Granny,
Your affectionate
FANNY.
HARLEY STREET, Friday, 14th, 1842.
DEAR GRANNY,
I find there is every probability of our not leaving England until the
4th of November (several people tell me they have been told so), and
such is the extreme uncertainty of our movements always that it would
not surprise me very violently if we did not go then. I fear, however,
this will not afford me any further glimpses of you; and, indeed, at the
bottom of my heart, I do not wish for any more "last dying speeches and
confessions." To part is very bad, but to keep continually parting is
unendurable.
My sister goes on with the "Semiramide," and her attraction in it
increases. She acts and sings admirably in it, and, all sisterly
prepossessions apart, looks beautiful.
We went the other night to see "As You Like It" at Drury Lane. It was
_painfully_ acted, but the scenery, etc., were charming; and though we
had neither the caustic humor nor poetical melancholy of Jacques, nor
the brilliant wit and despotical fancifulness of the princess
shepherd-boy duly given, we _had_ the warbling of birds, and sheep-bells
tinkling in the distance, to comfort us. I hope it is not profanation to
say, "These should ye have done, and not have left the others undone."
Nevertheless, and in spite of all, the enchantment of Shakespeare's
inventions is such to me that they cannot be marred, let what will be
done to them. As long as those words of profoundest wisdom and those
images of exquisite beauty are but uttered, their own perfection
swallows up all other considerations and impressions with me, and I bear
indifferent and even bad acting of Shakespeare better than most people.
Why did you not make _him_, instead of the stage, the subject of our
discussions together? For his works my enthusiasm grows every year of my
life into a profounder and more wondering love and admiration.
I am grateful for Lord Dacre's offer, though it was not made to me; and,
had it been so, should have closed with it eagerly. To correspond with
one who has seen and known and _thought_ so much is a rare privilege.
Good-bye, dear Granny. Give my love to the girls, and my "duty" to my
lord, and believe me
Your affectionate
FANNY BUTLER.
HARLEY STREET, Friday, 23rd, 1842.
MY DEAR GRANNY,
That last half-hour before we got off from "The Hoo" the other day was a
severe trial to my self-command; but I was anxious not to afflict you,
and I was willing, if possible, to begin the bitter series of partings,
of which the next month will be one succession, with something like
fortitude, however I may end it. Thank you for writing to me, and thank
you for all your kindness to me through these many years, now that you
have _persevered_ in being fond of me....
Do not be anxious about my happiness, my dear friend, but pray for me,
that I maybe enabled to do what is right under all circumstances; and
then it cannot fail to be well with me, whether to outward observation I
am what the world calls happy or not.
Give my affectionate love to Lord Dacre, and thank him for all his
goodness to me and mine. I send my blessing to the girls. I have written
to B----. God bless you all, my kind friends, and make life and its
vicissitudes minister to your happiness hereafter.
You will hear of me, dear Granny, for the girls will write to me, and I
shall answer them, and you will remember, whenever you think of me, how
gratefully and affectionately I must
Ever remain yours,
FANNY BUTLER.
[Lady Dacre saw much trouble in store for me in my intemperate
expression of feeling on the subject of slavery in America, and
repeatedly warned me with affectionate solicitude to moderate, if
not my opinions, the vehement proclamation of them. She was wise and
right, as well as kind in her advice.]
[Extract from a letter of Miss Sedgwick's.]
STOCKBRIDGE, October 26th, 1842.
You have no doubt heard and lamented the death of our dear friend, Dr.
Channing. Dead he is not; he lives, and will live in the widespreading
life he has communicated. He passed the summer at Lenox, occupying with
his family your rooms at the hotel. We passed some hours of every day
together. He enjoyed our lovely hill country with the freshness of
youth, his health was invigorated, and his mind freer, and his spirits
more buoyant than I ever knew them; he endured more fatigue than he had
been able to encounter since he travelled in Switzerland fifteen years
ago. His affectionateness, purity, simplicity--a simplicity so perfect
that it seemed divine--surrounded his greatness with an atmosphere of
light and beauty. His life has been a most prosperous one, no storms
without, and a heavenly calm within. His last work in his office was a
discourse which he delivered in our village church on the 1st of August,
on the emancipation of the slaves in the British West Indies. I shall
send it to you, and pray mark the prophetic invocation with which it
concludes. You should have seen the inspired expression of his
intellectual brow, and the earnest, spiritual look that seemed to
penetrate the clouds that hang over the eternal world and to reflect its
light. On the Sundays of his sojourn with us he had domestic worship in
our houses, and his last service was in that apartment where his beloved
friend Follen officiated....
