first for a bundle of rags. On looking again, however, I perceived there
was a live creature in the rags--a boy, whose attitude of suffering and
weariness, as he crouched upon the pavement, was the most wretched thing
you can imagine. I knelt down by him, and asked him what ailed him: he
hardly lifted his face from his hands, and said, "Headache;" and then,
coughing horribly, buried his miserable face again. Mr. Frost, seeing I
still knelt by him, began to ask him questions; and then followed one of
those piteous stories which make one smart all over while one listens to
them; parental desertion, mother marrying a second time, cruelty from
the step-father, beating, starving, and final abandonment. He did not
know what had become of them; they had gone away to avoid paying their
rent, and left this boy to shift for himself. "How long ago is that?"
said Mr. Frost. "Before snow," said the lad,--the snow has been gone a
fortnight and more from this neighborhood, and for all that time the
child, by his own account, has wandered up and down, living by begging,
and sleeping in barns and stables and passages. The interrogatory was a
prolonged one: my friend Mr. Frost is slow by age, and cautious by
profession, and a man by nature, and so not irresistibly prompted to
seize up such an unfortunate at once in his arms and adopt it for his
own. In the course of his answers the boy, among other things, said, "I
wouldn't mind only for little brother." "How old is he?" "Going on two
year." "Where is he?" "Mother got him." "Oh, well, then, you needn't
fret about him; she'll take care of him." "No, she won't; he won't be
having nothing to eat, I know he won't." And the boy covered his face
again in a sullen despair that was pitiful to see. Now, you know, Hal,
this boy was not begging; he did not come to us with a pathetic appeal
about his starving little brother: he was lying starving himself, and
stupefied, with his head covered over, buried in his rags when I spoke
to him; and this touching reminiscence of his poor little step-brother
came out in the course of Mr. Frost's interrogatory accidentally, and
made my very heart ache. The boy had been in the workhouse for two
years, with his mother, before she married this second husband; and,
saying that he had been sent to school, and kindly treated, and well fed
in the workhouse, I asked him if he would go back thither, and he said
yes. So, rather to Mr. Frost's amazement I think, I got a cab, and put
the child in, and with my kind old gentleman--who, in spite of evident
repugnance to such close quarters with the poor tatterdemalion, would by
no means leave me alone in the adventure--we carried the small forsaken
soul to the workhouse, where we got him, with much difficulty,
_temporarily_ received. The wife of the master of the poor-house knew
the boy again, and corroborated much of what he had told us, adding that
he was a good boy enough while he was there with his mother; but--would
you believe it, Hal?--she also told us that this poor little creature
had come to their gate the night before, begging admittance; but that,
because he had not a _certain written order_ from a certain officer, the
rules of the establishment prevented their receiving him, and he had
been turned away _of course_. I was in a succession of convulsions of
rage and crying all this time, and so adjured and besought poor old Mr.
Frost to take instant measures for helping the little outcast, that when
we left him by the workhouse fire, the woman having gone to get him some
food, and I returned blaspheming and blubbering to my inn, he--Mr.
Frost--went off in search of a principal police-officer of Hull, from
whom he hoped to obtain some further information about the child, which
he presently brought back to me. "Oh yes, the magistrate knew the child;
he had _sent him to prison_ already several times, for being found lying
at night on the wharves and about the streets." So this poor little
wretch was _sent to prison_ because literally he had not where to lay
his head!... I wouldn't be a man for anything! They are so cruel,
without even knowing that they are so: the habit of seeing sin and
suffering is such a _heart-hardener_.
Well, the boy is safe in the workhouse now, and is, according to his own
wish and inclination, either to be sent to sea or put out apprentice to
some trade. I have pledged one of my readings for purposes of outfit or
entrance-fee, and Mr. Frost has promised me not to lose sight of the
child, so I hope he is rescued from sin and suffering for the present,
and perhaps for the future.
Do you remember what infinite difficulty I told you I had had in
rescuing that poor little wretch out of the streets of Glasgow? But then
she had the advantage of a _mother_, who drove her into them day after
day, to sing her starvation in the miserable mud and rain,--luckily this
poor Hull boy's mother had not this _interest_ in him.
I have come home, dear Hal, after my reading, and resume my letter to
you, though I am very tired, and shall go to bed before I have finished
it.
