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

by Algernon Charles Swinburne

  X Lady Midhurst to Lady Cheyne

  Ashton Hildred, April 6th.

  WELL, I have been to London and back, my dear child, with an eye to the family complications, and have come to some understanding of them. When I wrote to you last month I was out of spirits, and no doubt very stupid and obscure. I had a dim impression of things being wrong, and no means of guessing how to get them right. Now, I must say I see no real chance of anything unfortunate or unpleasant. You must be cautious, though, of letting people begin to talk of it again. I have a project for getting both the boys well out of the way on some good long summer tour. Frank is very nice and sensible; I would undertake to manage him for life by the mere use of reasoning. As to Reginald, c’est une tête fêlée; it may get soldered up in ten years’ time, but wants beating about first; I should like to break it myself. Actually, I had to encourage his verse-making-pat that rampant young Muse of his on the back-and stroke him down with talk of publication till he purred under my fingers. It is a mercy there is that escape-valve of verse. I think between that and his sudden engouement for foreign politics and liberation campaigns, and all that sort of thing, he may be kept out of the worst sort of mess: though I know one never can count upon that kind of boy. I should quite like to enrol him in real earnest in some absurd legion of volunteers, and set him at the Quadrilateral with some scores of horrid disreputable picciotti to back him. I dare say he would fight decently enough if he were taken into training. Imagine the poor child in a red rag of a shirt, and shoeless, marching au pas over the fallen dynasties to the tune of a new and noisier Marseillaise! It would serve him right to get rubbed against the sharp edges of his theory; and if he were killed we should have a mad martyr in the family, and when the red republic comes in we might appeal to the Committees of Public Safety to spare us for the sake of his memory. His father would die of it, for one thing; I do think Redgie is fated to make him ‘crever’ with rage and shame and horror; so you see I shall always have a weak side in the boy’s favour. But if you knew how absurd all this recandescence of revolution in the young people of the day seems to me! My dear Amy, I have known men who had been dipped in the old revolution. J’ai connu des vivants à qui Danton parlait. You remember that great verse of Hugo’s; I showed it to Reginald the last time he was declaiming to me on Italy, and confuted him out of the master’s mouth. It is true of me, really; both my own father and my dear old friend, Mr. Chetwood, had been in Paris at dangerous times. They had seen the great people of the period, and the strange sights of it. I have run off into all this talk about old recollections, and forgotten, as usual, my starting point; I was thinking of the last interview I had with Reginald. But I suppose you want some account of my stay in London. You know I had your house to myself (it was excellent on Cheyne’s part to renew his offer of lending it, and spare an ancient relative the trouble of asking you to get her the loan of it from him); and, as your father came up with me, I travelled pleasantly enough, though we had fearful companions. I rested for a day or two, and then called upon the Radworths. Ernest looks fifty; if he had the wit to think of it, I should say he must always have understated his real age. I have no doubt, though, he will live for ages (I don’t mean his reputation, but his bodily frame); unless, indeed, she poisons him-I am certain she would, if she durst. She herself looks older; I trust, in a year or two, she will have ceased to be at all dangerous, even for boys. We had a curious interview; not that day, but a week after. I saw Reginald next day; he is mad on that score, quite. I like to see such a capacity for craziness; it looks as if a man had some corresponding capacity for being reasonable when his time came. He never saw such noble beauty and perfection of grace, it appears; there is an incomparable manner about the least thing she does. She is gloriously good, too — has a power of sublime patience, a sense of pity, a royal forbearance, a divine defiance of evil, and various qualities which must ennoble any man she speaks to. To look at her is to be made brave and just; to hear her talk is a lay baptism, out of which the spirit of the auditor comes forth purged, with invulnerable armour on; to sit at her side is to become fit for the grandest things; to shake hands with her makes one feel incapable of a mean wish. Base things die of her; she is poisonous to them. All the best part of one, all that makes a man fit to live, comes out in flower at the sight of her eyes. Accepting these assertions as facts (remarkable