Records of a Girlhood Part 26

F.

GREAT RUSSELL STREET, Sat.u.r.day, March 19th.

DEAR H----,

You ask if Mr. Trench's account of their Spanish escapade is likely to soften my father's view of the folly of the expedition. I think not, by any means--as how should it? But the yesterday papers reported a successful attack upon Cadiz and the proclamation of Torrijos general-in-chief by the Const.i.tutionalists, who were rising all over the country. This has been again contradicted to-day, and may have been a mere stock-jobbing story, after all. If it be true, however, the results may be of serious importance to my brother. Should the Const.i.tutionalists get the upper hand, his adherence to Torrijos may place him in a prominent position, I am afraid; perhaps, however, though success may not alter my father's opinion of the original folly of John's undertaking, it may in some measure reconcile him to it. I suppose it is not impossible now that John should become an officer in the Spanish army, and that after so many various and contradictory plans his career may finally be that of a soldier. How strange and sad it all seems to me, to be sure!

You say it's a horrid thing one can't "try on one's body" and choose such a one as would suit one; but do you consider your body accidental, as it were, or do you really think we could do better for ourselves than has been done for us in this matter? After all, our souls get used to our bodies, and in some fashion alter and shape them to fit; then you know if we had different bodies we should be different people and not our _same selves_ at all; if I had been tall, as I confess I in my heart of hearts wish I were, what another moral creature should I have been.

You urge me to work, dear H----, and study my profession, and were I to say I hate it, you would retort, "You do it, therefore take pains to do it well." And so I do, as well as I can; I have been studying Constance with my father, and rubbed off some of the rough edges of it a little.

I am sorry to say I shall not have a good benefit; unluckily, the second reading of the Reform Bill comes on to-morrow (to-night, by the bye, for it is Monday), and there will be as many people in the House of Commons as in _my_ house, and many more in Parliament Street than in either; it is unfortunate for me, but cannot be helped. I was going to say, pray for me, but I forgot that you will not get this till "it is bedtime, Hal, and all is well." The publication of my play is not to take place till after this Reform fever has a little abated.

Dear H----, this is Wednesday, the 23rd; Monday and King John and my Constance are all over; but I am at this moment still so _deaf with nervousness_ as not to hear the ticking of my watch when held to one of my ears; the other side of my head is not deaf any longer _now_; but on Monday night I hardly heard one word I uttered through the whole play. It is rather hard that having endeavored (and succeeded wonderfully, too) in possessing my soul in peace during that trial of my courage, my nervous system should give way in this fashion. I had a knife of pain sticking in my side all through the play and all day long, Monday; as I did not hear myself speak, I cannot tell you anything of my performance. My dress was of the finest pale-blue merino, all folds and drapery like my Grecian Daughter costume, with an immense crimson mantle hung on my shoulders which I could hardly carry. My head-dress was exactly copied from one of my aunt's, and you cannot imagine how curiously like her I looked. My mother says, "You have done it better than I believe any other girl of your age would do it." But of course that is not a representation of Constance to satisfy her, or any one else, indeed. You know, dear H----, what my own feeling has been about this, and how utterly incapable I knew myself for such an undertaking; but you did not, nor could any one, know how dreadfully I suffered from the apprehension of failure which my reason told me was well founded. I a.s.sure you that when I came on the stage I felt like some hunted creature driven to bay; I was really half wild with terror. The play went off admirably, but I lay, when my part was over, for an hour on my dressing-room floor, with only strength enough left to cry. Your letter to A---- revived me, and just brought me enough to life again to eat my supper, which I had not felt able to touch, in spite of my exhaustion and great need of it; when, however, I once began, my appet.i.te justified the French proverb and took the turn of voracity, and I devoured like a Homeric hero. I promised to tell you something of our late dinner at Lord Melbourne's, but have left myself neither s.p.a.ce nor time. It was very pleasant, and I fell out of my love for our host (who, moreover, is absorbed by Mrs. Norton) and into another love with Lord O----, Lord T----'s son, who is one of the most beautiful creatures of the male s.e.x I ever saw; unluckily, he does not fulfill the necessary conditions of your theory, and is neither as old nor as decrepit as you have settled the n.o.bleman I am to marry is to be; so he won't do.

We are going to a party at Devonshire House to-night. Here I am called away to receive some visitors. Pray write soon to your affectionate

f.a.n.n.y.

To-morrow I act Constance, and Sat.u.r.day Isabella, which is all I know for the present of the future. I have just bought A---- a beautiful guitar; I promised her one as soon as my play was out. My room is delicious with violets, and my new blue velvet gown heavenly in color and all other respects except the--well, _un_heavenly price Devy makes me pay for it.

