DUBLIN, ----.
DEAR MRS. JAMESON,
I received your third kind letter yesterday morning, and have no
more time to-day than will serve to inclose my answer to your
second, which reached me and was replied to at Glasgow; owing to
your not having given me your address, I had kept it thus long in
my desk. You surely said nothing in that letter of yours that the
kindest good feeling could take exception to, and therefore need
hardly, I think, have been so anxious about its possible
miscarriage. However, "Misery makes one acquainted with strange
bed-fellows," and I am afraid distrust is one of them. You will be
glad, I know, to hear that I have been successful here, and perhaps
amused to know that when your letter reached me yesterday, I was
going, _en lionne_, to a great dinner-party at Lady Morgan's. You
ask me for advice about your Shakespeare work, but advice is what I
have no diploma for bestowing; and such suggestions as I might
venture, were I sitting by your side with Shakespeare in my hand,
and which might furnish pleasant matter of converse and discussion,
are hardly solid enough for transmission by post.
I have been reading the "Tempest" all this afternoon, with eyes
constantly dim with those delightful tears which are called up
alike by the sublimity and harmony of nature, and the noblest
creations of genius. I cannot imagine how you should ever feel
discouraged in your work; it seems to me it must be its own
perpetual stimulus and reward. Is not Miranda's exclamation, "O
brave new world, that has such people in it!" on the first sight of
the company of villainous men who ruined her and her father, with
the royal old magician's comment, "'Tis new to thee!" exquisitely
pathetic? I must go to my work; 'tis "The Gamester" to-night; I
wish it were over. Good-by, my dear Mrs. Jameson. Thank you for
your kind letters; I value them very much, and am your affectionate
F. KEMBLE.
P.S.--I am very happy here, in the society of an admirable person
who is as good as she is highly gifted,--a rare union,--and who,
moreover, loves me well, which adds much, in my opinion, to her
other merits. I mean my friend Miss S----.
My only reminiscence connected with this dinner at Lady Morgan's is of
her kind and comical zeal to show me an Irish jig, performed _secundum
artem_, when she found that I had never seen her national dance. She
jumped up, declaring nobody danced it as well as herself, and that I
should see it immediately; and began running through the rooms, with a
gauze scarf that had fallen from her shoulders fluttering and trailing
after her, calling loudly for a certain young member of the viceregal
staff, who was among the guests invited to a large evening party after
the dinner, to be her partner. But the gentleman had already departed
(for it was late), and I might have gone to my grave unenlightened upon
the subject of jigs if I had not seen one performed, to great
perfection, by some gay young members of a family party, while I was
staying at Worsley with my friends Lord and Lady Ellesmere, whose
children and guests got up an impromptu ball on the occasion of Lady
Octavia Grosvenor's birthday, in the course of which the Irish national
dance was performed with great spirit, especially by Lord Mark Kerr and
Lady Blanche Egerton. It resembles a good deal the saltarello of the
Italian peasants in rhythm and character; and a young Irishman, servant
of some friends of mine, covered himself with glory by the manner in
which he joined a party of Neapolitan tarantella dancers, merely by dint
of his proficiency in his own native jig. A great many years after my
first acquaintance with Lady Morgan in Dublin, she renewed our
intercourse by calling on me in London, where she was spending the
season, and where I was then living with my father, who had become
almost entirely deaf and was suffering from a most painful complication
of maladies. My relations with the lively and amusing Irish authoress
consisted merely in an exchange of morning visits, during one of which,
after talking to me with voluble enthusiasm of Cardinal Gonsalvi and
Lord Byron, whose portraits hung in her room, and who, she assured me,
were her two pre-eminent heroes, she plied me with a breathless series
of pressing invitations to breakfasts, luncheons, dinners, evening
parties, to meet everybody in London that I did and did not know, and
upon my declining all these offers of hospitable entertainment (for I
had at that time withdrawn myself entirely from society, and went
nowhere), she exclaimed, "But what in the world do you _do_ with
yourself in the evening?" "Sit with my father, or remain alone," said I.
"Ah!" cried the society-loving little lady, with an exasperated Irish
accent, "come out of that _sphare_ of solitary self-sufficiency _ye_
live in, do! Come to me!" Which objurgation certainly presented in a
most ludicrous light my life of very sad seclusion, and sent us both
into fits of laughter.
