GREAT RUSSELL STREET, March 8, 1831.
I am going to be very busy signing my name; my benefit is fixed for
the 21st; I do not yet know what the play is to be. Our young,
unsuccessful playwright, Mr. Wade, whom I like very much (he took
his damnation as bravely as Capaneo), and Macdonald, the sculptor,
dined with us on Sunday. On Monday I went to the library of the
British Museum to consult Du Bellay's history for my new version of
the last scene of "Francis I." I looked at some delightful books,
and among others, a very old and fine MS. of the "Roman de la
Rose," beautifully illuminated; also all the armorial bearings,
shields, banners, etc., of the barons of King John's time, the
barons of Runnymede and the Charter, most exquisitely and minutely
copied from monuments, stained glass, brass effigies, etc.; it was
a fine work, beautifully executed for the late king, George IV. I
wish it had been executed for me. I did get A---- to walk in the
square with me once, but she likes it even less than I do; my
intellectual conversation is no equivalent for the shop-windows of
Regent Street and the counters of the bazaar, and she has gone out
with my aunt every day since, "leaving the square to solitude and
me;" so I take my book with me (I can read walking at my quickest
pace), and like to do so.
Tuesday evening I played Belvidera. I was quite nervous at acting
it again after so long a period. After the play my father and I
went to Lady Dacre's and had a pleasant party enough. Mrs. Norton
was there, more entertaining and blinding beautiful than ever.
Henry desired me to give her his "desperate love," to which she
replied by sending the poor youth her "deadly scorn." Lord
Melbourne desired to be introduced to me, and I think if he likes,
he shall be the decrepit old nobleman you are so afraid of me
marrying. I was charmed with his face, voice, and manner; we dine
with him next Wednesday week, and I will write you word if the
impression deepens.
My dear H----, only imagine my dismay; my father told me that after
Easter I should have to play Lady Macbeth! It is no use thinking
about it, for that only frightens me more; but, looking at it as
calmly and reasonably as possible, surely it is too great an
undertaking for so young a person as myself. Perhaps I may play it
better than most girls of my age would; what will that amount to?
That towering, tremendous woman, what a trial of courage and
composure for me! If you were a good friend, now, you would come up
to town "for that occasion only," and sustain me with your
presence.
The beautiful Miss Bayley is at length married to William Ashley
[the present Earl of Shaftesbury], and everybody is rejoicing with
them or for them; it is pleasant to catch glimpses of fresh shade
and flowers as one goes along the dusty highroad of life.
I must now tell you what I am going to do, that you may know where
to find me: to-morrow, I go to a private morning concert with my
mother; in the evening, I act Beatrice, and after the play all
sorts of people are coming here to supper. On Monday, I act Fazio;
Wednesday, we dine at Lady Macdonald's; Thursday, I act Mrs.
Haller; and Saturday, Beatrice again. I have not an idea what will
be done for my benefit; we are all devising and proposing. I myself
want them to bring out Massinger's "Maid of Honor;" I think it
beautiful.
Now, dear H----, I must leave off, and sign my tickets. We all send
our loves to you: my mother tells me not to let you forget her; she
says she is afraid you class her with Mrs. John Kemble. If ever
there were two dissimilar human beings, it is those two. Ever your
affectionate
FANNY.
GREAT RUSSELL STREET, March 13, 1831.
DEAR H----,
I received your letter yesterday, and must exult in my
self-command, for Mrs. Jameson was with me, and I did not touch it
till she was gone. Thank you first of all for Spenser; that _is_
poetry! I was much benefited as well as delighted by it.
Considering the power of poetry to raise one's mind and soul into
the noblest moods, I do not think it is held in sufficient
reverence nowadays; the bards of old were greater people in their
society than our modern ones are; to be sure, modern poetry is not
all of a purely elevating character, and poets are _paid_, besides
being asked out to dinner, which the bards always were. I think the
tone of a good deal of Campbell's "Pleasures of Hope" very noble,
and some of Mrs. Hemans's things are very beautiful in sentiment as
well as expression. But then, all that order of writing is so
feeble compared with the poetry of our old masters, who do not so
much appeal to our feelings as to our reason and imagination
combined. I do not believe that to be sublime is in the power of a
woman, any more than to be logical; and Mrs. Hemans, who is
neither, writes charmingly, and one loves her as a Christian woman
even more than one admires her as a writer.
Yes, it is very charming that the dove, the favorite type of
gentleness and tenderness and "harmlessness," should have such a
swift and vigorous power of flight; _suaviter--fortiter_, a good
combination.
We are having the most tempestuous weather; A---- is horribly
frightened, and I am rather awed. I got the encyclopædia to-night
to study the cause of the equinoctial gales, which I thought we
should both be the better for knowing, but could find nothing about
them; can you tell me of any book or treatise upon this subject?
My dear H----, shut your eyes while you read this, because if you
don't, they'll never shut again. Constance is what I am to play for
my benefit. I am horribly frightened; it is a cruel weight to lay
upon my shoulders: however, there is nothing for it but doing my
best, and leaving the rest to fate. I almost think now I could do
Lady Macbeth better. I am like poor little Arthur, who begged to
have his tongue cut off rather than have his eyes put out; that
last scene of Constance--think what an actress one should be to do
it justice! Pray for me.
