloth ! under which remarkable 10 shade I sit in an arm-chair at a small round table, with a hearth rug for carpet under my feet, writing- materials, sewing-materials, and a mind superior to Fate! The only drawback to this retreat is its being ex- 15 posed to ' the envy of surrounding nations ' ; so many heads peer out on me from all the windows of the Row, eager to penetrate my meaning ! If I had a speaking trumpet I would address them once for all : — ' Ladies and Gentlemen, — I am not here to enter my individual 20 protest against the progress of civilisation ! nor yet to mock you with an Arcadian felicity, which you have neither the taste nor the ingenuity to make your own ! but simply to enjoy Nature according to ability, and to get out of the smell of new paint ! So, pray you, 25 80 COLLECTION OF LETTERS leave me to pursue my innocent avocations in the modest seclusion which I covet ! ' Not to represent my contrivance as too perfect, I must also tell you that a strong puff of wind is apt to 5 blow down the poles, and then the whole tent falls down on my head ! This has happened once already since I began to write, but an instant puts it all to rights again. Indeed, without counteracting the in- doors influences by all lawful means, I could not stay 10 here at present without injury to my health, which is at no time of the strongest. Our house has for a fortnight back been a house possessed by seven devils ! a painter, two carpenters, a paper-hanger, two non- descript apprentice-lads, and 'a spy'; all playing the 15 devil to the utmost of their powers ; hurrying and scurrying 'upstairs, downstairs, and in my lady's chamber ! ' affording the liveliest image of a sacked city! When they rush in at six of the morning, and spread 20 themselves over the premises, I instantly jump out of bed, and 'in wera desperation' take a shower bath. Then such a long day to be virtuous in ! I make chair and sofa covers ; write letters to my friends ; scold the workpeople, and suggest improved methods of doing 25 things. And when I go to bed at night I have to leave both windows of my room wide open (and plenty of ladders lying quite handy underneath), that I may not, as old Sterling predicted, ' awake dead ' of the paint. . COLLECTION OF LETTERS 81 The first night that I lay down in this open state of things, I recollebted Jeannie's house-breaker adven- ture last year, and, not wishing that all the thieves w r ho might w T alk in at my open windows should take me quite unprepared, I laid my policeman's rattle and my 5 dagger on the spare pillow, and then I went to sleep quite secure. But it is to be confidently expected that, in a week or more, things will begin to subside into their normal state ; and meamvhile it were absurd to expect that any sort of revolution can be accom- 10 plished. There ! the tent has been down on the top of me again, but it has only upset the ink. Jeannie appears to be earthquaking with like energy in Maryland Street, but finds time to write me nice long letters nevertheless, and even to make the loveliest 15 pincushion for my birthday ; and my birthday w r as cele- brated also with the arrival of a hamper, into which I have not yet penetrated. Accept kisses ad infinitum for your kind thought of me, dearest uncle. I hope to drink your health many times in the Madeira when 1 20 have Carlyle with me again to give an air of respecta- bility to the act. Nay, on that evening when it came to hand, I was feeling so sad and dreary over the con- trast between this Fourteenth of July — alone, in a house like a sacked city, and other Fourteenths that 25 I can never forget, that I hesitated whether or no to get myself a bottle of the Madeira there and then, and try for once in my life the hitherto unknowm comfort G 82 COLLECTION OF LETTERS of being dead drunk. But my sense of the respectable overcame the temptation. My husband has now left his Welshman, and is gone for a little while to visit the Bishop of St. David's. 5 Then he purposes crossing over somehow to Liverpool, and, after a brief benediction to Jeannie, passing into Annandale. He has suffered unutterable things in Wales from the want of any adequate supply of tea ! For the rest, his visit appears to have been pretty 10 successful ; plenty of sea-bathing; plenty of riding on horseback, and of lying under trees ! I wonder it never enters his head to lie under the walnut-tree here at home. It is a tree ! leaves as green as any leaves can be, even in South W T ales ! but it were too easy to is repose under that : if one had to travel a long journey by railway to it, then indeed it might be worth while ! But I have no more time for scribbling just now; besides, my pen is positively declining to act. So, God bless you, dear, and all of them. 20 Ever your affectionate, Jane Carlyle. (37) Jane Welsh Carlyle to Thomas Carlyle T. Carlyle, Linlathen, Dundee 5 Cheyne Row : Friday night, July 24, 1852. Oh, my ! I wonder if I shall hear to-morrow morn- ing, and what I shall hear! Perhaps that somebody COLLECTION OF LETTERS 83 drove you wild with snoring, and that you killed him and threw him in the sea ! Had the boatmen upset the boat on the way back, and drowned little Nero and me, on purpose, I could hardly have taken it ill. of them, seeing they * were but men, of like passions s with yourself.' But on the contrary, they behaved most civilly to us, offered to land us at any pier we liked, and said not a word to me about the sixpence, so I gave it to them as a free gift. We came straight home in the steamer, where Nero went immediately 10 to sleep, and I to work. Miss Wilson called in the afternoon, extremely agreeable; and after tea Ballantyne came, and soon after Kingsley. Ballantyne gave me ten pounds, and Kingsley told me about his wife — that she was ' the 15 adorablest wife man ever had ! ' Neither of these men stayed long. I went to bed at eleven, fell asleep at three, and rose at six. The two plumbers were rush- ing about the kitchen with boiling lead ; an additional carpenter was waiting for my directions about ' the 20 cupboard' at the bottom of the kitchen stair. The two usual carpenters were hammering at the floor and windows of the drawing-room. The bricklayer rushed in, in plain clothes, measured the windows for stone sills (?), rushed out again, and came no more that day. 25 After breakfast I fell to clearing out the front bedroom for the bricklayers, removing everything into your room. When I had just finished, a wild-looking 84 COLLECTION OF LETTERS stranger, with a paper cap, rushed up the stairs, three steps at a time, and told me he was ' sent by Mr. Mor- gan to get on with the painting of Mr. Carlyle's bed- room during his absence ! ' I was so taken by surprise 5 that I did not feel at first to have any choice in the matter, and told him he must wait two hours till all that furniture was taken — somewhere. Then I came in mind that the window and doors had to be repaired, and a little later that the floor was 10 to be taken up ! Being desirous, however, not to refuse the good the gods had provided me, I told the man he might begin to paint in my bedroom ; but there also some woodwork was unfinished. The carpenters thought they could get it read}' by 15 next morning. So I next cleared myself a road into your bedroom, and fell to moving all the things of mine up there also. Certainly no lady in London did such a hard day's work. Not a soul came to interrupt me till night, when stalked in for half-an-hour, 20 uncommonly dull. 'It must have taken a great deal to make a man so dull as that ! ' I never went out till ten at night, when I took a turn or two on Battersea Bridge, without having my throat cut. My attempts at sleeping last night were even more 25 futile than the preceding one. A dog howled re- peatedly, near hand, ki that awful manner which is understood to prognosticate death, which, together with being 'in a new position/ kept me awake till five. COLLECTION OF LETTERS 85 And after six it was impossible to lie, for the plumbers were in the garret, and the bricklayers in the front bedroom ! Mr. Morgan came after breakfast, and settled to take up the floor in your bedroom at once. So to-day all the things have had to be moved out 5 again down to my bedroom, and the painter put off ; and to-night I am to ' pursue sleep under difficulties ' in my own bed again. They got on fast enough with the destructive part. The chimney is down and your floor half off ! 10 After tea I 'cleaned myself,' and walked up to see Miss Farrar. She and her sister were picnicking at Hampton Court; but the old mother was V£iy glad of me, walked half-way back with me, and gave me ice at Gunter's in passing. I am to have a dinner-tea 15 with them next Wednesdav. And to-morrow I am t/ to give the last sitting for my picture, and take tea at Mrs. Sketchley's. And now I must go to bed again — more's the pity. I shall leave this open, in case of a letter from you 20 in the morning. Saturday. Thanks God ° too for some four hours of sleep last night. I don't mind the uproar a bit now that you are out of it. 25 Love to Mr. Erskine ; tell him to write to me. Ever yours. J. w. c. 86 COLLECTION OF LETTERS (38) Jane Welsh Carlyle to Thomas Carlyle To T. Carlyle, Chelsea Moffat House ° : Friday, July 8, 1853. And my letter must be in the Post-Office before one o'clock ! ' Very absurd ! ' ° And I have had to go to Beattock ° in the omnibus with my cousin Helen to see 5 her off for Glasgow, and am so tired ! Don't wonder then if you get a 'John's letter' ° from me also. The most important thing I have to tell you is, that you could not know me here, as I sit, from a Red- Indian ! That I was kept awake the first night after io my arrival by a — hyaena ! (Yes, upon my honour ; and you complain of a simple cock !) And that yes- terday I was as near as possible to giving occasion for the most romantic paragraph, of the 'melancholy accident' nature, that has appeared in any newspaper 15 for some years ! But, first, of the hyaena. On my arrival I found an immense caravan of wild beasts, pitched exactly in front of this house; and they went on their way during the night, and the animal in question made a 20 devil of a row. I thought it was the lion roaring; but John said ' No, it was only the hyaena ! ' I rather enjoyed the oddness of having fled into the country for 'quiet,' and being kept awake by wild beasts! Well, having got no sleep the first night, owing to COLLECTION OF LETTERS 87 these beasts, and my faceache, I felt bothered all Wednesday, and gladly accepted John's offer to tell you of my safe arrival, meaning to write myself yes- terday. But it was settled that we should go yester- day to see St. Mary's Lock, and the Grey-Mare's 5 Tail. We started at nine of the morning in an open carriage, 'the Doctor,' and Phcebe ° — a tall red- haired young woman, with a hoarse voice, who is here on a visit (' the bridesmaid ' she was) ; my cousin Helen, one little boy, and myself : the other two boys 10 preceding us on horseback. It was the loveliest of days; and beautifuller scenery I never beheld. Be- sides that, it was full of tender interest for me as the birthplace of my mother. No pursuit of the pictur- esque had ever gone better with me till on the way 15 back, when we stopped to take a nearer inspection of the Tail. The boys had been left fishing in the Loch of the Lows. John and Miss Hutchison had gone over the hills by another road to look at Loch Skene, and were to meet us at the Tail ; so there were only 20 Phoebe, Helen, and I as we went up to the Tail from underneath. We went on together to the customary point of view, and then I scrambled on by myself (that is, with Nero °), from my habitual tendency to go a little fur- 25 ther alw T ays than the rest. Nero grew quite fright- ened, and pressed against my legs ; and when we came close in front of the waterfall, he stretched his neck 88 COLLECTION OF LETTERS out at it from under my petticoats, and then barked furiously. Just then, I saw John waving his hat to me from the top of the hill ; and, excited by the grandeur of the scene, I quite forgot how old I was, how out of 5 the practice of ' speeling rocks ' ; and quite forgot, too, that John had made me take the night before a double dose of morphia, which was still in my head, making it very light ; and I began to climb up the precipice ! For a little way I got on well enough ; but when I dis- 10 covered that I was climbing up a ridge ( !), that the precipice was not only behind but on both sides of me, I grew, for the first time in my life that I remember of, frightened, physically frightened ; I was not only afraid of falling down, but of losing my head to the 15 extent of throwing myself down. To go back on my hands and knees as I had come up was impossible ; my only chance was to look at the grass under my face, and toil on till John should see me. I tried to call to him, but my tongue stuck fast and dry to the roof of 20 my mouth; Nero barking with terror, and keeping close to my head, still further confused me. John had meanwhile been descending the hill ; and holding by the grass, we reached one another. He said, * Hold on; don't give way to panic! I will stand between 25 you and everything short of death/ We had now got off the ridge, on to the slope of the hill ; but it was so steep that, in the panic I had taken, my danger was extreme for the next quarter of an hour. The bed of COLLECTION OF LETTERS 89 a torrent, visible up there, had been for a long time the object of my desire; I thought I should stick faster there, than on the grassy slope with the preci- pice at the bottom of it; but John called to me that 'if I got among those stones I should roll to perdition.' 5 He was very kind, encouraging me all he could, but no other assistance was possible. In my life I was never so thankful as when I found myself at the bot- tom of that hill with a glass of water to drink. None of them knew the horrors I had suffered, for I made 10 no screaming or crying ; but my face, they said, was purple all over, with a large black spot under each eye. And to-day I still retain something of the same complexion, and I am all of a tremble, as if I had been on the rack. 15 It is a lovely place this, and a charming old-fash- ioned house, with ' grounds ' at the back. It is com- fortably but plainly and old-fashionedly furnished, looks as if it had been stripped of all its ornamental details, and just the necessaries left. There is a cook, 20 housemaid, and lady's maid, and everything goes on very nicely. The three boys are as clever, well- behaved boys as I ever saw, and seem excessively fond of 'the Doctor.' John is as kind as kind can be, and seems to have an excellent gift of making his guests 25 comfortable. Phoebe's manner is so different from mine, so formal and cold, that I don't feel at ease with her yet. She looks to me like a woman who had been 90 COLLECTION OF LETTERS all her life made the first person with those she lived beside, and to feel herself in a false position when she doubts her superiority being recognised. She seems very content with John, however, and to suit him entirely. 5 My hand shakes so, you must excuse illegibility. I don't know yet when I am to go to Scotsbrig. (No room to sign.) (39) Thomas Carlyle to His Brother Cheyne Row, Chelsea, London, 23rd March, 1835. io My dear Brother, — Your Letter came in this morning (after sixteen days from Rome) ; and, to- morrow, being post-day, I have shoved my writing- table into the corner, and sit (with my back to the fire and Jane, who is busy sewing at my old jupe of a is Dressing-gown), forthwith making answer. It was somewhat longed for; yet I felt, in other respects, that it was better you had not written sooner ; for I had a thing to dilate upon, of a most ravelled charac- ter, that was better to be knit up a little first. You 20 shall hear. But do not be alarmed ; for it is " neither death nor men's lives" : we are all well, and I heard out of Annandale within these three weeks, nay, Jane's Newspaper came with the customary "two strokes," only five days ago. I meant to write to our 25 Mother last night ; but shall now do it to-morrow. COLLECTION OF LETTERS 91 Mill ° had borrowed that first volume of my poor French Revolution ° (pieces of it more than once) that he might have it all before him, and write down some observations on it, which perhaps I might print as Notes. I was busy meanwhile with Volume Second ; 5 toiling along like a Nigger, but with the heart of a free Roman : indeed, I know not how it was, I had not felt so clear and independent, sure of myself and of my task for many long years. Well, one night about three weeks ago, we sat at tea, and Mill's short rap to was heard at the door : Jane rose to welcome him ; but he stood there unresponsive, pale, the very pic- ture of despair; said, half -articulately gasping, that she must go down and speak to "Mrs. Taylor/' After some considerable additional gasping, I learned 15 from Mill this fact : that my poor Manuscript, all except some four tattered leaves, was annihilated: He had left it out (too carelessly) ; it had been taken for waste-paper : and so five months of as tough labor as I could remember of, were as good as vanished, 20 gone like a whifT of smoke. — There never in my life had come upon me any other accident of so much moment ; but this I could not but feel to be a sore one. The thing was lost, and perhaps worse ; for I had not only forgotten all the structure of it, but the spirit 25 it was w T ritten with was pas+; only the general im- pression seemed to remain, and the recollection that I was on the whole well satisfied with that, and could 92 COLLECTION OF LETTERS now hardly hope to equal it. Mill whom I had to comfort and speak peace to remained injudiciously enough till almost midnight, and my poor Dame and I had to sit talking of indifferent matters; and could 5 not till then get our lament freely uttered. She was very good to me; and the thing did not beat us. I felt in general that I was as a little schoolboy, w T ho had laboriously written out his Copy as he could, and was showing it not without satisfaction to the 10 Master : but lo ! the Master had suddenly torn it, saying: "No, boy, thou must go and write it better." What could I do but sorrowing go and try to obey. That night was a hard one; something from time to time tying me tight as it were all round the region of 15 the heart, and strange dreams haunting me : however, I was not without good thoughts too that came like healing life into me; and I got it somewhat reason- ably crushed down, not abolished, yet subjected to me with the resolution and prophecy of abolishing. Next 20 morning accordingly I wrote to Fraser (who had advertised the book as "preparing for publication") that it was all gone back; that he must not speak of it to any one (till it was made good again) ; finally that he must send me some better paper, and also a 25 Biographie Universelle, for I was determined to risk ten pounds more upon it. Poor Fraser was very assid- uous : I got bookshelves put up (for the whole House was flowing with Books), where the Biographie (not COLLECTIOX OF LETTERS 93 Fraser's, however, which was countermanded, but Mill's), with much else stands all ready, much readier than before : and so, having first finished out the piece I was actually upon, I began again at the beginning. Early the day after to-morrow (after a hard and quite 5 novel kind of battle) I count on having the First Chap- ter on paper a second time, no worse than It was, though considerably different. The bitterness of the business is past therefore ; and you must conceive me toiling along in that new way for many weeks to come. 10 As for Mill I must yet tell you the best side of him. Next day after the accident he writes me a passionate letter requesting with boundless earnestness to be allowed to make the loss good as far as money was concerned in it. I answered : Yes, since he so desired 15 it ; for in our circumstances it was not unreasonable : in about a week he accordingly transmits me a draft for £200; I had computed that my five months' housekeeping, etc., had cost me £100; which sum therefore and not two hundred was the one, I told 20 him, I could take. He has been here since then ; but has not sent the £100, though I suppose he will soon do it, and so the thing w411 end, — more handsomely than one could have expected. I ought to draw from it various practical "uses of improvement" (among 25 others not to lend manuscripts again) ; and above all things try to do the work better than it was ; in which case I shall never grudge the labor, but reckon it a 94 COLLECTION OF LETTERS goodhap. *— It really seemed to me a Book of consid- erable significance; and not unlikely even to be of some interest at present: but that latter, and indeed all economical and other the like considerations had 5 become profoundly indifferent to me; I felt that I was honestly writing down and delineating a World- Fact (which the Almighty had brought to pass in the world) ; that it was an honest work for me, and all men might do and say of it simply what seemed good 10 to them — Nay I have got back my spirits again (after this first Chapter), and hope I shall go on tolerably. I will struggle assiduously to be done with it by the time you are to be looked for (which meeting may God bring happily to pass) ; and in that case I will cheer- i S fully throw the business down awhile, and walk off with you to Scotland ; hoping to be ready for the next publishing season. — This is my ravelled concern, dear Jack; which you see is in the way to knit itself up again, before I am called to tell you of it. And 20 now for something else. I was for writing to you of it next day after it happened : but Jane suggested, it would only grieve you, till I could say it was in the way towards adjustment; which counsel I saw to be right. Let us hope assuredly that the whole will be 25 for good. . . . Good night, dear Brother ! Ever yours ! COLLECTION OF LETTERS 95 (40) William Hickli?ig Prescott to His Wife " I was at Lawrence's, at one, in my costume : a chapeau with gold lace, blue coat, and white trousers, begilded with buttons and metal, — a sword and patent leather boots. I was a figure indeed ! But I had enough to keep me in countenance. I spent an 5 hour yesterday with Lady M. getting instructions for demeaning myself. The greatest danger was that I should be tripped up by my own sword. . . . The company were at length permitted one by one to pass into the presence chamber — a room with a throne 10 and gorgeous canopy at the farther end, before which stood the little Queen of the mighty Isle and her Con- sort, surrounded by her ladies-in-waiting. She w T as rather simply dressed, but he was in a Field Marshal's uniform, and covered, I should think, with all the 15 orders of Europe. He is a good-looking person,, but by no means so good-looking as the portraits of him. The Queen is better-looking than you might expect. I was presented by our Minister, according to the directions of the Chamberlain, as the historian of 20 Ferdinand and Isabella, in due form — and made my profound obeisance to her Majesty, who made a very dignified curtesy, as she made to some two hundred others who were presented in like manner. I made the same low bow to his Princeship to whom I was also 25 presented, and so bowed myself out of the royal circle, 96 COLLECTION OF LETTERS without my sword tripping up the heels of my nobility. . . . Lord Carlisle . . . said he had come to the . drawing-room to see how I got through the affair, which be thought I did without any embarrassment. 5 Indeed, to say truth, I have been more embarrassed a hundred times in my life than I was here. I don't know why; I suppose because I am getting old." (41) Horace Walpole to Horace Mann ° Arlington Street, Feb. 18, 1778. I do not . know how to word the following letter ; io how to gain credit with you ! How shall I intimate to you, that you must lower your topsails, waive your imperial dignity, and strike to the colors of the thir- teen United Provinces of America? Do not tremble, and imagine that Washington has defeated General 15 Howe, and driven him out of Philadelphia ; or that Gates has taken another army ; or that Portsmouth is invested by an American fleet. No : no military new event has occasioned this revolution. The sacri- fice has been made on the altar of Peace. Stop again : 20 peace is not made, it is only implored, — and, I fear, only on this side of the Atlantic. In short, yesterday, February 17th, a most memorable era, Lord North opened his Conciliatory Plan, — no partial, no collu- sive one. In as few words as I can use, it solicits 25 peace with the States of America ; it haggles on no COLLECTION OF LETTERS 97 terms ; it acknowledges the Congress, or anybody that pleases to treat; it confesses errors, misinforma- tion, ill-success, and impossibility of conquest; it disclaims taxation, desires commerce, hopes for assist- ance, allows the independence of America, not ver- 5 bally, yet virtually, and suspends hostilities till June, 1779. It does a little more : not verbally, but virtually, it confesses that the Opposition have been in the right from the beginning to the end. The w T armest American cannot deny but these gra- 10 cious condescensions are ample enough to content that whole continent; and vet, my friend, such accommo- dating facility had one defect, — it came too late. The treaty between the high and mighty States and France is signed ; and instead of peace, we must expect 15 war with the high allies. The French army is come to the coast, and their officers here are recalled. The House of Commons embraced the plan, and voted it, nemine contradiccntc. It is to pass both Houses with a rapidity that will do everything but 20 overtake time past. All the world is in astonishment. As my letter will not set out till day after to-morrow, I shall have time to tell you better what is thought of this amazing step. Feb. 20. 