DUBLIN, August, 1830.
MY DEAR H----,
I should have answered your letter sooner had I before been able to
give you any certain intelligence of our theatrical proceedings
next week, but I was so afraid of some change taking place in the
list of the plays that I resolved not to write until alteration was
impossible. The plays for next week are, on Monday, "Venice
Preserved;" on Wednesday, "The Grecian Daughter;" Thursday, "The
Merchant of Venice." I wish your people may be able to come up, the
latter end of the week; I think "Romeo and Juliet," and "The
Merchant of Venice," are nice plays for them to see. But you have,
I know, an invitation from Mrs. J---- to come into town on Monday.
I do not know whether my wishes have at all influenced her in this,
but she has my very best thanks for it, and I know that they will
have some weight with you in inclining you to accept it; do, my
dearest H----, come if you can. I shall certainly not be able to
return to Ardgillan, and so my only chance of seeing you depends
upon your coming into Dublin. I wish I had been with you when you
sat in the sun and listened to the wind singing over the sea. I
have a great admiration for the wind, not so much for its purifying
influences only, as for its invisible power, strength, the quality
above all others without which there is neither moral nor mental
greatness possible. Natural objects endowed with this invisible
power please me best, as human beings who possess it attract me
most; and my preference for it over other elements of character is
because I think it communicates itself, and that while in contact
with it one feels as if it were _catching_; and whether by the
shore, when the tide is coming up fast and irresistible, or in the
books or intercourse of other minds, it seems to rouse
corresponding activity and energy in one's self, persuading one,
for the time being, that one is strong. I am sure I have felt
taller by three inches, as well as three times more vigorous in
body and mind, than I really am, when running by the sea. It seemed
as if that great mass of waters, as it rushed and roared by my
side, was communicating power directly to my mind as well as my
bodily frame, by its companionship. I wish I was on the shore now
with you. It is surprising (talking of E----) how instantaneously,
and by what subtle, indescribable means, certain qualities of
individual natures make themselves felt--refinement, imagination,
poetical sensibility. People's voices, looks, and gestures betray
these so unconsciously; and I think more by the manner, a great
deal, than the matter of their speech. Refinement, particularly, is
a wonderfully subtle, penetrating element; nothing is so positive
in its effect, and nothing so completely escapes analysis and
defies description.
I am glad dear little H---- thought I "grew pretty;" there is a
world of discrimination in that sentence of his. To your charge
that I should cultivate my judgment in preference to my
imagination, I can only answer, "I am ready and willing to do so;"
but it is nevertheless not altogether easy for me to do it. My life
in London leaves me neither time nor opportunity for any
self-culture, and it seems to me as if my best faculties were lying
fallow, while a comparatively unimportant talent, and my physical
powers, were being taxed to the uttermost. The profession I have
embraced is supposed to stimulate powerfully the imagination. I do
not find it so; it appeals to mine in a slight degree compared with
other pursuits; it is too definite in its object and too confined
in its scope to excite my imagination strongly; and, moreover, it
carries with it the antidote of its own excitement in the necessary
conditions under which it is exercised. Were it possible to act
with one's mind alone, the case might be different; but the body is
so indispensable, unluckily, to the execution of one's most
poetical conceptions on the stage, that the imaginative powers are
under very severe though imperceptible restraint. Acting seems to
me rather like dancing hornpipes in fetters. And, by no means the
least difficult part of the business is to preserve one's own
feelings warm, and one's imagination excited, while one is aiming
entirely at producing effects upon others; surrounded, moreover, as
one is, by objects which, while they heighten the illusion to the
distant spectator, all but destroy it to us of the _dramatis
personæ_. None of this, however, lessens the value and importance
of your advice, or my own conviction that "mental bracing" is good
for me. My reception on Monday was quite overpowering, and I was
escorted back to the hotel, after the play, by a body-guard of
about two hundred men, shouting and hurrahing like mad; strange to
say, they were people of perfectly respectable appearance. My
father was not with us, and they opened the carriage door and let
down the steps, when we got home, and helped us out, clapping, and
showering the most fervent expressions of good-will upon me and
aunt Dall, whom they took for my mother. One young man exclaimed
pathetically, "Oh, I hope ye're not too much fatigued, Miss Kemble,
by your exertions!" They formed a line on each side of me, and
several of them dropped on their knees to look under my bonnet, as
I ran laughing, with my head down, from the carriage to the house.
I was greatly confused and a little frightened, as well as amused
and gratified, by their cordial demonstration.
