the reverse. He had a painter's feeling for color and grouping and
scenic effect; was always picturesque in his appearance, dress,
attitudes, and movements; and all the pieces that were put upon the
stage under his supervision were admirable for the appropriate
harmony of the scenery, decorations, dresses, and whole effect; they
were carefully accurate, and extremely beautiful. "Acis and
Galatea," as produced under his direction, was one of the most
exquisite dramatic spectacles I ever saw, in spite of the despair to
which he reduced the chorus and ballet nymphs by rigorously
forbidding all padding, bustle, crinoline, or other artificial
adjunct to their natural graces, in the severely simple classical
costume of the Greek mythological opera.
Mr. Macready's great parts were Virginius, in Knowles's play of
that name; Werner, in Lord Byron's romantic drama; and Rob Roy, in
the melodrama taken from Scott's novel. These were original
performances, in which nobody has surpassed or equalled him; genuine
artistic creations, which, more than his rendering of Shakespeare's
characters, entitled him to his reputation as a great actor.
He was unpopular in the profession, his temper was irritable, and
his want of consideration for the persons working with him strange
in a man of so many fine qualities. His artistic vanity and
selfishness were unworthy of a gentleman, and rendered him an object
of dislike and dread to those who were compelled to encounter them.
He was quite aware of this himself, for once, when he came to see
me, while the negotiation was pending about my engagement to act
with him, he alluded to his own unpopularity, said he was sure I had
heard all sorts of disagreeable stories about him, but assured me,
laughing, that "the devil was not nearly so black as he was
painted."
It was quite impossible for me to tell Mr. Macready that I had heard
he was _pleasant_ to act with, remembering, as I did while he spoke
to me, the various accounts I had received of actors whose eyes had
been all but thrust out by his furious fighting in Macbeth; of
others nearly throttled in his paternal vengeance on Appius
Claudius; of actresses whose arms had been almost wrenched out of
their sockets, and who had been bruised black and blue, buffeted
alike by his rage and his tenderness. One special story I thought
of, and was dying to tell him, of one pretty and spirited young
woman, who had said, "I am told Mr. Macready, in such a part, gets
hold of one's head, and holds it in chancery under his arm, while he
speaks a long speech, at the end of which he releases one, more dead
than alive, from his embrace; but I shall put so many pins in my
hair, and stick them in in such a fashion, that if he takes me by
the head, he will have to let me instantly go again."
My personal experience of Macready's stage temper was not so bad as
this, though he began by an act of unwarrantable selfishness in our
performance of "Macbeth."
From time immemorial, the banquet scene in "Macbeth" has been
arranged after one invariable fashion: the royal dais and throne,
with the steps leading up to it, holds the middle of the stage,
sufficiently far back to allow of two long tables, at which the
guests are seated on each side, in front of it, leaving between them
ample space for Macbeth's scene with Banquo's ghost, and Lady
Macbeth's repeated rapid descents from the dais and return to it, in
her vehement expostulations with him, and her courteous invitations
to the occupants of both the tables to "feed, and regard him not."
Accustomed to this arrangement of the stage, which I never saw
different anywhere in all my life for this scene, I was much
astonished and annoyed to find, at my first rehearsal, a long
banqueting-table set immediately at the foot of the steps in front
of the dais, which rendered all but impossible my rapid rushing down
to the front of the stage, in my terrified and indignant appeals to
Macbeth, and my sweeping back to my place, addressing on my way my
compliments to the tables on either side. It was as much as I could
do to pass between the bottom of the throne steps and the end of the
transverse table in front of them; my train was in danger of
catching its legs and my legs, and throwing it down and me down, and
the whole thing was absolutely ruinous to the proper performance of
my share of the scene. If such a table had been in any such place in
Glamis Castle on that occasion, when Macbeth was seized with his
remorseful frenzies, his wife would have jumped over or overturned
it to get at him.
All my remonstrances, however, were in vain. Mr. Macready persisted
in his determination to have the stage arranged solely with
reference to himself, and I was obliged to satisfy myself with a
woman's vengeance, a snappish speech, by at last saying that, since
it was evident Mr. Macready's Macbeth depended upon where a table
stood, I must contrive that my Lady Macbeth should not do so. But in
that scene it undoubtedly did.
