"shorn of their beams." No! her success was founded on a power superior
to all these--in the power of genius superadded to that moral interest
which claimed irresistibly the best sympathies of her audience. The
peculiar circumstances and feelings which brought Miss Kemble before the
public, contrary (as it is understood) to all the previous wishes and
intentions of her parents, were such as would have justified less
decided talent,--honourable to herself and to her family. The feeling
entertained towards her on this score was really delightful; it was
a species of homage, which, like the quality of mercy, was "twice
blessed;" blessing those who gave and her who received. It produced a
feeling between herself and the public, which mere admiration on the
one hand, and gratified vanity on the other, could not have excited. She
strongly felt this, and no change, no reverse, diminished her feeling of
the kindness with which she had once been received; but her own fervid
genius and sensibility did as much for her. She was herself a poetess;
her mind claimed a natural affinity with all that is feeling, passionate,
and imaginative; not her voice only, but her soul and ear were attuned
to the harmony of verse; and hence she gave forth the poetry of such
parts as Juliet and Portia with an intense and familiar power, as though
every line and sentiment in Shakspeare had been early transplanted into
her heart,--had long been brooded over in silence,--watered with her
tears,--to burst forth at last, like the spontaneous and native growth
of her own soul. An excellent critic of our own day has said, that
"poetical enthusiasm is the rarest faculty among players:" if so, it
cannot be too highly valued. Fanny Kemble possessed this rare faculty;
and in it, a power that could not be taught, or analysed, or feigned, or
put on and off with her tragic drapery;--it pervaded all she was called
upon to do. It was _this_ which in the Grecian Daughter made her look
and step so like a young Muse; which enabled her, by a single glance--a
tone--a gesture--to elevate the character far above the language--and
exalt the most common-place declamation into power and passion. The
indisputable fact, that she appeared on the stage without any previous
study or tuition, ought in justice to her to be generally known;
it is most certain that she was not nineteen when she made her first
appearance, and that six weeks before her debut there was no more
thought of her becoming an actress, than of her becoming an empress.
The assertion must appear superfluous to those who have seen her;
for what teaching, or what artificial aids, could endue her with the
advantages just described?--"unless _Philosophy_ could make a Juliet!"
or what power of pencil, though it were dipped in the rainbow and
tempered in the sunbeams, could convey this bright intelligence, or
justify the enthusiasm with which it is hailed by her audience? There
is a second difficulty which the artist has had to contend with, not
less honourable to the actress: the charm of her impersonation of Juliet
consisted not so much in any particular points, as in the general
conception of the whole part, and in the sustained preservation and
gradual development of the individual character, from the first scene to
the last. Where the merit lies in the beautiful gradations of feeling,
succeeding each other like waves of the sea, till the flood of passion
swells and towers and sweeps away all perceptible distinctions, the
pencil must necessarily be at fault; for as Madame de Stael says truly,
"_l'inexprimable est precisement ce qu'un grand acteur nous fait
connaitre_."
The first drawing is taken from the scene in which Juliet first appears.
The actress has little to do, but to look the character;--that is, to
convey the impression of a gentle, graceful girl, whose passions and
energies lie folded up within her, like gathered lightning in the summer
cloud; all her affections "soft as dews on roses," which must ere long
turn to the fire-shower, and blast her to the earth. The moment chosen
is immediately after Juliet's expostulation to her garrulous old
nurse--"I pr'ythee, peace!"
The second, third, and fourth sketches are all from the masquerade
scene. The manner in which Juliet receives the parting salutations of
the guests has been justly admired;--nothing is denied to genius and
taste, aided by natural grace, else it might have been thought impossible
to throw so much meaning and sentiment into so common an action. The
first curtsey is to Benvolio. The second, to Mercutio, is distinctly
marked, as though in him she recognised the chosen friend of Romeo. In
the third, to Romeo himself, the bashful sinking of the whole figure,
the conscious drooping of the eyelids, and the hurried, yet graceful
recovery of herself as she exclaims--
"Who's he that follows there that would not dance?
