GREAT RUSSELL STREET, Friday, October 1, 1830.
DEAREST H----,
I have risen very early, for what with excitement, and the
wakefulness always attendant with me upon a new bed, I have slept
but little, and I snatch this first hour of the day, the only one I
may be able to command, to tell you that I have heard from my
brother, and that he is safe and well, for which, thank God!
Further I know nothing. He talks vaguely of being with us toward
the end of the winter, but in the meantime, unless he finds some
means of conveying some tidings of his welfare to me, I must remain
in utter ignorance of his circumstances and situation. Your letter,
which was to welcome me to my new home, arrived there two days
before I did, and was forwarded to me into Buckinghamshire. A few
days there--taking what interest I could in the sporting and
fishing, the country quiet of the place, and above all the
privilege of taking the sacrament, which, had I remained at Heaton,
I should have had no opportunity of doing--gave me a breathing-time
and a sense of mental repose before entering again upon that busy
life whose demands are already besieging me in the inexorable form
of half a dozen new stage dresses to be devised, ordered, and
executed in the shortest imaginable time.
October 3d.
You see how truly I prophesied at the beginning of this letter,
when I said that the hour before breakfast was perhaps the only one
I should be able to command that day. I might have said that week,
for this is the first instant I have been able to call my own since
then. I rehearsed Juliet yesterday, and shall do so again to-morrow
morning; the theater opens with it to-morrow night. I have a new
nurse, and I am rehearsing for her, poor woman! She is dreadfully
alarmed at taking Mrs. Davenport's place, who certainly was a very
great favorite. I am half crazy with the number of new dresses to
be got; for though, thanks to the kindness and activity of my
mother, none of the trouble of devising them ever falls on me, yet
the bare catalogue of silks and satins and velvets, hats and
feathers and ruffs, fills me with amazement and trepidation. I
fancy I shall go through all the old parts, and then come out in a
new tragedy. I shall be most horribly frightened, but I hope I
shall do well, for the sake of the poor author, who is a young man
of great abilities, and to whom I wish every success. The subject
of his play is taken from a Spanish one, called "The Jew of
Aragon," and the whole piece is of a new and unhackneyed order. My
father and I play a Jewish father and daughter; this and the
novelty of the story itself will perhaps be favorable to the play;
I hope so with all my heart.
Mrs. Henry Siddons has taken a house in London for six months; I
have not seen her yet, but am most anxious to do so. Anxiety and
annoyance, I fear, have just caused her a severe indisposition, but
she is a little better now. Mrs. Siddons is much better. She is
staying at Leamington at present.
Dearest H----, returning from Buckinghamshire the other day, I
passed Cassiobury, the grove, the little lane leading down to Heath
Farm, and Miss M----'s cottage, and the first days of our
acquaintance came back to my memory. I suppose I should have liked
and loved you wherever I had met you, but you come in for a share
of my love and liking of Cassiobury, and the spring, the beautiful
season in which we met first. I send you the long-promised lock of
my hair; you will be surprised at the lightness of the shade--at
least, I was. It was cut from my forehead, and I think it is a nice
bit; tell me that you get it safe.
Henry is staying in Buckinghamshire in all the ecstasy of a young
cockney's first sporting days. When he was quite a child and was
asked what profession he intended to embrace, he replied that he
would be "_a gentleman and wear leather breeches_," and I think
it is the very destiny he is fitted to fill. He is the perfect
picture of happiness when in his shooting-jacket and gaiters, with
his gun on his shoulder and a bright day before him; and although
we were obliged to return to town, my mother was unwilling to
curtail his pleasure, and left him to murder pheasants and hares,
and amuse himself in a manly fashion.
I did not like the place at which they were staying as much as they
did, for though the country was very pretty, I had during the
summer tour seen so much that surpassed it that I saw it at a
disadvantage. Then, I have no fancy for gypsying, and the greatest
taste for all the formal proprieties of life, and what I should
call "silver fork existence" in general; and the inconveniences of
a small country inn, without really affecting my comfort, disturb
my decided preference for luxury. The principal diversion my
ingenious mind discovered to while away my time with was a _fiddle_
(an elderly one), which I routed out of a lumber closet, and from
which, after due invocations to St. Cecilia, I drew such diabolical
sounds as I flatter myself were never excelled by Tartini or his
master, the devil himself. I must now close this, for it is
tea-time.
