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 LETTERS 
 
 OF 
 
 THOMAS EDWARD BROWN
 
 SOME PRESS NOTICES OF THE 
 FIRST EDITION 
 
 " These volumes are not only fascinating : they 
 confirm a fame which, although never wide, was 
 always unquestioned within its range." — Mr. A. T. 
 QuiLLER-CoucH in The Monthly Review. 
 
 " A delightful hearty book of letters, by a scholar, 
 a humourist, a man full of noble qualities. The 
 book is a book to be read." — Mr. Andrew Lang 
 in the Daily News. 
 
 "Worthy of a place on the same shelves that 
 hold the letters of Horace Walpole and Cowper, 
 Lamb and Gray, and Edward FitzGerald." 
 
 Literature.
 
 LETTERS 
 
 OF 
 
 THOMAS EDWARD BROWN 
 
 AUTHOR OF 'FO'CSLE YARNS' 
 
 EDITED 
 
 WITH AN INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 
 
 BY 
 
 SIDNEY T. IRWIN 
 
 VOL. I 
 
 WESTMINSTER 
 ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE AND CO., Ltd. 
 
 2 WHITEHALL GARDENS 
 1900
 
 Second Edition 
 
 OXFORD : HORACE HART 
 PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY
 
 
 TO 
 
 HIS SISTER 
 
 AND HIS CHILDREN 
 
 THESE VOLUMES 
 
 ARE 
 
 AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED 
 
 BY HIS FRIEND 
 
 AND THEIRS 
 
 '69453
 
 PREFATORY NOTE 
 
 I DESIRE to thank those who have sent me 
 letters or helped me in other ways, and at the 
 same time to apologize to them for the publica- 
 tion of the letters being so long delayed. 
 
 Those who knew the writer will easily under- 
 stand me when I say that they were too private 
 for an intelligent copyist, and too difficult to be 
 left to an unintelligent one. Nor is the leisure 
 required for copying easily found by a school- 
 master. Some valuable letters, moreover, were 
 only recently sent me. I have also been com- 
 pelled to cut down the material at my disposal, 
 it being thought desirable that the book should 
 not be large. These excuses are real though 
 they do not claim to be adequate. 
 
 My special thanks are due to Mr. Mozley 
 and Mr. Dakyns for most helpful suggestions 
 and unsparing labour. Mr. Mozley, indeed, has 
 all along done that for a new friend which the 
 oldest friendships could not ask. 
 
 Clifton College, Bristol, 
 July, 1900.
 
 . . . XdpiTOC 'Attikhc juecTUC dnocpaivcov xac ouvouo'iac, coc 
 ToCc npoooMiAHoavxac cmievai . . . navToiouc On' eCcppocJuvHC 
 revoMevouc koi KOGjuiajrepouc napd noAC koi 9ai6pOTe'pouc 
 K«i npoc TO (JieAAov eiieAnibac. — LuciAN. 
 
 Large was his soul ; as large a soul as e'er 
 Submitted to inform a body here. 
 High as the place 'twas shortly in Heav'n to have, 
 
 But low and humble as his grave. 
 So high, that all the virtues there did come, 
 As to the chiefest seat 
 Conspicuous and great ; 
 So low that for me too it made a room. — Cowley. 
 
 Speravi ....... 
 
 Credulus heu longos, ut quondam, fallere soles ; 
 
 At tu, sancta anima et nostri non indiga luctus, 
 
 . . . quod possum, iuxta lugere sepulchrum 
 
 Dum iuvat, et mutae vana haec iactare favillae. — Gray.
 
 INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 
 
 These volumes need no apology. ' Request of 
 friends ' is indeed the occasion of their being- published, 
 but not the justification. Everything in hterature 
 that can be called sui generis deserves to see the 
 light ; and of the most characteristic of these letters 
 it may at least be said that they do not resemble any 
 others to be found in literature. This does not of 
 necessity imply an attempt to place the writer in the 
 highest class of letter-writers, or indeed to place him 
 at all. Comparative estimates in this kind are seldom 
 satisfactory. It is enough to claim for these letters, 
 what cannot be claimed for the letters of every man 
 of genius, that their individuality and variety are 
 a perpetual surprise — were a perpetual surprise even 
 to those who knew the writer best. As one of his 
 friends put it, ' You never come to the end of Brown.' 
 
 There has been much talk of late about the art 
 of letter-writing. Mr. John Morley, I think, pro- 
 duced a class-Hst of the masters of the craft ; and 
 a brilhant article in the Nineteenth Century of 
 July, 1898, discussed with delightful copiousness their
 
 lo INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 
 
 different fascinations. An examination of the styles 
 there passed in review would support what I have 
 said of the novelty of this contribution to epistolary 
 literature. Gray, Cowper, Byron, Lamb, Fitzgerald, 
 not one of these has a manner of which Brown's 
 could be called a reproduction, or to which his 
 manner could really be compared. If there is in 
 it something of the allusiveness of Lamb, it is still 
 not Lamb's allusiveness but his own. Cowper and 
 Fitzgerald — separated as they are by something like 
 a century — have that in common which is emphati- 
 cally not a characteristic of these letters. Cowper 
 wrote, he said, ' nothing above the pitch of every- 
 day scribble ' : and no admirer of Brown could 
 contend that his slightest fragment could be so 
 described ; while the ' carelessness ' which so charms 
 us in Fitzgerald is no less absent. Brown knew he 
 was not careless. ' I like,' he said, ' to please my 
 friends.' But in Pope's phrase, ' There's a happiness 
 as well as care ' ; and the best things in these letters, 
 like the best things in the writer's conversation, 
 came with a rush of spontaneity, and were lavished 
 indifferently on the simple and the cultivated. 
 
 This introduction is not intended to anticipate the 
 reader's judgment on the letters. That the man who 
 wrote them was rarely gifted is a fact sufficiently 
 obvious to the small public who know his poems ; 
 and the conviction that a similar verdict would be 
 passed upon his letters has made his friends desire 
 their publication. 
 
 Brown acquired his manner early, and it is noticeable 
 even in his undergraduate letters. A week or so
 
 INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR ii 
 
 before his death he spoke to me of some of them with 
 satisfaction, having read them over again at his sister's 
 house, after the lapse of nearly half a century. He 
 contrasted them, I remember, with others only a 
 little earlier, which seemed to him hopelessly crude. 
 In the earliest letters I have been shown there is 
 nothing to call for so harsh a judgment, but they 
 are wholly unlike those with which all his friends are 
 familiar ; and while the religious sentiment in them 
 is unquestionably sincere, it employs a language more 
 conventional than can be anywhere discovered in his 
 later manner. On the other hand, it should be said 
 that the letters to which I am referring were written 
 by a youth — at most by a very young man — to a 
 revered senior to whom he was under great obliga- 
 tions. I am justified in using the phrase ' wholly 
 unlike his later manner,' but there is in them at times 
 a startling precocity of phrase that prepares us for 
 that penetrating vigour which is perhaps the most 
 obvious characteristic of the letters taken as a whole. 
 
 Moreover, these earliest letters show a force of 
 character and a determination remarkable in a boy 
 of eighteen, a fixed resolve to do the best for himself 
 and for his mind. They show, too, something which 
 was true of him all through his life — that he would 
 carry out no resolve, however cherished, at the 
 expense of gratitude, or courtesy, or consideration for 
 others. I have drawn freely on them for the purposes 
 of this memoir, though I have not inserted them 
 among the other letters, for the man is there un- 
 questionably, even if the letter-writer is less recog- 
 nizable.
 
 12 INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 
 
 It is much hoped that the friend to whom is 
 inscribed the ' Epistle,' which some at least would 
 rank first among Brown's poems, may be induced 
 to give the world an adequate biography. For the 
 purpose of this work a mere outline of his life, enough 
 to serve as commentary to the letters, is all that is 
 required. 
 
 Even to the biographer proper his life will be 
 found curiously devoid of incident. It was by de- 
 liberate choice the vita fallens. Reading and writing 
 poetry, seeing or writing to his friends, taking long 
 solitary walks, were to him satisfying pursuits ; for 
 common ambitions he had no use. 
 
 In distinguished company he was not unfrequently 
 silent, and never claimed position or recognition for 
 himself. ' Recognition,' says a lady who knew him 
 well, ' he never seemed to expect.' Yet he was quite 
 alive to his own powers (as may be seen in more than 
 one notable passage in the letters), though content, 
 like Goldsmith, to draw his bills on posterity. Once 
 when I remarked on the omission of his name in an 
 article on ' Minor Poets ' in one of the magazines, he 
 said with a smile, ' Perhaps I am among the major ! ' 
 
 The friend who spoke of his indifference to recog- 
 nition also dwelt on the singular combination in him 
 of extreme modesty with a certain proud reserve. 
 There were, in truth, two selves in him — one which 
 mixed with his fellows on terms of perfect equality, 
 and another which inhabited a land of dreams : he 
 was never tired of insisting on the value of dreams. 
 Yet his dreams were not dreamy but rather open 
 visions, great— perhaps his greatest — realities. And
 
 INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 13 
 
 here too he conversed on terms of equality with 
 somebody or something ; one may surmise with the 
 Muses. ' I never am, and never can be alone,' is 
 a phrase in one of the letters. An old pupil, who 
 had been much with him, once said to me when 
 I thought I was beginning to know him well, ' You 
 must not think you know all about Brown because 
 you see so much of him. However intimate he may 
 be with his friends, there is quite another Brown who 
 takes long sohtary walks on the Downs,' 
 
 I have been often reminded, when I reflected on 
 the scant public recognition his rare gifts had re- 
 ceived, of a story in Valerius Maximus. I fancied 
 he must often in those dreams of his have heard 
 Apollo saying to him what the disappointed musician 
 said to his favourite pupil when the theatre refused 
 to applaud — cane utihi ei inusi's f 
 
 A life so full of interest, and so barren of incident, 
 is not an easy one to record ; but it is one of the 
 blessings conferred by great letter-writers that they 
 tell the most difficult part of their story — the part 
 which needs no external stimulus to heighten its 
 interest — ^with a fullness impossible to the biographer. 
 Still any biographical comment is some help, and 
 I will put down here what I have been able to 
 gather about Brown's early days and the home from 
 which he came. 
 
 Thomas Edward Brown was born in the Isle of Man 
 on May 5, 1830. He was the sixth of ten children. 
 His father, the Rev. Robert Brown, was then living in 
 Douglas, and was Incumbent of St. Matthew's Church, 
 Brown's last verses, written some two months before
 
 14 INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 
 
 his death (a new^ church was to be erected on the 
 site of the old one), showed how deeply he was 
 thrilled by the associations of that early time, though 
 too remote for reminiscence : for he was only two years 
 old when his father was made Vicar of Kirk Braddan, 
 near Douglas. 
 
 The verses on ' Kirk Braddan Vicarage,' as well 
 as the poem called ' Old John,' crowded as they are 
 with reminiscence, illustrate with a more searching 
 force and a greater fullness what associations meant 
 to him. Life ' rooted in the past ' was a favourite 
 theme, and what he would have called a back-seeking 
 note was never absent from thought and speech. He 
 was often saddened with the haunting consciousness 
 of how little would survive him of that past to which 
 he clung so tenderly. 
 
 The Vicarage was a low white house, with an 
 upper floor that sloped as in old inns. The garden 
 was in squares of fruit and vegetables, and bordered 
 by flower-beds. The flowers were chiefly moss and 
 cabbage roses, narcissus and wallflowers. It is not 
 unimportant to mention these things, as flowers had 
 an extraordinary fascination for him, and his letters 
 are full of them — of his delight in his first crocuses, 
 of the melancholy suggested by snowdrops, of the 
 delicate bog-bean in the marshes, and the hopeful 
 honeysuckle so early in leaf I remember bringing 
 him yellow flags (wild iris) at Clifton, and his telling 
 me at once of the one place in his island where he 
 had found them. He thought too he could remember 
 when the fuchsia, now so abundant there, was com- 
 
 ' There was a bazaar in aid of the fund raised for a new St. 
 Matthew's ; and T. E. B. was asked to contribute verses.
 
 INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 15 
 
 paratively rare in gardens. Again, when I was staying 
 at Clevedon in 1897, he told me to notice how the 
 smell of the sea mingled with the smell of the wall- 
 flower on the walls above it. 
 
 To the east the view from Braddan Vicarage in- 
 cluded a strip of sea. The house looked south-east, 
 and that view was bounded by Douglas Head. There 
 were fields beyond the garden — the scene of the 
 potato-picking and hay-carrying described in ' Old 
 John ' — and the house was sheltered by trees, ash and 
 sycamore. 
 
 No phrases of a meagre memoir can tell how 
 Brown's boyhood nourished itself in the uneventful 
 life at the Vicarage, but it can be guessed from the 
 two poems I have mentioned, and from the letters. 
 
 ' Old John,' the old Scotch man-servant, was, I have 
 been told, a rather crabbed specimen of humanity ; 
 but it is clear that the strength of his character and 
 affections were of a kind to make a deep impres- 
 sion on an imaginative temper, and to such a temper 
 his companionship would be both enlarging and 
 enlightening. 
 
 Brown was fifteen^ before he went to King William's 
 College. Till that age he was taught arithmetic and 
 book-keeping by the parish schoolmaster, and English 
 and the elements of Latin by his father. 
 
 The vicar's eyesight was weak, and he made his 
 boys read to him, sometimes four hours at a stretch. 
 The historical English classics were read over and 
 over. In one of the letters speaking of the value 
 of the Waverley Novels, and how they supplied the 
 
 ^ He was not seventeen when his father died — very suddenly.
 
 1 6 INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 
 
 historical impulse, Brown mentions that he and one 
 of his brothers lined their bedroom with a series 
 of historical portraits. With these readings and the 
 company of the Waverleys there would seem to have 
 been no lack of education in the most real sense 
 during this early period. 
 
 The Vicar of Braddan was no ordinary man. Of 
 this his published sermons, some of which I have read, 
 are sufficient evidence. His son loved to tell of an 
 occasion when he noticed a distinguished stranger in 
 the congregation arrested and surprised into earnest 
 attention by a preacher so uncommon. 
 
 He was so fastidious about composition that he 
 would make his son read some fragment of an 
 English classic to him before answering an invitation ! 
 There were those who could not understand how a man 
 so conspicuous for Evangelical piety could attach so 
 much importance to a question of style and manner. 
 But his son was not one of them. ' To my father,' he 
 said, ' style was like the instinct of personal cleanliness.' 
 
 He wrote verse as well as prose ; and the family 
 were proud to remember that one of his published 
 poems had brought him an appreciative letter from 
 Wordsworth. Though Brown did not rate very high 
 his father's poetical powers, he was much moved by 
 his verses ; and once sent me a hymn of his father's, 
 for which, from its associations, the bygone manner 
 being one of them, he had a feeling that could not be 
 described as mere filial tenderness. He described his 
 father's manner as stern and undemonstrative ; if he 
 liked his son's reading, or approved of verses which 
 he had set him to write, I think the eulogistic phrase
 
 INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 17 
 
 was, ' That will do, sir ' ; or surprising him at the 
 piano and evidently pleased, he would merely say, 
 ' Go on, sir.' But it seems he had much potential 
 emotion, and this appeared from time to time, though 
 characteristically enough in the pulpit and not in the 
 Vicarage. It is recorded of ' Old John ' that he liked 
 his master's sermons best ' when he was crying ' ! 
 When Brown spoke of himself as ' a born sobber,' 
 perhaps he was conscious of deriving some small part 
 of his emotional inheritance even from this severely 
 reticent and self-contained father. 
 
 Mr. Brown was never at a University, and his 
 scholarly habit of mind was therefore a very striking 
 proof of originality — such habits being rarely formed 
 without more encouragement. 
 
 I may seem to have written of Brown's father at 
 disproportionate length for so slight a memoir. There 
 is, however, one very interesting letter which may be 
 the clearer for this commentary ; and to me, at least, 
 there was in all that Brown told of his father (and he 
 spoke to me constantly of him) that which shed an 
 uncommon light on his own pieties and sympathies. 
 
 Brown's mother was of Scotch extraction, though 
 born in the Island : and her son would often say how 
 much of the latent Scotchman in him rushed to the 
 surface when he was in Scotland, or taking part in 
 some Burns commemoration, 
 
 Mrs. Brown ^ was a diligent reader all her life, and 
 
 ' Cf. p. 118. His brother Hugh, there spoken of as 'his mother's 
 own child,' was the eminent Baptist clergyman, Minister of Myrtle 
 Street Chapel, Liverpool. T. E. B. always spoke not only of his 
 brother being far better known than himself, but as though he de- 
 served to be. 
 
 I B
 
 1 8 INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 
 
 a great reader of poetry. Besides literary feeling, she 
 had a keen wit — a more daring and masculine wit, 
 her son has told me, than is common in women — and 
 strong practical common sense. Of her son's aifection 
 for her, of his consciousness of all he owed to her and 
 had inherited from her, of his self-denying efforts to 
 help her, there is testimony of every kind. 
 
 As he became older, I at least noticed a growing 
 likeness to her portrait. 
 
 Brown was shy and timid, his sister says, as a boy, 
 with a shyness that never quite left him ; but he 
 none the less lived by choice in the very centre of the 
 family, and could do his lessons, sitting with them 
 and joining in the talk. 
 
 It would seem that the beginnings of his life, hke 
 his life as a whole, never needed the stimulus of events. 
 Mind and character, imagination and observation, 
 fostered as they were by his mother's force and 
 brightness and his father's high standards in study 
 and in taste, grew and throve on a smaller experience, 
 on fewer aids to reflection, than Avould suffice for 
 natures less happily constituted and conditioned. 
 
 Of Brown's school-days I have some reminiscences 
 from three of his oldest friends — from Archdeacon 
 Gill, Rector of Kirk Andreas in the Isle of Man, from 
 the Archdeacon of Manchester, the Rev. J. M. Wilson, 
 and from the Vice-Chancellor of Oxford, Dr. Fowler, 
 President of Corpus. Archdeacon Gill was his 
 ' class-fellow and close friend during the whole of 
 his time at King William's College' (1846- 1849). 
 He recalls how Brown's ' easy translations from the 
 classics excited the admiration of the Form, and how
 
 INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 19 
 
 our head master, Dr. Dixon, with whom he was 
 a special favourite, praised them.' He distinguished 
 himself too in verse composition, Greek, Latin, and 
 English ; the last — ' a regular week-day exercise 
 with us in those days — gave promise of the remarkable 
 poetic power which he afterwards developed.' Arch- 
 deacon Gill wishes, as all Brown's friends must wish, 
 that these early efforts had been preserved. 
 
 At school, apparently, ' he would not attempt to 
 study mathematics, for which he had a decided dis- 
 taste,' but at Oxford he laboured at them painfully, 
 and in a letter to Archdeacon Moore ^ he not only 
 speaks of mathematics ' taking up much of his time 
 in the vacation and puzzling him unmercifully,' but 
 also refers in most grateful terms to the mathematical 
 Tutor of Christ Church^, ' the kindest and most diligent 
 of men,' who was then leaving Oxford for the living 
 of Sheering in Essex. ' His kindness to me was very 
 great, and the patience with which he sat down to 
 the investigation of my somewhat puerile difficulties, 
 admirable. I could not have experienced a greater 
 loss. There was a kind of emulation between us ; he 
 worked, and I worked, and his example had greater 
 influence with me than his precepts. He hkes a steady 
 workman in preference, I fancy, to a man of very 
 brilliant parts, so that I suited him pretty well.' 
 
 I have thought it worth while to insert this reference 
 to college days, as showing that the consciousness of 
 easy power which came to him at school was not 
 enough for him when largely by his own force of 
 will he had secured an entrance into the University, 
 
 ' July 16, 1850. 2 The late Canon Hill. 
 
 B 2
 
 20 INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 
 
 and had resolved it should yield to him all it had 
 to give. So strong was this resolve that in the same 
 letter he confesses to over-v\rorking, ' reading some- 
 times twelve hours a day and even more, and rising 
 from his labour with his brain almost on fire.' 
 
 Archdeacon Gill speaks of him as ' emphatically 
 a manly, vigorous boy,' but ' being a day-boy he was 
 seldom at school during the hours of play, and I do 
 not remember ever to have seen him taking part in 
 any school game.' 
 
 These reminiscences conclude with a sentence on 
 which perhaps the only comment needed is that 
 suggested by the writer, that only Brown's friends 
 knew Brown, and not all of them. ' He had then, 
 as throughout his life, a strong sense of humour, with 
 a keen eye for any little peculiarity of voice, or accent, 
 or manner, and it is to be feared that his rather in- 
 discreet use of his great power of mimicry sometimes 
 gave offence to those who did not know (as his more 
 intimate friends did) how incapable his kindly, gentle 
 soul was of willingly hurting any one's feelings.' 
 
 Dr. Fowler, who was Brown's junior by a year 
 and a half, mentions that among his school-fellows 
 were Dean Farrar and Professor Beesly. He himself, 
 he says, did not become acquainted with Brown till 
 August, 1848 (he entered the school in January), 
 when he was promoted into the head Form. ' As 
 soon,' he goes on, ' as we began to have our lessons 
 together, we seemed drawn to each other by some 
 natural aflSnity. We were both day-boys, and, as 
 our roads lay in the same direction, frequently walked 
 home or to school together. Our intimacy matured,
 
 INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 21 
 
 and these casual walks were soon developed into 
 afternoon walks on half-holidays. On these occasions, 
 our conversation was not about athletics, as it might 
 have been in these days, but about literature, history, 
 politics, theology, and, perhaps above all, about the 
 beautiful scenery amidst which we rambled. To those 
 who know the southern portion of the Isle of Man, 
 the attraction of this last topic will not seem strange 
 when I mention the rocks at Scarlet, vSouth Barrule, 
 Langness Point, Derby Haven, Balla Salla, Kirk 
 Malew, Kirk Santon, &c. Brown was already an 
 enthusiast about the scenery of his native island, and 
 it was not long after our acquaintance began before 
 I detected the touch of genius which was characteristic 
 of him throughout life.' 
 
 Archdeacon Wilson was too much Brown's junior 
 to know him at school, but his reminiscences seem 
 almost the more vivid for that fact. 
 
 ' I can well remember,' he says, ' as a small boy of 
 eleven just placed in the fifth class at King William's 
 College, having Brown pointed out to me, not without 
 awe. He was said " to know more than any master " ! 
 and " to have written the best Latin prose that the 
 University examiners had ever seen " ! F. W. Farrar 
 had just left the school, and was remembered. 
 T. Fowler was there still ; and other giants, whom 
 we looked at with reverence. But Brown we thought 
 was more than they. Wherever he was, there was 
 life at its fullest. Of course he never saw or spoke 
 to a youngster like me. 
 
 ' He lived somewhere on " The Green," and walked 
 up, about half a mile, to school. It was only then that
 
 22 INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 
 
 I saw him, coming to school or leaving it, with his 
 friends. But I remember the shouts of joyous laughter ; 
 the pause in the walk ; the head thrown back ; the 
 grave listening, lips tightly closed ; the explosion into 
 words, and the talk endless, varied, brilliant.' 
 
 ' This was from August, 1848, to March, 1849, during 
 which months his school-days and mine overlapped. 
 If I had never seen him again, he would live as a 
 distinct figure in my memory. 
 
 ' Five years afterwards he was there at a prize-day, 
 when my twin -brother and I carried off a good many 
 prizes. The great Oxford scholar spoke to the pro- 
 mising schoolboy, and a life-long friendship began. 
 
 ' His memory was always fresh in the College. 
 A year or two later, but before he came back as 
 a master, I was present at a prize-day, and pro- 
 posed cheers for some distinguished old members of 
 the school. Major Anderson was present, who so 
 gallantly defended Lucknow, and Captain GriflSths, 
 my own contemporary, another hero of the Mutiny. 
 But I let myself go about Brown also ; and the school 
 showed that they had not forgotten him, and that he 
 was among their demigods.' 
 
 I may mention that Mrs. Williamson, Brown's sister, 
 well remembered this occasion — the eulogy and its 
 reception. 
 
 Brown left school in March, 1849, ^""^ rQ.?A by him- 
 self at home till he went up to Oxford in October. 
 
 The interval seems to have been an anxious one, 
 and even before he left school he was considering his 
 future and writing about it to his revered friend 
 Archdeacon Moore. His gratitude to this friend was
 
 INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 23 
 
 warmly expressed at the time, but he has left a more 
 enduring record of it in some reminiscences ^ written 
 for another friend long afterwards. 
 
 In these letters he discusses ways and means most 
 earnestly, asks about the societies which help those 
 who require assistance to go to the University, and 
 discusses his claim on the fund which had been estab- 
 lished in aid of the widows and children of clergy 
 in the Manx diocese. In speaking of this he is most 
 careful to provide against any infringement of his 
 mother's claim. ' I cannot long remain ^ dependent 
 upon her, and if I cannot procure, by some means 
 or other, maintenance at the University, I must 
 enter upon some other employment less congenial 
 to my tastes, but more satisfactory to my finances 
 than literature.' 
 
 ' My hopes may be, and indeed I fear are, too 
 sanguine, but they can never be realized as a matter 
 of course without making a trial. . . . With regard 
 to my age, I was eighteen last May.' 
 
 ' Literature ' — ' sanguine hopes.' The schoolboy 
 of eighteen may have thought of another and more 
 ambitious fulfdraent even than a brilliant University 
 career, but assuredly the man had his share of the 
 'employment most congenial to him,' however impeded 
 by others less congenial. 
 
 Some of his friends had suggested a Dublin degree, 
 it being possible to stand for examinations for a degree 
 there without residence. In common with all who 
 
 * Vide infra, Appendix. I am indebted for them to the kindness 
 of the Rev. E. Kissack, then Curate of Kirk Andreas. The occasion 
 was the dedication of a memorial in the church to the Archdeacon. 
 
 * Letter to Archdeacon Moore, November 24, 1848.
 
 24 INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 
 
 have any sentiment about a University, and not least 
 with all who have a sentiment about Trinity College, 
 Dubhn, this ' hocus-pocus fashion of going to Dublin ' 
 was ' repugnant ' to the boy of eighteen ; his object 
 was — ' not a degree at any price to cover my naked- 
 ness, but the acquisition of academical learning.' 
 
 Eventually, through the efforts of Archdeacon 
 Moore and the Bishop of St. Asaph (Dr. Short), he 
 was admitted by Dean Gaisford to a servitorship at 
 Christ Church. ' The opening is made,' he writes. 
 ' I trust I shall never forget to whom I owe the first 
 application of the wedge.' 
 
 What the position of a servitor was between 
 1850 and 1852 he himself told the public in an article 
 in Macmillan's Magazine ; and though I have heard 
 that there is exaggeration in this article, there is no 
 doubt he did not exaggerate what the position was 
 to him. I have heard him refer to it over and 
 over again with a dispassionate bitterness which 
 there was no mistaking. There were, however, 
 escapes. He must be thought, he fears, ' a very dis- 
 contented restless being. . . . After all, the lines 
 have fallen unto me in comparatively pleasant 
 places.' One of his letters to his mother gives an 
 account of a great walk to Cumnor full of literary 
 and other interest, and Dr. Fowler ' retains a vivid 
 recollection of many pleasant rambles with him 
 through Bagley Wood, Stow Wood (both of which 
 were then unenclosed), over Shotover, Boar's Hill, 
 and specially through the Happy Valley, which was 
 his favourite walk.' He speaks, too, of Brown's 
 ' racy anecdotes picked up in the vacations ' ; of
 
 INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 2^ 
 
 literary conversation ; how he luxuriated in English 
 poetry, and how fond he was of ' such quaint books as 
 Wood's Atkenae Oxonienses' 
 
 ' Going on the river up Godstow way,' as well as 
 other pleasant things, are recorded in the letters. Not 
 the least is the kindness and appreciation of Dean 
 Gaisford ' in all his dealings with me.' Yet that 
 excellent man and famous scholar, for whom Brown 
 had an unbounded admiration, absolutely refused to 
 nominate him, after his two First Classes, to a Student- 
 ship, though lu-ged to do so by all the resident 
 Students (Tutors and Censors included). ' " A servi- 
 tor," he says, " never has been elected Student— ^;^^t? 
 he never shall be " — an interesting specimen of ratio- 
 cination ' ! ! After this, the bitterness about the ser- 
 vitorship is hardly to be wondered at. At any rate, 
 he records that the first night after his double First 
 was ' one of the most intensely miserable I was ever 
 called to endure.' 
 
 Besides the Dean, Dr. Jacobson, Regius Professor 
 of Divinity, was very kind and appreciative, sending 
 him a present of books on account of his excellent 
 examination in the Craven Scholarship. It is also 
 very pleasant to hear of ' the delight, the sincere and 
 unaffected heartiness with which the men (both Tutors 
 and undergrads {sic)) congratulated ' him on his 
 First. 
 
 There was another kind of ' escape ' on which he 
 lays characteristic emphasis — music ; perhaps at all 
 times the greatest solace of his life. ' R. possesses 
 an excellent piano, and was agreeably surprised to 
 find that I was more than a match for him on that
 
 26 INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 
 
 instrument. I do not know of anything that gave 
 me more pleasure during the whole Term than that 
 pleasant ramble over the keys, after my two months' 
 fast; 
 
 There is an allusion in one of his early letters to 
 his pleasure in Aristophanes ; and I have heard him 
 describe how the lecturer would leave the construing 
 to him and another undergraduate of similar vivacity, 
 and how it was a sort of eTitSet^t? of emulation in 
 reproducing the spirit of the original — even to the 
 giving of Scotch or Irish equivalents for the dialect 
 passages. 
 
 I have already mentioned his close reading in his 
 early Oxford days, but from this he desisted in 
 vacation, at least latterly, even confessing to ' a re- 
 actionary fit of laziness ' ; but it is characteristic that 
 the next sentence speaks of the helpfulness of the 
 school library ; ' a library, by-the-bye, which seems 
 to exist for my special use and benefit, for I don't 
 know of any one besides myself who troubles it 
 much.' 
 
 His feeling about libraries was always the same. 
 Within the last ten years I remember his speaking to 
 me of some eminent person who had asked him to 
 lunch. ' I shall think quite differently of him now,' 
 he said. ' After lunch he took me to his library, and 
 left me there aloiie^ for two hours.' The humanity 
 of this greatly impressed him. 
 
 ' His academical career,' says Dr. Fowler, ' may be 
 truly described as a peculiarly brilliant one.' He not 
 only obtained a double First Class in 1853, but 
 ' found himself in April, 1 854, in the proud position
 
 INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 21 
 
 of a Fellow of Oriel.' Bishop Fraser was one of the 
 examiners, and long afterwards spoke to one of 
 Brown's friends of his English Essay in the Fellowship 
 examination. 
 
 One of the things I remember which he referred 
 to with genuine gratification was an evening at Oriel 
 not long after his election, when he sat next Dean 
 Church, who consulted him, with a most compli- 
 mentary deference, on some literary point. 
 
 ' He never took kindly,' Dr. Fowler thinks, ' to 
 the life of an Oxford Fellow.' ' He had no wish,' he 
 wrote as an undergraduate to Archdeacon Moore, 
 ' to fatten on a Fellowship,' ' an Oxford Tutorship did 
 not attract him ' ; and after a few terms of private 
 pupils he returned to his native island, and presently 
 accepted the oflSce of Vice- Principal of King William's 
 College \ 
 
 In the following year (1857) Dr. Fowler 'had the 
 pleasure of making a journey to the Isle of Man for 
 the purpose of marrying him, at the quaint little church 
 of Kirk Maughold, to his cousin Miss Stowell, the 
 daughter of Dr. Stowell of Ramsey.' 
 
 While he was a bachelor master at King William's 
 College, Mr. Wilson used to ' spend short portions of 
 Cambridge vacations with him ' in his lodgings at 
 Derby Haven. ' What do I recall ? First, the little 
 fishing-boat or skiff. In glorious early mornings or 
 half- holiday afternoons, out we would go into the 
 " Race " that runs off Fort Island and Langness, with 
 a long line to catch mackerel, in a breeze that 
 
 ' He was ordained deacon before leaving Oxford : he did not 
 proceed to priest's orders till near the end of his time at Clifton.
 
 28 INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 
 
 brought the gunwale far nearer to the water than 
 I liked. 
 
 And he'd sit in the starn and he'd tuck his tails, 
 And well he knew how to handle the sails. 
 
 And then there were the evenings in his lodgings, 
 or elsewhere, with Van Laun or others. O nodes 
 ce7iaeque deuni / the cenae simple enough. But 
 such stories and conversations, and involuntary 
 mimicry — every stor^"^ told so as to reproduce the very 
 man of whom the story w^as told. Then he went to 
 the Crypt School \ Gloucester, and I went to Rugby.' 
 
 The time at Gloucester he greatly disliked, though 
 he tells his mother he is gradually become very 
 thick-skinned in presence of annoyances ; but he 
 does not deny his longing for his island, and is 
 ' one of the most patriotic exiles it can boast,' quite 
 thrilled by the associations of heather and gorse w^hen 
 he finds them in the Forest of Dean. 
 
 He still corresponded with Mr. Wilson ; and when 
 the Bishop of Hereford (Dr. Percival) was appointed 
 to Chfton College, he asked Mr. Wilson if he knew of 
 some one to take the Modern Side. ' I named Brown ; 
 and he came over (to Rugby) to be interviewed. He 
 spent an evening at my lodgings. About half a dozen 
 
 ' There is but one thing of importance to chronicle about what he 
 called 'the Gloucester episode.' The letters that survive are not 
 many, and not specially characteristic. I only remember one phrase 
 (besides those in the letters printed) that could be so described. It 
 is about the Great Exhibition of 1862 — ' this bewildering madhouse of 
 the arts'! The one thing of importance is the fact that his friend 
 Mr. W. E. Henley was his pupil at Gloucester. I believe they did 
 not meet for more than thirty years. Young as Mr. Henley was at 
 the time, Brown had made an indelible impression, and the}' corre- 
 sponded for years before they met.
 
 INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 29 
 
 of us dined there. I warned Brown that he must be 
 on his good behaviour. He did not take my advice. 
 Never was Brown so great. I still remember the 
 Manx songs with their odd discordant pianoforte 
 accompaniment and final shriek ; the paradoxes ; the 
 torrent of fun and talk ; and the stories : — 
 
 Stories, stories, nothing but stories, 
 Spinnin' away to the height of your glories. 
 
 Percival, I think, was the first to leave, his usual 
 gravity having been completely shattered ^. Next 
 morning I asked him, not without anxiety, what he 
 thought of Brown. " Oh, he'll do," said Percival. 
 And so he came to Clifton -.' 
 
 But this was not the only interview. The Bishop 
 of Hereford recalls another, and a characteristically 
 different one. The varmin et imitabile in Brown 
 was called out by nothing so much as by places, and 
 the mood in Rugby was not the mood in Oxford, 
 
 ' You ask me,' the Bishop writes, ' about T. E. 
 Brown's coming to Clifton, and I can only reply that 
 I have no story to tell about it. The events of 
 thirty-six years have overlaid the memory of our first 
 acquaintance. It will, however, interest all Cliftonians 
 
 ' A description of another such evening may be quoted from some 
 reminiscences communicated by Canon Rawnsley to Mr. J. R. Mozley. 
 He recalls ' specially a long after-supper-time at the Head at Kes- 
 wick, when one went right through a great part of "The Doctor" before 
 one thought of the stars and the rising moon, and the weary landlady 
 and the locked house-door, and the work of the morrow. And one 
 stole back home a guilty and ashamed thing to find the light above 
 Skiddaw, which had never quite died, was moving towards Helvellyn, 
 and one felt that bed was almost an impossibility ; one had been so 
 wakened all over by Brown's wild spirits, his loud peals of laughter, 
 his merry wit, his boisterous almost schoolboy fun.' 
 * In the year 1863.
 
 30 INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 
 
 to know that it is to our friend Archdeacon Wilson, 
 himself destined afterwards to contribute so much to 
 the life of the school, that Clifton owes T. E. B, and 
 all the wealth of associations that cluster round his 
 name and his memory. 
 
 ' By some strange mischance he had become Head 
 Master of the Crypt School, Gloucester. How he got 
 there I do not know. The explanation may possibly 
 be the very simple one that the brilliant young Fellow 
 of Oriel, characteristically disregarding all thoughts of 
 worldly prospects, and yielding to the impulse of his 
 romantic Manx temperament, had married his cousin 
 and turned his back on Oxford; and so, like many 
 another poor man, had to take up such work as came 
 to hand. 
 
 ' Mr. Wilson having told me about him, I made an 
 appointment to see him in Oxford, and there, as 
 chance would have it, I met him standing at the 
 corner of St. Mary's Entry, in a somewhat Johnsonian 
 attitude, four-square, his hands deep in his pockets to 
 keep himself still, and looking decidedly volcanic^. 
 
 ' We very soon came to terms, and I left him there 
 under promise to come to Clifton as my colleague at 
 the beginning of the following Term ; and, needless 
 
 * The Bishop of Hereford has elsewhere given a larger meaning 
 to this epithet. ' To compare Brown with the average run of even 
 the most distinguished men who are all around us is like trying to 
 compare the Bay of Naples with an English bay or Scotch loch. 
 We can find plenty of beauty in the familiar northern scenes ; but 
 we miss the pent-up forces, the volcanic outbursts, the tropic glow, 
 and all the surprisingly manifold and tender and sweet-scented out- 
 pourings of soil and sunshine, so spontaneous, so inexhaustibly rich, 
 and with the great heat of fire burning and palpitating underneath 
 all the time.'
 
 INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 31 
 
 to say, St. Mary's Entry has had an additional interest 
 to me ever since, 
 
 ' Sometimes I have wondered, and it would be worth 
 a good deal to know, what thoughts were coursing 
 through that richly furnished, teeming brain as he 
 stood there by St. Mary's Church, with Oriel College 
 in front of him — thoughts of his own struggles and 
 triumphs, and of all the great souls that had passed to 
 and fro over the pavement around him ; and all set in 
 the lurid background of the undergraduate life to which 
 he had been condemned as a servitor at Christ Church. 
 
 ' His father's well-intentioned friend the Archdeacon 
 of Man, knowing the scanty resources of the Manx 
 parsonage and the need of economy, but apparently 
 not knowing either the temperament or the genius of 
 the boy, had advised his going as a servitor to Christ 
 Church ; and purblind teachers let him go, instead of 
 sending him to some such place as Balliol, where he 
 might worthily have been enrolled as one of the most 
 highly gifted of her scholars. However, I need not 
 trouble you with these reflections, for they are 
 neither a relevant nor an adequate answer to your 
 inquiry, and yet they are all I have to send.' 
 
 With Brown's coming to Clifton ^ this memoir, as 
 memoir, may end. I have been able to procure some 
 reminiscences of a colleague older than myself who 
 saw much of Brown in the earlier days of the school, 
 and also those of a distinguished pupil. The first are 
 important, not merely from the point of view of 
 friendship, but because the writer speaks with authority 
 
 ' He resigned his mastership in July, 1892, and made his home for 
 the last five years of his life in the Isle of Man (Ramsey).
 
 32 INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 
 
 on a subject most vital to Brown's happiness and 
 closely bound up with his personality — that of music. 
 The second are not less important, as giving the judg- 
 ment of a man of letters on Brown as a teacher. It 
 was known that Brown rather resented his calling, and 
 it was generally believed that he was ineffective and 
 indifferent as a teacher. Boys, I think, in this matter 
 were more discerning than some of their elders. They 
 were quite aware that some lessons did not interest him, 
 and that he gave himself little trouble over them ; but 
 where the literature or the history was great they re- 
 cognized — quite undistinguished pupils recognized — 
 the difference, and spoke of those lessons as things they 
 could never forget. Moreover, some of this testimony 
 was quite recent and did not belong to his earlier time. 
 
 The boys, however, knew of him in other aspects 
 than that of a teacher — for he both preached and 
 lectured (on Sunday evenings). Of one of the most 
 impressive sermons I shall give some extracts later. 
 The element of surprise awaited us here as elsewhere. 
 I shall never forget his inculcating on the school the 
 duty of leading the common life : and how without 
 emphasis, but with quiet irony, he met the supposed 
 objection — that the child of genius could not be 
 fettered by the requirements of a system — ' Be 
 content, my friends ; he has not come to us yet ' ! 
 
 His lectures or addresses — sometimes written, some- 
 times ' inimitable brilliant talk ' — were equally un- 
 forgettable. I wish I could give a list of his subjects — 
 sometimes he talked of music, sometimes of literature. 
 (Three were on Hooker, Crabbe, and Quarles.) Once 
 he told us the story of the Peel life-boat, another
 
 INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 33 
 
 time he lectured on ' Manners.' Archdeacon Wilson 
 reminds me of its most characteristic passage : ' I am 
 certain God made fools for us to enjoy, but there 
 must be an economy of joy in the presence of a fool ; 
 you must not betray your enjoyment.' 
 
 It did not matter whether he was reading or talking ; 
 what was seen and heard was an individuality by 
 which the least interesting, least interested part of his 
 audience must have been arrested as no presence had 
 ever arrested them before. 
 
 What else there is to tell of his uneventful life at 
 Clifton, so full of interest to himself and others, and 
 of the last five years in his island, must be left to the 
 letters to tell. 
 
 It must not however be forgotten that Betsy Lee 
 and all his published poetry were written, and all 
 except his last volume published, while he was at 
 Clifton. Whatever name and fame they brought him 
 came to him here : and the pleasure and solace of 
 writing verse helped more than most things to fill 
 his life with content. 
 
 ' Name and fame ' are words one has a right to use, 
 in spite of the fact that the poems cannot be called 
 well known. Betsy Lee^ when it appeared in Mac- 
 millaiis Magazine (May and April, 1873), drew from 
 ' George Eliot ' a notable tribute, and that was far 
 from being the only recognition of a new poet by 
 those who spoke with authority. Betsy Lee was 
 published separately in 1873 by Messrs. Macmillan, 
 and Fo'cs'le Yarns (including Betsy Lee) in 1881 
 (a second edition appeared in 1889}. Messrs. Swan 
 Sonnenschein & Co. published in 1 887 The Doctor and 
 
 I c
 
 34 INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 
 
 other Poems. This volume bore his name, as did also 
 The Maivc Witch and other Poems, in 1 889, and Old 
 John and other Poems, in 1893. The two last-named 
 volumes were published by Messrs. Macmillan. 
 
 In the Qziarterly Revi'ezv of April, 1898, appeared 
 a notice at once discriminating- and informing of his 
 poetry as a whole. 
 
 I may be allowed perhaps to say something from 
 my own experience of the rarest personality that 
 it has been my fortune to be acquainted with. In 
 some respects I was disqualified for the fullest in- 
 timacy. For one thing I was, in his own phrase, 
 in partibus \vnmusic0ru7n, and that was the gentlest 
 of his phrases about this deficiency. Then his poems 
 in dialect, though I enjoyed them, never appealed to 
 me as his last volume did, and this should have been, 
 to a less generous man, another disqualification. 
 
 Of the sea again, the object of his passionate devotion, 
 I knew nothing as I ought to know. This egotism ^ 
 is, I hope, pardonable, for it is necessary if 1 am to 
 explain how his many-sided nature could so support 
 an unequal friendship that the inequality was hardly 
 felt. 
 
 I had been some two years at Clifton before I got 
 to know Brown : but after our intimacy began I 
 found fresh occasion for wonder every year at some 
 new revelation of character and capacity. The first 
 
 ^ Mr. Oakeley apologizing for himself may apologize for others 
 also : ' One divines of one so rich and bounteous that to each of his 
 friends he gave a different fortune. . . . Thus I seek to prepare the 
 way for the otherwise crude remark, " None knew him as I did"' 
 (Letter on hearing of Brown's death).
 
 INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 35 
 
 thing- that not unnaturally invited friendship was his 
 extraordinary gift of sympathy. The small things 
 which interested his friends — the small pleasures and 
 the small pains — were never below his reach. The 
 merest fragment of ' coterie speech ' was worth ex- 
 plaining to him. You were so certain of his gauging 
 its significance to you. Hiunaiii nihil a me aliemmt 
 puto was the motto of his talk as of his letters ; but 
 humani is not enough to say, for the personal 
 interest went far beyond that, and this is one reason 
 why so many of the letters to friends can only be 
 represented by extracts. He gave himself without 
 stint, his time, his thought, his powers ; but the self 
 was the greatest gift of all. That best self — its 
 humour, its brilliance, its infinite variety — was all 
 poured out for the single friend. Indeed the single 
 friend was more likely to get that best than a large 
 company, for he said of himself, as Cowper did, that 
 he had a large stock of silence alwa}s at command, 
 and this silence was more commonly seen in large 
 companies. 
 
 He was just the man for unequal friendships. 
 Nothing that he ever said or did would hint to one 
 that he thouo^ht of himself as a shade better than his 
 fellows. Only when one had time to reflect on an 
 evening with him or a walk with him in which he had 
 flashed into phrase after phrase or fancy after fancy, 
 did it suddenly strike one that these novelties were 
 all individual, that they were all different expressions 
 of one and the same personality, and that neither 
 your optimism nor your experience had prepared 
 you for meeting such a man in ordinary life — ' a man 
 
 C 2
 
 36 INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 
 
 that would be incredible had one not known him,' 
 as Fitzgerald said of Spedding. One can be grateful 
 now, one could not then, for the illusion of equality 
 was never disturbed. 
 
 One is conscious now of much self-reproach, 
 thinking of all the chances of enlargement, and the 
 scant use made of them : then one only thought of 
 enjoyment. They were times of refreshing to look 
 back to all one's life : — 
 
 Or other worlds they seemed, or happy isles. 
 
 But apart from the courtesy and generosity, the 
 affection and consideration, which drew from all who 
 called him friend the tribute of admiring love, there 
 was that which made the merest acquaintance stand 
 at gaze ; something 'elemental, absolute, infallible' — 
 to use three of his favourite adjectives about great 
 men and great things. When he thus 'let himself 
 go,' he would characterize things and persons with 
 truthfulness so vivid or paradox so grotesque that 
 delight was almost smothered in gasping astonish- 
 ment. His humour was then at the top of its bent, 
 and his mimicry simply indescribable. I have watched 
 him while he altered his face almost, and his voice 
 wholly beyond recognition, when he was personating 
 some one in a story he was telling. Mimicry is 
 indeed possible to very common natures ; but theirs 
 is ' the mirth without images ' of which Rasselas 
 speaks. Brown's mimicry was often caricature, but 
 it was the caricature of an overflowing imagination, 
 not the caricature of a photograph. He could be 
 Rabelaisian too at times, though always with a reser- 
 vation very characteristic of him, ' There are,' he said,
 
 INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 37 
 
 ' nice Rabelaisians, and there are nasty Rabelaisians ; 
 but the latter are not Rabelaisians.' 
 
 Here, as elsewhere, nothing human, no one phase 
 of human nature's many moods, was alien to him. 
 
 There was something too which seemed to sepa- 
 rate him from other men in the kind and degree of 
 his sympathy with external nature. He was himself 
 conscious of this to some extent, and has expressed 
 it in his letters (I think he is speaking of a late 
 spring day in his beloved marsh country, the 
 Curragh). ' These are the times,' he said, ' when my 
 highest power comes to me.' 
 
 Nor shall I ever forget his ecstasy over Fair Head 
 in the County Antrim when we visited it together 
 in 1895. It was worth going many miles to see. 
 
 This feeling of intimacy with external nature was 
 one he cherished very carefully. ' I like,' he said, 
 ' to stay in a country till I know it in and out. That 
 is far more to me than seeing many places.' 
 
 But whatever this intimacy was, it was not like 
 his other gifts. One felt oneself outside ; one looked 
 on, one could not share. As one friend said, ' He 
 seemed in possession of some great secret of nature 
 which he was not free to impart to us.' 
 
 Another thing that was quite unlike anything I 
 have known in others was the universal quality of 
 his literary sympathy, and its intensity. This did 
 more than anything else to establish our friend- 
 ship ; for though vast tracts of literature where he 
 could ' rest and expatiate ' were unknown to me, 
 my own meagre domain seemed larger and richer 
 when he expounded our common affection for it.
 
 38 INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 
 
 ' Expounded ' is a very poor word — though it is 
 something to have the best reasons given for the 
 faith that is in you, even when you feel your instinct 
 beyond and above criticism. 
 
 But really it was nothing that could be called 
 exposition. It was the spontaneous outflow of feeling 
 deeper than one's own because the whole nature was 
 deeper :— 
 
 And while we others sip the obvious sweet, 
 
 Lo! this man hath made haste 
 
 And pressed the sting that holds the central seat. 
 
 It was no creed to be recited, it was an atmosphere 
 in which he lived and breathed, that highest of all 
 literary atmospheres, where the ingredients are all 
 the humanities — love, respect, admiration, all clinging 
 to the most sacred tradition of civilized man. ' Suffer 
 no chasm,' he once said to the school in a sermon, 
 ' to interrupt this glorious tradition. . . . Continuous 
 life . . . that is what we want — to feel the pulses 
 of hearts that are now dust,' 
 
 ' I could cry,' he once said to me, ' over those old 
 classical hymns of Addison.' The classical conven- 
 tions moved him even while they amused him. He 
 smiled, but the water stood in his eyes, 
 
 I do not think I have ever known a pleasure greater 
 than finding some great or good thing in literature 
 that he did not happen to know. Such occasions 
 were few, as might be expected, but the pleasure 
 was hardly less when one revived an old affection 
 for him — a forgotten favourite. 
 
 And his analysis of beauties — when he would stoop 
 to analysis, for he did not love ' to reason about
 
 INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 39 
 
 beauties rather than to taste them ' — never failed to 
 satisfy. 
 
 I once drew his attention to the beautiful phrase 
 of Steele, in the Tatler^ about Favonius, the good 
 clerg^^man, leaving the house of mourning ' with 
 such a glow of grief and of humanity upon his 
 countenance.' ' Ah, yes ! ' he said, ' and it's the 
 hendiadys that does it ! ' and one feels at once how 
 poor httina7ie grief wovXd sound beside it ! 
 
 But independently of literature all associations 
 moved him, and not his own merely. That is why 
 ' coterie speech ' had such a value for him. And he 
 loved to have the fact or the legend out of which it 
 sprang recovered for him with all its details. There 
 was something specially delightful in the ease with 
 which he could transplant, from another's experience, 
 a story or a saying, and regrow it in his own more 
 fertilizing soil. It is no wonder that he had friends, 
 for such common possessions rivet an intimacy as 
 nothing else can. 
 
 His own associations were, it need hardly be said, 
 all deep-rooted. His favourite Virgilian saw was 
 Antigttani exguirite 'inatrem^ and he seemed to 
 think the chief value of his poems was ' the cairn of 
 memories ' he had built in them. Even quite local 
 and temporary associations were sacred to him. He 
 saw his past steadily, and saw it whole, and the 
 historical past he saw in the same way. ' In reading,' 
 he once said, ' let heart reach to heart across all 
 obstacles of time, and manners, and ideas.' 
 
 I cannot but think that this was a great part of the 
 meaning he assigned to his favourite text : ' Keep
 
 40 INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 
 
 thy heart with all diligence.' He knew that the bent 
 of intellect might shift with reading or experience ; 
 temper might be liable to moods, and disappoint 
 either himself or others ; but this other thing — the 
 TO KvpLutTaTor, the heart, the proper self — 
 
 That imperial murex grain 
 No carrack ever bore to Thames or Tiber — 
 
 this must be cherished for what it was, must be still 
 In a sense what it was — a self that vicissitude could 
 not invade. 
 
 It was naturally not a thing he spoke of, but there 
 were hints of it, to those who knew him, even in his 
 talk ; and in some of the letters, and in many of the 
 poems in his last volume, it needs little interpretation 
 to discover it. From the heart in this sense it is an 
 easy transition to the ' kind of enthusiasm' with which 
 uncommon men ' mingle their ideas.' In family 
 affection, in friendship, in patriotism local or national, 
 the sentiment is the same. It is not only quorum 
 pars magna fui\ it is also, 'what these things have 
 made of me nothing can unmake.' 
 
 Under the impelling force of these associations he 
 unshrinkingly confessed himself emotional, even using 
 the half-humorous phrase I have already quoted — 
 ' I am a born sobber.' 
 
 His fine curiosity was insatiable, but this was some- 
 thing related in no way to advances in knowledge or 
 new refinements in feeling. It was somethingpermanent 
 and central to himself and yet universal in its range. 
 
 There is a beautiful passage in George Eliot's 
 Middlemarch^ where ^ Dorothea, asked what she is 
 
 * Quoted from memory. The ipsissima verba run thus : ' Dodo, how
 
 INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 41 
 
 thinking of, says, 'AH the troubles of aU the people 
 in the world.' Now it might be thought that, with 
 Brown's high spirits and recklessly gay humour, this 
 is a singularly inapposite quotation. But really it is 
 very relevant. I have never known a man with so 
 wide an intellectual range, or of such infinite bright- 
 nf;ss, who could be so deeply saddened by his own 
 f,ympathies — sympathies reaching far back into his 
 own far past, or extended to present trouble, ever so 
 remote from himself. 
 
 This, I think, is the heart which he tried to keep 
 with all diligence — the depth which he suffered no 
 excursions of fancy to explore, no exuberance of 
 spirits to disturb. 
 
 Of his life in this region— of the life of his lonelier 
 self — not many, if any, of his friends were permitted 
 to see much, yet it interfered in no way with his 
 readiness to render all kinds of services. Those 
 services rendered in abundant measure were much : 
 but to possess a sense of security, a recognized claim 
 to divide pleasures and pains without misgiving, was 
 a thing beyond all price in friendship. That this 
 should be possible to one who had so full a life of his 
 own unshared, and not to be shared by others, means 
 a very rare unselfishness. Nor did he suffer such 
 claims to be weakened by absence. For the five 
 years that remained to him after he returned to his 
 island his letters never failed. He was never oppressed 
 by the labour of keeping friendships in repair, but 
 rather exhilarated ; at any rate he left his friends 
 
 bright your eyes are ! . . . I wonder what (has happened).' . . . 
 ' Oh, all the troubles of all people on the face of the earth.'
 
 42 INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 
 
 exhilarated and something more. Those who re- 
 ceived his letters found in them such a store of help, 
 such a heightening of the interest of life, that to 
 others — to those who had not enjoyed his personal 
 talk — it might have seemed that little could have been 
 added by actual intercourse. 
 
 Brown was a keen critic of all his friends, and did 
 not deny himself amusement at the weaknesses and 
 limitations of those he cared for most. But there was 
 one thing about him not often found in men who 
 indulge in the mood of Democritus. I mean the 
 willingness to take trouble for those whose failings 
 amused him, even when he thought there was some 
 connexion between their unwisdom and their need. 
 I don't think he could for the life of him help giving 
 free play to his humour, but it never weakened his 
 friendship. He was even so anxious in their behalf 
 as to transform himself on occasion into what he 
 once called ' Machiavelli Brown,' and draw on his 
 experience to play the diplomatist in their interest. 
 His courtesy would never suffer him to be the candid 
 friend. In these matters he contended for what he 
 called ' the finest Keltic make-believe,' and was 
 indignant at its being confounded with ' humbug.' 
 (' Oh, those English ! ' he would say.) To him this 
 ' finest make-believe ' was a part of the code of good 
 manners, and if he criticized his friends to others, 
 they knew better than those others how little it 
 impaired his power to love and his eagerness to 
 serve. 
 
 To manners he alwa5^s attached a value which is 
 less common in these days. ' If I lose my manners,'
 
 INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 43 
 
 he said once over some trivial forgetfulness, ' what is 
 to become of me ? ' 
 
 But the thing- that will stay longest with his friends 
 was the amount and variety of positive pleasure that 
 he gave them. Five minutes in his company was 
 a more exhilarating tonic than any that could be 
 devised. Tonic is the right word, for more than one 
 reason, when his talk was of literature : for his sanity 
 was as stead}'ing to the judgment as his enthusiasm 
 was lifting to the spirit. If there was a side of 
 literature that appealed less to him than to others, 
 I can find no word less inclusive than catholic to do 
 justice to his range of sympathy. And his catholicity 
 of taste was especially remarkable in one whose 
 strength of imagination might be supposed to have 
 made him somewhat impatient of the ancient ways 
 and the less ambitious ages when writers were con- 
 tent ' to dwell quiet and secure.' While he welcomed 
 power in every new direction, his faith in the old 
 teachers, the patici quos aequus a7navit lupp ter^ 
 never swen^ ed. 
 
 In the sermon from which I have already quoted he 
 preached his own practice. ' Those,' he said, ' who 
 have been and are great amongst us are those who 
 have dwelt most reverently, or at least most habitually, 
 under the shadow of the sky-pointing pyramids of 
 the past.' 
 
 But I must not go on, I have already, perhaps, 
 said too much, though in another sense too much 
 could not be said. 
 
 'Tis true ; but all too weakly said ; 
 'Twas more significant, he's dead.
 
 44 INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 
 
 There is a simple sentence in another letter-writer, 
 not often so simple, who very occasionally recalls 
 Brown, though with a difference ; and this sentence — 
 it is Charles Lamb's — tells Brown's friends better than 
 any words of their own what their individual loss is, 
 and why they can never see his place filled for them. 
 
 ' One sees a picture, reads an anecdote, starts a 
 casual fancy, and thinks to tell of it to this person 
 in preference to every other. The person is gone 
 whom it would peculiarly have suited — it won't do 
 for another.' 
 
 Mr. E. M. Oakeley's Reminiscences. 
 
 Looking back on my friendship with Mr, Brown, 
 which began a very few days after I became a Clifton 
 master in 1867, and knew no break till the great 
 break in October, 1897, I realize only too keenly, now 
 that he is gone, ' the difference to me.' Many, of 
 course, are feeling the same ; yet not quite the same, 
 for it may easily be guessed that a nature so rich 
 and so bounteous as his showed a different side to 
 each friend, so that many can without arrogance say, 
 ' No one knew him as I did.' Of late I had seen him 
 but seldom, but I continued to hear from him pretty 
 often till very near his end ; and for the rest, as he once 
 wrote to me, ' there are people with whom to coexist 
 is life : no need to see them or talk to them. All that 
 is needed is just to think — say in your bath at 7 a.m. — 
 " Hugh also is." ' 
 
 Mr. Brown's love of music was a side of him 
 often turned to the present writer, and music was 
 a chief corner-stone of our friendship. In early
 
 INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 45 
 
 Clifton days I induced him to go up with me to hear 
 Clara Schumann play ; a memorable experience in 
 many ways, not least from our accidentally sitting- next 
 to Madame Jenny Lind-Goldschmidt, to whom, as he 
 reminded me as lately as October, 1897, I took the 
 opportunity to introduce him. At about the same 
 date, by the way, we went, with Dr. Percival, to see 
 the Clifton match at Lord's, the chief hero of which 
 was just then the pride of Brown's House at Clifton, 
 as afterwards of his College and University ^. T. E. B. 
 was in great force, and lit up the dingy dining-room 
 of our hotel — quite innocent then of to-day's Asiatic 
 splendours — with many a flash of that ' lightning of 
 the brain, lambent but innocuous,' that one associates 
 with his conversation. 
 
 It must have been in that same summer that I used 
 to sit with him in the Fifth Form room of his house, 
 in the holidays an uncommonly secluded saiicttun^ in 
 order to discuss words and tunes for the School Hymn 
 Book, on which a committee of masters and boys had 
 been for some time at work. It was then and there 
 that Wesley's fine hymn, with the recurring line ' Give 
 me thy only love,' was re-edited to make it fit Bach's 
 soaring music, which seems to yearn to bear on its 
 wings some such refrain as Wesley's. To the same 
 symposia the hymn book owes Mr. Brown's noble 
 Ascension-tide hymn. It was agreed that the hiiie of 
 ' Es ist das Heil ' must be secured for the book ; but 
 
 ^ Cecil William Boyle, the ' dear hero ' of the lines in a recent 
 Spectator by his school-fellow, T. Herbert Warren, the President of 
 Magdalen. He fell at Boshof, April 5, 1900, 
 
 * Captaining men as once he captained boys.'
 
 46 INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 
 
 the ponderous unwieldlness of the German original, 
 which refused on almost any terms to be carried over 
 or coaxed into English, suggested the fortunate 
 alternative — that ' some one' should write a new hymn, 
 suitable to the peculiar sentiment, and especially to 
 the pathetic closing cadence, of the music. No other 
 hymn -tune was so dear to him, except perhaps the 
 well-known Passion Chorale^ of which — in a blue- 
 pencilled note one Monday morning during first 
 lesson — he sent me the following ' appreciation ' : — 
 
 'X2KAe^(ri Bpoui'o?. . . . 
 
 (Yesterday, when you were playing the miraculous 
 •Haupt^.') 
 
 Chance-child of some lone sorrow on the hills. 
 
 Bach finds a babe ; instant the great heart fills 
 
 With love of that fair innocence. 
 
 Conveys it thence. 
 
 Clothes it with all divinest harmonies. 
 
 Gives it sure foot to tread the dim degrees 
 
 Of Pilate's stair. Hush ! Hush ! Its last sweet 
 
 breath 
 Wails far along the passages of death. 
 
 /T\ 
 
 - ^ r . 
 
 ^i^ 
 
 fl* 
 
 Time Eternity 
 
 I quote this as a specimen of the writer's method of 
 musical criticism ; a method equally remote from the 
 
 ' The version played was No. 27, vol. v, of Bach's organ works. 
 This is mentioned out of kindness prepense, that Bach-lovers may 
 turn to it again. They will have their reward ! The melody 
 originally belonged to a popular sixteenth century love song.
 
 INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 47 
 
 usual style of descrlbers of music, the ' piling of 
 honey on sugar and sugar on honey ' (as Lamb 
 writes in a slightly different connexion), as from the 
 heresy of the Leit-Motif fanatics who used to pester 
 Mendelssohn to tell them ' the meaning ' of his Songs 
 without Words. So far was Brown from desiring to 
 trace ' meanings ' in instrumental music, that even in 
 the vocal v^oxks> of the great composers he held that 
 the so-called setting was distinctly ' the predomi- 
 nant partner,' and that, except as a crib for the un- 
 learned, the words would often be better away. Thus, 
 for instance, he writes of his own beautiful translation 
 of those lines of Eichendorfifwhi h Schumann has im- 
 mortalized by linking them to his Frilhlingsnacht : — 
 
 ' Here is the Fru/i/higsnacht—mighl be better, 
 though I think it is not exactly bad. . . . 
 
 ' Wandervogel is a lovely word. I suppose he does 
 not mean birds in his garden, but birds passing over 
 it, invisible, though audible to him. " Birds of passage " 
 is not altogether prosaic — incline thine ear, perpend, 
 what thinkest ? In the second verse I have imported 
 a little wild -fire. The tune seems to comport it ; but 
 " reappears "is an old vhyme-faimiliis^ and it does 
 not either comport or support the ritardando as 
 well as Mojides Glanz herein. In fact I feel the 
 German even to be rather lacking . . . and taking it 
 altogether, don't you regard this song of Schu- 
 mann's as transcending words — Uder Worte? — Proatt^ 
 O ProctU / The poets are not in it. I warn them 
 off the ground. When Schumann is in this mood, 
 they had better retire. The mysteries are too sacred, 
 the. pudicitia of the absolute ought not to be violated.
 
 48 INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 
 
 It is divine — divine ! Look at those wretched words 
 as they sidle up in their smugness to the heavenly 
 creature ! What earthly right have they there ? She 
 does not want them. "A parcel of the purest sky," 
 
 — that is the Fruhlingsnacht. And this libretto 
 
 to think of holding his vulgar umbrella over her — 
 faugh ^ ! ' The translation follows : — 
 
 A Night of Spring. 
 
 O'er the garden, northward yearning. 
 
 Birds of passage on the wing 
 Give the note of Spring's returning, 
 
 And the odours of the Spring. 
 
 Shall I shout for very gladness. 
 Shall I drown my eyes in tears, 
 
 Is it mirth, or is it madness. 
 
 When the spring-tide reappears ? 
 
 Moon and stars proclaim her willing, 
 Whisp'ring groves their vows combine. 
 
 And the nightingales are thrilling — 
 ' She is thine, ah, she is thine ! ' 
 
 Here is his translation of Meine Rose^ another of 
 Schumann's loveliest songs : — 
 
 My Rose. 
 
 When Summer's sun is glowing. 
 And roses still are blowing. 
 If but I note one drooping, 
 Its lovely head down stooping, 
 
 ^ To somewhat the same effect Phihpp Spitta writes : ' In Schu- 
 mann's songs the function of the pianoforte is to reveal some deep 
 and secret meaning which is beyond the power of words to express.'
 
 INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 49 
 
 I bring with timely shower 
 Refreshment to my flower. 
 Blest Rose, that art the dearest! 
 Heart's Rose, the sweetest, nearest, 
 O'erwhelm'd with care and sadness, 
 Ah me ! the joy, the gladness 
 If at thy feet outpouring 
 My soul, I lay adoring! 
 Life's self I would surrender 
 To see thee rise in splendour ^. 
 
 Brown's method of musical criticism, in which 
 (naturally !) the seemingly ' far-fetched ' fancies of the 
 poet convey an impression far more adequate than 
 the usual attempt to describe the indescribable by 
 mere inventory, or mere superlatives, may be further 
 illustrated by the following description of a Crystal 
 Palace concert :— 
 
 ' . . . I have said nothing about the choral annexe\.o 
 the ninth symphony. No circumstances could be more 
 unfavourable to a choir ; when your ears have been 
 stung for upwards of an hour by the most delicious 
 string poison, ' the human voice divine ' is simply 
 grotesque. There is one passage where the tenors 
 lead off. Well, it sounded almost like a poor 
 melancholy laugh, as of idiots. And indeed they 
 had not even their note quite true. Then you 
 remember a chorus takes off suddenly, and leaves 
 a quartet exposed in mid-field. This is a most 
 
 * The original seems to express despair of this result. I have not 
 made it so strong. Any man, reducing himself to a watering-pot, has 
 a right to expect success, or something of the kind. — T. E. B. 
 
 I D
 
 50 
 
 INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 
 
 exquisite machine, to my mind. It is as if a 
 thunderstorm suddenly cleared away, and four stars 
 shone out in a sweet quaternion of solitude. It ought 
 to be that. A calm soft kiss on the forehead of 
 retreating turbulence. But what did these people 
 do ? It was Winkle torn from Weller. They seemed 
 so frightened : quite ghastly. Nothing to sit down 
 on ! And in such iinpari materia / Another stuff ; 
 not four threads spun finely, deftly forth from the 
 big choral web, and streaming on a summer sigh 
 of balm^ — but dingy floccy alien tatters tossed up 
 obscenely from a dust-heap. Yet Alversleben seemed 
 not inadequate ; the others, so help me sweet 
 Cecilia, did not know " wherefore they were come 
 together " ! ' 
 
 And of another performance of the same sym- 
 phony : — 
 
 ' The absolutely celestial coda was now and then 
 as unerring as I could desire ; but once, if I mistake 
 not, nearly fell to pieces. It was a fearful moment ; 
 as if your dearest and loveliest on earth were suddenly 
 to totter on the verge of madness, and say wicked 
 and impure words. . . . Ophelia ... I felt quite 
 giddy. But it was soon over, and the darling shone 
 out bright and calm and peerless as ever. 
 
 ' What heavenly peace ! What healing of all 
 wounds ! Binding of all broken hearts ! Everlasting 
 reinedium ainoris / I certainly found myself pray- 
 ing, and that fervently. With such a Christ to clasp 
 to her withered breast, what need the poor old world 
 care for Strauss and all his angels ? '
 
 INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 
 
 At the rehearsal of this concert : — 
 
 ' It was even more interesting than the concert. 
 Manns unfettered by the proprieties, mad, springing- 
 to his feet, huding himself at the band like a tiger, 
 like a thunderbolt, like a conical bullet, like a little 
 black devil ! A splendid and never-to-be-forgotten 
 sight. I saw his dodges, and more or less compre- 
 hended them.' 
 
 At a Crystal Palace organ recital :— 
 
 ' There was Mr. X. pounding away at some scream- 
 ing indecency. I waited for his second piece, though 
 much dejected, but as it was only some sugary or 
 rather rum-and-sugary Operatic rifaciinento^ I came 
 away, and left him up to his ears in Organ treacle.' . . . 
 
 (He returned, however ; for — ) 
 
 ' Smart's Andante in D is a pretty thing enough, 
 not so much crisp as mincing. In our poor friend's 
 hands it assumed an air of the fatuously dissolute,' 
 
 On British musical taste, circa 1870, he writes : —   
 ' We have been getting fonder of music, and of 
 good music. In some fashion — rather haphazard, 
 perhaps — we have been learning to know good music 
 when we hear it. No doubt the middle-class draw- 
 ing-room, that last fortress of error, is much where 
 it was. Time-honoured shrine of die-away, sigh- 
 away adolescence, it still resounds to the strains of 
 the Valerie Whites and the MoUoys. But the Teu- 
 tonic invasion has told ; Mendelssohn has almost 
 obtained the Britannic civitas^ and even Schumann 
 stands — uncertain, it is true^ — upon the threshold. 
 And if we pass from the drawing-room to the concert 
 
 D 2
 
 52 INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 
 
 hall, the state of affairs is positively encouraging. 
 Here are great organs magnificently played ; here 
 is Bach ; here is a band ; here are Beethoven, Berlioz, 
 Wagner, all the gods.' . . . 
 
 In 1894 Brown made a much-looked-forward-to 
 pilgrimage to Bayreuth ; of which he writes (before 
 starting) : — 
 
 ' I am to hear Lohengrin^ Tannhdtiser^ and Par- 
 sifal (the last, twice). This will be a good ^hiTi.\.v 
 in the Wagnerian Siloam.' 
 
 (From Bayreuth : — ) 
 
 ' I am waiting here for a iioch eiiwtal of Parsifal. 
 But you may depend on it that the cziltus is a little 
 unsound. Talk is big, and make-believe bigger ; but 
 they don't do the business so superlatively well by 
 any means.' . . . 
 
 (After the noch eininal: — ) 
 
 ' Won't do ! Parsifal is an impossibility, and I am 
 hugely disappointed. . . . Set to your seal that the 
 musical drama is a tremendous but hopeless aspira- 
 tion. Fall back upon Beethoven and the symphonic 
 form, and take courage. I don't wonder at men 
 thinking that this is a path that no one can tread 
 after Beethoven. But this is wrong. The world is 
 open : we can yet gather the flowers of Heaven. Not, 
 however, in this field of combination and complication 
 will they ever be gathered. . . . Wagner's Wahn — 
 exactly so, a noble Wahn., but brings me no Friede 
 as Wagner says it did to him — will bring Friede to 
 no child of man w^ho is born with wings, however 
 imperfectly developed ^' 
 
 ^ Cf. letter from Bayreuth, Aug. 7, 1894, vol. ii, p. 51
 
 INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 53 
 
 (After returning : — ) 
 
 ' Have you heard that there are to be orchestral 
 Wagner concerts in London next November, the first 
 to be conducted by Siegfried Wagner ? That is just 
 what I should like. The man Curtius is trying to 
 arrange with Madame Wagner for the production 
 of substantial portions of Parsifal. Orchestral, re- 
 member ! That's the point. As to their lewdness 
 and superfluity of scenic naughtiness, may I never 
 again come within a hundred miles of them ! ' 
 
 From Music to Mimicry, even if the two gifts 
 be not wholly unrelated, may perhaps seem an 
 abrupt transition. But however that may be, one 
 cannot long think of Brown without recalling his 
 mimicry. (His own abrupt transitions by the way — 
 say from Bach to Balzac — used to be sufficiently 
 amusing!) Was there one of his acquaintances 
 whom he could not reproduce to the very life ? 
 Nay, his portraiture was in a sense more vivid than 
 life, because it gave the type and idea of the man, 
 and not merely the man himself, who might well 
 (if modest) feel himself but a poor pale counterfeit of 
 Brown's revised version of him, and say on being told 
 of it (as I once heard him say), ' Well, I did not 
 say quite that, but / would have said so if I had 
 thottght of it.' Quite so ; in a word, of most people 
 Brown's rendering was better far than their own ! 
 What portraits one's memory retains of Clifton 
 masters, boys, servants — not so much printed there 
 from life, as due to some of those almost proverbial 
 ' five minutes with Brown in the masters' room ! '
 
 54 INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 
 
 And no account of his mimicry would be complete, 
 without adding that, ' irrespective of sex or age,' he 
 could to a wonderful degree even look like his subject 
 of the moment. 
 
 How utterly without malice it all was, may be 
 divined from the following : — 
 
 ' . . . Truest and dearest of friends ! My foster- 
 father! Source of perennial joy, of laughter inex- 
 tinguishable. I have mimicked him all my life, and 
 shall I forbear now ! Nay, verily, and by God's help 
 so I won't, I did love that old man ; a delicious old 
 man : Silenus trimmed with Socrates, and turned up 
 with . . . well ... I don't mind, say Newman.' 
 
 Often in reading his letters over, one longs to hear 
 that delightful mimicry again. 
 
 ' Mr. W. was present, an invaluable grotesque. He 
 preached the sermon — I will venture to say the most 
 ludicrous performance of modern times. Anything 
 like the hodge-podge of imbecility, except its author, 
 I have never seen. This phenomenon has awaked 
 my long-dormant faculty of mimicry ; I can't refrain. 
 Such a heaven-sent subject is not to be lighted upon 
 every day.' 
 
 And sometimes one does all but hear it : — 
 
 ' Their chief pastor, good man, is — well, he is^ 
 and that is about all that can be said. They are 
 good worthy people; probably never open a book, 
 a piano, or — yes, he has opened a bazaar — two 
 bazaars, I think. Oh yes ! we can do that — yes ! 
 " yess, indeet, however." '
 
 INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 55 
 
 Reminiscences of an Old Pupil. — 
 By Mr. Horatio F. Brown. 
 
 The circumstances in which I came to be taught by 
 T. E. Brown were exceptional. I and some other 
 boys were going in for History Scholarships at 
 Oxford. The Head Master allowed us to attend a 
 special history class under T. E. Brown, 
 
 My recollection is that his was the most vivid 
 teaching I ever received : great width of view and 
 poetical, almost passionate, power of presentment. 
 For example, we were reading Froude's History^ and 
 I shall never forget how it was Brown's words, 
 Brown's voice, not the historian's, that made me feel 
 the great democratic function which the monasteries 
 performed in England ; the view became alive in his 
 mouth. Again the same thing happened when we 
 came to the Reformation as it showed itself at Oxford ; 
 the vivid presentment of the passions moving both 
 sides in the controversy, and the lively picturing of 
 details (e.g. the Gloucester Hall scholar escaping over 
 heavy ploughed fields), all set forth with such 
 dramatic force, and aided by a splendid voice, left 
 an indelible impression on my mind. 
 
 He had such an appreciation of style too. I re- 
 member that we were reading what was then thought 
 to be an exceptionally dry and tough work, Hallam's 
 Constitutional History. The way in which he de- 
 livered the passage beginning, ' But lest the spectre of 
 indefeasible right should stand once more in arms on 
 the tomb of the house of York,' not only fixed for 
 ever the historical importance of the event that Hallam
 
 56 INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 
 
 was discussing, but, as it were, let me into Hallam 
 himself, put one on terms of intelligence with the 
 historian. Of course it was all there before, in the 
 book itself, and other people had said it all, time and 
 time again ; but for me it was Brown's voice. Brown's 
 perception, that made it real. I think he got at me 
 through the imagination. 
 
 How he struck other boys I don't know, nor yet 
 what effect he had on his class, in which I never 
 was. No doubt, in my case, he was dealing with 
 things he liked to teach, and I liked to learn. He 
 certainly had the power of making me want to 
 please him. I have kept all the essays and question 
 papers I did for him, with their quaint hieroglyphic 
 scribbles on the back. He never spoke to me out 
 of school, and I never knew him at all privately 
 or socially at that time, but his personality made 
 a great impression ; his slow sort of urgent walk, 
 like Leviathan, his thick massive figure, above all 
 his voice. I used to see him in the distance on his 
 lonely strolls about the downs, and his figure seemed 
 to belong to, and to explain the downs, the river, 
 the woods, the Severn, and the far Welsh hills. I 
 remember him walking in the rain, and looking as if 
 he liked it, as I did. Personally, at that time I was 
 afraid of him; but he stirred fancy, curiosity, imagina- 
 tion. I should say that his educational function lay in 
 ' widening.' He was a ' widener.' He made one feel 
 that there was something beyond the school, beyond 
 successful performance at lessons or at games ; there 
 was a whiff of the great world brought in by him.
 
 LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN 
 
 To HIS Mother. 
 
 Christ Church, 
 
 January 26, 1851. 
 
 This morning the sermon was preached by Jowett 
 (not of South Quay, but) of Balliol College. This 
 man has the reputation of being an infidel, simply 
 because he has a profound contempt for show, and 
 humbug, and external rites. His sermon was beautiful, 
 and seemed to me to indicate a heart sincerely 
 interested in the subject. He is a pale, boyish, almost 
 effeminate-looking man, something like little Deemster 
 Drink water. 
 
 I needn't bother you with any maudlin laments 
 about Little-go ; Stokes, indeed, tells me that he 
 can't imagine such a thing as my being plucked, but 
 stranger things have happened ere now. . . . There 
 was such a row and bustle upon leaving Hugh's, that 
 I forgot my black top-coat, the most indispensable 
 garment ^ I possess here. But here I must stop. 
 
 * Not without interest for those who remember the writer as they 
 first knew him a quarter of a century later. The itahcs are mine.
 
 58 LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN [1851 
 
 To HIS Mother. 
 
 Christ Church, 
 
 February 21, 1851. 
 
 , . . You've no idea how long the roads are drying 
 here after a fall of rain : rain for five days is as good 
 or bad as rain for twenty in the Isle of Man ; it 
 continues near the surface, and is not drawn down by 
 fine limestone strata such as we have. . . . 
 
 A very gratifying incident occurred to me the other 
 day. At an examination which we had some time 
 ago here I believe I did pretty well: shortly after- 
 wards I was surprised by Stokes telling me that 
 Dr. Jacobson [Regius Professor of Divinity, Canon of 
 Christ Church, &c.] wished me to call on him ; well, 
 I called twice, but he was out. Yesterday, however, 
 as I was quietly reading in my rooms, ' tantararara, 
 came to the door,' and on my somewhat gruffly (as is 
 my wont) bidding the intruder come in, in he came ; 
 and who should it be but old Jacobson himself, ushered 
 in with profound reverence by an astounded scout. 
 
 He stayed some time, and proved one of the freest, 
 heartiest, and jolliest old fellows I ever met with. 
 I always thought so, in fact, by the cut of his gib. 
 
 He spoke about the examination \ and told me that 
 he begged I would accept a present of a book from 
 him as a kind of memorial of the same. ' In course 
 I hadn't no objections,' and shortly after called at his 
 house where, after some conversation with him in his 
 study (where, by-the-bye, he appeared in the graceful 
 neglige of shirt-sleeves ! !), he gave me the book, a copy 
 of Baehr's Herodotus, beautifully and strongly bound 
 
 ' The Craven Scholarship.
 
 i85i] LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN 59 
 
 in calf gilt, in 4 vols. This was a really kind and grace- 
 ful act, and I feel much obliged to the Doctor as well 
 as to the universally benevolent Stokes, who, I fancy, 
 must have said something rather extra about me. 
 
 And so it was (as Mary Cowle would say [Is she 
 alive or dead ?]), And I scud across the quad with four 
 goodly tomes under my arm ; and as I write they face 
 me, about the handsomest set of books in my case, 
 but still more valuable on account of the interesting 
 and pleasing associations connected with them. 
 
 D. will excuse my not coinciding with her in her 
 view of the song she sent : I don't much like it (merely 
 as poetry) ; and as for sentiment, I decidedly disagree 
 with Herr Riickert : for I think there is nothing in 
 any language so beautiful as the long-drawn sighs of 
 passionate melancholy expressed in our most pathetic 
 poets. Perhaps you may think me a ninny, but 
 whoever wrote the pleasures of melancholy^ (I don't 
 remember now) just hit my notion, if he did it well. . . . 
 
 To HIS Mother. 
 
 Christ Church, 
 
 March ii, 1851. 
 
 I was very glad to get your letter, which reached 
 me yesterday. I had rather expected to hear before, 
 but (as Mr. Toots said) ' it's of no consequence in the 
 world, thank 'ee.' My health (always the primary 
 consideration) is still unimpaired : and in fact the 
 other day I felt quite ashamed when, after a bit of 
 a run in the wind, I found a most delicate crimson 
 glow spreading over my exquisite features. 
 
 ' Cf. Introduction, pp. 40, 41.
 
 6o LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN [1851 
 
 A fortnight ago last Monday I and another man 
 walked about twenty-six miles ; it was St. Matthias' 
 Day (I'm much obliged to his saintship), and therefore 
 we had no lectures ; so we took the whole blessed 
 day, and started about 10.15 s-i^-) after breakfast. 
 
 First we went through Cumnor, where an inn called 
 the ' Bear and Ragged Stafif ' still purports to be kept 
 by one Giles Gosling oi Kenilworth celebrity. (This 
 however I had been at before.) Thence we proceeded 
 to Bablockhythe Ferry, where we crossed the Isis 
 and kept on through very pleasant rural scenery to 
 Stanton Harcourt, where there is a rum old Manor 
 House, with a kitchen of earlier date than the rest of 
 the building — being, in fact, the kitchen where good 
 Queen Bess had her dinner cooked when staying at 
 Stanton H. I never saw such an old thing. They 
 were killing pigs in it when we were there. 
 
 But the most interesting part of the ramble was yet 
 to come. A few yards from the farm-house, just at the 
 end of the garden, there is a beautiful old tower like 
 the kitchen, one of the remains of the old Manor 
 House or Castle : and in an upper chamber thereof for 
 years dwelt no less a personage than Pope the poet. 
 His name is said to be cut on a pane of glass in one 
 of the windows ; but we could not find it. In the 
 basement of the tower is Pope's chapel (he was a 
 Roman Catholic), the altar still standing, and the arms 
 of the Harcourt family, with sundry griffins and 
 cherubims painted around. Within a few yards of 
 this tower is the churchyard ; and on the wall of 
 the extreme end of the south transept outside is the 
 celebrated tablet erected by Pope in memory of the
 
 i8si] LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN 6i 
 
 faithful rustic lovers killed by a flash of lightning in 
 the harvest -field, I dare say you remember the lines ^. 
 I forget them just now : only I know one ends with 
 the words — ' the flash that melts the ball.' From 
 Stanton Harcourt we rambled on to Eynsham, a small 
 town on the banks of the Isis, whence, after some beer 
 and biscuits, we proceeded to Woodstock, encountering 
 some gipsies by the way, and skirting along Blenheim 
 Park, leaving in the distance the ranger's lodge in the 
 park where the celebrated infidel Rochester died. 
 And so we came to Woodstock, and walked into 
 Blenheim Park, and up to the house. The house is 
 quite a palace ; we only saw the exterior, but it 
 looked like a pretty large village : a hatchment over 
 the front recorded the death of the late Duchess of 
 Marlborough. There is a very beautiful lake in the 
 park ; it was sunset, and the water was so quiet in its 
 deep loveliness ; swans were rowing along in stately 
 pride, but some unfortunate fellows took it into their 
 heads to have a fly, and made precious fools of them- 
 selves, I must say. On the northern shore of the lake, 
 nearly opposite the house, is ' Fair Rosamond's ' Well ; 
 a fine spring comes gushing out beneath the roots of 
 the old trees, and here until of late years, I believe, 
 there were some remains supposed to be those of 
 the far-famed bower in which Henry II secluded his 
 mistress. 
 
 The waters of the well, if you give your face a good 
 
 ^ Pope had to write a prose epitaph to satisfy Lord Harcourt ; the 
 phrase quoted in the next sentence is from the * godly one,' the 
 second of the poetical epitaphs Pope sent Lady Mary. Pope's Works, 
 Globe edition, p. 485.
 
 62 LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN [1851 
 
 wash with them, are said to call forth all manner of 
 charms and make one quite irresistible : of course I 
 scrubbed away vigorously. Well, we returned to our 
 hostelry, not a little tired, and had tea in the good 
 landlady's special little snuggery : and then a gloomy, 
 weary walk in the dark of six or seven miles to 
 Oxford. On the whole, I enjoyed the day very much. 
 But, alas ! we seldom taste unmingled pleasure in this 
 world. The poor fellow who accompanied me was 
 laid up that same night (not, I believe, through the 
 fatigue, but from a disease which had been for some 
 time slowly but certainly mustering its strength 
 within) ; within ten days after our jolly ramble (last 
 Wednesday) he had left us. He died in his own 
 rooms ; and you may imagine what a gloom it has 
 thrown over us. His death was extremely sudden. 
 Poor fellow, his life was almost a romance. He was 
 the son of humble parents, but I believe was not on 
 good terms with his family. However, I must not 
 trouble you with such matters, or really a sketch of 
 his biography would be interesting. 
 
 To HIS Sister Margaret (Mrs. Williamson). 
 
 Christ Church, Oxford, 
 
 May 24, 1 85 1. 
 
 You will be slightly surprised, I dare say, to see 
 the name appended to this letter. Don't faint though : 
 there's no occasion in the world for that. The fact 
 is that upon most mature consideration I have come to 
 the irresistible conclusion that I must write a letter : 
 and it's so tiresome to be always writing to the same 
 people, and I believe I never wrote to you before,
 
 i85i] LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN 63 
 
 and I hope you won't be angry, and — well, I think 
 that will do, and my excuse is perfect. You can 
 expect but little news from Oxford, for, notwith- 
 standing the foolish hubbub that people make about 
 us, we really are not fond of novelty : but here beneath 
 our old grey walls, and by the pleasant watercourses, 
 and underneath the shadow of ancient trees, we go 
 quietly dreaming along, trj^^ing to nurse some healthy 
 blossoms that may bear fruit hereafter. But this 
 is all Greek (at least, I mean, I should think it must 
 be so) to you, and so I must proceed to apprise you 
 of some news which you cannot fail to appreciate. 
 And first you must know that it's summer, and not 
 winter ; no, nor spring either ; a fact of which I ap- 
 prehend you may not be aware up in the North. But 
 if you are, is it not delicious ? Among the hills all 
 kinds of weather are most blessed \ But in a low- 
 lying place like Oxford give me summer, with all 
 its glorious richness in sights and sounds and 
 soft perfumes. The balmy gust from one bean -field 
 is really almost enough to console me for the absence 
 of those blue hills I love so much, and sometimes 
 dream of: besides, you can always make hills out 
 of the clouds, and to the latter phenomena we are 
 most liberally treated in England. 
 
 But here I am rambling (I was going to say, like 
 a goose, but I will say, like a strayed donkey, grazing 
 on moors, plucking at thistles, and hee-hawing at 
 everything), while I have twice as good news still 
 in store. It is nothing more or less than that Will 
 
 ^ Pictures in the margin : ' Landing at Douglas ;' ' Mr. Brown and 
 his Spying-glass;' 'Cumnor Church, Berkshire.'
 
 64 LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN [1854 
 
 has turned up again from Calcutta. Shall you see 
 him ? 
 
 Have you heard from the I. of Man lately? I 
 have not for three weeks ! This is horrible ! Really, 
 if they are so negligent, I must cut them, I decidedly 
 must. 
 