25 In sooth I cannot tell you what is thought. Nobody knows what to think. To leap at once from an obsti- nacy of four years to a total concession of everything ; u 98 COLLECTION OF LETTERS to stoop so low, without hopes of being forgiven — who can understand such a transformation? I must leave you in all your wonderment ; for the cloud is not dispersed. When it shall be, I doubt it will discover 5 no serene prospect! All that remains certain is, that America is not only lost but given up. We must no longer give ourselves Continental airs ! I fear even our trident will find it has lost a considerable prong. I have lived long, but never saw such a day as last 10 Tuesday ! From the first, I augured ill of this Ameri- can war ; yet do not suppose that I boast of my pene- tration. Far was I from expecting such a conclusion. Conclusion ! — y sommes nous ? ° Acts of Parliament have made a war, but cannot repeal one. They have is provoked — not terrified ; and Washington and Gates respected the Speaker's mace° no more than Oliver Cromwell did. You shall hear as events arise. I disclaim all sagacity, and pretend to no foresight. It is not an 20 Englishman's talent. Even the second sight of the Scots has proved a little purblind. Have you heard that Voltaire is actually in Paris? Perhaps soon you will learn French news earlier than I can.° 25 What scenes my letters to you have touched on for eight-and-thirty years ! I arrived here at the eve of the termination of my father's happy reign. The Rebellion, as he foresaw, followed; and much dis- COLLECTION OF LETTERS 99 grace. Another war ensued, with new disgraces. And then broke forth Lord Chatham's sun ; and all was glory and extensive empire, nor tranquillity nor triumph are our lot now ! . . . I shall probably write again before you have digested half the meditations this s letter will have conjured up. (42) Horace Walpole to Horace Mann March 17, 1778. I have scarce a moment's time to write, and it is only — what an only ! — to tell you that the French Ambassador notified to Lord Weymouth on Friday, io that his Court had concluded a treaty of commerce and amity with the independent States of America; but had had the attention not to make it an exclusive treaty : so, we may trade with America, if America will condescend to trade with us. I doubt there were 15 some words of France not being disposed to be molested in their commerce with their new friends. In conse- quence of that declaration, Lord Stormont's recall was sent off that night. To-day the Ministers are to ac- quaint both Houses with the insult ; and, I suppose, 20 intend to be addressed with vows of support. The Stocks, not being members of Parliament, do not vote for war, nor behave like heroes. Alas ! I am ashamed of irony. Neither do I love to send my auguries through every post-house. However, every one must 25 100 COLLECTION* OF LETTERS know that a French war is not exactly a compensation for the loss of America. We, the herd, the Achivi, must . take the beverage our rulers brew for us ; and we that can, must console ourselves with not having contributed 5 to the potion. I believe it will be a bitter one ; but I should be still less tranquil if I had furnished a drop. ******* Europe is going again to be a theatre of blood, as America has been. The Emperor and Prussia are going, I think have begun a war ! 'Tis endless to io moralise ; human life is forced to do so, but en pure perte. The system changes, not the consequences. Force was the first arbitress of human affairs. The shrewd observed, that Art could counteract and con- trol Strength — and for a long time Policy ruled. But, 15 Policy having exhausted all its resources, and having been detected in them all, Impudence restored Force, which is now sole governess. She seized and shared Poland, and now sets up the same right to Bavaria. We tried the plan in America, but forgot we had not 20 that essential to the new jus gentium, an hundred thousand men, and that our Bavaria was on t'other side of the Atlantic. I hope the ocean, that was against us there, will be our friend at home ! Adieu ! This is a new chapter in our correspond- 25 ence. I will write as events rise ; you must excuse me if I have not always time, as I have not at present, to make my letters long in proportion to the matter. COLLECTION OF LETTERS 101 (43) Horace Walpole to Sir Horace Mann Berkeley Square, Monday evening, Dec. 2, 1782. The day that I little expected to live to see, is arrived ! Peace came this morning : thank God ! That is the first thought : the effusion of human gore 5 is stopped, nor are there to be more widows and orphans out of the common course of things. What the terms are will be known before this goes away to-morrow: they may be public already; but here am I, lying upon a couch and not out of pain, io waiting with patience for what I shall learn from the few charitable that I am able to admit. Proud con- ditions I, nor even you in your representative dignity, can expect. Should they be humiliating, they ought to answer who plunged us into a quadruple war, and 15 managed it deplorably for seven years together! As I have not breath to dictate much, I shall not waste myself on a single reflection : but in truth I am very low ; and what are all the great and little affairs of the world to me, who am mouldering away, not 20 imperceptibly ! . . . Friday night, the 6th. I was much too ill on Tuesday to finish this, and, besides that, recollected that whatever was to be heard you would learn from Paris sooner than from 25 London. I began to write upon the first buzz of the 102 COLLECTION OF LETTERS courier being arrived; but all he brought was the Provisional treaty with America, which too is not to take place till the General Peace does. This, however, we are told to expect soon — and there I must leave 5 peace and war, kingdoms and states, and trust to your nephew for saying anything else; for in truth I am not able. The scale of life and death has been vibrat- ing ; I believe it is turned to the former. I have had two very good nights, and the progress of the gout 10 seems quite stopped; but I am exceedingly low and weak, and it will take me some time to recover : but I assure you, my dear Sir, you may be easy. I have now a good opinion of myself, and I have spoken so plainly that you may believe me. is Adieu ! You shall hear again soon, unless I see your nephew, whom I will desire to give you a more par- ticular account. VI. Sketches from Many Lands (44) Phillips Brooks to His Brother Cassel, Germany, Monday evening, October 9, 1865. My dear William, — Just before I left Frankfort- on-the-Main to-day, I went to the bankers' and found there your good letter of September 22. It was my 5 company on a lovely ride up the country to this queer old German town, whence I answer it from the dining- room of the Romlicher Kaiser hotel. A thousand thanks for it. I shall not write so good a one, but I will try to tell you what I have been doing in a very 10 busy week since I wrote to mother last Monday night from Bonn. I left there by the Rhine boat and landed first at Kaiserwinter, on the right bank at the foot of the Drachenf els ; climbed that hill and saw one of the loveliest views in the world from the old castle at its 15 top. We went up through vineyards and looked down on the Rhine winding past the Seven Mountains ever so far towards the sea. Kaiserwinter is a charm- ing little German village, and on my return from the 103 104 COLLECTION OF LETTERS hill I heard the bells chiming, and stopped to ask what it meant. I was told it was a "Fest" or village feast, and so roamed into the village to see it. It was the most perfect German picture. The young men of the 5 village were firing at a mark in a little wine garden, and all the hamlet were gathered to drink the new wine and look at them. By and by the bird was shot down, and the man who shot it down was thereby king of the Feast. He had the privilege of choosing 10 the prettiest girl in town for the queen, and then, with a rustic band of music, the procession, headed by the king and queen, marched through the old streets and called on all the gentry, who treated them and gave them contributions for a feast, to which they all re- 15 turned in the garden. Here they made merry through the afternoon, and closed all with a dance. It was just like a German story book. Juch-he, juch-he, juch-heise. heise, he, So ging der fiedelbogen. 20 Think of being at a dance of German peasants on the Rhine ! From here I took boat again, and sailing down past vine-covered hills topped with ruined castles, I came to Coblentz. Here I stopped again and climbed to the Castle of Ehrenbreitstein, where 25 was another view of the Rhine and the Moselle, which flows into it just here. Then the boat again, past the great Castle of Stolzenfels and countless others, one COLLECTION OF LETTERS 105 on almost every height, till we came to St. Goar, the most delightful little village on the left bank. Here another stop, and then on through the region of the choicest vineyards to Mayence, the quaintest of old fortified towns. You have no idea of the beauty of 5 this river from Bonn to Mayence. I think we have rivers whose scenery by nature is as fine, but the castles and ruins have grown to be a part of the nature, and are not separable from it, and the soft October air and sunlight of those days showed everything at 10 its utmost beauty. The trees were gorgeous in color with not a leaf fallen, and the vineyards climbing the hills, and perching on every inch of ground that faced the southern sun, were very interesting. From Mayence I went to Worms, where Luther 15 dared the Diet ; then to Mannheim, and so to Heidel- berg. Of all beautiful places this is the most perfect. It lies along the Neckar, and is overlooked everywhere by the noblest of old ruined castles. Here is one of the great universities which I went to see. The boys 20 looked pretty much like Cambridge juniors, except where here and there you see one with his face all slashed up from a duel. Let us be thankful Cambridge has not got to that. From here I went up to Weisbaden, one of the great 25 watering and gambling places, a splendid German Saratoga. It was in full blast, and I saw the roulette and rouge-et-noir tables in the gorgeous saloons crowded 106 COLLECTION OF LETTERS day and night. At night, a great free concert by a splendid band, and illumination of the beautiful grounds. It was a strange sight. Then to Frankfort, where I spent Sunday at the Hotel de Russie. It is 5 a fine town, part of it very old and quaint, part very new and fine ; there are some good pictures, some good statuary, and an old cathedral, where I went and heard a German sermon and some splendid German music. Goethe was born here, and his house still stands. 10 To-day, I came from Frankfort here, through one of the richest historic regions of all Germany. This is another of those old towns to which I am getting very used, and which delight me more and more. I like the Germans immensely. They are frank, kind, 15 sociable, and hearty. They give you an idea of a people with ever so much yet to do in the world, capable of much fresh thought and action. Their language is like them, noble, vigorous, and simple. I am getting hold of it very well. They think for 20 themselves and unselfishly, and they believe in America. Their peasants are poor, but seem in- telligent, and their better classes have the most charming civility. I have seen more pretty women than I saw in all England, and I have not seen the 25 best of Germany. I am impatient to get to Han- over, and Berlin, and Dresden, where one sees the finest specimens. Here, then, you have another week's biography. COLLECTION OF LETTERS 107 Is it not full enough ? My next will be from Dresden. I shall spend all this month in Germany, and about the first of November leave Vienna for the East. I am splendidly well and happy all the time, but very often, to-night, for instance, I would like to look in upon you 5 all at home, and tell and hear a thousand things that will not go on paper. As to money, you will get two drafts, one in London and one in Cologne. These currencies with their perpetual changes are great nuisances. First, in Belgium, it was francs and cen-10 times; then, in Holland, thalers and groschen; then, in Prussia, florins and kreutzers ; and now back to thalers and groschen again. I received a weekly "Herald" to-day ; many thanks. Send one once in a while, say once a month, for the 15 only paper on the Continent that pretends to give American news is the London " Times." It is two months to-day since I sailed. How they have gone ! And to me they have been the fullest months of my life. Not a day without something 20 that I have longed to see all my life. So it will go on till I see the sight that I shall be most glad of all to see, you and father waiting on the wharf to see me land, as you came down before to see me sail. Good-by ; love in lots to father and mother, and 25 Arthur and John and Trip, and Fred when you write. God bless you all. Phill. 108 COLLECTION OF LETTERS (45) Phillips Brooks to His Brother Florence, Hotel de PArno, April 8, 1866. Dear William, — Here I am in my third day at Florence. Before I begin to rave about the city, I 5 will tell you how I came here. When I wrote to John, I was in the midst of Holy Week at Rome. Many of its services, such as the washing of feet and tending on table by the Pope, were disagreeable and fatiguing. But three things stand out in my recollection as very io fine and impressive. One was the Miserere in the Sistine Chapel ° on Thursday evening, by far the most sublime and affecting sacred music I ever heard. The dim chapel, dusky old frescoes, and splendid presence joined with the wonderful music to make it very im- 15 pressive. Then the great Papal Benediction on Easter Day at noon, from the balcony of St. Peter's, the vast piazza crowded full, the peasants from all the sur- rounding country in their strange dresses, the gorgeous background of soldiery, the perfect stillness, and the 20 voice of the old man ringing out his blessing over them all. It was one of the sights of a lifetime. Third, the illumination of St. Peter's at night was magnificent. Every line of the majestic dome bursting out in fire, the whole standing as if it were the fiery dome that 25 Michael Angelo conceived and tried to build. COLLECTION OF LETTERS 109 Besides these, the moment in the Easter service was very solemn when the Host was elevated, the silver trumpets sounded in the dome, and the whole vast audience fell on their knees. Romanism certainly succeeds in being very striking in some of its demon- 5 strations. Unfortunately, Easter Monday was a windy day, and the great fireworks had to be put off, so that I did not see them. It was hard to leave dear old Rome ; I had learned to love it, and hated to go away. My six weeks 10 there will always be a treasure to me. I know it through and through, but it makes me sorry to think that I shall never see it again. I left on Tuesday morning by rail for Terni, where I stopped over night and went to see the famous falls. They are made 15 falls, but very beautiful, with more variety of sur- face and effect, I think, than any cataract I know. Wednesday by rail to Foligno, and thence by Vittoria to Perugia, stopping at Assisi, where is one of the most interesting old churches of all Italy, built in honor of 20 St. Francis, who was hermit here. It is rich in the pictures of Cimabue, and Giotto, the first of modern painters, — founders of modern painting. Perugia is a dear old town, full of pictures of Peru- gino, Raphael's master. Thursday by Vittoria and rail 25 to Florence, passing lake Trasimeno, where Hannibal gave the Romans such a whipping. Of Florence I cannot speak yet, though I have had two great days 110 COLLECTION OF LETTERS here. Think of one room in the Uffizi Palace con- taining the Venus de Medici (I don't like her, she is too little, physically, morally, and mentally), three Raphaels, two Titians, one Michael Angelo, and lots 5 besides, and that will give you, when you multiply it by fifty or a hundred, some idea of what is waiting for you to see here at Florence. Go to the Athenseum and look at Michael Angelo's Night and Morning. They are here in solemn marble, over the Medicis' iotomb in St. Lorenzo church. Yesterday I went up to Fiesole, and looked down on this perfect valley with its beautiful town, and this morning I climbed to the top of Giotto's Campanile in the great cathedral square, and saw the city from there. To-morrow I 15 am going down to Pisa to see if that tower really leans, as Woodbridge's Geography said, and after spending the week here, I shall be off for Bologna and Venice. I wonder sometimes that one does not tire of the very excess of interest and beauty, but the constant change 20 is a constant impulse, and I am fresher for enjoying things to-day than I was when I first set foot at Queens- town. On arriving here, I found yours of March 20; it seems as if I were almost at home to get such recent 25 dates. Now I shall hear regularly every week. Four weeks from to-day I shall be in Paris. By the way, where are your commissions for the centre of fash- ions ? What number gloves do you wear ? I am glad COLLECTION OF LETTERS 111 you think I am economical. I perpetrated one or two extravagances at Rome, a bronze, etc. I saw Miss Foley in Rome and liked her exceedingly; she gave me some pretty photographs of some of her things, which you will find with those which I sent in John's 5 letter. I have met friends here who were large pur- chasers, with whose boxes my modest bundles could be easily and cheaply packed. Now, a commission for you. I want a copy of Mr. Sumner's speech on the Representation amendment 10 in pamphlet. I must have it. If you cannot get it any other way, do write to him direct, and ask for it. I am anxious to have it for a particular reason. The Freedmen's Union have asked me to go to London to the anniversary meetings in May to enlighten John 15 Bull's Emancipation League. . . . Good-by, I am perfectly well, and, as you see, perfectly happy. Love to all. Affectionately, Phillips. (46) Elizabeth Barrett Browning to Miss Mitford Bagni di Lucca, Toscana : (about July, 1849). 20 At last, you will say, dearest friend. The truth is, I have not been forgetting you (how far from that !) but wandering in search of cool air and a cool bough among all the olive trees to build our summer nest on. My husband has been suffering beyond what one could 25 112 COLLECTION OF LETTERS shut one's eyes to in consequence of the great mental shock of last March — loss of appetite, loss of sleep, looks quite worn and altered. His spirits never ral- lied except with an effort, and every letter from New 5 Cross threw him back into deep depressions. I was very anxious, and feared much that the end of it all (the intense heat of Florence assisting) would be a nervous fever or something similar. And I had the greatest difficulty in persuading him to leave Florence for a 10 month or two — he, who generally delights so in travel- ling, had no mind for change or movement. I had to say and swear that baby° and I couldn't bear the heat, and that we must and would go away. Ce que femme veut y ° if the latter is at all reasonable, or the former 15 persevering. At last I gained the victory. It was agreed that we two should go on an exploring journey to find out where we could have most shadow at least expense ; and we left our child with his nurse and Wil- son while we were absent. We went along the coast 20 to Spezzia, saw Carrara with the white marble moun- tains, passed through the olive forests and the vine- yards, avenues of acacia trees, chestnut woods, glo- rious surprises of most exquisite scenery. I say olive forests advisedly ; the olive grows like a forest tree in 25 those regions, shading the ground with tents of silvery network. The olive near Florence is but a shrub in comparison, and I have learnt to despise a little, too, the Florentine vine, which does not swing such port- COLLECTION OF LETTERS 113 cullises of massive dewy green from one tree to an- other as along the whole road where we travelled. Beau- tiful, indeed, it was. Spezzia wheels the blue sea into the arms of the wooded mountains, and we had a glance at Shelley's house at Lerici. It was melan- 5 choly to me, of course. I was not sorry that the lodg- ings we inquired about were far above our means. We returned on our steps (after two days in the dirtiest of possible inns), saw Seravezza, a village in the moun- tains, where rock, river, and wood enticed us to stay, 10 and the inhabitants drove us off by their unreasonable prices. It is curious, but just in proportion to the want of civilisation the prices rise in Italy. If you haven't cups and saucers you are made to pay for plate. Well, so finding no rest for the sole of our feet, 15 I persuaded Robert to go to the Baths of Lucca, only to see them. We were to proceed afterwards to San Marcello or some safer wilderness. We had both of us, but he chiefly, the strongest prejudice against these Baths of Lucca, taking them for a sort of wasp's- 20 nest of scandal and gaming, and expecting to find every- thing trodden flat by the continental English; yet I wanted to see the place, because it is a place to see after all. So we came, and were so charmed by the exquisite beauty of the scenery, by the coolness of the 25 climate and the absence of our countrymen, political troubles serving admirably our private requirements, that we made an offer for rooms on the spot, and re- 1 114 COLLECTION OF LETTERS turned to Florence for baby and the rest of our estab- lishment without further delay. Here we are, then; we have been here more than a fortnight. We have taken an apartment for the season — four months — 5 paying twelve pounds for the whole term, and hoping to be able to stay till the end of October. The living is cheaper than even at Florence, so that there has been no extravagance in coming here. In fact, Florence is scarcely tenable during the summer from the excessive ioheat by day and night, even if there were no particu- lar motive for leaving it. We have taken a sort of eagle's nest in this place, the highest house of the highest of the three villages which are called the Bagni di Lucca, and which lie at the heart of a hundred moun- is tains sung to continually by a rushing mountain stream. The sound of the river and of the cicala is all the noise we hear. Austrian drums and carriage wheels cannot vex us ; God be thanked for it ; the silence is full of joy and consolation. I think my husband's 20 spirits are better already and his appetite improved. Certainly little babe's great cheeks are growing rosier and rosier. He is out all day when the sun is not too strong, and Wilson will have it that he is prettier than the whole population of babies here. He fixes his 25 blue eyes on everybody and smiles universal benevo- lence, rather too indiscriminately it might be were it not for Flush. But certainly, on the whole he pre- fers Flush. He pulls his ears and rides on him, and COLLECTION OF LETTERS 115 Flush, though his dignity does not approve of being used as a pony, only protests by turning his head round to kiss the little bare dimpled feet. A merrier, sweeter-tempered child there can't be than our baby, and people wonder at his being so forward at four 5 months old and think there must be a mistake in his age. He is so strong that when I put out two fingers and he has seized them in his fists he can draw himself up on his feet, but we discourage this forwardness, which is not desirable, say the learned. Children of 10 friends of mine at ten months and a year can't do so much. Is it not curious that my child should be re- markable for strength and fatness ? He has a beaming, thinking little face, too; oh, I wish you could see it. Then my own strength has wonderfully improved, 15 just as my medical friends prophesied; and it seems like a dream when I find myself able to climb hills with Robert and help him to lose himself in the forests. I have been growing stronger and stronger, and where it is to stop I can't tell, really ; I can do as much, or 20 more, now than at any point of my life since I ar- rived at woman's estate. The air of this place seems to penetrate the heart and not the lungs only; it draws you, raises you, excites you. Mountain air without its keenness, sheathed in Italian sunshine, 25 think what that must be ! And the beauty and the solitude — for with a few paces we get free of the habi- tations of men — all is delightful to me. What is 116 COLLECTION OF LETTERS peculiarly beautiful and wonderful is the variety of the shapes of the mountains. They are a multitude, and yet there is no likeness. None, except where the golden mist comes and transfigures them into one glory. 