parsonage, or church, but by numerous small isolated farm-houses, their
white walls gleaming in the intense sunlight from amidst the trim
verdure of their orchards, and their large barns and granaries surveying
complacently far and wide the abundant harvests that are to be gathered
into their capacious walls. The comfort, solidity, loneliness, and
inelegance, not to say ugliness, of these rural dwellings is highly
characteristic, the latter quality being to a certain degree modified by
distance; the others represent very pleasingly, in the midst of the
prosperous prospect, the best features of the institutions which govern
the land--security, freedom, independence.
There is nothing visibly picturesque or poetical in the whole scene;
nothing has a hallowed association for memory, or an exciting historical
interest, or a charm for the imagination. But under this bright and
ever-shining sky the objects and images that the eye encounters are all
cheerful, pleasing, peaceful, and satisfactorily suggestive of the
blessings of industry and the secure repose of modest, moderate
prosperity.
Dearest Granny, I had not intended to cross my letter to you; but the
young ones will decipher the scrawl for you, and I flatter myself that
you will not object to my filling my paper as full as it will hold.
These four small pages, even when they are crossed, make but a poor
amount of communication compared with the full and frequent personal
intercourse I have enjoyed with you.
What a shocking mess you are all making of it in Ireland just now! I
hear too that you are threatened with bad crops. Should this be true, I
do not wonder at my lord's croaking, for what will the people do?
The water we bathe in here is strongly impregnated with iron, and so
cold that very few people go into the spring itself. I do: and when the
thermometer is at 98 deg. in the shade, a plunge into water below 50 deg. is
something of a shock. B---- would like it, and so do I. Will you give my
affectionate remembrance to my lord, and
Believe me always, dear Granny,
Your attached
F. A. B.
YELLOW SPRINGS, 19th July, 1843.
And so, my dear T----, you are a "tied-by-the-leg" (as we used, in our
laughing days, to call the penniless young Attaches to Legations)? I am
heartily sorry, as yours is not diplomatic but physical infirmity; and
would very readily, had I been anywhere within possible reach, have
occupied the empty arm-chair in your library, and "charmed your annoys"
to the best of my ability.... Dear me! through how long a lapse of
years your desire that I would undertake a translation of Schiller's
"Fiesco" leads me! When I was between sixteen and seventeen years old, I
actually began an adaptation of it to the English stage; but partly from
thinking the catastrophe unmanageable, and from various other motives, I
never finished it: but it was an early literary dream of mine, and you
have recalled to me a very happy period of my life in reminding me of
that labor of love. You perhaps imagine from this that I understood
German, which I then did not; my acquaintance with the German drama
existing only through very admirably executed literal French
translations, which formed part of an immense collection of plays, the
dramatic literature of Europe in innumerable volumes, which was one of
my favorite studies in my father's library.
I am not, however, at all of your opinion, that "Fiesco" is the best of
Schiller's plays. I think "Don Carlos," and "William Tell," and
especially "Wallenstein," finer; the last, indeed, finest of them all.
My own especial favorite, however, for many years (though I do not at
all think it his best play) was "Joan of Arc." As for his violation of
history in "Wallenstein" and "Mary Stuart," I think little of that
compared with the singular insensibility he has shown to the glory of
the French heroine's death, which is the more remarkable because he
generally, above most poets, especially recognizes the sublimity of
moral greatness; and how far does the red pile of the religious and
patriotic martyr, surrounded by her terrified and cowardly English
enemies and her more basely cowardly and ungrateful French friends,
transcend in glory, the rose-colored battle-field apotheosis Schiller
has awarded her! Joan of Arc seems to me never yet to have been done
justice to by either poet or historian, and yet what a subject for both!
The treatment of the character of Joan of Arc in "Henry VI." is one
reason why I do not believe it to be wholly Shakespeare's. He never, it
is true, writes out of the spirit of his time, neither was he ever
absolutely and servilely subject to it--for example, giving in Shylock
the delineation of the typical Jew as conceived in his day, think of
that fine fierce vindication of their common humanity with which he
challenges the Christian Venetians, Solanio and Solarino--"Hath not a
Jew eyes?" etc.
