thus directly to you. And yet I have spoken 'de omnibus other rebus'
first. But I venture to think that your feeling on the subject will be
pretty much like my own, and so, no use in talking.
Now, if I could send you part of what I am now packing up for some
Woodbridge People--some--some--Saffron Buns!--for which this Place is
notable from the first day of Lent till Easter--A little Hamper of these!
Now, my dear Mrs. Kemble, do consider this letter of mine as an Answer to
yours--your two--else I shall be really frightened at making you write so
often to yours always and sincerely
E. F.G.
XXV.
LOWESTOFT, _March_ 11/75.
DEAR MRS. KEMBLE,
I am really ashamed that you should apologize for asking me a Copy of
Calderon, etc. {64a} I had about a hundred Copies of all those things
printed _when_ printed: and have not had a hundred friends to give them
to--poor Souls!--and am very well pleased to give to any one who
likes--especially any Friend of yours. I think however that your reading
of them has gone most way to make your Lady ask. But, be that as it may,
I will send you a Copy directly I return to my own Chateau, which I mean
to do when the Daffodils have taken the winds of March. {64b}
We have had severe weather here: it has killed my Brother Peter (not
John, my eldest) who tried to winter at Bournemouth, after having
wintered for the last ten years at Cannes. Bronchitis:--which (_sotto
voce_) I have as yet kept Cold from coming to. But one knows one is not
'out of the Wood' yet; May, if not March, being, you know, one of our
worst Seasons.
I heard from our dear Donne a week ago; speaking with all his own blind
and beautiful Love for his lately lost son; and telling me that he
himself keeps his heart going by Brandy. But he speaks of this with no
Fear at all. He is going to leave Weymouth Street, but when, or for
where, he does not say. He spoke of a Letter he had received from you
some while ago.
Now about Crabbe, which also I am vext you should have trouble about. I
wrote to you the day after I had your two Letters, with Mr. Furness'
enclosed, and said that, seeing the uncertainty of any success in the
matter, I really would not bother you or him any more. You know it is
but a little thing; which, even if a Publisher tried piece-meal, would
very likely be scouted: I only meant 'piece-meal,' by instalments: so as
they could be discontinued if not liked. But I suppose I must keep my
Work--of paste, and scissors--for the benefit of the poor Friends who
have had the benefit of my other Works.
Well: as I say, I wrote and posted my Letter at once, asking you to thank
Mr. Furness for me. I think this must be a month ago--perhaps you had my
Letter the day after you posted this last of yours, dated February 21. Do
not trouble any more about it, pray: read Carlyle's 'Kings of Norway' in
Fraser and believe me ever yours
E. F.G.
I will send a little bound Copy of the Plays for yourself, dear Mrs.
Kemble, if you will take them; so you can give the Lady those you
have:--but, whichever way you like.
XXVI.
LOWESTOFT, _March_ 17/75.
DEAR MRS. KEMBLE,
This bit of Letter is written to apprise you that, having to go to
Woodbridge three days ago, I sent you by Post a little Volume of the
Plays, and (what I had forgotten) a certain little Prose Dialogue {65}
done up with them. This is more than you wanted, but so it is. The
Dialogue is a pretty thing in some respects: but disfigured by some
confounded _smart_ writing in parts: And this is all that needs saying
about the whole concern. You must not think necessary to say anything
more about it yourself, only that you receive the Book. If you do not,
in a month's time, I shall suppose it has somehow lost its way over the
Atlantic: and then I will send you the Plays you asked for, stitched
together--and those only.
I hope you got my Letter (which you had not got when your last was
written) about Crabbe: for I explained in it why I did not wish to
trouble you or Mr. Furness any more with such an uncertain business.
Anyhow, I must ask you to thank him for the trouble he had already taken,
as I hope you know that I thank you also for your share in it.
I scarce found a Crocus out in my Garden at home, and so have come back
here till some green leaf shows itself. We are still under the dominion
of North East winds, which keep people coughing as well as the Crocus
under ground. Well, we hope to earn all the better Spring by all this
Cold at its outset.
I have so often spoken of my fear of troubling you by all my Letters,
that I won't say more on that score. I have heard no news of Donne since
I wrote. I have been trying to read Gil Blas and La Fontaine again; but,
as before, do not relish either. {67} I must get back to my Don Quixote
by and by.
Yours as ever
E. F.G.
I wonder if this letter will smell of Tobacco: for it is written just
after a Pipe, and just before going to bed.
XXVII.
LOWESTOFT: _April_ 9/75.