5 For the rest, the mountain there wrapt in the chestnut forest is not like that bare peak which tilts against the sky, nor like that serpent twine of another which seems to move and coil in the moving coiling shadow. Oh, I wish you were here. You would enjoy the shade of 10 the chestnut trees, and the sound of the waterfalls, and at nights seem to be living among the stars ; the fireflies are so thick, you would like that too. . . . Love me and write to me, who am ever and ever your affectionate I5 . E.B.B. (47) Lady Duff Gordon to Her Husband Boat off Embabeh, November 21, 1862. Dearest Alick,° — We embarked yesterday, and after the fashion of Eastern caravans are abiding to- day at a village opposite Cairo : it is Friday, and 20 therefore would be improper and unlucky to set out on our journey. The scenes on the river are wonder- fully diverting and curious, so much life and movement. But the boatmen are sophisticated : my crew have all sported new white drawers in honour of the Sitti 25 Inglezee's supposed modesty — of course compensa- COLLECTION OF LETTERS 117 tion will be expected. Poor fellows : they are very well mannered and quiet in their rags and misery, and their queer little humming song is rather pretty, 'Eyah Mohammad, eyah Mohammad/ ad infinitum, except when an energetic man cries 'Yallah!' — i.e. 5 'O God!' — which means 'go it' in everyday life. Omar ° is gone to fetch one or two more ' unconsidered trifles ! ' and I have been explaining the defects to be remedied in the cabin door, broken window, etc., to my Reis with the help of six w T ords of Arabic and dumb 10 show, which they understand and answer with wonder- ful quickness. The air on the river is certainly quite celestial — totally unlike the damp, chilly feeling of the hotel and Frank quarter of Cairo. The Isbekeeyeh, or public 15 garden, where all the Franks live, was a lake, I believe, and is still very damp. I shall go up to the second Cataract as fast as pos- sible, and return back at leisure. Hekekian Bey ° came to take leave yesterday, and lent me several books : 20 pray tell Senior w r hat a kindness his introduction was. It would have been rather dismal at Cairo — if one could be dismal there — without a soul to speak to. I was sorry to know 7 no Turks or Arabs, and have no opportunity of seeing any but the tradesman of whom 25 I bought my stores but that was very amusing. The young man of whom I bought my finjaans was so hand- some, elegant and melancholy that I know he was the 118 COLLECTION OF LETTERS lover of the Sultan's favorite slave. How I wish you were here to enjoy all this, so new, so beautiful, and yet so familiar life — and you would like the people, poor things ! they are complete children, but amiable children. 5 I went into the village here, where I was a curiosity, and some women took me into their houses and showed me their sleeping-place, cookery, poultry, etc. ; and a man followed me to keep off the children, but no backsheesh was asked for, which showed that Euro- iopeans were rare there. The utter destitution is ter- rible to see, though in this climate of course it matters less, but the much-talked-of dirt is simply utter pov- erty. The poor souls are as clean as Nile mud and water will make their bodies, and they have not a 15 second shirt, or any bed but dried mud. Give my love to my darlings, and don't be uneasy if you don't get letters. My cough has been better now for five days without a bad return of it, so I hope it is really better ; it is the first reprieve for so long. The 20 sun is so hot, a regular broil. November 21, and all doors and windows open in the cabin — a delicious breeze. (48) Lady Buff Gordon to Mrs. Austin Feshn, Monday, November 30, 1862. Dearest Mutter, — I have now been enjoying 25 this most delightful way of life for ten days, and am COLLECTION OF LETTERS 119 certainly much better. I begin to eat and sleep again, and cough less. My crew° are a great amusement to me. They are mostly men from near the first Cataract above Assouan, sleek-skinned, gentle, patient, merry black fellows. The little black Reis is the very 5 picture of good-nature and full of fun, ' chaffing ' the girls as we pass the villages, and always smiling. The steersman is of lighter complexion, also very cheery, but decidedly pious. He prays five times a day and utters ejaculations to the apostle Rusool continually. 10 He hurt his ankle on one leg and his instep on the other w^ith a rusty nail, and they festered. I dressed them with poultices, and then with lint and strapping, with perfect success, to the great admiration of all hands, and he announced how much better he felt, 'Alham-15 dulillah, kiethel-hairack khateer ya Sitti ' (Praise be to God and thanks without end O Lady), and every one echoed, ' kieth-el-hairack khateer/ The most impor- tant person is the 'weled' — boy — Achmet. The most merry, clever, omnipresent little rascal, with an 20 ugly little pug face, a shape like an antique cupid, liberally displayed, and a skin of dark brown velvet. His voice, shrill and clear, is always heard foremost; he cooks for the crew, he jumps overboard with the rope and gives advice on all occasions, grinds the coffee 25 with the end of a stick in a mortar, which he holds be- tween his feet, and uses the same large stick to walk proudly before me, brandishing it if I go ashore for 120 COLLECTION OF LETTERS a minute, and ordering everybody out of the way. ' Ya Achmet ! ' resounds all day whenever anybody wants anything, and the Sveled' is always ready and able. My favourite is Osman, a tall, long-limbed 5 black who seems to have stepped out of a hieroglyphical drawing, shirt, skull-cap and all. He has only those two garments, and how anyone contrives to look so inconceivably 'neat and respectable ' (as Sally truly remarked) in that costume is a mystery. He is always 10 at work, always cheerful, but rather silent — in short, the able seaman and steady, respectable 'hand' par excellence. Then we have El Zankalonee from near Cairo, an old fellow of white complexion and a valuable person, an inexhaustible teller of stories at night and 15 always en train, full of jokes and remarkable for a dry humour much relished by the crew. I wish I under- stood the stories, which sound delightful, all about Sultans and Efreets, with effective 'points/ at which all hands exclaim ' Mashallah ! ' or ' Ah ! ' (as long as 20 you can drawl it). The jokes, perhaps, I may as well be ignorant of. There is a certain Shereef who does nothing but laugh and w T ork and be obliging; helps Omar° with one hand and Sally with the other, and looks like a great innocent black child. The rest of 25 the dozen are of various colors, sizes and ages, some quite old, but all very quiet and well-behaved. We have had either dead calm or contrary wind all the time and the men have worked very hard at the COLLECTION OF LETTERS 121 tow rope. On Friday I proclaimed a hait in the afternoon at a village at prayer-time for the pious Muslims to go to the mosque ; this gave great satis- faction, though only five went, Reis, steersman, Zankalonee and two old men. . . . On Sunday we 5 halted at Bibbeh, where I caught sight of a large Coptic church and sallied forth to see whether they would let me in. The road lay past the house of the headman of the village, and there 'in the gate' sat a patriarch, surrounded by his servants and his cattle. 10 Over the gateway were crosses and queer constellations of dots, more like the Mithraic symbols than anything Christian, but Girgis was a Copt, though chosen head of the Muslim village. He rose as I came up, stepped out and salaamed, then took my hand and said I must 15 go into his house before I saw the church and enter the hareem. His old mother, who looked a hundred, and his pretty wife, were very friendly ; but as I had to leave Omar at the door, our talk soon came to an end,° and Girgis took me out into the divan, without 20 the sacred precincts of the hareem. Of course we had pipes and coffee, and he pressed me to stay some days, to eat with him every day and to accept all his house contained. I took the milk he offered, and asked him to visit me in the boat, saying I must return 25 before sunset when it gets cold, as I was ill. The house was a curious specimen of a wealthy man's house — I could not describe it if I tried, but I felt I was acting a 122 COLLECTION OF LETTERS passage of the Old Testament. We went to the church, which outside looked like nine beehives in a box. Inside, the nine domes resting on square pillars were very handsome. Girgis was putting it into thor- 5 ough repair at his own expense, and it will cost a good deal, I think 3 to repair and renew the fine old wood panelling of such minute and intricate workmanship. ... I wished to hear the service, but it was not till sunset, and as far as I could make out, not different 10 on Sunday to other days. The Hareems are behind the screen furthest removed from the holy screen, behind a third screen where also was the font, locked up and shaped like a Muslim tomb in little. (Hareem is used here just like the German Frauenzimmer, to 15 mean a respectable woman. Girgis spoke of me to Omar as 'Hareem/) The Copts have but one wife, but they shut her up much closer than the Arabs. The children were sweetly pretty, so unlike the Arab brats, and the men were very good-looking. They did 20 not seem to acknowledge me at all as a co-religionnaire,° and asked whether we of the English religion did not marry our brothers and sisters. The priest then asked me to drink coffee at his house close by, and there I * sat in the gate' ° — i.e., in a large 25 sort of den raised two feet from the ground and matted, to the left of the gate. A crowd of Copts collected and squatted about, and we were joined by the mason who was repairing the church, a fine, burly rough- COLLECTION OF LETTERS 123 bearded old Mussulman, who told how the Sheykh ° buried in the church of Bibbeh had appeared to him three nights running at Cairo and ordered him to leave his work and go to Bibbeh and mend his church, and how he came and offered to do so without pay if the 5 Copts would find the materials. He spoke with evi- dent pride, as one who had received a Divine com- mand, and the Copts all confirmed the story and everyone was highly gratified by the miracle. I asked Omar if he thought it was all true, and he had 10 no doubt of it. The mason he knew to be a respect- able man in full work, and Girgis added he had tried to get a man to come for years for the purpose without success. It is not often that a dead saint contrives to be equally agreeable to Christians and Mussulmans, 15 and here was the staunch old 'true believer' working away in the sanctuary which they would not allow an English fellow-Christian to enter. Whilst we sat hearing all these wonders, the sheep and cattle pushed in between us, coming home at eve. 20 The venerable old priest looked so like Father Abraham, and the whole scene was so pastoral and Biblical that I felt quite as if my wish was fulfilled to live a little a few thousand of years ago. They wanted me to stay many days, and then Girgis said I must stop at Feshn 25 where he had a fine house and garden, and he would go on horseback and meet me there, and would give me a whole troup of Fellaheen to pull the boat up quick. 124 COLLECTION OF LETTERS Omar's eyes twinkled with fun as he translated this, and said he knew the Sitt° would cry out, as she always did about the Fellaheen, as if she were hurt herself. He told Girgis that the English customs did not 5 allow people to work without pay, which evidently seemed very absurd to the whole party. (49) Lady Buff Gordon to Her Husband Thebes, February 11, 1863. Dearest Alick, — On arriving here last night I found one letter from you, dated December 10, and i o have received nothing else. Pray write again forth- with to Cairo where I hope to stay some weeks. A clever old dragoman I met at Phila3° offers to lend me furniture for a lodging or a tent for the desert, and when I hesitated he said he was very well off and 15 it was not his business to sell things, but only to be paid for his services by rich people, and that if I did not accept it as he meant it he should be quite hurt. This is what I have met with from everything Arab — nothing but kindness and politeness. I shall say 20 farewell to Egypt with real feeling; among other things, it will be quite a pang to part with Omar who has been my shadow all this time and for whom I have quite an affection, he is so thoroughly good and amiable. COLLECTION OF LETTERS 125 I am really much better I hope and believe, though only within the last week or two. ... At Assouan I had been strolling about in that most poetically melan- choly spot, the granite quarry of old Egypt and burial- place of Muslim martyrs, and as I came homewards 5 along the bank a party of slave merchants, who had just loaded their goods for Senaar from the boats on the camels, asked me to dinner, and, oh ! how deli- cious it felt to sit on a mat among the camels and strange bales of goods and eat the hot tough bread, sour 10 milk and dates, offered with such stately courtesy. We got quite intimate over our leather cup of sherbet (brown sugar and water), and the handsome jet-black men, with features as beautiful as those of the young Bacchus, described the distant lands in a way which 15 would have charmed Herodotus. They proposed to me to join them, 'they had food enough,' and Omar and I were equally inclined to go. . . . I have eaten many odd things with odd people in queer places, dined in a respectable Nubian family 20 (the castor-oil was trying), been to a Nubian wedding — such a dance I saw. Made friends with a man much looked up to in his place (Kalabshee — notorious for cutting throats), inasmuch as he had killed several intrusive tax-gatherers and recruiting officers. He was 25 very gentlemanly and kind and carried me up a pi nee so steep I could not have reached it. Just below the cataract — by-the-by going up is nothing but noise 126 COLLECTION OF LETTERS and shouting, but coming down is fine fun. . . . My sailors all prayed away manfully, and were hor- ribly frightened. I confess my pulse quickened, but I don't think it was fear. Well, below the cataract I s stopped for a religious fete, and went to a holy tomb with the darweesh, so extraordinarily handsome and graceful — the true feingemacht ° noble Bedaw T een ° type. He took care of me through the crowd, who never had seen a Frank woman before and crowded 10 fearfully, and pushed the true believers unmercifully to make room for me. He was particularly pleased at my not being afraid of Arabs; I laughed and asked if he was afraid of us. ' Oh no ! he would like to come to England; when there he would work to eat and 15 drink, and then sit and sleep in church.' I was posi- tively ashamed to tell my religious friend that with us the l house of God' is not the house of the poor stranger. I asked him to eat with me but he was holding a preliminary Ramadan (it begins next week) 20 and could not; but he brought his handsome sister, who was richly dressed, and begged me to visit him and eat of his bread, cheese and milk. Such is the treatment one finds if one leaves the highroad and the backsheesh-hunting parasites. There are plenty of 25 'gentlemen' barefooted and clad in a shirt and cloak ready to pay attentions which you may return with a civil look and greeting, and if you offer a cup of coffee and a seat on the floor you give great pleasure, still COLLECTION OF LETTERS 127 more if you eat the dourah and dates, or bread and sour milk with an appetite. At Koon Ombo we met a Rifaee darweesh with his basket of tame snakes. After a little talk he pro- posed to initiate me, and so we sat down and held 5 hands like people marrying. Omar sat behind me and repeated the words as my 'Wakeel,' ° then the Rifaee twisted a cobra round our joined hands and requested me to spit on it, he did the same and I was pronounced safe and enveloped in snakes. My sailors 10 groaned and Omar shuddered as the snakes put out their tongues — the darweesh and I smiled at each other like Roman augurs. I need not say the crea- tures were toothless. It is worth going to Nubia to see the girls. Up to 15 twelve or thirteen they are neatly dressed in a bead necklace and a leather fringe 4 inches wide around the loins, and anything so absolutely perfect as their shapes or so sweetly innocent as their look can't be conceived. My pilot's little girl came in the dress 20 mentioned before carrying a present of cooked fish on her head and some fresh eggs ; she was four years old and so klug.° I gave her a captain's biscuit and some figs, and the little pet sat with her legs tucked under her, and ate it so manic rlich ° and was so long over it, 25 and wrapped up some more white biscuit to take home in a little rag of a veil so carefully. I longed to steal her, she was such a darling. Two beautiful young 128 COLLECTION OF LETTERS Nubian women visited me in my boat, with hair in little plaits finished off with lumps of yellow clay bur- _ nished like golden tags, soft, deep bronze skins, and lips and eyes fit for Isis and Hathor. Their very dress 5 and ornaments were the same as those represented in the tombs, and I felt inclined to ask them how T many thousand years old they were. In their house I sat on an ancient Egyptian couch with the semicircular head-rest, and drank out of crockery which looked 10 antique, and they brought a present of dates in a basket such as you may see in the British Museum. They are dressed in drapery like Greek statues, and are as perfect, but have hard, bold faces, and, though far handsomer, lack the charm of the Arab women ; and 15 the men, except at Kalabshee and those from far up the country, are not such gentlemen as the Arabs. How I did wish for my darling Rainie to play with Achmet in the boat and see the pretty Nubian boys and girls. I have seen and heard so much, that like 20 M. de Conti je voudrais etre lew pour Valler dire.° I long to bore you with traveller's tales. Pray write soon. Omar wanted to hear all that 'the gentleman' said about 'weled and bint' (boy and girl), and was quite 25 delighted to hear of Maurice's good report at school, he thinks that the ' Abou el welad' (father of the chil- dren — you, to wit) will send a sheep to the 'fikee' COLLECTION OF LETTERS 129 who teaches him. I have learned a new code of pro- priety altogether — cela a du bon et du mauvais 9 ° like ours. When I said 'my husband' Omar blushed and gently corrected me; when my donkey fell in the streets he cried with vexation, and on my mentioning 5 the fall to Hekekian Bey° he w r as quite indignant. 'Why you say it, Ma'am? that shame' — a faux pas° in fact. Good-bye, dear x\lick, no, that is improper : I must say l O my Lord' or 'Abou Maurice.' 10 (50) Lady Duff Gordon to Her Mother, Mrs. Austin A Few Miles below Girgeh, March 7, 1863. Dearest Mutter, — I was so glad to find from your letter (wdiich Janet sent me to Thebes by a steamer) that mine from Siout° had reached you safely. First 15 and foremost I am wonderfully better. In Cairo the winter had been terribly cold and damp, as the Coptic priest told me yesterday at Girgeh. So I don't repent the expense of the boat for fen ai pour mm argent ° — I am all the money better and really think of getting 20 well. Now that I know the ways of this country a little, which Herodotus truly says is like no other, I see that I might have gone and lived at Thebes or at Keneh or Assouan on next to nothing, but then how could I know it? The English have raised a 130 COLLECTION OF LETTERS mirage of false wants and extravagance which the servants of the country of course, some from interest and others from mere ignorance, do their best to keep up. As soon as I had succeeded in really persuading 5 Omar that I was not as rich as a Pasha and had no wish to be thought so, he immediately turned over a new leaf as to what must be had and said 'Oh, if I could have thought an English lady would have eaten and lived and done the least like Arab people, I might 10 have hired a house at Keneh for you, and we might have gone up in a clean passenger boat, but I thought no English could bear it/ At Cairo, where we shall be, Inshallaha, on the 19th, Omar will get a lodging and borrow a few mattresses and a table and chair 15 and, as he says, 'keep the money in our pockets in- stead of giving it to the hotel/ I hope Alick got my letter from Thebes, and that he told you that I had dined with ' the blameless Ethiopians/ ° I have seen all the temples in Nubia and down as far as I have 20 come, and nine of the tombs at Thebes. Some are wonderfully beautiful — Abou Simbel, Kalabshee, Koom Ombo — a little temple at El Kab, lovely — three tombs at Thebes and most of all Abydos ; Edfou and Dendera are the most perfect, Edfou quite per- 25 feet, but far less beautiful. But the most lovely object my eyes ever saw is the island of Philee. It gives one quite the supernatural feeling of Claude's best landscapes, only not the least like them — ganz COLLECTION OF LETTERS 131 anders. The Arabs say that Ans el Wogood, the most beautiful of men, built it for his most beautiful be- loved, and there they lived in perfect beauty and hap- piness all alone. If the weather had not been so cold while I was there I should have lived in the temple, in 5 a chamber sculptured with the mystery of Osiris' c burial and resurrection. Omar cleaned it out and meant to move my things there for a few days, but it was too cold to sleep in a room without a door. The winds have been extraordinarily cold this year, and 10 are so still. We have had very little of the fine warm weather, and really been pinched with cold most of the time. On the shore away from the river would be much better for invalids. Mustapha Aga, the consular agent at Thebes, has 15 offered me a house of his, up among the tombs in the finest air, if ever I want it. He was very kind and hospitable indeed to all the English there. I went to his hareem, and liked his vWf e's manners very much. It was charming to see that she henpecked her handsome 20 old husband completely. They had fine children, and his boy, about thirteen or so, rode and played Jereed ° one day when Abdallah Pasha had ordered the people of the neighborhood to do it for General Parker. I never saw so beautiful a performance. The old Gen- 25 eral and I were quite excited, and he tried it to the great amusement of the Sheykh el Beled. Some young Englishmen were rather grand about it, but 132 COLLECTION OF LETTERS declined mounting the horses and trying a throw. The Sheykh and young Hassan and then old Mustapha wheeled round and round like beautiful hawks, and caught the palm-sticks thrown at them as they dashed 5 round. It was superb, and the horses were good, though the saddles and bridles were rags and ends of rope, and the men were tatterdemalions. A little below Thebes I stopped, and walked inland to Koos to see a noble old mosque falling to ruin. Xo English iohad ever been there and we were surrounded by a crowd in the bazaar. Instantly five or six tall fellows with long sticks improvised themselves our body-guard and kept the people off, who du teste ° were perfectly civil and only curious to see such strange 'Hareem/ 15 and after seeing us well out of the town evaporated as quietly as they came without a word. I gave about ten-pence to buy oil, as it is Ramadan and the mosque ought to be lighted, and the old servant of the mosque kindly promised me full justice at the Day of Judgment, 2c as I was one of those Nasranee of whom the Lord Mohammed said that they are not proud and wish well to the Muslimeen. The Pasha had confiscated all the lands belonging to the mosque, and allowed 300 piastres — not £2 a month — for all expenses ; of 25 course the noble old building with its beautiful carving and arabesque mouldings must fall down. There was a smaller one beside it, where he declared that anciently forty girls lived unmarried and recited the COLLECTION OF LETTERS 133 Koran — Muslim nuns, in fact. I intended to ask the Alim, for whom I have a letter from Mustapha, about such an anomaly. Some way above Bellianeh Omar asked eagerly leave to stop the boat as a great Sheyk° had called to us, and 5 we should inevitably have some disaster if we dis- obeyed. So we stopped and Omar said ' come and see the Sheyk, ma'am/ I walked off and presently found about thirty people, including all my own men sitting on the ground round St. Simon Stylites — 10 without the column. A hideous old man like Poly- phemus, utterly naked, with the skin of a rhinoceros all cracked with the weather, sat there, and had sat day and night, summer and winter, motionless for twenty years. He never prays, he* never washes, he 15 does not keep Ramadan, and yet he is a saint. Of course I expected a good hearty curse from such a man, but he was delighted with my visit, asked me to sit down, ordered his servant to bring me sugar-cane, asked my name and tried to repeat it over and over 20 again, and was quite talkative and full of jokes and compliments, and took no notice of anyone else. Omar and my crew smiled and nodded, and all congratulated me heartily. Such a distinction proves my own ex- cellence (as the Sheyk knows all people's thoughts), 25 and is sure to be followed by good fortune. Finally Omar proposed to say the Fathah in which all joined except the Sheyk, who looked rather bored by the 134 COLLECTION OF LETTERS interruption, and desired us not to go so soon, unless I were in a hurry. A party of Bedaween came up on camels with presents for the holy man, but he took no notice of them, and went on questioning Omar 5 about me, and answering my questions. What struck me was the total absence of any sanctimonious air about the old fellow ; he was quite worldly and jocose ; I suppose he knew that his position was secure, and thought his dirt and nakedness proved his holiness 10 enough. Omar then recited the Fathah again, and we rose and gave the servants a few foddahs — the saint takes no notice of this part of the proceeding — but he asked me to send him twice my hand full of rice for his dinner, an honor so great that there was a 15 murmur of congratulation through the whole assembly. I asked Omar how a man could be a saint who neglected all the duties of a Muslim, and I found that he fully believed that Sheyk Seleem could be in two places at once, that while he sits there on the shore he is also 20 at Mecca, performing every sacred function and dressed all in green. 