Chapter XXI (3)

At dinner my father told me some of the arrangements he has made
for the summer. We are to act at Bristol, Bath, Exeter, Plymouth,
and Southampton. He then said, "Suppose we take steamer thence to
Marseilles, and so on to Naples?" My heart jumped into my mouth at
the thought; but how should I ever come back again?... Everything
here is _so ugly_, even without comparison with that which is
beautiful elsewhere; from Italy how should one come back to live in
London?

_Thursday, June 9th._-- ... And so I am to act Lady Macbeth! I feel
as if I were standing up by the great pyramid of Egypt to see how
tall I am! However, it must be done; perhaps I may even do it less
ill than Constance--the greater intensity of the character may
perhaps render majesty less _indispensable_. Power (if one had
enough of it) might atone for insufficient dignity. Lady Macbeth
made herself a queen by dint of wickedness; Constance was royal
born--a radical difference, which ought to be in my favor. But
dear, dear, dear, what a frightful undertaking for a poor girl, let
her be never so wicked!

And _the_ Lady Macbeth will never be seen again! I wish just now
that in honor of my aunt the play might be forbidden to be
performed for the next ten years. My father and myself have a
holiday at the theater--but only for the week--because of Mrs.
Siddons's death, and we are to go down to Oatlands--nobody being
there but ourselves, that is my brother and I--for the rest and
quiet and fresh air of these few days.

_Friday, June 10th._--Before three the carriage was announced, and
we started for the country. We dropped Henry at Lord Waldegrave's
and had a very pleasant drive, though the day was as various in its
moods as if we were in April instead of June. We arrived at about
six, and found Mr. C---- had been made an exception to the
"positively nobody" who was to meet us....

_Saturday, June 11th._--Read the French piece called "Une Faute,"
which half killed me with crying. It is exceedingly clever, but
altogether _too_ true, in my opinion, for real art. It is not
dramatic truth, but absolute imitation of life, and instead of the
mitigated emotion which a poetical representation of tragic events
excites, it produces a sense of positive suffering too acutely
painful for an artistic result; it is a perfectly prosaical
reproduction of the familiar vice and its inseparable misery of
modern everyday life; it wants elevation and imagination--aërial
perspective; it is close upon one, and must be agonizing to see
well acted. My studies were certainly not of the most cheerful
order, for after finishing this morbid anatomy of human hearts I
read an article in the _Phrenological Journal_ on Bouilland's
"Anatomy of the Brain," which made me feel as if my brain was stuck
full of pins and needles.

_Perhaps_ a certain amount of experience must be attained through
experiment, and if the wits of the human species are to be better
understood, governed, and preserved by the results obtained by
cutting and hacking the brains of living animals, _perhaps_ some of
our more immediate mercy is to be sacrificed to our humanity in the
lump; but if this is not the forbidden doing evil that good may
come of it, I do not know what is. One of the effects of Mr.
Bouilland's excruciating experiments on his victims was to turn me
already sick and give me an agonizing pain in _my_ brain. I hope
their beneficial consequences did not end there.

I did all this reading before breakfast, and when I left my room it
was still too early for any one to be up, so I set off for a run in
the park. The morning was lovely, vivid, and bright, with soft
shadows flitting across the sky and chasing one another over the
sward, while a delicious fresh wind rustled the trees and rippled
the grass; and unable to resist the temptation, bonnetless as I
was, I set off at the top of my speed, running along the terrace,
past the grotto, and down a path where the syringa pelted me with
showers of mock-orange blossoms, till I came under some magnificent
old cedars, through whose black, broad-spread wings the morning sun
shone, drawing their great shadows on the sweet-smelling earth
beneath them, strewed with their russet-colored shedding. I thought
it looked and smelt like a Russia-leather carpet. Then I came to
the brink of the water, to a little deserted fishing pavilion
surrounded by a wilderness of bloom that was once a garden, and
then I ran home to breakfast. After breakfast I went over the very
same ground with Lady Francis, extremely demure, with my bonnet on
my head and a parasol in my hand, and the utmost propriety of
decorous demeanor, and said never a word of my mad morning's
explorings. A girl's run and a young lady's walk are very different
things, and I hold both pleasant in their way. The carriage was
ordered to take my mother to Addlestone to see poor old Mrs.
Whitelock, and during her absence Lady Francis and I repaired to
her own private sitting-room, and we entertained each other with
extracts from our respective journals. I was struck with the high
esteem she expressed for Lord Carlisle; in one place in her journal
she said she wished she could hope her boys would grow up as
excellent men as he is, and this in spite of her party politics,
for she is a Tory and he a Whig, and she is really a partisan
politician.

In the afternoon, after a charming meandering ride, we determined
to go to Monks Grove, the place Lady Charlotte Greville has taken
on St. Anne's Hill.... In the evening we had terrifical ghost
stories, which held, us fascinated till _one o'clock in the
morning_.

"The stones done, to bed they creep,
By whispering winds soon lull'd asleep."

_Sunday, June 12th._-- ... It's nearly five years since I said my
prayers in that dear old little Weybridge church....