The humors of a Dublin audience, much as I had heard of them before
going to Ireland, surprised and diverted me very much. The second
night of our acting there, as we were leaving the theater by the
private entrance, we found the carriage surrounded by a crowd
eagerly waiting for our coming out. As soon as my father appeared,
there was a shout of "Three cheers for Misther Char-_les!_" then
came Dall, and "Three cheers for Misthriss Char-_les!_" then I, and
"Three cheers for Miss Fanny!" "Bedad, she looks well by
gas-light!" exclaimed one of my admirers. "Och, and bedad, she
looks well by daylight too!" retorted another, though what his
opportunity for forming that flattering opinion of the genuineness
of my good looks had been, I cannot imagine. What further remarks
passed upon us I do not know, as we drove off laughing, and left
our friends still vociferously cheering. My father told us one day
of his being followed up Sackville Street by two beggar-women,
between whom the following dialogue passed, evidently with a view
to his edification: "Och, but he's an iligant man, is Misther
Char-_les_ Kemble!" "An' 'deed, so was his brudher Misther John,
thin--a moighty foine man! and to see his _demanour_, puttin' his
hand in his pocket and givin' me sixpence, bate all the worrld!"
When I was acting Lady Townley, in the scene where her husband
complains of her late hours and she insolently retorts, "I won't
come home till four, to-morrow morning," and receives the startling
reply with which Lord Townley leaves her, "Then, madam, you shall
never come home again," I was apt to stand for a moment aghast at
this threat; and one night during this pause of breathless dismay,
one of my gallery auditors, thinking, I suppose, that I was wanting
in proper spirit not to make some rejoinder, exclaimed, "Now thin,
Fanny!" which very nearly upset the gravity produced by my father's
impressive exit, both in me and in the audience.
DUBLIN, Friday, August 6, 1830.
MY DEAREST H----,
I fear I caused you a disappointment by not writing to you
yesterday afternoon, but as it was not until between five and six
o'clock that I learned we were not going to Cork, when I thought of
writing you to that effect I found I was too late for the post. I
hope still that Dall and I may be able to come to Ardgillan again,
but we cannot leave my father alone here, and his departure for
Liverpool is at present quite uncertain. I have been trying to
reason myself into patience, notwithstanding a very childish
inclination to cry about it, which I think I will indulge because I
shall be able to be so much more reasonable without this stupid
lump in my throat.
I hope I may see you again, dear H----. You are wrong when you say
you cannot be of service to me; I can judge better of the value of
your intercourse to me than you can, and I wish I could have the
advantage of more of it before I plunge back into "toil and
trouble." I have two very opposite feelings about my present
avocation: utter dislike to it and everything, connected with it,
and an upbraiding sense of ingratitude when I reflect how
prosperous and smooth my entrance upon my career has been. I hope,
ere long, to be able to remember habitually what only occasionally
occurs to me now, as a comfort and support, that since it was right
for me to embrace this profession, it is incumbent upon me to
banish all selfish regrets about the surrender of my personal
tastes and feelings, which must be sacrificed to real and useful
results for myself and others. You see, I write as I talk, still
about myself; and I am sometimes afraid that my very desire to
improve keeps me occupied too much about myself and will make a
little moral egotist of me. I am going to bid good-by to Miss W----
this morning; I should like her to like me; I believe I should
value her friendship as I ought. Good friends are like the shrubs
and trees that grow on a steep ascent: while we toil up, and our
eyes are fixed on the summit, we unconsciously grasp and lean upon
them for support and assistance on our way. God bless you, dear
H----. I hope to be with you soon, but cannot say at present how
soon that may be.
F. A. K.
A very delightful short visit to my friend at Ardgillan preceded my
resuming my theatrical work at Liverpool, whence I wrote her the
following letter:
LIVERPOOL August 19, 1830.
DEAR H----,
I received your letter about an hour ago, at rehearsal, and though
I read it with rather dim eyes, I managed to swallow my tears, and
go on with Mrs. Beverley.
The depth and solemnity of your feelings, my dear H----, on those
important subjects of which we have so often spoken together,
almost make me fear, sometimes, that I am not so much impressed as
I ought to be with their _awfulness_. I humbly hope I _fear_ as I
ought, but it is so much easier for me to love than to fear, that
my nature instinctively fastens on those aspects of religion which
inspire confidence and impart support, rather than those which
impress with dread. I was thinking the other day how constantly in
all our prayers the loftiest titles of might are added to that Name
of names, "Our Father," and yet His power is always less present to
my mind than His mercy and love. You tell me I do not know you, and
that may very well be, for one really _knows_ no one; and when I
reflect upon and attempt to analyze the various processes of my own
rather shallow mind, and find them incomprehensible, I am only
surprised that there should be so much mutual affection in a world
where mutual knowledge and understanding are really impossible.