GREAT RUSSELL STREET, April 2, 1831.

DEAR H----,

I am truly sorry for M----'s illness, just at the height of all her gay season gayeties, too; it is too provoking to have one's tackle out of order and lie on the beach with such a summer sea sparkling before one. I congratulate L---- on her father's relenting and canceling his edict against waltzing and galloping. And yet, I am always _rather_ sorry when a determination of that sort, firmly expressed, is departed from. Of course our views and opinions, not being infallible, are liable to change, and may not unreasonably be altered or weakened by circ.u.mstances and the more enlightened convictions of improved powers and enlarged experience, but it is as well, therefore, for our own sakes, not to promulgate them as if they were Persian decrees. One can step gracefully down from a lesser height, where one would fall from a greater. But with young people generally, I think, to retreat from a position you have a.s.sumed is to run the risk of losing some of their consideration and respect; for they have neither consciousness of their own frailty, nor charity for the frailty of others, nor the wisdom to perceive that a resolution may be better broken than kept; and though perhaps themselves gaining some desired end by the yielding of their elders, I believe any indulgence so granted (that is, after being emphatically denied) never fails to leave on the youthful mind an impression of want of judgment or determination in those they have to do with.

We dine with the Fitzhughs on Tuesday week; I like Emily much, though she will talk of human souls as "vile;" I gave her Channing to read, and she liked it very much, but said that his view of man's nature was not that of a Christian; I think her contempt for it still less such. As we are immortal in spite of death, so I think we are wonderful in spite of our weakness, and admirable in spite of our imperfection, and capable of all good in spite of all our evil.

A----'s guitar is a beauty, and wears a broad blue scarf and has a sweet, low, soft voice. Mr. Pickersgill is going to paint my portrait; it is a present Major Dawkins makes my father and mother, but I do wish they would leave off trying to take my picture. My face is too bad for anything but nature, and never was intended for _still_ life. The intention, however, is very kind, and the offer one that can scarcely be refused. I wish you would come and keep me awake through my sittings.

Our engagements--social and professional--are a dinner party at the Mayows to-morrow; an evening party on Monday; Tuesday, the opera; Wednesday I act Isabella; Thursday, a dinner at Mr. Harness's; Friday I act Bianca; Sat.u.r.day we have a dinner party at home; the Monday following I act Constance; Tuesday there is a dance at the Fitzhughs'; and sundry dissipations looming in the horizon.

Good-by, and G.o.d bless you, my dear H----. I look forward to our meeting at Ardgillan, three months hence, with delight, and am affectionately yours,

F. A. K.

A---- and I begin our riding lessons on Wednesday next. We have got pretty dark-brown habits and red velvet waistcoats, and shall look like two nice little robin-redb.r.e.a.s.t.s on horseback; all I dread is that she may be frightened to death, which might militate against her enjoyment, perhaps.

What you say about my brother John is very true; and though my first care is for his life, my next is for his happiness, which I believe more likely to be secured by his remaining in the midst of action and excitement abroad, than in any steady pursuit at home.

My benefit was not as good as it ought to have been; it was not sufficiently advertised, and it took place on the night of the reading of the Reform Bill, which circ.u.mstance was exceedingly injurious to it.

To-day is John's birthday. I was in hopes it might not occur to my mother, but she alluded to it yesterday. I was looking at that little sketch of him in her room this morning, with a heavy heart.

His lot seems now cast indeed, and most strangely. I would give anything to see him and hear his voice again, but I fear to wish him back again among us. I am afraid that he would neither be happy himself, nor make others so.

GREAT RUSSELL STREET, 1831.

It is a long time, dear H----, since I have written to you, and I feel it so with self-reproach. To-day, except paying a round of visits with my mother and acting this evening, I have nothing to prevent my talking with you in tolerable peace and quiet--so here I am. You have no idea what a quant.i.ty of "things to be done" has been crowded into the last fortnight: studying Camiola, rehearsing for two hours and a half every other day, riding for two hours at a time, and sitting for my picture nearly as long, running from place to place about my dresses, and now having Lady Teazle and Mrs.

Oakley to _get up_, immediately,--all this, with my nightly work or nightly gayeties, makes an amount of occupation of one sort and another that hardly leaves me time for thought.

You will be glad to hear that "The Maid of Honor" was entirely successful; that it will have a "great run," or bring much money to the theater, I doubt. It is a _cold_ play, according to the present taste of audiences, and there are undoubted defects in its construction which in the fastidious judgment of our critics weigh down its sterling beauties.

