_Your_ quiet village, with such influencing minds,
I am disposed to think highly of.
I am disposed to think highly of.
Selection of English Letters
Every object must have
sides and moments less luminous than others; but, upon the whole, the
life and the place which I have chosen are most happily adapted to my
character and circumstances: and I can now repeat, at the end of three
years, what I soon and sincerely affirmed, that never in a single
instant have I repented of my scheme of retirement to Lausanne. . . . And
though I truly rejoice in my approaching visit to England, Mr. Pitt,
were he your friend and mine, would not find it an easy task to
prevent my return. . . .
I am building a great book, which, besides the three stories already
exposed to the public eye, will have three stories more before we
reach the roof and battlements. You too have built or altered a great
Gothic castle with baronial battlements. Did you finish it within the
time you intended? As that time drew near, did you not find a thousand
nameless and unexpected works that must be performed; each of them
calling for a portion of time and labour? and had you not despised,
nobly despised, the minute diligence of finishing, fitting up, and
furnishing the apartments, you would have discovered a new train of
indispensable business. Such, at least, has been my case. A long while
ago when I contemplated the distant prospect of my work, I gave you
and myself some hopes of landing in England last autumn; but, alas!
when autumn grew near, hills began to rise on hills, Alps on Alps, and
I found my journey far more tedious and toilsome than I had imagined.
When I look back on the length of the undertaking, and the variety
of materials, I cannot accuse, or suffer myself to be accused of
idleness; yet it appeared that unless I doubled my diligence, another
year, and perhaps more, would elapse before I could embark with my
complete manuscript. Under these circumstances I took, and am still
executing, a bold and meritorious resolution. The mornings in winter,
and in a country of early dinners, are very concise; to them, my usual
period of study, I now frequently add the evenings, renounce cards
and society, refuse the most agreeable evenings, or perhaps make my
appearance at a late supper. By this extraordinary industry, which I
never practised before, and to which I hope never to be again reduced,
I see the last part of my _History_ growing apace under my hands; all
my materials are collected and arranged; I can exactly compute, by
the square foot, or the square page, all that remains to be done; and
after concluding text and notes, after a general review of my time
and my ground, I now can decisively ascertain the final period of the
_Decline and Fall_, and can boldly promise that I will dine with you
at Sheffield Place in the month of August, or perhaps of July, in the
present year; within less than a twelvemonth of the term which I had
loosely and originally fixed; and perhaps it would not be easy to
find a work of that size and importance in which the workman has
so tolerably kept his word with himself and the public. But in this
situation, oppressed with this particular object, and stealing every
hour from my amusement, to the fatigue of the pen, and the eyes, you
will conceive, or you might conceive, how little stomach I have for
the epistolary style; and that instead of idle, though friendly,
correspondence, I think it far more agreeable to employ my time in
the effectual measures that may hasten and exhilarate our personal
interview. . . .
FRANCES D'ARBLAY
1752-1840
TO SUSAN BURNEY
_An excited Unknown_
Chessington, 5 _July_, 1778.
MY DEAREST SUSY,
Don't you think there must be some wager depending among the little
curled imps who hover over us mortals, of how much flummery goes to
turn the head of an authoress? Your last communication very near did
my business; for, meeting Mr. Crisp ere I had composed myself, I 'tipt
him such a touch of the heroics' as he has not seen since the time
when I was so much celebrated for dancing _Nancy Dawson_. I absolutely
longed to treat him with one of Captain Mirvan's frolics, and to fling
his wig out of the window. I restrained myself, however, from the
apprehension that they would imagine I had a universal spite to that
harmless piece of goods, which I have already been known to treat with
no little indignity. He would fain have discovered the reason of my
skittishness; but as I could not tell it him, I was obliged to assure
him it would be lost time to inquire further into my flights, since
'true no meaning puzzles more than wit', and therefore, begging the
favour of him to 'set me down an _ass_', I suddenly retreated.
My dear, dear Dr. Johnson! what a charming man you are! Mrs.
Cholmondeley, too, I am not merely prepared but determined to admire;
for really she has shown so much penetration and sound sense of late,
that I think she will bring about a union between Wit and Judgement,
though their separation has been so long, and though their meetings
have been so few.
But, Mrs. Thrale! she--she is the goddess of my idolatry! What an
_éloge_ is hers! --an _éloge_ that not only delights at first, but
proves more and more flattering every time it is considered!
I often think, when I am counting my laurels, what a pity it would
have been had I popped off in my last illness, without knowing what a
person of consequence I was! --and I sometimes think that, were I now
to have a relapse, I could never go off with so much _éclat_! I am
now at the summit of a high hill; my prospects on one side are bright,
glowing, and invitingly beautiful; but when I turn round, I perceive,
on the other side, sundry caverns, gulfs, pits, and precipices, that,
to look at, make my head giddy and my heart sick. I see about me,
indeed, many hills of far greater height and sublimity; but I have
not the strength to attempt climbing them; if I move, it must
be downwards. I have already, I fear, reached the pinnacle of my
abilities, and therefore to stand still will be my best policy.
But there is nothing under heaven so difficult to do. Creatures who
are formed for motion _must_ move, however great their inducements to
forbear. The wisest course I could take, would be to bid an eternal
adieu to writing; then would the cry be, 'Tis pity she does not go
on! --she might do something better by and by', &c, &c. _Evelina_, as
a first and a youthful publication, has been received with the utmost
favour and lenity; but would a future attempt be treated with the same
mercy? --no, my dear Susy, quite the contrary; there would not, indeed,
be the same plea to save it; it would no longer be a young lady's
_first_ appearance in public; those who have met with less indulgence
would all peck at any second work; and even those who most encouraged
the first offspring might prove enemies to the second, by receiving
it with expectations which it could not answer: and so, between either
the friends or the foes of the eldest, the second would stand an
equally bad chance, and a million of flaws which were overlooked in
the former would be ridiculed as villainous and intolerable blunders
in the latter.
But, though my eyes ache as I strain them to look forward, the
temptations before me are almost irresistible; and what you have
transcribed from Mrs. Thrale may, perhaps, prove my destruction.
So you wish to have some of the sayings of the folks here about _the
book_? I am sure I owe you all the communications I can possibly give
you; but I have nothing new to offer, for the same strain prevails
here as in town; and no one will be so obliging to me as to put in a
little abuse: so that I fear you will be satiated with the sameness
of people's remarks. Yet, what can I do? if they _will_ be so
disagreeable and tiresome as to be all of one mind, how is it to
be helped? I can only advise you to follow my example, which is, to
accommodate my philosophy to their insipidity; and in this I have so
wonderfully succeeded, that I hear their commendations not merely with
patience but even with a degree of pleasure! Such, my dear Susy, is
the effect of true philosophy.
You desire Kitty Cooke's remarks in particular. I have none to give
you, for none can I get. To the serious part she indeed listens, and
seems to think it may possibly be very fine; but she is quite lost
when the Branghtons and Madame Duval are mentioned;--she hears their
speeches very composedly, and as words of course; but when she hears
them followed by loud bursts of laughter from Hetty, Mr. Crisp, Mrs.
Gast, and Mr. Burney, she stares with the gravest amazement, and looks
so aghast, and so distressed to know where the joke can be, that I
never dare trust myself to look at her for more than an instant. Were
she to speak her thoughts, I am sure she would ask why such common
things, that pass every day, should be printed? And all the derision
with which the party in general treat the Branghtons, I can see she
feels herself, with a plentiful addition of astonishment, for the
_author_!
By the way, not a human being here has the most remote suspicion of
the fact; I could not be more secure, were I literally unknown to
them. And there is no end to the ridiculous speeches perpetually made
to me, by all of them in turn, though quite by accident.
'An't you sorry this sweet book is done? ' said Mrs. Gast.
A silly little laugh was the answer.
'Ah,' said Patty, ''tis the sweetest book! --don't you think so, Miss
Burney? '
N. B. --Answer as above.
'Pray, Miss Fan,' says Mrs. Hamilton, 'who wrote it? '
'Really I never heard. '
'Cute enough that, Miss Sukey! '
I desired Hetty to miss the verses; for I can't sit them: and I
have been obliged to hide the first volume ever since, for fear of
a discovery. But I don't know how it will end; for Mrs. Gast has
declared she shall buy it, to take it to Burford with her.