My side-ache was much better yesterday. I believe it was caused by
the pain of leaving you and Ardgillan: any strong emotion causes
it, and I remember when I last left Edinburgh having an attack of
it that brought on erysipelas. You say you wish to know how Juliet
does. Why, very well, poor thing. She had a very fine first house
indeed, and her success has been as great as you could wish it; out
of our ten nights' engagement, "Romeo and Juliet" is to be given
four times; it has already been acted three successive nights to
very great houses. To-night it is "The Gamester," to-morrow "Venice
Preserved," and on Saturday we act at Manchester, and on Monday
here again. You will hardly imagine how irksome it was to me to be
once more in my stage-trappings, and in the glare of the theater
instead of the blessed sunshine in the country, and to hear the
murmur of congregated human beings instead of that sound of many
waters, that wonderful sea-song, that is to me like the voice of a
dear friend. I made a great effort to conquer this feeling of
repugnance to my work, and thought of my dear Mrs. Harry, whom I
have seen, with a heart and mind torn with anxiety, leave poor
Lizzy on what seemed almost a death-bed, to go and do her duty at
the theater. That was something like a trial. There was a poor old
lady, of more than seventy years of age, who acted as my nurse, who
helped also to rouse me from my selfish morbidness--age and
infirmity laboring in the same path with rather more cause for
weariness and disgust than I have. She may have been working, too,
only for herself, while I am the means of helping my own dear
people, and many others; she toils on, unnoticed and neglected,
while my exertions are stimulated and rewarded by success and the
approval of every one about me. And yet my task is sadly
distasteful to me; it seems such useless work that but for its very
useful pecuniary results I think I would rather make shoes. You
tell me of the comfort you derive, under moral depression, from
picking stones and weeds out of your garden. I am afraid that
antidote would prove insufficient for me; the weeds would very soon
lie in heaps in my lap, and the stones accumulate in little
mountains all round me, while my mind was sinking into
contemplations of the nature of slow quicksands. Violent bodily
exercise, riding, or climbing up steep and rugged pathways are my
best remedies for the blue devils.
My father has received a pressing invitation from Lord and Lady
W---- to go to their place, Heaton, which is but five miles from
Manchester.
You say to me in your last letter that you could not live at the
rate I do; but my life is very different now from what it was while
with you. I am silent and quiet and oppressed with irksome duties,
and altogether a different creature from your late companion by the
sea-shore. It is true that that _was_ my natural condition, but if
you were here with me now, in the midst of all these unnatural
sights and sounds, I do not think I should weary you with my
overflowing life and spirits, as I fear I did at Ardgillan. I was
as happy there as the birds that fly in the clear sky above the
sea, and much happier, for I had your companionship in addition to
the delight which mere existence is in such scenes. I am glad Lily
made and wore the wreath of lilac blossoms; I was sure it would
become her. Give her my love and thanks for having done as I asked
her. Oh, do not wish Ardgillan fifteen miles from London! Even for
the sake of seeing you, I would not bring you near the smoke and
dirt and comparative confinement of such a situation; I would not
take you from your sea and sky and trees, even to have you within
reach of me.
Certainly it is the natural evil of the human mind, and not the
supernatural agency in the story of its development, that makes
Macbeth so terrible; it is the hideousness of a wicked soul, into
which enter more foul ingredients than are held in the witches'
caldron of abominations, that makes the play so tremendous. I wish
we had read that great work together. How it contrasts with what we
did read, the "Tempest," that brightest creation of a wholesome
genius in its hour of happiest inspiration!
I believe some people think it presumptuous to pray for any one but
themselves; but it seems to me strange to share every, feeling with
those we love and not associate them with our best and holiest
aspirations; to remember them everywhere but there where it is of
the utmost importance to us all to be remembered; to desire all
happiness for them, and not to implore in their behalf the Giver of
all good. I think I pray even more fervently for those I love than
for myself. Pray for me, my dear H----, and God bless you and give
you strength and peace. Your affectionate
F. A. K.
I have not seen the railroad yet; if you do not write soon to me,
we shall be gone to Manchester.
My objection to the dramatic profession on the score of its uselessness,
in this letter, reminds me of what my mother used to tell me of Miss
Brunton, who afterward became Lady Craven; a very eccentric as well as
attractive and charming woman, who contrived, too, to be a very charming
actress, in spite of a prosaical dislike to her business, which used to
take the peculiar and rather alarming turn of suddenly, in the midst of
a scene, saying aside to her fellow-actors, "What nonsense all this is!
Suppose we don't go on with it." This singular expostulation my mother
said she always expected to see followed up by the sadden exit of her
lively companion, in the middle of her part. Miss Brunton, however, had
self-command enough to go on acting till she became Countess of Craven,
and left off the _nonsense_ of the stage for the _earnestness_ of high
life.
