"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."
"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 theapproachof 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 citywalls. 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.
BENDERMANN'SPICTURE.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 marriedand be done with it," I think it is a charming thing to have been up the Rhine and be back again.
I forget whether I wrote you word of my father's joining us for a single day at Frankfort, and then returning immediately to England.... He was not at all well, and the hurried journey was, I fear, a most imprudent one. My sister is at present at Liège with Henry, Liszt, and our friend Chorley....
Good-bye, my dearest H——.
I am ever yours,
Fanny.
[My friend Miss S—— came to us in London, and witnessed with me my sister's coming out at Covent Garden, which took place on Tuesday, the 2nd of November, 1842, in Bellini's opera of "Norma," which she sang in English, retaining the whole of the recitative. My sister's success was triumphant, and the fortunes of the unfortunate theatre, which again were at the lowest ebb, revived under the influence of her great and immediate popularity, and the overflowing houses that, night after night, crowded to hear her. Her performances, which I seldom missed, were among my most delightful pleasures, during a season in which I enjoyed the companionship of my dear friend, and a great deal of pleasant social intercourse with the most interesting and agreeable people of the great gay London world.]
[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.'sExpressis 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....
VISITORS AT BOWOOD.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 andintellectual 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 choicebeaux espritsare 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 pursuecrossingany 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, aswell 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....
HOME BY LAND.You ask if Lady Holland is at Bowood. No, she had returned homeby 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 thencomparatively 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....
THE NURSE, ANNE.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 goodand 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 andluxurious 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,
THOMAS MOORE.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 ofit 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."
"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 theyare, and my cogitations are chiefly as to things as theyshould 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 ratherwhether 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.
EXERCISE OF AGONY.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 dinedtête-à-têteto-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 Iplay fairwith my letters? Are you not sure that I do? and, whatever may be the case with my better qualities, are not my follies substantial, reliable, consistent, constant follies, that are pretty sure to be found where you left them?
Good-bye, my dearest Harriet. I am terribly out of spirits, but it is near bed-time, and the day will soon be done....
God bless you, dear. Give my kindest love to Dorothy. I am thinking of your return with earnest longing.... As we passed the evening at the Hen and Chickens, in the same room where I began reading you "Les Maîtres Mosaistes," on our return through Birmingham from the lately formed association, your image was naturally very vivid in our memories.
I am ever yours,
Fanny.
Harley Street, December 28th, 1841.
Dearest Granny,
[This was an affectionate nickname that my friend Lady Dacre assumed towards me, and by which I frequently addressed her], I do not mean this time to tax your forgiveness of injuries quite so severely as before, though you really have such a pretty knack of generosity that it's a pity not to give you an opportunity of exercising it.
Here we are again in our Harley Street abode, which, by favor of the fogs, smokes, and various lovely December complexions of London, looks but grimly after the evergreen shrubberies and bowers of Bowood, which I saw the evening before I came away to peculiar advantage,under the light of an unclouded moon. I left there the goodliest company conceivable: Rogers, Moore, Macaulay, Charles Austen, Mr. Dundas, Charles Greville, and Westmacott: so much for the mankind. Then there was dear old Miss Fox [Lord Holland's sister], whom I love, and Lady Harriet Baring [afterwards Lady Ashburton], whom I do not love, which does not prevent her being a very clever woman; and that exceedingly pretty and intelligent Baroness Louis Rothschild, et cetera. It was a brilliant party, but they were all so preternaturally witty and wise that, to tell you the truth, dear Granny, they occasionally gave me the mind-ache.
MACAULAY.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 andsociety 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 beenhisexhaustion.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.]
[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 andsociety 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 beenhisexhaustion.
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 actuallydo upthe 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 lastweek, 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-writingthere. 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 willoccasionallycometoheaven, 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....
COUTTS AND LORD STRANGFORD.The Coutts and Lord Strangford business (a dirty piece of money-scandal) is nice enough, but I heard a stillnicersequel to it at Bowood the other day. The gentlemen ofthe 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 isnotmatter 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 myruleof letter-writing, absurd as some of its manifestations undoubtedly are, it is not, I think, absurdper se; and I adopted it as more likely to result in justice toallmy 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 answeringletter 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 anarrearagetook 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.
RAILWAY ACCIDENT.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 ofexcitementwhich 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 itpleasantenough to wish to keep it for a single instant, without the idea of thedutyof 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 anothermightsucceed, 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 sogoodthat they justified their ownexistence, 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 prayfor, rather thanagainst, 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.