A Letter Book

An infinitely small jest occurs to me in connection with the historic umbrella: and perhaps its infinite smallness attracts me. Would you mind handing it to Rudyard Kipling with the enclosed note?136 It seems to me fitly to consecrate and commemorate this most absurd episode.

Yours very sincerely,Robert Louis Stevenson.

[Enclosure]

This Umbrellapurchased in the year 1878 byRobert Louis Stevenson(and faithfully stabled for more than twelve years in thehalls of George Saintsbury)is now handed on at the suggestion of the first andby the loyal hands of the second,toRudyard Kipling

1

It may of course be "illustrated" in the other sense by a second use of the pen; and we shall have instances of this kind to notice.

2

As has often been pointed out Ben Jonson's exquisite "Drink to me only with thine eyes" is a verse-paraphrase or mosaic from this writer's prose.

3

Pliny, if he did not always "write for publication," deliberately "published," as we should say, his letters. Indeed, he is one of the first to use the word in this sense, even if he uses it immediately of an oration not a letter. Some think Cicero meant publication; and he was very likely to do so.

4

The Latin statesman, like the Greek bishop, condescends to write about wine and even more fully. One of the most interesting and informing things on the subject is his discourse on vinum acinaticium, a sort of Roman Imperial Tokay made from grapes kept till the frost had touched them.

5

Genuine letters of Sappho would have been of the first interest to compare with those of Heloise, and the "Portuguese Nun" and Mademoiselle de Lespinasse. Diotima's might have been as disappointing as George Eliot's: but by no means must necessarily have been so. Aspasia's, sometimes counterfeited, ought to have been good.

6

It is part of the plan to give, as a sort of Appendix to the Introduction, and extension of it towards the main body of text, some specimens of Greek, Roman (classical and post-classical) and Early Mediaeval letter-writing, translated for the purpose by the present writer. The continuity of literary history is a thing which deserves to be attended to, especially when there is an ever-growing tendency to confine attention to things modern – albeit so soon to be antiquated! I owe the last of these specimens, in the Latin from which I translate it, to the kindness of my friend the Rev. W. Hunt, D.Litt., to whom I had recourse as not myself having access to a large library at the moment, and who has assisted me in other parts of this book.

7

Yet others, as to authenticity, have, I believe, been rejected by all competent scholarship.

8

Benjamin Constant and Madame de Charrière.

9

Some of us think Blake a great poet; but this is scarcely a general opinion, and he does not appear till the century was three parts over. Burns (whose own letters by the way do him little justice) hardly comes in.

10

Especially the most popular and voluminous if not the most important of all – the periodical and the novel.

11

The danger being of many sorts – usually in the direction of various kinds of excess. A quietly tragic letter may be a masterpiece: perhaps there is no finer example than one to be again referred to, of Mrs. Carlyle's.

12

Mr. Paul thinks that "the baby language" is terribly out of character, and that there is "too much of it"; that Swift "would try to make love though he did not know what love meant"; and that the whole rings hollow and insincere. Others, women as well as men, have held that the "little language" is only less pathetic than it is charming; that Swift was one of the greatest, if one of the unhappiest lovers of the world; and that the thing is as sincere as if it had been written in the Palace of Truth and only hollow as is the space between Heaven and Hell.

13

It should never be, but perhaps sometimes is, forgotten that "Stella" was a lady of unusual wits, and of what Swift's greatest decrier called in his own protegée Mrs. Williams "universal curiosity," that is to say not "inquisitiveness" but "intelligent interest." The politics etc. are not mere selfish attention to what interests the writer only.

14

It must not be forgotten that she was Fielding's cousin. And after the remark above on Swift it is pleasant and may be fair to say that Mr. Paul is a hearty "Marian."

15

Johnson is again the chief and by no means trustworthy witness for this "insolence." But in the same breath he admitted that Chesterfield was "dignified." Now dignity is almost as doubtfully compatible with insolence as with impudence.

16

It is difficult to think of anyone who has combined statesmanship (Chesterfield's accomplishments in which are constantly forgotten), social gifts and literary skill in an equal degree.

17

Excluding of course purely historical and public things like the trials of the '45 and the riots of '80.

18

They were travelling together (always rather a test of friendship) in Italy, and Horace, as he confesses, no doubt gave himself airs. But it is pretty certain that Gray had not at this time, if he ever had, that fortunate combination of good (or at least well-commanded) temper and good breeding which enables a gentleman to meet such conduct with conduct on his own side as free from petulant "touchiness" as from ignoble parasitism.

