[Offenbach's burlesque Operas were still in the future.]
[Offenbach's burlesque Operas were still in the future.]
29, King Street, St. James's, January 14th.
I have not heard again from Bath, and so have answered your two questions, dearest Hal, and will tell you what little I have to tell of my installation in my new lodging here.
I read theTimes,studiously, all the way up to town, and was alone in my railroad carriage. As soon as we reached King Street, I sent Hayes off to Orchard Street, to see for letters, cards, etc. On entering my room (you will remember the upper front room, where we visited Lady W—— together), I saw a beautiful white hyacinth, standing in the window, and knew directly that Emily had sent it to me. I found, too, a most kind and affectionate letter from her.... Fanny Wilson and Mrs. Mitchell had called while I was away, and two gentlemen who had not left their names—probably the Grevilles.... I don't like either my room or my furniture, I am sorry to say; but I shall get attached to both in a couple of days.... At a little after four, Henry Greville called and stayed some time, telling me as usual all manner of gossip—among other things that his brother Charles was supposed to bethe author of Jane Eyre! I wonder by whom?
Lord Ellesmere's gout is better, and they have been able to get him down to Hatchford—their place near Weybridge. Henry Greville complained bitterly of Adelaide's not writing to him about their new house in Eaton Place, which she wants him to get papered and prepared for them—a job he is very willing to undertake, provided she will send him detailed and specific instructions, which he is now waiting for in vain, and in great disgust at her laziness.... I worked at my translation of "Mary Stuart" till bedtime.... It is impossible to say how much I miss you and dear Dorothy, and how chilled to the marrow I felt when I had left the warm and kind atmosphere of your affectionate companionship.... However, an additional oppressive sense of my loneliness was the price I was sure to pay for my week's happy fellowship with you and Dorothy. And, after all, it was worth the price.
I wrote this much yesterday, dear Hal; and yesterday is over, and has carried with it my cowardly fit of despondency, and I am already back in the harness of my usual lonely life, and feel the galling on the sore places of my spirit less; ... and every hour will bring occupationand business (such as they are, as Hamlet very contemptuously observes), and I shall have something to do—if not to think of....
I have heard from Norwich, and find I shall have less to prepare than I expected for two nights, Friday and Saturday. I shall act at Yarmouth, and repeat what I play at Norwich.
Mrs. Jameson has taken rooms in this house, I find, and comes here to-night, and I shall be very glad of some of her company.... Certainly London, much as I hate it, agrees better with me than St. Leonard's; either the air or the water there are bad for me. I am much better than when I was there....
God bless you. Kiss your Good Angel for me—how much I love and revere her, and how I rejoice that you have such an inestimable friend and companion! I have been very happy with you, my dear and good and kind friends.
Ever yours,
Fanny.
29 King Street, St. James's, Saturday, January 15th.
"VANITY FAIR."I dined at home yesterday, dear Hal, and spent the evening in reading "Vanity Fair." It is extremely clever, but hitherto I do not like it very much. I began it at Bannisters last Winter, and then I did not like it, wonderfully clever as I thought it. Lord Ellesmere says it is better than anything of the kind (novels of manners and morals) since Fielding; but as far as I have yet gone in it, it seems to me to have one very disagreeable quality—the most prominent people in it are thorough worldlings, and though their selfishnesses, and meannesses, and dirtinesses, and pettinesses, are admirably portrayed—to the very life, indeed—I do not much rejoice in their company. It is only within the last year that I have been able toget through"Gil Blas," for the same reason; and though I did get through, I never gotoverthe odiousness of the people I lived with during the four volumes of his experiences of life.
Is not Shakespearetrueto human nature? Why does he never disgust one with it? Why does one feel comparatively clean in spirit after living with his creatures? Some of them are as bad as real men and women ever were, but some of them are as good as real men andwomen ever are; and one does not lose one's respect for one's kind while reading what he writes of it; and his coarse utterances, the speech of his time, hurt one comparatively little in the midst of his noble and sweet thoughts....
I am going with Henry Greville to Drury Lane to-night, and perhaps he will eat his dinner here. He has a perfect mania for playhouses, and cannot keep out of them, and I would as lief spend my evening in hearing pretty music as alone here....
I drove up and down Regent Street three times in vain to find your identical cutler, Mr. Kingsbury: perhaps he has left off business, and some one else has taken his shop.Sowhat shall I do with your scissors? Do you think if I talk to them they will be sharpened?...
I have not heard again from Bath, and have seen nobody but Fanny Wilson, with whom I dine to-morrow, and Mrs. Mitchell's two boys....
I shall get through my packing very well. Hayes is greatly improved, and reallybeginsnow to be useful to me. Thus we most of us begin only just as we come to theendand leave off.
I was driving about all yesterday, doing commissions; to-day the sun shines, and I am going to wade in the mud for my health.
God bless you. Kiss dear Dorothy for me.
Ever yours,
Fanny.
Norwich, Wednesday, January 20th.
I have found your cutler, Kingsbury; and very glad I was to find him, for I hate not being able to execute a commission exactly as I am desired to do....
When I said that people never love others better than themselves, I did not meanmore, but in a better way than they love themselves. I mean that those who are conscientious in their self-regard will be conscientious in their regard for others, and that it takes good people to make good friends; and I do not consider this a "paradox of mine," as you uncivilly style it. It is aconvictionof mine, and I feel sure that you agree with it, whatever your first impression of my meaning may have been when I said that people never loved others better than themselves (i.e., with a better kind of love). I know that veryunprincipled people are capable of affection, and their affection partakes of their want of principle: people have committed crimes for the sake of the love they bore their wives, mistresses (oftener), and children; and half the meannesses, pettinesses, and selfishnesses of which society is full, have their source in unprincipled affection as much as in unprincipled self-love.
I had already taken to my King Street lodging when I left it for this place. You know I have a horror of new places and a facility in getting over it, which is a double disadvantage in this wandering life of mine; for I am perpetually undergoing the process of feeling miserable and lonely in a new place, and more miserable and lonely still when I leave it. The room I have here is gloomy, but opens into my bedroom, which is comfortable, and I shall soon attain the easy liking of habit for it.