By-the-by, did you ever hear a whisper of a suggestion that Joan of Arc
was _not_ burned? There is such a tradition, that she was rescued,
reprieved, and lived to a fine old age, though rather scorched.
And now, at the fag end of my paper, to answer your question about
Leonora Lavagna. I think, beyond all doubt, the sentiment Schiller makes
her express as occurring to her at the altar perfectly natural. When the
character and position of Leonora are considered, her love for
Fiesco--however, chiefly composed of admiration for his person and more
amiable and brilliant personal qualities--must inevitably have derived
some of its strength from her generous patriotism and insulted family
pride; and nothing, in my opinion, can be more probable than that she
should have see in him the deliverer of Genoa, at the moment when every
faculty of her heart and mind was absorbed in the contemplation of all
the noble qualities with which she believed him endowed.
The love of different women is, of course, made up of various elements,
according to their natural temperament, mental endowments, and educated
habits of thought; and it seems to me the sort of sentiment Leonora
describes herself as feeling towards Fiesco at the moment of their
marriage is eminently characteristic of such a woman. So much for the
Countess Lavagna.
I think you are quite mistaken in calling Thekla a "merely ideal" woman;
she is a very _real_ German woman--rarely perhaps, but to be found in
all the branches of the Anglo-saxon tree, in England certainly, and even
in America.
To these subjects of very pleasing interest to me succeeds in your
letter the exclamation elicited by poor Mrs. D----'s misfortune,
"Blessed are they who die in the Lord!" to which let me answer, "Yea,
rather, blessed are they who live in the Lord!" Our impatience of
suffering may make death sometimes appear the most desirable thing in
all God's universe; yet who can tell what trials or probations may be
ordained for us hereafter? The idea that there "may be yet more work to
do," probably _must_ be (for how few finish their task here before the
night cometh when "no man can work," as far as this world is concerned,
at any rate!), is a frequent speculation with me; so that whenever, in
sheer weariness of spirit, I have been tempted to wish for death, or in
moments of desperation felt almost ready to seize upon it, the thought,
not of what I may have to suffer, but what I must have to do, _i.e._ the
work left undone here, checks the rash wish and rasher imagination, and
I feel as if I must sit down again to try and work. But weariness of
life makes the idea of existence prolonged beyond death sometimes almost
oppressive, and it seems to me that there are times when one would be
ready to consent to lie down in one's grave and become altogether as the
clods of the valley, relinquishing one's immortal birthright simply for
rest. To be sure you will answer that, for rest to be pleasurable,
consciousness must accompany it; but oh, how I should like to be
_consciously unconscious_ for a little while!--which possibly may strike
you as nonsense.
I dare say women are, as you say, like cats in a great many respects. I
acknowledge myself like one, only in the degree of electricity in my
hair and skin; I never knew anybody but a cat who had so much.
Thank you for the paper about Theodore Hook. I knew him and disliked
him. He was very witty and humorous, certainly; but excessively coarse
in his talk and gross in his manners, and was hardly ever strictly sober
after dinner....
PHILADELPHIA, August 4th, 1843.
MY DEAREST HAL,
Indeed I am not spending my summer with my friends at Lenox, ... but
boarding at a third-rate watering-place about thirty miles from
Philadelphia, where there is a fine mineral spring and baths, remarkably
pure and bracing air, and a pretty, pleasant country, under which
combination of favorable influences we have all improved very much, and
dear little F---- looks once more as if she would live through the
summer, which she did not when we left Philadelphia. As for our
accommodations at this place, they are as comfortless as it is possible
to imagine, but that really signifies comparatively little.... I ride,
and walk, and fish, and look abroad on the sweet kindly face of Nature,
and commune gratefully with my Father in heaven whenever I do so; and
the hours pass swiftly by, and life is going on, and the rapid flight of
time is a source of rejoicing to me.... I laughed a very sad laugh at
your asking me if my watch and chain had been recovered or replaced.