19

Gray was not, like Walpole, a richly endowed sinecurist. But to use a familiar "bull" he seems never to have had anything to do, and never to have done it when he had. His poems are a mere handful; his excellent Metrum is a fragment; and as Professor of History at Cambridge he never did anything at all.

20

They do not seem to have known each other personally. But (for reasons not difficult to assign but here irrelevant) Johnson was on the whole, though not wholly, unjust to Gray, and Gray seems to have disliked and spoken rudely of Johnson.

21

The varieties of what may be called literary exercise which have been utilised for educational or recreative purposes, are almost innumerable. Has anyone ever tried "breaking up" a letter (such as those to be given hereafter) into a conversation by interlarded comment, questions, etc.?

22

As far as the accidents are concerned. The essentials vary not. Marianne is eternal, whether she faints and blushes, or jazzes and – does not blush.

23

One unfortunate exception, the ex-post facto references to the split with Lady Austin, may be urged by a relentless prosecutor. But when William has to choose between Mary and Anna it will go hard but he will have to be unfair to one of them.

24

This "swan's" utterances in poetry were quite unlike those of Tennyson's dying bird: and her taste in it was appalling. She tells Scott that the Border Ballads were totally destitute of any right to the name.

25

For a singular misjudgment on this point see Prefatory Note infra.

26

Particularly when he is able to apply the Don Juan mood of sarcastic if rather superficial life-criticism in which he was a real master.

27

I.e. "violently and vulgarly absurd."

28

It may, however, be suggested that the extraordinary bluntness (to use no stronger word) of both is almost sufficiently evidenced in the fact that in his last edition of Keats Mr. Forman committed the additional outrage of distributing these letters according to their dates among the rest. The isolation of the agony gives almost the only possible excuse for revealing it.

29

It is of course true that Shelley himself did not at first quite appreciate Keats. But Adonais cancels the deficit and leaves an almost infinite balance in favour. One can only hope that, had the circumstances been reversed, Keats would have set the account right as triumphantly.

30

This tendency makes it perhaps desirable to observe that in the particular context of the Belle Dame there is nothing whatever to cavil at.

31

The recent centenary saw, as usual, with much welcome appreciation some uncritical excesses.

32

In not a few cases they may be said to have been deliberately unprepared – intended though not labelled as "private and confidential."

33

In which, be it remembered, the "Life-and-Letters" system only came in quite late.

34

At the very moment when this is being written a considerable new body of them is announced for sale.

35

The word "restraint" may be misunderstood: but it is intended to indicate something of the general difference between "classical" ages on the one side and "romantic" or "realist" on the other.

36

Chesterfield's deafness might, without frivolity, be brought in. It is a hindrance to conversation, but none to letter-writing.

37

Or at least expression of themselves.

38

Idly: because he himself expressly and repeatedly disclaims mere "translation."

39

Dryden, in reference to Shadwell.

40

"The Great God Pan" piece ("A Musical Instrument"), one of the last, was perhaps her very best. But he may have been thinking of Poems before Congress, which are poor enough.

41

Lucy, daughter of that curious Quaker banker's clerk Bernard Barton, whose poetry is negligible, but who must have had some strong personal attraction. For he was a favourite correspondent of two of the greatest of contemporary letter-writers, Lamb and FitzGerald, though he constantly misunderstood their letters; he received from Byron – on an occasion likely to provoke one of the "noble poet's" outbursts of pseudo-aristocratic insolence – a singularly wise and kindly answer; and having as a perfect stranger lectured Sir Robert Peel he was – invited to dinner!

42

Some have attempted to make a distinction, alleging that there are Franceses who can be called "Fanny" and others who can not. But it is doubtful whether this holds. Of two great proficients of "letter-stuff" in overlapping generations Fanny Burney was eminently a "Fanny." Fanny Kemble, though always called so, was not.

43

She was the niece of Mrs. Siddons and of John Kemble, generally considered the greatest tragic actor and actress we have had; the daughter of Charles Kemble, a player and manager of long practice and great ability; while she had yet another uncle and any number of more distant relations in the profession.

44

See Prefatory Note on her letters infra, for an illustration of what is said of her here and of Mrs. Carlyle a little further.

45

Gray may not produce this effect of slight repulsion on everyone: but on the other hand it is pretty generally admitted that the more you read Walpole the more does the prejudice, which Macaulay and others have helped to create against him, crumble and melt.

