With unmingled pain I write the name of Lætitia Elizabeth Landon,--the
L. E. L., whose poems were for so long a period the delight of all
readers, old and young.
We were among the few friends who knew her intimately. But it was not in
her nature to open her heart to any one; her large organ of
"secretiveness" was her bane; she knew it and deplored it; it was the
origin of that misconception which embittered her whole life, the
mainspring of that calumny which made fame a mockery and glory a deceit.
But I may say, that, when slander was busiest with her reputation, we
had the best means to confute it,--and did. For some years there was not
a single week during which, on some day or other, morning or evening,
she was not a guest at our house; yet this blight in her spring-time
undoubtedly led to the fatal marriage which eventuated in her mournful
and mysterious death.
The calumny was of that kind which most deeply wounds a woman. How it
originated, it was at the time, and is of course now, impossible to say.
Probably its source was nothing more than a sneer, but it bore Dead-Sea
fruit. A slander more utterly groundless never was propagated. It broke
off an engagement that promised much happiness with a gentleman, then
eminent, and since famous, as an author: not that _he_ at any time gave
credence to the foul and wicked rumor; but to _her_ "inquiry" was a
sufficient blight, and by _her_ the contract was annulled.
The utter impossibility of its being other than false could have been
proved, not only by us, but by a dozen of her intimate friends, whose
evidence would have been without question and conclusive. She was living
in a school for young ladies: seen daily by the ladies who kept that
school, and by the pupils. In one of her letters to Mrs. Hall, she
writes, "I have lived nearly all my life, since childhood, with
the same people. The Misses Lance were strict, scrupulous, and
particular,--moreover, from having kept a school so long, with habits of
minute observation. The affection they feel for me can hardly be
undeserved. I would desire nothing more than to refer to their opinion."
Dr. Thomson, her constant medical friend and adviser, testified long
afterwards to her "estimable qualities, generous feelings, and exalted
virtues." It would, indeed, have been easy to obtain proof abundant; but
in such cases the very effort to lessen the evil augments it; there was
no way of fighting with a shadow; it was found impossible to trace the
rumor to any actual source. Few then, and perhaps none now, can tell how
deeply the poisoned arrow entered her heart. If ever woman was, Lætitia
Landon was, "done to death by slanderous tongues."
I have touched upon this theme reluctantly,--perhaps it might have been
omitted altogether,--but it seems to me absolutely necessary, in order
to comprehend the character of the poet towards her close of life, and
the secret of her marriage, which so "unequally yoked" her to one
utterly unworthy.
Here is a passage from one of her letters to Mrs. Hall,--without a
date,--but it must have been written in 1837, when she was suffering
terribly under the blight of evil tongues:--
"I have long since discovered that I must be prepared for enmity I have
never provoked, and unkindness I have little deserved. God knows, that,
if, when I do go into society, I meet with more homage and attention
than most, it is dearly bought. What is my life? One day of drudgery
after another; difficulties incurred for others, which have ever pressed
upon me; health, which every year, by one severe illness after another,
shows is taxed beyond its strength; envy, malice, and all
uncharitableness: these are the fruits of a successful literary career
for a woman."
She was slow to believe that false and bitter words could harm her. At
first they seemed but to inspire her with a dangerous bravery in her
innocence, and to increase a practice we always deplored, of saying
things for effect in which she did not believe. It was no use telling
her this; she would argue that a conversation of facts would be as dull
as a work on algebra, and that all she did was to put her poetry into
practice. In these moods you might as well attempt to imprison a sunbeam
as keep her to matter-of-fact; and the misery was, that gradually the
number of detractors increased, who caught up these "effective" scraps,
and set them in circulation.
She was not more than fifteen years old when the letters "L. E.
L."--appended to some verses in the "Literary Gazette"--riveted public
attention; and when it became known that the author was scarcely in her
teens, a full gush of popularity burst upon her that might have turned
older heads and steadier dispositions. She became a "lion," courted and
flattered and fêted; yet never was she misled by the notion that
popularity is happiness, or lip-service the true homage of the heart.
She was residing at Old Brompton, when her first poem appeared in the
"Literary Gazette," which Mr. Jerdan had not long previously
established. It would be difficult to conceive the enthusiasm excited by
the magical three letters appended to the poems, whenever they appeared.
