Chapter XII: Part 12

You ask me, dear H----, about Lady Francis's visit. She did not come, as she had proposed doing, on the Friday, for she caught the influenza, and was extremely unwell for a few days; she was here on Monday, coughing incessantly and looking ill. In the course of our conversation, she exclaimed, "Education! bless me, I think of nothing else but the education of the poor. Don't you find people have got to think and talk about nothing else? I protest, I don't." This made me laugh, and you will understand why; but she didn't, and pressed me very much to tell her what there was absurd in the matter to me: but I declined answering her, at least then and there, as I could not enter into a full discussion of the subject, down to the roots of it, just at that moment. But, as you will well comprehend, the circumstances that render this feverish zeal for education comical, in some of its fine-lady advocates, are peculiarly strong in her case, though she is in earnest enough, and thoroughly well-intentioned in whatever she does. Unwittingly, they are serving the poor, as they certainly do not contemplate doing; for by educating them, even as they are likely to do so, they will gradually prepare them, intelligently and therefore irresistibly, to demand such changes in their political and social conditions as they may now impotently desire, and will assuredly hereafter obtain; but not, I think, with the entirely cordial acquiescence of their Tory educators.

We went to the opera the Saturday after you left us, but both the opera and the ballet were indifferent performances.... Do you not know that to misunderstand and be misunderstood is one of the inevitable conditions, and, I think, one of the especial purposes, of our existence? The principal use of the affection of human beings for each other is to supply the want of perfect comprehension, which is impossible. All the faith and love which we possess are barely sufficient to bridge over the abyss of individualism which separates one human being from another; and they would not or could not exist, if we really understood each other. God bless you, dear.

Yours ever,
FANNY.

CLARGES STREET, March 28th, 1841.
DEAREST H----,

My Sunday's avocations being over, or rather----

Here a loud, double knock, and Emily's entrance cut short my sentence; and now that she is gone, it is close upon time to dress for dinner. She bids me tell you that I am going to-morrow to sit to the sun for my picture for you. I cannot easily conceive how you should desire a daguerreotype of me; you certainly have never seen one, or you would not do so; as it is, I think you will receive a severe shock from the real representation of the face you love so well and know so little....

Emily and I went with the children to the Zoological Gardens the other day, where a fine, intelligent-looking lioness appeared exceedingly struck with them, crouched, and made a spring at little Fan, which made Anne scream, and Emily, and Amelia Twiss, who was with us, catch hold of the child. The keeper assured us it was only play; but I was well pleased, nevertheless, that there was a grating between that very large cat and the little white mouse of a plaything she contemplated.

I have no news to give you, dear H----. A list of our dinner and evening engagements would be interminable, and not very profitable stuff for correspondence.

I breakfasted with Mr. Rogers the other morning, and met Lord Normanby, to whom I preferred a request that he would procure for Henry an unattached company, by which he would obtain a captain's rank and half-pay, and escape being sent to Canada, or, indeed, out of England at all--which, in my father's present condition of health, is very desirable....

We hear of my sister's great success in Italy, in "Norma," from sources which can leave us no doubt of it....

Good-bye, dearest H----. Here is a list of my immediately impending _occupations_--Monday, Emily spends the evening with me, till I go to a party at Miss Rogers's; Tuesday, we go to the opera; Wednesday, we dine with the M----s, and go in the evening to Mrs. Grote's; Thursday, dinner at Mrs. Norton's; Friday, dine with Mrs. C----, who has a ball in the evening; Saturday, the opera again: and so, pray don't say I am wasting my time, or neglecting my opportunities.

Yours ever,
FANNY.

CLARGES STREET, Thursday, April 2nd.
DEAREST H----,

I wrote to you yesterday, but have half an hour of leisure, and will begin another letter to you now. If it suffers interruption, I shall at any rate have made a start, and the end will come in time, doubtless, if Heaven pleases....

My father is much in the same condition as when last I wrote to you.... You ask if he does not begin to count the days till Adelaide's return [my sister was daily expected from Italy, where she had just finished engagements at the Fenice, the San Carlo, and the Scala]: he speaks of that event occasionally, with fervent hope and expectation; but he is seldom roused by anything from the state of suffering self-absorption in which he lives for the most part....

I forget whether we have heard from Adelaide herself since you left us; but my father had a letter the other day from C----, who sent him a detailed account of her success in "Norma," which by all accounts has indeed been very great.

One of C----'s proofs of it amused me not a little. He said that one night, when she was singing it, although some of the royal family were in their box and appeared about to applaud, the people could not restrain their acclamations, but broke out into vociferous bravos, contrary to etiquette on such occasions, when it is usual for royalty to give the signal to public enthusiasm.

