at it, I stare so very wide so very often, Mrs. ---- talks sentimental
morality about everything; her notions are _pretty near_ right, which is
the same thing as pretty near wrong (for "a miss," you know, "is as good
as a mile"). She is near right enough to amaze me how she contrives to
be so much nearer wrong; she is like a person trying to remember a tune,
and singing it not quite correctly, while you know it better, and can't
sing it at all, and are ready to go mad with mistakes which you
perceive, without being able to rectify them: that is a musical
experience of which you, not being musical, don't know the torture....
Did I tell you that Mrs. Jameson showed me the other day a charming
likeness of my sister which she had made--like that pretty thing she did
of me--with all the dresses of her parts? If I could have done a great
littleness, I could have gone down on my knees and begged for it; I
wished for it so much.
She spoke to me in great tribulation about a memoir of Mrs. Harry
Siddons which it seems she was to have undertaken, but which Harry
Siddons (her son) and William Grant (her son-in-law) do not wish
written. Mrs. Jameson seems to feel some special annoyance upon this
subject, and says that Mrs. Harry was herself anxious to have such a
record made of her; and this surprises me so much, knowing Mrs. Harry as
I thought I did, that I find it difficult to believe it....
Do you remember, after our reading together Balzac's "Recherche de
l'Absolu," your objecting to the character of Madame de Claees, and very
justly, a certain meretricious taint which Balzac seldom escapes in his
heroines, and which in some degree impaired the impression that
character, in many respects beautifully conceived and drawn, would have
produced? Well, there is a vein of something similar in Mrs. ----'s
mind, and to me it taints more or less everything it touches. She showed
me the other day an etching of Eve, from one of Raphael's compositions.
The figure, of course, was naked, and being of the full, round,
voluptuous, Italian order, I did not admire it,--the antique Diana,
drawing an arrow from her quiver, her short drapery blown back from her
straight limbs by her rapid motion, being my ideal of beauty in a
womanly shape. "Ah, but," said Mrs. ----, "look at the inimitable
_coquetry_ of her whole air and posture: how completely she seems to
know, as she looks at the man, that he can't resist her!" (It strikes me
that that whole sentence ought to be in French.) Now, this is not at all
my notion of Eve; even when she damned Adam and all the generations of
men, I think she was more innocent than this. I imagine her like an
eager, inquisitive, greedy child, with the fruit, whatever it was, part
in her hand and part between her teeth, holding up her hand, or perhaps
her mouth, to Adam. You see my idea of Eve is a sensual, self-willed,
ignorant savage, who saw something beautiful, that smelt good, and
looked as if it tasted good, and so tasted it, without any aspiration
after any other knowledge. This real innate fleshly devil of greediness
and indiscretion would, however, not bear the heavy theological
superstruction that has been raised upon it, and therefore a desire for
forbidden knowledge is made to account for the woman's sin and the
sorrows of all her female progeny. To me this merely sensual sin, the
sin of a child, seems much more picturesque, a good deal fitter for the
purposes of art, without the mystic and mythical addition of an
intellectual desire for knowledge and the agency of the Satanic
serpent. Alas! the mere flesh is devil enough, and serves for all the
consequences.
Blackwood will publish my verses, and, I believe, pay me well for them;
indeed, I shall consider any payment at all good enough for such
trumpery.
Good-bye, dear.
I am ever yours,
FANNY.
My dearest Dorothea, or the Virgin Martyr, I make a courtesy to you. [By
this title of a play of Massinger's I used frequently to address Miss
Wilson, whose name was Dorothy.]
Saturday, December 13th, 1845.
Thank you, dear Hal, again, for those elastic circles. Now that I know
how to use them, I am extremely charmed with them. In my sister's letter
to me she gave me no further detail of her health than merely to state
that she had injured herself seriously by sitting for hours on the cold
stones of St. Peter's....
You know, dear Harriet, that few women have ever had such an education
as to enable them fully to appreciate the classical associations of
Italy (by-the-by, do you remember that one brief and rather desponding
notice of female education in "Arnold's Letters"?); and as for me, I am
as ignorant as dirt, so that all that full and delightful spring of
pleasure which a fine classical knowledge opens to the traveller in the
heroic lands is utterly sealed to me. I have not even put my lips to the
brink of it. I have always thought that no form of human enjoyment could
exceed that of a thorough scholar, such a one as Arnold, for instance,
visiting Rome for the first time.
