Delphi Complete Poetical Works of Algernon Charles Swinburne (Illustrated) (Delphi Poets Series)

by Algernon Charles Swinburne

  At your age you cannot possibly understand how anybody can be at once excitable and cold. If you will take my word for that fact, I will throw you another small piece of experience into the bargain. A person who does happen to combine those two qualities has the happiest temperament imaginable. She can enjoy herself, her excitability secures that; and she will never enjoy herself too much or pay too high a price for anything. These people are always exceedingly acute, unless they are absolute dunces, and then they hardly count. I don’t mean that their acuteness prevents them from being fools, especially if they have a strong stupid element in them, as many clever excitable people have, notamment ladite Marie, who was admirably and fearfully foolish for such a clever cold intellect as she had. I fancy our friend has more of the Elizabeth in her; quite as dangerous a variety. If she ever does get an impulse, God help her friends; but there will be no fear even then for herself: not the least. Only do you take care; you have not the stuff to make a Leicester; and I don’t want you to play Essex to a silver-gilt Elizabeth. Silver?-she is just pinchbeck all through. As to heart, that is, and style; her wits are well enough.

  Now, if you have got thus far (but I am convinced you will not), you ought to understand (but I would lay any wager you don’t) what my judgment of her is, and what yours ought to be. She is admirable, I repeat again and again, but she ought not to be adorable to you; the great points about her are just those which appeal to the experience of an old woman. The side of her that a boy like you can see of himself is just the side he ought not to care about. Of course he will like it if he is not warned; but I have warned you: quite in vain, I am fully prepared to hear. If you are in effect allured and fascinated by the bad weak side of her I can’t help it: liberavi animam meam; I suppose even my dunce of the lower fifth (at twenty-three) can construe that. My hand aches, and you may thank Heaven it does, or you would get a fresh dressing (as people call it) on paper. Do, my dear, try to make sense of this long dawdling wandering scrawl: I meant to be of some use when I began. I don’t want to have my nice old Redgie made into a burnt-offering on the twopenny tinselled side-altar of St. Agnes of Bohemia. I send no message to the Lidcombe people, as I wrote to Amicia yesterday. Give my compliments to your father if you dare. I must really be very good to waste my time and trouble on a set of girls and boys who are far above caring to understand what an old woman means by her advice. You seem to me, all of you, even younger than your ages; I wish you would stick to dolls and cricket. Cependant, as to you, my dear boy, I am always

  Your affectionate grandmother, HELENA MIDHURST

  P.S. — You can show this letter to dear Clara if you like.

  VII Reginald Harewood to Edward Audley

  Lidcombe, March 1st.