I have alluded to a friendship which I formed soon after my appearance
on the stage with Miss E---- F----. She was the daughter of Mr. F----,
for many years member for Tiverton. Miss F---- and I perpetuated a close
attachment already traditional between our families, her mother having
been Mrs. Siddons's dearest friend. Indeed, for many years of her life,
Mrs. F---- seems to me to have postponed the claims even of her husband
and children upon her time and attention, to her absolute devotion to
her celebrated idol. Mr. F---- was a dutiful member of the House of
Commons, and I suppose his boy was at school and his girl too young to
demand her mother's constant care and superintendence, at the time when
she literally gave up the whole of her existence to Mrs. Siddons during
the London season, passing her days in her society and her evenings in
her dressing-room at the theater, whenever Mrs. Siddons acted. Miss
F---- and myself could not dedicate ourselves with any such absolute
exclusiveness to each other. Neither of our mothers would have consented
to any such absorbing arrangement, for which a certain independence of
family ties would have been indispensable; but within the limits which
our circumstances allowed we were as devoted to each other as my aunt
Siddons and Mrs. F---- had been, and our intercourse was as full and
frequent as possible. E---- F---- was not pretty, but her face was
expressive of both intelligence and sensibility; her figure wanted
height, but was slender and graceful; her head was too small for
powerful though not far keen and sagacious intellect, or for beauty. The
general impression she produced was that of well-born and well-bred
refinement, and she was as eager, light, and rapid in her movements as a
greyhound, of which elegant animal the whole character of her appearance
constantly reminded me.
Mr. F---- had a summer residence close to the picturesque town of
Southampton, called Bannisters, the name of which charming place calls
up the image of my friend swinging in her hammock under the fine trees
of her lawn, or dexterously managing her boat on its tiny lake, and
brings back delightful hours and days spent in happy intercourse with
her. Mr. F---- had himself planned the house, which was as peculiar as
it was comfortable and elegant. A small vestibule, full of fine casts
from the antique (among others a rare original one of the glorious
Neapolitan Psyche, given to his brother-in-law, Mr. William Hamilton, by
the King of Naples), formed the entrance. The oval drawing-room, painted
in fresco by Mr. F----, recalled by its Italian scenes their wanderings
in the south of Europe. In the adjoining room were some choice pictures,
among others a fine copy of one of Titian's Venuses, and in the
dining-room an equally good one of his Venus and Adonis. The place of
honor, however, in this room was reserved for a life-size, full-length
portrait of Mrs. Siddons, which Lawrence painted for Mrs. F---- and
which is now in the National Gallery,--a production so little to my
taste both as picture and portrait that I used to wonder how Mrs.
F---- could tolerate such a representation of her admirable friend. The
principal charm of Bannisters, however, was the garden and grounds,
which, though of inconsiderable extent, were so skillfully and
tastefully laid out, that their bounds were always invisible. The lawn
and shrubberies were picturesquely irregular, and still retained some
kindred, in their fine oaks and patches of heather, to the beautiful
wild common which lay immediately beyond their precincts. A pretty piece
of ornamental water was set in flowering bushes and well-contrived
rockery, and in a more remote part of the grounds a little dark pond
reflected wild-wood banks and fine overspreading elms and beeches. The
small park had some charming clumps and single trees, and there was a
twilight walk of gigantic overarching laurels, of a growth that dated
back to a time of considerable antiquity, when the place had been part
of an ancient monastery. Above all, I delighted in my friend E----'s
favorite flower-garden, where her fine eye for color reveled in grouping
the softest, gayest, and richest masses of bloom, and where in a bay of
mossy turf, screened round with evergreens, the ancient vision of love
and immortality, the antique Cupid and Psyche, watched over the
fragrant, flowery domain.
Sweet Bannisters! to me for ever a refuge of consolation and sympathy in
seasons of trial and sorrow, of unfailing kindly welcome and devoted
constant affection; haven of pleasant rest and calm repose whenever I
resorted to it! How sad was my last visit to that once lovely and
beloved place, now passed into the hands of strangers, deserted,
divided, desecrated, where it was painful even to call up the image of
her whose home it once was! The last time I saw Bannisters the grounds
were parceled out and let for grazing inclosures to various Southampton
townspeople. The house was turned into a boys' boarding-school, and, as
I hurried away, the shouts and acclamations of a roaring game of cricket
came to me from the inclosure that had been E---- F----'s flower-garden;
but though I was crying bitter tears the lads seemed very happy; the
fashion of this world passeth away.
Before leaving Dublin for Liverpool, I had the pleasure of visiting my
friend Miss S---- in her home, where I returned several times, and was
always welcomed with cordial kindness. My last visit there took place
during the Crimean war. My friend Mrs. T---- had become a widow, and her
second son, now General T----, was with his regiment in the very front
of the danger, and also surrounded by the first deadly outbreak of the
cholera, which swooped with such fatal fury upon our troops at the
opening of the campaign. I can never forget the pathetic earnestness and
solemnity of the prayers read aloud by that poor mother for the safety
of our army, nor the accent with which she implored God's protection
upon those exposed to such imminent peril in the noble discharge of
their duty. That son was preserved to that mother, having manfully done
his part in the face of the twofold death that threatened him.
