Elizabeth Bulteel--Lord Grey's daughter, whom I have known for some
time--to go and stay at her pretty place, Flete, two miles from
Plymouth; but having to come on here, I could not go to her, which I was
very sorry for. She sent me the most exquisite flowers, which I brought
away with me, and which are still consoling me here.
Good-bye; God bless you, my dear.
Ever yours,
FANNY.
NEW LONDON INN, EXETER, Wednesday, June 23d.
I do not plead guilty to general inconsistency, but only to particular
inconsistency, in a particular instance, dear Hal.... You are quite
welcome to accuse me of it, however; but as in your last letter you
imply that I accept the accusation, I beg leave to state distinctly that
I do not.... Not, indeed, that I make any pretensions to that order of
coherency of action and opinion which is generally called consistency:
my principles are few, simple, and comprehensive, and I rather desire
so to embrace them with my heart, mind, and soul, that my conduct may
habitually conform to them, than am careful in every instance of action
to see whether I am observing them. Somebody said very well that
principles were moral habits; and our habits become unconscious and
spontaneous: and so I think should our consistency be, and not a sort of
moral rule or measure to be applied and adjusted to each exigency as it
occurs, to produce a symmetrical moral appearance.
I think one reason why I appear, and perhaps am, inconsistent is because
I seldom have any consideration for _expediency_--what I should call
_secondary_ rules of conduct; and I have not much objection to
contradicting my course of action in the present hour by that of the
next, provided at each time I am endeavoring to do what seems best to
me. I desire a certain _frame of mind_ that my conduct may flow
habitually from it, without constant reference to outward coherency. In
the course of life-long endeavor and practice, I suppose, this may be
achieved. But do not think me presumptuous if I say that I think people
are generally too afraid of appearing inconsistent, too desirous to seem
reasonable,--in short, more anxious upon the whole about what they _do_
than what they _are_. Of course, the one will much depend upon the
other; but they will _match_ well enough without an everlasting
comparison of shades of color, if they are really in harmony, and, at
all events, will certainly _harmonize_ even if they do not precisely
_match_: there's a woman's shopping illustration for you.... Of course
you will understand well enough that I have not referred to the capital
inconsistency of which poor St. Paul so pathetically complained--wishing
to do right and doing wrong,--nor would you have charged me individually
and specially with this, alas! universal moral incoherency.
This is my holiday, and I have been spending it between two famous
nursery-gardens in the neighborhood of Exeter, and the cathedral.
These great gardeners send up their exquisite and precious plants to the
London horticultural exhibitions, and I saw many for whose beauty and
variety gold and silver medals had been awarded to their foster-father
florists. The masters of both these establishments very courteously went
over them with me, showing me the hot-houses where their choicest and
rarest plants were kept; there were some, such exquisite and wonderful
creatures, lovely to the eye, delicious to the smell--Patagonians,
Javanese, from the Cordilleras, from Peru, from Chili, from Borneo,--the
flower tribes of the whole earth.
Then, again, they showed me little pots of fine sand, covered with bell
glasses, where the eye could hardly detect a point or shade of sickly
green upon the surface,--the promise of some _unique_ foreign flower,
sent from its savage home in the forests of another hemisphere, to
blossom at the Chiswick horticultural exhibition, and win medals for the
careful cultivators, who have watched with faith--assuredly in this case
"the evidence of things not seen"--its precarious growth and doubtful
development.
One of these gentlemen horticulturists interested me extremely by his
own fervent enthusiasm about his plants. He showed me two
perishing-looking miserable dried-up _twigs_, and said, "Those are the
only specimens of their kind in the kingdom. They come from Chili, and
when healthy bear a splendid blossom as large as a tulip. These are just
between life and death: I fear we may kill them with kindness, we are so
anxious about them." He told me they had a flower-hunter out in South
America, and another in India. And now I must go to bed, because it is
twelve o'clock.
I brought home some heavenly flowers from these earthly paradises, and
then went and spent the rest of my afternoon in the cathedral--a
beautiful old building, of various dates and architecture, the whole
effect of which is extremely picturesque and striking.
Good-night, my dear.
I am ever yours,
FANNY.
ORCHARD STREET, Tuesday, August 24th.