As I had been prepared for this sort of thing in Macready, it didn't
surprise me; but what did was a conversation I had with him about
"Othello," when he expressed his astonishment at my being willing to
play Desdemona; "For," said he, "there is absolutely nothing to be
done with it, nothing: nobody can produce any effect in it; and
really, Emilia's last scene can be made a great deal more of. I
could understand your playing that, but not Desdemona, out of which
nothing really can be made." "But," said I, "Mr. Macready, it is
Shakespeare, and no character of Shakespeare's is beneath my
acceptance. I would play Maria in 'Twelfth Night' to-morrow, if I
were asked to do so." Whereupon he shrugged his shoulders, and
muttered something about "all that being very fine, no doubt," but
evidently didn't believe me; and as I should have given him credit
for my own feeling with regard to any character in Shakespeare's
plays, I was as much surprised at his thinking I should refuse to
act any one of them as I was at his coarse and merely technical
acting estimate of that exquisite Desdemona, of which, according to
him, "nothing could be made;" _i.e._, no violent stage effect could
be produced. Is not Shakespeare's refusing to let Desdemona sully
her lips with the coarse epithet of reproach with which her husband
brands her, and which no lady in England of his day would have
hesitated a moment to use, a wonderful touch of delicacy?
Macready certainly was aware of the feeling of his fellow-actors
about his violence and want of personal self-control on the stage;
for as he stood at the side scene by me, in the last act of "King
Lear," ready to rush on with me, his Cordelia, dead in his arms, he
made various prefatory and preparatory excuses to me, deprecating
beforehand my annoyance at being dragged and pulled about after his
usual fashion, saying that necessarily the scene was a disagreeable
one for the "poor corpse." I had no very agreeable anticipation of
it myself, and therefore could only answer, "Some one must play it
with you, Mr. Macready, and I feel sure that you will make it as
little distressing to me as you can;" which I really believe he
intended to do, and thought he did.]
I have received this morning from Liverpool, in answer to my letter
about my readings, a very earnest request that I would give _lectures_
upon Shakespeare. This I have declined doing, not having either the
requisite knowledge or ability nor the necessary time properly to
prepare a careful analysis of the smallest portion of such over-brimming
subjects as those plays. I should like to study again Hazlitt's and
Coleridge's comments upon Shakespeare; the former I used to think
excellent.
Mrs. Grote herself wrote those stanzas upon Mendelssohn which you saw in
the _Spectator_. She urged me vehemently, while I was with her at the
Beeches, to do something of the kind; but I could not. She then showed
me her verses, which please me better now than they did then; for then
the painful association of his former existence in that place, and the
excitement of his beautiful music, which she plays extremely well, had
affected my imagination and feelings so much that I should have found it
very difficult to be satisfied with any poetical tribute to him that was
not of the very highest order.
She and I walked together to the spot in the beautiful woodland where he
had lain down to rest, and where she wishes to erect a monument; and I
cannot tell you how profoundly I was touched, as we stood silently
there, while the great heavy drops, melting in the winter evening's
sunshine, fell from the boughs of the beech-trees like slow tears upon
the spot where he had lain.
I have read more of Stanley's "Sermons," and quite agree with you in the
difference you draw between them and Mr. Furness's book; the spirit of
both is kindred....
I don't know anything about the income-tax. I am getting frightfully
behind the times, having read no _Times_ for a long time; but as regards
income-tax, or any other tax, there is no telling how long one may be
free from such galls in America. If they indulge in a few more such
national diversions as this war in Mexico, they will have to pay for
their whistle, in some shape or other, and in more shapes than one.
It is deplorable to hear the despondency of all public and political men
that I see, with regard to the condition of the country. With the
Tories, one has long been familiar with their cries that "the sky is
falling:" but now the Liberals, at least those who all their lives have
been professing Liberals, seem to think "the sky is falling" too; and
their lamentable misgivings are really sad to listen to.
