Postman's Horn

Monday [summer of 1861].

My Dear Allingham,

I am sending you by book post with this a sewed copy of my book. I have only just got a few, and do not offer it you en permanence in this state, as I am going to make an etching, or perhaps two, for it, and there is another index to come at the end, but had 6 copies sent me now to use in getting a publisher, etc. My first offer of it will be to Macmillan, with whom I have had some talk.

What I want chiefly to get rid of is the printer's bill, but I am led to think by some friends that I ought to expect something in money also. What think you? Will you tell me, and say all you have time to say in the way of criticism? Cancels are still possible. There are 5 cancel leaves already in the book (chiefly on score of decorum!), which you will notice by their being in the rough as yet.

My wife progresses well, I am glad to tell you. With her love to you, I am, yours affectionately,

D. G. R.

[Notes: "My Book " was The Early Italian Poets, now called Dante and his Circle. No etchings were included in it, though one was made, now in Mr. Fairfax Murray's collection. Macmillan did not publish the work, but Smith and Elder. For the ''something in money" which his friends led him to think he ought to expect he had to wait eight years. By 1869, about six hundred copies having been sold, he received, Mr. W. M. Rossetti says, "a minute dole of less than nine pounds."]

-from Letters of Dante Gabriel Rossetti to William Allingham, 1854-1870 by George Birkbeck Hill (London: T.F. Unwin, 1897). p. 260-61.

Friday, July 18, 2008

as the circle spreads

Paris, Wednesday, [June 1860].

My Dear Allingham,

Have you heard yet that I'm married? * The news is hardly a month old, so it may not have reached you, though I have meant to write you word of it all along, as you are one of the few valued friends whom Lizzie and I have in common as yet; nor, as the circle spreads, will she be likely to feel a warmer regard for any than she does for you.

Of her health all I can say is that it is possible to give rather better news of it than I could have given a month ago. Paris seems to agree so well with her that I am fearful of returning to London (which, however, we must do in a day or two) lest it should throw her back into the terrible state of illness she had been in for some time before. But in that case I shall make up my mind to settle in Paris for a time, as I could no doubt paint here well enough. In any case I expect a move, as winter comes on, will be necessary.

You know I have been meaning to inflict my vol. of MS. rhymes on you for some time, but have been so busy lately and wanted to copy a little more first. I shall try and send them yet. When shall we be likely to see you again in London? Jones is married, too, only a week ago. He and his wife (a charming and most gifted little woman) were to have met us in Paris, but he has not been well enough to travel with pleasure. With love from both of us I remain.

Your affectionate

D. G. ROSSETTI.

* Rossetti and Lizzie Siddal were married in Hastings, May 23, 1860.

-from Letters of Dante Gabriel Rossetti to William Allingham, 1854-1870 by George Birkbeck Hill (London: T.F. Unwin, 1897). p. 223-24.

Thursday, July 17, 2008

joining the party

Sunday, July, 1855.

Dear Allingham,

How beastly of them Customs' ogs! I and every one had been on the look out for you. I wish I could come to the lakes with you, but it's quite out of the question just now, though nothing would delight me more. I think it seems possible I may be going on the Continent this autumn. Miss S. is going--to Florence possibly, and a lady, a cousin of mine, is to be with her most likely, so this might render my joining the party possible. She will in any case settle abroad for some time, in a climate less changeable than this--France or Italy. The wizard in the case being of course J. R. [John Ruskin] who you know is to have all she does for some time.

Thus, till this move is settled or quashed, i.e., my part in it, I must bide at my work, such as it is. I don't find what I'm about at all amusing, and should have been peculiarly solaced by a sight of you--but it wasn't to be. Let's go on writing to each other instead at any rate.

Your affectionate

D. G. R.

-from Letters of Dante Gabriel Rossetti to William Allingham, 1854-1870 by George Birkbeck Hill (London: T.F. Unwin, 1897). p. 149.

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

some thoroughly fine day

Blackfriars Bridge, [Postmark, March 22, 1855].

Dear Allingham,

I have been looking at the mangled remains of my drawing again by the light of your friendly letter, but really can only see it, in its present state, as a conceited-looking failure, and as to the execution, it is on a par with woodcut "Executions" in general; only in such cases the "copy of verses" ought to be made to match.

My wish was, and is, to make you a small water-colour, or pen and ink drawing, of the subject, as I should feel pleasure in doing it, and in your having it, in some shape; and that, since we cannot hang the engraver, the drawing, at any rate, should receive no quarter. By the bye, I have written to Dalziel, and though my letter was not indited, at a severe crisis of punning, it seems to have treated the subject in a manner to make him crusty, as he has never answered. . .

. . . Perhaps before this reaches you I shall get from you Ruskin's letter to Miss S., but if you have not posted it before, pray do so at once on receiving this, as I think I may want it. Ruskin's interest* in her continues unabated, and he is most desirous of benefiting her in any way in his power, and of her becoming a frequent visitor at his house. Some thoroughly fine day she and I are to pay him our first visit together.

Now to answer your question about Dr. Polidori. The fact of his suicide does not, unfortunately, admit of a doubt, though the verdict on the inquest was one of natural death; but this was a partly pardonable insincerity, arising from pity for my grandfather's great grief, and from a schoolfellow of my uncles happening to be, strangely enough, on the jury. This death happened in the year '21, and he was only in his 26th year. I believe that, though his poems and tales give an impression only of a cultivated mind, he showed more than common talents both for medicine, and afterwards for law, which pursuit he took to, in a restless mood, alter his return from Italy. The "pecuniary difficulties" were only owing, I believe, to sudden losses and liabilities incurred at the gaming-table, whither, in his last feverish days, he had been drawn by some false friend, though such tastes had always, in a healthy state, been quite foreign to him. I have met accidentally, from time to time, persons who knew him, and he seems always to have excited admiration by his talents, and with those who knew him well affection and respect by his honourable nature; but I have no doubt that vanity was one of his failings, and should think he might have been in some degree of unsound mind. He was my mother's favourite brother, and I feel certain her love for him is a proof that his memory deserves some respect. In Medwin, in Moore, and in Leigh Hunt, and elsewhere, I have seen allusions to him which dwelt on nothing but his faults, and therefore I have filled this sheet on the subject, though, of course, as far as your proposed criticism goes, I am only telling you that the book tells truth in this particular. Write soon, and believe me