Mrs. ——, dear Harriet, is without tact, and learns nothing, which is one reason why, in spite of her many good qualities and accomplishments, I cannot get on with her. I breakfasted with her on Sunday morning, and she abused A—— to me—not violently, of course, but very foolishly. She is wanting in perception, and is perpetually committing sins of bad taste, which provoke people—and me "much more than reason." I do not suppose I shall see enough of her to admit of her "drying me up" (as the Italians say for boring), but I always find it difficult to get on with her, even for a short time.
There is an element ofungenuinenessabout her, I believe quite involuntary; ... and it does not so much consist in telling stories, though I believe she would do that on proper occasions, like everybody else (but you, who never would know which were proper occasions), as in a crooked or indirect moral vision, an incapacity for distinguishing what is straight from what is not, which affects me very unpleasantly.
AT DRURY LANE.On Saturday evening I went to Drury Lane, with Henry and Charles Greville, the latter having invited himself to join us. I spent a rather dolorous three hours hearing indifferent music, indifferently sung, and admiring compassionately the mental condition of such a man as my friend Henry, who must needs divert himself with such an entertainment, having, moreover, taste enough to know what is really good, and yet persuading himself that this was not bad, only because to him anything is better thanspending an evening quietly alone at home.... On the other hand, several things struck me a good deal. The music of the opera was poor, but it was not worse than much of Donizetti's music, and it was composed by an Englishman. It was put together with considerable skill and cleverness, but was far less agreeable than the poorest Italian music of the same order; and it was well executed, by a good orchestra, chiefly composed of English musicians. The principal singers were all English, and some of them had fine voices, and though they seldom used them well, they did so occasionally; and, upon the whole, did not sing much worse than Italian performers of the same class would have done. The choruses and concerted pieces, also all given by English people, were well executed, though stupid and tiresome in themselves; and certainly the progress our people have made in music in my time, to which the whole opera testified, is very great. The audience was very numerous, and though the galleries were crowded, and it is Christmas-time, and the after-piece was the pantomime, there was not the slightest noise, or riot, or disturbance, even among "the gods," and the pieces in the opera which were encored, were redemanded in the polite fashion of the Queen's Theatre, by a prolonged, gentle clapping, without a single shout or shriek of "Hangcor!" or "Brayvo!" This is a wonderful change within my recollection, for I remember when, during the run of a pantomime, the galleries presented a scene of scandalous riot and confusion; bottles were handed about, men sat in their shirt-sleeves, and the shouting, shrieking, bawling, squalling, and roaring were such as to convert the performance of the first piece into mere dumb show.
All this is well, and testifies to an improved civilization, and not to a mere desire to ape those above them in society; for that could hardly suffice to persuade these Drury Lane audiences that they are amused by a tiresome piece tiresomely acted, and tedious musical strains, of which they cannot carry away a single phrase, which sets nobody's foot tapping or head bobbing with rhythmical sympathy, being all but devoid of melody.
I am very fond of music, but I would rather have sat out the poorest play than that imitation opera; the scenery, dresses, decorations, etc., were all very good, and testified to the much more cultivated taste of the times in all these matters.
On Sunday I dined with the Horace Wilsons, whom I had not seen for some time, and for whom I have a very great regard, ... Returning home, I stopped at dear old Miss Cottin's.... I am much attached to her, and think, next to my own dear Aunt Dall, she is one of the sweetest and most unselfish creatures I have ever known, and love her accordingly....
A KINDLY SERVANT.I left London for this place on Monday morning, and having a sulky deliberate cab-driver, arrived at the station just five minutes after the train had departed. This kept me waiting from 11.30 till 3.30, during which time Hayes, thinking I should be hungry, went out privately, and coming back with a paper of biscuits, pointed out a raspberry tart at the bottom of it, and said, "Here is a little tart I have got on purpose for you." Was not that courtly and kind of her?
I act here till Thursday. Friday and Saturday I act at Yarmouth; and I shall return to town on Sunday, unless the Vice-Chancellor should allow the manager to open the Cambridge Theatre, which is not generally allowed during term; if he should, I shall act there on Monday night, and only return to town Tuesday morning.
I have promised Mrs. Grote to go down to the Beeches on Saturday, 29th, and shall only stay there till Monday, 31st. This is all I know of myself at present, except that I am
Affectionately yours,
Fanny.
Dear Dorothy,
Here is my love with my pen and ink, which I flatter myself are as wretchedly bad as those of any gentlewoman in the universe, and St. Leonard's.
You may be impertinent to Hal; she is only a bully, and will give in if you try: if you don't like to try, as you are meek and lowly, I'll try for you, when I come down, if you'll give me your power-of-attorney and instructions, without which I don't suppose I should know how to be impertinent. Farewell, dearest Dorothy. I love you entirely for your own sake; I don't like mixing up matters, and thank God for you, for Harriet's sake, as often as I think of you both.
Begun at Norwich, finished at Yarmouth, Friday, 21st.
I do but poorly at Norwich, my dearest Hal, in body and estate, having a wretched influenza, sore throat, sore chest, and cold in my head, through which I am obliged to stand bare-necked and bare-armed, bare-headed and almost bare-footed (for the thin silk stockings and satin shoes are a poor protection), on the stage, to houses, I am sorry to say, as thin as my stockings; so that the money return for all this fatigue, discomfort, and expense is but inconsiderable,i.e.by comparison, for undoubtedly it is a fair harvest for such grain as I sow.
My mind rather thrives upon this not too prosperous condition of my body and estate, inasmuch as I naturally make some effort to be courageous and cheerful, and therefore do better in that respect than when I was cheerful and needed no courage, while you were spoiling me at St. Leonard's with all your love for me, and Dorothy with all her love for you.
In half an hour I leave this place for Yarmouth, where I act to-night and to-morrow. The manager has made an arrangement with me to act at his theatres at Lynn and Cambridge next week, so that instead of returning to London the day after to-morrow, I shall not do so until Friday, 28th....