Rachel has been acting at Manchester, to houses of _sixty_ pounds (her
nightly salary being _one hundred and twenty_), and this because Jenny
Lind is going there. I must confess I have no patience with this--as if
the rich Manchester merchants could not afford to treat themselves to
both! Rachel is really pre-eminent in her art, and so this provokes
me.... I dined with the Miss Berrys at Richmond on Wednesday, and met
dear old Lady Charlotte Lindsay, who inquired as usual most
affectionately after you. Mrs. Dawson Damer dined there, too, and said
she remembered being as a very young girl at Wroxton Abbey (Lord
Guildford's), and seeing you there a very young girl too.
I began this letter two days ago, and am in all the full wretchedness of
packing up. I set off to-morrow for Mrs. Mitchell's, where I hope to be
on Thursday afternoon. I shall reach York to-morrow, at three o'clock,
and intend sleeping there, of which I have written to apprise Dorothy,
as I hope to see her for an hour or two in the evening.
I am obliged to give up my Norwich engagement, which I am very sorry
for; but the fast and loose style of the correspondence about it makes
it impossible to fix any time for going there. The manager first asked
me to go there in August, but now, because Jenny Lind is going there, he
wants to put me off till the third week in September, at which time I
expect to be in Glasgow, the manager of that theatre having written to
me thence that October is not a good month there, and begged me to come
in September. I am sorry to lose my Norwich engagement, but cannot help
it. I have heard nothing more from the Princess's Theatre.
... My father talks of giving up his readings, and I have therefore
spoken to Mitchell, of the St. James's Theatre, about giving some
myself, and find him very willing to undertake the whole "speculation"
and business, not only in London but all over the provinces, with me and
for me; so that I do not feel quite as uncomfortable about the
uncertainty of an engagement at the Princess's as I might have done.
Mr. Mitchell is a Liberal, and an honest man, too, and I shall be quite
safe in his hands; in the mean time I shall be very glad to be at
Carolside instead of in London, though to-day and yesterday the weather
has been very cold and chilly, and in Scotland is not likely to be
warmer.
Do you hear of this horrid murder in Paris [that of the Duchesse de
Praslin, by her husband]? Ever so many people that I know here knew the
unhappy woman and her still more wretched husband; and the woman who has
been accused of having instigated the crime was little Lady Melgund's
governess for six years.
Good-bye, my dear.
I am ever yours,
FANNY.
[Mademoiselle de Luzzy, the governess of the Duc de Praslin's
children, was acquitted upon his trial of any complicity in his
crime; that of which she was not acquitted, however, was, turning
the hearts of her pupils against their unfortunate mother, and
endeavoring to establish her position and authority in the duchess's
home and family, at her expense. By a most strange turn of
circumstance, Mademoiselle de Luzzy, thus connected with the great
world of Paris and implicated in one of its most tragic occurrences,
went to the United States, where she married a country clergyman,
whose family belonged to the peaceful population of Stockbridge--one
of the loveliest villages in the "Happy Valley" of the Housatonic.
The residence of the Sedgwick family in this charming place
attracted to it many foreigners of mark and distinction; but few,
certainly, whose claims to notoriety were so peculiar and painful as
this lady's.
Mrs. Mitchell, of Carolside, was a Scotchwoman of an Aberdeen
family. She was my dear friend for many years, and a perfectly
charming person. Her face was exquisitely pretty and her figure
faultless; she had very peculiar eyes of a lightish hazel, with such
long lashes that it seemed occasionally as if her eyes were shining
through a soft haze of golden brown rays. She spoke with a slight
Scotch accent, the "winning Scottish speech" which Secretary Philips
writes of as one of Mary Stuart's peculiar charms; and she was
personally my notion of that "much blamed, much worshipped" modern
Helen. She had remarkable decision of character and force of will,
with the gentlest and most feminine appearance and manner; she was
humorous and witty, and an incomparable mimic. She was a woman of
admirably high principle and rectitude, and in every way as
attractive as she was estimable. Her eldest son was proprietor of a
charming place, Carolside, just over the Scottish border, and had
hardly come of age and inherited it when the Crimean war broke out
and compelled him, then a young officer in the army, to leave his
pleasant home prospects and encounter the threatening aspect of
"grim-visaged war." His mother, whose widowed life had been devoted
to him and his younger brother, also a soldier, fluttered after her
dear ones to the Crimea, and had the joy to get them safe back from
the "world's great snare uncaught."
