Letters of Edward Fitzgerald |
Contents
| 179 | |
| 180 | |
| 181 | |
| 185 | |
| 217 | |
| 219 | |
| 234 | |
| 238 | |
| 52 | |
| 62 | |
| 66 | |
| 76 | |
| 84 | |
| 102 | |
| 116 | |
| 126 | |
| 132 | |
| 134 | |
| 137 | |
| 154 | |
| 158 | |
| 272 | |
| 281 | |
| 296 | |
| 301 | |
| 307 | |
| 310 | |
| 320 | |
| 321 | |
| 332 | |
| 336 | |
| 339 | |
| 343 | |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
admirable Æschylus Agamemnon Aldeburgh Allen Athenæum Bacon Beccles believe Boat Book Boulge C. E. Norton Calderon called Cambridge Carlyle Carlyle's Catullus Copy Crabbe Crabbe's dare say DEAR COWELL DEAR LAURENCE DEAR NORTON DEAR POLLOCK DEAR SIR DEAR THOMPSON delightful Don Quixote Donne doubt Dunwich E. B. Cowell Edition EDWARD FITZGERALD English Euphranor Euripides Eyes fancy feel Friends GELDESTONE Genius George Crabbe glad Greek hear heard Humour Keats Kemble Lady Letter LITTLE GRANGE London look Lord Lowell Lowestoft Lucretius Lugger Madame de Sévigné MARKET HILL Miss Molière Naseby never Niece night Omar Omar Khayyám perhaps Poems Poet Pray pretty printed remember scarce seems seen sent Sévigné sincerely Sophocles Spedding Spedding's Story Suffolk suppose sure talk tell Tennyson Thackeray things thirty years ago thought told Translation Verse volume wish wonder WOODBRIDGE word Wordsworth write written wrote
Popular passages
Page 27 - Strength of mind which our Persian Friends rarely exhibit, I think. I always said about Cowley, Donne, etc., whom Johnson calls the metaphysical Poets, that their very Quibbles of Fancy showed a power of Logic which could follow Fancy through such remote Analogies. This is the case with Calderon's Conceits also. I doubt I have given but a very one-sided version of Omar : but what I do only comes up as a Bubble to the Surface, and breaks : whereas you, with exact Scholarship, might make a lasting...
Page 50 - Frederic Tennyson sent me a Photograph of WMT old, white, massive, and melancholy, sitting in his Library. I am surprized almost to find how much I am thinking of him : so little as I had seen him for the last ten years ; not once for the last five. I had been told — by you, for one — that he was spoiled. I am glad therefore that I have scarce seen him since he was 'old Thackeray'.
Page 325 - Omar's case it was different: he sang, in an acceptable way it seems, of what all men feel in their hearts, but had not had exprest in verse before: Jami tells of what everybody knows, under cover of a not very skilful Allegory. I have undoubtedly improved the whole by boiling it down to about a Quarter of its original size; and there are many pretty things in it, though the blank Verse is too Miltonic for Oriental style. All this considered, why did I ever meddle with it?
Page 326 - But some six or seven years ago that Sheikh of mine, Edward Co-well, who liked the Version better than any one else, wished it to be reprinted. So I took it in hand, boiled it down to three-fourths of what it originally was, and (as you see...
Page 285 - DEAR LORD HOUGHTON, I think I have sent you a yearly letter of some sort or other for several years, so it has come upon me once again. I have nothing to ask of you except how you are. I should just like to know that, including ' yours ' in you. Just a very few words will suffice, and I daresay you have no time for more. I have so much time that it is evident I have nothing to tell, except that I have just entered upon a military career in so far as having become much interested in the battle of...
Page 5 - I sent you poor old Omar who has his kind of Consolation for all these Things. I doubt you will regret you ever introduced him to me. And yet you would have me print the original, with many worse things than I have translated. The Bird Epic might be finished at once : but * cui bono ? ' No one cares for such things : and there are doubtless so many better things to care about. I hardly know why I print any of these things, which nobody buys ; and I scarce now see the few I give them to. But when...
Page 283 - This Dramatic Picture touches me more than Mr Arnold. One thing more I will say, that I do not know where old Wordsworth condemned Crabbe as unpoetical (except in the truly 'priggish' candle case) though I doubt not that Mr Woodberry does know. We all know that of Crabbe's 'Village' one passage was one of the first that struck young Wordsworth : and when Crabbe's son was editing his Father's Poems in 1834, old Wordsworth wrote to him that, because of their combined Truth and Poetry, those Poems would...
Page 194 - Walter Scott,' as they loftily called him : and He, dear, noble, Fellow, thought they were quite justified. Well, your Emerson has done him far more Justice than his own Countryman Carlyle, who won't allow him to be a Hero in any way, but sets up such a cantankerous narrow-minded Bigot as John Knox in his stead. I did go to worship at Abbotsford, as to Stratford on Avon : and saw that it was good to have so done.
Page 45 - ... I am now a good [deal] about in a new Boat I have built, and thought (as Johnson took Cocker's Arithmetic with him on travel, because he shouldn't exhaust it) so I would take Dante and Homer with me, instead of Mudie's Books, which I read through directly. I took Dante by way of slow Digestion : not having looked at him for some years : but I am glad to find I relish him as much as ever : he atones with the Sea ; as you know does the Odyssey — these are the Men...
Page 347 - Providence,' as Madame de Se"vigne says. To-morrow I am going (for my one annual Visit) to G. Crabbe's, where I am to meet his Sisters, and talk over old Bredfield Vicarage days. Two of my eight Nieces are now with me here in my house, for a two months