Eliza Follen is recovering the elasticity of her mind. Time can, I
think, do all things, since it has dissipated that horrible image of the
burning steamer in which her husband perished, that was ever before her.
She is publishing his Memoirs, and, among other things, she read me some
patriotic songs which he wrote in Sand's time in Germany; they were in
the boldest tone of insurrection, and were, of course, proscribed and
suppressed. She had heard her husband occasionally hum a stanza or two
of them, and he had once written out a single one for her which she
found in her work-basket. This she transmitted to his mother in Germany,
and with this clue alone the mother obtained the rest; and eloquent
outbreakings they are of a spirit glowing with freedom and humanity....
I have passed lately a day at our State Lunatic Asylum. On my first
going there, in the evening the physician invited me into the
dancing-hall, where some sixty of the patients were assembled. The two
musicians were patients, one utterly _demented_, incapable of any
reasonable act except playing a tune on his violin, which he did with
accuracy. Except the doctor's children (as beautiful as cherubs, and
ministering angels they are), there were no sane persons among the
dancers. "There," said the physician, "is a homicide; there, a poor girl
who went crazy the day after her brother drowned himself, and who
fancies herself that brother; there, the King of England," etc. They
were all dancing with the utmost decorum and regularity. They attend
chapel on a Sunday without disturbance; they were all (among them
maniacs who had been for half a score of years chained in dungeons of
our common gaols) "clothed," and, if "not in their right mind,"
comfortable and cheerful; they _all_ had plants in their rooms and books
on their tables. Much depends on individual character, and the physician
is, as you would expect, a man of the highest moral power, and the very
embodiment of the spirit of benevolence, and if poetry and painting had
laid their heads together to give him a fitting form, they could have
done nothing better than nature has. My heart was ready to burst with
gratitude. Who can say the world does not move some forward steps?
CLARENDON HOTEL, November 6th, 1842.
DEAR GRANNY,
You know that it is now determined that we do not sail by the next
steamer....
Dearest Granny, do not you, any more than I do, reckon which love is
best worth having, of young or old love; for all love is _inestimable_,
and should be gratefully rendered thanks for. There is something
charming and _pathetic_ in the _profusion_ with which the young love; it
is touching, as one of the magnificent superabundances, one of the
generous extravagances, of their prodigal time of life. But the love of
the old is as precious as the beggared widow's mite; and in bestowing it
they know what they give, from a store that day by day diminishes. The
affections of the young are as sudden and soft, as bright and bounteous,
as copious and capricious as the showers of spring; the love of the old
is the one drop in the cruse, which outlasts the journey through the
desert.
You may perhaps see in the papers a statement of the disastrous winding
up of the season at Covent Garden, or rather its still more disastrous
abrupt termination. After our all protesting and remonstrating with all
our might against my father's again being involved in that
Heaven-forsaken concern, and receiving the most positive and solemn
assurances from those who advised him into it for the sake of having his
name at the head of it that _no_ responsibility or liability whatever
should rest upon or be incurred by him; and that if the thing did not
turn out prosperously, it should be put an end to, and the theatre
immediately closed;--they have gone on, in spite of night after night of
receipts below the expenses, and now are obliged suddenly to shut up
shop, my poor father being, as it turns out, personally involved for a
considerable sum.
This, as you will well believe, is no medicine for his malady. I spend
every evening with him, and generally see him in the morning besides.
These last few days he suffers less acute pain, but complains more of
debility, and hardly leaves his sofa, where he lies silent, with his
eyes closed, apparently absorbed in painful sensations and reflections.