I do remember Robertson's sermon about Jacob wrestling with the angel,
and I remember the passage you refer to. I remember feeling that I did
not agree with it. The solemnity of night is very great; and the aspect
of the star-sown heavens suggests the idea of God, by the overpowering
wonder of those innumerable worlds by which one then _sees_ one's self
surrounded,--which affect one's imagination in a reverse way from the
daylight beauty of the earth, for that makes God seem as if He were
_here_, in this world, which then is all we see (except its great eye,
the sun) of these multitudinous worlds He has created, and that are
hanging in countless myriads round us. Night suggests the vastness of
creation, as day can never do; and darkness, silence, the absence of
human fellowship, and the suspension of human activity, interests, and
occupations, leave us a less disturbed opportunity of meditating on our
Creator's inconceivable power. The day and the day's beauty make me feel
as if God were very near me; the night and the night's beauty, as if I
were very far off from Him.
But, dear Harriet, do not, I entreat you, challenge me to put into words
those thoughts which, in us all, must be unutterable. If I can speak of
nothing that I feel deeply but with an indistinctness and inefficiency
that make me feel sick as with a bodily effort of straining at what I
cannot reach, how can I utter, or write, upon such a subject as this! Do
not, I beg, ask me such questions, at least in writing; speaking to you,
there might be times--seldom, indeed, but some--when I might stammer
out part of what I felt on such a subject; but I _cannot_ write about
it--it is impossible.
I have many things to tell you, for which I am too tired to-night, but I
will tell you them to-morrow. God bless you. It has just occurred to me
that I have a morning reading to-morrow, and some visits to pay first,
and I must go to the workhouse and see that boy once more, and satisfy
myself that whatever he is put to hereafter is his own choice; and so I
shall have no time to write to you to-morrow, and therefore I will
finish my letter to-night.... I had an application from Dr. Hawtrey, the
Provost of Eton, through Mary Ann Thackeray, the other day, to give some
readings to the Eton boys, which I have delightedly agreed to do--but of
course refused to be paid for what will be such a great pleasure to me;
whereupon Dr. Hawtrey writes that my "generosity to his boys takes his
breath away." I think _I_ ought to pay for what will be so very charming
as reading Shakespeare to those children....
I had a letter from Mrs. Jameson yesterday, from whom I have heard
nothing since she left my house....
And now, dear Hal, I have told you all my news,--oh no, I haven't
either:--I went last night, it being my holiday, to hear Mr. Warren, the
author of "Ten Thousand a Year," and the Recorder of Hull, address the
members of the Mechanics' Institute on the duties, privileges,
difficulties, dignity, and consolations of labor. I was greatly
delighted. I sat on the platform, opposite that large concourse of
working men and women--laborers well acquainted by daily experience with
the subject of the eloquent speaker's discourses,--and was deeply
touched by the silent attention and intelligent interest with which, for
two hours, they listened to his admirable address.
I have got it, and shall bring it down and read it to you. Good-bye. Do
not fail to let me know what I can do for Dorothy. Good-night.
Ever as ever yours,
FANNY.
HULL, Thursday, December 2nd, 1847.
My chest and throat, my dear Hal, are well. I have still a slight cough,
but nothing to signify....
I never acted in all Yorkshire before. I do not know why, during my
"first theatrical career," I did not, but so it was. My harvest now is
not likely to be very great, for the prices at the theatres in Leeds and
Hull are very low, the theatres not large, and so habitually deserted
that an occasional attraction of a few nights hardly has time to rouse
the people from their general indifference to these sorts of
exhibitions. However, I am both living and saving, and am content.
We have in our last letters got upon those subjects which, upon
principle and by choice, I avoid,--bottomless speculations, wherein the
mind, attempting to gaze, falls from the very brink and is drowned, as
it were, at the very surface of them.
Your theory of _partial immortality_ is abhorrent to me--I can use no
other term. Pray conceive me rightly--'tis an abhorrence of the opinion,
which does not include you for holding it; for though my whole being,
moral and mental, revolts from certain notions, this is a mere necessity
of my nature, as to contemplate such issues is the necessity of certain
others, differently organized from mine.
I would rather disbelieve in the immortality of my own soul than suppose
the boon given to me was withheld from any of my fellow-creatures.
Besides, I did not, in the position I placed before you, suggest the
efficacy of _any special kind of idea_ of God, as connecting the holder
of it with Him.
