immensely full, and when I went on the stage after the piece, so loud
and long and cordial were they in their kind demonstrations of good-will
to me that, what with the exhaustion of a whole day's packing (which I
have to do for myself, my maid being utterly incompetent) and the
getting through my part, the whole thing was too much for me, and I
turned quite faint, and all but fell down on the stage. But I am not a
fainting woman, and so only went into violent hysterics as soon as I was
carried to my dressing-room. So much for that "pride" which you speak of
as likely to prevent my shedding tears when encountering the kind
acclamations of a multitude of my "fellow-creatures;" the most trying to
the nerves of all demonstrations, except, perhaps, its howl of
execration.
I came to this place to-day, and feel indescribably cheerless and lonely
in my strange inn. The room at Manchester was the _home_ of a fortnight,
but this feels most disconsolately unfamiliar. Moreover, I only act
here one night, Tuesday, and then go to Liverpool, where the master of
the Adelphi Hotel, where I shall stay, is a person to whom I have been
known for many years, in whose house I have been with my children, and
where I shall feel less friendlessly forlorn than I do here.
I shall remain there about a week, and then go to Dublin, where I expect
to stay about a fortnight, and where I shall find my youngest brother--a
circumstance of infinite consolation and comfort to me. Passion-week I
spend at Sutton Park with the Arkwrights; after that go to Bath and
Bristol, and then to London, where I have now an engagement for a month
at the Princess's Theatre.
You have now the map of my proceedings for the next six weeks, after
which I hope I shall see you in London. I direct this to Chesterfield
Street, as you say you shall be back there on Thursday. I have been kept
constantly supplied with the loveliest flowers all the time of my stay
in Manchester, by one kind person or another, which has greatly helped
to keep up my courage and spirits.
Pray give my respects to Lord Dacre.
I am ever, my dear Lady Dacre,
Yours truly,
FANNY.
ADELPHI HOTEL, LIVERPOOL, Thursday, March 4th, 1847.
MY DEAR HAL,
I do not go to Bath, but to Manchester, on the 25th and 27th, and
perhaps on the Monday of Passion-week; but this is not certain. If not
on that Monday, then early in Easter-week; and Passion-week I shall
spend with Mrs. Arkwright at Sutton.
On Thursday in Easter-week, April 8th, I must be in London, as I act
there for two nights gratuitously for your poor starving
fellow-countrymen, for whom an amateur performance is being got up.
On April 15th I go down to Bath, and act there on the 17th, and my
engagement at the Princess's Theatre does not begin till the 26th of
that month. This is the plan of my campaign as far as it is laid out;
should any change occur in it, I will let you know as soon as I know of
it myself.
And so your plan for my taking the air, my dear, was to get into a
_close_ fly. I confess that would not have occurred to my ingenuity, or
I should think to that of any but an Irish humorist. I don't feel sure
that there mayn't be a pun hidden somewhere in your proposition. _The
damp_, indeed, I might have taken, to the greatest perfection, for there
did stand a whole row of vehicles before my very windows at Manchester
which were being saturated through and through with the rain that fell
upon them all day long, and must have adapted them admirably for the
purposes of a healthful drive for an invalid suffering from sore throat
and a heavy cold.
I have nothing to say to your impertinent remarks on my zigzag progress
to my various engagements, neither any observation to make about Emily's
information upon the subject of my white cashmere gown.
I am perfectly persuaded that, as a considerable amount of food goes
into one's stomach, the use of which is merely to produce necessary
distension of all the organs, channels, receptacles, machinery, etc., in
short; so a considerable amount of words proceeds out of our mouths, the
use of which is merely to keep our lungs aired and our speaking organs
in exercise; and for that purpose the follies, and foibles, and even
faults of our friends are excellent material, provided no bitterness
mixes in the process; from which, as I feel myself very safe between you
and Emily, I abandon myself absolutely to you both; and as I believe
scribbling (apparently unnecessary) is as necessary to the health of
both of you as the apparently superfluous food and words which people
swallow and utter, I am quite content you should fill up your paper with
the mad eccentricity of the order of my engagements, the rotation of my
gowns, and the dripping street-cabs in which I refuse to take the air
for the benefit of my health....
