it has
constantly revisited my memory for these forty-three years; and I was
thinking, the other day, touched me more than any of Beranger's most
beautiful Things. This, however, may be only one of 'Old Fitz's'
Crotchets, as Tennyson and others would call them. {31}

I have been trying again at another Great _Artist's_ work which I never
could care for at all, Goethe's _Faust_, in Hayward's Prose Translation;
Eighth Edition. Hayward quotes from Goethe himself, that, though of
course much of a Poem must evaporate in a Prose Translation, yet the
Essence must remain. Well; I distinguish as little of that Essential
Poetry in the Faust now as when I first read it--longer ago than '_Le Bon
Pasteur_,' and in other subsequent Attempts. I was tempted to think this
was some Defect--great Defect--in myself: but a Note at the end of the
Volume informs me that a much greater Wit than I was in the same
plight--even Coleridge; who admires the perfect German Diction, the
Songs, Choruses, etc. (which are such parts as cannot be translated into
Prose); he also praises Margaret and Mephistopheles; but thinks Faust
himself dull, and great part of the Drama flat and tiresome; and the
whole Thing not a self-evolving Whole, but an unconnected Series of
Scenes: all which are parts that can be judged of from Translation, by
Goethe's own Authority. I find a great want of Invention and Imagination
both in the Events and Characters.

Gervinus' Theory of Hamlet is very staking. Perhaps Shakespeare himself
would have admitted, without ever having expressly designed, it. I
always said with regard to the Explanation of Hamlet's Madness or Sanity,
that Shakespeare himself might not have known the Truth any more than we
understand the seeming Discords we see in People we know best.
Shakespeare intuitively imagined, and portrayed, the Man without being
able to give a reason--_perhaps_--I believe in Genius doing this: and
remain your Inexhaustible Correspondent

E. F.G.

Excuse this very bad writing, which I have gone over 'with the pen of
Correction,' and would have wholly re-written if my Eyes were not
be-glared with the Sun on the River. You need only read the first part
about Donne.

XIII.

[1873.]

DEAR MRS. KEMBLE,

Had you but written your Dublin Address in full, I should have caught you
before you left. As you did not, I follow your Directions, and enclose
to Coutts.

You see which of the three Photos I prefer--and ve