Records of Later Life Part 49

I shall not answer your letter seriously: I am convinced it is bad for you. I believe Dorothy never laughs (you know the Devil in "Faust" says the Almighty never does), and I am satisfied that what you are languishing for is a little _absurdity_, which she cannot by any possibility afford you.

How I wish I was with you! because, though I am no more absurd than that sublime woman Dorothy, I at least know how to take the best advantage, both for you and myself, of the great gifts you possess in that line; and the mutual sweetness and utility of our intercourse is, I am persuaded, princ.i.p.ally owing to the judicious use I make of the extraordinary amount of absurdity it has pleased Heaven to vouchsafe you, my most precious friend.

And so you think I shall have plenty of "admiring friends" for my "gay hours" (!!!!), but shall be glad to fall back, in my less delightful ones, upon the devoted affection of--you? (Oh, Harriet, oughtn't you to be ashamed of yourself?)

I have more friends, I humbly and devoutly thank G.o.d for them, than almost any one I know; those I depend upon I can count upon the fingers of one hand, and you are the _thumb_.

In the useless struggle you persist in making to be reasonable (why don't you give it up? I've known you hopelessly at it now forty years or thereabouts), you really make use of very singular and, permit me to say, inappropriate language. After detailing, in a manner that nearly made me cry and laugh with distress for you and disapprobation of you, all your unnecessary agonies of anxiety about me, you suddenly rein yourself up with an extra-reasonable jerk, and say that "the foolish importance you attach to _trifles_ is as great as ever."

Now, my dearest friend, for such you undoubtedly are, allow me to observe that this mode of speaking of me does not appear to me either reasonable or appropriate. From what point of view I can appear a _trifle_ to the most partial and rational of my friends, I am at a loss to conjecture. The parallel seems to me to halt on all its feet. A _white_, _light_, _sweet_, and _agreeable_ article of human consumption bears, I apprehend, extremely small affinity to a _dark_, _heavy_, _tart_, and _uneatable_ female. However, if you find that this, to me, singularly distorted mode of viewing facts a.s.sists your hitherto unsuccessful efforts at mental and moral equipoise, I am perfectly willing to be a trifle in your estimation, or indeed anywhere but on your table.

The pretty, pretty plan you devise for our meeting here during Pa.s.sion week, dear Hal, is a baseless vision. Our friends go up to London the week after next, and I do not know when I shall be able again to stay so far from it.

I have written to Moxon about the publication of my journal, and I received a note from him this morning, intimating his purpose of visiting me here, in the course of to-day, at which I feel rather nervously dismayed.... There is a great quant.i.ty of it, and I suppose my return to the stage may perhaps have some effect in increasing its sale.

Emily and I walk every day together, up and down the shrubbery and round the gardens; and innumerable are the e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns of "Oh, how I wish dear Hal was with us!" You are our proper complement, the missing side of the triangle, and it is unnatural for us two to be together here without you.

Mrs. FitzHugh is certainly a wonderful old woman, especially in her kindliness and happy, easy cheerfulness....

We drive every day for about an hour in the pony-carriage, and walk again for about half an hour afterwards....

And now, G.o.d bless you, my dearest Hal. I long to see you, and am most thankful for all the tender, devoted, anxious affection you bestow on me; I am unspeakably _grateful_ to you. Kiss dear Dorothy for me, and tell her for goodness' sake to exert herself, and either be, or allow you to be, slightly ridiculous, or she will die of perfection, and you of a plethora of absurdity, or ridiculousness _rentre_--struck in, as the French say.

I forgot to tell you that ---- has declined my terms, but offered me others, which I have declined. I have still two other managers, with one of whom I think I may perhaps be able to come to some agreement.

Since writing thus far, I have seen Moxon, who has offered me far more than I expected for my journal before reading it; begging me to let him pay me a portion of it at once, and adding that if, upon perusal of the ma.n.u.script, he thinks his profits likely to warrant his giving me more than the sum now named, he should not consider himself justified in not doing so by the fact of his having offered me less.

Good-bye, dearest.

Yours ever, f.a.n.n.y.

[It is impossible to have been more generous than Mr. Moxon was in this whole transaction. While talking about the dealings of booksellers with authors, he said that he always bore in mind the liberality he had benefited by when, starting in business a poor and obscure publisher, he had been munificently a.s.sisted by Rogers, whose timely aid had laid the foundation of his prosperity. "As I was dealt by," he said, "I endeavor to deal by others, and should be glad to inspire them with the grateful regard towards me which I shall always retain for him." Rogers surely did himself more injustice by his tongue than all his enemies put together could have done him; his acts of kindly generosity were almost as frequent as his bitter, biting, cruel words.]