Mr. Jerdan was a near neighbor of the Landons, and he thus refers to
their residence at Old Brompton:--
"My cottage overlooked the mansion and grounds of Mr. Landon, the father
of 'L. E. L.,' at Old Brompton, a narrow lane only dividing our
residences. My first recollection of the future poetess is that of a
plump girl, grown enough to be almost mistaken for a woman, bowling a
hoop round the walks, with a hoop-stick in one hand and a book in the
other, reading as she ran, and as well as she could managing both
exercise and instruction at the same time."
She was born on the 14th of August, 1802, at Hans Place, Chelsea, where
her father, a junior partner in the prosperous house of Adair,
army-agents, then resided. And in that locality, with few brief
intervals, the whole of her life was passed.
When we first knew her, in 1825, she lived with her grandmother in Sloane
Street; subsequently she was a boarder in the school-establishment
of the Misses Lance, at No. 22, Hans Place, the house in which she had
been a pupil when but six years old; and here she was residing up to
within a few months of her marriage, when, in consequence of the
retirement of the Misses Lance, she became an inmate in the family of
Mrs. Sheddon.
Her grandmother's grave was, if I recollect rightly, the third that was
made in the graveyard of Holy Trinity, Brompton. Her lines on this "new"
churchyard will be remembered. I attended the old lady's funeral, Mrs.
Hall having received from Miss Landon this letter:--
"I have had time to recover the first shock,--and it was great weakness
to feel so sorry, though even now I do not like to think of her very
sudden death. I am thankful for its giving her so little confinement or
pain; she had never known illness, and would have borne it
impatiently,--a great addition to suffering. I am so very grateful to
Mr. Hall, for I really did not know what to do. Her funeral is fixed for
Friday; the hour will be arranged to his and Mr. Jerdan's convenience."
Mrs. Hall supplies me with the following particulars concerning her
early acquaintance and intercourse with Miss Landon.
"I forget how it came about, but my husband was introduced to a certain
little Miss Spence, who, on the strength of having written something
about the Highlands, was most decidedly BLUE, when blue was by no means
so general a color as it is at present. She had a lodging of two rooms
in Great Quebec Street, and '_patronized_' young _littérateurs_,
inviting them to her 'humble abode,' where tea was made in the bedroom,
and where it was whispered the butter was kept cool in the
wash-handbasin! There were 'lots' of such-like small scandals about poor
Miss Spence's 'humble abode'; still people liked to go; and my husband
was invited, with a sort of apology to poor me, who, never having
published anything at that time, was considered ineligible; it was 'a
rule,' and Miss Spence, in her 'humble abode,' lived by rule.
"Of course I had an account of the party when Mr. Hall came home. I
coveted to know who was there, and what everybody wore and said. I was
told that Lady Caroline Lamb was there, enveloped in the folds of an
ermine cloak, which she called a 'cat-skin,' and that she talked a great
deal about a periodical she wished to get up, to be called 'Tabby's
Magazine'; and with her was an exceedingly haughty, brilliant, and
beautiful girl, Rosina Wheeler,--since well known as Lady Bulwer
Lytton,--and who sat rather impatiently at the feet of her eccentric
'Gamaliel.' Miss Emma Roberts was one of the favored ladies, and Miss
Spence (who, like all 'Leo-hunters,' delighted in novelty) had just
caught the author of 'The Mummy,' Jane Webb, who was as gentle and
unpretending then as she was in after-years, when, laying aside romance
for reality, she became a great helper of her husband, Mr. London, in
his laborious and valuable works. When I heard Miss Benger was there, in
her historic turban, I thought how fortunate that I had remained at
home! I had always a terror of tall, commanding women, who blink down
upon you, and have the unmistakable air about them of 'Behold me! have I
not pronounced sentence upon Queen Elizabeth, and set my mark on the
Queen of Scots?' Still, I quite appreciated the delight of meeting under
the same roof so many celebrities, and was cross-questioning my husband,
when he said, 'But there was one lady there whom I promised you should
call on to-morrow.'
"Imagine my mingled delight and dismay!--delight at the bare idea of
seeing _her_, who must be wellnigh suffocated with the perfume of her
own 'Golden Violet,' the idol of my imagination,--dismay! for what
should I say to her? what would she say to me?