A very serious cause for depression had added itself to the weariness of
spirit with which my distaste for my profession often affected me. While
at Liverpool, I received a letter from my brother John which filled me
with surprise and vexation. After his return from Germany he had
expressed his determination to go into the Church; and we all supposed
him to be in the country, zealously engaged in the necessary preparatory
studies. Infinite, therefore, was my astonishment to receive from him a
letter dated from Algeciras, in Spain, telling me that he and several of
his college companions, Sterling, Barton, Trench, and Boyd among others,
had determined to lend the aid of their enthusiastic sympathy to the
cause of liberty in Spain. The "cause of liberty in Spain" was then
represented by the rash and ill-fated rising of General Torrijos against
the Spanish Government, that protean nightmare which, in one form or
another of bigotry and oppression, has ridden that unfortunate country
up to a very recent time, when civil war has again interfered with
apparently little prospect of any better result. My distress at
receiving such unexpected news from my brother was aggravated by his
forbidding me to write to him or speak of his plans and proceedings to
any one. This concealment, which would have been both difficult and
repugnant to me, was rendered impossible by the circumstances under
which his letter reached me, and we all bore together, as well as we
could, this severe disappointment and the cruel anxiety of receiving no
further intelligence from John for a considerable time. I was bitterly
grieved by this letter, which clearly indicated that the sacred
profession for which my brother had begun to prepare himself, and in
which we had hoped to see him ere long honorably and usefully laboring,
was as little likely to be steadily pursued by him as the legal career
which he had renounced for it. Richard Trench brought home a knowledge
of the Spanish tongue which has given to his own some beautiful
translations of Calderon's masterpieces; and his early crusade for the
enfranchisement of Spain has not militated against the well-deserved
distinction he has achieved in the high calling to which he devoted
himself. With my brother, however, the case was different. This romantic
expedition canceled all his purposes and prospects of entering the
Church, and Alfred Tennyson's fine sonnet, addressed to him when he
first determined to dedicate himself to the service of the temple, is
all that bears witness to that short-lived consecration: it was poetry,
but not prophecy.
MANCHESTER, September 3, 1830.
MY DEAREST H----,
I received you letter and the pretty Balbriggan stockings, for
which I thank you very much, quite safely. I have not been able to
put pen to paper till now, and even now do not know whether I can
do more than just tell you that we have heard nothing further
whatever from my brother. In his letter to me he said that he would
write home whenever he could do so safely, but that no letter of
ours would reach him; and, indeed, I do not now know where he may
be. From the first moment of hearing this intelligence, which has
amazed us all so much, I have felt less miserable than I could have
thought possible under the circumstances; my mind, I think, has
hardly taken hold of the truth of what has come so unexpectedly
upon me. The very impossibility of relieving one's suspense, I
suppose, compels one not to give way to its worst suggestions,
which may, after all, be unfounded. I cannot communicate with him,
and must wait patiently till he can write again; he is in God's
hand, and I hope and pray that he may be guided and protected. My
great anxiety is to keep all knowledge of his having even gone
abroad, if possible, from my mother. She is not in a state to bear
such a shock, and I fear that the impossibility of ascertaining
anything about him at present, which helps _me_ to remain tolerably
collected, would almost drive her distracted.
The news of the revolt in the Netherlands, together with the fact
that one of our dear ones is away from us in scenes of peril and
disturbance, has, I think, shaken my father's purpose of sending
Henry to Heidelberg. It is a bad thing to leave a boy of eighteen
so far from home control and influences; and he is of a sweet,
affectionate, gentle disposition, that makes him liable to be
easily led and persuaded by the examples and counsels of others.
Moreover, he is at the age when boys are always in some love-scrape
or other, and if he is left alone at Heidelberg, in his own
unassisted weakness, at such a distance from us all, I should not
be surprised to hear that he had constituted himself the lord and
master of some blue-eyed _fräulein_ with whom he could not exchange
a dozen words in her own vernacular, and had become a
_dis_-respectable _pater familias_ at nineteen. In the midst of all
the worry and anxiety which these considerations occasion, we are
living here a most unsettled, flurried life of divided work and
pleasure. We have gone out to Heaton every morning after rehearsal,
and come in with the W----s in the evening, to act. I think
to-night we shall sleep there after the play, and come in with the
W----s after dinner to-morrow. They had expected us to spend some
days with them, and perhaps, after our Birmingham engagement, we
may be able to do so. Heaton is a charming specimen of a fine
country-house, and Lady W---- a charming specimen of a fine lady;
she is handsome, stately, and gentle. I like Lord W----; he is
clever, or rather accomplished, and refined. They are both of them
very kind to me, and most pressing in their entreaties that we
should return and stay as long as we can with them. To-morrow is my
last night here; on Monday we act at Birmingham, and my father
thinks we shall be able to avail ourselves of the invitation of our
Liverpool friends, and witness the opening of the railroad. This
would be a memorable pleasure, the opportunity of which should
certainly not be neglected. I have been gratified and interested
this morning and yesterday by going over one of the largest
manufactories of this place, where I have seen a number of
astonishing processes, from the fusing of iron in its roughest
state to the construction of the most complicated machinery and the
work that it performs. I have been examining and watching and
admiring power-looms, and spinning-jennies, and every species of
work accomplished by machinery. But what pleased me most of all was
the process of casting iron. Did you know that the solid masses of
iron-work which we see in powerful engines were many of them cast
in moulds of sand?--inconstant, shifting, restless sand! The
strongest iron of all, though, gets its strength beaten into it.