We have dismal weather, snow on the ground, and blackness in the skies. My poor Hayes has got the influenza too, and goes hacking and snivelling at my heels like an unpleasant echo. I shall be thankful for both our sakes when our winter work is over, for the exposure is very great; and though, of course, she has much less of it than I have, she bears it worse, catches colds oftener, and keeps them longer than I do....
I should, I believe, find it very difficult indeed to be economical, and yet I suppose that if I felt the duty and necessity of it I should be more so than I am. The saving of money without any special motive for it does not appear to me desirable, any more than self-denial without a sufficient motive—and I do not call mere mortification such—appears to me reasonable. I do not feel called upon to curtail the comforts of my daily life, for in some respects it is always miserable, and in many respects often inevitably very uncomfortable; and while I am laboring to spare sacrifice and disgrace to others, I donot see any very strong motive for not applying a sufficient portion of the money I work so hard for, to make my wandering and homeless life as endurable as I can....
Your mode of living is without pretension, and without expenditure for mere appearances; and I feel certain that appearances, and not the positive and necessary comforts of life, such as sufficient firing and food, are the heaviest expenses of gentlefolks.... If the life is more than meat or raiment, which I quite agree to, meat and raiment are more than platters and trimmings; and it is the style that half the time necessitates the starvation....
MY LOOK-OUT.Now I am at Yarmouth; though t'other side the page I was at Norwich. The earth is white, the sea is black, the sky gray, and everything most melancholy. I act here to-night, and to-morrow and on Sunday go on to Lynn, where I act Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday; and Thursday at Cambridge. On Friday I go back to town, and on Saturday to Mrs. Grote's. I am in just such a little room as those we used to pass in walking along the Parade at St. Leonard's—a small ground-floor room, about sixteen feet square, the side facing the sea, one large bow-window in three compartments; just such a gravel terrace before it as the one we walked up and down together; and the very same sea, dark, neutral-tinted, with its frothing edge of white, as if it was foaming at the mouth in a black convulsion, that your eyes look upon from your window. It is in some respects exactly like St. Leonard's, and again as much the reverse as sad loneliness is to loving and delightful companionship.
I have a sort of lost-child feeling whenever I go to a strange place, that very few people who know me would give me credit for; but that's because they don't know me.
God bless you, dear. Kiss dear Dorothy for me.
I am ever yours,
Fanny.
Yarmouth, 22d.
My very dear and most sententious friend, I neverdorun the time of my departure for railroad trains "to the chances of free streets and fast-driving cabmen;" I always allow amply for all accidents, as I have a greater horror of being hurried and jostled even than of being too late. But my driver, the day I left town, was, I think, inexperiencedas well as sulky. He was very young, and though I was too ignorant of city localities to direct him positively, my recollection of the route which I had traversed before seemed to me to indicate that he did not take the most direct way.
You ask me what I think of E——'s note, and if it seems "wonderfully aristocratic" to me. Aristocratic after the English fashion, which, thank God, is far from being a very genuine fashion—their "airs" being for the most partadulteratedby the good, sound, practical common sense of the race, as their blood ispollutedwith the wholesome, vigorous, handsome, intelligent vital fluid of the classes below them. No real aristocrat would have mentioned Miss ——'s maiden name as if she was a woman of family—(née—geborne; that was a delightful German woman who said she wasn'tgeborneat all)—for Miss ——, being only a banker's daughter, was, of course "nobody."
The real aristocratic principle is not—I say again, thank God!—often to be found among us islanders of Britain. In Austria, where the Countess Z—— and the Princess E—— are looked upon as the earth under the feet of the Vienna nobility, the one being Lord S——'s daughter and the other Lord J——'s, they have a better notion of the principle of the question. There were only four families in all the British peerage who could have furnished their daughter with therequisitenumber of quarterings for one of those Austrian alliances.
In folly, as in wisdom, a principle is at least consistent; but that the aristocratic pretensions of our upper class can never be: for our gentry is of more ancient date in a great many instances, and our nobles are, fortunately for themselves and us, a mixed race, admitting to the temporary fellowship of social companionship and the permanent alliance of matrimony, wealth, influence, beauty, and talent from every grade beneath them; therefore they are fit to endure, and will endure longer than any other European aristocracy, in spite of Prince Puckler Muskau's epigram against the most "mushroom of nobilities."
The "airs" they do give themselves are, therefore, very droll, whereas the similar pretensions of an Austriancrème de la crèmeare comprehensible and consistent—folly without a flaw, and rather admirable in its kind as a specimen of human absurdity.... I have the honor of being slightly acquainted with E——'s portrait painter. He isa Scotch gentleman, of very great merit as an artist. He was in Rome the winter I was there, and I met him in society, and saw several of his pictures. He was rather injured artistically, I think, by living with mad lords and silly ladies who used to pet and spoil him, which sort of thing damages our artists, who become bitten with the "aristocratic" mania, and destroy themselves as fine workmen in their desire to become fine gentlemen.
There was a story in Rome about Lady C—— and the German princess, Lady D——, going one day to Mr. ——'s studio and finding his fire out, falling down on their own fair knees, and with their own fair hands kindling it again for him. After this, how could he paint anything less than a countess? Jesting apart, however, my dear Hal, the terms Mr. —— asks are very high; and though he is a very elegant and graceful portrait-painter, I would rather, upon the whole, sit to Richmond, whose chalk drawings are the same price, and whose style is as good and more vigorous.
You ask me why Mrs. ——, who is undoubtedly a clever woman, is also undoubtedly a silly one?
A CLEVER WOMAN.If I wished to be saucy, which I never do and never am, I should tell you, being an Irishwoman, that it was because she was Irish, and, therefore, capable of a sort of intellectual bull; but, unluckily, though ingenious, this is not true. The sort of ability or abilities, to which we give the ill-defined name of "cleverness," is entirely distinct from common sense, judgment, discretion; so distinct as to be almost their opposite. I think a clever woman requires quite an unusual portion of the above qualities not to be silly,becauseshe is clever. This may sound paradoxical, but if you think it worth examining, you will find it true.
