implies faith in man; and have we not good need of both just now? You
can well imagine the state of perturbation and excitement London is in
with these Parisian events. The universal cry and question is, "What is
the news?" People run from house to house to gather the latest
intelligence. The streets are filled with bawling paper-vendors, amidst
whose indistinct vociferations the attractively appalling words,
"Revolution! Republic! Massacre! Bloodshed!" are alone distinguishable.
The loss of Saturday night's packet between Calais and Dover, besides
the horror of the event itself, is doubly distressing from the intense
anxiety felt to receive intelligence of how matters are going on.
Thus far yesterday, dear Hal; but as every hour brings intelligence that
contradicts that of the hour before, it is now known that the small
boat, going from the shore to the packet, was capsized and lost, and not
the steamer itself. Henry Greville belongs to the party of Terrorists,
and believes the worst of the worst rumors: but I have just seen his
mother, and Lady Charlotte says that Charles is almost enthusiastic in
his admiration of the conduct of the French people _hitherto_; but then
there is never any knowing exactly how long any fashion, frenzied or
temperate, moral or material, may last in France.
In the mean time, the condition of that unfortunate Royal Family is
worthy of all compassion, especially the women, who are involved in the
retributions of the folly or wickedness of the men they belong to.
It is not known where the Duchesse de Nemours is. Her husband has
arrived safely here with one of the children; but neither he nor any one
else knows what has become of his wife and the other two children. Of
the Duchesse d'Orleans and her two babies nothing is known; and Lady
Normanby wrote a letter to the Queen, saying that Louis Philippe and the
Queen of France were in safety, but, as her letter would be sure to be
opened, she could say no more.
Only think of the Princesse Clementine making her escape from France on
board the same packet with her brother, the Duc de Nemours, and neither
of them knowing the other was on the same vessel! The suddenness of the
whole catastrophe makes it seem like some outrageously impossible dream.
What a troubled dream must that king and queen's life seem to them,
beginning and ending in such national convulsions!...
I really believe Macready cannot help being as odious as he is on the
stage. He very nearly made me faint last night in "Macbeth," with
crushing my broken finger, and, by way of apology, merely coolly
observed that he really could not answer for himself in such a scene,
and that I ought to wear a splint; and truly, if I act much more with
him, I think I shall require several splints, for several broken limbs.
I have been rehearsing "Hamlet" with him this morning for three hours. I
do not mind his tiresome particularity on the stage, for, though it all
goes to making himself the only object of everything and everybody, he
works very hard, and is zealous, and conscientious, and laborious in his
duty, which is a merit in itself. But I think it is rather _mean_ (as
the children say) of him to refuse to act in such plays as "King John,"
"Much Ado about Nothing," which are pieces of his own too, to oblige me;
whilst I have studied expressly for him Desdemona, Ophelia, and
Cordelia, parts quite out of my line, merely that his plays may be
strengthened by my name. Moreover, he has not scrupled to ask me to
study new parts, in plays which have been either written expressly only
for him, or cut down to suit his peculiar requisitions. This, however, I
have declined doing. Anything of Shakespeare's I will act with and for
him, because anything of Shakespeare's is good enough, and too good, for
me.... I shall have a nausea of fright till after I have done singing in
Ophelia to-morrow night.
Ever yours,
FANNY.
KING STREET, Tuesday, March 7th, 1848.
Indeed, my dear Hal, I was not satisfied, but profoundly dissatisfied,
with my singing in Ophelia; but am thankful to say that I did not sing
out of tune, which I dreaded doing, from the miserable nervousness I
felt about it. I am entirely misplaced in the character, and can do
nothing with it that might not be better done by almost any younger
woman with a sweet voice and that order of fair beauty which one cannot
separate from one's idea of Ophelia.
I have read Stanley's sermon on St. Peter, and am enchanted with it, and
more than ever struck with the resemblance, in its general spirit, and
even in actual passages, to my friend Mr. Furness's book. The notes and
commentary upon the sermon are the part of Stanley's work that show more
erudition and literary power than Mr. Furness's treatise contained, but
the manner and matter of the writers shows close kindred when treating
of the same subjects.