And so the Poles are crushed! what a piteous horror! Will there
never come a day of retribution for this!
Mrs. Jameson came and sat with me some time yesterday evening, and
read me a good deal of her work on Shakespeare's female characters;
they are very pleasing sketches--outlines--but her criticism and
analysis are rather graceful than profound or powerful. Tuesday
next my mother and I spend the evening with her; Wednesday, we dine
at Sir John Macdonald's; Thursday, I act Mrs. Haller; Friday, we
have an evening party at home; Saturday, I play Beatrice; Monday,
Constance (come up for it!); Tuesday, we dine with Lord Melbourne;
and this is as much of the book of fate as is unrolled to me at
present.
Mrs. Harry came here to-day; it is the first time I have seen her
this month; she is looking wretchedly, and talks of returning to
Edinburgh. My first feeling at hearing this was joy that I shall
not go there and find the face and voice for ever associated with
Edinburgh in my heart away from it. But I am not really glad, for
it is the failure of some plan of hers which obliges her to do
this. I have the loves of all to give you, and they are all very
troublesome, crying, "Give mine separately," "Don't lump mine;" so
please take them each separately and singly. I have been sobbing my
heart out over Constance this morning, and act Fazio to-night,
which is hard work.
Your affectionate
F.
GREAT RUSSELL STREET, Saturday, March 19th.
DEAR H----,
You ask if Mr. Trench's account of their Spanish escapade is likely
to soften my father's view of the folly of the expedition. I think
not, by any means--as how should it? But the yesterday papers
reported a successful attack upon Cadiz and the proclamation of
Torrijos general-in-chief by the Constitutionalists, who were
rising all over the country. This has been again contradicted
to-day, and may have been a mere stock-jobbing story, after all. If
it be true, however, the results may be of serious importance to my
brother. Should the Constitutionalists get the upper hand, his
adherence to Torrijos may place him in a prominent position, I am
afraid; perhaps, however, though success may not alter my father's
opinion of the original folly of John's undertaking, it may in some
measure reconcile him to it. I suppose it is not impossible now
that John should become an officer in the Spanish army, and that
after so many various and contradictory plans his career may
finally be that of a soldier. How strange and sad it all seems to
me, to be sure!
You say it's a horrid thing one can't "try on one's body" and
choose such a one as would suit one; but do you consider your body
accidental, as it were, or do you really think we could do better
for ourselves than has been done for us in this matter? After all,
our souls get used to our bodies, and in some fashion alter and
shape them to fit; then you know if we had different bodies we
should be different people and not our _same selves_ at all; if I
had been tall, as I confess I in my heart of hearts wish I were,
what another moral creature should I have been.
You urge me to work, dear H----, and study my profession, and were
I to say I hate it, you would retort, "You do it, therefore take
pains to do it well." And so I do, as well as I can; I have been
studying Constance with my father, and rubbed off some of the rough
edges of it a little.
I am sorry to say I shall not have a good benefit; unluckily, the
second reading of the Reform Bill comes on to-morrow (to-night, by
the bye, for it is Monday), and there will be as many people in the
House of Commons as in _my_ house, and many more in Parliament
Street than in either; it is unfortunate for me, but cannot be
helped. I was going to say, pray for me, but I forgot that you will
not get this till "it is bedtime, Hal, and all is well." The
publication of my play is not to take place till after this Reform
fever has a little abated.
Dear H----, this is Wednesday, the 23rd; Monday and King John and
my Constance are all over; but I am at this moment still so _deaf
with nervousness_ as not to hear the ticking of my watch when held
to one of my ears; the other side of my head is not deaf any longer
_now_; but on Monday night I hardly heard one word I uttered
through the whole play. It is rather hard that having endeavored
(and succeeded wonderfully, too) in possessing my soul in peace
during that trial of my courage, my nervous system should give way
in this fashion. I had a knife of pain sticking in my side all
through the play and all day long, Monday; as I did not hear myself
speak, I cannot tell you anything of my performance. My dress was
of the finest pale-blue merino, all folds and drapery like my
Grecian Daughter costume, with an immense crimson mantle hung on my
shoulders which I could hardly carry. My head-dress was exactly
copied from one of my aunt's, and you cannot imagine how curiously
like her I looked. My mother says, "You have done it better than I
believe any other girl of your age would do it." But of course that
is not a representation of Constance to satisfy her, or any one
else, indeed. You know, dear H----, what my own feeling has been
about this, and how utterly incapable I knew myself for such an
undertaking; but you did not, nor could any one, know how
dreadfully I suffered from the apprehension of failure which my
reason told me was well founded. I assure you that when I came on
the stage I felt like some hunted creature driven to bay; I was
really half wild with terror. The play went off admirably, but I
lay, when my part was over, for an hour on my dressing-room floor,
with only strength enough left to cry. Your letter to A---- revived
me, and just brought me enough to life again to eat my supper,
which I had not felt able to touch, in spite of my exhaustion and
great need of it; when, however, I once began, my appetite
justified the French proverb and took the turn of voracity, and I
devoured like a Homeric hero. I promised to tell you something of
our late dinner at Lord Melbourne's, but have left myself neither
space nor time. It was very pleasant, and I fell out of my love for
our host (who, moreover, is absorbed by Mrs. Norton) and into
another love with Lord O----, Lord T----'s son, who is one of the
most beautiful creatures of the male sex I ever saw; unluckily, he
does not fulfill the necessary conditions of your theory, and is
neither as old nor as decrepit as you have settled the nobleman I
am to marry is to be; so he won't do.
