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Title: Records of Later Life
Author: Kemble, Fanny, 1809-1893
Language: English
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*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Records of Later Life" ***
{Transcriber's note:
The author's spelling and hyphenation are inconsistent, and have not been
changed except in the case of obvious typographical errors, which are
listed at the end of this e-text. Spellings and accents in foreign
languages are particularly eccentric.}
RECORDS OF LATER LIFE
BY
FRANCES ANN KEMBLE
NEW YORK
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY
1882.
COPYRIGHT, 1882,
BY
HENRY HOLT & CO.
RECORDS OF LATER LIFE.
PHILADELPHIA, October 26th, 1834.
DEAREST MRS. JAMESON,
However stoutly your incredulity may have held out hitherto against the
various "authentic" reports of my marriage, I beg you will, upon receipt
of this, immediately believe that I was married on the 7th of June last,
and have now been a wife nearly five mortal months. You know that in
leaving the stage I left nothing that I regretted; but the utter
separation from my family consequent upon settling in this country, is a
serious source of pain to me....
With regard to what you say, about the first year of one's marriage not
being as happy as the second, I know not how that may be. I had pictured
to myself no fairyland of enchantments within the mysterious precincts
of matrimony; I expected from it rest, quiet, leisure to study, to
think, and to work, and legitimate channels for the affections of my
nature....
In the closest and dearest friendship, shades of character, and the
precise depth and power of the various qualities of mind and heart,
never approximate to such a degree, as to preclude all possibility of
occasional misunderstandings.
"Not e'en the nearest heart, and most our own,
Knows half the reasons why we smile or sigh."
It is impossible that it should be otherwise: for no two human beings
were ever fashioned absolutely alike, even in their gross outward bodily
form and lineaments, and how should the fine and infinite spirit admit
of such similarity with another? But the broad and firm principles upon
which all honorable and enduring sympathy is founded, the love of truth,
the reverence for right, the abhorrence of all that is base and
unworthy, admit of no difference or misunderstanding; and where these
exist in the relations of two people united for life, it seems to me
that love and happiness, as perfect as this imperfect existence affords,
may be realized....
Of course, kindred, if not absolutely similar, minds, do exist; but they
do not often meet, I think, and hardly ever unite. Indeed, though the
enjoyment of intercourse with those who resemble us may be very great, I
suppose the influence of those who differ from us is more wholesome; for
in mere _unison_ of thought and feeling there could be no exercise for
forbearance, toleration, self-examination by comparison with another
nature, or the sifting of one's own opinions and feelings, and testing
their accuracy and value, by contact and contrast with opposite feelings
and opinions. A fellowship of mere accord, approaching to identity in
the nature of its members, would lose much of the uses of human
intercourse and its worth in the discipline of life, and, moreover,
render the separation of death intolerable. But I am writing you a
disquisition, and no one needs it less....
I did read your praise of me, and thank you for it; it is such praise as
I wish I deserved, and the sense of the affection which dictated it, in
some measure, diminished my painful consciousness of demerit. But I
thank you for so pleasantly making me feel the excellence of moral
worth, and though the picture you held up to me as mine made me blush
for the poor original, yet I may strive to become more like your
likeness of me, and so turn your praise to profit. Those who love me
will read it perhaps with more satisfaction than my conscience allows me
to find in it, and for the pleasure which they must derive from such
commendation of me I thank you with all my heart.
What can I tell you of myself? My life, and all its occupations, are of
a sober neutral tint. I am busy preparing my Journal for the press. I
read but little, and that of old-fashioned kinds. I have never read
much, and am disgracefully ignorant: I am looking forward with delight
to hours of quiet study, and the mental hoards in store for me. I am
busy preparing to leave town; I am at present, and have been ever since
my marriage, staying in the house of my brother-in-law, and feel not a
little anxious to be in a home of my own. But painters, and carpenters,
and upholsterers are dirty divinities of a lower order, not to be moved,
or hastened, by human invocations (or even imprecations), and we must
e'en bide their time.
I please myself much in the fancying of furniture, and fitting up of the
house; and I look forward to a garden, green-house, and dairy, among my
future interests, to each of which I intend to addict myself zealously.
My pets are a horse, a bird, and a black squirrel, and I do not see
exactly what more a reasonable woman could desire. Human companionship,
indeed, at present, I have not much of; but as like will to like, I do
not despair of attracting towards me, by-and-by, some of my own kind,
with whom I may enjoy pleasant intercourse; but you can form no
idea--none--none--of the intellectual dearth and drought in which I am
existing at present.
I care nothing for politics here, ... though I wish this great Republic
well. But what are the rulers and guides of the people doing in England?
I see the abolition of the Peerage has been suggested, but, I presume,
as a bad joke.... If I were a man in England, I should like to devote my
life to the cause of national progress, carried on through party
politics and public legislation; and if I was not a Christian, I think,
every now and then, I should like to shoot Brougham.... You speak of
coming to this country: but I do not think you would like it; though you
are much respected, admired, and loved here.
I have not met Miss Martineau yet, but I am afraid she is not likely to
like me much. I admire her genius greatly, but have an inveterate
tendency to worship at all the crumbling shrines, which she and her
employers seem intent upon pulling down; and I think I should be an
object of much superior contempt to that enlightened and clever female
Radical and Utilitarian.
I was introduced to Mrs. Austin some years ago, and she impressed me
more, in many ways, than any of the remarkable women I have known. Her
husband's constant ill-health kept her in a state of comparative
seclusion, and deprived London society of a person of uncommon original
mental power and acquired knowledge; in most respects I thought her
superior to the most brilliant female members of the society of my day,
of which her daughter, Lucy Gordon, was a distinguished ornament.
Once too, years ago, I passed an evening with Lady Byron, and fell in
love with her for quoting the axiom which she does apply, though she did
not invent it--"To treat men as if they were better than they are, is
the surest way to _make_ them better than they are:"--and whenever I
think of her I remember that.
I congratulate you on your acquaintance with Madame von Goethe: to know
any one who had lived intimately with the greatest genius of this age,
and one of the greatest the world has produced, seems to me an immense
privilege.
Your letter is dated July--how many things are done that you then meant
to do?
I am just now seeing a great deal of Edward Trelawney; he traveled with
us last summer when we went to Niagara, and professing a great regard
for me, told me, upon reading your "notice" of me, that he felt much
inclined to write to you and solicit your acquaintance....
Good-bye, and God bless you; write to me when the spirit prompts you,
and believe me always
Yours very truly,
F. A. B.
[My long experience of life in America presents the ideas and
expectations with which I first entered upon it in an aspect at once
ludicrous and melancholy to me now. With all an Englishwoman's
notions of country interests, duties, and occupations; the village,
the school, the poor, one's relations with the people employed on
one's place, and one's own especial hobbies of garden, dairy, etc.,
had all been contemplated by me from a point of view which, taken
from rural life in my own country, had not the slightest resemblance
to anything in any American existence.
Butler Place--or as I then called it, "The Farm," preferring that
homely, and far more appropriate, though less distinctive
appellation, to the rather pretentious title, which neither the
extent of the property nor size and style of the house
warranted--was not then our own, and we inhabited it by the kind
allowance of an old relation to whom it belonged, in consequence of
my decided preference for a country to a town residence.
It was in no respect superior to a second-rate farm-house in
England, as Mr. Henry Berkeley told a Philadelphia friend of ours,
who considered it a model country mansion and rural residence and
asked him how it compared with the generality of "country places" in
England.
It was amply sufficient, however, for my desires: but not being
mine, all my busy visions of gardening and green-house improvement,
etc., had to be indefinitely postponed. Subsequently, I took great
interest and pleasure in endeavoring to improve and beautify the
ground round the house; I made flower-beds and laid out
gravel-walks, and left an abiding mark of my sojourn there in a
double row of two hundred trees, planted along the side of the
place, bordered by the high-road; many of which, from my and my
assistants' combined ignorance, died, or came to no good growth. But
those that survived our unskillful operations still form a screen of
shade to the grounds, and protect them in some measure from the dust
and glare of the highway.
Cultivating my garden was not possible. My first attempt at
cultivating my neighbors' good-will was a ludicrous and lamentable
failure. I offered to teach the little children of my gardener and
farmer, and as many of the village children as liked to join them,
to read and write; but found my benevolent proposal excited nothing
but a sort of contemptuous amazement. There was the village school,
where they received instruction for which they were obliged and
willing to pay, to which they were accustomed to go, which answered
all their purposes, fulfilled all their desires, and where the small
students made their exits and their entrances without bob or bow,
pulling of forelock, or any other superstitious observance of
civilized courtesy: my gratuitous education was sniffed at alike by
parents and progeny, and of course the whole idea upon which I had
proffered it was mistaken and misplaced, and may have appeared to
them to imply an impertinent undervaluing of a system with which
they were perfectly satisfied; of the conditions of which, however,
I was entirely ignorant then. These people and their children wanted
nothing that I could give them. The "ladies" liked the make of my
gowns, and would have borrowed them for patterns with pleasure, and
this was all they desired or required from me.
On the first 4th of July I spent there, being alone at the place, I
organized (British fashion) a feast and rejoicing, such as I thought
should mark the birthday of American Independence, and the expulsion
of the tyrannical English from the land. I had a table set under the
trees, and a dinner spread for thirty-two guests, to which number
the people on the two farms, with children and servants, amounted.
Beer and wine were liberally provided, and fireworks, for due
honoring of the evening; and though I did not take "the head of the
table" (which would have been a usurpation), or make speeches on the
"expulsion of the British," I did my best to give my visitors "a
good time"; but succeeded only in imposing upon them a dinner and
afternoon of uncomfortable constraint, from which the juniors of the
party alone seemed happily free. Neither the wine nor beer were
touched, and I found they were rather objects of moral reprobation
than of material comfort to my Quaker farmer and his family, who
were all absolute temperance people; he, indeed, was sorely
disinclined to join at all in the "festive occasion," objecting to
me repeatedly that it was a "shame and a pity to waste such a fine
day for work in doing nothing"; and so, with rather a doleful
conviction that my hospitality was as little acceptable to my
neighbors as my teaching, I bade my guests farewell, and never
repeated the experiment of a 4th of July Celebration dinner at
Butler Place.
Of all my blunders, however, that which I made with regard to the
dairy was the most ludicrous. Understanding nothing at all of the
entirely independent position of our "farmer"--to whom, in fact, the
dairy was rented, as well as the meadows that pastured the
cattle--and rather dissatisfied at not being able to obtain a daily
fresh supply of butter for our home consumption, I went down to the
farm-house, and had an interview with the dairymaid; to whom I
explained my desire for a small supply of fresh butter daily for our
breakfast table. But words are faint to express her amazement at the
proposition; the butter was churned regularly in large quantities
twice a week, and the necessary provision for our household being
set aside and charged to us, the remainder was sent off to market
with the rest of the farm produce, and there disposed of to the
public in general. Philadelphia butter had then a high reputation
through all the sea-board States, where it was held superior to that
of all other markets; it was sold in New York and Baltimore, and
sent as far as Boston as a welcome present, and undoubtedly not
churned oftener than twice a week. Fresh butter every morning! who
ever heard the like? Twice-a-week butter not good enough for
anybody! who ever dreamt of such vagaries? The young woman was quiet
and Quakerly sober, in spite of her unbounded astonishment at such a
demand; but when, having exhausted my prettiest vocabulary of
requests and persuasions, and, as I thought, not quite without
effect, I turned to leave her, she followed me to the door with this
parting address: "Well--anyhow--don't thee fill theeself up with the
notion that I'm going to churn butter for thee more than twice a
week." She probably thought me mad, and I was too ignorant to know
that to "bring" a small quantity of butter in the enormous churn she
used was a simple impossibility: nor, I imagine, was she aware that
any machine of lesser dimensions was ever used for the purpose. I
got myself a tiny table-churn, and for a little while made a small
quantity of fresh butter myself for our daily breakfast supply; but
soon weaned of it, and thought it not worth while--nobody cared for
it but myself, and I accepted my provision of market butter twice a
week, with no more ado about the matter, together with the
conclusion that the dairy at Butler Place would decidedly not be one
of its mistress's hobbies.
Of any charitable interest, or humane occupation, to be derived from
the poverty of my village neighbors, I very soon found my
expectation equally vain. Our village had no _poor_--none in the
deplorable English acceptation of that word; none in the too often
degraded and degrading conditions it implies. People poorer than
others, comparatively poor people, it undoubtedly had--hard workers,
toiling for their daily bread; but none who could not get well-paid
work or find sufficient bread; and the abject element of ignorant,
helpless, hopeless pauperism, looking for its existence to charity,
and substituting alms-taking for independent labor, was unknown
there. As for "visiting" among them, as technically understood and
practiced by Englishwomen among their poorer neighbors, such a
civility would have struck mine as simply incomprehensible; and
though their curiosity might perhaps have been gratified by making
acquaintance with my various (to them) strange peculiarities, I
doubt even the amusement they might have derived from them being
accepted as any equivalent for what would have seemed the strangest
of them all--my visit.
A similar blessed exemption from the curse of pauperism existed in
the New England village of Lenox, where I owned a small property,
and passed part of many years. Being asked by my friends there to
give a public reading, it became a question to what purpose the
proceeds of the entertainment could best be applied. I suggested
"the poor of the village," but, "We have no poor," was the reply,
and the sum produced by the reading was added to a fund which
established an excellent public library; for though Lenox had no
paupers, it had numerous intelligent readers among its population.
I have spoken of the semi-disapprobation with which my Quaker farmer
declined the wine and beer offered him at my 4th of July festival.
Some years after, when I found the men employed in mowing a meadow
of mine at Lenox with no refreshment but "water from the well," I
sent in much distress a considerable distance for a barrel of beer,
which seemed to me an indispensable adjunct to such labor under the
fervid heat of that summer sky; and was most seriously expostulated
with by my admirable friend, Mr. Charles Sedgwick, as introducing
among the laborers of Lenox a mischievous need and deleterious
habit, till then utterly unknown there, and setting a pernicious
example to both employers and employed throughout the whole
neighborhood. In short, my poor barrel of beer was an offense to the
manners and morals of the community I lived in, and my meadow was
mowed upon cold "water from the well"; of which indeed the water was
so delicious, that I often longed for it as King David did for that
which, after all, he would not drink, because his mighty men had
risked their lives in procuring it for him.[1]
[1] In writing thus, I do not mean to imply that the abuse of
intoxicating liquors, or the vice of drunkenness were then
unknown in America. The national habits of the present day would
suggest that such a change (albeit in the space of fifty years)
would surpass the rapidity of movement of even that most rapidly
changing nation. But the use of either beer or wine at the
tables of the Philadelphians, when I first lived among them, was
quite exceptional. There was a small knot of old-fashioned
gentlemen (very like old-fashioned Englishmen they were), by
whom good wine was known and appreciated; especially certain
exquisite Madeira, of the Bingham and Butler names, the like of
which it was believed the world could not produce; but this was
Olympian nectar, for the gods alone; and the usual custom of the
best society, at the early three-o'clock dinner, was
water-drinking. Nor had the immense increase of the German
population then flooded Philadelphia with perennial streams from
innumerable "lager beer" cellars and saloons: the universal
rule, at the time when these letters were written, was absolute
temperance; the exception to it, a rare occasional instance of
absolute intemperance.
Very many fewer than fifty years ago, a celebrated professional
English cricketer consulted, in deep dudgeon, a medical
gentleman upon certain internal symptoms, which he attributed
entirely to the "damned beastly cold water" which had been the
sole refreshment in the Philadelphia cricket-field, and which
had certainly heated his temper to a pitch of exasperation which
made it difficult for the medical authority appealed to, to keep
his countenance during the consultation.
I need not say that, under the above state of things, no
provision was made for what I should call domestic or household
drunkenness in American families. Beer, or beer money, was not
found necessary to sustain the strength of footmen driving about
town on a coach-box for an hour or two of an afternoon, or
valets laying out their masters' boots and cravats for dinner,
or ladies'-maids pinning caps on their mistresses' heads, or
even young housemaids condemned to the exhausting labor of
making beds and dusting furniture. The deplorable practice of
_swilling_ adulterated malt liquor two or three times a day,
begun in early boy and girlhood among English servants, had not
in America, as I am convinced it has with us, laid the
foundation for later habits of drinking in a whole class of the
community, among whom a pernicious inherited necessity for the
indulgence is one of its consequences; while another, and more
lamentable one, is the wide-spread immorality, to remedy (and if
possible prevent) which is the object of the institution of the
Girls' Friendly Society, and similar benevolent
associations--none of which I am persuaded will effectually
fulfill their object, until the vicious propensity to drink
ceases to be fostered in the kitchens and servants' halls of our
most respectable people.
To English people, the character and quality of my "mowers" would
seem astonishing enough; at the head of them was the son of a much
respected New England judge, himself the owner of a beautiful farm
adjoining my small estate, which he cultivated with his own hands--a
most amiable, intelligent, and refined man, a gentleman in the
deepest sense of the word, my very kind neighbor and friend, whose
handsome countenance certainly expressed unbounded astonishment at
my malt liquor theory applied to his labor and that of his
assistants.]
PHILADELPHIA, November 27th, 1837.
MY DEAR H----,
If in about a month's time you should grumble and fall out with me for
not writing, you will certainly be in some degree justified; for I think
it must be near upon three weeks since I wrote to you, which is a sin
and a shame. To say that I have not had time to write is nonsense, for
in three weeks there are too many days, hours, and minutes, for me to
fancy that I _really_ had not had sufficient leisure, yet it has almost
seemed as if I had not. I have been constantly driving out to the farm,
to watch the progress of the painting, whitewashing, etc., etc.: in town
I have been engaging servants, ordering china, glass, and furniture,
choosing carpets, curtains, and house linen, and devoutly studying all
the time Dr. Kitchener's "Housekeeper's Manual and Cook's Oracle." You
see, I have been careful and troubled about many things, and through
them all you have been several thorns in both my sides; for I thought of
you perpetually, and knew I ought to write to you, and wanted and wished
to do so--and didn't; for which pray forgive me.
I want to tell you two circumstances about servants, illustrative of the
mind and manners of that class of persons in this country. A young woman
engaged herself to me, as lady's-maid, immediately before my marriage;
she had been a seamstress, and her health had been much injured by
constantly stooping at her sedentary employment. I took her into my
service at a salary of £25 a year. She had little to do; I took care
that every day she should be out walking for at least an hour; she had
two holidays a week, all my discarded wardrobe, and every kindness and
attention of every sort that I could bestow upon her, for she was very
gentle and pleasant to me, and I liked her very much. A short time ago,
she gave me warning; the first reason she assigned for doing so was that
she didn't think she should like living in the country, but finally it
resolved itself into this--that she could not bear _being a servant_.
She told me that she had no intention of seeking any other situation,
for that she knew very well that after mine she could find none that she
would like, but she said the sense of entire independence was necessary
to her happiness, and she could not exist any longer in a state of
"_servitude_." She told me she was going to resume her former life, or
rather, as I should say, her former process of dying, for it was
literally that; she took her wages, and left me. She was very pretty and
refined, and rejoiced in the singular Christian name of Unity.[2]
[2] A lady's-maid was quite an unusual member of a household in
America, at this time; I remember no lady in Philadelphia who then
had such an attendant: it is not impossible that the singularity of
her service, and therefore apparently anomalous character of her
position, may have helped to disgust my maid Unity with her
situation. Probably the influence of Quaker modes of thought, and
feeling, and habits of life (even among such of the community as
were not "friends"--technically so called), had produced the
peculiarities which characterized the Philadelphian society of that
day, and made people among whom I lived strange to me--as I to them.
The other instance of domestic manners in these parts was furnished me
by a woman whom I engaged as cook; terms agreed upon, everything
settled: two days after, she sent me word that she had "_changed her
mind_,"--that's all--isn't it pleasant?...
My dear H----, you half fly into a rage with me all across the Atlantic,
because I tell you that I hope ere long to see you; really that was not
quite the return I expected for what I thought would be agreeable news
to you; however, hear further.... If I am alive next summer, I hope to
spend three months in England: one with my own family and Emily
Fitzhugh: one in Scotland; and one with you, if you and Mrs. Taylor
_please_.... I have been obliged to give up riding, for some time ago my
horse fell with me, and though I was not at all hurt, I was badly
frightened; so I trot about on my feet, and drive to and from town and
the farm in a little four-wheeled machine called here a wagon.
The other day, for the first time, I explored my small future domain,
which is bounded, on the right, by the high-road; on the left, by a not
unromantic little mill-stream, with bits of rock, and cedar-bushes, and
dams, and, I am sorry to say, a very picturesque, half-tumbled-down
factory; on the north, by fields and orchards of our neighbors, and
another road; and on the south, by a pretty, deep, shady lane, running
from the high-road to the above-mentioned factory.... I think the extent
of our _estate_ is about three hundred acres. A small portion of it,
perhaps some seventy acres, lies on the other side of the high-road.
Except a kitchen-garden, there is none that deserves the name: no
flower-beds, no shrubberies, no gravel-walks. A large field, now planted
with maize, or Indian corn, is on one side of an avenue of maple-trees
that leads to the house; on the other is an apple-orchard. There is
nothing that can call itself a lawn, though coarse grass grows all round
the house. There are four pretty pasture meadows, and a very pretty
piece of woodland, which, coasting the stream and mill-dam, will, I
foresee, become a favorite haunt of mine. There is a farm-yard, a
cider-press, a pond, a dairy, and out-houses, and adjuncts innumerable.
I have succeeded, after difficulties and disasters manifold, in engaging
an apparently tolerably decent staff of servants; the house is freshly
painted and clean, the furniture being finished with all expedition, the
carpets ready to lay down; next week I hope to send our household out,
and the week after I sincerely hope we shall transfer ourselves thither,
and I shall be in a home of my own.
Miss Martineau is just now in Philadelphia: I have seen and conversed
with her, and I think, were her stay long enough to admit of so
agreeable a conclusion, we might become good friends. It is not
presumptuous for me to say that, dear H----, because, you know, a very
close degree of friendship may exist where there is great disparity of
intellect. Her deafness is a serious bar to her enjoyment of society,
and some drawback to the pleasure of conversing with her, for, as a man
observed to me last night, "One feels so like a fool, saying, 'How do
you do?' through a speaking-trumpet in the middle of a drawing-room;"
and unshoutable commonplaces form the staple of all drawing-room
conversation. They are giving literary parties to her, and balls to one
of their own townswomen who has just returned from abroad, which makes
Philadelphia rather gayer than usual; and I have had so long a fast from
dissipation that I find myself quite excited at the idea of going to a
dance again.
I toil on, copying my Journal, and one volume of it is already printed;
but now that the object of its publication is gone, I feel rather
disgusted at the idea of publishing it at all. You know what my Journal
always was, and that no word of it was ever written with the fear of the
printer's devil before my eyes, and now that I have become careless as
to its money value, it seems to me a mere mass of trivial egotism....
When I sold it, it was an excellent, good book, for I thought it would
help to make a small independence for my dear Dall; now she is gone, and
it is mere trash, but I have sold it....
My country life will, I hope, be one of study, and I pray and believe,
of quiet happiness. I drove out to the farm yesterday, and walked nearly
four miles, through meadows and lanes and by-roads, and over plowed
fields, and found mill-streams and bits of picturesque rock, and pretty
paths to be explored at further length on horseback hereafter.... I have
one very great pleasure almost in contemplation; I think it probable
that my friend, Miss Sedgwick, will visit Philadelphia this winter. If
she does, I am sure she will remain a short time here, which will be a
great delight to me.... I wish to have no more _acquaintance_--that is a
pure waste of time: I do not wish to know any one whom, if opportunity
served, I should not desire to make my friend, as well as my visitor. I
have begun learning book-keeping by double entry, and find it
unspeakably tiresome; indeed, nothing in it engages my attention but
various hypothetical cases of Loss of Ships and Cargoes (as per invoice,
so and so, and so and so); Bankruptcies, with so much in the pound for
creditors; Dissolutions of partnership, with estimates of joint
property, or calculations of profit and loss; Insurances and
fire-catastrophes; Divisions of capital invested in failing securities,
or unlucky speculations; instead of attending to all which in their
purely business aspect, my imagination flies off to the dramatic,
passionate, human element involved in such accidents, and I think of all
manner of plays and novels, instead of "Cash Accounts," to be extracted
therefrom....
Good-bye, dearest H----.
Ever affectionately yours,
F. A. B.
BRANCHTOWN, May 1st, 1835.
DEAREST EMILY,
Reflecting upon the loss I have sustained in the death of my dear Dall,
you exclaim, "How difficult it is to realize that life has become
eternity, hope is become certainty! How strange, how impossible, it
seems to conceive a state of existence without expectation, and where
all is fulfillment!" I have marked under the word "_impossible_,"
because such a belief is literally impossible to my mind; the sense of
activity, of desire for, and aiming at, and striving after something
better than what I am, is so essential a portion of the idea of
happiness to me that I absolutely can conceive of no happiness but in
the attempt at, and consciousness of, progress. The state where that
hope did not exist, and where the spiritual energies were not presented
with deeper and higher objects of attainment, would be no state of
enjoyment to me. I cannot imagine heaven without inexhaustible means of
increasing knowledge and excellence.... Perhaps in that state, dear
Emily, we shall be able to find out how a mummy of the days of Memnon
should have preserved in its dead grasp a living germ for 3000 years....
[This last sentence referred to a striking fact, which Miss Fitz Hugh's
uncle, Mr. William Hamilton, told us, of a bulb found in the sarcophagus
of a mummy, which was planted, and actually began to germinate and
grow.]
BRANCHTOWN, May 27th, 1835.
MY DEAREST H----,
... It is curious that in a comparatively inactive state of life, the
sense of the infinite business _of living_ has become far more vivid to
me than it ever was before; existence seems so abounding in duties, in
objects of interest and energy, in means of excellence and
pleasure--happiness, I ought rather to say,--the immense and important
happiness of constant endeavor after improvement.... Dear H----, my
letter was interrupted here yesterday by a visitor. I will join my
thread, and go on with a few words which I have this moment read in
Hayward's Appendix to Goethe's "Faust." When Goethe had to bear the
death of his only son, he wrote to Zelter thus: "Here then can _the
mighty conception of duty_ alone hold us erect--I have no other care
than to keep myself in equipoise. The body _must_, the spirit _will_,
and he who sees a necessary path prescribed to his will has no need to
ponder much." The first part of this is noble; but I am not going to do
what I used to quarrel so much with you for doing--fill my letters with
quotations, or even make disquisitions of them; at any rate, till I have
answered your last.
I am extremely vexed at all the trouble you and Emily have taken about
my picture: for the artist himself (Mr. Sully, of Philadelphia) is not
satisfied with it, and I am sure would be rather sorry than glad that it
were exhibited. That artist is a charming person; and I must tell you
how he proceeded about that picture. When your letter came,
acknowledging the receipt of it, he asked how you were satisfied: I told
him the truth, and what you had written on the subject of the likeness.
He did not appear stupidly annoyed, but sorry for your disappointment,
and told me that he had been from the first dissatisfied with it as a
likeness, himself. He pressed upon my acceptance for you a little
melancholy head of me, an admirable and not too much flattered likeness;
but as he had given that to his wife, of whom I am very fond, of course
I would not deprive her of it; and there the matter rested. But when,
some time after, some pictures he had painted for us were paid for, he
steadfastly refused the price agreed upon for yours, because it had not
satisfied him _himself_. He said that had you been even less pleased
with it, he should not _therefore_ have refused the money; but his own
conscience, he added, bore witness to the truth of your objections, and
when that was the case, he invariably acted in the same way, and
declined to receive payment for what he didn't consider worth it. As he
is our friend, we could not press the money upon him; but we have got
him to undertake a portrait of Dr. Mease, and I have added sundry grains
more to my regard for him. As to the likeness, had you seen me about
three months after my marriage, you would have thought better of it.
[The portrait in question, painted for my friend, and now, I believe,
still at Ardgillan Castle, was one of six that my friend, Mr. Sully,
painted of me at various times, the best likeness of them all being one
that he took of me in the part of Beatrice, for which I did not sit.]
You talk of "nailing me down," to send me to the Academy, and the
expression brought a sudden shuddering recollection to my mind of the
dismal night I passed in Boston _packing up our stage clothes_ in dear
Dall's bedroom _while she was lying in her coffin_. I know not why your
words recalled that miserable circumstance to me, and all the mingled
feelings that accompanied such an occupation in such company....
You ask me if I do not love the country as I used to do. Indeed I do;
for, like all best good things, it seems the lovelier for near and
intimate acquaintance. Yet the country here, and this place in
particular, is not to me what it might be, and will be yet. This place
is not ours, and during the life of an old Miss B. will not belong to
us: this, of course, keeps my spirit of improvement in check, and
indeed, even if it were made over to us, with signing and sealing and
all due legal ceremonies, I should still feel some delicacy in making
wholesale alterations in a place which an elderly person, to whom it has
belonged, remembers such as it is for many years.
The absolute absence of all taste in matters of ornamental cultivation
is lamentably evident in the country dwellings of rich and poor alike,
as far as I have yet seen in this neighborhood. No natural beauty seems
to be perceived and taken advantage of, no defect hidden or adorned;
proximity to the road, for obvious purposes of mere convenience, seems
to have been the one idea in the selection of building sites; and
straight, ungraveled paths, straight rows of trees, straight strips of
coarse grass, straight box borders, dividing straight narrow
flower-beds, the prevailing idea of a garden; together with a deplorable
dearth of flowers, shrubberies, ornamental trees, and everything that
really deserves the name.
Good-bye, and God bless you.
Ever, as ever, yours,
F. A. B.
[The country between the Wissihiccon and Pennipack--two small
picturesque streams flowing, the one into the Schuylkill, the other
into the Delaware--is a prosperous farming region, with a pleasingly
varied, undulating surface, the arable land diversified with
stretches of pretty wild woodland, watered by numerous small
water-courses, and divided by the main highroad, once the chief
channel of communication between New York and Philadelphia.
Six miles from the latter city, at a village called Branchtown, and
only a few yards from the road, stood my home; and it would be
difficult for those who do not remember "the old York road," as it
was called, and the country between that and Germantown, in the days
when these letters were written, to imagine the change which nearly
fifty years have produced in the whole region.
No one who now sees the pretty populous villadom which has grown up
in every direction round the home of my early married years--the
neat cottages and cheerful country houses, the trim lawns and bright
flower-gardens, the whole well laid out, tastefully cultivated, and
carefully tended suburban district, with its attractive dwellings,
could easily conceive the sort of abomination of desolation which
its aspect formerly presented to eyes accustomed to the finish and
perfection of rural English landscape.
Between five and six miles of hideous and execrable turnpike road,
without shade, and aridly detestable in the glare, heat, and dust of
summer, and almost dangerously impassable in winter, made driving
into Philadelphia an undertaking that neither love, friendship, nor
pleasure--nothing but inexorable business or duty--reconciled one
to. The cross roads in every direction were a mere succession of
heavy, dusty, sandy pitfalls, or muddy quagmires, where, on foot or
on horseback, rapid progress was equally impossible. The whole
region, from the very outskirts of the city to the beautiful crest
of Chestnut Hill, overlooking its wide expanse of smiling foreground
and purple distant horizon, was then, with its mean-looking
scattered farm-houses and huge ungainly barns (whatever may have
been its agricultural merits), uninteresting and uninviting in all
the human elements of the landscape, dreary in summer and dismal in
winter, and absolutely void of the civilized cheerful charm that now
characterizes it.
_Per contra_, it then was _country_, and now is suburb: there were
woods and lanes where now there are stations and railroads, and the
solitude of rural walks and rides instead of the "continuation of
the city" which has now cut up and laid waste the old Stenton
estate, and threatens the fields of Butler Place and the lovely and
beloved woods of Champlost, and will presently convert that whole
neighborhood into a mere appendage of Philadelphia, wildly driven
over by city rowdies with fast-trotting teams or mad, gigantic
daddy-long-legs-looking sulkies, and perambulated by tramps
pretending poverty and practicing theft.]
BRANCHTOWN, 1835.
DEAR MRS. JAMESON,
I have not written to you since I received a most interesting and
delightful letter of yours from Saxe-Weimar, containing an account of
your stay in Goethe's house. My answering you at all is a movement of
gratitude for your kindness in remembering me in the midst of such
surroundings, and nothing but my faith in your desire to hear something
of me would induce me to send into the world of romantic and poetic
associations you are now inhabiting, any dispatch from this most prosaic
and commonplace world of my adoption.
I think, however, it will please you to hear that I am well and happy,
and that my whole state of life and being has assumed a placid,
tranquil, serene, and even course, which, after the violent excitements
of my last few years, is both agreeable and wholesome. I should think,
ever since my coming out on the stage, I must have lived pretty much at
the rate of three years in every one--I mean in point of physical
exertion and exhaustion. The season of my repose is, however, arrived,
and it seems almost difficult to imagine that, after beginning life in
such a tumult of action and excitement, the remainder of my years is
lying stretched before me, like a level, peaceful landscape, through
which I shall saunter leisurely towards my grave. This is the pleasant
probable future: God only knows what changes and chances may sweep
across the smiling prospect, but at present, according to the
calculations of mere human foresight, none are likely to arise. As I
write these words, I _do_ bethink me of one quarter from which our
present prosperous and peaceful existence might receive a shock--the
South. The family into which I have married are large slaveholders; our
present and future fortune depend greatly upon extensive plantations in
Georgia. But the experience of every day, besides our faith in the great
justice of God, forbids dependence on the duration of the mighty abuse
by which one race of men is held in abject physical and mental slavery
by another. As for me, though the toilsome earning of my daily bread
were to be my lot again to-morrow, I should rejoice with unspeakable
thankfulness that we had not to answer for what I consider so grievous a
sin against humanity.
I believe many years will not pass before this cry ceases to go up from
earth to heaven. The power of opinion is working silently and strongly
in the hearts of men; the majority of people in the North of this
country are opposed to the theory of slavery, though they tolerate its
practice in the South: and though the natural selfishness with which men
cling to their interests is only at present increasing the vigilance of
the planters in guarding their property and securing their prey, it is a
property which is crumbling under their feet, and a prey which is
escaping from their grasp; and perhaps, before many years are gone by,
the black population of the South will be free, and we comparatively
poor people--Amen! with all my heart....
I had hoped to revisit England before the winter, ... but this cannot
be, and I shall certainly not see England this year, if ever again.... I
think women in England are gradually being done justice to, and many
sources of goodness, usefulness, and happiness, that have hitherto been
sealed, are opened to them now, by a truer and more generous public
feeling, and more enlightened views of education.
I saw a good deal of Harriet Martineau, and liked her very much indeed,
in spite of her radicalism. She is gone to the South, where I think she
cannot fail to do some good, if only in giving another impulse to the
stone that already topples on the brink--I mean in that miserable matter
of slavery.
Yours very truly,
F. A. B.
[No more striking instance can be given of the rapidity of movement,
if not of progress, of American public opinion, than the so-called
"Woman's Rights" question. When these letters were written, scarcely
a whisper had made itself heard upon this and its relative subjects:
the "Female Suffrage" was neither demanded nor desired; Margaret
Fuller had not made public her views upon the condition of "Woman in
the Nineteenth Century"; the different legislatures of the different
States had not found it expedient to enact statutes securing to
married women the independent use of their own property, and women's
legal disabilities were, in every respect, much the same in the
United States as in the mother country. Now, however, so great and
rapid has been the change of public opinion in this direction in
America, that in some of the States married women may not only
possess and inherit property over which their husbands have no
control, but their personal earnings have been so secured to them
that neither their husbands nor their husbands' creditors can touch
them; while at the same time, strange to say, their husbands are
still liable for their support, and answerable for any debts they
may contract, and men must pay these independent ladies' milliners'
bills, if all these additional _rights_ have not brought with them
some additional sense of justice, honesty, and old-fashioned right
and wrong.
This amazing consideration for the property claims of women is not,
however, without its possible advantages for the magnanimous sex
bestowing it; and unprincipled speculators, gamblers, in pursuits
calling themselves business, but in reality mere games of chance,
may now secure themselves from the ruin they deserve, and have
incurred, by settling upon their wives large sums of money, or
estates, which, by virtue of the women's independent legal tenure of
property, effectually enable their husbands to baffle the claims of
their creditors. Every use has its abuse. The melancholy process of
divorce, by which an insupportable yoke may be dissolved with the
sanction of the law, is achieved in America with a facility and upon
grounds inadmissible for that purpose in England. Pennsylvania has
long followed the German practice in this particular, allowing
divorce, in cases of non-cohabitation for a space of two years, to
either party claiming it upon those grounds; in some of the Western
States the ease with which divorces are obtained is untrammeled by
any condition but that of a sufficient term of residence, often a
very brief one, within the State jurisdiction.
Women lecture upon all imaginable subjects, and are listened to,
whether treating of the right of their sex to the franchise, or the
more unapproachable theme of its degraded misery in the public
prostitution legally practiced in all the cities of this great New
World, or the frantic vagaries of their theory of so-called Free
Love. They are professors in colleges, practicing physicians; not
yet, I believe, ordained clergywomen (the Quakers admit the female
right to preach without the ceremony of laying on of hands), or
admitted members of the bar; but it is difficult to imagine society
existing at all under more absolute conditions of freedom for its
female members than the women of the United States now enjoy. It is
a pity that the use sometimes made of so many privileges forms a
powerful argument to reasonable people in other countries against
their possession.[3]]
[3] I have learned since writing the above that in some of the
Western States and cities--among others, I believe,
Chicago--women are now practicing lawyers. A "legal lady" made
at one time, I know not how successfully, an attempt to become a
received member of the profession in Washington. In this, as in
all other matters, the several States exercise uncontrolled
jurisdiction within their own borders, and the Western States
are naturally inclined to favor by legislation all attempts of
this description; they are essentially the "New World." In the
Eastern States European traditions still influence opinion, and
women are not yet admitted members of the New York bar.
BRANCHTOWN, 1835.
DEAR MRS. JAMESON,
It is so very long since I have written to you, that I almost fear my
handwriting and signature may be strange to your eyes and memory alike.
As, however, silence can hardly be more than a _passive_ sin--a sin of
omission, not commission--I hope they will not be unwelcome to you. I am
desirous you should still preserve towards me some of your old
kindliness of feeling, for I wish to borrow some of it for the person
who will carry this letter over the Atlantic--a very interesting young
friend of mine, who begged of me, as a great favor, a letter of
introduction to you.... I think you will find that had she fallen in
your way _unintroduced_, she would have recommended herself to your
liking. [The lady in question was Miss Appleton, of Boston, afterwards
Mrs. Robert Mackintosh, whose charming sister, cut off by too sad and
premature a doom, was the wife of the poet Longfellow.]
And now, what shall I tell you? After so long a silence, I suppose you
think I ought to have plenty to say, yet I have not. What should a woman
write about, whose sole occupations are eating, drinking, and sleeping;
whose pleasures consist in nursing her baby, and playing with a brace of
puppies; and her miseries in attempting to manage six republican
servants--a task quite enough to make any "Quaker kick his mother," a
grotesque illustration of demented desperation, which I have just
learned, and which is peculiarly appropriate in these parts? Can I find
it in my conscience, or even in the nib of my pen, to write you all
across the great waters that my child has invented two teeth, or how
many pounds of tea, sugar, flour, etc., etc., I distribute weekly to the
above-mentioned household of unmanageables? To write, as to speak, one
should have something to say, and I have literally nothing, except that
I am well in mind, body, and estate, and hope you are so too.
Our summer has been detestable: if America had the grace to have fairies
(but they don't cross the Atlantic), I should think the little Yankee
Oberon and Titania had been by the ears together: such wintry squalls!
such torrents of rain! The autumn, however, has been fine, and we spent
part of it in one of the most charming regions imaginable.
A "Happy Valley" indeed!--the Valley of the Housatonic, locked in by
walls of every shape and size, from grassy knolls to bold basaltic
cliffs. A beautiful little river wanders singing from side to side in
this secluded Paradise, and from every mountain cleft come running
crystal springs to join it; it looks only fit for people to be baptized
in (though I believe the water is used for cooking and washing
purposes.)
In one part of this romantic hill-region exists the strangest worship
that ever the craving need of religious excitement suggested to the
imagination of human beings.
I do not know whether you have ever heard of a religious sect called the
Shakers; I never did till I came into their neighborhood: and all that
was told me before seeing them fell short of the extraordinary effect of
the reality. Seven hundred men and women, whose profession of religion
has for one of its principal objects the extinguishing of the human race
and the end of the world, by devoting themselves and persuading others
to celibacy and the strictest chastity. They live all together in one
community, and own a village and a considerable tract of land in the
beautiful hill country of Berkshire. They are perfectly moral and
exemplary in their lives and conduct, wonderfully industrious,
miraculously clean and neat, and incredibly shrewd, thrifty and
money-making.
Their dress is hideous, and their worship, to which they admit
spectators, consists of a fearful species of dancing, in which the
whole number of them engage, going round and round their vast hall
or temple of prayer, shaking their hands like the paws of a dog
sitting up to beg, and singing a deplorable psalm-tune in brisk jig
time. The men without their coats, in their shirt-sleeves, with
their lank hair hanging on their shoulders, and a sort of loose
knee-breeches--knickerbockers--have a grotesque air of stage Swiss
peasantry. The women without a single hair escaping from beneath their
hideous caps, mounted upon very high-heeled shoes, and every one of them
with a white handkerchief folded napkin-fashion and hanging over her
arm. In summer they all dress in white, and what with their pale,
immovable countenances, their ghost-like figures, and ghastly, mad
spiritual dance, they looked like the nuns in "Robert the Devil,"
condemned, for their sins in the flesh, to post-mortem decency and
asceticism, to look ugly, and to dance like ill-taught bears.
The whole exhibition was at once so frightful and so ludicrous, that I
very nearly went off into hysterics, when I first saw them.
We shall be in London, I hope, in the beginning of May next year, when I
trust you will be there also, when I will edify you with all my new
experiences of life, in this "other world," and teach you how to dance
like a Shaker. Be a good Christian, forgive me, and write to me again,
and believe me,
Yours truly,
F. A. B.
BRANCHTOWN, June 27th, 1835.
MY DEAREST H----,
... Did I tell you that the other day our farmer's wife sent me word
that she had seen me walking in the garden in a gown that she had liked
very much, and wished I would let her have the pattern of it? This
message surprised me a little, but, upon due reflection, I carried the
gown down to her with an agreeable sense of my own graceful
condescension. My farmer's wife gave me small thanks, and I am sure
thought I had done just what I ought....
I have resumed my riding, and am beginning to feel once more like my
unmarried self. I may have told you that I had some time ago a pretty
thoroughbred mare, spirited and good tempered too; but she turned out
such an inveterate stumbler that I have been obliged to give up riding
her, as, of course, my neck is worth more to me even than my health. So,
this morning I have been taking a most delectable eight miles' trot upon
a huge, high, heavy carriage-horse, who all but shakes my soul out of
my body, but who is steady upon his legs, and whom I shall therefore
patronize till I can be more _genteelly_ mounted with safety.
You bid me study Natural Philosophy ... and ask me what I read; but
since my baby has made her entrance into the world, I neither read,
write, nor cast up accounts, but am as idle, though not nearly as well
dressed, as the lilies of the field; my reading, if ever I take to such
an occupation again, is like, I fear, to be, as it always has been,
rambling, desultory, and unprofitable....
Come, I will take as a sample of my studies, the books just now lying on
my table, all of which I have been reading lately: Alfieri's Life, by
himself, a curious and interesting work; Washington Irving's last book,
"A Tour on the Prairies," rather an ordinary book, upon a not ordinary
subject, but not without sufficiently interesting matter in it too; Dr.
Combe's "Principles of Physiology"; and a volume of Marlowe's plays,
containing "Dr. Faustus." I have just finished Hayward's Translation of
Goethe's "Faust," and wanted to see the old English treatment of the
subject. I have read Marlowe's play with more curiosity than pleasure.
This is, after all, but a small sample of what I read; but if you
remember the complexion of my studies when I was a girl at Heath Farm,
and read Jeremy Taylor and Byron together, I can only say they are still
apt to be of the same heterogeneous quality. But my brain is kept in a
certain state of activity by them, and that, I suppose, is one of the
desirable results of reading. As for writing anything, or things--good
gracious! no, I should think not indeed! It is true, if you allude to
the mechanical process of caligraphy, here is close to my elbow a big
book, in which I enter all passages I meet with in my various readings
tending to elucidate obscure parts of the Bible: I do not mean disputed
points of theology, mysteries, or significations more or less mystical,
but simply any notices whatever which I meet with relating to the
customs of the Jews, their history, their language, the natural features
of their country; and so bearing upon my reading of passages in the Old
Testament. I read my Bible diligently every day, and every day wish more
and more earnestly that I understood what I was reading; but Philip does
not come my way, or draw near and join himself to me as I sit in my
wagon.
I mean this with regard to the Old Testament only, however. The life of
Christ is that portion of the New alone vitally important to me, and
that, thank God, is comparatively comprehensible.
I have just finished writing a long and vehement treatise against negro
slavery, which I wanted to publish with my Journal, but was obliged to
refrain from doing so, lest our fellow-citizens should tear our house
down, and make a bonfire of our furniture--a favorite mode of
remonstrance in these parts with those who advocate the rights of the
unhappy blacks.
You know that the famous Declaration of Independence, which is to all
Americans what Moses commanded God's Law to be to the Israelites, begins
thus: "Whereas all men are born free and equal." Somebody, one day,
asked Jefferson how he reconciled that composition of his to the
existence of slavery in this country; he was completely surprised for a
moment by the question, and then very candidly replied, "By God! I never
thought of that before."
To proceed with a list of my _works_. Here is an article on the writings
of Victor Hugo, another on an American book called "Confessions of a
Poet," a whole heap of verses, among which sundry doggerel epistles to
you; and last, not least, the present voluminous prose performance for
your benefit.
These are some of my occupations: then I do a little housekeeping; then
I do, as the French say, a little music; then I waste a deal of time in
feeding and cleaning a large cageful of canary-birds, of which, as the
pleasure is mine, I do not choose to give the rather disgustful trouble
to any one else; strolling round the garden, watching my bee-hives,
which are full of honey just now; every chink and cranny of the day
between all this desultoriness, is filled with "the baby"; and _study_,
of every sort (but that most prodigious study of any sort, _i.e._, "the
baby,") seems further off from me than ever....
I am looking forward with great pleasure to a visit we intend paying
Miss Sedgwick in September. She is a dear friend of mine, and I am very
happy when with her.
And where will you be next spring, wanderer? for we shall surely be in
England. [Miss St. Leger and Miss Wilson were wintering at Nice for the
health of the latter.] Will you not come back from the ends of the earth
that I may not find the turret-chamber empty, and the Dell without its
dear mistress at Ardgillan?
Dear H----, I shall surely see you, if I live, in less than a year, when
we shall have so much to say to each other that we shall not know where
to begin, and had better not begin, perhaps; for we shall know still
less where to stop.
Ever affectionately yours,
F. A. B.
BRANCHTOWN, October 31st, 1835.
MY DEAREST H----,
I wonder where this will find you, and how long it will be before it
does so. I have been away from home nearly a month, and on my return
found a long letter from you waiting for me.... I cannot believe that
women were intended to suffer as much as they do, and be as helpless as
they are, in child-bearing. In spite of the third chapter of Genesis, I
cannot believe [the beneficent action of ether had not yet mitigated the
female portion of the primeval curse] that all the agony and debility
attendant upon the entrance of a new creature into life were ordained;
but rather that both are the consequences of our many and various abuses
of our constitutions, and infractions of God's natural laws.
The mere items of tight stays, tight garters, tight shoes, tight
waistbands, tight arm-holes, and tight bodices,--of which we are
accustomed to think little or nothing, and under the bad effects of
which, most young women's figures are suffered to attain their growth,
both here and in civilized Europe,--must have a tendency to injure
irreparably the compressed parts, to impede circulation and respiration,
and in many ways which we are not aware of, as well as by the more
obvious evils which they have been proved to produce, destroy the health
of the system, affect disastrously all its functions, and must aggravate
the pains and perils of child-bearing.... Many women here, when they
become mothers, seem to lose looks, health, and strength, and are mere
wrecks, libels upon the great Creator's most wonderful contrivance, the
human frame, which, in their instance, appears utterly unfit for the
most important purpose for which He designed it. Pitiable women!
comparatively without enjoyment or utility in existence. Of course, this
result is attributable to many various causes, and admits of plenty of
individual exceptions, but I believe tight-lacing, want of exercise, and
a perpetual inhaling of over-heated atmosphere, to be among the
former.... They pinch their pretty little feet cruelly, which certainly
need no such _embellishment_, and, of course, cannot walk; and if they
did, in the state of compression to which they submit for their beauty's
sake, would suffer too much inconvenience, if not pain, to derive any
benefit from exercise under such conditions....
When one thinks of the tragical consequences of all this folly, one is
tempted to wish that the legislature would interfere in these matters,
and prevent the desperate injury which is thus done to the race. The
climate, which is the general cause assigned for the want of health of
the American women, seems to me to receive more than its due share of
blame. The Indian women, the squaws, are, I believe, remarkable for the
ease with which they bear their children, the little pain they suffer
comparatively, and the rapidity with which they regain their strength;
but I think in matters of diet, dress, exercise, regularity in eating,
and due ventilation of their houses, the Americans have little or no
regard for the laws of health; and all these causes have their share in
rendering the women physically incapable of their natural work, and
unequal to their natural burdens.
What a chapter on American female health I have treated you to!...
Sometimes I write to you what I think, and sometimes what I do, and
still it seems to me it is the thing I have not written about which you
desire to know.... You ask if I am going through a course of
Channing,--not precisely, but a course of Unitarianism, for I attend a
Unitarian Church. I did so at first by accident (is there such a
thing?), being taken thither by the people to whom I now belong, who are
of that mode of thinking and have seats in a church of that
denomination, and where I hear admirable instruction and exhortation,
and eloquent, excellent preaching, that does my soul good.... I am
acquainted with several clergymen of that profession, who are among the
most enlightened and cultivated men I have met with in this country. Of
course, these circumstances have had some effect upon my mind, but they
have rather helped to develop, than positively cause, the result you
have observed....
In reading my Bible--my written rule of life--I find, of course, much
that I have no means of understanding, and much that there are no means
of understanding, matters of faith.... Doctrinal points do not seem to
me to avail much here: how much they may signify hereafter, who can
tell? But the daily and hourly discharge of our duties, the purity,
humanity, and activity of our lives, do avail much here; all that we can
add to our own worth and each other's happiness is of evident, palpable,
present avail, and I believe will prove of eternal avail to our souls,
who may carry hence all they have gained in this mortal school to as
much higher, nobler, and happier a sphere as the just judgment of
Almighty God shall after death promote them to....
I have been for the last two days discharging a most vexatious species
of duty--vexatious, to be sure, chiefly from my own fault. We have a
household of six servants, and no housekeeper (such an official being
unknown in these parts); a very abundant vegetable garden, dairy, and
poultry-yard; but I have been very neglectful lately of all domestic
details of supply from these various sources, and the consequences have
been manifold abuses in the kitchen, the pantry, and the store-room;
and disorder and waste, more disgraceful to me, even, than to the people
immediately guilty of them. And I have been reproaching myself, and
reproving others, and heartily regretting that, instead of Italian and
music, I had not learned a little domestic economy, and how much bread,
butter, flour, eggs, milk, sugar, and meat ought to be consumed per week
in a family of eight persons, not born ogres.... I am sorry to find that
my physical courage has been very much shaken by my confinement. Whereas
formerly I scarcely knew the sensation of fear, I have grown almost
cowardly on horseback or in a carriage. I do not think anybody would
ever suspect that to be the case, but I know it in my secret soul, and
am much disgusted with myself in consequence.... Our horses ran away
with the carriage the other day, and broke the traces, and threatened us
with some frightful catastrophe. I had the child with me, and though I
did not lose my wits at all, and neither uttered sound nor gave sign of
my terror, after getting her safely out of the carriage and alighting
myself I shook from head to foot, for the first time in my life, with
fear; and so have only just attained my full womanhood: for what says
Shakespeare?--
"A woman naturally born to fears."
... God bless you, dearest friend.
I am ever yours affectionately,
F. A. B.
... I was at first a little disappointed that my baby was not a
man-child, for the lot of woman is seldom happy, owing principally, I
think, to the many serious mistakes which have obtained universal sway
in female education. I do not believe that the just Creator intended one
part of his creatures to lead the sort of lives that many women do....
In this country the difficulty of giving a girl a good education is even
greater, I am afraid, than with us, in some respects. I do not think
even accomplishments are well taught here; at least, they seem to me for
the most part very flimsy, frivolous, and superficial, poor alike both
in quality and quantity. More solid acquirements do not abound among my
female acquaintance either, and the species of ignorance one encounters
occasionally is so absolute and profound as to be almost amusing, and
quite curious; while there is, also, quite enough native shrewdness,
worldly acuteness, and smattering of shallow superficial reading, to
produce a result which is worthless and vulgar to a pitiable degree. Of
course there are exceptions to this narrowness and aridity of
intellectual culture, but either they are really rare exceptions, or I
have been especially unfortunate....
My dear Dorothy, this letter was begun three months ago; I mislaid it,
and in the vanity of my imagination, believed that I had finished and
sent it; and lo! yesterday it turns up--a fragment of which the Post
Office is still innocent: and after all, 'tis a nonsense letter, to send
galloping the wild world over after you. It seems hardly worth while to
put the poor empty creature to the trouble of being sea-sick, and going
so far. However, I know it will not be wholly worthless to you if it
brings you word of my health and happiness, both of which are as good as
any reasonable human mortal can expect....
Kiss dear Harriet for me, and believe me,
Very affectionately yours,
F. A. B.
BRANCHTOWN, March 1st, 1836.
DEAREST H----,
Are you conjecturing as to the fate of three letters which you have
written to me from the Continent? all of which I have duly received, I
speak it with sorrow and shame; and certainly 'tis no proof that my
affection is still the same for you, dear H----, that I have not been
able to rouse myself to the effort of writing to you.... You will ask if
my baby affords me no employment? Yes, endless in prospect and theory,
dear H----; but when people talk of a baby being such an "occupation,"
they talk nonsense, such an _idleness_, they ought to say, such an
interruption to everything like reasonable occupation, and to any
conversation but baby-talk....
You ask of my society. I have none whatever: we live six miles from
town, on a road almost impracticable in the fairest as well as the
foulest weather, and though people occasionally drive out and visit me,
and I occasionally drive in and return their calls, and we
semi-occasionally, at rare intervals, go in to the theatre, or a dance,
I have no friends, no intimates, and no society.
Were I living in Philadelphia, I should be but little better off; for
though, of course, there, as elsewhere, the materials for good society
exist, yet all the persons whom I should like to cultivate are
professionally engaged, and their circumstances require, apparently,
that they should be so without intermission; and they have no time, and,
it seems, but little taste for social enjoyment.
There is here no rich and idle class: there are two or three rich and
idle individuals, who have neither duties nor influence peculiar to
their position, which isolates without elevating them; and who, as might
be expected in such a state of things, are the least respectable members
of the community. The only unprofessional man that I know in
Philadelphia (and he studied, though he does not practice, medicine) who
is also a person of literary taste and acquirement, has lamented to me
that all his early friends and associates having become absorbed in
their several callings, whenever he visits them he feels that he is
diverting them from the labor of their lives, and the earning of their
daily bread.
No one that I belong to takes the slightest interest in literary
pursuits; and though I feel most seriously how desirable it is that I
should study, because I positively languish for intellectual activity,
yet what would under other circumstances be a natural pleasure, is apt
to become an effort and a task when those with whom one lives does not
sympathize with one's pursuits.... Without the stimulus of example,
emulation, companionship, or sympathy, I find myself unable to study
with any steady purpose; however, in the absence of internal vigor, I
have borrowed external support, and on Monday next I am going to begin
to read Latin with a master.... Any pursuit to which I am compelled will
be very welcome to me, and I have chosen that in preference to German,
as mentally more bracing, and therefore healthier.
I have already described what calls itself my garden here--three acres
of kitchen-garden, and a quarter of an acre of flower-garden, divided
into three straight strips, bordered with mangy box, and separated from
the vegetables by a white-washed paling. I am the more provoked with
this, because there are certain capabilities about the place; money is
spent in keeping it up, and three men, entitled gardeners, are
constantly at work on it; and it is not want of means, but of taste and
knowledge and care, that makes it what it is. The piece of coarse grass
dignified by the name of a lawn, in front of the house, is mowed twice
in the whole course of the summer; of course, during the interval, it
looks as if we were raising a crop of poor hay under our drawing-room
windows. However, the gardening of Heaven is making the whole earth
smile just now; and the lights and shadows of the sky, and wild flowers
and verdure of the woods are beneficently beautiful, and make my spirit
sing for joy, in spite of the little that men have done here gratefully
to improve Heaven's gifts. This is not audacious, for Adam and Eve
landscape-gardened in Paradise, you know; and I wish some little of
their craft were to be found among their descendants hereabouts.
My paper is at an end: do I tell you "nothing of my mind and soul"?
What, then, is all this that I have been writing? Is it not telling you
more than if I were to attempt to detail to you methodically,
circumstantially (and perhaps unconsciously quite falsely), the state of
either?...
I am expecting a visit from Dr. Channing, whom I love and revere. After
reading a sermon of his before going to bed the other night, I dreamt
towards morning that I was in Heaven, from whence I was literally pulled
down and awakened to get up and go to church, which, you will allow, was
a ridiculous instance of bathos and work of supererogation. But, dear
me, that dream was very pleasant! Rising, and rising, and rising, into
ever-increasing light and space, not with effort and energy, as if
flying, but calmly and steadily soaring, as if one's _property_ was to
float upwards, _mounting eternally_. I send you my dream across the
Atlantic; there is something of my "mind and soul" in that.
God bless you, dear.
Ever affectionately yours,
F. A. B.
[After my first introduction to Dr. Channing, I never was within
reach of him without enjoying the honor of his intercourse and the
privilege of hearing him preach. I think he was nowhere seen or
heard to greater advantage than at his cottage near Newport, in the
neighborhood of which a small church afforded the high advantage of
his instruction to a rural congregation, as different as possible
from the highly cultivated Bostonians who flocked to hear him
whenever his state of health permitted him to preach in the city.
King's Chapel, as it originally was called, dating back to days when
the colony of Massachusetts still acknowledged a king, was dedicated
at first to the Episcopal service of the Church of England, and I
believe the English Liturgy in some form was the only ritual used in
it. But when I first went to America, Boston and the adjacent
College, Cambridge, were professedly Unitarian, and the service in
King's Chapel was such a modification of the English Liturgy as was
compatible with that profession: a circumstance which enabled its
frequenters to unite the advantage of Dr. Channing's eloquent
preaching with the use of that book of prayer and praise unsurpassed
and unsurpassable in its simple sublimity and fervid depth of
devotion.
I retain a charmingly comical remembrance of the last visit I paid
Dr. Channing, at Newport; when, wishing to take me into his garden,
and unwilling to keep me waiting while he muffled himself up,
according to his necessary usual precautions, he caught up Mrs.
Channing's bonnet and shawl, and sheltering his eyes from the glare
of the sun by pulling the bonnet well down over his nose, and
folding the comfortable female-wrap (it was a genuine woman's-shawl,
and not an ambiguous plaid of either or no sex) well over his
breast, he walked round and round his garden, in full view of the
high-road, discoursing with the peculiar gentle solemnity and
deliberate eloquence habitual to him, on subjects the gravity of
which was in laughable contrast with his costume, the absurdity of
which only made me smile when it recurred to my memory, after I had
taken leave of him and ceased hearing his wise words.]
MY DEAREST HARRIET,
... There is one interest and occupation of an essentially practical
nature, such as would give full scope to the most active energies and
intellect, in which I am becoming passionately interested,--I mean the
cause of the Southern negroes.
We live by their labor; and though the estate is not yet ours (elder
members of the family having a life interest in it), it will be our
property one day, and a large portion of our income is now derived from
it.
I was told the other day, that the cotton lands in Georgia, where our
plantation is situated, were exhausted; but that in Alabama there now
exist wild lands along the Mississippi, where any one possessing the
negroes necessary to cultivate them, might, in the course of a few
years, realize an enormous fortune; and asked, jestingly, if I should be
willing to go thither. I replied, in most solemn earnest, that I would
go with delight, if we might take that opportunity of at once placing
our slaves upon a more humane and Christian footing. Oh, H----! I can
not tell you with what joy it would fill me, if we could only have the
energy and courage, the humanity and justice, to do this: and I believe
it might be done.
Though the blacks may not be taught to read and write, there is no law
which can prevent one from living amongst them, from teaching them
all--and how much that is!--that personal example and incessant personal
influence can teach. I would take them there, and I would at once
explain to them my principles and my purpose: I would tell them that in
so many years I expected to be able to free them, but that those only
should be liberated whose conduct I perceived during that time would
render their freedom prosperous to themselves, and safe to the
community. In the mean time I would allot each a profit on his labor; I
would allow them leisure and property of their own; I would establish a
Savings Bank for them, so that at the end of their probation, those into
whom I had been able to instill industrious and economical habits should
be possessed of a small fund wherewith to begin the world; I would
remain there myself always, and, with God's assistance and blessing, I
do believe a great good might be done. How I wish--oh, how I wish we
might but make the experiment! I believe in my soul that this is our
peculiar duty in life. We all have some appointed task, and assuredly it
can never be that we, or any other human beings were created merely to
live surrounded with plenty, blessed with every advantage of worldly
circumstance, and the ties of happy social and domestic relations,--it
cannot be that anybody ought to have all this, and yet do nothing for
it; nor do I believe that any one's duties are bounded by the
half-animal instincts of loving husband, wife, or children, and the
negative virtue of wronging no man: besides we _are_ villainously
wronging many men.... What would I not give to be able to awaken in
others my own feeling of this heavy responsibility!
I have just done reading Dr. Channing's book on slavery; it is like
everything else of his, written in the pure spirit of Christianity, with
judgment, temper and moderation, yet with abundant warmth and energy. It
has been answered with some cleverness, but in a sneering, satirical
tone, I hear. I have not yet read this reply, but intend doing so;
though it matters little what is said by the defenders of such a system:
truth is God, and must prevail.
Enough of this side of the water. Your wanderings abroad, dear H----,
created a feeling of many mingled melancholies in my mind: in the first
place, you are so very, very far off, the dead seem scarcely further;
perhaps they indeed are nearer to us, for I believe we are surrounded by
"a cloud of witnesses." Your description of those southern lands is sad
to me. I have always had a passionate yearning for those regions where
man has been so glorious, and Nature is so still. I thought of your
various emotions at my uncle's grave at Lausanne. Life seems to me so
strange, that the chain of events which forms even the most commonplace
existence has, in its unexpectedness, something of the marvelous.
I rejoice that dear Dorothy is benefited by your traveling, and pray
for every blessing on you both. As to the possibility of my coming to
England and not finding you there, my dear H----; I can say nothing and
you must do what you think right.
God bless you.
I am ever yours,
F. A. B.
[The ideas and expectations, with which I entered upon my Northern
country life, near Philadelphia, were impossible of fulfillment, and
simply ridiculous under the circumstances. Those with which I
contemplated an existence on our Southern estate, or the new one
suggested in this letter, in the State of Alabama, were not only
ridiculously impossible, but would speedily have found their only
result in the ruin, danger, and very probably death, of all
concerned in the endeavor to realize them.
The laws of the Southern States would certainly have been
forestalled by the speedier action of lynch-law, in putting a stop
to my experimental abolitionism. And I am now able to understand,
and appreciate, what, when I wrote this letter, I had not the
remotest suspicion of,--the amazement and dismay, the terror and
disgust, with which such theories as those I have expressed in it
must have filled every member of the American family with which my
marriage had connected me; I must have appeared to them nothing but
a mischievous madwoman.]
BRANCHTOWN, March 28th, 1836.
MY DEAREST H----,
You say that thinking of you makes me fancy that I have written to you:
not quite so, for no day passes with me without many thoughts of you,
and I certainly am well aware that I do not write to you daily.... But,
dearest H----, once for all, believe this: whether I am silent
altogether, or simply unsatisfactory in my communications, I love you
dearly, and hope for a happier intercourse with you,--if never
here--hereafter, in that more perfect state, where, endowed with higher
natures, our communion with those we love will, I believe, be infinitely
more intimate than it can be here, subject as it is to all the
imperfections of our present existence.
You laugh at me for what you consider my optimism, my incredulity with
regard to the evils of this present life, and seem to think I am making
out a case of no little absurdity in ascribing so much of what we suffer
to ourselves. But I do not think my view of the matter is altogether
visionary. Even from disease and death, those stern and inexorable
conditions of our present state, spring, as from bitter roots, some of
the sweetest virtues of which our nature is capable; and I do not
believe it to be the great and good God's appointment that the earth
should be loaded as it is with barren suffering and sorrow. And as to
believing that women were intended to lead the helpless, ailing, sickly,
unprofitable, and unpleasurable lives, which so many of them seem to
lead in this country, I think it would be a direct libel on our Creator
to profess such a creed....
I walked into town, the other day, a distance of only six miles, and was
very much tired by the expedition: to be sure I am not a good walker,
riding being my _natural_ exercise, in which I persist, in spite of
stumbling and shying horses, high-roads three feet deep in dust, and
by-roads three feet deep in mud, at one and the same time. Taking
exercise has become, instead of a pleasure, a sometimes rather irksome
duty to me; a lonely ride upon a disagreeable horse not being a great
enjoyment; but I know that my health has its reward, and I persevere....
The death of an elderly lady puts us in possession of our property,
which she had held in trust during her life.... Increase of fortune
brings necessarily increased responsibility and occupation, and for that
I am not sorry, though the circumstance of the death of this relation,
of whom I knew and had seen but little, has been fruitful in
disappointments to me.... In the first place, I have been obliged to
forego a visit from my delightful friend, Miss Sedgwick, who was coming
to spend some time with me; this, in my lonely life, is a real
privation. In the next place, our proposed voyage to England is
indefinitely postponed, and from a thing so near as to be reckoned a
certainty (for we were to have sailed the 20th of next month), it has
withdrawn itself into the misty regions of a remote futurity, of the
possible events of which we cannot even guess....
We have had a most unprecedented winter; the cold has been dreadful, and
the snow, even now, in some places, lies in drifts from three to five
feet deep. There is no spring here; the winter is with us to-day, and
to-morrow the heat will be oppressive; and in a week everything will be
like summer, without the full-fledged foliage to temper the glare.
I have taken up your letter to see if there are any positive questions
in it, that I may not this time be guilty of not replying to you while I
answer it....
I do not give up my music quite, but generally, after dinner, pass an
hour at the piano, not so much from the pleasure it now gives me, as
from the conviction that it is wrong to give up even the smallest of
our resources; and also because, as wise Goethe says, "We are too apt to
suffer the mean things of life to overgrow the finer nature within us,
therefore it is expedient that at least once a day we read a little
poetry, or sing a song, or look at a picture." Upon this principle, I
still continue to play and sing sometimes, but no longer with any great
pleasure to myself.
Good-bye, dearest H----.... Oh, I should like to see you once again!
I am ever yours,
F. A. B.
BRANCHTOWN, July 31st, 1836.
MY DEAREST H----,
You ask me if I do not write anything; yes, sometimes reviews, for which
I am solicited. It is an occupation, but returns neither reputation, the
articles being anonymous; nor remuneration, as they are also gratuitous;
and I do it without much interest, simply not to be idle. As to anything
of more literary pretension, I never shall attempt it again: I do not
think nature intended mothers to be authors of anything but their
babies; because, as I told you, though a baby is not an "occupation," it
is an absolute hindrance to everything else that can be called so. I
cannot read a book through quietly for mine; judge, therefore, how
little likely I am to write one....
You ask me if I take no pleasure in gardening; and suggest the cutting
of carnations and raising of lettuce, as wholesome employments for me.
The kitchen-garden is really the only well-attended-to horticulture of
this place. The gardener raises early lettuces and cauliflowers in
frames, which remunerate him, either by their sale in market or by
prizes that he may obtain for them. His zeal in floriculture is less; as
you will understand, when I tell you that, discovering some early
violets blowing along a sunny wall in the kitchen-garden, and seizing
joyfully upon them, with reproaches to him for not having let me know
that there were any, he replied--"letting fall a lip of much
contempt,"--"Well, ma'am, I quite forgot them violets. You see, them
flowers is such frivolous creatures." Profane fellow!
I spend generally about three hours a day pottering in my garden, but,
alas! my gardening consists chiefly of slaughter. The heat of the
climate generates the most enormous quantity of insects, for the
effectual prevention or destruction of which the gardeners in these
parts have yet discovered no means. The consequence is that, in spite of
my daily executions, every shrub and every flower-bush is fuller of
_bugs_ (so they here indiscriminately term these displeasing beasts)
than of leaves. They begin by _eating up_ the roses bodily (these are
called distinctively, rose-bugs; of course, they have a pet name, but
it's Latin, and is only used by their familiars); they then attack and
devour the large white lilies, and honeysuckles; finally, they spread
themselves impartially all over the garden, and having literally
stripped that bare, are now attacking the fruit. It is an insect which I
have never seen in England; a species of beetle, much smaller, but not
unlike the cockchafer we are familiar with. Their number is really
prodigious, and they seem to me to propagate with portentous rapidity,
for every day, in spite of the sweeping made by the gardener and myself,
they appear as thick as ever. But for the dread of their coming in still
greater force next year, if we do not continue our work of
extermination, I should almost be tempted to give it up in despair.
I have a few flower-beds that I have had made, and keep under my own
especial care; also some pretty baskets, which I have had expressly
manufactured with exceeding difficulty; these, filled with earth, and
planted with roses, I have placed on the stumps of some large trees,
which were cut down last spring and form nice rustic pedestals; and thus
I contrive to produce something of an English garden effect. But the
climate is against me. The winter is so terribly cold that nothing at
all delicate can stand it unless cased up in straw-matting and manure.
We have, therefore, no evergreen shrubs, such as the lauristinus, and
Portugal and variegated laurels, which form our English garden
shrubberies; nor do they seem to replace these by the native growth of
their own woods, the kalmias and rhododendrons, but principally by hardy
evergreens of the fir and pine species, which are native and abundant
here. Then, with scarcely any interval of spring to moderate the sudden
extreme change, the winter becomes summer--summer, without its screen of
thick leaves to shelter one from the blazing, scorching heat. Everything
starts into bloom, as it were, at once; and, instead of lasting even
their proverbially short date of beauty, the flowers vanish as suddenly
as they appeared, under the fierce influence of the heat and the
devastations of the swarming insects it engenders.
To make up for this, I have here almost an avenue of fine lemon-trees,
in cases; humming-birds, which are a marvel and enchantment to me; and
fire-flies, which are exquisite in the summer evenings.
I have, too, a fine hive of bees, which has produced already this spring
two strong young swarms, whose departure from the parent hive formed a
very interesting event in my novel experiences; especially as one of
the stablemen, who joined the admiring domestic crowd witnessing the
process, proved to be endowed with the immunity some persons have from
the stings of those insects, and was able to take them by handfuls from
the tree where they were clinging, and put them on the stand where the
bee-hive prepared for them was placed. I had read of this individual
peculiarity with the incredulity of ignorance (incomparably stronger
than that of knowledge); but seeing is believing, and when my
fiery-haired Irish groom seized the bees by the handful, of course there
was no denying the fact.
There is a row of large old acacia-trees near the house, inhabited by
some most curious ants, who are gradually hollowing the trees out. I can
hear them at work as I stand by the poor vegetables, and the grass all
round is literally whitened with the fine sawdust made by these
hard-working little carpenters. The next phenomenon will be that the
trees will tumble on my head, while I am pursuing my entomological
studies. [To avert this catastrophe, the trees had all to be cut
down].... Dear H----, I never contemplated sacrificing my child's, or
anybody else's, health to my desire for "doing good." There is a
difference between living all the year round on a rice-swamp, and
retiring during the summer to the pinewood highlands, which are healthy,
even in the hot season; nor am I at all inclined to advocate the neglect
of duties close at hand for quixotical devotion to remote ones. But you
must remember that _we are slave owners_, and live by slave-labor, and
if the question of slavery does not concern us, in God's name whom does
it concern? In my conviction, that is _our_ special concern.... There is
a Convention about to meet at Harrisburg, the seat of Government of this
State, Pennsylvania, for the election of Van Buren, the Democratic
candidate for the Presidency....
The politics of this country are in a strange, uncertain state, but I
have left myself no room to enlarge upon them.
I have just finished reading Judge Talfourd's "Ion," and Lamartine's
"Pélérinage" to Palestine. God bless you, dearest H----.
Ever yours,
F. A. B.
[Sydney Smith said that he never desired to live in a hot climate,
as he disliked the idea of processions of ants traversing his bread
and butter. The month of June had hardly begun in the year 1874,
when I was residing close to the home of my early married life,
Butler Place, when the ants appeared in such numbers in the
dining-room sideboards, closets, cupboards, etc., that we were
compelled to isolate all cakes, biscuits, sugar, preserves, fruit,
and whatever else was kept in them, by placing the vessels
containing all such things in dishes of water--moats, in fact, by
which the enemy was cut off from these supplies. Immediately to
these succeeded swarms of fire-flies, beautiful and wonderful in
their evening apparition of showers of sparks from every bush and
shrub, and after sunset rising in hundreds from the grass, and
glittering against the dark sky as if the Milky Way had gone mad and
taken to dancing; but even these shining creatures were not pleasant
in the house by day, where they were merely like ill-shaped ugly
black flies. These were followed by a world of black beetles of
every size and shape, with which our room was alive as soon as the
lights were brought in the evening. Net curtains, and muslin
stretched over wooden frames, and fixed like blinds in the
window-sashes, did indeed keep out the poor mouthful of stifling air
for which we were gasping, but did not exclude these intolerable
visitors, who made their way in at every crack and crevice and
momentarily opened door, and overran with a dreadful swiftness the
floor of the room in every direction; occasionally taking to the
more agreeable exercise of flying, at which, however, they did not
seem quite expert, frequently tumbling down and struggling by twos
and threes upon one's hair, neck, and arms, and especially attracted
to unfortunate females by white or light-colored muslin gowns, which
became perfect receptacles for them as they rushed and rattled over
the matting. After the reign of the beetles came that of the flies,
a pest to make easily credible the ancient story of the Egyptian
plague. Every picture and looking-glass frame, every morsel of
gilding, every ornamental piece of metal about the rooms, had to be
covered, like the tarts in a confectioner's shop, with yellow gauze;
whatever was not so protected--unglazed photographs, the surface of
oil pictures, necessary memoranda, and papers on one's
writing-table--became black with the specks and spots left by these
creatures. Plates of fly-paper poison disfigured, to but small
purpose, every room; and at evening, by candlelight, while one was
reading or writing, the universal hum and buzz was amazing, and put
one in mind of the--
"Hushed by buzzing night-flies to thy slumber"
of poor King Henry. The walls and ceiling of the servants' offices
and kitchen, which at the beginning of the spring had been painted
white, and were immaculate in their purity, became literally a
yellow-brown coffee color, darkened all over with spots as black as
soot, with the defilement of these torments, of which three and four
dustpanfuls a day would be swept away dead without appreciably
diminishing their number.
These flies accompanied our whole summer, from June till the end of
October. Before, however, the beginning of the latter month, the
mosquitoes made their appearance; and though, owing to the peculiar
dryness of the summer of 1874, they were much less numerous than
usual, there came enough of them to make our days miserable and our
nights sleepless.
These are the common indoor insects of a common summer in this part
of Pennsylvania, to which should be added the occasional visits of
spiders of such dimensions as to fill me with absolute terror; I
have, unfortunately, a positive physical antipathy to these
strangely-mannered animals (the only resemblance, I fear, between
myself and Charles Kingsley), some of whose peculiarities, besides
their infinitely dexterous and deliberate processes for ensnaring
their prey, make them unspeakably repulsive to me,--indeed, to a
degree that persuades me that, at some former period of my
existence, "which, indeed, I can scarcely remember," as Rosalind
says, I must have been a fly who perished by spider-craft.
It is not, however, only in these midland and comparatively warmer
states of North America that this profusion of insect life is found;
the heat of the summer, even in Massachusetts, is more than a match
in its life-engendering force, for the destructive agency of the
winter's cold; and in the woods, on the high hill-tops of Berkshire,
spiders of the most enormous size abound. I found two on my own
place, the extremities of whose legs could not be covered by a large
inverted tumbler; one of these perfectly swarmed with parasitical
small spiders, a most hideous object! and one day, on cutting down a
hollow pine tree, my gardener called me to look at a perfect jet of
white ants, which like a small fountain, welled up from the middle
of the decayed stump, and flowed over it in a thick stream to the
ground. As far north as Lenox, in Berkshire, the summer heat brings
humming-birds and rattlesnakes; and of less deadly, but very little
less disagreeable, serpent-beasts, I have encountered there no fewer
than eight, in a short mile walk, on a warm September morning,
genial even for snakes.
The succession of creatures I have enumerated is the normal
entomology of an average Pennsylvania summer. But there came a year,
a horrible year, shortly before my last return to England, when the
Colorado beetle (_alias_ potato-bug), having marched over the whole
width of the continent, from the far West to the Atlantic
sea-board, made its appearance in the neighborhood of Philadelphia.
These loathsome creatures, varying in size from a sixpence to a
shilling, but rather oval than round in shape, of a pinkish-colored
flesh, covered with a variegated greenish-brown shell, came in such
numbers that the paths in the garden between the vegetable beds
seemed to _swim_ with them, and made me giddy to look at them. They
devoured everything, beginning with the potatoes; and having
devastated the fields and garden, betook themselves to swarming up
the walls of the house, for what purpose they alone could tell--but
didn't. In vain men with ladders went up and scraped them down into
buckets of hot water; they seemed inexhaustible, and filled me with
such disgust that I felt as if I must fly, and abandon the place to
them. I do not think this pest lasted much more than a week; then,
having devoured, they departed, still making towards the sea, and
were described to me by a gentleman who drove along the road, as
literally covering the highway, like a disbanded army. One's
familiar sensations under this visitation were certainly "crawling
and creeping"; it is a great pity that flying might not have been
added to them.]
BRANCHTOWN, Monday, August 29th, 1836.
DEAREST H----,
You are in Italy! in that land which, from the earliest time I can
remember, has been the land of my dreams; and it seems strange to me
that you should be there, and I here; for when we were together the
realities of life, the matter-of-fact interests of every-day existence
always attracted your sympathies more than mine; nor do I remember ever
hearing you mention, with the longing which possessed me, Italy, or the
shores of the Mediterranean.... If, as I believe, there is a special
Providence in "the fall of a sparrow," then your and my whereabouts are
not the result of accidental circumstance, but the providential
appointment of God. Dearest H----, your life's lesson just now is to be
taught you through variety of scene, the daily intercourse of your most
precious friend [Miss Dorothy Wilson], and the beautiful and lofty
influences of the countries in which you are traveling and sojourning:
and mine is to be learnt from a page as different as the chapters of
Lindley Murray's Grammar are different from those of a glorious,
illuminated, old vellum book of legends. I not only believe through my
intuitive instincts, but also through my rational convictions, that my
own peculiar task is the wholesomest and best for me, and though I
might desire to be with you in Italy, I am content to be without you in
America.... How much all separation and disappointment tend to draw us
nearer to God! To me upon this earth you seem almost lost--you, and
those yet nearer and dearer to me than yourself; your very images are
becoming dim, and vague, and blurred in outline to my memory, like faded
pictures or worn-out engravings. I think of you all almost as of the
dead, and the feverish desire to be once more with you and them, from
which I have suffered sometimes, is gradually dying away in my heart;
and now when I think of any of you, my dear distant ones, it is as
folded with me together in our Heavenly Father's arms, watched over by
His care, guarded over by His merciful love, and though my imagination
no longer knows where to seek or find you on earth, I meet you under the
shadow of His Almighty Wings, and know that we are together--now--and
forever.
[To those who know the rate of intercourse between Europe and
America now, these expressions of the painful sense of distance from
my country and friends, under which I suffered, must seem almost
incomprehensible,--now, when to go to Europe seems to most Americans
the easiest of summer trips, involving hardly more than a week's sea
voyage; when letters arrive almost every other day by some of the
innumerable steamers flying incessantly to and fro, and weaving,
like living shuttles, the woof and warp of human communication
between the continents; and the submarine telegraph shoots daily
tidings from shore to shore of that terrible Atlantic, with swift
security below its storms. But when I wrote this to my friend, no
words were carried with miraculous celerity under the dividing
waves; letters could only be received once a month, and from thirty
to thirty-seven days was the average voyage of the sailing packets
which traversed the Atlantic. Men of business went to and fro upon
their necessary affairs, but very few Americans went to Europe, and
still fewer Europeans went to America, to spend leisure, or to seek
pleasure; and American and English women made the attempt still
seldomer than the men. The distance between the two worlds, which
are now so near to each other, was then immense.]
Let me answer your questions, dear H----; though when I strive most
entirely to satisfy you, I seem to have left out the very things you
wish to know....
I am reading Sir Thomas Browne's "Religio Medici." What charming old
English it is! How many fantastical and how many beautiful things there
are in it!
Yesterday I walked down, with a basket of cucumbers and some beautiful
flowers, to Mrs. F----'s, the wife of the Unitarian clergyman whose
church I attend, and who is an excellent and highly valued friend of
mine; and I sat two hours with her and another lady, going through an
interminable discussion on the subject of intellectual gifts: the very
various proportions in which they were distributed, and the measure of
consciousness of superiority which was inevitable, and therefore
allowable, in the possessor of an unusual amount of such endowments....
I wish Mr. and Mrs. F---- lived near me instead of being merely come to
spend a few weeks in this neighborhood.... I do not keep a diary any
more; I do not find chronicling my days helps me to live them, and for
many reasons I have given up my journal. Perhaps I may resume it when we
set out for the South....
We are now altogether proprietors of this place, and I really think, as
I am often told, that it is getting to be prettier and better kept than
any other in this neighborhood. It is certainly very much improved, and
no longer looks quite unlike an English place, but there are yet a
thousand things to be done to it, in the contemplation of which I try to
forget its present mongrel appearance.
Now, dear, I have answered as many of your questions as my paper allows.
Do not, I beseech you, send me back word that my letter was "thoroughly
unsatisfactory."
God bless you.
I am ever your affectionate
F. A. B.
BRANCHTOWN, Wednesday, October 5th.
MY DEAREST H----,
It is a great disappointment to me that I am not going to the South this
winter. There is no house, it seems, on the plantation but a small
cottage, inhabited by the overseer, where the two gentlemen proprietors
can be accommodated, but where there is no room for me, my baby, and her
nurse, without unhousing the poor overseer and his family altogether.
The nearest town to the estate, Brunswick, is fifteen miles off, and a
wretched hole, where I am assured it will be impossible to obtain a
decent lodging for me, so that it has been determined to leave me and
baby behind, and the owner will go with his brother, but without us, on
his expedition to Negroland. As far as the child is concerned, I am well
satisfied; ... but I would undergo much myself to be able to go among
those people. I know that my hands would be in a great measure tied. I
certainly could not free them, nor could I even pay them for their
labor, or try to instruct them, even to the poor degree of teaching them
to read. But mere personal influence has a great efficiency; moral
revolutions of the world have been wrought by those who neither wrote
books nor read them; the Divinest Power was that of One Character, One
Example; that Character and Example which we profess to call our Rule of
life. The power of individual personal qualities is really the great
power, for good or evil, of the world; and it is upon this ground that I
feel convinced that, in spite of all the cunningly devised laws by which
the negroes are walled up in a mental and moral prison, from which there
is apparently no issue, the personal character and daily influence of a
few Christian men and women living among them would put an end to
slavery, more speedily and effectually than any other means whatever.
You do not know how profoundly this subject interests me, and engrosses
my thoughts: it is not alone the cause of humanity that so powerfully
affects my mind; it is, above all, the deep responsibility in which we
are involved, and which makes it a matter of such vital paramount
importance to me.... It seems to me that we are possessed of power and
opportunity to do a great work; how can I not feel the keenest anxiety
as to the use we make of this talent which God has entrusted us with? We
dispose of the physical, mental, and moral condition of some hundreds of
our fellow-creatures. How can I bear to think that this great occasion
of doing good, of dealing justly, of setting a noble example to others,
may be wasted or neglected by us? How can I bear to think that the day
will come, as come it surely must, when we shall say: We once had it in
our power to lift this burden from four hundred heads and hearts, and
stirred no finger to do it; but carelessly and indolently, or selfishly
and cowardly, turned our back upon so great a duty and so great a
privilege.
I cannot utter what I feel upon this subject, but I pray to God to pour
His light into our hearts, and enable us to do that which is right.
In every point of view, I feel that we ought to embrace the cause of
these poor people. They will be free assuredly, and that before many
years; why not make friends of them instead of deadly enemies? Why not
give them at once the wages of their labor? Is it to be supposed that a
man will work more for fear of the lash than he will for the sake of an
adequate reward? As a matter of policy, and to escape personal violence,
or the destruction of one's property, it were well not to urge
them--ignorant, savage, and slavish, as they are--into rebellion. As a
mere matter of worldly interest, it would be wise to make it worth their
while to work with zeal and energy for hire, instead of listlessly
dragging their reluctant limbs under a driver's whip.
Oh, how I wish I was a man! How I wish I owned these slaves! instead of
being supported (disgracefully, as it seems to me) by their unpaid
labor....
You tell me, dear H----, that you are aged and much altered, and you
doubt if I should know you. That's a fashion of speech--you doubt no
such thing, and know that I should know you if your face were as red as
the fiery inside of Etna, and your hair as white as its snowy shoulders.
I have had the skin peeled off the back of my neck with standing in the
sun here, and my whole face and hands are burnt, by constant exposure,
to as fine a coffee-color as you would wish to see of a summer's day.
Yet, after all, I got as sharp a sunstroke on my shoulders, driving on a
coach-box by the side of Loch Lomond once, as could be inflicted upon me
by this American sky. The women here, who are careful, above all things,
of their appearance, marvel extremely at my exposing myself to the
horrors of tanning, freckling, etc.; but with hair and eyes as dark as
mine, a gipsy complexion doesn't signify, and I prefer burning my skin
to suffocating under silk handkerchiefs, sun-bonnets, and two or three
gauze veils, and sitting, as the ladies here do, in the dark till the
sun has declined. I am certainly more like a Red Indian squaw than when
last you saw me; but that change doesn't signify, it's only skin
deep....
You speak of the beauty of the Italian sky, and say that to pass the
mornings with such pictures, and the evenings with such sunsets, is
matter to be grateful for.
I have been spending a month with my friends, the Sedgwicks, in a
beautiful hilly region in the State of Massachusetts; and I never looked
abroad upon the woods and valleys and lakes and mountains without
thinking how great a privilege it was to live in the midst of such
beautiful things. I felt this the more strongly, perhaps, because the
country in my own neighborhood here is by no means so varied and
interesting.
I am glad you are to have the pleasure of meeting your own people
abroad, and thus carrying your home with you: give my kindest love to
them all whenever you see them....
I have not been hot this summer: the weather has been rainy and cold to
a most uncommon degree; and I have rejoiced therefore, and so have the
trees and the grass, which have contrived to look green to the end of
the chapter, as with us....
If I am not allowed to go to the South this winter, it is just possible
that I may spend three months in England.
Good-bye, my dearest H----.
I am ever yours,
F. A. B.
[This was the last letter I wrote to my friend from America this
year; it was decided that I should not go to the South, and so
lonely a winter as I should have had to spend in the country being
rather a sad prospect, it was also decided that I should return to
England, and remain during my temporary widowhood with my own family
in London.
I sailed at the beginning of November, and reached England, after a
frightfully stormy passage of eight and twenty days. I and my
child's nurse were the only women on board the packet, and there
were very few male passengers. The weather was dreadful; we had
violent contrary winds almost the whole time, and one terrific gale
that lasted nearly four days; during which time I and my poor little
child and her nurse were prisoners in the cabin, where we had not
even the consolation of daylight, the skylights being all closely
covered to protect us from the sea, which broke all over the decks.
I begged so hard one day to have the covering removed, and a ray of
daylight admitted, if only for five minutes, that I was indulged,
and had reason to repent it; the sea almost instantly broke the
windows and poured down upon us like Niagara, and I was thankful to
be covered up again as quick as possible in dry darkness.
This storm was made memorable to me by an experience of which I have
read one or two descriptions, by persons who have been similarly
affected in seasons of great peril, and which I have never ceased
regretting that I did not make a record of as soon as possible; but
the lapse of time, though it has no doubt enfeebled, has in no other
way altered, the impressions I received.
The tempest was the first I had ever witnessed, and was undoubtedly
a more formidable one than I have ever since encountered in eighteen
passages across the Atlantic. I was told, after it was over, that
the vessel had sprung its mainmast--a very serious injury to a
sailing ship, I suppose, by the mode in which it was spoken of; and
for three days we were unable to carry any sail whatever for the
fury of the wind.
At the height of the storm, in the middle of a night which my
faithful friend and servant, Margery O'Brien, passed in prayer,
without once rising from her knees, the frightful uproar of the
elements and the delirious plunging and rearing of the convulsed
ship convinced me that we should inevitably be lost. As the vessel
reeled under a tremendous shock, the conviction of our impending
destruction became so intense in my mind, that my imagination
suddenly presented to me the death-vision, so to speak, of my whole
existence.
This kind of phenomenon has been experienced and recorded by persons
who have gone through the process of drowning, and afterwards
recovered; or have otherwise been in imminent peril of their lives,
and have left curious and highly interesting accounts of their
sensations.
I should find it impossible adequately to describe the vividness
with which my whole past life presented itself to my perception; not
as a procession of events, filling a succession of years, but as a
whole--a total--suddenly held up to me as in a mirror, indescribably
awful, combined with the simultaneous acute and almost despairing
sense of _loss_, of _waste_, so to speak, by which it was
accompanied. This instantaneous, involuntary retrospect was followed
by a keen and rapid survey of the religious belief in which I had
been trained, and which then seemed to me my only important
concern....
The tension, physical and mental, of the very short space of time in
which these processes took place, gave way to a complete exhaustion,
in which, strangely enough, I found the sort of satisfaction that a
child does in crooning itself to sleep, in singing, one after
another, every song I could call to memory; and my repertory was a
very numerous one, composed of English, Scotch, Irish, Welsh,
French, German, Italian, and Spanish specimens, which I "chanted
loudly, chanted lowly," sitting on the floor, through the rest of
the night, till the day broke, and my sense of danger passed away,
but not the recollection of the never-to-be-forgotten experience it
had brought to me.
I have often since wondered if any number of men going into action
on a field of battle are thus impressed. Several thousands of human
beings, with the apparition of their past life thus suddenly
confronting them, is not a bad suggestion of the Day of Judgment.
I have heard it asserted that the experience I have here described
was only that of persons who, in the full vigor of life and health,
were suddenly put in peril of immediate death; and that whatever
regret, repentance, or remorse might afflict the last moments of
elderly persons, or persons prepared by previous disease for
dissolution, this species of revelation, by the sudden glare of
death, of the whole past existence was not among the phenomena of
death-beds.
As a curious instance of the very mistaken inferences frequently
drawn from our actions by others, when the storm had sufficiently
subsided to allow of our very kind friend, the captain, leaving his
post of vigilant watch on deck, to come and inquire after his poor
imprisoned female passengers, he congratulated me upon my courage.
"For," said he, "at the very height of the storm, I was told that
you were heard singing away like a bird."
I am not sure that I succeeded in making him understand that that
was only because I had been as frightened as I was capable of being,
and, having touched the extremest point of terror, I had subsided
into a sort of ecstacy of imbecility, in which I had found my
"singing voice."
I returned to my home and family, and stayed with them in London all
the time of my visit to England, which, from unforeseen
circumstances, was prolonged far beyond what had originally been
intended.
I returned to the intercourse of all my former friends and
acquaintance, and to the London society of the day, which was full
of delightful interest for me, after the solitary and completely
unsocial life I had been leading for the two previous years.
My friend, Miss S----, was still abroad, and her absence was the
only drawback to the pleasure and happiness of my return to my own
country.
My father resided then in Park Place, St. James's, in a house which
has since become part of the Park Hotel; we have always had a
tending towards that particular street, which undoubtedly is one of
the best situated in London: quiet in itself, not being a
thoroughfare, shut in by the pleasant houses that look into the
Green Park below Arlington Street, and yet close to St. James's
Street, and all the gay busyness of the West End, Pall Mall, and
Piccadilly.
While we were living at No. 10 Park Place, my cousin, Horace Twiss,
was our opposite neighbor, at No. 5, which became my own residence
some years afterwards; and, since then, my sister had her London
abode for several years at No. 9. The street seems always a sort of
home to me, full of images and memories of members of my family and
their intimates who visited us there.
My return to London society at this time gave me the privilege of an
acquaintance with some of its most remarkable members, many of whom
became, and remained, intimate and kind friends of mine for many
years. The Miss Berrys, Lady Charlotte Lindsay, Lady Morley, Lord
and Lady Lansdowne, Lord and Lady Ellesmere, Lord and Lady Dacre,
Sydney Smith, Rogers, were among the persons with whom I then most
frequently associated; and in naming these members of the London
world of that day, I mention only a small portion of a brilliant
society, full of every element of wit, wisdom, experience, refined
taste, high culture, good breeding, good sense, and distinction of
every sort that can make human intercourse valuable and delightful.
I was one of the youngest members of that pleasant society, and have
seen almost all its brilliant lights go out. Eheu! of what has
succeeded to them in the London of the present day, I know nothing.]
PARK PLACE, St. James's, December 28th, 1836.
Nevertheless, and in spite of all your doubts, and notwithstanding all
the improbabilities and all the impossibilities, here I am, dearest
H----, in very deed in England, and in London, once again. And shall it
be that I have crossed that terrible sea, and am to pass some time here,
and to return without seeing you? I cannot well fancy that. Surely, now
that the Atlantic is no longer between us, though the Alps may be, we
shall meet once more before I go back to my dwelling-place beyond the
uttermost parts of the sea. The absolute impossibility of taking the
baby to the South determined the arrangements that were made; and as I
was at any rate to be alone all the winter, I obtained leave to pass it
in England, whither I am come, alone with my chick, through tempestuous
turbulence of winds and waves, and where I expect to remain peaceably
with my own people, until such time as I am fetched away. When this may
be, however, neither I nor any one else can tell, as it depends upon the
meeting and sitting of a certain Convention, summoned for the revising
of the constitution of the State of Pennsylvania; and there is at
present an uncertainty as to the time of its opening. It was at first
appointed to convene on the 1st of May, and it was then resolved that I
should return early in March, so as to be in America by that time; but
my last news is that the meeting of the Convention may take place in
February, and my stay in England will probably be prolonged for several
months in consequence....
Your various propositions, regarding negro slavery in America, I will
answer when we meet, which I hope will be ere long.... I wish to heaven
I could have gone down to Georgia this winter!...
Your impression of Rome does not surprise me; I think it would be mine.
I have not seen dear Emily, but expect that pleasure in about a
fortnight....
My father took his farewell of the stage last Friday. How much I could
say upon that circumstance alone! The house was immensely full, the
feeling of regret and good-will universal, and our own excitement, as
you may suppose, very great. My father bore it far better than I had
anticipated, and his spirits do not appear to have suffered since; I
know not whether the reaction may not make itself felt hereafter.
Perhaps his present occupation of licenser may afford sufficient
employment of a somewhat kindred nature to prevent his feeling very
severely the loss of his professional excitement; and yet I know not
whether a sufficient _succedaneum_ is to be found for such a dram as
that, taken nightly for more than forty years....
Who do you think Adelaide and I went to dine with last Friday? You will
never guess, so I may as well tell you--the C----s! The meetings in this
world are strange things. She sought me with apparent cordiality, and I
had no reason whatever for avoiding her. She is very handsome, and
appears remarkably amiable, with the simple good breeding of a French
great lady, and the serious earnestness of a devout Roman Catholic. They
are going to Lisbon, where he is attaché to the Embassy.
I had a letter from Mr. Combe the other day, full of the books he had
been publishing, and the lectures he had been delivering. He seems to be
very busy, and very happy. [Mr. Combe had lately married my cousin,
Cecilia Siddons.] ...
Farewell, my dearest H----.
I am ever your most affectionate,
F. A. B.
PARK PLACE, ST. JAMES'S, May 13th, 1837.
MY DEAR MRS. JAMESON,
You will never believe I am alive, not sooner to have answered your kind
letter; yet I was grateful for your expressions of regard, and truly
sorry for all you have had to undergo. Certainly the chances of this
life are strange--that you should be in Toronto, and I in London now, is
what neither of us would have imagined a little while ago.
I wish I could think you were either as happy or as well amused as I am.
I hope, however, you have recovered your health, and that you will be
able to visit some of the beautiful scenery of the St. Lawrence this
summer; that, at least, you may have some compensation for your effort
in crossing the Atlantic.
I heard of you from my friend, Miss Sedgwick, whose sympathies were as
much excited by your personal acquaintance as her admiration had been by
your books. I heard of you, too, from Theodore Fay, whom I saw a short
time since, and who gave me a letter of yours to read, which you wrote
him from New York. [Mr. Theodore Fay was a graceful writer of prose and
poetry, and achieved some literary reputation in his own country; he was
for some time United States Minister at Berlin.]
Lady Hatherton, whom I met the other evening at old Lady Cork's, was
speaking of you with much affection; and all your friends regret your
absence from England; and none more sincerely than I, who shall, I fear,
have the ill fortune to miss you on both sides of the Atlantic.
I find London more beautiful, more rich and royal, than ever; the latter
epithet, by-the-bye, applies to external things alone, for I do not
think the spirit of the people as royal, _i.e._, loyal, as I used to
fancy it was.
Liberalism appears to me to have gained a much stronger and wider
influence than it had before I went away; liberal opinions have
certainly spread, and I suppose will spread indefinitely. Toryism, on
the other hand, seems as steadfast in its old strongholds as ever; the
Tories, I see, are quite as wedded as formerly to their political faith,
but at the same time more afraid of all that is not themselves, more on
the defensive, more socially exclusive; I think they mix less with "the
other side" than formerly, and are less tolerant of difference of
opinion.
I find a whole race of _prima donnas_ swept away; Pasta gone and
Malibran dead, and their successor, Grisi, does not charm and enchant me
as they did, especially when I hear her compared to the former noble
singer and actress. When I look at her, beautiful as she is, and think
of Pasta, and hear her extolled far above that great queen of song, by
the public who cannot yet have forgotten the latter, I am more than ever
impressed with the worthlessness of popularity and public applause, and
the mistake of those who would so much as stretch out their little
finger to obtain it. I came to England just in time to see my father
leave the stage, and close his laborious professional career. After a
long life of public exhibition, and the glare of excitement which
inevitably attends upon it, to withdraw into the sober twilight of
private life is a great trial, and I fear he finds it so. His health is
not as good as it was while he still exercised his profession, and I
think he misses the stimulus of the daily occupation and nightly
applause.
What a dangerous pursuit that is which weans one from all other
resources and interests, and leaves one dependent upon public exhibition
for the necessary stimulus of one's existence! This aspect of it alone
would make me deprecate that profession for any one I loved; it
interferes with every other study, and breaks the thread of every other
occupation, and produces mental habits which, even if distasteful at
first, gradually become paramount to all others, and, in due time,
inveterate; and besides perpetually stimulating one's personal vanity
and desire for admiration and applause, directs whatever ambition one
has to the least exalted of aims, the production of evanescent effects
and transitory emotions.
I am thankful that I was removed from the stage before its excitement
became necessary to me. That reminds me that, within the last two days,
Pasta has returned to England: they say she is to sing at Drury Lane,
Grisi having possession of the Opera House. Now, will it not be a pity
that she should come in the decline of her fine powers, and subject
herself to comparisons with this young woman, whose voice and beauty and
popularity are all in their full flower? If I knew Pasta, I think I
would go on my knees to beg her not to do it.
I find my sister's voice and singing very much improved, and exceedingly
charming. She speaks always with warm regard of you, and remembers
gratefully your kindness to her.
My dear Mrs. Jameson, it is a great disappointment to me that I cannot
welcome you to my American home, and be to you that pleasant thing, an
old friend in a foreign land. It appears to me that we shall have the
singular ill-luck of passing each other on the sea; at least, if it is
true that you return in the autumn.
Much as I had desired to see my own country again, my visit to it has
had one effect which I certainly had not anticipated, and for which I am
grateful: it has tended to reconcile me to my present situation in life,
comparatively remote as it is from the best refinements of civilization
and all the enjoyments of society.... The turmoil and dissipation of a
London life, amusing as they are for a time, soon pall upon one, and I
already feel, in my diminished relish for them, that I am growing old.
To live in the country in England!--that indeed would be happiness and
pleasure; but we shall never desert America and the duties that belong
to us there, and I should be the last person to desire that we should do
so; and so I think henceforth England and I are "Paradises Lost" to each
other,--and this is a very strange life; with which "wise saw," but not
"modern instance," I will conclude, begging you to believe me,
Ever yours most truly,
F. A. B.
[Madame Pasta did return then to the stage, and her brilliant young
rival, Grisi, was to her what the Giessbach would be to a great wave
of the Atlantic. But, alas! she returned once more after that to the
scene of her former triumphs in London; the power, majesty, and
grace of her face, figure, and deportment all gone, her voice
painfully impaired and untrue, her great art unable to remedy, in
any degree, the failure of her natural powers.
She came as an agent and emissary of the political party of Italian
liberty, to help the cause of their _Italia Unita_, and our people
received her with affectionate respect, for the sake of what she had
been; but she accepted their applause with melancholy gestures of
disclaimer, and sorrowful head-shaking over her own decline. Those
who had never heard or seen her before were inclined to laugh; those
who had, _did_ cry.
The latent expression of a face is a curious study for the
physiognomist, and is sometimes strikingly at variance with that
which is habitual, as well as with the general character of the
features. That fine and accurate observer of the symptoms of
humanity, George Eliot, gives her silly, commonplace, little
second-heroine in "Adam Bede," Hester, a pathetic and sentimental
expression, to which nothing in her mind or character corresponds,
and which must have been an inheritance from some ancestress in whom
such an expression had originated with a meaning.
Madame Pasta was not handsome, people of uneducated and unrefined
taste might have called her plain; but she had that indescribable
quality which painters value almost above all others--style, and a
power and sweetness of expression, and a grandeur and grace of
demeanor, that I have never seen surpassed. She was not handsome,
certainly; but she was _beautiful_, and never, by any chance, looked
common or vulgar.
Madame Grisi was almost perfectly handsome; the symmetry of her head
and bust, and the outline of her features resembled the ideal models
of classical art--it was the form and face of a Grecian goddess; and
her rare natural gifts of musical utterance and personal loveliness
won for her, very justly, the great admiration she excited, and the
popularity she so long enjoyed. In a woman of far other and higher
endowments, that wonderful actress, Rachel, whose face and figure,
under the transforming influence of her consummate dramatic art,
were the perfect interpreters of her perfect tragic conceptions, an
ignoble, low-lived expression occasionally startled and dismayed
one, on a countenance as much more noble and intellectual, as it was
less beautiful than Grisi's,--the outward and visible sign of the
inward and spiritual disgrace, which made it possible for one of her
literary countrymen and warmest admirers to say that she was
adorable, because she was so "_déliceusement canaille_." Emilie,
Camille, Esther, Pauline, such a "delightful blackguard"!
Grazia, the Juno of the Roman sculptors of her day, their model of
severe classical beauty, had a perfectly stolid absence of all
expression; she was like one of the oxen of her own Campagna, a
splendid, serious-looking animal. No animal is ever vulgar, except
some dogs, who live too much with men for the interest of their
dignity, and catch the infection of _the_ human vice.
With us coarse-featured English, and our heavy-faced Teutonic
kinsfolk, a thick outline and snub features are generally supposed
to be the vulgar attributes of our lower classes; but the
predominance of spirit over matter vindicates itself strikingly
across the Atlantic, where, in the lowest strata of society, the
native American rowdy, with a face as pure in outline as an ancient
Greek coin, and hands and feet as fine as those of a Norman noble,
strikes one dumb with the aspect of a countenance whose vile,
ignoble hardness can triumph over such refinement of line and
delicacy of proportion. A human soul has a wonderful supremacy over
the matter which it _informs_. The American is a whole nation with
well-made, regular noses; from which circumstance (and a few
others), I believe in their future superiority over all other
nations. But the _lowness_ their faces are capable of "flogs
Europe."]
BANNISTERS, August 1st, 1837.
MY DEAR MRS. JAMESON,
After a riotous London season, my family has broken itself into small
pieces and dispersed. My mother is at her cottage in Surrey, where she
intends passing the rest of the summer; my father and sister are gone to
Carlsbad--is not that spirited?--though indeed they journey in search of
health, rather than pleasure. My father has been far from well for some
time past, and has at length been literally packed off by Dr. Granville,
to try the Bohemian waters.
I am at present staying with my friends, the Fitz Hughs, at Bannisters.
I leave this place on Friday for Liverpool, where I shall await the
arrival of the American packet; after that, we have several visits to
pay, and I hope, when we have achieved them, to join my father and
Adelaide at Carlsbad. I am pretty sure that we shall winter in America;
for, indeed, I was to have written to you, to beg you to spend that
season with us in Philadelphia, but as I had already received your
intimation of your intended return to England in the autumn, I knew
that such an offer would not suit your plans.
How glad you will be to see England again! and how glad your friends
will be to see you again! Miss Martineau, who was speaking of you with
great kindness the other day, added that your publishers would rejoice
to see you too.
I do not know whether her book on America has yet reached you. It has
been universally read, and though by no means agreeable to the opinions
of the majority, I think its whole tone has impressed everybody with
respect for her moral character, her integrity, her benevolence, and her
courage.
She tells me she is going to publish another work upon America,
containing more of personal narrative and local description; after
which, I believe, she thinks of writing a novel. I shall be quite
curious to see how she succeeds in the latter undertaking. The stories
and descriptions of her political tales were charming; but whether she
can carry herself through a work of imagination of any length with the
same success, I do not feel sure.
I saw the Montagues, and Procters, and Chorley (who is, I believe, a
friend of yours), pretty often while I was in London, and they were my
chief informers as to your state of being, doing, and suffering. I am
sorry that the latter has formed so large a portion of your experience
in that strange and desolate land of your present sojourn. You do not
say in your last letter whether you intend visiting the United States
before your return, or shall merely pass through so much of them as will
bring you to the port from which you sail. As I am not there to see you,
I should hardly regret your not traveling through them; for, in spite of
your popularity, which is very great in all parts of the country that I
have visited, I do not think American tastes, manners, and modes of
being would be, upon the whole, congenial to you.
I believe I told you how I had met your friend, Lady Hatherton, at a
party at old Lady Cork's, and how kindly she inquired after you....
We are here in the midst of the elections, with which the whole country
is in an uproar just now. My friends are immovable Tories, and I had the
satisfaction of being personally hissed (which I never was before), in
honor of their principles, as I drove through the town of Southampton
to-day in their carriage.
The death of poor old King William, and the accession of the little
lady, his niece, must be stale news, even with you, now. She was the
last excitement of the public before the "dissolution of London," and
her position is certainly a most interesting one. Poor young creature!
at eighteen to bear such a burden of responsibility! I should think the
mere state and grandeur, and slow-paced solemnity of her degree, enough
to strike a girl of that age into a melancholy, without all the other
graver considerations and causes for care and anxiety which belong to
it. I dare say, whatever she may think now, before many years are over
she would be heartily glad to have a small pension of £30,000 a year,
and leave to "go and play," like common folk of fortune. But, to be
sure, if "_noblesse oblige_," royalty must do so still more, or, at any
rate, on a wider scale; and so I take up my burden again--poor young
Queen of England!...
Emily sends you her best remembrances.... We shall certainly remain in
England till October, so that I feel sure that I shall have the pleasure
of seeing you here before I return to my _other_ country--for I reckon
that I have two; though, as the old woman said, and you know, "between
two stools," etc.
I should have thought you and Sir Francis Head would have become
infinite cronies. I hear he is so very clever; and as you tell me he
says so many fine things of me, I believe it.
Ever yours most truly,
F. A. B.
[The admirable novel of "Deerbrook" sufficiently answered all who
had ever doubted Miss Martineau's capacity for that order of
composition; in spite of Sydney Smith's determination that no
village "poticary," as he called it, might, could, would, or ever
should, be a hero of romance, and the incessant ridicule with which
he assailed the choice of such a one. If, he contended, he takes his
mistress's hand with the utmost fervor of a lover, he will, by the
mere force of habit, end by feeling her pulse; if, under strong
emotion, she faints away, he will have no salts but Epsom about him,
wherewith to restore her suspended vitality; he will put cream of
tartar in her tea, and (a) flower of brimstone in her bosom. There
was no end to the fun he made of "the medicinal lover," as he called
him. Nevertheless, the public accepted the Deerbrook M. D., and all
the paraphernalia of gallipots, pill-boxes, vials, salves,
ointments, with which the facetious divine always represented him as
surrounded; and vindicated, by its approval, the authoress's choice
of a hero.
I do not know whether Mr. Gibson is not, to me, decidedly the hero
of Mrs. Gaskell's "Wives and Daughters." I like him infinitely
better than all the younger men of the story; and I think the
preponderating interest with which one closes George Eliot's
wonderful "Middlemarch" is decidedly in behalf of Lydgate, the
country surgeon and hospital doctor. To be sure, we have come a
long way since the Liberalism of Sydney Smith and 1837.
I was indebted to my kind friend, Lord Lansdowne, for the memorable
pleasure of being present at the first meeting between Queen
Victoria and her Houses of Parliament. The occasion, which is always
one of interest when a new sovereign performs the solemnity, was
rendered peculiarly so by the age and sex of the sovereign. Every
person who, by right or favor, could be present, was there; and no
one of that great assembly will ever forget the impression made upon
them. Lady Lansdowne, who was Mistress of the Robes, was herself an
important member of the group round the throne, and I went with her
niece, Lady Valletort, under Lord Lansdowne's escort, to places most
admirably situated for hearing and seeing the whole ceremony. The
queen was not handsome, but very pretty, and the singularity of her
great position lent a sentimental and poetical charm to her youthful
face and figure.
The serene, serious sweetness of her candid brow and clear soft eyes
gave dignity to the girlish countenance, while the want of height
only added to the effect of extreme youth of the round but slender
person, and gracefully moulded hands and arms. The queen's voice was
exquisite; nor have I ever heard any spoken words more musical in
their gentle distinctness, than the "My Lords and Gentlemen" which
broke the breathless silence of the illustrious assembly, whose gaze
was riveted upon that fair flower of royalty. The enunciation was as
perfect as the intonation was melodious, and I think it is
impossible to hear a more excellent utterance than that of the
queen's English, by the English queen.]
WEDNESDAY, July 26th, 1837.
_Bannisters!_
(Think of that, Master Brook!!)
DEAREST H----,
These overflowing spirits of mine all come of a gallop of fifteen miles
I have been taking with dear Emily, over breezy commons and through
ferny pine-woods, and then coming home and devouring luncheon as fast as
it could be swallowed; and so you get the result of all this physical
excitement in these very animal spirits; and if my letter is "all sound
and fury, signifying nothing," under the circumstances how can I help
it?
That rather ill-conducted person, Ninon de l'Enclos, I believe, said
her soup got into her head; and though "comparisons are odious,"
and I should be loth to suggest any between that wonderful
no-better-than-she-should-be and myself, beyond all doubt my luncheon
has got into my head, though I drank nothing but water with it; but I
rather think violent exercise in the cold air, followed immediately by
eating, will produce a certain amount of intoxication, just as easily as
stimulating drink would. I suppose it is only a question of accelerated
circulation, with a slight tendency of blood to the head.
However that may be, I wish you would speak to Emily (you needn't bawl,
though you are in Ireland), and tell her to hold her tongue and not
disturb me. She is profanely laughing at a sermon of Dr. South's, and
interrupting me in this serious letter to you with absurd questions
about such nonsense as Life, Death, and Immortality. I can't get on for
her a bit, so add her to the cold ride and the hot lunch in the list of
causes of this crazy epistle--I mean, the causes of its craziness.
Do you know old South? I don't believe you do even this much of him:--
"Old South, a witty Churchman reckoned,
Was preaching once to Charles the Second:
When lo! the King began to nod,
Deaf to the zealous man of God;
Who, leaning o'er his pulpit, cried
To Lauderdale by Charles's side:--
'My Lord, why, 'tis a shameful thing!
You snore so loud, you'll wake the King!'"
I quote by memory, through my luncheon, and I dare say all wrong; but it
doesn't matter, for I don't believe you know it a bit better than I
remember it. I and my baby came here on Monday, and shall stay until
to-morrow week; after that I go to Liverpool, to meet and be met; and
after that I know nothing, of course.... If, however, by that time you
are likely to be near London, we will come up thither forthwith, and you
must come and stay in Park Place with us. We shall be alone keeping
house there; for my mother is in the country, and my father and Adelaide
are going to Carlsbad, where we think to join them by-and-by; in the
mean time, we hope to enjoy ourselves much sight-seeing all over London,
which we shall then have entirely to ourselves; and you had better come
and help us.
Good-bye, dearest H----.
Yours ever,
F. A. B.
[This letter was written from Bannisters, the charming country home
of my dear friend, Miss Fitz Hugh. For years it had been a resort of
rest for Mrs. Siddons, who was always made welcome as one of her own
sisters, by Mrs. Fitz Hugh; and for years it was a resort of rest
for me, to whom my friend was as devoted as her mother had been to
my aunt.]
LIVERPOOL, Saturday, August 17th, 1837.
MY DEAREST HARRIET,
I have but one instant in which to write. I hope this will meet you at
Emily's, in Orchard Street [No. 18 Orchard Street, Portman Square, Mr.
Fitz Hugh's town house]; it is to entreat you to remain there until I
come to town, which must be in less than a week....
I left Bannisters--most unnecessarily, as it has proved--a fortnight
ago, which time I have been spending in heart-eating suspense, waiting
in vain, and bolstering up my patience, which kept sinking every day
more and more, like an empty sack put to stand upright. I have, since I
arrived here, received a letter which has caused me considerable
distress, inasmuch as I find I must leave England without again seeing
my father and Adelaide, who are gone to Carlsbad in the full expectation
of our joining them there....
The political body upon whose movements ours are just now depending has
not dispersed, but is merely adjourned to the 17th October. This allows
its absent member but a few days in Europe, as we must sail on the 8th
September; and those few days are gradually becoming fewer in
consequence of this long prevalence of contrary winds, which is keeping
the vessel just at the entrance of the Channel, within one good day's
sail of me.
All this is a trial, and my heart has sunk, as hour after hour I have
watched that watery horizon, and seen the masts appear and disappear,
and yet no tidings of the ship I look for.
I have ridden, bathed, tried to write, tried to read, marked my
Shakespeare for you, and laid my hand--but, God knows, not with all my
heart--to whatsoever I found to do: still I have been ashamed and
displeased at the little command I have achieved over my impatience, and
the little use I have made of my time. It has been my great good fortune
to meet with old friends, and to make new ones, during this period of my
probation; and never was kindly intercourse more needed and more
appreciated. But, after all, is it not always thus? and are not
unexpected pleasures and enjoyments furnished us quite as often as the
trials which render them doubly welcome?
'Tis now the 14th of August, and yet no tidings of that ship. There is
no ground whatever for anxiety, for it is the prevalence of calm, and
light contrary winds, which alone delay its arrival.
Dearest Harriet, I shall soon see you again, and will not that be a
blessing to both of us? Farewell, my dear friend. How long it is since
we have been even thus near each other! how long since we have hoped so
soon to hear each other's voice!
Ever your affectionate,
F. A. B.
[This letter was written from Crosby, a little strip of sandy beach,
three miles from Liverpool, to which I betook myself with my child,
rather than remain in the noisy, smoky town, while waiting for the
arrival of the vessel from America which I was expecting.
I dare say Crosby is by this time a flourishing, fashionable
bathing-place. It was then a mere row of very humble seaside
lodging-houses, where persons constrained as I was to remain in the
close vicinity of Liverpool, were able to obtain fresh air, salt
water, and an uninterrupted sea view.
A Liverpool lady told me that, having once spent some weeks at this
place one summer, her son, a lad of about twelve years old, used to
ride along the sands to Liverpool every day for his lessons, and
that she could see him through the telescope all the way to the
first houses on the outskirt of the town. Just about midway,
however, there was a spot of treacherous quicksand, and I confess I
wondered at my friend's courage in watching her boy pass that point:
he knew it well, and was little likely to take his pony too near it;
but I confess I would rather have trusted to his caution to avoid
the place, than watched him pass it through a telescope.
From Liverpool, the long-expected ship having arrived, we went to
London, and spent as much time with our friends there and elsewhere
as our very limited leisure would then allow; and by the 10th of
September, we were again on the edge of English ground, about to
sail for the United States.]
LIVERPOOL, Friday, September 8th, 1837.
MY DEAR LADY DACRE,
My time in England is growing painfully short, for the watch says
half-past eleven, and at two o'clock I shall be on board the ship. My
promise, as well as my desire, urge me to write you a few parting words.
And yet what can they be, that may give you the slightest pleasure?
My parting with my poor mother was calmer than I had ventured to
anticipate, and I thank Heaven that I was not obliged to leave England
without seeing her once more. I have heard from my sister, who had just
received the news of my sudden departure from England when she wrote.
She was bitterly disappointed; but yet I think this unexpected parting
without seeing each other again is perhaps well. Our last leave-taking,
when she started with my father for Carlsbad, was quite cheerful,
because we looked soon to meet again. We have been spared those
exceedingly painful moments of clinging to what we are condemned to
lose, and in the midst of novelty and variety she will miss me far less
than had I left her lonely, in the home where we have been together for
the past year.
Dear Lady Dacre, pray, if it is in your power to show her kindness at
any time, do so; but I am sure that you would, and that such a request
on my part is unnecessary.
The days that we spent in London after leaving you formed a sad contrast
to the happy time we enjoyed at the Hoo. We were plunged in bustle and
confusion; up to our eyes in trunks, packing-cases, carpet-bags, and
valises; and I don't believe Marius in the middle of his Carthaginian
ruins was more thoroughly _uncomfortable_ than I, in my desolate,
box-encumbered rooms.
You know that we were disappointed of our visit to Bowood, but we spent
a few days delightfully at Bannisters, and I am happy to say that _we_
are leaving England with the desire and determination to return as soon
as possible.
I found on my arrival here a most pressing and cordial invitation from
Sydney Smith (I cannot call him Mr.) to Combe Flory, which, like many
other pleasant things, must be foregone. Pray, if you are with him when
or after you receive this, thank him again for his kindness and courtesy
to us. I did not quite like him, you know, when first I met him at
Rogers's; but that was Lady Holland's fault; even now, his being a
clergyman hurts my mind a little sometimes, and I fancy I should like
him more entirely if he were not so. I have a superstitious veneration
for the cloth, which his free-and-easy wearing of it occasionally
disturbs a little; but I feel deeply honored by his notice, and most
grateful for the good-will which he expresses towards me, and should
have been too glad to have heard him laugh once more at his own jokes,
which I acknowledge he does with a better grace than any man
alive,--though the last time I had that pleasure it was at my own
expense: I gave him an admirable chance, and I think he used his
advantage most unmercifully.
And now, dear Lady Dacre, what message will you give your kind and good
husband from me? May I, with "one foot on land and one on sea," send him
word that I love him almost as well as I do you? This shall rest with
you, however. Pray thank him with all my heart, as I do you, for your
manifold kindnesses to me. God bless and preserve you both, and those
you love! Remember me most kindly to Mrs. Sullivan. I cannot tell you
how my heart is _squeezed_, as the French say, at going away. Luckily, I
am too busy to cry to-day, and to-morrow I shall be too sea-sick, and
so, farewell!
Believe me, my dear Lady Dacre,
Yours affectionately,
F. A. B.
[The occasion of my becoming acquainted with my admirable and very
kind friend, the Rev. Sydney Smith, was a dinner at Mr. Rogers's, to
which I had been asked to meet Lord and Lady Holland, by special
desire, as I was afterwards informed, of the latter, who, during
dinner, drank out of her neighbor's (Sydney Smith's) glass, and
otherwise behaved herself with the fantastic, despotic impropriety
in which she frequently indulged, and which might have been
tolerated in a spoilt beauty of eighteen, but was hardly becoming in
a woman of her age and "personal appearance." When first I came out
on the stage, my father and mother, who occasionally went to Holland
House, received an invitation to dine there, which included me;
after some discussion, which I did not then understand, it was
deemed expedient to decline the invitation for me, and I neither
knew the grounds of my parents' decision, nor of how brilliant and
delightful a society it had then closed the door to me. On my return
to England after my marriage, Lady Holland's curiosity revived with
regard to me, and she desired Rogers to ask me to meet her at
dinner, which I did; and the impression she made upon me was so
disagreeable that, for a time, it involved every member of that
dinner-party in a halo of undistinguishing dislike in my mind.
My sister had joined us in the evening, and sat for a few moments by
Lady Holland, who dropped her handkerchief. Adelaide, who was as
unpleasantly impressed as myself by that lady, for a moment made no
attempt to pick it up; but, reflecting upon her age and size, which
made it difficult for her to stoop for it herself, my sister picked
it up and presented it to her, when Lady Holland, taking it from
her, merely said, "Ah! I thought you'd do it." Adelaide said she
felt an almost irresistible inclination to twitch it from her hand,
throw it on the ground again, and say, "Did you? then now do it
yourself!"
Altogether the evening was unsuccessful, if its purpose had been an
acquaintance between Lady Holland and myself; and I remember a
grotesque climax to my dissatisfaction in the destruction of a
lovely nosegay of exquisite flowers which my sister had brought with
her, and which, towards the middle of the evening, mysteriously
disappeared, and was looked for and inquired for in vain, until poor
Lord Holland, who was then dependent upon the assistance of two
servants to move from his seat, being raised from the sofa on which
he had been deposited when he was brought up from the dining-room,
the flowers, which Adelaide had left there, were discovered, pressed
as flat as if for preservation in a book of botanical specimens. The
kindly, good-natured gentleman departed, luckily, without knowing
the mischief he had done, or seeing my sister's face of ludicrous
dismay at the condition of her flowers; which Sydney Smith, however,
observed, and in a minute exclaimed, "Ah! I see! Oh dear, oh dear,
what a pity! Hot-bed! hot-bed!"
It has always been a matter of amazement to me that Lady Holland
should have been allowed to ride rough-shod over society, as she did
for so long, with such complete impunity. To be sure, in society,
well-bred persons are always at the mercy of ill-bred ones, who have
an immense advantage over everybody who shrinks from turning a
social gathering into closed lists for the exchange of
impertinences; and people gave way to Lady Holland's domineering
rudeness for the sake of their hosts and fellow-guests, and spared
her out of consideration for them. Another reason for the toleration
shown Lady Holland was the universal esteem and affectionate respect
felt for her husband, whose friends accepted her and her
peculiarities for his sake, and could certainly have given no
stronger proof of their regard for him.
The most powerful inducement to patience, however, to the London
society upon which Lady Holland habitually trampled, was the immense
attraction of her house and of the people who frequented it. Holland
House was, for a series of years, the most brilliant, charming, and
altogether delightful social resort. Beautiful, comfortable,
elegant, picturesque,--an ideal house, full of exquisite objects and
interesting associations, where persons the most distinguished for
birth, position, mental accomplishments, and intellectual gifts, met
in a social atmosphere of the highest cultivation and the greatest
refinement,--the most perfect civilization could produce nothing
more perfect in the way of enjoyment than the intercourse of that
delightful mansion. As Lady Tankerville pathetically exclaimed on
Lady Holland's death, "Ah! poore, deare Lady 'Olland! what shall we
do? It was such a pleasant 'ouse!"--admission to which was, to most
of its frequenters, well worth some toleration of its mistress's
brusqueries.
If, as a friend of mine once assured me (a well-born, well-bred man
of the best English society), it was quite well worth while to "eat
a little dirt" to get the _entrée_ of Stafford House, I incline to
think the spoonfuls of dirt Lady Holland occasionally administered
to her friends were accepted by them as the equivalent for the
delights of her "pleasant 'ouse"; and that I did not think so, and
had no desire to go there upon those terms, was, I imagine, the only
thing that excited Lady Holland's curiosity about me, or her desire
to have me for her guest. She complained to Charles Greville that I
would not let her become acquainted with me, and twice after our
first unavailing meeting at Rogers's, made him ask me to meet her
again: each time, however, with no happier result.
The first time, after making herself generally obnoxious at dinner,
she at length provoked Rogers, who, the conversation having fallen
upon the subject of beautiful hair, and Lady Holland saying, "Why,
Rogers, only a few years ago, I had such a head of hair that I could
hide myself in it, and I've lost it all," merely answered, "What a
pity!"--but with such a tone that an exultant giggle ran round the
table at her expense.
After dinner, when the unfortunate female members of the party had
to encounter Lady Holland unprotected, she singled out one of the
ladies of the Baring family, to whom, however, she evidently meant
to be particularly gracious; not, I think, without some intention of
also pleasing me by her patronizing laudation of American people and
American things; winding up with, "You know, my dear, we are
Americans." The young Baring lady, who may or may not have been as
familiar as I was with the Bingham and Baring alliances of early
times in Philadelphia, merely raised her eyebrows, and said,
"Indeed!" while I kept my lips close and breathed no syllable of
Longfellow's house near Boston, which had been not only Washington's
temporary abode, but the residence, in colonial days, of the
Vassalls, to whom Lady Holland belonged, and where Longfellow showed
me one day an iron plate at the back of one of the fire-places, with
the rebus, the punning arms (_Armoiries parlantes_) of the Vassall
family: a vase with a sun above it, _Vas Sol_.
_Je suis méchante, ma chére_, as Madame de Sévigné wrote to her
daughter; _et cela m'a fait plaisir_, to suppress the nice little
anecdote which might have helped Lady Holland on so pleasantly just
at that juncture.
But, holding one's tongue because one chooses, and being compelled
to hold one's tongue by somebody else, is quite a different thing;
and I am not sure that the main reason of my dislike to Lady Holland
is not that I held my tongue to "spite her" during the whole course
of the last dinner-party to which Rogers invited me to meet her. The
party consisted of fewer men than women, and Lady ---- and myself
agreed to take each other down to dinner, which we did. Just,
however, as we were seating ourselves, Lady Holland called out from
the opposite side of the table, "No, no, ladies, I can't allow that;
I must have Mrs. Butler by me, if you please." Thus challenged, I
could not, without making a scene with Lady Holland, and beginning
the poet's banquet with a shock to everybody present, refuse her
very dictatorial behest; and therefore I left my friendly neighbor,
Lady ----, and went round to the place assigned me by the imperious
autocratess of the dinner-table: between herself and Dr. Allen ("the
gentle infidel," "Lady Holland's atheist," as he was familiarly
called by her familiars).
But though one man may take the mare to the water, no given number
of men can make her drink; so, having accepted my place, I
determined my complaisance should end there, and, in spite of all
Lady Holland's conversational efforts, and her final exclamation,
"Allen! do get Mrs. Butler to talk! We _really must_ make her talk!"
I held my peace, and kept the peace, which I could have done upon no
other conditions; but the unnatural and unwholesome effort disagreed
with me so dreadfully, that I have a return of dyspepsia whenever I
think of it, which I think justifies me in my dislike of Lady
Holland.... I do not feel inclined to attribute to any motive but a
kindly one, the attention Lady Holland showed my father during a
severe indisposition of his, not long after this; though, upon her
driving to his door one day with some peculiarly delicate jelly she
had had made for him, Frederick Byng (Poodle, as he was always
called by his intimates, on account of his absurd resemblance to a
dog of that species), seeing the remorseful gratitude on my face as
I received her message of inquiry after my father, exclaimed, "Now,
she's done it! now, she's won it! now, she's got you, and you'll go
to Holland House!" "No, I won't," said I, "but I'll go down to the
carriage, and thank her!" which I immediately did, without stopping
to put a bonnet on my head. Lady Holland was held, by those who knew
her, to be a warm and constant friend, and had always been cordially
kind to my father and my brother John.
After Lord Holland's death she left Holland House, and took up her
abode in South Street near the Park. One morning, when I was calling
on Lady Charlotte Lindsay, Lady Morley came in, and being
reproached by Lady Charlotte for not having come to a party at her
house on the previous evening, in which reproach I joined, having
been also a loser by her absence from that same party, "Couldn't,"
said the lively lady, "for I was spending the evening with the
pleasantest, most amiable, gentlest-mannered, sweetest-tempered, and
most charming woman in all London--Lady Holland!" A conversation
then ensued, in which certainly little quarter was shown to the ill
qualities of the former mistress of Holland House. Among several
curious instances of her unaccountably unamiable conduct to some of
even Lord Holland's dearest friends, who, for his sake, opened their
houses to her, allowed her to come thither, bespeaking her own
rooms--her own company, who she would meet and who she would bring,
and in every way consulting her pleasure and convenience, as was
invariably the case on the occasion of her visits to Panshanger and
Woburn,--Lady Morley said that Landseer had told her, that he was
walking one day by the side of Lady Holland's wheel-chair, in the
grounds of Holland House, and, stopping at a particularly pretty
spot, had said, "Oh, Lady Holland! this is the part of your place of
which the Duchess of Bedford has such a charming view from her house
on the hill above." "Is it?" said Lady Holland; and immediately gave
orders that the paling-fence round that part of her grounds should
be raised so as to cut off the Duchess's view into them.
Upon my venturing to express my surprise that anybody should go to
the house of a person of whom they told such anecdotes, Lady Morley
replied, "She is the only woman in the world of whom one does tell
such things and yet goes to see her. She is the most miserable woman
in England; she is entirely alone now, and she cannot bear to be
alone, and, for his sake who was the dearest and most excellent and
amiable creature that ever breathed, one goes on going to her, as I
shall till she or I die." But what a description of the last days of
the mistress of Holland House!
Sidney Smith, with whom I had become well acquainted when I wrote
the letter to Lady Dacre in which I mention him, used to amuse
himself, and occasionally some of my other friends, by teasing me on
the subject of what he called my hallucination with regard to my
having married in America. He never allowed any allusion to the
circumstance without the most comical expressions of regret for
this, as he called it, curious form of monomania. On the occasion to
which I refer in this letter, he and Mrs. Smith had met some friends
at dinner at our house, and I was taking leave of them, previous to
my departure for Liverpool, when he exclaimed, "Now do, my dear
child, be persuaded to give up this extraordinary delusion; let it,
I beg, be recorded of us both, that this pleasing and intelligent
young lady labored under the singular and distressingly insane idea
that she had contracted a marriage with an American; from which
painful hallucination she was eventually delivered by the friendly
exhortations of a learned and pious divine, the Rev. Sydney Smith."
Everybody round us was in fits of laughter, as he affectionately
held my hand, and thus paternally admonished me. I held up my left
hand with its wedding-ring, and began, "Oh, but the baby!" when the
ludicrous look with which my reverend tormentor received this
overwhelming testimony of mine, threw the whole company into
convulsions, and nothing was heard throughout the room but sighs and
sobs of exhaustion, and faint ejaculations and cries for mercy,
while everybody was wiping tears of laughter from their eyes. As for
me, I covered up my face, and very nearly went into hysterics.
The special and reportable sallies of Sydney Smith have been, of
course, often repeated, but the fanciful fun and inexhaustible
humorous drollery of his conversation among his intimates can never
be adequately rendered or reproduced. He bubbled over with mirth, of
which his own enjoyment formed an irresistible element, he shook,
and his eyes glistened at his own ludicrous ideas, as they dawned
upon his brain; and it would be impossible to convey the faintest
idea of the genial humor of his habitual talk by merely repeating
separate witticisms and repartees.
On that same evening, at my father's house, the comparative
cheapness of living abroad and in England having been discussed,
Sydney Smith declared that, for his part, he had never found foreign
quarters so much more reasonable than home ones, or foreign hotels
less exorbitant in their charges. "I know I never could live under
fifty pounds a week," said he. "Oh, but how did you live?" was the
next question. "Why, as a canon should live," proudly retorted he;
"and they charged me as enemy's ordnance."
A question having arisen one evening at Miss Berry's as to the
welcome Lady Sale would receive in London society after her
husband's heroic conduct, and her heroic participation in it, during
the Afghan war, Miss Berry, who, for some reason or other, did not
admire Lady Sale as much as everybody else did, said she should not
ask her to come to her house. "Oh, yes! pooh! pooh! you will,"
exclaimed Sydney Smith; "you'll have her, he'll have her, they'll
have her, we'll have her. She'll be Sale by auction!" Later on that
same evening, it being asked what Lord Dalhousie would get for his
successful exploit in carrying of the gates of some Indian town,
"Why," cried Lady Morley, "he will be created Duke Samson
Afghanistes." It was pleasant living among people who talked such
nonsense as that.
A party having been made to go and see the Boa Constrictor soon
after its first arrival at the Zoölogical Gardens, Sydney Smith, who
was to have been there, failed to come; and, questioned at dinner
why he had not done so, said, "Because I was detained by the Bore
Contradictor--Hallam"--whose propensity to controvert people's
propositions was a subject of irritation to some of his friends,
less retentive of memory and accurate in statement than himself.
Sydney Smith, not unnaturally, preferred conversation to music; and
at a musical party one evening, as he was stealing on tip-toe from
the concert-room to one more remote from the performance, I held up
my finger at him, when he whispered, "My dear, it's all right. You
keep with the dilettanti; I go with the talkettanti." Afterwards,
upon my expostulating with him, and telling him that by such habits
he was running a risk of being called to order on some future
eternal day with "Angel Sydney Smith, hush!" if he did not learn to
endure music better, he replied, "Oh, no, no! I'm cultivating a
judicious second expressly for those occasions."
Of his lamentations for the "flashes of silence" which, he said, at
one time made Macaulay's intercourse possible, one has heard; but
when he was so ill that all his friends were full of anxiety about
him, M----, having called to see him, and affectionately asking what
sort of night he had passed, Sydney Smith replied, "Oh, horrid,
horrid, my dear fellow! I dreamt I was chained to a rock and being
talked to death by Harriet Martineau and Macaulay."
Rogers's keen-edged wit seemed to cut his lips as he uttered it;
Sydney Smith's was without sting or edge or venomous point of
malice, and his genial humor was really the overflowing of a kindly
heart.
Rogers's helpful benevolence and noble generosity to poor artists,
poor authors, and all distressed whom he could serve or succor, was
unbounded; he certainly had the kindest heart and the unkindest
tongue of any one I ever knew. His benefits remind me of a comical
story my dear friend Harness once told me, of a poor woman at whose
lamentations over her various hardships one of his curates was
remonstrating, "Oh, come, come now, my good woman, you must allow
that Providence has been, upon the whole, very good to you." "So He
'ave, sir; so He 'ave, mostly. I don't deny it; but I sometimes
think He 'ave taken it out in corns." I think Rogers took out his
benevolence, in some directions, in the corns he inflicted, or, at
any rate, trod upon, in others.
Mr. Rogers's inveterate tongue-gall was like an irresistible
impulse, and he certainly bestowed it occasionally, without the
least provocation, upon persons whom he professed to like. He was
habitually kind to me, and declared he was fond of me. One evening
(just after the publication of my stupid drama, "The Star of
Seville"), he met me with a malignant grin, and the exclamation,
"Ah, I've just been reading your play. So nice! young poetry!"--with
a diabolical _dig_ of emphasis on the "_young_." "Now, Mr. Rogers,"
said I, "what did I do to deserve that you should say that to me?" I
do not know whether this appeal disarmed him, but his only answer
was to take me affectionately by the chin, much as if he had been my
father. When I told my sister of this, she, who was a thousand times
quicker-witted than I, said, "Why didn't you tell him that young
poetry was better than old?"
Walking one day in the Green Park, I met Mr. Rogers and Wordsworth,
who took me between them, and I continued my walk in great glory and
exultation of spirit, listening to Rogers, and hearing
Wordsworth,--the gentle rill of the one speech broken into and
interrupted by sudden loud splashes of the other; when Rogers, who
had vainly been trying to tell some anecdote, pathetically
exclaimed, "He won't let me tell my story!" I immediately stopped,
and so did Wordsworth, and during this halt Rogers finished his
recital. Presently afterwards, Wordsworth having left us, Rogers
told me that he (Mr. Wordsworth), in a visit he had been lately
paying at Althorpe, was found daily in the magnificent library, but
never without a volume of his own poetry in his hand. Years after
this, when I used to go and sit with Mr. Rogers, I never asked him
what I should read to him without his putting into my hands his own
poems, which always lay by him on his table.
A comical instance of the rivalry of wits (surely as keen as that of
beauties) occurred one day when Mr. Rogers had been calling on me
and speaking of that universal social favorite, Lady Morley, had
said, "There is but one voice against her in all England, and that
is her own." (A musical voice was the only charm wanting to Lady
Morley's delightful conversation.) I was enchanted with this pretty
and appropriate epigram, so unlike in its tone to Mr. Rogers's usual
_friendly_ comments; and, very soon after he left me, Sydney Smith
coming in, I told him how clever and how pleasant a remark the
"departed" poet (Sydney Smith often spoke of Rogers as dead, on
account of his cadaverous complexion) had made on Lady Morley's
voice. "He never said it," exclaimed my second illustrious visitor.
"But he did, Mr. Smith, to me, in this room, not half an hour ago."
"He never _made_ it; it isn't his, it isn't a bit like him." To all
which I could only repeat that, nevertheless, he _had_ said it, and
that, whether he made it or not, it was extremely well made.
Presently Sydney Smith went away. I was living in upper Grosvenor
Street, close to Park Lane; and he in Green Street, in the near
neighborhood. But I believe he must have run from my house to his
own, so short was the interval of time, before I received the
following note: "Dans toute l'Angleterre il n'y a qu'une voix contre
moi, et c'est la mienne." Then followed the signature of a French
lady of the eighteenth century, and these words: "What a dear,
innocent, confiding, credulous creature you are! and how you _do_
love Rogers!
"SYDNEY SMITH."
When I was leaving England, I received two most kind and
affectionate letters from him, bidding me farewell, and exhorting
me, in a most comical and yet pathetic manner, to be courageous and
of good cheer in returning to America. One of these epistles ended
thus: "Don't forget me, whatever you do; talk of me sometimes, call
me Butler's Hudibras, and believe me always.
"Affectionately yours,
"SYDNEY SMITH."]
LIVERPOOL, Monday, September 11th, 1837.
Here we are again, dearest Harriet, returned from our ship, after a
wretched day and night spent on board of her most unnecessarily. When we
reached the quay yesterday morning, we saw the vessel lying under
close-reefed sails; the favorable wind had died away, and the captain,
whom we found standing on the wharf, said that, it being Sunday morning,
he did not know how he should get a steamboat to tow us out. All this
seemed to me very much like not sailing, and I begged not to go on
board; at all events, I proposed, if we did not sail, that we should
return to shore, and received a promise that we certainly should do so;
so we went off in a small boat to the ship. She is crowded to excess,
and the greater proportion of passengers are emigrant women and
children.... I busied myself in stowing away everything in our
state-room, and removing the upper berth so as to secure a little more
breathing space. I even was guilty of the illicit proceeding--committed
the outrage, in fact--of endeavoring to break one of my bull's-eyes,
preferring being drenched to dry suffocation in foul air; but my utmost
violence, even assisted with an iron rod, was ineffectual, and I had to
give up breaking that window as a bad job. I found Margery's state-room
one chaos of confusion, she at the same time protesting that everything
was as tidily disposed of as possible; so I had to stand by and show her
where to put every individual article, and having cleared the small
space of the heap of superfluous things with which it was crammed, and
removed the upper berth, I left it to her option whether she or baby
should occupy the floor at night.
At about half-past ten the captain came on board to say that we should
not sail then, but if the wind grew fair, we _might perhaps_ sail in the
afternoon. He then took himself off the vessel, the wind was fast
veering to dead ahead, ... and, with an aching heart and head, I
remained in my berth all day long. In the night a perfect gale arose,
the ship dragged her anchor for two miles, and we had thus much
consolation that, had we put to sea, we should have encountered a
violent storm, and, in all probability been driven back into the Mersey.
This morning the wind was still contrary, and so we at length exerted
ourselves to return to shore. Had we done so yesterday in good time--or,
rather, not gone on board at all, you and I might have spent two more
days together, and the baby and myself been spared considerable misery.
But lamenting cures nothing; ... but I wish we never had left the quay
yesterday morning, for everything showed against the probability of our
sailing, and so here we are back in our old quarters at the Star and
Garter, and you are gone.
We have taken places at the theater for this evening, to see Macready in
"Macbeth." The Captain says we are to sail to-morrow morning, but I
shall do my utmost this time to avoid going on board except in his
company; and then, I think, we shall perhaps have some chance of not
spending another day in vain in our sea-prison.
Ever your affectionate,
F. A. B.
[The foregoing letter gives some idea of the difference between
crossing from England to the United States in those days, and in
these; when a telegram bears the defiance to fate of this message:
"We sail in the _Russia_ on the 3d; have dinner for us at the
Adelphi on the 11th."]
PHILADELPHIA, Sunday, October 29th, 1837.
MY DEAREST HARRIET,
We landed in New York, ten days ago, _i.e._, on Friday, the 20th
October; and had we come on immediately hither, your letter would have
been just in time to greet me on my arrival here; but our passage was of
thirty-seven days, stormy as well as tedious, and I was so ill that I
did not leave my bed six times during the crossing; the consequence was,
that on landing I looked more like a ghost than a living creature, and
was so reduced in strength as hardly to be able to stand, so we remained
in New York a few days, till I was able to travel.... Our
fellow-passengers, the women, I mean, were rather vulgar, commonplace
people, with whom I should not have had much sympathy, had I been well.
As it was, I saw but little of them, and may consider that one of the
counterbalancing advantages of having suffered so much.
One of them was in circumstances which interested me a good deal, though
there was little in herself to do so. Her husband was a Staffordshire
potter, and had gone to the United States to establish a pottery there;
to begin the building up of a large concern, and lay the foundation for
probable future wealth and prosperity. He had been gone two years, and
she was now going out to join him with their four children. In his
summons to her after this long separation, he told her that all had
prospered with him, that he had bought a large tract of land, found
excellent soil, water, and means of every description for his
manufacturing purposes, obtained a patent, and established his business,
and was every way likely to thrive and be successful.
What hope, what energy, what enterprise, what industry, in but two years
of one human existence! What a world of doubt, of distressful anxiety
and misgiving in the heart of the woman, left to patient expectation, to
prayerful, tearful hopes and fears! What trust in man and faith in God
during those two years! And now, with her children, she was coming to
rejoin her helpmate, and begin life all over again, with him and them,
in a strange country, in the midst of strangers, with everything strange
about her. I lay thinking with much sympathy of this poor woman and her
feelings, during my miserable confinement to my berth through that
dismal voyage. She was an uneducated person, of the lower middle class,
and not in herself interesting: though I do not know why I say that,
when I was deeply interested about her, and I do not know that any
creature endowed with a heart and soul can fail to be an object of
interest in some way or other; and human existence, with all its
marvelous developments, going on round one, must always furnish matter
for admiration, pity, or sympathy. Moreover, this woman was carrying out
with her the wives of several of her husband's workmen, who had
accompanied him out on his experimental voyage; and, being settled in
his employment, had got their master's wife to bring their partners out
to them. Think what a meeting for all these poor people, dear Harriet,
in this little hive of English industry and energy in the far west, the
fertile wildernesses of Indiana! How often I thought of the fears and
misgivings of these poor women in the steerage, when our progress was
delayed by tempestuous, contrary winds, when the heavy seas leaped over
our laboring vessel's sides, and when, during a violent thunderstorm,
our masts were tipped with lambent fire, which played round them like a
halo of destruction.
All this while I have forgotten to tell you why I have not written
sooner; and I suppose my accusation is yet bitter in your heart while
you are reading this. I told you on my first page I was obliged to stay
in New York to recruit my strength; the first time I went out, after
walking about a quarter of a mile, I was obliged to sit down and rest,
for half an hour, in a public garden, before I could crawl back again to
the hotel.
On Monday, when I was a little better, we came on here. I am every day
now expecting to be fetched to Harrisburg.... A woman should be her
husband's friend, his best and dearest friend, as he should be hers: but
friendship is a relation of equality, in which the same perfect respect
for each other's liberty is exercised on both sides; and that sort of
marriage, if it exists at all anywhere, is, I suspect, very uncommon
everywhere. Moreover, I am not sure that marriage ever is, can be, or
ought to be, such an equality; for even "When two men ride on one
horse," you know, etc. In the relation of friendship there is perfect
freedom, and an undoubted claim on each side to be neither dependent on,
nor controlled by, each other's will. In the relation of marriage this
is impossible; and therefore certainly marriage is not friendship.... A
woman should, I think, love her husband better than anything on earth
except her own soul; which, I think, a man should respect above
everything on earth but his own soul: and there, my dear, is a very
pretty puzzle for you, which a good many people have failed to solve. It
is, indeed, a pretty difficult problem; and perhaps you have chosen, if
not the wiser and better, at any rate the easier and safer part.
God bless you, dear friend.
Ever affectionately yours,
F. A. B.
HARRISBURG, Friday, November 14th, 1837.
Thank you, dearest Harriet, for your epitome of the history of the New
Testament. I have read the same things, in greater detail, more than
once.... I have repeatedly gone over accounts of the history and
authenticity of the Gospel narratives; but I have done so as a duty, and
in order to be able to give to others some reason for the faith that is
in me,--not really because I desired the knowledge for its own sake; and
therefore my memory had gradually lost its hold of what I had taken into
my mind, chiefly for the satisfaction of others, to enable me to make
sufficient answers upon a subject whose best evidence of truth seems to
me to reside in itself, and to be altogether out of the region of
logic.... Christ received the last and perfect revelation of moral
truth, brought it into the world, preached it by his practice, and bore
witness to it by his death; and since he came, every holy life and
death, in those portions of the globe where his name is known, has been
moulded upon his teaching and example; and those individuals least
inclined to acknowledge it have unconsciously imbibed the influence of
the inspiration which he breathed into the soul of humanity. He has
saved, and is daily and hourly saving, the world: and so far from
imagining the possibility of any end to the work he has begun, or any
superseding of his revelation by any other, it appears to me that
civilized societies and nations calling themselves Christian have hardly
yet begun to comprehend, believe, or adopt his teaching; under the
influence of which I look for the regeneration of the race through the
coming ages: it will extend above and beyond all discoveries of science
and developments of knowledge, and more and more approve itself the only
moral and spiritual theory that will at once carry forward and keep pace
with the progress of humanity....
If, by telling you that my mind dwelt more upon religious subjects now
than formerly, I have led you to suppose that I ever investigate or
ponder creeds, theologies, dogmas, or systems of faith, I have given you
a false impression. But I live alone--much alone bodily, more alone
mentally; I have no intimates, no society, no intellectual intercourse
whatever; and I give myself up, as I never did in my life before, to
mere musing, reverie, and speculation--I cannot dignify the process by
the title of thought or contemplation.
My mind is much less active than it was: I read less, write less, study
little, plan no work, and accomplish none. It is curious how,
immediately upon my return to England, my mind seemed to flow back into
its former channels; how my thoughts were roused and awakened; and how
my imagination revived, and with what ease and rapidity I wrote, almost
_currente calamo_, the only thing worth anything that I ever have
written, my "English Tragedy." Here, all things tend to check any
utterance of my thoughts, spoken or written; and while in England I
could not find time enough to write, I here have no desire to do so, and
lament my inability to force myself to mental exertion as a mere
occupation and fill-time: _I dare not say kill-time, "for that would be
a sin."_ ... I ride and walk, and pass my days alone; and lacking
converse with others, have become much addicted to desultory thinking
(almost as bad a thing as desultory reading), which is indeed no
thinking at all. Real thinking is what Cleopatra calls "sweating labor,"
to which the hewing of wood and drawing of water is a joke; but this I
carefully avoid, knowing my own incapacity for it; so I dawdle about my
mind, and, naturally, arrive at few conclusions; and among those few, no
doubt, many false ones....
We are established here during the rest of the Session of the
Convention, which is a gain to me, as here I get companionship. There is
a recess of a couple of hours, too, in the middle of the day, which the
members avail themselves of for their very early dinner, but which we
employ, and I enjoy immensely, in riding about the neighboring country.
It is not thought expedient that I should ride alone about this strange
region, on a strange horse, so I am escorted, at which I rejoice for all
sakes, as everybody's health here would be the better for more exercise
than they take.
This place, which is the seat of Government of the State of
Pennsylvania, is beautifully situated in a valley locked round by purple
highlands, through which runs the Susquehanna; in some parts broad,
bright, rapid, shallow, brawling, and broken by picturesque reefs of
rock; in others, deep and placid, bearing on its bosom beautiful
wood-crowned islands, whose autumnal foliage, through which the mellow
sunshine is now pouring, gives them the appearance of fairyland planted
with golden woods.
The beautiful river is bountifully provided, too, with a most admirable
species of trout, weighing from two to four pounds, silvery white
without, and pale pink within (just the complexion of a fresh mushroom),
and very excellent to eat, as well as lovely to behold.
Many of the members of the Convention have been kind enough to come and
see me, and I have attended one of their debates. They are for the most
part uncultivated men, unlettered and ungrammared; and those among them
who are the best educated, or rather the least ignorant, carry their
small _lore_ much as a school-boy carries his, stiffly, awkwardly, and
ostentatiously: an Eton sixth-form lad would beat any one of them in
classical scholarship. But though in point of intellectual acquirement,
I do not find much here to excite my sympathy, there is abundant matter
of interest, as well as much that is curious and amusing to me in their
intercourse. The shrewdness, the sound sense, the original observations,
and the experience of life of some of these men are striking and
remarkable. Though not one of them can speak grammatically, they all
speak fluently, boldly, readily, easily, without effort or hesitation.
There is, of course, among them, the usual proportion of well, and less
well, witted individuals; and perhaps the contrast is the more apparent
because the education has here covered no natural deficiencies and
developed no natural gifts; so that there is not the usual superficial,
civilized level produced by a common intellectual training. The
questions they discuss are often in themselves interesting, though I
cannot say that they often treat them in the most interesting manner....
Ever your affectionate,
F. A. B.
[The play which I have called an "English Tragedy," was suggested by
an incident in the life of Lord de Ros, which my father heard at
dinner at Lady Blessington's, and, on his return from Gore House,
related it to us. I wrote the principal scene of the third act the
same evening, under the impression of the story I had just heard;
and afterwards sketched out and wrote the drama, of which I had
intended, at first, to write only that one scene.
The whole fashionable world of London had been thrown into
consternation by the discovery that Lord de Ros, premier Baron of
England, cheated at cards. He was, notoriously, one of the most
worthless men of his day; which circumstance never prevented his
being perfectly well received by the men and women of the best
English society. That he was an unprincipled profligate made him
none the less welcome to his male associates, or their wives,
sisters, and daughters; but when Lord de Ros cheated his
fellow-gamblers at the Club, no further toleration of his wickedness
was, of course, possible; and then every infamous story, which, if
believed, should have made him intolerable to decent people before,
was told and re-told; and it seemed to me, that of all the evil
deeds laid to his charge, his cheating at cards was quite the least
evil.
Lady Ellesmere, from whom I heard a story of his cold-blooded
profligacy far more dreadful than that on which I founded my
"English Tragedy," told me that she thought Lord de Ros's influence
had been exceedingly detrimental to her brother, Charles Greville,
who was his most intimate friend; and who, she said, burst into
tears in speaking to her of it, when the fact of his cheating was
discovered,--certainly a strong proof of affection from such a man
to such a man; and I remember how eagerly and earnestly he
endeavored to persuade me that the incident on which I had founded
my "English Tragedy" had not been so profoundly base on Lord de
Ros's part as I supposed.
Besides the revival of these tragical stories of his misdeeds, the
poor man's disgrace gave rise to some bitter jokes among his friends
of the club-house and gambling-table. An epitaph composed for him to
this effect was circulated among his intimates:--
"Here lies Henry, twenty-sixth Baron de Ros, in joyful expectation
of the last trump."
Of course he was cut by all his noble associates; and Lord Alvanley,
being hailed one day by some of them with an inquiry as to whether
it was true that he had called on De Ros, replied, "I left a card on
Lord de Ros, and I marked it, that he might know it was an honor."]
HARRISBURG, Saturday, November 11th, 1837.
MY DEAR MRS. JAMESON,
It seems useless for me to wait any longer for the chance of giving you
some definite idea of our plans, for day after day passes without their
assuming anything like a decided form, and I am now as uncertain of what
is to become of us when the Convention leaves this place, as I was when
I saw you in New York.
From the date of your last, I perceive that you have taken your intended
trip [to the Sault St. Marie, and some of the then little frequented
Canadian Lake scenery]. I rejoice at this, as your health must, of
course, be better than when you wrote to me before, and I think the
scenery and people you are now amongst fit to renovate a sick body and
soothe a sore mind. [Mrs. Jameson was staying at Stockbridge, with the
Sedgwick family.] Catherine Sedgwick is my best friend in this country,
but the whole family have bestowed more kindness upon me than I can ever
sufficiently acknowledge.... They have all been exceedingly good to me,
and the place of their dwelling combines for me the charms of great
natural beauty with the associations that belong to the intellect and
the affections.
After your first letter from New York, I never rested till I got Mrs.
Griffith's review of your book. The composition itself did not surprise
me, but what did a little--only a little (for I am growing old, and have
almost done with being surprised at anything), was that such a
production should have gained admission into one of the principal
magazines of this country; it is a sad specimen, truly, of the
periodical literature it accepts.... Criticism in periodical journals is
apt to be slightly malignant, ... and more often the result of personal
sentiment than impartial literary or artistic judgment: so that I rather
admired the article in question for its ignorance and vulgarity than the
qualities which it exhibited in common with other criticisms to be met
with in our own periodical literature, which, however unjust or partial
in their censures and commendations, are decidedly inferior to Mrs.
Griffith's composition in the two qualities I have specified....
My baby acquired a cough in coming from Philadelphia to this place in a
railroad carriage (car, as they are called here), which held sixty-four
persons in one compartment, and from which we were all obliged to
alight, and walk a quarter of a mile through the woods, because the
railroad, though traveled upon, is not finished.
We are here upon the banks of the Susquehanna, and surrounded by fine
blue outlines of mountainous country. How thankful I am that God did not
despise beauty! He is the sole provider of it here.
Believe me ever yours very truly,
F. A. B.
P. S.--"A change has come o'er the spirit of my dream" since yesterday;
upon due deliberation, it is determined that when the Convention goes to
Philadelphia we shall take possession of Butler Place; and therefore
(however uncomfortably), I shall be able to receive you there after the
first of next month. If a half-furnished house and half-broken household
do not deter you, you will find me the same you have ever known me,
there, as elsewhere,
Yours most truly,
F. A. B.
PHILADELPHIA, Thursday, November 20th, 1837.
MY DEAR MRS. JAMESON,
I write in haste, for I find our garden-cart is just starting for town,
and I wish this to be taken immediately to the post-office. I was
beginning to be almost anxious about you, when your letter from Boston
arrived, to remove the apprehension of your being again ill, which I
feared must be the case.
You tell me that you will let me know the day on which to expect you in
Philadelphia, and bid me, if I cannot receive you in my house, seek out
a shelter for you. The inconveniences, I fear, are yours, and not mine;
though a residence of even a few days in an American boarding-house,
must, I should think, make even the discomforts of my housekeeping seem
tolerable. But that you are yourself likely to be a sufferer in so
doing, I should not be sorry to show you the quite indescribable
difference between an English and an American home and household; which,
I assure you, nothing less than seeing is believing.
From your bidding me, if I intended to relinquish your visit (which I do
not), seek you a lodging near me, I do not think that you understand
that we live six miles from town, and see as little of Philadelphia as
if that six were sixty. This circumstance, too, made me hesitate as to
whether I ought to remove you from seeing what there is to be seen
there--which is little enough, to be sure,--and withdraw you beyond the
reach of those civilities which you would receive on all hands in the
city. All this, though, is for yourself to determine on; bed, board, and
welcome, we tender you freely; your room, and the inkstand you desire in
it, shall be ready on the day you name; and we will joyfully meet you
when and where you please to be met, and convey you to our abode, where
I can positively promise you absolute quiet, which perhaps in itself may
not be unacceptable, after all your mind and body have gone through
during your stay in this country.
The Reform Convention is now sitting in Philadelphia, and is no mean
curiosity of its kind, I assure you; I should like you to see and hear
it.
Ever yours truly,
F. A. B.
[Mrs. Jameson paid us a short, sad visit, and returned to Europe
with the bitter disappointment of her early life confirmed, to
resume her honorable and laborious career of literary industry. Her
private loss was the public gain. When next we met, it was in
England.]
BRANCHTOWN, Friday, December 29th, 1837.
MY DEAR LADY DACRE,
Doubtless you have long ago accounted your kind letter lost, for I am
sure you would not imagine that I could have received, and yet so long
delayed to answer it: yet so it is; and I hardly know how to account for
it, for the receipt of your letter gratified and touched me very much;
the more so, probably, that my father and mother hardly ever write to
any of us, and so a letter from any one much my senior always seems to
me a condescension; and though I may have appeared so, believe me, I am
not ungrateful for your kindness in making the effort of writing to
me....
I wish it were in my power to give you a decent excuse for not having
written sooner, but the more I reflect, the less I can think what I have
been doing; yet I have been, and am, busy incessantly from morning to
night, about nothing. My whole life passes in trifling activities, and
small recurring avocations, which do not each seem to occupy an hour,
and yet at last weigh down the balance of the twenty-four. I cannot name
the thing I do, and but that our thoughts are to be revealed at the Day
of Judgment, I should on that occasion be in the knife-grinder's case:
"Story! Lord bless you! I have none to tell, sir!" for except ordering
my dinner (and eating it), and riding on horseback every day, I have no
distinct idea of any one thing I accomplish. Mine is not a life of much
excitement, yet the time goes, and all the more rapidly, perhaps, that
it flows with uninterrupted monotony. I neither read, write, nor cast up
accounts; and shall soon have to begin again with the first elements. Do
you not think that an ignorance, unbroken even by the slightest tincture
of these, would be rather a fine thing for one's original powers? If one
did nothing but a "deal of thinking," perhaps one's thinking might be
something worth. Is it not Goethe who says: "Thought expands and weakens
the mind; action contracts and strengthens it"? If this be true, mine
should be an intellect of vast extent, and too shallow to drown a
fly....
Do you know that I consider pain and disease as inventions of our own;
and every death _unnatural_, but that gradual decay of all the
faculties, and cessation of all the functions, which is, as we manage
matters now, the rarest termination of human existence? Therefore,
besides pitying people when they are ill, I blame them too, unless their
suffering be an inheritance, the visitation of God, even unto the third
and fourth generation, for disobedience to His wise and beneficent laws.
One would think, if this belief in hereditary retribution was _real_,
instead of a mere profession, people would be thoughtful, if not for
themselves, at least for those to whom they are to transmit a healthy or
diseased nature; one sees so much sin and so much suffering, the
manifest causes of which lie at our own doors....
Thank you for your account of Lady Beecher; she always made a most
pleasing impression upon me. I think, however you must be mistaken in
saying that she and I excited our audiences _alike_: I should think that
impossible in such very dissimilar actresses as we must have been. The
quantity of effect produced, of course I cannot judge of; but it seems
to me, from what I have seen and known of her off the stage, that the
quality must have been essentially different. This theme, however,
should not be begun in the corner of a letter already too long.
Your letter was brought to me into the Harrisburg Convention, whose
sessions I once or twice attended. That Convention was very funny, and
very strange, and very interesting too; I've a great mind to write Lord
Dacre an account of it, because, you know, you disclaim being a
"political lady," though I presume you admit that he is a "political
lord." And that reminds me that no democrat would accept your
three-legged stool and its inferences [Lady Dacre had compared the
stability of our Government, by the Sovereign, the Lords, and the
Commons, to a solid, three-legged stool, contrasting it
disadvantageously with that of the United States], for nature scorns
plurality of means where one suffices; and the broadest shadowing tree
needs but one stem, if the root be deep and widespread enough. This is
merely by the way, for I am as little "political" as you are.
Give my love to Lord Dacre, if that is respectful enough; and also to
Mrs. Sullivan, whose intercourse, briefly as I was able to enjoy it, was
very delightful to me.
Affectionately yours,
F. A. B.
PHILADELPHIA, Tuesday, January 8th, 1838.
MY DEAREST HARRIET,
I am not prone to that hungry longing for letters which you have so
often expressed to me, yet I was getting heart-sick for some
intelligence from some of my dear ones beyond the seas. My own people
have not written to me since I left England, and it seemed to me an age
since I had heard from you. The day before yesterday, however, brought
me letters from you and Emily, and they were dearly welcome.
A poor woman, who of course had more children than she could well feed
or honestly provide for, said to me the other day, alluding to my
solitary blessing in that kind, that "Providence had spared me
wonderfully." ... How fatal this notion, so prevalent among the poor and
ignorant, and even the less ignorant and better-to-do classes, is!--this
fathering of our progeny upon Providence, which produces so much misery,
and so much crime to boot, in our swarming pauper populations. I have
had it in my mind lately once or twice, to write an "Apology for," or
"Defense of" Providence. I am sick of hearing so much misery, so much
suffering, so much premature death, and so much unnecessary disease,
laid to the charge of our best Friend, our Father who is in heaven.
Moreover, it is the _good_ (not the reasonable, though) who bring these
railing accusations against Providence. Let what calamity soever visit
them, they never bethink themselves of their own instrumentality in the
business; but with a resignation quite more provoking than praiseworthy,
turn up their eyes, and fold their hands, and miscall it a dispensation
of Providence. The only application of that "technical" term that I ever
heard with pleasure, was that of the delightfully _devout_ old Scotch
lady, who said, "Hech, sirs, I'm never weary of reflecting on the
gracious dispensations of Providence towards myself, and its righteous
judgments on my neighbors!" Doubtless, God has ordained that sin and
folly shall produce suffering, that the consequences may warn us from
the causes. Madame de Staël, whose brilliancy, I think, has rather
thrown into the shade her very considerable common sense, has well said,
"Le secret de l'existence, c'est le rapport de nos peines avec nos
fautes." And to acknowledge the just and inevitable results of our own
actions only as the inscrutable caprices of an inscrutable Will, is to
forego one of the most impressive aspects of the great goodness and
wisdom of the Providence by which we are governed. Death, and the decay
which should be its only legitimate preparation, are not contrary to a
right conception of either. But instead of sitting down meekly under
what godly folks call "mysterious dispensations" of the Divinity, I
think, if I took their view of such unaccountable inflictions, I should
call them devilish rather than Divine, and certainly go mad, or _very
bad_. Bearing the righteous result of our own actions, while we suffer,
we can adore the mercy that warns us from evil by its unavoidable
penalties, at the same time remembering that even our sins, duly
acknowledged, and rightly used, may be our gain, through God's merciful
provision, that our bitterest experience may become to us a source of
virtue and a means of progress. The profound sense of the justice of our
Maker renders all things endurable; but the idea of the arbitrary
infliction of misery puts one's whole soul in revolt. Wretchedness
poured upon us, we cannot conceive why or whence, may well be
intolerable; suffering resulting from our own faults may be borne
courageously, and with a certain _comfort_,--forgive the apparent
paradox--the comfort is general, the discomfort individual; and if one
is not too selfish, one may rejoice in a righteous law, even though one
suffers by it. Moreover, if evil have its inevitable results, has not
good its inseparable consequences? If the bad deeds of one involve many
in their retribution, the well-doing of one spreads incalculable good in
all directions. It is because we are by no means wholly selfish, that
the consequences of our actions affect others as well as ourselves; so
that we are warned a thousand ways to avoid evil and seek good, for the
whole world's sake, as well as our own.