I am very cold and very comfortless in these horrible theatres, and shall be glad to get back to King Street, and as soon as I am there will take measures about my readings, which I think I had better begin in earnest with.
There are no rocks on the beach here, like that pretty little reef that runs right out before your windows, but three miles from the shore there is a fatal stretch of sand where wrecks are frequent, and all along which ominous white clouds are springing up from the inky surface of the wintry sea, like warning ghosts. It is very dreary and dismal looking; but, nevertheless, as I have norehearsal, I am going out to walk. Kiss Dorothy for me. I am yours and hers most affectionately,
Fanny.
I have had another foolish note from Lady —— about "Jane Eyre"—the universal theme of conversation and correspondence—in which, speaking of herself, she says that she is "dished and done for, and gone to the dogs;" and then accuses the writer of "Jane Eyre" of not knowing how ladies and gentlemen talk—which I think, too; but the above expressions are a peculiar example of refined conventional language, which perhaps the author of that very remarkable book would have hesitated to ascribe to a lady—or a gentleman.
Birnham Beeches, Sunday, March 20th,andKing Street, Friday, February 1st, 1848.
Now I have two long letters of yours to answer, and my own opinion is that they will not be answered until I get to the Beeches, and have a few hours' breathing-time, for I am just now setting off for Cambridge, where I act to-night. To-morrow I travel to Bury St. Edmund's, and act there the same night; and Friday I shall just get to London in time for my dinner, and the next morning I go down to Birnham.... The air of St. Leonard's, though you call it cold and sharp, was mild compared with the raw, sunless climate I have sinceenjoyedat Lynn and Yarmouth; a bracing climate always suits me better than a relaxing one.... I cannot, however, agree with you that there is more "excitement" in rehearsing every morning, and sitting in a dull, dirty, hired room, and acting that everlasting "Hunchback" every evening, than in being your mounted escort to Bex Hill and Fairlight church, and reading to you either "Mary Stuart" or "Jane Eyre." I am glad to see that L—— and I agree about what always seems to me the most improbable part of the latter very remarkable book. I am slow in determining in my own mind the course that other women would pursue in exceptionally difficult circumstances; many of them would doubtless display an amount of principle of which I should be quite incapable; and so I am glad that L—— thinks, as I do, that Jane Eyre's safest course would have been to have left Thornfield without meeting her lover's despair.
Fever at the gates of Ardgillan, my dear Hal, must indeed make you anxious; but as your family have moved thence, I suppose they will not return while there is any danger to be apprehended from doing so.
And now, dear Hal, from the Beeches, where I arrived yesterday afternoon, and am now writing to you.... I have really kept both cold and cough down wonderfully, considering the horrible weather and exposure I have gone through travelling, and in those damp barns of theatres. Hayes will certainly not recover as soon as I do, for she has all the aversion of her class to physic and spare diet....
Charles Greville is here, and I asked him your question, if he had ever published any other book but the one upon Ireland you are reading. He said no. He has, however, written pamphlets and newspaper articles of considerable ability upon political subjects. I have been taking a long walk, and will now resume my letter to you. I perceive I have brought Charles Greville and his book into the middle of what I was telling you about those poor young Norwich actors.
A very pretty and charming niece of my dear friend, Mr. Harness, is married and living within a short distance of Lynn, and as I had not time to stay with her now, I have promised to go back into Norfolk to visit her, and at the same time I have promised to act a night for these poor people if they can get their manager's leave for me to do so.
MRS. GROTE.My dear Hal, this letter seems destined to pass its unfinished existence on the railroads. I am now at this present moment finishing it in my King Street lodging, to which I returned yesterday afternoon, Mrs. Grote being seized in the morning with one of her attacks of neuralgia, for which she is obliged to take such a quantity of morphine that she is generally in a state of stupor for four and twenty to thirty hours. The other guests departed in the morning, and I in the afternoon, after giving her medicine to her, and seeing her gradually grow stupid under its effect. Poor woman, she is a wretched sufferer, and I think these attacks of acute pain in her head answerable for some of the singularity of her demeanor and conversation, which are sometimes all but unaccountably eccentric.
You ask me if I saw anything on that bitter cold journey, as I went along, to interest me. You know I amextremely fond of the act of travelling: being carried through new country excites one's curiosity and stimulates one's powers of observation very agreeably, even when nothing especially beautiful or noteworthy presents itself in the landscape. I had never seen the east counties of England before, and am glad to have become acquainted with their aspect, though it is certainly not what is usually called picturesque. The country between Norwich and Yarmouth is like the ugliest parts of Holland, swampy and barren; the fens of Lincolnshire flat and uninteresting, though admirably drained, cultivated, and fertile. Ely Cathedral, of which I only saw the outside, is magnificent, and the most perfect view of it is the one from the railroad, as one comes from Lynn.
Lynn itself is a picturesque and curious old town, full of remains of ancient monastic buildings. The railroad terminus is situated in a property formerly part of a Carthusian convent, and the wheelwrights' and blacksmiths' and carpenters' cottages are built partly in the old monkish cells, of which two low ranges remain round a space now covered with sleepers, and huge chains, and iron rails, and all the modern materials of steam travel.
Cambridge, of course, I saw nothing of. On the road between it and Bury St. Edmund's one passes over Newmarket heath, the aspect of which is striking, apart from its "associations." Bury St. Edmund's—which is famous, as you know, for its beautiful old churches and relics of monastic greatness—I saw nothing of, but was most kindly and hospitably sheltered by Mr. Donne, who, being now the father of sons, is living in Bury in order to educate them at the school where he and my brothers were as boys under Dr. Malkin. [William Bodham Donne, my brother John's school and college mate, for more than fifty years of this changeful life the unchanged, dear, and devoted friend of me and mine—accomplished scholar, elegant writer, man of exquisite and refined taste, and such agentlemanthat my sister always said he was theoriginalof the hero of Boccaccio's story of the "Falcon."]