We overflow here with anecdotes of the hairbreadth escapes of the French
fugitives. Guizot and Madame de Lieven, his dear friend and evil genius,
arrived both in London on the same day, having travelled from Paris in
the same railroad train as far as Amiens; she with the painter Roberts,
passing as his wife, and Guizot so disguised that she did not recognize
him, and would not believe Lord Holland when he called upon her on
Saturday and told her that Guizot had arrived like herself, and by the
same train, the day before. Hotels and private houses are thronged with
French and English tumbling over, a perfect stampede, from the other
side of the Channel. Lady Dufferin, who during her long stay in Paris
made many French friends, is exercising hospitality to the tune of
having thirty people in her house in Brook Street.
Charles Greville showed me on Saturday a capital letter of Lord
Clarendon's upon the subject of his kingdom [he was Lord Lieutenant of
Ireland at this time], and the probable and possible effects of this
French Revolution on your quiet, orderly, well-principled countrymen. He
also showed me a letter he had received from E---- from Rome, in which,
I think, the account of the pope is that of a man being carried off his
legs by the popular exigencies, which he _cannot_ resist and at the same
time remain pope--the head of the priestly Roman Catholic Government.
Yesterday came news that _Metternich had resigned_. If this is true, the
forward step Italy is about to take need not, please God! be made in
blood and violent social upheaving. I do pray that this news may be
true, for it will probably avert a fire-and-sword revolution in the
Milanese, and all through Lombardy, in which Piedmont would sympathize
too warmly for its own peace and quiet.
Austria, thus deserted by the presiding genius of her hitherto Italian
policy, Metternich, will perhaps hesitate to enforce its threatened
opposition to the changes which she might have sold at the cost of many
lives, but would not have averted, though she overran Italy from end to
end with war and desolation.
This retreat of the great political powers of darkness before the
advance of freedom in Italy seems to me like a personal happiness to
myself. I rejoice unspeakably in it. It is quite another matter in
France. It will be another matter here, whenever our turn to be turned
upside down or inside out comes.
In Italy the people are rising against foreign tyranny, to get rid of
foreign dominion, and to get rightful possession of the government of
their own country. In France the revolution against power is past, but
that against property is yet to come. As for us, our revolt against
iniquitous power ended with the final expulsion of the Stuarts; but we
have sundry details of that wholesale business yet to finish, and there
will be here some sort of _property_ revolution, in some mode or other,
yet.
The crying sin of modern Christian civilization, the monstrous
inequalities in the means of existence, will yet be dealt with by us
English, among whom it is more flagrant than anywhere else on earth.
It is the one revolution of which our social system seems to me to stand
in need, the last that can be directly affected, if not effected, by
legislative action upon the tenure of land, the whole system of
proprietorship of the soil, the spread of education, and the extension
of the franchise: and, as we are the richest and the poorest people in
the world, as the extremes of rampant luxury and crawling poverty are
wider asunder here than anywhere else on earth, the force must be
great--I pray God it may be gradual--that draws those opposite ends of
the social scale into more humane nearness.
I cannot believe that any violent convulsions will attend inevitable
necessary change here; for, in spite of the selfish passions of both
rich and poor, our people do fear God, more, I think, than any other
European nation, and recognize a law of duty; and there is good sense
and good principle enough in all classes, I believe, to meet even
radical change with firmness and temperance.
The noble body politic of England is surely yet so sound and healthy and
vigorous as to go through any crisis for the cure of any local disease,
any partial decay, without danger to the whole; though not, perhaps,
without difficulty and suffering both to classes and individuals.
God is over all, and I do not believe that one of the most Christian of
nations will perish in the attempt to follow the last of Christ's
commandments, "Love one another."
I am painfully impressed with what constantly seems to me the
short-sightedness of the clever worldly-wise people I hear talking upon
these subjects, and the deep despondence of those who see a great cloud
looming up over the land. Our narrow room and redundant population make
any sudden violent political movement dangerous, perhaps; but I have
faith in the general wholesome spirit of our people, their good sense
and good principle. I have the same admiration for and confidence in our
national character that I have in the institutions of the United States.