What a sermon I have written you! But it was my thought, and therefore,
I take it, as good to you as anything else I could have said.
Of course, children cannot love their parents _understandingly_ until
they become parents themselves; then one thinks back upon all the pain,
care, and anxiety which for the first time one becomes aware has been
expended on one, when one begins in turn to experience them for others.
But the debt is never paid _back_. Our children get what was given to
us, and give to theirs what they got from us. Love descends, and does
not ascend; the self-sacrifice of parents is its own reward; children
can know nothing of it. In the relations of the old with the young,
however, the tenderness and sympathy may well be on the elder side; for
age has known youth, but youth has not known age.
You say you are surprised I did not express more admiration of Harriet
Martineau's book about America. But I _do_ admire it--the spirit of
it--extremely. I admire her extremely; but I think the moral, even more
than the intellectual, woman. I do not mean that she may not be quite as
wise as she is good; but she has devoted her mind to subjects which I
have not, and probably could not, have given mine to, and writes upon
matters of which I am too ignorant to estimate her merit in treating of
them. Some of her political theories appear to me open to objection; for
instance, female suffrage and community of property; but I have never
thought enough upon these questions to judge her mode of advocating
them. The details of her book are sometimes mistaken; but that was to be
expected, especially as she was often subjected to the abominable
impositions of persons who deceived her purposely in the information
which she received from them with the perfect trust of a guileless
nature. I do entire justice to her truth, her benevolence, and her
fearlessness; and these are to me the chief merits of her book....
When Sully, the artist who painted the picture of me now in your
possession, found that it did not give entire satisfaction, he refused
to receive any payment for it, saying that he wished to have it back,
because, as a work of art, it was valuable to him, and that he would
execute another likeness (what a good word _execute_ is, so applied!)
_upon_ me, instead of that you have. We have never been able to alter
this determination of his, and therefore, as he will not take his money,
he should have his picture back. So, Harriet, dear, pack me up, and send
me to Messrs. Harrison and Latham, Liverpool; and as soon as Sully
returns from England, where he now is, you shall have another and, if
possible, a better likeness of me; though I do not feel very sanguine
about it, for Sully's characteristic is delicacy rather than power, and
mine may not be power, but certainly is not delicacy....
Alas! my dear Harriet, the little stone-pine [a seedling planted by my
friend from a pine-cone she brought from Italy], in one of our stormy
nights at sea, was dislodged from its place of security and thrown out
of the pot with all the mould. I watched its decay with extreme regret,
and even fell into some morbid and superstitious fancies about it; but I
could still cry to think that what would have been such a source of
pleasure to dear Emily, and might have prospered so well with her, was
thus unavailingly bestowed upon me. It made quite a sore place in my
heart....
God bless you, dear.
I am ever affectionately yours,
F. A. B.
PHILADELPHIA, February 6th, 1838.
MY DEAREST HARRIET,
The box and two letters arrived safely about a week ago. I read over my
old journal: this returning again into the midst of old events and
feelings, affected my spirits at first a good deal.... Of course this
passed off, and it afforded me much amusement to look over these
archives, ancient as they now almost appear to me.... It surely is
wisdom most difficult of attainment, to form a correct estimate of
things or people while we are under their immediate influence: the just
value of character, the precise importance of events, or the true
estimate of joy and sorrow, while one is subject to their action and
pressure. I suppose, with my quick and excitable feelings, I shall never
attain even so much of this moral power of comparison and just
appreciation as others may; but it cannot be easy to anybody....
Habitual accuracy of thought and moderation of feeling, of course, will
help one to conjecture how our present will look when it has become
past; but the mind that is able to do this must be naturally just, and
habitually trained to justice. With the majority of people, their
present must always preponderate in interest; and it is right that it
should, since our work is in the present, though our hopes may be in the
future, as our memories and examples must be in the past. There must be
some of this intense, vivid feeling about what is immediate, to enable
us to do the work of _now_--to bear the burden, surmount the impediment,
and appreciate the blessing of _now_. St. Paul very wisely bade us
"beget a temperance in all things" (I wish he had told us how to do it).
He also said, "Behold, _now_ is the accepted time, _now_ is the day of
salvation." ...
The medical mode of treatment in this country appears to me frightfully
severe, and I should think, with subjects as delicate as average
American men and women, it might occasionally be fatal. I have a violent
prejudice against bleeding, and would rather take ten doses of physic,
and fast ten days, than lose two ounces of my blood. Of course, in
extreme cases, extreme remedies must be resorted to; but this seems to
be the usual system of treatment here, and I distrust medical systems,
and cannot but think that it might be safer to reduce the quality rather
than the quantity of the vital fluid. Abstinence, and vegetable and
mineral matters of divers kinds, seem to me natural remedies enough; but
the merciless effusion of blood, because it is inflamed, rather reminds
me of my school-day cutting and gashing of my chilblains, in order to
obtain immediate relief from their irritation....
S----'s scarlet fever has been followed by the enlargement of one of the
tonsils, which grew to such a size as to threaten suffocation, and the
physician decided that it must be removed. This was done by means of a
small double-barreled silver tube, through the two pipes of which a wire
is passed, coming out in a loop at the other end of the instrument. This
wire being passed round the tonsil, is tightened, so as to destroy its
vitality in the course of four and twenty hours, during which the tube
remains projecting from the patient's mouth, causing some pain and
extreme inconvenience. The mode usually resorted to with adults (for
this, it seems, is a frequent operation here), is cutting the tonsil off
at once; but as hemorrhage sometimes results from this, which can only
be stopped by cauterizing the throat, that was not to be thought of with
so young a patient.... At the end of the twenty-four hours, the
instrument is removed, the diseased part being effectually killed by the
previous tightening of the wire. It is then left to rot off in the
mouth, which it does in the course of a few days, infecting the breath
most horribly, and, I should think, injuring the health by that
means.... At the same time, I was attacked with a violent sore throat,
perhaps a small beginning of scarlet fever of my own, and which seized,
one after another, upon all our household, and for which I had a hundred
leeches at once applied to my throat, which, without reducing me very
much, enraged me beyond expression. No less than seven of us were ill in
the house. We are now, however, thank God, all well.... I cannot obtain
from our physician any explanation whatever of the cause of this
swelling of the tonsils, so common here; and when, demurring about the
removal of my child's, I inquired into their functions, I received just
as little satisfaction. He told me that they were not ascertained, and
that all that was known was, that removing them did not affect the
breathing, speaking, or swallowing--with which I had to be satisfied.
This uncertainty seems to me a reason against the operation; cutting
away a part of the body whose functions are not ascertained, seems to me
rather venturesome; but of course the baby couldn't be allowed to choke,
and so we submitted to the inevitable. The disease and the remedy are
common here, and may be in England, though I never heard of them before.
Pray, if you know anything about either, write me what, as I cannot rest
satisfied without more information....
God bless you, dear.
Always affectionately yours,
F. A. B.
PHILADELPHIA, Wednesday, February 21st, 1838.
MY DEAR MRS. JAMESON,
Although it was a considerable disappointment to me not to see you
again, after the various rumors and last most authentic announcement of
your coming to Philadelphia, yet, upon the whole, I think it is as well
that we did not meet again, simply to renew that dismalest of
ceremonies, leave-taking. I had not the hope which you expressed, that a
second edition of our parting would have been less painful than the
first.... I think I should have felt less gloomily on that occasion, if
I had not had to leave you in such a dismal den of discomfort. External
things always, even in moments of strong emotion, affect me powerfully;
and that dreariest room, the door of which closed between us, left a
most forlorn impression upon my memory.
I have been of late myself living in an atmosphere darkened by
distress.... Typhus fever has carried off our most intimate friend, Mr.
B----, after but a fortnight's illness; and closed, almost at its
opening, a career which, under all worldly aspects, was one of fair and
goodly promise. He has left a young widow, to whom he had been married
scarcely more than two years, and a boy-baby who loses in him such a
preceptor as few sons in this country are trained under. I have lost in
him one of the few persons who cheer and make endurable my residence
here. Doubtless our loss is reckoned by Him who decrees it, and I pray
that none of us, by impatience of suffering, may forfeit the precious
uses of sorrow. Our friend and neighbor, W----, has just endured a most
dreadful affliction in the death of his youngest child, his only
daughter, one girl among six sons, the very darling of his heart, loved
above all the others, who, while she was still a baby, not a year old,
drew from him that ludicrously pathetic exclamation, "Oh, the man that
marries one's daughter must be hateful!" She died of scarlet fever,
which, after passing so lightly by our doorposts, has entered, like the
destroying angel, our poor friend's dwelling. His brother has been at
the point of death with it too, and I cannot but rejoice in trembling
when I think how happily we escaped from this terrible plague. As you
may suppose, my spirits have been a good deal affected by all the sorrow
around me.
_Mirabile dictu!_ I _have_ read the volume of Scott's Life which you
left here, also the volume of Miss Edgeworth, with which I was
disappointed; also the volume of Milton: not the Treatise on Divorce,
and the Areopagitica, alone; but Letters, Apologies for Smectymnuus, and
Denunciations against Episcopacy, and all. Did you do as much? Moreover,
I am just finishing Carlyle's "French Revolution"; so that you see, as
my friend Mr. F---- says, I am improving; and if I should ever happen to
read another book, I will be sure to mention the circumstance in my
letters.
Very truly yours,
F. A. B.
March 9th, 1838.
DEAREST EMILY,
I am almost ashamed to say I forgot the anniversary your letter recalls
to me; but the artificial or conventional epochs which used to divide my
time, and the particular days against which affection set its special
marks, are, by degrees, losing their peculiar associations for me. Even
the great division of all, death, which makes us miscall a portion of
eternity Time (as if it were different from, or other than, it), seems
less of an interruption to me than it did formerly. Is it not all one,
let us parcel it out as we will into hours, days, months, years, or
lifetimes? The boundary line exists in our narrow calculation alone. The
greatest change of all the changes we know, to mortal senses implying
almost cessation of being, to the believer in the immortality of spirit
suggests not even the idea of change, in what relates to the soul, so
much as uninterrupted progress, and the gradual lengthening of the chain
of moral consequence, inseparable from one's conception of a
responsible, rational agent, whose existence is to be eternal.
No doubt there are properties of our minds which find delight in order,
symmetry, recurring arrangement, and regular division; and the
harmonious course of the material world, alternately visited by the
sweet succession of day and night, the seasons, and all their lovely
variety of gradation, naturally creates the idea of definite periods, to
which we give definite names; but with God and with our souls there is
no time, and this material world in which our material bodies are
existing is but a shadow or reflection cast upon the surface of that
uninterrupted stream on which our true and _very selves_ are borne
onward; the real, the existing is within us.
I think it probable that the general disregard of times and seasons
formerly observed by me, in the community where I now live, may have
tended to lessen my regard for them; but, besides this, in thinking of
anniversaries connected with those I love--periods which used to appeal
to my affectionate remembrance,--I have come in a measure to feel that
to the very young alone, these marks we draw upon our life can appear
other than as the fictitious lines with which science has divided the
spheres of heaven and earth.
PHILADELPHIA, Saturday, March 18th, 1838.
Touching my picture, my dearest Harriet, I am desired to say that your
spirited defense of your right to it (whether you like it or not) is
admirable; that it certainly shall not be taken from you by force, and
that there was no intention whatever of infuriating you by the civil
proposal that was made to relieve you of it by sending you a more
satisfactory one, under the impression that you are not satisfied with
what you have.
My dear, the first two pages of your letter might have been written with
a turkey-cock's quill, they actually gobble in the pugnacity of their
style, and as it lies by me, the very paper goes fr-fr-fr. But you shall
keep that identical picture, my dearest, since you have grown to like
it; so shake your feathers smooth again, funny woman that you are! and
let your soul return into its rest.
Sully is now in England. I wish there were any chance of your seeing
him, but after remaining there long enough to paint the queen, he
intends visiting Paris for a short time and then returning home. He is a
great friend of mine, and one of the few people here that I find
pleasure in associating with. As his delicacy about being paid for the
picture arose from the idea that, not being satisfied with the likeness,
you probably did not care to keep it, I have no doubt that, the present
state of your regard for it being made clear to him, he will not object
any more to receiving the price of it.
I presume that the long chapter you have written me upon the
inevitability of people's folly and the expediency of believing, first,
that God makes us fools, and then that he punishes us for behaving like
fools, is a result of your impeded circulation, under the effect of the
east wind upon your cuticle. How I wish, without the bitter month's
sea-sickness, you could be here beside me now, this 24th of March,
between an open window and door, and with my fire dying out; to be sure,
as I have just been taking two monstrous unruly dogs to a pond at some
distance from the house, for a swim, and as S---- was with me and I had
to carry her (now a pretty heavy lump) through several mud passages, the
agreeable glow in which I feel myself may not be altogether due to the
warmth of the atmosphere, although it is really as hot as our last of
May. How I wish you could spend the summer with me! How you would
rejoice in the heat, to me so hateful and intolerable! To persons of
your temperament, I suppose hell, instead of the popular idea of fire
and brimstone, presents some such frigid horror as poor Claudio's:
"thrilling regions of thick-ribbed ice."
I was walking once with Trelawney, who is as chilly as an Italian
greyhound, at Niagara, by a wall of rock, upon which the intense sun
beat, and was reflected upon us till I felt as if I was being roasted
alive, and exclaimed, "Oh, this is hell itself!" to which he replied
with a grunt of dissatisfaction, "Oh, dear, I hope hell will be a great
deal _warmer_ than this!"
In my observation about the development of our filial affections after
we become parents ourselves, I may have fallen into my usual error of
generalizing from too narrow a basis, and taken it for granted that my
own experience is necessarily that of others.... But after all, though
_everybody_ is not like me, _somebody_ must be, and one's self is
therefore a safe source from whence to draw conclusions with regard to
others, up to a certain point. Made of the same element, however
diversely fashioned and tempered by various influences, we still are all
alike in the main ingredients of our humanity; and it must be quite as
contrary to sound sense to imagine the processes of one's own mind
singular, as to suppose them universal.
Profound truism! but truisms are profound--they lie at the foundations
of existence--for they are truths.
My journal is fast disappearing behind the fire. How I wish I had spent
the time I wasted in writing it, in making extracts from the books I
read!...
I wrote my sister a long answer, by Mrs. Jameson, to her last letter, in
which I entered at some length upon the various objections to a public
life; not that I was then aware of the decision she has now adopted of
going upon the stage--a decision, however, for which I have been
entirely prepared ever since my visit to England and my return home....
I hope she may succeed to the fullest extent of her desires, for I do
not think that hers is a nature that would be benefited by the bitter
medicine of disappointment. Oh, how I wish she could once enter some
charmed sphere of peace and happiness! The discipline of happiness, in
which I have infinite faith, would I think be of infinite use to her,
but--God knows best.... I am anxious, too, that her experiment of a life
of excitement should be the most favorable possible, that, under its
happiest aspect, she may learn how remote it is from happiness.... Had
she remained in England, I should have rejoiced to think that Mrs.
Somerville was her friend: such a friend would be God's minister to the
heart and mind of any young woman. It is not a small source of regret to
me, to think of how much inestimable human intercourse my residence in
America deprives me.
I think my father's selecting Paris for the first trial of my sister's
abilities a mistake; and I am very, _very_ anxious about the result.
Natural talent is sufficient for a certain degree of success in acting,
but not in singing, where the expression of feeling, the dramatic
portion of the performance, is so severely trammeled by mechanical
difficulties: the execution of which is all but rendered impossible by
the slightest trepidation, the tone of the voice itself being often
fatally affected by the loss of self-possession.
Pasta and Malibran both failed _at first_ in Paris, and I confess I
shall be most painfully anxious till I hear the issue of this
experiment....
I am in the garden from morning till night, but am too impatient for
mortal roots and branches. I should have loved the sort of planting
described in Tieck's "Elves," where they stamp a pine-cone into the
earth, and presently a fir-tree springs up, and, rising towards the sky
with the happy children who plant it, rocks them on its topmost
branches, to and fro in the red sunset.
Good-bye, God bless you.
I am ever your affectionate,
F. A. B.
[Many years after these letters were written, in 1845, when I
joined my sister in Rome, I found her living in the most cordial
intimacy with the admirable woman whose acquaintance I had coveted
for her and for myself.
My year's residence in Rome gave me frequent opportunities of
familiar intercourse with Mrs. Somerville, whose European celebrity,
the result of her successful devotion to the highest scientific
studies, enhanced the charm of her domestic virtues, her tender
womanly character, and perfect modesty and simplicity of manner.
During my last visit to Rome, in 1873, speaking to the old blind
Duke of Sermoneta, of my desire to go to Naples to pay my respects
to Mrs. Somerville, who was then residing there, at an extremely
advanced age, he said, "Elle est si bonne, si savante, et si
charmante, que la mort n'ose point la toucher." I was unable to
carry out my plan of going to Naples, and Mrs. Somerville did not
long survive the period at which I had hoped to have visited her.
Early in our acquaintance I had expressed some curiosity, not
unmixed with dread, upon the subject of scorpions, never having seen
one. Mrs. Somerville laughed, and said that a sojourn in Italy was
sure to introduce them sooner or later to me. The next time that I
spent the evening with her after this conversation, as I stood by
the chimney talking to her, I suddenly perceived a most
detestable-looking black creature on the mantelpiece. I started back
in horror to my hostess's great delight, as she had been at the
pains of cutting out in black paper an imitation scorpion, for my
edification, and was highly satisfied with the impression it
produced upon me.
Urania's reptile, however, was the conventional mythical scorpion of
the Zodiac, and only vaguely represented the evil-looking, venomous
beast with which I subsequently became, according to her prophecy,
acquainted, in all its natural living repulsiveness.
Besides this sample scorpion, which I have carefully preserved, I
have two drawings which Mrs. Somerville made for me; one, a delicate
outline sketch of what is called Othello's House in Venice, and the
other, a beautifully executed colored copy of his shield, surmounted
by the Doge's cap, and bearing three mulberries for a
device,--proving the truth of the assertion, that the _Otelli del
Moro_ were a noble Venetian folk, who came originally from the
Morea, whose device was the mulberry, the growth of that country,
and showing how curious a jumble Shakespeare has made, both of name
and device, in calling him a _Moor_ and embroidering his arms on
his handkerchief as _strawberries_. In Cinthio's novel, from which
Shakespeare probably took his story, the husband is a Moor, and I
think called by no other name.]
PHILADELPHIA, May 7th, 1838.
DEAREST HARRIET,
I fear this will scarce reach you before you leave England upon your
German pilgrimage, but I presume it will follow you, and be welcome
wherever it finds you.
Do you hear that the steamships have accomplished their crossing from
England to America in perfect safety, the one in seventeen, the other in
fifteen days! just half the usual time, thirty days being the average of
the finest passages this way. Oh, if you knew what joy this intelligence
gave me! It seemed at once to bring me again within reach of England and
all those whom I love there.
And even though I should not therefore return thither the oftener, the
speed and certainty with which letters will now pass between these two
worlds, hitherto so far apart, is a thing to rejoice at exceedingly.
Besides all personal considerations in the matter, the wonder and
delight of seeing this great enterprise of man's ingenuity and courage
thus successful is immense. One of the vessels took her departure for
England the other day, filled with passengers, and sent from the wharf
with a thousand acclamations and benedictions. The mere report of it
overcame me with emotion; thus to see space annihilated, and the
furthest corners of the earth drawn together, fills one with admiration
for this amazing human nature, more potent than the whole material
creation by which it is surrounded, even than the three thousand miles
of that Atlantic abyss. These manifestations of the power of man's
intellect seem to me to cry aloud to him to "stand in awe [of his own
nature] and sin not." And yet these victories over matter are nothing
compared to the achievements of human souls, with their powers of faith,
of love, and of endurance. I will not, however, inflict further
exclamations upon you....
Certainly mere details of personal being, doing, and suffering are of
some value when one would almost give one's eyes for a moment's sight of
the bodily presence of the soul one loves: so you shall have my present
history; which is, that at this immediate writing, I am sitting in a
species of verandah (or piazza, as they call it here), which runs along
the front of the house. It has a low balustrade and columns of
white-painted wood, supporting a similar verandah on the second or
bedroom story of the house; the sitting-rooms are all on the ground
floor. It is Sunday morning, but I am obliged to be content with such
devotions and admonitions as I can enjoy here, from within and around
me, as my plight does not admit of my leaving home....
I am sorry to say that the fact of letters miscarrying between this
country and England has been very disagreeably proved to me this morning
by the receipt of one from dear William Harness, who mentions having
written another to me five months ago, which other has never yet made
its appearance, and I presume would hardly think it worth while to do so
now.
We have had an uncommonly mild winter, without, I think, more than a
fortnight of severe weather, and in March the sun was positively summer
hot. I am out of doors almost all day. Our spring, however, has made up
for the lenient winter, by being as cold and capricious as possible, and
at this moment hardly a fruit-tree is in blossom or a lilac-tree in bud;
and looking abroad over the landscape, 'tis only here and there that I
can detect faint symptoms of that exquisite green haze which generally
seems to hang like a halo over the distant woods at this season. I do
not remember so backward a spring since I have been in this country. I
do not complain of it, however, though everybody else does; for the
longer the annihilating heat of the summer keeps off, the better the
weather suits me. Will you not come over and spend the summer with me,
now that the sea voyage is only half as long as it was? Come, and we
will go to Niagara together, and you shall be half roasted alive for
full five months, an effectual warming through, I should think, for the
rest of the year. Dear Harriet, Niagara is the one thing of its kind for
which no fellow has yet been found in the world, and to see it is
certainly worth a fortnight's sea-sickness. I cannot say more in its
praise.
You speak of the sufferings of your wretched Irish population; and
because patience, fortitude, benevolence, charity, and many good fruits
spring from that bitter root, you seem to be reconciled to the fact that
ignorance and imprudence are the real causes from which the greater part
of this frightful misery proceeds.
Though God's infinite mercy has permitted that even our very errors and
sins may become, if we please, sources of virtue in, and therefore of
good to, us, do you not think that our nature, such as He has seen fit
to form it, with imperfection in its very essence, and such a transition
as death in its experience, furnishes us with a sufficient task in the
mere ceaseless government and education which it requires, without our
superadding to this difficult charge the culpability of infinite
neglect, the absolute damage and injury and all the voluntary
deterioration, sin, and sorrow which we inflict upon ourselves?
Why are we to charge God with all these things, or conceive it possible
that He ordained a state of existence in which mercy's supplication
would be that sudden death might sweep a hundred sufferings of worse
kind from the face of the earth?
God is unwearied in producing good; and we can so little frustrate His
determinate and omnipotent goodness, that out of our most desperate
follies and wickednesses the ultimate result is sure to be
preponderating good; but does this excuse the sinners and fools who
vainly attempt to thwart His purpose? or will they be permitted to say
that they are "tempted of God"? Indeed, dear Harriet, I must abide in
the conviction that we manufacture misery for ourselves which was never
appointed for us; and because Mercy, unfailing and unbounded, out of
these very miseries of our own making, draws blessed balsam for our use,
I cannot believe that it ordained and inflicted all our sufferings.
I began this letter yesterday, and am again sitting under my piazza,
with S----, in a buff coat, zigzagging like a yellow butterfly about the
lawn, and Margery mounting guard over her, with such success as you may
fancy a person taking care of a straw in a high wind likely to have....
I have just been enjoying the pleasure of a visit from one of the
members of the Sedgwick family. They are all my friends, and I do think
all and each in their peculiar way good and admirable. Catharine
Sedgwick has been prevented from coming to me by the illness of the
brother in whose family she generally spends the winter in New York....
Like most business men here, he has lived in the deplorable neglect of
every physical law of health, taking no exercise, immuring himself for
the greater part of the day in rooms or law courts where the atmosphere
was absolute poison; and using his brains with intense application,
without ever allowing himself proper or sufficient relaxation. Now, will
you tell me that Providence _intended_ that this man should so labor and
so suffer? Why, the very awfulness of the consequence forbids such a
supposition for a moment. Or will you, perhaps, say that this dire
calamity was sent upon him in order to try the fortitude, patience, and
resignation of his wife, within a month of her confinement; or of his
sister, whose nervous sensibility of temperament was of an order to have
been driven insane, had they not been mercifully relieved from the worst
results of the fatal imprudence of poor R----?
Whenever I see that human beings do act up as fully as they can to _all_
the laws of their Maker, I shall be prepared to admire misery, agony,
sickness, and all tortures of mind or body as excellent devices of the
Deity, expressly appointed for our benefit; but while I see obvious and
abundant natural causes for them in our _disobedience_ to His laws, I
shall scarce come to that conclusion, in spite of all the good which He
makes for us out of our evil. I know we must sin, but we sin more than
we _must_; and I know we must suffer, but we suffer more than we _must_
too....
God bless you, dear.
Ever affectionately yours,
F. A. B.
PHILADELPHIA, Sunday, May 27th.
MY DEAR MRS. JAMESON,
I have received within the last few days your second letter from London;
the date, however, is rather a puzzle, it being _August the 10th_,
instead (I presume) of April. I hasten, while I am yet able, to send you
word of R. S----'s rapid and almost complete recovery....
In spite of the admirable forethought which prompted the beginning of
this letter, my dear Mrs. Jameson, it is now exactly a fortnight since I
wrote the above lines; and here I am at my writing-table, in my
drawing-room, having in the interim _perpetrated_ another girl baby....
My new child was born on the same day of the month that her sister was,
and within an hour of the same time, which I think shows an orderly,
systematic, and methodical mode of proceeding in such matters, which is
creditable to me.... I should have been unhappy at the delay of my
intelligence about R. S----, but that I feel sure Catharine must ere
this have written to you herself. I am urging her might and main to come
to us and recruit a little, but, like all other very good people, she
thinks she can do something better than take care of herself; a
lamentable fallacy, for which good people in particular, and the world
in general, suffer.
As you may suppose, I do not yet indulge in the inditing of very long
epistles, and shall therefore make no apology for this, which is almost
brief enough to be witty. I am glad you like Sully, because I love him.
I am ever yours very truly,
F. A. B.
BUTLER PLACE, 1838.
MY DEAREST HARRIET,
This purposes to be an answer to a letter of yours dated the 10th of
May; the last I have received from you.... I cannot for the life of me
imagine why we envelope death in such hideous and mysterious
dreadfulness, when, for aught we can tell, being born is to an infant
quite as horrible and mysterious a process, perhaps (for we know nothing
about it) of a not much different order. The main difference lies in the
fact of our anticipation of the one event--_ma, chî sa?_--but although
some fear of death is wholesomely implanted in us, to make us shun
danger and to prevent the numbers who, without it, would impatiently
rush away from the evils of their present existence through that gate,
yet certainly one-half of the King of Terror's paraphernalia we invest
him with ourselves; since, really, being born is quite as wonderful,
and, when we consider the involuntary obligations of existence thus
thrust upon us, quite as awful a thing as dying can possibly be.
You retort upon me for having fallen from the observance of
anniversaries, that I am still a devout worshiper of places, and in this
sense, perhaps, an idolater.... My love for certain places is
inexplicable to myself. They have, for some reasons which I have not
detected, so powerfully affected my imagination, that it will
thenceforth never let them go. I retain the strongest impression of some
places where I have stayed the shortest time; thus there is a certain
spot in the hill country of Massachusetts, called Lebanon, where I once
spent two days....
I was going to tell you how like Paradise that place was to my memory,
and with what curious yearning I have longed to visit it again, but I
was interrupted; and in the intervening hours S---- has sickened of the
measles, and I am now sitting writing by her bedside, not a little
disturbed by my own cogitations, and her multitudinous questions, the
continuous stream of which is nothing slackened by an atmosphere of 91°
in the shade, and the furious fever of her own attack....
As soon as S---- is sufficiently recovered, we purpose going to the
seaside to escape from the horrible heat. Our destination is a certain
beach on the shore of Long Island, called Rockaway, where there is fine
bathing, and a good six miles of hard sand for riding and driving. After
that, I believe we shall go to the hill country of Berkshire, to visit
our friends the Sedgwicks. I wonder whether your love for heat would
have made agreeable to you a six-mile ride I took to-day, at about
eleven o'clock, the thermometer standing at 94° in the shade. If this is
not more _warmth_ than even you can away with, you must be "bold and
determined like any salamander, ma'am." ... My love for flowers is the
same as ever. Last winter in London I almost ruined myself in my
nosegays, and came near losing my character by them, as nobody would
believe I was so gallant to myself _out of my own pocket_. My room is
always full of them here, and in spite of recollecting (which I always
do in the very act of sticking flowers in my hair) that I am upon the
verge of _thirty_, they are still my favorite ornaments.
Thank you for your constant affection, my dear friend. It makes my heart
sink to think how much is lost to me in the distance that divides us. If
death severs forever the ties of this world, and our intercourse with
one another here is but a temporary agency, ceasing with our passage
into another stage of existence, how strong a hold have you and I laid
upon each other's souls, to be sundered at the brief limit of this
mortal life! It may possibly have accomplished its full purpose, this
dear friendship of ours, even here; but it is almost impossible to think
that its uses may not survive, or its duration extend beyond this
life;--that is an awful thought overshadowing all our earthly loves, yet
throwing us more completely upon Him, the Father, the Guardian of all;
for on him alone can we surely rest always and forever. But how much
must death change us if we can forget those who have been as dear to us
here as you and I have been to each other!
A friend of mine asked me the other day if I thought we should have
other senses hereafter, and if I could imagine any but those we now
possess: I cannot, can you? To be sure I can imagine the possession of
_common sense_, which would be a new one to me; but it is very funny,
and impossible, to try to fancy a power, like seeing or hearing, of a
different kind, though one can think of these with a higher degree of
intensity, and wider scope.... Good-bye, dearest Harriet. God bless you.
I am ever affectionately yours,
F. A. B.
PHILADELPHIA, Monday, July 23d, 1838.
It is now high-summer mark, and such a summer as we are now dying under
is scarcely remembered by the oldest human creature yet extant in these
parts. And where are you, my dear Mrs. Jameson? Sojourning in Bohemian
castles; or wandering among the ruins of old Athens? Which of your many
plans, or dreams of plans have you put into execution? I am both curious
and anxious to know something of your proceedings, and shall dispatch
this at a hazard to your brother-in-law's, where I suppose your
movements will always be known, and your whereabouts heard of.
Your book is advertised I know, and if you have adhered to your former
determination, you have withdrawn yourself from your own blaze, and
left England to profit by its light. Of myself I can tell you little
that is particularly cheerful....
The friends of good order, in this excellent city of brotherly love,
have been burning down a large new building erected for _purposes of
free discussion_, because Abolition meetings were being held in it; and
the Southern steamer has been wrecked with dreadful loss of life, owing
to the exceeding small esteem in which its officers appear to have held
that "quintessence of dust, Man." The vessel was laden with Southerners,
coming north for the summer; and I suppose there is scarcely a family
from Virginia to Florida, that is not in some way touched by this
dreadful and wanton waste of life.
Pray, when you have time, write me some word of your doing, being, and
suffering, and
Believe me ever yours truly,
F. A. B.
[The above mention of shipwreck, refers to the disastrous loss of
the _Pulaski_; an event, the horror of which was rendered more
memorable to me by an episode of noble courage, of which our
neighbor, Mr. James Cooper, of Georgia, was the hero, and of which I
have spoken in the journal I kept during my residence on our
plantation.]
ROCKAWAY, Friday, August 10th.
Where are you, my dearest Harriet; and what are you doing? Drinking of
queer-tasting waters, and soaking in queer-smelling ones? Are you
becoming saturated with sulphur, or penetrated with iron? Are you
chilling your inside with draughts from some unfathomable well, or
warming your outside with baths from some ready-boiled spring?
Oh! vainest quest of that torment, the love for the absent! Do you know,
Harriet, that I have more than once seriously thought of never writing
any more to any of my friends? the total cessation of intercourse would
soon cause the acutest vividness of feeling to subside, and become blunt
(for so are we made): the fruitless feeling after, the vain eager
pursuit in thought of those whose very existence may actually have
ceased, is such a wearisome pain! This being linked by invisible chains
to the remote ends of the earth, and constantly feeling the strain of
the distance upon one's heart,--this sort of death in life, for you are
all so far away that you are almost as _bad_ as dead to me,--is a
condition that I think makes intercourse (such intercourse as is
possible) less of a pleasure than of a pain; and the thought that so
many lives with which mine was mingled so closely are flowing away
yonder, in vain for me here (and of hereafter who can guess!), prevents
my contentedly embracing my own allotted existence, and keeps me still
with eyes and thoughts averted towards the past, from the path of life I
am appointed to tread. If I could believe it right or kind, or that
those who love me would not be grieved by it, I really feel sometimes as
if I could make up my mind to turn my thoughts once and for all away
from them, as from the very dead, and never more by this disjointed
communion revive, in all its acuteness, the bitter sense of loss and
separation....
You see I discourse of my child's looks; for at present, indeed, I know
of nothing else to discourse about in her. Of her experiences in her
former states of existence she says nothing, though I try her as Shelley
used to do the speechless babies that he met; and her observations upon
the present she also keeps religiously to herself, so that I get no
profit of either her wisdom or her knowledge....
The vast extent of this country offers every variety of climate which an
invalid can require, and its mineral waters afford the same remedies
which are sought after in the famous European baths. God has everywhere
been bountiful, and doubtless no country is without its own special
natural pharmacopæia, its medicines, vegetable and mineral, and healing
influences for human disease and infirmity. The medicinal waters of this
country are very powerful, and of every variety, and I believe there are
some in Virginia which would precisely answer our purpose....
We are now staying for a short time on the Long Island shore, at a place
called Rockaway. As I sit writing at my window here, the broad, smooth,
blue expanse of the Atlantic stretches out before me, and ships go
sailing by that are coming from, or returning to, the lands where you
live.
You cannot conceive anything more strange, and to me more distasteful
than the life which one leads here. The whole watering-place consists of
a few detached cottages, the property of some individuals who are
singular enough to comprehend the pleasure of privacy; and one enormous
hotel, a huge wooden building, of which we are at present among the
inmates.
How many _can_ sleep under this mammoth roof, I know not; but upwards of
_four hundred_ have sat down at one time to feed in the boundless
dining-hall. The number of persons now in the house does not, I believe,
exceed eighty, and everybody is lamenting the smallness of the company,
and the consequent dullness of the place; and I am perpetually called
upon to sympathize with regrets which I am so far from sharing, that I
wish, instead of eighty, we had only eight fellow-lodgers.... The
general way of life is very disagreeable to me. I cannot, do what I
will, find anything but constraint and discomfort in the perpetual
presence of a crowd of strangers. The bedrooms are small, and furnished
barely as well as a common servant's room in England. They are certainly
not calculated for comfortable occupation or sitting alone in; but
sitting alone any part of the day is a proceeding contemplated by no one
here.
As for bathing, we are carried down to the beach, which is extremely
deep and sandy, in an omnibus, by batches of a dozen at a time. There
are two little stationary bathing-huts for the use of the whole
population; and you dress, undress, dry yourself, and do all you have to
do, in the closest proximity to persons you never saw in your life
before.... This admitting absolute strangers to the intimacy of one's
most private toilet operations is quite intolerable, and nothing but the
benefit which I believe the children, as well as myself, derive from the
bathing would induce me to endure it.
From this place we go up to Massachusetts--a delightful expedition to
me--to our friends the Sedgwicks, who are very dear to me, and almost
the only people among whom I have found mental companionship since I
have been in this country.
I have not had one line from my sister since her return from Germany,
whence she wrote me one letter. I feel anxious about her plans--yet not
very--I do not think her going into public life adds much to the anxiety
I feel about her.... God bless you, dear. What would I give to be once
more within reach of you, and to have one more of our old talks!
Ever affectionately yours,
F. A. B.
ROCKAWAY, LONG ISLAND, August 23d, 1838.
DEAR MRS. JAMESON,
... I forget whether you visited any of the watering-places of this New
World; but if you did not, your estate was the more gracious. This is
the second that I have visited, and I dislike it rather more than I did
the first, inasmuch as the publicity here extends not only to one's
meals, but to those ceremonies of one's toilet which in all civilized
parts of the world human beings perform in the strictest seclusion.
The beach is magnificent--ten good miles of hard, sparkling sand, and
the broad, open Atlantic rolling its long waves and breaking in one
white thunderous cloud along the level expanse. The bathing would be
delightful but for the discomfort and positive indecency of the
non-accommodation.
There are two small stationary dressing-huts on the beach, and here one
is compelled to disrobe and attire one's self in the closest proximity
to any other women who may wish to come out of the water or go into it
at the same time that one does one's self. Moreover, the beach at
bathing time is daily thronged with spectators, before whose admiring
gaze one has to emerge all dripping, like Venus, from the waves, and
nearly as naked; for one's bathing-dress clings to one's figure, and
makes a perfect wet drapery study of one's various members, and so one
has to wade slowly and in much confusion of face, thus impeded, under
the public gaze, through heavy sand, about half a quarter of a mile, to
the above convenient dressing-rooms, where, if one find only three or
four persons, stripped or stripping, nude or semi-nude, one may consider
one's self fortunate....
I have wished, as heartily as I might for any such thing, that I could
have seen the glorification of our little Guelph Lady, the Queen,
particularly as the coronation of another English sovereign is scarcely
likely to occur during my life; but this unaccomplished desire of mine
must go and keep company with many others, which often tend to the other
side of the Atlantic. Thank you for your account of my sister....
Hereafter, the want of female sympathy and companionship may prove
irksome to her, but at present she will scarcely miss it; she and my
father are exceedingly good friends, and pleasant companions and
fellow-travelers, and are likely to remain so, unless she should fall in
love with, and insist upon marrying, a "fiddler."
Instead of being at Lenox, where I had hoped to be at this season, we
are sweltering here in New York, for whatever good we may obtain from
doctors, leeches, and medicine. I mean to send S---- up into Berkshire
to-morrow; she is well at present, but I fear may not continue so if
confined to the city during this dreadfully hot weather.... For myself,
I am keeping myself well as hard as I can by taking ice-cold baths, and
trudging round the Battery every evening, to the edification of the
exceedingly disreputable company who (beside myself) are the only
haunters of that one lovely lung of New York.... It is not thought
expedient that I should be stared at alone on horseback; being stared at
alone on foot, apparently, is not equally pernicious; and so I lose my
most necessary exercise; but I may comfort myself with the reflection
that should I ever become a sickly, feeble, physically good-for-nothing,
broken-down woman, I shall certainly not be singular in this free and
enlightened republic, where (even more than anywhere else in the world)
singularity appears to be dreaded and condemned above any or all other
sins, crimes, and vices....
Pray be kind enough to continue writing to me. Every letter from the
other side is to me what the drop of water would have been to the rich
man in Hades, whom I dare say you remember. What do you think I am
reading? "The Triumphs of God's revenge against the crying and execrable
_sinne_ of wilful and premeditated _murther_"--that's something new, is
it not?--published in 1635.
So believe me ever very truly yours,
F. A. B.
NEW YORK, Friday, August 24th, 1838.
MY DEAREST HARRIET,
I wrote to you (I believe) a short time ago, ... but I have since then
received a letter from you, and will thank you at once for it, and
especially for the details concerning my sister.... I rejoice in the
change which must have taken place in her physical condition, which both
you and dear Emily describe; indeed, the improvement had begun before I
left England.... I believe I appreciate perfectly all the feelings which
are prompting her to the choice of the stage for her profession; but I
also think that she is unaware (which I am not) of the necessity for
excitement, which her mode of life and the influences that have
surrounded her from her childhood have created and fostered in her, and
for which she is no more answerable than for the color of her hair. I do
not even much regret her election, little as I admire the vocation of a
public performer. To struggle is allotted to all, let them walk in what
paths they will; and her peculiar gifts naturally incline her to the
career she is choosing, though I think also that she has much higher
intellectual capabilities than those which the vocation of a public
singer will ever call into play.... We are always so greatly in the dark
in our judgments of others, and so utterly incapable of rightly
estimating the motives of their actions and springs of their conduct,
that I think in the way of blame or praise, of vehement regret or
excessive satisfaction, we need not do much until we know more. I pray
God that she may endeavor to be true to herself, and to fulfill her own
perception of what is right. Whether she does so or not, neither I, nor
any one else, shall know; nor, indeed, is any one _really_ concerned in
the matter but herself. She possesses some of the intellectual qualities
from which the most exquisite pleasures are derived.... But she will not
be happy in this world; but, as nobody else is, she will not be
singular in that respect: and in the exercise of her uncommon gifts she
may find a profound pleasure, and an enjoyment of the highest kind apart
from happiness and its far deeper and higher springs.
Her voice haunts me like something precious that I have lost and go
vainly seeking for; other people play and sing her songs, and then,
though I seem to listen to them, I hear _her_ again, and seem to see
again that wonderful human soul which beamed from every part of her fine
face as she uttered those powerful sweet spells of love, and pity, and
terror. To me, her success seems almost a matter of certainty; for those
who can make such appeals to the sympathy of their fellow-beings are
pretty sure not to fail. Pasta is gone; Malibran is abroad; and
Schroeder-Devrient is the only great dramatic singer left, and she
remains but as the _remains_ of what she was; and I see no reason why
Adelaide should not be as eminent as the first, who certainly was a
glorious artist, though her acting surpassed her singing, and her voice
was not an exceptionally magnificent one....
This letter has suffered an interruption of several days, dear Harriet,
... and I and my baby have been sent after S----; and here I am on the
top of a hill in the village of Lenox, in what its inhabitants
tautologically call "Berk_shire county_," Massachusetts, with a view
before my window which would not disgrace the Jura itself.
Immediately sloping before me, the green hillside, on the summit of
which stands the house I am inhabiting, sinks softly down to a small
valley, filled with thick, rich wood, in the centre of which a little
jewel-like lake lies gleaming. Beyond this valley the hills rise one
above another to the horizon, where they scoop the sky with a broken,
irregular outline that the eye dwells on with ever new delight as its
colors glow and vary with the ascending or descending sunlight, and all
the shadowy procession of the clouds. In one direction this undulating
line of distance is overtopped by a considerable mountain with a fine
jagged crest, and ever since early morning, troops of clouds and
wandering showers of rain and the all-prevailing sunbeams have chased
each other over the wooded slopes, and down into the dark hollow where
the lake lies sleeping, making a pageant far finer than the one Prospero
raised for Ferdinand and Miranda on his desert island....
F. A. B.
LENOX, Monday, September 3d, 1838.
It is not very long since I wrote to you, my dear Mrs. Jameson, and I
have certainly nothing of very special interest to communicate to
warrant my doing so now; but I am in your debt by letters, besides many
other things; and having leisure to back my inclination just now, I will
indite.
I am sitting "on top," as the Americans say, of the hill of Lenox,
looking out at that prospect upon which your eyes have often rested, and
making common cause in the eating and living way with Mary and Fanny
A----, who have taken up their abode here for a week [Miss Mary and
Fanny Appleton; the one afterwards married Robert, son of Sir James
Mackintosh; the other, alas! the poet Longfellow]. Never was village
hostelry so graced before, surely! There is a pretty daughter of Mr.
Dewey's staying in the house besides, with a pretty cousin; and it
strikes me that the old Red Inn is having a sort of blossoming season,
with all these sweet, handsome young faces shining about it in every
direction.
You know the sort of life that is lived here: the absence of all form,
ceremony, or inconvenient conventionality whatever. We laugh, and we
talk, sing, play, dance, and discuss; we ride, drive, walk, run,
scramble, and saunter, and amuse ourselves extremely with little
materials (as the generality of people would suppose) wherewith to do
so....
The Sedgwicks are under a cloud of sorrow just now.... They are none of
them, however, people who suffer themselves to be absorbed by their own
personal interests, whether sad or gay; and as in their most prosperous
and happy hours they would have sympathy to spare to the sufferings of
others, so the sickness and sorrow of these members of their family
circle, and the consequent depression they all labor under (for where
was a family more united?), does not prevent our enjoying every day
delightful seasons of intercourse with them....
Pray write me whatever you hear about my people. Lady Dacre wrote me a
kind and very interesting account of my sister the other day. Poor
thing! her ordeal is now drawing near, if anybody's ordeal can properly
be said to be "drawing near," except before they are born; for surely
from beginning to end life is nothing but one long ordeal.
I am glad you like Lady M----; she is a person whom I regard very
dearly. It is many years since I first became acquainted with her, and
the renewal of our early intimacy took place under circumstances of
peculiar interest. Is not her face handsome; and her manner and
deportment fine?... I must stop. I see my young ladies coming home from
their afternoon drive, and am going with them to spend the hours between
this and bed-time at Mrs. Charles Sedgwick's. Pray continue to write to
me, and
Believe me ever yours very truly,
F. A. B.
Begun at LENOX, ended at PHILADELPHIA,
Sunday, October 29th, 1838.
DEAREST HARRIET,
... Since the receipt of your last letter, one from Emily has reached
me, bringing me the intelligence of my mother's death!... There is
something so deplorable in perceiving (what one only fully perceives as
they are ceasing forever) all the blessed uses of which these mysterious
human relations are capable, all their preciousness, all their
sweetness, all their holiness, alas! alas!...
Cecilia and Mr. Combe arrived in this country by the _Great Western_
about a fortnight ago. On their road from New York to Boston they passed
a night within six miles of Lenox, and neither came to see nor sent me
word that they were so near, which was being rather more phrenological
and philosophically phlegmatical than I should have expected of them.
For my heart had warmed to Cecilia in this pilgrimage of hers to a
foreign land, where I alone was of kin to her; and I felt as if I both
knew and loved her more than I really do....
I understand Mr. Combe has parceled out both his whereabouts and
whatabouts, to the very inch and minute, for every day in the next two
years to come, which he intends to devote to the phrenological
regeneration of this country. I am afraid that he may meet with some
disappointment in the result of his labors: not indeed in Boston, where
considerable curiosity exists upon that subject, and a general proneness
to intellectual exercises of every description....
Throughout New England, his book on the "Constitution of Man," and his
brother's, on the treatment of that constitution, are read and valued,
and their name is held in esteem by the whole reading community of the
North. But I doubt his doing more than exciting a mere temporary
curiosity in New York and Philadelphia; and further south I should think
he would not be listened to at all, unless he comes prepared to
demonstrate phrenologically that the colored population of the Southern
States is (or are), by the conformation of their skulls, the legitimate
slaves of the whites.
Can anything be stranger than to think of Cecilia trotting over the
length and breadth of North America at the heels of a lecturing
philosopher? When I think of her in her mother's drawing-room in
London, in the midst of surroundings and society so different, I find no
end to my wonderment. She must have extraordinary adaptability to
circumstances in her composition.
I have just finished the play of which you read the beginning in
England--my "English Tragedy"--and am, as usual, in high delight just
now with my own performance. I wish that agreeable sentiment could last;
it is so pleasant while it does! I think I will send it over to
Macready, to try if he will bring it out at Covent Garden. I think it
might succeed, perhaps; unless, indeed, the story is too objectionable
for anything--but _reality_.
Perhaps I have had my share of health. I am sure I have had enough to be
most grateful for, if I should lie on a sick-bed for the rest of my
days....
God bless you, dear.
I am ever affectionately yours,
F. A. B.
PHILADELPHIA, Tuesday, November 13th, 1838.
... The sad news of my poor mother's death, my dear Mrs. Jameson,
reached me while I was staying up at Lenox, among those whom my good
fortune has raised up in this strange country to fill for me the place
of the kindred and friends from whom I am so widely sundered....
That the winter in Georgia, whither we are going immediately, may be
beneficial to the invalid member of our party, is the only pleasant
anticipation with which I set my face towards a part of the country
where the whole manner of existence is repugnant to my feelings, and
where the common comforts of life are so little known, that we are
obliged to ship a freight of necessary articles of food, for our use
while we are on the plantation.
Wheaten bread is unknown, meal made of the Indian corn being alone used
there: and though the provision Nature has furnished, in the shape of
game, abounds, the only meat, properly so called, which can be procured
there, is shipped in barrels (salted, of course) from the North.
Society, or the shadow of it, is not to be dreamt of; and our residence,
as far as I can learn, is to be a half-furnished house in the midst of
rice-swamps, where our habitual company will be our slaves, and our
occasional visitors an alligator or two from the Altamaha.
Catharine Sedgwick is spending the winter in Lenox. She and Mr. and Mrs.
R---- and Kate are going to Europe in the spring; and if I should return
alive from Slavery, perhaps I may go with them. Pray do not fail to let
me know everything you may hear or see of my sister.... I was at Lenox
when your parcel for Catharine Sedgwick arrived. We were all enchanted
with the engraving from the German picture of the "Sick Counsellor."
F. A. B.
DEAREST HARRIET,
On Friday morning we started from Philadelphia, by railroad, for
Baltimore. It is a curious fact enough, that half the routes that are
traveled in America are either temporary or unfinished,--one reason,
among several, for the multitudinous accidents which befall wayfarers.
At the very outset of our journey, and within scarce a mile of
Philadelphia, we crossed the Schuylkill, over a bridge, one of the
principal piers of which is yet incomplete, and the whole building (a
covered wooden one, of handsome dimensions) filled with workmen, yet
occupied about its construction. But the Americans are impetuous in the
way of improvement, and have all the impatience of children about the
trying of a new thing, often greatly retarding their own progress by
hurrying unduly the completion of their works, or using them in a
perilous state of incompleteness. Our road lay for a considerable length
of time through flat, low meadows that skirt the Delaware, which at this
season of the year, covered with snow and bare of vegetation, presented
a most dreary aspect. We passed through Wilmington (Delaware), and
crossed a small stream called the Brandywine, the scenery along the
banks of which is very beautiful. For its historical associations I
refer you to the life of Washington. I cannot say that the aspect of the
town of Wilmington, as viewed from the railroad cars, presented any very
exquisite points of beauty; I shall therefore indulge in a few
observations upon these same railroad cars just here.
And first, I cannot but think that it would be infinitely more consonant
with comfort, convenience, and common sense, if persons obliged to
travel during the intense cold of an American winter (in the Northern
States), were to clothe themselves according to the exigency of the
weather, and so do away with the present deleterious custom of warming
close and crowded carriages with sheet-iron stoves, heated with
anthracite coal. No words can describe the foulness of the atmosphere,
thus robbed of all vitality by the vicious properties of that dreadful
combustible, and tainted besides with the poison emitted at every
respiration from so many pairs of human lungs. These are facts which the
merest tyro in physiological science knows, and the utter disregard of
which on the part of the Americans renders them the amazement of every
traveler from countries where the preservation of health is considered
worth the care of a rational creature. I once traveled to Harrisburg in
a railroad car, fitted up to carry sixty-four persons, in the midst of
which glowed a large stove. The trip was certainly a delectable one. Nor
is there any remedy for this: an attempt to open a window is met by a
universal scowl and shudder; and indeed it is but incurring the risk of
one's death of cold, instead of one's death of heat. The windows, in
fact, form the walls on each side of the carriage, which looks like a
long green-house upon wheels; the seats, which each contain two persons
(a pretty tight fit too), are placed down the whole length of the
vehicle, one behind the other, leaving a species of aisle in the middle
for the uneasy (a large portion of the traveling community here) to
fidget up and down, for the tobacco-chewers to spit in, and for a whole
tribe of little itinerant fruit and cake-sellers to rush through,
distributing their wares at every place where the train stops. Of course
nobody can well sit immediately in the opening of a window when the
thermometer is twelve degrees below zero; yet this, or suffocation in
foul air, is the only alternative. I generally prefer being half frozen
to death to the latter mode of martyrdom.
Attached to the Baltimore cars was a separate apartment for women. It
was of comfortable dimensions, and without a stove; and here I betook
myself with my children, escaping from the pestilential atmosphere of
the other compartment, and performing our journey with ease enough. My
only trial here was one which I have to encounter in whatever direction
I travel in America, and which, though apparently a trivial matter in
itself, has caused me infinite trouble, and no little compassion for the
rising generation of the United States--I allude to the ignorant and
fatal practice of the women of stuffing their children from morning till
night with every species of trash which comes to hand.... I once took
the liberty of asking a young woman who was traveling in the same
carriage with me, and stuffing her child incessantly with heavy cakes,
which she also attempted to make mine eat, her reason for this
system,--she replied, it was to "keep her baby good." I looked at her
own sallow cheeks and rickety teeth, and could not forbear suggesting to
her how much she was injuring her poor child's health. She stared in
astonishment, and pursued the process, no doubt wondering what I meant,
and how I could be so cruel as not to allow pound-cake to my child.
Indeed, as may easily be supposed, it becomes a matter of no little
difficulty to enforce my own rigid discipline in the midst of the
various offers of dainties which tempt my poor little girl at every
turn; but I persevere, nevertheless, and am not seldom rewarded by the
admiration which her appearance of health and strength excites wherever
she goes.
I remember being excessively amused at the woeful condition of an
unfortunate gentleman on board one of the Philadelphia boats, whose
sickly-looking wife, exhausted with her vain attempts to quiet three
sickly-looking children, had in despair given them into his charge. The
miserable man furnished each of them with a lump of cake, and during the
temporary lull caused by this diversion, took occasion to make
acquaintance with my child, to whom he tendered the same indulgence.
Upon my refusing it for her, he exclaimed in astonishment--
"Why, madam, don't you allow the little girl cake?"
"No, sir."
"What does she eat, pray?" (as if people lived upon cake generally).
"Bread and milk, and bread and meat."
"What! no butter? no tea or coffee?"
"None whatever."
"Ah!" sighed the poor man, as the chorus of woe arose again from his own
progeny, the cake having disappeared down their throats, "I suppose
that's why she looks so healthy."
I supposed so, too, but did not inquire whether the gentleman extended
his inference.
We pursued our way from Wilmington to Havre de Grace on the railroad,
and crossed one or two inlets from the Chesapeake, of considerable
width, upon bridges of a most perilous construction, and which, indeed,
have given way once or twice in various parts already. They consist
merely of wooden piles driven into the river, across which the iron
rails are laid, only just raising the train above the level of the
water. To traverse with an immense train, at full steam-speed, one of
these creeks, nearly a mile in width, is far from agreeable, let one be
never so little nervous; and it was with infinite cordiality each time
that I greeted the first bush that hung over the water, indicating our
approach to _terra firma_. At Havre de Grace we crossed the Susquehanna
in a steamboat, which cut its way through the ice an inch in thickness
with marvelous ease and swiftness, and landed us on the other side,
where we again entered the railroad carriages to pursue our road.
We arrived in Baltimore at about half-past two, and went immediately on
board the Alabama steamboat, which was to convey us to Portsmouth, and
which started about three-quarters of an hour after, carrying us down
the Chesapeake Bay to the shores of Virginia. We obtained an
unutterably hard beefsteak for our dinner, having had nothing on the
road, but found ourselves but little fortified by the sight of what we
really could not swallow. Between six and seven, however, occurred that
most comprehensive repast, a steamboat tea; after which, and the
ceremony of choosing our berths, I betook myself to the reading of
"Oliver Twist" till half-past eleven at night. I wonder if Mr. Dickens
had any sensible perception of the benedictions which flew to him from
the bosom of the broad Chesapeake as I closed his book; I am afraid not.
Helen says, "'tis pity well-wishing has no body," so it is that
gratitude, admiration, and moral approbation have none, for the sake of
such a writer, and yet he might, peradventure, be smothered. I had a
comical squabble with the stewardess,--a dirty, funny, good-humored old
negress, who was driven almost wild by my exorbitant demands for towels,
of which she assured me one was a quite ample allowance. Mine, alas!
were deep down in my trunk, beyond all possibility of getting at, even
if I could have got at the trunk, which I very much doubt. Now I counted
no less than _seven_ handsome looking-glasses on board of this
steamboat, where one towel was considered all that was requisite, not
even for each individual, but for each washing-room. This addiction to
ornament, and neglect of comfort and convenience, is a strong
characteristic of Americans at present, luxuries often abounding where
decencies cannot be procured. 'Tis the necessary result of a young
civilization, and reminds me a little of Rosamond's purple jar, or Sir
Joshua Reynolds's charming picture of the naked child, with a court cap
full of flowers and feathers stuck on her head.
After a very wretched night on board the boat, we landed about nine
o'clock, at Portsmouth, Virginia. I must not omit to mention that my
morning ablutions were as much excepted to by the old negress as those
of the preceding evening. Indeed, she seemed perfectly indignant at the
forbearance of one lady, who withdrew from the dressing-room on finding
me there, exclaiming--
"Go in, go in, I tell you; they always washes two at a time in them
rooms."
At Portsmouth there is a fine dry dock and navy yard, as I was
informed.... The appearance of the place in general was mean and
unpicturesque. Here I encountered the first slaves I ever saw, and the
sight of them in no way tended to alter my previous opinions upon this
subject. They were poorly clothed; looked horribly dirty, and had a lazy
recklessness in their air and manner as they sauntered along, which
naturally belongs to creatures without one of the responsibilities
which are the honorable burthen of rational humanity.
Our next stopping-place was a small town called Suffolk. Here the
negroes gathered in admiring crowds round the railroad carriages. They
seem full of idle merriment and unmeaning glee, and regard with an
intensity of curiosity perfectly ludicrous the appearance and
proceedings of such whites as they easily perceive are strangers in
their part of the country. As my child leaned from the carriage-window,
her brilliant complexion drew forth sundry exclamations of delight from
the sooty circle below, and one woman, grinning from ear to ear, and
displaying a most dazzling set of grinders, drew forward a little
mahogany-colored imp, her grandchild, and offered her to the little
"Missis" for her waiting-maid. I told her the little missis waited upon
herself; whereupon she set up a most incredulous giggle, and reiterated
her proffers, in the midst of which our kettle started off, and we left
her.
To describe to you the tract of country through which we now passed
would be impossible, so forlorn a region it never entered my imagination
to conceive. Dismal by nature, indeed, as well as by name, is that vast
swamp, of which we now skirted the northern edge, looking into its
endless pools of black water, where the melancholy cypress and
juniper-trees alone overshadowed the thick-looking surface, their roots
all globular, like huge bulbous plants, and their dark branches woven
together with a hideous matting of giant creepers, which clung round
their stems, and hung about the dreary forest like a drapery of withered
snakes.
It looked like some blasted region lying under an enchanter's ban, such
as one reads of in old stories. Nothing lived or moved throughout the
loathsome solitude, and the sunbeams themselves seemed to sicken and
grow pale as they glided like ghosts through these watery woods. Into
this wilderness it seems impossible that the hand of human industry, or
the foot of human wayfaring should ever penetrate; no wholesome growth
can take root in its slimy depths; a wild jungle chokes up parts of it
with a reedy, rattling covert for venomous reptiles; the rest is a
succession of black ponds, sweltering under black cypress boughs,--a
place forbid.
The wood which is cut upon its borders is obliged to be felled in
winter, for the summer, which clothes other regions with flowers, makes
this pestilential waste alive with rattlesnakes, so that none dare
venture within its bounds, and I should even apprehend that, traveling
as rapidly as one does on the railroad, and only skirting this district
of dismay, one might not escape the fetid breathings it sends forth when
the warm season has quickened its stagnant waters and poisonous
vegetation.
After passing this place, we entered upon a country little more cheerful
in its aspect, though the absence of the dark swamp water was something
in its favor,--apparently endless tracts of pine-forest, well called by
the natives, Pine-Barrens. The soil is pure sand; and, though the holly,
with its coral berries, and the wild myrtle grow in considerable
abundance, mingled with the pines, these preponderate, and the whole
land presents one wearisome extent of arid soil and gloomy vegetation.
Not a single decent dwelling did we pass: here and there, at rare
intervals, a few miserable negro huts squatting round a mean framed
building, with brick chimneys built on the outside, the residence of the
owner of the land and his squalid serfs, were the only evidences of
human existence in this forlorn country.
Towards four o'clock, as we approached the Roanoke, the appearance of
the land improved; there was a good deal of fine soil well farmed, and
the river, where we crossed it, although in all the naked unadornment of
wintry banks, looked very picturesque and refreshing as it gushed along,
broken by rocks and small islands into rapid reaches and currents.
Immediately after crossing it, we stopped at a small knot of houses,
which, although christened Weldon, and therefore pretending to be a
place, was rather the place where a place was intended to be. Two or
three rough-pine warerooms, or station-houses, belonging to the
railroad; a few miserable dwellings, which might be either not half
built up, or not quite fallen down, on the banks of a large mill-pond;
one exceedingly dirty-looking old wooden house, whither we directed our
steps as to the inn; but we did not take our ease in it, though we tried
as much as we could.
However, one thing I will say for North Carolina--it has the best
material for fire, and the noblest liberality in the use of it, of any
place in the world. Such a spectacle as one of those rousing pine-wood
chimneyfuls is not to be described, nor the revivification it engenders
even in the absence of every other comfort or necessary of life. They
are enough to make one turn Gheber,--such noble piles of fire and flame,
such hearty, brilliant life--full altars of light and warmth. These
greeted us upon our entrance into this miserable inn, and seemed to rest
and feed, as well as warm us. We (the women) were shown up a filthy
flight of wooden stairs into a dilapidated room, the plastered walls of
which were all smeared and discolored, the windows begrimed and darkened
with dirt. Upon the three beds, which nearly filled up this wretched
apartment, lay tattered articles of male and female apparel; and here we
drew round the pine-wood fire, which blazed up the chimney, sending a
ruddy glow of comfort and cheerfulness even through this disgusting den.
We were to wait here for the arrival of the cars from a branch railroad,
to continue our route; and in the mean time a so-called dinner was
provided for us, to which we were presently summoned. Of the horrible
dirt of everything at this meal, from the eatables themselves to the
table-cloth, and the clothes of the negroes who waited upon us, it would
be impossible to give any idea. The poultry, which formed here, as it
does all through the South, the chief animal part of the repast (except
the consumers, always understood), were so tough that I should think
they must have been alive when we came into the house, and certainly
died very hard. They were swimming in black grease, and stuffed with
some black ingredient that was doubt and dismay to us uninitiated; but,
however, knowledge would probably have been more terrible in this case
than ignorance. We had no bread but lumps of hot dough, which reminded
me forcibly of certain juvenile creations of my brothers, yclept dumps.
I should think they would have eaten very much alike.
I was amused to observe that while our tea was poured out, and handed to
us by a black girl of most disgustingly dirty appearance, no sooner did
the engine drivers, and persons connected with the railroads and
coaches, sit down to their meal, than the landlady herself, a portly
dame, with a most dignified carriage, took the head of the table, and
did the honors with all the grace of a most accomplished hostess. Our
male fellow-travelers no sooner had dispatched their dinner than they
withdrew in a body to the other end of the apartment, and large rattling
folding-doors being drawn across the room, the separation of men and
women, so rigidly observed by all traveling Americans, took place. This
is a most peculiar and amusing custom, though sometimes I have been not
a little inclined to quarrel with it, inasmuch as it effectually
deprives one of the assistance of the men under whose protection one is
traveling, as well as all the advantages or pleasure of their society.
Twice during this southward trip of ours my companion has been most
peremptorily ordered to withdraw from the apartment where he was
conversing with me, by colored cabin-girls, who told him it was against
the rules for any gentleman to come into the ladies' room. This making
rules by which ladies and gentlemen are to observe the principles of
decorum and good-breeding may be very necessary, for aught I can tell,
but it seems rather sarcastical, I think, to have them enforced by
servant-girls.
The gentlemen, on their side, are intrenched in a similar manner; and
if a woman has occasion to speak to the person with whom she is
traveling, her entrance into the male den, if she has the courage to
venture there, is the signal for a universal stare and whisper. But, for
the most part, the convenient result of this arrangement is, that such
men as have female companions with them pass their time in prowling
about the precincts of the "ladies' apartment"; while their respective
ladies pop their heads first out of one door and then out of another,
watching in decorous discomfort the time when "their man" shall come to
pass. Our sole resource on the present occasion was to retire again to
the horrible hole above stairs, where we had at first taken refuge and
here we remained until summoned down again by the arrival of the
expected train. My poor little children, overcome with fatigue and
sleep, were carried, and we walked from the _hotel_ at Weldon to the
railroad, and by good fortune obtained a compartment to ourselves.
It was now between eight and nine o'clock, and perfectly dark. The
carriages were furnished with lamps, however, and, by the rapid glance
they cast upon the objects which we passed, I endeavored in vain to
guess at the nature of the country through which we were traveling; but,
except the tall shafts of the everlasting pine trees, which still
pursued us, I could descry nothing, and resigned myself to the amusing
contemplation of the attitudes of my companions, who were all fast
asleep. Between twelve and one o'clock the engine stopped, and it was
announced to us that we had traveled as far upon the railroad as it was
yet completed, and that we must transfer ourselves to stage-coaches; so
in the dead middle of the night we crept out of the train, and taking
our children in our arms, walked a few yards into an open space in the
woods, where three four-horse coaches stood waiting to receive us. A
crowd of men, principally negroes, were collected here round a huge fire
of pine-wood, which, together with the pine-torches, whose resinous
glare streamed brilliantly into the darkness of the woods, created a
ruddy blaze, by the light of which we reached our vehicles in safety,
and, while they were adjusting the luggage, had leisure to admire our
jetty torch-bearers, who lounged round in a state of tattered undress,
highly picturesque,--the staring whites of their eyes, and glittering
ranges of dazzling teeth exhibited to perfection by the expression of
grinning amusement in their countenances, shining in the darkness almost
as brightly as the lights which they reflected. We had especially
requested that we might have a coach to ourselves, and had been assured
that there would be one for the use of our party. It appeared, however,
that the outside seat of this had been appropriated by some one, for our
coachman, who was traveling with us, was obliged to take a seat inside
with us; and though it then contained five grown persons and two
children, it seems that the coach was by no means considered full. The
horrors of that night's journey I shall not easily forget. The road lay
almost the whole way through swamps, and was frequently itself under
water. It was made of logs of wood (a corduroy road), and so dreadfully
rough and unequal, that the drawing a coach over it at all seemed
perfectly miraculous. I expected every moment that we must be overturned
into the marsh, through which we splashed, with hardly any intermission,
the whole night long. Their drivers in this part of the country deserve
infinite praise both for skill and care; but the road-makers, I think,
are beyond all praise for their noble confidence in what skill and care
can accomplish.
You will readily imagine how thankfully I saw the first whitening of
daylight in the sky. I do not know that any morning was ever more
welcome to me than that which found us still surrounded by the
pine-swamps of North Carolina, which, brightened by the morning sun, and
breathed through by the morning air, lost something of their dreary
desolateness to my senses....
Not long after daybreak we arrived at a place called Stantonsborough. I
do not know whether that is the name of the district, or what; for I saw
no village,--nothing but the one lonely house in the wood at which we
stopped. I should have mentioned that the unfortunate individual who
took our coachman's place outside, towards daybreak became so perished
with cold, that an exchange was effected between them, and thus the
privacy (if such it could be called) of our carriage was invaded, in
spite of the promise which we had received to the contrary. As I am
nursing my own baby, and have been compelled to travel all day and all
night, of course this was a circumstance of no small annoyance; but as
our company was again increased some time after, and subsequently I had
to travel in a railroad carriage that held upwards of twenty people, I
had to resign myself to this, among the other miseries of this most
miserable journey.
As we alighted from our coach, we encountered the comical spectacle of
the two coach-loads of gentlemen who had traveled the same route as
ourselves, with wrist-bands and coat-cuffs turned back, performing their
morning ablutions all together at a long wooden dresser in the open air,
though the morning was piercing cold. Their toilet accommodations were
quite of the most primitive order imaginable, as indeed were ours. We
(the women) were all shown into one small room, the whole furniture of
which consisted of a chair and wooden bench: upon the latter stood one
basin, one ewer, and a relic of soap, apparently of great antiquity.
Before, however, we could avail ourselves of these ample means of
cleanliness, we were summoned down to breakfast; but as we had traveled
all night, and all the previous day, and were to travel all the ensuing
day and night, I preferred washing to eating, and determined, if I could
not do both, at least to accomplish the first. There was neither towel,
nor glass for one's teeth, nor hostess or chambermaid to appeal to. I
ran through all the rooms on the floor, of which the doors were open;
but though in one I found a magnificent veneered chest of drawers, and
large looking-glass, neither of the above articles were discoverable.
Again the savage passion for ornament occurred to me as I looked at this
piece of furniture, which might have adorned the most luxurious bedroom
of the wealthiest citizen in New York--here in this wilderness, in a
house which seemed but just cut out of the trees, where a tin pan was
brought to me for a basin, and where the only kitchen, of which the
window of our room, to our sorrow, commanded an uninterrupted prospect,
was an open shed, not fit to stable a well-kept horse in. As I found
nothing that I could take possession of in the shape of towel or
tumbler, I was obliged to wait on the stairs, and catch one of the dirty
black girls who were running to and fro serving the breakfast-room. Upon
asking one of these nymphs for a towel, she held up to me a horrible
cloth, which, but for the evidence to the contrary which its filthy
surface presented, I should have supposed had been used to clean the
floors. Upon my objecting to this, she flounced away, disgusted, I
presume, with my fastidiousness, and appeared no more. As I leaned over
the bannisters in a state of considerable despondency, I espied a man
who appeared to be the host himself and to him I ventured to prefer my
humble petition for a clean towel. He immediately snatched from the
dresser, where the gentlemen had been washing themselves, a wet and
dirty towel, which lay by one of the basins, and offered it to me. Upon
my suggesting that that was not a _clean_ towel, he looked at me from
head to foot with ineffable amazement, but at length desired one of the
negroes to fetch me the unusual luxury.
Of the breakfast at this place no words can give any idea. There were
plates full of unutterable-looking things, which made one feel as if one
should never swallow food again. There were some eggs, all begrimed with
smoke, and powdered with cinders; some unbaked dough, cut into little
lumps, by way of bread; and a white, hard substance, calling itself
butter, which had an infinitely nearer resemblance to tallow. The
mixture presented to us by way of tea was absolutely undrinkable; and
when I begged for a glass of milk, they brought a tumbler covered with
dust and dirt, full of such sour stuff that I was obliged to put it
aside, after endeavoring to taste it. Thus _refreshed_, we set forth
again through the eternal pine-lands, on and on, the tall stems rising
all round us for miles and miles in dreary monotony, like a spell-land
of dismal enchantment, to which there seemed no end....
North Carolina is, I believe, the poorest State in the Union: the part
of it through which we traveled should seem to indicate as much. From
Suffolk to Wilmington we did not pass a single town,--scarcely anything
deserving the name of a village. The few detached houses on the road
were mean and beggarly in their appearance; and the people whom we saw
when the coach stopped had a squalid, and at the same time fierce air,
which at once bore witness to the unfortunate influences of their
existence. Not the least of these is the circumstance that their
subsistence is derived in great measure from the spontaneous produce of
the land, which, yielding without cultivation the timber and turpentine,
by the sale of which they are mainly supported, denies to them all the
blessings which flow from labor. How is it that the fable ever
originated of God's having cursed man with the doom of toil? How is it
that men have ever been blind to the exceeding profitableness of labor,
even for its own sake, whose moral harvest alone--industry, economy,
patience, foresight, knowledge--is in itself an exceeding great reward,
to which add the physical blessings which wait on this universal
law--health, strength, activity, cheerfulness, the content that springs
from honest exertion, and the lawful pride that grows from conquered
difficulty? How invariably have the inhabitants of southern countries,
whose teeming soil produced, unurged, the means of life, been cursed
with indolence, with recklessness, with the sleepy slothfulness which,
while basking in the sunshine, and gathering the earth's spontaneous
fruits, satisfied itself with this animal existence, forgetting all the
nobler purposes of life in the mere ease of living? Therefore, too,
southern lands have always been the prey of northern conquerors; and the
bleak regions of Upper Europe and Asia have poured forth from time to
time the hungry hordes, whose iron sinews swept the nerveless children
of the gardens of the earth from the face of their idle paradises: and,
but for this stream of keener life and nobler energy, it would be
difficult to imagine a more complete race of lotus-eaters than would now
cumber the fairest regions of the earth.
Doubtless it is to counteract the enervating effects of soil and
climate that this northern tide of vigorous life flows forever towards
the countries of the sun, that the races may be renewed, the earth
reclaimed, and the world, and all its various tribes, rescued from
disease and decay by the influence of the stern northern vitality,
searching and strong, and purifying as the keen piercing winds that blow
from that quarter of the heavens. To descend to rather a familiar
illustration of this, it is really quite curious to observe how many New
England adventurers come to the Southern States, and bringing their
enterprising, active character to bear upon the means of wealth, which
in the North they lack, but which abound in these more favored regions,
return home after a short season of exertion, laden with the spoils of
the indolent southerners. The southern people are growing poorer every
day, in the midst of their slaves and their vast landed estates: whilst
every day sees the arrival amongst them of some penniless Yankee, who
presently turns the very ground he stands upon into wealth, and departs
a lord of riches at the end of a few years, leaving the sleepy
population, among whom he has amassed them, floated still farther down
the tide of dwindling prosperity....
At a small place called Waynesborough, ... I asked for a glass of milk,
and they told me they had no such thing. Upon entering our new vehicle,
we found another stranger added to our party, to my unspeakable
annoyance. Complaint or remonstrance, I knew, however, would be of no
avail, and I therefore submitted in silence to what I could not help. At
a short distance beyond Waynesborough we were desired to alight, in
order to walk over a bridge, which was in so rotten a condition as to
render it very probable that it would give way under our weight. This
same bridge, whose appearance was indeed most perilous, is built at a
considerable height over a broad and rapid stream, called the Neuse, the
color of whose water we had an excellent opportunity of admiring through
the numerous holes in the plankage, over which we walked as lightly and
rapidly as we could, stopping afterwards to see our coach come at a
foot's pace after us. This may be called safe and pleasant traveling.
The ten miles which followed were over heavy sandy roads, and it was
near sunset when we reached the place where we were to take the
railroad. The train, however, had not arrived, and we sat still in the
coaches, there being neither town, village, nor even a road-side inn at
hand, where we might take shelter from the bitter blast which swept
through the pine-woods by which we were surrounded; and so we waited
patiently, the day gradually drooping, the evening air becoming colder,
and the howling wilderness around us more dismal every moment.
In the mean time the coaches were surrounded by a troop of gazing boors,
who had come from far and near to see the hot-water carriages come up
for only the third time into the midst of their savage solitude. A more
forlorn, fierce, poor, and wild-looking set of people, short of absolute
savages, I never saw. They wandered round and round us, with a stupid
kind of dismayed wonder. The men clothed in the coarsest manner, and the
women also, of whom there were not a few, with the grotesque addition of
pink and blue silk bonnets, with artificial flowers, and
imitation-blonde veils. Here the gentlemen of our party informed us that
they observed, for the first time, a custom prevalent in North Carolina,
of which I had myself frequently heard before--the women chewing
tobacco, and that, too, in a most disgusting and disagreeable way, if
one way can be more disgusting than another. They carry habitually a
small stick, like the implement for cleaning the teeth, usually known in
England by the name of a root,--this they thrust away in their glove, or
their garter-string, and, whenever occasion offers, plunge it into a
snuff-box, and begin chewing it. The practice is so common that the
proffer of the snuff-box, and its passing from hand to hand, is the
usual civility of a morning visit among the country-people; and I was
not a little amused at hearing the gentlemen who were with us describe
the process as they witnessed it in their visit to a miserable
farm-house across the fields, whither they went to try to obtain
something to eat.
It was now becoming dark, and the male members of our caravan held
council round a pine fire as to what course had better be adopted for
sheltering themselves and us during the night, which we seemed destined
to pass in the woods. After some debate, it was recollected that one
Colonel ----, a man of some standing in that neighborhood, had a farm
about a mile distant, immediately upon the line of the railroad; and
thither it was determined we should all repair, and ask quarters for the
night. Fortunately, an empty truck stood at hand upon the iron road, and
to this the luggage and the women and children of the party, were
transferred. A number of negroes, who were loitering about, were pressed
into the service, and pushed it along; and the gentlemen, walking,
brought up the rear. I don't know that I ever in my life felt so
completely desolate as during that half-hour's slow progress. We sat
cowering among the trunks, my faithful Margery and I, each with a baby
in our arms, sheltering ourselves and our poor little burthens from the
bleak northern wind that whistled over us.
The last embers of daylight were dying out in dusky red streaks along
the horizon, and the dreary waste around us looked like the very shaggy
edge of all creation. The men who pushed us along encouraged each other
with wild shouts and yells, and every now and then their labor was one
of no little danger, as well as difficulty,--for the road crossed one or
two deep ravines and morasses at a considerable height, and, as it was
not completed, and nothing but the iron rails were laid across piles
driven into these places, it became a service of considerable risk to
run along these narrow ledges, at the same time urging our car along. No
accident happened, however, fortunately, and we presently beheld, with
no small satisfaction, a cluster of houses in the fields at some little
distance from the road. To the principal one I made my way, followed by
the rest of the poor womankind, and, entering the house without further
ceremony, ushered them into a large species of wooden room, where blazed
a huge pine-wood fire. By this welcome light we descried, sitting in the
corner of the vast chimney, an old, ruddy-faced man, with silver hair,
and a good-humored countenance, who, welcoming us with ready
hospitality, announced himself as Colonel ----, and invited us to draw
near the fire.
The worthy colonel seemed in no way dismayed at this sudden inbreak of
distressed women, which was very soon followed by the arrival of the
gentlemen, to whom he repeated the same courteous reception he had given
us, replying to their rather hesitating demands for something to eat, by
ordering to the right and left a tribe of staring negroes, who bustled
about preparing supper, under the active superintendence of the
hospitable colonel. His residence (considering his rank) was quite the
most primitive imaginable,--a rough brick-and-plank chamber, of
considerable dimensions, not even whitewashed, with the great beams and
rafters by which it was supported displaying the skeleton of the
building, to the complete satisfaction of any one who might be curious
in architecture. The windows could close neither at the top, bottom,
sides, nor middle, and were, besides, broken so as to admit several
delightful currents of air, which might be received as purely
accidental. In one corner of this primitive apartment stood a
clean-looking bed, with coarse furniture; whilst in the opposite one, an
old case-clock was ticking away its time and its master's with cheerful
monotony. The rush-bottomed chairs were of as many different shapes and
sizes as those in a modern fine lady's drawing-room, and the walls were
hung all round with a curious miscellany, consisting principally of
physic vials, turkey-feather fans, bunches of dried herbs, and the
colonel's arsenal, in the shape of one or two old guns, etc.
According to the worthy man's hearty invitation, I proceeded to make
myself and my companions at home, pinning, skewering, and otherwise
suspending our cloaks and shawls across the various intentional and
unintentional air-gaps, thereby increasing both the comfort and the
grotesqueness of the apartment in no small degree. The babies had bowls
of milk furnished them, and the elder portion of the caravan was regaled
with a taste of the colonel's home-made wine, pending the supper to
which he continued to entreat our stay. Meantime he entered into
conversation with the gentlemen; and my veneration waxed deep, when the
old man, unfolding his history, proclaimed himself one of the heroes of
the revolution,--a fellow-fighter with Washington. I, who, comforted to
a degree of high spirits by our sudden transition from the cold and
darkness of the railroad to the light and shelter of this rude mansion,
had been flippantly bandying jokes, and proceeded some way in a lively
flirtation with this illustrious American, grew thrice respectful, and
hardly ventured to raise either my eyes or my voice as I inquired if he
lived alone in this remote place. Yes, alone now; his wife had been dead
near upon two years.
Suddenly we were broken in upon by the arrival of the expected train. It
was past eight o'clock. If we delayed we should have to travel all
night; but then, the colonel pressed us to stay and sup (the bereaved
colonel, the last touching revelation of whose lonely existence had
turned all my mirth into sympathizing sadness). The gentlemen were
famished and well inclined to stay; the ladies were famished too, for we
had eaten nothing all day. The bustle of preparation, urged by the
warmhearted colonel, began afresh; the negro girls shambled in and out
more vigorously than ever, and finally we were called to eat and refresh
ourselves with--dirty water--I cannot call it tea,--old cheese, bad
butter, and old dry biscuits. The gentlemen bethought them of the good
supper they might have secured a few miles further and groaned; but the
hospitable colonel merely asked them half a dollar apiece (there were
about ten of them); paying which, we departed, with our enthusiasm a
little damped for the warrior of the revolution; and a tinge of rather
deeper misgiving as to some of his virtues stole over our minds, on
learning that three of the sable damsels who trudged about at our supper
service were the colonel's own progeny. I believe only three,--though
the young negro girl, whose loquacity made us aware of the fact, added,
with a burst of commendable pride and gratitude, "Indeed, he is a
father to us all!" Whether she spoke figuratively, or literally, we
could not determine. So much for a three hours' shelter in North
Carolina....
F. A. B.
DEAREST HARRIET,
I had been very much struck with the appearance of the horses we passed
occasionally in enclosures, or gathered round some lonely roadside
pine-wood shop, or post-office, fastened to trees in the surrounding
forest, and waiting for their riders. I had been always led to expect a
great improvement in the breed of horses as we went southward, and the
appearance of those I saw on the road was certainly in favor of the
claim. They were generally small, but in good condition, and remarkably
well made. They seemed to be tolerably well cared for, too; and those
which we saw caparisoned were ornamented with gay saddle-cloths, and
rather a superfluity of trappings for _civil_ animals.
At our dismal halt in the woods, while waiting for the railroad train,
among our other spectators was a woman on horseback. Her steed was
uncommonly pretty and well-limbed; but her costume was quite the most
eccentric that can be imagined, accustomed as I am to the not over-rigid
equipments of the northern villages. But the North Carolinian damsel
beat all Yankee girls, I ever saw, hollow, in the glorious contempt she
exhibited for the external fitness of things in her exceeding short
skirts and huge sun-bonnet.
After our departure from Colonel ----'s, we traveled all night on the
railroad. One of my children slept in my lap, the other on the narrow
seat opposite to me, from which she was jolted off every quarter of an
hour by the uneasy motion of the carriage, and the checks and stops of
the engine, which was out of order. The carriage, though full of people,
was heated with a stove, and every time this was replenished with coals
we were almost suffocated with the clouds of bituminous smoke which
filled it. Five hours, they said, was the usual time consumed in this
part of the journey; but we were the whole mortal night upon that uneasy
railroad, and it was five o'clock in the morning before we reached
Wilmington, North Carolina. When the train stopped it was yet quite
dark, and most bitterly cold; nevertheless, the distance from the
railroad to the only inn where we could be accommodated was nothing less
than a mile; and, weary and worn out, we trudged along, the poor little
sleeping children carried by their still more unfortunate, sleepless
nurses--and so by the cheerless winter starlight we walked along the
brink of the Cape Fear River, to seek where we might lay our heads.
We were shown into a room without window-curtains or shutters, the
windows, as usual, not half shut, and wholly incapable of shutting.
Here, when I asked if we could have some tea, (having fasted the whole
previous day with the exception of Colonel ----'s bountiful supper), the
host pleasantly informed us that the "public breakfast would not be
ready for some hours yet." I really could not help once again protesting
against this abominable tyranny of the traveling many over the traveling
few in this free country. It is supposed impossible that any individual
can hunger, thirst, or desire sleep at any other than the "public
hours." The consequence is, that let one arrive starved at an inn, one
can obtain nothing till such hours as those who are not starving desire
to eat;--and if one is foredone with travel, weary, and wanting rest,
the pitiless alarum-bell, calling those who may have had twelve hours'
sleep from their beds, must startle those who have only just closed
their eyes for the first time, perhaps for three nights,--as if the
whole traveling community were again at boarding-school, and as if a
private summons by the boots or chambermaid to each apartment would not
answer the same purpose.
We were, however, so utterly exhausted, that waiting for the public
appetite was out of the question; and, by dint of much supplication, we
at length obtained some breakfast. When, however, we stated that we had
not been in bed for two successive nights, and asked to be shown to our
rooms, the same gentleman, our host, an exceedingly pleasant person,
informed us that _our_ chamber was prepared,--adding, with the most
facetious familiarity, when I exclaimed "Our chamber!" (we were three,
and two children)--
"Oh! madam, I presume you will have no objection to sleeping with _your
infant_" (he lumped the two into one); "and these two ladies" (Miss ----
and Margery) "will sleep together. I dare say they have done it a
hundred times."
This unheard-of proposition, and the man's cool impudence in making it,
so astonished me that I could hardly speak. At last, however, I found
words to inform him that none of our party were in the habit of sleeping
with each other, and that the arrangement was such as we were not at all
inclined to submit to. The gentleman, apparently very much surprised at
our singular habits, said, "Oh! he didn't know that the ladies were not
acquainted" (as if, forsooth, one went to bed with all one's
acquaintance!) "but that he had but one room in the ladies' part of the
house."
Miss ---- immediately professed her readiness to take one in the
gentlemen's "part of the house," when it appeared that there was none
vacant there which had a fireplace in it. As the morning was intensely
cold, this could not be thought of. I could not take shelter in ----'s
room; for he, according to this decent and comfortable mode of lodging
travelers, had another man to share it with him. To our common dormitory
we therefore repaired, as it was impossible that we could any of us go
any longer without rest. I established Margery and the two babies in the
largest bed; poor Miss ---- betook herself to a sort of curtainless cot
that stood in one corner; and I laid myself down on a mattress on the
floor; and we soon all forgot the conveniences of a Wilmington hotel in
the supreme convenience of sleep.
It was bright morning, and drawing towards one o'clock, when we rose,
and were presently summoned to the "public dinner." The dirt and
discomfort of everything was so intolerable that I could not eat; and
having obtained some tea, we set forth to walk to the steamboat
_Governor Dudley_, which was to convey us to Charleston. The midday sun
took from Wilmington some of the desolateness which the wintry darkness
of the morning gave it; yet it looked to me like a place I could sooner
die than live in,--ruinous, yet not old,--poor, dirty, and mean, and
unvenerable in its poverty and decay. The river that runs by it is
called Cape Fear River; above, on the opposite shore, lies Mount
Misery,--and heaven-forsaken enough seemed place and people to me. How
good one should be to live in such places! How heavenly would one's
thoughts and imaginations of hard necessity become, if one existed in
Wilmington, North Carolina! The afternoon was beautiful, golden, mild,
and bright,--the boat we were in extremely comfortable and clean, and
the captain especially courteous. The whole furniture of this vessel was
remarkably tasteful, as well as convenient,--not forgetting the
fawn-colored and blue curtains to the berths.
But what a deplorable mistake it is--be-draperying up these narrow
nests, so as to impede the poor, meagre mouthfuls of air which their
dimensions alone necessarily limit one to. These crimson and yellow, or
even fawn-colored and blue silk suffocators, are a poor compensation for
free ventilation; and I always look at these elaborate adornments of
sea-beds as ingenious and elegant incentives to sea-sickness, graceful
emetics in themselves, all provocation from the water set aside. The
captain's wife and ourselves were the only passengers; and, after a
most delightful walk on deck in the afternoon, and comfortable tea, we
retired for the night, and did not wake till we bumped on the Charleston
bar on the morning of Christmas-day.
The _William Seabrook_, the boat which is to convey us from hence to
Savannah, only goes once a week.... This unfrequent communication
between the principal cities of the great Southern States is rather a
curious contrast to the almost unintermitting intercourse which goes on
between the northern towns. The boat itself, too, is a species of small
monopoly, being built and chiefly used for the convenience of certain
wealthy planters residing on Edisto Island, a small insulated tract
between Charleston and Savannah, where the finest cotton that is raised
in this country grows. This city is the oldest I have yet seen in
America--I should think it must be the oldest in it. I cannot say that
the first impression produced by the wharf at which we landed, or the
streets we drove through in reaching our hotel, was particularly lively.
Rickety, dark, dirty, tumble-down streets and warehouses, with every now
and then a mansion of loftier pretensions, but equally neglected and
ruinous in its appearance, would probably not have been objects of
special admiration to many people on this side the water; but I belong
to that infirm, decrepit, bedridden old country, England, and must
acknowledge, with a blush for the stupidity of the prejudice, that it is
so very long since I have seen anything old, that the lower streets of
Charleston, in all their dinginess and decay, were a refreshment and a
rest to my spirit.
I have had a perfect red-brick-and-white-board fever ever since I came
to this country; and once more to see a house which looks as if it had
stood long enough to get warmed through, is a balm to my senses,
oppressed with newness. Boston had two or three fine old
dwelling-houses, with antique gardens and old-fashioned court-yards; but
they have come down to the dust before the improving spirit of the age.
One would think, that after ten years a house gets weak in the knees.
Perhaps these houses do; but I have lodged under roof-trees that have
stood hundreds of years, and may stand hundreds more,--marry, they have
good foundations.
In walking about Charleston, I was forcibly reminded of some of the
older country towns in England--of Southampton a little. The appearance
of the city is highly picturesque, a word which can apply to none other
American towns; and although the place is certainly pervaded with an air
of decay, 'tis a genteel infirmity, as might be that of a distressed
elderly gentlewoman. It has none of the smug mercantile primness of the
northern cities, but a look of state, as of quondam wealth and
importance, a little gone down in the world, yet remembering still its
former dignity. The northern towns, compared with it, are as the spruce
citizen rattling by the faded splendors of an old family-coach in his
newfangled chariot--they certainly have got on before it. Charleston has
an air of eccentricity, too, and peculiarity, which formerly were not
deemed unbecoming the well-born and well-bred gentlewoman, which her
gentility itself sanctioned and warranted--none of the vulgar dread of
vulgar opinion, forcing those who are possessed by it to conform to a
general standard of manners, unable to conceive one peculiar to
itself,--this "what-'ll-Mrs.-Grundy-say" devotion to conformity in small
things and great, which pervades the American body-social from the
matter of church-going to the trimming of women's petticoats,--this
dread of singularity, which has eaten up all individuality amongst them,
and makes their population like so many moral and mental lithographs,
and their houses like so many thousand hideous brick-twins.
I believe I am getting excited; but the fact is, that being politically
the most free people on earth, the Americans are socially the least so;
and it seems as though, ever since that little affair of establishing
their independence among nations, which they managed so successfully,
every American mother's son of them has been doing his best to divest
himself of his own private share of that great public blessing, liberty.
But to return to Charleston. It is in this respect a far more
aristocratic (should I not say democratic?) city than any I have yet
seen in America, inasmuch as every house seems built to the owner's
particular taste; and in one street you seem to be in an old English
town, and in another in some continental city of France or Italy. This
variety is extremely pleasing to the eye; not less so is the
intermixture of trees with the buildings, almost every house being
adorned, and gracefully screened, by the beautiful foliage of evergreen
shrubs. These, like ministering angels, cloak with nature's kindly
ornaments the ruins and decays of the mansions they surround; and the
latter, time-mellowed (I will not say stained, and a painter knows the
difference), harmonize in their forms and coloring with the trees, in a
manner most delightful to an eye that knows how to appreciate this
species of beauty.
There are several public buildings of considerable architectural
pretensions in Charleston, all of them apparently of some antiquity (for
the New World), except a very large and handsome edifice which is not
yet completed, and which, upon inquiry, we found was intended for a
guard-house. Its very extensive dimensions excited our surprise; but a
man who was at work about it, and who answered our questions with a good
deal of intelligence, informed us that it was by no means larger than
the necessities of the city required; for that they not unfrequently had
between fifty and sixty persons (colored and white) brought in by the
patrol in one night.
"But," objected we, "the colored people are not allowed to go out
without passes after nine o'clock."
"Yes," replied our informant, "but they will do it, nevertheless; and
every night numbers are brought in who have been caught endeavoring to
evade the patrol."
This explained to me the meaning of a most ominous tolling of bells and
beating of drums, which, on the first evening of my arrival in
Charleston, made me almost fancy myself in one of the old fortified
frontier towns of the Continent where the tocsin is sounded, and the
evening drum beaten, and the guard set as regularly every night as if an
invasion were expected. In Charleston, however, it is not the dread of
foreign invasion, but of domestic insurrection, which occasions these
nightly precautions; and, for the first time since my residence in this
free country, the curfew (now obsolete in mine, except in some remote
districts, where the ringing of an old church-bell at sunset is all that
remains of the tyrannous custom) recalled the associations of early
feudal times, and the oppressive insecurity of our Norman conquerors.
But truly it seemed rather anomalous hereabouts, and nowadays; though,
of course, it is very necessary where a large class of persons exists in
the very bosom of a community whose interests are known to be at
variance and incompatible with those of its other members. And no doubt
these daily and nightly precautions are but trifling drawbacks upon the
manifold blessings of slavery (for which, if you are stupid, and cannot
conceive them, see the late Governor M'Duffy's speeches); still I should
prefer going to sleep without the apprehension of my servants cutting my
throat in my bed, even to having a guard provided to prevent their doing
so. However, this peculiar prejudice of mine may spring from the fact of
my having known many instances in which servants were the trusted and
most trustworthy friends of their employers, and entertaining, besides,
some odd notions of the reciprocal duties of _all_ the members of
families one towards the other.
The extreme emptiness which I observed in the streets, and absence of
anything like bustle or business, is chiefly owing to the season, which
the inhabitants of Charleston, with something akin to old English
feeling, generally spend in hospitable festivity upon their estates; a
goodly custom, at least in my mind. It is so rare for any of the
wealthier people to remain in town at Christmas, that poor Miss ----,
who had come on with us to pay a visit to some friends, was not a little
relieved to find that they were (contrary to their custom) still in the
city. I went to take my usual walk this morning, and found that the good
citizens of Charleston were providing themselves with a most delightful
promenade upon the river, a fine, broad, well-paved esplanade, of
considerable length, open to the water on one side, and on the other
overlooked by some very large and picturesque old houses, whose piazzas,
arches, and sheltering evergreens reminded me of buildings in the
vicinity of Naples. This delightful walk is not yet finished, and I
fear, when it is, it will be little frequented; for the southern women,
by their own account, are miserable pedestrians,--of which fact, indeed,
I had one curious illustration to-day; for I received a visit from a
young lady residing in the same street where we lodged, who came in her
carriage, a distance of less than a quarter of a mile, to call upon me.
It is impossible to conceive anything funnier, and at the same time more
provokingly stupid, dirty, and inefficient, than the tribe of
black-faced heathen divinities and classicalities who make believe to
wait upon us here,--the Dianas, Phillises, Floras, Cæsars, et cetera,
who stand grinning in wonderment and delight round our table, and whom I
find it impossible, by exhortation or entreaty, to banish from the room,
so great is their amusement and curiosity at my outlandish modes of
proceeding. This morning, upon my entreating them not to persist in
waiting upon us at breakfast, they burst into an ungovernable titter,
and withdrawing from our immediate vicinity, kept poking their woolly
heads and white grinders in at the door every five minutes, keeping it
conveniently open for that purpose.
A fine large new hotel was among the buildings which the late fire at
Charleston destroyed, and the house where we now are is the best at
present in the city. It is kept by a very obliging and civil colored
woman, who seems extremely desirous of accommodating us to our minds;
but her servants (they are her slaves, in spite of her and their common
complexion) would defy the orderly genius of the superintendent of the
Astor House. Their laziness, their filthiness, their inconceivable
stupidity, and unconquerable good humor, are enough to drive one stark,
staring mad. The sitting-room we occupy is spacious, and not
ill-furnished, and especially airy, having four windows and a door, none
of which can or will shut. We are fortunately rid of that familiar
fiend of the North, the anthracite coal, but do not enjoy the luxury of
burning wood. Bituminous coal, such as is generally used in England, is
the combustible preferred here; and all my national predilections cannot
reconcile me to it, in preference to the brilliant, cheerful, wholesome,
poetical warmth of a wood fire. Our bedrooms are dismal dens, open to
"a' the airts the wind can blaw," half furnished, and not by any means
half clean. The furniture itself is old, and very infirm,--the tables
all peach with one or other leg,--the chairs are most of them minus one
or two bars,--the tongs cross their feet when you attempt to use
them,--and one poker travels from room to room, that being our whole
allowance for two fires.
We have had occasion to make only two trifling purchases since we have
been here; but the prices (if these articles are any criterion) must be
infinitely higher than those of the northern shopkeepers; but this we
must expect as we go further south, for, of course, they have to pay
double profits upon all the commonest necessaries of life, importing
them, as they do, from distant districts. I must record a curious
observation of Margery's, on her return from church Tuesday morning. She
asked me if the people of this place were not very proud. I was struck
with the question, as coinciding with a remark sometimes made upon the
South, and supposed by some far-fetching cause-hunters to have its
origin in some of their "domestic institutions." I told her that I knew
no more of them than she did; and that I had had no opportunity of
observing whether they were or not.
"Well," she replied, "I think they are, for I was in church early, and I
observed the countenances and manner of the people as they came in, and
they struck me as the haughtiest, proudest-looking people I ever saw!"
This very curious piece of observation of hers I note down without
comment. I asked her if she had ever heard, or read, the remark as
applied to the southern people? She said, "Never," and I was much amused
at this result of her physiognomical church speculations.
Last Thursday evening we left our hotel in Charleston, for the steamboat
which was to carry us to Savannah: it was not to start until two in the
morning; but, of course, we preferred going on board rather earlier, and
getting to bed. The ladies' cabin, however, was so crowded with women
and children, and so inconveniently small, that sleeping was out of the
question in such an atmosphere. I derived much amusement from the very
empress-like airs of an uncommonly handsome mulatto woman, who
officiated as stewardess, but whose discharge of her duties appeared to
consist in telling the ladies what they ought, and what they ought not
to do, and lounging about with an indolent dignity, which was
irresistibly droll, and peculiarly Southern.
The boat in which we were, not being considered sea-worthy, as she is
rather old, took the inner passage, by which we were two nights and a
day accomplishing this most tedious navigation, creeping through cuts
and small muddy rivers, where we stuck sometimes to the bottom, and
sometimes to the banks, which presented a most dismal succession of
dingy, low, yellow swamps, and reedy marshes, beyond expression
wearisome to the eye. About the middle of the day on Friday, we touched
at the island of Edisto, where some of the gentlemen-passengers had
business, that being the seat of their plantations, and where the
several families reside--after the eldest member of which, Mr. Seabrook,
the boat we were in was named.
Edisto, as I have mentioned before, is famous for producing the finest
cotton in America--therefore, I suppose, in the world. As we were to
wait here some time, we went on shore to walk. The appearance of the
cotton-fields at this season of the year was barren enough; but, as a
compensation, I here, for the first time, saw the evergreen oak-trees
(the ilex, I presume) of the South. They were not very fine specimens of
their kind, and disappointed me a good deal. The advantage they have of
being evergreen is counterbalanced by the dark and almost dingy color of
the foliage, and the leaf being minute in size, and not particularly
graceful in form. These trees appeared to me far from comparable, either
in size or beauty, to the European oak, when it has attained its full
growth. We were walking on the estate of one of the Mr. Seabrooks, which
lay unenclosed on each side of what appeared to be the public road
through the island.
At a short distance from the landing we came to what is termed a
ginning-house--a building appropriated to the process of freeing the
cotton from the seed. It appeared to be open to inspection; and we
walked through it. Here were about eight or ten stalls on either side,
in each of which a man was employed at a machine, worked like a turner's
or knife-grinder's wheel, by the foot, which, as fast as he fed it with
cotton, parted the snowy flakes from the little black first cause, and
gave them forth soft, silky, clean, and fit to be woven into the finest
lace or muslin. This same process of ginning is performed in many
places, and upon our own cotton-estate, by machinery; the objection to
which however, is, that the staple of the cotton--in the length of
which consists its chief excellence--is supposed by some planters to be
injured, and the threads broken, by the substitution of an engine for
the task performed by the human fingers in separating the cotton and
presenting it to the gin.
After walking through this building, we pursued our way past a large,
rambling, white wood house, and down a road, bordered on each side with
evergreen oaks. While we were walking, a young man on horseback passed
us, whose light hair, in a very picturesque contempt of modern fashion,
absolutely flowed upon the collar of his coat, and was blown back as he
rode, like the disheveled tresses of a woman. On Edisto Island such a
noble exhibition of individuality would probably find few censors.
As we returned towards the boat we stopped to examine an irregular
scrambling hedge of the wild orange, another of the exquisite shrubs of
this paradise of evergreens. The form and foliage of this plant are
beautiful, and the leaf, being bruised, extremely fragrant; but, as its
perfume indicates, it is a rank poison, containing a great portion of
prussic acid. It grows from cuttings rapidly and freely, and might be
formed into the most perfect hedge, being well adapted, by its close,
bushy growth, to that purpose.
After leaving Edisto, we pursued the same tedious, meandering course,
over turbid waters, and between low-lying swamps, till the evening
closed in. The afternoon had been foggy and rainy and wretched. The
cabin was darkened by the various outer protections against the weather,
so that we could neither read nor work. Our party, on leaving the
island, had received an addition of some young ladies, who were to go on
shore again in the middle of the night, at a stopping-place called
Hilton Head. As they did not intend to sleep, they seemed to have no
idea of allowing any one else to do so; and the giggling and chattering
with which they enlivened the dreary watches of the night, certainly
rendered anything like repose impossible; so I lay, devoutly wishing for
Hilton Head, where the boat stopped between one and two in the morning.
I had just time to see our boarding-school angels leave us, and a
monstrous awkward-looking woman, who at first struck me as a man in
disguise, enter the cabin, before my eyes sealed themselves in sleep,
which had been hovering over them, kept aloof only by the incessant
conversational racket of my young fellow-travelers.
I was extremely amused at two little incidents which occurred the next
morning before we were called to breakfast. The extraordinary-looking
woman who came into the boat during the night, and who was the most
masculine-looking lady I ever saw, came and stood by me, and, seeing me
nursing my baby, abruptly addressed me with "Got a baby with you?" I
replied in the affirmative, which trouble her eyes might have spared me.
After a few minutes' silence, she pursued her unceremonious catechism
with "Married woman?" This question was so exceedingly strange, though
put in the most matter-of-course sort of way, that I suppose my surprise
exhibited itself in my countenance, for the lady presently left me--not,
however, appearing to imagine that she had said or done anything at all
unusual. The other circumstance which amused me was to hear another lady
observe to her neighbor, on seeing Margery bathing my children (a
ceremony never omitted night and morning, where water can be procured);
"How excessively ridiculous!" Which same worthy lady, on leaving the
boat at Savannah, exclaimed, as she huddled on her cloak, that she never
had felt so "_mean_ in her life!" and, considering that she had gone to
bed two nights with the greater part of her day clothes on her, and had
abstained from any "ridiculous" ablutions, her _mean_ sensations did
not, I confess, much surprise me.
When the boat stopped at Savannah, it poured with rain; and in a perfect
deluge, we drove up to the Pulaski House, thankful to escape from the
tedious confinement of a _slow_ steamboat,--an intolerable nuisance and
anomaly in the nature of things. The hotel was, comparatively speaking,
very comfortable; infinitely superior to the one where we had lodged at
Charleston, as far as bed accommodations went. Here, too, we obtained
the inestimable luxury of a warm bath; and the only disagreeable thing
we had to encounter was that all but universal pest in this crowd-loving
country, a public table. This is always a trial of the first water to
me; and that day particularly I was fatigued, and out of spirits, and
the din and confusion of a long _table d'hôte_ was perfectly
intolerable, in spite of the assiduous attentions of a tiresome worthy
old gentleman, who sat by me and persisted in endeavoring to make me
talk. Finding me impracticable, however, he turned, at length, in
despair, to the hostess, who sat at the head of her table, and inquired
in a most audible voice if it were true, as he had understood, that Mr.
and Mrs. Butler were in the hotel? This, of course, occasioned some
little amusement; and the good old gentleman being informed that I was
sitting at his elbow, went off into perfect convulsions of apologies,
and renewed his exertions to make me discourse, with more zeal than
ever, asking me, among other things, when he had ascertained that I had
never before been to the South, "How I liked the appearance of 'our
blackies' (the negroes)?--no want of cheerfulness, no despondency, or
misery in their appearance, eh, madam?" As I thought this was rather
begging the question, I did not trouble the gentleman with my
impressions. He was a Scotchman, and his adoption of "our blackies" was,
by his own account, rather recent, to be so perfectly satisfactory; at
least, so it seems to me, who have some small prejudices in favor of
freedom and justice yet to overcome, before I can enter into all the
merits of this beneficent system, so productive of cheerfulness and
contentment in those whom it condemns to perpetual degradation.
Our night-wanderings were not yet ended, for the steamer in which we
were to proceed to Darien was to start at ten o'clock that evening, so
that we had but a short interval of repose at this same Pulaski House,
and I felt sorry to leave it, in proportion to the uncertainty of our
meeting with better accommodation for a long time. The _Ocmulgee_ (the
Indian name of a river in Georgia, and the cognomen of our steamboat)
was a tiny, tidy little vessel, the exceeding small ladies' cabin of
which we, fortunately, had entirely to ourselves.
On Sunday morning the day broke most brilliantly over those southern
waters, and as the sun rose, the atmosphere became clear and warm, as in
the early northern summer. We crossed two or three sounds of the sea.
The land in sight was a mere forest of reeds, and the fresh, sparkling,
crisping waters had a thousand times more variety and beauty. At the
mouth of the Altamaha is a small cluster of houses, scarce deserving the
name of a village, called Doboy. At the wharf lay two trading-vessels;
the one with the harp of Ireland waving on her flag; the other with the
union-jack flying at her mast. I felt vehemently stirred to hail the
beloved symbol; but, upon reflection, forbore outward demonstrations of
the affectionate yearnings of my heart towards the flag of England, and
so we boiled by them into this vast volume of turbid waters, whose noble
width, and rapid rolling current, seem appropriately called by that most
euphonious and sonorous of Indian names, the Alatamaha, which, in the
common mode of speaking it, gains by the loss of the second syllable,
and becomes more agreeable to the ear, as it is usually pronounced, the
Altamaha.
On either side lay the low, reedy swamps, yellow, withered Lilliputian
forests, rattling their brittle canes in the morning breeze.... Through
these dreary banks we wound a most sinuous course for a long time; at
length the irregular buildings of the little town of Darien appeared,
and as we grazed the side of the wharf, it seemed to me as if we had
touched the outer bound of civilized creation. As soon as we showed
ourselves on the deck we were hailed by a shout from the men in two
pretty boats, which had pulled alongside of us; and the vociferations of
"Oh, massa! how you do, massa? Oh, missis! oh! lily missis! me too glad
to see you!" accompanied with certain interjectional shrieks, whoops,
whistles, and grunts, that could only be written down in negro language,
made me aware of our vicinity to our journey's end. The strangeness of
the whole scene, its wildness (for now beyond the broad river and the
low swamp lands the savage-looking woods arose to meet the horizon), the
rapid retrospect which my mind hurried through of the few past years of
my life; the singular contrasts which they presented to my memory; the
affectionate shouts of welcome of the poor people, who seemed to hail us
as descending divinities, affected me so much that I burst into tears,
and could hardly answer their demonstrations of delight. We were
presently transferred into the larger boat, and the smaller one being
freighted with our luggage, we pulled off from Darien, not, however,
without a sage remark from Margery, that, though we seemed to have
traveled to the very end of the world, here yet were people and houses,
ships, and even steamboats; in which evidences that we were not to be
plunged into the deepest abysses of savageness she seemed to take no
small comfort.
We crossed the river, and entered a small arm of it, which presently
became still narrower and more straight, assuming the appearance of an
artificial cut or canal, which indeed it is, having been dug by General
Oglethorpe's men (tradition says, in one night), and afforded him the
only means of escape from the Spaniards and Indians, who had surrounded
him on all sides, and felt secure against all possibility of his eluding
them. The cut is neither very deep nor very long, and yet both
sufficiently to render the general's exploit rather marvelous. General
Oglethorpe was the first British governor of Georgia; Wesley's friend
and disciple. The banks of this little canal were mere dykes, guarding
rice-swamps, and presented no species of beauty; but in the little
creek, or inlet, from which we entered it, I was charmed with the beauty
and variety of the evergreens growing in thick and luxuriant underwood,
beneath giant, straggling cypress trees, whose branches were almost
covered with the pendant wreaths of gray moss peculiar to these southern
woods. Of all parasitical plants (if, indeed, it properly belongs to
that class) it assuredly is the most melancholy and dismal. All
creepers, from the polished, dark-leaved ivy, to the delicate clematis,
destroy some portion of the strength of the trees around which they
cling, and from which they gradually suck the vital juices; but they, at
least, adorn the forest-shafts round which they twine, and hide, with a
false, smiling beauty, the gradual ruin and decay they make. Not so this
dismal moss: it does not appear to grow, or to have root, or even
clinging fibre of any sort, by which it attaches itself to the bark or
stem. It hangs in dark gray, drooping masses from the boughs, swinging
in every breeze like matted, grizzled hair. I have seen a naked cypress
with its straggling arms all hung with this banner of death, looking
like a gigantic tree of monstrous cobwebs,--the most funereal spectacle
in all the vegetable kingdom.
After emerging from the cut, we crossed another arm of the Altamaha (it
has as many as Briareus)--I should rather, perhaps, call them mouths,
for this is near its confluence with the sea, and these various branches
are formed by a numerous sisterhood of small islands, which divide this
noble river into three or four streams, each of them wider than
England's widest, the Thames. We now approached the low, reedy banks of
Butler's Island, and passed the rice-mill and buildings surrounding it,
all of which, it being Sunday, were closed. As we neared the bank, the
steersman took up a huge conch, and in the barbaric fashion of early
times in the Highlands, sounded out our approach. A pretty schooner,
which carries the produce of the estate to Charleston and Savannah, lay
alongside the wharf, which began to be crowded with negroes, jumping,
dancing, shouting, laughing, and clapping their hands (a usual
expression of delight with savages and children), and using the most
extravagant and ludicrous gesticulations to express their ecstasy at our
arrival.
On our landing from the boat, the crowd thronged about us like a swarm
of bees; we were seized, pulled, pushed, carried, dragged, and all but
lifted in the air by the clamorous multitude. I was afraid my children
would be smothered. Fortunately, Mr. O----, the overseer, and the
captain of the little craft above-mentioned, came to our assistance, and
by their good offices the babies and nurse were protected through the
crowd. They seized our clothes, kissed them--then our hands, and almost
wrung them off. One tall, gaunt negress flew to us, parting the throng
on either side, and embraced us in her arms. I believe I was almost
frightened; and it was not until we were safely housed, and the door
shut upon our riotous escort, that we indulged in a fit of laughing,
quite as full, on my part, of nervousness as of amusement. Later in the
day I attempted to take some exercise, and thought I had escaped
observation; but, before I had proceeded a quarter of a mile, I was
again enveloped in a cloud of these dingy dependents, who gathered
round me, clamoring welcome, staring at me, stroking my velvet pelisse,
and exhibiting at once the wildest delight and the most savage
curiosity. I was obliged to relinquish my proposed walk, and return
home. Nor was the door of the room where I sat, and which was purposely
left open, one moment free from crowds of eager faces, watching every
movement of myself and the children, until evening caused our audience
to disperse. This zeal in behalf of an utter stranger, merely because
she stood to them in the relation of a mistress, caused me not a little
speculation. These poor people, however, have a very distinct notion of
the duties which ownership should entail upon their proprietors, however
these latter may regard their obligation towards their dependents; and
as to their vehement professions of regard and affection for me, they
reminded me of the saying of the satirist, that "gratitude is a lively
sense of benefits to come."
BUTLER'S ISLAND, GEORGIA, January 8th, 1839.
I have some doubt whether any exertion whatever of your imaginative
faculties could help you to my whereabouts or whatabouts this day,
dearest Emily; and therefore, for your enlightenment, will refer you to
my date, and inform you that yesterday I paid my first visit to the Sick
House, or infirmary, of our estate; and this morning spent three hours
and a half there, cleaning with my own hands the filthy room where the
sick lay, and washing and dressing poor little nearly new-born negro
babies. My avocations the whole morning have been those of a sister of
charity, and I doubt if the unwearied and unshrinking benevolence of
those pious creatures ever led them, for their souls' sake, into more
abominable receptacles of filth, degradation, and misery.
It is long enough since I first mentioned to you my intention of coming
down to these plantations, if I was permitted to do so. As the time for
setting forth on our journey drew near, I became not a little appalled
at the details I heard of what were likely to be the difficulties of the
mere journey: at the very end of December, with a baby at the breast,
and a child as young as S----, to travel upwards of a thousand miles, in
this half-civilized country, and through the least civilized part of it,
was no joke. However, happily, it was accomplished safely, though not
without considerable suffering and heart-achings on my part.... These
and other befallings may serve for talking matter, if ever we should
meet again. We all arrived here safely on Sunday last, and my thoughts
are engrossed with the condition of these people, from whose labor we
draw our subsistence; of which, now that I am here, I feel ashamed.
The place itself is one of the wildest corners of creation--if, indeed,
any part of this region can be considered as thoroughly _created_ yet.
It is not consolidated, but in mere process of formation,--a sort of
hasty-pudding of amphibious elements, composed of a huge, rolling river,
thick and turbid with mud, and stretches of mud banks, forming quaking
swamps, scarcely reclaimed from the water. The river wants _straining_
and the land draining, to make either of them properly wet or dry.
This island, which is only a portion of our Georgia estate, contains
several thousand acres, and is about eight miles round, and formed of
nothing but the deposits (leavings, in fact) of the Altamaha, whose
brimming waters, all thick with alluvial matter, roll round it, and
every now and then threaten to submerge it. The whole island is swamp,
dyked like the Netherlands, and trenched and divided by ditches and a
canal, by means of which the rice-fields are periodically overflowed,
and the harvest transported to the threshing mills. A duck, an eel, or a
frog might live here as in Paradise; but a creature of dry habits
naturally pines for less wet. To mount a horse is, of course,
impossible, and the only place where one can walk is the banks or dykes
that surround the island, and the smaller ones that divide the
rice-fields.
I mean to take to rowing, boats being plentiful, and "water, water
everywhere"; indeed, in spring, the overseer tells me we may have to go
from house to house in boats, the whole island being often flooded at
that season.
There is neither shade nor shelter, tree nor herbage, round our
residence, though there is no reason why there should not be; for the
climate is delicious, and the swampy borders of the mainland are full of
every kind of evergreen--magnolias, live oak (a species of ilex),
orange-trees, etc., and trailing shrubs, with varnished leaves, that
bind the tawny, rattling sedges together, and make summer bowers for the
alligators and snakes which abound and disport themselves here in the
hot season.
I am wrong in saying that there are no trees on the island, though there
are as bad as none now. They formerly had a great number of magnificent
orange-trees, that were all destroyed by an unusually severe winter;
there are a few left, however, which bear most excellent oranges....
BUTLER'S ISLAND, January 8th, 1839.
DEAREST HARRIET,
The stars are shining like one vast incrustation of diamonds; and though
'tis the 8th of January, I have been out with bare neck and arms,
standing on the brink of the Altamaha, and seeking relief from the
oppressive heat of the house. I am here, with the children, in the midst
of our slaves; and it seems to me, as I look over these wild wastes and
waters, as though I were standing on the outer edge of creation. That
this is not absolutely the case, however, or that, if it is,
civilization in some forms has preceded us hither, is abundantly proved
by the sights and sounds of busy traffic, labor, and mechanical
industry, which, encountered in this region (still really half a
wilderness), produce an impression of the most curiously anomalous
existence you can imagine.
Right and left, as the eye follows the broad and brimming surface of
this vast body of turbid water, it rests on nothing but low swamp lands,
where the rattling sedges, like a tawny forest of reeds, make warm
winter shelters for the snakes and alligators, which the summer sun will
lure in scores from their lurking-places; or hoary woods, upon whose
straggling upper boughs, all hung with gray mosses like disheveled hair,
the bald-headed eagle stoops from the sky, and among whose undergrowth
of varnished evergreens the mocking-birds, even at this season, keep a
resounding jubilee. All this looks wild enough; and as the peculiar
orange light of the southern sunset falls upon the scene, I almost
expect to see the canoes of the red man shoot from the banks, which were
so lately the possession of his race alone. Immediately opposite to me,
however (only about a mile distant, the river and a swampy island
intervening), lies the little town of Darien, whose white gable-ended
warehouses, shining in the sun, recall the presence of the prevailing
European race, and we can hear distinctly the sound of the steam which
the steamboat at the wharf is letting off.
Upon this island of ours (I think I look a little like Sancho Panza) we
enjoy the perpetual monotonous burden of two steam-engines working the
rice mills, and instead of red men and canoes, my illustrious self and
some prettily built and gaily painted boats, which I take great delight
in rowing.
The strangeness of this existence surprises me afresh every hour by its
contrast with all my former experiences; and as I sat resting on my oars
at the Darien wharf the other evening, watching a huge cotton-raft float
down the broad Altamaha, my mind wandered back to my former life--the
scenes, the people, the events, the feelings which made up all my
former existence; and I felt like the little old woman whose petticoats
were cut all round about. "O Lord a mercy! sure this is never I!" But,
then, she had a resource in her dog, which I have not; and so I am not
quite sure that it is I....
The climate is too warm for me, and I almost doubt its being as
wholesome for the children as a colder one. We have now summer heat,
tempered in some degree by breezes from the river and the sea, which is
only fifteen miles off; but the people of the place complain of the
cold, and apologize to me for the chilliness of the weather, which they
assure me is quite unusual. I have come home more than once, however,
after a walk round the rice banks, with a bad headache, in consequence
of the fierce sunshine pouring down upon these swamps, and do not think
that I should thrive in such a climate. It is impossible here to take
exercise on horseback, which has become almost indispensable to me; and
though I have adopted rowing as a substitute I find it both a fatiguing
and an inadequate one.
We live here in a very strange manner. The house we inhabit, which was
intended merely as the overseer's residence, is inferior in appearance
and every decent accommodation to the poorest farm-house in any part of
England. Neither cleanliness nor comfort enter into our daily
arrangements at all. The little furniture there is in the rooms is of
the coarsest and roughest description; and the household services are
performed by negroes, who run in and out, generally barefooted, and
always filthy both in their clothes and person, to wait upon us at our
meals. How I have wished for a decent, tidy, English servant of all
work, instead of these begrimed, ignorant, incapable poor creatures, who
stumble about round us in zealous hindrance of each other, which they
intend for help to us. How thankful I should be if I could substitute
for their unsavory proximity while I eat, that of a clean dumb waiter.
This unlimited supply of untrained savages, (for that is what they
really are) is anything but a luxury to me. Their ignorance, dirt, and
stupidity seem to me as intolerable as the unjust laws which condemn
them to be ignorant, filthy, and stupid.
The value of this human property is, alas! enormous; and I grieve to
think how great is the temptation to perpetuate the system to its
owners. Of course I do not see, or at any rate have not yet seen,
anything to shock me in the way of positive physical cruelty. The
refractory negroes are flogged, I know, but I am told it is a case of
rare occurrence; and it is the injustice, and the kind, rather than the
severity, of the infliction that is the most odious part of it to me.
The people are, I believe, regularly and sufficiently fed and clothed,
and they have tolerably good habitations provided for them, nor are they
without various small indulgences; but of their moral and intellectual
wants no heed whatever is taken, nor are they even recognized as
existing, though some of these poor people exhibit intelligence,
industry, and activity, which seem to cry aloud for instruction and the
means of progress and development. These are probably rare exceptions,
though, for the majority of those I see appear to be sunk in the lowest
slough of benighted ignorance, and lead a lazy, listless, absolutely
animal existence, far more dirty and degraded (though more comfortable,
on account of the climate) than that of _your_ lowest and most miserable
wild "bog trotters."
I had desired very earnestly to have the opportunity of judging of this
matter of slavery for myself; not, of course, that I ever doubted that
to keep human beings as slaves was in itself wrong, but I supposed that
I might, upon a nearer observation of the system, discover at any rate
circumstances of palliation in the condition of the negroes: hitherto,
however, this has not been the case with me; the wrong strikes me more
forcibly every hour I live here. The theory of human property is more
revolting to every sentiment of humanity; and the evil effect of such a
state of things _upon the whites_, who inflict the wrong, impresses me
as I did not anticipate that it would, with still more force.
The habitual harsh tone of command towards these men and _women_, whose
labor is extorted from them without remorse, from youth to age, and
whose hopeless existence seems to me sadder than suffering itself,
affects me with an intolerable sense of impotent pity for them.... Then,
too, the disrepute in which honest and honorable labor is held, by being
thus practiced only by a degraded class, is most pernicious.
The negroes here, who see me row and walk hard in the sun, lift heavy
burthens, and make various exertions which are supposed to be their
peculiar _privilege_ in existence, frequently remonstrate with me, and
desire me to call upon them for their services, with the remark, "What
for you work, missus! You hab niggers enough to wait upon you!" You may
suppose how agreeable such remonstrances are to me.
When I remember, too, that here I see none of the worst features of this
system: that the slaves on this estate are not bought and sold, nor let
out to hire to other masters; that they are not cruelly starved or
barbarously beaten, and that members of one family are not parted from
each other for life, and sent to distant plantations in other
States,--all which liabilities (besides others, and far worse ones)
belong of right, or rather of wrong, to their condition as slaves, and
are commonly practiced throughout the southern half of this free
country,--I remain appalled at a state of things in which human beings
are considered fortunate who are _only_ condemned to dirt, ignorance,
unrequited labor, and, what seems to me worst of all, a dead level of
general degradation, which God and Nature, by endowing some above
others, have manifestly forbidden.
Do you remember your admiration of philanthropy because I blew the dirty
nose of a little vagabond in the street with my embroidered
handkerchief? I wish you could see me cleansing and washing and
poulticing the sick women and babies in the infirmary here; I think you
would admit that I have what Beatrice commends Benedict for, "an
excellent stomach."
God bless you, dear! I am not well; this slavish sunshine dries up my
vitality. I have hardly any time for writing, but shall find it to write
to you.
Ever affectionately yours,
F. A. B.
BUTLER'S ISLAND, January 20th, 1839.
DEAR MRS. JAMESON,
To you who have, besides "swimming in a gondola" (which many of the
vulgar do nowadays), paddled in a canoe upon the wild waters of this
wild western world, my present abode, savage as it seems to me, might
appear comparatively civilized. Certain it is that we are within view of
what calls itself a town, and, moreover, from that town I have received
an invitation to what calls itself a _cotillon party_! and yet, right
and left, stretch the swamps and forests of Georgia, where the red men
have scarcely ceased to skulk, and where the rattlesnakes and
alligators, who shared the wilderness with them, still lurk in
undisturbed possession of the soil, if soil that may be called which is
only either muddy water or watery mud, a hardly consolidated sponge of
alluvial matter, receiving hourly additions from the turbid current of
the Altamaha.
We are here on our plantation, and if you will take a map of North
America, and a powerful magnifying-glass, you may perceive the small
speck dignified by the title of "Butler's Island," the Barataria where I
am now reigning.
Before I say any more upon this subject, however, I wish to thank you
for your kind information about my father and sister. I had a letter
from her not long ago, but it was written during her tour in Germany,
before our poor mother's death, and, of course, contained little of what
must be her present thoughts and feelings, and even little indeed by
which I could understand what their plans were for the winter; but a
long and very interesting account of your friends, the Thuns, whom I
should like to know....
How little pleasure you lost, in my opinion, in not proceeding further
south in this country! for your perception of beauty would have been
almost as much starved as your sense of justice would have been
outraged; at least it is so with me. The sky, God's ever blessed
storehouse of light and loveliness, is almost my only resource here: for
though the wide, brimming waters of this Briareus of a river present a
striking object, and the woods, with their curtains of gray moss waving
like gigantic cobwebs from every tree, and these magical-looking
thickets of varnished evergreens, have a charm, partly real, and partly
borrowed from their mere strangeness; yet the absence of all cultivation
but these swampy rice-fields, and of all population but these degraded
and unfortunate slaves, render a residence here as depressing to the
physical as the moral sense of loveliness.
In contemplating the condition of women generally (a favorite subject of
speculation with you, I know), it is a pity that you have not an
opportunity of seeing the situation of those who are recognized as
slaves (all that are such don't wear the collar, you know, nor do all
that wear it show it); it is a black chapter, and no _joke_, I can tell
you.
You ask after the Sullys, and I am sorry to say that the little I saw or
heard of them previous to my leaving Philadelphia was not pleasant. He
had had some disagreeable contention with the St. George's Society about
the exhibition of his picture of the queen. The dispute ended, I
believe, in his painting two; the one for the society, and the other for
his own purposes of exhibition, sale or engraving. He spoke with delight
of having made your acquaintance, and of some evenings he spent at your
house. I think it very probable that he will revisit Europe; and I hope
for his sake that he will get to Italy....
F. A. B.
BUTLER'S ISLAND, Georgia, January 30th, 1839.
DEAREST EMILY,
I am told that a total change in my opinions upon slavery was
anticipated from my residence on a plantation; a statement which only
convinces me that one may live in the most intimate relations with
one's fellow-creatures, and really know nothing about them after all. On
what ground such an idea could be entertained I cannot conceive, or on
what part of my character it could be founded, to which (if I do not
mistake myself, even more than I am misunderstood by others) injustice
is the most revolting species of cruelty.
My dear friend, do not, do not repine, but rather rejoice for your
brother's own sake, that wealth is cut off from him at such a source as
slavery. [Mr. Fitzhugh had owned West Indian property, which his sister
thought had been rendered worthless by the emancipation of the slaves.]
It would be better in my mind to beg, and to see one's children beg,
than to live by these means, thinking of them as I do....
It seems to me as if the worst result of this system, fraught as it is
with bad ones, is the perversion of mind which it appears to engender in
those who uphold it. I remember how hard our Saviour pronounced it to be
for a rich man to enter into heaven, and as I look round upon these
rice-fields, with their population of human beings, each one of whom is
valued at so much silver and gold, and listen to the beat of that
steam-mill, which I heard commended the other day as a "mint of money,"
and when I am told that every acre of this property is worth ten per
cent. more than any free English land, however valuable, it seems almost
impossible to expect that this terrible temptation to injustice should
be resisted by any man; but with God all things are possible! and
doubtless He weighs the difficulty more mercifully than I can....
Since this letter was begun, we have had a death on the plantation; a
poor young fellow was taken off, after a few days' illness, yesterday.
The attack was one to which the negroes are very subject, arising from
cold and exposure.... We went to his burial, which was a scene I shall
not soon forget. His coffin was brought out into the open air, and the
negroes from over the whole island assembled around it. One of their
preachers (a slave like the rest) gave out the words of a hymn, which
they all sang in unison; after which he made an exhortation, and bade us
pray, and we all kneeled down on the earth together, while this poor,
ignorant slave prayed aloud and spoke incoherently, but fervently
enough, of Life and Death and Immortality. We then walked to the grave,
the negroes chanting a hymn by the light of pine torches and the
uprising of a glorious moon. An old negro, who possessed the rare and
forbidden accomplishment of letters, read part of the burial service;
and another stood forward and told them the story of the raising of
Lazarus. I have no room for comments, and could make none that could
convey to you what I felt or how I prayed and cried for those I was
praying with....
You know, I did not think my former calling of the stage a very
dignified one; I assure you it appears to me magnificent compared with
my present avocation of living by the unpaid labor of others, and those
others half of them women like myself. There is nothing in the details
of the existence of the slaves which mitigates in my opinion the sin of
slavery; and this is forced upon me every hour of the day--so painfully
to my conscience, that I feel as if my happiness for life would be
affected by my involuntary participation in it. Their condition seems to
me accursed every way, and only more accursed to those who hold them in
it, on whom the wrong they commit reacts frightfully.
Not a few of these slaves know and feel that they are wronged, deplore
their condition, and are perfectly aware of its manifold hardships.
Those who are not conscious of the robbery of their freedom and their
consequent degradation, are sunk in a state of the most brutish
ignorance and stupidity; and as for the pretense that their moral and
mental losses are made up to them by the secure possession of food and
clothing (a thing no moral and intellectual being should utter without a
blush), it is utterly false. They are hard worked, poorly clothed, and
poorly fed; and when they are sick, cared for only enough to fit them
for work again; the only calculation in the mind of an overseer being to
draw from their bones and sinews money to furnish his employer's income,
and secure him a continuance of his agency.
It is true that on this estate they are allowed some indulgence and some
leisure, and are not starved or often ill-treated; but their indulgences
and leisure are no more than just tend to keep them in a state of safe
acquiescence in their lot, and it does not do that with the brighter and
more intelligent among them. There is no attempt made to improve their
condition; to teach them decency, order, cleanliness, self-respect; to
open their minds or enlighten their understandings: on the contrary,
there are express and very severe laws forbidding their education, and
every precaution is taken to shut out the light which sooner or later
must break into their prison-house.
Dear Emily, if you could imagine how miserable I feel surrounded by
people by whose wrong I live! Some few of them are industrious, active,
and intelligent; and in their leisure time work hard to procure
themselves small comforts and luxuries, which they are allowed to buy.
How pitiable it is to think that they are defrauded of the just price
of their daily labor, and that stumbling-blocks are put in the way of
their progress, instead of its being helped forward! My mind is
inexpressibly troubled whenever I think of their minds, souls, or
bodies. Their physical condition is far from what it should be, far from
what their own exertions could make it, and there is no improving even
that without calling in mental and moral influences, a sense of
self-respect, a consciousness of responsibility, knowledge of rights to
be possessed and duties discharged, advantages employed and trusts
answered for; and how are slaves to have any of these? There is no
planting even physical improvement but in a moral soil, and the use of
the rational faculties is necessary for the fit discharge of the
commonest labor. Alas, for our slaves! and alas, alas, for us! I feel
half distracted about it, and it is well for you that I have no more
space to write on this theme.
God bless you, my dear friend. Pray, as I do, for the end of this
evil....
F. A. B.
BUTLER'S ISLAND, GEORGIA, February 8th, 1839.
Your letter of the 10th of November, my dear Lady Dacre, fulfilled its
kindly mission without the delay at Butler Place, the anticipation of
which did not prevent your making the benevolent effort of writing it.
It reached me in safety here, in the very hindermost skirts of
civilization, recalling with so much vividness scenes and people so
remote and so different from those that now surround me, that it would
have been a sad letter to me, even had it not contained the news of Mrs.
Sullivan's illness. At any time any suffering of yours would have
excited my sincere sympathy; but that your anxiety and distress should
spring from such a cause, I can the more readily deplore, from my
knowledge of your daughter, which, though too slight for my own
gratification, was sufficient to make me aware of her many excellent and
admirable qualities. In those books of hers, too, "Tales of a Chaperon,"
and "Tales of the Peerage and the Peasantry," which since my return to
America I have re-read with increased interest, her mind and character
reveal themselves very charmingly; and I know those in this remote
"other world," as doubtless there are many in England, who, without
enjoying my privilege of personal acquaintance with her, would be
fellow-mourners with you should any evil befall her. But I shall not
admit this apprehension, and I entreat you, my dear Lady Dacre, to add
one more to the many kindnesses you have bestowed on me, by letting me
know how it fares with your daughter. In the mean time, if she is well
enough to receive my greeting, pray remember me most kindly to her, and
tell her that from the half-savage banks of the Altamaha, those earnest
wishes, which are unspoken prayers, ascend to heaven for her recovery.
You ask after my children.... I am in no hurry to begin
_educationeering_; indeed, as regards early instruction, I am a little
behind the fervent zeal of the age, having considerably more regard for
what may be found in, than what may be put into, a human head; and a
more earnest desire that my child should think, even than that she
should learn; and I want her to make her own wisdom, rather than take
that of any one else (my own wise self not excepted). For fear, however,
that you should imagine that I mean to let her grow up "savage," I beg
to state that she does know her letters, a study which she prosecutes
with me for about a quarter of an hour daily, out of "Mother Goose's
Nursery Rhymes." I have thought myself to blame, perhaps, for choosing a
_work of imagination_ for that elementary study; but the child, like a
rational creature, abhors the whole thing most cordially, and when I
think what wondrous revelations are flowing to her hourly through those
five gates of knowledge, her senses, I am not surprised that she
despises and detests the inanimate dead letter of mere bookish lore....
My poor mother's death, which roused me most painfully to the perception
of the distance which divides me from all my early friends, has filled
my mind with the gloomiest forebodings respecting my father, and my
sister's unprotected situation, should anything befall him. The passing
away of my kindred, and those who are dear to me, while I, removed to an
impassable distance, only hear of their death after a considerable lapse
of time, without the consolation of being near them, or even the
preparation of hearing they were ill, is a circumstance of inexpressible
sadness....
If Macready would give me anything for my play, I would come over, if
only for a month, and see my father, whose image in sickness and
depression haunts me constantly....
F. A. B.
BUTLER'S ISLAND, February 10th, 1839.
It is only two days, I believe, dearest Harriet, since I finished a long
letter to you, but I am yet in your debt by one dated the 30th of
November, and being in the mind to pay my owings, I proceed to do so, as
honestly as I may....
I have just been hearing a long and painful discussion upon the subject
of slavery; a frequent theme, as you will easily believe, of thought and
conversation with us, now that we are living in the midst of it; and I
am assured, by those who maintain the justice of the practice of holding
slaves, that had it been otherwise than right, Christ would have
forbidden it. It is vain that I say that Christ has done so by
implication, forbidding us to do otherwise than we would be done by: I
am told in reply, that neither Christ nor his disciples having ever
denounced slavery by name as unjust, or wrong, is sufficient proof that
it is just and right; and, alas! my dear Harriet, it requires more of
the spirit of Christ than I possess to hear such assertions without
ungovernable impatience. I do not believe the people who utter them are
insincere or dishonest in stating such convictions; but I am shocked at
the indignation with which such fallacious arguments occasionally
inspires me....
I know that (this one unfortunate question excepted) some of the persons
who take these views are just men, and have a keen perception of, and
conscientious respect for, the rights of others; but the exception is
one of those perplexing moral anomalies that call for the exercise of
one's utmost forbearance in judging or condemning the opinions of
others. It seems to me, that I could tolerate an absolute moral
insensibility upon the subject better than the strange moral obliquity
of justifying this horrible system by arguments drawn from Christ's
teaching.
As for me, every day makes the injustice of the principle, and the
cruelty of the practice, more intolerable to me; and but for the poor
people's own sake (to whom my presence among them is of some little use
and comfort), I would only too gladly turn my back upon the dreadful
place, and never again set foot near it.... It would not surprise me if
I was never allowed to return here, for these very conversations and
discussions upon the subject of the slave system are considered
dangerous, and justice and freedom cannot be mentioned safely here but
with closed doors and whispering voices.... I pray with all the powers
of my soul that God would enlighten these unfortunate slave-holders, and
enable them to perceive better the spirit of Christ, who they say never
denounced slavery as either an evil or sin; the evil consequences of it
to themselves are by far the worst of all. So I go struggling on with
this strange existence, and sometimes feel weary enough of it....
God bless you, dear. I believe I am going with the children to the
cotton-plantation, where I shall be able to ride again, and shall be
better in mind, body, though not estate, for my long-accustomed
exercise.
Ever your affectionate,
F. A. B.
ST. SIMON'S, March 10th, 1839.
I wish, dear Emily, I could for an instant cause a vision to rise before
you of the perfect paradise of evergreens through which I have been
opening paths on our estate, in an island called St. Simon's, lying half
in the sea and half in the Altamaha. Such noble growth of dark-leaved,
wide-spreading oaks; such exquisite natural shrubberies of magnolia,
wild myrtle, and bay, all glittering evergreens of various tints, bound
together by trailing garlands of wild jessamine, whose yellow bells,
like tiny golden cups, exhale a perfume like that of the heliotrope and
fill the air with sweetness, and cover the woods with perfect curtains
of bloom; while underneath all this, spread the spears and fans of the
dwarf palmetto, and innumerable tufts of a little shrub whose delicate
leaves are pale green underneath and a polished dark brown above, while
close to the earth clings a perfect carpet of thick-growing green,
almost like moss, bearing clusters of little white blossoms like
enameled stars; I think it is a species of euphrasia. It is the
exceeding beauty of the whole which I wish you could see, and to which
the most exquisite arrangement of art is in no way superior. I know it
is common with the lovers of nature to undervalue art; but for all that,
there are exceedingly few scenes in nature (except those of pre-eminent
wildness and sublimity) where the genius of man, and his perception of
beauty, may not remove and supply some things with advantage. In these
wild evergreen plantations this is not the case; and all I have had to
do, in following the cattle-tracks through these lovely woods, has been
to cut the lower branches of the oaks which impede my progress on
horseback, and sever the loving links of the wild garlands of blossoms,
which had bound the shrubs together and drawn their branches into a
canopy too low to admit of my riding beneath it; and you would laugh to
see me with my peculiar slave, a young lad named Jack, of great natural
shrewdness and no little humor, who is my factotum, and follows me on
horseback with a leathern bag slung round his shoulders, containing a
small saw and hatchet, and thus, like Sir Walter and Tom Purdie, we
prosecute our labor of embellishment.
This Jack was out fishing with me the other day, and after about two
hours' silent and unsuccessful watching of our floats, he gravely
remarked, "Fishing bery good fun, when de fish him bite,"--an
observation so ludicrous under the circumstances, that we both burst out
laughing as soon as he uttered it.
ST. SIMON'S ISLAND, Sunday, March 17th, 1839.
MY DEAR MRS. JAMESON,
I cannot conceive how you could do such a wicked thing as to throw a
letter you had begun into the fire, or such a cruel one as to inform the
person who was to have received it of your exploit.
You burned your account of my sister's first appearance because,
forsooth, the "newspapers" or "Harriet S----" would be sure to afford me
the intelligence! But it so happens that I never see a newspaper, and
that that identical letter of Harriet's was cast away in one of those
unfortunate New York packets blown ashore in the late tremendous gales.
It has since reached me, however; but she, too, thinking fit to go upon
some fallacious calculation of human probabilities, takes it for granted
that Adelaide has written me a full, true, and particular account of the
whole business, and sums up all details in the mere intelligence, which
had already reached me, of her having made a successful first appearance
at Venice. Pray, my dear Mrs. Jameson, do not be afraid of supplying me
with twice-told tales of my own people, but whenever you are good enough
to write to me, let me know all that you know about them....
I do not know why you should have associated the ill-fated
_Pennsylvania_ with any thought of me. I never crossed the Atlantic in a
ship so named, but the _St. Andrew_, one of the wrecked vessels, was the
one in which we returned to America two years ago, and probably you may
have written the one name for the other by mistake.
Of the appearance of your book, and the attention it has excited, I hear
from Catharine Sedgwick. As for me, the only new book I have seen since
my sojourn in these outhouses of civilization, is that exquisite volume
whose evergreen leaves, of every tint and texture, are rustling in the
bright sunshine and fresh sea-breeze of this delicious winter climate.
Art never devised more perfect combinations of form and color than these
wild woods present, with their gigantic growth of evergreen oak, their
thickets of myrtle and magnolia, their fantastic undergrowth of spiked
palmetto, and their hanging draperies of jessamine, whose gold-colored
bells fill the air with fragrance long before one approaches the place
where it grows.
You would laugh if I were to recount some of my manifold avocations
here; my qualifications for my situation should be more various than
those of a modern governess, for it appears to me there is nothing
strange and unusual by way of female experience that I have not been
called upon to perform since I have lived here, from marking out the
proper joints on the carcass of a dead sheep, into which it should be
divided for the table, to officiating as clergyman to a congregation of
our own poor people, whose desire for religious instruction appears to
be in exact proportion to the difficulty they have in obtaining it....
I am on horseback every day, clearing paths through the woods; and
though the life I lead has but a very remote resemblance to that of a
civilized creature, a quondam dweller in the two great cities of the
world and frequenter of polished societies therein, it has some
recommendations of its own. To be sure, so it should have; for I inhabit
a house where the staircase is open to the roof, and the roof,
unmitigated by ceiling, plaster, skylight, or any intermediate shelter,
presents to my admiring gaze, as I ascend and descend, the seamy side of
the tiles, or rather wooden shingles, with which the house is covered;
with all the rude raftering, through which do shine the sun, moon, and
stars, the winds do blow, and the rain of heaven does fall. Every door
in the house is fastened with wooden latches and pack-thread; the
identical device of Red Riding-hood antiquity, and the solitary bell of
the establishment rings by means of a rope, suspended from the lintel,
_outside_ the room where I sit, and I expect to find myself hanging in
it every time I go in and out, and which always inclines me to inquire
what has been done with the body that was last cut down from it....
F. A. B.
ST. SIMON'S ISLAND, March 17th, 1839.
That letter of yours which I lamented as lost, my dear Harriet, has
reached me all stained and defaced (yet not so but that it can be read),
having evidently been steeped in the merciless waves of the Mersey. Your
letter has suffered shipwreck, having of course been cast back towards
you, in one of those unfortunate New York packets which were lost in
those late tremendous gales; and if the poor pickled sheet of paper
could speak anything beside what you have told it, how many sad horrors,
unrecorded in the summary newspaper reports of the late disasters, it
might reveal.
I have a dreadful dread, and a fearful fear, of drowning, and the sight
of your letter, all sea-stained, conjures up as many terrible thoughts
as poor Clarence had in the last dream that preceded his last sleep.
Almost the saddest to me of all the items of ruin and destruction
enumerated in the newspaper records of the late storm, was the carrying
away of the Menai Bridge, and that on your account. I thought of it as
almost a personal loss and grief to you. You had so often described it
to me, its beauty and its grandeur; and though I had never seen it, I
had a distinct imagination of it, gathered far more from your
descriptions, than from engravings or accounts of tourists: and it was
so associated with you in my mind, that, reading of it being all blown
to tatters, I felt dismayed to think of _your_ beautiful bridge thus
ruined, and of your distress at its destruction. You used to speak of
that with the same species of delight that beautiful natural objects
excite in me: and enjoyment so vivid, and at the same time so abiding,
that I sometimes, under the influence of such impressions, feel as if I
loved some places better than any people. Certainly the magical effect
of certain beautiful scenes upon my mind is the most intense and lasting
pleasure I have ever known....
I returned here yesterday to my children, whom I left with Margery,
while I went up to Butler's Island to do duty, I am sorry to say, as
sick-nurse....
The observations of children, which are quoted as indications of
peculiar intelligence, very often only appear so, because the objects
which call them forth, having become familiar to us, have ceased to
impress us rightly, or perhaps at all. Every child who is not a fool
will frequently make remarks about many things which are only striking
because conventional uses and educated habits of thought have, on many
points, blunted their effect upon us, and obscured our perceptions of
their qualities, and left us with duller senses, and a duller general
sense in some respects, than those of a child or savage....
I have been performing an office this morning, which, like sundry others
I have been called upon to discharge here (marking on the carcass of a
sheep, for instance, the proper joints into which it should be cut for
the table), is new to me. I read prayers to between twenty and thirty of
the slaves, who are here without church, pastor, or any means whatever
of religious instruction. There was something so affecting to me in my
involuntary relation to these poor people,--in the contrast, too,
between the infirm old age of many of them, and the comparative youth of
me, their instructress,--in my impotence to serve them and my
passionate desire to do so,--that I could hardly command my voice. The
composition of our service was about as liberal as was ever compounded
by any preacher or teacher of any Christian sect, I verily believe: it
was selected from the English book of Common Prayer, a Presbyterian
collection of Prayers, the "Imitation of Jesus Christ," which excellent
Roman Catholic book of devotion I borrowed from Margery, and the Blessed
Bible--the fountain from which have flowed all these streams for the
refreshment of human souls. From these I compiled a short service,
dismissing my congregation without a sermon, having none with me fit for
their comprehension, and lacking courage to extemporize one, though
vehemently moved by the spirit to do so. I think on Sunday next I will
write one especially for their edification.
After this I went with S---- and Margery, and baby in her little wicker
carriage, accompanied by a long procession of negro children, to explore
the woods near the house: not without manifest misgivings on the part of
my dusky escort, whose terror of rattlesnakes is greater even than my
terrified imagination about them. My greatest anxiety was to keep S----
from marching in the van and preceding us all in these reptiline
discoveries.... _Way_, in the proper sense of the term, there was none;
for the expedition was chiefly for the purpose of observing where paths
could be cleared with best advantage through this charming wilderness.
To crown the doings of the day, I have written you this long letter, the
fifth I date to you from Georgia.
Ever most affectionately yours,
F. A. B.
NEW YORK, April 30th, 1839.
MY DEAR LADY DACRE,
How much I wish I could but look into your face, but hold your hand, or
embrace you! How much I wish I were near you, that I might silently as
alone benefits such occasions, express to you my sympathy for your
sorrow....
The news of your loss was the greater shock to me that I had just
written a letter, introducing to you a dear friend of mine, Miss
Sedgwick, now about visiting England, and bespeaking your kindness and
good-will for her. This lady will still be the bearer of this (a most
different epistle from the one I had prepared) and a little fan made of
the feathers of one of our Southern birds, which you will not look upon
with indifference, because it is sent to you by one who loves you truly
and gratefully, and who would gladly do anything to afford you one
moment's relief from those sad thoughts which I fear must possess you
wholly.
I had ventured with especial confidence to recommend my friend to your
notice, because she possesses, in no small degree, some of those
qualities which distinguished your excellent and accomplished daughter;
the same talent, applied with profound conscientiousness to the
improvement of the young and poor and ignorant; the same devotion to the
good of all who come within her sphere; the same pervading sense of
religious responsibility.
Dear Lady Dacre, for the sake of those who love you,--for the sake of
him whom you love above all others, your admirable husband,--for the
sake of the darlings your child has left, a precious legacy and trust to
you, do not let this affliction bow down the noble courage of your
nature, but raise yourself even under this heavy burden, that the world
may not by her death lose the good influence of _two_ bright spirits at
once. Do not think me bold and impertinent that _I_ venture thus to
exhort _you_. It is my affection that speaks, and the fear I feel of the
terrible effect this loss may have upon you. Once more, God bless and
support you, and give you that reliance upon Him which is our only
strength in the hours of our earthly sorrows. She whom you mourn is
blest, if ever goodness might secure blessing; and the recollection of
her many virtues must take from her death those contemplations which
alone can make death awful. Farewell, dear friend. My heart yearns
towards you in your grief very tenderly, and I am always
Most affectionately yours,
F. A. B.
BUTLER PLACE, PHILADELPHIA, June 24th, 1839.
DEAREST HARRIET,
I am afraid you will think my Northern residence less propitious to
correspondence than the Georgia plantation, as I am again in your
debt.... But what have I to tell you of myself, or anything belonging to
me? Ever since I returned from New York, whither I went to see Catharine
Sedgwick sail for England, I have been vegetating here, as much as in me
lies to vegetate; but though my life has quite as few incidents as the
existence of the lilies and the roses in the flower-beds, the inward
nature makes another life of it, and the restless soul can never be made
to _vegetate_, even though the body does little else.... My days roll on
in a sort of dreamy, monotonous succession, with an imperceptible
motion, like the ceaseless creeping of the glaciers. I teach S---- to
read. I order my household, I read Mrs. Jameson's book about Canada, I
write to you, I copy out for Elizabeth Sedgwick the journal I kept on
the plantation, I ride every day, and play on the piano just enough not
to forget my notes, _et voila!_ Once a week I go to town, to execute
commissions, or return visits, and on Sundays I go to church; and so my
life slides away from me. My head and heart, however, are neither as
torpid nor as empty as my hours; and I often find, as others have done,
that external stagnation does not necessarily produce internal repose.
Occasionally, but seldom, people come from town to see us; and
sometimes, but not often, small offices of courtesy and kindness are
exchanged between me and my more immediate neighbors. And now my story
is done.... I really live almost entirely alone....
I am beginning to fear that I shall not be taken to the Virginia springs
this summer. If I go, I am told I must leave the children behind, the
roads and accommodations being such as to render it perfectly impossible
to take them with us. Indeed, the inconveniences of the journey and the
discomforts of the residence there are represented to us as so great,
that I am afraid I shall not be thought able to endure them. If it is
settled that I cannot go thither, I shall go up to Massachusetts, where,
though the material civilities of life are yet in their swaddling
clothes, I have dear friends, and the country is lovely all around where
I should be.
I have just seen some plans for a large hotel, which it is proposed to
build on some property we own in the city, in a position extremely well
adapted for such a purpose. I was very much pleased with them: they are
upon the wholesale scale of lodging and entertainment, which travelers
in this country require and desire; and combine as much comfort and
elegance as are compatible with such a style of establishment. We, you
know, in England, always like our public houses to be as like private
ones as possible. The reverse is the case here, and the lodging-house or
hotel recommends itself chiefly by being able to accommodate as many
people as can well congregate at a _table d'hôte_ or in a public
drawing-room, that being a good deal the idea of society which appears
to exist in many people's minds here....
F. A. B.
BUTLER PLACE, Thursday, July 4th, 1839.
DEAREST HARRIET,
It is the 4th of July, the day on which the Declaration of American
Independence was read to the assembled citizens of Philadelphia from the
window of the City State House. The anniversary is celebrated from north
to south and east to west of this vast country: by the many, with firing
of guns, and spouting of speeches, drinking of drams, and eating of
dinners; by the few, with understanding prayer, praise and thankfulness
for the past, and hope, not unalloyed with some misgiving, for the
future.
In the gravel walk, at the back of our house, under a double row of tall
trees that meet overhead, all our servants and the people employed on
the place and their children, are congregated at dinner, to the tune of
thirty-seven apparently well-satisfied souls, and as I went to see them
just now, a farmer who is our tenant across the road, and has tenanted
the place where he lives for the space of twenty years, assured me that
I was a "real American!" He is an Irishman, and I might have returned
his compliment by telling him he was half an Englishman, for a man who
remains twenty years in one place in this country, and upon ground that
he does not own, is a very uncommon personage.
You would scarcely believe how difficult it is to establish a pleasant
footing with persons of this class here. Dependents they do not and
ought not to consider themselves (for they are not such in any sense
whatever); equals, their own perceptions show them they are not in any
sense, but a political one; and they seem to me, in consequence, to be
far less at their ease really in their intercourse with their employers
or landlords than our own people, with their much more positive and
definite sense of difference of condition and habits of life. Indeed, to
establish a real feeling--a _true_ one--of universal equality, warranted
by the fact of its existence, would require a population, not of
American Republicans, such as they are, but of Christian philosophers,
such as do not exist at all anywhere yet, or, if at all, only by twos or
threes scattered among millions....
You ask me how far Butler's Island was from St. Simon's [the rice and
cotton plantations in Georgia]. Fifteen miles of water--great huge river
mouth or mouths, and open sounds of the sea, with half-submerged salt
marsh islands wallowing in the midst of them.... Over these
waters--pretty rough surfaces, too, sometimes--we traveled to and fro
between the plantations in open boats, generally in a long canoe that
flew under its eight oars like an arrow. The men often sang, while they
rowed, the whole way when I was in the boat, and some of their melodies
are very wild and striking, and their natural gift of music remarkable.
As the boat approached the landing, the steersman brayed forth our
advent through a monstrous conch, when the whole shore would presently
be crowded with our dusky dependents, the whole thing reminding one of
former semi-barbaric times, and modes of life in the islands of the
northwest of Scotland. Some of the airs the negroes sing have a strong
affinity to Scotch melodies in their general character....
It is near ten o'clock in the evening, and with you it is five hours
earlier, so you are probably thinking of dressing for dinner; though,
by-the-bye, you are not at home at Ardgillan, but wandering somewhere
about in Germany--I know not where; neither may I by any means imagine
how you are employed; and your image rises before me without one
accompanying detail of familiar place, circumstance, or occupation, to
give it a this-world's likeness. I see you as I might if you were
dead--your simple apparition unframed by any setting that I can surround
it with; and it is thus that I now see all my friends and kindred, all
those I love in my own country; for the lapse of time and the space of
distance between us render all thoughts of them, even of their very
existence, vague and uncertain. Klopstock, who wrote letters to the
dead, hardly corresponded more absolutely with the inhabitants of
another world than I do....
I drove into town this morning by half-past ten o'clock to church, a
six-miles' journey I take most Sundays. The weekday generally passes in
reading "Nicholas Nickleby," walking about the garden, and devising
alterations which I hope may turn out improvements, playing and singing
half a dozen pieces of music half a century old, and writing to the
"likes of you" (though, indeed, to me you are still a nonesuch).
Farewell, dearest Harriet, _und schlafen sie recht wohl_. Is that the
way you say it, whereabouts you are?
Ever your affectionate,
F. A. B.
BUTLER PLACE, July 14th, 1839.
I wrote to you a short time ago, dearest Harriet; but I am still in your
debt, and though I have nothing to tell you (when should I write if I
waited for that?), I have abundant leisure to tell it in, and the mind
to talk with you. The last is never wanting, but now what a pity it is
that I must make this miserable sheet of paper my voice, instead of
having you here on this piazza, as we call our verandahs here, with the
pomegranate and cape jessamine bushes in bloom in their large green
boxes just before me, and a row of great fat hydrangeas (how is that
spelled?) nodding their round, fat, foolish-looking pink and blue heads
at me....
We are most strongly urged to try the effect of the natural hot sulphur
baths of Virginia; their efficacy being very great in cases of rheumatic
affections.... I am very much afraid, however, that I shall not be
allowed to go thither; and in that case shall probably take my way up to
my friends in Berkshire, Massachusetts, the Sedgwicks, who, though they
have sent a detachment of six to perambulate Europe just now, still form
with the remaining members of the family the chief part of the
population of that district of New England.
Catharine, who is one of them that I love best, is one among the gone;
but her brother and his wife, next door to whom I generally take up my
abode during some part of the summer, are as excellent, and nearly as
dear to me, as she is....
My occupations are nothing; my amusements less than nothing. Of what
avail is it that I should tell you of lonely rides taken in places you
never heard of, or books I have read, the titles of which (being
American) you never saw; or that I am revolutionizing the gravel walks
in my garden, opening up new and closing up old ones? There is no use in
telling you any of this. As long as I live, that is to all eternity, you
know that I shall love you; but it is decreed that in this portion of
that eternity you can know little else about me, however it may be
hereafter. I wonder if it will ever be for us again to interchange
communion daily and hourly, as we once did; I do not see how it should
come to pass in this our present life; but it may be one of the
blessings of a better and happier existence to resume our free and full
former intercourse with each other, without any of the alloy of human
infirmity or untoward circumstance. Amen! so be it! God bless you, dear.
I long to see you once more, and am ever affectionately yours,
F. A. B.
BUTLER PLACE, July 21st, 1839.
I was looking over a letter of yours, dear Harriet, just now, which
answered one of mine from Georgia, and find therein a perfect burst of
eloquence upon the subject of _fishing_. Now, though I know
destructiveness to be not only a _bump_, but a passion of yours, I
still should not have imagined that you could take delight in that
dreamy, lazy, lounging pursuit, if pursuit that may be called in which
one stands stock-still by the hour. As for me, the catching of fish was
always a subject of perfect ecstasy to me--so much so, indeed, that our
little company of piscators at Weybridge used to entreat me to "go
further off," or "get out of the boat," whenever I had a bite, because
my cries of joy were enough to scare all the fish in the river down to
Sheerness. It was the lingering, fidgeting, gasping, plunging agonies of
the poor creatures, after they were caught, which I objected to so
excessively, and which made me renounce the amusement in spite of my
passion for it. When I resumed it in Georgia, it was with the full
determination to find out some speedy mode of putting my finny captives
to death--as you are to understand that I have not the slightest
compunction about killing, though infinite about torturing,--so my
"slave," Jack, had orders to knock them on the head the instant he took
the hook from their gills; but he banged them horribly, till I longed to
bang him against the boat's side, and even cut their throats from ear to
ear, so that they looked like so many Banquos without the "gory locks";
and yet the indomitable life in the perverse creatures would make them
leap up with a galvanic spring and gasp, that invariably communicated an
electric shock to my nerves, and produced the fellow-spring and gasp
from me. This was the one drawback to my fishing felicity; oh! yes--I
forgot the worms or live bait, though! Harriet, it _is_ a hideous
diversion, and that is all that can be said for it; and I wonder at you
for indulging in it.
I tried paste, most exquisitely compounded of rice, flour, peach brandy,
and fine sugar; but the Altamaha fish were altogether too
unsophisticated for any such allurement; it would probably be safe to
put a _paté de foie gras_ or a pineapple before an Irish hedger and
ditcher.
The white mullet, shad, and perch of the Altamaha are the most excellent
animals that ever went in water. At St. Simon's the water is entirely
salt, and often very rough, as it is but a mile and a half from the open
sea, and the river there is in fact a mere arm of salt water. It is
hardly possible ever to fish like a lady, with a float, in it; but the
negroes bait a long rope with clams, shrimps, and oysters, and sinking
their line with a heavy lead, catch very large mullet, fine whitings,
and a species of marine monster, first cousin once removed to the great
leviathan, called the drum, which, being stewed _long enough_ (that is,
nobody can tell how long) with a precious French sauce, might turn out a
little softer than the nether millstone, and so perhaps edible: _mais
avec cette sauce là on mangerait son père_, and perhaps without the
family indigestion that lasted the Atridæ so long.
One of these creatures was sent to me by one of our neighbors as a
curiosity; it was upwards of four feet long, weighed over twenty pounds,
and had an enormous head. I wouldn't have eaten a bit of it for the
world!
The waters all round St. Simon's abound in capital fish; beds of
oysters, that must be inexhaustible I should think, run all along the
coast; shrimps and extraordinarily large prawns are taken in the
greatest abundance, and good green turtle, it is said, is easily
procured at a short distance from these shores.
You ask what sort of house we had down there. Why, truly, wretched
enough. There were on the two plantations no fewer than _eight_ dwelling
houses, all in different states and stages of uninhabitableness, half of
them not being quite built up, and the other half not quite fallen down.
The grandfather of the present proprietor built a good house on the
island of St. Simon's, in a beautiful situation on a point of land where
two rivers meet--rather, two large streams of salt water, fine,
sparkling, billowy sea rivers. Before the house was a grove of large
orange-trees, and behind it an extensive tract of down, covered with
that peculiar close, short turf which creates South Down and Pré Salé
mutton: and overshadowed by some magnificent live-oaks and white
mulberry-trees. By degrees, however, the tide, which rises to a great
height here, running very strongly up both these channels, has worn away
the bank, till tree by tree the orange grove has been entirely washed
away, and the water at high tide is now within six feet of the house
itself; or rather, there are only six feet of distance between the
building and the brink of the bank on which it stands, which is
considerably above the river.
The house has been uninhabited for a great many years, and is, of
course, ruinously out of repair. It contains one very good room, and
might be made a decently comfortable dwelling; but it has been ordered
to be pulled down, because, if it is not, the materials will soon be
swept away in the rapid demolition of the bank by the water. The house
we resided in was the overseer's dwelling, situated on the point also,
but further from the water, and having the extent of grass-land and
trees in front of it, together with a beautiful water prospect; in fact,
in a better situation than the other. As for the house itself, it would
have done very well for our short residence if it had been either
finished or furnished. The rooms were fairly well-sized, and there were
five of them in all, besides two or three little closets. But although
the primitive simplicity of whitewashed walls in our drawing and
dining-room did not affect my happiness, the wainscoting and even the
crevices of the floor admitted perfect gusts of air that rather did. The
windows and doors, even when professing to be shut, could never be
called closed; and on one or two gusty evenings, the carpet in the room
where I was sitting heaved and undulated by means of a stream of air
from under the door, like a theatrical representation of the ocean in
extreme agitation. The staircase was of the roughest description, such
as you would not find in the poorest English farm-house, covered only by
the inside of the roof, rough shingles--that is, wooden tiles--and all
the beams, rafters, etc., etc., of the roofing, admitting little starry
twinklings of sun or moonlight, perfectly apparent to the naked eye of
whoever ascended or descended. Such was my residence on the estate of
Hampton on great St. Simon's Island; and it was infinitely superior in
size, comfort, and everything else to my abode on Butler's Island, which
was indeed a very miserable hole.
The St. Simon's house being sufficiently roomy, I presently set about
making it as far as possible convenient and comfortable. I had a fine
large table, such as might have become some august board of business
men, made of plain white pine and covered in with sober-looking dark
green merino. I next had a settee constructed--cushions, covers, etc.,
cut out and mainly stitched by my own fair fingers; we stuffed it with
the native moss; and I had a pretty white _peignoir_ made for it, with
stuff which I got from that emporium of fashionable luxury, Darien; and
this was quite an item of elegance, as well as comfort. Another table in
my sitting-room was an old, rickety, rheumatic piece of furniture of the
"old Major's," the infirmities of which I gayly concealed under a
Macgregor plaid shawl, never burdening its elderly limbs with any
greater weight than a vase of flowers; and by the help of plenty of this
exquisite, ornamental furniture of nature's own providing, and a
tolerable collection of books, which we had taken down to the South with
us, my sitting-room did not look uncomfortable or uncheerful.
If, however, I am to winter there again this year, I shall endeavor to
make it a little more like the dwelling of civilized human beings by the
introduction of locks to the doors, instead of wooden latches pulled by
pack-thread; and bells, of which at present there is but one in the
whole house, and that is a noose, hanging just outside the sitting-room
door, by which I expected to be caught and throttled every time I went
in and out....
I am ever yours,
F. A. B.
LENOX, August 9th, 1839.
I turn from interchange of thought and feeling with my friends here,
dearest Harriet, to read again an unanswered letter of yours; and as I
dwell upon your affectionate words, while my eyes wander over the
beautiful landscape which my window commands, my mind is filled with the
consideration of the great treasure of love that has been bestowed upon
me out of so many hearts, and I wonder as I ponder. God knows how
devoutly I thank Him for this blessing above all others, granted to me
in a measure so far above my deserts, that my gratitude is mingled with
surprise and a sense of my own unworthiness, which enhances my
appreciation of my great good fortune in this respect.... In seasons of
self-reproach and self-condemnation it is an encouragement and a
consolation, and helps to lift one from the dust, to reflect that good
and noble spirits have loved one--spirits too good and too noble, one
would fain persuade one's self, to love what is utterly base and
unworthy....
You ask me if I have kept any journal, or written anything lately.
During my winter in the South I kept a daily journal of whatever
occurred to interest me, and I am now busily engaged in copying it....
Since the perpetration of that "English Tragedy," now in your safe
keeping, I have written nothing else; and probably, until I find myself
again under the influence of some such stimulus as my mind received on
returning to England, my intellectual faculties will remain stagnant, so
far as any "worthy achievement," as Milton would say, is concerned. You
see, I persist in considering that play in that light....