There was a slight circumstance attending Mrs. T----'s household
devotions that charmed me greatly, and that I have never seen repeated
anywhere else where I have assisted at family prayers. The servants, as
they left the hall, bowed and courtesied to their mistress, who returned
their salutation with a fine, old-fashioned courtesy, full of a sweet,
kindly grace, that was delightful. This act of civility to her
dependents was to me a perfect expression of Mrs. T----'s real antique
toryism, as well as of her warm-hearted, motherly kindness of nature.
Ardgillan Castle (I think by courtesy, for it was eminently, peaceful in
character, in spite of the turret inhabited by my dear "moping owl,"
H----) was finely situated on an eminence from which the sea, with the
picturesque fishing village of Skerries stretching into it on one side,
and the Morne Mountains fading in purple distance beyond its blue waters
on the other, formed a beautiful prospect. A pine wood on one side of
the grounds led down to the foot of the grassy hill upon which the house
stood, and to a charming wilderness called the Dell: a sylvan recess
behind the rocky margin of the sea, from which it was completely
sheltered, whose hollow depth, carpeted with grass and curtained with
various growth of trees, was the especial domain of my dear H----. A
crystal spring of water rose in this "bosky dell," and answered with its
tiny tinkle the muffled voice of the ocean breaking on the shore beyond.
The place was perfectly lovely, and here we sat together and devised, as
the old word was, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things
above heaven, and things below earth, and things quite beyond ourselves,
till we were well-nigh beside ourselves; and it was not the fault of my
metaphysical friend, but of my utter inability to keep pace with her
mental processes, if our argument did not include every point of that
which Milton has assigned to the forlorn disputants of his infernal
regions. My departure from Dublin ended these happy hours of
companionship, and I exchanged that academe and my beloved Plato in
petticoats for my play-house work at Liverpool. The following letter was
in answer to one Mrs. Jameson wrote me upon the subject of a lady whom
she had recommended to my mother as a governess for my sister, who was
now in her sixteenth year.
LIVERPOOL, August 16, 1830.
MY DEAR MRS. JAMESON,
Were it not that I have a great opinion both of your kindness and
reasonableness, I should feel rather uncomfortable at the period
which has elapsed since I ought to have written to you; but I am
very sorry not to have been able sooner to reply to your last kind
letter. I shall begin by answering that which interested me most in
it, which you will easily believe was what regarded my dear A----
and the person into whose hands she is about to be committed. In
proportion to the value of the gem is the dread one feels of the
flaws and injuries it may receive in the process of cutting and
polishing; and this, of course, not in this case alone, but that of
every child who still is parent to the man (or woman). My mother
said in one of her letters, "I have engaged a lady to be A----'s
governess." Of course the _have_ must make the expression of regret
or anxiety undesirable, since both are unavailing. I hope it is the
lady you spoke of in your letter to me, for I like very much the
description you give of her, and in answer to the doubt you express
as to whether _I_ could be pleased with a person wanting in
superficial brilliancy and refinement of intellect, I can reply
unequivocally _yes_. I could be well pleased with such a person for
my own companion, if the absence of such qualities were atoned for
by sound judgment and sterling principle; and I am certain that
such a person is best calculated to undertake the task which she is
to perform in our house with good effect. The defect of our home
education is that from the mental tendencies of all of us, no less
than from our whole mode of life, the more imaginative and refined
intellectual qualities are fostered in us in preference to our
reasoning powers. We have all excitable natures, and, whether in
head or heart, that is a disadvantage. The unrestrained indulgence
of feeling is as injurious to moral strength as the undue excess of
fancy is to mental vigor. I think young people would always be the
better for the influence of persons of strong sense, rather than
strong sensibility, who, by fortifying their reason, correct any
tendency to that morbid excitability which is so dangerous to
happiness or usefulness.
I do not, of course, mean that one can eradicate any element of the
original character--that I believe to be impossible; nor is direct
opposition to natural tendencies of much use, for that is really
cultivating qualities by resistance; but by encouraging other
faculties, and by putting aside all that has a tendency to weaken
and enervate, the mind will assume a robust and healthy tone, and
the real feelings will acquire strength by being under reasonable
control and by the suppression of factitious ones. A----'s
education in point of accomplishments and general cultivation of
taste and intellect is already fairly advanced; and the lady who
is, I hope, now to be her companion and directress will be none the
worse for wanting the merely ornamental branches of culture,
provided she holds them at their due value, and neither _under_ nor
_over_ estimates them because she is without them. I hope she is
gentle and attractive in her manners, for it is essential that one
should like as well as respect one's teachers; and should these
qualities be added to the character you give of her, I am sure I
should like her for a governess very much myself. You see by the
room this subject has occupied in my letter how much it fills in my
mind; human souls, minds, and bodies are precious and wonderful
things, and to fit the whole creature for its proper aim here and
hereafter, a solemn and arduous work.