'Many people have seen him there, ma'am, quite true.' From Bellianeh we rode on pack-donkeys without bridles to Abydos, six miles through the most beautiful 25 crops ever seen. The absence of weeds and blight is wonderful, and the green of Egypt, where it is green, would make English green look black. Beautiful cattle, sheep and camels were eating the delicious COLLECTION OF LETTERS 135 clover, while their owners camped there in reed huts during the time the crops are growing. Such a lovely scene, all sweetness and plenty. We ate our bread and dates in Osiris' temple, and a woman offered us buffalo milk on our way home, which we drank warm 5 out of the huge earthen pan it had been milked in. At Girgeh I found my former friend Mishregi absent, but his servants told some of his friends of my arrival, and about seven or eight big black turbans soon gath- ered in the boat. A darling little Coptic boy came with 10 his father and wanted a 'kitaah' (book) to write in, so I made one with paper and the cover of my old pocket-book, and gave him a pencil. I also bethought me of showing him 'pickys' in a book, which was so glorious a novelty that he wanted to go with me to 15 my town, 'Beled Ingleez,' where more such books were to be found. (51) Lady Duff Gordon to Her Husband Cairo, April 13, 1863. Dearest Alick, — You will have heard from my mother of my ill luck, falling sick again. The fact is 20 that the spring in Egypt is very trying, and I came down the river a full month too soon. People do tell such lies about the heat. To-day is the first warm day we have had ; till now I have been shivering, and Sally too. I have been out twice, and saw the holy 25 136 COLLECTION OF LETTERS Mahmaal c rest for its first station outside the town ; it is a deeply affecting sight — all these men preparing to endure such hardship. . . . Muslim piety is so unlike what Europeans think it is, — so full of tender 5 emotions, so much more sentimental than we imagine — and it is wonderfully strong. I used to hear Omar praying outside my door while I was so ill, 'O God, make her better. O my God, let her sleep/ as natu- rally as we should say, 'I hope she'll have a good 10 night.' April 15. — I continue to get better slowly, and in a few days will go down to Alexandria. Omar is gone to Boulak ° to inquire the cost of a boat, as I am not fond of the railroad, and have a good deal of heavy 15 baggage, cooking utensils, etc., which the railroad charges enormously for. The black slave girl,° sent as a present to the American Consul-General, is as happy as possible, and sings quaint, soft little Kordo- fan° songs all day. I hope you won't object to my 20 bringing her home. She wails so terribly when Omar tells her she is not my slave, for fear I should leave her, and insists on being my slave. She wants to be a present to Rainie, the little Sitt,° and laughs out so heartily at the thought of her. She is very quiet and 25 gentle, poor little savage, and the utter slavishness of the poor little soul quite upsets me; she has no will of her own. Now she has taken to talking, and tells all her woes and how batal (bad) everyone was at COLLECTION OF LETTERS 137 Khartoum ; anoper (O ! the dainty expression) to say that Mary is obliged to stay at home on Sunday to receive a female COLLECTION OF LETTERS 181 friend, from whom I am equally glad to escape. So that we shall be by ourselves. I write, because it may make some difference in your marketing, etc. C. L. I am sorry to put you to the expense of twopence 5 postage. But I calculate thus : if Mary comes she will eat — Beef 2 plates, hi. Batter Pudding 1 do 2d. Beer, a pint, 2d. 10 Wine, 3 glasses, lie/. I drink no wine ! Chestnuts, after dinner 2d. Tea and supper at moderate calculation, 9c/. 2,s\6c/. 15 From which deduct 2d. postage 2sM. You are a clear gainer by her not coming. (70) Matthew Arnold to Lady de Rothschild Chester Square, Wednesday Morning (December 1865). 20 My dear Lady de Rothschild, — Your kind but imprudent invitation transported the boys with ex- citement, but in the first place they have engagements here to-morrow and Monday which they must keep ; in the second, two youthful schoolboys are, for all bin 182 COLLECTION OF LETTERS their own parents, a luxury to be enjoyed with modera- tion and for no unnecessary number of days at a time. Heaven forbid that any of them should be represented as having histrionic talent ; on the contrary, they ap- 5 pear, giggle, and look sheepish, according to the most approved fashion of youthful actors. What I said to your daughters was that their musical turn made the songs which generally occur in the pieces they choose for acting, no difficulty for them. 10 When is the performance to take place ? They might come down on Tuesday (with a maid) if that would give them time to learn their parts before the play came off. The two must be Trevenen and Dicky, for little Tom has one of his winter coughs, and is a fixture at home. 15 But I really think you hardly know the avalanche you are attracting, and that you had better leave it. I must go for a few days to Westmoreland, though I can ill spare the time, but my mother is not very well, and it is nearly a year and a half since I saw her. 20 I hope your invalid is, at least, no worse. Many, many happy years to you. — I am always, dear Lady de Rothschild, sincerely yours, Matthew Arnold. (71) Thomas Henry Huxley to Tyndall 4 Marlborough Place, Jan. 11, 1875. 25 My dear old Shylock, — My argosies have come in, and here is all that was written in the bond ! If you COLLECTION OF LETTERS 183 want the pound of flesh too, you know it is at your service, and my Portia won't raise that pettifogging objection to shedding a little blood into the bargain, which that other one did. Ever yours faithfully, 5 T. H. Huxley. (72) Thomas Carlyle to G. Remington Chelsea, 12 November, 1852. Dear Sir, — It is with great reluctance that I venture to trouble you in any way; but a kind of necessity compels me ; and I trust your good nature 10 will excuse it in a distressed neighbour. We have the misfortune to be people of weak health in this house ; bad sleepers in particular ; and exceed- ingly sensible in the night hours to disturbances from sound. On your premises for some time past there is 15 a Cock,° by no means particularly loud or discordant ; whose crowing would of course be indifferent or insignif- icant to persons of sound health and nerves ; but, alas, it often enough keeps us unwillingly awake here, and on the whole gives a degree of annoyance which except 20 to the unhealthy, is not easily conceivable. If you would have the goodness to remove that small animal or in any way render him inaudible from midnight to breakfast time, such charity would work a notable relief to certain persons here, and be 25 184 COLLECTION OF LETTERS thankfully acknowledged by them as an act of good neighbourship. With many apologies, and neighbourly respects, I remain, Yours sincerely, s T. Carlyle. (73) Thomas Carlyle to Robt. Browning Chelsea, 1 Deer., 1841. My dear Sir, — The sight of your card instead of yourself, the other day when I came dow T n stairs, was a real vexation to me. The orders here are rigorous. io " Hermetically sealed till 2 o'clock !" But had you chanced to ask for my Wife, she would have guessed that you formed an exception, and would have brought me down. W T e must try it another way. For example : The evenings at present, when not rainy, are bright 15 with moonlight. We are to be at home on Friday night, and alone : could you not be induced to come and join us ? Tea is at six or half -past six. — If you say nothing, let us take' silence for yes, and expect you ! Or if another night than Friday will suit you better, 20 propose another ; and from me in like manner, let no answer mean yes and welcome. At any rate contrive to see me. Yours very truly, T. Carlyle. COLLECTION OF LETTERS 185 (74) William Cow per to Lady Hcskcth ° Olney, Feb. 9, 1786. My dearest Cousin, — I have been impatient to tell you that I am impatient to see you again. Mrs. Unwin° partakes with me in all my feelings upon this subject, and longs also to see you. I should have told 5 you so by the last post. . . . And now, my dear, let me tell you once more, that your kindness in promising us a visit has charmed us both. I shall see you again. I shall hear your voice. We shall take walks together. I will show you my prospects, the hovel, the alcove, 10 the Ouse,° and its banks, every thing that I have described. I anticipate the pleasure of those days not very far distant, and feel a part of it at this moment. Talk not of an inn ! Mention it not for your life ! We have never had so many visitors, but we could easily 15 accommodate them all ; though we have received Unwin, and his wife, and his sister, and his son all at once< My dear, I will not let you come till the end of May, or beginning of June, because before that time my greenhouse will not be ready to receive us, and it is 20 the only pleasant room belonging to us. When the plants go out, we go in. I line it with mats, and spread the floor with mats ; and there you shall sit with a bed of mignonette at your side, and a hedge of honey- suckles, roses, and jasmine; and I will make you a ,25 bouquet of myrtle every day. Sooner than the time I 186 COLLECTION OF LETTERS mention the country will not be in complete beauty. And I will tell you what you shall find at your first entrance. Imprimis, as soon as you have entered the vestibule, if you cast a look on either side of you, you 5 shall see on the right hand a box of my making. It is the box in which have been lodged all my hares, and in which lodges Puss° at present : but he, poor fellow, is worn out with age, and promises to die before you can see him. On the right hand stands a cupboard, the 10 work of the same author ; it was once a dovecage, but I transformed it. Opposite to you stands a table, which I also made : but a merciless servant having scrubbed it until it became paralytic, it serves no purpose now but of ornament ; and all my clean shoes stand under 15 it. On the left hand, at the further end of this superb vestibule, you will find the door of the parlour, into which I will conduct you, and where I will introduce you to Mrs. Unwin, unless we should meet her before, and where we will be as happy as the day is long. Order 20 yourself, my cousin, to the Swan at Newport, and there you shall find me ready to conduct you to Olney. My dear, I have told Homer ° what you say about casks and urns, and have asked him, whether he is sure that it is a cask in which Jupiter keeps his wine. He swears 25 that it is a cask, and that it will never be any thing better than a cask to eternity. So if the god is content with it, we must even wonder at his taste, and be so too. Adieu ! my dearest, dearest cousin. W. C. VIII. "Quips and Cranks" (75) Charles Lamb to Thomas Manning February 19, 1803. My dear -Manning, — The general scope of your letter afforded no indications of insanity, but some particular points raised a scruple. For God's sake don't think any more of "Independent Tartary." ^Yhat ares you to do among such Ethiopians? Is there no lineal descendant of Prester John? Is the chair empty? Is the sword unswayed? Depend upon it they'll never make you their king, as long as any branch of that great stock is remaining. I tremble for your io Christianity. . . . Read Sir John Mandeville's ° travels to cure you, or come over to England. There is a Tartarman now exhibiting at Exeter Change. Come and talk with him, and hear what he says first. Indeed he is no very favorable specimen of his country- 15 men ! . . . Some say, they are Cannibals ; and then, conceive a Tartar-fellow eating my friend, and adding the cool malignity of mustard and vinegar ! I am afraid 't is the reading of Chaucer has misled you ; his foolish stories about Cambuscan, and the ring, and the horse 20 187 188 COLLECTION OF LETTERS of brass. Believe me, there are no such things, 't is all the poet's invention; but if there were such darling things as old Chaucer sings, I would up behind you on the horse of brass, and frisk off for Prester John's 5 country. But these are all tales ; a horse of brass never flew, and a king's daughter never talked with birds! The Tartars, really, are a cold, insipid, smouchy set. You'll be sadly moped (if you are not eaten) among them. Pray try and cure yourself. Take hellebore 10 (the counsel is Horace's, 't was none of my thought originally). Shave yourself oftener. Eat no saffron, for saffron-eaters contract a terrible Tartar-like yellow. Pray, to avoid the fiend. Eat nothing that gives the heart-burn. Shave the upper lip. Go about like an 15 European. Read no books of voyages (they are noth- ing but lies), only now and then a romance, to keep the fancy under. Above all, don't go to any sights of wild beasts. That has been your ruin. Accustom yourself to write familiar letters, on common subjects, 20 to your friends in England, such as are of a moderate understanding. . . . Have a care, my dear friend, of Anthropophagi ! ° their stomachs are always craving. 'T is terrible to be weighed out at fivepence a-pound; to sit at table (the reverse of fishes in Holland) not as a 25 guest, but as a meat. God bless you : do come to England. x\ir and exer- cise may do great things. Talk with some minister, Whv not vour father? COLLECTION OF LETTERS 189 God dispose all for the best. I have discharged my c *- ■ Your sincere friend, , C. Lamb. (76) Charles Lamb to Thomas Manning 16, Mitre Court Buildings, 5 Saturday, February 24, 1805. Dear Manning, — I have been very unwell since I saw you : a sad depression of spirits, a most un- accountable nervousness ; from which I have been par- tially relieved by an odd accident. You knew Dick io Hopkins, the swearing scullion of Caius? This fellow, by industry and agility, has thrust himself into the im- portant situations (no sinecures, believe me) of cook to Trinity Hall and Caius College: and the generous creature has contrived, with the greatest delicacy 15 imaginable, to send me a present of Cambridge brawn. What makes it the more extraordinary is, that the man never saw me in his life that I know of. I suppose he has heard of me. I did not immediately recognize the donor ; but one of Richard's cards, which had accidently 20 fallen into the straw, detected him in a moment. Dick, you know, was always remarkable for flourishing. His card imports, that " orders (to wit, for brawn") from any part of England, Scotland, or Ireland, will be duly executed,' ' etc. At first, I thought of declining 25 the present ; but Richard knew my blind side when he 190 COLLECTION OF LETTERS pitched upon brawn. 'T is of all my hobbies the supreme in the eating way. He might have sent sops from the pan, skimmings, crumpets, chips, hog's lard, the tender brown judiciously scalped from a fillet of 5 veal (dexterously replaced by a salamander), the tops of asparagus, fugitive livers, run away gizzards of fowls, the eyes of martyred pigs, . . . the red spawn of lobsters, leverets' ears, and such pretty fllchings com- mon to cooks ; but these had been ordinary presents, 10 the everyday courtesies of dish-washers to their sweet- hearts. Brawn was a noble thought. It is not every common gullet-fancier that can properly esteem it. It is like a picture of one of the choice old Italian masters. Its gusto is of that hidden sort. As Wordsworth 15 sings of a modest poet, — " you must love him, ere to you he will seem worthy of your love"; so brawn, you must taste it ere to you it will seem to have any taste at all. But 't is nuts to the adept : those that will send out their tongue and feelers to find it out. It 20 will be wooed, and not unsought be won. Now, ham-essence, lobsters, turtle, such popular minions, absolutely court you, lay themselves out to strike you at first smack, like one of David's pictures (they call him Darveed) compared with the plain russet-coated 25 wealth of a Titian or a Correggio, as I illustrated above. Such are the obvious glaring heathen virtues of a corporation dinner, compared with the reserved collegiate worth of brawn. Do me the favor to leave COLLECTION OF LETTERS 191 off the business which you may be at present upon, and go immediately to the kitchens of Trinity and Caius, and make my most respectful compliments to Mr. Richard Hopkins, and assure him that his brawn is most excellent ; and that I am moreover obliged to 5 him for his innuendo about salt water and bran, which I shall not fail to improve. I leave it to you whether you shall choose to pay him the civility of asking him to dinner while you stay in Cambridge, or in whatever other way you may best like to show your gratitude 10 to my friend. Richard Hopkins, considered in many points of view, is a very extraordinary character. Adieu. I hope to see you to supper in London soon, where we will taste Richard's brawn, and drink his health in a cheerful but moderate cup. We have not 15 many such men in any rank of life as Mr. R. Hopkins. Crisp, the barber, of St. Mary's was just such another. I wonder he never sent me any little token, some chest- nuts, or a puff, or two pound of hair : just to remember him by. Gifts are like nails. Praesens ut absens ; 20 that is, your present makes amends for your absence. Yours, C. Lamb. (77) Charles Lamb to Thomas Manning (July 27, 1805.) Dear Archimedes, — Things have gone on badly 25 with thy ungeometrical friend; but they are on the 192 COLLECTION OF LETTERS turn. My old housekeeper has shown signs of convales- cence, and will shortly resume the power of the keys, so I shan't be cheated of my tea and liquors. Wind in the West, which promotes tranquillity. Have leisure snow to anticipate seeing thee again. Have been taking leave of tobacco in a rhyming address. Had thought that vein had long since closed up. Find I can rhyme and reason too. Think of studying mathematics, to restrain the fire of my genius, which G. D. recom- 10 mends. Have frequent bleedings at the nose, which shows plethoric. Maybe shall try the sea myself, that great scene of wonders. Got incredibly sober and regular; shave oftener, and hum a tune, to signify cheerfulness and gallantry. 15 Suddenly disposed to sleep, having taken a quart of pease with bacon and stout. Will not refuse Nature, who has done such things for me ! Nurse ! don't call me unless Mr. Manning comes. — W T hat ! the gentleman in spectacles ? — Yes. 20 Dormit. C * L ' Saturday, Hot noon. (78) Thomas Henry Huxley to His Youngest Daughter Hotel Britannique, Naples, Dec. 22, 1884. But we have had no letters from home for a week. 25 . . . Moreover, if we don't hear to-day or to-morrow we COLLECTION OF LETTERS 193 shall begin to speculate on the probability of an earth- quake having swallowed up 4 M.P.° " with all the young barbarians at play — And I their sire trying to get a Roman holiday" ° (Byron). For we are going to Rome to-morrow, having had enough of Naples, the general 5 effect of which city is such as would be produced by the sight of a beautiful woman who had not washed or dressed her hair for a month. Climate, on the whole, more variable than that of London. We had a lovely drive three days ago to Cumse, a 10 perfect summer's day ; since then sunshine, heat, cold wind, calms all durcheinander, with thunder and light- ning last night to complete the variety. The thermometer and barometer are not fixed to the walls here, as they would be jerked off by the sudden 15 changes. At first, it is odd to see them dancing about the hall. But you soon get used to it, and the porter sees that they don't break themselves. With love to Nettie and Harry, and hopes that the pudding will be good. 20 Ever your loving father, T. H. Huxley. (79) Thomas Henry Huxley to J. C. Kitton Hodelsea, April 12, 1893. A long series of cats has reigned over my household for the last forty years, or thereabouts, but I am sorry 25 194 COLLECTION OF LETTERS that I have no pictorial or other record of their physical and moral excellences. The present occupant of the throne is a large, young, gray Tabby — Oliver by name. Not that he is in any 5 sense a protector, for I doubt whether he has the heart to kill a mouse. However, I saw him catch and eat the first butterfly of the season, and trust that this germ of courage, thus manifested, may develop with age into efficient mousing. 10 As to sagacity, I should say that his judgment re- specting the warmest place and the softest cushion in a room is infallible — his punctuality at meal times is admirable ; and his pertinacity in jumping on people's shoulders, till they give him some of the best of what is 15 going, indicates great firmness. (80) Thomas Henry Huxley to His Youngest Daughter Hodelsea, Eastbourne, Jan. 8, 1893. I wish you would write seriously to M .° She is not behaving well to Oliver. I have seen handsomer kittens, but few more lively, and energetically destruc- 2otive. Just now he scratched away at something that M says cost 13s. 6d. a yard — and reduced more or less of it to combings. M therefore excludes him from the dining-room, and all those opportunities of higher education which he 25 would naturally have in my house. COLLECTION OF LETTERS 195 I have argued that it is as immoral to place 13.9. Grf. a yardnesses within reach of kittens as to hang bracelets and diamond rings in the front garden. But in vain. Oliver is banished — and the protector (not Oliver) is sat upon. — In truth and justice aid your Pa. 5 (81) Thomas Henry Huxley to His Youngest Daughter Athenaeum Club, May 17, 1892. Dearest Babs, — As I was going along Upper Thames Street just now, I saw between Nos. 170 primary parenthesis and 211 (but you would like to know what I was going 10 along that odorous street for. Well, it was to inquire 2nd p. how the pen with which I am now writing — (you see it is a new-fangled fountain pen, warranted to cure the 2nd p. 15 worst writing and always spell properly) — works, because it would not work properly this morning. And 3rd p. the nice young woman who took it from me — (as 3rd p. 20 who should say you old foodie !) inked her own fingers 4th p. enormously (which I told her I was pleased they were 4th p. her fingers rather than mine) — But she only smole. 25 5th p. (Close by was another shop where they sold hose — 196 COLLECTION OF LETTERS 6 or 7 p. n. p. (indiarubber, not knitted) — and warranted to let water through, not keep it out) ; and I asked for a garden syringe, thinking such things likely to be kept 5 by hosiers of that sort — and they said they had not N.n. p. any, but found they had a remnant cheap (price 3s.) which is less than many people pay for the other hosiers' end of pp. iohose) a doorpost at the side of the doorway of some place of business with this remarkable notice : Ruling Girls Wanted. Don't you think you had better apply at once? Jack will give you a character, I am sure, on the side 15 of the art of ruling, and I will speak for the science — also of hereditary (on mother's side) instinct. Well, I am not sure about the pen yet — but there is no room for any more. Ever your loving 20 Dad. Epistolary composition on the model of a Glad- stonian speech to a deputation on women's suffrage. IX. About People and Books (82) Jane Welsh Carlyle to Helen Welsh Chelsea : March 1843. Now do you deserve that I should send you any letter, any autograph, anything, thou graceless, ' grace- ful Miss Welsh ' ? I think not ; but ' If everyone had his deserts, which of us should escape whipping ? ' 5 And besides I see not what virtues remain possible for me, unless it be the passive ones of patience and for- giveness ; for which, thank Heaven, there is always open course enough in this otherwise tangled world ! Three of the autographs, which I send you to-day, 10 are first-rate. A Yankee would almost give a dollar apiece for them. Entire characteristic letters from Pickwick, Lytton Bulwer, and Alfred Tennyson ; the last, the greatest genius of the three, though the vulgar public have not as yet recognised him for such. Get 15 his poems if you can, and read the ' Ulysses,' ' Dora,' the 1 Vision of Sin,' and you will find that we do not over- rate him. Besides he is a very handsome man, and a noble-hearted one, with something of the gipsy in his appearance, which, for me, is perfectly charming. 20 197 198 COLLECTION OF LETTERS Babbie never saw him, unfortunately, or perhaps I should say fortunately, for she must have fallen in love with him on the spot, unless she be made absolutely of ice ; and then men of genius have never anything to 5 keep wives upon ! Jane Carlyle. (83) W. W. Story to Charles Eliot Norton Diablerets, Aug. 15th, 1861. ******* You have before this heard of course of the death of Mrs. Browning, though the news had not reached you iowhen you wrote. This was sudden and unexpected at the last, for though she had always been so frail that one wondered what kept soul and body together at all, we had become so accustomed to thinking of her as different from all others in the matter of health that 15 we began to think that she might even outlast us. Fifteen years ago her physicians told her that life was impossible, yet she had lived and borne a child and written immortal verses and shown an amazing energy of spirit and intellect. But last winter I had many fears 20 that she was failing. The death of her father had struck her a hard blow ; then her sister's death struck her again, as it were, when she was down, and I feared that her vital energy, great as it was, might not resist. Yet she revived and, as spring came on, went out to COLLECTION OF LETTERS 199 drive, and, though weak, began to gather herself to* gether again, even at one time projecting a journey to Paris. This however was impossible. Yet she went to Florence by vettura and did not suffer more than usual, and we were all hesitating, at Leghorn, whether 5 we should not abandon our scheme of Switzerland for another summer together in Siena when the fatal news of her death reached us. Browning was to have come down to spend Sunday w T ith us, but on Saturday night she was attacked with difficulty of breathing, and at 10 dead of night he w T as forced to run for a physician, Dr. Wilson, who remained with her all night and took a very gloomy view. The morning brought relief, and, though weaker, she declared she was otherwise as well as ever. They talked over their plans for the future, 15 decided to go to Siena for the summer with us, agreed to give up Casa Guidi and take a villa in Florence to return to in the spring and autumn. Being in treaty for an apartment in Palazzo Barberini at Rome for six years, they discussed the question of how they should 20 furnish it. During the subsequent days she constantly came into the salon and lay on the sofa there all day — until Friday, when Lytton stayed all the morning there talking with B., so that she did not come out. On Friday evening they had again a long talk about their 25 future plans, and she went to bed as well as she had been in general respects, though there were some few symptoms which troubled B., such as raising now and 200 COLLECTION OF LETTERS then her hands and holding them long before her, and also a slight wandering of the mind at intervals and as she was just about to doze. But this wandering he attributed to the morphine, which by order of Dr. W. 5 she was obliged to take in larger quantities than those she was accustomed to. At about three o'clock he was startled by her breathing and woke her, but she said she was better, and reasoned so quietly and justly about her state that his fears were again subdued. She talked 10 with him and jested and gave expression to her love for him in the tenderest words ; then, feeling sleepy, and he supporting her in his arms, she fell into a doze. In a few minutes, suddenly, her head dropped forward. He thought she had fainted, but she had gone for ever. 15 She had passed as if she had fallen asleep, without pain, without thought of death. After death she looked, as Browning told me, like a young girl ; all the outlines rounded and filled up, all traces of disease effaced, and a smile on her face so living that they could not for 20 hours persuade themselves she was really dead. We went immediately to Florence, and it was a sad house enough. There stood the table with her letters and books as usual, and her little chair beside it, and in her portfolio a half -finished letter to Mine. Mario, 25 full of noble words about Italy. Yes, it was for Italy that her last words were written ; for her dear Italy were her last aspirations. The death of Cavour had greatly affected her. She had wept many tears for COLLECTION OF LETTERS 201 him, and been a real mourner. This agitation undoubt- edly weakened her and perhaps was the last feather that broke her down. 