We are going to a party at Devonshire House to-night. Here I am
called away to receive some visitors. Pray write soon to your
affectionate
FANNY.
To-morrow I act Constance, and Saturday Isabella, which is all I
know for the present of the future. I have just bought A---- a
beautiful guitar; I promised her one as soon as my play was out. My
room is delicious with violets, and my new blue velvet gown
heavenly in color and all other respects except the--well,
_un_heavenly price Dévy makes me pay for it.
GREAT RUSSELL STREET, April 2, 1831.
DEAR H----,
I am truly sorry for M----'s illness, just at the height of all her
gay season gayeties, too; it is too provoking to have one's tackle
out of order and lie on the beach with such a summer sea sparkling
before one. I congratulate L---- on her father's relenting and
canceling his edict against waltzing and galloping. And yet, I am
always _rather_ sorry when a determination of that sort, firmly
expressed, is departed from. Of course our views and opinions, not
being infallible, are liable to change, and may not unreasonably be
altered or weakened by circumstances and the more enlightened
convictions of improved powers and enlarged experience, but it is
as well, therefore, for our own sakes, not to promulgate them as if
they were Persian decrees. One can step gracefully down from a
lesser height, where one would fall from a greater. But with young
people generally, I think, to retreat from a position you have
assumed is to run the risk of losing some of their consideration
and respect; for they have neither consciousness of their own
frailty, nor charity for the frailty of others, nor the wisdom to
perceive that a resolution may be better broken than kept; and
though perhaps themselves gaining some desired end by the yielding
of their elders, I believe any indulgence so granted (that is,
after being emphatically denied) never fails to leave on the
youthful mind an impression of want of judgment or determination in
those they have to do with.
We dine with the Fitzhughs on Tuesday week; I like Emily much,
though she will talk of human souls as "vile;" I gave her Channing
to read, and she liked it very much, but said that his view of
man's nature was not that of a Christian; I think her contempt for
it still less such. As we are immortal in spite of death, so I
think we are wonderful in spite of our weakness, and admirable in
spite of our imperfection, and capable of all good in spite of all
our evil.
A----'s guitar is a beauty, and wears a broad blue scarf and has a
sweet, low, soft voice. Mr. Pickersgill is going to paint my
portrait; it is a present Major Dawkins makes my father and mother,
but I do wish they would leave off trying to take my picture. My
face is too bad for anything but nature, and never was intended for
_still_ life. The intention, however, is very kind, and the offer
one that can scarcely be refused. I wish you would come and keep me
awake through my sittings.
Our engagements--social and professional--are a dinner party at the
Mayows to-morrow; an evening party on Monday; Tuesday, the opera;
Wednesday I act Isabella; Thursday, a dinner at Mr. Harness's;
Friday I act Bianca; Saturday we have a dinner party at home; the
Monday following I act Constance; Tuesday there is a dance at the
Fitzhughs'; and sundry dissipations looming in the horizon.
Good-by, and God bless you, my dear H----. I look forward to our
meeting at Ardgillan, three months hence, with delight, and am
affectionately yours,
F. A. K.
A---- and I begin our riding lessons on Wednesday next. We have got
pretty dark-brown habits and red velvet waistcoats, and shall look
like two nice little robin-redbreasts on horseback; all I dread is
that she may be frightened to death, which might militate against
her enjoyment, perhaps.
What you say about my brother John is very true; and though my
first care is for his life, my next is for his happiness, which I
believe more likely to be secured by his remaining in the midst of
action and excitement abroad, than in any steady pursuit at home.
My benefit was not as good as it ought to have been; it was not
sufficiently advertised, and it took place on the night of the
reading of the Reform Bill, which circumstance was exceedingly
injurious to it.
To-day is John's birthday. I was in hopes it might not occur to my
mother, but she alluded to it yesterday. I was looking at that
little sketch of him in her room this morning, with a heavy heart.
His lot seems now cast indeed, and most strangely. I would give
anything to see him and hear his voice again, but I fear to wish
him back again among us. I am afraid that he would neither be happy
himself, nor make others so.
GREAT RUSSELL STREET, 1831.
It is a long time, dear H----, since I have written to you, and I
feel it so with self-reproach. To-day, except paying a round of
visits with my mother and acting this evening, I have nothing to
prevent my talking with you in tolerable peace and quiet--so here I
am. You have no idea what a quantity of "things to be done" has
been crowded into the last fortnight: studying Camiola, rehearsing
for two hours and a half every other day, riding for two hours at a
time, and sitting for my picture nearly as long, running from place
to place about my dresses, and now having Lady Teazle and Mrs.
Oakley to _get up_, immediately,--all this, with my nightly work or
nightly gayeties, makes an amount of occupation of one sort and
another that hardly leaves me time for thought.