  DID you see last year in the Exhibition a portrait by Fairfax of my cousin Mrs. Radworth? You know of course I am perfectly well aware the man is an exquisite painter, with no end of genius and great qualities in his work; but I declare he made a mull of that picture. It was what fellows call a fiasco-complete. Imagine sticking her into a little crib of a room with a window and some flowers and things behind her, and all that splendid hair of hers done up in some beastly way. And then people say the geraniums and the wainscot were stunning pieces of colour, or some such rot; when the fellow ought to have painted her out of doors, or on horseback, or something. I wish I could sit a horse half as well; she is the most graceful and the pluckiest rider you ever saw. I rode with her yesterday to Hadleigh, down by the sea, and we had a gallop over the sands; three miles good, and all hard sand; the finest ground possible; when I was staying here as a boy I used to go out with the grooms before breakfast, and exercise the horses there instead of taking them up to the downs. She had been out of spirits in the morning, and wanted the excitement to set her up. I never saw her look so magnificent; her hair was blown down and fell in heavy uncurling heaps to her waist; her face looked out of the frame of it, hot and bright, with the eyes lighted, expanding under the lift of those royal wide eyelids of hers. I could hardly speak to her for pleasure, I confess; don’t show my avowals. I rode between her and the sea, a thought behind; a gust of wind blowing off land drove a wave of her hair across my face, upon my lips; she felt it somehow, I suppose, for she turned and laughed. When we came to ride back, and had to go slower (that Nourmahal of hers is not my notion of what her horse should be-I wish one could get her a real good one), she changed somehow, and began to talk seriously at last; I knew she was not really over happy. Fancy that incredible fool Ernest Radworth never letting her see any one when they are at home, except some of his scientific acquaintances-not a lady in the whole countryside for her to speak to. You should have heard her account of the entertainments in that awful house of theirs, about as much life as there used to be at my father’s. Don’t I remember the holiday dinners there!- a parson, a stray military man of the stodgier kind, my tutor, and the pater; I kept after dinner to be chaffed, or lectured, or examineda jolly time that was. Well, I imagine her life is about as pleasant; or worse, for she can hardly get out to go about at all. People come there with cases of objects, curiosities, stones and bones and books, and lumber the whole place. She had to receive three scientific professors last month; two of them noted osteologists, she said, and one a comparative ichthyologist, or something-a man with pink eyes and a mouth all on one side, who was always blinking and talking-a friend of my great-uncle’s, it seems, who presented him years ago to that insane ass Radworth. Think of the pair of them, and of Clara obliged to sit and be civil! She became quite sad towards the end of our ride; said how nice it had been here, and that sort of thing, till I was three-quarters mad. She goes in three or four days. I should like to follow her everywhere, and be her footman or her groom, and see her constantly. I would clean knives and black boots for her. If I had no fellow to speak or write to, I can’t think how I should stand things at all.

  VIII Francis Cheyne to Mrs. Radworth

  London, March 15th.

  YOU don’t suppose I want you to quarrel with me, my dear Clara? It is folly to tax me with trying (as you say) to brouiller you with the Stanfords or with Redgie Harewood. As to the latter, you know we are on good enough terms together; I never was hand and glove with him that I recollect. Do as you like about Portsmouth. I will join you if I can after some time. But about my extra fortnight at Lidcombe I must write to you. Lord Cheyne is quite gracious, with a faint flavour of impertinence; I never saw one side of him before. (Since I left I have heard twice-once from him and once from Amicia. They talk of coming up. Cheyne thinks of beginning to speak again. I believe myself he never got over your cruel handling of his eloquence six years ago. I remember quite well once during the Easter holidays hearing you and Lady Midhurst laugh about it by the hour.) Amicia is, I more than suspect, touched more deeply than we fancied by the things that were said this winter. Her manner is often queer and nervous, with a way of catching herself up she has lately taken to-breaking off her sentences and fretting her lip or hand. I wish at times I had never come back. If I had stayed up last Christmas to read, as I thought of doing, there would have been nothing for people to talk of. Now I certainly shall not think of reading for a degree. Perhaps I may go abroad, with Harewood if I can get no one else. He is the sort of fellow to go anywhere, and make himself rather available than otherwise, in case of worry. Tenez, I suppose I may as well say what I meant to begin upon at once, without shirking or fidgeting. Well, you were right enough about my staying after you left; it did lead to scenes. In a quiet way, of course; subdued muffled-up scenes. I was reading to her once, and Cheyne came in; she grew hot, not very red, but hot and nervous, and I caught the feeling of her; he wanted us to go on, and, as we began talking of other things, left us rather suddenly. We sat quiet for a little, and then somehow or other found ourselves talking about you-I think à propos of Cheyne’s preferences; and she laughed over some old letter of Lady Midhurst’s begging her to take care of Redgie Harewood, and prevent his getting desperately in love with y
ou. I said Lady M. always seemed to me to live and think in a yellow-paper French novel cover, with some of the pages loose in sewing; then A. said there was a true side to that way of looking at things. So you see we were in the thick of sentiment before we knew it. And she is so very beautiful to my thinking; that clear pale face and full eyebrows, well apart, making the eyes so effective and soft, and her cheeks so perfect in cutting. I cannot see the great likeness of feature to her brother that people talk of; but I believe you are an admirer of his. It was after this that the dim soft patronizing manner of Cheyne’s which I was referring to began to show itself, or I began to fancy it. We used to get on perfectly together, and he was never at all gracious to me till just now, when he decidedly is. Make Radworth come up to London before you go to Portsmouth or Ryde, or wherever it is. And do something or other in the Ashton Hildred direction, for I am certain, by things I heard Amicia say, that Lady Midhurst “ means venom.” So lay in a stock of antidotes. I wish there was a penal colony for women who outlive a certain age, unless they could produce a certificate of innocuous imbecility.