It has done me great service, and to you I may say that I think it the best thing I have acted. Indeed, I like my own performance of it so well (which you know does not often happen to me), that I beg you will make A---- tell you something about it. I was beautifully dressed and looked very nice.

We have heard nothing of John for some time now, and my mother has ceased to express, if not to feel, anxiety about him, and seems tranquil at present; but after all she has suffered on his account, it is not, perhaps, surprising that she should subside into the calm of mere exhaustion from that cruel over-excitement.

Our appeal before the Lords, after having been put off once this week, will, in consequence of the threatened dissolution of Parliament, be deferred _sine die_, as the phrase is. Oh, what weary work this is for those who are tremblingly waiting for a result of vital importance to their whole fate and fortune! Thank Heaven, I am liberally endowed with youth's peculiar power and privilege of disregarding future sorrow, and unless under the immediate pressure of calamity can keep the antic.i.p.ation of it at bay. My journal has become a mere catalogue of the names of people I meet and places I go to. I have had no time latterly for anything but the briefest possible registry of my daily doings. Mrs. Harry Siddons has taken a lodging in this street, nearly opposite to us, so that I have the happiness of seeing her rather oftener than I have been able to do hitherto; the girls come over, too; and as we have lately taken to acting charades and proverbs, we spend our evenings very pleasantly together.

We are going to get up a piece called "Napoleon." I do not mean my cousins and ourselves, but that prosperous establishment, Covent Garden Theatre. Think of Bonaparte being acted! It makes one grin and shudder.

I have been three or four times to Mr. Pickersgill, and generally sit two hours at a time to him. I dare say he will make a nice picture of me, but his anxiety that it should in no respect resemble Sir Thomas Lawrence's drawing amuses me. I was in hopes that when I had done with him I should not have to sit to anybody for anything again. But I find I am to undergo that boredom for a bust by Mr. Turnerelli. I wish I could impress upon all my artist friends that my face is an inimitable original which nature never intended should be copied. Pazienza! I must say, though, that I grudge the time thus spent. I want to get on with my play, but I'm afraid for the next three weeks that will be hopeless.

To add to my occupations past, present, and to come, not having enough of acting with my professional duties in that line, I am going to take part in some private theatricals. Lord Francis Leveson wants to get up his version of Victor Hugo's "Hernani," at Bridgewater House, and has begged me, as a favor, to act the heroine; all the rest are to be amateurs. I have consented to this, not knowing well how to refuse, yet for one or two reasons I almost think I had better not have done so. I expect to be excessively amused by it, but it will take up a terrible deal of my time, for I am sure they will need rehearsals without end. I do not know at all what our summer plans are; but I believe we shall be acting in the provinces till September, when if all things are quiet in Paris my father proposes going over with me and one or two members of the Covent Garden company, and playing there for a month or so. I think I should like that. I fancy I should like acting to a French audience; they are people of great intellectual refinement and discrimination, and that is a pleasant quality in an audience. I think my father seems inclined to take A---- with us and leave her there. A musical education can nowhere better be obtained, and under the care of Mrs. Foster, about whom I believe I wrote to you once a long letter, there could be no anxiety about her welfare.

I showed that part of your last letter which concerned my aunt Dall to herself, because I knew it would please her, and so it did; and she bids me tell you that she values your good-will and esteem extremely, and should do still more if you did not _misbestow so much of them on me_.

Emily Fitzhugh sent me this morning a Seal with a pretty device, in consequence of my saying that I thought it was pleasanter to lean upon one's friends, morally, than to be leant upon by them--an oak with ivy clinging to it and "Chiedo sostegno" for the motto. I do not think I shall use it to many people, though.

To-morrow Sheridan Knowles dines with us, to read a new play he has written, in which I am to act. In the evening we go to Lady Cork's, Sunday we have a dinner-party here, Monday I act Camiola, Tuesday we go to Mrs. Harry's, Wednesday I act Camiola, and further I know not. Good-by, dear; ever yours,

F. A. K.

The piece which I have referred to in this letter, calling itself "Bonaparte," was a sensational melodrama upon the fate and fortunes of the great emperor, beginning with his first exploits as a young artillery officer, himself pointing and firing the cannon at Toulon, to the last dreary agony of the heart-broken exile of St. Helena. It was well put upon the stage, and presented a series of historical pictures of considerable interest and effect, not a little of which was due to the great resemblance of Mr. Warde, who filled the princ.i.p.al part, to the portraits of Napoleon. He had himself, I believe, been in the army, and left it under the influence of a pa.s.sion for the stage, which his dramatic ability hardly justified; for though he was a very respectable actor, he had no genius whatever, and never rose above irreproachable mediocrity. But his military training and his peculiar likeness to Bonaparte helped him to make his part in this piece very striking and effective, though it was not in itself the merest peg to hang "situations" on.