TO SAMUEL CRISP
_Mrs. Thrale and Dr. Johnson_
Streatham, _March_ 1779.
The kindness and honours I meet with from this charming family are
greater than I can mention; sweet Mrs. Thrale hardly suffers me to
leave her a moment; and Dr. Johnson is another Daddy Crisp to me, for
he has a partial goodness to your Fannikin, that has made him sink the
comparative shortness of our acquaintance, and treat and think of me
as one who had long laid claim to him.
If you knew these two you would love them, or I don't know you so well
as I think I do. Dr. Johnson has more fun, and comical humour, and
love of nonsense about him, than almost anybody I ever saw: I mean
when with those he likes; for otherwise, he can be as severe and
as bitter as report relates him. Mrs. Thrale has all that gaiety of
disposition and lightness of heart, which commonly belong to fifteen.
We are, therefore, merry enough, and I am frequently seized with the
same tittering and ridiculous fits as those with which I have so often
amazed and amused poor Kitty Cooke.
One thing let me not omit of this charming woman, which I believe will
weigh with you in her favour; her political doctrine is so exactly
like yours, that it is never started but I exclaim, 'Dear ma'am, if my
Daddy Crisp was here, I believe between you, you would croak me mad! '
And this sympathy of horrible foresight not a little contributes to
incline her to believe the other parts of speech with which I regale
her concerning you. She wishes very much to know you, and I am sure
you would hit it off comfortably; but I told her what a vile taste you
had for shunning all new acquaintance, and shirking almost all your
old ones. That I may never be among the latter, heartily hopes my dear
daddy's ever affectionate and obliged, F. B.
TO MRS. LOCK
_A royal commission_
Kew, _April_ 1789.
MY DEAREST FRIENDS,
I have her Majesty's commands to inquire--whether you have any of a
certain breed of poultry?
N. B. --_What_ breed I do not remember.
And to say she has just received a small group of the same herself.
N. B. --The quantity I have forgotten.
And to add, she is assured they are something very rare and scarce,
and extraordinary and curious.
N. B. --By _whom_ she was assured I have not heard.
And to subjoin, that you must send word if you have any of the same
sort.
N. B. --How you are to find that out, I cannot tell.
And to mention, as a corollary, that, if you have none of them, and
should like to have some, she has a cock and a hen she can spare, and
will appropriate them to Mr. Lock and my dearest Fredy.
This conclusive stroke so pleased and exhilarated me, that forthwith
I said you would both be enchanted, and so forgot all the preceding
particulars.
And I said, moreover, that I knew you would rear them, and cheer them,
and fondle them like your children.
So now--pray write a very _fair answer_ fairly, in fair hand, and to
fair purpose.
My Susanna is just now come--so all is fair with my dearest Mr. and
Mrs. Lock's F. B.
GEORGE CRABBE
1754-1832
TO MARY LEADBEATER[1]
_The only survivors_
Trowbridge, 1st of 12th month, 1816.
MARY LEADBEATER!
Yes, indeed, I do well remember you! Not Leadbeater then, but a pretty
demure lass, standing a timid auditor while her own verses were read
by a kind friend, but a keen judge. And I have in my memory your
father's person and countenance, and you may be sure that my vanity
retained the compliment which he paid me in the moment when he
permitted his judgement to slip behind his good humour and desire of
giving pleasure. Yes, I remember all who were present, and, of
all, are not you and I the only survivors? It was the day--was it
not? --when I introduced my wife to my friend. And now both are gone!
and your father, and Richard Burke, who was present (yet again I must
ask,--was he not? )--and Mrs. Burke! All departed, and so, by and by,
they will speak of us. But, in the meantime, it was good of you to
write, oh, very, very good!
But are you not your father's own daughter? Do you not flatter after
his manner? How do you know the mischief that you may do in the mind
of a vain man, who is but too susceptible of praise, even while he is
conscious of so much to be placed against it? I am glad that you like
my verses: it would have mortified me much if you had not, for you can
judge as well as write. . . . Yours are really very admirable things; and
the morality is as pure as the literary merit is conspicuous. I am not
sure that I have read all that you have given us; but what I have read
has really that rare and almost undefinable quality, genius; that
is to say, it seizes on the mind and commands attention, and on the
heart, and compels its feelings.
How could you imagine that I could be otherwise than
pleased--delighted rather--with your letter? And let me not omit the
fact that I reply the instant I am at liberty, for I was enrobing
myself for church. You are a child of simplicity, I know, and do not
love robing; but you are a pupil of liberality, and look upon such
things with a large mind, smiling in charity. Well! I was putting on
the great black gown when my servant--(you see I can be pompous, to
write of gowns and servants with such familiarity)--when he brought me
a letter first directed, the words yet legible, to 'George Crabbe,
at Belvoir Castle', and then by Lord Mendip to the 'Reverend' at
Trowbridge; and at Trowbridge I hope again to receive these welcome
evidences of your remembrance, directed in all their simplicity, and
written, I trust, in all sincerity. . . .
There was a Suffolk family of Alexanders, one of whom you probably
mean; and as he knew very little of me, I see no reason why he should
not give me a good character . . . If it means, as it generally does,
that I paid my debts, and was guilty of no glaring world-defying
immorality--why yes! --I was so far a good character. . . .
But your motive for writing to me was your desire of knowing whether
my men and women were really existing creatures, or beings of my own
imagination? Nay, Mary Leadbeater, yours was a better motive; you
thought that you should give pleasure by writing, and--yet you will
think me very vain--you felt some pleasure yourself in renewing the
acquaintance that commenced under such auspices! Am I not right?
My heart tells me that I am, and hopes that you will confirm it.
Be assured that I feel a very cordial esteem for the friend of my
friend,--the virtuous, the worthy character whom I am addressing.
Yes, I will tell you readily about my creatures, whom I endeavoured to
paint as nearly as I could, and dared; for in some cases I dared not.
This you will readily admit; besides, charity bade me be cautious.
Thus far you are correct; there is not one of whom I had not in my
mind the original; but I was obliged in some cases to take them from
their real situations, in one or two instances to change even the sex,
and in many the circumstances. The nearest to real life was the proud
ostentatious man in _The Borough_, who disguises an ordinary mind by
doing great things; but the others approach to reality at greater or
less distances. Indeed, I do not know that I could paint merely
from my own fancy, and there is no cause why we should. Is there not
diversity sufficient in society? And who can go, even but a little,
into the assemblies of our fellow-wanderers from the way of perfect
rectitude, and not find characters so varied and so pointed that he
need not call upon his imagination?
Will _you_ not write again? 'Write _to_ thee, or _for_ the public',
wilt thou not ask? _To_ me and _for_ as many as love and can discern
the union of strength and simplicity, purity and good sense. _Our_
feeling and _our_ hearts is the language you can adopt. Alas, _I_
cannot with propriety use it--_our_ I too could once say; but I am
alone now; and since my removing into a busy town among the multitude,
the loneliness is but more apparent and more melancholy. But this
is only at certain times; and then I have, though at considerable
distances, six female friends, unknown to each other, but all dear,
very dear, to me. With men I do not much associate; not as deserting,
and much less disliking, the male part of society, but as being unfit
for it; not hardy nor grave, not knowing enough, nor sufficiently
acquainted with the every-day concerns of men. But my beloved
creatures have minds with which I can better assimilate . . . Think of
you I must; and of me, I must entreat that you would not be unmindful.
[Footnote 1: Cp. letter, p. 283. ]
TO THE SAME
_Comparisons_
Trowbridge, 7 _Sept. _ 1818.
A description of your village society would be very gratifying to
me--how the manners differ from those in larger societies, or in
those under different circumstances. I have observed an extraordinary
difference in village manners in England, especially between those
places otherwise nearly alike, when there was and when there was not
a leading man, or a squire's family, or a manufactory near, or a
populous, vitiated town, all these, and many other circumstances have
great influence.
_Your_ quiet village, with such influencing minds,
I am disposed to think highly of. No one, perhaps, very rich--none
miserably poor. No girls, from six years to sixteen, sent to a
factory, where men, women, and children of all ages are continually
with them breathing contagion. Not all, however: we are not so
evil--there is a resisting power, and it is strong; but the thing
itself, the congregation of so many minds, and the intercourse it
occasions, will have its powerful and visible effect. But these you
have not; yet, as you mention your schools of both kinds, you must
be more populous and perhaps not so happy as I was giving myself to
believe. . . .
