my father to Loch Lomond twenty years ago. I had never seen a drop of
Loch Katrine till now. We went from Glasgow to Stirling by railroad in
an hour, on Saturday morning. From Stirling we took a light open
carriage, a kind of britzska, and pair of horses, and posted the same
afternoon sixteen miles to Callander, where we slept. Sunday morning we
took the same carriage with fresh horses to Loch Katrine. The distance
is only ten miles of an enchanting drive; and if I had been able to
spend the night at the Trosachs, I could have done it perfectly well,
for there is an immense big inn there for the reception of tourists; and
though the house was shut up for the season, the servants were in it,
and we could have procured bed and board there, and I have no doubt a
roast fowl and sherry, or oatmeal and whiskey, if we had preferred them.
I had, however, to be back in Stirling the same afternoon, and the
weather was wild and gloomy, though not cold, nor positively wet till we
got into a little one-horse "machine" to drive through the Trosachs,
when the mist shrouded the mountains almost from base to summit, and
even Ben Aven, close under him as we were, was barely discernible. Ben
An was the feature of the scene that struck me most; the form of its
crest is so singularly jagged and fine.
We just drove through the pass to the first ripple of the lake, and then
turned right-about to Stirling, which we reached before four o'clock in
the afternoon, and yesterday morning I was back again in Glasgow, the
lakes and mountains remaining in my memory absolutely like a dream. The
country from Doune to Callander is beautiful, and in summer it must be
an enchanting expedition, though such scenery has its own peculiar
winter beauty, grander and more impressive perhaps than even its summer
loveliness. I wish I was there again.
I cannot tell you anything more of my receipts at Glasgow, except that
those of the second night were much better than the first; but as those
were small, this is not saying much. I have not yet received the
"returns."
I am glad the news you got from Ardgillan is satisfactory. Love to dear
Dorothy.
Ever as ever yours,
FANNY.
29, ABERCROMBIE PLACE, EDINBURGH, Wednesday, 13th.
I did not see the eclipse, my dear. I did not know there was to be one,
and did not therefore look for it; and if I had, I doubt my having been
any the wiser, inasmuch as our mornings of late have been very misty.
I am off to-day with Mrs. Mitchell to Ardoch, where I stay only
to-morrow, and return Friday to act here on Saturday. Having promised to
go, I do not like to break my word, otherwise it seems to me rather a
fuss, and a long way to go for one day's rest. Originally our plan was
to spend two or three days there, that being all I could then give; but
Mrs. Mitchell, with whom I had promised to go, could not get away from
visitors at her own house sooner.
I spent the evening with Cecilia and Mr. Combe on Monday. They are both
tired from the effect of their journey still, and look fagged and ill.
They have both got the influenza too, which does not mend matters; and I
am struck with the alteration in Mr. Combe's appearance. He looks old,
as well as ill, and very sad--naturally enough on his return to this
place, where his dear brother died.
The _becomingness_ of Cecilia's gray, or rather white, hair struck me
more than any other change in her. She has lost the appearance of
hardness (coarseness), which, I think, mingled slightly with her
positive beauty formerly, and is to my mind handsomer now than I ever
remember her. She is not nearly so stout as she was; her complexion has
lost its excess of color, has become softer; and the contrast of her
fine dark eyes and silvery curls gives her a striking resemblance to
Gainsborough's lovely portrait of her mother. She is looking thin and
ill, but seems tolerably cheerful.
At the end of my engagement at the theatre, during the whole of which I
shall remain with the Mairs, I shall spend a few days with her and Mr.
Combe; after which I shall come as far south as Howick, and stay a day
or two with B---- G----, and then cross over to Manchester to the
Ellesmeres.
I shall hardly be in London before the third week in November. I have
had a letter from my sister, announcing their positive return in the
spring; but, as she says they will only leave Rome in May, it is
improbable that I should see them at all, as I propose going to America
by the steamer of the first of June; but Heaven knows what may happen
between this and then. Nobody has the same right to "bother" me, as you
call it, that you have, for I love nobody so well; besides, as for
Emily, she is a deuced deal quicker in her processes than you are, and
snaps up one's affairs by the nape of the neck, as a terrier does a rat,
and unless one is tolerably alert one's self, she is off with one in her
zeal in no time, whither one would not....