You will be glad to hear that "The Maid of Honor" was entirely
successful; that it will have a "great run," or bring much money to
the theater, I doubt. It is a _cold_ play, according to the present
taste of audiences, and there are undoubted defects in its
construction which in the fastidious judgment of our critics weigh
down its sterling beauties.
It has done me great service, and to you I may say that I think it
the best thing I have acted. Indeed, I like my own performance of
it so well (which you know does not often happen to me), that I beg
you will make A---- tell you something about it. I was beautifully
dressed and looked very nice.
We have heard nothing of John for some time now, and my mother has
ceased to express, if not to feel, anxiety about him, and seems
tranquil at present; but after all she has suffered on his account,
it is not, perhaps, surprising that she should subside into the
calm of mere exhaustion from that cruel over-excitement.
Our appeal before the Lords, after having been put off once this
week, will, in consequence of the threatened dissolution of
Parliament, be deferred _sine die_, as the phrase is. Oh, what
weary work this is for those who are tremblingly waiting for a
result of vital importance to their whole fate and fortune! Thank
Heaven, I am liberally endowed with youth's peculiar power and
privilege of disregarding future sorrow, and unless under the
immediate pressure of calamity can keep the anticipation of it at
bay. My journal has become a mere catalogue of the names of people
I meet and places I go to. I have had no time latterly for anything
but the briefest possible registry of my daily doings. Mrs. Harry
Siddons has taken a lodging in this street, nearly opposite to us,
so that I have the happiness of seeing her rather oftener than I
have been able to do hitherto; the girls come over, too; and as we
have lately taken to acting charades and proverbs, we spend our
evenings very pleasantly together.
We are going to get up a piece called "Napoleon." I do not mean my
cousins and ourselves, but that prosperous establishment, Covent
Garden Theatre. Think of Bonaparte being acted! It makes one grin
and shudder.
I have been three or four times to Mr. Pickersgill, and generally
sit two hours at a time to him. I dare say he will make a nice
picture of me, but his anxiety that it should in no respect
resemble Sir Thomas Lawrence's drawing amuses me. I was in hopes
that when I had done with him I should not have to sit to anybody
for anything again. But I find I am to undergo that boredom for a
bust by Mr. Turnerelli. I wish I could impress upon all my artist
friends that my face is an inimitable original which nature never
intended should be copied. Pazienza! I must say, though, that I
grudge the time thus spent. I want to get on with my play, but I'm
afraid for the next three weeks that will be hopeless.
To add to my occupations past, present, and to come, not having
enough of acting with my professional duties in that line, I am
going to take part in some private theatricals. Lord Francis
Leveson wants to get up his version of Victor Hugo's "Hernani," at
Bridgewater House, and has begged me, as a favor, to act the
heroine; all the rest are to be amateurs. I have consented to this,
not knowing well how to refuse, yet for one or two reasons I almost
think I had better not have done so. I expect to be excessively
amused by it, but it will take up a terrible deal of my time, for I
am sure they will need rehearsals without end. I do not know at all
what our summer plans are; but I believe we shall be acting in the
provinces till September, when if all things are quiet in Paris my
father proposes going over with me and one or two members of the
Covent Garden company, and playing there for a month or so. I think
I should like that. I fancy I should like acting to a French
audience; they are people of great intellectual refinement and
discrimination, and that is a pleasant quality in an audience. I
think my father seems inclined to take A---- with us and leave her
there. A musical education can nowhere better be obtained, and
under the care of Mrs. Foster, about whom I believe I wrote to you
once a long letter, there could be no anxiety about her welfare.
I showed that part of your last letter which concerned my aunt Dall
to herself, because I knew it would please her, and so it did; and
she bids me tell you that she values your good-will and esteem
extremely, and should do still more if you did not _misbestow so
much of them on me_.
Emily Fitzhugh sent me this morning a Seal with a pretty device, in
consequence of my saying that I thought it was pleasanter to lean
upon one's friends, morally, than to be leant upon by them--an oak
with ivy clinging to it and "Chiedo sostegno" for the motto. I do
not think I shall use it to many people, though.
To-morrow Sheridan Knowles dines with us, to read a new play he has
written, in which I am to act. In the evening we go to Lady Cork's,
Sunday we have a dinner-party here, Monday I act Camiola, Tuesday
we go to Mrs. Harry's, Wednesday I act Camiola, and further I know
not. Good-by, dear; ever yours,
F. A. K.
The piece which I have referred to in this letter, calling itself
"Bonaparte," was a sensational melodrama upon the fate and fortunes of
the great emperor, beginning with his first exploits as a young
artillery officer, himself pointing and firing the cannon at Toulon, to
the last dreary agony of the heart-broken exile of St. Helena. It was
well put upon the stage, and presented a series of historical pictures
of considerable interest and effect, not a little of which was due to
the great resemblance of Mr. Warde, who filled the principal part, to
the portraits of Napoleon. He had himself, I believe, been in the army,
and left it under the influence of a passion for the stage, which his
dramatic ability hardly justified; for though he was a very respectable
actor, he had no genius whatever, and never rose above irreproachable
mediocrity. But his military training and his peculiar likeness to
Bonaparte helped him to make his part in this piece very striking and
effective, though it was not in itself the merest peg to hang
"situations" on.