Now to other matters. You reproach me very justly for my stupid
oversight; I forgot to tell you which name appeared to me best for
your book; the fact is, I flew off into ecstasies about the work
itself, and gave you, I believe, a tirade about the "Tempest"
instead of the opinion you asked. I agree with you that there is
much in the name of a work; it is almost as desirable that a book
should be well called as that it should be well written; a
promising title-page is like an agreeable face, an inducement to
further acquaintance, and an earnest of future pleasure. For
myself, I prefer "Characters of Shakespeare's Women;" it is
shorter, and I think will look better than the other in print.
I have been spending a few happy days, previous to my departure
from Ireland, in a charming place and in the companionship of a
person I love dearly. All my powers of enjoyment have been
constantly occupied, and I have had a breathing-time of rest and
real pleasure before I recommence my work. Such seasons are like
angel's visits, but I suppose one ought to rejoice that they are
allowed us at all, rather than complain of their brevity and
infrequency. I am getting weary of wandering, and long to be once
more settled at home.
What say you to this French revolution? Have not they made good use
of their time, that in so few years from their last bloody national
convulsion men's minds should so have advanced and expanded in
France as to enable the people to overturn the government and
change the whole course of public affairs with such comparative
moderation and small loss of, life? I was still in Dublin when the
news of the recent events in France reached us, and I never
witnessed anything so like tipsiness as Lady Morgan's delight at
it. I believe she wished herself a Frenchwoman with all her heart,
and she declared she would go over as soon as her next work, which
is in the hands of the publisher, was out. Were I a man, I should
have been well pleased to have been in France some weeks ago; the
rising of the nation against oppression and abuse, and the creating
of a new and better state of things without any outbreak of popular
excess, must have been a fine thing to see. But as a woman,
incapable of mixing personally in such scenes, I would rather have
the report of them at a distance than witness them as a mere
inactive spectator; for though the loss of life has been
comparatively small, considering the great end that has been
achieved, it must be horrible to see bloodshed, even that of a
single individual. I believe I am a great coward. I shall not close
this to-night, but wait till to-morrow, to tell you how my first
appearance here goes off.
TUESDAY, August 17th.
We had a very fine house indeed last night, and everything went off
remarkably well. I had every reason to be satisfied with the
audience, who, though proverbially a cold one, were exceedingly
enthusiastic in their applause, which, I suppose, is the best
indication that they were satisfied with me. Good-by, my dear Mrs.
Jameson; believe me yours ever truly,
F. A. K.
The intention of engaging a governess for my sister was not carried out,
and she was taken to Paris and placed under the charge of Mrs. Foster,
wife of the chaplain of the British embassy, under whose care she
pursued her general education, while with the tuition of the celebrated
Bordogni, the first singing-master of the day, she cultivated her fine
voice and developed her musical genius.
The French Revolution of 1830, which placed Louis Philippe of Orleans on
the throne, and sent Charles X. to end his days in an obscure corner of
Germany, was the first of four revolutions which I have lived to
witness; and since then I have often thought of a lady who, during the
next political catastrophe, by which Louis Philippe was shaken out of
his seat, showing Mrs. Grote the conveniences of a charming apartment in
a central part of Paris, said, "Voici mon salon, voici ma salle à
manger, et voyez comme c'est commode! De cette fenêtre je vois mes
révolutions." The younger Bourbon of the Orleans branch had learned part
of the lesson of government (of which even the most intelligent of that
race seem destined never to learn the whole) in democratic America and
democratic Switzerland. Perhaps it was in these two essentially
_bourgeois_ countries that he learned the only virtues that
distinguished him as the _Roi Bourgeois, par excellence_.
HEATON PARK, September 18, 1830.
MY DEAR MRS. JAMESON,
Were it not that I should be ashamed to look you in the face when
we meet, which I hope will now be soon, I should be much tempted to
defer thanking you for your last kind letter until that period, for
I am at this moment in the bustle of three departures. My mother
arrived in Manchester this morning, whence my aunt Dall starts
to-night for Buckinghamshire, and my father to-morrow morning at
seven o'clock for London, and at eight my mother and myself start
for Liverpool. I am most anxious to be there for the opening of the
railroad, which takes place on Wednesday. I act in Manchester on
Friday, and after that we shall spend some days with Lord and Lady
W----, at their seat near there; and then I return to London to
begin my winter campaign, when I hope to see you less oppressed
with anxiety and vexation than you were when we parted there. And
now, what shall I say to you? My life for the last three weeks has
been so hurried and busy that, while I have matter for many long
letters, I have hardly time for condensation; you know what Madame
de Sévigné says, "Si j'avais eu plus de temps, je t'aurais écrit
moins longuement." I have been sight-seeing and acting for the last
month, and the first occupation is really the more exhausting of
the two. I will give you a _carte_, and when we meet you shall call
upon me for a detail of any or all of its contents.