For aught I can tell, the noble conception of the Divinity, formed out
of the extension of the noble qualities of his own soul by the noblest
man, may be further from any adequate idea of God than the gross notion
of a log-worshipper is from the spiritual conception of the most
spiritually minded man (only remember _I don't believe this_). But,
inasmuch as it is something out of himself, beyond himself, to which the
religious element of his nature aspires--that highest element in the
human creature, since it combines the sense of reverence and the sense
of duty, no matter how distorted or misapplied--it _is_ an idea of a
God, it _is_ a manifestation of the germ of those capacities which,
enlightened and cultivated, have made (be it with due respect spoken)
the God of Fenelon and of Channing. I do not believe that any human
creature, called by God into this life, is without some notion of a
Divinity, no matter how mean, how unworthy, how seldom thought of, how
habitually forgotten.
Superstition, terror, hope, misery, joy--every one of these sentiments
brings paroxysms in every man's life when _some_ idea of God is seized
upon, no matter of what value, no matter how soon relinquished, how
evanescent. Eternity is long enough for the progress of those that we
see lowest in our moral scale. You know I believe in the progress of the
human race, as I do in its immortality; and the barbarous conception of
the Divinity of the least advanced of that race confirms me in this
faith as much as the purest Christianity of its foremost nations and
individuals. Revelation, you say, alone gives any image of God to you;
but which Revelation? When did God begin, or when has He ceased, to
reveal Himself to man? And is it in the Christian Revelation that you
find your doctrine of partial immortality and partial annihilation? I
believe I told you once of my having read in America a pamphlet
suggesting that sin eventually _put out_, destroyed, annihilated, and
did away with, those souls of which it took possession; this is
something like your present position, and I do not know when I received
so painful an impression as from reading that pamphlet, or a profound
distress that lasted so long, from a mere abstract proposition addressed
to my imagination.
I believe all God's creatures have known Him, in such proportion as He
and _they_ have chosen; _i.e._, to none hath He left Himself utterly
without witness; to some that witness has been the perfect life and
doctrine of Jesus Christ, the most complete revelation of God that the
world has known.
All have known Him, by His great grace, in some mode and measure; and
therefore I believe all are immortal: none have known Him as He is, and
but few in any age of the world have known Him as they might; and an
eternity of progress holds forth, to my mind, the only hope large enough
to compensate for the difference of advantages here, and to atone for
the inadequate use of those advantages.
Dearest Harriet, I hate not to make an effort to answer you, and you
like, above all things, this species of questioning, speculating, and
discussing. But there is something to me almost irreverent in thus
catching up these everlasting themes, as it were, in the breathing-time
between my theatrical rehearsals and performances. You will not mistake
me. I know that the soul may be about its work (does not George Herbert
say
"Who sweeps a room, as for Thy laws,
Makes that and the action fine"?)
even at such times, but a deep and difficult mental process should not
be snapped at thus.
You know I never can _think_, and to think on such subjects to any
purpose would almost necessarily involve thinking on none others; and
but for my desire to please you, and not put aside with apparent
disregard your favorite mental exercises, I should be as much ashamed as
I am annoyed by the crude utterance of crude notions upon such subjects
to which you compel me.
You say our goodness and benevolence are not those of God: in
_quantity_, surely not; but in _quality_? Are there two kinds of
positive goodness? I read this morning the following passage in a book
by an American, which has been lent to me by a young Oxford man whom I
met, and fell much in love with, at Carolside--he is a great friend of
Dr. Hampden's: "The greater, purer, loftier, more complete the
character, so is the inspiration; for he that is true to conscience,
faithful to reason, obedient to religion, has not only the strength of
his own virtue, wisdom, and piety, but the whole strength of Omnipotence
on his side; for goodness, truth, and love, as we conceive them, are not
one thing in man and another in God, but the same thing in each." I
agree with this, dear Hal, and not with you, upon this point.
These speculations are a severe effort to my mind, and, besides
shrinking from the mere mental labor of considering them, I find it
difficult, in the rapid and desultory manner in which I must needs
answer letters, to place even the few ideas that occur to me upon them
clearly and coherently before you.
Did I tell you that that impudent---- I've no more room, I'll tell you
in my next. Give my love to Dorothy, and
Believe me ever yours,
FANNY.