Yours affectionately,

D. G. ROSSETTI.

By the bye, I am delighted at your appreciation of Scott. I shrewdly suspect that the last time I heard you talk of him there "was nothing in him." [Allingham grates a little.] I think myself that Maryanne, with all its faults, is better worth writing than The Angel in the House. As exemplified in this poem, as well as in other respects, Scott is a man something of Browning's order, as regards his place among poets, though with less range and even much greater incompleteness, but also, on the other hand, quite without affectation ever to be found among his faults, and I think, too, with a more commonly appreciable sort of melody in his best moments.

* Ruskin, upon seeing the drawings and sketches of Elizabeth Siddal, began to purchase all of them. He later provided her with an annual sum of 150 pounds in exchange for her drawings up to that value.

-from Letters of Dante Gabriel Rossetti to William Allingham, 1854-1870 by George Birkbeck Hill (London: T.F. Unwin, 1897). p. 113-17.

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

the circumstances

John Ruskin to Coventry Patmore

Oxford, 18th Nov. [1854.]

Dear Patmore,

I only got your note yesterday afternoon, owing to my absence from London for the moment. What you tell and show me of the notices of the Angel is only consistent with what I have long observed of press criticism. No thoroughly good thing can be praised or felt at once.

You need be under no apprehension as to the ultimate success of your poem. I don't think you will even need much patience. It has purpose and plain meaning in every line, it is fit for its age--and for all ages, and it will get its place. Its only retarding element is the strong resemblance to the handling of Tennyson, but this will not tell against it ultimately any more than Bonifazio's resemblance to Titian ought to make us cast Bonifazio out of our galleries.

The circumstances of my own life unhappily render it impossible for me to venture to write a critique on it for any publication but whatever my private influence can do shall be done.

Believe me, with regards to Mrs. Patmore,

Faithfully and respectfully yours,
J. Ruskin.

[link to: Effie Gray, Mrs. Ruskin.]

[Picture of John Ruskin above right, by John Everett Millais]

-from Memoirs and Correspondence of Coventry Patmore By Basil Champneys (London: George Bell and Sons, 1900) p. 278-279.

Monday, July 14, 2008

Ruskin asked

British Museum, Nov. 6, '54.

My Dear Allingham,

I do not want you to withhold, in noticing my vol. anything a stranger (a judge of poetry) acquainted with my former doings, would infer from the volume itself. Thanks for the paragraph in " The Critic," which I had not seen. A copy was sent to the Dublin University, also to Kingsley--but anonymously. Ruskin had one, also anonymously. Rossetti was with him a day or two after he received it: R. asked him if he had seen or knew anything about "a glorious book called "The Angel in the House"! Alfred Tennyson is also emphatic in his prophecies of Immortality for the same performance.

Hannay has written a notice of it in "The Leader," regarding it from the ultra-pagan point of view, from which of course it looks rather dull. But the notice is respectful, which is the most I could have hoped, or even desired from the "Leader."

The "Spectator" has also noticed it, in the beginning pronouncing it to be an imitation of Tennyson, in the middle, of Petrarch, and in the end declaring that it is a mere echo of Cowley; to complete this specimen of "critical acumen" the poem is bracketed with Gerald Massey.

Yours faithfully,

C. Patmore.

-from Memoirs and Correspondence of Coventry Patmore By Basil Champneys (London: George Bell and Sons, 1900) p. 178-179.

Saturday, July 12, 2008

esses and isms

Finchley, November, 1854.

My Dear Allingham,

Your last letter has been carried carefully in my pocket all this time, with the view of its being answered, as it ought to have been long ere now. To-night I search my pockets for it at last for that immediate purpose, and of course it has somehow flown. I hope I shall not have forgotten anything that ought to be spoken of in this. One thing I must not forget is to say how very busy and bothered I have been, and to beg that may plead my excuse for delay, not only with the letter, but with the more important wood-block, which is not yet sent in. It would have been so before now, but that staying out here, I am prevented from working on it from nature except by flying visits to London on Sundays, and I am loth to finish it without nature. The delay in this has kept me from writing, as I wanted to say it was done, as I trust it now will be very soon. I shall like, if at all practicable, to do another, but meanwhile Hughes is drawing the last block to prevent disappointment, and my second, if done, must take its chance with the publishers as an additional illustration. I hope, above all, they mean to have the drawings well cut. For my part I should like to tell them that they had better in my own case give the price of the drawing as an extra bonus to the engraver, and that then they must let me see a proof as soon as cut--the thing to be cancelled altogether if not approved of by me. I expect this might partly impress upon them that some care was necessary, and that there was a reputation of some sort in some quarters that I had to take care of.

Do you see any objection to my following this plan ? I feel it both pleasure and credit to be associated at all with your volume, and should not like to cut too sorry a figure there, as it is a book which every one will be sure to see.

I have had a hasty look (such as my leisure lately has left possible) through your MS., much of which is as exquisite as can be or ever has been--pure beauty and delight. The Queen of the Forrest, Hughes tells me, is to be withdrawn, as capable of fuller treatment. I am quite of your mind about it, and chiefly because it is already so peculiarly lovely as to be worthy of any elaboration. The Aeolian Harp in long lines is equal to any of that series, and I should have many things to say of many others, if the MS. were only by me. I must write of them when they are printed, and I hope talk of them too with you by that time. You mention having sent a copy of Day and Night Songs to Ruskin: did you remember that I had already given him one? I trust he and you will meet when next in London. He has been back about a month or so, looking very well and in excellent spirits. Perhaps you know that he has joined Maurice's scheme for a Working Men's College, which has now begun to be put in operation at 31, Red Lion Square. Ruskin has most liberally undertaken a drawing-class, which he attends every Thursday evening, and he and I had a long confab about plans for teaching. He is most enthusiastic about it, and has so infected me that I think of offering an evening weekly for the same purpose, when I am settled in town again.