I was at this time sitting for my picture to Mr. Pickersgill, with whose portrait of my father in the part of Macbeth I have mentioned my mother's comically expressed dissatisfaction. Our kind friend, Major Dawkins, wished to give my father and mother a good portrait of me, and suggested Mr. Pickersgill, a very eminent portrait-painter, as the artist who would be likely to execute it most satisfactorily. Mr.

Pickersgill, himself, seemed very desirous to undertake it, and greatly as my sittings interfered with my leisure, of which I had but little, it was impossible under the circ.u.mstances that I should refuse, especially as he represented that if he succeeded, as he hoped to do, his painting me would be an advantage to him; portraits of public exhibitors being of course recognizable by the public, and, if good, serving the purpose of advertis.e.m.e.nts. Unluckily, Mrs. Jameson proposed accompanying me, in order to lighten by her very agreeable conversation the tedium of the process. Her intimate acquaintance with my face, with which Mr.

Pickersgill was not familiar, and her own very considerable artistic knowledge and taste made her, however, less discreet in her comments and suggestions with regard to his operations than was altogether pleasant to him; and after exhibiting various symptoms of impatience, on one occasion he came so very near desiring her to mind her own business, that we broke off the sitting abruptly; and the offended painter adding, to my dismay, that it was quite evident he was not considered equal to the task he had undertaken, our own att.i.tude toward each other became so constrained, not to say disagreeable, that on taking my leave I declined returning any more, and what became of Mr. Pickersgill's beginning of me I do not know. Perhaps he finished it by memory, and it is one of the various portraits of me, _qui courent le monde_, for some of which I never sat, which were taken either from the stage or were mere efforts of memory of the artists; one of which, a head of Beatrice, painted by my friend Mr. Sully, of Philadelphia, was engraved as a frontispiece to a small volume of poems I published there, and was one of the best likenesses ever taken of me.

The success of "The Maid of Honor" gave me great pleasure. The sterling merits of the play do not perhaps outweigh the one insuperable defect of the despicable character of the hero; one can hardly sympathize with Camiola's devotion to such an idol, and his unworthiness not only lessens the interest of the piece, but detracts from the effect of her otherwise very n.o.ble character. The performance of the part always gave me great pleasure, and there was at once a resemblance to and difference from my favorite character, Portia, that made it a study of much interest to me. Both the women, young, beautiful, and of unusual intellectual and moral excellence, are left heiresses to enormous wealth, and are in exceptional positions of power and freedom in the disposal of it. Portia, however, is debarred by the peculiar nature of her father's will from bestowing her person and fortune upon any one of her own choice; chance serves her to her wish (she was not born to be unhappy), and gives her to the man she loves, a handsome, extravagant young gentleman, who would certainly have been p.r.o.nounced by all of us quite unworthy of her, until she proved him worthy by the very fact of her preference for him; while Camiola's lover is separated from her by the double obstacle of his royal birth and religious vow.

