Chapter XXI (6)

The theater is going on very ill, but negotiations are pending
between the partners, which it is hoped may eventually terminate in
some arrangement with the creditors about the property. I have been
acting Bianca again; I certainly am not jealous, and cannot imagine
being so, any more of my husband than of my friend. I doubt if I
have the power of loving which produces jealousy, in spite of which
that part tries me dreadfully. I can conceive no torment comparable
to that passion, which, however, I think is foreign to my own
nature. I am reading Daru's "History of Venice," and am rather
disappointed in the entertainment I expected to derive from it. It
is a pretty long undertaking, too.... Remember me to all your
people; and since you will have it that I am twin-sister to a
fountain, remember me to my cousin, the dear little spring in the
dell, which I love the more that it sometimes reflects your face
and figure, as well as the fairies who dance round it by night. Do
you hear that poor Lord Grey is said to be haunted by a vision of
Lord Castlereagh's head? It sounds like a temptation of the devil
to scare him into cutting his throat. Lord Brougham and the Duke of
Wellington seem to me the only two men likely to keep their heads
in these times of infinite political perturbation; but the one is
made of steel, and the other of india-rubber.

Yours, dearest, always,
F. A. K.

_Monday, 19th._--Went to Fozzard's, and had a pleasant, gossiping
ride with Lady Grey and Miss Cavendish. While I was still riding,
the Duchess of Kent and our little queen that is to be came down
into the school; I was presented to them at their desire, and
thought Princess Victoria a very unaffected, bright-looking girl.
Fozzard made me gallop round; I think he is rather proud of showing
me off.... My father is not so well again to-day. How dreadful
these alternations are! I read Daru all the afternoon, and then
sang in my own room to amuse Henry, till dinner-time. Colonel
Bailey sent me the mare's saddle and bridle, and after dinner the
boys put them on a chair for me, and gave me an absurd make-believe
ride.

_Wednesday, 21st_--Dear Mr. Harness called, and I received him. He
tells me that at the theater they want to do his tragedy ("The Wife
of Antwerp," was, I think, the name of the piece) without my
father; but this seems to me really sheer madness. The play is a
pretty, interesting, well-written piece, and, well propped and
sustained, may perhaps succeed for a few nights, but as to throwing
the whole weight, or rather weakness of it, upon my shoulders, or
any one pair of shoulders, it is folly to think of it. It is not a
powerful sort of monologue like "Fazio," where the interest centres
in one person and one passion, and therefore if that character is
well sustained the rest can shift for itself. It is no such matter;
it is a play of incident and not of character, and must be played
by people and not one person. What terrible bad management! But,
poor people! what can they do, with my father lying disabled there?
If it was not for their complete disregard for their own interest,
I should be inclined to quarrel with them for the way in which they
are ruining mine; and I sincerely hope, for the sake of everybody
concerned, that Mr. Harness will resist this senseless proposition.

I went with John in the afternoon to Angerstein's Gallery (M.
Angerstein's fine collection of pictures was not then incorporated
in the National Gallery, of which it subsequently became so
important a portion); there are some new pictures there. Unluckily,
we had only an hour to stay, but I brought away a great deal with
me for so short a time. Among the additions was a very singular old
painting, "The Holy Family," by one of the earliest masters, whose
name I forget, not being familiar with it. I looked long at the
glorious Titian, the "Bacchus and Ariadne," which always reminds me
of--

"Whence come ye, jolly Satyrs, whence come ye?
Like to a moving vintage down they came."

One of the most famous pictures here is "Our Saviour disputing with
the Doctors," by Leonardo da Vinci. I hardly ever receive pleasure
from his pictures; there is a mannerism in all that I have seen
that is positively disagreeable to me. How the later artists lost
the simple secret of earnest vigor of their predecessors, while
gaining in everything that was not that! Grace, finish, refinement,
accuracy of drawing, richness of coloring, all that merely tended
towards perfection and execution, while the simplicity and
single-heartedness of conception died away more and more. All art
seems by degrees to outgrow its strength, and certainly in painting
the archaic cradle touches one's imagination as neither the
graceful youth nor mature manhood do. "Le mieux c'est l'ennemi du
bien" in nothing more than the progress of art after a certain
period of its development, and when its mere mechanism is best
understood, and applied in the most masterly manner. The spirit has
tarried behind, and we have to return to seek it among the earlier
days, when the genius of man was like a giant, rude, naked, and
savage, but vigorous and free--unadorned indeed, but also
untrammeled. Only a certain proportion of excellence is allowed to
our race, but that is granted; and let us stretch it, expand it,
roll and beat it out as we will, it is still but the same square
inch made thin to cover a greater surface. For one good we still
must yield another; we have no gain that is not loss, no
acquisition but surrender, "exchange" which may perhaps be "no
robbery," though quantity does seem a poor substitute for quality
in matters of beauty. I wish I had lived in the times when the ore
lay in the ingot (and had been one of the few who owned a nugget),
instead of in these times of universal gold-leaf, glitter without
weight, and shining shallowness of mere surface. Vigor is better
than refinement, and to create better than to improve, and to
conceive better than to combine. I wonder if the world, or rather
the human mind, will ever really grow decrepit, and the fountain of
beauty in men's souls run dry to the dregs; or will the
manifestations only change, and the eternal spirit reveal itself in
other ways?...

