CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN JAMES THOMSON AND WILLIAM MICHAEL ROSSETTI. 8th Feby. 1872. DEAR SIR, MR. R. BRADLAUGH has forwarded me your letter of the 4th inst., and I know not how to thank you for your very generous expression of approval of the Weddah and Om-el-Bonain. In sending you this piece I had indeed some slight hope of obtaining the verdict of so distinguished and competent a judge; but I chiefly intended it as a sort of apology for my very inadequate notice in the National Reformer last March of your popular edition of Shelley, written at the request of my friend Mr. Bradlaugh when I had no leisure for anything like a fair attempt to examine and discuss that work properly. Feeling not at all contented with such treatment of Shelley and yourself, I was anxious to show that your too off-hand critic was nevertheless a genuine lover of the poet to whom you have devoted so much worthy labour, and a serious student of poetry. To clear up your doubt permit me to state that no living writer can have much less reputation than myself, who am simply known to some readers of the National Reformer as B. V. the author of many pieces and scraps in prose and verse which have appeared in that periodical during the last seven years or so. And I am bound in honesty to confess that some of those pieces were among the most wicked and blasphemous which even Mr. Bradlaugh ever published. The only production in reputable society which I can cite in my favour is "Sunday up the River: an Idyll of Cockaigne," which Mr. Froude inserted in Fraser's Magazine for October '69, and which he and Mr. Kingsley thought very good. The Weddah and Om-el-Bonain Mr. Froude rejected, finding the story beautiful, and the treatment excellent in arrangement and conception, but deficient in melody of versification, in smoothness and sweetness, much less finished in style than the Idyll. Both pieces have been refused by four or five of our chief magazines to which they were sent. I hope that you will pardon me for saying so much about myself, as I have only done so because your letter seemed to indicate a desire to know something on the subject. The praise of two such men as yourself and your brother, however much kindliness may have tempered your judgment, is very valuable to me, and I am truly grateful for the generous promptitude and cordiality with which you have rendered it to an obscure stranger. While to the public I wish to remain anonymous as a writer, I have no wish to shroud myself from persons I esteem, and am happy to sign myself your obliged and faithful servant JAMES THOMSON. 2nd March, 1872. DEAR SIR, I have to thank you for your very kind letter of the 25th ult., and for your too-liberal offer of a copy of your complete edition of Shelley. While I do not like to refuse the honour of this gift from you, I must really protest against your attacking me suddenly with so valuable a present on such insignificant and unintentional provocation. It is one among the works of our higher literature which during the last three or four years I have put off reading, waiting for more settled leisure to study them as they ought to be studied. I will do my best to profit by it, and should any notes occur to me which I can think worth your attention will submit them to you frankly. I regret that you have been put to the trouble of procuring the number of Fraser, which I could not offer to send you, having no copy left. Your judgment on the relative merits of the Idyll and Weddah confirms my own. I was aware that the former as a piece of pure pleasantness was more smooth and easy in style than the latter, but I knew also that the latter in its style as dictated by the nature of the story was honestly wrought out to the best of my ability and was comparatively a serious bit of work. By the bye, the Idyll as I wrote it had two more joints to its tail, ending thus after some points to mark the transition : What time is it, dear, now? We are in the year now Of the New Creation One million, two or three. We are as I trow, love, In the Heaven of Heavens upon the Crystal Sea. G And may mortal sinners Care for carnal dinners In your Heaven of Heavens, New Era millions three? Upon some Richmond landing They're thirsty as the desert and hungry as the sea! These two stanzas, though of little worth in themselves, had the merit in my eyes of bringing back the piece at last to the sober realities of pleasant Cockaigne; but Mr. Froude and (as he informed me) Mr. Kingsley were so strongly in favour of its evanishing in the sentimental infinite that I submitted to them, not without reluctance. Whether you will agree with those gentlemen or with myself on this point, I of course cannot divine. I have a parcel of leaves of the National Reformer containing most of my contributions to that paper, kept by me for the purpose of reference, which I shall of course be happy to send you if you care to turn them over, glancing into any that may seem not without interest. They would give you a much more ample and accurate knowledge of me than you can have gathered from two select poems, and would probably enough considerably lower me in your opinion, but I have not the slightest wish to seem to you at all better than I am, and would indeed (if I know myself) rather be under than over estimated. You will also I trust understand that I have not the least desire to abuse your kindness by asking you or expecting you to read a single line of my writing or express any opinion thereon, except as your own good pleasure may move you. Your criticism whether favourable or adverse would be very highly valued by me, but I cannot doubt that you have literary matters much more important than anything of mine to occupy your leisure. Hoping that you will find in the nature of our correspondence an excuse for my again writing to you so much about myself, I am, Dear Sir, Yours very Respectfully JAMES THOMSON. 10th April, '72. DEAR SIR, I have to thank you for the copy of your complete edition of Shelley's Poetical Works, which I found on reaching home last evening, and especially for the inscription therein with which you have honoured me. Turning over the leaves, I find so many places where your hand has been at work improving on improvement that I cannot but regret so much trouble taken on my account, while rejoicing in your persistent passion for accuracy and perfection thus evidenced. That your name (which may well live in its own right) must be linked enduringly in our literature with that of Shelley, by virtue of the standard text of his Poems, is already my conviction. I will do my poor best towards reading these noble volumes worthily; and welcome so fair an occasion for studying once more, and with such excellent assistance, the Poet who fascinated me in my youth, and of whom my reverence remains undiminished and my estimate scarcely altered after twenty long years. I am, Dear Sir, Yours truly JAMES THOMSON, |