I wish you would tell Mrs. Fitzhugh, with my love, that a man who was
acting Joseph Surface with me the other night said to me, "Now, my dear
Lady Teazle, if you could but be persuaded to commit a trifling _fore
paw_ (_faux pas_)."
Give my love to dear Emily.
Ever as ever yours,
FANNY.
MY DEAREST HAL,
I expect to be with the Combes for some few days at least, and do not
feel altogether as happy as usual in the anticipation of their
intercourse.
I think I have observed growing, as it were, upon them, with regard to
certain subjects, a sort of general attitude of antagonism, which
strikes me painfully.
All fanaticisms are bad, and the fanaticism of scepticism as bad or
perhaps worse than most others, because it wounds more severely the
prejudices of others than it can be wounded by them, professing, as it
does, to have none to wound.
I am going to stay with Cecilia all next week, and am rather afraid that
I shall have to hear things that I love and reverence irreverently
treated. We shall probably steer clear of much discourse on religious
subjects, though of late Mr. Combe has appeared to me more inclined than
formerly to challenge discussion on this ground.
I am afraid I can at the utmost only expect to see my sister for a
fortnight after they return, though Henry Greville writes me that I
cannot possibly give her the mortification and myself the pain of going
away just as she comes back, and that I ought, for both our sakes, to
stay at least a month in England after her return: but then he wishes to
get up a play with us both.
I think Grantley Manor charming. It gave me a great desire to know Lady
Georgiana Fullerton personally; but I am told she has a horror of me,
for what she calls my "injustice to the Catholics." What that is I do
not know; but whatever it is, I am very sorry for this result of it.
Good-bye, dearly beloved.
Ever yours,
FANNY.
29, ABERCROMBIE PLACE, EDINBURGH, Monday, October 25th, 1847.
The last question in your letter, which nevertheless heads it, having
been added on over the date, "How is your health?" I can answer
satisfactorily--much better.... I am much delighted at you and Dorothy
reserving your visit to Battle Abbey till I come to you, and only hope
the weather may give you no cause to regret having done so. I have
promised Emily to go down to Bannisters in December, and shall then pay
you my visit at St. Leonard's.
I do much wish to be once more with you and Dorothy. I have just
concluded a very pleasant arrangement with Arthur Malkin and his wife
for staying a few days in the neighborhood of the lakes with them,
between Keswick and Ambleside, after I leave Howick.
The weather is, I believe, generally favorable for that scenery as late
as November. I have never seen the English lakes, and am not likely soon
to have so pleasant an opportunity of doing so.
I have received an application from the York manager to act at Leeds,
and having agreed to do so, think I shall probably also act a few nights
at York, Hull, and Sheffield, while I am thereabouts; all which,
together with my visit to the Ellesmeres, will take up so much of my
time that I doubt my being more than a month or three weeks in Orchard
Street before my term of possession there expires.... I shall be able to
answer your questions about the Combes better when I am with them, but
besides my own observation I have the testimony of the ----s to the fact
of their having become much more aggressive in their feeling and
conversation with regard to "Church abuses," "theological bigotry," and
even Christianity itself. I am sorry to hear this; but if they _hurt_
me, I shall heal myself by looking at the Vatican [a fine engraving of
St. Peter's, in Mr. Combe's house].
I had a letter from E---- the other day. I am delighted to say that they
have quite determined to return in the spring, and it is just possible
that I may see them before I leave England.
E----'s account of the Roman reforms is most encouraging, and I must
give you an extract from his letter about them.
"A very important decree was published on the 2d of this month, relative
to the organization of a municipal council and magistracy for the city
of Rome. Besides the ordinary duties of a municipality, such as public
works, _octroi_, etc., it is to have the direction of education. This is
a circumstance the consequence of which it is impossible to overrate or
to foresee. Hitherto, education has been monopolized by the clergy, and
moreover by the Jesuits (whose schools have always been the best by a
very great deal, to give the devil his due). The new law does not
abolish their establishments, or interfere with them in any way, but the
liberal feeling being so strong in the country, the rising generation
will be almost entirely educated in the schools founded by the
municipality; it is the greatest blow the hierarchy has yet received.
The council consists of a hundred members, chosen from different classes
of society. It is first named by the Pope, and then renews itself by
elections; there are only four members to represent the ecclesiastical
bodies."
