Lady Morley's great vivacity of manner and very peculiar voice added not a little to the drollery of her sallies.
A very conceited, effeminate, and absurd man coming into a room where she was one evening, and beginning to comb his hair, she exclaimed, "La! what's that! Look there! There's a mermaid!"
Frederick Byng told me that he was escorting her oncein a crowded public assembly, when she sat down on a chair from which another woman had just risen and walked away. "Do you know whose place you have just taken?" asked he. Something significant in his voice and manner arrested her attention, when, looking at him for an instant with wide-open eyes, she suddenly jumped up, exclaiming, "Bless my heart, don't tell me so!Predecessor!" Lord Morley, before marrying her, had been divorced from his first wife, who had just vacated the seat taken by his second, at the assembly to which they had both gone.
On the occasion of my acting at Plymouth, Lady Morley pressed me very kindly to go and stay some days with her atSoltram, her place near there: this I was unable to do, but drove over to see her, when, putting on a white apron, to "sustain," as she said, "the character," she took me, housekeeper fashion, through the rooms; stopping before her own charming watercolor drawings, with such comments as, "Landscape,—capital performance, by Frances Countess of Morley;" "Street in a foreign town, by Frances Countess of Morley,—a piece highly esteemed byconnyshures;" "Outside of a church, by Frances Countess of Morley,—supposed by good judges to be hershiff duver," etc....
I have just had a visit from that pretty Miss Mordaunt who acted with me at the St. James's Theatre, and who tells me that her sister, Mrs. Nisbett, was cheated at the Liverpool theatre precisely as I was; but she has a brother who is a lawyer, who does not mean to let the matter rest without some attempt to recover his sister's earnings....
AN UNFORTUNATE.I went this morning to inquire at the St. George's Workhouse for the unfortunate girl I took out of the hands of the police in the park the other day (her offence was being found asleep at early morning, and suspected of having passed the night there), and found, to my great distress and disappointment, that she was in the very act of starting for Bristol.
I had, as I told you, interested dear Mr. Harness, and Mr. Brackenbury, the chaplain of the Magdalen, about her, and when I went out of town she seemed fully determined to go into that asylum. The chaplain of the workhouse in Mount Street, however, has dissuaded her from doing so, told her she would come out worse than she went in; in short, they have despatched her to Bristol,to the care and guardianship of a poor young sister, only a year older than herself, who earns a scanty support by sewing; and all that remained for me to do was to pay her expenses down, and send her sister something to help her through the first difficulties of her return. I am greatly troubled about this. They say the poor unfortunate child is in the family-way, and therefore could not be received at the Magdalen Asylum; but it seems to me that there has been some prejudice, or clerical punctilio, or folly, or stupidity at work, that has induced the workhouse officials thus to alter the poor girl's determination, and send her back whence she came, no doubt to go through a similar experience as soon as possible again. God help her, and us all! What a world it is!...
The clergyman of the workhouse called upon me to explain why he had so advised the girl, but I did not think his reasons very satisfactory....
God bless you.
Ever yours,
Fanny.
Orchard Street.
The houses at Plymouth and Exeter were wretched.... These gains, my dearest Hal, will not allow of my laying up much, but they will prevent my being in debt, that horror of yours and mine. I paid my expenses, besides bringing home something, and a considerable increase of health and strength—which is something more....
I remain in town till the end of next week, then go to Norwich, Ipswich, and Cambridge, my midland circuit, as I call it; after which I shall return to London. Towards the middle of August I go to York, Leeds, Sheffield, and Newcastle, thence to visit Mrs. Mitchell at Carolside; after which I shall take my Glasgow and Edinburgh engagements, and then come back to London. There is a rumor of Macready being about to take Drury Lane for the winter, but I have no idea whether it is true or not.
I am sure I don't know what is to become of my poor dog Hero [a fine Irish retriever given me by my friend]. I am almost afraid that Mrs. Humphreys will not take him into her nice lodging. If I can't keep him with me till I go away to America, I should beg you in the interim to receive him, for my sake, at Ardgillan.
You cannot think with what a sense of relief at layinghold of somethingthat could not lieI threw my arms round his neck the other day, after —— had left me. This is melancholy, is it not? but I believe many poor human creatures whose hearts have been lacerated by their (un)kind have loved brutes for their freedom from the complicated and reflected falsehood of which the nobler nature is, alas! capable and guilty.
Tell me if it will be inconvenient to you to take charge of Hero when I go away. In a place where he had a wider range than this narrow little dwelling of mine, and where his defects were not incessantly ministered to by the adulation of an idiotical old maid besotted with the necessity of adoring and devoting herself to something, he would be very endurable....
A BROKEN FINGER.[I injured one of my hands in getting out of a pony-carriage at Hawick.] Touching my broken finger, my dear, I am sure I did take off the splints too soon, and the recovery has been protracted in consequence; but as I knew it would recover anyhow, and that the splints were inconvenient in acting, and, moreover, expensive, as they compelled me to cut off the little finger of all my white gloves, I preferred dispensing with them. The pain, inflammation, and stiffness are almost gone, and nothing remains but the thickening of the lower part of the finger, which makes it look crooked, and I think may continue after the injury is healed. I did not, I believe, break the bone at all, but tore away the ligament on one side, that keeps the upper joint in its socket. The cold water pumping is a capital thing, and I give it a douche every time I take my bath. It might, perhaps, be a little better for bandaging, but will get well without it.... A healthy body, with common attention to common-sense, will recover, undoctored, from a great many evils. In almost all cases of slight fractures, cuts, bruises, etc., if the patient is temperate and healthy, and has no constitutional tendency to fever or inflammation, the evil can be remedied by cold water bandages and rest.
Give my dear love to my dear Dorothy and your dear Dorothy. I shall be happy with you both, for she is quite too good to be jealous of.
God bless you, dear.
I am ever yours,
Fanny.
