THACKERAY.[I wish to record a slight anecdote of my friend William Thackeray, which illustrates his great kindness and amiability, hissweetnessof temper and disposition.I met him at Miss Berry's at dinner, a few days before he began his course of lectures on the English essayists, and he asked me to come and hear him, and told me he was so nervous about it, that he was afraid he should break down.I had an engagement which prevented my hearing his first lecture, but I promised him to go and see him at his room before he began it, to cheer him.He was to lecture at Willis Rooms, in the same room where I read, and going thither before the time for his beginning, found him standing like a forlorn disconsolate giant in the middle of the room, gazing about him. "Oh, Lord," he exclaimed, as he shook hands with me, "I'm sick at my stomach with fright." I spoke some words of encouragement to him, and was going away, but he held my hand, like a scared child, crying, "Oh, don't leave me!" "But," said I, "Thackeray, you mustn't stand here. Your audience are beginning to come in," and I drew him from the middle of his chairs and benches, which were beginning to be occupied, into the retiring-room adjoining the lecture-room, my own readings having made me perfectly familiar with both. Here he began pacing up and down, literallywringing his hands in nervous distress. "Now," said I, "what shall I do? Shall I stay with you till you begin, or shall I go, and leave you alone to collect yourself?" "Oh," he said, "if I could only get at that confounded thing" (his lecture), "to have a last look at it!" "Where is it?" said I. "Oh, in the next room on the reading-desk." "Well," said I, "if you don't like to go in and get it, I'll fetch it for you." And remembering well the position of my reading-table, which had been close to the door of the retiring-room, I darted in, hoping to snatch the manuscript without attracting the attention of the audience, with which the room was already nearly full. I had been used to deliver my reading seated, at a very low table, but my friend Thackeray gave his lectures standing, and had had a reading-desk placed on the platform, adapted to his own very tall stature, so that when I came to get his manuscript it was almost above my head. Though rather disconcerted, I was determined not to go back without it, and so made a half jump, and a clutch at the book, when every leaf of it (they were not fastened together), came fluttering separately down about me. I hardly know what I did, but I think I must have gone nearly on all-fours, in my agony to gather up the scattered leaves, and retreating with them, held them out in dismay to poor Thackeray, crying, "Oh, look, look, what a dreadful thing I have done!" "My dear soul," said he, "you couldn't have done better for me. I have just a quarter of an hour to wait here, and it will take me about that to page this again, and it's the best thing in the world that could have happened." With which infinite kindness he comforted me, for I was all but crying, at having, as I thought, increased his distress and troubles. So I left him, to give the first of that brilliant course of literary historical essays with which he enchanted and instructed countless audiences in England and America.The last time I saw Thackeray, was at a dinner at my dear friend, Mr. Harness'. As we were about to seat ourselves at table, I being between Mr. Harness and Thackeray, his daughter Annie (now Mrs. Ritchie) was going to place herself on the other side of her father. "No, no," said our dear host, "that will not do. I cannot have the daughter next the father." And Miss Thackeray was invited to take another place. She had just published her story, "The History ofElizabeth," in which she showed herself to have inherited some of the fine elements of her father's literary genius. As we sat down, I said to him, "But it appears very evident, I think, that the daughteristo benextto the father." He looked at me for a moment with a beaming face, and then said, "Do you know, I have never read a word of that thing?" "Oh," cried I, "Thackeray! Why don't you? It is excellent! It would give you so much pleasure!" "My dear lady, I couldn't, I couldn't!" said he with tears in his eyes. "It wouldtear my guts out!"—which powerful English description of extreme emotion would have startled me less in French or Italian; "Cela m'arracherait les entrailles," or "misois-cerelbero."In the evening, he talked back to our early times, and my coming out at Covent Garden, and how, "We all of us," said he (and what a noble company of young brains and hearts they were!), "were in love with you, and had your portrait by Lawrence in our rooms"—which made me laugh and cry, and abuse him for tantalizing me with the ghost of a declaration at that late hour of both our days. And so we parted, and I never met him again. On his way home that evening, his daughter told me that he had spoken kind compassionate words of commendation of me. I have kept them in grateful remembrance. Fine genius! and tender gentle heart! the classic writer of the keenest and truest satire of the social vices of our day; the master of English style, as powerful and pure as that of the best models, whose works he has so admirably illustrated."Vanity Fair" will, I suppose, be always considered Thackeray's masterpiece—though everybody loves, beyond all his other portraits, the exquisite one of Colonel Newcome—but it seems to me that "Esmond" is a more extraordinary literary feat than any other of his works—except, indeed, "Lyndon of Barry Lyndon," which is even a more remarkable production of the same order.]
THACKERAY.[I wish to record a slight anecdote of my friend William Thackeray, which illustrates his great kindness and amiability, hissweetnessof temper and disposition.
I met him at Miss Berry's at dinner, a few days before he began his course of lectures on the English essayists, and he asked me to come and hear him, and told me he was so nervous about it, that he was afraid he should break down.
I had an engagement which prevented my hearing his first lecture, but I promised him to go and see him at his room before he began it, to cheer him.
He was to lecture at Willis Rooms, in the same room where I read, and going thither before the time for his beginning, found him standing like a forlorn disconsolate giant in the middle of the room, gazing about him. "Oh, Lord," he exclaimed, as he shook hands with me, "I'm sick at my stomach with fright." I spoke some words of encouragement to him, and was going away, but he held my hand, like a scared child, crying, "Oh, don't leave me!" "But," said I, "Thackeray, you mustn't stand here. Your audience are beginning to come in," and I drew him from the middle of his chairs and benches, which were beginning to be occupied, into the retiring-room adjoining the lecture-room, my own readings having made me perfectly familiar with both. Here he began pacing up and down, literallywringing his hands in nervous distress. "Now," said I, "what shall I do? Shall I stay with you till you begin, or shall I go, and leave you alone to collect yourself?" "Oh," he said, "if I could only get at that confounded thing" (his lecture), "to have a last look at it!" "Where is it?" said I. "Oh, in the next room on the reading-desk." "Well," said I, "if you don't like to go in and get it, I'll fetch it for you." And remembering well the position of my reading-table, which had been close to the door of the retiring-room, I darted in, hoping to snatch the manuscript without attracting the attention of the audience, with which the room was already nearly full. I had been used to deliver my reading seated, at a very low table, but my friend Thackeray gave his lectures standing, and had had a reading-desk placed on the platform, adapted to his own very tall stature, so that when I came to get his manuscript it was almost above my head. Though rather disconcerted, I was determined not to go back without it, and so made a half jump, and a clutch at the book, when every leaf of it (they were not fastened together), came fluttering separately down about me. I hardly know what I did, but I think I must have gone nearly on all-fours, in my agony to gather up the scattered leaves, and retreating with them, held them out in dismay to poor Thackeray, crying, "Oh, look, look, what a dreadful thing I have done!" "My dear soul," said he, "you couldn't have done better for me. I have just a quarter of an hour to wait here, and it will take me about that to page this again, and it's the best thing in the world that could have happened." With which infinite kindness he comforted me, for I was all but crying, at having, as I thought, increased his distress and troubles. So I left him, to give the first of that brilliant course of literary historical essays with which he enchanted and instructed countless audiences in England and America.
The last time I saw Thackeray, was at a dinner at my dear friend, Mr. Harness'. As we were about to seat ourselves at table, I being between Mr. Harness and Thackeray, his daughter Annie (now Mrs. Ritchie) was going to place herself on the other side of her father. "No, no," said our dear host, "that will not do. I cannot have the daughter next the father." And Miss Thackeray was invited to take another place. She had just published her story, "The History ofElizabeth," in which she showed herself to have inherited some of the fine elements of her father's literary genius. As we sat down, I said to him, "But it appears very evident, I think, that the daughteristo benextto the father." He looked at me for a moment with a beaming face, and then said, "Do you know, I have never read a word of that thing?" "Oh," cried I, "Thackeray! Why don't you? It is excellent! It would give you so much pleasure!" "My dear lady, I couldn't, I couldn't!" said he with tears in his eyes. "It wouldtear my guts out!"—which powerful English description of extreme emotion would have startled me less in French or Italian; "Cela m'arracherait les entrailles," or "misois-cerelbero."
In the evening, he talked back to our early times, and my coming out at Covent Garden, and how, "We all of us," said he (and what a noble company of young brains and hearts they were!), "were in love with you, and had your portrait by Lawrence in our rooms"—which made me laugh and cry, and abuse him for tantalizing me with the ghost of a declaration at that late hour of both our days. And so we parted, and I never met him again. On his way home that evening, his daughter told me that he had spoken kind compassionate words of commendation of me. I have kept them in grateful remembrance. Fine genius! and tender gentle heart! the classic writer of the keenest and truest satire of the social vices of our day; the master of English style, as powerful and pure as that of the best models, whose works he has so admirably illustrated.
"Vanity Fair" will, I suppose, be always considered Thackeray's masterpiece—though everybody loves, beyond all his other portraits, the exquisite one of Colonel Newcome—but it seems to me that "Esmond" is a more extraordinary literary feat than any other of his works—except, indeed, "Lyndon of Barry Lyndon," which is even a more remarkable production of the same order.]
