Prospero's Cell: A Guide to the Landscape and Manners of the Island of Corfu (29 page)

The woes of painters: just now I looked out of windows at the time the 2nd were marching by—I having
a full palate & brushes in my hand: whereat Col. Bruce saw me & saluted; & I not liking to make a formillier nod in presence of the hole harmy, I put up my hand to salute,—& thereby transferred all my colors into my hair and whiskers—which I must now wash in Turpentine or shave off.

There is a man in a boat here under the window—who catches fish all & every day with a long 5 pronged fork: a waistcoat & drawers being his dress. Why should I not do the same?

Here’s a bit of news to wind up with. After I had written the letter which encloses this, I heard a great noise and saw 4 carts full of furniture, all being brought into this house—proceeding which disturbed me with fears of being less quiet—seeing that a 6th added to the 5 families in this house, would not add to my peace. So I asked a servant going upstairs what the row was. “It comes from Kozziris,” says the man. “Mrs. K. is going to leave him and come and live here.” I said nothing, but I did not believe it: the Lord forbid such a thing should happen. But when George came, says he “these things are to be sold by auction, for Sig. Kozziris is going to leave his ‘Posto’ as keeper of the prison, and they are
going to England, where they say Signora Kozziris is of a
familia grande e ricca assai
—and she will keep him.”

I wish you were here for a day, at least today.… I have been wondering if on the whole the being influenced to an extreme by everything in natural or physical life, i.e., atmosphere, light, shadow, and all the varieties of day and night,—is a blessing or the contrary—and the end of my speculations has been that “things must be as they may,” and the best is to make the best of what happens.

I should however have added “quiet and repose” to my list of influences, for at this beautiful place there is just now perfect quiet, except only a dim hum of myriad ripples 500 feet below me, all round the giant rocks which rise perpendicularly from the sea—which sea, perfectly calm and blue stretches right out westward unbrokenly to the sky, cloudless that, save a streak of lilac cloud on the horizon. On my left is the convent of Paleokastrizza, and happily, as the monkey had functions at 2 a.m. they are all fast asleep now and to my left is one of the many peacock-tail-hued bays here, reflecting the vast red cliffs and their crowning roofs of Lentish Prinari, myrtle and sage—far above them—higher and higher, the immense rock of St. Angelo rising into the air, on whose summit the old castle still is seen a ruin, just 1,400 feet above the water. It half seems to me
that such life as this must be wholly another from the drumbeating bothery frivolity of the town of Corfu, and I seem to grow a year younger every hour. Not that it will last. Accursed picnic parties with miserable scores of asses male and female are coming tomorrow, and peace flies—as I shall too …

I returned here on the 22nd—much the better for my stay
.

I wish I was married to a clever good nice fat little Greek girl—and had 25 olive trees, some goats and a house. But the above girl, happily for herself, likes somebody else.

A more gritty vexation is that I have done so little in Greek or in Greek topography this winter. Nevertheless I shall bring away the most part of this Island I fancy.…

Of society—more another thyme. Of balls—of moons—offish and other vegetables—and of all the future and past events as things may be. I have got a piano. Also a carpet. Also a tame redbreast: also a hearth rug and two doormats.

About the 20th I finished that last of 60 drawings—all of 10 or 12 guineas each in price—and last week the frames came, and then two day’s insertion of the drawings, measuring and nail knocking, I have made a really remarkable gallery … but I doubt my success in selling the drawings. Cheap photographs are the order of the day now.… Among those who most enjoy seeing what I have done, Sir H. Storks is eminent. His delight in looking over the drawings was very marked—at once he bought one of Jerusalem and one of Corfu. Lady Wolff also examines everything minutely and with an eye evidently used to look at nature heartily. Others will irritate me—Sir C. Sargent to wit—who saw all 60 drawings in 19 minutes, calling over the names of each and saying “£700! why you must give a ball!” Fool! As yet I have sold £120 worth—but have not received one farthing—for great people generally suppose that art ists gnaw their colors and brushes for food.…

Last Sunday I insisted (as Sir C. Sargent and Wolff wanted me to walk) on not pottering to the one-gun battery—which is like walking up and down Rotten Row—so we walked round Potamo; it was one of the most lovely of afternoons, and the color and the scenery were enough to delight a dead man. These two live ones however never once looked at or spoke of it: their talk was of money and politics only and made me sick for the three hours.