 To HIS Mother. 
 
 Oriel College, Oxford (?), 
 
 February 4, 1854. 
 
 If in the midst of literary and political excitement, 
 in the midst of scenes not directly associated with our 
 dear lost one, I still am often bowed to the earth with 
 the burden of so great a sorrow ^, how must it be with 
 you, immediately surrounded as you are by a thousand 
 objects connected (how dearly, yet how agonizingly) 
 with her memory, and unrelieved by any excitement 
 sufficiently unassociated with her to lead your mind 
 in another direction ? My dearest mother, mine 
 indeed is the fitful sorrow that comes and goes like 
 shadows on the cornfields that still look forward 
 to the harvest ; yours is the drear monotony of 
 anguish, a leaden autumn sky, when the harvest is 
 over. 
 
 You turn your gaze ever backward, backward ; 
 while the rude demands of actual life compel you to 
 look (but with how diminished an interest) forward ; 
 I look backward too, but when the tears come the 
 young heart rises in its happy elasticity, and the 
 future beckons it to bliss — bliss, bliss! Ah, how 
 uncertain ! God grant me a humble share of happi- 
 ness, and I am content. 
 
 ' The death of his sister Dora.
 
 1854] LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN 65 
 
 I hold that the half of sorrow is unknown till we 
 have passed the meridian of life, and there is no 
 future to balance the past. But there is one con- 
 sideration which equalizes us again, and that is the 
 futttre beyond all. There you have a happiness 
 beyond expression : and there, and there only, I 
 know full well, can I look for true and lasting 
 happiness. In this respect, young and old, we are 
 all one, all alike. My earthly prospects, my earthly 
 hopes, may be all before me yet ; yours may be all 
 buried in the grave of the past : but a few years, and 
 my hopes, my loves, will be where yours are, and we 
 shall both be (God grant the prayer) happy in the 
 happy, happy future, the kingdom, the mansion, the 
 bosom of our Father. . . . 
 
 To HIS Mother. 
 
 Christ Church, 
 
 April 16, 1854. 
 
 The examination is to commence to-morrow. Well, 
 I shall do my best ; and should the result prove (as 
 in all probability it will) unfavourable, I shall not be 
 much put out of the way ; for the distinction (which 
 is very great) and a year or two of the emoluments 
 (which are considerable) is all I look to ; and perhaps, 
 after all, it would be better for me to strike out into 
 the world boldly, at once, without this interval of 
 College preferment. 
 
 I am quite surprised to hear of your so speedy 
 removal to Douglas. I'm sorry to hear that the 
 expense has been so great ; but I think you need not 
 
 i E
 
 66 LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN [1854 
 
 put yourself much out of the way about that. By all 
 means make yourself easy on that score : spend what 
 requires to be spent, and doubt not. Before this 
 time next year, and I hope before Christmas bills 
 come in, I shall be in a position to relieve you finally 
 from all anxiety about money. Certainly the highest 
 value that I set upon money, and the first aim that 
 I propose to myself in making any, is that I may 
 place it at your service. 
 
 This is Easter Sunday, and the writing of Latin 
 letters, &c,, made it impossible for me to write last 
 night. I cannot consent to deny myself the pleasure 
 of going to church this morning, and therefore I must 
 conclude. 
 
 To HIS Mother. 
 
 45 St. Aldate's, 
 
 April 23, 1854. 
 
 I am delighted to announce the fact of my success 
 at Oriel. On Friday, I was elected Fellow along 
 with a man of the name of Pearson \ There were two 
 vacancies and eleven competitors : the examination 
 lasted four days. The glory of the thing is that to 
 gain a Fellowship at Oriel is considered the summit 
 of an Oxford man's ambition. The Fellows of Oriel 
 are the picked men of the University ; and this year 
 there happened to be an unusually large number of 
 very distinguished men in. This is none of your 
 empty honours. It gives me an income of about 
 ;^30o per ann., as long as I choose to reside at 
 Oxford, and about £220 in cash if I reside elsewhere. 
 In addition to this it puts me in a highly command- 
 
 ' C. H. Pearson, the historian and Austrahan statesman.
 
 i854] LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN 67 
 
 ing position for pupils, so that on the whole I have 
 every reason to expect that (except perhaps the first 
 year) I shall make between ;^500 and £600 altogether 
 per ann. So you see, my dear mother, that your 
 prayers have not been unanswered, and that God 
 will bless the generation of those who humbly strive 
 to serv^e Him. You are now (it is unnecessary to 
 say), if my life is spared, put out of the reach of all 
 want, and, I hope, henceforth need never again give 
 yourself a single anxious thought or care about 
 money matters. And what a comfort this is, I'm 
 sure I know from my own experience. I have now 
 gained the very summit of my hopes at Oxford ; and 
 hope that I may be able to make good use of my 
 position with a view to my future life. But my first 
 thought was and is of you, and the pride which 
 (though I say it) you may reasonably take in my 
 success. ... I hope you will accept the Oriel Fellow- 
 ship as a proof that your son has not as yet lived 
 quite in vain. 
 
 Best love to the girls. I hope they like Douglas. 
 ... I have not omitted to remark that the election 
 took place on April 2 1 , the anniversary of your birth 
 and marriage. 
 
 To HIS Mother. 
 
 Oriel College, 
 
 November 5, 1854. 
 
 Your account of poor little H. quite confirms the 
 impression which I had of his state when I last saw 
 him. I had no doubt that there was something 
 serious the matter with the poor little fellow. For my 
 
 E 2
 
 68 LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN [1854 
 
 own part, I have such confidence in these impressions 
 that I do not feel any hope of his recovery. There 
 is a certain look about the eye, a strange dreamy, 
 unearthly look, a kind of stereotyped interrogation, 
 a wonder and an awe which to me are infallible 
 signs of the approach of Death. It was so with poor 
 
 : and I could not help feeling just the same almost 
 
 as I did when I first came home from C.-town this 
 time eight years ago, and found that all familiarity 
 of intercourse was over between us, and felt that he 
 was consecrated to higher destinies, and that there 
 was a visible mark of separation in that fixed and 
 strong look : something that bid me stand back, and 
 look with reverence upon the change. I know it 
 well, I should recognize that feeling under any cir- 
 cumstances. And you can't conceive how it pained 
 me the other day to find that I was compelled as it 
 were, whether I willed it or not, to recognize this 
 awful mystery. 
 
 The poor dear little fellow looked so weary, and 
 yet so uncomplaining, except so far as there was 
 that same mr.te interrogation in his eye as though 
 he wanted to ask us all something, God only knows 
 what, poor darling ! To all my caresses he returned 
 nothing but the same look of speechless questioning ; 
 and it went to my heart like a dagger. 
 
 The poor little fellow looked so good too : really 
 there was a kind of dignity and calmness in his 
 every motion (never free though from that awe- 
 struck reverence), which seemed to proceed from a 
 kind of half-born consciousness of what was coming 
 upon him. I thought it better not to distress the
 
 1862] LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN 69 
 
 family just then by any ill-timed surmises : but I have 
 seldom in my life felt a keener pang; and you will 
 scarcely believe me that even now as I write the 
 tears blind my eyes. Poor little darling child! he 
 has opened an old fountain ; I scarcely thought it 
 could have flowed for him : but these little things 
 unconsciously, and by insensible degrees, twine them- 
 selves around our hearts ; and I had no idea till 
 now that this little boy was so dear to me as he is. 
 I can scarcely bear to think of him now that he has 
 'put down his little head,' as H. describes it. But 
 the subject is inexpressibly painful to me ; I must 
 leave it ^ 
 
 To HIS Mother. 
 
 Parliament Street, Ramsey, Isle of Man, 
 
 June 20, 1862. 
 
 You can hardly believe how absolutely barren 
 and desolate the island appears to me coming from 
 Gloucestershire. The farming looks just like a mere 
 slight scratching on the surface, and as for the trees 
 and hedges they look like unfledged starveling birds. 
 I confess I never felt before the immense difference 
 between our bare little island and the rich luxuriance 
 of English vegetation, at least West of England vege- 
 tation. ... K. told me such a capital story of . 
 
 Preaching upon the text, ' Demas hath forsaken me,' 
 
 ' With the exception of the three letters that follow there is a gap 
 of nearly twenty years, which the relatives and friends known to me 
 have been unable to fill up. [Brown once said to a friend — ' For 
 many years — I don't know how many — I gave myself up to domestic 
 life and read and wrote practically nothing.']
 
 / 
 
 o LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN [1S62 
 
 and trying to extemporize, he apostrophized an 
 imaginary Demas, and exclaimed, ' Aw ! Demas man ! 
 Demas man ! what did ye do yandhar for ? ' . . . 
 A. has borne all her fatigues well, and Baby famously. 
 . . . She is beginning to enjoy herself. The sea is 
 to her, and indeed to me, a source of endless delight. 
 
 To HIS Mother. 
 
 (Gloucester ?) 
 
 September 21, 1862. 
 
 The Festival was a great treat. We enjoyed the 
 Oratorio very much ; we had excellent places, and 
 could both see and hear to advantage. It was my 
 favourite, the Elijah. . . . When H. and A. were in 
 London, we had a geological excursion in the Dean 
 Forest. The day was glorious : we got some speci- 
 mens, and partially disinterred a very extraordinary 
 skull, the teeth of which has taken to Cam- 
 bridge. . . . Then we rambled out of the forest on 
 to a common high up in the hills, where I had the 
 inexpressible delight of lying down on a bed of 
 heather In full bloom (! ! ! !), with harebells and even 
 gorse close by. This was the crowning triumph. 
 
 was ' visibly affected,' as I told him ; for he loves 
 
 the I. of Man and the nature of its scenery. I only 
 wish I had gone there earlier in the day, and by 
 myself! What a treat It would have been, what 
 inward communing, what memories, what dead hopes 
 and fears, leaves that have faded from my tree of 
 life ! ! And over all was the bright sky, blue as the 
 harebell Itself, and bluer ; and, as it always is, cir- 
 cumscribing all our littleness of life, larger and better
 
 1862] LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN 71 
 
 than it. Moreover I ate some blackberries : but they 
 were poor and flavourless compared with the Manx 
 ones. 
 
 And this reminds me that to-day we have had 
 a mulberry pudding off our own tree. We thought 
 to compare it with a blackberry one ; but wae's me ! 
 what a difference ! We all agreed that it was im- 
 mensely inferior to our old friend. . . . Baby is 
 becoming a songstress ; perhaps the Festival has shed 
 some occult influence upon her. . . . Your descrip- 
 tion of the view from Douglas Head makes my mouth 
 water. Glorious, indeed, it must be now. Love 
 to M. 
 
 To THE Rev. E. W. Kissack. 
 
 (Gloucester ?) 
 
 September 24, 1862. 
 Forget and forgive 
 As long as you live. 
 
 The discrepancy between the dates of our respective 
 letters is something frightful. I can only trust, &c,, &c. 
 
 I fear I cannot subscribe to your organ. And I will 
 candidly tell you the reason. Your list of subscribers 
 is really not the thing. Let the parish come out first 
 as it ought to do, and then outsiders may be called 
 on. But I think, from what I can see, that interesting 
 crisis has not yet come. And now you will probably 
 say I am a hypocrite of the most crocodilian stamp if 
 I wish you every success in the undertaking. But 
 remember I am ready to undergo any moderate 
 amount of phlebotomy, provided that I can first see 
 such an effort on the part of the parishioners as would 
 indicate an effectual demand.
 
 ^2 LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN [1873 
 
 Is the Archdeacon at home ? If so, will you present 
 to him my kind remembrances. A young- lady in 
 Ramsey has just sent me his carte de visite. I fancy it 
 is by Myers : it is very fair, and represents the arch- 
 deacon just as he must have looked after running 
 across from the Mitre, whip in hand. 
 
 To Mrs. Williamson. 
 
 4 St. John's Terrace, Keswick, 
 
 September i6, 1873. 
 
 I went to Scotland but not to Shetland. At St. 
 Andrews I found the people had given P. such a 
 dismal picture of what was likely to be in store for 
 us in the Shetlands that he had lost all heart about it. 
 A long course of St. Andrews' golf seemed to have 
 made his enterprise droop rather. 
 
 However, we determined to go to the Highlands 
 for a week or ten days. 
 
 What we wanted to do was to make for Aviemore 
 Station on the Highland Railway (Strathspey) ; this 
 is visible in some sort from the top of the mountain, 
 say twelve or fifteen miles off ; but, of course, not to 
 us. We made a dive down a steep slope. We got 
 into a perfect pit of a corrie, a concentration of 
 corries. But we had hit it very fairly. We were 
 between Ben MacDhui and Cairn Toul : a little 
 below the Wells of Dee. The deuce of this Cairn- 
 gorm range is that the mountains are separated from 
 one another by such infernal abysses. I had no idea 
 of this. If you look at a map you would fancy it 
 would be an easy matter passing from one to another :
 
 T873] LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN 73 
 
 but each of these transitions is a veritable descensiLS 
 ad inferos^ and the resurrectio^ oh, the weary resur- 
 reciio / Just about the Wells of Dee (sources of that 
 jolly river) is the pass, or at least the watershed 
 between the Dee and the Spey valleys. It is the 
 roughest pass I was ever in ; the walking, or rather 
 hopping, skipping, and jumping, utterly ruinous to 
 one's temper. The rain came down — well, you know 
 how — and the track was simply no track at all, 
 I don't know by what combination of blundering, and 
 conjecture, and divination, and audacity, we hit it. 
 As far as it existed at all, it was a thin line of plashy, 
 pasty peat, through heather, cranberry, bilberry, 
 beastliness. In fact, it did not exist. 
 
 However, we came at last to a forest road. Here 
 the country was delicious — Rothiemurchus heather 
 such as it would seem impudent to picture to oneself, 
 except in dreams ; rainbows, and fragments of rain- 
 bows — here, there, and everywhere. Sometimes just 
 one ruby bit making the heather burn into an in- 
 tensity as of pain ; then the whole big arch spanning 
 the valley. Very good : but here we had to ford 
 a river, the Morlich. So behold these two venerable 
 presbyters, with their trousers tucked up high on 
 their poor pale thighs, stumbling over the stones of 
 Morlich, with knapsack on back, and a rueful air of 
 parodying our stalwart-legged breechless brethren. 
 Here at last, yes here, in this all but indecent state, we 
 encountered two natives — an old man and a young 
 woman. Charming Highlanders! How good they 
 are ! How truly polite ! Not a smile ; or, if so, so 
 kindly, so sweetly tempered with gracious considera-
 
 74 LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN [1874 
 
 tion for the forlorn and, I should say, apparently 
 idiotic pair who stood before them. 
 
 The girl spoke English, and acted as interpreter 
 for us with her Gaelic-speaking father. I spread 
 myself all out to look manly and brawny — it was as 
 a glazier spreadeth the putty with his knife — as the 
 thrifty matron spreadeth the sparse butter with her 
 thumb on the bannock of expectant infancy. 
 
 At last I felt it would not do. I collapsed, drooped, 
 looked feebly poetical, and asked old Donald to accept 
 of a little well-meant tobacco. On the whole this last 
 act had some little flavour of manliness in it, and 
 I felt encouraged ; as we moved on, I almost strode. 
 We came on the Spey at the Boat-house, as it is called; 
 nor is it a public-house ; that is, it has no licence. 
 But a girl of some twenty-three years keeps it, and 
 gives you tea. She lives alone ! bless her ! and 
 cursed eternally be he that would make it unsafe for 
 her thus to live ! What a tea she gave us ! and what 
 comfort and quiet and gentleness and peace altogether ! 
 But this will never do ! I must leave off this maunder- 
 ing. You may suppose us therefore to be still at the 
 Boat-house. As God liveth, and as thy soul liveth, 
 I wish we were for ever and ever. 
 
 My kind love to Mamma and John. 
 
 To Mrs. Williamson. 
 
 Clifton, 
 
 October i8, 1874. 
 
 Our three weeks in Switzerland were consummate. 
 No rain, no wind, a perpetual bath of sunshine, hot of
 
 1874] LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN ys 
 
 course, but at those heights deliciously bracing and 
 stimulating ; sunshine that got into your brain and 
 heart, and set you all aglow with a sweet radiant fire 
 I never thought possible for my old jaded apparatus 
 pkysi'czis. We went by Paris to Neufchatel ; thence 
 to Berne, Thun, Interlaken, Lauterbrunnen, Miirren. 
 Here we stayed a week. It was the best part of our 
 holiday ; a week never, never to be forgotten. 
 
 Miirren faces the Jungfrau. This glorious creature 
 is your one object of interest from morning to night. 
 It seems so near that you could fancy a stone might 
 be thrown across to it. Between you and it is a broad 
 valley : but so deep, and with sides so precipitous, 
 that it is entirely out of sight. So the Jungfrau vis-a- 
 vis-Q.^ you frankly through the bright sweet inter- 
 vening air. And then she has such moods ; such 
 unutterable smiles, such inscrutable sulks, such growls 
 of rage suppressed, such thunder of avalanches, such 
 crowns of stars. One evening our sunset was the 
 real rose-pink you have heard of so much. It fades, 
 you know, into a deathlike chalk-white. That is the 
 most azqful thing. A sort of spasm seems to come 
 over her face, and in an instant she is a corpse, rigid, 
 and oh so cold ! Well, so she died, and you felt as 
 if a great soul had ebbed away into the Heaven of 
 Heavens : and thankful, but very sad, I went up to my 
 room. I was reading by candle-light, for it gets dark 
 immediately after sunset, when A. shrieked to me to 
 come to the window. What a Resurrection — so gentle, 
 so tender — like that sonnet of Milton's about his dead 
 wife returning in vision ! The moon had risen ; and 
 there was the Jungfrau — oh chaste, oh blessed saint
 
 'je LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN [1874 
 
 in glory everlasting ! Then all the elemental spirits 
 that haunt crevasses, and hover around peaks, all the 
 patient powers that bear up the rock buttresses, and 
 labour to sustain great slopes, all streams, and drifts, 
 and flowers, and vapours, made a symphony, a time 
 most solemn and rapturous. It was there, unheard 
 perhaps, unheard, I will not deny it ; but there, never- 
 theless. A young Swiss felt it, and with exquisite 
 delicacy feeling his way, as it were, to some expres- 
 sion, however inadequate, he played a sonata of 
 Schumann, and one or two of the songs, such as the 
 Frilhliiigsnacht. Forgive my rhapsody: but, you 
 know, you don't get those things twice. And let 
 me say just one word of what followed. The abyss 
 below was a pot of boiling blackness, and on to this, 
 and down into this, and all over this, the moonlight 
 fell as meal falls on to porridge from nimbly sifting 
 fingers. Moon-meal ! that was it. 
 
 I climbed the Schilthorn one day before breakfast ; 
 it is about 10,000 feet ; but, as a rule, I didn't Uke to 
 leave A. alone ; so that my climbing was of the most 
 limited, and I scarcely got on to ice at all. At 
 Miirren, perhaps more than anywhere else, we had 
 the most astounding richness of pasture. But Switzer- 
 land, generally, is in this respect unique. So lush is 
 the vegetation that it is almost impossible to get up 
 into bare savagery of desolation. 
 
 The sweet bright Flora baffles you ; she springs like 
 a bacchante from height to height. You can't get 
 above her. I don't mean fat, fulsome richness ; but 
 the pastures are so velvety, so parsemed with all 
 imaginable colours. The grass seems to be all flowers,
 
 1874] LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN •j^ 
 
 and the flowers to be all grass: the closest-grained 
 math I ever beheld ; and through it everywhere, led 
 by careful hands, go singing, hissing rather, like 
 sharp silver scythes, the little blessed streams. I was 
 not prepared for this. 
 
 We got to Chamounix and went up the Flegere, and 
 A. was like a roe upon the mountains ; and every care 
 and every strain of anxiety and bother was wiped from 
 off our souls, and we were both, as we once were, young 
 and full of hope and love. Age and the love shall remain, 
 God wot, but the other things — all right ! all right ! 
 No language can give you any idea how all this 
 enjoyment acted on A. ; and over and over I thought, 
 and every day I still think, what a bain de vie this 
 would be for you. It did far more for her than for 
 me. In Chfton she gets more depressed, compressed, 
 suppressed, than I do ; but in Switzerland the very 
 geist of the hills got into her, and expanded her 
 heart, and every vital power, till she veritably bloomed; 
 and she was so happy. 
 
 From Geneva we made a pretty straight course 
 home. We stayed a night at Dijon, and another 
 night in Paris ; the next we slept at Charing Cross : 
 and the next at Pensarn. So fades from my view, 
 but not from my heart, the richest page on which my 
 poor halting life must be written. . . . 
 
 ... I hope Mamma is able to enjoy some happiness 
 still. Will this letter amuse her, do you think ? . . . 
 I do so long to cheer and comfort her : but I am sadly 
 awkward about it. Give her my very best love ; and 
 tell her, how every highest thought with which God 
 is pleased to bless me seems to come from Him to me
 
 78 LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN [1875 
 
 through her. Not in vain am I her son ; I feel sure 
 of that. And, believe me, this is no conceit : one can't 
 help feeling what one feels : and if I do feel a strict 
 and native companionship with the mountains of either 
 world, I will not deny it, and I will claim it as inherited 
 from her. 
 
 Kind love to J., the good and ever blessed. 
 
 To Mrs. Williamson. 
 
 Library Reading Room, Clifton College, 
 
 December 25, 1875. 
 
 The blessings of this fair Christmas-tide be on you 
 and your ' gude man ' ! It is a most lovely morning. 
 I am sitting in the College Library, in a deep oriel. 
 The Close, Chapel, &c., are bathed in the sweetest 
 sunshine, it is quite tepid, and the air is so still. Only 
 indeed some blackbirds in the gardens are ' shoutin',' 
 and no wonder — the ' craythurs.' This silence and 
 solitude are to me absolute food, especially after all 
 the row and worry at the end of Term. 
 
 The Headmasters held their Conference here imme- 
 diately after our Breaking-up. And now the last 
 rumble of their chariot-wheels has died away. East- 
 ward, and there is not a soul about, and the sunshine 
 is not embarrassed by having to make shadows for 
 any strange bodies, and all is clear, luminous, delicious, 
 universal intelligence. It floats and buoys me up all 
 round. ' My mind to me a kingdom is,' or rather 
 a four-post bedstead of gentlest solace. And surely 
 this sweet blue air is the very life of the intellect. 
 All storms, and individuals, and rapprochements, and
 
 1876] LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN 79 
 
 relations, and permutations, and combinations seem to 
 me now brutal and destructive, wasteful and deadly. 
 That a blackbird should pipe may well be borne, and 
 I swear to you (imagine some ethereal bird-of-paradise 
 oath !) that there is nothing else. The sky is hung 
 over this place by a most delicate diamond boss at the 
 zenith, and believe me ! it all swims in silent blue 
 music. (I saw a sheep then, but never mind !) Where 
 are the men and women ? Well, now look here, you'll 
 not mention it again. They're all in church. See 
 how good God is ! See how he has placed these 
 leitourgic traps in which people, especially disagree- 
 able people, get caught — and lo ! the universe for 
 me ! ! ! me — me. . . . 
 
 Bless you all everywhere that love me. It is 
 11.45 ^■^- ^ rook has just flown past. As he did 
 so, he cawed. From his black wings dripped the 
 almost clinging blue. 
 
 To J. R. MOZLEY. 
 
 Clifton College, 
 
 March 26, 1876. 
 
 I think there is every likelihood that I shall look 
 you up. But if not, why can't you come to us 
 (Windermere) ? Yes — have a walk with me up Fair- 
 field. Ha ! have I found you ? 
 
 'The Doctor' is still in the long-clothes of MS., 
 and most likely will never be short-coated. It is 
 enough : he has been born : the gossips have come 
 and looked at him, and said— What a remarkable 
 child! how hke his father! What more would you
 
 8o LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN [1877 
 
 have ? A joke / . . . Bless that baby of yours. Yom 
 ought to play the piano for him, too. I had so 
 severely arranged all my spring affinities, sympathies, 
 symphonies, or whatever they are, that this weather 
 has completely knocked me to pieces ; not in body, 
 however, which is sufficient, and plods on steadily. 
 
 To H. G. Dakyns. 
 
 Lynton Cottage, Lynton, 
 
 April 16, 1877. 
 
 It is so cold. Can it possibly be like this with you ? 
 We have one colour : it is grey, the grey of an old 
 man's beard, stubbly and unwashen. 
 
 But there is roaring of winds and streams. 
 
 Last night I had a ramble which it would be hard 
 to describe. I went round and round something ; 
 probably myself. One point there was upon the 
 circumference — a spark — a ship working her way 
 up channel against wind and tide. The ship was 
 invisible in the gloom, but the light — what intense 
 yearning ! and what pluck and energy too ! 
 
 It was like a red diamond, if there be such a thing, 
 boring into blackness. I could almost hear the rip-rip 
 of the severing sheets of darkness ; or perhaps, rather, 
 a delicate hum of the gritty grating stuff through 
 which she had to pass. 
 
 But no, I return to the first idea. The borer, the 
 red diamond piercing the black marble. Ah well — 
 what matter ! 
 
 Write to me, and tell me about Rubinstein. Now 
 do! do!
 
 1878] LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN 81 
 
 I enclose some verses, which are silly enough ; but 
 I couldn't help writing them. 
 
 To J. R. MOZLEY. 
 
 Clifton, 
 
 January 6, 1878. 
 
 Politics move me not. There is nothing archi- 
 tectonic in this science, from my point of view. 
 I couldn't help laughing at a passage in Sismondi 
 I happened to be reading just when your letter 
 arrived. ' Man is the product of laws and institutions,' 
 and so forth. What absolute rot! The political 
 function does not require genius, or any brilliancy 
 even ; nay, it is better to have it entirely dissociated 
 from all such lure. Derby and Carnarvon would 
 steer us through this strait infinitely better if that 
 old virtuoso were not upon the bridge— blow 
 him ! We only want a certain material fence drawn 
 round the garden of our life. We can't waste any- 
 thing very precious or beautiful upon such a vallum. 
 Pitch honest stakes, and let stout ditchers delve. The 
 genius is wanted for other purposes. 
 
 To Miss Cannan. 
 
 Clifton, 
 
 May 16, 1878. 
 
 I have to thank you for a great treat. The Auto- 
 biography is quite incomparable. What a bright old 
 desperado ! she holds her atheistic bayonet to your 
 throat with such cheerful energy. The style is most 
 refreshing. . . . 
 
 I F
 
 S2 LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN [1878 
 
 I confess I am very curious to see Mrs. Chapman's 
 book. This stout-hearted woman (Martineau) lay 
 down with a sort of grim satisfaction, to die, at the 
 ag-e of fifty-one ; and didn't she live quite twenty years 
 afterwards ? I will hazard the observation that her 
 longevity may have been favoured by her supreme 
 self-complacency. 
 
 Also, is she not a little cool (coarse } vulgar ?) in 
 the way she talks about ' Old Wordsworth ' ? Mind, 
 I can stand her contempt for parsons, and all that — 
 it doesn't ruffle my feathers in the least. But I do 
 feel that with Wordsworth we are upon sacred ground. 
 I am all the more bothered because Miss Martineau 
 was not a Philistine by any means, and she makes 
 every now and then extraordinary good hits as to 
 what constitutes true poetry. 
 
 To Miss Cannan. 
 
 Clifton College, 
 
 July 14, 1878. 
 
 Thank you for the Manse Garden. I am going 
 right through it ; though he keeps me a long time 
 waiting at the holly hedge. It is very pleasant 
 reading. I think I almost prefer the glimpses he 
 gives us of possible tatterdemalionism and easy-going 
 out-of-elbowness in a Scotch Manse. I fancy I can 
 see those dry dust-heaps where the hens wash them- 
 selves in a kind of earth-born snuff. 
 
 We had much ado to get anything out of our 
 garden. It was a regular fight against unfavourable
 
 1878] LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN 83 
 
 circumstances, very heart-breaking- at the time, I 
 believe ; but amusing enough to look back upon. . . . 
 You will, I dare say, let me tarry a little longer 
 in the precincts of the Manse. I have not yet seen 
 inside of the holly. 
 
 To J. E. Pearson, 
 
 Pensarn, 
 
 September i6, 1878. 
 
 Many thanks for your letter. With such letters 
 the mill-stream of our lives should be studded as 
 with water-lilies. 
 
 It is not a letter in truth so much as a sonnet. Also 
 it is (' for example ') a little overture — most refresh- 
 ing — and just what people ought to make haste to 
 write to each other. 
 
 I would not have it transposed into the key of 
 verse. But it makes me ponder. Do you write 
 verse? I have, somewhere far back in my suspec- 
 torium (if there be such an organ or receptacle), 
 an idea that you possibly meant your very sweet 
 description as a most gentle and loving gird at my 
 mountain truculence. I know, I know — indeed I 
 also long for peace and ' straight-backed cows,' and 
 ' swallows round the towers.' And whenever you 
 see these things very clearly do write to me at once. 
 Of such amours I am a greedy but safe confidant. 
 On Thursday we shall be in CHfton. I delight in 
 Wales more than ever. But for England there is 
 very much to be said, 
 
 F 2
 
 84 LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN [1879 
 
 To J. E. Pearson. 
 
 Lake View, Keswick, 
 Sepiemher 15, 1879, 
 
 Again I receive your holiday pictures, and thank 
 you heartily for the pleasant triptych. How shall 
 I make return ? I have been in Yorkshire — no, 
 Durham ; my first picture may be — at Appleby. 
 
 I was with Atkinson : we were climbing- up from 
 the town to the station, when suddenly far above us, on 
 a high bank against the sky-line, was P., a solemn 
 and almost awful figure and face, not melancholy, but 
 stern and hard, far reach of eye, the pose of memories 
 and back-seeking. His old school lay beneath his 
 feet, his old church, his old river, his old self. 
 
 My second picture must be Caldron Snout, in 
 Teesdale, seen by us in the late twilight, a joyous 
 rush of flaming cream, sheets and volumes of that 
 fire you get by rubbing together two pieces of 
 quartz — a bridge (wooden, precarious) spans the fall 
 midway. We look up to the comby crest where 
 it first gets a notion of what is before it ; under us is 
 the straight arrowy myriad-lined thrust of the absolute 
 energy, full of hate and insane purpose. We climb 
 a bit of rock, and above the fall we see grey and 
 melancholy preparations, a long dim claymore riveted 
 into a background of hills ; the hills black with 
 a lustrous blackness as of Hamburg grapes ; beyond 
 all a blue-white sky, almost intolerably clear. 
 
 The colours grey, blue, white, cream, black. In 
 the south, just resting on the high level of a moor,
 
 1879] LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN 85 
 
 Jupiter ; in the east, sinister and dim, Saturn and Mars. 
 All the land very high, everything held up as if upon 
 some giant's palm for heaven to look upon — a con- 
 sciousness of being above everything. A perfect 
 solitude, no roads, no paths, no trace or sign of human 
 habitation. A half- acknowledged difficulty of ever 
 getting away, ever getting back to the homely ways and 
 haunts of men. On one side of me, P., quite silent 
 and looking up ; on the other, M., pale, unearthly, 
 his face seamed with deep lines of violet, looking into 
 mine, and asking me whether I am satisfied. His 
 childish glee when I tell him I am, and yet the un- 
 abated hunger for sympathy, and again and again the 
 question, and again and again the answer, until at 
 last he looked radiant with gratitude and triumph. 
 And then, will you not believe it, Pearson } the rush 
 into my eyes of tears that I suppose I succeeded in 
 hiding. 
 
 We saw High Force next day, but, as M. had fore- 
 known, with all its greatness, it could not be accepted 
 by us in lieu of Caldron. 
 
 My third picture (ah, vines ! apricots ! sunny 
 parsondom ! no — not you f not you/ but) a thunder- 
 storm in our mountains here. B. and I had gone 
 up Hindscarth, and were now on Dale-head, 
 a good stony hill up Newland s way confronting 
 Honister. It came from Scawfell. I saw it there 
 a deep blue, or rather a gunpowder black. With 
 two clips of its broad wings it was upon us ; and we 
 ran — ran before it — ran down to get shelter among 
 the crags, for our Dale -head was as bare as a billiard 
 ball. We had hardly time to dispossess a poor sheep
 
 86 LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN [1879 
 
 of its niche (it might have stayed, however, if it had 
 so chosen), when it swept over us in a splendid rush 
 of rain, hail, and lightning. It had no time to stop 
 and search for such atomies as we, but with one 
 great wrench and a mighty fling it rattled down into 
 Borrowdale eastward ; then sunshine and a blue sky 
 with that blessed wistful look as who should say — 
 ' Were you frightened ? ' And then a descent to a 
 quarry, where two cheerful men were cutting slates, 
 and were so glad to see us. I dare say you know the 
 curious numbness and pricking of the fingers when 
 you are caught in a real thunder-cloud, and are all 
 but breathing electricity. I fear you will be dis- 
 appointed with my three pictures ; but I thought 
 I would try and give you back some portion of the 
 pleasure you have given me. 
 
 Let us exchange these sketches every summer, as 
 long as we adhere to this not-after-all-so-much-to- 
 be-condemned-and-deprecated old scene of existence. 
 
 To Mrs. Fletcher. 
 
 Clifton, 
 
 October 19, 1879. 
 
 Though personally unknown to you, I feel I must 
 write to you in your great sorrow. Such sorrow 
 seems to cry from the depths of its unutterable in- 
 tensity to all hearts that have felt and can feel what 
 sorrow is. Such sorrow makes all true men your 
 brothers, and I for one would fain try and comfort 
 you a little.
 
 1879I LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN 87 
 
 And yet how hard it is to say anything that will 
 comfort you ! I can only stand by your side, and 
 speechlessly pray for you, and sympathize with you. 
 It is dark indeed ! oh for light ! for the light. Dear 
 friend, how I have prayed for this in my own case ! 
 that God would come into my heart, and shed, if not 
 a bright convincing joy, at least some soft sweet 
 soothing twilight of His love in which I could rest. 
 May He give you this, and make you feel that all is 
 well ! For assuredly all is so. I knew your little girl : 
 I once took a number of young things (I scarcely 
 remember any of them now but her) in a boat in 
 Ramsey Bay. I thought her very lovable, and in 
 every way promising and delightful. And we chatted 
 and laughed, as you may well imagine — bright sky, 
 merry hearts, all hope and radiance ! I don't think 
 I ever saw her again. And, indeed, this would be 
 but a slight ground for asking to be permitted to 
 associate myself to your grief, vividly as it remains 
 pictured on my memory. But I knew your late 
 husband very well, and we must have many common 
 interests and friends. It is, however, as one who has 
 suffered that I venture to address you now. This 
 seems to be the strongest of all ties, or nearly so. My 
 heart bleeds for you, for are you not my sister in 
 the sacred bonds of sorrow .-* I pray God to bless 
 you. Some little relief may come from human com- 
 forters ; but it was He that made our poor struggling 
 hearts, and He alone can strengthen and sustain 
 them.
 
 88 LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN [1879 
 
 To J. E. Pearson. 
 
 Chapel, 
 
 December 21, 1879. 
 
 Again I see you, Pearson, like a bird 
 
 Flushed from Devonian furrows, where they lie 
 
 And front the concaves of another sky, 
 And scent the nearer Spring. Ah, say a word ! 
 Say two, dear Pearson ! surely we have heard 
 
 Enough of ' moral, spiritual ' powers, 
 
 * In a society like ours ' — 
 
 The pulpit, Pearson ! not the pew — 
 Assume the concionatic perch : 
 
 Ah, tell us how they coo — • 
 he pigeons of the Exe, 
 
 What foam-bird flecks 
 The channel's waste, what tridents search. 
 Keen-pronged, the Daulian caves. 
 And all the bicker of the waves — 
 Ah, tell us, do ! 
 
 Do, Pearson : nor not tell 
 How fares the younger birch — 
 
 Is Eddard Harris well 
 As well can be — 
 And of his consort tell me — how is she ? 
 
 To J. R. MOZLEY. 
 
 Clifton, 
 
 October 24, 1880. 
 
 If I might see what you have written, by way of 
 memorial, I would be grateful : but I hardly know 
 whether I ought to ask you this. You can judge ; 
 and you will judge according to the law of kindness 
 and sympathy. Perhaps we ought to shut out no
 
 i88o] LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN 89 
 
 honest spirit that wants to feel with us even in our 
 deepest sorrows. 
 
 ^Concerning those loved ones — whether any com- 
 munication with them now is possible, whether we 
 shall hereafter know them, or ' have anything to do 
 with them,' all this is to me the merest mist. I did 
 'not like to say so before, for I thought it would 
 distress you. But as you almost ask me, I have to 
 tell you now that I know nothing about ' a dis- 
 embodied state ' ; that to me it is altogether removed 
 from the sphere of practical considerations. To say 
 I recognize the wisdom of God, and His goodness in 
 all, is to say what may be said, but it seems useless to 
 say it. I simply know nothing : I submit, I acquiesce 
 even ; but that is all. That we cannot have pleasure 
 without pain, for instance, is, in a rueful sort of way, 
 true enough ; but is it not an unhappy arrangement ? 
 and is it to go on after death .'' or is that supreme 
 pain to be final ? And if Heaven, or whatever we 
 call it, is to be free from pain, why should not earth 
 be so ? and so on, and so on, . . . but I don't mean 
 these for arguments — no — no. I lie down on my 
 child's grave ^ and fill my mouth with the clay, and 
 say nothing. If I may quote my own lines — 
 
 Oh ! what is there to do ? 
 Oh ! what is there to say ? 
 
 ' Nothing ' — nothing whatever. But then, dear 
 Mozley, do not think that I do not react under the 
 stroke : I am not merely passive. This is my action. 
 Death teaches me to act thzts — to cling with tenfold 
 
 * On this subject cf. the letter of May 23, 1888. 
 
 * His boy Braddon died in April, 1876. How this blow shook him 
 his poetry has told ; see the poem called ' Aber Stations ' in the 
 volume entitled Old John, p. 23.
 
 90 LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN [1880 
 
 tenacity to those that remain. A man might, indeed, 
 argue thus. The pain of separation from those we 
 love is so intense that I will not love, or, at least, 
 I will withdraw myself into a delicate suspension of 
 bias, so that when the time comes I may not feel the 
 pang, or hardly feel it. This would be the economical 
 view, and a sufficiently base one. But I am taught by 
 death to run the fullest flood into my family relations. 
 The ground is this. He is gone : I have no certain 
 ground whatever for expecting that that relation 
 can be renewed. Therefore, I am thankful that 
 I actualized it intensely, ardently, and effectually, 
 while it existed : and now I wiU do the same for what 
 is left to me : nay, I will do much more ; for I did not 
 do enough. He and I might have been more inter- 
 twined, a great deal more, and that we were not 
 appears to me now a great loss. In this, as in every- 
 thing else, I accept the words of the Ecclesiast — 
 ' What thine hand findeth to do, do it with thy might ; 
 for' — you know the rest. I accept that too. This 
 is the very outcome : often I am otherwise, but this is 
 the pivot of oscillation, and it is a practical one — we 
 trust, or, at any rate, lean too much to the mere 
 storge ; effort is needed and inteiition. 
 
 Yes, it is quite true about the ' Lamb ' ^ : there he 
 lay, upon the very spot the child's feet had rested on, 
 when he tried to climb. Here, too, is another fact, 
 but I have put it into rhyme '^. 
 
 Ah, Mozley, Mozley ! 
 
 ' See Old John, p. 40. 
 
 '■' In ' Clevedon Verses' in Old John, p. 84, here written down : 
 And so unto the turf her ear she laid, 
 To hark if still in that dark place he played.
 
 i88i] LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN 91 
 
 To Miss Cannan. 
 
 Clifton, 
 
 February 8, 1881. 
 
 And ' True Thomas ' Is gone. What has he not 
 been to the men of my generation ? And the younger 
 men come and ask one — What was it ? What did he 
 teach ? and so forth ; and, of course, there is nothing 
 to be said in that direction. And, if one mumbles 
 something between one's teeth (impatiently, rather 
 like a half-chewed curse) — something about a ^(T^/zj'//^: 
 of fire — my graceful adolescents look shocked, and, 
 for the most part, repeat the question, ' Yes, yes, but 
 what did he teach .? ' To which (I mean when 
 repeated) there is no possible reply, but the honest 
 
 outspoken 'D ,' My favourite Carlyle is The Life 
 
 offohii Sterling. . . . 
 
 To G. H. WOLLASTON. 
 
 I Beach Cottage, Seaton, Devon, 
 April 23, 1881. 
 
 Judge of Seaton as a futmicipium from the fact that 
 your letter got here on Tuesday last, and has only 
 been delivered to-day ! Shall I kick up a row ? 
 Shall I write to Bob Fawcett ? No, I think not : 
 in more vigorous days {calida fuventd) I should 
 probably have spilled some gall over it ; but I feel 
 very much propitiated, very much 'subdooed,' not 
 unlike that dear old cook in Pttnch who told her 
 mistress that she was ' of that 'appy disposition that 
 she felt she could love any man.'
 
 92 LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN [r88i 
 
 Our beach is the most sparkHng one I ever saw. 
 It is chiefly composed of fine shingle — flint is the 
 great thing-, but such flint, exquisitely coloured, and 
 with such a dewy gleam always on it. Even the dry 
 stuff, above high-water mark, is never dull or dim, it 
 seems to have a radiance in itself — bless it ! Country 
 inland decidedly dull, except for primroses, but 
 primroses, I am ashamed to say, one now begins to 
 postulate : too bad ! for after all, what is like them ? 
 Chalk, chalk, chalk — that is the coast, and such coasts 
 have, to me, always a blank and idiot look. The cliffs 
 seem to have no intelligent appreciation of where 
 they are, or what is expected of them ; the very sea 
 has got tired of buffeting their poor pasty fronts — no 
 struggle, no defiance, no grim repose, ' no nothink,' 
 Water very good for these parts, clear and without 
 suspect. Still, I should not think of coming here in 
 the long holidays : the place is crammed, I believe, in 
 August ; and interior being deficient, no outlet that 
 way, I should be miserable. 
 
 The great ' broodin' fact ' at present for me is the 
 chance of my taking my grace-term ^ in the autumn, 
 and going with P. I think that would set me up. 
 
 It would be a queer contrast : Dakyns eastward, I 
 westward ; Dakyns in 'EAAa?, I in Yankee doodle- 
 dom ; Childe Dakyns, Squire Brown, Yoti. come 
 too : do ! The one disadvantage about our adventure 
 would be the desperate difficulty of settling down 
 to school-mastering again, of which — good sooth — 
 I weary more and more, and would fain see some 
 other outlet, some Zoar, — but not in Colorado— at 
 
 1 Leave of absence for a term.
 
 t88i] LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN 93 
 
 least, I suppose not : it is too late for me to take to 
 bowie knives and revolvers ; the trick ought to be 
 taught in childhood, for they are devilishly nimble 
 with their index-finger — those gentlemen in Denver 
 county. 
 
 To G. H. WOLLASTON. 
 
 A mon ami G. H. W. 
 
 Jttin 25, 188 r. 
 
 Evolene ! Evolene ! 
 
 Ah le bon 
 
 Wollaston — 
 
 Soit beni 
 
 Son nom, 
 
 Son lit, 
 
 Sa reine 
 
 Constance 
 
 (Pas de France) 
 
 Qui me mene 
 
 A Evolene, a Evolene, 
 
 C'est ma faute 
 
 A moi — 
 
 Fourquoi 
 
 Primesaute 
 
 Depuis trois 
 
 Semaines, 
 
 Ne suis-j' ici, 
 
 Ainsi, 
 
 Sans gene 
 
 A Evolene, a Evolene ?
 