I do not know who the amateurs are who are to act for the starving Irish
with me in London. Forster, the editor of the _Examiner_, I hear, is
one; Henry Greville, who, indeed, is the getter-up of the whole thing,
another; but for the rest I do not know.
Your people are what are commonly called a generous people; and that, I
suppose, is why they don't mind begging. I think it takes an immensity
of generosity to beg.
Only think of Mr. Radley, here at the Adelphi, expressing his surprise,
when he saw me, that you were not with me! Was not that really quite
touching and nice of him?
My cousin, Charles Mason, is here.... His amiable temper and gentle
manner made him a favorite with my poor mother, and I like to see him on
that account....
How sorry I shall be for both you and Dorothy when your pleasant time at
Torquay is over! especially for you, who will have to see misery and
sometimes hear nonsense. I mean when you go back to Ireland; not, _of
course_, while you are with me....
ADELPHI HOTEL, LIVERPOOL, Sunday, 7th.
I have minded what you said (as when didn't I?), and am swallowing
ipecacuanha lozenges by the gross. It drives me almost crazy that you
should be compelled to make your plans so dependent upon mine, which are
so dependent upon the uncertain wills and arrangements of so many
people.
The manager of the Princess's Theatre, where I am engaged to act in
London, will not allow me to act for the proposed charity at the St.
James's Theatre. I offered to give up the engagement with him rather
than break my promise to the amateurs and disappoint all their plans;
but he will not let me off my engagement to him, and will not permit me
to appear anywhere else before that takes place. I think he is injuring
himself by balking a pet plan of amusement in which all manner of fine
folks, lady patronesses, and the Queen herself, had been induced to
interest themselves; and I think his preventing my acting for this
charity will injure him much more than my appearance on this occasion,
before my coming out at his theatre, could have done. But, of course, he
must be the judge of his own interest; and, at any rate, having entered
into an engagement with him, I cannot render myself liable to squabbles,
and perhaps a lawsuit with him, about it. All these petty worries and
annoyances torment and confuse me a good deal. I have a very poor brain
for business, and there is something in the ignoble vulgarity and
coarseness of manner that I occasionally encounter that increases my
inaptitude by the sort of dismay and disgust with which it fills me. If
the person who has hired me does not relent about these charity
representations, I shall be obliged to give them up, and then I shall
act in Manchester at that time, instead of on the 25th and 27th of
March, which had been before intended, but which I now think I should
give to two representations in Chester on my way back from Dublin. All
this, you see, is still in a state of most vexatious uncertainty, and I
can give you no satisfaction about it, having been able to obtain none
myself....
Perhaps, dearest Hal, I ought not to have asked you the precise meaning
of what you wrote about dear little H----[her nephew, a charming child,
who died in early boyhood], but, every now and then, those expressions
which have become almost meaningless in the mouths of the great majority
of those who use them strike me very much when used by thinking people.
Unless death produces in us an immediate accession of goodness (which, I
think, in those who have labored faithfully to be good here, and are
therefore prepared and ready for more goodness, it may), I cannot
conceive that it should produce greater nearness to God.
Place, time, life, death, earth, heaven, are divisions and distinctions
that we make, like the imaginary lines we trace upon the surface of the
globe. But goodness, surely, is nearness to God, and _only_ goodness;
and though I suppose those good servants of His who have striven to do
His will while in this life are positively nearer to Him after death, I
think it is because, in laying down the sins of infirmity that
inevitably lodge in their mortal bodies, they really are thus much
better after death.
I do not think this is the case with those who have not striven after
excellence, which a young child can hardly be supposed to have done;
because if there is one thing I believe in, it is that there is work to
do for every soul called into conscious existence.... If Dorothy were to
die, I should believe she had gone nearer to God. His care and love for
us is, I verily believe, the nearest of all things to us; but I think
our _conscious_ nearness to Him depends upon how we do His will--_i.e._
how we _strive_ to do it.
I do not speak of Christ in this discussion, because, you know, I think
it was God's will, but man's nature, that He came to show us, and to
teach; and this part of the subject would involve me in more than I have
space to write: but we will speak of this hereafter.
Is it not strange that Charles Greville and you should both be writing
to me just now upon this same subject, of life after death?