Orchard Street, Sunday, 4th.
My dearest Hal,
First of all let me tell you, what I am sure you will be glad to learn, that E—— S—— is in England. You will imagine how glad I was to see him. I am very fond of him, have great reliance on his mind as well as his heart; and then he seems like something kind and dependable belonging to me—the only thing of the kind that I possess, for my sister is a woman, and you know I am heartily of opinion that we are the weaker sex, and that an efficient male protector is a tower of strength.
In seeing E——, too, I saw, as it were, alive again the happy past. He seemed part of my sister and her children, and the blessed time I spent with them in Rome, and it was a comfort to me to look at him....
Charles Greville had been out of town, and found the letter announcing E——'s advent, and came up, very good-naturedly, dinnerless, to bring me word of the good news. The next day, however, he was as cross as possible (a way both he and his brother Henry have, in common with other spoiled children) because I expressed some dismay when he said E——'s obtaining a seat in Parliament was quite an uncertainty (I think Mr. S—— contemplated standing for Kidderminster). Now, from all he had said, and the letter he had written about it, I should have supposed E——'s return to have been inevitable; but this is the sort of thing people perpetually do who endeavor to persuade others that what they themselves wish is likely to happen. E—— seems quite aware himself that the thing is a great chance, but says that even if he does not get a seat in Parliament, he shall not regret having come, as he wanted change of air, is much the better for the journey, and has had the satisfaction of seeing his sister in Paris. Nevertheless, if this effort to settle himself to his mind in England proves abortive, I do not think the Grevilles will get him back in a hurry again....
I am surprised by the term "worthless fellow" which A—— applies to ----. I think him selfish and calculating, but I am getting so accustomed to find everybody so that it seems to me superfluous fastidiousness to be deterred from dealings with any one on that account....
I do not write vaguely to my sister about my arrangements; but you know I have no certain plans, and it is difficult to write with precision about what is not precise.
I am not going to Norwich just yet; the theatre is at present engaged by the Keeleys, and the manager's arrangements with them and Mademoiselle Celeste are such that he cannot receive me until August. I may possibly act a night or two at Newcastle in Staffordshire, and at Rochdale, but this would not take me away for more than a week.
SUNSHINE AND SHADOW.In answer to your question of what "coarsenesses" L—— finds in my book ["A Year of Consolation"], I will give you an extract from her letter. "There are a few expressions I should like to have stricken out of it;par exemple, I hate the wordstink, though I confess there is no other to answer its full import; and there are one or two passages the careless manner of writing which astonished me in you. You must have caught it from what you say is my way of talking." Now, Hal, I can only tell you that more than once I thought myself actually to blame for not giving with more detail the disgusting elements which in Rome mingle everywhere with what is sublime and exquisite; for it appeared to me that to describe and dilate upon one half of the truth only was to be an unfaithful painter, and destroy the merit, with the accuracy, of the picture. I remember, particularly, standing one morning absorbed in this very train of reflection, in the Piazza del Popolo, when on attempting to approach the fine fountains below the Pincio I found it impossible to get near them for the abominations by which they were surrounded, and thought how unfaithful to the truth it would be to speak of the grace and beauty of this place, and not of this detestable desecration of it. The place and the people can only be perfectly described through the whole, as you know. Farewell.
Ever yours,
Fanny.
Railway Station, Hull, Friday, 4th.
I have been spending the afternoon crying over the tender mercies of English Christians to their pauper population, till my eyes smart, and itch, and ache, and I shall have neither sight nor voice to read "Coriolanus," which I must do this evening. To this Hull Railway Hotel is attached a magnificent Railway Station (or ratherviceversa), shaped like a horseshoe, with a spacious broad pavement, roofed with a skylight all round, making anoble ambulatory, of which I have availed myself every day since I have been here for my walking exercise....
I was just starting for my walk to-day, when in came old Mr. Frost, my Hull employer, President of the Literary and Scientific Institution, before which I am giving my present readings, the principal lawyer, and, I believe, Mayor of Hull,—a most charming, accomplished, courteous old gentleman of seventy years and upwards, who, finding that I was about to walk, proposed to accompany me, and we descended to the Station.
As we paced up and down, I remarked, lying in a corner, what I took at first for a bundle of rags. On looking again, however, I perceived there was a live creature in the rags—a boy, whose attitude of suffering and weariness, as he crouched upon the pavement, was the most wretched thing you can imagine. I knelt down by him, and asked him what ailed him: he hardly lifted his face from his hands, and said, "Headache;" and then, coughing horribly, buried his miserable face again. Mr. Frost, seeing I still knelt by him, began to ask him questions; and then followed one of those piteous stories which make one smart all over while one listens to them; parental desertion, mother marrying a second time, cruelty from the step-father, beating, starving, and final abandonment. He did not know what had become of them; they had gone away to avoid paying their rent, and left this boy to shift for himself. "How long ago is that?" said Mr. Frost. "Before snow," said the lad,—the snow has been gone a fortnight and more from this neighborhood, and for all that time the child, by his own account, has wandered up and down, living by begging, and sleeping in barns and stables and passages. The interrogatory was a prolonged one: my friend Mr. Frost is slow by age, and cautious by profession, and a man by nature, and so not irresistibly prompted to seize up such an unfortunate at once in his arms and adopt it for his own. In the course of his answers the boy, among other things, said, "I wouldn't mind only for little brother." "How old is he?" "Going on two year." "Where is he?" "Mother got him." "Oh, well, then, you needn't fret about him; she'll take care of him." "No, she won't; he won't be having nothing to eat, I know he won't." And the boy covered his face again in a sullen despair that was pitiful to see. Now, you know, Hal, this boy was not begging; he did not come to us witha pathetic appeal about his starving little brother: he was lying starving himself, and stupefied, with his head covered over, buried in his rags when I spoke to him; and this touching reminiscence of his poor little step-brother came out in the course of Mr. Frost's interrogatory accidentally, and made my very heart ache. The boy had been in the workhouse for two years, with his mother, before she married this second husband; and, saying that he had been sent to school, and kindly treated, and well fed in the workhouse, I asked him if he would go back thither, and he said yes. So, rather to Mr. Frost's amazement I think, I got a cab, and put the child in, and with my kind old gentleman—who, in spite of evident repugnance to such close quarters with the poor tatterdemalion, would by no means leave me alone in the adventure—we carried the small forsaken soul to the workhouse, where we got him, with much difficulty,temporarilyreceived. The wife of the master of the poor-house knew the boy again, and corroborated much of what he had told us, adding that he was a good boy enough while he was there with his mother; but—would you believe it, Hal?—she also told us that this poor little creature had come to their gate the night before, begging admittance; but that, because he had not acertain written orderfrom a certain officer, the rules of the establishment prevented their receiving him, and he had been turned awayof course. I was in a succession of convulsions of rage and crying all this time, and so adjured and besought poor old Mr. Frost to take instant measures for helping the little outcast, that when we left him by the workhouse fire, the woman having gone to get him some food, and I returned blaspheming and blubbering to my inn, he—Mr. Frost—went off in search of a principal police-officer of Hull, from whom he hoped to obtain some further information about the child, which he presently brought back to me. "Oh yes, the magistrate knew the child; he hadsent him to prisonalready several times, for being found lying at night on the wharves and about the streets." So this poor little wretch wassent to prisonbecause literally he had not where to lay his head!... I wouldn't be a man for anything! They are so cruel, without even knowing that they are so: the habit of seeing sin and suffering is such aheart-hardener.