 94 LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN [1881 
 
 Hier soir 
 C'etalt noir; 
 Nues debene 
 Firent tonnerres, 
 Les eclairs 
 Chasserent 
 Mon carrosse 
 Et mon ' OSS,' 
 Comme j'enfuis 
 Par la pluie — 
 Oui, oui, 
 Grand' peine — 
 You bet! 
 Rather wet 
 Bis wir sehen 
 Evolene, Evolene. 
 A Glion 
 Le Lion 
 Britannique 
 Et sa clique 
 Tres-niaise; 
 ' Swell ' Anglais 
 Tres-niais 
 Doux ministre 
 
 S cuistre ; 
 
 Allemand, 
 Cad in grain, 
 Fran9ais, 
 Pseudo-gai. 
 Tout le 'lot,' 
 Grand ' rot,' 
 Murent ma haine ;
 
 ,88i] LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN 95 
 
 Et je vins, 
 
 ' Slap bang-,' 
 
 A Evolene, a Evolene. 
 
 Evolene ! Evolene ! 
 
 Ce n'est pas — 
 
 Helas ! 
 
 Pays d'or, 
 
 Ni pays du dollar; 
 
 C'est le pays du grand Arolla(r), 
 
 Mais le crime 
 
 Dune telle rime 
 
 Fait horreur, 
 
 Des consequences, 
 
 Je me lance 
 
 Dans silence. 
 
 Souscrit 
 
 T. B. 
 
 To G. H. WOLLASTON. 
 
 Hotel Bel Alp, 
 
 July 5, 1881. 
 
 This is the place ! I have seen nothing to compare 
 with it for a moment. It blends with all my humours, 
 and mentally it makes me quite absolute. . . . 
 
 One ice cave had an altar inside, and round the 
 altar, and far away into the inner depths, was a sea of 
 the purest water. The purity of that altar ! It seemed 
 to have inside it a fiery globule that shifted and 
 clucked (do you understand ?). 
 
 Tyndall is here : last night he sat out with a lot of 
 us, as we took our post-prandial coffee and what not.
 
 96 LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN [i88r 
 
 He talked well, and seemed to enjoy it. I like what 
 I have seen of him. He is quite unaffected, so much 
 so as not to mind flinging- out, every now and then, 
 dashes of real Hibernian rhetoric. . . . 
 
 The wavy look of the glacier gives one an irresistible 
 impression of up and down motion as of the sea, and 
 I could have sworn that F. & Co. were rising and 
 falling on big, heavy, long rollers. I told him after- 
 wards he looked like Moses leading the children of 
 Israel through the Red Sea, the water being a wall 
 on this side and on that. The comparison failed a 
 little in the personality — that was all. Addio. 
 
 To H. R. King. 
 
 Lake View, Keswick, 
 
 September 14, 1881. 
 
 Many thanks for the Wordsworth. I have read 
 Mat's Preface. I can't say I am satisfied with it, though 
 I am very much amused. I see in Crabb Robinson's 
 Diary that he thought it necessary to recommend 
 a certain order of reading Wordsworth ; I rather 
 think that he deemed it advisable to postpone the 
 reading of some of the poems till the Greek Kalends. 
 And he was a ' Wordsworthian.' Probably, therefore, 
 Mat is right in principle, but he is certainly arbitrary 
 in the application thereof. He has retained some 
 poems — such as that on Burns — evidently for the 
 sake of a few lines or stanzas, not for the excellency 
 of the composition as a whole. On the other hand, 
 he has omitted entire poems ('The Cuckoo '.^) of the 
 greatest merit.
 
 1882] LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN 97 
 
 We have just had our last row on the lake. We 
 left it jet, and steel, and gold. How sad it is ! I can't 
 affect to be otherwise than wretched. I do believe 
 your autumns are the very soul of the lake year; 
 and I am always forced to go away, just as the 
 intensity of the sweetness begins to deepen to its 
 acme. But — we must be patient, and thankful for 
 what we have had. 
 
 I was at Grasmere on Tuesday, and had a row on 
 the lake, also a long and loving dream over the 
 grave. That church beck ! the little scamp — how 
 does it contrive to check its pace, and hush its prattle, 
 and lean its little elbow against the wall, and creep 
 beneath the bridge, and then hurry-scurry away for 
 the lake ? and what a colour ! 
 
 It was very good of you both to come and see me, 
 especially in my dull and sodden estate. 
 
 To H. G. Dakyns. 
 
 Clifton, 
 
 June 4, 1882. 
 
 To think that we should have a chance of getting 
 you to Keswick, or somewhere near ! Directly I got 
 your first letter, I began seething with this notion, 
 so did Wollaston. Our plan was that you should be at 
 Patterdale, Wollaston at Grasmere, and I at Keswick. 
 We set on foot inquiries. At present we stand thus : W. 
 willho. at Grasmere, I will be at Keswick, all settled, 
 signed and sealed. But where will you be .? ' Ah ! ' 
 say you, ' it is not a question of will,' and you go on 
 doubtless to quote Scripture, and Greek tragedians, 
 and Evangelical hymnologists, as usual, ' Oh, where 
 
 I G
 
 98 LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN [1882 
 
 shall rest be found ? ' . . . Rest shall be found. Come 
 to the Lakes ! do make up your dear old mind about 
 that ! make it up, and lock it up, and sit upon it, 
 corded and water-tight. There will be no diflSculty 
 whatever. Just go to Keswick to-morrow. After all 
 that's better than Patterdale. Keswick itself, the town, 
 is a very blessed old place. There is no promenade, 
 no regulation turn-out place at all ; and really, con- 
 sidering the number of visitors, it is surprising how 
 little one sees of them, whereas of genuine country 
 folk one sees a great deal. Keswick market-day 
 (Saturday) is a most refreshing sight. The pathos of 
 the posies (excuse the alliteration) is perfectly thrilling 
 — the simple old cottage garden flowers so trustfully 
 offered you as good and sufficient. But the fact is, 
 I love the place ; and whether it is bracing or not 
 I don't care, I'd rather die in its sweet soft arms, than 
 live an eternity of Tithono-Strudbrug effeteness at 
 a place like Whitby. 
 
 Concerning Oxford I have not much to say : it is 
 decidedly a good offer, and not to be sneezed at for a 
 moment (would you like to sneeze at it — ^just a moment? 
 eh ? what? . . . tchew ! ! there ! now ... all right). But 
 my selfishness would make me an unfair judge. 
 Against the Bodleian I would put the Great Gable, 
 against New College Gardens those ' Fraternal four at 
 Borrowdale,' against all the Thameses in the universe 
 one sparkling emerald of the Greta. Have you the 
 furore of books strong ? I am rather sorry. I am 
 beginning to think it would have been much better 
 for the world if no books had ever been written — 
 scrawling scribbles on the walls of the eternal silence
 
 1882] LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN 99 
 
 — ah, blast them ! What sap of life have they not 
 wrung and baked and cheese-pressed out of me ! 
 Still I see a plan which is only too obvious, and 
 which would, if you adopted it, dash all my hopes : 
 it is of course this^to go to the Lakes from June to 
 August, while things are decidedly cheap there, and 
 in August move to Oxford. The place is then very 
 sweet and soothing — a long-drawn breath of ease, or 
 even a suspension, a dear old mother sleeping while her 
 children play in divers fields. Hold hard ! I am begin- 
 ning to fall in love with the notion myself. Ah, no ! 
 come to Keswick, and stay there ! and let us gather 
 the Skiddaw blaeberries, and be happy. 
 
 Hitherto, we have all (except perhaps myself }) 
 treated Skiddaw in a somewhat flippant fashion. It 
 is such an obvious hill, with a town and a railway 
 station at its foot, and a regulated footpath and 
 a drinking-fountain, and a refreshment hut, as you 
 go up ; but it has inner chambers : it is mystic, and 
 reutotis rziptbus, I have heard Bacchus teaching, 
 and the nymphas discentes, and far beyond them 
 and the prick-ears of the Capripedes, I have seen 
 my purple island, my Hesperid, my only true ho'ine 
 on this earth. And if you would go there with me ! 
 Why not ? I shall in any case be going. Would not 
 that be sacramental ? 
 
 To G. H. WOLLASTON. 
 
 Lake View, Keswick, 
 
 July 30, 1882. 
 
 Peace ! that is the word — and soaking, that is the 
 other word. Ah, well, — never mind ! Friday and 
 
 G 2
 
 loo LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN [iSSa 
 
 Saturday were glorious. To-day it rains, and such a 
 blessed muddle of hay and cows, and sheep, and lake 
 and mist — I was going to say you never saw, but 
 verily you have, and often, if not too often. But does 
 it not soothe ? Tell me that ! Is it not sweet ? Does 
 it not fill up all the crannies of the soul as with 
 a soft honey-cement ? Go to ! no sea ! and only the 
 delicate mica-film of Mona away there in the west — 
 the darling little thing cherub -watched, and nigh 
 inscrutable. 
 
 To J. R. MOZLEY. 
 
 Clifton, 
 
 November 4, 1882. 
 
 You are quite right about these stories^. Keltic, 
 that is it; the Kelt emerging if you will, but the Kelt, 
 if I may say so, a good deal hardened and corrupted 
 by the Saxon. That is Tom Baynes ; that is myself, 
 in fact. I never stopped for a moment to think 
 what Tom Baynes should be like: he simply is I, 
 just such a crabbed text, blurred with scholia ' in 
 the margent,' as is your humble servant. So when 
 I am alone, I think and speak to myself always as 
 he does. 
 
 Of death, my dear Mozley, I have just one thing to 
 say. I came from Harrogate " with this thought : 
 ' Death is not after all so terrible. It is so natural, 
 such an action, such a part of life, that I do not believe 
 I shall ever again fear it much.' This thought was 
 conceived under somewhat favourable conditions : for 
 
 * His poems. ^ Where his brother died.
 
 1883] LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN loi 
 
 my brother was a very sweet-tempered, kindly man, 
 with great moral strength and self-control. He could 
 not have done anything, could not even have died, in 
 an abject manner. That, I should say, must be very 
 terrible. But looking on death as a thing to be done, 
 and done well, an action which may have its own 
 nobility, I think we can feel very happy. 
 
 To G. H. WOLLASTON. 
 
 H6tel du Parc, Lugano, 
 
 May 1 8, 1883. 
 
 ' Gefesselt ' wie under s ? you too got caught, en- 
 tangled you said. One does, physically as well as 
 morally. I have not the slightest wish ever to leave 
 this place. I give you my word of honour on it. 
 But even my ' word of honour ' is a thing hardly 
 worth offering from here. Honour melts, and an 
 irresistible desire to shake off its fetters, together with 
 all other ' considerations,' is the one thing that presses. 
 For instance, to write some frightful lie to Wilson, 
 showing cause why I can't leave Lugano for a month 
 yet, were an excellent device, and surely a pious fraud, 
 \i pious fraud there be. 
 
 Here is a chaplain : he is a D.D. and an archdeacon ; 
 but I could easily represent to Wilson that this man has 
 taken to drinking heavily, and that Beha has earnestly 
 entreated me to take his place until a suitable evan- 
 gelistic successor turns up. Morahty should not hinder 
 me, but the limits of probability as affecting cold 
 northern natures must necessarily condition my 
 methods of deception.
 
 I02 LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN [1883 
 
 1. I have been up to San Salvatore with E. 
 
 2. I have been up Monte Bre alone, 
 
 3. We have all three driven round S. Bernardo. 
 
 4. We have all three been to Porlezza and back. 
 
 5. All three to Ponte Tresa and back. 
 
 6. All three to Porlezza, Menaggio, Como, and so 
 home by rail. 
 
 To-day we intend allihree going up M. Generoso. 
 We shall go in the evening, as the heat begins to be 
 very burning. My walk up M. Bre was terrifically 
 hot. That was yesterday. 
 
 You will be glad to hear of these ' climms,' such as 
 they are, for they are test ' climms ' which satisfy me 
 that I can go up any ordinary English mountain, and 
 make my paths straight for Keswick this summer. 
 Moreover, on Monte Br^ did not some women exclaim. 
 Come I'uomo va ! ' God grant that this was not 
 derisive! I don't think it was. I was nearly dead, 
 but I did my best to affect a fine long swing, as of 
 lithest athlete — Ay di iizif (is that Carlyle's way of 
 spelling it ?). 
 
 I have seen a good deal of the people. A girl on 
 the Como boat (Whitsun Monday, festa folk) was a 
 marvel of physical beauty. With her was her lover, 
 not handsome, and a goose. But who would not 
 have befen a goose for such a face ? Still, of tender- 
 ness not one suggestion — all fire, and not celestial fire 
 either. Ah, goose ! goose ! poor singed goose ! onion- 
 stuifed perchance ! what fate will be his with that 
 splendid salamander ? 
 
 An awful climate, isn't it ? 
 
 A terrible soil that seems to throw out these human
 
 ,883] LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN 103 
 
 pomegranate blooms in a moment. She looked as if 
 she had just been born — bless her — and her goose ! 
 nay, a goose must take care of himself. Very different 
 from this fire angel, flame-winged, literally burning 
 coal of beauty, with her pretensions, her mantilla, her 
 ready, prompt meeting of all eyes, was an absolutely 
 celestial creature, that I met the other day, bearing- 
 her big basket, containing manure (I think). This 
 girl smiled at me, a distinct good sweet smile — now is 
 it not marvellous? At me. Just like a flower — she 
 saw me before her, no other man — and it was necessary 
 to smile. Derision ? Good God ! no : like the flowers, 
 2)uft, pollen — you know about those things ; a natural 
 and most wholesome and lovable expansion. The 
 eyes were of a colour which I cannot determine, and 
 I like such eyes ; the fact is, they look at you, they 
 melt down through the whole gamut of colour and 
 leave off with a tongue of the softer fire. Her face 
 was not oval, but very broad ; the forehead of the real 
 tenuis Horatio-Lycoridian type. As I have not yet 
 come upon any gentians, I accept this girl in lieu of 
 all gentians and other Alpine glories. 
 
 To J. R. MOZLEY. 
 
 Clifton College, 
 
 October 30, 1883. 
 
 I went up to the great ' gaudy ' at Oriel. I should 
 have liked so much to have had an introduction to 
 your uncle, the author of the Reimnisceiices. He 
 was there, but quite silent : I was separated from him,
 
 I04 LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN [1883 
 
 being- at the general table, while he was among the 
 Dii majores. He looked such a dear old mischievous 
 jackdaw of a man. His book is one of the most 
 delightful, and, I think, one of the most brilliant that 
 has appeared since the Confessions of Jean Jacques. 
 
 (About 1883.) 
 The Orlando Furioso — have you read it ? It is 
 just now my constant companion. What a brilliant 
 bird-of-paradise sort of creature it is ! I think the 
 hard enamel of this Italian reprobate pleases me 
 better than Spenser with his soft velvet carpet, on 
 which you walk ankle-deep in the moss of yielding 
 allegory. 
 
 To J. R. MOZLEY. 
 
 Clifton, 
 
 October 30, 1883. 
 
 We took the Wilsons up behind Lodore^ and so 
 away on the heights above Troutdale, descending at 
 last into Troutdale itself This was in many respects 
 a miraculous day, because it held up most marvel- 
 lously; there was no sunshine at all, but an eternal 
 grey, peaceful, ever happy, and deliciously sweet and 
 soothing. A great sheet seemed to have been let 
 down knit at the four corners (Skiddaw, Great Gable, 
 Bowfell, Helvellyn), in which were — well, I can't 
 exactly say. Wilson took to crag climbing, at which 
 he is very good : his greatest delight was to get my 
 youngest girl (a small person of some twelve) to climb 
 with him. We got the Wilsons to go up Saddleback. 
 
 ' Account of walks at the Lakes.
 
 1884] LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN 105 
 
 Wilson went up the sharp edge like a deer, and pro- 
 nounced it absolutely ' ridiculous.' 
 
 Of sea I have to report deep indigo, with stripes of 
 grey \ both fretted with a fine breeze. 
 
 Of land, a patchwork of green and brown, very 
 good and clear. Of mountains, a haystacky greeny- 
 brown, quite clear, but somewhat vulgar and obvious. 
 Of the ' brews ' (brows, slopes by sea), astonishing 
 abundance of hawkweed, lady's bedstraw, harebell, 
 little blue scabious, wild liquorice, wild thyme, and 
 convolvulus (striped pink and white), all mad with 
 the merriest sunshine, a sunshine that really tickles 
 you. 
 
 To Miss Cannan. 
 
 Keswick, 
 
 September 13, 1884. 
 
 This is what Mrs. Brown calls the ' spirited portrait,' 
 an expression which, as I take it, conveys somewhat 
 of reproach. It implies that I don't always look 
 'spirited ' — this is to be regretted rather than remedied: 
 let us thank God for the one ' bit o' spir't ' that owns, 
 however casually, to have visited me in my declining 
 years. 
 
 I have now had a long holiday, indeed nearly three 
 months, and feel very strong in a rugged sort of way ; 
 but I never trust that sort of strength much. 
 
 Five weeks in the Isle of Man, spent very quietly, 
 were most delightful. I lived on harebells, lady's 
 bedstraw, green waving barley, and a crisp NW. 
 breeze. Here we have all gone in for the activities. 
 
 * i. e. Manx Sea. He went to the Island from the Lakes.
 
 io6 LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN [1884 
 
 We have been up all the high mountains, and over 
 most of the passes. All my children go on these 
 expeditions. 
 
 One very melancholy thing has happened almost 
 at our door. I mean the death of poor Mr. A. He 
 died at Morecambe about three weeks ago, and 
 was buried at Crosby Ravensworth (his ' ain place ') : 
 I was at the funeral. Such a lovely spot, folded in 
 among the moors, itself a cradle of green velvet — no 
 railway, no tourist, God's eternal peace. 
 
 To J. R. MOZLEY. 
 
 Clifton, 
 
 October 14, 1884. 
 
 Do you know that Ennerdale Bridge is a fearful 
 sell ? Brand new church, splendid new board school, 
 the churchyard full of— well, a good many natural 
 graves ^ but also well stocked with headstones dating 
 from a time earlier than Wordsworth, the dear old 
 impostor ' for the nones.' We turned away In disgust, 
 and walked on to the Angler's Rest. This was most 
 soothing to our exasperated minds. The lake was 
 a fine blue, and there was a strong breeze blowing on 
 it. It is seldom you see one of our lakes like this. 
 Dakyns could not get it out of his head that it was 
 a salt-water loch. In the starlit darkness, later, we 
 
 ' This fragment of a letter refers to the lines of Wordsworth in 
 ' The Brothers ' :— 
 
 ' In our churchyard 
 Is neither epitaph nor monument, 
 Tombstone nor name— only the turf we tread 
 And a few natural graves.' To Jane, his wife, 
 Thus spake the homely Priest of Ennerdale. — J. R. M.
 
 1885] LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN 107 
 
 walked up and down on the litde pier, and dis- 
 cussed the Oediptts Tyranrms in a way sufficiently 
 exhausting, if not exhaustive. It was a night to 
 remember. 
 
 To G. Quarry. 
 
 Ventnor, Isle of Wight, 
 
 January 20, 1885. 
 
 Thank you very much for the satire. Satire is an 
 undoubted branch of poetry ; but I do not affect it 
 much. There is a strong, healthy, noble satire, the 
 saeva indignatio of the Latin classics. But, short of 
 that, satire seems only an element of discontent and 
 unhappiness. 
 
 I know the ' pip,' the ' black pigs ' too, know them 
 well ; but they are quite beneath contempt ; and nothing 
 on earth would induce me to cross the bright blue of 
 my serenity. I have a great notion of being the 
 master of my own happiness, and not suffering it to be 
 contingent on the manners and conduct of other 
 people. 
 
 If a man slights me, he does me no harm ; but if 
 his conduct is detrimental to the general good, if he 
 is unjust, a villain in high place, a seducer, a poison, 
 a snare to the innocent, then have at him ! though, 
 constit2itio7ially ^ I had rather leave him alone. 
 
 The sum of happiness in the world is not too large. 
 I would like, if possible, to increase it by the modest 
 contribution of my own store. If so, I must guard 
 it from all disturbance ; and poetry enables me to do 
 this, gives me a thousand springs of joy, in none of
 
 io8 LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN [1885 
 
 which there is one drop of bitterness — and thank 
 God for that ! 
 
 We are here in the I. of Wight, busy comparing 
 it with the I. of Man, of course. It is really a beautiful 
 island, not merely as regards richness of vegetation, 
 an ornament that just now is not available, but also 
 for its configuration. The ' lay of the land,' the attitude, 
 and gesture of the lines are admirable. The coast 
 is dismally inferior to ours ; glens are not to be seen, 
 and streams are puny, but very clean. On the whole 
 we give the preference to Mona, and that upon purely 
 aesthetic, not patriotic, grounds. 
 
 I hope you are all well and thriving. Accept my 
 best wishes for the New Year. Your satire discloses 
 perhaps a slight biliary secretion — all satire, I fear, 
 is bile — I hope I may impute it to Christmas festivities 
 rather than to any permanent disorder ! 
 
 PS. — I return the verses, as I think you would like 
 to keep them. 
 
 To J. R. MOZLEY. 
 
 Clifton, 
 
 May 7, 1885. 
 
 I Stayed nearly a week longer at Cadenabbia, alone. 
 I went up to the San Martino, and continued my walk 
 on to the Monte Crocione. Here I came upon the 
 most perfect paradise of flowers I ever beheld any- 
 where, and was helped to pick them by the most 
 exquisite of nature's gentlemen, a young Italian 
 peasant, or perhaps I ought to say farmer. I also 
 climbed Monte San Primo. Much of my walk that
 
 ,885] LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN 109 
 
 day I had In company with a merry little shopkeeper 
 of Bellagio. I was forced to talk some sort of Italian, 
 and we talked and laughed, and walked and chaffed, 
 and ate and drank with each other. I was about 
 seven or eight hours in his company. 
 
 To J. R. MOZLEY. 
 
 Clifton, 
 
 May 25, 1885. 
 
 Victor Hugo ! I am one of the Hugo-maniacs, 
 absolutely certain that there has been no poet like 
 him since Shakespeare. It is very curious, is it not ? 
 how absolutely certain we Hugonians feel about this. 
 It seems to me quite amazing that it is not universally 
 recognized, I know that I ought not to be amazed ; 
 but I assure you that I am, most unfeignedly, I don't 
 want you to argue with me at all, but merely to 
 constater it as a fact, that there are men to whom this 
 position of Victor Hugo in the history of literature 
 seems as axiomatically obvious as the position of the 
 sun in the solar system. 
 
 To J. R. MOZLEY^ 
 
 Lake View, Keswick, 
 
 September lo, 1885. 
 
 Shortly before leaving Clifton a worthy Frenchman 
 put into my hands Reynaud's Terre et Ciel, a mystico- 
 theological scientific book of enormous dimensions, 
 and considerable pretensions. That has gone a long 
 way ; I have read it ! I have read, with much pleasure, 
 
 ^ Written while laid up with a sprained ankle.
 
 no LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN [1885 
 
 Mrs. Gaskell's Wives and Dmighiers^ and am much in 
 love with Molly Gibson, whose father also is very nice. 
 But the great discovery, or rather re-discovery, has 
 been Scott. I have read Waverley, Old Mortality, 
 Woodstock, Redgaimtlet, Bride of Laminermoor, 
 Rob Roy, and am now reading Quejitin Durward. 
 They quite spring on me, these old darlings. What 
 a man ! ! I am full of ' wonder, love, and praise ' ; 
 I seem to see all manner of great and good things ; 
 but the main thing is — the joy and the glory of it all 
 is — what I suppose the French mean by verve^ at any 
 rate what I understand by that favourite term of 
 French criticism. The inexhaustible streaming and 
 bubbling up of the great old heart of him, his own 
 boundless enjoyment of it all ; this is health to the 
 navel and marrow to the bones. 
 
 To THE Rev. E. W. Kissack. 
 
 Clifton, 
 
 September i8, 1885. 
 
 Many thanks for your kind thoughtfulness. I have, 
 however, a copy of my father's poems, which was 
 given me lately by ' Brown of the Times ^ and I do not 
 think I want another, nor ought I, in fact, to trespass 
 on Mrs. Gawne's goodness. Perhaps you would like 
 to keep the copy yourself; these little Kei/u7^Ata have 
 value for those who remember and cherish the re- 
 membrance of old times. There is no house which 
 could more appropriately contain this volume than 
 the Rectory of Bride. 
 
 We should not forget either that true woman of
 
 1885] LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN iii 
 
 genius, Hester Nelson. Often I think of her, and 
 her early doom ; and Bride seems to me a shrine 
 of splendid promise and aspirations unfulfilled save 
 in God, Is she buried there ? I suppose so. My 
 father thought very highly of her poems. Some he 
 thought worthy of Milton. And that was all breathed 
 in and bred from your Bride hills, and the long 
 stretches of the Ayre. Could you possibly get me 
 a copy of her poems ? You would be conferring on 
 me an inestimable favour. 
 
 Yes, I am lame, a ' lamiter,' as they say in Yorkshire. 
 But I must not complain ; I have had a delightful 
 quiet time, good for the mind and soul of me, and not 
 amiss for the body either. Our first disappointment 
 has been my inability to get over to the Island. I feel 
 how precious the time is ' in that particular,' knowing 
 how unlikely it is that I shall have many more op- 
 portunities of seeing the dearest of my old friends, 
 the Archdeacon. I had even been flattering myself 
 with the thought that he would have let me preach 
 before him this year, and I had been meditating some 
 words such as might have cheered him, both as regards 
 the bourne to which he is hastening, and the fidelity 
 to his memory and to his principles of those whom 
 he will, in all probability, leave behind him. To me 
 it would have been an interesting occasion, and for 
 myself profitable, as it would have put one upon 
 considering how much of the old belief I still retain, 
 a consideration the outcome of which would have 
 been to realize that in all essentials I am heartily in 
 agreement still with this truly wise and good man. 
 With the eye steadily fixed on the further shore, the
 
 112 LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN [1885 
 
 windings and aberrations of any course which has not 
 been a vicious one are lost in the straightness of that 
 single aim. And at last we shall meet there, some by 
 a direct and simple passage, others by long tacks 
 and beatings to windward. On the beach stands the 
 one Christ. 
 
 To Hastings Crossley. 
 
 Clifton, 
 
 December 29, 1885. 
 
 I don't know how to thank you for your great 
 kindness. It would, indeed, be most delightful if 
 I could accept your invitation, an invitation so 
 thoughtful, so thought out in the pleasantest alterna- 
 tives and dovetailings of tempting facility. But I am 
 quite a prisoner still. 
 
 Altogether, my holidays must be given to the 
 pursuit of health under one of her most obvious con- 
 ditions, to wit, that of locomotion. No progress that 
 I may make in this art will lead me as far as Ireland. 
 It is provoking, and indeed I am provoked, and 
 disappointed, and rather weary. Such perfect kind- 
 ness and goodness as yours comes like sunshine 
 through the cloud, but what would it not be to 
 realize the happiness of it all there, at Glenburn — the 
 very name of the place suggestive, arrident ? 
 
 Here I had your brother-in-law, but he is gone 
 to Lyme with Davies. I rejoice to think that he is 
 having this change, not, you may be sure, without 
 due remembrance of Persuasion., and that dreadful 
 accident on the ' Cobb ' — is that the name of the 
 bulwark there ?
 
 1885] LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN 113 
 
 Now that he is gone, I am with my books, and that 
 is rather pleasant. I don't know whether you read 
 Italian ; but I think you do. It is a great fad of mine 
 to try luck upon the things our forefathers liked, the 
 books, one might perhaps say, that formed them. Of 
 course I mean the books. Now one sees everywhere 
 what a person Petrarch has been ! what an influence ! 
 Wherever I see this kind of thing, I set myself 
 dihgently to realize it. I will not permit the fraction 
 of a doubt as to the justice of their admiration. 
 I believe implicitly that our forbears were not fools, 
 and that they knew what they were about. I begin, 
 therefore, by defying all carpers and sneerers who 
 would tell me that Petrarch was artificial, and so 
 forth. There imist be more in the matter than this. 
 The results are always most satisfactory. I have 
 succeeded by constant, patient^ reverent reading of 
 the Rime in tuning my mind to the pitch of circiter 
 1350. I mean, of course, to the point of reading the 
 poems with the bona fides ^ sympathy, and surrender 
 which it is quite certain the men of his own time 
 readily granted to Petrarch, and which for centuries 
 afterwards this noble poet obtained at the hands of 
 the ingenuous. This is a great thing to gain, if but for 
 a moment, a Pisgah- glimpse of retrospective vision. 
 
 But I must not presume upon my privilege of 
 invited guest to bore you with my pleasures or my 
 pains. 
 
 I think I do know S. well. What many people 
 might not so readily observe is his stre7igth. The 
 man is the finest Damask steel ; I have never conversed 
 with a more graceful or more athletic mind. 
 
 I H
 
 114 LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN [1885 
 
 To A. M. WORTHINGTON. 
 
 Clifton, 
 
 December 30, 1885. 
 
 W. tells me that you are studying mathematics with 
 a view to the higher physics — Alacte viriute / That 
 is certainly good, much better, more masculine, sane, 
 and noble, than our eternal teaching of beggarly 
 elements. Go on, Worthington ! no treadmill for you 
 but a scala caeli / Meantime I also — well, no — I'm 
 not — I'm nowhere. ... I have a trick, a dodge, an 
 as who would say homo szim^ &c. ; but my studies are 
 mere sympathies, caught casual from brambles by the 
 way — a flower, sir, mayhap, a poor flower at your 
 service — a very wretched little flower — has a smell 
 perchance, a colour — ay di mi / 'creeses! creeses! 
 who'll buy my fresh creeses ? ' comes to ' creeses ' 
 after all. 
 
 There is one trick I would fain learn, and that is 
 the homely trick of walking upon my legs like 
 a man — '■Homo sum.' Yes, but what's the good of 
 that, if I am only imphtmis and not bipes ? Positively 
 the doctors have done nothing for me, and I am after 
 all to go up and see Sir James Paget. I can't walk 
 200 yards, and that is crawling. 
 
 To me, thus, enter the patrons of three livings: 
 Aberford near Leeds, Wray on Windermere, and 
 a place in Berkshire. Of course I can't go and see 
 these interesting 'cures,' so must forbear them. Wray 
 is delicious ; no need for me to go and see it ; and 
 Wray is i^ioo a year, ^oj'y suis.fy resie ; and this 
 demi-semi dip into the ecclesiastical lucky-bag has
 
 1885] LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN 115 
 
 given me rather a turn, a turn which may affect my 
 plans seriously and permanently. 
 
 My old friend M., like the ' goodest ' of creatures, 
 went and saw the Leeds place for me : even wrote to 
 me from the Swan Inn, Aberford, a detailed account 
 of all and sundry the matters pertaining to the poor 
 problem. But he finishes by saying that I ought not 
 to take a living — void le texte, ' I believe that God 
 and Christ (for you know that I believe in their ever- 
 living power as in that of all good and true spirits 
 who each in their order have passed through death) 
 could open to you truer ways of life, and will if you 
 trust them.' These are bracing words, and perhaps 
 I needed them : but we shall see. ... I shall probably 
 go, and Mrs. Brown with me, to Eastbourne. Do 
 you know the place .' Would Hastings be better ? 
 I see, by the papers, Parnell is there. I should 
 so like to meet him : we would cheer each other 
 about Home Rule ; in fact, I would propound to 
 him a constitution, viz. that of the Isle of Man, . . . 
 24 Keys, or Taxiarchi. • There are 4 provinces in 
 Ireland, are there not ? 24 is divisible by 4 ... ^, 
 voila tout ! What fools politicians are ! 
 
 Being pregnant with these imperial purposes I 
 receive an invitation from the Crossleys, and how 
 I should like to go ! suppressing for the nonce my 
 Fenian projects. But — 
 
 The engagement of S. is in many ways very 
 delightful ; but perhaps perilously delightful ! How 
 I shall pray for them ! For, if it is precarious, so are 
 all the loveliest things. . . . Let us pray. 
 
 Dakyns has levanted, I don't know where, but very 
 
 H 2
 
 ii6 LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN [1885 
 
 likely to the Levant, Irwin is down at Lyme Regis 
 smoking- with Davies, and trying to ensnare that 
 Welsh person into the charmed circle of Jane Austen 
 and Persuasion. 
 
 For me, I read much French and Italian ; have 
 made the acquaintance of Lamartine ; have read 
 Petrarch {Rime) all through., the first time I ever 
 did that. I really think I should have been a very 
 accomplished, perhaps even delightful youth, if I 
 had done these things thirty-five years ago. Now 
 it seems like decorating a tomb ; smothering my 
 dismal old coffin with wreaths — conventional ? no ! 
 no ! don't say that ! Petrarch has sap in him. How 
 all the generations have sucked the juice ! There can 
 be no mistake about it. Hang the coffin ! apricos 
 necte flores : and let them be a garland for grey hairs, 
 but not for death ! I believe in the art of medicine 
 rather than in that of surgery as applied to the soul. 
 We must have faith ; put into you good and gracious 
 and salubrious things, and somehow or other they shall 
 sweeten your blood, making it perfumed, ichorian. 
 I could write a prescription. Recipe Petrarchi viii. 
 &c., &c, , . . Capiat. Fill it up as you will. 
 
 I am constantly wearying and ' sich ' with this 
 
 notion of mine. But they have got so engrained in 
 them the idea of direct and conscious imitation which 
 their classical scholarship has made habitual and 
 necessary to their mind's movement that I can't stir 
 up much faith in ' those cold hearts of theirs.' For 
 the highest uses I am confident that you must take 
 in the influences through the skin, through the chyle, 
 through repeated but ineffable infrications, baths,
 
 ,885] LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN 117 
 
 emollients, smells, tacts, drops, bedewings, expositions 
 as of ozone paper — in short, quiet submittings of 
 one's self to the spirit one loves and desires. My 
 father taught me this method ; vulgarly, you may 
 call it the ' soaking ' method. Now, if Hebe were to 
 make my bath, it would be such an one. 
 
 When are you likely to come here ? Mind you 
 stay with us when you do. From the pole opposite 
 to yours I feel that we can meet in a congenial centre. 
 But it is all at your expense, I must admit. I cannot 
 follow you into your mathematico-physical cave. I 
 don't ' do with ' caves of any kind. But you seem 
 never to have any difficulty in getting out among the 
 flowers, and the hearts and the ' like o' yandhar.' 
 I rather think you are to be the more envied. To 
 come out from a keen abstract atmosphere of problem 
 into the sunshine of vitality, emotional, conscious 
 vitality — what a sensation ! You have it, I have not. 
 Are you something like a miner ? blinded by the 
 light, staggering heavily with laden eyes against the 
 dawn when your night-shift is over ? I don't think 
 so. You come out and begin to play immediately. 
 Does that mean that you have not been far in ? 
 No, I think not. I must drop the mine : it's not 
 a mine ; it's a mountain, and you come down to the 
 valley and the games. 
 
 Particularly remember me most kindly to Mrs. 
 Worthington, who, I hope, is getting much stronger 
 than I. All join in affectionate wishes for the New 
 Year.
 
 ii8 LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN [r886 
 
 To Miss Cannan. 
 
 Clifton, 
 
 March i, 1886. 
 
 I begin to feel something like an old wrecker 
 down on a lee shore after sunset, watching the big 
 ships. 
 
 My brother has ringed me round all my life with 
 moral strength and abettance ; I hardly knew how 
 much. What is it ? Not direct control or suggestion, 
 but a sort of taking each other for granted. You 
 know something of it, and you know the blank on 
 the other side of the leaf too. 
 
 In many ways I am well content. My brother had 
 had a glorious life, had hit hard, and thoroughly 
 realized his blows. In his best lectures he has said 
 things which are contributions to the literature — hard- 
 headed, racy, briUiant, humorous things ; things most 
 delightful, most original; things easily apprehended 
 of and not easily forgotten by the people. 
 
 It is a great thing for his children to have had 
 such a father : they speak of him as their ' glorious 
 father.' He was, though I say it, of a good stock. 
 We have a Keltic root in the Isle of Man, but of that 
 he seemed to have little or nothing. I don't under- 
 value it, only he hadn't it in him. He was his mother's 
 own child : I wish you had known her, she was 
 a great woman. A pure borderer she was — her father 
 a Thomson from the Scotch side, her mother a 
 Birkett from the Cumbrian side of Cheviot. I don't 
 suppose the earth contains a stronger race, and she 
 had all its strength : she was typical ; so was my
 
 ,886] LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN 119 
 
 brother Hugh. Well, he has ridden his ride and 
 made his mark in many a foray, and now he is where 
 Skelton is. Could it be better ? 
 
 My sister Margaret lives now at Cardiff. We are 
 all that remain in this country. I have a brother in 
 Queensland. We must try and pull together some- 
 how ; but how hard it is ! 
 
 To Mrs. Williamson. 
 
 Plas Isa, Penmaenmawr, 
 August II, 1886. 
 
 The Carnedds are really noble mountains, and 
 I have been tramping along the whole ridge from 
 Tal-y-fan by Moel Fras to Carnedd David. 
 
 I dehcately and carefully follow this ridge, poise 
 myself upon a watershed ' as upon a horse,' and thus 
 escape ; very few people go up there. How deli- 
 cious the mosses are ! and the quartz blocks ! and 
 the singing streams ! Always new to me ! the 
 blessed things ! The slope Conway-wards is quite full 
 of streams, which, high up, come gurgling through 
 unfathomable beds of moss : the whole mountain is 
 one sweet golden gurgle. I never weary of them; 
 they are never stupid, though they have been saying 
 the same thing since ' the dry land appeared.' I lie 
 down, first by one, then by another, and I am gross 
 enough to dip a bit of bread in their lovely green 
 cups, and eat the sop — that is so refreshing. I also, 
 occasionally, light a pipe, and burn incense to these 
 little gods. Often I only stop a few moments, don't 
 even sit down, but stoop and cower me over the
 
 I20 LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN [1886 
 
 clucking of the subterranean innocent, which is almost 
 a laugh, a chzickle. 
 
 There are large streams, with falls all the way ! 
 Yes, bless ye ! and a flat stone right under the 
 chiefest fall. And what ' suld hinder ' but that a man 
 on that stone sit stark naked ? What, indeed, but 
 some stony-eyed idiotic sheep ! So there I sit, and 
 am a god ; peculiar looking, I dare say, not exactly 
 Olympian — no ! but, hang it ! what would you have ? 
 
 I intend coming to Ramsey on Monday, Aug. 3. 
 ... On Thursday, Aug. 23, I shall come to Braddan 
 Churchyard about noon. I wish we could meet 
 there. . , . 
 
 To Mrs. Williamson. 
 
 Penmaenmawr, 
 
 August 18, 1886. 
 
 I was up Tr^^fan the other day, that fine rock 
 pyramid over Lake Ogwyn, and got on capitally, 
 though it is all regular rock-climbing. Certainly on 
 Tryfan one uses one's hands and knees as much as 
 one's feet. There is, I think, no more beautiful crea- 
 ture in the world than this mountain. It will hold its 
 own with anything in Switzerland ; I don't mean for 
 difficulty, but for beauty. This morning I examined 
 the tombstones in Dwgrfylchy Churchyard, and am 
 confirmed in my suspicion, which is gradually becom- 
 ing a belief, that the intense Welsh national feeling, 
 and the determination to keep their language, are 
 matters of the nineteenth-century Romance movement. 
 Certainly in the eighteenth I don't believe the Welsh
 
 1886] LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN 121 
 
 desired anything more than to be thoroughly English. 
 I want to know the history of these Eisteddfods, and 
 all the rest of it ; are they not a mere modern growth, 
 or, at least, a monstrous development of an old insti- 
 tution ? What I seem to smell is gas^ inflation, the 
 factitious. So I think of writing to a Liverpool 
 paper about this. It's just the time now, and I may 
 succeed in getting up a nice little shindy— Taliessin, 
 Eos Morlais, Mr. Lewis Morris, of Penbryn, and 
 Rev. Ward Beecher, of New York, to the rescue ! 
 
 There is the almost total ignorance of English — 
 capital, in its way, but deucedly inconvenient ; and, of 
 course, just when one gets that silence one has longed 
 for, there arises a desperate craving for talk, for 
 ' colloghing ' : the people seem intellectually fit, too. 
 Those, however, who speak English, speak it so 
 exquisitely that you carry the music of it with you for 
 hours afterwards. The landlord of the Gemmaes Inn 
 was an exception : I must tell you about him when we 
 meet. 
 
 To H. G. Dakyns. 
 
 Plas Isa, Penmaenmawr, 
 
 September 4, 1886. 
 
 Gloria periit f nor has there been much gloria. 
 But I have been over in the Island. . . . My Peel 
 expedition was a happy combination of things — 
 sea blue as heaven, crisp heather, dwarf gorse, rock 
 black, buff, purple, barley waving ! ... Of poems, or 
 for poems, protoplasm enough, I dare say, but not 
 many immediate suggestions. Yes, just one, a bride
 
 122 LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN [1886 
 
 coming home to her house which two women had 
 been left to clean and take care of. 
 
 I was startled rather to find that the Island is one 
 moving ant-hill of story. I believe if I were living 
 there permanently, I should get whole ' cart-loads ' of 
 this lore. It seemed splendid ; the very ground teems 
 and sparkles. I had no idea that such a number of 
 silkworms were there spinning their quaint cocoons 
 night and day. The Island seems, indeed, to do 
 hardly anything else. The brains are always going, 
 I almost heard them at it : I didn't sleep much, and 
 all through the night these shuttles seemed to be 
 flying round me — it is a darling race ! In Wales the 
 same, no doubt, but to me unknown and unknowable. 
 The Manx life (that is unrelated to England) I find to 
 be deeper, stronger, and richer than I had thought — 
 driven in upon itself, and curiously coloured by that 
 fact. Hang on to the Britannic mammae, O Dakyns, 
 and make the most of them ! But I must go my own 
 way, and my mother has not yet forgotten me. 
 Kindest love to you all. 
 
 To A. M. WORTHINGTON. 
 
 Clifton, 
 
 October 18, 1886. 
 
 I note many things in your letter with great de- 
 light. Primarily the good news about Mrs. Worthing- 
 ton : I hope to hear even still better before long. 
 Then your Ingleton life — how splendid ! What a bath 
 to plunge into ! You are just the age to enjoy that — 
 old enough to sanction those love passages more or
 
 1886] LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN 123 
 
 less gracefully, young enough to sympathize with 
 them ; young enough to — shall I say dance ? old 
 enough to surrender yourself to a kindly violin, 
 possibly — a rubber? I know Kirkby Lonsdale, but 
 not well, nor is my knowledge of recent date. 
 
 I did very well in the Isle of Man ; had two good 
 solitary walks, drank deep draughts of — I don't 
 know how to describe it — that social brewage which 
 I get nowhere else. Very likely other people get it 
 in their own old habitats. But it really does seem to 
 me as if the whole Island was quivering and trembling 
 all over with stories — they are like leaves on a tree. 
 The people are always telling them to one another, 
 and any morning or evening you hear, whether you 
 like it or not, innumerable anecdotes, sayings, tragedies 
 comedies — I wonder whether they lie fearfully. They 
 are a marvellously narrational community. And 
 you've not been there a day before all this closes 
 round you with a quiet familiarity of ' use and custom ' 
 which is most fascinating. Nothing else in the universe 
 seems of any consequence. 
 
 And warly cares, and warly men, 
 May a' gae tapsalteerie, O ! 
 
 A week more and I should have become reabsorbed 
 into this medium past recovery and past recogni- 
 tion. ... 
 
 I have been musing a good deal over my ' Dooiney 
 Molla^': he is now taking shape, and looms rather 
 large. I believe you will like him, and his fiery httle 
 groom. These good souls do well to visit my dreams : 
 
 ^ See The Manx Witch, p. 47 : 
 
 ' dooiney-molla — man-praiser — the friend who backs the suitor.'
 
