The whole place is well furnished, though not in a very pure taste; Corinthian much of it; showy and not strong.
About your place I shall try to find my way alone, an interesting exploration. Imagine me, as I go to bed, falling over a blood- stained remorse; opening that cupboard in the cerebellum and being welcomed by the spirit of your murdered uncle. I should probably not like your remorses; I wonder if you will like mine; I have a spirited assortment; they whistle in my ear o' nights like a north- easter. I trust yours don't dine with the family; mine are better mannered; you will hear nought of them till, 2 A.M., except one, to be sure, that I have made a pet of, but he is small; I keep him in buttons, so as to avoid commentaries; you will like him much - if you like what is genuine.
Must we likewise change religions? Mine is a good article, with a trick of stopping; cathedral bell note; ornamental dial; supported by Venus and the Graces; quite a summer-parlour piety. Of yours, since your last, I fear there is little to be said.
There is one article I wish to take away with me: my spirits. They suit me. I don't want yours; I like my own; I have had them a long while in bottle. It is my only reservation. - Yours (as you decide),
R. L. MONKHOUSE.
Letter: TO W. E. HENLEY
HYERES, MAY 1884.
DEAR BOY, - OLD MORTALITY is out, and I am glad to say Coggie likes it. We like her immensely.
I keep better, but no great shakes yet; cannot work - cannot: that is flat, not even verses: as for prose, that more active place is shut on me long since.
My view of life is essentially the comic; and the romantically comic. AS YOU LIKE IT is to me the most bird-haunted spot in letters; TEMPEST and TWELFTH NIGHT follow. These are what I mean by poetry and nature. I make an effort of my mind to be quite one with Moliere, except upon the stage, where his inimitable JEUX DE SCENE beggar belief; but you will observe they are stage-plays - things AD HOC; not great Olympian debauches of the heart and fancy; hence more perfect, and not so great. Then I come, after great wanderings, to Carmosine and to Fantasio; to one part of La Derniere Aldini (which, by the by, we might dramatise in a week), to the notes that Meredith has found, Evan and the postillion, Evan and Rose, Harry in Germany. And to me these things are the good; beauty, touched with sex and laughter; beauty with God's earth for the background. Tragedy does not seem to me to come off; and when it does, it does so by the heroic illusion; the anti-masque has been omitted; laughter, which attends on all our steps in life, and sits by the deathbed, and certainly redacts the epitaph, laughter has been lost from these great-hearted lies. But the comedy which keeps the beauty and touches the terrors of our life (laughter and tragedy-in-a-good-humour having kissed), that is the last word of moved representation; embracing the greatest number of elements of fate and character; and telling its story, not with the one eye of pity, but with the two of pity and mirth.
R. L. S.
Letter: TO EDMUND GOSSE
FROM MY BED, MAY 29, 1884.
DEAR GOSSE, - The news of the Professorate found me in the article of - well, of heads or tails; I am still in bed, and a very poor person. You must thus excuse my damned delay; but, I assure you, I was delighted. You will believe me the more, if I confess to you that my first sentiment was envy; yes, sir, on my blood-boltered couch I envied the professor. However, it was not of long duration; the double thought that you deserved and that you would thoroughly enjoy your success fell like balsam on my wounds. How came it that you never communicated my rejection of Gilder's offer for the Rhone? But it matters not. Such earthly vanities are over for the present. This has been a fine well-conducted illness. A month in bed; a month of silence; a fortnight of not stirring my right hand; a month of not moving without being lifted. Come! CA Y EST: devilish like being dead.