[Postmark: April 5, 1846]ZM
Sunday.
It seems to me the safest way to send back the proofs
by the early Monday post : you may choose perhaps to
bring the sheet corrected into town when you come, and so
I shall let you have what you sent me, before you come to
take it . . though I thought first of waiting. To-morrow I
shall force you to tell me how you like the ‘ Tragedy ‘ now !
For my part, it delights me — and must raise your reputation
as a poet and thinker . . must Chiappino is highly
dramatic in that first part, and speaks so finely sometimes
that it is a wrench to one’s sympathies to find him overthrown-
. Do you know that, as far as the temper of the
man goes, I am acquainted with a Chiappino . . just such
a man, in the temper, the pride and the bitterness . . not
in other things. When I read your manuscript I was
reminded — but here in print it, seems to grow nearer and
nearer. My Chiappino has tired me out at last — I have
borne more from him than women ought to bear from men,
because he was unfortunate and embittered in his nature
and by circumstances, and because I regarded him as a
friend of many years. Yet, as I have told him, anyone,
who had not such confidence in me, would think really ill of
me through reading the insolent letters which he has thought
fit to address to me on what he called a pure principle of
adoration. At last I made up my mind (and shall keep
it so) to answer no letter of the kind. Men are ignoble
in some things, past the conceiving of their fellows. Again
and again I have said . . ‘ Specify your charge against me ‘
— but there is no charge. With the most reckless and
dauntless inconsistency I am lifted halfway to the skies, and
made a mark there for mud pellets — so that I have been
excited sometimes to say quite passionately . . ‘If I am
the filth of the earth, tread on me — if I am an angel of
Heaven, respect me — but I can’t be both, remember.’ See
where your Chiappino leads you . . and me ! Though I
shall not tell you the other name of mine. Whenever I see
him now, I make Arabel stay in the room — otherwise I am
afraid — he is such a violent man. A good man, though, in
many respects, and quite an old friend. Some men grow
incensed with the continual pricks of ill-fortune, like mad
bulls : some grow tame and meek.
Well — I did not like the spirit of the Athenaeum remarks
either. I like what you say. These literary men are never
so well pleased, as in having opportunities of barking against
one another — and, for the Athenaeum people, if they wanted
to be didactic as to morals, they might have taken occasion
to be so out of their own order, and in their own country.
And then to bring in Balzac so ! The worst of Balzac (who
has not a fine moral sense at any time, great and gifted as
he is), the very worst of him, is his bearing towards his
literary brothers . . the manner in which he, who can so
nobly present genius to the reverence of humanity in
scientific men (as he describes them in his books), always
dishonours and depreciates it in the man of letters and
the poet. See his ‘ Grand Homme de Province à Paris,’
one of the most powerful of his works, but the remark
is true everywhere. I go on writing as if I were not to see
you directly. It is past four oclock — and if Mr. Kenyon
does not come to-day, he may come to-morrow, and
find you, who were here last Thursday to his knowledge ! —
Half I fear.
Observe the proof. Since you have two, you say, I have
not scrupled to write down on this ever so much improvidence, which you will glance at and decide upon finally.
‘Grateful’ . . ‘ grateful’ . . what a word that is. I
never would have such a word on any proof that came to
me for correction. Do not use such inapplicable words —
do not, dearest ! for you know very well in your under-
standing (if not in your heart) that if such a word is to be
used by either of us, it is not by you. My word, I shall
keep mine, — I am ‘ grateful you cannot be ‘ grateful ‘ . ,
for ineffable reasons . .
‘ Pour bonnes raisons
Que I’on n’ose dire.
Et que nous taisons. ‘
For the rest, it is certainly very likely that you may
‘ want all your faculties, and more ‘ … to bear with me . .
to support me with graceful resignation; and who can tell
whether I may not be found intolerable after all ?
By the way (talking of St. Catherine’s wheels and the
like torments) you wrote ‘ gag ‘ . . did you not ? . . where
the proof says ‘ gadge ‘ — I did not alter it. More and more
I like ‘ Luria.’
Your Ba.
Mr. Kenyon has been here — so our Monday is safe.