Yet, though he neither speaks to nor looks at me, he likes to have me
there; and, as Horace Twiss said, "to hear the scissors fall" now and
then, by way of companionship; and certainly derives some comfort from
the mere consciousness of my presence.
My sister has gone to Brighton for a few days, her health having quite
given way, what with hard work and harder worry. She returns on Monday,
but it is extremely doubtful whether she will resume her performances at
all, so that I fear the expectations of the clan Cavendish will be
disappointed.
She did act most charmingly in the "Matrimonio Segreto." In point of
fact, her comic acting is more perfect than her tragic, although there
are not in it, and naturally cannot be, the same striking exhibitions of
dramatic power; but it is smoother, more even, better finished.
You must get Lady Callcott's "Scripture Herbal." Lady Grey lent it me,
and I read it with great pleasure. It is an interesting, graceful, and
learned work, which she has illustrated very exquisitely. There is
something very sweet and soothing in the idea of last thoughts having
been thus devoted to what is loveliest in nature and holiest in
religion.
God bless you, dear Granny. Give my love to the lasses, and my
affectionate "duty" to my lord; and believe me
Your loving grandchild,
F. A. B.
[Our departure for America was indefinitely postponed, and the
American nurse I had brought to England with my children left me and
returned home alone.]
THE CLARENDON, Monday, November 28th, 1842.
MY DEAREST GRANNY,
I duly delivered your message, and am desired to tell you that a house
is being looked for for us in your neighborhood, and that, as soon as
one is found that we think you will approve of, it will be taken.
Moreover, I am desired to add that the expensive reputation of the
Clarendon is very much exaggerated.... We have been here a fortnight
to-day, and I think there is every probability of our being here at
least a fortnight longer, even if we get away then.... My father suffers
less acutely these last few days, but his debility appears to increase
with the decrease of his positive pain....
My sister returned from Brighton to-day, completely set up again; she is
to go on with her performances till Christmas, when the whole concern
passes into the hands of Mr. Bunn, who perhaps is qualified to manage
it.
I think I should like to _act_ with my sister during this month, in
order to secure their salaries to the actors, to make up the deficit
which now lies at the door of my father's management, to put a good
benefit into his poor pocket, to give rather a more cheerful ending to
my sister's theatrical career, and, though last, not least, for the
pleasure and _fun_ of acting with her. Don't you think we should have
good houses? and wouldn't _you_ come and see us?...
God bless you, dear Granny.
Ever your affectionate
F. A. B.
THE CLARENDON, December 1st, 1842.
MY DEAREST HARRIET,
Lord Titchfield, who was here yesterday, begged me to ascertain from you
whether it is only _my_ bust that you desire, or whether you would like
to have casts from my father's and from the two of Adelaide. Write me
word, dear, that the magnificent marquis may fulfil your wishes, which
he is only waiting to know in order to send the one or the four heads to
you in Ireland....
My sister returned from Brighton on Monday, apparently quite recovered;
in good looks, good voice, and good spirits. The horrible mess in which
everybody is mixed up who has anything to do with Covent Garden, and in
which she is so deeply involved, renewed her annoyances and vexations
immediately on her arrival in town; but I passed the evening with her
yesterday, and she did not seem the worse for work or worry, for she
sang, for her own pleasure and that of her guests, the whole evening....
Give my kind remembrances to all your people, and believe me
Ever yours,
FANNY.
[The Marquis of Titchfield was employing the French sculptor Dantan
to make busts of my father, my sister, and myself, for him; and most
kindly gave me casts of them all, and sent my friend Miss St. Leger
a cast of mine.]
THE CLARENDON, January 5th, 1843.
DEAREST HAL,
I have sent your wishes to Lord Titchfield, and I am sure they will be
quickly complied with. I have no idea that he means otherwise than to
_give_ you my bust; any other species of transaction being apparently
quite out of his line, and _giving_ his especial gift. I have,
nevertheless, taken pains to make clear to him your intentions in the
matter; I have desired him to have the bust forwarded to the care of Mr.
Green, because I thought you would easily find means of transporting it
thence to Ardgillan. Was this right?