God bless you, my dear. I have a pain in my chest, and bad cough, which don't prevent my being
Yours most truly,
Fanny.
29, King Street, Thursday, 3d.
It is no longer the bitter cold morning on which you asked me how I was, and now I cannot for the life of me remember how or where I was on that said 26th. Oh, it was last Wednesday, and I was travelling from Lynn to Cambridge, and I was pretty well, and had a pleasant railroad trip, the gentlemen in the railroad carriage with me being intelligent and agreeable men, and one of them well acquainted with my brother John, and all his Cambridge contemporaries. Though it was cold, too, the sun shone, and threw long streaks of brightness across the fens of Lincolnshire, producing effects on the unfrequent and in themselves unpicturesque farm-houses, with their groups of wintry skeleton-trees exactly like those in the Dutch pictures, which are, for the most part, representations of just such landscapes.
MENDELSSOHN.Mitchell sent me yesterday a box at the French theatre for a morning performance of the "Antigone," with Mendelssohn's choruses. Previous to the performance of the Greek drama, they played, very inappropriately it seems to me, his music of the "Midsummer Night's Dream," and the effect of it upon my nerves was such that, though screened by the curtain of the box, and my sobs drowned by the orchestra, I thought I should have been obliged to leave the theatre. It is the first time that I have heard a note of Mendelssohn's music since his death.
How thankful I am I did not attempt that reading at the Palace! What should I have done there, thus convulsed with pain and sorrow, in the midst of those strange people, and the courtly conventions of their condition! Oh, what a bitter, bitter loss to the world, and all who loved him, has been the death of that bright and amiable great genius!
The Greek play was given in the true Grecian fashion, and was interesting and curious as a spectacle. The French literal translation of the grand old tragedy seemed at once stilted and bald, and yet I perceived and felt through it the power of the ancient solemn Greek spell; and though strange and puppet-like in its outward form, I was impressed by its stern and tragic simplicity. It is, however, merely an archæological curiosity, chiefly interesting as a reproduction of the times to which it belongs. To modern spectators, unless they are poets or antiquarians,I should think it must be dull, and so I find it is considered, in spite of Mendelssohn's fine music, which, indeed, is so well allied in spirit to the old tragedy, that to most listeners I dare say it has something of the dreamy dreariness of the drama itself.
Mrs. Jameson was with me, and it was chiefly on her account that I did not give way to my impulse to leave the theatre.
Good-bye. God bless you, my dear.
Ever yours,
Fanny.
[The foregoing letter refers to my having declined to read the "Antigone" at Buckingham Palace, under the following circumstances. My father was desired to do so, but his very serious deafness made his reading anything to which there was an occasional accompaniment of music difficult to him, and he excused himself; at the same time, unfortunately for me, he suggested that I should be applied to to read the play. Accordingly, I received a message upon the subject, but was obliged to decline the honor of reading at the Palace, for reasons which had not occurred to my father when he answered for my accepting the task he had been unable to undertake. I had never yet read at all in public, and to make my first experiment of my powers before the queen, and under circumstances calculated to increase my natural nervousness and embarrassment, seemed hardly respectful to her, and almost impossible to me.Then, for my first attempt of the kind, to select a play accompanied by Mendelssohn's music, of which I had not heard one bar since the shock of his death, was to incur the almost certain risk of breaking down in an uncontrollable paroxysm of distress, and perhaps being unable to finish my performance.What I endured at the St. James's Theatre, on the occasion I have spoken of in this letter, confirms me in my conviction that I couldn't have attempted what was proposed to me with a reasonable chance of being able to fulfil my task.I was told afterwards that I had been guilty of "disloyal disobedience to a royal command,"—a severe sentence, which I do not think I had deserved, and found it painful to bear.]
[The foregoing letter refers to my having declined to read the "Antigone" at Buckingham Palace, under the following circumstances. My father was desired to do so, but his very serious deafness made his reading anything to which there was an occasional accompaniment of music difficult to him, and he excused himself; at the same time, unfortunately for me, he suggested that I should be applied to to read the play. Accordingly, I received a message upon the subject, but was obliged to decline the honor of reading at the Palace, for reasons which had not occurred to my father when he answered for my accepting the task he had been unable to undertake. I had never yet read at all in public, and to make my first experiment of my powers before the queen, and under circumstances calculated to increase my natural nervousness and embarrassment, seemed hardly respectful to her, and almost impossible to me.
Then, for my first attempt of the kind, to select a play accompanied by Mendelssohn's music, of which I had not heard one bar since the shock of his death, was to incur the almost certain risk of breaking down in an uncontrollable paroxysm of distress, and perhaps being unable to finish my performance.
What I endured at the St. James's Theatre, on the occasion I have spoken of in this letter, confirms me in my conviction that I couldn't have attempted what was proposed to me with a reasonable chance of being able to fulfil my task.
I was told afterwards that I had been guilty of "disloyal disobedience to a royal command,"—a severe sentence, which I do not think I had deserved, and found it painful to bear.]
King Street, Saturday, February 9th, 1848.
Mrs. Jameson is no longer in the house with me, dearest Hal. She went away the other day from the theatre, where we were hearing Mendelssohn's "Antigone" together, and will probably not return for some time; when she does, I shall most likely be out of town.
I saw Mitchell yesterday, and he entirely declines to have anything whatever to do with my readings—ainsi me voilà bien!I cried like a baby the whole of the day afterwards; of course my nerves were out of order, or I should have chosen some less rubbishy cause among the various excellent reasons for tears I have to select from.