My life here has gone on very sklombionbiously on the whole—though I go out very little, not being, as you know, of a gregarious nature … Sir Henry Storks very often asks me to dine on Sunday, and I find the evening there very agreeable:—he is so full of anecdote and information that you would suppose he had nothing to do but flâner all his life—instead of being soldier, governor, and what not. Heaps of Gonfiati continue to rush about here at intervals: a surprising duchess came to my rooms 2 days ago—(M – )—though I don’t think she looked at anything very much. But the people whose acquaintance has most delighted me are the Shelley’s—who are here in a yott. Think of my music to “O world, O life, O time!”—Shelley’s words—being put down in notes by Shelley’s own son! At the present I have pulled down my Eggzibission, but my principal effort just now is towards the production of 24 views to illustrate the Ionian Islands.

The sklimjimfiousness of the situation increases: Sir H. Drummond Wolff has been gone and bought 2 of my drawings—and Captain Stocker is to buy another, so that I shall have enough tin to pay rent and shut up house for 8 weeks or thereabouts. Whereupon, I shall first make some studies of what Lady Young used to call “Awnge trees” and then I shall go to Paxo.

There was an old person of Paxo

Which complained when the fleas bit his back so,

But they gave him a chair.

And impelled him to swear,

Which relieved that old person of Paxo.

The farther I go from Corfu—the more I look back to the delight its beautiful quiet has so long given me, and I am by no means approaching the filth and horror and noise of London life with a becoming spirit.

I want you to write to Lord Palmerstone to ask him to ask the Queen to ask the King of Greece to give me a “place.” As I never asked anything of you before, I think I may rely on your doing this for me. I wish the place to be created a-purpos for me, and the title to be
with permission to wear a fool’s cap (or mitre)—3 pounds of butter yearly and a little pig,—and a small donkey to ride on. Please don’t forget all this, as I have set my heart on it.

Thunderstorms and violent squalls make life disgusting: add also that a gas company has turned up all the streets for pipes, and as I fall into the beastly trenches, I can say truly “you have piped unto me, but
I have not danced.”… Goodbye, my last furniture is going. I shall sit upon an eggcup and eat my breakfast with a pen.…

I hope you got a letter from me just before I left Corfu—of which place I am now cut adrift, though I cannot write the name without a sort of pang.

Notes on the Letters

 
Letter No 1.
The Ascension festa is still celebrated where Lear painted it; on the flat top of a hill out side the town of Corfu. Though it has lost much of its colorfulness, it still preserves some of its old features: dancing, lambs roasting on spits and a pil grimage to the little church of Ascension.

Yannina was then part of Albania, which itself was the domain of Ali Pasha.

 
Letter No 3.
One of the happy acquisitions of Lear in Corfu was Giorgio Kokali who was to remain his faithful servant and friend until his death in San Remo in 1888. The Kokali family escaped from Suli on the Greek mainland and the persecution of Ali Pasha, to Corfu where Giorgio was born. Lear’s letters are full of allusions to his devoted Giorgio who was a source of constant delight as well as of sporadic annoyance to him.

Sir John Young was Lord High Commissioner in the Ionian Islands from 1855 to 1859.

 
Letter No 4.
During the winters of 1856, ’57 and ’58, Lear rented rooms in a house which was in the part of the town then known as Condi Terrace. “Condi Terrace,” writes Lear, “is the “West End’ of Corfu and we are all more or less swells as lives in it.” The house where Lear lived was destroyed during an air raid in 1943.