Go ask his name!"
which is the subject of the third sketch; and lastly, the tone in which
she gave the succeeding lines--
"If he be married,
My grave is like to be my wedding-bed!"
which seems, in its deep quiet pathos, to anticipate "some consequence
yet hanging in the stars,"--form one unbroken series of the most
beautiful and heart-felt touches of nature. The fourth sketch is from
the conclusion of the same scene, where Juliet, with reluctant steps and
many a lingering look back on the portal through which her lover has
departed, follows her nurse out of the banquet-room.
The two next drawings are from the balcony scene, which has usually been
considered the criterion of the talent of an actress in this part. The
first represents the action which accompanied the line--
"By whose direction found'st thou out this place?"
The second is the first "Good night!"
"Sweet, good night!
This bud of love, by summer's ripening breath,
May prove a beauteous flower, when next we meet."
Fanny Kemble's conception of character and sentiment in this scene was
peculiarly and entirely her own. Juliet, as she properly felt, is a
young impassioned Italian girl, who has flung her heart, and soul, and
existence upon one cast.
"She was not made
Thro' years or moons the inner weight to bear,
Which colder hearts endure till they are laid
By age in earth."
In this view, the pretty coyness, the playful _coquetterie_, which
has sometimes been thrown into the balcony scene, by way of making an
effect, is out of place, and false to the poetry and feeling of the
part: but in Fanny Kemble's delineation, the earnest, yet bashful
tenderness; the timid, yet growing confidence; the gradual swelling
of emotion from the depths of the heart, up to that fine burst of
enthusiastic passion--
"Swear by thy gracious self,
That art the god of my idolatry,
And I'll believe thee!"
were all as true to the situation and sentiment, as they were beautifully
and delicately conveyed. The whole of the speech, "Thou know'st the mask
of night is on my face," was in truth "like softest music to attending
ears," from the exquisite and various modulation of voice with which it
was uttered. Perhaps one of the most beautiful and entirely original
points in the whole scene, was the accent and gesture with which she
gave the lines--
"Romeo, doff thy name;
And for that name, which is no part of thee,
Take--all myself!"
The grace and _abandon_ in the manner, and the softness of accent, which
imparted a new and charming effect to this passage, cannot be expressed
in words; and it was so delicately touched, and so transitory,--so
dependent, like a beautiful chord in music, on that which prepared and
followed it, that it was found impossible to seize and fix it in a
drawing.
From the first scene with the nurse, two drawings have been made. The
idea of Juliet discovered as the curtain rises, gazing from the window,
and watching for the return of her confidante, is perfectly new. The
attitude (or more properly, one of her attitudes, for they are various
as they are graceful and appropriate) is given in the seventh sketch,
and the artist has conveyed it with peculiar grace and truth. The action
chosen for the eighth drawing occurs immediately after Juliet's little
moment of petulance, (so justly provoked,) and before she utters in a
caressing tone, "Come, what says Romeo?" The first speech in this scene,
"O, she is lame! love's heralds should be thoughts,
Which ten times faster glide than the sun's beams,
Driving back shadows over low'ring hills:
Therefore do nimble-pinion'd doves draw love,
And therefore hath the wind-swift Cupid--wings."
--and the soliloquy in the second scene of the third act, "Gallop apace,
ye fiery-footed steeds!" in which there is no particular point of
dramatic effect to be made, are instances of that innate sense of
poetical harmony, which enabled her to impart the most exquisite
pleasure, merely by her feeling, graceful, animated delivery of these
beautiful lines. The most musical intonation of voice, the happiest
emphasis, and the utmost refinement, as well as the most expressive
grace of action, were here combined to carry passion and poetry at once
and vividly to the heart: but this perfect triumph of illusion is more
than painting could convey.
The ninth and tenth sketches are from the second scene with the nurse,
called in theatrical phrase "the Banishment Scene." One of the grandest
and most impressive passages in the whole performance was Juliet's reply
to her nurse.
"_Nurse._ Shame come to Romeo!
_Juliet._ Blister'd be thy tongue,
For such a wish! he was not born to shame:
Upon his brow shame is asham'd to sit;
For 'tis a throne where honour may be crown'd
Sole monarch of the universal earth."