DEAR MRS. KEMBLE,
I wrote you a letter more than a fortnight ago--mislaid it--and now am
rather ashamed to receive one from you thanking me beforehand for the
mighty Book which I posted you a month ago. I only hope you will not
feel bound to acknowledge [it] when it does reach you, I think I said so
in the Letter I wrote to go along with it. And I must say no more in the
way of deprecating your Letters, after what you write me. Be assured
that all my deprecations were for your sake, not mine; but there's an end
of them now.
I had a longish letter from Donne himself some while ago; indicating, I
thought, _some_ debility of Mind and Body. He said, however, he was
going on very well. And a Letter from Mowbray (three or four days old)
speaks of his Father as 'remarkably well.' But these Donnes won't
acknowledge Bodily any more than Mental fault in those they love. Blanche
had been ill, of neuralgic Cold: Valentia not well: but both on the
mending hand now.
It has been indeed the Devil of a Winter: and even now--To-day as I
write--no better than it was three months ago. The Daffodils scarce dare
take April, let alone March; and I wait here till a Green Leaf shows
itself about Woodbridge.
I have been looking over four of Shakespeare's Plays, edited by Clark and
Wright: editors of the 'Cambridge Shakespeare.' These 'Select Plays' are
very well done, I think: Text, and Notes; although with somewhat too much
of the latter. Hamlet, Macbeth, Tempest, and Shylock--I heard them
talking in my room--all alive about me.
By the by--How did _you_ read 'To-morrow and To-morrow, etc.' All the
Macbeths I have heard took the opportunity to become melancholy when they
came to this: and, no doubt, some such change from Fury and Desperation
was a relief to the Actor, and perhaps to the Spectator. But I think it
_should_ all go in the same Whirlwind of Passion as the rest:
Folly!--Stage Play!--Farthing Candle; Idiot, etc. Macready used to drop
his Truncheon when he heard of the Queen's Death, and stand with his
Mouth open for some while--which didn't become him.
I have not seen his Memoir: only an extract or two in the Papers. He
always seemed to me an Actor by Art and Study, with some native Passion
to inspire him. But as to Genius--we who have seen Kean!
I don't know if you were acquainted with Sir A. Helps, {68} whose Death
(one of this Year's Doing) is much regretted by many. I scarcely knew
him except at Cambridge forty years ago: and could never relish his
Writings, amiable and sensible as they are. I suppose they will help to
swell that substratum of Intellectual _Peat_ (Carlyle somewhere calls it)
{69} from [which] one or two living Trees stand out in a Century. So
Shakespeare above all that Old Drama which he grew amidst, and which (all
represented by him alone) might henceforth be left unexplored, with the
exception of a few twigs of Leaves gathered here and there--as in Lamb's
Specimens. Is Carlyle himself--with all his Genius--to subside into the
Level? Dickens, with all his Genius, but whose Men and Women act and
talk already after a more obsolete fashion than Shakespeare's? I think
some of Tennyson will survive, and drag the deader part along with it, I
suppose. And (I doubt) Thackeray's terrible Humanity.
And I remain yours ever sincerely,
A very small Peat-contributor,
E. F.G.
I am glad to say that Clark and Wright Bowdlerize Shakespeare, though
much less extensively than Bowdler. But in one case, I think, they have
gone further--altering, instead of omitting: which is quite wrong!
XXVIII.
LOWESTOFT: _April_ 19/75.
DEAR MRS. KEMBLE,
Yesterday I wrote you a letter: enveloped it: then thought there was
something in it you might misunderstand--Yes!--the written word across
the Atlantic looking perhaps so different from what intended; so kept my
Letter in my pocket, and went my ways. This morning your Letter of April
3 is forwarded to me; and I shall re-write the one thing that I yesterday
wrote about--as I had intended to do before your Letter came. Only, let
me say that I am really ashamed that you should have taken the trouble to
write again about my little, little, Book.