Doubtless this was a very great proof of her power over her fellow-creatures, and of the irresistible human sympathies which are occasionally, even in such an atmosphere as that of a Neapolitan theatre, with Bourbon royalty present, stronger than social conventionalities....

You ask if the new comedy ("London Assurance") is sufficiently successful to warrant the author's purchase of Henry's horse. I heard, but of course cannot vouch for the truth of the report, that his fixed remuneration was to be three hundred pounds for the piece; and when, as I also hear (but again will not vouch for the truth of my story), besides Henry's, that he has bought another horse, and, besides that other horse, a miraculous "Cab," and, besides that miraculous "Cab," ordered no fewer than seven new coats, I think you will agree with me that the author of "London Assurance," successful as his piece may be, ought to have found a deeper mine than that is likely to prove to serve so many ends. When I expressed my disapprobation of Henry's assisting by any means or in any way such boyish extravagance, he said that the lad had guardians; and therefore I suppose he has property besides what may come of play-writing--for men's persons, however pretty, are seldom put under guardianship of trustees; and Henry argued, in the proper manly fashion, that the youth, having property, had also a right to be as foolish in the abuse of it as he pleased, or as his guardians would let him.

We none of us went to see "Patter _versus_ Clatter," after all, having all some previous engagement, so that, though it was literally given for our special amusement, we were none of us there.

I have received no less than four American letters by the last steamer, and this, though a welcome pleasure, is also a considerable addition to the things to be done. God bless you, dearest H----. This letter was begun about three days ago, and now it is the second of April.

Yours ever,
FANNY.

[The young author of the clever play called "London Assurance" had a
special interest for me from having been my brother Henry's
schoolfellow at Westminster.... His career as a dramatic author and
actor has won him a high and well-deserved reputation in both
capacities, both in England and America.]

CLARGES STREET, Friday, April 9th.
MY DEAREST H----,

My father is just now much better; he has regained his appetite, and talks again of going out....

I can tell you nothing about my daguerreotype; for having gone, according to appointment, last Monday, and waited, which I could ill afford to do, nearly three quarters of an hour, and finally come away, there being apparently no chance of my turn arriving at all that day, I saw nothing of it; and I think it was very well that it saw nothing of me, for such another sulky thunder-cloud as my countenance presented under these circumstances seldom sat for its picture to Phoebus Apollo, or any of his artist sons. I am to go again on Wednesday, and shall be able to tell you something about it, I hope.

I have not seen Mr. T----'s sketch of the children. He is in high delight with it himself, I believe; and, moreover, has undertaken, in the plenitude of his artistical enthusiasm, to steal a likeness of me, putting me in a great arm-chair, with S---- standing on one side for tragedy, and F---- perched on the opposite arm of the chair for comedy.

Lane was to have come here to draw the children this very evening; but it is half-past ten and he has not been, and of course is not coming....

Good-bye, dear.

Ever affectionately yours,
FANNY.

CLARGES STREET, Monday, May 3rd, 1841.

Thank you, dearest H----, for your prompt compliance with my request about your travelling information.... About the daguerreotype, you know, I should have precisely the same objection to taking another person's appointed time that I have to mine being appropriated by somebody else; but Emily has made another appointment for me: she had made one for the day on which my sister arrived, which rather provoked me; but I was resigned, nevertheless, because I had told her I would go at any time she chose to name. She let me off, however; not, I believe, from any compassion for me, but because my father had set his heart upon my going with him to the private view of the new exhibition, just a quarter of an hour after the time I was to have been at the daguerreotypist's. So to the gallery I went, an hour after Adelaide had returned from Italy; as you know, I had not seen her for several years (indeed, not since my marriage). And so to the gallery I went, with buzzing in my ears and dizziness in my eyes, and an hysterical choking, which made me afraid to open my lips. Why my father was so anxious to go to this exhibition I hardly know; but I went to please him, and came back to please myself, without having an idea of a single picture in the whole collection. Emily has now made another appointment for me, or rather for you, early on Wednesday morning, and I hope we shall accomplish something at last.