The play of "The Jew of Aragon," the first dramatic composition of a
young gentleman of the name of Wade, of whose talent my father had a
very high opinion, which he trusted the success of his piece would
confirm, I am sorry to say failed entirely. It was the first time and
the last that I had the distress of assisting in damning a piece, and
what with my usual intense nervousness in acting a new part, my anxiety
for the interests of both the author and the theatre, and the sort of
indignant terror with which, instead of the applause I was accustomed
to, I heard the hisses which testified the distaste and disapprobation
of the public and the failure of the play, I was perfectly miserable
when the curtain fell, and the poor young author, as pale as a ghost,
came forward to meet my father at the side scene, and bravely holding
out his hand to him said, "Never mind for me, Mr. Kemble; I'll do better
another time." And so indeed he did; for he wrote a charming play on the
old pathetic story of "Griselda," in which that graceful actress Miss
Jarman played his heroine, and my father the hero, and which had an
entire and well-deserved success. I am obliged to confess that I retain
no recollection whatever of the ill-fated play of "The Jew of Aragon,"
or my own part in it, save the last _scene_ alone; this, I recollect,
was a magnificent Jewish place of worship, in which my father, who was
the high priest, appeared in vestments such as I believe the Jewish
priests still wear in their solemn ceremonies, and which were so closely
copied from the description of Aaron's sacred pontifical robes that I
felt a sense of impropriety in such a representation (purely historical,
as it was probably considered, and in no way differing from the costume
accepted on the French stage in Racine's Jewish plays). And I think it
extremely likely that the failure of the piece, which had been imminent
all through, found its climax in the unfavorable impression made upon
the audience by this very scene, in spite of my father's noble and
picturesque appearance.
I never heard hisses on the stage before or since; and though I was very
well aware that on this occasion they were addressed neither to me nor
to my performance, I think if they had been the whistling of bullets
(which I have also heard nearer than was pleasant) I could not have felt
more frightened and furious.
Young Wade's self-control and composure during the catastrophe of this
play reminds me, by contrast, of a most ludicrous story my father used
to tell of some unfortunate authoress, who, in an evil hour for herself
and some friendly provincial manager, persuaded him to bring out an
original drama of hers.
The audience (not a very discriminating or numerous one) were
sufficiently appreciative to object extremely to the play, and large
enough to make their objections noisily apparent.
The manager, in his own distress not unmindful of his poor friend, the
authoress, sought her out to console her, and found her seated at the
side scene with a glass of stiff brandy and water that some
commiserating friend had administered to her for her support, rocking
herself piteously to and fro, and, with the tears streaming down her
cheeks, uttering between sobs and sips, in utter self-abasement, her
_peccavi_ in the form of oaths and imprecations of the finest
Billingsgate vernacular (all, however, addressed to herself), that would
have made a dragoon shake in his shoes. The original form of which _mea
culpa_ seized the worthy manager with such an irresistibly ludicrous
effect that he left the poor, guilty authoress without being able to
address a syllable to her, lest he should explode in peals of laughter
instead of decent words of condolence.
To accompany an author or authoress (I should think especially the
latter) on the first night of the representation of their piece is by no
means a pleasant act of duty or friendship. I remember my mother, whose
own nervous temperament certainly was extremely ill adapted for such an
undertaking, describing the intolerable distress she had experienced on
the occasion of the first representation of a piece called, I think,
"Father and Son," taken from a collection of interesting stories
entitled "The Canterbury Tales," and adapted to the stage by one of the
Misses Lee, the sister authoresses of the Tales. The piece was very
fairly successful, but my mother said that though, according to her very
considerable experience, the actors were by no means more imperfect in
their parts than usual on a first night, her nervous anxiety was kept
almost at fever height by poor Miss Lee's incessant running commentary
of "Ah! very pretty, no doubt--very fine, I dare say--_only I never
wrote a word of it_!"
Lord Byron took the same story for the subject of his powerful play of
"Werner," in which Mr. Macready acted so finely, and with such great
success.