Well--what I wrote about yesterday, and am to-day about to re-write,
is--Macready's Memoirs. You asked me in your previous Letter whether I
had read them. No--I had not: and had meant to wait till they came down
to Half-price on the Railway Stall before I bought them. But I wanted to
order something of my civil Woodbridge Bookseller: so took the course of
ordering this Book, which I am now reading at Leisure: for it does not
interest me enough to devour at once. It is however a very unaffected
record of a very conscientious Man, and Artist; conscious (I think) that
he was not a great Genius in his Profession, and conscious of his defect
of Self-control in his Morals. The Book is almost entirely about
_himself_, _his_ Studies, _his_ Troubles, _his_ Consolations, etc.; not
from Egotism, I do think, but as the one thing he had to consider in
writing a Memoir and Diary. Of course one expects, and wishes, that the
Man's self should be the main subject; but one also wants something of
the remarkable people he lived with, and of whom one finds little here
but that 'So-and-so came and went'--scarce anything of what they said or
did, except on mere business; Macready seeming to have no Humour; no
intuition into Character, no Observation of those about him (how could he
be a great Actor then?)--Almost the only exception I have yet reached is
his Account of Mrs. Siddons, whom he worshipped: whom he acted with in
her later years at Country Theatres: and who was as kind to him as she
was even then heart-rending on the Stage. He was her Mr. Beverley: {71}
'a very young husband,' she told him: but 'in the right way if he would
study, study, study--and not marry till thirty.' At another time, when
he was on the stage, she stood at the side scene, called out 'Bravo, Sir,
Bravo!' and clapped her hands--all in sight of the Audience, who joined
in her Applause. Macready also tells of her falling into such a
Convulsion, as it were, in Aspasia {72a} (what a subject for such a
sacrifice!) that the Curtain had to be dropped, and Macready's Father,
and Holman, who were among the Audience, looked at each other to see
which was whitest! This was the Woman whom people somehow came to look
on as only majestic and terrible--I suppose, after Miss O'Neill rose upon
her Setting.
Well, but what I wrote about yesterday--a passage about you yourself. I
fancy that he and you were very unsympathetic: nay, you have told me of
some of his Egotisms toward you, 'who had scarce learned the rudiments of
your Profession' (as also he admits that he scarce had). But, however
that may have been, his Diary records, 'Decr. 20 (1838) Went to Covent
Garden Theatre: on my way continued the perusal of Mrs. Butler's Play,
which is a work of uncommon power. Finished the reading of Mrs. Butler's
Play, which is one of the most powerful of the modern Plays I have
seen--most painful--almost shocking--but full of Power, Poetry and
Pathos. She is one of the most remarkable women of the present Day.'
So you see that if he thought you deficient in the Art which you (like
himself) had unwillingly to resort to, you were efficient in the far
greater Art of supplying that material on which the Histrionic must
depend. (N.B.--Which play of yours? Not surely the 'English Tragedy'
unless shown to him in MS.? {72b} Come: I have sent you my Translations:
you should give me your Original Plays. When I get home, I will send you
an old Scratch by Thackeray of yourself in Louisa of Savoy--shall I?)
On the whole, I find Macready (so far as I have gone) a just, generous,
religious, and affectionate Man; on the whole, humble too! One is well
content to assure oneself of this; but it is not worth spending 28_s._
upon.
Macready would have made a better Scholar--or Divine--than Actor, I
think: a Gentleman he would have been in any calling, I believe, in spite
of his Temper--which he acknowledges, laments, and apologizes for, on
reflection.
Now, here is enough of my small writing for your reading. I have been
able to read, and admire, some Corneille lately: as to Racine--'_Ce n'est
pas mon homme_,' as Catharine of Russia said of him. Now I am at Madame
de Sevigne's delightful Letters; I should like to send you a Bouquet of
Extracts: but must have done now, being always yours
E. F.G.
XXIX.
LOWESTOFT: _May_ 16/75
DEAR MRS. KEMBLE,
I have been wishing to send you Carlyle's Norway Kings, and oh! such a
delightful Paper of Spedding's on the Text of Richard III. {74} But I
have waited till I should hear from you, knowing that you _will_ reply!
And not feeling sure, till I hear, whether you are not on your way to
England Eastward ho!--even as I am now writing!--Or, I fancy--should you
not be well? Anyhow, I shall wait till some authentic news of yourself
comes to me. I should not mind sending you Carlyle--why, yes! I _will_
send him! But old Spedding--which is only a Proof--I won't send till I
know that you are still where you were to receive it--Oh! such a piece of
musical criticism! without the least pretence to being Musick: as dry as
he can make it, in fact. But he does, with utmost politeness, smash the
Cambridge Editors' Theory about the Quarto and Folio Text of R. III.--in
a way that perhaps Mr. Furness might like to see.
Spedding says that Irving's Hamlet is simply--_hideous_--a strong
expression for Spedding to use. But--(lest I should think his
condemnation was only the Old Man's fault of depreciating all that is
new), he extols Miss Ellen Terry's Portia as simply _a perfect
Performance_: remembering (he says) all the while how fine was Fanny
Kemble's. Now, all this you shall read for yourself, when I have token
of your Whereabout, and Howabout: for I will send you Spedding's Letter,
as well as his Paper.