The loftiness of look and gesture with which she pronounced the last
line, cannot be forgotten: but the effect consisted so much in the
action of the arm, as she stepped across the stage, and in the kindling
eye and brow, rather than in the attitude only, that it could not well
be conveyed in a drawing. The first point selected is from the passage,
"O break, my heart!--poor bankrupt, break at once!" in which the gesture
is full of expressive and pathetic grace. The tenth drawing represents
the action which accompanied her exclamation, "Tybalt is dead--and
Romeo--banished!" The tone of piercing anguish in which she pronounced
the last word, _banished_, and then threw herself into the arms of her
nurse, in all the helplessness of utter desolation, formed one of the
finest passages in her performance.
The scene in which the lovers part, called the Garden Scene, follows;
and the passage selected is--
"Art thou gone so? my love, my lord, my friend?
I must hear from thee every day i' the hour!"
The subdued and tremulous intonation with which all the speeches in
this scene were given, as though the voice were broken and exhausted
with excessive weeping; and the manner in which she still, though half
insensible in her nurse's arms, signed a last farewell to her husband,
were among the most delicate and original beauties of the character.
The two next drawings are from the fifth scene of the third act. The
latter part of this scene contained many new and beautiful touches of
feeling which originated with Miss Kemble herself. It is here that the
real character of Juliet is first developed;--it is here that, abandoned
by the whole world, and left to struggle alone with her fearful destiny,
the high-souled and devoted woman takes place of the tender, trembling
girl. The confiding, helpless anguish with which she at first throws
herself upon her nurse--("Some comfort, nurse!")--the gradual relaxing
of her embrace, as the old woman counsels her to forget Romeo and marry
Paris--the tone in which she utters the question--
"Speakest thou from thy heart?
_Nurse._ From my soul too,
Or else beshrew them both!"
And then the gathering up of herself with all the majesty of offended
virtue, as she pronounces that grand "Amen!"--the effect of which was
felt in every bosom----these were _revelations_ of beauty and feeling
which we owed to Fanny Kemble alone. They were points which had never
before been felt or conveyed in the same manner. The shrinking up wholly
into herself, and the concentrated scorn with which she uttered the
lines--
"Go, counsellor!
Thou and my bosom henceforth shall be twain!"
are very spiritedly given in the fourteenth drawing.
From the scene with the friar, in the fourth act, the action selected
is where she grasps her poniard with the resolution of despair--
"Give me some present counsel; or, behold,
'Twixt my extremes and me this bloody knife
Shall play the umpire!"
One of the most original effects of feeling and genius in the whole play
occurred in the course of this scene; but, unfortunately, it was not
found susceptible of graphic delineation. It was the peculiar manner
with which she uttered the words--
"Are you at leisure, holy father, now?
Or shall I come to you at evening mass?"
The question in itself is nothing; but what a volume of misery and
dread suspense was in that look with which she turned from Paris to the
friar, and the tone with which she uttered those simple words! This was
beyond the pencil's art to convey, and could but be felt and remembered.
The next drawing is therefore from the scene in which she drinks the
sleeping potion. The idea of speaking the first part of the soliloquy
seated, and with the calmness of one settled and bent up "to act a
dismal scene alone," until her fixed meditation on the fearful issue,
and the horrible images crowding on her mind, work her up to gradual
frenzy, was new, and originated with Miss Kemble. The attitude expressed
in the drawing--"O look, methinks I see my cousin's ghost,"--was always
hailed with an excess of enthusiasm of which I thought many parts of her
performance far more deserving.
The eighteenth sketch is from the sleeping scene; and the last two
drawings are from the tomb scene. The merits of this last scene were
chiefly those of attitude, look, and manner; and the whole were at
once so graceful and beautiful, as well as terribly impressive, that
they afforded some relief from the horrors of the situation, and the
ravings of Romeo. The alteration of Shakspeare, in the last act, is
certainly founded on the historical tale of the Giulietta: but though the
circumstances are borrowed, yet the spirit in which they are related by
the ancient novelist, has not been taken into consideration by those who
manufactured this additional scene of superfluous horror.[13] In Juliet's
death, Miss Kemble seized an original idea, and worked it up with the
most powerful and beautiful effect; but this effect consisted not so
much in one attitude or look, as in a progressive series of action and
expression, so true--so painfully true, that as one of the chief beauties
was the rapidity with which the whole passed from the fascinated yet
aching sight--the artist has relinquished any attempt to fix it on
paper.