I have seen the fine, picturesque old town of Chester; I have seen
Liverpool, its docks, its cemetery, its railway, on which I was
flown away with by a steam-engine, at the rate of five and thirty
miles an hour; I have seen Manchester, power-looms,
spinning-jennies, cotton factories, etc.; I have stayed at the
pleasant modern mansion of Heaton; I have visited Hopwood Hall,
built in the reign of Edward the First, and still retaining its
carved old oaken chimneys and paneled chambers and latticed
windows, and intricate ups and downs of internal architecture, to
present use apparently as purposeless and inconvenient as if one
was living in a cat's-cradle. I have seen a rush-bearing with its
classical morris dance, executed in honor of some antique
observance by the country folk of Lancashire, with whom this
commemoration, but no knowledge of its original significance,
remains. I have seen Birmingham, its button-making, pin-making,
plating, stamping, etc.; I have seen Aston Hall, an old house two
miles from the town, and two hundred from everything in it, where
Charles the First slept after the battle of Edge Hill, and whose
fine old staircase still retains the marks of Cromwell's
cannon,--which house, moreover, possesses an oaken gallery one
hundred and odd feet long, hung with old portraits, one of the most
delightful apartments imaginable. How I did sin in envy, and long
for that nice room to walk up and down and dream and poetize in;
but as I know of no earthly way of compassing this desirable
acquisition but offering myself in exchange for it to its present
possessor (who might not think well of the bargain), _il n'y faut
plus penser_. Moreover, as the grapes are sour, I conclude that
upon the whole it might not be an advantageous one for me. I am at
this moment writing in a drawing-room full of people, at Heaton
(Lord W----'s place), taking up my pen to talk to you and laying it
down to talk to others. I must now, however, close my double and
divided conversation, because I have not brains enough to play at
two games at once. I am ever yours, very sincerely,
F. A. K.
While we were acting at Liverpool an experimental trip was proposed upon
the line of railway which was being constructed between Liverpool and
Manchester, the first mesh of that amazing iron net which now covers the
whole surface of England and all the civilized portions of the earth.
The Liverpool merchants, whose far-sighted self-interest prompted them
to wise liberality, had accepted the risk of George Stephenson's
magnificent experiment, which the committee of inquiry of the House of
Commons had rejected for the government. These men, of less intellectual
culture than the Parliament members, had the adventurous imagination
proper to great speculators, which is the poetry of the counting-house
and wharf, and were better able to receive the enthusiastic infection of
the great projector's sanguine hope that the Westminster committee. They
were exultant and triumphant at the near completion of the work, though,
of course, not without some misgivings as to the eventual success of the
stupendous enterprise. My father knew several of the gentlemen most
deeply interested in the undertaking, and Stephenson having proposed a
trial trip as far as the fifteen-mile viaduct, they, with infinite
kindness, invited him and permitted me to accompany them; allowing me,
moreover, the place which I felt to be one of supreme honor, by the side
of Stephenson. All that wonderful history, as much more interesting than
a romance as truth is stranger than fiction, which Mr. Smiles's
biography of the projector has given in so attractive a form to the
world, I then heard from his own lips. He was a rather stern-featured
man, with a dark and deeply marked countenance; his speech was strongly
inflected with his native Northumbrian accent, but the fascination of
that story told by himself, while his tame dragon flew panting along his
iron pathway with us, passed the first reading of the "Arabian Nights,"
the incidents of which it almost seemed to recall. He was wonderfully
condescending and kind in answering all the questions of my eager
ignorance, and I listened to him with eyes brimful of warm tears of
sympathy and enthusiasm, as he told me of all his alternations of hope
and fear, of his many trials and disappointments, related with fine
scorn how the "Parliament men" had badgered and baffled him with their
book-knowledge, and how, when at last they thought they had smothered
the irrepressible prophecy of his genius in the quaking depths of
Chatmoss, he had exclaimed, "Did ye ever see a boat float on water? I
will make my road float upon Chatmoss!" The well-read Parliament men
(some of whom, perhaps, wished for no railways near their parks and
pleasure-grounds) could not believe the miracle, but the shrewd
Liverpool merchants, helped to their faith by a great vision of immense
gain, did; and so the railroad was made, and I took this memorable ride
by the side of its maker, and would not have exchanged the honor and
pleasure of it for one of the shares in the speculation.
LIVERPOOL, August 26th.
