[Lucy Austin, the clever and handsome daughter of a cleverer and handsomer mother—Mrs. John Austin, wife of the eminent lawyer and writer—excited a great deal of admiration, as the wife of Sir Alexander Duff Gordon, in the London society of my day. Loss of health compelled her to pass the last years of her life in the East; and the letters she wrote during her sojourn there are not only full of charm and interest, but bear witness to a widespread personal influence over the native population among whom she lived, the result of her humane benevolence towards, and kindly sympathy for, them.One or two amusing incidents occurred with regard to my reading of the "Midsummer Night's Dream" at Manchester. The gentleman who had the management of the performance wrote to me offering me forty pounds for my share of it—a very liberal price, which I declined, my price for one of my readings being invariablytwentypounds. At the end of the performance one of the gentlemen of the committee came to pay me my salary, which having done, he expressed himself, in his own behalf and that of his fellow-managers, greatly obliged to me for the liberality I had exhibited (honesty, it seems to me)in not accepting double my usual terms when they offered it to me. "And," said he, drawing a five-pound note from his pocket-book, "I really—we really—if you would—if you could—allow us to offer you five pounds in addition——" The gentleman's voice died away, and he seemed to be becoming nervous, under the effect of the steadfast seriousness with which, in spite of the greatest inclination to burst out laughing, I listened to this strange proposal. The five-pound note fluttered a little between his finger and thumb, and for one moment I had a diabolical temptation to twitch it from him and throw it into the fire. This prompting of Satan, however, I womanfully resisted, and merely civilly declined the gratuity; and the gentleman left me with profuse acknowledgments of the service I had rendered them and my "extreme liberality."CHARLES HALLÉ.My friend Charles Hallé, coming in just at this moment, was thrown into fits of laughter at the transaction, and my astonishment at it.Hallé was a friend of ours, an admirable musician, and a most amiable man, and one of the best masters of our modern day. His style was more remarkable for sensibility, delicacy, and refinement, than for power or brilliancy of execution; but I preferred his rendering of Beethoven to that of all the other virtuosi I ever heard; and some of the hours of greatest musical enjoyment I have had in my life I owe to him, when he and his friend Joachim, playing almost, as it seemed, as much for their own delight as ours, enchanted a small circle of enthusiastic and grateful listeners, gathered round them in my sister's drawing-room.Mr. Scott's comment upon my reading gave me great pleasure. "It was good," he said, "from beginning to end; but youareTheseus." Oddly enough, a similar compliment was paid me in the same words at the end of a reading that I gave for the Working Men's Institute in Brighton, when my friend, Mr. R——, kindly complimenting me on the performance, said, "It was all delightful: but youareHenry V.," and whatever difference of opinion may have existed among my critics as to my rendering the tragic and comic characters of Shakespeare's plays, I think the heroic ones were those in which I ought to have succeeded best, for they were undoubtedly those with which I had most sympathy.]
[Lucy Austin, the clever and handsome daughter of a cleverer and handsomer mother—Mrs. John Austin, wife of the eminent lawyer and writer—excited a great deal of admiration, as the wife of Sir Alexander Duff Gordon, in the London society of my day. Loss of health compelled her to pass the last years of her life in the East; and the letters she wrote during her sojourn there are not only full of charm and interest, but bear witness to a widespread personal influence over the native population among whom she lived, the result of her humane benevolence towards, and kindly sympathy for, them.
One or two amusing incidents occurred with regard to my reading of the "Midsummer Night's Dream" at Manchester. The gentleman who had the management of the performance wrote to me offering me forty pounds for my share of it—a very liberal price, which I declined, my price for one of my readings being invariablytwentypounds. At the end of the performance one of the gentlemen of the committee came to pay me my salary, which having done, he expressed himself, in his own behalf and that of his fellow-managers, greatly obliged to me for the liberality I had exhibited (honesty, it seems to me)in not accepting double my usual terms when they offered it to me. "And," said he, drawing a five-pound note from his pocket-book, "I really—we really—if you would—if you could—allow us to offer you five pounds in addition——" The gentleman's voice died away, and he seemed to be becoming nervous, under the effect of the steadfast seriousness with which, in spite of the greatest inclination to burst out laughing, I listened to this strange proposal. The five-pound note fluttered a little between his finger and thumb, and for one moment I had a diabolical temptation to twitch it from him and throw it into the fire. This prompting of Satan, however, I womanfully resisted, and merely civilly declined the gratuity; and the gentleman left me with profuse acknowledgments of the service I had rendered them and my "extreme liberality."
CHARLES HALLÉ.My friend Charles Hallé, coming in just at this moment, was thrown into fits of laughter at the transaction, and my astonishment at it.
Hallé was a friend of ours, an admirable musician, and a most amiable man, and one of the best masters of our modern day. His style was more remarkable for sensibility, delicacy, and refinement, than for power or brilliancy of execution; but I preferred his rendering of Beethoven to that of all the other virtuosi I ever heard; and some of the hours of greatest musical enjoyment I have had in my life I owe to him, when he and his friend Joachim, playing almost, as it seemed, as much for their own delight as ours, enchanted a small circle of enthusiastic and grateful listeners, gathered round them in my sister's drawing-room.