Now you want to know something about Adelaide. There she sits in the next room at the piano, singing sample-singing, and giving a taste of her quality to Charles Greville, who, you know, is an influential person in all sorts of matters, and to whom Henry has written about her merits, and probable acceptability with the fashionable musical world. She is singing most beautifully, and the passionate words of love, longing, grief, and joy burst through that utterance of musical sound, and light up her whole countenance with a perfect blaze of emotion. As for me, the tears stream over my face all the time, and I can hardly prevent myself from sobbing aloud.... She has grown very large, I think almost as large as I remember my mother; she looks very well and very handsome, and has acquired something completely foreign in her tone and manner, and even accent.... She complains of the darkness of our skies and the dulness of our mode of life here as intolerable and oppressive to the last degree....

I cannot believe happiness to be the purpose of life, for when was anything ordained with an unattainable purpose?... But life, which, but for duty, seems always sad enough to me, appears sadder than usual when I try to look at it from the point of view of the happiness it contains.

The children are well; Lane has taken a charming likeness of them, of which I promise you a copy. God bless you, dearest H----. I do not lean on human love; I do not depend or reckon on it; nor have I ever MISTAKEN any human being for my _best friend_.

Affectionately yours,
FANNY.

CLARGES STREET, May 21st.
DEAREST H----,

From the midst of this musical Maelstrom I send you a voice, which, if heard instead of read, would be lamentable enough. We are lifted off our feet by the perfect torrent of engagements, of visits, of going out and receiving; our house is full, from morning till night, of people coming to sing with or listen to my sister. How her strength is to resist the demands made upon it by the violent emotions she is perpetually expressing, or how any human throat is to continue pouring out such volumes of sound without rest or respite, passes my comprehension. Now, let me tell you how I am surrounded at this minute while I write to you. At my very table sit Trelawney and Charles Young, talking to me and to each other; farther on, towards my father, Mr. G---- C----; and an Italian singer on one side of my sister; and on the other, an Italian painter, who has brought letters of introduction to us; then Mary Anne Thackeray; ... furthermore, the door has just closed upon an English youth of the name of B----, who sings almost as well as an Italian, and with whom my sister has been singing her soul out for the last two hours.... We dined yesterday with the Francis Egertons; to-morrow evening we have a gathering here, with, I beg you to believe, nothing under the rank of a viscount, Beauforts, Normanbys, Wiltons, _illustrissimi tutti quanti_. Friday, my sister sings at the Palace, and we are all enveloped in a golden cloud of fashionable hard work, which rather delights my father; which my sister lends herself to, complaining a little of the trouble, fatigue, and late hours; but thinking it for the interest of her future public career, and always becoming rapt and excited beyond all other considerations in her own capital musical performances.... As for me, I am rather bewildered by the whirl in which we live, which I find rather a trying contrast to my late solitary existence in America.... The incessant music wears upon my nerves a great deal; but chiefly, I think, because half the time I am not able to listen to it quietly, and it distracts me while I am obliged to attend to other things. But indeed, often, when I can give my undivided attention to it, my sister's singing excites me to such a degree that I am obliged, after crying my bosom full of tears, to run out of the room.

My father continues in wonderful good looks and spirits.... Here, dear H----, a long interruption.... We are off to St. John's Wood, to dine with the Procters: ---- is not ready; my sister is lying on the sofa, reading aloud an Italian letter to me; the children are rioting about the room like a couple of little maniacs, and I feel inclined to endorse Macbeth's opinion of life, that it is all sound and fury and signifying nothing.... Thus far, and another interruption; and now it is to-morrow, and Lady Grey and Lady G---- have just gone out of the room, and Chauncy Hare Townsend has just come in, followed by his mesmeric German patient, who is going to perform his magnetic magic for us. I think I will let him try what sort of a subject I should be.

I enclose a little note and silk chain, brought for you from America by Miss Fanny Appleton [afterwards Mrs. Longfellow], who has just arrived in London, to the great joy of her sister. I suppose these tokens come to you from the Sedgwicks. I have a little box which poor C---- S---- brought from Catherine for you--a delicate carved wooden casket, that I have not sent to you because I was afraid it would be broken, by any post or coach conveyance. Tell me about this, how I shall send it to you. I have obtained too for you that German book which I delight in so very much, Richter's "Fruit, Flower, and Thorn Pieces," and which, in the midst of much that is probably too German, in thought, feeling, and expression, to meet with your entire sympathy, will, I think, furnish you with sweet and pleasant thoughts for a while; I scarce know anything that I like much better.

I was going to see Rachel this evening, but my brother and his wife having come up to town for the day, I do not think we ought all to go out and leave them; so that ---- is gone with Adelaide and Lady M----, and I shall seize this quiet chance for writing to Emily, to whom I have not yet contrived to send a word since she left town. God bless you.

Ever yours,
FANNY.