BIRMINGHAM, September 7, 1830.
You see, my dearest H----, how my conversations are liable to be
cut short in the midst; just at the point where I broke off, Lord
and Lady W---- came to fetch us to Heaton, and until this moment,
when I am quietly seated in Birmingham, I have not been able to
resume the thread of my discourse. I once was told of a man who had
been weather-bound at some port, whence he was starting for the
West Indies; he was standing on the wharf, telling a long story to
a friend, when a fair wind sprang up and he had to hurry on board.
Two years after, returning thence, the first person he met on
landing was his friend, whom he accosted with, "Oh, well, and so,
as I was telling you," etc. But I cannot do that, for my mind has
dwelt on new objects of interest since I began this letter, and my
visit to Heaton has swept sand and iron and engines all back into
the great warehouse at Manchester for a time, whence I may draw
them at some future day for your edification.
Lady W---- possesses, to a great degree, beauty, that "tangible
good" which you admire so much; she has a bright, serene
countenance, and very sweet and noble eyes and forehead. Her manner
is peculiarly winning and simple, and to me it was cordially kind,
and even affectionate.
During the two days which were all we could spare for Heaton, I
walked and rode and sang and talked, and was so well amused and
pleased that I hope, after our week's work is over here, we may
return there for a short-time. I must tell you of a curious little
bit of _ancientry_ which I saw at Heaton, which greatly delighted
me--a "rush-bearing." At a certain period of the year, generally
the beginning of autumn, it was formerly the wont in some parts of
Lancashire to go round with sundry rustic mummeries to all the
churches and strew them with rushes. The religious intention of the
custom has passed away, but a pretty rural procession, which I
witnessed, still keeps up the memory of it hereabouts. I was
sitting at my window, looking out over the lawn, which slopes
charmingly on every side down to the house, when the still summer
air was suddenly filled with the sound of distant shouts and music,
and presently the quaint pageant drew in sight. First came an
immense wagon piled with rushes in a stack-like form, on the top of
which sat two men holding two huge nosegays. This was drawn by a
team of Lord W----'s finest farm-horses, all covered with scarlet
cloths, and decked with ribbons and bells and flowers. After this
came twelve country lads and lasses, dancing the real old
morris-dance, with their handkerchiefs flying, and in all the
rustic elegance of apparel which they could command for the
occasion. After them followed a very good village band, and then a
species of flowery canopy, under which walked a man and woman
covered with finery, who, Lord W---- told me, represented Adam and
Eve. The procession closed with a _fool_ fantastically dressed out,
and carrying the classical bladder at the end of his stick. They
drew up before the house and danced their morris-dance for us. The
scraps of old poetry which came into my head, the contrast between
this pretty picture of a bygone time and the modern but by no means
unpicturesque group assembled under the portico, filled my mind
with the pleasantest ideas, and I was quite sorry when the rural
pageant wound up the woody heights again, and the last shout and
peal of music came back across the sunny lawn. I am very glad I saw
it. I have visited, too, Hopwood Hall, an enchanting old house in
the neighborhood of Heaton, some parts of which are as old as the
reign of Edward the First. The gloomy but comfortable oak rooms,
the beautiful and curious carving of which might afford one days of
entertaining study, the low, latticed windows, and intricate,
winding, up-and-down passages, contrasted and combined with all the
elegant adornments of modern luxury, and the pretty country in
which the house is situated, all delighted me. I must leave off
writing to you now; I have to dress, and dine at three, which I am
sorry for. Thank you for Mrs. Hemans's beautiful lines, which made
me cry very heartily. I have not been altogether well for the last
few days, and am feeling tired and out of spirits; if I can get a
few days' quiet enjoyment of the country at Heaton, I shall feel
fitter for my winter work than I do now.
MANCHESTER, September 20, 1830.
MY DEAREST H----,
I did not answer your letter which I received at Heaton, because
the latter part of my stay there was much engrossed by walking,
riding, playing battledore and shuttlecock, singing, and being
exceedingly busy all day long about nothing. I have just left it
for this place, where we stop to-night on our way to Stafford;
Heaton was looking lovely in all the beauty of its autumnal
foliage, lighted by bright autumnal skies, and I am rather glad I
did not answer you before, as it is a consolatory occupation to do
so now.