perhaps, but indisputable), I desired to know whether Ernest Radworth was my friend’s ideal of the glorified man? - heroic as a martyr he certainly was, I allowed, in a passive way. If a passing acquaintance becomes half deified by the touch of her, I put it to him frankly, what must not her husband have grown into by this time, after six years of marriage? Reginald was of opinion that on him the divine influence must have acted the wrong way. The man being irredeemably bad, abject, stupid, there was nothing noble to be called out and respond to her. The only result, therefore, of being always close to the noblest nature created was, in men like him, a justly ordained increase of degradation. Those that under such an influence cannot kindle into the superhuman must, it seems, harden into the animal. This, Redgie averred, was his deliberate belief. Experience of character, study of life, the evidence of common sense, combined to lead him unwilling to this awful inference. But then, how splendid was her conduct, how laudable her endurance of him, how admirable in every way her conjugal position! I suggested children. The boy went off into absolute incoherence. I could not quite gather his reasons, but it seems the absence of children is an additional jewel in her crown. He is capable of finding moral beauty in a hump, and angelic meaning in a twisted foot. And all the time it is too ludicrously evident that the one point of attraction is physical. Her good looks, such as they are, lie at the bottom of all this rant and clatter. We have our own silly sides, no doubt; but I do think we should be thankful we were not born males. After this specimen of the prevalent state of things I felt of course bound to get hold of her and hear what she had to say. She had a good deal. I always said she could talk well; this time she talked admirably. She went into moral anatomy with the appetite of sixty; and she is under thirty-that I admit. She handled the question in an abstract indifferent way wonderful to see. The whole thing was taken up on high grounds, and treated in a grand spirit of research -worthy of her husband. She did not even profess to regard Redgie as a brother-or friend. In effect she did not profess anything: a touch of real genius, as I thought at once. He amused her; she liked him, believed in him, admired his best points; altogether appreciated the value of such a follower by way of change in a life which was none of the liveliest. Not that she made any complaint; she is far too sharp to poser à l’incomprise. I told her the sort of thing was not a game permitted by the social authorities of the time and country; the cards would burn her fingers after another deal or two. She took the hint exquisitely: was evidently not certain she understood, but had a vague apprehension of the thing meant; fell back finally upon a noble selfreliance, and took the pure English tone. The suggestion of any harm resulting was of course left untouched: such a chance as that we were neither of us called upon to face. The whole situation was harmless, creditable even; which is perfectly true, and that is the worst of it. As in most cases of Platonism, there is something to admire on each hand. And the existence of this single grain of sense and goodness makes the entire affair more dangerous and difficult to deal with. She is very clever to manage what she does manage, and Reginald is some way above the run of boys. At his age they are usually made of soft mud or stiff clay. When we had got to this I knew it was hopeless dissecting the matter any further, and began talking of things at large, and so in time of her brother and his outlooks. She was affectionate and hopeful. It seems he has told her of an idea which I encouraged; that of travelling for some months at least. How tenderly we went over the ground I need not tell you. Clara does not think him likely to be carried off his feet for long. Console yourself, if you want the comfort; we have no thought of marrying him. He is best unattached. At the present writing he no doubt
thinks more of you than she would admit. I regret it; but he does. Do you, my dear child, take care and keep out of the way just now. I hear (from Ernest Radworth; his wife said nothing of it; in fact, when he began speaking the corners of her mouth and eyelids flinched with vexation-just for a breath of time) that there is some talk now of a summer seaside expedition. Redgie of course; Frank of course; the Radworths, and you two. I beg you not to think of it. Why on earth should you all lounge and toss about together in that heavy way? You are off to London at last, or will be in ten days’ time, you say; at least, before May begins. Stay there till it breaks up; and then go either north or abroad. Yachts are ridiculous, and I know you will upset yourself. To be sure sentiment can hardly get mixed into the situation if you do.

