whatever to do with my readings--_ainsi me voila bien!_ I cried like a
baby the whole of the day afterwards; of course my nerves were out of
order, or I should have chosen some less rubbishy cause among the
various excellent reasons for tears I have to select from.
Mr. Harness and Charles and Henry Greville came to see me in the course
of the day. The latter rather bullied me, said I behaved like a child:
and so I certainly did; but, oh, my dear Hal, if you knew how little
these, my most intimate friends, know about me, and how much more able
and fit they think me to fight and struggle for myself than I am! They
are all very kind in suggesting many things: Henry Greville is urgent
with me to undertake the speculation of giving readings at my own
risk--hiring a room, and sending out advertisements, etc.; but this I
will not do, as I am willing' to work hard for very small gains, but not
to jeopardize any portion of the small gains for which I have worked
hard. Am I right in your opinion and that of dear Dorothy? In the mean
time, I have written off to the Secretary of the Collegiate Institution
at Liverpool, who proposed to me last year to give readings there, and
have told him that I shall be glad to do so now if it still suits the
purposes of the Institution. He, however, may have changed his mind, as
Mitchell has done, and in that case I must sit down and eat my present
savings, and thank God that I have savings for the present to eat....
Dear old Rogers came yesterday, and sat with me some time; and talking
over my various difficulties with me, said I had much better go and live
with him, and take care of his house for him. It's a pretty house, but
I'm afraid it would be no sinecure to be his housekeeper....
How _is_ your poor knees and wrists, and all your rheumatical fastenings
and hinges, and Dorothy's _interieur_? I hope she is not tyrannizing
over you with unnecessary questions and inquiries, which merely serve to
trammel your free-will, by asking you where you have been walking, or
if it rained while you were out.
I send you a kiss, which I beg you will give each other for me, or
otherwise divide without quarrelling, and believe me
Very affectionately yours,
FANNY.
29, KING STREET.
... Oh yes, my dear Hal, I hear abundance of discussion of the present
distracted aspect of public affairs, abroad and at home; but for the
most part the opinions that I hear, and the counsels that are suggested
to meet the evils of the times, seem to me as much indications of the
faithlessness and folly of men, as the great movements of nations are of
the faithfulness and wisdom of God.
Still, when I hear clever, practical politicians talk, I always listen
with keen interest; for the details in which they seem to me too much
absorbed, are a corrective to my generalizing tendency on all such
subjects.
Moral principles are the _true_ political laws (mere abstract truisms,
as they are held, and accordingly overlooked, by _working_ statesmen) by
which the social world is kept in cohesion, just as the physical world
is kept in equilibrium by the attracting and repelling forces that
control its elements.
You ask me how many letters I am in your debt. When I shall have
finished this, only one. I have worked very hard this past week to keep
your claims down, but have only just now got my head above water with
you.
There was nothing to like at Lynn. The weather was gloomy and cold, and
I was only there two days. There seemed to be a good many curious
remains of antiquity in and about the town--old churches, houses,
gateways, and porches--but I had no leisure to look at these, and indeed
the weather was almost too severe to admit of standing about
sight-seeing, even under the warmest zeal for instruction.
I did not find the sea air make me sleep at Lynn, and incline to think
that it is you, more than the climate that affects me so soporifically
at St. Leonard's.
God bless you, dear.
Your affectionate,
FANNY.
29, KING STREET, ST. JAMES'S.
I do not know how right I am in saying Lady ---- married because she was
jilted, inasmuch as of my own personal knowledge I do not _know_ it; but
that she was much attached to Lord ----, whose father would not permit
the marriage, I have heard repeatedly from people who knew both the
families; and Rogers, who was very intimate with hers, told me that he
considered her marrying as she did the result of mere disappointment,
saying, "She could not have the man she loved, so she gave herself to
the man who loved her." So much in explanation of my rather rash
statement about that most beautiful lady I ever saw.