'The cycle is complete/ as Browning said, looking round the room ; ' here we came fifteen years ago ; here Pen° was born ; here Ba° wrote 5 her poems for Italy. She used to w T alk up and down this verandah in the summer evenings, when, revived by the southern air, she first again began to enjoy her out-doors life. Every day she used to walk with me or drive with me, and once even walked to Bellosguerdo 10 and back; that was when she was strongest. Little by little, as I now see, that distance was lessened, the active out-doors life restricted, until walking had finally ceased. We saw from these windows the return of the Austrians ; they wheeled round this corner and 15 came down this street with all their cannon, just as she describes it in " Casa Guidi." Last week when we came to Florence I said : " We used, you know, to walk on this verandah so often — come and walk up and down once. Just once," I urged, and she came to the 20 window and took two steps on it. But it fatigued her too much, and she went back and lay down on the sofa — that was our last walk. Only the night she w T ent away for ever she said she thought we must give up Casa Guidi ; it was too inconvenient and in case of 25 illness too small. We had decided to go away and take a villa outside the gates. For years she would not give up this house, but at last and, as it were, suddenly, she 202 COLLECTION OF LETTERS said she saw it was too small for us and too inconvenient. And so it was ; so the cycle was completed for us here, and wiiere the beginning was is the end. Looking back at these past years I see that we have been- all the 5 time walking over a torrent on a straw. Life must now be begun anew — all the old cast off and the new one put on. I shall go away, break up everything, go to England and live and work and write/ . . . The funeral was not impressive, as it ought to 10 have been. She was buried in the Protestant cemetery where Theodore Parker lies ; many of her friends were there, but fewer persons than I expected and hoped to see. The services were blundered through by a fat English parson in a brutally careless way, and she was 15 consigned by him to the earth as if her clay were no better than any other clay. I did what I could, but I had arrived too late to assume the arrangements. . . . So I carried two wreaths — it was all I could do — one of those exquisite white Florence roses, and the other of 20 laurel, and these I laid on her coffin . She is a great loss to literature, to Italy and to the world — the great- est poet among women. What energy and fire there was in that little frame; what burning words were winged by her pen; with what glorious courage she 25 attacked error, however strongly entrenched in custom ; how bravely she stood by her principles ! Never did I see any one whose brow the world hurried and crowded so to crown, who had so little vanity and so much pure COLLECTION OF LETTERS 203 humility. Praise gratified her when just — blame when unjust scarcely annoyed her. She could afford to let her work plead for itself. Ready to accept criti- cism, she never feared it, but defended herself with spirit when unjustly attacked. For public opinions she cared not a straw, and could not bear to be looked on as a lion. Her faiths were rooted in the centre of her being. Browning is now with his sister in Paris. The house at Florence is broken up, and I have lost my best 10 friend and daily companion in Italy. You cannot imagine how I shall miss him. For three years now we have been always together ; never a day has passed (with the exception of two months' separation in the spring and autumn when he went to Florence) that we is have not met; all the long summer evenings of these last summers at Siena he was with us, and w T e sat on our terrace night after night till midnight talking together, or we played and sang together above stairs. All the last winters he worked with me daily for three hours in 20 my studio, and we met either at my house or at his or at that of some friend nearly every evening. There is no one to supply his place. Returning to Rome, I have not one single intimate; acquaintances by hun- dreds, but no friends, no one with whom I can sym- 25 pathise on all points as with him, no one with whom I can walk any of the higher ranges of art and philosophy. This for me is a terrible want. . . . 204 COLLECTION OF LETTERS . . . The last thing before leaving Rome was to make a bust of him which his wife was good enough to call 'perfect/ It was made for her as a present, but, alas ! you see the end of that. . . . (84) Thackeray to Tennyson 5 Folkstone, September. 36 Onslow Square, October. My dear old Alfred, — I owe you a letter of happiness and thanks. Sir, about three weeks ago, when I was ill in bed, I read the "Idylls of the King," io and I thought, " Oh I must write to him now, for this pleasure, this delight, this splendour of happiness which I have been enjoying." But I should have blotted the sheets, 'tis ill writing on one's back. The letter full of gratitude never went as far as the postoffice and how 15 comes it now? D'abord, a bottle of claret. (The landlord of the hotel asked me down to the cellar and treated me.) Then afterwards sitting here, an old magazine, Fraser's Magazine, 1850, and I come on a poem out of "The 20 Princess" which says "I hear the horns of Elfland blowing blowing," no, it's "the horns of Elfland faintly blowing" (I have been into my bedroom to fetch my pen and it has made that blot), and, reading the lines, which only one man in the world could write, I thought 25 about the other horns of Elfland blowing in full strength, COLLECTION OF LETTERS 205 and Arthur in gold armour, and Guinevere in gold hair and all those knights and heroes and beauties and purple landscapes and misty gray lakes in which you have made me live. They seem like facts to me, since about three weeks ago (three weeks or a month was it ?) $ when I read the book. It is on the table yonder, and I don't like, somehow, to disturb it, but the delight and gratitude ! You have made me as happy as I was as a child with the Arabian Nights, every step I have walked in Elfland has been a sort of Paradise to me. (Theio landlord gave two bottles of his claret and I think I drank the most) and here I have been lying back in the chair and thinking of those delightful "Idylls," my thoughts being turned to you : what could I do but be grateful to that surprising genius which has made me is so happy ? Do you understand that what I mean is all true and that I should break out were you sitting oppo- site with a pipe in your mouth ? Gold and purple and diamonds, I say, gentlemen and glory and love and honour, and if you haven't given me all these why 20 should I be in such an ardour of gratitude? But I have had out of that dear book the greatest delight that has ever come to me since I was a young man ; to write and think about it makes me almost young, and this I suppose is what I'm doing, like an after-dinner 25 speech. P.S. I thought the "Grandmother" quite as fine. How can you at 50 be doing things as well as at 35 ? 206 COLLECTION OF LETTERS October 16th. (I should think six weeks after the writing of the above.) The rhapsody of gratitude was never sent, and for a peculiar reason ; just about the time of writing I came s to an arrangement with Smith and Elder to edit their new magazine, and to have a contribution from T. was the publisher's and editor's highest ambition. But to ask a man for a favour, and to praise and bow down before him in the same page seemed to be so like 10 hypocrisy, that I held my hand, and left this note in my desk, where it has been lying during a little French- Italian-Swiss tour which my girls and their papa have been making. Meanwhile S. E. and Co. have been making their 15 own proposals to you, and you have replied not favour- ably I am sorry to hear : but now there is no reason why you should not have my homages, and I am just as thankful for the "Idylls," and love and admire them just as much, as I did two months ago when I began to 20 write in the ardour of claret and gratitude. If you can't write for us you can't. If you can by chance some day, and help an old friend, how pleased and happy I shall be ! This however must be left to fate and your convenience : I don't intend to give up hope, 25 but accept the good fortune if it comes. I see one, two, three quarterlies advertised to-day, as all bringing laurels to laureatus. He will not refuse the private gift of an old friend, will he? You know how pleased the girls COLLECTION OF LETTERS 207 were at Kensington t'other day to hear you quote their father's little verses, and he too I daresay was not disgusted. He sends you and yours his very best regards in this most heartfelt and artless (note of admiration) ! 5 Always yours, my dear Alfred. W. M. Thackeray. (85) Tennyson to Thackeray Warringford. My dear Thackeray, — Should I not have answered you ere this 6th of November ? surely : what excuse ? io none that I know of : except indeed, that perhaps your very generosity and boundlessness of approval made me in a measure shamefaced. I could scarcely accept it, being, I fancy, a modest man, and always more or less doubtful of my own efforts in any line. But I may tell is you that your little note gave me more pleasure than all the journals and monthlies and quarterlies which have come across me : not so much from your being the Great Novelist I hope as from your being my good old friend, or perhaps from your being both of these in 20 one. Well, let it be. I have been ransacking all sorts of old albums and scrap books but cannot find anything worthy sending you. Unfortunately before your letter arrived I had agreed to give Macmillan the only avail- able poem° I had by me ("Sea Dreams"). I don't 25 208 COLLECTION OF LETTERS think he would have got it (for I dislike publishing in magazines) except that he had come to visit me in my Island, and was sitting and blowing his weed vis-a-vis. I am sorry that you have engaged for any quantity of 5 money to let your brains be sucked periodically by Smith, Elder & Co. : not that I don't like Smith who seems from the very little I have seen of him liberal and kindly, but that so great an artist as you are should go to work after this fashion. Whenever you feel your 10 brains as the " remainder biscuit," ° or indeed whenever you will, come over to me and take a blow on these downs where the air as Keats said is " worth sixpence a pint," and bring your girls too. Yours always, I5 A. Tennyson. (86) Thomas Henry Huxley to John Tyndall Eastbourne, Oct. 15, 1892. My dear Tyndall, — I think you will like to hear that the funeral yesterday lacked nothing to make it worthy of the dead or the living. 20 Bright sunshine streamed through the windows of the nave, while the choir was in half gloom, and as each shaft of light illuminated the flower-covered bier as it slowly travelled on, one thought of the bright suc- cession of his works between the darkness before and the 25 darkness after. I am glad to say that the Royal Society COLLECTION OF LETTERS 209 was represented by four of its chief officers, and nine of the commonalty, including myself. Tennyson has a right to that, as the first poet since Lucretius who has understood the drift of science. We have heard nothing of you and your wife for ages. 5 Ask her to give us news, good news I hope, of both. My wife is better than she was, and joins me in love. Ever affectionatelv, T. H. Huxley. (87) Sarah Orne Jewett to Mrs. Whitman 22, Clarges Street, Mayfair, W. 10 London, 20 August, 1892. I believe that I wrote you last from Yorkshire, and there seems to be so much to tell since, that my pen quite flies in the air, like a horse that won't go. We had a lovely scurry indeed, home from Ilkley by the 15 way of " Lincoln, Peterborough, and Ely," ° not to speak of Boston and Cambridge, where we gave ourselves just time enough to see Newnham, and to have a walk and to go to the afternoon service at King's College Chapel, and to stray afterward in the dusk into Trinity 20 Hall to see the portraits, and then to our inn to sleep as best we might, after a great day, and go on to London in the morning. We spent eight solid hours in the House of Commons, on Tuesday night, to hear the great debate, and were flying about a good deal all that week, 25 and at the end we went up into Warwickshire to stay p 210 COLLECTION OF LETTERS with Mrs. Dugdale, a most charming visit in a story- book country house, which we both enjoyed enormously ; and then by Oxford back to London again, and this last week we have been seeing much of the Arnolds. . . . 5 It is a very good time to take for being in London, on the whole, but we have been spending nights and mak- ing days' journeys to the neighborhood, and begin to feel that we are not likely to see half enough of London itself. But what can I tell you (with a common Flying 10 Scotchman pen) of going to see my Lord and Lady Tennyson, down among the Surrey hills ! It meant a great deal more to me than when I saw them before. I wish I could make you know their wonderful faces. One goes into their presence with the feeling of a former 15 age. I believe that I know exactly what I should have felt a thousand years ago if I were paying a friendly visit to my king ; but it is the high court of poetry at Aldworth, ° whatever one may say. My Lord Tennyson was so funny and cross about newspapers and reporters 20 that I feel his shadow above me even in this letter, innocent-hearted as I be. He has suffered deep wrongs indeed ; perhaps it is well that I can't write long enough to tell you many delightful things that he said and did (saying some of his poetry once or twice in a wonderful 25 way), except one which belongs to you, — his complete delight in my Japanese crystal, which he looked at over and over, and wondered much about, and enjoyed, and thought to find things in it.° Wasn't that nice of you, COLLECTION OF LETTERS 211 S. W. ? and you a-giving it to me, and indeed so many people beside a poet have liked me for it, and remember me now as the person to whom it belonged. If I could have given it to anybody in this world, I could have given it to Tennyson then and there ; but Xo ! and now 5 I like it more because he liked it, a-shining in its silver leaves. Yesterday we spent the day with Mrs. Humphry Ward,° who has been ill for a while and is just getting " better. Somehow, she seemed so much younger and 10 more girlish than I expected, even with Ethel, her next sister, clear and dear in my mind. Ethel was not there, but Mrs. Huxley, and her father and his wife, and Mr. Ward himself, for which I w r as very glad. I long to have you know Mrs. Ward. You would quite take 15 her to your heart. She is very clear and shining in her young mind, brilliant and full of charm, and with a lovely simplicity and sincerity of manner. I think of her with warmest affection and a sacred expectation of what she is sure to do if she keeps strong, and sorrow 20 does not break her eager young heart too soon. Her life burns with a very fierce flame, and she has not in the least done all that she can do, but just now it seems to me that her vigor is a good deal spent. She has most lovely children. The young son was busy with cricket-match, and we beheld a good part of it, and saw the charming old garden, and altogether it v cry pleasant day indeed, and held pleasure enough for 1 212 COLLECTION OF LETTERS or three. Now that I have begun to tell things, I wish to write you a complete autobiography of two weeks, but all the other people and things must wait until I see you, except perhaps that I must tell you how won- 5 derfully well Mary Beaumont looks and seems. This week we are going to Cobham, to stay a few days with dear Mrs. Arnold, who would touch you with her changed looks. She has grown so much older since that merry day when we went to the first feast at Old Place. 10 She asks so affectionately for you, and is just as dear as ever. When you get this letter, I think we shall be staying up at Whitby, on our way to Edinburgh, seeing the Du Mauriers again, according to agreement, and other friends, and liking to go there because Mr. Lowell 15 was always talking about it and was so fond of it. Then we go on to Edinburgh. See what a little place I have left to send A. F.'s love in, but here it goes. Good-bye, dear. And then "Lady Rose's Daughter." If you w T ere 20 here how much we should talk about it. There are splendid qualities of the highest sort. One says at certain moments with happy certainty that here is the one solitary master of fiction — I mean of novel writing. How is she going on at this great pace to the story's 25 end ? But one cannot let such a story flag and fail — there must be an end as good as this beginning. COLLECTION OF LETTERS 213 (88) Edward FitzGerald to Alfred, Lord Tennyson Gorlestone, Great Yarmouth, July, 1857. My dear old Alfred, — Please direct the enclosed to Frederick. I wrote him some months ago getting Parker to direct ; but have had no reply. You won't write to me, at which I can't wonder. I keep hoping 5 for King Arthur — or part of him. I have got here to the seaside — a dirty, Dutch-looking sea, with a dusty Country in the rear ; but the place is not amiss for one's Yellow Leaf. I keep on reading foolish Persian too : chiefly because of its connecting me with 10 the Cowells, now besieged in Calcutta. But also I have really got hold of an old Epicurean so desperately impious in his recommendations to live only for To-day that the good Mahometans have scarce dared to multi- ply MSS. of him. He writes in little quatrains, and 15 has scarce any of the iteration and conceits to which his people are given. . . . But he is very tender about his roses and wine, and making the most of this poor little life. All which is very poor stuff you will say. Please to 20 remember me to the Lady. I don't know when I shall ever see you again ; and yet you can't think how often I wish to do so, and never forget you, and never shall, my dear old Alfred, in spite of Epicurus. But I don't grow merrier. Yours ^ E. F. G. 214 COLLECTION OF LETTERS (89) Edward FitzGerald to Mrs. Tennyson 1873. Dear Mrs. Tennyson, — I remember Franklin Lushington perfectly — at Farringford in 1854; al- most the last visit I paid anywhere : and as pleasant as s any, after, or before. I have still some sketches I made of the place: "Maud, Maud, Maud/' etc., was then read to me, and has rung in my ears ever after. Mr. Lushington, I remember, sketched also. If he be with you still, please tell him that I hope his remembrance of io me is as pleasant as mine of him. I think I told you that Frederick came here in August, having (of course) missed you on his way. The Mis- tress of Trinity wrote to me some little while ago, telling me, among other things, that she, and others, 15 were much pleased with your son Hallam, whom they thought to be like the "Paltry Poet" ° (poor fellow). The Paltry one's Portrait is put in a frame and hung up at my chateau, where I talk to it sometimes, and every one likes to see it. It is clumsy enough, to be 20 sure ; but it still recalls the old man to me better than the bearded portraits which are now the fashion. But oughtn't your Hallam to have it over his mantel- piece at Trinity ? The first volume of Forster's Dickens has been read 25 to me of a night, making me love him, up to 30 years of age at any rate ; till then, quite unspoilt, even by his COLLECTION OF LETTERS 215 American triumphs, and full of good humor, generosity, and energy. I wonder if Alfred remembers dining at his house with Thackeray and me, me taken there, quite unaffected, and seeming to wish any one to show off rather than himself. In the evening we had a 5 round game at cards and mulled claret. Does A. T. remember ? I have had my yearly letter from Carlyle, w T ho writes of himself as better than last year. He sends me a Mormon Newspaper, with a very sensible sermon in it 10 from the life of Brigham Young, as also the account of a visit to a gentleman of Utah with eleven wives and near forty children, all of whom were very happy together. I am just going to send the paper to Archdeacon Allen to show him how they manage these things over the 15 Atlantic. About Omar I must say that all the changes made in the last copy are not to be attributed to my own per- verseness; the same thoughts being constantly re- peated with directions, whether by Omar or others, in 20 500 quatrains going under his name. I had not eyes, nor indeed any further appetite, to refer to the Original, or even to the French Translation. ... I really didn't, and don't, think it matters what changes are made in that Immortal Work which is to last about five 25 years longer. I believe it is the strong-minded Ameri- can ladies who have chiefly taken it up ; but they will soon have something wickeder to digest, I dare say. 216 COLLECTION OF LETTERS I am going to write out for Alfred a few lines from a Finnish Poem which I find quoted in Lowell's "Among my Books" — which I think a good Book. But I must let my eyes rest now. (90) Washington Irving to His Brother 5 Abbotsford, September 1, 1817. My dear Brother, — I have barely time to scrawl a line before the gossoon goes off with the letters to the neighboring post-office. I was disappointed in my expectation of meeting io with Dugald Stewart ° at Mr. Jeffrey's ° ; some circum- stance prevented his coming ; though we had Mrs. and Miss Stewart. The party, however, was very agreeable and interesting. Lady Davy° was in excellent spirits, and talked like an angel. In the evening, when we 15 collected in the drawing-room, she held forth for up- wards of an hour ; the company drew round her and seemed to listen in mute pleasure ; even Jeffrey seemed to keep his colloquial powers in check to give her full chance. She reminded me of the picture of the Minis- 20 ter Bird with all the birds of the forest perched on the surrounding branches in listening attitudes. I met there with Lord Webb Seymour, brother to the Duke of Somerset. He is almost a constant resident of Edinburgh. He was very attentive to me; wrote 25 down a route for me in the Highlands, and called COLLECTION OF LETTERS 217 on me next morning, when he detailed the route more particularly. I have promised to see him when I re- turn to Edinburgh, which promise I shall keep, as I like him much. On Friday, in spite of sullen, gloomy weather, 1 5 mounted the top of the mail coach, and rattled off to Selkirk. It rained heavily in the course of the afternoon, and drove me inside. On Saturday morning early I took chaise for Melrose ; and on the way stopped at the gate of Abbotsford, and sent in my letter of introduc- 10 tion, with a request to know whether it would be agree- able for Mr. Scott to receive, a visit from me in the course of the day. The glorious old minstrel himself came limping to the gate, took me by the hand in a way that made me feel as if we were old friends ; in a 15 moment I was seated at his hospitable board among his charming little family, and here have I been ever since. I had intended certainly being back in Edinburgh to- day (Monday), but Mr. Scott wishes me to stay until Wednesday, that we may make excursions to Dry- 20 burgh Abbey, Yarrow, etc., as the weather has held up and the sun begins to shine. I cannot tell you how truly I have enjoyed the hours I have passed here. They fly by too quick, yet each is loaded with story, incident, or song : and when I consider the world of 25 ideas, images, and impressions that have been crowded upon my mind since I have been here, it seems incredi- ble that I should only have been two days at Abbots- 218 COLLECTION OF LETTERS ford. I have rambled about the hills with Scott; visited the haunts of Thomas the Rhymer, and other spots rendered classic by border tale and witching song, and have been in a kind of dream or delirium. 