On our return, as the horses are never used on Sunday, we went down
to the water and got into the boat. The day was lovely, and as we
glided along the bright water my mother and Lady Francis and I
murmured, half voice, all sorts of musical memories, which made a
nice accompaniment to Lord Francis's occasional oar-dip that just
kept the boat in motion. When we landed, my mother returned to the
house, and the rest of us set off for a long delightful stroll to
the farm, where I saw a monstrous and most beautiful dog whom I
should like to have hugged, but that he looked so grave and wise it
seemed like a liberty. We walked on through a part of the park
called America, because of the magnificent rhododendrons and
azaleas and the general wildness of the whole. The mass was so deep
one's feet sank into it; the sun, setting, threw low, slanting rays
along the earth and among the old tree trunks. It was a beautiful
bit of forest scenery; how like America I do not know. Upon the
racecourse we emerged into a full, still afternoon atmosphere of
brilliant and soft splendor; the whole park was flooded with
sunshine, and little creeks of light ran here and there into the
woods we had just left, touching with golden radiance a solitary
tree, and glancing into leafy nooks here and there, while the mass
of woodland was one deep shadow....

Much discussion as to the possibilities and probabilities of our
being able to stay here another day. When we came back from our
afternoon ride at near eight, found Mr. Greville and Lady Charlotte
here, and a letter from my father, saying that I could be spared
from my work at the theater a little longer, and promising to come
down to us.... In the evening Mr. C---- and I acted some of
Racine's "Andromaque" for them; my old school part of Hermione
which I have not forgotten, and then two scenes from Scribe's
pretty piece of "_les premières Amours_." He acts French capitally,
and, moreover, bestowed upon me the two following ridiculous
conundrum puns, for which I shall be forever grateful to him:

"Que font les Vaches à Paris?"

"Des Vaudevilles" (des Veaux de Ville).

"Quelle est la sainte qui n'a pas lesoin de Jarretières?"

"Ste. Sébastienne" (ses has se tiennent).

What absurd, funny stuff!

_Tuesday, June 14th._--Gardening on the lawn--hay-making in the
meadow--delightful ride in the afternoon, the beginning of which,
however, was rather spoiled by some very disagreeable accounts Mr.
C---- was giving us of Lord and Lady ----'s _mènage_. What might,
could, would, or _should_ a woman do in such a case? Endure and
endure till her heart broke, I suppose. Somehow I don't think a man
would have the heart to _break_ one's heart; but, to be sure, I
don't know....

We did not return home till near nine, and so, instead of dinner,
all sat down to high tea, at which everybody was very cheerful and
gay, and the talk very bright....

I wish I could have painted my host and hostess this morning as
they stood together on the lawn; she with her beautiful baby in her
arms, her bright, fair forehead and eyes contrasting so strikingly
with his fine, dark head. I never saw a more charming picture.
(Landseer has produced one version of it in his famous "Return from
Hawking.") Are not all such groups "Holy Families"? They looked to
me holy as well as handsome and happy.

_Wednesday, June 15th._-- ... The races in the park were to begin
at one, and we wished, of course, to keep clear of them and all the
gay company; so at twelve my mother and I got into the pony
carriage, and drove to Addlestone to my aunt Whitelock's pretty
cottage there. It rained spitefully all day, and the races and all
the fine racing folk were drenched. At about six o'clock my father
came from London, bringing me letters; the weather had brightened,
and I took a long stroll with him till time to dress for dinner....
In the evening music and pleasant talk till one o'clock.

_Thursday, June 16th._--At eight o'clock my mother and I walked
with my father to meet the coach, on the top of which he left us
for London. After breakfast took my mother down to my "Cedar Hall,"
and established her there with her fishing, and then walked up the
hill to the great trees and amused myself with bending down the big
branches, and, seating myself on them, let them spring up with me.
Climbing trees, as poor Combe would say, excites one's "wonder" and
one's "caution" very agreeably, and I like it. I took Lord
Francis's translation of "Henri Trois" back to the "Cedar Hall,"
where my mother was still watching her float. I was a good deal
struck with it. He has not finished the whole of the first act yet,
but there is one scene between the Duchess of Guise and St. Megrin
that I should think ought to be very effective on the stage; and I
can imagine how charming Mdlle. Mars must have been in her
sleep-walking gestures and intonations. The situation, which is
highly dramatic, is, I think, quite new; I cannot recollect any
similar one in any other play....

After lunch my mother, Lady Charlotte, and Mr. Greville drove off
to Monks Grove, and we followed them on horse-back; it is a little
paradise of a place, with its sunny, smooth sloping lawns and
bright, sparkling piece of water, the masses of flowers blossoming
in profuse beauty, and the high, overhanging, sheltering woods of
St. Anne's Hill rising behind it. On our way home much talk of
Naples. I might like to go there, no doubt; the question is how I
should like to come back to London after Naples, and I think not at
all. In the evening read the pretty French piece of "Michel et
Christine" which my father had sent me.

_Friday, June 17th._-- ... My mother, Mr. C----, and I drove
together back to town; so good-by, Oatlands.

_Monday, June 20th._--Went to rehearsal at half-past ten for John
Mason, who is to come out in Romeo to-night; he had caught a
dreadful cold and could hardly speak, which was terribly provoking,
poor fellow! After my theater rehearsal of "Romeo and Juliet" drove
to Bridgewater House to rehearse "Hernani." In the evening the
house was very good at Covent Garden; I played well. John Mason was
suffering dreadfully from cold and hoarseness; the audience were
very good-natured, however, and he got through uncommonly well. My
mother said I played "beautifully," which was saying much indeed
for her. I was delighted, especially as the Francis Levesons and
---- were all there.