Mr. Scott's comment upon my reading gave me great pleasure. "It was good," he said, "from beginning to end; but youareTheseus." Oddly enough, a similar compliment was paid me in the same words at the end of a reading that I gave for the Working Men's Institute in Brighton, when my friend, Mr. R——, kindly complimenting me on the performance, said, "It was all delightful: but youareHenry V.," and whatever difference of opinion may have existed among my critics as to my rendering the tragic and comic characters of Shakespeare's plays, I think the heroic ones were those in which I ought to have succeeded best, for they were undoubtedly those with which I had most sympathy.]
Fulford, York, Saturday, 3d.
My dearest Hal,
I am amused at your gasping anxiety to be told where I am going, as if I was about to depart into some non-postal region, where letter of yours should never reach me more, instead of spending the next week in Edinburgh, which surely you did know.... My dearest Hal, J—— W—— has just come into my room, bringing the news of the Emperor of Russia's death. It has seized me quite hysterically, and the idea of the possible immediate cessation of carnage and desolation, and war and wickedness (in that peculiar shape), has shaken me inexpressibly, and I am shocked at the tears of joy that are raining from my eyes, so that I can't see the paper on which I am writing to you; and if I can thus weep my thanksgivings for the news of this man's death, who have no dear son, or brother, or husband on that murderous Crimean soil, think of the shout of rejoicing which will be his only dirge throughout France and England. I am shocked at the exclamation of gratitude which escaped my lips when I heard the announcement. Poor human soul, how terrible that its sudden summons from its heavy and difficult responsibilities should thus be hailed by any other human creature! and yet how many will draw a long breath, as of a great deliverance, at this news!
I can hardly write at all, my hand shakes so, and I cannot think of anything else; and yet I had purposed to send dear Dorothy some account of her family here, who are all well and most kind to me. I will wait a while....
Dearest Dorothy,
I sit here in this pleasant room [I was in Miss Wilson's home], the prospect from which is improved by the rising of the river, which presents the appearance of a lake. The snowdrops hang their white clusters above the brown mould of the garden beds, and watery rays of sunshine slant shyly across the meadows: the whole is very sweet and peaceful, and I was enjoying it extremely, when the report of this imperial death broke like a peal of thunder over it all, as unexpectedly as terribly.
To-morrow I am to go and hear afternoon service at the minster, which I have never seen. Everything is done for my pleasure and satisfaction that can be thought of, and I feel very grateful for it. The thought of the oldlove and friendship between my dead kindred and the former owners of this house makes the place pleasant with a saddish pleasantness to me.
Dear Dorothy, I wish you were here; I write you a very affectionate kiss, and am
Yours,
Fanny.
George Hotel, Bangor, Monday, 20th.
My dearest Hal,
If you had given way to your impulse of accompanying us to Wales, I do not think you could have returned under three days, or that even by that time you could in any degree have recovered from the effect of our to-day's passage. Every creature on board was sick except M—— and myself....
"A quelque chose malheur est bon," and the indisposition I was suffering all yesterday preserved me from the lesser evil of sea-sickness. This was my experience the last time I crossed the Atlantic, when my voyage was preceded by a week of serious illness, and during the whole passage I did not suffer from sea-sickness....
AT BANGOR.On our arrival here, we found that the excellent Miss Roberts [mistress of the charming hotel at Bangor] had treated us exactly as the last time;i.e., "A party were just finishing dinner in our sitting-room. She was very sorry, very sorry indeed; but it would be ready for us in less than a quarter of an hour;" and we were thrust provisionally into another, where letters, books, workboxes, india-rubber shoes, and smoking-caps attested that we had no business, and suggested that their owners were in all probability the "party" finishing off their dinner in our bespoken apartment, which gave me an inclination to toss all the things in the room about, and poke the smoking-caps into the india-rubber shoes; but I didn't. What innumerable temptations I do resist! I assured Miss Roberts I was very ill-tempered, and proceeded to make assurance doubly sure by blowing her up sky-high, to which she merely replied with a Welsh "Eh! come si ha da far?" and declared that if I was in her place I should do just the same, which excited my wrath to a pitch of fury.
We had some lunch, and then set off to the quarries. The afternoon was bright and beautiful, and we werecharmed with the drive and all we saw, M—— never ceasing to exclaim with fervent satisfaction at the comfortable, cheerful, healthy, well-to-do appearance of the people and their habitations—a most striking and suggestive contrast to all we had seen in poor Ireland, certainly....
We have just done dinner, and M—— is fast asleep on the sofa, with "Pilgrim's Progress" in her arms. My head aches, and my nerves twitch with fatigue and pain, but I am better than I was yesterday.
The trains from this place are very inconvenient. The one we have to go by starts from here at nine, and does not reach London till half-past seven in the evening, so we shall have a wearisome day of it....
Give my kindest love to dear Mrs. Taylor and "the girls." I shall think of them with infinite anxiety, and pray, "whenever I remember to be holy," that this dreadful war may now soon come to a close, and they be spared further anguish. [Colonel Richard Taylor, Miss S——'s nephew, was with the army in the Crimea.]
I am ever most affectionately yours,
Fanny.
Bath, Monday, December 9th.
