Chapter XXI (8)

I told Dall of it, however; and she, who had just seen my father,
said that he considered what had happened a most unfortunate thing
for him; and so my bright, new joy fell to the ground, and was
broken all to pieces. Upon further explanation, however, it seems
that it is an advantage to the other proprietors, though not to
him; no part of the recovered money returning to him, because he
had borrowed his share of it from Mr. Willett; and the only
difference is that he will not have to pay the interest on it any
more, and so far it is a small advantage to him. But it is a great
one to them, poor men! and therefore we ought to be glad, and not
look only at our own share of the business, though naturally that
is the most interesting to us. I sometimes doubt, after all, if we
have really by any means a clear and comprehensive view of the
whole state of that concern, receiving our impressions from my
father, who naturally looks at it only from the side of his own
personal stake in it.... After dinner John read me a letter he had
just received from Richard Trench--a most beautiful letter. What a
fine fellow he is, and what a noble set of young men these friends
of my brother's are! After tea read Arthur Hallam's essay on the
philosophical writings of Cicero. It is very excellent; I should
like to have marked some of the passages, they are so admirably
clear and true; but he has only lent it to me. His Latin and Greek
quotations were rather a trial, but I have no doubt his English is
as good as anything he quotes. Surely England twenty years hence
should be in a higher state of moral and intellectual development
than it is now: these young heads seem to me admirably good and
strong, and some score years hence these fine spirits will be
influencing the national mind and soul of England; and it pleases
me much to think so. [Alas! as far as dear Arthur Hallam was
concerned, my prophetic confidence was vain.] After finishing
Hallam's essay, I took up "King Lear," and read the end of that,
"and my poor fool is hanged!" O Lord, what an agony! In reading
"Lear," one of Mr. Harness's criticisms on my "Star of Seville"
recurred to me. In the scene where Estrella deplores her brother's
death, I have used frequent repetition of the same words and
exclamations. I wrote upon impulse, without deliberation, and
simply as my conception of sorrow prompted me, such words as grew
from my heart and not my understanding. But in reading "King Lear,"
the iteration in the expression of deep grief confirms me in the
opinion that it is natural to all men, and not peculiar to myself,
for Shakespeare has done it. In the scene where Gloster tells
Cornwall and Regan of Edgar's supposed wickedness, the wretched old
father uses frequent repetition, as, "Oh, madam, my old heart is
cracked; it's cracked!" "Oh, lady, lady, shame would have it hid!"
"I know not, madam: 'tis too bad, too bad!" and in the last scene,
that most piteous and terrible close that story ever had, the poor
old king, in his moanings over Cordelia, repeats his words over and
over again. I defend my conception, not my execution of it; and
true and touching as these repetitions of Shakespeare's are, mine
may be "damnable iteration," and nothing else. Heart-broken sorrow
has but few words; utter bereavement is not eloquent; and David,
when the darling of his soul was dead, did but cry, "O Absalom, my
son, my son! would God I had died for thee, my son!" A vastly
different expression of a vastly different grief from that which
poured itself out in the sad and noble dirge, "The beauty of Israel
is slain upon thy high places: how are the mighty fallen!"

_Saturday, 3d._--Henry has obtained his commission; one great piece
of good fortune amid all the bad, for which God be thanked. [The
liberal price given me by Mr. Murray for my play of "Francis I."
enabled me to purchase my brother's commission, which, however, the
money would not have obtained without the extremely kind interest
exerted in his favor by Lord Hill, then commander, and Sir John
Macdonald, adjutant-general of the forces.]

_Sunday, 4th._-- ... My father is in deplorable spirits, and seems
bowed down with care. I believe all that befalls us is right. I
know we must bear it; all I pray for is health, strength and
courage to bear it well. In the evening the Harnesses drank tea
with us.

_Monday, 5th._--Got ready things for the theater, and went over my
part.... In the afternoon, I hoped to hear the result of the
meeting that had been held by the creditors of the theater; but my
father had been obliged to leave it before anything was settled,
and did not know what had been the termination of the consultation.
At the theater the house was not good, neither was my acting. My
father acted admirably, to my amazement: for he has been in a most
wretched state of depression for the last week, and to-day at
dinner his face looked drawn and haggard and absolutely
lead-colored.

_Tuesday, 6th._--After breakfast went with Henry and my father to
Cox and Greenwood's, the great army agents, to pay for his
commission. Oh, what a good job, to be sure! Then to the Horse
Guards, to thank dear Sir John Macdonald; then to Stable Yard, to
call upon Lord Fitzroy Somerset; and then home, much happier than I
had been for a long time.... Madame le Beau brought my dress for
Louisa of Savoy; it is very handsome, but I look hideous, and as
grim as Queen Death in it. However, it is a precise copy of the
woman's own picture, and I must comfort myself with that. In the
evening we went to a pleasant party at the Basil Montagues', where
for an hour I recovered my love of dancing, which has rather
forsaken me of late. The Rajah Ramohun Roy had himself introduced
to me, and we presently began a delightful nonsense conversation,
which lasted a considerable time, and amused me extremely. His
appearance is very striking; his picturesque dress and color make
him, of course, a remarkable object in a London ball-room; his
countenance, beside being very intellectual, has an expression of
great sweetness and benignity and his remarks and conversation are
in the highest degree interesting, when one remembers what mental
energy and moral force and determination he must have exerted to
break through all the trammels which have opposed his becoming what
he is. I was turning away from him for a few moments, to speak to
Mr. Montague, who had begun a very interesting discourse on the
analysis of the causes of laughter, when the Rajah recalled my
attention to himself by saying, "I am going to quote the Bible to
you: you remember that passage, 'The poor ye have always with you,
but Me ye have not always.' Now, Mr. Montague you have always with
you, but me you have not always." So we resumed our conversation
together, and kept up a brief interchange of persiflage which made
us both laugh very much, and in which he showed a very ready use of
English language for a stranger.