At present I am hard at work out here on my picture, painting the calf and cart. It has been fine clear weather, though cold, till now, but these two days the rain has set in (for good, I fear), and driven me to my wits' end, as even were I inclined to paint notwithstanding, the calf would be like a hearth-rug after half an hour's rain; but I suppose I must turn out to-morrow and try. A very disagreeable part of the business is that I am being obliged to a farmer whom I cannot pay for his trouble in providing calf and all, as he insists on being good natured. As for the calf, he kicks and fights all the time he remains tied up, which is 5 or 6 hours daily, and the view of life induced at his early age by experience in art appears to be so melancholy that he punctually attempts suicide by hanging himself at 3 1/2 daily p.m. At these times I have to cut him down, and then shake him up and lick him like blazes. There is a pleasure in it, my dear fellow: the Smithfield drovers are a kind of opium-eaters at it, but a moderate practitioner might perhaps sustain an argument. I hope soon to be back at my rooms, as I have been quite long enough at my rhumes. (The above joke did service for MacCrac's benefit last night.)

Before I came here I had been painting ever so long on a brick wall at Chiswick which is in my foreground. By the bye, that boating sketch of yours is really good in its way, and would bear showing' to Ruskin as an original Turner--and perhaps selling to Windus afterwards.

Many thanks for your minute criticism on my ballad, which was just of the kind I wanted. Not, of course, that a British poet is going to knock under on all points;--accordingly, I take care to disagree from you in various respects--as regards abruptnesses, improbabilities, prosaicisms, coarsenesses, and other esses and isms, not more prominent, I think, in my production than in its models. As to dialect there is much to be said, but I doubt much whether, as you say, mine is more Scotticised than many or even the majority of genuine old ballads. If the letter and poem were here, I might perhaps bore you with counter-analysis. But in very many respects I shall benefit greatly by your criticisms, if ever I think the ballad worth working on again, without which it would certainly not be worth printing.

I have read Patmore's poem which he sent me, and about which I might say a good deal of all kinds, if I felt up to it to-night; but I don't. He was going to publish (and had actually printed the title) with the pseudonym of C. K. Dighton; but was induced at the last moment to cancel the title, as well as a marvellous note at the end, accounting for some part of the poem being taken out of his former book by some story of a butterman and a piece of waste paper, or something of that sort! (I see my description is as lucid as the note.)

Did you see a paragraph in the Illus. Lond. News headed Americans at Florence, and giving a longish account of a backwoods poem called The New Pastoral, to be immediately published by Read? Have you seen anything of W. B. Scott's volume? I may be able to send it you sooner or later, if you like. The title-page has a vignette with the words Poems by a Painter printed very gothically indeed. A copy being sent to old Carlyle, he did not read any of the poems, but read the title "Poems by a Printer." He wrote off at once to the imaginary printer to tell him to stick to his types and give up his metaphors. Woolner saw the book lying at Carlyle's, heard the story, and told him of his mistake, at which he had the decency to seem a little annoyed, as he knows Scott, and esteems him and his family. Now that we are allied with Turkey, we might think seriously of the bastinado for that old man. on such occasions as the above.

This is the last of Brown's note-paper (I am staying with him here), so I must leave some other thing till next time, especially as it is fearfully late. Miss Siddal is moderately well and making designs, etc.

Yours affectionately,

D. G. ROSSETTI.

P.S.--Hughes asked me for Millais' address from [? for] you. The surest way I know of reaching him is to address to him at M. Halliday. Esq., 3. Robert St., Adelphi.

-from Letters of Dante Gabriel Rossetti to William Allingham, 1854-1870 by George Birkbeck Hill (London: T.F. Unwin, 1897). p. 81-86.

Friday, July 11, 2008

as many I's as Argus

Sept. 19 [1854].

Dear Allingham,

I've just got your letter this morning. About the woodcut, I fancy the poem and extracts you send to-day are hardly so much in my "line" for illustration as the two others you sent before. The Maids of Elfin Mere will be the one, I dare say, after all. This chiefly because the Nursery Rhyme on which S. M.'s Eve [Saint Margaret's Eve] is founded is included and illustrated in Child's Play by the Hon. Mrs. Boyle, and is there very well done.

I made a sketch for the Maids the first day you sent it--i.e., for the arrangement, and think it would come nice. At any rate of that or of one of the others I hope you will soon hear that a block is drawn, and Hughes has sent me one.

Hughes was here the other evening, and showed me several sketches and wood-blocks he has drawn,--all of them excellent in many ways; but the blocks I think, especially the one of the man and girl at a stile, rather wanting in force for the engraver. He agreed with me, and I believe will do something to amend this. He has made a few very nice little sketches for cuts in the text, if such should prove admissible. One or two for the Fairies are remarkably original. I should really, I believe, have got mine in hand before this, but various troublesome anxieties have interfered with that and other work, among the rest with my duty to the Folio, which is still by me. I shan't put in my modern design, and must finish one of two or three I have going on, instead. I am doing one, which I think will be the one, of Hamlet and Ophelia, so treated as I think to embody and symbolise the play without obtrusiveness or interference with the subject as a subject.

By the bye Hughes showed me a little poem about What it is they say and do, which I think, if treated carefully, would illustrate very well. It was one of my favorites in your old vol.--but I think on reflexion (sic) would not illustrate except in the text. Are you not going to include the Young Man and Death (if that is the title) one of your very best? There is among those translations of mine a longish dialogue with Death by Guido Cavalcant which always reminds me of that poem--i.e. the original.