My dearest Hal,
... You cannot think how forlorn I feel, walking in and out of our room here without farewell or greeting from you; and yet the place where you have been with me has a remembered presence of your affectionate companionship that makes it pleasant, compared to those where I go for the first time and have no such friendly association to cheer me. My disposition, as you know, is averse to all strangeness, and takes little delight in novelty; and the wandering life I lead compels me to both, forbidding all custom and the comfortable feeling of habit and use, which make me loath to leave a place where I have stayed only three days, for another where I have never stayed at all.
I was not very happy at Oxford. The beautiful place impressed me sadly; but that was because I was very unwell and sad while I was there. The weather was horrible; a dark greasy fog pervaded the sky the whole time. The roads were so muddy as to render riding odious, and the streets so slimy that walking was really dangerous as wellas disagreeable. Still, I saw some things with which I was much charmed, and have no doubt that, if I could but have had an hour's daylight, I should have been delighted with the place altogether.
VISIT TO OXFORD.E—— S—— came down from London on Thursday morning, and took me to see the fine collection of drawings by Raphael and Michael Angelo at the Taylor Institute, and I spent three hours there in a state of great enjoyment. I wandered in ignorant wonderment through the Bodleian Library and the Ashmolean Museum, with A—— M——, who seemed quite as little familiar with the learned treasures of the place as myself. He took me to see his own college, Christ Church, with which, especially the great dining-hall, I was enchanted; and with the fine avenue at the back of the colleges, and the tower and cloisters of Magdalen.
I have no doubt I should enjoy another visit to Oxford very much; but I was miserable while I was there, and could not do justice to the beauty of the place. The inn where I stayed was dirty and uncomfortable, and dearer than any I have yet stayed at. My sitting-room was dingy and dark, and I was glad when I came into this large light sitting-room of ours again, out of which, however, they have removed the piano—a loss I have not thought it worth while to replace, as I go to Cheltenham on Wednesday afternoon.... You ask what I would sell my "English Tragedy" for. Why, anything anybody would give me for it. It cannot be acted, and nobody reads plays nowadays—small blame to them....
Ever as ever yours,
Fanny.
Cheltenham, Thursday, 12th.
My dearest Hal,
I found your loving greeting on my arrival here yesterday evening. I am troubled at your account of yourself.... Whatthingsthese bodies of ours are! I sometimes think that, when we lay them down in the earth, we shall have taken leave of all our sinfulness; and yet there are sins of the soul that do not lodge in the flesh, though the greater proportion of our sins, I think, do: and when I reflect how little control we have over our physical circumstances, what with inherited disease and infirmity, and infirmity and disease incurred through the ignorantmisguidance of others during our youth, and our own ignorant misdirection afterwards, I think the miseries we reap are punishment enough for much consequent sin; and that, once freed from the "body of this death," we shall cease to be subject to sin in anything like the same degree.... It is very muddy underfoot; but if the sky does not fall, I shall ride out on my old post-horse at twelve o'clock.
Certainly your question, as to where the wise men are who are to encounter the difficulties of legislation for this country next spring, was an exclamation—a shriek—and not an interrogation, addressed tomeat any rate; for though I suppose God's quiver is never empty of arrows, and that somearealways found to do His work, it may be that saving this country from a gradual decline of greatness and decay of prosperity may not be work for which He has appointed hands, and which therefore will not be done....
I declined being in the room we formerly occupied in this house, because I feared, now the days are so much shorter, that it would be inconveniently dark. I am in a charming light room, with three windows down to the ground, and a bewitching paper of pale green, with slender gold rods running up it, all wound round with various colored convolvuli. It's one of the prettiest papers I ever saw, and makes me very happy. You know how subject I am even to such an influence as that of a ridiculous wall-paper....
I have had no conversation with Mr. Churchill; but, in spite of my requesting him not to be at the trouble of moving the piano into my present sitting-room, as I am here for so short a time, I find it installed here this morning. He certainly is the black swan of hotel-keepers; and how kind and indulgent people are to me everywhere!... My young devotee, Miss A——, acquiesced very cordially in all my physical prescriptions for mental health, and did not seem to take at all amiss my plunging her hysterical enthusiasm first into perspirations, and then into cold baths.
Her maid has been with me this morning, with lovely fresh flowers—a bunch of delicious Persian lilac, and two flower-pots full of various mosses, smelling so fragrantly of mere earthy freshness that no perfume ever surpassed it.
VICTOR HUGO.The only other greeting she sent me was some pretty lines of Victor Hugo's, with which I was unacquainted, and which I send you, not for their singular inappropriateness as applied to me, but for their graceful turn:
"Tu es comme l'oiseau posé pour un instantSur des rameaux trop frêles,Que sent ployer la branche, et qui chante pourtantSachant qu'il a des ailes;"
"Tu es comme l'oiseau posé pour un instantSur des rameaux trop frêles,Que sent ployer la branche, et qui chante pourtantSachant qu'il a des ailes;"
which I translate impromptu thus:
Thou art like the bird that alights, and singsThough the frail spray bends, for he knows he has wings.
Thou art like the bird that alights, and singsThough the frail spray bends, for he knows he has wings.
God bless you, my dear. Love to dear Dorothy.
Ever as ever yours,
Fanny.
Worcester, Tuesday, 17th.
My dearest Hal,
Those pretty French lines I sent you are by Victor Hugo, a man of great genius, but almost the most exaggerated writer of the exaggerated modern school of French style. Some of his poems, in spite of this, are fine and charming; and, indeed, there is not much better French to be found than the prose of some of the French writers of novels and essays. Madame George Sand, Merimée, Ste. Beuve, write with admirable simplicity and force.