Mrs. Procter talked to me a great deal about her little Adelaide,
who must be a most wonderful creature. The profound and
unanswerable questions put to us by these "children of light"
confound us with the sense of our own spiritual and mental
darkness. I often think of Tieck's lovely and deep-meaning story of
"The Elves." How little we know of the hidden mysterious springs
from which these crystal cups are filled, or of the unseen
companions that may have strayed with their fellow to the threshold
of this earth, and walk with it while it yet retains its purity and
innocence; but, as it journeys on, turn back and forsake it, and
return to their home, leaving their sister-soul to wander through
the world with sin and sorrow for companions.

_Wednesday, 7th._--I sent "The Merchant of Venice" to Ramohun Roy,
who, in our conversation last night, expressed a great desire to
read it....

_Thursday, 8th._-- ... In the evening acted Beatrice. The house was
very good, which I was delighted to see. The Harnesses supped with
us. While we were at supper, the _Quarterly Review_ came from
Murray's, and I read the article on "Francis I." aloud to them. It
is very "handsome," and I should think must satisfy my most
unreasonable friends. It more than satisfied me, for it made me out
a great deal cleverer than ever I thought I was, or ever, I am
afraid, shall be.

_Friday, 9th._--Rehearsed "Francis I." When I came home found a
charming letter and some Indian books, from that most amiable of
all the wise men of the East, Ramohun Roy. Mrs. Jameson and Mr.
Harness called.

_Saturday, 10th._--Rehearsed "Francis I." Tried on my dresses for
"The Hunchback;" they will be beautiful. The rehearsal was over
long before the carriage came for me; so I went into my father's
room and read the newspaper, while he and Mr. Bartley discussed the
cast of Knowles's play. It seems my father will not act in it. I am
sorry for that; it is hardly fair to Knowles, for no one else can
do it. My poor father seemed too bewildered to give any answer, or
even heed, to anything, and Mr. Bartley went away. My father
continued to walk up and down the room for nearly half an hour,
without uttering a syllable; and at last flung himself into a
chair, and leaned his head and arms on the table. I was horribly
frightened, and turned as cold as stone, and for some minutes could
not muster up courage enough to speak to him. At last I got up and
went to him, and, on my touching his arm, he started up and
exclaimed, "Good God, what will become of us all!" I tried to
comfort him, and spoke for a long time, but much, I fear, as a
blind man speaks of colors. I do not know, and I do not believe any
one knows, the real state of terrible involvement in which this
miserable concern is wrapped. What I dread most of all is that my
father's health will break down. To-day, while he was talking to
me, I saw him suddenly put his hand to his side in a way that sent
a pang through my heart. He seems utterly prostrated in spirit, and
I fear he will brood himself ill. God help us all! I came home with
a heavy heart, and got ready my things for the theater, and went
over my part. Emily called.... She brought me my aunt Siddons's
sketches of Constance and Lady Macbeth. They are simply written,
and though not analytically deep or powerful, are true, clear, and
good, as far as their extent reaches. She thinks Constance more
motherly than queenly, and I do not altogether agree with her. I do
not think the scene after Arthur is taken prisoner alone
establishes my aunt's position; the mother's sorrow there sweeps
every other consideration away. It is before that that I think her
love for her child is in some measure mixed with the feeling of the
sovereign for his heir; a love of power, in fact, embodied in the
boy who was to continue the dominion of a race of princes. He was
her royal child, and that I do not think she ever forgot till he
was, in her imagination, her dead child. She says she could endure
his being thrust from all his rights if he had been a less gracious
creature, and goes on--

"But thou art fair, dear boy: and at thy birth
Nature and fortune joined to make thee great;"

and then bursts forth into her furious vituperation of those whose
treachery has frustrated his natural claim to greatness. The woman,
too, who in the utmost bitterness of disappointment, in the utter
helplessness and desolation of betrayal, and the prostration of
anguish and despair, calls on the earth, not for a shelter, not for
a grave, or for a resting-place, but for a throne, is surely
royally ambitious, a queen more than anything else. Mrs. Siddons's
conception of Lady Macbeth is very beautiful, and I was
particularly struck by her imagination of her outward woman: the
deep blue eyes, the fair hair and fair skin of the northern woman
(though, by the by, Lady Macbeth is a Highlander--I suppose a Celt;
and they are a dark race); the frail feminine form and delicate
character of beauty, which, united to that undaunted mettle which
her husband pays homage to in her, constituted a complex spell, at
once soft and strong, sweet and powerful, and seemed to me a very
original idea. My aunt makes a curious suggestion, supported only
by her own conviction, for which, however, she demonstrates no
grounds, that in the banquet scene Lady Macbeth sees Banquo's ghost
at the same time Macbeth does. It is very presumptuous in me to
differ from her who has made such a wonderful study of this part,
but it seems to me that this would make Lady Macbeth all but
superhuman; and in the scene with her husband that precedes the
banquet, Macbeth's words to her give me to understand that she is
entirely innocent of the knowledge even of his crime.