[The young lad Alexis, to whom I have referred in this letter was, I
think, one of the first of the long train of mesmerists,
magnetizers, spiritualists, charlatans, cheats, and humbugs who
subsequently appealed to the notice and practised on the credulity
of London society. Mr. Chauncy Hare Townsend was an enthusiastic
convert to the theory of animal magnetism, and took about with him,
to various houses, this German boy, whose exhibition of mesmeric
phenomena was the first I ever witnessed. Mr. Townsend had almost
insisted upon our receiving this visit, and we accordingly assembled
in the drawing-room, to witness the powers of Alexis. We were all of
us sceptical, one of our party so incurably so that after each
exhibition of clairvoyance given by Alexis, and each exclamation of
Mr. Townsend's, "There now, you see that?" he merely replied, with
the most imperturbable phlegm, "Yes, I see it, but I don't believe
it." The clairvoyant power of the young man consisted principally in
reading passages from books presented to him while under the
influence of the mesmeric sleep, into which he had been thrown by
Mr. Townsend, and with which he was previously unacquainted. The
results were certainly sufficiently curious, though probably neither
marvellous nor unaccountable. To make sure that his eyes were really
effectually closed, cotton-wool was laid over them, and a broad,
tight bandage placed upon them; during another trial the hands of
our chief sceptic were placed upon his eyelids, so as effectually to
keep them completely closed, in spite of which he undoubtedly read
out of a book held up before him above his eyes, and rather on a
level with his forehead; nor can I remember any instance in which he
appeared to find any great difficulty in doing so, except when a
book suddenly fetched from another room was opened before him, when
he hesitated and expressed incapacity, and then said, "The book is
French;" which it was.

Believing entirely in a sort of hitherto undefined, and possibly
undefinable, physical influence, by which the nervous system of one
person may be affected by that of another, by special exercise of
will and effort, so as to produce an almost absolute temporary
subserviency of the whole nature to the force by which it is acted
upon, and therefore thinking it extremely possible, and not
improbable, that many of the instances of mesmeric influence I have
heard related had some foundation in truth, I have, nevertheless,
kept entirely aloof from the whole subject, never voluntarily
attended any exhibitions of such phenomena, and regarded the whole
series of experiments and experiences and pretended marvels of the
numerous adepts in mesmerism with contempt and disgust--contempt for
the crass ignorance and glaring dishonesty involved in their
practices; and disgust, because of the moral and physical mischief
their absurd juggleries were likely to produce, and in many
instances did produce, upon subjects as ignorant, but less
dishonest, than the charlatans by whom they were duped.

The thing having, in my opinion, a very probable existence, possibly
a physical force of considerable effect, and not thoroughly
ascertained or understood nature, the experiments people practised
and lent themselves to appeared to me exactly as wise and as
becoming as if they had drunk so much brandy or eaten so much opium
or hasheesh, by way of trying the effect of these drugs upon their
constitution; with this important difference that the magnetic
experiments severely tested the nervous system of both patient and
operator, and had, besides, an indefinite element of moral
importance, in the attempted control of one human will by another,
through physical means, which appeared to me to place all such
experiments at once among things forbidden to rational and
responsible agents.

I am now speaking only of the early developments of physical
phenomena exhibited by the first magnetizers and mesmerizers--the
conjurers by passes and somnolence and other purely physical
processes; the crazy and idiotic performances of their successors,
the so-called spiritualists, with their grotesque and disgusting
pretence of intercourse with the spirits of the dead through the
legs of their tables and chairs, seemed to me the most melancholy
testimony to an utter want of faith in things spiritual, of belief
in God and Christ's teaching, and a pitiful craving for such a
faith, as well as to the absence of all rational common sense, in
the vast numbers of persons deluded by such processes. In this
aspect (the total absence of right reason and real religion
demonstrated by these ludicrous and blasphemous juggleries in our
Christian communities), that which was farcical in the lowest degree
became tragical in the highest. I only witnessed this one mesmeric
exhibition, on the occasion of this visit paid to us by Mr. Townsend
and Alexis, until several years afterwards, in the house of my
excellent friend Mr. Combe, in Edinburgh, when I was one of a party
called upon to witness some experiments of the same kind. I was
staying with Mr. Combe and my cousin Cecilia, when one evening their
friend Mrs. Crow, authoress of more than one book, I believe, and of
a collection of supernatural horrors, of stories of ghosts,
apparitions, etc., etc., called "The Night Side of Nature" (the
lady had an evident sympathy for the absurd and awful), came,
bringing with her a Dr. Lewis, a negro gentleman, who was creating
great excitement in Edinburgh by his advocacy of the theories of
mesmerism, and his own powers of magnetizing. Mrs. Crow had
threatened Mr. and Mrs. Combe with a visit from this _professor_,
and though neither of them had the slightest tendency to belief in
any such powers as those Dr. Lewis laid claim to, they received him
with kindly courtesy, and consented, with the amused indifference of
scepticism, to be spectators of his experiments. Under these
circumstances, great as was my antipathy to the whole thing, I did
not like to raise any objection to it or to leave the room, which
would have been a still more marked expression of my feeling; so I
sat down with the rest of the company round the drawing-room table,
Mr. and Mrs. Combe, Dr. Lewis, Mrs. Crow, our friend Professor
William Gregory, and Dr. Becker--the latter gentleman a man of
science, brother, I think, to Prince Albert's private librarian--who
was to be the subject of Dr. Lewis's experiments, having already
lent himself for the same purpose to that gentleman, and been
pronounced highly sensitive to the magnetic influence.