 124 LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN [1887 
 
 they are such a comfort : and do you know they 
 positively do 'go on ' in my dreams. Here are two 
 lines which came tripping at the window of my 
 slumbers last night — 
 
 1. 'When the sun was jus' puttin' on his shoes' 
 
 (morning), 
 for which I instantly seemed to discover a parallel — 
 to wit — 
 
 ' Sthreelin' off his golden stockings ' (the sun 
 again, evening). 
 
 2. 'Jus' rags tore off the Divil's ould shirt' ( = 
 
 witches' charms, or spells). 
 There will be a very good witch in this poem, 
 
 I promise you: look out! ^ are sounding me 
 
 about ' The Doctor ' ; . . . they would try to make 
 it a popular book. The others tried to make it a 
 drawing-room book, with the result that the few 
 purchasers thereof hid it somewhere behind their 
 bookshelves, and even there trembled for the morals 
 of the housemaids. 
 
 To J. C. Tarver. 
 
 Clifton, 
 
 October 9, 1887. 
 
 I wish I could send you Boiivard et Pecuchet. 
 I have just one number of it — isn't it tantalizing ? It 
 began in the Notivelle Rev7ie of Dec. 15, 1880. But 
 it is now published in the series of Flaubert's works, 
 so that you can get it easily enough. It is JiiertLin 
 
 * Certain publishers.
 
 1887] LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN 125 
 
 sal^ the style much terser than is usual with Flaubert, 
 downright anatomy indeed ; but that yields a certain 
 dryness of the Amontillado kind which is almost 
 unique. Then the cynicism is so very special — an 
 innocent, lambent brand which, again, I think men 
 ought to apprehend with relish. 
 
 But I weary you. Poor G. Sand ! I am reading 
 her Amours de I' Age d'Or. Woe is me ! what 
 awful stuff! an echo, and a suflSciently rueful one, of 
 the Chute d'un Ange^ with reference (explicit and 
 stated) to that sound performance, Reynaud's Terre et 
 Ciel. 
 
 Why do you say that your star is on the decline ? 
 Do you mean intellectually ? from the context I infer 
 that you do. But how is that ? Let me try a remedy : 
 or rather let me ask you to try a remedy. Fling 
 open your soul ! [' gush ' ? No !] — throw your classics 
 and all your ' goods and chattels ' out of window, give 
 yourself light and air ['ventilation'? Yes!]. Live, 
 and — well, out it must come — love ! For if you and 
 some of my other friends think you are going to do 
 anything in the world without making your bow to 
 the lady that rules over Cyprus, I can tell you you 
 are very much mistaken. What I want in all young 
 men is more insanity. Therefore I would much rather 
 hear of your writing poems than essays. It is true 
 that at your time of life the poetic mustum might 
 well have been raked off, and the pure and limpid 
 prose be beautifully on tap and ready for drinking. 
 But then, have you passed through the fever at all ? 
 That is the point ; all the better if it's over ; but it 
 must de^ or oXsq you will not be.
 
 126 LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN [1887 
 
 To J. C. Tarver. 
 
 Clifton, 
 
 October i6, 1887. 
 
 Pardon my saying that I don't think you will get 
 the full sziccus out of the tremendous Bo vary marrow- 
 bone, if you look upon it as a satire. 
 
 You yourself confess that it has knocked you out 
 of time, and you are going to read it again. You 
 can't read it too often. I will ask you, when you 
 read it the second time, to think of it as a tragedy. 
 Try that method at any rate ; I feel sure it is the 
 right one. Then the whole terror will come out. 
 Madame Bovary z's an exceptional woman. She is 
 not like Messalina, but fate-borne like Clytemnestra. 
 Pity her ! she is pathetic ! believe me she is, and 
 intended to be so. The men are not adequate ; there 
 is the central poignancy of it all — the hobereau — is he 
 much more } the cominis — dreadful creatures. But 
 Madame Bovary staggers into their arms drunk with 
 the most infernal philtre, her eyes blinded with 
 a mist as fatal as that which befooled Pasiphae. 
 
 Get rid of the satire notion, and approach this 
 awful ruin as a ruin — let it be to you a Baalbec, 
 not a Lupanar. 
 
 Woe ! woe ! woe ! I can't think of her without 
 tears. God forgive me if I do now and then laugh. 
 
 But Botivard et Pec ...!!! It is true and unmixed 
 enjoyment to read such a book. How innocent it is ! 
 And the style! Where did he get that ringing 
 simplicity? How I should like to meet a French- 
 man like that ! Bless him ! The honesty of the 
 laughter ! isn't it perfect .^
 
 1887-8] LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN 127 
 
 By-the-bye, I have found my old numbers of the 
 RevMC^ and am enjoying myself more than I can say. 
 It would be most delightful to read it with you. 
 It is pre-eminently a book for mutual recognition : 
 one naturally looks for another face. But here is 
 no one except Dakyns, and he is buried innumerous 
 fathoms deep under a translation of Xenophon ! 
 God help him ! 
 
 To J. C. Tarver. 
 
 Clifton, 
 
 November 2,0, 1887. 
 
 I follow you on the Flaubert trail, panting ! In 
 the holidays perhaps I may catch you up. You have, 
 of course, read Salammbo. Do you read de Musset ? 
 For style (prose) he is certainly A i. It would be 
 hard to beat the Coitfesswns. How good to be feed- 
 ing on this fine stuff! Only remember there is 
 Itahan ! By all the pipes smoked in W.'s study, by 
 all the bristles of his mighty beard, by every quill 
 upon the fretful N., by a thousand tender memories, 
 I implore you to cultivate this divine field ! 
 
 To a. M. Worthington. 
 
 Clifton, 
 
 January i, x888. 
 
 The sorry I am ! I really believe I shall not get 
 to Town after all. Durttm et, but I fear a case of 
 corrigere est nefas. The fact is I have smashed my 
 right hand at fives, and am under care of the surgeon ! 
 Was there ever such an old fool ! I manage to write 
 at the rate of about a line a minute, but what with
 
 128 LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN [isss 
 
 splint and iodine it is a sorry business ; and so I enter 
 '88 — qtiodfausttim sit / These very Latin quotations 
 reveal the state I'm in— a touch of imbecility— eh ? 
 
 Mind you read Hall Caine's Deemster \ it is little 
 short of a masterpiece. Read it, and tell me what 
 you think. You are an excellent critic. Did you 
 know that.^ Well, you are. I am so glad, so are 
 we all, to hear what you say about Mrs. Worthington. 
 The gods are good after all. I knew you would like 
 G. Sand. As soon as you have finished, please 
 return, as I shall want them soon. I am reading (for 
 I can't say which time) Hugo's plays. Cromwell, 
 however, I had never read before. It is an enormous 
 congeries of circumstance. You know how I admire 
 old Hugo, but I am not blind to his nonsense— e. g. 
 he describes Cromwell as cherishing through life the 
 bitterest grudge against the aristocracy, because, when 
 at Oxford {sic), he had been ordered off the turf in 
 the quad, ' reserved for the nobly-born alone '—Crom- 
 well retired to his cellule furious. Shall I send you 
 the passage— typical French, is it not ? The brightest 
 and happiest of New Years to you both, specially to 
 the lambkin of "^"j. So say we all. 
 
 To J. R. MOZLEY. 
 
 Clifton, 
 
 May 2.-3„ 1888 '. 
 
 ... I try to force my poor nervous spirit to take 
 this limitation. But oh, how hard ! I try to live and 
 
 ^ In a time of great trouble. Mrs. Brown died in July of this 
 year. What this loss meant to him may be learnt from these four 
 letters, and what it continued to be from that of Sept, 12, 1891, p. 152. 
 (Cf. October 24, 1880.)— J. R. M.
 
 1888] LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN 129 
 
 think and feel just de die in diem, I try to fence in 
 for each day a sort of cofferdam of exclusion : but 
 the past comes from great depths which are uncon- 
 trollable by any engineering of mine, and the future 
 spreads its enormous vacuum. . . . 
 
 One thing emerges — my absolute belief in im- 
 mortality. I am not naturally a materialist ; that is 
 a plant not native to my mind ; but scales of 
 materialism have sometimes grown upon my eyes. 
 They now vanish utterly, and I am dazzled and con- 
 founded by the inevitable presence, the close connatural 
 rebound of the belief. I have always been an idealist, 
 subject to these dim spots of material feculence that 
 from time to time have obscured my vision. Now 
 I feel my body to be nothing but an integument, and 
 the inveteracy of the material association to be a tie 
 little more than momentary, and quite casual. Death 
 is the key to another room, and it is the very next 
 room. I wish words could convey to you how 
 intensely and profoundly I feel this. 
 
 We do really owe much to the medical art, if it 
 only smooths the passage, making it painless. For, 
 amongst other things, it makes death so beautiful. 
 
 To Miss Cannan. 
 
 Clifton, 
 
 June 26, 1888. 
 
 I know well how your brother would have sym- 
 pathized with me, how he would have ' hung on ' 
 about the house. He had much of that fidelity, 
 dog-like, dumb except through the eyes. The 
 
 I I
 
 I30 LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN [1888 
 
 property is not common, nor are those eyes the 
 heritage of every man. I don't think I must write 
 more. 
 
 To Miss E. Brown. 
 
 Ulleswater, 
 
 July 10, 1888. 
 
 This day week, what a morning ! And to-day the 
 dawn is beautiful, but ominous. . . . Yesterday I went 
 over to Grasmere by the Grisedale Pass. It rained 
 tremendously, and I got soaked. I then walked to 
 Thirlspot, lunching at Wythburn ; every step reminded 
 me of last year — the place, for instance, where we 
 picked blackberries, and, above all, the old room in 
 the Wythburn Inn, where we so often have had tea 
 in such joyous fashion. ... I wanted to climb Hel- 
 vellyn from Thirlspot. ... It was dark, but clear ; 
 from the top, Ulleswater was seen in brilliant sun- 
 shine ; but I was under a sort of big umbrella of 
 cloud ; no rain, however, only a fierce wind. What 
 
 could I think of, but ? I almost felt the cairn 
 
 could breathe some answer to me. There was not 
 
 a soul near, unless, indeed, • was herself there : 
 
 and I often feel as if she was, and was smiling very 
 sweetly, not without a faint tinge of humour at all 
 my poor weary longings. I went down Striding 
 Edge, and really, when it is blowing hard, as it was 
 yesterday, you have to be careful. . . . The people 
 here are very good and attentive : not having much 
 to do, they seem to enjoy looking after me. I asked 
 for ink in my bedroom, and behold a beautiful little 
 writing-table — wasn't that kind }
 
 1888] LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN 131 
 
 Of visitors, very few — not gentlefolk, but well- 
 meaning- souls enough, especially two lads from 
 Macclesfield, who, speaking a dialect that is to me 
 nearly unintelligible, are from their modesty, simpli- 
 city, and total absence of affectation, quite charming. 
 'What's yon ? ' said one of them to me, producing a piece 
 of stag-horn moss which he had carefully treasured 
 as a plant of a rare species. The honesty of the 
 fellows ! and they are bigger and stronger looking 
 than most of our Clifton boys, beside being somewhat 
 older. It is so satisfactory that they can be all I have 
 described, and yet not a bit szvell: well-dressed they 
 are, and well-mannered ; but that is all ! A large 
 ' all ' though, is it not ? 
 
 To A, M. WORTHINGTON. 
 
 Clifton, 
 
 July 29, 1888. 
 
 Your letter is one of the few that have gone to my 
 very heart. Onl}^ I can't conceive what you mean 
 by attributing to yourself a lack of insight. I have 
 heard from just a few how much they loved my wife. 
 Those who have said this are united to me by an 
 eternal tie. 
 
 You were at Ulleswater : I knew you were there ; 
 and, having previously determined to go there for 
 a week, I did not suffer this knowledge to make any 
 change in my plans. I wanted to be alone^ and yet 
 not alone. I should have gladly found you there. 
 I got there on Saturday, July 7, and stayed at the 
 Ulleswater Hotel till Friday, July 1 3 . You must have 
 
 I 2
 
 132 LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN [1888 
 
 left Patterdale before I came. How sweet and peaceful 
 the place was ! I climbed Helvellyn ; it was a sad, 
 but a delicious time, I walked by the Grisedale Pass 
 first through drenching- rain to Grasmere, thence to 
 Wythburn and Thirlspot. Here I had arranged to 
 
 go up Helvellyn in the ipsa vestigia , as she 
 
 climbed last year, and felt for the first time that her 
 climbing days were numbered. It was indeed a via 
 crucis ; she had to stop almost every twenty yards ; 
 and we were both amazed and beyond measure per- 
 plexed, I was now alone upon Helvellyn, except 
 that an honest shepherd called upon his dog. 
 Well, you can guess what all that meant. 
 
 My children are so good that I am always thanking 
 God for them, , . . O God ! how must it be with those 
 who are left childless ! Thus it is with poor B,, from 
 whom I had a mournful line the other day through 
 a friend of his and mine, 
 
 I am so glad to hear that your babe thrives ; even 
 that little thing, you say, is a comfort to her mother ; 
 how will it be then when the deep fountains are 
 broken up ! All happiness to you all. 
 
 To THE Rev. E. W. Kissack. 
 
 Lake View, Keswick, 
 
 August 7, 1888. 
 
 We sit on the same form in a very sad school. 
 God help us to bear its doubtless wholesome discipline! 
 To feel one's own weakness is to feel His strength. 
 How overwhelmingly, though, does this weakness 
 rush in upon one at times ! What a giving way of
 
 1888] LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN 133 
 
 everything! What a sinking beneath one of the 
 whole universe ! 
 
 But then it is we feel the great arms holding us up 
 with the strength and the tenderness of eternity. 
 
 My dear fellow sufferer, what is it after all ? why 
 this sinking of the heart, this fainting, sorrowing of the 
 spirit ? There is no separation : life is continuous. 
 
 All that was stable and good, good and therefore 
 stable, in our union with the loved one, is unquestion- 
 ably permanent, will endure for ever. It cannot be 
 otherwise. Those who marry without love need not 
 concern us. When love has done its full work, has 
 wrought soul into soul so that every fibre has become 
 part of the common life — qtiis separabit ? 
 
 Can you conceive yourself as existing at all without 
 ^er? No, you can't; well, then, it follows that you 
 don't, and never will. The process of blending has 
 been too complete to admit of separation. This is 
 God's blessing on perfect unions. O Kissack, this is 
 true ! But ' the climbing mother ' will rise unbidden, 
 and what shall we do ? corrigere est nefas : so said 
 poor Horace ; there is a clenching of the teeth on 
 those words. Resignation then, O Flaccus, try that ! 
 and indeed he does with his levius Jit patientia. 
 But resignation to what ? Some dark fate with dumb 
 lips and eyes that are inscrutable ? No, but to a kind 
 and gracious Father. That is the sum of all. Dear, 
 kind friend, as surely as God liveth, we shall be united 
 again to the precious ones in a union that is already 
 begun, and only needs the removal of a very thin 
 barrier of partition to become the rapture of an 
 absolute joy.
 
 134 LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN [1889 
 
 To J. C. Tarver. 
 
 Clifton, 
 
 June 9, 1889. 
 
 I am now reading A mm Karenina^ and gradually- 
 wondering more and more, as who must not, when 
 such a planet ' swims within his ken ' ? But the French 
 translation seems poor. I must learn Russian ; and 
 I swear I will. That's what Vaughan did. 
 
 Most of my poor leisure, though, is just now given 
 to Tasso. He is mar\^ellously brilliant: though not 
 so philosophical as Spenser, he is, if possible, more 
 poetical. 
 
 I still stick to my thesis, that Italian is the great 
 enlightener and clarifier of wits. 
 
 To A. M. WORTHINGTON. 
 
 Royal Castle Hotel, Lvnton, 
 
 June 29, 1889. 
 
 I came away from Commem. row yesterday. This 
 place Is most heavenly ; I knew it would be. The 
 foxgloves are astounding, whole fields embattled 
 with them, densely, instructa acie. And the size, 
 the real hundred-barrelled revolver kind. You know 
 Lynton ? If you know, then, shortly, you know 
 something about Heaven. I bow respectfully to 
 your Miirrens, and your Grindelwalds, also, though 
 not so respectfully to your Interlakens ; but we too ! 
 O yes ! by Tam ! yes. E.g. this morning at 7, slipping 
 a sea-pillow under my neck in Wrinkle Cove Bay — 
 what ? lying on my back with the salt water sip- 
 sopping, or fiz-foaming under my occiput, a tranquil
 
 1889] LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN 135 
 
 gaze to a sky as blue as that of Schweiz, with one 
 gull somewhere near the zenith just to hold up my 
 nib ^ — ha ! have I touched you ? yes ! yes ! yes ! by 
 Tam ! we too. . . . 
 
 To J. R. MOZLEY. 
 
 Ramsey, 
 
 August 20, 1889. 
 
 I should like to pay all reverence to that oracle 
 [Delphi], and to all the other oracles ; and I see their 
 political importance. But, subjectively, I want to 
 know what the Greek religion did for a man in the 
 exigencies of life and death. A Greek death-bed, 
 other than that of Socrates ; the equivalent, if any, of 
 the clergyman, the pious friend, the whole scene with 
 its lights and shades, the anxieties, the consolations, — 
 that is the one direction in which my mind wanders 
 and scrutinizes. You know my conviction that Greek 
 life was not so far removed from our life, that all 
 human life is homogeneous, and that the Einkleidung 
 is of much the same texture, however the colour and 
 other accidents may differ. A dear, good old Greek 
 dying, ' in sure and certain hope ' of something ; 
 I believe in that Greek profoundly. 
 
 To Mrs. Williamson. 
 
 CoBURG House, Coburg Road, North Ramsey, 
 
 August 23, 1889. 
 
 My cold has been on me about five days. But 
 before that, I bathed and climbed and was happy 
 enough. Behold the wondrous tale ! . . . 
 
 ^ nib or neb = nose.
 
 136 LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN [1889 
 
 Braddan, twice: first, with the children; second, 
 with my friend M., who spent four days with us. 
 The second visit was on a Sunday, last Sunday : 
 church (new) and churchyard (old) crammed, like 
 a fair, or a bazaar ; people quiet, on the whole, but 
 pressing steadily upwards from the lower gate, with 
 a curious expectant look on their faces, as if about 
 to be shown some monster— a two-headed parson, or 
 something of that sort. We went into the church, 
 and sat at a long service. The curate preached on 
 Judas Iscariot ; the vicar conducted a service in the 
 churchyard. 'Judas did this, Judas thought that ' ; 
 then from the churchyard, in stentorian chorus, 
 ' Crown Him ! crown Him ! crown Him ! crown Him 
 Lord of all' Thus, you see, there was an element of 
 the comic ; but oh, how sad it was to me, how incom- 
 prehensible ! Verily, I am left behind ; I can't, after 
 all these years, adjust myself to the dimensions of such 
 a change. The people behaved better than they used 
 to do in our time ; but the numbers ! the systematiza- 
 tion ! the total absence of the native population ! the 
 show atmosphere ! the ' Walk up, gentlemen ' style of 
 thing ! Over all this Vanity Fair the dear old bells 
 rang out precisely as of old. Ah, but the old life is 
 gone, is ' hid with Christ in God.' Wasn't it strange 
 to turn up towards the Strang, rather than the 
 Vicarage, when the service was ended ? We saw old 
 Drury's grave : I had much ado to come by it. There 
 were none but ' Cottons ' in the cemetery. I thought 
 I had got hold of a Manxman, and asked him 'where 
 Mr. Drury's grave was.' He answered with a leer, 
 and the accent of— say Ashton-under-Lyne ! . . .
 
 1889] LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN 137 
 
 Hills above the Gob- y- volley at the mouth of 
 Sulby Glen, twice; perfection of gorse hassocks, 
 tufted with bell-heather, also of ling in sheets, 
 sprinkled with the bell- heather — the sea- rim rounding 
 all with glorious blue— the ' steamer ' going round 
 the island with an almost impudent familiarity of 
 approach, like ' a Cotton ' throwing his arms round the 
 neck of a pretty Manx country-girl — ' smookin, too, 
 the dirt ' ! These commons westward of Sulby Glen, 
 between it and Ballaugh Glen, are most delightful ; 
 but they contain one fraud, and that is the Chibbyr- 
 inch. This purports to be a sacred well ; and I dare 
 say it has been one. The name means 'the well in 
 the rock.' My friend and I sought it with the keenest 
 interest, but all one found was a very dirty puddle, 
 and no appearance of rock. But the good people 
 over here swear by these things. ' Chibbyr-inch ! 
 Chibbyr-inch ! my gough, is it Chibbyr-inch } I've 
 been at it scores of times. Wasn't the ould people 
 used to go up with bottles to get the water ? Ter'ble 
 good for sore eyes, they're say in'.' 
 
 Quite so, but all the same, no one has any real vital 
 memory or knowledge ; and thus it is with all Manx 
 assertions : the spirit of exaggeration, of gasconade, 
 of total irresponsibihty, of saying anything that it 
 may be convenient or flattering to themselves or 
 others to say. . . . And how the feeling haunts me that 
 I belong to this race ! that the same spirit, chastened 
 a little, perhaps, is in me ; that the very words I have 
 just written show symptoms of this failing, a faihng 
 which may in the possession of a great master become 
 a positive source of treasure, but as possessed and
 
 138 LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN [1889 
 
 used is wholly an impediment! The whole island 
 seems strewn with the rubbish of slatternly inaccuracies 
 and over-statements ; it would be quite refreshing to 
 take a walk in the narrowest and least decorated lane 
 of simple truth. I will read a few propositions of 
 Euclid every morning. 
 
 Great excursion to the Chasms : slept at Port 
 St. Mary. Took boat to the cave at Sugar-loaf, 
 went through it twice, heard the deep ringing of 
 the sea-hammers. You know it, the most awful 
 sound in nature. I went up to Rushen Church next 
 morning ; it rained, and was dismal ; but I saw the 
 graves of the Corrins. 
 
 Yesterday there was a great picnic at the White 
 Strand. Of course I was unable to go, and stayed at 
 home to nurse my ear, and to finish reading The 
 Mill on the Floss, which I did with many tears. Who 
 can read that last scene otherwise ? 
 
 To Miss E. Brown. 
 
 Lake View, 
 
 September 5, 1889. 
 
 To you I inscribe this scrawl written with a pen 
 that must have dropped from the wing of Beelzebub 
 himself. 
 
 Yesterday I went across the lake to Water-lily 
 Bay. The gloomy one smiled a ruinous smile, and 
 ' dooted what mak o' a day it was gauin to be.' How- 
 ever, Water-lily Bay was more delicious than I can 
 tell. It is so marvellous with quiet morning light 
 upon it. The water-Hhes have all but disappeared :
 
 1889] LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN 139 
 
 some day they will be legendary, and people will 
 inquire into the derivation of the name. I climbed 
 Causey ; plenty of blaeberries at the top, especially 
 upon his blessed old nose : I had a great feed. The 
 whole country was dim but visible ; the heat intense. 
 And so to Sale and Eel Crags and Grasmoor. Here 
 I got into mist. Then back to the stream that ' gaes 
 doon ' between Grasmoor and Eel Crags, a bonny 
 beck, if there be a bonny. I bathed in it ; such 
 a bath, a httle fall swishing under me and over me 
 and all about me, and seething and bubbling up like 
 soda-water. 
 
 After tea (such a glorious apple-fanf — think of that, 
 if you please ; none of your ' obvious vulgar ' plums, 
 but apples rich and melting and shrined in the crust 
 of Todd ; cream too, and delights manifold !) took 
 a ' bawt ' and rowed myself to Water-lily Bay ; nearly 
 dark ; let myself drift out from the bay, while I lay 
 in the stern, and draggled my right foot through the 
 all but warm water. Moon very sulky, and hardly 
 perceptible. 
 
 To J. C. Tarver. 
 
 Clifton, 
 
 November 21, 1889. 
 
 I accept your offer eagerly. You will receive my 
 Rabelais (first volume, you don't want the second 7) 
 by next post. Whereupon duly forward to me the 
 Flauberts : it will indeed be a splendid exchange. 
 I take it this portrait must be the authentic one : it is 
 the good old critical rule to prefer the less obvious 
 lectio. It is disgustingly easy to imagine how that
 
 I40 LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN [1890 
 
 Jack- Pudding came to be accepted as Rabelais. So 
 let us lean dans ce sens. A handsome face, if ever 
 there was one. I still lend books : my Sand is always 
 in great request. I can't help laughing when ladies 
 come into my study, and stare with all their eyes, and 
 would like to take this, and would like to take that 
 romance of the soft-hearted old virago. They remind 
 one of a situation in The Country Wife^ which 
 I doubt not you will recall. 
 
 Your letters are ever welcome ; they serve to 
 remind me that there is still such a thing as literature. 
 
 The Faitst has engaged me a good deal. Last 
 holidays I was to meet an old Goethean friend of 
 mine; so went over the first part several times with 
 much care. Conceive my disgust when I found my 
 friend absolutely declined noticing the first part, 
 being completely absorbed in the second. 
 
 Byron turns up again on my table. What a thing 
 that Vision of Judgment is ! The power is stupen- 
 dous. For the Corsaii^., Giaour^ &c., I am sorry to 
 find them so hard to construe ! They really are. 
 Now send round ' thim ' Flauberts ! 
 
 To Mrs. Williamson. 
 
 Falcon's Nest, Port Erin, 
 
 April 16 (No year : ? 1890). 
 
 Grey and grim, for the most part, is our ' little 
 eilan' ' ; but just at this moment I can look out upon 
 a bright blue sea. The wind is blowing off the land,
 
 1890] LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN 141 
 
 the bay therefore quite smooth, except for the 
 blessed little wrinkles that get stronger and darker 
 to about the middle distance, when the real state of 
 affairs is manifested in the shape of breakers and 
 general commotion. ... I want to dream, also occa- 
 sionally to dine. I hope to get some food, moreover, 
 that's not of this Manx earth, or any other earth, some 
 fruit that does not grow in these cabbage gardens. 
 But, if this is to be, I must live a suspended life, and 
 not know what people are talking about. The ' un- 
 known tongues ' of gulls and larks will blend very 
 well with my mood ; in fact, help materially to fill up 
 the wind-bag of temporary torpor. At Braddan the 
 other day I heard rooks and robins ; the row made 
 by the former was quite dreadful. I used to like it, 
 and even expect it with pleasure, and purposely visit 
 Braddan when ' the row ' was on, in spring-time. 
 However, certain robins, evidently perceiving that 
 I was troubled, came and got up quite a little chorus, 
 perched on the trees just over the grave. I never 
 before heard such enthusiastic robins. Their keen 
 little pipes cut right through the sawdust brawling of 
 the rooks, scattered it like ' the rear of darkness,' 
 made it inaudible. And they were such ' boul ' little 
 beggars, so confident and confidential. . . . Tell me 
 about Oatlands. Some people once lived there whom 
 D., or perhaps D. and you, once went to stay with. 
 . . . What I was musing as I passed the place was the 
 relief, escape, or what you will, that D. particularly 
 must have felt in getting away there for a while, the 
 imping of young wings, the expansion, and the 
 further outlook, the introduction to ways and ideas
 
 142 LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN [1890 
 
 unfamiliar, the disappointment perhaps, and the 
 falling back on Braddan manners and prejudices and 
 homely limitations. For, in those days, if some one 
 gave us a glimpse of what was called the world, we 
 were apt to say to ourselves, ' Is this all ? ' and revert 
 to our old Vicarage views, the impossibilities and the 
 marvels, Waverley and the poets, and all the great 
 dreamers of dreams, ' Old John ' in fact. How well 
 I remember my efforts (but why say effortl) to con- 
 vert Braddan Churchyard into that of Stoke Pogis, 
 and to think of it as the fitting scene of Gray's Elegy / 
 Yet, poor Gray ! what would he have made of it ? 
 A good deal, I dare say, for did he not understand 
 and love Keswick ? 
 
 Yesterday, at the Kerroo-Kiel, I met a delightfully 
 bright and witty man. He soon got to know who 
 I was, and we had the most glorious talk. The mis- 
 chief of it is that these worthies are only too glad to 
 get into a coosk with you, and they would talk all 
 day, leaving a spade, or forsaking plough and horses 
 to lean over a hedge, leaning on something at any 
 rate, and talking away. Their talk is bright, aimless 
 rambling, not without dives into the depths, and pokes 
 into your personality, above all, etigoiieineni the most 
 absolute, and desire of inter-communication the most 
 insatiable. And you are up on the mountain-side at 
 the furthest limit of plough range, and the wind 
 whistles just the right sort of accompaniment to such 
 talk. I think I must have a sail here. But, do you 
 know ? the Manx seamen and fishermen tend to become 
 self-conscious : the ' strangers ' are spoiling them. 
 Not so the farmer : of course no one can make him
 
 1890] LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN 143 
 
 understand that the visitors do him any good by 
 raising the prices of his produce, so he cares very Httle 
 about them, and in no way guides himself according 
 to them or their fashions. So far as the outer world 
 comes to him, it is by the channel of the newspapers. 
 He has all the boundless curiosity, the thirst for know- 
 ledge miscellaneous, pulpy, and piquant, which charac- 
 terize those that dwell remote. When he gets hold 
 of you, he flies at you, hugs you, gets every blessed 
 thing he can out of you. ' Favourable specimens,' 
 you will say. That is true : but as regards the inde- 
 pendence and primitive state of mind, what I say 
 applies to almost all. You see you must get down 
 beneath the gentleman or would-be gentleman -farmer, 
 down to the man who never conceived the idea of 
 ruffling it with gentlefolk. Also, you must not go 
 down to the mere labourer. But they are desperate 
 gossips, gossips not so much in matters local and in- 
 sular, as in matters universal. The gossiping tone 
 does proceed into the universal, does it not } The 
 hilarity with which they will range the far horizons of 
 thought is so childlike (you know how children are 
 about that) ; a chatter that sparkles on the surface 
 like their own divers, and then, with an ' Aw bless 
 me sowl,' or ' Aye, man, aye,' down into the deepest 
 soundings of the spirit. I think it is this quality of 
 theirs that the Methodists get hold of, and ' lead them 
 captive at their will.' Light, happy, irresponsible 
 creatures of the element ! In a poem of mine which 
 I complain has not been appreciated as it ought to 
 be (!!),' Kitty of the Skerragh Vane,' I have tried to 
 give some idea of them. ' Nicky' is the man's name.
 
 144 LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN [1890 
 
 Have you read it ? His delight in foreg-athering- with 
 ' strangers ' is the motif. ... I hope you get out. 
 From Port lern to Cardiff ' is a far cry to Loch 
 Awe ' ! My gough ! yandhar sea ! I must be out 
 upon it. 
 
 To J. E. Pearson. 
 
 Falcon's Nest, Port Erin, Isle of Man, 
 
 April 23, 1890. 
 
 Nay, by all the gods you shall not carry it off thus ! 
 My Amphitrite with the sweet young face and laugh- 
 ing eyes, and your ditch-bred Bridgwater drab ! . . . 
 And my darling outside there, that tells me all, gives 
 me all, and is in such a mood now, a creature of 
 moods, I will admit ; but you must know how to 
 meet her, and her whispers ! Pearson, her whispers ! 
 Goto! 
 
 But getting rid of salt water, and turning inland — 
 for example, at Holford, is it ? Ah, at Holford ! Well, 
 that is a dear little place. To go up on to the hills 
 from there by a long row of aged beech-trees — very 
 good. You don't come upon the beech-trees at once : 
 they lie just above Alfoxden — really delightful old 
 things. The Alfoxden stream is, I think, poor, and 
 it seems ashamed of itself, lurking in secret places. 
 The people all about I like very much. I wonder 
 what you think. Have you been to Kilve Church, 
 and have you yet solved the question of the weather- 
 cock .? The question is simply categorical — is there 
 a weather- cock ? 
 
 You have one blessing — you are alone : at least,
 
 1890] LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN 145 
 
 I think I can infer that. Now I cannot be that. 
 I have been called upon by the local clergy ! Match 
 me that, if you please ! 
 
 A story and an idyll, both of the slenderest kind. 
 I was told them by Christian, one of my crew, the 
 other day. 
 
 (i) Coming home from Shetland; twenty boats 
 sheltering somewhere about Raasay{})y I think: 
 Inver the place is called— in the Hebrides, is it ? or 
 on the coast of Sutherland [Dieu le suit). A great 
 castle with a flag : a great lady invites all the Manx- 
 men to dinner (I wish you could have heard Christian ; 
 Invaw, he said, not Inver, and dinnaw). Fancy — 
 120 men and boys! She had been in the Isle of 
 Man, and the people was very kind to her (haw). 
 Hence the invitation. A ter'ble grand place, and 
 the three-legs-of-Man czit in a stone over the door 
 (dooaw). They accepted : the day came, the ' dinnaw ' 
 was all ready ; but not a man went. 
 
 They were that shy (shoy). Woodward, my 
 sailing-master, chimes in — ' An' that's the wuss of the 
 Manx ! shoy, that's it, aw shoy tremenjis ! they can't 
 help it, no ! ' ' Dinnaw ' waits, the pipers are im- 
 patient, but no Manxmen. ' Was it your clothes 1 ' 
 said I. ' Well, 1 can't azackly say ; no, hardly that 
 either (ithaw) : just shoy' Great lady disappointed, 
 but excellent and ingenious, invites them to tea ; 
 accepted ; time comes, ' not a sowl went, just one 
 looking at the other (othaw).' Wind changes, up 
 anchor, and away to the south. Two boats remain, 
 and at long last the ' great lady ' triumphs. These 
 men went to tea at the castle. The area of mutual 
 
 I K
 
 146 LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN [1890 
 
 criticism being- reduced to such dimensions, they 
 plucked up courage and went, and ' enjoyed theer- 
 selves uncommon ! aw a ter'ble gran lady.' The area 
 &c. explanation was mine : they accepted it. Heaven 
 knows in what Anglo-Keltic form I put it! You 
 must ' let imagination muse ' the delicacy of such an 
 achievement — the delicacy, and the daring, let me 
 say : — 
 
 O wasn't she a ladie, a ladie, a ladie, 
 
 O wasn't she a ladie, that dame of Inver Bay ? 
 
 I wish I knew who she was. I think I would write 
 to her, and thank her, and apologize to her for my 
 countrymen. She might have been the Duchess of 
 Sutherland, whose mother, Mrs. Mackenzie, quartered 
 the Manx arms on her shield ; but then (almost all) 
 the great Highland families do that. 
 
 (2) The idyll — it is hardly that, though. The 
 Chickens Light-house lies off the island called the 
 Calf of Man, due SW. From the shore of the Calf 
 a long slope runs up to the crest of the island : this 
 slope exactly faces the Chickens. Near the top of 
 the slope, nestling under the crags of the crest, are 
 the cottages inhabited by the families of the light- 
 keepers, their doors opening out right toward the 
 Chickens far down below them. 
 
 Now the light-keepers are absolutely separated 
 from their families for three months at a time. But — 
 and here is the point — these good fellows have of 
 course a powerful telescope, and they solace them- 
 selves with looking through it at their children 
 playing in front of the cottage doors. Isn't that 
 beautiful ? Ah, human hearts ! Fancy on Sundays
 
 1890] 
 
 LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN 
 
 147 
 
 (Sabbath — they are Scotchmen), how proud the 
 mothers must be to hae the bairns braw for the guid- 
 fiian to see them throttgh the spying-glass / ' Gie 
 little Kate her button gown, and Jock his Sunday 
 coat ' — isn't that it ? Though there's no baillie's wife 
 to tell that ' CoHn's in the toon ' ; and indeed he is 
 not, he is exiled out on the Chickens. 
 
 \iiilM- [f-i^i't^ rtj^4<t'U4 
 
 Lighthouse, 
 
 There now, have I moved you at all ? Such things 
 one picks up here, and, with a little more trustfulness 
 and godly sincerity, and man-to-manness,a little more 
 reach and wholesome native ope^Ls, a little more /ove, 
 in short, how much more one might pick up ! And 
 is not p2ch jLp a most damnable phrase ? and ought 
 not the appetite for these things and the perception 
 of them to be normal^ and is not normal a damnable 
 phrase, for which it were well to substitute ' our daily 
 bread ' ? And so committing you both to Him who 
 
 K 2
 
 148 LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN [1891 
 
 gives that bread to all who believe in Him faithfully, 
 I remain, &c, 
 
 PS. — I fear there is a tone of truculence in this 
 letter. I did not mean it. You have a sweet covert 
 there. Bless you in your Quantock rambles ! 
 
 To H. G. Dakyns. 
 
 Clifton, 
 
 May 8, 1891. 
 
 The Isle was very good. Of primroses not a super- 
 abundance, of gorse great store, though meditating 
 greater : of solitude_/^z!r(?//. The glens were delicious, 
 caught just in the act— the lovely things! I went to 
 Renass, Ballaglass, and twice to Glen Aldhyn. 
 
 It was hard to keep out of the tubs. By-the-bye, 
 you have never been up Glen Aldhyn : and, indeed, 
 I have not known it long thoroughly. Glen May too 
 I visited, and, of course, Sulby Glen. Dora is there 
 still, enchanted, spell-bound. She is like me, would 
 never care to come away : why should we ? The 
 world does not want us : why should we want the 
 world ? But, indeed, I do not, nor ever did. 
 
 Arridet tibi Coryletunt ?'^ I think it does, and 
 that you must be very happy. 
 
 * Hazlemere, as T. E. B. spelt it.— H. G. D.
 
 1891] LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN 149 
 
 To Miss E. Brown. 
 
 Clifton, 
 
 June 22, 1891. 
 
 I write just a line to tell you that we have heard 
 of the death of your uncle. The dear gallant old 
 fellow has gone. ... He was a noble, brave, and 
 absolutely honest man. I have not seen him now for 
 nearly forty years. . . . When he left England I was 
 a youngster at Oxford, and had only just become 
 engaged. So all things pass, and the world goes on. 
 Aunt M. has now only one brother. Of the six boys 
 that once grew up in old Braddan Vicarage I am the 
 only one remaining. Ah ! it does feel lonely. But 
 you are with me still, and I am not unhappy. Thank 
 God for all ! 
 
 To J. E. Pearson. 
 
 Keswick, 
 
 September 12, 1891. 
 
 When your letter came, I was in the Isle of Man, 
 and my last two days were so quiet that I wanted 
 never to leave the place again. I wonder whether 
 Wilson would give me something just to clear out at 
 once. Then would I make haste and flee ! 
 
 Yet this too is lovely, this lake with its divine 
 monotony, these sphynxes of mountains with their 
 ridiculous questioning faces. And one day on Scawfell 
 Pike was absolutely perfect, the kind of day you get 
 here between storms, clear as crystal, sharp and 
 tremulous with the rapture of the rain. . . . And now^
 
 I50 LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN [1891 
 
 with the fine weather crammed into one short week, 
 we are all hurry-scurry. We hardly know what we 
 would be at. Like the typical Englishman, we stand 
 musing what we shall wear, and — 
 
 Sometimes we would have this, 
 Sometimes we would have that, 
 And sometimes we would wear, 
 We cannot tell what. 
 
 So let us be off. The trap is at the door. And 
 to-day it is to be Stake Pass, Mickleden, Rossett 
 Gill, Angle Tarn, Grain's Gill, and Seathwaite. Qu'en 
 pensez-vous ? And the wretched Dakyns, who won't 
 come, ca7iV, quotha, because of VISITORS. Alas for 
 Dakyns ! what will he do in the end thereof.'' 
 
 Sunday. We went, we saw, we conquered. Rossett 
 Gill was hot. Fancy the liquid silver near the top ! 
 How we did trinken — trinken— trinken ! Our tea at 
 Seathwaite was untellable. This is desperately sensual, 
 but what would you have ? The tubs in Grain's Gill : 
 would you have those ? I swear to you that no Roman 
 bath ever approached them even in mechanical per- 
 fection. We swore deeply (girls and all) that we 
 would come up here on Tuesday and bathe. Hugh 
 and I would constitute ourselves sentries. Besides, 
 the place is a very solitary one, and the tripper is 
 nearly extinct for this season. 
 
 With kindest regards to Mrs. Pearson I will now 
 close this letter ; the last of its kind which I shall 
 probably write this side Jordan. It is good that we 
 should have written to each other — ' very meet, right, 
 and our bounden duty,' in a very true sense, ' sacra- 
 mental.'
 
 1891] LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN 151 
 
 To A. M. WORTHINGTON. 
 
 Lake View, Keswick, 
 
 September 12, 1891. 
 
 I have been to the Isle of Man with Hall Caine. 
 Two days, the only fine ones, were very great. One 
 of them was a Sunday : A.M. up Glen Aldhyn : P.M. 
 to Kirk Maughold Church. A.M. was natural; P.M., 
 shall I say, spiritual ? Well, social, of the very highest 
 order. The vicar is an old friend, the vicar's wife 
 perhaps ray very .oldest friend. We went to the 
 evening service, and I read the prayers. At the 
 altar-place knelt ... it was the church where we 
 were married. 
 
 Charming with all the consummate charm of well- 
 nigh eighty years worn with exquisite grace heightened 
 by every circumstance of refinement and the halo of 
 a beauty not yet extinct, the subtlety of an intellect 
 still active in many directions — such is Mrs. White, 
 more familiar to me by her maiden name. The mere 
 physical conditions were little short of astounding. 
 A fine drawn from the altar of the church straight 
 down the aisle and projected westward would have 
 lighted on the other altar, that of Barrule, black, 
 pyramidal. Venus was rising over the cairn on the 
 top of Maughold Head. The dear old vicar crooned 
 away his most admirable sermon, of which I heard 
 not a word, but was conscious as of a lullaby. And so 
 they go on, these most blessed of the blest. Time 
 touches them lightly; they are so precious that I
 
 152 LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN [189 1 
 
 suppose they will at last not die, but fade away into 
 balsams like Mizraim, sweet mummy powders of finest 
 fragrance. 
 
 My girls are all well and happy. Dora is really 
 getting a great girl, though I say it. And much of 
 all this happiness is reflected upon me. But, my 
 dear Worthington, there is a happiness, a kind of 
 happiness, a kind (do I claim too much for it ? just 
 a kind) which I shall never know again — ah no ! so 
 help me God ! 
 
 To H. G. Dakyns. 
 
 Lake View, Keswick, 
 
 September 12, 1891. 
 
 Hall Caine was with me in the Isle of Man. I took 
 him up to Kirk Maughold on Sunday evening. The 
 whole thing was unparalleled. I read the service. My 
 dear old friend the vicar preached. His voice was 
 sweet and soothing. I don't know what he said, 
 probably it was his very best. I sat within the rails 
 and saw nothing but one precious thing. . . . Dear old 
 friend, preach away, and let it be your best, if you 
 think it should be so, but I must hear words far 
 different, and seek the higher absorption. I should 
 like to tell you more of this wonderful day. 
 
 On Monday we had to leave for Whitehaven at 1 1 . 
 So we breakfasted at 6, and had a car to Ballaglass. 
 This too was a sacrament, but more open. I enclose 
 two ' lil pomes ' from ' In the Coach.'
 
 1892] LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN 153 
 
 To A. M. WORTHINGTON. 
 
 Clifton, 
 
 April 5, 1892. 
 
 oTOTol, OTorol, oTOToi^ likewise f , e, I ! 
 
 Then you don't know that I have been nearly 
 ' kilt \' Proximiis vidi, I can assure you : and even 
 now my case is dismal. Walk on Dartmoor! This 
 morning- I crawled to the sea-walls and back, and 
 made my poor boast of the achievement. Ah, 
 Worthington honey ! Worthington avick ! I believe 
 it is all up with me. I may go for a few years more 
 yet, but the mainspring has been rudely shaken, and 
 I shall be a simulacrum, an approximation to the 
 manes and lemures of fable. 
 
 And still I would fain meet you again, and ' Coll. . . . ' 
 too, and try to put in my sword where such men foin 
 and fence. 
 