I've been very unwell this morning, but have taken some physic and am much better. This must account for the flatness of my writing, for it is flat. I fear you must get the Athenaeum rather late. When I began to have it sent on to you, I found, what I knew not, that they were in the habit of sending it to an uncle of mine at Gloucester. I gave you the priority, but it seems he "appealed" (though he does not care a dump about it), and we thought it better not to hurt his feelings. This will account if it reaches you now later than at first. I'll mention to them at Albany St. about the label. No doubt you saw the review of Hannay's excellent book on Satire; it will put him on a first-rate footing with that fool Dixon, and be of use no doubt. The book has proved a hit. I think, if you liked, I could send you it to read--a copy (i.e.) belonging to the Spectator. Hannay has also brought out a little book with Routledge called Sand and Shells and is writing a novel called Hilton of the Lotus, to be published in the Home Circle, and which pays very well. He has just come back to settle in London, and I spent last Wednesday evening with him. William has been back in London a day or two, after walking through a great part of Devon and Cornwall with Paul, and enjoying it vastly. I do not know whether he has yet left again en route for Belgium, where he is to end his holidays.

I wanted to send you a letter Stephens had from Hunt, but it seems there is some mystic matter in it, so he has copied what I enclose for you. It is the latest news, I believe. The Chief of Zanquebar is a lark, but I confess I begrudge him that whole sheet of note paper. The Times on Massey is loathsome indeed. Really some one ought to write to them about that prig from Poe, which has roused Hannay's bile. I've been reading a Spectator copy of Firmilian in its complete state--on second thoughts I'll post it now for you instead of describing it. Please return it soon. I've also read some of the Stones of Venice having received all Ruskin's books from him, really a splendid present, including even the huge plates of Venetian architecture. I've heard again from him at Chamounix. I've been greatly interested in Wuthering Heights, the first novel I've read for an age and the best (as regards power and sound style) for two ages, except Sidonia. But it is a fiend of a book--an incredible monster, combining all the stronger female tendencies from Mrs. Browning to Mrs. Brownrigg. The action is laid in hell,--only it seems places and people have English names there. Did you ever read it?

I think you're quite right about leaving out a few of my translations from the volume, and should like to know which you think. I had thought so myself, but shall copy out all I have done before determining. I am very glad you like them so much, and will send more when copied.

My plan as to their form is, I think, a preface for the first part, containing those previous to Dante, and a connecting essay (but not bulky) for the second part, containing Dante and his contemporaries, as many of them are in the form of correspondence, etc., very interesting, and require some annotation. I think you have few or none of this class. I shall include the Vita Nuova I am almost sure, and then the vol. will be a thick one. I think, if it were possible to bring some or all out first, as you say, in a good magazine, the plan might be a very good one. Indeed, anything that paid would be very useful just now, as I do not forget my debts. I've a longish story more than half done, which might likely be even more marketable in this way. It is not so intensely metaphysical as that in the Germ. If I possibly can manage to copy what I've done of it, I'd like to send it you. By the bye, in my last long letter (a long letter, Allingham) I put two sonnets which I'm afraid you didn't like. Pray tell me, too, about the alteration I there proposed in the last lines of one, which you objected to.

I fear this letter has as many I's as Argus : argal it is snobbish.

Tenez vous bien for the present and good bye.

Yours sincerely,

D. G. Rossetti.

-from Letters of Dante Gabriel Rossetti to William Allingham, 1854-1870 by George Birkbeck Hill (London: T.F. Unwin, 1897). p. 54-59.

Thursday, July 10, 2008

to pass for the present

British Museum,

Oct., 1854.

Mv Dear Allingham,

You will receive in a day or two a copy of a poem by "C. K. Dighton" under which name I wish, if possible, to pass for the present--chiefly because the weight of "The Times" attack on my father's book* has fallen on me--even "Punch" abusing me by my full name on account of it. Only two or three of the P. R. B. coterie are in the secret.

Can't you do the notice in the "Critic"? You will find the poem much altered and I hope much improved by the omission of the "Epigrams" as a regular "department."

Yours faithfully,

C. K. Patmore.

* My friends and acquaintance: being memorials, mind-portraits, and personal recollections of deceased celebrities of the nineteenth century: with selections from their unpublished letters by P.[eter] G.[eorge] Patmore, {1786-1855} -Three Volumes- (London: Saunders and Otley,1854) which was reviewed disparagingly in the Times August 19, 1854.

-from Memoirs and Correspondence of Coventry Patmore By Basil Champneys (London: George Bell and Sons, 1900) p. 178.

Wednesday, July 9, 2008

triangles and circles

8, Grove, January 6, 1851.

Dear Allingham,

Mr. and Mrs. Tennyson have not yet fixed upon a house; but I believe they are thinking of settling near Croydon. I have not seen Mr. Clough since you were in town; nor am I likely to see him, my family triangle constituting my entire circle of society just now (pardon such a silly joke which I did not perceive till it was done).

Your friends the P. R. B.'s are to make a great show in the Exhibition next year. I believe Mr. Woolner is not at present talking of going to America. Mr. Tennyson has taken a great liking to him and has had him to stay with him and Mrs. Tennyson: this, among other things, seems to have put our excellent friend into a good humour with England.

Believe me very truly yours,

Coventry K. Patmore.

[Image above right from The Victorian Web, image scanned by George P. Landow.]

-from Memoirs and Correspondence of Coventry Patmore By Basil Champneys (London: George Bell and Sons, 1900) p. 175.

Tuesday, July 8, 2008

tho' as yet obscure

Museum, Jan. 5, 1850.

My Dear Allingham,

A few artists--young and for the most part illustrious tho' as yet obscure (Hunt, Millais, G. Rossetti, &c), have set a-going a small magazine upon a sound system. first No. has appeared, and is full of good poetry and noticeable criticism, and has an exquisite etching by Hunt. I think you would like to form one of the corporation subscribing (one shilling per month) and contributing (gratis). The title is "The Germ." I will send you a number to judge of. The little poem called "The Seasons" is mine. How gets on the "Music Master"?