I cannot imagine what possessed me in an unguarded hour to consent, as I
did, to go with my friends, Messrs. Tom Taylor and Charles Reade, to see
the first representation of a play of theirs called, I think, "The
King's Wager," in which Charles the Second, Nell Gwynn, and the Plague
were prominent characters. Accidental circumstances prevented one of the
gentlemen from coming with me, and I have often since wondered at my
temerity in having placed myself in such a trying situation.
GREAT RUSSELL STREET, October 24, 1830.
DEAR H----,
I have been too busy to answer your last sooner, but this hour
before bedtime, the first quiet one for some time, shall be yours.
I have heard nothing more of my brother, and am ignorant where he
is or how engaged at present. You judged rightly with respect to
the impossibility of longer keeping my mother in ignorance of his
absence from England. The result was pretty much what I had
apprehended; but her feelings have now become somewhat calmer on
the subject. We are careful, however, as much as possible, to avoid
all mention of or reference to my brother in her presence, for she
is in a very cruel state of anxiety about him.
I am endeavoring as much as possible to follow my studies with some
regularity. I have forsworn paying and receiving morning visits; so
that, when no rehearsal interferes, I get my practicing, my
singing, and my reading in tolerable peace.
I have had a key of Russell Square offered me, which privilege I
shall most thankfully accept. Walking regularly is, of course,
essential, and though I rather dread the idea of solitarily turning
round and round that dreary emblem of eternity, a circular
gravel-walk, over-_gloomed_ with soot-blackened privet bushes, I am
sure I ought, and I mean to do it every day for an hour. We do not
dine till six, when I do not act, and when I do, I do not go to the
theater till that hour; so that from ten in the morning, when
breakfast is over, I get a tolerably long day. I have obtained my
father's leave to learn drawing and German, and as soon as our
house is a little more comfortably settled, I shall begin both. I
do not know whether I have the least talent for drawing, but I have
so strong a desire to possess that accomplishment that I think, by
the help of a good master and patience and hard work, I must
succeed to some decent degree. I wish to provide myself with every
possible resource against the engrossing excitement of my
profession while I remain in it, and to fill its place whenever I
leave it, or it leaves me; all my occupations are with that view
and to that end.
My father has promised me to speak to Mr. Murray about publishing
my play and my verses. I am anxious for this for several reasons,
some of which I believe I mentioned to you; and to these I have
since added a great wish to have some good prints I possess framed,
for my little room, and I should not scruple to apply part of the
money so earned to that purpose. You asked me which is my room. You
remember the bathroom, next to what was my uncle John's bedroom, on
the third floor; the room above that my mother has fitted up
beautifully for me, and I inhabit it all day long with great
complacency and a sort of comfortable, Alexander-Selkirk feeling.
And this suggests a question which has seldom been out of my mind,
and which I wish to recall to yours. When do you intend to come and
see me? I can offer you a nest on the _fourth story_, which is
excellent for your health, as free a circulation of air as a London
lodging can well afford, and as fine a combination of chimney-pots
as even your love of the picturesque could desire.
Dear H----, will you not come and pass a month with us? Now stop a
bit, and I will point out to you one by one the inducements to and
advantages of such a step. In the first place, my father and mother
both request and wish it, and you know how truly happy it would
make me. Your own people can well spare you for a month, and I am
sure will be the more inclined to do so from the consideration that
change of air and scene will be good for you, and that, though your
stock of original ideas is certainly extraordinary, yet you cannot
be expected to go on for ever, like a spider, existing mentally in
the midst of your own weavings, without every now and then
recruiting your strength and taking in a new supply of material.
You shall come to London, that huge mass of matter for thought and
observation, and to me, in whom you find so interesting an epitome
of all the moods, tenses, and conjugations of every regular and
irregular form of "to do, to be, and to suffer;" and when you have
been sufficiently _smoked, fogged_, astonished, and edified, you
shall return home with one infallible result of your stay with
us--increased value for a peaceful life, quiet companions, a wide
sea-view, and potatoes roasted in their skins; not but what you
shall have the last-mentioned luxury here, if you will but come.
Now, dear H----, I wish this very much, but promise to bear your
answer reasonably well; I depend upon your indulging me if you can,
and shall try not to behave ill if you don't; so do me justice, and
do not give way to your shyness and habits of retirement. I want
you to come here before the 20th of November, and then I will let
you go in time to be at home for Christmas. So now my cause is in
your hands--_avisez-vous_.