I have been walking to-day and yesterday in the Botanical Garden
here.... The place is full of the saddest and tenderest recollections to
me; it is full, too, of innumerable witnesses of God's mercy and wisdom;
plants and flowers from every climate, and the annual resurrection of
the earth is already begun among them. I am very unwell to-day, but I
was well yesterday, and this seems to be now the sort of life-tenure I
may expect:--so be it.
God bless you, dear.
I am ever yours,
FANNY.
DEAR DOROTHY,
I send you a kiss, which Hal will give you for me.
MORRISON'S HOTEL, DUBLIN, March 14th, 1847.
MY DEAR HAL,
I think you must have begun to think that I never meant to write to you
again; for it is seldom that three unanswered letters of yours are
allowed to accumulate in my writing-book; but since I left Liverpool, I
have really not had leisure to write....
The houses at Liverpool were crammed, but here last night there was a
very indifferent one, partly, they say, owing to the fact that the Lord
Lieutenant bespeaks the play for to-morrow night; but I should think it
much more rational to account for it by the deplorable condition to
which the famine has reduced the country, which ought to affect the
minds of those whose bodies do not suffer with something like a
sympathetic seriousness, inimical to public diversions....
I do not care to pursue the argument with you about the change produced
by death in the existence of a child. That which you say about it
appears to me to involve some absolute contradictions; but I would
rather postpone the discussion till we meet.
Charles Greville began writing to me upon these subjects, with reference
to the rapidly declining health and strength of his and my friend, Mary
Berry; over whose approaching death he lamented greatly, although she is
upwards of eighty years old, and, according to my notions, must be ready
and willing to depart.
Charles Greville's ideas, as far as I can make them out, appear to me
those of a materialist. His chief regret seems to be for the loss of a
person he cared for, and the departure of a remarkable member of his
society. Beyond these two views of the subject he does not appear to me
to go.
He has sent me, in the last letter I received from him, an extract from
one of Sir James Mackintosh's, on the death of his wife, which he calls
a "touching expression of grief," but which strikes me as rather a
deplorable expression of grief without other alleviation than the dim
and doubtful surmise of a mind the philosophy of which had never
accepted the consolations of revelation, and yet, under the pressure of
sorrow, rejected the narrower and shallower ones of stoical materialism.
You wish to hear of my arrangement with my cousin, Charles Mason, and I
will tell you when it is decided on....
I have had a note from your sister, asking me to dine with them any day
after the 16th, when they expect to come to town; but I have declined
the invitation, because I do not wish to give up dining with my brother
Henry, who comes to me every day when I don't act....
It seems strange that you should ask me if uncertainty, torments me. It
torments me SO that I never endure it, even when the only escape from it
is by some conclusion that I know to be rash and ill-advised.
"The woman who deliberates," says the saying, "is lost." My loss has
been, and ever will be, through precipitation, not deliberation. To
choose anything, a gown even, is a martyrdom to me, and, unlike the
generality of my sex, I generally go into a shop, wishing to look at
nothing, and knowing only the precise color, material, and quantity of
the stuff I mean to purchase; for if I were to leave myself the smallest
discretion--option, we will say (I can hardly leave myself what I
haven't got)--I should infallibly buy something revoltingly ugly, out of
mere impatience of the investigation and deliberation necessary to get
something that pleased me. It is to save myself from the trouble of
choice that I have made so many arbitrary and, to your thinking, absurd
rules about the details of my daily life; but they spare me indecision
about trifles, and I find it, therefore, comfortable to follow them.
I am at Morrison's hotel; the rooms are clean, comfortable, and
cheerful, but the fare is bad and far from abundant; but if the charges
are meagre in proportion, I shall be satisfied, if not with food, at
least with equity.
My friend Arthur Malkin is here, as secretary to one of the members of
the committee sent out from England to organize relief for your wretched
countrymen. He is good and clever, and it is a great pleasure to me to
have him here. I am sorry Mr. Labouchere [afterwards Lord Taunton] is
away in Parliament. I wished particularly to have met him.
Lord Bessborough was at the play last night, and sent, after it was
over, to invite me to the St. Patrick's ball on Wednesday; but I have
declined, as I do not feel at all well enough for dissipations that
would bore as well as tire me. I am told he means to ask me to dine at
the Castle, which I rather dread, as it is not, I believe, allowable to
refuse a representative of majesty; but I dread the exertion and the
tedium of the thing, and have a particular dislike to the notion of
meeting ----....