On our way home I had a long and interesting talk with John about
the different forms of religious faith into which the gradual
development of the human mind has successively expanded; each, of
course, being the result of that very development, acting on the
original necessity to believe in and worship and obey something
higher and better than itself, implanted in our nature. It seems
strange that he has a leaning to Roman Catholicism, which I have
not. Our Protestant profession appears to me the purest
creed--form--that Christianity has yet arrived at; but, I suppose,
a less spiritual one, or perhaps I should say external
accompaniments, affecting more palpably the senses and imagination,
are wholesome and necessary to the cultivation and preservation of
the religious sentiment in some minds. Catholicism was the faith of
the chivalrous times, of the poetical times, of times when the
creative faculty of man poured forth in since unknown abundance
masterpieces of every kind of beauty, as manifestations of the
pious and devout enthusiasm. Protestantism is undoubtedly the faith
of these times; a denying faith, a rejecting creed, a questioning
belief, its evil seems essentially to coincide with the worst
tendency of the present age, but its good seems to me positive and
unconditional, independent of time or circumstance; the best, in
that kind, that the believing necessity in our nature has yet
attained. Rightly understood and lived up to, the only service of
God which is intellectual freedom, as all His service, lived up to,
under what creed soever, is moral freedom. And it is in some sort
in spite of myself that I say this, for my fancy delights in all
the devout and poetical legendary conceptions which the stern hand
of reason has stripped from our altars.

I found a letter at home from Emily Fitzhugh; she writes me word
she has been revising my aunt Siddons's letters; thence an endless
discussion as to the nature of genius, what it is. I suppose really
nothing but the creative power, and so it remains a question if the
greatest actor can properly be said to possess it. Again, how far
does the masterly filling out of an inferior conception by a
superior execution of it, such as really great actors frequently
present, fall short of creative power, properly so called? Is it a
thing positive, of individual inherent quality, or comparative, and
composed of mere respective quantity? Can its manifestation be
partial, and restricted to one faculty, or must it be a pervading
influence, permeating the whole mind? Certainly Mrs. Siddons was
what we call a great dramatic genius, and off the stage gave not
the slightest indication of unusual intellectual capacity of any
sort. Kean, the only actor whose performances have ever realized to
me my idea of the effect tragic acting ought to produce, acted part
of his parts rather than ever a whole character, and a work of
genius should at least show unity of conception. My father, whose
fulfilling of a particular range of characters is as nearly as
possible perfect, wants depth and power, and power seems to me the
core, the very marrow, so to speak, of genius; and if it is not
genius that gave incomparable majesty and terror to my aunt's Lady
Macbeth, and to Kean's Othello incomparable pathos and passion, and
to my father's Benedict incomparable spirit and grace, what is it?
Mere talent carried beyond a certain point? If so, where does the
one begin and the other end? Or is genius a precious,
inconvertible, intellectual metal, of which some people have a
grain and a half, and some only half a grain?... There is dreadful
news from Spain, and I fear it is too true. Torrijos has made
another attempt. Oh, how thankful we must be that John is returned
to us!

GREAT RUSSELL STREET, Monday, December 23.
DEAR MRS. JAMESON,

I owe you many excuses for not having sooner acknowledged your
letter, but you may have seen by the papers that we have been
bringing out a new piece, and that is always, while it goes on, an
engrossing of time and attention paramount to all other claims. It
is a play of Lord Francis Leveson's, and I know you will be glad to
hear that it has been successful and is likely to prove serviceable
to the theater. Another reason, too, for my silence is, that I have
been working very hard at "The Star of Seville," which, I am
thankful to say, has at length reached its completion. I have sent
it to the theater upon approbation, in the usual routine of
business; and am waiting very patiently the decision of the
management on its fitness or unfitness for their purposes.

I know not whether your party at Teddesley are good thermometers,
by which to judge of the state of political feeling here in London,
but at this moment the rumor is rife that the Ministry dare not
make the new batch of Peers, cannot carry the Bill, and must
resign. To whom? is the next question, and it seems a difficult one
to answer. One hardly sees, looking round the political ranks, who
are to be the men to come forward and take up this tangled skein
effectually. I write with rather a sympathetic leaning toward the
Tory side of this Reform question, and do not know whether in so
doing I am affronting you or not. In any case, I imagine, there can
be but one opinion as to the difficulty, and even danger, of the
present position of public affairs and public temper with regard to
them.

Do you not soon think of returning to Town? or are you so well
pleased with your present abode as to prolong your visit? London is
particularly full, I think, for the time of year, and people are
meeting in smaller numbers and a more sociable and agreeable way
than they do later in the season. I was at two parties last week,
each time, I am ashamed to say, after acting. I can't say that I
find society pleasant; it reminds me a good deal of a "Conversation
Cards," the insipid flippancy, of whose questions and answers seems
to me to survive in these meetings, miscalled occasionally
_conversaziones_. Dancing appears to me rational, and indeed highly
intellectual, in comparison with such talk; and that I am as fond
of as ever, but that has not begun yet, and I find these _soirées
causantes_ drearily unedifying.