I wonder whether you have heard that my father has been thrashing
the editor of the _Age_ newspaper, who, it seems, took offence at
my father's not appearing on sufficiently familiar terms with him
somewhere or other when they met, in revenge for which "coldness"
(as he styles it) he has not ceased for the last six months abusing
us, every week, in his paper. From what I hear I was the especial
mark of his malice; of course I need not tell you that, knowing the
character of this publication, I should never have looked at it,
and the circumstance of my name appearing in its columns would
hardly have been an inducement to me to do so. I knew nothing,
therefore, of my own injuries, but heard general expressions of
indignation against Mr. Westmacott, and saw that my father was
extremely exasperated upon the subject. The other night they were
all going to the play, and pressed me very much to go too, but I
had something I wished to write, and remained at home. On their
return my father appeared to me much excited, and I was informed
that having unluckily come across Mr. Westmacott, his wrath had got
the better of his self-command, and he had bestowed a severe
beating upon that individual. I could not help looking very grave
at this; for though I should have been very well satisfied if it
could have _rained_ a good thrashing upon Mr. Westmacott from the
sky, yet as I do not approve of returning injuries by injuries, I
could not rejoice that my father had done so. I suppose he saw that
I had no great satisfaction in the event, for he said, "The law
affords no redress against such attacks as this paper makes on
people, and I thought it time to take justice in my own hands when
my daughter is insulted." He then repeated some of the language
made use of with reference to me in the _Age_, and I could not help
blushing with indignation to my fingers' ends.
Perhaps, under the circumstances, it is not surprising that my
father has done what he has, but I think I should have admired him
more if he had not. Mr. Westmacott means to bring an action against
him, and I am afraid he will have to pay dearly for his momentary
indulgence of temper.
I must have done writing, though I had a good deal more to say. God
bless you, dear. If you answer this letter directly, I will write
you a better next time.
Ever yours,
F. A. K.
The majority of parents--mothers, I believe I ought to say--err in one
or other excess with regard to their children. Love either blinds them
absolutely to their defects, or makes them so terribly alive to them as
to exaggerate every imperfection. It is hard to say which of the errors
is most injurious in its effects. I suppose according as the temperament
is desponding and diffident, or sanguine and self-sufficient, the one
system or the other is likely to do most harm.
My mother's intensely nervous organization, acute perceptions, and
exacting taste made her in everything most keenly alive to our faults
and deficiencies. The unsparing severity of the sole reply or comment
she ever vouchsafed to our stupidity, want of sense, or want of
observation--"I hate a fool"--has remained almost like a cut with a lash
across my memory. Her wincing sensitiveness of ear made it all but
impossible for me to practice either the piano or singing within hearing
of her exclamations of impatient anguish at my false chords and flat
intonations; and I suppose nothing but my sister's _unquenchable_
musical genius would have sustained her naturally timid, sensitive
disposition under such discipline.
Two of our family, my eldest brother and myself, were endowed with such
robust self-esteem and elastic conceit as not only defied repression,
but, unfortunately for us, could never be effectually snubbed; with my
sister and my younger brother the case was entirely different, and
encouragement was rather what they required. How well it is for the best
and wisest, as well as the least good and least wise, of trainers of
youth, that God is above all. I do not myself understand the love that
blinds one to the defects of those dear to one; their faults are part of
themselves, without which they could not be themselves, no more to be
denied or dissembled, it seems to me, than the color of their eyes or
hair. I do not feel the scruple which I observe in others, in alluding
to the failings of those they love. The mingled good and evil qualities
in my friends make up their individual identity, and neither from
myself, nor from them, nor from others does it ever occur to me that
half that identity should or could be concealed. I could as soon imagine
them without their arms or their legs as without their peculiar moral
characteristics, and could no more think of them without their faults
than without their virtues.
Many were the pleasant hours, in spite of my misgivings, that I passed
with a book in my hand, mechanically pacing the gravel walks of Russell
Square. Certain readings of Shakespeare's plays, "Othello" and "Macbeth"
especially, in lonely absorption of spirit, I associate for ever with
that place. I remember, too, reading at my father's request, during
those peripatetic exercises, two plays written by Sheil for his amiable
countrywoman, Miss O'Neill, in which she won deserved laurels: "Evadne,
or the Statue," and "The Apostate." I never had the pleasure of seeing
Miss O'Neill act; but the impression left on my mind by those plays was
that her abilities must have been very great to have given them the
effect and success they had. As for me, as usual, of course my reply to
my father was a disconsolate "I am sure _I_ can do nothing with them."