I sent my young adorer back, in return for her quatrain, Millevoye's lines on the withered leaf—a far more appropriate image of my peregrinations. These, no doubt, you know, ending with four pretty lines—
"Je vais où va toute chose,Sans me plaindre, ou m'inquiéterOù va la feuille de rose,Et la feuille de laurier."
"Je vais où va toute chose,Sans me plaindre, ou m'inquiéterOù va la feuille de rose,Et la feuille de laurier."
... You ask after my audiences. At Bath the same singular-looking gentleman, who is beautiful as well as singular looking, and wonderfully like my uncle John, came and sat at my last morning reading in the same conspicuous place. He is a helpless invalid, and was wheeled in his chair through my private room, to the place which he occupied near my reading-stage. His name is C——, and he and his wife were intimate friendsof John Kemble's, and sent to beg I would see them after the reading. As I had to start immediately for Cheltenham, this was impossible, which I was very sorry for, as I should like to have spoken to that beautiful face.
You impress upon me the value of the blessing of health, and I think I estimate it duly; for although I said it mattered little how I was, I meant that, isolated as I am, my ill health would affect and afflict fewer persons than that of some one who had bonds and ties of one sort and another.... My work goes on without interruption, and I think with little variation in my mode of performing it; and I make efforts of this kind, sometimes under such circumstances of physical suffering and weakness, that I am almost hard-heartedly incredulous about the difficulty of doinganythingthat onehas to do—which is not very reasonable either, for the force of will, the nervous energy, which carries one through such efforts, depends itself on physical conditions, which vary in different temperaments, and in the same temperament at different times.
The first day of my arrival in Cheltenham I received a note from Miss A——'s mother—a very touching expression of thanks for what she calls my kindness to her child, full of anxiety about the training and guiding of her mind and character, accepting with much gratitude my offer of personal acquaintance with her daughter (personal acquaintance is an excellent antidote to enthusiasms), whom she brought herself the next day to see me.... In our conversation I insisted much on the importance of physical training, and commended to her, after the highest of all help (without which, indeed, none other can avail), systematic and regular exercise, and systematic and sedulous occupation, both followed as a positive duty; all possible sedatives for the mind and imagination; and the utmost attention and care to all the physical functions. I gave her the wisdom which I have bought; but she will buy her own, or I am much mistaken.... I went on Sunday to the cathedral to hear afternoon service, but was late, and did not get within the choir, but sat on a chair in a lonely corner of the transept, and followed the service from without the pale. Yesterday, at my usual hour for exercise, I went to walk by the river; but rain came on, and I finished my walk under the cloisters, which rang from end to end with the shrill shouts of a parcel of school-boys, let out for their noon-day recess. Last nightthe weather was fearful, a perfect storm of wind and rain, so that, though my audience was small, I was agreeably surprised to find I had any at all.
I have not seen the letter you refer to in theTimes, but think it very likely Charles Greville should write such a one, as I heard him say he should give the public a piece of his mind on the subject, and he occasionally does write in theTimes, and his views are precisely what you describe those of "Carolus" to be.
Good-bye, dear. I have abundleof violets from you this morning, for which many thanks. Love to dear Dorothy.
Ever as ever yours,
Fanny.
18, Orchard Street, December 7th.
CLOSE RELATIONS OF GRAVE AND GAY.I have no patience with letters at all, my dear Hal. I am conscious half the time I write that I don't say clearly what I mean, and when I get your answers, I have that disagreeable conviction confirmed. Perhaps it is just as well, however; for the sort of feverish impatience I have very often while writing, because of the insufficiency of the process to express, as rapidly and distinctly as I wish, my thoughts, is so excessive, as to be childish. I am content, henceforth, to answer you to the best of mycircumstances(for it is not to the best of my ability, really) on any subject you please. It is enough that my words are of use to you, and God knows it signifies nothing at all that I cannot conceive how they should be so. You have misunderstood me, or I misexpressed myself, with regard to the ground of my objecting to write upon the subjects we have lately discussed in our letters. I do not think it irreverent to advert to the highest subjects at any time. That which is most profoundly serious to me, is always very near my thoughts—so much so that it mingles constantly with them and my words in a manner rather startling and shocking, I think, to people whose minds are parcelled out into distinct and detached divisions—pigeon-holes, as it were—for the sacred and profane, and whose seriousness never comes near their mirth. This is not at all the case with me, with whom they are apt to run into each other very frequently; seriousness is perhaps more habitual to my mind than folly, but my laughter and jests are not very remotely allied to my deepest convictions.
My instincts of vital truth being a very essential part of me,mustgo with me to the playhouse, rehearsals, and performances, and all the intermediate time of various occupations, so that it is not my "veneration" which is shocked at the superficial mode in which I have handled these themes, while writing of them to you, but my "conscientiousness," which suggests the whole time that such matters should not be spoken of without sufficient previous process of reflection, and that it is behaving irreverently toanythingthat requires consideration to talk of it crudely without any. If the sincerest and most strenuous mental application can hardly enable us to arrive at glimpses of the truth upon those subjects, there is an impertinent levity in uttering merenotionsabout them which have been submitted to no such test. You dothink, and though you come to no conclusions, are perfectly entitled to utter yournon-conclusiveness; but I have a cowardly dread of the labor of thinking steadily and consecutively upon these difficult subjects, and I have certainly not at present the proper leisure or opportunities for doing so, and therefore but for your last letter I should say it was ashameto speak upon them. But since the vague suggestions which arise in my mind upon these only important matters comfort and are of any use to you, then, my beloved friend, they have a value and virtue, and I shall no longer feel reluctant to utter them.