Talking of stupid parties, your beautiful little picture of me and
my various costumes helped away two hours of such intolerably dull
people here the other night; I assure you we all voted you devout
thanks on the occasion.... We are all tolerably well; my father is
gradually recovering his strength, and though after such an attack
as his has been the progress must of necessity be slow, we are
inclined to hope, from that very circumstance, that it will be the
more sure.... If you do not return soon, perhaps I shall hear from
you again; pray recollect that it will give me great pleasure to do
so, and that I am very sincerely yours,

F. A. K.

I dressed my Juliet the last time I acted it, exactly after your
little sketch of her....

_Thursday._--Worked at "The Star of Seville." In the evening the
play was "Isabella;" the house very bad. I played very well. The
Rajah Ramahun Roy was in the Duke of Devonshire's box, and went
into fits of crying, poor man!

_Friday, 23d._--It is all too true; John has had a letter from
Spain; they have all been taken and shot. I felt frozen when I
heard the terrible news. Poor Torrijos! And yet I suppose it is
better so: he would only have lived to bitter disappointment, and
the despairing conviction that the spirit he appealed to did not
animate one human being in his deplorable and degenerate land. A
young Englishman, of the name of Boyd, John's sometime friend and
companion, was taken and shot with the rest: it choked me to think
of his parents, his brothers and sisters. Surely God has been most
merciful to us in sparing us such an anguish, and bringing our
wanderer home before this day of doom. How I thought of Richard
Trench and his people! John did not seem to me to be violently
affected, though his first exclamation was one of sharp and bitter
pain: I suppose he must, long ere this, have felt that there could
be no other end to this utterly hopeless attempt.... In the
afternoon I called on Mrs. Norton, who is always to me
astonishingly beautiful. The baby was asleep, and so I could not
see it, but Spencer has grown into a very fine child.

_Monday, 26th._--Went to see how the pantomime did. I did not think
it very amusing, but there was an enchanting little girl (Miss
Poole) who did Tom Thumb, and whose attitudes in her armor were
most of them copied from the antique, and really beautiful. Poor
dear, bright little thing!

My father was in bed when we returned; I went and saw him for a
minute, to tell him how the pantomime had succeeded; it ended with
some wonderful tight-rope dancing by an exceedingly steady,
graceful man; but it turned me perfectly sick, and I hate all those
sort of things.

_Thursday, 29th._--After dinner worked at "The Star of Seville." I
really wonder I have the patience to go on with it, it is such
heavy trash. After tea my father begged me to sing to him. I am
always horribly frightened at singing before my mother; I cannot
bear to distress her accurate ear with my unsteady intonation, and
the more I think of it, the colder my hands grow and the hotter my
face, the huskier my voice and the flatter my notes; I bungle over
accompaniments that I have at my fingers' ends, and forget words I
know as well as my alphabet; in short, I feel like a wretch, and I
sing like a wretch, and I make wretched all my hearers. My mother's
own nervous terror when she had to sing on the stage, as a young
woman, was excessive, as she has often told me; and her mother
repeatedly but vainly endeavored to bribe her with the promise of a
guinea if she would sing as well in public any of the songs that
she sang perfectly well at home. I sang for some time, and by
degrees got more courage, till at last I managed to sing tolerably
in tune. My mother says I have more voice than A----. I am sorry to
hear her voice has grown thin--that sweet, melodious voice I did so
love to listen to; but perhaps it will recover its tone.

_Wednesday, 28th._--My dear, dear father came down to breakfast,
looking horribly thin and pale, poor fellow! but, thank God, he was
able to come once more among us. I am to act Euphrasia on Monday;
how I do hate it! Monday week my father talks of resuming his work
again with Mercutio. Dear me! how happy I shall be! once more
speaking the love poetry of Juliet after all these "meaner beauties
of the night" that I have been executing ever since he has been
ill. Juliet did very right to die; she would have become Bianca
when once she was Mrs. Romeo Montague.... I wrote to Lady Francis
about "Katharine of Cleves," (Lord Francis's translation of "Henri
Trois"), who is once more beginning to lift up her head. My father
thinks it may be done on Wednesday week.... It is now determined
that Henry should go into the army, and my mother wants me to
besiege Sir John through Lady Macdonald (the general's general)
about a commission for him. In the evening, not having to be
anybody tragical or heroical, I indulged in my own character, and
had a regular game of romps with the boys; my pensive public would
not have believed its eyes if it could have seen me with my hair
all disheveled, not because of my woes, but because of riotous fun,
jumping over chairs and sofas, and dodging behind curtains and
under tables to escape from my pursuers. "Is that Miss Kemble?" as
poor Mr. Bacon involuntarily exclaimed the first time he saw me.

GREAT RUSSELL STREET, December 29, 1831.
MY DEAREST H----,

You shall not entreat in vain, neither shall you have a short
answer because you have an immediate one.... I should not have
answered you so instantaneously, but that my last account of my
dear father was so bad that I cannot delay telling you how much
better he is, and how grateful we all are for his restoration to
health. He is released from his bed, of which he must be heartily
sick, and comes down to breakfast at the usual time: of course he
is still weak and low, and wretchedly thin, but we trust a little
time will bring back good spirits and good looks, though after such
a terrible attack I fear it will be long before his constitution
recovers its former strength, if indeed it ever does. He talks of
resuming his labors at the theater next Monday week. Oh! my dear
H----, what a dreadful season of anxiety this has been! but, thank
God, it is past.