My friend H---- S----, in coming to us in Russell Street, came to a
house that had been almost a home to her and her brother when they were
children, in the life of my uncle and Mrs. John Kemble, by whom they
were regarded with great affection, and whom they visited and stayed
with as if they had been young relations of their own.
My hope of learning German and drawing was frustrated by the engrossing
calls of my theatrical occupations. The first study was reserved for a
long-subsequent season, when I had recourse to it as a temporary
distraction in perplexity and sorrow, from which I endeavored to find
relief in some sustained intellectual effort; and I mastered it
sufficiently to translate without difficulty Schiller's "Mary Stuart"
and some of his minor poems.
As for drawing, that I have once or twice tried to accomplish, but the
circumstances of my unsettled and restless life have been unfavorable
for any steady effort to follow it up, and I have got no further yet
than a passionate desire to know how to draw. If (as I sometimes
imagine) in a future existence undeveloped capacities and persistent
yearnings for all kinds of good may find expansion and exercise, and not
only our moral but also our intellectual being put forth new powers and
achieve progress in new directions, then in some of the successive
heavens to which, perhaps, I may be allowed to climb (if to any) I shall
be a painter of pictures; a mere idea that suggests a heavenly state of
long-desired capacity, to possess which, here on earth, I would give at
once the finger of either hand least indispensable to an artist. Of the
two pursuits, a painter's or a musician's, considered not as arts but as
accomplishments merely, the former appears to me infinitely more
desirable, for a woman, than the latter far more frequently cultivated
one. The one is a sedative, the other an acute stimulant to the nervous
system. The one is a perfectly independent and always to be commanded
occupation; the other imperatively demands an instrument, utters an
audible challenge to attention, and must either command solitude or
disturb any society not inclined to become an audience. The one
cultivates habits of careful, accurate observation of nature, and
requires patient and precise labor in reproducing her models; the other
appeals powerfully to the imagination and emotions, and charms almost in
proportion as it excites its votaries. With regard to natural aptitude,
the most musical of nations--the German--shows by the impartial training
of its common schools how universal it considers a certain degree of
musical capacity.
Our musical literature of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the
glees, madrigals, rounds, and catches, requiring considerable skill, and
familiarly performed formerly in the country houses and home circles of
our gentry, and the noble church music of our cathedral choirs, bear
witness to a high musical inspiration, and thorough musical training in
their composers and executants.
We seem to have lost this vein of original national music; the
Lancashire weavers and spinners are still good choristers, but among the
German half of our common Teutonic race, the real feeling for and
knowledge of music continues to flourish, while with the Anglo-Saxons of
Britain and America it has dwindled and decayed.
GREAT RUSSELL STREET, November 8, 1830.
DEAREST H----,
I received your note, for I cannot honor the contents of your last
with the name of a letter (whatever title the shape and quantity of
the paper it was written on may claim).
I have made up my mind to let you make up yours, without urging you
further upon the subject; but I must reply to one thing. You say to
me, could you bring with you a strip of sea-shore, a corner of blue
sky, or half a dozen waves, you would not hesitate. Allow my to say
that whereas by the sea-side or under a bright sky your society
enhances the pleasure derived from them, I now desire it (not
having these) as delightful in itself, increasing my enjoyment in
the beauties of nature, and compensating for their absence. But I
have done; only if Mrs. K---- has held out a false hope to me, she
is ferocious and atrocious, and that is all, and so pray tell her.
I had left myself so little room to tell you about this
disagreeable business of the _Age_ newspaper, in my last, that I
thought what I said of it would be almost unintelligible to you. I
do not really deserve the sympathy you express for my feelings in
the matter, for partly from being totally ignorant of the nature
and extent of my injuries--having never, of course, read a line of
that scurrilous newspaper--and partly from my indifference to
everything that is said about me, I really have felt no annoyance
or distress on the subject, beyond, as I told you, one moment's
feminine indignation at a coarse expression which was repeated to
me, but which in strict truth did not and could not apply to me;
and considerable regret that my father should have touched Mr.