King Street, Monday, 14th.
If you begin your letter with such questions as "What do you think of me?" I do not know any reason in life why my answer should ever have an end, even within the liberal limits of the two pages which you extort from me daily. That is a question I cannot answer; although, I must say, I should have expected from you rather moreof that constancy and consistency (a male rather than a female quality, however), which, having determined on a certain course as best, does not lament having abided by it when the issue appears unprosperous. I think women are seldom of a sufficiently determined mind to make their opinion or resolution itself their consolation under defeat. They are more liable to mental as well as moral misgivings and regrets than men, and an unfortunate result easily induces them to repent a course they deliberately adopted.
Sole vales Veritasis the motto upon a little pencil-case contained in the small work-case Emily has given me. She had it engraved on the seal, and though it is not altogether so congenial a motto to me as Arnold and Robertson's Christian device "Forward!" (and is moreover axiomatic rather than hortatory), I use it partly for her sake, and partly because it is undeniable.
Pilate wished to know what is truth—or rather pretended that he did—and I have a very general conviction that "What is truth?" is the speech of Pilate to this day;i.e., of those who know, but will not do, what they know to be right. It is very seldom, indeed, that the mind earnestly desires a conviction, strives for one, prays for one, and labors to attain one, that it does not acquire what, to all intents and purposes,istruth for that individual soul.
God's perfect and absolute Truth remedies in a thousand ways the defectiveness of the partial truth that we arrive at; and so that theendeavorafter truth be true, the highest result of all is reached,truth towards God, though, humanly speaking, the mental result may be a failure. Whatabsolute truthis, my dearest Hal, you will certainly not know before you die, and possibly not then. In the mean time, I take it, you have, or may have if you will, that which will serve your turn. At any rate, I have—which is not at all the same thing—but that don't signify.
I am very glad I was welcome in Bedford Place, and that Miss —— was good enough to be pleased with me.
There is great goodness in her voice and manner, and to have kept her face unwrinkled and her hair unblanched till the present age (as it is no result of selfish insensibility in her), bespeaks a virtuous life, and sweet serene temper.
I wonder more women to whom their good looks are precious, do not ponder upon thebeautyof holiness.... I have not heard from Adelaide or E—— for some time,but of them, that they and the children are well; that she is in good looks, and admirable voice; that their house is the pleasantest in Rome, and their partiesthething to which everybody is anxious to be admitted: so all is prosperous and pleasant with them. I have told you of her nice new house in Eaton Place. It is in a considerable state of forwardness, the bedrooms being all papered, and the drawing-rooms nearly painted. Henry Greville has had it all done for her, and in very good taste; the grates are all up, and I should think in another fortnight they might take possession if they were here.
I have read more of Stanley's sermons, and am struck with their resemblance, in tone and spirit, to that book of my friend Mr. Furness, which I do not know if I ever gave you to read, called, "Jesus and His Biographers."
DEAN STANLEY.Stanley's sermons are excellent, but they seem to me curiously unorthodox. There is an inletting of new views upon the subject of the Christian Revelation, against which the Protestantism of the Church of England—in many respects illogical and anomalous, as it appears to its opponents—will have to fight a hard and difficult battle.
Lady Ellesmere was absolutely in despair about the bill for admitting the Jews to Parliament, and had influence enough with Lord Ellesmere to make him vote against it. This is sad enough; but she is so excellent that her influence over him, in one case where it is bad is good in a great many others....
God bless you, my dear. Give my love to Dorothy: I am both yours, but yours most particularly,
Fanny.
P.S. My course with regard to my engagement at the Princess Theatre was determined by my father's opinion, and confirmed by the advice of all my friends who spoke to me upon the subject—Emily, Harness, the Grevilles, and others; and all that Mr. Maddox said in his various conversations with me upon the subject, enabled the best experienced among us to form a very fair idea of what he could afford to give, and what I was justified in asking.
29, King Street, Friday, February 18th, 1848.
I have been this morning to a rehearsal of Macbeth, at which Macready did not attend; so that in point of fact, as far as I was concerned, it wasnil. He is, I believe,finishing some country engagements, and I suppose had not returned to town. I have another rehearsal to-morrow, at which it is to be hoped he will attend, as otherwise my being there is really quite a work of supererogation.
My men friends—among whom I include my father—one and all, did what I think women would not have done. The minute Mr. Maddox agreed to the terms I had demanded, they lamented bitterly (even my dear Mr. Harness—who is a good man) that I had not stood out for higher ones, feeling quite sure I should have got them. Now, this I think quite as contemptible, and a great deal more dishonest, than the womanly process (Emily's and yours) of lamenting that I had not taken less than I had demanded, because you feared my doing so had broken off the negotiation altogether. I think, upon the whole, it behooves people to know what they mean, and to abide by it, without either weak regrets at an ill result, or selfish ones that it is not better than what one had made up one's mind to—when it seems that it might have been so. I do wish people would learn to be like my aunt's cook, and "stand upon their own bottom, with fortitude and similarity." (A woman that Mrs. Siddons was engaging as cook, replied to the question, "Can you make pastry?" "Well, no, ma'am—not exactly to say, the very finest of pastry. I can make plain puddings and pies, but—I am not a professed puff pastry cook, and I think it best to say so, as every one should stand upon their own bottom, with fortitude and similarity, I think.")
I act Lady Macbeth on Monday, on Wednesday Queen Katharine, and on Friday Desdemona, for the first time in my life. I have a beautiful and correct dress for her (you know I always liked my clothes), for which, nevertheless, I expect to be much exclaimed against, as our actresses have always thought proper to dress her in white satin. I have arrayed her in black (the only habit of the noble Venetian ladies) and gold, in a dress that looks like one of Titian's pictures.
That smothering scene, my dear Harriet, is most extremely horrible, and like nothing in the world but the catastrophe of poor Madame de Praslin. I think I shall make a desperate fight of it, for I feel horribly at the idea of being murdered in my bed. The Desdemonas that I have seen, on the English stage, have always appeared to me to acquiesce with wonderful equanimity in theirassassination. On the Italian stage they run for their lives round their bedroom, Pasta in the opera (and Salvini in the tragedy, I believe), clutching them finally by the hair of the head, and then murdering them. The bedgown in which I had arrayed Desdemona for the night would hardly have admitted of this flight round the stage; besides that, Shakespeare's text gives no hint of any such attempted escape on poor Desdemona's part; but I did think I should like not to be murdered, and therefore, at the last, got up on my knees on my bed, and threw my arms tight round Othello's neck (having previously warned Mr. Macready, and begged his pardon for the liberty), that being my notion of the poor creature's last appeal for mercy.
What do you think of our fine ladies amusing themselves with giving parties, at which they, and their guests, take chloroform as a pastime? Lady Castlereagh set the example, and was describing to me her sensations under the process. I told her how imprudent and wrong I thought such experiments, and mentioned to her the lecture Brand gave upon the subject, in which the poor little guinea-pig, who underwent his illustrations for the benefit of the audience, died on the table during the lecture; to which she replied, "Oh yes; that she knew that,for she was present." Can you conceive, after such a spectacle, trying similar experiments upon one's ignorant self? Is it not very brave? or is it only idiotical?...
I have been making a desperate struggle,giving my reasons(four pages of them—think of it!) to the committee of the Liverpool Institution, to induce them to let me read Shakespearestraight throughto them; at least, each play I read, divided into two readings, and with only the omissions required by modern manners: but I fear they will not let me. I shall be grievously disappointed....
LOLA MONTEZ.Was there ever such a to-do as that woman Lola Montez is kicking up? Everybody is turning Catholic as fast as possible, and the good Churchwomen are every way in despair. They already see their sons all circumcised, and their daughters refusing to eat ham, and their brothers and husbands confessing the Real Presence. The lady members of the Established Church, especially the more serious ones, are in great tribulation at all that is going on. Lady Ellesmere is desperate at the Jews coming into Parliament, and Lord Ellesmere has voted against them.He, poor man, has been, within the last few days, all but at death's door with the gout, and perhaps near finding out how different, orindifferent, these differencesreallyare. It is wonderful to hear everybody talk.
Good-bye. I am yours and Dorothy's
Most respectfully,
Fanny.