HULL, Saturday, December 4th, 1847.
I did tolerably uncomfortably without Jeffreys [a man-servant who had
left me], and that, you know, was very well. I paid old Mrs. Dorr
something extra for doing all the work in the rooms upstairs, had a fire
made in the little man-servant's room in the hall, and, after twelve
o'clock, established Hayes therein to attend to my visitors. My table
was laid for dinner in the front drawing-room, and at dinner-time
wheeled into the back drawing-room, where, you know, I always sit; and
after my dinner wheeled out again, and the things all removed in the
other room by Hayes. The work is really nothing at all, and it would
have been most unnecessary to have hunted up a man-servant for a couple
of weeks, for last and next week are the only two that I expect to pass
in Orchard Street, before I remove to my King Street lodgings.
You speculate more, dear Hal, than I do, and among all things on that
Covent Garden performance, that "Series of Scenes from various Plays of
Shakespeare, to be given in his honor, and towards the purchase of his
house at Stratford-on-Avon." I suppose it will be a very protracted
exhibition, but my only reflection upon the subject was, that I was glad
to perceive that my share of it came early in the course of events.
I had no idea of proposing Hero [my dog] as your sister's inmate, but
supposed he would be harbored in the stables, the kennels, or some
appropriate purlieu, be sufficiently well fed, and take his daily
exercise in your society. This was my vision of Hero's existence under
your auspices, and, as you may readily believe, I had no idea of
quartering him on the reluctant _dogmanity_ of anybody....
I have just had a charming letter from Charles Sedgwick; if I can
remember, I will keep it to show it to you.
Order your boots, or anything else, to be sent to me, dear Hal, but you
know I shall not be with you yet for a month, and possibly not then; for
though no _pleasant_ engagement (how nice it is of you to suggest that!)
would interfere with my coming to St. Leonard's, _unpleasant_ ones
might; any opportunity of making money certainly would, and such may
occur to interfere with my present plans, which stand thus: I return to
town to-morrow (there is but one evening train, so I must travel all
night to rehearse on Monday morning for the "Shakespeare Memorial
Night," on Tuesday); I shall remain in London a week, and on the
following Monday go down to Bannisters for a fortnight, which will bring
me within a few days of the expiration of my term in Orchard Street,
and I shall return from Bannisters to move myself; on the following
Monday, the 3d of January, I will, please God and you, come down to St.
Leonard's....
I was so ill in spirit yesterday that I could not write to you. I am
better to-day. Thank God, my patience and courage do not often or long
forsake me!...
---- has written again to borrow money of me; and that impudent
Liverpool manager, who _borrowed_, _i.e._ did not pay me, my last
night's earnings, when you were there with me, has written to say that,
if I will go to Liverpool _and act for his benefit_, he will pay me what
he owes me; to which I have replied that, when he _has_ paid me what he
owes me, we will see about further transactions with each other.
Certainly "Nature hath framed strange fellows in her time."
Oh, my dear! in Parker's "Discourse upon Religion"--the book I told you
I was reading--I light upon this passage: "The indolent and the sensual
love to have a visible master in spiritual things, who will spare them
the _agony_ of thought." Is not that definition of thought after my own
heart, and just as I should have written it?
God bless you. Give my love to dear Dorothy.
Ever as ever yours,
FANNY.
DEAR HARRIET,
I have not yet read either of Mrs. Gaskell's books, but I mean to do so.
I have just got through, with unbounded amazement, a book called
"Realities," written by a Miss L----, for whom Lady M---- has taken a
great fancy. A more extraordinary production--realities with a
vengeance--I certainly have seldom read; and the book is in such
contrast with the manner and appearance of the authoress that it will be
a long time before I get over my surprise at both.
Imagine this lady having thought proper to introduce in her story an
eccentric vagabond of a woman, whom she has called "Fanny Kemble." Upon
Lady M----'s asking her--I think with some pardonable indignation,
considering that I am her intimate friend--how she came to do such an
unwarrantable thing; if she was not aware that "Fanny Kemble" was the
real name of a live woman at this moment existing in English society,
Miss L---- ingenuously replied, "Oh dear! that she'd never thought of
that: that she only knew it was a celebrated dramatic name, and so she
had put it into her book." _Sancta Simplicitas!_ I should think I might
sue her for libel and defamation.