The houses at Covent Garden are quite full on my sister's nights, but
deplorably empty on the others, I believe. I speak from hearsay, for I
have not been into the theatre since the terrible business of the late
break-up there, and do not think I shall even see her last performances,
for I have no means of doing so; I can no longer ask for private boxes,
as during my father's management, of course, nor indeed would it be
right for me to do so on her nights, because they all let very well; and
as for paying for one, or even for a seat in the public ones, I have not
a single farthing in the world to apply to such a purpose.... So you
see, my dear, I am in no case to treat myself to seats at the play,
either private or public.
Adelaide is still pretty well. The night before last was her benefit;
she had a very fine house, and sang "Norma," and the great scene from
"Der Freyschuetz," and "Auld Robin Gray;" and yesterday evening she
seemed very tired, but she had people to dinner and to tea
nevertheless....
Certainly one had need believe in something better than one sees, or at
any rate than I see just now; for such petty selfishnesses and
despicable aims, pursued with all the energy and eagerness which should
be bestowed upon the highest alone; such cheating, tricking, swindling,
lying, and slandering, are enough to turn any Christian cat's
stomach....
I must tell you two things about Miss Hall that have given me such an
insight into the delights of the position of an English governess as I
certainly never had before. When first she joined us here at the
Clarendon, Anne was still with us, and she being always accustomed to
take her meals with the children, and yet of course not a proper
companion for Miss Hall, we thought that till the nurse went to America
we would request the governess to dine with us. On Anne's departure, I
signified to the head waiter that from that time Miss Hall would take
her dinner with the children; whereupon, with a smirk and sniff of the
most insolent disdain, and an air of dignity that had been hurt, but was
now comforted, the bloated superior servant replied, "Well, ma'am, to be
sure, it always was so in _them famullies_ where I have lived; the
governess never didn't eat at the table." The fact is natural, and the
reason obvious, but oh! my dear, the manner of the fat, pampered
porpoise of a man-menial was too horrid. Then, on going for a candle
into Miss Hall's room one evening, I found she had been provided with
tallow ones, and, upon remonstrating about it with the chambermaid, she
replied (with a courtesy at every other word to me), "Oh, ma'am, we
always puts _tallow_ for the governesses."
Good-bye, dear. God bless you.
Ever yours,
FANNY.
CRANFORD HOUSE, January 8th, 1843.
DEAREST HAL,
I am spending two days at Cranford--you know, I believe, where I mean,
old Lady Berkeley's place.... I came to get the refreshment of the
country; old Lady Berkeley is very kind to me, and I like her daughters,
Lady Mary particularly. I came down yesterday (Saturday), and shall
return early to-morrow, for on Wednesday the children are to have a
party of their little friends, and I am making a Christmas-tree for them
(rather out of date), and expect to be exceedingly busy both to-morrow
and Tuesday in preparing for their amusement.
My father does not suffer nearly as much pain as he did a short time
ago, but his strength appears to me to be gradually diminishing....
[Our return to America being once more indefinitely postponed, we
now took a house in Upper Grosvenor Street, close to Hyde Park, to
which we removed from the Clarendon, my sister residing very near
us, in Chapel Street, Grosvenor Square.]
26, UPPER GROSVENOR STREET, Wednesday, March 1st, 1843.
Thank you, my dear T----, for your attention to our interests and
affairs.... It seems to me that to have to accept the conviction of the
unworthiness of those we love must be even worse than to lay our dearest
in the earth, for we may believe that they have risen into the bosom of
God. However, each human being's burden is the one whose weight must
seem the heaviest to himself, and He alone who lays them on proportions
them to our strength and enables us to walk upright beneath them....
[Extract from a letter from Miss Sedgwick.]
NEW YORK, March 3rd, 1843.
The great topic with us just now is the trial of Mackenzie, of whom, as
the chief actor in the tragedy of the "Somers," you must have heard.