[My first intention in undertaking my readings from Shakespeare was to make, as far as possible, of each play a thorough study in its entireness; such as a stage representation cannot, for obvious reasons, be. The dramatic effect, which of course suffers in the mere delivery from a reading-desk, would, I hoped, be in some measure compensated for by the possibility of retaining the whole beauty of the plays as poetical compositions. I very soon, however, found my project of making my readings "studies of Shakespeare" for the public quite illusory.To do so would have required that I should take two, and sometimes three, evenings to the delivery of one play; a circumstance which would have rendered it necessary for the same audience, if they wished to hear it, to attend two and three consecutive readings; and in many other respects I found the plan quite incompatible with the demand of the public, which was for a dramatic entertainment, and not for a course of literary instruction.My father had found it expedient, in this mode of illustrating Shakespeare, to make one play the subject of each reading; taking two hours for the performance, and dividing the piece as fairly as possible in two parts; retaining the wholestoryof the play, and so much only of the wisdom and beauty bestowed on its development by the author, as could be kept well within the two hours' delivery, and make the reading resemble as nearly as possible, in dramatic effect, the already garbled and coarsely mutilated stage plays the general public are alone familiar with. I was grievously disappointed, but could not help myself. In Germany I should have had no such difficulty; but the German public is willing to take its amusements in earnest.The readings were to be my livelihood, and I had to adapt them to the audiences who paid for them—"For those who live to please, must please to live."I gladly availed myself of my father's reading version of the plays, and read those he had delivered, cut and prepared for the purpose according to that. When I came to cut and prepare for reading the much greater number which I read, and he did not, I found the task a very difficult one; and was struck with the judgment and taste with which my father had performed it. I do not think it possible to have adapted these compositions better or more successfully to the purposes for which he required them. But I was determined, at least, not to limit my repertory to the few most theatrically popular of Shakespeare's dramas, but to include in my courseallShakespeare's plays that it was possible to read with any hope of attracting or interesting an audience. My father had limited his range to a few of the most frequently acted plays. I delivered the following twenty-four: King Lear, Macbeth, Cymbeline, King John, Richard II., two parts of Henry IV., Henry V., Richard III., Henry VIII., Coriolanus, Julius Cæsar, Anthony and Cleopatra, Hamlet, Othello, Romeo and Juliet, The Merchant of Venice, The Winter's Tale, Measure for Measure, Much Ado about Nothing, As You Like It, Midsummer Night's Dream, Merry Wives of Windsor, and The Tempest.READING SHAKESPEARE.These plays I read invariably through once before repeating any of them; partly to make such of them as are seldom or never acted, familiar to the public, by delivering them alternately with those better known; and partly to avoid, what I much dreaded, becoming mechanical or hackneyed myself in their delivery by perpetual repetition of the same pieces, and so losing any portion of the inspiration of my text by constant iteration of those garbled versions of it, from which so much of its nobler and finer elements are of hard necessity omitted in such a process as my reading of them. I persisted in this system for my own "soul's sake," and not to debase my work more than was inevitable, to the very considerable detriment of my gains.The publicalwayscame in goodly numbers to hear "Macbeth," "Hamlet," "Romeo and Juliet," and "The Merchant of Venice;" and Mendelssohn's exquisite music, made an accompaniment to the reading of the "Midsummer Night's Dream," rendered that a peculiarly popular performance. But toallthe other plays the audiences wereconsiderably less numerous, and to some few of them I often had but few listeners. Mr. Mitchell, who for a considerable length of timefarmedmy readings, protested bitterly against this system, which involved, of course, less profits than he might have made by repeating only the most popular plays; and my own agents, when I was reading on my own account, did not fail to represent to me that I was what they called sacrificing my interests,i.e.my receipts, to this plan of operations; but man does not live by bread alone, and for more than twenty years that I followed the trade of a wandering rhapsodist, I never consciously sacrificed my sense of what was due to my work, for the sake of what I could make by it. I have wished, and hoped, and prayed, that I might be able to use my small giftdutifully; and to my own profound feeling of thevirtueof these noble works, have owed whatever power I found to interpret them. My great reward has been, passing a large portion of my life in familiar intercourse with that greatest and best English mind and heart, and living almost daily in that world above the world, into which he lifted me. One inspiration alone could have been purer or higher; and to that, my earthly master's work, done as well as it was in me to do it, often helped, and from it, never hindered me.]
[My first intention in undertaking my readings from Shakespeare was to make, as far as possible, of each play a thorough study in its entireness; such as a stage representation cannot, for obvious reasons, be. The dramatic effect, which of course suffers in the mere delivery from a reading-desk, would, I hoped, be in some measure compensated for by the possibility of retaining the whole beauty of the plays as poetical compositions. I very soon, however, found my project of making my readings "studies of Shakespeare" for the public quite illusory.
To do so would have required that I should take two, and sometimes three, evenings to the delivery of one play; a circumstance which would have rendered it necessary for the same audience, if they wished to hear it, to attend two and three consecutive readings; and in many other respects I found the plan quite incompatible with the demand of the public, which was for a dramatic entertainment, and not for a course of literary instruction.
My father had found it expedient, in this mode of illustrating Shakespeare, to make one play the subject of each reading; taking two hours for the performance, and dividing the piece as fairly as possible in two parts; retaining the wholestoryof the play, and so much only of the wisdom and beauty bestowed on its development by the author, as could be kept well within the two hours' delivery, and make the reading resemble as nearly as possible, in dramatic effect, the already garbled and coarsely mutilated stage plays the general public are alone familiar with. I was grievously disappointed, but could not help myself. In Germany I should have had no such difficulty; but the German public is willing to take its amusements in earnest.
The readings were to be my livelihood, and I had to adapt them to the audiences who paid for them—
"For those who live to please, must please to live."
"For those who live to please, must please to live."
I gladly availed myself of my father's reading version of the plays, and read those he had delivered, cut and prepared for the purpose according to that. When I came to cut and prepare for reading the much greater number which I read, and he did not, I found the task a very difficult one; and was struck with the judgment and taste with which my father had performed it. I do not think it possible to have adapted these compositions better or more successfully to the purposes for which he required them. But I was determined, at least, not to limit my repertory to the few most theatrically popular of Shakespeare's dramas, but to include in my courseallShakespeare's plays that it was possible to read with any hope of attracting or interesting an audience. My father had limited his range to a few of the most frequently acted plays. I delivered the following twenty-four: King Lear, Macbeth, Cymbeline, King John, Richard II., two parts of Henry IV., Henry V., Richard III., Henry VIII., Coriolanus, Julius Cæsar, Anthony and Cleopatra, Hamlet, Othello, Romeo and Juliet, The Merchant of Venice, The Winter's Tale, Measure for Measure, Much Ado about Nothing, As You Like It, Midsummer Night's Dream, Merry Wives of Windsor, and The Tempest.
READING SHAKESPEARE.These plays I read invariably through once before repeating any of them; partly to make such of them as are seldom or never acted, familiar to the public, by delivering them alternately with those better known; and partly to avoid, what I much dreaded, becoming mechanical or hackneyed myself in their delivery by perpetual repetition of the same pieces, and so losing any portion of the inspiration of my text by constant iteration of those garbled versions of it, from which so much of its nobler and finer elements are of hard necessity omitted in such a process as my reading of them. I persisted in this system for my own "soul's sake," and not to debase my work more than was inevitable, to the very considerable detriment of my gains.
The publicalwayscame in goodly numbers to hear "Macbeth," "Hamlet," "Romeo and Juliet," and "The Merchant of Venice;" and Mendelssohn's exquisite music, made an accompaniment to the reading of the "Midsummer Night's Dream," rendered that a peculiarly popular performance. But toallthe other plays the audiences wereconsiderably less numerous, and to some few of them I often had but few listeners. Mr. Mitchell, who for a considerable length of timefarmedmy readings, protested bitterly against this system, which involved, of course, less profits than he might have made by repeating only the most popular plays; and my own agents, when I was reading on my own account, did not fail to represent to me that I was what they called sacrificing my interests,i.e.my receipts, to this plan of operations; but man does not live by bread alone, and for more than twenty years that I followed the trade of a wandering rhapsodist, I never consciously sacrificed my sense of what was due to my work, for the sake of what I could make by it. I have wished, and hoped, and prayed, that I might be able to use my small giftdutifully; and to my own profound feeling of thevirtueof these noble works, have owed whatever power I found to interpret them. My great reward has been, passing a large portion of my life in familiar intercourse with that greatest and best English mind and heart, and living almost daily in that world above the world, into which he lifted me. One inspiration alone could have been purer or higher; and to that, my earthly master's work, done as well as it was in me to do it, often helped, and from it, never hindered me.]
29, King Street, Saturday, February 19th.
Imprimis, will you and Dorothy fasten your dinner-napkins with these things, or rings, which I have made for you? for my imagination is sick with the memory of those bits of strings you use. I have made these too short, and so have been obliged to put strings to them, having originally intended them to be complete rounds; but my needle performances are always ill-managed and untidy, and as such I commend these to your indulgent acceptance. I wrought at them those bitter evenings that I spent in those barns of theatres in Norfolk, where the occupation contributed to entertain the warmth of my heart, which was all the heat I had to keep me alive....
I must tell you rather a droll observation of the worthy Hayes. When I explained to her that I had made those worsted bands to fasten your dinner-napkins, for which you had nothing but strings, she said, "Dear me! I wonder at that! And Miss S—— seemed so fond of clever, curious contrivances, for everything." I screamed with delight when she said that, for hadn't I cursed that "curiouscontrivance" of an inkstand you gave me (Dorothy cursed hers too, no doubt, after her own blessed fashion)? and didn't I curse that execrable "curious contrivance" of a taper you gave me at St. Leonard's, with which I was so enchantedbefore I used it, and which wasted me by its own small fire every time I did use it, and for the final burning out of which I was so thankful? But are not Hayes's comments on your character comical?
MACREADY.I am sorry to say I have not the same dressing-room I had before at the Princess's Theatre. Mr. Macready is quite too great a man to give it up to anybody, and my attiring apartment now is up a steep flight of stairs, which is a great discomfort to me on several grounds, for I fear the call-boy will hardly come so far out of his way to summon me, and I shall have to sit in the greenroom, which, however, I won't, if I can by any means avoid it; but the proximity of the other room to the stage, and its being on the same level with it, was a great advantage.