_Tuesday, June 21st._--Went to Bridgewater House to rehearse.
Charles Young was among our morning audience; I was so glad to see
him, for dear old acquaintanceship. The king was going to the House
of Parliament, and Palace Yard was thronged with people, and we sat
round one of the Bridgewater House windows to see the show. At
about one the royal carriages set out--such lovely cream-colored
horses, with blue and silver trappings; such splendid, shining,
coal-black ones, with coral-colored trappings. The equipages looked
like some enchanted present in a fairy story. The king--God bless
him!--cannot, I should think, have been much annoyed by the
clamorous greetings of his people. I'm afraid that ominous, sullen
silence is a bad sign of the times. We rehearsed very steadily.
Lord Francis, who is taking the old duke's part because of Mr. St.
Aubin going abroad, is much improved by some teaching Young has
bestowed upon him; but still he is by no means so good as Mr. St.
Aubin was....

_Wednesday, 22d._--Read "La Chronique de Charles Neuf," which is
very clever, but the history of that period in France is so
revolting that works of fiction founded upon it are as disagreeable
as the history itself. Hogarth's pictures and Le Sage's novels are
masterpieces, and yet admirable only as excellent representations
of what in itself is odious. However, they are satirical works, and
so have their _raison d'être_, which I do not think a serious novel
about detestable times and people has. Drove to Bridgewater House,
feeling so unwell that I could scarcely stand, and was obliged to
lie down till I was called to go on the stage. We had a magnificent
audience--all the grandeurs in England except the King. The Queen,
the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester, the Duke and Duchess of
Cumberland, Princess Elizabeth, Prince Leopold, the Duke of
Brunswick. And lesser magnificoes the room full. Such very superior
people make a dull audience, of course; the presence of royalty is
always understood to bar applause, which is not etiquette when a
Majesty is by. I played very ill; my voice was quite unmanageable,
and broke twice, to my extreme dismay. The fact is, I am fagged
_half_ to death; but as I cannot give up my work and cannot _bear_
to give up my play, the only wonder is that I am not fagged _whole_
to death. Mr. Craven acted really capitally, and I wondered how he
could. They put us out terribly in one scene by forgetting the
bench on which I have to sit down. Hernani managed with great
presence of mind and cleverness in its absence, but it spoilt our
prettiest picture. After the play Lady Francis came to fetch me to
be presented to the Queen; her Majesty was most gracious in her
reception of me, and so were the Princess Elizabeth and the Duke of
Gloucester, who came and had quite a long chat with me. When I had
received my dismissal from her Majesty I ran to disrobe, and
returned to join the crowd in the drawing-room.... When they were
all gone we adjourned to Lady Gower's--a most magnificent supper,
which _we_ enjoyed in the perfection of comfort, in a small boudoir
opening into and commanding the whole length of the supper saloon.
Our snuggery just held my mother, Lady Francis, myself, Charles
Greville, and three of our _corps dramatique_, and we not only
enjoyed a full view of the royal table, but what was infinitely
amusing, poor Lord Francis's disconsolate countenance, which half
killed us with laughing. Supper done, we all proceeded downstairs
to see the Royalty depart, and looked at a fine picture of
Lawrence's of that handsome creature, Lord Clanwilliam. Took leave
of my friends for some months, I am sorry to say; took Mr. ----home
in our carriage and set him down just at day-dawn. It was past four
o'clock before I saw my bed; and the life I am leading is really
enough to kill any one.

_Thursday, June 23d._--Quite unwell, and in bed all day. Mrs.
Jameson came and sat with me some time. We talked of marriage, and
a woman's chance of happiness in giving her life into another's
keeping. I said I thought if one did not expect too much one might
secure a reasonably fair amount of happiness, though of course the
risk one ran was immense. I never shall forget the expression of
her face; it was momentary, and passed away almost immediately, but
it has haunted me ever since.

GREAT RUSSELL STREET.
DEAR LADY DACRE,

I am commissioned by my mother to request your kind permission to
bring my brother to your evening party on Saturday; she hopes you
will have no scruple in refusing this request, if for any reason
you would rather not comply with it.... I have been thinking much
about what you said to me both _viva voce_ and in your note upon
that "obnoxious word" in my play. Let me entreat you to put aside
conventional regards of age and sex, which have nothing to do with
works of art or literature, and view the subject without any of
those considerations, which have their own proper domain,
doubtless--although I think you have in this instance admitted
their jurisdiction out of it.... I hope as long as I live that I
shall never write anything offensive to decency or morality, or
their pure source, religion; and I hope in my own manners and
conversation always to preserve the decorum prescribed by society,
good taste, and good feeling; but as a dramatic writer, supposing I
am ever to be one, I shall have to depict men as well as women,
coarse and common men as well as refined and courtly ones, and all
and each, if I fulfill my task, must speak the language that their
nature under their several circumstances points out as individually
appropriate. But I forget that I am addressing one far better able
than I am to say what belongs to all questions of poetry and art.
Forgive me, my dear Lady Dacre, and allow me to add that, as when I
put my play into your hands I told you that should you find it too
intolerably dull and bad I would release you from your kind promise
of accepting its dedication to yourself, I can only repeat my
readiness to do so if upon any other ground whatever you feel
reluctant to grace my title-page with your name. Pray tell me so
without hesitation, as I had rather forego that honor than owe it
to your courtesy without your entire good-will.

In any event pray accept my best acknowledgments for your kindness,
and believe me always

Your very truly obliged
F. A. K.