I was at this time sitting for my picture to Mr. Pickersgill, with whose
portrait of my father in the part of Macbeth I have mentioned my
mother's comically expressed dissatisfaction. Our kind friend, Major
Dawkins, wished to give my father and mother a good portrait of me, and
suggested Mr. Pickersgill, a very eminent portrait-painter, as the
artist who would be likely to execute it most satisfactorily. Mr.
Pickersgill, himself, seemed very desirous to undertake it, and greatly
as my sittings interfered with my leisure, of which I had but little, it
was impossible under the circumstances that I should refuse, especially
as he represented that if he succeeded, as he hoped to do, his painting
me would be an advantage to him; portraits of public exhibitors being of
course recognizable by the public, and, if good, serving the purpose of
advertisements. Unluckily, Mrs. Jameson proposed accompanying me, in
order to lighten by her very agreeable conversation the tedium of the
process. Her intimate acquaintance with my face, with which Mr.
Pickersgill was not familiar, and her own very considerable artistic
knowledge and taste made her, however, less discreet in her comments and
suggestions with regard to his operations than was altogether pleasant
to him; and after exhibiting various symptoms of impatience, on one
occasion he came so very near desiring her to mind her own business,
that we broke off the sitting abruptly; and the offended painter adding,
to my dismay, that it was quite evident he was not considered equal to
the task he had undertaken, our own attitude toward each other became so
constrained, not to say disagreeable, that on taking my leave I declined
returning any more, and what became of Mr. Pickersgill's beginning of me
I do not know. Perhaps he finished it by memory, and it is one of the
various portraits of me, _qui courent le monde_, for some of which I
never sat, which were taken either from the stage or were mere efforts
of memory of the artists; one of which, a head of Beatrice, painted by
my friend Mr. Sully, of Philadelphia, was engraved as a frontispiece to
a small volume of poems I published there, and was one of the best
likenesses ever taken of me.
The success of "The Maid of Honor" gave me great pleasure. The sterling
merits of the play do not perhaps outweigh the one insuperable defect of
the despicable character of the hero; one can hardly sympathize with
Camiola's devotion to such an idol, and his unworthiness not only
lessens the interest of the piece, but detracts from the effect of her
otherwise very noble character. The performance of the part always gave
me great pleasure, and there was at once a resemblance to and difference
from my favorite character, Portia, that made it a study of much
interest to me. Both the women, young, beautiful, and of unusual
intellectual and moral excellence, are left heiresses to enormous
wealth, and are in exceptional positions of power and freedom in the
disposal of it. Portia, however, is debarred by the peculiar nature of
her father's will from bestowing her person and fortune upon any one of
her own choice; chance serves her to her wish (she was not born to be
unhappy), and gives her to the man she loves, a handsome, extravagant
young gentleman, who would certainly have been pronounced by all of us
quite unworthy of her, until she proved him worthy by the very fact of
her preference for him; while Camiola's lover is separated from her by
the double obstacle of his royal birth and religious vow.
The golden daughter of the splendid republic receives and dismisses
princes and kings as her suitors, indifferent to any but their personal
merits; we feel she is their equal in the lowest as their superior in
the highest of their "qualities;" with Camiola it is impossible not to
suspect that her lover's rank must have had some share in the glamor he
throws over her. In some Italian version of the story that I have read,
Camiola is called the "merchant's daughter;" and contrasting her bearing
and demeanor with the easy courtesy and sweet, genial graciousness of
Portia, we feel that she must have been of lower birth and breeding than
the magnificent and charming Venetian. Portia is almost always in an
attitude of (unconscious) condescension in her relations with all around
her; Camiola, in one of self-assertion or self-defense. There is an
element of harshness, bordering upon coarseness, in the texture of her
character, which in spite of her fine qualities makes itself
unpleasantly felt, especially contrasted with that of Portia, to whom
the idea of encountering insolence or insult must have been as
_impossible_ as to the French duchess, who, warned that if she went into
the streets alone at night she would probably be insulted, replied with
ineffable security and simplicity, "Qui? moi!" One can imagine the
merchant's daughter _growing up_ to the possession of her great wealth,
through the narrowing and hardening influences of sordid circumstances
and habits of careful calculation and rigid economy, thrifty, prudent,
just, and eminently conscientious; of Portia one can only think as of a
creature born in the very lap of luxury and nursed in the midst of sunny
magnificence, whose very element was elegant opulence and refined
splendor, and by whose cradle Fortune herself stood godmother. She seems
like a perfect rose, blooming in a precious vase of gold and gems and
exquisite workmanship. Camiola's contemptuous rebuff of her insolent
courtier lover; her merciless ridicule of her fantastical, half-witted
suitor; her bitter and harsh rebuke of Adorni when he draws his sword
upon the man who had insulted her; above all, her hard and cold
insensibility to his unbounded devotion, and the cruelty of making him
the agent for the ransom of her lover from captivity (the selfishness of
her passion inducing her to employ him because she knows how absolutely
she may depend upon the unselfishness of his); and her final stern and
peremptory claim of Bertrand's promise, are all things that Portia could
never have done. Portia is the Lady of Belmont, and Camiola is the
merchant's daughter, a very noble and magnanimous woman. In the
munificent bestowal of their wealth, the one to ransom her husband's
friend from death, the other to redeem her own lover from captivity, the
manner of the gift is strikingly characteristic of the two natures. When
Portia, radiant with the joy of relieving Bassanio's anguish, speaks of
Antonio's heavy ransom as the "petty debt," we feel sure that if it had
been half her fortune it would have seemed to her an insignificant price
to pay for her husband's peace of mind. Camiola reads the price set upon
her lover's head, and with grave deliberation says, "Half my estate,
Adorni," before she bids him begone and purchase at that cost the
prince's release from captivity. Moreover, in claiming her right of
purchase over him, at the very moment of his union with another woman,
she gives a character of barter or sale to the whole transaction, and
appeals for justice as a defrauded creditor, insisting upon her "money's
worth," like Shylock himself, as if the love with which her heart is
breaking had been a mere question of traffic between the heir of Sicily
and the merchant's daughter. In spite of all which she is a very fine
creature, immeasurably superior to the despicable man who accepts her
favors and betrays her love. It is worthy of note that Bassanio, who is
clearly nothing else remarkable, is every inch a gentleman, and in that
respect no unfit mate for Portia; while the Sicilian prince is a
blackguard utterly, beneath Camiola in every particular but that of his
birth.