I am ashamed to say that I am exceedingly sleepy. I have been riding
sixteen miles over these charming hills. The day is bright and breezy,
and full of shifting lights and shadows, playing over a landscape that
combines every variety of beauty,--valleys, in the hollows of which lie
small lakes glittering like sapphires; uplands, clothed with
grain-fields and orchards, and studded with farm-houses, each the centre
of its own free domain; hills clothed from base to brow with every
variety of forest tree; and woods, some wild, tangled, and all but
impenetrable, others clear of underbrush, shady, moss-carpeted and
sun-checkered; noble masses of granite rock, great slabs of marble (of
which there are fine quarries in the neighborhood), clear mountain
brooks and a full, free-flowing, sparkling river;--all this, under a
cloud-varied sky, such as generally canopies mountain districts, the
sunset glories of which are often magnificent. I have good friends, and
my precious children, an easy, cheerful, cultivated society, my capital
horse, and, in short, most good things that I call mine--on this side of
the water--with one heavy exception....
My dearest Harriet, my drowsiness grows upon me, so that my eyelids are
gradually drawing together as I look out at the sweet prospect, and the
blue shimmer of the little lake and sunny waving of the trees are fading
all away into a dream before me. Good-bye.
Your sleepy and affectionate
F. A. B.
[When I was in London, some time after the date of this letter, I
received an earnest request from one of the most devoted of the New
England abolitionists, to allow the journal I kept while at the
South to be published, and so give the authority of my experience to
the aid of the cause of freedom. This application occasioned me
great trouble and distress, as it was most painful to me to refuse
my testimony on the subject on which I felt so deeply; but it was
impossible for me then to feel at liberty to publish my journal.
When the address, drawn up at Stafford House, under the impulse of
Mrs. Beecher Stowe's powerful novel, and the auspices of Lord
Shaftesbury and the Duchess of Sutherland (by Thackeray denominated
the "Womanifesto against Slavery"), was brought to me for my
signature, I was obliged to decline putting my name to it, though I
felt very sure no other signer of that document knew more of the
facts of American slavery, or abhorred it more, than I did; but
also, no other of its signers knew, as I did, the indignant sense of
offense which it would be sure to excite in those to whom it was
addressed; its absolute futility as to the accomplishment of any
good purpose, and the bitter feeling it could not fail to arouse,
even in the women of the Northern States, by the assumed moral
superiority which it would be thought to imply.
I would then gladly have published my journal, had I been at liberty
to do so, and thus shown my sympathy with the spirit, though not the
letter, of the Stafford House appeal to the women of America.
It was not, however, until after the War of Secession broke out,
while residing in England, and hearing daily and hourly the
condition of the slaves discussed, in a spirit of entire sympathy
with their owners, that nothing but the most absolute ignorance
could excuse, that I determined to publish my record of my own
observations on a Southern plantation.
At the time of my doing so, party feeling on the subject of the
American war was extremely violent in England, and the people among
whom I lived were all Southern sympathizers. I believe I was
suspected of being _employed_ to "advocate" the Northern cause (an
honor of which I was as little worthy as their cause was in need of
such an advocate); and my friend, Lady ----, told me she had
repeatedly heard it asserted that my journal was not a genuine
record of my own experiences and observation, but "cooked up" (to
use the expression applied to it) to serve the purpose of party
special pleading. This, as she said, she was able to contradict upon
her own authority, having heard me read the manuscripts many years
before at her grandmother's, Lady Dacre's, at the Hoo.
This accusation of having "cooked up" my journal for a particular
end may perhaps have originated from the fact that I refused to
place the whole of it in the hands of the printers, giving out to be
printed merely such portions as I chose to submit to their
inspection, which, as the book was my personal diary, and contained
matter of the most strictly private nature, was not perhaps
unreasonable. The republication of this book in America had not been
contemplated by me; my purpose and my desire being to make the facts
it contained known in England. In the United States, by the year
1862, abundant miserable testimony of the same nature needed no
confirmation of mine. My friend, Mr. John Forbes, of Boston,
however, requested me to let him have it republished in America, and
I very gladly consented to do so.[4]
[4] I have omitted from the letters written on the plantation,
at the same time as this diary, all details of the condition of
the slaves among whom I was living; the painful effect of which
upon myself however, together with my general strong feeling
upon the subject of slavery, I have not entirely
suppressed--because I do not think it well that all record
should be obliterated of the nature of the terrible curse from
which God in His mercy has delivered English America.
In countless thousands of lamentable graves the bitter wrong
lies buried--atoned for by a four-years' fratricidal war: the
beautiful Southern land is lifting its head from the disgrace of
slavery and the agony of its defense. May its free future days
surpass in prosperity (as they surely will a thousand-fold)
those of its former perilous pride of privilege--of race
supremacy and subjugation.
An extremely interesting and clever book, called "A Fool's Errand,"
embodies under the form of a novel, an accurate picture of the
social condition of the Southern States after the war--a condition
so replete with elements of danger and difficulty, that the highest
virtue and the deepest wisdom could hardly have coped successfully
with them; and from a heart-breaking and perhaps unsuccessful
struggle with which, Abraham Lincoln's murder delivered him, I
believe, as a reward for his upright and noble career.]
LENOX, September 11th, 1839.
Thank you, my dear Lady Dacre, for your kindness in writing to me again.
I would fain know if doing so may not have become a painful effort to
you, or if my letters may not have become irksome to you. Pray have the
real goodness to let me know, if not by your own hand, through our
friends William Harness or Emily Fitzhugh, if you would rather not be
disturbed by my writing to you, and trust that I shall be grateful for
your sincerity.
You know I do not value very highly the artificial civilities which half
strangle half the world with a sort of floss-silk insincerity; and the
longer I live the more convinced I am that real tenderness to others is
quite compatible with the truth that is due to them and one's self.
My regard for you does not maintain itself upon our scanty and
infrequent correspondence, but on the recollection of your kindness to
me, and the impression our former intercourse has left upon my memory;
and though ceasing to receive your letters would be foregoing an
enjoyment, it could not affect the grateful regard I entertain for you.
Pray, therefore, my dear Lady Dacre, do not scruple to bid me hold my
peace, if by taking up your time and attention in your present sad
circumstances [the recent loss of her daughter] I disturb or distress
you.
Your kind wishes for my health and happiness are as completely fulfilled
as such benedictions may be in this world of imperfect bodies and minds.
I ride every day before breakfast, some ten or twelve miles (yesterday
it was five and twenty), and as this obliges me to be in my saddle at
seven in the morning, I am apt to consider the performance meritorious
as well as pleasurable. (Who says that early risers always have a
Pharisaical sense of their own superiority?) I am staying in the
beautiful hill-region of Massachusetts, where I generally spend part of
my summer, in the neighborhood of my friends the Sedgwicks, who are a
very numerous clan, and compose the chief part of the population of this
portion of Berkshire, if not in quantity, certainly in quality.
There was some talk, at one time, of my going to the hot sulphur springs
of Virginia; but the difficulties of the journey thither, and miseries
of a sojourn there, prevented my doing so, as I could not have taken my
children with me. We shall soon begin to think of flying southward, for
we are to winter in Georgia again....
My youngest child does not utter so much as a syllable, which
circumstance has occasioned me once or twice seriously to consider
whether by any possibility a child of mine could be _dumb_. "I cannot
tell, but I think not," as Benedict says. It would have been clever of
me to have had a dumb child.
Have you read Charles Murray's book about America? and how do you like
it? Do you ever see Lady Francis Egerton nowadays? How is she? What is
she doing? Is she accomplishing a great deal with her life? She always
seemed to me born to do so. My dear Lady Dacre, do not talk of not
seeing me again. We hope to be in England next autumn, and one of the
greatest pleasures I look forward to in that expectation is once more
seeing you and Lord Dacre. You say my sister will marry a foreigner. She
has my leave to marry a German, but the more southern blood does not
mingle well with our Teutonic race....
I am sorry the only book of Catharine Sedgwick's which you have read is,
"Live and Let Live," because it is essentially an American book, and
some Americans think it a little exaggerated in its views, even for this
country. A little story, called "Home," and another called "The Poor
Rich Man and the Rich Poor Man," are, I think, better specimens of what
she can do....
F. A. B.
LENOX, September 30th, 1839.
And so, dearest Harriet, Cecilia writes you that my head is enlarged, my
_benevolence_ and _causality_ increased, and that Mr. Combe thinks me
much improved. Truly, it were a pity if I were the reverse, for it was
more than two years since he had seen me; but though I heartily wish
this might be the case, I honestly confess to you that I do not feel as
if my mental and moral progress, during the last two years, has been
sufficient to push out any visible augmentation of the "bumps" of my
skull in any direction.
Your saucy suggestion as to my having conciliated his good opinion by
exhibiting a greater degree of faith in phrenology is, unluckily, not
borne out by the facts; for, instead of more, I have a little less faith
in it; and that, perversely enough, from the very circumstance of the
more favorable opinion thus expressed with regard to my own
"development."
In the first instance, both Mr. Combe and Cecilia expressed a good deal
of surprise to some of my friends here, at their high estimate of my
brain.... Having very evidently never themselves perceived any
sufficient grounds for such an exalted esteem. Moreover, Mr. Combe wrote
a letter to Lucretia Mott (the celebrated Quakeress, who is a good
friend of mine), when he heard that she had made my acquaintance,
cautioning her against falling into the mistake which _all my American
friends_ committed, of "exaggerating my reasoning powers." This was all
well and good, and only amused me as rather funny; some of _my American
friends_ being tolerably shrewd folk, and upon the whole, no bad judges
of brains. But then the next thing that happens is, that I see the
Combes myself for a short, hurried, and most confused five minutes,
during which, even if Mr. Combe's judgment were _entirely_ in his eyes,
he had no leisure for exercising it on me; and yet he now states (for
Cecy is only his echo in this matter) that my disposition is much
improved, and my reasoning powers much increased; and it is but two
years since I was in his house, and this moral and mental progress,
visible to the naked eye, on my thickly hair-roofed cranium, has taken
place since then;--if so, so much the better for me, and I have made
better use of my time than I imagined!
To tell you the truth, dear Harriet, I have not thought about
phrenology, one way or the other, but I have thought this phrenological
verdict about myself nonsense.
Mr. Combe has certainly not been influenced by any signs of conversion
on my part; but I suppose he may have been influenced by the opinion
held of me by my friends here, some of whom are sensible enough on all
other subjects not to be suspected of idiocy, even though they do think
me a rational, and, what is more, a reasoning creature.
It has been a real distress to me not to see more of Mr. Combe and
Cecilia. I have always had the highest regard for him, for his kind,
humane heart, and benevolent, liberal, enlightened mind. Cecy, too,
during my short visit to her in Scotland, appeared to me a far more
lovable person than during my previous intercourse with her: and as
kinsfolk and countryfolk, without any consideration for personal liking,
I feel annoyed at not being able to offer them any kindness or
hospitality. But we literally seem to be running round each other; they
are now at Hartford, in Connecticut, not fifty miles away from here,
where they intend staying some weeks, and will probably not be in
Philadelphia until we have departed for the South. When I saw them in
New York, they were both looking extremely well; Cecilia fat, and
cheerful, and apparently very happy, in spite of her "incidents of
American travel." ...
The heat of the summer while we remained at Butler Place was something
quite indescribable, and hardly varied at all for several weeks, either
night or day, from between 90 and 100 degrees.
People sat up all night at their windows in town; and as for me, more
than once, in sheer desperation, after trying to sleep on a cane sofa
under the piazza, I wandered about more than half the night, on the
gravel walks of the garden, bare-footed,--_et dans le simple appareil
d'une beauté qu'on vient d'arracher au sommeil_.
We tried to sleep upon _everything_ in vain,--Indian matting was as hot
as woolen blankets. At last I laid a piece of oilcloth on my bed,
without even as much as a sheet over it, and though I could not sleep,
obtained as much relief from the heat as to be able to lie still. It was
terrible!...
I have been for two months up here, not having been allowed to go to the
Virginia springs, on account of the difficulty of carrying my children
there; but I am promised that we shall all go there next summer, when
there is to be something like a passable road, by which the
health-giving region may be approached....
I have an earnest desire to return to Europe in the autumn--not to stay
in England, unless my father should be there, but to go to him, wherever
he may be, and to spend a little time with my sister.... All this,
however, lies far ahead, and God knows what at present invisible
prospects may reveal and develop themselves on the surface of the
future, as a nearer light falls on it....
My youngest child's accomplishments are hitherto unaccompanied by a
syllable of speech or utterance, and the idea sometimes occurs to me
whether a child of mine could have enough genius to be dumb.
Good-bye, my dearest Harriet.
Ever affectionately yours,
F. A. B.
BUTLER PLACE, October 10th, 1839.
DEAR MRS. JAMESON,
Your interesting letter of 26th July reached me about ten days ago, at
Lenox, where, according to my wont, I was passing the hot months. I had
heard from dear Mr. Harness, a short time before, that you had suffered
much annoyance from the withdrawal of your father's pension. Your own
account of the disasters of your family excited my sincere sympathy; and
yet, after reflecting a little, it appeared to me as if the exertions
you felt yourself called upon to make in their behalf were happier in
themselves than the general absence of any immediate object in life,
which I know you sometimes feel very bitterly. At any rate, to be able
to serve, effectually to save from distress, those so dear to you, must
be in itself a real happiness; and to be blessed by your parents and
sisters as their stay and support in such a crisis, is to have had such
an opportunity of concentrating your talents as I think one might be
thankful for. I cannot, consistently with my belief, say I am sorry you
have thus suffered, but I pray God that your troubles may every way
prove blessings to you.
Your account of your "schoolmaster's party" interested me very much. [A
gathering of teachers, promoted by Lady Byron, for purposes of
enlightened benevolence.] Lady Byron must be a woman of a noble nature.
I hope she is happy in her daughter's marriage. I heard a report a short
time ago that Lady Lovelace was coming over to this country with her
husband. I could not well understand for what purpose: that he should
come from general interest and curiosity about the United States, I can
well imagine; but that she should come from any motive, but to avoid
being separated from her husband, is to me inconceivable....
I should like to have seen that play of Mr. Chorley's which you mention
to me. He once talked about it to me. It is absurd to say, but for all
its absurdity, I'll say it,--he does not _look_ to me like a man who
could write a good play: he speaks too softly, and his eyelashes are too
white; in spite of all which, I take your word for it that it is good.
You ask after mine: Harriet has got the only copy, on the other side of
the water; if you think it worth while to ask her for it, you are very
welcome to read it. I was not aware that I had read you any portion of
it; and cannot help thinking that you have confounded in your
recollection something which I did read you--and which, as I thought,
appeared to distress you, or rather not to please you--with some portion
of my play, of which I did not think that I had ever shown you any part.
I have some thoughts of publishing it here, or rather in Boston. I have
run out my yearly allowance of pin-money, and want a few dollars very
badly, and if any bookseller will give me five pounds for it, he shall
be welcome to it....
I beg you will not call this a scrap of a letter, because it is all
written upon one sheet: if you do, I shall certainly call yours a letter
of scraps, being written on several; and am ever,
Very truly yours,
F. A. B.
BUTLER PLACE, October 19th, 1839.
DEAREST HARRIET,
I have just been reading over a letter of yours written from Schwalbach,
in August; and in answer to some speculation of mine, which I have
forgotten, you say, "Our birth truly is no less strange than our death.
The beginning--and whence come we? The end--and whither go we?" Now, I
presume that you did not intend that I should apply myself to answer
these questions categorically. You must have thought you were speaking
to me, dearest Harriet, and have only written down the vague cogitations
that rose in the shape of queries to your lips, as you read my letter,
which suggested them; opening at the same time, doubtless, a pair of
most _intensely sightless_ eyes, upon the gaming-table of the Cursaal,
if it happened to be within range of vision.
For myself, the older I grow the less I feel strength or inclination to
speculate. The daily and hourly duties of life are so indifferently
fulfilled by me, that I feel almost rebuked if my mind wanders either to
the far past or future while the present, wherein lies my salvation, is
comparatively unthought of. To tell you the truth, I find in the daily
obligations to do and to suffer which come to my hands, a refuge from
the mystery and uncertainty which veil all before and after life.
For indeed, when the mind sinks bewildered under speculations as to our
former fate or future destinies, the sense of things _to be done_, of
duties to be fulfilled, even the most apparently trivial in the world,
is an unspeakable relief; and though the whole of this existence of
ours, material and spiritual, affords but this _one_ foothold (and it
sometimes seems so to me), it is enough that every hour brings work; and
more than enough--_all_--if that work be but well done.
Thus the beginning and the end trouble me seldom; but the difficulty of
dealing rightly with what is immediately before and around me does
trouble me infinitely; but that trouble is neither uncertainty nor
doubt.
Our possible separation hereafter from those we have loved here, is
almost the only idea connected with these subjects which obtrudes itself
sometimes upon my mind. Yet, though I cannot conceive how Heaven would
not be Hell without those I love, I am willing to believe that my spirit
will be fitted to its future sphere by Him with whom all things are
possible.
It seems rationally consistent with all we believe, and the little we
know, to entertain a strong hope that the affections we have cherished
here will not be left behind us, or forgotten elsewhere; but I would
give much to _believe_ this as well as to _hope_ it, and those are quite
distinct things.
Two conclusions spring from this wide waste of uncertainty; that the
more we can serve and render happy those with whom our lives are bound
up here, the better; for we may not elsewhere be allowed to minister to
them: and the less we cling to these earthly affections, the less we
grasp them as sources of personal happiness the better; as they may be
withdrawn from us, and God, whose place they too often usurp in our
souls, be the one Friend who shall supply the place of them all.
Conjecture as we may, however, upon these subjects, the general
experience of humanity is that of struggle with the _present_, the
_actual_; and could I but be satisfied with the mode in which I fulfill
my daily duties, and govern my heart and mind in their discharge, I
should feel at peace as regards all such speculations--"I'd jump the
life to come."
You speak of the unhealthy life led by the members of the bar in
Ireland, and their disregard of all the "natural laws," which yet, you
say, does not appear to affect their constitutions materially. I
presume, as far as the usual exercise of their profession goes, lawyers
must lead pretty much the same sort of life everywhere; but in this
country, everybody's habits are essentially unhealthy, and superadded to
the special bad influences of a laborious and sedentary profession, make
fearful havoc with life. The diet and the atmosphere to which most
Americans accustom themselves, are alike destructive of anything like
health. Even the men, compared with ours, are generally inactive, and
have no idea of taking regular exercise as a salutary precaution. The
absence of social enjoyment among the wealthier classes, and of cheerful
recreation among the artisan and laboring part of the population, leaves
them absorbed in a perpetual existence of care and exertion, varied only
by occasional outbursts of political excitement; indeed, they appear to
prefer a life of incessant toil to any other, and they seem to consider
any species of amusement or recreation as a simple waste of time, taking
no account of the renovation of health, strength, and spirits to be
gained by diversion and leisure. All that travelers have said about
their neglect of physical health is true; and you will have additional
evidence furnished upon this subject, I believe, by Mr. Combe, who
intends publishing his American experiences, and who will probably do
full justice to the perpetual infraction of his ever-present and sacred
rules of life, by the people of the United States....
Expostulations with people with regard to their health are never
wise--they who most need such admonition are least likely to accept it;
and, indeed, how many of us learn anything but from personal suffering?
which too often, alas, comes too late to teach. I suppose, it is only
the _exceeding_ wise who are taught anything even by their own
experience; to expect the foolish to learn by that of others, is to be
one of their number....
Experience is God's teaching; and I think the seldomer one interferes
between children and that best of teachers, the better. I think it would
be well if we oftener let them follow their wills to their consequences;
for these are always _just_, but they are sometimes, according to our
judgments, too severe; and so we not seldom, out of cowardice, interpose
between our children and the teaching of experience; and substitute,
because we will not see them suffer, our own authority for the
inestimable instruction of consequences.
I do not think I agree with you about the very early cultivation of the
reasoning powers, but have left myself no room for further _educational_
disquisition.
Farewell, dear.
Believe me, ever yours affectionately,
F. A. B.
PHILADELPHIA, December, 1839.
MY DEAR T----,
The expression of one's sympathy can never, whatever its sincerity, be
of the value it would have possessed if uttered when first excited. In
this, above all things, "they give twice who give quickly." I feel this
very much in writing to you now upon the events which have lately so
deeply troubled the current of your life--your good father's death, and
the birth of your second baby, together with the threatened calamity
from which its mother's recovery has spared you. Tardy as are these
words, my sympathy has been sincerely yours during this your season of
trial; and though I have done myself injustice in not sooner writing to
you, believe me I have felt more for you and yours than any letter could
express, though I had written it the moment the news reached me....
That your father died as full of honor as of years, that his life was a
task well fulfilled, and his death not unbecoming so worthy a life, is
matter of consolation to you, and all who knew and loved him less than
you. I scarce know how you could have wished any other close to his
career; the pang of losing such a friend you could not expect to escape,
but there was hardly a circumstance (as regarded your father himself)
which it seems to me you can regret. Poor M---- will be the bitterest
sufferer [the lady was traveling in Europe at the time of her father's
death], and for her, indeed, my compassion is great, strengthened as it
is by my late experience, and constant apprehension of a similar
affliction,--I mean my mother's death, and the dread of hearing, from
across this terrible barrier, that I have lost my father. I pity her
more than I can express; but trust that she will find strength adequate
to her need.
Give my kindest love to your wife. I rejoice in her safety for your sake
and that of her children, more even than for her own; for it always
seems well to me with those who have gone to rest, but her loss would
have been terrible for you, and her girl has yet to furnish her some
work, and some compensation....
If Anne is with you, remember me very kindly to her, and
Believe me ever most truly yours,
F. A. B.
[The little daughter referred to in the above letter became Mrs.
Charles Norton, one of the loveliest and most charming of young
American women, snatched by an untimely death from the midst of an
adoring family and friends.]
PHILADELPHIA, Friday, December 14th, 1839.
DEAREST HARRIET,
... It is perhaps well for you that this letter has suffered an
interruption here, as had this not been the case you might have been
edified with a yet further "complaint." ...
We have shut up our house in the country, and are at present staying in
Philadelphia, at my brother-in-law's; but we are expecting every day to
start for the plantation in Georgia, where I hope we are to find what is
yet lacking to us in health and strength.
I look forward with some dismay now to this expedition, in the middle of
winter, with two young children, traveling by not very safe railroads
and perhaps less safe steamboats, through that half-savage country, and
along that coast only some months ago the scene of fearful shipwreck....
I have already written you word of our last residence there, of the
small island in the Altamaha and below its level--the waters being only
kept out by dykes, which protect the rice-marshes, of which the
plantation is composed, from being submerged. The sole inhabitants, you
know, are the negroes, who cultivate the place, and the overseer who
manages them.... As early as March the heat becomes intense, and by the
beginning of April it is no longer safe for white people to remain
there, owing to the miasma which exhales from the rice-fields....
We shall find, no doubt, our former animal friends, from the fleas up
to the alligators: the first, swarming in the filthy negroes' huts; the
last, expatiating in the muddy waters of the Altamaha. I trust they will
none of them have forgotten us. Did I tell you before of those charming
creatures, the moccasin snakes, which, I have just been informed, abound
in every part of the southern plantations? Rattlesnakes I know by sight:
but the moccasin creature, though I may have seen him, I do not feel
acquainted, or at any rate familiar, with. Our nearest civilized town,
you know, is Savannah, and that is sixty miles off. I cannot say that
the expedition is in any way charming to me, but the alternative is
remaining alone here; and, as it is possible to live on the plantation
with the children, I am going. Margery, of course, comes with me....
Did I tell you, my dear Irishwoman, that we had no _potatoes_ on the
plantation, and that Indian meal holds the place of wheaten flour, bread
baked of the latter being utterly unknown?... Do not be surprised if I
dwell upon these small items of privation, even now that I am about to
go among those people the amelioration of whose condition I have
considered as one of my special duties. With regard to this, however, I
have, alas! no longer the faintest shadow of hope....
Yours most truly,
F. A. B.
PHILADELPHIA, January 15th, 1840.
DEAREST HARRIET,
My last to you was dated the fourteenth of December, and it is now the
tenth of January, a whole month; and you and Dorothy are, I presume,
sundered, instead of together, and surrounded with ice and snow, and all
wintry influences, instead of those gentle southern ones in which you
had imagined you would pass the dismal season.
I can fancy Ardgillan comfortably poetical (if that is not a
contradiction in terms) at this time of year, with its warm, bright,
cheerful drawing-room looking out on the gloomy sea. But perhaps you are
none of you there?--perhaps you are in Dublin?--on Mr. Taylor's new
estate?--or where--where, dear Harriet--where are you? How sad it seems
to wander thus in thought after those we love, and conjecture of their
whereabouts almost as vaguely as of the dwelling of the dead!...
I am annoyed by the interruption which all this ice and snow causes in
my daily rides. My horse is rough-shod, and I persist in going out on
him two or three times a week, but not without some peril, and severe
inconvenience from the cold, which not only cuts my face to pieces, but
chaps my skin from head to foot, through my riding-dress and all my warm
under-clothing. I do not much regret our prolonged sojourn in the North,
on my children's account, who, being both hearty and active creatures,
thrive better in this bracing climate than in the relaxing temperature
of the South....
Dear Harriet, I have nothing to tell you; my life externally is
_nothing_; and who can tell the inward history of their bosom--that
internal life, which is often so strangely unlike the other? Suppose I
inform you that I have just come home from a ride of an hour and a half;
that I went out of the city by Broad Street, and returned by Islington
Lane and the Ridge Road--how much the wiser will you be? that the roads
were frozen as hard as iron, and here and there so sheeted with ice that
I had great difficulty in preventing my horse from slipping and falling
down with me, and, being quite alone, without even a servant, I wondered
what _I_ should do if _he_ did. I have a capital horse, whom I have
christened Forester, after the hero of my play, and who grins with
delight, like a dog, when I talk to him and pat him. He is a bright bay,
with black legs and mane, tall and large, and built like a hunter, with
high courage and good temper. I have had him four years, and do not like
to think what would become of me if anything were to happen to him. It
would be necessary that I should commit suicide, for his fellow is not
to be found in "these United States." Dearest Harriet, we hope to come
over to England next September; and if your sister will invite me, I
will come and see you some time before I re-cross the Atlantic. I am
very anxious about my father, and still more anxious about my sister,
and feel heart-weary for the sight of some of my own people, places, and
things; and so. Fate prospering, to speak heathen, I shall go _home_
once more in the autumn of this present 1840: till when, dearest
Harriet, God bless you! and after then, and always,
I am ever your affectionate,
F. A. B.
[My dear horse, having been sold to a livery-stable keeper, I
repurchased him by the publication of a small volume of poems, which
thus proved themselves to _me_ excellent verses. The gallant animal
broke his hip-joint by slipping in a striding gallop over some wet
planks, and I had to have him shot. His face--I mean the anguish in
it after the accident--is among the tragical visions in my memory.]
PHILADELPHIA, February 9th, 1840.
DEAR MRS. JAMESON,
... You ask me if I have read your book on Canada. With infinite
interest and pleasure, and great sympathy and admiration, and much
gratitude for the vindication of women's capabilities, both physical and
mental, which all your books (but this perhaps more than all the others)
furnish.
It has been, like all your previous works, extremely popular here; and
if you have received no remuneration for it, you are not justly dealt
by, as I am sure its sale has been very considerable, and very
profitable. [Mrs. Jameson was, undoubtedly, one of the greatest
sufferers by the want of an author's copyright in America: her works
were all republished there; and her laborious literary career, her
careful research and painstaking industry, together with her restricted
means and the many claims upon them, made it a peculiar hardship, in her
case, to be deprived of the just reward of the toil by which she gave
pleasure and instruction to so many readers in America, as well as in
her own country.] Your latest publication, "Social Life in Germany," I
have not seen, but have read numerous extracts from it, in the American
literary periodicals.
You ask me if you can "do anything" about my play? I thought I must have
told you of my offering it to Macready, who civilly declined having
anything to do with it. Circumstances induced me to destroy my own copy
of it: the one Macready had is in Harriet's custody, another copy I have
given to Elizabeth Sedgwick, and I now neither know nor care anything
more about it. Once upon a time I wrote it, and that is quite enough to
have had to do with it. Prescott, the historian of Ferdinand and
Isabella, is urgent with me to let him have it published in Boston;
perhaps hereafter, if I should want a penny, and be able to turn an
honest one by so doing, I may.
It is odd that I have not the remotest recollection of reading any of
that play to you. You have mentioned it several times to me, and I have
never been able to recall to my mind, either when I read it to you, or
what portion of it I inflicted upon you. You were lucky, and I wonder
that I let you off with a _portion_ of it; for, for nearly a year after
I finished it, I was in such ecstasies with my own performance, that I
martyrized every soul that had a grain of regard for me, with its
perusal....
J---- B---- and his brother have just started for Georgia, leaving his
wife and myself in forlorn widowhood, which, (the providence of
railroads and steamboats allowing) is not to last more than three
months. I have been staying nearly three months in their house in town,
expecting every day to depart for the plantation; but we have
procrastinated to such good effect that the Chesapeake Bay is now
unnavigable, being choked up with ice, and the other route involving
seventy miles of night traveling _on the worst road in the United
States_ (think what that means!), it has been judged expedient that the
children and myself should remain behind. I am about, therefore, to
return with them to the Farm, where I shall pass the remainder of the
winter,--how, think you? Why, reading Gibbon's "Decline and Fall," which
I have never read yet, and which I now intend to study with classical
atlas, Bayle's dictionary, the Encyclopædia, and all sorts of "aids to
beginners." How quiet I shall be! I think perhaps I may die some day,
without so much as being aware of it; and if so, beg to record myself in
good season, before that imperceptible event,
Yours very truly,
F. A. B.
BUTLER PLACE, February 16th, 1840.
I have just been looking over a letter of yours, dearest Harriet, as old
as the 19th of last September, describing your passage over the Splügen.
About four days ago I was looking over some engravings of the passes of
the Alps, in a work called "Switzerland Illustrated," by Bartlett, and
lingered over those attempts of human art with the longing I have for
those lands, which I always had, which has never died away entirely, but
seems now reviving again in some of its earliest strength: I can compare
it to nothing but the desire of thirst for water, and I must master it
as I may, for of those mountain-streams I fear I never shall drink, or
look upon their beauty, but in the study of my imagination.
In the hill-country of Berkshire, Massachusetts, where I generally spend
some part of the summer among my friends the Sedgwicks, there is a line
of scenery, forming part of the Green Mountain range, which runs up into
the State of Vermont, and there becomes a noble brotherhood of
mountains, though in the vicinity of Stockbridge and Lenox, where I
summer, but few of them deserve a more exalted title than hill. They are
clothed with a various forest of oak, beech, chestnut, maple, and fir;
and down their sides run wild streams, and in the valleys between them
lie exquisite lakes. Upon the whole, it is the most picturesque scenery
I have ever seen; particularly in the neighborhood of a small town
called Salisbury, thirty miles from Lenox. This is situated in a plain
surrounded by mountains, and upon the same level in its near
neighborhood lie four beautiful small lakes; close above this valley
rises Mount Washington, or, as some Swiss charcoal-burners, who have
emigrated thither, have christened it, Mount Rhigi.
In a recess of this mountain lies a deep ravine and waterfall; and a
precipice, where an arch of rock overhangs a basin, where, many hundred
feet below, the water boils in a mad cauldron, and then plunges away, by
leaps of forty, twenty, and twelve feet, with the intermediate runs
necessary for such jumps, through a deep chasm in the rocks, to a narrow
valley, the whole character of which, I suppose, may represent Swiss
scenery in _very small_.
A week ago J---- B---- and ---- left Philadelphia for the South; and
yesterday I received a letter giving a most deplorable account of their
progress, if progress it could be called, which consisted in going _nine
miles in four hours_, and then returning to Washington, whence they had
started, the road being found utterly impassable. Streams swollen with
the winter snows and spring rains, with their bridges all broken up by
the ice or swept away by the water, intersect these delightful ways; and
one of these, which could not admit of fording, turned them back, to try
their fate in a steamboat, through the ice with which the Chesapeake is
blocked up. This dismal account has in some measure reconciled me to
having been left behind with the children; they have neither of them
been as well as usual this winter, and the season is now so far
advanced, our intended departure being delayed from day to day for three
months, that, besides encountering a severe and perilous journey, we
should have arrived in Georgia to find the weather almost oppressively
hot, and, if we did wisely, to return again, at the end of a fortnight,
to the North.
I have come back to Butler Place with the bairns, and have resumed the
monotonous tenor of my life, which this temporary residence in town had
interrupted, not altogether agreeably; and here I shall pass the rest of
the winter, teaching S---- to read, and sliding through my days in a
state of external quietude, which is not always as nearly allied to
content as it might seem to (_ought_ to) be....
When the children's bed-time comes, and their little feet and voices are
still, the spirit of the house seems to have fallen asleep. I send my
servants to bed, for nobody here keeps late hours (ten o'clock being
considered late), and, in spite of assiduous practicing, reading, and
answering of letters, my evenings are sad in their absolute solitude,
and I am glad when ten o'clock comes, the hour for my retiring, which I
could often find in my heart to anticipate....
I have taken vehemently to worsted-work this winter, and, _instead of a
novel or two_, am going to read Gibbon's "Decline and Fall of the Roman
Empire," which I have never read, and by means of Bayle, classical
atlas, and the Encyclopædia, I mean to make a regular school-room
business of it.
Good-bye, dear. Events are so lacking in my present existence, that I am
longing for the spring as I never did before--for the sight of leaves
and flowers, and the song of birds, and the daily development of the
great natural pageant of the year. I am grateful to God for nothing more
than the abundant beauty with which He has adorned His creation. The
pleasure I derive from its contemplation has survived many others, and
should I live long, will, I think, outlive all that I am now capable
of....
Ever affectionately yours,
F. A. B.
BUTLER PLACE, February 17th, 1840.
MY DEAR LADY DACRE,
... I believe too implicitly in your interest in me and mine, ever to
have _nothing_ to say to you; but my sayings will be rather egotistical,
for the monotony of my life affords me few interests but those which
centre in my family, the head of which left me ten days ago, with his
brother, for their southern estate. I have since had a letter, which, as
it affords an accurate picture of winter traveling in this country,
would, I flatter myself, make your sympathetic hair stand on end.
Listen. On Sunday morning, before day, they set out, two post-coaches,
with four horses, each carrying eight passengers. They got to
Alexandria, which is close to Washington, whence they started without
difficulty, stopped a short time to gird up their loins and take breath,
and at seven o'clock set off. It rained hard; the road was deep with
mud, and very bad; several times the passengers were obliged to get out
of the coach and walk through the rain and mud, the horses being unable
to drag the load through such depths of mire. They floundered on, wading
through mud and fording streams, until eleven o'clock, when they stopped
to breakfast, having come but _eight miles_ in _four hours_. They
consulted whether to go on or turn back: the majority ruled to go on; so
after breakfast they again took the road, but had proceeded but one mile
when it became utterly impassable--the thaw and rain had so swelled a
stream that barred the way that it was too deep to ford; and when it
was quite apparent that they must either turn back or be drowned, they
reluctantly adopted the former course, and got back to Washington late
in the evening, having passed nearly all day in going _nine miles_. I
think you will agree with me, my dear Lady Dacre, that my children and
myself were well out of that party of pleasure; though the very day
before the party set off it was still uncertain whether we should not
accompany them.
The contrary having been determined, I am now very quietly spending the
winter with my chickens at the Farm.... An imaginative nature makes, it
is true, happiness as well as unhappiness for itself, but finds
inevitable ready made disappointment in the mere realities of life.... I
make no excuse for talking "nursery" to you, my dear Lady Dacre. These
are my dearest occupations; indeed, I might say, my only ones.
Have you looked into Marryatt's books on this country? They are full of
funny stories, some of them true stories enough, and some, little
imitation Yankee stories of the captain's own.
Do explain to me what Sydney Smith means by disclaiming Peter Plymley's
letters as he does? Surely he _did_ write them.
This very youthful nation of the United States is "carrying on," to use
their own favorite phrase, in a most unprecedented manner. Their
mercantile and financial experiments have been the dearest of their kind
certainly; and the confusion, embarrassment, and difficulty, in
consequence of these experiments, are universal. Money is scarce, credit
is scarcer, but, nevertheless, they will not lay the lesson to heart.
The natural resources of the country are so prodigious, its wealth so
enormous, so inexhaustible, that it will be presently up and on its feet
again running faster than ever to the next stumbling-post. _Moral_
bankruptcy is what they have to fear, much more than failure of material
riches. It is a strange country, and a strange people; and though I have
dear and good friends among them, I still feel a stranger here, and fear
I shall continue to do so until I die, which God grant I may do at home!
_i.e._, in England.
Give my kindest remembrance to Lord Dacre. We hope to be in England in
September, and I shall come and see you as soon as ever I can.
Believe me ever, my dear Lady Dacre,
Yours affectionately,
F. A. B.
BUTLER PLACE, March 1st, 1840.
Thank you, my dearest Harriet, for your extract from my sister's letter
to you.... The strongest of us are insufficient to ourselves in this
life, and if we will not stretch out our hands for help to our fellows,
who, for the most part, are indeed broken reeds and quite as often
pierce as support us, we needs must at last stretch them out to God; and
doubtless these occasions, bitter as they may seem, should be accounted
blest, which make the poor proud human soul discover its own weakness
and God's all-sufficiency....
My winter--or rather, what remains of it--is like to pass in
uninterrupted quiet and solitude; and you will probably have the
satisfaction of receiving many _short_ letters from me, for I know not
where I shall find the material for long ones. To be sure, S----'s
sayings and F----'s looks might furnish me with something to say, but I
have a dread of beginning to talk about my children, for fear I should
never leave off, for that is apt to be a "story without an end."
I hear they are going to bestow upon my father, on his return to
England, a silver vase, valued at several hundred pounds. I am
base-minded, dear Harriet, grovelling, and sordid; and were I he, would
rather have a shilling's worth of honor, and the rest of the vase in
hard cash: but he has lived his life upon this sort of thing, and I
think with great pleasure of the great pleasure it will give him. I am
very well, and always most affectionately yours,
F. A. B.
BUTLER PLACE, March 12th, 1840.
DEAREST HARRIET,
It is only a few days since I received your letter with the news of Mr.
F----'s attack, from which it is but natural to apprehend that he may
not recover.... The combination of the loss of one's father, and of the
home of one's whole life, is indeed a severe trial; though in this case,
the one depending on the other, and Mr. F----'s age being so advanced,
Emily with her steadfast mind has probably contemplated the possibility
of this event, and prepared herself for it, as much as preparation may
be made against affliction, which, however long looked for, when it
comes always seems to bring with it some unforeseen element of harsh
surprise. We never can imagine what will happen to us, precisely as it
_does_ happen to us; and overlook in anticipation, not only minute
mitigations, but small stings of aggravation, quite incalculable till
they are experienced.... I could cry to think that I shall never again
see the flowerbeds and walks and shrubberies of Bannisters. I think
there is something predominantly material in my nature, for the sights
and sounds of outward things have always been my chiefest source of
pleasure; and as I grow older this in nowise alters; so little so, that
gathering the first violets of the spring the other morning, it seemed
to me that they were things to _love_ almost more than creatures of my
own human kind. I do not believe I am a normal human being; and at my
death, only _half a soul_ will pass into a spiritual existence, the
other half will go and mingle with the winds that blow, and the trees
that grow, and the waters that flow, in this world of material
elements....
Do I remember Widmore, you ask me. Yes, truly.... I remember the gay
colors of the flowerbeds, and the fine picturesque trees in the garden,
and the shady quietness of the ground-floor rooms....
You ask me how I have replaced Margery. Why, in many respects, if indeed
not in all, very indifferently; but I could not help myself. Her leaving
me was a matter of positive necessity, and some things tend to reconcile
me to her loss. I believe she would have made S---- a Catholic. The
child's imagination had certainly received a very strong impression from
her; and soon after her departure, as I was hearing S---- her prayers,
she begged me to let her repeat that prayer to "the blessed Virgin,"
which her nurse had taught her. I consider this a direct breach of faith
on the part of Margery, who had once before undertaken similar
instructions in spite of distinct directions to interfere in no way with
the child's religious training.
The proselytizing spirit of her religion was, I suppose, stronger than
her conscience, or rather, was the predominant element in it, as it is
in all very devout Catholics; and the opportunity of impressing my
little girl with what she considered vital truth, not to be neglected;
and upon this ground alone I am satisfied that it is better she should
have left me, for though it would not mortally grieve me if hereafter my
child were conscientiously to embrace Romanism, I have no desire that
she should be educated in what I consider erroneous views upon the most
momentous of all subjects.
I have been more than once assured, on good authority, that it is by no
means an infrequent practice of the Roman Catholic Irish women employed
as nurses in American families, to carry their employers' babies to
their own churches and have them baptized, of course without consent or
even knowledge of their parents. The secret baptism is duly registered,
and the child thus smuggled into the pope's fold, never, if possible,
entirely lost sight of by the priest who administered the regenerating
sacrament to it. The saving of souls is an irresistible motive,
especially when the saving of one's own is much facilitated by the
process.
The woman I have in Margery's place is an Irish Protestant, a very good
and conscientious girl, but most wofully ignorant, and one who murders
our luckless mother-tongue after a fashion that almost maddens me.
However, as with some cultivation, education, reading, reflection, and
that desire to do what is best that a mother alone can feel for her own
child, I cannot but be conscious of my own inability in all points to
discharge this great duty, the inability of my nursery-maid does not
astonish or dismay me. The remedy for the nurse's deficiencies must be
in _me_, and the remedy for mine in God, to whose guidance I commit
myself and my darlings.... Margery was very anxious to remain with me as
my maid; but we have reduced our establishment, and I have no longer any
maid of my own, therefore I could not keep her....
With regard to attempting to make "reason the guide of your child's
actions," that, of course, must be a very gradual process, and may, in
my opinion, be tried too early. Obedience is the first virtue of which a
young child is capable, the first duty it can perform; and the authority
of a parent is, I think, the first impression it should receive,--a
strictly reasonable and just claim, inasmuch as, furnishing my child
with all its means of existence, as well as all its amusements and
enjoyments, regard for my requests is the proper and only return it can
make in the absence of sufficient judgment, to decide upon their
propriety, and the motives by which they are dictated.
Good-bye, dearest Harriet.
I am ever affectionately yours,
F. A. B.
BUTLER PLACE, March 16th, 1840.
MY DEAREST HARRIET,
It was with infinite pain that I received your last letter [a very
unfavorable report, almost a sentence of death, had been pronounced by
the physicians upon my friend's dearest friend, Miss Dorothy Wilson],
and yet I know not, except your sorrow, what there is so deplorable in
the fact that Dorothy, who is one of the living best prepared for death,
should have received a summons, which on first reading of it shocked me
so terribly.
We calculate most blindly, for the most part, in what form the call to
"change our life" may be least unwelcome; but to one whose eyes have
long been steadily fixed upon that event, I do not believe the manner of
their death signifies much.
Pain, our poor human bodies shrink from; and yet it has been endured,
almost as if unfelt, not only in the triumphant death of the mob-hunted
martyr, but in the still, lonely, and, by all but God, unseen agony of
the poor and humble Christian, in those numerous cases where persecution
indeed was not, but the sorrowful trial of the neglect and careless
indifference of their fellow-beings, the total absence of all
sympathy--a heavy desolation whether in life or death.
I have just lost a friend, Dr. Follen, a man to whose character no words
of mine could do justice. He has been publicly mourned from more than
one Christian pulpit; and Dr. Channing, in a discourse after his death,
has spoken of him as one whom "many thought the most perfect man they
ever knew." Among those many I was one. I have never seen any one whom I
revered, loved, and admired more than I did Dr. Follen. He perished,
with above a hundred others, in a burning steam-boat, on the Long Island
Sound; at night, and in mid-winter, the freezing waters affording no
chance of escape to the boldest swimmer or the most tenacious clinger to
existence. He perished in the very flower of vigorous manhood, cut off
in the midst of excellent usefulness, separated, _for the first time_,
from a most dearly loved wife and child, who were prevented from
accompanying him by sickness. In a scene of indescribable terror,
confusion, and dismay, that noble and good man closed his life; and all
who have spoken of him have said, "Could one have seen his countenance,
doubtless it was to the last the mirror of his serene and steadfast
spirit;" and for myself, after the first shock of hearing of that awful
calamity, I could only think it mattered not how or where that man met
his death. He was always near to God, and who can doubt that, in that
scene of apparent horror and despair, God was very near to him?
Even so, my dearest Harriet, do I now think of the impending fate of
Dorothy; but oh, the difference between the sudden catastrophe in the
one case, and the foreknowledge granted in the other! Time, whose awful
uses our blind security so habitually forgets, is granted to her, with
its inestimable value marked on it by the finger of death, undimmed by
the busy hands of earthly pursuits and interests; she has, and will
have, her dearest friends and lovers about her to the very end; and I
know of no prayer that I should frame for her, but exemption from acute
pain. For you, my dearest Harriet, if pain and woe and suffering are
appointed you, it is to some good purpose, and you may make it answer
its best ends.
These seem almost cold-hearted words, and yet God knows from how warm a
heart, full of love and aching with sympathy, I write them! But sorrow
is His angel, His minister, His messenger who does His will, waiting
upon our souls with blessed influences. My only consolation, in thinking
upon your affliction, is to remember that all events are ordered by our
Father, and to reflect, as I often do----
I had written thus far, dearest Harriet, when a miserable letter from
Georgia came to interrupt me. How earnestly, in the midst of the tears
through which I read it, I had to recall those very thoughts, in my own
behalf, which I was just urging upon you, you can imagine....
We may not choose our own discipline; but happy are they who are called
to suffer themselves, rather than to see those they love do so!...
My head aches, and my eyes ache, and my heart aches, and I cannot muster
courage to write any more. God bless you, my dearest Harriet. Remember
me most affectionately to dear Dorothy, and
Believe me ever yours,
F. A. B.
[Dr. Charles Follen, known in his own country as Carl Follenius,
became an exile from it for the sake of his political convictions,
which in his youth he had advocated with a passionate fervor that
made him, even in his college days, obnoxious to its governing
authorities. He wrote some fine spirited Volkslieder that the
students approved of more than the masters; and was so conspicuous
in the vanguard of liberal opinion, that the Vaterland became an
unwholesome residence for him, and he emigrated to America, where
all his aspirations towards enlightened freedom found "elbow-room."
He became an ordained Unitarian preacher; and it was a striking
tribute to his spirit of humane tolerance as well as to his eloquent
advocacy of his own high spiritual faith, that he was once earnestly
and respectfully solicited to give a series of discourses upon
Christianity, to a society of intelligent men who professed
themselves dis-believers in it (atheists, materialists, for aught I
know), inasmuch as from him they felt sure of a powerful, clear, and
earnest exposition of his own opinions, unalloyed by uttered or
implied condemnation of them for differing from him. I do not know
whether Dr. Follen complied with this petition, but I remember his
saying how much he had been touched by it, and how glad he should be
to address such a body of mis- or dis-believers. He was a man of
remarkable physical vigor, and excelled in all feats of strength and
activity, having, when first he came to Boston, opened a gymnasium
for the training of the young Harvard scholars in such exercises. He
had the sensibility and gentleness of a woman, the imagination of a
poet, and the courage of a hero; a genial kindly sense of humor, and
buoyant elastic spirit of joyousness, that made him, with his fine
intellectual and moral qualities, an incomparable friend and teacher
to the young, for whose rejoicing vitality he had the sympathy of
fellowship as well as the indulgence of mature age, and whose
enthusiasm he naturally excited to the highest degree.
His countenance was the reflection of his noble nature. My
intercourse with him influenced my life while it lasted, and long
after his death the thought of what would have been approved or
condemned by him affected my actions.
Many years after his death, I was speaking of him to Wæleker, the
Nestor of German professors, the most learned of German
philologists, historians, archæologists, and antiquarians, and he
broke out into enthusiastic praise of Follen, who had been his
pupil at Jena, and to whose mental and moral worth he bore, with
deep emotion, a glowing testimony.]
BUTLER PLACE, March 23rd, 1840.
I have just learned, dearest Harriet, that the Censorship [office of
licenser of plays] has been transferred from my father to my brother
John, which I am very glad to hear, as I imagine, though I do not know
it, that the death of Mr. Beaumont must have put an end to the existence
of the _British and Foreign Review_, for which he employed my brother as
editor.
If the salary of licenser is an addition to the income attached to his
editorship of the _Review_, my brother will be placed in comfortable
circumstances; and I hope this may prove to be the case--though ladies
are not apt to be so in love with abstract political principles as to
risk certain thousands every year merely to promote their quarterly
illustration in a _Review_, and I shall not be at all surprised to learn
that Mrs. Beaumont declines doing so any longer.
[Mrs. Wentworth Beaumont, mother of my brother John's friend, must
have been a woman of very decided political opinions, and very
liberal views of the value of her convictions--in hard cash. Left
the widowed mistress of a princely estate in Yorkshire, on the
occasion when the most passionate contest recorded in modern
electioneering made it doubtful whether the Government candidate or
the one whose politics were more in accordance with her own would be
returned to Parliament, she, then a very old lady, drove in her
travelling-carriage with four horses to Downing Street, and
demanding to see the Prime Minister, with whom she was well
acquainted, accosted him thus: "Well, my lord, are you quite
determined to make your man stand for _our_ seat?" "Yes, Mrs.
Beaumont, I think quite determined." "Very well," replied the lady;
"I am on my way down to Yorkshire, with eighty thousand pounds in
the carriage for my man. Try and do better than that."
I am afraid the _pros_ and _cons_ for Woman's Suffrage would alike
have thought that very expensive female partisan politician hardly
to be trusted with the franchise. Lord Dacre, who told me that
anecdote, told me also that on one occasion forty thousand pounds,
to his knowledge, had been spent by Government on a contested
election--I think he said at Norwich.] ...
The longer I live, the less I think of the importance of any or all
outward circumstances, and the more important I think the original
powers and dispositions of people submitted to their influence. God has
permitted no situation to be exempt from trial and temptation, and few,
if any, to be entirely exempt from good influences and opportunities for
using them. The tumult of the inward creature may exist in the midst of
the calmest outward daily life, and the peace which passeth
understanding subsist in the turmoil of the most adverse
circumstances.... Our desires tending towards particular objects, we
naturally seek the position most favorable for obtaining them; and,
stand where we will, we are still, if we so choose, on the heavenward
road. If we know how barely responsible for what they are many human
beings necessarily must be, how much better does God know it! With many
persons, whose position we regret and think unfortunate for their
character, we might have to go far back, and retrace in the awful
influence of inheritance the source of the evils we deplore in them. We
need have much faith in the future to look hopefully at the present, and
perfect faith in the mercy of our Father in heaven, who alone knows how
much or how little of His blessed light has reached every soul of us
through precept and example....
You ask me of Margery's successor: she is an honest, conscientious, and
most ignorant Irish Protestant. You cannot conceive of what materials
our households are composed here. The Americans, whose superior
intelligence and education make them by far the most desirable servants
we could have, detest the condition of domestic service so utterly, that
it is next to impossible to procure them, and absolutely impossible to
retain them above a year. The lowest order of Irish are the only persons
that can be obtained. They offer themselves, and are accepted of hard
necessity, indiscriminately, for any situation in a house, from that of
lady's-maid to that of cook; and, indeed, they are equally unfit for
all, having probably never seen so much as the inside of a decent house
till they came to this country. To illustrate--my housemaid is the
sister of my present nursery-maid, and on the occasion of the latter
taking her holiday in town, the other had the temporary charge of the
children, and, when first she undertook it, had to be duly enlightened
as to the toilet purposes of a wash-hand basin, a sponge, and a
toothbrush, not one of which had she apparently been familiar with
before; and this would have been the case with a large proportion of the
Irish girls who present themselves here to be engaged as our servants.
Our household has been reduced for some time past, and I have no maid of
my own; and when the nurse is in town I am obliged to forego the usual
decency of changing my dress for dinner, from the utter incapacity of my
housemaid to fasten it upon my back. Of course, except tolerably
faithful washing, dressing, and bodily care, I can expect nothing for my
children from my present nurse. She is a very good and pious girl, and
though her language is nothing short of heathen Greek, her sentiments
are very much those of a good Christian. This same service is a source
of considerable daily tribulations, and I wish I only improved all my
opportunities of practising patience and forbearance....
F. A. B.
BUTLER PLACE, March 25th, 1840.
MY DEAR T----,
I have been reading with infinite interest the case of the _Amistad_;
but understand, from Mrs. Charles Sedgwick, that there is to be an
appeal upon the matter. As, however, the result will, I presume, be the
same, the more publicity the affair obtains, the more it and all kindred
subjects are discussed, spoken of, thought on, and written about, the
better for us unfortunate slaveholders.
I am very much obliged to you for sending me that article on Mr. Jay's
book. You know how earnestly I look to every sign of the approaching
termination of this national disgrace and individual misfortune; and
when men of ability and character conscientiously raise their voices
against it, who can be so faint-hearted as not to have faith in its
ultimate downfall?
Your very name pledges you in some sort to this cause, and, among your
other important duties, let me (who am now involuntarily implicated in
this terrible abuse) beg you to remember that this one is an
inheritance; and for the sake of those, justly honored, who have
bequeathed it to you, discharge it with the ability nature has so
bountifully endowed you with, and you cannot fail to accomplish great
good.
In reading your article, I was much reminded of Legget, whose place, it
seems to me, there is none but you to fill.
I have just been interrupted by a letter from Elizabeth, confirming the
news of your sister's return from Europe. I congratulate you heartily
upon the termination of your anxieties about her. Remember me most
kindly to her, and to your mother, if my message can be made acceptable
to her in her present affliction, and believe me
Ever yours most truly,
F. A. B.
[The _Amistad_ was a low raking schooner, conveying between fifty
and sixty negroes, fresh from Africa, from Havannah to Guamapah,
Port Principe, to the plantation of one of the passengers. The
captain and three of the crew were murdered by the negroes. Two
planters were spared to navigate the vessel back to Africa. Forced
to steer east all day, these white men steered west and north all
night; and after two months, coming near New London, the schooner
was captured by the United States schooner _Washington_, and carried
into port, where a trial was held by the Circuit Court at Hertford,
transferred to the District Court, and sent by appeal to the United
States Supreme Court. The District Court decreed that one man, not
of the recent importation, should, by the treaty of 1795 with Spain,
be restored to his master; the rest, delivered to the President of
the United States, to be by him transported to their homes in
Africa.
Before the case could come before the United States Supreme Court,
the President (Mr. Van Buren), upon the requisition of the Spanish
minister, had the negroes conveyed, by the United States schooner
_Grampus_, back to Havannah and to slavery, under the treaty of
1795.
The case created an immense excitement among the friends and foes of
slavery. The point made by the counsel for the negroes being that
they were not slaves, but free Africans, freshly brought to Cuba,
contrary to the latest enacted laws of Spain. The schooner _Amistad_
started on her voyage to Africa in June, 1839, reached New London in
August, and was sent back in January, 1840.]
BUTLER PLACE, April 5th, 1840.
DEAREST HARRIET,
I have received both your letters concerning Dorothy's health. The one
which you sent by the _British Queen_ came before one you previously
wrote me from Liverpool, and destroyed all the pleasure I should have
received from the cheerful spirit in which the latter was written.
I was reading the other evening a sermon of Dr. Channing's, suggested by
the miserable destruction of a steamboat with the loss of upwards of a
hundred lives; among them, one precious to all who knew him perished, a
man who, I think, had few equals, and to whose uncommon character all
who ever knew him bear witness.
The fate of so excellent a human being, cut off in the flower of his
age, in the midst of a career of uncommon worth and usefulness, inspired
Dr. Channing, who was his dear friend, with one of the finest discourses
in which Christian faith ever "justified the ways of God to Man."
In reading that eloquent sermon, so full of hope, of trust, of
resignation, and rational acknowledgment of the great purposes of
sorrow, my thoughts turned to you, dearest Harriet, and dwelt upon your
present trial, and on the impending loss of your dear friend. I have not
the sermon by me, or I could scarce resist transcribing passages from
it; but if you can procure it, do. It was written on the occasion of the
burning of the steamboat _Lexington_, and in memory of Dr. Charles
Follen.
One of the views that impressed me most, of those urged by Channing, was
that sorrow--however considered by us, individually, as a shocking
accident,--in God's providence, was a large part of the appointed
experience of existence: no blot, no jar, no sudden violent visitation
of wrath; but part of the light, and harmony, and order, of our
spiritual education; an essential and invaluable portion of our
experience, of infinite importance in our moral training. To all it is
decreed to suffer; through our bodies, through our minds, through our
affections, through the noblest as well as the lowest of our attributes
of being. This then, he argues, which enters so largely into the
existence of every living soul, should never be regarded with an eye of
terror, as an appalling liability or a fearful unaccountable disturbance
in the course of our lives.
I suppose it is the rarefied air our spirits breathe on great heights
of achievement; as vital to our moral nature as the pure mountain
element, which stimulates our lungs, is to our physical being. In
sorrow, faithfully borne, the glory and the blessing of holiness become
hourly more apparent to us; and it must be good for us to suffer, since
our dear Father lays suffering upon us. If we believe one word of what
we daily repeat, and profess to believe, of His mercy and goodness, we
must needs believe that the pain and grief which enter so largely into
His government of and provision for us are all part of His goodness and
mercy.... I pray that you, and I, and all, may learn more and more to
accept His will, even as His Son, our perfect pattern, accepted it....
J---- B---- has already returned home from the South, weary of the heat,
and the oppressive _smell of the orange flowers_ on Butler's Island....
The tranquillity of my outward circumstances has its counterweight m the
excitability of my nature. I think upon the whole, the task and load of
life is very equal, its labors and its burdens very equal: they only
have real sorrow who make it for themselves, in their own hearts, by
their own faults; and they only have real joy who make and keep it there
by their own effort....
Katharine Sedgwick writes in great disappointment at your not being in
Italy this winter, and so does her niece, my dear little Kate. Those are
loving hearts, and most good Christians; they have been like sisters to
me in this strange land; I am gratefully attached to them, and long for
their return. God bless you, dear. Give my affectionate remembrance to
Dorothy, and
Believe me ever yours,
F. A. B.
BUTLER PLACE, April 30th, 1840.
MY DEAREST HARRIET,
Of course I have begun to die already: which I believe people do as soon
as they reach maturity; at any rate, the process begins, I am sure, much
earlier, and is much more gradual and uninterrupted, than we suppose or
are aware of. Most persons, I think, begin to die at about thirty; some
take a longer, and some a shorter time in becoming quite entirely dead,
but after that age I do not believe anybody is quite entirely alive....
Still, though somewhat dead (as I have most reason to know), to the
eyes of most people I am even now an uncommonly lively woman; and while
my soul is at peace, and my spirits cheerful, I am not myself painfully
conscious that I am dying.... The treasure of health was mine in
perfection, almost for five and twenty years, and I do not see that I
should have any right to complain that I no longer possess it as fully
as I once did....
You and I have changed places curiously enough, since first we began to
hold arguments together; and it seems as strange that you should
disparage reason to me, as the chief instrument of education, as that I
should be upholding it against your disparagement. The longer I live,
the more convinced my _reason_ is of the goodness and wisdom of God; and
from what my _reason_ can perceive of these attributes of our Father my
_faith_ derives the surest foundation on which to build perfect trust
and confidence, where my _reason_ can no longer discern the meaning of
my existence, the exact purpose of its several events, and significance
of its circumstances. Entire faith in God seems to me entirely
reasonable; but, indeed, I have yet had no experience of any
dispensations of Divine Providence which at all tried or shook my
reason, or disturbed my trust in their unfailing righteousness.
Our reason, above all our other faculties, shows us how little we can
know; and it is the very function of reason to perceive how finite,
vague, and feeble all our conceptions of the Almighty must be; how
utterly futile all our attempts to fathom His purposes, whose ways are
assuredly not our ways, nor His thoughts our thoughts.
The spring has come; the mysterious resurrection which with its annually
recurring miracle adorns the earth, and makes the heavens above it
bright; and even on this uninteresting place, the flush of rosy bloom
down in the apple-orchard, the tender green halo above, the golden green
atmosphere beneath the trees of the avenue, the smell of the blossoms,
the songs of the birds, awaken impressions of delight; and while the
senses rejoice, the soul worships. Tulips, and hyacinths, and lilacs,
and monthly roses shake about in the soft wind, and scatter their
colored petals like jewels among the young vivid verdure. Delicate
shadows of delicate leaves lie drawn in quivering tracery on the smooth
emerald grass. My garden is a source of pleasure and perpetual
occupation to me. Here, where ornamental cultivation is so little
attended to, my small improvements of our small pleasure-ground are
repaid, not only by my own enjoyment, but by the admiring commendation
of all who knew the place before we came to it; and as within the last
two years I have planted upwards of two hundred trees, I begin to feel
as if I had really done something in my generation. Good-bye, dear.
I remain ever yours,
F. A. B.
BUTLER PLACE, June 7th, 1840.
Thank you, my dear Mrs. Jameson, for your letter of April 4th. It was
interesting and amusing enough to have been written by one whose
thoughts and feelings were far otherwise free and cheerful than yours
could have been when you indited it. I lament the protraction of your
father's illness very much, for your mother's sake, and all your sakes.
A serious illness at his period of life is not a circumstance to cause
surprise; but its long continuance is to be deprecated, no less for the
sufferer than those whose health and strength, expended in anxious
watching, can leave them but little fortitude to meet the result should
it prove fatal. I hope to hear in your next that your mother is relieved
from her present painful position, and that your own spirits are more
cheerful.
I have not seen even as much as an extract from Leigh Hunt's play [I
think called a "Legend of Florence," and founded upon the incident that
gave its name to the Via della Morte in the fair city]; but I am very
glad he has written one, and hope he will write others: certain elements
of his genius are essentially those of an effective dramatist, and
surely, if the public can swallow a play of ----'s, it might be brought
to taste one of Leigh Hunt's. I dislike everything that ---- ever wrote,
and think he ought to have been a Frenchman. Can one say worse of a man
who is not?...
You ask me if writing plays is not pleasanter and more profitable than
reading Gibbon. Certainly, if one only has the mind to do the one
instead of the other, which at present I have not.
I have sometimes fancied it was my duty to work out such talent of that
kind as was in me; but I have hitherto not felt at all sure that I had
any such gift which, you know, would be necessary before I could
determine what was my duty with regard to it. I never write anything
but upon impulse--all my compositions are impromptus; and the species of
atmosphere I live in is not favorable to that order of inspiration. The
outward sameness of my life; its uniformity of color, level surface, and
monotonous tone; its unvaried tenor, alike devoid of pleasurable and
painful excitement; its wholesome abundance of daily recurring trivial
occupations, and absence of any great or varied interests; its entire
isolation from all literary and intellectual society, which might strike
the fire from the sleepy stone--all these influences prevail against my
writing.
I once thought the material lay within me, but it will probably moulder
away for want of use; and as long as I am neither the worse woman, wife,
nor mother for its neglect, I take it it matters very little, and there
is no harm done. My serious interest in life is the care of my children,
and my principal recreation is my garden; and though I formerly
sometimes imagined I had faculties whose exercise might demand a wider
sphere, the consciousness that I discharge very imperfectly the
obligations of that which I occupy, ought to satisfy me that its homely
duties and modest tasks are more than sufficient for my abilities; and
though I am not satisfied with myself, I should be with my existence,
since, such as it is, it furnishes me with more work than I do as it
should be done.
From the interest you express in Fanny Ellsler, you will be glad to hear
that her success here has been triumphant. I believe the great mass of
people always recognize and acknowledge excellence when they see it,
though their stupid or ignorant toleration of what is mediocre, or even
bad, would seem to indicate the contrary.... The general mind of man is
capable of perceiving the most excellent in all things, and prompt to
seize it, too, when it meets with it. Even in morals it does so
theoretically, however the difficulty of adhering to high standards may
make the actions of most people conform but little to their best
conceptions of right. The idea of perfection is recognized by the spirit
of creatures capable of and destined for perfection in all things,
whether great or small; and so (since this is _à propos_ of opera
dancing) Fanny Ellsler's performances have been appreciated here to a
degree that would astonish those who forget that education, though it
develops, does not create our finer perceptions, and, moreover, that the
finest are commoner than is commonly believed. The possession is almost
universal: the cultivation in _any_ degree worth anything comparatively
rare, and in a _high_ degree very rare indeed everywhere; and
here--well! it does not exist.
I hope we shall see you in England in the autumn; I am using every
endeavor not to be sent over alone.... I cannot bear to go to England
again a "widow bewitched."
I am ever yours most truly,
F. A. B.
BUTLER PLACE, June 8th, 1840.
DEAREST HARRIET,
It is not to you that I apologize for talking over-much about my
children, but to myself.... For what said the witty Frenchman of a man's
love for wife and child? "_Ah! bien c'est de l'égoïsme à trois._" ... I
hope you will see my children, both them and me, in a very few months;
for I think we are coming to England in September, and I shall surely
not leave it without borrowing some of your company from you, let you be
where you may....
I must go and dress for dinner, hence the brevity of this letter, which
pray accept for "the soul of wit."
Did you ever see a humming-bird? Have they them in Italy? We have a
honeysuckle hedge here, where the little jewels of creatures stuff
themselves incessantly, early and late, sabbaths and week-days,
flickering over the sweet bushes of fragrance, like the diamonds of
modern fashion set on elastic wires, to make them quiver and increase
their sparkle and brilliancy. I should like to have written some more to
you.
I am ever your affectionate
F. A. B.
BUTLER PLACE, June 28th, 1840.
MY DEAR T----,
Your discoveries in the private character of Sir Samuel Romilly are none
to me. I have known those who knew him intimately. My brother was school
and college mate of his sons, one of whom I know very well; and their
father's character, in all its most endearing aspects, was familiar to
me. I think I was once told (not by them, however, of course) that the
melancholy induced by the loss of his wife had been the chief cause of
his destroying himself, for he was devotedly and passionately attached
to her.
We go every night to see Fanny Ellsler; only think what an extraordinary
effort of dissipation for me, who hardly ever stir abroad of an evening,
and who had almost as much forgotten the inside of a theatre as Falstaff
had the inside of a church! My admiration for her grows rather than
diminishes, though she is a better actress even than dancer, which I
think speaks in favor of her intellect. Did you ever see Taglioni? Who
invented and who suggested the expression the "poetry of motion"? It
should have been _made_ for her. Her dancing is like nothing but poetic
inspiration, and seems as if she was composing while she executed it. I
wonder if it is the ballet-master who devises all the steps of these
great dancers,--of course, not the national dances, but the
inconceivably lovely things that Taglioni does, or whether she orders
her own steps, and (given a certain dramatic situation and a certain
strain of music) floats or flies, or glides, or gyrates at her own will
and pleasure. Did you ever see her in the "Sylphide"? What an exquisite
pathetic dream of supernatural sentiment that was! Other dances are as
graceful as possible; that woman was grace itself.
I was saying once to my friend, Frederick Rackeman, that Chopin's music
made me think of Taglioni's dancing, to which he replied, to my great
surprise, that Chopin had said that he had more than once received his
inspiration from Taglioni's dancing; a curious instance of influence so
strong as to be recognized by one who was perfectly unaware of it. If I
remember rightly, Gibson, the sculptor, said that he owed many
suggestions to the vigorous and graceful dancing of Cerito; but those,
of course, were a suggestion of form to a creator of form, and not an
inspiration of exquisite sound gathered from exquisite motion, as in the
instance of Taglioni and Chopin.
Certain music suggests the waving of trees, as in the Notturno in
Mendelssohn's "Midsummer Night's Dream" and Schubert's exquisite
_beckoning_ song of the linden tree.
Certainly dancers deserve to be well paid when one thinks of the
mechanical labor, the daily hours of _battements_ and _changements de
pieds_, and turning, and twisting, and torturing of the limbs before
this apparently spontaneous result of mere movement can be obtained.
Ellsler has great dramatic power. Her Tarentelle and Wylie are really
finely tragical in parts; but then she had a first-rate _head_ as well
as foot training.
She is a wonderful artist; but there is something unutterably sad to me
in the contemplation of such a career. The blending in most unnatural
union of the elements of degradation and moral misery with such
exquisite perceptions of beauty, grace, and refinement, produces the
impression of a sort of monstrosity, a deformity of the whole higher
nature, which fills one with poignant compassion and regret. Poor, fair,
admired, despised, flattered, forlorn souls!...
Pray come and see us when you can, and
Believe me very truly yours,
F. A. B.
BUTLER PLACE, June 26th, 1840.
DEAREST HARRIET,
Mr. Combe and Cecilia spent the day with us on their way to New York,
and I did rejoice to think her pilgrimage was over. She has gone through
what her former habits of life must have made a severe experience in
travelling in this country. Her affection for her husband, and her
devotion to his views, are unbounded, and have helped her to submit to
her trial with a cheerfulness and good humor worthy of all praise; for
the luxurious comfort of her life in her mother's house was certainly a
bad preparation for roughing it, as she has been doing for some months
past, for the sake of the phrenologist and his phrenology.... I never
knew any one more improved by the blessed discipline of happiness than
she appears to be. I am afraid my incapacity to accept the whole of
their system would always prevent our being as good friends as we might
otherwise with opportunity become. Perhaps, however, as the opportunity
is not likely to offer often, it does not much matter....
Saunders, the miniature-painter, of London celebrity, has come out here
to look at the pretty faces on this side of the water.... He told me
that he had once executed to order a miniature of me, partly from seeing
me on the stage, and partly from memory. I knew nothing whatever of
this, and think it is one among the many nuisances of being a "public
character," or what the American Minister's wife said her position had
made her, "_Une femme publique_," that one's likeness may thus be
stolen, and sold or bought by anybody who chooses to traffic in such
gear.
I remember my mother telling me of a painful circumstance which had
occurred to her from the same cause. A young officer of some
distinction, who died in India, left among his effects a miniature of
her; and she was disagreeably surprised by receiving from his mother a
heartbroken appeal to her, saying that the fact of her son's being in
possession of this portrait led her to hope that perhaps my mother might
possess one of him, and entreating her, if such were the case, to permit
her (his mother) to have a copy of it, as she had no likeness of her
son. My mother was obliged to reply that she had no such portrait, and
had never known or even heard the name of the gentleman who was in
possession of hers....
How many things make one feel as if one's whole life was only a confused
dream! Wouldn't it be odd to wake at the end, and find one had not lived
at all? Many perhaps will wake at the end, and find it so indeed in one
sense,--which brings us back to the more serious aspect of things....
I had some time ago a joint-stock letter from my brother John and his
wife, informing me of the birth of their son. I do not think they
mentioned who was to be its godmother; but I quite agree with Mrs.
Kemble (my Uncle John's widow), as to the inexpediency of undertaking
such a sponsorship for any one's child. If it means anything, it means
something so serious that I should shrink from such a responsibility;
and if it means (as it generally does) nothing, I think it would be
better omitted altogether. When I was at home I dissuaded my sister from
standing godmother to their little girl; but I do not think any of them
understood my motive for doing so....
You ask me whether the specimens of Irish order, neatness, and
intelligence which came over here to fill our domestic ranks are beyond
training. Truly, training is, for the most part, so far beyond _them_,
that it is no easy matter to simplify even the first rudiments of the
science of civilization sufficiently to render them intelligible to
these fair countrywomen of yours. Patience is a fine thing, and might
accomplish something, perhaps; but there are insuperable bars to any
hope of their progress in the high wages which they can all command at
once, whether they ever saw the inside of a decent house before they
came to this country or not; the abundance of situations; and the
absence of everything like superior competition. The extraordinary
comparative prosperity to which these poor ignorant girls are suddenly
introduced on their arrival here, the high pay, the profusely plentiful
living, the _equality_ treatment, which must seem almost _quality_
treatment to them, presently make them impertinent and unsteady; and as
they can all command a new situation the instant that, for any cause,
they leave the one they are in (unfit for the commonest situation in a
decent household as they are), it is hardly worth their while, out of a
mere abstract love of perfection, to labor at any very great improvement
of their powers. A residence of some years in this country generally
develops their intelligence into a sort of sharp-sighted calculating
shrewdness, which they do not bring with them, but no way improves their
own quick native wit and natural national humor. Of course there are
exceptions; but the majority of them, after a short stay in America,
contrive to combine their own least desirable race qualities with the
independent tone of pert familiarity, the careless extravagance, and the
passion for dress of American girls of the lower class....
F. A. B.
BUTLER PLACE, July 8th 1840.
Perhaps, dearest Harriet, it might be better for me not to come to
England, inasmuch as my roots are beginning to spread in my present
soil, and to transplant them, even for a short time, might check the
process materially.... But while my father still lives, I shall hope to
revisit England once in every few years: when he is gone, I will give up
all the rest that I own on the other side of the water, and remain here
until it might be thought desirable for us to visit, not England only,
but Europe; and should that never appear desirable, why, then, remain
here till I die.
My father's health received a beneficial stimulus from the excitement of
his temporary return to the stage; but before that, his condition was
by all accounts very unsatisfactory; and I am afraid that when the
effect of the impulse his physical powers received from the pleasurable
exertion of acting subsides, he may again relapse into feebleness,
dejection, and general disorder of the system, from which he appeared to
be suffering before he made this last professional effort. I _must_ see
him once more, and he has written to me to say that as soon as he knows
when we are coming to England, he will meet us there. He will, I am
pretty sure, bring my sister with him, and this is an additional reason
why I am very anxious to be in England this autumn.... I have no doubt
that they will both come to England in September, to meet me, and I
presume we should remain together until I am obliged to return to
America.
I have not expressed to you, my dearest Harriet, my delight at your
relief from immediate anxiety about Dorothy. Sorrow seems to me so
peculiarly severe in its administration--or discipline, should I call
it?--to your spirit, that I thank God that its heavy pressure is lifted
from your heart for the present. Dorothy is one of those with whom I
always feel sure that all is well, let their circumstances or situation
be what they will; but I rejoice that she is spared physical suffering,
and preserved to you, to whom she is so infinitely precious....
F. A. B.
LENOX, August 15th, 1840.
DEAREST HARRIET,
... You bid me tell you when I shall leave America to pay my promised
visit to my father. I have been thrown into a state of complete
uncertainty by receiving a letter from my brother John, which informs me
of my sister's engagement at Naples and Palermo, and possible further
engagements at Malta and _Constantinople_! Think of her going to sing to
the Turks!... I am at present alone here, and of course cannot myself
determine the question of my going alone all over the Continent to join
my father and Adelaide.... It is possible that I may have to renounce my
visit to Europe altogether for the present, and, but for my father, I
could do so without a moment's hesitation, but I dread postponing seeing
him again, and, while I do so, shall live in a perpetual apprehension
that I shall _hear_ of his death as I did of that of my poor mother. I
consider the visit I contemplated making him our probable last season of
reunion, and cannot banish the thought that if it is indefinitely
postponed I may perhaps never see him again....
An intense interest is felt by all good Democrats in the coming
election, which determines whether Mr. Van Buren is to retain the
Presidency or not; and no zealous member of his party would leave the
country while that was undetermined. John writes me, too, that he
expects my father and sister both in London after Easter next year, and
I have no doubt it will be thought best that I should wait till then to
join them in England. However, all my plans must remain for the present
in utter uncertainty, and I shall surely not meet you and Emily at
Bannisters, which I could well have liked to do....
What lots of umbrellas you must wear out at Grasmere! [Miss S---- and
Miss W---- were passing the summer at the English lakes.] I am writing
pretty late at night, but if the Sedgwicks, whom you know, and those
who, through them, know you, were round me, I should have _showers_ of
love to send you from them: your rainy lake country suggested that
image, but that would be a _warm_ shower, which you don't get in
Westmoreland. I am growing very fat, but at the present there is no
fatty degeneracy of the heart, so that I still remain
Affectionately yours,
F. A. B.
LENOX, MASSACHUSETTS, August 28th, 1840.
MY DEAR LADY DACRE,
I have always considered your writing to me a very unmerited kindness
towards one who had so little claim on your time and attention; and I
need not tell you how much this feeling is increased by your present
state of mind, and the effort I am sure it must be to you to remember
one so far off, in the midst of your great sorrow [for the death of her
daughter, Mrs. Sullivan].... I shall come alone to England; and this is
the more dismal, that I have it in prospect to go down to Naples to join
my father and sister, and stay with them till her engagements there and
at Palermo are ended. This journey (once my vision by day and dream by
night) will lose much of its delight by being a solitary pilgrimage to
the long-desired Italy. I think of pressing one of my brothers into my
service as escort; or if they are not able to go with me, shall write
to my father to come to England, as he lately sent me word he would do,
at any time that I would meet him there--of course, to return
immediately with him to my sister. They will both, I believe, be in
England after Easter next year; and then I shall hope to be allowed to
see you, my dear Lady Dacre, and express to you how much I have
sympathized with you in all you have suffered.
I am not aware of having spoken unjustly or disparagingly of the
dramatic profession. You say I am ungrateful to it: is it because I owe
many of my friends (yourself among the number) to it that you say so? or
do you think that I forget that circumstance? But to value it as an art,
simply for the personal advantages or pleasures that it was the means of
affording me, would be surely quite as absurd as to forget that it did
procure such for me. Then, upon reflection, few things have ever puzzled
me more than the fact of people liking _me_ because I pretended to be a
pack of Juliets and Belvideras, and creatures who were _not_ me. Perhaps
_I was jealous of my parts_; certainly, the good will my assumption of
them obtained for me, always seemed to me quite as curious as
flattering, or indeed rather more so. I did not think it an unbecoming
comment on my father's acting again at the Queen's request, when I said
that the excitement to which he had been habituated for so many years
had still charms for him; it would be very strange indeed if it had not.
It is chiefly from this point of view, and one or two others bearing on
the moral health, that I deprecate for those I love the exercise of that
profession; the claims of which to be considered as an art I cannot at
all determine satisfactorily in my own mind. That we have Shakespeare's
plays, written expressly for the interpretation of acting, is a strong
argument for the existence of a positive art of acting:
nevertheless----. But, if you please, we will settle that point when I
have the pleasure of seeing you. I suppose I shall steam for England in
October, when I shall endeavor to see you before I go abroad. Give my
kindest regards to Lord Dacre, and believe me always
Very affectionately yours,
F. A. B.
_Lenox_, September 4th, 1840.
_My dearest Harriet_,
... First of all, let me congratulate you, and dear Dorothy, upon her
improved health. Good as she is, I am sure she must value life; for
those who use it best, best know its infinite worth; and for you, my
dearest Harriet, this extension of the precious loan of her existence to
you, I am persuaded, must be full of the greatest blessings. Give my
affectionate love to her when you write to her or see her again; for,
indeed, I suppose you are now at Bannisters, where I should like well to
be with you, but I much fear that I shall not see you this winter,
though I expect to sail for England next month....
You ask me of the distance between the Virginia Springs and Lenox, and I
am ashamed to say I cannot answer; however, almost half the length of
the United States, I think. This, my northern place of summer sojourn,
is in the heart of the hill country of Massachusetts, in a district
inhabited chiefly by Sedgwicks, and their belongings....
Our friends the Sedgwicks reached their homes about a fortnight ago, and
the hills and valleys hereabouts rejoiced thereat.... Katharine's health
and spirits are much revived by the atmosphere of love by which she is
surrounded in her home. She bids me give her love to you. I wonder, with
your miserable self-distrust, whether you have any idea of the
affectionate regard all these people bear you. Katharine, a short time
before leaving Europe, saw in a shop a dark gray stuff which resembled a
dress you used to wear; she immediately bought it for herself, and
carrying it home asked her brother who it reminded him of. He instantly
kissed the stuff, exclaiming, "H---- S----!" Young Kate's journal
contains a most affectionate record of their short intimacy with you at
Wiesbaden; and you have left a deep impression on these hearts, where as
little that is bad or base abides as in any frail human hearts I ever
knew....
I have regained so much of my former appearance that I trust when I do
see you I shall not horrify you, as you seemed some time ago to
anticipate, by an apparition altogether unlike your, ever _essentially_
the same,
F. A. B.
BUTLER PLACE, October 7th, 1840.
... Dearest Harriet, whatever may be the evils which may spring from the
amazing facilities of intercourse daily developing between distant
countries (and with so great good, how should there not be some evil?),
think of those whose lots are cast far from their early homes and
friends; think of the deathlike separation that going to America has
been to thousands who left England, and friends there, but a few years
ago; the uncertainty of intercourse by letter, the interminable
intervals of suspense, the impossibility of making known or understood
by hearts that yearned for such information the new and strange
circumstances of the exile's existence; the gradual dying out of
friendships, and cooling of warm regard, from the impossibility of
sufficient intercourse to keep interest alive; and sympathy, after
endeavoring in vain to picture the distant home and surroundings and
daily occupations of the absent friend, dwindling and withering away for
want of necessary aliment, in spite of all the efforts which imagination
could make to satisfy the affectionate desire and longing loving
inquiries of the heart. Think of all that those two _existences_ as you
call them (existences no more--but mere ideas), Time and Space, have
caused of misery and suspense and heart-wearing anxiety, and rejoice
that so much has been done to make parting less bitter, and absence
endurable, through hope that now amounts almost to certainty.
My own plans, which I thought so thoroughly settled a short time ago,
have again become extremely indefinite. It is now considered inexpedient
that I should travel on the Continent, though there is no objection to
my remaining in England until my father's return, which I understand is
expected soon after Easter. As, however, my motive in leaving America is
to be with my father and sister, I have no idea of going to London to
remain there three months, without any expectation of seeing them. This
consideration would incline me to put off my visit to England till the
spring, but it is not yet determined who, or whether any of us, will go
to Georgia for the winter. My being taken thither is entirely uncertain;
but should the contrary be decided upon, I might perhaps come to England
immediately, as I would rather pass the winter in London, among my
friends, if I am to spend it alone, than here, where the severe weather
suspends all out-of-door exercise, interests, and occupations, and
where the absolute solitude is a terrible trial to my nerves and
spirits.
At present, however, I have not a notion what will be determined about
it, but as soon as I have any positive idea upon the subject I will let
you know.
We returned from Massachusetts a few days ago, and I find a profusion of
flowers and almost summer heat here, though the golden showers that
every now and then flicker from the trees, and the rustling sound of
fallen leaves, and the autumnal smell of mignonette, and other "fall"
flowers, whisper of the coming winter; still all here at present is
bright and sweet, with that peculiar combination of softness and
brilliancy which belongs to the autumn in this part of America. It is
the pleasantest season of the year here, and indescribably beautiful....
Good-bye, dearest Harriet; I had hoped to have joined you and Emily at
Bannisters, but that pretty plan is all rubbed out now, and I do not
know when I shall see you; but, thanks to those blessed beings--the
steam-ships, those Atlantic angels of speed and certainty, it now seems
as if I could do so "at any moment." God bless you.
Yours ever,
F. A. B.
BUTLER PLACE, October 26th.
I beg you will not stop short, as in your last letter, received the day
before yesterday, dearest Harriet, with "but I will not overwhelm you
with questions:" it is particularly agreeable to me to have specific
questions to answer in the letters I receive from you, and I hope you
perceive that I do religiously reply to anything in the shape of a
query. It is pleasant to me to know upon what particular points of my
doing, being, and suffering you desire to be enlightened; because
although I know everything I write to you interests you, I like to be
able to satisfy even a few of those "I wonders" that are perpetually
rising up in our imaginations with respect to those we love and who are
absent from us.
You ask me if I ever write any journal, or anything else now. The time
that I passed in the South was so crowded with daily and hourly
occupations that, though I kept a regular journal, it was hastily
written, and received constant additional notes of things that
occurred, and that I wished to remember, inserted in a very irregular
fashion in it.... I think I should like to carry this journal down to
Georgia with me this winter; to revise, correct, and add whatever my
second experience might furnish to the chronicle. It has been suggested
to me that such an account of a Southern plantation might be worth
publishing; but I think such a publication would be a breach of
confidence, an advantage taken on my part of the situation of trust,
which I held on the estate. As my condemnation of the whole system is
unequivocal, and all my illustrations of its evils must be drawn from
our own plantation, I do not think I have a right to exhibit the
interior management and economy of that property to the world at large,
as a sample of Southern slavery, especially as I did not go thither with
any such purpose. This winter I think I shall mention my desire upon the
subject before going to the South, and of course any such publication
must then depend on the acquiescence of the owners of the estate. I am
sure that no book of mine on the subject could be of as much use to the
poor people on Butler's Island as my residence among them; and I should,
therefore, be very unwilling to do anything that was likely to interfere
with that: although I have sometimes been haunted with the idea that it
was an imperative duty, knowing what I know, and having seen what I have
seen, to do all that lies in my power to show the dangers and evils of
this frightful institution. And the testimony of a planter's wife, whose
experience has all been gathered from estates where the slaves are
universally admitted to be well treated, should carry with it some
authority. So I am occupying myself, from time to time, as my leisure
allows, in making a fair copy of my Georgia Journal.
I occasionally make very copious extracts from what I read, and also
write critical analyses of the books that please or displease me, in the
language--French or Italian--in which they are written; but these are
fragmentary, and do not, I think, entitle me to say that I am writing
anything. No one here is interested in anything that I write, and I have
too little serious habit of study, too little application, and too much
vanity and desire for the encouragement of praise, to achieve much in my
condition of absolute intellectual solitude....
Here are two of your questions answered; the third is--whether I let
the slave question rest more than I did? Oh yes; for I have come to the
conclusion that no words of mine could be powerful enough to dispel the
clouds of prejudice which early habits of thought, and the general
opinion of society upon this subject have gathered round the minds of
the people I live among. I do not know whether they ever think or read
about it, and my arguments, though founded in this case on pretty sound
reason, are apt to degenerate into passionate appeals, the violence of
which is not calculated to do much good in the way of producing
convictions in the minds of others....
Even if the property were mine, I could exercise no power over it; nor
could our children, after our death, do anything for those wretched
slaves, under the present laws of Georgia. All that any one could do,
would be to refrain from using the income derived from the estates, and
return it to the rightful owners--that is, the earners of it. Had I such
a property, I think I would put my slaves at once quietly upon the
footing of free laborers, paying them wages, and making them pay me rent
and take care of themselves. Of course I should be shot by my next
neighbor (against whom no verdict would be found except "Serve her
right!") in the first week of my experiment; but _if I wasn't_, I think,
reckoning only the meanest profit to be derived from the measure, I
should double the income of the estate in less than three years.... I am
more than ever satisfied that God and Mammon would be equally
propitiated by emancipation.
You ask me whether I take any interest in the Presidential election.
Yes, though I have not room left for my reasons--and I have some,
besides that best woman's reason, sympathy with the politics of the man
I belong to. The party coming into power are, I believe, at heart less
democratic than the other; and while the natural advantages of this
wonderful country remain unexhausted (and they are apparently
inexhaustible), I am sure the Republican Government is by far the best
for the people themselves, besides thinking it the best in the abstract,
as you know I do.
God bless you, my dearest Harriet.
I am ever yours most affectionately,
F. A. B.
[The question of my spending the winter in Georgia was finally
determined by Mr. J---- B---- 's decided opposition to my doing so.
He was part proprietor of the plantation, and positively stipulated
that I should not again be taken thither, considering my presence
there as a mere source of distress to myself, annoyance to others,
and danger to the property.
I question the validity of the latter objection, but not at all that
of the two first; and am sure that, upon the whole, his opposition
to my residence among his slaves was not only justifiable but
perfectly reasonable.
My Georgia journal was not published until thirty years after it was
written, during the civil war in the United States. I was then
passing some time in England, and the people among whom I lived
were, like most well-educated members of the upper classes of
English society, Southern sympathizers. The ignorant and mischievous
nonsense I was continually compelled to hear upon the subject of
slavery in the seceding States determined me to publish my own
observation of it--not, certainly, that I had in those latter years
of my life any fallacious expectation of making converts on the
subject, but that I felt constrained at that juncture to bear my
testimony to the miserable nature and results of the system, of
which so many of my countrymen and women were becoming the
sentimental apologists.
It being now settled that I was not to return to the plantation, my
thoughts had hardly reverted to the prospect of a winter in England
when I received the news of my father's return from the Continent,
and dangerous illness in London; so that, I was told, unless I could
go to him immediately, there was but little probability of my ever
seeing him again. The misfortune I had so often anticipated now
seemed to have overtaken me, and instant preparation for my leaving
America being made, and an elderly lady, with whom I had become
connected by my marriage, having exerted her influence in my behalf,
I was not allowed, under such painful circumstances, again to cross
the Atlantic alone, but returned with a very heavy heart to my own
country, but with the comfort of being accompanied by my whole
family.
The news that met me on my arrival was that my father was at the
point of death, that he would not probably survive twenty-four
hours, and that it was altogether inexpedient that he should see
me, as, if he recognized me, which was doubtful, my unexpected
appearance, it having been impossible to prepare him for it, might
only be the means of causing him a violent and perhaps painful shock
of nervous agitation. This terrible verdict, pronounced by three of
the most eminent medical men of the day, Bright, Liston, and Wilson,
was a dreadful close to all the anxious days and hours of the sea
voyage, during which I had hoped and prayed to be again permitted to
embrace my father. But in my deep distress, I could not help
remembering that, after all, his physicians, able as they were, had
not the keys of life and death. And so it proved: my father made an
almost miraculous rally, recovered, and survived the sentence
pronounced against him for many years.
Not many days after our arrival, his improved condition admitted of
his being told of my return, and allowed to see me. Cadaverous is
the only word that describes the appearance to which acute suffering
and subsequent prostration had reduced him; he looked, indeed, like
one returned from the dead, and, in his joy at seeing me again,
declared that I had restored him to life, and that my arrival,
though he had not known of it, had called him back to existence--a
sympathetic theory of convalescence, to which I do not think his
doctors gave in their adhesion.
We now took up our abode in London; first at the Clarendon Hotel,
and afterwards in Clarges Street, Piccadilly, where my father, as
soon as he could be moved, came to reside with us, and where my
sister joined us on her return from Italy. My friend Miss S----,
coming from Ireland to stay with me soon after my arrival in
England, added to my happiness in finding myself once more with my
own family, and in my own country.]
CLARGES STREET, March 21st.
You will, ere this, dearest H----, have received my answer to your first
letter. You ask me, in your second, what we think about the chances of a
war with America. Our wishes prompt us to the belief that a war between
the two countries is _impossible_, though the tone of the newspapers,
within the last few days, has been horribly pugnacious. A letter was
received the day before yesterday, from our Liverpool factor, asking us
what is to be done about some cotton which had just come to them from
the plantation, in the event of war breaking out: a supposition which he
had treated as an utter impossibility when he was last in London, but
which he confessed in this letter did not seem to him quite so
impossible now. I do not, for my own part, see very well how either
party is to get out of its present attitude towards the other peaceably
and, at the same time, without some compromise of dignity. But I pray
God that the hearts of the two nations may be inclined to peace, and
then, doubtless, some cunning device will be found to save their
_honor_. The virtuous "_if_" of Touchstone is, I am afraid, not as valid
in national as individual quarrels.
Tell Mr. H---- W----, with my love, that it is all a hoax about Niagara
Falls having _fallen_ down; and that they are still _falling_ down,
according to their custom; but if you should find this intelligence
affect him with too painful a disappointment, you may comfort him by
assuring him that they inevitably must and will fall down one of these
days, and, what is more, stay fallen, and precisely in the manner they
are now said to have begun their career--by the gradual wearing away of
the rock between Lake Ontario and Lake Erie.
We were at the opera the Saturday after you left us; but it was a
mediocre performance, both music and dancing, and gave me but little
pleasure. I went last night again with my father, and was enchanted with
the opera, which was an old favorite, "Tancredi," in which I heard
Persiani, an admirable artist, with a mere golden wire of voice, of
which she made most capital use, and Pauline Garcia, who possesses all
the genius of her family; and between them it was a perfect performance.
The latter is a sister of Malibran's, and will certainly be one of the
finest dramatic singers of these times. But the proximity of people to
me in the stalls is so intolerable that I think I shall give mine up;
for I am in a state of nervous _crawling_ the whole time, with being
pushed and pressed and squeezed and leaned on and breathed on by my
fellow-creatures. You remember my old theory, that we are all of us
surrounded by an atmosphere proper to ourselves, emanating from each of
us,--a separate, sensitive envelope, extending some little distance from
our visible persons. I am persuaded that this is the case, and that when
my _individual atmosphere_ is invaded by any one, it affects my whole
nervous system. The proximity of any _bodies_ but those I love best is
unendurable to my body.
My father is much in the same condition as when you went away, suffering
a great deal, and complaining frequently; but by his desire we have a
dinner-party here on Tuesday, and he has accepted two invitations to
dine out himself. My chicks are pretty well....
May God bless you, dear.
I am ever your own
F. A. B.
CLARGES STREET.
This letter was begun three days ago, and it is now Thursday, March the
25th. Do not, I beseech you, ever make any appeals to my imagination, or
my feelings. I have lost all I ever had of the first, and I never had
any at all of the second....
You ask me if I have been riding. Only once or twice, for I may not do
what I so fain would, give all the visiting to utter neglect, and ride
every day. Yesterday I was on horseback for two hours with Henry, who,
having sold his pretty mare, for £65, to the author of the new comedy at
Covent Garden, was obliged to bestride one of Mr. Allen's screws, as he
calls them. The day was dusty and windy, and very disagreeable, but I
was all the better for my shaking, as I always am. I am never in health,
looks, or spirits without daily hard exercise on horseback.
My first meeting with Mrs. Grote (I am answering your questions, dearest
H----, though you have probably forgotten them) took place after all at
Sydney Smith's, at a dinner the very next day after you left us. We did
not say a great deal to each other, but upon my saying incidentally (I
forget about what) "I, who have always preserved my liberty, at least
the small crumb of it that a woman can own anywhere," she faced about,
in a most emphatical manner, and said, "Then you've struggled for it."
"No, I have not been obliged to do so." "Ah, then you must, or you'll
lose it, you'll lose it, depend upon it." I smiled, but did not reply,
because I saw that she was not taking into consideration the fact of my
living in America; and this was the only truly _Grotesque_ (as Sydney
Smith says) passage between us. Since then we have again ineffectually
exchanged cards, and yesterday I received an invitation to her house, so
that I suppose we shall finally become acquainted with each other.
[Mrs. Grote, wife of George Grote, the banker, member of
Parliament, and historian of Greece, was one of the cleverest and
most eccentric women in the London society of my time. No worse a
judge than De Tocqueville pronounced her the cleverest woman of his
acquaintance; and she was certainly a very remarkable member of the
circle of remarkable men among whom she was living when I first knew
her. At that time she was the female centre of the Radical party in
politics--a sort of not-young-or-handsome feminine oracle among a
set of very clever half-heathenish men, in whose drawing-room,
Sydney Smith used to say, he always expected to find an altar to
Zeus. At this time Mr. Grote was in the House of Commons, and as it
was before the publication of his admirable history, his speeches,
which were as remarkable for their sound sense and enlightened
liberality as for their clear and forcible style, were not
unfrequently attributed to his wife, whose considerable
conversational powers, joined to a rather dictatorial style of
exercising them, sometimes threw her refined and modest husband a
little into the shade in general society. When first I made Mrs.
Grote's acquaintance, the persons one most frequently met at her
house in Eccleston Street were Roebuck, Leader, Byron's quondam
associate Trelawney, and Sir William Molesworth; both the first and
last mentioned gentlemen were then of an infinitely deeper shade of
radicalism in their politics than they subsequently became. The
other principal element of Mrs. Grote's society, at this time,
consisted of musical composers and performers, who found in her a
cordial and hospitable friend and hostess, and an amateur of unusual
knowledge and discrimination, as well as much taste and feeling for
their beautiful art. Her love of music, and courteous reception of
all foreign artists, caused her to be generally sought by eminent
professors coming to England; and Liszt, Madame Viardot, Dessauer,
Thalberg, Mademoiselle Lind, and Mendelssohn were among the
celebrated musicians one frequently met at her house. With the two
latter she was very intimate, and it was in her drawing-room that my
sister gave her first public concert in London. Mendelssohn used
often to visit her at a small country-place she had in the
neighborhood of Burnham Beeches.
It was a very small and modest residence, situated on the verge of
the magnificent tract of woodland scenery known by that name; a
dependence, I believe, of the Dropmore estate, which it adjoined. It
was an unenclosed space of considerable extent, of wild, heathy
moorland; short turfy strips of common; dingles full of foxglove,
harebell, and gnarled old stunted hawthorn bushes; and knolls,
covered with waving crests of powerful feathery fern. It was
intersected with gravelly paths and roads, whose warm color
contrasted and harmonized with the woodland hues of everything about
them; and roofed in by dark green vaults of the most magnificent
beech foliage I have ever seen anywhere. The trees were of great age
and enormous size; and from some accidental influence affecting
their growth, the huge trunks were many of them contorted so as to
resemble absolutely the twisted Saxon pillars of some old cathedral.
In many of them the powerful branches (as large themselves as trunks
of common trees) spread out from the main tree, at a height of about
six feet from the ground, into a sort of capacious leafy chamber,
where eight or ten people could have sat embowered. A more perfectly
English woodland scene it would be impossible to imagine, and here,
as Mrs. Grote told me, Mendelssohn found the inspiration of much of
the music of his "Midsummer Night's Dream." (The overture he had
composed, and played to us one evening at my father's house, when
first he came to England, before he was one-and-twenty.) At one time
Mrs. Grote contemplated erecting some monument in the beautiful wood
to his memory, and showed me a copy of verses, not devoid of merit,
which she thought of inscribing on it to his honor; but she never
carried out the suggestion of her affectionate admiration; and to
those who knew and loved Mendelssohn (alas! the expressions are
synonymous), the glorious wood itself, where he walked and mused and
held converse with the spirit of Shakespeare, forms a solemn sylvan
temple, forever consecrated to tender memories of his bright genius
and lovely character.
When first I knew Mrs. Grote, however, her artistic sympathies were
keenly excited in a very different direction; for she had
undertaken, under some singular impulse of mistaken enthusiasm, to
make what she called "an honest woman" of the celebrated dancer,
Fanny Ellsler, and to introduce her into London society,--neither of
them very attainable results, even for as valiant and enterprising
a person as Mrs. Grote. When first I heard of this strange
undertaking I was, in common with most of her friends, much
surprised at it; nor was it until some years after the entire
failure of this quixotic experiment, that I became aware that she
had been actuated by any motive but the kindliest and most mistaken
enthusiasm.
Mademoiselle Ellsler was at this time at the height of her great and
deserved popularity as a dancer, and whatever I may have thought of
the expediency or possibility of making what Mrs. Grote called "an
honest woman" of her, I was among the most enthusiastic admirers of
her great excellence in her elegant art. She was the only
intellectual dancer I have ever seen. Inferior to Taglioni (that
embodied genius of rhythmical motion) in lightness, grace, and
sentiment; to Carlotta Grisi in the two latter qualities; and with
less mere vigor and elasticity than Cerito, she excelled them all in
dramatic expression; and parts of her performance in the ballets of
the "Tarantella" and the wild legend of "Gisele, the Willye,"
exhibited tragic power of a very high order, while the same strongly
dramatic element was the cause of her pre-eminence in all national
and characteristic dances, such as El Jaleo de Xeres, the
Cracovienne, et cetera. This predominance of the intellectual
element in her dancing may have been the result of original
organization, or it may have been owing to the mental training which
Ellsler received from Frederic von Genz, Gensius, the German writer
and diplomatist, who educated her, and whose mistress she became
while still quite a young girl. However that may be, Mrs. Grote
always maintained that her genius lay full as much in her head as in
her heels. I am not sure that the finest performance of hers that I
ever witnessed was not a minuet in which she danced the man's part,
in full court-suit of the time of Louis XVI., with most admirable
grace and nobility of demeanor.
Mrs. Grote labored hard to procure her acceptance in society; her
personal kindness to her was of the most generous description: but
her great object of making "an honest woman" of her, I believe
failed signally in every way.
On one occasion I paid Mrs. Grote a visit at Burnham Beeches. Our
party consisted only of my sister and myself; the Viennese composer,
Dessauer; and Chorley, the musical critic of the _Athenæum_, who
was very intimately acquainted with us all. The eccentricities of
our hostess, with which some of us were already tolerably familiar,
were a source of unfeigned amazement and awe to Dessauer, who,
himself the most curious, quaint, and withal nervously excitable and
irritable humorist, was thrown into alternate convulsions of
laughter and spasms of terror at the portentous female figure, who,
with a stick in her hand, a man's hat on her head, and a coachman's
box-coat of drab cloth with manifold capes over her petticoats
(English women had not yet then adopted a costume undistinguishable
from that of the other sex), stalked about the house and grounds,
alternately superintending various matters of the domestic economy,
and discussing, with equal knowledge and discrimination, questions
of musical criticism and taste.
One most ludicrous scene which took place on this occasion I shall
never forget. She had left us to our own devices, and we were all in
the garden. I was sitting in a swing, and my sister, Dessauer, and
Chorley were lying on the lawn at my feet, when presently, striding
towards us, appeared the extravagant figure of Mrs. Grote, who, as
soon as she was within speaking-trumpet distance, hailed us with a
stentorian challenge about some detail of dinner--I think it was
whether the majority voted for bacon and peas or bacon and beans.
Having duly settled this momentous question, as Mrs. Grote turned
and marched away, Dessauer--who had been sitting straight up,
listening with his head first on one side and then on the other,
like an eagerly intelligent terrier, taking no part in the culinary
controversy (indeed, his entire ignorance of English necessarily
disqualified him for even comprehending it), but staring intently,
with open eyes and mouth, at Mrs. Grote--suddenly began, with his
hands and lips, to imitate the rolling of a drum, and then broke out
aloud with, "_Malbrook s'en vat' en guerre_," etc.; whereupon the
terrible lady faced right about, like a soldier, and, planting her
stick in the ground, surveyed Dessauer with an awful countenance.
The wretched little man grew red and then purple, and then black in
the face with fear and shame; and exclaiming in his agony, "_Ah,
bonté divine! elle m'a compris!_" rolled over and over on the lawn
as if he had a fit. Mrs. Grote majestically waved her hand, and with
magnanimous disdain of her small adversary turned and departed, and
we remained horror-stricken at the effect of this involuntary
tribute of Dessauer's to her martial air and deportment.
When she returned, however, it was to enter into a most interesting
and animated discussion upon the subject of Glück's music; and
suddenly, some piece from the "Iphigenia" being mentioned, she
shouted for her man-servant, to whom on his appearance she gave
orders to bring her a chair and footstool, and "the big fiddle" (the
violoncello) out of the hall; and taking it forthwith between her
knees, proceeded to play, with excellent taste and expression, some
of Glück's noble music upon the sonorous instrument, with which St.
Cecilia is the only female I ever saw on terms of such familiar
intimacy.
The second time Mrs. Grote invited me to the Beeches, it was to meet
Mdlle. Ellsler. A conversation I had with my admirable and excellent
friend Sydney Smith determined me to decline joining the party. He
wound up his kind and friendly advice to me upon the subject by
saying, "No, no, my child; that's all very well for Grota" (the name
he always gave Mrs. Grote, whose good qualities and abilities he
esteemed very highly, whatever he may have thought of her
eccentricities); "but don't mix yourself up with that sort of
thing." And I had reason to rejoice that I followed his good advice.
Mrs. Grote told me, in the course of a conversation we once had on
the subject of Mdlle. Ellsler, that when the latter went to America,
she, Mrs. Grote, had undertaken most generously the entire care and
charge of her child, a lovely little girl of about six years old.
"All I said to her," said this strange, kind-hearted woman, "was
'Well, Fanny, send the brat to me; I don't ask you whose child it
is, and I don't care, so long as it isn't that fool d'Orsay's'"
(Mrs. Grote had small esteem for _the_ dandy of his day), "'and I'll
take the best care of it I can.'" And she did take the kindest care
of it during the whole period of Mdlle. Ellsler's absence from
Europe.
The next time I visited the Beeches was after an interval of some
years, when I went thither with my kind and constant friend Mr.
Rogers. My circumstances had altered very painfully, and I was again
laboring for my own support.
I went down to Burnham with the old poet, and was sorry to find
that, though he had consented to pay Mrs. Grote this visit, he was
not in particularly harmonious tune for her society, which was
always rather a trial to his fastidious nerves and refined taste.
The drive of between three and four miles in a fly (very different
from his own luxurious carriage), through intricate lanes and rural
winding avenues, did not tend to soften his acerbities, and I
perceived at once, on alighting from the carriage, that the aspect
of the place did not find favor in his eyes.
Mrs. Grote had just put up an addition to her house, a sort of
single wing, which added a good-sized drawing-room to the modest
mansion I had before visited. Whatever accession of comfort the
house received within from this addition to its size, its beauty,
externally, was not improved by it, and Mr. Rogers stood before the
offending edifice, surveying it with a sardonic sneer that I should
think even brick and mortar must have found it hard to bear. He had
hardly uttered his three first disparaging bitter sentences, of
utter scorn and abhorrence of the architectural abortion, which,
indeed it was, when Mrs. Grote herself made her appearance in her
usual country costume, box-coat, hat on her head, and stick in her
hand. Mr. Rogers turned to her with a verjuice smile, and said, "I
was just remarking that in whatever part of the world I had seen
this building I should have guessed to whose taste I might attribute
its erection." To which, without an instant's hesitation, she
replied, "Ah, _'tis_ a beastly thing, to be sure. The confounded
workmen played the devil with the place while I was away." Then,
without any more words, she led the way to the interior of her
habitation, and I could not but wonder whether her blunt
straightforwardness did not disconcert and rebuke Mr. Rogers for his
treacherous sneer.
During this visit, much interesting conversation passed with
reference to the letters of Sydney Smith, who was just dead; and the
propriety of publishing all his correspondence, which, of course,
contained strictures and remarks upon people with whom he had been
living in habits of friendly social intimacy. I remember one morning
a particularly lively discussion on the subject, between Mrs. Grote
and Mr. Rogers. The former had a great many letters from Sydney
Smith, and urged the impossibility of publishing them, with all
their comments on members of the London world. Rogers, on the
contrary, apparently delighted at the idea of the mischief such
revelations would make, urged Mrs. Grote to give them ungarbled to
the press. "Oh, but now," said the latter, "here, for instance, Mr.
Rogers, such a letter as this, about ----; do see how he cuts up the
poor fellow. It really never would do to publish it." Rogers took
the letter from her, and read it with a stony grin of diabolical
delight on his countenance and occasional chuckling exclamations of
"Publish it! publish it! Put an R, dash, or an R and four stars for
the name. He'll never know it, though everybody else will." While
Mr. Rogers was thus delecting himself, in anticipation, with R----'s
execution, Mrs. Grote, by whose side I was sitting on a low stool,
quietly unfolded another letter of Sydney Smith's, and silently held
it before my eyes, and the very first words in it were a most
ludicrous allusion to Rogers's cadaverous appearance. As I raised my
eyes from this most absurd description of him, and saw him still
absorbed in his evil delight, the whole struck me as so like a scene
in a farce that I could not refrain from bursting out laughing.
In talking of Sydney Smith Mr. Rogers gave us many amusing details
of various visits he paid him at his place in Somersetshire, Combe
Flory, where, on one occasion, Jeffrey was also one of the party. It
was to do honor to these illustrious guests that Sydney Smith had a
pair of horns fastened on his donkey, who was turned into the
paddock so adorned, in order, as he said, to give the place a more
noble and park-like appearance; and it was on this same donkey that
Jeffrey mounted when Sydney Smith exclaimed with such glee--
"As short, but not as stout, as Bacchus,
As witty as Horatius Flacchus,
As great a radical as Gracchus,
There he goes riding on my _jackuss_."
Rogers told us too, with great satisfaction, an anecdote of Sydney
Smith's son, known in London society by the amiable nickname of the
Assassin.... This gentleman, being rather addicted to horse-racing
and the undesirable society of riders, trainers, jockeys, and
semi-turf black-legs, meeting a friend of his father's on his
arrival at Combe Flory, the visitor said, "So you have got Rogers
here, I find." "Oh, yes," replied Sydney Smith's dissimilar son,
with a rueful countenance, "but it isn't _the_ Rogers, you know."
_The_ Rogers, according to him, being a famous horse-trainer and
rider of that name.
I have called him his father's dissimilar son, but feel inclined to
withdraw that epithet, when I recollect his endeavor to find an
appropriate subject of conversation for the Archbishop of York, by
whom, on one occasion, he found himself seated at dinner: "Pray, my
lord, how long do you think it took Nebuchadnezzar to get into
condition again after his turn out at grass?"
The third time I went to Burnham Beeches, it was to meet a very
clever Piedmontese gentleman, with whom Mr. Grote had become
intimate, Mr. Senior, known and valued for his ability as a
political economist, his clear and acute intelligence, his general
information and agreeable powers of conversation. His universal
acquaintance with all political and statistical details, and the
whole contemporaneous history of European events, and the readiness
and fulness of his information on all matters of interest connected
with public affairs used to make Mrs. Grote call him her "man of
facts." The other member of our small party was Charles Greville,
whose acquaintance Mrs. Grote had made through his intimacy with my
sister and myself. This gentleman was one of the most agreeable
members of our intimate society. His mother was the sister of the
late Duke of Portland, and during the short administration of his
uncle, Charles Greville, then quite a young man, had a sinecure
office in the island of Jamaica bestowed upon him, and was made
Clerk of the Privy Council; which appointment, by giving him an
assured position and handsome income for life, effectually put a
stop to his real advancement at the very outset, by rendering all
effort of ambition on his part unnecessary, and inducing him,
instead of distinguishing himself by an honorable public career, to
adopt the life and pursuits of a mere man of pleasure, ... and to
waste his talents in the petty intrigues of society, and the
excitements of the turf. He was an influential member of the London
great world of his day; his clear good sense, excellent judgment,
knowledge of the world, and science of expediency, combined with his
good temper and ready friendliness, made him a sort of universal
referee in the society to which he belonged. Men consulted him about
their difficulties with men; and women, about their squabbles with
women; and men and women, about their troubles with the opposite
sex. He was called into the confidence of all manner of people, and
trusted with the adjustment of all sorts of affairs. He knew the
secrets of everybody, which everybody seemed willing that he should
know; and he was one of the principal lawgivers of the turf. The
publication of Charles Greville's Memoirs, which shocked the whole
of London society, surprised, as much as it grieved, his friends,
the character they revealed being painfully at variance with their
impression of him, and not a little, in some respects, at variance
with that of a gentleman.... Our small party at the Beeches was
broken up on the occasion of this, my third visit, by our hostess's
indisposition. She was seized with a violent attack of neuralgia in
the head, to which she was subject, and by which she was compelled
to take to her bed, and remain there in darkness and almost
intolerable suffering for hours, and sometimes days together. I have
known her prostrated by a paroxysm of this sort when she had invited
a large party to dinner, and obliged to leave her husband to do the
honors to their guests, while she betook herself to solitary
confinement in a darkened room.
On the present occasion the gentlemen guests took their departure
for London, and I should have done the same, but that Mrs. Grote
entreated me to remain, for the chance of her being soon rid of her
torment. Towards the middle of the day she begged me to come to her
room, when, feeling, I presume, some temporary relief, she presently
began talking vehemently to me about a French opera of "The
Tempest," by Halévy, I believe, which had just been produced in
Paris, with Madame Rossi Sontag as Miranda, and Lablache as Caliban.
Mrs. Grote was violent in her abuse of the composition, deploring,
as I joined her in doing, that Mendelssohn should not have taken
"The Tempest" for the subject of an opera, and so prevented less
worthy composers from laying hands upon it.
Towards this time Mrs. Grote became absorbed by a passionate
enthusiasm for Mademoiselle Jenny Lind, of whom she was an
idolatrous worshipper, and who frequently spent her days of leisure
at the Beeches. Mrs. Grote engrossed Mademoiselle Jenny Lind in so
curious a manner that, socially, the accomplished singer could
hardly be approached but through her. She was kind enough to ask me
twice to meet her, when Mendelssohn and herself were together at
Burnham--an offer of a rare pleasure, of which I was unable to avail
myself. I remember, about this time, a comical conversation I had
with her, in which, after surveying and defining her social position
and its various advantages, she exclaimed, "But I want some lords,
Fanny. Can't you help me to some lords?" I told her, laughingly,
that I thought the lady who held watch and ward over Mademoiselle
Jenny Lind might have as many lords at her feet as she pleased....
Besides her literary and artistic tastes, she took a keen interest
in politics, and among other causes for the slight esteem in which
she not unnaturally held my intellectual capacity was my ignorance
of, and indifference to, anything connected with party politics,
especially as discussed in coteries and by coterie queens.
Great questions of European policy, and the important movements of
foreign governments, or our own, in matters tending to affect the
general welfare and progress of humanity, had a profound interest
for me; but I talked so little on such subjects, as became the
profundity of my ignorance, that Mrs. Grote supposed them altogether
above my sympathy, and probably above my comprehension.
I remember very well, one evening at her own house, I was working at
some embroidery (I never saw her with that feminine implement, a
needle, in her fingers, and have a notion she despised those who
employed it, and the results they achieved), and I was listening
with perfect satisfaction to an able and animated discussion between
Mr. Grote, Charles Greville, Mr. Senior, and a very intelligent
Piedmontese then staying at the Beeches, on the aspect of European
politics, and more especially of Italian affairs, when Mrs. Grote,
evidently thinking the subject too much for me, drew her chair up to
mine, and began a condescending conversation about matters which she
probably judged more on a level with my comprehension; for she
seemed both relieved and surprised when I stopped her kind effort to
entertain me at once, thanking her, and assuring her that I was
enjoying extremely what I was listening to.
Some time after this, however, I must say I took a mischievous
opportunity of purposely confirming her poor opinion of my brains;
for on her return from Paris, where she had been during Louis
Napoleon's _coup d'état_, she offered to show me Mr. Senior's
journal, kept there at the same time, and recording all the
remarkable and striking incidents of that exciting period of French
affairs. This was a temptation, but it was a greater one to
me--being, as Madame de Sévigné says of herself, _méchante ma
fille_--to make fun of Mrs. Grote; and so, comforting myself with
thinking that this probably highly interesting and instructive
record, kept by Mr. Senior, would be sure to be published, and was
then in manuscript (a thing which I abhor), I quietly declined the
offer, looking as like Audrey when she asks "What is poetical?" as I
could: to which Mrs. Grote, with an indescribable look, accent, and
gesture of good-humored contempt, replied, "Ah, well, it might not
interest you; I dare say it wouldn't. It _is_ political, to be sure;
it is political."
This is the second very clever woman, to whom I know my intelligence
had been vaunted, to whom I turned out completely "Paradise Lost,"
as my mother's comical old acquaintance, Lady Dashwood King, used to
say to Adelaide of me: "Ah, yes, I know your sister is vastly
clever, exceedingly intelligent, and all that kind of thing, but she
is 'Paradise Lost' to me, my dear." I sometimes regretted having
hidden my small light under a bushel as entirely as I did, in the
little intercourse I had with the first Lady Ashburton, Lady Harriet
Montague, with whom some of my friends desired that I should become
acquainted, and who asked me to her house in London, and to the
Grange, having been assured that there was something in me, and
trying to find it out, without ever succeeding.
Mrs. Grote had generally a very contemptuous regard for the capacity
of her female friends. She was extremely fond of my sister, but
certainly had not the remotest appreciation of her great cleverness;
and on one occasion betrayed the most whimsical surprise when
Adelaide mentioned having received a letter from the great German
scholar Waelcker. "Who? what? you? Waelcker, write to you!"
exclaimed Grota, in amazement more apparent than courteous, it
evidently being beyond the wildest stretch of her imagination that
one of the most learned men in Europe, and profoundest scholars of
Germany, could be a correspondent of my sister's, and a devoted
admirer of her brilliant intelligence.
Mrs. Grote's appearance was extremely singular; "striking" is, I
think, the most appropriate word for it. She was very tall,
square-built, and high-shouldered; her hands and arms, feet and legs
(the latter she was by no means averse to displaying) were
uncommonly handsome and well made. Her face was rather that of a
clever man than a woman, and I used to think there was some
resemblance between herself and our piratical friend Trelawney.
Her familiar style of language among her intimates was something
that could only be believed by those who heard it; it was technical
to a degree that was amazing. I remember, at a dinner-party at her
own table, her speaking of Audubon's work on ornithology, and saying
that some of the incidents of his personal adventures, in the
pursuit of his favorite science, had pleased her particularly;
instancing, among other anecdotes, an occasion on which, as she
said, "he was almost starving in the woods, you know, and found some
kind of wild creature, which he immediately disembowelled and
devoured." This, at dinner, at her own table, before a large party,
was rather forcible. But little usual as her modes of expression
were, she never seemed to be in the slightest degree aware of the
startling effect they produced; she uttered them with the most
straightforward unconsciousness and unconcern. Her taste in dress
was, as might have been expected, slightly eccentric, but, for a
person with so great a perception of harmony of sound, her passion
for discordant colors was singular. The first time I ever saw her
she was dressed in a bright brimstone-colored silk gown, made so
short as to show her feet and ankles, having on her head a white
satin hat, with a forest of white feathers; and I remember her
standing, with her feet wide apart and her arms akimbo, in this
costume before me, and challenging me upon some political question,
by which, and her appearance, I was much astonished and a little
frightened. One evening she came to my sister's house dressed
entirely in black, but with scarlet shoes on, with which I suppose
she was particularly pleased, for she lay on a sofa with her feet
higher than her head, American fashion, the better to display or
contemplate them. I remember, at a party, being seated by Sydney
Smith, when Mrs. Grote entered with a rose-colored turban on her
head, at which he suddenly exclaimed, "Now I know the meaning of the
word grotesque!" The mischievous wit professed his cordial liking
for both her and her husband, saying, "I like them, I like them; I
like him, he is so ladylike; and I like her, she's such a perfect
gentleman;" in which, however, he had been forestalled by a person
who certainly _n'y entendait pas malice_, Mrs. Chorley, the meekest
and gentlest of human beings, who one evening, at a party at her
son's house, said to him, pointing out Mrs. Grote, who was dressed
in white, "Henry, my dear, who is the gentleman in the white muslin
gown?"]
You ask me, dear H----, about Lady Francis's visit. She did not come, as
she had proposed doing, on the Friday, for she caught the influenza, and
was extremely unwell for a few days; she was here on Monday, coughing
incessantly and looking ill. In the course of our conversation, she
exclaimed, "Education! bless me, I think of nothing else but the
education of the poor. Don't you find people have got to think and talk
about nothing else? I protest, I don't." This made me laugh, and you
will understand why; but she didn't, and pressed me very much to tell
her what there was absurd in the matter to me: but I declined answering
her, at least then and there, as I could not enter into a full
discussion of the subject, down to the roots of it, just at that moment.
But, as you will well comprehend, the circumstances that render this
feverish zeal for education comical, in some of its fine-lady advocates,
are peculiarly strong in her case, though she is in earnest enough, and
thoroughly well-intentioned in whatever she does. Unwittingly, they are
serving the poor, as they certainly do not contemplate doing; for by
educating them, even as they are likely to do so, they will gradually
prepare them, intelligently and therefore irresistibly, to demand such
changes in their political and social conditions as they may now
impotently desire, and will assuredly hereafter obtain; but not, I
think, with the entirely cordial acquiescence of their Tory educators.
We went to the opera the Saturday after you left us, but both the opera
and the ballet were indifferent performances.... Do you not know that to
misunderstand and be misunderstood is one of the inevitable conditions,
and, I think, one of the especial purposes, of our existence? The
principal use of the affection of human beings for each other is to
supply the want of perfect comprehension, which is impossible. All the
faith and love which we possess are barely sufficient to bridge over
the abyss of individualism which separates one human being from another;
and they would not or could not exist, if we really understood each
other. God bless you, dear.
Yours ever,
FANNY.
CLARGES STREET, March 28th, 1841.
DEAREST H----,
My Sunday's avocations being over, or rather----
Here a loud, double knock, and Emily's entrance cut short my sentence;
and now that she is gone, it is close upon time to dress for dinner. She
bids me tell you that I am going to-morrow to sit to the sun for my
picture for you. I cannot easily conceive how you should desire a
daguerreotype of me; you certainly have never seen one, or you would not
do so; as it is, I think you will receive a severe shock from the real
representation of the face you love so well and know so little....
Emily and I went with the children to the Zoological Gardens the other
day, where a fine, intelligent-looking lioness appeared exceedingly
struck with them, crouched, and made a spring at little Fan, which made
Anne scream, and Emily, and Amelia Twiss, who was with us, catch hold of
the child. The keeper assured us it was only play; but I was well
pleased, nevertheless, that there was a grating between that very large
cat and the little white mouse of a plaything she contemplated.
I have no news to give you, dear H----. A list of our dinner and evening
engagements would be interminable, and not very profitable stuff for
correspondence.
I breakfasted with Mr. Rogers the other morning, and met Lord Normanby,
to whom I preferred a request that he would procure for Henry an
unattached company, by which he would obtain a captain's rank and
half-pay, and escape being sent to Canada, or, indeed, out of England at
all--which, in my father's present condition of health, is very
desirable....
We hear of my sister's great success in Italy, in "Norma," from sources
which can leave us no doubt of it....
Good-bye, dearest H----. Here is a list of my immediately impending
_occupations_--Monday, Emily spends the evening with me, till I go to a
party at Miss Rogers's; Tuesday, we go to the opera; Wednesday, we dine
with the M----s, and go in the evening to Mrs. Grote's; Thursday,
dinner at Mrs. Norton's; Friday, dine with Mrs. C----, who has a ball in
the evening; Saturday, the opera again: and so, pray don't say I am
wasting my time, or neglecting my opportunities.
Yours ever,
FANNY.
CLARGES STREET, Thursday, April 2nd.
DEAREST H----,
I wrote to you yesterday, but have half an hour of leisure, and will
begin another letter to you now. If it suffers interruption, I shall at
any rate have made a start, and the end will come in time, doubtless, if
Heaven pleases....
My father is much in the same condition as when last I wrote to you....
You ask if he does not begin to count the days till Adelaide's return
[my sister was daily expected from Italy, where she had just finished
engagements at the Fenice, the San Carlo, and the Scala]: he speaks of
that event occasionally, with fervent hope and expectation; but he is
seldom roused by anything from the state of suffering self-absorption in
which he lives for the most part....
I forget whether we have heard from Adelaide herself since you left us;
but my father had a letter the other day from C----, who sent him a
detailed account of her success in "Norma," which by all accounts has
indeed been very great.
One of C----'s proofs of it amused me not a little. He said that one
night, when she was singing it, although some of the royal family were
in their box and appeared about to applaud, the people could not
restrain their acclamations, but broke out into vociferous bravos,
contrary to etiquette on such occasions, when it is usual for royalty to
give the signal to public enthusiasm.
Doubtless this was a very great proof of her power over her
fellow-creatures, and of the irresistible human sympathies which are
occasionally, even in such an atmosphere as that of a Neapolitan
theatre, with Bourbon royalty present, stronger than social
conventionalities....
You ask if the new comedy ("London Assurance") is sufficiently
successful to warrant the author's purchase of Henry's horse. I heard,
but of course cannot vouch for the truth of the report, that his fixed
remuneration was to be three hundred pounds for the piece; and when, as
I also hear (but again will not vouch for the truth of my story),
besides Henry's, that he has bought another horse, and, besides that
other horse, a miraculous "Cab," and, besides that miraculous "Cab,"
ordered no fewer than seven new coats, I think you will agree with me
that the author of "London Assurance," successful as his piece may be,
ought to have found a deeper mine than that is likely to prove to serve
so many ends. When I expressed my disapprobation of Henry's assisting by
any means or in any way such boyish extravagance, he said that the lad
had guardians; and therefore I suppose he has property besides what may
come of play-writing--for men's persons, however pretty, are seldom put
under guardianship of trustees; and Henry argued, in the proper manly
fashion, that the youth, having property, had also a right to be as
foolish in the abuse of it as he pleased, or as his guardians would let
him.
We none of us went to see "Patter _versus_ Clatter," after all, having
all some previous engagement, so that, though it was literally given for
our special amusement, we were none of us there.
I have received no less than four American letters by the last steamer,
and this, though a welcome pleasure, is also a considerable addition to
the things to be done. God bless you, dearest H----. This letter was
begun about three days ago, and now it is the second of April.
Yours ever,
FANNY.
[The young author of the clever play called "London Assurance" had a
special interest for me from having been my brother Henry's
schoolfellow at Westminster.... His career as a dramatic author and
actor has won him a high and well-deserved reputation in both
capacities, both in England and America.]
CLARGES STREET, Friday, April 9th.
MY DEAREST H----,
My father is just now much better; he has regained his appetite, and
talks again of going out....
I can tell you nothing about my daguerreotype; for having gone,
according to appointment, last Monday, and waited, which I could ill
afford to do, nearly three quarters of an hour, and finally come away,
there being apparently no chance of my turn arriving at all that day, I
saw nothing of it; and I think it was very well that it saw nothing of
me, for such another sulky thunder-cloud as my countenance presented
under these circumstances seldom sat for its picture to Phoebus
Apollo, or any of his artist sons. I am to go again on Wednesday, and
shall be able to tell you something about it, I hope.
I have not seen Mr. T----'s sketch of the children. He is in high
delight with it himself, I believe; and, moreover, has undertaken, in
the plenitude of his artistical enthusiasm, to steal a likeness of me,
putting me in a great arm-chair, with S---- standing on one side for
tragedy, and F---- perched on the opposite arm of the chair for comedy.
Lane was to have come here to draw the children this very evening; but
it is half-past ten and he has not been, and of course is not coming....
Good-bye, dear.
Ever affectionately yours,
FANNY.
CLARGES STREET, Monday, May 3rd, 1841.
Thank you, dearest H----, for your prompt compliance with my request
about your travelling information.... About the daguerreotype, you know,
I should have precisely the same objection to taking another person's
appointed time that I have to mine being appropriated by somebody else;
but Emily has made another appointment for me: she had made one for the
day on which my sister arrived, which rather provoked me; but I was
resigned, nevertheless, because I had told her I would go at any time
she chose to name. She let me off, however; not, I believe, from any
compassion for me, but because my father had set his heart upon my going
with him to the private view of the new exhibition, just a quarter of an
hour after the time I was to have been at the daguerreotypist's. So to
the gallery I went, an hour after Adelaide had returned from Italy; as
you know, I had not seen her for several years (indeed, not since my
marriage). And so to the gallery I went, with buzzing in my ears and
dizziness in my eyes, and an hysterical choking, which made me afraid to
open my lips. Why my father was so anxious to go to this exhibition I
hardly know; but I went to please him, and came back to please myself,
without having an idea of a single picture in the whole collection.
Emily has now made another appointment for me, or rather for you, early
on Wednesday morning, and I hope we shall accomplish something at last.
Now you want to know something about Adelaide. There she sits in the
next room at the piano, singing sample-singing, and giving a taste of
her quality to Charles Greville, who, you know, is an influential person
in all sorts of matters, and to whom Henry has written about her merits,
and probable acceptability with the fashionable musical world. She is
singing most beautifully, and the passionate words of love, longing,
grief, and joy burst through that utterance of musical sound, and light
up her whole countenance with a perfect blaze of emotion. As for me, the
tears stream over my face all the time, and I can hardly prevent myself
from sobbing aloud.... She has grown very large, I think almost as large
as I remember my mother; she looks very well and very handsome, and has
acquired something completely foreign in her tone and manner, and even
accent.... She complains of the darkness of our skies and the dulness of
our mode of life here as intolerable and oppressive to the last
degree....
I cannot believe happiness to be the purpose of life, for when was
anything ordained with an unattainable purpose?... But life, which, but
for duty, seems always sad enough to me, appears sadder than usual when
I try to look at it from the point of view of the happiness it contains.
The children are well; Lane has taken a charming likeness of them, of
which I promise you a copy. God bless you, dearest H----. I do not lean
on human love; I do not depend or reckon on it; nor have I ever MISTAKEN
any human being for my _best friend_.
Affectionately yours,
FANNY.
CLARGES STREET, May 21st.
DEAREST H----,
From the midst of this musical Maelstrom I send you a voice, which, if
heard instead of read, would be lamentable enough. We are lifted off our
feet by the perfect torrent of engagements, of visits, of going out and
receiving; our house is full, from morning till night, of people coming
to sing with or listen to my sister. How her strength is to resist the
demands made upon it by the violent emotions she is perpetually
expressing, or how any human throat is to continue pouring out such
volumes of sound without rest or respite, passes my comprehension. Now,
let me tell you how I am surrounded at this minute while I write to you.
At my very table sit Trelawney and Charles Young, talking to me and to
each other; farther on, towards my father, Mr. G---- C----; and an
Italian singer on one side of my sister; and on the other, an Italian
painter, who has brought letters of introduction to us; then Mary Anne
Thackeray; ... furthermore, the door has just closed upon an English
youth of the name of B----, who sings almost as well as an Italian, and
with whom my sister has been singing her soul out for the last two
hours.... We dined yesterday with the Francis Egertons; to-morrow
evening we have a gathering here, with, I beg you to believe, nothing
under the rank of a viscount, Beauforts, Normanbys, Wiltons,
_illustrissimi tutti quanti_. Friday, my sister sings at the Palace, and
we are all enveloped in a golden cloud of fashionable hard work, which
rather delights my father; which my sister lends herself to, complaining
a little of the trouble, fatigue, and late hours; but thinking it for
the interest of her future public career, and always becoming rapt and
excited beyond all other considerations in her own capital musical
performances.... As for me, I am rather bewildered by the whirl in which
we live, which I find rather a trying contrast to my late solitary
existence in America.... The incessant music wears upon my nerves a
great deal; but chiefly, I think, because half the time I am not able to
listen to it quietly, and it distracts me while I am obliged to attend
to other things. But indeed, often, when I can give my undivided
attention to it, my sister's singing excites me to such a degree that I
am obliged, after crying my bosom full of tears, to run out of the room.
My father continues in wonderful good looks and spirits.... Here, dear
H----, a long interruption.... We are off to St. John's Wood, to dine
with the Procters: ---- is not ready; my sister is lying on the sofa,
reading aloud an Italian letter to me; the children are rioting about
the room like a couple of little maniacs, and I feel inclined to endorse
Macbeth's opinion of life, that it is all sound and fury and signifying
nothing.... Thus far, and another interruption; and now it is to-morrow,
and Lady Grey and Lady G---- have just gone out of the room, and Chauncy
Hare Townsend has just come in, followed by his mesmeric German patient,
who is going to perform his magnetic magic for us. I think I will let
him try what sort of a subject I should be.
I enclose a little note and silk chain, brought for you from America by
Miss Fanny Appleton [afterwards Mrs. Longfellow], who has just arrived
in London, to the great joy of her sister. I suppose these tokens come
to you from the Sedgwicks. I have a little box which poor C---- S----
brought from Catherine for you--a delicate carved wooden casket, that I
have not sent to you because I was afraid it would be broken, by any
post or coach conveyance. Tell me about this, how I shall send it to
you. I have obtained too for you that German book which I delight in so
very much, Richter's "Fruit, Flower, and Thorn Pieces," and which, in
the midst of much that is probably too German, in thought, feeling, and
expression, to meet with your entire sympathy, will, I think, furnish
you with sweet and pleasant thoughts for a while; I scarce know anything
that I like much better.
I was going to see Rachel this evening, but my brother and his wife
having come up to town for the day, I do not think we ought all to go
out and leave them; so that ---- is gone with Adelaide and Lady M----,
and I shall seize this quiet chance for writing to Emily, to whom I have
not yet contrived to send a word since she left town. God bless you.
Ever yours,
FANNY.
[The young lad Alexis, to whom I have referred in this letter was, I
think, one of the first of the long train of mesmerists,
magnetizers, spiritualists, charlatans, cheats, and humbugs who
subsequently appealed to the notice and practised on the credulity
of London society. Mr. Chauncy Hare Townsend was an enthusiastic
convert to the theory of animal magnetism, and took about with him,
to various houses, this German boy, whose exhibition of mesmeric
phenomena was the first I ever witnessed. Mr. Townsend had almost
insisted upon our receiving this visit, and we accordingly assembled
in the drawing-room, to witness the powers of Alexis. We were all of
us sceptical, one of our party so incurably so that after each
exhibition of clairvoyance given by Alexis, and each exclamation of
Mr. Townsend's, "There now, you see that?" he merely replied, with
the most imperturbable phlegm, "Yes, I see it, but I don't believe
it." The clairvoyant power of the young man consisted principally in
reading passages from books presented to him while under the
influence of the mesmeric sleep, into which he had been thrown by
Mr. Townsend, and with which he was previously unacquainted. The
results were certainly sufficiently curious, though probably neither
marvellous nor unaccountable. To make sure that his eyes were really
effectually closed, cotton-wool was laid over them, and a broad,
tight bandage placed upon them; during another trial the hands of
our chief sceptic were placed upon his eyelids, so as effectually to
keep them completely closed, in spite of which he undoubtedly read
out of a book held up before him above his eyes, and rather on a
level with his forehead; nor can I remember any instance in which he
appeared to find any great difficulty in doing so, except when a
book suddenly fetched from another room was opened before him, when
he hesitated and expressed incapacity, and then said, "The book is
French;" which it was.
Believing entirely in a sort of hitherto undefined, and possibly
undefinable, physical influence, by which the nervous system of one
person may be affected by that of another, by special exercise of
will and effort, so as to produce an almost absolute temporary
subserviency of the whole nature to the force by which it is acted
upon, and therefore thinking it extremely possible, and not
improbable, that many of the instances of mesmeric influence I have
heard related had some foundation in truth, I have, nevertheless,
kept entirely aloof from the whole subject, never voluntarily
attended any exhibitions of such phenomena, and regarded the whole
series of experiments and experiences and pretended marvels of the
numerous adepts in mesmerism with contempt and disgust--contempt for
the crass ignorance and glaring dishonesty involved in their
practices; and disgust, because of the moral and physical mischief
their absurd juggleries were likely to produce, and in many
instances did produce, upon subjects as ignorant, but less
dishonest, than the charlatans by whom they were duped.
The thing having, in my opinion, a very probable existence, possibly
a physical force of considerable effect, and not thoroughly
ascertained or understood nature, the experiments people practised
and lent themselves to appeared to me exactly as wise and as
becoming as if they had drunk so much brandy or eaten so much opium
or hasheesh, by way of trying the effect of these drugs upon their
constitution; with this important difference that the magnetic
experiments severely tested the nervous system of both patient and
operator, and had, besides, an indefinite element of moral
importance, in the attempted control of one human will by another,
through physical means, which appeared to me to place all such
experiments at once among things forbidden to rational and
responsible agents.
I am now speaking only of the early developments of physical
phenomena exhibited by the first magnetizers and mesmerizers--the
conjurers by passes and somnolence and other purely physical
processes; the crazy and idiotic performances of their successors,
the so-called spiritualists, with their grotesque and disgusting
pretence of intercourse with the spirits of the dead through the
legs of their tables and chairs, seemed to me the most melancholy
testimony to an utter want of faith in things spiritual, of belief
in God and Christ's teaching, and a pitiful craving for such a
faith, as well as to the absence of all rational common sense, in
the vast numbers of persons deluded by such processes. In this
aspect (the total absence of right reason and real religion
demonstrated by these ludicrous and blasphemous juggleries in our
Christian communities), that which was farcical in the lowest degree
became tragical in the highest. I only witnessed this one mesmeric
exhibition, on the occasion of this visit paid to us by Mr. Townsend
and Alexis, until several years afterwards, in the house of my
excellent friend Mr. Combe, in Edinburgh, when I was one of a party
called upon to witness some experiments of the same kind. I was
staying with Mr. Combe and my cousin Cecilia, when one evening their
friend Mrs. Crow, authoress of more than one book, I believe, and of
a collection of supernatural horrors, of stories of ghosts,
apparitions, etc., etc., called "The Night Side of Nature" (the
lady had an evident sympathy for the absurd and awful), came,
bringing with her a Dr. Lewis, a negro gentleman, who was creating
great excitement in Edinburgh by his advocacy of the theories of
mesmerism, and his own powers of magnetizing. Mrs. Crow had
threatened Mr. and Mrs. Combe with a visit from this _professor_,
and though neither of them had the slightest tendency to belief in
any such powers as those Dr. Lewis laid claim to, they received him
with kindly courtesy, and consented, with the amused indifference of
scepticism, to be spectators of his experiments. Under these
circumstances, great as was my antipathy to the whole thing, I did
not like to raise any objection to it or to leave the room, which
would have been a still more marked expression of my feeling; so I
sat down with the rest of the company round the drawing-room table,
Mr. and Mrs. Combe, Dr. Lewis, Mrs. Crow, our friend Professor
William Gregory, and Dr. Becker--the latter gentleman a man of
science, brother, I think, to Prince Albert's private librarian--who
was to be the subject of Dr. Lewis's experiments, having already
lent himself for the same purpose to that gentleman, and been
pronounced highly sensitive to the magnetic influence.
I sat by Dr. Becker, and opposite to Dr. Lewis, with the width of
the table between us. What ulterior processes were to be exhibited I
do not know, but the first result to be obtained was to throw Dr.
Becker into a mesmeric state of somnolence, under the influence of
the operator. The latter presently began his experiment, and,
drawing entirely from his coat and shirt sleeve a long, lithe, black
hand, the finger-tips of which were of that pale livid tinge so
common in the hands of negroes, he directed it across the table
towards Dr. Becker, and began slowly making passes at him. We were
all profoundly still and silent, and, in spite of my disgust, I
watched the whole scene with considerable interest. By degrees the
passes became more rapid, and the hand was stretched nearer and
nearer towards its victim, waving and quivering like some black
snake, while the face of the operator assumed an expression of the
most concentrated powerful purpose, which, combined with his sable
color and the vehement imperative gestures which he aimed at Dr.
Becker, really produced a quasi-diabolical effect. The result,
however, was not immediate. Dr. Becker was apparently less
susceptible this evening than on previous occasions; but Dr. Lewis
renewed and repeated his efforts, each time with a nearer approach
and increased vehemence, and at length his patient's eyelids began
to quiver, he gasped painfully for breath, and was evidently
becoming overpowered by the influence to which he had subjected
himself; when, after a few seconds of the most intense efforts on
the part of Dr. Lewis, these symptoms passed off, and the
mesmerizer, with much appearance of exhaustion, declared himself,
for some reason or other, unable to produce the desired effect
(necessary for the subsequent exhibition of his powers) of
compelling Dr. Becker into a state of somnolency--a thing which he
had not failed to accomplish on every previous occasion. The trial
had to be given up, and much speculation and discussion followed as
to the probable cause of the failure, for which neither the
magnetizer nor his patient could account. Believing in this strange
action of nervous power in one person over another, I am persuaded
that I prevented Dr. Lewis's experiment from succeeding. The whole
exhibition had from the very beginning aroused in me such a feeling
of antagonism, such a mingled horror, disgust, and indignation,
that, when my neighbor appeared about to succumb to the influence
operating upon him, my whole nature was roused to such a state of
active opposition to the process I was witnessing that I determined,
if there was power in human will to make itself felt by mere silent
concentrated effort of purpose, I would prevent Dr. Lewis from
accomplishing his end; and it seemed to me, as I looked at him, as
if my whole being had become absorbed in my determination to defeat
his endeavor to set Dr. Becker to sleep. The nervous tension I
experienced is hardly to be described, and I firmly believe that I
accomplished my purpose. I was too much exhausted, after we left the
table, to speak, and too disagreeably affected by the whole scene to
wish to do so.
The next day I told Mr. Combe of my counter-magnetizing, or rather
neutralizing, experiment, by which he was greatly amused; but I do
not think he cared to enter upon any investigation of the subject,
feeling little interested in it, and having been rather surprised
into this exhibition of it by Mrs. Crow's bringing Dr. Lewis to his
house. That lady being undoubtedly an admirable subject for all such
experiments, having what my dear Mr. Combe qualified as "a most
preposterous organ of wonder," for which, poor woman, I suppose she
paid the penalty in a terrible nervous seizure, a fit of temporary
insanity, during which she imagined that she received a visit from
the Virgin Mary and our Saviour, both of whom commanded her to go
without any clothes on into the streets of Edinburgh, and walk a
certain distance in that condition, in reward for which the sins and
sufferings of the whole world would be immediately alleviated. Upon
her demurring to fulfil this mandate, she received the further
assurance that if she took her card-case in her right hand and her
pocket-handkerchief in her left, her condition of nudity would be
entirely unobserved by any one she met. Under the influence of her
diseased fancy, Mrs. Crow accordingly went forth, with nothing on
but a pair of boots, and being immediately rescued from the terrible
condition of mad exposure, in which she had already made a few paces
in the street where she lived, and carried back into her house, she
exclaimed, "Oh, I must have taken my card-case and my handkerchief
in the wrong hands, otherwise nobody would have seen me!" She
recovered entirely from this curious attack of hallucination, and I
met her in society afterwards, perfectly restored to her senses.
On one occasion I allowed myself to be persuaded into testing my own
powers of mesmerizing, by throwing a young friend into a magnetic
sleep. I succeeded with considerable difficulty, and the next day
experienced great nervous exhaustion, which, I think, was the
consequence of her having, as she assured me she had, resisted with
the utmost effort of her will my endeavor to put her to sleep. As I
disapproved, however, of all such experiments, this is the only one
I ever tried.
My belief in the reality of the influence was a good deal derived
from my own experience, which was that of an invariable tendency to
sleep in the proximity of certain persons of whom I was particularly
fond. I used to sit at Mrs. Harry Siddons's feet, and she had hardly
laid her hand upon my head before it fell upon her knees, and I was
in a profound slumber. My friend Miss ----'s neighborhood had the
same effect upon me, and when we were not engaged in furious
discussion, I was very apt to be fast asleep whenever I was near
her. E---- S---- relieved me of an intense toothache once by putting
me to sleep with a few mesmeric passes, and I have, moreover, more
than once, immediately after violent nervous excitement, been so
overcome with drowsiness as to be unable to move. I remember a most
ludicrous instance of this occurring to me in the church of
Stratford-upon-Avon, when, standing before Shakespeare's tomb, and
looking intensely at his monument, I became so overpowered with
sleep that I could hardly rouse myself enough to leave the church,
and I begged very hard to be allowed to sleep out my sleep, then and
there, upon the stones under which he lay.
After extreme distress of mind, I have sometimes slept a whole day
and night without waking; and once, when overcome with anguish,
slept, with hardly an hour's interval at a time, the greater part of
a week. The drowsiness inspired in me by some of my friends I
attribute entirely to physical sympathy; others, of whom I was
nearly as fond, never affected me in this manner in the slightest
degree. I have often congratulated myself upon the fact that I had
by no means an equal tendency to physical antipathy, though, in
common with most other people, I have had some experience of that
also. My very dear and excellent friend ---- always _m'agaçait les
nerfs_, as French people say, though I was deeply attached to her
and very fond of her society. Mrs. ----, of whose excellence I had
the most profound conviction, and who was generally esteemed
perfectly charming by her intimates, affected me with such a curious
intuitive revulsion that the first time she came and sat down by me
I was obliged to get up and leave the room--indeed, the house. Two
men of our acquaintance, remarkable for their general attractiveness
and powers of pleasing, ---- and ----, were never in the same room
ten minutes with me without my becoming perfectly chilled through,
as though I had suddenly had the door of an ice-house opened upon
me. They were entirely dissimilar men in every respect....
Of the spiritualistic performances of Messrs. Hume, Foster, etc.,
etc., I never was a witness. An intimate acquaintance of mine, who
knew Hume well, assured me that she knew him to be an impostor,
adding at the same time, "But I also know him to be clairvoyant,"
which seemed to me mere tautology.
My sister and Charles Greville, having had their curiosity excited
by some of the reports of Mr. Foster's performances, agreed to go
together to visit him, and having received an appointment for a
_séance_, went to his house. Certainly, if Mr. Foster had taken in
either of those two customers of his, it would have gone near
converting me. Charles Greville, who was deaf, and spoke rather loud
in consequence of that infirmity, said, as he entered, to my sister,
"I shall ask him about my mother." Adelaide, quite determined to
test the magician's powers to the utmost, replied, with an air of
concern, as if shocked at the idea, "Oh, no, don't do that; it is
too dreadful." However, this suggestion of course not being thrown
away upon Mr. Foster, Charles Greville desired to be put in
communication with the spirit of his mother, which was accordingly
duly done by the operator, and various messages were delivered, as
purporting to come from the spirit of Lady Charlotte Greville to her
son. After this farce had gone on for a little while, Charles
Greville turned to my sister with perfect composure, and said,
"Well, now perhaps you had better ask him to tell you something
about your mother, because, you know, mine is not dead." The
_séance_ of course proceeded no further. At an earlier period of it,
as they were sitting round a table, Mr. Foster desired that written
names might be furnished him of the persons with whose spirits
communication might be desired. Among the names written down for
this purpose by my sister were several foreign, Italian and German,
names, with which she felt very sure Mr. Foster could not possibly
have any acquaintance; indeed, it was beyond all question that he
never could have heard of them. Adelaide was sitting next to him,
watching his operations with extreme attention, and presently
observed him very dexterously convey several of these foreign names
into his sleeve, and from thence to the ground under the table.
After a little while, Mr. Foster observed that, singularly enough,
several of the names he had received were now missing, and by some
extraordinary means had disappeared entirely from among the rest.
"Oh yes," said my sister very quietly, "but they are only under the
table, just where you put them a little while ago." With such
subjects of course Mr. Foster performed no miracles.
Some years ago a new form of these objectionable practices came into
vogue, and one summer, going up into Massachusetts, I found the two
little mountain villages of Lenox and Stockbridge possessed, in the
proper sense of the term, by a devil of their own making, called
"Planchette." A little heart-shaped piece of wood, running upon
castors, and that could almost be moved with a breath, and carrying
along a sheet of paper, over which it was placed, a pencil was
supposed to write, on its own inspiration, communications in reply
to the person's thoughts whose finger-tips were to rest above,
without giving any impulse to the board. Of course a hand held in
this constrained attitude is presently compelled to rest itself by
some slight pressure; the effort to steady it, and the nervous
effort not to press upon the machine, producing inevitably in the
wrist aching weariness, and in the fingers every conceivable
tendency to nervous twitching. Add to this the intense conviction of
the foolish folk, half of them hysterical women, that their
concentrated effort of will was, in combination with a mysterious
supernatural agency, to move the board; and the board naturally not
only moved but, carrying the pencil along with it, wrote the answers
required and desired by the credulous consulters of the wooden
oracle.
The thing would have been indescribably ludicrous but for the
terrible effect it was having upon the poor people who were
practising upon themselves with it. Excitable young girls of fifteen
and sixteen, half hysterical with their wonderment; ignorant,
afflicted women, who had lost dear relations and friends by death;
superstitious lads, and men too incapable of consecutive reasoning
to perceive the necessary connection between cause and effect; the
whole community, in short, seemed to me catching the credulous
infection one from another, and to be in a state bordering upon
insanity or idiocy.
A young lady-friend of mine, a miserable invalid, was so possessed
with faith in this wooden demon that, after resisting repeated
entreaties on her part to witness some of its performances, I at
length, at her earnest request, saw her operate upon it. The writing
was almost unintelligible, and undoubtedly produced by the vibrating
impulse given to the machine by her nervous, feeble, diaphanous
hands. Finding my scepticism invincible by these means, my friend
implored me to think in my own mind a question, and see if
Planchette would not answer it. I yielded at last to her all but
hysterical importunity, and thought of an heraldic question
concerning the crest on a ring which I wore, which I felt was quite
beyond Planchette's penetration; but while we sat in quiet
expectation of the reply, which of course did not come, my friend's
mother--a sober, middle-aged lady, habitually behaving herself with
perfect reasonableness, and, moreover, without a spark of
imagination (but that, indeed, was rather of course; belief in such
supernatural agencies betokening, in my opinion, an absence of
poetical imagination, as well as of spiritual faith), practical,
sensible, commonplace, without a touch of nonsense of any kind about
her, as I had always supposed--sat opposite the _machine infernale_,
over which her daughter's fingers hung suspended, and as the answer
did not come, broke out for all the world like one of Baal's
prophets of old: "Now, Planchette, now, Planchette, behave; do your
duty. Now, Planchette, write at once," etc.; and I felt as if I were
in Bedlam. One thing is certain, that if Planchette's answer had
approached in the remotest degree the answer to the question of my
thought, I would then and there have broken Planchette in half, and
left my friends in the possession of their remaining brains until
they had procured another.
The strangest experience, however, that I met with in connection
with this absurd delusion occurred during a visit that I received
from Mrs. B---- S----. That lady was staying with her daughter in
Stockbridge, and did me the honor to call on me at Lenox with that
young lady. Among other things spoken of I asked my distinguished
visitor some questions about this superstitious folly, Planchette,
nothing doubting that I should hear from her an eloquent
condemnation of all the absurd proceedings going on in the two
villages. The lady's face assumed a decided expression of grave
disapprobation, certainly, and she spoke to this effect:
"Planchette! Oh dear, yes, we are perfectly familiar with
Planchette, and, indeed, have been in the habit of consulting it
quite often." "Oh, indeed," quoth I, and I felt my own face growing
longer with amazement as I spoke. "Yes," continued my celebrated
visitor, with much deliberation, "we have; but I think it will no
longer be possible for us to do so. No, we must certainly give up
having anything to do with it." "Dear me!" said I, almost
breathless, and with a queer quaver in my voice, that I could hardly
command, "may I ask why, pray?" "The language it uses----"
"It!--the language _it_ uses!" ejaculated I. "Yes," she pursued,
with increasing solemnity, "the language it uses is so reprehensible
that it will be quite impossible for us to consult or have anything
further to do with it." "Really," said I, hardly able to utter for
suppressed laughter; "and may I ask, may I inquire what language it
does use?" "Why," returned Mrs. S----, with some decorous hesitation
and reluctance to utter the words that followed, "the last time we
consulted it, it told us we were all a pack of damned fools." "Oh!"
exploded I, "I believe in Planchette, I believe in Planchette!" Mrs.
S---- drew herself up with an air of such offended surprise at my
burst of irrepressible merriment that I suddenly stopped, and
letting what was boiling below my laughter come to the surface, I
exclaimed, in language far more shocking to ears polite than
Planchette's own: "And do you really think that Satan, the great
devil of hell, in whom you believe, is amusing himself with telling
you such truths as those, through a bit of board on wheels?"
"Really," replied the woman of genius, in a tone of lofty dignity,
"I cannot pretend to say whether or not it is _the_ devil; of one
thing I am very certain, the influence by which it speaks is
undoubtedly devilish." I turned in boundless amazement to the
younger lady, whose mischievous countenance, with a broad grin upon
it, at once settled all my doubts as to the devilish influence under
which Planchette had spoken such home truths to her family circle,
and I let the subject drop, remaining much astonished, as I often
am, at the degree to which _les gens d'ésprit sont bêtes_.
I once attended some young friends to a lecture, as it called
itself, upon electro-biology. It was tedious, stupid, and
ridiculous; the only thing that struck me was the curious condition
of bewildered imbecility into which two or three young men, who
presented themselves to be operated upon, fell, under the influence
of the lecturer. I had reason to believe that there was no collusion
in the case, and therefore was surprised at the evident state of
stupor and mental confusion (even to the not being able to pronounce
their own name) which they exhibited when, after looking intently
and without moving at a coin placed in their hand for some time,
their faculties appeared entirely bewildered, and though they were
not asleep, they seemed hardly conscious, and opposed not the
slightest resistance to the orders they received to sit down, stand
up, to try to remember their names,--which they were assured they
could not, and did not,--and their general submission, of course in
very trifling matters, to the sort of bullying directions addressed
to them in a loud peremptory tone; to which they replied with the
sort of stupefied languor of persons half asleep or under the
influence of opium. I did not quite understand how they were thrown
into this curious condition by the mere assumption of an immovable
attitude and fixed gazing at a piece of coin; an experience of my
own, however, subsequently enlightened me as to the possible nervous
effect of such immobility and strained attention.
My friend Sir Frederick Leighton, despairing of finding a model to
assume a sufficiently dramatic expression of wickedness for a
picture he was painting of Jezebel, was deploring his difficulty one
day, when Henry Greville, who was standing by, said to him, "Why
don't you ask her"--pointing to me--"to do it for you?" Leighton
expressed some kindly reluctance to put my countenance to such a
use; but I had not the slightest objection to stand for Jezebel, if
by so doing I could help him out of his dilemma. So to his studio I
went, ascended his platform, and having been duly placed in the
attitude required, and instructed on what precise point of the wall
opposite to me to fix my eyes, I fell to thinking of the scene the
picture represented, of the meeting between Ahab and his wicked
queen with Elijah on the threshold of Naboth's vineyard,
endeavoring, after my old stage fashion, to assume as thoroughly as
possible the character which I was representing. Before I had
retained the constrained attitude and fixed immovable gaze for more
than a short time, my eyes grew dim, the wall I was glaring at
seemed to waver about before me, I turned sick, a cold perspiration
broke out on my forehead, my ears buzzed, my knees trembled, my
heart throbbed, and I suppose I was not far from a fainting fit. I
sat abruptly down on the platform, and called my friendly artist to
my assistance, describing to him my sensations, and asking if he
could explain what had occasioned them. He expressed remorseful
distress at having subjected me to such annoyance, saying, however,
that my condition was not an uncommon one for painters' models to be
thrown into by the nervous strain of the fixed look and attention,
and rigid immobility of position, required of them; that he had
known men succumb to it on a first experiment, but had thought me so
strong, and so little liable to any purely nervous affection, that
it had never occurred to him for a moment that there was any danger
of my being thus overcome.
I recovered almost immediately, the nervous strain being taken off,
and resumed my duty as a model, taking care to vary my expression
and attitude whenever I felt at all weary, and resting myself by
sitting down and lending another aspect of my face to my friend for
his Elijah.
I found, after this experience, no difficulty in understanding the
state of bewildered stupefaction into which the lecturer on
electro-biology had thrown his patients by demanding of them a fixed
attention of mind, look, and attitude to a given point of
contemplation. I think, just before I quite broke down, I could
neither have said where I was, nor who I was, nor contradicted Sir
Frederick Leighton if he had assured me that my name was Polly and
that I was putting the kettle on.]
CLARGES STREET, June, 1844.
DEAREST HARRIET,
I have not a morsel of letter-paper in my writing-book; do not,
therefore, let your first glance take offence at the poor narrow
note-paper, on which our dear friend Emily is forever writing to me, and
which throws me into a small fury every time I get an affectionate
communication from her on it. Our drawing-room has only this instant
emptied itself of a throng of morning visitors, among whom my brother
John and his wife, Mary Anne Thackeray, Dick Pigott, Sydney Smith, and
A---- C----....
My letter has suffered an interruption, dear Harriet; I had to go out
and return all manner of visits, took a walk with Adelaide in Kensington
Gardens, went and dined quietly with M---- M----, and came back at
half-past ten, to find Mr. C---- very quietly established here with my
father and sister....
This is to-morrow, my dear Harriet, and we are all engaged sitting to
Lane, who is making medallion likenesses of us all. John and his wife
together in one sphere, their two little children in another, ---- and I
in one eternity, and our chicks in another, their two little profiles
looking so funny and so pretty, one just behind the other; my father,
my sister, and Henry have each their world to themselves in single
blessedness. The likenesses are all good, and charmingly executed. I
should like to be able to send you mine and my children's, but as he
will accept no remuneration for them, and as time and trouble are the
daily bread of an artist----
Here I was interrupted again, and obliged to put by my letter, which was
begun last Thursday, and it is now Sunday afternoon. Our drawing-room
has just emptied itself of A---- M---- and his wife, Mr. and Mrs. Grote,
Mr. H----, young Mr. K---- of Frankfort, and Chorley. Mrs. Grote brought
with her Fanny Ellsler's little girl, a lovely child about seven years
old....
I must tell you something of our event of yesterday. A concert was given
for the benefit of the Poles, the Duchess of Sutherland condescending to
lend Stafford House, provided the assemblage was quite select and
limited to four hundred people; to accomplish which desirable point, and
at the same time make the thing answer its charitable purpose, the
tickets were sold at first at two guineas apiece, and on the morning
itself of the concert at five guineas. Rachel was to recite, Liszt to
play, and my sister was requested to sing, which she agreed to do, the
occasion being semi-public and private, so to speak. A large assembly of
our finest (and bluntest) people was not a bad audience, in a worldly
sense, for her _début_. She sang beautifully, and looked beautiful, and
was extremely admired and praised and petted.
The whole scene was one of the gayest and most splendid possible, the
entertainment and assembly taking place in the great hall and staircase
of Stafford House, with its scarlet floor-cloths, and marble stairs and
balustrades, and pillars of scagliola, and fretted roof of gold and
white, and skylight surrounded and supported by gigantic gilt
caryatides.
The wide noble flights of steps and long broad galleries, filled with
brilliantly dressed groups; with the sunlight raining down in streams on
the panels and pillars of the magnificent hall, on the beautiful faces
of the women, and the soft sheen and brilliant varied coloring of their
clothes, and on perfect masses of flowers, piled in great pyramids of
every form and hue in every niche and corner, or single plants covered
with an exquisite profusion of perfect bloom, standing here and there in
great precious china vases stolen from the Arabian Nights; it really
was one of the grandest and gayest shows you can imagine, more beautiful
than Paul Veronese's most splendid pictures, which it reminded one of.
My sister's singing overcame me dreadfully....
I must close this letter, my dear; my head is in such a state of
confusion that I scarcely know what I write; and if I keep it longer,
you will never get it.
Yours ever truly----
(I don't know what I am saying; I love you affectionately, but I am
almost beside myself with--everything.)
Yours ever,
FANNY.
CLARGES STREET, Sunday, June 20th, 1841.
You know, dearest Harriet, my aversion to writing short letters; I have
something of the same feeling about that hateful little note-paper on
which I have lately written to you. The sight of these fair large
squares laid on my table, and of at least six unanswered letters of
yours, prompts me to use this quiet half-hour--quiet by comparison only,
for ----, Adelaide, and little F---- are shouting all round me, and a
distracting brass band, that I dote upon, is playing tunes to which I am
literally writing in time; nevertheless, in this house, this may be
called a moment of profoundest quiet.
I do not believe that you will have quarrelled much with the note-paper,
because I certainly filled it as well as I could; but I always feel
insulted when anybody that I really care for writes to me on those
frivolous, insufficient-looking sheets. I suppose, if you have missed
Emily's Boswellian records of our sayings and doings here, you have
received from her instead epistles redolent of the sweetness of the
country, whole nosegays of words, that have made me gasp again for the
grass and trees, and the natural enjoyments of life. Her affectionate
remembrance reaches me every day by penny post, a little envelope full
of delicious orange-blossoms, with which my clothes and everything about
me are perfumed for the rest of the day.
You have not said much to me about the daguerreotype, nor did you ask me
anything about the process; but that, I suppose, is because Emily
furnished you with so many more details than I probably should, and with
much more scientific knowledge to make her description clear. I found
it better looking than I had expected, but altogether different, which
surprised me, because I thought I knew my own face. It was less thick in
the outlines than I had thought it would be, but also older looking than
I fancied myself, and it gave me a heavy jaw, which I was not conscious
of possessing. The process was wonderfully rapid; I think certainly not
above two minutes. I have seen several of Charles Young, which are
admirable, and do not appear to me exaggerated in any respect....
My father and Adelaide dined with the Macdonalds on Sunday; and Sir
John, who, you know, is adjutant-general, made her a kind of half
promise that he would give Henry leave to come over from Ireland and see
her.
I believe the first time that S---- heard her aunt sing was one night
after she was in bed (she sleeps in my room, where one does not lose a
note of the music below). When I went up, I found her wide awake, and
she started up in her bed, exclaiming, "Well, how many angels have you
got down there, I should like to know?"
I wrote thus much this morning, dear Harriet; this evening I have
another quiet season in which to resume my pen.... I have been obliged
to give up my dinner engagement for to-day, and I sat down by the
failing light of half-past seven o'clock to eat a cold dinner alone,
with a book in my hand: which combination of circumstances reminded me
so forcibly of my American home, that I could hardly make out whether I
was here or there.
So far yesterday, Thursday evening; it is now Friday morning. Adelaide
has gone out with Mary Anne Thackeray to buy cheap gowns at a bankrupt
shop in Regent Street; the piano is silent, and I can hear myself think,
and have some consciousness of what I am writing about....
Dearest Harriet, it is now Sunday morning; there is a most stupendous
row at the pianoforte, and, luckily, there is no more space in this
paper for my addled brains to testify to the effect of this musical
tempest. God bless you.
Ever yours,
FANNY.
CLARGES STREET, Wednesday, June 23rd, 1841.
MY DEAREST HARRIET,
You asked me some time ago some questions about Rachel, which I never
answered, in the first place because I had not seen her then, and since
I have seen her I have had other things I wanted to say. Everybody here
is now raving about her. I have only seen her once on the stage, and
heard her declaim at Stafford House, the morning of the concert for the
Poles. Her appearance is very striking: she is of a very good height;
too thin for beauty, but not for dignity or grace; her want of chest and
breadth indeed almost suggest a tendency to pulmonary disease, coupled
with her pallor and her youth (she is only just twenty). Her voice is
the most remarkable of her natural qualifications for her vocation,
being the deepest and most sonorous voice I ever heard from a woman's
lips: it wants brilliancy, variety, and tenderness; but it is like a
fine, deep-toned bell, and expresses admirably the passions in the
delineation of which she excels--scorn, hatred, revenge, vitriolic
irony, concentrated rage, seething jealousy, and a fierce love which
seems in its excess allied to all the evil which sometimes springs from
that bittersweet root. [I shall never forget the first time I ever heard
Mademoiselle Rachel speak. I was acting my old part of Julia, in "The
Hunchback," at Lady Ellesmere's, where the play was got up for an
audience of her friends, and for her especial gratification. The room
was darkened, with the exception of our stage, and I had no means of
discriminating anybody among my audience, which was, as became an
assembly of such distinguished persons, decorously quiet and
undemonstrative. But in one of the scenes, where the foolish heroine, in
the midst of her vulgar triumph at the Earl of Rochdale's proposal, is
suddenly overcome by the remorseful recollection of her love for
Clifford, and almost lets the earl's letter fall from her trembling
hands, I heard a voice out of the darkness, and it appeared to me almost
close to my feet, exclaiming, in a tone the vibrating depth of which I
shall never forget, "_Ah, bien, bien, très bien!_"] Mademoiselle
Rachel's face is very expressive and dramatically fine, though not
absolutely beautiful. It is a long oval, with a head of classical and
very graceful contour; the forehead rather narrow and not very high; the
eyes small, dark, deep-set, and terribly powerful; the brow straight,
noble, and fine in form, though not very flexible.
