the girls, making love to such of them as he fancied, he may have been
something of an artist, his conduct might be called artistic, I should
say; but now that he sits in the sky, staring with his one eye at
womankind in general, Sir Joshua, and even Sir Thomas, are worth a score
of him.
While I was sitting, Mrs. E----, my young artist's mother, read aloud to
us the new volume of Lord Chesterfield's writings.
My impression of Lord Chesterfield is a very ignorant one, principally
derived from the very little I remember of that profound science of
superficiality contained in his "Letters to his Son." The matter I heard
to-day exalted him infinitely in my esteem, and charmed me extremely,
both by the point and finish of the style (what fine workmanship good
prose is!) and the much higher moral tone than anything I remembered,
and consequently expected from him.
Mrs. E---- read us a series of his "Sketches of his Political
Contemporaries," quite admirable for the precision, distinctness, and
apparent impartiality with which they were drawn, and for their
happiness of expression-and purity of diction. Among them is a character
of Lord Scarborough, which, if it be a faithful portrait, is perhaps the
highest testimony in itself to the merit of one who called such a man
his intimate friend; and going upon the faith of the old proverbs, "Show
me your company and I'll tell you what you are," "Like will to like,"
"Birds of a feather flock together," and all the others that, unlike
Sancho Panza, I do not give you, has amazingly advanced Lord
Chesterfield in my esteem.
We have this morning parted with some of the company that was here. Mr.
and Mrs. Hibbard, clever and agreeable people, have gone away, and, to
my great regret, carried with them my dear B----, for whom my affection
and esteem are as great as ever. Mrs. Hibbard is the daughter of Sydney
Smith, and so like him that I kept wondering when she would begin to
abuse the bishops....
Dearest Hal, I took no exercise yesterday but a drive in an open
carriage with Lady Dacre. The Americans call the torture of being
thumped over their roads in their vehicles _exercise_, and so, no doubt,
was Sancho's tossing in the blanket; but voluntary motion being the only
effectual motion for any good purpose of health (or holiness, I take
it), I must be off, and tramp while the daylight lasts.
What a delightful thing good writing is! What a delightful thing good
talking is! How much delight there is in the exercise and perfection of
our faculties! How _full_ a thing, and admirable, and wonderful is this
nature of ours! So Hamlet indeed observes--but he was mad. Good-bye.
Give my love to dear Dorothy, and
Believe me ever yours,
FANNY.
THE HOO, WELWYN, December 7th, 1845.
MY DEAREST HAL,
Just before I came down here, Rogers paid me a long visit, and talked a
great deal about Lady Holland; and I felt interested in what he said
about the woman who had been the centre of so remarkable a society and
his intimate friend for so many years. Having all her life appeared to
suffer the most unusual terror, not of death only, but of any accident
that could possibly, or impossibly, befall her, he said that she had
died with perfect composure, and, though consciously within the very
shadow of death for three whole days before she crossed the dark
threshold, she expressed neither fear nor anxiety, and exhibited a
tranquillity of mind by no means general at that time, and which
surprised many of the persons of her acquaintance. If, however, it be
true, as some persons intimate with her have told me, that her terrors
were not genuine, but a mere expression of her morbid love of power,
insisting at all costs and by all means upon occupying everybody about
her with herself, then it is not so strange that she should at last have
ceased to demand the homage and attention of others as she so closely
approached the time when even their most careless recollection would
cease to be at her command.
Rogers said that she spoke of her life with considerable satisfaction,
asserting that she had done as much good and as little harm as she could
during her existence. The only person about whom she expressed any
tenderness was her daughter, Lady ----, with whom, however, she had not
been always upon the best terms; and who, being ultra-_serious_ (as it
is comically called), had not unnaturally an occasional want of sympathy
with her very unserious mother. Lady Holland, however, desired much to
see her, and she crossed the Channel, having travelled in great haste,
and arrived just in time to fulfil her mother's wish and receive her
blessing.
