| R. PLUMER WARD. | 183 |
The following letters will, for the most part, speak for themselves.
“My dear Patmore,—Though I have neither head nor heart for writing—the one being tortured with rheumatism, and the other weighed down with anxiety,—I seem to have treated you so ill by my long silence, that I make the attempt.
“You know, perhaps, by this, that I did not accompany my mournful wife and the poor invalid to town.
“I stayed behind partly because I could not brave
London, when my heart was so full upon so sad an occasion, where daily
suspense, too, as to her fate, was worse than bereavement; partly because, in
case we were ordered to
| 184 | R. PLUMER WARD. |
“I have, however, only reaped greater uneasiness from it, in consequence of the daily miseries of the post.
“Latham is not yet decided upon anything, except that there is terrible mischief, and all the good I gather is, that she is not worse.
“Well, this is a long tale, nor do I know that it will explain, as I intend it, why I have not been able to perform my promises to you of renewing the subject of your MS., though it will account for my not calling upon you, at which you must have wondered.
“I have been reading your letter of the 20th June
again, and though, under your management, I absolutely long to see the plot of
your striking tale altered, I fear I cannot hope for an effort of such
magnitude. I enter, too, into your reasons, founded on the example of Othello, for making the king fall by the hand of
Evadne, and in their very bed. But,
then, I think, you should prepare us for it more; nay, make us ardently expect
and wish for it, by a great deal more than appears of the feeling about it in
| R. PLUMER WARD. | 185 |
“I am the more urgent about this, because I think it is the very subject in which your pen will shine, if you will undertake it. Remember, if you do, you must not be idle, or leave anything to conjecture, or suppose it the affair of a few lines; but must gird yourself to it—summon all your power of pathos, which is great,—in short, comply with Horace’s forcible direction to the true poet,
“‘Qui pectus inaniter angit,
Irritat, mulcet, falsis terrorisms implet, Ut magus.’ |
“Be the magus in this, and I will excuse you the other (I own) adventurous attempt I proposed.
“Adieu.
“My dear Patmore,—Your
letter announces great events; and, supposing the annunciation confirmed, most
truly rejoices
| 186 | R. PLUMER WARD. |
“Even without a seeming leaning towards this in your letter, my opinion on this head had forcible hold of me, and I should have written as strongly as I could to advise it. You must, however, yourself be at least as forcibly impressed with the absolute necessity there is of allowing nothing extraneous to interfere, so as to hazard a possibility of losing so great an object.
| R. PLUMER WARD. | 187 |
“I wish I could tell you anything good of my feeble girl. I hope it is not indication of the reverse, but we are totally prohibited from thinking of Okeover again, or even of England, for the next twelve months; so that our views (and that immediately) are directed to the Continent, but in the first instance to town, where we think of being in the next month.
“The blow to all my comforts, in the wane of life, is more than I can tell you, or would like to do if I could. Yours,
“Dear Patmore,—Your letter has relieved me from no little anxiety on your account. * * * *
“I will certainly give you some days’ notice if
we go to France. Upon this head, and indeed our whole position, I am really
quite unhappy. The poor sufferer is rather worse than better, and but yesterday
it was quite settled that we should embark next week for Dieppe, and thence by
land to
| 188 | R. PLUMER WARD. |
“Meanwhile, the climate here and weather are of the very devil. I am burning with heat, pierced with cold, and most uneasy in mind—in short, anything but ‘mens sana in corpore sano’—which one ought to be to give sweet counsel to a friend.
“Still, wherever I am, or in whatever condition, yours, my dear P., very truly,
“My dear Patmore,—Though I
am as willing as most to think no news good news, yet to know nothing for a
month of an
| R. PLUMER WARD. | 189 |
“For ourselves, illness seems to have taken up her permanent abode in our once happy home—happy no longer. The poor sufferer is entirely given up by the regular physicians, so as a forlorn hope we have admitted an illegitimate one, who came all the way from Plymouth to try inhaling. The process is only just begun, and a few days, I am told, will decide—not a cure—but the possibility of it—in itself more comfort than we have hitherto been allowed.
“In regard to myself, there never was a more complete
overthrow to all the happiness of my life—all old habits broken up, and, what
is worse, replaced by none; so that I should be a prey to the lassitude I feel,
and which is such as I never knew, if even I had no grief to feed by brooding
on it.
| 190 | R. PLUMER WARD. |
“Meantime, I cannot read anything but (I must not say) trash, though all I attempt are a few Novels, which by me ought not to be so vilified. And yet there are few I can get through. The authors, however, may say the same of mine, and I, at least, give them fair play.
“By the way, how is it that your certainly very clever friend, Mrs. Gore, cannot do more for me than skim along the surface? I never knew so much real talent in seizing the outside of characters, and drawing magic lantern pictures, so entirely fail in creating permanent interest. I have sent home ‘Mrs. Armytage’ a second time, without getting quite half through, and yet how clever the individual portraits!
“So I may say of Galt, Gleig, cum multis aliis.
“Not so ‘Charles Chesterfield;’* at least there the portraits are themselves so over
* By Mrs. Trollope. |
| R. PLUMER WARD. | 191 |
“By the way, who was published first, ‘De Clifford’ or ‘Chesterfield’? For Marchmont, and Paragraph, and Sourkrout, as far as the story goes, are so alike, as well, indeed, as the general account of reviewing, that, unless one copied the other, the coincidence is astonishing. I particularly mean Marchmont’s use of phrases, ready cut and dried, for books he had not read. But Marchmont is, at all events, inimitable, and true, I am sure, though I bother my brains in vain to know the original. You, who have so much more knowledge, pray tell me. I am really anxious about it.
“I suppose ‘De Clifford’ has seen its zenith, and is on the wane; yet I continue to receive letters from strangers, as well as friends, about it; and —— tells me the Duchess of —— told her it was ‘making quite a sensation on the Continent, where everybody was reading and liking it.’
“There’s for you! Ought I not to have the
Guelph? I think I shall ask for it! God help me for a blockhead, with all my
| 192 | R. PLUMER WARD. |
The following letter relates to some criticisms on those “Tales of the Olden Time” before referred to, and which were
now just published, under the title of “Chatsworth; or, the Romance of a Week: edited by the
author of ‘Tremaine,’ ‘De Vere,’ &c.” To the
surprise and confusion of its author, the whole of this work—not merely the modern
introductory framework, but the antique tales themselves—was (as before related)
universally described by its critics as “evidently” the production of Mr. Ward’s own
| R. PLUMER WARD. | 193 |
“Dear Patmore,—The
solemnity of the first part of your letter frightened me out of my wits. I
thought that both author and editor were damned beyond recovery, and that all
your modest fears about looking me
| 194 | R. PLUMER WARD. |
“This is all I will say at present, except that if you
think I have answered your questions with sufficient favour, and you really
have anything of importance enough to justify the inconvenience of quitting
your
| R. PLUMER WARD. | 195 |
|
* Alluding to the “borrowed plumes.” |
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