BANNISTERS, Sat.u.r.day, 16th.

Yes, my dear Hal, I do intend to correct my own proofs (I thought my proofs corrected me)....

I have just returned from a delightful visit of two hours, which our dear friend Emily contrived for me, to ----, the dentist! Not content with cheering and soothing my sadder hours with the number and variety of her medical resources (pills, draughts, doses, potions, lotions, lozenges, etc.), her ever active and considerate affection hit upon this agreeable method of relieving my stay at Bannisters of any possible tedium, and two hours of the darkest, dampest, dreariest winter weather have thus been charmed away through her tender and ingenious solicitude for my enjoyment.

My dear Hal, what you say about laughing _with_ people, as an _instead_ for laughing _at_ them, is, like most things you say, frightful nonsense. And what sort of a laugh, moreover, is it that you offer that unfortunate Dorothy for her feeble partic.i.p.ation? Nothing of a healthy, wholesome, vigorous, vital, individual, personal kind; but some pitiful pretence of wit or humor, having for its vague or indefinite object ideal or general, abstract, impersonal, or, so to speak, invisible intangible subjects, wanting all the vivacious pungent stimulus that belongs to real individual absurdity, and the direct ridicule of it, judiciously and dexterously applied; the only efficient--I had almost said legitimate--object of a rational creature's amus.e.m.e.nt. If Dorothy depends upon you for her entertainment (otherwise than as you involuntarily, unconsciously, naturally, and simply furnish it to me), I pity her; and if you depend upon her for yours, I pity you still more--for I doubt if even I, according to my own system, could extract any from her, she is so _painfully_ _un_ridiculous. You must be deplorably dull together, I am--certain, I was going to say--satisfied; but that's neither kind nor civil, and I heartily wish for both _your_ sakes that I was with you.

I am not sure that that visit may not be accomplished yet; for my reappearance on the stage does not seem likely to take place so very immediately but that I might perhaps contrive to run down to you for a short time. But, indeed, all my concerns are like so many pennies tossed up in the air for "heads or tails," and I cannot tell how they will fall, or what results I may arrive at.

I have been asked to go down to Manchester, to act, and if I have any great difficulty or delay to encounter in finding an engagement in London, I shall probably do so.... The step I am about to take is so painful to me that all petty annoyances and minor vexations lose their poignancy in the contemplation of it (_a quelque chose--a bien des choses malheur est bon_), and having at length made up my mind to it, smaller _repugnancies_ connected with it have ceased to affect me with any acuteness....

Moxon cannot publish my Italian journal immediately, because the whole of the American edition must be ready to go to press before he brings it out here. I suppose it will come out some time after Easter. Emily told you of his first offer for it, and of his gallant mode of making it. He is surely a pearl and a pattern of publishers.

Kiss that facetious "Virgin Martyr" for me. Such a laugh as you two are likely to get up together! I declare it brings the tears to my eyes to think of it.

I rejoice in your account of H---- W----. It must be a blessing to every one belonging to him to see him do well such a duty as that of an Irish proprietor, in these most miserable times.

I have at present nothing further to impart to you but the newest news, that I am

Ever yours, f.a.n.n.y.

[The last sentence of this letter refers to the failure of the potato-crop, and the consequent terrible famine that desolated Ireland.]

10, PARK PLACE, ST. JAMES'S, February 1st, 1847.

I feel almost certain, my dear Hal, that it will be better for me to be _alone_ when I come out at Manchester than to have you with me, even if in all other respects it were expedient you should be there. My strength is much impaired, my nerves terribly shattered, and to see reflected in eyes that I love that pity for me which I shall feel only too keenly for myself, on the first night of my return to the stage, might, I fear, completely break down my courage. I am glad for this reason that I am to come out at Manchester, where I know n.o.body, and not in London, where, although I might not distinguish them, I should know that not a few who cared for me, and were sorry for me, were among my spectators. I am now so little able to resist the slightest appeal to my feelings that, at the play (to which I have been twice lately), the mere sound of human voices simulating distress has shaken and affected me to a strange degree, and this in pieces of a common and uninteresting description. A mere exclamation of pain or sorrow makes me shudder from head to foot.

Judge how ill prepared I am to fulfil the task I am about to undertake....

This, however, is one of the most painful aspects of my work. It has a more encouraging one. It is an immense thing for me to be still able to work at all, and keep myself from helpless dependence upon any one....