I am going to dine with Lady Grey (the Countess, widow oftheLord Grey), and after that to the opera with Henry Greville and Alfred Potocki, who have a box, and have given me a ticket, which I am very glad of.
I had a three hours' rehearsal this morning, and Macready was there. As far as I could judge, he was less unfair in his mode of acting than I had been led to expect. To be sure, at night, he may stand two yards behind me while I am speaking to him, as I am told he often does. He is not courteous or pleasant, or even well-bred; remains seated while one is standing talking to him; and a discussion having arisen as to the situation of a table, which he wished on the stage, and I wished removed, he exhibited considerable irritability and ill-humor.
He is unnecessarily violent in acting, which I had always heard, and congratulated myself that in Lady Macbeth, I could not possibly suffer from this; but was much astonished and dismayed when at the exclamation, "Bring forth men-children only," he seized me ferociously by the wrist, and compelled me to make a demivolte, or pirouette, such as I think that lady did surely never perform before, under the influence of her husband's admiration.
God bless you, dear,
Ever yours,
Fanny.
[I have always had a cordial esteem and respect for Mr. Macready's character, which has been increased by reading the record he has himself left of his life. Of his merits as an actor, I had not a very high opinion, though in one or two parts he was excellent, and in the majority of the tragical ones he assumed, better than his contemporaries, my father, Charles Young, and Charles Kean. He was disqualified for sentimental tragedy by his appearance, and he was without comic power of any kind.Partsof his Macbeth, Lear, Othello, and King John, were powerful and striking, but his want of musical ear made his delivery of Shakespeare's blank-verse defective, and painful to persons better endowed in that respect. It may have been his consciousness of his imperfect declamation of blank-verse that induced him to adopt what his admirers called the natural style of speaking it; which was simply chopping it up into prose—a method easily followed by speakers who have never learned the difference between the two, and that blank-verse demands the same care and method that music does, and when not uttered with due regard to its artificial construction, and rules of rhythm and measure, is precisely as faulty as music sung out of time.The school of "natural speaking" reached its climax, I presume, in the performance of a charming young actress, of whose delivery of the poetry of Portia it was said in high commendation, by her admirers, that she gave theblank versesonaturallythat it was impossible to tell that it was notprose. What she did with Shakespeare'sprosein the part these judicious critics did not mention.Mr. Macready's eye was as sensitive and cultivated as his ear was the reverse. He had a painter's feeling for color and grouping and scenic effect; was always picturesque in his appearance, dress, attitudes, and movements; and all the pieces that were put upon the stage under his supervision were admirable for the appropriate harmony of the scenery, decorations, dresses, and whole effect; they were carefully accurate, and extremely beautiful. "Acis and Galatea," as produced under his direction, was one of the most exquisite dramatic spectacles I ever saw, in spite of the despair to which he reduced the chorus and ballet nymphs by rigorously forbidding all padding, bustle, crinoline, or other artificial adjunct to their natural graces, in the severely simple classical costume of the Greek mythological opera.Mr. Macready's great parts were Virginius, in Knowles's play of that name; Werner, in Lord Byron's romantic drama; and Rob Roy, in the melodrama taken from Scott's novel. These were original performances, in which nobody has surpassed or equalled him; genuine artistic creations, which, more than his rendering of Shakespeare's characters, entitled him to his reputation as a great actor.UNPOPULARITY OF MACREADY.He was unpopular in the profession, his temper was irritable, and his want of consideration for the persons working with him strange in a man of so many fine qualities. His artistic vanity and selfishness were unworthy of a gentleman, and rendered him an object of dislike and dread to those who were compelled to encounter them.He was quite aware of this himself, for once, when he came to see me, while the negotiation was pending about my engagement to act with him, he alluded to his own unpopularity, said he was sure I had heard all sorts of disagreeable stories about him, but assured me, laughing, that "the devil was not nearly so black as he was painted."It was quite impossible for me to tell Mr. Macready that I had heard he waspleasantto act with, remembering, as I did while he spoke to me, the various accounts I had received of actors whose eyes had been all but thrust out by his furious fighting in Macbeth; of others nearly throttled in his paternal vengeance on Appius Claudius; of actresses whose arms had been almost wrenched out of their sockets, and who had been bruised black and blue, buffeted alike by his rage and his tenderness. One special story I thought of, and was dying to tell him, of one pretty and spirited young woman, who had said, "I am told Mr. Macready, in such a part, gets hold of one's head, and holds it in chancery under his arm, while he speaks a long speech, at the end of which he releases one, more dead than alive, from his embrace; but I shall put so many pins in my hair, and stick them in in such a fashion, that if he takes me by the head, he will have to let me instantly go again."My personal experience of Macready's stage temper was not so bad as this, though he began by an act of unwarrantable selfishness in our performance of "Macbeth."From time immemorial, the banquet scene in "Macbeth" has been arranged after one invariable fashion: the royal dais and throne, with the steps leading up to it, holds the middle of the stage,sufficiently far back to allow of two long tables, at which the guests are seated on each side, in front of it, leaving between them ample space for Macbeth's scene with Banquo's ghost, and Lady Macbeth's repeated rapid descents from the dais and return to it, in her vehement expostulations with him, and her courteous invitations to the occupants of both the tables to "feed, and regard him not." Accustomed to this arrangement of the stage, which I never saw different anywhere in all my life for this scene, I was much astonished and annoyed to find, at my first rehearsal, a long banqueting-table set immediately at the foot of the steps in front of the dais, which rendered all but impossible my rapid rushing down to the front of the stage, in my terrified and indignant appeals to Macbeth, and my sweeping back to my place, addressing on my way my compliments to the tables on either side. It was as much as I could do to pass between the bottom of the throne steps and the end of the transverse table in front of them; my train was in danger of catching its legs and my legs, and throwing it down and me down, and the whole thing was absolutely ruinous to the proper performance of my share of the scene. If such a table had been in any such place in Glamis Castle on that occasion, when Macbeth was seized with his remorseful frenzies, his wife would have jumped over or overturned it to get at him.All my remonstrances, however, were in vain. Mr. Macready persisted in his determination to have the stage arranged solely with reference to himself, and I was obliged to satisfy myself with a woman's vengeance, a snappish speech, by at last saying that, since it was evident Mr. Macready's Macbeth depended upon where a table stood, I must contrive that my Lady Macbeth should not do so. But in that scene it undoubtedly did.As I had been prepared for this sort of thing in Macready, it didn't surprise me; but what did was a conversation I had with him about "Othello," when he expressed his astonishment at my being willing to play Desdemona; "For," said he, "there is absolutely nothing to be done with it, nothing: nobody can produce any effect in it; and really, Emilia's last scene can be made a great deal more of. I could understand your playing that, but not Desdemona, out of which nothing really can be made." "But," said I, "Mr. Macready, it is Shakespeare, and no character of Shakespeare's is beneath myacceptance. I would play Maria in 'Twelfth Night' to-morrow, if I were asked to do so." Whereupon he shrugged his shoulders, and muttered something about "all that being very fine, no doubt," but evidently didn't believe me; and as I should have given him credit for my own feeling with regard to any character in Shakespeare's plays, I was as much surprised at his thinking I should refuse to act any one of them as I was at his coarse and merely technical acting estimate of that exquisite Desdemona, of which, according to him, "nothing could be made;"i.e., no violent stage effect could be produced. Is not Shakespeare's refusing to let Desdemona sully her lips with the coarse epithet of reproach with which her husband brands her, and which no lady in England of his day would have hesitated a moment to use, a wonderful touch of delicacy?ACTING IN KING LEAR WITH MACREADY.Macready certainly was aware of the feeling of his fellow-actors about his violence and want of personal self-control on the stage; for as he stood at the side scene by me, in the last act of "King Lear," ready to rush on with me, his Cordelia, dead in his arms, he made various prefatory and preparatory excuses to me, deprecating beforehand my annoyance at being dragged and pulled about after his usual fashion, saying that necessarily the scene was a disagreeable one for the "poor corpse." I had no very agreeable anticipation of it myself, and therefore could only answer, "Some one must play it with you, Mr. Macready, and I feel sure that you will make it as little distressing to me as you can;" which I really believe he intended to do, and thought hedid.]
[I have always had a cordial esteem and respect for Mr. Macready's character, which has been increased by reading the record he has himself left of his life. Of his merits as an actor, I had not a very high opinion, though in one or two parts he was excellent, and in the majority of the tragical ones he assumed, better than his contemporaries, my father, Charles Young, and Charles Kean. He was disqualified for sentimental tragedy by his appearance, and he was without comic power of any kind.Partsof his Macbeth, Lear, Othello, and King John, were powerful and striking, but his want of musical ear made his delivery of Shakespeare's blank-verse defective, and painful to persons better endowed in that respect. It may have been his consciousness of his imperfect declamation of blank-verse that induced him to adopt what his admirers called the natural style of speaking it; which was simply chopping it up into prose—a method easily followed by speakers who have never learned the difference between the two, and that blank-verse demands the same care and method that music does, and when not uttered with due regard to its artificial construction, and rules of rhythm and measure, is precisely as faulty as music sung out of time.