This letter was written in answer to some strictures of Lady Dacre's on what appeared to her coarseness of language in my play of "The Star of Seville," which she thought unbecoming a "young lady." If I remember rightly, too, she said that the introduction of a scene in a bedchamber might be deemed objectionable. I had asked her permission to dedicate the play to her, which she had granted; and though she failed to convince me that a young-lady element had any business whatever in a play, she very kindly allowed her name to adorn the title-page of my _un_-young ladylike drama.

Soon after this my father and aunt and myself left London for our summer tour in the provinces, which we began at Bristol.

_Monday, July 4th, Bristol._--The play was "Romeo and Juliet," and
the nurse was a perfect farce in herself; she really was worth any
money, and her soliloquy when she found me "up and dressed and down
again," very nearly made me scream with laughter in the middle of
my trance. Indeed, the whole play was probably considered an
"improved version" of Shakespeare's Veronese story, both in the
force and delicacy of the text. Sundry wicked words and coarse
appellations were decorously dispensed with; many fine passages
received judicious additions; not a few were equally judiciously
omitted altogether. What a shocking hash!

_Tuesday, July 5th._--After breakfast we sallied forth to the
market, to my infinite delight and amusement. It is most
beautifully clean; the fruit and vegetables look so pretty, and
smell so sweet, and give such an idea of plentiful abundance, that
it is delightful to walk about among them. Even the meat, which I
am generally exceedingly averse to go near, was so beautifully and
nicely arranged that it had none of its usual repulsiveness; and
the sight of the whole place, and the quaint-looking rustic people,
was so pleasantly envious. We stopped to gossip with a bewitching
old country dame, whose market stock might have sat, with her in
the middle of it, for its picture; the veal and poultry so white
and delicate-looking, the bacon like striped pink and white
ribbons, the butter so golden, fresh, and sweet, in a great basket
trimmed round with bunches of white jasmine, the green leaves and
starry blossoms and exquisite perfume making one believe that
butter ought always to be served, not in a "lordly dish," but in a
bower of jasmine. The good lady told us she had just come up from
"the farm," and that the next time she came she would bring us some
home-made bread, and that she was going back to brew and to bake.
She looked so tidy and _rural_, and her various avocations sounded
so pleasant as she spoke of them, that I felt greatly tempted to
beg her to let me go with her to "the farm," which I am sure must
be an enchanting place, neat and pretty, and flowery and
comfortable, and full of rustic picturesqueness; and _while the sun
shone_, I think I should like a female farmer's life amazingly.
Went to the theater and rehearsed "Venice Preserved," which is an
entirely different kind of thing. Charles Mason dined with us.
After dinner I finished reading Miss Ferrier's novel of "Destiny,"
which I like very much; besides being very clever, it leaves a
pleasant taste, in one's mind's mouth. Went to the theater at six;
the play was "Venice Preserved," and I certainly have seldom seen a
more shameful exhibition. In the first place C---- did not even
know his words, and that was bad enough; but when he was out,
instead of coming to a stop decently, and finishing at least with
his cue, he went on extemporizing line after line, and speech after
speech, of his own, by way of mending matters. I think I never saw
such a performance. He stamps and bellows low down in his throat
like an ill-suppressed bull; he rolls his eyes till I feel as if
they were flying out of their sockets at me, and I must try and
catch them. He quivers and quavers in his speech, and pulls and
_wrenches_ me so inhumanly, that what with inward laughter and
extreme rage and pain, I was really all but dead in earnest at the
end of the play. I acted very ill myself till the last scene, when
my Jaffier having been done justice to by the Venetian Government,
I was able to do justice to myself, and having gone mad, and no
wonder, died rather better than I had lived through the piece.

_July 6th, Bristol._--Walked out to order the horses, and
afterwards went on to look at the Abbey Church. We examined one or
two interesting old monuments; but were obliged to curtail our
explorings, as the doors were about to be closed. We have been
talking much lately of a remote possibility of going to America;
and as I left this old brown pile to-day, it seemed to me curious
to think of a country which has no cathedrals, no monuments of the
Old Faith. How venerable, in spite of its superstitions and abuses;
for its long undisputed sway over all civilized lands; for the
great and good men who honored it by their lives and works--the
religion of Augustine, of Bruno, Benedict, Francis d'Assisi,
Francis de Sales, Fénelon, and how many more--the Christianity of
Europe in its feudal, chivalrous times, those days of noble, good,
as well as fierce, evil deeds and lives, the faith that kings and
warriors bowed to when sovereignty was absolute and military power
supreme. America has no gray abbeys, no ruined cloisters, to tell
of monastic brotherhoods--the preserves of ancient historic
chronicles, the guardians of the early wells and springs of classic
learning and genius. In America there are no great, old,
time-stained, weather-beaten, ivy-mantled churches full of tombs,
such as we saw to-day, with curious carvings and quaint effigies,
and where the early rulers of the land embraced the faith and
received the baptism of Christ. That must be a very strange
country. But they have Plymouth Rock, on the shore where the
Protestant Pilgrims landed.