The world has not spoiled you, Mary, I do believe: now it has me. I
have been absorbed in its mighty vortex, and gone into the midst of
its greatness, and joined in its festivities and frivolities, and been
intimate with its children. You may like me very well, my kind friend,
while the purifying water, and your more effectual imagination, is
between us; but come you to England, or let me be in Ireland, and
place us where mind becomes acquainted with mind--and then! Ah, Mary
Leadbeater! you would have done with your friendship with me! Child of
simplicity and virtue, how can you let yourself be so deceived? Am
I not a great fat rector, living upon a mighty income, while my poor
curate starves with six hungry children upon the scraps that fall from
the luxurious table? Do I not visit that horrible London, and enter
into its abominable dissipations? Am not I this day going to dine on
venison and drink claret? Have I not been at election dinners, and
joined the Babel-confusion of a town hall? Child of simplicity! am I
fit to be a friend to you, and to the peaceful, mild, pure, and gentle
people about you? One thing is true--I wish I had the qualification.
But I am of the world, Mary. . . .
I return all your good wishes, think of you, and with much regard,
more than, indeed, belongs to _a man of the world_! Still, let me
be permitted to address thee. --O my dear Mrs. Leadbeater, this is
so humble that I am afraid it is vain. Well! write soon, then, and
believe me to be
Most sincerely and affectionately yours.
WILLIAM BLAKE
1757-1827
TO JOHN FLAXMAN
_Friends 'from eternity'_
Felpham, 21 _Sept. _ 1800.
Sunday morning.
DEAR SCULPTOR OF ETERNITY,
We are safe arrived at our cottage, which is more beautiful than I
thought it, and more convenient. It is a perfect model for cottages,
and I think for palaces of magnificence, only enlarging not altering
its proportions, and adding ornaments and not principles. Nothing
can be more grand than its simplicity and usefulness. Simple without
intricacy, it seems to be the spontaneous expression of humanity,
congenial to the wants of man. No other formed house can ever please
me so well, nor shall I ever be persuaded, I believe, that it can be
improved either in beauty or use.
Mr. Hayley received us with his usual brotherly affection. I have
begun to work. Felpham is a sweet place for study, because it is
more spiritual than London. Heaven opens here on all sides her golden
gates: her windows are not obstructed by vapours; voices of celestial
inhabitants are more distinctly heard, and their forms more distinctly
seen; and my cottage is also a shadow of their houses. My wife and
sister are both well, courting Neptune for an embrace.
Our journey was very pleasant; and though we had a great deal of
luggage, no grumbling. All was cheerfulness and good humour on the
road, and yet we could not arrive at our cottage before half-past
eleven at night, owing to the necessary shifting of our luggage from
one chaise to another; for we had seven different chaises and as many
different drivers. We set out between six and seven in the morning of
Thursday, with sixteen heavy boxes and portfolios full of prints.
And now begins a new life, because another covering of earth is
shaken off. I am more famed in heaven for my works than I could well
conceive. In my brain are studies and chambers filled with books and
pictures of old, which I wrote and painted in ages of eternity
before my mortal life; and those works are the delight and study of
archangels. Why then should I be anxious about the riches or fame of
mortality? The Lord our Father will do for us and with us according to
His divine will, for our good.
You, O dear Flaxman! are a sublime archangel,--my friend and companion
from eternity. In the divine bosom is our dwelling-place. I look back
into the regions of reminiscence, and behold our ancient days before
this earth appeared in its vegetated mortality to my mortal vegetated
eyes. I see our houses of eternity which can never be separated,
though our mortal vehicles should stand at the remotest corners of
heaven from each other.
Farewell, my best friend! Remember me and my wife in love and
friendship to our dear Mrs. Flaxman, whom we ardently desire to
entertain beneath our thatched roof of rusted gold.
TO THOMAS BUTTS
_Trouble in the path_
Felpham, 10 _Jan. _ 1802.
Dear Sir,
Your very kind and affectionate letter, and the many kind things you
have said in it, called upon me for an immediate answer. But it found
my wife and myself so ill, and my wife so very ill, that till now I
have not been able to do this duty. The ague and rheumatism have been
almost her constant enemies, which she has combated in vain almost
ever since we have been here, and her sickness is always my sorrow,
of course. But what you tell me about your sight afflicted me not a
little, and that about your health, in another part of your letter,
makes me entreat you to take due care of both. It is a part of our
duty to God and man to take due care of His gifts; and though we ought
not to think _more_ highly of ourselves, yet we ought to think _as_
highly of ourselves as immortals ought to think.
When I came down here, I was more sanguine than I am at present;
but it was because I was ignorant of many things which have since
occurred, and chiefly the unhealthiness of the place. Yet I do not
repent of coming on a thousand accounts; and Mr. Hayley, I doubt not,
will do ultimately all that both he and I wish--that is, to lift me
out of difficulty. But this is no easy matter to a man who, having
spiritual enemies of such formidable magnitude, cannot expect to want
natural hidden ones.
Your approbation of my pictures is a multitude to me, and I doubt not
that all your kind wishes in my behalf shall in due time be fulfilled.
Your kind offer of pecuniary assistance I can only thank you for at
present, because I have enough to serve my present purpose here. Our
expenses are small, and our income, from our incessant labour, fully
adequate to these at present. I am now engaged in engraving six small
plates for a new edition of Mr. Hayley's _Triumphs of Temper_, from
drawings by Maria Flaxman, sister to my friend the sculptor. And it
seems that other things will follow in course, if I do but copy these
well. But patience! If great things do not turn out, it is because
such things depend on the spiritual and not on the natural world; and
if it was fit for me, I doubt not that I should be employed in greater
things; and when it is proper, my talents shall be properly exercised
in public, as I hope they are now in private. For till then I leave no
stone unturned, and no path unexplored that leads to improvement in
my beloved arts. One thing of real consequence I have accomplished by
coming into the country, which is to me consolation enough: namely,
I have re-collected all my scattered thoughts on art, and resumed
my primitive and original ways of execution in both painting and
engraving, which in the confusion of London I had very much lost and
obliterated from my mind. But whatever becomes of my labours, I would
rather that they should be preserved in your greenhouse (not, as you
mistakenly call it, dunghill) than in the cold gallery of fashion. The
sun may yet shine, and then they will be brought into open air.
But you have so generously and openly desired that I will divide my
griefs with you that I cannot hide what it has now become my duty to
explain. My unhappiness has arisen from a source which, if explored
too narrowly, might hurt my pecuniary circumstances; as my dependence
is on engraving at present, and particularly on the engravings I have
in hand for Mr. Hayley, and I find on all hands great objections to
my doing anything but the mere drudgery of business, and intimations
that, if I do not confine myself to this, I shall not live. This has
always pursued me. You will understand by this the source of all my
uneasiness. This from Johnson and Fuseli brought me down here, and
this from Mr. Hayley will bring me back again. For that I cannot live
without doing my duty to lay up treasures in heaven is certain and
determined, and to this I have long made up my mind. And why this
should be made an objection to me, while drunkenness, lewdness,
gluttony, and even idleness itself, does not hurt other men, let Satan
himself explain. The thing I have most at heart--more than life, or
all that seems to make life comfortable without--is the interest of
true religion and science. And whenever anything appears to affect
that interest (especially if I myself omit any duty to my station as
a soldier of Christ), it gives me the greatest of torments. I am not
ashamed, afraid, or averse to tell you what ought to be told--that I
am under the direction of messengers from heaven, daily and nightly.
But the nature of such things is not, as some suppose, without trouble
or care. Temptations are on the right hand and on the left. Behind,
the sea of time and space roars and follows swiftly. He who keeps not
right onwards is lost; and if our footsteps slide in clay, how can we
do otherwise than fear and tremble? But I should not have troubled you
with this account of my spiritual state, unless it had been necessary
in explaining the actual cause of my uneasiness, into which you are so
kind as to inquire: for I never obtrude such things on others unless
questioned, and then I never disguise the truth. But if we fear to do
the dictates of our angels, and tremble at the tasks set before us;
if we refuse to do spiritual acts because of natural fears or natural
desires; who can describe the dismal torments of such a state! --I
too well remember the threats I heard! --'If you, who are organized
by Divine Providence for spiritual communion, refuse, and bury
your talent in the earth, even though you should want natural
bread,--sorrow and desperation pursue you through life, and after
death shame and confusion of face to eternity. Every one in eternity
will leave you, aghast at the man who was crowned with glory and
honour by his brethren, and betrayed their cause to their enemies. You
will be called the base Judas who betrayed his friend! '--Such words
would make any stout man tremble, and how then could I be at ease? But
I am now no longer in that state, and now go on again with my task,
fearless though my path is difficult. I have no fear of stumbling
while I keep it.