It is not, however, from recollection, association, or reflection that I
look to deriving pleasure in Italy, but from my vivid perceptive
faculties, from my senses (my nose, perhaps, excepted), and in the mere
beauty that remains from the past, and abides in the present, in those
Southern lands. You know what a vividly perceptive nature mine is; and,
indeed, so great is my enjoyment from things merely material that the
idea of ever being parted from this dear body of mine, through which I
perceive them and see, hear, smell, touch, and taste so much exquisite
pleasure, makes me feel rather uncomfortable. My spirit seems to me the
decidedly inferior part of me, and, compared with my body, which is, at
any rate, a good machine of its sort, almost a little contemptible,
decidedly not good of its sort. I sometimes feel inclined to doubt which
is the immortal; for I have hitherto suffered infinitely more from a
defective spirit than from what St. Paul calls "this body of
corruption."
My dear Harriet, if I get a chance to get into the waterfall at Tivoli,
you may depend upon it I will; because just at such times I have a
perfectly immortal faith in my mortality. Good-bye.
Ever yours,
FANNY.
Monday, December 15th, 1845.
DEAREST HAL,
Thank you for your nice inkstand, but I do not like your sending it to
me, nevertheless; because I am sure it is a very great privation to you,
being, as you are, particular and fidgety in such matters; and it is not
a great gain to me, who do not care what I write out of, and surely I
shall always be able, go where I will, among frogs or macaronis, to
procure _sucre noir_ or _inchiostro nero_ to indite to you with. I shall
send you back the poor dear little beloved pest you sent me first,
because I am sure the stopper can be readjusted, and then it will be as
_good_ as ever, and you will have a peculiar inkstand to potter with,
without which I do not believe you would be yourself.
Thank you for the extract from Arnold. I have no idea that Adam was "a
mystical allegory," and you know that I believe every man to be his own
devil, and a very sufficient one for all purposes of (so-called)
damnation....
I suppose the history of Genesis to be the form assumed by the earliest
traditions in which men's minds attempted to account for the creation
and the first conditions of the human species. The laborious and
perilous existence of man; the still more grievous liabilities of woman,
who among all barbarous people is indeed the more miserable half of
mankind: and it seems obvious that in those Eastern lands, where these
traditions took their birth, the growth of venomous reptiles, the
deadliest and most insidious of man's natural enemies, should suggest
the idea of the type of all evil.
Moses (to whom the Genesis is, I believe, in spite of some later
disputants, generally attributed), I presume, accepted the account as
literally true, as probably did the authorities, Chaldean or other, from
which he derived it....
Moses' "inspiration" did not prevent his enacting some illiberal and
cruel laws, among many of admirable wisdom and goodness; and I see no
reason why it should have exempted him from a belief in the traditions
of his age....
I have heard that there has lately been found in America part of the
fossil vertebrae of a serpent which must have measured, it is said, _a
hundred and forty feet_! I cannot say I believe it, but if any human
creatures inhabited the earth at the time when such "small gear" are
supposed to have disported themselves on its surface, if the merest
legend containing reference to such a "worm" survived to scare the early
risers on this planet of ours, in its first morning hours of
consolidation, who can wonder that such a creature should become the
hideous representative of all evil, the origin of all sin and suffering,
and the special being between which and the human race irreconcilable
enmity was to exist forever? for surely not even the most regenerate
mind in Christendom could live on decent terms with the best-disposed
snake of such a length as that.
I do not think Mrs. Jameson had positively _done_ anything in the matter
of Mrs. Harry Siddons's memoirs beyond looking over a good many papers
and _preparing her mind_ with a view to it; and what you tell me a
little shakes my confidence in my own opinion upon the subject, which,
indeed, was by no means positively made up about it, because I know--at
least I think--there _were_ elements in Mrs. Harry's mind not altogether
incompatible perhaps with the desire of leaving some record of herself,
or having such made for her by others.... There are few people whom I
pity more than Mrs. Jameson. I always thought she had a great deal of
good in her, but the finer elements in her character have become more
apparent and valuable to me the longer I have known her; her abilities
are very considerable, and her information very various and extensive;
she is a devoted, dutiful daughter, and a most affectionate and generous
sister, working laboriously for her mother and the other members of her
family.... I compassionate and admire her very much.