The horses having come to the door, we set off for our ride; our
steeds were but indifferent hacks, but the road was charming, and
the evening serene and pure, and I was with my father, a
circumstance of enjoyment to me always. The characteristic feature
of the scenery of this region is the vivid, deep-toned foliage of
the hanging woods, through whose dense tufts of green, masses of
gray rock and long scars of warm-colored red-brown earth appear
every now and then with the most striking effect. The deep-sunk
river wound itself drowsily to a silver thread at the base of steep
cliffs, to the summit of which we climbed, reaching a fine level
land of open downs carpeted with close, elastic turf. On we rode,
up hill and down dale, through shady lanes full of the smell of
lime-blossom, skirting meadows fragrant with the ripe mellow hay
and honey-sweet clover, and then between plantations of aromatic,
spicy fir and pine, all exhaling their perfumes under the influence
of the warm sunset. At last we made a halt where the road, winding
through Lord de Clifford's property, commanded an enchanting view.
On our right, rolling ground rising gradually into hills, clothed
to their summits with flourishing evergreens, firs, larches,
laurel, arbutus--a charming variety in the monotony of green. On
the farthest of these heights Blaise Castle, with two gray towers,
well defined against the sky, looked from its bosky eminence over
the whole domain, which spread on our left in sloping lawns, where
single oaks and elms of noble size threw their shadows on the
sunlit sward, which looked as if none but fairies' feet had ever
pressed it. Beyond this, through breaks and frames, and arches made
by the trees, the broad Severn glittered in the wavy light. It was
a beautiful landscape in every direction. We returned home by sea
wall and the shore of the Severn, which seemed rather bare and
bleak after the soft loveliness we had just left....

_Thursday, July 7th._--Went to the theater to rehearse "The
Gamester." In the afternoon strolled down to the river with my
father and Dall. We took boat and rowed toward the cliffs. Our
time, however, was limited; and just as we reached the loveliest
part of the river, we were obliged to turn home again.... At
dinner, as we were talking about America, and I was expressing my
disinclination ever to go thither, my father said: "If my cause
(our Chancery suit) goes ill before the Lords, I think the best
thing I can do will be to take ship from Liverpool and sail to the
United States." I choked a little at this, but presently found
voice to say, "Ebben son pronta;" but he replied, "No, that he
should go alone." That you never should, my own dear father!... But
I do hate the very thought of America.

_Saturday, July 9th._ ... In the afternoon drove out in an open
carriage with Dall to Shirehampton, by the same road my father and
I took in our ride the other day.

BRISTOL, July 10th, 1831.
MY DEAR MRS. JAMESON,

I can neither bid you confirm nor deny any "_reports_ you may
hear," for I am in utter ignorance, I am happy to say, of the
world's surmisings on my behalf, and had indeed supposed that my
time for being honored by its notice in any way was pretty well
past and over.

I am glad you are having rest, as you speak of it with the
enjoyment which those alone who work hard are entitled to. I trust,
too, that in the instance of your eyes no news is good news, for
you say nothing of them, and I therefore like to hope that they
have suffered you to forget them.

I'm disappointed about your Shakespeare book. I should like to have
had it by my next birthday, which is the 27th of November, and to
which I look forward with unusually mingled feelings. However, it
cannot be helped; and I have no doubt the booksellers are right in
point of fact, for we are embarked on board too troublous times to
carry mere _passe temps_ literature with us. "We must have bloody
noses and cracked crowns," I am afraid, and shall find small public
taste or leisure for _polite letters_.

I like this place very well; it is very quiet, and my life is
always a happy one with my father. He always spoils me, and that is
always pleasant, you know.

The Bristol people are rather in a bad state just now for our
purposes, for trade here is in a very unprosperous condition; and
the recent failure of many of their great mercantile houses does no
good to our theatrical ones. The audiences are very pleasant,
however, and the company by no means bad. We are here another week,
and then take ship for Ilfracombe, and thence by land to Exeter;
after that Plymouth and Southampton.... I wish I could be in London
for "Anna Bolena." I cannot adequately express my admiration for
Madame Pasta; I saw her in Desdemona the Saturday night on which I
scrawled those few lines to you. I think if you knew how every look
and tone and gesture of hers affects me, you would be satisfied.
She is almost equal to an imagination; more than that I cannot say.
If you rate "imagination" as I think you must, I need say nothing
more. We shall certainly be back in London by the end of September,
if not before. In the mean time believe me ever yours most truly,

F. A. K.

_Sunday, July 10th._--My father wickedly _dawdled_ about till we
were nearly late for church, and had to scamper along the quays and
up the steep street, to poor dear Dall's infinite discomfiture, who
grumbled and puffed, and shuffled and shambled along, while I
plunged on, breathlessly ejaculating, "It is so hateful to be late
for church!" The cathedral (which I believe it is not) was quite
full, but we obtained seats in the organ gallery, where we could
not hear very well, but had a very fine view of the _coup d'oeil_
presented by the choir and church below us. The numerous and
many-colored congregation, the white surpliced choristers, the
charity-school children in their uniforms surrounding the altar,
all framed in by the dark old oak screens with their quaint
readings, and partially vividly illuminated by occasional gleams of
strong sunlight which poured suddenly through the colored windows,
presented a beautiful picture. The service was very well performed:
the organ is a remarkably good one, and one or two of the boys'
voices were exquisitely soft and clear. It is a fine service, and
yet I do not like it by way of religious worship. It does not make
me devout, in the proper form of the term; it appeals too much to
my senses and my imagination; it is religion _set_ to music and
painting, and artistic religion does not suit me. The incessant
passing of people through the church, too, disturbs one, and gives
an unpleasant air of irreverence to the whole.... I think I might
like to go to a cathedral for afternoon service, much as I like to
spend my Sunday leisure in reading Milton, though I should not be
satisfied to make my whole devotional _exercises_ consist in
reading "Paradise Lost." A wretchedly weak, poor sermon; how
strange that such a theme should inspire nothing better than such a
discourse! However, I suppose this sort of ministering is the
inevitable result of a "ministry" embraced merely as a means of
subsistence. No one could paint pictures or compose music, _only_
because they wanted bread, so I do not see why any one should
preach sermons fit to be heard, only because they want bread. If I
was a despot, I would suppress hebdomadal writing of sermons, and
people should be _forbidden_ instead of _bidden_ to talk nonsense
upon sacred subjects.