_Monday, 12th._--Went to the theater to rehearse "Francis I." Miss
Tree and Mr. Bennett will act their parts admirably, I think....
When I got home got ready my things for the theater, and went over
my part. The play was "Much Ado about Nothing," and I played as ill
as usual. The house was pretty good.

[Here occurs an interruption of some weeks in my journal.]

My friend, Miss S----, came and paid me a long visit, during which my play of "Francis I." and Knowles's play of "The Hunchback" were produced, and it was finally settled that Covent Garden should be let to the French manager and entrepreneur, Laporte, and that my father and myself should leave England, and go for two years to America.

[The success of "Francis I." was one of entirely indulgent forbearance on the part of the public. An historical play, written by a girl of seventeen, and acted in it by the authoress at one and twenty, was, not unnaturally, a subject of some curiosity; and, as such, it filled the house for a few nights. Its entire want of real merit, of course, made it impossible that it should do anything more; and, after a few representations, it made way for Knowles's delightful play, which had a success as great and genuine as it was well deserved, and will not fail to be a lasting favorite, alike with audiences and actors.]

_Thursday, June 14th._--A long break in my journal, and what a
dismal beginning to it again! At five o'clock H---- started for
Ireland.... Poor dear Dall cried bitterly at parting from her (my
aunt was to accompany me to America, and it was uncertain whether
we should see Miss S---- again before we sailed).... When I
returned, after seeing her off, I went disconsolately to my own
room. As I could not sleep, I took up the first book at hand, but
it was "Tristram Shandy," and too horribly discordant with my frame
of mind; besides, I don't like it at any time; it seems to me much
more coarse even than witty and humorous.

_Friday, 15th._-- ... Almost at our very door met old Lady Cork,
who was coming to see us: We stopped our carriages, and had a
bawling conversation through the windows respecting my plans, past,
present, and to come, highly edifying, doubtless, to the whole
neighborhood, and which ended by her ladyship shrieking out to me
that I was "a supernatural creature" in a tone which must have made
the mummies and other strange sojourners in the adjacent British
Museum jump again.... In the evening, at the theater, the play was
"The Hunchback," for Knowles's benefit, and the house was not good,
which I do think is a shame. I played well, though Miss Taylor
disconcerted me by coming so near me in her second scene that I
gave her a real slap in the face, which I was very sorry for,
though she deserved it. After the play, Mr. Harness, Mrs. Clarke,
and Miss James supped with us; and after supper, I dressed for a
ball at the G----s', ... and much I wondered what call I had to be
at a ball, except that the givers of this festival are kind and
good friends of ours, and are fond of me, and I of them. But I was
not very merry at their ball for all that. We came home at half
past two, which is called "very early." Mr. Bacon was there (editor
of the _Times_, who married my cousin, Fanny Twiss), but I had no
chance to speak to him, which I was sorry for, as I like his looks,
and I liked his books: the first are good, and the latter are
clever. I cried all the way home, which is a cheerful way of
returning from a ball.

_Saturday, 16th._-- ... Mrs. Clarke, Miss James, the Messrs. M----,
and Alfred Tennyson dined with us. I am always a little
disappointed with the exterior of our poet when I look at him, in
spite of his eyes, which are very fine; but his head and face,
striking and dignified as they are, are almost too ponderous and
massive for beauty in so young a man; and every now and then there
is a slightly sarcastic expression about his mouth that almost
frightens me, in spite of his shy manner and habitual silence. But,
after all, it is delightful to see and be with any one that one
admires and loves for what he has done, as I do him. Mr. Harness
came in the evening. He is excellent, and I am very fond of him.
They all went away about twelve.

_Monday, 18th._-- ... At the theater, in the evening, the house was
good, and I played pretty fairly.... At supper my father read us
his examination before the committee of the House of Commons about
this minor theater business. Of course, though every word he says
upon the subject is gospel truth, it will only pass for the partial
testimony of a person deeply interested in his own monopoly.

_Thursday, 21st._--Called on Mrs. Norton, ... and on Lady Dacre, to
bid her good-by. At the theater, in the evening, the house was
good, and I played very well. How sorry I shall be to go away! The
actors, too, all seem so sorry to have us go, and it will be so
hard to see none of the accustomed faces, to hear none of the
familiar voices, while discharging the tasks that are often so
irksome to me. John Mason came home after the play and supped with
us.

_Friday, 22d._-- ... In the afternoon I called upon the Sotherbys,
to bid them good-by; afterward to the Goldsmiths', on the same
cheerless errand. Stopped at dear Miss Cottin's to thank her for
the beautiful bracelet she had sent me as a farewell present; and
then on to Lady Callcott's, with whom I spent a few solemn
moments--solemnity not without sweetness--and I scarcely felt
sorrowful when she said, "I shall never see you again." She is
going to what we call heaven, nearer to God (that is, in her own
consciousness, nearer to God)....