I was immensely struck and carried away with her performance of
"Hermione," though I am not sure that some of the parts did not seem to
me finer than the whole, as a whole conception. That in which she is
unrivalled by any actor or actress I ever saw is the expression of a
certain combined and concentrated hatred and scorn. Her reply to
Andromaque's appeal to her, in that play, was one of the most perfect
things I have ever seen on the stage: the cold, cruel, acrid enjoyment
of her rival's humiliation,--the quiet, bitter, unmerciful exercise of
the power of torture, was certainly, in its keen incisiveness, quite
incomparable. It is singular that so young a woman should so especially
excel in delineations and expressions of this order of emotion, while in
the utterance of tenderness, whether in love or sorrow, she appears
comparatively less successful; I am not, however, perhaps competent to
pronounce upon this point, for Hermione and Emilie, in Corneille's
"Cinna," are not characters abounding in tenderness. Lady M---- saw her
the other day in "Marie Stuart," and cried her eyes almost out, so she
must have some pathetic power. ---- was so enchanted with her, both on
and off the stage, that he took me to call upon her, on her arrival in
London, and I was very much pleased with the quiet grace and dignity,
the excellent _bon ton_ of her manners and deportment. The other morning
too, at Stafford House, I was extremely overcome at my sister's first
public exhibition in England, and was endeavoring, while I screened
myself behind a pillar, to hide my emotion and talk with some composure
to Rachel; she saw, however, how it was with me, and with great kindness
allowed me to go into a room that had been appropriated to her use
between her declamations, and was very amiable and courteous to me.
She is completely the rage in London now; all the fine ladies and
gentlemen crazy after her, the Queen throwing her roses on the stage out
of her own bouquet, and viscountesses and marchionesses driving her
about, _à l'envie l'une de l'autre_, to show her all the lions of the
town. She is miserably supported on the stage, poor thing, the _corps
dramatique_ engaged to act with her being not only bad, but some of them
(the principal hero, principally) irresistibly ludicrous.
By-the-by, I was assured, by a man who went to see the "Marie Stuart,"
that this worthy, who enacted the part of Leicester, carried his public
familiarity with Queen Elizabeth to such lengths as to nudge her with
his elbow on some particular occasion. Don't you think that was nice?
Mrs. Grote and I have had sundry small encounters, and I think I
perceive that, had I leisure to cultivate her acquaintance more
thoroughly, I should like her very much. The other evening, at her own
house, she nearly killed me with laughing, by assuring me that she had
always had a perfect passion for dancing, and that she had entirely
missed her vocation, which ought to have been that of an opera-dancer;
(now, Harriet, she looks like nothing but Trelawney in petticoats.) I
suppose this is the secret of her great delight in Ellsler.
I find, in an old letter of yours that I was reading over this morning,
this short question: "Does imagination make a fair balance, in
heightening our pains and our pleasures?" That would depend, I suppose,
upon whether we had as many pleasures as pains (real ones, I mean) to be
colored by it; but as the mere possession of an imaginative temperament
is in itself a more fertile source of unreal pains than pleasures, the
answer may be short too; an imaginative mind has almost always a
tendency to be a melancholy one. Shakespeare is the glorious exception
to this, but then he is an exception to everything. I must bid you
good-bye now....
God bless you, dear.
Ever your affectionate,
FANNY.
[After seeing Mademoiselle Rachel, as I subsequently did, in all her
great parts, and as often as I had an opportunity of doing so, the
impression she has left upon my mind is that of the greatest
dramatic genius, except Kean, who was not greater, and the most
incomparable dramatic artist I ever saw. The qualities I have
mentioned as predominating in her performances still appear to me to
have been their most striking ones; but her expressions of
tenderness, though rare, were perfect--one instance of which was the
profound pathos of the short exclamation, "_Oh, mon cher, Curiace!_"
that precedes her fainting fit of agony in "Camille," and the whole
of the last scene of "Marie Stuart," in which she excelled Madame
Ristori as much in pathetic tenderness as she surpassed her in
power, in the famous scene of defiance to Elizabeth. As for any
comparison between her and that beautiful woman and charming
actress, or her successor on the French stage of the present day,
Mademoiselle Sarah Bernhardt, I do not admit any such for a moment.]
Bannisters, July 28th, 1841.
DEAREST HARRIET,
You certainly have not thought that I was never going to write to you
again, but I dare say you have wondered when I should ever write to you
again. This seems a very fitting place whence to address you, who are so
affectionately associated with the recollection of the last happy days I
spent here.
How vain is the impatience of despondency! How wise, as well as how
pleasant, it is to hope! Not that all can who would; but I verily
believe that the hopeful are the wisest as well as the happiest of this
mortal congregation; for, in spite of the credulous distrust of the
desponding, the accomplishment of our wishes awaits us in the future
quite as often as their defeat, and the cheerful faithful spirit of
those who can hope has the promise of this life as well as of that which
is to come.
At the end of four years, here I am again with my dear friend Emily,
even in this lovely home of hers, from which a doom, ever at hand, has
threatened to expel her every day of these four years.... In spite of
separation, distance, time, and the event which stands night and day at
her door, threatening to drive her forth from this beloved home, here we
are again together, enjoying each other's fellowship in these familiar
beautiful scenes: walking, driving, riding, and living together, as we
have twice been permitted to do before, as we are now allowed to do
again, to the confusion of all the depressing doubts which have
prevented this fair prospect from ever rising before my eyes with the
light of hope upon it--so little chance did there seem of its ever being
realized.
Emily and I rode to Netley Abbey yesterday, and looked at the pillar on
which your name and ours were engraved with so many tears before my last
return to America. If I had had a knife, I would have rewritten the
record, at least deepened it; but, indeed, it seems of little use to do
so while the soft, damp breath of the air suffices to efface it from the
stone, and while every stone of the beautiful ruin is a memento to each
one of us of the other two, and the place will be to all time haunted by
our images, and by thoughts as vivid as bodily presences to the eyes of
whichever of us may be there without the others....
Our plans are assuming very definite shape, and you will probably be
glad to hear that there is every prospect of our spending another year
in England, inasmuch as we are at this moment in treaty for a house
which we think of taking with my father for that time. My sister has
concluded an extremely agreeable and advantageous engagement with Covent
Garden, for a certain number of nights, at a very handsome salary. This
is every way delightful to me; it keeps her in England, among her
friends, and in the exercise of her profession; it places her where she
will meet with respect and kindness, both from the public and the
members of the profession with whom she will associate. Covent Garden is
in some measure our vantage-ground, and I am glad that she should thence
make her first appeal to an English audience.
Our new house (if we get it) is in Harley Street, close to Cavendish
Square, and has a room for you, of course, dearest Harriet; and you will
come and see my sister's first appearance, and stay with me next winter,
as you did last. Our more immediate plans stand thus: we leave this
sweet and dear place, to our great regret, to-morrow; to-morrow night
and part of Thursday we spend at Addleston with my brother; then we
remain in town till Monday, when we go to the Hoo (Lord Dacre's); then
we return to town, and afterwards proceed to Mrs. Arkwright's at Sutton,
and then to the Francis Egertons', at Worsley; and after that we set off
for Germany, where we think of remaining till the end of September.
Adelaide's engagement at Covent Garden begins in November, when you must
come and assist in bringing her out properly. God bless you, dear. Give
my love to Dorothy, and believe me
Ever affectionately yours,
FANNY.
THE HOO, Wednesday, July 28th, 1841.
DEAREST HARRIET,
I wrote you a long letter yesterday, which was no sooner finished than I
tore it up.... We came down to this place yesterday. I obtained Lady
Dacre's leave to bring my sister, and of course I have my children with
me, so we are here in great force. Independently of my long regard for
and gratitude to Lord and Lady Dacre, which made me glad to visit them,
I like this old place, and find it pleasant, though it has no
pretensions to be a fine one. Some part of the offices is Saxon, of an
early date, old enough to be interesting. The house itself, however, is
comparatively modern: it is a square building, and formerly enclosed a
large courtyard, but in later days the open space has been filled up
with a fine oak staircase (roofed in with a skylight), the carving of
which is old and curious and picturesque. The park is not large, but has
some noble trees, which you would delight in; the flower-garden, stolen
from a charming old wood (some of the large trees of which are coaxed
into its boundaries), is a lovely little strip of velvet lawn, dotted
all over with flower-beds, like large nosegays dropped on the turf; and
the rough, whitey-brown, weather-beaten stone of the house is covered
nearly to the top windows with honeysuckle and jasmine. It is not at all
like what is called a fine place; it is not even as pretty and cheerful
as Bannisters: but it has an air of ancient stability and dignity,
without pretension or ostentation, that is very agreeable....
We left my father tolerably well in health, but a good deal shaken in
spirits.... I am expected downstairs, to read to them in the
drawing-room something from Shakespeare; and our afternoon is promised
to a cricket-match, for the edification of one of our party, who never
saw one. I must therefore conclude.... Good-bye, dearest Harriet. As for
me, to be once more in pure air, among flowers and under trees, is
all-sufficient happiness. I do cordially hate all towns.
Give my dear love to Mrs. Harry Siddons, if she is near you, and tell
her I shall surely not leave Europe without seeing her again, let her be
where she will. Remember me affectionately to Dorothy, and believe me.
Ever yours,
FANNY.
THE HOO, Thursday, July 29th, 1841.
DEAREST HARRIET,
I wrote to you yesterday, but an unanswered letter of yours lies on the
top of my budget of "letters to answer," and I take it up to reply to
it. The life I am leading does not afford much to say; yet that is not
quite true, for to loving hearts or thinking minds the common events of
every day, in the commonest of lives, have a meaning.... After breakfast
yesterday we took up Lady Dacre's translations from Petrarch--a very
admirable performance, in which she has contrived to bend our northern
utterance into a most harmonious and yet conscientious interpretation
of those perfect Italian compositions. My sister read the Italian,
which, with her pure pronunciation and clear ringing voice, sounded
enchanting; after which I echoed it with the English translation; all
which went on very prosperously, till I came to that touching invocation
written on Good Friday, when the poet, no longer offering incense to his
mortal idol, but penitential supplications to his God, implores pardon
for the waste of life and power his passion had betrayed him into, and
seeks for help to follow higher aims and holier purposes; a pathetic and
solemn composition, which vibrated so deeply upon kindred chords in my
heart that my voice became choked, and I could not read any more. After
this, Adelaide read us some Wordsworth, for which she has a special
admiration; after which, having recovered my voice, I took up "Romeo and
Juliet," for which we all have a special admiration; and so the morning
passed. After lunch, we went, B----, Lord Dacre, and I on horseback,
Lady Dacre, Adelaide, and G---- S---- in the open carriage, to a pretty
village seven miles off, where a cricket-match was being played, into
the mysteries of which some of us particularly wished to be initiated.
The village of Hitchin is full of Quakers, and I rather think the game
was being played by them, for such a silent meeting I never saw, out of
a Friends' place of worship. But the ride was beautiful, and the day
exquisite; and I learned for the first time that clematis is called, in
this part of England, "traveller's joy," which name returned upon my
lips, like a strain of music, at every moment, so full of poetry and
sweet and touching association does it seem to me. Do you know it by
that name in Ireland? I never heard it before in England, though I have
been familiar with another pretty nickname for it, which you probably
know--virgin's-bower. This is all very well for its flowering season; I
wish somebody would find a pretty name for it when it is all covered
with blown glass or soap-bubbles, and looks at a little distance like
smoke.
Returning home, after entering the park, Lord Dacre had left us to go
and look at a turnip-field, and B---- and I started for a gallop; when
my horse, a powerful old hunter, not very well curbed, and extremely
hard-mouthed, receiving some lively suggestion from the rhythmical
sound of his own hoofs on the turf, put his head down between his legs
and tore off with me at the top of his speed. I knew there was a tallish
hedge in the direction in which we were going, and, as it is full seven
years since I sat a leap, I also knew that there was a fair chance of my
being chucked off, if he took it, which I thought I knew he would; so I
lay back in my saddle and sawed at his mouth and pulled _de corps et
a'âne_, but in vain. I lost my breath, I lost my hat, and shouted at the
top of my voice to B---- to stop, which I thought if she did, my steed,
whose spirit had been roused by emulation, would probably do too. She
did not hear me, but fortunately stopped her horse before we reached the
hedge, when my quadruped halted of his own sweet will, with a bound on
all fours, or off all fours, that sent me half up to the sky; but I came
back into my saddle without leap, without tumble, and with only my
ignoble fright for my pains.
We dine at half-past seven, after which we generally have music and
purse-making and discussions, poetical and political, and wine and water
and biscuits, and go to bed betimes, like wise folk....
This morning a bloodhound was brought me from the dog-kennel, the
largest dog of his kind, and the handsomest of any kind, that I ever
saw; his face and ears were exquisite, his form and color magnificent,
his voice appalling, and the expression of his countenance the
tenderest, sweetest, and saddest you can conceive; I cannot imagine a
more beautiful brute. After admiring him we went to the stables, to see
a new horse Lord Dacre has just bought, and I left him being put through
his paces, to come and indite this letter to you....
We leave this place on Monday for London, at the thought of which I feel
half choked with smoke already. The Friday after, however, we go into
the country again, to the Arkwrights' and the Francis Egertons', and
then to Germany; so that our lungs and nostrils will be tolerably free
passages for vital air for some little time.
God bless you, dearest Harriet. I have filled my letter with such matter
as I had--too much with myself, perhaps, for any one but you; but unless
I write you an epic poem about King Charlemagne, I know not well what
else to write about here.
Ever affectionately yours,
FANNY.
THE HOO, Sunday, August 1st, 1841.
DEAREST HARRIET,
I wrote you the day before yesterday, and gave you a sort of journal of
that day's proceedings. I have nothing of any different interest to tell
you, inasmuch as our daily proceedings here are much of a muchness.
We return to town to-morrow afternoon, to my great regret; and I must,
immediately upon our doing so, remove the family to our new abode. I am
rather anxious to see how my father is; we left him in very low spirits,
... and I am anxious to see whether he has recovered them at all. I
think our visit to Sutton, where we go on Friday, will be of use to him;
for though he cordially dislikes the country and everything belonging to
its unexciting existence, he has always had a very great attachment for
Mrs. Arkwright, and perhaps, for so short a time as a week, he may be
able to resist the ennui of _l'innocence des champs_....
I am well, and have been enjoying myself extremely. I love the country
for itself; and the species of life which combines, as these people lead
it, the pleasures of the highest civilization with the wholesome
enjoyments which nature abounds in seems to me the perfection of
existence, and is always beneficial as well as delightful to me. I rode
yesterday a fine new horse Lord Dacre has just bought, and who is to be
christened Forester, in honor of my beloved American steed, whom he
somewhat resembles....
Considering our weather down here in Hertfordshire, I am afraid you must
have most dismal skies at Ambleside, where you are generally so misty
and damp; I am sure I recollect no English summer like this. As for poor
Adelaide, she is all but frozen to death, and creeps about, lamenting
for the sun, in a most piteous fashion imaginable.
I have had a letter from Cecilia Combe within the last two days,
anticipating meeting us on the Rhine, either at Godesberg, where she now
is, or at Bonn, where she expects to pass some time soon. She complains
of dulness, but accuses the weather, which she says is horrible.
By-the-by, of Cecy and Mr. Combe I have now got the report containing
the account of Laura Bridgman (the deaf, dumb, and blind girl of whom he
speaks), and when you come to me you shall see it; it is marvellous--a
perfect miracle of Christian love.
Catherine Sedgwick's book (some notes of her visit to Europe) has just
come out, and I am reading it again, having read the manuscript journal
when first she returned home; a record, of course, of far more interest
than the pruned and pared version of it which she gives to the public. I
am also reading an excellent article in the last _Edinburgh_, on the
society of Port Royal, which I find immensely interesting. I must now
run out for a walk. It is Sunday, and the horses are not used, and I
must acquire some exercise, through the agency of my own legs, before
dinner. I have walked two miles this morning, to be sure; but that was
to and from church, and should not count. God bless you, dearest
Harriet.
Ever yours,
FANNY.
LIÈGE, Thursday, August 26th, 1841.
MY DEAREST HARRIET,
We have just returned from a lionizing drive about Liège, a city of
which my liveliest impressions, before I saw it, were derived from
Scott's novel of "Quentin Durward," and in which the part now remaining
of what existed in his time is all that much interests me.
I do not know whether in your peregrinations you ever visited this
place; if you did, I hope you duly admired the palace of the prince
bishop (formerly), now the Palais de Justice, which is one of the most
picturesque remnants of ancient architecture I have seen in this land of
them.
Except this, and one fine old church, I have found nothing in the town
to please or interest me much. I have seen one or two old dog-holes of
houses, blackened and falling in with age, which seem as if they might
be some of the cinders of Charles the Bold's burnings hereabouts. We
left Brussels this morning, after spending a day and a half there. I was
much pleased with the gay and cheerful appearance of that small
imitation Paris, even to the degree of fancying that I should like to
live there, in spite of the supercilious sentence of vulgarity,
stupidity, and pretension which some of our friends, diplomatic
residents there, passed upon the inhabitants.... We went to call upon
the ----s, and, with something of a shock on my part, found one of the
ornaments of his sitting-room a large crucifix with the Saviour in his
death-agony--a horrible image, which I would banish, if I could, from
every artist's imagination; for the physical suffering is a revolting
spectacle which art should not portray, and the spiritual triumph is a
thing which the kindred soul of man may indeed conceive, but which art
cannot delineate, for it is God, and not to be translated into matter,
save indeed where it once was made manifest in that Face and Person
every imaginary representation of which is to me more or less
intolerable.
The face of Christ is never painted or sculptured without being
painfully offensive to me; yet I have seen looks--who has not?--that
were His, momentarily, on mortal faces; but they were looks that could
not have been copied, even there....
These steamship and railroad times will do away with that staple idea,
both in real and literary romances, of "never meeting again," "parting
forever," etc., etc.; and people will now meet over and over again, no
matter by what circumstances parted, or to what distance thrown from
each other; whence I draw the moral that our conduct in all the quarters
of the globe had better be as decent as possible, for there is no such
thing nowadays as losing sight of people or places--I mean, for any
convenient length of time, for purposes of forgetfulness. I forget
whether, when you left us in London, my father had come to the
determination of not accompanying but following us, which he intends
doing as soon as he feels well enough to travel.
Rubens's paintings have given us extreme delight.... I was much
interested by the lace-works at Brussels and Mechlin, and very painfully
so. It is beginning to be time, I think, in Christian countries, for
manufactures of mere luxury to be done away with, when proficiency in
the merest mechanical drudgery involved in them demands a lifetime, and
the sight and health of women, who begin this twilight work at five and
six years old, are often sacrificed long before their natural term to
this costly and unhealthy industry.
I hope to see all such manufactures done away with, for they are bad
things, and a whole moral and intelligent being, turned into ten
fingers' ends for such purposes, is a sad spectacle. I (a
lace-worshipper, if ever woman was) say this advisedly; I am sorry there
is still Mechlin and Brussels lace made, and glad there is no more
India muslin, and rejoice in the disuse of every minute manual labor
which tends to make a mere machine of God's likeness. But oh, for all
that, how incomparably inferior is the finest, faultless, machine-made
lace and muslin to the exquisite irregularity of the human fabric!...
Good-bye, my dearest Harriet. We start for Aix-la-Chapelle at eight
to-morrow. I am not in very good strength; the fact is, I am now never
in thoroughly good plight without exercise on horseback, and it is a
long time since I have had any, and, of course, it is now quite out of
the question. I beg, desire, entreat, and command that you will
immediately get and read Balzac's "Eugénie Grandet," and tell me
instantly what you think of it.
Your affectionate
FANNY.
WIESBADEN, Friday, September, 1841.
MY DEAREST HARRIET,
Walking along the little brook-side on the garden path under the trees
towards the Sonnenberg, you may well imagine how vividly your image and
that of Catherine Sedgwick were present to me. You took this walk
together, and it was from her lively description of it that I knew, the
moment I set my feet in the path, both where I was and where I was
going. That walk is very pretty. I did not follow it to the end, because
my children were with me, and it was too far for them; but yesterday I
went to the ruin on horseback, and came home along the rough cart-road,
on the hill on the other side of the valley, whence the views reminded
me somewhat of the country round Lenox, in Massachusetts, though not
perhaps of the prettiest part of the latter.
I have not yet in my travels seen anything much more picturesque than
the prettiest parts of the American Berkshire; and upon the whole
(castles, of course, excepted) was rather disappointed in the Rhine,
which is not, I think, as beautiful a river as the Hudson. Knowing the
powerful charm of affectionate association, and the halo which happiness
throws over any place where we attain to something approaching it, I
have sometimes suspected that my admiration of and delight in that Lenox
and Stockbridge scenery was derived in some measure from those sources,
and that the country round them is not in reality as beautiful as it
always appears in my eyes and to my memory. But, comparing it now with
scenery admired by the travelling taste of all Europe, I am satisfied
that the American scenery I am so fond of is intrinsically lovely, and
compares very favorably with everything I have seen hitherto on the
Continent.
As for your friend Anne (my children's American nurse), coming up the
Rhine she sat looking at the shores, her brown eyes growing rounder and
rounder, and her handsome face full of as much good-humored contempt as
it could express, every now and then exclaiming, "Well, to be sure, it's
a pretty river, and it's well enough; but my! they hadn't need to make
such a fuss about it." The fact is, that the noble breadth of the river
forms one of its most striking features to a European, and this, you
know, is no marvel to "us of the new world." Moreover, I suspect Anne
does not consider the baronial castles "of much 'count," either; and, to
confess the truth, I am rather disturbed at the little emotion produced
in me by the romantic ruins and picturesque accompaniments of the Rhine.
But it seems to me that I am losing much of my excitability; my
imagination has become disgracefully tame, and I find myself here, where
I have most desired to be, with a mind chiefly intent upon where, when,
how, and on what my children can dine, and feelings principally occupied
with the fact that I have no one with me to sympathize in any other
thought or emotion if I should attempt to indulge in such.
We arrived at Coblentz one melting summer afternoon, and I walked up to
the top of the fortress alone, and the setting of the sun over beyond
the lands and rivers at my feet, and the uprising of the moon above, the
bristling battlements behind me, filled me with delight; but I had no
one to express it to.
This evening at Ehrenbreitstein, and the cathedral at Cologne, are my
two events hitherto; the only two things that have stirred or affected
me much. That cathedral is a whole liturgy in stone--eloquent, devout
stone,--uttering so solemnly its great unfinished God-service of silent
prayer and praise through all these centuries. I have seen many
beautiful churches, but was never impressed by any as by this huge
fragment of one.
My father, as I have written you, stayed behind, saying that he would
follow us. He has not done so yet, and I do not expect that he will, for
reasons which I will not repeat, as I gave them to you in a long letter
which I wrote to you from Liège, which I heartily hope you have
received.
[On arriving at Coblentz on a brilliant afternoon, so much of lovely
daylight yet remained that I was most desirous to cross the river
and ascend the great fortress of the Broad Stone of Honor, to see
the sunset from its walls. I could not inspire anybody else with the
same zeal, however; and, under the combined influence of
disappointment and eager curiosity, started alone, at a brisk walk,
and, crossing the bridge, began the ascent, and, gradually
quickening my pace as I neared the summit, arrived, on a full run,
breathless before the sentinel who guarded the last gates and
amiably shook his head at my attempt to enter. The gates were open,
and I saw, across the wide parade-ground, or _place d'armes_, where
groups of soldiers were standing and loitering about, the parapet
wall of the fortress, whence I had hoped to see the day go down over
the Rhine, the Moselle, and all the glorious region round their
confluence. "Oh, _do_ let me in," cried I in very emphatic English
to the sentry, who gravely shook his head. "Where is your father?"
quoth he in German, as I made imploring and impatient gestures,
significant of my despair at the idea of having had that stupendous
climb all for nothing. "I have none," cried I, in English and French
all in a breath. Both were equally Greek to him. He gravely shook
his head. "Where is your husband?" quoth he in German, to which I
replied in German--oh, such German!--that "I had none, that I was a
woman" (which he probably saw), "only a woman, an Englishwoman"
(which he probably heard), "and that I could do no harm to his
fortress; that I had come all alone, and run half the way up, and
that I could not turn back, and he _must_ let me in!" He still shook
his head gravely. I had the tears in my eyes, and felt ready to cry
with vexation. Just then an officer approaching the gates from
within, I addressed my eager supplications in sputtering, stuttering
fragments of German, French, and English to him; and he, laughing
good-naturedly, gave the sentinel the order to admit me; when I made
straight across the great parade-ground, surrounded with the masses
of the huge fortification, to the low parapet wall, whence I beheld
the glorious landscape I had hoped to see, bathed in the sunset--a
vision of splendor, which surpassed even what I had expected, as I
looked down from the dizzy height, over the magnificent river and
its beautiful tributary, and all the near and distant landscape,
melting far away into golden vapory indistinctness. I did not dare
to stay long, having to return again alone; so, thanking my kind
conductor, who had evidently enjoyed my ecstasy at the beauty of his
_Vaterland_, I left the fortress, stopping again at the gate to ask
the name of my friendly sentinel whose resistance to my impetuous
storming of the fort had been as mild and gentle as was consistent
with his resolute refusal to admit me. Having not a scrap of paper
with me, I wrote his name with my pencil on my glove, determined,
when I returned through Coblentz, to bring him some token of my
gratitude for his patient forbearance; and so I ran all the way down
and back to the hotel.
On our return, some weeks after, we visited Ehrenbreitstein with all
the decorous solemnity of decent sight-seeing travellers; and, one
of a party of four, I drove in state, in an open carriage, up the
formidable approach that I had scaled so vehemently before. Duly
armed with admits and permits, and all proper justifications of our
approach, we drove under the huge archway, where stood another
sentinel, and were received with courteous ceremony by some military
gentlemen, under whose escort I leisurely went over the scene of my
first visit, standing again, in more dignified enthusiasm, at the
parapet where I had panted before in the breathless excitement of my
run up the hill, my fight with the sentry, and my victory over him.
Now, having been duly led and conducted and ushered and escorted all
round, as we were about to depart, I begged, as a favor of the
commanding officer, to be allowed to see again my friendly sentinel,
for whom I had brought up a meerschaum of a pretty pattern that I
had bought for him. "What was his name?" "Schneider." "Oh, there are
several so called among the men. Should you know him again?" "Oh
yes, indeed." And now ensued a general cry for Schneiders to present
themselves. One after another was marched up, but without any
resemblance to my friendly foe. Presently a word of command was
given, followed by a brisk rolling of drums, when all the men came
pouring out of the surrounding buildings, and formed in ranks on the
ground. "You have seen them all--all the Schneiders," said the
kindly commandant. "Ah, no! here is yet one;" and from the back
ranks was pushed and pulled and thrust and shoved, perfectly crimson
with shyness and suppressed laughter, one of the handsomest lads I
ever saw. "Is this your man?" said the commanding officer, with a
profound bow, and his face puckered up with laughing. "No," cried I
(for it wasn't), quite overcome with confusion and the general
laughter that followed the production of this last of the
Schneiders. One of the officers then said that some of the troops
had been sent elsewhere, not long after my first visit. "Ah, then,"
said the commandant, who had interested himself in my search with
considerable amusement, "your Schneider, madame, has left
Ehrenbreitstein." And so did we; I, not a little disappointed at not
having seen again the worthy man who had not bayoneted me away from
the gates, when I assailed them and him in such a frenzy.]
We overtook my sister at Mayence, or rather, I and the children remained
there, while some of our party went on to Frankfort, where she was. They
returned to Mayence in a body: ----, Adelaide, Henry, Miss Cottin, Mary
Anne Thackeray, our London friend Chorley, and the illustrious Liszt.
Travelling leisurely, as we were compelled to do on account of the
children, I missed, to my great regret, my sister's first two public
performances--a concert, and a representation of Norma, which she gave
at Frankfort, and of which everybody spoke with the greatest enthusiasm.
On the evening of the day when she joined us at Mayence, she sang at a
concert, and this was the first time that I really have heard her sing
in public; for I did not consider the concert at Stafford House a fair
test of her powers--the audience was too limited, in number and quality,
to deserve the name of a public. The sweetness and freshness of her
voice struck me more than ever, but it appears to me rather wanting in
power; and the same impression was produced upon me when I heard her
sing in the Kursaal here. If there should be deficiency of power in the
voice, it will, I fear, affect her success in so large a theatre as
Covent Garden.... She sings Norma again to-night at Mayence, and I am
going--of course without any anxiety, for her success is already
established here; and with great anticipations of pleasure--more even,
if possible, from her acting than her singing; for the latter I am
already familiar with, but of the former I have no experience, and have
always entertained the greatest expectations of it, and I think I shall
not be disappointed.
We have obtained very pleasant apartments here, and I have established
Anne and the children quite comfortably; they were beginning to suffer
from the perpetual moving about, and I shall let them remain undisturbed
here, during the rest of our stay in Germany, and shall either stay
quietly with them, or accompany my sister, if it is determined that we
are to do so, to the places of her various engagements.
Since writing the above, I have seen my sister act Norma, and her
performance fully equalled my expectation; which is great praise, for I
have always had the highest opinion of her dramatic powers, and was, as
I believe you know, earnest with her at one time to leave the opera
stage and become an actress in her own language, as I was very sure of
her entire success, and thought it a better and higher order of thing
than this mere uttering of sound, and perpetual representation of
passion and emotion, comparatively unmixed with intellect. To be sure,
that would be to sacrifice some of her fine natural endowments, and the
art and science of music, in which she has, at so much cost of time and
labor, so thoroughly perfected herself, and which is in itself so
exquisite a thing.... Her carriage is good, easy, and unembarrassed; her
gestures and use of her arms remarkably graceful and appropriate. There
is very little too much action, and that which appears to me redundant
may simply seem so because her conception of the character is, in some
of its parts, impulsive, where it strikes me as concentrated, and would
therefore be sterner and stiller in its effect than she occasionally
makes it. But she has evidently thought over the whole most carefully,
considered the effects she intends to produce, and the means of
producing them; and it is a far more finished performance, without any
of the special defects which I should have expected in so great a
lyrical tragic part, given by so young an artist. I suspect, however,
that the severely mechanical element in music renders certainty in the
performer's intentions necessary beforehand, to a much greater degree
than in a merely dramatic performance; and thus a singer can seldom do
the things which an actor sometimes does, upon the sudden inspiration
of the moment, occasionally producing thus extraordinary effects. Some
of the things my sister did were perfect--I speak now of her acting:
they were as fine as some of Pasta's great effects, and her whole
performance reminded me forcibly of that finest artist. I cannot help
thinking, however, that she is cramped by the music, and I confess I
should like to see her act Bianca without singing it, as I am satisfied
that she would represent most admirably all characters of power and
passion, and find in the great dramatic compositions of our stage, and
especially in Shakespeare's plays, scope for her capacity which Italian
operas cannot afford.
Her voice is not as powerful as I expected, nor as I think it would have
been if she had not striven to acquire artificial compass; that is, high
notes which were not originally in her natural register,--the great aim
of all singers being to sing the highest music, which is always that of
the principal female character. The consequence of this is sometimes
that the quality of the natural voice is in a measure sacrificed to the
acquisition of notes not originally within its compass....
I have room for no more, dearest Harriet. Good-bye, and God bless you.
Ever affectionately yours,
FANNY.
I wrote you an interminable letter from Liège. Did you ever get it?
[The time we spent on the Rhine during this summer afforded me an
opportunity of almost intimate acquaintance with the celebrated
musician who had persuaded my sister to associate herself with him
in the concerts he gave at the principal places on the Rhine where
we stopped.
Our whole expedition partook more of the character of a party of
pleasure than a business speculation; and though Liszt's and my
sister's musical performances were professional exhibitions of the
highest order, the relations of our whole party were those of the
friendliest and merriest tourists and _compagnons de voyage_.
Nothing could exceed the charm of our delightful travelling through
that lovely scenery, and sojourning in those pleasant picturesque
antique towns, where the fine concerts of our two artists enchanted
us even more, from personal sympathy, than the most enthusiastic
audiences who thronged to hear them.
Liszt was at this time a young man, in the very perfection of his
extraordinary talent, and at the height of his great celebrity. He
was extremely handsome; his features were finely chiselled, and the
expression of his face, especially when under the inspiration of
playing, strikingly grand and commanding.
Of all the pianists that I have ever heard, and I have heard all the
most celebrated of my time, he was undoubtedly the first for fire,
power, and brilliancy of execution. His style, which was strictly
original, and an innovation upon all that had preceded it, may be
called the "Sturm und Drang," or seven-leagued-boot style of playing
on the piano; and in listening to him, it was difficult to believe
that he had no more than the average number of fingers, or that they
were of the average length,--but that, indeed, they were not; he had
stretched his hands like a pair of kid gloves, and accomplished the
most incredible distances, while executing, in the interval between
them, inconceivable musical feats with his three middle fingers.
None of his musical contemporaries, Moscheles, Mendelssohn, Chopin,
nor his more immediate rival, Thalberg, ever produced anything like
the volcanic sort of musical effect which he did, perfect eruptions,
earthquakes, tornadoes of sound, such as I never heard any piano
utter but under his touch. But though he was undoubtedly a more
amazing performer than any I ever listened to, his peculiar
eccentricities were so inextricably interwoven with the whole mode
and manner of his performances that, in spite of the many imitators
they have inspired, he could by no means be regarded as the founder
of anything deserving the name of a school of piano-playing. M.
Rubinstein, I presume, in our own day, represents Liszt's peculiar
genius better than any one else.
The close, concise, crowded, and somewhat crabbed style of the great
learned musical school of the Bachs, which may almost be called the
algebra or geometry of musical composition, at any rate its higher
mathematics, had certainly challenged a spirit of the most daring
contrast in the young Hungarian prodigy, who electrified Paris, and
carried its severe body of classical critics by storm, with the
triumphant audacity of his brilliant and powerful style. Liszt
became, at the very opening of his career, so immediately a miracle,
and then an oracle, in the artistic and the great world of Paris
that he was allowed to impose his own terms upon its judgment; and
suffering himself the worst consequences of that order of success,
he achieved too early a fame for his permanent reputation. A want of
sobriety, a fantastical seeking after strange effects--in short, the
characteristics of artistic _charlatanerie_--mixed themselves up
with all that he did, and, as is inevitably the case, deteriorated
the fine original gifts of his genius. When I first heard him, he
had already reached the furthest limit of his powers, because they
were exerted in a mistaken direction; and the exaggeration and false
taste which were covered by his marvellous facility and strength
gradually became more and more predominant in his performances, and
turned them almost into caricatures of the first wonderful specimens
of ability with which he had amazed the musical world.
He could not go on being forever more astonishing than he had ever
been before, and he paid the penalty of having made that his
principal aim. His execution and composition alike became by degrees
incoherent acrobatism, in which all that could call itself art was a
mere combination of extraordinary and all but grotesque
difficulties, devised for the sole purpose of overcoming them;
musical convulsions and contortions, that forever recalled Dr.
Johnson's epigram.
In the summer of 1842 Liszt was but on the edge of this descent; his
genius, his youth, his personal beauty, and the vivid charm of his
manner and conversation had made him the idol of society, as well as
of the artistic world, and he was then radiant with the fire of his
great natural gifts, and dazzling with the success that had crowned
them; he was a brilliant creature....
After this I never saw Liszt again until the summer of 1870. I had
gone to the theatre at Munich, where I was staying, to hear Wagner's
opera of the "Rheingold," with my daughter and her husband. We had
already taken our places, when S---- exclaimed to me, "There is
Liszt." The increased age, the clerical dress, had effected but
little change in the striking general appearance, which my daughter
(who had never seen him since 1842, when she was quite a child)
recognized immediately. I went round to his box, and, recalling
myself to his memory, begged him to come to ours, and let me
present my daughter to him; he very good-naturedly did so, and the
next day called upon us at our hotel, and sat with us a long
time....
His conversation on matters of art (Wagner's music, which he and we
had listened to the evening before) and literature was curiously
cautious and guarded, and every expression of opinion given with
extreme reserve, instead of the uncompromising fearlessness of his
earlier years; and the abbé was indeed quite another from the Liszt
of our summer on the Rhine of 1842.
Liszt never composed any very good music; arrangement of the music
of others was his specialty; and his versions of Schubert's,
Weber's, and Mozart's finest melodies for the piano were the _ne
plus ultra_ of brilliant and powerful adaptation, but required his
own rendering to produce their full effect; and by far the most
extraordinary exhibition of skill I ever heard on the piano was his
performance of the airs from the Don Giovanni, arranged by himself.
His literary style had the same qualities and defects as his music:
brilliancy and picturesqueness, and an absence of genuineness and
simplicity. He wrote a great deal of musical criticism, and an
interesting life of Chopin.
His conversation was sparkling and dazzling, and full of startling
paradoxes; he had considerable power of sarcastic repartee, and once
or twice is reported to have encountered the imperious queen of
Austrian society, Madame de Metternich, with her own weapons, very
successfully.
She patronized Thalberg, and affected to depreciate Liszt; but
having invited them both to her house on one occasion, thought
proper to address the latter with some impertinent questions about a
professional visit he had just been paying to Paris, winding up
with, "Enfin, avez-vous fait de bonnes affaires là-bas?" To which he
replied, "Pardon, Madame la Princesse, j'ai fait un peu de musique;
je laisse les affaires aux banquiers et aux diplomates." Later in
the evening, the lady, probably not well pleased with this rebuff,
accosted him again, as he stood talking to Thalberg, with a sneering
compliment on his apparent freedom from all jealousy of his musical
rival; to which Liszt, who was very sallow, replied, "Mais, Madame
la Princesse, au contraire, je suis furieusement jaloux de
Thalberg; regardez donc les jolies couleurs qu'il a!" After which
Madame la Princesse _le laissa en paix_.
Between Thalberg and Liszt I do not think there could be any
comparison. The exquisite perfection of delicate accuracy, combined
with extraordinary lightness and velocity of execution, of Thalberg
was his one unapproachable excellence, and as near the unerring
precision of mere mechanism as possible: it was absolutely
faultless; but it paid the penalty for being what things human may
not be--it wanted the human element of passion and pathos. His
performance was a miracle of art, and left his admiring auditors
pleasingly amazed, but untouched in any of the deeper chords of
sympathetic emotion. He had not a spark of the original genius or
fire of Liszt. Moscheles, whom I have only named with the other two
because he was a highly popular performer at the same time, was a
more solid musician than either of them, and infinitely inferior as
an executant to both. He was the most excellent of teachers, for
which valuable office Thalberg would have wanted some and Liszt all
the necessary qualifications. Of Chopin it is useless to speak:
exceptional in his artistic nature and in his circumstances, he
played his own most poetical music as no one else could; though his
friend Dessauer, who was not a professional player at all, gave a
most curious and satisfactory imitation of his mode of rendering his
own compositions. But between Chopin and any other musical composer
or performer there was never anything in common; he was original and
unique in both characters.
As for Mendelssohn, the organ was his real instrument, though he
played very finely on the piano. He was not, however, a pre-eminent
performer, but a composer of music; and I should no more think of
comparing the quality of his genius with that of Liszt, than I
should compare the Roman girandola with its sky-scaring fusees and
myriads of sudden scintillations and dazzling coruscations, with the
element that lights our homes and warms our hearths, or to the
steadfast shining of the everlasting stars themselves.
Of all the pianoforte players by whom I have heard Beethoven's music
more or less successfully rendered, Charles Hallé has always
appeared to me the one who most perfectly communicated the mind and
soul of the pre-eminent composer.
Our temporary fellowship with Liszt procured for us a delightful
participation in a tribute of admiration from the citizen workmen of
Coblentz, that was what the French call _saissant_. We were sitting
all in our hotel drawing-room together, the _maestro_ as usual
smoking his long pipe, when a sudden burst of music made us throw
open the window and go out on the balcony, when Liszt was greeted by
a magnificent chorus of nearly two hundred men's voices; they sang
to perfection, each with his small sheet of music and his sheltered
light in his hand, and the performance, which was the only one of
the sort I ever heard, gave a wonderful impression of the musical
capacity of the only really musical nation in the world.]
WIESBADEN, Sunday, September.
MY DEAREST HARRIET,
I have already written to you from this place: one letter I wrote almost
immediately after taking a walk which you had taken with Catherine
Sedgwick, the year that you were here together, towards the Sonnenberg.
You wrote me letters from here too, which I received up at Lenox, and
read at a window looking out over a landscape very much resembling the
neighborhood of this place. I remember your epistolary accounts of
Wiesbaden were not very favorable: you did not like its watering-place
aspect and fashions; and neither should I, if I was in any way mixed up
with them. But we have hitherto none of us taken the waters; we have
pretty and comfortable rooms, with the slight drawback of hearing our
neighbors washing their hands and brushing their teeth, and drawing the
natural conclusion as to the reciprocity of communications we make to
them. We are at the Quatre Saisons, and with nothing but the Kursaal and
its arcades between us and the gardens; so I am not oppressed with the
feeling of a town, streets, houses, shops, etc., all which lie at my
back and are never by any accident approached by me....
I have gone into the baths merely by way of what the French call
_propreté_, being too lazy to go and fetch a wash under the arcade, in
_de l'eau naturelle_. The water which supplies the baths in the Quatre
Saisons is not by any means as strong as the _Kochbrunnen_, yet I
fancied that it affected me unpleasantly, causing me a sensation of
fullness in the head, and nausea, which was very disagreeable, as well
as making me stupidly sleepy through the day....
Last Thursday I went to Frankfort to hear Adelaide sing; she was to
perform, _en costume_, an act from three different operas, a sort of
hotchpotch which, as she cares for her profession, I am surprised at her
condescending to. We were not in time for the first, which was the last
scene of the "Lucia di Lammermoor," but heard her in the last scene of
"Beatrice di Tenda," and in the first scene of the "Norma." ... What she
does is very perfect, but I think she occasionally falls short of the
amount of power that I expected.... And all the time, I cannot help
wishing that she would leave the singing part of the business, and take
to acting not set to music. I think the singing cramps her acting, and I
cannot help having some misgiving as to the effect she will produce in
so large a theatre as Covent Garden; although, as she has sung
successfully in the two largest theatres in Europe, the Scala at Milan
and the San Carlo at Naples, I suppose my nervousness about Covent
Garden is unnecessary.... Her movements and gesture are all remarkably
graceful and easy; she is perfectly self-possessed, and impresses me
even more as an artist than a genius, which I did not expect.
I believe she will not sing to-morrow night, and, in that case, they
will all come over and spend the day here, when Henry, Mary Anne
Thackeray, and I purpose ascending Wiesbaden horses and riding to the
duke's hunting-seat, which perhaps you drove to when you were here....
I confess to you, I cannot help sometimes feeling a little anxious about
my sister's success in England, especially when I remember how
formidable a predecessor she is to succeed--that wonderful Malibran, who
added to such original genius and great dramatic power a voice of such
uncommon force and brilliancy.
Good-bye. This is the third long letter I have written to you since we
came abroad.
Ever yours,
FANNY.
AIX-LA-CHAPELLE, Monday, October 11th.
MY DEAREST HARRIET,
I begin to sniff the well-beloved fogs and coal-smoke of that best
beloved little island to which I have the honor and glory of belonging,
and my spirits are much revived thereby; for, to tell you the truth,
England, bad as it is, is good enough for me, and I am grown old and
stupid and sleepy and don't-carish, and think more about bugs and greasy
food in the way of woe than of vine-clad hills and ruined castles in the
way of bliss. Not that I have been by any means dissatisfied with my
_tower_, though rather disappointed in the one fact of the Rhine: but I
am incurious and always was, and I do not think that fault mends with
age; and knights, squires, and dames too, alas! are no longer to me the
interesting folk that they once were.
"But it is past, the glory is congealing,
The fervor of the heart grows dead and dim;
I gaze all night upon a whitewashed ceiling,
And catch no glimpses of the Seraphim."
I think the ruins of the German hills especially excellent in that they
are ruins, and can by no possibility ever again be made strongholds of
debauchery, ferocity, and filth; and finally and to conclude, my dear
Harriet, lights and shadows, the colors of the earth and sky, the beauty
of God's creation, in short, alone now moves me very deeply, and this, I
am thankful to say, is as powerful to do so as ever.
I must tell you something pretty and poetical, and which I think has
made more impression upon me than anything else in the course of my
travels. The other evening at Cologne, by the sloping light of a watery
autumnal sunset, the wind blowing loud and strong, the river rolling
fast and free, and the great, violet-colored clouds drooping heavily
down the sky, we suddenly heard the guns along each bank fire
repeatedly, saluting the approach of some greatness or other down the
stream. Whether it was king or kaiser, or only one of the
merchant-princes to whom the navigation of this stream now belongs, and
who receive these honors whenever they go up or down the river, nobody
could tell; and still peal after peal was fired, and one echo rolled
into another from shore to shore. At length a long low boat came in
sight, sweeping down with the wide current towards the city walls. She
was covered from stem to stern with bright flags and pennons, and was
freighted with stone, which the Duke of Hesse-Darmstadt was sending down
from his quarries, to help the people of Cologne to finish their
beautiful cathedral; and as this cargo came along their shores they were
saluting it with royal honors. The crane which was to lift the blocks
from the boat had its great iron arm all wreathed with flowers, and
flags and streamers floating from its top, which peaceful half-religious
jubilee pleased me greatly, and affected me too.
At Cologne, six weeks before, we had seen the King of Hanover, Ernest
Augustus, the wicked Duke of Cumberland, received just in the same way,
except that the cannonading was closed on that occasion, in an
exceedingly appropriate manner to my mind, by a sudden fierce peal of
derisive thunder.
We went, while at Cologne, to the Museum, and there saw another
beautiful thing of another sort, Bendermann's picture of the Jews
weeping by the waters of Babylon--a very striking picture, sad and
harmonious in its coloring, and full of feeling and expression; I was
greatly impressed by it. And thus, you see, from only one of the places
I have visited, I have brought away two living recollections, perpetual
sources of pleasant mental contemplation. Two such treasures in one's
storehouse of memory would have been worth the whole journey; but I have
had many more such, and I incline to think that it is very often in
retrospect that travel is most agreeable--the little annoyances and
hindrances, which often qualify one's pleasure a good deal at the time
one receives it, seldom mix themselves with the recollection of it in
the same vivid manner; and so, as the American widow said she thought it
was a charming thing "to have been married _and be done with it_," I
think it is a charming thing to have been up the Rhine and be back
again.
I forget whether I wrote you word of my father's joining us for a single
day at Frankfort, and then returning immediately to England.... He was
not at all well, and the hurried journey was, I fear, a most imprudent
one. My sister is at present at Liège with Henry, Liszt, and our friend
Chorley....
Good-bye, my dearest H----.
I am ever yours,
FANNY.
[My friend Miss S---- came to us in London, and witnessed with me
my sister's coming out at Covent Garden, which took place on
Tuesday, the 2nd of November, 1842, in Bellini's opera of "Norma,"
which she sang in English, retaining the whole of the recitative. My
sister's success was triumphant, and the fortunes of the unfortunate
theatre, which again were at the lowest ebb, revived under the
influence of her great and immediate popularity, and the overflowing
houses that, night after night, crowded to hear her. Her
performances, which I seldom missed, were among my most delightful
pleasures, during a season in which I enjoyed the companionship of
my dear friend, and a great deal of pleasant social intercourse with
the most interesting and agreeable people of the great gay London
world.]
BOWOOD, Sunday, December 19th.
_To Theodore Sedgwick, Esq._
MY DEAR THEODORE,
I cannot conceive how it happens that a letter of yours, dated the 8th
September, should have reached me only a fortnight ago in London. Either
it must have been forgotten after written, and not sent for some time,
or Messrs. Harnden and Co.'s _Express_ is the slowest known conveyance
in the world. However that may be, the letter and the Philadelphia Bank
statement did arrive safe at last, and my father desires me to thank you
particularly for your kindness in sending it to him. Not, indeed, that
it is peculiarly consolatory in itself, inasmuch as it confirms our
worst apprehensions about the fate of all moneys lodged in that
disastrous institution. But perhaps it is better to have a term put to
one's uncertainty, even by the positive conviction of misfortune not to
be averted. My father's property in that bank--"The United States
Bank"--was considerable for him, and had been hardly earned money. I
understand from him that my share of our American earnings are in the
New Orleans banks, which, though they pay no dividends, and have not
done so for some time past, are still, I believe, supposed to be safe
and solvent....
We are staying just now with Lord and Lady Lansdowne, in this pleasant
home of theirs--a home of terrestrial delights. Inside the house, all is
tasteful and intellectual magnificence--such pictures! such statues!
And outside, a charming English landscape, educated with consummate
taste into the very perfection of apparently natural beauty.... They are
amiable, good, pleasant, and every way distinguished people, and I like
them very much. He, as you know, is one of our leading Whig statesmen, a
munificent patron of the arts and literature, a man of the finest taste
and cultivation, at whose house eminences of all sorts are cordially
received. Lady Lansdowne is a specimen Englishwoman of her class,
refined, intelligent, well-bred, and most charming. I believe Lord
Lansdowne was kindly civil to your aunt Catherine when she was in
London; I wish she could have see this enchanting place of his.
Rogers, Moore, and a parcel of choice _beaux esprits_ are staying here;
but, to tell you a fact which probably accuses me of stupidity, they are
so incessantly clever, witty, and brilliant that they every now and then
give me a brain-ache.
I do not know the exact depth of your patience, but I have an idea that
it has a bottom, therefore I think it expedient not to pursue _crossing_
any further with you.
Give my kindest love to Sarah, and
Believe me ever, my dear Theodore,
Yours very truly,
FANNY BUTLER.
Please remember me very kindly to your mother. I sat by a man at dinner
yesterday, a Dr. Fowler of Salisbury, who was talking to me of having
known her friends Mrs. Jay and Mrs. Banian, when they were in England;
and their names were pleasant to me on account of their association with
her.
BOWOOD, Tuesday, December 21st, 1841.
Did you expect an immediate answer from me, dear Harriet, or did you
think your letters would be put at the bottom of the budget, to wait
their appointed time? You say your thought in parting from me was
chiefly to preserve your tranquillity; and so was mine to preserve my
own and yours.... There are many occasions on which I both feel much
more than I show, and perceive in others much more feeling than I
believe they think I am aware of. There are times when, for one's own
sake, as well as for that of others, to be--or, if that is not
possible, to seem--absorbed in outward things of the most indifferent
description is highly desirable; and I am even conscious sometimes of a
sort of hardness, which seems to come involuntarily to my aid, in
seasons when I know myself or fear that others are about to be carried
away by their feelings, or to break down under them....
I was glad enough to get your second letter, and to know you were safe
in Dublin. It was calm the night you crossed, but it has blown once or
twice fearfully since.
Our visit to the Francis Egertons, at Worsley, was prosperous and
pleasant in the highest degree; and we are now paying our promised one
at Bowood. I must tell you a trait of Anne [my children's American
nurse], who, it is my belief, is nothing less than the Princess
Pocahontas, who, having returned to earth, has condescended to take
charge of my children.
You know that this place is celebrated; the house is not only fine in
point of size, architecture, and costly furnishing, but is filled with
precious works of art, painting and sculpture, modern and ancient,
beautiful, rare, and costly. The first day that we arrived, ushered up
the great staircase to our rooms, I followed the servant with wide-open
eyes, gazing in delighted admiration at everything I saw. "Well," said I
to Anne, "is not this a fine house, Anne?" "The staircase is well
enough," was her imperturbable reply. Wouldn't one think she had had the
Vatican for her second-best house, and St. Peter's for her private
chapel, all the days of her life? She certainly must have, some Indian
blood in her veins.
This morning I took a brisk walk along the sunny terrace, where, from
under the shining shelter of holly, laurel, cedar, and all other
evergreen shrubs and trees, one looks over a garden--that even now, with
its graceful vases, its terraces, its ivy winter dressing, is gay and
beautiful--to a lawn that slopes gently to a sheet of water, losing
itself like a lake among irregular wooded banks, whose brown feathery
outline borrows from the winter's sun a golden tinge of soft sad
splendor. Upon this water swans and wild-fowl sail and sport about; and
the whole scene this morning, tipped with sparkling frost, and shining
under a brilliant sky, seemed very charming to me, and to S---- too,
who, running by my side, exclaimed, "Well, this is my idea of heaven! I
do think this might be called Paradise, or that garden--I forget its
name--that Adam and Eve were put into!" (Eden had escaped her memory,
as, let us hope, in time it did theirs.) I was pleased to find that my
Biblical teachings had suggested positive images, and that she had
caught none of her nurse's stolid insensibility to beauty....
We have a choice society here just now, and fortunately among them
persons that we know and feel at our ease with: Rogers, Moore, Macaulay,
Babbage, Westmacott, Charles Greville, and two or three charming,
agreeable, unaffected women....
You ask if Lady Holland is at Bowood. No, she had returned home _by
land_, as they say [at the beginning of railroad travelling, persons who
still preferred the former method of posting on the high-road were said
to go by land], not choosing to risk her precious body on the railway
without Brunel's personal escort to keep it in order and prevent it from
doing her any accident. He having had the happiness of travelling down
to Bowood with her, which she insisted upon, naturally enough declined
coming all the way down again from London to see her safe home; so not
being able to accomplish his fetching her back to town, she contrived to
extort from him a letter stating that, owing to the late heavy rains,
her journey back to London upon the railroad would probably be both
tedious and uncomfortable, and advising her by all means to go home "by
land," which, considering that the Great Western is his own road--his
iron child, so to speak,--by which he is bound to swear under all
circumstances, is, I think, a pretty good specimen of her omnipotence.
She did post home accordingly, but not without dismal misgivings as to
what might befall her while crossing a wood of Lord Salisbury's, where
she was to be, for a short space of time, seven miles off from any
village or town. I never knew such a terrified, terrible, foolish old
woman in my life.
After all, she is right: life is worth more to very good and to very
good-for-nothing people than to others. My father dined with her in town
while we were away, and in her note of invitation she included us, if we
had returned, saying all manner of civil fine things about me; but, as
far as I am concerned, it won't do, and she cannot put salt upon my
tail....
We returned to town on Friday. Charles Greville saw my father on
Saturday, and says he is, and is looking, very well. Adelaide was gone
down to Addlestone, to see John and his wife. My children--bless
them!--are making such a riot here at my table that I scarcely know what
I am writing.
Good-bye, dearest Harriet. I will write to you again to-morrow.
Ever yours,
FANNY.
_Bowood_, Wednesday, December 22nd, 1841.
_Dearest Harriet_,
I was a "happy woman" at Worsley [a "happy woman" was the term used by
me from my childhood to describe a woman on horseback], and, as
sometimes happens, had even too much of my happiness. My friend Lady
Francis is made of whalebone and india-rubber in equal proportions, very
neatly and elegantly fastened together with the finest steel springs,
and is incapable of fatigue from exertion, or injury from exposure.
Having an exalted idea of my capabilities in the way of horse exercise
(which, indeed, when I am in my usual condition, are pretty good), she
started off with me to H----, a distance of about eight miles, and we
did the whole way there and back (besides an episodical gallop, three
times full tear round a field, to tame our horses, which were wild)
either at a hard gallop or a harder trot. I, who have grown fat and
soft, and have hardly ridden since I left America, came home bruised and
beaten, and aching in every limb to that degree that I was glad to lie
down--conceive the humiliation!--and was much put to it to get up again
to dress for dinner; having, moreover, the consolation of being assured
by Lady Francis that she had ridden thus hard out of pure consideration
for me; supposing that the faster I went, the better I should be
pleased. I was, besides, mounted upon a fiery little fiend of a pony,
who pulled my arms out of their sockets and would not walk. However, by
repeating the dose every day, I suffered less and less, and am now once
more in excellent riding condition.
I remember a ludicrous circumstance of the same kind happening to me in
America, on the occasion of the first ride I ever took with my
brother-in-law, who was then comparatively a stranger to me. He was a
cavalry officer, a capital horseman, and hard rider; which qualities he
exhibited the first time I ever went out with him, by riding at such a
pace and for such a length of time that, perceiving he did not kill
himself, I asked if he was in the habit of killing his horse every time
he rode out; when he burst out laughing, and assured me that he thought
he was only conforming to my habitual pace.
Yesterday I varied my exercise, for I went out on horseback with Lord
Lansdowne, and finding the roads dangerously slippery for our horses,
which were not sharped, when we were at some distance from Bowood we
dismounted, and gave them to the groom, and came home on foot, a
distance of three miles, which, carrying one's habit [riding-skirts in
those days were very long], I think was as good as four.
You cannot conceive anything more melancholy than the aspect of
H----.... It was a miserable day, dark, dismal, and foggy; the
Manchester smoke came down, together with a penetrating cold drizzle,
like the defilement and weeping of irretrievable shame, and sin, and
sorrow; and the whole aspect of the place struck me with dismay. The
house was shut up, and looked absolutely deserted, not a soul stirring
about it; the garden dismantled and out of order. Altogether, the
contrast of the whole scene to that which I remembered so bright,
cheerful, gay, and lovely, combined with the cause of its present
condition, struck me as beyond measure mournful....
You ask after the welfare of my children's nurse, Anne; and I will tell
you something comically characteristic both of the individual and her
nation. Here at Bowood she eats alone with the children, as she has been
in the habit of doing at home; but at Worsley the little ones dined with
us at our luncheon-table, and she ate in the housekeeper's room. Not
knowing myself exactly what would be the place assigned to an American
nursery-maid in the society of the servants' hall at Worsley, I inquired
of her whether she was comfortable and well-treated. She said, "Oh, yes,
perfectly well;" but there seemed to me by her manner to be something or
other amiss, and upon my inquiring further, she said, "Well, then, Mrs.
Butler, I'll tell you what it is: I do wish they'd let me dine at the
lower table. Everything is very good and very fine, to be sure, and the
people are very kind and civil to me, but I cannot bear to have men in
livery and maid-servants standing up behind my chair waiting on me, and
that's the truth of it." She said this with an air of such sincere
discomfort that it was quite evident to me that if, in common with her
countrymen, she thought herself "as good as anybody," she certainly was
not seduced by the glories of the upper table into forgetting that any
one was as good as she.
I was spared the discomfort of having the children in another house; for
either Lady Francis has fewer guests than she expected, or she had
contrived to manage better than she had supposed she could, for they
were lodged under the same roof with me, and quite near enough for
comfort or convenience....
Thank you for your kindness in copying that account of Cavanagh for me;
thank you, too, for Archbishop Whately's book, which I read immediately.
There is nothing in it that I have not read before, nor certainly
anything whatever to alter my opinion that the accumulation of enormous
wealth in the hands of individuals who transmit it to their eldest sons,
who inherit it without either mental or physical exertion of theirs, is
an inevitable source of moral evil. There was nothing in that book to
shake my opinion that hereditary idleness and luxury are not good for
the country where they exist. An opinion was expressed in general
conversation by almost everybody at Worsley which suggested a conclusion
to my mind that did not appear to occur to any one else. In speaking of
the education of young English boys at our great public schools, the
whole system pursued in those institutions was condemned as bad; but on
all sides, nevertheless, admitted to be better (at any rate, for the
sons of noblemen) than the incessant, base, excessive complaisance and
flattery of their servants and dependents, from which they all said that
it was impossible to screen them in their own homes, and equally
impossible that they should not suffer serious moral evil. Lord Francis
said that for a lad like his nephew, the Marquis of Stafford, there was
but one thing worse than being educated at Eton, and that was being
educated at home; therefore, concluded they all in chorus, we send our
boys to our public schools. So the children are sent away lest they
should be corrupted by the obsequious servants and luxurious habits and
general mode of life of their parents. And this, of course, is one of
the inevitable results of distinctions of classes and hereditary wealth
and influence; it is not one of the good ones, but there are better.
God bless you, dearest Harriet. I wrote to you yesterday, and shall
probably do so again to-morrow.
Ever yours,
FANNY.
HARLEY STREET, LONDON, Sunday, December 26th, 1841.
DEAR HARRIET,
I must tell you a droll little incident that occurred the day of our
leaving Bowood. As I was crossing the great hall, holding little F----
by the hand, Lord Lansdowne and Moore, who were talking at the other
end, came towards me, and, while the former expressed kind regrets at
our departure, Moore took up the child and kissed her, and set her down
again; when she clutched hold of my gown, and trotted silently out of
the hall by my side. As the great red door closed behind us, on our way
to my rooms, she said, in a tone that I thought indicated some stifled
sense of offended dignity, "Pray, mamma, who was dat little dentleman?"
Now, Harriet, though Moore's fame is great, his stature is little, and
my belief is that my three-year-old daughter was suffering under an
impression that she had been taken a liberty with by some enterprising
schoolboy. Oh, Harriet! think if one of his own Irish rosebuds of
sixteen had received that poet's kiss, how long it would have been
before she would have washed that side of her face! I believe if he had
bestowed it upon me, I would have kept mine from water for its sake,
till--bed-time. Indeed, when first "Lalla Rookh" came out, I think I
might have made a little circle on that cheek, and dedicated it to Tom
Moore and dirt forever; that is--till I forgot all about it, and my
habit of plunging my face into water whenever I dress got the better of
my finer feelings. But, you see, he didn't kiss my stupid little child's
intelligent mother, and this is the way that fool Fortune misbestows her
favors. She is spiteful, too, that whirligig woman with the wheel. I am
not an autograph collector, of course; if I was, I shouldn't have got
the prize I received yesterday, when Rogers, after mending a pen for me,
and tenderly caressing the nib of it with a knife as sharp as his own
tongue, wrote, in his beautiful, delicate, fine hand, by way of trying
it--
"The path of sorrow, and that path alone,
Leads to the land where sorrow is unknown."
Is that a quotation from himself or some one else? or was it an
impromptu?--a seer's vision, and friend's warning? Chi sa?
I cannot help being a little surprised at the earnestness with which you
implore me to read Archbishop Whately's treatise. My objection to
reading of books never extends to any book either given or lent, or
strongly recommended to me. I am so fond of reading that I care very
little what I read, so well satisfied am I with the movement and
activity which even the stupidest, shallowest book rouses in my mind.
With regard to the little work in question, you probably thought the
subject might not interest me, and therefore I should neglect it. The
subject, _i.e._, political economy, interests me so little that, though
I have read at various times and in sundry places publications of the
same nature with much attention, they, in common with other books on
other subjects for which I do not care, have left not the slightest
trace upon my memory; at least, until I come to read the matter all over
again, when my knowledge of it reappears, as it were, on the surface of
my mind, though it had seemed to me to run through my brain like water
through a sieve.
I have no doubt that from my mode of talking of different peoples, under
various systems of government, you would not suspect me of having ever
looked into the simplest treatise on political economy and similar
subjects; but I have read most of the popular expositions of those grave
matters that the press now daily puts forth; but as they, for the most
part, deal with things as they _are_, and my cogitations are chiefly as
to things as they _should be_, I do not find my studies avail me much. I
believe I wrote you word after reading the book you sent me, and
thinking it a very excellent abridged exposition of such subjects; I
still could not understand what it had to do with the theory of laws for
the division of property, or the expediency of the law of primogeniture,
and the advantages of the distinctions of rank, to the societies where
they exist. The question seems to me rather whether these remains of
feudalism have or have not outlived their uses.
By-the-by, in taking off the cover in which you had wrapped the book, I
did not perceive that you had written upon it until I had thrown it into
the fire. I assure you that at the moment I was a great deal sorrier
than if the worthy little volume itself had been grilling on the top of
the coals.
We returned here on Friday, and found my father and Adelaide going on
much as usual. Half a score of invitations, of one sort and another,
waiting for us, and London, with its grim visage, looking less lovely
than ever after the sweet, tender, wintry beauty of Bowood; where one
walked, for a whole morning at a time, among hollies and laurels and
glittering evergreens, which, by the help of the sunshine we enjoyed
while we were there, gave the lie triumphant to the dead season.
I have been nurse almost all the day. Anne, who, poor girl! has had a
long fast from her devotional privileges, went to church, and I walked
with the children to the broad gravel walk in the Regent's Park, where I
took that "exercise of agony" with you one afternoon; the day was much
the same too, bright and sunny above, and exceedingly muddy and hateful
under foot. The servants having their Christmas dinner to-day, I offered
to take entire charge of the children, if Anne liked to join the party
downstairs. She affably condescended, and they prolonged the social
meal, or their after-dinner converse, for considerably more than two
hours. Since that, I have been reading to S----, and it is now time for
me to dress for dinner.
Adelaide and I dined _tête-à-tête_ to-day; my father dined with Miss
Cottin. I have refused, because it is Sunday; Adelaide, because she is
lazy; but she means to make the effort to go in the evening, and I shall
go to bed early, and very glad I shall be to shut up shop, for this has
been a very heavy day. How well nurses ought to be paid!
God bless you, dear Harriet.
Ever yours,
FANNY.
HARLEY STREET, Tuesday, December 28th, 1841.
MY DEAREST HARRIET,
I wrote you two long letters from Bowood, and one crossed note since I
came back to town; yet in a letter I get from you this morning you ask
me when your letters are "coming to the top" [of my packet of "my
letters to be answered," to which I always replied in the succession in
which they reached me]; at which, I confess, I feel not a little
dismayed. However, it is to be hoped that you will get them sooner or
later, and that, in this world or the next, you will discover that I
wrote to you two such letters, at such a time....
How can you ask me if I _play fair_ with my letters? Are you not sure
that I do? and, whatever may be the case with my better qualities, are
not my follies substantial, reliable, consistent, constant follies, that
are pretty sure to be found where you left them?
Good-bye, my dearest Harriet. I am terribly out of spirits, but it is
near bed-time, and the day will soon be done....
God bless you, dear. Give my kindest love to Dorothy. I am thinking of
your return with earnest longing.... As we passed the evening at the Hen
and Chickens, in the same room where I began reading you "Les Maîtres
Mosaistes," on our return through Birmingham from the lately formed
association, your image was naturally very vivid in our memories.
I am ever yours,
FANNY.
HARLEY STREET, December 28th, 1841.
DEAREST GRANNY,
[This was an affectionate nickname that my friend Lady Dacre assumed
towards me, and by which I frequently addressed her], I do not mean this
time to tax your forgiveness of injuries quite so severely as before,
though you really have such a pretty knack of generosity that it's a
pity not to give you an opportunity of exercising it.
Here we are again in our Harley Street abode, which, by favor of the
fogs, smokes, and various lovely December complexions of London, looks
but grimly after the evergreen shrubberies and bowers of Bowood, which I
saw the evening before I came away to peculiar advantage, under the
light of an unclouded moon. I left there the goodliest company
conceivable: Rogers, Moore, Macaulay, Charles Austen, Mr. Dundas,
Charles Greville, and Westmacott: so much for the mankind. Then there
was dear old Miss Fox [Lord Holland's sister], whom I love, and Lady
Harriet Baring [afterwards Lady Ashburton], whom I do not love, which
does not prevent her being a very clever woman; and that exceedingly
pretty and intelligent Baroness Louis Rothschild, et cetera. It was a
brilliant party, but they were all so preternaturally witty and wise
that, to tell you the truth, dear Granny, they occasionally gave me the
mind-ache.
As for Macaulay, he is like nothing in the world but Bayle's Dictionary,
continued down to the present time, and purified from all objectionable
matter. Such a Niagara of information did surely never pour from the
lips of mortal man!
I think our pilgrimages are pretty well over for the present, unless the
Duke of Rutland should remember a particularly courteous invitation he
gave us to go to Belvoir some time about Christmas--a summons which we
should very gladly obey, as I suppose there are not many finer places in
England or out of it.
I am sorry you have parted with Forrester [a horse Lady Dacre had named
after a favorite horse of mine]; I liked to fancy my dear old horse's
namesake at the Hoo.
Give my love to Lord Dacre, and my well-beloved B---- and G---- [Lady
Dacre's granddaughters]. I am glad the former is dancing, because I like
it so much myself. I look forward to seeing you all in the spring, and
in the mean time remain, dear Granny,
Yours most affectionately,
FANNY.
[I became subsequently well acquainted with Lord Macaulay, but no
familiarity ever diminished my admiration of his vast stores of
knowledge, or my amazement at his abundant power of communicating
them.
In my visits to the houses of my friends, alike those with whom I
was most and least intimate, I always passed a great deal of my time
in my own room, and never remained in the drawing-room until after
dinner, having a decided inclination for solitude in the morning and
society in the evening. I used, however, to look in during the
course of the day, upon whatever circle might be gathered in the
drawing or morning rooms, for a few minutes at a time, and remember,
on this occasion of my meeting Macaulay at Bowood, my amazement at
finding him always in the same position on the hearth-rug, always
talking, always answering everybody's questions about everything,
always pouring forth eloquent knowledge; and I used to listen to him
till I was breathless with what I thought ought to have been _his_
exhaustion.
As one approached the room, the loud, even, declamatory sound of his
voice made itself heard like the uninterrupted flow of a fountain.
He stood there from morning till evening, like a knight in the
lists, challenging and accepting the challenge of all comers. There
never was such a speech-"power," and as the volume of his voice was
full and sonorous, he had immense advantages in sound as well as
sense over his adversaries. Sydney Smith's humorous and good-humored
rage at his prolific talk was very funny. Rogers's, of course, was
not good-humored; and on this very occasion, one day at breakfast,
having two or three times uplifted his thread of voice and fine
incisive speech against the torrent of Macaulay's holding forth,
Lord Lansdowne, the most courteous of hosts, endeavored to make way
for him with a "You were saying, Mr. Rogers?" when Rogers hissed
out, "Oh, what I was saying will keep!"
I have spoken of Macaulay's discourse as a torrent; it was rather
like the smooth and copious stream of the Aqua Paola, a comparison
which it constantly suggested to me; the resonant, ceaseless, noble
volume of water, the great fountain perpetually poured forth, was
like the sonorous sound and affluent flow of his abundant speech,
and the wide, eventful Roman plain, with all its thronging memories
of past centuries, seen from the Janiculum, was like the vast and
varied horizon of his knowledge, forever swept by his prodigious
memory.]
HARLEY STREET, Wednesday, December 29th, 1841.
MY DEAREST HARRIET,
Just imagine my ecstasy in answering your last letter, dated the 24th! I
actually _do up_ the whole of that everlasting bundle of letters, which
is a sort of waking nightmare to me.
I have been within two or three of the last for the last week, and
having seldom seen myself so very near the end, I had a perfect fever of
desire to exist, if only for a day, without having a single letter to
answer. And now that I have tossed into the fire a note of Charles
Greville's, which I have just replied to, and have unfolded your last
and do the same by it, _i.e._ answer and burn it, the yellow silk cord
that bound that ominous bundle of obligations lies empty on the
inkstand, and I feel like Charles Lamb escaping from his India House
clerkship, a perfect lord, or rather lady, of unlimited leisure.
You ask me if I think letters will go on to be answered in eternity?
That supposition, my dear, involves the ideas of absence and epistolary
labor, both of which may be included in the torments of the damned, but,
according to my notions of heaven, there will be no letter-_writing_
there. As, however, the receiving of letters is, in my judgment, a
pleasure extremely worthy to be numbered among the enjoyments of the
blessed, I conclude that letters will occasionally come _to_ heaven, and
always be written in--the other place; so perhaps our correspondence may
continue hereafter. Who the writer and who the receiver shall be remains
to be proved (it's my belief that the use of pen and ink would have made
any one of the circles of the Inferno tolerable to you); and in any
case, those are epistles that it is not necessary to antedate. Klopstock
wrote and published--did he not?--letters which he wrote to his wife
Meta in heaven. The answers are not extant; perhaps they were in an
inferior style, humanly speaking, and he considerately suppressed them.
But to speak seriously, you forget in your query one of the principal
doubts that exercise my mind, _i.e._, whether there will be any
continuation of communion at all hereafter between those who have been
friends on earth; whether the relations of human beings to each other
here are not merely a part of our spiritual experience, that portion of
the education and progress of our souls that will terminate with this
phase of our existence and be succeeded by other influences, new ones,
fitted as these former have been to our (new) needs and conditions, by
the Great Governor of our being. He alone knows; He will provide for
them....
The Coutts and Lord Strangford business (a dirty piece of money-scandal)
is nice enough, but I heard a still _nicer_ sequel to it at Bowood the
other day. The gentlemen of the party were discussing the matter, and
seemed all agreed upon the subject of Lord Strangford's innocence; but
while declaring unanimously that the accusation was unfounded and
unwarrantable, they added it was not half as bad as an attack of the
same sort made by one of the papers upon Lords Normanby and Canterbury,
which, after much discussion, was supposed to have been dictated
entirely by political animosity; the sole motive assigned for the
selection of those two men as the objects of such an odious accusation
being the fact of their personal want of popularity, and also that they
were known to be needy men, whose fortunes were considerably crippled by
their extravagance.
Of course, lie-makers must make plausibility one element of their craft;
but this did seem a pleasant specimen of the manufacture. To be sure, I
am bound to add that this account came from Whigs, and the attack was
made by a Tory paper upon two members of the ex-Government; so you may
believe it or not, according as you are Whig or Tory inclined to-day
(that is to say, the motives assigned); the attack itself is not matter
of doubt, having been visibly printed in one or more of the Tory papers.
Both parties, however, have, I suppose, their staff of appointed
technical and professional liars.
Good-bye, dear.
Ever yours,
FANNY.
HARLEY STREET, Thursday, December 30th, 1841.
DEAREST HARRIET,
... I am a little surprised at your writing to me about my rule of
correspondence as you do, because in several instances when you have
particularly desired me to answer you immediately, I have done so; and
should always do so, not by you alone, but by any one who requested an
immediate reply to a letter. If it were in my power to answer such a
communication on the same day, I should certainly do it, and, under such
circumstances, always have done so. As for my _rule_ of letter-writing,
absurd as some of its manifestations undoubtedly are, it is not, I
think, absurd _per se_; and I adopted it as more likely to result in
justice to _all_ my correspondents than any other I could follow. I have
a great dislike to letter-writing, and, were I to consult my own
disinclination, instead of answering letter for letter with the most
scrupulous conscientiousness as I do, even the persons I love best would
be very apt to hear from me once or twice a year, and perhaps,
indulgence increasing the incapacity and disinclination to write (as the
example of every member of my own family shows it must), I should
probably end by never writing at all.
I have always thought it most desirable to answer letters on the same
day that I received them; but, of course, this is not always possible;
and my rather numerous correspondence causing often a rapid accumulation
of letters, I have thought, when such an _arrearage_ took place, the
fittest thing to do was to answer first those received first, and so
discharge my debts justly in point of time. With regard to replying to
questions contained in letters received some time back, my
scrupulousness has to do with my own convenience, as well as my
correspondents' gratification. Writing as much as I do, I am, as
Rosalind calls it, "gravelled for matter" occasionally, and in that
emergency a specific question to answer becomes a real godsend; and, my
cue once given me, I can generally contrive to fill my paper. I do not
think you know how much I dislike letter-writing, and what an effort it
sometimes costs me, when my spirits are at the lowest ebb, and my mind
so engrossed with disheartening contemplations, that any exertions (but
violent physical ones, which are my salvation for the most part) appear
intolerable.
But I ought to tell you about our journey from Bowood, which threatened
to be more adventurous than agreeable. We did, as you suppose, come down
the railroad only a few hours after the occurrence of the accident. When
we started from Chippenham, some surprise was expressed by the guards
and railroad officials that the early train from London had not yet come
up. Farther on, coming to a place where there was but one track, we were
detained half an hour, from the apprehension that, as the other train
had not yet come up, we might, by going upon the single line, encounter
it, and the collision occasion some terrible accident. After waiting
about half an hour, and ascertaining (I suppose) that the other train
was not coming, we proceeded, and soon learned what had retarded it. On
the spot where the accident took place the bank had made a tremendous
slide; numbers of workmen were busy in removing the earth from the
track; the engine, which had been arrested in its course by this
impediment, was standing half on the line, half on the bank; planks and
wheels and fragments of wood were strewed all round; and a crowd of
people, with terrified eager faces, were gazing about in that vague love
of excitement which makes sights and places of catastrophes, to a
certain degree, delectable to human beings.
I cannot help thinking, dear Harriet, that this sad accident, sad enough
as I admit it to be for the relations and friends of the dead, was not
so particularly terrible as far as the individuals themselves were
concerned. God only knows how I may feel when I am struck, either in my
own life or that of any one I love; but hitherto death has not appeared
to me the awful calamity that people generally seem to consider it. The
purpose of life alone, time wherein to do God's will, makes it sacred. I
do not think it _pleasant_ enough to wish to keep it for a single
instant, without the idea of the _duty_ of living, since God has bid us
live. The only thought which makes me shrink from the notion of suicide
is the apprehension that to this life another _might_ succeed, as full
of storm, of strife, of disappointment, difficulty, and unrest as this;
and with that uncertainty overshadowing it, death has not much to
recommend it. It is poor Hamlet's "perchance" that is the knot of the
whole question, never here to be untied.
Involuntarily, we certainly hope for better things, for respite, for
rest, for enfranchisement from the thraldom of some of our passions and
affections, the goods and bonds that spur us through this life and
fasten us to it. We--perhaps I ought to say I--involuntarily connect the
idea of death with that of peace and repose; delivery, at any rate, from
some subjugation to sin, and from some subjection to "the ills we know"
(though it may be none of this), so that my first feeling about it is
generally that it is a happy rather than a deplorable event for the
principals concerned; but then comes the loss of the living, and I
perceive very well how my heart would bleed if those I love were taken
from me. I see my own desolation and agony in that case, but still feel
as if I could rejoice for them; for, after all, life is a heavy burden
on a weary way, and I never saw the human being whose existence was what
I should call happy. I have seen some whose lives were so _good_ that
they justified their own existence, and one could conceive both why
they lived and that they found it good to live.
Of course, this is instinctive feeling; reflection compels one to
acknowledge the infinite value of existence, for the purposes of
spiritual progress and improvement; the education of the soul; but my
nature, impatient of restraint and pain and trial (and therefore most in
need of the discipline of life), always rejoices at the first aspect of
death, as at that of the Deliverer. Sudden death I certainly pray _for_,
rather than _against_, and I think my father and sister were horrified
and indignant at my saying that I could not conceive a better way of
dying than being smashed, as we were all together, on that railway,
dashed to pieces in a moment, like those eight men who perished there
the other day.... This drew forth a suggestion that, if such were my
sentiments, we had better hire a carriage on the Brighton railroad, and
keep incessantly running up and down the line, by which means there
would be every probability of my dying in the way I thought most
desirable.
I wish you would just step over from Ireland and spend the evening with
me; Adelaide and my father will be at the theatre....
God bless you, dearest Harriet.
Ever yours,
FANNY.
[Some years after writing this letter, having returned to the stage,
I was fulfilling an engagement at the Hull theatre, and as I stood
at the side scene, waiting to go on, two poor young girls were
standing near me, of that miserable class from which the temporarily
employed supernumeraries of country theatres are recruited. One of
them, who looked as if she was dying of consumption, and coughed
incessantly, said to her companion, who remarked upon it, "Yes, I go
on so pretty much all the time, and I have a mind sometimes to kill
myself." "That's running away from school, my child," said I. "Don't
do it, for you can't tell whether you mayn't be put to just as hard
or even a harder life to finish your lesson in another world." "O
Lord, ma'am!" said the girl, "I never thought of that." "But I have
very often," said I to her, as I went on the stage to finish my
mumming.
The strange ignorance of all the conditions of life (except their
own most wretched ones), even those but a few degrees removed from
their own, of these poor creatures, betrayed itself in their
awestruck admiration of my stage ornaments, which they took for real
jewels. "Oh, but," said I, as they gazed at them with wonder, "if
they were real jewels, you know, I should sell them to live, and not
come to the theatre to act for my bread every night." "Oh, wouldn't
you, ma'am?" exclaimed they, amazed that so blissful an occupation
as that of a stage star, radiant with "such diamonds," should not be
all that heart of woman could desire. Poor things--all of us!]
HARLEY STREET, January 1st, 1842.
It is New Year's Day, my dearest Harriet. May God bless you. You will, I
hope, receive to-day my account of my journey home from Bowood. Any
anxiety you might have felt about us was certain to be dispelled by the
note I despatched to you after our arrival, and as to the accident which
took place on the railroad, I have nothing to tell you about it more
than you would see in the newspapers, and it did not occur to me to
mention it.
I read with attention the newspaper article you sent me about the corn
laws and the currency, and, though I did not quite understand all the
details given on the latter subject, yet the main question is one that I
have been so familiar with lately as to have comprehended, I believe,
the general sense of it. But I read it at Bowood, and though, as I
assure you, with the greatest attention, I do not remember a single word
of it now (the invariable practice of my memory with any subject that is
entirely uncongenial to me).
The mischievous influence of the undue extension of the credit system is
matter of daily discussion and daily illustration, I am sorry to say, in
the United States, where, in spite of their easy institutions, boundless
space, and inexhaustible real sources of credit (the wealth of the soil
and its agricultural and universal products), and all the commercial
advantages which their comparatively untrammelled conditions afford
them, they are all but bankrupt now; distressed at home and disgraced
abroad by the excess to which this pernicious system of trading upon
fictitious capital has been carried by eager, grasping,
hastening-to-be-rich people. Of course, the same causes must tend to
produce the same effects everywhere, though different circumstances may
partially modify the results; and in proportion as this vicious system
has prevailed with us in England, its consequences must, at some time or
other, culminate in sudden severe pressure upon the trading and
manufacturing interests, and I suppose, of course, upon all classes of
the industrial population of the country. The difficult details of
finance, and their practical application to the currency question, have
not often been understood, and therefore not often relished by me
whenever I have attempted to master them; but I have heard them
frequently and vehemently discussed by the advocates of both paper money
and coin currency; I have read all the manifestoes upon the subject put
forth by Mr. Nicholas Biddle, late President of the United States Bank,
who is supposed to have understood finance well, though the unfortunate
funds committed to his charge do not appear to have been the safer for
that circumstance.... The failure of the United States Bank has been
sometimes considered as a political catastrophe, the result of party
animosity and personal enmity towards Mr. Biddle on the part of General
Jackson, who, being then President of the United States, gave a fatal
blow to the credit of the bank (which, though calling itself the United
States Bank, was not a Government institution) by removing from its
custody the Government deposits. My impression upon the subject (simple,
as I have no doubt you would expect to find the result of any mental
process of mine) is that paper money is a financial expedient, the
substitution of an appearance or makeshift for a real thing, and likely,
like all other such substitutes of whatever kind, to become a source of
shame, trouble, and ruin whenever, after the appointed time of
circulation, which every expedient has, there should be a demand for the
real article; more especially if the shadow has imposed upon the world
by being twice as big as the substance.
The papers and pamphlets you have sent me, dear Harriet, seem to me only
to prove that excessive and unjust taxation, partial and unjust corn
laws, and unwise financial ones (together with other causes, which seem
to me ominous of evil results), have produced the distress,
embarrassment, and discontent existing in this, the richest and most
enlightened country in the world....
I have been interrupted half a dozen times while writing this letter,
once by a long visit from Mrs. Jameson.... Lady M---- called too, with
a pretty little widow, a Mrs. M----, a great friend of Adelaide's.
Dearest Harriet, here my letter was broken off yesterday morning,
Friday; it is now Saturday evening, and this morning arrived two long
ones from America. Now, if I should get one to-morrow or the next day,
from you, will it be very unjust to put yours under these, and answer
them before I write any more to you? I think not, but I must make an end
of this....
Good-bye, and God bless you.
I am ever yours,
FANNY.
HARLEY STREET, Tuesday, January 4th, 1842.
DEAREST HARRIET,
... You say you wonder that those who love and worship Christ should be
wanting in patience and the spirit of endurance. Do you not wonder, too,
that they should fail in self-denial, charity, mercy, all the virtues of
their Divine Model? But this is a terrible chapter, and sad subject of
speculation for all of us, and I can't bear to speak upon it.
In talking once with my sister of self-condemnation, and our
condemnation of others, I used an expression which she took up as
eminently ridiculous; but I think she did not quite understand me. I
said that there was a feeling of _modesty_ which prevented one's
uttering the extent of one's own self-accusations, at which she laughed
very much, and said she thought that modesty ought to interfere in
behalf of others as well as one's self; but there are some reasons why
it does not. Severely as one may judge and blame others, it is always,
of course, with the perception that one cannot know the _whole_ of the
case for or against them; nevertheless, even with this conviction, there
are certain words and deeds of others which one condemns unhesitatingly.
Such sentences as these I pronounce often and without scruple (harshly,
perhaps, and therein committing most mischievous, foul sin in chiding
sin), but one does not utter that which one feels more rarely (however
strongly, in particular instances), one's impression of the evil
tendency of a whole character, the weakness or wickedness, the disease
which pervades the whole moral constitution, and which seems to denote
certain inevitable results; on these one hesitates to pronounce
opinion, not so much, I think, because of the uncertainty one feels, as
in the case of a special motive, or temptation to any special act, and
the liability to mistake, both in the quality of motive and quality of
temptation; as because so much deeper a condemnation is involved in such
judgments. It is the difference between a physician's opinion on an
acute attack of illness or a radical and fatal constitutional tendency.
This sort of condemnation requires such intimate knowledge that one can
hardly pass it upon any but one's self. One cannot tear off all
coverings from the hearts and minds of others, whereas one could strip
one's own moral deformities naked, and that species of self-accusation
does seem to me a kind of immodesty. One naturally shrinks, too, from
speaking of deep and awful things, and then there is the all but
insuperable difficulty of putting one's most intimate convictions, _the
realities of one's soul_, into words at all....
Oh, my dear Harriet, I have told you nothing of John and Natalia's
mesmeric practices [my brother and his German wife]. If you could have
seen them, you would have split your lean sides more than you did at my
aspect and demeanor while listening to A---- reading her favorite French
novels to me.
By-the-by, do you know that that very book, "Mathilde," which I could
not listen to for a quarter of an hour with common patience, is cried up
everywhere and by everybody as a most extraordinary production? At
Bowood everybody was raving about it; Mrs. Jameson tells me that Carlyle
excepted it from a general anathema on French novels. Sometimes I think
I will try again to get through it, and then I think, as little F----
says when she is requested to do something that she ought, "_Eelly_,
now, me _tan not_."
I am finishing George Sand's "Lettres d'un Voyageur," because in an evil
hour I began them. Her style is really admirable, and in this book one
escapes the moral (or immoral) complications of her stories.
God bless you, dear Harriet. Good-bye. Time and opportunity serving, you
surely see that I am not only faithful, but prompt, in the discharge of
my debts.
Ever yours,
FANNY.
I forgot to tell you that my poor Margery [my children's former nurse]
has at length applied to the tribunals of Pennsylvania for a separation
from her cruel and worthless husband. Poor thing! I hope she will obtain
it.
[The tribunals of Pennsylvania followed, in the law of divorce, the
German and not the English precedent and process. Divorce was
granted by them, as well as mere separation, on plea of
incompatibility of temper, and also for cause of non-cohabitation
during a space of two years. In regard to the laws of marriage and
divorce, as well as most other matters, each state in the Union had
its own peculiar code, agreeing or differing from the rest. The
Massachusetts laws of marriage and divorce were, I believe, the same
as the English. In Pennsylvania a much greater facility for
obtaining divorce--adopted, I suppose, from German modes of thought
and feeling, and perhaps German legislature--prevailed, while in
some of the western states, more exclusively occupied by a German
population, the facility with which the bond of marriage was
dissolved was greater than in any civilized Christian community in
the world, I think.]
HARLEY STREET, January 16th, 1842.
At the end of a long, kind letter I received from you this morning,
dearest Harriet, there is a most sudden and incomprehensible sentence,
an incoherent, combined malediction upon yourself and your dog Bevis,
which I found it difficult to connect in any way with the matter which
preceded it, which was very good advice to me, abruptly terminating in a
declaration that you were a fool and your dog Bevis a brute, and leaving
me to conclude either that he had overturned your inkstand or that you
had gone mad, though indeed your two propositions are sane enough: for
the first I would contradict if I could; the second I could not if I
would; and so, as the Italians say, "Sono rimasta." ...
With regard to the likeness between my sister and myself, it is as great
as our unlikeness.... Our mode of perceiving and being affected by
things and people is often identical, and our impressions frequently so
similar and so simultaneous that we both often utter precisely the same
words upon a subject, so that it might seem as if one of us might save
the other the trouble of speaking.... She is a thousand times quicker,
keener, finer, shrewder, and sweeter than I am, and all my mental
processes, compared with hers, are slow, coarse, and clumsy.
Here my letter broke off yesterday morning, and yesterday evening I went
to see the new opera, so that I shall have realities instead of
speculations to treat you to. [The opera was an English version of the
"Elena da Feltre," by Mercadante, whose dramatic compositions, "La
Vestale," "Le Due Illustre Rivale," the "Elena da Feltre," and others,
obtained a very considerable temporary popularity in Italy, but were, I
think, little known elsewhere. They were not first-rate musical
productions, but had a good deal of agreeable, though not very original,
melody, and were favorable to a declamatory, passionate style of
singing, having a great deal of dramatic power and pathos. My sister was
fond of them, and gave them with great effect, and the celebrated _prima
donna_, Madame Ungher, achieved great popularity and excited immense
enthusiasm in some of them.]
The opera was entirely successful, owing certainly to Adelaide, for the
music is not agreeable, or of an order to become popular; the story is
rather involved, which, however, as people have books to help them to
it, does not so much matter. She was beautifully and becomingly dressed
in mediæval Italian costume, and looked very handsome. Her voice was, as
usual, very much affected by her nervousness, and comparatively feeble;
this, however, signifies little, as it is only on the first night that
it occurs, and every succeeding representation, her anxiety being less,
she recovers more power of voice.
She acted extremely well, so as again to excite in me the strongest
desire to see her in an _acting_ part; a desire which is only qualified
by the consideration that she makes more money at present as a singer
than she probably could as an actress. At the end of the piece she
_died_, with one of those expressions of feeling the effect of which
may, without exaggeration, be called electrifying: it made me spring on
my seat, and the whole audience responded with that voice of human
sympathy that any true representation of feeling elicits
instantaneously. Having renounced her lover, and married a man she
hated, to save her father's life, after seeing her lover go to church
and be married to another woman, her father being nevertheless executed
(an old story, no doubt, but that's no matter), she loses her senses
and stabs herself, and as she falls into the arms of her husband (the
man she hated) she sees her lover, who just arrives at this moment, and
the dying spring which she made, with her arms stretched towards him,
falling, before she reached him, dead on the ground, was one of those
terrible and touching things which the stage only can reproduce from
nature--I mean, out of reality itself--a thing that of course neither
painting nor sculpture could attempt, and that would have been
comparatively cold and ineffective even in poetry, but which "in action"
was indescribably pathetic. It had been, like many happy dramatic
effects, a sudden thought with her, for it had only occurred to her
yesterday morning; but the grace of the action, its beauty, truth, and
expressiveness, are not to be conveyed by words. You will see it; not
that, indeed, it may ever again be so very happy a thing in its
effect....
God bless you, dear Harriet. Good-bye.
Ever yours,
FANNY.
HARLEY STREET, January 31st, 1842.
MY DEAREST HARRIET,
Why do you ask me if I would not write to you unless you wrote to me? Do
you not know perfectly well that I _would not_--unless, indeed, I
thought you were ill or something was the matter with you; and then I
would write just enough to find out if such was the case. Why should I
write to you, when I hate writing, and yet nevertheless _always_ answer
letters? Surely the spontaneous, or promiscuous (which did you call it,
you Irishwoman?) epistle should come from the person who does not
profess to labor under an _inkophobia_. And what can you righteously
complain of, when I not only never fail scrupulously to answer your
letters, but, be they long or short, invariably answer them
_abundantly_, having as great an objection to writing a short letter
almost as I have to writing any? Basta! never doubt any more about the
matter, my dear Harriet. I never (I think) shall write to you, but I
also (I think) shall never fail to answer you. If you are not satisfied
with that, I can't help it.... We have a lull in our engagements just
now--comparative quiet. We gave a family dinner on Friday.... My father,
I am sorry to say, gets no rent from the theatre. The nights on which
my sister does not sing the house is literally empty. Alas! it is the
old story over again: that whole ruinous concern is propped only by her.
That property is like some fate to which our whole family are subject,
by which we are every one of us destined to be borne down by turn, after
vainly dedicating ourselves to its rescue.
On Saturday I spent the evening at Lady Charlotte Lindsay's, who has a
very kind regard for you, and spoke of your brother Barry with great
affection. To-morrow, after going to the opera, I shall go to Miss
Berry's. My sister and father go to Apsley House, where the Duke of
Wellington gives a grand entertainment to the King of Prussia. We were
asked too, but, though rather tempted by the fine show, it was finally
concluded that we should not go, so we shall only have it at second
hand. This is all my news for the present, dear Harriet. God bless you.
Good-bye. If you ever wish to hear from me, drop me a line to that
effect.
Ever yours (and the same),
FANNY.
[Circumstances occurred which induced us to change our plans, and I
did go to the _fête_ at Apsley House, which was very beautiful and
magnificent. A pleasant incident of the evening was a special
introduction to and a few minutes' conversation with our illustrious
host; and the pleasantest of all, I am almost ashamed to say, was
the memorable appearance of Lady Douro and Mademoiselle d'Este, who,
coming into the room together, produced a most striking effect by
their great beauty and their exquisite dress. They both wore
magnificent dresses of white lace over white satin, ornamented with
large cactus flowers, those of the blonde marchioness being of the
sea-shell rose color, and the dark Mademoiselle d'Este's of the deep
scarlet; and in the bottom of each of these large, vivid blossoms
lay, like a great drop of dew, a single splendid diamond. The women
were noble samples of fair and dark beauty, and their whole
appearance, coming in together, attired with such elegant and
becoming magnificent simplicity, produced an effect of surprise and
admiration on the whole brilliant assembly.]
HARLEY STREET, February 4th, 1842.
MY DEAREST HARRIET,
At twelve o'clock to-day I rang for candles, in order that the fog might
not prevent my answering your letter. I was obliged to go out, however,
and the skies in the interim have cleared; and where do you think I have
been? Why, like a fool as I am, to _see a sight_, and I am well paid by
feeling so tired, and having such a headache, and having had such a
fright, that--it serves me right.
Our dear friend Harness has, as perhaps you know, an office which Lord
Lansdowne gave him, by virtue of which he occupies a very pleasant
apartment in the Council Office Building, the windows of which look out
on Whitehall. Here he begged me to come and bring the children, that we
might see the Queen, and the King of Prussia, and all the great folks,
go to the opening of Parliament, and in an evil hour I consented,
Harness informing me at what hour to come, and what way to take to avoid
the crowd. But the carriage was ordered half an hour later than we ought
to have started, and the coachman was ordered to take us down Whitehall
(though Harness had warned me that we could not come that way, and that
we must leave our carriage at the Carlton Terrace steps, and walk across
the park to the little passage which leads straight into Downing
Street). Down Whitehall, however, we attempted to go, and were of course
turned back by the police. We then retraced our route to the Carlton
steps, and here, with the two children, Anne, and the footman, I made my
way through the crowd; but oh, what a way! and what a crowd! When we got
down into the park, the only clear space was the narrow line left open
for the carriages, and some of them were passing at a rapid trot, just
as we found our way into their road, and the dense wall of human beings
we had squeezed through closed behind us. I assure you, Harriet, the
children were not half a foot from one of those huge carriage-horses,
nor was there any means of retreat; the living mass behind us was as
compact as brick and mortar. We took a favorable moment, and, rushing
across the road into the protecting arms of some blessed, benevolent
policemen, who were keeping the line, were seized, and dragged, and
pushed, and pulled, and finally made way for, through the crowd on the
other side, and then ran, without stopping, till we reached our
destination; but the peril of the children, and the exertion of
extricating them and ourselves from such a situation, had been such
that, on reaching Harness's rooms, I shook so that I could hardly stand,
and the imperturbable Anne actually burst into tears. So much for the
delights of sight-seeing.
As for me, you know I would not go to the end of the street to see the
finest thing in the universe; but, in the first place, I had promised,
and in the next, I was so miserably out of spirits that, though I could
not bear to go out, I could not bear to stay at home; but certainly, my
detestation of running after a sight was never more heartily confirmed.
The concourse was immense, but I was much surprised at the entire want
of excitement and enthusiasm in the vast multitude who thronged and all
but choked up the Queen's way. All hats were lifted, but there was not a
hatful of cheers, and the whole thing produced a disagreeable effect of
coldness, indifference, or constraint.
Harness said it was nineteenth-century breeding, which was too exquisite
to allow even of the mob's shouting. He is a Tory. T---- M----, who is a
very warm Whig, thought the silence spoke of Paisley starvation and
Windsor banquets. I thought these and other things besides might have to
do with the people's not cheering.
E---- (who, bless her soul! has just been here, talking such gigantic
nonsense) must have misunderstood me, or you must have misunderstood
her, in supposing that I made a distinct _promise_ to answer four
crossed sheets of paper to four lines of yours. I said it was my usual
practice to do so, and one from which I was not likely to depart,
because I hate writing a short letter as much as I hate writing any
letter at all....
Have you received one letter from me since you have been in Mountjoy
Square? I have written one to you there, but, owing to the habit of my
hand, which is to write "Ardgillan Castle," the direction was so
scratched and blurred that I had some doubts whether the letter would
reach you. Let me know, dear Harriet, if it does....
E---- must have made another blunder about Lady Westmoreland and my
sister. It is not the Duke of Wellington's money, in particular, that
she objects to receiving; she does not intend to sing in private _for
money_ at all, anywhere, or on any occasion; which I am very glad of,
as, if she did, I think social embarrassments and professional
complications of every sort, and all disagreeable ones, would arise from
it.
We were all very cordially invited to Apsley House by Lady Westmoreland,
before my sister stated that she did not intend to sing there for
money.... Besides this, there came a formal bidding in the Duke of
Wellington's own hand [or Algernon Greville's, who used to forge his
illustrious chief's signature on all common occasions], with which we
were very well pleased to comply....
A---- has been trying to inoculate me with Paul de Kock, who, she
assures me, is a _moral_ writer, and with whose books our tables,
chairs, sofas, and beds are covered, as with the unclean plagues of
Egypt. I read one of the novels and began another. They are very clever,
very funny, very dirty, abominably immoral, and I do not think I _can_
read any more of them; for though I confess to having laughed till my
sides ached over some parts of what I read, I was, upon reflection and
upon the whole, disgusted and displeased....
I have _precisely_ your feeling about Mrs. F---- in every particular; I
think her the funniest and the kindest old maniac I am acquainted with,
and my intercourse with her is according to that opinion. Good-bye, my
dearest Harriet; God bless you. I wish I was where I could see green
fields. I am in miserable spirits, and would give "my kingdom for a
horse," and the world for an hour's gallop in the country.
Ever yours,
FANNY.
[My dear and excellent friend the Rev. William Harness refused from
conscientious motives to hold more than one Church benefice, though
repeated offers of livings were made to him by various of his
influential friends. Lord Lansdowne, who had a very affectionate
esteem for him, gave him the civil office I have alluded to in this
letter, and this not being open to Mr. Harness's scruples with
regard to sacred sinecures, he accepted. His means were always
small, his charities great, and his genial hospitality unfailing. He
was one of the simplest, most modest, unpretending, honorable,
high-minded, warm hearted human beings I have ever known. Goodness
appeared easy to him--the best proof how good he was.]
HARLEY STREET, February 5th, 1842.
DEAR HARRIET,
I did not care very much about the _fête_ itself at Apsley House, but I
was very glad to go to it upon the Duke of Wellington's invitation, and
felt as much honored and gratified by that as I could be by any such
sort of thing. My sister did sing for them, though, poor thing! not very
well. She had just gone through the new opera, and was besides laboring
under a terrible cough and cold, through which, I am sorry to say, she
has been singing for the last week. There was no particular reason for
her not taking money at _that_ concert. She does not intend to be paid
for singing in society at all.... Of course, her declining such
engagements will greatly diminish her income, popular singers making
nearly half their earnings by such means; but I am sure that, situated
as we all are, she is right, and will avoid a good many annoyances by
this determination, though her pocket will suffer for it....
I know nothing whatever, of course, about the statements in the papers,
which I never look at, about the financial disgraces and embarrassments
in America. The United States Bank (in which my father had put four
thousand pounds, which he could ill spare) is swept from the face of the
earth, and everybody's money put into it has been like something thrust
down a gaping mouth that had no stomach; it has disappeared in void
space, and is irredeemably lost. I have seven thousand pounds in the New
Orleans banks, which I have given my father for his life. Those banks,
it is said, are sound, and will ere long resume specie payments, and
give dividends to their stockholders. Amen, so be it. It is affirmed
that Mr. Biddle's prosecution will lead to nothing, but that the state
of Pennsylvania will pay its debts, means to do so, and will be able to
do so without any difficulty.... God bless you, dear Harriet. Write to
me soon again, for, though I do hate answering you, I hate worse not
hearing from you.
Ever yours,
FANNY.
I am glad you liked "Les Maîtres Mosaistes;" I think it charming. Thank
you for your "Enfant du Peuple." I have been trying some Paul de Kock,
but _cannot_ get on with it.
[Of Madame George Sand's few unobjectionable books, "Les Maîtres
Mosaistes" seems to me the best. As an historical picture of Venice
and its glorious period of supremacy in art, it is admirable. As a
pathetic human history, it is excellent; with this drawback,
however, that in it the author has avoided the subject of the
relations between the sexes--her invariable rock ahead, both morally
and artistically; and it is by the entire omission of the important
element of love that this work of hers is free from the reproach the
author never escapes when she treats of it. It is a great pity her
fine genius has so deep a flaw.]
HARLEY STREET, February 11th, 1842.
MY DEAREST HARRIET,
... I want to know if you can come to us on the 20th of this month,
instead of the 1st of March, as I expected you. I believe I told you
that the Duke of Rutland, when we met him at the Arkwrights', at Sutton,
gave us all a very kind invitation to Belvoir, which we accepted, and
have been expecting since that some more definite intimation when the
time of our visit would be convenient. He called here the other day, but
we were none of us at home, and this morning we and my father heard from
him, recalling our promise to go to Belvoir, and begging us to fix any
time between this and the month of April. Now, the only time when my
sister can go, poor child! is during Passion Week; and as I am very
anxious that she should have the refreshment of a week in the country,
and her being with us will be a great addition to my own enjoyment, I
want to appoint that time for our visit to the Duke of Rutland. That,
however, happens about the 20th of March, when I expected you to be with
us; but if, by coming earlier, you can give me as long a visit as you
had promised me, without inconveniencing yourself, I shall be glad, dear
Harriet; for though _we_ can go to Belvoir at any time before or after
March, I wish my sister not to lose a pleasant visit to a beautiful
place.
To tell you the truth, it would be a great pleasure to me that you
should come so much sooner than I had reckoned upon having you; and as
Emily and I trotted round Portman Square together to-day, we both made
out that, if you come into this arrangement, you will be here on Tuesday
week, which appears to me in itself delightful. Let me know, dear, what
you decide, as I shall not answer the Duke of Rutland until I have heard
from you.
I promise myself much pleasure from seeing Belvoir. The place, with
which I am familiar through engravings and descriptions, is a fine house
in one of the finest situations in England; and the idea of being out of
London once more, in the country and on horseback, is superlatively
agreeable to me.
And now, my dearest, to answer your letter, which I got this morning.
For pity's sake, let Lady Westmoreland rest, for the present; we will
take her up again, if expedient, when we meet.... The Duke of Wellington
called here the other day, and brought an exceedingly pretty bracelet
and amiable note to my sister; both which, as you may suppose, she
values highly, as she ought to do.
About the cheering of the Queen on her way to Parliament the other day,
I incline to think the silence was universal, for everybody with whom I
was observed it, except Charles Greville, who swore she was applauded;
but then he is deaf, and therefore hears what no one else can. Moreover,
the majority of spectators were by no means well-dressed people; the
streets were thronged with pure mobocracy, to a degree unprecedented on
any previous occasion of the sort, and, though there was no exhibition
of ill-feeling towards the Queen or any of the ministers, there was no
demonstration of good will beyond the usual civility of lifting the hats
as she passed. Indeed, Horace Wilson told me that, when he was crossing
the park at the time of her driving through it, there was some--though
not much--decided hissing.
Your lamentation over my want of curiosity reminds me that on this very
occasion Charles Greville offered to take me all over the Coldbath
Fields Prison, and show me the delights of the treadmill, etc., and
expressed great astonishment that I did not enthusiastically accept this
opportunity of seeing such a cheerful spectacle, and still more
amazement at my general want of enlightened curiosity, which he
appeared to consider quite unworthy of so intelligent a person.
I have not read Stephens's book on Central America, but only certain
extracts from it in the last _Quarterly_, with which I was particularly
charmed; but I admire your asking me why I did not send for his book
from the circulating library instead of Paul de Kock. Do you suppose _I_
sent for Paul de Kock? Don't you know I never send for any book, and
never _read_ any book, but such as I am desired, required, lent, or
given to read by somebody? being, for the most part, very indifferent
what I read, and having the obliging faculty of forgetting immediately
what I have read, which is an additional reason for my not caring much
what my books are. Still, there is a point at which my indifference will
give way to disgust.... ---- recommended Paul de Kock's books strongly
to me, therefore I read one of them, but found it so very little to my
taste that I was obliged, against my usual rule of compliance with my
friend's recommendations in these matters, to decline the rest of the
author's works. I have begun your "Enfant du Peuple," and many are the
heartaches I have had already, though I have read but little of it, over
that poor Jean Baptiste's tender and touching love, which reminds one of
Jacob's serving seven years for the sake of Rachel, and hardly counting
them a day....
Dearest Harriet, if in the matter of your visit to us you cannot alter
your plans, which have already been turned topsy-turvy once to suit
ours, we will go at some other time to Belvoir, and my sister must e'en
give it up, as in my professional days I had to forego Stoke,
Chatsworth, and, hardest by far of all, Abbotsford.
God bless you, dearest Harriet. Give my kind love to M----. I rejoice to
hear of her convalescence. Remember me affectionately to Dorothy, and
believe me,
Ever yours,
FANNY.
GRIMSTHORPE, March 27th, 1842.
MY DEAREST HARRIET,
Thank God and O'Connell for your smooth passage. I really dreaded the
effects of sea-sickness for you, combined with that racking cough....
We left Belvoir yesterday, and came on here, having promised Lady
Willoughby to visit them on our way back to London.
I do not know whether you ever saw Belvoir. It is a beautiful place; the
situation is noble, and the views from the windows of the castle, and
the terraces and gardens hanging on the steep hill crowned by it, are
charming. The whole vale of Belvoir, and miles of meadow and woodland,
lie stretched below it like a map unrolled to the distant horizon,
presenting extensive and varied prospects in every direction, while from
the glen which surrounds the castle hill like a deep moat filled with a
forest, the spring winds swell up as from a sea of woodland, and the
snatches of bird-carolling and cawing rook-discourse float up to one
from nests in the topmost branches of tall trees, far below one's feet,
as one stands on the battlemented terraces.
The interior of the house is handsome, and in good taste; and the whole
mode of life stately and splendid, as well as extremely pleasant and
comfortable. The people--I mean the Duke and his family--kind and
courteous hosts, and the society very easy and free from stiffness or
constraint of any sort; and I have enjoyed my visit very much....
We had a large party at Belvoir. The gentlemen of the hunt were all at
the castle; and besides the ladies of the family (one unmarried and two
married daughters), we had the Duchess of Richmond and her
granddaughter, the Duke and Duchess of Bedford, Lord and Lady
Winchelsea, Mademoiselle d'Este, and a whole tribe of others whose names
I forget, but which are all duly down in the butler's book.
Every morning the duke's band marched round the castle, playing all
sorts of sprightly music, to summon us to breakfast, and we had the same
agreeable warning that dinner was ready. As soon as the dessert was
placed on the table, singers came in, and performed four pieces of
music; two by a very sweet single voice, and two by three or more
voices. This, with intervals for conversation, filled up the allotted
time before the ladies left the table. In the evening we had music, of
course, and one evening we adjourned to the ball-room, where we danced
all night, the duke leading down a country-dance, in which his
house-maids and men-cooks were vigorously figuring at the same time.
Whenever my sister sang, the servants used all to assemble on a large
staircase at one end of the ball-room, where, for the sake of the sound,
the piano was placed, and appeared among her most enthusiastic
hearers.... The whole family were extremely cordial and kind to us; and
when we drove away, they all assembled at an upper window, waving hats
and handkerchiefs as long as we could see them. I have no room to tell
you anything of Grimsthorpe. God bless you. Good-bye.
Ever yours,
_Fanny_.
[My first introduction to "afternoon tea" took place during this
visit to Belvoir, when I received on several occasions private and
rather mysterious invitations to the Duchess of Bedford's room, and
found her with a "small and select" circle of female guests of the
castle, busily employed in brewing and drinking tea, with her
grace's own private tea-kettle. I do not believe that now
universally honored and observed institution of "five-o'clock tea"
dates farther back in the annals of English civilization than this
very private and, I think, rather shamefaced practice of it.
Our visit to Grimsthorpe has left but three distinct images on my
memory: that of my bedroom, with its furniture of green velvet and
regal bed-hangings of white satin and point lace; that of the
collection of thrones in the dining-room, the Lords Willoughby de
Eresby being hereditary Lord Grand Chamberlains of England, whose
perquisite of office was the throne or chair of state used by each
sovereign at his or her coronation; and my intercourse with
Mademoiselle d'Este, who, like ourselves, came from Belvoir to
Grimsthorpe, and with whom I here began an acquaintance that grew
into intimacy, and interested me a good deal from her peculiar
character and circumstances.]
HARLEY STREET, London, March 31st, 1842.
MY DEAR T----,
... My father is in wonderful health, looks, and spirits, considering
that in all these items this time last year he was very little better
than dead. My sister is working very hard and very successfully, and
proposing to herself, after two more years of assiduous labor, to retire
on a moderate income to Italy, where she would rather live than
anywhere else. But, oh dear me! how well I remember the day when that
was my own vision of the future, and only see what a very different
thing it has turned out! I think it not at all improbable that she will
visit the United States next year, and that we shall find that moment
propitious for returning; that is to say, about a twelvemonth from next
month.... So much for private interests. As to the public ones: alas!
Sir Robert Peel is losing both his health and his temper, they say; and
no wonder at it! His modification of the corn laws and new tariff are
abominations to his own party, and his income tax an abomination to the
nation at large. I cannot conceive a more detestable position than his,
except, perhaps indeed, that of the country itself just now. Poverty and
discontent in great masses of the people; a pitiless Opposition,
snapping up and worrying to pieces every measure proposed by the
Ministry, merely for malignant _mischeevousness_, as the nursemaids say,
for I don't believe they--the Whigs--will be trusted again by the people
for at least a century to come; a determined, troublesome, and
increasing Radical party, whose private and personal views are fairly
and dangerously masked by the public grievances of which they advocate
the redress; a minister, hated personally by his own party, with hardly
an individual of his own political persuasion in either House who
follows him cordially, or, rather, who does not feel himself personally
aggrieved by one or other of the measures of reform he has
proposed,--yet that minister the only man in England at this moment able
to stand up at the head of public affairs, and the defeat of whose
measures (distasteful as they are to his own party, and little
satisfactory to the people in general) would produce instantaneously, I
believe, such confusion, disorder, and dismay as England has not seen
for many a year, not indeed since the last great Reform crisis;--all
this is not pleasant, and makes me pity everybody connected with the
present Government, and Sir Robert Peel more than anybody else. I wonder
how long he'll be able to stand it.
What have you done with Lord Morpeth? And what are you doing with "Boz"?
The first has a most tenderly attached mother and sisters, and really
should not, on their account, be killed with kindness; and the latter
has several small children, I believe, who, I suppose, will naturally
desire that your national admiration should not annihilate their
papa.... I wish we were to come back to America soon, but wishes are
nonsensical things.... Give my dear love to Catherine and Kate [Miss
Sedgwick and her niece], if they are in New York when this reaches you.
Good-bye, my dear T----. I would not have troubled you with this if I
had known Mrs. Robert's address; but "Wall Street" will find you, though
"Warren Street" knows her no longer.
We have been spending ten days at Belvoir Castle, with all sorts of
dukes and duchesses. Don't you perceive it in the nobility of my style?
It is well for a foreigner to see these things; they are pretty,
pleasant, gay, grand, and, in some of their aspects, good; but I think
that who would see them even as they still subsist now had better lose
no time about it.
HARLEY STREET, Tuesday, April 12th, 1842.
Did anyone ever say there was not a "soul of good even in things evil"?
From your mode of replying to my first letter, dearest Harriet--the one
from Belvoir, in which I told you I had been strongly minded to write to
you _first_--you do not seem to me quite to believe in the existence of
such an intention. Nor was it a "weak thought," but a very decided
purpose, which was frustrated by circumstances for one day, and the next
prevented entirely by the arrival of your letter. However, no matter for
all that now; hear other things.
You ask after "Figaro" [Mozart's opera of "Le Nozze di Figaro," then
being given at Covent Garden, my sister singing the part of Susanna]. It
draws very fine houses, and Adelaide's acting in it is very much liked
and praised, as it highly deserves to be, for it is capital, very funny,
and _fine_ in its fun, which makes good comedy--a charming thing, and a
vastly more difficult one, in my opinion, than any tragic acting
whatever....
Your boots have been sent safe and sound, my dear, and are in the
custody of a person who, I verily believe, thinks me incapable of taking
care of anything in the world, and has the same amount of confidence in
my understanding that a friend of mine (a clergyman of the Church of
England) expressed in his mother's honesty, "I wouldn't trust her with
a bad sixpence round the corner." However, your boots, as I said, are
safe, and will reach your hands (or feet, I should rather say) in due
course of time, I have no doubt.
I have had two letters from America lately, the last of them containing
much news about the movements of the abolitionists, in which its writer
takes great interest. Among other things, she mentions that an address
had been published to the slaves, by Gerrit Smith, exhorting them to run
away, to use all means to do so, to do so at any risk, and also by all
means and at any risk to learn to read. By all means, he advises them,
in no case to use violence, or carry off property of their masters'
(except indeed themselves, whom their masters account very valuable
property). I should have told you that Gerrit Smith himself was a large
slave-holder, that he has given up all his property, renounced his home
in the South (where, indeed, if he was to venture to set foot, he would
be murdered in less than an hour). He lives at the North, in comparative
poverty and privation, having given up his wealth for conscience' sake.
I saw him once at Lucretia Mott's. He was a man of remarkable
appearance, with an extremely sweet and noble countenance. He is one of
the "confessors" in the martyr-age of America.
I am much concerned at your account of E----, for though sprains and
twists and wrenches are not uncommon accidents, I have always much more
dread of them than of a _bonâ_ (bony) _fide_ fracture. I always fear
some injury may be lodged in the system by such apparently lesser
casualties, that may not reveal itself till long after the real cause is
forgotten....
I must end this letter, for I have delayed it too shamefully long, and
you must think me more abominable than ever, in spite of which I am
still
Your most affectionate
FANNY.
CRANFORD HOUSE, April 17th, 1842.
I put a letter into the post for you, my dearest Harriet, this
afternoon. This is all I was able to write to you yesterday--Wednesday;
and now it is Thursday evening, and there is every prospect of my having
leisure to finish my letter.
Emily has asked me several times to come and spend the evening with her
mother, and I have promised her each time that the first evening....
Thus far last night, my dear--that is to say, Thursday evening. It is
now Friday evening, and the long and the short of the story was that
Emily dined out, Mrs. FitzHugh _teaed_ with the Miss Hamiltons, my party
went to Drury Lane, and I passed the evening alone; and the reason why
this letter was not finished during that lonely evening, my dear, was
that I was sitting working worsted-work for Emily in the parlor
downstairs when my people all went away, and after they were gone I was
seized with a perfect nervous panic, a "Good" fever, and could not bring
myself to stir from the chair where they had left me. As to going up
into the drawing-room, it was out of the question; I fancied every step
of the stairs would have morsels of flesh lying on it, and the banisters
would be all smeared with blood and hairs. In short, I had a fit of the
horrors, and sat the whole blessed evening working heart's ease into
Emily's canvas, in a perfect nightmare of horrible fancies. At one
moment I had the greatest mind in the world to send for a cab, and go to
Covent Garden Theatre, and sit in Adelaide's dressing-room; but I was
ashamed to give way to my nerves in that cowardly fashion, and certainly
passed a most miserable evening.... However, let me leave last night and
its horrors, and make haste to answer your questions....
Another pause, dear Harriet, and here I am at this picturesque old
place, Cranford House, paying another visit to ----'s _venerable_
friend, old Lady Berkeley. I have been taking a long walk this morning
with Lady ----, whose London fine-ladyism gave way completely in these
old walks of her early home, to which all the family appear extremely
attached. Her unfeigned delight at the primroses, oxlips, wild cherry
bloom, and varying greens of the spring season made me think that her
lament was not applicable to herself, just then, at any rate. "What a
pity," cried she, "it is that one cannot be regenerated as the earth is
every spring!" _She_ seemed to me to be undergoing a very pretty process
of regeneration even while she spoke. It is touching to observe natural
character and the lingering traces of early impressions surviving under
the overlaying of the artificial soil and growth of after years of
society and conventional worldly habits. She pointed out to me a
picturesque, pretty object in the grounds, over which she moralized with
a good deal of enthusiasm and feeling--an old, old fir-tree, one of the
cedar tribe, a tree certainly many more than a hundred years old, whose
drooping lower branches absolutely lie upon the lawn for yards all round
it. One of these boughs has struck into the ground, and grown up into a
beautiful young tree, already twelve or fourteen feet high, and the
contrast between the vivid coloring and erect foliage of this young
thing, and the rusty, dusky green, drooping branches of the enormous
tree, which seems to hang over and all round it, with parental
tenderness, is quite exquisite. One of them, however, must,
nevertheless, destroy or be destroyed by the other; a very pretty
vegetable version of the ancient classical, family fate,
superstitions....
Pray, if you know how flowers propagate, write me word. In gathering
primroses this morning, Lady ---- and I exercised our ignorance in all
sorts of conjectures upon the subject, neither of us being botanists,
though she knew, which I did not, the male from the female flowers.
I get a good deal of sleep since you have gone away, as I certainly do
not sit up talking half the night with anybody else. But as for enough,
is there such a thing as enough sleep? and was anybody ever known to
have had it? and who was he or she?
I have had two long letters from Elizabeth Sedgwick, containing much
matter about the abolitionists, in whose movements, you know, she is
deeply interested; also more urgent entreaties that I will "use my
influence" to secure our return home in the autumn!...
My father appears to be quite well, and in a state of great pleasurable
excitement and activity of mind, having (alas! I regret to say) accepted
once more the management of Covent Garden, which is too long a story to
begin just at the end of my paper; but he is in the theatre from morning
till night, as happy as the gods, and apparently, just now, as free from
all mortal infirmity. It is amazing, to be sure, what the revival of the
one interest of his life has done for his health.
I went to the Portland Street Chapel last Sunday, and heard a sermon
upon my peculiar virtue, _humility_, not from the same clergyman we
heard together; and S----, who is too funny, sang the Psalms so loud
that I had to remonstrate with her.
Ever yours,
F. A. B.
[A horrible murder had just been committed by a miserable man of the
name of Good, who endeavored to conceal his crime by cutting to
pieces and scattering in different directions the mangled remains of
his victim--a woman. The details of these horrors filled the public
papers, and were the incessant subject of discussion in society, and
were calculated to produce an impression of terror difficult to
shake off even by so little nervous a person as myself.
The Countess of Berkeley, to whom I have alluded in this letter, was
a woman whose story was a singular romance, which now may be said to
belong to "ancient history." She was the daughter of a butcher of
Gloucester, and an extremely beautiful person. Mr. Henry Berkeley,
the fifth son of Lady Berkeley, for many years Member of Parliament
for Bristol, and as many years the persistent advocate of the system
of voting by ballot, travelled and resided for some time in America,
and formed a close intimacy with ----, who, when we came to England,
accepted Mr. Berkeley's invitation to visit his mother at Cranford,
and took me with him, to make the acquaintance of this remarkable
old lady. She was near eighty years old, tall and stately, with no
apparent infirmities, and great remains of beauty. There was great
originality in all she said, and her manner was strikingly energetic
for so old a woman. I remember, one day after dinner, she had her
glass filled with claret till the liquid appeared to form a rim
above the vessel that contained it, and, raising it steadily to her
lips, looked round the table, where sat all her children but Lord
Fitzhardinge, and saying, "God bless you all," she drank off the
contents without spilling a drop, and, replacing the glass on the
table, said, "Not one of my sons could do that."
One morning, when I was rather indisposed, and unable to join any of
the parties into which the guests had divided themselves on their
various quests after amusement, I was left alone with Lady Berkeley,
and she undertook to give me a sketch of her whole history; and very
strange it was. She gave me, of course, her own version of the
marriage story, and I could not but wonder whether she might have
persuaded herself into believing it true, when she wound up her
curious and interesting account of her life by saying, "And now I am
ready to be carried to my place in the vault, and my place in the
vault is ready for me" (she pointed to the church which adjoined the
old mansion); "and I have the key of it here," and she gave a hearty
slap upon her pocket. She told me of her presentation at Court, and
the uproar it occasioned among the great ladies there, whose
repugnance to admit her of their number she described with much
humor, but attributed solely to the fact of her plebeian descent, of
which she spoke unhesitatingly.
The impression I gathered from her narrative, rather unconsciously
on her part I suspect, was that the Queen, whose strictness upon the
subject of reputation was well known, objected to receiving her
(Lady Berkeley called her, rather disrespectfully, "Old Charlotte"
all the time, but spoke of George III. as "the King"), but was
overruled by the King, who had a personal friendship for Lord
Berkeley.
The strangest thing in her whole account of herself, however, was
the details she gave me of her singular power over her husband. She
said that in a very few years after their marriage (by courtesy) she
perceived that her husband's affairs were in the most deplorable
state of derangement: that he gambled, that he was over head and
ears in debt, that he never had a farthing of ready money, that his
tenantry were worse off than any other in the country, that his
agents and bailiffs and stewards were rogues who ground them and
cheated him, that his farmers were careless and incompetent, and
that the whole of his noble estate appeared to be going
irretrievably to ruin; when the earl complaining one day bitterly of
this state of things, for which he knew no remedy, she told him that
she would find the remedy, and undertake to recover what was lost
and redeem what remained, if he would give her absolute
discretionary power to deal with his property as she pleased, and
not interfere with her management of it for a whole year. He agreed
to this, but, not satisfied with his promise, she made him bind
himself by oath and, moreover, execute documents, giving her legal
power enabling her to act independently of him in all matters
relating to his estate. The earl not unnaturally demurred, but at
length yielded, only stipulating that she should always be prepared
to furnish him with money whenever he wanted it. She bound herself
to do this, and received regular powers from him for the
uninterrupted management of his property and administration of his
affairs for a whole year. She immediately set about her various
plans of reform, and carried them on vigorously and successfully,
without the slightest interference on the part of her dissipated and
careless husband, who had entirely forgotten the whole compact
between them. Some months after the agreement had gone into effect,
she perceived that he was harassed and disturbed about something,
and questioning him, found he had incurred a heavy gambling debt,
which he knew not how to meet. His surprise was extreme when,
recalling the terms of their mutual agreement, she put him in
possession of the sum he required. "He called me an angel," she
said. "You see, my dear, one is always an angel, when one holds the
strings of the purse, and that there is money in it."
She persevered in her twelvemonth's stewardship, and at the end of
that time had redeemed her word, and relieved her husband's estate
from its most pressing embarrassments. The value of the land had
increased; the condition of the tenantry had improved; intelligent
and active farmers had had the farms rented to them, instead of the
previous sleepy set of incumbents; and finally, a competent and
honest agent, devoted to carry out her views, was placed over the
whole. The property never fell from this highly prosperous
condition, for Lord Berkeley never withdrew it from his wife's
supervision; and she continued to administer his affairs till his
death, and maintained an extraordinary influence over all the
members of her family at the time of my acquaintance with her. They
were all rather singular persons, and had a vein of originality
which made them unlike the people one met in common society. I
suppose their mother's unusual character may have had to do with
this.
Lord Fitzhardinge was never at Cranford when I was there, though I
have, at various times, met all the other brothers.
Frederick Berkeley went into the navy, and rose to the important
position of an admiral; Craven Berkeley, Grantley Berkeley, and
Henry Berkeley were all in Parliament. The latter was for many
years Member for the important constituency of Bristol, and,
probably in consequence of opinions acquired during his residence in
the United States, was a consistent advocate for the introduction of
vote by ballot in our elections. This gentleman was an unusually
accomplished person: he had made preparatory studies for two
professions, the Church and the Bar; but though he embraced neither
career (possibly on account of an accident he met with while
hunting, which crippled him for life), the reading he had gone
through for both had necessarily endowed him with a more than common
degree of mental cultivation. He was an excellent musician, played
on the piano and organ with considerable taste and feeling, and had
a much more thorough acquaintance with the science of music than is
usual in an amateur.
Morton Berkeley sought no career; he lived with his mother and
sister, Lady Mary, at Cranford, his principal pleasure and
occupation being the preservation of the game on the estate--an
object of not very easy accomplishment, owing to the proximity of
Cranford to London, the distance being only twelve miles by
railroad, and the facilities thus offered of escape and impunity to
poachers necessarily considerable. The tract immediately round
Cranford was formerly part of the famous, or rather infamous,
Hounslow Heath; and I have heard Mr. Henry Berkeley say that in his
youth he remembered perfectly, when he went to London with his
father, by day or night, loaded pistols were an invariable part of
the carriage furniture.
My first acquaintance with Mr. Morton Berkeley's devotion to the
duties of a gamekeeper was made in a very singular manner, and
accompanied by a revelation of an unexpected piece of sentiment.
---- and myself were visiting at Cranford on one occasion, when the
only strangers there beside ourselves were Lady C----, Lord and Lady
S----, and Lord F---- and his sister, a lady of some pretensions to
beauty, but still more to a certain fashionable elegance of
appearance, much enhanced by her very Parisian elaborateness of
toilette.
One night, when the usual hour for retiring had come, the ladies,
who always preceded the gentlemen by some hours to their sleeping
apartments, had left the large room on the ground-floor, where we
had been spending the evening. As we ascended the stairs, my
attention was attracted by some articles of dress which lay on one
of the window-seats: a heavy, broad-brimmed hat, a large rough
pea-jacket, and a black leather belt and cutlass--a sort of
coastguard costume which, lying in that place, excited my curiosity.
I stopped to examine them, and Lady Mary exclaiming, "Oh, those are
Morton's night-clothes; he puts them on when everybody is gone to
bed, to go and patrol with the gamekeeper round the place. _Do_ put
them on for fun;" she seized them up and began accoutring me in
them.
When I was duly enveloped in these very peculiar trappings, we all
burst into fits of laughter, and it was instantly proposed that we
should all return to the drawing-room, I marching at their head in
my gamekeeper's costume. Without further consideration, I ran
downstairs again, followed by the ladies, and so re-entered the
room, where the gentlemen were still assembled in common council,
and where our almost immediate return in this fashion was hailed by
a universal shout of surprise and laughter. After standing for a
minute, with a huge rough overcoat over my rose-colored satin and
_moiré_ skirts, which made a most ludicrous termination to the
pugnacious habit of my upper woman, I plunged my hand into one of
the pockets, and drew forth a pair of hand-cuffs (a prudent
provision in case of an encounter with poachers). Encouraged by the
peals of merriment with which this discovery was greeted, I thrust
my other hand into the other pocket, when Mr. Morton Berkeley,
without uttering a word, rushed at me, and, seizing me by the wrist,
prevented my accomplishing my purpose. The suddenness of this
movement frightened me at first a good deal. Presently, however, my
emotion changed, and I felt nothing but amazement at being thus
unceremoniously seized hold of, and rage at finding that I could not
extricate myself from the grasp that held me. Like a coward and a
woman, I appealed to all the other gentlemen, but they were laughing
so excessively that they were quite unable to help me, and probably
anticipated no great mischief from Mr. Berkeley's proceeding. I was
almost crying with mortification, and actually drew the cutlass and
threatened to cut the fingers that encircled my wrist like one of
the iron handcuffs, but, finding my captor inexorable, I was
obliged, with extreme sulky confusion, to beg to be let go, and
promise to take the coat off without any further attempts to search
the pockets. I divested myself of my borrowed apparel a great deal
faster than I had put it on, and its owner walked off with the
pea-jacket, the right pocket of which remained unexplored. We ladies
withdrew again, rather crestfallen at the termination of our joke, I
rubbing my wrist like Mary Stuart after her encounter with Lord
Ruthven, and wondering extremely what could be the mysterious
contents of that pocket.
The next day Lady Mary told me that her brother had long cherished a
romantic sort of idolatry for Miss F----, and that, as a pendant to
the handcuffs in one pocket of his dreadnought, the other contained
her miniature, which he dreaded the night before that my
indiscretion would produce, to the derision of the men, the distress
and confusion of the young lady herself, and the possible
displeasure of her brother. Mr. Morton Berkeley's manners to me
after that were again, as they always had been, respectful and
rather reserved; the subject of our "fight" was never again alluded
to, and he remained to me a gentle, shy, courteous (and romantic)
gentleman.
He was habitually silent, but when he did speak, he was very apt to
say something apposite, and generally containing the pith of the
matter under discussion. I remember once, when I was reproaching his
brother Henry and his sister with what I thought the unbecoming
manner in which they criticised the deportment and delivery of a
clergyman whose sermon they had just listened to (and who certainly
was rather an unfortunate specimen of outward divinity), Mr. Morton
Berkeley suddenly turned to me, and said, "Why, Mrs. Butler, he is
only the rusty bars the light shines through"--a quotation, in fact,
but a very apposite one, and I am not sure but that it was an
unconscious one, and an original illustration on his part.
Mr. Thomas Duncombe, the notorious Radical Member for Finsbury, very
generally and very disrespectfully designated in the London society
of his day as "Tommy Duncombe," and Mr. Maxse (Lady Caroline
Berkeley's husband), were also among the persons with whom I became
acquainted at Cranford.
Of a curious feat of charioteership performed by the latter
gentleman I was told once by the Duke of Beaufort, who said he had
derived from it the nickname of "Go-along Maxse." Driving late one
night with a friend on a turnpike road after the gates were closed,
he said to his companion, "Now, if the turnpike we are just coming
to is shut, I'll take the horse and gig over the gate." The gig was
light, the horse powerful and swift. As they bowled along and came
in sight of the gate, they perceived that it was closed; when Mr.
Maxse's companion calling out to him, "Go-along, Maxse," that
gentleman fulfilled his threat or promise, whichever it might be,
and put his horse full at the gate, which the gallant creature
cleared, bringing the carriage and its live freight safe to the
ground on the other side; a feat which I very unintentionally
imitated, in a humble degree, many years after, with an impunity my
carelessness certainly did not deserve.
Driving in a state of considerable mental preoccupation out of my
own gate one day at Lenox, in a very light one-horse "wagon" (as
such vehicles are there called), instead of turning my horse's head
either up or down the road, I let him go straight across it, to the
edge of a tolerably wide dry ditch, when, suddenly checking him, the
horse, who was a saddle-horse and a good leaper, drew himself
together, and took the ditch, with me in the carriage behind him,
and brought up against a fence, where there was just room for him to
turn round, which he immediately did, as if aware of his mistake,
and proceeded to leap back again, quite successfully without any
assistance of mine, I being too much amazed at the whole performance
to do anything but sit still and admire my horse's dexterity.
I have adverted to the still existing industry of "gentlemen of the
road," in speaking of Cranford in the days of the Earl of Berkeley,
who used to take pistols in the carriage when he went to London. On
one occasion, when he was riding, unattended but fortunately not
unarmed, over some part of Hounslow Heath, a highwayman rode up to
him, and, saluting him by name, said, "I know, my lord, you have
sworn never to give in to one of us; but now I mean to try if you're
as good as your word." "So I have, you rascal, but there are two of
you here," replied the earl. The robber, thrown off his guard,
looked round for the companion thus indicated, and Lord Berkeley
instantly shot him through the head; owing it to his ready presence
of mind that he escaped a similar fate at the hands of his
assailant.
My mother, I think, had the advantage of a slight personal
acquaintance with one of the very last of these Tyburn heroes. She
lived at one time, before her marriage, with her mother and sisters
and only brother, at a small country house beyond Finchley; to which
suburban, or indeed then almost entirely rural, retreat my father
and other young men of her acquaintance used occasionally to resort
for an afternoon's sport, in the present highly distinguished
diversion of pigeon-shooting. On one of these occasions some one of
her habitual guests brought with him a friend, who was presented to
my mother, and joined in the exercise of skill. He was like a
gentleman in his appearance and manners, with no special peculiarity
but remarkably white and handsome hands and extraordinary dexterity,
or luck, in pigeon-shooting. Captain Clayton was this individual's
name, and his visit, never repeated to my mother's house, was
remembered as rather an agreeable event. Soon after this several
outrages were committed on the high-road which passed through
Finchley; and Moody, the celebrated comic actor, who lived in that
direction, was stopped one evening, as he was driving himself into
town, by a mounted gentleman, who, addressing him politely by name,
demanded his watch and purse, which Moody surrendered, under the
influence of "the better part of valor." Having done so, however, he
was obliged to request his "very genteel" thief to give him enough
money to pay his turnpike on his way into town, where he was going
to act, whereupon the "gentleman of the road" returned him
half-a-crown, and bade him a polite "Good-evening." Some time after
this, news was brought into Covent Garden, at rehearsal one morning,
that a man arrested for highway robbery was at the Bow Street Police
Office, immediately opposite the theatre. Several of the _corps
dramatique_ ran across the street to that famous vestibule of the
Temple of Themis; among others, Mr. Moody and Vincent de Camp. The
latter immediately recognized my mother's white-handed,
gentleman-like pigeon-shooter, and Moody his obliging MacHeath of
the Finchley Common highway. "Halloa! my fine fellow," said the
actor to the thief, "is that you? Well, perhaps as you _are_ here,
you won't object to return me my watch, for which I have a
particular value, and which won't be of any great use to you now, I
suppose." "Lord love ye, Mr. Moody," replied _Captain Clayton_, with
a pleasant smile, "I thought you were come to pay me the half crown
I lent you."]
HARLEY STREET, Friday, April 22nd, 1842.
MY DEAR T----,
_I_ am not in the least indifferent to the advent of £100 sterling....
I am amused with your description of Dickens, because it tallies so
completely with the first impression he made upon me the only time I
ever met him before he went to America.... I admire and love the man
exceedingly, for he has a deep warm heart, a noble sympathy with and
respect for human nature, and great intellectual gifts wherewith to make
these fine moral ones fruitful for the delight and consolation and
improvement of his fellow-beings.
Lord Morpeth is indeed, as we say, another guessman, but quite one of
the most amiable in this world or _that_. He is universally beloved and
respected, so tenderly cherished, by his own kindred that his mother and
sisters seem absolutely miserable with various anxieties about him, and
the weariness of his prolonged absence. He is a most worthy gentleman,
and "goes nigh to be thought so" by all classes here, I can tell you....
You ask me if I have any warmer friends in England than your people, who
are certainly my warmest friends in America. I have some friends in my
own country who have known and loved me longer than your family; but I
do not think, with one or two exceptions, that they love me better, nor
do I reckon upon the faith and affection of my American friends less
than upon that of my English ones. But the number of people whom I
entirely love and trust is very small anywhere, and yet large enough to
make me thank God every day for the share He has given me of worthy
friendships--treasures sufficient for me to account myself very rich in
their possession; living springs of goodness and affection, in which my
spirit finds never-failing refreshment. But I have in my own country a
vast number of very kind and cordial acquaintances, and, to tell you the
truth, am better understood (naturally) and better liked in society, I
think, here than on your side of the water. I fancy I am more popular,
upon the whole, among my own people than among yours; which is not to
be wondered at, as difference is almost always an element of dislike,
and, of course, I am more different from American than English people.
Indeed, I have come to consider the difference of nationality a broader,
stronger, and deeper difference than that produced by any mere
dissimilarity of individual character. It is tantamount to looking at
everything from another point of view; to having, from birth and through
education, other standards; to having, in short, another intellectual
and moral horizon. No personal unlikeness between two individuals of the
same nation, however strong it may be in certain points, is equal to the
entire unlikeness, fundamental, superficial, and thorough, of two people
of different nations.
I am anxious to close this letter before I go out, and shall only add,
in replying to your next question of whether I ever feel any desire to
return to the stage, _Never_.... My very nature seems to me dramatic. I
cannot speak without gesticulating and making faces, any more than an
Italian can; I am fond, moreover, of the excitement of _acting_,
personating interesting characters in interesting situations, giving
vivid expression to vivid emotion, realizing in my own person noble and
beautiful imaginary beings, and _uttering the poetry of Shakespeare_.
But the stage is not only this, but much more that is not this; and that
much more is not only by no means equally agreeable, but positively
odious to me, and always was.
Good-by. God bless you and yours.
Believe me always yours most truly,
FANNY BUTLER.
HARLEY STREET, May 1st, 1842.
MY DEAREST HARRIET,
I have just despatched a letter to Emily, from whom I I have had two
already since she reached Bannisters. She writes chiefly of her mother,
whose efforts to bear her trial are very painful to poor Emily, whose
fewer years and excellent mental habits render such exertions easier to
her. To no one can self-control under such sorrow ever be easy.
You ask about my going to the Drawing-room, which happened thus: The
Duke of Rutland dined some little time ago at the Palace, and, speaking
of the late party at Belvoir, mentioned me, when the Queen asked why I
didn't have myself presented. The duke called the next day at our house,
but we did not see him, and he being obliged to go out of town, left a
message for me with Lady Londonderry, to the effect that her Majesty's
interest about me (curiosity would have been the more exact word, I
suspect) rendered it imperative that I should go to the Drawing-room;
and, indeed, Lady Londonderry's authoritative "Of course you'll go,"
given in her most _gracious_ manner, left me no doubt whatever as to my
duty in that respect, especially as the message duly delivered by her
was followed up by a letter from the duke, from Newmarket, who, from the
midst of his bets, handicaps, sweepstakes, and cups, wrote me over again
all that he had bid the marchioness tell me. Wherefore, having no
objection whatever to go to Court (except, indeed, the expense of my
dress, the idea of which caused me no slight trepidation, as I had
already exceeded my year's allowance), I referred the matter to my
supreme authority, and it being settled that I was to go, I ordered my
tail, and my top, train, and feathers, and went. And this is the whole
story, with this postscript, that, not owning a single diamond, I hired
a handsome set for the occasion from Abud and Collingwood, every single
stone of which darted a sharp point of nervous anxiety into my brain and
bosom the whole time I wore them.
As you know that I would not go to the end of the street to see a
drawing-room full of full moons, you will easily believe that there was
nothing particularly delightful to me in the occasion. But after all, it
was very little more of an exertion than I make five nights of the week,
in going to one place or another; and under the circumstances it was
certainly fitting and proper that I should go.
I suffered agonies of nervousness, and, I rather think, did all sorts of
awkward things; but so, I dare say, do other people in the same
predicament, and I did not trouble my head much about my various
_mis_-performances. One thing, however, I can tell you: if her Majesty
has seen me, I have not seen her; and should be quite excusable in
cutting her wherever I met her. "A cat may look at _a_ king," it is
said; but how about looking at _the_ Queen? In great uncertainty of mind
on this point, I did not look at my sovereign lady. I kissed a soft
white hand, which I believe was hers; I saw a pair of very handsome
legs, in very fine silk stockings, which I am convinced were not hers,
but am inclined to attribute to Prince Albert; and this is all I
perceived of the whole royal family of England, for I made a sweeping
courtesy to the "good remainders of the Court," and came away with no
impression but that of a crowded mass of full-dressed confusion, and
neither know how I got in nor out of it....
You ask about Liszt. He does not take the management of the German
Opera, as was expected; indeed, I wonder he ever accepted such an
employment. I should think him most unfit to manage such an undertaking,
with his excitable temper and temperament. I do not know whether he will
come to London at all this season. Adelaide has been bitterly
disappointed about it, and said that she had reckoned upon him in great
measure for the happiness of her whole summer....
You ask next in your category of questions after Adelaide's dog, and
whether it is led in a string successfully yet; and thereby hangs a
tale. T'other morning she was awakened by a vehement knocking at her
door, and S---- exclaiming, in a loud and solemn voice, "Adelaide, thy
maid and thy dog are in a fit together!" which announcement she
continued to repeat, with more and more emphasis, till my sister, quite
frightened, jumped out of bed, and came upon the stairs, where she
beheld the two women and children just come in from their walk; Anne,
looking over the banisters with her usual peculiar air of immovable
dignity, slowly ejaculating, "What a fool the girl is!" Caroline
followed in her wake, wringing her hands, and alternately shrieking and
howling, like all the Despairs in the universe. It was long before
anything could be distinguished of articulate speech, among the
fräulein's howls and shrieks; but at length it appeared that she had
taken "die Tine" out in the Regent's Park with Anne and the children,
who now go out directly after their breakfast. Tiny, it seems, enjoyed
the trip amazingly, and became so excited and so very much transported
with what we call animal spirits in human beings that it began to run,
as the fräulein thought, away. Whereupon the fräulein began to run after
it; whereupon Tiny, when it heard this Dutch nymph heavy in hot pursuit,
ran till it knocked its head against a keeper's lodge, and here, because
it shook and trembled and stared, probably at its own unwonted
performance, a sympathizing crowd collected, who instantly proclaimed it
at first in a _conwulsion_ fit, and then decidedly mad. Water was
offered it, which it only stared at and shook its head, evidently
dreading the cleansing element. A policeman coming by immediately
proposed to kill it. This, however, the fräulein objected to; and
catching the bewildered quadruped in her arms, she set off home,
escorted by a running mob of sympathetic curiosity. But about half-way
the struggle between herself and "die Tine" became so terrific that it
ended by the luckless little brute escaping from her, and precipitating
itself down an area, where it remained, invoking heaven with howls,
while Caroline ran howling down the street. The man-servant was then
sent (twice with a wrong direction) to fetch the poor little creature
up, and bring it home. At length Caroline accompanied the footman to the
scene of the dog-astrophe (you wouldn't call it _cat_-astrophe, would
you?), and "die Tine" was safely lodged in the back-yard here, where,
being left alone and not bothered with human solicitude, it presently
recovered as many small wits as it ever had, drank voluntarily plenty of
water, and gave satisfactory signs of being quite as rational as any
lady's little dog need be; but the fräulein protests she will never take
"die Tine" out walking again.
Good-bye dear. God bless you. I am pretty well, if that comports with
low spirits and terrible nervous irritability.
Yours ever,
FANNY.
My father desires his love to you.
HARLEY STREET, Friday, May 6th, 1842.
I did ask Emily my botanical questions, but she could tell me no more
than you have done, and knew nothing special about the primroses.
You ask me a great deal in your letter about my father again taking the
management of Covent Garden, and on what terms he has done so; all which
I have told you in the letter I have just despatched to you....
Adelaide has repeatedly said that, as soon as she has realized three
hundred a year, she will give up the whole business; and I comfort
myself with that purpose of hers; for if at the conclusion of next
season she will go to America for a year, she will more than realize the
result she proposes to herself.... I cannot, however, help fearing that
obstacles may arise to prevent her eventually fulfilling her purpose
when the time comes for her retiring, according to her present
expectation and wish....
I have not been out a great deal lately, We seem a little less inclined
to fly at all quarry than last season; and as I never decide whether we
shall accept the invitations that come or not, I am very well pleased
that some of them are declined. I believe I told you that Lady
Londonderry had asked us to a magnificent ball. This I was rather sorry
to refuse, as a ball is quite as great a treat to me as to any "young
miss" just coming out. Indeed, I think my capacity of enjoyment and
excitement is greater than that of most "young misses" I see, who not
only talk of being _bored_, but actually contrive, poor creatures! to
look so in the middle of their first season.
I spent two hours with poor Lady Dacre yesterday evening.... After
sitting with her, we went to a large party at Sydney Smith's, where I
was very much amused and pleased, and saw numbers of people that I know
and like--rather.
You ask about my walks.... They are now chiefly confined to my
peregrinations in the Square, measuring the enclosed gravel walks of
which I have already, since your departure, finished the "Mémoires de
l'Enfant du Peuple," and brought myself, _mirabile dictu!_ to within
twenty pages of the end of Mrs. Jameson's book upon Prussian school
statistics....
I do not think Mr. W---- any authority upon any subject. I consider him
a perfect specimen of a charlatan, and his opinions with regard to
slavery and the abolitionists are particularly little worthy of credit
in my mind, because he _used_ America precisely as an actor would, to
make money wherever he could by his lectures, which he puffed himself,
till he was absolutely laughed at all over the country, and which were,
by the accounts of those who heard them, perfectly shallow and often
quite erroneous as far as regarded the information they pretended to
impart. The Southern States were a lucrative field for his lecturing
speculation; the Northern abolitionists were far from being sufficiently
numerous or influential for it to be worth his while to conciliate them;
and for these reasons I attach little value to his statement upon that
or indeed any other subject.
You ask me what was my impression altogether of the Drawing-room. I
have told you about my own performances there, of which, however, I dare
say I exaggerated the awkwardness to myself. The whole thing wearied me,
just as any other large, overcrowded assembly where I could not sit down
would; and that is the chief impression it has left upon me. I believe I
was flattered by the Queen's expressing any curiosity about me, but I
went simply because I was told it was right that I should do so. I am
always horribly shy, or nervous, or whatever that foolish sensation
ought to be called, at even having to walk across a room full of people;
and therefore the fuss and to-do and ceremonial of the presentation
(particularly not having been very well drilled beforehand by Lady
Francis, who presented me) were disagreeable to me; but I have retained
no impression of the whole thing other than of a very large and
fatiguing rout. We are advised to go again on the birthday, but that I
am sure we shall not do; and now that the Queen--God bless her!--has
perceived that I do not go upon all-fours, but am indeed, as Bottom
says, "a woman like any other woman," I have no doubt her gracious
Majesty is abundantly satisfied with what she saw of me.
Good-bye, dearest Harriet.
Ever yours,
F. A. B.
[The enthusiastic abolitionist, Mrs. Lydia Child, had written to me,
requesting me to give her for publication some portions of the
journal I had kept during my residence in Georgia; and I had
corresponded with my friend Mrs. Charles Sedgwick upon the subject,
deciding to refuse her request. My Georgia journal never saw the
light till the War of Secession was raging in America, and almost
all the members of the society in which I was then living in England
were strongly sympathizing with the Southern cause, when I thought
it right to state what, according to my own observation and
experience, that cause involved.]
HARLEY STREET, May 6th, 1842.
MY DEAREST HARRIET,
The carriage is waiting to take ---- to the _Levée_, and I am waiting
till it comes back to go upon my thousand and one daily errands.
Adelaide, it being her last day at home, appears anxious to enjoy as
much as she can of my society, and has therefore gone fast asleep in the
arm-chair by the table at which I am writing, and has expressed her
intention of coming out and paying visits with me this morning. She
starts at eight o'clock this evening, and will reach Birmingham, I
believe, about one. This arrangement, which I should think detestable,
pleases her very much....
Mr. Everett, our friend, presents ----, and I thought Anne would have
fallen down in a fit when she heard that the ceremony consisted in going
down on one knee and kissing the Queen's hand. She did not mind my doing
it the least in the world, but her indignation has been unbounded at the
idea of a free-born American citizen submitting to such degradation.
Poor thing! "Lucifer, son of the morning," was meek and humble to her.
We dined to-day with the Francis Egertons, to meet the young Guardsmen
who are to form our _corps dramatique_ for "The Hunchback," which, you
know, we are going to act in private. To-morrow evening we go to Sydney
Smith's, and on Monday down to Oatlands for a few days. I am always
delighted in that place and the lovely wild country round it. Lady
Francis will mount me, and I expect my old enjoyment in riding about
those beautiful and well-remembered haunts with her....
There has been a grand row at the Italian Opera-House, among the
managers, singers, and singeresses. Mario (Mons. Di Candia; I suppose
you know who I mean) has, it seems, for some reason or other, been
_discharged_. Madame Grisi, who sympathizes with him, refuses to uplift
her voice, that being the case; the new singeress, Frezzolini, does not
please at all; and the new singer, Rouconi, isn't allowed by his wife to
sing with any woman but herself, and she is a perfect _dose_ to the poor
audience. Lumley, the solicitor, manager of these he and she divinities,
declares that if they don't behave better he'll shut the theatre at the
end of the week. In the mean time, underhand proposals have been made to
Adelaide to stop the gap, and sing for a few nights for them--a sort of
proposal which does not suit her, which she has scornfully rejected, and
departed with her tail over her shoulder, leaving the behind scenes of
Her Majesty's Theatre with their tails between their legs....
My dearest Harriet, you ask me if I do not think the spirit of
martyrdom is often alloyed with self-esteem and wilfulness. God alone
knows the measure in which human infirmity and human virtue unite in
inducing the sacrifice of life and all that life loves for a point of
opinion. I confess, for my own part, self-esteeming and wilful as I am,
that to suffer bodily torture for the sake of an abstract question of
what one believes to be right is an effort of courage so much above any
that I am capable of that I do not feel as if I had a right to
undervalue it by the smallest doubt cast upon the merit of those who
have shown themselves capable of it. It may be that, without such
admixture of imperfection as human nature's highest virtues are still
tinged with, the confessors of every good and noble cause would have
left unfulfilled their heroic task of witnessing to the truth by their
death; but if indeed base alloy did mingle with their great and
conscientious sacrifice, let us hope that the pangs of physical torture,
the anguish of injustice and ignominy, and the rending asunder of all
the ties of earthly affection, may have been some expiation for the
imperfection of their most perfect deed....
Will you, my dear, be so good as to remember what a hang-nail is like?
or a grain of dust in your eye? or a blister on your heel? or a corn on
your toe? and then reflect what the word "torture" implies, when it
meant all that the most devilish cruelty could invent. Savonarola! good
gracious me! I would have _canted_ and _re_canted, and called black
white, and white black, and confessed, and denied! Please don't think of
it! God be praised, those days are over! Not but what I edified Mr.
Combe greatly once, when I was a girl, by declaring that if, by behaving
well under torture, I could have vexed my tormentors very much, and if I
might have had plenty of people to see how well I behaved, I thought I
could have managed it; to which he replied, "Oh, weel now, Fanny, ye've
just got the very spirit of a martyr in you." See if that theory of the
matter answers your notion....
You ask me how I managed about diamonds to go to Court in. I hired a
set, which I also wore at the _fête_ at Apsley House; they were only a
necklace and earrings, which I wore as a bandeau, stitched on scarlet
velvet, and as drops in the middle of scarlet velvet bows in my hair,
and my dress being white satin and point lace, trimmed with white Roman
pearls, it all looked nice enough. The value of the jewels was only
£700, but I am sure they gave me £7000 worth of misery; and if her
Majesty had but known the anguish I endured in showing my respect for
her by false appearances, the very least she could have done would have
been to have bought the jewels and given them to me. Madame Dévy made my
Court dress, which was of such material as, you see, I can use when I
play "The Hunchback" at Lady Francis's. I am ruining myself, in spite of
my best endeavors to be economical; but if it is any comfort for you to
know it, my conscience torments me horribly for it....
God bless you. Good-bye, dear.
Ever yours affectionately,
F. A. B.
HARLEY STREET, Saturday, May 7th, 1842.
... What an immense long talk I am having with you this morning, my dear
Hal! I do not believe you are wearied, however; but you will surely
wonder why I did not put all these letters under one cover with the
three sovereign heads on the one packet; and I am sure I don't know why
I have not. But it doesn't matter much my appearing a little more or a
little less absurd to you.
You ask who I shall associate with while ---- and Adelaide are away....
I presume with my own writing-table and the carriage cushions, just as I
do now, just as I did before, and just as I am likely to do
hereafter....
It was not the presence of the Queen that affected my nerves at the
Drawing-room, but _my own_ presence, _i.e._, as the French say, I was
"très embarrassée de ma personne." The uncertainty of what I was to do
(for Lady Francis had been exceedingly succinct in her instructions),
and the certainty of a crowd of people staring all round me,--this, I
think, and not the overpowering sense of a royal human being before me,
was what made me nervous. Were I to go again to a Drawing-room, now that
I know my lesson, I do not think I should suffer at all from any
embarrassment. We are not asked to the fancy ball at the Palace, I am
told, because of our omission in not attending at the Birthday
Drawing-room, which, it seems, is a usual thing after a first
presentation. I should like to have seen it; it will be a fine sight. In
the mean time, as many of our acquaintances are going, we come in for a
full share of the insanity which has taken possession of men's and
women's minds about velvets, satins, brocades, etc. You enter no room
that is not literally _strewed_ with queer-looking prints of costumes;
and before you can say, "How d'ye do?" you are asked which looks best
together, blue and green, or pink and yellow; for, indeed, their
selections are often as outrageous as these would be. I never conceived
people could be so stupid at combining ideas, even upon this least
abstruse of subjects; and you would think, to hear these fine ladies
talk the inanity they do about their own clothes, now they are compelled
to think about them for themselves, that they have no natural
perceptions of even color, form, or proportion. The fact is that even
their _dressing_-brains are turned over to their French milliners and
lady's-maids. I understand Lady A---- says she will make her dress alone
(exclusive of jewels) cost £1000.
Some people say this sort of mad extravagance does good; I cannot think
it. It surely matters comparatively little that the insane luxury of the
self-indulgent feeds the bodies of so many hundred people if at the same
time the mischievous example of their folly and extravagance is
demoralizing their hearts and minds and injuring a great many more.
Touching Lady A----, she gave the address of one of her milliners to
Lady W----, who, complaining to her of the exorbitant prices of this
superlative _faiseuse_, and plaintively stating that she had charged her
fifty guineas for a simple morning dress, Lady A---- replied, "Ah, very
likely, I dare say; I don't know anything about _cheap clothes_."
I do not know where Adelaide is likely to lodge in Dublin, nor do I
believe she knows herself; but before this letter reaches you, you will
have found out. I had almost a mind to ask her to write to me, but then
I knew both how she hates it and how little time she was likely to have,
so I forbore. She has left me with the pleasing expectation that any of
these days her eccentric musical friend Dessauer may walk in, to be by
me received, lodged, entertained, comforted, and consoled, in her
absence (in which case, by-the-by, you know, I should associate with him
while she is away). From parts of his letters which she has read to me,
I feel very much inclined to like him, ... and I imagine I shall find
him very amusing....
You ask about our getting up of "The Hunchback" at the Francis
Egertons'. I forget whether you knew that Horace Wilson [my kind friend
and connection, the learned Oxford Professor of Sanscrit, who to his
many important acquirements and charming qualities added the
accomplishments of a capital musician and first-rate amateur actor] has
been seriously indisposed, and so out of health and spirits as to have
declined the part of Master Walter, which he was to have taken in it.
This has been a great disappointment to me, for he would have done it
admirably, and as he is a person of whom I am very fond, it would have
been agreeable to me to have had him among us, and I should have
particularly liked him for so important a coadjutor. He failing us,
however, Knowles himself has undertaken to play the part, and I shall be
glad enough to do it with him again. I have a great deal of
compassionate admiration for poor Knowles, who, with his undeniable
dramatic genius, his bright fancy, and poetical imagination, will, I
fear, end his days either in a madhouse or a poorhouse. The characters
beside Sir Thomas Clifford and Modus (which you know are taken by Henry
Greville and ----) are filled by a pack of young Guardsmen, with whom I
dined, in order to make acquaintance, at Lady Francis's t'other day. Two
of them, Captain Seymour and a son of Sir Francis Coles, are
acquaintances of yours and your people.
You ask how I am amusing myself. Why, just as usual, which is well
enough. I am of too troubled a nature ever to lack excitement, and have
an advantage over most people in the diversion I am able to draw from
very small sources.
I went last night to the French play, to see a French actress called
Déjazet make her first appearance in London. The house was filled with
our highest aristocracy, the stalls with women of rank and character,
and the performance was, I think, one of the most impudent that I ever
witnessed. Dr. Whewell [the celebrated Master of Trinity] and Mrs.
Whewell were sitting near us, and left the theatre in the middle of
Déjazet's first piece--I suppose from sheer disgust. She is a marvellous
actress, and without exception the most brazen-faced woman I ever
beheld, and that is saying a great deal. Good-bye.
Ever your affectionate
FANNY.
HARLEY STREET, Saturday, May 14th, 1842.
MY DEAREST HAL,
On my return from Oatlands yesterday, I found no fewer than four letters
of yours, and this morning I have received a fifth.... I am most
thankful for all your details about Adelaide, who, of course, will not
have time to write to any of us herself.... Miss Rainsforth, her mother,
and their travelling manager, Mr. Callcott, are her whole party.... Miss
Rainsforth is a quiet, gentle, well-conducted, well-bred, amiable
person; Mr. Callcott is a son of the composer, and a nephew of our
friend Sir Augustus, and has the refinement of mind and manners which
one would look for in any member of that family.... I am very sorry that
Adelaide cannot see more of you, and you of her....
You ask whether it is a blessing or a curse not to provide one's own
means of subsistence. I think it is a great blessing to be able and
allowed to do so. But I dare say I am not a fair judge of the question,
for the feeling of independence and power consequent upon earning large
sums of money has very much destroyed my admiration for any other mode
of support; and yet certainly my _pecuniary_ position now would seem to
most people very far preferable to my former one; but having _earned_
money, and therefore most legitimately _owned_ it, I never can conceive
that I have any right to the money of another person.... I cannot help
sometimes regretting that I did not reserve out of my former earnings at
least such a yearly sum as would have covered my personal expenses; and
having these notions, which impair the comfort of _being maintained_, I
am sometimes sorry that I no longer possess my former convenient power
of coining. I do not think I should feel so uncomfortable about
inheriting money, though I had not worked for it; for, like any other
free gift, I think I should consider that legitimately my own, just like
any other present that was made me....
"The Hunchback" is to be acted at the Francis Egertons', in London,
though I do not very well see how; for Bridgewater House is in process
of rebuilding, and their present residence in Belgrave Square, though
large enough for all social purposes, is far from being well adapted to
theatrical ones; insomuch--or, rather, so little--that it is my opinion
we shall be in each other's arms, laps, and pockets throughout the
whole performance, which will be inconvenient, and in some of the
situations slightly indecorous.
I have received this morning, my dear, your notice of the "Sonnambula,"
for which we are all very grateful to you. Give my love to my sister. I
expected her success as a matter of course, and did not anticipate much
annoyance to her from her present mode of life, ... because I have known
her derive extreme amusement and diversion from circumstances and
associates that would have been utterly distasteful to me. Her love and
perception of the ridiculous is not only positive enjoyment, but a
protection from annoyance and a mitigation of disgust. My father desires
his love to you, and bids me thank you for your kindness in sending him
the newspapers. With regard to that last song in the "Amina," of which
you speak as of a _tour de force_, it is hardly so much so, in point of
fact, as her execution of the whole part, which is too high for her; and
though she sings it admirably in spite of that, she cannot give it the
power and expression that she would if it lay more easily in her voice.
This, however, is the case with other music that she sings, and the
consequence is that, though she has great execution, and power, and
sweetness, and finish in the use of her artificial voice, it wants the
spontaneous force in high music of a naturally high organ.
Pray, did you ever pity me as much as you do Adelaide in the exercise of
her profession? You certainly never expressed the same amount of
compassion for my strolling destinies, nor did I ever hear you lament in
this kind over the fate of John Kemble and Mrs. Siddons, both of whom
had impertinences addressed to them by your Dublin gallery humorists.
Pray, what is the meaning of this want of feeling on your part for _us
others_, or your excess of it for Adelaide? Is it only singing histrions
who appear to you objects of compassion? Good-bye, dearest Harriet. I
have to write to Emily, and to answer an American clergyman, a friend of
mine, who has written to me from Paris; and moreover, being rather in
want of money, I am about to endeavor to make practicable for the
English stage a French piece called "Mademoiselle de Belle Isle," which,
with certain vicious elements, has some very striking and effective
situations, and is, dramatically speaking, one of the most cleverly
constructed plays I have seen for a long while. Therefore, farewell. If
I could _earn_ £200 now, I should be glad.
HARLEY STREET, Thursday, May 19th, 1842.
Thank you, my dearest Harriet, for your long account of Adelaide. She
has written to my father, which I was very glad of.... Of course, I have
not expected to hear from her, but have been delighted to get all your
details. In her letter to my father, she says she gets on extremely well
with her companions, that they are gay and merry, and that her life with
them is pleasant and amuses her very much.
You do not ask me a single question about a single thing, and therefore
I will just tell you how matters in general go on with me. In the first
place, I heard yesterday that we are definitely to return to America in
August. Some attempt was made to renew our lease of this house for a few
months; but difficulties have arisen about it, and we shall probably
return to the United States as soon as possible after our lease expires.
I do not yet feel at all sure of the fulfilment of this intention,
however; but at any rate it is one point of apparent decision
indicated....
My feelings and thoughts about the return are far too numerous and
various to be contained in a letter. One thing I think--I feel sure
of--_that it is right_, and therefore I am glad we are to do it. My
father, to whom this intention has not yet been mentioned, is looking
wonderfully well, and appears to be enjoying his mode of life extremely.
He spends his days at Covent Garden, and finds even now, when the German
company are carrying on their _opera_tions there, enough to do to keep
him interested and incessantly busy within those charmed and charming
precincts. I am pretty well, though not in very good spirits; my life is
much more quiet and regular than when you were here, and I enjoy a
considerable portion of retiracy.
I have taken possession of Adelaide's little sitting-room, and inhabit
it all day, and very often till tea-time in the evening. Owing to our
day no longer being cut to pieces by our three-o'clock dinner (on
account of Adelaide), I do not run into arrears with my visits, and
generally, after discharging one or two recent debts of that sort, am
able to get an hour's walk in Kensington Gardens, and come home between
four and five o'clock.
We have not been out a great deal lately; we have taken, I am happy to
say, to discriminating a little among our invitations, and no longer
accept everything that offers.
I spent three delightful days at Oatlands, which is charming to me from
its own beauty and the association of the pleasure which I enjoyed there
in past years. The hawthorn was just coming into blossom, the wild
heaths and moors and commons were one sheet of deep golden gorse and
pale golden broom, and nothing could be lovelier than the whole aspect
of the country.
The day before yesterday I dined _tête-à-tête_ with Mademoiselle d'Este,
for whom I have taken rather a fancy, and who appears to have done the
same by me. Her position is a peculiar and trying one, combined with her
character, which has some striking and interesting elements. She is no
longer young, but has still much personal beauty, and that of an order
not common in England: very dark eyes, hair, and complexion, with a
freedom and liveliness of manner and play of countenance quite unusual
in Englishwomen.... She lives a great deal alone, and reads a great
deal, and thinks a little, and I feel interested in her. She has
sacrificed the whole comfort and, it appears to me, much of the possible
happiness of her life to her notion of being a princess, which, poor
thing! she is not; and as she will not be satisfied with, or even
accept, the position of a private gentlewoman, she is perpetually
obliged to devise means of avoiding situations, which are perpetually
recurring, in which her real rank, or rather _no_ rank, is painfully
brought home to her. This unfortunate pretension to princess-ship has
probably interfered vitally with her happiness, in preventing her
marrying, as she considers, below her birth [_i.e._ royally]; and as she
is a very attractive woman, and, I should judge, a person of strong
feelings and a warm, passionate nature, this must have been a
considerable sacrifice; though in marrying, to be sure, she might only
have realized another form of disappointment.
Yesterday we went to a fine dinner at Lord F----'s. He and his sisters
are good-natured young people of large fortune, whose acquaintance we
made at Cranford, and who are very civil and amiable in their
demonstrations of good-will towards us. A son of the Duke of Leinster
was at this dinner, and invited ---- to go with him this morning and
see Prince Albert review the Guards; which he has accordingly done.