RELIEF AT HAND.Well, the boy is safe in the workhouse now, and is, according to his own wish and inclination, either to be sentto sea or put out apprentice to some trade. I have pledged one of my readings for purposes of outfit or entrance-fee, and Mr. Frost has promised me not to lose sight of the child, so I hope he is rescued from sin and suffering for the present, and perhaps for the future.
Do you remember what infinite difficulty I told you I had had in rescuing that poor little wretch out of the streets of Glasgow? But then she had the advantage of amother, who drove her into them day after day, to sing her starvation in the miserable mud and rain,—luckily this poor Hull boy's mother had not thisinterestin him.
I have come home, dear Hal, after my reading, and resume my letter to you, though I am very tired, and shall go to bed before I have finished it.
I do remember Robertson's sermon about Jacob wrestling with the angel, and I remember the passage you refer to. I remember feeling that I did not agree with it. The solemnity of night is very great; and the aspect of the star-sown heavens suggests the idea of God, by the overpowering wonder of those innumerable worlds by which one thenseesone's self surrounded,—which affect one's imagination in a reverse way from the daylight beauty of the earth, for that makes God seem as if He werehere, in this world, which then is all we see (except its great eye, the sun) of these multitudinous worlds He has created, and that are hanging in countless myriads round us. Night suggests the vastness of creation, as day can never do; and darkness, silence, the absence of human fellowship, and the suspension of human activity, interests, and occupations, leave us a less disturbed opportunity of meditating on our Creator's inconceivable power. The day and the day's beauty make me feel as if God were very near me; the night and the night's beauty, as if I were very far off from Him.
But, dear Harriet, do not, I entreat you, challenge me to put into words those thoughts which, in us all, must be unutterable. If I can speak of nothing that I feel deeply but with an indistinctness and inefficiency that make me feel sick as with a bodily effort of straining at what I cannot reach, how can I utter, or write, upon such a subject as this! Do not, I beg, ask me such questions, at least in writing; speaking to you, there might be times—seldom, indeed, but some—when I might stammer outpart of what I felt on such a subject; but Icannotwrite about it—it is impossible.
READING AT ETON.I have many things to tell you, for which I am too tired to-night, but I will tell you them to-morrow. God bless you. It has just occurred to me that I have a morning reading to-morrow, and some visits to pay first, and I must go to the workhouse and see that boy once more, and satisfy myself that whatever he is put to hereafter is his own choice; and so I shall have no time to write to you to-morrow, and therefore I will finish my letter to-night.... I had an application from Dr. Hawtrey, the Provost of Eton, through Mary Ann Thackeray, the other day, to give some readings to the Eton boys, which I have delightedly agreed to do—but of course refused to be paid for what will be such a great pleasure to me; whereupon Dr. Hawtrey writes that my "generosity to his boys takes his breath away." I thinkIought to pay for what will be so very charming as reading Shakespeare to those children....
I had a letter from Mrs. Jameson yesterday, from whom I have heard nothing since she left my house....
And now, dear Hal, I have told you all my news,—oh no, I haven't either:—I went last night, it being my holiday, to hear Mr. Warren, the author of "Ten Thousand a Year," and the Recorder of Hull, address the members of the Mechanics' Institute on the duties, privileges, difficulties, dignity, and consolations of labor. I was greatly delighted. I sat on the platform, opposite that large concourse of working men and women—laborers well acquainted by daily experience with the subject of the eloquent speaker's discourses,—and was deeply touched by the silent attention and intelligent interest with which, for two hours, they listened to his admirable address.
I have got it, and shall bring it down and read it to you. Good-bye. Do not fail to let me know what I can do for Dorothy. Good-night.
Ever as ever yours,
Fanny.
Hull, Thursday, December 2nd, 1847.
My chest and throat, my dear Hal, are well. I have still a slight cough, but nothing to signify....
I never acted in all Yorkshire before. I do not knowwhy, during my "first theatrical career," I did not, but so it was. My harvest now is not likely to be very great, for the prices at the theatres in Leeds and Hull are very low, the theatres not large, and so habitually deserted that an occasional attraction of a few nights hardly has time to rouse the people from their general indifference to these sorts of exhibitions. However, I am both living and saving, and am content.