  IX Lady Midhurst to Lady Cheyne

  Ashton Hildred, March 18th.

  So you have made a clear house of them all, my dear child, and expect my applause in consequence? Well, I am not sure you could have done much better. And Cheyne is perfect towards you, is he? That is gratifying for me (who made the match) to hear of, but I never doubted him. As for the two boys, I should like to have them in hand for ten minutes; they seem to have gone on too infamously. I retire from the field for my part; I give up Redgie; he must and will be eaten up alive, and I respect the woman’s persistence. Bon appétit! I bow to her, and retire. She has splendid teeth. I suppose she will let him go some day? She can hardly think of marrying him when Ernest Radworth is killed off. If I thought she did, I would write straight to Captain Harewood. Do you think the Radworth has two years’ vitality left him? I am too old to appreciate your state of mind as to your cousin. You know, too, that I have a weakness for clear accurate accounts, and your style is of the vaguest. It is impossible you can be so very foolish as to become amourachée of a man in any serious sense. Remember, when you write in future, that I shall not for a second admit that idea. Married ladies, in modern English society, cannot fail in their duties to the conjugal relation. Recollect that you are devoted to your husband, and he to you. I assume this when I address you, and you must write accordingly. The other hypothesis is impossible to take into account. As to being in love, frankly, I don’t believe in it. I believe that stimulant drinks will intoxicate, and rain drench, and fire singe; but not in any way that one person will fascinate another. Avoid all folly; accept no traditions; take no sentiment on trust. Here is a bit of social comedy in which you happen to have a part to play; act as well as you can, and in the style now received on the English boards. Above all, don’t indulge in tragedy out of season. Resolve, once for all, in any little difficulty of life, that there shall be nothing serious in it; you will find it depends on you whether there is to be or not. Keep your head clear, and don’t confuse things; use your reason-determine that, come what may, nothing shall happen of a nature to involve or embarrass you. As surely as you make this resolve and act on it, you will find it pay. I must say I wish you had been more attentive to my hint with regard to your brother. Study of the Radworth interior, and the excitement (suppose) of a little counterplot, would have kept you amused and left you sensible. I see too clearly that that affair is going all wrong-I wish I saw as clearly how to bring it all right. Reginald is a hopeless specimen-I never saw a boy so fairly ensorcelé. These are the little pointless endless things that people get ruined by. Now if you would but have taken notice of things you might have righted the whole matter at once. If I could have seen you good friends with Clara I should have been content. But as soon as you saw there was no fear of her making an affair with your husband (or, if you prefer it, of his being tolerably courteous to her) you threw up your cards at once. At least you might have kept an eye on the remaining players; a little interest in their game would have given you something better to think about than Frank. As it is, you seem to have worked yourself into a sort of vague irritable moral nervousness which is not wholesome by any means. I want you to go up to London for some little time, and see the season out. Encourage Cheyne’s idea of public life; it is an admirable one for both of you. The worst thing you could do would be to stay down at Lidcombe, and then (as you seem to think of doing) join your cousins again in some foolish provincial or continental expedition. I had hoped to have seen you and Clara pull together, as they say now, better than you do; I have failed in the attempt to make you; but at least, as it seems you two can have no real mutual influence or rational amicable apprehension of each other, I do trust you will not of your own accord put yourself in her way for no mortal purpose. Is it worth while meeting on the ground of mutual indifference? I recommend you on all accounts to keep away from both brother and sister. Not that I underrate him, whatever you may think. I see he is a nice boy; very faithful, brave, and candid; with more of a clear natural stamp on him than I thought. The mother has left him enough of her quick blood and wit, and it has got well