Spedding won't go and see Salvini's Othello, because he does not know
Italian, and also because he hears that Salvini's is a different
Conception of Othello from Shakespeare's. I can't understand either
reason; but Spedding is (as Carlyle {75a} wrote me of his Bacon) the
'invincible, and victorious.' At any rate, I can't beat him. Irving I
never could believe in as Hamlet, after seeing part of his famous
Performance of a Melodrama called 'The Bells' three or four years ago.
But the Pollocks, and a large World beside, think him a Prodigy--whom
Spedding thinks--a Monster! To this Complexion is the English Drama
come.
I wonder if your American Winter has transformed itself to such a sudden
Summer as here in Old England. I returned to my Woodbridge three weeks
ago: not a leaf on the Trees: in ten days they were all green, and
people--perspiring, I suppose one must say. Now again, while the Sun is
quite as Hot, the Wind has swerved round to the East--so as one broils on
one side and freezes on t'other--and I--the Great Twalmley {75b}--am
keeping indoors from an Intimation of Bronchitis. I think it is time for
one to leave the Stage oneself.
I heard from Mowbray Donne some little while ago; as he said nothing (I
think) of his Father, I conclude that there is nothing worse of him to be
said. He (the Father) has a Review of Macready--laudatory, I suppose--in
the Edinburgh, and _Mr._ Helen Faucit (Martin) as injurious a one in the
Quarterly: the reason of the latter being (it is supposed) because _Mrs._
H. F. is not noticed except just by name. To this Complexion also!
Ever yours,
E. F.G.
Since writing as above, your Letter comes; as you do not speak of moving,
I shall send Spedding and Carlyle by Post to you, in spite of the Loss of
Income you tell me of which would (I doubt) close up _my_ thoughts some
while from such speculations. I do not think _you_ will take trouble so
to heart. Keep Spedding for me: Carlyle I don't want again. Tired as
you--and I--are of Shakespeare Commentaries, you will like this.
XXX.
LOWESTOFT: _July_ 22/75.
DEAR MRS. KEMBLE,
I have abstained from writing since you wrote me how busily your Pen was
employed for the Press: I wished more than ever to spare you the trouble
of answering me--which I knew you would not forgo. And now you will feel
called upon, I suppose, though I would fain spare you.
Though I date from this place still, I have been away from it at my own
Woodbridge house for two months and more; only returning here indeed to
help make a better Holiday for a poor Lad who is shut up in a London
Office while his Heart is all for Out-of-Door, Country, Sea, etc. We
have been having wretched Holyday weather, to be sure: rain, mist, and
wind; St. Swithin at his worst: but all better than the hateful London
Office--to which he must return the day after To-morrow, poor Fellow!
I suppose you will see--if you have not yet seen--Tennyson's Q. Mary. I
don't know what to say about it; but the Times says it is the finest Play
since Shakespeare; and the Spectator that it is superior to Henry VIII.
Pray do you say something of it, when you write:--for I think you must
have read it before that time comes.
Then Spedding has written a delicious Paper in Fraser about the late
Representation of The Merchant of Venice, and his E. Terry's perfect
personation of his perfect Portia. I cannot agree with him in all he
says--for one thing, I must think that Portia made 'a hole in her
manners' when she left Antonio trembling for his Life while she all the
while [knew] how to defeat the Jew by that knowledge of the Venetian Law
which (oddly enough) the Doge knew nothing about. Then Spedding thinks
that Shylock has been so pushed forward ever since Macklin's time as to
preponderate over all the rest in a way that Shakespeare never intended.
{77} But, if Shakespeare did not intend this, he certainly erred in
devoting so much of his most careful and most powerful writing to a
Character which he meant to be subsidiary, and not principal. But
Spedding is more likely to be right than I: right or wrong he pleads his
cause as no one else can. His Paper is in this July number of Fraser: I
would send it you if you had more time for reading than your last Letter
speaks of; I _will_ send if you wish.
I have not heard of Donne lately: he had been staying at Lincoln with
Blakesley, the Dean: and is now, I suppose, at Chislehurst, where he took
a house for a month.
And I am yours ever and sincerely
E. F.G.
XXXI.
WOODBRIDGE, _Aug._ 24, [1875.]