Yours ever,

C. K. Patmore.

-from Memoirs and Correspondence of Coventry Patmore By Basil Champneys (London: George Bell and Sons, 1900) p. 170-71.

Monday, July 7, 2008

a flying leaf

10, Cambridge Villas,

Camden New Town,

Sept. 14, 1849.

My Dear Allingham, .... Blake's print pleases me more than anything of the kind that I have seen for a long time. Its extremely pathetic character corroborates the view, which I have long held, that pathos must be founded upon strength and the most severe nobility.

I have often thought of you and of your verses since I saw you--much more however of the former than of the latter; for these are but trifles compared with what I feel persuaded that it is in your power to do, if only you will put out your strength and strive indefatigably to do your best. Many a first-rate genius has made only a second-rate poet, because he has not chosen to work hard; and it has often happened that a man of inferior power, like Gray, has won a lasting reputation with few other claims to it than the "claims of industry." It seems to me that nothing can be better in the same way than some of the verses you showed me. Let a brother-worker be allowed to urge you never to do anything but your best.

I envy my brother the pleasure of spending a week or two with you in the country; but I hope my turn may come some day. If I may trust the impression of so short an acquaintance with you, I think that we are adapted to become friends. There are probably many years before us yet; and the next time we meet, it will be at least with the advantage of increased knowledge on both sides, and therefore with less danger of that sad but frequent end of early- friendships, the exhaustion of each other's interest.

I am in better spirits now than when I saw you. The sea-air has braced my nerves, and I feel fit for work. I regret, however, that I am at present, and probably long shall be, condemned to prose. When my Muse soars with any effect you shall hear from me. Under similar, or any other circumstances indeed, I shall be glad to hear from you. I am a bad correspondent. That is, I cannot write long letters, but I shall always be delighted to exchange a flying leaf with you whenever you like.

Yours ever truly,

Coventry K. Patmore.

-from Memoirs and Correspondence of Coventry Patmore By Basil Champneys (London: George Bell and Sons, 1900) p. 168-69.

Saturday, July 5, 2008

it is always summer

Lafcadio Hearn to Sentaro Nishida

Tokyo, 1897

Dear Nishida,

This morning (the 17th) Mr Takahashi came with your letter of introduction. He is a charming gentleman, and I felt unhappy at not being able to talk Japanese to him. He brought a most beautiful present a tea-set of a sort I had never even seen before,--"crackled" porcelain inside to the eye, and outside a chocolate-coloured clay etched with pretty designs of houses and groves and lakes with boats upon them. The cups were a great surprise and delight--especially as they were made in Matsue. Mr. Takahashi gave me better news of you than your last letter brought me: he thought you were getting stronger, so I have hopes of pleasant chats with you. He told us many things about Matsue. He is a very correct, courteous gentleman; and I felt quite clumsy, as I always do when I meet a real gentleman of the Japanese school. I think I should like any of your friends. Mr. Takahashi had something about him which brought back to me the happy feeling.of my pleasant time in Izumo.

I don't feel to-day, though, like I used to feel in Izumo. I have become very grey, and much queerer looking; and as I never make any visits or acquaintances outside of my quiet little neighbourhood, I have become also rather henjin. But I have written half a new book. I am not able to say now what it will be like: for the things I most wish to put into it--stories of real life have not yet been written. I have finished only the philosophical chapters. One subject is "Nirvana," and another the study of matter in itself as unreality, or at least as a temporary apparition only. Then I have taken up the defence of Japanese methods of drawing, under the title of "Faces in the Old Picture-Books." My public, however, is not all composed of thinkers; and I have to please the majority by telling them stories sometimes. After all, every public more or less resembles a school-class. They say, just like my students always used to say when they felt very tired or sleepy, hot days,--"Teacher, we are tired: please tell us some extraordinary story."

I can't just now remember when--at Matsue--a man came into the classroom to watch my teaching. He came from some little island. I have quite forgotten the name. He looked a little like Mr. Takahashi;--but there was something different in his face,--a little sad, perhaps. When the class was over he came to me and said something very good and kind, and pressed my hand and went away to his island. It is a queer thing that experiences of this kind are often among the most vivid of one's life--though they are so short. I have often dreamed of that man. Often and often. And the dream is always the same. He is the director of a beautiful little school in a very large garden, surrounded by high white walls. I go into that garden by an iron gate. It is always summer. I teach for that man; and everything is gentle and earnest and pleasant and beautiful, just as it used to be in Matsue,--and he always repeats the nice things he said long ago. If I can ever find that school, with the white walls and the iron gate,--I shall want to teach there, even if the salary be only the nice things said at the end of the class. But I fear the school is made of mist, and that teacher and pupils are only ghosts. Or perhaps it is in Horai.

Ever with best regards from all of us, faithfully,

Lafcadio Hearn.

-from The Life and Letters of Lafcadio Hearn by Elizabeth Bisland in 2 volumes (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1906) volume 2, p. 330-32.

Friday, July 4, 2008

Mr. Yakumo Koizumi

Lafcadio Hearn (Y. Koizumi) to Sentaro Nishida

Kobe, April, 1896.

Dear Nishida, - It made me happy to get your letter, and to hear from you that you think I am beginning to understand the Japanese a little better. My other books have had success in Europe as well as America;--the leading French review (Revue des Deux Mondes) had a long article about me; and the Spectator, the Athenaeum, the Times and other English journals have been kind. Still, I am not foolish enough to take the praise for praise of fact,--feeling my own ignorance more and more every day, and being more pleased with the approval of a Japanese friend than with the verdict of a foreign reviewer, who, necessarily, knows nothing to speak of about Japan. But one thing is encouraging,--namely, that whatever I write about Japan hereafter will be widely read in Europe and elsewhere,--so that I may be able to do good. My first book is being translated into German.

I got a beautiful letter from Mr. Senke the other day, to which he has, I trust, by this time the answer,--in which I told him that I hope to see Matsue and Kizuki again in about another month. Setsu, mother, and the boy come with me. Kazuo is now much better--except morally;--he is more mischievous than ever. I want him to have as much of the sea this summer as he can bear. And I want to swim at Kizuki and Mionoseki, and to talk to you all I can--without tiring you.