The school of "natural speaking" reached its climax, I presume, in the performance of a charming young actress, of whose delivery of the poetry of Portia it was said in high commendation, by her admirers, that she gave theblank versesonaturallythat it was impossible to tell that it was notprose. What she did with Shakespeare'sprosein the part these judicious critics did not mention.
Mr. Macready's eye was as sensitive and cultivated as his ear was the reverse. He had a painter's feeling for color and grouping and scenic effect; was always picturesque in his appearance, dress, attitudes, and movements; and all the pieces that were put upon the stage under his supervision were admirable for the appropriate harmony of the scenery, decorations, dresses, and whole effect; they were carefully accurate, and extremely beautiful. "Acis and Galatea," as produced under his direction, was one of the most exquisite dramatic spectacles I ever saw, in spite of the despair to which he reduced the chorus and ballet nymphs by rigorously forbidding all padding, bustle, crinoline, or other artificial adjunct to their natural graces, in the severely simple classical costume of the Greek mythological opera.
Mr. Macready's great parts were Virginius, in Knowles's play of that name; Werner, in Lord Byron's romantic drama; and Rob Roy, in the melodrama taken from Scott's novel. These were original performances, in which nobody has surpassed or equalled him; genuine artistic creations, which, more than his rendering of Shakespeare's characters, entitled him to his reputation as a great actor.
UNPOPULARITY OF MACREADY.He was unpopular in the profession, his temper was irritable, and his want of consideration for the persons working with him strange in a man of so many fine qualities. His artistic vanity and selfishness were unworthy of a gentleman, and rendered him an object of dislike and dread to those who were compelled to encounter them.
He was quite aware of this himself, for once, when he came to see me, while the negotiation was pending about my engagement to act with him, he alluded to his own unpopularity, said he was sure I had heard all sorts of disagreeable stories about him, but assured me, laughing, that "the devil was not nearly so black as he was painted."
It was quite impossible for me to tell Mr. Macready that I had heard he waspleasantto act with, remembering, as I did while he spoke to me, the various accounts I had received of actors whose eyes had been all but thrust out by his furious fighting in Macbeth; of others nearly throttled in his paternal vengeance on Appius Claudius; of actresses whose arms had been almost wrenched out of their sockets, and who had been bruised black and blue, buffeted alike by his rage and his tenderness. One special story I thought of, and was dying to tell him, of one pretty and spirited young woman, who had said, "I am told Mr. Macready, in such a part, gets hold of one's head, and holds it in chancery under his arm, while he speaks a long speech, at the end of which he releases one, more dead than alive, from his embrace; but I shall put so many pins in my hair, and stick them in in such a fashion, that if he takes me by the head, he will have to let me instantly go again."
My personal experience of Macready's stage temper was not so bad as this, though he began by an act of unwarrantable selfishness in our performance of "Macbeth."
From time immemorial, the banquet scene in "Macbeth" has been arranged after one invariable fashion: the royal dais and throne, with the steps leading up to it, holds the middle of the stage,sufficiently far back to allow of two long tables, at which the guests are seated on each side, in front of it, leaving between them ample space for Macbeth's scene with Banquo's ghost, and Lady Macbeth's repeated rapid descents from the dais and return to it, in her vehement expostulations with him, and her courteous invitations to the occupants of both the tables to "feed, and regard him not." Accustomed to this arrangement of the stage, which I never saw different anywhere in all my life for this scene, I was much astonished and annoyed to find, at my first rehearsal, a long banqueting-table set immediately at the foot of the steps in front of the dais, which rendered all but impossible my rapid rushing down to the front of the stage, in my terrified and indignant appeals to Macbeth, and my sweeping back to my place, addressing on my way my compliments to the tables on either side. It was as much as I could do to pass between the bottom of the throne steps and the end of the transverse table in front of them; my train was in danger of catching its legs and my legs, and throwing it down and me down, and the whole thing was absolutely ruinous to the proper performance of my share of the scene. If such a table had been in any such place in Glamis Castle on that occasion, when Macbeth was seized with his remorseful frenzies, his wife would have jumped over or overturned it to get at him.
All my remonstrances, however, were in vain. Mr. Macready persisted in his determination to have the stage arranged solely with reference to himself, and I was obliged to satisfy myself with a woman's vengeance, a snappish speech, by at last saying that, since it was evident Mr. Macready's Macbeth depended upon where a table stood, I must contrive that my Lady Macbeth should not do so. But in that scene it undoubtedly did.
As I had been prepared for this sort of thing in Macready, it didn't surprise me; but what did was a conversation I had with him about "Othello," when he expressed his astonishment at my being willing to play Desdemona; "For," said he, "there is absolutely nothing to be done with it, nothing: nobody can produce any effect in it; and really, Emilia's last scene can be made a great deal more of. I could understand your playing that, but not Desdemona, out of which nothing really can be made." "But," said I, "Mr. Macready, it is Shakespeare, and no character of Shakespeare's is beneath myacceptance. I would play Maria in 'Twelfth Night' to-morrow, if I were asked to do so." Whereupon he shrugged his shoulders, and muttered something about "all that being very fine, no doubt," but evidently didn't believe me; and as I should have given him credit for my own feeling with regard to any character in Shakespeare's plays, I was as much surprised at his thinking I should refuse to act any one of them as I was at his coarse and merely technical acting estimate of that exquisite Desdemona, of which, according to him, "nothing could be made;"i.e., no violent stage effect could be produced. Is not Shakespeare's refusing to let Desdemona sully her lips with the coarse epithet of reproach with which her husband brands her, and which no lady in England of his day would have hesitated a moment to use, a wonderful touch of delicacy?
ACTING IN KING LEAR WITH MACREADY.Macready certainly was aware of the feeling of his fellow-actors about his violence and want of personal self-control on the stage; for as he stood at the side scene by me, in the last act of "King Lear," ready to rush on with me, his Cordelia, dead in his arms, he made various prefatory and preparatory excuses to me, deprecating beforehand my annoyance at being dragged and pulled about after his usual fashion, saying that necessarily the scene was a disagreeable one for the "poor corpse." I had no very agreeable anticipation of it myself, and therefore could only answer, "Some one must play it with you, Mr. Macready, and I feel sure that you will make it as little distressing to me as you can;" which I really believe he intended to do, and thought hedid.]
I have received this morning from Liverpool, in answer to my letter about my readings, a very earnest request that I would givelecturesupon Shakespeare. This I have declined doing, not having either the requisite knowledge or ability nor the necessary time properly to prepare a careful analysis of the smallest portion of such over-brimming subjects as those plays. I should like to study again Hazlitt's and Coleridge's comments upon Shakespeare; the former I used to think excellent.
Mrs. Grote herself wrote those stanzas upon Mendelssohn which you saw in theSpectator. She urged me vehemently, while I was with her at the Beeches, to do something of the kind; but I could not. She then showed me her verses, which please me better now than they didthen; for then the painful association of his former existence in that place, and the excitement of his beautiful music, which she plays extremely well, had affected my imagination and feelings so much that I should have found it very difficult to be satisfied with any poetical tribute to him that was not of the very highest order.
She and I walked together to the spot in the beautiful woodland where he had lain down to rest, and where she wishes to erect a monument; and I cannot tell you how profoundly I was touched, as we stood silently there, while the great heavy drops, melting in the winter evening's sunshine, fell from the boughs of the beech-trees like slow tears upon the spot where he had lain.
I have read more of Stanley's "Sermons," and quite agree with you in the difference you draw between them and Mr. Furness's book; the spirit of both is kindred....
I don't know anything about the income-tax. I am getting frightfully behind the times, having read noTimesfor a long time; but as regards income-tax, or any other tax, there is no telling how long one may be free from such galls in America. If they indulge in a few more such national diversions as this war in Mexico, they will have to pay for their whistle, in some shape or other, and in more shapes than one.
It is deplorable to hear the despondency of all public and political men that I see, with regard to the condition of the country. With the Tories, one has long been familiar with their cries that "the sky is falling:" but now the Liberals, at least those who all their lives have been professing Liberals, seem to think "the sky is falling" too; and their lamentable misgivings are really sad to listen to.
I dined on Saturday at Lady Grey's, with the whole Grey family. Lord Dacre, and all of them, spoke of Cobden and Bright as of another Danton and Mirabeau, likened their corn-law league, and peace protests, to the first measures of the first leaders of the French Revolution; and predicted with woful headshakings a similar end to their proceedings. I do not know whether this is an injustice to the individuals in question, but it seems to me an injustice to the whole people of England collectively, and to their own class, the aristocracy of England, which has incurred no such retribution, but which has invariably furnished liberal and devoted leaders to every step of popular progress—their own father an eminentinstance of devotion to it. Such misgivings seem to me, too, quite unjust to the powerful, enlightened, and wealthy class which forms the sound body of our sound-hearted nation: and equally unjust to those below it, in whom, in spite of much vice and more ignorance, of poverty and degradation, the elements of evil do not exist in the degree and with the virulence that spawned that hideous mob of murderers who became at last the only government of revolutionary France. The antecedent causes have not existed here for such results; and it is an insult to the whole English people to prophesy thus of it.