The occupation, the mere _business_ of the business, will, I am persuaded, be good rather than bad for me; for though one may be strong against sorrow, sorrow and inactivity combined are too much for any strength. Such a burden might not kill one, but destroy one's vitality to a degree just short of, and therefore worse than, death--crush, instead of killing and releasing one....

I was reading over "The Hunchback" last night, and could not go through the scenes between Julia and Clifford, when he a.s.sumes the character of Lord Rochdale's secretary, without an agony of crying. I do not see how I am ever to act it again intelligibly, but I suppose when I _must_ do it I _shall_. Things that have to be done are done, somehow or other.

G.o.d bless you, my dear Hal.

I am ever yours, f.a.n.n.y.

One word to Dorothy.

Now, my beloved and best Dorothy, haven't you enough to do with that most troublesome soul, Harriet, without being my "good angel" too? [Miss W---- often went by the name of Harriet's "good angel."] I have never seen mine; but if I have one, I should think he or she must be a sort of spiritual heavenly steam-engine, _a three-hundred angel-power_, in order effectually to take care of me.

My dearest Hal, I have missed the dear nuisance of your letters so dreadfully these few days past, that I began seriously to meditate writing to you to know if I had offended you in any way. As for how I fare in this cold weather, the weather is nothing to me, and I used not to mind cold at all, but rather to like it; but my flesh is forsaking my bones at such a rate that I am beginning to shiver for want of covering, and I think to be reduced to a skeleton--a live one, I mean--while the thermometer is as low as it is will be very uncomfortable.

The satisfaction I had in my visit to my brother was that of seeing a person for whom I have a very warm affection, and, in some respects, a very sincere admiration. I believe, too, it was a comfort to poor John to see me and receive the expressions of my love and sympathy.... For his warm heart, his truthfulness and great simplicity of character, his worldly poverty, his great intellectual wealth, but, above all, for that he is my brother, I love him. He and his children are living in a poor small cottage, on a wild corner of common near Ca.s.siobury. How I thought of our old--no, our young days, driving along past "The Grove" and the Ca.s.siobury Park paling. My brother's present home is certainly not an extravagant residence, and though, of course, sufficient for absolute necessary comfort (how much comfort is _necessary_?), is nothing more.... John has advertised in the _Times_ for a pupil to prepare for college, and should he be able to obtain one, it would, of course, materially a.s.sist him. In the mean time he is working with infinite ardor and industry upon an important work, the "History of the English Law." A friend of his, whom I met there, who is, I think, a competent judge, which, of course, I am not, of any such matter, a.s.sured me that the work was one of great erudition and research, but at the same time so dry and difficult, and therefore little likely to be popular, that it would not be easy to persuade any publisher to undertake it. He, Mr.

B----, carried the first volume, which is complete, to town with him, to show it to persons capable of appreciating it, and endeavor to get it a little known, so as to procure an offer for its publication. Poor John!

his perseverance in the studies he loves is very great, his devotion to them very deep, and if he could only live upon his means with his beloved mistress, Learning, I should think he had made a n.o.ble and honorable choice, however bitterly disappointed my father may feel at his not choosing to follow more lucrative pursuits.

I am going to act in _Dublin_. I have neither time nor s.p.a.ce for more.

G.o.d bless you.

Ever yours, f.a.n.n.y.

10, PARK PLACE, Friday, 12th, 1847.

Direct to me at Manchester, "Theatre Royal," my dear Hal, that is all; or, indeed, I should prefer your directing to the Albion Hotel, that same house where you and I were so charmed by the sunlight on the carpet.

You say I do not know the value of letters. I think I do, for if I had not the very highest value for them I should long ago have given way to my detestation of writing, and put an end to my innumerable correspondences. Your letters have more than once been s.n.a.t.c.hed up by me, and pressed to my lips; so have my sister's.... I hate writing, it is true, but am content to pay that price for the intercourse of my friends; and though I may not love letters as you do, I do think I have a reasonable appreciation of their value.

I share in your feeling, dearest Harriet, about my being in Dublin while you are absent from it. I do not know that it seems to me "wrong,"

but it certainly does seem as unnatural as that there should be a theatre open in Dublin at all at this time, when famine and such dire distress are prevailing in parts of the country.

I am troubled, too, at the uncertainty of how and when we are to meet; and the reason why these various considerations do not, perhaps, engross so much of my thoughts as they do of yours is because I have so many immediate and necessarily absorbing claims upon my attention.

I incline with you, however, to think that I shall not go to Dublin. I have not heard again from the manager, and I begin to hope that he has thought better of his invitation to me. As my work is a matter of necessity, I could not, of course, refuse an engagement in Dublin; but it does seem monstrous that there should be people willing to pay for theatrical entertainments there at this time.