46

They grow more and more numerous; a fresh batch having been announced while this Introduction was being written.

47

I see that Mr. Paul also has made special reference to this letter and no wonder. From the time of its first publication I have regarded it as matchless. But it seems to me that while it is lawful to mention it, it should not have been published and that to republish it here would be at least questionable.

48

The present writer remembers as a boy reading (he supposes in the newspaper to which it was addressed but is not sure) this very remarkable epistle of Reade's to an editor: "Sir, you have brains of your own and good ones. Do not echo the bray of such a very small ass as the…" There was more, but this was the gist of it. Whether it has ever reappeared he cannot say.

49

Anthony Trollope did not choose to make his Autobiography a "Life-and-Letters." But he has used the inserted letter very freely and sometimes with great effect in his novels, for instance Mr. Slope's to Eleanor Harding in Barchester Towers.

50

In his Essay mentioned in Preface.

51

The "Answer to the Introductory Epistle" of The Monastery.

52

This plan was older than the "novel by letters," and had, as noticed above, been largely used in the sixteenth and seventeenth century "heroic" romance.

53

There is of course a class exactly opposite to the love-letter – that of more or less modified hate or at least dislike. Johnson's epistle to Chesterfield is an example of the dignified form of this; Hazlitt's to Gifford of the undignified. But considering our deserved reputation for humour we are less strong than might be expected in letters which make the supposed writer make himself ridiculous. Sydney Smith's "Noodle's Oration" is the sort of thing in another kind: and some of the letters in the Spectator class of periodical are fun in the kind itself. Defoe's Shortest Way with the Dissenters comes near. But we have nothing like the famous Epistolae Obscurorum Virorum, which are the very triumph of the style.

54

See the extensive classification of the Greeks, as noticed and reproduced before.

55

The "Letter to Sir W. Windham" of the one and the "Letter to a noble Lord" of the other, have ample justification. Letters on a Regicide Peace, great as they are in themselves, have less claim to their title. But it was a favourite with both writers.

56

The King was William and the Queen Mary, which limits considerably the otherwise rather illimitable "concerning the kingdom."

57

This word is of course a vox nihili, being neither French nor English. But it has usage in its favour, and I do not see that it is improved by writing it "dishabille." If anyone prefers the actual French form he can add the accents.

58

The account of the journey with Lintot the publisher is sometimes quoted in disproof of this. It is amusing, but has still to some tastes Pope's factitiousness without the technical charm of his verse to carry it off.

59

There is one small but rather famous class of letters which perhaps should receive separate though brief notice. It is that of laconic and either intentionally or unintentionally humorous utilisations of the letter-form. Of one sort Captain Walton's "Spanish fleet taken and destroyed as per margin" is probably the most noted type: of another the equally famous rejoinder of the Highland magnate to his rival "Dear Glengarry, When you have proved yourself to be my chief, I shall be happy to admit your claim. Meanwhile I am Yours, Macdonald." In pure farce of an irreverent kind, the possibly apocryphal interchange between a Royal Duke and a Right Reverend Bishop, "Dear Cork, Please ordain Stanhope, Yours, York," and "Dear York, Stanhope's ordained. Yours, Cork," has the palm as a recognised "chestnut." But these things are only the frills if not even the froth of the subject; and those who imitate them should exercise caution in the imitation. The police-courts, and even more exalted, but still more unwholesome abodes of Justice, have sometimes been the consequences of misguided satire in letters. Even in Captain Walton's case the Spaniards are said to have endeavoured to show that his ironical laconism (which, moreover, tradition has perhaps exaggerated in form) was not strictly in accordance with fact.

60

Wild olive, with more peaceful uses, was also the usual material for the unpeaceful club, or quarter-staff, often iron-shod, of the ancients. It was probably like the lathi which the mild Hindoo takes with him to political meetings. The πέλεκυς of the ancients was generally double-bladed, hence the limitation here. This would be lighter and more convenient to carry in the belt.

61

Of course "the enemies'."

62

Synesius addresses his letters to Hypatia τῇ φιλοσὸφῳ – "To the Philosophess." This contains at least two of the unapproachable "portmanteau" words in which Greek, and especially late Greek abounds – φιλοχωρῶν, "loving one's country," and μεταναστεύειν, a rare and complicated compound in which I have ventured to see a hint of ironic intention. He feels that he will be a sort of shirker or deserter (μετὰ often imparts this meaning) but he will be coming to her.

63

This necessity of annotating beyond suitable limits was what prevented me, after due re-reading for the purpose, from giving any letter of Cicero's.