We have in our last letters got upon those subjects which, upon principle and by choice, I avoid,—bottomless speculations, wherein the mind, attempting to gaze, falls from the very brink and is drowned, as it were, at the very surface of them.
Your theory ofpartial immortalityis abhorrent to me—I can use no other term. Pray conceive me rightly—'tis an abhorrence of the opinion, which does not include you for holding it; for though my whole being, moral and mental, revolts from certain notions, this is a mere necessity of my nature, as to contemplate such issues is the necessity of certain others, differently organized from mine.
I would rather disbelieve in the immortality of my own soul than suppose the boon given to me was withheld from any of my fellow-creatures. Besides, I did not, in the position I placed before you, suggest the efficacy ofany special kind of ideaof God, as connecting the holder of it with Him.
For aught I can tell, the noble conception of the Divinity, formed out of the extension of the noble qualities of his own soul by the noblest man, may be further from any adequate idea of God than the gross notion of a log-worshipper is from the spiritual conception of the most spiritually minded man (only rememberI don't believe this). But, inasmuch as it is something out of himself, beyond himself, to which the religious element of his nature aspires—that highest element in the human creature, since it combines the sense of reverence and the sense of duty, no matter how distorted or misapplied—itisan idea of a God, itisa manifestation of the germ of those capacities which, enlightened and cultivated, have made (be it with due respect spoken) the God of Fénelon and of Channing. I do not believe that any human creature, called by God into this life, is without some notion of a Divinity, no matter how mean, how unworthy, how seldom thought of, how habitually forgotten.
CONCEPTIONS OF GOD'S DEALINGS WITH US.Superstition, terror, hope, misery, joy—every one of these sentiments brings paroxysms in every man's life whensomeidea of God is seized upon, no matter of what value, no matter how soon relinquished, how evanescent. Eternity is long enough for the progress of those that we see lowest in our moral scale. You know I believe in the progress of the human race, as I do in its immortality; and the barbarous conception of the Divinity of the least advanced of that race confirms me in this faith as much as the purest Christianity of its foremost nations and individuals. Revelation, you say, alone gives any image of God to you; but which Revelation? When did God begin, or when has He ceased, to reveal Himself to man? And is it in the Christian Revelation that you find your doctrine of partial immortality and partial annihilation? I believe I told you once of my having read in America a pamphlet suggesting that sin eventuallyput out, destroyed, annihilated, and did away with, those souls of which it took possession; this is something like your present position, and I do not know when I received so painful an impression as from reading that pamphlet, or a profound distress that lasted so long, from a mere abstract proposition addressed to my imagination.
I believe all God's creatures have known Him, in such proportion as He andtheyhave chosen;i.e., to none hath He left Himself utterly without witness; to some that witness has been the perfect life and doctrine of Jesus Christ, the most complete revelation of God that the world has known.
All have known Him, by His great grace, in some mode and measure; and therefore I believe all are immortal: none have known Him as He is, and but few in any age of the world have known Him as they might; and an eternity of progress holds forth, to my mind, the only hope large enough to compensate for the difference of advantages here, and to atone for the inadequate use of those advantages.
Dearest Harriet, I hate not to make an effort to answer you, and you like, above all things, this species of questioning, speculating, and discussing. But there is something to me almost irreverent in thus catching up these everlasting themes, as it were, in the breathing-time between my theatrical rehearsals and performances. Youwill not mistake me. I know that the soul may be about its work (does not George Herbert say
"Who sweeps a room, as for Thy laws,Makes that and the action fine"?)
"Who sweeps a room, as for Thy laws,Makes that and the action fine"?)
even at such times, but a deep and difficult mental process should not be snapped at thus.
You know I never canthink, and to think on such subjects to any purpose would almost necessarily involve thinking on none others; and but for my desire to please you, and not put aside with apparent disregard your favorite mental exercises, I should be as much ashamed as I am annoyed by the crude utterance of crude notions upon such subjects to which you compel me.
You say our goodness and benevolence are not those of God: inquantity, surely not; but inquality? Are there two kinds of positive goodness? I read this morning the following passage in a book by an American, which has been lent to me by a young Oxford man whom I met, and fell much in love with, at Carolside—he is a great friend of Dr. Hampden's: "The greater, purer, loftier, more complete the character, so is the inspiration; for he that is true to conscience, faithful to reason, obedient to religion, has not only the strength of his own virtue, wisdom, and piety, but the whole strength of Omnipotence on his side; for goodness, truth, and love, as we conceive them, are not one thing in man and another in God, but the same thing in each." I agree with this, dear Hal, and not with you, upon this point.
These speculations are a severe effort to my mind, and, besides shrinking from the mere mental labor of considering them, I find it difficult, in the rapid and desultory manner in which I must needs answer letters, to place even the few ideas that occur to me upon them clearly and coherently before you.
Did I tell you that that impudent—— I've no more room, I'll tell you in my next. Give my love to Dorothy, and
Believe me ever yours,
Fanny.
Hull, Saturday, December 4th, 1847.
I did tolerably uncomfortably without Jeffreys [a man-servant who had left me], and that, you know, was verywell. I paid old Mrs. Dorr something extra for doing all the work in the rooms upstairs, had a fire made in the little man-servant's room in the hall, and, after twelve o'clock, established Hayes therein to attend to my visitors. My table was laid for dinner in the front drawing-room, and at dinner-time wheeled into the back drawing-room, where, you know, I always sit; and after my dinner wheeled out again, and the things all removed in the other room by Hayes. The work is really nothing at all, and it would have been most unnecessary to have hunted up a man-servant for a couple of weeks, for last and next week are the only two that I expect to pass in Orchard Street, before I remove to my King Street lodgings.
You speculate more, dear Hal, than I do, and among all things on that Covent Garden performance, that "Series of Scenes from various Plays of Shakespeare, to be given in his honor, and towards the purchase of his house at Stratford-on-Avon." I suppose it will be a very protracted exhibition, but my only reflection upon the subject was, that I was glad to perceive that my share of it came early in the course of events.