I remember two things connected with my performance of Camiola which
amused me a good deal at the time. In the last scene, when she proclaims
her intention of taking the vail, Camiola makes tardy acknowledgment to
Adorni for his life-long constancy and love by leaving him a third of
her estate, with the simple words, "To thee, Adorni, for thy true and
faithful service" (a characteristic proceeding on the part of the
merchant's daughter. Portia would have given him the ring from her
finger, or the flower from her bosom, besides the fortune). I used to
pause upon the last words, endeavoring to convey, if one look and tone
might do it, all the regretful gratitude which ought to have filled her
heart, while uttering with her farewell that first, last, and only
recognition of his infinite devotion to her. One evening, when the
audience were perfectly silent and one might have "heard a pin drop," as
the saying is, as I spoke these words, a loud and enthusiastic
exclamation of, "Beautiful!" uttered by a single voice resounded through
the theater, and was followed by such a burst of applause that I was
startled and almost for a moment frightened by the sudden explosion of
feeling, for which I was quite unprepared, and which I have never
forgotten.
Another night, as I was leaving the stage, after the play, I met behind
the scenes my dear friend Mr. Harness, with old Mr. Sotheby; both were
very kind in their commendation of my performance, but the latter kept
repeating with much emphasis, "But how do you contrive to make yourself
look so beautiful?" a rather equivocal compliment, which had a peculiar
significance; my beauty, or rather my lack of it, being a sore subject
between us, as I had made it the reason for refusing to act Mary Stuart
in his play of "Darnley," assuring him I was too ugly to look the part
properly; so upon this accusation of making myself "look beautiful," I
could only reply, with much laughing, "Good-looking enough for Camiola,
but not for Queen Mary."
I received with great pleasure a congratulatory letter from Mrs.
Jameson, which, in spite of my feeling her praise excessive, confirmed
me in my opinion of the effect the piece ought to produce upon
intelligent spectators. She had seen all the great dramatic performers
of the Continental theaters, and had had many opportunities, both at
home and abroad, of cultivating her taste and forming her judgment, and
her opinion was, therefore, more valuable to me than much of the
criticism and praise that I received.
GREAT RUSSELL STREET, March, 1831.
DEAR MRS. JAMESON,
My mother is confined to her bed with a bad cold, or she would have
answered your note herself; but, being disabled, she has
commissioned me to do so, and desires me to say that both my father
and herself object to my going anywhere without some member of my
family as chaperon; and as this is a general rule, the infringement
of it in a particular instance, however much I might wish it, would
be better avoided, for fear of giving offense where I should be
glad to plead the prohibition. She bids me add that she fears she
cannot go out to-morrow, but that some day soon, at an early hour,
she hopes to be able to accompany us both to the British Gallery.
Will you come to us on Sunday evening? You see what is hanging over
me for Thursday next; shall you go to see me?
Yours affectionately,
F. A. K.
I did not, and do not, at all question the good judgment of my parents
in not allowing me to go into society unaccompanied by one or the other
of themselves. The only occasion on which I remember feeling very
rebellious with regard to this rule was that of the coronation of King
William and Queen Adelaide, for which imposing ceremony a couple of
peers' tickets had been very kindly sent us, but of which I was unable
to avail myself, my father being prevented by business from escorting
me, my mother being out of town, and my brother's countenance and
protection not being, in their opinion, adequate for the occasion. So
John went alone to the abbey, and say the fine show, and my peer's
ticket remained unused on my mantelpiece, a constant suggestion of the
great disappointment I had experienced when, after some discussion, it
was finally determined that he was too young to be considered a proper
chaperon for me. Dear me! how vexed I was! and how little charmed with
my notoriety, which was urged as the special reason for my being hedged
round with the utmost conventional decorum!
GREAT RUSSELL STREET, March, 1831.