I had intended that this letter should go to you to-day, but you
will forgive the delay of a day in my finishing it when I tell you
that I have some hope of its producing a commission for Henry. Sir
John Macdonald, at whose house you dined in the summer with my
mother, is now adjutant-general, and I know not what besides; and
after my mother and myself had expended all our eloquence in
winding up my father's mind to resolve upon the army as Henry's
profession, she thought the next best thing I could do would be to
attack Lady Macdonald and secure the general's interest. They
happened to call this afternoon, and your letter, my dear H----,
has been left unfinished till past post-time, while I was
soliciting this favor, which I have every hope we shall obtain.
Lady Macdonald is extremely kind and good-natured, and I am sure
will exert herself to serve us, and if this can be accomplished I
shall be haunted by one anxiety the less.

Henry is too young and too handsome to be doing nothing but
lounging about the streets of London, and even if he should be
ordered to the Indies, it is something to feel that he is no longer
aimless and objectless in life--a mere squanderer of time, without
interest, stake, or duty, in this existence. I am sure this news
will pacify you, and atone for the day's delay in this letter
reaching you.

[My youngest brother Henry had a passionate desire to be a sailor, and never exhibited the slightest inclination for any other career. Admiral Lake, who was a very kind friend of my father's and mother's, knowing this to be the lad's bent, offered, on one occasion, to take charge of him, and have him trained for his profession under his own supervision. Such, however, was my mother's horror of the sea, and dread of losing her darling, if she surrendered him to be carried from her to Nova Scotia, whither I think Admiral Lake was bound when he offered to take my brother with him, that she induced my father to decline this most friendly and advantageous offer. Henry never after that exhibited the slightest preference for any other profession, and always said, "They may put me at a plow-tail if they like." He went through Westminster School, after a previous training at Bury St. Edmunds, not otherwise than creditably; but a very modest estimate of his own capacity made him beg not to be sent to Cambridge, where he said he was sure he should only waste money, and do himself and us no credit. (The bitter disappointment of my brother John's failure there had made a deep impression upon him.) Finally it was decided that he should go into the army, and the friendly interest of Sir John Macdonald and the liberal price Mr. Murray gave me for my play of "Francis I." enabled me to get him a commission; it was the time when they were still purchasable. My poor mother, unable to refuse her consent to this second favorable opportunity of starting him in life, acquiesced in his military, though she had thwarted his naval, career, and was well content to see her boy-ensign sent over with his troops to Ireland. But from Ireland his regiment was ordered to the West Indies, and after his departure thither she never again saw him in her life.]

I think it would be a wise thing if I were to go to America and
work till I have made 10,000_l._, then return to England and go the
round of the provinces, and act for a few nights' leave-taking in
London. Prudence would then, perhaps, find less difficulty in
adjusting my plans for the future. That is what I think would be
well for me to do, supposing all things remain as they are and God
preserves my health and strength. It will not do to verify all
Poitier's lugubrious congratulation to his children in the
Vaudeville on their marriage:

"Ji! Ji! mariez-vous,
Mettez-vous dans la misère!
Ji! Ji! mariez-vous,
Mettez-vous la corde au cou."

... Jealousy, surely, is a disposition to suspect and take umbrage
where there is no cause for suspicion or offense, which, to say the
least of it, is very unreasonable; but that a woman should break
her heart because her husband does love another woman better than
her, seems to me natural enough, and with regard to Bianca, her
provocations certainly warranted a very rational amount of misery;
and though, had she not been a woman of violent passions and a
jealous temperament, she probably would not have taken the means
she did of resenting Fazio's treatment of her, it appears to me
that nothing but divine assistance and the strongest religious
principle could preserve one under such circumstances from despair,
madness, suicide, perhaps; hardly, however, the murder of one's
husband. But assassinating other people seems a much more common
mode of relieving their feelings among Italians than destroying
themselves, which is rather a northern way of meeting, I should say
of avoiding, difficulties.

I have had a holiday this week, and every now and then have written
a word or two of "La Estrella;" it will never be done, and when it
is it will be the horridest trash that ever was done; but I will
let you have the pleasure of reading it, I promise you. On Monday I
play that favorite detestation of mine, Euphrasia; the Monday after
that my father hopes to be able for Mercutio, and I return to
Juliet. By the by, you say Bianca is my best part, and I think my
Juliet is better; I am not sure that there is not some kindred in
the characters. We are going to bring out a play of Lord Francis',
translated from the French, a sort of melodrama in blank verse, in
which I have to act a part that I cannot do the least in the world,
but of course that doesn't signify.

["Katharine of Cleves," translated from the French play of "Henri Trois et sa Cour," and made the subject of one of Mr. Barham's inimitably comical poems in the "Ingoldsby Legends." Mdlle. Mars acted the part of the heroine in Paris, and it was one of several semi-tragical characters, in which, at the end of her great theatrical career, she reaped fresh laurels in an entirely new field, and showed the world that she might have been one of the best serious, not to say tragic, actresses of the French stage, as well as its one unrivaled female comedian.]

We have spent a wretched Christmas, as you may suppose; a house
with its head sick all but to death, and all its members smitten
with the direst anxiety, is not the place for a merry one. God
bless you, my dear, and send you years of peace of mind and health
of body! this is, I suppose, what we mean when we wish for
happiness here, either for ourselves or others. Give my love and
kindest good wishes to your people.

