Spoke with interest of Irving. Regretted that he should have expressed his inability to preserve his original simplicity when addressing an audience of the highest classes. Thought this the feeling of a third or fourth-rate mind; that he might have been perplexed would not have derogated from his character, but to allow an audience to influence him further than the fitness of his discourse to his hearers was not to his advantage. "The most happy marriage I can picture or image to myself would be the union of a deaf man to a blind* woman." MY DEAREST FRIEND, LETTER XXI. Sept. 24th, 1821. I will begin with the beginning of your (to me most affecting) letter. Not exactly obligation, my entirely beloved and relied-on friend! The soiling hand of the world has dyed and sunk into the sense and import of the term too inseparably, for it to convey the kind and degree of what I feel towards you, on the one scale. I love you so truly, that in the first glance, as it were, and welcome of your anxious affection, it delights me for the very act's sake. I think only of it and you, or rather both are one and the same, and I live in you. Nor does the complacency suffer any abatement, but becomes more intense and lively. As a mother would talk of the soothing attentions, the sacrifices and devotion of a son, eager to supply every want and anticipate every wish, so I talk to myself concerning you; and I am proud of you, and proud to be the object of what cannot but appear lovely to my judgment, and which the hard contrast in so many heart * Whilst these pages are passing through the press, this most extraordinary conjunction has taken place at Barming, near Maidstone. withering instances forced on me by the experience of my last twenty years, compels me to feel and value with an additional glow. Lastly, it is a source of strength and comfort to know, that the labours and aspirations and sympathies of the genuine and invisible Humanity exist in a social world of their own; that its attractions and assimilations are no Platonic fable, no dancing flames or luminous bubbles on the magic cauldron of my wishes; but that there are, even in this unkind life, spiritual parentages and filiations of the soul. Can there be a counterpoise to these? Not a counterpoise-but as weights in the counter-scale there will come the self-reproach, that spite of all inauspicious obstacles, not in my power to remove without loss of self-respect, I have not done all I could and might have done to prevent my present state of dependence. I am now able to hope that I shall be capable of setting apart such a portion of my useable time to my greater work (in assertion of the ideal truths and à priori probability, and à posteriori internal and external evidence of the historic truth of the Christian religion), as to leave a sufficient portion for a not unprofitable series of articles for pecuniary supply. I entertain some hope, too, that my Logic, which I could begin printing immediately if I could find a publisher willing to undertake it on equitable terms, might prove an exception to the general fate of my publications. It is a long lane that has no turning, and while my own heart bears witness to the genial delight you would feel in assisting me, I know that you would have a more satisfactory gladness in my not needing it. of And now a few, a very few, words on the latter portion of your letter. You know, my dearest Friend, how I acted myself, and that my example cannot be urged in confirmation my judgment. I certainly strive hard to divest my mind of every prejudice, to look at the question sternly through the principle of Right separated from all mere Expedience, nay, from the question of earthly happiness for its own sake. But I cannot answer to myself that the image of any serious obstacle to your peace of heart, that the Thought of your full development of soul being put a stop to, of a secret anxiety blighting your utility by cankering your happiness, I cannot be sure I cannot be sure that this may not have made me weigh with a trembling and unsteady hand, and less than half the presumption of error, afforded by the shrinking and recoil of your moral sense or even feeling, would render it my duty and my impulse to bring my conclusion anew to the ordeal of my Reason and Conscience. But on your side, my dear Friend! try with me to contemplate the question as a problem in the science of Morals, in the first instance, and to recollect that there are false or intrusive weights possible in the other scale; that our very virtues may become, or be transformed into temptations to, or occasions of, partial judgment; that we may judge partially against ourselves from the very fear, perhaps contempt, of the contrary; that self may be moodily gratified by self-sacrifice, and that the Heart itself, in its perplexity, may acquiesce for a time in the decision as a more safe way; and, lastly, that the question can only be fully G answered, when Self and Neighbour, as equi-distant SAN from the conscience or God, are blended in the common term, a Human Being: that we are commanded to love ourselves as our Neighbour in the Law that requires a Christian to love his Neighbour as himself. But indeed I persuade myself that this dissonance is not real between us, and that it would not have seemed to exist, had I continued the subject into the possible particular cases; e. g., suppose a case in which the misery, and so far the moral incapacitation, of both parties were certainly foreseen as the immediate consequence. A morality of Consequences I, you well know, reprobate; but to exclude the necessary effect of an action is to take away all meaning from the word action-to strike Duty with blindness. I repeat it, that I do not, cannot find it in myself to believe, that on any one case, made out in all its limbs, features, and circumstances, your heart and mine would prompt different verdicts. But the thought of you personally and individually is at present too strong and stirring to permit me to reason on any points. If the weather is at all plausible, we propose to set off on Saturday. I do most earnestly wish that you could accompany us; a steam-vessel would give us three-fourths of the whole day to tête-à-tête conversation. God bless you, T. Allsop, Esq. And your affectionate and faithful friend, The affectionate interest expressed in this and the preceding letters was at the time to me a solace and support, placed as I was with relation to my immediate worldly prospects in a position of much perplexity. There were many circumstances which, as they affected others, I could not communicate so fully, convey so entirely as I desired to my respected friend; hence he altogether misapprehended the particular cause of my anxiety, or, as I doubt not, considered it irresolution and misgiving. In pursuance of the determination with which I set out, I have not hesitated thus to place on record, opinions, views, and suggestions, which, had I considered myself at liberty to make a selection, I might have omitted, for a twofold reason; one, that they concerned myself alone; the other, that I do not imagine they will interest general readers. I have adopted the plan of saying just what occurs to me at the time of writing and of giving the memorandums exactly as I find them, when I have no recollection of the circumstances; and the letters exactly as they are written (unless they contain repetitions or expressions of attachment common to all) with few omissions, and those of no importance. I should consider it a misfortune for any one to have suggested alterations or omissions in this work, as such suggestions would have disturbed or have interfered with my original determination; a determination to let my dear friend be known in all his strength and all his weakness, as far as these letters and recollections convey any clear idea of either. I might have made this work better with some aids and with longer preparation, but then it would not so well have expressed what I sought to convey. It would not have so entirely expressed my own or my late friend's opinions and convictions; and in this sense, though another might have made it better, no one but myself could have done it so well. In this view Charles Lamb coincided, though he, it seems, from the force of an early impression, never kept any letters, and therefore did not attach the importance which appears to me to belong to this department of autobiography. When asked to accompany a recent deputation to remonstrate with the present ministers, I assented, stating to my friends that I should go to read their faces, for that nature never lies. So it proved in this case; their conduct being in harmony with the conclusions I drew and expressed at the time, but in strange discrepancy with what they said. So I hold that letters, which are the transcript of the writer's mind, give more of interest and more insight into character than volumes of disquisition or surmises. "Read the Troilus and Cressida; dwelt much upon the fine distinction made by Shakspeare between the affection of Troilus and the passion of Cressida. This does not escape the notice of Ulysses, who thus depicts her the Trojan camp :— Fie! fie upon her! on her first arrival in There's language in her eye, her cheek, her lip, Nay, her foot speaks. Her wanton spirits look out At every joint of her body. Set such down For sluttish spoils of opportunity And daughters of the game.' "The profound affection of Troilus alone deserves the name of love." |