Lady M---- and Mrs. Mitchell were attached and almost inseparable
friends for many years, occupying the same house in London,
travelling on the Continent together, and when in Scotland living
together at Mrs. Mitchell's pretty home, Carolside, or hiring some
house in the Highlands together. Emily de Viry (afterwards, alas!
Emily de Revel) I met again, for the first time for many years, at
Carolside. She was the daughter of our friends Mr. and Mrs. Basil
Montague, and half-sister of my kind friend Mrs. Procter, and a very
intimate friend of my sister Adelaide. She was an extremely
interesting person, the tragic close of whose life can never be
thought of without profound regret. She had married her cousin Count
Charles de Viry, and after years of widowhood she married again the
Count Adrien de Revel, Sardinian Ambassador in England, to whom she
had not been united a week when they were both carried off by the
cholera, which was then raging in Genoa: the same paper which
announced their marriage brought the tidings of their untimely death
to me. During this visit of mine to Carolside M. de Revel came there
for a few days; I was well acquainted with him, and liked him very
much.]
CAROLSIDE, EARLSTON, Sunday, 29th.
I am no more in London, my dear Hal, but in one of the sweetest places I
ever was in, which, as you know, is a great delight to me.
I am only just beginning to recover from the effects of the journey
hither, which, though divided into two days, made me very unwell....
Surely, you never meant, in spite of my invariable habit of replying to
all your questions, that I should ever attempt an answer to that
suggestion of your love and sorrow which, in speaking of your brother
[Barry S----, dead many years before], makes you exclaim, "What now is
his nature?" ...
I have been sorrier to think of the death of Dr. Combe than I was to
hear of it, when, as is always the case with me, my first feeling was
one almost of joy and congratulation. I never have any other emotion on
first hearing of a good man's death. I have an instantaneous sense of
relief, as it were, for such a one, of freer breathing, of expanded
powers; of infirmity, pain, sorrow, trouble, fleshly hinderance, and
earthly suffering for ever laid in the grave and left behind; and that
glorious creature, a noble human soul, soaring into a purer atmosphere
proper to it, and promoted to such higher duties as may well be deemed
rewards for duties well fulfilled on earth.
After a little while I began to cry, thinking of that sweet, beaming,
intelligent, benevolent countenance, that I am never to see here again;
but this was crying for myself, not him. I am truly grieved for his
brother, and all who knew, and loved, and have lost so excellent a
friend.
I have a paper in my possession still, which he laughingly drew up and
gave me when I was a girl in Edinburgh, a sort of legal document,
binding him to appear to me after he was dead; and one or two evenings,
as I lay on my sofa alone in Orchard Street, I thought of this, and
could not help fancying that if indeed it had been possible he could
have appeared to me, the familiar trust and affection with which I
always regarded him would have been paramount to all fears and wonders
in the first moment of my seeing him.
I have heard nothing more of my engagement at the Princess's Theatre,
and begin to think that perhaps I shall not hear anything more about it;
but I scarcely expected to do so before the end of November, because
till then I should not be wanted there, and I dare say the manager will
leave me as long a time as possible to consider of his offers and my
acceptance or rejection of them.
I am charmed with my hostess. She is exceedingly pretty--a great virtue,
as you know, in my estimation; she is upright, true, pious, and
uncommonly reasonable and judicious: am I not right to be charmed with
her? Then, too, she is most kind, gentle, considerate, and affectionate
to me, and esteems me, as I believe I have before told you, far beyond
my deserts--who can resist _that_ bribe?
Upon several points upon which I differ from people's usual modes of
thinking and feeling, I find there is a great similarity in our views;
and I feel as if I might thank God for an addition to the treasure of
excellent people's love that He has comforted my life withal; and count
another friend added to those who have been such infinite blessings to
me.
I am left to conclude that Mrs. Grote was so absorbed in her interest in
Mademoiselle Jenny Lind that I vanished utterly from her mind; for after
coming to see me just before I went down to Bannisters and pressing me
to go to the Beeches when I returned, I never heard another word about
it, or even set eyes upon her again.
