you something comically characteristic both of the individual and her
nation. Here at Bowood she eats alone with the children, as she has been
in the habit of doing at home; but at Worsley the little ones dined with
us at our luncheon-table, and she ate in the housekeeper's room. Not
knowing myself exactly what would be the place assigned to an American
nursery-maid in the society of the servants' hall at Worsley, I inquired
of her whether she was comfortable and well-treated. She said, "Oh, yes,
perfectly well;" but there seemed to me by her manner to be something or
other amiss, and upon my inquiring further, she said, "Well, then, Mrs.
Butler, I'll tell you what it is: I do wish they'd let me dine at the
lower table. Everything is very good and very fine, to be sure, and the
people are very kind and civil to me, but I cannot bear to have men in
livery and maid-servants standing up behind my chair waiting on me, and
that's the truth of it." She said this with an air of such sincere
discomfort that it was quite evident to me that if, in common with her
countrymen, she thought herself "as good as anybody," she certainly was
not seduced by the glories of the upper table into forgetting that any
one was as good as she.
I was spared the discomfort of having the children in another house; for
either Lady Francis has fewer guests than she expected, or she had
contrived to manage better than she had supposed she could, for they
were lodged under the same roof with me, and quite near enough for
comfort or convenience....
Thank you for your kindness in copying that account of Cavanagh for me;
thank you, too, for Archbishop Whately's book, which I read immediately.
There is nothing in it that I have not read before, nor certainly
anything whatever to alter my opinion that the accumulation of enormous
wealth in the hands of individuals who transmit it to their eldest sons,
who inherit it without either mental or physical exertion of theirs, is
an inevitable source of moral evil. There was nothing in that book to
shake my opinion that hereditary idleness and luxury are not good for
the country where they exist. An opinion was expressed in general
conversation by almost everybody at Worsley which suggested a conclusion
to my mind that did not appear to occur to any one else. In speaking of
the education of young English boys at our great public schools, the
whole system pursued in those institutions was condemned as bad; but on
all sides, nevertheless, admitted to be better (at any rate, for the
sons of noblemen) than the incessant, base, excessive complaisance and
flattery of their servants and dependents, from which they all said that
it was impossible to screen them in their own homes, and equally
impossible that they should not suffer serious moral evil. Lord Francis
said that for a lad like his nephew, the Marquis of Stafford, there was
but one thing worse than being educated at Eton, and that was being
educated at home; therefore, concluded they all in chorus, we send our
boys to our public schools. So the children are sent away lest they
should be corrupted by the obsequious servants and luxurious habits and
general mode of life of their parents. And this, of course, is one of
the inevitable results of distinctions of classes and hereditary wealth
and influence; it is not one of the good ones, but there are better.
God bless you, dearest Harriet. I wrote to you yesterday, and shall
probably do so again to-morrow.
Ever yours,
FANNY.
HARLEY STREET, LONDON, Sunday, December 26th, 1841.
DEAR HARRIET,
I must tell you a droll little incident that occurred the day of our
leaving Bowood. As I was crossing the great hall, holding little F----
by the hand, Lord Lansdowne and Moore, who were talking at the other
end, came towards me, and, while the former expressed kind regrets at
our departure, Moore took up the child and kissed her, and set her down
again; when she clutched hold of my gown, and trotted silently out of
the hall by my side. As the great red door closed behind us, on our way
to my rooms, she said, in a tone that I thought indicated some stifled
sense of offended dignity, "Pray, mamma, who was dat little dentleman?"
Now, Harriet, though Moore's fame is great, his stature is little, and
my belief is that my three-year-old daughter was suffering under an
impression that she had been taken a liberty with by some enterprising
schoolboy. Oh, Harriet! think if one of his own Irish rosebuds of
sixteen had received that poet's kiss, how long it would have been
before she would have washed that side of her face! I believe if he had
bestowed it upon me, I would have kept mine from water for its sake,
till--bed-time. Indeed, when first "Lalla Rookh" came out, I think I
might have made a little circle on that cheek, and dedicated it to Tom
Moore and dirt forever; that is--till I forgot all about it, and my
habit of plunging my face into water whenever I dress got the better of
my finer feelings. But, you see, he didn't kiss my stupid little child's
intelligent mother, and this is the way that fool Fortune misbestows her
favors. She is spiteful, too, that whirligig woman with the wheel. I am
not an autograph collector, of course; if I was, I shouldn't have got
the prize I received yesterday, when Rogers, after mending a pen for me,
and tenderly caressing the nib of it with a knife as sharp as his own
tongue, wrote, in his beautiful, delicate, fine hand, by way of trying
it--
"The path of sorrow, and that path alone,
Leads to the land where sorrow is unknown."