* * * * *
Fanny Kemble made her first appearance in the character of Juliet,
October 6th, 1829, and bid a last farewell to her London audience
in May, 1832: during these three years she played through a very
diversified range of parts, both in tragedy and high comedy.[14]
Sustained by her native genius and good taste, and by the kindly feeling
of her audience, she could not be said to have failed in any, not even
in those which her inexperience and extreme youth rendered _premature_,
to say the least. She never--except in one or two instances[15]--had a
voice in the selection of her parts, which, I think, was in some cases
exceedingly injudicious, as far as her individual powers were concerned.
I know that she played in several contrary to her own opinion, taste,
and judgment, and from a principle of duty. Not _duty_ only, but a
feeling of delicacy, natural to a generous mind, which disdained the
appearance of presuming on her real power, rendered her docile, in some
instances, to a degree which I regretted while I loved her for it. She
had a perception of some of the traditional absurdities of dress, and
ridiculous technical anomalies of theatrical arrangements, which she had
not power to alter, and which I have seen her endure with wondrous good
temper. Had she remained on the stage, her fine taste and original and
powerful mind would have carried the public with her in some things
which she contemplated: for instance, she had an idea of restoring
King Lear, as originally written by Shakspeare, and playing the _real_
Cordelia to her father's Lear. When left to her own judgment, she ever
thought more of what was worthy and beautiful in itself, than she
calculated on the amount of vulgar applause it might attract, or the
sums it might bring to the treasury. Thus, for her first benefit she
played Portia, a character which no vain, self-confident actress would
have selected for such an occasion, because, as the play is now
performed, the part is comparatively short, is always considered of
secondary importance, and affords but few effective points: this was
represented to her; but she persisted in her choice: and how she played
it out of her own heart and soul! how she revelled in the poetry of
the part, with a conscious sense and enjoyment of its beauty, which
was communicated to her audience! Self, after the first tremor, was
forgotten, and vanity lost in her glowing perception of the charm of the
character. She lamented over every beautiful line and passage which had
been "_cut out_" by profane hands.[16] To those which remained, the rich
and mellow tones of her voice gave added power, blending with the music
of the verse. It was by her own earnest wish that she played Camiola,
in Massinger's Maid of Honour, and this was certainly one of her most
exquisite and most finished parts; but the quiet elegance, the perfect
delicacy of the delineation were never appreciated. She was aware of
this: she said, "The first rows of the pit, and the first few boxes will
understand me; for the rest of that great theatre, I ought to play as
they paint the scenes--in great splashes of black and white." Bianca, in
Millman's Fazio, was another of her finest parts, and as it contained
more stage effect, it told more with the public. In this character she
certainly took even her greatest admirers by surprise. The expression
of slumbering passion, and its gradual developement, were so fervently
portrayed, and yet so nicely shaded; the frenzy of jealousy, and the
alienation of intellect, so admirably discriminated, and so powerfully
given, that when the first emotions had subsided, not admiration only,
but wonder seized upon her audience: nor shall I easily forget the
pale composure with which she bore this--one of her most intoxicating
triumphs.
In Constance, in Queen Katherine, in Lady Macbeth, the want of amplitude
and maturity of person, of physical weight and power, and a deficiency
both of experience and self-confidence, were against her; but her
conception of character was so _true_, and her personal resemblance to
her aunt so striking, in spite of her comparatively diminutive features
and figure, that one of the best and severest of our dramatic critics
said, "it was like looking at Mrs. Siddons through the wrong end of
an opera-glass."[17] She had conceived the idea of giving quite a new
reading, which undoubtedly would have been the _true_ reading, of the
character of Katherine of Arragon, and instead of playing it with the
splendid poetical colouring in which Mrs. Siddons had arrayed it, bring
it down to the prosaic delineation which Shakspeare really gave, and
history and Holbein have transmitted to us; but the experiment was
deemed too hazardous; and it was so. The public at large would never
have understood it. The character of the queen mother, in her own
tragedy of Francis I., was another part of which the weight seemed
to overwhelm her youthful powers, and after the first few nights she
ceased to play it.