DOGMANITY.I had no idea of proposing Hero [my dog] as your sister's inmate, but supposed he would be harbored in the stables, the kennels, or some appropriate purlieu, be sufficiently well fed, and take his daily exercise in your society. This was my vision of Hero's existence under your auspices, and, as you may readily believe, I had no idea of quartering him on the reluctantdogmanityof anybody....
I have just had a charming letter from Charles Sedgwick; if I can remember, I will keep it to show it to you.
Order your boots, or anything else, to be sent to me, dear Hal, but you know I shall not be with you yet for a month, and possibly not then; for though nopleasantengagement (how nice it is of you to suggest that!) would interfere with my coming to St. Leonard's,unpleasantones might; any opportunity of making money certainly would, and such may occur to interfere with my present plans, which stand thus: I return to town to-morrow (there is but one evening train, so I must travel all night to rehearse on Monday morning for the "Shakespeare Memorial Night," on Tuesday); I shall remain in London a week, and on the following Monday go down to Bannisters for a fortnight, which will bring me within afew days of the expiration of my term in Orchard Street, and I shall return from Bannisters to move myself; on the following Monday, the 3d of January, I will, please God and you, come down to St. Leonard's....
I was so ill in spirit yesterday that I could not write to you. I am better to-day. Thank God, my patience and courage do not often or long forsake me!...
—— has written again to borrow money of me; and that impudent Liverpool manager, whoborrowed,i.e.did not pay me, my last night's earnings, when you were there with me, has written to say that, if I will go to Liverpooland act for his benefit, he will pay me what he owes me; to which I have replied that, when hehaspaid me what he owes me, we will see about further transactions with each other. Certainly "Nature hath framed strange fellows in her time."
Oh, my dear! in Parker's "Discourse upon Religion"—the book I told you I was reading—I light upon this passage: "The indolent and the sensual love to have a visible master in spiritual things, who will spare them theagonyof thought." Is not that definition of thought after my own heart, and just as I should have written it?
God bless you. Give my love to dear Dorothy.
Ever as ever yours,
Fanny.
Dear Harriet,
I have not yet read either of Mrs. Gaskell's books, but I mean to do so. I have just got through, with unbounded amazement, a book called "Realities," written by a Miss L——, for whom Lady M—— has taken a great fancy. A more extraordinary production—realities with a vengeance—I certainly have seldom read; and the book is in such contrast with the manner and appearance of the authoress that it will be a long time before I get over my surprise at both.
Imagine this lady having thought proper to introduce in her story an eccentric vagabond of a woman, whom she has called "Fanny Kemble." Upon Lady M——'s asking her—I think with some pardonable indignation, considering that I am her intimate friend—how she came to do such an unwarrantable thing; if she was not aware that "Fanny Kemble" was the real name of a live woman at this moment existing in English society, Miss L—— ingenuouslyreplied, "Oh dear! that she'd never thought of that: that she only knew it was a celebrated dramatic name, and so she had put it into her book."Sancta Simplicitas!I should think I might sue her for libel and defamation.
The books that women write now are a curious sign of the times, and an indication of great changes in opinion, as well as alteration in practice.
After all, women arepartmen, "bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh." As long as they benefited—and they did highly—by the predominance of the conservative spirit in civilized society, they were the most timid and obstinate of conservatives. But emancipation, or, to speak more civilly, freedom, is dawning upon them from various quarters; Democracy is coming to rule the earth; and women are discovering that inthatatmosphere they must henceforth breathe, and live, and move, and have their being.
NIGGER'S PARADISE.But the beginning of a great deal of male freedom is mere emancipation; and so it will be, I suppose, with women. The drunken exultation of Caliban is no bad illustration of the emancipation of a slave; and the ladies, more gracefully intoxicated with theelixir vitæof liberty, may rejoice no more to "scrape trencher or wash dish," but write books (more or less foolish) instead.
Do you remember that delightful negro song, the "Invitation to Hayti," that used to make you laugh so?
"Brudder, let us leaveBuckra land for Hayti:Dar we be receive'Grand as Lafayette!Make a mighty show,When we land from steamship,You be like Monroe,And I like Louis Philip!"
"Brudder, let us leaveBuckra land for Hayti:Dar we be receive'Grand as Lafayette!Make a mighty show,When we land from steamship,You be like Monroe,And I like Louis Philip!"
And when, anticipating the elevation of his noble womankind to the elegant and luxuriousidlesseof the favored white female, the poet sings:—
"No more dey dust and scrub,No more dey wash and cookee;But all day long we seeDem read the nobel bookee."
"No more dey dust and scrub,No more dey wash and cookee;But all day long we seeDem read the nobel bookee."
(Forread, readwrite.)
I am beset with engagements; and, though I am very anxious to get away abroad and rest, it would be bothfoolish and wrong to reject these offers of money, tendered me on all sides,speciouslywith suchborrowingrelations as I enjoy. Good-bye, dear.
Ever as ever yours,
Fanny.
[My reading at Eton was a memorably pleasant incident of my working days. Dr. Hawtrey at first proposed to me to read "Coriolanus;" but I always read it very ill, and petitioned for some other play, giving the name of a tragedy, "Macbeth;" a comedy, the "Merry Wives of Windsor;" and one of the more purely poetical plays, "The Tempest;" suggesting that the "boys" should vote, and the majority determine the choice. This seemed a mighty innovation on all received customs, and was met with numerous objections, which, however, did not prove insuperable; and "The Tempest," my own favorite of all Shakespeare's dramas, was chosen by my young auditors.A more charming audience to look at I never had than this opening flower of English boyhood, nor a more delightfully responsive one.The extraordinary merriment, however, invariably caused by any mention of the name of Stefano whenever it occurred puzzled me not a little; and when, in the last scene, I came to the lines, "Is not this Stefano your drunken butler? Why, he's drunk now!" I was interrupted with such a universal shout of laughter that I couldn't help inquiring the cause of it; when Mr. Stephen Hawtrey, Dr. Hawtrey's brother and one of the masters, told me that Stephano was the nickname by which he was habitually designated among the lads, which sufficiently accounted for their ecstasy of amusement at all the ludicrous sayings and situations of the Neapolitan "drunken butler." The Eton young gentlemen addressed me with a kind and flattering compliment through their captain, and rewarded whatever pleasure I had been able to give them by a very elegant present, which I hope my children will value, but which, upon the whole, is less precious to me than the recollection of their young faces and voices while I read to them.]