"And now I must look back,--back to the 'long ago.'
"And yet I can hardly realize the sweep of years that have gone over so
many who have since become near and dear to us. At that first visit, I
saw Lætitia Landon in her grandmamma's modest lodging in Sloane
Street,--a bright-eyed, sparkling, restless little girl, in a pink
gingham frock,--grafting clever things on commonplace nothings,
frolicking from subject to subject with the playfulness of a spoiled
child,--her dark hair put back from her low, but sphere-like forehead,
only a little above the most beautiful eyebrows that a painter could
imagine, and falling in curls around her slender throat. We were nearly
of the same age, but I had been almost a year married, and if I had not
supported myself on my dignity as a married woman, should have been more
than nervous, on my first introduction to a 'living poet,' though the
poet was so different from what I had imagined. Her movements were as
rapid as those of a squirrel. I wondered how anyone so quick could be so
graceful. She had been making a cap for grandmamma, and would insist
upon the old lady's putting it on, that I might see 'how pretty it was.'
To this grandmamma (Mrs. Bishop) objected,--she 'couldn't' and she
'wouldn't' try it on,--'how could Lætitia be so silly?'--and then
Lætitia put the great beflowered, beribboned thing on her own dainty
little head, with a grave look, like a cloud on a rose, and folding her
pretty little hands over her pink frock, made what she called a 'Sir
Roger de Coverley' curtsy, skipping backwards into the bedroom, and
rushing in again, having deposited out of sight the cap she was so proud
of constructing, took my hands in hers, and asked me 'if we should be
friends.'
"'Friends!' I do not think that during the long intimacy that followed
that child-like meeting, extending from the year '26 to her leaving
England in '38, during which time I saw her frequently every day, and
certainly every week,--I do not think she ever loved me as I loved
her,--how could she?--but I was proud of the confidence and regard she
did accord me, and would have given half my own happiness to shelter her
from the envy and evil that embittered the spring and summer-time of her
blighted life. It always seemed to me impossible not to love her, not to
cherish her. Perhaps the greatest magic she exercised was, that, after
the first rush of remembrance of all that wonderful young woman had
written had subsided, she rendered you completely oblivious of what she
had done by the irresistible charm of what she was. You forgot all about
her books,--you only felt the intense delight of life with her; she was
penetrating and sympathetic, and entered into your feelings so entirely
that you wondered how 'the little witch' could read you so readily and
so rightly,--and if, now and then, you were startled, perhaps dismayed,
by her wit, it was but the prick of a diamond arrow. Words and thoughts
that she flung hither and thither, without design or intent beyond the
amusement of the moment, come to me still with a mingled thrill of
pleasure and pain that I cannot describe, and that my most friendly
readers, not having known her, could not understand.
"When I knew her first, she certainly looked much younger than she was.
When we talked of ages, which we did the first day, I found it difficult
to believe she was more than seventeen,--she was so slight, so fragile,
so girlish in her gestures and manners. In after-days I often wondered
what made her so graceful. Her neck was short, her shoulders high. You
saw these defects at the first glance, just as you did that her nose was
_retroussé_, and that she was underhung, which ought to have spoiled the
expression of her mouth,--but it did not; you saw all this at once, but
you never thought about it after the first five minutes. Her complexion
was clear, her hair dark and silken, and the lashes that sheltered her
gray eyes long and slightly upturned. Her voice was inexpressibly sweet
and modulated, but there was a melancholy cadence in it,--a fall so full
of sorrow that I often looked to see if tears were coming: no, the smile
and eyes were beaming in perfect harmony, but it was next to impossible
to believe in her happiness, with the memory of that cadence still in
the ear.
"Like all workers I have known intimately, she had a double existence,
an inner and an outer life. Many times, when I have witnessed her
suffering, either from those spasmodic attacks that sapped the
foundation of her life, or from the necessity for work to provide for
the comforts and luxuries of those who never spared her, I have seen her
enter the long, narrow room that opened on the garden at Hans Place, and
flash upon a morning visitor as if she had not a pain or a care in the
world, dazzling the senses and captivating the affections of some new
acquaintance, as she had done mine, and sending them away in the firm
belief of her individual happiness, and the conviction that the
melancholy which breathes through her poems was assumed, and that her
real nature was buoyant and joyous as that of a lark singing between
earth and heaven! If they could but have seen how the cloud settled down
on that beaming face, if they had heard the deep-drawn sigh of relief
that the little play was played out, and noted the languid step with
which she mounted to her attic, and gathered her young limbs on the
common seat, opposite the common table, whereon she worked, they would
have arrived at a directly opposite and a too true conclusion, that the
melancholy was real, the mirth assumed.