I have written this last page since my return from Covent Garden Theatre, where I have been enacting the dying scene of Queen Katharine, and doing what I am as sorry for as I can be for anything of that kind.
At the conclusion of my performance the audience called for me, but I was seized with a perfect nervous terror at the idea of going on, and left the house as quickly as possible.
All the other actors will be called for, and will go on, and I shall incur unpleasant comments and probably have very untrue motives attributed to me for having, as it must appear, ungraciously withdrawn myself from the public call. This does not trouble me very deeply, but I am sorry for it because I am afraid it will be misinterpreted and noticed, and considered disrespectful, which it was not....
Give my dear love to Dorothy. I hope to be with you on the 3d of January.
I am ever as ever yours,
Fanny.
18, Orchard Street, Tuesday, 8th.
Now I must lump my answer to you, my dearest Hal—a thing that I hate doing; but here are three unanswered letters of yours on my table, and I shall never get through the payment of them if one letter may not do for the three, for every day brings fresh claims of this sort, and I feel a kind of smothering sensation as they accumulate round me, such as might attend one's gradually sinking into a well: what though Truth were at the bottom—if one was drowned before one got to her?...
Send the pamphlet on "Bread" to Lenox, and write to Elizabeth Sedgwick about it—that is pure humanity, and I see you do not think I shall copy the recipe and measurements correctly. (It's pouring with rain, and thundering as loud as it knows how in England)....
My spirits are fair enough, though the first evening I spent alone here, after I came back, tried them a little, and I had a cowardly impulse to rush in next door [my friends the Miss Hamiltons, Mrs. Fitzhugh's sisters, were my neighbors] to be with some friendly human beings; but I reflected that this would never do—those who are alone must learn to be lonely.... This was the onlyblackhour I have had since my return to London....
GROTE'S GREECE.I have finished the first volume of Grote's "History of Greece." O ye gods, ye beautiful gods of Greece, that ever ye should have lived to become such immortal bores through the meritorious labors of an eminent English historian! Thank Heaven, I have done with what has hitherto been always the most attractive part of history to me—its legendary and poetical prologue (I hate the history of my dear native land the moment the Commons begin to vote subsidies), and I do not think I ever before rejoiced in passing from tradition to matter-of-fact in an historical work. I have no doubt, now we have come down from Olympus, I shall enjoy Mr. Grote's great work much more.
I have read through Morier's "Hadji Baba in England," while eating my dinner, in order not to eat too fast, a precaution I learned years ago while eating my lonely dinners at Butler Place day after day. (Of course Grote was too heavy as sauce for eating.) At other seasons I have read through another number of theDublin Magazine, and during my hair-combings continue to enchant myself with "Wilhelm Meister." I am reading the "Wanderjahr,"having finished the "Lehrjahr." I never read the former in German before; it is altogether a wonderful book. I practise before breakfast, and I have drawn for two hours every day lately. I have received and returned visits, and when my daily exercise takes its place again among my occupations, my time will be full, and I hope to bless God for my days, even now.... This answers you as to my spirits....
I had a letter from E—— yesterday, desiring me to forward my book to them, and talking of still remaining where they are, as long as the heat is endurable and the children continue well.
I had a note from Lady Duff Gordon yesterday, who is just returned from Rome, where she saw my sister frequently and intimately; and she seems to think Adelaide very tolerably resigned to remain where she is, especially as she has found a cupboard in her palazzo, which has so delighted her that she is content to abide where such things are rare and she has one, rather than return home where they are common and she might have many. In the mean time, seats in the next Parliament are, it seems, to go begging, and Charles Greville has written to E—— again to come over and stand.... I disapprove of this incessant urging E—— to return, especially as the Grevilles only want him to become a British legislator in order that she may open a pleasant house in London and amuse them....
You ask me what I shall do with regard to America. If I act there, I shall do so upon the plan I started with here;i.e., a nightly certainty, to be paid nightly: it is what the managers send to offer me, and is, without doubt, the safest, if not the most profitable plan....
I am diverted with your rage at Liston [the eminent surgeon under whose care I had been]. I must say, I wish he had been a little more attentive to me professionally....
My singing neighbors—I suppose lodgers for the season—have departed, or, at any rate, become silent; I hear them no more, and make all my own music, which I prefer, though sometimes of an evening, when I am not singing, the lonely silence round me is rather oppressive. But my evenings are short; I dine at seven, and go to bed at ten; and in spite of my endeavors to achieve a better frame of mind, I do look with positive joy at my bed,where, lying down, the day will not only be past, but forgotten.... It is difficult for me not to rejoice when each day ends....
Dear Hal, I dined with the Horace Wilsons, and in the evening my father came there. He said Miss Cottin, with whom he was to have dined, was ill, and had put him off; that he had only come up from Brighton the day before, and was going back to-morrow—to-day,i.e.; that he was not well, but that Brighton agreed with him, and that he should steam about from Brighton to Havre and Dieppe and Guernsey and Jersey, as that process suits him better than abiding on dry land....