Have you seen in the papers that poor Torrijos and his little band,
consisting of sixty men, several of whom John knew well, have been
lured into the interior of Spain, and there taken prisoners and
shot? This news has shocked us all dreadfully, especially poor
John. You may imagine how grateful we are that he is now among us,
instead of having fallen a victim to his chimerical enthusiasm. I
hardly know how to deplore the event for Torrijos himself: death
has spared him the bitter disappointment of at last being convinced
that the people he would have made free are willing slaves, and
that the time when Spain is to lift herself up from the dust has
not yet come.

I went the other day with John to the Angerstein Gallery.... The
delight I find in a fine painting is one of the greatest and most
enduring pleasures I have; my mind retains the impression so long
and so very vividly.... Good-by, my dearest H----.

Ever affectionately yours,
F. A. K.

_Saturday, 31st._--After breakfast went to the theater to rehearse
"The Grecian Daughter," and Mr. Ward, for whom the rehearsal was
principally given, never came till it was over. Pleasant
creature!...

The day seemed beautifully fine, and my father and mother took, a
drive, while Henry and I rode, that my father might see the horse I
had bought for him; but it was bitterly cold, and I could not make
my mare trot, so she cantered and I froze. Mr. Power was there, on
that lovely horse of his. I think the Park will become bad company,
it is so full of the player folk. Frederick Byng called, and I like
him, so I went and sat with him and my father and mother in the
library till time to dress for dinner. After dinner wrote "The Star
of Seville." I have got into conceit with it again, and so poor,
dear, unfortunate Dall coming in while I was working at it, I
seized hold of her, like the Ancient Mariner of the miserable
"Wedding Guest," and compelled her, in spite of her outcries, to
sit down, and then, though she very wisely went fast asleep, I read
it to her till tea-time.

My mother wished to sit up and see the New Year in, and so we
played quadrille till they sat down to supper, which had been
ordered for the vigil, and I went fast asleep. At twelve o'clock
kisses and good wishes went round, and we were all very merry, in
spite of which I once or twice felt a sudden rush of hot tears into
my eyes. All the hours of last year are gone, standing at the bar
of Heaven, our witnesses or accusers: the evil done, the good left
undone, the opportunities vouchsafed and neglected, the warnings
given and unheeded, the talents lent and unworthily or not
employed, they are gone from us for ever! forever! and we make
merry over the flight of Time! O Time! our dearest friend! how is
it that we part so carelessly from you, who never can return to
us?... A New Year....

A NEW YEAR, 1832.

_January 1st, Sunday._--When I came down my father wished me a
happy New Year, and I am sure we were both thinking of the same
thing, and neither of us felt happy.

_Thursday 5th._-- ... Wrote all the afternoon. Mr. Byng dined with
us and stayed till one o'clock, having reduced my mother to
silence, and my father to sleep, John to snuff, and Henry and I to
playing (_sotto voce_) "What's my thought like?" to keep ourselves
from tumbling off the perch.

_Monday, 9th._--Rehearsed "Romeo and Juliet" with all my heart. Oh,
light, life, truth, and lovely poetry! I sat on the cold stage,
that I might hear them even mumble over their parts as they do. My
father seemed to me very weak, and not by any means fit for his
work to-night. After dinner went over my part again, and went to
the theater at half past five. My new dress was very handsome,
though rather burly, in spite of which Dall said it made me look
taller, so its rather burliness didn't matter. John Mason played
Romeo for the first time; he was beautifully dressed, and looked
very well; he acted tolerably well, too. He has a good deal of
energy and spirit, but wants feeling and refinement; his voice,
unfortunately, is very unpleasant, wiry, harsh, and monotonous; of
the last defect he may cure by practice. I came to the side scene
just as my father was going on, to hear his reception; it was very
great, a perfect thunder of applause; it made the tears start into
my eyes. Poor father! They received me with infinite demonstrations
of kindness too. I thought I acted very well; I am sure I played
the balcony scene well. When the blood keeps rushing up into one's
cheeks and neck while one is speaking, I wonder if that ought to be
called acting. To be sure, Hamlet's player's face turned pale for
Hecuba; so Shakespeare thought acting might make one change color.

I cannot get over the _sensibleness_ of Henry Greville, who was in
the pit again to-night. Upon my word! he deserves to see good
acting. After the play dear William and Mary Harness came home to
supper with us, and we all got into a long discussion about
Shakespeare's character, John maintaining that his views of life
were gloomy and that he must himself have been an unhappy man. I
don't believe a bit of it; no one, I suppose, ever thinks this
world, and the life we live in it, absolutely pleasant or good, but
the poet's ken, which is as an angel's compared with that of other
men, must see more good and beauty, as well as more evil and
ugliness, than his short-sighted fellows, and the better elements
predominating over the worse (as they do, else the world would fall
asunder). The man who takes so wide a view as Shakespeare, whatever
his judgment of parts, must, upon the whole, pronounce the whole
good rather than bad, and rejoice accordingly. I was too tired and
sleepy to talk, or even to listen, much.