My wife desires her kindest love to Mrs. Butts, and I have permitted
her to send it to you also. We often wish that we could unite again
in society, and hope that the time is not distant when we shall do so,
being determined not to remain another winter here, but to return to
London.
I hear a Voice you cannot hear, that says
I must not stay,
I see a Hand you cannot see, that beckons
me away.
Naked we came here--naked of natural things--and naked we shall
return: but while clothed with the Divine mercy, we are richly clothed
in spiritual, and suffer all the rest gladly. Pray, give my love to
Mrs. Butts and your family.
PS. Your obliging proposal of exhibiting my two pictures likewise
calls for my thanks; I will finish the others, and then we shall judge
of the matter with certainty.
To THE SAME
_The wonderful poem_
(Felpham), 25 _April_, 1803.
MY DEAR SIR,
I write in haste, having received a pressing letter from my Brother.
I intended to have sent the Picture of the _Riposo_, which is nearly
finished much to my satisfaction, but not quite. You shall have it
soon. I now send the four numbers for Mr. Birch with best respects to
him. The reason the _Ballads_ have been suspended is the pressure of
other business, but they will go on again soon.
Accept of my thanks for your kind and heartening letter. You have
faith in the endeavours of me, your weak brother and fellow-disciple;
how great must be your faith in our Divine Master! You are to me
a lesson of humility, while you exalt me by such distinguishing
commendations. I know that you see certain merits in me, which, by
God's grace, shall be made fully apparent and perfect in Eternity.
In the meantime I must not bury the talents in the earth, but do my
endeavour to live to the glory of our Lord and Saviour; and I am
also grateful to the kind hand that endeavours to lift me out of
despondency, even if it lifts me too high.
And now, my dear Sir, congratulate me on my return to London with the
full approbation of Mr. Hayley and with promise. But alas! now I may
say to you--what perhaps I should not dare to say to anyone else--that
I can alone carry on my visionary studies in London unannoyed, and
that I may converse with my friends in Eternity, see visions, dream
dreams, and prophesy and speak parables, unobserved, and at liberty
from the doubts of other mortals: perhaps doubts proceeding from
kindness; but doubts are always pernicious, especially when we doubt
our friends. Christ is very decided on this point: 'He who is not with
me is against me. ' There is no medium or middle state; and if a man is
the enemy of my spiritual life while he pretends to be the friend of
my corporeal, he is a real enemy; but the man may be the friend of my
spiritual life while he seems the enemy of my corporeal, though not
vice versa.
What is very pleasant, every one who hears of my going to London again
applauds it as the only course for the interest of all concerned in
my works; observing that I ought not to be away from the opportunities
London affords of seeing fine pictures, and the various improvements
in works of art going on in London.
But none can know the spiritual acts of my three years' slumber on the
banks of Ocean, unless he has seen them in the spirit, or unless he
should read my long Poem descriptive of those acts; for I have in
these years composed an immense number of verses on one grand theme,
similar to Homer's _Iliad_ or Milton's _Paradise Lost_; the persons
and machinery entirely new to the inhabitants of earth (some of the
persons excepted). I have written this Poem from immediate dictation,
twelve or sometimes twenty or thirty lines at a time, without
premeditation, and even against my will. The time it has taken in
writing was thus rendered nonexistent, and an immense Poem exists
which seems to be the labour of a long life, all produced without
labour or study. I mention this to show you what I think the grand
reason of my being brought down here.
I have a thousand and ten thousand things to say to you. My heart
is full of futurity. I perceive that the sore travail which has been
given me these three years leads to glory and honour. I rejoice and
tremble: 'I am fearfully and wonderfully made. ' I had been reading the
CXXXIX Psalm a little before your letter arrived. I take your advice.
I see the face of my Heavenly Father; He lays His hand upon my head,
and gives a blessing to all my work. Why should I be troubled? Why
should my heart and flesh cry out? I will go on in the strength of the
Lord; through Hell will I sing forth His praises: that the dragons of
the deep may praise Him, and that those who dwell in darkness, and in
the sea coasts may be gathered into His Kingdom. Excuse my perhaps too
great enthusiasm. Please to accept of and give our loves to Mrs. Butts
and your amiable family, and believe me ever yours affectionately.
TO THE SAME
_The poet and William Hayley_
Felpham, 6 _July_, 1803.
. . . We look forward every day with pleasure toward our meeting again
in London with those whom we have learned to value by absence no less
perhaps than we did by presence; for recollection often surpasses
everything. Indeed, the prospect of returning to our friends is
supremely delightful. Then, I am determined that Mrs. Butts shall have
a good likeness of you, if I have hands and eyes left; for I am become
a likeness-taker, and succeed admirably well. But this is not to be
achieved without the original sitting before you for every touch, all
likenesses from memory being necessarily very, very defective; but
Nature and Fancy are two things, and can never be joined, neither
ought any one to attempt it, for it is idolatry, and destroys the
Soul.
I ought to tell you that Mr. H. is quite agreeable to our return,
and that there is all the appearance in the world of our being fully
employed in engraving for his projected works, particularly Cowper's
_Milton_--a work now on foot by subscription, and I understand that
the subscription goes on briskly. This work is to be a very elegant
one, and to consist of all Milton's Poems with Cowper's Notes, and
translations by Cowper from Milton's Latin and Italian poems. These
works will be ornamented with engravings from designs by Romney,
Flaxman, and your humble servant, and to be engraved also by
the last-mentioned. The profits of the work are intended to be
appropriated to erect a monument to the memory of Cowper in St. Paul's
or Westminster Abbey. Such is the project; and Mr. Addington and Mr.
Pitt are both among the subscribers, which are already numerous and of
the first rank. The price of the work is six guineas. Thus I hope that
all our three years' trouble ends in good-luck at last, and shall be
forgot by my affections, and only remembered by my understanding, to
be a memento in time to come, and to speak to future generations by a
sublime allegory, which is now perfectly completed into a grand Poem.
I may praise it, since I dare not pretend to be any other than the
secretary; the authors are in Eternity. I consider it as the grandest
Poem that this world contains. Allegory addressed to the
intellectual powers, while it is altogether hidden from the corporeal
understanding, is my definition of the most sublime Poetry. It is
also somewhat in the same manner defined by Plato. This Poem shall,
by Divine assistance, be progressively printed and ornamented with
prints, and given to the public. But of this work I take care to say
little to Mr. H. , since he is as much averse to my Poetry as he is to
a chapter in the Bible. He knows that I have writ it, for I have shown
it to him, and he has read part by his own desire, and has looked with
sufficient contempt to enhance my opinion of it. But I do not wish to
imitate by seeming too obstinate in poetic pursuits. But if all the
world should set their faces against this, I have orders to set my
face like a flint (Ezek. iii. 8) against their faces, and my forehead
against their foreheads.
As to Mr. H. , I feel myself at liberty to say as follows upon this
ticklish subject. I regard fashion in Poetry as little as I do in
Painting: so, if both Poets and Painters should alternately dislike
(but I know the majority of them will not), I am not to regard it
at all. But Mr. H. approves of my Designs as little as he does of my
Poems, and I have been forced to insist on his leaving me, in both,
to my own self-will; for I am determined to be no longer pestered with
his genteel ignorance and polite disapprobation. I know myself both
Poet and Painter, and it is not his affected contempt that can move to
anything but a more assiduous pursuit of both arts. Indeed, by my late
firmness, I have brought down his affected loftiness, and he begins
to think I have some genius: as if genius and assurance were the same
thing! But his imbecile attempts to depress me only deserve laughter.