How? By whom? With what? No, indeed, nor are they likely to be either
recovered or replaced. I offered, as a sort of inducement to
semi-honesty on the part of the thief or thieves, to give up the watch
and pencil-case to whoever would bring back my dear chain, but in vain.
Had I possessed any money, I should have offered the largest possible
reward to recover it; but, as it is, I was forced to let it go, without
being able to take even the usual methods resorted to for the recovery
of lost valuables. I will now bid you good-bye, dearest Hal. I have no
more to tell you; and whenever I mention or think of that chain, I feel
so sad that I hate to speak or move. I flatter myself that, were you to
see me now, you would approve highly of my appearance. I am about half
the size I was when last you saw me.
God bless you, dear. I am, therefore, only half yours,
FANNY.
PHILADELPHIA, August 15th, 1843.
MY DEAR T----,
Yesterday, at three o'clock, I was told that we must all return to town
by five, which accordingly was accomplished, not without strenuous
exertion and considerable inconvenience in making our preparations in so
short a time. I do not know in the least whether we are to remain here
now or go elsewhere, or what is to become of us....
I do not know the lines you allude to as mine, called "The Memory of the
Past," and think you must have written them yourself in your sleep, and
then accused me of them, which is not genteel. I have no recollection of
any lines of my own so called. Depend upon it, you dreamt them. I hope
you had the conscience to make good verses, since you did it in my name.
I have not supposed you either "neglectful or dead." I knew you were at
Quoge, which Mr. G---- reported to be a very nice place....
You have misunderstood me entirely upon the subject of truth in works of
fiction and art; and I think, if you refer to my letter, if you have it,
you will find it so. I hold truth sacred everywhere, but merely lamented
over Schiller's departure from it in the instance of "Joan of Arc" more
than in that of "Wallenstein."
It has been an annoyance to me to leave the Yellow Springs,
independently of the hurried and disagreeable mode of our doing so. I
like the country, which is really very pretty, and I have been almost
happy once or twice while riding over those hills and through those
valleys, with no influences about me but the holy and consolatory
ministerings of nature.
My activity of temperament and love of system and order (perhaps you did
not know that I possessed those last tendencies) always induce me to
organize a settled mode of life for myself wherever I am, no matter for
how short a space of time, and in the absence of nervous irritation or
excitement, regular physical exercise, and steady intellectual
occupation, always produce in me a (considering all things) wonderfully
cheerful existence; ... and my spirits, obedient to the laws of my
excellent constitution, rise above my mental and sentimental ailments,
and rejoice, like those of all healthy animals, in mere physical
well-being....
Good-bye, dear T----. Remember me most kindly to S----; and
Believe me always yours very truly,
F. A. B.
PHILADELPHIA, August 22nd, 1843.
MY DEAR T----,
I am not sure that cordial sympathy is not the _greatest_ service that
one human being can offer another in this woe-world. Certainly, without
it, all other service is not worth accepting; and it is so strengthening
and encouraging a thing to know one's self kindly cared for by one's
kind, that I incline to think few benefits that we confer upon each
other in this life are greater, if so great....
The horrible heat, and the admonishing pallor that is again
overspreading my poor children's cheeks, has led to a determination of
again sending them out of town; and I heard yesterday that on Saturday
next they are to go to the neighborhood of West Chester. The fact of
going out of town again is very agreeable to me on my own account,
letting alone my sincere rejoicing that my children are to be removed
from this intolerable atmosphere; but all this packing and unpacking
which devolves upon me is very laborious and fatiguing, and the
impossibility of obtaining any settled order in my life afflicts me
unreasonably....
_Peccavi!_ The verses you mentioned are mine, and you certainly might
have written much better ones for me in your sleep, if you had taken the
least pains. They were indited as many as twenty years ago, and how Mr.
Knickerbocker came possessed of them is a mystery to me....
I want you to do me a favor, which I have been thinking to ask you all
this week past, and was now just like to have forgotten. Will you ask
John O'Sullivan if he would care to have a review of Tennyson's Poems
from me, for the _Knickerbocker_, and what he will give me for such
review? I am compelled to be anxious for "compensation." Send me an
answer to this inquiry, please; and believe me
Very truly yours,
F. A. B.
P.S.--Lord Morpeth is a _lovely_ man, and I love him.