Mr. Harness and Charles and Henry Greville came to see me in the course of the day. The latter rather bullied me, said I behaved like a child: and so I certainly did; but, oh, my dear Hal, if you knew how little these, my most intimate friends, know about me, and how much more able and fit they think me to fight and struggle for myself than I am! They are all very kind in suggesting many things: Henry Greville is urgent with me to undertake the speculation of giving readings at my own risk—hiring a room, and sending out advertisements, etc.; but this I will not do, as I am willing' to work hard for very small gains, but not to jeopardize any portion of the small gains for which I have worked hard. Am I right in your opinion and that of dear Dorothy? In the mean time, I have written off to the Secretary of the Collegiate Institution at Liverpool, who proposed to me last year to give readings there, and have told him that I shall be glad to do so now if it still suits the purposes of the Institution. He, however, may have changed his mind, as Mitchell has done, and in that case I must sit down and eat my present savings, and thank God that I have savings for the present to eat....
Dear old Rogers came yesterday, and sat with me some time; and talking over my various difficulties with me, said I had much better go and live with him, and take care of his house for him. It's a pretty house, but I'm afraid it would be no sinecure to be his housekeeper....
Howisyour poor knees and wrists, and all your rheumatical fastenings and hinges, and Dorothy'sintérieur? I hope she is not tyrannizing over you with unnecessary questions and inquiries, which merely serve to trammelyour free-will, by asking you where you have been walking, or if it rained while you were out.
I send you a kiss, which I beg you will give each other for me, or otherwise divide without quarrelling, and believe me
Very affectionately yours,
Fanny.
29, King Street.
... Oh yes, my dear Hal, I hear abundance of discussion of the present distracted aspect of public affairs, abroad and at home; but for the most part the opinions that I hear, and the counsels that are suggested to meet the evils of the times, seem to me as much indications of the faithlessness and folly of men, as the great movements of nations are of the faithfulness and wisdom of God.
Still, when I hear clever, practical politicians talk, I always listen with keen interest; for the details in which they seem to me too much absorbed, are a corrective to my generalizing tendency on all such subjects.
Moral principles are thetruepolitical laws (mere abstract truisms, as they are held, and accordingly overlooked, byworkingstatesmen) by which the social world is kept in cohesion, just as the physical world is kept in equilibrium by the attracting and repelling forces that control its elements.
You ask me how many letters I am in your debt. When I shall have finished this, only one. I have worked very hard this past week to keep your claims down, but have only just now got my head above water with you.
There was nothing to like at Lynn. The weather was gloomy and cold, and I was only there two days. There seemed to be a good many curious remains of antiquity in and about the town—old churches, houses, gateways, and porches—but I had no leisure to look at these, and indeed the weather was almost too severe to admit of standing about sight-seeing, even under the warmest zeal for instruction.
I did not find the sea air make me sleep at Lynn, and incline to think that it is you, more than the climate that affects me so soporifically at St. Leonard's.
God bless you, dear.
Your affectionate,
Fanny.
29, King Street, St. James's.
I do not know how right I am in saying Lady —— married because she was jilted, inasmuch as of my own personal knowledge I do notknowit; but that she was much attached to Lord ——, whose father would not permit the marriage, I have heard repeatedly from people who knew both the families; and Rogers, who was very intimate with hers, told me that he considered her marrying as she did the result of mere disappointment, saying, "She could not have the man she loved, so she gave herself to the man who loved her." So much in explanation of my rather rash statement about that most beautiful lady I ever saw.
THE VENUS OF MILO.I have seen a good many handsome people, but there was a modesty, grace, and dignity, and an expression of deep latent sentiment in that woman's countenance, that, combined with her straight nymph-like figure, and the sort of chastity that characterized her whole person and appearance, fulfilled my ideal of female beauty. You will perhaps wonder at my use of the word "chastity," as applied merely to a style of beauty; but "chaste" is the word that describes it properly. Of all the Venuses of antique art, the Venus of Milo, that noble and keenly intellectual goddess of beauty, is the only one that I admire.
The light, straight-limbed Artemis is lovelier to me than the round soft sleepy Aphrodite; and it was to the character of her figure, and the contour of her head and face, that I applied the expression "chaste" in speaking of Lady ——. Her sister, who is thought handsomer, and is a lovely creature (and morally and mentally as worthy of that epithet as physically), has not this severely sweet expression, or sweetly stern, if you prefer it, though this implies a shade of volition, which falsifies the application of it. This is what I especially admire in Lady ——, who adds to that faultless Greek outline, which in its integrity and justness of proportion seems the type of truth, an eye whose color deepens, and a fine-textured cheek, where the blood visibly mantles with the mere emotion of speaking and being listened to.
The first time I met her was at a dinner-party at Miss Berry's, before her marriage. She sat by Landseer, and her great admiration for him, and enthusiastic devotion to his fine art, in which she was herself a proficient, lent an interest to their conversation, which exhibited itself inher beautiful face in a manner that I have never forgotten....
You bid me tell you how I am in mind, body, and estate. My mind is in a tolerably wholesome frame, my body not so well, having a cold and cough hanging about it, and suffering a good deal of pain the last few days. My estate is so far flourishing that I brought back a tolerable wage and earnings from my eastern expedition, and so shall not have to sell out any of my small funded property for my daily bread yet a while.
You say that tact is not necessarily insincerity. No, I suppose not: I must say I suppose, because I have never known anybody, eminently gifted with tact, who appeared to me perfectly sincere. I am told that the woman I have just been writing about, Lady C——, of whom my personal knowledge is too slight to judge how far she deserves the report, never departs from the truth; and yet is so gentle, good, and considerate, that she never wounds anybody's feelings. If this is so, it deserves a higher title than tact, and appears to me a great attainment in the prime grace of Christianity. I have always believed that where love—charity—abounded, truth might, and could, and would abound without offence. Which of the great French divines said, "Quand on n'est point dans les bornes de la charité, on n'est bientôt plus dans celles de la vérité"? It sounds like Fénélon, but I believe it is Bossuet. Tact always appears to me a sort of moral elegance, an accomplishment, rather than a virtue; dexterity, as it were, doing the work of sensibility and benevolence.
I think it likely that Mitchell will call in the course of the morning, and I may still possibly make some arrangement with him about my readings....