I have been with your precious Dorothy, who came, both to my joy and
sorrow, to meet me at the railroad station, with her poor face covered
with that hideous respirator, and speaking when she had it off as if she
still had it on, her voice was so pale and dim. It grieved me that she
should have made an exertion that I feared might injure her, and yet I
was delighted to see her and most grateful for her extreme kindness in
thus troubling herself. She came, too, with her hands full of flowers
(my "good angels" brought to me by your "good angel," which seemed to me
pretty and proper, was it not?), and carried me straight off to Fulford
[Miss Wilson's home near York], where, in spite of much pain and
exhaustion consequent upon the long railroad journey, I passed a blessed
few hours with her, though our talk inevitably was of much sorrow....
I have not had time yet to see anything of the condition of the people
about this place. The villages and cottages we passed coming hither all
struck me as poor and comfortless compared with England; but the less
cleanly and tidy habits of the Scotch, and their almost universal
practice of going barefoot--at least the women and children,--give an
impression of greater poverty and discomfort than really exist, I
believe.
I have not yet received my American letters.... I am to act three nights
at Glasgow. I think Kelso is the town nearest Carolside, and that is
fourteen miles distant; the post town or village is Earlston
(Ercildown), a mile from the house. The whole region belongs to poetry
and legend and romance. The Eildon hills overlook it, and Thomas the
Rhymer haunts it, and the Scotch ballads are full of it. Do you know--oh
no, you know no songs, you unfortunate!--"Leader haughs and Yarrow," or
that exquisite melody beloved of Mendelssohn:--
"Busk ye, busk ye, my bonny, bonny bride!
Busk ye, busk ye, my winsome _marrow_!"
(isn't that an odd term of endearment to one's mistress?)
"Busk ye, busk ye, my bonny, bonny bride!
And think nae mair on the braes of Yarrow"?
Then there is that lovely ditty "Gala Water," which I always sing in
honor of my young host, who is a sort of Laird of Galashiel. The whole
place is full of such charming suggestions and associations. The
Leader, a lovely, clear, rapid, shallow, sparkling trout-stream, makes a
sudden bend across the lawn, opposite the drawing-room and dining-room
windows here (last October the pixie got vexed at something and very
nearly rushed in to the house); and early before breakfast this morning
I walked along the banks of the stream, and then knee deep up its bright
waters, and then over the breezy hills, "O'er the hills, amang the
heather," whence I watched its gleaming course between red-colored
rocks, like walls of porphyry or Roman tufa, and through corn-fields,
and by tufted woods, and felt for an hour as if there was no bitterness
in life....
I shall remain here till September 11th, when I go to Glasgow, where I
expect to act on the 13th. I shall be very sorry to go away, but shall
certainly by that time have had enjoyment enough to feel that it would
be unwise to tempt the inevitable decree which makes all pleasure and
happiness short-lived here, and which, when we strive to retain or
detain them, makes us wise through some disappointment or
disenchantment, which it is still wiser to anticipate and avoid.
Farewell, dear Hal.
I am ever as ever yours,
FANNY.
[Carolside was situated just beyond the Border in Scotland, in that
region of romantic and poetical traditions, full of the charm of
early legendary and ballad lore, of the associations of Burns's
songs and Scott's Border minstrelsy, pervaded with the old
superstitions, half-beliefs, dating from as far back as the days of
Thomas the Rhymer, and the later powerful influence of the Wizard of
the North, the mighty master-magician of our own day.
Melrose, Dryburgh, and Abbotsford, Smailholme, and Beamerside, were
all within easy distance of it; "the bonnie broom of Cowdenknowes"
bloomed in its neighborhood; the Gala, the Leader, the Tweed, the
Yarrow, ran singing through the lovely region, the exquisite
melodies that have been inspired by their wild scenery. It was a
region of natural beauty, heightened by every association that could
add to its charm. The Eildon Hills were our landmarks in all our
walks and rides and drives: and Ercildown, modernized into
Earlston, the picturesque post-village at our gates.]
CAROLSIDE, EARLSTON, September 5th.