I dined on Friday last with dear Miss Cottin, who is a second edition of
my dear Aunt Dall. Think of having known two such angels in one's life!
On Saturday I dined _tete-a-tete_ with Mrs. Procter, who is extremely
kind to me.... Yesterday I dined with my father at the Horace Wilsons';
to-day I dine with Chorley, and to-morrow at the George Siddonses'.
You cannot think how much my late experiences have shattered me and
broken my nervous equanimity.... To-day my father came suddenly into the
room while I was playing on the piano, and startled me so by merely
speaking to me that I burst into tears, and could not stand for several
minutes, I trembled so. I have been suffering for some time past from an
almost constant pain in my heart. I have wretched nights, and sometimes
pass the whole morning of these days when I dine out, sitting on the
floor, crying....
God bless you, dear.
Ever your affectionate
FANNY.
MORTIMER STREET, December, 1845.
No, my dearest Hal, it would be impossible for me to tell you how sad I
am; and instead of attempting to do so, my far better course is to try
and write of something else.
My father still sits with maps and guide-books about him, debating of my
route; and though I told him the other day that I would be ready to
start at any moment he appointed, and that we both agreed that, on
account of the cold, I had better not delay my departure, he has neither
determined my line of march nor said a single word to me about my means
of subsistence while I am abroad.
This morning he said that he had not yet entirely resolved not to
accompany me; that if he could conscientiously do it, he should like it
of all things; but that he did not feel warranted in neglecting any
opportunity of making money. I think, perhaps, he is postponing his
determination till some answer is received from America about V----'s
tiny legacy to me.... But the very quickest answer to that letter cannot
reach England before the middle of next month, and it seems a great
pity to delay starting till the weather becomes so cold that we must
inevitably suffer from it in travelling.
I feel no anxiety about the whole matter, or indeed any other. I am just
as well here, and just as well there, and just as well everywhere as
anywhere else. And though I should be glad to see all those much desired
things, and most glad to embrace my sister again, and though I am
occasionally annoyed and vexed here, I have many friends, and am very
well off in London; and elsewhere, of course, I shall find what will
annoy and vex me. I am quite "content," a little after Shylock's fashion
at the end of the judgment scene. At the core of some "content" what
heart-despair may abound!...
I told you of my dining at Mrs. Procter's yesterday. She was quite
alone.... She showed me a beautiful song written by my sister, words and
music, a sort of lullaby, but the most woful words! I think I must have
inspired her with them, they threw me into such a state of nervous
agitation....
What a machine _I_ am shut up in! Surely a desire to beget a temperance
in all things had need be the law of _my_ existence; and, but that I
believe work left unfinished and imperfect in this life is finished in
another, I should think the task almost too difficult of achievement to
begin it here.
God bless you, dear.
Ever yours affectionately,
FANNY.
Wednesday, December 17th, 1845.
I found at last the little cross you have made over your house in the
engraving of the St. Leonard's Esplanade, and when I had found it
wondered how I came to miss it; but the truth is it was a blot, and the
truth is I took it for nothing more....
You know I think, in spite of the French proverb, "_Toute verite n'est
pas bonne a dire_," that I think all truth _is_ to be told; that is the
teller's part: how it is received, or what effect it has, is the
receiver's.... I think to suspect a person of wrongdoing more painful
than to know that they have done wrong. In the first place, uncertainty
upon the character of those we love--the most vital thing in life to us,
except our own character--is the worst of all uncertainties. Your trust
is shaken, your faith destroyed; belief, that soul of love, is
disturbed, and, in addition to all this, as long as any element of
uncertainty remains you have the alternate misery of suspecting yourself
of unworthy, wicked, and base thoughts, of unjust surmises and
uncharitable conclusions. When you know that those you love have sinned
against you, your way is open and comparatively easy, for you have only
to forgive them. I believe I am less sorry to find that A---- has
wronged me by her actions than I should have been to find that I had
wronged her by my thoughts.... I would a great deal rather have to
forgive her for her misconduct, and pity her for her misery, poor woman!
than blame myself for the wickedness of unworthily suspecting her. I am
really relieved to know that, at any rate, I have not done her
injustice.