I have been away. I have been at Ise, Futami, and nearly a week in Osaka. Ise disappointed me a little. The scenery is superb; but I like Kizuki better. At Ise there is so much money, - - such enormous hotels,--such modernization: the place did not feel holy to me, as Kizuki did. Even the miko won't show their faces for less than five yen. Besides, it was bitterly cold, and hurt my lungs. I came back sick. Osaka delighted me beyond words. Excepting Kyoto, it is certainly the most interesting city on this side of Japan. And I could never tell you how Tennoji delighted me--what a queer, dear old temple. I went to Sakai, of course,--and bought a sword, and saw the grave of the eleven samurai of Tosa who had to commit seppuku for killing some foreigners,--and told them I wished they could come back again to kill a few more who are writing extraordinary lies about Japan at this present moment. I would rather live a month in Osaka than ten years free of rent in Tokyo.

Speaking of Tokyo reminds me to tell you that my engagement with the university is not yet assured. Day before yesterday I had a letter from Professor Toyama that my becoming a Japanese citizen had raised a difficulty "which," he wrote, "we must manage to get over somehow." I wrote him that I was not worried about the matter, and had never allowed myself to consider it very seriously,--hinting also that I would not accept any low salary. What he will next write I don't know, and don't very much care. If Matsue were a little warmer in winter I should rather be teaching there. Indeed I think that even after a few years in Tokyo, I should be asking to get back to Matsue; and in any event I hope to make a home there. If I can get such a yashiki as I had--mean buy one for my own home--Matsue would be a very happy place to work and study in. Besides, if my health keeps fair, I can hope eventually to be able to travel in the coldest winter months, and then the Matsue climate would make no difference for me. In summer it is delicious. Even Setsu now thinks it better to live in the interior; and I shall be glad to escape from the open ports. I have seen enough of the foreigners here, and like them less than ever.

I should certainly like Mr. Asai very much, from your charming account of him; and, at any rate, I expect to see both you and him within forty days from this writing. If you think he would like a copy of 'Kokoro' it will make me very happy to send him one. As he has studied philosophy, however, I don't know what he will think of the chapters on the Idea of Pre-existence and the Worship of Ancestors. You know the school of thought that I follow is bitterly opposed; and I believe it is not honestly taught in any English establishment. In one or two American universities it is partly taught; but only the French have given it really fair attention abroad.

Lafcadio Hearn (Y. Koizumi).

P. S. It made me feel queer to be addressed by Prof. Toyama as "Mr. Yakumo Koizumi"!

-from The Life and Letters of Lafcadio Hearn by Elizabeth Bisland in 2 volumes (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1906) volume 2, p. 297-99.

Thursday, July 3, 2008

forced by necessity

Lafcadio Hearn to Ellwood Hendrick

Kobe, Autumn, 1895.

Dear Hendrick, . . . It has often occurred to me to ask whether you think other men feel as I do about some things--you yourself, for example. Work with me is a pain--no pleasure till it is done. It is not voluntary; it is not agreeable. It is forced by necessity. The necessity is a curious one. The mind, in my case, eats itself when unemployed. Reading, you might suggest, would employ it. No: my thoughts wander, and the gnawing goes on just the same. What kind of gnawing? Vexation and anger and imaginings and recollections of unpleasant things said or done. Unless somebody does or says something horribly mean to me, I can't do certain kinds of work,--the tiresome kinds, that compel a great deal of thinking. The exact force of a hurt I can measure at the time of receiving it: "This will be over in six months;' 'This I shall have to fight for two years;' "This will be remembered longer." When I begin to think about the matter afterwards, then I rush to work. I write page after page of vagaries, metaphysical, emotional, romantic,--throw them aside. Then next day, I go to work rewriting them. I rewrite and rewrite them till they begin to define and arrange themselves into a whole,--and the result is an essay; and the editor of the Atlantic writes, "It is a veritable illumination," and no mortal man knows why, or how it was written,--not even I myself,--or what it cost to write it. Pain is therefore to me of exceeding value betimes; and everybody who does me a wrong indirectly does me a right. I wonder if anybody else works on this plan. The benefit of it is that a habit is forming,--a habit of studying and thinking in a way I should otherwise have been too lazy-minded to do. But whenever I begin to forget one burn, new caustic from some unexpected quarter is poured into my brain: then the new pain forces other work. It strikes me as being possibly a peculiar morbid condition. If it is, I trust that some day the power will come to do something really extraordinary--I mean very unique. What is the good of having a morbid sensitive spot, if it cannot be utilized to some purpose worth achieving? . . .

Ever affectionately,

Lafcadio Hearn

-from The Life and Letters of Lafcadio Hearn by Elizabeth Bisland in 2 volumes (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1906) volume 2, p. 271-73.

Wednesday, July 2, 2008

ghostology

Kobe, 1895.

Dear Chamberlain,

I might one of these days get a job in Loochoo, when the country becomes richer,--and explore ghostology. The ghost-business must be simply immense: it must be immense anywhere that the dead are better housed than the living. Of old I felt sure that if the Egyptian demotic texts were translated, the ghostly side of that literature would be amazing for just the same reason. Well, they have been translated; and the ghost-stories are without parallel. Assyrian ghostology is also very awful; but we don't know much about their necropoles, for whatever those were, they were of perishable stuff.

As I told the Houghton firm I had a volume of philosophical fairy-tales in mind, and wanted to read Andersen again, they sent me four volumes; . . . the old charm comes back with tenfold force, and makes me despair. How great the art of the man!--the immense volume of fancy,--the magical simplicity--the astounding force of compression! This isn't mere literary art; it is a soul photographed and phonographed and put, like electricity, in storage. To write like Andersen, one must be Andersen. But the fountain of his inspiration is unexhausted, and I hope to gain by drinking from it. I read, and let the result set up disturbances interiorly. Disturbances emotional I need. I have had no sensations since leaving Kyushu.

