Letters of Edward FitzGerald, in Two Volumes. Vol. 2FitzGerald, Edward
General
Letters of Edward FitzGerald, in Two Volumes. Vol. 2
FitzGerald, Edward
Authors, English -- 19th century -- Correspondence; FitzGerald, Edward, 1809-1883 -- Correspondence
And, if you would send me any samples of Spanish, send me some Playbill
(of the old Drama, if now played), or some public Advertisement, or
Newspaper; this is what I should really like. As to Books, I dare say
Quaritch has pretty well ferreted them out of Spain. Give a look, if you
can, at a Memoir of Alfred de Musset written by his Brother. Making
allowance for French morals, and Absinthe (which latter is not mentioned
in the Book) Alfred appears to me a fine Fellow, very un-French in some
respects. He did not at all relish the new Romantic School, beginning
with V. Hugo, and now alive in --- and Co.--(what I call The _Gurgoyle_
School of Art, whether in Poetry, Painting, or Music)--he detested the
modern 'feuilleton' Novel, and read Clarissa! . . . Many years before A.
de M. died he had a bad, long, illness, and was attended by a Sister of
Charity. When she left she gave him a Pen with 'Pensez a vos promesses'
worked about in coloured silks: as also a little worsted 'Amphore' she
had knitted at his Bed side. When he came to die, some seventeen years
after, he had these two little things put with him in his Coffin.
WOODBRIDGE. _May_ 1878.
Ecce iterum--Crispin! I think you will soon call me '_Les_
FitzGerald_s_' as Madame de Sevigne called her too officious friend
'_Les_ Hacqueville_s_.' However, I will risk that in sending you a Copy
of that first Draught of an opening to Hyperion. I have got it from that
Finsbury Circus Houghton, who gave me the first Copy, which I keep: so
you shall have this, if you please; I know no one more worthy of it; and
indeed I told Lord H. I wanted it for you; so you see he bears no malice.
He is in truth a very good natured fellow. . . .
Well, to leave that, he writes me that he had the original MS.: it was
stolen from him. Fortunately, a friend of his (Edmund Lushington) had
taken a MS. copy, and from that was printed what I send you. The
corrections are from Lushington. I do not understand why Lord H. does
not publish it. He says he has just written to Bendizzy to do something
from the state purse for an aged Sister of Keats, now surviving in great
Poverty. Her name is 'Fanny.' Ben might do much worse: some say he is
about worse, now: I do not know; I cannot help: and I distress myself as
little as I can. 'Lisons tout Madame de Sevigne,' said Ste. Beuve one
day to some Friends in the Country; and Doudan (whom Mr. Norton admires,
as I do) bids a Friend take that advice in 1871. One may be glad of it
here in England ere 1879.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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