_Wednesday, 11th._-- ... Lady Charlotte Greville and General Alaba
called. I am always grateful to him for the beautiful copy of
Schlegel's "Dramatic Lectures" which he gave me. Lady Charlotte was
all curiosity and anxiety about Lord Francis' play. I am afraid the
newspapers may not be much inclined to be good-natured about it. I
hope he does not care for what may be said of it. In the evening,
the boys went to the theater, and I stayed at home, industriously
copying "The Star of Seville" till bedtime.

_Thursday, 12th._--To the theater to rehearsal, after which I drove
to Hayter's (the painter), taking him my bracelets to copy, and
permission to apply to the theater wardrobe for any drapery that
may suit his purpose. I saw a likeness of Mrs. Norton he is just
finishing; very like her indeed, but not her handsomest look. I
think it had a slight, curious resemblance to some of the things
that have been done of me. I saw a very clever picture of all the
Fitzclarences, either by himself or his brother, George Hayter. The
women are very prettily grouped, and look picturesque enough; the
modern man's dress is an abominable object, of art or nature, and
Lord Munster's costume, holding, as he does, the very middle of the
canvas, is monstrous (which I don't mean for a rudeness, but a
pun). The Right Reverend Father in God (A.F.) is laughably like.
They have insisted on having a portrait of their mother introduced
in the room in which they are sitting, which seems to me better
feeling than taste. Their royal father is absent. I worked at "The
Star of Seville" till I went to the theater; as I get nearer the
end, I get as eager as a race-horse when in sight of the goal....
The piece was "The School for Scandal;" the house was very full. I
did not play well; I spoke too fast, and perceived it, and could
not make myself speak slower--an unpleasant sort of nightmare
sensation; besides, I was flat, and dull, and pointless--in short,
bad was the sum total. How well Ward plays Joseph Surface! The
audience were delightful; I never heard such pleasant shouts of
laughter.... My father says perhaps they will bring out "The Star
of Seville," which notion sometimes brings back my old girlish
desire for "fame." Every now and then I feel quite proud at the
idea of acting in a play of my own at two and twenty, and then I
look again at my "good works," this precious play, and it seems to
be no better than "filthy rags." But perhaps I may do better
hereafter. Hereafter! Oh dear! how many things are better than
doing even the best in this kind! how many things must be better
than real fame! but if one has none of those, fame might, perhaps,
be pleasant. No actor's fame, or rather celebrity, or rather
notoriety, would satisfy me; that is the shadow of a cloud, the
echo of a sound, the memory of a dream, nothing come of nothing.
The finest actor is but a good translator of another man's work; he
does somebody else's thought into action, but he creates nothing,
and that seems to me the test of genius, after all.

_Friday._--At eleven to the theater to rehearse "Katharine of
Cleves." ... We all went to the theater to see "Rob Roy," and I was
sorry that I did, for it gave me such a home-sick longing for
Edinburgh, and the lovely sea-shore out by Cramond, and the sunny
coast of Fife. How all my delightful, girlish, solitary rambles
came back to me! Why do such pleasant times ever pass? or why do
they ever come? The Scotch airs set me crying with all the
recollections they awakened. In spite, moreover, of my knowing
every plank and pulley, and scene-shifter and carpenter behind
those scenes, here was I crying at this Scotch melodrama, feeling
my heart puff out my chest for "Rob Roy," though Mr Ward is, alas!
my acquaintance, and I know when he leaves the stage he goes and
laughs and takes snuff in the green room. How I did cry at the
Coronach and Helen Macgregor, though I know Mrs. Lovell is thinking
of her baby, and the chorus-singers of their suppers. How I did
long to see Loch Lomond and its broad, deep, calm waters once more,
and those lovely green hills, and the fir forests so fragrant in
the sun, and that dark mountain well, Loch Long, with its rocky
cliffs along whose dizzy edge I used to dream I was running in a
whirlwind; the little bays where the sun touched the water as it
soaked into cushions of thick, starry moss, and the great tufts of
purple heather all vibrating with tawny bees! Beautiful wilderness!
how glad I am I have once seen it, and can never forget it; nor the
broad, crisping Clyde, with its blossoming bean-fields, its jagged
rocks and precipices, its gray cliffs and waving woods, and the
mountain streams of clear, bright, fairy water, rushing and
rejoicing down between the hills to fling themselves into its
bosom; and Dumbarton Castle, with its snowy roses of Stuart memory!
How glad I am that I have seen it all, if I should never see it
again! And "Rob Roy" brought all this and ever so much more to my
mind. If I had been a mountaineer, how I should have loved my land!
I wish I had some blood-right to love Scotland as I do.
Unfortunately, all these associations did not reconcile me to the
cockney-Scotch of our Covent Garden actors, and Mackay's Bailie
Nicol Jarvie was not the least tender of my reminiscences. [It was
at a public dinner in Edinburgh, at which Walter Scott and Mackay
were guests, that, in referring to the admirable impersonation of
the Bailie, Scott's habitual caution with regard to the authorship
of the Waverley Novels for a moment lost its balance, and in his
warm commendation of the great comedian's performances a sentence
escaped him which appeared conclusive to many of those present, if
they were still in doubt upon the subject, that he was their
writer.] Miss Inveraretie was a cruel Diana, but who would not
be?...