God keep this precious England safe!...
I am ever yours most truly,
FANNY.
KING STREET, Wednesday, March 8th, 1848.
My little finger has recovered from Macready. It is gradually getting
much better, but he certainly did it an injury. With regard to his
"relenting," he is, I am told, quite uncommonly gracious and considerate
to me....
I was told by a friend of mine who was at "Hamlet" the other evening,
that in the closet scene with his mother he had literally knocked the
poor woman down who was playing the Queen. I thought this an incredible
exaggeration, and asked her afterwards if it was true, and she said so
true that she was bruised all across her breast with the blow he had
given her; that, happening to take his hand at a moment when he did not
wish her to do so, he had struck her violently and knocked her literally
down; so I suppose I may consider it "relenting" that he never yet has
knocked me down....
We are quite lively now in London with riots of our own--a more exciting
process than merely reading of our neighbors' across the Channel. Last
night a mob, in its playful progress though this street, broke the
peaceful windows of this house. There have been great meetings in
Trafalgar Square these two last evenings, in which the people threw
stones about, and made a noise, but that was all they did by all
accounts. They have smashed sundry windows, and the annoyance and
apprehension occasioned by their passage wherever they go is very great.
Nothing serious, however, has yet occurred; and I suppose, if the
necessity for calling out the military can be avoided, nothing serious
will occur. But if these disorderly meetings increase in number and
frequency the police will not be sufficient to moderate and disperse
them, and the troops will have to be called out, and we shall have
terrible mischief, for our soldiers will not fraternize with the London
mob, the idea of duty--of which the French soldiers or civilians have
but a meagre allowance (glory, honor, anything else you please, in
abundance)--being the _one_ idea in the head of an English soldier and
of most English civilians, thank God!
The riots in Glasgow have been very serious; the population of that
city, especially the women, struck me as the most savage and brutal
looking I had ever seen in this country; and I remember frequently,
while I was there, thinking what a terrible mob the lowest class of its
inhabitants would make.
Metternich's resignation, of which I wrote you yesterday, is, alas!
uncertain. I had rejoiced at it for the sake of that beautiful Italy,
and all her political martyrs past and to come.
Good-bye, God bless you. I shall go and see some of those great mobs of
ours. It must be a curious and interesting spectacle.
Believe me ever yours,
FANNY.
KING STREET, Saturday and Sunday,
March 11th and 12th, 1848.
DEAREST HAL,
The "uses of adversity," which are assuredly often "sweet," should help
to reconcile us both to our own sorrows and those which are sometimes
harder to bear, the sorrows of those we love.... I have not yet been
able to accomplish my intention of seeing anything of our great
political mobs; and they are now beginning to subside, having been
rather _rackets_ than riots in their demonstrations, I am happy to say,
and therefore not very curious or interesting in any point of view.
But there is to be a very large meeting at Kennington on Monday, and
Alfred Potocki said he would take me to it, but as I have to act that
night I am afraid it would be hardly conscientious to run the risk of an
accidental blow from a brickbat that might disable me for my work,
which is my duty, though, I confess, it is a great temptation. My
friend, Comte Potocki, is young and tall and strong and active, but I
would a great deal rather have paid a policeman to look after me, as I
did when I went to see a fire, than have depended upon the care of a
gentleman who would feel himself hampered by having me to care for.
After all, I shall probably give it up, and not go....
My father tells me he has definitely renounced all idea of reading
again, so I took heart of grace to ask him to lend me the plays he read
from, to mark mine by. The copy he used is a Hanmer, in six large quarto
volumes, and belongs to Lane, the artist, who has very kindly lent it to
me. My father's marks are most elaborate, but the plays are cruelly
sacrificed to the exigencies of the performance--as much maimed, I
think, as they are for stage representation. My father has executed this
inevitable mangling process with extreme good judgment and taste; but it
gives me the heart-ache, for all that. But he was _timed_, and that
impatiently, by audiences who would barely sit two hours in their
places, and required that the plays should be compressed into the
measure of their intellectual _short_-suffering capacity.