I have seen a good many handsome people, but there was a modesty, grace,
and dignity, and an expression of deep latent sentiment in that woman's
countenance, that, combined with her straight nymph-like figure, and the
sort of chastity that characterized her whole person and appearance,
fulfilled my ideal of female beauty. You will perhaps wonder at my use
of the word "chastity," as applied merely to a style of beauty; but
"chaste" is the word that describes it properly. Of all the Venuses of
antique art, the Venus of Milo, that noble and keenly intellectual
goddess of beauty, is the only one that I admire.
The light, straight-limbed Artemis is lovelier to me than the round soft
sleepy Aphrodite; and it was to the character of her figure, and the
contour of her head and face, that I applied the expression "chaste" in
speaking of Lady ----. Her sister, who is thought handsomer, and is a
lovely creature (and morally and mentally as worthy of that epithet as
physically), has not this severely sweet expression, or sweetly stern,
if you prefer it, though this implies a shade of volition, which
falsifies the application of it. This is what I especially admire in
Lady ----, who adds to that faultless Greek outline, which in its
integrity and justness of proportion seems the type of truth, an eye
whose color deepens, and a fine-textured cheek, where the blood visibly
mantles with the mere emotion of speaking and being listened to.
The first time I met her was at a dinner-party at Miss Berry's, before
her marriage. She sat by Landseer, and her great admiration for him, and
enthusiastic devotion to his fine art, in which she was herself a
proficient, lent an interest to their conversation, which exhibited
itself in her beautiful face in a manner that I have never
forgotten....
You bid me tell you how I am in mind, body, and estate. My mind is in a
tolerably wholesome frame, my body not so well, having a cold and cough
hanging about it, and suffering a good deal of pain the last few days.
My estate is so far flourishing that I brought back a tolerable wage and
earnings from my eastern expedition, and so shall not have to sell out
any of my small funded property for my daily bread yet a while.
You say that tact is not necessarily insincerity. No, I suppose not: I
must say I suppose, because I have never known anybody, eminently gifted
with tact, who appeared to me perfectly sincere. I am told that the
woman I have just been writing about, Lady C----, of whom my personal
knowledge is too slight to judge how far she deserves the report, never
departs from the truth; and yet is so gentle, good, and considerate,
that she never wounds anybody's feelings. If this is so, it deserves a
higher title than tact, and appears to me a great attainment in the
prime grace of Christianity. I have always believed that where
love--charity--abounded, truth might, and could, and would abound
without offence. Which of the great French divines said, "Quand on n'est
point dans les bornes de la charite, on n'est bientot plus dans celles
de la verite"? It sounds like Fenelon, but I believe it is Bossuet. Tact
always appears to me a sort of moral elegance, an accomplishment, rather
than a virtue; dexterity, as it were, doing the work of sensibility and
benevolence.
I think it likely that Mitchell will call in the course of the morning,
and I may still possibly make some arrangement with him about my
readings....
I have had a pressing invitation from Mrs. Mitchell, who is staying at
Brighton with her boys, to go down there and visit her. It would be very
nice if I could go thence to 18, Marina, St. Leonard's, and pay a visit
to some other friends of mine. Your lodgings will, however, I fear, be
full; and then, too, you may not want me, and it is as well not to be
too forward in offering one's self to one's dearest friends, for fear of
the French "Thank you," which with them, civil folk that they are,
means, "No, they'd rather not." With us, it would imply, "Yes,
gratefully;" otherwise, it is, "Thank you for nothing."
Kiss Dorothy for me.
Ever as ever yours,
FANNY.
29, KING STREET, Sunday, 5th.
I am afraid my pretty plot of coming to you is at an end, and I am
afraid all my chances of coming to you are at an end. I wrote you
yesterday that I was beginning to be doubtful about my further
engagements in London, and was indeed discouraged and troubled at the
aspect of my affairs. This morning, however, comes an express from
M----, beginning a new negotiation with me, and wanting me to open with
Macready at his theatre on the 21st of this month, to act four weeks,
and then renew the engagement for four weeks more.... I do not wish to
depart from the terms I have asked, but am extremely glad of the offer,
and hope he will agree to them. I think it probable that he will,
because my engagement with Macready has been so much talked about, and
he has himself applied to me three several times about it. This puts an
end to all visiting prospects, for Brighton or St. Leonard's, and in
March you will be leaving the latter place. This is a sad
disappointment, but perhaps Mr. M---- will not, after all, give me my
terms, and I ought to be sorrier for that, but I shan't....