Orchard Street, Thursday, June 10th.
OFFICERS OF CHARITIES.Of course, dear Harriet, I know that the officials of our public charities cannot be thrown into paroxysms of pity by every case of misery brought before them; they would soon cease to be relieving officers, and have to be relieved themselves. But "there is reason in roasting of eggs," whatever that may mean: our forefathers knew, and so did Touchstone, for he talks of "an ill-roasted egg, done all o' one side." I assure you when I went to the workhouse to see after that wretched young girl who was taken up for sleeping in the park because she had nowhere else to sleep in, though I cried like a Magdalene, and talked like a magpie, I felt as if I was running my head against a stone wall all the time I appealed to the authorities to save her from utter ruin. The only impression I seemed to make upon them was that of surprise that any one should take to heart in such wise the case of some one not belonging to them. Perhaps the worthy overseer thought me her sister in another sense from that in which I am so, from the vehemence with which I urged upon him the imperative duty of snatching so young a creature from the doom to which she seemed inevitably delivered over. All their answers reminded me of Mephistopheles' reply to Faust's frantic pity for Gretchen, "She is not the first."
Now to answer your last question. I do not intend to cut the manager of the Princess's Theatre; but I do not intend either to make any application to him. If he offers me a reasonable weekly engagement, I will take it, and make him a curtsey; if he does not, I will do without it, and live as I best may on what I have alreadyearned, and what I can earn in the provinces, till the spring....
C—— came up from Bath to London with me, and after talking politics, art, and literature, began upon religion, which, not being controversially disposed, I declined, commending him to the study of the newspaper, and, curling myself up in one of those charming long seats of the Great Western railroad coaches, went to sleep, and so accomplished the latter part of my journey, in spite of that dangerous proximity, an unconverted heterodox Protestant. Farewell, my dearest Hal.
I am ever as ever yours,
Fanny.
18, Orchard Street, December 10th.
Dearest Hal,
... I had a horrible day yesterday, from which I am not yet recovered this morning. It wound up by the shock of hearing of Liston's death. There was something in my last intercourse with him that made this unexpected intelligence very painful; and then his wonderful strength, his great, noble frame, that seemed to promise so long and vigorous a hold on life, made his sudden death very shocking. When I met him last in the park, he told me he was very ill, and had been spitting up a quart of blood after walking twenty-five miles, and that there was something all wrong with his throat; in spite of which, I was greatly shaken by the news of his death, which was occasioned by aneurism in the throat.
I am marking "Wilhelm Meister" for you; it is a book that interests me almost more than any other I could name; it is very painful, and I know nothing comparable to the conception and execution of Mignon. The whole book is so wise, so life-like, so true, and so merciless in its truth, that it is like life itself, endured by a stoic, an illustration of what existence would be to a thoughtful mind without faith in God—that faith which alone can bear us undespairing over the earth, where the mere doom of inevitable change would be enough to fill the human soul with amazement and anguish.
Goethe's books always make me lay a terrified and aching hold on my religious faith; they show me, even as life itself does, the need of steadfast belief in something better, if one would not lie down and die from the mere senseof what has been endured, what is endured, and what must be endured.
I forgot to tell you that I have had proposals again from the Norwich manager, and from Bath and Bristol; and yesterday the Princess's Theatre potentate called upon me; but upon my telling him that I should prefer transacting my arrangements with him in writing rather thanvivâ voce, he took himself off....
God bless you, dear. Give my dear love to Dorothy.
Yours ever,
Fanny.
18, Orchard Street, December 11th, 1847.
My dear Hal,
IMMORTALITY AND PARTIAL IMMORTALITY.I do not feel sure, from the tenor of your letter, that you do not wish to have my dog Hero boarded at Jenny Wade's; if you do, he shall go there. You are a far better judge than I am of the propriety of keeping a well-fed dog among your starving people. That they themselves would do so, I can believe; for they are impulsive and improvident, and more alive to sentiments of kindliness and generosity than to the dictates of common sense and prudence, or of principles of justice. Hero has been used to luxury, both in his lodging and board; but human hearts have to do without their food, and shall not his dog's body? I am fond of him, poor fellow, and would fain have him kindly cared for.... I do not consider your parallel a just one—between the bestowing of existence upon flies and the withholding immortality from a portion of the human race, except, indeed, that both may be exercises of arbitrary will and power. It is perfectly true that the clay has no right to say to the Potter, "Wherefore hast Thou fashioned me thus?" or "Why am I a man, and not a beast?" But as regards the Creator's dealings with the human race, inscrutable as His designs are to mortal intelligence, the moral nature of man demands certain conditions in the conditions of his Maker, higher and better than his own; and the idea of a partial immortality seems to me repugnant to the highest human conception (and we have none other) of God's mercy and justice, and that simply because all men, no matter how little advanced in the scale, appear to have some notion ofaDivinity and a Deity of some sort, to possess agermof spiritual progress capable of development beyond the term andopportunities afforded by this existence; and if, as I believe, the progressive nature belong to all, then it seems to me a moral inconsistency to allow its accomplishment only to a few. If you say that whole nations and races formerly and now, and innumerable individuals in our own Christian communities, hardly achieve a single step in this onward career of moral development, I should reply that the progress of the most advanced is but comparative, and far from great, and that chiefly on this account the belief in a future existence appears rational, indeed the only rational mode of accounting for our achieving so much and so little—our advancing so far and no further here. The boon of mere physical existence is great, but if there were none greater, we should not surely possess faculties which suggest that to make some of His moral and rational children immortal, and others not, was not in accordance with the perfect goodness and justice of our Father. This life, good as He pronounced it to be, and as it surely is, would not be worth enjoying but for those nobler faculties that reach beyond it, and even here lay hold of the infinite conception of another after death. To have given these capabilities partially, or rather their fulfilment unequally, seems to me a discord in the divine harmony of that supreme Government, the inscrutability of which does not prevent one seeing and believing, beyond sight, that it is perfectlygood. To have bestowed the idea of immortality upon some and not others of his children, seems to me impossible in our Father; and since (no matter how faint in degree or unworthy in kind) this idea appears to be recognized as universal among men, the fulfilment of it only to some favored few seems still more incredible, since 'tis ayearningtowards Him felt by all His human creatures—a capacity, no matter how little or erroneously developed, possessed by all.