 How infinite a walk on Dartmoor seems ! not so 
 much in physical space as moral. Suppose I did walk 
 all over Dartmoor now, could it be the Dartmoor 
 of old ! a dream of heaven and all that is elastic and 
 tense and free — no, no ! just mile-stones and dragging 
 limbs, and eyes vainly seeking the old light. 
 
 Well, and the upshot is that I am seeking it 
 to-morrow, not vainly, let us hope, with Dakyns. 
 I was at Weston a fortnight, and it did me very little 
 good. So now for Haslemere, possibly further, if 
 I get on a bit, and can persuade Dakyns to cross the 
 Channel. I have thought too of a trip to Naples by 
 
 ' He had been seriously ill at the end of 1891, and took long to 
 recover his strength.
 
 154 LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN [1892 
 
 an Orient steamer. They call at Plymouth, don't 
 they ? If I make Plymouth my port of embarkation, 
 will you take me in for a night and a day ? .... 
 
 And now you behold the situation. Dear, kind 
 friend, be sure of my constant affection. 
 
 To Mrs. Williamson. 
 
 16 Windsor Villas, North Ramsey, 
 
 May 13, 1892. 
 
 I wrote to you last from Weston, but the place did 
 me little good, so I left it, and two days afterwards 
 repaired to Haslemere in Surrey, to my old friend 
 Dakyns. 
 
 This is a delightful place, so perfectly quiet. I 
 was upon a hill 600 or 700 feet high, commanding 
 a glorious view, a real Poussin, only English to its 
 utmost marge, the greater part of Surrey, Kent, and 
 Sussex. You will know It as Tennyson's place. It 
 lies mainly on the borders of these counties and 
 Hampshire. The lines of the North Downs melt here 
 Into those of the South Downs in such a way that 
 W. you have nothing but hills, E. and S. the Weald, 
 as it is called, fringed by the furthest South Downs 
 and the sea. Dakyns' house is on the hill called Greys- 
 wood, Tennyson's on Black Down, and Tindal (poor 
 flighty mortal !) has enthroned himself on Hind Head. 
 
 Hind Head Is 900 feet high. It Is a delicious para- 
 dise both of form and colour, heather, bilberry, larch, 
 birch, and such a bold leonine attitude — quite ridicu- 
 lous for such a hill, but you submit yourself willingly 
 to the illusion. Black Down is chiefly heather — mag-
 
 1892] LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN 155 
 
 nificent heather, mind! Greyswood is largely built 
 upon, but still there is a remnant of the old common, 
 a lovely little wilderness of gorse, birch, bilberry, and 
 heather. The heather is of the three kinds, ling, heath, 
 and cob heather (the two last perhaps better distin- 
 guished as crimson bell and bog heather). 
 
 Well, here I soon became very happy, and every- 
 thing that the most unfailing and unstinted kindness 
 could do was done for me. I got so much better 
 during the three weeks I stayed there that I was able 
 to travel by myself to Liverpool, and next day to 
 cross to the Island. 
 
 Before leaving Haslemere, I climbed Hind Head 
 three times, the last time walking by myself, and 
 shouting for lonely joy ! . . . When I have climbed 
 Barrule, I shall think it time to return to Clifton. 
 
 You know that I am giving up my house and 
 
 mastership. Where to live ? That is the question 
 
 Much musing and meditating I find myself drawn 
 mainly to this Island ; and you must not be surprised 
 if you hear of my settling down to spend my old days 
 in Mannin Veg Veen, . . . 
 
 To J. R. MOZLEY. 
 
 Clifton, 
 
 June 27, 1892. 
 
 Dakyns and wife have departed. They stayed two 
 days with me and two days with Glazebrook. He dis- 
 charged his difficult task admirably— a really beautiful 
 speech \ conceived in the best taste, the tone sustained 
 throughout. It was highly eulogistic, but I must not 
 ' At 'Commemoration.'
 
 LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN [189; 
 
 say anything about or against that. They ' drowned 
 me in a bowl,' i. e. presented me with a silver vessel, 
 in which you could baptize a baby by immersion. 
 
 To Miss E. Brown. 
 
 Clifton, 
 
 July 2, 1892. 
 
 The day is glorious, though overwhelmed by such 
 memories. Forgive me that I could not lay the ghost 
 when we parted. After all it was of you I thought, 
 and what you must feel, leaving your birth-place and 
 the scene of so many joys and sorrows, seeing it for 
 the very last time as your home on earth. Woe is 
 me ! But it is inevitable, and in a few weeks' time we 
 shall all have flown from the old nest. To-day I have 
 given up my school work for the remainder of the 
 Term. . . . We are eagerly looking forward to your 
 letter. . . . Mind you give yourself a fair chance of 
 success, i. e. by carefully attending to your own health, 
 and trying no experiments in the way of diet or 
 abstinence. God bless you. 
 
 To S. T. Irwin. 
 
 Windsor Mount, North Ramsey, 
 
 September i8, 189a. 
 
 How the wind howls ! It has now been at it for 
 some three weeks, and there is no sign of a change. 
 That is the Manx climate. I remember when I never 
 noticed it ; but long familiarity with the effeminate 
 skies of England has made me sensitive. O for a bit 
 of the primitive hardihood ! the capacity of roughing 
 it ! A good thing, sir, a good thing and (an !) useful.
 
 1892] LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN 157 
 
 I have been throwing out my social tentactda. 
 Called on the bishop, who has returned the call ; but 
 ' we were both out ' has rather an Irish flavour. Old 
 friends come in and we shall have much ado to keep 
 pace with the genial folk. Meantime it is very hard to 
 say what time I shall find for reading or writing. I do 
 both write and read, but not overmuch. I read Swift, 
 and I have written for the Natiojial Observer a review 
 of Burgon's life. Many of my friends are old ladies, 
 and they value my society at their whist- tables ; and 
 I am, as you know, very good-natured — so — what 
 would you have ? A charming Hibernian called on 
 me the other day. Portentous! alarming! He had 
 been sent from Douglas by some evil-disposed friends 
 of mine there, to consult me as the supreme authority 
 on matters Manx. Now of this language I am, if not 
 wholly, yet at least grammatically, ignorant. He was 
 a tall, stalwart fellow, black-bearded, not handsome, 
 but with a tremendously Irish face, eyes of fire, nose 
 of peremptory interrogation. Flourishing a wretched 
 grammar in one hand, he proceeded rapidly to demon- 
 strate its ineptness, and sternly to demand my explana- 
 tion. As my weak-kneedness grew more painfully 
 evident — 
 
 So scented the grim feature, and upturned 
 His nostril wide into the murky air, 
 Sagacious of his quarry — 
 
 he almost shouted with exultation. All the Manx 
 scholars had completely failed — here was another. 
 ' Glory be to God ! I'll smite him hip and thigh.' He 
 was a splendid Irishman, and, of course, kind and 
 generous. He didn't spare me, destrzicted me utterly.
 
 158 LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN [1893 
 
 but speedil}^ constructed me upon new lines, and told 
 me a lot about Celtic difficulties and how to overcome 
 them. He spoke Irish like a bird, and after about 
 three-quarters of an hour, he rushed forth to catch 
 the train, hairy, immense, with some wild wirrasthru 
 of farewell. Imagine a very learned and linguistic 
 Mulligan of Ballymulligan ! I duly received your 
 kind verses, apposui lucro. I really know not how 
 on earth it is that I get such proofs of esteem and 
 affection. Positively I am inclined to echo the re- 
 doubtable M. and express concern at the discovery 
 that men like me. His predicating the reciprocity as 
 being all on the one side I leave to him. With me 
 the reciprocity is full to overflowing. 
 
 I went from Devonport to Rhayader, meeting there 
 my sister and her husband. The people don't speak 
 the Cymric much, but they are so Welsh, so unprac- 
 tical, in many ways so charming. No trippers, not 
 even tourists— a perfect cessation of the enemy, a 
 cessation of all enemies, except, perhaps, the tippling 
 of the natives ; but there, I am no great enemy of 
 tippling. It is true they lie down drunk in the streets, 
 but they look so rosy and altogether comely in their 
 honest cups ; and besides, I am such a poor sleeper, 
 that I envy any one sound sleep wherever indulged and 
 however induced. 
 
 To G. H. WOLLASTON. 
 
 Windsor Mount, North Ramsey, 
 
 September 25, 1893. 
 
 How good of you to write to me from Baireuth ! 
 It was a most enjoyable letter ; no good, though, my
 
 1892] LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN 159 
 
 attempting to answer it until you come to your point 
 of repose. Now you are all right, and I take a shot at 
 you sitting. 
 
 By-the-bye, you are just before me at this moment, 
 1. e. Elliot and Fry's version ; and a very fine version 
 it is too, and much admiration it has excited in the 
 bosoms of many fair dames of the Isle. You are, in 
 short (really at considerable length), upon my mantel- 
 piece. 
 
 I see Parsifal is the only work next year : it is the 
 last year for Baireuth to have undivided possession of 
 this glorious thing, so they are going to have plenty 
 of it. May I be there ! not an entire impossibility. 
 Will you and Mrs. Wollaston be there ? But this 
 is too large an order for human foresight, so — 
 drop it! 
 
 O Wollaston, the delight of this leisure ! I read, 
 I write, I play. Good gracious ! I shouldn't wonder 
 if my music came to something yet. I have actually 
 gone back to singing, a vice of my youth. Don't 
 mention it at Clifton ! I always think the sea the 
 great challenger and promoter of song. Even the 
 mountain is not the same thing. There may always 
 
 be some d d fool or another behind a rock. But 
 
 the sea is open, and you can tell when you are alone, 
 and the dear old chap is so confidential : I will trust 
 him with my secret. 
 
 How about Devon ? was it good ? Did you all 
 bathe and ' rux ' yourselves well about in the brine ? 
 I have not done much in that way : the storms have 
 been so furious — unkind of them, eh .^ Well, I fancy 
 it is like the boisterous welcome of some great dog —
 
 i6o LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN [1892 
 
 at least, I take it in that sense. And the old boy is so 
 strong, and he doesn't know, he thinks I am what 
 I used to be. But I'm not : and every now and then 
 he remembers that, and creeps to my feet so fawn- 
 ingly. 
 
 Kindest regards to Mrs. Wollaston, to Althea, and 
 all of them. 
 
 To H. G. Dakyns. 
 
 Windsor Mount, Ramsey, 
 
 November 5, 1892. 
 
 You ask me to tell you how the days go. Well, 
 I must confess that so far they have been mainly 
 devoted to the re -establishment of my health. In this 
 I have been fairly, but not triumphantly, successful. 
 I breakfast at 8.30, and the sea is my companion for 
 a good three hours. I walk simply on the shore, 
 and as near as possible to the water's edge ; I walk, 
 save for the dear old chum aforesaid, alone. I lunch 
 at 1.30, having had a short interval of reading. This 
 reading is Iddesleian : no method, very delightful. 
 However, what with this brief space and an hour or 
 two besides scattered through the day, I have read 
 a great deal of Don Juan^ some Swift, and some 
 Johnson, or rather, Boswell {To7ir to the Hebrides). 
 I have also preached twice, once at King William's 
 College (my old school), and once at Maughold. The 
 last occasion was a thing wonderful to relate. It 
 was at night, last Sunday night, magnificent moon, 
 sea all ' glory, honour, and power,' Bar rule black 
 as jet, pyramidal, unutterable. The church bursting
 
 ,892] LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN 161 
 
 with fire and bright faces : entering at the west door, 
 it looked like a tunnel of flame. The churchyard too 
 was full, a curiously eager ' company of witnesses ' 
 glowering in upon me. I don't know how to describe 
 it, except by saying that it gave one the idea of 
 a Cyclopian spiritual smithy, of which I myself was 
 the smith, and the good old parson the bellows - 
 blower. Out flew the sparks, and these blessed old 
 Kelts caught them in their fine raptured faces as 
 children do looking in upon the smitten anvil. The 
 church was decorated for a Harvest Thanksgiving. 
 'Go it ! ' and so I did, with much satisfaction to 
 myself, possibly to others. 
 
 To-morrow I preach (Harvest Thanksgiving— late 
 is it not ?) at Ballaugh. That is a tamer place, but 
 hallowed to me by certain recollections, and I suspect 
 I shall be much moved. What egotism all this is! 
 Pray, forgive ! 
 
 I have been to Government House, dined, and slept 
 there, on Thursday last. 
 
 I took in to dinner. She talked beautifully, 
 
 and without the shadow of affectation, and talked so 
 fluently, and so intelligently. . . . 
 
 For music, imagine nie, choragus, virtuoso in- 
 signissimo — here again I fancy I hear something of 
 a titter. Silence, sir ! One of the phenomena of this 
 leisure is the recrudescence of my music. Of course 
 it is favoured by the inedmm. The company were 
 quite willing to be pleased — commended me heartily. 
 That is something worth living for. I must off to my 
 sermon.
 
 1 62 LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN [1892 
 
 To Canon Rawnsley. 
 
 Ramsey, Isle of Man, 
 
 November i8, 1892. 
 
 Will you kindly send me all useful information 
 about the ' Footpaths Defence Association ' ? All 
 papers thereanent would be received gratefully. 
 How about the ' Lakes ' in particular ? Is that a 
 special thing- ? Hints as to the best way of setting 
 about the same business here would be very welcome. 
 Some brief digest of the actual Law of Trespass would 
 come in nicely. Leaflets various, especially any from 
 your own trenchant pen, would quite set me up. 
 
 [Canon Rawnsley elsewhere quotes a saying of 
 Mr. Brown's : ' the meanest thing a man can do is 
 to shut up a footpath.'] 
 
 To S. T. Irwin. 
 
 Ramsey, 
 
 November 18, 1892. 
 
 You are now within measurable distance of the 
 Christmas holidays, after, I hope, a prosperous and 
 happy Term. I don't often get beyond the shore, it 
 is so clean and sparkhng with gravel and foam-edge. 
 Yesterday, it is true, I went up a glen just to meet 
 a genuine mountain stream, which rewarded me with 
 some fine ferns quite fresh and young. A thick 
 fog-bank lay out at sea: you were blotted out, sir, 
 absolutely obliterated, you and your island! i.e. 
 geographically and visually : but I thought of you 
 all the more. 
 
 Of literature I partake as follows. Mozley has
 
 r892] LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN 163 
 
 been over, and I found that he had never disused the 
 energy of ' Repetition ^.' At the same time I had 
 been led, I hardly know how, to cultivate this path 
 or byway of letters ever since I came over here. 
 Comparing notes we discovered, to our great joy, 
 that our memories were as strong as ever, our 
 appetite keen, and power of retention quite unim- 
 paired. Isn't that good ? Really it provides for the 
 whole of my future Hfe, and the close sympathy 
 between men who squat down upon this common 
 field of flowers is most comforting. Nothing tends 
 to make the mind more open and cheerful. There is 
 something about it of ' the discipline,' but we lay it 
 gently on our shoulders. Then the realization of 
 power is refreshing : very satisfactory too is the 
 sensation of stowage. Idleness and emptiness are 
 banished, and it is with a good packet of sound 
 and wholesome stuff that I hope to stagger up at 
 last to St. Peter's wicket. Ten lines a day — but, 
 bless my soul ! don't let us think of it in that way. 
 
 So far I've been lining the chambers with Enghsh : 
 but, as I find greater facility, I hope to add Latin and 
 Greek. One charming exercise is the alternation of 
 Par. Lost with old Ballads. The Milton comes on 
 rather heavily as yet, but under the Ballads I bound 
 and curvet. It is marvellous what things and tones 
 come out in the Milton as you treat it in this fashion. 
 False notes too, unexpected lapsus — the glorious old 
 boy ! But, O Irwin ! the leisure of it ! the leisure 
 of it ! This is at last hfe. Yes, they were great, and 
 we — well, never mind ! . . . 
 
 1 The learning of poetry by heart. 
 L 2
 
 1 64 LETTERS OF T. E, BROWN [1892 
 
 I have made the acquaintance of the Governor. 
 I called and left a card, and immediately received an 
 invitation to dinner. His Excellency met me himself 
 with his dog-- cart. It was very nice, and I slept there 
 (not in the dog-cart!). He is distinctly a literary 
 person ; and so is his wife. The party was rather 
 big and tremendous, but at breakfast next morning 
 we were more by ourselves, and the talk was pleasant. 
 
 They introduced me to some American writers whom 
 I had not seen, but, on the other hand, I had the honour 
 of introducing them to Tom Sawyer. The Governor 
 has a fair library (' closet of books '). It was amusing 
 to note how he caught at my Boswell {Tour), which 
 I had taken with me to read by the way. The binding 
 rather amazed him. He supposed I hadn V all my 
 books bound in that way, biit a few of my darlings / 
 
 I like other things here, the knitting again of old 
 connexions, the familiar intercourse with the old folk, 
 the impinging of old tones upon the ear of desuetude ; 
 but at the same time it is not without a distinct thrill 
 of pleasure that I enter once more into the easy con- 
 ventions of polite society — easy, mind ! for these people 
 are easy with the ease that has some depth of root. 
 Yet the Governor is an out-and-out Radical ! and here 
 I am, locally, a Conservative. But what utter bosh it 
 all is! Of course I am embedded in Conservative 
 surroundings, steeped to the throat in the finest and 
 most richly conserved juices of the retrograde mind. 
 This too is such a relief. . . . 
 
 Few men are capable of this retirement. / am. 
 Now don't think me conceited : it is the simplest fact. 
 All life hitherto has detained me from my true life.
 
 1892] LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN 165 
 
 The rebound, If not quick, is effectual, natural, in- 
 evitable. Absolutely now, and without any humbug, 
 I could live here with nothing but a Horace. 
 
 But this affords no basis for self-complacency, I 
 assure you. Why am I not a man of affairs, a man 
 useful in my day and generation, ' a great man ' ? 
 Wilson once put to me that home question, and I was 
 dumb before him ; I am still dumb. 
 
 One thing I feel is growing upon me, and that is 
 egotism. 
 
 Do pardon all this talk about self, and recurrence 
 iter tun atqtie itertLin to self and its weaknesses. 
 
 How are you all ? There now ! There's a vigorous 
 and rather naif effort to get out of myself. For 
 instance, how is N. .^ Is he going to get married ? 
 Don't let him do so on any account. He is a most 
 consummate bachelor, trim, neat, in mind and body : 
 don't let him be divided into parts, or dissipated in 
 domestic mince. I would have him always Terpaycoyo?, 
 and ready for celibate activities. If he by any chance 
 should be seduced from his allegiance to the laurel, 
 I shall expect a complaint from the Queen whose 
 service he will have deserted. 
 
 Then up and spak the Queen of Fairies, 
 
 Out of a bush of broom, 
 ' She that has borrowed the young N. 
 
 Has gotten a bonnie groom.' 
 
 Then up and spak the Queen of Fairies, 
 
 Out of a bush of rye, 
 ' She 's ta'en avva' the [nobbiest] knight 
 
 In a' my companye.' 
 
 . . . What a ripper Birkbeck ^ is ! He is almost too 
 
 ^ Dr. Birkbeck Hill, editor of Boswell's Johnson.
 
 i66 LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN [1892 
 
 exhaustive ; keeps you ' annotated ' to the fraction of 
 a hair. On the contrary the big ' Pope ' is, I regret 
 to say, a failure : the notes are quite capricious in 
 their incidence and leave you ' darkling.' 
 
 To Miss E. Brown. 
 
 Ramsey, 
 
 Novetnber 30, 1892. 
 
 I really hope you have got into good ways of 
 sleeping. Most nights our chimneys roar like active 
 volcanoes. I had thought I was getting inured to this, 
 but — fiddlededee ! last night all the winds of heaven 
 combined and brought to bear upon me a perfect 
 battery. I didn't sleep a wink. The fun of it is that 
 these vagabond children of Aeolus, after raving like 
 the worst possible form of tom-cat all night, towards 
 dawn become quite decorous and sneak away ' to their 
 several caves,' as if butter wouldn't melt in their 
 mouths, and, if that is not a sweet confusion of meta- 
 phors, leave it alone ! 
 
 The piano has been tuned to-day by a man from 
 L'pool, a ' ter'ble ' nice young man. I played him 
 ' Myl-y-charane,' and he played me a Cornish Florida. 
 Fancy ! these are the agrejiients of Manx life. Do 
 you know what a Florida is ? A dance tune at the 
 Cornish Floridas ; and the Cornish Florida is the May- 
 day fete, and would seem to be the Floralia of the 
 ancient Romans handed down from the British 
 period. Fancy one of Smith's tuners meeting me 
 in this intelligent and sympathetic fashion ! . . .
 
 1892] LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN 167 
 
 To Miss E. Browne 
 
 Ramsey, 
 
 December ii, 1892. 
 
 The blizzard extended here, and with full vigour. 
 I was in Douglas. The snow began on Sunday 
 morning, but we started for Kirk Braddan, I without 
 an umbrella. It became terrific, and on Monday we 
 awoke to a world which was past recognition. We 
 had never thought of this ; we had been befooled into 
 the belief that it hardly ever snowed at all in the Isle 
 of Man. I spent Saturday to Wednesday last in 
 Braddan. As a question of interior it was delightful ; 
 of exterior, a howling waste of mud and black and 
 white horror. ... M. is deeply interested in Manx 
 history and antiquities. So we got on splendidly 
 together. Part of my mission there was to advise him 
 upon a book he is bringing out of Manx songs, and 
 I discovered quite a treasure. ... At Copenhagen, 
 in the museum, he examined the papers of an old 
 Danish professor who died somewhere about 1 750. . . . 
 Among these papers he found a Manx song, with 
 English translation written by Archdeacon Rutter, 
 afterwards bishop of the island, in about 1680. It is 
 a gem : but the English is so delicious that I can't 
 help suspecting that it is the original. Still, the Manx 
 is wonderful, and makes a gallant effort to express 
 the quintessential cavalier philosophy of a poet who 
 might have signed himself Herrick or Lovelace. Well 
 done the ' Lil Oilan ! ' Fancy its producing such fruit ! 
 The Hesperides are nothing to it. 
 
 * Vide Appendix.
 
 68 LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN [1892 
 
 To S. T. Irwin. 
 
 Ramsey, 
 
 December 26, 1892. 
 
 I have read your ' Cowper ' with much pleasure. It 
 is surprising how you have found time to write two 
 articles and the verses while the shuttle of examination 
 has been rattling about your ears. . . . 
 
 It is useless denying that I was complacently present 
 in the spirit at the ' plague ^ ' and all its horrors. It 
 was only human nature to suck the full juice of my 
 exemption. To do this effectually I had to summon 
 you all to the bar of my intensest realization — the 
 masters' meetings, the lapses of temper, the lost 
 papers, the missing marks, all the devils own brew of 
 bothers ; and I, pipe in mouth, glass of hot toddy at 
 my side, and not a care, except the care to get to the 
 very depth of the ironic misery. O ! I did enjoy my- 
 self And so, having exquisitely sympathized, I now 
 am the more prepared to be with you in the blessed- 
 ness of the repose that has followed. May the gods 
 grant you the plenary seisin of your luck. 
 
 I have been roaming : been to Peel, and seen lovely 
 children and dear nice people. A cousin of mine 
 gave an entertainment at her school. The little ones 
 performed what was majestically styled a cantata ; but 
 it was only a series of nursery rhymes, arranged at 
 random ; for you are to consider that, in the evolution 
 of such a sequence, it matters not whether 'Little Bo- 
 peep ' precede ' Little Jack Horner,' or succeed that 
 
 ' Examination week.
 
 1893] LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN 169 
 
 voluptuary. Not the least interesting person was an 
 old music-mistress, who entered into the delight of 
 the children with a delight all her own, but wholly 
 beautiful, dashed, too, with a flavour of aside at the 
 grown-up members of the party. To that dear old 
 thing I say heartily, ' God bless thee ! thou art good.' 
 Indeed I could have hugged her. ' For these and all 
 His other mercies,' &c. : they are a great comfort to 
 me, and one sweet unselfish old maid will set me up 
 for a week. 
 
 Altogether it will be very hard to get me away 
 from this perfectly bewitching place. I have a sort 
 of hold over the people which I feel is not precarious. 
 How fortunate it is to have had forbears ! well, let us 
 say at all, but such as mine, so good, and of good 
 report. Don't think me egotistic ! But you have 
 no idea how the old echoes repercuss and make music 
 of my life. One goes to see a dear old creature of 
 eighty-one : she knows you and everything about 
 you, everj'thing behind you, and, if possible, before 
 you. , . . These (the elders) are such as I would 
 fondly hope are gathering a gentle soothing sort of 
 gossip about me to tell the happy iiiaj'ores when they 
 meet them in Elysium. 
 
 To Canon Rawnsley. 
 
 Ramsey, 
 
 January lo, 1893. 
 
 Tm ' shoy uncommon,' but still not as bad as 
 ' yandhar.' ' In the Coach ' {sz'c) will appear in my 
 new volume, which Macmillan has already in hand.
 
 I70 LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN [1893 
 
 What was W doing-— blaspheming generally 
 
 or specifically ? He's a ' ter'ble ' man. But isn't he 
 good ? and don't I love him ? that's all. Thanks for 
 the sonnet. I don't know, but some way one gener- 
 ally ends a letter to you like this. ' Navau thee moin, 
 John Thomas ! ' But hold hard ! I must not forget 
 you're a foreigner. ' 'Scuse the Manx that's at me ! ' 
 
 Why not ' nobler,' or still better ' sweeter ' ? The 
 comparative is both adjective and adverb. 
 
 Kindest wishes for this new customer. 
 
 To S. T. Irwin. 
 
 Ramsey, 
 
 January 29, 1893. 
 
 The verses are most refreshing. Nothing so bright 
 and cheerful as these winged creatures. Always send 
 me the latest brood. I have at last got off my Mac- 
 millan parcel, and I suppose before the week's end 
 proofs will be flying northwards. The volume begins 
 with ' Old John,' and ends with ' At the Play,' which 
 you may remember I wrote for you, accompanying it 
 with a Latin translation. The translation, however, 
 is omitted ! ! I am proud to say that my book will 
 not contain a single word of translation. I had 
 a pretty little matter enough of La Prade, but we 
 must positively withstand this dreadful cacoethes 
 transfer endi. 
 
 The scene at Peel was perfectly delightful. When 
 you get the paper you will observe some votes of 
 thanks proposed in Manx. These are the cream of 
 the joke. The proposers were the dearest old fellows.
 
 r893] LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN 171 
 
 They stood up in their places, and did the whole 
 thing in perfect good faith. 
 
 The tremendous earnestness of these blessed old 
 Kelts does not debar them from a levity which is simply 
 ethereal and heavenly. They have such faith in one, 
 and unbounded reverence for what they suppose to 
 be one's ' larnin',' and yet such sympathy with one's 
 nonsense. They are indeed ' gleg at the uptak ' ; 
 never miss a point, however dodgy. The princess 
 showed her thorough breeding by the discomfort she 
 experienced from the one crumpled rose-leaf in a bed 
 of roses. My dear old friends discover theirs by 
 detecting the merest suggestion of a point through 
 all the wrinkles that I can complicate. 
 
 To S. T. Irwin. 
 
 Ramsey, 
 
 February 26, 1893. 
 
 Spring has just looked in upon us and gone. I 
 don't know why, I for one was prepared to give her 
 a hearty welcome. Certain crocuses of my acquain- 
 tance were of the same mind, and applauded her 
 in their meek manner; a brace of tame hyacinths 
 expanded into perceptible, though slightly guarded 
 satisfaction, as becomes their quality of breeding, and 
 she turned away in a frump ; and here is the demon 
 
 of the pole— a blizzard, a but language fails me. 
 
 Besides, I can't get to church, and the withdrawal of 
 my ordinary ' intellectual, moral, and spiritual ' (Per- 
 cival's old trivium) has made me cross, and this may 
 continue. 
 
 Wherefore send me Crabbe, 'Twere a pleasant
 
 172 LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN [1893 
 
 leap from the Pisces to Cancer. . . . People talk 
 about Crabbe, but they don't read him. Urge them 
 to do so : likely enough you will only get them to 
 read your article, but that will do them a lot of good ; 
 and it certainly will do me good, old Crabbian though 
 I profess myself. . . . 
 
 'The young man that played the clarionet.' 
 This matter had a funny sequel. Letter from a 
 rising Liverpool tradesman ; says he was the ' young 
 man,' &c. Asks for explanations and so forth : had 
 been a pupil of mine in the Castletown Night- School. 
 Wounded, feelings lacerated, &c. I was greatly 
 alarmed. Issue. He was the ' young man,' but not 
 the ' young man ' who, after the Liverpool meeting, 
 claimed the proud position of ex-clarionet player to 
 your humble servant. That young man seems to 
 have been an impostor ; by comparison of dates, could 
 not have been more than minus two years of age at 
 the time of the clarionet performance — ' a marvellous 
 boy,' rather embryon, if ever there was. The real 
 ci-devant artist is a thoroughly good fellow, a most 
 prosperous man moreover ; we have fallen on each 
 other's necks, and the incident is closed. 
 
 To J. C. Tarver. 
 
 Ramsey, Isle of Man, 
 
 March lo, 1893. 
 
 I am quite ashamed. Your two letters make me 
 blush. I always keep your letters. They have so 
 much salt in them that there is no fear of their keep- 
 ing. But that is no reason why they should remain
 
 1893] LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN 173 
 
 unanswered. Marine salt we have here in plenty, 
 but the Attic stuff is rather wanting. Thrice welcome 
 therefore are your communications. You want to 
 know how I am, and what I do. I am slowly re- 
 covering. Sometimes I seem to catch sight of the 
 solid ultimate recovery, but it is a slow business. The 
 Island certainly suits me. The air is delicious and 
 strengthening. Only the winds are deviHsh, and sleep 
 is hard to get. 
 
 I read much, not systematically, but in the beloved 
 Iddesleyian fashion — desultorily. French I now never 
 touch. What you say of Flaubert gives me qualms. 
 Do go on, and let us have something about him. 
 
 I have been wandering through Swift a good deal. 
 The hearty cursing in his Tale of a Tub goes 
 straight to my midriff — so satisfying, the best of tonics. 
 For absolute splendour too, commend me to his 
 chapters about the Aeolists ! Defoe is with me not 
 seldom. The style of these men is refreshing. For 
 narrative, it would be difficult to beat Defoe. The 
 History of a Cavalier is a downright masterpiece. 
 
 A friend has lent me a lot of eighteenth-century 
 letters stowed up in his family archives. They are 
 entertaining, and, I think, instructive. Largely written 
 by parsons, they go far to show that Macaulay was 
 all wrong about the matter. These old fellows were 
 more literary, better scholars, finer humourists than 
 we can now boast in the Church. It is delightful to 
 see them pelting one another with Latin, and, very 
 occasionally, with Greek quotations. TruUiber is no- 
 where. Of course there were Trullibers, and, for the 
 matter of that, there are. But for social amenity,
 
 174 LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN [1893 
 
 for polite friendship, not the less true that it was 
 polite, my old friends stand very high indeed. 
 
 You might call this a quiet place, but I find it full 
 of all the sins and all the frailties. I look for them, 
 you know, turn over every stone, and expose the 
 grubs and beetles— they are awfully interesting, the 
 only entomology I care for. 
 
 If you are well-to-do, and tolerably stupid, nicely 
 married, and all that, you might lie on the burning 
 lake and tuck the blankets around you. Is there not 
 asbestos } and why make yourself miserable ? 
 
 To be well shut of schools and things scholastic is 
 a prime bliss. But you are still in it— don't kick too 
 much ; only I am glad that there is a bit of kick left 
 in you. So mote it be ! 
 
 I hope your recent experience will not stop your 
 writing to me. I can promise you reciprocity not 
 altogether ' one-sided.' That reminds me of Irwin. He 
 writes to me, and his letters are a great consolation. 
 
 To H. G. Dakyns. 
 
 Ramsey, 
 
 February 28, 1893. 
 
 February goes out like a snow-white lamb; the 
 sea round its neck like a blue ribbon. . . . How 
 about primroses } You lie too high, I should suppose, 
 for wild ones. Crocuses must now be abundant. 
 They are so here. A stick or two of mezereon sends 
 a shrewd thrust of spring smell (T)iift) through the 
 borders ; and Lent lilies are preparing to be gorgeous. 
 But wild primroses— of them the faintest prognostic.
 
 1893] LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN 175 
 
 I long to be out and seeing- to all this ; and soon 
 I hope to be aiding and abetting in the most active 
 manner. 
 
 Much delight is mine in a big box of MSS. lent me 
 by a young Manx friend — eighteenth-century letters 
 of his family, particularly of one member thereof. 
 I go on from year to year as through a garden with 
 walks and parterres and borders, all so sweet and 
 good. The old man was a humourist, and was famed 
 in his day as the ' Manx Swift.' A grand old fellow : 
 not a Swift (!) — good gracious, no ! not so great by a 
 thousand miles, nor so unhappy ; but perfectly sound, 
 and most excellent company. I have just finished 
 the box — perhaps five or six hundred letters. They 
 all go to produce chyle for the big book^. Well, 
 I will not say chyle, but bidOea-Ls. To attain that will 
 be a supreme delight. 
 
 To THE Rev. H. J. Wiseman. 
 
 Ramsey, 
 
 March lo, 1893. 
 
 I was much interested in what you say about the 
 hymn book. After all, each generation must have 
 its turn: it is only fair that it should discharge the 
 function as decently as possible, but with full purpose 
 of self-assertion. I suppose we had our turn. We 
 liked certain hymns from old associations. The 
 associations failing, the hymns can't be liked. 
 
 The ' school song ' I fear must keep. I have 
 materials put away somewhere, and some day I 
 
 ^ The Island Diocese.
 
 176 LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN [1893 
 
 believe I shall tackle them. But the mood is a rare 
 one, and becomes progressively rarer, 
 
 I am greatly deterred by the fear of imposing on 
 you a song which might be inadequate, and which 
 you might find distasteful, and yet be under some 
 kind of alb(as about rejecting. 
 
 The right song should come to the front at one 
 stride : there should be no possibility of a mistake 
 about it. 
 
 I fear me much, my Wiseman dear, 
 That we sail come till harm. 
 
 And yet I am unwilling to hand it over to any one 
 else. That's the sort of critters we are. 
 
 To A. W. Moore. 
 
 Ramsey, 
 
 March 12, 1893. 
 
 For weeks and weeks I have lived in the eighteenth 
 century up to the eyes\ and have had a delightful 
 time. What dear old fellows ! 
 
 Then the colouring — matters of postage and car- 
 riage of goods— the whole life of the time — men 
 going to and fro, the ' Custom- horses,' the wives, &c. 
 carried in creels across the backs of some venerable 
 old Dobbin — the exquisite manners, warmth of friend- 
 ship, combined with respect and deference. 
 
 To S. T. Irwin. 
 
 Ramsey, 
 
 March 19, 1893. 
 
 The article is very good, but I scarcely think it 
 would hit its mark now. Shoot folly as it flies. 
 
 ^ Referring to some eighteenth-century letters from Manx clergy 
 that I had lent him. — A. W. M.
 
 1893] LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN 177 
 
 Look out for another emergence : any day some such 
 bubble may float up from the depths of the fatuous. 
 They are astounding. 
 
 Hugh is at our gates. Passed Prawle Point on 
 Friday, arrived Gravesend Saturday. Has gone on, 
 I fancy, to Clifton, where he will see his sister Dora. 
 He will next proceed Manxman, and we hope to 
 have him here on Wednesday. Whereupon the fatted 
 calf, Stc, for this very guiltless prodigal, 
 
 B. fled from the face of our visitors. You can 
 depict to yourself the hiatus (if a hiatus can be de- 
 picted) that separates him from the enthusiastic and 
 ebullient X. Meantime he is on the other side of 
 the hiatus, safe, sardonic, derisive ! 
 
 How amazing is the Review of Reviews / I suppose 
 you never see it. In a dreadful ancillary, i. e. scullery, 
 back-kitcheny way, it ministers miscellaneous pabulum, 
 on which it is not impossible to feed. 
 
 Do you see Longman's ? If so, you are aware 
 that Andrew Lang writes for it a sort of causerie^ 
 ' At the Sign of the Ship ' : sometimes good. Poor 
 old Thackeray would have called it not a cmiserie^ 
 but a ' roundabout paper ' ; and what for no ? In the 
 number for this month there is a ramblement (that's 
 another name that would save recourse to French) 
 by old A. K. H. B. He calls it ' Of a Wilful Memor>^ ' ; 
 and, do you know, it seems to me quite delightful. 
 It includes a high appreciation of Henley as a poet. 
 There is one thing about ' language ' as used by sailors 
 that you'd like. Said a preacher, ' Ah, the fearful 
 nouns, the appalling adjectives, and the tremenduous 
 {sic) verbs, one hears down at the harbour ! ' 
 
 I M
 
 178 LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN [1893 
 
 And then the man who wanted St. Andrews to be 
 prayed for. At a great prayer-meeting requests were 
 being made that divers souls, supposed to be in evil 
 case, should be interceded for. One arose and asked 
 the prayers of the meeting for a little town on the 
 east coast of Scotland, which was ' wholly given to 
 idolatry.' Such was the expression. A little city, 
 with many schools, also the seat of a University. 
 Having thus mysteriously indicated the place, the 
 excellent individual plainly felt that no mortal could 
 possibly guess what place was meant ; and putting 
 his hand over his mouth, he said to his friends on the 
 platform, in a hoarse whisper distinctly heard over 
 the entire hall, ' St. Andrews ! ' Isn't that consum- 
 mate ? isn't it Scotland } 
 
 I have now hardly time left to tell you that I am 
 finally done with the G. O. M. and his Home-Rule. 
 The Welsh business has sickened me, and I pass 
 over ! Take me to your bosom ! 
 
 To S. T. Irwin. 
 
 Ramsey, 
 
 March 31, 1893. 
 
 Of Crabbe — what shall I say } I shall never forget 
 what I felt when I read a certain article on Crabbe. 
 It was so patronizing, and so full of the pretence at 
 appreciation and sympathy. You know the kind of 
 person ! N. is another of the gang. It would never 
 do to admit their blindness ; but blind they are, non 
 omnia posstmius oinnes. One may be all sorts of 
 admirable things, but it does not follow that one has
 
 1893] LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN 179 
 
 a right to sit down on the same sofa with Crabbe. 
 At the same time one has to remember that the hmita- 
 tions imposed by homogeneous homespun don't for 
 a moment quahfy one for intimate converse with the 
 author of the Parish Register. It is simply lovely 
 to think of Burke and Fox, and how they stood 
 related to Crabbe. They were distinctly adequate. 
 Byron too, with all his gin-sling and democratic bosh, 
 was fit to come within the charmed circle. I could 
 fancy you and the old vicar in a blessed eighteenth- 
 century parlour. If it had had for its last tenant 
 him of Wakefield, all the better. The next occupant 
 would surely be Gtilielinus Brown, vir nttlla non 
 doiiandtis laurti,. 
 
 You don't put Withers' point a propos of Lucian, &c. 
 But I am wholly with you as to Lucian and Ovid \ 
 About Shakespeare — doubtful. I should always 
 hesitate to attribute to Shakespeare any artistic or 
 literary intention. The fountain is too deep, too 
 universal, at once geyser and cataclysm. I feel sure 
 that the humour of his citizens, in the Roman plays 
 for instance, was not to him heightened or even 
 qualified by the cross-sensing of the anachronism. 
 Of course he had bona fide Elizabethan Englishmen 
 under his hand. But I don't think he was con- 
 scious of the difference. To me it is amusing ; to 
 him it was not {es war nicht da). To us it yields 
 a flavour piquant enough ; to him I am pretty 
 confident that its presence or suggestion would 
 have been a bore. So genuine is the outflow, so 
 pure and vital. 
 
 ^ Discussion as to their use of anachronisms. 
 M 2
 
 i8o LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN [rSgs 
 
 I am now not doing much, not reading, not writing, 
 not even Rep.^ The fact is I am not well, and can- 
 not tackle anything with gusto. For a man in this 
 state the most obviously dainty and delicate things 
 are the only diet. Your letters, for instance (would 
 that they were more frequent and longer), the 
 rarissima peiina of Dakyns, and Ethel's talk, Dora's 
 letters too (which are perfectly charming), keep me 
 going. The intervals I am fain to occupy with the 
 Eclogztes. How exquisite they are ! With what perfect 
 contentment they fill me ! The sweetest utterances sure 
 of any tongue that ever warbled or prattled, or— 
 what did it not ? If I get a bit more serious (this is 
 Good Friday) I take up the Ajax. There too I am 
 on safe ground. And yet — I had rather be free 
 of all this ! Out in the wilderness ! unconditioned, 
 purged of thought. That is Heaven ! which reminds 
 me that the gannets are here again — the bould birds ! 
 They do look so glorious ! They fish here, but not 
 in winter, I imagine they are on their way back from 
 the tropics ; and have just called in to have a look at 
 our bay, which is now in fine fishing ferment. Or 
 they may have already built their nests in the Hebrides, 
 and intend retiring there to-night. Nothing is im- 
 possible to such ardour and keenness — l'ni-no\a(pvra<i. 
 Well, hardly that ; no opportunists they. I suffer 
 much from the want of a good classical library. 
 Constantly I find myself hampered. True, it drives 
 me in upon my reserves, and that has its advantages. 
 
 ' Repetition, ' learning poetry by heart.'
 
 [893] LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN 18 1 
 
 To H. G. Dakyns. 
 
 Ramsey, 
 
 March 31, 1893. 
 
 The gannets are here again. Either they are on 
 their way from equatorial regions, or they have taken 
 a day trip from their nests in the Hebrides, To- 
 night they will go back, ' the bould imp'rint craythurs ' ! 
 They are now, however, ' divin' like the divil,' and 
 very splendid they look. Hugh sits with me, and looks 
 out critically : he talks of albatrosses. Cape-hens, 
 *and sich.' Isn't it horrible that the experience of 
 the ' Ancient Mariner ' is quite thrown away upon 
 our youth ? They fish for the birds, exult in their 
 uncouth attempts to walk on deck, insult them, crucify 
 them, and hang them up (like St. Peter .'') with the 
 head downwards. This means slow death by deter- 
 mination of blood to the head. Why they choose 
 this miserable form of death rather than an honest 
 crack over the skull I can hardly say, but probably 
 in order to keep the head intact for stuflBng purposes. 
 And the ' ice-fiend ' does nothing to these insensate 
 pigs, except bring them home grunting and grum- 
 bling The other day Hugh and I went up Glen 
 
 Aldhyn, and picked many primroses, also one blue- 
 bell. It must be very delightful to him handling 
 these tender things after spun-yarn and canvas. 
 I should say the great plant here is the wild honey- 
 suckle. It is not in flower yet, of course ; but its 
 foliage is the prettiest and most engaging of any. 
 
 A few days ago I had a great mind to bathe ; why 
 shouldn't one.'' Both air and water were magnifi-
 
 1 82 LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN [1893 
 
 cently warm ; I feel certain that it would have done 
 me good. The bay a bath of liquid silver, smooth 
 as glass — why on earth refrain ? I grant you 
 to-day is for the gannets ; but we are far too smug 
 for noble ventures. All Ramsey would cry out upon 
 me if I ' sthripped.' But I'll not wait till June- 
 blow 'd if I do. 
 
 Ah, Dakyns, ' good sowl ! ' I can't come to you. 
 I would give my eyes to do so ; but it may not be ; 
 it cannot be. Won't you come and see me ? 
 
 To S. T. Irwin. 
 
 Ramsey, 
 
 April 21, 1893. 
 
 Your kindness is overwhelming. But what 
 dreadful stuff the book contains ! Not that I agree 
 with the general run of my critics, who are favour- 
 able, but make the most ludicrous blunders. Surely 
 it is ridiculous for the Speaker to say that ' all the 
 long poems are unsuccessful except the " Epistola ad 
 Dakyns." ' That is really preposterous. But the 
 inequality — there of course do vtaiius. Mixed pickles ! 
 mixed pickles ! 
 