MY DEAR H----,
A common sheet of paper is enough for love, but a foolscap extra
can alone contain a railroad and my ecstasies. There was once a
man, who was born at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, who was a common
coal-digger; this man had an immense constructiveness, which
displayed itself in pulling his watch to pieces and putting it
together again; in making a pair of shoes when he happened to be
some days without occupation; finally--here there is a great gap in
my story--it brought him in the capacity of an engineer before a
committee of the House of Commons, with his head full of plans for
constructing a railroad from Liverpool to Manchester. It so
happened that to the quickest and most powerful perceptions and
conceptions, to the most indefatigable industry and perseverance,
and the most accurate knowledge of the phenomena of nature as they
affect his peculiar labors, this man joined an utter want of the
"gift of the gab;" he could no more explain to others what he meant
to do and how he meant to do it, than he could fly; and therefore
the members of the House of Commons, after saying, "There is rock
to be excavated to a depth of more than sixty feet, there are
embankments to be made nearly to the same height, there is a swamp
of five miles in length to be traversed, in which if you drop an
iron rod it sinks and disappears: how will you do all this?" and
receiving no answer but a broad Northumbrian "I can't tell you how
I'll do it, but I can tell you I _will_ do it," dismissed
Stephenson as a visionary. Having prevailed upon a company of
Liverpool gentlemen to be less incredulous, and having raised funds
for his great undertaking, in December of 1826 the first spade was
struck into the ground. And now I will give you an account of my
yesterday's excursion. A party of sixteen persons was ushered, into
a large court-yard, where, under cover, stood several carriages of
a peculiar construction, one of which was prepared for our
reception. It was a long-bodied vehicle with seats placed across
it, back to back; the one we were in had six of these benches, and
was a sort of uncovered _char à banc_. The wheels were placed upon
two iron bands, which formed the road, and to which they are
fitted, being so constructed as to slide along without any danger
of hitching or becoming displaced, on the same principle as a thing
sliding on a concave groove. The carriage was set in motion by a
mere push, and, having received, this impetus, rolled with us down
an inclined plane into a tunnel, which forms the entrance to the
railroad. This tunnel is four hundred yards long (I believe), and
will be lighted by gas. At the end of it we emerged from darkness,
and, the ground becoming level, we stopped. There is another tunnel
parallel with this, only much wider and longer, for it extends from
the place which we had now reached, and where the steam-carriages
start, and which is quite out of Liverpool, the whole way under the
town, to the docks. This tunnel is for wagons and other heavy
carriages; and as the engines which are to draw the trains along
the railroad do not enter these tunnels, there is a large building
at this entrance which is to be inhabited by steam-engines of a
stationary turn of mind, and different constitution from the
traveling ones, which are to propel the trains through the tunnels
to the terminus in the town, without going out of their houses
themselves. The length of the tunnel parallel to the one we passed
through is (I believe) two thousand two hundred yards. I wonder if
you are understanding one word I am saying all this while! We were
introduced to the little engine which was to drag us along the
rails. She (for they make these curious little fire-horses all
mares) consisted of a boiler, a stove, a small platform, a bench,
and behind the bench a barrel containing enough water to prevent
her being thirsty for fifteen miles,--the whole machine not bigger
than a common fire-engine. She goes upon two wheels, which are her
feet, and are moved by bright steel legs called pistons; these are
propelled by steam, and in proportion as more steam is applied to
the upper extremities (the hip-joints, I suppose) of these pistons,
the faster they move the wheels; and when it is desirable to
diminish the speed, the steam, which unless suffered to escape
would burst the boiler, evaporates through a safety-valve into the
air. The reins, bit, and bridle of this wonderful beast is a small
steel handle, which applies or withdraws the steam from its legs or
pistons, so that a child might manage it. The coals, which are its
oats, were under the bench, and there was a small glass tube
affixed to the boiler, with water in it, which indicates by its
fullness or emptiness when the creature wants water, which is
immediately conveyed to it from its reservoirs. There is a chimney
to the stove, but as they burn coke there is none of the dreadful
black smoke which accompanies the progress of a steam vessel. This
snorting little animal, which I felt rather inclined to pat, was
then harnessed to our carriage, and, Mr. Stephenson having taken me
on the bench of the engine with him, we started at about ten miles
an hour. The steam-horse being ill adapted for going up and down
hill, the road was kept at a certain level, and appeared sometimes
to sink below the surface of the earth, and sometimes to rise above
it. Almost at starting it was cut through the solid rock, which
formed a wall on either side of it, about sixty feet high. You
can't imagine how strange it seemed to be journeying on thus,
without any visible cause of progress other than the magical
machine, with its flying white breath and rhythmical, unvarying
pace, between these rocky walls, which are already clothed with
moss and ferns and grasses; and when I reflected that these great
masses of stone had been cut asunder to allow our passage thus far
below the surface of the earth, I felt as if no fairy tale was ever
half so wonderful as what I saw. Bridges were thrown from side to
side across the top of these cliffs, and the people looking down
upon us from them seemed like pigmies standing in the sky. I must
be more concise, though, or I shall want room. We were to go only
fifteen miles, that distance being sufficient to show the speed of
the engine, and to take us on to the most beautiful and wonderful
object on the road. After proceeding through this rocky defile, we
presently found ourselves raised upon embankments ten or twelve
feet high; we then came to a moss, or swamp, of considerable
extent, on which no human foot could tread without sinking, and yet
it bore the road which bore us. This had been the great
stumbling-block in the minds of the committee of the House of
Commons; but Mr. Stephenson has succeeded in overcoming it. A
foundation of hurdles, or, as he called it, basket-work, was thrown
over the morass, and the interstices were filled with moss and
other elastic matter. Upon this the clay and soil were laid down,
and the road does float, for we passed over it at the rate of five
and twenty miles an hour, and saw the stagnant swamp water
trembling on the surface of the soil on either side of us. I hope
you understand me. The embankment had gradually been rising higher
and higher, and in one place, where the soil was not settled enough
to form banks, Stephenson had constructed artificial ones of
wood-work, over which the mounds of earth were heaped, for he said
that though the wood-work would rot, before it did so the banks of
earth which covered it would have been sufficiently consolidated to
support the road.