I had a visit the other morning from Mr. Blackett--John Blackett. I
don't know if I have spoken of him to you. I met him at Mrs. Mitchell's
in Scotland, while I was staying with her at Carolside, and liked him
very much. He is a great friend of Dr. Hampden's and of Stanley,
Arnold's biographer. He brought me, the other day, a volume of sermons
by Stanley, of which I have just read the first, and have been delighted
with it. How surely does such a spirit as Arnold's beget its own fit
successors!... I think I have not read anything, since his own Life,
that has given me the same deep satisfaction that these sermons of his
pupil have....
That music of Mendelssohn's had a horrid effect upon my nerves; I mean
the emotion and distress it caused me. I suffered a great deal of pain,
and was quite unwell for several days after it. Will it not be a pity if
I can't come and be spoilt any more by you and Dorothy at St. Leonard's?
It was so pleasant and good for you.
Ever as ever yours,
FANNY.
KING STREET, Monday, 7th.
I do very, very well this morning, my dear Hal: this is in answer to
your affectionate inquiry of the 1st; but if you wanted to know then, of
course you will want to know just as much now....
My time at the Beeches was not very pleasant to me. The weather was
horrible, cold, wet, and dismal; the house is wretchedly uncomfortable;
and Mrs. Grote always keeps me in a rather nervous state of breathless
apprehension as to what she may say or do next. I cannot talk much,
either to her or Charles Greville; neither of them understands a word
that I say. Her utter _unusualness_ perplexes me, and his ingrain
worldliness provokes me; but I listened with great pleasure to some
political talk between Charles Greville, Mr. Grote, and the Italian
patriot, Prandi. You know that, fond as I am of talking, I like
listening better, when I can hear what I think worth listening to. I was
delighted with their clear, practical, comprehensive, and liberal views
of the whole state of Europe, especially Italy, so interesting in her
present half-roused attitude of returning national vitality. They talked
a great deal, too, upon the West India sugar question; and I listened
with interest to all they said, struck the whole time with their
entirely ignoring the deepest sources whence national troubles and their
remedies flow, of which the wisest working politicians and statesmen
take apparently (very foolishly) little heed; I suppose they do not
acknowledge them, which is why their government and statescraft is so
apt to be mere temporary empirical expediency.
I had a very full and lively audience at Cambridge, and remarked with
especial satisfaction a young man sitting in the stage box with one of
the sweetest countenances I ever saw. I sincerely hope, for his beauty's
sake, that he was amused. He reminded me of the line in King John,
describing the young gentlemen in the English army--the lads "with
ladies' faces and fierce dragons' spleens." They were very attentive,
and very enthusiastic, and I was very well pleased with them, and I hope
they were with me....
There is nothing in the supernatural part of "Jane Eyre" that disturbs
me at all; on the contrary, I believe in it. I mean, there is nothing in
my mode of thinking and feeling that denies the possibility of such a
circumstance as Jane Eyre hearing her distant lover call upon her name.
I have often thought that the power of intense love might very well work
just such a miracle as that. God bless you, dear. Kiss dearest Dorothy
for me, and believe me
Ever yours,
FANNY.
29, KING STREET, Tuesday, 8th.
Yesterday I had plenty of questions to answer in my letter to you;
to-day I have not one.... My beloved friend, I know that if your power
to serve me equalled your desire to do so, I should be borne in the arms
of angels, "lest at any time I struck my foot against a stone." But do
not, my dearest Harriet, let your love for me forget that faith without
which we could neither bear our own trials nor the trials of those we
love. "In the great hand of God we all stand," and are fitly cared for
by Him, our Father. I should be much ashamed of the sudden flood of
cowardice that overwhelmed me two days ago at the difficult and
cheerless prospect before me, but that it was, I am sure, the result of
nervous disorder, and the jarring I got the other day from that dreadful
Antigone.