I have been about all day, getting my money and passport, and paying
bills and last visits. I go on Saturday to Southampton, and cross to
Havre. I do not know why Emily fancied I was to be at Bannisters
to-night, but that last week, when my father suddenly asked me how soon
I could start, I replied, "In twenty-four hours," and then wrote to
Emily that possibly I might be at Southampton to-day. I go by diligence
from Havre to Rouen, by railroad from Rouen to Paris, in the same
_coupe_ of the diligence which is put bodily--the diligence, I
mean--upon the rails; thence to Orleans by post-road, ditto; thence to
Chalons-sur-Saone, ditto, down the Saone to Lyons, down the Rhone to
Marseilles; steam thence to Civita Vecchia, and then vetturino to Rome.
This is the route my father has made out for me; and, all things
considered, I think it is the best, and presents few difficulties or
inconveniences but those inevitable ones which must be encountered in
travelling anywhere at this season of the year.
I shall not see you before I go, my dearest Hal, but I shall be with you
before the Atlantic separates us once again; I know not how or where,
but look forward to some season of personal intercourse with you before
I return once more to America. The future, to be sure, lies misty enough
before me, but I have always a feeling of nearness to you which even the
Alps rising between us will not destroy, and I do not doubt to see you
again before many months are passed. I am going this evening to the Miss
Berrys'; they have asked me repeatedly to dine with them, and I have
not had a single disengaged day, and as they have taken the trouble of
coming to see after me bodily several times, I must pay my respects to
them before I go, as in duty bound....
I had a letter from T----; he had not yet received either of mine, and
knew nothing of Philadelphia or any of its inhabitants. He seems to
think the Oregon question very black, and that the aspect of affairs on
both sides of the water threatens war....
My father now talks of reading in every direction as soon as I am
gone--Manchester, Liverpool, Edinburgh; the latter place he told me he
thought he should go to in March; and then again, every now and then, he
says, as soon as he can settle his affairs he shall come after me, as he
should like to be in Rome at Easter to get the Pope's blessing. God
bless you with a better blessing, my dearest Hal!
Ever yours,
FANNY.
... Charles Greville has given me a book of his to read: it is very well
written and interests me a good deal; it is upon the policy of England
towards Ireland. He so habitually in conversation deals in the merest
gossip, and what appears to me to be the most worldly, and therefore
superficial, view of things, that I am agreeably surprised by the
ability displayed in his book; for though it is not in any way
extraordinary, it is in every way beyond what I expected from him.
[The direct railroad routes through France are now followed by all
travellers to Italy, and the picturesque coach-road which I took
from Orleans to Autun at this time, when they did not exist, is
little likely to draw wayfarers aside from them; nor was the season
of the year when I made that journey at all a favorable one in which
to visit the forest and mountain region of the Nivernais. I was
snowed up at a miserable little village among the hills called
Chateau Chinon; the diligences were unable for several days to come
up thither, the roads being impassable, and I had to make my way
through the picturesque wild region in a miserable species of
dilapidated cabriolet, furnished me at an exorbitant price from
Chateau Chinon to Autun, where I was again picked up by the
diligence.]
Thursday, December 18th, 1845.
MY DEAREST HAL,
I leave London the day after to-morrow for Southampton. I am full of
calls, bills, visits, sorrow, perplexity, and nervous agitation, which
all this hurry and bustle increase tenfold; letters to write, too, for
the American post is in, and has brought me four from the other side of
the water to deal with. In the middle of all this, Mrs. Jameson sends me
long letters of Sarah Grant's and Mary Patterson's to read, which prove
most distinctly to my mind that she, Mrs. Jameson, wishes to write a
memoir of Mrs. Harry Siddons; but do not at all prove so distinctly to
my mind that Mrs. Harry Siddons wished a memoir of herself to be written
by Mrs. Jameson. So all this I have had to wade through, and shall have
to answer, wondering all the while what under the sun it matters what I
think about the whole concern, or why people care one straw what
people's opinions are about them, or what they do.