Admitting God's absolute power over matter, there surely is a moral law whichHecannot infringe, for it is Himself; and though I do not know what He can do with the creatures He has made, I know He cannot do Wrong; and if you tell me that my wrong may be His right, I can only reply to that,He is my Right, the only true, real, absolute Right, of which I have any conception, and that to propose that which seems to me wrong as an attribute or proceeding of His seems to me nonsense....
Of course, a good beginning is an especially good thingin education; but I think we are apt to place too much faith, upon the whole, in what we can do with children's minds and souls. Perhaps it is well we should have this faith, or we might do less than we ought, whereas we not unfrequently do a good deal that is without result that we can perceive; nevertheless, the world goes on, and becomes by slow degrees wiser and better.... I met Macready while I was riding to-day; and though I could not stop to say much to him, I told him that I particularly wished to act with him. He has been told, I understand, that I have positively refused to do so; and though his acquaintance with me is slight, I should feel grateful to him if he would believe this, in spite of what representations to the contrary he might have heard. He said that my honesty and truth were known to him, though he had had but little intercourse with me, and that he entirely believed what I said. I was glad of this accidental opportunity of saying this to him, as I would not have sought him for the especial purpose. Good-bye, my dear.
I am ever yours affectionately,
Fanny.
Bannisters, Southampton, Thursday, 16th.
My dearest Hal,
A CHILDISH LONGING.... Mrs. Fitzhugh does not appear to me in her usual vivacious state of mind, and I am afraid I shall not contribute much to her enlivenment, being rather out of spirits myself, and, for the first time in my life, finding Bannisters melancholy.... Walking up a small back street from Southampton the other day, I saw a little child of about five years old standing at a poor mean kind of pastry-cook's window, looking, with eyes of poignant longing, at some baked apples, stale buns, etc. I stopped and asked him if he wished very much for some of those things. He said yes, he wished very much for some baked apples for hispoor little brother who was sick. I wish you could have seen the little creature's face when I gave him money to buy what he wanted, and he carried off his baked apples in his arms; that look of profound desire for the sake of his brother, on the poor little childish face has haunted me. I went to see his people, and found them poor and ill, in much distress; and the mother, looking at her youngest child, a sickly, wasted, miserable little object, lamented bitterly that she did not belong to suchand such associations, for then, "if it should please God to take the child, she should have five pounds to bury it" (I wonder if these wretches are never killed for the sake of their burial money?); "but now she hadn't so much as would buy a decent rag of mourning"—a useless solicitude, it seemed to me, who think mourning attire a superfluity in all classes.
I have had a letter from the Leamington manager, desiring me to act there, which I will do, some time or other.
I have a riding-habit of my own, and need not hire one at Hastings; but I shall be glad to hire a horse while I am with you, as, you know, I do not mind riding alone.... I feel intensely stupid, which makes me think I must be ill (admire, I beg, the conceit of that inference), as I have no other symptoms of indisposition. Farewell. Give my love to Dorothy.
Ever yours,
Fanny.
Bannisters, Southampton, Friday, December 17th.
I have spoken with even more than my usual carelessness and inaccuracy upon the subject of my readiness to comply with other people's wishes, but I seriously think one ought to comply with a request ofanybody'sthat was not an impertinent or improper one. I suppose everybody is inclined to fulfil the wishes of persons they love.... But I am not given to the "small attentions,"les petits soinsof affection, and therefore am always particularly glad to know of any special desire of a friend's that I can comply with; a special wish, too, is a saving of trouble, like the questions in your letters which are equivalent to wishes in another way, and indicate the particular thing you want to know....
I have been out of spirits and much depressed during the first days of my stay at Bannisters, but this gloom passing off, and I am resuming my more habitual buoyancy of temper....
Bannisters, December 22d.
If you don't promise me good, I mean wholesome, food, when I come to St. Leonard's, I won't stay with you a minute. I have, for some years past, considered that therewas an important deficiency in my human nature, which instead of consisting, like that of most people, of three elements, is wanting in what I should call the middle link between its lowest and highest extremities. Thus, for some time now, I have felt intimately convinced that I had senses and a soul, but no heart; but I have now further come to the conclusion that I have neither sense, soul, nor heart, and am, indeed, nothing but a stomach.... Now, don't retort upon me with starving populations, in and out of poor-houses; and your grand national starving experiment in Ireland; neither try to make me adopt it when I come to St. Leonard's, for I won't....