_Monday, 11th._--At night the theater was very full, and the
audience pleasant. During supper my father, Charles Mason, and I
had a long discussion about Kean. I cannot help thinking my father
wrong about him. Kean _is_ a man of decided genius, no matter how
he neglects or abuses nature's good gift. He has it. He has the
first element of all greatness--power. No taste, perhaps, and no
industry, perhaps; but let his deficiencies be what they may, his
faults however obvious, his conceptions however erroneous, and his
characters, each considered as a whole, however imperfect, he has
the one atoning faculty that compensates for everything else, that
seizes, rivets, electrifies all who see and hear him, and stirs
down to their very springs the passionate elements of our nature.
Genius alone can do this.

As an actor, one whose efforts are the result of study, of mental
research, reflection, and combination; as an intellectual
anatomist, whose knowledge must dissect, and then re-form and
reproduce again in beauty and harmony the image he has taken to
pieces; as an artist, who is bound to conceal both the first and
last processes, the dismembering of the parts and the reuniting
them in a whole, and whose business is to make the most deliberate
mental labor and the most studied personal effects appear the
spontaneous result of unpremeditated passion and emotion (feigned
passion and emotion, which are to appear real)--in capacity for all
this Kean may be defective. He may not be an actor, he may not be
an artist, but he _is_ a man of genius, and instinctively with a
word, a look, a gesture, tears away the veil from the heart of our
common humanity, and lays it bare as it beats in every human heart,
and as it throbs in his own. Kean speaks with his whole living
frame to us, and every fiber of ours answers his appeal.

I do not know that I ever saw him in any character which impressed
me as a _whole work of art_; he never seems to me to intend to be
any one of his parts, but I think he intends that all his parts
should be _him_. So it is not Othello who is driven frantic by
doubt and jealousy, nor Shylock who is buying human flesh by its
weight in gold, nor Sir Giles Overreach who is selling his child to
hell for a few years of wealth and power; it is Kean, and in every
one of his characters there is an intense personality of his _own_
that, while one is under its influence, defies all
criticism--moments of such overpowering passion, accents of such
tremendous power, looks and gestures of such thrilling, piercing
meaning, that the excellence of those _parts_ of his performances
more than atones for the want of greater unity in conception and
smoothness in the entire execution of them.

The discussion about Kean led naturally to some talk about his most
famous parts, particularly Shylock. My father's conception of
Shylock seems to me less the right one than Kean's; but then, if my
father took what _I_ think the right view of the part, he would
have to give up acting it. The real Shylock--that is,
Shakespeare's--is a creature totally opposite in his whole
organization, physical and mental, to my father's; and as my father
cannot force his nature in any particular into uniformity with that
of Shylock, he endeavors to persuade himself that the theory by
which he tries to bring it into harmony with his individuality, and
within the compass of his powers, is the right one; but I think him
entirely mistaken about it. Kean did with the part exactly what my
father wants to do--adapted his conceptions to his means of
execution; but Kean's physical constitution was much better suited
to express Shylock as Shylock should be expressed than my father's.
My father attempts to make Shylock "poetical" (in the superficial
sense), because that is the bias of his own mind in matters of art.
Classical purity and refinement of taste are his specialties as an
actor, and neither power nor intensity.

Shylock's master passion is not revenge, which is a savage, but
avarice, which is a sordid motive. His hatred is inspired more by
defeated hope of gain and positive losses and threatened ventures,
than by the personal insults and contumely he has received.

Avarice is an absolutely base passion, and a grand poetical
character cannot consistently be raised upon such a foundation, nor
can a nature be at once groveling and majestic. Besides,
Shakespeare has not made Shylock "poetical." The concentrated venom
of his passion is prosaic in its vehement utterance--close,
concise, vigorous, logical, but not imaginative; and in the scenes
where his evil nature escapes the web of his cunning caution, and
he is stung to fury by his complicated losses, there is intense
passion but no elevation in his language.

There is a vein of humor in Shylock. A grim, bitter, sardonic
flavor pervades the part, that blends naturally with the sordid
thrift and shrewd, watchful, eager vigilance of the miser. It
infuses a terrible grotesqueness into his rage, and curdles one's
blood in the piercing, keen irony of his mocking humility to
Antonio, and adds poignancy to the ferocity of his hideous revenge.
This Kean rendered admirably, and in this my father entirely fails,
but it is an important element of the character.

My father is hard upon Kean's defects because they are especially
antagonistic to his artistic taste and tendency, but I think, too,
there is a slight infusion of the vexation of unappreciated labor
in my father's criticism of Kean. He forgets that power is
universally felt and understood, and refinement seldom the one or
the other, and for a thousand who applaud Kean's "What, wouldst
thou have a serpent sting thee twice?" probably not ten people are
aware of his exquisite "nevertheless" in the reading of Antonio's
letter. Most eyes can "see a church by daylight;" not many stop to
look at the lights and shadows that are forever varying and adding
to the beauty of its aspect. I wonder how, being as well aware as
my father is of all the fine work that escapes the eyes of the
public, he can care for this kind of thing as he does.