To-night we go to Sydney Smith's, which I always enjoy exceedingly; and
for next week, I am happy to say, we have at present no engagements but
a dinner at the Francis Egertons', and another evening at Sydney
Smith's....
I believe I have now told you pretty much all I have to tell. I am
working at a translation of a French piece called "Mademoiselle de Belle
Isle," by which I hope to make a little money, with which I should be
very glad to pay Mademoiselle Dévy's bill for my spring finery.
I went to Covent Garden the other day, to see if I could find anything
in the theatre wardrobe that I could make use of for "The Hunchback,"
and did find something; and, moreover, I think Adelaide will be able to
get her dress for Helen from there, though it seemed rather a doleful
daylight collection of frippery. My first dress I can make one of my own
white muslin ones serve for, my last I shall get beautifully out of my
Court costume; so that the three will only cost me the price of altering
them for the private theatrical occasion.
We met at Oatlands Mrs. G----, the mother of the Member for Dublin, who
has been preparing herself, by a twelve years' residence on the
Continent, for a plunge into savagedom, by a return to her home in
Connemara; and it was both comical and sad to hear her first launch out
upon the merits of the dear "wild Irish," and her desire to be among and
serviceable to "her people," and then, all in the same breath, declare
that the mere atmosphere of England and English society was enough to
kill any one with "the blue devils" who had ever been abroad; and this,
mind you, is the impression British existence makes upon her in the full
height of the gay London season. Fancy what she will find Connemara! She
knows you and your people, and gave me a most ardent invitation to the
savage Ireland where she lives. Poor woman! I pity her; her case is not
absolutely unknown to me, or quite without parallel in my own
experience.
Good-bye. God bless you.
Your affectionate
F. A. B.
HARLEY STREET.
This letter has been begun a week; it is now Saturday, May 28th, 1842.
MY DEAREST HARRIET,
Pray give my love to Mrs. Kemble, and tell her that the Queen Dowager
sent for me to go and pay her a visit yesterday. For goodness' sake,
Harriet, don't misunderstand me, I am only in joke! I live among such
very matter-of-fact persons that I really tremble for an hour after
every piece of nonsense I utter. You must observe by this that I am in a
painfully frequent state of trepidation; but what I meant by this
message to Mrs. Kemble is that I have been extremely amused at her
taking the trouble to write to Mrs. George Siddons to find out "all
about" my going to the Drawing-room, and the rumor which had reached her
of the Queen having desired to see me. George Siddons told me this
himself, and it struck me as such a funny interest in my concerns on the
part of Mrs. Kemble, who takes none whatever in _me_, that I thought I
would send her word of the piece of preferment which has occurred to me
since, viz. being sent for by the Queen Dowager, who desired my friend
Mademoiselle d'Este to bring me to call upon her. But what wonderful
gossip it does seem to be writing gravely round and round from
Leamington to London, and from London to Leamington, about!
You ask me how it fares with me. Why, busily and wearily enough. We have
had a perfect deluge of invitations lately, two or three thick of a
night....
We are going to-night to the Duchess of Sutherland's fancy ball at
Stafford House, which is to be a less formal, but not less magnificent,
show than the Queen's masque.
I have not begun to rehearse "The Hunchback" yet, for _I_ shall not
require many rehearsals; but one of our party attended the first this
morning, and said all the young amateurs promised very fairly, and that
Henry Greville did his part extremely well, which I am very glad to
hear. I have had but one visit from him since his return to town, when,
of course, he discussed Adelaide's plans with great zeal. He certainly
wishes very much that she should sing at the Opera, but his view of the
whole matter is so different from mine ... that we are not likely to
agree very well, even upon so general a point of discussion as her best
professional interests.
I am much concerned at your observations about her exhaustion and
hoarseness. I am so anxious that her present life should not be
prolonged, so anxious that she should realize her very moderate wishes
and leave it, that I cannot bear to think of any possible failure of her
precious gift from over-exertion.... I think, begging your pardon, you
talk some nonsense when you compare your existence, as an object of
rational pity, with my sister's. All other considerations set apart,
there are certain conditions of life, which are the result of peculiar
states and stages of society, that are indisputably less favorable for
the production of happiness, and the exercise of goodness also, than
others. Among these results of over-civilization are the careers of
public exhibitors of every description. In judging of their conduct or
character, we may make every allowance for the peculiar dangers of their
position, and the temptations of their peculiar gifts; but I confess I
am amazed at any woman who, sheltered by the sacred privacy of a home,
can envy the one or desire the other.
Dearest Harriet, this letter has lain so long unfinished, and I am now
so engulfed in all sorts of worry, flurry, hurry, row, fuss, bustle,
bother, dissipation and distraction, that it is vain hoping to add
anything intelligible to it. Good-bye, dearest.
Ever yours,
FANNY.
HARLEY STREET, May 29th, 1842.
DEAREST HARRIET,
This is Sunday, and, owing to my custom of neither paying visits nor
going to dinner or evening parties on "the first day of the week," I
look forward to a little leisure; though the repeated raps at the door
already this morning remind me that it will probably be interrupted
often enough to render it of little avail for any purpose of consecutive
occupation....
You ask me if I think of "taking to translating." My dear Harriet, if
you mean when I return to America, I shall take to nothing there but the
stagnant life I led there before, which, in the total absence of any
impulse from the external circumstances in which I live and the utter
absence of any interest in any intellectual pursuit in those with whom I
live, becomes absolutely inevitable; and so I think that, once again in
my Transatlantic home, I shall neither originate nor translate anything.
I have "taken to translating" "Mademoiselle de Belle Isle" because my
bill at Mademoiselle Dévy's is £97, and I am determined _my brains_
shall pay it; therefore, also, I have given my father a ballet on the
subject of Pocahontas, and am preparing and altering "Mademoiselle de
Belle Isle" for Covent Garden, for both which pieces of work I hope to
get something towards my £97. Besides this, I have offered my "Review of
Victor Hugo" to John for the _British Quarterly Review_, of which he is,
you know, the editor--of course, telling him that it was written for an
American magazine--and he has promised me sixteen guineas for it if it
suits him. Besides this, I have offered Bentley the beginning of my
Southern journal, merely an account of our journey down to the
plantation.... Besides this, I have drawn up and sketched out, act by
act, scene by scene, and almost speech by speech, a play in five acts, a
sequel to the story of Kotzebue's "Stranger," which I hope to make a
good work of. Thus, you see, my brains are not altogether idle; and,
with all this, I am rehearsing "The Hunchback" with our amateurs, for
three and four hours at a time, attending to my own dresses and
Adelaide's (who will attend to nothing), returning, as usual, all the
visits, and going out to dinners and parties innumerable. This, you will
allow, is rather a double-quick-time sort of existence; but the
after-lull of the future will be more than sufficient for rest.
Alexandre Dumas is the author of "Mademoiselle de Belle Isle," and I was
led to select that piece to work upon, not so much from the interest of
the story, which is, however, considerable, as from the dramatic skill
with which it is managed, and the circumstances made to succeed each
other. There is, unfortunately, an insuperably objectionable incident in
it, which I have done my best to modify; but it is one of the most
ingeniously constructed pieces I have seen for a long time, and gives
admirable opportunities for good acting to almost every member of the
_dramatis personæ_.
Mademoiselle d'Este has no right to the painful feeling of illegitimacy,
for her mother was her father's wife, and therefore she has not, what
indeed I can conceive to be, a bitter source of wounded pride and
incessant rational mortification. The Duke of Sussex married Lady
Augusta Murray, and that, I should think, might satisfy his daughter, in
spite of all the Acts of Parliament afterwards devised to restrict and
regulate royal marriages. Mademoiselle d'Este's is merely a perpetual
protest against an irreversible social decree, and an incessant,
unavailing struggle for the observance and respect conventionally due to
a rank which is _not_ hers; and though it appears to me as senseless a
cause of trouble as ever human being chose to accept, yet as incessant
bitterness and mortification and annoyance are its results for her, poor
soul! of course to her it is real enough, if not in itself, in the
results she gathers from it.
My dinner has intervened, my dear, since this last sentence, and,
moreover, a permission from my sister to inform you that _she is engaged
to be married_!...
You ask how Adelaide looks after her Dublin campaign. She looks better
now, in spite of all her fatigue, than she has done since her return
from Italy; her face looks almost fat, to which appearance, however, it
is in some degree helped by her hair being already in rehearsal for "The
Hunchback," falling in ringlets on each side of her head, which becomes
her very much....
I have heard from Elizabeth Sedgwick, and she concurs in the propriety
of my _not_ giving Mrs. Child my Southern journal. I shall say no more
upon that subject....
Good-bye, dearest Harriet. I look forward with anticipated refreshment
to a ride which I have some chance of getting to-morrow, and for which I
am really gasping. I got one ride this week, and the escort that came to
the door for me touched and flattered me not a little: old Lord Grey and
Lady G----, and his two grandsons, and Lord Dacre, and B---- S----, all
came up from their part of the town _to fetch me a ride_, which was a
great kindness on their part, and an honor, pleasure, and profit to me.
God bless you, dear. I feel, as Margery says, "in a kind of bewilder,"
but ever yours,
FANNY.
[My first meeting with Mademoiselle d'Este took place at Belvoir
Castle, where we were both on a visit to the Duke of Rutland, and
where my attention was drawn to the peculiarity of her conduct by my
neighbor at the dinner-table, who said to me, just after we had
taken our places, "Do you see Mademoiselle d'Este? She will do that
now every day while she remains here." Mademoiselle d'Este at this
moment entered the dining-room alone, and passed down the side of
the table with an inclination to the duke, and a half-muttered
apology about being late. This, it seems, was simply a pretence to
cover her determination not to give precedence to any of the women
in the house by being taken into dinner after them. The Duchesses of
Bedford and Richmond, the Countess of Winchelsea, and other women of
rank being then at the castle, Mademoiselle d'Este's pretensions
stood not the slightest chance of acknowledgment, and she took this
quite ineffectual way of protesting against her social position.
Everybody at Belvoir was sufficiently familiar with her to accept
these sort of proceedings on her part. To me they seemed more
undignified and wanting in real pride and self-respect than a quiet
acquiescence in the inevitable would have been. The conventional
distinction she demanded had been legally refused her, and it was
not in the power of the society to which she belonged to give it to
her, however much they might have felt inclined to pity her position
and excuse her resentment of it. But it was inconceivable to me that
she should not either withdraw absolutely from all society (which is
what I should have done in her place), or submit silently to an
injury against which all protest was vain, which renewed itself, in
some shape or other, daily, and which really involved no personal
affront to her or injustice to the character of her mother. I
thought she made a great mistake, which did not prevent my being
attracted by her; and while we were at Belvoir, and immediately
afterwards at Lord Willoughby's together, and subsequently on our
return to London, we had a good deal of familiar and friendly
intercourse with each other, in the course of which I had many
opportunities of observing the perpetual struggle she maintained
against what she considered the intolerable hardship of her
position.
She occupied a pretty little house in Mount Street, Grosvenor
Square, and never allowed her servants to wear anything but the
undress of the royal household; the scarlet livery being, of course,
out of the question. On one or two occasions I dined with her
_tête-à-tête_, and took no notice of the fact, which I remembered
afterwards, that she invariably sent the servant out of the room,
and helped herself and me with her own hands; but once, when the
Duchess of B---- dined with us, and Mademoiselle d'Este had a
dumb-waiter placed beside her, and, sending the man-servant out of
the room, performed all the table service (except, indeed, bringing
in the dishes), with our assistance only, the duchess assured me
afterwards that this was simply because, in her own house,
Mademoiselle d'Este would not submit to the unroyal indignity of
being waited upon after her guests at her own table by her own
servants.
When the preparations for the fancy ball at the Palace were turning
half the great houses in London into milliners' shops, filled with
stuffs, and patterns, and pictures, and materials for fancy dresses,
and drawings of costumes, and gabbling, shrieking, distracted women,
Mademoiselle d'Este consulted me about her dress, and we passed a
whole morning looking over a huge collection of plates of historical
personages and picturesque portraits of real or imaginary heroines.
Among these I repeatedly put aside several that I thought would be
especially becoming to her dark beauty and fine figure; and as often
was surprised to find that among those I had thus selected she had
invariably rejected a certain proportion, among which were two or
three particularly beautiful and appropriate, one or other of which
I should certainly have chosen for her above the rest. I couldn't
imagine upon what theory of selection she was guiding her
examination of the prints until, upon closer examination, I
perceived that the only portraits from which she had determined to
make her choice of a costume were those of princesses of blood
royal. Poor woman!
I once saw a curious encounter between her and the Marchioness of
L----, in which the most insolent woman of the London society of
that day was worsted with her own peculiar weapon, by the princess
"claimant," and ignominiously beaten from the field.
The occasion of my being presented to the Queen Dowager was this: I
had been dining one day with Mademoiselle d'Este, when the
Marchioness of Londonderry came in, and read me a note she had
received from the Duke of Rutland, in which the latter said that the
Queen had asked him why I had not been presented at Court. After
Lady Londonderry was gone, I expressed some surprise at this
unexpected honor, and some dismay at finding that it was considered
a matter of course that, under these circumstances, I should go to
the Drawing-room. I felt shy about the ceremony, and sordidly
reluctant to spend the sum of money upon my dress which I knew it
must cost me. All this I discussed with Mademoiselle d'Este, and
expressing my surprise at the Queen's having condescended to ask why
I didn't have myself presented, Mademoiselle d'Este exclaimed, "Oh,
my dear, those people are so curious!" meaning the Queen and Prince
Albert, towards whom she had a great feeling of sore dislike; but
whether she meant by "curious" inquisitive or singular--_queer_--I
didn't ask her, being rather astonished at this "singular" mode of
speaking of our liege lady and her illustrious consort.
Poor Mademoiselle d'Este's feeling of bitterness against the Queen
arose, I have since been told, from various small slights which her
sensitive pride conceived she had received from her. Mademoiselle
d'Este's determination to assert her right to be considered a royal
personage had, perhaps, met with some other rebuffs from the Queen,
besides the one which she herself told me of with great irritation.
On the occasion of Queen Adelaide's Drawing-rooms, she had always
permitted Mademoiselle d'Este to make her entrance by the same
approach, and at the same time, with other members of the royal
family. After the accession of Queen Victoria, Mademoiselle d'Este
claimed the same privilege, which, however, was not granted her. She
told me this with many passionate, indignant comments, and
apparently desirous that I should be impressed by the superior charm
and graciousness of Queen Adelaide, whom she called "her Queen," and
of whom she spoke with the most affectionate regard and respect, she
said, "You must come with me and see _my_ Queen," and accordingly
she solicited permission to present me to the Queen Dowager, which
was granted, and I went with her one morning to pay my respects to
that great and good lady, and was to have done so a second time, but
was prevented by our departure from town.
I drove with Mademoiselle d'Este to Marlborough House in the
morning, and we were ushered through several apartments into a
small-sized sitting-room, where we were left. After a few moments a
lady entered, to whom Mademoiselle d'Este presented me. The Queen
Dowager was then apparently between fifty and sixty years old; a
thin, middle-sized woman, with gray hair and a long face, discolored
by the traces of some eruption. She looked in ill health, and was
certainly very plain, but her manner and the expression of her face
were very gentle and gracious, and her voice, with its German
accent, sweet and agreeable. She asked Mademoiselle d'Este if she
was going to the Duchess of Sutherland's ball, and on her replying
that she was not going, and giving some trifling reason for not
doing so, I couldn't help laughing, because on our way to
Marlborough House she had told me, with what appeared to me very
superfluous wrath and indignation, that she had received an
invitation to the duchess's ball, but that as it was coupled with an
intimation that it was hoped the persons who had been at the Queen's
great fancy ball, given a week before, would wear the same costumes
at Stafford House, Mademoiselle d'Este chose to consider this an
impertinent dictation, and said first "she would go in a plain white
satin gown," then "in a white muslin petticoat," finally, that "she
wouldn't go at all;" and working herself up by degrees into more
fury as she talked, she abused the Duchess of Sutherland vehemently,
mimicking her in a most ludicrous manner, and saying that she always
reminded her of "a great fat, white, trussed turkey," which
comparison and the ridiculous rage in which she made it made me
laugh till I cried, in spite of my admiration for the Duchess of
Sutherland, whose beauty and gracious sweetness of manner always
seemed to me very charming. When therefore, Mademoiselle d'Este
assigned another reason for not going to the Stafford House ball, in
answer to the Queen's inquiry, I couldn't help laughing, and told
the Queen the truth was that Mademoiselle d'Este's pride was hurt at
being requested to come in the fancy dress she had worn at the
Palace; and so, for this imaginary absurd offence, she was going to
give up a very fine and pleasant _fête_. The Queen laughed, and,
turning to Mademoiselle d'Este, said, "Your friend is right. You are
very foolish; you will lose a pleasant evening for nothing."
After this the conversation fell on the French plays and the
performances of Mademoiselle Déjazet, who was then acting at the St.
James's Theatre. The Queen having asked my opinion of these
representations, I said I was unwilling to enter upon the subject,
as I did not know how far the forms of etiquette would permit me to
express what I thought in her Majesty's presence. Upon her pressing
me, however, to state my opinion upon the subject, I reiterated what
I had said in a previous conversation with Mademoiselle d'Este upon
the matter, objecting to the extreme immorality of the pieces, and
expressing my astonishment at seeing decent Englishwomen crowd to
them night after night, since they certainly would not tolerate such
representations on the English stage.
Mademoiselle d'Este replied that that was because, on the English
stage, they would be coarse and vulgar. I denied that the difference
of language made any essential difference in the matter, though she
was certainly right in saying that the less refined style of English
acting might make the offensiveness of such pieces more unpleasantly
obtrusive; but that in looking round the assembly of fine ladies at
Déjazet's performances, I comforted myself by feeling very sure that
half of them did not understand what they were listening to; but I
think it must have been "nuts" to the clever, cynical, witty,
impudent Frenchwoman to see these _dames trois fois respectables_
swallow her performances _sans sourcilliez_.
After some more conversation on general subjects, the Queen Dowager
rose, saying she hoped Mademoiselle d'Este would bring me to visit
her again; and so we received our _congé_.
Mentioning the appearance of some eruption on the good Queen's face
reminds me of a painful circumstance which took place one day when,
meeting a beautiful child of about four years old, the daughter of
one of the ladies of the Court, who was going into the Palace
gardens under the escort of her nurse, the Queen stopped the child,
and, attracted by her beauty, stooped to kiss her, when the little
thing drew back with evident disgust, exclaiming, "No, no; you have
a red face! Mamma says I must never kiss anybody with a red face."
The poor Queen probably seldom received such a plain statement of
facts in return for her condescension. Her unostentatious goodness
and amiable character have now become matter of history. One of the
most characteristic traits of her life was her ordering of her own
funeral with a privacy and simplicity more touching than any royal
pomp, specifying that her coffin should be carried to the grave by
four sailors--a last tribute of affection to her husband's memory.
Among the passages in Charles Greville's Memoirs that shocked me
most, and that I read with the most pain, were the coarse and cruel
terms in which he spoke of Queen Adelaide.
Mademoiselle d'Este, when far advanced in middle life, married Lord
Chancellor Truro. She may have found in so doing a certain
satisfaction to her pride which no other alliance with a commoner
could have afforded her, since the Lord Chancellor of England (no
matter of how lowly an origin), on certain occasions, takes
precedence of the whole aristocracy of the land.]
HARLEY STREET, Monday, May 30th, 1842.
MY DEAREST HARRIET,
I have just finished a letter to you, in which I tell you that I have
sketched out the skeleton of another tragedy; but I find Emily has been
beforehand with me. You ask me what has moved me to this mental effort.
My milliner's bill, my dear; which, being £97 sterling, I feel extremely
inclined to pay out of my own brains; for, though they received a very
severe shock, and one of rather paralyzing effect, upon my being
reminded that whatever I write is not my own legal property, but that of
another, which, of course, upon consideration, I know; I cannot,
nevertheless, persuade myself that that which I invent--_create_, in
fact--can really belong to any one but myself; therefore, if anything I
wrote could earn me £97, I am afraid I should consider that I, and no
one else, had paid my bill.
In thinking over the position of women with regard to their right to
their own earnings, I confess to something very like wrathful
indignation; impotent wrath and vain indignation, to be sure--not the
less intense for that, however, for the injustice is undoubtedly great.
That a man whose wits could not keep him half a week from starving
should claim as his the result of a mental process such as that of
composing a noble work of imagination--say "Corinne," for example--seems
too beneficent a provision of the law for the protection of male
_superiority_. It is true that, by our marriage bargain, they feed,
clothe, and house us, and are answerable for our debts (not my
milliner's bill, though, if I can prevent it), and so, I suppose, have a
right to pay themselves as best they can out of all we are or all we can
do. It is a pretty severe puzzle, and a deal of love must be thrown into
one or other or both scales to make the balance hang tolerably even.
Madame de Staël, I suppose, might have said to Rocca, "If my brains are
indeed yours, why don't you write a book like 'Corinne' with them?" You
know, though he was perfectly amiable, and she married him for love, he
was an intellectual zero; but perhaps the man who, acknowledging her
brilliant intellectual superiority, could say, "Je l'aimerai tant,
qu'elle finira par m'aimer," deserved to be master even of his wife's
brains.... I wish women could be dealt with, not mercifully, nor
compassionately, nor affectionately, but _justly_; it would be so much
better--for men.
How can you ask me if I despise, as great gossip, Emily's telling you
that I am writing another tragedy! Why, my dear, I shouldn't consider it
despicable gossip if Emily were to tell you what colored gloves I had on
the last time she saw me. Do we not all three love each other dearly?
and is not everything, no matter how trifling, of interest in that case?
But Mrs. John Kemble does not pretend to love me dearly, I flatter
myself, and therefore her writing to inquire into my proceedings, and
for minute details of my presentation at Court, did seem to me
contemptible gossip. At her age, perhaps, it is pardonable enough,
though it appears to me rather inconsistent, when one has no liking for
a person, to trouble one's head about where they go or what they do.
You ask me about the subject of my play. It is one that my father
suggested to me years ago, and which grew out of a question as to
whether the Stranger (in Kotzebue's play so called) does or does not
forgive his unfaithful wife in the closing scene. With several other
dramatic schemes, it has hovered dimly before my imagination for some
time past. The other night, however, as I was brushing my hair before
going to bed, my brain, I suppose, receiving some stimulus from the
scrubbing of my skull, the whole idea suddenly came towards me with
increasing distinctness, till it gradually stood up as it were from head
to foot before me--a very mournful figure, whose form and features were
all vividly defined. I instantly caught up S----'s copy-books--there
was no other paper at hand--and on the covers of two of them wrote out
my play, act by act and scene by scene.... The short-lived triumph of
this spirit of inspiration died away under the effect of a conversation
by which it was interrupted, and I collapsed like a fallen _omelette
soufflée_ (not to say _souffletée_).
The story of my piece is a sequel to "The Stranger," the retribution
which reaches the faithless wife and mother in her children, after they
grow up; which, together with the perpetual struggle on the part of her
husband (who has taken her home again) not to wound her conscience,
which is so sick and sore that every word, breath, and look _does_ wound
it, might form, I think, an interesting dramatic picture, with
considerable elements for poetry to work upon.
I went to the Duchess of Sutherland's fancy ball in my favorite costume,
a Spanish dress, which suited my finances as well as my fancy, my
person, and my purse; for I had nothing to get but a short black satin
skirt, having beautiful flounces of black lace, high comb, mantilla,
and, in short, all things needful already in my own possession.
I have told you of Adelaide's new prospects, in which I rejoice as much
as I can rejoice in anything. She is herself very happy, poor child! and
'tis a pleasure and a positive relief to see her face, with its bright
expression of newly dawned hope upon it.
Good-night, dear. My head aches, and I feel weary and worn out; our life
just now is one of insane, incessant dissipation. Thank God, I have a
bed, and have not lost the secret of sleeping.
Ever yours,
FANNY.
[A long discussion with my wise and excellent friend and connection,
Mr. Horace Wilson, induced me to think a good deal upon the
possibility of a man, in the position of Kotzebue's "Stranger,"
receiving back his wife to the home she had deserted. Mr. Wilson
condemned the idea as absolutely inadmissible and fatally immoral.
In our Saviour's teaching it is said that a man shall put away his
wife for only _one_ cause; but is it said that he shall in every
case put her away for _that_ cause? and is the offence a wife
commits against her husband the one exception to the universal law
of the forgiveness which Christ taught? Men have so considered it;
and in the general interest of the preservation of society, a wife's
fidelity to her duties becomes one of the most important elements of
security; the protection of the family, the integrity of
inheritance, the rightful descent of property, are all involved in
it. But these are questions of social expediency, and, though based
on deep moral foundations, are not of such overwhelming moral force
as to forbid the contemplation of any possible exception to their
authority. I have heard--I know not if it is true--that in some
parts of Germany, formerly, where the practice of divorce obtained
to a degree tolerated nowhere else in Christendom, it occasionally
happened that, after a legal separation and intermediate marriages
(sanctioned also by the law), the original pair, set free once more
by death or _second divorce_, resumed their first ties--a condition
of things which appears monstrous, considered as that which we call
marriage, with the English and American branch of the Anglo-Saxon
family, the holiest of human ties; with Roman Catholic Christians,
an indissoluble bond, sacred as a sacrament of their Church.
Without being able to determine the question satisfactorily in my
own mind with reference to the supposed conclusion of the play of
"The Stranger," in which Mr. Wilson said that the husband, receiving
his repentant wife in his arms, was highly offensive to all
morality, which demanded imperatively her absolute rejection and
punishment, I began to consider what sort of escape from punishment
it might be which would probably follow the forgiveness of her
husband, her readmission to her home, and the renewal of her
intercourse with her children. In Kotzebue's play the persons are
all German, and their nationality has to be borne in mind in
contemplating Waldburg's possible forgiveness of his wife.
Steinforth, his dearest friend, and a man of the highest honor and
morality (as conceived by the author), urges upon Waldburg the
pardon of Adelaide; urges it almost as a duty, and zealously assists
Madame von Wintersen's plan of bringing the unhappy people together,
and effecting a reconciliation between them by means of the
unexpected sight of their children. Moreover, when Waldburg rejects
his friend's advice and entreaties that he will forgive his wife,
it is hardly upon the ground of any deep moral turpitude involved in
such a forgiveness, but upon the score of the insupportable
humiliation of reappearing in the great world of German society to
which they both belong with "his runaway wife on his arm," and the
"whispering, pointing, jeering" of which their reconciliation would
be the object, winding up with the irrevocable "Never! never!
never!"
Nevertheless, in Kotzebue's play he does receive his wife in his
arms as the curtain falls, and the German public go home comforted
in believing her forgiven. I do not know how the dumb-show at the
end of the English play is generally conducted; but in my father's
instance, I know he so far carried out my friend Horace Wilson's
sentiment (which was also his own on the subject) that, while his
miserable wife falls senseless at his feet, he turns again in the
act of flying from her as the curtain drops, leaving the English
public to go home comforted in the belief that he had _not_ forgiven
her.
The result of these discussions, as I said, led me to imagine how
far such a woman would escape her righteous punishment, even if
restored to her home; and in the sequel to "The Stranger," which I
endeavored to construct, I worked out my own ideas upon the subject.
Forgiveness of sin is not remission of punishment; and the highest
justice might rest satisfied with the conviction that God, who
forgives every sinner, punishes every sin; nor can even His mercy
remit the righteous consequence ordained by it. God's punishments
are _consequences_, the results of His all-righteous laws, _never to
be escaped from_, but leaving forever possible the blessed hope of
His forgiveness; but no one ever yet outran his sin or escaped from
its inevitable result.
The grosser human justice, however, which is obliged to execute
itself on the bodies of criminals demands the open degradation and
social ostracism of unfaithful wives as a necessary portion of its
machinery, and the well-being of the society which it maintains.]
HARLEY STREET, Friday, June 10th, 1842.
MY DEAREST HARRIET,
I finished one letter to you last night, and, finding that I cannot
obtain tackle to go on the river this morning and fish, I sit down to
write you another. And first, dear, about getting an admission for
E---- to see our play. I am sorry to say it is not in my power. Thinking
I had rather a right to one or two invitations for my own friends on
each of the nights, I asked Lady Francis to give me three tickets for
the first representation, intending to beg the same number for each
night. I gave one to Mr. S----, and another to a nephew of Talma's, a
very agreeable French naval officer, with whom we have become
acquainted, and who besought one of me. But when I had proceeded thus
far in my distribution of admissions, I was told I had committed an
indiscretion in asking for any, and that I must return the remaining
one, which I did, ... and when your request came about a ticket for
E----, I was simply assured that it was "impossible." So, dear, you must
be, as I must be, satisfied with this decision--which I am not, for I am
very sorry, ... Lady Francis would gladly, I have no doubt, have asked
any of my friends had we wished her to do so; she did send an invitation
to Horace Wilson and his wife, but that was because he was to have acted
for her, and was only prevented by being too unwell to undertake the
part.
I am very glad that Captain Seymour likes me, as the liking is very
reciprocal. Indeed, I think our whole company presents a very favorable
specimen of our young English gentlemen: they are all of them very
young, full of good spirits, amiable, obliging, good-humored,
good-tempered, and well-mannered; in short, I think, very charming.
How shall I feel, you say, acting that part again?... My dearest
Harriet, thus much at Richmond on Monday morning; it is now Thursday
evening, and I have been crying and in a miserable state of mind and
body all day long. On Monday we acted "The Hunchback" for the third
time, and on Tuesday we all went down to Cranford, and drew long breaths
as we got into the delicious air, all fragrant with hay and honeysuckle
and syringa. I left my children at what was in posting days a famous
country inn, at about half a mile from Lady Berkeley's house, but which,
since the completion of the railroad, has become much less frequented
and important, but is quiet and comfortable and pleasant enough to make
it a very nice place of deposit for my chicks.
On Wednesday afternoon, when I went over to see them, I found F----,
pale and coughing, and heard with dismay that the measles were
pervading the whole neighborhood. I went to town that evening to act
"The Hunchback" for the last time, and was haunted by horrid visions of
my child ill and suffering, and the very first thing I met on entering
London was a child's coffin and funeral. You can better judge than I can
express how this sort of omen affected my imagination; and in this frame
of mind I went through our last representation of "The Hunchback," and
did not reach home till the white face of the morning was beginning to
look down from the ends of the streets at us.
We did not get to bed till past three, and were up again at a little
after seven, in order to take the railroad to Cranford, where we had
promised to breakfast. One of our party was too late for the train, and
we posted down with four horses in order to save our time, which on the
great Ascot day was not, as you may suppose, a very economical
proceeding....
Good-bye, dear. I will answer all your questions about "The Hunchback"
another time.
Ever yours,
FANNIE.
HARLEY STREET, June 12th, 1842.
MY DEAREST HAL,
... I am now going to answer your various questions to the best of my
ability. You wanted to know how I felt at acting "The Hunchback" again.
Why, so horribly nervous the first night that the chair shook under me
while my hair was being dressed. I trembled to such a degree from head
to foot, and the rustling of the curl-papers as the man twisted them in
my hair almost drove me distracted, for it sounded like a forest
cracking and rattling in a storm. After the performance, my limbs ached
as if I had been beaten across them with an iron bar, and I could
scarcely stand or support myself for exhaustion and fatigue. This,
however, was only the first night, and I suppose proceeded from the
painful uncertainty I felt as to whether I had not utterly forgotten how
to act at all. This one representation over, I had neither fright,
nervousness, nor the slightest fatigue, and it is singular enough that
no recollections or associations whatever of past times were awakened by
the performance. I was fully engrossed by the endeavor to do the part
as well as I could, and, except in the particular of copying, as well as
I could recollect it, my dress of former days, the Julia of nine years
ago did not once present herself to my thoughts. The first time I played
it, I rather think I was worse than formerly, but after that probably
much the same....
How does this dreadfully hot weather agree with you, my dear? For my own
part, I am parboiled and stupid beyond all expression. I hate heat
always and everywhere, and it seems to me that in our damp climate it is
even more oppressive than under the scorching skies of August in
Pennsylvania. However, of that I won't be sure, for the present is, with
me, always better or worse than the absent.
I think I have nothing more to tell you about "The Hunchback." ...
Beyond doing it as well as I could, I cared very little about it; it
seemed a sort of routine business, just as it used to be, except for the
inevitable unwholesome results of its being amusement instead of
business; the late hours--three o'clock in the morning--and champagne
and lobster salad suppers, instead of my former professional decent tea
and to bed, after my work, before twelve o'clock.
Adelaide acted Helen charmingly, without having bestowed the slightest
pains upon it. Had she condescended to give it five minutes' careful
study, it would have been a perfect performance of its kind; but as it
was, it was delightfully droll, lively, and graceful, and certainly
proved her natural powers of comic acting to be very great....
You ask me about my play. I have not touched it since I wrote to you
last, and really do not know when I shall have a minute in which to do
so, unless, indeed, in this coming week at Oatlands,--and a great deal
may be done in a week; but I am altogether quite down about it. Our last
representation of "The Hunchback" was, as in duty bound, the best, and
everybody was, or pretended to be, in ecstasies with it. Our time and
attention have been so engrossed with the dresses, rehearsals, and
performances that we absolutely seemed to experience a sudden _lull_ in
our daily lives after it was all over.
I shall probably not be in town till the 24th. I am going down to Mrs.
Grote's with my sister on the 21st, and as S---- is of the party, it
will not, I suppose, be according to "received ideas" that I should
leave her there. On the 24th, however, she must be back in town; and as
for my departure for America, dear Hal, you do well not to grieve too
much beforehand about that.... Therefore, my dear Hal, lament not over
my departure, for Heaven only knows when we shall depart, or if indeed
we shall depart at all.
Good-bye.
Ever yours,
FANNY.
OATLANDS, June 14th, 1842.
MY DEAREST HAL,
... I return to town this evening in order to go to a party at Mrs.
Grote's, to which we have been engaged for some time past, and remain in
town all to-morrow, because we dine at Harness's.... The quiet of this
place, and very near twelve hours' sleep, and, above all, a temporary
relief from all causes of nervous distress, have done me all the good in
the world.... I cannot but think mine, in one respect, a curious fate;
and perhaps, with the magnifying propensity of egotism, I exaggerate
what seems to me its peculiarity. But to be placed for years together
out of the reach of all society; to be left day after day to the
solitude of an absolutely lonely life; to be deprived of all stimulus
from without; to hear no music; to see no works of art; to hear no
intellectually brilliant or even tolerably cultivated or interesting
conversation; indeed, often to pass days without exchanging a thought or
even a word with any grown person but my servants; to ride for hours
every day alone through lonely roads and paths, sit down daily to a
solitary dinner, and pass most of my evenings listening to the ticking
of the clock, or wandering round and round the dark garden-walks;--to
lead, I say, such a life for a length of time, and then be plunged into
the existence, the sort of social Maelstrom we are living in here now,
is surely a great trial to a person constituted like myself, and would
be something of one, I think, to a calmer mind and more equable
temperament than mine....
You ask if my father has been told of our intended return to America. I
have told him, but neither he nor any one else appears to believe in it;
and from what I wrote you in my last letter, I think you will agree that
they are justified in their incredulity.
You ask how Adelaide is. Flourishing greatly; the annoyance and
vexation of the late difficulties with the theatre being past, she has
recovered her spirits, and seems enjoying to the full her present hopes
of future happiness....
God bless you, my dear Hal.
Ever yours,
FANNY.
OATLANDS, June 16th, 1842.
MY DEAR T----,
An hour's railroading from London has brought me into a lovely country,
a perfect English landscape of broad lawns, thick tufted oaks, and
placid waters, under my windows. But an hour from that glare, confusion,
din, riot, and insanity, to the soothing sights and sounds of this rural
paradise! And after looking at it till my spirits have subsided into
something like kindred composure and placidity, I open my letter-case,
and find your last unanswered epistle lying on the top of it. "If Cunard
and Harnden have proved true," you must have received by this time our
reply to your proposition touching the Coster business. Thus far on
Monday last; and having proceeded thus far, I fell fast asleep, with the
pen in my hand, the sound of the rustling trees in my ears, and the
smell of the new-mown grass in my nose. Since that noonday nap of mine,
I have been back to town for a party at Mrs. Grote's and a dinner at
Harness's. I mention names because these worthies are known to Catherine
and Kate; and here I am, thanks to the railroad, back again among all
these lovely sights and sounds and smells, and pick up my pen forthwith
to renew my conversation with you. And first, as in duty bound,
business. I wrote you word that we did not disdain the compromise
offered by Mr. Coster, and we now further beg that you will receive and
keep for us the sum proposed by that gentleman as payment of his debt.
Thank you very much for your kindness to H-----. Kate wrote me a most
ludicrous account of the poor singer's first experiment on his voice in
your presence. I have not the least idea what his merits really are,
having never heard or, to the best of my knowledge, seen him; but, as a
pupil of the Royal Academy, his acquirements ought certainly to be those
of a competent teacher. However, I need not, I am sure, tell you that,
in recommending him to you, I did not contemplate laying the slightest
stress upon your conscience, and having heard him you must recommend him
or not according to that....
My sister thanks you for your zeal on her behalf, and so do I; but you
will not be called upon for any further, or rather, I should say, nearer
demonstration of it; for the young lady has lately come to the
conclusion that marrying and staying at home is better than wandering
singing over the face of the earth; and I suppose by next Christmas she
will be married. I have no room for more.
Ever yours,
F. A. B.
[My correspondence with my friend Miss S---- was interrupted by a
visit of several weeks which she paid us, and not resumed on my part
until the month of August, when I was on my way back from Scotland,
and she was travelling on the Continent with her friend Miss W----.]
LIVERPOOL, Wednesday, August 10th, 1842.
MY DEAREST HARRIET,
You bid me write to you immediately upon receiving your letter of the
24th of July, dated from Ulm, but I only received that letter last night
on my arrival here from Scotland, and I know not how long its rightful
delivery to me has been delayed. I fear, in consequence of this
circumstance, this answer to it may miscarry; for perhaps you will have
left Munich by the time it gets there. However, I can but do as you bid
me, and so I do it, and hope this, for me, rare exercise of the virtue
of obedience may find its reward in my letter reaching you.
I am glad your meeting with the Combes was so pleasant. I can bear
witness to the truth of their melancholy account of dear Dr. Combe, whom
I went to see while I was in Edinburgh. He is so emaciated that the
point of his knee-bone, through his trousers, perfectly fascinated me; I
couldn't keep my eyes off it, it looked so terribly and sharply
articulated that it seemed as if it were coming through the cloth. His
countenance, however, was the same as ever, or, if possible, even
brighter, sweeter, and more kindly benevolent. I have always had the
most affectionate regard and admiration for him, and think him in some
respects superior to his brother.
I am delighted to think of your fine weather, and the great enjoyment
it must be to you two, so happy in each other, to travel through the
lovely summer days together, filling your minds and storing your
memories with beautiful things of art and nature, which will be an
intellectual treasure in common, and a fountain of delightful
retrospective sympathy....
You must continue to direct to Harley Street, for although we were, by
our original agreement, to have left it on the 1st of August, I
conclude, as it is now the 10th, and I have heard no word of our
removing, that some arrangement has been made for our remaining there,
at least till our departure, which I understand is fixed for October
21st....
I have received a letter from Elizabeth Sedgwick, informing me that
Kate's marriage is to take place about October 10th. I shall not be at
it, which I regret very much.
In the same letter she tells me that Dr. Channing is spending the summer
at Lenox; and that he had shown her a most interesting letter he had
received from a house-builder in Cornwall, England. This man wrote to
Channing to thank him for the benefit he had derived from his writings,
particularly his lectures on the mental elevation of the working
classes. Dr. Channing answered this letter, and the poor man was so
overjoyed at this favor, as he esteemed it, that he could not refrain
from pouring out his thankfulness in another letter, in which he assured
his reverend correspondent that the influence of his writings upon his
class of the community in that part of England was and had been very
great, and instanced a fellow-artisan of his own, who said that
Channing's writings had reconciled him to being a working man. Elizabeth
said that Dr. Channing, while reading this letter, was divided between
smiles and tears. She also told me that he had talked to her a good deal
about Mrs. Child (you know, the abolitionist who wanted to publish my
Southern journal; she is a correspondent of his, and a person for whom
he has the highest esteem, regarding her as "a most highly principled
and noble-minded woman.")
I am so tired, dearest Hal, and feel such a general lassitude and
discouragement of mind and body, that I will end my letter. Give my most
affectionate love to Dorothy, whom I should love dearly if I saw her
much. I wish I was with you, seeing the Danube, that river into which
poor Undine carried her immortal soul, and her broken woman's heart,
when she faded over the boat's side, saying, "Be true, be true, oh,
misery!" God bless you, dearest Hal.
Ever yours,
FANNY.
HARLEY STREET, September 16th, 1842.
MY DEAREST HAL,
You ask me what I am doing. Flying about in every direction, like one
distracted, trying to _amuse_ myself; going to evenings at Lady
Lansdowne's, and to mornings at the Duchess of Buccleuch's; dining at
the Star and Garter at Richmond, in gay and great company, and driving
home alone between one and two o'clock in the morning....
I have undertaken to keep and to ride S----'s horse while he is away;
and I think, by means of regular exercise, I shall at any rate keep
_paroxysms_ aloof. I am going to a ball at Lord Foley's on Monday; to a
children's play at the Francis Egertons' on Tuesday; to Richmond again
to dine with the Miss Berrys and Lady Charlotte Lindsay on Wednesday; on
Thursday to dine at Horace Wilson's, etc.... Perhaps you will wonder, as
I do sometimes, that I keep the few senses I have in the life I lead;
but so it is, and so it has to be.
Good-bye. God bless you. I keep this letter till I hear from you where
to send it, and, with dearest love to Dorothy, am
Ever yours,
FANNY.
HARLEY STREET, September 30th, 1842.
MY DEAREST GRANNY [LADY DACRE],
Yesterday morning we drove down to Chesterfield Street, not without
sundry misgivings on my part that Lord Dacre would feel that we
persecute him, that he might be busy and not like being interrupted,
etc. When the door was opened, however, and while we were still
interrogating the footman, his own dear lordship came to it, and
graciously bade me alight, which of course I gladly did, and so we sat
with him a matter of half an hour, hearing his discourse, which ran at
first on you and the dear girls [his granddaughters], and then
broadened gradually from private interests to his public experience,
and all the varied observation of his honorable political career. "I
could have stayed all night to have heard good counsel," but was obliged
to drive to the theatre to fetch my sister from rehearsal, and so, most
reluctantly, came away. It seemed to me very good, and amiable, and
humane, and condescending of Lord Dacre to spare so much of his time and
attention to us young and insignificant folk; the courtesy of his
reception was as deeply appreciated by me, I assure you, as the interest
of his conversation; and so tell my lord, with my best of courtesies.
I went in the evening to hear my sister sing "Norma" for the last time,
and cried most bitterly, and, moreover, thought exceedingly often of
your ladyship; and why? I'll tell you; it was the _last_ time she was to
do it, and when I saw that grace and beauty and rare union of gifts,
which were adapted to no other purpose half so well as to this of
dramatic representation; when I heard the voice of popular applause,
that utterance of human sympathy, break at once simultaneously from all
those human beings whose emotions she was swaying at her absolute
will,--my heart sank to think that this beautiful piece of art (for such
it now is, and very near perfection), would be seen no more; that this
rare power (a _talent_, as it verily then seemed to me, in the solemn
sense of the word, and a precious one of its own kind) was about to be
folded in a napkin, to bear interest no more, of profit or pleasure, to
herself or others.
My dear Granny, you will well understand how I came to think of you
during that performance; for the first time, I thought _like_ you on
this subject. I caught myself saying, while the tears streamed down my
face, "If she is only happy, after all!" (But oh, that _if_!) It seemed
amazing to abdicate a secure fortune, and such a power--power to do
anything so excellently (putting its recognition by the public entirely
out of account) for that fearful risk. God help us all! 'Tis a hard
matter to judge rightly on any point whatever; and settled and firm as I
had believed my opinion on this subject to be, I was surprised to find
how terrible it was to me to see my sister, that woman most dear to me,
deliberately leave a path where the sure harvest of her labor is
independent fortune, and a not unhonorable distinction, and a powerful
hold upon the sympathy, admiration, and even kindly regard of her
fellow-creatures, while she thus not unworthily ministers to their
delight, for a life where, if she does not find happiness, what will
atone to her for all this that she will have left? However, I have need
to remember, while thinking of her and her future, what I have never
forgotten hitherto, that the soul lives neither on fortune, fame, nor
happiness; and that which is noblest in her, which is above either her
genius, grace, or beauty, and far more precious than all of them united,
will thrive, it may be, better in obscurity and the different trials of
her different life than in the vocation she is now abandoning. _Amen!_
Thank you, my dear Granny, for all your advice, and still more for the
love which dictates it; I lay both to heart. Thank you, too, for the
little book. I wish I knew the woman who wrote it; she must be a
paragon.
God bless you, dear Granny. I write you a kiss as the children do, and
am
Ever your affectionate
FANNY.
HARLEY STREET, October 2nd, 1842.
MY DEAR T----,
It is hardly of any use writing to you, because, unless I am "drowned in
the ditch," I shall see you very soon after you get this letter. I have,
however, as I believe you know, a very decided principle upon the
subject of answering letters, and therefore shall duly reply to your
epistle, though I hope to follow this in less than a fortnight.
I am sorry to say that if your ever "feeling young again" is to depend
upon your seeing a _Miss Kemble_ once more in America, you are doomed to
disappointment, and must decidedly go on, not only growing but feeling
old, as _Miss Kembles_ there are now no more--at least at my father's
house.... So you see a due regard for her fellow-creatures on the other
side of the Atlantic has not existed in my sister's heart, or she would,
of course, have postponed all personal prospects of happiness, or rather
peace and quiet, to a proper consideration for the gratification of the
American public.
I think your observations upon my projected journey to Georgia are taken
from an entirely mistaken point of view. I am utterly unconscious of
entertaining any inimical feeling towards America or the Americans; on
the contrary, I am distinctly conscious of the highest admiration for
your institutions, and an affectionate regard for the northern part of
your country (where those institutions can alone be said to be put in
practice) that is second only to the love and reverence I bear to my own
country. This being the case, I cannot think that anything I write about
America can, with any sort of propriety, be characterized as "the
lashings of a foe."
With regard to Dickens, I do not know exactly what proceedings of his
you refer to as exhibiting want of taste or want of temper towards your
country-people.... But small counterweights may surely be allowed to
such admirable qualities of both head and heart as he possesses. He sent
me, on his return to England, a printed circular, which was distributed
among all his literary acquaintances and friends, and which set forth
his views with regard to the question of international copyright; but
except this, I know of nothing that he has publicly put forth upon the
matter. His "Notes" upon America come out, I believe, immediately; and I
shall be extremely curious to see them, and sorry if they are
unfavorable, because his popularity as a writer is immense, and whatever
he publishes will be sure of a wide circulation. Moreover, as it is very
well known that, before going to America, he was strongly prepossessed
in favor of its institutions, manners, and people, any disparaging
remarks he may make upon them will naturally have proportionate weight,
as the deliberate result of experience and observation. M---- told me,
after dining with Dickens immediately on his return, that one thing that
had disgusted him was the almost universal want of conscience upon money
matters in America; and the levity, occasionally approaching to
something like self-satisfaction, for their "sharpness," which he had
repeated occasions of observing, in your people when speaking of the
present disgraceful condition of their finances and deservedly degraded
state of their national credit.... But I do hope (because I have a
friend's and not a "foe's" heart towards your country) that Dickens will
not write unfavorably about it, for his opinion will influence public
opinion in England, and deserves to do so.
As for Lord Morpeth, you need not be afraid of his "booking" you; he is
the kindliest gentleman alive, and moreover, I think, far too prudent a
person for such a proceeding....
Lord Ashburton's termination of the boundary question is vehemently
abused by the Opposition, but that is of course. Some old-school Whigs,
sound politicians, and great friends of mine, were agreeing quietly
among themselves the other day that _anyhow_ they were heartily glad
that there was to be no war between the countries.
I perceive, however, that the question of the right of search (_question
brûlante_, as the French say) is still untouched, or rather unsettled;
yet in my opinion it contains more elements of danger than the other.
But I suppose your great diplomatists think one question settled in
twenty years is quite enough for the rapid pace at which our Governments
pant and puff after public opinion in these steam-speed-thinking times.
We have been in the country till within the last fortnight, but have
come up to town to prepare for our departure. London is almost empty,
but the only topics that keep alive the sparse population of the
club-houses are the dismissal of Baroness L---- from Court and her
departure for Germany, and a terrible _esclandre_ in a very high circle,
including royal personages.... I treat you to the London scandal, and my
doing so is ridiculous enough; but there is nothing I would not sooner
write about than myself and my own thoughts, feelings, and concerns,
just now. How thankful I shall be when this month is over!...
Believe me yours most truly,
F. A. B.
HARLEY STREET, Saturday, 8th, 1842.
MY DEAR GRANNY,
I dined yesterday at Charles Greville's, where dined also Mr. Byng; both
of them, I believe, were your fellow-guests lately, at the Duke of
Bedford's. Among other Woburn talk, there is no little discourse about
B----. Westmacott, too (the sculptor), who is a very old friend of ours,
chimed in, and we had a very pretty chorus on the argument of her fine
countenance, striking appearance, intelligence, etc., which I listened
to and joined in with great pleasure, because I love the child;
thinking, at the same time, how many qualities, of which perhaps her
gentlemen eulogists took no cognizance, went to make up the charm of
the outward appearance which they admired--the candor, truth, humility,
and moral dignity, the "inward and spiritual grace," of which what they
praised is but "the outward and visible sign." As I know this, the
commendation of her superficial good gifts, by superficial observers,
was very agreeable to me.
You ask me if I think you are going to keep up a correspondence with me
at this rate. I do not know exactly what that means; but be sure of one
thing, that as long as I can succeed in drawing an answer out of you, I
shall _persewere_.
My father has a violent lumbago; so, I am sorry to say, has the theatre,
which, in spite of my sister's exertions, can hardly keep upon its legs.
Her success has to compensate for the deplorable houses on the nights
when she does not appear. But great as her success is, it will not make
the nights pay on which she does not sing, when the theatre is
absolutely empty. What they will do when she goes I cannot in the
smallest degree conceive. _We_ are just being sucked into the Maelstrom
of bills, parcels, packages, books, pictures, valuables, trumpery,
rummaging, heaping together, throwing apart, selecting, discarding, and
stowing away that precedes an orderly departure after a two years'
disorderly residence; in the midst of all which I have neither leisure
nor leave to attend to the heartache which, nevertheless, accompanies
the whole process with but little intermission.
Love to your dear lord and the dear girls, and believe me ever, my dear
Granny,
Your affectionate
FANNY.
HARLEY STREET, Friday, 14th, 1842.
DEAR GRANNY,
I find there is every probability of our not leaving England until the
4th of November (several people tell me they have been told so), and
such is the extreme uncertainty of our movements always that it would
not surprise me very violently if we did not go then. I fear, however,
this will not afford me any further glimpses of you; and, indeed, at the
bottom of my heart, I do not wish for any more "last dying speeches and
confessions." To part is very bad, but to keep continually parting is
unendurable.
My sister goes on with the "Semiramide," and her attraction in it
increases. She acts and sings admirably in it, and, all sisterly
prepossessions apart, looks beautiful.
We went the other night to see "As You Like It" at Drury Lane. It was
_painfully_ acted, but the scenery, etc., were charming; and though we
had neither the caustic humor nor poetical melancholy of Jacques, nor
the brilliant wit and despotical fancifulness of the princess
shepherd-boy duly given, we _had_ the warbling of birds, and sheep-bells
tinkling in the distance, to comfort us. I hope it is not profanation to
say, "These should ye have done, and not have left the others undone."
Nevertheless, and in spite of all, the enchantment of Shakespeare's
inventions is such to me that they cannot be marred, let what will be
done to them. As long as those words of profoundest wisdom and those
images of exquisite beauty are but uttered, their own perfection
swallows up all other considerations and impressions with me, and I bear
indifferent and even bad acting of Shakespeare better than most people.
Why did you not make _him_, instead of the stage, the subject of our
discussions together? For his works my enthusiasm grows every year of my
life into a profounder and more wondering love and admiration.
I am grateful for Lord Dacre's offer, though it was not made to me; and,
had it been so, should have closed with it eagerly. To correspond with
one who has seen and known and _thought_ so much is a rare privilege.
Good-bye, dear Granny. Give my love to the girls, and my "duty" to my
lord, and believe me
Your affectionate
FANNY BUTLER.
HARLEY STREET, Friday, 23rd, 1842.
MY DEAR GRANNY,
That last half-hour before we got off from "The Hoo" the other day was a
severe trial to my self-command; but I was anxious not to afflict you,
and I was willing, if possible, to begin the bitter series of partings,
of which the next month will be one succession, with something like
fortitude, however I may end it. Thank you for writing to me, and thank
you for all your kindness to me through these many years, now that you
have _persevered_ in being fond of me....
Do not be anxious about my happiness, my dear friend, but pray for me,
that I maybe enabled to do what is right under all circumstances; and
then it cannot fail to be well with me, whether to outward observation I
am what the world calls happy or not.
Give my affectionate love to Lord Dacre, and thank him for all his
goodness to me and mine. I send my blessing to the girls. I have written
to B----. God bless you all, my kind friends, and make life and its
vicissitudes minister to your happiness hereafter.
You will hear of me, dear Granny, for the girls will write to me, and I
shall answer them, and you will remember, whenever you think of me, how
gratefully and affectionately I must
Ever remain yours,
FANNY BUTLER.
[Lady Dacre saw much trouble in store for me in my intemperate
expression of feeling on the subject of slavery in America, and
repeatedly warned me with affectionate solicitude to moderate, if
not my opinions, the vehement proclamation of them. She was wise and
right, as well as kind in her advice.]
[Extract from a letter of Miss Sedgwick's.]
STOCKBRIDGE, October 26th, 1842.
You have no doubt heard and lamented the death of our dear friend, Dr.
Channing. Dead he is not; he lives, and will live in the widespreading
life he has communicated. He passed the summer at Lenox, occupying with
his family your rooms at the hotel. We passed some hours of every day
together. He enjoyed our lovely hill country with the freshness of
youth, his health was invigorated, and his mind freer, and his spirits
more buoyant than I ever knew them; he endured more fatigue than he had
been able to encounter since he travelled in Switzerland fifteen years
ago. His affectionateness, purity, simplicity--a simplicity so perfect
that it seemed divine--surrounded his greatness with an atmosphere of
light and beauty. His life has been a most prosperous one, no storms
without, and a heavenly calm within. His last work in his office was a
discourse which he delivered in our village church on the 1st of August,
on the emancipation of the slaves in the British West Indies. I shall
send it to you, and pray mark the prophetic invocation with which it
concludes. You should have seen the inspired expression of his
intellectual brow, and the earnest, spiritual look that seemed to
penetrate the clouds that hang over the eternal world and to reflect its
light. On the Sundays of his sojourn with us he had domestic worship in
our houses, and his last service was in that apartment where his beloved
friend Follen officiated....
Eliza Follen is recovering the elasticity of her mind. Time can, I
think, do all things, since it has dissipated that horrible image of the
burning steamer in which her husband perished, that was ever before her.
She is publishing his Memoirs, and, among other things, she read me some
patriotic songs which he wrote in Sand's time in Germany; they were in
the boldest tone of insurrection, and were, of course, proscribed and
suppressed. She had heard her husband occasionally hum a stanza or two
of them, and he had once written out a single one for her which she
found in her work-basket. This she transmitted to his mother in Germany,
and with this clue alone the mother obtained the rest; and eloquent
outbreakings they are of a spirit glowing with freedom and humanity....
I have passed lately a day at our State Lunatic Asylum. On my first
going there, in the evening the physician invited me into the
dancing-hall, where some sixty of the patients were assembled. The two
musicians were patients, one utterly _demented_, incapable of any
reasonable act except playing a tune on his violin, which he did with
accuracy. Except the doctor's children (as beautiful as cherubs, and
ministering angels they are), there were no sane persons among the
dancers. "There," said the physician, "is a homicide; there, a poor girl
who went crazy the day after her brother drowned himself, and who
fancies herself that brother; there, the King of England," etc. They
were all dancing with the utmost decorum and regularity. They attend
chapel on a Sunday without disturbance; they were all (among them
maniacs who had been for half a score of years chained in dungeons of
our common gaols) "clothed," and, if "not in their right mind,"
comfortable and cheerful; they _all_ had plants in their rooms and books
on their tables. Much depends on individual character, and the physician
is, as you would expect, a man of the highest moral power, and the very
embodiment of the spirit of benevolence, and if poetry and painting had
laid their heads together to give him a fitting form, they could have
done nothing better than nature has. My heart was ready to burst with
gratitude. Who can say the world does not move some forward steps?
CLARENDON HOTEL, November 6th, 1842.
DEAR GRANNY,
You know that it is now determined that we do not sail by the next
steamer....
Dearest Granny, do not you, any more than I do, reckon which love is
best worth having, of young or old love; for all love is _inestimable_,
and should be gratefully rendered thanks for. There is something
charming and _pathetic_ in the _profusion_ with which the young love; it
is touching, as one of the magnificent superabundances, one of the
generous extravagances, of their prodigal time of life. But the love of
the old is as precious as the beggared widow's mite; and in bestowing it
they know what they give, from a store that day by day diminishes. The
affections of the young are as sudden and soft, as bright and bounteous,
as copious and capricious as the showers of spring; the love of the old
is the one drop in the cruse, which outlasts the journey through the
desert.
You may perhaps see in the papers a statement of the disastrous winding
up of the season at Covent Garden, or rather its still more disastrous
abrupt termination. After our all protesting and remonstrating with all
our might against my father's again being involved in that
Heaven-forsaken concern, and receiving the most positive and solemn
assurances from those who advised him into it for the sake of having his
name at the head of it that _no_ responsibility or liability whatever
should rest upon or be incurred by him; and that if the thing did not
turn out prosperously, it should be put an end to, and the theatre
immediately closed;--they have gone on, in spite of night after night of
receipts below the expenses, and now are obliged suddenly to shut up
shop, my poor father being, as it turns out, personally involved for a
considerable sum.
This, as you will well believe, is no medicine for his malady. I spend
every evening with him, and generally see him in the morning besides.
These last few days he suffers less acute pain, but complains more of
debility, and hardly leaves his sofa, where he lies silent, with his
eyes closed, apparently absorbed in painful sensations and reflections.
Yet, though he neither speaks to nor looks at me, he likes to have me
there; and, as Horace Twiss said, "to hear the scissors fall" now and
then, by way of companionship; and certainly derives some comfort from
the mere consciousness of my presence.
My sister has gone to Brighton for a few days, her health having quite
given way, what with hard work and harder worry. She returns on Monday,
but it is extremely doubtful whether she will resume her performances at
all, so that I fear the expectations of the clan Cavendish will be
disappointed.
She did act most charmingly in the "Matrimonio Segreto." In point of
fact, her comic acting is more perfect than her tragic, although there
are not in it, and naturally cannot be, the same striking exhibitions of
dramatic power; but it is smoother, more even, better finished.
You must get Lady Callcott's "Scripture Herbal." Lady Grey lent it me,
and I read it with great pleasure. It is an interesting, graceful, and
learned work, which she has illustrated very exquisitely. There is
something very sweet and soothing in the idea of last thoughts having
been thus devoted to what is loveliest in nature and holiest in
religion.
God bless you, dear Granny. Give my love to the lasses, and my
affectionate "duty" to my lord; and believe me
Your loving grandchild,
F. A. B.
[Our departure for America was indefinitely postponed, and the
American nurse I had brought to England with my children left me and
returned home alone.]
THE CLARENDON, Monday, November 28th, 1842.
MY DEAREST GRANNY,
I duly delivered your message, and am desired to tell you that a house
is being looked for for us in your neighborhood, and that, as soon as
one is found that we think you will approve of, it will be taken.
Moreover, I am desired to add that the expensive reputation of the
Clarendon is very much exaggerated.... We have been here a fortnight
to-day, and I think there is every probability of our being here at
least a fortnight longer, even if we get away then.... My father suffers
less acutely these last few days, but his debility appears to increase
with the decrease of his positive pain....
My sister returned from Brighton to-day, completely set up again; she is
to go on with her performances till Christmas, when the whole concern
passes into the hands of Mr. Bunn, who perhaps is qualified to manage
it.
I think I should like to _act_ with my sister during this month, in
order to secure their salaries to the actors, to make up the deficit
which now lies at the door of my father's management, to put a good
benefit into his poor pocket, to give rather a more cheerful ending to
my sister's theatrical career, and, though last, not least, for the
pleasure and _fun_ of acting with her. Don't you think we should have
good houses? and wouldn't _you_ come and see us?...
God bless you, dear Granny.
Ever your affectionate
F. A. B.
THE CLARENDON, December 1st, 1842.
MY DEAREST HARRIET,
Lord Titchfield, who was here yesterday, begged me to ascertain from you
whether it is only _my_ bust that you desire, or whether you would like
to have casts from my father's and from the two of Adelaide. Write me
word, dear, that the magnificent marquis may fulfil your wishes, which
he is only waiting to know in order to send the one or the four heads to
you in Ireland....
My sister returned from Brighton on Monday, apparently quite recovered;
in good looks, good voice, and good spirits. The horrible mess in which
everybody is mixed up who has anything to do with Covent Garden, and in
which she is so deeply involved, renewed her annoyances and vexations
immediately on her arrival in town; but I passed the evening with her
yesterday, and she did not seem the worse for work or worry, for she
sang, for her own pleasure and that of her guests, the whole evening....
Give my kind remembrances to all your people, and believe me
Ever yours,
FANNY.
[The Marquis of Titchfield was employing the French sculptor Dantan
to make busts of my father, my sister, and myself, for him; and most
kindly gave me casts of them all, and sent my friend Miss St. Leger
a cast of mine.]
THE CLARENDON, January 5th, 1843.
DEAREST HAL,
I have sent your wishes to Lord Titchfield, and I am sure they will be
quickly complied with. I have no idea that he means otherwise than to
_give_ you my bust; any other species of transaction being apparently
quite out of his line, and _giving_ his especial gift. I have,
nevertheless, taken pains to make clear to him your intentions in the
matter; I have desired him to have the bust forwarded to the care of Mr.
Green, because I thought you would easily find means of transporting it
thence to Ardgillan. Was this right?
The houses at Covent Garden are quite full on my sister's nights, but
deplorably empty on the others, I believe. I speak from hearsay, for I
have not been into the theatre since the terrible business of the late
break-up there, and do not think I shall even see her last performances,
for I have no means of doing so; I can no longer ask for private boxes,
as during my father's management, of course, nor indeed would it be
right for me to do so on her nights, because they all let very well; and
as for paying for one, or even for a seat in the public ones, I have not
a single farthing in the world to apply to such a purpose.... So you
see, my dear, I am in no case to treat myself to seats at the play,
either private or public.
Adelaide is still pretty well. The night before last was her benefit;
she had a very fine house, and sang "Norma," and the great scene from
"Der Freyschütz," and "Auld Robin Gray;" and yesterday evening she
seemed very tired, but she had people to dinner and to tea
nevertheless....
Certainly one had need believe in something better than one sees, or at
any rate than I see just now; for such petty selfishnesses and
despicable aims, pursued with all the energy and eagerness which should
be bestowed upon the highest alone; such cheating, tricking, swindling,
lying, and slandering, are enough to turn any Christian cat's
stomach....
I must tell you two things about Miss Hall that have given me such an
insight into the delights of the position of an English governess as I
certainly never had before. When first she joined us here at the
Clarendon, Anne was still with us, and she being always accustomed to
take her meals with the children, and yet of course not a proper
companion for Miss Hall, we thought that till the nurse went to America
we would request the governess to dine with us. On Anne's departure, I
signified to the head waiter that from that time Miss Hall would take
her dinner with the children; whereupon, with a smirk and sniff of the
most insolent disdain, and an air of dignity that had been hurt, but was
now comforted, the bloated superior servant replied, "Well, ma'am, to be
sure, it always was so in _them famullies_ where I have lived; the
governess never didn't eat at the table." The fact is natural, and the
reason obvious, but oh! my dear, the manner of the fat, pampered
porpoise of a man-menial was too horrid. Then, on going for a candle
into Miss Hall's room one evening, I found she had been provided with
tallow ones, and, upon remonstrating about it with the chambermaid, she
replied (with a courtesy at every other word to me), "Oh, ma'am, we
always puts _tallow_ for the governesses."
Good-bye, dear. God bless you.
Ever yours,
FANNY.
CRANFORD HOUSE, January 8th, 1843.
DEAREST HAL,
I am spending two days at Cranford--you know, I believe, where I mean,
old Lady Berkeley's place.... I came to get the refreshment of the
country; old Lady Berkeley is very kind to me, and I like her daughters,
Lady Mary particularly. I came down yesterday (Saturday), and shall
return early to-morrow, for on Wednesday the children are to have a
party of their little friends, and I am making a Christmas-tree for them
(rather out of date), and expect to be exceedingly busy both to-morrow
and Tuesday in preparing for their amusement.
My father does not suffer nearly as much pain as he did a short time
ago, but his strength appears to me to be gradually diminishing....
[Our return to America being once more indefinitely postponed, we
now took a house in Upper Grosvenor Street, close to Hyde Park, to
which we removed from the Clarendon, my sister residing very near
us, in Chapel Street, Grosvenor Square.]
26, UPPER GROSVENOR STREET, Wednesday, March 1st, 1843.
Thank you, my dear T----, for your attention to our interests and
affairs.... It seems to me that to have to accept the conviction of the
unworthiness of those we love must be even worse than to lay our dearest
in the earth, for we may believe that they have risen into the bosom of
God. However, each human being's burden is the one whose weight must
seem the heaviest to himself, and He alone who lays them on proportions
them to our strength and enables us to walk upright beneath them....
[Extract from a letter from Miss Sedgwick.]
NEW YORK, March 3rd, 1843.
The great topic with us just now is the trial of Mackenzie, of whom, as
the chief actor in the tragedy of the "Somers," you must have heard.
Some of your journals cry out upon him, but, as we think, only the
organs of that hostile inhuman spirit that bad minds try to keep alive
on both sides of the water. His life has been marked with courage and
humanity; all enlightened and unperverted, I may say all sane opinion
with us, is in his favor. After the most honorable opinion from the
Court of Inquiry, he is now under trial by court-martial, demanded by
his friends to save him from a civil suit. S----, the father of the Ohio
mutineer, is a man of distinguished talent, of education, and head of
the War Department, but a vindictive and unscrupulous man. He is using
every means to ruin Mackenzie, to revenge the death of a son,
Heaven-forsaken from the beginning of his days, and whose maturest acts
(he died at nineteen) were robbing his mother's jewel-case and stealing
money from his father's desk. My nephew is acting as Mackenzie's
counsel, and his wife, a Roman wife and mother, is a friend of mine....
I heard a story the other day, "a true one," that I treasured for you as
racy, as characteristic of slavery and human nature. A most notoriously
atrocious, dissolute, _hellish_ slave-owner died, and one of his
slaves--an old woman--said to a lady, "Massa prayed God so to forgive
him! Oh, how he prayed! And I am afraid God heard him; they say He's so
good."
UPPER GROSVENOR STREET, April 17th, 1843.
MY DEAR T----,
I have executed your commission with regard to two of the books you
desired me to get, but the modern Italian work, published in 1840, in
Florence, and the "Mariana" of 1600, I am very much afraid I shall not
be able to procure; the first because it would be necessary to send to
Florence for it, which could very easily be done, but then I shouldn't
be here to receive it; and the second, the copy of "Mariana," of the
edition you specify, because Bohn assures me that it is extremely rare,
having been suppressed on account of the king-killing doctrines it
inculcates, and the subsequent editions being all garbled and incorrect.
As you particularly specified that of 1600, of course I would not take
any other, and shall still make further attempts to procure that, though
Panizzi, the librarian of the British Museum, and Macaulay, who are both
friends of mine, and whom I consulted about it, neither of them gave me
much encouragement as to my eventual success. The "Filangieri" and
Buchanan will arrive with me. I would send them to G---- A----, but
that, as we return on the 4th of May, I think there is every reason to
expect that we shall be in America first.
So much for your commission. With regard to your complaint that I give
you nothing to do, I think you will have found that fault amended in my
last communication, wherein I request you to accept my father's power of
attorney, and undertake to watch over his interests in the New Orleans
Bank....
As for people's comments on me or my actions, I have not lived on the
stage to be cowardly as well as bold; and being decidedly bold, "I thank
God," as Audrey might say, that I am not cowardly, which is my only
answer to the suggestion of "people saying," etc.
For a year and a half past I have been perfectly wretched at our
protracted stay in Europe, and as often as possible have protested
against our prolonged sojourn here, and all the consequences involved in
it. This being the case, "people" attributing our remaining here to me
troubles me but little, particularly as I foresaw from the first that
that must inevitably be the result of our doing so.
I seldom read the newspapers, and therefore have not followed any of the
details of this Mackenzie trial. The original transaction, and his own
report of it, I read with amazement; more particularly the report, the
framing and wording of which appeared to me utterly irreconcilable with
the fact of his having written, as Lord Ashburton informed me, a very
pleasing book, of which certainly the style must have been very
different. He, Lord Ashburton, spoke of him as though he knew him, and
gave him the same character of gentleness and single-mindedness that you
do.
Although our return to America will be made under circumstances of every
possible annoyance and anxiety, it gives me heartfelt pleasure to think
I shall soon see all my good friends there again, among whom you and
yours are first in my regard....
Butler Place is to be let, if possible, and at any rate we are certainly
not to go back to it; whereat my poor little S---- cries bitterly, and I
feel a tightening at the heart, to think that the only place which I
have known as a _home_ in America is not what I am to return to.... The
transfer of that New Orleans stock by my father to me--I mean the law
papers necessary for the purpose--cost £50 sterling. England is a dear
country many ways.
Ellsler is in London now, and, I am assured by those who know, _diviner_
than ever. I think her gone off both in looks and dancing. That rascal
W---- has robbed her of the larger portion of her earnings. What a nice
lover to have!
Believe me ever
Yours most truly,
F. A. B.
April 15th 1843.
MY DEAREST HAL,
You must not scold if there are letters missing in my words this week,
for I have enough to do and to think of, as you well know, to put half
the letters of the alphabet out of my head for the next twelvemonth....
Immediately after breakfast on Saturday I went down on my knees and
packed till Emily came to walk with me, and packed after I came in till
it was time to go shopping and visiting. I went to bid the L----'s
good-bye; we dined with the Procters, and had a pleasant dinner: Mr. and
Mrs. Grote, Rogers, Browning, Harness and his sister. In the evening I
went to Miss Berry's, where Lady Charlotte Lindsay and I discoursed
about you, and she pitied you greatly for having, upon the top of all
your troubles, forgotten your keys....
Sunday morning I packed instead of going to church, and, in fact, packed
the blessed livelong day, with an interval of rest derived from an
interminable visit from Frederick Byng (_alias_ Poodle). Yesterday my
father and Victoire (my aunt), and Adelaide and E---- (who, to my
infinite joy, came home on Saturday), dined with us. My father was
better, I think, than the last evening we were with him, though, of
course, a good deal out of spirits. Victoire was pretty well, but quite
surprised and mortified at hearing that I would not suffer her to pack
my things, for fear of its fatiguing her; and told me how she had been
turning in her mind her best way of contriving to be here packing all
day, and home in Charlotte Street in time to give my father his dinner.
She is Dall's own sister!
Yesterday I completed, with Emily's assistance (which nearly drove me
mad), the packing of the great huge chest of books, boxes, etc., and she
and I walked together, but it was bitter cold and ungenial, regular
_beasterly_ wind. (Mrs. Grote says _she_ invented that name for it, and,
for reasons which will be obvious to you, I gave it up to her without a
blow.) In the afternoon I went shopping with Adelaide, and then flew
about, discharging my own commissions.
In the evening our "first grand party of the season came off;" nearly
two hundred people came, and seemed, upon the whole, tolerably well
amused. Adelaide and Miss Masson and I sang, and Benedict played, and it
all went off very well. There were six policeman at the door, and Irish
Jack-o'-lanterns without count; "the refreshment table was exceedingly
elegantly set out" by _Gunter_--at a price which we do not yet know....
I dread our sea-voyage for myself, for all sorts of physical reasons;
morally, I dare say I shall benefit from a season of absolute quiet and
the absence of all excitement. The chicks are well; they are to go down
to Liverpool on Saturday, in order to be out of the way, for we leave
this house on Monday, and their departure will facilitate the verifying
of inventories and all the intolerable confusion of our last hours. Mrs.
Cooper, as well as Miss Hall, will go with them to Liverpool, and I have
requested that, instead of staying in the town, they may go down to
Crosby Beach, six miles from it, and wait there for our arrival. This is
all my history. I am in one perpetual bustle, and I thank Heaven for it;
I have no leisure to think or to feel....
I beg leave to inform you that Miss Hall came to my party in a most
elegant black satin dress, with her hair curled in _profuse ringlets_
all over her head.
God bless you, my dear Hal. Good-bye.
Ever yours,
F. A. B.
Thursday, April 27th, 1843.
DEAREST HAL,
You ask how it goes with me. Why, I think pretty much as it did with the
poor gentleman who went up in the flying machine t'other day, which,
upon some of his tackle giving way, began, as he describes, to "turn
round and round in the air with the most frightful velocity." My
condition, I think, too, will find the same climax as his, viz. falling
in a state of _senselessness_ into a steam-packet. If the account be
true, it was a very curious one. As for me, I am absolutely breathless
with things to do and things to think of.... Still, I get on (like a
deeply freighted ship in a churning sea, to be sure), but I _do_ make
some way, and the days _do_ go by, and I am glad to see the end of this
season of trial approaching, for all our sakes.
Any one would suppose I was in great spirits, for I fly about, singing
at the top of my voice, and only stop every now and then to pump up a
sigh as big as the house, and clear my eyes of the tears that are
blinding me. Occasionally, too, a feeling of my last moments here, and
my leave-taking of my father and sister, shoots suddenly through my
mind, and turns me dead sick; but all is well with me upon the whole,
nevertheless.
Adelaide was in great health and spirits on Monday night, and sang for
us, and seemed to enjoy herself very much, and gave great delight to
everybody who heard her. She sang last night again at Chorley's, but I
thought her voice sounded a little tired. To be sure, in those tiny
boxes of rooms, the carpets and curtains choke one's voice back into
one's throat, and it just comes out beyond one's teeth, with a sort of
muffled-drum sound. Thus far, dearest Hal, yesterday. To-day, before I
left my dressing-room, I got your present. Thank you a thousand times
for the pretty chain [a beautiful gold chain, which, together with a
very valuable watch, was stolen from me in a boarding-house in
Philadelphia, almost immediately on my return there], which is
exquisite, and will be very dear. Yet, though I found the "fine gold,"
the empty page of letter-paper on each side of it disappointed me more
than it would have been grateful to express; but when I came down to
breakfast I found your letter, and was altogether happy.... I was
wearing my watch again, for I found the risk and inconvenience of always
carrying it about very tiresome, but I had it on an old silver chain
that I have had for some years. Yours is prettier even than my father's,
and I love to feel it round my neck.
You say you hope my sister will be brave on the occasion of our parting,
and not try my courage with her grief. I will answer for her. I am sure
she will be brave. I know of no one with more determination and
self-control than she has....
The secret of helping people every way most efficiently is to stand by
and be _quiet_ and _ready_ to do anything you _may be asked to do_. This
is the only real way to help people who have any notion of helping
themselves.
On Monday evening we had our first party, which went off exceedingly
well. On Tuesday morning Emily and I walked together, and I packed till
lunch, after which I drove out with Adelaide, shopping for her, and
doing my own _do's_. In the evening I went to my father, whom I found in
most wretched spirits, but not worse in health. He has determined, I am
thankful to say, not to see the children again before they go, which I
think is very wise. After leaving him, I went to a party at our friend
Chorley's, where dear Mendelssohn was, and where I heard some wonderful
music, and read part of "Much Ado about Nothing" to them. Yesterday
Emily came, and we walked together, and I packed and did commissions all
day. Our second party took place in the evening, and we had all our
grandee friends and fine-folk acquaintances....
God bless you, dear Hal. Emily is waiting for me to go out walking with
her.
Ever yours,
FANNY.
26, UPPER GROSVENOR STREET.
MY DEAR CHARLES GREVILLE,
I send you back Channing's book, with many thanks. The controversial
part of his sermons does not satisfy me. No controversy does; no
arguments, whether for or against Christianity, ever appear to me
_conclusive_; but as I am a person who would like extremely to have it
demonstrated _why_ two and two make four, you can easily conceive that
arguments upon any subject seldom seem perfectly satisfactory to me. As
for my convictions, which are, I thank God, vivid and strong, I think
they spring from a species of intuition, mercifully granted to those who
have a natural incapacity for reasoning, _i.e._ the whole female _sect_.
And, talking of them, I do not like Dryden, though I exclaim with
delight at the glorious beauty and philosophical truth of some of his
poetry; but oh! he has nasty notions about women. Did you ever see
Correggio's picture of the Gismonda? It is a wonderful portrait of
grief. Even Guercino's "Hagar" is inferior to it in the mere expression
of misery. Knowing no more of the story years ago than I gathered from a
fine print of Correggio's picture, I wrote a rhapsody upon it, which I
will show you some day.
The "Leaf and the Flower" is very gorgeous, but it does not touch the
heart like earnest praise of a virtue, loved, felt, and practised; and
Dryden's "Hymns to Chastity" would scarcely, I think, satisfy me, even
had I not in memory sundry sublime things of Spenser, Dante, and Milton
on the same theme. Thank you for both the books. Each in its kind is
very good.
I am yours very truly,
F. A. B.
[Mr. Greville had lent me a volume of Dr. Channing's "Sermons," and
Dryden's "Fables," which I had never before read.]
26, UPPER GROSVENOR STREET, Saturday, April 29th.
DEAREST GRANNY,
I send you back, with thanks, the critique on Adelaide. It is very civil
and, I think, not otherwise than just, except perhaps in comparing my
sister _at present_ to Pasta.
If genius alone were the same thing as genius and years of study, labor,
experience, and practice, genius would be a finer thing even than it is.
My sister perpetually reminded me of Pasta, and, had she remained a few
years longer in her profession, would, I think, have equalled her. I
could not give her higher praise, for nobody, since the setting of that
great artist, has even remotely reminded me of her. My sister's voice is
not one of the finest I have heard; Miss Paton's is finer, Clara
Novello's (the most perfect voice I ever heard) is finer. Adelaide's
real voice is a high mezzo-soprano, and in _stretching_ it to a higher
pitch--that of the soprano-assoluto--which she has done with infinite
pains and practice, in order to sing the music of the parts she plays, I
think she has impaired the quality, the perfect intonation, of the notes
that form the joint, the hinge, as it were, between the upper and middle
voice; and these notes are sometimes not quite true--at any rate, weak
and uncertain. In brilliancy of execution, I do not think she equals
Sontag, Malibran, or Grisi; _but_ there is in other respects no possible
comparison, in my opinion, between them and herself, as a lyrical
dramatic artist; and Pasta is the only great singer who, I think,
compares with her in the qualities of that noble and commanding order
which distinguished them both. In both Madame Pasta and my sister the
dramatic power is so great as almost occasionally to throw their musical
achievements, in some degree, into the shade. But in their lyrical
declamation there is a grandeur and breadth of style, and a tragic depth
of passion, far beyond that of any other musical performers I have
known. In one respect Adelaide had the promise of greater excellence
than Pasta--the versatility of her powers and her great talent for
comedy.
How little her beautiful face was ever disfigured by her vocal efforts
you have seen; and noted, I know, that power of appealing to Heaven at
once with her lustrous eyes and her soaring voice; ending those fine,
exquisite, prolonged shakes on the highest notes with that gentle quiver
of the lids which hardly disturbed the expression of "the rapt soul
sitting in her eyes." She has a musical sensibility which comprehends,
in both senses of the word, every species of musical composition, and
almost the whole lyrical literature of Europe; in short, she belongs, by
organization and education, to the highest order of artists. But
why--oh, why am I giving you a dissertation on her and her gifts, for a
purpose which will never again challenge her efforts or their exercise?
(Quite lately, one who knew and loved her well told me that Rossini had
said of her, "To sing as she does three things are needed:
this"--touching his forehead,--"this"--touching his throat,--"and
this"--laying his hand on his heart;--"she had them all.")
I sometimes think, when I reflect upon the lives of theatrical artists,
that they are altogether unnatural existences, and produce--pardon the
bull--_artificial natures_, which are misplaced anywhere but in their
own unreal and make-believe sphere. They are the anomalous growth of our
diseased civilizations, and, removed from their own factitious soil,
flourish, I half believe, in none other. Do not laugh at me, but I
really do think that creatures with the temperaments necessary for
making good actors and actresses are unfit for anything else in life;
and as for marrying and having children, I think crossing wholesome
English farm stock with mythological cattle would furnish our fields
with a less uncanny breed, of animals.
I wish some laws were made shutting up all the theatres, and only
allowing two dramatic entertainments every year: one of Shakespeare's
plays, and one of Mozart's operas, at the cost of Government, and as a
national festivity. Now, I know you think I am quite mad, wherefore
adieu.
I am ever yours most truly,
F. A. B.
UPPER GROSVENOR STREET, May, 1843.
DEAREST GRANNY,
I am of Lord Dacre's mind, and think it wisest and best to avoid the
pain of a second parting with you. Light as _new_ sorrows may appear to
you, the heart--your heart--certainly will never want vitality enough to
feel pain through your kindly affections. God bless you, therefore, my
good friend, and farewell. For myself, I feel bruised all over, and
numbed with pain; so many sad partings have fallen one after another,
day after day, upon my heart, that acuteness of pain is lost in a mere
sense of unspeakable, sore weariness; and yet these bitter last days are
to be prolonged.... God help us all! But I am wrong to write thus sadly
to you, my kind friend; and indeed, though from this note you might not
think my courage what it ought to be, I assure you it does not fail me,
and, once through these cruel last days, I shall take up the burden of
my life, I trust, with patience, cheerfulness, and firm faith in God,
and that conviction which is seldom absent from my mind, and which I
find powerful to sustain me, that duty and not happiness is the purpose
of life; and that from the discharge of the one and the forgetfulness of
the other springs that peace which Christ told His friends He gave, and
the world gives not, neither takes away. Let dear B---- come and see me;
I shall like to look on her bright, courageous face again. Give my
affectionate love to Lord Dacre, and believe me
Ever gratefully and affectionately
Your grandchild,
FANNY.
UPPER GROSVENOR STREET, May 3rd, 1843.
Thank you, dearest Hal, for Sydney Smith's letter about Francis Horner:
it is bolder than anything I had a notion of, but very able and very
amiable, and describes charmingly an admirable man. There is one
expression he--Sydney Smith--applies to Horner that struck me as
strange--he speaks of "important human beings" that he has known; and, I
cannot tell why, but with all my self-esteem and high opinion of human
nature and its capabilities in general, the epithet "important" applied
to human beings made me smile, and keeps recurring to me as comical. It
must have appeared much more so to you, I should think, with your
degraded opinion of humanity.
You ask how our second party went off. Why, very well. It was much
fuller than the other, and in hopes of inducing people to "spread
themselves" a little, we had the refreshments put into my drawing-room;
but they still persisting in sticking (sticking literally) all in the
room with the piano, which rather annoyed me, because I hate the
proximity of "important human beings," I came away from them, and had a
charming quiet chat in the little boudoir with Lord Ashburton and Lord
Dacre, during which they discussed the merits of Channing, and awarded
him the most _unmitigated_ praise as a good and great man. It is curious
enough that in America the opponents of Dr. Channing's views perpetually
retorted upon him that he was a clergyman, a mere man of letters, whose
peculiar mode of life could not possibly admit of his having large or
just, or, above all, practical political knowledge and ideas, or any
opinions about questions of government that could be worth listening to;
whereas these two very distinguished Englishmen spoke with unqualified
admiration of his sound and luminous treatment of such subjects, and,
instancing what they considered his best productions, mentioned his
letter to Clay upon the annexation of Texas, even before his moral and
theological essays.
Our company stayed very late with us, till near two o'clock; and upon a
remark being made about the much smaller consumption of refreshments
than on the occasion of our first party, D----, our butler, very
oracularly responded, "Quite a different class of people, sir;" which
mode of accounting for the more delicate appetite of our more
aristocratic guests, made with an ineffable air of cousinship to them
all, sent me into fits of laughing.
You ask me what I shall have to do from Monday till Wednesday, to fill
up my time and keep my thoughts from drowning themselves in crying. I
shall leave this house after breakfast for the _Clarendon_. I have a
great many small last articles to purchase, and shall visit all my
kindred once more. Then, too, the final packing for "board ship" will
take me some time, and I have some letters to write too. I dine with
Lady Dacre on Monday; they are to be alone except us and E---- and my
sister. I shall leave them at eight o'clock to go and sit with my father
till ten, his bed-time; and then return to Chesterfield Street [Lord
Dacre's]. As for Tuesday--Heaven alone knows how I shall get through it.
On Thursday last we dined with Sydney Smith, where we met Lord and Lady
Charlemont, Jeffrey, Frederick Byng, Dickens, Lady Stepney, and two men
whom I did not know,--a pleasant dinner; and afterwards we went to Mrs.
Dawson Damer's,--a large assembly, more than half of them strangers to
us....
On Friday morning Adelaide and E---- and we breakfasted with Rogers, to
meet Sydney Smith, Hallam, and his daughter and niece, the United States
Minister, Edward Everett, Empson, and Sir Robert Inglis. After breakfast
I went to see Charles Greville, who is again laid up with the gout, and
unable to move from his sofa. We dined with my sister, who had a large
party in the evening; and as the hour for breaking up arrived, and I saw
those pleasant kindly acquaintances pass one after another through the
door, I felt as if I was watching the vanishing of some pleasant vision.
The nearest and dearest of these phantasmagoria are yet round me; but in
three days the last will have disappeared from my eyes, for who can tell
how long? if not forever!
All day yesterday I was extremely unwell, but packed vehemently....
Charles Young, who is a most dear old friend of mine, and dotes upon my
children, came to see them off, and went with them to the railroad.
S---- begged for some of her grandfather's hair, but that he might not
be told it was for her, for fear of grieving him!
This is the last letter you will get from me written in this house.
Victoire, quite tired out with packing, is lying asleep on the sofa, and
poor dear Emily sits crying beside me.
Ever yours,
F. A. B.
LIVERPOOL, Thursday, May 4th, 1843.
I wrote to you last thing last night, dearest Hal; and now farewell! I
have received a better account of my father.... Dear love to Dorothy,
and my last dear love to you. I shall write and send no more loves to
any one. Lord Titchfield--blessings on him!--has sent me a miniature of
my father and four different ones of Adelaide. God bless you, dear.
Good-bye.
Yours,
FANNY.
HALIFAX WHARF, Wednesday, May 17th, 1843.
MY DEAR FRIEND,
When I tell you that yesterday, for the first time, I was able to put
pen to paper, or even to hold up my head, and that even after the small
exertion of writing a few lines to my father I was so exhausted as to
faint away, you will judge of the state of weakness to which this
dreadful process of crossing the Atlantic reduces your very _robustious_
grandchild.
It is now the 17th of May, and we have been at sea thirteen days, and we
are making rapid way along the coast of Nova Scotia, and shall touch at
Halifax in less than an hour. There we remain, to land mails and
passengers, about six hours; and in thirty-six more, wind and weather
favoring us across the Bay of Fundy, we shall be in Boston. In fifteen
days! Think of it, my dearest Granny! when thirty used to be considered
a rapid and prosperous voyage.
My dear friend, how shall I thank you for those warm words of cheering
and affectionate encouragement which I received when I was lying worn
out for want of sleep and food, after we had been eight days on this
dreadful deep? My kind friend, I do not want courage, I assure you; and
God will doubtless give me sufficient strength for my need: but you can
hardly imagine how deplorably sad I feel; how poor, who lately was so
rich; how lonely, who lately was surrounded by so many friends. I know
all that remains to me, and how the treasure of love I have left behind
will be kept, I believe, in many kind hearts for me till I return to
claim it. But the fact is I am quite exhausted, body and mind, and
incapable of writing, or even thinking, with half the energy I hope to
gather from the first inch of dry land I step upon. Like Antæus, I look
for strength from my mother, the Earth, and doubt not to be brave again
when once I am on shore.
The moment I saw the dear little blue enamel heart I exclaimed, "Oh, it
is Lady Dacre's hair in it!" But tears, and tears, and nothing but
tears, were the only greeting I could give the pretty locket and your
and dear B----'s letters.
My poor chicks have borne the passage well, upon the whole--sick and
sorry one hour, and flying about the deck like birds the next....
Our passage has been made in the teeth of the wind, and against a heavy
sea the whole way. We have had no absolute storm; but the tender mercies
of the Atlantic, at best, are terrible. Of our company I can tell
nothing, having never left my bed till within the last three days. They
seem to be chiefly English officers and their families, bound for New
Brunswick and the Canadas. The ship stops, and to the perpetual flailing
of the paddles succeeds the hissing sound of the escaping steam. We are
at Halifax. I send you this earliest news of us because you will be
glad, I am sure, to get it.
Give my love to my dear lord; my blessing and a kiss to dear B----. I
will write to her from New York, if possible. God bless you, my dear
friend, and reward you for all your kindness to me, and comfort and make
peaceful the remainder of your earthly pilgrimage. I can hardly hold my
pen in my hand, or my head up; but am ever your grateful and
affectionate
FANNY.
PHILADELPHIA, Tuesday, May 23rd, 1843.
MY DEAREST HAL,
We landed in Boston on Friday morning at six o'clock, and almost before
I had drawn my first breath of Yankee air Elizabeth Sedgwick and Kate
had thrown their arms round me.
You will want to know of our seafaring; and mine truly was miserable, as
it always is, and perhaps even more wretched than ever before. I lay in
a fever for ten days, without being able to swallow anything but two
glasses of calves'-foot jelly and oceans of iced water. At the end of
this time I began to get a little better; though, as I had neither food,
nor sleep, nor any relief from positive sea-sickness, I was in a
deplorable state of weakness. I just contrived to crawl out of my berth
two days before we reached Halifax, where I was cheered, and saddened
too, by the sight of well-known English faces. I had just finished
letters to my father, E----, and Lady Dacre, for the _Hibernia_, which
was to touch there the next morning on her way _home_, and was sitting
disconsolate with my head in my hands, in a small cabin on deck, to
which I had been carried up from below as soon as I was well enough to
bear being removed from my own, when Mr. Cunard, the originator of this
Atlantic Steam Mail-packet enterprise, whom I had met in London, came
in, and with many words of kindness and good cheer, carried me up to his
house in Halifax, where I rested for an hour, and where I saw Major
S----, an uncle of my dear B----, and where we talked over English
friends and acquaintances and places, and whence I returned to the ship
for our two days' more misery, with a bunch of exquisite flowers, born
English subjects, which are now withering in my letter-box among my most
precious farewell words of friends.
The children bore the voyage as well as could be expected; sick one half
hour, and stuffing the next; little F---- _pervading_ the ship from stem
to stern, like Ariel, and generally presiding at the officers' mess in
undismayed she-loneliness.
Your friend Captain G---- was her devoted slave and admirer.... I saw
but little of the worthy captain, being only able to come on deck the
last four days of our passage; but he was most kind to us all, and after
romping with the children and walking Miss Hall off her legs, he used to
come and sit down by me, and sing, and hum, and whistle every imaginable
tune that ever lodged between lines and spaces, and some so original
that I think they never were imprisoned within any musical bars
whatever. I gave him at parting the fellow of your squeeze of the hand,
and told him that as yours was on my account, mine was on yours. He left
us at Boston to go on to Niagara.
Our ship was extremely full, and there being only one stewardess on
board, the help she could afford any of us was very little.... While in
Boston I made a pilgrimage to dear Dall's grave: a bitter and a sad few
minutes I spent, lying upon that ground beneath which she lay, and from
which her example seemed to me to rise in all the brightness of its
perfect lovingness and self-denial. The oftener I think of her, the more
admirable her life appears to me. She was undoubtedly gifted by nature
with a temperament of rare healthfulness and vigor, which, combined with
the absence of imagination and nervous excitability, contributed much to
her uniform cheerfulness, courage, and placidity of temper; but her
self-forgetfulness was most uncommon, her inexhaustible kindliness and
devotedness to every creature that came within her comfortable and
consolatory influence was "twice-blessed," and from her grave her lovely
virtues seemed to call to me to get up and be of good cheer, and strive
to forget myself, even as perfectly as she had done.... How bitter and
dark a thing life is to some of God's poor creatures!
I have told you now all I have to tell of myself, and being weary in
spirit and in body, will bid you farewell, and go and try to get some
sleep. God bless you, my beloved friend; I am very sad, but far from out
of courage. Give dear Dorothy my affectionate love.
I am ever yours,
FANNY.
PHILADELPHIA, Tuesday, 30th, 1843.
MY DEAR F----,
We are all established in a boarding-house here, where my acquaintances
assure me that I am very comfortable; and so I endeavor to persuade
myself that my acquaintances are better judges of that than I am myself.
It is the first time in my life that I have ever lived in any such
manner or establishment; so I have no means of trying it by comparison;
it is simply detestable to me, but compared with _more_ detestable
places of the same sort it is probably _less_ so. "There are
differences, look you!" ...
I am sure your family deserve to have a temple erected to them by all
foreigners in America; for it seems to me that you and your people are
home, country, and friends to all such unfortunates as happen to have
left those small items of satisfaction behind them. The stranger's
blessing should rest on your dwellings, and one stranger's grateful
blessing does rest there....
Believe me, yours most truly,
F. A. B.
_Please to observe_ that the charge of 13_s._ 8_d._ is for personal
advice, conferences, and tiresome morning visits; and if you make any
such charge, I shall expect you to earn it. 6_s._ 4_d._ is all you are
entitled to for anything but personal communication.
[This postscript, and the beginning of the letter, were jesting
references to a lawyer's bill, amounting to nearly £50, presented to
me by a young legal gentleman with whom we had been upon terms of
friendly acquaintance, and whom we had employed, as he was just
beginning business, to execute the papers for the deed of gift I
have mentioned, by which my father left me at his death my earnings,
the use of which I had given up to him on my marriage for his
lifetime.
Our young legal gentleman used to pay us the most inconceivably
tedious visits, during which his principal object appeared to be to
obtain from us every sort of information upon the subject of all and
sundry American investments and securities. Over and over again I
was on the point of saying "Not at home" to these interminably
wearisome visitations, but refrained, out of sheer good nature and
unwillingness to mortify my _visitant_. Great, therefore, was our
surprise, on receiving a _bill of costs_, to find every one of these
intolerable intrusions upon our time and patience charged, as
personal business consultations, at 13_s._ 8_d._ The thing was so
ludicrous that I laughed till I cried over the price of our friend's
civilities. On paying the amount, though of course I made no comment
upon the price of my social and legal privileges, I suppose the
young gentleman's own conscience (he was only just starting in his
profession, and may have had one) pricked him slightly, for with a
faint hysterical giggle, he said, "I dare say you think it rather
sharp practice, but, you see, getting married and furnishing the
house is rather expensive,"--an explanation of the reiterated
thirteens and sixpences of the bill, which was candid, at any rate,
and put them in the more affable light of an extorted wedding
present, which was rather pleasant.]
PHILADELPHIA, June 4th, 1843.
DEAREST GRANNY,
You will long ere this have received my grateful acknowledgments of your
pretty present and most kind letter, received, with many tears and
heart-yearnings, in the middle of that horrible ocean. I will not renew
my thanks, though I never can thank you enough for that affectionate
inspiration of following me on that watery waste, with tokens of your
remembrance, and cheering that most dismal of all conditions with such
an unlooked-for visitation of love.
I wrote to you from Halifax, where, on the deck of our steamer, your
name was invoked with heartfelt commendations by myself and Major S----.
That was a curious conversation of his and mine, if such it could be
called; scarcely more than a breathless enumeration of the names of all
of you, coupled indeed with loving and admiring additions, and
ejaculations full of regret and affection. Poor man, how I did pity him!
and how I did pity myself!
I have just written to our B----, and feel sad at the meagre and
unsatisfactory account which my letter contains of me and mine; to you,
my excellent friend, I will add this much more.... But I shall forbear
saying anything about my conditions until they become better in
themselves, or I become better able to bear them. God bless you and
those you love, my dear Lady Dacre. Give my affectionate "duty" to my
lord, and believe me ever your gratefully attached
F. A. B.
PHILADELPHIA, June 26th, 1843.
MY DEAREST HAL,
Your sad account of Ireland is only more shocking than that of the
newspapers because it is yours, and because you are in the midst of all
this wild confusion and dismay. How much you must feel for your people!
However much one's sympathy may be enlisted in any public cause, the
private instances of suffering and injustice, which inevitably attend
all political changes wrought by popular commotion, are most afflicting.
I hardly know what it is reasonable to expect from, or hope for,
Ireland. A separation from England seems the wildest project
conceivable; and yet, Heaven knows, no great benefit appears hitherto to
have accrued to the poor "earthen pot" from its fellowship with the
"iron" one. As for hoping that quiet may be restored through the
intervention of military force, at the bayonet's point,--I cannot hope
any such thing. Peace so procured is but an earnest of future war, and
the victims of such enforced tranquillity bequeath to those who are only
temporarily _quelled_, not permanently _quieted_, a legacy of revenge,
which only accumulates, and never goes long unclaimed and unpaid.
England seems to me invariably to deal unwisely with her dependencies;
she performs in the Christian world very much the office that Rome did
in the days of her great heathen supremacy--carry to the ends of the
earth by process of conquest the seeds of civilization, of legislation,
and progress; and then, as though her mission was fulfilled, by gradual
mismanagement, abuse of power, and insolent contempt of those she has
subjugated, is ejected by the very people to whom she had brought, at
the sword's point, the knowledge of freedom and of law. It is a singular
office for a great nation, but I am not sure that it is not our
Heaven-appointed one, to conquer, to improve, to oppress, to be
rebelled against, to coerce, and finally to be kicked out, _videlicet_,
these United States.
But now to matters personal.... The intense heat affects me extremely;
and not having a horse, or any riding exercise, the long walks which I
compel myself to take over these burning brick pavements, and under this
broiling sun, are not, I suppose, altogether beneficial to me....
I went to church yesterday, and Mr. F---- preached an Abolition sermon.
This subject seems to press more and more upon his mind, and he speaks
more and more boldly upon it, in spite of having seen various members of
his congregation get up and leave the church in the middle of one of his
sermons in which he adverted to the forbidden theme of slavery. Some of
these, who had been members of the church from its earliest
establishment, and were very much attached to him, expressed their
regret at the course they felt compelled to adopt, and said if he would
only _give them notice_ when he intended to preach upon that subject
they would content themselves with absenting themselves on those
occasions only, to which his reply not unnaturally was, "Why, those who
would leave the church on those occasions are precisely the persons who
are in need of such exhortations!"--and of course he persevered.
I think it will end by his being expelled by his congregation. It will
be well with him wherever he goes; but alas for those he leaves! I
expect to be forbidden to take S---- to church, as soon as the report of
yesterday's sermon gets noised abroad....
God bless you, dear. Good-bye. I am heavy-hearted, and it is a great
effort to me to write. What would I not give to see you! Love to dear
Dorothy, when you see or write to her.
I am ever yours,
FANNY.
YELLOW SPRINGS, PENNSYLVANIA, July 6th, 1843.
MY DEAREST HAL,
Here I am sitting (not indeed "on a rail"), but next thing to it, on the
very hardest of wooden benches; my feet on the very hardest bar of the
very hardest wooden chair; and my _cork_ inkstand, of the most primitive
formation, placed on a rough wooden table about a foot square, which is
not large enough to hold my paper (so my knees are my desk), and is
covered with a coarse piece of rag carpeting;--the whole, a sort of
prison-cell furnishing. Before me stretches as far as it can about a
quarter of an acre of degraded uneven ground, enclosed in a dilapidated
whitewashed wooden paling, and clothed, except in several mangy bare
patches, with rank weedy grass, untended unwholesome shrubs, and untidy
neglected trees.... Behind me is a whitewashed room about fifteen feet
by twelve, containing a rickety, black horse-hair sofa, all worn and
torn into prickly ridges; six rheumatic wooden chairs; a lame table
covered with a plaid shawl of my own, being otherwise without cloth to
hide its nakedness or the indefinite variety of dirt-spots and stains
which defile its dirty skin. In this room Miss Hall and S---- are busily
engaged at "lessons." Briefly, I am sitting on the piazza (so-called) of
one of a group of tumble-down lodging-houses and hotels, which,
embosomed in a beautiful valley in Pennsylvania, and having in the midst
of them an exquisite spring of mineral water, rejoice in the title of
the "Yellow Springs."
Some years ago this place was a fashionable resort for the
Philadelphians, but other watering-places have carried off its fashion,
and it has been almost deserted for some time past; and except invalids
unable to go far from the city (which is within a three hours' drive
from here), and people who wish to get fresh air for their children
without being at a distance from their business, very few visitors come
here, and those of an entirely different sort from the usual summer
haunters of watering-places in the country.
The heat in the city has been perfectly frightful.... On Sunday last a
thermometer, rested on the ground, rose to 130°, that being the heat of
the earth; and when it was hung up in the shade the mercury fell, but
remained at 119°. Imagine what an air to breathe!... Late in the
afternoon last Sunday, a storm came on like a West Indian tornado; the
sky came down almost to the earth, the dust was suddenly blown up into
the air in red-hot clouds that rushed in at the open windows like thick
volumes of smoke, and then the rain poured from the clouds, steadily,
heavily, and continuously, for several hours.
In the night the whole atmosphere changed, and as I sat in my
children's nursery after putting them to bed in the dark, that they
might sleep, I felt gradually the spirit of life come over the earth, in
cool breezes between the heavy showers of rain. The next morning the
thermometer was below 70°, 30° lower than the day before.... This
morning the children took me up a hill which rises immediately at the
back of the house, on the summit of which is a fine crest of beautiful
forest-trees, from which place there is a charming prospect of hill and
dale, a rich rolling country in fine cultivation--the yellow crops of
grain, running like golden bays into the green woodland that clothes the
sides and tops of all the hills, the wheat, the grass, the oats, and the
maize, all making different checkers in the pretty variegated patchwork
covering of the prosperous summer earth.
The scattered farmhouses glimmered white from among the round-headed
verdure of their neighboring orchards. Nowhere in the bright panorama
did the eye encounter the village, the manor-house, and the church
spire,--that picturesque poetical group of feudal significance; but
everywhere, the small lonely farmhouse, with its accompaniments of huge
barns and outhouses, ugly the one and ungainly the others, but standing
in the midst of their own smiling well-cultivated territory, a type of
independent republicanism, perhaps the pleasantest type of its
pleasantest features.
In the whole scene there was nothing picturesque or poetical (except,
indeed, the blue glorious expanse of the unclouded sky, and the noble
trees, from the protection of whose broad shade we looked forth upon the
sunny world). But the wide landscape had a peaceful, plenteous,
prosperous aspect, that was comfortable to one's spirit and exceedingly
pleasant to the eye.
After our walk we came down into the valley, and I went with the
children to the cold bath--a beautiful deep spring of water, as clear as
crystal and almost as cold as ice, surrounded by whitewashed walls,
which, rising above it to a discreet height, screen it only from earthly
observers. No roof covers the watery chamber but the green spreading
branches of tall trees and the blue summer sky, into which you seem to
be stepping as you disturb the surface of the water. Into this lucid
liquid gem I gave my chickens and myself, overhead, three breathless
dips--it is too cold to do more,--and since that I have done nothing
but write to you.
You ask what is said to Sydney Smith's "petition." Why, the honest men
of the country say, "'Tis true, 'tis pity; pity 'tis, 'tis true." It is
thought that Pennsylvania will _ultimately_ pay, and not repudiate, but
it will be _some time_ first. God bless you, my dear Hal. I have not
been well and am miserably depressed, but the country always agrees
excellently with me.
Ever yours,
FANNY.
PHILADELPHIA, Sunday, 9th, 1843.
MY DEAR T----,
After last Sunday's awful heat, it became positively impossible to keep
the children any longer in Philadelphia; and they were accordingly
removed to the Yellow Springs, a healthy and pleasant bathing-place at
three hours' distance from the city. On Saturday morning their nurse,
the only servant we have, thought proper to disapprove of my deportment
towards her, and left me to the maternal delights of dressing, washing,
and looking after my children during that insufferable heat. Miss H----
was entirely incapacitated, and I feared was going to be ill, and I have
reason to thank Heaven that I am provided with the constitution that I
have, for it is certain that I need it. On Sunday night a violent storm
cooled the atmosphere, and on Monday morning the nurse was good enough
to forgive me, and came back: so that the acme of my trial did not last
too long. On Tuesday the children were removed to the country, and
though the physician and my own observation assured me that F----
required sea-bathing, it is an unspeakable relief to me to see her out
of the city, and to find this place healthy and pleasant for them. The
country is pretty, the air pure, the baths delightful; and my chicks,
thank God, already beginning to improve in health and spirits.
As for the accommodations, the less said about them the better. We
inhabit a sort of very large barn, or barrack, divided into sundry
apartments, large and small; and having gleaned the whole house to
furnish our _drawing-room_, that chamber now contains one rickety table,
one horse-hair sofa that has three feet, and six wooden chairs, of
which it may be said that they have several legs among them; but I must
add that we have the whole house to ourselves, and our meals are brought
to us from the "Great Hotel" across the street,--privileges for which it
behoves me to be humbly thankful, and so I am. If the children thrive I
shall be satisfied; and as for accommodation, or even common comfort, my
habitation and mode of life in our Philadelphia boarding-house have been
so far removed from any ideas of comfort or even decency that I ever
entertained, that the whitewashed walls, bare rooms, and tumble-down
verandas of my present residence are but little more so.... I suppose
there was something to like in Mr. Webster's speech, since you are
surprised at my not liking it; but what was there to like? The one he
delivered on the laying of the foundation-stone of the monument (on
Bunker's Hill, near Boston) pleased me very much indeed; I thought some
parts of it very fine. But the last one displeased me utterly.... Pray
send me word all about that place by the sea-side, with the wonderful
name of "Quoge." My own belief is that the final "e" you tack on to it
is an affected abbreviation for the sake of refinement, and that it is,
by name and nature, really "Quagmire."
Believe me always
Yours truly,
F. A. B.
YELLOW SPRINGS, July 12th, 1843.
DEAR GRANNY,
The intelligence contained in your letter [of the second marriage of the
Rev. Frederick Sullivan, whose first wife was Lady Dacre's only child]
gave me for an instant a painful shock, but before I had ended it that
feeling had given place to the conviction that the contemplated change
at the vicarage was probably for the happiness and advantage of all
concerned. The tone of B----'s letter satisfied me, and for her and her
sister's feeling upon the subject I was chiefly anxious. About you, my
dearest Granny, I was not so solicitous; however deep your sentiment
about the circumstance may be, you have lived long and suffered much,
and have learned to accept sorrow wisely, let it come in what shape it
will. The impatience of youth renders suffering very terrible to it; and
the eager desire for happiness which belongs to the beginning of life
makes sorrow appear like some unnatural accident (almost a personal
injury), a sort of horrid surprise, instead of the all but daily
business, and part of the daily bread of existence, as one grows by
degrees to find that it is.
His daughter's feeling about Mr. Sullivan's marriage being what it is,
the marriage itself appears to me wise and well; and I have no doubt
that it will bring a blessing to the home at the vicarage and its dear
inmates. Pray remember me most kindly to Mr. Sullivan, and beg him to
accept my best wishes for his happiness, and that of all who belong to
him; the latter part of my wish I know he is mainly instrumental in
fulfilling himself. May he find his reward accordingly!
Of myself, my dear friend, what shall I tell you? I am in good health,
thank God! and as much good spirits as inevitably belong to good health
and a sound constitution in middle life....
The intense heat of the last month had made both my children ill, and a
week ago they were removed to this place, called the Yellow Springs,
from a fine mineral source, the waters of which people bathe in and
drink. Round it is gathered a small congregation of rambling
farm-houses, built for the accommodation of visitors. The country is
pretty and well cultivated, and the air remarkable for its purity and
healthiness; and here we have taken lodgings, and shall probably remain
during all the heat of the next six weeks, after which I suppose we
shall return to town.
I wish you could see my present _locale_. The house we are in is the
furthest from the "Hotel" (as it is magnificently called), and is a
large, rambling, whitewashed edifice, with tumble-down wooden piazzas
(verandas, as we should call them) surrounding its ground-floor. This
consists of one very large room, intended for a public dining-room, with
innumerable little cells round it, all about twelve feet by thirteen,
which are the bedrooms. One of these spacious sleeping-apartments,
opening on one side to the common piazza and on the other to the common
eating-room, is appropriated to me as a "private parlor," as it is
called; and being at present, most fortunately, the only inmates of this
huge barrack, we have collected into this "extra exclusive" saloon all
the furniture that we could glean out of all the other rooms in the
house; and what do you think we have got? Two tiny wooden tables,
neither of them large enough to write upon; a lame horse-hair sofa, and
six lame wooden chairs. As the latter, however, are not all lame of the
same leg, it is quite a pretty gymnastic exercise to balance one's self
as one sits by turns upon each of them, bringing dexterously into play
all the different muscles necessary to maintain one's seat on any of
them. It makes sitting quite a different process from what I have ever
known it to be, and separates it entirely from the idea usually
connected with it, of rest. But this we call luxury, and, compared with
the condition of the other rooms (before we had stripped them of their
contents), so it undoubtedly is. The walls of this boudoir of mine are
roughly whitewashed, the floor roughly boarded, and here I abide with my
chicks. The decided improvement in their health and looks and spirits,
since we left that horrible city, is a great deal better than sofas and
armchairs to me, or anything that would be considered elsewhere the mere
decencies of life; and having the means of privacy and cleanliness, my
only two absolute indispensables, I take this rather primitive existence
pleasantly enough. This house is built at the foot of a low hill, the
sides of which are cultivated; while the immediate summit retains its
beautiful crest of noble trees, from beneath which to look out over the
wide landscape is a very agreeable occupation towards sunset.
Chester County, as this is called, is the richest, agriculturally
speaking, in Pennsylvania; and the face of the country is certainly one
of the comeliest, well-to-do, smiling, pleasant earth's faces that can
be seen on a summer's day; the variety of the different tinted crops
(among them the rich green of the maize, or Indian corn, which we have
not in England), clothing the hill-sides and running like golden bays
into the green forest that once covered them from base to summit, and
still crowns every highest point, forms the gayest coat of many colors
for the whole rural region.
The human interest in the landscape is supplied not by village, mansion,
parsonage, or church, but by numerous small isolated farm-houses, their
white walls gleaming in the intense sunlight from amidst the trim
verdure of their orchards, and their large barns and granaries surveying
complacently far and wide the abundant harvests that are to be gathered
into their capacious walls. The comfort, solidity, loneliness, and
inelegance, not to say ugliness, of these rural dwellings is highly
characteristic, the latter quality being to a certain degree modified by
distance; the others represent very pleasingly, in the midst of the
prosperous prospect, the best features of the institutions which govern
the land--security, freedom, independence.
There is nothing visibly picturesque or poetical in the whole scene;
nothing has a hallowed association for memory, or an exciting historical
interest, or a charm for the imagination. But under this bright and
ever-shining sky the objects and images that the eye encounters are all
cheerful, pleasing, peaceful, and satisfactorily suggestive of the
blessings of industry and the secure repose of modest, moderate
prosperity.
Dearest Granny, I had not intended to cross my letter to you; but the
young ones will decipher the scrawl for you, and I flatter myself that
you will not object to my filling my paper as full as it will hold.
These four small pages, even when they are crossed, make but a poor
amount of communication compared with the full and frequent personal
intercourse I have enjoyed with you.
What a shocking mess you are all making of it in Ireland just now! I
hear too that you are threatened with bad crops. Should this be true, I
do not wonder at my lord's croaking, for what will the people do?
The water we bathe in here is strongly impregnated with iron, and so
cold that very few people go into the spring itself. I do: and when the
thermometer is at 98° in the shade, a plunge into water below 50° is
something of a shock. B---- would like it, and so do I. Will you give my
affectionate remembrance to my lord, and
Believe me always, dear Granny,
Your attached
F. A. B.
YELLOW SPRINGS, 19th July, 1843.
And so, my dear T----, you are a "tied-by-the-leg" (as we used, in our
laughing days, to call the penniless young Attachés to Legations)? I am
heartily sorry, as yours is not diplomatic but physical infirmity; and
would very readily, had I been anywhere within possible reach, have
occupied the empty arm-chair in your library, and "charmed your annoys"
to the best of my ability.... Dear me! through how long a lapse of
years your desire that I would undertake a translation of Schiller's
"Fiesco" leads me! When I was between sixteen and seventeen years old, I
actually began an adaptation of it to the English stage; but partly from
thinking the catastrophe unmanageable, and from various other motives, I
never finished it: but it was an early literary dream of mine, and you
have recalled to me a very happy period of my life in reminding me of
that labor of love. You perhaps imagine from this that I understood
German, which I then did not; my acquaintance with the German drama
existing only through very admirably executed literal French
translations, which formed part of an immense collection of plays, the
dramatic literature of Europe in innumerable volumes, which was one of
my favorite studies in my father's library.
I am not, however, at all of your opinion, that "Fiesco" is the best of
Schiller's plays. I think "Don Carlos," and "William Tell," and
especially "Wallenstein," finer; the last, indeed, finest of them all.
My own especial favorite, however, for many years (though I do not at
all think it his best play) was "Joan of Arc." As for his violation of
history in "Wallenstein" and "Mary Stuart," I think little of that
compared with the singular insensibility he has shown to the glory of
the French heroine's death, which is the more remarkable because he
generally, above most poets, especially recognizes the sublimity of
moral greatness; and how far does the red pile of the religious and
patriotic martyr, surrounded by her terrified and cowardly English
enemies and her more basely cowardly and ungrateful French friends,
transcend in glory, the rose-colored battle-field apotheosis Schiller
has awarded her! Joan of Arc seems to me never yet to have been done
justice to by either poet or historian, and yet what a subject for both!
The treatment of the character of Joan of Arc in "Henry VI." is one
reason why I do not believe it to be wholly Shakespeare's. He never, it
is true, writes out of the spirit of his time, neither was he ever
absolutely and servilely subject to it--for example, giving in Shylock
the delineation of the typical Jew as conceived in his day, think of
that fine fierce vindication of their common humanity with which he
challenges the Christian Venetians, Solanio and Solarino--"Hath not a
Jew eyes?" etc.
By-the-by, did you ever hear a whisper of a suggestion that Joan of Arc
was _not_ burned? There is such a tradition, that she was rescued,
reprieved, and lived to a fine old age, though rather scorched.
And now, at the fag end of my paper, to answer your question about
Leonora Lavagna. I think, beyond all doubt, the sentiment Schiller makes
her express as occurring to her at the altar perfectly natural. When the
character and position of Leonora are considered, her love for
Fiesco--however, chiefly composed of admiration for his person and more
amiable and brilliant personal qualities--must inevitably have derived
some of its strength from her generous patriotism and insulted family
pride; and nothing, in my opinion, can be more probable than that she
should have see in him the deliverer of Genoa, at the moment when every
faculty of her heart and mind was absorbed in the contemplation of all
the noble qualities with which she believed him endowed.
The love of different women is, of course, made up of various elements,
according to their natural temperament, mental endowments, and educated
habits of thought; and it seems to me the sort of sentiment Leonora
describes herself as feeling towards Fiesco at the moment of their
marriage is eminently characteristic of such a woman. So much for the
Countess Lavagna.
I think you are quite mistaken in calling Thekla a "merely ideal" woman;
she is a very _real_ German woman--rarely perhaps, but to be found in
all the branches of the Anglo-saxon tree, in England certainly, and even
in America.
To these subjects of very pleasing interest to me succeeds in your
letter the exclamation elicited by poor Mrs. D----'s misfortune,
"Blessed are they who die in the Lord!" to which let me answer, "Yea,
rather, blessed are they who live in the Lord!" Our impatience of
suffering may make death sometimes appear the most desirable thing in
all God's universe; yet who can tell what trials or probations may be
ordained for us hereafter? The idea that there "may be yet more work to
do," probably _must_ be (for how few finish their task here before the
night cometh when "no man can work," as far as this world is concerned,
at any rate!), is a frequent speculation with me; so that whenever, in
sheer weariness of spirit, I have been tempted to wish for death, or in
moments of desperation felt almost ready to seize upon it, the thought,
not of what I may have to suffer, but what I must have to do, _i.e._ the
work left undone here, checks the rash wish and rasher imagination, and
I feel as if I must sit down again to try and work. But weariness of
life makes the idea of existence prolonged beyond death sometimes almost
oppressive, and it seems to me that there are times when one would be
ready to consent to lie down in one's grave and become altogether as the
clods of the valley, relinquishing one's immortal birthright simply for
rest. To be sure you will answer that, for rest to be pleasurable,
consciousness must accompany it; but oh, how I should like to be
_consciously unconscious_ for a little while!--which possibly may strike
you as nonsense.
I dare say women are, as you say, like cats in a great many respects. I
acknowledge myself like one, only in the degree of electricity in my
hair and skin; I never knew anybody but a cat who had so much.
Thank you for the paper about Theodore Hook. I knew him and disliked
him. He was very witty and humorous, certainly; but excessively coarse
in his talk and gross in his manners, and was hardly ever strictly sober
after dinner....
PHILADELPHIA, August 4th, 1843.
MY DEAREST HAL,
Indeed I am not spending my summer with my friends at Lenox, ... but
boarding at a third-rate watering-place about thirty miles from
Philadelphia, where there is a fine mineral spring and baths, remarkably
pure and bracing air, and a pretty, pleasant country, under which
combination of favorable influences we have all improved very much, and
dear little F---- looks once more as if she would live through the
summer, which she did not when we left Philadelphia. As for our
accommodations at this place, they are as comfortless as it is possible
to imagine, but that really signifies comparatively little.... I ride,
and walk, and fish, and look abroad on the sweet kindly face of Nature,
and commune gratefully with my Father in heaven whenever I do so; and
the hours pass swiftly by, and life is going on, and the rapid flight of
time is a source of rejoicing to me.... I laughed a very sad laugh at
your asking me if my watch and chain had been recovered or replaced.
How? By whom? With what? No, indeed, nor are they likely to be either
recovered or replaced. I offered, as a sort of inducement to
semi-honesty on the part of the thief or thieves, to give up the watch
and pencil-case to whoever would bring back my dear chain, but in vain.
Had I possessed any money, I should have offered the largest possible
reward to recover it; but, as it is, I was forced to let it go, without
being able to take even the usual methods resorted to for the recovery
of lost valuables. I will now bid you good-bye, dearest Hal. I have no
more to tell you; and whenever I mention or think of that chain, I feel
so sad that I hate to speak or move. I flatter myself that, were you to
see me now, you would approve highly of my appearance. I am about half
the size I was when last you saw me.
God bless you, dear. I am, therefore, only half yours,
FANNY.
PHILADELPHIA, August 15th, 1843.
MY DEAR T----,
Yesterday, at three o'clock, I was told that we must all return to town
by five, which accordingly was accomplished, not without strenuous
exertion and considerable inconvenience in making our preparations in so
short a time. I do not know in the least whether we are to remain here
now or go elsewhere, or what is to become of us....
I do not know the lines you allude to as mine, called "The Memory of the
Past," and think you must have written them yourself in your sleep, and
then accused me of them, which is not genteel. I have no recollection of
any lines of my own so called. Depend upon it, you dreamt them. I hope
you had the conscience to make good verses, since you did it in my name.
I have not supposed you either "neglectful or dead." I knew you were at
Quoge, which Mr. G---- reported to be a very nice place....
You have misunderstood me entirely upon the subject of truth in works of
fiction and art; and I think, if you refer to my letter, if you have it,
you will find it so. I hold truth sacred everywhere, but merely lamented
over Schiller's departure from it in the instance of "Joan of Arc" more
than in that of "Wallenstein."
It has been an annoyance to me to leave the Yellow Springs,
independently of the hurried and disagreeable mode of our doing so. I
like the country, which is really very pretty, and I have been almost
happy once or twice while riding over those hills and through those
valleys, with no influences about me but the holy and consolatory
ministerings of nature.
My activity of temperament and love of system and order (perhaps you did
not know that I possessed those last tendencies) always induce me to
organize a settled mode of life for myself wherever I am, no matter for
how short a space of time, and in the absence of nervous irritation or
excitement, regular physical exercise, and steady intellectual
occupation, always produce in me a (considering all things) wonderfully
cheerful existence; ... and my spirits, obedient to the laws of my
excellent constitution, rise above my mental and sentimental ailments,
and rejoice, like those of all healthy animals, in mere physical
well-being....
Good-bye, dear T----. Remember me most kindly to S----; and
Believe me always yours very truly,
F. A. B.
PHILADELPHIA, August 22nd, 1843.
MY DEAR T----,
I am not sure that cordial sympathy is not the _greatest_ service that
one human being can offer another in this woe-world. Certainly, without
it, all other service is not worth accepting; and it is so strengthening
and encouraging a thing to know one's self kindly cared for by one's
kind, that I incline to think few benefits that we confer upon each
other in this life are greater, if so great....
The horrible heat, and the admonishing pallor that is again
overspreading my poor children's cheeks, has led to a determination of
again sending them out of town; and I heard yesterday that on Saturday
next they are to go to the neighborhood of West Chester. The fact of
going out of town again is very agreeable to me on my own account,
letting alone my sincere rejoicing that my children are to be removed
from this intolerable atmosphere; but all this packing and unpacking
which devolves upon me is very laborious and fatiguing, and the
impossibility of obtaining any settled order in my life afflicts me
unreasonably....
_Peccavi!_ The verses you mentioned are mine, and you certainly might
have written much better ones for me in your sleep, if you had taken the
least pains. They were indited as many as twenty years ago, and how Mr.
Knickerbocker came possessed of them is a mystery to me....
I want you to do me a favor, which I have been thinking to ask you all
this week past, and was now just like to have forgotten. Will you ask
John O'Sullivan if he would care to have a review of Tennyson's Poems
from me, for the _Knickerbocker_, and what he will give me for such
review? I am compelled to be anxious for "compensation." Send me an
answer to this inquiry, please; and believe me
Very truly yours,
F. A. B.
P.S.--Lord Morpeth is a _lovely_ man, and I love him.
PHILADELPHIA, August 25th, 1843.
DEAR GRANNY,
A thousand thanks for your kind and comfortable letter, from the tone of
which it was easy to see that you were "as well as can be expected,"
both body and soul. Indeed, my dearest Granny, it is true that we do not
perceive half our blessings, from the mere fact of their uninterrupted
possession. Of our health this seems to me especially true; and it is
too often the case that nothing but its suspension or the sight of its
deplorable loss in others awakens us to a sense of our great privilege
in having four sound limbs and a body free from racking torture or
enfeebling, wasting disease. As for me, what I should do without my
health I cannot conceive. All my good spirits (and I have a wonderful
supply, considering all things) come to me from my robust physical
existence, my good digestion, and perfect circulation. Heaven knows, if
my cheerfulness had not a good tough root in these, as long as these
last, it would fare ill with me; and I fear my spiritual courage and
mental energy would prove exceedingly weak in their encounter with
adverse circumstances, but for the admirable constitution with which I
have been blessed, and which serves me better than I serve myself....
On the tenth of next month I am going up to the dear and pleasant
hill-country of Massachusetts, to pay my friends a visit, which, though
I must make it very short, will prove a most acceptable season of
refreshment to my heart and spirit, from which I expect to derive
courage and cheerfulness for the rest of the year, as I shall certainly
not see any of them again till next spring, for they are about two
hundred and fifty miles away from me, which, even in this country of
quite unlimited space, is not considered exactly next-door neighborhood.
You ask after "the farm," which is much honored by your remembrance. It
is let, and we are at present living in a boarding-house in town, and I
rather think shall continue doing so; but I really do not know in the
least what is to become of me from day to day....
I am grieved to hear of the affliction of the Greys. Pray remember me
very affectionately to Lady G. Her father's illness must be indeed a
sore sorrow to her, devoted as she is to him.
My dear Granny, do not you be induced to _croak_ about England. She may
have to go through a sharp _operation_ or two; but, depend upon it, that
noble and excellent constitution is by no means vitally impaired, and
she will yet head the nations of the earth, in all great and good and
glorious things, for a long time to come, in spite of Irish rows and
Welsh _consonants_ (is there anything else in Wales? How funny a
revolution must be without a vowel in it!) ... I believe that great and
momentous changes are impending in England; and when I suggest among
them as _possible_ future events the doing away with the law of
primogeniture, hereditary legislation, and the Church establishment, of
course you will naturally say that I think England is going to the dogs
faster even than you do. But I think England will survive all her
political changes, be they what they may, and, as long as the national
character remains unchanged, will maintain her present position among
the foremost peoples of the world; with which important and impressive
prophecy comfort yourself, dear Granny.
We are going out of town, to which we returned a fortnight ago,
to-morrow at half-past six in the morning, and it is now past midnight,
and I have every mortal and immortal thing to pack with my own single
pair of hands, which is Irish, Lord bless us! So good-night, dear
Granny.
Believe me ever your affectionate
FANNY.
PHILADELPHIA, August 25th, 1843.
You will pay no more, dear Hal, for this huge sheet of paper, being
single, I believe, than for its half; and I do not see why I should
cheat myself or you so abominably as by writing on such a miserable
allowance as the half sheet I have just finished to you.
Mr. Furness's abolition sermons have thinned his congregation a
little--not much.... There is no other Unitarian church in Philadelphia,
where the sect is looked upon with holy horror, pious commiseration, and
Christian reprobation, but where, nevertheless, Mr. Furness's own
character is held in the highest esteem and veneration.
Your question about society here puzzles me a good deal, from the
difficulty of making you understand the absolute absence of anything to
which you would give that name. I do not think there is anything,
either, which foreigners call _société intime_ in Philadelphia. During a
certain part of the year certain wealthy individuals give a certain
number of entertainments, evening parties, balls, etc. The summer months
are passed by most of the well-to-do inhabitants somewhere out of the
city, generally at large public-houses, at what are called fashionable
watering-places. Everybody has a street acquaintance with everybody; but
I know of no such thing as the easy, intimate society which you seem to
think inevitably the result of the institutions, habits, and fortunes in
this country.
It does not strike me that social intercourse is easy at all here; the
dread of opinion and the desire of conformity seem to me to give a tone
of distrust and caution to every individual man and woman, utterly
destructive of all freedom of conversation, producing a flatness and
absence of all interest that is quite indescribable. I have hitherto
always lived in the country, and mixing very little with the
Philadelphians have supposed that the mere civil formality at which my
intercourse with most of them stops short would lead necessarily to some
more intimate intercourse if I ever lived in the city. I now perceive,
however, that their communion with each other is limited to this
exchange of morning visits, of course almost exclusively among the
women; and that society, such as you and I understand it, does not exist
here.
Yet, of course, there must be the materials for it, clever and pleasant
men and women, and I had sometimes thought, when I foresaw the
probability of our leaving our country house and establishing ourselves
in the city, that I should find some compensation in the society which I
hoped I might be able to gather about me; ... but I am now quite
deprived of any such resource as any attempt of the kind might have
produced, by my present position in a boarding-house, where I inhabit my
bedroom, contriving, for sightliness' sake, to sleep on a wretched
sofa-bed that my room by day may look as decent and little encumbered as
possible; but where the presence of wash-hand-stand and toilette
apparatus necessarily enforces the absence of visitors, except in public
rooms open to everybody.... I have received a great many morning visits,
and one or two invitations to evening parties, but I do not, of course,
like to accept civilities which I have no means of reciprocating, and so
I have as little to expect in the way of social recreation as I think
anybody living in a large town can have. So much for your inquiries
about my social resources in this country. Had I a house of my own in
Philadelphia, I should not at all despair of gradually collecting about
me a society that would satisfy me perfectly well; but as it is, or
rather as I am, the thing is entirely out of the question.
Of the discomfort and disorder of our mode of life I cannot easily give
you a notion, for you know nothing of the sort, and, until now, neither
did I. The absence of decent regularity in our habits, and the
slovenliness of our whole existence, is peculiarly trying to me, who
have a morbid love of order, system, and regularity, and a positive
delight in the decencies and elegancies of civilized life.
God bless you, dear.
Your affectionate
FANNY.
PHILADELPHIA, September 1st, 1843.
MY DEAR T----,
I know not how long your letter had been in Philadelphia, because I have
been out of town, and in a place so difficult of access that letters are
seldom forwarded thither without being lost or delayed long enough to be
only fit for losing.
I told you of our sudden removal from the Yellow Springs. In the
succeeding fortnight, which we spent in town, the children began again
to droop and languish and grow pale, and it was determined to send them
into the country again: rooms have been accordingly hired for us three
miles beyond West Chester, which is seven miles from the nearest
railroad station on the Columbia railroad, altogether about forty miles
from town, but for want of regular traffic and proper means of
conveyance an exceedingly tedious and unpleasant drive thence to the
said farm. Here there is indeed pure air for the children, and a blessed
reprieve from the confinement of the city; but so uncivilized a life for
any one who has ever been accustomed to the usual decencies of
civilization, that it keeps me in a constant state of amazement.
We eat at the hours and table of these worthy people, and I am a little
starved, as I find it difficult to get up a dinner appetite before one
o'clock in the day; and after that nothing is known in the shape of food
but tea at six o'clock. We eat with _two-pronged iron forks_; _i.e._ we
who are "sopisticate" do. The more sensible Arcadians, of course, eat
exclusively with their knives. The farming men and boys come in to the
table from their work, without their coats and with their shirt-sleeves
rolled up above their elbows; and my own nursemaid, and the
servant-of-all-work of the house, and any visitors who may look in upon
our hostess, sit down with us promiscuously to feed; all which, I
confess, makes me a little melancholy. It is nonsense talking about
positive equality; these people are sorry associates for me, and so, I
am sure, am I for them.
To-day I came to town to endeavor to procure some of the common
necessaries that we require: table implements that we can eat with, and
lights by which we may be able to pursue our occupations after dark.
I read your speech with great pleasure; it was good in every way. I am
glad you do not withdraw yourself from the field of action where your
like are so much wanted. I cannot give up my hope and confidence in the
institutions of your country; they are the expectation of the world; and
if the Americans themselves, by word or deed, proclaim their scheme of
free government a failure, it seems to me that the future condition of
the human race is ominously darkened, and that all endeavor after
progress or improvement is a fruitless struggle towards an unattainable
end. But this is not so. Your people will yet prove it, and it will and
must be through the influence and agency of worthy men like yourself,
to whom fitly belongs the task of rallying this faithless people, flying
from their standards in the great world-conflict. Call them back, such
of you as have voices that can be heard; for your nation is the vanguard
of the race, and if they desert their trust its degradation will be
protracted for long years to come.
The despondency of some of your best men is deplorable, and the selfish
discouragement in which they withdraw from the fight, giving place to
public evil for the sake of their personal quiet, a fatal omen to the
country. It is curiously unlike the spirit of Englishmen. Never,
certainly, were good men and true so needed anywhere as here at this
moment, when the noblest principles that men are capable of recognizing
in the form of a government seem about to be cast down from the rightful
supremacy your fathers gave them, and the light of freedom which they
kindled to lighten the world extinguished in distrust and dismay.
God bless you and prosper you in every good work. Remember me most
kindly to S----, and believe me always
Yours very truly,
F. A. B.
PHILADELPHIA, September 9th, 1843.
Your English is undoubtedly better than Cicero's Latin to me, my dear
T----, inasmuch as I understand the one and not the other. I shall not
stop on my way through New York, on Monday, nor my way back, except to
spend a Sunday in your city, when I shall be very glad to see S---- and
you.
I am disappointed at the uncertainty you express about being in Lenox
while I am there.
Can you ascertain for me whether the Harpers, the New York publishers,
would be willing to publish a volume of Fugitive Poems for me, and would
give me _anything_ for them? If it is not too much trouble to ascertain
this, it would be doing me a great service....
I write in haste, but remain ever yours,
F. A. B.
DEAR T----,
I shall not dine with you to-day for various, all good, reasons, and
send you word to that effect, simply because it would not be so civil,
either to S---- or you, to leave my excuse till the time when I should
present myself.
I had hoped to have returned to Philadelphia with Mr. F---- this
morning, but I am to remain till after Thursday, when we were to have
given a dinner to Macready. He called this morning, however, and said he
had another engagement for Thursday, so what will be done in the matter
of our proposed entertainment to him I know not.
I hope your eyes are not the worse for that hateful theatre last night.
You cannot imagine how that sort of thing, to which I was once so used,
now excites and irritates my nerves. The music, the lights, the noise,
the applause, the acting, the grand play itself, "Macbeth,"--it was all
violent doses of stimulant; and I begin to think my mental constitution
is like gunpowder, only unignitable when in the water: I suppose that
accounts for my affection for water, apart from fishing.
I have got the greatest quantity of letters to write, and must begin
upon Tennyson, so I shall not want for occupation while I am kept here.
Yours ever truly,
F. A. B.
NEW YORK, September 26th, 1843.
DEAREST HAL,
I was up till past two o'clock last night, and up at 5.30 this morning:
I have travelled half the day, from Philadelphia to New York, and
shopped the rest of the day, and am now steaming up the Hudson to
Albany, on my way to Lenox, where I am going to spend a few days with my
friends the Sedgwicks. Although I am very weary, and my eyes ache for
want of sleep, I must write to you before I go to bed; for once up in
Berkshire, I shall have but little time to myself, and I would not for a
great deal that the steamer should go to England without some word from
me to you.... So here I am wandering up forlornly enough, with poor
Margery for my attendant, who appears to me to be in the last stage of a
consumption, and to whom this little excursion may perhaps be slightly
beneficial, and will certainly be very pleasurable.... I shall in all
probability see none of the Sedgwicks again for a year....
I suppose, dear Hal, we are crossing the Tappan Zee (the broadest part
of the Hudson River, where its rapid current spreads from shore to shore
into the dimensions of a wide lake), and the boat rocks so much that I
feel sick, and must leave off writing and go to bed, after all. God
bless you, dear. Good-night.
Dearest Hal, this letter, which I had hoped to finish on board the
Hudson night-boat, was cut short by my fatigue and the rocking of the
vessel; and, as I expected, during my stay at Lenox no interval of
leisure was left me to do so....
I sprained my ankle slightly, jumping from off a fence; and though I
have carefully abstained from using my foot since I did so, it is still
so weak that I am afraid of standing upon it much, and must consequently
abide the results (invariable with me) of want of exercise, headache,
sideache, and nervous depression and irritability. When I get to
Philadelphia, if I am no better, I will hire a horse for a little while,
and shake myself to rights.
God bless you, dear Hal. Good-bye.
I am ever yours,
FANNY.
PHILADELPHIA, October 10th, 1843.
MY DEAREST HAL,
How much I thank you for your generosity to me! for the watch you are
sending me, which I have not yet received. I cannot value it more than I
did that precious chain, the loss of which, happening at a time when I
was every way most unhappy, really afflicted me deeply.
I hope nothing will happen to this new remembrance of yours and token of
your love. I shall feel most anxious till it arrives, and then I think I
shall sleep with it round my neck, so great will be my horror of having
it stolen from me in this wretched and disorderly lodging-house, where,
as it is, I am in perpetual misery lest I should have left any closet or
drawer in my bed-room unfastened, and where we are obliged to lock our
sitting-room if we leave it for a quarter of an hour, lest our property
should be stolen out of it,--a state of anxious and suspicious caution
which is as odious as it is troublesome....
When I arrived in New York last Sunday morning on my return from
Berkshire, and was preparing to start for Philadelphia the next day, I
found I was to stay in New York to meet and greet Mr. Macready, who had
just landed in America, and to whom we are to give an entertainment at
the Astor House, as we have no house in Philadelphia to which we can
invite him....
My next errand, while I was out to-day, was to go and see a person who
has thought proper to go out of her mind about me. She is poor and
obscure, the sister of a tailor in this town; she had a little
independence of her own, but lent it to the State of Pennsylvania, after
the fashion of Sydney Smith, and has lost it, or at any rate the income
of it, which, after all, is all that signifies to her, as she is no
longer young and will probably not live to see the State grow honest,
which its friends and well-wishers confidently predict that it will.
This poor woman is really and positively mad about me, as I think you
will allow when I tell you that she is never happy when she sees me
unless she has hold of my hand _or my gown_; that she has bought a
portrait of me by Sully, over which she has put a ducal coronet, as she
says I am the _Duchess of Ormond_! It is really a serious effort of good
nature in me to go and see her, for her crazy adoration of me is at once
ludicrous and painful. But my visits are a most lively pleasure to
her--she thanks me for coming with the tears in her eyes, poor thing;
and it would be brutal in me to withhold from her a gratification
apparently so intense, because to afford it her is irksome and
disagreeable to me. Her name is N----, and she told me to-day (but that
may have been only another demonstration of her craziness) that there
was a large disputed inheritance in Ireland left to heirs unknown of
that name; that the true heirs could not be found, and that she really
believed she might be entitled to it if she only knew how to set about
establishing her right. She is the daughter of an English or Irish man,
and her family were well connected in England (I couldn't help thinking,
while she was talking, of your and my uncle John's dear Guilford). What
a curious thing it would be if this poor, obscure, old, ugly,
half-insane woman were really entitled to such a property! She is
tolerably well educated too, a good French and Italian scholar, and a
reader of obsolete books. She is a very strange creature.
I forget whether I told you that I had taken Margery up to Lenox with
me, in the hope that the change of air and scene might be of benefit to
her; but ever since her return she has been ill in her bed, poor thing!
and though the only servant-girl she had has left her, and she is in the
most forlorn and wretched condition possible, neither her mother nor her
sisters have been near her to help or comfort her--such is the Roman
Catholic horror of a divorced woman (for she has at length sued for and
obtained her divorce from her worthless husband). And so, I suppose,
they will let her die, such being, it seems, their notion of what is
right.... Poor woman! her life has been one entire and perfect
misery....
God bless you, dear. Good-bye.
Ever yours,
F. A. B.
PHILADELPHIA, October 3rd, 1843.
MY DEAR T----,
I have just received, by Harnden's Express, my Tennyson, which I had
left at Lenox, and with it your old note, written to me while I was yet
there, which the conscientious folk sent me down. It seems odd to read
all your directions about my departure from the dear hill-country and my
arrival in New York. How far swept down the current of time already seem
the pleasant hours spent up there! You do not know how earnestly I
desire to live up there. I do believe mountains and hills are kindred of
mine--larger and smaller relations, taller and shorter cousins; for my
heart expands and rejoices and beats more freely among them, and
doubtless, in the days which "I can hardly remember" (as Rosalind says
of her Irish Rat-ship), I was a bear or a wolf, or what your people call
a "panter" (_i.e._ a panther), or at the very least a wild-cat, with
unlimited range of forest and mountain. [The forests and hill-tops of
that part of Massachusetts had, when this letter was written, harbored,
within memory of man, bears, panthers, and wild-cats.] That cottage by
the lake-side haunts me; and to be able to realize that day-dream is now
certainly as near an approach to happiness as I can ever contemplate.
I am working at the Tennyson, and shall soon have it ready. Tell me, if
you can, where and how I am to send it to John O'Sullivan.
Thank you, my dear T----, for your and S----'s civility to C---- H----.
His people are excellent friends of mine, and you cannot conceive
anything more disagreeable--painful to me, I might say--than the
mortification I felt in receiving him in my present uncomfortable abode,
and being literally unable to offer him a decent cup of tea.
It is an age since I saw Mr. G----, so can give you no intelligence of
him. J---- C---- and the O----s form my _société intime_. They come and
sit with me sometimes of an evening, otherwise _mon chez moi_ is
undisturbed and lonely enough. I walk a great deal every day, for the
weather is lovely, and the blessed blue sky an inexhaustible source of
delight and enjoyment to me.
To-morrow I am obliged to go out to the farm upon business. I shall go
on horseback (upon the legs of my Tennyson article), and expect not only
pleasure but profit from my old habitual exercise; but I would a little
rather not be going _there_ at all.
I went all over our town house yesterday. It is a fine house, and has an
excellent garden, with quite large trees in it. It is let unfurnished
for about half the price which such a house in London would command. I
confess it was rather a trial to return from looking at this large house
of--_mine?_ to the "Maison Vauquier" (see Balzac's "Père Goriot") which
we inhabit.
Thank you for your offer of helping me with my review. I could not
possibly think of using your eyes, precious and perilled as they are,
instead of my own. I dare say I shall manage with my own translated
acquaintance with Æschylus and Homer. However, and at any rate, if I
find it necessary to _cram_, I will not do so by proxy.
Good-bye. Give my kindest love to S----.... How is Master C----? How is
his voice? Has he worked out that problem yet about that vexed question
on which he threw so much light at your house, and about which you were
so tiresome? Seriously, that lad is a clever fellow; and I assure you we
perpetrated some pretty profound metaphysics between your house and the
Astor Hotel that wet Sunday evening.
Believe me yours truly,
F. A. B.
[The young gentleman alluded to in the above letter, who was
visiting the United States, and had brought letters of introduction
to my friends in New York, was the son of an old Yorkshire family,
among whom had existed for several generations a passionate desire
to _fly_, and a firm conviction that they could invent a machine
which would enable them to do so. The last I heard of that young
Icarus above mentioned was from two of his friends and companions,
the sons of Mrs. Norton, who, standing with me above the tremendous
precipice called the Salto di Tiberio, which plunges from the edge
of the rocks of Capri straight down into the Mediterranean, told me
they had had all the difficulty in the world in preventing C----
from launching forth upon his flying machine from that stupendous
pier into mid air, and quite as infallibly mid ocean. With infinite
entreaties they finally persuaded him to send forth his machine,
unfreighted with human life, on its experimental trip. He did so,
and his bird, turning ignominious somersaults on its way, at length
found a perch, and folded its wings on a hoary rock-anchored tree
that stretched out an arm of succor to it above the abyss, and
there, perhaps, it still roosts; and elsewhere, perhaps, its author
is pursuing other flights.]
PHILADELPHIA, Wednesday, May 15th, 1844.
DEAR MRS. JAMESON,
My last letter to you was pretty nearly filled with dismal private
affairs, and now, Heaven knows, all residents in Philadelphia have a
gloomy story to tell of public ones. We have had fearful riots here last
week between the low American population and the imported population
from Ireland, who have also taken the opportunity of the present anarchy
and confusion to indulge in violent exhibitions of their own special
home-brewed feud of Protestant against Catholic. A few nights ago there
was a general mob-crusade against the Roman Catholic churches, several
of which, as well as various private dwellings, were burnt to the
ground. The city was lighted from river to river with the glare of these
conflagrations--this city of "brotherly love;" whole streets looking
like pandemonium avenues of brass and copper in the lurid reflected
light. Your people have lost little of their agreeable combined
facetiousness and ferocity, as I think you will allow when I tell you
that, while a large Catholic church was burning, the Orange party caused
a band of music to play "Boyne Water;" and when the cross fell from
above the porch of the building, these same Christian folk gave three
cheers. "Where," I suppose you exclaim, "were the civil authorities and
military force?" All on the ground of action, compelled to be idle
spectators of these outrages, because they had no warrant to act, and
could not shoot down the Sovereign People, even while committing them,
without the Sovereign People's leave.
The popular jealousy of power, which always exists more or less under
republican institutions, interferes not a little with the efficiency of
an organized police or other abiding check upon public effervescence.
Rioters, therefore, in times of excitement have generally a fair start
of the law, and are able to accomplish plenty of mischief before they
can be prevented, because a powerful force of preventive police and
municipal officers, invested with permanent authority, are abominations
in the eyes of a free and independent American citizen.
As, however, by a very wholesome law, the city pays for all damages
committed by public violence upon property, the whole population of the
town will be taxed for the _spree_ of these lively gentry; and under the
pressure of this salutary arrangement the whole militia turned out, all
the decent citizens organized themselves into patrols and policemen, and
by the time the riot had raged three days, and the city had incurred a
heavy debt for burnt and pillaged property, a stop was put to the
disorder. Cannon were planted round all the remaining Catholic churches
to protect them; the streets were lined with soldiers; every householder
was out on guard in his particular district during the night, and by
dint of effectual but, unfortunately, rather tardy measures order has
been restored.
My own affairs are far from flourishing, and I am heartily glad to have
anything else to speak of, little cheerful as the anything else may
be....
I hope all is well with you. Geraldine is almost a woman now, I suppose.
I think of you much oftener than I write to you, and am
Ever yours,
FANNY.
May 20th, 1844.
No, my dearest Hal, the day is never long, but always short, even when I
rise before six.... I have a vivid consciousness of an increased
perception of the minor _goods_ of existence, in the midst of its
greatest evils, and things that till now have been mere enjoyments to me
now appear to me in the light of positive blessings.
My delight in everything beautiful increases daily, and I now count and
appreciate the innumerable alleviations that life has in every
twenty-four hours, even in its seasons of severest trial.
A spirit of greater thankfulness is often engendered by suffering
itself; it is one of the "sweet uses of adversity," and mitigates it
immensely.
A beautiful flower was brought to me to-day; and while I remained
absorbed in contemplating it, it seemed to me a very angel of
consolatory admonition.
God bless you, dearest friend. How full of sources of comfort He has
made this lovely woe-world!
Ever yours,
FANNY.
PHILADELPHIA, Sunday, June 9th, 1844.
MY DEAR LADY DACRE,
I am sure you will be sorry to hear of the accident which has befallen
my poor little F----. She fell last week over the bannisters of the
stairs, and broke her arm. The fracture was fortunately a simple one of
the smaller bone of the arm, which, I suppose, in a little body of that
sort, can hardly be much more than gristle. She is doing well, and, as
she appears to have escaped all injury to the head, which was my first
horrible apprehension, I have every reason to be thankful that the
visitation has not been more severe. The accident occasioned me a
violent nervous shock. I am now far from well myself, and I am pursued
with debilitating feverish tendencies, which I vainly endeavor to get
rid of....
I am much puzzled, my dear Lady Dacre, what to say to you beyond this
bulletin. My circumstances do not afford any great variety of cheerful
topics for correspondence, and the past and the future are either
painful or utterly uncertain.
I am studying German, in the midst of the small facilities for mental
culture which my present not very easy or happy position affords, and
have serious thoughts of beginning to work at Euclid, and trying to make
myself something of a mathematician. Possibly some knowledge of the
positive sciences might be of use to me in my further dealings with the
world; for the proper comprehension and appreciation of and judicious
commerce with which some element, either natural or acquired, is
undoubtedly wanting in me.
I have always wished very much that I had been made to study mathematics
as a young person, and considering that Alfieri betook himself to Greek
at forty-eight, I see no very good reason why I should not get at least
as far as the _pons asinorum_ at thirty-four.
I believe this latent hankering after mathematics has been a little
fanned in me by reading De Quincey's letters to a young man upon the
subject of a late education, which have fallen into my hands just now,
and which so earnestly recommend the zealous cultivation of this species
of knowledge.
I hope Lord Dacre is well. Pray remember me to him very affectionately,
and tell him that I am afraid, in answer to his question, I must reply
that the Americans in this part of the United States do not at present
appear over-scrupulous about paying their debts. Their demonstrations
towards England just now seem to me rather absurd. The "sensible" of the
community (alas! nowhere the majority, but here at this moment a most
pitiful minority) are of course ashamed of, and sorry for, what is going
on; and, moreover, of course do not believe in a war. But I am afraid,
if the good sense of England does not keep this country out of a scrape,
its own good sense will hardly do it that good turn.
An American wrote to me the other day: "As for our calling ourselves a
great people, I think we are a people who, with the greatest possible
advantages, have made the least possible use of them; and if anything
can teach these people what greatness is, it must be adversity."
Farewell, and God bless you, my dear Lady Dacre.
Believe me ever yours,
FANNY.
PHILADELPHIA, July 14th, 1844.
MY DEAREST HAL,
I am told that the newspapers in England have been filled with the
severest comments upon the late outbreaks of popular disorder in this
city of "brotherly love."
About a month ago the town was lighted from one end to the other with
the burning of Catholic churches; and now, within the last week, the
outrages have recommenced with more fury than ever, because, for a
wonder, the militia actually did fire upon the mob, who, unused to any
such demonstration of being in earnest on their part, had possessed
themselves of cannon and fire-arms, and would have exterminated the
small body of militia which could be gathered together at the first
outbreak of the riot, but which is now backed by a very considerable
force of regular troops.
The disturbance is not in the city proper, but in a sort of suburb not
subject to the municipal jurisdiction of Philadelphia, but having a
mayor and civil officers of its own.
The cause assigned for all these outrages is fear and hatred of the
Roman Catholic Irish; and there is no doubt an intensely bitter feeling
between them and the low native population of the cities; added to
which, the Irish themselves do not fail to bring over their home feud,
and the old Orange spirit of bloody persecution joins itself to the
dread of Popery, which is becoming quite a strong feeling among the
American lower classes.
It is absurd, and yet sad enough, that not six months ago "Repeal
Unions"--Irish Repeal Unions--were being formed all over this country in
favor of, and sympathy with, the poor, oppressed Roman Catholics in
Ireland; "professional" politicians made their cause and England's
oppression of them regular popularity capital; writing and speechifying
in the most violent manner, and with the most crass ignorance, upon the
subject of their wrongs and the tyranny they endured from our
government; and now Philadelphia _flares_ from river to river with the
burning of Roman Catholic churches, and the Catholics are shot down in
the streets and their houses pillaged in broad daylight.
The arrest of several of the ringleaders of the mob, and the arrival of
large numbers of regular troops, have produced a temporary lull in the
city; but the spirit of lawless violence has been permitted to grow and
strengthen itself in these people for some time past now; and of course,
as they were allowed, unchecked and unpunished, to set fire to the
property of the negroes, and to murder them without anybody caring what
befell the persons or property of "damned niggers," the same turbulent
spirit is now breaking out in other directions, where it is rather less
agreeable to the _respectable_ portion of the community, but where they
will now find considerable difficulty in checking it; and, of course, if
it is to choose its own objects of outrage and abuse, the _respectable_
portion of the community may some day be disagreeably surprised by
having to take their turn with the poor Roman Catholic Irish and the
poor American negroes. The whole is a lamentable chapter of human
weakness and wickedness, that would cast shame and scorn upon republican
institutions, if it were not that Christianity itself is liable to the
same condemnation, judged by some of its apparent results.
You ask me if I apportion my time among my various occupations with the
same systematic regularity as formerly. I endeavor to do so, but find it
almost impossible.... I read but very little. My leisure is principally
given to my German, in which I am making some progress. I walk with the
children morning and evening; I still play and sing a little at some
time or other of the day, and write interminable letters to people afar
off, who I wish were nearer. I walk before breakfast with the children,
_i.e._ from seven till eight. Three times a week I take them to the
market to buy fruit and flowers, an errand that I like as well as they
do. The other three mornings we walk in the square opposite this house.
After breakfast they leave me for the morning, which they now pass with
their governess or nurse. For the last two months I have ridden every
day, but have unhappily disabled my horse for the present, poor fellow!
by galloping him during a sudden heavy rain-shower over a slippery road,
in which process he injured one of his hip-joints, not incurably, I
trust, but so as to deprive me of him for at least three months. [My
dear and noble horse never recovered from this injury, but was obliged
to be shot. He had been sold, and I had ransomed him back by the
publication of a small volume of poems, which gave me the price demanded
for him by the livery-stable keeper who had bought him; but the
accident I mention in this letter deprived me of him. He was beautiful
and powerful, high-spirited and good-tempered, almost a perfect
creature, and I loved him very much.]
I shall now walk after breakfast, as, my rides being suppressed, my
walks with the chicks are not exercise enough for me. After that, I
prepare for my German lesson (which I take three times a week) and write
letters. I take the children out again at half-past six, and at
half-past seven come in to my dinner; after dinner I go to my piano, and
generally sit at it or read until I go to bed, which I do early,--_et
voilà!_
Almost all the people I know are out of town now, and I do not see a
human creature; the heat is intense and the air foul and stifling, and
we are gasping for breath and withering away in this city atmosphere....
God bless you, dear Hal.
I am ever yours,
FANNY.
[In the autumn of 1845 I returned to England, and resided with my
father in Mortimer Street, Cavendish Square, until I went to Italy
and joined my sister at Rome; a plan for my returning with my father
to America having been entertained and abandoned in the mean time.]
MORTIMER STREET, October 3d, 1845.
Heaven be praised, my American letters are finished!--eleven long ones,
eleven shillings' worth. I am sure somebody (but at this moment I don't
rightly know who) ought to pay me eleven shillings for such a batch of
work. So now I have nothing to do but answer your daily calls, my
dearest Hal, which "nothing," as I write it, looks like a bad joke. If
you expect me, however, to write you a long letter on the heels of that
heavy American budget, you deceive yourself, my dear friend, and the
truth is not in you.
In the first place, I have nothing to say except that I am well and
intensely interested by everything about me. I am very sorry to have
neglected sending you "Arnold" [his Life, just published at that time],
but it shall be done this day.
London, with its distracting quantity of _things to do_, is already
laying hold of me; and the species of vertigo which I experience after
my lonely American existence, at finding myself once more overwhelmed
with visits, messages, engagements, and endless notes to read and
answer, is pitiable. I feel as if I had been growing idiotic out there,
my life here is such an amazing contrast.
I had a visit yesterday from dear old Lady Charlotte Lindsay, who was
exceedingly kind and cordial indeed to me. We said many good words about
you. After she was gone, the old Berry sisters (who still hang on the
bush) tottered in, and I felt touched to the heart by the affectionate
sympathy and kind goodwill exhibited towards me by these three very old
and charming ladies.
I had a delightful dinner yesterday at Milman's, where I met Lady
Charlotte again, Harness, Lockhart, Empson, and several other clever
pleasant people.
To-day I carried my last six American despatches myself to the post, and
then trotted all the way up to Horace Wilson's, to see him and my cousin
Fanny, by way of exercise....
I am going to dine to-day with Sir Edward Codrington--the admiral, you
know. He and his family are old friends of mine; he has been here twice
this week, sitting two hours at a time with me, spinning long yarns
about the battle of Navarino and all the to-do there was about it. He
actually brought me a heap of manuscript papers on the subject to look
over, which, quite contrary to my expectation, have interested me very
much.
To-morrow, at three o'clock, my maid and I depart for the Hoo; as we go
per coach, and the distance is only twenty-five miles, I hope that
journey won't ruin me.
My father has just come home from Brighton, instead of remaining there
till Monday, as he had intended; he said he felt himself getting
fatigued, and therefore thought it expedient to come away. He has caught
a slight rheumatic pain in one of his shoulders, but otherwise seems
well. To-morrow I will send you another bulletin.
Your affectionate,
FANNY.
MORTIMER STREET, October, 1845.
Since beginning this letter, my beloved Hal, I have been reading
Channing's sermon upon Dr. Follen's death. It is, in fact, a sermon upon
human suffering, in a paroxysm of which I was when I began to write to
you; and for a remedy took up this sermon, which has comforted me much.
Chorley was expressing to me, two days ago, his unbounded veneration for
the character of Dr. Follen, as it is faintly and imperfectly
represented in the memoir which his wife published of him. I knew that I
had with me Channing's sketch of him in that sermon on human suffering,
and told Chorley that I would look for it for him. I found it yesterday,
and merely read that part of it towards the end which referred to Dr.
Follen's character; and it is to that circumstance that I attribute a
dream I had last night, in which I sat devoutly at _Arnold's_ feet,
expressing to him how earnestly I had desired the privilege of knowing
him: he was surrounded by Channing, Follen, and others whom I could not
remember. In reading to-day the whole of that fine discourse of
Channing's, I was led to compare the great similarity of the expressions
he uses, in speaking of sceptics and scepticism, to those Arnold makes
use of on the same subjects in his letters to Lady Francis Egerton. For
instance, "Scepticism is a moral disease, the growth of some open or
latent depravity; deliberate, habitual questionings of God's benevolence
argue great moral deficiency." Another thing that struck me was the
resemblance between Dr. Arnold and Dr. Follen in the matter of
independent self-reliance. Channing says of the latter, "He was
singularly independent in his judgments. He was not only uninfluenced by
authority, and numbers, and interest, and popularity; but by friendship,
and the opinions of those he most loved and honored. He seemed almost
too tenacious of his convictions."
Do you remember what Sydney Smith says of Francis Horner? This great
firmness of opinion in Arnold and Follen reminds me of it by contrast:
"Francis Horner was a very modest person, which men of great
understanding seldom are. It was his habit to confirm his opinion by the
opinions of others, and often to form them from the same source."
MORTIMER STREET, November, 1845.
DEAR EMILY,
During that hour that we spent at Netley, the last few moments of which
were made full of hopeful thoughts by the passing away of the visible
clouds from the visible sky, I could not but reflect upon the glorious
stability of things spiritual, contrasted with the mutability and
evanescence of things temporal. Our hearts, which are united by _real_
bonds--the love of truth, the fear of God, and the desire of duty--have
remained so united through all these years of absence and distance from
each other; and when I thought of our former visit to Netley, I
remembered that nothing had failed me but that which could not be
abiding and steadfast, for it was not good.
To tell you how thence my soul wandered to the eventual reclaiming of
all who have strayed from righteousness, and the possible reunion, in
the immeasurable future, of souls which have been sundered here because
of sin, and the final redemption of all God's poor erring children,
would be to attempt to utter one of those rapid, deep, and ineffable
actions of our spirits which are too full of hope, of faith, and the
holiest peace, for words to be meant to express them.
MORTIMER STREET, Thursday, 6th, 1845.
DEAREST HAL,
My father came home yesterday afternoon from Brighton. He said he was
getting a little tired of his work, and complained of a touch of
rheumatism in his shoulder.... He is making arrangements to read at
Highgate next week. Harry Chester, some cousin or connection of Emily's,
and a quondam kind friend of mine, is at the head of some institution at
Highgate, and has been in negotiations with him for three readings at
some public hall or lecture-room there. My father is to read there three
times, and is to dine each time at some friend's house. Mr. Chester very
kindly begged me to accompany him, and dine with them....
I dined at Sir Edward Codrington's yesterday, and was there introduced
to a charmingly pretty Mrs. Bruce, formerly Miss Pitt, one of the
queen's maids-of-honor; and I assure you my edification was considerable
at some of her courtly experiences....
I believe Solomon says that "in the multitude of counsellors is safety;"
it does not seem so with me just now, for in my multitude of counsels
and counsellors I find only utter bewilderment.
Until Monday I shall be at the Hoo, where you can address me, "To the
care of Lord Dacre, the Hoo, Welwyn, Herts."
God bless you, dearest Hal. Give my kind love to Dorothy.
Yours ever,
FANNY.
[The days were not yet, either in England or America, when a married
woman could claim or hold, independently, money which she either
earned or inherited. How infinite a relief from bitter injustice and
hardship has been the legislation that has enabled women to hold and
own independently property left to them by kindred or friends, or
earned by their own industry and exertions. I think, however, the
excellent law-makers of the United States must have been intent upon
atoning for all the injustice of the previous centuries of English
legislation with regard to women's property, when they framed the
laws which, I am told, obtain in some of the States, by which women
may not only hold bequests left to them, and earnings gained by
them, entirely independent of their husbands; but being thus
generously secured in their own rights, are still allowed to demand
their maintenance, and the payment of their debts, by the men they
are married to. This seems to me beyond all right and reason--the
compensation of one gross injustice by another, a process almost
_womanly_ in its enthusiastic unfairness. It must be retrospective
amends for incalculable former wrongs, I suppose.]
MORTIMER STREET, November 17th, 1845.
When I consider that this is the third letter I write to you this
blessed day, dear Hal, I cannot help thinking myself a funny woman; and
that if you are as fond of me as you pretend to be, you ought to be much
obliged to the "streak of madness" which compels me to such preposterous
epistolary exertions.
And so because the sea rages and roars against the coast at St.
Leonard's, and appals your eyes and ears there, my dearest Hal, you
think we had better not cross the Atlantic now. But the storms on that
tremendous ocean are so _local_, so to speak, that vessels steering the
same course and within comparatively small distance of each other have
often different weather and do not experience the same tempests.
Moreover, Mrs. Macready has just been here, who tells me that her
husband crossed last year rather earlier than I did, in October, and had
a horrible passage; and the last time I came to England we sailed on the
1st of December, and had a long but by no means bad voyage. There is no
certainty about it, though, to be sure, strong probability of
unfavorable weather at this season of the year....
I told you that I had got off dining at the L----s' to-day by pleading
indisposition, which is quite true, for I am very unwell. I shall remain
dinnerless at home, which is no great hardship, and one for which I dare
say I shall be none the worse. My father talks of going to Brighton this
week, and then I shall scatter myself abroad in every direction....
My father leaves town on Wednesday, and as he is to be absent two or
three weeks, I suppose he will only return in time to sail.
I have written to Mrs. Grote to say I will come to Burnham on Thursday,
and my present plan is to remain there until Monday next, and probably
then go to the Hoo. The Grevilles, Charles and Henry, have been here
repeatedly; they are both of them now gone out of town. I called to-day
on Mrs. O'Sullivan, and there I found Dr. Holland, with whom I had one
more laugh upon the subject of his never reaching Lenox after all dear
Charles Sumner's efforts to get him there. [Dr. Holland, while in
America, had made various unsuccessful attempts to visit the Sedgwick
family in Berkshire, winding up with a failure more ludicrous than all
the others, under the guidance of his, their, and my friend, Charles
Sumner....]
I have had a most affectionate note of welcome from Mrs. Jameson, and am
rather in terror of her advent, as I feel considerable awkwardness about
her various late passages-at-arms with my sister. Mrs. Macready came to
see me this afternoon, and told me that she heard I was about to return
forthwith to America....
Now, dear, I think I have really done my duty by you to-day. God bless
you. Give my affectionate love to the "good angel" [Miss Wilson]. As for
your "roaring sea," I only wish I was in it just where you are (nowhere
else, though). I am not well, and very much out of spirits; disgusted,
and, I have no doubt, disgusting; but, nevertheless,
Ever yours,
FANNY.
Arnold's Christianity puzzles me a little. He justifies litigation
between men and war between nations. Whenever I set about carrying out
my own Christianity I shall do neither; for I do not believe either are
according to Christ's law.
I called on the Miss Hamiltons to-day, and we talked "some" of you. I
have had another most affectionate note from Lizzie Mair, entreating me
to go to Edinburgh. But oh! my dear Hal, the money? _Che vita!_
MORTIMER STREET, Thursday, 20th, 1845.
MY DEAREST HARRIET,
There is another thing that makes me pause about coming to Hastings--the
time for my departure for America will be drawing very near when I
return to town on Monday from Mrs. Grote's, which is the only visit that
I shall have it in my power to pay....