5 As to Scott, I cannot express my delight at his charac- ter and manners. He is a sterling golden-hearted old worthy, full of the joyousness of youth, with an imagina- tion continually furnishing forth pictures, and a charm- ing simplicity of manner that puts you at ease with him 10 in a moment. It has been a constant source of pleasure to me to remark his deportment towards his family, his neighbors, his domestics, his very dogs and cats ; every- thing that comes within his influence seems to catch a beam of that sunshine that plays round his heart ; but 15 I shall say more of him hereafter, for he is a theme on which I shall love to dwell. Before I left Edinburgh I saw Blackwood ° in his shop. It was accidental — my conversing with him. He found out who I was ; is extremely anxious to make an 20 American arrangement ; wishes to get me to write for his Magazine; (the "Edinburgh Monthly.") Wishes to introduce me to Mackenzie, Wilson, etc. Con- stable called on me just before I left town. He had been in the country and just returned. He was very 25 friendly in his manner. Lord Webb Seymour's coming in interrupted us, and Constable took leave. I prom- ised to see him on my return to Edinburgh. He is about regenerating the old "Edinburgh Magazine/' COLLECTION OF LETTERS 219 and has got Blackwood's editors away from him in consequence of some feud they had with him. Commend me to Hamilton. I hope to hear from him soon, and shall write to him again. Your affectionate brother, 5 W. I. (91) Washington Irving to His Brother Edinburgh, September 6, 1817. My dear Brother, — ... I left Abbotsford on Wednesday morning, and never left any place with more regret. The few days that I passed there were io among the most delightful of my life, and worth as many years of ordinary existence. We made a charm- ing excursion to Dryburgh Abbey, but were prevented making our visit to Yarrow by company. I was with Scott from morning to night; rambling about the hills 15 and streams, every one of which would bring to his mind some old tale or picturesque remark. I was charmed with his family. He has two sons and two daughters. Sophie Scott, the eldest, is between seven- teen and eighteen, a fine little mountain lassie, with a 20 great deal of her father's character; and the most engaging frankness and naivete. Ann, the second daughter, is about sixteen; a pleasing girl, but her manner is not so formed as her sister. The oldest lad, Walter, is about fifteen ; but surprisingly tall of his 25 220 COLLECTION OF LETTERS age, having the appearance of nineteen. He is quite a sportsman. Scott says he has taught him to ride, to shoot, and to tell the truth. The younger boy, Charles, however, is the inheritor of his father's genius ; 5 he is about twelve, and an uncommonly sprightly amusing little fellow. It is a perfect picture to see Scott and his household assembled of an evening — the dogs stretched before the fire ; the cat perched on a chair ; Mrs. Scott and the girls sewing, and Scott either 10 reading out of some old romance, or telling border stories. Our amusements were occasionally diversified by a border song from Sophia, who is as well versed in border minstrelsy as her father. I am in too great a hurry, however, to make details. i 5 1 took the most friendly farewell of them all on Wednes- day morning, and had a cordial invitation from Scott to give him another visit on my return from the High- lands ; which, I think it probable, I shall do. I found Preston here on my arrival ; lie had been in 2d Edinburgh for three days. We shall set off for the Highlands to-morrow. Scott has given me a letter to Hector Macdonald Buchanan of Ross Priory, Loch Lomond, with a request for him to give me a day on the lake. This Macdonald is a fine fellow, I understand, 25 and a particular friend of Scott. He took Scott up the lake lately in his barge, when Scott visited Loch Lomond, so I shall be able to trace Scott in his Rob Rov scenerv. COLLECTION OF LETTERS 221 (92) Washington Irving to James K. Paulding London, May 27, 1820. My dear James, — It is some time since I received your very interesting and gratifying letter of January 20th, and I have ever since been on the point of answer- ing it, but been prevented by those thousand petty 5 obstacles that are always in the way of letter writing. As I am launched upon the literary world here, I find my opportunities of observation extending. Murray's drawing-room is a great resort of first-rate literary characters ; whenever I have a leisure hour I go io there, and seldom fail to meet with some interesting personages. The hours of access are from two to five. It is understood to be a matter of privilege, and that you must have a general invitation from Murray. Here I frequently meet with such personages as Gifford, 15 Campbell, Foscolo, Hallam (author of a work on the Middle 'Ages), Southey, Milman, Scott, Belzoni, etc., etc. Scott, or Sir Walter Scott, as he is now called, passed some few weeks in town lately, on coming up for his baronetcy. I saw him repeatedly, having formed 20 an acquaintance with him two or three years since at his country retreat on the Tweed. He is a man that, if you knew, you would love; a right honest-hearted, generous-spirited being; without vanity, affectation, or assumption of any kind. He enters into every pass- 25 222 COLLECTION OF LETTERS ing scene or passing pleasure with the interest and simple enjoyment of a child; nothing seems too high or remote for the grasp of his mind, and nothing too trivial or low for the kindness and pleasantry of his 5 spirit. AYhen I was in want of literary counsel and assistance, Scott was the only literary man to whom I felt that I could talk about myself and my petty con- cerns with the confidence and freedom that I would to an old friend. Nor was I deceived; from the first 10 moment that I mentioned my work to him in a letter, he took a decided and effective interest in it, and has been to me an invaluable friend. It is only astonishing how he finds time, with such ample exercise of the pen, to attend so much to the interests and concerns of 15 others; but no one ever applied to Scott for any aid, counsel, or service that would cost time and trouble, that was not most cheerfully and thoroughly assisted. Life passes away with him in a round of good offices and social enjoyments. Literature seems his sport rather 20 than his labor or his ambition, and I never met an author so completely void of all the petulance, egotism, and peculiarities of the craft; but I am running into prolixity about Scott, who I confess has completely won my heart, even more as a man than as an author ; 25 so, praying God to bless him, we will change the subject. Your picture of domestic enjoyment indeed raises my envy. With all my wandering habits, which are the result of circumstances rather than of disposition, I COLLECTION OF LETTERS 223 think I was formed for an honest, domestic, uxorious man, and I cannot hear of my old cronies snugly nestled down with good wives and fine children round them, but I feel for the moment desolate and forlorn. Heavens ! what a haphazard life mine has been, that 5 here I should be, at this time of life, youth slipping away, and scribbling month after month and year after year, far from home, without any means or prospect of entering into matrimony, which I absolutely believe indispensable to the happiness and even comfort of 10 the after part of existence. When I fell into mis- fortunes and saw all the means of domestic establish- ment pass away like a dream, I used to comfort my- self with the idea that if I was indeed doomed to remain single, you and Brevoort and Gouv. Kemble would 15 also do the same, and that we should form a knot of queer, rum old bachelors, at some future day, to meet at the corner of Wall Street or walk the sunny side of Broadway and kill time together. But you and Bre- voort have given me the slip, and now that Gouv. has 20 turned Vulcan and is forging thunderbolts so success- fully in the Highlands, I expect nothing more than to hear of his conveying some blooming bride up to the smithy. But heaven prosper you all, and grant that I may find you all thriving and happy when I return. 25 I cannot close my letter without adverting to the sad story of our gallant friend Decatur; though my heart rises to my throat the moment his idea comes across 224 COLLECTION OF LETTERS my mind. He was a friend "faithful and just" to me, and I have gone through such scenes of life as make a man feel the value of friendship. I can never forget how generously he stepped forth in my behalf when I s felt beaten down and broken-spirited ; I can never for- get him as the companion of some of my happiest hours, and as mingled with some of the last scenes of home and its enjoyments; these recollections bring him closer to my feelings than all the brilliancy of his public i o career. But he has lived through a life of animation and enjoyment, and died in the fullness of fame and prosperity; his cup was always full to the brim, and he has not lingered to drain it to the dregs and taste of the bitterness. I feel most for her he has left behind, 15 and from all that I recollect of her devoted affection, her disconsolateness even during his temporary absence and jeopardy, I shrink from picturing to myself what must now be her absolute wretchedness. If she is still near you give her my most affectionate remembrances ; 20 to speak of sympathy to her would be intrusion. And now, my dear James, with a full heart I take my leave of you. Let me hear from you just when it is convenient ; no matter how long or how short the letter, nor think any apologies necessary for delays, only let 25 me hear from you. I may suffer time to elapse myself, being unsettled, and often perplexed and occupied ; but believe me always the same in my feelings, however irregular in my conduct, and that no new acquaintances COLLECTION OF LETTERS 225 that a traveller makes in his casual sojournings are apt to wear out the deep recollections of his early friends. Give my love to Gertrude, who I have no doubt is a perfect pattern for wives, and when your boy grows large enough to understand tough stories, tell him some 5 of our early frolics, that he may have some kind of an acquaintance with me against we meet. Affectionately your friend, W. Irving. (93) Horace Walpole to the Countess of Ossory Strawberry Hill, Oct. 11, 1788. 10 I am sorry, Madam, that Mes. Villageoises have no better provender than my syllogisms to send to their correspondents, nor am I ambitious of rivalling the barber or innkeeper, and becoming the wit of five miles round. I remember how, long ago, I estimated local 15 renown at its just value by a sort of little adventure that I will tell you ; and, since that, there is an admi- rable chapter somew T here in Voltaire which shows that more extended fame is but local on a little larger scale ; it is the chapter of the Chinese w r ho goes into a European 20 bookseller's shop, and is amazed at finding none of the works of his most celebrated countrymen; while the bookseller finds the stranger equally ignorant of western classics. Well, Madam, here is my tiny story: I went once 25 Q 226 COLLECTION OF LETTERS with Mr. Rigby to see a window of painted glass at Messling, in Essex, and dined at a better sort of ale- house. The landlady waited on us and was notably loquacious and entertained us with the bons-mots and 5 funny exploits of Mr. Charles ; Mr. Charles said this, Mr. Charles played such a trick : oh ! nothing was so pleasant as Mr. Charles. But how astonished the poor soul was when we asked who Mr. Charles was; and how much more astonished when she found we had 10 never heard of Mr. Charles Luchyn, who, it seems, is a relation of Lord Grimston, had lived in their village, and been the George Selwyn of half a dozen cot- tages. . . . If I have picked up no recent anecdotes on our Com- 15 mon, I have made a much more, to me, precious acquisi- tion. It is the acquaintance of two young ladies of the name of Berry, whom I first saw last winter, and who accidentally took a house here with their father for this season. Their story is singular enough to 20 entertain you. The grandfather, a Scot, had a large estate in his own country, £5000 a year it is said; and a circumstance I shall tell you makes it probable. The eldest son married for love a woman with no fortune. The old man was enraged and would not see 25 him. The wife died and left these two young ladies. Their grandfather wished for an heir male, and pressed the widower to re-marry, but could not prevail ; the son declaring he would consecrate himself to his daugh- COLLECTION OF LETTERS 227 ters and their education. The old man did not break with him again, but much worse, totally disinherited him, and left all to his second son, who very handsomely gave up £800 a year to his elder brother. Mr. Berry has since carried his daughters for two or three years 5 to France and Italy, and they are returned the best- informed and the most perfect creatures I ever saw at their age. They are exceedingly sensible, entirely natural and unaffected, frank, and, being qualified to talk on any subject, nothing is so easy and agreeable io as their conversation — not more apposite than then- answers and observations. The eldest, I discovered by chance, understands Latin and is a perfect French- woman in her language. The younger draw T s charm- ingly, and has copied admirably Lady Di's gipsies, which is I lent, though for the first time of her attempting colours. They are of pleasing figures ; Mary, the eldest, sweet, with fine dark eyes, that are very lively when she speaks, with a symmetry of face that is the more interesting from being pale ; Agnes, the younger, has an agreeable 20 sensible countenance, hardly to be called handsome, but almost. She is less animated than Mary, but seems, out of deference to her sister, to speak seldomer, for they dote on each other, and Mary is always praising her sister's talents. I must even tell you they dress 25 within the bounds of fashion, though fashionably; but without the excrescences and balconies with which modern hoydens overwhelm and barricade their persons. 228 COLLECTION OF LETTERS In short, good sense, information, simplicity, and ease characterise the Berry s ; and this is not particularly mine, who am apt to be prejudiced, but the universal voice of all who know them. The first night I met them 5 I would not be acquainted with them, having heard so much in their praise that I concluded they would be all pretension. The second time, in a very small com- pany, I sat next to Mary, and found her an angel both inside and out. Now I do not know which I like best, 10 except Mary's face, which is formed for a sentimental novel, but is ten times fitter for a fiftv times better thing, genteel comedy. This delightful family comes to me almost every Sunday evening, as our region is too proclamatory to play at cards on the seventh day. 15 I do not care a straw for cards, but I do disapprove of this partiality to the youngest child of the week ; while the other poor six days are treated as if they had no souls to save. I forgot to tell you that Mr. Berry is a little merry man with a round face, and you would not 20 suspect him of so much feeling and attachment. I make no excuse for such minute details; for, if your Ladyship insists on hearing the humours of my district, you must for once indulge me with sending you two pearls that I found in my path. COLLECTION OF LETTERS 229 (94) Horace Walpole to the Miss Berrys Strawberry Hill, Thursday evening, Aug. 27, 1789. I jumped for joy, — that is, my heart did, which is all the remain of me that is in statu jumpante° — at the receipt of your letter this morning, which tells me you 5 approve of the house at Teddington. How kind you was ° to answer so incontinently ! I believe you bor- rowed the best steed from the races. I have sent to the landlord to come to me to-morrow : but I could not resist beginning my letter to-night, as I am at home 1© alone, with a little pain in my left wrist ; but the right one has no brotherly feeling for it, and would not be put off so. You ask how you have deserved such attentions ? Why, by deserving them ; by every kind of merit, and by that superlative one to me, your sub- 15 mitting to throw away so much time on a forlorn an- tique — you two, who, without specifying particulars, (and you must, at least, be conscious that you are not two frights,) might expect any fortune and distinctions, and do delight all companies. On which side lies the 20 wonder? Ask me no more such questions, or I will cram you with reasons. . . . You must not expect any news from me, French or homebred. I am not in the way of hearing any : your morning gazetteer rarely calls on me, as I am not likely 25 to pay him in kind. About royal progresses, paternal 230 COLLECTION OF LETTERS or filial, I never inquire; nor do you, I believe, care more than I do. The small wares in which the societies at Richmond and Hampton Court deal, are still less to our taste. My poor niece and her sisters take up 5 most of my time and thoughts : but I will not attrist you to indulge myself, but will break off here, and finish my letter when I have seen your new landlord. Good night ! Friday. 10 Well ! I have seen him, and nobody was ever so accommodating ! He is as courteous as a candidate for a county. You may stay in his house till Christmas if you please, and shall pay but twenty pounds ; and if more furniture is wanting, it shall be supplied. (95) Charles Lamb to Miss Wordsworth 15 June 14, 1805. My dear Miss Wordsworth, — Your long kind letter has not been thrown away (for it has given me great pleasure to find you are all resuming your old occupations, and are better) ; but poor Mary, to whom 20 it is addressed, cannot yet relish it. She has been attacked by one of her severe illnesses, and is at present from home. Last Monday week was the day she left me, and I hope I may calculate upon having her again in a month or little more. I am rather afraid late 25 hours have in this case contributed to her indisposition. COLLECTION OF LETTERS 231 But when she discovers symptoms of approaching ill- ness, it is not easy to say what is best to do. Being by ourselves is bad, and going out is bad. I get so irritable and wretched with fear, that I constantly hasten on the disorder. You cannot conceive the 5 misery of such a foresight. I am sure that, for the week before she left me, I was little better than light- headed. I now am calm, but sadly taken down and flat. I have every reason to suppose that this illness, like all her former ones, will be but temporary ; but 1 10 cannot always feel so. Meantime she is dead to me, and I miss a prop. All my strength is gone, and I am like a fool, bereft of her co-operation. I dare not think, lest I should think wrong; so used am I to look up to her in the least and the biggest perplexity. To say 15 all that I know of her would be more than I think any- body could believe, or even understand ; and when I hope to have her well again with me, it would be sin- ning against her feelings to go about to praise her ; for I can conceal nothing that I do from her. She is older 20 and wiser and better than I, and all my wretched im- perfections I cover to myself by resolutely thinking on her goodness. She would share life and death, heaven and hell, with me. She lives but for me ; and I know I have been wasting and teasing her life for five years 25 past incessantly with my cursed drinking and ways of going on. But even in this upbraiding of myself I am offending against her, for I know that she has cleaved 232 COLLECTION OF LETTERS to me for better, for worse ; and if the balance has been against her hitherto, it was a noble trade. I am stupid, and lose myself in what I write. I write rather what answers to my feelings (which are sometimes sharp 5 enough) than express my present ones, for I am only flat and stupid. I am sure you will excuse my writing any more. I am so very poorly. . . . This is a little unfair, to tell so much about ourselves, and to advert so little to your letter, so full of comfort- 10 able tidings of you all. But my own cares press pretty close upon me, and you can make allowance. That you may go on gathering strength and peace is my next wish to Mary's recovery. I had almost forgot your repeated invitation. Sup- 15 posing that Mary will be well and able, there is another ability which you may guess at, which I cannot promise myself. In prudence we ought not to come. This illness will make it still more prudential to wait. It is not a balance of this way of spending our money against 20 another way, but an absolute question of whether we shall stop now, or go on wasting away the little we have got beforehand, which my wise conduct has already encroached upon one half. My best love, however, to you all; and to that most friendly creature, Mrs. 25 Clarkson, and better health to her, when you see or write to her. Charles Lamb. COLLECTION OF LETTERS 233 (96) James Russell Lowell to E. L. Godkin Elmwood, 8th Jany., 1869. Don't think I have gone mad that I so pepper you with letters. I have a reason, as you will see presently. But in the first place let me thank you for the article on Miss Dickinson, which was just what I wanted and 5 expected, for (excuse me) you preach the best lay ser- mons I know of. I know it is a weakness and all that, but I was born with an impulse to tell people when I like them and what they do, and I look upon you as a great public benefactor. I sit under your preaching 10 every week with indescribable satisfaction, and know just how young women feel toward their parson, but, let Mrs. Godkin take courage, I can't marry you ! My interest in the Nation is one of gratitude, and has nothing to do with my friendship for you. I am 15 sure from what I hear said against you that you are doing great good and that you are respected. I may be wrong, but I sincerely believe you have raised the tone of the American press. I don't want to pay for the Nation myself. I take a 20 certain satisfaction in the large F. on the address of my copy. It is the only thing for which I was ever deadheaded. But I wish to do something in return. So I enclose my check for $25 and wish you to send the paper to five places where it will do most good to others 25 and to itself. Find out five college reading-rooms 234 COLLECTION OF LETTERS and send it to them for a year. Those who read it will want to keep on reading it. I can think of no wiser plan. Send one to the University of Virginia and one to the College in South Carolina. One perhaps would 5 do good if sent to Paul H. Hayne, Augusta, Georgia. He was a rebel colonel, I believe, but is in a good frame of mind, if I may judge from what he has written to me. (97) James Russell Lowell to Mrs. Godkin Elmwood, 6th July, 1869. My dear Mrs. Godkin, — I promised him (you i o will know whom I mean, for women never recognize more than one He on this planet — at one time) that I would send him a copy of some extrumpery verses which I declaimed at the Commencement dinner. I need not say they are purely oratorical — ca va sans 15 dire° — and need I explain why there are so many of 'em ? " Heavens ! " I hear him exclaiming as you toss them upon his desk unread and return to your needle — " does he know that the News allows me at most a column and a half ? " Omnibus hoc vitium est cantoribus, 20 these verse-makers stuff their pages full as a Broadway omnibus. And they are so ready to pick a quarrel if you don't print the whole of 'em. "The whole of 'em to be sure ! Why didn't he send me a translation of the Ramayana, or whatever the confounded thing's 25 name is ? " Now therefore these presents are to author- COLLECTION OF LETTERS 235 ize him to take or leave as he pleases. Gurney told me what had got into the papers, and I wanted to give him more as putting him on the foot of the most friendly powers. But let him at all events stick to my copy, which is the sole authentic. Let him observe that I 5 call the Adamses sturdy and not stalwart, with other second thoughts for the better. 'Tis an improvisation at best, and I did not wish a line of it printed — but see these verse-makers ! They don't know how to stop in copying any more than in reading their verses. 10 However, he won't offend me if he don't use a word of it. So far you may read aloud — the rest to yourself. He is modest, as all manly fellows are, and won't give you any notion how warm his reception was at the din- ner. It was warmer than anybody's (yes, a?zz/body's, 15 and that includes, well, a good many respectable persons and one in special, but I forbear). There was a rolling fire of clappings and cheers that died away and began again louder than ever for several minutes. I rapped on the table till my knuckles were sore, and that or 20 something positively made my eyes water. It was really splendid, as Mabel says. It was the first instal- ment of his good-service pension. "Well, well," you say a little impatiently and tap with your little foot, "but how did he look?" Precisely as he used when 25 somebody was Miss Foote.° He looked as much like that old-fashioned thing we used to call a Man (you remember 'em, perhaps? No? Well, you are hardly 236 COLLECTION OF LETTERS old enough) as anybody I ever saw — erect, head well thrown back like a boxer's, and lots of fight in it — and all the while I was envying him that splendid white waistcoat that set off his chest to such advantage. Do 5 you see him ? The only fault was that you couldn't be there. You'd have cried, though, I'll lay a five-cent piece, the largest coin we have. Now, if, after reading this you should go and just do something nice to him in a womanly way, it would serve him perfectly right. 