Letters of Edward FitzGerald, in Two Volumes. Vol. 2 — Inside the Classic

A Voice That Wavers Between Apology and Enthusiasm

FitzGerald's letters are marked by a distinctive self-consciousness about his own intellectual pursuits. Writing to Cowell about his translation of Omar Khayyám, he worries that he has "missed a main one in Omar" and doubts his friend will "repent of ever having showed me the Book." Yet this apologetic strain sits alongside genuine excitement: he plans to "enlarge it to near as much again" with material that would not dare appear in Fraser's Magazine. The same oscillation appears in his literary judgments. He praises Clemencín's edition of Don Quixote but immediately questions the editor's decisions, arguing that Cervantes may have changed his title "from negligence" or "for reasons of his own." FitzGerald's prose captures the texture of a mind that is both deferential and stubbornly independent.

Friendship as a Measure of Time and Change

The letters document friendships that span decades, and FitzGerald often uses these relationships to mark the passage of time. In 1859, he describes visiting William Browne after a terrible accident: "no longer the gay Lad, nor the healthy Man, I had known: but a wreck of all that." The bluntness of the observation is characteristic. Later, in 1876, he recounts a visit from Alfred Tennyson after "near twenty years' separation," noting that they "were in a moment as if we had been together all that while." These reunions are rendered with a quiet precision that avoids sentimentality. FitzGerald's eye for physical detail—Browne's face "like Charles I. (after decapitation almost)"—gives the letters a documentary quality, while his ear for dialogue preserves the easy intimacy of old companions.

The Pace of Reading and Rereading

FitzGerald's letters are filled with references to books he returns to again and again. He describes Don Quixote as "siempre verde"—always green—and notes that he has just finished "another Reading" of it. Boccaccio, too, is an evergreen: he finds a pencil mark at the end of the volume showing he last read it "nine years ago" aboard his ship. This habit of rereading gives the correspondence a cyclical quality, as FitzGerald measures his life in literary revisits. He contrasts this steady pace with the "accursed 'Eastern Question'" of contemporary politics, which he shuts out by reading Boccaccio's stories as the "lieta Brigata" shut out the plague. The letters thus become a record not only of events but of the deliberate, unhurried rhythm of a reading life.

Readers approaching this volume should attend to the way FitzGerald's voice modulates between the intimate and the offhand. His letters are not polished essays but living documents, full of abrupt shifts in topic and tone. The editor's notes provide context without overwhelming the text, allowing FitzGerald's own words to carry the weight of his friendships, his doubts, and his enduring love of certain books.

FitzGerald’s letters carry that unhurried country evening tone, where one friend muses to another over a shared, half-finished thought. I find the same gentle lingering in Wolfert's Roost, and Miscellanies — Themes and Context, as if both volumes understand that the best company asks nothing of you but a quiet hour and a patient ear.