I dined on Saturday at Lady Grey's, with the whole Grey family. Lord
Dacre, and all of them, spoke of Cobden and Bright as of another Danton
and Mirabeau, likened their corn-law league, and peace protests, to the
first measures of the first leaders of the French Revolution; and
predicted with woful headshakings a similar end to their proceedings. I
do not know whether this is an injustice to the individuals in question,
but it seems to me an injustice to the whole people of England
collectively, and to their own class, the aristocracy of England, which
has incurred no such retribution, but which has invariably furnished
liberal and devoted leaders to every step of popular progress--their own
father an eminent instance of devotion to it. Such misgivings seem to
me, too, quite unjust to the powerful, enlightened, and wealthy class
which forms the sound body of our sound-hearted nation: and equally
unjust to those below it, in whom, in spite of much vice and more
ignorance, of poverty and degradation, the elements of evil do not exist
in the degree and with the virulence that spawned that hideous mob of
murderers who became at last the only government of revolutionary
France. The antecedent causes have not existed here for such results;
and it is an insult to the whole English people to prophesy thus of it.
[Lord Dacre, because of his devotion to the agricultural interest,
as he conceives it, and being himself a great practical farmer,
seemed to me at once, at the time of the repeal of the corn laws, to
renounce his Liberalism; and though one of the most enlightened,
generous, and broad-minded politicians I have ever known, _till
then_, to become suddenly timid, faithless, and almost selfish, in
his fear of the consequences of Sir Robert Peel's measures.]
What a fine thing faith in God is, even when one's own individual
interests must perish, even though the temporary interests of one's
country may appear threatened with adversity! What an _uncommonly_ fine
thing it is under such circumstances to do right, and to be able to
believe in right doing!... As I listened to the persons by whom I was
surrounded, and considered their position and circumstances--their forks
and spoons, their very good dinner, and all their etceteras of luxury
and enjoyment,--I thought that, having all they have, if they had faith
in God and in their fellow-creatures besides, they would have the
portion of those who have none of the good things of this world--they
would have too much.
Will the days ever come when men will see that _Christ_ believed in
humanity as none of His followers has ever done since; that _He_,
knowing its infirmity better than any other, trusted in its capacity for
good more than any other? We are constantly told that people can't be
taught this, and can't learn that, and can't do t'other; and _He_ taught
them nothing short of absolute perfection: "Be ye perfect as your Father
in heaven is perfect." Are we to suppose He did not mean what he said?
"I must eat my dinner," as Caliban says, and, therefore, farewell.
I am ever yours,
FANNY.
P.S.--I did not impart these sentiments of mine to my fellow-guests at
Lady Grey's, but kept them in my bosom, and went to the opera, and saw
little Marie Taglioni dance, in a way that clearly shows that she is _la
niece de sa tante_, and stands in that wonderful dancer's shoes.
KING STREET, Wednesday, 23d, 1848.
The staircase I have to go up to my dressing-room at the Princess's
Theatre is one with which you are unacquainted, my dearest Hal, for it
is quite in another part of the house, beyond the green-room, and before
you come to the stage.... Not only had I this inconvenient distance and
height to go, but the dressing-room appointed for me had not even a
fireplace in it; at this I remonstrated, and am now accommodated
decently in a room with a fire, though in the same inconvenient position
as regards the stage.... Mr. Maddox assured me that Macready poisoned
every place he went into, to such a degree, with musk and perfumes, that
if he were to give up his room to me I should not be able to breathe in
it. With my passion for perfumes, this, however, did not appear to me so
certain; but the room I now have answers my purpose quite well
enough....
Macready is not pleasant to act with, as he keeps no specific time for
his exits or entrances, comes on while one is in the middle of a
soliloquy, and goes off while one is in the middle of a speech to him.
He growls and prowls, and roams and foams, about the stage, in every
direction, like a tiger in his cage, so that I never know on what side
of me he means to be; and keeps up a perpetual snarling and grumbling
like the aforesaid tiger, so that I never feel quite sure that he _has
done_, and that it is my turn to speak. I do not think fifty pounds a
night would hire me to play another engagement with him; but I only say,
I don't think,--fifty pounds a night is a consideration, four times a
week, and I have not forgotten the French proverb, "Il ne faut pas dire,
fontaine jamais de ton eau je ne boirai."