  The soupir entrecoupé de spasmes is not telling in a cabin; you sob the wrong way. Think for a second of too literal heart-sickness. Cheyne is fond of the plan, it seems: break him of that leaning. He and Redgie devised it at Lidcombe, Ernest says (he has left off saying Harewood; not the best of signs; fœnum habet-never mind how tied on; if he does go mad we will adjust it; but I forgot I never let you play at Latin. Rub out this for me; I never erase, as you know, it whets and frets curiosity; and I can’t begin again). Frank, when I saw him, pleased me more than I had hoped. I made talk to him for some time; he is unusually reticent and rational; a rest and refreshment after that insane boy whom we can neither of us drive or hold as yet (but I shall get him well in hand soon, et puis gare aux ruades! Kick he will, but his mouth shall ache and his flanks bleed for it). No display or flutter of any kind; a laudable, peaceable youth, it seems to me. Very shy and wary; would not open up in the least at the mention of you: talked of his sister very well indeed. I see the points of resemblance now perfectly, and the sides of character where the likeness breaks down. He is clever as well as she, but less rapid and loud; the notes of his voice pleasant and of a good compass, not various. I should say a far better nature; more liberal, fresher, clearer altogether, and capable of far more hard work. Miss Banks comes out in both their faces alike, though corrected of course by John, which makes her very passable. Is there much more to say? As you must be getting tired again, I will suppose there is not. Will you understand if I suggest that in case of any silent gradual breach beginning between Cheyne and Frank, you ought to help it to widen and harden in a quiet wise way? I think you ought. I don’t mean a coolness; but just that sort of relation which swings safe in full midway between intimacy and enmity. We all trust, you know, that he is never to be the heir; you must allow us to look for the reverse of that. Then, don’t you see for yourself, it must be best for him to get a good standing for himself on his own ground, and not hover and flicker about Lidcombe too much? I know my dear child will see the sense of what I say. Not, I hope and suppose, that she needs to see it on her own account. Goodnight, dearest; be wise and happy: but I don’t bid you trouble your head overmuch with the heavy hoary counsels of

