Woodbridge, July 4, [1876.]

Dear Mrs. Kemble,

Here I am back into the Country, as I may call my suburb here as compared to Lowestoft; all my house, except the one room—which ‘serves me for Parlour and Bedroom and all’ [108a]—occupied by Nieces. Our weather is temperate, our Trees green, Roses about to bloom, Birds about to leave off singing—all sufficiently pleasant. I must not forget a Box from Mudie with some Memoirs in it—of Godwin, Haydon, etc., which help to amuse one. And I am just beginning Don Quixote once more for my ‘piÈce de RÉsistance,’ not being so familiar with the First Part as the Second. Lamb and Coleridge (I think) thought that Second Part should not have been written; why then did I—not for contradiction’s sake, I am sure—so much prefer it? Old Hallam, in his History of Literature, resolved me, I believe, by saying that Cervantes, who began by making his Hero ludicrously crazy, fell in love with him, and in the second part tamed and tempered him down to the grand Gentleman he is: scarce ever originating a Delusion, though acting his part in it as a true Knight when led into it by others. [108b] A good deal however might well be left out. If you have Jarvis’ Translation by, or near, you, pray read—oh, read all of the second part, except the stupid stuff of the old Duenna in the Duke’s Palace.

I fear I get more and more interested in your ‘Gossip,’ as you approach the Theatre. I suppose indeed that it is better to look on than to be engaged in. I love it, and reading of it, now as much as ever I cared to see it: and that was, very much indeed. I never heard till from your last Paper [109a] that Henry was ever thought of for Romeo: I wonder he did not tell me this when he and I were in Paris in 1830, and used to go and see ‘Lā Muette!’ (I can hear them calling it now:) at the Grand Opera. I see that ‘Queen Mary’ has some while since been deposed from the Lyceum; and poor Mr. Irving descended from Shakespeare to his old Melodrama again. All this is still interesting to me down here: much more than to you—over there!—

‘Over there’ you are in the thick of your Philadelphian Exhibition, [109b] I suppose: but I dare say you do not meddle with it very much, and will probably be glad when it is all over. I wish now I had sent you the Miniature in its Frame, which I had instructed to become it. What you tell us your Mother said concerning Dress, I certainly always felt: only secure the Beautiful, and the Grand, in all the Arts, whatever Chronology may say. Rousseau somewhere says that what you want of Decoration in the Theatre is, what will bewilder the Imagination—‘Ébranler l’Imagination,’ I think: [110] only let it be Beautiful!

June 5.

I kept this letter open in case I should see Arthur Malkin, who was coming to stay at a Neighbour’s house. He very kindly did call on me: he and his second wife (who, my Neighbour says, is a very proper Wife), but I was abroad—though no further off than my own little Estate; and he knows I do not visit elsewhere. But I do not the less thank him, and am always yours

E. F.G.

Pollock writes me he had just visited Carlyle—quite well for his Age: and vehement against Darwin, and the Turk.