[Lord Dacre, because of his devotion to the agricultural interest, as he conceives it, and being himself a great practical farmer, seemed to me at once, at the time of the repeal of the corn laws, to renounce his Liberalism; and though one of the most enlightened, generous, and broad-minded politicians I have ever known,till then, to become suddenly timid, faithless, and almost selfish, in his fear of the consequences of Sir Robert Peel's measures.]
[Lord Dacre, because of his devotion to the agricultural interest, as he conceives it, and being himself a great practical farmer, seemed to me at once, at the time of the repeal of the corn laws, to renounce his Liberalism; and though one of the most enlightened, generous, and broad-minded politicians I have ever known,till then, to become suddenly timid, faithless, and almost selfish, in his fear of the consequences of Sir Robert Peel's measures.]
What a fine thing faith in God is, even when one's own individual interests must perish, even though the temporary interests of one's country may appear threatened with adversity! What anuncommonlyfine thing it is under such circumstances to do right, and to be able to believe in right doing!... As I listened to the persons by whom I was surrounded, and considered their position and circumstances—their forks and spoons, their very good dinner, and all their etceteras of luxury and enjoyment,—I thought that, having all they have, if they had faith in God and in their fellow-creatures besides, they would have the portion of those who have none of the good things of this world—they would have too much.
BELIEF IN HUMANITY.Will the days ever come when men will see thatChristbelieved in humanity as none of His followers has ever done since; thatHe, knowing its infirmity better than any other, trusted in its capacity for good more than any other? We are constantly told that people can't be taught this, and can't learn that, and can't do t'other; andHetaught them nothing short of absolute perfection: "Be ye perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect." Are we to suppose He did not mean what he said?
"I must eat my dinner," as Caliban says, and, therefore, farewell.
I am ever yours,
Fanny.
P.S.—I did not impart these sentiments of mine to my fellow-guests at Lady Grey's, but kept them in my bosom, and went to the opera, and saw little Marie Taglioni dance, in a way that clearly shows that she isla nièce de sa tante, and stands in that wonderful dancer's shoes.
King Street, Wednesday, 23d, 1848.
The staircase I have to go up to my dressing-room at the Princess's Theatre is one with which you are unacquainted, my dearest Hal, for it is quite in another part of the house, beyond the green-room, and before you come to the stage.... Not only had I this inconvenient distance and height to go, but the dressing-room appointed for me had not even a fireplace in it; at this I remonstrated, and am now accommodated decently in a room with a fire, though in the same inconvenient position as regards the stage.... Mr. Maddox assured me that Macready poisoned every place he went into, to such a degree, with musk and perfumes, that if he were to give up his room to me I should not be able to breathe in it. With my passion for perfumes, this, however, did not appear to me so certain; but the room I now have answers my purpose quite well enough....
Macready is not pleasant to act with, as he keeps no specific time for his exits or entrances, comes on while one is in the middle of a soliloquy, and goes off while one is in the middle of a speech to him. He growls and prowls, and roams and foams, about the stage, in every direction, like a tiger in his cage, so that I never know on what side of me he means to be; and keeps up a perpetual snarling and grumbling like the aforesaid tiger, so that I never feel quite sure that hehas done, and that it is my turn to speak. I do not think fifty pounds a night would hire me to play another engagement with him; but I only say, I don't think,—fifty pounds a night is a consideration, four times a week, and I have not forgotten the French proverb, "Il ne faut pas dire, fontaine jamais de ton eau je ne boirai."
I do not know how Desdemona might have affected me under other circumstances, but my only feeling about acting it with Mr. Macready is dread of his personal violence. I quail at the idea of his laying hold of me in those terrible passionate scenes; for in "Macbeth" he pinched me black and blue, and almost tore the point lace from my head. I am sure my little finger will be rebroken, and asfor that smothering in bed, "Heaven have mercy upon me!" as poor Desdemona says. If that foolish creature wouldn't persist intalkinglong after she has been smothered and stabbed to death, one might escape by the off side of the bed, and leave the bolster to be questioned by Emilia, and apostrophized by Othello; but she will uplift her testimony after death to her husband's amiable treatment of her, and even the bolster wouldn't be stupid enough for that.
OTHELLO'S AGONY.Did it ever occur to you what a witness to Othello's agony in murdering his wretched wife his inefficient clumsiness in the process was—his half smothering, his half stabbing her?Thatman not to be able to killthatwoman outright, with one hand on her throat, or one stroke of his dagger, how tortured he must have been, to have bungled so at his work!
I wish I was with you and Dorothy at St. Leonard's, instead of struggling here for my life—livelihood, at any rate—with Macready; but that's foolish. He can'ttouchme to-night, that's one comfort, for I am Queen Katharine.
Farewell, believe me
Ever yours most respectfully,
Fanny.
[It was lucky for me, under the circumstances, that my notion of Queen Katharine's relations with Cardinal Wolsey were different from those of a lady whom I saw in the part, who at the end of the scene where he finds her working among her women affably gave him her hand. Katharine of Arragon would have been more likely (though not likely) to give him her foot.]
[It was lucky for me, under the circumstances, that my notion of Queen Katharine's relations with Cardinal Wolsey were different from those of a lady whom I saw in the part, who at the end of the scene where he finds her working among her women affably gave him her hand. Katharine of Arragon would have been more likely (though not likely) to give him her foot.]
King Street, Friday, 23d.
Dear Hal,
... I had heard a very good summary of D'Israeli's speech from Lord Dacre, the day I dined at Lady Grey's, and know why he said Cobden was like Robespierre. Here's goodly work in Paris now! What wonderful difficult people to teach those French are! However, their lesson will, of course, be set them over and over again, till they've learnt it. Henry Greville had a letter from Adelaide the day before yesterday, in which she says that the people had risenen masseat Rome, and, with thePrinces Borghese and Corsini at their head, had gone to the Quirinal, and demanded of the pope that no ecclesiastic (himself, I suppose, excepted) should have any office in the government, and the popehad consented.
She gave a most comical account of the King of Naples, who, it seems, during the late troubles walked up and down his room, wringing his hands, and apostrophizing a figure of the Virgin with "Madonna mia! Madonna mia! ma che imbroglio che m'ha fatto quel Vicario del figlio tuo!" Isn't that funny?
In a letter posted this morning I have told you my general impression of Macready's Macbeth. It is generally good,—better than good in parts,—but nowhere very extraordinary. It is a fair, but not a fine, performance of the part.
I cannot believe that he is purposely unjust to his fellow-actors: but he is so absorbed in himself and his own effects as to be absolutely regardless of them; which, of course, is just as bad for them, though theguiltof his selfishness must be according to its being deliberate or unconscious.
I played the first scene in Lady Macbeth fairly well; the rest hardly tolerably, I think. Macready's stage arrangements destroyed any possible effect of mine in the banquet scene, and his strange demeanor disturbed and distracted me all through the play. The terrible, great invocation to the powers of evil, with which Lady Macbeth's part opens, was the only thing of mine that was good in the whole performance.
Dear Harriet, I have no time to prepare lectures on Shakespeare, and it makes me smile, a grim, verjuice smile, when you, sitting quietly down there at St. Leonard's, propose to me such an addition to my present work. I have been three hours and a half at rehearsal to-day; to-morrow I act a new part; this evening I try on all my new dresses; Saturday I shall be three hours at rehearsal again; and, meantime, I must study to recover Ophelia and her songs, which I have almost forgotten.
A commentary upon Shakespeare deserves rather more leisure and quiet thought than I can now bestow upon it; even such an inadequate one as I am capable of would require much preparatory study, had I the ability which the theme demands, and which no amount of leisure Of study would give me.... I have been in a stateof miserable nervousness for the last two days—in terror during my whole performance of Queen Katharine, lest I should forget the words, and yet, while laboring to fix all my attention upon them, distracted with the constant recurrence ofbitsof Desdemona to my mind, which I fancied I was not perfect in, and thenbitsof Ophelia's songs, which I had forgotten, and have been trying to recover. The mere apprehension of having to sing that music turns me dead sick whenever I think of it; in short, a perfect nightmare of fright present and future, through which I have had to act every night,tant bien que mal, but naturallybien plus mal que bien.... I do really believe, as my dear German master used to insist, that people canprevent themselvesfrom going mad.
EVERLASTING PUNISHMENT.My dearest Harriet, Arnold believed in eternal damnation; and those who do so must have one very desperate corner in their mind—which, however, reserved for the wicked in the next world, must, I should think, sometimes throw lurid reflections over people and things in this. Whoever can conceive that idea has certainly touched the bottom of despair. "Lasciate ogni speme voi ch'entrate;" and I do not see why those who despair of their fellow-creatures in the next world should not do so in this. I can do neither—believe in hell hereafter, or a preparation for it here.
I am sorry to say that, yesterday, Mr. Ellis, who sat by me at dinner at Lady Castlereagh's, said that the poorer class in this country was about to be worse off, presently, than it had been yet; and hoped the example of this new uprising in Paris would not be poisonous to them. It is sad to think how much, how many suffer; but by the mode of talking and going on of those who are well off and do not suffer, in England, it seems to me as if the condition of the poor must become such as to threaten them with imminent peril, before they will alter either their way of talking or of going on. Poor people all! but the rich are poorest, for they have something to lose and everything to fear, which is the reverse of the case of the poor.