"My next visit to her was after she left her grandmamma's, and went to
reside at 22, Hans Place. Miss Emma Roberts and her sister at that time
boarded in Miss Lance's school, and Miss Landon found there a room at
the top of the house, where she could have the quiet and seclusion her
labor required, and which her kind-natured, but restless grandmother
prevented. She never could understand how 'speaking one word to Letty,
just one word, and not keeping her five minutes away from that desk,
where she would certainly grow humped or crooked,' could interfere with
her work! She was one of those stolid persons who are the bane of
authors, who think nothing of the lost idea, and the unravelling of the
web, when a train of thought is broken by the 'only one word,' 'only a
moment,' which scatters thoughts to the wind,--thoughts that can no more
be gathered home than the thistledown that is scattered by a passing
breeze.
"She continued to reside in that unostentatious home, obedient to the
rules of the school as the youngest pupil, dining with the children at
their early hour, and returning to her sanctuary, whence she sent forth
rapidly and continuously what won for her the adoration of the young and
the admiration of the old. But though she ceased to reside with her
grandmother, she was most devoted in her attentions to her aged
relative, and trimmed her caps and bonnets and quilled her frills as
usual. I have seen the old lady's borders and ribbons mingled with pages
of manuscript, and known her to put aside a poem to 'settle up'
grandmamma's cap for Sunday. These were the minor duties in which she
indulged; but her grandmother owed the greater part, if not the entire,
of her comfort to the generous and unselfish nature of that gifted girl.
Her mother I never saw: _morally_ right in all her arrangements, she was
_mentally_ wrong,--and the darling poet of the public had no loving
sympathy, no tender care from her. L. E. L. had passed through the
sufferings of a neglected childhood, and but for the love of her
grandmother she would have known next to nothing of the love of
motherhood. Thus she was left alone with her genius: for admiration,
however grateful to a woman's senses, never yet filled a woman's heart.
"When I first knew her, and for some time after, she was childishly
untidy and negligent in her dress: her frocks were tossed on, as if
buttons and strings were unnecessary incumbrances,--one sleeve off the
shoulder, the other on,--and her soft, silky hair brushed 'any how': but
Miss Emma Roberts, whose dress was always in good taste, determined on
her reformation, and gradually the young poet, as she expressed it, 'did
not know herself.' I use the epithet 'young,' because she was
wonderfully youthful in appearance, and positively as she grew older
looked younger,--her delicate complexion, the transparent tenderness of
her skin, and the playful expression of her child-like features adding
to the deception.
"I was one day suddenly summoned to Hans Place, and drawn into a
consultation on the important subject of a fancy-ball, which Miss Landon
and Miss Emma Roberts had 'talked over' Miss Lance to let them give to
their friends. They wished me to appear as the 'wild Irish girl,' or the
genius of Erin, with an Irish harp, to which I was to sing snatches of
the melodies. Miss Spence was there in consultation, as she 'knew
everybody.' She congratulated me on my _début_ as an authoress, (I had
recently published my first book, 'Sketches of Irish Character,') and
politely added, 'Now you are one of us, I shall be happy to receive you
at my humble abode.'
"I begged to decline the proposal concerning the wild Irish girl and the
Irish harp, but agreed to carry a basket of flowers. Certainly the
_fête_-givers worked 'with a will,' turned the great house 'out of
windows,' converting the two school-rooms, big and little, into a
ball-room, and decorating it richly with green leaves and roses, real
and artificial. I congratulated them on the prospect. 'Yes,' said Miss
Landon, 'the mechanical getting-up is all very well; I wish all that is
termed "dashing" did not lie in the tomb of the Duchess of Gordon. A
quadrille is but still life put into motion. Our faces, like our
summers, want sunshine. Old Froissart complained in his day, that the
English, after their fashion, "_s'amusent moult tristement_." A
ball-room is merely "Arithmetic and the use of figures taught here." A
young lady in a quadrille might answer,--"I am too busy to laugh,--I am
making my calculations." And yet ours is not a marrying age; the men
have discovered that servants and wives are _so_ expensive,--still a
young lady's delight in a ball, if not _raisonnable_, has
always--_quelque raison!_ and I am determined, if I die in the cause,
that ours shall be a success!' Her conversation was always epigrammatic.