I am going with my mother to stay a day at Stafford with my
godmother, an old and attached friend of hers, after which we
proceed into Buckinghamshire to join my aunt Dall and Henry and my
sister, who are staying there; and we shall all return to London
together for the opening of the theater, which I think will take
place on the first of next month. I could have wished to be going
immediately to my work; I should have preferred screwing my courage
to my professional tasks at once, instead of loitering by way of
pleasure on the road. Besides that, in my visit to Buckinghamshire
I come in contact with persons whose society is not very agreeable
to me. My mother, however, made a great sacrifice in giving up her
fishing, which she was enjoying very much, to come and chaperon me
at Heaton, where there is no fishing so good as at Aston Clinton,
so that I am bound to submit cheerfully to her wishes in the
present instance.
You probably have by this time heard and read accounts of the
opening of the railroad, and the fearful accident which occurred at
it, for the papers are full of nothing else. The accident you
mention _did_ occur, but though the unfortunate man who was killed
bore Mr. Stephenson's name, he was not related to him. I will tell
you something of the events on the 15th, as, though you may be
acquainted with the circumstances of poor Mr. Huskisson's death,
none but an eyewitness of the whole scene can form a conception of
it. I told you that we had had places given to us, and it was the
main purpose of our returning from Birmingham to Manchester to be
present at what promised to be one of the most striking events in
the scientific annals of our country. We started on Wednesday last,
to the number of about eight hundred people, in carriages
constructed as I before described to you. The most intense
curiosity and excitement prevailed, and, though the weather was
uncertain, enormous masses of densely packed people lined the road,
shouting and waving hats and handkerchiefs as we flew by them. What
with the sight and sound of these cheering multitudes and the
tremendous velocity with which we were borne past them, my spirits
rose to the true champagne height, and I never enjoyed anything so
much as the first hour of our progress. I had been unluckily
separated from my mother in the first distribution of places, but
by an exchange of seats which she was enabled to make she rejoined
me when I was at the height of my ecstasy, which was considerably
damped by finding that she was frightened to death, and intent upon
nothing but devising means of escaping from a situation which
appeared to her to threaten with instant annihilation herself and
all her traveling companions. While I was chewing the cud of this
disappointment, which was rather bitter, as I had expected her to
be as delighted as myself with our excursion, a man flew by us,
calling out through a speaking-trumpet to stop the engine, for that
somebody in the directors' carriage had sustained an injury. We
were all stopped accordingly, and presently a hundred voices were
heard exclaiming that Mr. Huskisson was killed; the confusion that
ensued is indescribable: the calling out from carriage to carriage
to ascertain the truth, the contrary reports which were sent back
to us, the hundred questions eagerly uttered at once, and the
repeated and urgent demands for surgical assistance, created a
sudden turmoil that was quite sickening. At last we distinctly
ascertained that the unfortunate man's thigh was broken. From Lady
W----, who was in the duke's carriage, and within three yards of
the spot where the accident happened, I had the following details,
the horror of witnessing which we were spared through our situation
behind the great carriage. The engine had stopped to take in a
supply of water, and several of the gentlemen in the directors'
carriage had jumped out to look about them. Lord W----, Count
Batthyany, Count Matuscenitz, and Mr. Huskisson among the rest were
standing talking in the middle of the road, when an engine on the
other line, which was parading up and down merely to show its
speed, was seen coming down upon them like lightning. The most
active of those in peril sprang back into their seats: Lord W----
saved his life only by rushing behind the duke's carriage, and
Count Matuscenitz had but just leaped into it, with the engine all
but touching his heels as he did so; while poor Mr. Huskisson, less
active from the effects of age and ill health, bewildered, too, by
the frantic cries of "Stop the engine! Clear the track!" that
resounded on all sides, completely lost his head, looked helplessly
to the right and left, and was instantaneously prostrated by the
fatal machine, which dashed down like a thunderbolt upon him, and
passed over his leg, smashing and mangling it in the most horrible
way. (Lady W---- said she distinctly heard the crushing of the
bone.) So terrible was the effect of the appalling accident that,
except that ghastly "crushing" and poor Mrs. Huskisson's piercing
shriek, not a sound was heard or a word uttered among the immediate
spectators of the catastrophe. Lord W---- was the first to raise
the poor sufferer, and calling to aid his surgical skill, which is
considerable, he tied up the severed artery, and for a time, at
least, prevented death by loss of blood. Mr. Huskisson was then
placed in a carriage with his wife and Lord W----, and the engine,
having been detached from the director's carriage, conveyed them to
Manchester. So great was the shock produced upon the whole party by
this event, that the Duke of Wellington declared his intention not
to proceed, but to return immediately to Liverpool. However, upon
its being represented to him that the whole population of
Manchester had turned out to witness the procession, and that a
disappointment might give rise to riots and disturbances, he
consented to go on, and gloomily enough the rest of the journey was
accomplished. We had intended returning to Liverpool by the
railroad, but Lady W----, who seized upon me in the midst of the
crowd, persuaded us to accompany her home, which we gladly did.