Lafcadio Hearn.

-from The Life and Letters of Lafcadio Hearn by Elizabeth Bisland in 2 volumes (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1906) p. 251-52.

Tuesday, July 1, 2008

Happy Canada Day

Prime Minister John Diefenbaker to his brother Elmer

24 Sussex Street

Ottawa

Saturday

5 Oct. [1957]

Dear Elmer,

We are ready to receive you and the Queen!

The following is a summary of things:

1. You have a morning suit "in toto"--my trousers are 38" at waist.

2. You will bring your tuxedo shirt, studs, etc.

3. You will be seated in the Governor General's box which will also have a seat vacant for Mother. It's too bad she can't travel as she would have been the "Belle of the Ball"--the only mother who ever saw her son as a Prime Minister.

4. You will be at the dinner [for] H. M. [Her Majesty] at our place and I'll try to get you in on a reception too.

I suppose this will be a tough session of Parliament. Anyway, we will try to do our best.

Monday I speak to McGill and hope that I can think of something to say--day after tomorrow, whew!--and not one line of a speech as yet.

All the best and will see you soon.

John

-from Personal Letters of a Public Man: The Family Letters of John G. Diefenbaker edited by Thad McIlroy; with an Introduction by J. L. Granatstein (Toronto: Doubleday Canada, 1985) p.80-81.

Monday, June 30, 2008

out of the east

Kobe, March, 1895.

Dear Chamberlain, --It was very comforting to get a letter from you; for I wanted an impulse to write. I have been blue--by reason partly of the weather; and partly because of those reactions which follow all accomplished work in some men's cases. Everything done then seems like an Elle-woman,--a mere delusive shell; and one marvels why anybody should have been charmed.

Of course I did not ask point-blank for criticisms, because you told me long ago, "Every man should make his own book,"--and, although it is the literary custom in America to consult friends, I could see justice in the suggestion. The title "Out of the East" was selected from a number. It was suggested only by the motto of the Oriental Society, "Ex Oriente lux." The "Far East" has been so monopolized by others that I did not like to use the phrase. "Out of the Uttermost East" would sound cacophonously,--besides suggesting a straining for effect. I thought of Tennyson's "most eastern east," but the publishers didn't approve it. The simpler the title, and the vaguer--in my case--the better: the vagueness touches curiosity. Besides, the book is a vague thing. Sound has much to do with the value of a title. If it hadn't, you would have written "Japanese Things" instead of "Things Japanese"--which is entirely different, and so pretty that your admirers and imitators snapped it up at once. So we have "Things Chinese" by an imitator, and "Things Japanese" is a phrase which has found its recognized place in the vocabulary of critics of both worlds. Your criticism on "Out of the East," though, would have strongly influenced me, if you had sent it early enough. I noticed the very same suggestion in the Athenaeum regarding the use of the word "Orient" and the phrase "Far East" by Americans. For our "Orient" is, as you say, still the Orient of Kinglake, of De Nerval, etc. But why should it be ? To Milton it was the Indian East with kings barbaric sitting under a rain of pearls and gold.

Manila was long my dream. But, although my capacity for sympathy with the beliefs of Catholic peasantry anywhere is very large,--the ugly possibility exists that the Inquisition survives in Manila, and I have had the ill-fortune to make the Jesuits pay some attention to me. You know about the young Spaniard who had his property confiscated, and who disappeared some years ago,--and was restored to liberty only after heaven and earth had been moved by his friends in Spain. I don't know that I should disappear; but I should certainly have obstacles thrown in my way. Mexico would be a safer country for the same class of studies,--Ceram ought to be interesting: in Wallace's time the cost of life per individual was only about 8s. 6d. a year! A moist, hot tropical climate I like best. The heat is weakening, I know, but that moisture means the verdure that is a delight to the eyes, and palms, and parrots, and butterflies of enormous size;--and no possibility of establishing Western conditions of life. I should like very much to see the book you kindly offered to lend me. It might create new aspirations: I am always at night dreaming of islands in undiscovered seas, where all the people are gods and fairies.

Of course I cannot know much about it now, but I am almost sure of having been in Malta as a child. At a later time my father, who was long there, told me queer things about the old palaces of the knights, and a story about a monk who, on the coming of the French, had the presence of mind to paint the gold chancel-railng with green paint. Southern Italy and the Mediterranean islands are especially fitted for classical scholars, like Symonds; but what a world of folk-lore also is there still ungathered! I should think that, next to Venice, Malta must be the most romantic spot in Europe. . . .

Ever faithfully,

Lafcadio Hearn.

-from The Life and Letters of Lafcadio Hearn by Elizabeth Bisland in 2 volumes (London: Archibald Constable & Co., 1906) Volume II, p. 211-214.

Friday, June 27, 2008

twilight time

July 24, 1894.

Dear Chamberlain,

Mason is gone,--leaving a great void in my psychical atmosphere. I linger awhile, hoping to-day or to-morrow at latest to have the Atlantic for you, and to arrange a little matter in connexion with the Boston firm.