There, Hal, what do you think of that? I sit and think of that most
lovely land, emerging gloriously into a noble political existence once
more, till I almost feel like a poet.
Love to Dorothy.... I only make Hayes _sensible_ that she is a _fool_
twice a week on an average, not twice a day.
Yours ever,
FANNY.
HOWICK GRANGE, November 14th.
Surely, my dearest Hal, the next time you say you almost despair of
mankind, you should add, "in spite of God," instead of "in spite of the
Pope."
I arrived here about three hours ago, and have received a most severe
and painful blow in a letter from Henry Greville which I found awaiting
me, containing the news of Mendelssohn's death. I cannot tell you how
shocked I am at this sudden departure of so great and good a creature
from amongst his impoverished fellow-beings. And when I think of that
bright genius (he was the _only_ man of genius I have known who seemed
to me to fulfil the rightful moral conditions and obligations of one),
by whose loss the whole civilized world is put into mourning; of his
poor wife, so ardently attached to him, so tenderly and devotedly loved
by him; of his children--his boy, who, I am told, inherits his sweet and
amiable disposition; of my own dear sister, and poor E----, so deeply
attached to him,--I cannot bear to think, I feel half stupid with pain.
And yet your letter is full of other sorrow. O God! how much there is in
this sorrowful life! and what suffering we are capable of! and yet--and
yet--these can be but the accidents, while the sun still shines, and the
beauty and consolation and _virtue_ of nature and human life still
hourly abound.
You ask me if I have written anything in Edinburgh but letters. I have
hardly had leisure to write even letters. I do not know when I have
worked so hard as during my last engagement there. I have hardly had an
occupation or thought that was not perforce connected with my theatrical
avocations. I am heartily glad it is over.
Mr. Combe has given me the "Vestiges of Creation" to read, and I have
been reading it.... The book is striking and interesting, but it appears
to me far from strictly logical in its great principal deduction, as far
as we "human mortals" are concerned. Indeed, Mr. Combe, who thinks it
most admirable, was obliged to confess that the main question of
progress, involving dissimilar products from similar causes, was
_non-proven_. And I think there are discrepancies, moreover, in minor
points: but that may only be because of my profound ignorance.
The book is extremely disagreeable to me, though my ignorance and desire
for knowledge combined give it, when treating of facts, a thousand times
more interest than the best of novels for me; but its conclusions are
utterly revolting to me,--nevertheless, they may be true.
I cannot write any more. B---- has just given me the _Athenaeum_, with a
long notice of Mendelssohn; and I am thinking more of him just now than
anything else in the world....
God bless you, my dear.
I am ever yours,
FANNY.
LEEDS, Friday, November 19th.
Mendelssohn's death did indeed give me a bitter and terrible shock. He
was one of the bright sources of truth, at which I had hoped I might
drink at some time or other. I always looked forward to some probable
season of intercourse with him, the likelihood of which was increased by
E---- and Adelaide's love for and intimacy with him. Intercourse with
him seemed to me a privilege almost certainly to be mine, in the course
of the next few years. This is only my own small selfish share of the
great general grief. I feel particularly for E----. He seems to find so
very few people that satisfy him, whom he is fond of, or who are at all
congenial to him, that the loss of a dear friend, and such a man, will
indeed fall heavily upon him.
Those whose sympathies are more general, and whose taste can accept and
find pleasure in the intercourse of the majority of their
fellow-creatures, are fortunate in this respect, that no one loss can
make the world empty for them; and thus the qualities of kindliness and
benevolence are repaid, like all other virtues, even in this world
(which is nevertheless not heaven), into the bosom of those who practise
them.
For a person who has permitted intellectual refinement to become almost
a narrow fastidiousness, and whose sympathies are of that exclusive kind
that none but special and rarely gifted persons can excite them, the
loss of such a friend as Mendelssohn must be incalculable; and I am
grieved to the heart for E----.
I do not know what is to be done with Covent Garden. I suppose it will
remain an opera-house; for to fit it for that it has been made well-nigh
unavailable for any other purpose, as I think we shall find on the 7th
December, when a representation of "Scenes" from various of
Shakespeare's plays is to take place there, for the purpose of raising
funds for the purchase of the house Shakespeare was born in.