PHILADELPHIA, August 25th, 1843.
DEAR GRANNY,
A thousand thanks for your kind and comfortable letter, from the tone of
which it was easy to see that you were "as well as can be expected,"
both body and soul. Indeed, my dearest Granny, it is true that we do not
perceive half our blessings, from the mere fact of their uninterrupted
possession. Of our health this seems to me especially true; and it is
too often the case that nothing but its suspension or the sight of its
deplorable loss in others awakens us to a sense of our great privilege
in having four sound limbs and a body free from racking torture or
enfeebling, wasting disease. As for me, what I should do without my
health I cannot conceive. All my good spirits (and I have a wonderful
supply, considering all things) come to me from my robust physical
existence, my good digestion, and perfect circulation. Heaven knows, if
my cheerfulness had not a good tough root in these, as long as these
last, it would fare ill with me; and I fear my spiritual courage and
mental energy would prove exceedingly weak in their encounter with
adverse circumstances, but for the admirable constitution with which I
have been blessed, and which serves me better than I serve myself....
On the tenth of next month I am going up to the dear and pleasant
hill-country of Massachusetts, to pay my friends a visit, which, though
I must make it very short, will prove a most acceptable season of
refreshment to my heart and spirit, from which I expect to derive
courage and cheerfulness for the rest of the year, as I shall certainly
not see any of them again till next spring, for they are about two
hundred and fifty miles away from me, which, even in this country of
quite unlimited space, is not considered exactly next-door neighborhood.
You ask after "the farm," which is much honored by your remembrance. It
is let, and we are at present living in a boarding-house in town, and I
rather think shall continue doing so; but I really do not know in the
least what is to become of me from day to day....
I am grieved to hear of the affliction of the Greys. Pray remember me
very affectionately to Lady G. Her father's illness must be indeed a
sore sorrow to her, devoted as she is to him.
My dear Granny, do not you be induced to _croak_ about England. She may
have to go through a sharp _operation_ or two; but, depend upon it, that
noble and excellent constitution is by no means vitally impaired, and
she will yet head the nations of the earth, in all great and good and
glorious things, for a long time to come, in spite of Irish rows and
Welsh _consonants_ (is there anything else in Wales? How funny a
revolution must be without a vowel in it!) ... I believe that great and
momentous changes are impending in England; and when I suggest among
them as _possible_ future events the doing away with the law of
primogeniture, hereditary legislation, and the Church establishment, of
course you will naturally say that I think England is going to the dogs
faster even than you do. But I think England will survive all her
political changes, be they what they may, and, as long as the national
character remains unchanged, will maintain her present position among
the foremost peoples of the world; with which important and impressive
prophecy comfort yourself, dear Granny.
We are going out of town, to which we returned a fortnight ago,
to-morrow at half-past six in the morning, and it is now past midnight,
and I have every mortal and immortal thing to pack with my own single
pair of hands, which is Irish, Lord bless us! So good-night, dear
Granny.
Believe me ever your affectionate
FANNY.
PHILADELPHIA, August 25th, 1843.
You will pay no more, dear Hal, for this huge sheet of paper, being
single, I believe, than for its half; and I do not see why I should
cheat myself or you so abominably as by writing on such a miserable
allowance as the half sheet I have just finished to you.
Mr. Furness's abolition sermons have thinned his congregation a
little--not much.... There is no other Unitarian church in Philadelphia,
where the sect is looked upon with holy horror, pious commiseration, and
Christian reprobation, but where, nevertheless, Mr. Furness's own
character is held in the highest esteem and veneration.
Your question about society here puzzles me a good deal, from the
difficulty of making you understand the absolute absence of anything to
which you would give that name. I do not think there is anything,
either, which foreigners call _societe intime_ in Philadelphia. During a
certain part of the year certain wealthy individuals give a certain
number of entertainments, evening parties, balls, etc. The summer months
are passed by most of the well-to-do inhabitants somewhere out of the
city, generally at large public-houses, at what are called fashionable
watering-places. Everybody has a street acquaintance with everybody; but
I know of no such thing as the easy, intimate society which you seem to
think inevitably the result of the institutions, habits, and fortunes in
this country.