"It seems absurd that a ball should be the first great event of my
literary life. There I saw for the first time many persons who became in
after-years intimate friends, and whose names are now parts of the
history of the literature of their country. 'Mr.' Edward Bulwer, then on
the threshold of fame, 'came out' in military uniform. L. E. L. assured
me he was very clever, had written a novel, and 'piles of poetry,' and
would be wonderful soon, but that he was much too handsome for an
author; at which opinion, little Miss Spence, in a plum-pudding sort of
turban, with a bird-of-paradise bobbing over the front, and a fan even
larger than poor Lady Morgan's, agitated her sultana's dress, and
assured me that 'nothing elevated the expression of beauty so much as
literature,' and that 'young things, like many of the present company,
would not look as well in ten years!' Mr. Bulwer was certainly
pronounced by the ladies the handsomest youth in the room. The gentlemen
endeavored to put him down as 'effeminate,' but all in vain. They called
him 'a fair, delicate, very, _very_ young man,'--'a boy,' in fact. I
remember wondering at the searching expression of his large, wandering,
bluish eyes, that seemed looking in and out at everybody and at
everything. The lady of his love was there, and she ought to have been
dressed as the Sultana poor Miss Spence burlesqued. Nature had bestowed
on her an Oriental style of beauty, and she would have come out well in
Oriental costume; but she chose the dress of a Swiss peasant, which,
being more juvenile, brought her nearer to her lover's age. She
certainly was radiantly beautiful. She had a mouth like 'chiselled
coral,' and eyes fierce as an eagle's or tender as a dove's, as passion
moved her. Her uncle, Sir John Milly Doyle, then an old man of mark in
the military world, was naturally proud of his beautiful charge, and
companioned her that evening.
"Miss Benger's turban was a formidable rival to that of Miss Spence. The
historian was long and lanky, according to the most approved historical
fashion; consequently her turban was above the crowd, while poor Miss
Spence's was nearly crushed by it, and was all too frequently shoved on
one side by the whirling dancers. At last, in despair, she donned a
handkerchief, tying it under her chin, and wherever she went she wished
the gentle-hearted Miss Webb to follow, appealing after this fashion to
the merry crowd:--'Please let me pass; I am Miss Spence, and this lady
is Miss Webb, author of "The Mummy,"--"The Mummy," Sir.' But Miss Webb
effected her escape; and the last time I saw little Miss Spence that
evening, she had scrambled up into one of those so-called
'education-chairs,' in which poor girls were compelled to sit bolt
upright for several hours of the day, by way of keeping their shoulders
flat and strengthening their spine.
"I remember 'Father Prout of Watergrass Hill' that evening,--then a
smooth-faced, rosy-cheeked young man. Jane and Anna Maria Porter joined
the party late in the evening. They came from Esher, and, though not in
direct fancy-dresses, added to the effect of the gathering. Jane was
dressed in black, which was only relieved by a diamond sparkling on her
throat. Her sweet, melancholy features and calm beauty contrasted well
with the bright sunshine of her sister's round, girlish face. She was
dressed in white, soft blue gauze floating round her like a haze. L. E.
L. (who personated a flower-girl in a white chip hat) called the sisters
'the Evening and Morning Stars.' I was so proud of a compliment Jane
paid me on my new dignity of authorship,--a compliment from the author
of the 'Scottish Chiefs,'--the book that in childhood I had read
stealthily by moonlight, coiled up in my nursery-window, just near
enough to the sea to hear its music, while the fate of Sir William
Wallace made my heart pant and my tears flow!
"I saw there for the first time Julia Pardoe. She had just returned from
Portugal, and was escorted by her little, round father, the Major. She
was then in her dawn of life and literature, having published two
volumes about Portugal,--a pretty little fairy of a girl, with a wealth
of flaxen hair, a complexion made up of lilies and roses, with tiny feet
in white satin _bottines_ with scarlet heels, and a long, sweeping veil
of blue gauze spangled with silver stars. I think she dressed as some
Portuguese or Spanish character; for I remember a high comb in her hair.