I sat by Dr. Becker, and opposite to Dr. Lewis, with the width of
the table between us. What ulterior processes were to be exhibited I
do not know, but the first result to be obtained was to throw Dr.
Becker into a mesmeric state of somnolence, under the influence of
the operator. The latter presently began his experiment, and,
drawing entirely from his coat and shirt sleeve a long, lithe, black
hand, the finger-tips of which were of that pale livid tinge so
common in the hands of negroes, he directed it across the table
towards Dr. Becker, and began slowly making passes at him. We were
all profoundly still and silent, and, in spite of my disgust, I
watched the whole scene with considerable interest. By degrees the
passes became more rapid, and the hand was stretched nearer and
nearer towards its victim, waving and quivering like some black
snake, while the face of the operator assumed an expression of the
most concentrated powerful purpose, which, combined with his sable
color and the vehement imperative gestures which he aimed at Dr.
Becker, really produced a quasi-diabolical effect. The result,
however, was not immediate. Dr. Becker was apparently less
susceptible this evening than on previous occasions; but Dr. Lewis
renewed and repeated his efforts, each time with a nearer approach
and increased vehemence, and at length his patient's eyelids began
to quiver, he gasped painfully for breath, and was evidently
becoming overpowered by the influence to which he had subjected
himself; when, after a few seconds of the most intense efforts on
the part of Dr. Lewis, these symptoms passed off, and the
mesmerizer, with much appearance of exhaustion, declared himself,
for some reason or other, unable to produce the desired effect
(necessary for the subsequent exhibition of his powers) of
compelling Dr. Becker into a state of somnolency--a thing which he
had not failed to accomplish on every previous occasion. The trial
had to be given up, and much speculation and discussion followed as
to the probable cause of the failure, for which neither the
magnetizer nor his patient could account. Believing in this strange
action of nervous power in one person over another, I am persuaded
that I prevented Dr. Lewis's experiment from succeeding. The whole
exhibition had from the very beginning aroused in me such a feeling
of antagonism, such a mingled horror, disgust, and indignation,
that, when my neighbor appeared about to succumb to the influence
operating upon him, my whole nature was roused to such a state of
active opposition to the process I was witnessing that I determined,
if there was power in human will to make itself felt by mere silent
concentrated effort of purpose, I would prevent Dr. Lewis from
accomplishing his end; and it seemed to me, as I looked at him, as
if my whole being had become absorbed in my determination to defeat
his endeavor to set Dr. Becker to sleep. The nervous tension I
experienced is hardly to be described, and I firmly believe that I
accomplished my purpose. I was too much exhausted, after we left the
table, to speak, and too disagreeably affected by the whole scene to
wish to do so.

The next day I told Mr. Combe of my counter-magnetizing, or rather
neutralizing, experiment, by which he was greatly amused; but I do
not think he cared to enter upon any investigation of the subject,
feeling little interested in it, and having been rather surprised
into this exhibition of it by Mrs. Crow's bringing Dr. Lewis to his
house. That lady being undoubtedly an admirable subject for all such
experiments, having what my dear Mr. Combe qualified as "a most
preposterous organ of wonder," for which, poor woman, I suppose she
paid the penalty in a terrible nervous seizure, a fit of temporary
insanity, during which she imagined that she received a visit from
the Virgin Mary and our Saviour, both of whom commanded her to go
without any clothes on into the streets of Edinburgh, and walk a
certain distance in that condition, in reward for which the sins and
sufferings of the whole world would be immediately alleviated. Upon
her demurring to fulfil this mandate, she received the further
assurance that if she took her card-case in her right hand and her
pocket-handkerchief in her left, her condition of nudity would be
entirely unobserved by any one she met. Under the influence of her
diseased fancy, Mrs. Crow accordingly went forth, with nothing on
but a pair of boots, and being immediately rescued from the terrible
condition of mad exposure, in which she had already made a few paces
in the street where she lived, and carried back into her house, she
exclaimed, "Oh, I must have taken my card-case and my handkerchief
in the wrong hands, otherwise nobody would have seen me!" She
recovered entirely from this curious attack of hallucination, and I
met her in society afterwards, perfectly restored to her senses.