Westmacott even with a stick, or a "pair of tongs." That individual
intends bringing a suit for damages, which makes me very anxious to
have my play and rhymes published, if I can get anything for them,
as I think the profits derived from my "scribbles" (as good Queen.
Anne called her letters) would be better bestowed in paying for
that little ebullition of my father's temper than in decorating my
tiny sanctum. What does my poor, dear father expect, but that I
shall be bespattered if I am to live on the highway?
Mr. Murray has been kind enough to say he will publish my very
original compositions, and I am preparing them for him. I am sorry
to say I have heard nothing from my brother; _of_ him I have heard,
for his whereabout is known and talked of--so much so, indeed, that
my father says further concealment is at once useless and
ridiculous. I may therefore now tell you that he is at this moment
in Spain, trying to levy troops for the cause of the
constitutionalists. I need not tell you, dearest H----, how much I
regret this, because you will know how deeply I must disapprove of
it. I might have thought any young man Quixotic who thus mistook a
restless, turbulent spirit, eager to embrace a quarrel not his own,
for patriotism and self-devotion to a sacred cause; but in my
brother, who had professed aims and purposes so opposed to tumult
and war and bloodshed, it seems to me a subject of much more
serious regret. Heaven only knows what plans he has formed for the
future! His present situation affords anxiety enough to warrant our
not looking further in anticipation of vexation, but even if the
present be regarded with the best hope of success in his
undertaking, the natural consideration must be, as far as he is
concerned, "What follows?" It is rather a melancholy consideration
that such abilities should be wasted and misapplied. Our own
country is in a perilous state of excitement, and these troubled
times make politicians of us all. Of course the papers will have
informed you of the risings in Kent and Sussex; London itself is in
an unquiet state that suggests the heaving of a volcano before an
eruption. It is said that the Duke of Wellington must resign; I am
ignorant, but it appears to me that whenever he does it will be a
bad day's work for England. The alarm and anxiety of the
aristocracy is extreme, and exhibits itself, even as I have had
opportunity of observing in society, in the half-angry,
half-frightened tone of their comments on public events. If one did
not sympathize with their apprehensions, their mode of expressing
them would sometimes be amusing.
The aspect of public affairs is injurious to the theater, and these
graver interests thin our houses while they crowd the houses of
Parliament. However, when we played "The Provoked Husband" before
the king and queen the other night, the theater was crammed from
floor to ceiling, and presented a most beautiful _coup d'oeil_. I
have just come out in Mrs. Haller. It seems to have pleased the
people very much. I need not tell you how much I dislike the play;
it is the quintessence of trashy sentimentalism; but our audiences
cry and sob at it till we can hardly hear ourselves speak on the
stage, and the public in general rejoices in what the servant-maids
call "something deep." My father acts the Stranger with me, which
makes it very trying to my nerves, as I mix up all my own personal
feelings for him with my acting, and the sight of his anguish and
sense of his displeasure is really very dreadful to me, though it
is only all about "stuff and nonsense" after all.
I must leave off writing; I am excruciated with the toothache,
which has tormented me without respite all day. I will inclose a
line to Mrs. K----, which I will beg you to convey to her.
With kindest love to all your circle, believe me ever yours,
F. A. K.
Thank you for your delicious French comic song; you should come to
London to hear how admirably I sing it.
Mrs. K---- was a Miss Dawson, sister of the Right Honorable George
Dawson, and the wife of an eminent member of the Irish bar. She was a
woman of great mental cultivation and unusual information upon subjects
which are generally little interesting to women. She was a passionate
partisan of Owen the philanthropist and Combe the phrenologist, and
entertained the most sanguine hopes of the regeneration of the whole
civilized world through the means of the theories of these benevolent
reformers. Except Queen Elizabeth, of glorious memory, I do not think a
woman can have existed who combined the love of things futile and
serious to the same degree as Mrs. K----. Her feminine taste for
fashionable society and the frivolities of dress, together with her
sober and solid studies of the gravest sort and her devotion to the
speculations of her friends Owen and Combe, constituted a rare union of
contrasts. She was a remarkable instance of the combination exemplified
by more than one eminent person of her sex, of a capacity for serious
study, solid acquirements, and enlightened and liberal views upon the
most important subjects, with a decided inclination for those more
trifling pursuits supposed to be the paramount interests of the female
mind. She was the dear friend of my dear friend Miss S----, and
corresponded with her upon the great subject of social progress with a
perfect enthusiasm of theoretical reform.