Is that a quotation from himself or some one else? or was it an
impromptu?--a seer's vision, and friend's warning? Chi sa?
I cannot help being a little surprised at the earnestness with which you
implore me to read Archbishop Whately's treatise. My objection to
reading of books never extends to any book either given or lent, or
strongly recommended to me. I am so fond of reading that I care very
little what I read, so well satisfied am I with the movement and
activity which even the stupidest, shallowest book rouses in my mind.
With regard to the little work in question, you probably thought the
subject might not interest me, and therefore I should neglect it. The
subject, _i.e._, political economy, interests me so little that, though
I have read at various times and in sundry places publications of the
same nature with much attention, they, in common with other books on
other subjects for which I do not care, have left not the slightest
trace upon my memory; at least, until I come to read the matter all over
again, when my knowledge of it reappears, as it were, on the surface of
my mind, though it had seemed to me to run through my brain like water
through a sieve.
I have no doubt that from my mode of talking of different peoples, under
various systems of government, you would not suspect me of having ever
looked into the simplest treatise on political economy and similar
subjects; but I have read most of the popular expositions of those grave
matters that the press now daily puts forth; but as they, for the most
part, deal with things as they _are_, and my cogitations are chiefly as
to things as they _should be_, I do not find my studies avail me much. I
believe I wrote you word after reading the book you sent me, and
thinking it a very excellent abridged exposition of such subjects; I
still could not understand what it had to do with the theory of laws for
the division of property, or the expediency of the law of primogeniture,
and the advantages of the distinctions of rank, to the societies where
they exist. The question seems to me rather whether these remains of
feudalism have or have not outlived their uses.
By-the-by, in taking off the cover in which you had wrapped the book, I
did not perceive that you had written upon it until I had thrown it into
the fire. I assure you that at the moment I was a great deal sorrier
than if the worthy little volume itself had been grilling on the top of
the coals.
We returned here on Friday, and found my father and Adelaide going on
much as usual. Half a score of invitations, of one sort and another,
waiting for us, and London, with its grim visage, looking less lovely
than ever after the sweet, tender, wintry beauty of Bowood; where one
walked, for a whole morning at a time, among hollies and laurels and
glittering evergreens, which, by the help of the sunshine we enjoyed
while we were there, gave the lie triumphant to the dead season.
I have been nurse almost all the day. Anne, who, poor girl! has had a
long fast from her devotional privileges, went to church, and I walked
with the children to the broad gravel walk in the Regent's Park, where I
took that "exercise of agony" with you one afternoon; the day was much
the same too, bright and sunny above, and exceedingly muddy and hateful
under foot. The servants having their Christmas dinner to-day, I offered
to take entire charge of the children, if Anne liked to join the party
downstairs. She affably condescended, and they prolonged the social
meal, or their after-dinner converse, for considerably more than two
hours. Since that, I have been reading to S----, and it is now time for
me to dress for dinner.
Adelaide and I dined _tete-a-tete_ to-day; my father dined with Miss
Cottin. I have refused, because it is Sunday; Adelaide, because she is
lazy; but she means to make the effort to go in the evening, and I shall
go to bed early, and very glad I shall be to shut up shop, for this has
been a very heavy day. How well nurses ought to be paid!
God bless you, dear Harriet.
Ever yours,
FANNY.
HARLEY STREET, Tuesday, December 28th, 1841.