In the evening to the theater. I only played pretty well, except
the last scene, which was better than the rest. At the end of the
play Mr. Bartley made the audience a speech, mentioning our
departure, and bespeaking their good will for the new management.
The audience called for Knowles, and then clamored for us till we
were obliged to go out. They rose to receive us, and waved their
hats and handkerchiefs, and shouted farewell to us. It made my
heart ache to leave my kind, good, indulgent audience; my friends,
as I feel them to be; my countrymen, my English folk, my "very
worthy and approved good masters;" and as I thought of the
strangers for whom I am now to work in that distant strange country
to which we are going, the tears rushed into my eyes, and I hardly
knew what I was doing. I scarcely think I even made the
conventional courtesy of leave-taking to them, but I snatched my
little nosegay of flowers from my sash, and threw it into the pit
with handfuls of kisses, as a farewell token of my affection and
gratitude. And so my father, who was very much affected, led me
off, while the house rang with the cheering of the audience. When
we came off my courage gave way utterly, and I cried most bitterly.
As my father was taking me to my dressing-room Laporte ran after
us, to be introduced to me, to whom I wished success very
dolorously from the midst of my tears. He said he ought to cry at
our going away more than any one; and perhaps he is right, but we
should be better worth his while when we come back, if ever that
day comes. I saw numbers of people whom I knew standing behind the
scenes to take leave of us.

I took an affectionate farewell of poor dear old Rye (the
property-man), and Louis, his boy, gave me two beautiful nosegays.
It was all wretched, and yet it was a pleasure to feel that those
who surrounded and were dependent on us cared for us. I know all
the servants and workpeople of the theater were fond of me, and it
was sad to say good-by to all these kind, civil, cordial, humble
friends; from my good, pretty little maid, who stood sobbing by my
dressing-room door, to the grim, wrinkled visage of honest old
Rye....

[That was the last time I ever acted in the Covent Garden my uncle John built; where he and my aunt took leave of the stage, and I made my first entrance upon it. It was soon after altered and enlarged, and turned into an opera-house; eventually it was burnt down, and so nothing remains of it.]

The Harnesses and their friend Mr. F---- supped with us. Mr.
Harness talked all sorts of things to try and cheer me; he labored
hard to prove to me that the world was good and happy, but only
succeeded in convincing me that he was the one, and deserved to be
the other.

_Friday, 29th._--On board the Scotch steamer for Edinburgh.... We
passed Berwick and Dunbar, and the Douglases' ancient hold
Tantallon, and the lines from "Marmion" came to my lips. Poor
Walter Scott! he will never sail by this lovely coast again, every
bold headland and silver creek of which lives in his song or story.
He has given of his own immortality to the earth, which must ere
long receive the whole of his mortality....

_Saturday, 30th._--Went to rehearsal.... After dinner Mary Anne, my
maid, knowing my foible, came in with her arms full of two of the
most beautiful children I ever saw in my life.... [These beautiful
children were the daughters of the Duc de Grammont, and were
sharing with their parents the exile of the King of France, Charles
X., who had found in his banishment a royal residence as ruined as
his fortunes in the old Scottish palace of Holyrood. Ida de
Grammont, the eldest of my angels, fulfilled the promise of her
beautiful childhood as the lovely Duchesse de Guyche.] We spent a
pleasant evening at Mrs. Harry Siddons's. Mr. Combe and Macdonald
(the sculptor) were there.

_Sunday, July 1st._-- ... We dined at Mr. Combe's, and had a very
pleasant dinner, but unluckily, owing to a stupid servant's
mistake, my old friend Mr. McLaren, who had been invited to meet
me, did not come. After dinner there was a tremendous discussion
about Shakespeare, but I do not think these men knew anything about
him. I talked myself into a fever, and ended, with great modesty
and propriety, by disabling all their judgments, at which piece of
impertinence they naturally laughed very heartily.

EDINBURGH, July 1, 1832.
DEAREST H----,

We left London on Wednesday at eight o'clock. The parting between
my mother and Dall (who never met again; my dear aunt died in
America, in the second year of our stay there), and myself and my
dear little sister, was most bitter.... John came down to Greenwich
with us, but would not come on board the steamboat. He stood on the
shore and I at the ship's side, looking at what I knew was him,
though my eyes could distinguish none of his features from the
distance. My poor mother stood crying by my side, and bade me send
him away. I gave him one signal, which he returned, and then ran up
the beach, and was gone!--gone for two years, perhaps more; perhaps
gone from me forever in this world!...

We shall be in Liverpool on Monday morning, the 16th of July, and
go to Radley's Hotel, where I hope we shall find you on our
arrival. My father is pretty well, in spite of all the late
anxieties and annoyances he has had to wade through. In the course
of the day preceding our departure from London two arrests were
served upon him by creditors of the theater, who, I suppose, think
when he is gone the whole concern must collapse and fall to pieces,
and I began to think some means would be devised to prevent our
leaving England after all. Our parting on Wednesday morning was, as
I told you, most miserable.... My poor mother was braver than I had
expected; but her parting from us, poor thing, is yet to come.