I say thus much to you, knowing that you will not make a bad use of
it. But it is a fact too true that, if I had only depended on mortal
things, both myself and my wife must have been lost. I shall leave
every one in this country astonished at my patience and forbearance
of injuries upon injuries; and I do assure you that, if I could have
returned to London a month after my arrival here, I should have done
so.
sides and moments less luminous than others; but, upon the whole, the
life and the place which I have chosen are most happily adapted to my
character and circumstances: and I can now repeat, at the end of three
years, what I soon and sincerely affirmed, that never in a single
instant have I repented of my scheme of retirement to Lausanne. . . . And
though I truly rejoice in my approaching visit to England, Mr. Pitt,
were he your friend and mine, would not find it an easy task to
prevent my return. . . .
I am building a great book, which, besides the three stories already
exposed to the public eye, will have three stories more before we
reach the roof and battlements. You too have built or altered a great
Gothic castle with baronial battlements. Did you finish it within the
time you intended? As that time drew near, did you not find a thousand
nameless and unexpected works that must be performed; each of them
calling for a portion of time and labour? and had you not despised,
nobly despised, the minute diligence of finishing, fitting up, and
furnishing the apartments, you would have discovered a new train of
indispensable business. Such, at least, has been my case. A long while
ago when I contemplated the distant prospect of my work, I gave you
and myself some hopes of landing in England last autumn; but, alas!
when autumn grew near, hills began to rise on hills, Alps on Alps, and
I found my journey far more tedious and toilsome than I had imagined.
When I look back on the length of the undertaking, and the variety
of materials, I cannot accuse, or suffer myself to be accused of
idleness; yet it appeared that unless I doubled my diligence, another
year, and perhaps more, would elapse before I could embark with my
complete manuscript. Under these circumstances I took, and am still
executing, a bold and meritorious resolution. The mornings in winter,
and in a country of early dinners, are very concise; to them, my usual
period of study, I now frequently add the evenings, renounce cards
and society, refuse the most agreeable evenings, or perhaps make my
appearance at a late supper. By this extraordinary industry, which I
never practised before, and to which I hope never to be again reduced,
I see the last part of my _History_ growing apace under my hands; all
my materials are collected and arranged; I can exactly compute, by
the square foot, or the square page, all that remains to be done; and
after concluding text and notes, after a general review of my time
and my ground, I now can decisively ascertain the final period of the
_Decline and Fall_, and can boldly promise that I will dine with you
at Sheffield Place in the month of August, or perhaps of July, in the
present year; within less than a twelvemonth of the term which I had
loosely and originally fixed; and perhaps it would not be easy to
find a work of that size and importance in which the workman has
so tolerably kept his word with himself and the public. But in this
situation, oppressed with this particular object, and stealing every
hour from my amusement, to the fatigue of the pen, and the eyes, you
will conceive, or you might conceive, how little stomach I have for
the epistolary style; and that instead of idle, though friendly,
correspondence, I think it far more agreeable to employ my time in
the effectual measures that may hasten and exhilarate our personal
interview. . . .
FRANCES D'ARBLAY
1752-1840
TO SUSAN BURNEY
_An excited Unknown_
Chessington, 5 _July_, 1778.
MY DEAREST SUSY,
Don't you think there must be some wager depending among the little
curled imps who hover over us mortals, of how much flummery goes to
turn the head of an authoress? Your last communication very near did
my business; for, meeting Mr. Crisp ere I had composed myself, I 'tipt
him such a touch of the heroics' as he has not seen since the time
when I was so much celebrated for dancing _Nancy Dawson_. I absolutely
longed to treat him with one of Captain Mirvan's frolics, and to fling
his wig out of the window. I restrained myself, however, from the
apprehension that they would imagine I had a universal spite to that
harmless piece of goods, which I have already been known to treat with
no little indignity. He would fain have discovered the reason of my
skittishness; but as I could not tell it him, I was obliged to assure
him it would be lost time to inquire further into my flights, since
'true no meaning puzzles more than wit', and therefore, begging the
favour of him to 'set me down an _ass_', I suddenly retreated.
My dear, dear Dr. Johnson! what a charming man you are! Mrs.
Cholmondeley, too, I am not merely prepared but determined to admire;
for really she has shown so much penetration and sound sense of late,
that I think she will bring about a union between Wit and Judgement,
though their separation has been so long, and though their meetings
have been so few.
But, Mrs. Thrale! she--she is the goddess of my idolatry! What an
_éloge_ is hers! --an _éloge_ that not only delights at first, but
proves more and more flattering every time it is considered!
I often think, when I am counting my laurels, what a pity it would
have been had I popped off in my last illness, without knowing what a
person of consequence I was! --and I sometimes think that, were I now
to have a relapse, I could never go off with so much _éclat_! I am
now at the summit of a high hill; my prospects on one side are bright,
glowing, and invitingly beautiful; but when I turn round, I perceive,
on the other side, sundry caverns, gulfs, pits, and precipices, that,
to look at, make my head giddy and my heart sick. I see about me,
indeed, many hills of far greater height and sublimity; but I have
not the strength to attempt climbing them; if I move, it must
be downwards. I have already, I fear, reached the pinnacle of my
abilities, and therefore to stand still will be my best policy.
But there is nothing under heaven so difficult to do. Creatures who
are formed for motion _must_ move, however great their inducements to
forbear. The wisest course I could take, would be to bid an eternal
adieu to writing; then would the cry be, 'Tis pity she does not go
on! --she might do something better by and by', &c, &c. _Evelina_, as
a first and a youthful publication, has been received with the utmost
favour and lenity; but would a future attempt be treated with the same
mercy? --no, my dear Susy, quite the contrary; there would not, indeed,
be the same plea to save it; it would no longer be a young lady's
_first_ appearance in public; those who have met with less indulgence
would all peck at any second work; and even those who most encouraged
the first offspring might prove enemies to the second, by receiving
it with expectations which it could not answer: and so, between either
the friends or the foes of the eldest, the second would stand an
equally bad chance, and a million of flaws which were overlooked in
the former would be ridiculed as villainous and intolerable blunders
in the latter.
But, though my eyes ache as I strain them to look forward, the
temptations before me are almost irresistible; and what you have
transcribed from Mrs. Thrale may, perhaps, prove my destruction.
So you wish to have some of the sayings of the folks here about _the
book_? I am sure I owe you all the communications I can possibly give
you; but I have nothing new to offer, for the same strain prevails
here as in town; and no one will be so obliging to me as to put in a
little abuse: so that I fear you will be satiated with the sameness
of people's remarks. Yet, what can I do? if they _will_ be so
disagreeable and tiresome as to be all of one mind, how is it to
be helped? I can only advise you to follow my example, which is, to
accommodate my philosophy to their insipidity; and in this I have so
wonderfully succeeded, that I hear their commendations not merely with
patience but even with a degree of pleasure! Such, my dear Susy, is
the effect of true philosophy.
You desire Kitty Cooke's remarks in particular. I have none to give
you, for none can I get. To the serious part she indeed listens, and
seems to think it may possibly be very fine; but she is quite lost
when the Branghtons and Madame Duval are mentioned;--she hears their
speeches very composedly, and as words of course; but when she hears
them followed by loud bursts of laughter from Hetty, Mr. Crisp, Mrs.
Gast, and Mr. Burney, she stares with the gravest amazement, and looks
so aghast, and so distressed to know where the joke can be, that I
never dare trust myself to look at her for more than an instant. Were
she to speak her thoughts, I am sure she would ask why such common
things, that pass every day, should be printed? And all the derision
with which the party in general treat the Branghtons, I can see she
feels herself, with a plentiful addition of astonishment, for the
_author_!
By the way, not a human being here has the most remote suspicion of
the fact; I could not be more secure, were I literally unknown to
them. And there is no end to the ridiculous speeches perpetually made
to me, by all of them in turn, though quite by accident.
'An't you sorry this sweet book is done? ' said Mrs. Gast.
A silly little laugh was the answer.
'Ah,' said Patty, ''tis the sweetest book! --don't you think so, Miss
Burney? '
N. B. --Answer as above.
'Pray, Miss Fan,' says Mrs. Hamilton, 'who wrote it? '
'Really I never heard. '
'Cute enough that, Miss Sukey! '
I desired Hetty to miss the verses; for I can't sit them: and I
have been obliged to hide the first volume ever since, for fear of
a discovery. But I don't know how it will end; for Mrs. Gast has
declared she shall buy it, to take it to Burford with her.
TO SAMUEL CRISP
_Mrs. Thrale and Dr. Johnson_
Streatham, _March_ 1779.