You know I seldom waste time in blaming myself, and tarry but a brief
space in the idle disconsolateness of repentance. I must try to be less
weak, and less troubled about my prospects. I wrote you yesterday of the
proposal I had received from Mr. Maddox. He made no offer of terms. I
have heard nothing further from him, and augur ill from his silence. I
suppose he will not pay me what I ask, and thinks it useless to offer me
less. I shall be very sorry for this; but if I find it so, will apply to
Mr. Webster, or some other manager, for employment; and if I fail with
them, must make a desperate effort about my readings.
But for my sister's entreaty that I would remain here till she returns
from Italy, and my own great desire to see her again, I would _confront_
the winter passage across the Atlantic, in hopes of finding work in
America, and living without using up the little I have already gathered
together. But I cannot bear to go before she comes to England.... I was
surprised by a visit from Lord Hardwicke yesterday; it is years since I
have seen him. I knew and liked him formerly, as Captain Yorke. He is as
blunt and plain-spoken as ever, and retains his sailor-like manner in
spite of his earldom, which he hadn't when I met him last.... Henry
Greville is coming to tea with me this evening, and I promised to read
him my translation of "Mary Stuart." I hope he may like it as well as
you did. Lady Dacre was here this afternoon; she has been dreadfully
ill, and looks an old woman now, for the first time, at eighty--that is
not too soon to begin.
I think I shall take Mr. Maddox's last offer, and if so, dear Hal,
farewell to my visit to St. Leonard's. But I am of the poor author's
mind, "Qu'il faut bien qu'on vive," and do not suppose that you will
answer me _a la Voltaire_, "Ma foi, je n'en vois pas la necessite."
It is very odd that it should seem so natural to one to live, and so
strange to die, since it is what everybody does. The fact is, habit is
the strongest thing in the world; and living is simply the oldest habit
we have, and so the strongest.
Good-bye, my dear, and believe me
Respectfully yours,
FANNY.
KING STREET, St. James's, Thursday, 10th.
... Mr. Maddox comes here, and worries my life out with haggling and
bargaining, but has not yet agreed to any terms, and I am half
distracted with all the various advice tendered me.... In the mean time,
I am much comforted about my readings; for I received yesterday morning
a very courteous letter from the Secretary of the Collegiate Institution
at Liverpool, offering me twenty guineas a night if I would go down and
read there six nights at the end of March. This I shall be thankful to
do, if my engagement at the Princess's Theatre falls through, and if it
does not I shall hope to be able to accept the Liverpool invitation
later in the season. I have had a visit, too, from one of the directors
of the Highgate Institute, to beg I would go and read there. They cannot
afford to give me more than ten guineas a night, the institute being a
small and not very rich one; but of course I do not expect to be paid
for reading as I am for acting, and therefore, whenever I can, shall
accept the Highgate offer.
These various proposals have put me in heart once more about the
possible success of this reading experiment, and I am altogether much
comforted at seeing that employment is not likely to fail me, which I
was beginning to fear it might.... Of course, if I apply for engagements
to managers, I must expect to take their terms, not to make my own--for
beggars must not be choosers, as I learnt long ago; and when I solicit
an engagement, I must be prepared to sell myself cheap--and I will. If
Maddox won't pay me what I ask, and Webster won't have me at any price,
I shall come to you and Dorothy, who, I "reckon," will take me on my own
terms: which in these my days of professional humiliation (not personal
humility, you know), is quite kind of you.
Yours ever,
FANNY.
KING STREET, Friday, 28th.