[My reading at Eton was a memorably pleasant incident of my working days. Dr. Hawtrey at first proposed to me to read "Coriolanus;" but I always read it very ill, and petitioned for some other play, giving the name of a tragedy, "Macbeth;" a comedy, the "Merry Wives of Windsor;" and one of the more purely poetical plays, "The Tempest;" suggesting that the "boys" should vote, and the majority determine the choice. This seemed a mighty innovation on all received customs, and was met with numerous objections, which, however, did not prove insuperable; and "The Tempest," my own favorite of all Shakespeare's dramas, was chosen by my young auditors.
A more charming audience to look at I never had than this opening flower of English boyhood, nor a more delightfully responsive one.
The extraordinary merriment, however, invariably caused by any mention of the name of Stefano whenever it occurred puzzled me not a little; and when, in the last scene, I came to the lines, "Is not this Stefano your drunken butler? Why, he's drunk now!" I was interrupted with such a universal shout of laughter that I couldn't help inquiring the cause of it; when Mr. Stephen Hawtrey, Dr. Hawtrey's brother and one of the masters, told me that Stephano was the nickname by which he was habitually designated among the lads, which sufficiently accounted for their ecstasy of amusement at all the ludicrous sayings and situations of the Neapolitan "drunken butler." The Eton young gentlemen addressed me with a kind and flattering compliment through their captain, and rewarded whatever pleasure I had been able to give them by a very elegant present, which I hope my children will value, but which, upon the whole, is less precious to me than the recollection of their young faces and voices while I read to them.]
Orchard Street, December 8th.
Dearest Hal,
I was better than I expected to be after my night journey from Hull. Hayes and I had a carriage toourselves after ten o'clock, and I took advantage of that circumstance to lie on the floor and get some rest. Of course I woke from each of my short naps aching rather severely, but I did sleep the greater part of the night; and the two hours I spent in bed before beginning the day unstiffened my bones and body. The night was beautifully fine when we left Hull, and continued so more than half-way. We made our entrance into London, however, in wretched rain and wind; but the weather has again become fine, and to-day is beautiful....
The detached stanza of French poetry you send me is a rather exaggerated piece of enthusiasm as it stands thus alone; though, incorporated in the poem to which it belongs, the effect of it may be striking. Some of the stanzas of Manzoni's "Ode to Napoleon" (a very noble poem), detached from their context, might appear strained and exaggerated. That which has real merit as a whole seldom gains by being disconnected.
A FAVORITE DOG.Trouble yourself no more about poor Hero, my dear Hal; I am afraid he is lost. Mrs. Mulliner left him in the area this morning, and as for nearly four hours now we have seen and heard nothing of him, there is no doubt that he has made his escape into the wide world of London, and I fear there is no chance of his finding his way back again. I should not have liked his being at Jenny Wade's [a cottager at Ardgillan, whom Miss S—— pensioned]. In the present condition of Ireland, I should scruple to quarter a dog in a poor person's cabin, giving them for his support what they must needs feel might go some way towards the support of some starving human being. In the stable or kennel of a rich house there is sure to be that much spent, if not wasted, which may warrant the addition of such another member to the establishment; and in your sister's stables and offices there can be no wretch who would look with envy upon the meal eaten by my dog. I would rather a great deal have carried him to America, if I could have managed it, than left him with any one but yourself. At Lenox everything, as well as everybody, has plenty to eat; and he would have been cared for, for his own sake by the young folks, and for mine by the old. But I fear he is so far provided for that I shall never see him again, for his uneducated senses will surely never suffice to guide him back to Orchard Street....
You will be glad, because I am very glad, that poor Hero has come back; and I think his doing so exhibits considerablenousin a brute so brutally brought up as he has been. He returned with a bit of broken string round his neck; so somebody had already appropriated him, and tied him up, and he had effected his escape, and come home—much, I think, to his credit. I was delighted to see him, and poor Mulliner almost did a fit.
Good-bye, dearest Hal. Give Dorothy my best love. You shall have your boots before I come, if Mr. W—— should call for them.
Ever as ever yours,
Fanny.
Bradford, Yorkshire, Thursday, 10th.
It is my opinion, my dear Hal, that you will see me again and again, and several times again, before I leave England. I have just come to this place from Manchester, and have to-day received offers of three new engagements, and have every prospect therefore of being detained until the beginning of next month, and so beholding your well-beloved visage before I set off on my travels; though, whenever I do go, it will certainly be from Folkestone, and not Dover.
I left the Scotts this morning with deep regret. Mr. Scott has not been well during this last visit I have paid them, and I was much shocked to hear that he is threatened with disease of the heart, sudden death at any moment. His wife and her sisters are excellently kind to me; she has but two faults, an excessivehumilityand an excessiveconscientiousness; they wouldn't be bad for virtues, would they?
Mr. Scott's intercourse is delightful to me; his mind is deep and high, logical and practical, humorous and tender, and he is as nearlygoodas a man can be. He has a still, calm manner and slow, quiet speech, very composing to me. I wish it might be my good fortune to see more of him.