We had now come fifteen miles, and stopped where the road traversed
a wide and deep valley. Stephenson made me alight and led me down
to the bottom of this ravine, over which, in order to keep his road
level, he has thrown a magnificent viaduct of nine arches, the
middle one of which is seventy feet high, through which we saw the
whole of this beautiful little valley. It was lovely and wonderful
beyond all words. He here told me many curious things respecting
this ravine: how he believed the Mersey had once rolled through it;
how the soil had proved so unfavorable for the foundation of his
bridge that it was built upon piles, which had been driven into the
earth to an enormous depth; how, while digging for a foundation, he
had come to a tree bedded in the earth fourteen feet below the
surface of the ground; how tides are caused, and how another flood
might be caused; all of which I have remembered and noted down at
much greater length than I can enter upon it here. He explained to
me the whole construction of the steam-engine, and said he could
soon make a famous engineer of me, which, considering the wonderful
things he has achieved, I dare not say is impossible. His way of
explaining himself is peculiar, but very striking, and I
understood, without difficulty, all that he said to me. We then
rejoined the rest of the party, and the engine having received its
supply of water, the carriage was placed behind it, for it cannot
turn, and was set off at its utmost speed, thirty-five miles an
hour, swifter than a bird flies (for they tried the experiment with
a snipe). You cannot conceive what that sensation of cutting the
air was; the motion is as smooth as possible, too. I could either
have read or written; and as it was, I stood up, and with my bonnet
off "drank the air before me." The wind, which was strong, or
perhaps the force of our own thrusting against it, absolutely
weighed my eyelids down. [I remember a similar experience to this,
the first time I attempted to go behind the sheet of the cataract
of Niagara; the wind coming from beneath the waterfall met me with
such direct force that it literally bore down my eyelids, and I had
to put off the attempt of penetrating behind the curtain of foam
till another day, when that peculiar accident; was less directly
hostile to me in its conditions.] When I closed my eyes this
sensation of flying was quite delightful, and strange beyond
description; yet, strange as it was, I had a perfect sense of
security, and not the slightest fear. At one time, to exhibit the
power of the engine, having met another steam-carriage which was
unsupplied with water, Mr. Stephenson caused it to be fastened in
front of ours; moreover, a wagon laden with timber was also chained
to us, and thus propelling the idle steam-engine, and dragging the
loaded wagon which was beside it, and our own carriage full of
people behind, this brave little she-dragon of ours flew on.
Farther on she met three carts, which, being fastened in front of
her, she pushed on before her without the slightest delay or
difficulty; when I add that this pretty little creature can run
with equal facility either backward or forward, I believe I have
given you an account of all her capacities.
Now for a word or two about the master of all these marvels, with
whom I am most horribly in love. He is a man of from fifty to
fifty-five years of age; his face is fine, though careworn, and
bears an expression of deep thoughtfulness; his mode of explaining
his ideas is peculiar and very original, striking, and forcible;
and although his accent indicates strongly his north-country birth,
his language has not the slightest touch of vulgarity or
coarseness. He has certainly turned my head.
Four years have sufficed to bring this great undertaking to an end.