MY DEAREST HAL,
You will be glad to hear that Mr. Maddox has at length come into my
terms.... For the next two months this is some anxiety off my mind, and
I trust will be off yours for me; and the last two days have shown me
that my chance of getting employment, either acting or reading, is
likely to last--at any rate till my sister returns, when I shall
probably stay with her till my departure for America.... I am most
thankful that the depression and discouragement under which I succumbed
for a while has been thus speedily relieved. It is a curious sensation
to have a certain consciousness of power (which I have, though perhaps
it is quite a mistaken notion), and at the same time of absolute
helplessness. It seems to me as if I had some sort of strength, and yet
I feel totally incapable of coping with the small difficulties of
circumstance under which it is oppressed; it's like a sort of wide-awake
nightmare. I suppose it's because I am a woman that I am so idiotic and
incompetent to help myself.
But when one thinks of it, what a piteous page in the history of human
experience is the baffling and defeat of real genius by the mere weight
of necessity, the bare exigencies of existence, the need to live from
day to day. Think of Beethoven dying, and saying to Hummel, with that
most wonderful assertion of his own great gifts, "Pourtant, Hummel,
j'avois du genie!"--such transcendent genius as it was too! such pure
and perfect and high and deep inspiration! which had, nevertheless, not
defended him from the tyranny of poverty, and the petty cares of living,
all his life.
Is it not well that people of great genius are always _proud as well as
humble_, and that the consciousness of their own nobility spreads, as it
were, the wings of an angel between them and all the baseness and
barrenness through which they are often compelled to wade up to the
lips? Whenever I think of Burns, my heart tightens itself, to use a
French expression, for a most painful _physical emotion_. Do you know
Schiller's exquisite poem of the "Division of the Earth"? I will send
you a translation, if you do not--a rough one I made of it when it was
one of my German lessons. My version is harsh and poor enough, but the
thoughts are preserved, and _the_ thought is worthy of that noble
poet....
29, KING STREET, Saturday, 12th.
MY DEAREST HAL,
How many pleasant things I might lament over _if_ I might! I shall not
see St. Leonard's again with you. Emily has misunderstood in saying that
my engagement at the Princess Theatre does not begin till the 27th; it
begins on the 21st, next Monday week, and I shall only just have time to
get my wardrobe ready and study Desdemona and Cordelia, which I am asked
to play, and re-learn the music of Ophelia, which I have quite
forgotten....
I have an engagement offered me in Dublin, and it is rather provoking
that I cannot accept it now, for this, I believe, is the height of the
gay season there. As it is, I fear I shall not be able to go over there
till May; but perhaps then you will go with me, or be there, and that
will be some compensation for the less money I shall make.
It's curious all these engagements offering now within these few days:
to be sure, it never rains but it pours, so that accounts for it
philosophically.
Did I tell you what a nice long visit I had from Thackeray the other
day? Oh, have you read that "Vanity Fair" of his? It is wonderful! He
was a schoolfellow of my brother John's, you know, and is a very old
friend of mine, but I had not seen him for some time. I wrote to ask him
for his autograph for Henry Greville, and he wrote me an extremely kind
note, and came himself after it, and sat with me a very long time, and
was delightful.
Lady Charlotte Greville, who has just removed into a beautiful new house
she has arranged for herself, wrote to say she was coming to town
immediately, and hoped I would give my first London reading in her
drawing-room. Was not that nice and kind and good-natured of her, dear
old lady? But of course I declined, at any rate for the present, as I
mean to exhaust my natural enemies, the managers, before I have recourse
to my friends, in any way whatever. Kiss Dorothy for me, and don't let
her break your spirit with inquisitorial and vexatious supervision of
your actions. A timely resistance to friendly tyranny is a great saving
of trouble.
Good-bye, you bad dear.
I am yours ever,
FANNY.
[I wish to record a slight anecdote of my friend William Thackeray,
which illustrates his great kindness and amiability, his _sweetness_
of temper and disposition.
I met him at Miss Berry's at dinner, a few days before he began his
course of lectures on the English essayists, and he asked me to come
and hear him, and told me he was so nervous about it, that he was
afraid he should break down.
I had an engagement which prevented my hearing his first lecture,
but I promised him to go and see him at his room before he began it,
to cheer him.