 Here cauliflowers salute the various ken, 
 And there the pungent pods of far Cayenne, 
 With embryo walnuts, gherkins at the breast, 
 And the squab onion soothes the humbler taste. 
 
 AUter. 
 For here are cauliflowers of crispy severance. 
 And pods of far Cayenne to warm his Reverence, 
 Walnuts and gherkins ; and lest C. P.' grumble. 
 Onions to soothe a taste legitimate though humble. 
 
 ' PI. interpp. referunt ad Paedagogum quendam eius aevi, ex
 
 1893] LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN 183 
 
 Tarver is here, four miles off. We see a good deal 
 of him. 
 
 I am planning- another blank verse story. I think 
 ' Bella Gorry ' was rather good, and this will be by 
 ' the Pazon,' as was ' Bella.' Indeed I have the eggs of 
 two ' Pazon's ' stories, which I may reasonably hope 
 to hatch in due time. 
 
 Poor Symonds ! how much I think of him ! 
 
 To Mrs. Shenstone. 
 
 Ramsey, 
 
 April 16, 1893. 
 
 The other day I met an old friend and pupil, and 
 we had a long ramble about the parish of which my 
 father and his were successively vicars. Sunshine and 
 for the most part silence, but occasional outbursts of 
 delightful recognition from those faithfullest of friends, 
 the poor. How sweet it was ! And then we went to 
 the house of his aunts, two absolutely perfect old maids, 
 living where they have always lived. It was an old 
 haunt of mine when a child. There it is, exactly what 
 it was ! The old corner cupboards, deep, inscrut- 
 able, from whose recesses it was no hopeless specula- 
 tion in those times to anticipate cakes of all sorts. 
 Nor do they frustrate one's anticipations now. And 
 outside struts the lineal descendant of a turkey-cock 
 who used to frighten the life out of a trouserless 
 
 stirpe Wilsoniorum ; ubi percipiat quivis latere paronomasiam (C. P. 
 qu. d. Caepe). Inepte alium Wilsonium, olim praefectum collegii 
 apud Cliftonienses, effodiunt Heynius et caet. — T. E. B.
 
 1 84 LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN [1893 
 
 urchin. The old old life— the dear old things well on 
 to eighty, beautiful to behold, and quite wild with joy. 
 And we told old stories, and did our best to make up 
 for a good thirty years of interrupted converse, but 
 did not get beyond the merest hp-rim of the full cup. 
 And there sat a boy, now quite seventy. He used to 
 be thought half-witted, but he claimed his share in this 
 orgy, and proved himself a person of far-reaching 
 memory and subtle wit. His sisters evidently looked 
 upon him as inspired. 
 
 To Miss D. Brown. 
 
 Ramsey, 
 
 April 23, 1893. 
 
 An excellent letter, and very welcome ! It is very 
 pleasant to hear that you are so happy, and if you 
 can give a little happiness to others, it's not amiss, 
 is it? 
 
 I must say I rather envy you that week in Somerset. 
 Never was there such a spring. But what must it 
 be in the valley of the Tone, and under the Quantocks ! 
 Even here apple, pear, and plum-trees are making 
 a goodly show, and a certain wild cherry sets the 
 heart a-dancing. Then the grass— why, that alone is 
 a perfect lap of ' lugszury.' Indeed the Island blooms 
 like a rose. Primroses make no secret of it now — 
 they are everywhere, and begin to bring with them 
 young blue-bells, ' ter'ble shoy,' but they'll soon get 
 over that. I went up Sulby Glen a bit the other day : 
 the gorse there, as elsewhere, is a mass of golden 
 flame ; and I heard the cuckoo. . . .
 
 1893] LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN 185 
 
 To Miss E. Brown. 
 
 Ramsey, 
 
 April 23, 1893. 
 
 Behold me ! rather tired, but jolly enough, just the 
 excuse required for not going- to church, or, indeed, 
 anywhere this glorious morning. Tarver and I walked 
 yesterday for some seven hours. We went to Balla- 
 glass and found it a ' mash ' of primroses, with just 
 a sprinkling of timid little blue-bells. 
 
 Tarver about the Isle of Man is excellent. He is no 
 doubt a most subtle person, and knows precisely what 
 I want him to feel ; but I really think he has the root 
 of the matter in him. Fancy his going in for the 
 Curraghs with all his heart and soul ! The Curraghs, 
 mind ye ! think of that ! ' and him a sthraanger . . . 
 what ? And knickerbockers arrim ! and belts all 
 flyin' about his jacket — eh ? A Norfolk jacket they're 
 callin' it? — aye, aye! you'll get lave though! you'll 
 get lave ! ' 
 
 Cambridge must be lovely to look at ; but I suppose 
 you have not yet had opportunities for making the 
 nearer acquaintance of the bounteous English spring. 
 
 To H. G. Dakyns. 
 
 Ramsey, 
 
 April 26, 1893. 
 
 The Island is simply glorious this marvellous 
 weather, the spring riotous, tumultuous, unparalleled. 
 But I often think of Haslemere and of its precious 
 pledges. How lovely too it must be just now ! . . .
 
 1 86 LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN [1893 
 
 There ! Borne upon ' viewless wings ' the refrain 
 of your piano, M.'s gentle yet unerring touch, 
 or Mrs. L.'s seraphic sweep. Alas ! I want that 
 desperately. These days of ' light and gladness ' are 
 so suggestive. But ' they'll get lave.' 
 
 Ballaglass is delicious in the sunlight with the 
 beechen spray breathing over it. Also its primroses 
 are good, also its blue-bells. As yet the blue-bells 
 are hesitant, or apologetic. Of course you know that 
 later on they will attend the funeral of the primroses 
 with a mighty mourning of hyacinthine blooms ; and 
 then they will become quite cheeky and truculent, 
 and make the ground their own. But now the 
 Curragh is in its absolute perfection. 
 
 I had a solitary ramble which lasted all day yesterday 
 in Ballaugh Curragh. The bog-bean is everywhere 
 and in extraordinary form. Do you know it ? One 
 of the loveliest, I think, of marsh plants. It insists 
 upon growing right in the water. And the water 
 is so still, and therefore so clear. All bog, observe, 
 black, tremendous bog, i.e. the bottom ; but what with 
 reed and rush and flower, the Curragh, the combina- 
 tion of land and water, the inextricable labyrinthine 
 twining of the two elements, is a thing marvellous to 
 see, to smell, and indeed to hear. For the cuckoos 
 were innumerable, and corn-crakes scraped their 
 rasping celli with unwearied vigour. Then the feel 
 of the air — I have tried to indicate it in ' Tommy Big 
 Eyes ' — the tactual effect of it on a skin dry and 
 chapped with sea-salt, drawing the acrid crystals 
 from the epiderm, soothing, filling up, ' making good 
 repairs,' caulking, renovating.
 
 1893] LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN 187 
 
 I wrote to you about Symonds in rather slipshod 
 fashion, yet I can't say I regret it. No doubt there 
 are two points of view ; and from one there would be 
 demanded a much more critical and discriminant 
 estimate than from the other — in fact, an estimate. 
 Well, that is what I didn't care for, or intend. It will 
 be made, I do not doubt, and by an abler hand than 
 mine. 
 
 'By Shelley' — well, one expected that. How it 
 would have thrilled him ! The Walt Whitman I will 
 gratefully accept ex donis tuis. Am I becoming 
 a sturdy mendicant ? The old institution of Patrons 
 has ceased ; but I seem to be reviving it in you ! The 
 dedication and the douceur / I did not think of this 
 when I inscribed my book to you and M. ; had I done 
 so, you would have been in for a plusquam Drydenian 
 altar, smoking with seventeenth-century incense. Love 
 to all. 
 
 To S. T. Irwin. 
 
 Ramsey, 
 
 May II, 1893. 
 
 Pat's ^ sniff is lovely — ' as unknown to the modern 
 world as if it had been a classic' Good ! ! good ! ! very 
 good ! ! ! ! I shall applaud that when I lie down to- 
 night, I shall resume my applause when the shades 
 
 of But heaven help me ! isn't this a very near 
 
 approach to something that Mr. Pecksniff said to 
 Mrs. Todgers ? I am losing my sense of proportion, 
 indeed that of property. Of propriety the perception 
 has long ago forsaken my ethics. 
 
 1 Mark Pattison.
 
 t88 letters of T. E. BROWN [1893 
 
 That W. W. F.^ will make a perfect monograph on 
 White of Selborne I'll lay you very heavy odds. 
 He is just the man. Macmillan has lucid intervals ! ! 
 
 Wilson writes of my verses on ' Clifton ' : ' " Clifton " 
 is just what I have felt both for you, and in a less 
 degree for myself.' 
 
 You can't think how I enjoy what you say about S. 
 You cannot conceive, sir, what a charming figure you 
 make ! I borrow our favourite old phrase with change 
 of epithet. I mean that you have quite unconsciously 
 given me a picture of a very rare and exquisite bit 
 of contemporary life, such as is indeed suggested by 
 your own, ' an ingenious young gentleman of Cam- 
 bridge.' 
 
 To H. G. Dakyns. 
 
 Ramsey, 
 
 May 14, 1893. 
 
 I am very grateful to you for the Whitman. I read 
 it through immediately, and with great interest. More- 
 over, I have been thinking ever since of writing 
 a notice of s me sort for the Nat. Observer. But 
 whether to write ostensibly of Whitman or of Symonds 
 I am in doubt. 
 
 My feeling is that the death of a man like Symonds 
 is an event in the history of literature which ought 
 not to pass without notice. So I believe I shall try. 
 
 I discovered a MS. of B.'s the other day. It is 
 a story (prose) not finished, but not at all bad ; 
 the style, a really very good Marryatt sort of style. 
 I think it is promising, and I told him so. 
 
 ^ W. Warde Fowler.
 
 1893] LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN 189 
 
 There is a strong twist of the vovs irpaKTiKOi in it, an 
 absence of romantic colour, a touch of Defoe ; not 
 much humour, exceedingly clear vision of outside 
 things, e. g. boat ropes, handling of the same, quite 
 photographic. Altogether stuff worth examining, and 
 decidedly interesting, with a grave sort of entrain 
 that gets hold of you. 
 
 I often have dreams and longings Haslemere-ward. 
 The height of your place fascinates me, that great 
 extent of distant plain. It is a dream, is it not ? 
 What long shoots of speculation you must have at 
 times when you are quiet enough ! There is a pathos 
 in a great distance, and a tenderness supervenes, 
 or subvenes, when the distance is well and subtly 
 filled. 
 
 The gannets are now returned in full force. I see 
 the plunges, and hear the thzid a few seconds after. 
 It is electric, and beyond measure vital, and vitalizing. 
 To-morrow, challenged by these ' divils,' I am going 
 to begin my own aquatics ; qtiod fazistttm / 
 
 Hall Caine is writing his new novel ; destined, 
 as I think, to be the very utmost Schwung of his 
 tether. 
 
 To S. T. Irwin. 
 
 Baldrine, Lonan, Isle of Man, 
 
 May 21, 1893. 
 
 I have come here to the house of my brother-in-law 
 for a week. Ramsey is occupied by three regiments 
 of volunteers from the adjacent isle. 
 
 I walked over the mountains yesterday, and finished
 
 I90 LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN [1893 
 
 in a labyrinth of lovely glens, imperfectly known by 
 me. The sweetest of solitudes, each one. It is so 
 delicious to pore over a country like this, and draw 
 out the very soul of it. As I descended I caught 
 sight of three great steamers advancing towards the 
 coast. I laughed and rejoiced greatly. 
 
 I have just stumbled upon a curious literary pro- 
 blem. In a little biography of a member of my 
 family who died ages ago I find that this 'amiable 
 and pious young man ' derived great benefit from 
 a book entitled Morning Thotights on the Gospel 
 according to St. Matthew^ by Mr. Cunningham, of 
 Harrow. Now Mr. Cunningham, as, no doubt, you 
 are aware, was an eminent Evangelical, whose name 
 goes with those of Venn, Simeon, Newton, and so 
 forth. The book is partly in prose and partly in 
 verse, and no other name but that of Cunningham 
 appears upon the title-page. But the critics of the 
 day (so the little biography says) attributed the verse 
 to Tom Moore. This is extremely odd. I have no 
 life of Moore, so can't go into the matter exhaus- 
 tively. The Cunningham book was published in 
 1824, and, just at that time, as we know from ordi- 
 nary sources, cyclopaedias, &c., Tom was in diffi- 
 culties through the dishonesty of his representatives 
 in Bermuda. Consequently he may have been hard 
 up and glad to get a job. The critics based their 
 opinion upon internal evidence, and, if they were 
 right, the situation is almost painfully comic — Tom 
 Moore as Evangelical bard ! A specimen is given in 
 the biography. It is anapaestic, after the manner of 
 ' O believe me, with all those endearing young
 
 [893] LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN 
 
 IQI 
 
 charms.' Dactylic, if you like ; and the dear little 
 cupid of a man gambols away quite cheerfully, and 
 is full of a rose -buddy sort of edification, which is 
 really quite winning-. 
 
 Is it not probable that some aspiring muse in the 
 Evangelical camp was caught by the illecebrae of 
 the great Little, and resolved that the devil should 
 not have all the good metres, as Charles Wesley 
 refused to leave him all the good tunes ? However 
 this may be, Cupid as Seraph, rose-bud as rue, it is 
 inconceivably rum. I observe that in my father's 
 volume of verses, Scott is similarly pressed into the 
 service of the — well, let us say — British and Foreign 
 Bible Society. By-the-bye, one must not forget that 
 Tom Moore did write ' Sound the loud Timbrel,' 
 may the gods forgive him ! 
 
 You will gather that I am much improved in health. 
 My walk yesterday was a good twelve miles across 
 mountains. I plucked some bell heather nicely in 
 flower ; very early, is it not } Most exquisitely lovely 
 the walk was ! Not a soul for four hours ; then con- 
 verse with a good old soul, who was preparing a 
 field for planting: the happy agricola who, having 
 sailed all over the world, really does know ' his own 
 goods.' We talked of the past, the Island past, so 
 simple of analysis for both of us. The succession 
 of farmers, the succession of parsons, till we 
 got back to ' that's the man that christened me.' 
 Then we stopped and looked into each other's 
 eyes. The cuckoo called, and down the vale I went 
 with no vacillating step. These things strengthen 
 one.
 
 192 LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN [1893 
 
 I found a foxglove fairly out : that, too, was early. 
 The mountains had the midsummer smell — a wonderful 
 concoction ; the glens perplexed me with an even 
 more subtle aroma. Upon smells it is hard to reflect, 
 so that I have not yet determined what it was. The 
 glens were very full of blue-bells, and the flower of 
 the mountain-ash, but I don't think I have got it ; 
 no. Some divine footsteps — what? Ah, sweet thing! 
 was it you ? In such valleys the sons of God might 
 not unfitly wander, and find not a few daughters of 
 men meet for the ineffable embrace. At any rate, 
 heaven itself walked down the valley and lingered 
 there, ' and deludhed me ter'ble.' 
 
 To H. G. Dakyns. 
 
 Baldrine, Lonan, Isle of Man, 
 
 May 21, 1893. 
 
 I have come here for a week. Ramsey is in the 
 hands of the Philistines. Three corps of Lancashire 
 and Cheshire Volunteers have encamped there. This 
 is my brother-in-law's. It is a delicious quiet place — 
 much rest for the sole of my feet. 
 
 I came over the mountains yesterday — walking, of 
 course. First, the slope of North Barrule, very long 
 pull, keeping above Glen Aldhyn on its south side. 
 Then the heart of Snaefell, and the valley opening 
 down to Laxey — all my Manx Witch business. Then 
 glen after glen, as I descended to Baldrine, which 
 lies just over Lerwick, at the west end of Laxey Bay. 
 Such lovely glens ! they smelt of heaven ; so indeed 
 did the mountains, and even more so, i. e. if heaven's
 
 1893] LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN 193 
 
 smells are more ethereal than those of earth. But 
 the glen smell suited me perfectly. It was not so 
 simple as the heavenly smell. Henna is more chro- 
 matic than Olympus. And yet awfully mysterious — 
 this glen smell. It is so hard to reflect upon smells 
 that I can't even yet make it out. 
 
 It was not the blue-bells, innumerable as they were. 
 Was it Proserpine, with a stealthy stiffliivimn of Dis ? 
 I really do think it was a bodily presence, an aromatic 
 person. However, I greatly rejoiced at it. I hadn't 
 gone far until the highest power which I ever gain 
 swooped down upon me, I mean the power of suck- 
 ing out from the country its very inmost soul, and 
 making it stand before me and smile and speak. 
 What an ecstasy that is ! I know 3'ou know it. 
 
 Gie me a canny hour at e'en, 
 
 My arms about my dearie, O ; 
 And warly cares, and warly men, 
 
 May a' gae tapsalteerie, O ! 
 
 Well, that is my dearie. 
 
 O Cuckoo ! shall I call thee bird, 
 Or but a wandering voice ? 
 
 A bird ! a bird ! a thousand birds ! good Mr. Words- 
 worth. How they did sing yesterday ! But no 
 doubt the finest cuckoo business is just after dawn : 
 when you are lying snug in bed. This was my posi- 
 tion to-day. I had had but a poor night, and the 
 cuckoo began. I turned over on my left side, and 
 with the cuckoo's note, like the soft croon of some 
 old nurse in my ear, I wandered away into dream- 
 land. And such an odd dream. 
 
 I N
 
 194 LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN [1893 
 
 To S. T. Irwin. 
 
 Ramsey, 
 
 May 28, 1893. 
 
 A word about S.'s essay — don't you find it obscure ? 
 I get glimpses here and there that make me less 
 forlorn ; but, on the whole, ' forlorn ' is the word that 
 expresses my condition vis-a-vis of this youthful 
 prophet. The style is not at all bad, too terse, per- 
 haps, considering the subject, but I should say, as 
 a style, marked and distinctive. But it does not make 
 plain the thought. Don't you fancy he has found the 
 subject rather too many for him } There is an obvious 
 way of treating it which, of course, he would scorn. 
 
 His slap in the face of Ste. Beuve I like well enough, 
 but it is not perhaps an overmodest thing to do. 
 On Salainmbo he is really very good. His notion of 
 Flaubert's wanting ' to get away ' is suggestive, want- 
 ing to ' bathe in strange delights and contemplate 
 monstrosities that come from an unknown quarter.' 
 ' The vision of this strange people ' — that's nice. His 
 notion of observing where authors ' show their w^eak- 
 ness ' is naif and amusing ; and again his cautions 
 and reserves, as ' this would be a misleading state- 
 ment,' and so on. Don't you think a course of Oxford 
 would have done him good .> It seems to me quite 
 certain that we benefit both positively and negatively 
 by enforced study of Greek Philosophy, but even 
 more by the study of Greek expression. It is no 
 mere fancy that S. would have written a better essay 
 if he had read the Poetics^ nor would he have reason 
 to regret careful study of the Ethics. Ah, sir, that 
 Greek siufl penetrates /
 
 1893] LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN 195 
 
 To J. C. Tarver. 
 
 Ramsey, 
 
 June I, 1893. 
 
 The other day I was coming over the mountains 
 from Laxey, and descended Sulby Glen. We missed 
 a train, of course, and had tea at . It was a mag- 
 nificent tea. The piano was open ; on its desk lay 
 Hyfnns (I think) Aiicieiit and Modern. 
 
 I played, and made an infernal row. Played, then 
 paid, and left. Immediately a tripping step behind 
 us : we turn : ' If you please, mamma won't take any- 
 thing for the tea, and hopes you will accept it.' Mon 
 Dieu / 
 
 Well, we were all in a twitter of delightful confusion, 
 and the remission of this small debt evoked a gratitude 
 which Irish tenants might very properly emulate when 
 let off some two-thirds of their rent. There, sir, in 
 the dusty road, and in the presence of ' natur s silent 
 sympathetic witnesses,' under the bright sunlight, 
 praesentibzis three children, a cock, and a pig, were 
 laid the foundations of what promises to be a life-long 
 friendship. . . . Sir, it is not every day that we attain 
 to this level of emotion. 
 
 And so from Sulby to Mascagni. I have not heard 
 his operas : but I have both heard and played selec- 
 tions from the Cavalleria. There has been a good 
 deal of exaggeration about him. Mozart need not 
 fear for his imperishable laurels ; nor indeed is Verdi 
 to be relegated to a back seat for the aggrandizement 
 of this young baker's apprentice — wasn't he some- 
 thing of that sort } 
 
 N 2
 
 196 LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN [1893 
 
 « 
 
 I stick to ' but first the stable,' but not to ' that 
 can't abide the lower classes^.' Throughout the 
 poems it seems evident to me that the ivicked way 
 of looking at the Puritanical dodges is supposed to 
 be repressed with difficulty. The sincerest love and 
 respect for my dear old friend will not make this 
 otherwise. It will out. You plunge into all the hot 
 steaming medium of the old man's exercitations : you 
 sympathize, you embrace, but you really must laugh. 
 ' Don't be angry with me ! ' I am no Puritan, and, by 
 the process of the poem, am not supposed to be. 
 The objection to ' that can't abide ' is that, though it 
 enters as a quotation from a snobbish idiot supposed, 
 still it is not likely that any snob or any idiot would 
 say anything so inept. I am not sure, though ! 
 
 Do you know Labiche ? His vaudevilles and short 
 comedies are simply innumerable. They are also very 
 amusing. Probability, possibility almost, are set at 
 defiance. But from the farcical they are saved by the 
 innate delicacy, slzghtness^ if you will, of the French- 
 man. I think it must be very pleasant to be with 
 a French audience at one of these plays. One wants 
 ethereal people about one, people who don't care a 
 screw for anything but fun and nonsense ; champagny 
 people, if you can have champagne, if not, lemonady 
 people, gassy, sparkling — I don't mind honest pop 
 for that matter. Peppermint lozenges too are good, 
 and the frequent orange has a staying effect like the 
 apples of the ' Song of Songs which is Solomon's.' 
 I would give much to hear the Fran^ais Company in 
 
 ' A reference to his poem called ' Old John ' in the volume with 
 that name.
 
   893] LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN 197 
 
 London. But even in Paris this would not quite 
 satisfy me. I want to be about thirty-five years 
 younger, and to sit in a ludicrously fifth- rate theatre 
 with Jules and his beloved, and exchange with some 
 gentle good creature or another glances of mild and 
 melancholy hallucination, the poor, starved, hopeless 
 (njfxda that are born in vacuo, and lead to nothing. 
 Good-bye ! Take care of yourself. 
 
 To H. G. Dakyns. 
 
 Ramsey, 
 
 June 8, 1893. 
 
 Come as soon as you can. It is a perilous beauty 
 this, and who can say how long it will last ? I have 
 been bathing for a fortnight — once every day, about 
 1 1 a.m. I would fain bathe oftener, or rather, never 
 be out of the water at all. To-morrow I begin bathing 
 before breakfast. I am getting much stronger. . . . 
 There is a sort of smouldering splendour this evening, 
 the sea like glass. Heather is beginning to be con- 
 spicuous. Foxgloves are big and strong. Honey- 
 suckle could do with some rain, but it is abundant. 
 I have been stopped in Glen Aldhyn, but persisted in 
 going on : threatened with a summons, I wait events ! 
 ... A few XwAq. pomes have occurred to me, but I have 
 not yet felt moved to tackle the bigger things, 
 
 I read a good deal now. Aristophanes has got 
 hold of me. I am reading the Birds. It is simply 
 a portent of vigour and health. I had never realized 
 it before. That tremendous parabasis, " kyt brj (pvaw^ 
 &c., has made me all tremble !
 
 1 98 LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN [1893 
 
 To S. T. Irwin. 
 
 Ramsey, 
 
 June 27, 1893. 
 
 I send you an English Illustrated Magazine for 
 July, It contains a small trifle of mine, but, much more 
 important, you will find therein ' Mrs. O'Donnell's 
 Report,' by the Hon. Emily Lawless. Tell me 
 what you think of It. Surely it is delicious. What 
 an admirable person this Miss Lawless must be ! One 
 or two of the pictures strike me as excellent. The 
 kind of changeling look on the face of the young 
 Carrowmore, who Is not a Carrowmore, really haunts 
 me. 
 
 I have the Cliftonian. The review is doubtless by 
 a hand I recognize. It is extremely kind. 
 
 You pick out ' the honey-tongued quintessence of 
 July.' I am so glad ; that was the poem I had the 
 row about. I still think that the phrase would redeem 
 a worse copy, and evidently you agree with me. 
 After all, what Is much of our verse-making but the 
 hunt for phrases ? I don't mind owning that I have 
 many a time constructed a whole system of little more 
 than bosh to enshrine a locution / Faith ! one might 
 do worse. Again, thanks a thousand times for your 
 review. 
 
 Your quotation from the Orestes reminds me of my 
 Euripides. I have read a good deal of him lately. 
 He really is very great ; surely the Medea would 
 justify Milton's liking for him. But for several days 
 I 've been off my dramatic feed, and have been browsing 
 in the Odyssey. It reads so like a lovely comedy ; 
 sometimes the cloven heel of the satyr peeps out. He
 
 1893] LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN 199 
 
 must have often excited laughter, though, I dare say, 
 a great deal would depend on the rhapsodist. 
 
 Well, and so you have had the Guthrie ^ What 
 a comfort to have it behind you ! And now July is 
 close at hand, and you are beginning to arrange about 
 hohdays. Do try and come here ! I am most anxious 
 to see you, and we can make you comfortable, ' mind 
 ye that ! ' True, our dream of glory has fled ; the 
 wind is sweeping, and the rain driving. But it will 
 be all right again, and our August and September are 
 often delightful. Heed not for trippers ! I can 
 guarantee you against these abominations. I know 
 several ' banks whereon the wild ' tripper grows not. 
 In fact this defensive sort of knowledge is my special 
 gift. You shall go for days and meet no tripper. 
 This is effected only by very subtle evasions, but they 
 are infallible, also in me functional and inevitable. 
 
 This dreadful Victoria business gives us pause. 
 What on earth is to be the next move in naval 
 architecture ? One can see by certain indications, 
 almost unconsciously given, what a noble fellow 
 Admiral Tryon was, evidently an awful loss. Fancy 
 in a quarter of an hour that ' turning turtle.' One 
 big cofl&n ! It makes one shudder ! 
 
 Hugh is still with me. I like to keep him as long 
 as I can. Dora is in the New Forest, a scene which, 
 methinks, must become her. Kindest regards to Miss 
 Irwin and your sister, also to your brother Guy when 
 next you write to him. 
 
 He has an eye 
 That brother Guy ! 
 
 ' Commemoration Day at Clifton College.
 
 200 LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN [1893 
 
 To Mrs. Shenstone. 
 
 Ramsey, 
 
 June 30, 1893. 
 
 The last day of a lovely June, and the roses are 
 dying and the days shortening; and your Commemora- 
 tion is over and all dehghts, I mean ethereal delights, 
 have faded. The substantial joys of the ripening year 
 are yet to come. But I can't think of them ; my 
 heart is with the roses. ... 
 
 We have a good many people here already. They 
 seem nice and quiet; but they alarm me by their 
 shrewdness and knowledge of the place. Nay, they 
 irritate me ; for the other day when I went in pursuit 
 of blaeberries on the mountains, and even com- 
 promised myself in the most fatal manner by taking a 
 largish basket — behold a family of some seven or eight 
 right on in front of me triumphantly making a clean 
 sweep where I would have sworn no one but myself 
 could imagine the existence of blaeberries. Oh! 
 it was mortifying. Perhaps they were aware of me 
 and my poor hopes, perhaps not ! I was so angry 
 that I got into a row with a native who presumed to 
 direct me on the way. He little knew the cause of 
 my churlishness. A bear robbed of her young is 
 nothing to a blaeberry-picker cheated of his blae- 
 berries. And, remember, that to make sure of an 
 absolutely solitary control and prime-seisin of blae- 
 berries, I shall have to go to a mountain twelve miles 
 off, which is a blaeberry mountain proper, and 
 has its name from that fact—' Slieu ny Fraghane,' 
 Mountain of the Blaeberries. How I should like to hear 
 and see you trying to pronounce the Keltic syllables !
 
 r893] LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN 201 
 
 You do not say how the story goes on ? And 
 a drama, or a dramatized form of the same story? 
 Why don't they come ? I have magnificent leisure 
 and a large appetite, which, sooth to say, I 'bear 
 in hand ' with the Odyssey and Boccaccio. By-the- 
 bye the idea grows upon me that the Odyssey is 
 a comedy, in fact, almost a burlesque of the Iliad, 
 not a vulgar burlesque. The Greek mind could 
 never have descended to that. But 'there's odds 
 o' " burlesques " ' ; and I ' whiles ' get glimpses of quite 
 a celestial travesty, which I suspect is die Odyssey. 
 Undoubtedly it is full of laughter. Ariosto best 
 helps us to understand this, though I beheve there 
 is more of genuine comic vein in the Odyssey. You 
 read Italian. I have a great desire to write short 
 stories, but have no power. Couldn't you write some 
 for me? The Itahans are the veritable masters in 
 this kind. Boccaccio almost strings me up for the 
 effort, but the fact that he does not altogether is 
 a proof that it is not in me. I fancy it is in you. 
 Write six or twelve. For longer and more splendid, 
 comedy I would read Ariosto. Considering the 
 dimensions of his stories, it is astounding how he can 
 sit so lightly; the dainty way in which he hovers 
 over the subject and keeps aloof in a disdainful facility 
 of treatment is wholly admirable. We moderns are 
 far too much in earnest, that's the mischief of us. 
 
 I don't often hear from Chfton. I am sure that 
 I have many good friends there, but few consider it 
 necessary to trouble me with the assurance. Still 
 it is very pleasant to have it in black and white.
 
 202 LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN [1893 
 
 To S. T. Irwin. 
 
 Ramsey, 
 
 July 2, 1893. 
 
 The youth is right or nearly so. It was no mood 
 that season takes away or brings. My whole life is 
 in ' Clifton ^,' a life steadfastly or normally rebellious 
 against the calling to which circumstances had com- 
 pelled me. You see these boys divine the thing — 
 
 bless them ! And so , a boy of boys, thought it 
 
 was impatience of routine ; really a very good, if 
 inadequate, solution. And there let it rest, for 
 evidently you will not take N. as fully and obviously 
 explaining all ! ! 
 
 I must, however, write to W. For he is the last 
 man in the world to whom I could apply such words 
 as ' truculent quack.' It was deliciously characteristic 
 of him, the magnanimity, or, at any rate, the equanimity 
 with which he had already appropriated the jibe to 
 himself. . . . 
 
 Your ' Sir Thomas ^ ' is absolute. Yes, that is the 
 :murex ; but I should be ashamed of myself. I stand 
 abashed before the positively awful splendour of the 
 words, 'Let the world be deceived in thee as they 
 are in the lights of heaven.' I do not think language 
 can be carried to a higher point than that. It is 
 something that any one could have been, however 
 distantly, reminded of a pearl so transcendent by my 
 poor murex. 
 
 ' See p. 188. 
 
 ^ The quotation from Sir Thomas Browne I used to illustrate 
 T. E. B.'s 'imperial murex': 
 
 That imperial murex grain 
 No carrack ever bore to Thames or Tiber.
 
 1893] LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN 203 
 
 To H. R. King. 
 
 Ramsey, Isle of Man, 
 
 July 9, 1893. 
 
 Your letter came all right, for the Isle of Man is 
 a small place, except in the estimation of its in- 
 habitants. 
 
 Thanks for the kind things you say about my 
 book. It is a sort of 'lucky bag' ; and people take 
 what pleases them. Those who are kindly disposed 
 are content to do this, and 'chuck the balance.' 
 I fancy it is my last. What's the good of gleaning 
 in such a field ? 
 
 No, Sherborne would not have done a bit better, 
 nor any place with boys ! Some heavenly, cloud- 
 cuckoo land high up in air between St. Bees and 
 Maughold would have been about the spot. No 
 Trats nor T:aihay<x,y6'i should hover in that atmosphere, 
 an^ETToi/r^ a Trotrjr?/?, a \opo^ opviOcor, at worst a Triballic 
 bugaboo to talk gibberish ; then I should have been 
 quite happy. 
 
 The island is glorious. Ever since February we 
 have been enjoying untold delights. The three winter 
 months, though, were unredeemably horrible. 
 
 To Miss D. Brown. 
 
 Ramsey, 
 
 July 9, 1893. 
 
 I think I told you of my bitter disappointment in 
 the matter of blaeberries. Triumphant visitors had 
 gone up before me, and swept the whole mountain- 
 side. However, I had my revenge. I went up about 
 a week ago, and discovered that their ravages ter-
 
 204 LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN [1893 
 
 minated at a certain point, and beyond that point 
 I got any quantity. In fact, I was in a position to sit 
 down quietly and pick the arm's length all round, 
 occasionally shifting, but without rising. That is 
 excellent blaeberry-picking. We had them stewed, 
 a pis-a/ler, no doubt, for they ought decidedly to be 
 in some sort of crust to get the fine pent-up flavour 
 and bouquet of the situation. . . . Edith wouldn't 
 touch them. . . . But it requires more than human self- 
 control to abstain when the hot vapour curls up under 
 the nostrils of Jove. Concentrated by crust, I verily 
 believe even Edith would have given in. 
 
 Picking blaeberries, not eating them, is very 
 fatiguing. They require such minute attention. And 
 then at night, when you close your eyes, they crowd 
 upon you, and you can't get rid of them ; they haunt 
 your sleep, i.e. if you get any sleep at all. 
 
 To S. T. Irwin. 
 
 Ramsey, 
 
 July 18, 1893. 
 
 Time will run on and fetch that age of gold and 
 Irwin which is to set me up for another winter. 
 
 My brethren are rather troublesome. My reading, 
 and my ' Repetition,' and my writing suffer terribly ; 
 doubtless you will see the effect of all this jaw in the 
 copy of verses which I write in response to your 
 appeal. It appears in the National Observer of 
 July 15, which accompanies this. There is a direful 
 misprint^. Independently of this nuisance, I think 
 
 ' The verses are to be found in T. E. B.'s Collected Poems, ed. 
 Macmillan. The misprint was ' land-clap ' for ' hand-clap.'
 
 1893] LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN 205 
 
 the verses have some power both of style and idea, 
 though they supply no adequate KaOapais. Where 
 c'a7i you get it ? . . . 
 
 ' The root of the matter in him.' I should think 
 so. To see such a man standing modestly in the 
 crowd that surrounds the procession of authors is 
 quite pathetic. A lay-brother of such parts, with 
 twice the fire and twice the critical acumen that go 
 to make the loftiest contemporary professional. The 
 root — and from this root no flower } Don't tell me ! 
 If it be but the flower of a noble modesty, I know 
 none that excels it in bloom or in fragrance. . . . 
 
 What your brother says of the epic Schwung is 
 so true. Still he must miss the metre ^ ; it is true more 
 in the Iliad than in the comparatively colloquial and 
 domestic Odyssey. It is a support, at any rate a 
 consolation, to sing the great rhythms to oneself as 
 one ploughs on. The music^ sir, the nntsic ! 
 
 I preached on Sunday twice at St. Matthew's in 
 Douglas. This is the old church of the town, now 
 threatened by some dreadful Hausmannic proceedings. 
 I went up to encourage these poor people to defend 
 themselves, to keep their parish, and so forth. It 
 was the church where I was baptized (I was going 
 to say where I was born), and it has undergone 
 hardly any change up to the present. This was my 
 occasion, and suited me down to the ground. The 
 blessed old things gathered round me, some of them 
 waylaying me at street corners to tell me they had 
 been inarried by my father. This is the food for 
 souls, is it not ? Now don't laugh ! 
 
 ' i. e. in a prose translation.
 
 2o6 LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN [1893 
 
 To-day, like a donkey, I have been up picking 
 blaeberries on the mountains. It came on to rain, 
 and I persevered and got a pudding, but also ' dem- 
 nition' wet. So I don't feel quite right. It is no use 
 trying to be careful. These hills demoralize me. 
 I feel as if they couldn't and wotildn't harm me. 
 
 Walters did an extremely kind thing the other 
 day. Two old things going about with an entertain- 
 'inent (!) of Recitations (really old, for I heard them 
 ' at it ' thirty-five years ago) took a letter with them 
 from me to Walters. It was the merest chance, 
 I thought, but I suggested that just possibly Walters 
 might give them an evening at the College. By Jove, 
 sir, he did give them an evening, and gave them 
 a substantial fee, and filled their poor trembling cup 
 of Auld-Lang-Syne with joy and thanksgiving, and 
 dismissed them with honour, almost reeling with the 
 intoxication of so unwonted a success, the boys giving 
 them a mighty three-times-three which shook the 
 welkin, and stirred amazingly the pulsation of two 
 hearts that have long desisted from the exercise 
 of hope. 
 
 To S. T. Irwin. 
 
 Ramsey, 
 
 August 3, 1893. 
 
 By this time your troubles are over, and rest has 
 been found for the weary soul. We expect you on 
 Monday or Tuesday next and are eagerly looking 
 forward. 
 
 The weather is not absolutely settled, but it gives 
 fine splendours. To-day, for instance, is quite lovely, 
 whether for sea or mountain.
 
 1893] LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN 207 
 
 I have just returned from the College, where I 
 was preaching the ' Breaking-up ' sermon. 
 
 PS. Just received your letter. The Edinburgh 
 escapade (!) removes you entirely from the Liverpool 
 route. You will come very comfortably, and very 
 economically, by Ardrossan. Also you will be set 
 ashore here^ almost at my door. 
 
 Once for all. The whole of my summer happiness 
 is staked upon this visit of yours ; and all that is 
 Brown and Brown's centres at the point of your 
 landing here with at least a clear fortnight of sojourn. 
 Everything on earth is postponed, is in fact praeter- 
 mitted and forgotten, in presence of the one imperious 
 necessity. We shall have a time ! ! 
 
 To S. T. Irwin. 
 
 Ramsey, 
 
 August 17, 1893. 
 
 The emptiness of the smoking-room is quite 
 suflScient evidence that you had a rough passage. 
 However, all is condoned, reconciled, harmonized, 
 ' lost in wonder^ love, and praise ' at Kingham. There, 
 safe in the middle fields, you smoke the pipe of peace, 
 and forget the watery ways. The salt evaporates 
 from your skin, the Manx accent fades from your 
 ear, and you are your excellent English self again ! 
 
 I have finished Tess. It is very unsatisfactory. 
 The last part, the part after Clare's return, is in- 
 tolerable. It is also weak, just as if Hardy had been 
 very unwell, yet forced by the serial method of pub- 
 lication to produce ' copy.' One observes this in the
 
 2o8 LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN [1893 
 
 langnor of the story, combined with the cantharadine 
 grip, or rather griping-, of an occasional effort. The 
 original impulse dies, but makes a few desperate, 
 ineffectual kicks. Such are the Stonehenge business, 
 and the ' black flag.' Fancy grasping at Stonehenge 
 to heighten a situation ! And how badly it is done ! 
 It surely was going out of the way to drag in the 
 blessed old thing at all. But, when he was about it, 
 he ought to have made a better use of the machine. 
 Unquestionably he had an attack of influenza just at 
 that point. I resent it enormously. A man must 
 be either miserably out of sorts, or fearfully hard up 
 for sensational colour, to make a snatch at Salisbury 
 Plain. It is just like rouge ; and that too upon a 
 moribund face, for the story has already shown every 
 symptom of approaching death. 
 
 The ' black flag ' ! Cheap, though creepy. What 
 an end ! And do you think Clare and Liza-Lu are 
 even respectable as they crawl away — hand-in-hand, 
 it is true, but yoked in a dismal fellowship, inevitably 
 suggested by the expressed wish of Tess that they 
 should marry ? Notice too the vague treatment of 
 Liza-Lu's person. I take Liza-Lu to be a sort of 
 giant succubus, or succuba would it be ? — an ebauche 
 of God knows what. And these two are to continue 
 the business. Liza-Lu is to be all that Tess ought 
 to have been. This is the most commonplace of 
 expedients, and never can satisfy. Liza-Lu indeed ! 
 conceived of by me as a compound of Undine, Caddy 
 Jellyby, and a possible Doll Tearsheet ! And then 
 how abominable is the later Tess! Her first fall 
 was nothing. But the second What ! that fellow !
 
 1893] LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN 209 
 
 the chap that she had seen as Methodist preacher ! 
 Incredible ! She couldn't. No woman could. How 
 you detest her ! Of course you do, for she is simply 
 monstrous — a portent. And yet you liked her. Cer- 
 tainly I did, but not now — this is ruin indeed. Clare 
 had told her to have recourse to his father in case 
 of extremity. The author has slipped that in lest we 
 should feel Clare to be guilty of criminal neglect. 
 But he failed to perceive how terribly it aggravated 
 the guilt of Tess. Had Tess pride ? Pride ! What ! 
 And this pride threw her into the arms (shall we call 
 them arms ?) of the hydra D'Urberville ! And this is 
 the Tess we knew. The fact is Hardy doesn't know 
 his people, and, for the sake of sensational effect, he 
 will take one of his own sweet countrywomen and 
 drag her through all this impossible and inconsistent 
 dirt. Don't tell me that this is the aim of a true artist. 
 Where is your -ndOos ? Where is your KaOapais } You 
 can't eat your cake and have your cake. The Tess 
 of the later part is not the Tess of the earlier. You 
 surely must have some kind of identity in order 
 to maintain the most otiose interest in the victim. 
 But she is gone, vanished like Iphigenia from among 
 the flames. Something has been left behind, substi- 
 tuted for her ; but not a deer of Dian's herd — good 
 gracious, no ! a mask of the unutterable, faeces and 
 the fiend ! 
 
 Well now, perhaps I have said enough. It will be 
 long before I recover from this abominable book. 
 But I am not sorry I have read it. There is a decided 
 talent, but it is wasted. The heroine was ' condemned 
 under an arbitrary law, not founded in nature.' That 
 
 I O
 
 2IO LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN [1893 
 
 is, the law of chastity is 7iot founded in nature. 
 Methinks a precious doctrine. But the second fall 
 of Tess ? Do you condemn it or do you not ? Did 
 she then merely break an arbitrary law ? If so you 
 can sympathize with her. But, in the name of all 
 that is holy, I cannot and will not sympathize. 
 
 Kindest regards to Fowler ^ Get him to play 
 some Bach to you, and to show you birds. 
 
 I go to Laxey on Wednesday to lecture on all 
 sorts of things. 
 
 To E. Rydings. 
 
 Ramsey, 
 
 August 26, 1893. 
 
 Many thanks for your story. It is most delightful. 
 Why didn't you read it ? Nothing could be better. 
 If it were written out in a fair large hand, I should 
 much like to read it in public myself It is Manx to 
 the marrow : all that it wants is the pronunciation, 
 which no spelling, however phonetic, can supply : 
 nor, indeed, can any but the native produce vocally. 
 
 The ideal method of publication would be for me 
 to get it off by heart, and then recite it. Much is 
 lost by having to use a MS. Think of this another 
 time ! . . . 
 
 To E. Rydings. 
 
 Ramsey, 
 
 September 2, 1893. 
 
 . . . Thank you very much for the kind words you 
 spoke after my lecture ^, especially for what you said 
 
 ^ W. Warde Fowler. ^ Lecture on ' Manx Idioms.'— E. R.
 
 1893] LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN 211 
 
 on the topic of 'making fun,' I hear that the popular 
 version of my visit to Laxey was as follows : — ' Pazon 
 Brown was praechin' on the Manx idiots. Lek enough 
 for the Asylum — lek.' . . . 
 
 To S. T. Irwin. 
 
 Ramsey, 
 
 September 17, 1893. 
 