  Your most affectionate, H.M.

  XI Reginald Harewood to Mrs. Radworth

  London, April 15th.

  You promised me a letter twice; none has come yet. I want the sight of your handwriting more than you know. Sometimes I lie all night thinking where you are, and sometimes I dare not lie down for the horror of the fancy. If I could but entreat and pray you to come away-knowing what I do. Even if I dared hope the worst of all was what it cannot be-a hideous false fear of mine-I could hardly bear it. As it is I am certain of one thing only in the world, that this year cannot leave us where the last did. If I must be away from you, and if you must remain with him, I cannot pretend to live in the way of other men. It is too monstrous and shameful to see things as they are and let them go on. Old men may play with such things if they dare. We cannot live and lie. You are brave enough for any act of noble justice. You told me once I knew you to the heart, and ought to give up dreaming and hoping-but I might be sure, you said, of what I had. I do know you perfectly, as I love you: but I hope all the more. If hope meant anything ignoble, could I let it touch on you for a moment? I look to you to be as great as it is your nature to be. It is not for myself. I am ashamed to write even the denial-that I summon you to break off this hideous sort of compromise you are living in. What you are doing insults God, and maddens men who see it. Think what it is to endure and to act as you do! I ask you what right you have to let him play at husband with you? You know he has no right; why should you have? Would you let him try force to detain you if your mind were made up? You are doing as great a wrong as that would be, if you stay of your own accord. Who could blame you if you went? Who can help blaming you now? I say you cannot live with him always. If I thought you could, could I think you incapable of baseness? and you know, I am certain you do in your inmost heart know, that you have shown me by clear proof how infinitely you are the noblest of all women. Do all prefer a brave and blameless sorrow, with the veil close over it, to a shameful sneaking happiness under the mask? There was a time when I thought I could have worn it if I had picked it up at your feet. The recollection makes me half mad with shame. To have conceived of a possible falsehood in your face is degradation enough for me. Now that you have set me right (and I would give my life to show you how much more I have loved you ever since) I come to ask you to be quite brave. Only that. I implore you now to go without disguise at all. You cannot speak falsely, I know; but to be silent is of itself a sort of pretence. Speak, for Heaven’s sake, that all who ever hear of you may adore you as I shall. Think of the divine appeal against wrong and all falsehood that you will be making!-a protest that the very meanest must be moved and transformed by. It is so easy to do, and so noble. Say why you go, and then go at once. Put it before your brother. Go straight to him when you leave the hateful house you are in. He is very young, I know, but he must see the greatness of what you do. Perhaps one never sees how grand such things are-never appreciates the reality of their greatness-better than one does at his age. I think boys see right and wrong as keenly as men do; he will exult that you are compelled to turn to him and choose him to serve you. As for me, I must be glad enough if you let me think I have taken any part in bringing about that which will make all men look upon you as I do-with a perfect devotion of reverence and love. I believe you will let me see you sometimes. I would devote my whole life to Radworth-give up all I have in the world to him. Even him I suppose nothing could comfort for the loss of you; but if it ought to be? At least we would find something to do. I entreat you to read this, and answer me. There can be but one answer. I wish to God I knew what to do that you would like done, or how to say what I do know-that I love you as no woman ever has been loved by any man. What to call you or how to sign this, I cannot think. I am afraid to write more.