On one occasion I allowed myself to be persuaded into testing my own
powers of mesmerizing, by throwing a young friend into a magnetic
sleep. I succeeded with considerable difficulty, and the next day
experienced great nervous exhaustion, which, I think, was the
consequence of her having, as she assured me she had, resisted with
the utmost effort of her will my endeavor to put her to sleep. As I
disapproved, however, of all such experiments, this is the only one
I ever tried.

My belief in the reality of the influence was a good deal derived
from my own experience, which was that of an invariable tendency to
sleep in the proximity of certain persons of whom I was particularly
fond. I used to sit at Mrs. Harry Siddons's feet, and she had hardly
laid her hand upon my head before it fell upon her knees, and I was
in a profound slumber. My friend Miss ----'s neighborhood had the
same effect upon me, and when we were not engaged in furious
discussion, I was very apt to be fast asleep whenever I was near
her. E---- S---- relieved me of an intense toothache once by putting
me to sleep with a few mesmeric passes, and I have, moreover, more
than once, immediately after violent nervous excitement, been so
overcome with drowsiness as to be unable to move. I remember a most
ludicrous instance of this occurring to me in the church of
Stratford-upon-Avon, when, standing before Shakespeare's tomb, and
looking intensely at his monument, I became so overpowered with
sleep that I could hardly rouse myself enough to leave the church,
and I begged very hard to be allowed to sleep out my sleep, then and
there, upon the stones under which he lay.

After extreme distress of mind, I have sometimes slept a whole day
and night without waking; and once, when overcome with anguish,
slept, with hardly an hour's interval at a time, the greater part of
a week. The drowsiness inspired in me by some of my friends I
attribute entirely to physical sympathy; others, of whom I was
nearly as fond, never affected me in this manner in the slightest
degree. I have often congratulated myself upon the fact that I had
by no means an equal tendency to physical antipathy, though, in
common with most other people, I have had some experience of that
also. My very dear and excellent friend ---- always _m'agacait les
nerfs_, as French people say, though I was deeply attached to her
and very fond of her society. Mrs. ----, of whose excellence I had
the most profound conviction, and who was generally esteemed
perfectly charming by her intimates, affected me with such a curious
intuitive revulsion that the first time she came and sat down by me
I was obliged to get up and leave the room--indeed, the house. Two
men of our acquaintance, remarkable for their general attractiveness
and powers of pleasing, ---- and ----, were never in the same room
ten minutes with me without my becoming perfectly chilled through,
as though I had suddenly had the door of an ice-house opened upon
me. They were entirely dissimilar men in every respect....

Of the spiritualistic performances of Messrs. Hume, Foster, etc.,
etc., I never was a witness. An intimate acquaintance of mine, who
knew Hume well, assured me that she knew him to be an impostor,
adding at the same time, "But I also know him to be clairvoyant,"
which seemed to me mere tautology.

My sister and Charles Greville, having had their curiosity excited
by some of the reports of Mr. Foster's performances, agreed to go
together to visit him, and having received an appointment for a
_seance_, went to his house. Certainly, if Mr. Foster had taken in
either of those two customers of his, it would have gone near
converting me. Charles Greville, who was deaf, and spoke rather loud
in consequence of that infirmity, said, as he entered, to my sister,
"I shall ask him about my mother." Adelaide, quite determined to
test the magician's powers to the utmost, replied, with an air of
concern, as if shocked at the idea, "Oh, no, don't do that; it is
too dreadful." However, this suggestion of course not being thrown
away upon Mr. Foster, Charles Greville desired to be put in
communication with the spirit of his mother, which was accordingly
duly done by the operator, and various messages were delivered, as
purporting to come from the spirit of Lady Charlotte Greville to her
son. After this farce had gone on for a little while, Charles
Greville turned to my sister with perfect composure, and said,
"Well, now perhaps you had better ask him to tell you something
about your mother, because, you know, mine is not dead." The
_seance_ of course proceeded no further. At an earlier period of it,
as they were sitting round a table, Mr. Foster desired that written
names might be furnished him of the persons with whose spirits
communication might be desired. Among the names written down for
this purpose by my sister were several foreign, Italian and German,
names, with which she felt very sure Mr. Foster could not possibly
have any acquaintance; indeed, it was beyond all question that he
never could have heard of them. Adelaide was sitting next to him,
watching his operations with extreme attention, and presently
observed him very dexterously convey several of these foreign names
into his sleeve, and from thence to the ground under the table.
After a little while, Mr. Foster observed that, singularly enough,
several of the names he had received were now missing, and by some
extraordinary means had disappeared entirely from among the rest.
"Oh yes," said my sister very quietly, "but they are only under the
table, just where you put them a little while ago." With such
subjects of course Mr. Foster performed no miracles.

