[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.]
[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.
DEATH OF DR. CHANNING.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 withwhich 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 utterlydemented, 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; theyallhad 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 poetryand 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 isinestimable, and should be gratefully rendered thanks for. There is something charming andpatheticin theprofusionwith 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.
COVENT GARDEN.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 thatnoresponsibility 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.]
[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 probabilityof 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 toactwith 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 andfunof acting with her. Don't you think we should have good houses? and wouldn'tyoucome and see us?...
God bless you, dear Granny.
Ever your affectionate
F. A. B.
The Clarendon, December 1st, 1842.
My dearest Harriet,
LORD TITCHFIELD.Lord Titchfield, who was here yesterday, begged me to ascertain from you whether it is onlymybust 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 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 togiveyou my bust; any other species of transaction being apparently quite out of his line, andgivinghis especial gift. I have, nevertheless, taken pains to make clear to him your intentions in the matter; I have desired him to have the bust forwarded to the care of Mr. Green, because I thought you would easily find means of transporting it thence to Ardgillan. Was this right?
The houses at Covent Garden are quite full on my sister's nights, but deplorably empty on the others, I believe. I speak from hearsay, for I have not been into the theatre since the terrible business of the late break-up there, and do not think I shall even see her last performances, for I have no means of doing so; I can no longer ask for private boxes, as during my father's management, of course, nor indeed would it be right for me to do so on her nights, because they all let very well; and as for paying for one, or even for a seat in the public ones, I have not a single farthing in the world to apply to such a purpose.... So you see, my dear, I am in no case to treat myself to seats at the play, either private or public.
Adelaide is still pretty well. The night before last was her benefit; she had a very fine house, and sang "Norma," and the great scene from "Der Freyschütz," and "Auld Robin Gray;" and yesterday evening she seemed very tired, but she had people to dinner and to tea nevertheless....
Certainly one had need believe in something better than one sees, or at any rate than I see just now; for such petty selfishnesses and despicable aims, pursued with all the energy and eagerness which should be bestowed upon the highest alone; such cheating, tricking, swindling, lying, and slandering, are enough to turn any Christian cat's stomach....
I must tell you two things about Miss Hall that have given me such an insight into the delights of the position of an English governess as I certainly never had before. When first she joined us here at the Clarendon, Anne was still with us, and she being always accustomed to take her meals with the children, and yet of course not a proper companion for Miss Hall, we thought that till the nurse went to America we would request the governess to dine with us. On Anne's departure, I signified to the head waiter that from that time Miss Hall would take her dinner with the children; whereupon, with a smirk and sniff of the most insolent disdain, and an air of dignity that had been hurt, but was now comforted, the bloated superior servant replied, "Well, ma'am, to be sure, it always was so inthem famullieswhere 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 putstallowfor 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.
CHARLES KEMBLE.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.]
[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 andhuman nature. A most notoriously atrocious, dissolute,hellishslave-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....
THE WORLD'S OPINION.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 beingthe 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 ahomein America is not what I am to return to.... The transfer of that New Orleans stock by my father to me—I mean the law papers necessary for the purpose—cost £50 sterling. England is a dear country many ways.
Ellsler is in London now, and, I am assured by those who know,divinerthan 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 withme, 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 (aliasPoodle). 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, regularbeasterlywind. (Mrs. Grote sayssheinvented 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.
RECEPTION.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" byGunter—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 onSaturday, 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 inprofuse ringletsall 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 ofsenselessnessinto 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 Idomake some way, and the daysdogo 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 heardher. 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 bequietandreadyto do anything youmay be asked to do. This is the only real way to help people who have any notion of helping themselves.
MENDELSSOHN.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 owndo'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, andwe 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 meconclusive; but as I am a person who would like extremely to have it demonstratedwhytwo 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 femalesect. 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.]
[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 sisterat presentto Pasta.
ADELAIDE KEMBLE.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 instretchingit 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;butthere 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 expressionof "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 asnewsorrows 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, Ifeel 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 affectionatelyYour grandchild,
Fanny.
Upper Grosvenor Street, May 3rd, 1843.
"IMPORTANT HUMAN BEINGS."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 cameaway 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 mostunmitigatedpraise 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 theClarendon. 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.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 tomy 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 veryrobustiousgrandchild.
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,aboutsix hours; and in thirty-six more, wind and weather favoring us across the Bay of Fundy, we shall be in Boston. In fifteen days! Think of it, my dearest Granny! when thirty used to be considered a rapid and prosperous voyage.
My dear friend, how shall I thank you for those warm words of cheering and affectionate encouragement which I received when I was lying worn out for want of sleep and food, after we had been eight days on this dreadful deep? My kind friend, I do not want courage, I assure you; and God will doubtless give me sufficient strength for my need: but you can hardly imagine how deplorably sad I feel; how poor, who lately was so rich; how lonely, who lately was surrounded by so many friends. I know all that remains to me, and how the treasure of love I have left behind will be kept, I believe, in many kind hearts for me till I return to claim it. But the fact is I am quite exhausted, body and mind, and incapable of writing, or even thinking, with half the energy I hope to gather from the first inch of dry land I step upon. Like Antæus, I look for strength from my mother, the Earth, and doubt not to be brave again when once I am on shore.
The moment I saw the dear little blue enamel heart I exclaimed, "Oh, it is Lady Dacre's hair in it!" But tears, and tears, and nothing but tears, were the only greeting I could give the pretty locket and your and dear B——'s letters.
My poor chicks have borne the passage well, upon the whole—sick and sorry one hour, and flying about the deck like birds the next....
Our passage has been made in the teeth of the wind, and against a heavy sea the whole way. We have had no absolute storm; but the tender mercies of the Atlantic, at best, are terrible. Of our company I can tell nothing, having never left my bed till within the last three days. They seem to be chiefly English officers and their families,bound for New Brunswick and the Canadas. The ship stops, and to the perpetual flailing of the paddles succeeds the hissing sound of the escaping steam. We are at Halifax. I send you this earliest news of us because you will be glad, I am sure, to get it.
Give my love to my dear lord; my blessing and a kiss to dear B——. I will write to her from New York, if possible. God bless you, my dear friend, and reward you for all your kindness to me, and comfort and make peaceful the remainder of your earthly pilgrimage. I can hardly hold my pen in my hand, or my head up; but am ever your grateful and affectionate
Fanny.
Philadelphia, Tuesday, May 23rd, 1843.
My dearest Hal,
We landed in Boston on Friday morning at six o'clock, and almost before I had drawn my first breath of Yankee air Elizabeth Sedgwick and Kate had thrown their arms round me.
MR. CUNARD.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 theHibernia, which was to touch there the next morning on her wayhome, 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 forour 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——pervadingthe 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 withmoredetestable places of the same sort it is probablylessso. "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 observethat the charge of 13s.8d.is for personal advice, conferences, and tiresome morning visits; and if you make any such charge, I shall expect you to earn it. 6s.4d.is all you are entitled to for anything but personal communication.