10 P. S. He made a very nice speech, too. He will be puzzled to think how I recollected the number of your P. O. box. I have observed that people are valued nowadays mainly for the variety of their useless historical knowledge, and I know I shall rise 15 in his opinion by telling him that 1548 was the date of the Smalcaldic league or the Confession of Augsburg or the Conquest of Mexico or something of the sort. At any rate, one of Henry Vlllth's wives must have been beheaded in that year — a year ever precious to 20 the believers in proper household discipline. That's the way I remembered it. X. De Gustibus (98) Charles Lamb to William Wordsworth Jan. 30, 1801. I ought before this to have replied to your very kind invitation into Cumberland. With you and your sister I could gang anywhere ; but I am afraid whether I shall ever be able to afford so desperate a journey. 5 Separate from the pleasure of your company, I don't much care if I never see a mountain in my life. I have passed all my days in London, until I have formed as many and intense local attachments as any of you mountaineers can have done with dead Nature. The 10 lighted shops of the Strand and Fleet Street :° the innumerable trades, tradesmen, and customers : coaches, wagons, playhouses : all the bustle and wickedness round about Covent Garden :° the very women of the Town: the watchmen, drunken scenes, rattles — life 15 awake, if you awake, at all hours of the night : the impossibility of being dull in Fleet Street : the crowds, the very dirt and mud, the sun shining upon houses and pavements : the printshops, the old-book stalls, parsons cheapening books : corTee-houses,, steams of 20 237 238 COLLECTION OF LETTERS soups from kitchens : the pantomimes — London itself a pantomime and a masquerade : all these things work themselves into my mind, and feed me without a power of satiating me. The wonder of these sights impels 5 me into night-walks about her crowded streets, and I often shed tears in the motley Strand from fulness of joy at so much life. All these emotions must be strange to you ; so are your rural emotions to me. But consider, what must I have been doing all my life, not to have iolent great portions of my heart with usury to such scenes ? My attachments are all local, purely local — I have no passion (or have had none since I was in love, and then it was the spurious engendering of poetry and books) 15 for groves and valleys. The rooms where I was born, the furniture which has been before my eyes all my life, a bookcase which has followed me about like a faithful dog (only exceeding him in knowledge), wherever I have moved, old chairs, old tables, streets, squares, where I 20 have sunned myself, my old school — these are my mistresses. Have I not enough without your moun- tains ? I do not envy you. I should pity you, did I not know that the mind will make friends of anything. Your sun and moon, and skies, and hills, and lakes, 25 affect me no more, or scarcely come to me in more venerable characters, than as a gilded room with tapes- try and tapers, where I might live with handsome visible objects. I consider the clouds above me but as a roof COLLECTION OF LETTERS 239 beautifully painted, but unable to satisfy the mind : and at last, like the pictures of the apartment of a connoisseur, unable to afford him any longer a pleasure. So fading upon me, from disuse, have been the beauties of Nature, as they have been confidently called ; so 5 ever fresh, and green, and warm are all the inventions of men, and assemblies of men, in this great city. I should certainly have laughed with dear Joanna. Give my kindest love and my sister's to D.° and your- self. And a kiss from me to little Barbara Lew^thwaite. 10 Thank you for liking my play ! (99) Charles Lamb to Coleridge September 8, 1802. Dear Coleridge, — I thought of not writing till we had performed some of our commissions; but we 15 have been hindered from setting about them, which yet shall be done to a tittle. We got home very pleas- antly on Sunday. Mary is a good deal fatigued, and finds the difference of going to a place and coming from it. I feel that I shall remember your mountains to the 20 last day I live. They haunt me perpetually. I am like a man who has been falling in love unknown to himself, which he finds out when he leaves the lady. I do not remember any very strong impression while they were present, but, being gone, their mementos are 25 shelved in my brain. . . . 240 COLLECTION OF LETTERS (100) Celia Thaxter to J. G. Whittier You cannot know what a joy your dear letter is to me. I have read it again and again. Ah, my dear friend, you speak so kindly ! But who in our time has given so much strength and refreshment as you have done, 5 not only to your friends and your country, but to all the world, which has been bettered by your living in it? Yes, I had a quiet, lovely winter in Portsmouth. I did more writing than for years, and was well and con- tent until about three weeks ago, when I was suddenly io very ill, as I have been twice before, for no reason that anybody appears able to find out, except "overwork" the doctors say, in years past. I say as little, about it as possible. I do not mind the thought of death, it means only is fuller life, but there is a pang in the thought of leaving Karl. But I know the heavenly Father provides for all. It may be I shall get quite well and strong again in this beautiful air. I hope so, but whatever befalls, I am ready and know that all is for best. 20 Never did the island look so lovely in the early spring since I was a little child playing on the rocks at White Island. Oh the delicious dawns and crimson sunsets, the calm blue sea, the tender sky, the chorus of the birds ! It all makes me so happy ! Sometimes 25 1 wonder if it is wise or well to love any spot on this old earth as intensely as I do this ! 1 am wrapped up in COLLECTION OF LETTERS 241 measureless content ° as I sit on the steps in the sun in my little garden, where the freshly turned earth is odorous of the spring. How I hope you can come to us this summer ! Every year I plant the garden, for your dear eyes, with yellow flowers. I never forget 5 those lovely summers long ago when you came and loved my flowers. I am going to send you with this a little copy of an old picture of Karl and myself when we were babes together, he one year old, I eighteen. 10 Thank you for the beautiful poem you enclosed. It is most lovely. You ask what I have been writing ? A great deal, for me. I wish I had sent you the April " St. Nicholas, " ° for in it is a version I made of Tolstoi's " Where love is there is God also." I had such rever- 15 ence for the great author's work I hardly dared touch it, but I did it with the greatest love. I called it " The Heavenly Guest." Dear Sarah Jewett has a sweet story begun in the April number, and my poem follows. Ever with deep, gentle, grateful love, 20 Your C. T. (101) John Ruskin to a College Friend 53 Russell Terrace, Leamington. (My future address till further notice.) September 27 (Postmark, 1S41)° My dear C, — Your kind letter of the 18th with its 25 dissertation on the duties of correspondence puts me 242 COLLECTION OF LETTERS into a very particular quandary. For after a great many generalities about sensible and useful letter- writers — and very proper resolutions to drop all who are not sensible and useful in all they say or write — 5 you ask me pointedly whether I think this a correct line to draw. To which query, if I give a definite answer, you may turn round upon me with an " Out of thine own mouth will I judge thee/' and vow you will have nothing more to do with anybody writing such a 10 cramped hand and so much nonsense. Wherefore all I can say is, that if you keep me you may cut as many other people as you like ; and if you cut me your princi- ples are radically wrong. You say chit-chat on both sides is wrong. Would it be wrong to rest yourself in is conversational chit-chat? and is the stroke of the pen so very laborious as to render that which from the tongue is recreation, labor from the fingers — to make what would be innocent in sound, criminal in sight? Are there not many five minutes in the course of the week 20 when an instant's odd feeling might be noted down, a perishing thought arrested, a passing "castle in the air" expressed — with much pleasure to your friend, and perhaps some even to yourself? I rather think that the choice of our correspondents should be referred 25 rather to our feelings of pleasure than of duty. If I think a person can sympathise with me in a stray feel- ing I have pleasure in communicating it ; and more in doing so on paper than by words, because I can do it COLLECTION OF LETTERS 243 more completely. Therefore I do not look to my correspondence as a duty to be performed, but as the very best mode of entering into society, because one talks on paper without ever uttering absolute truisms to fill up a pause, without ever losing one's temper, 5 without forgetting what one has got to say, without being subjected to any of the thousand and one ills and accidents of real conversation. Therefore if I like a friend at all, I like him on paper. And to say I will not correspond with a person is just the same as 10 saying I will not know him more than I am compelled to do. This is going very far — but I hate society in general. I have no pleasure, but much penance, in even the presence of nine out of ten human beings. Those only I like to be with, whom I like to write to — 15 and vice versa. I think, therefore, when you say that you cannot conscientiously correspond with people, it is much the same as saying you cannot associate with them. For surely time is generally ten thousand times more wasted in the commonplaces of the tongue, than 20 in selecting such pieces of our mind as would be glad of sympathy, and folding them in the sheet of paper for our friend. I don't think it ought to be labor. You should learn to write with your eyes shut, and then it is mere exercise of the right hand. 25 You ask me if I am thinking about my degree. If my health continues to improve I shall go up for a pass next Easter. Jephson says he will make me perfectly 244 COLLECTION OF LETTERS well ; he has made me much fatter already — or, to speak more correctly, less lean. Chest I think a little better ; altogether I am under no anxiety. I am sorry to say I know absolutely nothing of ento- 5 mology. I have a great respect for the science ; but I always thought it a disagreeable one in practice, partly for the constant life-taking, partly from the con- catenation of camphoric smells which one's collection constantly exhales, and partly because — to make any 10 progress — a constant dissection and anatomising must be gone into, really as laborious and half as dis- gusting as any transaction at Surgeons' Hall. I was much tempted to begin botany among the ruins of Rome, but I found it did not suit my eyes at all, and 15 gave it up. I find quite enough to do with the sciences necessary to geology. Chemistry and fossil ichthyology are enough for a lifetime in themselves. Do you know, I don't remember recommending any political life of Burke. Nor do I think such a thing has been produced 20 by any friend of mine. You had better think over your acquaintances, lest you pass the real recommender thankless by. You ask me if I would not prefer notes often to letters seldom. I don't know. Notes are always half filled 25 up with dates and signatures and formulas. But if, without wasting time on any such rubbish, you will write on pleasantly and easily to yourself, and as the bits are done send each off — a thought now and a COLLECTION OF LETTERS 245 thought then, with E. C. at the bottom and no "my dear J.," nor hopes of anything, nor remembrance to anybody — then I should most certainly prefer hearing often of you to getting a double sheet once a twelve- month. Remember, however, that the notes are the 5 actual losers of time in folding, sealing and posting. Still I am not sure that I should not be the gainer by it, for unless you keep your long letters by you, and write a bit now and a bit then, there will certainly be less in it than in the aggregate of notes. ic I am a sad fellow for new books — I see very few. Allison's " History of Europe " has an over-reputation at present. I am reading it, and find it verbose and inconsistent with itself in opinions and arguments. But as a statement of facts I should think it excellent. 15 There were several things I had to say I haven't said, but I will write again soon. Sincere regards to all your family. Ever most truly your friend, J. RUSKIN. 20 (102) John Richard Green to Mrs. Humphry Ward Hotel Quisisana, Isola di Capri, January 15, 1873. I have just been reading over Humphry's last letter again, dear Mary, and fell so terribly a-longing for the villa which I have never seen, the new semi-grand " by Kaps," the cat and the china, the long winter evenings 246 COLLECTION OF LETTERS and chats among the knick-knackeries, that I had to rush out on to the hillside and bask myself into content in the sunshine. It is worrying, I know, to be always . harping on the sunshine ; but really it is one's life here, 5 the one great daily marvel and daily joy, this uninter- rupted succession of hot summer days which drive one in sometimes for shade, and which makes one sit down — as I did this afternoon — every half hour to wipe one's brow T and mutter "very hot," as one might in the 10 hottest August of England. I keep a sun-diary, and I find that since the 15th of December, i.e. during a whole month, we have had only two cloudy days, and of those one was quite warm, nor has there been a drop of rain. The days have been blue, cloudless, summer days; 15 much of the fine blue owing no doubt to a slight north wind, but that matters nothing here as we are wholly sheltered on one side of the island from every wind but the South. It is this which makes the Island so greatly preferable as a winter station to the Riviera, where the 20 sunshine is chequered with biting east and southeast winds of truly English quality, especially in March. I shall certainly spend March here — it is something to have found a place where one can live unscourged by Kingsley's "wind of God." 25 I wonder whether Capri will equal the Riviera in its spring-burst of flowers ? As yet we have only plenty of anemones, and a beautiful blue flower on the hills whose name I don't know, and certain crocuses in a COLLECTION OF LETTERS 247 precipitous spot I haven't ventured to. I shall be almost sorry, I think, if I do find anything anywhere to equal that sight of beautiful wonder, the sudden flush- ing of terrace after terrace into bright banks of color which will always be associated in my mind with San 5 Remo.° Of course I am wonderfully well — in other words it is sunshine — but one thing is becoming clearer and clearer to me, and that is that I have got to the end of my improvement tether. I am a different fellow to 10 what I was even a year ago; but I am afraid I shall never be much better than I am, and that I must lay aside all hope of what people call a "cure." Increased strength seems to bring little ability to face the least cold, the least anxiety or over-exertion. It is easier 15 than it was of old to pick myself up, but I run down just as fast as I ever did. I should have thought little of this even a year ago; but like a fool I had begun to nurse silly hopes of "being well again," and doing as other folk do, and now I find it a little hard to face the 20 truth — the truth that I must resign myself if I live to the life of an invalid — the (illegible) that is so out of harmony with my natural temper. I don't grumble — for after all such a life is no obstacle to quiet writing, and may perhaps lead one to a truer end of life than 25 one had planned. But sometimes there comes on me a rebellion against the quiet of the student life, a rush of energy and longing to "battle," and then it is hard to 248 COLLECTION OF LETTERS beat one's wings against the cage the Fates have made for one. I wonder whether it will end in my settling down in some sunny Italian nook, in this Capri for example? 5 If I can never hope to " spend a winter in England/' which seems likely enough, if I can never return till the end of May, and must flit again at the close of September — would it not be better to give up the notion of an "English home" altogether, and look on 10 England only as a summer holiday run ? This is what my thoughts run on, and the more so because with my books in England I am so terribly hampered in writing. I want to bring home my "Little Book" finished, and then after " Little France, " which will take a couple of i 5 months I suppose, to plunge fairly into the Angevins. But the "Angevins" want a library at one's elbow, and in a month or so after beginning them would come the order to depart. I am very, very puzzled ; how I wish I had married long ago, before it was cowardly to 20 think of marrying, as it is now I take it. One has no right to ask a woman to tie herself to a fellow who must live in sunshine. The artists here have a way of marry- ing Caprese donkey-girls and the like, and perhaps I might aspire to a donkey-girl. As to beauty she would 25 be perfect. I know half a dozen donkey-girls here w T ho are more beautiful than any Englishwoman I ever saw. I wish you and other people hadn't spoilt me for marry- ing with donkey-girls, and filled me with dreams of COLLECTION OF LETTERS 249 "cosy chats" and pretty knick-knackeries and a grand piano "by Kaps." The young parroco comes to me to-night to begin my Italian lessons. I am curious to know him, for he is evidently an active fellow — a reformer who has so - roused the wrath of the easy going old Canons that on St. Stephen's Day they set on him with the big candles in the Sacristy vowing they " would make a St. Stephen of him," has roused the wrath of the artists by refusing to give absolution to any girl who sits as a model, and 10 the wrath of the island at large by making war on the Tarantella, but with all this has taught himself Eng- lish, has a good library of English Tauchnitzes, and is the only man in the island who doesn't rest on far niente and the dolcezza thereof. 15 He hasn't put down the Tarantella, for the simple reason that it is born in the people, and that the moment you sing or dance off they go in the prettiest, most bewitching dance the sun ever shone on. . It is amusing to see the little ones begin, and then the spell to spread 20 to the bronzed fisherman looking on who suddenly flings up his arms, and bounds lightly as air over to the stalwart "Costanza," who puts down her great basket from her head and sways from side to side in that indescribable way, and then the old women begin to clap their hands, 25 and the old men to drum in tune on the ground, and every one to laugh, to sing, to dance, and so the world goes round. A buon genti° these Caprese — as they al- 250 COLLECTION OF LETTERS ways call themselves, always ready for a joke, a chat, a halfpenny, liking best people who laugh with them, ask after their boys' schooling, and carry out the doc- trine of equality in the practical Italian fashion. 5 Good-bye. — Yours affectionately, J. G. R. (103) Horace Walpole to the Reverend William Mason Nov. 27, 1775. I thought it long since I heard from you. It is plain you did not forget me, for the first moment of an io opportunity to show me kindness made you show it. Fortunately I had written to Lord Strafford the very day you wrote to me, and our letters passed each other, though without bowing. I think it still more fortunate that I had not written sooner, because I like to be 15 obliged to you. I had delayed because in truth I had nothing to say but what I thought; and when my friends and I do not think alike, I prefer silence to con- tradiction or disputes, for I cannot say what I do not think, especially to my friends ; to other people one can 20 talk a good deal of nonsense, which serves instead of thinking. Your delay of coming displeases me, because what I wish, I wish for immediately. When spring comes, I shall be glad my joy was postponed, and I like better 25 to see you at Strawberry than in town, especially COLLECTION OF LETTERS 251 when Strawberry is in its beauty : and as you and it are two chiefs of the few pleasures I have left, or to come, I am luxurious and love a complete banquet. What shall I say more ? talk politics ? no ; we think too much alike. England w r as, Scotland is — indeed 5 by the blunders the latter has made one sees its Irish origin, — but I had rather talk of anything else. I see nothing but ruin, whatever shall happen ; and what idle solicitude is that of childless old people, who are anxious about the first fifty years after their death, and do not 10 reflect that in the eternity to follow, fifty or five hundred years are a moment, and that all countries fall sooner or later. Naturally I fly to books : there is a finis too, for I cannot read Dean Tucker, nor Newspapers. We 15 have had nothing at all this winter but 'Sterne's Letters/ and what are almost as nothingly — Lady Luxborough's. She does not write ill, or, as I expected, affectedly, like a woman, but talks of scrawls, and of her letters being stupid. She had no spirit, no wit, knew no 20 events; she idolises poor Shenstone, who was scarce above her, and flatters him, to be flattered. A stronger proof of her having no' taste is, that she says coldly, she likes Gray's 'Churchyard' well. In good truth the productions of this country and age are suited to 25 its natives. Mr. Cumberland, the maker of plays, told me lately, it was pity Gray's Letters were printed ; they had disappointed him much. No doubt he likes 252 COLLECTION OF LETTERS Sterne's, and Shenstone's and Lady Luxborough's. Oh ! Dodsley, print away ; you will never want authors or readers, unless a classic work like ' Gray's Life' should, as Richardson said of Milton, be "born two 5 thousand years after its time ! " I approve your printing in manuscript, that is, not for the public, for who knows how long the public will be able, or be permitted to read? Bury a few copies against this Island is rediscovered. Some American 10 versed in the old English language will translate it, and revive the true taste in gardening ; though he will smile at the diminutive scenes on the little Thames when he is planting a forest on the banks of the Oronoko. I love to skip into futurity and imagine what will be 15 done on the giant scale of a new hemisphere ; but I am in little London, and must go and dress for a dinner with some of the inhabitants of that ancient metropolis, now in ruins, which was really for a moment the capital of a large empire, but the poor man who made it so, 2c outlived himself and the duration of the empire. (104) Horace Walpole to the Countess of Ossory Strawberry Hill, Christmas night, 1773. You must not expect, Madam, not to be scolded, when you excuse yourself so well. You and the King of Prussia, and Major-General Xenophon, shine more 25 by retreats after a defeat occasioned by your own faults, COLLECTION OF LETTERS 253 than others by victories. I am now doubly obliged to rate you, for you have made me your ghostly father, and confessed your sins of omission; indeed, we old directors are more tickled with details of those com- mitted, and are so afraid the penitent should forget the 5 minutest circumstance ! This part of my office, you tell me, is to be a sinecure for the future ; it is well I have so good an opinion of you, Madam, or don't you think my imagination would help me a little, as well as you suppose it does in filling up your sentences ? 10 Your reflection on Madame de Grignan's letter after her mother's death is just, tender, and admirable, and like the painter's ° hiding Agamemnon's face, when he despaired of expressing the agony of a parent. No, Madame de Sevigne could not have written a letter of 1 5 grief, if her daughter had died first. Such delicacy in sentiment women only can feel. We can never attain that sensibility, which is at once refined and yet natural and easy, and which makes your sex write letters so much better than men ever did or can ; and which if 20 you will allow me to pun in Latin, though it seems your ladyship does not understand that language, I could lay down an infallible truth in the words of my godfather, " Pennis non homini datis," the English of which is, " it was not given to man to ^5 write letters." . . . I have not a word more to say ; and this being but a 254 COLLECTION OF LETTERS parcel of answers to questions, no matter when it sets out. As your confessor, I dispense with, nay, enjoin your breaking your last rash vow, of writing no more long letters ; nay, you have not written a long one yet. 5 The god of letter-writing does not, like the god of Chancery Lane, count by sheets of paper or parchment. If your Ladyship's pen straddles, like the giant's boots, over seven leagues or pages at once, the packet is the heavier, but the letter has not a word the more in it. 10 1 am grateful for every syllable you do write, nay, am reasonable, and do not expect volumes from the coun- try; but I cannot allow that a sheet and a half are longer than one sheet, when they hold no more. I speak from self-interest ; I write so close that these two is pages and a bit would make three sheets in your Lady- ship's hand; and then what apologies and promises I should have to make for the enormity of my letters. Well, this is not a reproof, but a mark of my attention to all you say and do; and how determined I am to 20 bate nothing of the intrinsic. This has been a very barren half year. The next, I hope, will reinstate my letters in their proper character of newspapers. (105) Horace Walpole to the Countess of Ossory Strawberry Hill, Oct. 8, 1777. Write to Sir George about my own writings ! — sure, 25 Madam, you do not think I would for the world ! COLLECTION OF LETTERS 255 What in the name of fortune could I write but affecta- tion and false modesty ? — and then he writes again, and is more civil ; and I then protest I cannot spell my own name; and then and then, I am in for a new correspondence. I beg to be excused. 