The kindness and honours I meet with from this charming family are
greater than I can mention; sweet Mrs. Thrale hardly suffers me to
leave her a moment; and Dr. Johnson is another Daddy Crisp to me, for
he has a partial goodness to your Fannikin, that has made him sink the
comparative shortness of our acquaintance, and treat and think of me
as one who had long laid claim to him.
If you knew these two you would love them, or I don't know you so well
as I think I do. Dr. Johnson has more fun, and comical humour, and
love of nonsense about him, than almost anybody I ever saw: I mean
when with those he likes; for otherwise, he can be as severe and
as bitter as report relates him. Mrs. Thrale has all that gaiety of
disposition and lightness of heart, which commonly belong to fifteen.
We are, therefore, merry enough, and I am frequently seized with the
same tittering and ridiculous fits as those with which I have so often
amazed and amused poor Kitty Cooke.
One thing let me not omit of this charming woman, which I believe will
weigh with you in her favour; her political doctrine is so exactly
like yours, that it is never started but I exclaim, 'Dear ma'am, if my
Daddy Crisp was here, I believe between you, you would croak me mad! '
And this sympathy of horrible foresight not a little contributes to
incline her to believe the other parts of speech with which I regale
her concerning you. She wishes very much to know you, and I am sure
you would hit it off comfortably; but I told her what a vile taste you
had for shunning all new acquaintance, and shirking almost all your
old ones. That I may never be among the latter, heartily hopes my dear
daddy's ever affectionate and obliged, F. B.
TO MRS. LOCK
_A royal commission_
Kew, _April_ 1789.
MY DEAREST FRIENDS,
I have her Majesty's commands to inquire--whether you have any of a
certain breed of poultry?
N. B. --_What_ breed I do not remember.
And to say she has just received a small group of the same herself.
N. B. --The quantity I have forgotten.
And to add, she is assured they are something very rare and scarce,
and extraordinary and curious.
N. B. --By _whom_ she was assured I have not heard.
And to subjoin, that you must send word if you have any of the same
sort.
N. B. --How you are to find that out, I cannot tell.
And to mention, as a corollary, that, if you have none of them, and
should like to have some, she has a cock and a hen she can spare, and
will appropriate them to Mr. Lock and my dearest Fredy.
This conclusive stroke so pleased and exhilarated me, that forthwith
I said you would both be enchanted, and so forgot all the preceding
particulars.
And I said, moreover, that I knew you would rear them, and cheer them,
and fondle them like your children.
So now--pray write a very _fair answer_ fairly, in fair hand, and to
fair purpose.
My Susanna is just now come--so all is fair with my dearest Mr. and
Mrs. Lock's F. B.
GEORGE CRABBE
1754-1832
TO MARY LEADBEATER[1]
_The only survivors_
Trowbridge, 1st of 12th month, 1816.
MARY LEADBEATER!
Yes, indeed, I do well remember you! Not Leadbeater then, but a pretty
demure lass, standing a timid auditor while her own verses were read
by a kind friend, but a keen judge. And I have in my memory your
father's person and countenance, and you may be sure that my vanity
retained the compliment which he paid me in the moment when he
permitted his judgement to slip behind his good humour and desire of
giving pleasure. Yes, I remember all who were present, and, of
all, are not you and I the only survivors? It was the day--was it
not? --when I introduced my wife to my friend. And now both are gone!
and your father, and Richard Burke, who was present (yet again I must
ask,--was he not? )--and Mrs. Burke! All departed, and so, by and by,
they will speak of us. But, in the meantime, it was good of you to
write, oh, very, very good!
But are you not your father's own daughter? Do you not flatter after
his manner? How do you know the mischief that you may do in the mind
of a vain man, who is but too susceptible of praise, even while he is
conscious of so much to be placed against it? I am glad that you like
my verses: it would have mortified me much if you had not, for you can
judge as well as write. . . . Yours are really very admirable things; and
the morality is as pure as the literary merit is conspicuous. I am not
sure that I have read all that you have given us; but what I have read
has really that rare and almost undefinable quality, genius; that
is to say, it seizes on the mind and commands attention, and on the
heart, and compels its feelings.
How could you imagine that I could be otherwise than
pleased--delighted rather--with your letter? And let me not omit the
fact that I reply the instant I am at liberty, for I was enrobing
myself for church. You are a child of simplicity, I know, and do not
love robing; but you are a pupil of liberality, and look upon such
things with a large mind, smiling in charity. Well! I was putting on
the great black gown when my servant--(you see I can be pompous, to
write of gowns and servants with such familiarity)--when he brought me
a letter first directed, the words yet legible, to 'George Crabbe,
at Belvoir Castle', and then by Lord Mendip to the 'Reverend' at
Trowbridge; and at Trowbridge I hope again to receive these welcome
evidences of your remembrance, directed in all their simplicity, and
written, I trust, in all sincerity. . . .
There was a Suffolk family of Alexanders, one of whom you probably
mean; and as he knew very little of me, I see no reason why he should
not give me a good character . . . If it means, as it generally does,
that I paid my debts, and was guilty of no glaring world-defying
immorality--why yes! --I was so far a good character. . . .
But your motive for writing to me was your desire of knowing whether
my men and women were really existing creatures, or beings of my own
imagination? Nay, Mary Leadbeater, yours was a better motive; you
thought that you should give pleasure by writing, and--yet you will
think me very vain--you felt some pleasure yourself in renewing the
acquaintance that commenced under such auspices! Am I not right?
My heart tells me that I am, and hopes that you will confirm it.
Be assured that I feel a very cordial esteem for the friend of my
friend,--the virtuous, the worthy character whom I am addressing.
Yes, I will tell you readily about my creatures, whom I endeavoured to
paint as nearly as I could, and dared; for in some cases I dared not.
This you will readily admit; besides, charity bade me be cautious.
Thus far you are correct; there is not one of whom I had not in my
mind the original; but I was obliged in some cases to take them from
their real situations, in one or two instances to change even the sex,
and in many the circumstances. The nearest to real life was the proud
ostentatious man in _The Borough_, who disguises an ordinary mind by
doing great things; but the others approach to reality at greater or
less distances. Indeed, I do not know that I could paint merely
from my own fancy, and there is no cause why we should. Is there not
diversity sufficient in society? And who can go, even but a little,
into the assemblies of our fellow-wanderers from the way of perfect
rectitude, and not find characters so varied and so pointed that he
need not call upon his imagination?
Will _you_ not write again? 'Write _to_ thee, or _for_ the public',
wilt thou not ask? _To_ me and _for_ as many as love and can discern
the union of strength and simplicity, purity and good sense. _Our_
feeling and _our_ hearts is the language you can adopt. Alas, _I_
cannot with propriety use it--_our_ I too could once say; but I am
alone now; and since my removing into a busy town among the multitude,
the loneliness is but more apparent and more melancholy. But this
is only at certain times; and then I have, though at considerable
distances, six female friends, unknown to each other, but all dear,
very dear, to me. With men I do not much associate; not as deserting,
and much less disliking, the male part of society, but as being unfit
for it; not hardy nor grave, not knowing enough, nor sufficiently
acquainted with the every-day concerns of men. But my beloved
creatures have minds with which I can better assimilate . . . Think of
you I must; and of me, I must entreat that you would not be unmindful.
[Footnote 1: Cp. letter, p. 283. ]
TO THE SAME
_Comparisons_
Trowbridge, 7 _Sept. _ 1818.
A description of your village society would be very gratifying to
me--how the manners differ from those in larger societies, or in
those under different circumstances. I have observed an extraordinary
difference in village manners in England, especially between those
places otherwise nearly alike, when there was and when there was not
a leading man, or a squire's family, or a manufactory near, or a
populous, vitiated town, all these, and many other circumstances have
great influence.
_Your_ quiet village, with such influencing minds,
I am disposed to think highly of. No one, perhaps, very rich--none
miserably poor. No girls, from six years to sixteen, sent to a
factory, where men, women, and children of all ages are continually
with them breathing contagion. Not all, however: we are not so
evil--there is a resisting power, and it is strong; but the thing
itself, the congregation of so many minds, and the intercourse it
occasions, will have its powerful and visible effect. But these you
have not; yet, as you mention your schools of both kinds, you must
be more populous and perhaps not so happy as I was giving myself to
believe. . . .