Some years ago a new form of these objectionable practices came into
vogue, and one summer, going up into Massachusetts, I found the two
little mountain villages of Lenox and Stockbridge possessed, in the
proper sense of the term, by a devil of their own making, called
"Planchette." A little heart-shaped piece of wood, running upon
castors, and that could almost be moved with a breath, and carrying
along a sheet of paper, over which it was placed, a pencil was
supposed to write, on its own inspiration, communications in reply
to the person's thoughts whose finger-tips were to rest above,
without giving any impulse to the board. Of course a hand held in
this constrained attitude is presently compelled to rest itself by
some slight pressure; the effort to steady it, and the nervous
effort not to press upon the machine, producing inevitably in the
wrist aching weariness, and in the fingers every conceivable
tendency to nervous twitching. Add to this the intense conviction of
the foolish folk, half of them hysterical women, that their
concentrated effort of will was, in combination with a mysterious
supernatural agency, to move the board; and the board naturally not
only moved but, carrying the pencil along with it, wrote the answers
required and desired by the credulous consulters of the wooden
oracle.

The thing would have been indescribably ludicrous but for the
terrible effect it was having upon the poor people who were
practising upon themselves with it. Excitable young girls of fifteen
and sixteen, half hysterical with their wonderment; ignorant,
afflicted women, who had lost dear relations and friends by death;
superstitious lads, and men too incapable of consecutive reasoning
to perceive the necessary connection between cause and effect; the
whole community, in short, seemed to me catching the credulous
infection one from another, and to be in a state bordering upon
insanity or idiocy.

A young lady-friend of mine, a miserable invalid, was so possessed
with faith in this wooden demon that, after resisting repeated
entreaties on her part to witness some of its performances, I at
length, at her earnest request, saw her operate upon it. The writing
was almost unintelligible, and undoubtedly produced by the vibrating
impulse given to the machine by her nervous, feeble, diaphanous
hands. Finding my scepticism invincible by these means, my friend
implored me to think in my own mind a question, and see if
Planchette would not answer it. I yielded at last to her all but
hysterical importunity, and thought of an heraldic question
concerning the crest on a ring which I wore, which I felt was quite
beyond Planchette's penetration; but while we sat in quiet
expectation of the reply, which of course did not come, my friend's
mother--a sober, middle-aged lady, habitually behaving herself with
perfect reasonableness, and, moreover, without a spark of
imagination (but that, indeed, was rather of course; belief in such
supernatural agencies betokening, in my opinion, an absence of
poetical imagination, as well as of spiritual faith), practical,
sensible, commonplace, without a touch of nonsense of any kind about
her, as I had always supposed--sat opposite the _machine infernale_,
over which her daughter's fingers hung suspended, and as the answer
did not come, broke out for all the world like one of Baal's
prophets of old: "Now, Planchette, now, Planchette, behave; do your
duty. Now, Planchette, write at once," etc.; and I felt as if I were
in Bedlam. One thing is certain, that if Planchette's answer had
approached in the remotest degree the answer to the question of my
thought, I would then and there have broken Planchette in half, and
left my friends in the possession of their remaining brains until
they had procured another.