Farewell, my dear. I begin to feel as if I never should get off; and instead of the pathetic uncertainty as to when we might meet again, which was beginning to affect me with melancholy, have fallen into a sort of reckless indifference about you: so sure am I that we shall see each other, maybe,ad nauseammutually, before I go. Give my love to Dorothy.
Ever as ever yours,
Fanny.
JOHN ALEXANDER SCOTT.[The remarkable man of whom I have spoken in this letter, John Alexander Scott, was one of the mostinfluentialpersons I have ever known, in the strongest sense of the word. I think the term, "an important human being," by which Sydney Smith described Francis Horner, might justly have been applied to Mr. Scott. The intimate friend of Edward Irving, Carlyle, and Maurice, he affected, to an extraordinary degree, the minds and characters of all those who were familiar with him; and his influence, like all the deepest and most powerful human influence, was personal.He delivered various courses of lectures, principally, I think, in Edinburgh—Dante being one of his favorite themes; and "Three Discourses" upon religious and moral subjects are, I think, all that remain in printed form of many that he delivered at various times and at various places. They are, as is always the case in the instance of his order of mind and character, though striking and powerful, very inadequate samples of his spirit and intellect.A very just tribute to his uncommon qualities and extraordinary power of influence appeared, after his death, in theSpectator. It was undoubtedly written by one who knew Mr. Scott well, and bore testimony, as all who ever had that privilege have done, to the singular force and virtue of his nature, and its penetrating and vivifying power over others.My last intercourse withhimwas a letter fromher, hailing in his name the hope of seeing me at Montreux, in Switzerland, whither I was going in the expectation of finding them. The letter broke off in the middle, and ended with the news, calamitous to me, as to all who knew him, of his death. At the time when I visited them at Manchester, he had accepted some Professorship in the then newly established Owen's College.]
JOHN ALEXANDER SCOTT.[The remarkable man of whom I have spoken in this letter, John Alexander Scott, was one of the mostinfluentialpersons I have ever known, in the strongest sense of the word. I think the term, "an important human being," by which Sydney Smith described Francis Horner, might justly have been applied to Mr. Scott. The intimate friend of Edward Irving, Carlyle, and Maurice, he affected, to an extraordinary degree, the minds and characters of all those who were familiar with him; and his influence, like all the deepest and most powerful human influence, was personal.
He delivered various courses of lectures, principally, I think, in Edinburgh—Dante being one of his favorite themes; and "Three Discourses" upon religious and moral subjects are, I think, all that remain in printed form of many that he delivered at various times and at various places. They are, as is always the case in the instance of his order of mind and character, though striking and powerful, very inadequate samples of his spirit and intellect.
A very just tribute to his uncommon qualities and extraordinary power of influence appeared, after his death, in theSpectator. It was undoubtedly written by one who knew Mr. Scott well, and bore testimony, as all who ever had that privilege have done, to the singular force and virtue of his nature, and its penetrating and vivifying power over others.
My last intercourse withhimwas a letter fromher, hailing in his name the hope of seeing me at Montreux, in Switzerland, whither I was going in the expectation of finding them. The letter broke off in the middle, and ended with the news, calamitous to me, as to all who knew him, of his death. At the time when I visited them at Manchester, he had accepted some Professorship in the then newly established Owen's College.]
Woodsley House, Leeds.
I think, my dear Hal, your wish that I might see more of Mr. Scott and his family is likely to be realized. To my great pleasure, I received a note from him the other day, telling me that there was a general desire in Manchester to have the "Midsummer Night's Dream" given with Mendelssohn's music. He wrote of this to me, expressing his hope that it might be done, and that so I might bebrought to them again; adding the kind and cordial words, "All here love you"—which expression touched and gratified me deeply; and I hope that the reading may take place, and that I shall have the privilege of a few days' more intercourse with that man.
The name of the noble woman whose impulse of humanity so overcame all self-considerations, of whom he told me, was Miss Coutts-Trotter. [Nursing a person who was in a state of collapse in the last stage of cholera, she had sought to bring back the dying woman's vitality by embracing her closely, and breathing on her mouth her own breath of life and love.] ...
I can tell you of no other publications of Mr. Scott. It is the despair of his wife, sisters, friends, and admirers that so few of his good words have been preserved. But in these days of printing and publishing, proclaiming and producing, I am beginning to have rather a sympathy with those who withhold, than with those who utter, all their convictions.... I have always held that what people could put forth from them in any kind was less valuable than what they could not—what they were compelled to retain—the reserve force of their mind and nature; and thinking this, as I do, more and more, I regret less and less such instances as this of Mr. Scott's apparently circumscribed sphere, by the non-publication of his lectures and discourses. He is daily teaching a body of young men; and to such of them as are able to receive his teaching, he will bequeath some measure of his spirit. It is doubtless a pleasure, and a help too, to read the good books of good men; but there are many good men who write good books, and he is among the few who cannot. He has suffered from ill health, particularly difficulties in the head; and though his gift of extemporaneous speech is remarkable, he cannot compose for printing without labor of the brain which is injurious to him. In this he also resembles Dr. Follen, of whom he reminds me, who wrote little, and published less.
I do not know anything of Miss Muloch—that, I think, is the name of the writer whose book you mention as having notices of my uncle and aunt introduced into it....
Publicity is the safest of all protections, as in some sense freedom is also. Women, I suppose, will find this out, as the people are finding it out; but in the beginningof their working out their newly discovered theories into rational practice, people in general, and women in particular, will do some wonderful things. The women especially, having for the most part had hitherto little positive or practical knowledge of life, will be apt "to make all earth amazed" with the first performances of various kinds of their new experience; but it is all in the day's work of the good old world, which is ordained to see reasonable and good men and women upon its ancient, ever-blooming surface, in greater numbers henceforward than hitherto: but the beginnings are strange....
Yours ever,
Fanny.
2, Park Place, Haliwell Lane, Manchester.