MY DEAREST HARRIET,
I wrote you two long letters from Bowood, and one crossed note since I
came back to town; yet in a letter I get from you this morning you ask
me when your letters are "coming to the top" [of my packet of "my
letters to be answered," to which I always replied in the succession in
which they reached me]; at which, I confess, I feel not a little
dismayed. However, it is to be hoped that you will get them sooner or
later, and that, in this world or the next, you will discover that I
wrote to you two such letters, at such a time....
How can you ask me if I _play fair_ with my letters? Are you not sure
that I do? and, whatever may be the case with my better qualities, are
not my follies substantial, reliable, consistent, constant follies, that
are pretty sure to be found where you left them?
Good-bye, my dearest Harriet. I am terribly out of spirits, but it is
near bed-time, and the day will soon be done....
God bless you, dear. Give my kindest love to Dorothy. I am thinking of
your return with earnest longing.... As we passed the evening at the Hen
and Chickens, in the same room where I began reading you "Les Maitres
Mosaistes," on our return through Birmingham from the lately formed
association, your image was naturally very vivid in our memories.
I am ever yours,
FANNY.
HARLEY STREET, December 28th, 1841.
DEAREST GRANNY,
[This was an affectionate nickname that my friend Lady Dacre assumed
towards me, and by which I frequently addressed her], I do not mean this
time to tax your forgiveness of injuries quite so severely as before,
though you really have such a pretty knack of generosity that it's a
pity not to give you an opportunity of exercising it.
Here we are again in our Harley Street abode, which, by favor of the
fogs, smokes, and various lovely December complexions of London, looks
but grimly after the evergreen shrubberies and bowers of Bowood, which I
saw the evening before I came away to peculiar advantage, under the
light of an unclouded moon. I left there the goodliest company
conceivable: Rogers, Moore, Macaulay, Charles Austen, Mr. Dundas,
Charles Greville, and Westmacott: so much for the mankind. Then there
was dear old Miss Fox [Lord Holland's sister], whom I love, and Lady
Harriet Baring [afterwards Lady Ashburton], whom I do not love, which
does not prevent her being a very clever woman; and that exceedingly
pretty and intelligent Baroness Louis Rothschild, et cetera. It was a
brilliant party, but they were all so preternaturally witty and wise
that, to tell you the truth, dear Granny, they occasionally gave me the
mind-ache.
As for Macaulay, he is like nothing in the world but Bayle's Dictionary,
continued down to the present time, and purified from all objectionable
matter. Such a Niagara of information did surely never pour from the
lips of mortal man!
I think our pilgrimages are pretty well over for the present, unless the
Duke of Rutland should remember a particularly courteous invitation he
gave us to go to Belvoir some time about Christmas--a summons which we
should very gladly obey, as I suppose there are not many finer places in
England or out of it.
I am sorry you have parted with Forrester [a horse Lady Dacre had named
after a favorite horse of mine]; I liked to fancy my dear old horse's
namesake at the Hoo.
Give my love to Lord Dacre, and my well-beloved B---- and G---- [Lady
Dacre's granddaughters]. I am glad the former is dancing, because I like
it so much myself. I look forward to seeing you all in the spring, and
in the mean time remain, dear Granny,
Yours most affectionately,
FANNY.
[I became subsequently well acquainted with Lord Macaulay, but no
familiarity ever diminished my admiration of his vast stores of
knowledge, or my amazement at his abundant power of communicating
them.
In my visits to the houses of my friends, alike those with whom I
was most and least intimate, I always passed a great deal of my time
in my own room, and never remained in the drawing-room until after
dinner, having a decided inclination for solitude in the morning and
society in the evening. I used, however, to look in during the
course of the day, upon whatever circle might be gathered in the
drawing or morning rooms, for a few minutes at a time, and remember,
on this occasion of my meeting Macaulay at Bowood, my amazement at
finding him always in the same position on the hearth-rug, always
talking, always answering everybody's questions about everything,
always pouring forth eloquent knowledge; and I used to listen to him
till I was breathless with what I thought ought to have been _his_
exhaustion.
As one approached the room, the loud, even, declamatory sound of his
voice made itself heard like the uninterrupted flow of a fountain.