I have had a pressing invitation from Mrs. Mitchell, who is staying at Brighton with her boys, to go down there and visit her. It would be very nice if I could go thence to 18, Marina, St. Leonard's, and pay a visit to some other friends of mine. Your lodgings will, however, I fear, be full; and then, too, you may not want me, and it is as well not to be too forward in offering one's self to one's dearest friends, for fear of the French "Thank you," which with them, civil folk that they are, means, "No, they'd rather not." With us, it would imply, "Yes, gratefully;" otherwise, it is, "Thank you for nothing."
Kiss Dorothy for me.
Ever as ever yours,
Fanny.
29, King Street, Sunday, 5th.
I am afraid my pretty plot of coming to you is at an end, and I am afraid all my chances of coming to you are at an end. I wrote you yesterday that I was beginning to be doubtful about my further engagements in London, and was indeed discouraged and troubled at the aspect of my affairs. This morning, however, comes an express from M——, beginning a new negotiation with me, and wanting me to open with Macready at his theatre on the 21st of this month, to act four weeks, and then renew the engagement for four weeks more.... I do not wish to depart from the terms I have asked, but am extremely glad of the offer, and hope he will agree to them. I think it probable that he will, because my engagement with Macready has been so much talked about, and he has himself applied to me three several times about it. This puts an end to all visiting prospects, for Brighton or St. Leonard's, and in March you will be leaving the latter place. This is a sad disappointment, but perhaps Mr. M—— will not, after all, give me my terms, and I ought to be sorrier for that, but I shan't....
I had a visit the other morning from Mr. Blackett—John Blackett. I don't know if I have spoken of him to you. I met him at Mrs. Mitchell's in Scotland, while I was staying with her at Carolside, and liked him very much. He is a great friend of Dr. Hampden's and of Stanley, Arnold's biographer. He brought me, the other day, a volume of sermons by Stanley, of which I have just read the first, and have been delighted with it. How surely does such a spirit as Arnold's beget its own fit successors!... I think I have not read anything, since his own Life, that has given me the same deep satisfaction that these sermons of his pupil have....
That music of Mendelssohn's had a horrid effect upon my nerves; I mean the emotion and distress it caused me. I suffered a great deal of pain, and was quite unwell for several days after it. Will it not be a pity if I can't come and be spoilt any more by you and Dorothy at St. Leonard's? It was so pleasant and good for you.
Ever as ever yours,
Fanny.
King Street, Monday, 7th.
I do very, very well this morning, my dear Hal: this is in answer to your affectionate inquiry of the 1st; but if you wanted to know then, of course you will want to know just as much now....
My time at the Beeches was not very pleasant to me. The weather was horrible, cold, wet, and dismal; the house is wretchedly uncomfortable; and Mrs. Grote always keeps me in a rather nervous state of breathless apprehension as to what she may say or do next. I cannot talk much, either to her or Charles Greville; neither of them understands a word that I say. Her utterunusualnessperplexes me, and his ingrain worldliness provokes me; but I listened with great pleasure to some political talk between Charles Greville, Mr. Grote, and the Italian patriot, Prandi. You know that, fond as I am of talking, I like listening better, when I can hear what I think worth listening to. I was delighted with their clear, practical, comprehensive, and liberal views of the whole state of Europe, especially Italy, so interesting in her present half-roused attitude of returning national vitality. They talked a great deal, too, upon the West India sugar question; and I listened with interest to all they said, struck the whole time with their entirely ignoring the deepest sources whence national troubles and their remedies flow, of which the wisest working politicians and statesmen take apparently (very foolishly) little heed; I suppose they do not acknowledge them, which is why their government and statescraft is so apt to be mere temporary empirical expediency.
I had a very full and lively audience at Cambridge, and remarked with especial satisfaction a young man sitting in the stage box with one of the sweetest countenances I ever saw. I sincerely hope, for his beauty's sake, that he was amused. He reminded me of the line in King John, describing the young gentlemen in the English army—the lads "with ladies' faces and fierce dragons' spleens." They were very attentive, and very enthusiastic, and I was very well pleased with them, and I hope they were with me....
There is nothing in the supernatural part of "Jane Eyre" that disturbs me at all; on the contrary, I believe in it. I mean, there is nothing in my mode of thinking andfeeling that denies the possibility of such a circumstance as Jane Eyre hearing her distant lover call upon her name. I have often thought that the power of intense love might very well work just such a miracle as that. God bless you, dear. Kiss dearest Dorothy for me, and believe me
Ever yours,
Fanny.
29, King Street, Tuesday, 8th.
Yesterday I had plenty of questions to answer in my letter to you; to-day I have not one.... My beloved friend, I know that if your power to serve me equalled your desire to do so, I should be borne in the arms of angels, "lest at any time I struck my foot against a stone." But do not, my dearest Harriet, let your love for me forget that faith without which we could neither bear our own trials nor the trials of those we love. "In the great hand of God we all stand," and are fitly cared for by Him, our Father. I should be much ashamed of the sudden flood of cowardice that overwhelmed me two days ago at the difficult and cheerless prospect before me, but that it was, I am sure, the result of nervous disorder, and the jarring I got the other day from that dreadful Antigone.
You know I seldom waste time in blaming myself, and tarry but a brief space in the idle disconsolateness of repentance. I must try to be less weak, and less troubled about my prospects. I wrote you yesterday of the proposal I had received from Mr. Maddox. He made no offer of terms. I have heard nothing further from him, and augur ill from his silence. I suppose he will not pay me what I ask, and thinks it useless to offer me less. I shall be very sorry for this; but if I find it so, will apply to Mr. Webster, or some other manager, for employment; and if I fail with them, must make a desperate effort about my readings.
LORD HARDWICKE.But for my sister's entreaty that I would remain here till she returns from Italy, and my own great desire to see her again, I wouldconfrontthe winter passage across the Atlantic, in hopes of finding work in America, and living without using up the little I have already gathered together. But I cannot bear to go before she comes to England.... I was surprised by a visit from Lord Hardwickeyesterday; it is years since I have seen him. I knew and liked him formerly, as Captain Yorke. He is as blunt and plain-spoken as ever, and retains his sailor-like manner in spite of his earldom, which he hadn't when I met him last.... Henry Greville is coming to tea with me this evening, and I promised to read him my translation of "Mary Stuart." I hope he may like it as well as you did. Lady Dacre was here this afternoon; she has been dreadfully ill, and looks an old woman now, for the first time, at eighty—that is not too soon to begin.