My staircase at the theatre troubles me but little, and I do not sit in the green-room, which would have troubled me much more. My rehearsal of Desdemona tried me severely, for I was frightened to death of Macready, and the horror of the play itself took such hold of me that atthe end I could hardly stand for shaking, or speak for crying; and Macready seemed quite mollified by my condition, and promised not to rebreak my little finger,if he could remember it. He lets down the bed-curtains before he smothers me, and, as the drapery conceals the murderous struggle, and therefore he need not cover my head at all, I hope I shall escape alive.
Please tell dear Dorothy that Miss —— called here the day before yesterday, and left Miss B——'s songs for me. They are difficult, beyond the comprehension and execution of any but a very good musician; they show real genius, and a taste imbued with the inspiration of the great masters, Handel and Beethoven. The only one of them that I could sing is the only one that is in the least commonplace, "The Bonnet Blue;" the others are beyond my powers, but I shall get my sister to sing them for me. They are very remarkable as the compositions of so young a woman. Did she write the words as well as the music of "The Spirit of Delight"? [The musical compositions here referred to were those of Miss Laura Barker, afterwards Mrs. Tom Taylor, a member of a singularly gifted family, whose father and sisters were all born artists, with various and uncommon natural endowments, cultivated and developed to the highest degree, in the seclusion of a country parsonage.] ...
I wish it was "bedtime, Hal," and I was smothered and over!
God bless you, dear.
Ever yours,
Fanny.
King Street, Friday, February 28th.
Dear Hal,
... I got through Desdemona very well, as far as my personal safety was concerned; for though I fell on the stage in real hysterics at the end of one of those horrible scenes with Othello, Macready was more considerate than I had expected, did not rebreak my little finger, and did not really smother me in bed. I played the part fairly well, and wish you had seen it. I was tolerably satisfied with it myself, which, you know, I am not often, with my own theatrical performances....
Faith in God, according to my understanding of it, my dearest Hal, implies faith in man; and have we not goodneed of both just now? You can well imagine the state of perturbation and excitement London is in with these Parisian events. The universal cry and question is, "What is the news?" People run from house to house to gather the latest intelligence. The streets are filled with bawling paper-vendors, amidst whose indistinct vociferations the attractively appalling words, "Revolution! Republic! Massacre! Bloodshed!" are alone distinguishable. The loss of Saturday night's packet between Calais and Dover, besides the horror of the event itself, is doubly distressing from the intense anxiety felt to receive intelligence of how matters are going on.
Thus far yesterday, dear Hal; but as every hour brings intelligence that contradicts that of the hour before, it is now known that the small boat, going from the shore to the packet, was capsized and lost, and not the steamer itself. Henry Greville belongs to the party of Terrorists, and believes the worst of the worst rumors: but I have just seen his mother, and Lady Charlotte says that Charles is almost enthusiastic in his admiration of the conduct of the French peoplehitherto; but then there is never any knowing exactly how long any fashion, frenzied or temperate, moral or material, may last in France.
In the mean time, the condition of that unfortunate Royal Family is worthy of all compassion, especially the women, who are involved in the retributions of the folly or wickedness of the men they belong to.
ESCAPE OF THE ROYAL FAMILY.It is not known where the Duchesse de Nemours is. Her husband has arrived safely here with one of the children; but neither he nor any one else knows what has become of his wife and the other two children. Of the Duchesse d'Orléans and her two babies nothing is known; and Lady Normanby wrote a letter to the Queen, saying that Louis Philippe and the Queen of France were in safety, but, as her letter would be sure to be opened, she could say no more.
Only think of the Princesse Clémentine making her escape from France on board the same packet with her brother, the Duc de Nemours, and neither of them knowing the other was on the same vessel! The suddenness of the whole catastrophe makes it seem like some outrageously impossible dream. What a troubled dream must that king and queen's life seem to them, beginning and ending in such national convulsions!...
I really believe Macready cannot help being as odious as he is on the stage. He very nearly made me faint last night in "Macbeth," with crushing my broken finger, and, by way of apology, merely coolly observed that he really could not answer for himself in such a scene, and that I ought to wear a splint; and truly, if I act much more with him, I think I shall require several splints, for several broken limbs. I have been rehearsing "Hamlet" with him this morning for three hours. I do not mind his tiresome particularity on the stage, for, though it all goes to making himself the only object of everything and everybody, he works very hard, and is zealous, and conscientious, and laborious in his duty, which is a merit in itself. But I think it is rathermean(as the children say) of him to refuse to act in such plays as "King John," "Much Ado about Nothing," which are pieces of his own too, to oblige me; whilst I have studied expressly for him Desdemona, Ophelia, and Cordelia, parts quite out of my line, merely that his plays may be strengthened by my name. Moreover, he has not scrupled to ask me to study new parts, in plays which have been either written expressly only for him, or cut down to suit his peculiar requisitions. This, however, I have declined doing. Anything of Shakespeare's I will act with and for him, because anything of Shakespeare's is good enough, and too good, for me.... I shall have a nausea of fright till after I have done singing in Ophelia to-morrow night.
Ever yours,
Fanny.
King Street, Tuesday, March 7th, 1848.
Indeed, my dear Hal, I was not satisfied, but profoundly dissatisfied, with my singing in Ophelia; but am thankful to say that I did not sing out of tune, which I dreaded doing, from the miserable nervousness I felt about it. I am entirely misplaced in the character, and can do nothing with it that might not be better done by almost any younger woman with a sweet voice and that order of fair beauty which one cannot separate from one's idea of Ophelia.
I have read Stanley's sermon on St. Peter, and am enchanted with it, and more than ever struck with the resemblance, in its general spirit, and even in actual passages, to my friend Mr. Furness's book. The notes andcommentary upon the sermon are the part of Stanley's work that show more erudition and literary power than Mr. Furness's treatise contained, but the manner and matter of the writers shows close kindred when treating of the same subjects.
ARRIVAL OF FRENCH EMIGRANTS.We overflow here with anecdotes of the hairbreadth escapes of the French fugitives. Guizot and Madame de Liéven, his dear friend and evil genius, arrived both in London on the same day, having travelled from Paris in the same railroad train as far as Amiens; she with the painter Roberts, passing as his wife, and Guizot so disguised that she did not recognize him, and would not believe Lord Holland when he called upon her on Saturday and told her that Guizot had arrived like herself, and by the same train, the day before. Hotels and private houses are thronged with French and English tumbling over, a perfect stampede, from the other side of the Channel. Lady Dufferin, who during her long stay in Paris made many French friends, is exercising hospitality to the tune of having thirty people in her house in Brook Street.
Charles Greville showed me on Saturday a capital letter of Lord Clarendon's upon the subject of his kingdom [he was Lord Lieutenant of Ireland at this time], and the probable and possible effects of this French Revolution on your quiet, orderly, well-principled countrymen. He also showed me a letter he had received from E—— from Rome, in which, I think, the account of the pope is that of a man being carried off his legs by the popular exigencies, which hecannotresist and at the same time remain pope—the head of the priestly Roman Catholic Government.
Yesterday came news thatMetternich had resigned. If this is true, the forward step Italy is about to take need not, please God! be made in blood and violent social upheaving. I do pray that this news may be true, for it will probably avert a fire-and-sword revolution in the Milanese, and all through Lombardy, in which Piedmont would sympathize too warmly for its own peace and quiet.
Austria, thus deserted by the presiding genius of her hitherto Italian policy, Metternich, will perhaps hesitate to enforce its threatened opposition to the changes which she might have sold at the cost of many lives, but would not have averted, though she overran Italy from end to end with war and desolation.
This retreat of the great political powers of darkness before the advance of freedom in Italy seems to me like a personal happiness to myself. I rejoice unspeakably in it. It is quite another matter in France. It will be another matter here, whenever our turn to be turned upside down or inside out comes.
In Italy the people are rising against foreign tyranny, to get rid of foreign dominion, and to get rightful possession of the government of their own country. In France the revolution against power is past, but that against property is yet to come. As for us, our revolt against iniquitous power ended with the final expulsion of the Stuarts; but we have sundry details of that wholesale business yet to finish, and there will be here some sort ofpropertyrevolution, in some mode or other, yet.
The crying sin of modern Christian civilization, the monstrous inequalities in the means of existence, will yet be dealt with by us English, among whom it is more flagrant than anywhere else on earth.
It is the one revolution of which our social system seems to me to stand in need, the last that can be directly affected, if not effected, by legislative action upon the tenure of land, the whole system of proprietorship of the soil, the spread of education, and the extension of the franchise: and, as we are the richest and the poorest people in the world, as the extremes of rampant luxury and crawling poverty are wider asunder here than anywhere else on earth, the force must be great—I pray God it may be gradual—that draws those opposite ends of the social scale into more humane nearness.
I cannot believe that any violent convulsions will attend inevitable necessary change here; for, in spite of the selfish passions of both rich and poor, our people do fear God, more, I think, than any other European nation, and recognize a law of duty; and there is good sense and good principle enough in all classes, I believe, to meet even radical change with firmness and temperance.