You will be glad to hear that poor old Mrs. Fitzhugh is better these two or three last days, and, except for the weakness and irritation in her eyes, is tolerably well and comfortable; and I, having recovered from the blue devils, am able to amuse her a little better than I did when first I came. I am glad you mentioned that your comment on my health was meant forfun. A man sat by me in Edinburgh at dinner one day, and asked me if I had ever read Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations," which frightened me into an indigestion; and when I told Mr. Combe of it, he gave a sad Scotch laugh, like a postman's knock, "Ha! ha! just like Farquharson's dry humor!"
CONSTITUTIONAL THEORIES.You say that, as far as my own constitution is concerned, you believe my theories are right. Pray, my dear, did I ever attempt to meddle with your constitution? Permit me to say that the hygienic faith I profess has this in common with my other persuasions, that I am no propagandist, and neither seek nor desire proselytes. No, my dear friend, it is the orthodox medicine-takers, not the heterodox medicine-haters, who are always thrusting their pill-boxes and physic-bottles into their friends' bodies, and dragging or driving their souls to heaven or hell. If my physical doctrine saves my body, and my religious doctrine my soul, alive, it is all I ask of it; and you, and all other of my fellow-creatures, I deliver over to your own devices, to dose, drug, and "oh, fie!" yourselves and each other, according to your own convictions and consciences.
Ever yours,
Fanny.
18, Orchard Street, December 28th.
My dearest Hal,
I would rather have the "garret" looking towards the sea than the "bedroom" looking over houses, provided I can have a fire in said garret; and pray, since I can have my choice of the two rooms, may I inquire why the one that I do not occupy may not be appropriated to Hayes's use? It seems to me that if there are two empty rooms for me to choose from, I may likewise hire them both if I choose, and give one to my maid, and keep whichever I like best for myself.Che ti pare, figlia mia?Have the goodness, if you can, to take both the vacant rooms for me, and I will inhabit the garret, if, as I said before, it is susceptible of a fire.
I left Mrs. Fitzhugh a little more quiet and composed, in spite of her having just received the news of Lord Harrowby's being at the point of death.... She has had much to try her in the melancholy events at Sandon, and she persists in looking over a whole collection of old letters, among which she found the other day a miniature of her boy, Henry, the sailor who died, which she had forgotten that she possessed; and she comes down from this most trying task of retrospection in a state of nerves so lamentable that no ingenuity of affection, or utmost desire to cheer and relieve her, can suggest a sufficiently soothing process for that purpose. She cannot be amused at all now by anything that does not excite her, and if she is, over-excited she suffers cruelly from it. Thus, the reading of "Jane Eyre," which, while I continued it, kept her in a state of extremeexpectationand interest, appeared to me, upon the whole, afterwards, to have affected her very unfavorably....
I will bring you Charles Greville's book about your most painful country, and some music....
Good-bye, dearest Hal. My affectionate love to dear Dorothy.
Ever as ever yours,
Fanny.
18, Orchard Street.
DÉJAZET.... You ask me for my impression of Déjazet, and the piece I went to see her in; and here they are. The piece in which she came out was called "Vert Vert." Youremember, no doubt, Gresset's poem about the poor parrot, so called; well, instead of a bird, they make this Vert Vert a young boy of sixteen, brought up in a girls' convent, and taken out for a week, during which he goes to Nevers, falls in with garrison officers, makes love to actresses, sups and gets tipsy at the mess, and, in short, "gets ideas" of all sorts, with which he returns again to his convent. If you can conceive this part, acted to the life by a woman, who moves with more completedisinvolturain her men's clothes than most men do, you may imagine something of the personal exhibition at which we assisted. As for me, my eyes and mouth opened wider and wider, not so much at the French actress, as at the well-born, well-bred English audience, who, women as well as men, were in a perfect ecstasy of amusement and admiration. I certainly never saw more admirable acting, but neither did I ever see such uncompromising personal exposure and such perfect effrontery of demeanor. I do not think even ballet-dancers more indecent than Mademoiselle Déjazet, for their revelations of their limbs and shapes are partial and momentary, while hers were abiding and entire through the whole of her performance, which she acted in tight-fitting knee-breeches and silk stockings; nor did I ever see such an unflinching representation of unmitigated audacity of carriage, look, and manner, in any male or female, on or off the stage....
She always wears men's clothes, and is seldom seen without a cigar in her mouth. She is extremely witty, and famous for her powers of conversation and pungent repartees. She is plain, and has a disagreeable harsh shrill voice in speaking; her figure is thin, but straight, and well made, and her carriage and movements as graceful as they are free and unembarrassed; her singing voice is sweet, and her singing charming, and her spirit and talent as an actress incomparable. But if I had not seen it, I should not have believed that so impudent a performance would have been tolerated here: tolerated it not only was, but applauded with enthusiasm; and Mademoiselle Déjazet carries the town before her, being the least decent actress of the most indecent pieces I ever saw.
Good-bye. Give my love to Dorothy.
Ever yours,
Fanny.