I think I shall take Mr. Maddox's last offer, and if so, dear Hal, farewell to my visit to St. Leonard's. But I am of the poor author's mind, "Qu'il faut bien qu'on vive," and do not suppose that you will answer meàlaVoltaire, "Ma foi, je n'en vois pas la nécessité."
It is very odd that it should seem so natural to one to live, and so strange to die, since it is what everybody does. The fact is, habit is the strongest thing in the world; and living is simply the oldest habit we have, and so the strongest.
Good-bye, my dear, and believe me
Respectfully yours,
Fanny.
King Street, St. James's, Thursday, 10th.
... Mr. Maddox comes here, and worries my life out with haggling and bargaining, but has not yet agreed to any terms, and I am half distracted with all the various advice tendered me.... In the mean time, I am much comforted about my readings; for I received yesterday morning a very courteous letter from the Secretary of the Collegiate Institution at Liverpool, offering me twenty guineas a night if I would go down and read there six nights at the end of March. This I shall be thankful to do, if my engagement at the Princess's Theatre falls through, and if it does not I shall hope to be able to accept the Liverpool invitation later in the season. I have had a visit, too, from one of the directors of the Highgate Institute, to beg I would go and read there. They cannot afford to give me more than ten guineas a night, the institute being a small and not very rich one; but of course I do not expect to be paid for reading as I am for acting, and therefore, whenever I can, shall accept the Highgate offer.
These various proposals have put me in heart once moreabout the possible success of this reading experiment, and I am altogether much comforted at seeing that employment is not likely to fail me, which I was beginning to fear it might.... Of course, if I apply for engagements to managers, I must expect to take their terms, not to make my own—for beggars must not be choosers, as I learnt long ago; and when I solicit an engagement, I must be prepared to sell myself cheap—and I will. If Maddox won't pay me what I ask, and Webster won't have me at any price, I shall come to you and Dorothy, who, I "reckon," will take me on my own terms: which in these my days of professional humiliation (not personal humility, you know), is quite kind of you.
Yours ever,
Fanny.
King Street, Friday, 28th.
My dearest Hal,
STRENGTH AND WEAKNESS.You will be glad to hear that Mr. Maddox has at length come into my terms.... For the next two months this is some anxiety off my mind, and I trust will be off yours for me; and the last two days have shown me that my chance of getting employment, either acting or reading, is likely to last—at any rate till my sister returns, when I shall probably stay with her till my departure for America.... I am most thankful that the depression and discouragement under which I succumbed for a while has been thus speedily relieved. It is a curious sensation to have a certain consciousness of power (which I have, though perhaps it is quite a mistaken notion), and at the same time of absolute helplessness. It seems to me as if I had some sort of strength, and yet I feel totally incapable of coping with the small difficulties of circumstance under which it is oppressed; it's like a sort of wide-awake nightmare. I suppose it's because I am a woman that I am so idiotic and incompetent to help myself.
But when one thinks of it, what a piteous page in the history of human experience is the baffling and defeat of real genius by the mere weight of necessity, the bare exigencies of existence, the need to live from day to day. Think of Beethoven dying, and saying to Hummel, with that most wonderful assertion of his own great gifts, "Pourtant, Hummel, j'avois du génie!"—such transcendent genius as it was too! such pure and perfect and highand deep inspiration! which had, nevertheless, not defended him from the tyranny of poverty, and the petty cares of living, all his life.
Is it not well that people of great genius are alwaysproud as well as humble, and that the consciousness of their own nobility spreads, as it were, the wings of an angel between them and all the baseness and barrenness through which they are often compelled to wade up to the lips? Whenever I think of Burns, my heart tightens itself, to use a French expression, for a most painfulphysical emotion. Do you know Schiller's exquisite poem of the "Division of the Earth"? I will send you a translation, if you do not—a rough one I made of it when it was one of my German lessons. My version is harsh and poor enough, but the thoughts are preserved, andthethought is worthy of that noble poet....
29, King Street, Saturday, 12th.
My dearest Hal,
How many pleasant things I might lament overifI might! I shall not see St. Leonard's again with you. Emily has misunderstood in saying that my engagement at the Princess Theatre does not begin till the 27th; it begins on the 21st, next Monday week, and I shall only just have time to get my wardrobe ready and study Desdemona and Cordelia, which I am asked to play, and re-learn the music of Ophelia, which I have quite forgotten....
I have an engagement offered me in Dublin, and it is rather provoking that I cannot accept it now, for this, I believe, is the height of the gay season there. As it is, I fear I shall not be able to go over there till May; but perhaps then you will go with me, or be there, and that will be some compensation for the less money I shall make.
It's curious all these engagements offering now within these few days: to be sure, it never rains but it pours, so that accounts for it philosophically.
Did I tell you what a nice long visit I had from Thackeray the other day? Oh, have you read that "Vanity Fair" of his? It is wonderful! He was a schoolfellow of my brother John's, you know, and is a very old friend of mine, but I had not seen him for some time. I wrote to ask him for his autograph for Henry Greville, and hewrote me an extremely kind note, and came himself after it, and sat with me a very long time, and was delightful.
Lady Charlotte Greville, who has just removed into a beautiful new house she has arranged for herself, wrote to say she was coming to town immediately, and hoped I would give my first London reading in her drawing-room. Was not that nice and kind and good-natured of her, dear old lady? But of course I declined, at any rate for the present, as I mean to exhaust my natural enemies, the managers, before I have recourse to my friends, in any way whatever. Kiss Dorothy for me, and don't let her break your spirit with inquisitorial and vexatious supervision of your actions. A timely resistance to friendly tyranny is a great saving of trouble.
Good-bye, you bad dear.
I am yours ever,
Fanny.