The noble body politic of England is surely yet so sound and healthy and vigorous as to go through any crisis for the cure of any local disease, any partial decay, without danger to the whole; though not, perhaps, without difficulty and suffering both to classes and individuals.
God is over all, and I do not believe that one of themost Christian of nations will perish in the attempt to follow the last of Christ's commandments, "Love one another."
I am painfully impressed with what constantly seems to me the short-sightedness of the clever worldly-wise people I hear talking upon these subjects, and the deep despondence of those who see a great cloud looming up over the land. Our narrow room and redundant population make any sudden violent political movement dangerous, perhaps; but I have faith in the general wholesome spirit of our people, their good sense and good principle. I have the same admiration for and confidence in our national character that I have in the institutions of the United States.
God keep this precious England safe!...
I am ever yours most truly,
Fanny.
King Street, Wednesday, March 8th, 1848.
My little finger has recovered from Macready. It is gradually getting much better, but he certainly did it an injury. With regard to his "relenting," he is, I am told, quite uncommonly gracious and considerate to me....
VIOLENCE OF MACREADY.I was told by a friend of mine who was at "Hamlet" the other evening, that in the closet scene with his mother he had literally knocked the poor woman down who was playing the Queen. I thought this an incredible exaggeration, and asked her afterwards if it was true, and she said so true that she was bruised all across her breast with the blow he had given her; that, happening to take his hand at a moment when he did not wish her to do so, he had struck her violently and knocked her literally down; so I suppose I may consider it "relenting" that he never yet has knocked me down....
We are quite lively now in London with riots of our own—a more exciting process than merely reading of our neighbors' across the Channel. Last night a mob, in its playful progress though this street, broke the peaceful windows of this house. There have been great meetings in Trafalgar Square these two last evenings, in which the people threw stones about, and made a noise, but that was all they did by all accounts. They have smashed sundry windows, and the annoyance and apprehension occasioned by their passage wherever they go is very great. Nothingserious, however, has yet occurred; and I suppose, if the necessity for calling out the military can be avoided, nothing serious will occur. But if these disorderly meetings increase in number and frequency the police will not be sufficient to moderate and disperse them, and the troops will have to be called out, and we shall have terrible mischief, for our soldiers will not fraternize with the London mob, the idea of duty—of which the French soldiers or civilians have but a meagre allowance (glory, honor, anything else you please, in abundance)—being theoneidea in the head of an English soldier and of most English civilians, thank God!
The riots in Glasgow have been very serious; the population of that city, especially the women, struck me as the most savage and brutal looking I had ever seen in this country; and I remember frequently, while I was there, thinking what a terrible mob the lowest class of its inhabitants would make.
Metternich's resignation, of which I wrote you yesterday, is, alas! uncertain. I had rejoiced at it for the sake of that beautiful Italy, and all her political martyrs past and to come.
Good-bye, God bless you. I shall go and see some of those great mobs of ours. It must be a curious and interesting spectacle.
Believe me ever yours,
Fanny.
King Street, Saturday and Sunday,March 11th and 12th, 1848.
Dearest Hal,
The "uses of adversity," which are assuredly often "sweet," should help to reconcile us both to our own sorrows and those which are sometimes harder to bear, the sorrows of those we love.... I have not yet been able to accomplish my intention of seeing anything of our great political mobs; and they are now beginning to subside, having been ratherracketsthan riots in their demonstrations, I am happy to say, and therefore not very curious or interesting in any point of view.
But there is to be a very large meeting at Kennington on Monday, and Alfred Potocki said he would take me to it, but as I have to act that night I am afraid it would be hardly conscientious to run the risk of an accidental blowfrom a brickbat that might disable me for my work, which is my duty, though, I confess, it is a great temptation. My friend, Comte Potocki, is young and tall and strong and active, but I would a great deal rather have paid a policeman to look after me, as I did when I went to see a fire, than have depended upon the care of a gentleman who would feel himself hampered by having me to care for. After all, I shall probably give it up, and not go....
My father tells me he has definitely renounced all idea of reading again, so I took heart of grace to ask him to lend me the plays he read from, to mark mine by. The copy he used is a Hanmer, in six large quarto volumes, and belongs to Lane, the artist, who has very kindly lent it to me. My father's marks are most elaborate, but the plays are cruelly sacrificed to the exigencies of the performance—as much maimed, I think, as they are for stage representation. My father has executed this inevitable mangling process with extreme good judgment and taste; but it gives me the heart-ache, for all that. But he wastimed, and that impatiently, by audiences who would barely sit two hours in their places, and required that the plays should be compressed into the measure of their intellectualshort-suffering capacity.
However, it was at the Palace that he had tocompressor rathercompelthe five acts of "Cymbeline" into a reading of three quarters of an hour: and how he performed that feat is still incomprehensible to me....
STANLEY—GIOBERTI.Everything is black and sad enough as far as I can see, but, thank God, I cannot see far, and every day has four-and-twenty hours, and in every minute of every hour live countless seeds of invisible events. I heard a very good sermon to-day upon Christian liberty, and have been reading Stanley's sermon upon St. Paul, which made my heart burn within me.... I am reading an immensely thick book by Gioberti, one of the Italian reformers, a devout and eloquent Catholic priest, and it enchants me.
Good-bye, my dear.
I am ever yours,
Fanny.
King Street, Wednesday, 16th, 1848.
Of course you have heard of the murder of the soldier by that poor girl in the park. I have heard nothing more special about it, and have not seen the newspapers lately,so you probably know more about it than I do. Emily tells me this morning that there were some excellent observations upon the circumstance, either in theExaminerorSpectator. It will be long before women are justly dealt with by the social or civil codes of Christian communities to which they belong, longer still before they are righteously dealt with by the individuals to whom they belong; but it will not befor ever. With the world's progress that reform will come, too; though I believe it will be the very last before the millennium.
I hope this poor unfortunate will be recommended to the Queen's mercy, and escape hanging, unless, as might be just possible, she prefers depending on a gibbet to the tender mercies of Christian society—especially its women—towards a woman who, after being seduced by a man, murdered him.
Did I never tell you of that unhappy creature in New York, who was in the same situation, except that the villain she stabbed did not die, who was tried and acquitted, and who found a shelter in Charles Sedgwick's house, and who, when the despairing devil of all her former miseries took possession of her, used to be thrown into paroxysms of insane anguish, during which Elizabeth [Mrs. Charles Sedgwick] used to sit by her and watch her, and comfort her and sing to her, till she fell exhausted with misery into sleep? That poor woman used to remind me of my children's nurse....
I receive frequent complaints, not from you only, that I do not write sufficiently in detail about myself. It is on that account that I am always so glad to beasked questions, because they remind me of what my friends specially desire to know about me when otherwise I should be apt to write to them about what interested me, rather than what I was doing or saying, and the things and people that surround me, which I do not always find interesting.
You do just the same; your letters are very often indeed discussions upon matters of abstract speculation rather than tidings of yourself,—your doing, being, or suffering,—and I have not objected to this in you, though it has given me a deal of trouble in answering you, because I like people to go their own way in everything; moreover, unless I am reminded by questions of whatis happening to me, it interests me so little that I should probably forget to mention it....
USES OF REVOLUTION.If my faith, dearest Hal, depended upon my knowledge of the means by which the results in which I have faith will be achieved, I should have some cause for despondency. Do you suppose I imagine that the sudden violence of a national convulsion will make people Christians who are not so?... My answer to all your questions as to how momentous changes for the better are to be brought about in public affairs, in popular institutions, in governments, can only be—I do not know. I believe in them, nevertheless, for I believe in God's law, and in Christ's teaching of it, and the obviously ordained progress of the human race. True it is that Christ's teaching, ruling in every man's heart, can only be the distant climax of this progress; but when that does so rule, all other "governments" will be unnecessary: but though we are far enough off from that yet, we are nearer than we ever yet have been; and until that has become the supreme government of the world, changes must go on perpetually in our temporary and imperfect institutions, by which the onward movement is accelerated, at what speed who can tell? It seems to me that the geological growth of our earth has been rapid, compared to the moral growth of our race; but so it is apparently ordained. Individual goodness isthegreat power of all,—societies, organizations, combinations, institutions, laws, governments, act from the surface downwards far less efficaciously than from theroot upwards, and what it doesis done.
Comparatively cheap forms of government are among the most obvious and reasonable changes to be desired in Europe; but you mistake me if you suppose I am looking for instantaneous Utopias born out of national uproar and confusion. But as long as the love of God is not a sufficiently powerful motive with the nations of the earth to make them seek to know and do His will, revolution, outrage, carnage, fear, and suffering are, I suppose, the spurs that are to goad them on tobetteringthemselves; and so national agonies seem to me like individual sorrows—dispensations sent to work improvement.
Fourierism was received with extreme enthusiasm in New England, where various societies have been formed upon the plan of Fourier's suggestions, and this not by the poor or lower classes, but by the voluntary association of the rich with the poor in communities where all worldly goods were in common, and labor, too, so foolishlyfairly in common that delicately bred and highly educated women took their turn to stand all day at the wash-tub, for the benefit of the society, though surely not of their shirts.