While on the English stage, she never became so far the finished artist
as to be independent of her own emotions, her own individual sentiments.
It was not only necessary that she should understand a character, it was
necessary that she should _feel_ it. She invariably excelled in those
characters in which her sympathies were awakened. In Juliet, in Portia,
in Camiola, in Julia,[18] (perhaps the most _popular_ of all her parts,)
and I believe I may add, in Bianca, she will not soon or easily be
surpassed. For the same reason, if she could be said to have failed in
any part, it was in that of Calista, which she abhorred, and never, I
believe, could comprehend. Isabella[19] was another part which I think
she never really felt; she never could throw her powers into it. The
bald style and the prosaic monotonous misery of the first acts, in which
her aunt called forth such torrents of tears, wearied her; though the
tragic of the situations in the last act roused her, and was given most
effectively. She had not, at the time she took leave of us, conquered
the mechanical part of her profession--the last, but not the least
necessary department of her art, which it had taken her aunt Siddons
seven years, and Pasta almost as long, to achieve; she was too much
under the influence of her own nerves and moods of feeling; the warm
blushes, the hot tears, the sob, the tremor, were at times too real.
After playing in Mrs. Beverly, Bianca, and Julia, the physical suffering
and excitement were sometimes most painful; and the performance of
Constance actually deprived her of her hearing for several hours, and
rendered her own voice inaudible to her; this, it will be allowed, was
paying somewhat dear for her laurels, even though she had valued them
more than in truth she ever did.
Fanny Kemble, as one of a gifted race, "the latest born of all
Olympus' faded hierarchy," had really a just pride in the professional
distinction of her family. She was proud of being a Kemble, and not
insensible to the idea of treading in the steps of her aunt. But she had
seen the stage desecrated, and never for a moment indulged the thought
that she was destined to regenerate it. She felt truly her own position.
Her ambition was not professional. She had always the consciousness of
a power--of which she has already given evidence--to ensure to herself
a higher, a more real immortality than that which the stage can bestow.
She had a very high idea, abstractedly, of the capabilities of her
art; but the native elegance of her mind, her poetical temperament, her
profound sense of the _serious ideal_, rendered her extremely, and at
times painfully sensitive, to the prosaic drawbacks which attended its
exercise in public, and her strong understanding showed her its possible
evils. She feared for the effect that incessant praise, incessant
excitement, might at length produce on her temper. "I am in dismay,"
said she, (I give her _own_ words,) "when I think that all this may
become necessary to me. Could I be sure of retaining my love for higher
and better occupations, and my desire for a nobler, though more distant
fame, I should not have these apprehensions; but I am cut off by constant
labour from those pursuits which I love and honour, and neither they,
nor any of our capabilities, can outlive long neglect and disuse." Thus
she felt, and thus she expressed herself at the age of twenty, and even
while enjoying her success with a true girlish buoyancy of spirit,
the more delightful, the more interesting, inasmuch as it seemed to
tremble at itself. I have actually heard her reproached for not being
_sufficiently_ elated and excited by the public homage; but, the truth
is, she was grateful for praise, rather than intoxicated by it--more
pleased with her success than proud of it.[20] "I dare not," said she,
"feel all I _could_ feel: I must watch myself." And by a more exact
attention to her religious duties, and by giving as much time as
possible to the cultivation of many resources and accomplishments, she
endeavoured to preserve the command over her own faculties, and the even
balance of her mind. I am persuaded that this lofty tone of feeling,
this mixture of self-subjection and self-respect, gave to her general
deportment on the stage that indescribable charm, quite apart from any
grace of person or action, which all who have seen her must have felt,
and none can have forgotten.