Her will creates great astonishment--created, I should say; for she is
twice buried already, under the Corn Law question. She left her son only
L2000, and to Lord John Russell L1500 a year, which at his death reverts
to Lady L----'s children. To Rogers, strange to say, nothing; but he
professed to think it an honor to be left out. To my brother, strange to
say, something (Lord Holland's copy of the "British Essayists," in
thirty odd volumes); and to Lady Palmerston her collection of fans,
which, though it was a very valuable and curious one, seems to me a
little like making fun of that superfine fine lady.
I have just come back from church, dear Hal, where the Psalms for the
day made me sick. Is it not horrible that we should make Christian
prayers of Jewish imprecations? How can one utter, without shuddering,
such sentences as "Let them be confounded, and put to shame, that seek
after my soul. Let them be as the dust before the wind: and the angel of
the Lord scattering them. Let their way be dark and slippery: and let
the angel of the Lord persecute them"? Is it not dreadful to think that
one must say, as I did, "God forbid!" while my eyes rested on the
terrible words contained in the appointed _worship_ of the day; or
utter, in God's holy house, that to which one attaches no signification;
or, worst of all, connect in any way such sentiments with one's own
feelings, and repeat, with lips that confess Christ, curses for which
His blessed command has substituted blessings?
We were speaking on this very subject at Milman's the other evening, and
when I asked Mrs. Milman if she joined in the repetition of such
passages, she answered with much simplicity, like a good woman and a
faithful clergywoman, "Oh yes! but then, you know, one never means what
one says,"--which, in spite of our company consisting chiefly of "witty
Churchmen," elicited from it a universal burst of laughter. I have not
space or time to enlarge more upon this, and you may be thankful for
it....
I will just give you two short extracts from conversations I have had
here, and leave you to judge how I was affected by them....
I am sometimes thankful that I do not live in my own country, for I am
afraid I should very hardly escape the Pharisee's condemnation for
thinking myself better than my neighbors; and yet, God knows, not only
that I am, but that I do, not. But how come people's nations so inside
out and so upside down?
Good-bye, my dear. I am enjoying the country every hour of the day. Give
my love to dear Dorothy.
Ever yours,
FANNY.
MORTIMER STREET, Monday, December 8th, 1845.
MY DEAREST HAL,
Your delightful little inkstand is the very pest of my life; it keeps
tumbling over backwards every minute, and pouring the ink all over, and
making me swear (which is really a pity), and is, in short, invaluable;
and I am so much more obliged to you than I was even at first for it,
now that I know, I hope, all its inestimable qualities, that I think it
right to mention the increased gratitude I feel for the hateful little
bottle. There it goes again! Oh, thank you, my love! Just let me pick it
up, and wipe the mess it has made.
I left the Hoo this morning, and have just been a couple of hours in
Mortimer Street. I find my father going to dine at Judge Talfourd's,
and, I am happy to say, free from the pain in his side which had alarmed
me, and which I now suppose, as he did at the time, to have proceeded
only from cold. He looks well, and is in good spirits.
I find a note here from Miss Berry, inviting me to dinner _to-day_,
which has been waiting for me ever since Friday. Of course I could not
go, and felt distressed that the old lady's kind bidding should have
remained so long unanswered. Just as I was despatching my excuse,
however, in rushed Agnes (Gooseberry, you know, as Sydney Smith used to
call her), all screams and interjections, to know why I hadn't answered
her note, which was very annoying. However, in nursery language, I
_peacified_ the good old lady to the best of my ability. I am sorry to
lose their pleasant party, but have an excessive dislike to hurrying
immediately from one thing to another in this way, and therefore must
really spend this evening of my arrival in peace and quiet.
Mrs. ---- called to-day. I am sorry to say that she provokes me now,
instead of only annoying me, as she used to do. It's really quite
dreadful! She talks such odd bits of sentimental morality, that somehow
or other don't match with each other, or with anything else in creation,
that it disgusts me, and I am so disagreeable and so conscious of it,
and she is so conscious that I am conscious of it, that, poor things! it
is quite piteous for both of us.
You ask me the name of the political economist I met at Burnham. William
Nassau Senior, a very clever man, a great talker, good upon all
subjects, but best upon all those on which I am even below my average
depth of ignorance, public affairs, questions of government, the science
of political economy, and all its kindred knowledges. The rest of our
party were only Rogers and myself, our host and hostess (Mr. and Mrs.