64

Admoneo in Latin not unfrequently has our commercial sense of "advise" = inform, or remind of a fact. It will be remembered that in Elizabethan English this sense was not limited to business, as in "Art thou aviséd of that."

65

The younger Pliny's full name was C. Plinius Secundus.

66

Among other natives of course.

67

Doubtless the game still played in Italy (pallone) and the South of France, with a wooden hand-guard strapped to the arm.

68

Pyrgus is not exactly backgammon. The Romans had a sort of combined dice-box and board – the latter having a kind of tower fixed on the side with interior steps or stops, among which the dice tumbled and twisted before they fell out.

69

Universitas: but though the context seems tempting, it is too early for "university" as a translation.

70

I.e. in citizenship.

71

I.e. in speech.

72

Why livescentibus I am not sure. "Bruised by the rough mail"? But Lucretius has digiti livescunt: and Sidonius, like other poets of other decadences, is apt to borrow the phrases of his great predecessors.

73

Sidonius has nearly as much more of this curious story: but the picture of the excitable Celts mobbing their heroes is vivid enough to make a good stopping-place. If things really went as described, one must suppose that a sudden panic came on the Goths, and that they took Ecdicius and his handful of troopers as merely éclaireurs of a sally in force, and drew back to the higher ground to resist it.

74

His own experience of marriage cannot have made the subject wholly agreeable to him: for he was, it may not be quite impertinent to remind the reader, the first husband of Eleanor of Guienne.

75

It is to be feared that "My Lord's" action was rather piratical. The "Spanish Fleet" was of merchantmen ("convoyed" perhaps) on their way to the North with iron etc. for fish, silk, etc., and we were not definitely at war with Spain. But Henry the IV. of Castile was an ally of France. Warwick had just been appointed "Captain of Calais," and it was a general English idea that anything not English in the Channel was fair prize. Warwick's conduct was warmly welcomed in London.

76

This use of "abord" and that just before are slightly different derivatives of the French aborder, which means to "approach," "accost," "come together with" as well as to "board" in the naval sense. The first use here is evidently of the more general, the second of the particular kind.

77

This may be a mere mis-spelling of "God," or a sort of euphemism like the modern "thank goodness!" to avoid the more sacred name.

78

"I would" or "take care" or something similar to be supplied to make a somewhat softened imperative.

79

One who prays for you.

80

The allusions to the writer's own Toxophilus at the end require, it is to be hoped, no annotation.

81

Her birth-date does not seem to be known, but she was married in 1551.

82

He had another, of the (for an English girl) very unusual name of "Ambros[z]ia" who died unmarried, at twenty.

83

Most kindly copied for me by the Rev. W. Hunt from Arthur Collins's Sydney Papers.

84

An agreeable phrase, not in the least obsolete, though I have known ignorant persons who thought it so. The "office" was that of Lord Chamberlain; the holder was Lord Howard of Effingham, afterwards famous in the Armada fights.

85

See Kenilworth (chap. xvi.), where Scott brings him in as experiencing Gloriana's extreme uncertainty of temper.

86

I.e. a permanent one such as Hampton Court affords to some.

87

"About"?

88

Either by the Queen herself, whose touchiness is well known, or by jealous and mischief-making fellow courtiers.

89

"Sharing."

90

"Is grudged."

91

We should say "try."

92

There is, as often, little or no punctuation in the original, of which Dr. Williamson's beautiful book gives a facsimile. I have ventured to adjust that of the printed text, here and there, to bring out the meaning.

93

Lady Anne was at this time only 15. She seems to have been fond of her father and proud of him: nor is there any direct evidence that the fear of God was not in her. But she had no fear of man: and no excessive respect for her father's will. During the lives of her uncle Francis and her cousin Henry, 4th and 5th Earls, she fought it hard at law: and at last, Henry dying without issue, and the title lapsing, came into possession of the great Clifford estates in the North. She lived to be 86, and was masterful all her days.

94

Mr. Gosse (who has inserted them in his Life and Letters of Donne) is perhaps right in putting letter 7 last. I give no opinion on this but merely keep the order in which they originally appeared in the text and in an appendix to the Life of Herbert (1670 edit.). I am not certain to which "first" the "second" in letter 9 refers. "Bevis of Hampton" generally for "knight errant"; "Legier," a resident Ambassador; "States" in the plural – always then "the Dutch"; Snakelessness is more often assigned to Ireland than spiderlessness.

95