Tuesday is the 25th. I must see my brother John again before I go. This
will take two days and one night, and my father talks of going down to
Liverpool on the 2nd or 3rd, so that I could only run down to Hastings
for a few miserable hours, again to renew all the pain of bidding you
another farewell....
I left off here to get my breakfast. We have lowered the price and the
quality of our tea, in consequence of which, you see, my virtue and
courage are also deteriorated [Miss S---- used to say that a cup of good
tea was _virtue_ and _courage_ to her], and this is why I feel I had
perhaps better not come to Hastings.
Thus far, my dearest Harriet, when your letter of the 19th--yesterday
(you see I did look at the date)--was brought to me. It is certainly
most miserable to consider what horrible things men contrive to make of
the mutual relations which might be so blest. I do not know if I am
misled by the position from which I take my observations, but it seems
to me that one of the sins most rife in the world is the _mis_use, or
_dis_use, of the potent and tender ties of relationship and kindred.
With regard to coming to you, my dear Hal, I am much perplexed. I have
made Mrs. Grote enter into arrangements to suit me, which I do not think
I ought now to ask her to alter. Old Rogers is going down to Burnham, to
be with me there, going and coming with me; and with what I feel I ought
and must do to see my brother, I know not what I can and may do to see
you, my dear friends. I am full of care and trouble and anxiety, and
feel so weary with all the processes of thinking and feeling,
deliberating and deciding, that I am going through, that I must beg you
to determine for me. If you, upon due consideration, say "Come," I will
come. And forgive me that I put it thus to you, but I have a sense of
mental incapacity, amounting almost to imbecility; and I feel, every now
and then, as if my brain machinery was running down, and would presently
stop altogether. Seriously, what with the greater and the less, the
unrest of body and the disquiet of mind, I feel occasionally all but
distracted....
I will write you more when I answer your letter of this morning.
God bless you, my dearest friend....
I have so much to say to you about Arnold, but shall perhaps forget it.
Is it not curious that reading his thoughts and words should have tended
to strengthen in me a conviction of duty upon a point where he appears
to take an absolutely different view from mine?--that of seeking and
obtaining redress from wrong by an appeal to processes of litigation and
legal tribunals; but the earnestness of his exhortations to the
conscientious pursuit of one's individual convictions of duty was
powerful in making me cleave to my own perception and sense of right,
though it brought me to a conclusion diametrically opposite to his own.
This, however, is often the case. The whole character of a good man has
vital power over one even where his special opinions are different from
one's own, and may even appear to one mistaken.
The abiding spirit of a man's life, more than his special actions and
peculiar theories, is that by which other men are moved and admonished.
I have extreme faith in the potency of this species of influence, and
comparatively less in the effect of example, in special cases and
particular details of conduct. Christ's teaching was always aimed at
the spirit which should govern us, not at its mere application to
isolated instances; and to those who sought advice from Him for
application to some special circumstance He invariably answered with a
deep and broad rule of conduct, leaving the conscience of the individual
to apply it to the individual case; and it seems to me the only way in
which we can exhort each other is by the love of truth, the desire of
right, the endeavor after holiness, which may still be ours, and to
which we may still effectually point our fellow-pilgrims, even when we
ourselves have fallen by the wayside under the weight of our own
infirmities, failures, and sins.
See! I intended to have broken off when I wrote "God bless you." How I
have preached on! But I have much more to say yet. Dear love to Dorothy.
Ever your affectionate
FANNY.
Friday, November 21st, 1845.
The _Hibernia_ is in, the _Great Britain_ is in, and I have had my
letters, ... not a few of them from various indifferent people, who want
me to do business and attend to their affairs for them here. Truly I am
in a plight to do so every way. One man wants me to exert the influence
which he is sure _my intimacy with Mr. Bunn_ (!) must give me to have an
opera of his brought out at Drury Lane; another writes to me that "my
family's well-known interest in the _theatres_" (a large view of the
subject) "must certainly enable me to have a play of his produced at one
of them;" and so forth, and so on.
All these people will think me a wretch, of course, because I cannot do
any of the things they want me to do; moreover, no power of human
explanation will suffice hereafter to make them aware that I am not upon
terms of affectionate intimacy with Mr. Bunn, that no member of my
family has now any interest whatever in any theatre whatever, and that I
have been so overwhelmed with anxieties and troubles of my own as to
make my attention to the production of operas and plays and such like
things quite impossible just now.
The strangest part of all this is that these men write to me, desiring
me to commend that which I think bad, and that which, moreover, they
know that I think bad; but they seem to imagine that some effort of
sincere friendship and kindness on my part is all that is necessary to
induce me, in spite of this, to recommend and heartily to praise what I
hold to be worthless.
Friendship with eyes and ears and a conscience is, I believe indeed, for
the most part, and for the purposes of most people, tantamount to no
friendship at all, or perhaps rather to a mild form of enmity.
Do you not think it is rather farcical on your part to request me to
answer your letters, when you know 'tis as much as my place (in
creation) is worth not to do so, and that, moreover, every day's post
brings me that which impresses the sufficiency of each day's
_allotments_ devoutly to my mind? Did I ever _not_ answer your letters,
you horrid Harriet? My dear Hal, in spite of the last which I received
from you, after I had just concluded a very long one to you, bearing
date November 20th (there now! you see I remember the date even of my
yesterday's letter!), I still wish for another deliberate expression of
your opinion about my coming down to Hastings. That you desire it, in
spite of all considerations, I know. What your judgment is, now that I
have laid all considerations before you, I should like to know....
To-day was appointed for my visit to Mrs. Grote, and Rogers was to have
come for me at one o'clock, to go to the Paddington railroad, near the
Ten-Mile Station, on which she lives; but lo and behold, just as I was
completing my preparations comes an express to say that Mrs. Grote had
been seized with one of her neuralgic headaches, and could not possibly
receive us till to-morrow! so there ended the proposed business of the
day.
I had a visit from John O'Sullivan, a call from Rogers to readjust our
plans for to-morrow, and a very kind long visit from Milman.... I
receive infinite advice on all hands about my perplexed affairs, all of
it most kindly meant, but little of it, alas! available to me. Some of
it, indeed, appears to me so worldly, so false, and so full of
compromise between right and wrong for the mere sake of expediency;
sometimes for cowardice, sometimes for peace, sometimes for pleasure,
sometimes for profit, sometimes for mere social consideration,--the
whole system (for such it is) accepted and acknowledged as a rule of
life--that, as I sit listening to these friendly suggestions, I am half
the time shocked at those who utter them, and the other half shocked at
myself for being shocked at people so much my betters.... My abiding
feeling is that I had better go back to my beloved Lenox, to the side of
the "Bowl" (the Indian name of a beautiful small lake between Lenox and
Stockbridge), among the Berkshire hills, where selfishness and moral
cowardice and worldly expediency exist in each man's practice no doubt
quite sufficiently; but where they are not yet universally recognized as
a social system, by the laws of which civilized existence should be
governed. You know, "a bad action is a thousand times preferable to a
bad principle."
Among the other things which the American mail brought me was a charming
sketch by my friend W---- of the very site upon which we settled that I
should build my house. The drawing is quite rough and unfinished, but
full of suggestion to one who knows the place.
I went by appointment this afternoon to see Lady Dacre. Poor thing! she
was much overcome at the sight of me. Her deep mourning for her young
grandchild, and her pathetic exclamations of almost self-reproach at her
own iron strength and protracted old age, touched me most deeply. She
seemed somewhat comforted at finding that I had not grown quite old and
haggard, and talked to me for an hour of her own griefs and my trials.
She and Lord Dacre pressed me with infinite kindness to go down to them
at the Hoo; and though I felt that if we sail on the 4th I ought to be
satisfied with having had this glimpse of them, if my stay were
prolonged I should like very much to go there for a short time.
Lord Dacre told me that the _Great Western_ had arrived yesterday, and
brought most threatening news of the hostile spirit of America about the
Oregon question; he fears there will certainly be a war. Good God, how
horrible! The two foremost nations of Christendom to disgrace themselves
and humanity by giving such a spectacle to the world!
After my visit to the Dacres, I came back to my solitary dinner in
Mortimer Street; and, reflecting upon many things during this lonely
evening, have wished myself between you and dear Dorothy, who neither of
you tell falsehoods or pretend to like things and people that you
dislike. Wouldn't it be a nice world if one could live all one's time
with none but the best good people? I have spent the whole evening in
reading my friend Charles Sumner's Peace Oration, which I only began in
America; and to listening to the lady playing on the piano next door,
and envying her. Our landlord has a piano in his room downstairs, I
find, and he is not at home: now, that is a real temptation of the very
devil. How I should like to pay half an hour's visit to it!
My dear Hal, Mrs. Jameson is coming to see me to-morrow morning! What
shall I do--what shall I say about her _tiff_ with Adelaide? Wasn't it a
pity that Mrs. Grote was taken ill this morning?
God bless you. I want to say one or two words to dear Dorothy, according
to right, for she has written to me in your two last letters.
Ever yours,
FANNY.
Oh, I do wish I was with you! for you are not in the least base, mean,
cowardly, or worldly.
DEAREST GOOD ANGEL,
Do not fancy, from the vehemence of my style to Harriet, that I am in a
worse mental or material condition than I am. I only do hope that before
I have lived much longer it will please God to give me grace to love and
admire the great bulk of my fellow-creatures more than I do at present.
_Certainly_, dear Dorothy, if I should remain in England, I will come
down to Hastings for a fortnight; and owe my subsistence for that time
to you and Hal. Perhaps these rumors of wars may make some difference in
my father's plans. I should be very happy with you both. I have a notion
that you would spoil me as well as Hal, and, used to that as I used to
be "long time ago," it would be quite an agreeable novelty now.
Ever yours affectionately,
FANNY.
Friday, November 21st, 1845.
This letter was begun yesterday evening, my beloved Hal. My nerves are
rather in a quieter state than when I wrote last, thanks to a warm bath
and cold head-douche, which, taken together, I recommend to you as
beneficial for the brain and general nervous system....
I am going to dine _tête-à-tête_ with Rogers; I have persuaded him to
come down with me to Burnham. Poor old man! he is very much broken and
altered, very deaf, very sad. This last year has taken from him Sydney
and Bobus Smith; and now, the day before yesterday, his old friend Lady
Holland died, and he literally stands as though his "turn" were next--it
may be mine.
Do you know, that in reading that striking account or Arnold's death, I
got such a pain in my heart that I felt as if I was going to die so.
_So!_ So, indeed, God grant I might die! but none can die so who has not
so lived.
Two things surprise me in Arnold's opinions--three,--his detailed
account of wars between nations without any expression of condemnation
of war, but rather a soldierly satisfaction in strife and strategy.
This, by-the-by, my friend Charles Sumner notices with regret in his
"Peace Oration." Then Arnold's apparent approbation of men, even
clergymen, going to law for their rights, while at the same time
speaking with detestation of the legal profession, which surely involves
some inconsistency. Clergymen, according to the vulgar theory, are
imagined to be, if not less resentful in spirit, at any rate more
pacific in action than the laity, and ought, to my thinking, no more to
go to law than to war. The third thing that puzzles me is his constant
reference to what he calls a Church, or "_the_ Church," which, with his
views about Christianity, is a term that I do not comprehend.
It is curious to me to see Emily's marks along the margin. They are the
straight ones, and are applied zealously everywhere to passages of
dogmatical discussion about doctrines. Mine you will find the crooked
ones, and my pencil, of course, invariably flew to the side of what
expressed moral excellence and a perception of material beauty. Those
passages that Emily has marked I do not understand--does she? I ask this
in all simplicity, and not at all in arrogance; for I cannot make head
or tail of them. Perhaps she can make both, for I think she has a taste
and talent for theological controversy. I was surprised to find she had
not marked his diary and journals at all; I hardly knew how to leave
them _un_marked at all. Those Italian journals of his made me almost
sick with longing. It is odd that this southern mania should return upon
me so strongly after so many years of freedom from it, merely because
there seemed to arise just now a possibility of this long-relinquished
hope being fulfilled. I know that I could not live in Italy, and I
suppose that I should be dreadfully offended and grieved by the actual
state of the people, in the midst of all the past and present glory and
beauty, which remains a radiant halo round their social and political
degradation. But I did once so long to live in Italy, and I have lately
so longed to see it, that these journals of Arnold's have made me cry
like a child with yearning and disappointment.
My brother John told me that, in his opinion, Arnold was not entirely
successful as a trainer of young men: that the power and peculiarity of
his own character was such that, in spite of his desire that his pupils
should be free, independent, and individual, they involuntarily became
more or less mental and moral imitations of him: that he turned out
nothing but young Arnolds--copies, on a reduced scale, of himself; few
of them, if any, as good as the original. This involuntary conformity to
any powerful nature is all but inevitable, where veneration would
consciously and deliberately lead to imitation, and thus those minds
which would most willingly leave freedom to others, both as a blessing
and a duty, become unintentionally compelling influences to beget and
perpetuate, in those around them, a tendency to subservience and
dependency.
Charles Greville seems very much amused at my enthusiasm for Arnold, and
still more when I told him that, for Arnold's sake, I wished to know
Bunsen. He said he was sure I should not like him. Rogers told me the
same thing; ... that Arnold was a man easily to be taken in by any one
who would devote themselves to him, which he--Rogers--said Bunsen did
when they met abroad.... How much of this is true, God only knows:
Rogers is often very cynical and ill-natured (alas, he has lived so
long, and known so much and so many!) It may not be true; though, again,
Arnold "was but a man as other men are," and went but upon two legs,
like the best of them; nevertheless, if I were to remain in England, I
would make some effort to know his chosen friend. Rogers, with whom I
dined yesterday, told me that if he had known this wish of mine, he
would have asked Bunsen to meet me. I then questioned him about Whately,
and he said I should be delighted with him--perhaps, dear H., because he
is a little mad, you know, and I appear to some of my friends here to
have that mental accomplishment in common with other more illustrious
folk.
And now I have finished that book, Arnold's Life, by his spiritual son.
It has been to me, in the midst of all that at present harasses and
disgusts me, a source of peace and strength, and I have taken it up hour
after hour, like the antidote to the petty poisons of daily life.
I have had two notes from Lady Dacre about arranging hours to meet; but,
unfortunately, the little time I have is so taken up that it will be
impossible for me to see her, as she begs me, this morning. They leave
town again on Saturday, and I do not suppose that it will be in my power
to get down again to the Hoo, which she urges me very much to do, ... so
that I fear I shall not see her before I go, which is a grief to me.
John O'Sullivan does not sail till the 4th, and if we go then, I shall
feel that my father will have somebody who will humanely look after him
on board ship when I am disabled.... I think he has now some intention
of making the expedition for the sake of giving readings, and perhaps of
acting again, in the principal cities of the United States, and, apart
from my interest and affairs, this may be a sufficient motive for his
undertaking the voyage.
I am going to write a word to the dear good angel, and therefore, my
beloved Hal, farewell....
[I have not endorsed my brother's opinion about Arnold's influence
on his pupils. Long after this letter was written, I had the honor
and advantage of making the acquaintance of Baron Bunsen, and was
able to judge for myself of the value of the opinions I had heard of
him.]
MY DEAREST DOROTHY,
... I shall hold my mind and body in readiness to come down on
Wednesday, if up till Monday you still wish for me. I have told Hal all
I have to tell of myself, and she may tell you as much of it as she
pleases....
Just after my father's departure, I received a very kind invitation from
my friend Lady M----, who is staying in Brighton, to come and remain
with her while my father was there....
God bless you, dear Dorothy. I love you more than I seem to know you,
but I know that you are good, and most good to my dear Harriet, and that
I am
Yours very affectionately,
FANNY.
MORTIMER STREET, Tuesday, November 25th, 1845.
DEAREST HAL,
I had a letter yesterday from my father, from Brighton.... He has
renounced the project of crossing the Atlantic at present....
Of course, dear Hal, we are none of us half patient enough. Suffering
and injustice are so intolerable to us that we _will_ not endure them,
and forget all the time that God allows and endures them.
You ask me if I recollect my discussion with you going down to
Southampton. Very well, my dear Hal, and your appearance especially,
which, in that witch's travelling-cap of yours, is so extremely
agreeable to me that you recur to me in it constantly, and as often I
execrate your bonnet. How much I do love beauty! How I delight in the
beauty of any one that I love! How thankful I am that I am not
beautiful! my self-love would have known no bounds.
I am writing with a very bad pen. I told you of that pen Rogers mended
for me, and sitting down to try it, wrote the two following lines, which
he gave me, of Cowper's:
"The path of sorrow, and that path alone,
Leads to the land where sorrow is unknown."
You will understand that this touched me much. You hope that my nerves
will have leisure to become tranquillized in the country; but the
intellectual life by which I am surrounded in England is such a contrast
to my American existence that it acts like a species of perpetual
intoxication. The subjects of critical, literary, and social interest
that I constantly hear so ably and brilliantly discussed excite my mind
to a degree of activity that seems almost feverish, after the stagnant
inertia to which it has been latterly condemned; and this long-withheld
mental enjoyment produces very high nervous excitement in me too. The
antagonism I often feel at the low moral level upon which these fine
intellectual feats are performed afterwards causes a reaction from my
sense of satisfaction, and sometimes makes that appear comparatively
worthless, the power, skill, and dexterity of which concealed the
sophistry and seduced me while the debate was going on.
My dearest H----, I wrote all this at Burnham. You will see by this
that we do not leave England by the next steamer, and I think there is
every probability of my remaining here for some time to come, and,
therefore, spending a full fortnight with you at Hastings....
I have a quantity to say to you about everything, but neither time nor
room. We had much talk about Arnold at the Beeches, and the justice
dealt him by a cynical poet, a hard-headed political economist, a
steeled man of the world, and two most dissimilar unbelievers was
various and curious.
Yours ever,
FANNY.
MORTIMER STREET, November 26th, 1845.
MY DEAREST HAL,
I expect my father home to-day; but, as I have written to you, his note
from Brighton expressed no annoyance at my determination....
I must see if I cannot possibly write something for a few pence, so as
not to stretch out a beggar's hand even to him.... I enjoyed my visit to
Burnham extremely: the admirable clever talk, the capital charming
music, the delight of being in the country, and the ecstasy of a fifteen
miles' ride through beautiful parks and lanes, filled my time most
pleasurably. I know no one who has such a capacity (that looks as if I
had written _ra_pacity--either will do) for enjoyment, or has so much of
it in mere life--when I am not being tortured--as I have. I ought to be
infinitely thankful for my elastic temperament; there never was anything
like it but the lady heroine of Andersen's story "The Ball," who had
"cork in her body."
We had much talk about Arnold and Bunsen, much about Sydney Smith,
several of whose letters Mrs. Grote gave us to read. Rogers read them
aloud, and his comments were very entertaining, especially with the
additional fun of Mrs. Grote holding one of the letters up to me in a
corner alone, when I read, "I never think of death in London but when I
meet Rogers," etc.
I have written a very long letter to my sister to-day, and one to E----.
I am going to dine with Mrs. Procter, to meet Milnes, whose poetry you
know I read to you here one evening, and you liked it, as I do, some of
it, very much.... As for L----, I think one should be a great deal
cleverer than he is to be so amazingly conceited, _and of course, if
one was, one wouldn't be_; and if that sentence is not lovely, neither
is "Beaver hats." ("Beaver hats is the best that _is_, for a shower
don't hurt 'em, the least that _are_," quoth an old countrywoman to Mrs.
FitzHugh, comparing the respective merits of beaver and straw.)
Only think, Hal, what an enchanting man this landlord of ours must be!
He has had his pianoforte tuned, and actually proposes sending it up
into one of these rooms for my use. I incline to think the difficulty
with him is not so much having a woman in the house, as a natural desire
to receive a larger compensation if he takes this woman--me--in.
God bless you, dear. I feel happy in the almost certain prospect of
being with you before very long, and you cannot imagine how much my
heart is lightened by the more hopeful circumstances in which I think I
am placed....
Good-bye, dear Hal. Give my love to Dorothy, and believe me
Ever yours,
FANNY.
November 29th, 1845.
I have just returned home from a dinner at Mrs. Procter's. It is a
quarter to twelve o'clock, and until twelve I will write to you, my dear
Hal. I found your ink-bottle on my table. Thank you. This is my
birthday. Did you give it me on that account?--a compliment to the
anniversary. I have not written so much as usual to you these last few
days; my time is very much taken up; for, even at this dead season of
the year, as it is called in London, I have many morning visitors, who
come and sit with me a long while, during which time no letters get
written. I wrote to you last on Wednesday, the day on which my father
was to come to town. At one o'clock, accordingly, he marched in, looking
extremely well, kissed me, opened his letters, wrote me a check for £10,
and at five o'clock went off to Brighton again, telling me he should
remain there until next Monday week, and, in the mean time, bidding me
"_amuse myself_, and make myself as comfortable as I could." ...
It is past twelve now, and I am getting tired; the late hours and good
dinners and wine and coffee are a wonderful change in my American
habits of life, and seem to me more pleasant than wholesome, after the
much simpler mode of existence to which I have become accustomed
latterly. I took a good long walk on Friday, across the Green Park and
St. James's Park to Spring Gardens, and up the Strand to Coutts', and
home again....
I had a pleasant dinner yesterday at Lady Essex's. Rogers took me there,
and brought me home in his carriage; he is exceedingly kind to me. Henry
Greville dined with us, sat by me, and talked to me the whole time about
my sister, which was very pleasant and did me good. Sir Edward
Codrington and his daughter, who are old friends of mine, were there,
and met me with great cordiality; and though the evening was not very
brilliant, I enjoyed myself very much.
Kinglake, the author of "Eothen," paid me a long visit to-day, and was
very agreeable....
Mrs. Procter asked me to-day to take their family dinner with them,
because she knew I should else dine all alone. Mr. Procter was not at
home, so that we had a _tête-à-tête_ gossip about everybody....
I know very well that nobody likes to be bored, but I think it would be
better to be bored to extinction than to mortify and pain people by
rejecting their society because they are not intensely amusing or
distinguished, or even because they are intensely tiresome and
commonplace....
Good-night, dear. My eyes smart and ache; I must go to bed. I have seen
to-day some verses written by an American friend of mine on my
departure. I think they are good, but cannot be quite sure, as they are
about myself. I will send them to you, if you care to see them.
Ever yours,
FANNY.
MORTIMER STREET, November 30th, 1845.
I wrote to you until 12.30 last night, and it is now 12.30 this morning,
and it must be very obvious to you that, not being Dorothy, I can have
nothing under the heavens to say to you. Let me see for the _events_ of
these hours. After I went to bed I read, according to a practice which I
have steadily followed for the past year, in the hope of substituting
some other _last thoughts_ and visions for those which have haunted me,
waking or sleeping, during that time. So last night, having, alas! long
ago finished Arnold, and despatched two historical plays, long enough,
but nothing else, to have been written by Schiller, which my brother
gave me, I betook myself to certain agricultural reports, written by a
Mr. Coleman, an American, who came over here to collect information upon
these subjects for an agricultural society. These reports he gave me the
other day, and you know I read implicitly whatever is put into my hands,
holding every species of book worth reading for something. So I read
about fencing, enclosing, draining, ditching, and ploughing, till I fell
asleep, fancying myself Ceres.
This morning, after some debate with myself about staying away from
church, I deliberately came to the conclusion that I would do so,
because I had a bad headache. (Doesn't that sound like a child who
doesn't want to go to church, and says it has got a stomach-ache? It's
true, nevertheless.) But--_and_ because I have such a number of letters
to write to America, that I thought I would say my prayers at home, and
then do that.
And now, before beginning my American budget, I have written one to Lady
Dacre, one to Emily, one to my brother, and this one to you; and shall
now start off to the other side of the Atlantic, by an epistle to J----
C----, the son of the afore-mentioned agriculturist, a friend of mine,
who when I last left America held me by the arm till the bell rang for
the friends of those departing by the steamer to abandon them and regain
the shore, and whose verses about me, which I mentioned to you in my
last night's letter, please me more than his father's account of
top-dressing, subsoiling, and all the details of agriculture, which,
however, I believe is the main fundamental interest of civilization.
Before this, however, I must go and take a walk, because the sun shines
beautifully, and
"I must breathe some vital air,
If any's to be found in Cavendish Square."
I'm sorry to say we are going to leave this comfortable lodging and our
courteous landlord, whose civilities to me are most touching. I do not
know what my father intends doing, but he talked of taking a house at
_Brompton_. What a distance from everything, for him and for me!
I have just had a kind note from the M----s, again earnestly bidding me
down to Hampshire; another affectionate invitation from Lord and Lady
Dacre to the Hoo, and a warm and sympathizing letter from Amelia Twiss,
for whom, as you know, I entertain even a greater regard and esteem than
for her sisters....
My dear Hal, when my father told me that he was going to Brighton for
three weeks, it seemed quite impossible that we should sail for America
on December 4th. Now that that question is settled, at any rate
temporarily, I feel restored to something like calm, and think I shall
probably go and see the M----s, and perhaps run down to Hastings to
visit--Dorothy Wilson, of course.
God bless you, dear. Does Dorothy write better about nothing than I do?
Ever yours,
FANNY.
THE HOO, WELWYN, HERTS, December, 1845.
MY DEAREST HAL,
... God knows I am admonished to patience, both by my own helplessness
and the inefficiency of those who, it seems to me, ought to be able to
help me....
Doubtless, my father reasonably regrets the independence which I might
by this time have earned for myself in my profession, and feels anxious
about my unprovided future. I have written to Chorley, the only person I
know to whom I can apply on the subject, to get me some means of
publishing the few manuscript verses I have left in some magazine or
other.... If I cannot succeed in this, I shall try if I can publish my
"English Tragedy," and make a few pounds by it. It is a wretchedly
uncomfortable position, but compared with all that has gone before it is
_only_ uncomfortable.
I came down here yesterday, and found, though the night was rainy and
extremely cold, dear Lord Dacre and B---- standing out on the door-step
to receive me. She has grown tall, and stout, and very handsome.... Is
it not wonderful that the spirit of life should be potent enough ever to
make us forget the death perpetually hovering over and ready to pounce
upon us? and yet how little dread, habitually, disturbs us, either for
ourselves or others, lying all the time, as we do, within the very grasp
of doom! Lord Dacre is looking well; my friend Lady Dacre is grown more
deaf and much broken. Poor thing! she has had a severe trial, in the
premature loss of those dearest to her....
God bless you, dear Hal. Good-by. Love to dear Dorothy.
Ever yours,
FANNY.
THE HOO, WELWYN, December 6th, 1845.
MY DEAREST HAL,
I have been spending the greater part of the morning in sitting for my
likeness to a young girl here, a Miss E----, daughter of some old
friends of the Dacres, whose talent for drawing, and especially for
taking likenesses, is uncommon.
That which Lawrence pronounced the most difficult task he ever undertook
could hardly prove an easy one to a young lady artist, who has, however,
succeeded in giving a very sufficient likeness of one of my faces; and I
think it so pretty that I am charmed with it, as indeed I always have
been with every likeness almost that has ever been taken of me, but the
only true ones--the daguerreotypes. However, even daguerreotypes are not
absolutely accurate; the process is imperfect, except for plane (not
_plain_, you know) surfaces. Besides, after all, it takes a human hand
to copy a human face, because of the human soul in both; and the great
sun in heaven wants fire, light, and power, to reproduce that spark of
divinity in us, before which his material glory grows pale.
As long as he was Phoebus Apollo, and went about, man-fashion, among
the girls, making love to such of them as he fancied, he may have been
something of an artist, his conduct might be called artistic, I should
say; but now that he sits in the sky, staring with his one eye at
womankind in general, Sir Joshua, and even Sir Thomas, are worth a score
of him.
While I was sitting, Mrs. E----, my young artist's mother, read aloud to
us the new volume of Lord Chesterfield's writings.
My impression of Lord Chesterfield is a very ignorant one, principally
derived from the very little I remember of that profound science of
superficiality contained in his "Letters to his Son." The matter I heard
to-day exalted him infinitely in my esteem, and charmed me extremely,
both by the point and finish of the style (what fine workmanship good
prose is!) and the much higher moral tone than anything I remembered,
and consequently expected from him.
Mrs. E---- read us a series of his "Sketches of his Political
Contemporaries," quite admirable for the precision, distinctness, and
apparent impartiality with which they were drawn, and for their
happiness of expression-and purity of diction. Among them is a character
of Lord Scarborough, which, if it be a faithful portrait, is perhaps the
highest testimony in itself to the merit of one who called such a man
his intimate friend; and going upon the faith of the old proverbs, "Show
me your company and I'll tell you what you are," "Like will to like,"
"Birds of a feather flock together," and all the others that, unlike
Sancho Panza, I do not give you, has amazingly advanced Lord
Chesterfield in my esteem.
We have this morning parted with some of the company that was here. Mr.
and Mrs. Hibbard, clever and agreeable people, have gone away, and, to
my great regret, carried with them my dear B----, for whom my affection
and esteem are as great as ever. Mrs. Hibbard is the daughter of Sydney
Smith, and so like him that I kept wondering when she would begin to
abuse the bishops....
Dearest Hal, I took no exercise yesterday but a drive in an open
carriage with Lady Dacre. The Americans call the torture of being
thumped over their roads in their vehicles _exercise_, and so, no doubt,
was Sancho's tossing in the blanket; but voluntary motion being the only
effectual motion for any good purpose of health (or holiness, I take
it), I must be off, and tramp while the daylight lasts.
What a delightful thing good writing is! What a delightful thing good
talking is! How much delight there is in the exercise and perfection of
our faculties! How _full_ a thing, and admirable, and wonderful is this
nature of ours! So Hamlet indeed observes--but he was mad. Good-bye.
Give my love to dear Dorothy, and
Believe me ever yours,
FANNY.
THE HOO, WELWYN, December 7th, 1845.
MY DEAREST HAL,
Just before I came down here, Rogers paid me a long visit, and talked a
great deal about Lady Holland; and I felt interested in what he said
about the woman who had been the centre of so remarkable a society and
his intimate friend for so many years. Having all her life appeared to
suffer the most unusual terror, not of death only, but of any accident
that could possibly, or impossibly, befall her, he said that she had
died with perfect composure, and, though consciously within the very
shadow of death for three whole days before she crossed the dark
threshold, she expressed neither fear nor anxiety, and exhibited a
tranquillity of mind by no means general at that time, and which
surprised many of the persons of her acquaintance. If, however, it be
true, as some persons intimate with her have told me, that her terrors
were not genuine, but a mere expression of her morbid love of power,
insisting at all costs and by all means upon occupying everybody about
her with herself, then it is not so strange that she should at last have
ceased to demand the homage and attention of others as she so closely
approached the time when even their most careless recollection would
cease to be at her command.
Rogers said that she spoke of her life with considerable satisfaction,
asserting that she had done as much good and as little harm as she could
during her existence. The only person about whom she expressed any
tenderness was her daughter, Lady ----, with whom, however, she had not
been always upon the best terms; and who, being ultra-_serious_ (as it
is comically called), had not unnaturally an occasional want of sympathy
with her very unserious mother. Lady Holland, however, desired much to
see her, and she crossed the Channel, having travelled in great haste,
and arrived just in time to fulfil her mother's wish and receive her
blessing.
Her will creates great astonishment--created, I should say; for she is
twice buried already, under the Corn Law question. She left her son only
£2000, and to Lord John Russell £1500 a year, which at his death reverts
to Lady L----'s children. To Rogers, strange to say, nothing; but he
professed to think it an honor to be left out. To my brother, strange to
say, something (Lord Holland's copy of the "British Essayists," in
thirty odd volumes); and to Lady Palmerston her collection of fans,
which, though it was a very valuable and curious one, seems to me a
little like making fun of that superfine fine lady.
I have just come back from church, dear Hal, where the Psalms for the
day made me sick. Is it not horrible that we should make Christian
prayers of Jewish imprecations? How can one utter, without shuddering,
such sentences as "Let them be confounded, and put to shame, that seek
after my soul. Let them be as the dust before the wind: and the angel of
the Lord scattering them. Let their way be dark and slippery: and let
the angel of the Lord persecute them"? Is it not dreadful to think that
one must say, as I did, "God forbid!" while my eyes rested on the
terrible words contained in the appointed _worship_ of the day; or
utter, in God's holy house, that to which one attaches no signification;
or, worst of all, connect in any way such sentiments with one's own
feelings, and repeat, with lips that confess Christ, curses for which
His blessed command has substituted blessings?
We were speaking on this very subject at Milman's the other evening, and
when I asked Mrs. Milman if she joined in the repetition of such
passages, she answered with much simplicity, like a good woman and a
faithful clergywoman, "Oh yes! but then, you know, one never means what
one says,"--which, in spite of our company consisting chiefly of "witty
Churchmen," elicited from it a universal burst of laughter. I have not
space or time to enlarge more upon this, and you may be thankful for
it....
I will just give you two short extracts from conversations I have had
here, and leave you to judge how I was affected by them....
I am sometimes thankful that I do not live in my own country, for I am
afraid I should very hardly escape the Pharisee's condemnation for
thinking myself better than my neighbors; and yet, God knows, not only
that I am, but that I do, not. But how come people's nations so inside
out and so upside down?
Good-bye, my dear. I am enjoying the country every hour of the day. Give
my love to dear Dorothy.
Ever yours,
FANNY.
MORTIMER STREET, Monday, December 8th, 1845.
MY DEAREST HAL,
Your delightful little inkstand is the very pest of my life; it keeps
tumbling over backwards every minute, and pouring the ink all over, and
making me swear (which is really a pity), and is, in short, invaluable;
and I am so much more obliged to you than I was even at first for it,
now that I know, I hope, all its inestimable qualities, that I think it
right to mention the increased gratitude I feel for the hateful little
bottle. There it goes again! Oh, thank you, my love! Just let me pick it
up, and wipe the mess it has made.
I left the Hoo this morning, and have just been a couple of hours in
Mortimer Street. I find my father going to dine at Judge Talfourd's,
and, I am happy to say, free from the pain in his side which had alarmed
me, and which I now suppose, as he did at the time, to have proceeded
only from cold. He looks well, and is in good spirits.
I find a note here from Miss Berry, inviting me to dinner _to-day_,
which has been waiting for me ever since Friday. Of course I could not
go, and felt distressed that the old lady's kind bidding should have
remained so long unanswered. Just as I was despatching my excuse,
however, in rushed Agnes (Gooseberry, you know, as Sydney Smith used to
call her), all screams and interjections, to know why I hadn't answered
her note, which was very annoying. However, in nursery language, I
_peacified_ the good old lady to the best of my ability. I am sorry to
lose their pleasant party, but have an excessive dislike to hurrying
immediately from one thing to another in this way, and therefore must
really spend this evening of my arrival in peace and quiet.
Mrs. ---- called to-day. I am sorry to say that she provokes me now,
instead of only annoying me, as she used to do. It's really quite
dreadful! She talks such odd bits of sentimental morality, that somehow
or other don't match with each other, or with anything else in creation,
that it disgusts me, and I am so disagreeable and so conscious of it,
and she is so conscious that I am conscious of it, that, poor things! it
is quite piteous for both of us.
You ask me the name of the political economist I met at Burnham. William
Nassau Senior, a very clever man, a great talker, good upon all
subjects, but best upon all those on which I am even below my average
depth of ignorance, public affairs, questions of government, the science
of political economy, and all its kindred knowledges. The rest of our
party were only Rogers and myself, our host and hostess (Mr. and Mrs.
Grote), and a brother of the latter, who has been living many years in
Sweden, has a charming countenance, a delightful voice, sings Swedish
ballads exquisitely, worships Jenny Lind, and knows Frederica Bremer
intimately. He added an element of gentleness and softness to the
material furnished by our cast-iron "man of facts" and our acrid poet,
that was very agreeable. In speaking of Arnold, I was ineffably amused
at hearing Mrs. Grote characterize him as a "_very weak man_," which
struck me as very funny. _The Esprit Forte_, however, I take it, merely
referred to his belief in the immortality of the soul, the existence of
a God, and a few other similar "superstitions." They seemed all to agree
that he was likely to "turn out" _only_ such men as Lord Sandon and Lord
Ashley. [The training of Arnold, acting upon a noble mind inherited from
a noble-minded mother, produced the illustrious man whom all Protestant
Christendom has lately joined to mourn, Dean Stanley, of whom, however,
no mention was made in the above discussion.] You, who know the
political bias of these men, will be better able to judge than I am, how
far this was a compliment to Arnold's intellect; to his moral influence,
I suppose, the character of "only such" pupils would bear high
testimony.
My father reads to-morrow at Highgate, and, I believe, twice again there
in the course of next week. Beyond that, I think he has no immediate
plans for reading, and indeed his plans seem altogether to me in the
most undecided state.
I found letters here from my sister and E----, both of them urging me to
join them in Rome; these I read to my father, and I am thankful to say
that he seemed to entertain the idea of my doing so, and even hinted at
the possibility of his accompanying me thither, inasmuch as he felt
rather fatigued with his reading, would be glad to recruit a little,
would wish to protect me on my journey to Italy, and, finally, never
having been in Rome, would like to see it, etc. He said, after we got
there he could either leave me with my sister or stay himself till the
spring, when we might all come back together.
You may imagine how enchanted I was at the bare suggestion of such a
plan. I told him nothing he could do would give me so much happiness,
and that as I had come back upon his hands in the state of dependence in
which I formerly belonged to him, it was for him to determine in what
manner the burden would be least grievous to him, least costly, and
least inconvenient; that if he thought it best I should go to my sister,
I should be thankful to do so; but that if he would come with me, I
should be enchanted.
I think, dearest Hal, that this unhoped-for prospect will yet be
realized for me. I am very fortunate in the midst of my misfortune, and
have infinite cause to be grateful for the hope of such an opportunity
of distracting my thoughts from it. Even to go alone would be far
preferable for me to remaining here, but I should have to leave my
father alone behind, and do most earnestly wish he may determine to come
with me.
Our landlord and he cannot agree about terms, and I suspect that he
would not remain in the lodgings under any circumstances on that
account. Oh! I hope we shall go together to Italy. "Dahin! Dahin!" ...
How I do wish you were sitting on this little striped sofa by me! No
offence in the world to you, my dear Dorothy (or the Virgin Martyr),
because I wish you were here too--in the first place that Hal might not
be too dissatisfied with my society; in the next place that I might
enjoy yours; and in the third place that you might benefit by both of
ours.
I remain, dearly beloved females both of yours affectionately,
FANNY.
There goes your ink-pot head over heels backward again! Oh, it has
recovered itself! Hateful little creature, what a turn it has given
me--as the housemaids say--without even succeeding in overturning
itself, which it tried to do! It is idiotic as well as malicious!
MORTIMER STREET, Tuesday.
DEAREST HAL,
I did not hear a great deal more than I told you about Bunsen at
Burnham. They all seemed to think him so _over-cordial_ in his manner as
not to be sincere--or at any rate to produce the effect of insincerity.
Senior said that one of his sons was for a time private tutor in a
family, while Bunsen himself was one of the King of Prussia's ministers.
I could not very well perceive myself the moral turpitude of this, but
the answer was that it was _infra dig._, and of course that is quite
turpitude enough. At the Hoo I asked Lord Dacre if he knew Bunsen, but
he did not. I should have attached some value to his opinion of him,
because he has no vulgar notions of the above sort, and also because,
having lived at one time in Germany among Germans, he has more means of
estimating justly a mind and nature essentially German like Bunsen's
than most Englishmen, who--the very cleverest among them--understand
_nothing_ that is not themselves, _i.e._ English, in intellect or
character.
Mrs. E---- told me that she had heard from some of the great Oxford dons
that the impression produced among them by the first pupil of Arnold's
who came among them was quite extraordinary--not at all from superior
intelligence or acquirement, but from his being absolutely a _new
creature_ (think of the Scripture use of that term, Hal, and think how
this circumstance illustrates it)--a new _kind_ of man; and that so they
found all his pupils to differ from any young men that had come up to
their colleges before. When I deplored the cessation of this noble and
powerful influence by Arnold's death, she said--what indeed I knew--that
his spirit survived him and would work mightily still. And so of course
it will continue to work, for to the increase of the seed sown by such a
one there is no limit. She told me that one of his pupils--by no means
an uncommon but rather dull and commonplace young man--had said in
speaking of him, "I was dreadfully afraid of Arnold, but there was not
the thing he could have told me to do that I should not instantly and
confidently have set about." What a man! I do wonder if I shall see him
in heaven--as it is called--if ever I get there.
Mrs. E---- told me that Lady Francis [Egerton] knew him, and did not
like him altogether; but then he, it seems, was habitually reserved, and
she neither soft nor warm certainly in her outward demeanor, so perhaps
they _really_ never met at all.... Mrs. E---- said Lady Francis had not
considered her correspondence with Arnold satisfactory. I suspect it was
upon theological questions of doctrine (or doctrinal questions of
theology); and that Lady Francis had complained that his letters did not
come sufficiently to the point. What can her point have been?...
As for what you say about deathbed utterances--it seems to me the height
of folly to attach the importance to them that is often given to them.
The physical conditions are at that time such as often amply to account
for what are received as spiritual ecstasies or agonies. I imagine
whatever the _laity_ may do, few physicians are inclined to consider
their patients' utterances _in articulo mortis_ as satisfactorily
significant of anything but their bodily state. Certainly by what you
tell me of ---- his moral perceptions do not appear to have received any
accession of light whatever from the near dawning of that second life
which seems sometimes to throw such awful brightness as the dying are
about to enter it far over the past that they are leaving behind.
My dinner at Mrs. Procter's was very pleasant. In the first place I love
her husband very much; then there were Kenyon, Chorley, Henry Reeve,
Monckton Milnes, and Browning!--a goodly company, you'll allow. Oh, how
I wish wits were catching! but if they were, I don't suppose after that
dinner I should be able to put up with poor pitiful _prose people_ like
you for a long time to come.
With regard to the London standard of morality, dear Hal, I do not think
it lower, but probably a little higher upon the whole than that of the
society of other great capitals: the reasons why this highly civilized
atmosphere must be also so highly mephitic are obvious enough, and
therefore as no alteration is probable, or perhaps possible in that
respect, I am not altogether sorry to think that I shall live in a
denser intellectual but clearer moral atmosphere in my "other world." I
do not believe that the brains shrink much when the soul is well
nourished, or that the intellect starves and dwindles upon what feeds
and expands the spirit.
My little sketch of Lenox Lake lies always open before me, and I look at
it very often with yearning eyes ... for the splendid rosy sunsets over
the dark blue mountain-tops, and for the clear and lovely expanse of
pure waters reflecting both, above all for the wild white-footed streams
that come leaping down the steep stairways of the hills. I believe I do
like places better than people: these only look like angels _sometimes_,
but the earth in such spots looks like heaven always--especially the
mountain-tops so near the sky, so near the stars, so near the sun, with
the clouds below them, and the humanity of the world and its mud far
below them again--all but the spirit of adoration which one has carried
up thither one's self. I do not wonder the heathen of whom the Hebrew
Scriptures complain offered sacrifices on every high hill: they
seem--they are--altars built by God for His especial worship. Good-bye,
my dearest Hal.
Yours ever,
FANNY.
[After I had the pleasure and honor of making Baron Bunsen's
acquaintance, I was one day talking with him about Arnold, and the
immense loss I considered his death to England, when he answered,
almost in Mrs. E----'s words, but still more emphatically, that he
would work better even dead than alive, that there was in him a
powerful element of antagonism which roused antagonism in others:
his individuality, he said, stood sometimes in the way of his
purpose, he darkened his own light; "he will be more powerful now
that he is gone than even while he was here."
In Charles Greville's "Memoirs," he speaks of going down to Oatlands
to consult his sister and her husband (Lord and Lady Francis
Egerton) upon the expediency of Arnold's being made a bishop by the
prime minister of the day--I think his friend, Lord Melbourne--and
says that they gave their decided opinion against it. I wonder if
the correspondence which Lady Francis characterized as
"unsatisfactory" was her ground of objection against Arnold. It is a
curious thing to me to imagine his calling to the highest
ecclesiastical office to have depended in any measure upon her
opinion.
I forget what Arnold's politics were; of course, some shade of Whig
or Liberal, if he was to be a bishop of Lord Melbourne's. The
Ellesmeres were Tories: she a natural Conservative, and somewhat
narrow-minded, though excellently conscientious; but if she
prevented Arnold being named to the Queen, she certainly exercised
an influence for which I do not think she was quite qualified. I
think it not improbable that Arnold's orthodoxy may not have
satisfied her, and beyond that question she would not go.]
Wednesday, December 10th, 1845.
Here, dearest Hal, are J---- C----'s verses; I think they have merit,
though being myself the subject of them may militate against my being
altogether a fair judge. He stood by me when last I sailed from America,
until warned, with the rest of my friends, to forsake me and return to
the shore....
All poets have a feminine element (good or bad) in them, but a feminine
man is a species of being less fit, I think, than even an average woman
to do battle with adverse circumstance and unfavorable situation....
You ask me about my interviews with Mrs. Jameson. She has called twice
here, but did not on either occasion speak of her difference with my
sister. To-day, however, I went to Ealing to see her, and she then spoke
about it; not, however, with any feeling or much detail: indeed, she did
not refer at all to the cause of rupture between them, but merely
stated, with general expressions of regret, that they were no longer
upon cordial terms with each other....
Mrs. Jameson told me a story to-day which has put the climax to a horrid
state of nervous depression brought on by a conversation with my father
this morning, during which every limb of my body twitched as if I had
St. Vitus's dance. The scene of the story was Tetschen, the Castle of
the Counts Thun, of which strange and romantic residence George Sand has
given a detailed description in her novel of "Consuelo." ...
As for the Moloch-worships of this world, of course those who practise
them have their reward; they pass their children through the fire, and I
suppose that thousands have agonized in so sacrificing their children.
Is it not wonderful that Christ came eighteen hundred years ago into the
world, and that these pitiless, mad devil-worships are not yet swept out
of it?...
I cannot tell you anything about myself, and, indeed, I can hardly think
of myself....
My father has determined not to accompany me to Italy, so I shall go
alone....
God bless you.
Ever yours,
FANNY.
Friday, 12th, 1845.
Your ink-bottle, my dear, has undergone an improvement, if indeed
anything so excellent could admit of bettering. The little round
glutinous stopper--india-rubber, I believe--from the peculiar
inconvenience of which I presume the odious little thing derives its
title as patent, has come unfastened from the top, and now, every time I
open and shut it, I am compelled to ink my fingers all over, in order to
extract this admirable stopper from the mouth of the bottle, or crane it
back into its patent position in the lid, where it won't stay. 'Tis
quite an invaluable invention for the practice of patience.
I have nothing whatever to tell you. Two days ago my father informed me
he had determined to send me alone to Italy. Since then I have not heard
a word more from him upon the subject. He read at Highgate yesterday
evening for the second time this week, but, as he had dinner engagements
each time at the houses of people I did not know, I did not accompany
him. I think he reads to-morrow at Islington, and if so I shall ask him
to let me go with him. He reads again on Thursday next, at Highgate....
I believe my eyes are growing larger as I grow older, and I don't wonder
at it, I stare so very wide so very often, Mrs. ---- talks sentimental
morality about everything; her notions are _pretty near_ right, which is
the same thing as pretty near wrong (for "a miss," you know, "is as good
as a mile"). She is near right enough to amaze me how she contrives to
be so much nearer wrong; she is like a person trying to remember a tune,
and singing it not quite correctly, while you know it better, and can't
sing it at all, and are ready to go mad with mistakes which you
perceive, without being able to rectify them: that is a musical
experience of which you, not being musical, don't know the torture....
Did I tell you that Mrs. Jameson showed me the other day a charming
likeness of my sister which she had made--like that pretty thing she did
of me--with all the dresses of her parts? If I could have done a great
littleness, I could have gone down on my knees and begged for it; I
wished for it so much.
She spoke to me in great tribulation about a memoir of Mrs. Harry
Siddons which it seems she was to have undertaken, but which Harry
Siddons (her son) and William Grant (her son-in-law) do not wish
written. Mrs. Jameson seems to feel some special annoyance upon this
subject, and says that Mrs. Harry was herself anxious to have such a
record made of her; and this surprises me so much, knowing Mrs. Harry as
I thought I did, that I find it difficult to believe it....
Do you remember, after our reading together Balzac's "Récherche de
l'Absolu," your objecting to the character of Madame de Cläes, and very
justly, a certain meretricious taint which Balzac seldom escapes in his
heroines, and which in some degree impaired the impression that
character, in many respects beautifully conceived and drawn, would have
produced? Well, there is a vein of something similar in Mrs. ----'s
mind, and to me it taints more or less everything it touches. She showed
me the other day an etching of Eve, from one of Raphael's compositions.
The figure, of course, was naked, and being of the full, round,
voluptuous, Italian order, I did not admire it,--the antique Diana,
drawing an arrow from her quiver, her short drapery blown back from her
straight limbs by her rapid motion, being my ideal of beauty in a
womanly shape. "Ah, but," said Mrs. ----, "look at the inimitable
_coquetry_ of her whole air and posture: how completely she seems to
know, as she looks at the man, that he can't resist her!" (It strikes me
that that whole sentence ought to be in French.) Now, this is not at all
my notion of Eve; even when she damned Adam and all the generations of
men, I think she was more innocent than this. I imagine her like an
eager, inquisitive, greedy child, with the fruit, whatever it was, part
in her hand and part between her teeth, holding up her hand, or perhaps
her mouth, to Adam. You see my idea of Eve is a sensual, self-willed,
ignorant savage, who saw something beautiful, that smelt good, and
looked as if it tasted good, and so tasted it, without any aspiration
after any other knowledge. This real innate fleshly devil of greediness
and indiscretion would, however, not bear the heavy theological
superstruction that has been raised upon it, and therefore a desire for
forbidden knowledge is made to account for the woman's sin and the
sorrows of all her female progeny. To me this merely sensual sin, the
sin of a child, seems much more picturesque, a good deal fitter for the
purposes of art, without the mystic and mythical addition of an
intellectual desire for knowledge and the agency of the Satanic
serpent. Alas! the mere flesh is devil enough, and serves for all the
consequences.
Blackwood will publish my verses, and, I believe, pay me well for them;
indeed, I shall consider any payment at all good enough for such
trumpery.
Good-bye, dear.
I am ever yours,
FANNY.
My dearest Dorothea, or the Virgin Martyr, I make a courtesy to you. [By
this title of a play of Massinger's I used frequently to address Miss
Wilson, whose name was Dorothy.]
Saturday, December 13th, 1845.
Thank you, dear Hal, again, for those elastic circles. Now that I know
how to use them, I am extremely charmed with them. In my sister's letter
to me she gave me no further detail of her health than merely to state
that she had injured herself seriously by sitting for hours on the cold
stones of St. Peter's....
You know, dear Harriet, that few women have ever had such an education
as to enable them fully to appreciate the classical associations of
Italy (by-the-by, do you remember that one brief and rather desponding
notice of female education in "Arnold's Letters"?); and as for me, I am
as ignorant as dirt, so that all that full and delightful spring of
pleasure which a fine classical knowledge opens to the traveller in the
heroic lands is utterly sealed to me. I have not even put my lips to the
brink of it. I have always thought that no form of human enjoyment could
exceed that of a thorough scholar, such a one as Arnold, for instance,
visiting Rome for the first time.
It is not, however, from recollection, association, or reflection that I
look to deriving pleasure in Italy, but from my vivid perceptive
faculties, from my senses (my nose, perhaps, excepted), and in the mere
beauty that remains from the past, and abides in the present, in those
Southern lands. You know what a vividly perceptive nature mine is; and,
indeed, so great is my enjoyment from things merely material that the
idea of ever being parted from this dear body of mine, through which I
perceive them and see, hear, smell, touch, and taste so much exquisite
pleasure, makes me feel rather uncomfortable. My spirit seems to me the
decidedly inferior part of me, and, compared with my body, which is, at
any rate, a good machine of its sort, almost a little contemptible,
decidedly not good of its sort. I sometimes feel inclined to doubt which
is the immortal; for I have hitherto suffered infinitely more from a
defective spirit than from what St. Paul calls "this body of
corruption."
My dear Harriet, if I get a chance to get into the waterfall at Tivoli,
you may depend upon it I will; because just at such times I have a
perfectly immortal faith in my mortality. Good-bye.
Ever yours,
FANNY.
Monday, December 15th, 1845.
DEAREST HAL,
Thank you for your nice inkstand, but I do not like your sending it to
me, nevertheless; because I am sure it is a very great privation to you,
being, as you are, particular and fidgety in such matters; and it is not
a great gain to me, who do not care what I write out of, and surely I
shall always be able, go where I will, among frogs or macaronis, to
procure _sucre noir_ or _inchiostro nero_ to indite to you with. I shall
send you back the poor dear little beloved pest you sent me first,
because I am sure the stopper can be readjusted, and then it will be as
_good_ as ever, and you will have a peculiar inkstand to potter with,
without which I do not believe you would be yourself.
Thank you for the extract from Arnold. I have no idea that Adam was "a
mystical allegory," and you know that I believe every man to be his own
devil, and a very sufficient one for all purposes of (so-called)
damnation....
I suppose the history of Genesis to be the form assumed by the earliest
traditions in which men's minds attempted to account for the creation
and the first conditions of the human species. The laborious and
perilous existence of man; the still more grievous liabilities of woman,
who among all barbarous people is indeed the more miserable half of
mankind: and it seems obvious that in those Eastern lands, where these
traditions took their birth, the growth of venomous reptiles, the
deadliest and most insidious of man's natural enemies, should suggest
the idea of the type of all evil.
Moses (to whom the Genesis is, I believe, in spite of some later
disputants, generally attributed), I presume, accepted the account as
literally true, as probably did the authorities, Chaldean or other, from
which he derived it....
Moses' "inspiration" did not prevent his enacting some illiberal and
cruel laws, among many of admirable wisdom and goodness; and I see no
reason why it should have exempted him from a belief in the traditions
of his age....
I have heard that there has lately been found in America part of the
fossil vertebræ of a serpent which must have measured, it is said, _a
hundred and forty feet_! I cannot say I believe it, but if any human
creatures inhabited the earth at the time when such "small gear" are
supposed to have disported themselves on its surface, if the merest
legend containing reference to such a "worm" survived to scare the early
risers on this planet of ours, in its first morning hours of
consolidation, who can wonder that such a creature should become the
hideous representative of all evil, the origin of all sin and suffering,
and the special being between which and the human race irreconcilable
enmity was to exist forever? for surely not even the most regenerate
mind in Christendom could live on decent terms with the best-disposed
snake of such a length as that.
I do not think Mrs. Jameson had positively _done_ anything in the matter
of Mrs. Harry Siddons's memoirs beyond looking over a good many papers
and _preparing her mind_ with a view to it; and what you tell me a
little shakes my confidence in my own opinion upon the subject, which,
indeed, was by no means positively made up about it, because I know--at
least I think--there _were_ elements in Mrs. Harry's mind not altogether
incompatible perhaps with the desire of leaving some record of herself,
or having such made for her by others.... There are few people whom I
pity more than Mrs. Jameson. I always thought she had a great deal of
good in her, but the finer elements in her character have become more
apparent and valuable to me the longer I have known her; her abilities
are very considerable, and her information very various and extensive;
she is a devoted, dutiful daughter, and a most affectionate and generous
sister, working laboriously for her mother and the other members of her
family.... I compassionate and admire her very much.
I dined on Friday last with dear Miss Cottin, who is a second edition of
my dear Aunt Dall. Think of having known two such angels in one's life!
On Saturday I dined _tête-à-tête_ with Mrs. Procter, who is extremely
kind to me.... Yesterday I dined with my father at the Horace Wilsons';
to-day I dine with Chorley, and to-morrow at the George Siddonses'.
You cannot think how much my late experiences have shattered me and
broken my nervous equanimity.... To-day my father came suddenly into the
room while I was playing on the piano, and startled me so by merely
speaking to me that I burst into tears, and could not stand for several
minutes, I trembled so. I have been suffering for some time past from an
almost constant pain in my heart. I have wretched nights, and sometimes
pass the whole morning of these days when I dine out, sitting on the
floor, crying....
God bless you, dear.
Ever your affectionate
FANNY.
MORTIMER STREET, December, 1845.
No, my dearest Hal, it would be impossible for me to tell you how sad I
am; and instead of attempting to do so, my far better course is to try
and write of something else.
My father still sits with maps and guide-books about him, debating of my
route; and though I told him the other day that I would be ready to
start at any moment he appointed, and that we both agreed that, on
account of the cold, I had better not delay my departure, he has neither
determined my line of march nor said a single word to me about my means
of subsistence while I am abroad.
This morning he said that he had not yet entirely resolved not to
accompany me; that if he could conscientiously do it, he should like it
of all things; but that he did not feel warranted in neglecting any
opportunity of making money. I think, perhaps, he is postponing his
determination till some answer is received from America about V----'s
tiny legacy to me.... But the very quickest answer to that letter cannot
reach England before the middle of next month, and it seems a great
pity to delay starting till the weather becomes so cold that we must
inevitably suffer from it in travelling.
I feel no anxiety about the whole matter, or indeed any other. I am just
as well here, and just as well there, and just as well everywhere as
anywhere else. And though I should be glad to see all those much desired
things, and most glad to embrace my sister again, and though I am
occasionally annoyed and vexed here, I have many friends, and am very
well off in London; and elsewhere, of course, I shall find what will
annoy and vex me. I am quite "content," a little after Shylock's fashion
at the end of the judgment scene. At the core of some "content" what
heart-despair may abound!...
I told you of my dining at Mrs. Procter's yesterday. She was quite
alone.... She showed me a beautiful song written by my sister, words and
music, a sort of lullaby, but the most woful words! I think I must have
inspired her with them, they threw me into such a state of nervous
agitation....
What a machine _I_ am shut up in! Surely a desire to beget a temperance
in all things had need be the law of _my_ existence; and, but that I
believe work left unfinished and imperfect in this life is finished in
another, I should think the task almost too difficult of achievement to
begin it here.
God bless you, dear.
Ever yours affectionately,
FANNY.
Wednesday, December 17th, 1845.
I found at last the little cross you have made over your house in the
engraving of the St. Leonard's Esplanade, and when I had found it
wondered how I came to miss it; but the truth is it was a blot, and the
truth is I took it for nothing more....
You know I think, in spite of the French proverb, "_Toute vérité n'est
pas bonne à dire_," that I think all truth _is_ to be told; that is the
teller's part: how it is received, or what effect it has, is the
receiver's.... I think to suspect a person of wrongdoing more painful
than to know that they have done wrong. In the first place, uncertainty
upon the character of those we love--the most vital thing in life to us,
except our own character--is the worst of all uncertainties. Your trust
is shaken, your faith destroyed; belief, that soul of love, is
disturbed, and, in addition to all this, as long as any element of
uncertainty remains you have the alternate misery of suspecting yourself
of unworthy, wicked, and base thoughts, of unjust surmises and
uncharitable conclusions. When you know that those you love have sinned
against you, your way is open and comparatively easy, for you have only
to forgive them. I believe I am less sorry to find that A---- has
wronged me by her actions than I should have been to find that I had
wronged her by my thoughts.... I would a great deal rather have to
forgive her for her misconduct, and pity her for her misery, poor woman!
than blame myself for the wickedness of unworthily suspecting her. I am
really relieved to know that, at any rate, I have not done her
injustice.
I have been about all day, getting my money and passport, and paying
bills and last visits. I go on Saturday to Southampton, and cross to
Havre. I do not know why Emily fancied I was to be at Bannisters
to-night, but that last week, when my father suddenly asked me how soon
I could start, I replied, "In twenty-four hours," and then wrote to
Emily that possibly I might be at Southampton to-day. I go by diligence
from Havre to Rouen, by railroad from Rouen to Paris, in the same
_coupé_ of the diligence which is put bodily--the diligence, I
mean--upon the rails; thence to Orleans by post-road, ditto; thence to
Châlons-sur-Sâone, ditto, down the Sâone to Lyons, down the Rhone to
Marseilles; steam thence to Civita Vecchia, and then vetturino to Rome.
This is the route my father has made out for me; and, all things
considered, I think it is the best, and presents few difficulties or
inconveniences but those inevitable ones which must be encountered in
travelling anywhere at this season of the year.
I shall not see you before I go, my dearest Hal, but I shall be with you
before the Atlantic separates us once again; I know not how or where,
but look forward to some season of personal intercourse with you before
I return once more to America. The future, to be sure, lies misty enough
before me, but I have always a feeling of nearness to you which even the
Alps rising between us will not destroy, and I do not doubt to see you
again before many months are passed. I am going this evening to the Miss
Berrys'; they have asked me repeatedly to dine with them, and I have
not had a single disengaged day, and as they have taken the trouble of
coming to see after me bodily several times, I must pay my respects to
them before I go, as in duty bound....
I had a letter from T----; he had not yet received either of mine, and
knew nothing of Philadelphia or any of its inhabitants. He seems to
think the Oregon question very black, and that the aspect of affairs on
both sides of the water threatens war....
My father now talks of reading in every direction as soon as I am
gone--Manchester, Liverpool, Edinburgh; the latter place he told me he
thought he should go to in March; and then again, every now and then, he
says, as soon as he can settle his affairs he shall come after me, as he
should like to be in Rome at Easter to get the Pope's blessing. God
bless you with a better blessing, my dearest Hal!
Ever yours,
FANNY.
... Charles Greville has given me a book of his to read: it is very well
written and interests me a good deal; it is upon the policy of England
towards Ireland. He so habitually in conversation deals in the merest
gossip, and what appears to me to be the most worldly, and therefore
superficial, view of things, that I am agreeably surprised by the
ability displayed in his book; for though it is not in any way
extraordinary, it is in every way beyond what I expected from him.
[The direct railroad routes through France are now followed by all
travellers to Italy, and the picturesque coach-road which I took
from Orleans to Autun at this time, when they did not exist, is
little likely to draw wayfarers aside from them; nor was the season
of the year when I made that journey at all a favorable one in which
to visit the forest and mountain region of the Nivernais. I was
snowed up at a miserable little village among the hills called
Château Chinon; the diligences were unable for several days to come
up thither, the roads being impassable, and I had to make my way
through the picturesque wild region in a miserable species of
dilapidated cabriolet, furnished me at an exorbitant price from
Château Chinon to Autun, where I was again picked up by the
diligence.]
Thursday, December 18th, 1845.
MY DEAREST HAL,
I leave London the day after to-morrow for Southampton. I am full of
calls, bills, visits, sorrow, perplexity, and nervous agitation, which
all this hurry and bustle increase tenfold; letters to write, too, for
the American post is in, and has brought me four from the other side of
the water to deal with. In the middle of all this, Mrs. Jameson sends me
long letters of Sarah Grant's and Mary Patterson's to read, which prove
most distinctly to my mind that she, Mrs. Jameson, wishes to write a
memoir of Mrs. Harry Siddons; but do not at all prove so distinctly to
my mind that Mrs. Harry Siddons wished a memoir of herself to be written
by Mrs. Jameson. So all this I have had to wade through, and shall have
to answer, wondering all the while what under the sun it matters what I
think about the whole concern, or why people care one straw what
people's opinions are about them, or what they do.
My opinion about memoirs, biographies, autobiographies, lives, letters,
and books in general indeed, Mrs. Jameson is perfectly familiar with;
and therefore her making me go through this voluminous correspondence
just now, when she knows how pressed I am for time, seems to me a little
unmerciful; but, however, I've done it, that's one comfort.
Then comes dear George Combe, with a long letter, the second this week,
upon the subject of Miss C----'s private character, family connections,
birth, parentage, reputation, etc., desiring me to answer all manner of
questions about her; and I know no more of her than I do of the man in
the moon: and all this must likewise be attended to....
About my consulting Wilson (our attached friend and family physician), I
did so when I was here before, and I am following the advice he then
gave me; but for these physical effects of mental causes, what can be
done as long as the causes continue?...
Hayes (my maid) and I are to take the _coupé_ of the diligence wherever
we can get it on our route, and so proceed together and alone. I shall
pay for the third place, but it is worth while to pay something to be
protected from the proximity of some travelling Frenchmen; and paying
for this extra place is not a very great extravagance, as the cost of
travelling by public conveyance on the Continent is very moderate.
I do not know when Blackwood intends publishing my things. I gave them
into Chorley's hands, and Chorley's discretion, and know nothing further
about them, but that I believe I shall be paid for them what he calls
"tolerably well," and therefore what I shall consider magnificently
well, inasmuch as they seem to me worth nothing at all.
I hear of nothing but the change of Ministry, but have been so much
engrossed with my own affairs that I have not given much attention to
what I have heard upon the subject. I believe Sir Robert Peel will come
into some coalition with the Whigs, Lord John Russell, Lord Howick,
etc., and this is perhaps the best thing that can happen, because, by
all accounts, the Whigs have literally not got a man to head them. But I
do not think anything is yet decided upon.
And now, my dear, I must break off, and write to M---- M----, _and_
George Combe about Miss C----'s virtue (why the deuce doesn't he look
for it in her skull?), _and_ Mrs. Jameson, _and_ all America.
I breakfasted this morning with Rogers, and dine this evening at the
Procters'. What an enviable woman I might appear!--only you know better.
Yours truly,
FANNY.
MORTIMER STREET, Friday Night (_i.e._ Saturday Morning,
at 2 o'clock), December 19th, 1845.
No! my dearest Hal, I do not think that to one who believes that life is
spiritual education it needs any very painful or difficult investigation
of circumstances to perceive, not why such and such special trials are
sent to certain individuals, but that all trial is the positive result
of or has been incurred by error or sin; and beholding the beautiful
face of bitterest adversity, for such is one of its aspects, that all
trial is sent to teach us better things than we knew, or than we did,
before. There is nothing for which God's mercy appears to me more
praiseworthy than the essential essence of improvement, of progress, of
growth, which _can_ be expressed from the gall-apple of our sorrows. To
each soul of man the needful task is set, the needful discipline
administered, and therefore it doesn't seem to me to require much
investigation into mere circumstances to accept my own trials. They are
appointed to me because they are best for me, and whatever my apparent
impatience under them, this is, in deed and truth, my abiding faith....
But it is past two o'clock in the morning. I am almost exhausted with
packing and writing. Seven letters lie on my table ready to be sealed,
seven more went to the post-office this afternoon; but though I will not
sleep till I bid you good-night, I will not write any more than just
that now. My fire is out, my room cold, and, being tired with packing, I
am getting quite chilled. You must direct to me to the care of Edward
Sartoris, Esq., Trinità dei Monti, Rome, and I will answer you, as you
know. I will write to you to-morrow, that is to-day, when I get to
Bannisters; or perhaps before I start, if I can get up early enough to
get half an hour before breakfast.
Good-night. God bless you. I am unutterably sad, and feel as though I
were going away from everybody, I know not whither--it is all vague,
uncertain, indefinite, all but the sorrow which is inseparable from me,
go where I will, a companion I can reckon upon for the rest of my life
everywhere. As for the rest, if we did but recollect it, our next minute
is always the unknown.
Ever yours,
FANNY.
BANNISTERS, Saturday, December 20th, 1845.
MY DEAREST HARRIET,
My last words and thoughts were yours last night; but this morning, when
I hoped to have written to you again, I found it impossible to do so; so
here I am in the room at Bannisters where you and I and Emily were
sitting together a few weeks ago,--she on her knees, writing for a fly
to take me to the steamer to-night, and I writing to you from this
place, where it seems as if you were still sitting beside us. Emily
won't let me send you your little square ink-bottle for Queen's heads,
but says she will keep it for you, so there I leave it in her hands.
Charles Greville's book (for it is not a pamphlet) is called "The Policy
of England to Ireland," or something as nearly like that as possible. My
praise of it may occasion you some disappointment, for I am pleased with
it more because it is so much better than anything I expected from him
than because it is particularly powerful or striking in itself. The
subject interests me a good deal, and the book is very agreeably and
well written, and in a far better tone than I should have looked for in
anything of his.
I have besought Mr. Lowndes to forward my letters to me without any
delay, and I have no doubt he will do so....
As for death, well is it with those who quietly reach the fifth act of
their lives, with only the usual and inevitable decay and dropping off
of all beloved things which time must bring; the sudden catastrophe of
adverse circumstance, wrecking a whole existence in the very middle of
its course, is a more terrible thing than death.
My dearest Hal, I have no more to say but that "I love you." Emily is
talking to me, and I feel as if I ought to talk to her. Give my dear
love to dear Dorothy, and believe me
Ever yours,
FANNY.
ROME, TRINITÀ DEI MONTI, Monday, April 20th, 1846.
You ask me what I shall do in the spring, my dear Hal. My present plan
is to return to England next December, and remain with my father, if he
can have me with him without inconvenience, till the weather is fine
enough to admit of my returning without too much wretchedness to
America....
When E---- and my father wrote to me to return to England, I had no idea
but that I was to have a home with the latter, that he expected and
wished me to live with him.... I think now that if his deafness obliges
him to give up his public readings, and cuts him off from his club and
the society that he likes, he will not be sorry that I should remain
with him....
By-the-by, I take your question about my plans for the spring to refer
not to this but to next spring, as I suppose you know that I mean to
remain with my sister during the coming summer, and that we are going to
spend the greater part of it at Frascati, where E---- has taken a
charming apartment in a lovely villa belonging to the Borghese.
You will be in England next winter, dear Hal, and I shall come then and
stay with you and Dorothy. You have interfered so little with my
journal-keeping by your letters that I have been wondering and lamenting
that I did not hear from you for the last some time, and was all but
wrought up to the desperate pitch of writing to you _out of turn_, to
know what was the matter, when I received your last letter. I do not,
however, keep my journal with any sort of regularity; my time is
extremely and very irregularly occupied, and I should certainly preserve
no record whatever of my impressions but for the very disagreeable
conviction that it is my duty to do so, if there is, as I believe there
is, the slightest probability of my being able by this means to earn a
little money and to avoid drawing upon my father's resources. I have a
great contempt for this process, and a greater contempt for the barren
balderdash I write: but exchange is no robbery, a thing is worth what it
will fetch, and if a bookseller will buy my trash, I will sell it to
him; for beggars must, in no case, be choosers....
You say that I have yet told you nothing of my satisfaction in Rome. I
wish you had not made your challenge so large. How shall I tell you of
my satisfaction in Rome? and at which end of Rome, or my satisfaction,
shall I begin? You must remember, in the first place, that its
strangeness is not absolutely to me what it is to many English people;
the brilliant and enchanting sky is not unlike that with which I have
been familiar for some years past in America; the beautiful and (to us
Anglo-Saxon islanders) unusual vegetation bears some resemblance to that
of the Southern States in winter. Boston, you know, is in the same
latitude as Rome, and though the American northern winter is
incomparably more severe than that of Italy, the summer heat and the
southern semi-tropical vegetation are kindred features in that other
world and this. The difference of this winter climate and that of the
United States has hitherto been an unfavorable one to me; for I have
been extremely unwell ever since I have been here--the sirocco destroys
me body and soul while it lasts, and there is a sultry heaviness in the
atmosphere that gave me at first perpetual headaches, and still
continues to disagree extremely with me. Now, of these abatements of my
satisfaction I have told you, but of my satisfaction itself I should
find it impossible to tell, but I should think you might form some idea
of it, knowing both me and the place where I am.
I have hitherto been more anxious to remain with my sister than to go
and see even the sights of Rome. Now, however, that our departure for
Frascati must take place in about a month, I get up at seven every
morning, and go out before breakfast alone, and in this way I am
contriving to do some of my traveller's duty.
I walked this morning to the Pantheon, and heard Mass there. On my
return home, I went into the Church of the Trinità dei Monti, to hear
the French nuns sing their prayers. This afternoon we have been to the
Villa Albani, which is ridiculously full of rose-bushes, which are so
ridiculously full of roses that, except in a scene in a pantomime, I
never saw anything like it. We remained in the garden, and the day was
like a warm English April day, in consequence of which we had the
loveliest pageant of thick sullen rain and sudden brilliant flashes of
sunlight chasing each other all over those exquisite Alban Hills, with
our very _un_-English foreground of terraces, fountains, statues, vases,
evergreen garden walls of laurel, myrtle, box, laurestinus, and
ridiculous rose-bushes in ridiculous bloom. There never was a more
enchanting combination of various beauty than the landscape we looked at
and the place from which we looked at it. I brought away some roses and
lemon-blossoms: the latter I enclose in this letter, that some of the
sweetness I have been enjoying may salute your senses also, and recall
these divine scenes to your memory still more vividly. We came home from
the Villa Albani in the most tremendous pour of rain, and had hardly
taken off our bonnets when the whole sky, from the pines on Monte Maris
to the Dome of Santa Maria Maggiore, was bathed all over in beauty and
splendor indescribable. If we had only been Claude Lorraine, what a
sunset we should have painted!
We have a charming little terrace garden to our house here, in which my
"retired leisure" takes perpetual delight....
God bless you, dear.
Ever yours,
FANNY.
FRASCATI, Wednesday, May 20th, 1846.
MY DEAR HAL,
One would suppose that writing was to the full as disagreeable to you as
it is to me, yet you do not profess that it is so, but merely write that
you have little to say, as you think, that will interest me. Now, this
is, I think, a general fallacy, but I am sure it is an individual one:
the sight of your handwriting, representing as it does to me your face,
your voice, and, above all, your generous and constant affection, makes
the mere superscription of your letters worth a joyful welcome from me;
and for any dearth of matter on your part, it lies, I rather think,
chiefly in the direction which least affects me, _i.e._ society gossip,
or "_news_," _as it is called_ (O Lord! such _old_ news as it is), being
for ever the same stuff with a mere imperceptible difference in the
pattern on it, let it come from what quarter of the civilized globe it
will; and which, as far as I have had occasion to observe latterly,
forms the chief resource of "polite letter-writers."
Of matters that do interest me, you might surely have plenty to
say--your own health and frame of mind; the books you read, and what you
think of them; and whatever of special interest to yourself occurs,
either at home or abroad. At Ardgillan, you know, I know every inch of
_your_ ground, and between the little turret room and the Dell it seems
to me many letters might be filled; then the state of politics in
England interests me intensely; and the condition of Ireland is surely a
most fruitful theme for comment just now....
We are now at Frascati, and in spite of the inexhaustible, immortal
interest of Rome, I am rejoicing with my whole nature, moral, mental,
and physical, in our removal to the country. The beautiful aspect of
this enchanting region, occasionally, by rare accident, recalls the hill
country in America that I am so fond of; but this is of a far higher and
nobler order of beauty.
The Campagna itself is an ever-present feature of picturesque grandeur
in the landscape here, and gives it a character unlike anything anywhere
else.
The district of country round Lenox rejoices in a number of small lakes
(from one hill-side one sees five), of a few miles in circumference,
which, lying in the laps of the hills, with fine wooded slopes sweeping
down to their bright basins, give a peculiar charm to the scenery;
while here, as you know, the volcanic waters of Albano and Nemi lie so
deep in their rocky beds as to be invisible, unless from their very
margins.
Of the human picturesqueness of this place and people no American
scenery or population have an atom; and isolated, ugly, mean,
matter-of-fact farm-houses, or whitewashed, clap-boarded, stiff, staring
villages, alike without antiquity to make them venerable or
picturesqueness to make them tolerable, are all that there represent the
exquisitely grouped and colored masses of building, or solitary
specimens of noble time-tinted masonry and architecture, that every
half-fortress farmhouse in the plain, or hamlet or convent on the
hill-side, present in this paradise of painters.
I must confess to you, however, that the _populousness_ of this
landscape is not agreeable to me. Absolute loneliness and the absence of
every trace of human existence was such a striking feature of the
American scenery that I am fond of, where it was possible in some
directions to ride several miles without meeting man or woman or seeing
their dwellings, that the impossibility of getting out of sight of human
presence or human habitation is sometimes irksome to me here.
It is true that this scenery is often wildly sublime in its character;
nevertheless, it is overlooked in almost every direction by villas,
monasteries, or villages, and if one escapes from these (as, indeed, I
only suppose I _may_, for I have not yet been able to do so), one
stumbles among the ruins and gigantic remains of the great race that has
departed, and recollections of men, their works and ways, pursue one
everywhere, and surround one with the vestiges of the humanity of bygone
centuries.
In the woods of Massachusetts wild-cats panthers, and bears are yet
occasionally to be met with, and the absence of the human element,
whether present or past, gives a character of unsympathizing savageness
to the scenery; while here it has so saturated the very soil with its
former existence that where there is nobody there are millions of
ghosts, and that, if the sense of solitude is almost precluded, there is
an abiding and depressing one of desolate desertion.
The personal danger which I am told attends walking alone about the
woods and hills here rather impairs my enjoyment of the lovely
country....
How lamentably foolish human beings are in their intercourse with each
other, to be sure, whether they love or hate, or whatever they do!...
The epistle of yours that I am now answering I received only this
morning, and, owing no one else a previous debt, sat down instantly to
discharge my debt to you. Am I honest? am I just? If I am not, show me
how I am not; if I am, why, hold your tongue.
The climate of Rome disagreed with me more than any climate of which I
have yet had experience. I had a perpetual consciousness of my bilious
tendencies, and when the sirocco blew I found it difficult to bear up
against that and the permanent causes of depression I always have to
struggle against. The air here is undoubtedly freer and purer, but even
here we do not escape from that deadly hot wind, that blast, that I
should think came straight from hell, it is so laden with despair.
I liked those pretty lasses, the Ladies T----, very much. All young
people interest me, and must be wonderfully displeasing if they do not
please me. I met them frequently, but they were naturally full of gayety
and life and spirits, which I naturally was not. The little society I
went into in Rome oppressed me dreadfully with its ponderous vapidity,
and beyond exchanging a few words with these bonnie girls, and admiring
their sweet pleasant faces, I had nothing to do with them. There was
much talk about the chances of a marriage between Lord W---- and Lady
M----, but though her father left no stone unturned to accomplish this
great blessing for his pretty daughter, the matter seemed extremely
doubtful when the season ended and they all went off to Naples.
As for Mrs. H----, if she had chronicled me, I am afraid it would
scarcely have been with good words. I met her at a party at Mrs.
Bunsen's (whose husband is the son of Arnold's friend).... The young
lady impressed me as one of that numerous class of persons who like to
look at a man or woman whose name, for any reason, has been in the
public mouth, and probably her curiosity was abundantly satisfied by my
being brought up and shown to her. She made no particular impression
upon me, but I have no doubt that in sorrow, or joy, or any real genuine
condition, instead of what is called society, she might perhaps have
interested me. It takes uncommon powers of fascination, or what is even
rarer, perfect simplicity, to attract attention or arouse sympathy in
the dead atmosphere of modern civilized social intercourse. All is so
drearily dry, smooth, narrow, and commonplace that the great deeps of
life below this stupid stagnant surface are never seen, heard, or
thought of.
If your nieces' constancy in following the round of monotonously
recurring amusements of a Dublin season amazes me, they would certainly
think it much more amazing to pass one's time as I do, wandering about
the country alone, dipping one's head and hands into every wayside
fountain one comes to, and sitting down by it only to get up again and
wander on to the next spring of living water. The symbol is comforting,
as well as the element itself, though it is a mere suggestion of the
spiritual wells by which one may find rest and refreshment, and pause
and ponder on this dusty life's way of ours.
I rejoice the distress in Ireland is less than was anticipated, and am
sorry that I cannot sympathize with your nephew's political views
[Colonel Taylor was all his life a consistent and fervent Tory]....
Politics appear to me, in a free government, to be the especial and
proper occupation of a wealthy landowner; and, in such a country as
Ireland, I am sure they might furnish a noble field for the exercise of
the finest intelligence and the most devoted patriotism, as well as fill
the time with occupation of infinite interest, both of business and
benevolence. I should like to be a man with such a work....
My sister's little girl is lovely; she runs about, but does not speak
yet. God bless you, my dear friend. Give my love to dear Dorothy. If I
can, I will come and see you both at Torquay this next winter. I hope to
be in England in November.
Ever yours,
FANNY.
FRASCATI, Wednesday, July 1st, 1846.
... You know of old that the slightest word of blame from you is worse
than hot sealing-wax on my skin to me, and that to my self-justifications
there is no end. My dear friend, are mental perplexity and despondency,
moral difficulty, spiritual apathy, and a general bitter internal
struggle with existence, less real trials, less positive troubles, than
the most afflicting circumstances generally so classed? I almost doubt
it. It may be more difficult to formulate that species of anguish in
words, and it may seem a less positive and substantial grief than some
others, but the plagues of the soul are _real_ tortures, and I set few
sufferings above them, few difficulties and few pains beyond those that
have their source not in the outward dispensation of events, but in the
inward conditions of our physical and moral constitutions.
Comparing one lot with another, does not rather the equality of the
general doom of trouble and sorrow, of difficulty and struggle, witness
the impartiality with which we are governed and our several fates
distributed to us? The self-assured and self-relying strength of my
constitution (I mean by that my character as well as the temperament
from which it results) knows nothing of the trials that beset
yours--doubt, distrust, despondency. I have health, mental and physical
activity, and a "mounting spirit" of indomitable enjoyment that
buoyantly protects me from sufferings under which others wince and
writhe; nevertheless, I have the sufferings proper to my individuality,
and I needs must suffer, if it were only that I may be said to _live_,
in the fit and proper sense of the term. Our lots are just; by God they
are appointed....
But in spite of abiding sorrow, I have often hours of vivid enjoyment,
enjoyment which has nothing to do with happiness, or peace, or hope;
momentary flashes, bright gleams of exquisite pleasure, of which the
capacity seems indestructible in my nature; and whatever bitterness may
lie at my heart's core, it still leaves about it a mobile surface of
sensibility, which reflects with a sort of ecstasy every ray of light
and every form of beauty.
You certainly do not enjoy as I do, and perhaps therefore you do not
suffer as acutely; but we err in nothing more than in our estimate of
each other's natures, and might more profitably spend the same amount of
consideration upon our own lot, and its capabilities of sorrow or of joy
for our own improvement.
Why is it that people do perpetually live below their own pitch? as you
very truly described their living. My return to civilized society makes
me ponder much upon the causes of the desperate frivolity and dismal
inanity which calls itself by that name, and in the midst of which we
live and move and have our being. If people did really enjoy and amuse
themselves, nothing could be better; because enjoyment and amusement
_are_ great goods, and deserve to be labored for _sufficiently_; but the
absence of amusement, of enjoyment, of life, of spirits, of vivacity, of
_vitality_, in the society of the present day, and its so-called
diversions, strikes me with astonishment and compassion. For my own
part, I hold a good laugh to be inestimable in pleasure and in profit;
good nonsense well talked only less admirable than good sense well
delivered; and a spirit of fun the next best thing to a serious spirit;
and moreover, thank God, they are quite compatible! I think the stupid
shallowness of society has some deep causes; one among which is, of
course, that by devoting all their energies and all their faculties and
all their time to mere amusement, as they have no right to do, people
fail of their aim, and are neither well amused nor well occupied, nor
well anything else. For if "all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy,"
what does the reverse do for him? This passion for cakes and sugar-candy
in adult, not to say advanced, life is rather lugubrious; and of course
it strikes me forcibly on my return from America, where the absence of a
wholesome spirit of recreation is one of the dreariest features of the
national existence....
Here the absolute necessity for mere amusement strikes me as a sort of
dry-rot in certain portions of the fabric of civilized society, and
tends to make it a sapless crumbling mass of appearances--the most
ostentatious appearance of all, that of pleasure, being perhaps the
hollowest and most unreal.
It takes, I believe, no meaner qualities than intelligence and goodness
to enable a person to be thoroughly, heartily, and satisfactorily
amused.
Unless you, my dear friend, deprecate our meeting to part again, I have
no intention whatever of leaving England without seeing you once more. I
cannot imagine doing such a thing, unless in compliance with your wish,
or submission to inevitable necessity. I hope to come down to Torquay,
to you and Dorothy, for a few days in the winter.
I am amused at your saying that you don't think any one would feel very
comfortable living with me, who had not a great love of truth. Catherine
Sedgwick once said it was impossible to tell a lie before me _with any
comfort_; and yet I have told my own lies, and certainly sinned, as did
not the worthy lady who, being charged with a falsehood, replied
unhesitatingly, "Of course, I know it was a lie; _I made it!_ I thought
it would do good." Another lady of my acquaintance, speaking of a person
we both knew, who was indifferent, to say the least of it, upon the
question of veracity, exclaimed, "Oh, but Mrs. C---- is really too bad,
for she will tell stories _when there isn't the least necessity for
it_."
A---- was a curious instance of the distortion of a very upright nature;
for she is undoubtedly a person of great natural truth and integrity,
and yet, under the influence of an unfortunate passion, her pre-eminent
virtue suffered total eclipse; and she must have condescended, proud and
sincere as she was, to much duplicity and much absolute falsehood. Poor
girl!
I think one great argument against wrong-doing of every sort is that it
almost invariably, sooner or later, leads to a sacrifice of truth in
some way or other; and for that reason a hearty love of truth is a great
preservative from sin in general.
Your letters, directed either to Rome or here, to the care of Edward
Sartoris, have reached me hitherto safely and punctually....
My sister particularly begs me to tell you that she rides ("a-horseback,
you cuckoo!") between twelve and sixteen miles almost every day. I
cannot clearly tell whether she has grown thinner or I have grown used
to her figure.
The heat is beginning to be very oppressive, and I wish I was in
England, for I hate hot weather. The whole range of the Sabine Hills, as
I see them from my window here, look baked and parched and misty, in the
glare beyond the tawny-colored Campagna. Every flower in the garden has
bloomed itself away; the trees loll their heads to the hot gusts of the
sirocco, mocking one with the enchanting beckoning gesture of a breeze,
while the air is in truth like a blast from an oven or the draught at
the mouth of a furnace.
I walk before breakfast, and steep myself in perspiration; and get into
the fountain in the garden afterwards, and steep myself in cold water;
and by dint of the double process, live in tolerable comfort the rest of
the day. And I have no right to complain, for this is temperate to the
summer climate of Philadelphia.
Mary and Martha Somerville are paying us a visit of a few days, and I
have spent the last two mornings in a vast, princely, empty marble
gallery here, teaching them to dance the cachuca; and I wish you could
have seen Mrs. Somerville watching our exercises. With her eyeglasses to
her eyes, the gentle gentlewoman sat silently contemplating our
evolutions, and as we brought them to a conclusion, and stood (_not_
like the Graces) puffing and panting round her, unwilling not to say
some kindly word of commendation of our effort, she meekly observed,
"It's very pretty, very graceful, very"--a pause--"ladylike." She spoke
without any malicious intention whatever, dear lady, but she surely left
out the _un_. Do you not think it is time I should begin to think of
growing old? or do your nieces do anything more juvenile than this, with
all their ball-going?
God bless you, my dear Harriet. Good-bye.
I am ever, as ever yours,
FANNY.
FRASCATI, Wednesday, September 2nd, 1846.
MY DEAREST HARRIET,
... I think that the women who have contemplated _any_ equality between
the sexes have almost all been unmarried, for while the father disposes
of the children whom he maintains, and which thus endows him with the
power of supreme torture, what mother's heart is proof against the
tightening of that screw? At any rate, what number of women is ever
likely to be found so organized or so principled as to resist the
pressure of this tremendous power? My sister, in speaking to me the
other day of what she would or would not give up to her husband of
conscientious conviction of right, wound up by saying, "But sooner than
lose my children, there is _nothing_ that I would not do;" and in so
speaking she undoubtedly uttered the feeling of the great majority of
women....
We suppose my father has gone to Germany, with some intention of giving
readings there. He has been on the Continent now upwards of three
months, but we never hear anything definite or precise about his
engagements from himself; and in his letters he never mentions place,
person, or purpose, where he is going, or where likely to be; so that I
can form no idea how long I may be deprived of my letters, which are
directed to London, to his care.
My dearest Hal, I have kept no journal since I have been abroad but such
as could be published verbatim. I have kept no record of my own life; I
have long felt that to chronicle it would not assist me in enduring
it.... Indeed, since I came to Italy, I should have kept no diary at
all, but that my doing so was suggested to me as a possible means of
earning something towards my present support, and with that view I have
noted what I have seen, much to my own disgust and dissatisfaction; for
I feel very strongly my own inability to give any fresh interest to a
mere superficial description of things and places seen and known by
everybody, and written about by all the world and his wife, for the last
hundred years. Nevertheless, I have done it; because I could not
possibly neglect any means whatever that were pointed out to me of
helping myself, and relieving others from helping me.... I have given up
my walk and my dip in the fountain before breakfast. We ride for three
or four hours every afternoon, and a walk of two hours in the morning
besides seemed to me, upon reflection, a disproportionate allowance of
mere physical exercise for a creature endowed with brains as well as
arms and legs.... Upon the whole, we have reason to be grateful for the
health we have all of us enjoyed. There has been a great deal of violent
and dangerous illness among the English residents passing the summer at
Frascati and Albano; quite enough indeed, I think, to justify the ill
repute of unhealthiness with which the whole of this beautiful region is
branded. Our whole family has escaped all serious inconvenience, either
from the malaria usual to the place or the unusual heat of the summer;
the children especially have been in admirable health and lovely looks,
the whole time we have been here....
God bless you, my dearest Hal! I am afraid that it is true that I often
appear wanting in charity towards the vices and follies of my
fellow-creatures; and yet I really have a great deal more than my
outbreaks of vehement denunciation would seem to indicate; and of one
thing I am sure, that with regard to any wrong or injury committed
against myself, a very short time enables me not only to forgive it, but
to perceive all the rational excuses and attenuations that it admits of.
I certainly am not conscious of any bitterness of heart towards any
one.... I believe it is only in the first perception of evil or sense of
injury that I am unmeasured or unreasonable in my expression of
condemnation--but you know, my dear, _suddenness_ is the curse of my
nature.... But my self-love always springs up against the shadow of
blame, and so you need pay no heed to what I say in self-justification.
If I am censured justly, I shall accept the reproof inwardly, whatever
outward show I may make of defending myself against it; for the grace of
humility is even more deficient in me than that of charity, and to
submit graciously to what seems to me unjust blame is hitherto a virtue
I do not possess at all.
[After my return to England, I resumed the exercise of my theatrical
profession; the less distasteful occupation of giving public
readings, which I adopted subsequently, was not then open to me. My
father was giving readings from Shakespeare, and it was impossible
for me to thrust my sickle into a field he was reaping so
successfully. I therefore returned to the stage; under what
disadvantageously altered circumstances it is needless to say.
A stout, middle-aged, not particularly good-looking woman, such as I
then was, is not a very attractive representative of Juliet or
Julia; nor had I, in the retirement of nine years of private life,
improved by study or experience my talent for acting, such as it
was. I had hardly entered the theatre during all those years, and my
thoughts had as seldom reverted to anything connected with my former
occupation. While losing, therefore, the few personal qualifications
(of which the principal one was youth) I ever possessed for the
younger heroines of the drama, I had gained none but age as a
representative of its weightier female personages--Lady Macbeth,
Queen Katherine, etc.
Thus, even less well fitted than when first I came out for the work
I was again undertaking, I had the additional disadvantage of being
an extremely incompetent woman of business; and having now to make
my own bargains in the market of public exhibition, I did so with
total want of knowledge and experience to guide me in my dealings
with the persons from whom I had to seek employment.
I found it difficult to obtain an engagement in London; but Mr.
Knowles, of the Manchester Theatre, very liberally offered me such
terms as I was thankful to accept; and I there made my first
appearance on my return to the stage.
Among the various changes which I had to encounter in doing so, one
that might appear trivial enough occasioned me no little annoyance.
The inevitable rouge, rendered really indispensable by the ghastly
effect of the gaslight illumination of the stage, had always been
one of its minor disagreeables to me; but I now found that, in
addition to rouged cheeks, my fair theatrical contemporaries--fair
though they might be--literally whitewashed their necks, shoulders,
arms, and hands; a practice which I found it impossible to adopt;
and in spite of my zealous friend Henry Greville's rather indignant
expostulation, to the effect that what so beautiful a woman as
Madame Grisi condescended to do, for the improvement of her natural
charms, was not to be disdained by a person so comparatively ugly, I
steadily refused to make a whited sepulchre of _that_ description of
myself, and continued to confront the public with my own skin,
looking, probably, like a gypsy, or, when in proximity with any
feminine coadjutor, like a bronze figure arm-in-arm with a
plaster-of-Paris cast.
Before, however, beginning my new existence of professional toil, I
stayed a few days at Bannisters, with Mrs. FitzHugh and my dear
friend, her daughter Emily.]
BANNISTERS, Tuesday, 13th, 1846.
You say, my dear Hal, that you see Emily and me perpetually, in various
positions, holding various conversations. Had you a vision of us this
morning, by the comfortable fire in my room, I reading, and she
listening to, your letter?...
Thank you, my dear friend, for your _flagellatory_ recipe, which I beg
to decline. The sponging with vinegar and water I do practise every
morning, and as I persevere in it until my fingers can hardly hold the
sponge for cold, and my throat is as crimson as if it were flayed, I
hope it will answer the same purpose as lashing myself, which I object
to, partly, I suppose, for Sancho Panza's reasons, and partly because of
its great resemblance to, not to say identity with, the superstitious
practices of the idolatrous and benighted Roman Catholic Church.
The amount of medical advice and assistance which I have received since
I have been restored to the affectionate society of my dear Emily and
her kind mother is hardly to be told....
I shall not answer your letter seriously: I am convinced it is bad for
you. I believe Dorothy never laughs (you know the Devil in "Faust" says
the Almighty never does), and I am satisfied that what you are
languishing for is a little _absurdity_, which she cannot by any
possibility afford you.
How I wish I was with you! because, though I am no more absurd than that
sublime woman Dorothy, I at least know how to take the best advantage,
both for you and myself, of the great gifts you possess in that line;
and the mutual sweetness and utility of our intercourse is, I am
persuaded, principally owing to the judicious use I make of the
extraordinary amount of absurdity it has pleased Heaven to vouchsafe
you, my most precious friend.
And so you think I shall have plenty of "admiring friends" for my "gay
hours" (!!!!), but shall be glad to fall back, in my less delightful
ones, upon the devoted affection of--you? (Oh, Harriet, oughtn't you to
be ashamed of yourself?)
I have more friends, I humbly and devoutly thank God for them, than
almost any one I know; those I depend upon I can count upon the fingers
of one hand, and you are the _thumb_.
In the useless struggle you persist in making to be reasonable (why
don't you give it up? I've known you hopelessly at it now forty years or
thereabouts), you really make use of very singular and, permit me to
say, inappropriate language. After detailing, in a manner that nearly
made me cry and laugh with distress for you and disapprobation of you,
all your unnecessary agonies of anxiety about me, you suddenly rein
yourself up with an extra-reasonable jerk, and say that "the foolish
importance you attach to _trifles_ is as great as ever."
Now, my dearest friend, for such you undoubtedly are, allow me to
observe that this mode of speaking of me does not appear to me either
reasonable or appropriate. From what point of view I can appear a
_trifle_ to the most partial and rational of my friends, I am at a loss
to conjecture. The parallel seems to me to halt on all its feet. A
_white_, _light_, _sweet_, and _agreeable_ article of human consumption
bears, I apprehend, extremely small affinity to a _dark_, _heavy_,
_tart_, and _uneatable_ female. However, if you find that this, to me,
singularly distorted mode of viewing facts assists your hitherto
unsuccessful efforts at mental and moral equipoise, I am perfectly
willing to be a trifle in your estimation, or indeed anywhere but on
your table.
The pretty, pretty plan you devise for our meeting here during Passion
week, dear Hal, is a baseless vision. Our friends go up to London the
week after next, and I do not know when I shall be able again to stay so
far from it.
I have written to Moxon about the publication of my journal, and I
received a note from him this morning, intimating his purpose of
visiting me here, in the course of to-day, at which I feel rather
nervously dismayed.... There is a great quantity of it, and I suppose my
return to the stage may perhaps have some effect in increasing its sale.
Emily and I walk every day together, up and down the shrubbery and round
the gardens; and innumerable are the ejaculations of "Oh, how I wish
dear Hal was with us!" You are our proper complement, the missing side
of the triangle, and it is unnatural for us two to be together here
without you.
Mrs. FitzHugh is certainly a wonderful old woman, especially in her
kindliness and happy, easy cheerfulness....
We drive every day for about an hour in the pony-carriage, and walk
again for about half an hour afterwards....
And now, God bless you, my dearest Hal. I long to see you, and am most
thankful for all the tender, devoted, anxious affection you bestow on
me; I am unspeakably _grateful_ to you. Kiss dear Dorothy for me, and
tell her for goodness' sake to exert herself, and either be, or allow
you to be, slightly ridiculous, or she will die of perfection, and you
of a plethora of absurdity, or ridiculousness _rentré_--struck in, as
the French say.
I forgot to tell you that ---- has declined my terms, but offered me
others, which I have declined. I have still two other managers, with one
of whom I think I may perhaps be able to come to some agreement.
Since writing thus far, I have seen Moxon, who has offered me far more
than I expected for my journal before reading it; begging me to let him
pay me a portion of it at once, and adding that if, upon perusal of the
manuscript, he thinks his profits likely to warrant his giving me more
than the sum now named, he should not consider himself justified in not
doing so by the fact of his having offered me less.
Good-bye, dearest.
Yours ever,
FANNY.
[It is impossible to have been more generous than Mr. Moxon was in
this whole transaction. While talking about the dealings of
booksellers with authors, he said that he always bore in mind the
liberality he had benefited by when, starting in business a poor and
obscure publisher, he had been munificently assisted by Rogers,
whose timely aid had laid the foundation of his prosperity. "As I
was dealt by," he said, "I endeavor to deal by others, and should be
glad to inspire them with the grateful regard towards me which I
shall always retain for him." Rogers surely did himself more
injustice by his tongue than all his enemies put together could have
done him; his acts of kindly generosity were almost as frequent as
his bitter, biting, cruel words.]
BANNISTERS, Saturday, 16th.
Yes, my dear Hal, I do intend to correct my own proofs (I thought my
proofs corrected me)....
I have just returned from a delightful visit of two hours, which our
dear friend Emily contrived for me, to ----, the dentist! Not content
with cheering and soothing my sadder hours with the number and variety
of her medical resources (pills, draughts, doses, potions, lotions,
lozenges, etc.), her ever active and considerate affection hit upon this
agreeable method of relieving my stay at Bannisters of any possible
tedium, and two hours of the darkest, dampest, dreariest winter weather
have thus been charmed away through her tender and ingenious solicitude
for my enjoyment.
My dear Hal, what you say about laughing _with_ people, as an _instead_
for laughing _at_ them, is, like most things you say, frightful
nonsense. And what sort of a laugh, moreover, is it that you offer that
unfortunate Dorothy for her feeble participation? Nothing of a healthy,
wholesome, vigorous, vital, individual, personal kind; but some pitiful
pretence of wit or humor, having for its vague or indefinite object
ideal or general, abstract, impersonal, or, so to speak, invisible
intangible subjects, wanting all the vivacious pungent stimulus that
belongs to real individual absurdity, and the direct ridicule of it,
judiciously and dexterously applied; the only efficient--I had almost
said legitimate--object of a rational creature's amusement. If Dorothy
depends upon you for her entertainment (otherwise than as you
involuntarily, unconsciously, naturally, and simply furnish it to me), I
pity her; and if you depend upon her for yours, I pity you still
more--for I doubt if even I, according to my own system, could extract
any from her, she is so _painfully_ _un_ridiculous. You must be
deplorably dull together, I am--certain, I was going to say--satisfied;
but that's neither kind nor civil, and I heartily wish for both _your_
sakes that I was with you.
I am not sure that that visit may not be accomplished yet; for my
reappearance on the stage does not seem likely to take place so very
immediately but that I might perhaps contrive to run down to you for a
short time. But, indeed, all my concerns are like so many pennies tossed
up in the air for "heads or tails," and I cannot tell how they will
fall, or what results I may arrive at.
I have been asked to go down to Manchester, to act, and if I have any
great difficulty or delay to encounter in finding an engagement in
London, I shall probably do so.... The step I am about to take is so
painful to me that all petty annoyances and minor vexations lose their
poignancy in the contemplation of it (_à quelque chose--à bien des
choses malheur est bon_), and having at length made up my mind to it,
smaller _repugnancies_ connected with it have ceased to affect me with
any acuteness....
Moxon cannot publish my Italian journal immediately, because the whole
of the American edition must be ready to go to press before he brings it
out here. I suppose it will come out some time after Easter. Emily told
you of his first offer for it, and of his gallant mode of making it. He
is surely a pearl and a pattern of publishers.
Kiss that facetious "Virgin Martyr" for me. Such a laugh as you two are
likely to get up together! I declare it brings the tears to my eyes to
think of it.
I rejoice in your account of H---- W----. It must be a blessing to
every one belonging to him to see him do well such a duty as that of an
Irish proprietor, in these most miserable times.
I have at present nothing further to impart to you but the newest news,
that I am
Ever yours,
FANNY.
[The last sentence of this letter refers to the failure of the
potato-crop, and the consequent terrible famine that desolated
Ireland.]
10, PARK PLACE, ST. JAMES'S, February 1st, 1847.
I feel almost certain, my dear Hal, that it will be better for me to be
_alone_ when I come out at Manchester than to have you with me, even if
in all other respects it were expedient you should be there. My strength
is much impaired, my nerves terribly shattered, and to see reflected in
eyes that I love that pity for me which I shall feel only too keenly for
myself, on the first night of my return to the stage, might, I fear,
completely break down my courage. I am glad for this reason that I am to
come out at Manchester, where I know nobody, and not in London, where,
although I might not distinguish them, I should know that not a few who
cared for me, and were sorry for me, were among my spectators. I am now
so little able to resist the slightest appeal to my feelings that, at
the play (to which I have been twice lately), the mere sound of human
voices simulating distress has shaken and affected me to a strange
degree, and this in pieces of a common and uninteresting description. A
mere exclamation of pain or sorrow makes me shudder from head to foot.
Judge how ill prepared I am to fulfil the task I am about to
undertake....
This, however, is one of the most painful aspects of my work. It has a
more encouraging one. It is an immense thing for me to be still able to
work at all, and keep myself from helpless dependence upon any one....
The occupation, the mere _business_ of the business, will, I am
persuaded, be good rather than bad for me; for though one may be strong
against sorrow, sorrow and inactivity combined are too much for any
strength. Such a burden might not kill one, but destroy one's vitality
to a degree just short of, and therefore worse than, death--crush,
instead of killing and releasing one....
I was reading over "The Hunchback" last night, and could not go through
the scenes between Julia and Clifford, when he assumes the character of
Lord Rochdale's secretary, without an agony of crying. I do not see how
I am ever to act it again intelligibly, but I suppose when I _must_ do
it I _shall_. Things that have to be done are done, somehow or other.
God bless you, my dear Hal.
I am ever yours,
FANNY.
One word to Dorothy.
Now, my beloved and best Dorothy, haven't you enough to do with that
most troublesome soul, Harriet, without being my "good angel" too? [Miss
W---- often went by the name of Harriet's "good angel."] I have never
seen mine; but if I have one, I should think he or she must be a sort of
spiritual heavenly steam-engine, _a three-hundred angel-power_, in order
effectually to take care of me.
My dearest Hal, I have missed the dear nuisance of your letters so
dreadfully these few days past, that I began seriously to meditate
writing to you to know if I had offended you in any way. As for how I
fare in this cold weather, the weather is nothing to me, and I used not
to mind cold at all, but rather to like it; but my flesh is forsaking my
bones at such a rate that I am beginning to shiver for want of covering,
and I think to be reduced to a skeleton--a live one, I mean--while the
thermometer is as low as it is will be very uncomfortable.
The satisfaction I had in my visit to my brother was that of seeing a
person for whom I have a very warm affection, and, in some respects, a
very sincere admiration. I believe, too, it was a comfort to poor John
to see me and receive the expressions of my love and sympathy.... For
his warm heart, his truthfulness and great simplicity of character, his
worldly poverty, his great intellectual wealth, but, above all, for that
he is my brother, I love him. He and his children are living in a poor
small cottage, on a wild corner of common near Cassiobury. How I thought
of our old--no, our young days, driving along past "The Grove" and the
Cassiobury Park paling. My brother's present home is certainly not an
extravagant residence, and though, of course, sufficient for absolute
necessary comfort (how much comfort is _necessary_?), is nothing
more.... John has advertised in the _Times_ for a pupil to prepare for
college, and should he be able to obtain one, it would, of course,
materially assist him. In the mean time he is working with infinite
ardor and industry upon an important work, the "History of the English
Law." A friend of his, whom I met there, who is, I think, a competent
judge, which, of course, I am not, of any such matter, assured me that
the work was one of great erudition and research, but at the same time
so dry and difficult, and therefore little likely to be popular, that it
would not be easy to persuade any publisher to undertake it. He, Mr.
B----, carried the first volume, which is complete, to town with him, to
show it to persons capable of appreciating it, and endeavor to get it a
little known, so as to procure an offer for its publication. Poor John!
his perseverance in the studies he loves is very great, his devotion to
them very deep, and if he could only live upon his means with his
beloved mistress, Learning, I should think he had made a noble and
honorable choice, however bitterly disappointed my father may feel at
his not choosing to follow more lucrative pursuits.
I am going to act in _Dublin_. I have neither time nor space for more.
God bless you.
Ever yours,
FANNY.
10, PARK PLACE, Friday, 12th, 1847.
Direct to me at Manchester, "Theatre Royal," my dear Hal, that is all;
or, indeed, I should prefer your directing to the Albion Hotel, that
same house where you and I were so charmed by the sunlight on the
carpet.
You say I do not know the value of letters. I think I do, for if I had
not the very highest value for them I should long ago have given way to
my detestation of writing, and put an end to my innumerable
correspondences. Your letters have more than once been snatched up by
me, and pressed to my lips; so have my sister's.... I hate writing, it
is true, but am content to pay that price for the intercourse of my
friends; and though I may not love letters as you do, I do think I have
a reasonable appreciation of their value.
I share in your feeling, dearest Harriet, about my being in Dublin
while you are absent from it. I do not know that it seems to me "wrong,"
but it certainly does seem as unnatural as that there should be a
theatre open in Dublin at all at this time, when famine and such dire
distress are prevailing in parts of the country.
I am troubled, too, at the uncertainty of how and when we are to meet;
and the reason why these various considerations do not, perhaps, engross
so much of my thoughts as they do of yours is because I have so many
immediate and necessarily absorbing claims upon my attention.
I incline with you, however, to think that I shall not go to Dublin. I
have not heard again from the manager, and I begin to hope that he has
thought better of his invitation to me. As my work is a matter of
necessity, I could not, of course, refuse an engagement in Dublin; but
it does seem monstrous that there should be people willing to pay for
theatrical entertainments there at this time.
If I do not go I shall lose an opportunity of seeing my brother Henry,
which I am looking forward to with great pleasure--the only pleasure in
the whole expedition, since you will not be there, which will indeed
seem most strange and very _inappropriate_.
Harriet, _you_ certainly have a passion for writing, for in your last
you have repeated every word I said about my brother John, just as if
you had invented it yourself. You are like Ariel, very; and I am like
Prospero, very ("Dull thing! I said so"); or, no, I am like Falstaff, to
be sure, and you like Prince Hal, with "damnable iteration." ...
Various of my London men friends threaten coming down to Manchester
during my engagement there; Charles and Henry Greville, Chorley, and
even Moxon, who declared, if my play was brought out, he must be in the
pit the first night to see it. [This was my play called "An English
Tragedy," which there was some talk of bringing out at Manchester.] I
dare say the courage of all of them will give out before this bitter
cold, and I shall not be sorry if it does, for I want no sympathizers to
make me pitiful over myself.
I am tolerably well just now, and really believe that when once I am
fairly out of the fangs of the dressmakers I shall gather strength
rapidly.
The crudest fact in my fate at present is that I have actually not been
able to get all my things made here, and am taking the materials for my
Juliet and Queen Katharine dresses to be made up at Manchester; and this
is horrid, because, but for this, my off evenings would have really been
seasons of rest and quiet. However, it is of no use lamenting over any
one detail of such a whole as this business....
Give my love to dear Dorothy. She is half my good angel, by her own
voluntary assumption of the character....
Do not be troubled overmuch for or about me, my dearest friend; but
commend me, as I do you and myself, to God, and believe me
Ever yours,
FANNY.
10, PARK PLACE, Saturday Evening.
MY DEAR HAL,
I never did, and I never shall, offer anything I write to anybody. If my
friends ask me for anything I write, I will get it for them, just as I
would anything else they ask me to get or to do for them; but I have no
idea of volunteering such a bestowal upon anybody. Emily asked me for a
copy of my "Year of Consolation," and I have promised her one, and I
will certainly give you one if you wish for it. As for accounting, by
any process of reasoning of mine, for your desire to have my book, I am
quite unable to do so.
My love for my friends would never make me wish to read their books,
unless I thought their book likely to be worth reading. Now, I cannot
assume this with regard to my own, especially as I don't believe it.
Our friends' characters, their love for us, and ours for them, is the
stuff of which our adhesion is made; and unless I had a genius for a
friend, I should care little for any other mental exhibitions from those
I loved than those their daily intercourse afforded me. In personal
intercourse, unless a person is a genius, you really get that which is
best intellectually, as well as every other way, from your friend. Even
in the case of a great genius, I should think his daily intercourse
likely to be more valuable in an intellectual point of view than his
best works; but then, of such a mind one would naturally wish to
possess all and every product that one could obtain. If I thought
myself a genius, I might offer you my books unasked--perhaps.
I shall be at the Albion at Manchester, and if you wish to hear from me,
you will do well to write to me there....
I have had a most terrible day of fatigue and worry, breaking my back
with packing my things, and my heart with paying my bills.
Dear Henry Greville goes to within fifty miles of Manchester with me
to-morrow, and stays at a friend's house, whence he and Alfred Potocki
purpose coming on for the play on Tuesday evening. After all, I am not
sorry he is coming; his regard for me is not of a sort to make me dread
the weakening effect of his sympathy, and it will be comfortable to know
that among that strange audience I have just such a kind well-wisher as
he is, to keep up whatever courage I have.
Perhaps you may yet see me in Dublin, for the manager wishes me to renew
my engagement after the first six nights; and, of course, if he pays me
my terms, I shall be glad to remain there as long as he likes.
Give my dear love to dear Dorothy. I am thoroughly worn out, and feel
quite unwell; and oh, how cold it will be in that railroad carriage
to-morrow!
God bless you, dear.
Ever yours,
FANNY.
ALBION HOTEL, MANCHESTER, Monday, 15th.
MY DEAR HAL,
I cannot tell you exactly _all_ why I dislike writing letters, because
my dislike is made up of so many elements. One reason is that the limits
of a letter do not permit of one's saying satisfactorily what one has to
say upon any subject. I think frequently that my letters must be highly
unsatisfactory because of my tendency to discussion, which makes them
more like imperfect essays than letters, the chief charm and use of
which is to tell of daily events, interests, and occurrences; how one
is, what one does, where one goes, etc. Now, while I fear my letters
must be unsatisfactory to my friends because they seldom contain details
of this sort, they are still more so to me, because I have neither room
nor time in them to say anything about anything as I wish to say it.
Then, I have an indescribable impatience of the mere mechanical process.
You say that I talk, though I do not write, willingly to my friends,
but whenever I get upon any subject that interests me, with anybody whom
I am not afraid of wearying, I talk till I have said all I have to say;
and though I never spoke about anything that I cared for without
afterwards perceiving that I had left unsaid many important things upon
the subject while I spoke, I spoke all that came into my mind at the
time. In writing this is never the case, and fast as my pen flies, it
seems to me to stick to the paper; while in speaking, what with my
voice, my face, and my whole body, I manage to convey an immensity of
matter (stuff, you know, I mean) in an incredibly short time. Impatience
of all my limitations, therefore, is one cause of my dislike to
letter-writing.
You say that I do not object to conversation, though I do to
correspondence: and it is quite true that I sometimes have great
pleasure in talking; but if I had to talk, even upon the subjects that
interest me most, as much as I have to write in the discharge of my
daily correspondence, I should die of exhaustion, and fancy, too, that I
was guilty of a reprehensible waste of time. That I am doing what gives
my friends pleasure, and is but their due, alone prevents my thinking my
letter-writing a waste of time. As therefore it is not to me, as to you,
a pleasurable occupation in itself, I do not think it can be compared
with "reading Shakespeare, Schiller," or indeed any book worth reading.
The exercise of justice towards, and consideration for, others is a form
of virtue, and _therefore_ letter-writing is, in some cases, a good
employment of time.
I have a desire for mental culture, only equalled by my sense of my
profound ignorance, and the feeling of how little knowledge is attained,
even by scholars leading the most active and assiduously studious
existences.
My delight in my own superficial miscellaneous reading is not so much
for the information I retain (for I forget, or at least seem to do so,
much of what I read), as for the sense of mental activity produced at
the time, by reading; and though I forget much, something doubtless
remains, upon the whole.
Knowledge, upon any subject, is an enchanting _curiosity_ to me; fine
writing on elevated subjects is a source of the liveliest pleasure to
me; in all kinds of good poetry I find exquisite enjoyment; and not
having a particle of satisfaction in letter-writing for its own sake, I
cannot admit any parallel between reading and writing (whatever I might
think of arithmetic). I have sometimes fancied, too, that but for the
amount of letter-writing I perform, I might (perhaps) write carefully
and satisfactorily something that might (perhaps) be worth reading,
something that might (perhaps) in some degree approach my standard of a
tolerably good literary production--some novel or play, some work of
imagination--and that my much letter-writing is against this; but I dare
say this is a mistaken notion, and that I should never, under any
circumstances, write anything worth anything.
I have always desired much to cultivate the accomplishment of drawing;
it is an admirable sedative--a soothing, absorbing, and satisfactory
pursuit; but I have never found time to follow it up steadily, though
snatching at it now and then according as opportunity favored me. I give
but little time to my music now (though some every day, because I will
not let go anything I have once possessed); for I shall never be a
proficient in it, and I already have as much of it at my command as
answers my need of it as a recreation. Any of these occupations is more
agreeable to me than letter-writing; so is needlework, so is walking
out, so is--almost anything else I could do. Now, as Shylock says, "Are
you answered yet?"
I should be sorry my brother Henry went to the trouble or expense of
coming over to Manchester or Liverpool to see me, as there is every
probability of my being in Dublin early in March, where I shall act till
the 22nd, and perhaps longer.
I have the privilege of sitting with an engraving of Lord Wilton, in his
peer's robes, _hung_ opposite to me--enough surely for any reasonable
woman's happiness....
God bless you, dear; give my love to dear Dorothy. I rejoice for her
that the cold is gone.
Ever yours,
FANNY.
My kind friend Henry Greville, and that very charming young Alfred
Potocki, brother of the Austrian Ambassadress, Madame de Dietrichstein,
and a great friend of Henry's, came down with me half way, yesterday;
they stopped at a friend's house about fifty miles from Manchester, and
come up to-morrow to see the play, so that I shall have the comfort of
people that I like, and not the trial of people that I love, near me on
that occasion.
I am not very nervous about my _plunge_; the only thing that I dread is
the noise (noise of any sort being what my nerves can no longer endure
at all) which I am afraid may greet me. I wish I could avoid my
"reception," as it is called, because any loud sound shakes me now from
head to foot; this is the one thing that I do dread--I have gained some
self-possession and strength in these past years, and I hope my acting
itself, as well as my comfort in acting, may benefit by my increased
self-command. Poor Hayes (my maid) says that the peace of being alone
with me, after our late lodging, is like having left _Hell_; we shall
see what she says to-morrow night at the theatre,--poor thing. Farewell.
ALBION HOTEL, MANCHESTER, Wednesday, 17th.
MY DEAR LADY DACRE,
I acted Julia in "The Hunchback" last night (the first time for thirteen
years); got up this morning with a dreadful cough and sore throat, the
effect of over-exertion and exposure; went to rehearsal after breakfast,
rehearsed Lady Macbeth and Juliana in "The Honeymoon" (a _dancing_
part!); have written to three managers, from whom I have received
"proposals;" have despatched accounts of myself to my father and sundry
of my friends; have corrected forty pages of proof of my Italian
journal; have prepared all my dresses for to-morrow; have received
sundry visits (among others, that of a doctor, whom I was obliged to
send for), and have wished that I had not had so much to do.
I am so far satisfied with my last night's experiment, that I think it
has proved that my strength will serve to go through this sort of labor
for a couple of years; and I hope during that time, by moving from one
place to another, that my attraction may hold out sufficiently to enable
me to secure the small capital upon which I can contrive to live
independently.
The theatre here is beautiful; the company very fair; the plays are well
and carefully got up. The audience were most exceedingly kind and
cordial to me, and I think I have every reason to be thankful, and
grateful, and more than satisfied. The manager wants me to renew my
engagement, which is a sign, I suppose, that he is satisfied too.
With affectionate respects to my lord, believe me, my dear Lady Dacre,
Ever yours,
FANNY.
MANCHESTER, Thursday, 18th.
I cannot tell how many books have been written by geniuses, dear Hal,
and therefore, being unable to answer the first question in your letter,
pass on to the next.
The people that I have to deal with here seem to me very much like all
other people everywhere else. The proprietor and manager of the theatre
is an active, enterprising, intelligent man, who knows the _value_ of
liberality, and that generosity is sometimes the most remunerative as
well as amiable and popular line of action. He is a shrewd man of
business, a little rough in his manner, but kindly and good-natured
withal, and extremely civil and considerate to me. He is anxious that I
should renew my engagement, and I shall be very willing to do so, on my
return from Dublin.
My stage-manager is a brother of James Wallack, well bred, and pleasant
to deal with, and also very kind and courteous to me. Everybody in the
theatre is civil and good to me, and I am heartily grateful to them all.
As for my good host and hostess of the Albion, they really look after me
in the most devoted and affectionate manner, so that I am quite of my
poor maid's opinion, that this is a paradise of peace and comfort
compared with Mrs. ----'s lodging-house.
My dressing-room at the theatre is wretched in point of size and
situation, being not much larger than this sheet of paper, and up a sort
of steep ladder staircase: in other respects, it is tidy enough, and
infinitely better than the dark barrack-room you remember me dressing in
when I was in Manchester years ago, when I was a girl--alas! I don't
mean a pun! It is not the same theatre, but a new one, built by the Mr.
Knowles who engaged me to act here, and one of the prettiest, brightest,
and most elegant playhouses I ever saw; admirable for the voice, and of
a most judicious size and shape. Unfortunately, a large hotel has been
built immediately adjoining it (I suspect by the same person, who is a
great speculator, and apt, I should think, to have many, if not too
many, irons in the fire), and the space that should have been
appropriated to the accommodation of the actors, behind the scenes in
the theatre, has been sacrificed to the adjoining building, which is a
pity.
If I were to tell you the names of the people who act with me, you would
be none the wiser. The company is a very fair one indeed, and might be
an excellent one, if they were not all too great geniuses either to
learn or to rehearse their parts. The French do not put the flimsiest
vaudeville upon the stage without rehearsing it for _three months_;
here, however, and everywhere else in England, people play such parts as
Macbeth with no more than three rehearsals; and I am going to act this
evening in the "Honeymoon," with a gentleman who, filling the principal
part in the piece, has not thought fit to attend at the rehearsal; so
that though I was there, I may say in fact that I have had no rehearsal
of it,--which is businesslike and pleasant.
Oh, my dear Hal, I strive to judge of my position as reasonably as I
can! I do hope that in spite of the loss of youth, of person, and
feeling (which latter communicates itself even to acting), I may be able
to fill some parts better than I did formerly. I have no longer any
nervousness to contend with--only a sense of the duty I owe to my
employers and spectators, to take the utmost pains, and do my work as
well as I possibly can for them.
My physical power of voice and delivery is not diminished, which is good
for tragedy; my self-possession is increased, which ought to be good for
comedy; and I do trust I may succeed, at least sufficiently to be able,
by going from one place to another, and returning to America when I have
worn out my public favor here--say, in two years,--to make what will
enable me to live independently, though probably upon very small means.
I write this after my first night's performance, and I trust my views
are not unreasonable. How I wondered at myself, as I stood at the side
scene the other night, without any quickening of the pulse or beating of
the heart--thanks to the far other experiences I have gone through,
which have left me small sensibility for stage apprehensions; and yet I
could hardly have believed it possible that I should have been as little
nervous as I was. When I went on, however, I had to encounter the only
thing I had dreaded; and the loud burst of public welcome (suggestive of
how many associations, and what a contrast!) shocked me from head to
foot, and tried my nerves to a degree that affected my performance
unfavorably through several scenes.
But this was my first appearance after thirteen years of absence from
the stage; and, of course, no second emotion of the kind awaits me. The
exertion and exposure of the performance gave me a violent cold and sore
throat, and I have been obliged to send for a doctor. I had _two_
rehearsals yesterday, which did not mend matters, but I have bolstered
myself up _pro tem._, and what with inhaling hot water and swathing my
throat in cold, and lozenges and gargles, etc., I hope to fight through
without breaking down.... I have heard from Catherine Sedgwick, who says
that it is a long time since she heard from you or Emily. She adds: "I
shall be very glad to hear from them again. In your absence, I had
nothing to give interest to my letters to them, and I have not written;
and they, naturally, had no sufficient motive to write to me, so that I
have been in complete ignorance about them. Harriet S---- I reckon among
my friends for both worlds."
God bless you, my dear Hal. Give dear Dorothy my love.
Ever yours,
FANNY.
MANCHESTER, Tuesday, 23d.
A thousand thanks, my dear Lady Dacre, for all your kind inquiries
about, and sympathy in, my concerns. I am going on prosperously. The
theatre is quite full when I play, in spite of the very bad weather, and
I think my employer can afford to pay me, without grudging, my nightly
salary.
I think you are right in saying I am my own best critic; my mother being
gone, I believe I really am so.
I have played, since I last wrote to you, Juliana, in the "Honeymoon," a
rather pretty, foolish part, which I act accordingly; Lady Macbeth,
which I never could, and cannot, and never _shall can_ act; and Juliet,
which, I suppose, I play neither better nor worse than formerly, but
which, naturally, I am no longer personally fit to represent.
I am not very well, for the returning to such labor as this after
thirteen years' disuse of it, and at thirty-seven years of age, is a
severe physical trial, and has, of course, exhausted me very much.
Nothing more, however, ails me than fatigue, and I have no doubt that a
few more nights' "hard use" will enable me to stand steady under my new
load of heavy circumstance.
You have asked me for newspaper reports, and I send them to you. You
know my feeling about such things, but that is nothing to the purpose;
if you can care for such praise or dispraise of me, it is no less than
my duty to furnish you with it, at your request, if I can. You know I
never read critiques, favorable or unfavorable, myself; so I do not even
know what I send you.
Good-bye. Remember me respectfully and affectionately to Lord Dacre, and
believe me ever
Yours truly,
FANNY.
MANCHESTER, Thursday, 25th.
DEAR HAL,
Mr. H. F. Chorley I believe to be a great friend of mine, and an
uncommonly honest man, but I may be mistaken in both points. Your
inquiry about my health I cannot answer very triumphantly. I am not
well, and my feet and ankles swell so before I have stood five minutes
on the stage, that the prolonged standing in shoes, which, though
originally loose for me, become absolute instruments of torture, like
those infamous "boots" of martyrizing memory, is a terrible physical
ordeal for either a tragic or comic heroine--who had need indeed be
something of a real one to endure it.
Some of this trouble is due to general debility, and some to the
long-unaccustomed effort of so much standing, and will, I trust,
gradually subside as I grow stronger and more used to my work....
I acted Juliet last night, and I am very weary to-day, but thankful to
have my most arduous part well over.
Give my love to dear Dorothy. I am very sorry to hear of her being so
unwell, for I know how anxious you must be about her. Thank her for her
kind words to me....
God bless you, my dear,
I am ever as ever yours,
FANNY.
MANCHESTER, Friday, 26th.
DEAR HAL,
My throat has given me no more trouble since my first night's acting. I
have a pertinacious cough, and a tremendous cold in my head, which are
nuisances; but I am free from irritation in the throat, and have found
hitherto, in my performances, my voice stronger, instead of weaker, than
it was.... I am better than I was last week, and have no doubt I shall
acquire strength as I go on, as my first start in this dismal work did
not quite break me down.
The people here have shown me the most extreme kindness and hospitality,
and I have had invitations to dine out every day this week that I have
not acted.
My brother Henry has come over from Dublin, to spend a couple of days
with me, and his visit has been an immense pleasure and comfort to me.
My time, thank God, is so incessantly occupied with all kinds of
business--writing letters to managers, acquaintances, and friends;
rehearsing, acting, looking after my dresses, correcting proof-sheets,
and receiving visits--that I have no leisure but what I spend in sleep.
Henry has promised to mount me on a horse of his, when I get to Dublin;
and I am sure that my favorite exercise will be of the greatest benefit
to me.
The actors here are not more inattentive than they generally are,
everywhere, to their business; their carelessness and want of conscience
about it is nothing new to me, and all my bygone professional experience
had fully prepared me for it. The company here is a better one than I
shall probably find anywhere, even in London; and I have the advantage
of having to do with a very civil, considerate, and obliging
stage-manager.
I have made, at present, no further engagement for acting here. I shall
spend Passion-week at Sutton Park with the Arkwrights, who have written
to beg me to do so, and whose vicinity to this place makes that
arrangement every way best for me, as in Easter-week I am to act in
Manchester again, for the benefit of the above-mentioned courteous
stage-manager. From the 12th to the 17th of April, I act at Bath and
Bristol; and after that I think it is probable I shall act for a short
time in London,--but this is uncertain.
Your questions, for which you apologize, are particularly agreeable to
me, as, in spite of the ready invention and fluent utterance on which
you compliment me, I am always charmed to have the subject of my letters
suggested to me by the questions of my friends.
As my engagement in Dublin, like all the engagements I make, is _a
nightly one_, if it does not answer to the manager I shall of course
immediately put an end to it. I am secured from loss by payment after
each performance but should never think of taking what I do not bring to
my employer.
Mr. Calcraft writes me that he is sanguine about the engagement, in
spite of the public distress, and wants me to leave three nights open
after the 22d for the extension of it. We shall see.
God bless you, dear Hal. Give my affectionate love to Dorothy. I am most
happy to hear she is better. The kindness of the Manchester people has
filled my room with flowers, my "good angels," about which I am becoming
every day more superstitious, for I am never four-and-twenty hours in a
place that some do not make their appearance, to cheer and comfort me.
Farewell.
Ever yours,
FANNY.
BIRMINGHAM, Sunday, 28th.
MY DEAR LADY DACRE,
I played last night for the last time in Manchester. The house was
immensely full, and when I went on the stage after the piece, so loud
and long and cordial were they in their kind demonstrations of good-will
to me that, what with the exhaustion of a whole day's packing (which I
have to do for myself, my maid being utterly incompetent) and the
getting through my part, the whole thing was too much for me, and I
turned quite faint, and all but fell down on the stage. But I am not a
fainting woman, and so only went into violent hysterics as soon as I was
carried to my dressing-room. So much for that "pride" which you speak of
as likely to prevent my shedding tears when encountering the kind
acclamations of a multitude of my "fellow-creatures;" the most trying to
the nerves of all demonstrations, except, perhaps, its howl of
execration.
I came to this place to-day, and feel indescribably cheerless and lonely
in my strange inn. The room at Manchester was the _home_ of a fortnight,
but this feels most disconsolately unfamiliar. Moreover, I only act
here one night, Tuesday, and then go to Liverpool, where the master of
the Adelphi Hotel, where I shall stay, is a person to whom I have been
known for many years, in whose house I have been with my children, and
where I shall feel less friendlessly forlorn than I do here.
I shall remain there about a week, and then go to Dublin, where I expect
to stay about a fortnight, and where I shall find my youngest brother--a
circumstance of infinite consolation and comfort to me. Passion-week I
spend at Sutton Park with the Arkwrights; after that go to Bath and
Bristol, and then to London, where I have now an engagement for a month
at the Princess's Theatre.
You have now the map of my proceedings for the next six weeks, after
which I hope I shall see you in London. I direct this to Chesterfield
Street, as you say you shall be back there on Thursday. I have been kept
constantly supplied with the loveliest flowers all the time of my stay
in Manchester, by one kind person or another, which has greatly helped
to keep up my courage and spirits.
Pray give my respects to Lord Dacre.
I am ever, my dear Lady Dacre,
Yours truly,
FANNY.
ADELPHI HOTEL, LIVERPOOL, Thursday, March 4th, 1847.
MY DEAR HAL,
I do not go to Bath, but to Manchester, on the 25th and 27th, and
perhaps on the Monday of Passion-week; but this is not certain. If not
on that Monday, then early in Easter-week; and Passion-week I shall
spend with Mrs. Arkwright at Sutton.
On Thursday in Easter-week, April 8th, I must be in London, as I act
there for two nights gratuitously for your poor starving
fellow-countrymen, for whom an amateur performance is being got up.
On April 15th I go down to Bath, and act there on the 17th, and my
engagement at the Princess's Theatre does not begin till the 26th of
that month. This is the plan of my campaign as far as it is laid out;
should any change occur in it, I will let you know as soon as I know of
it myself.
And so your plan for my taking the air, my dear, was to get into a
_close_ fly. I confess that would not have occurred to my ingenuity, or
I should think to that of any but an Irish humorist. I don't feel sure
that there mayn't be a pun hidden somewhere in your proposition. _The
damp_, indeed, I might have taken, to the greatest perfection, for there
did stand a whole row of vehicles before my very windows at Manchester
which were being saturated through and through with the rain that fell
upon them all day long, and must have adapted them admirably for the
purposes of a healthful drive for an invalid suffering from sore throat
and a heavy cold.
I have nothing to say to your impertinent remarks on my zigzag progress
to my various engagements, neither any observation to make about Emily's
information upon the subject of my white cashmere gown.
I am perfectly persuaded that, as a considerable amount of food goes
into one's stomach, the use of which is merely to produce necessary
distension of all the organs, channels, receptacles, machinery, etc., in
short; so a considerable amount of words proceeds out of our mouths, the
use of which is merely to keep our lungs aired and our speaking organs
in exercise; and for that purpose the follies, and foibles, and even
faults of our friends are excellent material, provided no bitterness
mixes in the process; from which, as I feel myself very safe between you
and Emily, I abandon myself absolutely to you both; and as I believe
scribbling (apparently unnecessary) is as necessary to the health of
both of you as the apparently superfluous food and words which people
swallow and utter, I am quite content you should fill up your paper with
the mad eccentricity of the order of my engagements, the rotation of my
gowns, and the dripping street-cabs in which I refuse to take the air
for the benefit of my health....
I do not know who the amateurs are who are to act for the starving Irish
with me in London. Forster, the editor of the _Examiner_, I hear, is
one; Henry Greville, who, indeed, is the getter-up of the whole thing,
another; but for the rest I do not know.
Your people are what are commonly called a generous people; and that, I
suppose, is why they don't mind begging. I think it takes an immensity
of generosity to beg.
Only think of Mr. Radley, here at the Adelphi, expressing his surprise,
when he saw me, that you were not with me! Was not that really quite
touching and nice of him?
My cousin, Charles Mason, is here.... His amiable temper and gentle
manner made him a favorite with my poor mother, and I like to see him on
that account....
How sorry I shall be for both you and Dorothy when your pleasant time at
Torquay is over! especially for you, who will have to see misery and
sometimes hear nonsense. I mean when you go back to Ireland; not, _of
course_, while you are with me....
ADELPHI HOTEL, LIVERPOOL, Sunday, 7th.
I have minded what you said (as when didn't I?), and am swallowing
ipecacuanha lozenges by the gross. It drives me almost crazy that you
should be compelled to make your plans so dependent upon mine, which are
so dependent upon the uncertain wills and arrangements of so many
people.
The manager of the Princess's Theatre, where I am engaged to act in
London, will not allow me to act for the proposed charity at the St.
James's Theatre. I offered to give up the engagement with him rather
than break my promise to the amateurs and disappoint all their plans;
but he will not let me off my engagement to him, and will not permit me
to appear anywhere else before that takes place. I think he is injuring
himself by balking a pet plan of amusement in which all manner of fine
folks, lady patronesses, and the Queen herself, had been induced to
interest themselves; and I think his preventing my acting for this
charity will injure him much more than my appearance on this occasion,
before my coming out at his theatre, could have done. But, of course, he
must be the judge of his own interest; and, at any rate, having entered
into an engagement with him, I cannot render myself liable to squabbles,
and perhaps a lawsuit with him, about it. All these petty worries and
annoyances torment and confuse me a good deal. I have a very poor brain
for business, and there is something in the ignoble vulgarity and
coarseness of manner that I occasionally encounter that increases my
inaptitude by the sort of dismay and disgust with which it fills me. If
the person who has hired me does not relent about these charity
representations, I shall be obliged to give them up, and then I shall
act in Manchester at that time, instead of on the 25th and 27th of
March, which had been before intended, but which I now think I should
give to two representations in Chester on my way back from Dublin. All
this, you see, is still in a state of most vexatious uncertainty, and I
can give you no satisfaction about it, having been able to obtain none
myself....
Perhaps, dearest Hal, I ought not to have asked you the precise meaning
of what you wrote about dear little H----[her nephew, a charming child,
who died in early boyhood], but, every now and then, those expressions
which have become almost meaningless in the mouths of the great majority
of those who use them strike me very much when used by thinking people.
Unless death produces in us an immediate accession of goodness (which, I
think, in those who have labored faithfully to be good here, and are
therefore prepared and ready for more goodness, it may), I cannot
conceive that it should produce greater nearness to God.
Place, time, life, death, earth, heaven, are divisions and distinctions
that we make, like the imaginary lines we trace upon the surface of the
globe. But goodness, surely, is nearness to God, and _only_ goodness;
and though I suppose those good servants of His who have striven to do
His will while in this life are positively nearer to Him after death, I
think it is because, in laying down the sins of infirmity that
inevitably lodge in their mortal bodies, they really are thus much
better after death.
I do not think this is the case with those who have not striven after
excellence, which a young child can hardly be supposed to have done;
because if there is one thing I believe in, it is that there is work to
do for every soul called into conscious existence.... If Dorothy were to
die, I should believe she had gone nearer to God. His care and love for
us is, I verily believe, the nearest of all things to us; but I think
our _conscious_ nearness to Him depends upon how we do His will--_i.e._
how we _strive_ to do it.
I do not speak of Christ in this discussion, because, you know, I think
it was God's will, but man's nature, that He came to show us, and to
teach; and this part of the subject would involve me in more than I have
space to write: but we will speak of this hereafter.
Is it not strange that Charles Greville and you should both be writing
to me just now upon this same subject, of life after death?
I have been walking to-day and yesterday in the Botanical Garden
here.... The place is full of the saddest and tenderest recollections to
me; it is full, too, of innumerable witnesses of God's mercy and wisdom;
plants and flowers from every climate, and the annual resurrection of
the earth is already begun among them. I am very unwell to-day, but I
was well yesterday, and this seems to be now the sort of life-tenure I
may expect:--so be it.
God bless you, dear.
I am ever yours,
FANNY.
DEAR DOROTHY,
I send you a kiss, which Hal will give you for me.
MORRISON'S HOTEL, DUBLIN, March 14th, 1847.
MY DEAR HAL,
I think you must have begun to think that I never meant to write to you
again; for it is seldom that three unanswered letters of yours are
allowed to accumulate in my writing-book; but since I left Liverpool, I
have really not had leisure to write....
The houses at Liverpool were crammed, but here last night there was a
very indifferent one, partly, they say, owing to the fact that the Lord
Lieutenant bespeaks the play for to-morrow night; but I should think it
much more rational to account for it by the deplorable condition to
which the famine has reduced the country, which ought to affect the
minds of those whose bodies do not suffer with something like a
sympathetic seriousness, inimical to public diversions....
I do not care to pursue the argument with you about the change produced
by death in the existence of a child. That which you say about it
appears to me to involve some absolute contradictions; but I would
rather postpone the discussion till we meet.
Charles Greville began writing to me upon these subjects, with reference
to the rapidly declining health and strength of his and my friend, Mary
Berry; over whose approaching death he lamented greatly, although she is
upwards of eighty years old, and, according to my notions, must be ready
and willing to depart.
Charles Greville's ideas, as far as I can make them out, appear to me
those of a materialist. His chief regret seems to be for the loss of a
person he cared for, and the departure of a remarkable member of his
society. Beyond these two views of the subject he does not appear to me
to go.
He has sent me, in the last letter I received from him, an extract from
one of Sir James Mackintosh's, on the death of his wife, which he calls
a "touching expression of grief," but which strikes me as rather a
deplorable expression of grief without other alleviation than the dim
and doubtful surmise of a mind the philosophy of which had never
accepted the consolations of revelation, and yet, under the pressure of
sorrow, rejected the narrower and shallower ones of stoical materialism.
You wish to hear of my arrangement with my cousin, Charles Mason, and I
will tell you when it is decided on....
I have had a note from your sister, asking me to dine with them any day
after the 16th, when they expect to come to town; but I have declined
the invitation, because I do not wish to give up dining with my brother
Henry, who comes to me every day when I don't act....
It seems strange that you should ask me if uncertainty, torments me. It
torments me SO that I never endure it, even when the only escape from it
is by some conclusion that I know to be rash and ill-advised.
"The woman who deliberates," says the saying, "is lost." My loss has
been, and ever will be, through precipitation, not deliberation. To
choose anything, a gown even, is a martyrdom to me, and, unlike the
generality of my sex, I generally go into a shop, wishing to look at
nothing, and knowing only the precise color, material, and quantity of
the stuff I mean to purchase; for if I were to leave myself the smallest
discretion--option, we will say (I can hardly leave myself what I
haven't got)--I should infallibly buy something revoltingly ugly, out of
mere impatience of the investigation and deliberation necessary to get
something that pleased me. It is to save myself from the trouble of
choice that I have made so many arbitrary and, to your thinking, absurd
rules about the details of my daily life; but they spare me indecision
about trifles, and I find it, therefore, comfortable to follow them.
I am at Morrison's hotel; the rooms are clean, comfortable, and
cheerful, but the fare is bad and far from abundant; but if the charges
are meagre in proportion, I shall be satisfied, if not with food, at
least with equity.
My friend Arthur Malkin is here, as secretary to one of the members of
the committee sent out from England to organize relief for your wretched
countrymen. He is good and clever, and it is a great pleasure to me to
have him here. I am sorry Mr. Labouchère [afterwards Lord Taunton] is
away in Parliament. I wished particularly to have met him.
Lord Bessborough was at the play last night, and sent, after it was
over, to invite me to the St. Patrick's ball on Wednesday; but I have
declined, as I do not feel at all well enough for dissipations that
would bore as well as tire me. I am told he means to ask me to dine at
the Castle, which I rather dread, as it is not, I believe, allowable to
refuse a representative of majesty; but I dread the exertion and the
tedium of the thing, and have a particular dislike to the notion of
meeting ----....
Good-bye, my dear.
Ever yours,
FANNY.
[Our total ignorance of the laws of health and the accidents of
sickness throws us necessarily for help upon the partial knowledge
of physicians; but I am often reminded of what that admirable
physician and charming man, Dr. Gueneau de Mussy, once said to me:
"Madame, nous ne savons rien." "Ah mais!" remonstrated I, "cependant
quelque chose?" "Absolument rien, madame," was the consolatory reply
of one of the first medical men of Europe, under whose care both I
and my sister then were, and to whose skilful and devoted care I
attribute the preservation of my sister's life under circumstances
of great peril.
The amateur performance given at the St. James's Theatre was Lord
Ellesmere's translation of Victor Hugo's "Hernani," which had been
acted sixteen years before under such very different circumstances,
as far as I was concerned, at Bridgewater House. Mr. C---- was again
the hero, as I the heroine, of the piece, but the part of Don Carlos
was filled by Henry Greville, and that of the old Spanish noble by
Mr. John Forster.
It was upon this performance that Mr. Macready passed such
annihilating condemnation, not even excepting from his damnatory
sentence of total incapacity his friend and admirer, John Forster,
whose mode of delivering the part of Don Ruez bore ludicrous witness
to Macready's own influence and example, if not direct teaching.
Macready does not even mention poor Forster; the entry in his diary
runs thus: "Went to the amateur play at the St. James's Theatre; the
play "Hernani," translated by Lord Ellesmere, was in truth an
_amateur_ performance. Greville and Craven were very good
_amateurs_, but--tragedy by amateurs!"
The recital of a very graceful and touching poetical address,
written by Lady Dufferin for the occasion, was part of the evening's
work assigned to me, and as I was so weak and suffering from my late
severe illness as to be hardly able to stand, it was with a sense of
having certainly done my share in the evening's charity that I
brought my part of the performance to a close.
While standing at the side-scene before going on to speak this
address, dear Lord Carlisle brought me a most exquisite bunch of
flowers, saying, "I know I ought to throw this at your head from the
front of the house, but I would rather lay it at your feet here."
He then, to my great amazement, proceeded to spread out my satin
train for me with a dexterity so remarkable that I asked him where
he had served his apprenticeship. "Oh, at Court," said he, "at the
drawing-rooms, where I have spread out and gathered up oceans of
silk and satin, thousands of yards more than a counter-gentleman at
Swan and Edgar's." He certainly had learned his business very well.
After leaving Dublin I entered into an arrangement with my cousin,
Charles Mason, to become my agent, and make my engagements for me,
undertaking the necessary correspondence with the managers who
employed me, and looking after my money transactions with them for
me. I stood greatly in need of some such assistance, being quite
incompetent to the management of any business, and ignorant of all
the usual modes of proceeding in theatrical affairs, to a degree
that rendered it highly probable that my interests would suffer
severely from my ignorance. My cousin, however, only rendered me
this service for a very short time, as he left England for America
soon after he undertook it; after which I reverted to my former
condition of comparative helplessness, making my contracts with my
employers as well as I could, and protecting myself from loss, and
keeping out of troublesome complications and disputes, by the light
of what natural reason and rectitude I possessed; always making my
engagements by the night, and thus limiting any possible loss I
might sustain or inflict upon my employers, to my salary and their
receipts, for one performance. I also reduced my written
transactions to the very fewest and briefest communications
possible, with my various theatrical correspondents, and have more
than once had occasion to observe that precision, conciseness, and a
rigid adherence to mere statements of terms, times, and purely
indispensable details of business, were not the distinguishing
features of the letters of most of the men of business with whom I
corresponded.]
QUEEN'S HOTEL, BIRMINGHAM, Saturday, May 29th.
MY DEAR HAL,
How did you get through that dreary time after we parted? I did so
repent not having left some of my "good angels," my flowers, with you;
for though you do not care for them as I do, I love them so much that I
think they would have seemed part of myself to you. What a vision
remained to me of your lonely stay in that horrid room! But the day
passed, and its sorrow, as they all do; and when this reaches you, you
will be comfortable and rested, and among your own people again.
From Liverpool to Crewe I had companions in the ladies' carriage in
which I was; after that I had it to myself, and lay stretched on the
ground for rest the whole of the rest of the way.
I finished Dr. Mays's memoir, and read through half Harriet Martineau's
book, before I reached this place.
Women are always said to talk more than men, and yet I have generally
observed that when Englishwomen who are strangers to each other travel
together, not a single word is exchanged between them; while men almost
invariably fall into discourse together. This, I suppose, is partly from
the want of subjects of general interest among women, such as politics,
agriculture, national questions of importance, etc., which form
excellent common ground of conversation for chance companions; while the
questions of human society and considerations which concern men and
women alike may be too important or too futile, too general or too
special, to admit of easy discussion with strangers. The fact is, that
most women's subjects of interest are so purely personal and individual
that they can only be talked over with intimates.
I like Harriet Martineau's book very much, though perhaps not quite so
much as I expected. What pleases me best is its spirit, the Christian
faith in good, which is really delightful; though I cannot help thinking
she mistakes in supposing that one _must_ be very ill before one
believes in God's sole law, _good_, more almost than in one's own
existence.
The descriptions of natural objects are admirable, and the human
loving-kindness excellent; but I think she pushes her propositions
sometimes to the verge of paradox.... I am delighted to have it, and
think it better reading than the _Dublin Magazine_.
I got here at a little after three. The house is upside down with
cleansing processes, by reason of which I am put (till a smaller one can
be got ready for me) into an amazingly lofty large room, with some good
prints hung on the walls, and a pianoforte; seeing which privileges, I
have declined transferring myself to any other apartment, and shall be
made to pay accordingly.
Tell me of your errand to the theatre at Liverpool, and how you spent
the day, and how the sea treated you, and everything about everything.
God bless you, my dear.
Ever yours,
FANNY.
BRISTOL, Sunday, May 30th, 1847.
A thousand thanks, dear friend, for Liebig's book. You are right, I want
something more to read. I finished Harriet Martineau (Oh, what ink! wait
till I get some better) yesterday evening before tea, and the pamphlet
on bread after I got into bed, and the "Liverpool Tragedy" (such a
thing!) this morning in the railroad; so that your present of Liebig's
book came to my wish and to my need, just as a gift from you should do;
and I shall spend this Sunday afternoon in learning those wonderful
things, and praising God for them.
I regret very much that I cannot recollect anything distinctly that I
read, because the consequence is that books of an order calculated to be
of the greatest use to me, books of fact and positive scientific
knowledge, are really of less advantage to me than any others, because
of their making no appeal to what I should call my emotional memory, and
so they only profit me for the moment in which I read them. Works of
imagination, of criticism, of history, and biography (even of
metaphysical speculation), leave more with me than treatises of positive
knowledge or scientific facts. From the others, a spirit, an animus, a
general impression, a mental, moral, or intellectual accretion, remains
with me; indeed, that is pretty much the whole result I obtain from
anything I read. But books of _knowledge_, of scientific or natural
facts, though they sometimes affect me beyond the finest poetry with an
awe and delight that brings tears to my eyes, have but one invariable
result with me, to add to my love and wonder of God. Their other uses
depend, of course, upon the memory which retains and applies them
subsequently, either in action or observation; and this I fail to do, by
reason of forgetting: and it is a sorrow and a loss to me, because the
whole world is in some sort transfigured, and life endowed with double
significance, to those who are familiar with the details of the
wonderful laws that govern them, and their self-communion must be as
full of variety and interest as their conversation is to others.
I have infinite respect for knowledge; it is only second in value to
wisdom, and to unite both is to be very _fortunate_--which word I use
advisedly, for, though the nobler of the two, wisdom is allowed to all,
knowledge is not.
I agree with you in what you say of Harriet Martineau's book: the good
in it is _her_ peculiar good (very good good it is, too), but it must be
taken with the shadow of her bad upon it. It seems to me occasionally a
little hard and dogmatical, and I have not liked it, upon the whole, as
much as I expected, for it is rather less Christian than I expected; yet
it is a very valuable book, and I was very thankful for it.
I shall send the recipe for making effervescing bread forthwith to
Lenox, to Catherine Sedgwick, who is a martyr to dyspepsia and bad
baking, and who, being herself an expert cook, will know how to have the
staff of life prepared from these directions, so as to support instead
of piercing her, as it mostly does, up among those country operators.
They never have good bread there, and are all miserable in consequence,
especially herself and her brother Charles, who have delicate stomachs
and cannot endure the heavy sour concoction which they are nevertheless
obliged to swallow by way of daily bread. (I almost wonder how they
manage to say the Lord's Prayer petition for it.)
The note you forwarded me from Liverpool was another scream from that
mad manageress about Macbeth. I wonder if her whole life is passed in
such agonies; I think it must be worse than the greatest bodily pain.
Only think, my dear, on arriving here, and inquiring for Hayes, I
recollected that I had sent her to Bath and not to Bristol! "Consekens
is," as Mr. Sam Weller says (but alas for you! you don't know Pickwick),
that I have had to send off a porter from this house to Bath, per
railway, to reclaim my erring maid, and fetch her hither; and, being
Sunday, fewer trains go between the two places than usual, and she
cannot get here till near four o'clock this afternoon, until which time
I dare not trust myself to think of the state of mind of the abandoned
(in the perfectly honest sense of the word) Bridget or Biddy Hayes;
indeed, I shall not get her here till six this evening, and I only hope
that I may then.
What a moon there was last night! and how it made me think of you, as it
shone into the dark lofty room at Birmingham, where I sat playing and
singing very sadly all by myself! The sea must have been as smooth as
glass, and you cannot have been sick, even with your best endeavor.
The road from Birmingham here is quite pretty; the country in a most
exquisite state of leaf and blossom; the crops look extremely well along
this route; and the little cottage gardens, which delight my heart with
their tidy cheerfulness, are so many nosegays of laburnum, honeysuckle,
and lilac.
The stokers on all the engines that I saw or met this morning had
adorned their huge iron dragons with great bunches of hawthorn and
laburnum, which hung their poor blossoms close to the hissing hot breath
of the boilers, and looked wretched enough. But this dressing up the
engines, as formerly the stage-coach horses used to be decked with
bunches of flowers at their ears on Mayday, was touching.
I suppose the railroad men get fond of their particular engine, though
they can't pat and stroke it, as sailors do of their ship. Speculate
upon that form of human love. I take it there is nothing which, being
the object of a man's occupation, may not be made also that of his
affection, pride, and solicitude, too. Were we--people in general, I
mean--_Christians_, forms of government would be matters of quite
secondary importance; in fact, of mere expediency. A republic, such as
the American, being the slightest possible form of government, seems to
me the best adapted to an enlightened, civilized _Christian_ community,
a community who deserve that name; and, you know, the theory of making
people what they should be is to treat them better than they deserve--an
axiom that holds good in all moral questions, of which political
government should be one.
This hotel is charming, clean, comfortable, cheerful, very nice.
Farewell. Give my kind regards to your people, and believe me
Ever yours,
FANNY.
MY DEAR HAL,
_Go to Atkinson's and Co., 31, College Green, Dublin, and Pay £8 13s.
for my sister, and get a receipt for it, and send it to me, and do this
just as fast as ever you love me--that is, this very minute._ I will
repay you when we meet, or as much sooner as you may wish.
I have this morning received a note of eleven lines from Rome from
Adelaide, without one single word of anything in it but a desire that I
will immediately pay this debt for her; not a syllable about her
husband, her children, herself, or any created thing, but Messrs.
Atkinson and Co., and £8 13s. Therefore do what she bids me, and I ask
you "right away," as the Americans say, that I may send this afflicted
soul her receipt, and bid her be at rest.
That they are still in Rome I know only by the address, which she does
put, though not the date; as a compensation for which, however, she
heads her letter with the sum she wishes me to pay, thus--
_Rome, Trinita dei Monti._
£8 13_s._
--a new way of dating a letter, it strikes me. She must have had poplin
on the brain.
I wrote to you yesterday, my dear, and therefore have little to say to
you. After all, _I_ had directed my poor maid perfectly _write_! (look
how I've spelt this, in the tumult of my feelings and confusion of my
thoughts!), and she arrived, but not till three o'clock in the
afternoon, paper in hand, with the direction I had myself written as
large as life--"The Great Western Hotel, Bristol." The fact is that I
had made so sure that she would be here before I was, that, not finding
her on my arrival, I made equally sure that I had misdirected her to
Bath, and despatched one of the hotel porters thither to hunt for her,
which he did, sans intermission, for two hours, and on his return had
the pleasure of finding her here. What a capital thing a clear head is,
to be sure! At least, I imagine so....
I have just come back from rehearsal at the theatre, where I found a
letter from Emily, containing a bad account of her mother, and a most
affectionate, cordial, illegible scrawl from poor dear old Mrs. Fitzhugh
herself.
I also received a letter from Henry Greville, full of strictures upon my
carriage and deportment on the stage, and earnestly entreating me to
suffer his _coiffeur_ ("a clean, tidy foreigner") to whitewash me after
the approved French method, _i.e._, to anoint my skin with cold cream,
and then cover it with pearl powder; and this, not only my face, but my
arms, neck, and shoulders. Don't you see me undergoing such a process,
and submitting to such "manipulation"?
I have read more than half through Liebig, and am always tempted to
glance at the paragraphs _ahead_ to see what wonders they contain. I
have not yet consulted the last chapter for the "winding-up of the
story." The marvels in the midst of which we exist are a "story without
an end."
I find some of his details of "quantity" a little puzzling sometimes,
but nothing else, and the book is delightful.
Charles Mason drank tea with me last night, and talked well, and with a
good deal of information, about chemistry. He has read somewhat, and has
some superficial knowledge of various subjects; moreover, is a judge of
physiognomy, for he said he never saw a countenance with a more
beautiful expression of goodness than yours. Evidently, like Beatrice,
he can "see a church by daylight." Isn't it a pity that he can no longer
be my agent? Were you not struck with his great resemblance to your
idol, John Kemble? My mother used to say he was more like his son than
his nephew; and never having seen his uncle even, the curious collateral
likeness showed itself in all sorts of queer tricks in his delivery and
deportment on the stage, where, in spite of his resemblance to his
celebrated kinsman, he is a most lamentable actor. Of course, being an
educated man, he speaks with "good discretion;" of the "emphasis" the
less said the better.
I go to Bath to-morrow morning, and remain there until Thursday, when I
return here to act Lady Macbeth and then go back again to represent that
same lady at Bath either Friday or Saturday.
Farewell, my dear. God bless you.
Ever yours,
FANNY.
BATH, Wednesday, June 2d.
I have just had a long visit from Mr. C----, who is here, and who came
to see me this morning with a young niece of his--a fair, sweet-looking
girl of about eighteen, who, strangely enough, asked me a good many
questions about my affairs.... At the end of their visit, I found that
the young lady, while talking and listening to me, had torn up a
visiting-card and, with the fragments of it, put together on the table
the outline of a tiny Calvary, the cross upon a heap of rocks. I suppose
she is a Catholic, like her uncle, and I wonder why so many religious
people of all sorts and denominations take it for granted that others
stand in need of "Hints to Religion." ...
I was reminded (unnecessarily) of you at the theatre yesterday evening
when, immediately after the hateful stage-warning at my dressing-room
door of "Overture on, ma'am!" (the summons to the actors who are to
begin a piece), I heard the orchestra break forth into your favorite
strain of "Sad and fearful was the story." ...
The instinctive horror of suffering of our poor human bodies is pitiful.
What a sorry martyr I should have made! though I think I should not so
much object to others inflicting pain upon me as to inflicting it upon
myself,--that seems to me such an absurd and disagreeable work of
supererogation, I should never have been a self-body-torturer for the
salvation of my soul....
You would have been amused yesterday evening if you had been at the
theatre with me. The weather was so beautifully bright that I could not
bear to shut the shutters and light the gas, so I dressed by the blessed
light of heaven, and was sitting all rouged and arrayed for my part,
working, with my back to the window, when a small mob of poor little
ragged urchins, who had climbed over a railing that separated the
theatre from a mean-looking street behind it, collected round it, and,
clambering on each other's shoulders, clustered and hung like a swarm of
begrimed bees at the window, which was near the ground, to enjoy the
sight of me and my finery. Bridget, who is kind-hearted and fond of
children, turned the dresses that were hanging up right side out for the
edification of the poor little ragamuffins, and their comments were
exceedingly funny and touching. We could hear all that they said through
the window--how they wondered if I put _them_ beautiful dresses on one
by one, or over each other; the rose in my hair, which you gave me, and
the roses in my shoes, made them scream with delight; and if you could
have heard the pathetic earnestness with which one of them exclaimed,
"Oh my! don't you wish _them ere windies was cleaner_!" for the
dirt-dimmed glass obstructed the full glory of the vision not a little.
Poor little creatures! my heart ached with compassion for them and their
hard conditions, while they hung and clung in ecstatic amazement at my
frippery.
The house at Bristol the first night was wretched, my share of it only
£14; here last night it was much better, but I do not yet know the
proceeds of it. Charles Mason has latterly dropped a hint or two about
intending shortly to go to America, so that I dare say he will be quite
prepared to terminate his present arrangement with me.
In the railroad, coming from Bristol to Bath, I met Edward Romilly, a
kind and pleasant acquaintance of mine. I had Liebig's book in my hand,
which he said was rather severe railroad reading, and proceeded to
enlighten me as to the unsoundness of some of the author's positions and
deductions. Now, you know, Edward Romilly married Mrs. Marcet's
daughter, and, I take it for granted, in virtue of such a mother-in-law,
is wise upon natural philosophy; but still, when one's ignorance is as
huge and one's faith as implicit as mine,--when one's one endless,
supreme question about everything is Pilate's bewildered, "What is
Truth?"--when from history, science, literature, art, nature, one
receives every impression with the child's yearning query, "But is it
true?" it makes one feel desperate and deplorable thus to have one
teacher contradict and discredit another. After all, all knowledge by
degrees turns to ignorance, as it were, by dint of more knowledge; and
human progress, passing from stage to stage in its incessant onward
flight, leaves deserted, from day to day and hour to hour, its temporary
abiding-places. There is no rest for those who learn, and ignorance is a
great deal more complete and perfect a thing, _here_, at any rate, than
knowledge; with which paradox let me hug my ignorance, only regretting
that I ever spoiled it by learning even so much as my alphabet.
In spite of Mrs. Marcet's son-in-law, I have finished Liebig, and now
have only "Wilhelm Meister" to read, which is one of the most wonderful
books that ever was written. I have read it often, and each time I do so
I think it more wonderful than before. Do you remember poor Mignon's
last song?--"Sorrow hath made me early old, make me again for ever
young!" No wonder you love youth, my dear; in heaven there are no old
people.
The gardens in which this house stands are exquisite, and full of lovely
children, who are a perpetual delight to me.
Good-bye, my dear.
BATH, Friday, June 4th.
DEAR HAL,
... I have just spent a delightful hour with three charming little
creatures, children of the master of this hotel, for whom I have been
buying toys, and who have been amusing themselves with them and allowing
me a time of enchanting participation.
I drove this morning, because you told me to do so, through the piece of
ground they call the park here. It is extremely pretty, and I never grow
weary of admiring the orderly love of beauty of our people.
I have had another long visit from Mr. C---- this morning.... Certainly
novelists invent nothing more improbable than life.
I had an explanation with Charles Mason yesterday afternoon, and he did
not appear at all annoyed at my intention of discontinuing our present
arrangement. I shall give up to him the entire receipts for one night,
as else I am afraid he will hardly do more than cover his expenses.
Then--the money that worthy man at Liverpool _borrowed_ from me, which I
shall assuredly never see again, and my travelling and living expenses
deducted--my clear gains for this fortnight will be £68. It is not much,
but all that much better than nothing. I shall be in town next week, and
had intended, at the end of it, to go down to Bannisters; but Emily
writes me that they cannot have me then, so I shall probably go to
Plymouth, where they want me to act, and after that return to town
again, and organize some more country engagements for myself; for I
can't afford to be doing nothing. I go to town to-morrow morning, and
shall be glad to be _at home_ again. I am writing with a vile iron pen,
that has neither mind, soul, nor body.
God bless you, dear. Good-bye.
Ever yours,
FANNY.
ROYAL HOTEL, PLYMOUTH, June 16th.
MY DEAR HAL,
Do not again put that sponge, saturated with that _stuff_, in your
letters. The whiff of it I got accidentally in one I received some days
ago was very pleasant, but the quantity you send me to-day is too much,
and has given me a headache, and made me sick. Such virtue is there in
proportion! Such immense difference in only _more_ or _less_!
You bid me _lump_ my answers to you, but I hate to do that. I cannot
bear to defraud you in quantity, though inevitable necessity condemns me
to the disparity of quality in our communications; but to give you poor
measure in both seems to me too bad....
I shall act here on Friday, and leave for Exeter on Saturday, and I
shall act there one or two nights, but I do not yet know precisely how
often. I expect to be in London by the end of next week, and to remain
there for a week, after which I shall probably go for some nights to
Southampton, so that, in a sort of way, I shall see Emily, and she will
see me; further than this I have not at present decided. I have yet to
visit the Midland Counties, where I have had engagements offered me, and
York, Sheffield, and Leeds; after which I shall probably go on to
Scotland. But all this is at present without fixed date.
Some time in the summer, I have promised to visit the C----s (Roman
acquaintances of ours) at Brighton; and I shall stay some time in
Scotland at a place called Carolside, with that very nice Mrs. Mitchell,
with whom I am fast growing into a fast friendship. We shall be a
strange company of widows at her house--herself, T---- M----, poor Emily
de Viry, and poorer myself.
These are my floating plans for the summer. Of course you will hear into
what specific arrangements they consolidate themselves by degrees.
_All_ the theatres where I act--indeed, as far as I can see, all the
theatres throughout the country--are Theatres Royal; and with very good
reason, for they are certainly all equally patronized by royalty.
I forgot to tell you that before leaving London, I carried your bag,
_i.e._ my worsted-work, to your nephew's lodging, beseeching him, in a
civil note, to take charge of it for you. I have received a civil note
from him in reply, professing his readiness to do so, but adding that he
will not be in Dublin till the dissolution of Parliament, which will not
take place till the middle of July; in reply to which, I wrote him
another civil note, telling him I would apprise you of this, and then
you could either leave the bag in his custody, till he went to
Ardgillan, or inform him of any method by which you might choose to have
it forwarded to you more immediately.
I am not satisfied with the way in which it is made up; my own work was
thick and clumsy enough, and I think they have finished the bag with a
view to matching, rather than counteracting, these defects in the
original composition. However, its value to you I know will be none the
less for this; though, as I also know you are very _particular_, I wish
it had been more neatly and lightly finished. I have put the strip of
worsted-work you wished preserved inside the bag, and would humbly
advise you to cut it up for kettle-holders, for which purpose it appears
to me infinitely better adapted than for the housewife you proposed to
make of it. However, you know I am shy about giving advice, so never
mind what I say....
The weather is cold, rainy, windy, in short, odiously tempestuous; in
spite of which I went into the sea yesterday, and shall do so every day
while I am here; the freshness of the salt water is delicious.
Now, at this present moment, when I was about to close this letter,
comes another from you, and I shall lump that in this answer; for 'tis
absurd merely to wait till to-morrow that I may take up another sheet
of paper to write to you upon, when in all human probability I shall
have nothing new whatever to tell you.
I find that Charles Mason has made arrangements for me with the Exeter
manager, and that I shall act there four nights, and therefore be there
all next week, and only return to London next Saturday week. This was in
contemplation when I came here, but had not been determined on until
to-day.
I have had a very affectionate letter from Lady Dacre, asking me to go
down to the Hoo and stay some time with them, which I will do between
some of my coming engagements.... No, my dear Harriet, you cannot
imagine, and I cannot say, how I shrink from demonstrating a great deal
of the affection that I feel; there are no words or sign adequate to it
that I should not be reluctant to use, and I think this is at variance
with the unhesitating and vehement expression of thought and opinion,
and mere impression that is natural to me: but we are all more or less
compounded of contradictions, and I _more_ than _less_.
At the Exeter Station, coming down to this place, an obliging omnibus or
coach driver offered to carry me to Torquay if I was bound thither.