The golden daughter of the splendid republic receives and dismisses princes and kings as her suitors, indifferent to any but their personal merits; we feel she is their equal in the lowest as their superior in the highest of their "qualities;" with Camiola it is impossible not to suspect that her lover's rank must have had some share in the glamor he throws over her. In some Italian version of the story that I have read, Camiola is called the "merchant's daughter;" and contrasting her bearing and demeanor with the easy courtesy and sweet, genial graciousness of Portia, we feel that she must have been of lower birth and breeding than the magnificent and charming Venetian. Portia is almost always in an att.i.tude of (unconscious) condescension in her relations with all around her; Camiola, in one of self-a.s.sertion or self-defense. There is an element of harshness, bordering upon coa.r.s.eness, in the texture of her character, which in spite of her fine qualities makes itself unpleasantly felt, especially contrasted with that of Portia, to whom the idea of encountering insolence or insult must have been as _impossible_ as to the French d.u.c.h.ess, who, warned that if she went into the streets alone at night she would probably be insulted, replied with ineffable security and simplicity, "Qui? moi!" One can imagine the merchant's daughter _growing up_ to the possession of her great wealth, through the narrowing and hardening influences of sordid circ.u.mstances and habits of careful calculation and rigid economy, thrifty, prudent, just, and eminently conscientious; of Portia one can only think as of a creature born in the very lap of luxury and nursed in the midst of sunny magnificence, whose very element was elegant opulence and refined splendor, and by whose cradle Fortune herself stood G.o.dmother. She seems like a perfect rose, blooming in a precious vase of gold and gems and exquisite workmanship. Camiola's contemptuous rebuff of her insolent courtier lover; her merciless ridicule of her fantastical, half-witted suitor; her bitter and harsh rebuke of Adorni when he draws his sword upon the man who had insulted her; above all, her hard and cold insensibility to his unbounded devotion, and the cruelty of making him the agent for the ransom of her lover from captivity (the selfishness of her pa.s.sion inducing her to employ him because she knows how absolutely she may depend upon the unselfishness of his); and her final stern and peremptory claim of Bertrand's promise, are all things that Portia could never have done. Portia is the Lady of Belmont, and Camiola is the merchant's daughter, a very n.o.ble and magnanimous woman. In the munificent bestowal of their wealth, the one to ransom her husband's friend from death, the other to redeem her own lover from captivity, the manner of the gift is strikingly characteristic of the two natures. When Portia, radiant with the joy of relieving Ba.s.sanio's anguish, speaks of Antonio's heavy ransom as the "petty debt," we feel sure that if it had been half her fortune it would have seemed to her an insignificant price to pay for her husband's peace of mind. Camiola reads the price set upon her lover's head, and with grave deliberation says, "Half my estate, Adorni," before she bids him begone and purchase at that cost the prince's release from captivity. Moreover, in claiming her right of purchase over him, at the very moment of his union with another woman, she gives a character of barter or sale to the whole transaction, and appeals for justice as a defrauded creditor, insisting upon her "money's worth," like Shylock himself, as if the love with which her heart is breaking had been a mere question of traffic between the heir of Sicily and the merchant's daughter. In spite of all which she is a very fine creature, immeasurably superior to the despicable man who accepts her favors and betrays her love. It is worthy of note that Ba.s.sanio, who is clearly nothing else remarkable, is every inch a gentleman, and in that respect no unfit mate for Portia; while the Sicilian prince is a blackguard utterly, beneath Camiola in every particular but that of his birth.

I remember two things connected with my performance of Camiola which amused me a good deal at the time. In the last scene, when she proclaims her intention of taking the vail, Camiola makes tardy acknowledgment to Adorni for his life-long constancy and love by leaving him a third of her estate, with the simple words, "To thee, Adorni, for thy true and faithful service" (a characteristic proceeding on the part of the merchant's daughter. Portia would have given him the ring from her finger, or the flower from her bosom, besides the fortune). I used to pause upon the last words, endeavoring to convey, if one look and tone might do it, all the regretful grat.i.tude which ought to have filled her heart, while uttering with her farewell that first, last, and only recognition of his infinite devotion to her. One evening, when the audience were perfectly silent and one might have "heard a pin drop," as the saying is, as I spoke these words, a loud and enthusiastic exclamation of, "Beautiful!" uttered by a single voice resounded through the theater, and was followed by such a burst of applause that I was startled and almost for a moment frightened by the sudden explosion of feeling, for which I was quite unprepared, and which I have never forgotten.

Another night, as I was leaving the stage, after the play, I met behind the scenes my dear friend Mr. Harness, with old Mr. Sotheby; both were very kind in their commendation of my performance, but the latter kept repeating with much emphasis, "But how do you contrive to make yourself look so beautiful?" a rather equivocal compliment, which had a peculiar significance; my beauty, or rather my lack of it, being a sore subject between us, as I had made it the reason for refusing to act Mary Stuart in his play of "Darnley," a.s.suring him I was too ugly to look the part properly; so upon this accusation of making myself "look beautiful," I could only reply, with much laughing, "Good-looking enough for Camiola, but not for Queen Mary."

I received with great pleasure a congratulatory letter from Mrs.

Jameson, which, in spite of my feeling her praise excessive, confirmed me in my opinion of the effect the piece ought to produce upon intelligent spectators. She had seen all the great dramatic performers of the Continental theaters, and had had many opportunities, both at home and abroad, of cultivating her taste and forming her judgment, and her opinion was, therefore, more valuable to me than much of the criticism and praise that I received.

GREAT RUSSELL STREET, March, 1831.

DEAR MRS. JAMESON,

My mother is confined to her bed with a bad cold, or she would have answered your note herself; but, being disabled, she has commissioned me to do so, and desires me to say that both my father and herself object to my going anywhere without some member of my family as chaperon; and as this is a general rule, the infringement of it in a particular instance, however much I might wish it, would be better avoided, for fear of giving offense where I should be glad to plead the prohibition. She bids me add that she fears she cannot go out to-morrow, but that some day soon, at an early hour, she hopes to be able to accompany us both to the British Gallery.

Will you come to us on Sunday evening? You see what is hanging over me for Thursday next; shall you go to see me?

Yours affectionately, F. A. K.