I can only now recall her floating about under the blue gauze veil.
"I remember one group of Quakers among the glittering throng, who looked
sufficiently quaint to attract attention, while the matron of the party
said clever, caustic things, differing in quality as well as quantity
from the sparkling, playful jests and repartees, that, as the evening
passed, were flung about by Mr. Jerdan, the popular editor of the
'Literary Gazette,' the oracle of that time, and stammered forth by Dr.
Maginn. "The Doctor" and Mr. Jerdan and Theodore Hook entered together,
three men of mark, from whom much was expected--after supper.
"The Quaker matron was Mrs. Trollope, a portly lady, of any age between
thirty and forty, staid and sedate, as became her character, and
attentive to her 'thees' and 'thous,' which lent their cloak for plain
speaking, of which she was not chary. She frequently admonished her
daughters--perhaps adopted for the evening--against the vanities by
which they were encompassed on every side,--satirizing and striking
home, but never exhibiting ill-temper or actual bitterness. The
character was well sustained throughout the evening, and occasioned
quite as much fear as fun. When Theodore Hook asked her, according to
the fashion of those days, to take wine with him, she answered, 'Friend,
I think thou hast had enough already, and so have I.' There was nothing
particularly wise or witty in the words; but their truth was so evident,
and the manner in which they were spoken so clear and calm, that they
were followed by a roar of laughter that for a little time upset the
mighty humorist, though, in the extempore song in which he rallied, he
did not forget that
'He had just received a wallop
From the would-be Quaker Trollope.'
"We enjoyed most thoroughly the intercourse commenced thus early in our
married life with the spirits of our time; and I remember entering into
grave debate with L. E. L. whether it would be possible for _us_ to give
a party that might be, as it were, the shadow of hers. A fancy-ball was
out of the question. We proposed a _conversazione_, with first-rate
music; but in that Miss Landon could not sympathize. 'It was all very
well,' she said; 'I had a talent for listening; she had not; and if I
must have music, let there be a room where the talkers could congregate,
and neither disturb others nor be themselves disturbed.' The only thing
she disliked in dancing was the trial of keeping time; and to do this,
she was obliged to count.
"The _conversazione_ was determined on, and the invitations issued; and
then my husband and I began to count the cost. Of course, if done, it
must be well done. The method was not clear; it was very cloudy; and
there was only one way to make it clear. We were but 'children of a
larger growth,' and we had a 'money-box,'--not one of those pretty cedar
inventions, with a lock and key and a slit in the cover, that we now use
at bazaars, but a big, shapeless, roundabout thing of earthen-ware, with
a slit in the middle. We had intended its contents should gratify
another fancy, but now it would be the very thing to sacrifice; so we
locked ourselves into the drawing-room, placed the box on the
hearth-rug, and in a moment the brown roundabout was smashed,--and there
was quite a heap of silver, and a little brightening of gold! _We_ had
never put in any gold. We were astonished, and counted our treasure with
great delight. My husband accused me of conveying the gold by some
cunning art into the box; and _I_ was indignant that he should have done
so without my knowledge. A quarrel was imminent, when we thought perhaps
it was the hand of the dear mother that had dropped in the gold. Yes,
that was her _ruse_; and we would have it that the party cost us
_nothing_, because the contents of the money-box never had been counted
on: it was a treasure-trove,--nothing more. We were particularly anxious
to be thought _prudent_; and, in our triumph, (for the party, every one
said, was a brilliant success,) we communicated the fact to L. E. L.
that the party had cost nothing! She laughed, and determined to set up a
money-box, on her own account; but, poor girl, her money was anticipated
by her dependants before she received it.
"I remember once meeting her coming out of Youngman's shop, in Sloane
Street, and walking home with her. 'I have been,' she said, 'to buy a
pair of gloves,--the only money spent on myself out of the three hundred
pounds I received for "Romance and Reality."' That same day she spoke of
having lived in Sloane Street when a child. Her mother's _ménage_ must
have been curiously conducted; for I remember her saying, 'On Sundays my
brother and myself were often left alone in the house with one servant,
who always went out, locking us in; and we two children used to sit at
the open parlor-window to catch the smell of the one-o'clock dinners
that went past from the bake-house, well knowing that no dinner awaited
us.'"