_Tuesday, 12th._--We are having events at the theater, and not of a
pleasant sort. Mr. Brunton, the manager, is in "difficulties"
(civilized plural for debt), and it seems that last night during
the play one of his creditors put an execution into the theater,
and laid violent hands upon the receipts, which, as it was my
father's benefit, rather dismayed us. So after breakfast this
morning, having put out my dresses for my favorite Portia for
to-night, I went to the theater to ascertain if there was to be a
rehearsal or not. My father had gone in search of Mr. Brunton to
see how matters could be arranged, and at all events to represent
that we could not go on acting unless our money was secured to us.
Charles Mason, Dall, and I in the mean time found the poor actors
in the theater very much at a loss how to proceed, as it seemed
extremely doubtful whether there would be any performance; so we
returned home, where we found my father, who said that at all
events there must be a rehearsal, for it was absolutely necessary
if we did act to-night, and could do us no harm if we did not; so
we repaired again to the theater, where the scattered and scared
_corps dramatique_ having been got together again, we proceeded to
business.

_Wednesday, 13th._--Mr. K---- called and told us that some
arrangement had been made with the truculent creditor of our poor
manager by which _we_ shall not lose any more in this unlucky
business. My father will be quit for about a hundred pounds. I am
very sorry for Mr. Brunton, but he should not have placed us in
such an uncomfortable position. My father has offered to act one
night beyond our engagement for the sake, if possible, of making up
to the actors the arrears of salary Mr. Brunton owes them. They are
all poor, hard-working people, earning no more than the means of
subsistence, and this withholding of their due falls very heavily
on them.

_Thursday, 14th._-- ... At the theater the house was very good, and
the audience very pleasant. The play was "The Provoked Husband,"
and I'm sure I play his provoking wife badly enough to provoke
anybody; but she's not a person to my mind, which is an artistic
view of the case.

[My modes of dealing with my professional duties at this very unripe stage of my career irresistibly remind me of a not very highly educated female painter who had taken it into her head to make an historical picture of Cleopatra. Sending to a friend for a few "references" upon the subject of that imperial gypsy's character and career, she sent them hastily back, saying she had relinquished her purpose, "having really no idea Cleopatra was that sort of person."]

_Friday, July 15th._--Miserrima! I have broken a looking-glass! and
on Friday, too! What do I think will happen to me! Had a long talk
this morning with dear Dall about my dislike to the stage. I do not
think it is the acting itself that is so disagreeable to me, but
the public personal exhibition, the violence done (as it seems to
me) to womanly dignity and decorum in thus becoming the gaze of
every eye and theme of every tongue. If my audience was reduced to
my intimates and associates I should not mind it so much, I think;
but I am not quite sure that I should like it then.

At the theater the house was very full, and the audience
particularly amiable. In the interval between the fourth and fifth
acts Charles Mason made a speech to them, informing them of Mr.
Brunton's distress, and our intention of acting for him on Monday.
They applauded very much, and I hope they will do more, and come.
My part of the charity is certainly not small; to be pulled and
pushed and dragged hither and thither, and generally "knocked
about," as the miserable Belvidera, for three mortal hours, is a
sacrifice of self which my conscience bears me witness is laudable.
I would much rather pay with my purse than my person in this case.
Unfortunately, je n'ai pas de quoi.

_Sunday, July 17th._--To Redcliffe Church with my father and Dall.
What a beautiful old building it is!... What a sermon! Has the
truth, as our Church holds it, no fitter expounders than such a
preacher? Are these its stays, props, and pillars--teachers to
guide, enlighten, and instruct people as cultivated and intelligent
as the people of this country on the most momentous of all
subjects? Are these the sort of adversaries to oppose to men like
Channing? As for not going to church because of bad or foolish
sermons, that is quite another matter, though I not unfrequently
hear that reason assigned for staying away. One goes to church to
say one's prayers, and not to hear more or less fine discourses;
one goes because it is one's duty, and a delight and comfort, and a
quite distinct duty and delight from that of private prayer. A good
sermon, Heaven knows, is a rare blessing to be thankful for, but if
one went to church only in the expectation of that blessing, one
might stay away most Sundays in the year.

[My youthful scorn of "poor preaching" reminds me of what I once heard Edward Everett say, who, before becoming his country's "Minister," in the diplomatic sense of the word, had been a powerful and eloquent Unitarian preacher: "I hear a good deal of criticism upon sermons which are supposed to be religious or moral exhortations, not intellectual exercises. I dare say many sermons are not _first rate_, but moderate good preaching is not a bad thing, and _pretty poor preaching_ is better than most men's practice."]