_Saturday, 14th._--I rode at two with my father. Passed Tyrone
Power; what a clever, pleasant man he is; Count d'Orsay joined us;
he was riding a most beautiful mare; and then James Macdonald, _cum
multus aliis_, and I was quite dead, and almost cross, with
cold.... After dinner I came up to my room, and set to work like a
little galley slave, and by tea-time I had finished my play. "Oh,
joy forever! my task is done!" I came down rather tipsy, and
proclaimed my achievement. After tea I began copying the last act,
but my father desired me to read it to them; so, at about half-past
nine, I began. My mother cried much; what a nice woman she is! My
father, Dall, and John agreed that it was beautiful, though I
believe the two first excellent judges were fast asleep during the
latter part of the reading, which was perhaps why they liked it so
much. At the end my mother said to me, "I am proud of you, my
dear;" and so I have my reward. After a little congratulatory
conversation, I came to bed at two o'clock, and slept before my
head touched the pillow. So now that is finished, and I am glad it
is finished. Is it as good as a second piece of work ought to be? I
cannot tell. I think so differently of it at different times that I
cannot trust my own judgment. I will begin something else as soon
as possible. I wonder why nowadays we make all our tragedies
foreign? Romantic, historical, knightly England had people and
manners once picturesque and poetical enough to serve her
play-writers' turn, though Shakespeare always took his stories,
though not his histories, from abroad; but people live tragedies
and comedies everywhere and all time. I think by and by I will
write an English tragedy. [I little thought then that I should
write a play whose miserable story was of my own day, and call it
"An English Tragedy."]

_Sunday, 15th._-- ... In the afternoon hosts of people called;
among others Lady Dacre, who stayed a long time, and wants us to go
to her on Thursday. Copied "The Star of Seville" all the evening.
At ten dear Mr. Harness came in, and stayed till twelve.

_Monday, 16th._--Rehearsed "Katharine of Cleves" at eleven, but as
Lord Francis did not come till twelve we had to begin it again, and
kept at it until two. The actors seem frightened about it. Mr.
Warde quakes about the pinching (an incident in the play taken, I
suppose, from Ruthven's proceeding toward Mary Stewart at
Lochleven). I am only afraid I cannot do anything with my part; it
is a sort of melodramatic, pantomimic part that I have no capacity
for. The fact is, that neither in the first nor last scenes are my
legs long enough to do justice to this lady. The Douglas woman who
barred the door with her arm to save King James's life must have
been a strapping lass, as well a heroine in spirit. I am not tall
enough for such feats of arms. Copied my play till time to go to
the theater. My aunt Victoire came to my dressing-room just as I
was going on, and persuaded dear Dall, who has never once seen me
act, to go into the front of the house. She came back very soon in
a state of great excitement and distress, saying she could not bear
it. How odd that seems! Dear old Dall! she cannot bear seeing me
make-believe miserable. The house was very good, and I played
fairly well.

_Tuesday, 17th._--Went to my mother's room before she was down,
with Henry. It is her birthday, and I carried her the black velvet
dress I have got for her, with which she seemed much pleased. Went
to rehearsal at twelve. Lord and Lady Francis were there, and we
acted the whole play, of course, to please them, so that I was half
dead at the end of the rehearsal. They want us to go to Lady
Charlotte's (Greville) to-morrow. My father said we would if we
were all well and _in spirits_ (_i.e._, if the play was not
damped).... I wonder how my dear old Newhaven fish-wife does. "Eh!
gude gracious, ma'am, it's yer ain sel come back again!" Poor body!
I believe I love the very east wind that blows over the streets of
Edinburgh.... After dinner Mrs. Jameson's beautiful toy-likeness of
me helped off the time delightfully till the gentlemen came up, and
then helped it off delightfully till everybody went away. What a
misfortune it is to have a broken nose, like poor dear Thackeray!
He would have been positively handsome, and is positively ugly in
consequence of it. John and his friend Venables broke the bridge of
Thackeray's nose when they were schoolboys playing together. What a
mishap to befall a young lad just beginning life! [I suppose my
friend Thackeray's injury was one that did not admit a surgical
remedy, but my father, late in life, fell down while skating, and
broke the bridge of his nose, and Liston, the eminent surgeon,
urged him extremely to let him raise it--"build it again," as he
used to say. My father, however, declined the operation, and not
only remained with his handsome nose disfigured, but suffered a
much greater inconvenience, which Liston had predicted--very
aggravated deafness in old age, from the stopping of the passages
in the nose, which helped to transmit sound to the brain.] After
all, I suppose, it does not much signify to a man whether he is
ugly or not. Wilkes, who was pre-eminently so, but brilliantly
agreeable, used always to say that he was only half an hour
behindhand with the handsomest man in England.