I never had the experience before of coolly taking possession of a friend's house during his absence,--and feel a slight remorse of conscience which I can't get over, no matter how many kind things you may say. If I did not hope to be able to give you some day an almost equal amount of pleasure, I should really feel very bad--and there is no use reasoning about the thing at all, because feeling is quite independent of reasoning. Indeed reason is the most tricky and treacherous thing in the world; and the Shinto formula, "obey your own heart" is much more satisfactory.--There are several pleasures in having been here which I did not speak about yet. First it is nice to know a friend's home--in which something of him always lives wherever he be;--to comprehend his pleasures and habits through the kindness of servitors who try to make the guest as happy as their own master (placing the lounge for him where the breeze blows, and all these little attentions);--to get an idea of the geography of his intellectual world, and glimpses of the favourite literary paths;--to notice and sympathize with his comments on margins;--to be instructed by the mere names of the volumes he has collected in all places;--to understand something of his tastes, and so to take pleasure in all his happiness;--in short, to have the definite sensation of what we might call "The Soul of the House." For every dwelling in which a thinker lives certainly acquires a sort of soul--there are Lares and Penates more subtle than those of the antique world;--these make the peace and rest of a home. And besides, there are memories of England which bring back visions of my boyhood--suggestions no American home furnishes. The English crest on silver plate,--the delicious little castors, the "homey" arrangement of articles which represent the experience of generations in search of good solid comfort, all created for me a sort of revival of old, old, and very intimate impressions. Therefore, I suppose, some ghosts of very long ago came soundlessly about me once or twice in twilight time,--and portraits of another era, forgotten for thirty-five years, faintly shaped themselves for me in the dusk before the lighting of the lamp. In thought I sat again upon the floor of a house which no longer exists, and shot at armies of tin soldiers with cannon charged with dried peas. For, just as the faintest odour of fresh tar recalls visions of unnumbered days of travel,--decks and faces and ports and horizons of which the names have faded out altogether,--so it requires only a very little suggestion of England to resurrect home-days.

I have almost stopped mining in sheer despair. It would take me ten years to work through all these veins--I mean the veins I could work a little; for one large section would ever remain for me incomprehensible as a grimoire.--I never saw the work of Captain Basil Hall before,--though his name, attached to translations of his books, has been long familiar to me in French catalogues. Looking over the beautiful little volumes in calf, I could not help thinking that our English prints of to-day are, on the whole, quite inferior to the choice texts of that time--when type, paper, and binding possessed a durable solidity and beauty that latter-day competition is destroying. To-day, our best English prints seem like imitations of French work.

Since you thought enough of the Creole Grammar* to bind it, I must send you a couple of Creole prints I have at home. Should I ever be able to recover my library, I could give you an almost complete set of works relating to all the French-Creole dialects. What I regretted was my inability to procure the Catechism of Goux (Pere). I had it in my hands, but could not persuade the owner to part with it, I think my next letter will be from Yokohama.

Ever faithfully,

Lafcadio.

*Gombo Zhèbes, A Little Dictionary of Creole Proverbs in Six Dialects (New York: Coleman, 1885) by Lafcadio Hearn.

-from The Japanese Letters of Lafcadio Hearn edited with an introduction by Elizabeth Bisland (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1910) p. 359-62.

Thursday, June 26, 2008

mining in your library

July 22,1894.

Dear Chamberlain,

Yesterday at Otsu with Mason,--but would rather far have passed the day in his house. Still we had a glorious swim, and the sight of a fishing-net pulled in,--what splashing and spraying of prismatic colours! Otsu is not Japanese, however,--except the background of sky and mountain and sea. It has been spoiled--become a mere trap for foreign flies--saucy girls--rough proprietor--huge straggling spaces of "ramshackle" rooms--as one of the guests called them. There is, however, a glorious beach, and a great warm wind like a trade-wind.

After all, I am not going to Nagano!--After glancing over my passport, Mason came to the conclusion that we could be only one day together; and as the anticipated pleasure depended largely upon his company, I gave up the notion. I am getting ready to say good-bye to Tokyo, and shall disappear as soon as he flits. I shall go to Yokohama, however, and pass there a few days, feeling pulses--as I want to provide if possible against being compelled to leave Japan. What may happen next March none of us can guess. One sure thing is that if the Department conclude to do without us for a spell, we shall never be taken back again upon the same terms. This uncertainty (which Mason well calls the sword of Damocles) poisons every pleasure, and paralyzes every undertaking.

Still mining in your library. I envy you the glorious sets of Transactions, of the various Asiatic Societies; and the "Lettres Edifiantes" have finally got hold of me. I took the liberty, also, to cut with the horse-hoofed paper-cutter the pages of a book you had not read--the bard of the Deinbovitzu. I found queer inexpressible beauties and originalities in them--a sort of savage tenderness and fierce grief such as reminded me of the Servian poetry. The Servian poetry seemed to me, however, far more interesting, and, with all its strange ferocities, more perfectly natural. A half-suspicion clings to this collection: its tone seems due to individual taste in setting, pruning, and decorating. What a curious half-Eastern world is this world of Eastern Europe! I suppose you have read the Unwritten literature of the Caucasus:--the same indescribable mingling of bloody ferocity with tenderness and lamentation.

I have not yet found among your books the pretty translations of Japanese moral tales made by Turretini (I think) which I used to possess (Romaji text and French version), and some of the charming prints of the Musee Guimet. Perhaps you have them stowed away. If you have not, I think you might like to add them to this glorious collection. My library of ancient days was chiefly folk-lore. I had the Arabic poets in many editions, the whole Bibliotheque Orientale Elzevirienne (Leroux) up to date,--the larger Bibliotheque Orientale, containing Burnouf's great essay, etc., etc.,--"Les Litteratures Populaires" (Maisonneuve), and hosts of such things. Except that their perusal enriches fancy, and gives glimpses of other race-souls, however, they are of small use to men not serious scholars or finished poets. To you I fancy some of these French series would be highly valuable. The genius of the race shows itself even in the serious work of their philologists: they select, curiously enough, just those subjects which English translators rarely touch. It seems to me that the really human side of Oriental literature in the Transactions of your own Asiatic Society has been appreciated only by Aston, Satow, and yourself. Such papers as "Mistress An's Tale," and "A Literary Lady of Old Japan" and three or four others, form so striking a contrast to the work usually done by the mass of the contributors. This literary sense strikes me as being shown in a more general way by the French Orientalists,-- however defective their work may be in other respects. Comparing, for example, Lenormant and Maspero in Assyrian and Egyptian studies with English studies in the same line,--how much greater is the charm of the former for one able to understand the literary side only. . . .

-from The Japanese Letters of Lafcadio Hearn edited with an introduction by Elizabeth Bisland (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1910) p. 356-59.

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

son of the wish