However, it was at the Palace that he had to _compress_ or rather
_compel_ the five acts of "Cymbeline" into a reading of three quarters
of an hour: and how he performed that feat is still incomprehensible to
me....
Everything is black and sad enough as far as I can see, but, thank God,
I cannot see far, and every day has four-and-twenty hours, and in every
minute of every hour live countless seeds of invisible events. I heard a
very good sermon to-day upon Christian liberty, and have been reading
Stanley's sermon upon St. Paul, which made my heart burn within me.... I
am reading an immensely thick book by Gioberti, one of the Italian
reformers, a devout and eloquent Catholic priest, and it enchants me.
Good-bye, my dear.
I am ever yours,
FANNY.
KING STREET, Wednesday, 16th, 1848.
Of course you have heard of the murder of the soldier by that poor girl
in the park. I have heard nothing more special about it, and have not
seen the newspapers lately, so you probably know more about it than I
do. Emily tells me this morning that there were some excellent
observations upon the circumstance, either in the _Examiner_ or
_Spectator_. It will be long before women are justly dealt with by the
social or civil codes of Christian communities to which they belong,
longer still before they are righteously dealt with by the individuals
to whom they belong; but it will not be _for ever_. With the world's
progress that reform will come, too; though I believe it will be the
very last before the millennium.
I hope this poor unfortunate will be recommended to the Queen's mercy,
and escape hanging, unless, as might be just possible, she prefers
depending on a gibbet to the tender mercies of Christian
society--especially its women--towards a woman who, after being seduced
by a man, murdered him.
Did I never tell you of that unhappy creature in New York, who was in
the same situation, except that the villain she stabbed did not die, who
was tried and acquitted, and who found a shelter in Charles Sedgwick's
house, and who, when the despairing devil of all her former miseries
took possession of her, used to be thrown into paroxysms of insane
anguish, during which Elizabeth [Mrs. Charles Sedgwick] used to sit by
her and watch her, and comfort her and sing to her, till she fell
exhausted with misery into sleep? That poor woman used to remind me of
my children's nurse....
I receive frequent complaints, not from you only, that I do not write
sufficiently in detail about myself. It is on that account that I am
always so glad to be _asked questions_, because they remind me of what
my friends specially desire to know about me when otherwise I should be
apt to write to them about what interested me, rather than what I was
doing or saying, and the things and people that surround me, which I do
not always find interesting.
You do just the same; your letters are very often indeed discussions
upon matters of abstract speculation rather than tidings of
yourself,--your doing, being, or suffering,--and I have not objected to
this in you, though it has given me a deal of trouble in answering you,
because I like people to go their own way in everything; moreover,
unless I am reminded by questions of what _is happening to me_, it
interests me so little that I should probably forget to mention it....
If my faith, dearest Hal, depended upon my knowledge of the means by
which the results in which I have faith will be achieved, I should have
some cause for despondency. Do you suppose I imagine that the sudden
violence of a national convulsion will make people Christians who are
not so?... My answer to all your questions as to how momentous changes
for the better are to be brought about in public affairs, in popular
institutions, in governments, can only be--I do not know. I believe in
them, nevertheless, for I believe in God's law, and in Christ's teaching
of it, and the obviously ordained progress of the human race. True it is
that Christ's teaching, ruling in every man's heart, can only be the
distant climax of this progress; but when that does so rule, all other
"governments" will be unnecessary: but though we are far enough off from
that yet, we are nearer than we ever yet have been; and until that has
become the supreme government of the world, changes must go on
perpetually in our temporary and imperfect institutions, by which the
onward movement is accelerated, at what speed who can tell? It seems to
me that the geological growth of our earth has been rapid, compared to
the moral growth of our race; but so it is apparently ordained.