MY DEAR LADY DACRE,
... Of the advantageous engagement which you heard I had concluded I
cannot speak with any certainty, for it never was settled definitively,
and I begin to think will not be concluded. I think it may have been
nothing more than a feint on the part of the manager of the Princess's
Theatre, who has been urged by Mr. Macready's friends to engage me to
act with him, and who, as he will not give me my terms, has, I think,
perhaps merely tendered me an arrangement that he knew I would not
accept, in order to be able to say that he had _endeavored_ to make an
arrangement with me. I am very sorry for this, for employment during the
winter months in London is what I much desired. However, "there is a
soul of good even in things evil," and the later experiences of my life
have left me little sensibility to spend upon crosses of this
description.
Not to be able to work for my own maintenance would indeed be a serious
calamity to me; but if I fail of a theatrical engagement I shall fall
back upon my original plan, to me so far preferable, of giving readings.
I do not think that now, after a whole year of apparent relinquishment
of that pursuit, my father has any thought of resuming it, which leaves
me free to make the attempt.
I am staying with a friend at a place on the Scottish Border; the
Leader, famous in song, runs across the lawn; we are four miles from
Melrose, and about as many from Abbotsford; the country is lovely, and
full of poetical and romantic associations.
I remain here another week, and then go to Glasgow, where I am to act;
after that I expect to pass three weeks in Edinburgh, between my two
cousins, Cecilia Combe (whom you remember as Cecy Siddons) and a
daughter of my dear friend Mrs. Harry Siddons, who married Major Mair,
and is living happily and prosperously in beautiful Edinburgh.
I must either act or give readings during this time, as I can in no wise
afford to be idle.
It was a great disappointment to me to _boil_ by B----'s very door on my
way here [Miss Barbarina Sullivan, Lady Dacre's granddaughter, now the
Hon. Lady Grey], but my plans had been all disarranged and confused by
other people, and I was most unwillingly compelled to pass by Howick. I
have written to offer myself to her in the last week of October on my
way back to London, and heartily hope she may be able and willing to
receive me, as I long to see her in her new home.
Pray give my kind regards to Mrs. Brand. You ought to be of the greatest
use, comfort, and pleasure to each other, endowed, as you both are, with
the especial graces of age and youth.
With affectionate respects to Lord Dacre, believe me
Ever yours,
FANNY.
[Miss Susan Cavendish had married the Hon. Thomas Brand, Lord
Dacre's nephew and heir. When I wrote this letter young Mr. and Mrs.
Brand lived a good deal at the Hoo with my kind old friends.]
CAROLSIDE, EARLSTON, September 5th.
You ask me what I am doing, dear Hal. I am driving fifteen miles in an
open britzska, in a bitter blowing day, to return morning calls of
neighbors, whose laudable desire is to "keep the county lively," and who
have dragged my little hostess into active participation in a picnic at
Abbotsford, which is to take place next Friday, the weather promising to
reward the seekers after "liveliness" with their death of cold, if they
escape their death of dulness.
I have taken several charming rides; the country is beautiful. I have
caught a tolerably good cold--I mean, good of its kind--by wading knee
deep in the Leader, and then standing on cold rocks, fishing by the
hour; in which process I did catch--cold, but nothing else; for, though
the water is still drowning deep in some beautiful brown pools, set in
the rocks like huge cairngorms, it is, for the most part, so shallow,
and everywhere so clear with the long-continued drought, that the
spotted trout and silver eels see me quite as well as I see them, and
behave accordingly, avoiding me more successfully, but quite as
zealously, as I seek them....
Our party has hitherto consisted of Emily de Viry, an uncle and brother
of Mrs. Mitchell's, and a London banker, a friend of hers. This, with
the "liveliness" of the neighborhood, with whom we have dined, and who
have dined with us, has been our society.
Next week Lady M----, who has been on a visit at Dunse Castle, returns,
and various people are coming from sundry places; but, except the Comte
de Revel, I do not know any of those who are expected.
The only music I have is my own, _forbye_ a comic song or two, gasped
and death-rattled out by poor old Sir Adam Fergusson, whom I met
seventeen years ago at Walter Scott's house, and who is still tottering
on, with inexhaustible spirits, but a body that seems quite threadbare,
tattered, and ready to fall in pieces with long and hard use.
I do not read to the party collectively, but occasionally to Emily de
Viry alone, who has asked me once or twice to read her favorite poems of
hers, of Wordsworth's, Tennyson's, and Milnes's....