5 I have time to write to nobody but on business, or to a few that are used to my ways, and with whom I don't mind whether I stand on my head or my heels. I beg your honor's pardon, for you are one to whom I can write comfortably, though I know you keep my letters ; 10 and it is, I must say, no small merit or courage that I still continue to write to you, without having the fear of sense before my eyes; but since neither Aristotle nor Bossu° have laid down rules for letters, and con- sequently have left them to their native wildness, I shall 15 persist in saying whatever comes uppermost, and the less I am understood by anybody but the person I write to, so much the better. St. Paul is my model for letter- writing, who being a man of fashion, and very unaf- fected, never studies for what he shall say, but in one 20 paragraph takes care of Timothy's soul, and in the next of his own cloak. However, though I will not engage with him in per- son, I must beg your good Ladyship to assure Sir George, I mean Lord Macartney, how very sensible 1 2s am of his partiality to me ; which at least I will never forfeit, for you may safely take your Bible oath to him that I have entirely forsworn being an author. " Quod 256 COLLECTION OF LETTERS seripsi, scripsi ;" and the things must shift for them- selves; but the clock has struck threescore; and if I have not written very foolishly, I will take care that I will not. My outward man is so weak and shattered, 5 that in all probability the inward has its share in the delabrement ; but as of that I can be no judge myself, and as I am sure nobody will tell me, it is rather wiser not to risk exposing myself. The Catalogue of my collection will be no more worth reading than one of 10 Christie's auction-books, and the prints are not yet half finished. Lord Macartney shall have one as soon as any man ; he has always been kind to me ; I have a very sincere regard for him; and particularly for his infinite goodnature, which I value in him, and in any- 15 body, more than their parts. I rejoice in his good fortune, especially as it is due to his amiable qualities, for what is so glorious as to have the governed reward their governor ! The gratitude of a whole people is the noblest of all epitaphs. . . . 20 You ask when will American news come? A cargo is come, and if you are a sound courtier, Madam, you will believe every tittle, though it comes from Margate, which is not exactly the side of our island nearest to America. What is more strange, is, that though every 25 one of our generals has gained a separate victory, every one of them is too modest to have sent any account of it. However, one captain of a sloop happened to be at the very point and moment of intelligence when all the COLLECTION OF LETTERS 257 accounts arrived at New York. In London, I hear, there are very contradictory letters. I am assured too that an officer is arrived, but the Gazette was so afflicted for the Margravine Dowager of Bareith, that it forgot to let us know what he says. In fine, it is believed that 5 General Howe was on his march to Philadelphia; all the rest is thought to be hartshorn for the stocks and the lottery tickets. Don't you begin to think, Madam, that it is pleasanter to read history than to live it? Battles are fought, and towns taken in every page, but 10 a campaign takes six or seven months to hear, and achieves no great matter at last. I dare to say Alexan- der seemed to the coffee-houses of Pella a monstrous while about conquering the world. As to this American war, I am persuaded it will last to the end of the cen- 15 tury ; and then it is so inconvenient to have all letters come by the post of the ocean ! People should never go to war above ten miles off, as the Grecian States used to do. Then one might have a Gazette every morning at breakfast. I hope Bengal will not rebel in my time, for 20 then one shall be eighteen months between hearing that the army has taken the field and is gone into winter- quarters. My nephew, George Cholmondeley (for I am uncle to all the wx>rld), dined here to-day, and repeated part 25 of a very good copy of verses from Sheridan to Mrs. Crewe. Has your Ladyship seen them? I trust they will not long retain their MS.-hood. 258 COLLECTION OF LETTERS (106) James Russell Lowell to E. L. Godkin Elmwood, 20th Dec, 1871. I haven't looked into Taine's book since it first appeared seven years ago, and as I had no thought of reviewing it, I find that I did not mark it as I read. To 5 write a competent review, I should have to read it all through again, for which I have neither time nor the head just now. I have just been writing about Masson's "Life of Milton" for the N. A.° and the result has con- vinced me that my brain is softening. You are the io only man I know who carries his head perfectly steady, and I find myself so thoroughly agreeing with the Nation always that I am half persuaded I edit it myself ! Or rather you always say what I would have said — if I had only thought of it. 15 I am thinking of coming to New York for a day or two next week to see you and a few other friends. Some- how my youth is revived in me, and I have a great long- ing for an hour or two in Page's studio to convince me that I am really only twenty-four as I seem to myself. 20 So get ready to be jolly, for I mean to bring a spare trunk full of good spirits with me and to forget that I have ever been professor or author or any other kind of nuisance. Just as I was in fancy kicking off my ball and chain, a glance at the clock tells me I must run 25 down to college ! But when I come to N. Y. (since I can't get rid of them) I shall wear 'em as a breastpin. COLLECTION OF LETTERS 259 I have seen some nearly as large. Dickens had one when I first saw him in '42. Give Schenck another shot. Also say something on the queer notion of the Republican party that they can get along without their brains. " Time was that when 5 the brains were out the man would die," ° but nous avons change tout cela. (107) James Russell Lowell to JE. L. Godkin Elmwood, 16th July, 1874. Thanks for your greeting. Give my love to Mrs. Godkin and tell her I don't change my opinion of people 10 so lightly. I made up my mind about the Nation and its editor (and his wife) a good while ago and am not very likely to shift while I keep my wits. As to what the Nation may have said of me, that is its affair and not mine. When I have done my best, I am so made 15 that I do not bother myself about w T hat other people think. If one have done a good thing, no conspiracy can keep it secret long, and if one have trusted himself to a balloon with a leak in it, no puffing of the aeronaut, still less of his friends below, will save it from coming 20 back to earth again with a bump. So far as I know, the Nation has always treated me quite as well as I deserve, and if not, why, God be praised, I do not base my judg- ment of men on their opinions of me. I stayed at Geneva several weeks longer than I intended, mainly 25 because it was the only town on the Continent where 260 COLLECTION OF LETTERS . I could buy the Nation — more shame to you ! You might at least have an agency in Paris. All the time I was without it, my mind was chaos, and I didn't feel that I had a safe opinion to swear by. If this do not 5 set Mrs. Godkin's heart at ease (for I am sure her wits had nothing to do with her solicitude), I shall have to invent some graceful lie as I learned to do in Gaul. Thus far I have nothing to complain of at home but the heat, which takes hold like a bull-dog after that 10 toothless summer of England, where they have on the whole the best climate this side of Dante's terrestrial par- adise. The air there always seems native to my lungs. As for my grandson, he is a noble fellow and does me great credit. ... I am going to Southborough to-day i^ on a visit to him, for I miss him woundilv. If vou wish to taste the real bouquet of life, I advise. you to procure yourself a grandson, whether by adoption or theft. The cases of child-stealing one reads of in the newspapers now T and then may all, I am satisfied, be 20 traced to this natural and healthy instinct. A grand- son is one of the necessities of middle life and may be innocently purloined (or taken by right of eminent domain ) on the tabula in naufragio principle. Get one, and the Nation will no longer offend anybody. 25 I rejoice to hear of the Nation's prosperity as a piece of general good fortune. May your pen be as sharp as ever — except in the case of elderly poets, if such are possible. XI. Counsel and Advice (108) Lord Chesterfield to His San° Bath, October 4, 1738. My dear Child : — By my writing so often, and by the manner in which I write, you will easily see that I do not treat you as a little child, but as a boy who loves to learn, and is ambitious of receiving in- 5 structions. I am even persuaded, that, in reading my letters, you are attentive, not only to the subject of which the}' treat, but likewise to the orthography and to the style. It is of the greatest importance to write letters well ; as this is a talent which unavoid- 10 ably occurs every day of one's life, as w r ell in business as in pleasure; and inaccuracies in orthography or in style are never pardoned but in ladies. When you are older, you will read the " Epistles" (that is to sax- Letters) of Cicero; which are the most perfect models 15 of good writing. A propos of Cicero, I must give you some account of him. He was an old Roman, who lived eighteen hundred years ago; a man of great genius, and the most celebrated orator that ever was. Will it not be necessary to explain to you what an 20 orator is? I believe I must. An orator is a man 261 262 COLLECTION OF LETTERS who harangues in a public assembly, and who speaks with eloquence; that is to say, who reasons well, has a fine style, and chooses his w T ords properly. Now never man succeeded better than Cicero in all those 5 different points ; he used sometimes to speak to the whole people of Rome assembled; and, by the force of his eloquence, persuaded them to whatever he pleased. At other times, he used to undertake causes, and plead for his clients in courts of judicature; and 10 in those causes he generally had all the suffrages, that is to say, all the opinions, all the decisions, in his favor. While the Roman republic enjoyed its freedom, he did very signal services to his country; but after it was enslaved by Julius Csesar, the first Emperor of 15 the Romans, Cicero became suspected by the tyrants ; and was at last put to death by order of Mark Antony, who hated him for the severity of his orations against him, at the time that he endeavored to obtain the sovereignty of Rome. 20 In case there should be any words in my letters which you do not perfectly understand, remember always to inquire the explanation from your mamma, or else to seek for them in the dictionary. Adieu. (109) The Earl of Chesterfield to His Son Isleworth, September 19, 1739, 25 My dear Child : I am very well pleased with your last letter. The writing was very good, and the prom- COLLECTION OF LETTERS 263 ise you make exceedingly fine. You must keep it, for an honest man never breaks his word. You en- gage to retain the instructions which I give you. That is sufficient, for though you do not properly com- prehend them at present, age and reflection will, in 5 time, make you understand them. With respect to the contents of your letter, I believe you have had proper assistance; indeed, I do not as yet expect that you can write a letter without help. You ought, however, to try, for nothing is more requi- 10 site than to write a good letter. Nothing in fact is more easy. Most persons who write ill, do so because they aim at writing better than they can, by which means they acquire a formal and unnatural style. Whereas, to write well, we must write easily and natu- 15 rally. For instance, if you want to write a letter to me, you should only consider what you would say if you were with me, and then write it in plain terms, just as if you were conversing. I will suppose, then, that you sit down to write to me unassisted, and 1 20 imagine your letter would probably be much in these words : — My dear Papa: I have been at Mr. Maittaire's this morning, where I have translated English into Latin and Latin into English, and so well, that at the 25 end of my exercise he has writ optime. I have likewise repeated a Greek verb, and pretty well. After this I ran home, like a little wild boy, and played till dinner- 264 COLLECTION OF LETTERS time. This became a serious task, for I ate like a wolf : and by that you may judge that I am in very good health. Adieu. Well, sir, the above is a good letter, and yet very 5 easily written, because it is exceedingly natural. Endeavor then sometimes to write to me of yourself, without minding either the beauty of the writing or the straightness of the lines. Take as little trouble as possible. By that means you will by degrees use 10 yourself to write perfectly well, and with ease. Adieu. Come to me to-morrow at twelve, or Friday morning at eight o'clock. (110) The Earl of Chesterfield to His Son Saturday. Sir : The fame of your erudition, and other shining 15 qualifications, having reached to Lord Orrery, he desired me, that you might dine with him and his son, Lord Boyle, next Sunday ; which I told him you should. By this time, I suppose, you have heard from him ; if you have not, you must however, go there 20 between two and three to-morrow, and say that you came to wait upon Lord Boyle, according to his Lord- ship's orders, of which I informed you. As this will deprive me of the honor and pleasure of your company ii dinner to-morrow, 1 will hope for it at breakfast, 25 and shall take care to have your chocolate ready. COLLECTION OF LETTER 265 Though I need not tell one of your age, experience, and knowledge of the world, how necessary good- breeding is, to recommend one to mankind; yet as your various occupations of Greek and cricket, Latin and pitch-farthing, may possibly divert your attention 5 from this subject, I take the liberty of reminding you of it, and desiring you to be very well-bred, at Lord Orrery's. It is good-breeding alone that can pre- possess people in your favor at first sfght, more time being necessary to discover greater talents. This 10 good-breeding, you know, does not consist in low bows and formal ceremony; but in an easy, civil and re- spectful behavior. You will take care, therefore, to answer with complaisance, when you are spoken to ; to place yourself at the lower end of the table, unless 15 bid to go higher; to drink first to the lady of the house, and next to the master; not to eat awkwardly or dirtily ; not to sit when others stand, and to do all this with an air of complaisance, and not with a grave, sour look, as if you did it all unwillingly. I do not 20 mean a silly, insipid smile, that fools have when they would be civil; but an air of sensible good-humor. I hardly know anything so difficult to attain, or so necessary to possess, as perfect good-breeding; which is equally inconsistent with a stiff formality and imper- 2$ tinent forwardness, and an awkward bashfulness. A little ceremony is often necessary, a certain degree of firmness is absolutely so ; and an outward modesty 266 COLLECTION OF LETTERS is extremely becoming; the knowledge of the world, and your own observations, must, and alone can tell you the proper quantities of each. Mr. Fitzgerald was with me yesterday, and com- 5 mended you much ; go on to deserve commendations, and you will certainly meet with them. Adieu. (Ill) The Earl of Chesterfield to His Son London, May 6, O. S., 1751. My dear Friend : The best authors are always the severest critics of their own works; they revise, io correct, file, and polish them, till they think they have brought them to perfection. Considering you as my work, I do not look upon myself as a bad author, and am therefore a severe critic. I examine narrowly into the least inaccuracy or inelegance, in order to 15 correct, not to expose them, and that the work may be perfect at last. You are, I know, exceedingly im- proved in your air, address, and manners, since you have been at Paris ; but still there is, I believe, room for further improvement before you come to that 2c perfection which I have set my heart upon seeing you arrive at ; and till that moment I must continue fil- ing and polishing. In a letter that I received by last post, from a friend of yours at Paris, there was this paragraph : " I have the honour to assure you, without 25 flattery, that Mr. Stanhope succeeds beyond what COLLECTION OF LETTERS 267 might be expected from a person of his age. He goes into very good company; and that kind of manner, which was at first thought to be too decisive and per- emptory, is now judged otherwise; because it is ac- knowledged to be the effect of an ingenuous frankness, 5 accompanied by politeness, and by a proper deference. He studies to please, and succeeds. Madame du Puisieux was the other day speaking of him with com- placency and friendship. You will be satisfied with him in all respects." This is extremely well, and 1 10 rejoice at it : one little circumstance only may, and I hope will, be altered for the better. Take pains to undeceive those wiio thought that petit ton un peu decide et un pen brusque ; as it is not meant so, let it not appear so. Compose your countenance to an air 15 of gentleness and douceur, use some expressions of diffidence of your own opinion, and deference to other people's ; such as, " If I might be permitted to say — I should think — Is it not rather so ? At least I have the greatest reason to be diffident of myself." Such 20 mitigating, engaging words do by no means weaken your argument; but, on the contrary, make it more powerful by making it more pleasing. . . . Use palliatives when you contradict; such as "I may be mistaken," "I am not sure, but I believe," "I should 25 rather think," etc. Finish any argument or dispute with some little good-humored pleasantry, to show that you are neither hurt yourself, nor meant to hurt 268 COLLECTION OF LETTERS your antagonist; for an argument, kept up a good while, often occasions a temporary alienation on each side. Pray observe particularly, in those French people who are distinguished by that character, cette 5 douceur de mceurs et de manieres, which they talk of so much, and value so justly; see in what it con- sists ; in mere trifles, and most easy to be acquired, where the heart is really good. Imitate, copy it, till it becomes habitual and easy to you. ... If you iowere to say to Lady Hervey, Madame Monconseil, or such others as you look upon to be your friends, It is said that I have a kind of manner which is rather too decisive and too peremptory; it is not, however, my intention that it should be so; I entreat you to 15 correct, and even publicly to punish me whenever I am guilty. Do not treat me with the least indulgence, but criticise to the utmost. So clear-sighted a judge as you has a right to be severe ; and I promise you that the criminal will endeavor to correct himself. . . . 20 Dress is also an article not to be neglected; and I hope you do not neglect it; it helps in the premier abord,° which is often decisive. By dress, I mean your clothes being well made, fitting you, in the fashion and not above it; your hair well done, and a general 25 cleanliness and spruceness in your person. I hope you take infinite care of your teeth; the consequences of neglecting the mouth are serious, not only to one's self, but to others. In short, my dear child, neglect COLLECTIOX OF LETTERS 269 nothing ; a little more will complete the whole. Adieu. I have not heard from you these three weeks, which I think a great while. (112) George Hughes to His Son The reason you give for having lost a few places is no doubt the right one — that you have not got yet 5 into the swing — it will be all right in a week or two. I have no doubt you will get your remove at the end of term easily enough. The exam, (if I under- stand rightly) consists of subjects which you prepare during term, and there is not much " unseen." This io will be an advantage to you over the idle ones who don't prepare their work. I shall be delighted to help you in any way, if you will only let me know T , and give me due notice. Perhaps you won't believe me when I assure you again, that Latin prose will come to you 15 as well as cricket and football in good time ; but it is the truth nevertheless. At your age I often felt the same discouragement which you feel. I had rather overgrowm myself like you, and was longer " ripening " (to use an expressive phrase) than many fellows who 20 did not grow so fast ; but it all came right in my case, as it will in yours. Therefore en avant° and don't be discouraged. . . . We are very glad to hear that you are in upper- middle one, and it will make us very happy if you can 25 270 COLLECTION OF LETTERS get another remove at Christmas. It is to be done if you like, and as you cannot play football just now (worse luck) you will have more time. Don't you want some help in your tutor work? If so, send me 5 the book ; or is there anything else in which I can help you? You are now rapidly becoming a young man, and have probably some influence in the school, and will have more. Be kind to the new boys and juniors; even if they are "scrubby," your business is 10 to polish them, and you will do this much better by a little kind advice than by making their lives a burden (I don't say, mind, that you are unkind to them). Don't "bosh"° your masters. Remember that they are gentlemen like yourself, and that it is insulting 15 them to "bosh" them when they are taking trouble with you. As to the sixth form, I don't quite approve of all the customs thereof, but it is an institution of the school, and, on the whole, beneficial, and it is no use kicking against it. Now I have done with my 20 preaching. I don't know that it is necessary, but it can do you no harm, and I know you respect my opinion. Your mother is horrified at your signing yourself "Hughes," tout court (as the French say), so to please her don't forget to put in "your affection- 25 ate son" (as I know you are). God bless you. Yours most affectionately, G. E. Hughes. COLLECTION OF LETTERS 271 (113) Thomas Henry Huxley to His Son 4 Marlborough Place, N. W., Dec. 10/ 1878. Your mother reminds me that to-morrow is your eighteenth birthday, and though I know that my "happy returns" will reach you a few hours too late, 5 I cannot but send them. You are touching manhood now, my dear laddie, and I trust that as a man your mother and I may al- ways find reason to regard you as we have done throughout your boyhood. io The great thing in the world is not so much to seek happiness as to earn peace and self-respect. I have not troubled you much with paternal didactics — but that bit is "ower true" and worth thinking over. 15 (114) Theodore Parker to J. B. Patterson Boston, Feb. 28, 1855. Dear Young Friend, — I am the person whom you met in the cars, and parted from at Albany. I sought you in the cars ; but, in the dim light, I failed to find you. I took a good deal of interest in the 20 bright young face, looking so pure and hopeful, and thinking, that, some five and twenty years ago, I was on the same road that you are now. I am sorry 272 COLLECTION OF LETTERS that you have met with the "misfortune" you refer to. It certainly casts a shade over a young man's prospect for the moment, not for the day. You have a good start thus far, and seem to have laid the foun- 5 dation well. It will be no misfortune, in the end, that * you must get your own education. It will bring out the deep, manly elements at an earlier period; will make you more thoughtful when you would else have been more gamesome and playful. If you are a 10 teacher, you can find much time to study by yourself. I began to teach when seventeen years old, and con- tinued it for four winters, working at home on my father's farm in the other parts of the year. I always found from eight to ten hours a day for study, besides 15 the work-hours in school. Then I taught a high school for three years more, and kept far ahead of the class in college of which I was a (nominal) member. You can do all that, and perhaps more. Perhaps it will be well to pursue the same studies you 20 would have taken at college, with the addition of such as belong to your calling as teacher ; or you may, per- haps, teach till you accumulate money enough to go through the college at a later date. No good thing is impossible to a serious and earnest young man with 25 good abilities and good moral principles. But, above all things, be careful of your health. Your success depends on a sound body. Do not vio- late the laws which God writes in these tables of flesh. COLLECTION OF LETTERS 273 Let me know where you go and what you find to do, and I will write you again when more at leisure. Truly your friend, Theo. Parker. (115) Mrs. Tennyson to Her Son Rose Manor, Well Walk, 5 Monday, Jan. 10th, 1860. Dearest Ally, — I received a nice note from Alan Ker a short time since, which I now enclose, thinking it will give thee pleasure to know what he says about thy last beautiful and interesting poems. 10 It does indeed (as he supposes it would) give me the purest satisfaction to notice that a spirit of Christian- ity is perceptible through the whole volume. It gladdens my heart also to perceive that Alan seems to estimate it greatly on that account. O dearest Ally^ 15 how fervently have I prayed for years that our merciful Redeemer would intercede with our Heavenly Father, to grant thee His Holy Spirit to urge thee to employ the talents He has given thee, by taking every oppor- tunity of endeavouring to impress the precepts of His 20 Holy Word on the minds of others. My beloved son, words are too feeble to express the joy of my heart in perceiving that thou art earnestly endeavouring to do so. Dearest Ally, there is nothing for a moment to be compared to the favour of God : I need not ask thee 25 274 COLLECTION OF LETTERS if thou art of the same opinion. Thy writings are a