 Concerning Tess, you have not answered one point 
 of mine, viz. that Tess could have gone to her 
 father-in-law, and had positively been told to do so 
 by her husband, in case of need. She deliberately 
 preferred the Methodist blackguard. I believe 
 Hardy introduced these directions as given by Clare 
 (is that his name ?) simply to save this wretched man 
 from the reproach of leaving his wife in such an 
 ■impasse. Clare was already so contemptible a 
 creature that it wouldn't have done to add another 
 taint of imbecility, not to say infamy. 
 
 I don't see power in the book, but I do note 
 considerable beauty in parts. The women at the 
 dairy farm, though sufficiently ridiculous about that 
 dreadful Clare, are really admirable in their bovine 
 (vaccine) sympathy with Tess, and their self-renuncia- 
 tion. Here I detect a touch of clover quite guiltless 
 of turnip. They chew the cud of a placid grief with 
 much sweetness. Still it is all cud-chewing, bless the 
 wenches ! 
 
 I read nothing! the Island harasses me with its 
 lovehness, and I can't stay in the house. Also I am 
 smoking more than I did. I have written an article, 
 
 O 2
 
 212 LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN [1893 
 
 though, in my Manx character series, which I will 
 send you when it is printed. It is the last. 
 
 I heard one or two good stories at Braddan when 
 I preached there (last Sunday). One was of a child 
 at the Sunday school. ' What ought you to do 
 on Sunday ? ' ' Go to church.' ' What ought you to 
 do next?' 'Go to chapel.' Was it not precisely 
 the story for a vicar to tell ? You feel the atmo- 
 sphere — what ? 
 
 Your holiday has evidently been a good one, and 
 will have done you good. The little Island may 
 count for something; but the converse with your 
 own kin and with Fowler in those pleasant country 
 places must count for more. I have no brother now, 
 and that is a sad, sad want. 
 
 To AN Old Cliftonian. 
 
 Ramsey, 
 
 September 21, 1893. 
 
 ' You don't care for school work ' — but I fear there 
 is no choice. I demur to your statement that when 
 you take up schoolmastering your leisure for this 
 kind of thing will be practically gone. Not at all. 
 If you have the root of the matter in you — and 
 I think you have — the school work will insist upon 
 this kind of thing as a rehef My plan always was 
 to recognize two lives as necessary — the one the outer 
 kapelistic life of drudgery, the other the inner and 
 cherished life of the spirit. It is true that the one 
 has a tendency to kill the other, but it must not, and 
 you must see that it does not. 
 
 It's an awfully large order, but we really need three
 
 ,8931 LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN 213 
 
 lives — the life of pedagogic activity, as strenuous as 
 you like; the social life nicely arranged, and kept 
 in hand, but never regarded as serious ; and the 
 intellectual and spiritual life. 
 
 The pedagogic is needful for bread and butter, 
 also for a certain form of joy ; of the inner life you 
 know what I think ; the social life is required of us 
 and must be managed. You had better act on the 
 supposition that you are never to make your bread 
 and butter by anything but schoolmastering. That 
 supposition, amounting to a conviction, will keep you 
 hard at it. Make quite sure of that department. 
 Your inner work had better be kept as a solace. 
 
 One thing that I always felt about my own verses, 
 if I may refer to myself, was the hope that some day 
 my friends, including my old boys grown up to man's 
 estate, might accept them as human pledges, and, 
 by a certain retrospective sympathy, bear me upon 
 their hearts. This has largely happened to me, and 
 is now the source of my greatest happiness. When 
 the time comes for publication — say some five years 
 hence — nothing will have happened to your verses 
 to make them fail of their full effect. ... As regards 
 publication, now or hereafter, there is but one way 
 open — the work must be sent to a publisher, who, 
 or his reader, will treat you with the utmost in- 
 difference, except in so far as they judge the work 
 good. The first encounter with them is horrible: 
 the coldest sensation, the feeling of utter friendlessness ; 
 very like what death must be, that final sensation 
 in which we are destined to be absolutely alone. 
 I wish I could help you more. All I can do is to
 
 214 LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN [1893 
 
 assure you that your work is most promising. But 
 man can't live by ' sonnets ' alone, and no publisher 
 will look at you on the other side of the street till he 
 is quite satisfied there ' is money ' in you. That is 
 their hideous phrase. 
 
 To E. RydingS. 
 
 Ramsey, 
 
 October 3, 1893. 
 
 ... I am extremely grateful to you for your kind 
 words about my lecture on ' Manx Character.' 
 You do indeed give praise freely and unreservedly 
 when you are about it. There are some people who 
 will hedge under any circumstances : you are not one. 
 
 The ' inside ^ ' Manxman had better be told the 
 truth about our people. It would be an insult to 
 approach such a subject without the firmest resolve 
 to speak the truth. And the truth I have spoken. 
 That is one thing I can claim to have done. I am 
 not an advocate, I am a judge : I sit on the bench. 
 My knowledge of the case entitles me to the seat, 
 and no one shall oust me from it. 
 
 But, after all, if the person whose character is 
 submitted to inquiry does not exactly leave the 
 court without the slightest stain, &c., &c., are not you 
 surprised to see how very creditably he comes out 
 from the examination ? The analysis was a prolonged 
 and searching one, yet he never broke down, my dear 
 old Manxman, not he. Why, I consider the result 
 
 ' I had said the ' outside Manxman ' would be pleased with what 
 had been said, but I was afraid the ' inside Manxman ' — those now 
 living on the island — might not altogether like everything therein 
 said. — E. R.
 
 1893] LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN 215 
 
 quite a triumph. And then the desire to have it all 
 your own way, all praise, and no blame, all sugar and 
 butter — ah ! how natural ! It only makes me love 
 them more, just as one loves a pettish and wayward 
 child. 
 
 The Matvcman is good and sounds and a vtart to 
 live with, a lovable and livable man. That is surely 
 the main point, and that is the upshot of the matter. 
 
 To S. T. Irwin. 
 
 Ramsey, 
 
 October g, 1893. 
 
 I was sorry to see Jowett's death in the paper. 
 Nothing- that has yet appeared does justice to the 
 subject. That's two of my old examiners, and about 
 the third I should not be surprised at his having 
 gone long ago, without standing on the ceremony 
 of ' taking his leave.' Rawlinson, I think, was his 
 name. Timely warnings ! I always owe Jowett for 
 his kindness when he withdrew me gently, but 
 firmly, from the grim talons of Mark. 
 
 I went up Snaefell the other day. On the top we 
 were caught in a great hailstorm. It only lasted about 
 ten minutes, but such a blackness ! straight at a bound 
 from Ireland — that was its track. Till then Ireland 
 had been under the thickest veil ; but the veil vanished 
 in this deluge ; and we saw the Mourne Mountains 
 clear as crystal, but black as night. A space there 
 was of purest sky, but no sunlight ; a space of dark 
 gunpowder tint, from which your sweet old mother 
 looked forth the most bewitching, fascinating vixen. 
 Oh, how she hated us ! A fixed, eternal, glaring stare
 
 2i6 LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN [1893 
 
 of hate and implacable revenge. No, not ns^ poor 
 little kind-hearted, goosey -gander Mona, but you, 
 you English. How the hail-stones hissed hate! 
 So it is that night and day these terribly ' naughty 
 passions ' pass over us in transition. We are in the 
 line of fire, and we sometimes try to reconcile you. 
 But what can we do ? That day, for instance, we 
 did put up the sweetest little kiss of a rainbow just 
 over Barrule. But Ireland stared fierce and unmiti- 
 gated ; and your dear old bungling, well-meaning 
 Britishers looked rather confused and flurried ; but in 
 five minutes had recovered the inevitable attitude of 
 perfect self-complacency, and the Pharisee in excelsis. 
 But sure you're a noble people, and I allis said so. 
 
 By-the-bye, notwithstanding the shelter of the hut, 
 we got very wet, and I thought I was in for an 
 influenza from which ' salpetre wouldn't save me, and 
 that's a sthrong pickle.' However, I am 'just for' 
 a sore throat, which is a sufficient nuisance, and 
 almost confines me to the house. 
 
 I send you a copy of iV^. 0., last Saturday's. It con- 
 tains an article by me on Pusey's Life, which I hope 
 and think you will like. Before writing it, I really 
 read the book, and steeped my mind in all the tenderest 
 and sweetest of my old Ch. Ch. and Oriel recollections. 
 Liddon writes like a gentleman, and has affected me 
 much by certain suppressions which are obvious 
 enough to the initiated. As to Pusey, I stand 
 amazed. Church ' (!) had left me unconvinced, New- 
 man, Burgon, the Mozleys had hardly shaken me ; 
 but now before the man himself thus revealed (and 
 
 ' Cf. p. 27. His admiration for Dean Church was unqualified.
 
 1893] LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN 217 
 
 the revelation is unquestionably genuine), I throw up 
 my hands, and fall upon my knees. Yes, here was 
 a goody goody real man ! And from a Patriotic point 
 of view, what are we not to think of the patience, the 
 firmness, the absolute confidence in his fellow-country- 
 men with which he waited, bestrode that fiery 
 Pegasus, rode the great race, and won, while Newman 
 lay sprawling on the Via Sacra ? This is the unmis- 
 takable Englishman, this dogged Pusey ; dogged, 
 but did you see the tenderness ! God forgive me ! 
 When I think of my blindness ! Well, well, ' there's 
 a dale that'll have to be forgiven at some of us — aye, 
 a dale.' But, bedad, sor, I'm as thrue a Protestan' 
 as the wan o' ye, for all that. I feel sure that no man 
 did anything Hke as much as Pusey to stave off 
 Popery in England. Don't you agree with me ? 
 What do you think of Gore and those people ? Tell 
 me. I feel a good deal attracted towards them, but 
 don't know much about them, except that I suppose 
 Pusey would have had nothing to say to them. But 
 then that's of course. 
 
 The island is still as green as an emerald. Ah, 
 that poor dear outcast in the West ! If she were only 
 as happy as we ! But that look of sullen defiance ! 
 there was no mistake about it. And I have no conso- 
 lation in the ghbness of Chamberlain, or the bow-wow 
 of Salisbury. 
 
 To S. T. Irwin. 
 
 Ramsey, 
 
 October 12, 1893. 
 
 Your account of Jowett's funeral is most interesting. 
 . . . Your brother, as usual, was on the very edge of
 
 2i8 LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN [1893 
 
 observation {acies observandt) : most striking was 
 his remark about the ^ne set of heads. ... I believe 
 that Jowett, like so many Englishmen, carried the 
 principle of not pinnmg his heart upon his sleeve 
 for daws to peck at so far as to forget that, besides 
 the pecking daws, there are the craving hearts of 
 others , . . craving for the food, which, God help us ! 
 is not too abundantly spread upon the tables of this 
 world. But it is rash of me to speculate : frailties, at 
 the worst ; and the dear old elegist reminds us where 
 these are to be left. 
 
 Do you think of going through with Lucian ? 
 Would it be advisable ? — the whole of a voluminous 
 author ? . . . I must say it seems to me a kind of 
 slavery : and of slavery no kind can ever repay one. 
 
 To S. T. Irwin. 
 
 Ramsey, 
 
 October 15, 1893. 
 
 Fowler's ^ printed enclosure - is a document of great 
 importance. I did not need it to strengthen me in 
 my Unionism. Only no one can conceive how 
 unhappy I feel about Ireland. No hope whatever, 
 not in my time. It is only human nature that you 
 steady old Unionists should feel something like 
 exhilaration at the removal of this shadow. But to 
 me the removal of one shadow is but the descent of 
 another still more fatal. 
 
 In Daudet's Lettres de moti Motilin there is one 
 which I have read and re-read, and would read for 
 
 • W. Warde Fowler. 
 
 * Reasons for not conceding ^ Home RuW to Ireland.
 
 1893] LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN 219 
 
 ever. It really Is absolute (!). It is called ' Les 
 Vieux ' — only about half a dozen pages, imperishable, 
 inestimable. Do read it. 
 
 Let me make a confession. This is the Twentieth 
 Sunday after Trinity, and I have read Ishmael^ by 
 Miss Braddon. It is not altogether rot : but I never 
 before realized the inequality of the authoress. 
 
 To J. C. Tarver. 
 
 Ramsey, 
 
 October 24, 1893. 
 
 That I don't answer your letters more promptly 
 is a psychological study of the most interesting kind. 
 
 I sometimes think the reason may be the instan- 
 taneous repercussion of your touch — the impulse is 
 to reply on the moment. Now, as circumstance is 
 the beastliest of idiots, one can never be sure of doing 
 this. Time passes, and more patient and phlegmatic 
 desires attain their accomplishment, while the primary 
 desire and intention vanishes futile and frustrate. 
 
 Your book on Flaubert promises to be a very 
 exhaustive treatise. From the nature of the case, 
 it will be very instructive for the English people. 
 To understand Flaubert is to understand the most 
 intensely un-English spirit that ever breathed. That 
 will do us good ; we sadly want our loins to be 
 girded, and, for the matter of that, our lamps to be set 
 burning. The excessive scrupulousness of Flaubert 
 in his literary work is not likely to have any imitators 
 this side of the Channel. But it is well we should 
 know, if only in distant inaccessibility, these children
 
 220 LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN [1893 
 
 of light. I have read Le DoctezLV Raineau of Ohnet ; — 
 first part good, beginning of second part (some three 
 chapters) intolerable rot ; the remainder, except just 
 one slip at the very end, magnificent. 
 
 But I never tire of Daudet's Lettres de mon 
 Motdin. You know the short story called 'Les Vieux.' 
 Ah, that is exactly what I would fain write ! Such 
 a merest trifle, but such ineffable loveliness. Doubtless 
 you have read it : you will at once recollect it, when 
 I quote the phrase, ' Bon jour braves gens ! je suis 
 I'ami de Maurice.' The quality ! the quality ! Oh, 
 do let us aim at that ; it is everything. And to 
 think that it should seem so casual, just a drop 
 amongst a thousand others, when it is really the 
 gutta Serena of a priceless pearl that doesn't drop 
 at all. These things delight me, but they also 
 depress me. They don't perplex me at all. I quite 
 see how natural it is for certain minds to energize 
 in this way : but then / can't ; and that is settled 
 for ever, and probably was settled some fifty years 
 ago. In your case, it is not settled. Strive, strive 
 to enter in at the strait gate ! Even / (madman that 
 I am !) have not yet given up all endeavour, utterly 
 as I have abandoned hope. The endeavour is to 
 write one poor story of about five, not more than 
 ten pages, that the world will not willingly let die. 
 What say you ? Shall we go in for this ? Shall we 
 get the Httle bit of canvas, and stretch it on an easel 
 that shall be slender as les Jils de la bonne Vierge^ 
 but strong as adamant ? 
 
 Dear Tarver, a visit to you would be exquisite ; 
 but it cannot be as yet. Let us hope, ' before I go
 
 1893] LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN 221 
 
 hence,' I may manage it. At present, correspondence 
 (not, I trust, with the reciprocity on the one side 
 only) must do the business. Our brave little Isle 
 has behaved admirably all the summer; and it still 
 looks very pleasant and green. I have drunk largely 
 of its essence, and am all the better. 
 
 To J. C. Tarver. 
 
 Ramsey, 
 
 October 29, 1893. 
 
 Many thanks for the loan of Maupassant. 
 
 I have read one volume — the Conies du jour et de 
 la nuit. I confess I am a good deal disappointed. 
 The Avezi is fair, but not much beyond the kind of 
 story which commercial travellers used to tell in the 
 good old times. Whether this simple straightforward 
 kind of lubricity is still the thing around the supper- 
 table and in the smoking-room, I can't say. They 
 are gone from my gaze, those neiges d'antan. The 
 story, however, is ' Le Bonheur.' I don't deny the 
 gruesome merits of Le Vietix (really admirable) ; 
 but, you know, a little bit of sugar suits English. 
 Maupassant is far from saccharine, deals as little as 
 possible in the article. But the old craving is in us, 
 and the absinthe will hardly go down without it. 
 Independently of that, one likes to know that in 
 entering the inferno of this great cynic one is not 
 bidden to ' abandon all hope.' Why, here is a lovely 
 story, and a manly. No, no, these men have not 
 scooped out their hearts and made metal cups of 
 them. The old alternate stroke is there, the see-saw
 
 222 LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN [1893 
 
 of what men really are and must be, up to the heaven 
 of purity and peace, down to the seiitina of honest 
 nastiness. Aren't we made so ? He that denies either 
 SchwitJig is a monster and no man. This little sketch 
 is so exquisite too as a matter of art. Corsica, as 
 seen occasionally from some point of view on the 
 Rivier , suggests the situation. How different the 
 Corsica at the beginning, a shadow, a wraith, and at 
 the end, the home of these poor old things ! By 
 Jove, I felt this very much. I always feel Uke this 
 in looking at hills far away, especially when they 
 are separated from me like those of Cumberland and 
 Scotland by the sea, and are only visible at rare 
 intervals. 
 
 All my children are forsaking me : I intend myself 
 going to Castletown and spending a week with my 
 old chum Pleignier. I doubt not we shall have plenty 
 of Flaubert, Maupassant, &c., and, if we don't burn 
 the midnight oil, imbibe a good deal of the midnight 
 whusk. 
 
 To Miss D. Brown. 
 
 Ramsey, 
 
 November 2, 1893. 
 
 I was afraid the passage would be stormy, although 
 the wind was rather favourable. You had it, I think, 
 technically speaking, on the starboard quarter, and 
 she probably both kicked and rolled a good deal. . . . 
 I saw your boat for a good while ; I went up Douglas 
 Head, and wallved along the Marine Drive, and so 
 on to Kerristhal, near Port Soderick, beyond the
 
 1893] LETTERS OF T. E, BROWN 223 
 
 completed portion. It is really very fine. Then 
 I turned inland and wandered past Summercot, 
 Oakhill, Middle, Pulrose to Braddan — a regular 
 Braddan 'sthroul,' terminating at the Union Mills 
 station. It was a soothing walk, but rather melancholy. 
 I found myself beset with the thought how the 
 tradition of all this must cease with me personally. 
 None of you can retain it, and, of my contemporaries, 
 hardly any one has the clue. That made me — well, 
 I think I may say, a little sad. 
 
 To S. T. Irwin. 
 
 Ramsey, 
 
 November 5, 1893. 
 
 I went to Douglas on Friday week and saw Dora 
 off by the boat. So I went to the Head, the Marine 
 Drive. Really very fine, though I was shocked to 
 see, on a great advertizing board, that Bishop 
 Bardsley had described the Great Orme's Head as not 
 being in it with the Manx marvel. Not in it ! What 
 a phrase to fall from the lips of a bishop ! As I 
 advanced on my walk I had other things to think 
 of. It is my old parish ; every knoll and nook 
 haunted by a thousand memories. And indeed I felt 
 rather sad. The thought that troubled me was this — 
 who is to perpetuate the traditions ? They must go 
 with me. The whole business will be a perfect blank ; 
 not only tribal traditions, but family. My children 
 know next to nothing of them. And these traditions 
 are the most precious deposit, though not of a nature 
 to be made public. ' The wind passeth over it, and
 
 224 LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN [1893 
 
 it is gone ; and the place thereof knoweth it no 
 more.' 
 
 Under this burden I stumbled on. The new 
 generation must build the fabric of its own interests, 
 and the old must vanish. Yet there are families in 
 which, by some strong vital force of projection 
 on the one hand and a retrospective adhesiveness on 
 the other, all that is best and worthiest is transmitted. 
 It was never so with us. We live vigorously in the 
 living present, and extract the gold from the current 
 years, being amply satisfied with contemporary rela- 
 tions. I alone have tried to build a cairn of memories 
 in my books. But that is nothing. This isolation is the 
 nightmare that oppresses me. If, in another world, 
 I could find my brothers, restored and fitted for the 
 converse, what a joy it would be ! Perhaps it will be 
 so. This is a long monody. Do forgive me ! 
 
 Tarver writes ' constant.' He sent me last week 
 two books of Maupassant — short stories, rather dis- 
 appointing, but some of them excessively clever, 
 one beautiful. Maupassant did not attach much 
 importance to beauty; but, in spite of himself, she 
 sometimes hung upon his neck. 
 
 A very kind letter from Ainger. But how funny it 
 is that so many people are surprised that I can write 
 decent English verse! They had focussed me as a 
 dialectic poet^ a man of the people, imperfectly 
 educated, and so forth ; and they seem rather im- 
 patient at my venturing in a new and more cultivated 
 field. What ought I to do } Shall I put on my next 
 title-page — ' Late Fellow of Oriel,' &c. ? or am I 
 always to abide under this ironic cloak of rusticity }
 
 t893] LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN 225 
 
 To S. T. Irwin. 
 
 Ramsey, 
 
 November 7, 1893, 
 
 Here is a pretty enough iestiino7imin. It occurs 
 in a hymn which, down to the fifteenth century, is 
 said to have been sung at Mantua in the Mass of 
 St. Paul :— 
 
 Ad Maronis mausoleum 
 Ductus fudit super eum 
 
 Piae rorem lacrimae : 
 Quantum, inquit, te fecissem, 
 Vivum si te invenissem, 
 
 Poetarum maxime ! 
 
 Daniel gives this in his Thesattrtis Hyuinologicus, 
 574. Don't you think it a delightful instance of the 
 Renaissance naivete ? I will attempt a translation : — 
 
 Brought to Maro's tomb, he cried, 
 O'er the flower of Mantua's pride 
 
 Shedding many a pious tear : 
 ' Living if I could have found thee, 
 How I would have loved and crowned thee, 
 
 Chief of poets, ever dear ! ' 
 
 Milton's marvellous blend will no doubt be present 
 to your mind. Also Walter Map : — 
 
 Meum est propositum in taberna mori, 
 Et vinum appositum sitienti ori, 
 Ut dicant, quum venerint angelorum chori, 
 ' Deus sit propitius isti potatori.' 
 
 'Tis my firm resolve to die 
 
 In a tavern Ij'ing, 
 Wine unto my thirsty lips 
 
 Kindest hands supplying. 
 So shall angels come to me, 
 
 Bands of angels, sighing : 
 ' God have mercy on his soul ! 
 
 'Tis the drunkard dying.' 
 
 I P
 
 226 LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN [1893 
 
 But this is not the same attitude of mind. There 
 is a suspicion of the rowdy, as in Villon. Whereas 
 these blessed old clergymen at Mantua sang their 
 ditty in the most perfect good faith. 
 
 Do you know Robert Bridges' poems at all? 
 I have never seen them, but there are some extracts, 
 I think, in Temple Bar for Oct. Very fine, I think. 
 Funnily enough, the Temple Bar reviewer urges him 
 to translate Sophocles ! but is there never to be an end 
 of this translation mania ? W^hat do you think of 
 Jowett's Plato ? I often see it described as a master- 
 piece. Is it ? Plato's style is so all-important that I 
 cannot but ' hae me doots.' Again, I am at Dante 
 for the w\\2Xth (!) time. Few joys are to be compared 
 with this. The calm is so soothing, resting on such 
 enormous strength. The felicities can only be ade- 
 quately appreciated by an Italian, but they often 
 pierce with a perfectly awful splendour. I think 
 Dante is monotonous, but what a monotone ! He 
 drowns you in a dream, and you never want to wake. 
 This is sheer selfishness and egotism, mooning on 
 about my reading and so forth. I don't feel to be 
 talking to you. Stop me when I take this line. 
 
 And commend me to Clifton friends. Whom do 
 you see most of? R. I hope remembers me. He is 
 a pure righteous soul with the root of the matter in 
 him. ... I shall gossip for ever. Ttms aduiodtim.
 
 1893] LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN 227 
 
 To S. T. Irwin. 
 
 Ramsey, 
 
 November ii, 1893. 
 
 I went to Peel on Thursday, and greatly, vastly 
 dined. We had a very pleasant company, no speeches, 
 just one or two songs. 
 
 I probably smoked half a dozen cigars, and as 
 many pipes. Dezis sit propititLS / These Peel men 
 are most interesting : they were the upper class, not 
 ' Tommy the Mate ' & Co. I saw Tommy, though, 
 next morning. He recited to me some of his verses. 
 The nice old creature ! but really egotistic in a degree 
 
 which Well, they don't get much from us, and 
 
 the kindly listener is to them at once a solace and 
 a temptation. 
 
 Rowley's interpretation of my ' Rapture ^ ' had 
 already occurred to me, and I now begin to prefer it. 
 The Mourne Mountains and what lies behind them — 
 obvious ! The longing look, the qiLOitsqtie tandem.^ 
 the ' come over into Macedonia and help us.' So let 
 hate betake herself to her native hell, and let us bridge 
 the Channel with a bridge of sighs ! God bless old 
 Ireland ! When could we go over there together ? 
 It would be so refreshing. I have a lot of pent-up 
 love in me: let me go and pour it forth where 
 perhaps it would not be unwelcome. 
 
 Dante is still my companion. Some things bore 
 me, astronomical horrors, indications of time, Ptole- 
 maic complications. I wish he had left those dismalities 
 to ' Chaos and old Night.' Yet one is uncomfortable 
 at passing them over. You remember M.'s disgust at 
 ' Cf. letter of October 9, 1893. 
 P 2
 
 228 LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN [1893 
 
 being hurried over loci desperati in our Italian read- 
 ings. I have not yet attained to the true nervous 
 tension which makes some men to 'jump ' the bothers 
 and land in Elysium, Now, sir, I talk of Tommy the 
 Mate's egotism ! how about mine ? This life is a 
 producer and conserver of egotism. Hang it all ! if 
 schoolmastering is but a sorry business, at any rate it 
 mixes you up with contemporaries and compels you 
 to take account of them. 
 
 To H. G. Dakyns. 
 
 Ramsey, 
 
 November 13, 1893. 
 
 I have been reading your second volume ^ with great 
 delight. . . . Don't you think the Polity of the Athe- 
 nians is meant as a satire ? It reads exactly like one, 
 witty and almost bitter. All these lesser works are 
 wondrous interesting. Even the Ways aJid Means 
 carries me with it as on a flowing tide of energy. 
 You have excited my appetite for what is yet to come. 
 Some of the very best wine is yet unbroached. . . . 
 
 Music deigns to visit these island spaces : I don't 
 mean merely Nature's music, though of this we have 
 good store [listen ! the moan, the sob, the vagitus !] ; 
 but our Manx people are musical. They have fine 
 voices, and they sing in tune. This latter quality of 
 theirs is almost as infallible as are their aitches ; for 
 which let us be duly thankful. We had a capital 
 concert some weeks ago, to which I contributed 
 a reading of 'Peggy's Wedding.' 
 
 ^ Translation of Xenophon.
 
 1893] LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN 229 
 
 M. wrote me nearly a year ago a long letter, 
 a sort of Confessio Fidei combined with an invita- 
 tion, challenge, or what not. / never answered 
 it / Men who go in for ' new religions ' must not 
 apply to me. I do not mean to say that ' the old is 
 better,' but I am content to drink the blessed old 
 vintage as long as I am di qua. When I ' drink it 
 new in my Fathers kingdom,' these bothers will be 
 of the past. 
 
 To S. T. Irwin. 
 
 Ramsey, 
 
 November 14, 1893. 
 
 I wrote you a rigmarole the other day about the 
 naivete of the Renaissance exhibited in a mediaeval 
 hymn. Of course it was Virgil. It was quite natural 
 that Paul should be conceived of as shedding the 
 'pious tear' over Virgil. 
 
 I have been reading Dakyns' second volume, and 
 am delighted with it. I really don't know which to 
 admire most — the architect, artist, or man. But the 
 notes I think are the best. How dehciously he does 
 ramble! No, it is not rambling either. It is the 
 gesture of some lovely butterfly that lights upon or 
 hovers above a flower. With what dexterity he taps 
 the text, with the application of what consummate 
 instruments ! Other critics can probe or dissect ; but 
 who like Dakyns can maintain with such exquisite 
 libration the asymptotic attitude which is so charming, 
 and, let me add, so characteristic? The translation 
 reads well. I have not the original to compare. In
 
 230 LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN [1893 
 
 the Agesilaus he attains his apogee : in Dakyns' 
 English it is magnificent. The peroration is quite 
 masterly. 
 
 Altogether it is most refreshing to find that our old 
 friend has by no means lost himself in those latitudes. 
 
 Let me remind you that I am not above receiving 
 with pleasure a bit of Clifton gossip. I observe that 
 you sedulously (?) exclude that form of interest. But, 
 happy though I may be in my island life, I can't 
 forget how long I went in and out among you at 
 Clifton ; and where I conversed for so many years 
 there must needs be interests that touch me nearly. 
 They cannot but come closer both to you and me, 
 certainly to you, than the affairs of Manxland, 
 
 So let me have, for instance, a report (from your 
 point of view) of a masters' meeting. Tell me how 
 people looked, as well as what they said, or if they 
 said nothing. Let the canvas glow ! Certainly I 
 would have decorum : this is, of course, the subaudi- 
 tion ; and this I know you will faithfully reproduce. 
 But supposing in that serene, slightly colourless 
 atmosphere, some one has made an ass of himself, 
 why not give me the benefit of an appone liter o ? 
 Here people make asses of themselves every day ; 
 but there^ in proportion to the infrequency is the 
 piquancy of the emergence. Then the ' Merry Wives 
 of Clifton.' Ah, my dear sir, you say you don't know 
 them. Get out! you ought to know them: 'tis a 
 field like another, and indeed a fertile one — a field, 
 did I say ? a parterre, a pleasaunce ! Don't tell me, 
 sir! Take counsel, and let me be admitted to the 
 feast private and particular.
 
 .893] LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN 231 
 
 To S. T. Irwin. 
 
 Ramsey, 
 
 November 17, 1893. 
 
 The admirable ^ Fowler has sent me a volume of 
 Bridges' Poeins. Wasn't it kind of him ? Many of 
 them are very beautiful. The gem is ' The Windmill.' 
 Let me copy it for you ; indeed, I straightway got it 
 off by heart : so here it is. 
 
 The green corn waving in the dale, 
 The ripe grass waving on the hill : 
 I lean across the paddock pale 
 And gaze upon the giddy mill. 
 
 Its hurtling sails a mighty sweep 
 Cut thro' the air : with rushing sound 
 Each strikes in fury down the steep. 
 Rattles, and whirls in chase around. 
 
 Beside his sacks the miller stands 
 On high within the open door : 
 A book and pencil in his hands. 
 His grist and meal he reckoneth o'er. 
 
 "j;; [His tireless merry slave the wind 
 
 .0 I Is busy with his work to-day : 
 
 ^ From whencesoe'er he comes to grind ; 
 
 Q vHe hath a will and knows the way. 
 
 He gives the creaking sails a spin. 
 The circling millstones faster flee, 
 The shuddering timbers groan within, 
 And down the shoots the meal runs free. 
 
 -• /The miller giveth him no thanks, 
 
 I J And doth not much his work o'erlook : 
 
 o j He stands beside the sacks, and ranks 
 
 '•S (The figures in his dusty book. 
 
 There ! that is worthy of Heine, and wonderfully 
 
 like him. 
 
 * W. Warde Fowler.
 
 232 LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN [1893 
 
 I have written a pendant for the VirgiHo-Pauline 
 whimsy. This is it: 
 
 We are led to Maro's bust, 
 And we slake the sacred dust, 
 
 Not with pious tears like Paul. 
 Reason pregnant is for weeping. 
 Where Virgilius lies a-sleeping. 
 
 And we hear the urgent call — 
 
 ' Construe ! Construe ! ' Head of Priscian 
 Broken oft, Apollo Lycian, 
 
 God that wield'st the silver bow. 
 Help us, one faint glimmer send us, 
 Muses nine, assist, befriend us, 
 
 Oh! Pierian virgins, oh! 
 
 For the master's look is horrid. 
 And his corrugated forehead 
 
 Indicates the usual signs. 
 We are done, sirs, we are spun, sirs — 
 All is black beneath the sun, sirs — 
 
 ' Every one five hundred lines ' ! 
 
 Many, many thanks for the good baccy. Birkett 
 and I have both ' sampled ' it. 
 
 I have just read your ' Don Quixote ' in the Monthly 
 Packet for May. I remember it well. It is delightful 
 as ever. 
 
 To S. T. Irwin. 
 
 Ramsey, 
 
 November 28, 1893. 
 
 . . . ^ We sat down in some cottages. Some of the 
 people were magnificent, throwing themselves upon 
 you with such vigour of accent, such warmth and fun, 
 and endless receptivity, bright, well pulled together, 
 sonorous, that I nearly staggered under it — not chaff — 
 
 ' Walking back from Castletown, where he had been staying.
 
 1893] LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN 233 
 
 good heavens ! no — but would have been chaff, only 
 it wasn't, for they can't chaff. 
 
 Kitty Kermode, alias Kinvig, was the best. She 
 said a very sweet and profound thing (but I can't 
 phrase it as I ought) about the value of friendship, as 
 compared with that of love. A little happy creature 
 of some seventeen giggled in a dark corner, but I let 
 her giggle ; the old woman pierced me through and 
 through. O fortunati — O indeed ! And these dear 
 things seemed to know that their lot was a happy 
 one. Quod faustiun / Unutterably precious to me 
 is the woman, the native of the hills, almost my own 
 age, or a little younger, whose spirit is set upon the 
 finest springs, and her sympathies have an almost 
 masculine depth, and a length of reflection that wins 
 your confidence and stays your sinking heart. 
 
 The lady can't do it. This class, of what I suppose 
 you would call peasant women (I won't have the 
 word), seems made for the purpose of rectifying 
 everything, and redressing the balance, inspiring us 
 with that awe which the immediate presence of abso- 
 lute womanhood creates in us. The plain, practical 
 woman, with the outspoken throat and the eternal 
 eyes. Oh, mince me, madam, mince me your pretty 
 mincings ! Deliberate your dainty reticences ! Balbu- 
 tient loveliness, avaunt ! Here is a woman that talks 
 like a bugle, and, in everything, sees God. 
 
 My eye ! there's a buster. Da veniain / it is really 
 too dreadful. I hope you are well. Kindest re- 
 membrances. 
 
 I AM Alone !
 
 234 LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN [1893 
 
 To S. T. Irwin. 
 
 Ramsey, 
 
 December 3, 1893. 
 
 Y. upon Herrick ! What do you mean ? By- 
 Jove, we don't know. Does he appreciate the un- 
 bowdlerized Herrick? Herrick of the amatory 
 poems, as well as the divine and moral. Did he ever 
 see ' a tempest in a petticoat ' .'' He may after all 
 leave ' merry gestes ' behind him. See that you be- 
 come one of his literary executors ! Y. as a denizen 
 of Cythera is lovely. 
 
 I am not doing much now ; in fact, am very idle. 
 I have been reading too many novels, specially 
 French. This is no good. Pleignier supplies me ; 
 so does Tarver. The whole ' bilin' ' might as well be 
 put in the fire. It is dreadful to get reading these 
 things immediately after breakfast, with the first pipe. 
 Of course I ought to be out in this glorious keen air, 
 but, instead of that, I loiter over these ' divilments,' 
 one after another. I get into an armchair by a good 
 fire. A look at yesterday's Standard \ and then — 
 
 Take a novel, blend of Ouida : 
 
 Metaphors are mixed and sappy — 
 Ardent creatures ! how they need a 
 
 Kindly priest to make them happy ! 
 But I am not sympathetic, 
 
 Spite of all the cash and jewels, 
 And I find my gorge emetic 
 
 Rising at the hero's duels.
 
 1893] LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN 235 
 
 Take another : matrimony 
 
 Posited, a sober joyaunce 
 Waits the reader ? no, my sonny : 
 
 To my very great annoyance. 
 Hymen opes the golden barriers ; 
 
 'Tis a race, let him or her win ; 
 I will join the peaceful harriers, 
 
 Write to Dakyns, write to Irwin. 
 
 Richepin, Maupassant, great Zola, 
 
 Pornographic authors recent, 
 Sohis picturing ctiin sola, 
 
 Just a trifle less than decent. 
 Wessex Hardy swears the Channel 
 
 Shall not baulk his bold beginning. 
 Drops his homely British flannel. 
 
 Sets his pretty Tess a-sinning; 
 
 Is not frankly, gaily lubrick — 
 
 Mrs. Grundy will not bear it — 
 So he ducks, her formal rubrick 
 
 Cheating with a timely caret. 
 English, German, French, Italian — 
 
 Not the stuff for me, i' faikins ! 
 I will ramble on Slieu Whallian, 
 
 Write to Irwin, write to Dakyns. 
 
 And so I have had a very blessed ramble on Slieu 
 Whaflian, 'the mountain of the wild colts,' which 
 looks down upon our Tynwald Hill. Soothing, 
 redintegrating, restoring the moral balance, making 
 me young and lusty as an eagle. ' Lustful as a
 
 236 LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN [1893 
 
 satyr ' would better represent the school of writers 
 with whom I have been conversing-. Severe, perhaps, 
 upon Hardy ; but, unless we accept the theory of 
 weakness and physical indisposition, I can only 
 account for the latter part of Tess as a deliberate 
 imitation of the cruelty and defiance of the common 
 sentiment which I find so rampant in Maupassant. 
 It is true the satire of this tremendous person is 
 terrific, but so cold-blooded, By-the-bye, can satire 
 be cold-blooded ? That is more like irony. Yes, he 
 uses irony, but for the purposes of satire. Juvenal 
 never cools down to this point of venomous, deadly 
 sting-, this cobra of horror. He gives vent to his saeva 
 iiidignatio. Not so Maupassant : he never turns a 
 hair, and on you go ! 
 
 I think his Bel A vii one of the most brilliant and 
 annihilating works, A very devil ! But, somewhere 
 behind, there is a God, a God that hisses at his own 
 creation, and spits upon the hurly-burly that has 
 escaped from his hands. 
 
 To lay this aside for a while, let us talk, not of 
 Slieu Whallian, antidotic though it be, yet not in 
 pari fnaieria. Let me tell you how delighted I was 
 the other day, when an old pupil of mine sent me 
 a piece of music he had written to the words — ' Thou 
 art gone to the grave, but we will not deplore thee.' 
 I refer to the words, rather than to the music, though 
 that is extremely good. 
 
 But have you ever quite realized the force of 
 Heber ? Except for the unfortunate choice of a metre, 
 I think those lines are almost perfect. They show 
 what that old Evangelical school could do, when
 
 :893] LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN 237 
 
 chastened by absolute culture, and guarded by con- 
 summate taste. Religious poetry lies open to so 
 many dangers. Hymns A ncient and Modern show 
 the ghastly results only too manifest. 
 
 But I find something ' similar the same ' in the 
 Christian Year. Not so much, though, a lack of taste 
 as of elevation. What a glorious creature was that 
 Reginald ! You don't know how I love him. Try 
 that poem by any test or standard, and I think you 
 will find it faultless. Yet the emotion and the piety, 
 so often the pitfalls of elegance, have not availed here 
 to mar a single movement. Teres atqne rotundtts, 
 it stands a Koh-i-noor of sacred song. 
 
 And thank God for it! Why should this dear 
 fellow's anxiety, quite honest anxiety, for the souls of 
 men, thwart the native bent of beauty that gave the 
 buoyant lilt, and produced the inevitable phrase? 
 I confess I could, in this poem, spare the buoyancy ; 
 it might have been utilized in another ' From Green- 
 land's icy mountains.' 
 
 But even in that old enemy of mine, who does not 
 recognize the artist ? ' Waft, waft, ye winds. His 
 story '—no— then I give it up. A true child of 
 genius, for all that. He did not live to be a Charles 
 Wesley, nor could he perhaps ever have become that. 
 One Charles Wesley, sir, and no other. 
 
 PS. — Enclosed you will find a curious address upon 
 an envelope : 
 
 ' Scholar and Historian.' 
 Large, is it not !
 
 238 LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN [1893 
 
 To S. T. Irwin. 
 
 Ramsey, 
 
 December 25, 1893. 
 
 Irwin, whenas the suns, an arrant crew 
 Of lubbers, cleave the unwilling fissile dark 
 (But doubtless better hid in Noah's ark), 
 I think that I will take a shot at you. 
 Not present is the slightest glimpse of blue, 
 And yet withouten care, withouten cark, 
 I rise as lissome as a summer's lark, 
 
 And do what I suppose all people do. 
 
 1 greet the friend whom chiefest I must love, 
 And unto every Irwin in the land 
 
 Peace, plenty, and prosperity I pray. 
 So shall the merry gods that reign above 
 Have richest offerings at my grateful hand. 
 And thine own whisky crown the cheerful day^ 
 
 To S. T. IRWIN. 
 
 Ramsey, 
 
 December 27, 1893. 
 
 Such a combination of virtues I never expect to see 
 again in any man as God gave us in Bartholomew ^. 
 There was a divine sweetness in his constancy and 
 patience, and the ' humihty,' which I see you recognize 
 as an element in his character, was extremely beautiful 
 and touching. 
 
 * A Christmas offering. 
 
 2 F. M. Bartholomew, for many years a master at Clifton, died of 
 cholera while on a visit to India, in December, 1892. It would be 
 impossible to say here what his personality was to Clifton,
 
 1893] LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN 239 
 
 It is an experience that seldom falls to one's lot, to 
 follow slowly but surely through noble avenues of 
 reserve, a soul that withdraws itself as you advance 
 towards the hidden treasures it guarded with such 
 profound modesty. 
 
 Simple and sage^simplicity, I imagine, the grand 
 note, simplicity of motive rather than of action, a very 
 deep and rare simplicity. His loss is beyond all losses 
 that I can conceive. Clifton was twined around his 
 very heart : his life was Clifton. 
 
 Beside his perfect devotion the ordinary standard of 
 zeal and industry, however honest, is merely respect- 
 able ; with some it is only a make-believe of awkward 
 gesticulation. 
 
 I append a sonnet, which, to some extent, relieves 
 my sorrow, and which may perhaps help to relieve 
 yours. 
 
 IN MEMORIAM. 
 F. M. Bartholomew. 
 
 Unselfish, steadfast, absolutely true, 
 Dear friend, sage counsellor, your every thought 
 Was ours, as pious Nature inward wrought 
 The civic purpose and the loftier view. 
 From him you most revered the golden dew 
 Of loyalty traditional was caught. 
 Whose gold is steel; and so you constant taught 
 This earthly Clifton, loved Bartholomew. 
 Bides yet a Clifton in the chiefest Heaven, 
 The at/ro -Clifton God has made for us. 
 Serenely placed, divinely bright and fair. 
 Sometimes unto our noblest hearts 'tis given
 
 240 LETTERS OF T. E. BROWN [1893 
 
 To see its circuit broad and luminous : 
 
 He saw it, and he found it, and he 's there. 
 
 Ramsey, 
 
 December 26, 1893. 
 
 To Mrs. Shenstone. 
 
 Ramsey, 
 
 December 30, 1893. 
 
 Mr. Shenstone wrote to me about our poor dear 
 old Bartle. What a sad story ! we are not likely to 
 see such another. He was goodness itself; and we 
 shall miss him as a friend, as a counsellor, as a true 
 and loyal companion more than can be expressed. 
 Let us be thankful for so great a blessing. I remember 
 his first arrival amongst us as if it had been yesterday. 
 He was then fresh from Marlborough and Oxford; 
 young and sanguine. The experience of life never 
 clouded him, though it made him grave and thoughtful. 
 The inner man was ' renewed day by day,' and a ripe 
 sweetness assured us thereof. Ah, well ! . . . 
 
 I shall make inquiries about farm-houses near the 
 coast. We are a funny little people, light-hearted, 
 irresponsible, somewhat unpractical, very un-English, 
 if that will suit you. For my part, I almost forget 
 that I ever lived in England. No doubt I do my 
 level best to humour this tendency, and to make a 
 Lethe of the blessed old herring-pond. And Lethe 
 is kind, and Lethe is useful ; but there is no Lethe in 
 my heart for dear old friends. So come and see ! 
 Kindest wishes for the New Year. 
 
 END OF VOL. I
 
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