Grote), and a brother of the latter, who has been living many years in
Sweden, has a charming countenance, a delightful voice, sings Swedish
ballads exquisitely, worships Jenny Lind, and knows Frederica Bremer
intimately. He added an element of gentleness and softness to the
material furnished by our cast-iron "man of facts" and our acrid poet,
that was very agreeable. In speaking of Arnold, I was ineffably amused
at hearing Mrs. Grote characterize him as a "_very weak man_," which
struck me as very funny. _The Esprit Forte_, however, I take it, merely
referred to his belief in the immortality of the soul, the existence of
a God, and a few other similar "superstitions." They seemed all to agree
that he was likely to "turn out" _only_ such men as Lord Sandon and Lord
Ashley. [The training of Arnold, acting upon a noble mind inherited from
a noble-minded mother, produced the illustrious man whom all Protestant
Christendom has lately joined to mourn, Dean Stanley, of whom, however,
no mention was made in the above discussion.] You, who know the
political bias of these men, will be better able to judge than I am, how
far this was a compliment to Arnold's intellect; to his moral influence,
I suppose, the character of "only such" pupils would bear high
testimony.
My father reads to-morrow at Highgate, and, I believe, twice again there
in the course of next week. Beyond that, I think he has no immediate
plans for reading, and indeed his plans seem altogether to me in the
most undecided state.
I found letters here from my sister and E----, both of them urging me to
join them in Rome; these I read to my father, and I am thankful to say
that he seemed to entertain the idea of my doing so, and even hinted at
the possibility of his accompanying me thither, inasmuch as he felt
rather fatigued with his reading, would be glad to recruit a little,
would wish to protect me on my journey to Italy, and, finally, never
having been in Rome, would like to see it, etc. He said, after we got
there he could either leave me with my sister or stay himself till the
spring, when we might all come back together.
You may imagine how enchanted I was at the bare suggestion of such a
plan. I told him nothing he could do would give me so much happiness,
and that as I had come back upon his hands in the state of dependence in
which I formerly belonged to him, it was for him to determine in what
manner the burden would be least grievous to him, least costly, and
least inconvenient; that if he thought it best I should go to my sister,
I should be thankful to do so; but that if he would come with me, I
should be enchanted.
I think, dearest Hal, that this unhoped-for prospect will yet be
realized for me. I am very fortunate in the midst of my misfortune, and
have infinite cause to be grateful for the hope of such an opportunity
of distracting my thoughts from it. Even to go alone would be far
preferable for me to remaining here, but I should have to leave my
father alone behind, and do most earnestly wish he may determine to come
with me.
Our landlord and he cannot agree about terms, and I suspect that he
would not remain in the lodgings under any circumstances on that
account. Oh! I hope we shall go together to Italy. "Dahin! Dahin!" ...
How I do wish you were sitting on this little striped sofa by me! No
offence in the world to you, my dear Dorothy (or the Virgin Martyr),
because I wish you were here too--in the first place that Hal might not
be too dissatisfied with my society; in the next place that I might
enjoy yours; and in the third place that you might benefit by both of
ours.
I remain, dearly beloved females both of yours affectionately,
FANNY.
There goes your ink-pot head over heels backward again! Oh, it has
recovered itself! Hateful little creature, what a turn it has given
me--as the housemaids say--without even succeeding in overturning
itself, which it tried to do! It is idiotic as well as malicious!
MORTIMER STREET, Tuesday.
DEAREST HAL,
I did not hear a great deal more than I told you about Bunsen at
Burnham. They all seemed to think him so _over-cordial_ in his manner as
not to be sincere--or at any rate to produce the effect of insincerity.
Senior said that one of his sons was for a time private tutor in a
family, while Bunsen himself was one of the King of Prussia's ministers.