It does not strike me that social intercourse is easy at all here; the
dread of opinion and the desire of conformity seem to me to give a tone
of distrust and caution to every individual man and woman, utterly
destructive of all freedom of conversation, producing a flatness and
absence of all interest that is quite indescribable. I have hitherto
always lived in the country, and mixing very little with the
Philadelphians have supposed that the mere civil formality at which my
intercourse with most of them stops short would lead necessarily to some
more intimate intercourse if I ever lived in the city. I now perceive,
however, that their communion with each other is limited to this
exchange of morning visits, of course almost exclusively among the
women; and that society, such as you and I understand it, does not exist
here.
Yet, of course, there must be the materials for it, clever and pleasant
men and women, and I had sometimes thought, when I foresaw the
probability of our leaving our country house and establishing ourselves
in the city, that I should find some compensation in the society which I
hoped I might be able to gather about me; ... but I am now quite
deprived of any such resource as any attempt of the kind might have
produced, by my present position in a boarding-house, where I inhabit my
bedroom, contriving, for sightliness' sake, to sleep on a wretched
sofa-bed that my room by day may look as decent and little encumbered as
possible; but where the presence of wash-hand-stand and toilette
apparatus necessarily enforces the absence of visitors, except in public
rooms open to everybody.... I have received a great many morning visits,
and one or two invitations to evening parties, but I do not, of course,
like to accept civilities which I have no means of reciprocating, and so
I have as little to expect in the way of social recreation as I think
anybody living in a large town can have. So much for your inquiries
about my social resources in this country. Had I a house of my own in
Philadelphia, I should not at all despair of gradually collecting about
me a society that would satisfy me perfectly well; but as it is, or
rather as I am, the thing is entirely out of the question.
Of the discomfort and disorder of our mode of life I cannot easily give
you a notion, for you know nothing of the sort, and, until now, neither
did I. The absence of decent regularity in our habits, and the
slovenliness of our whole existence, is peculiarly trying to me, who
have a morbid love of order, system, and regularity, and a positive
delight in the decencies and elegancies of civilized life.
God bless you, dear.
Your affectionate
FANNY.
PHILADELPHIA, September 1st, 1843.
MY DEAR T----,
I know not how long your letter had been in Philadelphia, because I have
been out of town, and in a place so difficult of access that letters are
seldom forwarded thither without being lost or delayed long enough to be
only fit for losing.
I told you of our sudden removal from the Yellow Springs. In the
succeeding fortnight, which we spent in town, the children began again
to droop and languish and grow pale, and it was determined to send them
into the country again: rooms have been accordingly hired for us three
miles beyond West Chester, which is seven miles from the nearest
railroad station on the Columbia railroad, altogether about forty miles
from town, but for want of regular traffic and proper means of
conveyance an exceedingly tedious and unpleasant drive thence to the
said farm. Here there is indeed pure air for the children, and a blessed
reprieve from the confinement of the city; but so uncivilized a life for
any one who has ever been accustomed to the usual decencies of
civilization, that it keeps me in a constant state of amazement.
We eat at the hours and table of these worthy people, and I am a little
starved, as I find it difficult to get up a dinner appetite before one
o'clock in the day; and after that nothing is known in the shape of food
but tea at six o'clock. We eat with _two-pronged iron forks_; _i.e._ we
who are "sopisticate" do. The more sensible Arcadians, of course, eat
exclusively with their knives. The farming men and boys come in to the
table from their work, without their coats and with their shirt-sleeves
rolled up above their elbows; and my own nursemaid, and the
servant-of-all-work of the house, and any visitors who may look in upon
our hostess, sit down with us promiscuously to feed; all which, I
confess, makes me a little melancholy. It is nonsense talking about
positive equality; these people are sorry associates for me, and so, I
am sure, am I for them.
To-day I came to town to endeavor to procure some of the common
necessaries that we require: table implements that we can eat with, and
lights by which we may be able to pursue our occupations after dark.