Lord W---- did not return till past ten o'clock, at which hour he
brought the intelligence of Mr. Huskisson's death. I need not tell
you of the sort of whispering awe which this event threw over our
whole circle, and yet, great as was the horror excited by it, I
could not help feeling how evanescent the effect of it was after
all. The shuddering terror of seeing our fellow-creature thus
struck down by our side, and the breathless thankfulness for our
own preservation, rendered the first evening of our party at Heaton
almost solemn; but the next day the occurrence became a subject of
earnest, it is true, but free discussion; and after that, was
alluded to with almost as little apparent feeling as if it had not
passed under our eyes, and within the space of a few hours.
I have heard nothing of my brother; my mother distresses me by
talking of him, ignorant as she is of what would give her so much
more anxiety about him. I feel, while I listen to her, almost
guilty of deceit; and yet I am sure we were right in doing for her
what she cannot do for herself, keeping her mind as long as
possible in comparative tranquillity about him.
Our Sunday at Heaton terminated with much solemn propriety by Lord
W---- reading aloud the evening prayers to the whole family,
visitors, and servants assembled; a ceremony which, combined and
contrasted with so much of the pomps and vanities of the world,
gave me a pleasant feeling toward these people, who live in the
midst of them without forgetting better things. I mean to make
studying German and drawing (and endeavoring to abate my
self-esteem) my principal occupations this winter. I have met at
Heaton Lord Francis Leveson Gower, the translator of "Faust." I
like him very much; he is a young man of a great deal of talent,
with a charming, gentle manner, and a very handsome, sweet face.
Good-by, dear H----. Write to me soon, and direct to No. 79 Great
Russell Street, Bloomsbury. I should like to find a letter from you
there, waiting for me.
Our arrangement for driving in to the theater from Heaton compelled me
once or twice to sit down to dinner in my theatrical costume, a device
for saving time in dressing at the theater which might have taxed my
self-possession unpleasantly; but the persons I was surrounded by were
all singularly kind and amiable to me, and my appearing among them in
these picturesque fancy dresses was rather a source of amusement to us
all. Many years after, a lady who was not staying in the house, but was
invited from the neighborhood to dine at Heaton one evening, told me how
amazed she had been on the sudden wide opening of the drawing-room doors
to see me enter, in full mediæval costume of black satin and velvet, cut
Titian fashion, and with a long, sweeping train, for which apparition
she had not been previously prepared. Of Lord W---- I have already
spoken, and have only to add that, in spite of his character of a mere
dissipated man of fashion, he had an unusual taste for and knowledge of
music, and had composed some that is not destitute of merit; he played
well on the organ, and delighted in that noble instrument, a fine
specimen of which adorned one of the drawing-rooms at Heaton. Moreover,
he possessed an accomplishment of a very different order, a remarkable
proficiency in anatomy, which he had studied very thoroughly. He had
made himself enough of a practical surgeon to be able, on the occasion
of the fatal accident which befell Mr. Huskisson on the day of the
opening of the railroad, to save the unfortunate gentleman from bleeding
to death on the spot, by tying up the femoral artery, which had been
severed. His fine riding in the hunting-field and on the race-course was
a less peculiar talent among his special associates. Lady W---- was
strikingly handsome in person, and extremely attractive in her manners.
She was tall and graceful, the upper part of her face, eyes, brow, and
forehead were radiant and sweet, and, though the rest of her features
were not regularly beautiful, her countenance was noble and her smile
had a peculiar charm of expression at once winning and mischievous. My
father said she was very like her fascinating mother, the celebrated
Miss Farren. She was extremely kind to me, petting me almost like a
spoiled child, dressing me in her own exquisite riding-habit and
mounting me on her own favorite horse, which was all very delightful to
me. My father and mother probably thought the acquaintance of these
distinguished members of the highest English society advantageous to me.
I have no doubt they felt both pride and pleasure in the notice bestowed
upon me by persons so much my superiors in rank, and had a natural
sympathy in my enjoyment of all the gay grandeur and kindly indulgence
by which I was surrounded at Heaton. I now take the freedom to doubt how
far they were judicious in allowing me to be so taken out of my own
proper social sphere. It encouraged my taste for the luxurious
refinement and elegant magnificence of a mode of life never likely to be
mine, and undoubtedly increased my distaste for the coarse and common
details of my professional duties behind the scenes, and the sham
splendors of the stage. The guests at Heaton of whom I have a distinct
remembrance were Mr. and Lady Harriet Baring, afterward Lord and Lady
Ashburton. I knew them both in after-life, and liked them very much; Mr.
