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diff --git a/30612.txt b/30612.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7bfc247 --- /dev/null +++ b/30612.txt @@ -0,0 +1,30235 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Records of Later Life, by Frances Ann Kemble + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Records of Later Life + +Author: Frances Ann Kemble + +Release Date: December 6, 2009 [EBook #30612] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RECORDS OF LATER LIFE *** + + + + +Produced by Suzanne Shell, Louise Pryor and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + +{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 L25 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 +"Pelerinage" 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 attache 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 "_deliceusement 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 L30,000 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 _entree_ 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 mechante, ma chere_, as Madame de Sevigne 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 Zooelogical 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 Stael, 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, chi 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 deg. +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 deg. 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 pharmacopaeia, 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, Caesars, 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'hote_ 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'hote_ 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 _pate 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 la on mangerait son pere_, and perhaps without the +family indigestion that lasted the Atridae 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 Pre Sale +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 beaute 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 Encyclopaedia, 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 Spluegen. +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 Encyclopaedia, 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 Waeleker, the + Nestor of German professors, the most learned of German + philologists, historians, archaeologists, 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 _a 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'egoisme a 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 L65, 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 _Athenaeum_, 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, + bonte 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 Glueck'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 Glueck'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 Halevy, 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'etat_, 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 Sevigne says of herself, _mechante 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'agacait 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 + _seance_, 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 + _seance_ 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'esprit sont betes_. + + 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 _debut_. 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, tres 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, _a 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'ane_, 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. + + LIEGE, Thursday, August 26th, 1841. + MY DEAREST HARRIET, + +We have just returned from a lionizing drive about Liege, 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 "Eugenie 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 Liege, 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 Liege. 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 abbe 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 la-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 Halle 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 +_proprete_, 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 Liege 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 _tete-a-tete_ 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 Maitres +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 mediaeval 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 _fete_ 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 _fete_ 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 Maitres 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 Maitres + 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 _bona_ (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 + _moire_ 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 L100 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 +fraeulein'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 fraeulein thought, away. Whereupon the fraeulein 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 fraeulein 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 fraeulein 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 "Memoires 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 _Levee_, 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 _fete_ 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 +L700, but I am sure they gave me L7000 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 Devy 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 +"tres embarrassee 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 L1000. + +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 +Dejazet 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 +Dejazet'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_ L200 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 _tete-a-tete_ 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 Devy'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 Devy's is L97, 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 L97. 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 personae_. + +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 + _tete-a-tete_, 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 _fete_. 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 Dejazet, 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 + Dejazet'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 _conge_. + + 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 L97 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 L97, 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 Stael, 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 +soufflee_ (not to say _souffletee_). + +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 +brulante_, 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 Freyschuetz," 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 L50 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 Antaeus, 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 L50, 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 deg., that being the heat of +the earth; and when it was hung up in the shade the mercury fell, but +remained at 119 deg.. 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 deg., 30 deg. 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 deg. in the shade, a plunge into water below 50 deg. 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 Attaches 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 _societe 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 _societe 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 "Pere 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 AEschylus 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 +voila!_ + +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 _tete-a-tete_ 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 L10, +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 _tete-a-tete_ 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 +L2000, and to Lord John Russell L1500 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 "Recherche de +l'Absolu," your objecting to the character of Madame de Claees, 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 vertebrae 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 _tete-a-tete_ 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 verite n'est +pas bonne a 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 +_coupe_ of the diligence which is put bodily--the diligence, I +mean--upon the rails; thence to Orleans by post-road, ditto; thence to +Chalons-sur-Saone, ditto, down the Saone 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 + Chateau 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 + Chateau 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 _coupe_ 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., Trinita 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, TRINITA 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 Trinita 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 _rentre_--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 (_a quelque chose--a 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. Labouchere [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 L8 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 L8 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._ + L8 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 +L14; 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 L68. 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 versa_. + +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 _Athenaeum_, 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, _a 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, _a 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 verite n'est pas bonne a +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 Fenelon 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 vitae_ 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 +epinards," 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 Halle, 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 Halle, coming in just at this moment, was thrown + into fits of laughter at the transaction, and my astonishment at it. + + Halle 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 pose pour un instant + Sur des rameaux trop freles, + 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, Merimee, 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 ou va toute chose, + Sans me plaindre, ou m'inquieter + Ou 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 _viva 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 Dejazet, 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 Dejazet, 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 Dejazet 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--(_nee_--_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 _creme de la creme_ 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 +archaeological 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 voila 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 _interieur_? 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 charite, on n'est bientot plus dans celles +de la verite"? It sounds like Fenelon, 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 _a la Voltaire_, "Ma foi, je n'en vois pas la necessite." + +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 genie!"--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 Caesar, 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 +niece 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'Orleans 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 Clementine 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 Lieven, 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 L2 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 L60 a month; the curate who preached +to us on Sunday and does duty in two parishes has L60 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'etre_ 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 + + Clementine, 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 + + Dejazet, 329, 342, 598, 599 + + De Quincey, 415 + + Dessauer, 209; + _Elle m'a compris!_ 212, 265, 326 + + De Tocqueville, 209 + + Devy, 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 + + Fenelon, 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 _seance_ 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 + + Glueck, 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 _seance_, 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 + + + HALEVY, 217 + + Hall, Miss, 369, 374, 391 + + Hallam, 65, 381 + + Halle, 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 _seance_, 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 + + Labouchere, 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 + + Liege, 253 + + Lieven, 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 + + Merimee, 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 + + Sevigne, 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 + + Stael, 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 reelection, 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) + + Lieven, Madame de + (changed from Lieven) + + 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 "Pelerinage" + (possible error for Pelerinage) + + a gipsy complexion doesn't signify + (possible error for gypsy) + + a sort of ecstacy of imbecility + (possible error for ecstasy) + + Je suis mechante, ma chere + (possible error for chere) + + et voila! + (possible error for voila) + + Malbrook s'en vat' en guerre + (possible error for va t'en or va-t-en) + + de corps et a'ane + (possible error for d'ame) + + the attack itself is not matter of doubt + (possible error for not a) + + Balzac's "Recherche de l'Absolu," + (possible error for Recherche) + + Rome, Trinita dei Monti. + (possible error for Trinita) + + as the French say, _a peds joints_ + (possible error for pieds) + + stay some days with her at Soltram + (possible error for Saltram) + + (or rather _vice versa_) + (possible error for versa) + + _a la Voltaire_ + (possible error for la) + + "mi sois-cerelbero." + (possible error for mi sviscererebbe) + + she gave the blank verse so _naturally_ + (possible error for blank-verse) +} + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Records of Later Life, by Frances Ann Kemble + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RECORDS OF LATER LIFE *** + +***** This file should be named 30612.txt or 30612.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/0/6/1/30612/ + +Produced by Suzanne Shell, Louise Pryor and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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