DEAR MRS. JAMESON,
I have but two minutes to say two words to you, in answer to your
very kind note. Both my mother and myself went out of town, not to
recover from absolute indisposition, but to recruit strength. I am
sorry to say she is far from well now, however; but as I think her
present suffering springs from cold, I hope a few warm days will
remove it. I am myself very well, except a bad cough which I have
had for some time, and a very bad side-ache, which has just come
on, and which, if I had time in addition to the inclination which I
have, would prevent me from writing much more at present. I envy
you your time spent in the country; the first days of spring and
last of autumn should never be spent between brick houses and stone
pavements. I am truly sorry for the anxieties you have undergone;
your father is, I trust, quite recovered; and as to your dear baby
(Mrs. Jameson's niece), remember it is but beginning to make you
anxious, and will continue to do so as long as it lives, which is a
perfect Job's comforter, is it not? The story of your old man
interested me very much; I suppose a parent can love all through a
whole lifetime of absence: but do you think there can be a very
strong and enduring affection in a child's bosom for a parent
hardly known except by hearsay? I should doubt it. I must leave off
now, and remain,
Always yours most truly,
F.A. KEMBLE.
GREAT RUSSELL STREET, March 29, 1831.
DEAR MRS. JAMESON,
Will you be kind enough to forward my very best acknowledgments to
Sir Gerard Nöel, both for his good wishes and the more tangible
proof of interest he sent me (a considerable payment for a box on
my benefit night)? I am sorry you were alarmed on Monday. You
alarmed us all; you looked so exceedingly ill that I feared
something very serious had occurred to distress and vex you. Thank
you for your critique upon my Constance; both my mother and myself
were much delighted with it; it was every way acceptable to me, for
the censure I knew to be deserved, and the praise I hoped was so,
and they were blended in the very nicest proportions. We dine at
six to-morrow. Lady Cork insisted upon five, but that was really
too primitive, because, as the dandy said, "we cannot eat meat in
the morning."
Ever yours most truly,
F. A. K.
GREAT RUSSELL STREET, March 30, 1831.
DEAR MRS. JAMESON,
Thank you for your money; it is necessary to be arithmetical if one
means to be economical, and I receive your tribute with more
pleasure than that of a duchess. I sometimes hear people lament
that they have anything to do with money. I do not at all share
that feeling; money, after all, only represents other things. If
one has much, it is always well to look to one's expenditure, or
the much will become much less; and if one has little, and works
hard for it, I cannot understand being above receiving the price of
one's labor. In all kinds "the laborer is worthy of his hire," and
I think it very foolish to talk as if we set no value upon that
which we value enough to toil for. With regard to the tickets you
wish me to send you, I must refer you to the theater; for, finding
that my wits and temper were both likely to be lost in the
box-book, I sent the whole away to Mr. Notter, the box-book keeper,
to whom you had better apply.
Yours ever truly,
F. A. K.
This and the preceding note refer to my benefit, of which, according to
a not infrequent custom with the more popular members of the profession,
I had undertaken to manage the business details, but found myself, as I
have here stated, quite incompetent to encounter the worry of
applications for boxes, and seats, and special places, etc., etc., and
have never since, in the course of my whole public career, had anything
to do with the management of my own affairs.
GREAT RUSSELL STREET, March, 1831.
DEAR MRS. JAMESON,
I was not at home yesterday afternoon when you sent to our house,
and all the evening was so busy studying that I had not time to
answer your dispatch. Thank you for your last year's letter; it is
curious to look back, even to so short a time, and see how the past
affected one when it was the present. I remember I was very happy
and comfortable at Bath, the critics notwithstanding. Thank you,
too, for your more recent epistle. I am grateful for, and gratified
by, your minute observation of my acting. I am always thankful for
your criticisms, even when I do not quite agree with them; for I
know that you are always kindly anxious that I should not destroy
my own effects, which I believe I not unfrequently do. With regard
to my action, unless in passages which necessarily require a
specific gesture, such as, "You'll find them at the Marchesa
Aldabella's," I never determine any one particular movement; and,
of course, this must render my action different almost every time;
and so it depends upon my own state of excitement and inspiration,
so to speak, whether the gesture be forcible or not. My father
desires me to send you Retsch's "Hamlet;" it is his, and I request
you not to judge it too hastily: I have generally heard it abused,
but I think in many parts it has very great merit. I am told that
Retsch says he has no fancy for illustrating "Romeo and Juliet,"
which seems strange. One would have thought he would have delighted
in portraying those lovely human beings, whom one always imagines
endowed with an outward and visible form as youthful, beautiful,
and full of grace, as their passion itself was. Surely the balcony,
the garden, and grave-yard scenes, would have furnished admirable
subjects for his delicate and powerful hand. Is it possible that he
thinks the thing beyond him? I must go to work. Good-by.
Ever yours truly,
F. A. K.
You marked so many things in my manuscript book that I really felt
ashamed to copy them all, for I should have filled more than half
yours with my rhymes. I have just added to those I did transcribe a
sonnet I wrote on Monday night after the play.
It may have been that the execution of "Faust," his masterpiece,
disinclined Retsch for the treatment of another love story. He did
subsequently illustrate "Romeo and Juliet" with much grace and beauty;
but it is, as a whole, undoubtedly inferior to his illustrations of
Goethe's tragical love story. Retsch's genius was too absolutely German
to allow of his treating anything from any but a German point of view.