I found a letter from Emily Fitzhugh here, inclosing one as an
introduction to a lady in New York, who had once been her
friend.... Edinburgh is lovely and dear, and peace and quiet and
repose are always found by me near my dear Mrs. Harry Siddons; but
my heart is, oh, so sad!... Pray answer this directly. The time is
at hand when the quickest "directly" in our correspondence will be
three months.

Ever your affectionate
F. A. K.

_Monday, 2d._--My father and I went to the theater to rehearse
"Romeo and Juliet." In the evening the house was very fair,
considering how much the hot weather is against us; but of all the
comfortless people to act to, commend me to an Edinburgh audience.
Their undemonstrativeness, too, is something more than mere
critical difficulty to be pleased; there is a want of kindliness in
the cold, discourteous way in which they allow a stranger to appear
before them without ever affording him the slightest token of their
readiness to accept the efforts made to please them. I felt quite
sorry this evening for poor Mr. Didear, to whom not the faintest
sign of encouragement was vouchsafed on his first coming on. This
is being cold to an unamiable degree, and seems to me both a want
of good feeling and good breeding. I acted as well as they would
let me. As for poor John Mason, concluding, I suppose, from their
frozen silence that he was flat and ineffective, he ranted and
roared, and pulled me about in the last scene, till I thought I
should have come to pieces in his hands, as the house-maids say of
what they break. I was dreadfully exhausted at the end of the play;
there is nothing so killing as an ineffectual appeal to sympathy,
and, as the Italians know, "ben servire e non gradire" is one of
the "tre cose da morire." ...

_Tuesday, 3d._--Went to the theater to rehearse.... In the evening
the house was good, and the play went off very well. I acted well,
in spite of my new dresses, which stuck out all round me
portentously, and almost filled the little stage. J---- L---- was
like a great pink bird, hopping about hither and thither, and
stopping to speak, as if it had been well tamed and taught. The
audience actually laughed and applauded, and I should think must
have gone home very much surprised and exhausted with the unwonted
exertion.

_Wednesday, 4th._--Went to the theater to rehearse "Francis I."
After I got home, my mother told me she had determined to leave us
on Saturday, and go back to London with Sally Siddons; and I am
most thankful for this resolution.... How sad it will be in that
strange land beyond the sea, among those strange people, to whom we
are nothing but strangers! But this is foolish weakness; it must
be; and what a world of strength lies in those two little words!...
At the theater the house was very good, and I played very well....

_Thursday, 5th._--After breakfast went to rehearse "The Gamester."
... In the evening the house was not good. My father acted
magnificently; I never played this part well, and am now gone off
in it, and play it worse than not well; besides, I cannot bully
that great, big man, Mr. Didear; it is manifestly absurd.

_Friday, 6th._--To the theater to rehearse "Francis I." On my
return found Mr. Liston and his little girl waiting to ride with
me.... [This was the beginning of my acquaintance with the
celebrated surgeon Liston, who afterward became an intimate friend
of ours, and to whose great professional skill my father was
repeatedly indebted for relief under a most painful malady. He was
a son of Sir Robert Liston, and cousin of the celebrated comedian,
between whom and himself, however, there certainly was no family
likeness, Liston, the surgeon, being one of the handsomest persons
I ever saw. The last time I saw him has left a melancholy
impression on my mind of his fine face and noble figure. He had
been attending me professionally, but I had ceased to require his
care, and had not seen him for some time, when one morning walking,
according to my custom in summer, before seven o'clock, as I came
to the bridge over the Serpentine in Kensington Gardens, a horseman
crossing the bridge stopped by the iron railing, and, jumping off
his horse, came toward me. It was Liston, who inquired kindly after
my health, and, upon my not answering quite satisfactorily, he
said, "Ah! well, you are better than I am." I laughed
incredulously, as I looked at a magnificent figure leaning against
the great black horse he rode, and looking like a model of manly
vigor and beauty. But in less than a week from that day Liston died
of aneurism; and I suppose that when I met him he was well aware of
the death which had got him literally by the throat.]

_Saturday, 7th._--Miserable day of parting! of tearing away and
wrenching asunder!... At eleven we were obliged to go to rehearsal,
and when we returned found my mother busy with her packing.... When
she was gone, I sat down beside my father with a book in my hand,
not reading, but listening to his stifled sobbing; and every now
and then, in spite of my determination not to do it, looking up to
see how far the ship had moved. (Our windows looked over the
Forth.) But the white column of steam was rising steadily from
close under Newhaven, and for upward of half an hour continued to
do so. I had resolved not to raise my eyes again from my book, when
a sudden exclamation from my father made me spring up, and I saw
the steamer had left the shore, and was moving fast toward
Inchkeith, the dark smoky wake that lingered behind it showing how
far it had already gone from us, and warning us how soon it would
be beyond the ken of our aching eyes.... The carriage was
announced, and with a heavy heart and aching head, I drove to the
theater.... The play was "Francis I.," for the first time. The
house was very fine; I acted abominably, but that was not much to
be wondered at. However, I always have acted this part of my own
vilely; the language is not natural--mere stilted declamation from
first to last, most fatiguing to the chest, and impossible for me
to do anything with, as it excites no emotion in me whatever....