The world has not spoiled you, Mary, I do believe: now it has me. I
have been absorbed in its mighty vortex, and gone into the midst of
its greatness, and joined in its festivities and frivolities, and been
intimate with its children. You may like me very well, my kind friend,
while the purifying water, and your more effectual imagination, is
between us; but come you to England, or let me be in Ireland, and
place us where mind becomes acquainted with mind--and then! Ah, Mary
Leadbeater! you would have done with your friendship with me! Child of
simplicity and virtue, how can you let yourself be so deceived? Am
I not a great fat rector, living upon a mighty income, while my poor
curate starves with six hungry children upon the scraps that fall from
the luxurious table? Do I not visit that horrible London, and enter
into its abominable dissipations? Am not I this day going to dine on
venison and drink claret? Have I not been at election dinners, and
joined the Babel-confusion of a town hall? Child of simplicity! am I
fit to be a friend to you, and to the peaceful, mild, pure, and gentle
people about you? One thing is true--I wish I had the qualification.
But I am of the world, Mary. . . .
I return all your good wishes, think of you, and with much regard,
more than, indeed, belongs to _a man of the world_! Still, let me
be permitted to address thee. --O my dear Mrs. Leadbeater, this is
so humble that I am afraid it is vain. Well! write soon, then, and
believe me to be
Most sincerely and affectionately yours.
WILLIAM BLAKE
1757-1827
TO JOHN FLAXMAN
_Friends 'from eternity'_
Felpham, 21 _Sept. _ 1800.
Sunday morning.
DEAR SCULPTOR OF ETERNITY,
We are safe arrived at our cottage, which is more beautiful than I
thought it, and more convenient. It is a perfect model for cottages,
and I think for palaces of magnificence, only enlarging not altering
its proportions, and adding ornaments and not principles. Nothing
can be more grand than its simplicity and usefulness. Simple without
intricacy, it seems to be the spontaneous expression of humanity,
congenial to the wants of man. No other formed house can ever please
me so well, nor shall I ever be persuaded, I believe, that it can be
improved either in beauty or use.
Mr. Hayley received us with his usual brotherly affection. I have
begun to work. Felpham is a sweet place for study, because it is
more spiritual than London. Heaven opens here on all sides her golden
gates: her windows are not obstructed by vapours; voices of celestial
inhabitants are more distinctly heard, and their forms more distinctly
seen; and my cottage is also a shadow of their houses. My wife and
sister are both well, courting Neptune for an embrace.
Our journey was very pleasant; and though we had a great deal of
luggage, no grumbling. All was cheerfulness and good humour on the
road, and yet we could not arrive at our cottage before half-past
eleven at night, owing to the necessary shifting of our luggage from
one chaise to another; for we had seven different chaises and as many
different drivers. We set out between six and seven in the morning of
Thursday, with sixteen heavy boxes and portfolios full of prints.
And now begins a new life, because another covering of earth is
shaken off. I am more famed in heaven for my works than I could well
conceive. In my brain are studies and chambers filled with books and
pictures of old, which I wrote and painted in ages of eternity
before my mortal life; and those works are the delight and study of
archangels. Why then should I be anxious about the riches or fame of
mortality? The Lord our Father will do for us and with us according to
His divine will, for our good.
You, O dear Flaxman! are a sublime archangel,--my friend and companion
from eternity. In the divine bosom is our dwelling-place. I look back
into the regions of reminiscence, and behold our ancient days before
this earth appeared in its vegetated mortality to my mortal vegetated
eyes. I see our houses of eternity which can never be separated,
though our mortal vehicles should stand at the remotest corners of
heaven from each other.
Farewell, my best friend! Remember me and my wife in love and
friendship to our dear Mrs. Flaxman, whom we ardently desire to
entertain beneath our thatched roof of rusted gold.
TO THOMAS BUTTS
_Trouble in the path_
Felpham, 10 _Jan. _ 1802.
Dear Sir,
Your very kind and affectionate letter, and the many kind things you
have said in it, called upon me for an immediate answer. But it found
my wife and myself so ill, and my wife so very ill, that till now I
have not been able to do this duty. The ague and rheumatism have been
almost her constant enemies, which she has combated in vain almost
ever since we have been here, and her sickness is always my sorrow,
of course. But what you tell me about your sight afflicted me not a
little, and that about your health, in another part of your letter,
makes me entreat you to take due care of both. It is a part of our
duty to God and man to take due care of His gifts; and though we ought
not to think _more_ highly of ourselves, yet we ought to think _as_
highly of ourselves as immortals ought to think.
When I came down here, I was more sanguine than I am at present;
but it was because I was ignorant of many things which have since
occurred, and chiefly the unhealthiness of the place. Yet I do not
repent of coming on a thousand accounts; and Mr. Hayley, I doubt not,
will do ultimately all that both he and I wish--that is, to lift me
out of difficulty. But this is no easy matter to a man who, having
spiritual enemies of such formidable magnitude, cannot expect to want
natural hidden ones.
Your approbation of my pictures is a multitude to me, and I doubt not
that all your kind wishes in my behalf shall in due time be fulfilled.
Your kind offer of pecuniary assistance I can only thank you for at
present, because I have enough to serve my present purpose here. Our
expenses are small, and our income, from our incessant labour, fully
adequate to these at present. I am now engaged in engraving six small
plates for a new edition of Mr. Hayley's _Triumphs of Temper_, from
drawings by Maria Flaxman, sister to my friend the sculptor. And it
seems that other things will follow in course, if I do but copy these
well. But patience! If great things do not turn out, it is because
such things depend on the spiritual and not on the natural world; and
if it was fit for me, I doubt not that I should be employed in greater
things; and when it is proper, my talents shall be properly exercised
in public, as I hope they are now in private. For till then I leave no
stone unturned, and no path unexplored that leads to improvement in
my beloved arts. One thing of real consequence I have accomplished by
coming into the country, which is to me consolation enough: namely,
I have re-collected all my scattered thoughts on art, and resumed
my primitive and original ways of execution in both painting and
engraving, which in the confusion of London I had very much lost and
obliterated from my mind. But whatever becomes of my labours, I would
rather that they should be preserved in your greenhouse (not, as you
mistakenly call it, dunghill) than in the cold gallery of fashion. The
sun may yet shine, and then they will be brought into open air.
But you have so generously and openly desired that I will divide my
griefs with you that I cannot hide what it has now become my duty to
explain. My unhappiness has arisen from a source which, if explored
too narrowly, might hurt my pecuniary circumstances; as my dependence
is on engraving at present, and particularly on the engravings I have
in hand for Mr. Hayley, and I find on all hands great objections to
my doing anything but the mere drudgery of business, and intimations
that, if I do not confine myself to this, I shall not live. This has
always pursued me. You will understand by this the source of all my
uneasiness. This from Johnson and Fuseli brought me down here, and
this from Mr. Hayley will bring me back again. For that I cannot live
without doing my duty to lay up treasures in heaven is certain and
determined, and to this I have long made up my mind. And why this
should be made an objection to me, while drunkenness, lewdness,
gluttony, and even idleness itself, does not hurt other men, let Satan
himself explain. The thing I have most at heart--more than life, or
all that seems to make life comfortable without--is the interest of
true religion and science. And whenever anything appears to affect
that interest (especially if I myself omit any duty to my station as
a soldier of Christ), it gives me the greatest of torments. I am not
ashamed, afraid, or averse to tell you what ought to be told--that I
am under the direction of messengers from heaven, daily and nightly.
But the nature of such things is not, as some suppose, without trouble
or care. Temptations are on the right hand and on the left. Behind,
the sea of time and space roars and follows swiftly. He who keeps not
right onwards is lost; and if our footsteps slide in clay, how can we
do otherwise than fear and tremble? But I should not have troubled you
with this account of my spiritual state, unless it had been necessary
in explaining the actual cause of my uneasiness, into which you are so
kind as to inquire: for I never obtrude such things on others unless
questioned, and then I never disguise the truth. But if we fear to do
the dictates of our angels, and tremble at the tasks set before us;
if we refuse to do spiritual acts because of natural fears or natural
desires; who can describe the dismal torments of such a state! --I
too well remember the threats I heard! --'If you, who are organized
by Divine Providence for spiritual communion, refuse, and bury
your talent in the earth, even though you should want natural
bread,--sorrow and desperation pursue you through life, and after
death shame and confusion of face to eternity. Every one in eternity
will leave you, aghast at the man who was crowned with glory and
honour by his brethren, and betrayed their cause to their enemies. You
will be called the base Judas who betrayed his friend! '--Such words
would make any stout man tremble, and how then could I be at ease? But
I am now no longer in that state, and now go on again with my task,
fearless though my path is difficult. I have no fear of stumbling
while I keep it.