mixed into the graver affection and sense of honour that he inherits from our side. I like and approve him; but you must observe that all this does not excuse absurdities on either hand. Of course he is very silly; at his age a man must be a fool or nothing: by the nothing I mean a pedant either of the head or the heart species (avoid pedants of the heart kind, by the way), or a coquin manqué. I have met the latter; Alfred Wandesford, your father’s friend, was one of that sort at Frank’s age; you know his book had made a certain false noise-gone off with a blank report-flashed powder in people’s eyes for a minute; and, being by nature lymphatic and malleable at once, he assumed a whole sham suit of vices, cut out after other men’s proportions, that hung flapping on him in the flabbiest pitiable fashion; but he meant as badly as possible; I always did him the justice, when he was accused of mere pasteboard sins and scene-painters’ profligacy, to say that his wickedness was sincere but clumsy. It was something more than wickedness made to order. Such a man is none the less a rascal because he has not yet found out the right way to be a rascal, for even because he never does find it out, and dies a baffled longing scoundrel with clean hands. Wandesford did neither, but turned rational and became a virtuous and really fortunate man of letters, whom one was never sorry to see about: and I don’t know that he ever did any harm, though he was rather venomous and vulgar. One or two of his things are still worth your reading. Now, because Frank is neither a man of this sort nor of the pedant sort, but one with just the dose of folly proper to his age, and that folly of rather a good kind, I want him not to get entangled in the way that would be more dangerous for him than for any other sort of young man. I wish to Heaven there were some surgical process discoverable by which one could annihilate or amputate sentiment. Passion, impulse, vice of appetite or conformation, nothing you can define in words is so dangerous. Without sentiment one would do all the good one did either by principle or by instinct, and in either case the good deed would be genuine and valuable. Sinning in the same way, one’s very errors would be comprehensible, respectable, reducible to rule. But to act on feeling is ruinous. Feeling is neither impulse nor principle-a sickly, deadly, mongrel breed between the two-I hate the very word sentiment. The animalist and the moralist I can appreciate, but what, on any ground, am I to make of the sentimentalist? Decide what you will do. Look things and people in the face. Give up what has to be given up; bear with what has to be borne with; do what has to be done. Remember that I am addressing you now with twenty years of the truest care and affection behind me to back up my advice. Remember that I do truly and deeply care about the least thing that touches you. To me you are two; you carry your mother about you. Let us see what your last letter really amounts to. You have seen a good deal of your cousin for the last six weeks, and are vaguely unhappy at his going. (Once or twice, I am to i
nfer, there has been a touch of softer sentiment in your relations to each other.) Not, I presume, that either has dreamt of falling in love: but you live in a bad time for intimacies; a time seasoned with sentiment to that extent that you can never taste the natural flavour of a sensation. You were afraid of Clara too, a little; disliked her; left her to Cheyne or to Reginald, as the case might be (one result of which, by the by, is that I shall have to extricate your brother, half eaten, from under her very teeth); and let yourself be drawn, by a sort of dull impulse, without a purpose under it, towards her brother. Purpose I am, of course, convinced there was none on either side. I should like to have some incidents to lay hold of; but I am quite aware that incidents never do happen. I wish they did; anything rather than this gradual steady slide of monotonous sentiment down a groove of uneventful days. The recollection that you have not given me a single incident-nothing by way of news but a frightened analysis of feeling and record of sentimental experience-makes me seriously uneasy. Write again and tell me your plans: but for Heaven’s sake begin moving; get something done; engage yourself in some active way of amusement. Have done with the country and its little charities and civilities-at least for the present. London is a wholesomer and more reasonable home for you just now.