_Monday, July 18th._--The theater was crowded to-night, which
delighted me. It is pleasant to see malicious and evil actions
produce such a result. I was very nervous and excited, and nearly
went into hysterics over one small incident of the evening. At the
close of the first separation scene--the play was "Venice
Preserved"--when Jaffier is carried out by the nape of the neck by
Pierre, and Belvidera _extracted_ on the other side in the arms
(and iron ones they were) of Bedamar, the audience of course were
affected, harrowed, overcome by the poignant pathos of the
situation. Charles looked woebegone. I called upon him in tones of
the most piercing anguish (an agony not entirely feigned, as my
bruises can bear witness). The curtain descended slowly amidst
sympathetic sobs and silence--the musicians themselves, deeply
moved, no doubt, with the sorrows of the scene, mournfully resumed
their fiddles, and struck up "ti _ti_ tum _tiddle_ un _ti_ tum
_ti_"--the jolliest jig you ever heard. The bathos was
irresistible; we behind the scenes, the principal sufferers
(perhaps) in the night's performance, were instantly comforted, and
all but shouted with laughter. I hope the audience were equally
revived by this grotesque sudden cheering of their spirits. After
the tragedy a Bristolian Paganini performed a concerto on one
string. Dall declares that the whole orchestra played the whole
time--but some sounds reached me in my dressing-room that were
decidedly _unique_ more ways than one, not at all unlike our
favorite French fantasia--"Complainte d'un cochon au lait qui
rêve." But the audience were transported; they clapped and the
fiddle squeaked, they shouted and the fiddle squealed, they
hurrahed and the fiddle uttered three terrific screams, and it was
over and Paganini is done for--here, at any rate. He need never
show face or fiddle here; he hasn't a string (even one) left to his
bow in Bristol. "So Orpheus fiddled," etc.

_Tuesday, July 19th._--Dinner-party at the ---- which ought to have
been chronicled by Jane Austen. I sat by a gentleman who talked to
me of the hanging gardens of Semiramis and what might have been
cultivated therein (hemp perhaps), then of the derivation of
languages--he still kept among roots--and finally of _tea_, which
he told me he was endeavoring to grow on the Welsh mountains. Some
of the table-talk deserved printing _verbatim_, only it was almost
too good to be true, or at any rate believed.

_Wednesday, July 20th._--Charles Mason came after breakfast, and
told us that there was some chance of poor Mr. Brunton's getting
out of prison (into which his creditor has thrust him), for that
the latter had been so universally scouted for his harsh proceeding
that he probably would be shamed into liberating him.

We shall not leave Bristol to-day. The wind is contrary and the
weather quite unfavorable for a party of pleasure, which our trip
by sea to Ilfracombe was to be. It's very disagreeable living half
in one's trunks and traveling-bags, as this sort of uncertainty
compels one to do. I studied Dante, wrote verses and sketched, and
tried to be busy; but a defeated departure leaves one's mind and
thoughts only half unpacked, and I felt idle and unsettled, though
I worked at "The Star of Seville" till dinner-time.

After dinner I studied politics in the Examiner and read an article
on Cobbett, which made me laugh, and the motto to which might have
been "Malvolio, thou art sick of self-conceit." ...

_Thursday, July 21st._--At dinner a discussion, suggested by Mr.
D----'s conduct to Mr. Brunton, on the subject of returning evil
for evil, and the difficulty of not doing so, if not deliberately
and in deed, upon impulse and by thought. Nothing is easier in such
matters than to say what one would do, and nothing, I suppose, more
difficult than to do what one should do. So God keep us all from
convenient opportunities of revenging ourselves....

[Occasionally one hears in the streets voices in which the making of a fortune lies, and when one remembers what fortunes some voices have commanded, it seems bitterly cruel to think of such a possession begging its bread for want of the chance that might have made it available by culture. A woman, some years ago, used to sing at night in the neighborhood of St. James's Street, whose voice was so exquisite, so powerful, sweet, and thrilling, a mezzo soprano of such pure tone and vibrating quality, that Lady Essex, my sister, and myself, at different times, struck by the woman's magnificent gift and miserable position, had her into our houses, to hear her sing and see if nothing could be done to give her the full use of her noble natural endowment. She was a plain young woman of about thirty, tolerably decently dressed, and with a quiet, simple manner. She said her husband was a house-paperer in a small way, and when he was out of employment she used to go out in the evening and see what her singing would bring her. Poor thing! it was impossible to do anything for her; she was too old to learn or unlearn anything. No training could have corrected the low cockney vulgarity and coarse, ignorant indistinctness and incorrectness of her enunciation. And so in after years, as I returned repeatedly to England, after longer or shorter intervals of time, and always inhabited the same neighborhood in London, I still continued to hear, on dark drizzly evenings (and never without a thrill of poignant pain and pity) this angel's voice wandering in the muddy streets, its perfect, round, smooth edge becoming by degrees blunted and broken, its tones rough and coarse and harsh, some of the notes fading into feeble indistinctness--the fine, bold, true intonation hiding its tremulous uncertainty in trills and quavers, alternating with pitiful husky coughing, while every now and then one or two lovely, rich, pathetic notes, surviving ruin, recalled the early sweetness and power of the original instrument. The idea of what that woman's voice might have been to her used to haunt me.

It was hearing Rachel singing (barefoot) in the streets of Paris that Jules Janin's attention was first excited by her. Her singing, as I heard it on the stage in the drinking song of the extraordinary piece called "Valeria," in which she played two parts, was really nothing more than a chanting in the deep contralto of her speaking voice, and could hardly pass for a musical performance at all, any more than her wonderful uttering of the "Marseillaise," with which she made the women's blood run cold, and the men's hair stand on end, and everybody's flesh creep.

My sister and I used often to plan an expedition of street-singing for the purpose of seeing how much we could collect in that way for some charity. We were to put ourselves in "poor and mean attire"--I do not know that we were to "smirch our faces" with brown paint; we thought large battered poke-bonnets would answer the purpose, and, thus disguised, we were to go the rounds of the club windows, my father walking at a discreet distance for our protection on one side of the street, and our formidable pirate friend Trelawney on the other. We never carried out this project, though I have no doubt it would have brought us a very pretty penny for any endowment we might have wished to make.]