Some of your journals cry out upon him, but, as we think, only the
organs of that hostile inhuman spirit that bad minds try to keep alive
on both sides of the water. His life has been marked with courage and
humanity; all enlightened and unperverted, I may say all sane opinion
with us, is in his favor. After the most honorable opinion from the
Court of Inquiry, he is now under trial by court-martial, demanded by
his friends to save him from a civil suit. S----, the father of the Ohio
mutineer, is a man of distinguished talent, of education, and head of
the War Department, but a vindictive and unscrupulous man. He is using
every means to ruin Mackenzie, to revenge the death of a son,
Heaven-forsaken from the beginning of his days, and whose maturest acts
(he died at nineteen) were robbing his mother's jewel-case and stealing
money from his father's desk. My nephew is acting as Mackenzie's
counsel, and his wife, a Roman wife and mother, is a friend of mine....
I heard a story the other day, "a true one," that I treasured for you as
racy, as characteristic of slavery and human nature. A most notoriously
atrocious, dissolute, _hellish_ slave-owner died, and one of his
slaves--an old woman--said to a lady, "Massa prayed God so to forgive
him! Oh, how he prayed! And I am afraid God heard him; they say He's so
good."
UPPER GROSVENOR STREET, April 17th, 1843.
MY DEAR T----,
I have executed your commission with regard to two of the books you
desired me to get, but the modern Italian work, published in 1840, in
Florence, and the "Mariana" of 1600, I am very much afraid I shall not
be able to procure; the first because it would be necessary to send to
Florence for it, which could very easily be done, but then I shouldn't
be here to receive it; and the second, the copy of "Mariana," of the
edition you specify, because Bohn assures me that it is extremely rare,
having been suppressed on account of the king-killing doctrines it
inculcates, and the subsequent editions being all garbled and incorrect.
As you particularly specified that of 1600, of course I would not take
any other, and shall still make further attempts to procure that, though
Panizzi, the librarian of the British Museum, and Macaulay, who are both
friends of mine, and whom I consulted about it, neither of them gave me
much encouragement as to my eventual success. The "Filangieri" and
Buchanan will arrive with me. I would send them to G---- A----, but
that, as we return on the 4th of May, I think there is every reason to
expect that we shall be in America first.
So much for your commission. With regard to your complaint that I give
you nothing to do, I think you will have found that fault amended in my
last communication, wherein I request you to accept my father's power of
attorney, and undertake to watch over his interests in the New Orleans
Bank....
As for people's comments on me or my actions, I have not lived on the
stage to be cowardly as well as bold; and being decidedly bold, "I thank
God," as Audrey might say, that I am not cowardly, which is my only
answer to the suggestion of "people saying," etc.
For a year and a half past I have been perfectly wretched at our
protracted stay in Europe, and as often as possible have protested
against our prolonged sojourn here, and all the consequences involved in
it. This being the case, "people" attributing our remaining here to me
troubles me but little, particularly as I foresaw from the first that
that must inevitably be the result of our doing so.
I seldom read the newspapers, and therefore have not followed any of the
details of this Mackenzie trial. The original transaction, and his own
report of it, I read with amazement; more particularly the report, the
framing and wording of which appeared to me utterly irreconcilable with
the fact of his having written, as Lord Ashburton informed me, a very
pleasing book, of which certainly the style must have been very
different. He, Lord Ashburton, spoke of him as though he knew him, and
gave him the same character of gentleness and single-mindedness that you
do.
Although our return to America will be made under circumstances of every
possible annoyance and anxiety, it gives me heartfelt pleasure to think
I shall soon see all my good friends there again, among whom you and
yours are first in my regard....
Butler Place is to be let, if possible, and at any rate we are certainly
not to go back to it; whereat my poor little S---- cries bitterly, and I
feel a tightening at the heart, to think that the only place which I
have known as a _home_ in America is not what I am to return to.... The
transfer of that New Orleans stock by my father to me--I mean the law
papers necessary for the purpose--cost L50 sterling. England is a dear
country many ways.
Ellsler is in London now, and, I am assured by those who know, _diviner_
than ever. I think her gone off both in looks and dancing. That rascal
W---- has robbed her of the larger portion of her earnings. What a nice
lover to have!
Believe me ever
Yours most truly,
F. A. B.
April 15th 1843.
MY DEAREST HAL,
You must not scold if there are letters missing in my words this week,
for I have enough to do and to think of, as you well know, to put half
the letters of the alphabet out of my head for the next twelvemonth....