I do not know how Desdemona might have affected me under other
circumstances, but my only feeling about acting it with Mr. Macready is
dread of his personal violence. I quail at the idea of his laying hold
of me in those terrible passionate scenes; for in "Macbeth" he pinched
me black and blue, and almost tore the point lace from my head. I am
sure my little finger will be rebroken, and as for that smothering in
bed, "Heaven have mercy upon me!" as poor Desdemona says. If that
foolish creature wouldn't persist in _talking_ long after she has been
smothered and stabbed to death, one might escape by the off side of the
bed, and leave the bolster to be questioned by Emilia, and apostrophized
by Othello; but she will uplift her testimony after death to her
husband's amiable treatment of her, and even the bolster wouldn't be
stupid enough for that.
Did it ever occur to you what a witness to Othello's agony in murdering
his wretched wife his inefficient clumsiness in the process was--his
half smothering, his half stabbing her? _That_ man not to be able to
kill _that_ woman outright, with one hand on her throat, or one stroke
of his dagger, how tortured he must have been, to have bungled so at his
work!
I wish I was with you and Dorothy at St. Leonard's, instead of
struggling here for my life--livelihood, at any rate--with Macready; but
that's foolish. He can't _touch_ me to-night, that's one comfort, for I
am Queen Katharine.
Farewell, believe me
Ever yours most respectfully,
FANNY.
[It was lucky for me, under the circumstances, that my notion of
Queen Katharine's relations with Cardinal Wolsey were different from
those of a lady whom I saw in the part, who at the end of the scene
where he finds her working among her women affably gave him her
hand. Katharine of Arragon would have been more likely (though not
likely) to give him her foot.]
KING STREET, Friday, 23d.
DEAR HAL,
... I had heard a very good summary of D'Israeli's speech from Lord
Dacre, the day I dined at Lady Grey's, and know why he said Cobden was
like Robespierre. Here's goodly work in Paris now! What wonderful
difficult people to teach those French are! However, their lesson will,
of course, be set them over and over again, till they've learnt it.
Henry Greville had a letter from Adelaide the day before yesterday, in
which she says that the people had risen _en masse_ at Rome, and, with
the Princes Borghese and Corsini at their head, had gone to the
Quirinal, and demanded of the pope that no ecclesiastic (himself, I
suppose, excepted) should have any office in the government, and the
pope _had consented_.
She gave a most comical account of the King of Naples, who, it seems,
during the late troubles walked up and down his room, wringing his
hands, and apostrophizing a figure of the Virgin with "Madonna mia!
Madonna mia! ma che imbroglio che m'ha fatto quel Vicario del figlio
tuo!" Isn't that funny?
In a letter posted this morning I have told you my general impression of
Macready's Macbeth. It is generally good,--better than good in
parts,--but nowhere very extraordinary. It is a fair, but not a fine,
performance of the part.
I cannot believe that he is purposely unjust to his fellow-actors: but
he is so absorbed in himself and his own effects as to be absolutely
regardless of them; which, of course, is just as bad for them, though
the _guilt_ of his selfishness must be according to its being deliberate
or unconscious.
I played the first scene in Lady Macbeth fairly well; the rest hardly
tolerably, I think. Macready's stage arrangements destroyed any possible
effect of mine in the banquet scene, and his strange demeanor disturbed
and distracted me all through the play. The terrible, great invocation
to the powers of evil, with which Lady Macbeth's part opens, was the
only thing of mine that was good in the whole performance.
Dear Harriet, I have no time to prepare lectures on Shakespeare, and it
makes me smile, a grim, verjuice smile, when you, sitting quietly down
there at St. Leonard's, propose to me such an addition to my present
work. I have been three hours and a half at rehearsal to-day; to-morrow
I act a new part; this evening I try on all my new dresses; Saturday I
shall be three hours at rehearsal again; and, meantime, I must study to
recover Ophelia and her songs, which I have almost forgotten.