GREAT RUSSELL STREET, November 14th
DEAREST H----,
Thank you a thousand times for your kindness in consenting to come
to us. We are all very happy in the hope of having you, nor need
you be for a moment nervous or uncomfortable from the idea that we
shall receive or treat you otherwise than as one of ourselves. I
have left my mother and my aunt in the room which is to be yours,
devising and arranging matters for you. It is a very small roost,
dear H----, but it is the only spare room in our house, and
although it is three stories up, it is next to mine, and I hope
good neighborhood will atone for some deficiencies. With regard to
interfering with the routine or occupations of the family, they are
of a nature which, fortunately for your scruples, renders that
impossible. There is but one thing in your letter which rather
distressed me: you allude to the inconveniences of a woman
traveling in mail coaches in December, and I almost felt, when I
read the sentence, what my aunt Dall told me after I had requested
you to come to us now, that it was a want of consideration in me to
have invited you at so ungenial a season for traveling. I had one
reason for doing so which I hope will excuse the apparent
selfishness of the arrangement. Toward the end of the spring I
shall be leaving town, I hope to come nearer your land, and the
beginning of our spring is seldom much more mild and inviting or
propitious for traveling than the winter itself. Then, too, the
early spring is the time when our engagements are unavoidably very
numerous; to decline going into society is not in my power, and to
drag you to my balls (which I love dearly) would, I think, scarce
be a pleasure to you (whom I love more), and to go to them when I
might be with you would be to run the risk of destroying my taste
for the only form of intercourse with my fellow-creatures which is
not at present irksome to me. Think, dear H----, if ceasing to
dance I should cease to care for universal humanity--indeed, take
to hating it, and become an absolute misanthropist! What a risk!
I have heard nothing more of or from John, but the newspaper
reports of the proceedings are rather more favorable than they have
been, though I fear one cannot place much reliance on them. I do
not know how the papers you see speak of the aspect of affairs in
England at this moment; the general feeling seems to be one of
relief, and that, whatever apprehensions may have been entertained
for the tranquillity of the country, the storm has blown over for
the present. Everything is quiet again in London and promises to
remain so, and there seems to be a sort of "drawing of a long
breath" sensation in the state of the public mind, though I cannot
myself help thinking not only that we have been, but that we still
are, on the eve of some great crisis.
Mrs. Haller is going on very well; it is well spoken of, I am told,
and upon the whole it seems to have done me credit, though I am
surprised it has, for there is nothing in the part that gives me
the least satisfaction. My next character, I hear, is to be of a
very different order of frailty--Calista, in "The Fair Penitent."
However odious both play and part are, there are powerful
situations in it, and many opportunities for fine acting, but I am
afraid I am quite unequal to such a _turpissime_ termagant, with
whom my aunt did such tremendous things.
My performance of "The Fair Penitent" was entirely ineffective, and did
neither me nor the theater any service; the play itself is a feeble
adaptation of Massinger's powerful drama of "The Fatal Dowry," and, as
generally happens with such attempts to fit our old plays to our modern
stage, the fundamentally objectionable nature of the story could not be
reformed without much of the vigorous and terrible effect of the
original treatment evaporating in the refining process. Mr. Macready
revived Massinger's fine play with considerable success, but both the
matter and the manner of our dramatic ancestors is too robust for the
audiences of our day, who nevertheless will go and see "Diane de Lys,"
by a French company of actors, without wincing. Of Mrs. Siddons's Mrs.
Haller, one of her admirers once told me that her majestic and imposing
person, and the commanding character of her beauty, militated against
her effect in the part. "No man, alive or dead," said he, "would have
dared to take a liberty with her; wicked she might be, but weak she
could not be, and when she told the story of her ill-conduct in the
play, nobody believed her." While another of her devotees, speaking of
"The Fair Penitent," said that it was worth sitting out the piece for
her scene with Romont alone, and to see "such a splendid animal in such
a magnificent rage."