My dearest Hal,
At the conclusion of my reading yesterday evening, letters were put into my hands containing no fewer than six offers of new engagements; and, situated as I am, I cannot reject this money. I have endeavored, in answering these invitations, to get the readings all as close to each other as possible, and I now think that I may get off about the 22d; but the same sort of interruption to my plans may occur again, and thus I may be delayed, though I have got my passport and have even written to bespeak rooms at an hotel....
CALVINISM.My dearest Hal, you have written to me three days running, and good part of each of your letters is disquisition onCalvinism.... Thus I have here lying by my side nine pages of your handwriting. I have just swallowed my dinner, after travelling from London, and sit down to discharge part of my debt, and in half an hour (I look at the watch, and it says ten minutes) I must go and dress myself for my reading, and here still will be the nine pages unanswered to-morrow morning, when I must set off for Manchester.
You talk of the logic of my mind, my dear friend, but my mind has no logic whatever; and in so far as that is concerned, Calvinism need look for as little help as hindrance from me. I do not believe I canthink; and from the difficulty, not to say impossibility, I find in doing so, I don't think I would if I could; and if that is not logical, neither is that most admirable of all chains of reasoning, "Je n'aime pas les épinards," etc. There, now, herecomes my maid to interrupt me, and there's an end of epistolary correspondence; I must go and dress.
Now it is to-morrow morning, dear Hal, and until the breakfast comes I can talk a few more words with you.... But don't you know that one reason why I appear to you to have positive mental results, is because I have no mental processes? I never think; for, as a lawyer would say, whenever I do, it seems to me as if there was no proposition (a few arithmetical and scientific ones exceptedperhaps, like two and two are four) which does not admit of its own reverse. I don't say this is so, but it seems so to me; and whenever I attempt to put the notions that float through my brain, on which I float comfortably enough over infinite abysses of inconclusion, into precise form and shape, there is not one of them that does not seem to be quite controvertible; nor did I ever utter or assume a position of which I felt most assured while uttering it, without perceiving almost immediately that it was assailable on many sides. This is extremely disagreeable to me; the labor necessary to establish any mental or moral proposition simply on intellectual grounds, appears to me so great that I hate the very idea of it, and then I hate myself for my laziness, and wonder if some "judgment" does not await wits that will not work because work is tiresome. But if I appear to you to have strong convictions, it is because I have strong mental and moral impulses, instincts, intuitions, and never allow myself to weaken them by that most debilitating process, long-continued questioning, leading to no result.
You ask me what book I read now to put me to sleep—why, Murray's "Handbook for France;" ditto, for Savoy, Switzerland, and Piedmont; ditto, for the North of Italy, and the foreign "Bradshaw." These furnish my lullaby now-a-nights.
I read yesterday, in the railroad carriage, a little story translated from the French by Lady (Lucy) Duff Gordon, with which I was greatly touched and delighted. It costs one shilling, and is called "The Village Doctor," and is one of those pale green volumes headed, "Reading for Travellers," to be found on all the railroad bookstands. I thought it charming, and a most powerful appeal to the imagination in behalf of Roman Catholicism.
I have already told you what route I intend to take, and I think we shall be a week or ten days going fromParis to Turin, coasting all the way from Marseilles, as I wish to do.
I do not read at Manchester to-day, but Hallé, who conducts the music, wishes me to attend a rehearsal, which, of course, I am anxious to do at his request. On Monday I read the "Midsummer Night's Dream," and on Tuesday "Macbeth," at Mr. Scott's desire. To-morrow I shall, I hope, hear Mr. Scott read and comment again on the Bible, and I am looking forward with great pleasure to being with him and Mrs. Scott again.
No doubt there are several more direct ways of getting to Nice than coasting round, as I propose doing, but I wish to see that Mediterranean shore, and have no desire to travel hard....
THE PROCTERS.Adelaide Procter [the daughter of my friends was to be my companion in this journey] has no enthusiasm whatever for me; she does not know me at all, and I do not know her at all well; and I do not think, when we know each other more, that she will like me any better. Her character and intellectual gifts, and the delicate state of her health, all make her an object of interest to me.... I love and respect Mr. Procter very much; and her mother, who is one of the kindest-hearted persons possible, has always been so good to me, that I am too glad to have the opportunity of doing anything to oblige them. I am going to Turin because, as they have entrusted their daughter to me, I will not leave her until I see her safe in the house to which she is going; I owe that small service to the child of her parent.... Dear Harriet, if you will come to Switzerland this summer, nothing but some insuperable impediment shall prevent my meeting you there. If you are "old and stiff," I amfat, stuffy, puffy, and old; and you are not of such proportions as to break a mule's back, whereas if I got on one I should expect it to cast itself and me down the first convenient precipice, only to avoid carrying me to the next.
I spent Thursday evening with Mrs. Jameson; she had a whole heap of people at her house, and among them the American minister and his niece—Philadelphians....
I do not pity Mrs. Jameson very much in her relations with Lady Byron. I never thought theirs a real attachment, but a connection made up of all sorts of motives, which was sure not to hold water long, and never to hold it after it had once begun to leak. It was an instance ofone of those relationships which are made towear out, and as it always appeared so to me, I have no great sympathy with either party in this foreseen result.
I pity Mrs. Jameson more because she is mortified than because she is grieved, and I pity Lady Byron because she is more afraid of mortifying than of giving her pain. It is all veryuncomfortable; but real sorrow has as little to do with it now as real love ever had.... I am writing to you at Mr. Scott's, where I arrived yesterday afternoon, the beginning of my letter having been written in London, the middle at Bradford, and the end here.
It is Sunday afternoon: our morning service is over. I am sorry to say I find both Mr. and Mrs. Scott quite unwell, the former with one of those constitutional headaches from which he has suffered so much for many years. They incapacitate him for conversation or any mental exertion, and I am a great loser by it, as well as grieved for his illness.... Farewell.
Ever as ever yours,
Fanny.