A commentary upon Shakespeare deserves rather more leisure and quiet
thought than I can now bestow upon it; even such an inadequate one as I
am capable of would require much preparatory study, had I the ability
which the theme demands, and which no amount of leisure Of study would
give me.... I have been in a state of miserable nervousness for the
last two days--in terror during my whole performance of Queen Katharine,
lest I should forget the words, and yet, while laboring to fix all my
attention upon them, distracted with the constant recurrence of _bits_
of Desdemona to my mind, which I fancied I was not perfect in, and then
_bits_ of Ophelia's songs, which I had forgotten, and have been trying
to recover. The mere apprehension of having to sing that music turns me
dead sick whenever I think of it; in short, a perfect nightmare of
fright present and future, through which I have had to act every night,
_tant bien que mal_, but naturally _bien plus mal que bien_.... I do
really believe, as my dear German master used to insist, that people can
_prevent themselves_ from going mad.
My dearest Harriet, Arnold believed in eternal damnation; and those who
do so must have one very desperate corner in their mind--which, however,
reserved for the wicked in the next world, must, I should think,
sometimes throw lurid reflections over people and things in this.
Whoever can conceive that idea has certainly touched the bottom of
despair. "Lasciate ogni speme voi ch'entrate;" and I do not see why
those who despair of their fellow-creatures in the next world should not
do so in this. I can do neither--believe in hell hereafter, or a
preparation for it here.
I am sorry to say that, yesterday, Mr. Ellis, who sat by me at dinner at
Lady Castlereagh's, said that the poorer class in this country was about
to be worse off, presently, than it had been yet; and hoped the example
of this new uprising in Paris would not be poisonous to them. It is sad
to think how much, how many suffer; but by the mode of talking and going
on of those who are well off and do not suffer, in England, it seems to
me as if the condition of the poor must become such as to threaten them
with imminent peril, before they will alter either their way of talking
or of going on. Poor people all! but the rich are poorest, for they have
something to lose and everything to fear, which is the reverse of the
case of the poor.
My staircase at the theatre troubles me but little, and I do not sit in
the green-room, which would have troubled me much more. My rehearsal of
Desdemona tried me severely, for I was frightened to death of Macready,
and the horror of the play itself took such hold of me that at the end
I could hardly stand for shaking, or speak for crying; and Macready
seemed quite mollified by my condition, and promised not to rebreak my
little finger, _if he could remember it_. He lets down the bed-curtains
before he smothers me, and, as the drapery conceals the murderous
struggle, and therefore he need not cover my head at all, I hope I shall
escape alive.
Please tell dear Dorothy that Miss ---- called here the day before
yesterday, and left Miss B----'s songs for me. They are difficult,
beyond the comprehension and execution of any but a very good musician;
they show real genius, and a taste imbued with the inspiration of the
great masters, Handel and Beethoven. The only one of them that I could
sing is the only one that is in the least commonplace, "The Bonnet
Blue;" the others are beyond my powers, but I shall get my sister to
sing them for me. They are very remarkable as the compositions of so
young a woman. Did she write the words as well as the music of "The
Spirit of Delight"? [The musical compositions here referred to were
those of Miss Laura Barker, afterwards Mrs. Tom Taylor, a member of a
singularly gifted family, whose father and sisters were all born
artists, with various and uncommon natural endowments, cultivated and
developed to the highest degree, in the seclusion of a country
parsonage.] ...
I wish it was "bedtime, Hal," and I was smothered and over!
God bless you, dear.
Ever yours,
FANNY.
KING STREET, Friday, February 28th.
DEAR HAL,
... I got through Desdemona very well, as far as my personal safety was
concerned; for though I fell on the stage in real hysterics at the end
of one of those horrible scenes with Othello, Macready was more
considerate than I had expected, did not rebreak my little finger, and
did not really smother me in bed. I played the part fairly well, and
wish you had seen it. I was tolerably satisfied with it myself, which,
you know, I am not often, with my own theatrical performances....