  R. E. H.

  XII Mrs. Radworth to Reginald Harewood

  Blocksham, April 28th.

  MY DEAR COUSIN:

  ONE word at starting. I must not have you think I feel obliged to answer you at all. I do write, as you see; but not because I am afraid of you. And I am not going to pretend you put me out. You shall not see me crane at the gaps. Your fences are pretty full of them. Seriously, what can you mean? What you want, I know. But how can you hope I am to listen to such talk? Run away from nothing? I see no sort of reason for changing. You take things one says in the oddest way. I no more mean to leave home because Ernest and I might have more in common, than I should have thought of marrying a man for his beaux yeux or for a title. I hate hypocrisy. You are quite wrong about me. Because I am simple and frank, because I like (for a change) things and people with some movement in them, you take me for a sort of tied-up tigress, a woman of the Sand breed, a prophetess with some dreadful mission of revolt in her, a trunk packed to the lid with combustibles, and labelled with the proof-mark of a new morality: not at all. I am neither oppressed nor passionate. I don’t want delivering in the least. One would think I was in the way of being food for a dragon. Even if I were, how could you get me off? We are born to what we bear; I read that a
nd liked it, a day since, in de Blamont’s last book. I mean to bear things. We all make good pack-horses in time: I shall see you at the work yet. Suppose I have to drudge and drag. Suppose I am fast to the rock with a beast coming up “out of the sad unmerciful sea.” Better women live so, and so they die. Can you kill my beast for me? I suspect not. It is not cruel. It means me no great harm: but you it will be the ruin of. It feeds on the knight rather than his lady. Do you pass by. Be my friend in a quiet way, and always. I shall be gratefuller for a kind thought of yours than for a sheer blow. The first you can afford; the last hardly. All goodwill and kindly feeling does give comfort and a pleasure to natural people who are not of a bad make to begin with. I am glad of any, for my part: and take it when I can. What more could you do for me? what better could I want? Can you change me my life from the opening of it? It began before yours was thought of; you know I am older; have been told how much, no doubt; something perhaps a thought over the truth-what matter? I will tell you what I would have done, and would do, if I could. I would begin better; I would be richer, handsomer, braver, nicer to look at and stay near, pleasanter to myself. I would be the first woman alive, and marry the first man: not an Eve though, nor Joan of Arc or Cleopatra, but something new and great. I would live more grandly than great men think. I should have all the virtues then, no doubt. I would have all I wanted, and the right and the power to feel reverence and love and honour of myself into the bargain. And my life and death should make up “ a kingly poem in two perfect books.” That would be something better than I can make my life now. I dare say I might have had a grander sort of man for my companion than I have (a better I think hardly); but then I might have been born a grander sort of woman. There is no end to all that, you see. I am very well as 1 am; all the better that I have good friends. I began as lightly as I could, and said nothing of your tone of address and advice being wrong or out of place; but now you will let me say it was a little absurd. Your desire seems to be that, because I have not all I might have (whereas I also am not all I might be), I should leave my husband and live alone, in the cultivation of noble sentiments and in vindication of female freedom and universal justice. How does it sound to you now? I do not ask you if such a proposal ever was made before. I do not even ask you if it ought ever to be listened to. I make no appeal to the opinions of the world. I say nothing of the immediate unavoidable consequences. Suppose I can go, and (on some grounds) ought to go. Are there not also reasons why I ought to stay? Reflect for a minute on results. Think, and decide for yourself whether I could leave Ernest. For no cause. Just because I can leave him, and like to show that I know I can. I ask you, is that base or not? I should be disgracing him, spoiling his life and his pleasure in it, and using my freedom to comfort my vanity at the cost of his just self-esteem and quiet content; both of which I should have robbed him of at once. I will do no such thing. I will not throw over the man who trusted and respected me-loved me in a way-gave me the care of his life. When he married me he reserved nothing. I have been used generously; I have received, at all events, more than I have given. I wish, for my own sake chiefly, that I had had more to give him. But what I have given, at least I will not take away. No, we must bear with the realities of things. We are not the only creditors. Something is due to all men that live. How much of their due do you suppose the greater part of them ever get? Was it not you who showed me long ago that passage in Chalfont’s “Essays” where he says — I have just looked it out again; my copy has a slip of paper at the page with your initials on it. “You are aware the gods owe you something, which they have not paid you as yet all you have received at their hands being hitherto insufficient? It appears also that you can help yourself to the lacking portion of happiness. Cut into the world’s loaf, then, with sharp breadknife, with steady hand; but at what cost? Living flesh as sensitive of pain as yours, living hearts as precious as your heart, as capable of feeling wrong, must be carved and cloven through. Their blood, if you dare spill it for your own sake, doubtless it shall make you fat. They, too, want something; take from them all they have, and you shall want nothing. At this price only shall a man become rich even to the uttermost fulness of his desire, that he shall likewise become content to rob the poor.” Ah, after the reading of such words as those, can we turn back to think of our own will and pleasure? Dare we remember our own poor wants and likings? I might be happier away from here; what then, my dear cousin? I might even respect myself more, feel more honourable; and this, no doubt, is the greatest personal good one can enjoy or desire: but can I take from the man who relies on me the very gift that I covet for myself? A gift, too, this one, which all may win and keep who are resolved not to lose it by their own fault. I, for one, Reginald, will not throw it away; but I will not rob others to heighten my relish of it with the stolen salt of their life. Do you remember that next bit? “And suppose now that you have eaten and are full; digesting gravely and gladly the succulence and savour of your life. Is this happiness that you have laid hold of? Look at it; one day you will have to look at it again; and other eyes than yours will. The terror of a just judgment is this, that it is a just one. The sting of the sentence is that you, your own soul and spirit, must recognize and allow that it is rightly given against you. Fear not the other eyes, not God’s nor man’s, if what is done remain right for ever in your own. Few, even among cowards, are really afraid of injustice. The meanest of them are afraid mainly of that which does at first sight look just. But is this right in your eyes, to have cut your own share out of the world in this fashion? But what sort of happiness, then, is this that you have caught hold of? The fairest, joyfullest, needfullest thing created is fire; and the fist that closes on it burns. Let go, I counsel you, the bread of cunning and violence, the sweet sources of treason and self-seeking; there are worse ends than the death of want. A soul poisoned is worse off than a starved soul.” You used to praise this man to me, saying there was no grander lover of justice in the world. Surely to such a writer liberty and truth are as dear as to you or me: and this is what he admires. An American too, as he says himself, fed with freedom, full of the love of his own right; but all great men would say as he says, and all good men would do so. I shall try at least. “ There is an end of time, and an end of the evil thereof: and when joy is gone out of thee, then shall not thy sorrow endure for long. Nevertheless thou sayest, grief shall remain with me now that I have made an end of my pleasure; but grief likewise shall not abide with thee. For before the beginning a little sorrow was ordained for thee, and also a very little pleasure; but there is nothing of thine that endureth for ever.” Do you know where I found that? In a book of my husband’s, the “ Sayings of Aboulfadir,” in a collection of translations headed “ The Wise Men of the East.” You see I am growing as philosophic as need be, and as literary. We know better than that last sentence, but is not the rest most true? You will forgive my preacher’s tone; it was hopeless trying to answer such a letter as you wrote me in a sustained light manner. I hope you are not put out with me; I may say, in ending, how sorry I should be for that. You must find other things to think of, without forgetting and throwing over old friendship. “ Plenty of good work feasible in the world somehow,” says your friend. For my poor little part, I have just to hold fast to what I have, and at least forbear doing harm. Again I ask you to forgive me if this letter has hurt you anywhere. Of course you can never show it. Farewell.