Good-bye, my dear.
Ever yours,
FANNY.
[Our total ignorance of the laws of health and the accidents of
sickness throws us necessarily for help upon the partial knowledge
of physicians; but I am often reminded of what that admirable
physician and charming man, Dr. Gueneau de Mussy, once said to me:
"Madame, nous ne savons rien." "Ah mais!" remonstrated I, "cependant
quelque chose?" "Absolument rien, madame," was the consolatory reply
of one of the first medical men of Europe, under whose care both I
and my sister then were, and to whose skilful and devoted care I
attribute the preservation of my sister's life under circumstances
of great peril.
The amateur performance given at the St. James's Theatre was Lord
Ellesmere's translation of Victor Hugo's "Hernani," which had been
acted sixteen years before under such very different circumstances,
as far as I was concerned, at Bridgewater House. Mr. C---- was again
the hero, as I the heroine, of the piece, but the part of Don Carlos
was filled by Henry Greville, and that of the old Spanish noble by
Mr. John Forster.
It was upon this performance that Mr. Macready passed such
annihilating condemnation, not even excepting from his damnatory
sentence of total incapacity his friend and admirer, John Forster,
whose mode of delivering the part of Don Ruez bore ludicrous witness
to Macready's own influence and example, if not direct teaching.
Macready does not even mention poor Forster; the entry in his diary
runs thus: "Went to the amateur play at the St. James's Theatre; the
play "Hernani," translated by Lord Ellesmere, was in truth an
_amateur_ performance. Greville and Craven were very good
_amateurs_, but--tragedy by amateurs!"
The recital of a very graceful and touching poetical address,
written by Lady Dufferin for the occasion, was part of the evening's
work assigned to me, and as I was so weak and suffering from my late
severe illness as to be hardly able to stand, it was with a sense of
having certainly done my share in the evening's charity that I
brought my part of the performance to a close.
While standing at the side-scene before going on to speak this
address, dear Lord Carlisle brought me a most exquisite bunch of
flowers, saying, "I know I ought to throw this at your head from the
front of the house, but I would rather lay it at your feet here."
He then, to my great amazement, proceeded to spread out my satin
train for me with a dexterity so remarkable that I asked him where
he had served his apprenticeship. "Oh, at Court," said he, "at the
drawing-rooms, where I have spread out and gathered up oceans of
silk and satin, thousands of yards more than a counter-gentleman at
Swan and Edgar's." He certainly had learned his business very well.
After leaving Dublin I entered into an arrangement with my cousin,
Charles Mason, to become my agent, and make my engagements for me,
undertaking the necessary correspondence with the managers who
employed me, and looking after my money transactions with them for
me. I stood greatly in need of some such assistance, being quite
incompetent to the management of any business, and ignorant of all
the usual modes of proceeding in theatrical affairs, to a degree
that rendered it highly probable that my interests would suffer
severely from my ignorance. My cousin, however, only rendered me
this service for a very short time, as he left England for America
soon after he undertook it; after which I reverted to my former
condition of comparative helplessness, making my contracts with my
employers as well as I could, and protecting myself from loss, and
keeping out of troublesome complications and disputes, by the light
of what natural reason and rectitude I possessed; always making my
engagements by the night, and thus limiting any possible loss I
might sustain or inflict upon my employers, to my salary and their
receipts, for one performance. I also reduced my written
transactions to the very fewest and briefest communications
possible, with my various theatrical correspondents, and have more
than once had occasion to observe that precision, conciseness, and a
rigid adherence to mere statements of terms, times, and purely
indispensable details of business, were not the distinguishing
features of the letters of most of the men of business with whom I
corresponded.]
QUEEN'S HOTEL, BIRMINGHAM, Saturday, May 29th.
MY DEAR HAL,
How did you get through that dreary time after we parted? I did so
repent not having left some of my "good angels," my flowers, with you;
for though you do not care for them as I do, I love them so much that I
think they would have seemed part of myself to you. What a vision
remained to me of your lonely stay in that horrid room! But the day
passed, and its sorrow, as they all do; and when this reaches you, you
will be comfortable and rested, and among your own people again.