Baring was highly cultivated and extremely amiable; his wife was much
cleverer than he, and in many respects a remarkable woman. The beautiful
sisters, Anne and Isabella Forrester, with their brother Cecil, were at
Heaton at this time. They were celebrated beauties: the elder, afterward
Countess of Chesterfield, was a brunette; the younger, who married
Colonel Anson, the most renowned lady-killer of his day, was a blonde;
and they were both of them exquisitely pretty, and used to remind me of
the French quatrain--
"Vous êtes belle, et votre soeur est belle;
Entre vous deux, tout choix serait bien doux.
L'Amour êtait blond, comme vous,
Mais il aimait une brune, comme elle."
They had beautiful figures as well as faces, and dressed peculiarly and
so as to display them to the greatest advantage. Long and very full
skirts gathered or plaited all round a pointed waist were then the
fashion; these lovely ladies, with a righteous scorn of all
disfigurement of their beauty, wore extremely short skirts, which showed
their thorough-bred feet and ankles, and were perfectly plain round
their waists and over their hips, with bodies so low on the shoulders
and bosom that there was certainly as little as possible of their
beautiful persons concealed. I remember wishing it were consistent with
her comfort and the general decorum of modern manners that Isabella
Forrester's gown could only slip entirely off her exquisite bust. I
suppose I felt as poor Gibson, the sculptor, who, looking at his friend
and pupil's (Miss Hosmer's) statue of Beatrice Cenci, the back of which
was copied from that of Lady A---- T----, exclaimed in his slow,
measured, deliberate manner, "And to think that the cursed prejudices of
society prevent my seeing that beautiful back!" Count and Countess
Batthyany (she the former widow of the celebrated Austrian general,
Bubna, a most distinguished and charming woman) were visitors at Heaton
at this time, as was also Henry Greville, with whom I then first became
acquainted, and who from that time until his death was my kind and
constant friend. He was for several years attached to the embassy in
Paris, and afterward had some small nominal post in the household of the
Duchess of Cambridge, and was Gentleman Gold-Stick in waiting at court.
He was not in any way intellectually remarkable; he had a passion for
music, and was one of the best society singers of his day, being (that,
to me, incomprehensible thing) a _mélomane_ for one kind of music only.
Passionately fond of Italian operatic music, he did not understand, and
therefore cordially detested, German music. He had a passion for the
stage; but though he delighted in acting he did not particularly excel
in it. He had a taste for everything elegant and refined, and his small
house in May-Fair was a perfect casket full of gems. He was a natural
exquisite, and perfectly simple and unaffected, a great authority in all
matters of fashion both in Paris and in London, and a universal
favorite, especially with the women, in the highest society of both
capitals. His social position, friendly intimacy with several of the
most celebrated musical and dramatic artists of his day, passion for
political and private gossip, easy and pleasant style of letter-writing,
and general rather supercilious fastidiousness, used sometimes to remind
me of Horace Walpole. He had a singularly kind heart and amiable nature,
for a life of mere frivolous pleasure had not impaired the one or the
other. His serviceableness to his friends was unwearied, and his
generous liberality toward all whom he could help either with his
interest, his trouble, or his purse was unfailing.
The whole gay party assembled at Heaton, my mother and myself included,
went to Liverpool for the opening of the railroad. The throng of
strangers gathered there for the same purpose made it almost impossible
to obtain a night's lodging for love or money; and glad and thankful
were we to put up with and be put up in a tiny garret by our old friend,
Mr. Radley, of the Adelphi, which many would have given twice what we
paid to obtain. The day opened gloriously, and never was seen an
innumerable concourse of sight-seers in better humor than the surging,
swaying crowd that lined the railroad with living faces. How dreadfully
that brilliant opening was overcast I have described in the letter given
above. After this disastrous event the day became overcast, and as we
neared Manchester the sky grew cloudy and dark, and it began to rain.
The vast concourse of people who had assembled to witness the triumphant
arrival of the successful travelers was of the lowest order of mechanics
and artisans, among whom great distress and a dangerous spirit of
discontent with the Government at that time prevailed. Groans and hisses
greeted the carriage, full of influential personages, in which the Duke
of Wellington sat. High above the grim and grimy crowd of scowling faces
a loom had been erected, at which sat a tattered, starved-looking
weaver, evidently set there as a _representative man_, to protest
against this triumph of machinery, and the gain and glory which the
wealthy Liverpool and Manchester men were likely to derive from it. The
contrast between our departure from Liverpool and our arrival at
Manchester was one of the most striking things I ever witnessed. The
news of Mr. Huskisson's fatal accident spread immediately, and his
death, which did not occur till the evening, was anticipated by rumor. A
terrible cloud covered this great national achievement, and its success,
which in every respect was complete, was atoned for to the Nemesis of
good fortune by the sacrifice of the first financial statesman of the
country.