* * * * *
In the zenith of her fame, and towards her terrible close of life, the
personal appearance of Miss Landon was highly attractive. Though small
of stature, her form was remarkably graceful; and in society she paid
special attention to dress. She would have been of perfect symmetry,
were it not that her shoulders were rather high.
There were few portraits of Miss Landon painted, although she was
acquainted with many artists, and had intense love of Art. Her friend
Maclise painted her three or four times; but I know of no other
portraits of her, except that by Mr. Pickersgill, which I always thought
the most to resemble her, albeit the likeness is not flattering.
She first met the Ettrick Shepherd at our house. When Hogg was presented
to her, he looked earnestly _down_ at her, for perhaps half a minute,
and then exclaimed, in a rich, manly, Scottish voice, "Eh, I did na
think ye'd been sae bonnie. I've said mony hard things aboot ye. I'll do
sae na mair. I did na think ye'd been sae bonnie."
Mrs. Opie, who also met her at our dwelling, paid her a questionable
compliment,--that she was "the prettiest butterfly she had ever seen":
and I remember the staid Quaker shaking her finger at the young poetess,
and remarking, "What thou art saying thou dost not mean."
Miss Jewsbury, (the elder sister of the accomplished authoress,
Geraldine,) whose fate somewhat resembled her own, said of her, "She was
a gay and gifted thing"; but Miss Jewsbury knew her only "in the
throng."
In short, I have rarely known a woman so entirely fascinating as Miss
Landon; and this arose mainly from her large sympathy. She was playful
with the young, sedate with the old, and considerate and reflective with
the middle-aged. She could be tender and she could be severe, prosaic or
practical, and essentially of and with whatever party she happened to be
among. I remember this faculty once receiving an illustration. She was
taking lessons in riding, and had so much pleased the riding-master that
at parting he complimented her by saying,--"Well, Madam, we are all born
with a genius for something, and yours is for horsemanship."
One of the many writers who mourned her wrote,--"Apart from her literary
abilities and literary labors, she was, in every domestic relation of
life, honorable, generous, dutiful, self-denying,--zealous,
disinterested, and untiring in her friendship."
Her industry was wonderful. She was perpetually at work, although
often--nay, generally--with little of physical strength, and sometimes
utterly prostrated by illness. Yet the work _must_ be done, as her poems
and prose were usually for periodical publications, and a given day of
the month it was impossible to postpone.
Poetry she wrote with great ease and rapidity. In one of her letters to
Mrs. Hall she says,--"I write poetry with far more ease than I do prose.
In prose, I often stop and hesitate for a word; in poetry, never. Poetry
always carries me out of myself. I forget everything in the world but
the subject that has interested my imagination. It is the most subtile
and insinuating of pleasures; but, like all pleasures, it is dearly
bought. It is always succeeded by extreme depression of spirits, and an
overpowering sense of bodily fatigue." And in one of her letters to me,
she observes,--"Writing poetry is like writing one's own native
language, and writing prose is like writing in a strange tongue." In
fact, she could have improvised admirable verses without hesitation or
difficulty.
She married Mr. Maclean, then Governor of the Gold Coast[B],--a man who
neither knew, felt, nor estimated her value. He wedded her, I am
convinced, only because he was vain of her celebrity; and she married
him only because he enabled her to change her name, and to remove from
that society in which just then the old and infamous slander had been
revived. There was in this case no love, no esteem, no respect,--and
there could have been no discharge of duty that was not thankless and
irksome.
They were married a fortnight, at least, before the wedding was
announced, even to friends. A sad story was some time afterwards
circulated,--the truth of which I have no means of knowing,--that Mr.
Maclean had been engaged to a lady in Scotland, which engagement he had
withdrawn, and that she was in the act of sealing a letter to him when
her dress caught fire, and she was burnt to death.