EDINBURGH, July 8, 1832.
MY DEAREST H----,

I had just left my father at the window that overlooks the Forth,
watching my poor mother's ship sailing away to England, when I
received your letter; and it is impossible to imagine a sorer,
sadder heart than that with which I greeted it.... Thank you for
the pains you are taking about your picture for me; crammed with
occupation as my time is here, I would have done the same for you,
but that I think in Lawrence's print you have the best and likest
thing you can have of me.... I cannot tell you at what hour we
shall reach Liverpool, but it will be very early on Monday
morning.... I am glad you have not deferred sitting for your
picture till you came to Liverpool, for it would have encroached
much upon our time together. I remember when I returned from
abroad, a school-girl, I thought I had forgotten my mother's face.
This copy of yours will save me from that nonsensical morbid
feeling, and you will surely not forget mine.... You bid me, if
anything should go ill with me, summon you across the Atlantic.
Alas! dear H----, you forget that before a letter from that other
world can reach this, more than a month must have elapsed, and the
writer may no longer be in either. You say you hope I may return a
new being; and I have no doubt my health will be benefited, and my
spirits revived by change of external objects; but oh, how dreary
it all is now! You bid me cheer my father when my mother shall have
left us, without knowing that she is already gone. I make every
exertion that duty and affection can prompt; but, you know, it is
my nature rather to absorb the sorrow of others than to assist them
in throwing it off; and when one's own heart is all but frozen, one
knows not where to find warmth to impart to those who are shivering
with misery beside one.... I have left myself scarcely any room to
tell you of my present life. I work very hard, rehearsing every
morning and acting every night, and spending the intervening time
in long farewell rides round this most beautiful and beloved
Edinburgh. Mr. Combe says I am wearing myself out, body and mind;
but I am already looking better, and less thin, than when I left
London; and besides, I shall presently have a longer rest--holiday
I cannot call it--on board ship than I have had for the last three
years. We acted "Francis I." here last night, for the first time;
and I am sure that, mingled with the applause, I heard very
distinct hissing; whether addressed to the acting, which was some
of it execrable, or to the play itself, which I think quite
deserving of such a demonstration, I know not.... You know my
opinion of the piece; and as, with the exception of the two parts
of De Bourbon and the Friar, and not excepting my own, it really
was vilely acted, hissing did not appear to me an unnatural
proceeding, though perhaps, under the circumstances, not altogether
a courteous one on the part of the modern Athenians. I tell you
this, because what else have I to tell you, but that I am your ever
affectionate

F. A. K.

_Tuesday, 10th._--At half-past twelve rode out with Liston and his
daughter, Mr. Murray, and Allen (since Sir William, the celebrated
artist, friend, and painter, of Walter Scott and his family).... In
the evening, at the theater, the house was very full, and I acted
very well, though I was so tired that I could hardly stand, and
every bone in my body ached with my hard morning's ride. While I
was sitting in the greenroom, Mr. Wilson came in, and it warmed my
heart to see a Covent Garden face. He tells me Laporte is giving
concerts in the poor old playhouse: well, good luck attend him,
poor man (though I know it won't, for "there's nae luck about that
house, there's nae luck at a'"). Walter Scott has reached
Edinburgh, and starts for Abbotsford to-morrow: I am glad he has
come back to die in his own country, in his own home, surrounded by
the familiar objects his eyes have loved to look upon, and by the
hearts of his countrymen, and the prayers, the blessings, the
gratitude, and the love they owe him. All Europe will mourn his
death; and for years to come every man born on this soil will be
proud, for his sake, to call himself a Scotchman.

_Wednesday, 11th._-- ... At half-past twelve met Mr. Murray, Mr.
Allen, and Mr. Byrne.... As we started for our ride, and were
"cavalcading" leisurely along York Place, that most enchanting old
sweetheart of mine, Baron Hume, came out of a house. I rode toward
him, and he met me with his usual hearty, kind cordiality, and a
world of old-fashioned stately courtesy, ending our conference by
devoutly kissing the tip of my little finger, to the infinite
edification of my party, upon whose minds I duly impressed the vast
superiority of this respectful style of gallantry to the flippant,
easy familiarity of the present day. These old beaux beat the young
ones hollow in the theory of courtship, and it is only a pity that
their time for practice is over. Commend me to this bowing and
finger-kissing! it is at any rate more dignified than the nodding,
bobbing, and hand-shaking of the present fashion. The be-Madaming,
too, has in it something singularly pleasing to my taste; there's a
hoop and six yards of brocade in each of its two syllables.... At
the theater the play was "Francis I." I acted well, and the play
went off very well. Mr. Allen came and sat in the greenroom,
telling me all about Constantinople and the Crimea, and the
beautiful countries he has seen, and where his memory and his
wishes are forever wandering; a rather sad comment upon the perfect
vision of content his charming home at Laurieston had suggested to
me.

_Thursday, 12th._-- ... At the theater the play was "The
Hunchback." The house was very good, and I acted very well. Dear
Mr. Allen came into the greenroom, and had a long gossip with me.