He stood there from morning till evening, like a knight in the
lists, challenging and accepting the challenge of all comers. There
never was such a speech-"power," and as the volume of his voice was
full and sonorous, he had immense advantages in sound as well as
sense over his adversaries. Sydney Smith's humorous and good-humored
rage at his prolific talk was very funny. Rogers's, of course, was
not good-humored; and on this very occasion, one day at breakfast,
having two or three times uplifted his thread of voice and fine
incisive speech against the torrent of Macaulay's holding forth,
Lord Lansdowne, the most courteous of hosts, endeavored to make way
for him with a "You were saying, Mr. Rogers?" when Rogers hissed
out, "Oh, what I was saying will keep!"
I have spoken of Macaulay's discourse as a torrent; it was rather
like the smooth and copious stream of the Aqua Paola, a comparison
which it constantly suggested to me; the resonant, ceaseless, noble
volume of water, the great fountain perpetually poured forth, was
like the sonorous sound and affluent flow of his abundant speech,
and the wide, eventful Roman plain, with all its thronging memories
of past centuries, seen from the Janiculum, was like the vast and
varied horizon of his knowledge, forever swept by his prodigious
memory.]
HARLEY STREET, Wednesday, December 29th, 1841.
MY DEAREST HARRIET,
Just imagine my ecstasy in answering your last letter, dated the 24th! I
actually _do up_ the whole of that everlasting bundle of letters, which
is a sort of waking nightmare to me.
I have been within two or three of the last for the last week, and
having seldom seen myself so very near the end, I had a perfect fever of
desire to exist, if only for a day, without having a single letter to
answer. And now that I have tossed into the fire a note of Charles
Greville's, which I have just replied to, and have unfolded your last
and do the same by it, _i.e._ answer and burn it, the yellow silk cord
that bound that ominous bundle of obligations lies empty on the
inkstand, and I feel like Charles Lamb escaping from his India House
clerkship, a perfect lord, or rather lady, of unlimited leisure.
You ask me if I think letters will go on to be answered in eternity?
That supposition, my dear, involves the ideas of absence and epistolary
labor, both of which may be included in the torments of the damned, but,
according to my notions of heaven, there will be no letter-_writing_
there. As, however, the receiving of letters is, in my judgment, a
pleasure extremely worthy to be numbered among the enjoyments of the
blessed, I conclude that letters will occasionally come _to_ heaven, and
always be written in--the other place; so perhaps our correspondence may
continue hereafter. Who the writer and who the receiver shall be remains
to be proved (it's my belief that the use of pen and ink would have made
any one of the circles of the Inferno tolerable to you); and in any
case, those are epistles that it is not necessary to antedate. Klopstock
wrote and published--did he not?--letters which he wrote to his wife
Meta in heaven. The answers are not extant; perhaps they were in an
inferior style, humanly speaking, and he considerately suppressed them.
But to speak seriously, you forget in your query one of the principal
doubts that exercise my mind, _i.e._, whether there will be any
continuation of communion at all hereafter between those who have been
friends on earth; whether the relations of human beings to each other
here are not merely a part of our spiritual experience, that portion of
the education and progress of our souls that will terminate with this
phase of our existence and be succeeded by other influences, new ones,
fitted as these former have been to our (new) needs and conditions, by
the Great Governor of our being. He alone knows; He will provide for
them....
The Coutts and Lord Strangford business (a dirty piece of money-scandal)
is nice enough, but I heard a still _nicer_ sequel to it at Bowood the
other day. The gentlemen of the party were discussing the matter, and
seemed all agreed upon the subject of Lord Strangford's innocence; but
while declaring unanimously that the accusation was unfounded and
unwarrantable, they added it was not half as bad as an attack of the
same sort made by one of the papers upon Lords Normanby and Canterbury,
which, after much discussion, was supposed to have been dictated
entirely by political animosity; the sole motive assigned for the
selection of those two men as the objects of such an odious accusation
being the fact of their personal want of popularity, and also that they
were known to be needy men, whose fortunes were considerably crippled by
their extravagance.
