Aldeburgh: Sept. 1, [1882.]

My dear Mrs. Kemble,

Still by the Sea—from which I saw The Harvest Moon rise for her three nights’ Fullness. And to-day is so wet that I shall try and pay you my plenilunal due—not much to your satisfaction; for the Wet really gets into one’s Brain and Spirits, and I have as little to write of as ever any Full Moon ever brought me. And yet, if I accomplish my letter, and ‘take it to the Barber’s,’ where I sadly want to go, and, after being wrought on by him, post my letter—why, you will, by your Laws, be obliged to answer it. Perhaps you may have a little to tell me of yourself in requital for the very little you have to hear of me.

I have made a new Acquaintance here. Professor Fawcett (Postmaster General, I am told) married a Daughter of one Newson Garrett of this Place, who is also Father of your Doctor Anderson. Well, the Professor (who was utterly blinded by the Discharge of his Father’s Gun some twenty or twenty-five years ago) came to this Lodging to call on Aldis Wright; and, when Wright was gone, called on me, and also came and smoked a Pipe one night here. A thoroughly unaffected, unpretending, man; so modest indeed that I was ashamed afterwards to think how I had harangued him all the Evening, instead of getting him to instruct me. But I would not ask him about his Parliamentary Shop: and I should not have understood his Political Economy: and I believe he was very glad to be talked to instead, about some of those he knew, and some whom I had known. And, as we were both in Crabbe’s Borough, we talked of him: the Professor, who had never read a word, I believe, about him, or of him, was pleased to hear a little; and I advised him to buy the Life written by Crabbe’s Son; and I would give him my Abstract of the Tales of the Hall, by way of giving him a taste of the Poet’s self.

Yes; you must read Froude’s Carlyle above all things, and tell me if you do not feel as I do about it. Professor Norton persists [248] in it that I am proof against Froude’s invidious insinuations simply because of my having previously known Carlyle. But how is it that I did not know that Carlyle was so good, grand, and even loveable, till I read the Letters, which Froude now edits? I regret that I did not know what the Book tells us while Carlyle was alive; that I might have loved him as well as admired him. But Carlyle never spoke of himself in that way: I never heard him advert to his Works and his Fame, except one day he happened to mention ‘About the time when Men began to talk of me.’

I do not know if I told you in my last that (as you foretold me would be the case) I did not find your later Records so interesting as the earlier. Not from any falling off of the recorder, but of the material.

The two dates of this Letter arise from my having written this second half-sheet so badly that I resolved to write it over again—I scarce know whether for better or worse. I go home this week, expecting Charles Keene at Woodbridge for a week. Please to believe me (with Compliments to Mrs. Wister)

Yours sincerely always
E. F.G.