Now, my dear Mrs. Kemble, you will have to call me 'a Good Creature,' as
I have found out a Copy of your capital Paper, {78} and herewith post it
to you. Had I not found this Copy (which Smith & Elder politely found
for me) I should have sent you one of my own, cut out from a Volume of
Essays by other friends, Spedding, etc., on condition that you should
send me a Copy of such Reprint as you may make of it in America. It is
extremely interesting; and I always think that your Theory of the
Intuitive _versus_ the Analytical and Philosophical applies to the other
Arts as well as that of the Drama. Mozart couldn't tell how he made a
Tune; even a whole Symphony, he said, unrolled itself out of a leading
idea by no logical process. Keats said that no Poetry was worth
[anything] unless it came spontaneously as Leaves to a Tree, etc. {79} I
have no faith in your Works of Art done on Theory and Principle, like
Wordsworth, Wagner, Holman Hunt, etc.
But, one thing you can do on Theory, and carry it well into Practice:
which is--to write your Letter on Paper which does not let the Ink
through, so that (according to your mode of paging) your last Letter was
crossed: I really thought it so at first, and really had very hard work
to make it out--some parts indeed still defying my Eyes. What I read of
your remarks on Portia, etc., is so good that I wish to keep it: but
still I think I shall enclose you a scrap to justify my complaint. It
was almost by Intuition, not on Theory, that I deciphered what I did.
Pray you amend this. My MS. is bad enough, and on that very account I
would avoid diaphanous Paper. Are you not ashamed?
I shall send you Spedding's beautiful Paper on the Merchant of Venice
{80} if I can lay hands on it: but at present my own room is given up to
a fourth Niece (Angel that I am!) You would see that S[pedding] agrees
with you about Portia, and in a way that I am sure must please you. But
(so far as I can decipher that fatal Letter) you say nothing at all to me
of the other Spedding Paper I sent to you (about the Cambridge Editors,
etc.), which I must have back again indeed, unless you wish to keep it,
and leave me to beg another Copy. Which to be sure I can do, and will,
if your heart is set upon it--which I suppose it is not at all.
I have not heard of Donne for so long a time, that I am uneasy, and have
written to Mowbray to hear. M[owbray] perhaps is out on his Holyday,
else I think he would have replied at once. And 'no news may be the Good
News.'
I have no news to tell of myself; I am much as I have been for the last
four months: which is, a little ricketty. But I get out in my Boat on
the River three or four hours a Day when possible, and am now as ever
yours sincerely
E. F.G.
XXXII.
[_Oct._ 4, 1875]
DEAR MRS. KEMBLE,
I duly received your last legible Letter, and Spedding's Paper: for both
of which all Thanks. But you must do something more for me. I see by
Notes and Queries that you are contributing Recollections to some
American Magazine; I want you to tell me where I can get this, with all
the back Numbers in which you have written.
I return the expected favour (Hibernice) with the enclosed Prints, one of
which is rather a Curiosity: that of Mrs. Siddons by Lawrence when he was
_aetat._ 13. The other, done from a Cast of herself by herself, is only
remarkable as being almost a Copy of this early Lawrence--at least, in
Attitude, if not in Expression. I dare say you have seen the Cast
itself. And now for a Story better than either Print: a story to which
Mrs. Siddons' glorious name leads me, burlesque as it is.
You may know there is a French Opera of Macbeth--by Chelard. This was
being played at the Dublin Theatre--Viardot, I think, the Heroine.
However that may be, the Curtain drew up for the Sleep-walking Scene;
Doctor and Nurse were there, while a long mysterious Symphony went
on--till a Voice from the Gallery called out to the Leader of the Band,
Levey--'Whisht! Lavy, my dear--tell us now--is it a Boy or a Girl?' This
Story is in a Book which I gave 2_s._ for at a Railway Stall; called
Recollections of an Impresario, or some such name; {82a} a Book you would
not have deigned to read, and so would have missed what I have read and
remembered and written out for you.
It will form the main part of my Letter: and surely you will not expect
anything better from me.
Your hot Colorado Summer is over; and you are now coming to the season
which you--and others beside you--think so peculiarly beautiful in
America. We have no such Colours to show here, you know: none of that
Violet which I think you have told me of as mixing with the Gold in the
Foliage. Now it is that I hear that Spirit that Tennyson once told of
talking to himself among the faded flowers in the Garden-plots. I think
he has dropt that little Poem {82b} out of his acknowledged works; there
was indeed nothing in it, I think, but that one Image: and that sticks by
me as _Queen Mary_ does not.
I have just been telling some Man enquiring in Notes and Queries where he
may find the beautiful foolish old Pastoral beginning--
'My Sheep I neglected, I broke my Sheep-hook, &c.' {82c}