The last time I saw L. E. L. was in Upper Berkeley Street, Connaught
Square, on the 27th of June, 1838, soon after her marriage, when she was
on the eve of her fatal voyage. A farewell party was given to some of
her friends by Mrs. Sheddon, with whom she then boarded,--the Misses
Lance having resigned their school. When the proper time arrived, there
was a whisper round the table, and, as I was the oldest of her friends
present, it fell to my lot to propose her health. I did so with the
warmth I felt. The chances were that we should never meet again; and I
considered myself free to speak of her in terms such as could not but
have gratified any husband,--except the husband she had chosen,--and
sought to convey to Maclean's mind the high _respect_, as well as
affection, with which we all regarded her. The reader may imagine the
chill that came over the party when Maclean rose to return thanks. He
merely said, "If Mrs. Maclean has as many friends as Mr. Hall says she
has, I only wonder they allowed her to leave them." One by one the
guests rose and departed, with a brief and mournful farewell. Probably
not one of them all ever saw her again.
She sailed with her husband for Africa on the 5th of July, 1838. On the
15th of August she landed, and on the 15th of October she was
dead!--dying, according to a coroner's jury, "of having incautiously
taken a dose of prussic acid."
The circumstances of her death will be forever a mystery; for her
husband has since "died and made no sign"; but no one ever heard of her
having had this horrible medicine in her possession. Dr. Thomson, who
made up her medicine-chest, and who had been her attendant for many
years, declared he never prescribed it for her; and it was next to
impossible she could have possessed it. To the various rumors that arose
out of her death I do not allude. I do not believe she committed
suicide; nay, I am sure she did not, although I know she was most
wretched in her mournful banishment, most miserable in her changed
condition, and that, if her past years had been gloomy, her future was
very dark; but I believe that poison in some shape--not from the small
vial which it was _said_ was found in her hand--was administered by the
African woman who is known to have been her predecessor,--one of those
"Children of the South
With whom revenge is virtue."
The following letter from L. E. L. was received by Mrs. Hall on the 3d
of January, 1839. It is without a date. On the 1st we had heard of her
death. It was a "ship-letter," but the mark of the place at which it was
posted is indistinct.
"MY DEAR MRS. HALL,--I must send you one of my earliest
epistles from the tropics; and as a ship is just sailing, I
will write, though it can only be a few hurried lines. I can
tell you my whole voyage in three words,--six weeks'
sea-sickness; but I am now as well as possible, and have been
ever since I landed. The castle is a very noble building, and
all the rooms large and cool, while some would be pretty even
in England. That where I am writing is painted a deep blue,
with some splendid engravings; indeed, fine prints seem quite a
passion with the gentlemen here. Mr. Maclean's library is
filled up with bookcases of African mahogany, and portraits of
distinguished authors. I, however, never approach it without
due preparation and humility, so crowded is it with scientific
instruments, telescopes, chronometers, barometers, gasometers,
etc., none of which may be touched by hands profane. On three
sides, the batteries are dashed against by the waves; on the
fourth is a splendid land view. The hills are covered to the
top with what we should call wood, but is here called bush.
This dense mass of green is varied by some large, handsome,
white houses belonging to different gentlemen, and on two of
the heights are small forts built by Mr. Maclean. The
cocoa-trees with their long fan-like leaves are very beautiful.
The natives seem to be obliging and intelligent, and look very
picturesque with their fine dark figures, with pieces of the
country cloth flung round them. They seem to have an excellent
ear for music: the band plays all the old popular airs, which
they have caught from some chance hearing. The servants are
very tolerable, but they take so many to work. The prisoners do
the scouring, and fancy three or four men cleaning a room that
an old woman in England would do in an hour,--besides the
soldier who stands by, his bayonet drawn in his hand. All my
troubles have been of a housekeeping kind, and no one could
begin on a more plentiful stock of ignorance than myself.
However, like Sindbad the Sailor in the cavern, I begin to see
daylight. I have numbered and labelled my keys, (their name is
Legion,) and every morning I take my way to the store, give out
flour, sugar, butter, etc., and am learning to scold, if I see
any dust or miss customary polish on the tables. I am actually
getting the steward of the ship, who is my right hand, to teach
me how to make pastry. I will report progress in the next. We
live almost entirely on ducks and chickens; if a sheep be
killed, it must be eaten the same day. The bread is very good,
palm wine being used for yeast; and yams are an excellent
substitute for potatoes. The fruit generally is too sweet for
my liking; but the oranges and pine-apples are delicious. You
cannot think the complete seclusion in which I live; but I have
a great resource in writing, and I am very well and very happy.
But I think even more than I expected, if that be possible, of
my English friends."