Of course, lie-makers must make plausibility one element of their craft;
but this did seem a pleasant specimen of the manufacture. To be sure, I
am bound to add that this account came from Whigs, and the attack was
made by a Tory paper upon two members of the ex-Government; so you may
believe it or not, according as you are Whig or Tory inclined to-day
(that is to say, the motives assigned); the attack itself is not matter
of doubt, having been visibly printed in one or more of the Tory papers.
Both parties, however, have, I suppose, their staff of appointed
technical and professional liars.
Good-bye, dear.
Ever yours,
FANNY.
HARLEY STREET, Thursday, December 30th, 1841.
DEAREST HARRIET,
... I am a little surprised at your writing to me about my rule of
correspondence as you do, because in several instances when you have
particularly desired me to answer you immediately, I have done so; and
should always do so, not by you alone, but by any one who requested an
immediate reply to a letter. If it were in my power to answer such a
communication on the same day, I should certainly do it, and, under such
circumstances, always have done so. As for my _rule_ of letter-writing,
absurd as some of its manifestations undoubtedly are, it is not, I
think, absurd _per se_; and I adopted it as more likely to result in
justice to _all_ my correspondents than any other I could follow. I have
a great dislike to letter-writing, and, were I to consult my own
disinclination, instead of answering letter for letter with the most
scrupulous conscientiousness as I do, even the persons I love best would
be very apt to hear from me once or twice a year, and perhaps,
indulgence increasing the incapacity and disinclination to write (as the
example of every member of my own family shows it must), I should
probably end by never writing at all.
I have always thought it most desirable to answer letters on the same
day that I received them; but, of course, this is not always possible;
and my rather numerous correspondence causing often a rapid accumulation
of letters, I have thought, when such an _arrearage_ took place, the
fittest thing to do was to answer first those received first, and so
discharge my debts justly in point of time. With regard to replying to
questions contained in letters received some time back, my
scrupulousness has to do with my own convenience, as well as my
correspondents' gratification. Writing as much as I do, I am, as
Rosalind calls it, "gravelled for matter" occasionally, and in that
emergency a specific question to answer becomes a real godsend; and, my
cue once given me, I can generally contrive to fill my paper. I do not
think you know how much I dislike letter-writing, and what an effort it
sometimes costs me, when my spirits are at the lowest ebb, and my mind
so engrossed with disheartening contemplations, that any exertions (but
violent physical ones, which are my salvation for the most part) appear
intolerable.
But I ought to tell you about our journey from Bowood, which threatened
to be more adventurous than agreeable. We did, as you suppose, come down
the railroad only a few hours after the occurrence of the accident. When
we started from Chippenham, some surprise was expressed by the guards
and railroad officials that the early train from London had not yet come
up. Farther on, coming to a place where there was but one track, we were
detained half an hour, from the apprehension that, as the other train
had not yet come up, we might, by going upon the single line, encounter
it, and the collision occasion some terrible accident. After waiting
about half an hour, and ascertaining (I suppose) that the other train
was not coming, we proceeded, and soon learned what had retarded it. On
the spot where the accident took place the bank had made a tremendous
slide; numbers of workmen were busy in removing the earth from the
track; the engine, which had been arrested in its course by this
impediment, was standing half on the line, half on the bank; planks and
wheels and fragments of wood were strewed all round; and a crowd of
people, with terrified eager faces, were gazing about in that vague love
of excitement which makes sights and places of catastrophes, to a
certain degree, delectable to human beings.
I cannot help thinking, dear Harriet, that this sad accident, sad enough
as I admit it to be for the relations and friends of the dead, was not
so particularly terrible as far as the individuals themselves were
concerned. God only knows how I may feel when I am struck, either in my
own life or that of any one I love; but hitherto death has not appeared
to me the awful calamity that people generally seem to consider it. The
purpose of life alone, time wherein to do God's will, makes it sacred. I
do not think it _pleasant_ enough to wish to keep it for a single
instant, without the idea of the _duty_ of living, since God has bid us
live. The only thought which makes me shrink from the notion of suicide
is the apprehension that to this life another _might_ succeed, as full
of storm, of strife, of disappointment, difficulty, and unrest as this;
and with that uncertainty overshadowing it, death has not much to
recommend it. It is poor Hamlet's "perchance" that is the knot of the
whole question, never here to be untied.