_Friday, 13th._-- ... Went with Mr. Combe to the Phrenological
Museum, and spent two hours listening to some very interesting
details on the anatomy of the brain, which certainly tended to make
the science more credible to my ignorance, though the general
theory has never appeared to me as impossible and extravagant as
some people think it. The insuperable point where I stick fast is a
doubt of the practically beneficial result which its general
acceptance would produce. I think they overrate the reforming power
of their system, though Mr. Combe's account of the numbers who
attend his lectures, and of the improvement of their bodily and
mental conditions which he has himself witnessed, must, of course,
make me feel diffident of my own judgment in the matter. Their own
experience can alone test the utility of their system, and whether
it does or does not answer their expectations. I thought of Hamlet
as I sat on the ground, with my arms and lap full of skulls. It is
curious enough to grasp the empty, worthless, unsightly case in
which once dwelt the thinking faculty of a man. One of the best
specimens of the human skull, it seems, is Raphael's; a cast of
whose head I held lovingly in my hands, wishing it had been the
very house where once abode that spirit of immortal beauty. [The
phrenological authorities were mistaken, it seems, in attributing
this skull to Raphael. I believe that it has been ascertained to be
that of his friend, the engraver, Marc Antonio.] At the theater the
play was "The Hunchback;" the house very good, and I played very
well.

_Saturday, 14th._--My last day in Edinburgh for two years; and who
can tell for how many more? At eleven o'clock, Mr. Murray, Mr.
Allen, Mr. Byrne, and myself sallied forth on horseback toward the
Pentlands, having obtained half an hour's grace off dinner-time, in
order to get to Habbies How. We went out by the Links, and up steep
rises over a white and dusty road, with a flaring stone dyke on
each side, and neither tree nor bush to shelter us from the
scorching sunlight till we came to Woodhouseleigh, the haunted walk
of a white specter, who, it seems, was fond of the shade, for her
favorite promenade was an avenue overarched with the green arms of
noble old elm trees; and we blessed the welcome shelter of the
Ghost's Haunt.... A cloud fell over all our spirits as we rode away
from this enchanting spot, and Mr. Murray, pointing to the sprig of
heather I had put in my habit, said they would establish an Order
of Knighthood, of which the badge should be a heather spray, and
they three the members, and I the patroness; that they would meet
and drink my health on the 14th of July, and on my birthday, every
year till I returned; and a solemn agreement was made by all
parties that whenever I did return and summoned my worthies, we
should again adjourn together to the glen in the Pentlands. When we
reached home, Mr. Allen, who cannot endure a formal parting, shook
hands with me and bade me good-by as I dismounted, as if we were to
ride again to-morrow. [And I never saw him again. Peace be with
him! He was a most amiable and charming companion, and during these
days of friendly intimacy, his conversation interested and
instructed me, and his poetical feeling of Nature, and placid,
unruffled serenity, added much to the pleasure of those delightful
rides.] ... At the theater the play was "The Provoked Husband," for
my benefit; the house was very fine, and I played pretty well.
After it was over, the audience shouted and clamored for my father,
who came and said a few words of our sorrow to leave their
beautiful city.... Mrs. Harry, Lizzie, and I were in my
dressing-room, crying in sad silence, and vainly endeavoring to
control our emotion. Presently my father came hurriedly in, and
folding them both in his arms, just uttered in a broken voice,
"Good-by! God bless you!" and I, embracing my dear friends for the
last time, followed him out of the room. It is not the time only
that must elapse before I can see her again, it is the terrible
distance, the slowness and uncertainty of communication; it is that
dreadful America.

_Thursday, 19th, Liverpool._-- ... At eleven went to the theater
for rehearsal; it was very slovenly. I wonder what the performance
will be? In the evening to the theater; the play was "Francis I.,"
and the house was very good, which was almost to be wondered at in
this plague-stricken city. [The cholera was raging in Liverpool.] I
was frightened, as I always am at a new part, even in my own play,
though glad enough to resign that odious dignity, the queen-mother.
[The part of Louisa of Savoy had been given to me when first the
piece was brought out at Covent Garden; I was now playing the
younger heroine, Françoise de Foix.] I played pretty well, though
there is nothing to be done with the part. She is perfectly
uninteresting and ineffective; but it is better for the cast of the
play that I should act her instead of Louisa. And when one can have
such a specimen of a queen as we had to-night, it would be a
thousand pities the audience should be put off with my inferior
views of royalty. Such bouncing, frowning, growling, and snarling
might have challenged a whole zoological garden full of wild beasts
to surpass. It's a comfort to see that it is possible to play that
part worse than I did.

_Friday, 20th._--Went to rehearsal.... Received a letter from
Lizzie, giving me an account of my dear old Newhaven fish-wife,
poor body! to whom I had sent a farewell present by her. I received
also a long copy of anonymous verses, in which I was rather
pathetically remonstrated with for seeking fame and fortune out of
my own country. The author is slightly mistaken; neither the love
of money nor notoriety would carry me away from England, but the
love of my father constrains me.... The American Consul and Mr.
Arnold called. After dinner I read Combe's "Constitution of Man,"
which interested me very much, though it fails to convince me that
phrenology can alone bestow this insight into human nature. At the
theater "The School for Scandal;" I played pretty well, though the
actors were all dreadfully imperfect, and some of them so nervous
and quick, and some so nervous and slow, that it was hardly
possible to keep pace with them.