The books that women write now are a curious sign of the times, and an
indication of great changes in opinion, as well as alteration in
practice.
After all, women are _part_ men, "bone of my bone and flesh of my
flesh." As long as they benefited--and they did highly--by the
predominance of the conservative spirit in civilized society, they were
the most timid and obstinate of conservatives. But emancipation, or, to
speak more civilly, freedom, is dawning upon them from various quarters;
Democracy is coming to rule the earth; and women are discovering that in
_that_ atmosphere they must henceforth breathe, and live, and move, and
have their being.
But the beginning of a great deal of male freedom is mere emancipation;
and so it will be, I suppose, with women. The drunken exultation of
Caliban is no bad illustration of the emancipation of a slave; and the
ladies, more gracefully intoxicated with the _elixir vitae_ of liberty,
may rejoice no more to "scrape trencher or wash dish," but write books
(more or less foolish) instead.
Do you remember that delightful negro song, the "Invitation to Hayti,"
that used to make you laugh so?
"Brudder, let us leave
Buckra land for Hayti:
Dar we be receive'
Grand as Lafayette!
Make a mighty show,
When we land from steamship,
You be like Monroe,
And I like Louis Philip!"
And when, anticipating the elevation of his noble womankind to the
elegant and luxurious _idlesse_ of the favored white female, the poet
sings:--
"No more dey dust and scrub,
No more dey wash and cookee;
But all day long we see
Dem read the nobel bookee."
(For _read_, read _write_.)
I am beset with engagements; and, though I am very anxious to get away
abroad and rest, it would be both foolish and wrong to reject these
offers of money, tendered me on all sides, _speciously_ with such
_borrowing_ relations as I enjoy. Good-bye, dear.
Ever as ever yours,
FANNY.
[My reading at Eton was a memorably pleasant incident of my working
days. Dr. Hawtrey at first proposed to me to read "Coriolanus;" but
I always read it very ill, and petitioned for some other play,
giving the name of a tragedy, "Macbeth;" a comedy, the "Merry Wives
of Windsor;" and one of the more purely poetical plays, "The
Tempest;" suggesting that the "boys" should vote, and the majority
determine the choice. This seemed a mighty innovation on all
received customs, and was met with numerous objections, which,
however, did not prove insuperable; and "The Tempest," my own
favorite of all Shakespeare's dramas, was chosen by my young
auditors.
A more charming audience to look at I never had than this opening
flower of English boyhood, nor a more delightfully responsive one.
The extraordinary merriment, however, invariably caused by any
mention of the name of Stefano whenever it occurred puzzled me not a
little; and when, in the last scene, I came to the lines, "Is not
this Stefano your drunken butler? Why, he's drunk now!" I was
interrupted with such a universal shout of laughter that I couldn't
help inquiring the cause of it; when Mr. Stephen Hawtrey, Dr.
Hawtrey's brother and one of the masters, told me that Stephano was
the nickname by which he was habitually designated among the lads,
which sufficiently accounted for their ecstasy of amusement at all
the ludicrous sayings and situations of the Neapolitan "drunken
butler." The Eton young gentlemen addressed me with a kind and
flattering compliment through their captain, and rewarded whatever
pleasure I had been able to give them by a very elegant present,
which I hope my children will value, but which, upon the whole, is
less precious to me than the recollection of their young faces and
voices while I read to them.]
ORCHARD STREET, December 8th.
DEAREST HAL,
I was better than I expected to be after my night journey from Hull.
Hayes and I had a carriage to ourselves after ten o'clock, and I took
advantage of that circumstance to lie on the floor and get some rest. Of
course I woke from each of my short naps aching rather severely, but I
did sleep the greater part of the night; and the two hours I spent in
bed before beginning the day unstiffened my bones and body. The night
was beautifully fine when we left Hull, and continued so more than
half-way. We made our entrance into London, however, in wretched rain
and wind; but the weather has again become fine, and to-day is
beautiful....
The detached stanza of French poetry you send me is a rather exaggerated
piece of enthusiasm as it stands thus alone; though, incorporated in the
poem to which it belongs, the effect of it may be striking. Some of the
stanzas of Manzoni's "Ode to Napoleon" (a very noble poem), detached
from their context, might appear strained and exaggerated. That which
has real merit as a whole seldom gains by being disconnected.