Shakespeare, Englishman as he is, has written an Italian "Romeo and
Juliet;" but Retsch's lovers are Teutonic in spite of their costume, and
nowhere, as in the wonderful play, is the Southern passion made manifest
through the Northern thought.
The private theatricals at Bridgewater House were fruitful of serious
consequences to me, and bestowed on me a lasting friendship and an
ephemeral love: the one a source of much pleasure, the other of some
pain. They entailed much intimate intercourse with Lord and Lady Francis
Leveson Gower, afterward Egerton, and finally Earl and Countess of
Ellesmere, who became kind and constant friends of mine. Victor Hugo's
play of "Hernani," full of fine and striking things, as well as of
exaggerations verging on the ludicrous, had been most admirably rendered
into rhymed verse by Lord Ellesmere. His translations from the German
and his English version of "Faust," which was one of the first attempts
to give a poetical rendering in our language of Goethe's masterpiece,
had won him some literary reputation, and his rhymed translation of
"Hernani" was a performance calculated to add to it considerably. He was
a very accomplished and charming person; good and amiable, clever,
cultivated, and full of fine literary and artistic taste. He was
singularly modest and shy, with a gentle diffidence of manner and sweet,
melancholy expression in his handsome face that did no justice to a keen
perception of humor and relish of fun, which nobody who did not know him
intimately would have suspected him of.
Of Lady Ellesmere I have already said that she was a sort of idol of
mine in my girlhood, when first I knew her, and to the end of her life
continued to be an object of my affectionate admiration. She was
excellently conscientious, true, and upright; of a direct and simple
integrity of mind and character which her intercourse with the great
world to which she belonged never impaired, and which made her singular
and unpopular in the artificial society of English high life. Her
appearance always seemed to me strikingly indicative of her mind and
character. The nobly delicate and classical outline of her face, her
pure, transparent complexion, and her clear, fearless eyes were all
outward and visible expressions of her peculiar qualities. Her
beautifully shaped head and fine profile always reminded me of the
Pallas Athene on some antique gem, and the riding cap with the visor,
which she first made fashionable, increased the classical resemblance.
She was curiously wanting in imagination, and I never heard anything
more comically literal than her description of her own utter
_destitution_ of poetical taste. After challenging in vain her
admiration for the great poets of our language, I quoted to her, not
without misgiving, some charmingly graceful and tender lines, addressed
to herself by her husband, and asked her if she did not like those: "Oh
yes," replied she, "I think they are very nice, but you know I think
they would be just as nice _if they were not verses_; and whenever I
hear any poetry that I like at all, I always think how much better I
should like it if it was prose;" an explanation of her taste that
irresistibly reminded me of the delightful Frenchman's sentiment about
spinach: "Je n'aime pas les épinards, et je suis si content que je ne
les aime pas! parce que si je les aimais, j'en mangerais beaucoup, et je
ne peux pas les souffrir."
My intercourse with Lady Ellesmere, which had been a good deal
interrupted during the years I passed out of England, was renewed the
year before her death, when I visited her at Hatchford, where she was
residing in her widowhood, and where I promised her when I left her I
would return and stay with her again, but was never fortunate enough to
do so, her death occurring not long afterward.
During one of my last visits to Worsley Hall, Lord Ellesmere's seat in
Lancashire, Lady Ellesmere had taken me all over the beautiful church
they were building near their house, which was to be his and her final
resting-place. After her death I made a pilgrimage to it for her sake,
and when the service was over and the young members of the family had
left their place of worship near the grave of their parents, I went into
their chapel, where a fine monument with his life-sized effigy in marble
had been dedicated to him by her love, and where close beside it and
below it lay the marble slab on which her name was inscribed.
Our performance at Bridgewater House was highly successful and created a
great sensation, and we repeated it three times for the edification of
the great gay world of London, sundry royal personages included. Two of
our company, Mr. Craven and Mr. St. Aubin, were really good actors; the
rest were of a tolerably decent inoffensiveness. Mrs. Bradshaw, the
charming Maria Tree of earlier days, accepted the few lines that had to
be spoken by Donna Sol's duenna, and delivered the epilogue, which,
besides being very graceful and playful, contains some lines for which I
felt grateful to Lord Ellesmere's kindness, though he had certainly
taken a poet's full license of embellishing his subject in his laudatory
reference to his Donna Sol.
The whole thing amused me very much, and mixed up, as it soon came to be
for me, with an element of real and serious interest, kept up the
atmosphere of nervous excitement in which I was plunged from morning
till night.
The play which Sheridan Knowles came to read to us was "The Hunchback."
He had already produced several successful dramas, of which the most
striking was Virginius, in which Mr. Macready performed the Roman father
so finely. The play Knowles now read to us had been originally taken by
him to Drury Lane in the hope and expectation that Kean would accept the
principal man's part of Master Walter. Various difficulties and
disagreements arising, however, about the piece, the author brought it
to my father; and great was my emotion and delight in hearing him read
it. From the first moment I felt sure that it would succeed greatly, and
that I should be able to do justice to the part of the heroine, and I
was anxious with my father for its production. The verdict of the Green
Room was not, however, nearly as favorable as I had expected; and I was
surprised to find that when the piece was read to the assembled company
it was received with considerable misgiving as to its chance of success.