From Liverpool to Crewe I had companions in the ladies' carriage in
which I was; after that I had it to myself, and lay stretched on the
ground for rest the whole of the rest of the way.
I finished Dr. Mays's memoir, and read through half Harriet Martineau's
book, before I reached this place.
Women are always said to talk more than men, and yet I have generally
observed that when Englishwomen who are strangers to each other travel
together, not a single word is exchanged between them; while men almost
invariably fall into discourse together. This, I suppose, is partly from
the want of subjects of general interest among women, such as politics,
agriculture, national questions of importance, etc., which form
excellent common ground of conversation for chance companions; while the
questions of human society and considerations which concern men and
women alike may be too important or too futile, too general or too
special, to admit of easy discussion with strangers. The fact is, that
most women's subjects of interest are so purely personal and individual
that they can only be talked over with intimates.
I like Harriet Martineau's book very much, though perhaps not quite so
much as I expected. What pleases me best is its spirit, the Christian
faith in good, which is really delightful; though I cannot help thinking
she mistakes in supposing that one _must_ be very ill before one
believes in God's sole law, _good_, more almost than in one's own
existence.
The descriptions of natural objects are admirable, and the human
loving-kindness excellent; but I think she pushes her propositions
sometimes to the verge of paradox.... I am delighted to have it, and
think it better reading than the _Dublin Magazine_.
I got here at a little after three. The house is upside down with
cleansing processes, by reason of which I am put (till a smaller one can
be got ready for me) into an amazingly lofty large room, with some good
prints hung on the walls, and a pianoforte; seeing which privileges, I
have declined transferring myself to any other apartment, and shall be
made to pay accordingly.
Tell me of your errand to the theatre at Liverpool, and how you spent
the day, and how the sea treated you, and everything about everything.
God bless you, my dear.
Ever yours,
FANNY.
BRISTOL, Sunday, May 30th, 1847.
A thousand thanks, dear friend, for Liebig's book. You are right, I want
something more to read. I finished Harriet Martineau (Oh, what ink! wait
till I get some better) yesterday evening before tea, and the pamphlet
on bread after I got into bed, and the "Liverpool Tragedy" (such a
thing!) this morning in the railroad; so that your present of Liebig's
book came to my wish and to my need, just as a gift from you should do;
and I shall spend this Sunday afternoon in learning those wonderful
things, and praising God for them.
I regret very much that I cannot recollect anything distinctly that I
read, because the consequence is that books of an order calculated to be
of the greatest use to me, books of fact and positive scientific
knowledge, are really of less advantage to me than any others, because
of their making no appeal to what I should call my emotional memory, and
so they only profit me for the moment in which I read them. Works of
imagination, of criticism, of history, and biography (even of
metaphysical speculation), leave more with me than treatises of positive
knowledge or scientific facts. From the others, a spirit, an animus, a
general impression, a mental, moral, or intellectual accretion, remains
with me; indeed, that is pretty much the whole result I obtain from
anything I read. But books of _knowledge_, of scientific or natural
facts, though they sometimes affect me beyond the finest poetry with an
awe and delight that brings tears to my eyes, have but one invariable
result with me, to add to my love and wonder of God. Their other uses
depend, of course, upon the memory which retains and applies them
subsequently, either in action or observation; and this I fail to do, by
reason of forgetting: and it is a sorrow and a loss to me, because the
whole world is in some sort transfigured, and life endowed with double
significance, to those who are familiar with the details of the
wonderful laws that govern them, and their self-communion must be as
full of variety and interest as their conversation is to others.
I have infinite respect for knowledge; it is only second in value to
wisdom, and to unite both is to be very _fortunate_--which word I use
advisedly, for, though the nobler of the two, wisdom is allowed to all,
knowledge is not.
I agree with you in what you say of Harriet Martineau's book: the good
in it is _her_ peculiar good (very good good it is, too), but it must be
taken with the shadow of her bad upon it. It seems to me occasionally a
little hard and dogmatical, and I have not liked it, upon the whole, as
much as I expected, for it is rather less Christian than I expected; yet
it is a very valuable book, and I was very thankful for it.