You know what my love and veneration for Shakespeare are; you know, too,
how comparatively indifferent to me are those parts of the natures even
of those I most love and honor which belong only to their mortality. The
dead bodies of my friends appeal, perhaps, even less than they should do
to my feelings, since they have been temporarily inhabited and informed
by their souls; but acquainted as you are with these notions of mine,
you will understand that I do not entirely sympathize with all that is
being said and done about the four walls between which the king of poets
came into his world. The thing is more distasteful to me, because
originally got up by an American charlatan of the first water, with a
view to thrust himself into notoriety by shrieking about the world
stupendous commonplaces about the house where Shakespeare was born. It
has been taken up by a number of people, theatrical and other, who, with
the exception of Macready, have many of them the same petty personal
objects in view. Those whose profession compels them, by the absolute
necessity of its conditions, to garble and hack and desecrate works
which else could not be fit for acting purposes (a fact which in itself
sets forth what theatrical representation really is and always must
be--do read, _a propos_ to this, Serlo's answer to Wilhelm Meister about
the impossibility of representing dramatically a great poetical whole),
and who now, on this very Shakespearian Memorial night, instead of
acting some one of his plays in its integrity, and taking zealously any
the most insignificant part in it, have arranged a series of truncated,
isolated scenes, that the actors may each be the hero or heroine of
their own _bit_ of Shakespeare.... This is all I know of the immediate
destinies of Covent Garden. They have written to me to act the dying
scene of Queen Katharine, to which I have agreed, not choosing to
decline any part assigned me in this "Celebration," little as I
sympathize with it.
If I should hear anything further, as I very likely may, from Henry
Greville, of the probable fate of Covent Garden next season, I will let
you know, that you may dispose accordingly of your property in it.
I have finished the "Vestiges of Creation." I became more reconciled to
the theory it presents towards the close of the book, for obvious
reasons. Of course, when, abandoning his positive chain (as he conceives
it) of proved progression, after leading the whole universe from
inorganic matter up to the "paragon of animals," the climax of
development, man, he goes on to say that it is _impossible_ to limit the
future progress, or predict the future destinies of this noble human
result, he forsakes his own ground of material demonstration, on which
he has jumped, as the French say, _a peds joints_, over many an
impediment, and relieves himself (and me) by the hypothesis, which,
after all, in no way belongs peculiarly to his system, that other and
higher destinies, developments, may, and probably do, await humanity
than anything it has yet attained here: a theory which, though most
agreeable to the love of life and desire of perfection of most human
creatures, in no sort hinges logically on to his _absolute chain of
material progression_ and development. From the moment, however, that he
admitted this view, instead of the one which I think legitimately
belongs to his theory, irreconcilable as it seemed to me with what
preceded it, the book became less distasteful to me, although I do not
think the soundness of his theory (even admitting all his facts, which I
am quite too ignorant to dispute) established by his work. Supposing his
premises to be all correct, I think he does not make out his own case
satisfactorily; and many of the conclusions in particular instances
appear to me to be tacked or basted (to speak womanly) together loosely
and clumsily, and yet with an effect of more mutual relation, coherence,
and cohesion than really belongs to them.
Mr. Combe is delighted with the book--because it quotes him and his
brother, and professes a belief in phrenology; but Mr. Combe himself
allowed that the main proposition of the work is not logically deduced
from its arguments, and moreover admitted that though well versed in
_all_ the branches of natural science, the author was perfectly master
of _none_. He attributes the authorship to his friend Robert Chambers,
or perhaps to the joint labor of him and his brother William. If his
surmise in this respect is true there would be obvious reasons why they
should not acknowledge so heterodox a book, especially in Edinburgh.
In asking me for _my_ theory of human existence, dear Hal, you must have
_forgotten me_ in your craving desire for some--any--solution of the
great mystery with which you are so deeply and perpetually perplexed.
How should I, who know nothing, who am _exceptionally_ ignorant, who
seldom read, and seldomer think (in any proper sense of the word), have
even the shadow of a theory upon this overpowering theme?
To tell you the vague suggestions of my imagination at various times
would doubtless be but to re-echo some of your own least satisfactory
surmises.