_Wednesday, 18th._--Went to the theater to rehearse "Katharine of
Cleves;" we were kept at it till half-past two. Drove home through
the park. The day was beautiful, but my poor father could not get
released from that hateful theater, and went without his ride.... I
had not felt at all nervous about to-night till the carriage came
to the door, and then I turned quite faint and sick with fright. At
the theater found Madame le Beau (the forewoman of the great
fashionable French milliner, Madame Dévy, by whom all my dresses
were made) waiting for me. All was in darkness in my dressing-room;
neither Mrs. Mitchell nor Jane were come (my two servants, or
dressers, as they are called at the theater). Presently in scuttled
the former, puffing, and whimpering apologies, and presently the
room was filled with the pleasant incense of eight candles that she
lighted, and blew out and relighted, and wondered that we didn't
enjoy the operation. Then Jane bounced breathless in, and made our
discomfort perfect. I sat speechless, terrified, and disconsolate.
My fright was increasing every instant, and by the time I was
dressed I shook like an aspen leaf from head to foot, and was as
sick as no heart could desire. My dresses were most beautiful, and
fitted me to perfection. The house was very fine. My poor dear
father, who was as perfect in his part as possible this morning,
did not speak three words without prompting; he was so nervous and
anxious about the success of the piece that his own part was driven
literally out of his head. I never saw anything so curious. To be
sure, his illness has shattered him very much, and all the worry he
has had this week has not mended matters. However, the play went
admirably, and was entirely successful, to assist which result I
thought I should have broken a blood-vessel in the last scene, the
exertion was so tremendous. My voice was weak with nervousness and
excitement, and at last I could hardly utter a word audibly. I
almost broke my arm, too, in good earnest, with those horrible iron
stanchions. However, it did be over at last, and "all's well that
ends well." I was so tired that I could scarcely stand; my mother
came down from her box and seemed much pleased with me. She went to
my father's room to see if I might not go home instead of to Lady
Charlotte's, but he seemed to think it would please them if we made
the effort of going for a few minutes; and so I dressed and set
off, and there we found a regular "swarry," instead of something to
eat and drink, and a chair to sit upon in peace and quiet. There
was a room full of all the fine folks in London; very few chairs,
no peace and quiet, and heaps of acquaintance to talk to.... All
the London world that is in London. Lord and Lady Francis took
their success very composedly. I don't think they would have cared
much if the play had failed. Henry Greville seemed to be much more
interested for them than they for themselves, and discussed it all
for a long time with me. I liked him very much.... At long last I
got home, and had some supper, but what with fatigue and
nervousness, and _it_--_i.e._, the supper--so late, I had a most
wretched night, and kept dreaming I was out in my part and jumping
up in bed, and all sorts of agonies. What a life! I don't steal my
money, I'm sure.

_Thursday, 19th._-- ... Henry and I rode in the park, and though
the day was detestable, it did me good. As we were walking the
horses round by Kensington Gardens, Lord John Russell, peering out
of voluminous wrappers, joined us. Certainly that small,
sharp-visaged gentleman does not give much outward and visible sign
of the inward and spiritual power he possesses and wields over this
realm of England just now. His bodily presence might almost be
described as St. Paul's. This turner inside out and upside down of
our body, social and political, this hero of reform, one of the
ablest men in England--I suppose in Europe--he rode with us for a
long time, and I thought how H---- would have envied me this
conversation with her idol.... In the evening, at the theater,
though I had gone over my part before going there, for the first
time in my play-house experience I was _out_ on the stage. I
stopped short in the middle of one of my speeches, thinking I had
finished it, whereas I had not given Mr. Warde the cue he was to
reply to. How disgraceful!... After the play, my mother called for
us in the carriage, and we went to Lady Dacre's, and had a pleasant
party enough.... C---- G---- was there, with her mother (the clever
and accomplished authoress of several so-called fashionable novels,
which had great popularity in their day). Miss G----, now Lady
E---- T----, used to be called by us "la Dame Blanche," on account
of the dazzling fairness of her complexion. She was very brilliant
and amusing, and I remember her saying to one of her admirers one
evening, when her snowy neck and shoulders were shining in all the
unveiled beauty of full dress, "Oh, go away, P----, you _tan_ me."
(The gentleman had a shock head of fiery-red hair.)

_Friday._-- ... I am horribly fagged, and after dinner fell fast
asleep in my chair. At the theater, in the evening, the house was
remarkably good for a "second night," and the play went off very
well.... My voice was much better to-night, though it cracked once
most awfully in the last scene, from fatigue.... I think Lord
Francis, or the management, or somebody ought to pay me for the
bruises and thumps I get in this new play. One arm is black and
blue (besides being broken every night) with bolting the door, and
the other grazed to the bone with falling in fits upon the floor on
my elbows. This sort of tragic acting is a service of some danger,
and I object to it much more than to the stabbing and poisoning of
the "Legitimate Drama;" in fact, "I do not mind death, but I cannot
bear pinching."

_Saturday._-- ... Rode in the park with my father. Lord John
Russell rode with us for some time, and was very pleasant. He made
us laugh by telling us that Sir Robert Inglis (most bigoted of Tory
anti-reformers) having fallen asleep on the ministerial benches at
the time of the division the other night, they counted him on their
side. What good fun! I never saw a man look so wretchedly worn and
harassed as Lord John does. They say the ministry must go out, that
they dare not make these new peers, and that the Bill will stick
fast by the way instead of passing. What frightful trouble there
will be!...

_Sunday, 22d._-- ... After church looked over the critiques in the
Sunday papers on "Katharine of Cleves." Some of them were too
good-natured, some too ill-natured. The _Spectator_ was exceedingly
amusing.

By far the best account and criticism of this piece is Mr. Barham's
metrical report of it in the "Ingoldsby Legends." Lord Francis
himself used to quote with delight, "She didn't mind death, but she
couldn't bear pinching." ...

GREAT RUSSELL STREET, January 22, 1832.