Individual goodness is _the_ great power of all,--societies,
organizations, combinations, institutions, laws, governments, act from
the surface downwards far less efficaciously than from the _root
upwards_, and what it does _is done_.
Comparatively cheap forms of government are among the most obvious and
reasonable changes to be desired in Europe; but you mistake me if you
suppose I am looking for instantaneous Utopias born out of national
uproar and confusion. But as long as the love of God is not a
sufficiently powerful motive with the nations of the earth to make them
seek to know and do His will, revolution, outrage, carnage, fear, and
suffering are, I suppose, the spurs that are to goad them on to
_bettering_ themselves; and so national agonies seem to me like
individual sorrows--dispensations sent to work improvement.
Fourierism was received with extreme enthusiasm in New England, where
various societies have been formed upon the plan of Fourier's
suggestions, and this not by the poor or lower classes, but by the
voluntary association of the rich with the poor in communities where all
worldly goods were in common, and labor, too, so foolishly fairly in
common that delicately bred and highly educated women took their turn to
stand all day at the wash-tub, for the benefit of the society, though
surely not of their shirts.
I have conversed much in America with disciples of this school, but am
of opinion, in spite of their zeal, that no such scheme of social
improvement will be found successful, and that this violent
precipitating one's self from the sphere in which one is placed in the
scale of civilization is not what is wanted, but much rather the full
performance of our several duties at the post where we each of us stand
and have been providentially placed. The old English catechism of
Christian obligation taught us that we were to do our duty in that state
of life into which it had pleased God to call us--and if we did, there
would be small need of revolutions.
In America these social experiments were perfectly disinterested and
undertaken for the sake of moral good results; for where they were
tried, there was neither excessive wealth nor poverty to suggest them,
and the excellent and intelligent people thus brought together by pure
zeal for social improvement disagreed and grumbled with each other, were
so perfectly and uncomfortably unsuccessful in their experiments that
their whole scheme collapsed, and dissolved into the older social
disorders from which they had thought to raise themselves and others....
MY DEAR HAL,
... I do not see why a much greater subdivision of land would not be
beneficial in England. Of course, if to the example of America you
retort all its singular and advantageous conditions, I have nothing to
say; but how about Belgium, the Netherlands, France, Switzerland? where
small proprietorship appears to result in prosperity both to the land
and its cultivators. I do not believe that the tenure of land will long
continue what it is here, nor do I believe, in spite of the warlike
notes of preparation from all sides of the Continent just now, that the
day of great standing armies can last much longer--neither in France nor
England, surely, can the people consent much longer to be taxed as they
are for military purposes....
I told you of my having found, in the theatre at Norwich, a couple of
young people whose position had interested me much. They were very poor,
but gentlefolks, and sorely as they needed money, I could not offer it
to them, so I promised to go down to Lynn, and act for them whenever
they could obtain their manager's leave to have me.... And on Saturday,
the 18th, I shall go down to Mrs. H----'s, my dear friend Harness's
niece, who lives within seven miles of Lynn, and visit her, while I do
what I can for them.
Ever yours,
FANNY.
BILNEY, NEAR LYNN, NORFOLK, Monday, March 20th, 1848.
MY DEAREST HARRIET,
I may or may not be very nervous on the occasion of my Saturday's
reading at Highgate. [It was the first I ever gave--a mere experiment to
test my powers for the purpose; was in a small room, and before an
audience in which were some of my intimate friends.] It will probably
depend upon whether I am tolerably well or not, but I trust I shall not
annoy you, my dear, if you are with me....
Did I tell you that I met Mr. Swinton at Lady Castlereagh's the other
evening, and that he very amiably invited me to go and see his pictures
before they went to the exhibition?--so perhaps we may see them together
when we come to town. I had an application from an artist the other day,
who is painting a picture from "Macbeth," to sit for his Lady for him;
and I have undertaken to do so, which is a bore, and therefore very
good-natured of me.... This place itself is pretty, though the country
round it is not. The weather is cold and rainy and uncomfortable, and I
shall be almost glad to get back to London, and to see you. "Now, isn't
that strange?" as Benedick says.