I thank God I have not the mental strength _and infirmity_ to seek to
grapple with this impossible subject. The faint outlines of ideas that
have at any time visited my brain about this tremendous mystery of human
life have all been sad and dreary, and most bitterly and oppressively
unsatisfactory; and therefore I rejoice that no mental fascination
rivets my thoughts to the brink of this dark and unfathomable abyss, but
that it is on the contrary the tendency of my nature to rest in hope, or
rather in faith in God's mercy and power, and moreover to think that the
perception we have (or as you would say, imagine we have) of DUTY, of
right to be done and wrong to be avoided, gives significance enough to
our existence to make it worth both love and honor, though it should
consist of but one conscious day in which that noble perception might be
sincerely followed, and though absolute annihilation were its
termination. The whole value and meaning of life, to me, lies in the
single sense of conscience--duty; and that is here, present, now, enough
for the best of us--God knows how much too much for me.
Good-bye, my dear. I have a most horrible cough and sore throat, and I
have been acting with it, feeling every moment that I was doing my poor
_parts of speech_ a serious injury by the strain I was compelled to put
upon them. You may judge of the state of my voice when I tell you that
I received from some anonymous kind friend this morning a bottle of
cough-mixture, and all manner of lozenges, jujubes, etc. Give my love to
Dorothy.
Ever yours,
FANNY.
ORCHARD STREET.
DEAREST H----,
... I am going with Henry Greville to see Rachel on Wednesday in "Marie
Stuart." I wish I could afford to see her every night, but it is a dear
recreation. Henry Greville is not "teaching me to act," though I dare
say he thinks I may derive profit as well as pleasure from seeing
Rachel....
All my friends are extremely impatient of my small gains; I am not,
though I certainly should be glad if they were larger....
I have moved my Psyche, my beautiful and serene goddess. As the ancient
Romans had especial tutelary gods for their private houses, the patron
saints of the heathen calendar, she is my adopted divinity. You know I
have had her with me in some of my blackest and bitterest seasons, and
have often marvelled at the mere combination of lines which have
produced so exquisite an image of noble graceful thoughtfulness. She is
not without a certain sweet sternness, too; there is immense power, as
well as repose, in that lovely countenance,--how--why--can mere curved
and straight lines convey so profoundly moral an impression? She is an
admirable companion, and reminds me of Wordsworth's "Ode to Duty," which
I every now and then feel inclined to apostrophize her with.
I have sent out the big centre china jar to the table on the stair-case,
and have put my goddess in the drawing-room in its place....
I have received a kind invitation from Lady Dacre to the Hoo, and I
shall spend next week there, which will be both good and agreeable for
me. I expect to find Lady G---- there; she is a person for whom I have a
great liking and esteem, and whom I shall be glad to meet. Perhaps, too,
dear William Harness; but I do not know of anybody else.
I forget whether I told you that the Sedgwicks had sent me a friend of
theirs, an American country clergyman, to lionize about London, which I
have been doing for the last three days. I took him to the British
Museum, and showed him the Elgin Marbles, and the library, and the
curious manuscripts and books which strangers generally care to see; but
the profit and pleasure, I should think, of travelling is but little
unless the mind is in some slight measure prepared for more knowledge by
the possession of some small original stock; and a great many Americans
come abroad but poorly furnished not only with learning but with the
means of learning.
Charles Greville got me an admission for my Yankee friend to the House
of Lords. We were admitted while the business was going on, and saw the
curious old form of passing the Acts of Parliament by Commission, than
the ceremonies of which it is difficult to imagine anything more quaint,
not to say ludicrous, and apparently meaningless.
We heard Lord Brougham and the Duke of Wellington speak, and had an
excellent view of both of them.
The House appeared to me too minutely ornamented; it is rich, elaborate,
but all in small detail, too subdivided and intricate and overwrought to
be as imposing and good in effect as if it were more simple.
I took my American friend to the Zoological Gardens, and to the
Botanical Gardens, in the Regent's Park, which are very charming, and
for which I have a private ticket of admission.
This morning I have been with him to Stafford House, to show him the
pictures, which are fine, and the house itself, which I think the
handsomest in London. To-morrow I take him to the opera, and I have
given him a breakfast, a lunch, and a dinner, and feel as if I had
discharged the duty put upon me, especially as it involved what I have
no taste for, _i.e._ sight-seeing.