Wouldn't it have been nice if I had said _Yes_, and you and Dorothy had
still been there? but you weren't, so I said _No_.... Both the Grevilles
are friends of ours. Henry has been very intimate with Adelaide for a
long time. He has a great many good qualities, and, though essentially a
society man, has a good deal of principle; he is not very clever, but
bright and pleasant, and very amiable and charming. His brother Charles
has better brains, and is altogether a cleverer person. He is a man of
the world, and more selfishly worldly, I think, than Henry, whose
standard of right is considerably the higher of the two; indeed, Charles
Greville's _right_ always appears to me a mere synonym for _expedient_,
and when I tell him so, he invariably says "they are the same thing,"
which I do not believe. He is, unfortunately, deaf, but excellent
company in spite of that. I met him the day before I left London, at
dinner at Lady Essex's, and he told me he and Lord de Maulay were going
to start next week on a riding tour through England, beginning with
Devonshire. I think it very probable that I shall see him in Exeter next
week, as he is to be at the Duke of Bedford's in that neighborhood. He
talked eloquently of the beauty of the scenery they were going through,
and very seriously urged me to join their party, and ride over England
with them, saying it would be a delightfully pleasant expedition--of
which I have no doubt, or of the entire propriety of my joining it, and
"cavalcading" through Great Britain in his and Lord de Maulay's company.
Now I'll tell you what I've done to-day--my holiday. In the first place
it poured with rain all the morning, so I sent for a pair of battledores
and a shuttlecock, and when Charles Mason came to render up last night's
account, I made him come into a beautiful large ball-room I had
discovered in this house, and took a good breathing; and he, being like
Hamlet, "fat and scant of breath," took it hard.
NEW LONDON INN, EXETER, Monday, June 21st.
DEAR HAL,
Thanks for the purse, which I received this morning. I think you must
imagine these country managers pay me as the monks did Correggio, in
copper; perhaps, too, you have visions of me carrying my pay home on my
back, as he did. (I forget whether that sad story is among the
traditions exploded by modern _truth_.)
You have not received my last letter from Plymouth, or you would not
have sent me again this tremendous "smell." I beseech you, dear Hal, not
to saturate your paper any more with Neroli, or whatever you call it; it
gives me a headache, and turns me sick.
My present address is as above, and I shall remain here until Saturday
morning, when I return to town.
I only like the leather purse because you have given it to me, and
though that makes me _love_ it, it does not make me _like_ it--my
preference is for the pretty, colored, delicately woven purses, through
whose meshes the gold and silver smiles and glances, that you see me
use, or abuse, as you think, and as their use is to be worn out, I am
not much afflicted at their dropping into holes, and in due process of
time fulfilling their destiny.
This inn is in the middle of the town, and an old, dingy, dull house;
and I have an old, dingy, dark sitting-room, and the only trees I see
are two fine _felled_ elm trunks, which I have been industriously
sketching.
The cathedral here is a grand old church, and I went yesterday afternoon
to service there; but the choir was full, so I sat on a sort of
pauper's wooden bench, just outside the choir, and under the beautiful
porch that forms the entrance to it; and heard the chanting, but nothing
else. I had Hayes with me, and she earnestly entreated me to sit with my
feet upon hers, to protect myself from the cold stone pavement; was not
that touching and nice of her? I am sure I ought to be grateful for such
a comfort as she is to me. Poor thing! she has been in great trouble
about her mother. When she was in Ireland she took a small sum of about
ten pounds, which belonged to her mother, and placed it in the hands of
an aunt of hers, in whom she had implicit trust, wishing to withdraw the
money from the possible risk of its being got from her mother by her
brother, who lives with her,--he being selfish and unprincipled and
likely to take it, and her mother affectionate and self-denying and
likely to give it to him. And now poor Hayes gets word from her mother
that her aunt says she can neither give her money nor money's worth,
owing to the badness of the times; which of course troubles my poor maid
very much, for she says her aunt is a woman of substance. However, she
does not seem to think the money will ultimately be lost to her mother,
but only inconveniently withheld for a time.
At Plymouth, I had a very kind and pressing invitation from Lady
Elizabeth Bulteel--Lord Grey's daughter, whom I have known for some
time--to go and stay at her pretty place, Flete, two miles from
Plymouth; but having to come on here, I could not go to her, which I was
very sorry for. She sent me the most exquisite flowers, which I brought
away with me, and which are still consoling me here.
Good-bye; God bless you, my dear.
Ever yours,
FANNY.
NEW LONDON INN, EXETER, Wednesday, June 23d.
I do not plead guilty to general inconsistency, but only to particular
inconsistency, in a particular instance, dear Hal.... You are quite
welcome to accuse me of it, however; but as in your last letter you
imply that I accept the accusation, I beg leave to state distinctly that
I do not.... Not, indeed, that I make any pretensions to that order of
coherency of action and opinion which is generally called consistency:
my principles are few, simple, and comprehensive, and I rather desire
so to embrace them with my heart, mind, and soul, that my conduct may
habitually conform to them, than am careful in every instance of action
to see whether I am observing them. Somebody said very well that
principles were moral habits; and our habits become unconscious and
spontaneous: and so I think should our consistency be, and not a sort of
moral rule or measure to be applied and adjusted to each exigency as it
occurs, to produce a symmetrical moral appearance.
I think one reason why I appear, and perhaps am, inconsistent is because
I seldom have any consideration for _expediency_--what I should call
_secondary_ rules of conduct; and I have not much objection to
contradicting my course of action in the present hour by that of the
next, provided at each time I am endeavoring to do what seems best to
me. I desire a certain _frame of mind_ that my conduct may flow
habitually from it, without constant reference to outward coherency. In
the course of life-long endeavor and practice, I suppose, this may be
achieved. But do not think me presumptuous if I say that I think people
are generally too afraid of appearing inconsistent, too desirous to seem
reasonable,--in short, more anxious upon the whole about what they _do_
than what they _are_. Of course, the one will much depend upon the
other; but they will _match_ well enough without an everlasting
comparison of shades of color, if they are really in harmony, and, at
all events, will certainly _harmonize_ even if they do not precisely
_match_: there's a woman's shopping illustration for you.... Of course
you will understand well enough that I have not referred to the capital
inconsistency of which poor St. Paul so pathetically complained--wishing
to do right and doing wrong,--nor would you have charged me individually
and specially with this, alas! universal moral incoherency.
This is my holiday, and I have been spending it between two famous
nursery-gardens in the neighborhood of Exeter, and the cathedral.
These great gardeners send up their exquisite and precious plants to the
London horticultural exhibitions, and I saw many for whose beauty and
variety gold and silver medals had been awarded to their foster-father
florists. The masters of both these establishments very courteously went
over them with me, showing me the hot-houses where their choicest and
rarest plants were kept; there were some, such exquisite and wonderful
creatures, lovely to the eye, delicious to the smell--Patagonians,
Javanese, from the Cordilleras, from Peru, from Chili, from Borneo,--the
flower tribes of the whole earth.
Then, again, they showed me little pots of fine sand, covered with bell
glasses, where the eye could hardly detect a point or shade of sickly
green upon the surface,--the promise of some _unique_ foreign flower,
sent from its savage home in the forests of another hemisphere, to
blossom at the Chiswick horticultural exhibition, and win medals for the
careful cultivators, who have watched with faith--assuredly in this case
"the evidence of things not seen"--its precarious growth and doubtful
development.
One of these gentlemen horticulturists interested me extremely by his
own fervent enthusiasm about his plants. He showed me two
perishing-looking miserable dried-up _twigs_, and said, "Those are the
only specimens of their kind in the kingdom. They come from Chili, and
when healthy bear a splendid blossom as large as a tulip. These are just
between life and death: I fear we may kill them with kindness, we are so
anxious about them." He told me they had a flower-hunter out in South
America, and another in India. And now I must go to bed, because it is
twelve o'clock.
I brought home some heavenly flowers from these earthly paradises, and
then went and spent the rest of my afternoon in the cathedral--a
beautiful old building, of various dates and architecture, the whole
effect of which is extremely picturesque and striking.
Good-night, my dear.
I am ever yours,
FANNY.
ORCHARD STREET, Tuesday, August 24th.
Rachel has been acting at Manchester, to houses of _sixty_ pounds (her
nightly salary being _one hundred and twenty_), and this because Jenny
Lind is going there. I must confess I have no patience with this--as if
the rich Manchester merchants could not afford to treat themselves to
both! Rachel is really pre-eminent in her art, and so this provokes
me.... I dined with the Miss Berrys at Richmond on Wednesday, and met
dear old Lady Charlotte Lindsay, who inquired as usual most
affectionately after you. Mrs. Dawson Damer dined there, too, and said
she remembered being as a very young girl at Wroxton Abbey (Lord
Guildford's), and seeing you there a very young girl too.
I began this letter two days ago, and am in all the full wretchedness of
packing up. I set off to-morrow for Mrs. Mitchell's, where I hope to be
on Thursday afternoon. I shall reach York to-morrow, at three o'clock,
and intend sleeping there, of which I have written to apprise Dorothy,
as I hope to see her for an hour or two in the evening.
I am obliged to give up my Norwich engagement, which I am very sorry
for; but the fast and loose style of the correspondence about it makes
it impossible to fix any time for going there. The manager first asked
me to go there in August, but now, because Jenny Lind is going there, he
wants to put me off till the third week in September, at which time I
expect to be in Glasgow, the manager of that theatre having written to
me thence that October is not a good month there, and begged me to come
in September. I am sorry to lose my Norwich engagement, but cannot help
it. I have heard nothing more from the Princess's Theatre.
... My father talks of giving up his readings, and I have therefore
spoken to Mitchell, of the St. James's Theatre, about giving some
myself, and find him very willing to undertake the whole "speculation"
and business, not only in London but all over the provinces, with me and
for me; so that I do not feel quite as uncomfortable about the
uncertainty of an engagement at the Princess's as I might have done.
Mr. Mitchell is a Liberal, and an honest man, too, and I shall be quite
safe in his hands; in the mean time I shall be very glad to be at
Carolside instead of in London, though to-day and yesterday the weather
has been very cold and chilly, and in Scotland is not likely to be
warmer.
Do you hear of this horrid murder in Paris [that of the Duchesse de
Praslin, by her husband]? Ever so many people that I know here knew the
unhappy woman and her still more wretched husband; and the woman who has
been accused of having instigated the crime was little Lady Melgund's
governess for six years.
Good-bye, my dear.
I am ever yours,
FANNY.
[Mademoiselle de Luzzy, the governess of the Duc de Praslin's
children, was acquitted upon his trial of any complicity in his
crime; that of which she was not acquitted, however, was, turning
the hearts of her pupils against their unfortunate mother, and
endeavoring to establish her position and authority in the duchess's
home and family, at her expense. By a most strange turn of
circumstance, Mademoiselle de Luzzy, thus connected with the great
world of Paris and implicated in one of its most tragic occurrences,
went to the United States, where she married a country clergyman,
whose family belonged to the peaceful population of Stockbridge--one
of the loveliest villages in the "Happy Valley" of the Housatonic.
The residence of the Sedgwick family in this charming place
attracted to it many foreigners of mark and distinction; but few,
certainly, whose claims to notoriety were so peculiar and painful as
this lady's.
Mrs. Mitchell, of Carolside, was a Scotchwoman of an Aberdeen
family. She was my dear friend for many years, and a perfectly
charming person. Her face was exquisitely pretty and her figure
faultless; she had very peculiar eyes of a lightish hazel, with such
long lashes that it seemed occasionally as if her eyes were shining
through a soft haze of golden brown rays. She spoke with a slight
Scotch accent, the "winning Scottish speech" which Secretary Philips
writes of as one of Mary Stuart's peculiar charms; and she was
personally my notion of that "much blamed, much worshipped" modern
Helen. She had remarkable decision of character and force of will,
with the gentlest and most feminine appearance and manner; she was
humorous and witty, and an incomparable mimic. She was a woman of
admirably high principle and rectitude, and in every way as
attractive as she was estimable. Her eldest son was proprietor of a
charming place, Carolside, just over the Scottish border, and had
hardly come of age and inherited it when the Crimean war broke out
and compelled him, then a young officer in the army, to leave his
pleasant home prospects and encounter the threatening aspect of
"grim-visaged war." His mother, whose widowed life had been devoted
to him and his younger brother, also a soldier, fluttered after her
dear ones to the Crimea, and had the joy to get them safe back from
the "world's great snare uncaught."
Lady M---- and Mrs. Mitchell were attached and almost inseparable
friends for many years, occupying the same house in London,
travelling on the Continent together, and when in Scotland living
together at Mrs. Mitchell's pretty home, Carolside, or hiring some
house in the Highlands together. Emily de Viry (afterwards, alas!
Emily de Revel) I met again, for the first time for many years, at
Carolside. She was the daughter of our friends Mr. and Mrs. Basil
Montague, and half-sister of my kind friend Mrs. Procter, and a very
intimate friend of my sister Adelaide. She was an extremely
interesting person, the tragic close of whose life can never be
thought of without profound regret. She had married her cousin Count
Charles de Viry, and after years of widowhood she married again the
Count Adrien de Revel, Sardinian Ambassador in England, to whom she
had not been united a week when they were both carried off by the
cholera, which was then raging in Genoa: the same paper which
announced their marriage brought the tidings of their untimely death
to me. During this visit of mine to Carolside M. de Revel came there
for a few days; I was well acquainted with him, and liked him very
much.]
CAROLSIDE, EARLSTON, Sunday, 29th.
I am no more in London, my dear Hal, but in one of the sweetest places I
ever was in, which, as you know, is a great delight to me.
I am only just beginning to recover from the effects of the journey
hither, which, though divided into two days, made me very unwell....
Surely, you never meant, in spite of my invariable habit of replying to
all your questions, that I should ever attempt an answer to that
suggestion of your love and sorrow which, in speaking of your brother
[Barry S----, dead many years before], makes you exclaim, "What now is
his nature?" ...
I have been sorrier to think of the death of Dr. Combe than I was to
hear of it, when, as is always the case with me, my first feeling was
one almost of joy and congratulation. I never have any other emotion on
first hearing of a good man's death. I have an instantaneous sense of
relief, as it were, for such a one, of freer breathing, of expanded
powers; of infirmity, pain, sorrow, trouble, fleshly hinderance, and
earthly suffering for ever laid in the grave and left behind; and that
glorious creature, a noble human soul, soaring into a purer atmosphere
proper to it, and promoted to such higher duties as may well be deemed
rewards for duties well fulfilled on earth.
After a little while I began to cry, thinking of that sweet, beaming,
intelligent, benevolent countenance, that I am never to see here again;
but this was crying for myself, not him. I am truly grieved for his
brother, and all who knew, and loved, and have lost so excellent a
friend.
I have a paper in my possession still, which he laughingly drew up and
gave me when I was a girl in Edinburgh, a sort of legal document,
binding him to appear to me after he was dead; and one or two evenings,
as I lay on my sofa alone in Orchard Street, I thought of this, and
could not help fancying that if indeed it had been possible he could
have appeared to me, the familiar trust and affection with which I
always regarded him would have been paramount to all fears and wonders
in the first moment of my seeing him.
I have heard nothing more of my engagement at the Princess's Theatre,
and begin to think that perhaps I shall not hear anything more about it;
but I scarcely expected to do so before the end of November, because
till then I should not be wanted there, and I dare say the manager will
leave me as long a time as possible to consider of his offers and my
acceptance or rejection of them.
I am charmed with my hostess. She is exceedingly pretty--a great virtue,
as you know, in my estimation; she is upright, true, pious, and
uncommonly reasonable and judicious: am I not right to be charmed with
her? Then, too, she is most kind, gentle, considerate, and affectionate
to me, and esteems me, as I believe I have before told you, far beyond
my deserts--who can resist _that_ bribe?
Upon several points upon which I differ from people's usual modes of
thinking and feeling, I find there is a great similarity in our views;
and I feel as if I might thank God for an addition to the treasure of
excellent people's love that He has comforted my life withal; and count
another friend added to those who have been such infinite blessings to
me.
I am left to conclude that Mrs. Grote was so absorbed in her interest in
Mademoiselle Jenny Lind that I vanished utterly from her mind; for after
coming to see me just before I went down to Bannisters and pressing me
to go to the Beeches when I returned, I never heard another word about
it, or even set eyes upon her again.
I have been with your precious Dorothy, who came, both to my joy and
sorrow, to meet me at the railroad station, with her poor face covered
with that hideous respirator, and speaking when she had it off as if she
still had it on, her voice was so pale and dim. It grieved me that she
should have made an exertion that I feared might injure her, and yet I
was delighted to see her and most grateful for her extreme kindness in
thus troubling herself. She came, too, with her hands full of flowers
(my "good angels" brought to me by your "good angel," which seemed to me
pretty and proper, was it not?), and carried me straight off to Fulford
[Miss Wilson's home near York], where, in spite of much pain and
exhaustion consequent upon the long railroad journey, I passed a blessed
few hours with her, though our talk inevitably was of much sorrow....
I have not had time yet to see anything of the condition of the people
about this place. The villages and cottages we passed coming hither all
struck me as poor and comfortless compared with England; but the less
cleanly and tidy habits of the Scotch, and their almost universal
practice of going barefoot--at least the women and children,--give an
impression of greater poverty and discomfort than really exist, I
believe.
I have not yet received my American letters.... I am to act three nights
at Glasgow. I think Kelso is the town nearest Carolside, and that is
fourteen miles distant; the post town or village is Earlston
(Ercildown), a mile from the house. The whole region belongs to poetry
and legend and romance. The Eildon hills overlook it, and Thomas the
Rhymer haunts it, and the Scotch ballads are full of it. Do you know--oh
no, you know no songs, you unfortunate!--"Leader haughs and Yarrow," or
that exquisite melody beloved of Mendelssohn:--
"Busk ye, busk ye, my bonny, bonny bride!
Busk ye, busk ye, my winsome _marrow_!"
(isn't that an odd term of endearment to one's mistress?)
"Busk ye, busk ye, my bonny, bonny bride!
And think nae mair on the braes of Yarrow"?
Then there is that lovely ditty "Gala Water," which I always sing in
honor of my young host, who is a sort of Laird of Galashiel. The whole
place is full of such charming suggestions and associations. The
Leader, a lovely, clear, rapid, shallow, sparkling trout-stream, makes a
sudden bend across the lawn, opposite the drawing-room and dining-room
windows here (last October the pixie got vexed at something and very
nearly rushed in to the house); and early before breakfast this morning
I walked along the banks of the stream, and then knee deep up its bright
waters, and then over the breezy hills, "O'er the hills, amang the
heather," whence I watched its gleaming course between red-colored
rocks, like walls of porphyry or Roman tufa, and through corn-fields,
and by tufted woods, and felt for an hour as if there was no bitterness
in life....
I shall remain here till September 11th, when I go to Glasgow, where I
expect to act on the 13th. I shall be very sorry to go away, but shall
certainly by that time have had enjoyment enough to feel that it would
be unwise to tempt the inevitable decree which makes all pleasure and
happiness short-lived here, and which, when we strive to retain or
detain them, makes us wise through some disappointment or
disenchantment, which it is still wiser to anticipate and avoid.
Farewell, dear Hal.
I am ever as ever yours,
FANNY.
[Carolside was situated just beyond the Border in Scotland, in that
region of romantic and poetical traditions, full of the charm of
early legendary and ballad lore, of the associations of Burns's
songs and Scott's Border minstrelsy, pervaded with the old
superstitions, half-beliefs, dating from as far back as the days of
Thomas the Rhymer, and the later powerful influence of the Wizard of
the North, the mighty master-magician of our own day.
Melrose, Dryburgh, and Abbotsford, Smailholme, and Beamerside, were
all within easy distance of it; "the bonnie broom of Cowdenknowes"
bloomed in its neighborhood; the Gala, the Leader, the Tweed, the
Yarrow, ran singing through the lovely region, the exquisite
melodies that have been inspired by their wild scenery. It was a
region of natural beauty, heightened by every association that could
add to its charm. The Eildon Hills were our landmarks in all our
walks and rides and drives: and Ercildown, modernized into
Earlston, the picturesque post-village at our gates.]
CAROLSIDE, EARLSTON, September 5th.
MY DEAR LADY DACRE,
... Of the advantageous engagement which you heard I had concluded I
cannot speak with any certainty, for it never was settled definitively,
and I begin to think will not be concluded. I think it may have been
nothing more than a feint on the part of the manager of the Princess's
Theatre, who has been urged by Mr. Macready's friends to engage me to
act with him, and who, as he will not give me my terms, has, I think,
perhaps merely tendered me an arrangement that he knew I would not
accept, in order to be able to say that he had _endeavored_ to make an
arrangement with me. I am very sorry for this, for employment during the
winter months in London is what I much desired. However, "there is a
soul of good even in things evil," and the later experiences of my life
have left me little sensibility to spend upon crosses of this
description.
Not to be able to work for my own maintenance would indeed be a serious
calamity to me; but if I fail of a theatrical engagement I shall fall
back upon my original plan, to me so far preferable, of giving readings.
I do not think that now, after a whole year of apparent relinquishment
of that pursuit, my father has any thought of resuming it, which leaves
me free to make the attempt.
I am staying with a friend at a place on the Scottish Border; the
Leader, famous in song, runs across the lawn; we are four miles from
Melrose, and about as many from Abbotsford; the country is lovely, and
full of poetical and romantic associations.
I remain here another week, and then go to Glasgow, where I am to act;
after that I expect to pass three weeks in Edinburgh, between my two
cousins, Cecilia Combe (whom you remember as Cecy Siddons) and a
daughter of my dear friend Mrs. Harry Siddons, who married Major Mair,
and is living happily and prosperously in beautiful Edinburgh.
I must either act or give readings during this time, as I can in no wise
afford to be idle.
It was a great disappointment to me to _boil_ by B----'s very door on my
way here [Miss Barbarina Sullivan, Lady Dacre's granddaughter, now the
Hon. Lady Grey], but my plans had been all disarranged and confused by
other people, and I was most unwillingly compelled to pass by Howick. I
have written to offer myself to her in the last week of October on my
way back to London, and heartily hope she may be able and willing to
receive me, as I long to see her in her new home.
Pray give my kind regards to Mrs. Brand. You ought to be of the greatest
use, comfort, and pleasure to each other, endowed, as you both are, with
the especial graces of age and youth.
With affectionate respects to Lord Dacre, believe me
Ever yours,
FANNY.
[Miss Susan Cavendish had married the Hon. Thomas Brand, Lord
Dacre's nephew and heir. When I wrote this letter young Mr. and Mrs.
Brand lived a good deal at the Hoo with my kind old friends.]
CAROLSIDE, EARLSTON, September 5th.
You ask me what I am doing, dear Hal. I am driving fifteen miles in an
open britzska, in a bitter blowing day, to return morning calls of
neighbors, whose laudable desire is to "keep the county lively," and who
have dragged my little hostess into active participation in a picnic at
Abbotsford, which is to take place next Friday, the weather promising to
reward the seekers after "liveliness" with their death of cold, if they
escape their death of dulness.
I have taken several charming rides; the country is beautiful. I have
caught a tolerably good cold--I mean, good of its kind--by wading knee
deep in the Leader, and then standing on cold rocks, fishing by the
hour; in which process I did catch--cold, but nothing else; for, though
the water is still drowning deep in some beautiful brown pools, set in
the rocks like huge cairngorms, it is, for the most part, so shallow,
and everywhere so clear with the long-continued drought, that the
spotted trout and silver eels see me quite as well as I see them, and
behave accordingly, avoiding me more successfully, but quite as
zealously, as I seek them....
Our party has hitherto consisted of Emily de Viry, an uncle and brother
of Mrs. Mitchell's, and a London banker, a friend of hers. This, with
the "liveliness" of the neighborhood, with whom we have dined, and who
have dined with us, has been our society.
Next week Lady M----, who has been on a visit at Dunse Castle, returns,
and various people are coming from sundry places; but, except the Comte
de Revel, I do not know any of those who are expected.
The only music I have is my own, _forbye_ a comic song or two, gasped
and death-rattled out by poor old Sir Adam Fergusson, whom I met
seventeen years ago at Walter Scott's house, and who is still tottering
on, with inexhaustible spirits, but a body that seems quite threadbare,
tattered, and ready to fall in pieces with long and hard use.
I do not read to the party collectively, but occasionally to Emily de
Viry alone, who has asked me once or twice to read her favorite poems of
hers, of Wordsworth's, Tennyson's, and Milnes's....
I act in Glasgow on Monday, to-morrow week. On Sunday I shall be in
Edinburgh, and shall go and see Cecilia and Mr. Combe. I am sorry you
didn't see Mrs. Mitchell, for, though forty years old, she might be
fallen in love with any day for her good looks only. She is my notion of
what Mary Stuart must have looked like, but she is a marvellous wise and
discreet body--mentally and morally, I should think, very unlike the
bonnie Queen of Scots.
Did I tell you that one place where we dined was Cowdenknowes? and I
felt like singing "The Bonnie Broom" all the time, which would have been
an awful accompaniment to the gastronomic enjoyments of the "liveliness
of the county." Good-bye, my dear.
Ever yours,
FANNY.
GLASGOW, Wednesday, September 15th.
I do not know what my friend's religious opinions are. She was brought
up in the midst of strict Presbyterians, but I suspect, from some things
I have heard her say, that she is by no means an orthodox sample of that
faith. But, you know, I am never curious about people's beliefs, nor
anxious that my friends should think as I do upon any subject. The
resemblance between Mrs. Mitchell's notions and mine was one that she
was led to express quite accidentally on a matter on which few women
would agree with me....
I have not heard from Adelaide for a long time--a month at least. The
Comte de Revel, the Sardinian Ambassador, was at Carolside while I was
there, and spoke of the condition of the whole of Italy as full of
insecurity, and liable at any moment to sudden outbreaks of violent and
momentous change.
I cannot think that Rome will be a desirable residence for foreigners
this winter; but E---- is so indolent that, unless people are massacred
in the streets, and, moreover, in the identical street in which he
lives, I should much doubt his being willing to move, or thinking it at
all necessary to do so. I saw the old Countess Grey and Lady G---- just
before they left London about three weeks ago. They were intending to
winter in Rome, and told me they were much dissuaded by their friends
from doing so.
If you leave Ireland, as you say, on the 1st of October, I am afraid I
shall not see you in London, for I expect to pass the whole of that
month in Edinburgh; but I hope I shall find leisure to come to St.
Leonard's, and see you and Dorothy while you are there.
My plans are at present a little unsettled. I think of going back to
Carolside with Mrs. Mitchell and Lady M---- until next Monday, when I
shall return to Edinburgh, and from thence proceed to act four nights at
Dundee; after that I shall be stationary in Edinburgh for, I hope, at
least three weeks. I think I shall not act there, but have some thoughts
of giving readings.... Good-bye, my dear.
I am ever as ever yours,
FANNY.
DUNDEE, Thursday, 2d.
MY DEAR HAL,
Your letter directed to me to Greenock never reached me. I did not go
there; and having left Glasgow without doing so, shall not visit that
place at all now.
I arrived yesterday in Dundee, having left Edinburgh in the morning. I
act here two nights, and two in Perth, and return to Edinburgh on
Wednesday week to remain with Elizabeth Mair (youngest daughter of Mrs.
Harry Siddons) till the last week in October. After that I go southward
to visit B---- G---- at Hawick, and the Ellesmeres at Worsley.
Your letter about sleeping in Orchard Street, on your way through
London, is so very undecided--I mean upon that particular point--that I
shall write to Mrs. Mulliner (my housekeeper) to desire her to receive
you, if you should apply for a lodging, so that you can do as you
like--either go there or to Euston Square.
I am delighted at the prospect of my three weeks' stay in Edinburgh.
Nothing could exceed the affectionate kindness with which Lizzie and her
husband received me.
After all that I have seen at home and abroad, Edinburgh still seems to
me the most beautiful city I ever saw, and all my associations with it
(except those of my last stay there) are peaceful and happy, and carry
me back to that year of my life spent with Mrs. Harry Siddons, which has
been the happiest of my existence hitherto.... Elizabeth's children are
like a troop of angels, one prettier than another; I never saw more
lovely little creatures. The companionship of children is charming to
me. I delight in them, and am happy to think that I shall live among
Lizzie's angels for three weeks. I was living with children at
Carolside. Emily de Viry had her little boy and girl with her, the
latter a little blossom of only a year old, born, poor thing! after her
father's death. Mrs. Mitchell's eldest son was at home from Eton for the
holidays, a very fine lad of sixteen, devoted to his mother, who seems
to me only to exist through and for him and his brother.... I am to act
while I am in Edinburgh, which, of course, is a good thing for me.
E---- has written to Henry Greville to take the house in Eaton Place
which they looked at together when he was in London, so I feel sure they
will be home in the spring. Adelaide has written a letter to Henry
Greville, which he has sent on to me, assuring him of that fact.... She
is enchanted at the idea of coming home. Good-bye, my dear. I will write
this minute to Mrs. Mulliner to put you in my room, if you go to Orchard
Street.
Ever yours,
FANNY.
PERTH, Monday, September 27th.
MY DEAR HAL,
I do not understand your note of the 15th, which has only just reached
me here on the 27th. You ask me if I "have not written to Lizzie Mair to
ascertain her whereabouts." Lizzie is in Edinburgh. I spent the Monday
and Tuesday of last week with her, and return there the day after
to-morrow, after acting two nights in this lovely place, whither I came
on from Dundee yesterday. I shall remain three weeks with Lizzie, and
shall see Cecilia and Mr. Combe during some part of that time; for,
though they did not return to Edinburgh, as I supposed they would on Dr.
Combe's death, they are expected home daily now, and will certainly be
there in the first days of October. I wrote from Dundee to Mulliner to
make up my bed and do everything in the world for you that you required;
and I wrote to you from Dundee, telling you that I had done so. I have
now again this minute written to the worthy woman, reiterating my orders
to that effect; so sincerely hope you will be properly attended to in my
house. Jeffreys, I am sorry to say (sorry for my sake, glad for his),
has found an opportunity of placing himself permanently with a gentleman
with whom he lived formerly, and has written to tell me of this; so that
you will not have his services while you are in Orchard Street. He was
an excellent, quiet, orderly servant, and I am sorry I shall not have
the advantage of his service during the remainder of my time here.
I am engaged to act with Mr. Murray in Edinburgh for ten nights, from
the 16th to the 25th of October. Before that I shall return for three
nights to Glasgow, where my last three nights were very profitable, and
the manager wishes to have me again. This will probably be next week,
the 5th, 6th, and 7th of October. Perhaps I may go for a night or two to
Greenock from Glasgow before I return to Edinburgh, but this is
uncertain.
From the 12th to the 15th I am going with Mrs. Mitchell, who will take
me up in Edinburgh to visit the H---- D----s at Ardoch, and after that
shall be stationary for ten days.
PERTH, Tuesday, 28th.
In spite of my innate English horror of untidiness, and my maid's innate
Irish tendency to it, I should be very sorry if she were to leave me.
She has lived with me many years, and I really love as well as esteem
her. She has been more than a servant--she has been a friend to me; and
I cried some tears at Carolside at the thought of parting with her....
I will tell you another point of agreement between Mrs. Mitchell and
myself, which I also discovered accidentally. Emily de Viry was laughing
at her for a peculiar mode of dress she has adopted, always wearing a
cap upon her pretty head, and never uncovering her arms and neck, though
both are beautiful, in evening dress. I was appealed to for my opinion
about the costume of middle-aged gentlewomen, and could, of course, only
state that it had been my own determination for some years past never to
uncover either my arms or neck, or wear any but sober colors as soon as
I was forty years old. This is one of those trivial points of agreement
which sometimes indicate more resemblance between people's natures than
a similarity of opinions on important matters, which may co exist with
considerable difference in matters of taste and feeling. Mrs. Mitchell,
like myself, does not think that stark nakedness would be indecent among
decent savage people, but does object to full-dress semi-nudity among
indecent civilized ones.
Lady M---- did not come with me to Dundee. I would not let her, though
her proposal to do so was certainly dictated partly by her affection for
me.... But I would not let her come with me _strolling_, though I should
only have been too glad of her company. She paints beautifully.... Alas!
an empty heart is a spur and goad to drive one to the world's end,
unless the soul be full of God, and the mind and time of wholesome
occupation.
The Mairs are excellently kind to me, and I look forward to my stay with
them with great pleasure. Cecilia and Mr. Combe are expected daily in
Edinburgh, so I shall lose little or nothing of them.
I am just disappointed of a charming opportunity of seeing the lovely
country round Perth. Lady Ruthven has sent me a very pressing invitation
to spend some days at Freeland, seven miles from here; but I am obliged
to return to Edinburgh to-morrow, for which I am very sorry, as I
should have liked to go to Freeland, the whole neighborhood of which is
beautiful. Good-bye. God bless you.
Ever yours,
FANNY.
29, ABERCROMBIE PLACE, EDINBURGH, Saturday, October 2d.
DEAR HAL,
I received a note from Mrs. Mulliner yesterday morning, expressing her
readiness to receive you, and her full intention to devote herself to
you to the very utmost of her ability. I am sorry Jeffreys will not be
there to help you in getting cabs, etc.; but he has found a chance of
placing himself permanently with a former master, and, of course, is
glad of the opportunity to do so.
I have not yet seen any of the Coxes. Cecilia and Mr. Combe only arrived
last night from Hull, having come by Antwerp. They have both got the
influenza, and are very much knocked up, and I have seen neither of them
yet....
The railroad running through the Castle Gardens has cruelly spoiled
them, of course, though from the depth of the ravine, at the bottom of
which it lies, it is not seen from Prince's Street; but its silver wake
floats up above the highest trees of the banks, and the Gardens
themselves are ruined by it. I have a sadly affectionate feeling for
every inch of that ground.... I do not admire Scott's monument very
much. It is an exact copy in stone of the Episcopal Throne in Exeter
Cathedral, a beautiful piece of wood carving. The difference between the
white color of the statue and the gray shrine by which it is canopied is
not agreeable to me. I should have liked it better if the figure had
been of the same stone as the monument, and so of the same color.
In Edinburgh it is never so much the detail of its various parts that
arrests my attention and enchants me especially, as the picturesque and
grand effect of its several parts in juxtaposition with each other--the
beautiful result of all its features together, the striking and romantic
whole. The Carlton Hill seems to me more covered with buildings than I
thought it was; but I believe you have seen it since I have, so that I
do not know how to answer your question about it.
In determining to act in Edinburgh I followed the advice of the Mairs,
who were, of course, more likely to be able to judge of the probable
relative success of reading or acting here, and who counselled the
latter.... Good-bye, dear.
Ever yours,
FANNY.
[My cousin Elizabeth, youngest daughter of Mrs. Harry Siddons,
married Major Mair, son of that fine old officer, Colonel Mair,
Governor of Fort George. During several protracted seasons of
foreign service, one of the banishments to which his military duty
condemned Arthur Mair was a remote and lonely outpost on the
furthest border of our then hardly peopled Canadian territory--a
literal wilderness, without human inhabitants. Here, alone, with the
small body of men under his command, he led a life of absolute
mental and intellectual solitude, the effect of which upon his
nervous system was such that, on his return to civilized existence,
the society of his fellow-creatures, and all the intercourse of busy
city life, affected him with such extreme shyness and embarrassment
that in his own native town of Edinburgh, for some time after his
return to it, he used to avoid all the more frequented
thoroughfares, from mere nervous dread of encountering and being
spoken to by persons of his acquaintance--an unfavorable result of
"solitary confinement," even in a cell as wide as a wilderness.]
STAR HOTEL, GLASGOW, GEORGE SQUARE, October 4th.
DEAR HARRIET,
My acquaintance with the H---- D----s dates only from my last visit to
Glasgow, when they joined our party at this hotel, and returned to
Carolside with us. The lady is a daughter of a family who are intimate
friends of T---- M----, and was presented to me when a girl in London
some years ago. She has since married, and I met her again, with her
husband, here a little while ago.... They both show a very kind desire
to be civil and amiable to me, and I like them both, and her especially.
They have spent the last five years of their lives wandering together
about Europe and Asia. They have no children, and have travelled without
any of the servants that generally attend wealthy English people abroad
(courier, lady's-maid, valet); and have come home so in love with their
wild untrammelled life, that the possession of their estate at Ardoch,
and their prospect of an income of many thousands a year, seem equally
to oppress them as undesirable incumbrances, requiring them to sacrifice
all their freedom, and submit to all sorts of civilized conventional
constraints from which they have lived in blessed exemption abroad, and
to adopt a style of existence utterly repugnant to their nomadic
_no_-habits. G---- D----, on their return to Ardoch, proposed to his
wife to take up their abode in two of the rooms of their fine large
house, and let the rest to some pleasant and amusing people; for, he
said, they never could think of living in that house by themselves....
Your distress about my readings I answered with a slight feeling that it
was a pity you should begin to be anxious and troubled about the details
of a project that may possibly never be carried out after any fashion. I
paid heed, nevertheless, to your observations, of which I admit the
force, and am so far from having determined to abide by any theoretical
convictions of my own upon the subject that I shall be guided entirely
by Mr. Mitchell's opinion about the best manner of giving my readings;
for, as I do it for money, I shall do it in the way most likely to be
profitable. At the same time, I shall certainly use my best endeavor to
have the business so arranged as to desecrate as little as possible the
great works of the master, in the exposition and illustration of which I
look for infinite pleasure and profit of the highest order, whatever my
meaner gain by it may be....
[I am afraid my excellent and zealous manager, Mr. Mitchell, was
often far from satisfied with the views I took of the duty imposed
upon me by reading Shakespeare. My entire unwillingness to exhaust
myself and make my work laborious instead of pleasant to me, by
reading more than three, or at the utmost four, times a week, when
very often we could have commanded very full rooms for the six; my
pertinacious determination to read as many of the plays (and I read
twenty-five) as could be so given to an audience in regular
rotation, so as to avoid becoming hackneyed, in my feeling or
delivery of them, appeared to him vexatious particularities highly
inimical to my own best interests, which he thought would have been
better served by reading "Hamlet," "Romeo and Juliet," and the
"Merchant of Venice," three times as often as I did, and "Richard
II.," "Measure for Measure," and one or two others, three times as
seldom, or not at all. But though Mr. Mitchell could calculate the
money value of my readings to me, their inestimable value he knew
nothing of.]
Pray now, my dearest friend, consider that you too often challenge with
affectionate anxiety for me that future which I may never live to see;
and yet do not imagine that I consider your apprehensions and
suggestions, were they a thousand times more numerous and more
ridiculous, if that were possible, as in any way unsatisfactory; but
highly the contrary, as testifying to that most comfortable fact that
you, my beloved Hal, are the very same you ever have been to me, an
excellent, precious, devoted, wise, most absurd, and every way
invaluable friend. God bless you.
Ever yours,
FANNY.
GREENOCK, October 9th.
I am very glad I did the duty of a hostess, dear Hal, though only in
your dreams, and received you hospitably in my own house, though I was
not conscious of it. As for that fool Mulliner and that brute Jeffreys,
I will hang them up together on one rope when I return, for allowing you
to be so horribly disturbed....
If we are in Orchard Street together again, you shall put the Psyche [a
fine cast of the Neapolitan truncated statue given to Mr. Hamilton, Mrs.
Fitzhugh's brother, by the King of Naples] in whatever light you please;
but, as I am certain not to return to London till the third week in
November, if then, I feel as if, when I get back to Orchard Street, I
should have nothing to do but pack up my things preparatory to removing
to King Street, where I hope to get Mrs. Humphreys to receive me until I
leave England.
I shall certainly not be six weeks in Orchard Street when I return, and
the Psyche will desert the drawing-room when I do, and resume her post
on the staircase, where she always seemed to me to look down on dear
Mrs. Fitzhugh's morning visitors, as they came up the stairs, with a
divinely mild severity of expression, as if she felt the bore about to
be inflicted by their presence on the inmates of her house, the mortals
under her heavenly care.
You ought to find two letters from me at Bannisters, for I have
directed two to you there. How I wish I could be with you and dear
Emily! Give my love to her, and believe me
Ever yours,
FANNY.
[I was at this time occupying my friend Mrs. Fitzhugh's house in
Orchard Street, Portman Square, which I rented for a twelvemonth
from her. It was a convenient small house in an excellent situation,
and one whole side of the drawing-room was covered with a clever
painting, by Mr. Fitzhugh, of the bay and city of Naples--a pleasant
object of contemplation in London winter days.]
GLASGOW, October 12th.
MY DEAREST HAL,
I should very much wish that you would give me one of Loyal's children
[a fine Irish retriever of my friend's]; but do not again end any letter
to me so abruptly, without even signing your name, because it gives me a
most uncomfortable notion that I have not got all you have written, that
you have, by mistake, put only a part of your letter in your envelope,
and so sent it off unfinished to me.
I left Carolside, to my great regret, yesterday. I came in Mrs.
Mitchell's carriage to within fourteen miles of Edinburgh, where I
joined the railroad. She accompanied me thus far, and then returned
home. At Edinburgh I transferred myself immediately to the Glasgow
train, and so came on, without being able to ascertain whether Cecilia
Combe and Lizzie Mair are at home or not.
Mrs. Mitchell and Lady M----, and a party of their friends, are coming
to Glasgow to-morrow. They will stay at the same inn where I am, and go
to the theatre every night that I play, so that I do not feel yet as if
I had taken leave of them; and Lady M---- intends going on with me to
Dundee, where I am going to act when I have finished my engagement here
and at Greenock.
Is it not too provoking that the York manager has at length found out
that he can afford to give me my terms, and now writes to me to beg that
I will go and act in York at the beginning of next month? which, of
course, I cannot, as I am to be three weeks in Edinburgh before I return
to England.
Neither you nor Dorothy mention your winter plans. Have you none made
yet?...
I do not think, dear Hal, that you have ever heard me express a positive
rejection of phrenology, for the simple reason that, never having taken
the pains thoroughly to study it, it would ill become me to do so. At
the same time, you know, I have at various times lived much in the
society of the principal professors of the science in this country, and
they have occasionally taken pains to explain a good deal of their
system to me. I have also read a good many of their books, and have had
a great personal affection and esteem both for Mr. Combe and his
excellent brother. But, in spite of all this, and my entire agreement
with almost all their physiological doctrines, phrenology, as I have
hitherto seen and heard it, has a positive element of inconclusiveness
to me, and I doubt if by studying it I should arrive at any other
opinion, since all the opportunities I have enjoyed of hearing it
discussed and seeing it acted upon have left my mind in this frame
regarding it. I believe myself to have no prejudice on this subject, for
I have longed all my life to know something positive and certain about
this wonderful machine which we carry about with us, or which carries us
about with it, and incline to agree with the views which the
phrenological physiologists entertain on the subjects of temperament and
general organization. But, in spite of all this, phrenology, as I hear
it perpetually referred to and mixed up by them with their habitual
speech (it forms indeed so completely the staple of their phraseology
that one had need be familiar with the terms to follow their usual
conversation), produces no conviction on my mind beyond the recognized
fact that a nobly and beautifully proportioned head indicates certain
qualities in the human individual, and _vice versâ_.
It appears to me merely a new nomenclature for long-known and admitted
phenomena; and beyond those, they seem to me to involve themselves in
contradictions, divisions, and subdivisions of the brain, so minute and
various, and requiring so much allowance for so many conditions, as
considerably to neutralize each other, and render the result of their
observations, which to them seems positive and conclusive, to me
uncertain and unsatisfactory.
There are many things which my intellectual laziness prevents my
examining, which I feel sure, if I did examine, would produce positive
results on my mind; but phrenology does not seem to me one of these. If
it had been, I should have adopted it, or felt the same sort of belief
in it that I do in mesmerism, about which, understanding nothing, I
still cannot resist an impression that it is a real and powerful
physical agency.... Now you must draw your own conclusions as to the
causes of this state of mind of mine with regard to phrenology. The
phrenologists, you know, say I am deficient in "causality"--and
undoubtedly it is not my predominant mental quality; but I incline to
think that I _could_ think, as well as the average number of professing
phrenologists, if I would take the trouble, for I have known some
amongst them who certainly were anything but logical in their general
use of their brains.
The only time I ever was in the Highlands was when I went with Dall and
my father to Loch Lomond twenty years ago. I had never seen a drop of
Loch Katrine till now. We went from Glasgow to Stirling by railroad in
an hour, on Saturday morning. From Stirling we took a light open
carriage, a kind of britzska, and pair of horses, and posted the same
afternoon sixteen miles to Callander, where we slept. Sunday morning we
took the same carriage with fresh horses to Loch Katrine. The distance
is only ten miles of an enchanting drive; and if I had been able to
spend the night at the Trosachs, I could have done it perfectly well,
for there is an immense big inn there for the reception of tourists; and
though the house was shut up for the season, the servants were in it,
and we could have procured bed and board there, and I have no doubt a
roast fowl and sherry, or oatmeal and whiskey, if we had preferred them.
I had, however, to be back in Stirling the same afternoon, and the
weather was wild and gloomy, though not cold, nor positively wet till we
got into a little one-horse "machine" to drive through the Trosachs,
when the mist shrouded the mountains almost from base to summit, and
even Ben Aven, close under him as we were, was barely discernible. Ben
An was the feature of the scene that struck me most; the form of its
crest is so singularly jagged and fine.
We just drove through the pass to the first ripple of the lake, and then
turned right-about to Stirling, which we reached before four o'clock in
the afternoon, and yesterday morning I was back again in Glasgow, the
lakes and mountains remaining in my memory absolutely like a dream. The
country from Doune to Callander is beautiful, and in summer it must be
an enchanting expedition, though such scenery has its own peculiar
winter beauty, grander and more impressive perhaps than even its summer
loveliness. I wish I was there again.
I cannot tell you anything more of my receipts at Glasgow, except that
those of the second night were much better than the first; but as those
were small, this is not saying much. I have not yet received the
"returns."
I am glad the news you got from Ardgillan is satisfactory. Love to dear
Dorothy.
Ever as ever yours,
FANNY.
29, ABERCROMBIE PLACE, EDINBURGH, Wednesday, 13th.
I did not see the eclipse, my dear. I did not know there was to be one,
and did not therefore look for it; and if I had, I doubt my having been
any the wiser, inasmuch as our mornings of late have been very misty.
I am off to-day with Mrs. Mitchell to Ardoch, where I stay only
to-morrow, and return Friday to act here on Saturday. Having promised to
go, I do not like to break my word, otherwise it seems to me rather a
fuss, and a long way to go for one day's rest. Originally our plan was
to spend two or three days there, that being all I could then give; but
Mrs. Mitchell, with whom I had promised to go, could not get away from
visitors at her own house sooner.
I spent the evening with Cecilia and Mr. Combe on Monday. They are both
tired from the effect of their journey still, and look fagged and ill.
They have both got the influenza too, which does not mend matters; and I
am struck with the alteration in Mr. Combe's appearance. He looks old,
as well as ill, and very sad--naturally enough on his return to this
place, where his dear brother died.
The _becomingness_ of Cecilia's gray, or rather white, hair struck me
more than any other change in her. She has lost the appearance of
hardness (coarseness), which, I think, mingled slightly with her
positive beauty formerly, and is to my mind handsomer now than I ever
remember her. She is not nearly so stout as she was; her complexion has
lost its excess of color, has become softer; and the contrast of her
fine dark eyes and silvery curls gives her a striking resemblance to
Gainsborough's lovely portrait of her mother. She is looking thin and
ill, but seems tolerably cheerful.
At the end of my engagement at the theatre, during the whole of which I
shall remain with the Mairs, I shall spend a few days with her and Mr.
Combe; after which I shall come as far south as Howick, and stay a day
or two with B---- G----, and then cross over to Manchester to the
Ellesmeres.
I shall hardly be in London before the third week in November. I have
had a letter from my sister, announcing their positive return in the
spring; but, as she says they will only leave Rome in May, it is
improbable that I should see them at all, as I propose going to America
by the steamer of the first of June; but Heaven knows what may happen
between this and then. Nobody has the same right to "bother" me, as you
call it, that you have, for I love nobody so well; besides, as for
Emily, she is a deuced deal quicker in her processes than you are, and
snaps up one's affairs by the nape of the neck, as a terrier does a rat,
and unless one is tolerably alert one's self, she is off with one in her
zeal in no time, whither one would not....
I wish you would tell Mrs. Fitzhugh, with my love, that a man who was
acting Joseph Surface with me the other night said to me, "Now, my dear
Lady Teazle, if you could but be persuaded to commit a trifling _fore
paw_ (_faux pas_)."
Give my love to dear Emily.
Ever as ever yours,
FANNY.
MY DEAREST HAL,
I expect to be with the Combes for some few days at least, and do not
feel altogether as happy as usual in the anticipation of their
intercourse.
I think I have observed growing, as it were, upon them, with regard to
certain subjects, a sort of general attitude of antagonism, which
strikes me painfully.
All fanaticisms are bad, and the fanaticism of scepticism as bad or
perhaps worse than most others, because it wounds more severely the
prejudices of others than it can be wounded by them, professing, as it
does, to have none to wound.
I am going to stay with Cecilia all next week, and am rather afraid that
I shall have to hear things that I love and reverence irreverently
treated. We shall probably steer clear of much discourse on religious
subjects, though of late Mr. Combe has appeared to me more inclined than
formerly to challenge discussion on this ground.
I am afraid I can at the utmost only expect to see my sister for a
fortnight after they return, though Henry Greville writes me that I
cannot possibly give her the mortification and myself the pain of going
away just as she comes back, and that I ought, for both our sakes, to
stay at least a month in England after her return: but then he wishes to
get up a play with us both.
I think Grantley Manor charming. It gave me a great desire to know Lady
Georgiana Fullerton personally; but I am told she has a horror of me,
for what she calls my "injustice to the Catholics." What that is I do
not know; but whatever it is, I am very sorry for this result of it.
Good-bye, dearly beloved.
Ever yours,
FANNY.
29, ABERCROMBIE PLACE, EDINBURGH, Monday, October 25th, 1847.
The last question in your letter, which nevertheless heads it, having
been added on over the date, "How is your health?" I can answer
satisfactorily--much better.... I am much delighted at you and Dorothy
reserving your visit to Battle Abbey till I come to you, and only hope
the weather may give you no cause to regret having done so. I have
promised Emily to go down to Bannisters in December, and shall then pay
you my visit at St. Leonard's.
I do much wish to be once more with you and Dorothy. I have just
concluded a very pleasant arrangement with Arthur Malkin and his wife
for staying a few days in the neighborhood of the lakes with them,
between Keswick and Ambleside, after I leave Howick.
The weather is, I believe, generally favorable for that scenery as late
as November. I have never seen the English lakes, and am not likely soon
to have so pleasant an opportunity of doing so.
I have received an application from the York manager to act at Leeds,
and having agreed to do so, think I shall probably also act a few nights
at York, Hull, and Sheffield, while I am thereabouts; all which,
together with my visit to the Ellesmeres, will take up so much of my
time that I doubt my being more than a month or three weeks in Orchard
Street before my term of possession there expires.... I shall be able to
answer your questions about the Combes better when I am with them, but
besides my own observation I have the testimony of the ----s to the fact
of their having become much more aggressive in their feeling and
conversation with regard to "Church abuses," "theological bigotry," and
even Christianity itself. I am sorry to hear this; but if they _hurt_
me, I shall heal myself by looking at the Vatican [a fine engraving of
St. Peter's, in Mr. Combe's house].
I had a letter from E---- the other day. I am delighted to say that they
have quite determined to return in the spring, and it is just possible
that I may see them before I leave England.
E----'s account of the Roman reforms is most encouraging, and I must
give you an extract from his letter about them.
"A very important decree was published on the 2d of this month, relative
to the organization of a municipal council and magistracy for the city
of Rome. Besides the ordinary duties of a municipality, such as public
works, _octroi_, etc., it is to have the direction of education. This is
a circumstance the consequence of which it is impossible to overrate or
to foresee. Hitherto, education has been monopolized by the clergy, and
moreover by the Jesuits (whose schools have always been the best by a
very great deal, to give the devil his due). The new law does not
abolish their establishments, or interfere with them in any way, but the
liberal feeling being so strong in the country, the rising generation
will be almost entirely educated in the schools founded by the
municipality; it is the greatest blow the hierarchy has yet received.
The council consists of a hundred members, chosen from different classes
of society. It is first named by the Pope, and then renews itself by
elections; there are only four members to represent the ecclesiastical
bodies."
There, Hal, what do you think of that? I sit and think of that most
lovely land, emerging gloriously into a noble political existence once
more, till I almost feel like a poet.
Love to Dorothy.... I only make Hayes _sensible_ that she is a _fool_
twice a week on an average, not twice a day.
Yours ever,
FANNY.
HOWICK GRANGE, November 14th.
Surely, my dearest Hal, the next time you say you almost despair of
mankind, you should add, "in spite of God," instead of "in spite of the
Pope."
I arrived here about three hours ago, and have received a most severe
and painful blow in a letter from Henry Greville which I found awaiting
me, containing the news of Mendelssohn's death. I cannot tell you how
shocked I am at this sudden departure of so great and good a creature
from amongst his impoverished fellow-beings. And when I think of that
bright genius (he was the _only_ man of genius I have known who seemed
to me to fulfil the rightful moral conditions and obligations of one),
by whose loss the whole civilized world is put into mourning; of his
poor wife, so ardently attached to him, so tenderly and devotedly loved
by him; of his children--his boy, who, I am told, inherits his sweet and
amiable disposition; of my own dear sister, and poor E----, so deeply
attached to him,--I cannot bear to think, I feel half stupid with pain.
And yet your letter is full of other sorrow. O God! how much there is in
this sorrowful life! and what suffering we are capable of! and yet--and
yet--these can be but the accidents, while the sun still shines, and the
beauty and consolation and _virtue_ of nature and human life still
hourly abound.
You ask me if I have written anything in Edinburgh but letters. I have
hardly had leisure to write even letters. I do not know when I have
worked so hard as during my last engagement there. I have hardly had an
occupation or thought that was not perforce connected with my theatrical
avocations. I am heartily glad it is over.
Mr. Combe has given me the "Vestiges of Creation" to read, and I have
been reading it.... The book is striking and interesting, but it appears
to me far from strictly logical in its great principal deduction, as far
as we "human mortals" are concerned. Indeed, Mr. Combe, who thinks it
most admirable, was obliged to confess that the main question of
progress, involving dissimilar products from similar causes, was
_non-proven_. And I think there are discrepancies, moreover, in minor
points: but that may only be because of my profound ignorance.
The book is extremely disagreeable to me, though my ignorance and desire
for knowledge combined give it, when treating of facts, a thousand times
more interest than the best of novels for me; but its conclusions are
utterly revolting to me,--nevertheless, they may be true.
I cannot write any more. B---- has just given me the _Athenæum_, with a
long notice of Mendelssohn; and I am thinking more of him just now than
anything else in the world....
God bless you, my dear.
I am ever yours,
FANNY.
LEEDS, Friday, November 19th.
Mendelssohn's death did indeed give me a bitter and terrible shock. He
was one of the bright sources of truth, at which I had hoped I might
drink at some time or other. I always looked forward to some probable
season of intercourse with him, the likelihood of which was increased by
E---- and Adelaide's love for and intimacy with him. Intercourse with
him seemed to me a privilege almost certainly to be mine, in the course
of the next few years. This is only my own small selfish share of the
great general grief. I feel particularly for E----. He seems to find so
very few people that satisfy him, whom he is fond of, or who are at all
congenial to him, that the loss of a dear friend, and such a man, will
indeed fall heavily upon him.
Those whose sympathies are more general, and whose taste can accept and
find pleasure in the intercourse of the majority of their
fellow-creatures, are fortunate in this respect, that no one loss can
make the world empty for them; and thus the qualities of kindliness and
benevolence are repaid, like all other virtues, even in this world
(which is nevertheless not heaven), into the bosom of those who practise
them.
For a person who has permitted intellectual refinement to become almost
a narrow fastidiousness, and whose sympathies are of that exclusive kind
that none but special and rarely gifted persons can excite them, the
loss of such a friend as Mendelssohn must be incalculable; and I am
grieved to the heart for E----.
I do not know what is to be done with Covent Garden. I suppose it will
remain an opera-house; for to fit it for that it has been made well-nigh
unavailable for any other purpose, as I think we shall find on the 7th
December, when a representation of "Scenes" from various of
Shakespeare's plays is to take place there, for the purpose of raising
funds for the purchase of the house Shakespeare was born in.
You know what my love and veneration for Shakespeare are; you know, too,
how comparatively indifferent to me are those parts of the natures even
of those I most love and honor which belong only to their mortality. The
dead bodies of my friends appeal, perhaps, even less than they should do
to my feelings, since they have been temporarily inhabited and informed
by their souls; but acquainted as you are with these notions of mine,
you will understand that I do not entirely sympathize with all that is
being said and done about the four walls between which the king of poets
came into his world. The thing is more distasteful to me, because
originally got up by an American charlatan of the first water, with a
view to thrust himself into notoriety by shrieking about the world
stupendous commonplaces about the house where Shakespeare was born. It
has been taken up by a number of people, theatrical and other, who, with
the exception of Macready, have many of them the same petty personal
objects in view. Those whose profession compels them, by the absolute
necessity of its conditions, to garble and hack and desecrate works
which else could not be fit for acting purposes (a fact which in itself
sets forth what theatrical representation really is and always must
be--do read, _à propos_ to this, Serlo's answer to Wilhelm Meister about
the impossibility of representing dramatically a great poetical whole),
and who now, on this very Shakespearian Memorial night, instead of
acting some one of his plays in its integrity, and taking zealously any
the most insignificant part in it, have arranged a series of truncated,
isolated scenes, that the actors may each be the hero or heroine of
their own _bit_ of Shakespeare.... This is all I know of the immediate
destinies of Covent Garden. They have written to me to act the dying
scene of Queen Katharine, to which I have agreed, not choosing to
decline any part assigned me in this "Celebration," little as I
sympathize with it.
If I should hear anything further, as I very likely may, from Henry
Greville, of the probable fate of Covent Garden next season, I will let
you know, that you may dispose accordingly of your property in it.
I have finished the "Vestiges of Creation." I became more reconciled to
the theory it presents towards the close of the book, for obvious
reasons. Of course, when, abandoning his positive chain (as he conceives
it) of proved progression, after leading the whole universe from
inorganic matter up to the "paragon of animals," the climax of
development, man, he goes on to say that it is _impossible_ to limit the
future progress, or predict the future destinies of this noble human
result, he forsakes his own ground of material demonstration, on which
he has jumped, as the French say, _à peds joints_, over many an
impediment, and relieves himself (and me) by the hypothesis, which,
after all, in no way belongs peculiarly to his system, that other and
higher destinies, developments, may, and probably do, await humanity
than anything it has yet attained here: a theory which, though most
agreeable to the love of life and desire of perfection of most human
creatures, in no sort hinges logically on to his _absolute chain of
material progression_ and development. From the moment, however, that he
admitted this view, instead of the one which I think legitimately
belongs to his theory, irreconcilable as it seemed to me with what
preceded it, the book became less distasteful to me, although I do not
think the soundness of his theory (even admitting all his facts, which I
am quite too ignorant to dispute) established by his work. Supposing his
premises to be all correct, I think he does not make out his own case
satisfactorily; and many of the conclusions in particular instances
appear to me to be tacked or basted (to speak womanly) together loosely
and clumsily, and yet with an effect of more mutual relation, coherence,
and cohesion than really belongs to them.
Mr. Combe is delighted with the book--because it quotes him and his
brother, and professes a belief in phrenology; but Mr. Combe himself
allowed that the main proposition of the work is not logically deduced
from its arguments, and moreover admitted that though well versed in
_all_ the branches of natural science, the author was perfectly master
of _none_. He attributes the authorship to his friend Robert Chambers,
or perhaps to the joint labor of him and his brother William. If his
surmise in this respect is true there would be obvious reasons why they
should not acknowledge so heterodox a book, especially in Edinburgh.
In asking me for _my_ theory of human existence, dear Hal, you must have
_forgotten me_ in your craving desire for some--any--solution of the
great mystery with which you are so deeply and perpetually perplexed.
How should I, who know nothing, who am _exceptionally_ ignorant, who
seldom read, and seldomer think (in any proper sense of the word), have
even the shadow of a theory upon this overpowering theme?
To tell you the vague suggestions of my imagination at various times
would doubtless be but to re-echo some of your own least satisfactory
surmises.
I thank God I have not the mental strength _and infirmity_ to seek to
grapple with this impossible subject. The faint outlines of ideas that
have at any time visited my brain about this tremendous mystery of human
life have all been sad and dreary, and most bitterly and oppressively
unsatisfactory; and therefore I rejoice that no mental fascination
rivets my thoughts to the brink of this dark and unfathomable abyss, but
that it is on the contrary the tendency of my nature to rest in hope, or
rather in faith in God's mercy and power, and moreover to think that the
perception we have (or as you would say, imagine we have) of DUTY, of
right to be done and wrong to be avoided, gives significance enough to
our existence to make it worth both love and honor, though it should
consist of but one conscious day in which that noble perception might be
sincerely followed, and though absolute annihilation were its
termination. The whole value and meaning of life, to me, lies in the
single sense of conscience--duty; and that is here, present, now, enough
for the best of us--God knows how much too much for me.
Good-bye, my dear. I have a most horrible cough and sore throat, and I
have been acting with it, feeling every moment that I was doing my poor
_parts of speech_ a serious injury by the strain I was compelled to put
upon them. You may judge of the state of my voice when I tell you that
I received from some anonymous kind friend this morning a bottle of
cough-mixture, and all manner of lozenges, jujubes, etc. Give my love to
Dorothy.
Ever yours,
FANNY.
ORCHARD STREET.
DEAREST H----,
... I am going with Henry Greville to see Rachel on Wednesday in "Marie
Stuart." I wish I could afford to see her every night, but it is a dear
recreation. Henry Greville is not "teaching me to act," though I dare
say he thinks I may derive profit as well as pleasure from seeing
Rachel....
All my friends are extremely impatient of my small gains; I am not,
though I certainly should be glad if they were larger....
I have moved my Psyche, my beautiful and serene goddess. As the ancient
Romans had especial tutelary gods for their private houses, the patron
saints of the heathen calendar, she is my adopted divinity. You know I
have had her with me in some of my blackest and bitterest seasons, and
have often marvelled at the mere combination of lines which have
produced so exquisite an image of noble graceful thoughtfulness. She is
not without a certain sweet sternness, too; there is immense power, as
well as repose, in that lovely countenance,--how--why--can mere curved
and straight lines convey so profoundly moral an impression? She is an
admirable companion, and reminds me of Wordsworth's "Ode to Duty," which
I every now and then feel inclined to apostrophize her with.
I have sent out the big centre china jar to the table on the stair-case,
and have put my goddess in the drawing-room in its place....
I have received a kind invitation from Lady Dacre to the Hoo, and I
shall spend next week there, which will be both good and agreeable for
me. I expect to find Lady G---- there; she is a person for whom I have a
great liking and esteem, and whom I shall be glad to meet. Perhaps, too,
dear William Harness; but I do not know of anybody else.
I forget whether I told you that the Sedgwicks had sent me a friend of
theirs, an American country clergyman, to lionize about London, which I
have been doing for the last three days. I took him to the British
Museum, and showed him the Elgin Marbles, and the library, and the
curious manuscripts and books which strangers generally care to see; but
the profit and pleasure, I should think, of travelling is but little
unless the mind is in some slight measure prepared for more knowledge by
the possession of some small original stock; and a great many Americans
come abroad but poorly furnished not only with learning but with the
means of learning.
Charles Greville got me an admission for my Yankee friend to the House
of Lords. We were admitted while the business was going on, and saw the
curious old form of passing the Acts of Parliament by Commission, than
the ceremonies of which it is difficult to imagine anything more quaint,
not to say ludicrous, and apparently meaningless.
We heard Lord Brougham and the Duke of Wellington speak, and had an
excellent view of both of them.
The House appeared to me too minutely ornamented; it is rich, elaborate,
but all in small detail, too subdivided and intricate and overwrought to
be as imposing and good in effect as if it were more simple.
I took my American friend to the Zoological Gardens, and to the
Botanical Gardens, in the Regent's Park, which are very charming, and
for which I have a private ticket of admission.
This morning I have been with him to Stafford House, to show him the
pictures, which are fine, and the house itself, which I think the
handsomest in London. To-morrow I take him to the opera, and I have
given him a breakfast, a lunch, and a dinner, and feel as if I had
discharged the duty put upon me, especially as it involved what I have
no taste for, _i.e._ sight-seeing.
The Elgin Marbles I was glad enough to see again--one has never seen
them too often,--and was sitting down to reflect upon them at my
leisure, when my American friend, to whom, doubtless, they seemed but a
parcel of discolored, dirty, decapitated bodies, proposed that we should
pass on, which we accordingly did.
I am struck with the spirit of conformity by which this gentleman seems
troubled, and which Adelaide tells me the young American people they saw
in Rome constantly expressed,--the dread of appearing that which they
are, foreigners; the annoyance at hearing that their accent and dress
denote them to be Americans. They certainly are not comfortable people
in this respect, and I always wish, for their own sakes as well as mine,
that they had more or less self-love.
I was impelled to say to my young clergyman, whose fear of trespassing
against English usages seemed to leave him hardly any other idea, "Sir,
are you not a foreigner, an American? May I ask why it is to be
considered incumbent upon you, either by yourself or others, to dress
and speak like an Englishman?" ...
Good-bye, dear.
I am ever yours,
FANNY.
18, ORCHARD STREET, November 18th.
I do not know that I ever slept so near the sea as to hear it
discoursing as loudly as you describe, though I have been where its long
swelling edge was heard rolling up and tearing itself to ribbons on the
shingly beach like distant thunder. As for night-sounds of any sort, you
know my _sound_ sleep is the only one I am familiar with.
In the hotel at Niagara, the voice of the cataract not only roared night
and day through every chamber of the house, but the whole building
vibrated incessantly with the shock of the mighty fall. I have still
health and nerve and spirits to cope with the grand exhibitions of the
powers of Nature: the majesty and beauty of the external world always
acts as a tonic on me, and under its influence I feel as if a strong arm
was put round me, and was lifting me over stony places; and I nothing
doubt that the great anthem of the ocean would excite rather than
overpower me, however nearly it sounded in my ears.
Your description of the terrace, or parade walk, covered with my
fellow-creatures, appals my imagination much more. My sympathies have
never been half human enough, and in the proximity of one of nature's
most impressive objects I shrink still more from contact with the
outward forms of unknown humanity. However, this is merely an answer to
your description; I shall find, by creeping down the shingles, some
place below, or, by climbing the cliff, some place above, these dear men
and women, where I can be a little alone with the sea.
I observed nothing peculiar about the direction of any letter that I
have recently received from you; but then, to be sure, I am not given to
the general process, which, general as it is, always astonishes me, of
examining the direction, the date, the postmark, the signature, of the
letter I receive (as many of these, too, as possible, before opening the
epistle); I hasten to read your words as soon as I have them, and seldom
speculate as to when or where they were written, so that I really do not
know whether I have received your Hull letter or not. I do not go
thither until Monday next, and return to town the following Sunday....
Oh, my dear, what a world is this! or rather, what an unlucky experience
mine has been--in some respects--yes, in _some_ respects! for while I
write this, images of the good, and true, and excellent people I have
known and loved rise like a cloud of witnesses to shut out the ugly
vision of the moral deformity of some of those with whom my fate has
been interwoven....
I have agreed with Mrs. Humphreys to take the apartments that T----
M---- had in King Street, from the beginning of January till the
beginning of May. She says she cannot let me have them longer than that,
but I shall endeavor for at least a month's extension, for it will be so
very wretched to turn out and have to hunt for new lodgings, for a term
of six weeks.
My success at Leeds was very good, considering the small size of the
theatre.... I am not exempt from a feeling about "illustrious
localities," but the world seems to me to be so absolutely Shakespeare's
domain and dwelling-place, that I do not vividly associate him with the
idea of those four walls, between which he first saw the light of an
English day. If the house he dwelt in in the maturity of his age, and to
which he retired to spend the evening of his life, still existed, I
should feel considerable emotion in being where his hours and days were
spent when his mind had reached its zenith.
A baby is the least intelligent form of a rational human being, and as
it mercifully pleased God to remove His wonderfully endowed child before
the approach of age had diminished his transcendent gifts, I do not care
to contemplate him in that condition in which I cannot recognize
him--that is, with an undeveloped and dormant intelligence.
We know nothing of his childhood, nothing of the gradual growth and
unfolding of his genius; his acknowledged works date from the season of
its ripe perfection.
You know I do not regret the dimness that covers the common details of
his life: his humanity was allied to that of its kind by infirmities and
sins, but I am glad that these links between him and _me_ have
disappeared, and that those alone remain by which he will be bound, as
long as this world lasts, to the love and reverence of his
fellow-beings. Shakespeare's childhood, boyhood, the season of his moral
and intellectual growth, would be of the deepest interest could one know
it: but Shakespeare's mere birthplace and babyhood is not much to me;
though I quite agree that it should be respectfully preserved, and
allowed to be visited by all who find satisfaction in such pilgrimage.
He could not have been different from other babies you know; nor,
indeed, need be,--for a _baby_--_any_ baby--is a more wonderful thing
even than Shakespeare.
I have told you how curiously affected I was while standing by his
grave, in the church at Stratford-upon-Avon: how I was suddenly overcome
with sleep (my invariable refuge under great emotion or excitement), and
how I prayed to be allowed to sleep for a little while on the
altar-steps of the chancel, beside his bones: the power of association
was certainly strong in me then; but his bones _are_ there, and above
them streamed a warm and brilliant sunbeam, fit emblem of his vivifying
spirit;--but I have no great enthusiasm for his house....
Does not the power of conceiving in any degree the _idea_ of God
establish some relation between Him and the creature capable of any
approach by thought to Him? Do we not, in some sense, possess mentally
that which we most earnestly think of? is it not the possession over
which earthly circumstances have the least power? The more incessantly
and earnestly we think of a thing the more we become possessed _by_ and
_of_ it, and in some degree assimilated to it; and can those thoughts
which reach towards God alone fail to lay hold, in any sort or degree,
of their object?...
Surely, whether we are, or are not, the result of an immense chain of
material progression, we have attained to that idea which preserves
alive to all eternity the souls upon which it has once dawned. We have
caught hold of the feet of the omnipotent Creator; and to the spirit
that once has received the conception, however feeble or remote, of His
greatness and goodness, there can be no cessation of the bond thus
formed between itself and its great Cause. I cannot write about this; I
could not utter in words what I think and feel about it: but it seems to
me that if organization, mere development, has reached a pitch at which
it becomes capable of _divine_ thoughts, it thenceforth can never be
anything _less_ than a creature capable of such conceptions; and if so,
then how much _more_?
Farewell. Love to Dorothy.
Yours ever,
F. A. K.
ORCHARD STREET, Monday, 18th.
I arrived yesterday in town, my dearest Hal, and found your letter
waiting for me. The aspect of these, my hired Penates, is comfortable
and homelike to me, after living at inns for a fortnight; and the
spasmodic and funereal greetings of the nervous Mulliner, and the
lugubrious Jeffreys, _gladden_ my spirits with a sense of returning to
_something_ that expects me.
About Lady Emily ---- and her _ethereal_ confinement: did I not tell you
that Mrs. C---- wrote me word from America that Fanny Longfellow had
been brought to bed most prosperously under the beneficent influence of
ether? at which my dear S---- C---- expresses some anxiety touching the
authority of the Book of Genesis, which she thinks may be impaired if
women continue, by means of ether, to escape from the special curse
pronounced against them for their share in the original sin.
For my part I am not afraid that the worst part of the curse will not
abide upon us, in spite of ether; the woman's desire will still be to
her husband, who, consequently, will still rule over her. For these
(curses or not, as people may consider them), I fear no palliating ether
will be found; and till men are more righteous than they are, all
creatures subject to them will be liable to suffer misery of one sort or
another....
I wonder if I have ever spoken to you of Lady Morley--a kind-hearted,
clever woman (who, by the bye, always calls men "the softer sex"), a
great friend of Sydney Smith's, whom I have known a good deal in
society, and who came to see me just before I left town. In speaking of
poor Lady Dacre, and the difficulty she found in accepting her late
bereavement, Lady Morley said, "I think people should be very grateful
whose misfortunes fall upon them in old age rather than in youth:
they're all the nearer having done with them." There was some whimsical
paradox in this, but some truth too. An habitual saying of hers (not
serious, of course, but which she applies to everything she hears) is:
"There's nothing new, nothing true, and nothing signifies." The last
time I dined at Lady Grey's a discussion arose between Lady Morley,
myself, and some of the other guests, as to how much or how little truth
it was _right_ to speak in our usual intercourse with people. I
maintained that one was bound to speak the whole truth; so did my
friend, Lady G----; Lady F---- said, "Toute verité n'est pas bonne à
dire;" and Lady Morley told the following story: "I sat by Rogers at
dinner the other day (the poet of memory was losing his, and getting to
repeat the same story twice over without being aware that he did so),
and he told me a very good story, which, however, before long, he began
to repeat all over again; something, however, suggesting to him the idea
that he was doing so, he stopped suddenly, and said, 'I've told you this
before, haven't I?' And he had, not a quarter of an hour before. Now,
ladies, what would you have said? and what do you think I said? 'Oh
yes,' said I, 'to be sure: you were beginning to tell it to me when the
fish came round, and _I'm dying to hear the end of it_.'" This was on
all hands allowed to have been a most ingenious reply; and I said I
thought she deserved to be highly complimented for such graceful
dexterity in falsehood: to which she answered, "Oh, well, my dear, it's
all very fine; but if ever you get the truth, depend upon it you won't
like it"--a retort which turned the laugh completely against me, and
sent her ladyship off with flying colors; and certainly there was no
want of tolerably severe sincerity in that speech of hers.
Lady Morley's great vivacity of manner and very peculiar voice added not
a little to the drollery of her sallies.
A very conceited, effeminate, and absurd man coming into a room where
she was one evening, and beginning to comb his hair, she exclaimed, "La!
what's that! Look there! There's a mermaid!"
Frederick Byng told me that he was escorting her once in a crowded
public assembly, when she sat down on a chair from which another woman
had just risen and walked away. "Do you know whose place you have just
taken?" asked he. Something significant in his voice and manner arrested
her attention, when, looking at him for an instant with wide-open eyes,
she suddenly jumped up, exclaiming, "Bless my heart, don't tell me so!
_Predecessor!_" Lord Morley, before marrying her, had been divorced from
his first wife, who had just vacated the seat taken by his second, at
the assembly to which they had both gone.
On the occasion of my acting at Plymouth, Lady Morley pressed me very
kindly to go and stay some days with her at Soltram, her place near there:
this I was unable to do, but drove over to see her, when, putting on a
white apron, to "sustain," as she said, "the character," she took me,
housekeeper fashion, through the rooms; stopping before her own charming
watercolor drawings, with such comments as, "Landscape,--capital
performance, by Frances Countess of Morley;" "Street in a foreign town, by
Frances Countess of Morley,--a piece highly esteemed by _connyshures_;"
"Outside of a church, by Frances Countess of Morley,--supposed by good
judges to be her _shiff duver_," etc....
I have just had a visit from that pretty Miss Mordaunt who acted with me
at the St. James's Theatre, and who tells me that her sister, Mrs.
Nisbett, was cheated at the Liverpool theatre precisely as I was; but
she has a brother who is a lawyer, who does not mean to let the matter
rest without some attempt to recover his sister's earnings....
I went this morning to inquire at the St. George's Workhouse for the
unfortunate girl I took out of the hands of the police in the park the
other day (her offence was being found asleep at early morning, and
suspected of having passed the night there), and found, to my great
distress and disappointment, that she was in the very act of starting
for Bristol.
I had, as I told you, interested dear Mr. Harness, and Mr. Brackenbury,
the chaplain of the Magdalen, about her, and when I went out of town she
seemed fully determined to go into that asylum. The chaplain of the
workhouse in Mount Street, however, has dissuaded her from doing so,
told her she would come out worse than she went in; in short, they have
despatched her to Bristol, to the care and guardianship of a poor young
sister, only a year older than herself, who earns a scanty support by
sewing; and all that remained for me to do was to pay her expenses down,
and send her sister something to help her through the first difficulties
of her return. I am greatly troubled about this. They say the poor
unfortunate child is in the family-way, and therefore could not be
received at the Magdalen Asylum; but it seems to me that there has been
some prejudice, or clerical punctilio, or folly, or stupidity at work,
that has induced the workhouse officials thus to alter the poor girl's
determination, and send her back whence she came, no doubt to go through
a similar experience as soon as possible again. God help her, and us
all! What a world it is!...
The clergyman of the workhouse called upon me to explain why he had so
advised the girl, but I did not think his reasons very satisfactory....
God bless you.
Ever yours,
FANNY.
ORCHARD STREET.
The houses at Plymouth and Exeter were wretched.... These gains, my
dearest Hal, will not allow of my laying up much, but they will prevent
my being in debt, that horror of yours and mine. I paid my expenses,
besides bringing home something, and a considerable increase of health
and strength--which is something more....
I remain in town till the end of next week, then go to Norwich, Ipswich,
and Cambridge, my midland circuit, as I call it; after which I shall
return to London. Towards the middle of August I go to York, Leeds,
Sheffield, and Newcastle, thence to visit Mrs. Mitchell at Carolside;
after which I shall take my Glasgow and Edinburgh engagements, and then
come back to London. There is a rumor of Macready being about to take
Drury Lane for the winter, but I have no idea whether it is true or not.
I am sure I don't know what is to become of my poor dog Hero [a fine
Irish retriever given me by my friend]. I am almost afraid that Mrs.
Humphreys will not take him into her nice lodging. If I can't keep him
with me till I go away to America, I should beg you in the interim to
receive him, for my sake, at Ardgillan.
You cannot think with what a sense of relief at laying hold of
something _that could not lie_ I threw my arms round his neck the other
day, after ---- had left me. This is melancholy, is it not? but I
believe many poor human creatures whose hearts have been lacerated by
their (un)kind have loved brutes for their freedom from the complicated
and reflected falsehood of which the nobler nature is, alas! capable and
guilty.
Tell me if it will be inconvenient to you to take charge of Hero when I
go away. In a place where he had a wider range than this narrow little
dwelling of mine, and where his defects were not incessantly ministered
to by the adulation of an idiotical old maid besotted with the necessity
of adoring and devoting herself to something, he would be very
endurable....
[I injured one of my hands in getting out of a pony-carriage at Hawick.]
Touching my broken finger, my dear, I am sure I did take off the splints
too soon, and the recovery has been protracted in consequence; but as I
knew it would recover anyhow, and that the splints were inconvenient in
acting, and, moreover, expensive, as they compelled me to cut off the
little finger of all my white gloves, I preferred dispensing with them.
The pain, inflammation, and stiffness are almost gone, and nothing
remains but the thickening of the lower part of the finger, which makes
it look crooked, and I think may continue after the injury is healed. I
did not, I believe, break the bone at all, but tore away the ligament on
one side, that keeps the upper joint in its socket. The cold water
pumping is a capital thing, and I give it a douche every time I take my
bath. It might, perhaps, be a little better for bandaging, but will get
well without it.... A healthy body, with common attention to
common-sense, will recover, undoctored, from a great many evils. In
almost all cases of slight fractures, cuts, bruises, etc., if the
patient is temperate and healthy, and has no constitutional tendency to
fever or inflammation, the evil can be remedied by cold water bandages
and rest.
Give my dear love to my dear Dorothy and your dear Dorothy. I shall be
happy with you both, for she is quite too good to be jealous of.
God bless you, dear.
I am ever yours,
FANNY.
ORCHARD STREET, Sunday, 4th.
MY DEAREST HAL,
First of all let me tell you, what I am sure you will be glad to learn,
that E---- S---- is in England. You will imagine how glad I was to see
him. I am very fond of him, have great reliance on his mind as well as
his heart; and then he seems like something kind and dependable
belonging to me--the only thing of the kind that I possess, for my
sister is a woman, and you know I am heartily of opinion that we are the
weaker sex, and that an efficient male protector is a tower of strength.
In seeing E----, too, I saw, as it were, alive again the happy past. He
seemed part of my sister and her children, and the blessed time I spent
with them in Rome, and it was a comfort to me to look at him....
Charles Greville had been out of town, and found the letter announcing
E----'s advent, and came up, very good-naturedly, dinnerless, to bring
me word of the good news. The next day, however, he was as cross as
possible (a way both he and his brother Henry have, in common with other
spoiled children) because I expressed some dismay when he said E----'s
obtaining a seat in Parliament was quite an uncertainty (I think Mr.
S---- contemplated standing for Kidderminster). Now, from all he had
said, and the letter he had written about it, I should have supposed
E----'s return to have been inevitable; but this is the sort of thing
people perpetually do who endeavor to persuade others that what they
themselves wish is likely to happen. E---- seems quite aware himself
that the thing is a great chance, but says that even if he does not get
a seat in Parliament, he shall not regret having come, as he wanted
change of air, is much the better for the journey, and has had the
satisfaction of seeing his sister in Paris. Nevertheless, if this effort
to settle himself to his mind in England proves abortive, I do not think
the Grevilles will get him back in a hurry again....
I am surprised by the term "worthless fellow" which A---- applies to
----. I think him selfish and calculating, but I am getting so
accustomed to find everybody so that it seems to me superfluous
fastidiousness to be deterred from dealings with any one on that
account....
I do not write vaguely to my sister about my arrangements; but you know
I have no certain plans, and it is difficult to write with precision
about what is not precise.
I am not going to Norwich just yet; the theatre is at present engaged
by the Keeleys, and the manager's arrangements with them and
Mademoiselle Celeste are such that he cannot receive me until August. I
may possibly act a night or two at Newcastle in Staffordshire, and at
Rochdale, but this would not take me away for more than a week.
In answer to your question of what "coarsenesses" L---- finds in my book
["A Year of Consolation"], I will give you an extract from her letter.
"There are a few expressions I should like to have stricken out of it;
_par exemple_, I hate the word _stink_, though I confess there is no
other to answer its full import; and there are one or two passages the
careless manner of writing which astonished me in you. You must have
caught it from what you say is my way of talking." Now, Hal, I can only
tell you that more than once I thought myself actually to blame for not
giving with more detail the disgusting elements which in Rome mingle
everywhere with what is sublime and exquisite; for it appeared to me
that to describe and dilate upon one half of the truth only was to be an
unfaithful painter, and destroy the merit, with the accuracy, of the
picture. I remember, particularly, standing one morning absorbed in this
very train of reflection, in the Piazza del Popolo, when on attempting
to approach the fine fountains below the Pincio I found it impossible to
get near them for the abominations by which they were surrounded, and
thought how unfaithful to the truth it would be to speak of the grace
and beauty of this place, and not of this detestable desecration of it.
The place and the people can only be perfectly described through the
whole, as you know. Farewell.
Ever yours,
FANNY.
RAILWAY STATION, HULL, Friday, 4th.
I have been spending the afternoon crying over the tender mercies of
English Christians to their pauper population, till my eyes smart, and
itch, and ache, and I shall have neither sight nor voice to read
"Coriolanus," which I must do this evening. To this Hull Railway Hotel
is attached a magnificent Railway Station (or rather _vice versa_),
shaped like a horseshoe, with a spacious broad pavement, roofed with a
skylight all round, making a noble ambulatory, of which I have availed
myself every day since I have been here for my walking exercise....
I was just starting for my walk to-day, when in came old Mr. Frost, my
Hull employer, President of the Literary and Scientific Institution,
before which I am giving my present readings, the principal lawyer, and,
I believe, Mayor of Hull,--a most charming, accomplished, courteous old
gentleman of seventy years and upwards, who, finding that I was about to
walk, proposed to accompany me, and we descended to the Station.
As we paced up and down, I remarked, lying in a corner, what I took at
first for a bundle of rags. On looking again, however, I perceived there
was a live creature in the rags--a boy, whose attitude of suffering and
weariness, as he crouched upon the pavement, was the most wretched thing
you can imagine. I knelt down by him, and asked him what ailed him: he
hardly lifted his face from his hands, and said, "Headache;" and then,
coughing horribly, buried his miserable face again. Mr. Frost, seeing I
still knelt by him, began to ask him questions; and then followed one of
those piteous stories which make one smart all over while one listens to
them; parental desertion, mother marrying a second time, cruelty from
the step-father, beating, starving, and final abandonment. He did not
know what had become of them; they had gone away to avoid paying their
rent, and left this boy to shift for himself. "How long ago is that?"
said Mr. Frost. "Before snow," said the lad,--the snow has been gone a
fortnight and more from this neighborhood, and for all that time the
child, by his own account, has wandered up and down, living by begging,
and sleeping in barns and stables and passages. The interrogatory was a
prolonged one: my friend Mr. Frost is slow by age, and cautious by
profession, and a man by nature, and so not irresistibly prompted to
seize up such an unfortunate at once in his arms and adopt it for his
own. In the course of his answers the boy, among other things, said, "I
wouldn't mind only for little brother." "How old is he?" "Going on two
year." "Where is he?" "Mother got him." "Oh, well, then, you needn't
fret about him; she'll take care of him." "No, she won't; he won't be
having nothing to eat, I know he won't." And the boy covered his face
again in a sullen despair that was pitiful to see. Now, you know, Hal,
this boy was not begging; he did not come to us with a pathetic appeal
about his starving little brother: he was lying starving himself, and
stupefied, with his head covered over, buried in his rags when I spoke
to him; and this touching reminiscence of his poor little step-brother
came out in the course of Mr. Frost's interrogatory accidentally, and
made my very heart ache. The boy had been in the workhouse for two
years, with his mother, before she married this second husband; and,
saying that he had been sent to school, and kindly treated, and well fed
in the workhouse, I asked him if he would go back thither, and he said
yes. So, rather to Mr. Frost's amazement I think, I got a cab, and put
the child in, and with my kind old gentleman--who, in spite of evident
repugnance to such close quarters with the poor tatterdemalion, would by
no means leave me alone in the adventure--we carried the small forsaken
soul to the workhouse, where we got him, with much difficulty,
_temporarily_ received. The wife of the master of the poor-house knew
the boy again, and corroborated much of what he had told us, adding that
he was a good boy enough while he was there with his mother; but--would
you believe it, Hal?--she also told us that this poor little creature
had come to their gate the night before, begging admittance; but that,
because he had not a _certain written order_ from a certain officer, the
rules of the establishment prevented their receiving him, and he had
been turned away _of course_. I was in a succession of convulsions of
rage and crying all this time, and so adjured and besought poor old Mr.
Frost to take instant measures for helping the little outcast, that when
we left him by the workhouse fire, the woman having gone to get him some
food, and I returned blaspheming and blubbering to my inn, he--Mr.
Frost--went off in search of a principal police-officer of Hull, from
whom he hoped to obtain some further information about the child, which
he presently brought back to me. "Oh yes, the magistrate knew the child;
he had _sent him to prison_ already several times, for being found lying
at night on the wharves and about the streets." So this poor little
wretch was _sent to prison_ because literally he had not where to lay
his head!... I wouldn't be a man for anything! They are so cruel,
without even knowing that they are so: the habit of seeing sin and
suffering is such a _heart-hardener_.
Well, the boy is safe in the workhouse now, and is, according to his own
wish and inclination, either to be sent to sea or put out apprentice to
some trade. I have pledged one of my readings for purposes of outfit or
entrance-fee, and Mr. Frost has promised me not to lose sight of the
child, so I hope he is rescued from sin and suffering for the present,
and perhaps for the future.
Do you remember what infinite difficulty I told you I had had in
rescuing that poor little wretch out of the streets of Glasgow? But then
she had the advantage of a _mother_, who drove her into them day after
day, to sing her starvation in the miserable mud and rain,--luckily this
poor Hull boy's mother had not this _interest_ in him.
I have come home, dear Hal, after my reading, and resume my letter to
you, though I am very tired, and shall go to bed before I have finished
it.
I do remember Robertson's sermon about Jacob wrestling with the angel,
and I remember the passage you refer to. I remember feeling that I did
not agree with it. The solemnity of night is very great; and the aspect
of the star-sown heavens suggests the idea of God, by the overpowering
wonder of those innumerable worlds by which one then _sees_ one's self
surrounded,--which affect one's imagination in a reverse way from the
daylight beauty of the earth, for that makes God seem as if He were
_here_, in this world, which then is all we see (except its great eye,
the sun) of these multitudinous worlds He has created, and that are
hanging in countless myriads round us. Night suggests the vastness of
creation, as day can never do; and darkness, silence, the absence of
human fellowship, and the suspension of human activity, interests, and
occupations, leave us a less disturbed opportunity of meditating on our
Creator's inconceivable power. The day and the day's beauty make me feel
as if God were very near me; the night and the night's beauty, as if I
were very far off from Him.
But, dear Harriet, do not, I entreat you, challenge me to put into words
those thoughts which, in us all, must be unutterable. If I can speak of
nothing that I feel deeply but with an indistinctness and inefficiency
that make me feel sick as with a bodily effort of straining at what I
cannot reach, how can I utter, or write, upon such a subject as this! Do
not, I beg, ask me such questions, at least in writing; speaking to you,
there might be times--seldom, indeed, but some--when I might stammer
out part of what I felt on such a subject; but I _cannot_ write about
it--it is impossible.
I have many things to tell you, for which I am too tired to-night, but I
will tell you them to-morrow. God bless you. It has just occurred to me
that I have a morning reading to-morrow, and some visits to pay first,
and I must go to the workhouse and see that boy once more, and satisfy
myself that whatever he is put to hereafter is his own choice; and so I
shall have no time to write to you to-morrow, and therefore I will
finish my letter to-night.... I had an application from Dr. Hawtrey, the
Provost of Eton, through Mary Ann Thackeray, the other day, to give some
readings to the Eton boys, which I have delightedly agreed to do--but of
course refused to be paid for what will be such a great pleasure to me;
whereupon Dr. Hawtrey writes that my "generosity to his boys takes his
breath away." I think _I_ ought to pay for what will be so very charming
as reading Shakespeare to those children....
I had a letter from Mrs. Jameson yesterday, from whom I have heard
nothing since she left my house....
And now, dear Hal, I have told you all my news,--oh no, I haven't
either:--I went last night, it being my holiday, to hear Mr. Warren, the
author of "Ten Thousand a Year," and the Recorder of Hull, address the
members of the Mechanics' Institute on the duties, privileges,
difficulties, dignity, and consolations of labor. I was greatly
delighted. I sat on the platform, opposite that large concourse of
working men and women--laborers well acquainted by daily experience with
the subject of the eloquent speaker's discourses,--and was deeply
touched by the silent attention and intelligent interest with which, for
two hours, they listened to his admirable address.
I have got it, and shall bring it down and read it to you. Good-bye. Do
not fail to let me know what I can do for Dorothy. Good-night.
Ever as ever yours,
FANNY.
HULL, Thursday, December 2nd, 1847.
My chest and throat, my dear Hal, are well. I have still a slight cough,
but nothing to signify....
I never acted in all Yorkshire before. I do not know why, during my
"first theatrical career," I did not, but so it was. My harvest now is
not likely to be very great, for the prices at the theatres in Leeds and
Hull are very low, the theatres not large, and so habitually deserted
that an occasional attraction of a few nights hardly has time to rouse
the people from their general indifference to these sorts of
exhibitions. However, I am both living and saving, and am content.
We have in our last letters got upon those subjects which, upon
principle and by choice, I avoid,--bottomless speculations, wherein the
mind, attempting to gaze, falls from the very brink and is drowned, as
it were, at the very surface of them.
Your theory of _partial immortality_ is abhorrent to me--I can use no
other term. Pray conceive me rightly--'tis an abhorrence of the opinion,
which does not include you for holding it; for though my whole being,
moral and mental, revolts from certain notions, this is a mere necessity
of my nature, as to contemplate such issues is the necessity of certain
others, differently organized from mine.
I would rather disbelieve in the immortality of my own soul than suppose
the boon given to me was withheld from any of my fellow-creatures.
Besides, I did not, in the position I placed before you, suggest the
efficacy of _any special kind of idea_ of God, as connecting the holder
of it with Him.
For aught I can tell, the noble conception of the Divinity, formed out
of the extension of the noble qualities of his own soul by the noblest
man, may be further from any adequate idea of God than the gross notion
of a log-worshipper is from the spiritual conception of the most
spiritually minded man (only remember _I don't believe this_). But,
inasmuch as it is something out of himself, beyond himself, to which the
religious element of his nature aspires--that highest element in the
human creature, since it combines the sense of reverence and the sense
of duty, no matter how distorted or misapplied--it _is_ an idea of a
God, it _is_ a manifestation of the germ of those capacities which,
enlightened and cultivated, have made (be it with due respect spoken)
the God of Fénelon and of Channing. I do not believe that any human
creature, called by God into this life, is without some notion of a
Divinity, no matter how mean, how unworthy, how seldom thought of, how
habitually forgotten.
Superstition, terror, hope, misery, joy--every one of these sentiments
brings paroxysms in every man's life when _some_ idea of God is seized
upon, no matter of what value, no matter how soon relinquished, how
evanescent. Eternity is long enough for the progress of those that we
see lowest in our moral scale. You know I believe in the progress of the
human race, as I do in its immortality; and the barbarous conception of
the Divinity of the least advanced of that race confirms me in this
faith as much as the purest Christianity of its foremost nations and
individuals. Revelation, you say, alone gives any image of God to you;
but which Revelation? When did God begin, or when has He ceased, to
reveal Himself to man? And is it in the Christian Revelation that you
find your doctrine of partial immortality and partial annihilation? I
believe I told you once of my having read in America a pamphlet
suggesting that sin eventually _put out_, destroyed, annihilated, and
did away with, those souls of which it took possession; this is
something like your present position, and I do not know when I received
so painful an impression as from reading that pamphlet, or a profound
distress that lasted so long, from a mere abstract proposition addressed
to my imagination.
I believe all God's creatures have known Him, in such proportion as He
and _they_ have chosen; _i.e._, to none hath He left Himself utterly
without witness; to some that witness has been the perfect life and
doctrine of Jesus Christ, the most complete revelation of God that the
world has known.
All have known Him, by His great grace, in some mode and measure; and
therefore I believe all are immortal: none have known Him as He is, and
but few in any age of the world have known Him as they might; and an
eternity of progress holds forth, to my mind, the only hope large enough
to compensate for the difference of advantages here, and to atone for
the inadequate use of those advantages.
Dearest Harriet, I hate not to make an effort to answer you, and you
like, above all things, this species of questioning, speculating, and
discussing. But there is something to me almost irreverent in thus
catching up these everlasting themes, as it were, in the breathing-time
between my theatrical rehearsals and performances. You will not mistake
me. I know that the soul may be about its work (does not George Herbert
say
"Who sweeps a room, as for Thy laws,
Makes that and the action fine"?)
even at such times, but a deep and difficult mental process should not
be snapped at thus.
You know I never can _think_, and to think on such subjects to any
purpose would almost necessarily involve thinking on none others; and
but for my desire to please you, and not put aside with apparent
disregard your favorite mental exercises, I should be as much ashamed as
I am annoyed by the crude utterance of crude notions upon such subjects
to which you compel me.
You say our goodness and benevolence are not those of God: in
_quantity_, surely not; but in _quality_? Are there two kinds of
positive goodness? I read this morning the following passage in a book
by an American, which has been lent to me by a young Oxford man whom I
met, and fell much in love with, at Carolside--he is a great friend of
Dr. Hampden's: "The greater, purer, loftier, more complete the
character, so is the inspiration; for he that is true to conscience,
faithful to reason, obedient to religion, has not only the strength of
his own virtue, wisdom, and piety, but the whole strength of Omnipotence
on his side; for goodness, truth, and love, as we conceive them, are not
one thing in man and another in God, but the same thing in each." I
agree with this, dear Hal, and not with you, upon this point.
These speculations are a severe effort to my mind, and, besides
shrinking from the mere mental labor of considering them, I find it
difficult, in the rapid and desultory manner in which I must needs
answer letters, to place even the few ideas that occur to me upon them
clearly and coherently before you.
Did I tell you that that impudent---- I've no more room, I'll tell you
in my next. Give my love to Dorothy, and
Believe me ever yours,
FANNY.
HULL, Saturday, December 4th, 1847.
I did tolerably uncomfortably without Jeffreys [a man-servant who had
left me], and that, you know, was very well. I paid old Mrs. Dorr
something extra for doing all the work in the rooms upstairs, had a fire
made in the little man-servant's room in the hall, and, after twelve
o'clock, established Hayes therein to attend to my visitors. My table
was laid for dinner in the front drawing-room, and at dinner-time
wheeled into the back drawing-room, where, you know, I always sit; and
after my dinner wheeled out again, and the things all removed in the
other room by Hayes. The work is really nothing at all, and it would
have been most unnecessary to have hunted up a man-servant for a couple
of weeks, for last and next week are the only two that I expect to pass
in Orchard Street, before I remove to my King Street lodgings.
You speculate more, dear Hal, than I do, and among all things on that
Covent Garden performance, that "Series of Scenes from various Plays of
Shakespeare, to be given in his honor, and towards the purchase of his
house at Stratford-on-Avon." I suppose it will be a very protracted
exhibition, but my only reflection upon the subject was, that I was glad
to perceive that my share of it came early in the course of events.
I had no idea of proposing Hero [my dog] as your sister's inmate, but
supposed he would be harbored in the stables, the kennels, or some
appropriate purlieu, be sufficiently well fed, and take his daily
exercise in your society. This was my vision of Hero's existence under
your auspices, and, as you may readily believe, I had no idea of
quartering him on the reluctant _dogmanity_ of anybody....
I have just had a charming letter from Charles Sedgwick; if I can
remember, I will keep it to show it to you.
Order your boots, or anything else, to be sent to me, dear Hal, but you
know I shall not be with you yet for a month, and possibly not then; for
though no _pleasant_ engagement (how nice it is of you to suggest that!)
would interfere with my coming to St. Leonard's, _unpleasant_ ones
might; any opportunity of making money certainly would, and such may
occur to interfere with my present plans, which stand thus: I return to
town to-morrow (there is but one evening train, so I must travel all
night to rehearse on Monday morning for the "Shakespeare Memorial
Night," on Tuesday); I shall remain in London a week, and on the
following Monday go down to Bannisters for a fortnight, which will bring
me within a few days of the expiration of my term in Orchard Street,
and I shall return from Bannisters to move myself; on the following
Monday, the 3d of January, I will, please God and you, come down to St.
Leonard's....
I was so ill in spirit yesterday that I could not write to you. I am
better to-day. Thank God, my patience and courage do not often or long
forsake me!...
---- has written again to borrow money of me; and that impudent
Liverpool manager, who _borrowed_, _i.e._ did not pay me, my last
night's earnings, when you were there with me, has written to say that,
if I will go to Liverpool _and act for his benefit_, he will pay me what
he owes me; to which I have replied that, when he _has_ paid me what he
owes me, we will see about further transactions with each other.
Certainly "Nature hath framed strange fellows in her time."
Oh, my dear! in Parker's "Discourse upon Religion"--the book I told you
I was reading--I light upon this passage: "The indolent and the sensual
love to have a visible master in spiritual things, who will spare them
the _agony_ of thought." Is not that definition of thought after my own
heart, and just as I should have written it?
God bless you. Give my love to dear Dorothy.
Ever as ever yours,
FANNY.
DEAR HARRIET,
I have not yet read either of Mrs. Gaskell's books, but I mean to do so.
I have just got through, with unbounded amazement, a book called
"Realities," written by a Miss L----, for whom Lady M---- has taken a
great fancy. A more extraordinary production--realities with a
vengeance--I certainly have seldom read; and the book is in such
contrast with the manner and appearance of the authoress that it will be
a long time before I get over my surprise at both.
Imagine this lady having thought proper to introduce in her story an
eccentric vagabond of a woman, whom she has called "Fanny Kemble." Upon
Lady M----'s asking her--I think with some pardonable indignation,
considering that I am her intimate friend--how she came to do such an
unwarrantable thing; if she was not aware that "Fanny Kemble" was the
real name of a live woman at this moment existing in English society,
Miss L---- ingenuously replied, "Oh dear! that she'd never thought of
that: that she only knew it was a celebrated dramatic name, and so she
had put it into her book." _Sancta Simplicitas!_ I should think I might
sue her for libel and defamation.
The books that women write now are a curious sign of the times, and an
indication of great changes in opinion, as well as alteration in
practice.
After all, women are _part_ men, "bone of my bone and flesh of my
flesh." As long as they benefited--and they did highly--by the
predominance of the conservative spirit in civilized society, they were
the most timid and obstinate of conservatives. But emancipation, or, to
speak more civilly, freedom, is dawning upon them from various quarters;
Democracy is coming to rule the earth; and women are discovering that in
_that_ atmosphere they must henceforth breathe, and live, and move, and
have their being.
But the beginning of a great deal of male freedom is mere emancipation;
and so it will be, I suppose, with women. The drunken exultation of
Caliban is no bad illustration of the emancipation of a slave; and the
ladies, more gracefully intoxicated with the _elixir vitæ_ of liberty,
may rejoice no more to "scrape trencher or wash dish," but write books
(more or less foolish) instead.
Do you remember that delightful negro song, the "Invitation to Hayti,"
that used to make you laugh so?
"Brudder, let us leave
Buckra land for Hayti:
Dar we be receive'
Grand as Lafayette!
Make a mighty show,
When we land from steamship,
You be like Monroe,
And I like Louis Philip!"
And when, anticipating the elevation of his noble womankind to the
elegant and luxurious _idlesse_ of the favored white female, the poet
sings:--
"No more dey dust and scrub,
No more dey wash and cookee;
But all day long we see
Dem read the nobel bookee."
(For _read_, read _write_.)
I am beset with engagements; and, though I am very anxious to get away
abroad and rest, it would be both foolish and wrong to reject these
offers of money, tendered me on all sides, _speciously_ with such
_borrowing_ relations as I enjoy. Good-bye, dear.
Ever as ever yours,
FANNY.
[My reading at Eton was a memorably pleasant incident of my working
days. Dr. Hawtrey at first proposed to me to read "Coriolanus;" but
I always read it very ill, and petitioned for some other play,
giving the name of a tragedy, "Macbeth;" a comedy, the "Merry Wives
of Windsor;" and one of the more purely poetical plays, "The
Tempest;" suggesting that the "boys" should vote, and the majority
determine the choice. This seemed a mighty innovation on all
received customs, and was met with numerous objections, which,
however, did not prove insuperable; and "The Tempest," my own
favorite of all Shakespeare's dramas, was chosen by my young
auditors.
A more charming audience to look at I never had than this opening
flower of English boyhood, nor a more delightfully responsive one.
The extraordinary merriment, however, invariably caused by any
mention of the name of Stefano whenever it occurred puzzled me not a
little; and when, in the last scene, I came to the lines, "Is not
this Stefano your drunken butler? Why, he's drunk now!" I was
interrupted with such a universal shout of laughter that I couldn't
help inquiring the cause of it; when Mr. Stephen Hawtrey, Dr.
Hawtrey's brother and one of the masters, told me that Stephano was
the nickname by which he was habitually designated among the lads,
which sufficiently accounted for their ecstasy of amusement at all
the ludicrous sayings and situations of the Neapolitan "drunken
butler." The Eton young gentlemen addressed me with a kind and
flattering compliment through their captain, and rewarded whatever
pleasure I had been able to give them by a very elegant present,
which I hope my children will value, but which, upon the whole, is
less precious to me than the recollection of their young faces and
voices while I read to them.]
ORCHARD STREET, December 8th.
DEAREST HAL,
I was better than I expected to be after my night journey from Hull.
Hayes and I had a carriage to ourselves after ten o'clock, and I took
advantage of that circumstance to lie on the floor and get some rest. Of
course I woke from each of my short naps aching rather severely, but I
did sleep the greater part of the night; and the two hours I spent in
bed before beginning the day unstiffened my bones and body. The night
was beautifully fine when we left Hull, and continued so more than
half-way. We made our entrance into London, however, in wretched rain
and wind; but the weather has again become fine, and to-day is
beautiful....
The detached stanza of French poetry you send me is a rather exaggerated
piece of enthusiasm as it stands thus alone; though, incorporated in the
poem to which it belongs, the effect of it may be striking. Some of the
stanzas of Manzoni's "Ode to Napoleon" (a very noble poem), detached
from their context, might appear strained and exaggerated. That which
has real merit as a whole seldom gains by being disconnected.
Trouble yourself no more about poor Hero, my dear Hal; I am afraid he is
lost. Mrs. Mulliner left him in the area this morning, and as for nearly
four hours now we have seen and heard nothing of him, there is no doubt
that he has made his escape into the wide world of London, and I fear
there is no chance of his finding his way back again. I should not have
liked his being at Jenny Wade's [a cottager at Ardgillan, whom Miss
S---- pensioned]. In the present condition of Ireland, I should scruple
to quarter a dog in a poor person's cabin, giving them for his support
what they must needs feel might go some way towards the support of some
starving human being. In the stable or kennel of a rich house there is
sure to be that much spent, if not wasted, which may warrant the
addition of such another member to the establishment; and in your
sister's stables and offices there can be no wretch who would look with
envy upon the meal eaten by my dog. I would rather a great deal have
carried him to America, if I could have managed it, than left him with
any one but yourself. At Lenox everything, as well as everybody, has
plenty to eat; and he would have been cared for, for his own sake by the
young folks, and for mine by the old. But I fear he is so far provided
for that I shall never see him again, for his uneducated senses will
surely never suffice to guide him back to Orchard Street....
You will be glad, because I am very glad, that poor Hero has come back;
and I think his doing so exhibits considerable _nous_ in a brute so
brutally brought up as he has been. He returned with a bit of broken
string round his neck; so somebody had already appropriated him, and
tied him up, and he had effected his escape, and come home--much, I
think, to his credit. I was delighted to see him, and poor Mulliner
almost did a fit.
Good-bye, dearest Hal. Give Dorothy my best love. You shall have your
boots before I come, if Mr. W---- should call for them.
Ever as ever yours,
FANNY.
BRADFORD, YORKSHIRE, Thursday, 10th.
It is my opinion, my dear Hal, that you will see me again and again, and
several times again, before I leave England. I have just come to this
place from Manchester, and have to-day received offers of three new
engagements, and have every prospect therefore of being detained until
the beginning of next month, and so beholding your well-beloved visage
before I set off on my travels; though, whenever I do go, it will
certainly be from Folkestone, and not Dover.
I left the Scotts this morning with deep regret. Mr. Scott has not been
well during this last visit I have paid them, and I was much shocked to
hear that he is threatened with disease of the heart, sudden death at
any moment. His wife and her sisters are excellently kind to me; she has
but two faults, an excessive _humility_ and an excessive
_conscientiousness_; they wouldn't be bad for virtues, would they?
Mr. Scott's intercourse is delightful to me; his mind is deep and high,
logical and practical, humorous and tender, and he is as nearly _good_
as a man can be. He has a still, calm manner and slow, quiet speech,
very composing to me. I wish it might be my good fortune to see more of
him.
Farewell, my dear. I begin to feel as if I never should get off; and
instead of the pathetic uncertainty as to when we might meet again,
which was beginning to affect me with melancholy, have fallen into a
sort of reckless indifference about you: so sure am I that we shall see
each other, maybe, _ad nauseam_ mutually, before I go. Give my love to
Dorothy.
Ever as ever yours,
FANNY.
[The remarkable man of whom I have spoken in this letter, John
Alexander Scott, was one of the most _influential_ persons I have
ever known, in the strongest sense of the word. I think the term,
"an important human being," by which Sydney Smith described Francis
Horner, might justly have been applied to Mr. Scott. The intimate
friend of Edward Irving, Carlyle, and Maurice, he affected, to an
extraordinary degree, the minds and characters of all those who were
familiar with him; and his influence, like all the deepest and most
powerful human influence, was personal.
He delivered various courses of lectures, principally, I think, in
Edinburgh--Dante being one of his favorite themes; and "Three
Discourses" upon religious and moral subjects are, I think, all that
remain in printed form of many that he delivered at various times
and at various places. They are, as is always the case in the
instance of his order of mind and character, though striking and
powerful, very inadequate samples of his spirit and intellect.
A very just tribute to his uncommon qualities and extraordinary
power of influence appeared, after his death, in the _Spectator_. It
was undoubtedly written by one who knew Mr. Scott well, and bore
testimony, as all who ever had that privilege have done, to the
singular force and virtue of his nature, and its penetrating and
vivifying power over others.
My last intercourse with _him_ was a letter from _her_, hailing in
his name the hope of seeing me at Montreux, in Switzerland, whither
I was going in the expectation of finding them. The letter broke off
in the middle, and ended with the news, calamitous to me, as to all
who knew him, of his death. At the time when I visited them at
Manchester, he had accepted some Professorship in the then newly
established Owen's College.]
WOODSLEY HOUSE, Leeds.
I think, my dear Hal, your wish that I might see more of Mr. Scott and
his family is likely to be realized. To my great pleasure, I received a
note from him the other day, telling me that there was a general desire
in Manchester to have the "Midsummer Night's Dream" given with
Mendelssohn's music. He wrote of this to me, expressing his hope that it
might be done, and that so I might be brought to them again; adding the
kind and cordial words, "All here love you"--which expression touched
and gratified me deeply; and I hope that the reading may take place, and
that I shall have the privilege of a few days' more intercourse with
that man.
The name of the noble woman whose impulse of humanity so overcame all
self-considerations, of whom he told me, was Miss Coutts-Trotter.
[Nursing a person who was in a state of collapse in the last stage of
cholera, she had sought to bring back the dying woman's vitality by
embracing her closely, and breathing on her mouth her own breath of life
and love.] ...
I can tell you of no other publications of Mr. Scott. It is the despair
of his wife, sisters, friends, and admirers that so few of his good
words have been preserved. But in these days of printing and publishing,
proclaiming and producing, I am beginning to have rather a sympathy with
those who withhold, than with those who utter, all their convictions....
I have always held that what people could put forth from them in any
kind was less valuable than what they could not--what they were
compelled to retain--the reserve force of their mind and nature; and
thinking this, as I do, more and more, I regret less and less such
instances as this of Mr. Scott's apparently circumscribed sphere, by the
non-publication of his lectures and discourses. He is daily teaching a
body of young men; and to such of them as are able to receive his
teaching, he will bequeath some measure of his spirit. It is doubtless a
pleasure, and a help too, to read the good books of good men; but there
are many good men who write good books, and he is among the few who
cannot. He has suffered from ill health, particularly difficulties in
the head; and though his gift of extemporaneous speech is remarkable, he
cannot compose for printing without labor of the brain which is
injurious to him. In this he also resembles Dr. Follen, of whom he
reminds me, who wrote little, and published less.
I do not know anything of Miss Muloch--that, I think, is the name of the
writer whose book you mention as having notices of my uncle and aunt
introduced into it....
Publicity is the safest of all protections, as in some sense freedom is
also. Women, I suppose, will find this out, as the people are finding it
out; but in the beginning of their working out their newly discovered
theories into rational practice, people in general, and women in
particular, will do some wonderful things. The women especially, having
for the most part had hitherto little positive or practical knowledge of
life, will be apt "to make all earth amazed" with the first performances
of various kinds of their new experience; but it is all in the day's
work of the good old world, which is ordained to see reasonable and good
men and women upon its ancient, ever-blooming surface, in greater
numbers henceforward than hitherto: but the beginnings are strange....
Yours ever,
FANNY.
2, PARK PLACE, HALIWELL LANE, MANCHESTER.
MY DEAREST HAL,
At the conclusion of my reading yesterday evening, letters were put into
my hands containing no fewer than six offers of new engagements; and,
situated as I am, I cannot reject this money. I have endeavored, in
answering these invitations, to get the readings all as close to each
other as possible, and I now think that I may get off about the 22d; but
the same sort of interruption to my plans may occur again, and thus I
may be delayed, though I have got my passport and have even written to
bespeak rooms at an hotel....
My dearest Hal, you have written to me three days running, and good part
of each of your letters is disquisition on _Calvinism_.... Thus I have
here lying by my side nine pages of your handwriting. I have just
swallowed my dinner, after travelling from London, and sit down to
discharge part of my debt, and in half an hour (I look at the watch, and
it says ten minutes) I must go and dress myself for my reading, and here
still will be the nine pages unanswered to-morrow morning, when I must
set off for Manchester.
You talk of the logic of my mind, my dear friend, but my mind has no
logic whatever; and in so far as that is concerned, Calvinism need look
for as little help as hindrance from me. I do not believe I can _think_;
and from the difficulty, not to say impossibility, I find in doing so, I
don't think I would if I could; and if that is not logical, neither is
that most admirable of all chains of reasoning, "Je n'aime pas les
épinards," etc. There, now, here comes my maid to interrupt me, and
there's an end of epistolary correspondence; I must go and dress.
Now it is to-morrow morning, dear Hal, and until the breakfast comes I
can talk a few more words with you.... But don't you know that one
reason why I appear to you to have positive mental results, is because I
have no mental processes? I never think; for, as a lawyer would say,
whenever I do, it seems to me as if there was no proposition (a few
arithmetical and scientific ones excepted _perhaps_, like two and two
are four) which does not admit of its own reverse. I don't say this is
so, but it seems so to me; and whenever I attempt to put the notions
that float through my brain, on which I float comfortably enough over
infinite abysses of inconclusion, into precise form and shape, there is
not one of them that does not seem to be quite controvertible; nor did I
ever utter or assume a position of which I felt most assured while
uttering it, without perceiving almost immediately that it was
assailable on many sides. This is extremely disagreeable to me; the
labor necessary to establish any mental or moral proposition simply on
intellectual grounds, appears to me so great that I hate the very idea
of it, and then I hate myself for my laziness, and wonder if some
"judgment" does not await wits that will not work because work is
tiresome. But if I appear to you to have strong convictions, it is
because I have strong mental and moral impulses, instincts, intuitions,
and never allow myself to weaken them by that most debilitating process,
long-continued questioning, leading to no result.
You ask me what book I read now to put me to sleep--why, Murray's
"Handbook for France;" ditto, for Savoy, Switzerland, and Piedmont;
ditto, for the North of Italy, and the foreign "Bradshaw." These furnish
my lullaby now-a-nights.
I read yesterday, in the railroad carriage, a little story translated
from the French by Lady (Lucy) Duff Gordon, with which I was greatly
touched and delighted. It costs one shilling, and is called "The Village
Doctor," and is one of those pale green volumes headed, "Reading for
Travellers," to be found on all the railroad bookstands. I thought it
charming, and a most powerful appeal to the imagination in behalf of
Roman Catholicism.
I have already told you what route I intend to take, and I think we
shall be a week or ten days going from Paris to Turin, coasting all the
way from Marseilles, as I wish to do.
I do not read at Manchester to-day, but Hallé, who conducts the music,
wishes me to attend a rehearsal, which, of course, I am anxious to do at
his request. On Monday I read the "Midsummer Night's Dream," and on
Tuesday "Macbeth," at Mr. Scott's desire. To-morrow I shall, I hope,
hear Mr. Scott read and comment again on the Bible, and I am looking
forward with great pleasure to being with him and Mrs. Scott again.
No doubt there are several more direct ways of getting to Nice than
coasting round, as I propose doing, but I wish to see that Mediterranean
shore, and have no desire to travel hard....
Adelaide Procter [the daughter of my friends was to be my companion in
this journey] has no enthusiasm whatever for me; she does not know me at
all, and I do not know her at all well; and I do not think, when we know
each other more, that she will like me any better. Her character and
intellectual gifts, and the delicate state of her health, all make her
an object of interest to me.... I love and respect Mr. Procter very
much; and her mother, who is one of the kindest-hearted persons
possible, has always been so good to me, that I am too glad to have the
opportunity of doing anything to oblige them. I am going to Turin
because, as they have entrusted their daughter to me, I will not leave
her until I see her safe in the house to which she is going; I owe that
small service to the child of her parent.... Dear Harriet, if you will
come to Switzerland this summer, nothing but some insuperable impediment
shall prevent my meeting you there. If you are "old and stiff," I am
_fat, stuffy, puffy, and old_; and you are not of such proportions as to
break a mule's back, whereas if I got on one I should expect it to cast
itself and me down the first convenient precipice, only to avoid
carrying me to the next.
I spent Thursday evening with Mrs. Jameson; she had a whole heap of
people at her house, and among them the American minister and his
niece--Philadelphians....
I do not pity Mrs. Jameson very much in her relations with Lady Byron. I
never thought theirs a real attachment, but a connection made up of all
sorts of motives, which was sure not to hold water long, and never to
hold it after it had once begun to leak. It was an instance of one of
those relationships which are made to _wear out_, and as it always
appeared so to me, I have no great sympathy with either party in this
foreseen result.
I pity Mrs. Jameson more because she is mortified than because she is
grieved, and I pity Lady Byron because she is more afraid of mortifying
than of giving her pain. It is all very _uncomfortable_; but real sorrow
has as little to do with it now as real love ever had.... I am writing
to you at Mr. Scott's, where I arrived yesterday afternoon, the
beginning of my letter having been written in London, the middle at
Bradford, and the end here.
It is Sunday afternoon: our morning service is over. I am sorry to say I
find both Mr. and Mrs. Scott quite unwell, the former with one of those
constitutional headaches from which he has suffered so much for many
years. They incapacitate him for conversation or any mental exertion,
and I am a great loser by it, as well as grieved for his illness....
Farewell.
Ever as ever yours,
FANNY.
[Lucy Austin, the clever and handsome daughter of a cleverer and
handsomer mother--Mrs. John Austin, wife of the eminent lawyer and
writer--excited a great deal of admiration, as the wife of Sir
Alexander Duff Gordon, in the London society of my day. Loss of
health compelled her to pass the last years of her life in the East;
and the letters she wrote during her sojourn there are not only full
of charm and interest, but bear witness to a widespread personal
influence over the native population among whom she lived, the
result of her humane benevolence towards, and kindly sympathy for,
them.
One or two amusing incidents occurred with regard to my reading of
the "Midsummer Night's Dream" at Manchester. The gentleman who had
the management of the performance wrote to me offering me forty
pounds for my share of it--a very liberal price, which I declined,
my price for one of my readings being invariably _twenty_ pounds. At
the end of the performance one of the gentlemen of the committee
came to pay me my salary, which having done, he expressed himself,
in his own behalf and that of his fellow-managers, greatly obliged
to me for the liberality I had exhibited (honesty, it seems to me)
in not accepting double my usual terms when they offered it to me.
"And," said he, drawing a five-pound note from his pocket-book, "I
really--we really--if you would--if you could--allow us to offer you
five pounds in addition----" The gentleman's voice died away, and he
seemed to be becoming nervous, under the effect of the steadfast
seriousness with which, in spite of the greatest inclination to
burst out laughing, I listened to this strange proposal. The
five-pound note fluttered a little between his finger and thumb, and
for one moment I had a diabolical temptation to twitch it from him
and throw it into the fire. This prompting of Satan, however, I
womanfully resisted, and merely civilly declined the gratuity; and
the gentleman left me with profuse acknowledgments of the service I
had rendered them and my "extreme liberality."
My friend Charles Hallé, coming in just at this moment, was thrown
into fits of laughter at the transaction, and my astonishment at it.
Hallé was a friend of ours, an admirable musician, and a most
amiable man, and one of the best masters of our modern day. His
style was more remarkable for sensibility, delicacy, and refinement,
than for power or brilliancy of execution; but I preferred his
rendering of Beethoven to that of all the other virtuosi I ever
heard; and some of the hours of greatest musical enjoyment I have
had in my life I owe to him, when he and his friend Joachim, playing
almost, as it seemed, as much for their own delight as ours,
enchanted a small circle of enthusiastic and grateful listeners,
gathered round them in my sister's drawing-room.
Mr. Scott's comment upon my reading gave me great pleasure. "It was
good," he said, "from beginning to end; but you _are_ Theseus."
Oddly enough, a similar compliment was paid me in the same words at
the end of a reading that I gave for the Working Men's Institute in
Brighton, when my friend, Mr. R----, kindly complimenting me on the
performance, said, "It was all delightful: but you _are_ Henry V.,"
and whatever difference of opinion may have existed among my critics
as to my rendering the tragic and comic characters of Shakespeare's
plays, I think the heroic ones were those in which I ought to have
succeeded best, for they were undoubtedly those with which I had
most sympathy.]
FULFORD, YORK, Saturday, 3d.
MY DEAREST HAL,
I am amused at your gasping anxiety to be told where I am going, as if I
was about to depart into some non-postal region, where letter of yours
should never reach me more, instead of spending the next week in
Edinburgh, which surely you did know.... My dearest Hal, J---- W---- has
just come into my room, bringing the news of the Emperor of Russia's
death. It has seized me quite hysterically, and the idea of the possible
immediate cessation of carnage and desolation, and war and wickedness
(in that peculiar shape), has shaken me inexpressibly, and I am shocked
at the tears of joy that are raining from my eyes, so that I can't see
the paper on which I am writing to you; and if I can thus weep my
thanksgivings for the news of this man's death, who have no dear son, or
brother, or husband on that murderous Crimean soil, think of the shout
of rejoicing which will be his only dirge throughout France and England.
I am shocked at the exclamation of gratitude which escaped my lips when
I heard the announcement. Poor human soul, how terrible that its sudden
summons from its heavy and difficult responsibilities should thus be
hailed by any other human creature! and yet how many will draw a long
breath, as of a great deliverance, at this news!
I can hardly write at all, my hand shakes so, and I cannot think of
anything else; and yet I had purposed to send dear Dorothy some account
of her family here, who are all well and most kind to me. I will wait a
while....
DEAREST DOROTHY,
I sit here in this pleasant room [I was in Miss Wilson's home], the
prospect from which is improved by the rising of the river, which
presents the appearance of a lake. The snowdrops hang their white
clusters above the brown mould of the garden beds, and watery rays of
sunshine slant shyly across the meadows: the whole is very sweet and
peaceful, and I was enjoying it extremely, when the report of this
imperial death broke like a peal of thunder over it all, as unexpectedly
as terribly.
To-morrow I am to go and hear afternoon service at the minster, which I
have never seen. Everything is done for my pleasure and satisfaction
that can be thought of, and I feel very grateful for it. The thought of
the old love and friendship between my dead kindred and the former
owners of this house makes the place pleasant with a saddish
pleasantness to me.
Dear Dorothy, I wish you were here; I write you a very affectionate
kiss, and am
Yours,
FANNY.
GEORGE HOTEL, BANGOR, Monday, 20th.
MY DEAREST HAL,
If you had given way to your impulse of accompanying us to Wales, I do
not think you could have returned under three days, or that even by that
time you could in any degree have recovered from the effect of our
to-day's passage. Every creature on board was sick except M---- and
myself....
"A quelque chose malheur est bon," and the indisposition I was suffering
all yesterday preserved me from the lesser evil of sea-sickness. This
was my experience the last time I crossed the Atlantic, when my voyage
was preceded by a week of serious illness, and during the whole passage
I did not suffer from sea-sickness....
On our arrival here, we found that the excellent Miss Roberts [mistress
of the charming hotel at Bangor] had treated us exactly as the last
time; _i.e._, "A party were just finishing dinner in our sitting-room.
She was very sorry, very sorry indeed; but it would be ready for us in
less than a quarter of an hour;" and we were thrust provisionally into
another, where letters, books, workboxes, india-rubber shoes, and
smoking-caps attested that we had no business, and suggested that their
owners were in all probability the "party" finishing off their dinner in
our bespoken apartment, which gave me an inclination to toss all the
things in the room about, and poke the smoking-caps into the
india-rubber shoes; but I didn't. What innumerable temptations I do
resist! I assured Miss Roberts I was very ill-tempered, and proceeded to
make assurance doubly sure by blowing her up sky-high, to which she
merely replied with a Welsh "Eh! come si ha da far?" and declared that
if I was in her place I should do just the same, which excited my wrath
to a pitch of fury.
We had some lunch, and then set off to the quarries. The afternoon was
bright and beautiful, and we were charmed with the drive and all we
saw, M---- never ceasing to exclaim with fervent satisfaction at the
comfortable, cheerful, healthy, well-to-do appearance of the people and
their habitations--a most striking and suggestive contrast to all we had
seen in poor Ireland, certainly....
We have just done dinner, and M---- is fast asleep on the sofa, with
"Pilgrim's Progress" in her arms. My head aches, and my nerves twitch
with fatigue and pain, but I am better than I was yesterday.
The trains from this place are very inconvenient. The one we have to go
by starts from here at nine, and does not reach London till half-past
seven in the evening, so we shall have a wearisome day of it....
Give my kindest love to dear Mrs. Taylor and "the girls." I shall think
of them with infinite anxiety, and pray, "whenever I remember to be
holy," that this dreadful war may now soon come to a close, and they be
spared further anguish. [Colonel Richard Taylor, Miss S----'s nephew,
was with the army in the Crimea.]
I am ever most affectionately yours,
FANNY.
BATH, Monday, December 9th.
MY DEAREST HAL,
... You cannot think how forlorn I feel, walking in and out of our room
here without farewell or greeting from you; and yet the place where you
have been with me has a remembered presence of your affectionate
companionship that makes it pleasant, compared to those where I go for
the first time and have no such friendly association to cheer me. My
disposition, as you know, is averse to all strangeness, and takes little
delight in novelty; and the wandering life I lead compels me to both,
forbidding all custom and the comfortable feeling of habit and use,
which make me loath to leave a place where I have stayed only three
days, for another where I have never stayed at all.
I was not very happy at Oxford. The beautiful place impressed me sadly;
but that was because I was very unwell and sad while I was there. The
weather was horrible; a dark greasy fog pervaded the sky the whole time.
The roads were so muddy as to render riding odious, and the streets so
slimy that walking was really dangerous as well as disagreeable. Still,
I saw some things with which I was much charmed, and have no doubt that,
if I could but have had an hour's daylight, I should have been delighted
with the place altogether.
E---- S---- came down from London on Thursday morning, and took me to
see the fine collection of drawings by Raphael and Michael Angelo at the
Taylor Institute, and I spent three hours there in a state of great
enjoyment. I wandered in ignorant wonderment through the Bodleian
Library and the Ashmolean Museum, with A---- M----, who seemed quite as
little familiar with the learned treasures of the place as myself. He
took me to see his own college, Christ Church, with which, especially
the great dining-hall, I was enchanted; and with the fine avenue at the
back of the colleges, and the tower and cloisters of Magdalen.
I have no doubt I should enjoy another visit to Oxford very much; but I
was miserable while I was there, and could not do justice to the beauty
of the place. The inn where I stayed was dirty and uncomfortable, and
dearer than any I have yet stayed at. My sitting-room was dingy and
dark, and I was glad when I came into this large light sitting-room of
ours again, out of which, however, they have removed the piano--a loss I
have not thought it worth while to replace, as I go to Cheltenham on
Wednesday afternoon.... You ask what I would sell my "English Tragedy"
for. Why, anything anybody would give me for it. It cannot be acted, and
nobody reads plays nowadays--small blame to them....
Ever as ever yours,
FANNY.
CHELTENHAM, Thursday, 12th.
MY DEAREST HAL,
I found your loving greeting on my arrival here yesterday evening. I am
troubled at your account of yourself.... What _things_ these bodies of
ours are! I sometimes think that, when we lay them down in the earth, we
shall have taken leave of all our sinfulness; and yet there are sins of
the soul that do not lodge in the flesh, though the greater proportion
of our sins, I think, do: and when I reflect how little control we have
over our physical circumstances, what with inherited disease and
infirmity, and infirmity and disease incurred through the ignorant
misguidance of others during our youth, and our own ignorant
misdirection afterwards, I think the miseries we reap are punishment
enough for much consequent sin; and that, once freed from the "body of
this death," we shall cease to be subject to sin in anything like the
same degree.... It is very muddy underfoot; but if the sky does not
fall, I shall ride out on my old post-horse at twelve o'clock.
Certainly your question, as to where the wise men are who are to
encounter the difficulties of legislation for this country next spring,
was an exclamation--a shriek--and not an interrogation, addressed to
_me_ at any rate; for though I suppose God's quiver is never empty of
arrows, and that some _are_ always found to do His work, it may be that
saving this country from a gradual decline of greatness and decay of
prosperity may not be work for which He has appointed hands, and which
therefore will not be done....
I declined being in the room we formerly occupied in this house, because
I feared, now the days are so much shorter, that it would be
inconveniently dark. I am in a charming light room, with three windows
down to the ground, and a bewitching paper of pale green, with slender
gold rods running up it, all wound round with various colored
convolvuli. It's one of the prettiest papers I ever saw, and makes me
very happy. You know how subject I am even to such an influence as that
of a ridiculous wall-paper....
I have had no conversation with Mr. Churchill; but, in spite of my
requesting him not to be at the trouble of moving the piano into my
present sitting-room, as I am here for so short a time, I find it
installed here this morning. He certainly is the black swan of
hotel-keepers; and how kind and indulgent people are to me
everywhere!... My young devotee, Miss A----, acquiesced very cordially
in all my physical prescriptions for mental health, and did not seem to
take at all amiss my plunging her hysterical enthusiasm first into
perspirations, and then into cold baths.
Her maid has been with me this morning, with lovely fresh flowers--a
bunch of delicious Persian lilac, and two flower-pots full of various
mosses, smelling so fragrantly of mere earthy freshness that no perfume
ever surpassed it.
The only other greeting she sent me was some pretty lines of Victor
Hugo's, with which I was unacquainted, and which I send you, not for
their singular inappropriateness as applied to me, but for their
graceful turn:
"Tu es comme l'oiseau posé pour un instant
Sur des rameaux trop frêles,
Que sent ployer la branche, et qui chante pourtant
Sachant qu'il a des ailes;"
which I translate impromptu thus:
Thou art like the bird that alights, and sings
Though the frail spray bends, for he knows he has wings.
God bless you, my dear. Love to dear Dorothy.
Ever as ever yours,
FANNY.
WORCESTER, Tuesday, 17th.
MY DEAREST HAL,
Those pretty French lines I sent you are by Victor Hugo, a man of great
genius, but almost the most exaggerated writer of the exaggerated modern
school of French style. Some of his poems, in spite of this, are fine
and charming; and, indeed, there is not much better French to be found
than the prose of some of the French writers of novels and essays.
Madame George Sand, Merimée, Ste. Beuve, write with admirable simplicity
and force.
I sent my young adorer back, in return for her quatrain, Millevoye's
lines on the withered leaf--a far more appropriate image of my
peregrinations. These, no doubt, you know, ending with four pretty
lines--
"Je vais où va toute chose,
Sans me plaindre, ou m'inquiéter
Où va la feuille de rose,
Et la feuille de laurier."
... You ask after my audiences. At Bath the same singular-looking
gentleman, who is beautiful as well as singular looking, and wonderfully
like my uncle John, came and sat at my last morning reading in the same
conspicuous place. He is a helpless invalid, and was wheeled in his
chair through my private room, to the place which he occupied near my
reading-stage. His name is C----, and he and his wife were intimate
friends of John Kemble's, and sent to beg I would see them after the
reading. As I had to start immediately for Cheltenham, this was
impossible, which I was very sorry for, as I should like to have spoken
to that beautiful face.
You impress upon me the value of the blessing of health, and I think I
estimate it duly; for although I said it mattered little how I was, I
meant that, isolated as I am, my ill health would affect and afflict
fewer persons than that of some one who had bonds and ties of one sort
and another.... My work goes on without interruption, and I think with
little variation in my mode of performing it; and I make efforts of this
kind, sometimes under such circumstances of physical suffering and
weakness, that I am almost hard-heartedly incredulous about the
difficulty of doing _anything_ that one _has to do_--which is not very
reasonable either, for the force of will, the nervous energy, which
carries one through such efforts, depends itself on physical conditions,
which vary in different temperaments, and in the same temperament at
different times.
The first day of my arrival in Cheltenham I received a note from Miss
A----'s mother--a very touching expression of thanks for what she calls
my kindness to her child, full of anxiety about the training and guiding
of her mind and character, accepting with much gratitude my offer of
personal acquaintance with her daughter (personal acquaintance is an
excellent antidote to enthusiasms), whom she brought herself the next
day to see me.... In our conversation I insisted much on the importance
of physical training, and commended to her, after the highest of all
help (without which, indeed, none other can avail), systematic and
regular exercise, and systematic and sedulous occupation, both followed
as a positive duty; all possible sedatives for the mind and imagination;
and the utmost attention and care to all the physical functions. I gave
her the wisdom which I have bought; but she will buy her own, or I am
much mistaken.... I went on Sunday to the cathedral to hear afternoon
service, but was late, and did not get within the choir, but sat on a
chair in a lonely corner of the transept, and followed the service from
without the pale. Yesterday, at my usual hour for exercise, I went to
walk by the river; but rain came on, and I finished my walk under the
cloisters, which rang from end to end with the shrill shouts of a parcel
of school-boys, let out for their noon-day recess. Last night the
weather was fearful, a perfect storm of wind and rain, so that, though
my audience was small, I was agreeably surprised to find I had any at
all.
I have not seen the letter you refer to in the _Times_, but think it
very likely Charles Greville should write such a one, as I heard him say
he should give the public a piece of his mind on the subject, and he
occasionally does write in the _Times_, and his views are precisely what
you describe those of "Carolus" to be.
Good-bye, dear. I have a _bundle_ of violets from you this morning, for
which many thanks. Love to dear Dorothy.
Ever as ever yours,
FANNY.
18, ORCHARD STREET, December 7th.
I have no patience with letters at all, my dear Hal. I am conscious half
the time I write that I don't say clearly what I mean, and when I get
your answers, I have that disagreeable conviction confirmed. Perhaps it
is just as well, however; for the sort of feverish impatience I have
very often while writing, because of the insufficiency of the process to
express, as rapidly and distinctly as I wish, my thoughts, is so
excessive, as to be childish. I am content, henceforth, to answer you to
the best of my _circumstances_ (for it is not to the best of my ability,
really) on any subject you please. It is enough that my words are of use
to you, and God knows it signifies nothing at all that I cannot conceive
how they should be so. You have misunderstood me, or I misexpressed
myself, with regard to the ground of my objecting to write upon the
subjects we have lately discussed in our letters. I do not think it
irreverent to advert to the highest subjects at any time. That which is
most profoundly serious to me, is always very near my thoughts--so much
so that it mingles constantly with them and my words in a manner rather
startling and shocking, I think, to people whose minds are parcelled out
into distinct and detached divisions--pigeon-holes, as it were--for the
sacred and profane, and whose seriousness never comes near their mirth.
This is not at all the case with me, with whom they are apt to run into
each other very frequently; seriousness is perhaps more habitual to my
mind than folly, but my laughter and jests are not very remotely allied
to my deepest convictions.
My instincts of vital truth being a very essential part of me, _must_
go with me to the playhouse, rehearsals, and performances, and all the
intermediate time of various occupations, so that it is not my
"veneration" which is shocked at the superficial mode in which I have
handled these themes, while writing of them to you, but my
"conscientiousness," which suggests the whole time that such matters
should not be spoken of without sufficient previous process of
reflection, and that it is behaving irreverently to _anything_ that
requires consideration to talk of it crudely without any. If the
sincerest and most strenuous mental application can hardly enable us to
arrive at glimpses of the truth upon those subjects, there is an
impertinent levity in uttering mere _notions_ about them which have been
submitted to no such test. You do _think_, and though you come to no
conclusions, are perfectly entitled to utter your _non_-conclusiveness;
but I have a cowardly dread of the labor of thinking steadily and
consecutively upon these difficult subjects, and I have certainly not at
present the proper leisure or opportunities for doing so, and therefore
but for your last letter I should say it was a _shame_ to speak upon
them. But since the vague suggestions which arise in my mind upon these
only important matters comfort and are of any use to you, then, my
beloved friend, they have a value and virtue, and I shall no longer feel
reluctant to utter them.
I have written this last page since my return from Covent Garden
Theatre, where I have been enacting the dying scene of Queen Katharine,
and doing what I am as sorry for as I can be for anything of that kind.
At the conclusion of my performance the audience called for me, but I
was seized with a perfect nervous terror at the idea of going on, and
left the house as quickly as possible.
All the other actors will be called for, and will go on, and I shall
incur unpleasant comments and probably have very untrue motives
attributed to me for having, as it must appear, ungraciously withdrawn
myself from the public call. This does not trouble me very deeply, but I
am sorry for it because I am afraid it will be misinterpreted and
noticed, and considered disrespectful, which it was not....
Give my dear love to Dorothy. I hope to be with you on the 3d of
January.
I am ever as ever yours,
FANNY.
18, ORCHARD STREET, Tuesday, 8th.
Now I must lump my answer to you, my dearest Hal--a thing that I hate
doing; but here are three unanswered letters of yours on my table, and I
shall never get through the payment of them if one letter may not do for
the three, for every day brings fresh claims of this sort, and I feel a
kind of smothering sensation as they accumulate round me, such as might
attend one's gradually sinking into a well: what though Truth were at
the bottom--if one was drowned before one got to her?...
Send the pamphlet on "Bread" to Lenox, and write to Elizabeth Sedgwick
about it--that is pure humanity, and I see you do not think I shall copy
the recipe and measurements correctly. (It's pouring with rain, and
thundering as loud as it knows how in England)....
My spirits are fair enough, though the first evening I spent alone here,
after I came back, tried them a little, and I had a cowardly impulse to
rush in next door [my friends the Miss Hamiltons, Mrs. Fitzhugh's
sisters, were my neighbors] to be with some friendly human beings; but I
reflected that this would never do--those who are alone must learn to be
lonely.... This was the only _black_ hour I have had since my return to
London....
I have finished the first volume of Grote's "History of Greece." O ye
gods, ye beautiful gods of Greece, that ever ye should have lived to
become such immortal bores through the meritorious labors of an eminent
English historian! Thank Heaven, I have done with what has hitherto been
always the most attractive part of history to me--its legendary and
poetical prologue (I hate the history of my dear native land the moment
the Commons begin to vote subsidies), and I do not think I ever before
rejoiced in passing from tradition to matter-of-fact in an historical
work. I have no doubt, now we have come down from Olympus, I shall enjoy
Mr. Grote's great work much more.
I have read through Morier's "Hadji Baba in England," while eating my
dinner, in order not to eat too fast, a precaution I learned years ago
while eating my lonely dinners at Butler Place day after day. (Of course
Grote was too heavy as sauce for eating.) At other seasons I have read
through another number of the _Dublin Magazine_, and during my
hair-combings continue to enchant myself with "Wilhelm Meister." I am
reading the "Wanderjahr," having finished the "Lehrjahr." I never read
the former in German before; it is altogether a wonderful book. I
practise before breakfast, and I have drawn for two hours every day
lately. I have received and returned visits, and when my daily exercise
takes its place again among my occupations, my time will be full, and I
hope to bless God for my days, even now.... This answers you as to my
spirits....
I had a letter from E---- yesterday, desiring me to forward my book to
them, and talking of still remaining where they are, as long as the heat
is endurable and the children continue well.
I had a note from Lady Duff Gordon yesterday, who is just returned from
Rome, where she saw my sister frequently and intimately; and she seems
to think Adelaide very tolerably resigned to remain where she is,
especially as she has found a cupboard in her palazzo, which has so
delighted her that she is content to abide where such things are rare
and she has one, rather than return home where they are common and she
might have many. In the mean time, seats in the next Parliament are, it
seems, to go begging, and Charles Greville has written to E---- again to
come over and stand.... I disapprove of this incessant urging E---- to
return, especially as the Grevilles only want him to become a British
legislator in order that she may open a pleasant house in London and
amuse them....
You ask me what I shall do with regard to America. If I act there, I
shall do so upon the plan I started with here; _i.e._, a nightly
certainty, to be paid nightly: it is what the managers send to offer me,
and is, without doubt, the safest, if not the most profitable plan....
I am diverted with your rage at Liston [the eminent surgeon under whose
care I had been]. I must say, I wish he had been a little more attentive
to me professionally....
My singing neighbors--I suppose lodgers for the season--have departed,
or, at any rate, become silent; I hear them no more, and make all my own
music, which I prefer, though sometimes of an evening, when I am not
singing, the lonely silence round me is rather oppressive. But my
evenings are short; I dine at seven, and go to bed at ten; and in spite
of my endeavors to achieve a better frame of mind, I do look with
positive joy at my bed, where, lying down, the day will not only be
past, but forgotten.... It is difficult for me not to rejoice when each
day ends....
Dear Hal, I dined with the Horace Wilsons, and in the evening my father
came there. He said Miss Cottin, with whom he was to have dined, was
ill, and had put him off; that he had only come up from Brighton the day
before, and was going back to-morrow--to-day, _i.e._; that he was not
well, but that Brighton agreed with him, and that he should steam about
from Brighton to Havre and Dieppe and Guernsey and Jersey, as that
process suits him better than abiding on dry land....
ORCHARD STREET, Thursday, June 10th.
Of course, dear Harriet, I know that the officials of our public
charities cannot be thrown into paroxysms of pity by every case of
misery brought before them; they would soon cease to be relieving
officers, and have to be relieved themselves. But "there is reason in
roasting of eggs," whatever that may mean: our forefathers knew, and so
did Touchstone, for he talks of "an ill-roasted egg, done all o' one
side." I assure you when I went to the workhouse to see after that
wretched young girl who was taken up for sleeping in the park because
she had nowhere else to sleep in, though I cried like a Magdalene, and
talked like a magpie, I felt as if I was running my head against a stone
wall all the time I appealed to the authorities to save her from utter
ruin. The only impression I seemed to make upon them was that of
surprise that any one should take to heart in such wise the case of some
one not belonging to them. Perhaps the worthy overseer thought me her
sister in another sense from that in which I am so, from the vehemence
with which I urged upon him the imperative duty of snatching so young a
creature from the doom to which she seemed inevitably delivered over.
All their answers reminded me of Mephistopheles' reply to Faust's
frantic pity for Gretchen, "She is not the first."
Now to answer your last question. I do not intend to cut the manager of
the Princess's Theatre; but I do not intend either to make any
application to him. If he offers me a reasonable weekly engagement, I
will take it, and make him a curtsey; if he does not, I will do without
it, and live as I best may on what I have already earned, and what I
can earn in the provinces, till the spring....
C---- came up from Bath to London with me, and after talking politics,
art, and literature, began upon religion, which, not being
controversially disposed, I declined, commending him to the study of the
newspaper, and, curling myself up in one of those charming long seats of
the Great Western railroad coaches, went to sleep, and so accomplished
the latter part of my journey, in spite of that dangerous proximity, an
unconverted heterodox Protestant. Farewell, my dearest Hal.
I am ever as ever yours,
FANNY.
18, ORCHARD STREET, December 10th.
DEAREST HAL,
... I had a horrible day yesterday, from which I am not yet recovered
this morning. It wound up by the shock of hearing of Liston's death.
There was something in my last intercourse with him that made this
unexpected intelligence very painful; and then his wonderful strength,
his great, noble frame, that seemed to promise so long and vigorous a
hold on life, made his sudden death very shocking. When I met him last
in the park, he told me he was very ill, and had been spitting up a
quart of blood after walking twenty-five miles, and that there was
something all wrong with his throat; in spite of which, I was greatly
shaken by the news of his death, which was occasioned by aneurism in the
throat.
I am marking "Wilhelm Meister" for you; it is a book that interests me
almost more than any other I could name; it is very painful, and I know
nothing comparable to the conception and execution of Mignon. The whole
book is so wise, so life-like, so true, and so merciless in its truth,
that it is like life itself, endured by a stoic, an illustration of what
existence would be to a thoughtful mind without faith in God--that faith
which alone can bear us undespairing over the earth, where the mere doom
of inevitable change would be enough to fill the human soul with
amazement and anguish.
Goethe's books always make me lay a terrified and aching hold on my
religious faith; they show me, even as life itself does, the need of
steadfast belief in something better, if one would not lie down and die
from the mere sense of what has been endured, what is endured, and what
must be endured.
I forgot to tell you that I have had proposals again from the Norwich
manager, and from Bath and Bristol; and yesterday the Princess's Theatre
potentate called upon me; but upon my telling him that I should prefer
transacting my arrangements with him in writing rather than _vivâ voce_,
he took himself off....
God bless you, dear. Give my dear love to Dorothy.
Yours ever,
FANNY.
18, ORCHARD STREET, December 11th, 1847.
MY DEAR HAL,
I do not feel sure, from the tenor of your letter, that you do not wish
to have my dog Hero boarded at Jenny Wade's; if you do, he shall go
there. You are a far better judge than I am of the propriety of keeping
a well-fed dog among your starving people. That they themselves would do
so, I can believe; for they are impulsive and improvident, and more
alive to sentiments of kindliness and generosity than to the dictates of
common sense and prudence, or of principles of justice. Hero has been
used to luxury, both in his lodging and board; but human hearts have to
do without their food, and shall not his dog's body? I am fond of him,
poor fellow, and would fain have him kindly cared for.... I do not
consider your parallel a just one--between the bestowing of existence
upon flies and the withholding immortality from a portion of the human
race, except, indeed, that both may be exercises of arbitrary will and
power. It is perfectly true that the clay has no right to say to the
Potter, "Wherefore hast Thou fashioned me thus?" or "Why am I a man, and
not a beast?" But as regards the Creator's dealings with the human race,
inscrutable as His designs are to mortal intelligence, the moral nature
of man demands certain conditions in the conditions of his Maker, higher
and better than his own; and the idea of a partial immortality seems to
me repugnant to the highest human conception (and we have none other) of
God's mercy and justice, and that simply because all men, no matter how
little advanced in the scale, appear to have some notion of _a_ Divinity
and a Deity of some sort, to possess a _germ_ of spiritual progress
capable of development beyond the term and opportunities afforded by
this existence; and if, as I believe, the progressive nature belong to
all, then it seems to me a moral inconsistency to allow its
accomplishment only to a few. If you say that whole nations and races
formerly and now, and innumerable individuals in our own Christian
communities, hardly achieve a single step in this onward career of moral
development, I should reply that the progress of the most advanced is
but comparative, and far from great, and that chiefly on this account
the belief in a future existence appears rational, indeed the only
rational mode of accounting for our achieving so much and so little--our
advancing so far and no further here. The boon of mere physical
existence is great, but if there were none greater, we should not surely
possess faculties which suggest that to make some of His moral and
rational children immortal, and others not, was not in accordance with
the perfect goodness and justice of our Father. This life, good as He
pronounced it to be, and as it surely is, would not be worth enjoying
but for those nobler faculties that reach beyond it, and even here lay
hold of the infinite conception of another after death. To have given
these capabilities partially, or rather their fulfilment unequally,
seems to me a discord in the divine harmony of that supreme Government,
the inscrutability of which does not prevent one seeing and believing,
beyond sight, that it is perfectly _good_. To have bestowed the idea of
immortality upon some and not others of his children, seems to me
impossible in our Father; and since (no matter how faint in degree or
unworthy in kind) this idea appears to be recognized as universal among
men, the fulfilment of it only to some favored few seems still more
incredible, since 'tis a _yearning_ towards Him felt by all His human
creatures--a capacity, no matter how little or erroneously developed,
possessed by all.
Admitting God's absolute power over matter, there surely is a moral law
which _He_ cannot infringe, for it is Himself; and though I do not know
what He can do with the creatures He has made, I know He cannot do
Wrong; and if you tell me that my wrong may be His right, I can only
reply to that, _He is my Right_, the only true, real, absolute Right, of
which I have any conception, and that to propose that which seems to me
wrong as an attribute or proceeding of His seems to me nonsense....
Of course, a good beginning is an especially good thing in education;
but I think we are apt to place too much faith, upon the whole, in what
we can do with children's minds and souls. Perhaps it is well we should
have this faith, or we might do less than we ought, whereas we not
unfrequently do a good deal that is without result that we can perceive;
nevertheless, the world goes on, and becomes by slow degrees wiser and
better.... I met Macready while I was riding to-day; and though I could
not stop to say much to him, I told him that I particularly wished to
act with him. He has been told, I understand, that I have positively
refused to do so; and though his acquaintance with me is slight, I
should feel grateful to him if he would believe this, in spite of what
representations to the contrary he might have heard. He said that my
honesty and truth were known to him, though he had had but little
intercourse with me, and that he entirely believed what I said. I was
glad of this accidental opportunity of saying this to him, as I would
not have sought him for the especial purpose. Good-bye, my dear.
I am ever yours affectionately,
FANNY.
BANNISTERS, SOUTHAMPTON, Thursday, 16th.
MY DEAREST HAL,
... Mrs. Fitzhugh does not appear to me in her usual vivacious state of
mind, and I am afraid I shall not contribute much to her enlivenment,
being rather out of spirits myself, and, for the first time in my life,
finding Bannisters melancholy.... Walking up a small back street from
Southampton the other day, I saw a little child of about five years old
standing at a poor mean kind of pastry-cook's window, looking, with eyes
of poignant longing, at some baked apples, stale buns, etc. I stopped
and asked him if he wished very much for some of those things. He said
yes, he wished very much for some baked apples for his _poor little
brother who was sick_. I wish you could have seen the little creature's
face when I gave him money to buy what he wanted, and he carried off his
baked apples in his arms; that look of profound desire for the sake of
his brother, on the poor little childish face has haunted me. I went to
see his people, and found them poor and ill, in much distress; and the
mother, looking at her youngest child, a sickly, wasted, miserable
little object, lamented bitterly that she did not belong to such and
such associations, for then, "if it should please God to take the child,
she should have five pounds to bury it" (I wonder if these wretches are
never killed for the sake of their burial money?); "but now she hadn't
so much as would buy a decent rag of mourning"--a useless solicitude, it
seemed to me, who think mourning attire a superfluity in all classes.
I have had a letter from the Leamington manager, desiring me to act
there, which I will do, some time or other.
I have a riding-habit of my own, and need not hire one at Hastings; but
I shall be glad to hire a horse while I am with you, as, you know, I do
not mind riding alone.... I feel intensely stupid, which makes me think
I must be ill (admire, I beg, the conceit of that inference), as I have
no other symptoms of indisposition. Farewell. Give my love to Dorothy.
Ever yours,
FANNY.
BANNISTERS, SOUTHAMPTON, Friday, December 17th.
I have spoken with even more than my usual carelessness and inaccuracy
upon the subject of my readiness to comply with other people's wishes,
but I seriously think one ought to comply with a request of _anybody's_
that was not an impertinent or improper one. I suppose everybody is
inclined to fulfil the wishes of persons they love.... But I am not
given to the "small attentions," _les petits soins_ of affection, and
therefore am always particularly glad to know of any special desire of a
friend's that I can comply with; a special wish, too, is a saving of
trouble, like the questions in your letters which are equivalent to
wishes in another way, and indicate the particular thing you want to
know....
I have been out of spirits and much depressed during the first days of
my stay at Bannisters, but this gloom passing off, and I am resuming my
more habitual buoyancy of temper....
BANNISTERS, December 22d.
If you don't promise me good, I mean wholesome, food, when I come to St.
Leonard's, I won't stay with you a minute. I have, for some years past,
considered that there was an important deficiency in my human nature,
which instead of consisting, like that of most people, of three
elements, is wanting in what I should call the middle link between its
lowest and highest extremities. Thus, for some time now, I have felt
intimately convinced that I had senses and a soul, but no heart; but I
have now further come to the conclusion that I have neither sense, soul,
nor heart, and am, indeed, nothing but a stomach.... Now, don't retort
upon me with starving populations, in and out of poor-houses; and your
grand national starving experiment in Ireland; neither try to make me
adopt it when I come to St. Leonard's, for I won't....
You will be glad to hear that poor old Mrs. Fitzhugh is better these two
or three last days, and, except for the weakness and irritation in her
eyes, is tolerably well and comfortable; and I, having recovered from
the blue devils, am able to amuse her a little better than I did when
first I came. I am glad you mentioned that your comment on my health was
meant for _fun_. A man sat by me in Edinburgh at dinner one day, and
asked me if I had ever read Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations," which
frightened me into an indigestion; and when I told Mr. Combe of it, he
gave a sad Scotch laugh, like a postman's knock, "Ha! ha! just like
Farquharson's dry humor!"
You say that, as far as my own constitution is concerned, you believe my
theories are right. Pray, my dear, did I ever attempt to meddle with
your constitution? Permit me to say that the hygienic faith I profess
has this in common with my other persuasions, that I am no propagandist,
and neither seek nor desire proselytes. No, my dear friend, it is the
orthodox medicine-takers, not the heterodox medicine-haters, who are
always thrusting their pill-boxes and physic-bottles into their friends'
bodies, and dragging or driving their souls to heaven or hell. If my
physical doctrine saves my body, and my religious doctrine my soul,
alive, it is all I ask of it; and you, and all other of my
fellow-creatures, I deliver over to your own devices, to dose, drug, and
"oh, fie!" yourselves and each other, according to your own convictions
and consciences.
Ever yours,
FANNY.
18, ORCHARD STREET, December 28th.
MY DEAREST HAL,
I would rather have the "garret" looking towards the sea than the
"bedroom" looking over houses, provided I can have a fire in said
garret; and pray, since I can have my choice of the two rooms, may I
inquire why the one that I do not occupy may not be appropriated to
Hayes's use? It seems to me that if there are two empty rooms for me to
choose from, I may likewise hire them both if I choose, and give one to
my maid, and keep whichever I like best for myself. _Che ti pare, figlia
mia?_ Have the goodness, if you can, to take both the vacant rooms for
me, and I will inhabit the garret, if, as I said before, it is
susceptible of a fire.
I left Mrs. Fitzhugh a little more quiet and composed, in spite of her
having just received the news of Lord Harrowby's being at the point of
death.... She has had much to try her in the melancholy events at
Sandon, and she persists in looking over a whole collection of old
letters, among which she found the other day a miniature of her boy,
Henry, the sailor who died, which she had forgotten that she possessed;
and she comes down from this most trying task of retrospection in a
state of nerves so lamentable that no ingenuity of affection, or utmost
desire to cheer and relieve her, can suggest a sufficiently soothing
process for that purpose. She cannot be amused at all now by anything
that does not excite her, and if she is, over-excited she suffers
cruelly from it. Thus, the reading of "Jane Eyre," which, while I
continued it, kept her in a state of extreme expectation and interest,
appeared to me, upon the whole, afterwards, to have affected her very
unfavorably....
I will bring you Charles Greville's book about your most painful
country, and some music....
Good-bye, dearest Hal. My affectionate love to dear Dorothy.
Ever as ever yours,
FANNY.
18, ORCHARD STREET.
... You ask me for my impression of Déjazet, and the piece I went to see
her in; and here they are. The piece in which she came out was called
"Vert Vert." You remember, no doubt, Gresset's poem about the poor
parrot, so called; well, instead of a bird, they make this Vert Vert a
young boy of sixteen, brought up in a girls' convent, and taken out for
a week, during which he goes to Nevers, falls in with garrison officers,
makes love to actresses, sups and gets tipsy at the mess, and, in short,
"gets ideas" of all sorts, with which he returns again to his convent.
If you can conceive this part, acted to the life by a woman, who moves
with more complete _disinvoltura_ in her men's clothes than most men do,
you may imagine something of the personal exhibition at which we
assisted. As for me, my eyes and mouth opened wider and wider, not so
much at the French actress, as at the well-born, well-bred English
audience, who, women as well as men, were in a perfect ecstasy of
amusement and admiration. I certainly never saw more admirable acting,
but neither did I ever see such uncompromising personal exposure and
such perfect effrontery of demeanor. I do not think even ballet-dancers
more indecent than Mademoiselle Déjazet, for their revelations of their
limbs and shapes are partial and momentary, while hers were abiding and
entire through the whole of her performance, which she acted in
tight-fitting knee-breeches and silk stockings; nor did I ever see such
an unflinching representation of unmitigated audacity of carriage, look,
and manner, in any male or female, on or off the stage....
She always wears men's clothes, and is seldom seen without a cigar in
her mouth. She is extremely witty, and famous for her powers of
conversation and pungent repartees. She is plain, and has a disagreeable
harsh shrill voice in speaking; her figure is thin, but straight, and
well made, and her carriage and movements as graceful as they are free
and unembarrassed; her singing voice is sweet, and her singing charming,
and her spirit and talent as an actress incomparable. But if I had not
seen it, I should not have believed that so impudent a performance would
have been tolerated here: tolerated it not only was, but applauded with
enthusiasm; and Mademoiselle Déjazet carries the town before her, being
the least decent actress of the most indecent pieces I ever saw.
Good-bye. Give my love to Dorothy.
Ever yours,
FANNY.
[Offenbach's burlesque Operas were still in the future.]
29, KING STREET, ST. JAMES'S, January 14th.
I have not heard again from Bath, and so have answered your two
questions, dearest Hal, and will tell you what little I have to tell of
my installation in my new lodging here.
I read the _Times_, _studiously_, all the way up to town, and was alone
in my railroad carriage. As soon as we reached King Street, I sent Hayes
off to Orchard Street, to see for letters, cards, etc. On entering my
room (you will remember the upper front room, where we visited Lady
W---- together), I saw a beautiful white hyacinth, standing in the
window, and knew directly that Emily had sent it to me. I found, too, a
most kind and affectionate letter from her.... Fanny Wilson and Mrs.
Mitchell had called while I was away, and two gentlemen who had not left
their names--probably the Grevilles.... I don't like either my room or
my furniture, I am sorry to say; but I shall get attached to both in a
couple of days.... At a little after four, Henry Greville called and
stayed some time, telling me as usual all manner of gossip--among other
things that his brother Charles was supposed to be _the author of Jane
Eyre_! I wonder by whom?
Lord Ellesmere's gout is better, and they have been able to get him down
to Hatchford--their place near Weybridge. Henry Greville complained
bitterly of Adelaide's not writing to him about their new house in Eaton
Place, which she wants him to get papered and prepared for them--a job
he is very willing to undertake, provided she will send him detailed and
specific instructions, which he is now waiting for in vain, and in great
disgust at her laziness.... I worked at my translation of "Mary Stuart"
till bedtime.... It is impossible to say how much I miss you and dear
Dorothy, and how chilled to the marrow I felt when I had left the warm
and kind atmosphere of your affectionate companionship.... However, an
additional oppressive sense of my loneliness was the price I was sure to
pay for my week's happy fellowship with you and Dorothy. And, after all,
it was worth the price.
I wrote this much yesterday, dear Hal; and yesterday is over, and has
carried with it my cowardly fit of despondency, and I am already back in
the harness of my usual lonely life, and feel the galling on the sore
places of my spirit less; ... and every hour will bring occupation and
business (such as they are, as Hamlet very contemptuously observes), and
I shall have something to do--if not to think of....
I have heard from Norwich, and find I shall have less to prepare than I
expected for two nights, Friday and Saturday. I shall act at Yarmouth,
and repeat what I play at Norwich.
Mrs. Jameson has taken rooms in this house, I find, and comes here
to-night, and I shall be very glad of some of her company.... Certainly
London, much as I hate it, agrees better with me than St. Leonard's;
either the air or the water there are bad for me. I am much better than
when I was there....
God bless you. Kiss your Good Angel for me--how much I love and revere
her, and how I rejoice that you have such an inestimable friend and
companion! I have been very happy with you, my dear and good and kind
friends.
Ever yours,
FANNY.
29 KING STREET, ST. JAMES'S, Saturday, January 15th.
I dined at home yesterday, dear Hal, and spent the evening in reading
"Vanity Fair." It is extremely clever, but hitherto I do not like it
very much. I began it at Bannisters last Winter, and then I did not like
it, wonderfully clever as I thought it. Lord Ellesmere says it is better
than anything of the kind (novels of manners and morals) since Fielding;
but as far as I have yet gone in it, it seems to me to have one very
disagreeable quality--the most prominent people in it are thorough
worldlings, and though their selfishnesses, and meannesses, and
dirtinesses, and pettinesses, are admirably portrayed--to the very life,
indeed--I do not much rejoice in their company. It is only within the
last year that I have been able to _get through_ "Gil Blas," for the
same reason; and though I did get through, I never got _over_ the
odiousness of the people I lived with during the four volumes of his
experiences of life.
Is not Shakespeare _true_ to human nature? Why does he never disgust one
with it? Why does one feel comparatively clean in spirit after living
with his creatures? Some of them are as bad as real men and women ever
were, but some of them are as good as real men and women ever are; and
one does not lose one's respect for one's kind while reading what he
writes of it; and his coarse utterances, the speech of his time, hurt
one comparatively little in the midst of his noble and sweet
thoughts....
I am going with Henry Greville to Drury Lane to-night, and perhaps he
will eat his dinner here. He has a perfect mania for playhouses, and
cannot keep out of them, and I would as lief spend my evening in hearing
pretty music as alone here....
I drove up and down Regent Street three times in vain to find your
identical cutler, Mr. Kingsbury: perhaps he has left off business, and
some one else has taken his shop. _So_ what shall I do with your
scissors? Do you think if I talk to them they will be sharpened?...
I have not heard again from Bath, and have seen nobody but Fanny Wilson,
with whom I dine to-morrow, and Mrs. Mitchell's two boys....
I shall get through my packing very well. Hayes is greatly improved, and
really _begins_ now to be useful to me. Thus we most of us begin only
just as we come to the _end_ and leave off.
I was driving about all yesterday, doing commissions; to-day the sun
shines, and I am going to wade in the mud for my health.
God bless you. Kiss dear Dorothy for me.
Ever yours,
FANNY.
NORWICH, Wednesday, January 20th.
I have found your cutler, Kingsbury; and very glad I was to find him,
for I hate not being able to execute a commission exactly as I am
desired to do....
When I said that people never love others better than themselves, I did
not mean _more_, but in a better way than they love themselves. I mean
that those who are conscientious in their self-regard will be
conscientious in their regard for others, and that it takes good people
to make good friends; and I do not consider this a "paradox of mine," as
you uncivilly style it. It is a _conviction_ of mine, and I feel sure
that you agree with it, whatever your first impression of my meaning may
have been when I said that people never loved others better than
themselves (_i.e._, with a better kind of love). I know that very
unprincipled people are capable of affection, and their affection
partakes of their want of principle: people have committed crimes for
the sake of the love they bore their wives, mistresses (oftener), and
children; and half the meannesses, pettinesses, and selfishnesses of
which society is full, have their source in unprincipled affection as
much as in unprincipled self-love.
I had already taken to my King Street lodging when I left it for this
place. You know I have a horror of new places and a facility in getting
over it, which is a double disadvantage in this wandering life of mine;
for I am perpetually undergoing the process of feeling miserable and
lonely in a new place, and more miserable and lonely still when I leave
it. The room I have here is gloomy, but opens into my bedroom, which is
comfortable, and I shall soon attain the easy liking of habit for it.
Mrs. ----, dear Harriet, is without tact, and learns nothing, which is
one reason why, in spite of her many good qualities and accomplishments,
I cannot get on with her. I breakfasted with her on Sunday morning, and
she abused A---- to me--not violently, of course, but very foolishly.
She is wanting in perception, and is perpetually committing sins of bad
taste, which provoke people--and me "much more than reason." I do not
suppose I shall see enough of her to admit of her "drying me up" (as the
Italians say for boring), but I always find it difficult to get on with
her, even for a short time.
There is an element of _ungenuineness_ about her, I believe quite
involuntary; ... and it does not so much consist in telling stories,
though I believe she would do that on proper occasions, like everybody
else (but you, who never would know which were proper occasions), as in
a crooked or indirect moral vision, an incapacity for distinguishing
what is straight from what is not, which affects me very unpleasantly.