_Saturday, 21st._--From Liverpool to Manchester. After all, this
Liverpool, with all its important wealth and industry, is a
dismal-looking place, a swarming world of dingy red houses and
dirty streets.... How well I remember the opening of this
railway!... They have placed a marble tablet in the side of the
road to commemorate the spot where poor Huskisson fell; I
remembered it by the pools of dark-green water that, as we passed
them then, made a dismal impression on me; they looked like stony
basins of verdigris. How glad I was to see Chatmoss--that
villainous, treacherous, ugly, useless bog--trenched and ditched in
process of draining and reclaiming, with the fair, holy, healthy
grain waving in bright green patches over the brown peaty soil!
Next to moral conversion, and the reclaiming to their noble uses
the perverted powers of human nature, there is nothing does one's
heart so much good as the sight of waste and barren land reclaimed
to the uses and wants of man; to see vegetation clothe the idle
space, and the cursed and profitless soil teeming with the means of
life and bringing forth abundant produce to requite the toil that
fertilized it; to see the wilderness crowned with bounteous
increase, and the blessing of God rising from the earth to reward
the labor of His creatures. It forcibly reminds one of all that is
left undone, and might be done, with that far more precious waste
land, those multitudes of our ignorant poor, whose minds and
spirits are as dark, as profitless, as barren, as dreary, and as
dangerous, as this wild bog was formerly, and who were never
ordained to live and die like so many human morasses.... In the
evening to the theater, which was crammed from the floor to the
ceiling; they are a pleasant audience, too, and make a delightful
quantity of sympathetic noise. I did not play well, which was a
pity and a shame, because they really deserved that one should do
so; but my coadjutors were too much for me.

_Sunday, 22d, Liverpool._--I did not think there was such another
day in store for me as this. I thought all was past and over, and
had forgotten the last drop in the bitter cup.... The day was
bitter cold, and we were obliged to have a fire.

LIVERPOOL, July 22.
MY DEAR MRS. JAMESON,

I fear you are either anxious or vexed, or perhaps both, about the
arrival of your books, and my non-acknowledgment of them. They
reached me in all safety, and but for the many occupations which
swallow up my time would have been duly receipted ere this. Thank
you very much for them, for they are very elegant outside, and the
dedication page, with which I should have been most ungracious to
find any fault. The little sketch on that leaf differs from the
design you had described to me some time ago, and I felt the full
meaning of the difference. I read through your preface all in a
breath; there are many parts of it which have often been matters of
discussion between us, and I believe you know how cordially I
coincide with most of the views expressed in it. The only point in
your preliminary chapter on which I do not agree with you is the
passage in which you say that humor is, of necessity and in its
very essence, vulgar. I differ entirely with you here. I think
humor is very often closely allied to poetry; not only a large
element in highly poetic minds, which surely refutes your position,
but kindred to the highest and deepest order of imagination, and
frequently eminently fanciful and graceful in its peculiar
manifestations. However, I cannot now make leisure to write about
this, but while I read it I scored the passage as one from which I
dissented. That, however, of course does not establish its fallacy;
but I think, had I time, I could convince you of it. I acted Juliet
on Wednesday, and read your analysis of it before doing so. Oh,
could you but have seen and heard my Romeo!... I am sure it is just
as well that an actress on the English stage at the present day
should not have too distinct a vision of the beings Shakespeare
intended to realize, or she might be induced, like the unfortunate
heroine of the song, to "hang herself in her garters." To be sure
there is always my expedient to resort to, of acting to a wooden
vase; you know I had one put upon my balcony, in "Romeo and
Juliet," at Covent Garden, to assist Mr. Abbott in drawing forth
the expression of my sentiments. I have been reading over Portia
to-day; she is still my dream of ladies, my pearl of womanhood....
I must close this letter, for I have many more to write to-night,
and it is already late. Once more, thank you very much for your
book, and believe me,

Ever yours very truly,
F. A. K.

_August 1st._--Sailed for America.

The book referred to in this letter was Mrs. Jameson's "Analysis of Shakespeare's Female Characters," which she very kindly dedicated to me. The etching in the title-page was changed from the one she at first intended to have put in it, and represented a female figure in an attitude of despondency, sitting by the sea, and watching a ship sailing toward the setting sun; a design which I know she meant to have reference to my departure. I believe she subsequently changed it again to the one she had first executed, and which was of a less personal significance.... I exchanged no more letters with my friend Miss S----, who joined me at Liverpool, and remained with me till I sailed for America.... "A trip," as it is now called, to Europe or America, is one of the commonest of experiences, involving, apparently, so little danger, difficulty, or delay, that the feelings with which I made my first voyage across the Atlantic must seem almost incomprehensible to the pleasure-seeking or business-absorbed crowds who throng the great watery highway between the two continents.

But when I first went to America, steam had not shortened the passage of that formidable barrier between world and world. A month, and not a week, was the shortest and most favorable voyage that could be looked for. Few men, and hardly any women, undertook it as a mere matter of pleasure or curiosity; and though affairs of importance, of course, drew people from one shore to the other, and the stream of emigration had already set steadily westward, American and European tourists had not begun to cross each other by thousands on the high seas in search of health or amusement.