I could not very well perceive myself the moral turpitude of this, but
the answer was that it was _infra dig._, and of course that is quite
turpitude enough. At the Hoo I asked Lord Dacre if he knew Bunsen, but
he did not. I should have attached some value to his opinion of him,
because he has no vulgar notions of the above sort, and also because,
having lived at one time in Germany among Germans, he has more means of
estimating justly a mind and nature essentially German like Bunsen's
than most Englishmen, who--the very cleverest among them--understand
_nothing_ that is not themselves, _i.e._ English, in intellect or
character.
Mrs. E---- told me that she had heard from some of the great Oxford dons
that the impression produced among them by the first pupil of Arnold's
who came among them was quite extraordinary--not at all from superior
intelligence or acquirement, but from his being absolutely a _new
creature_ (think of the Scripture use of that term, Hal, and think how
this circumstance illustrates it)--a new _kind_ of man; and that so they
found all his pupils to differ from any young men that had come up to
their colleges before. When I deplored the cessation of this noble and
powerful influence by Arnold's death, she said--what indeed I knew--that
his spirit survived him and would work mightily still. And so of course
it will continue to work, for to the increase of the seed sown by such a
one there is no limit. She told me that one of his pupils--by no means
an uncommon but rather dull and commonplace young man--had said in
speaking of him, "I was dreadfully afraid of Arnold, but there was not
the thing he could have told me to do that I should not instantly and
confidently have set about." What a man! I do wonder if I shall see him
in heaven--as it is called--if ever I get there.
Mrs. E---- told me that Lady Francis [Egerton] knew him, and did not
like him altogether; but then he, it seems, was habitually reserved, and
she neither soft nor warm certainly in her outward demeanor, so perhaps
they _really_ never met at all.... Mrs. E---- said Lady Francis had not
considered her correspondence with Arnold satisfactory. I suspect it was
upon theological questions of doctrine (or doctrinal questions of
theology); and that Lady Francis had complained that his letters did not
come sufficiently to the point. What can her point have been?...
As for what you say about deathbed utterances--it seems to me the height
of folly to attach the importance to them that is often given to them.
The physical conditions are at that time such as often amply to account
for what are received as spiritual ecstasies or agonies. I imagine
whatever the _laity_ may do, few physicians are inclined to consider
their patients' utterances _in articulo mortis_ as satisfactorily
significant of anything but their bodily state. Certainly by what you
tell me of ---- his moral perceptions do not appear to have received any
accession of light whatever from the near dawning of that second life
which seems sometimes to throw such awful brightness as the dying are
about to enter it far over the past that they are leaving behind.
My dinner at Mrs. Procter's was very pleasant. In the first place I love
her husband very much; then there were Kenyon, Chorley, Henry Reeve,
Monckton Milnes, and Browning!--a goodly company, you'll allow. Oh, how
I wish wits were catching! but if they were, I don't suppose after that
dinner I should be able to put up with poor pitiful _prose people_ like
you for a long time to come.
With regard to the London standard of morality, dear Hal, I do not think
it lower, but probably a little higher upon the whole than that of the
society of other great capitals: the reasons why this highly civilized
atmosphere must be also so highly mephitic are obvious enough, and
therefore as no alteration is probable, or perhaps possible in that
respect, I am not altogether sorry to think that I shall live in a
denser intellectual but clearer moral atmosphere in my "other world." I
do not believe that the brains shrink much when the soul is well
nourished, or that the intellect starves and dwindles upon what feeds
and expands the spirit.
My little sketch of Lenox Lake lies always open before me, and I look at
it very often with yearning eyes ... for the splendid rosy sunsets over
the dark blue mountain-tops, and for the clear and lovely expanse of
pure waters reflecting both, above all for the wild white-footed streams
that come leaping down the steep stairways of the hills. I believe I do
like places better than people: these only look like angels _sometimes_,
but the earth in such spots looks like heaven always--especially the
mountain-tops so near the sky, so near the stars, so near the sun, with
the clouds below them, and the humanity of the world and its mud far
below them again--all but the spirit of adoration which one has carried
up thither one's self. I do not wonder the heathen of whom the Hebrew
Scriptures complain offered sacrifices on every high hill: they
seem--they are--altars built by God for His especial worship. Good-bye,
my dearest Hal.