On Saturday evening I went to Drury Lane, with Henry and Charles
Greville, the latter having invited himself to join us. I spent a rather
dolorous three hours hearing indifferent music, indifferently sung, and
admiring compassionately the mental condition of such a man as my friend
Henry, who must needs divert himself with such an entertainment, having,
moreover, taste enough to know what is really good, and yet persuading
himself that this was not bad, only because to him anything is better
than spending an evening quietly alone at home.... On the other hand,
several things struck me a good deal. The music of the opera was poor,
but it was not worse than much of Donizetti's music, and it was composed
by an Englishman. It was put together with considerable skill and
cleverness, but was far less agreeable than the poorest Italian music of
the same order; and it was well executed, by a good orchestra, chiefly
composed of English musicians. The principal singers were all English,
and some of them had fine voices, and though they seldom used them well,
they did so occasionally; and, upon the whole, did not sing much worse
than Italian performers of the same class would have done. The choruses
and concerted pieces, also all given by English people, were well
executed, though stupid and tiresome in themselves; and certainly the
progress our people have made in music in my time, to which the whole
opera testified, is very great. The audience was very numerous, and
though the galleries were crowded, and it is Christmas-time, and the
after-piece was the pantomime, there was not the slightest noise, or
riot, or disturbance, even among "the gods," and the pieces in the opera
which were encored, were redemanded in the polite fashion of the Queen's
Theatre, by a prolonged, gentle clapping, without a single shout or
shriek of "Hangcor!" or "Brayvo!" This is a wonderful change within my
recollection, for I remember when, during the run of a pantomime, the
galleries presented a scene of scandalous riot and confusion; bottles
were handed about, men sat in their shirt-sleeves, and the shouting,
shrieking, bawling, squalling, and roaring were such as to convert the
performance of the first piece into mere dumb show.
All this is well, and testifies to an improved civilization, and not to
a mere desire to ape those above them in society; for that could hardly
suffice to persuade these Drury Lane audiences that they are amused by a
tiresome piece tiresomely acted, and tedious musical strains, of which
they cannot carry away a single phrase, which sets nobody's foot tapping
or head bobbing with rhythmical sympathy, being all but devoid of
melody.
I am very fond of music, but I would rather have sat out the poorest
play than that imitation opera; the scenery, dresses, decorations, etc.,
were all very good, and testified to the much more cultivated taste of
the times in all these matters.
On Sunday I dined with the Horace Wilsons, whom I had not seen for some
time, and for whom I have a very great regard, ... Returning home, I
stopped at dear old Miss Cottin's.... I am much attached to her, and
think, next to my own dear Aunt Dall, she is one of the sweetest and
most unselfish creatures I have ever known, and love her accordingly....
I left London for this place on Monday morning, and having a sulky
deliberate cab-driver, arrived at the station just five minutes after
the train had departed. This kept me waiting from 11.30 till 3.30,
during which time Hayes, thinking I should be hungry, went out
privately, and coming back with a paper of biscuits, pointed out a
raspberry tart at the bottom of it, and said, "Here is a little tart I
have got on purpose for you." Was not that courtly and kind of her?
I act here till Thursday. Friday and Saturday I act at Yarmouth; and I
shall return to town on Sunday, unless the Vice-Chancellor should allow
the manager to open the Cambridge Theatre, which is not generally
allowed during term; if he should, I shall act there on Monday night,
and only return to town Tuesday morning.
I have promised Mrs. Grote to go down to the Beeches on Saturday, 29th,
and shall only stay there till Monday, 31st. This is all I know of
myself at present, except that I am
Affectionately yours,
FANNY.
DEAR DOROTHY,
Here is my love with my pen and ink, which I flatter myself are as
wretchedly bad as those of any gentlewoman in the universe, and St.
Leonard's.
You may be impertinent to Hal; she is only a bully, and will give in if
you try: if you don't like to try, as you are meek and lowly, I'll try
for you, when I come down, if you'll give me your power-of-attorney and
instructions, without which I don't suppose I should know how to be
impertinent. Farewell, dearest Dorothy. I love you entirely for your own
sake; I don't like mixing up matters, and thank God for you, for
Harriet's sake, as often as I think of you both.
BEGUN AT NORWICH, FINISHED AT YARMOUTH, Friday, 21st.
I do but poorly at Norwich, my dearest Hal, in body and estate, having a
wretched influenza, sore throat, sore chest, and cold in my head,
through which I am obliged to stand bare-necked and bare-armed,
bare-headed and almost bare-footed (for the thin silk stockings and
satin shoes are a poor protection), on the stage, to houses, I am sorry
to say, as thin as my stockings; so that the money return for all this
fatigue, discomfort, and expense is but inconsiderable, _i.e._ by
comparison, for undoubtedly it is a fair harvest for such grain as I
sow.
My mind rather thrives upon this not too prosperous condition of my body
and estate, inasmuch as I naturally make some effort to be courageous
and cheerful, and therefore do better in that respect than when I was
cheerful and needed no courage, while you were spoiling me at St.
Leonard's with all your love for me, and Dorothy with all her love for
you.
In half an hour I leave this place for Yarmouth, where I act to-night
and to-morrow. The manager has made an arrangement with me to act at his
theatres at Lynn and Cambridge next week, so that instead of returning
to London the day after to-morrow, I shall not do so until Friday,
28th....
We have dismal weather, snow on the ground, and blackness in the skies.
My poor Hayes has got the influenza too, and goes hacking and snivelling
at my heels like an unpleasant echo. I shall be thankful for both our
sakes when our winter work is over, for the exposure is very great; and
though, of course, she has much less of it than I have, she bears it
worse, catches colds oftener, and keeps them longer than I do....
I should, I believe, find it very difficult indeed to be economical, and
yet I suppose that if I felt the duty and necessity of it I should be
more so than I am. The saving of money without any special motive for it
does not appear to me desirable, any more than self-denial without a
sufficient motive--and I do not call mere mortification such--appears to
me reasonable. I do not feel called upon to curtail the comforts of my
daily life, for in some respects it is always miserable, and in many
respects often inevitably very uncomfortable; and while I am laboring to
spare sacrifice and disgrace to others, I do not see any very strong
motive for not applying a sufficient portion of the money I work so hard
for, to make my wandering and homeless life as endurable as I can....
Your mode of living is without pretension, and without expenditure for
mere appearances; and I feel certain that appearances, and not the
positive and necessary comforts of life, such as sufficient firing and
food, are the heaviest expenses of gentlefolks.... If the life is more
than meat or raiment, which I quite agree to, meat and raiment are more
than platters and trimmings; and it is the style that half the time
necessitates the starvation....
Now I am at Yarmouth; though t'other side the page I was at Norwich. The
earth is white, the sea is black, the sky gray, and everything most
melancholy. I act here to-night, and to-morrow and on Sunday go on to
Lynn, where I act Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday; and Thursday at
Cambridge. On Friday I go back to town, and on Saturday to Mrs. Grote's.
I am in just such a little room as those we used to pass in walking
along the Parade at St. Leonard's--a small ground-floor room, about
sixteen feet square, the side facing the sea, one large bow-window in
three compartments; just such a gravel terrace before it as the one we
walked up and down together; and the very same sea, dark,
neutral-tinted, with its frothing edge of white, as if it was foaming at
the mouth in a black convulsion, that your eyes look upon from your
window. It is in some respects exactly like St. Leonard's, and again as
much the reverse as sad loneliness is to loving and delightful
companionship.
I have a sort of lost-child feeling whenever I go to a strange place,
that very few people who know me would give me credit for; but that's
because they don't know me.
God bless you, dear. Kiss dear Dorothy for me.
I am ever yours,
FANNY.
YARMOUTH, 22d.
My very dear and most sententious friend, I never _do_ run the time of
my departure for railroad trains "to the chances of free streets and
fast-driving cabmen;" I always allow amply for all accidents, as I have
a greater horror of being hurried and jostled even than of being too
late. But my driver, the day I left town, was, I think, inexperienced
as well as sulky. He was very young, and though I was too ignorant of
city localities to direct him positively, my recollection of the route
which I had traversed before seemed to me to indicate that he did not
take the most direct way.
You ask me what I think of E----'s note, and if it seems "wonderfully
aristocratic" to me. Aristocratic after the English fashion, which,
thank God, is far from being a very genuine fashion--their "airs" being
for the most part _adulterated_ by the good, sound, practical common
sense of the race, as their blood is _polluted_ with the wholesome,
vigorous, handsome, intelligent vital fluid of the classes below them.
No real aristocrat would have mentioned Miss ----'s maiden name as if
she was a woman of family--(_née_--_geborne_; that was a delightful
German woman who said she wasn't _geborne_ at all)--for Miss ----, being
only a banker's daughter, was, of course "nobody."
The real aristocratic principle is not--I say again, thank God!--often
to be found among us islanders of Britain. In Austria, where the
Countess Z---- and the Princess E---- are looked upon as the earth under
the feet of the Vienna nobility, the one being Lord S----'s daughter and
the other Lord J----'s, they have a better notion of the principle of
the question. There were only four families in all the British peerage
who could have furnished their daughter with the requisite number of
quarterings for one of those Austrian alliances.
In folly, as in wisdom, a principle is at least consistent; but that the
aristocratic pretensions of our upper class can never be: for our gentry
is of more ancient date in a great many instances, and our nobles are,
fortunately for themselves and us, a mixed race, admitting to the
temporary fellowship of social companionship and the permanent alliance
of matrimony, wealth, influence, beauty, and talent from every grade
beneath them; therefore they are fit to endure, and will endure longer
than any other European aristocracy, in spite of Prince Puckler Muskau's
epigram against the most "mushroom of nobilities."
The "airs" they do give themselves are, therefore, very droll, whereas
the similar pretensions of an Austrian _crème de la crème_ are
comprehensible and consistent--folly without a flaw, and rather
admirable in its kind as a specimen of human absurdity.... I have the
honor of being slightly acquainted with E----'s portrait painter. He is
a Scotch gentleman, of very great merit as an artist. He was in Rome the
winter I was there, and I met him in society, and saw several of his
pictures. He was rather injured artistically, I think, by living with
mad lords and silly ladies who used to pet and spoil him, which sort of
thing damages our artists, who become bitten with the "aristocratic"
mania, and destroy themselves as fine workmen in their desire to become
fine gentlemen.
There was a story in Rome about Lady C---- and the German princess, Lady
D----, going one day to Mr. ----'s studio and finding his fire out,
falling down on their own fair knees, and with their own fair hands
kindling it again for him. After this, how could he paint anything less
than a countess? Jesting apart, however, my dear Hal, the terms Mr. ----
asks are very high; and though he is a very elegant and graceful
portrait-painter, I would rather, upon the whole, sit to Richmond, whose
chalk drawings are the same price, and whose style is as good and more
vigorous.
You ask me why Mrs. ----, who is undoubtedly a clever woman, is also
undoubtedly a silly one?
If I wished to be saucy, which I never do and never am, I should tell
you, being an Irishwoman, that it was because she was Irish, and,
therefore, capable of a sort of intellectual bull; but, unluckily,
though ingenious, this is not true. The sort of ability or abilities, to
which we give the ill-defined name of "cleverness," is entirely distinct
from common sense, judgment, discretion; so distinct as to be almost
their opposite. I think a clever woman requires quite an unusual portion
of the above qualities not to be silly, _because_ she is clever. This
may sound paradoxical, but if you think it worth examining, you will
find it true.
I am very cold and very comfortless in these horrible theatres, and
shall be glad to get back to King Street, and as soon as I am there will
take measures about my readings, which I think I had better begin in
earnest with.
There are no rocks on the beach here, like that pretty little reef that
runs right out before your windows, but three miles from the shore there
is a fatal stretch of sand where wrecks are frequent, and all along
which ominous white clouds are springing up from the inky surface of the
wintry sea, like warning ghosts. It is very dreary and dismal looking;
but, nevertheless, as I have no rehearsal, I am going out to walk. Kiss
Dorothy for me. I am yours and hers most affectionately,
FANNY.
I have had another foolish note from Lady ---- about "Jane Eyre"--the
universal theme of conversation and correspondence--in which, speaking
of herself, she says that she is "_dished and done for, and gone to the
dogs_;" and then accuses the writer of "Jane Eyre" of not knowing how
ladies and gentlemen talk--which I think, too; but the above expressions
are a peculiar example of refined conventional language, which perhaps
the author of that very remarkable book would have hesitated to ascribe
to a lady--or a gentleman.
BIRNHAM BEECHES, Sunday, March 20th,
and KING STREET, Friday, February 1st, 1848.
Now I have two long letters of yours to answer, and my own opinion is
that they will not be answered until I get to the Beeches, and have a
few hours' breathing-time, for I am just now setting off for Cambridge,
where I act to-night. To-morrow I travel to Bury St. Edmund's, and act
there the same night; and Friday I shall just get to London in time for
my dinner, and the next morning I go down to Birnham.... The air of St.
Leonard's, though you call it cold and sharp, was mild compared with the
raw, sunless climate I have since _enjoyed_ at Lynn and Yarmouth; a
bracing climate always suits me better than a relaxing one.... I cannot,
however, agree with you that there is more "excitement" in rehearsing
every morning, and sitting in a dull, dirty, hired room, and acting that
everlasting "Hunchback" every evening, than in being your mounted escort
to Bex Hill and Fairlight church, and reading to you either "Mary
Stuart" or "Jane Eyre." I am glad to see that L---- and I agree about
what always seems to me the most improbable part of the latter very
remarkable book. I am slow in determining in my own mind the course that
other women would pursue in exceptionally difficult circumstances; many
of them would doubtless display an amount of principle of which I should
be quite incapable; and so I am glad that L---- thinks, as I do, that
Jane Eyre's safest course would have been to have left Thornfield
without meeting her lover's despair.
Fever at the gates of Ardgillan, my dear Hal, must indeed make you
anxious; but as your family have moved thence, I suppose they will not
return while there is any danger to be apprehended from doing so.
And now, dear Hal, from the Beeches, where I arrived yesterday
afternoon, and am now writing to you.... I have really kept both cold
and cough down wonderfully, considering the horrible weather and
exposure I have gone through travelling, and in those damp barns of
theatres. Hayes will certainly not recover as soon as I do, for she has
all the aversion of her class to physic and spare diet....
Charles Greville is here, and I asked him your question, if he had ever
published any other book but the one upon Ireland you are reading. He
said no. He has, however, written pamphlets and newspaper articles of
considerable ability upon political subjects. I have been taking a long
walk, and will now resume my letter to you. I perceive I have brought
Charles Greville and his book into the middle of what I was telling you
about those poor young Norwich actors.
A very pretty and charming niece of my dear friend, Mr. Harness, is
married and living within a short distance of Lynn, and as I had not
time to stay with her now, I have promised to go back into Norfolk to
visit her, and at the same time I have promised to act a night for these
poor people if they can get their manager's leave for me to do so.
My dear Hal, this letter seems destined to pass its unfinished existence
on the railroads. I am now at this present moment finishing it in my
King Street lodging, to which I returned yesterday afternoon, Mrs. Grote
being seized in the morning with one of her attacks of neuralgia, for
which she is obliged to take such a quantity of morphine that she is
generally in a state of stupor for four and twenty to thirty hours. The
other guests departed in the morning, and I in the afternoon, after
giving her medicine to her, and seeing her gradually grow stupid under
its effect. Poor woman, she is a wretched sufferer, and I think these
attacks of acute pain in her head answerable for some of the singularity
of her demeanor and conversation, which are sometimes all but
unaccountably eccentric.
You ask me if I saw anything on that bitter cold journey, as I went
along, to interest me. You know I am extremely fond of the act of
travelling: being carried through new country excites one's curiosity
and stimulates one's powers of observation very agreeably, even when
nothing especially beautiful or noteworthy presents itself in the
landscape. I had never seen the east counties of England before, and am
glad to have become acquainted with their aspect, though it is certainly
not what is usually called picturesque. The country between Norwich and
Yarmouth is like the ugliest parts of Holland, swampy and barren; the
fens of Lincolnshire flat and uninteresting, though admirably drained,
cultivated, and fertile. Ely Cathedral, of which I only saw the outside,
is magnificent, and the most perfect view of it is the one from the
railroad, as one comes from Lynn.
Lynn itself is a picturesque and curious old town, full of remains of
ancient monastic buildings. The railroad terminus is situated in a
property formerly part of a Carthusian convent, and the wheelwrights'
and blacksmiths' and carpenters' cottages are built partly in the old
monkish cells, of which two low ranges remain round a space now covered
with sleepers, and huge chains, and iron rails, and all the modern
materials of steam travel.
Cambridge, of course, I saw nothing of. On the road between it and Bury
St. Edmund's one passes over Newmarket heath, the aspect of which is
striking, apart from its "associations." Bury St. Edmund's--which is
famous, as you know, for its beautiful old churches and relics of monastic
greatness--I saw nothing of, but was most kindly and hospitably sheltered
by Mr. Donne, who, being now the father of sons, is living in Bury in
order to educate them at the school where he and my brothers were as boys
under Dr. Malkin. [William Bodham Donne, my brother John's school and
college mate, for more than fifty years of this changeful life the
unchanged, dear, and devoted friend of me and mine--accomplished scholar,
elegant writer, man of exquisite and refined taste, and such a _gentleman_
that my sister always said he was the _original_ of the hero of
Boccaccio's story of the "Falcon."]
God bless you, my dear. I have a pain in my chest, and bad cough, which
don't prevent my being
Yours most truly,
FANNY.
29, KING STREET, Thursday, 3d.
It is no longer the bitter cold morning on which you asked me how I was,
and now I cannot for the life of me remember how or where I was on that
said 26th. Oh, it was last Wednesday, and I was travelling from Lynn to
Cambridge, and I was pretty well, and had a pleasant railroad trip, the
gentlemen in the railroad carriage with me being intelligent and
agreeable men, and one of them well acquainted with my brother John, and
all his Cambridge contemporaries. Though it was cold, too, the sun
shone, and threw long streaks of brightness across the fens of
Lincolnshire, producing effects on the unfrequent and in themselves
unpicturesque farm-houses, with their groups of wintry skeleton-trees
exactly like those in the Dutch pictures, which are, for the most part,
representations of just such landscapes.
Mitchell sent me yesterday a box at the French theatre for a morning
performance of the "Antigone," with Mendelssohn's choruses. Previous to
the performance of the Greek drama, they played, very inappropriately it
seems to me, his music of the "Midsummer Night's Dream," and the effect
of it upon my nerves was such that, though screened by the curtain of
the box, and my sobs drowned by the orchestra, I thought I should have
been obliged to leave the theatre. It is the first time that I have
heard a note of Mendelssohn's music since his death.
How thankful I am I did not attempt that reading at the Palace! What
should I have done there, thus convulsed with pain and sorrow, in the
midst of those strange people, and the courtly conventions of their
condition! Oh, what a bitter, bitter loss to the world, and all who
loved him, has been the death of that bright and amiable great genius!
The Greek play was given in the true Grecian fashion, and was
interesting and curious as a spectacle. The French literal translation
of the grand old tragedy seemed at once stilted and bald, and yet I
perceived and felt through it the power of the ancient solemn Greek
spell; and though strange and puppet-like in its outward form, I was
impressed by its stern and tragic simplicity. It is, however, merely an
archæological curiosity, chiefly interesting as a reproduction of the
times to which it belongs. To modern spectators, unless they are poets
or antiquarians, I should think it must be dull, and so I find it is
considered, in spite of Mendelssohn's fine music, which, indeed, is so
well allied in spirit to the old tragedy, that to most listeners I dare
say it has something of the dreamy dreariness of the drama itself.
Mrs. Jameson was with me, and it was chiefly on her account that I did
not give way to my impulse to leave the theatre.
Good-bye. God bless you, my dear.
Ever yours,
FANNY.
[The foregoing letter refers to my having declined to read the
"Antigone" at Buckingham Palace, under the following circumstances.
My father was desired to do so, but his very serious deafness made
his reading anything to which there was an occasional accompaniment
of music difficult to him, and he excused himself; at the same time,
unfortunately for me, he suggested that I should be applied to to
read the play. Accordingly, I received a message upon the subject,
but was obliged to decline the honor of reading at the Palace, for
reasons which had not occurred to my father when he answered for my
accepting the task he had been unable to undertake. I had never yet
read at all in public, and to make my first experiment of my powers
before the queen, and under circumstances calculated to increase my
natural nervousness and embarrassment, seemed hardly respectful to
her, and almost impossible to me.
Then, for my first attempt of the kind, to select a play accompanied
by Mendelssohn's music, of which I had not heard one bar since the
shock of his death, was to incur the almost certain risk of breaking
down in an uncontrollable paroxysm of distress, and perhaps being
unable to finish my performance.
What I endured at the St. James's Theatre, on the occasion I have
spoken of in this letter, confirms me in my conviction that I
couldn't have attempted what was proposed to me with a reasonable
chance of being able to fulfil my task.
I was told afterwards that I had been guilty of "disloyal
disobedience to a royal command,"--a severe sentence, which I do not
think I had deserved, and found it painful to bear.]
KING STREET, Saturday, February 9th, 1848.
Mrs. Jameson is no longer in the house with me, dearest Hal. She went
away the other day from the theatre, where we were hearing Mendelssohn's
"Antigone" together, and will probably not return for some time; when
she does, I shall most likely be out of town.
I saw Mitchell yesterday, and he entirely declines to have anything
whatever to do with my readings--_ainsi me voilà bien!_ I cried like a
baby the whole of the day afterwards; of course my nerves were out of
order, or I should have chosen some less rubbishy cause among the
various excellent reasons for tears I have to select from.
Mr. Harness and Charles and Henry Greville came to see me in the course
of the day. The latter rather bullied me, said I behaved like a child:
and so I certainly did; but, oh, my dear Hal, if you knew how little
these, my most intimate friends, know about me, and how much more able
and fit they think me to fight and struggle for myself than I am! They
are all very kind in suggesting many things: Henry Greville is urgent
with me to undertake the speculation of giving readings at my own
risk--hiring a room, and sending out advertisements, etc.; but this I
will not do, as I am willing' to work hard for very small gains, but not
to jeopardize any portion of the small gains for which I have worked
hard. Am I right in your opinion and that of dear Dorothy? In the mean
time, I have written off to the Secretary of the Collegiate Institution
at Liverpool, who proposed to me last year to give readings there, and
have told him that I shall be glad to do so now if it still suits the
purposes of the Institution. He, however, may have changed his mind, as
Mitchell has done, and in that case I must sit down and eat my present
savings, and thank God that I have savings for the present to eat....
Dear old Rogers came yesterday, and sat with me some time; and talking
over my various difficulties with me, said I had much better go and live
with him, and take care of his house for him. It's a pretty house, but
I'm afraid it would be no sinecure to be his housekeeper....
How _is_ your poor knees and wrists, and all your rheumatical fastenings
and hinges, and Dorothy's _intérieur_? I hope she is not tyrannizing
over you with unnecessary questions and inquiries, which merely serve to
trammel your free-will, by asking you where you have been walking, or
if it rained while you were out.
I send you a kiss, which I beg you will give each other for me, or
otherwise divide without quarrelling, and believe me
Very affectionately yours,
FANNY.
29, KING STREET.
... Oh yes, my dear Hal, I hear abundance of discussion of the present
distracted aspect of public affairs, abroad and at home; but for the
most part the opinions that I hear, and the counsels that are suggested
to meet the evils of the times, seem to me as much indications of the
faithlessness and folly of men, as the great movements of nations are of
the faithfulness and wisdom of God.
Still, when I hear clever, practical politicians talk, I always listen
with keen interest; for the details in which they seem to me too much
absorbed, are a corrective to my generalizing tendency on all such
subjects.
Moral principles are the _true_ political laws (mere abstract truisms,
as they are held, and accordingly overlooked, by _working_ statesmen) by
which the social world is kept in cohesion, just as the physical world
is kept in equilibrium by the attracting and repelling forces that
control its elements.
You ask me how many letters I am in your debt. When I shall have
finished this, only one. I have worked very hard this past week to keep
your claims down, but have only just now got my head above water with
you.
There was nothing to like at Lynn. The weather was gloomy and cold, and
I was only there two days. There seemed to be a good many curious
remains of antiquity in and about the town--old churches, houses,
gateways, and porches--but I had no leisure to look at these, and indeed
the weather was almost too severe to admit of standing about
sight-seeing, even under the warmest zeal for instruction.
I did not find the sea air make me sleep at Lynn, and incline to think
that it is you, more than the climate that affects me so soporifically
at St. Leonard's.
God bless you, dear.
Your affectionate,
FANNY.
29, KING STREET, ST. JAMES'S.
I do not know how right I am in saying Lady ---- married because she was
jilted, inasmuch as of my own personal knowledge I do not _know_ it; but
that she was much attached to Lord ----, whose father would not permit
the marriage, I have heard repeatedly from people who knew both the
families; and Rogers, who was very intimate with hers, told me that he
considered her marrying as she did the result of mere disappointment,
saying, "She could not have the man she loved, so she gave herself to
the man who loved her." So much in explanation of my rather rash
statement about that most beautiful lady I ever saw.
I have seen a good many handsome people, but there was a modesty, grace,
and dignity, and an expression of deep latent sentiment in that woman's
countenance, that, combined with her straight nymph-like figure, and the
sort of chastity that characterized her whole person and appearance,
fulfilled my ideal of female beauty. You will perhaps wonder at my use
of the word "chastity," as applied merely to a style of beauty; but
"chaste" is the word that describes it properly. Of all the Venuses of
antique art, the Venus of Milo, that noble and keenly intellectual
goddess of beauty, is the only one that I admire.
The light, straight-limbed Artemis is lovelier to me than the round soft
sleepy Aphrodite; and it was to the character of her figure, and the
contour of her head and face, that I applied the expression "chaste" in
speaking of Lady ----. Her sister, who is thought handsomer, and is a
lovely creature (and morally and mentally as worthy of that epithet as
physically), has not this severely sweet expression, or sweetly stern,
if you prefer it, though this implies a shade of volition, which
falsifies the application of it. This is what I especially admire in
Lady ----, who adds to that faultless Greek outline, which in its
integrity and justness of proportion seems the type of truth, an eye
whose color deepens, and a fine-textured cheek, where the blood visibly
mantles with the mere emotion of speaking and being listened to.
The first time I met her was at a dinner-party at Miss Berry's, before
her marriage. She sat by Landseer, and her great admiration for him, and
enthusiastic devotion to his fine art, in which she was herself a
proficient, lent an interest to their conversation, which exhibited
itself in her beautiful face in a manner that I have never
forgotten....
You bid me tell you how I am in mind, body, and estate. My mind is in a
tolerably wholesome frame, my body not so well, having a cold and cough
hanging about it, and suffering a good deal of pain the last few days.
My estate is so far flourishing that I brought back a tolerable wage and
earnings from my eastern expedition, and so shall not have to sell out
any of my small funded property for my daily bread yet a while.
You say that tact is not necessarily insincerity. No, I suppose not: I
must say I suppose, because I have never known anybody, eminently gifted
with tact, who appeared to me perfectly sincere. I am told that the
woman I have just been writing about, Lady C----, of whom my personal
knowledge is too slight to judge how far she deserves the report, never
departs from the truth; and yet is so gentle, good, and considerate,
that she never wounds anybody's feelings. If this is so, it deserves a
higher title than tact, and appears to me a great attainment in the
prime grace of Christianity. I have always believed that where
love--charity--abounded, truth might, and could, and would abound
without offence. Which of the great French divines said, "Quand on n'est
point dans les bornes de la charité, on n'est bientôt plus dans celles
de la vérité"? It sounds like Fénélon, but I believe it is Bossuet. Tact
always appears to me a sort of moral elegance, an accomplishment, rather
than a virtue; dexterity, as it were, doing the work of sensibility and
benevolence.
I think it likely that Mitchell will call in the course of the morning,
and I may still possibly make some arrangement with him about my
readings....
I have had a pressing invitation from Mrs. Mitchell, who is staying at
Brighton with her boys, to go down there and visit her. It would be very
nice if I could go thence to 18, Marina, St. Leonard's, and pay a visit
to some other friends of mine. Your lodgings will, however, I fear, be
full; and then, too, you may not want me, and it is as well not to be
too forward in offering one's self to one's dearest friends, for fear of
the French "Thank you," which with them, civil folk that they are,
means, "No, they'd rather not." With us, it would imply, "Yes,
gratefully;" otherwise, it is, "Thank you for nothing."
Kiss Dorothy for me.
Ever as ever yours,
FANNY.
29, KING STREET, Sunday, 5th.
I am afraid my pretty plot of coming to you is at an end, and I am
afraid all my chances of coming to you are at an end. I wrote you
yesterday that I was beginning to be doubtful about my further
engagements in London, and was indeed discouraged and troubled at the
aspect of my affairs. This morning, however, comes an express from
M----, beginning a new negotiation with me, and wanting me to open with
Macready at his theatre on the 21st of this month, to act four weeks,
and then renew the engagement for four weeks more.... I do not wish to
depart from the terms I have asked, but am extremely glad of the offer,
and hope he will agree to them. I think it probable that he will,
because my engagement with Macready has been so much talked about, and
he has himself applied to me three several times about it. This puts an
end to all visiting prospects, for Brighton or St. Leonard's, and in
March you will be leaving the latter place. This is a sad
disappointment, but perhaps Mr. M---- will not, after all, give me my
terms, and I ought to be sorrier for that, but I shan't....
I had a visit the other morning from Mr. Blackett--John Blackett. I
don't know if I have spoken of him to you. I met him at Mrs. Mitchell's
in Scotland, while I was staying with her at Carolside, and liked him
very much. He is a great friend of Dr. Hampden's and of Stanley,
Arnold's biographer. He brought me, the other day, a volume of sermons
by Stanley, of which I have just read the first, and have been delighted
with it. How surely does such a spirit as Arnold's beget its own fit
successors!... I think I have not read anything, since his own Life,
that has given me the same deep satisfaction that these sermons of his
pupil have....
That music of Mendelssohn's had a horrid effect upon my nerves; I mean
the emotion and distress it caused me. I suffered a great deal of pain,
and was quite unwell for several days after it. Will it not be a pity if
I can't come and be spoilt any more by you and Dorothy at St. Leonard's?
It was so pleasant and good for you.
Ever as ever yours,
FANNY.
KING STREET, Monday, 7th.
I do very, very well this morning, my dear Hal: this is in answer to
your affectionate inquiry of the 1st; but if you wanted to know then, of
course you will want to know just as much now....
My time at the Beeches was not very pleasant to me. The weather was
horrible, cold, wet, and dismal; the house is wretchedly uncomfortable;
and Mrs. Grote always keeps me in a rather nervous state of breathless
apprehension as to what she may say or do next. I cannot talk much,
either to her or Charles Greville; neither of them understands a word
that I say. Her utter _unusualness_ perplexes me, and his ingrain
worldliness provokes me; but I listened with great pleasure to some
political talk between Charles Greville, Mr. Grote, and the Italian
patriot, Prandi. You know that, fond as I am of talking, I like
listening better, when I can hear what I think worth listening to. I was
delighted with their clear, practical, comprehensive, and liberal views
of the whole state of Europe, especially Italy, so interesting in her
present half-roused attitude of returning national vitality. They talked
a great deal, too, upon the West India sugar question; and I listened
with interest to all they said, struck the whole time with their
entirely ignoring the deepest sources whence national troubles and their
remedies flow, of which the wisest working politicians and statesmen
take apparently (very foolishly) little heed; I suppose they do not
acknowledge them, which is why their government and statescraft is so
apt to be mere temporary empirical expediency.
I had a very full and lively audience at Cambridge, and remarked with
especial satisfaction a young man sitting in the stage box with one of
the sweetest countenances I ever saw. I sincerely hope, for his beauty's
sake, that he was amused. He reminded me of the line in King John,
describing the young gentlemen in the English army--the lads "with
ladies' faces and fierce dragons' spleens." They were very attentive,
and very enthusiastic, and I was very well pleased with them, and I hope
they were with me....
There is nothing in the supernatural part of "Jane Eyre" that disturbs
me at all; on the contrary, I believe in it. I mean, there is nothing in
my mode of thinking and feeling that denies the possibility of such a
circumstance as Jane Eyre hearing her distant lover call upon her name.
I have often thought that the power of intense love might very well work
just such a miracle as that. God bless you, dear. Kiss dearest Dorothy
for me, and believe me
Ever yours,
FANNY.
29, KING STREET, Tuesday, 8th.
Yesterday I had plenty of questions to answer in my letter to you;
to-day I have not one.... My beloved friend, I know that if your power
to serve me equalled your desire to do so, I should be borne in the arms
of angels, "lest at any time I struck my foot against a stone." But do
not, my dearest Harriet, let your love for me forget that faith without
which we could neither bear our own trials nor the trials of those we
love. "In the great hand of God we all stand," and are fitly cared for
by Him, our Father. I should be much ashamed of the sudden flood of
cowardice that overwhelmed me two days ago at the difficult and
cheerless prospect before me, but that it was, I am sure, the result of
nervous disorder, and the jarring I got the other day from that dreadful
Antigone.
You know I seldom waste time in blaming myself, and tarry but a brief
space in the idle disconsolateness of repentance. I must try to be less
weak, and less troubled about my prospects. I wrote you yesterday of the
proposal I had received from Mr. Maddox. He made no offer of terms. I
have heard nothing further from him, and augur ill from his silence. I
suppose he will not pay me what I ask, and thinks it useless to offer me
less. I shall be very sorry for this; but if I find it so, will apply to
Mr. Webster, or some other manager, for employment; and if I fail with
them, must make a desperate effort about my readings.
But for my sister's entreaty that I would remain here till she returns
from Italy, and my own great desire to see her again, I would _confront_
the winter passage across the Atlantic, in hopes of finding work in
America, and living without using up the little I have already gathered
together. But I cannot bear to go before she comes to England.... I was
surprised by a visit from Lord Hardwicke yesterday; it is years since I
have seen him. I knew and liked him formerly, as Captain Yorke. He is as
blunt and plain-spoken as ever, and retains his sailor-like manner in
spite of his earldom, which he hadn't when I met him last.... Henry
Greville is coming to tea with me this evening, and I promised to read
him my translation of "Mary Stuart." I hope he may like it as well as
you did. Lady Dacre was here this afternoon; she has been dreadfully
ill, and looks an old woman now, for the first time, at eighty--that is
not too soon to begin.
I think I shall take Mr. Maddox's last offer, and if so, dear Hal,
farewell to my visit to St. Leonard's. But I am of the poor author's
mind, "Qu'il faut bien qu'on vive," and do not suppose that you will
answer me _à la Voltaire_, "Ma foi, je n'en vois pas la nécessité."
It is very odd that it should seem so natural to one to live, and so
strange to die, since it is what everybody does. The fact is, habit is
the strongest thing in the world; and living is simply the oldest habit
we have, and so the strongest.
Good-bye, my dear, and believe me
Respectfully yours,
FANNY.
KING STREET, St. James's, Thursday, 10th.
... Mr. Maddox comes here, and worries my life out with haggling and
bargaining, but has not yet agreed to any terms, and I am half
distracted with all the various advice tendered me.... In the mean time,
I am much comforted about my readings; for I received yesterday morning
a very courteous letter from the Secretary of the Collegiate Institution
at Liverpool, offering me twenty guineas a night if I would go down and
read there six nights at the end of March. This I shall be thankful to
do, if my engagement at the Princess's Theatre falls through, and if it
does not I shall hope to be able to accept the Liverpool invitation
later in the season. I have had a visit, too, from one of the directors
of the Highgate Institute, to beg I would go and read there. They cannot
afford to give me more than ten guineas a night, the institute being a
small and not very rich one; but of course I do not expect to be paid
for reading as I am for acting, and therefore, whenever I can, shall
accept the Highgate offer.
These various proposals have put me in heart once more about the
possible success of this reading experiment, and I am altogether much
comforted at seeing that employment is not likely to fail me, which I
was beginning to fear it might.... Of course, if I apply for engagements
to managers, I must expect to take their terms, not to make my own--for
beggars must not be choosers, as I learnt long ago; and when I solicit
an engagement, I must be prepared to sell myself cheap--and I will. If
Maddox won't pay me what I ask, and Webster won't have me at any price,
I shall come to you and Dorothy, who, I "reckon," will take me on my own
terms: which in these my days of professional humiliation (not personal
humility, you know), is quite kind of you.
Yours ever,
FANNY.
KING STREET, Friday, 28th.
MY DEAREST HAL,
You will be glad to hear that Mr. Maddox has at length come into my
terms.... For the next two months this is some anxiety off my mind, and
I trust will be off yours for me; and the last two days have shown me
that my chance of getting employment, either acting or reading, is
likely to last--at any rate till my sister returns, when I shall
probably stay with her till my departure for America.... I am most
thankful that the depression and discouragement under which I succumbed
for a while has been thus speedily relieved. It is a curious sensation
to have a certain consciousness of power (which I have, though perhaps
it is quite a mistaken notion), and at the same time of absolute
helplessness. It seems to me as if I had some sort of strength, and yet
I feel totally incapable of coping with the small difficulties of
circumstance under which it is oppressed; it's like a sort of wide-awake
nightmare. I suppose it's because I am a woman that I am so idiotic and
incompetent to help myself.
But when one thinks of it, what a piteous page in the history of human
experience is the baffling and defeat of real genius by the mere weight
of necessity, the bare exigencies of existence, the need to live from
day to day. Think of Beethoven dying, and saying to Hummel, with that
most wonderful assertion of his own great gifts, "Pourtant, Hummel,
j'avois du génie!"--such transcendent genius as it was too! such pure
and perfect and high and deep inspiration! which had, nevertheless, not
defended him from the tyranny of poverty, and the petty cares of living,
all his life.
Is it not well that people of great genius are always _proud as well as
humble_, and that the consciousness of their own nobility spreads, as it
were, the wings of an angel between them and all the baseness and
barrenness through which they are often compelled to wade up to the
lips? Whenever I think of Burns, my heart tightens itself, to use a
French expression, for a most painful _physical emotion_. Do you know
Schiller's exquisite poem of the "Division of the Earth"? I will send
you a translation, if you do not--a rough one I made of it when it was
one of my German lessons. My version is harsh and poor enough, but the
thoughts are preserved, and _the_ thought is worthy of that noble
poet....
29, KING STREET, Saturday, 12th.
MY DEAREST HAL,
How many pleasant things I might lament over _if_ I might! I shall not
see St. Leonard's again with you. Emily has misunderstood in saying that
my engagement at the Princess Theatre does not begin till the 27th; it
begins on the 21st, next Monday week, and I shall only just have time to
get my wardrobe ready and study Desdemona and Cordelia, which I am asked
to play, and re-learn the music of Ophelia, which I have quite
forgotten....
I have an engagement offered me in Dublin, and it is rather provoking
that I cannot accept it now, for this, I believe, is the height of the
gay season there. As it is, I fear I shall not be able to go over there
till May; but perhaps then you will go with me, or be there, and that
will be some compensation for the less money I shall make.
It's curious all these engagements offering now within these few days:
to be sure, it never rains but it pours, so that accounts for it
philosophically.
Did I tell you what a nice long visit I had from Thackeray the other
day? Oh, have you read that "Vanity Fair" of his? It is wonderful! He
was a schoolfellow of my brother John's, you know, and is a very old
friend of mine, but I had not seen him for some time. I wrote to ask him
for his autograph for Henry Greville, and he wrote me an extremely kind
note, and came himself after it, and sat with me a very long time, and
was delightful.
Lady Charlotte Greville, who has just removed into a beautiful new house
she has arranged for herself, wrote to say she was coming to town
immediately, and hoped I would give my first London reading in her
drawing-room. Was not that nice and kind and good-natured of her, dear
old lady? But of course I declined, at any rate for the present, as I
mean to exhaust my natural enemies, the managers, before I have recourse
to my friends, in any way whatever. Kiss Dorothy for me, and don't let
her break your spirit with inquisitorial and vexatious supervision of
your actions. A timely resistance to friendly tyranny is a great saving
of trouble.
Good-bye, you bad dear.
I am yours ever,
FANNY.
[I wish to record a slight anecdote of my friend William Thackeray,
which illustrates his great kindness and amiability, his _sweetness_
of temper and disposition.
I met him at Miss Berry's at dinner, a few days before he began his
course of lectures on the English essayists, and he asked me to come
and hear him, and told me he was so nervous about it, that he was
afraid he should break down.
I had an engagement which prevented my hearing his first lecture,
but I promised him to go and see him at his room before he began it,
to cheer him.
He was to lecture at Willis Rooms, in the same room where I read,
and going thither before the time for his beginning, found him
standing like a forlorn disconsolate giant in the middle of the
room, gazing about him. "Oh, Lord," he exclaimed, as he shook hands
with me, "I'm sick at my stomach with fright." I spoke some words of
encouragement to him, and was going away, but he held my hand, like
a scared child, crying, "Oh, don't leave me!" "But," said I,
"Thackeray, you mustn't stand here. Your audience are beginning to
come in," and I drew him from the middle of his chairs and benches,
which were beginning to be occupied, into the retiring-room
adjoining the lecture-room, my own readings having made me perfectly
familiar with both. Here he began pacing up and down, literally
wringing his hands in nervous distress. "Now," said I, "what shall
I do? Shall I stay with you till you begin, or shall I go, and leave
you alone to collect yourself?" "Oh," he said, "if I could only get
at that confounded thing" (his lecture), "to have a last look at
it!" "Where is it?" said I. "Oh, in the next room on the
reading-desk." "Well," said I, "if you don't like to go in and get
it, I'll fetch it for you." And remembering well the position of my
reading-table, which had been close to the door of the
retiring-room, I darted in, hoping to snatch the manuscript without
attracting the attention of the audience, with which the room was
already nearly full. I had been used to deliver my reading seated,
at a very low table, but my friend Thackeray gave his lectures
standing, and had had a reading-desk placed on the platform, adapted
to his own very tall stature, so that when I came to get his
manuscript it was almost above my head. Though rather disconcerted,
I was determined not to go back without it, and so made a half jump,
and a clutch at the book, when every leaf of it (they were not
fastened together), came fluttering separately down about me. I
hardly know what I did, but I think I must have gone nearly on
all-fours, in my agony to gather up the scattered leaves, and
retreating with them, held them out in dismay to poor Thackeray,
crying, "Oh, look, look, what a dreadful thing I have done!" "My
dear soul," said he, "you couldn't have done better for me. I have
just a quarter of an hour to wait here, and it will take me about
that to page this again, and it's the best thing in the world that
could have happened." With which infinite kindness he comforted me,
for I was all but crying, at having, as I thought, increased his
distress and troubles. So I left him, to give the first of that
brilliant course of literary historical essays with which he
enchanted and instructed countless audiences in England and America.
The last time I saw Thackeray, was at a dinner at my dear friend,
Mr. Harness'. As we were about to seat ourselves at table, I being
between Mr. Harness and Thackeray, his daughter Annie (now Mrs.
Ritchie) was going to place herself on the other side of her father.
"No, no," said our dear host, "that will not do. I cannot have the
daughter next the father." And Miss Thackeray was invited to take
another place. She had just published her story, "The History of
Elizabeth," in which she showed herself to have inherited some of
the fine elements of her father's literary genius. As we sat down, I
said to him, "But it appears very evident, I think, that the
daughter _is_ to be _next_ to the father." He looked at me for a
moment with a beaming face, and then said, "Do you know, I have
never read a word of that thing?" "Oh," cried I, "Thackeray! Why
don't you? It is excellent! It would give you so much pleasure!" "My
dear lady, I couldn't, I couldn't!" said he with tears in his eyes.
"It would _tear my guts out_!"--which powerful English description
of extreme emotion would have startled me less in French or Italian;
"Cela m'arracherait les entrailles," or "mi sois-cerelbero."
In the evening, he talked back to our early times, and my coming out
at Covent Garden, and how, "We all of us," said he (and what a noble
company of young brains and hearts they were!), "were in love with
you, and had your portrait by Lawrence in our rooms"--which made me
laugh and cry, and abuse him for tantalizing me with the ghost of a
declaration at that late hour of both our days. And so we parted,
and I never met him again. On his way home that evening, his
daughter told me that he had spoken kind compassionate words of
commendation of me. I have kept them in grateful remembrance. Fine
genius! and tender gentle heart! the classic writer of the keenest
and truest satire of the social vices of our day; the master of
English style, as powerful and pure as that of the best models,
whose works he has so admirably illustrated.
"Vanity Fair" will, I suppose, be always considered Thackeray's
masterpiece--though everybody loves, beyond all his other portraits,
the exquisite one of Colonel Newcome--but it seems to me that
"Esmond" is a more extraordinary literary feat than any other of his
works--except, indeed, "Lyndon of Barry Lyndon," which is even a
more remarkable production of the same order.]
KING STREET, Monday, 14th.
If you begin your letter with such questions as "What do you think of
me?" I do not know any reason in life why my answer should ever have an
end, even within the liberal limits of the two pages which you extort
from me daily. That is a question I cannot answer; although, I must say,
I should have expected from you rather more of that constancy and
consistency (a male rather than a female quality, however), which,
having determined on a certain course as best, does not lament having
abided by it when the issue appears unprosperous. I think women are
seldom of a sufficiently determined mind to make their opinion or
resolution itself their consolation under defeat. They are more liable
to mental as well as moral misgivings and regrets than men, and an
unfortunate result easily induces them to repent a course they
deliberately adopted.
_Sole vales Veritas_ is the motto upon a little pencil-case contained in
the small work-case Emily has given me. She had it engraved on the seal,
and though it is not altogether so congenial a motto to me as Arnold and
Robertson's Christian device "Forward!" (and is moreover axiomatic
rather than hortatory), I use it partly for her sake, and partly because
it is undeniable.
Pilate wished to know what is truth--or rather pretended that he
did--and I have a very general conviction that "What is truth?" is the
speech of Pilate to this day; _i.e._, of those who know, but will not
do, what they know to be right. It is very seldom, indeed, that the mind
earnestly desires a conviction, strives for one, prays for one, and
labors to attain one, that it does not acquire what, to all intents and
purposes, _is_ truth for that individual soul.
God's perfect and absolute Truth remedies in a thousand ways the
defectiveness of the partial truth that we arrive at; and so that the
_endeavor_ after truth be true, the highest result of all is reached,
_truth towards God_, though, humanly speaking, the mental result may be
a failure. What _absolute truth_ is, my dearest Hal, you will certainly
not know before you die, and possibly not then. In the mean time, I take
it, you have, or may have if you will, that which will serve your turn.
At any rate, I have--which is not at all the same thing--but that don't
signify.
I am very glad I was welcome in Bedford Place, and that Miss ---- was
good enough to be pleased with me.
There is great goodness in her voice and manner, and to have kept her
face unwrinkled and her hair unblanched till the present age (as it is
no result of selfish insensibility in her), bespeaks a virtuous life,
and sweet serene temper.
I wonder more women to whom their good looks are precious, do not ponder
upon the _beauty_ of holiness.... I have not heard from Adelaide or
E---- for some time, but of them, that they and the children are well;
that she is in good looks, and admirable voice; that their house is the
pleasantest in Rome, and their parties _the_ thing to which everybody is
anxious to be admitted: so all is prosperous and pleasant with them. I
have told you of her nice new house in Eaton Place. It is in a
considerable state of forwardness, the bedrooms being all papered, and
the drawing-rooms nearly painted. Henry Greville has had it all done for
her, and in very good taste; the grates are all up, and I should think
in another fortnight they might take possession if they were here.
I have read more of Stanley's sermons, and am struck with their
resemblance, in tone and spirit, to that book of my friend Mr. Furness,
which I do not know if I ever gave you to read, called, "Jesus and His
Biographers."
Stanley's sermons are excellent, but they seem to me curiously
unorthodox. There is an inletting of new views upon the subject of the
Christian Revelation, against which the Protestantism of the Church of
England--in many respects illogical and anomalous, as it appears to its
opponents--will have to fight a hard and difficult battle.
Lady Ellesmere was absolutely in despair about the bill for admitting
the Jews to Parliament, and had influence enough with Lord Ellesmere to
make him vote against it. This is sad enough; but she is so excellent
that her influence over him, in one case where it is bad is good in a
great many others....
God bless you, my dear. Give my love to Dorothy: I am both yours, but
yours most particularly,
FANNY.
P.S. My course with regard to my engagement at the Princess Theatre was
determined by my father's opinion, and confirmed by the advice of all my
friends who spoke to me upon the subject--Emily, Harness, the Grevilles,
and others; and all that Mr. Maddox said in his various conversations
with me upon the subject, enabled the best experienced among us to form
a very fair idea of what he could afford to give, and what I was
justified in asking.
29, KING STREET, Friday, February 18th, 1848.
I have been this morning to a rehearsal of Macbeth, at which Macready
did not attend; so that in point of fact, as far as I was concerned, it
was _nil_. He is, I believe, finishing some country engagements, and I
suppose had not returned to town. I have another rehearsal to-morrow, at
which it is to be hoped he will attend, as otherwise my being there is
really quite a work of supererogation.
My men friends--among whom I include my father--one and all, did what I
think women would not have done. The minute Mr. Maddox agreed to the
terms I had demanded, they lamented bitterly (even my dear Mr.
Harness--who is a good man) that I had not stood out for higher ones,
feeling quite sure I should have got them. Now, this I think quite as
contemptible, and a great deal more dishonest, than the womanly process
(Emily's and yours) of lamenting that I had not taken less than I had
demanded, because you feared my doing so had broken off the negotiation
altogether. I think, upon the whole, it behooves people to know what
they mean, and to abide by it, without either weak regrets at an ill
result, or selfish ones that it is not better than what one had made up
one's mind to--when it seems that it might have been so. I do wish
people would learn to be like my aunt's cook, and "stand upon their own
bottom, with fortitude and similarity." (A woman that Mrs. Siddons was
engaging as cook, replied to the question, "Can you make pastry?" "Well,
no, ma'am--not exactly to say, the very finest of pastry. I can make
plain puddings and pies, but--I am not a professed puff pastry cook, and
I think it best to say so, as every one should stand upon their own
bottom, with fortitude and similarity, I think.")
I act Lady Macbeth on Monday, on Wednesday Queen Katharine, and on
Friday Desdemona, for the first time in my life. I have a beautiful and
correct dress for her (you know I always liked my clothes), for which,
nevertheless, I expect to be much exclaimed against, as our actresses
have always thought proper to dress her in white satin. I have arrayed
her in black (the only habit of the noble Venetian ladies) and gold, in
a dress that looks like one of Titian's pictures.
That smothering scene, my dear Harriet, is most extremely horrible, and
like nothing in the world but the catastrophe of poor Madame de Praslin.
I think I shall make a desperate fight of it, for I feel horribly at the
idea of being murdered in my bed. The Desdemonas that I have seen, on
the English stage, have always appeared to me to acquiesce with
wonderful equanimity in their assassination. On the Italian stage they
run for their lives round their bedroom, Pasta in the opera (and Salvini
in the tragedy, I believe), clutching them finally by the hair of the
head, and then murdering them. The bedgown in which I had arrayed
Desdemona for the night would hardly have admitted of this flight round
the stage; besides that, Shakespeare's text gives no hint of any such
attempted escape on poor Desdemona's part; but I did think I should like
not to be murdered, and therefore, at the last, got up on my knees on my
bed, and threw my arms tight round Othello's neck (having previously
warned Mr. Macready, and begged his pardon for the liberty), that being
my notion of the poor creature's last appeal for mercy.
What do you think of our fine ladies amusing themselves with giving
parties, at which they, and their guests, take chloroform as a pastime?
Lady Castlereagh set the example, and was describing to me her
sensations under the process. I told her how imprudent and wrong I
thought such experiments, and mentioned to her the lecture Brand gave
upon the subject, in which the poor little guinea-pig, who underwent his
illustrations for the benefit of the audience, died on the table during
the lecture; to which she replied, "Oh yes; that she knew that, _for she
was present_." Can you conceive, after such a spectacle, trying similar
experiments upon one's ignorant self? Is it not very brave? or is it
only idiotical?...
I have been making a desperate struggle, _giving my reasons_ (four pages
of them--think of it!) to the committee of the Liverpool Institution, to
induce them to let me read Shakespeare _straight through_ to them; at
least, each play I read, divided into two readings, and with only the
omissions required by modern manners: but I fear they will not let me. I
shall be grievously disappointed....
Was there ever such a to-do as that woman Lola Montez is kicking up?
Everybody is turning Catholic as fast as possible, and the good
Churchwomen are every way in despair. They already see their sons all
circumcised, and their daughters refusing to eat ham, and their brothers
and husbands confessing the Real Presence. The lady members of the
Established Church, especially the more serious ones, are in great
tribulation at all that is going on. Lady Ellesmere is desperate at the
Jews coming into Parliament, and Lord Ellesmere has voted against them.
He, poor man, has been, within the last few days, all but at death's
door with the gout, and perhaps near finding out how different, or
_in_different, these differences _really_ are. It is wonderful to hear
everybody talk.
Good-bye. I am yours and Dorothy's
Most respectfully,
FANNY.
[My first intention in undertaking my readings from Shakespeare was
to make, as far as possible, of each play a thorough study in its
entireness; such as a stage representation cannot, for obvious
reasons, be. The dramatic effect, which of course suffers in the
mere delivery from a reading-desk, would, I hoped, be in some
measure compensated for by the possibility of retaining the whole
beauty of the plays as poetical compositions. I very soon, however,
found my project of making my readings "studies of Shakespeare" for
the public quite illusory.
To do so would have required that I should take two, and sometimes
three, evenings to the delivery of one play; a circumstance which
would have rendered it necessary for the same audience, if they
wished to hear it, to attend two and three consecutive readings; and
in many other respects I found the plan quite incompatible with the
demand of the public, which was for a dramatic entertainment, and
not for a course of literary instruction.
My father had found it expedient, in this mode of illustrating
Shakespeare, to make one play the subject of each reading; taking
two hours for the performance, and dividing the piece as fairly as
possible in two parts; retaining the whole _story_ of the play, and
so much only of the wisdom and beauty bestowed on its development by
the author, as could be kept well within the two hours' delivery,
and make the reading resemble as nearly as possible, in dramatic
effect, the already garbled and coarsely mutilated stage plays the
general public are alone familiar with. I was grievously
disappointed, but could not help myself. In Germany I should have
had no such difficulty; but the German public is willing to take its
amusements in earnest.
The readings were to be my livelihood, and I had to adapt them to
the audiences who paid for them--
"For those who live to please, must please to live."
I gladly availed myself of my father's reading version of the
plays, and read those he had delivered, cut and prepared for the
purpose according to that. When I came to cut and prepare for
reading the much greater number which I read, and he did not, I
found the task a very difficult one; and was struck with the
judgment and taste with which my father had performed it. I do not
think it possible to have adapted these compositions better or more
successfully to the purposes for which he required them. But I was
determined, at least, not to limit my repertory to the few most
theatrically popular of Shakespeare's dramas, but to include in my
course _all_ Shakespeare's plays that it was possible to read with
any hope of attracting or interesting an audience. My father had
limited his range to a few of the most frequently acted plays. I
delivered the following twenty-four: King Lear, Macbeth, Cymbeline,
King John, Richard II., two parts of Henry IV., Henry V., Richard
III., Henry VIII., Coriolanus, Julius Cæsar, Anthony and Cleopatra,
Hamlet, Othello, Romeo and Juliet, The Merchant of Venice, The
Winter's Tale, Measure for Measure, Much Ado about Nothing, As You
Like It, Midsummer Night's Dream, Merry Wives of Windsor, and The
Tempest.
These plays I read invariably through once before repeating any of
them; partly to make such of them as are seldom or never acted,
familiar to the public, by delivering them alternately with those
better known; and partly to avoid, what I much dreaded, becoming
mechanical or hackneyed myself in their delivery by perpetual
repetition of the same pieces, and so losing any portion of the
inspiration of my text by constant iteration of those garbled
versions of it, from which so much of its nobler and finer elements
are of hard necessity omitted in such a process as my reading of
them. I persisted in this system for my own "soul's sake," and not
to debase my work more than was inevitable, to the very considerable
detriment of my gains.
The public _always_ came in goodly numbers to hear "Macbeth,"
"Hamlet," "Romeo and Juliet," and "The Merchant of Venice;" and
Mendelssohn's exquisite music, made an accompaniment to the reading
of the "Midsummer Night's Dream," rendered that a peculiarly popular
performance. But to _all_ the other plays the audiences were
considerably less numerous, and to some few of them I often had but
few listeners. Mr. Mitchell, who for a considerable length of time
_farmed_ my readings, protested bitterly against this system, which
involved, of course, less profits than he might have made by
repeating only the most popular plays; and my own agents, when I was
reading on my own account, did not fail to represent to me that I
was what they called sacrificing my interests, _i.e._ my receipts,
to this plan of operations; but man does not live by bread alone,
and for more than twenty years that I followed the trade of a
wandering rhapsodist, I never consciously sacrificed my sense of
what was due to my work, for the sake of what I could make by it. I
have wished, and hoped, and prayed, that I might be able to use my
small gift _dutifully_; and to my own profound feeling of the
_virtue_ of these noble works, have owed whatever power I found to
interpret them. My great reward has been, passing a large portion of
my life in familiar intercourse with that greatest and best English
mind and heart, and living almost daily in that world above the
world, into which he lifted me. One inspiration alone could have
been purer or higher; and to that, my earthly master's work, done as
well as it was in me to do it, often helped, and from it, never
hindered me.]
29, KING STREET, Saturday, February 19th.
_Imprimis_, will you and Dorothy fasten your dinner-napkins with these
things, or rings, which I have made for you? for my imagination is sick
with the memory of those bits of strings you use. I have made these too
short, and so have been obliged to put strings to them, having
originally intended them to be complete rounds; but my needle
performances are always ill-managed and untidy, and as such I commend
these to your indulgent acceptance. I wrought at them those bitter
evenings that I spent in those barns of theatres in Norfolk, where the
occupation contributed to entertain the warmth of my heart, which was
all the heat I had to keep me alive....
I must tell you rather a droll observation of the worthy Hayes. When I
explained to her that I had made those worsted bands to fasten your
dinner-napkins, for which you had nothing but strings, she said, "Dear
me! I wonder at that! And Miss S---- seemed so fond of clever, curious
contrivances, for everything." I screamed with delight when she said
that, for hadn't I cursed that "curious contrivance" of an inkstand you
gave me (Dorothy cursed hers too, no doubt, after her own blessed
fashion)? and didn't I curse that execrable "curious contrivance" of a
taper you gave me at St. Leonard's, with which I was so enchanted
_before I used it_, and which wasted me by its own small fire every time
I did use it, and for the final burning out of which I was so thankful?
But are not Hayes's comments on your character comical?
I am sorry to say I have not the same dressing-room I had before at the
Princess's Theatre. Mr. Macready is quite too great a man to give it up
to anybody, and my attiring apartment now is up a steep flight of
stairs, which is a great discomfort to me on several grounds, for I fear
the call-boy will hardly come so far out of his way to summon me, and I
shall have to sit in the greenroom, which, however, I won't, if I can by
any means avoid it; but the proximity of the other room to the stage,
and its being on the same level with it, was a great advantage.
I am going to dine with Lady Grey (the Countess, widow of _the_ Lord
Grey), and after that to the opera with Henry Greville and Alfred
Potocki, who have a box, and have given me a ticket, which I am very
glad of.
I had a three hours' rehearsal this morning, and Macready was there. As
far as I could judge, he was less unfair in his mode of acting than I
had been led to expect. To be sure, at night, he may stand two yards
behind me while I am speaking to him, as I am told he often does. He is
not courteous or pleasant, or even well-bred; remains seated while one
is standing talking to him; and a discussion having arisen as to the
situation of a table, which he wished on the stage, and I wished
removed, he exhibited considerable irritability and ill-humor.
He is unnecessarily violent in acting, which I had always heard, and
congratulated myself that in Lady Macbeth, I could not possibly suffer
from this; but was much astonished and dismayed when at the exclamation,
"Bring forth men-children only," he seized me ferociously by the wrist,
and compelled me to make a demivolte, or pirouette, such as I think that
lady did surely never perform before, under the influence of her
husband's admiration.
God bless you, dear,
Ever yours,
FANNY.
[I have always had a cordial esteem and respect for Mr. Macready's
character, which has been increased by reading the record he has
himself left of his life. Of his merits as an actor, I had not a
very high opinion, though in one or two parts he was excellent, and
in the majority of the tragical ones he assumed, better than his
contemporaries, my father, Charles Young, and Charles Kean. He was
disqualified for sentimental tragedy by his appearance, and he was
without comic power of any kind. _Parts_ of his Macbeth, Lear,
Othello, and King John, were powerful and striking, but his want of
musical ear made his delivery of Shakespeare's blank-verse
defective, and painful to persons better endowed in that respect. It
may have been his consciousness of his imperfect declamation of
blank-verse that induced him to adopt what his admirers called the
natural style of speaking it; which was simply chopping it up into
prose--a method easily followed by speakers who have never learned
the difference between the two, and that blank-verse demands the
same care and method that music does, and when not uttered with due
regard to its artificial construction, and rules of rhythm and
measure, is precisely as faulty as music sung out of time.
The school of "natural speaking" reached its climax, I presume, in
the performance of a charming young actress, of whose delivery of
the poetry of Portia it was said in high commendation, by her
admirers, that she gave the blank verse so _naturally_ that it was
impossible to tell that it was not _prose_. What she did with
Shakespeare's _prose_ in the part these judicious critics did not
mention.
Mr. Macready's eye was as sensitive and cultivated as his ear was
the reverse. He had a painter's feeling for color and grouping and
scenic effect; was always picturesque in his appearance, dress,
attitudes, and movements; and all the pieces that were put upon the
stage under his supervision were admirable for the appropriate
harmony of the scenery, decorations, dresses, and whole effect; they
were carefully accurate, and extremely beautiful. "Acis and
Galatea," as produced under his direction, was one of the most
exquisite dramatic spectacles I ever saw, in spite of the despair to
which he reduced the chorus and ballet nymphs by rigorously
forbidding all padding, bustle, crinoline, or other artificial
adjunct to their natural graces, in the severely simple classical
costume of the Greek mythological opera.
Mr. Macready's great parts were Virginius, in Knowles's play of
that name; Werner, in Lord Byron's romantic drama; and Rob Roy, in
the melodrama taken from Scott's novel. These were original
performances, in which nobody has surpassed or equalled him; genuine
artistic creations, which, more than his rendering of Shakespeare's
characters, entitled him to his reputation as a great actor.
He was unpopular in the profession, his temper was irritable, and
his want of consideration for the persons working with him strange
in a man of so many fine qualities. His artistic vanity and
selfishness were unworthy of a gentleman, and rendered him an object
of dislike and dread to those who were compelled to encounter them.
He was quite aware of this himself, for once, when he came to see
me, while the negotiation was pending about my engagement to act
with him, he alluded to his own unpopularity, said he was sure I had
heard all sorts of disagreeable stories about him, but assured me,
laughing, that "the devil was not nearly so black as he was
painted."
It was quite impossible for me to tell Mr. Macready that I had heard
he was _pleasant_ to act with, remembering, as I did while he spoke
to me, the various accounts I had received of actors whose eyes had
been all but thrust out by his furious fighting in Macbeth; of
others nearly throttled in his paternal vengeance on Appius
Claudius; of actresses whose arms had been almost wrenched out of
their sockets, and who had been bruised black and blue, buffeted
alike by his rage and his tenderness. One special story I thought
of, and was dying to tell him, of one pretty and spirited young
woman, who had said, "I am told Mr. Macready, in such a part, gets
hold of one's head, and holds it in chancery under his arm, while he
speaks a long speech, at the end of which he releases one, more dead
than alive, from his embrace; but I shall put so many pins in my
hair, and stick them in in such a fashion, that if he takes me by
the head, he will have to let me instantly go again."
My personal experience of Macready's stage temper was not so bad as
this, though he began by an act of unwarrantable selfishness in our
performance of "Macbeth."
From time immemorial, the banquet scene in "Macbeth" has been
arranged after one invariable fashion: the royal dais and throne,
with the steps leading up to it, holds the middle of the stage,
sufficiently far back to allow of two long tables, at which the
guests are seated on each side, in front of it, leaving between them
ample space for Macbeth's scene with Banquo's ghost, and Lady
Macbeth's repeated rapid descents from the dais and return to it, in
her vehement expostulations with him, and her courteous invitations
to the occupants of both the tables to "feed, and regard him not."
Accustomed to this arrangement of the stage, which I never saw
different anywhere in all my life for this scene, I was much
astonished and annoyed to find, at my first rehearsal, a long
banqueting-table set immediately at the foot of the steps in front
of the dais, which rendered all but impossible my rapid rushing down
to the front of the stage, in my terrified and indignant appeals to
Macbeth, and my sweeping back to my place, addressing on my way my
compliments to the tables on either side. It was as much as I could
do to pass between the bottom of the throne steps and the end of the
transverse table in front of them; my train was in danger of
catching its legs and my legs, and throwing it down and me down, and
the whole thing was absolutely ruinous to the proper performance of
my share of the scene. If such a table had been in any such place in
Glamis Castle on that occasion, when Macbeth was seized with his
remorseful frenzies, his wife would have jumped over or overturned
it to get at him.
All my remonstrances, however, were in vain. Mr. Macready persisted
in his determination to have the stage arranged solely with
reference to himself, and I was obliged to satisfy myself with a
woman's vengeance, a snappish speech, by at last saying that, since
it was evident Mr. Macready's Macbeth depended upon where a table
stood, I must contrive that my Lady Macbeth should not do so. But in
that scene it undoubtedly did.
As I had been prepared for this sort of thing in Macready, it didn't
surprise me; but what did was a conversation I had with him about
"Othello," when he expressed his astonishment at my being willing to
play Desdemona; "For," said he, "there is absolutely nothing to be
done with it, nothing: nobody can produce any effect in it; and
really, Emilia's last scene can be made a great deal more of. I
could understand your playing that, but not Desdemona, out of which
nothing really can be made." "But," said I, "Mr. Macready, it is
Shakespeare, and no character of Shakespeare's is beneath my
acceptance. I would play Maria in 'Twelfth Night' to-morrow, if I
were asked to do so." Whereupon he shrugged his shoulders, and
muttered something about "all that being very fine, no doubt," but
evidently didn't believe me; and as I should have given him credit
for my own feeling with regard to any character in Shakespeare's
plays, I was as much surprised at his thinking I should refuse to
act any one of them as I was at his coarse and merely technical
acting estimate of that exquisite Desdemona, of which, according to
him, "nothing could be made;" _i.e._, no violent stage effect could
be produced. Is not Shakespeare's refusing to let Desdemona sully
her lips with the coarse epithet of reproach with which her husband
brands her, and which no lady in England of his day would have
hesitated a moment to use, a wonderful touch of delicacy?
Macready certainly was aware of the feeling of his fellow-actors
about his violence and want of personal self-control on the stage;
for as he stood at the side scene by me, in the last act of "King
Lear," ready to rush on with me, his Cordelia, dead in his arms, he
made various prefatory and preparatory excuses to me, deprecating
beforehand my annoyance at being dragged and pulled about after his
usual fashion, saying that necessarily the scene was a disagreeable
one for the "poor corpse." I had no very agreeable anticipation of
it myself, and therefore could only answer, "Some one must play it
with you, Mr. Macready, and I feel sure that you will make it as
little distressing to me as you can;" which I really believe he
intended to do, and thought he did.]
I have received this morning from Liverpool, in answer to my letter
about my readings, a very earnest request that I would give _lectures_
upon Shakespeare. This I have declined doing, not having either the
requisite knowledge or ability nor the necessary time properly to
prepare a careful analysis of the smallest portion of such over-brimming
subjects as those plays. I should like to study again Hazlitt's and
Coleridge's comments upon Shakespeare; the former I used to think
excellent.
Mrs. Grote herself wrote those stanzas upon Mendelssohn which you saw in
the _Spectator_. She urged me vehemently, while I was with her at the
Beeches, to do something of the kind; but I could not. She then showed
me her verses, which please me better now than they did then; for then
the painful association of his former existence in that place, and the
excitement of his beautiful music, which she plays extremely well, had
affected my imagination and feelings so much that I should have found it
very difficult to be satisfied with any poetical tribute to him that was
not of the very highest order.
She and I walked together to the spot in the beautiful woodland where he
had lain down to rest, and where she wishes to erect a monument; and I
cannot tell you how profoundly I was touched, as we stood silently
there, while the great heavy drops, melting in the winter evening's
sunshine, fell from the boughs of the beech-trees like slow tears upon
the spot where he had lain.
I have read more of Stanley's "Sermons," and quite agree with you in the
difference you draw between them and Mr. Furness's book; the spirit of
both is kindred....
I don't know anything about the income-tax. I am getting frightfully
behind the times, having read no _Times_ for a long time; but as regards
income-tax, or any other tax, there is no telling how long one may be
free from such galls in America. If they indulge in a few more such
national diversions as this war in Mexico, they will have to pay for
their whistle, in some shape or other, and in more shapes than one.
It is deplorable to hear the despondency of all public and political men
that I see, with regard to the condition of the country. With the
Tories, one has long been familiar with their cries that "the sky is
falling:" but now the Liberals, at least those who all their lives have
been professing Liberals, seem to think "the sky is falling" too; and
their lamentable misgivings are really sad to listen to.
I dined on Saturday at Lady Grey's, with the whole Grey family. Lord
Dacre, and all of them, spoke of Cobden and Bright as of another Danton
and Mirabeau, likened their corn-law league, and peace protests, to the
first measures of the first leaders of the French Revolution; and
predicted with woful headshakings a similar end to their proceedings. I
do not know whether this is an injustice to the individuals in question,
but it seems to me an injustice to the whole people of England
collectively, and to their own class, the aristocracy of England, which
has incurred no such retribution, but which has invariably furnished
liberal and devoted leaders to every step of popular progress--their own
father an eminent instance of devotion to it. Such misgivings seem to
me, too, quite unjust to the powerful, enlightened, and wealthy class
which forms the sound body of our sound-hearted nation: and equally
unjust to those below it, in whom, in spite of much vice and more
ignorance, of poverty and degradation, the elements of evil do not exist
in the degree and with the virulence that spawned that hideous mob of
murderers who became at last the only government of revolutionary
France. The antecedent causes have not existed here for such results;
and it is an insult to the whole English people to prophesy thus of it.
[Lord Dacre, because of his devotion to the agricultural interest,
as he conceives it, and being himself a great practical farmer,
seemed to me at once, at the time of the repeal of the corn laws, to
renounce his Liberalism; and though one of the most enlightened,
generous, and broad-minded politicians I have ever known, _till
then_, to become suddenly timid, faithless, and almost selfish, in
his fear of the consequences of Sir Robert Peel's measures.]
What a fine thing faith in God is, even when one's own individual
interests must perish, even though the temporary interests of one's
country may appear threatened with adversity! What an _uncommonly_ fine
thing it is under such circumstances to do right, and to be able to
believe in right doing!... As I listened to the persons by whom I was
surrounded, and considered their position and circumstances--their forks
and spoons, their very good dinner, and all their etceteras of luxury
and enjoyment,--I thought that, having all they have, if they had faith
in God and in their fellow-creatures besides, they would have the
portion of those who have none of the good things of this world--they
would have too much.
Will the days ever come when men will see that _Christ_ believed in
humanity as none of His followers has ever done since; that _He_,
knowing its infirmity better than any other, trusted in its capacity for
good more than any other? We are constantly told that people can't be
taught this, and can't learn that, and can't do t'other; and _He_ taught
them nothing short of absolute perfection: "Be ye perfect as your Father
in heaven is perfect." Are we to suppose He did not mean what he said?
"I must eat my dinner," as Caliban says, and, therefore, farewell.
I am ever yours,
FANNY.
P.S.--I did not impart these sentiments of mine to my fellow-guests at
Lady Grey's, but kept them in my bosom, and went to the opera, and saw
little Marie Taglioni dance, in a way that clearly shows that she is _la
nièce de sa tante_, and stands in that wonderful dancer's shoes.
KING STREET, Wednesday, 23d, 1848.
The staircase I have to go up to my dressing-room at the Princess's
Theatre is one with which you are unacquainted, my dearest Hal, for it
is quite in another part of the house, beyond the green-room, and before
you come to the stage.... Not only had I this inconvenient distance and
height to go, but the dressing-room appointed for me had not even a
fireplace in it; at this I remonstrated, and am now accommodated
decently in a room with a fire, though in the same inconvenient position
as regards the stage.... Mr. Maddox assured me that Macready poisoned
every place he went into, to such a degree, with musk and perfumes, that
if he were to give up his room to me I should not be able to breathe in
it. With my passion for perfumes, this, however, did not appear to me so
certain; but the room I now have answers my purpose quite well
enough....
Macready is not pleasant to act with, as he keeps no specific time for
his exits or entrances, comes on while one is in the middle of a
soliloquy, and goes off while one is in the middle of a speech to him.
He growls and prowls, and roams and foams, about the stage, in every
direction, like a tiger in his cage, so that I never know on what side
of me he means to be; and keeps up a perpetual snarling and grumbling
like the aforesaid tiger, so that I never feel quite sure that he _has
done_, and that it is my turn to speak. I do not think fifty pounds a
night would hire me to play another engagement with him; but I only say,
I don't think,--fifty pounds a night is a consideration, four times a
week, and I have not forgotten the French proverb, "Il ne faut pas dire,
fontaine jamais de ton eau je ne boirai."
I do not know how Desdemona might have affected me under other
circumstances, but my only feeling about acting it with Mr. Macready is
dread of his personal violence. I quail at the idea of his laying hold
of me in those terrible passionate scenes; for in "Macbeth" he pinched
me black and blue, and almost tore the point lace from my head. I am
sure my little finger will be rebroken, and as for that smothering in
bed, "Heaven have mercy upon me!" as poor Desdemona says. If that
foolish creature wouldn't persist in _talking_ long after she has been
smothered and stabbed to death, one might escape by the off side of the
bed, and leave the bolster to be questioned by Emilia, and apostrophized
by Othello; but she will uplift her testimony after death to her
husband's amiable treatment of her, and even the bolster wouldn't be
stupid enough for that.
Did it ever occur to you what a witness to Othello's agony in murdering
his wretched wife his inefficient clumsiness in the process was--his
half smothering, his half stabbing her? _That_ man not to be able to
kill _that_ woman outright, with one hand on her throat, or one stroke
of his dagger, how tortured he must have been, to have bungled so at his
work!
I wish I was with you and Dorothy at St. Leonard's, instead of
struggling here for my life--livelihood, at any rate--with Macready; but
that's foolish. He can't _touch_ me to-night, that's one comfort, for I
am Queen Katharine.
Farewell, believe me
Ever yours most respectfully,
FANNY.
[It was lucky for me, under the circumstances, that my notion of
Queen Katharine's relations with Cardinal Wolsey were different from
those of a lady whom I saw in the part, who at the end of the scene
where he finds her working among her women affably gave him her
hand. Katharine of Arragon would have been more likely (though not
likely) to give him her foot.]
KING STREET, Friday, 23d.
DEAR HAL,
... I had heard a very good summary of D'Israeli's speech from Lord
Dacre, the day I dined at Lady Grey's, and know why he said Cobden was
like Robespierre. Here's goodly work in Paris now! What wonderful
difficult people to teach those French are! However, their lesson will,
of course, be set them over and over again, till they've learnt it.
Henry Greville had a letter from Adelaide the day before yesterday, in
which she says that the people had risen _en masse_ at Rome, and, with
the Princes Borghese and Corsini at their head, had gone to the
Quirinal, and demanded of the pope that no ecclesiastic (himself, I
suppose, excepted) should have any office in the government, and the
pope _had consented_.
She gave a most comical account of the King of Naples, who, it seems,
during the late troubles walked up and down his room, wringing his
hands, and apostrophizing a figure of the Virgin with "Madonna mia!
Madonna mia! ma che imbroglio che m'ha fatto quel Vicario del figlio
tuo!" Isn't that funny?
In a letter posted this morning I have told you my general impression of
Macready's Macbeth. It is generally good,--better than good in
parts,--but nowhere very extraordinary. It is a fair, but not a fine,
performance of the part.
I cannot believe that he is purposely unjust to his fellow-actors: but
he is so absorbed in himself and his own effects as to be absolutely
regardless of them; which, of course, is just as bad for them, though
the _guilt_ of his selfishness must be according to its being deliberate
or unconscious.
I played the first scene in Lady Macbeth fairly well; the rest hardly
tolerably, I think. Macready's stage arrangements destroyed any possible
effect of mine in the banquet scene, and his strange demeanor disturbed
and distracted me all through the play. The terrible, great invocation
to the powers of evil, with which Lady Macbeth's part opens, was the
only thing of mine that was good in the whole performance.
Dear Harriet, I have no time to prepare lectures on Shakespeare, and it
makes me smile, a grim, verjuice smile, when you, sitting quietly down
there at St. Leonard's, propose to me such an addition to my present
work. I have been three hours and a half at rehearsal to-day; to-morrow
I act a new part; this evening I try on all my new dresses; Saturday I
shall be three hours at rehearsal again; and, meantime, I must study to
recover Ophelia and her songs, which I have almost forgotten.
A commentary upon Shakespeare deserves rather more leisure and quiet
thought than I can now bestow upon it; even such an inadequate one as I
am capable of would require much preparatory study, had I the ability
which the theme demands, and which no amount of leisure Of study would
give me.... I have been in a state of miserable nervousness for the
last two days--in terror during my whole performance of Queen Katharine,
lest I should forget the words, and yet, while laboring to fix all my
attention upon them, distracted with the constant recurrence of _bits_
of Desdemona to my mind, which I fancied I was not perfect in, and then
_bits_ of Ophelia's songs, which I had forgotten, and have been trying
to recover. The mere apprehension of having to sing that music turns me
dead sick whenever I think of it; in short, a perfect nightmare of
fright present and future, through which I have had to act every night,
_tant bien que mal_, but naturally _bien plus mal que bien_.... I do
really believe, as my dear German master used to insist, that people can
_prevent themselves_ from going mad.
My dearest Harriet, Arnold believed in eternal damnation; and those who
do so must have one very desperate corner in their mind--which, however,
reserved for the wicked in the next world, must, I should think,
sometimes throw lurid reflections over people and things in this.
Whoever can conceive that idea has certainly touched the bottom of
despair. "Lasciate ogni speme voi ch'entrate;" and I do not see why
those who despair of their fellow-creatures in the next world should not
do so in this. I can do neither--believe in hell hereafter, or a
preparation for it here.
I am sorry to say that, yesterday, Mr. Ellis, who sat by me at dinner at
Lady Castlereagh's, said that the poorer class in this country was about
to be worse off, presently, than it had been yet; and hoped the example
of this new uprising in Paris would not be poisonous to them. It is sad
to think how much, how many suffer; but by the mode of talking and going
on of those who are well off and do not suffer, in England, it seems to
me as if the condition of the poor must become such as to threaten them
with imminent peril, before they will alter either their way of talking
or of going on. Poor people all! but the rich are poorest, for they have
something to lose and everything to fear, which is the reverse of the
case of the poor.
My staircase at the theatre troubles me but little, and I do not sit in
the green-room, which would have troubled me much more. My rehearsal of
Desdemona tried me severely, for I was frightened to death of Macready,
and the horror of the play itself took such hold of me that at the end
I could hardly stand for shaking, or speak for crying; and Macready
seemed quite mollified by my condition, and promised not to rebreak my
little finger, _if he could remember it_. He lets down the bed-curtains
before he smothers me, and, as the drapery conceals the murderous
struggle, and therefore he need not cover my head at all, I hope I shall
escape alive.
Please tell dear Dorothy that Miss ---- called here the day before
yesterday, and left Miss B----'s songs for me. They are difficult,
beyond the comprehension and execution of any but a very good musician;
they show real genius, and a taste imbued with the inspiration of the
great masters, Handel and Beethoven. The only one of them that I could
sing is the only one that is in the least commonplace, "The Bonnet
Blue;" the others are beyond my powers, but I shall get my sister to
sing them for me. They are very remarkable as the compositions of so
young a woman. Did she write the words as well as the music of "The
Spirit of Delight"? [The musical compositions here referred to were
those of Miss Laura Barker, afterwards Mrs. Tom Taylor, a member of a
singularly gifted family, whose father and sisters were all born
artists, with various and uncommon natural endowments, cultivated and
developed to the highest degree, in the seclusion of a country
parsonage.] ...
I wish it was "bedtime, Hal," and I was smothered and over!
God bless you, dear.
Ever yours,
FANNY.
KING STREET, Friday, February 28th.
DEAR HAL,
... I got through Desdemona very well, as far as my personal safety was
concerned; for though I fell on the stage in real hysterics at the end
of one of those horrible scenes with Othello, Macready was more
considerate than I had expected, did not rebreak my little finger, and
did not really smother me in bed. I played the part fairly well, and
wish you had seen it. I was tolerably satisfied with it myself, which,
you know, I am not often, with my own theatrical performances....
Faith in God, according to my understanding of it, my dearest Hal,
implies faith in man; and have we not good need of both just now? You
can well imagine the state of perturbation and excitement London is in
with these Parisian events. The universal cry and question is, "What is
the news?" People run from house to house to gather the latest
intelligence. The streets are filled with bawling paper-vendors, amidst
whose indistinct vociferations the attractively appalling words,
"Revolution! Republic! Massacre! Bloodshed!" are alone distinguishable.
The loss of Saturday night's packet between Calais and Dover, besides
the horror of the event itself, is doubly distressing from the intense
anxiety felt to receive intelligence of how matters are going on.
Thus far yesterday, dear Hal; but as every hour brings intelligence that
contradicts that of the hour before, it is now known that the small
boat, going from the shore to the packet, was capsized and lost, and not
the steamer itself. Henry Greville belongs to the party of Terrorists,
and believes the worst of the worst rumors: but I have just seen his
mother, and Lady Charlotte says that Charles is almost enthusiastic in
his admiration of the conduct of the French people _hitherto_; but then
there is never any knowing exactly how long any fashion, frenzied or
temperate, moral or material, may last in France.
In the mean time, the condition of that unfortunate Royal Family is
worthy of all compassion, especially the women, who are involved in the
retributions of the folly or wickedness of the men they belong to.
It is not known where the Duchesse de Nemours is. Her husband has
arrived safely here with one of the children; but neither he nor any one
else knows what has become of his wife and the other two children. Of
the Duchesse d'Orléans and her two babies nothing is known; and Lady
Normanby wrote a letter to the Queen, saying that Louis Philippe and the
Queen of France were in safety, but, as her letter would be sure to be
opened, she could say no more.
Only think of the Princesse Clémentine making her escape from France on
board the same packet with her brother, the Duc de Nemours, and neither
of them knowing the other was on the same vessel! The suddenness of the
whole catastrophe makes it seem like some outrageously impossible dream.
What a troubled dream must that king and queen's life seem to them,
beginning and ending in such national convulsions!...
I really believe Macready cannot help being as odious as he is on the
stage. He very nearly made me faint last night in "Macbeth," with
crushing my broken finger, and, by way of apology, merely coolly
observed that he really could not answer for himself in such a scene,
and that I ought to wear a splint; and truly, if I act much more with
him, I think I shall require several splints, for several broken limbs.
I have been rehearsing "Hamlet" with him this morning for three hours. I
do not mind his tiresome particularity on the stage, for, though it all
goes to making himself the only object of everything and everybody, he
works very hard, and is zealous, and conscientious, and laborious in his
duty, which is a merit in itself. But I think it is rather _mean_ (as
the children say) of him to refuse to act in such plays as "King John,"
"Much Ado about Nothing," which are pieces of his own too, to oblige me;
whilst I have studied expressly for him Desdemona, Ophelia, and
Cordelia, parts quite out of my line, merely that his plays may be
strengthened by my name. Moreover, he has not scrupled to ask me to
study new parts, in plays which have been either written expressly only
for him, or cut down to suit his peculiar requisitions. This, however, I
have declined doing. Anything of Shakespeare's I will act with and for
him, because anything of Shakespeare's is good enough, and too good, for
me.... I shall have a nausea of fright till after I have done singing in
Ophelia to-morrow night.
Ever yours,
FANNY.
KING STREET, Tuesday, March 7th, 1848.
Indeed, my dear Hal, I was not satisfied, but profoundly dissatisfied,
with my singing in Ophelia; but am thankful to say that I did not sing
out of tune, which I dreaded doing, from the miserable nervousness I
felt about it. I am entirely misplaced in the character, and can do
nothing with it that might not be better done by almost any younger
woman with a sweet voice and that order of fair beauty which one cannot
separate from one's idea of Ophelia.
I have read Stanley's sermon on St. Peter, and am enchanted with it, and
more than ever struck with the resemblance, in its general spirit, and
even in actual passages, to my friend Mr. Furness's book. The notes and
commentary upon the sermon are the part of Stanley's work that show more
erudition and literary power than Mr. Furness's treatise contained, but
the manner and matter of the writers shows close kindred when treating
of the same subjects.
We overflow here with anecdotes of the hairbreadth escapes of the French
fugitives. Guizot and Madame de Liéven, his dear friend and evil genius,
arrived both in London on the same day, having travelled from Paris in
the same railroad train as far as Amiens; she with the painter Roberts,
passing as his wife, and Guizot so disguised that she did not recognize
him, and would not believe Lord Holland when he called upon her on
Saturday and told her that Guizot had arrived like herself, and by the
same train, the day before. Hotels and private houses are thronged with
French and English tumbling over, a perfect stampede, from the other
side of the Channel. Lady Dufferin, who during her long stay in Paris
made many French friends, is exercising hospitality to the tune of
having thirty people in her house in Brook Street.
Charles Greville showed me on Saturday a capital letter of Lord
Clarendon's upon the subject of his kingdom [he was Lord Lieutenant of
Ireland at this time], and the probable and possible effects of this
French Revolution on your quiet, orderly, well-principled countrymen. He
also showed me a letter he had received from E---- from Rome, in which,
I think, the account of the pope is that of a man being carried off his
legs by the popular exigencies, which he _cannot_ resist and at the same
time remain pope--the head of the priestly Roman Catholic Government.
Yesterday came news that _Metternich had resigned_. If this is true, the
forward step Italy is about to take need not, please God! be made in
blood and violent social upheaving. I do pray that this news may be
true, for it will probably avert a fire-and-sword revolution in the
Milanese, and all through Lombardy, in which Piedmont would sympathize
too warmly for its own peace and quiet.
Austria, thus deserted by the presiding genius of her hitherto Italian
policy, Metternich, will perhaps hesitate to enforce its threatened
opposition to the changes which she might have sold at the cost of many
lives, but would not have averted, though she overran Italy from end to
end with war and desolation.
This retreat of the great political powers of darkness before the
advance of freedom in Italy seems to me like a personal happiness to
myself. I rejoice unspeakably in it. It is quite another matter in
France. It will be another matter here, whenever our turn to be turned
upside down or inside out comes.
In Italy the people are rising against foreign tyranny, to get rid of
foreign dominion, and to get rightful possession of the government of
their own country. In France the revolution against power is past, but
that against property is yet to come. As for us, our revolt against
iniquitous power ended with the final expulsion of the Stuarts; but we
have sundry details of that wholesale business yet to finish, and there
will be here some sort of _property_ revolution, in some mode or other,
yet.
The crying sin of modern Christian civilization, the monstrous
inequalities in the means of existence, will yet be dealt with by us
English, among whom it is more flagrant than anywhere else on earth.
It is the one revolution of which our social system seems to me to stand
in need, the last that can be directly affected, if not effected, by
legislative action upon the tenure of land, the whole system of
proprietorship of the soil, the spread of education, and the extension
of the franchise: and, as we are the richest and the poorest people in
the world, as the extremes of rampant luxury and crawling poverty are
wider asunder here than anywhere else on earth, the force must be
great--I pray God it may be gradual--that draws those opposite ends of
the social scale into more humane nearness.
I cannot believe that any violent convulsions will attend inevitable
necessary change here; for, in spite of the selfish passions of both
rich and poor, our people do fear God, more, I think, than any other
European nation, and recognize a law of duty; and there is good sense
and good principle enough in all classes, I believe, to meet even
radical change with firmness and temperance.
The noble body politic of England is surely yet so sound and healthy and
vigorous as to go through any crisis for the cure of any local disease,
any partial decay, without danger to the whole; though not, perhaps,
without difficulty and suffering both to classes and individuals.
God is over all, and I do not believe that one of the most Christian of
nations will perish in the attempt to follow the last of Christ's
commandments, "Love one another."
I am painfully impressed with what constantly seems to me the
short-sightedness of the clever worldly-wise people I hear talking upon
these subjects, and the deep despondence of those who see a great cloud
looming up over the land. Our narrow room and redundant population make
any sudden violent political movement dangerous, perhaps; but I have
faith in the general wholesome spirit of our people, their good sense
and good principle. I have the same admiration for and confidence in our
national character that I have in the institutions of the United States.
God keep this precious England safe!...
I am ever yours most truly,
FANNY.
KING STREET, Wednesday, March 8th, 1848.
My little finger has recovered from Macready. It is gradually getting
much better, but he certainly did it an injury. With regard to his
"relenting," he is, I am told, quite uncommonly gracious and considerate
to me....
I was told by a friend of mine who was at "Hamlet" the other evening,
that in the closet scene with his mother he had literally knocked the
poor woman down who was playing the Queen. I thought this an incredible
exaggeration, and asked her afterwards if it was true, and she said so
true that she was bruised all across her breast with the blow he had
given her; that, happening to take his hand at a moment when he did not
wish her to do so, he had struck her violently and knocked her literally
down; so I suppose I may consider it "relenting" that he never yet has
knocked me down....
We are quite lively now in London with riots of our own--a more exciting
process than merely reading of our neighbors' across the Channel. Last
night a mob, in its playful progress though this street, broke the
peaceful windows of this house. There have been great meetings in
Trafalgar Square these two last evenings, in which the people threw
stones about, and made a noise, but that was all they did by all
accounts. They have smashed sundry windows, and the annoyance and
apprehension occasioned by their passage wherever they go is very great.
Nothing serious, however, has yet occurred; and I suppose, if the
necessity for calling out the military can be avoided, nothing serious
will occur. But if these disorderly meetings increase in number and
frequency the police will not be sufficient to moderate and disperse
them, and the troops will have to be called out, and we shall have
terrible mischief, for our soldiers will not fraternize with the London
mob, the idea of duty--of which the French soldiers or civilians have
but a meagre allowance (glory, honor, anything else you please, in
abundance)--being the _one_ idea in the head of an English soldier and
of most English civilians, thank God!
The riots in Glasgow have been very serious; the population of that
city, especially the women, struck me as the most savage and brutal
looking I had ever seen in this country; and I remember frequently,
while I was there, thinking what a terrible mob the lowest class of its
inhabitants would make.
Metternich's resignation, of which I wrote you yesterday, is, alas!
uncertain. I had rejoiced at it for the sake of that beautiful Italy,
and all her political martyrs past and to come.
Good-bye, God bless you. I shall go and see some of those great mobs of
ours. It must be a curious and interesting spectacle.
Believe me ever yours,
FANNY.
KING STREET, Saturday and Sunday,
March 11th and 12th, 1848.
DEAREST HAL,
The "uses of adversity," which are assuredly often "sweet," should help
to reconcile us both to our own sorrows and those which are sometimes
harder to bear, the sorrows of those we love.... I have not yet been
able to accomplish my intention of seeing anything of our great
political mobs; and they are now beginning to subside, having been
rather _rackets_ than riots in their demonstrations, I am happy to say,
and therefore not very curious or interesting in any point of view.
But there is to be a very large meeting at Kennington on Monday, and
Alfred Potocki said he would take me to it, but as I have to act that
night I am afraid it would be hardly conscientious to run the risk of an
accidental blow from a brickbat that might disable me for my work,
which is my duty, though, I confess, it is a great temptation. My
friend, Comte Potocki, is young and tall and strong and active, but I
would a great deal rather have paid a policeman to look after me, as I
did when I went to see a fire, than have depended upon the care of a
gentleman who would feel himself hampered by having me to care for.
After all, I shall probably give it up, and not go....
My father tells me he has definitely renounced all idea of reading
again, so I took heart of grace to ask him to lend me the plays he read
from, to mark mine by. The copy he used is a Hanmer, in six large quarto
volumes, and belongs to Lane, the artist, who has very kindly lent it to
me. My father's marks are most elaborate, but the plays are cruelly
sacrificed to the exigencies of the performance--as much maimed, I
think, as they are for stage representation. My father has executed this
inevitable mangling process with extreme good judgment and taste; but it
gives me the heart-ache, for all that. But he was _timed_, and that
impatiently, by audiences who would barely sit two hours in their
places, and required that the plays should be compressed into the
measure of their intellectual _short_-suffering capacity.
However, it was at the Palace that he had to _compress_ or rather
_compel_ the five acts of "Cymbeline" into a reading of three quarters
of an hour: and how he performed that feat is still incomprehensible to
me....
Everything is black and sad enough as far as I can see, but, thank God,
I cannot see far, and every day has four-and-twenty hours, and in every
minute of every hour live countless seeds of invisible events. I heard a
very good sermon to-day upon Christian liberty, and have been reading
Stanley's sermon upon St. Paul, which made my heart burn within me.... I
am reading an immensely thick book by Gioberti, one of the Italian
reformers, a devout and eloquent Catholic priest, and it enchants me.
Good-bye, my dear.
I am ever yours,
FANNY.
KING STREET, Wednesday, 16th, 1848.
Of course you have heard of the murder of the soldier by that poor girl
in the park. I have heard nothing more special about it, and have not
seen the newspapers lately, so you probably know more about it than I
do. Emily tells me this morning that there were some excellent
observations upon the circumstance, either in the _Examiner_ or
_Spectator_. It will be long before women are justly dealt with by the
social or civil codes of Christian communities to which they belong,
longer still before they are righteously dealt with by the individuals
to whom they belong; but it will not be _for ever_. With the world's
progress that reform will come, too; though I believe it will be the
very last before the millennium.
I hope this poor unfortunate will be recommended to the Queen's mercy,
and escape hanging, unless, as might be just possible, she prefers
depending on a gibbet to the tender mercies of Christian
society--especially its women--towards a woman who, after being seduced
by a man, murdered him.
Did I never tell you of that unhappy creature in New York, who was in
the same situation, except that the villain she stabbed did not die, who
was tried and acquitted, and who found a shelter in Charles Sedgwick's
house, and who, when the despairing devil of all her former miseries
took possession of her, used to be thrown into paroxysms of insane
anguish, during which Elizabeth [Mrs. Charles Sedgwick] used to sit by
her and watch her, and comfort her and sing to her, till she fell
exhausted with misery into sleep? That poor woman used to remind me of
my children's nurse....
I receive frequent complaints, not from you only, that I do not write
sufficiently in detail about myself. It is on that account that I am
always so glad to be _asked questions_, because they remind me of what
my friends specially desire to know about me when otherwise I should be
apt to write to them about what interested me, rather than what I was
doing or saying, and the things and people that surround me, which I do
not always find interesting.
You do just the same; your letters are very often indeed discussions
upon matters of abstract speculation rather than tidings of
yourself,--your doing, being, or suffering,--and I have not objected to
this in you, though it has given me a deal of trouble in answering you,
because I like people to go their own way in everything; moreover,
unless I am reminded by questions of what _is happening to me_, it
interests me so little that I should probably forget to mention it....
If my faith, dearest Hal, depended upon my knowledge of the means by
which the results in which I have faith will be achieved, I should have
some cause for despondency. Do you suppose I imagine that the sudden
violence of a national convulsion will make people Christians who are
not so?... My answer to all your questions as to how momentous changes
for the better are to be brought about in public affairs, in popular
institutions, in governments, can only be--I do not know. I believe in
them, nevertheless, for I believe in God's law, and in Christ's teaching
of it, and the obviously ordained progress of the human race. True it is
that Christ's teaching, ruling in every man's heart, can only be the
distant climax of this progress; but when that does so rule, all other
"governments" will be unnecessary: but though we are far enough off from
that yet, we are nearer than we ever yet have been; and until that has
become the supreme government of the world, changes must go on
perpetually in our temporary and imperfect institutions, by which the
onward movement is accelerated, at what speed who can tell? It seems to
me that the geological growth of our earth has been rapid, compared to
the moral growth of our race; but so it is apparently ordained.
Individual goodness is _the_ great power of all,--societies,
organizations, combinations, institutions, laws, governments, act from
the surface downwards far less efficaciously than from the _root
upwards_, and what it does _is done_.
Comparatively cheap forms of government are among the most obvious and
reasonable changes to be desired in Europe; but you mistake me if you
suppose I am looking for instantaneous Utopias born out of national
uproar and confusion. But as long as the love of God is not a
sufficiently powerful motive with the nations of the earth to make them
seek to know and do His will, revolution, outrage, carnage, fear, and
suffering are, I suppose, the spurs that are to goad them on to
_bettering_ themselves; and so national agonies seem to me like
individual sorrows--dispensations sent to work improvement.
Fourierism was received with extreme enthusiasm in New England, where
various societies have been formed upon the plan of Fourier's
suggestions, and this not by the poor or lower classes, but by the
voluntary association of the rich with the poor in communities where all
worldly goods were in common, and labor, too, so foolishly fairly in
common that delicately bred and highly educated women took their turn to
stand all day at the wash-tub, for the benefit of the society, though
surely not of their shirts.
I have conversed much in America with disciples of this school, but am
of opinion, in spite of their zeal, that no such scheme of social
improvement will be found successful, and that this violent
precipitating one's self from the sphere in which one is placed in the
scale of civilization is not what is wanted, but much rather the full
performance of our several duties at the post where we each of us stand
and have been providentially placed. The old English catechism of
Christian obligation taught us that we were to do our duty in that state
of life into which it had pleased God to call us--and if we did, there
would be small need of revolutions.
In America these social experiments were perfectly disinterested and
undertaken for the sake of moral good results; for where they were
tried, there was neither excessive wealth nor poverty to suggest them,
and the excellent and intelligent people thus brought together by pure
zeal for social improvement disagreed and grumbled with each other, were
so perfectly and uncomfortably unsuccessful in their experiments that
their whole scheme collapsed, and dissolved into the older social
disorders from which they had thought to raise themselves and others....
MY DEAR HAL,
... I do not see why a much greater subdivision of land would not be
beneficial in England. Of course, if to the example of America you
retort all its singular and advantageous conditions, I have nothing to
say; but how about Belgium, the Netherlands, France, Switzerland? where
small proprietorship appears to result in prosperity both to the land
and its cultivators. I do not believe that the tenure of land will long
continue what it is here, nor do I believe, in spite of the warlike
notes of preparation from all sides of the Continent just now, that the
day of great standing armies can last much longer--neither in France nor
England, surely, can the people consent much longer to be taxed as they
are for military purposes....
I told you of my having found, in the theatre at Norwich, a couple of
young people whose position had interested me much. They were very poor,
but gentlefolks, and sorely as they needed money, I could not offer it
to them, so I promised to go down to Lynn, and act for them whenever
they could obtain their manager's leave to have me.... And on Saturday,
the 18th, I shall go down to Mrs. H----'s, my dear friend Harness's
niece, who lives within seven miles of Lynn, and visit her, while I do
what I can for them.
Ever yours,
FANNY.
BILNEY, NEAR LYNN, NORFOLK, Monday, March 20th, 1848.
MY DEAREST HARRIET,
I may or may not be very nervous on the occasion of my Saturday's
reading at Highgate. [It was the first I ever gave--a mere experiment to
test my powers for the purpose; was in a small room, and before an
audience in which were some of my intimate friends.] It will probably
depend upon whether I am tolerably well or not, but I trust I shall not
annoy you, my dear, if you are with me....
Did I tell you that I met Mr. Swinton at Lady Castlereagh's the other
evening, and that he very amiably invited me to go and see his pictures
before they went to the exhibition?--so perhaps we may see them together
when we come to town. I had an application from an artist the other day,
who is painting a picture from "Macbeth," to sit for his Lady for him;
and I have undertaken to do so, which is a bore, and therefore very
good-natured of me.... This place itself is pretty, though the country
round it is not. The weather is cold and rainy and uncomfortable, and I
shall be almost glad to get back to London, and to see you. "Now, isn't
that strange?" as Benedick says.
I am afraid, moreover, that my errand here, which will cost me both
trouble and money, will not answer too well to the poor people I wish to
serve. Only think of their manager making them _pay_ for the use of the
theatre at a rate that will swallow up the best part of what I can bring
into it for them. Isn't it a shame?... This is an out-of-the-way part of
the world enough, as I think you will allow, when I tell you that _one_
policeman suffices for _three_ parishes, and that his authority is
oftenest required to reclaim wandering poultry. Moreover, the curate,
who does duty in both this and the adjoining parish for sixty pounds a
year, preaches against his patron, whose pew is immediately under the
pulpit, designating him by the general exemplary and illustrative title
of the "abandoned profligate." The latter thus vaguely indicated
individual is a middle-aged widower of perhaps not immaculate morals,
but who, as lord of the manor and chief landed proprietor in these
parts, is allowed to be charitable and kind enough,--which, however,
will not, I am afraid, save him--at least in the opinion of his
clergyman. The country people are remarkably ignorant, unenlightened,
_unpolitical_, unpoetical rustics, but remarkably well off, paying only
three pounds a year for excellent four-roomed cottages, having abundance
of cheap and good food, and various rights of common, and privileges
which help to make them comfortable. It is an astonishingly sleepy and
quiet sort of community and neighborhood, and this is a pretty place, on
the edge of a wild common, with fine clumps of fir-wood about it, and a
picturesquely _colored_ district of heath, gorse, broom, and pine
growth, extending just far enough round the grounds to make one believe
one was in a pretty country.
As I hear no more of the present French Revolution down here, I am
reading Lamartine's ("Les Girondins") account of their first one. It's
just like reading to-day's Paris newspaper.
Ever yours,
FANNY.
You will be glad to hear that, after encountering every possible let and
hindrance from their amiable manager, and being made by him to pay _ten
pounds_ for the use of the theatre, company, gas, etc, my poor young
fellow-actors, for whose sake I came down here, will have cleared a sum
that will be an immense help to poor folk living upon £2 a week. I was
delighted with having been able to serve them much better than I had
feared I might. People's comparative earnings make me reflect. I have
been grumbling not a little at my weekly earnings. Thackeray, for that
wonderful book, "Vanity Fair," gets £60 a month; the curate who preached
to us on Sunday and does duty in two parishes has £60 a year. Perpend!
Good-bye, my dear.
Believe me ever yours,
FANNY.
PORTSMOUTH, Wednesday.
DEAR T----,
What a marvellous era in the world's history is this we are living in!
Kings, princes, and potentates flying dismayed to the right and left,
and nation after nation rising up, demanding a freedom which God knows
how few of them seem capable of using.
The last month in Europe has been like the breathless reading of the
most exciting novel, and every day and hour almost teems with events
that surpass in suddenness and importance all that has gone before.
The Austrians will not give up Italy without a struggle, and I suppose
through that channel the floodgates will be thrown open that will deluge
all Europe with blood.
Is not the position of the Emperor of Russia awful in its
singularity--the solitary despot of the civilized world?
The great body of the Austrian empire is falling asunder, and all its
limbs standing up, separate national bodies. Hungary, Bohemia, Poland
will again have individual existence, and the King of Prussia will be
undoubtedly hereafter the head of a huge German Confederacy.
In the mean time, I am sure you will rejoice that Metternich was
mistaken, and that "it," as he was pleased to designate the existing
state of Europe, did not even, as he said it would, "last his time."
Our country is wonderful; I mean this, my blessed England receiving into
her bosom the exiled minister and dethroned King of France, and the
detested Crown Prince of Prussia, with the dispassionate hospitality of
a general house of refuge for ruined royalties.
The spirit and temper of this English people is noble in its
steadfastness: with much of national grievance to redress and burdens to
throw off, the long habit of comparative freedom, and the innately loyal
and conservative character of the nation, have produced a popular
feeling that at this time of universal disturbance is most striking in
its deliberate adherence to established right and good order. Alone of
all the thrones in Europe, that of our excellent queen and her admirable
consort stands unshaken; alone of all the political constitutions, that
of the country they govern is threatened with no fatal convulsion: in
the midst of the failing credit and disturbed financial interests of the
Continent, our funds have been gradually advancing in value, and our
public credit rises as the aspect of affairs becomes more and more
involved and threatening abroad.
Ireland is our weak point, and, as we have to _atone_ there for cruelty,
and injustice, and neglect, too long persisted in, that will be the
quarter from which we shall receive our share of the national judgments
which are being executed all over the world.
A short time ago I saw an admirable letter of Lord Clarendon's, who is
now Lord Lieutenant; but though he has hitherto conducted his most
difficult government with great ability, there is so much real evil in
the condition of the Irish that, combined with their folly, their
ignorance, and the wickedness of their instigators, I do not think it
possible that the summer will pass over without that wretched country
again becoming the theatre of anarchy and turbulent resistance to
authority.
My brother-in-law has returned from Rome, and my sister will follow him
as soon as the weather will admit of her crossing the Alps with her
babies. All his property is in the French funds, that seems an insecure
security nowadays....
In England we shall have an extended right of suffrage, a smaller army,
a cheaper government, reduced taxation, and some modification of the
land tenure,--change, but no revolution, and no fits, I think. This
people deserve freedom, for they alone, and you, descended from them,
have shown that they know what it means. Considerable changes we shall
have, but the wisdom and wealth of our middle classes is a feature in
our social existence without European parallel; it is the salvation of
the country. I know you hate crossed writing, so good-bye. I am afraid
these fantastic French fools will bring Republicanism into contempt.
France seems to be threatened with national bankruptcy, _et
puis--alors--vous verrez_.
Always affectionately yours,
F. A. B.
COLCHESTER.
I came from Yarmouth to-day, having lodged there in a strange old inn
that belonged, in our Republican days, to Judge Bradshaw; in one room of
which, they say, Cromwell signed Charles I.'s death-warrant; but this, I
think, is a mistake. He is said, however to have lived much in the
house, which, at that time, belonged to the Bradshaw family. The house
is of a much earlier date, though, than that, and was once, undoubtedly,
a royal residence; for in a fine old oak room, the carved panelling of
which was as black as ebony, the ceiling was all wrought with the roses
and the _fleur-de-lys_. The kitchen and bar-room were both made out of
an old banqueting-hall, immensely lofty, and with a very fine carved
ceiling, and stone-mullioned windows, of capital style and preservation.
The staircase was one of those precious, broad, easy-graded ascents, up
which you could almost take a carriage, with a fine heavy oak baluster;
and on the upper floor three good-sized rooms made out of one, with
another elaborately carved ceiling. It was really a most curious and
picturesque place, and is now the "Star Inn" at Yarmouth, and will
doubtless become gradually changed and modernized and pulled to pieces,
till both its remaining fine old characteristics and its traditions are
lost--as, in good measure, they already are, for, as I said before, the
house bears traces of having been a royal residence long before
Cromwell's time....
The older English country-houses are full of quaint and picturesque
relics of former times; but I think there is a cruel indifference
sometimes to their preservation; _e.g._, think of the Norwich people
allowing the house of Sir Thomas Browne to be dismantled of all its
wood-carving, which was sent up to London and sold in morsels, I
suppose, to the Jews in Wardour Street.
Yours affectionately,
FANNY.
PORTSMOUTH, Friday, March 31st, 1848.
I did not walk on my arrival in Portsmouth, dear Hal, but dined. The day
was very beautiful all along, and I enjoyed as much of it as my
assiduous study of the _Times_ newspaper would allow.
I am glad you saw Mitchell, because now you can conceive what a funny
colloquy that was of mine with him, about the price of the seats at my
readings. [Mr. Mitchell, court bookseller, queen's publisher, box-letter
to the nobility, general undertaker of pleasures and amusements for the
fashionable great world of London, was my manager and paymaster
throughout all my public reading career in England.] In making the
preliminary arrangements for them he had, in my opinion, put the prices
too high, demanding ten shillings for them. When I said they were not
worth two, and certainly ought not to be charged more than five, he
replied, with much feeling for the British aristocracy, whom he
idolized, and whom he thought fit on this occasion to designate,
collectively, under the title of my friend Lord Lansdowne, that he
couldn't think of insulting him by making him pay only five shillings to
hear me read. I wonder why poor dear Lord Lansdowne can't be asked five
shillings? I would have charged him, and all the smaller and greater
nobility of the realm, half a crown, and been rather ashamed of the
pennyworth they got for it. But a thing is worth what it will fetch, and
no one knows that better than Mr. Mitchell. I should think any sensible
being would prefer paying half a crown to the honor and glory of
disbursing twice that sum for a two-hours' reading--even by me, even of
Shakespeare. I wish, while you were in personal connection with my
manager Mitchell, you had remonstrated with him about those ridiculous
dandified advertisements. You might have expressed my dislike of such
fopperies, and perhaps saved me a few shillings in pink and blue and
yellow note-paper; though it really almost seems a pity to interfere
with the elegancies of poor Mitchell, who is nothing if not elegant.
However, I wish he would not be so at my expense, who have no particle
of that exquisite quality in my whole composition, and find the
grovelling one of avarice growing daily upon me.
I have already had a letter from Henry Greville this morning, telling me
the result of _two_ interviews _he_ has had with Mitchell about the
readings; also--which interests me far more than my own interests--of
the utter routing of the Austrians in the Milanese--hurrah!--also of his
determination to buy the house in Eaton Place.... Adelaide must come
home by sea, for it is impossible that she should travel either through
France or Germany without incurring the risk of much annoyance, if
nothing worse. The S---- in the dragoon regiment in Dublin is E----'s
younger brother....
Ever yours,
FANNY.
BANNISTERS, Tuesday, 14th, 1848.
Liston's [the eminent surgeon] death shocked me very much, and I felt
very certain that he was himself aware of his own condition. I
observed, during my intercourse with him latterly, a listless melancholy
in his manner, a circumstance that puzzled me a good deal in contrast
with his powerful frame, and vigorous appearance, and blunt, offhand
manner. I think I understand now, and can compassionate certain
expressions in his last note to me, which, when I received it, made a
painful and unfavorable impression upon me. I suppose he did not believe
in a future state of existence, and have no doubt that, latterly, he had
a distinct anticipation of his own impending annihilation. His great
strength and magnificent physical structure, of course, suggested no
such apprehension to persons who knew nothing of his malady [Liston died
of aneurism in the throat], but when I saw him last he told me he was
much more ill than I was; that he had been spitting up a quantity of
blood, and was "all wrong." ...
I cannot take your thanks, my dear Hal, about "Wilhelm Meister." ... I
never offer anything to any one; neither would I willingly, when asked
for it, withhold anything from any one. I believe the only difference
that I really make between my "_friends_" and my "_fellow-creatures_" is
one of pure sentiment: I love the former, and am completely indifferent
to the latter, but I would _do_ as much for the latter as for the
former.
My marks in "Wilhelm Meister" will not, as you expect, "explain
themselves," for the passages that I admire for their artistic literary
beauty, their keen worldly wisdom, their profound insight, and noble
truth, as well as those which charm me only by their brilliant
execution, and those which command my whole, my entire feeling of
sympathy, are all alike indicated by the one straight line down the side
of the text. I think, however, you will distinguish what I agree with
from what I only admire. It is a wonderful book, and its most striking
characteristic to me is its absolute moral, dispassionate impartiality.
Outward loveliness of the material universe, inward ugliness of human
nature in its various distortions; the wisdom and the foolishness of
man's aims, and the modes of pursuing them; the passions of the senses,
the affections of the heart, the aspirations of the soul; the fine
metaphysical experiences of the transcendental religionists; the
semi-sensual, outward piety of the half-idolatrous Roman Catholic; the
great and the little, the shallow and the deep of humanity in this its
stage of action and development,--are delineated with the most perfect
apparent indifference of sentiment, combined with the most perfect
accuracy of observation. He pleads no cause of man or thing, and the
absence of all indication of human sympathy is very painful to me in his
book. It is only because God is represented as a Being of perfect love
that we can endure the idea of Him as also a Being of perfect knowledge.
Goethe, as I believe I have told you, always reminds me of Ariel, a
creature whose nature--_super_human through power and knowledge of
various kinds--is _under_-human in other respects (love and the capacity
of sympathy), and was therefore subject to the nobler moral nature of
Prospero. Activity seems to be the only principle which Goethe
advocates, activity and earnestness--especially in self-culture,--and in
this last quality, which he sublimely advocates, I find the only
_comfortable_ element in his wonderful writings. _He_ is _in_human, not
superhuman.
God bless you. Good-bye.
Ever yours,
FANNY.
KING STREET, St. James, Friday, 17th.
MY DEAREST HAL,
I cannot be making arrangements for going over to Dublin so far ahead as
the 22d of May, for by that time Dublin may have been swallowed up by
Young Ireland.
Your theory of my reading elegant extracts from Shakespeare is very
pretty, but absolutely nothing to the purpose for my purpose.... All
that is _merely_ especially beautiful is sedulously cut out in my
reading version, in order to preserve the skeleton of the story; because
the audiences that I shall address are not familiar with the plays, and
what they want is as much as possible of the excitement of a dramatic
entertainment to be obtained without entering the doors of a theatre....
You forget to what a number of people Lambs and Bullocks give their
names; Hog, which, by the bye, is spelt Hogge, has by no means the
pre-eminence in that honor.
I saw Lady Lansdowne the other day, who said the ministers were
extremely anxious about Ireland, and that the demonstrations with regard
to St. Patrick's day kept them in a state of great alarm. Lord
Lansdowne is tolerably well just now, but has been quite ill; and Lord
John Russell is so ill and worn out that they say he will be obliged to
resign: in which case I suppose Lord Lansdowne would be premier. The
position of people at the head of governments in this year of grace is
certainly not enviable. D'Israeli said, last night, he couldn't see why
Dublin should not be burnt to the ground; that he could understand the
use of London, or even of Paris, but that the _use_ of Dublin was a
mystery. I suggested its being the spring and source and fountain-head
of Guinness's stout, but I don't think he considered even that a
sufficient _raison d'être_ for your troublesome capital, or porter an
equivalent for the ten righteous men who might save a city.
Thackeray tells a comical story of having received a letter from his
father-in-law in Paris, urging him by all means to send over his
daughter there, and indeed go over himself, for that the frightful riots
in England, especially those in London, Trafalgar Square, Kennington,
etc., must of course make it a most undesirable residence; and that they
would find Paris a much safer and quieter one: which reminds me of the
equally earnest entreaties of my dear American friends that I should
hasten to remove my poor pennies from the perilous guardianship of the
Bank of England and convert them with all despatch to the safe-keeping
of American securities!
I have been going out a good deal during the last three weeks, and mean
to continue to do so while I am in London, partly because, as I am about
to go away, I wish to see as much as I can of its pleasant and
remarkable society, and partly, too, from a motive of _policy_, though I
hate it almost as much as Sir Andrew Aguecheek did. I mean to read in
London before I leave it, and a great many of my fine lady and gentlemen
acquaintances will come and hear me, provided I don't give them time to
forget my existence, but keep them well in mind of it by duly presenting
myself amongst them. "Out of sight, out of mind," is necessarily the
motto of all societies, and considerations of interest more than
pleasure often induce our artists and literary men to produce themselves
in the world lest they should be forgotten by it. Nor, indeed, is this
merely the calculation of those who expect any profit from society; the
very pleasure-hunters themselves find that they must not get thrown
out, or withdraw for a moment, or disappear below the surface for an
instant, for if they do the mad tide goes over them, and they are
neither asked for, nor looked for, called for, nor thought of, "Qui
quitte sa place la perd," and there is nothing so easy as to be
forgotten....
Besides all this, now that my departure from England approaches, I feel
as if I had enjoyed and profited too little by the intercourse of all
the clever people I live among, and whose conversation you know I take
considerable pleasure in. I begin now, in listening, as I did last
night, to D'Israeli and Milnes and Carlyle, and E----'s artist friend,
Mr. Swinton, to remember that these are bright lights in one of the
brightest intellectual centres in Europe, and that I am within their
sphere but for a time....
I called at the Milmans' yesterday, and found Mrs. Austin there, whom I
listened to, almost without drawing breath, for an hour. She has just
returned from Paris, where she lived with all the leading political
people of the day, and she says she feels as if she had been looking at
a battle-field strewn with her acquaintances. Her account of all that is
going on is most interesting, knowing as she does all the principal
actors and sufferers in these events, personally and intimately.
To-day the report is that the Bank of France has suspended payment. The
ruin of the Rothschilds is not true, though they are great losers by
these catastrophes. The Provisional Government has very wisely and
wittily devised, as a means of raising money, to lay a tax of six
hundred francs a year upon everybody who _keeps more than one servant_!
Can folly go beyond that?
Henry Greville showed me yesterday a letter he had received from Paris
from Count Pahlen, saying that, though the guillotine was not yet
erected, the reign of terror had virtually commenced; for that the
pusillanimous dread that kept the whole nation in awe of a handful of
pickpockets could be described as nothing else.
I am much concerned about E----'s fortune, the whole of which is, I
believe, lodged in French funds. All property there must be in terrible
jeopardy, I fear.
Lady G---- F---- went to Claremont two days ago, and says that Louis
Philippe's deportment is that of a servant out of place. She did not
add, "Pas de bonne maison." ...
Ever yours,
FANNY.
[On the famous 10th of April, the day of the great Chartist meeting,
I drove from King Street to Westminster Bridge in the morning,
before the monster demonstration took place; and though the shops
were shut and the streets deserted, everything was perfectly quiet
and orderly, and nothing that _appeared_ indicated the political
disturbance with which the city was threatened--the dread of which
induced people, as far as the Regent's Park from the Houses of
Parliament, to pack up their valuables and plate, etc., and prepare
for instant flight from London. In the evening, my friends would
hardly believe my peaceful progress down Whitehall, and I heard two
striking incidents, among the day's smaller occurrences: that Prince
Louis Napoleon had enrolled himself among the special constables for
the preservation of peace and order; and that M. Guizot, standing
where men of every grade, from dandies to draymen, were flocking to
accept the same service of public preservation, kept exclaiming,
with tears in his eyes, "Oh, le brave peuple! le brave peuple!"--a
contrast certainly to his Parisian barricaders.
In the summer of 1848 I returned to America, where my great good
fortune in the success of my public readings soon enabled me to
realize my long-cherished hope of purchasing a small cottage and a
few acres of land in the beautiful and beloved neighborhood of
Lenox.]
THE END.
INDEX
ADELAIDE, Queen Dowager, 335, 340, 341
Albert, Prince, 321, 324, 341
Alexis, his mesmeric powers, 228
Alfieri, 21
Allen, Dr., 62
Alvanley, Lord, 74
America, character of Americans, 4;
no _poor_, 6;
servants in, 8;
society in, 26;
climate, 33;
travel between and England, 39;
scenery, 42;
expression of faces in, 51;
medical treatment in, 82;
overwork of Americans, 91;
medicinal waters in, 96;
bathing in, 97;
railroads in, 104;
the Dismal Swamp, 108;
the "place where a place was intended to be," 109;
American decorum, 110;
corduroy, 112;
North Carolina natives, 116;
tobacco-chewing, 116;
a North Carolina "Colonel," 117;
slavery on Butler's Island, 136;
its influence on the whites, 137;
hotels, 151;
4th of July in Philadelphia, 152;
equality in, 152;
health in, 167;
"carrying on" financially, 176;
Irish servants in, 184, 195;
presidential election, 204;
war with England, 206;
the credit system in, 288;
divorces in, 292;
slavery in, 307;
a story of slavery, 370;
society, 403;
public spirit, 405;
an American on America, 415;
contrasted with Italy, 466;
spirit of conformity, 550
Amistad, 185;
history of, 186
Anne the nurse, on the Rhine, 256;
at Bowood, 273;
objects to be waited on, 275, 279, 296, 297, 321;
her views of presentation, 325
Appleton, Miss, 18, 101, 228
Ardgillan Castle, 13
Arkwrights, 251, 493, 495
Arnold, 420, 424;
his influence, 425;
his opinions, 430;
life of, 432, 434, 444;
character of his pupils, 446, 448;
his "letters," 452, 453, 619, 645
Ashburton, Lady, 219, 281
Ashburton, Lord, 360, 372, 380
Ashley, Lord, 444
Austen, Charles, 281
Austin, Lucy, 578
Austin, Mrs., 3, 578, 666
BABBAGE, 273
Bach, 262
Balzac, 255;
"Recherche de l'Absolu," 451
Banian, Mrs., 271
Barker, Laura, 646
Beaumont, Mr., 183
Beaumont, Mrs. Wentworth, carrying a contested election, 183
Becker, Dr., magnetized, 231
Bedford, Duchess of, 303, 304, 339
Bedford, Duke of, 303, 360, 514
Beecher, Lady, 77
Beethoven, 265, 623
Bendermann, 269
Benedict, 373
Bentley, 337
Berkeley, Craven, 312
Berkeley, Earl of, his encounter with a highwayman, 316
Berkeley, Frederick, 312
Berkeley, Grantley, 312
Berkeley, Henry, 310, 312, 313
Berkeley, Lady, 308;
her story, 310, 349, 369
Berkeley, Lady Mary, 313, 369
Berkeley, Lord, 311
Berkeley, Morton, 313;
the contents of his pockets, 314
Bernhardt, Sarah, 246
Berry, Miss, 295, 356, 373, 419, 443, 458;
declining health, 499; 518, 617, 625
Berrys, The Miss, 45, 64
Bessborough, Lord, 501
Biddle, Nicholas, 289, 299
Blackett, John, 619
Bohn, 371
Borghese, Prince, 644
Bossuet, 618
Brackenbury, Mr., 555
Bradshaw, Judge, 660
Brand, Hon. Thomas, 526, 631
Brand, Mrs., 526
Bremer, Frederica, 444
Bright, 206, 640
Brougham, Lord, 549
Browne, Sir Thomas, 39, 661
Browning, 373, 447
Bruce, Mrs., 421
Brunel, 273
Buccleuch, Duchess of, 356
Bulteel, Lady Elizabeth, 516
Bunn, Mr., 367, 426
Bunsen, Baron, 431, 432, 434;
his character, 445;
on Arnold, 448
Bunsen, Mrs., 467
Butler's Island, 134, 135, 152, 157, 169
Byng, Frederick, 62, 360, 373, 380, 554
Byron, Lady, 3, 165, 577
Byron, Lord, 21
CALCRAFT, Mr., 494
Caliban, 569
Callcott, Lady, 366
Callcott, Mr., 330
Calvinism, 575
Camp, Vincent de, 317
Canterbury, Lord, 284
Carlisle, Lord, 502
Carlyle, on "Mathilde," 291; 573, 666
Carolside, 519, 520, 521, 524
Castlereagh, Lady, 631, 645, 657
Cavendish, Miss Susan, 526
Celeste, Mademoiselle, 559
Cerito, 193, 211
Chambers Brothers, "Vestiges of Creation" attributed to, 546
Channing, 24;
preaching, 28;
anecdote of, 29;
on slavery, 30, 180;
sermon on sorrow, 187;
letters from England, 355;
death, 363;
book, 376, 380, 419, 564
Charlemont, Lady, 380
Charlemont, Lord, 380
Charles I., 660
Charleston, 122
Charlotte, Queen, 311
Chester, Harry, 421
Chesterfield, Lord, 439
Child, Mrs. Lydia, 324, 338, 355
Chopin, 193, 262, 264, 265
Chorley, 52;
his play, 165, 212, 241, 259, 269, 375;
veneration for Dr. Follen, 420, 438, 447, 455;
takes charge of papers, 460, 483, 492
Chorley, Mrs., 221
Churchill, Mr., 584
Clairvoyance, "I see it, but I don't believe it," 229
Clarendon, Lord, 640, 660
Clayton, Captain, the highwayman, 317
Clémentine, Princesse, 647
Cobden, 640, 643
Codrington, Sir Edward, 419, 421, 436
Coleman, Mr., 437
Coles, Sir Francis, 329
Combe, Dr., 21, 354, 521
Combe, Mr., 47;
the "Constitution of Man," 102;
thinks Mrs. Kemble improved, 162, 167, 194;
magnetism, 230, 232, 252;
on martyrdom, 326, 354, 459, 460, 530, 532, 539;
his fanaticism, 540, 542;
on "Vestiges of Creation," 543, 546;
"dry humor," 597
Combe, Mrs., 47, 102, 162, 194, 230, 252, 354, 525, 530, 532;
her beauty, 539, 540, 542
Cooper, James, 95
Cooper, Mrs., 374
Cork, Lady, 48, 52
Correggio, 376
Corsini, Prince, 644
Coster, Mr., 353
Cottin, Miss, 259, 279, 455, 591, 605
Coutts, 283
Coutts-Trotter, Miss, 574
Craven, 502
Cromwell, 660
Crow, Mrs., her book, 230;
her insanity, 232
Cumberland, Duke of, 269
Cunard, Mr., 383
DACRE, Lady, 45;
letters to, 57, 63, 76, 101, 142, 149, 160;
letters to, 161, 175, 198, 248, 249, 280, 323;
letters to, 356, 360, 361, 362;
her advice, 363;
letters to, 365, 366, 377, 378, 380, 381, 386, 392, 401, 414, 428,
432, 438;
her illness, 438;
letters to, 488, 491, 494, 514;
letters to, 525;
invitation from, 548, 554, 622
Dacre, Lord, 45;
on contested elections, 183, 248, 250, 252, 281, 338, 356, 362, 378,
380, 415;
on war, 429, 438, 446, 640, 641, 643
Dalhousie, Lord, 65
Darner, Mrs. Dawson, 380, 519
Dantan, 368
Darien, 130
Déjazet, 329, 342, 598, 599
De Quincey, 415
Dessauer, 209;
_Elle m'a compris!_ 212, 265, 326
De Tocqueville, 209
Dévy, Madame, 327, 334, 337
Dickens, 107, 305, 318;
his opinion of America, 359, 380
Dietrichstein, Madame de, 487
Disraeli. _See_ Israeli, D'.
Donne, William Bodham, 612
Douro, Lady, 295
Dryden, 376
Dufferin, Lady, 502, 649
Dumas, Alexandre, 337
Duncombe, Thomas, 315
Dundas, Mr., 281
EDISTO, 127
Egerton, Francis, 227, 248, 251, 272, 325, 329, 330, 334, 356;
on Arnold, 448
Egerton, Lady Francis, 162, 420, 446;
on Arnold, 448
Eliot, George, 50, 53
Ellesmere, Lady, 45, 73, 244, 448, 629, 631
Ellesmere, Lord, 45, 448, 501, 600, 601, 629, 631
Ellis, Mr., 645
Ellsler, Fanny, 191, 193, 194;
Mrs. Grote befriends her, 210;
her genius, 211;
her child, 213, 241, 246, 372
Empson, 381, 419
Enclos, Ninon de l', 54
Eresby, Lords Willoughby de, 304
Essex, Lady, 436, 514
Este, Mademoiselle d', 295, 303, 304;
her character, 333; 335, 337;
her claims, 338;
_her_ queen, 341;
her marriage, 344
Everett, Edward, 325, 381
F., LETTER TO, 385
Farquharson, 597
Fay, Theodore, 48
Fénélon, 564, 618
Fergusson, Sir Adam, 527
Fishing, "Fishing bery good fun, when de fish him bite," 146;
American fish, 155
Fitzhardinge, Lord, 310, 312
Fitzhugh, Emily, 10;
letters to, 12, 13, 55, 84, 133, 139, 145, 161, 308, 319, 373;
letter to, 420;
her marks, 430, 496, 508, 512, 600, 629
Fitzhugh, Mr., 51;
his illness, 177, 536
Fitzhugh, Mrs., 51, 308, 319, 475, 477, 508, 535, 536, 589, 595;
her health, 597;
depression, 598
Foley, Lord, 356
Follen, Dr., his death, 180;
his history and character, 182;
sermon on, 187, 364, 419, 574
Follen, Mrs., 364
Follenius, Carl, 181
Forbes, John, 160
Forster, Mr. John, 496, 501
Foster, a _séance_ with, 235
Fourier, 655
Fowler, Dr., 271
Fox, Miss, 281
Francis, Lady, 221, 274, 276;
presents Mrs. Kemble, 324; 325, 327, 349
Francis, Lord, 276
Frezzolini, 325
Frost, Mr., 560
Fuller, Margaret, 17
Fullerton, Lady Georgiana, 541
Furness, Mr., anti-slavery sermons, 388; 403, 629, 640, 648
GARCIA, Pauline, 207
Gaskell, Mrs., 568
Gensius, 211
Genz, Frederic von, 211
George III., 311
Georgia, condition of, 103;
slavery in, 203;
journal of residence in, 159, 203, 205
Gibbon, 173
Gibson, 193
Gioberti, 653
Glück, 213
Goethe, Madame von, 3
Goethe, Wolfgang von, 12, 15, 33, 77;
"Wilhelm Meister," 589, 592, 663
Good, the murderer, 310
Gordon, Lady Lucy Duff, 576, 578, 590
Gordon, Sir Alexander Duff, 578
Grant, Sarah, 459
Grant, William, 450
Granville, Dr., 51
Grazia, 51
Green, Mr., 368
Gregory, William, 231
Gresset, 599
Greville, Algernon, 298
Greville, Charles, 61, 74;
his character, 216;
his "Memoirs," 217; 218, 226;
at a _séance_, 235; 273, 274, 281, 283, 301;
his mention of Queen Adelaide, 344; 360;
letter to, 376; 381, 423, 431;
on Arnold, 448;
his book, 458, 461, 483;
on a future life, 498, 499;
character, 514; 549, 558;
letter to the _Times_, 587;
and Parliament, 590; 598;
supposed the author of "Jane Eyre," 602, 603;
writings on Ireland, 611; 615;
on politics, 620; 629, 647, 649
Greville, Henry, 239, 329, 335, 423, 436;
on painting, 475, 483;
goes to Manchester, 485, 487;
as an amateur actor, 496, 501, 502;
his criticism, 508;
character, 514; 529, 541, 543;
and Rachel, 548; 558, 600;
his mania for playhouses, 602, 603;
on readings, 615, 622, 624;
house-furnishing, 629; 635, 647, 662, 666
Greville, Lady Charlotte, 625, 647
Grey, Countess, 528
Grey, Lady, 228, 366, 402, 526, 554, 635, 640, 643
Grey, Lord, 338, 516, 635
Griffith, Mrs., 74
Grisi, 48, 49;
description of, 50; 211, 325, 377, 475
Grote, George, 209, 218, 241, 373, 444;
"History of Greece," 589;
on politics, 620
Grote, Mrs., a _Grotesque_ passage, 208;
her talents, 209;
befriends Mlle. Ellsler, 210;
_Malbrook s'en va t'en guerre_, 212;
takes charge of Fanny Ellsler's child, 213;
her opinion of d'Orsay, 213;
her illness, 217;
engrosses Jenny Lind, 217;
her interest in politics, 218;
"It is political," 219;
her appearance, 219;
language, 220;
dress, 220;
"the gentleman in the white muslin gown," 221; 241, 246, 351, 352,
353, 373;
beasterly wind, 373; 423, 424, 425, 427, 434, 444, 522;
her sufferings, 611;
her _unusualness_, 620;
verses, 639
Guercino, 376
Guildford, Lord, 519
Guizot, 649, 667
Gunter, 373
HALÉVY, 217
Hall, Miss, 369, 374, 391
Hallam, 65, 381
Hallé, Charles, 265, 577, 579
Hamilton, Miss, 308, 424
Hamilton, Mr., 535
Hamiltons, The Miss, 589
Hampden, Dr., 619
Hanmer, 653
Hanover, King of, 269
Happy Valley, a, 19
Hardwicke, Lord, 621
Harness, Rev. William, "taking it out in corns," 65; 90, 161, 164,
296, 297;
his character, 298; 352, 353, 373, 419, 548, 555, 611, 615, 626,
629, 630, 657
Hatherton, Lady, 48, 52
Hawtrey, Dr., 563, 570
Hawtrey, Stephen, 570
Hayes, Bridget, 506, 507, 516, 531, 567, 605, 606, 611, 634
Hayward, 21
Hazlitt, 639
Head, Sir Francis, 53
Herbert, George, 566
Hero, 567, 571, 593
Hesse-Darmstadt, Duke of, 269
Hibbard, Mr., 440
Hibbard, Mrs., 440
Holland, Dr., 423
Holland House, 60
Holland, Lady, at Rogers', 59;
her jelly, 62;
her temper, 63;
travelling by land, 273; 430;
her last days, 441;
her will, 441
Holland, Lord, 59, 60, 649
Hook, Theodore, 398
Horner, Francis, 379, 420, 573
Howick, Lord, 460
Hugo, Victor, 22, 501, 585
Hume, 234
Humphreys, Mrs., 535
Hunt, Leigh, his play, 190
INGLIS, Sir Robert, 381
Insects, bugs, 33;
bees, 35;
ants, 35;
fire-flies, 36;
beetles, 36;
flies, 36;
mosquitoes, 37;
spiders, 37;
potato bugs, 37
Invitation to Hayti, 569
Irving, Edward, 21, 573
Israeli, D', 643, 665, 666
JAMESON, Mrs., letters to, 1, 15, 18, 47, 51, 74, 75, 83, 92, 94, 97,
100, 103, 138, 146;
her book, 151;
letter to, 164;
her book on Canada, 172;
letters to, 190; 289, 291, 323;
letters to, 412, 423, 429;
a horrid story, 449;
Adelaide Kemble's likeness, 450;
Mrs. Siddons' Memoir, 450;
her character, 454;
Mrs. Siddons' Memoir, 459; 563;
relations with Lady Byron, 577; 601, 614, 615
Jay, Mr., his book, 185
Jay, Mrs., 271
Jeffrey, Sydney Smith on, 215; 380
Jeffreys, 530, 553, 566
Joachim, 579
Joan of Arc, 396
KEAN, Charles, 636
Keeleys, 559
Kemble, Adelaide, "Aunt Dall," 605
Kemble, Adelaide, daughter of Charles, 47, 51, 59;
pressed flowers, 60;
going upon the stage, 87, 98;
her genius, 99; 101, 139;
first appearance, 146;
in Turkey, 197;
at Palermo, 199;
first concert, 209; 211; 219;
her success, 222, 223, 226, 227;
at a _séance_, 235; 241;
at Covent Garden, 248, 250;
her first public performance, 259, 267;
her success in London, 270;
her character, 292, 306;
"die Tine," 321; 323, 325;
declines to sing at the Italian Opera-House, 325;
in Dublin, 328; 330, 331, 332, 336;
her engagement, 338, 346;
her "Helen," 351; 353;
her marriage, 354;
sings "Norma" for the last time, 357; 361, 366, 367, 368, 373, 374;
compared with other artists, 377; 418, 429, 444;
her health, 452;
song written by, 456; 462, 507, 521, 529;
acquaintance with Mendelssohn, 544;
American spirit of conformity, 549; 590;
house in London, 600;
her return, 621;
her house, 628;
letter from Italy, 643
Kemble, Charles, farewell to the stage, 46; 48, 139, 143;
vase presented to, 177;
return to the stage, 196; 197;
illness, 205;
sympathetic theory of convalescence, 206; 208, 223, 252;
losses by the United States Bank, 270; 294, 299, 304;
resumes the management of Covent Garden, 309, 322, 361;
his loss at Covent Garden, 365;
his illness, 365, 367, 369; 371, 372, 373, 375, 418, 419, 421, 423,
432, 433, 435, 443, 444, 450;
debating the route, 455; 458;
his deafness, 462;
on the Continent, 472;
gives up readings, 519;
declines to read "Antigone," 614; 632;
compared with Macready, 636; 653
Kemble, Mrs. Charles, story of a miniature, 195;
her acquaintance with Captain Clayton, 317
Kemble, Frances Ann, on marriage, 1, 70;
her first Fourth of July in America, 4;
fresh butter, 6;
her servants, 8;
her journal, 11;
double entry, 11;
her portrait, 13, 85;
portrait as _Beatrice_, 13;
her opinion of slavery, 16;
riding, 20;
study of the Bible, 21, 24;
treatise on slavery, 21;
fear, 25;
on emancipation, 29, 31;
babies and authorship, 33;
gardening, 33;
_bugs_, 33;
bees, 35;
ants, 35;
slavery, 35, 41, 185, 203;
fire-flies, 36;
beetles, 36;
flies, 36;
disappointment at not going South, 40;
complexion, 42;
voyage to England, 43;
the death-vision, 44;
London society, 45, 665;
waiting for a vessel, 56;
voyage to America, 67;
on Christianity, 71;
on members of the Convention, 73;
her "English Tragedy," 72, 73, 103:
disease an invention, 77;
defence of Providence, 79;
illness of her child, 82;
on time, 84;
scorpions, 88;
birth of her child, 92;
on dying, 92;
on letter-writing, 95;
on singularity, 98;
death of her mother, 102;
going to Georgia, 103;
travelling with children, 105;
"they always washes two at a time," 107;
a North Carolina toilet, 112;
on labor, 114;
a night journey, 119;
a day's rest, 120;
the dread of singularity, 123;
the Charleston negroes, 125;
Margery's observations on Southerners, 126;
incidents of the voyage to Savannah, 129;
voyage to Darien, 130;
the outer bound of creation, 130;
welcome home, 131;
a lively sense of benefits to come, 133;
first visit to the sick house, 133;
"O Lord a mercy! sure this is never I," 136;
"What for you work, Missus?" 137;
education of children, 143, 179;
manifold avocations, 147;
her house, 147;
the Menai bridge, 148;
reading prayers to the slaves, 148;
Georgia journal, 159;
the Stafford House appeal, 159;
"A Fool's Errand," 160;
Pharisaism of early risers, 161;
a dumb child, 162;
her "bumps," 162;
her play, 165;
the future life, 166, 498, 547;
the teaching of experience, 168;
Forester, 171;
loneliness, 174;
on sorrow, 187;
beginning to die, 188;
on reason in education, 189;
on authorship, 190;
on sponsorship, 195;
jealous of her parts, 199;
on steamships, 201;
answering questions, 202;
Georgia journal, its publication, 203;
not allowed to return to Georgia, 205;
English ignorance of slavery, 205;
individual atmosphere, 207;
declines to meet Mlle. Ellsler, 213;
visits to Mrs. Grote, 209-221;
on education, 221;
on daguerreotypes, 222, 224, 225;
a whirl of excitement, 226;
mesmeric experience, 230-240;
as Jezebel, 239;
at Bannisters, 247;
run away with, 251;
a beautiful brute, 251;
on lace-making, 254;
travel in Germany, 255;
at Ehrenbreitstein, 257;
Schneider, 258;
a happy woman, 274;
exercise of agony, 279;
answering letters, 283, 284;
on sudden death, 286;
Poor things--all of us! 287;
on self-condemnation, 290;
the horrors, 308;
leaping in a carriage, 316;
on difference of nationality, 319;
her presentation, 320, 324;
the spirit of martyrdom, 326;
on dress, 327, 531;
on earning money, 330;
her return to America, 332;
visits Queen Adelaide, 341;
on married women's rights, 344, 422;
sequel to "The Stranger," 345;
her child's illness, 350;
acting "The Hunchback," 349;
her feeling toward America, 358;
leaving England, 361;
the secret of helping people, 375;
receptions, 373; 379;
sea-sickness, 381;
a lawyer's bill, 385;
on the condition of Ireland, 387;
anti-slavery preaching, 388;
at Yellow Springs, 388, 393;
love, 397;
_consciously unconscious_, 398;
"The Memory of the Past," 399; 400;
health, 401, 586;
changes in England, 402;
the nonsense of equality, 405;
a volume of poems, 406;
lodging-house insecurity, 408;
Duchess of Ormond, 409;
Icarus, 412;
her consolations, 414;
studying mathematics, 415;
her favorite horse, 417;
return to England, 418;
stability of things spiritual, 421;
requests for her influence, 426;
advice, 427;
on beauty, 433;
"Beaver hats," 435;
the Church service, 442;
going to Italy, 445;
deathbed utterances, 447;
her idea of Eve, 451;
her verses, 452;
Genesis, 453;
nervousness, 455;
"content," 456;
truth to be spoken, 456;
journey to Italy, 457, 458;
adversity, 461;
her journal, 463;
Rome, 463;
living below pitch, 468;
amusement, 469;
lies, 471;
equality between the sexes, 472;
her journal, 473;
returns to the stage, 474;
at the dentist's, 478;
laughter, 472;
her journal, Manchester, 480;
engagement in Dublin, 483;
her play, 483;
conversation versus correspondence, 486;
appearance at Manchester, 488;
at Birmingham, 494;
refused permission to act for charity, 497;
appearance at Liverpool, 499;
on reading, 505;
on government, 506;
"Hints to Religion," 509;
at Bath, 509;
on consistency, 516;
method of reading Shakespeare, 534;
on phrenology, 537; on
"Vestiges of Creation," 543;
the Shakespearian celebration, 545;
on "Vestiges of Creation," 546;
"Psyche," 548;
lionizing an American, 549;
the ocean, 550;
Shakespeare, 552;
immortality, 552;
taking ether, 553;
an unfortunate, 555;
something _that could not lie_, 557;
a broken finger, 557;
"A Year of Consolation," 559;
a little outcast, 559;
night, 562;
reading at Eton, 563;
partial immortality, 564, 593;
the idea of God, 564;
human and divine goodness, 566;
dogmanity, 567;
"Nature hath framed strange fellows in her time," 568;
"Realities," 568;
emancipation and freedom, 569;
at Eton, 570;
freedom a protection, 574;
Calvinism, 575;
at Manchester--a gratuity, 578;
comments on readings, 579;
death of the Emperor of Russia, 580;
at Oxford, 582;
"What _things_ these bodies are," 583;
at Bath, 585;
"an antidote to enthusiasm," 586;
reverence, 587;
officers of charities, 591; 593;
burial money, 596;
proselyting, 597;
"Vanity Fair," 601;
love and self-love, 602;
improvement in manners, 604;
economy, 606;
at Yarmouth, 605;
the aristocratic principle, 608;
cleverness _versus_ judgment, 609;
reading "Antigone," 614;
morality and politics, 616;
a beautiful woman, 617;
tact and sincerity, 618;
genius and helplessness, 623;
a ghost of a declaration, 627;
constancy, 627;
What is truth? 628;
"fortitude and similarity," 630;
reading Shakespeare, 632;
playing with Macready, 637;
future punishment, 645;
in Othello, 645;
on the French Revolution, 47;
as Ophelia, 648;
political changes in England, 650;
forms of government, 655;
Fourierism, 655;
subdivision of land, 656;
a first reading, 657;
a benefit for young actors, 656, 657, 658;
the political situation, 659;
the "Star Inn," 661;
the great Chartist meeting, 667;
return to America, 667;
success of readings, 667
Kemble, Henry, 487, 493
Kemble, Mrs. John, Sr., 195, 345
Kemble, John, censorship given to, 183;
editorship of the _Review_, 183; 195, 240, 291, 331, 337, 424;
on Arnold, 431;
Lady Holland's bequest, 441;
his character, 481;
his book, 482; 508, 585, 612, 613, 624
Kemble, Natalia, 291
Kenyon, 447
King, Lady Dashwood, 219
Kinglake, 436
King's Chapel, 28
Kingsbury, Mr., 602
Kingsley, Charles, 37
Kitchener, Dr., 9
Klopstock, 153, 283
Knowles, Mr., 475, 489
Knowles, Sheridan, 329
Kock, Paul de, 298, 300, 302
Kotzebue, 345
LABLACHE, 217
Labouchère, Mr., 501
Lamartine, 35, 658
Lamb, Charles, 283
Landseer, 63, 617
Lane, 225, 240, 653
Lansdowne, Lady, 45, 54, 270, 356, 664
Lansdowne, Lord, 45, 54, 270, 275, 277, 282, 296, 298, 662, 665
Lawrence, 439
Leader, 209
Legget, 186
Leighton, Sir Frederick, 239
Leinster, Duke of, 333
Lenox, no poor in, 7;
no beer in, 7;
laborers in, 8;
its scenery, 100, 158
Lewis, Dr., his attempt to magnetize, 231
Lexington, The, burning of, 187
Liberalism, 48
Liebig, 504, 508, 510
Liège, 253
Liéven, Madame de, 649
Lincoln, Abraham, 160
Lind, Jenny, 209;
engrossed by Mrs. Grote, 217; 444, 518, 519, 522
Lindsay, Lady Charlotte, 45, 62, 295, 356, 373, 419, 518
Liquor, 7, _note_.
Liston, 206, 590, 592, 662
Liszt, 209, 241, 259;
his tour in Germany, 261;
his seven-leagued-boot style, 262;
his career, 263;
jealousy of Thalberg, 264; 269, 321
Lockhart, 419
London Assurance, 223
London, riots in, 651, 652, 667
London society, 45, 48, 665
Londonderry, Lady, 320, 323, 340
Longfellow, Fanny, 553
Longfellow, H. W., 18, 61
Longfellow, Mrs., 101, 228
Louis Napoleon, 667
Louis Philippe, 647, 666
Lovelace, Lady, 165
Lumley, 325
Luzzy, Mademoiselle de, 520
MACAULAY, 65, 273, 281;
his discourse, 282; 371
Macdonald, Sir John, 243
Mackenzie, 370, 372
Mackintosh, Mrs. Robert, 18, 101
Mackintosh, Sir James, 500
Macready, 103, 143, 172, 407, 409, 501, 556, 595, 619, 629, 631;
his manners, 635;
his character, 636;
his stage temper, 637;
in Macbeth, 638;
his violence, 642, 648;
his selfishness, 644;
in Othello, 645, 646;
in Hamlet, 651
Macready, Mrs., 423
Maddox, 621, 622, 633, 629, 630, 642
Magnetism, 228-240
Mair, Lizzie, 424, 529, 530, 531, 533
Mair, Major, 525, 531;
solitary confinement, 533
Malibran, 48, 87, 100, 207, 267, 377
Malkin, Arthur, 500, 541
Manzoni, "Ode to Napoleon," 571
Marcet, Mrs., 510
Margery, her successor, 178;
her proselyting spirit, 178;
her illness, 410
Mario, discharged, 325
Marlowe, 21
Marryatt, 176
Martineau, Miss, 3;
in Philadelphia, 10; 16;
her books, 52;
"Deerbrook," 53, 65;
her book on America, 80; 503, 50, 505
Mason, Charles, 497, 500, 502, 508, 510, 511, 514, 515
Masson, Miss, 373
Maulay, Lord de, 514
Maurice, 573
Maxse, "Go along Maxse," 315
Mays, Dr., 503
Mease, Dr., 13
Melbourne, Lord, 448
Melgund, Lady, 519
Mendelssohn, 209, 210, 262, 265, 375;
his death, 543, 544; 573;
his "Antigone," 613; 639
Mercadante, 293
Merimée, 585
Mesmerism, 228-240
Metternich, 649, 652, 659
Metternich, Madame de, 264
Millevoye, 585
Milman, 419, 427, 442, 666
Milman, Mrs., "You know one never means what one says," 442; 666
Milnes, Monckton, 434, 447, 666
Mitchell, Mr., 519;
reading Shakespeare, 534; 613, 615, 618, 634;
price of readings, 661
Mitchell, Mrs., 513, 519, 520, 521;
character, 522; 527;
opinions, 527;
children, 529;
dress, 531; 536, 539, 600, 602, 618, 619
Molesworth, Sir William, 209
Montague, Mr. and Mrs. Basil, 52, 521
Montez, Lola, 631
Moody, surrenders his watch, 317
Moore, 271, 273;
"dat little dentleman," 277; 281
Mordaunt, Miss, 555
Morier, 589
Morley, Lady, 45, 63, 65, 66;
bereavements, 554;
truth-speaking, 554;
"a mermaid," 554;
her predecessor, 555;
shows her house, 555
Morley, Lord, 555
Morpeth, Lord, 305, 318, 359, 401
Moscheles, 262, 265
Mott, Lucretia, 162, 307
Moxon, Edward, 477, 479, 483
Mozart, 264, 306
Mulliner, Mrs., 529, 530, 532, 553, 571, 572
Muloch, Miss, 574
Murray, Charles, 162
Murray, Lady Augusta, 338
Murray, Mr., 530
Muskau, Prince Puckler, 608
Mussy, Dr. Gueneau de, 501
NAPLES, King of, 644
Nemours, Duc de, 647
Nemours, Duchess de, 647
Nisbett, Mrs., 555
Normanby, Lady, 647
Normanby, Lord, 222, 284
Norton, Mrs. Charles, 169
Novello, Clara, 377
O'CONNELL, 302
Orleans, Duchesse d', 647
O'Sullivan, John, 401, 410, 427, 432
O'Sullivan, Mrs., 423
PAHLEN, Count, 666
Palmerston, Lady, Lady Holland's bequest, 442
Panizzi, 371
Parker, Theodore, 568
Pasta, 48, 49, 50, 87, 100, 261, 377, 631
Paton, Miss, 377
Patterson, Mary, 459
Peel, Sir Robert, 305, 460, 641
Persiani, 207
Philadelphia, Riots in, 412, 416
Philips, Secretary, 520
Pigott, Dick, 240
Planchette, 236-238
Potocki, Alfred, 485, 487, 635, 652, 653
Prandi, 620
Praslin, Duc de, 520
Praslin, Duchesse de, 519
Praslin, Madame de, 630
Prescott, 172
Procter, Adelaide, 577
Procters, 52, 227, 373, 434, 435, 436, 447, 455, 456, 460, 521, 577
Prussia, King of, 295, 296
Public Schools in England, 276
Pulaski, The, loss of, 95
QUINCEY, De. _See_ De Quincey.
RACHEL, 50, 228, 241;
her appearance, 243;
her genius, 244;
her tenderness, 246, 518, 548
Rackeman, Frederick, 193
Radley, Mr., 496
Rainsforth, Miss, 330
Raphael, his "Eve," 451
Reeve, Henry, 447
Revel, Count Adrien de, 521, 527, 528
Revel, Emily de, 521
Richmond, 609
Richmond, Duchess of, 303, 339
Richter, 228
Ristori, 246
Ritchie, Mrs., 626
Roberts, 649
Roberts, Miss, 581
Robertson, 562
Rocca, 345
Roebuck, 209
Rogers, 45, 58, 59;
"the kindest heart and the unkindest tongue," 65;
"_young_ poetry," 66;
visits Mrs. Grote, his sarcastic temper, 213;
"Publish it!" 215; 222, 271, 273;
lines by, 277; 281;
"What I was saying will keep!" 281; 373, 381, 425, 427;
much altered, 429;
on Arnold, 431; 433;
reading Sydney Smith's letters, 434; 436;
on Lady Holland, 441; 444, 460;
his generosity, 478;
loss of memory, 554; 615
Roman Reforms, 542
Romilly, Edward, 510
Romilly, Sir Samuel, 192
Ros, Lord de, cheats at cards, 73
Rossini, 378
Rothschild, Baroness Louis, 281
Rubinstein, 262
Russell, Lord John, Lady Holland's bequest, 441, 460, 665
Russia, Emperor of, 580
Ruthven, Lady, 531
Rutland, Duke of, 281, 300, 319, 338, 340
SALE, Lady, 64
Salisbury, Lord, 273
Salvini, 631
Sand, George, 291, 300, 449, 585
Sandon, Lord, 444
Saunders, his miniature from memory, 194
Savannah, 129
Savonarola, 326
Scarborough, Lord, character of, 440
Schiller, 396, 624
Schroeder-Devrient, 100
Schubert, 264
Scott, John Alexander, 572, 573, 574, 577;
"You _are_ Theseus," 579
Sedgwick, Catherine, 11, 22, 32, 47, 74, 91, 92, 101, 103, 104, 146;
visits England, 149, 150, 154, 162; 188, 200, 228;
her book, 253; 255, 266, 271, 353;
letter from, 363;
her visit to an asylum, 364;
letter from, 370; 470, 491, 505
Sedgwick, Charles, 505, 567, 654
Sedgwick, Elizabeth (Mrs. Charles), 151, 172, 185, 309, 324, 338, 355,
383, 589, 654
Sedgwick, Theodore, letters to, 168, 185, 192; 270;
letters to, 304, 318, 353, 358, 370, 371, 392, 395, 399, 400, 404,
406, 407, 410, 659
Sedgwicks, 154, 161, 198, 200, 407, 423, 520, 548
Senior, William Nassau, 216, 218;
his journal, 219; 443, 446
Sévigné, Madame de, 61
Seymour, Captain, 329, 349
Shaftesbury, Lord, 159
Shakers, The, 19
Siddons, Cecilia, 47
Siddons, George, 335, 455
Siddons, Harry, 450
Siddons, Mrs. Harry, 233;
memoir of, 450, 454, 459; 525
Siddons, Mrs. Sarah, 55, 331
Slavery, 16, 21;
plan of emancipation, 29, 31;
pecuniary aspect of, 140;
a slave's burial, 140;
the slaves' sense of their condition, 141;
discussions on, 144;
in Georgia, 203;
English ignorance of, 205
Smith, Adam, 597
Smith, Bobus, 430
Smith, Dr., 55
Smith, Gerrit, 307
Smith, Sydney, 35, 45;
the "poticary," 53; 58, 59;
his drollery, 63;
"as a canon should live," 64;
sale by auction, 64;
the "bore contradictor," 65;
his dream, 65;
the "departed" poet, 67; 176, 208, 209;
Grota, 213;
his letters, 214;
Jeffrey's visit to, 215;
his dissimilar son, 215;
it isn't _the_ Rogers, 215; 220, 240, 282, 323, 325, 334, 379,
380, 381;
his petition, 391; 409;
on Horner, 420;
his death, 430;
on Rogers, 434;
his daughter, 440;
"Gooseberry," 553; 573
Smith, Wyndham, the "Assassin," 215;
Nebuchadnezzar, 216
Somerville, Mrs., 88, 472
Sontag, 217, 377
Staël, Madame de, 79, 345
Stafford, Marquis of, 276
Stage, The, its influence, 48
Stanley, Dean, 444, 619, 629, 640, 648, 653
Steamships, 89
Ste. Beuve, 585
Stephens, 302
Stepney, Lady, 380
St. Leger, Barry, 295, 521
St. Leger, Harriet, letters to, 8, 12, 20; 22;
letters to, 23, 26, 29, 31, 33, 38, 40, 46, 54, 56, 67, 69, 71, 78,
81, 85, 89, 92, 95, 99, 102, 104, 119, 135, 143, 147, 150, 152, 153,
154, 158, 162, 166, 169, 170, 173, 177, 180, 183, 188, 192, 194,
196, 197, 200, 201, 202, 206, 208, 221, 222, 223, 224, 225, 226,
240, 242, 243, 247, 248, 249, 252, 253, 255, 266, 268;
in London, 270;
letters to, 271, 274, 277, 280, 282, 284, 288, 290, 292, 294, 296,
299, 300, 302, 306, 307, 319, 322, 324, 327, 330, 332, 335, 336,
344, 348, 350, 352;
visits Mrs. Kemble, 354;
letters to, 354, 356, 367, 368, 369, 372, 374, 379, 381, 383, 387,
388, 398, 403, 407, 408, 414, 416, 421, 422, 424, 426, 429, 433,
434, 435, 436, 438, 439, 441, 443, 445, 449, 450, 452, 453, 455,
456, 459, 460, 461, 462, 465, 468, 472, 475;
her flagellatory recipe, 475;
her absurdity, 476;
her reasonableness, 476;
letters to, 478, 481, 482, 484, 485, 489, 492, 493, 495, 499, 503,
504, 507, 511, 512, 515, 516, 518, 521, 526, 527, 528, 530, 532,
533, 535, 536, 539, 540, 541, 543, 544, 548, 550, 553, 556, 558,
563, 566, 570, 572, 573, 575, 580, 581, 582, 583, 585, 587, 589,
591, 592, 593, 595, 596, 598, 600, 601, 606, 607, 610, 613, 616,
617, 619, 620, 621, 622, 623, 624, 627, 629, 634, 642, 643, 646,
648, 651, 652, 656, 661, 664
Stowe, Mrs. Beecher, 159
Strangford, Lord, 283
St. Simon's Island, 145, 152, 155;
houses on, 156
Stuart, Mary, 520
Sullivan, Miss Barbarina, 525
Sullivan, Mrs., her illness, 142;
her death, 150
Sullivan, Rev. Frederick, 392
Sully, 13, 80, 85, 92;
the queen's picture, 139
Sumner, Charles, 423, 428, 430
Sussex, Duke of, 338
Sutherland, Duchess of, 159;
concert at her house, 241; 335, 342, 346
Swinton, Mr., 657, 666
TAGLIONI, Maria, 193, 211
Taglioni, Marie, _niece of above_, 642
Talfourd, Judge, 35, 443
Talma, 349
Tankerville, Lady, 60
Taunton, Lord, 501
Taylor, Colonel, 468, 582
Taylor, Jeremy, 21
Taylor, Mrs., 10
Taylor, Mrs. Tom, 646
Thackeray, Annie, 626
Thackeray, Mary Anne, 227, 240, 259, 267, 563
Thackeray. William M., 159, 624;
his first lecture, 625;
the daughter next the father, 626;
his works, 627;
a comical story, 665
Thalberg, 209, 262;
patronized by Madame de Metternich, 264;
compared with Liszt, 265
Titchfield, Lord, 367, 368, 381
Tocqueville, De. _See_ De Tocqueville.
Toryism, 48
Townsend, C. H., 228
Trelawney, 4, 86, 209, 227
Truro, Lord Chancellor, 344
Twiss, Amelia, 438
Twiss, Horace, 45, 366
UNGHER, Madame, 293
United States Bank, 270, 289, 299
VALLETORT, Lady, 54
Van Buren, 186;
his reëlection, 198
Viardot, Madame, 209
Victoria, Queen, 52;
her first appearance before Parliament, 54;
her coronation, 98; 296, 297, 301;
presentation to, 319, 324, 327, 341
Viry, Count Charles de, 521
Viry, Emily de, 513, 521, 526, 527, 529
WAELCKER, 182, 219
Wagner, 264
Wallack, James, 489
Warren, Mr., 563
Weber, 264
Webster, 392, 621
Wellington, Duke of, 295, 297, 299, 301, 549
Westmacott, 273, 281, 360
Westmoreland, Lady, 297, 301
Whately, Archbishop, his book, 276;
278, 431
Whewell, Dr., 329
Whewell, Mrs., 329
William, King, 52
Willoughby, Lady, 303
Willoughby, Lord, 339
Wilmington, 120
Wilson, Dr., 206, 459
Wilson, Dorothy, 22;
letter to, 25; 30, 38;
her illness, 180, 189;
improved health, 197; 200;
letters to, 429, 432; 523;
letters to, 580, 605
Wilson, Fanny, 600, 602
Wilson, Horace, 301;
declines to act, 329;
opinion of "The Stranger," 346; 349, 356, 410, 455, 591, 605
Wilton, Lord, 487
Winchelsea, Countess of, 339
Winchelsea, Lady, 303
Winchelsea, Lord, 303
Woman's Rights, 17
Woman's Suffrage, 183
Women, their health, 23;
their education, 25
Wordsworth, 66
YORKE, Captain, 622
Young, Charles, 227, 243, 381, 636
_In UNIFORM STYLE._
RECORDS OF A GIRLHOOD.
RECORDS OF LATER LIFE.
-->_Slips for Librarians to paste on Catalogue Cards._
N. B.--Take out carefully, leaving about quarter of an inch at the
back. To do otherwise would, in some cases, release other leaves.
KEMBLE, FRANCES ANN. RECORDS OF LATER LIFE. By FRANCES ANN KEMBLE.
New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1882. Large 12mo, pp. 676.
RECORDS OF LATER LIFE. By FRANCES ANN KEMBLE. New York: Henry Holt &
Co., 1882, Large 12mo, pp. 676.
AUTOBIOGRAPHY. RECORDS OF LATER LIFE. By FRANCES ANN KEMBLE. New
York: Henry Holt & Co., 1882. Large 12mo, pp. 676.
{Transcriber's note:
The following typographical errors have been corrected:
no lady in Philadelphia who then had such an attendant
(changed from atttendant)
and carefully tended suburban district
(changed from surburban)
Lord and Lady Lansdowne
(changed from Landsdowne)
equipments of the northern villages
(changed from equpiments)
At the mouth of the Altamaha
(changed from the the mouth)
dark-leaved, wide-spreading oaks
(changed from wide-speading)
moulder away for want of use
(changed from waut)
the neighborhood of Burnham Beeches
(changed from Burnam)
how long do you think it took Nebuchadnezzar
(changed from thing)
I know your sister is vastly clever
(changed from vasly)
my determination to defeat his endeavor
(changed from endeaver)
the recollection of the last happy days I spent here
(changed from recollectien)
his marvellous facility and strength
(changed from facilty)
what the French call _saissant_
(changed from saisssant)
saluting the approach of some greatness or other
(changed from appoach)
letters will occasionally come _to_ heaven
(changed from occasionly)
that vague love of excitement
(changed from excitemen)
working heart's ease into Emily's canvas
(changed from heart'seas)
abused by the Opposition, but that is of course
(changed from couse)
about six hours
(changed from abour)
and of course he persevered
(changed from coure)
is a frequent speculation with me
(changed from ma)
men are capable of recognizing
(changed from ment)
To-morrow, at three o'clock
(changed from To morrow)
I think I have really done my duty
(changed from thing)
all their time to mere amusement
(changed from amusememt)
deprecate our meeting to part again
(changed from out)
I take it there is nothing
(changed from their)
kept her in a state of extreme expectation
(changed from expectatation)
the requisite number of quarterings
(changed from requsite)
I really believe he intended to do, and thought he did.]
(closing square bracket added)
The following were changed in the index for consistency with the main text:
Buccleuch, Duchess of
(changed from Buccleugh)
Crow, Mrs., her book
(changed from Crowe)
her opinion of d'Orsay
(changed from D'Orsay)
deathbed utterances
(changed from death-bed)
"Nature hath framed strange fellows in her time,"
(changed from Natur-hath)
Liéven, Madame de
(changed from Lièven)
Mussy, Dr. Gueneau de
(changed from Musseau)
Normanby, Lord
(changed from Normanbury)
Whately, Archbishop, his book
(changed from Whateley)
No changes have been made to the following:
if you allude to the mechanical process of caligraphy
(possible error for calligraphy)
Lamartine's "Pélérinage"
(possible error for Pèlerinage)
a gipsy complexion doesn't signify
(possible error for gypsy)
a sort of ecstacy of imbecility
(possible error for ecstasy)
Je suis méchante, ma chére
(possible error for chère)
et voila!
(possible error for voilà)
Malbrook s'en vat' en guerre
(possible error for va t'en or va-t-en)
de corps et a'âne
(possible error for d'âme)
the attack itself is not matter of doubt
(possible error for not a)
Balzac's "Récherche de l'Absolu,"
(possible error for Recherche)
Rome, Trinita dei Monti.
(possible error for Trinità)
as the French say, _à peds joints_
(possible error for pieds)
stay some days with her at Soltram
(possible error for Saltram)
(or rather _vice versa_)
(possible error for versâ)
_à la Voltaire_
(possible error for là)
"mi sois-cerelbero."
(possible error for mi sviscererebbe)
she gave the blank verse so _naturally_
(possible error for blank-verse)
}
*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Records of Later Life" ***
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