My wife desires her kindest love to Mrs. Butts, and I have permitted
her to send it to you also. We often wish that we could unite again
in society, and hope that the time is not distant when we shall do so,
being determined not to remain another winter here, but to return to
London.
I hear a Voice you cannot hear, that says
I must not stay,
I see a Hand you cannot see, that beckons
me away.
Naked we came here--naked of natural things--and naked we shall
return: but while clothed with the Divine mercy, we are richly clothed
in spiritual, and suffer all the rest gladly. Pray, give my love to
Mrs. Butts and your family.
PS. Your obliging proposal of exhibiting my two pictures likewise
calls for my thanks; I will finish the others, and then we shall judge
of the matter with certainty.
To THE SAME
_The wonderful poem_
(Felpham), 25 _April_, 1803.
MY DEAR SIR,
I write in haste, having received a pressing letter from my Brother.
I intended to have sent the Picture of the _Riposo_, which is nearly
finished much to my satisfaction, but not quite. You shall have it
soon. I now send the four numbers for Mr. Birch with best respects to
him. The reason the _Ballads_ have been suspended is the pressure of
other business, but they will go on again soon.
Accept of my thanks for your kind and heartening letter. You have
faith in the endeavours of me, your weak brother and fellow-disciple;
how great must be your faith in our Divine Master! You are to me
a lesson of humility, while you exalt me by such distinguishing
commendations. I know that you see certain merits in me, which, by
God's grace, shall be made fully apparent and perfect in Eternity.
In the meantime I must not bury the talents in the earth, but do my
endeavour to live to the glory of our Lord and Saviour; and I am
also grateful to the kind hand that endeavours to lift me out of
despondency, even if it lifts me too high.
And now, my dear Sir, congratulate me on my return to London with the
full approbation of Mr. Hayley and with promise. But alas! now I may
say to you--what perhaps I should not dare to say to anyone else--that
I can alone carry on my visionary studies in London unannoyed, and
that I may converse with my friends in Eternity, see visions, dream
dreams, and prophesy and speak parables, unobserved, and at liberty
from the doubts of other mortals: perhaps doubts proceeding from
kindness; but doubts are always pernicious, especially when we doubt
our friends. Christ is very decided on this point: 'He who is not with
me is against me. ' There is no medium or middle state; and if a man is
the enemy of my spiritual life while he pretends to be the friend of
my corporeal, he is a real enemy; but the man may be the friend of my
spiritual life while he seems the enemy of my corporeal, though not
vice versa.
What is very pleasant, every one who hears of my going to London again
applauds it as the only course for the interest of all concerned in
my works; observing that I ought not to be away from the opportunities
London affords of seeing fine pictures, and the various improvements
in works of art going on in London.
But none can know the spiritual acts of my three years' slumber on the
banks of Ocean, unless he has seen them in the spirit, or unless he
should read my long Poem descriptive of those acts; for I have in
these years composed an immense number of verses on one grand theme,
similar to Homer's _Iliad_ or Milton's _Paradise Lost_; the persons
and machinery entirely new to the inhabitants of earth (some of the
persons excepted). I have written this Poem from immediate dictation,
twelve or sometimes twenty or thirty lines at a time, without
premeditation, and even against my will. The time it has taken in
writing was thus rendered nonexistent, and an immense Poem exists
which seems to be the labour of a long life, all produced without
labour or study. I mention this to show you what I think the grand
reason of my being brought down here.
I have a thousand and ten thousand things to say to you. My heart
is full of futurity. I perceive that the sore travail which has been
given me these three years leads to glory and honour. I rejoice and
tremble: 'I am fearfully and wonderfully made. ' I had been reading the
CXXXIX Psalm a little before your letter arrived. I take your advice.
I see the face of my Heavenly Father; He lays His hand upon my head,
and gives a blessing to all my work. Why should I be troubled? Why
should my heart and flesh cry out? I will go on in the strength of the
Lord; through Hell will I sing forth His praises: that the dragons of
the deep may praise Him, and that those who dwell in darkness, and in
the sea coasts may be gathered into His Kingdom. Excuse my perhaps too
great enthusiasm. Please to accept of and give our loves to Mrs. Butts
and your amiable family, and believe me ever yours affectionately.
TO THE SAME
_The poet and William Hayley_
Felpham, 6 _July_, 1803.
. . . We look forward every day with pleasure toward our meeting again
in London with those whom we have learned to value by absence no less
perhaps than we did by presence; for recollection often surpasses
everything. Indeed, the prospect of returning to our friends is
supremely delightful. Then, I am determined that Mrs. Butts shall have
a good likeness of you, if I have hands and eyes left; for I am become
a likeness-taker, and succeed admirably well. But this is not to be
achieved without the original sitting before you for every touch, all
likenesses from memory being necessarily very, very defective; but
Nature and Fancy are two things, and can never be joined, neither
ought any one to attempt it, for it is idolatry, and destroys the
Soul.
I ought to tell you that Mr. H. is quite agreeable to our return,
and that there is all the appearance in the world of our being fully
employed in engraving for his projected works, particularly Cowper's
_Milton_--a work now on foot by subscription, and I understand that
the subscription goes on briskly. This work is to be a very elegant
one, and to consist of all Milton's Poems with Cowper's Notes, and
translations by Cowper from Milton's Latin and Italian poems. These
works will be ornamented with engravings from designs by Romney,
Flaxman, and your humble servant, and to be engraved also by
the last-mentioned. The profits of the work are intended to be
appropriated to erect a monument to the memory of Cowper in St. Paul's
or Westminster Abbey. Such is the project; and Mr. Addington and Mr.
Pitt are both among the subscribers, which are already numerous and of
the first rank. The price of the work is six guineas. Thus I hope that
all our three years' trouble ends in good-luck at last, and shall be
forgot by my affections, and only remembered by my understanding, to
be a memento in time to come, and to speak to future generations by a
sublime allegory, which is now perfectly completed into a grand Poem.
I may praise it, since I dare not pretend to be any other than the
secretary; the authors are in Eternity. I consider it as the grandest
Poem that this world contains. Allegory addressed to the
intellectual powers, while it is altogether hidden from the corporeal
understanding, is my definition of the most sublime Poetry. It is
also somewhat in the same manner defined by Plato. This Poem shall,
by Divine assistance, be progressively printed and ornamented with
prints, and given to the public. But of this work I take care to say
little to Mr. H. , since he is as much averse to my Poetry as he is to
a chapter in the Bible. He knows that I have writ it, for I have shown
it to him, and he has read part by his own desire, and has looked with
sufficient contempt to enhance my opinion of it. But I do not wish to
imitate by seeming too obstinate in poetic pursuits. But if all the
world should set their faces against this, I have orders to set my
face like a flint (Ezek. iii. 8) against their faces, and my forehead
against their foreheads.
As to Mr. H. , I feel myself at liberty to say as follows upon this
ticklish subject. I regard fashion in Poetry as little as I do in
Painting: so, if both Poets and Painters should alternately dislike
(but I know the majority of them will not), I am not to regard it
at all. But Mr. H. approves of my Designs as little as he does of my
Poems, and I have been forced to insist on his leaving me, in both,
to my own self-will; for I am determined to be no longer pestered with
his genteel ignorance and polite disapprobation. I know myself both
Poet and Painter, and it is not his affected contempt that can move to
anything but a more assiduous pursuit of both arts. Indeed, by my late
firmness, I have brought down his affected loftiness, and he begins
to think I have some genius: as if genius and assurance were the same
thing! But his imbecile attempts to depress me only deserve laughter.
I say thus much to you, knowing that you will not make a bad use of
it. But it is a fact too true that, if I had only depended on mortal
things, both myself and my wife must have been lost. I shall leave
every one in this country astonished at my patience and forbearance
of injuries upon injuries; and I do assure you that, if I could have
returned to London a month after my arrival here, I should have done
so.