The railroad will be opened upon the 15th of next month. The Duke
of Wellington is coming down to be present on the occasion, and, I
suppose, what with the thousands of spectators and the novelty of
the spectacle, there will never have been a scene of more striking
interest. The whole cost of the work (including the engines and
carriages) will have been eight hundred and thirty thousand pounds;
and it is already worth double that sum. The directors have kindly
offered us three places for the opening, which is a great favor,
for people are bidding almost anything for a place, I understand;
but I fear we shall be obliged to decline them, as my father is
most anxious to take Henry over to Heidelberg before our season of
work in London begins, which will take place on the first of
October. I think there is every probability of our having a very
prosperous season. London will be particularly gay this winter, and
the king and queen, it is said, are fond of dramatic
entertainments, so that I hope we shall get on well. You will be
glad to hear that our houses here have been very fine, and that
to-night, Friday, which was my benefit, the theater was crowded in
every corner. We do not play here any more, but on Monday we open
at Manchester. You will, I know, be happy to hear that, by way of
answer to the letter I told you I had written my mother, I received
a very delightful one from my dear little sister, the first I have
had from her since I left London. She is a little jewel, and it
will be a sin if she is marred in the cutting and polishing, or if
she is set in tawdry French pinchbeck, instead of fine, strong,
sterling gold. I am sorry to say that the lady Mrs. Jameson
recommended as her governess has not been thought sufficiently
accomplished to undertake the charge. I regret this the more, as in
a letter I have just received from Mrs. Jameson she speaks with
more detail of this lady's qualifications, which seem to me
peculiarly adapted to have a good effect upon such a mind and
character as A----'s.
I wish I had been with your girls at their ball, and come back from
it and found you holding communion with the skies. My dearest
H----, sublime and sweet and holy as are the feelings with which I
look up to the star-paved heavens, or to the glorious summer sun,
or listen to the music of the great waves, I do not for an instant
mistake the adoration of the almighty power manifested in these
works of God, for religion. You tell me to beware of mixing up
emotional or imaginative excitement with my devotion. And I think I
can truly answer that I do not do so. I told you that the cathedral
service was not prayer to me; nor do I ever confound a mere
emotional or imaginative enthusiasm, even when excited by the
highest of all objects of contemplation, with the daily and hourly
endeavor after righteousness--the humble trust, resignation,
obedience, and thankfulness, which I believe constitute the vital
part of religious faith. I humbly hope I keep the sacred ground of
my religion clear from whatever does not belong to the spirit of
its practice. As long as I can remember, I have endeavored to guard
against mistaking emotion for religion, and have even sometimes
been apprehensive lest the admiration I felt for certain passages
in the Psalms and the Hebrew prophets should make me forget the
more solemn and sacred purposes of the book of life, and the glad
tidings of our salvation. And though, when I look up as you did at
the worlds with which our midnight sky is studded, I feel inclined
to break out, "The heavens declare the glory of God," or, when I
stand upon the shore, can hardly refrain from crying aloud, "The
sea is His, and He made it," I do not in these moments of sublime
emotion forget that He is the God to whom all hearts be open; who,
from the moment I rise until I lie down to rest, witnesses my every
thought and feeling; to whom I look for support against the evil of
my own nature and the temptations which He allots me, who bestows
every blessing and inspires every good impulse, who will strengthen
me for every duty and trial: my Father, in whom I live and move and
have my being. I do not fear that my imagination will become
over-excited with thoughts such as these, but I often regret most
bitterly that my heart is not more deeply touched by them. Your
definition of the love of God seemed almost like a reproach to my
conscience. How miserably our practice halts behind our knowledge
of good, even when tried at the bar of our own lenient judgment,
and by our imperfect standard of right! how poorly does our life
answer to our profession! I should speak in the singular, for I am
only uttering my own self-condemnation. But as the excellence we
adore surpasses our comprehension, so does the mercy, and in that
lies our only trust and confidence.
I fear Miss W---- either has not received my letter or does not
mean to answer it, for I have received no reply, and I dare not try
again. Up to a certain point I am impudent enough, but not beyond
that. Why do you threaten me with dancing to me? Have I lately
given you cause to think I deserve to have such a punishment hung
_in terrorem_ over me? Besides, threatening me is injudicious, for
it rouses a spirit of resistance in me not easy to break down. I
assure you _o_ [in allusion to my mispronunciation of that vowel]
is really greatly improved. I take much pains with it, as also with
my deportment; they will, I hope, no longer annoy you when next we
meet. You must not call Mrs. J---- my friend, for I do not. I like
her much, and I see a great deal to esteem and admire in her, but I
do not _yet_ call her my friend. You are my friend, and Mrs. Harry
Siddons is my friend, and you are the only persons I call by that
name. I have read "Paul Clifford," according to your desire, and
like it very much; it is written with a good purpose, and very
powerfully. You asked me if I believed such selfishness as
Brandon's to be natural, and I said yes, not having read the book,
but merely from your report of him; and, having read the book, I
say so still.