WCP2606

[1]

From F. W. H. Myers

Leckhampton House,

Cambridge.

April 20/94

My dear Wallace

Thankyou much for your very interesting letter¹ of April 15. Unless you tell me to the contrary, I propose to publ ^{in Proc S P R} some of the instances in wh. you distinguish between prenatal [illeg.] & Wiesmannism inheritance² of acquired faculties.³

I have cut for the Arena⁴ man's 'Aedoeology' — a monstrous name! — & may perhaps return to the subject when I have read that —

I may remark that from the special character of the case I can't put it publicly that our own Royal Family speak in a characteristically German way; altho at least in the case of the late Duke of Albany,⁵ they had not [2] learnt German in early youth — the same peculiarity is noticable in some (not all) of the Rothschild family —

I have also noticed ^a characteristically French mode of speech in some English⁶ speaking persons of ^partial French ancestry[.]

Prof Eimer⁷ in a book whose name I forget adduces similar observations with respect to the special dialect of Jena — However I should indeed be impar Congressus Achilli if I attempted to argue on points connected with Origin of Species!⁸

I pass, then, to the soi disant Poe poems — I do admire Poe very much; & I think the poems have in them enough of Poe's _style to render it not incredible that [3] they sh^d. be in some sense the utterances of his delivered spirit. Somewhere I have seen, I think, a more striking — I will not say imitation but repercussion⁹ of Poe I think the also ascribed to his spirit. I think one stanza ran:

No grasp of thine arms can enfold him

He dwells in no temple apart;

The height of the heavens cannot hold him, —

And yet he is here in thy heart; —

He is here & he shall not depart —

So much I far I can follow you cordially — But on the other hand I must say that I do not consider that the Lizzie Doten poems have the indefinable magic of the best Poe poems of Poe, of Annabel Lee, & the few other exquisite matches[.]

And to your challenge to name other short (modern) poems wh. I regard as inferior in concepting language rhyme & rhythm w. reply with a long list. I will mention a few over the page —

All the same, both my wife¹⁰ & I are very grateful for 'Poems of the Inner Life'; —

& I am yours always | F W H Myers¹¹ [signature]

[4]

Tennyson		Browning
	Virgil	parts from Saul
	Vastness	Rabbi ben Ezra
obscure –	The Voice of the Peak	Death in the [illeg.]
A poetical idea –	Sir Galahad	Prospice
	Wages	Grammarian's Funeral
A pretty fancy –	The Voyage	Love among the Ruins &c
	Crossing the Bar
a Parchment written	The Human Cry &c
fragment the same	The Higher Pantheon &c
Rosetti	Willowwood
	The Portrait &c
Swinburne	The Garden of Proserpine	&c
Trench	The Monk & the Bird
W. Morris	Love is enough; which you deemed him
	a sleeping &c
Shelley	Hellas
	When the lamp is shattered &c
Keats	Ode to Autumn &c
Wordsworth	Intimations of Immortality &c
	Ode to Duty Resolution & Independence
	Laodamia 'I have [illeg.] the few'
	The Cuckoo	Mayhem Castle Ode
	The Highland Girl	&c &c