Yours ever,
FANNY.
[After I had the pleasure and honor of making Baron Bunsen's
acquaintance, I was one day talking with him about Arnold, and the
immense loss I considered his death to England, when he answered,
almost in Mrs. E----'s words, but still more emphatically, that he
would work better even dead than alive, that there was in him a
powerful element of antagonism which roused antagonism in others:
his individuality, he said, stood sometimes in the way of his
purpose, he darkened his own light; "he will be more powerful now
that he is gone than even while he was here."
In Charles Greville's "Memoirs," he speaks of going down to Oatlands
to consult his sister and her husband (Lord and Lady Francis
Egerton) upon the expediency of Arnold's being made a bishop by the
prime minister of the day--I think his friend, Lord Melbourne--and
says that they gave their decided opinion against it. I wonder if
the correspondence which Lady Francis characterized as
"unsatisfactory" was her ground of objection against Arnold. It is a
curious thing to me to imagine his calling to the highest
ecclesiastical office to have depended in any measure upon her
opinion.
I forget what Arnold's politics were; of course, some shade of Whig
or Liberal, if he was to be a bishop of Lord Melbourne's. The
Ellesmeres were Tories: she a natural Conservative, and somewhat
narrow-minded, though excellently conscientious; but if she
prevented Arnold being named to the Queen, she certainly exercised
an influence for which I do not think she was quite qualified. I
think it not improbable that Arnold's orthodoxy may not have
satisfied her, and beyond that question she would not go.]
Wednesday, December 10th, 1845.
Here, dearest Hal, are J---- C----'s verses; I think they have merit,
though being myself the subject of them may militate against my being
altogether a fair judge. He stood by me when last I sailed from America,
until warned, with the rest of my friends, to forsake me and return to
the shore....
All poets have a feminine element (good or bad) in them, but a feminine
man is a species of being less fit, I think, than even an average woman
to do battle with adverse circumstance and unfavorable situation....
You ask me about my interviews with Mrs. Jameson. She has called twice
here, but did not on either occasion speak of her difference with my
sister. To-day, however, I went to Ealing to see her, and she then spoke
about it; not, however, with any feeling or much detail: indeed, she did
not refer at all to the cause of rupture between them, but merely
stated, with general expressions of regret, that they were no longer
upon cordial terms with each other....
Mrs. Jameson told me a story to-day which has put the climax to a horrid
state of nervous depression brought on by a conversation with my father
this morning, during which every limb of my body twitched as if I had
St. Vitus's dance. The scene of the story was Tetschen, the Castle of
the Counts Thun, of which strange and romantic residence George Sand has
given a detailed description in her novel of "Consuelo." ...
As for the Moloch-worships of this world, of course those who practise
them have their reward; they pass their children through the fire, and I
suppose that thousands have agonized in so sacrificing their children.
Is it not wonderful that Christ came eighteen hundred years ago into the
world, and that these pitiless, mad devil-worships are not yet swept out
of it?...
I cannot tell you anything about myself, and, indeed, I can hardly think
of myself....
My father has determined not to accompany me to Italy, so I shall go
alone....
God bless you.
Ever yours,
FANNY.
Friday, 12th, 1845.
Your ink-bottle, my dear, has undergone an improvement, if indeed
anything so excellent could admit of bettering. The little round
glutinous stopper--india-rubber, I believe--from the peculiar
inconvenience of which I presume the odious little thing derives its
title as patent, has come unfastened from the top, and now, every time I
open and shut it, I am compelled to ink my fingers all over, in order to
extract this admirable stopper from the mouth of the bottle, or crane it
back into its patent position in the lid, where it won't stay. 'Tis
quite an invaluable invention for the practice of patience.
I have nothing whatever to tell you. Two days ago my father informed me
he had determined to send me alone to Italy. Since then I have not heard
a word more from him upon the subject. He read at Highgate yesterday
evening for the second time this week, but, as he had dinner engagements
each time at the houses of people I did not know, I did not accompany
him. I think he reads to-morrow at Islington, and if so I shall ask him
to let me go with him. He reads again on Thursday next, at Highgate....