My opinion about memoirs, biographies, autobiographies, lives, letters,
and books in general indeed, Mrs. Jameson is perfectly familiar with;
and therefore her making me go through this voluminous correspondence
just now, when she knows how pressed I am for time, seems to me a little
unmerciful; but, however, I've done it, that's one comfort.
Then comes dear George Combe, with a long letter, the second this week,
upon the subject of Miss C----'s private character, family connections,
birth, parentage, reputation, etc., desiring me to answer all manner of
questions about her; and I know no more of her than I do of the man in
the moon: and all this must likewise be attended to....
About my consulting Wilson (our attached friend and family physician), I
did so when I was here before, and I am following the advice he then
gave me; but for these physical effects of mental causes, what can be
done as long as the causes continue?...
Hayes (my maid) and I are to take the _coupe_ of the diligence wherever
we can get it on our route, and so proceed together and alone. I shall
pay for the third place, but it is worth while to pay something to be
protected from the proximity of some travelling Frenchmen; and paying
for this extra place is not a very great extravagance, as the cost of
travelling by public conveyance on the Continent is very moderate.
I do not know when Blackwood intends publishing my things. I gave them
into Chorley's hands, and Chorley's discretion, and know nothing further
about them, but that I believe I shall be paid for them what he calls
"tolerably well," and therefore what I shall consider magnificently
well, inasmuch as they seem to me worth nothing at all.
I hear of nothing but the change of Ministry, but have been so much
engrossed with my own affairs that I have not given much attention to
what I have heard upon the subject. I believe Sir Robert Peel will come
into some coalition with the Whigs, Lord John Russell, Lord Howick,
etc., and this is perhaps the best thing that can happen, because, by
all accounts, the Whigs have literally not got a man to head them. But I
do not think anything is yet decided upon.
And now, my dear, I must break off, and write to M---- M----, _and_
George Combe about Miss C----'s virtue (why the deuce doesn't he look
for it in her skull?), _and_ Mrs. Jameson, _and_ all America.
I breakfasted this morning with Rogers, and dine this evening at the
Procters'. What an enviable woman I might appear!--only you know better.
Yours truly,
FANNY.
MORTIMER STREET, Friday Night (_i.e._ Saturday Morning,
at 2 o'clock), December 19th, 1845.
No! my dearest Hal, I do not think that to one who believes that life is
spiritual education it needs any very painful or difficult investigation
of circumstances to perceive, not why such and such special trials are
sent to certain individuals, but that all trial is the positive result
of or has been incurred by error or sin; and beholding the beautiful
face of bitterest adversity, for such is one of its aspects, that all
trial is sent to teach us better things than we knew, or than we did,
before. There is nothing for which God's mercy appears to me more
praiseworthy than the essential essence of improvement, of progress, of
growth, which _can_ be expressed from the gall-apple of our sorrows. To
each soul of man the needful task is set, the needful discipline
administered, and therefore it doesn't seem to me to require much
investigation into mere circumstances to accept my own trials. They are
appointed to me because they are best for me, and whatever my apparent
impatience under them, this is, in deed and truth, my abiding faith....
But it is past two o'clock in the morning. I am almost exhausted with
packing and writing. Seven letters lie on my table ready to be sealed,
seven more went to the post-office this afternoon; but though I will not
sleep till I bid you good-night, I will not write any more than just
that now. My fire is out, my room cold, and, being tired with packing, I
am getting quite chilled. You must direct to me to the care of Edward
Sartoris, Esq., Trinita dei Monti, Rome, and I will answer you, as you
know. I will write to you to-morrow, that is to-day, when I get to
Bannisters; or perhaps before I start, if I can get up early enough to
get half an hour before breakfast.
Good-night. God bless you. I am unutterably sad, and feel as though I
were going away from everybody, I know not whither--it is all vague,
uncertain, indefinite, all but the sorrow which is inseparable from me,
go where I will, a companion I can reckon upon for the rest of my life
everywhere. As for the rest, if we did but recollect it, our next minute
is always the unknown.
Ever yours,
FANNY.
BANNISTERS, Saturday, December 20th, 1845.
MY DEAREST HARRIET,