The strangest experience, however, that I met with in connection
with this absurd delusion occurred during a visit that I received
from Mrs. B---- S----. That lady was staying with her daughter in
Stockbridge, and did me the honor to call on me at Lenox with that
young lady. Among other things spoken of I asked my distinguished
visitor some questions about this superstitious folly, Planchette,
nothing doubting that I should hear from her an eloquent
condemnation of all the absurd proceedings going on in the two
villages. The lady's face assumed a decided expression of grave
disapprobation, certainly, and she spoke to this effect:
"Planchette! Oh dear, yes, we are perfectly familiar with
Planchette, and, indeed, have been in the habit of consulting it
quite often." "Oh, indeed," quoth I, and I felt my own face growing
longer with amazement as I spoke. "Yes," continued my celebrated
visitor, with much deliberation, "we have; but I think it will no
longer be possible for us to do so. No, we must certainly give up
having anything to do with it." "Dear me!" said I, almost
breathless, and with a queer quaver in my voice, that I could hardly
command, "may I ask why, pray?" "The language it uses----"
"It!--the language _it_ uses!" ejaculated I. "Yes," she pursued,
with increasing solemnity, "the language it uses is so reprehensible
that it will be quite impossible for us to consult or have anything
further to do with it." "Really," said I, hardly able to utter for
suppressed laughter; "and may I ask, may I inquire what language it
does use?" "Why," returned Mrs. S----, with some decorous hesitation
and reluctance to utter the words that followed, "the last time we
consulted it, it told us we were all a pack of damned fools." "Oh!"
exploded I, "I believe in Planchette, I believe in Planchette!" Mrs.
S---- drew herself up with an air of such offended surprise at my
burst of irrepressible merriment that I suddenly stopped, and
letting what was boiling below my laughter come to the surface, I
exclaimed, in language far more shocking to ears polite than
Planchette's own: "And do you really think that Satan, the great
devil of hell, in whom you believe, is amusing himself with telling
you such truths as those, through a bit of board on wheels?"
"Really," replied the woman of genius, in a tone of lofty dignity,
"I cannot pretend to say whether or not it is _the_ devil; of one
thing I am very certain, the influence by which it speaks is
undoubtedly devilish." I turned in boundless amazement to the
younger lady, whose mischievous countenance, with a broad grin upon
it, at once settled all my doubts as to the devilish influence under
which Planchette had spoken such home truths to her family circle,
and I let the subject drop, remaining much astonished, as I often
am, at the degree to which _les gens d'esprit sont betes_.

I once attended some young friends to a lecture, as it called
itself, upon electro-biology. It was tedious, stupid, and
ridiculous; the only thing that struck me was the curious condition
of bewildered imbecility into which two or three young men, who
presented themselves to be operated upon, fell, under the influence
of the lecturer. I had reason to believe that there was no collusion
in the case, and therefore was surprised at the evident state of
stupor and mental confusion (even to the not being able to pronounce
their own name) which they exhibited when, after looking intently
and without moving at a coin placed in their hand for some time,
their faculties appeared entirely bewildered, and though they were
not asleep, they seemed hardly conscious, and opposed not the
slightest resistance to the orders they received to sit down, stand
up, to try to remember their names,--which they were assured they
could not, and did not,--and their general submission, of course in
very trifling matters, to the sort of bullying directions addressed
to them in a loud peremptory tone; to which they replied with the
sort of stupefied languor of persons half asleep or under the
influence of opium. I did not quite understand how they were thrown
into this curious condition by the mere assumption of an immovable
attitude and fixed gazing at a piece of coin; an experience of my
own, however, subsequently enlightened me as to the possible nervous
effect of such immobility and strained attention.

My friend Sir Frederick Leighton, despairing of finding a model to
assume a sufficiently dramatic expression of wickedness for a
picture he was painting of Jezebel, was deploring his difficulty one
day, when Henry Greville, who was standing by, said to him, "Why
don't you ask her"--pointing to me--"to do it for you?" Leighton
expressed some kindly reluctance to put my countenance to such a
use; but I had not the slightest objection to stand for Jezebel, if
by so doing I could help him out of his dilemma. So to his studio I
went, ascended his platform, and having been duly placed in the
attitude required, and instructed on what precise point of the wall
opposite to me to fix my eyes, I fell to thinking of the scene the
picture represented, of the meeting between Ahab and his wicked
queen with Elijah on the threshold of Naboth's vineyard,
endeavoring, after my old stage fashion, to assume as thoroughly as
possible the character which I was representing. Before I had
retained the constrained attitude and fixed immovable gaze for more
than a short time, my eyes grew dim, the wall I was glaring at
seemed to waver about before me, I turned sick, a cold perspiration
broke out on my forehead, my ears buzzed, my knees trembled, my
heart throbbed, and I suppose I was not far from a fainting fit. I
sat abruptly down on the platform, and called my friendly artist to
my assistance, describing to him my sensations, and asking if he
could explain what had occasioned them. He expressed remorseful
distress at having subjected me to such annoyance, saying, however,
that my condition was not an uncommon one for painters' models to be
thrown into by the nervous strain of the fixed look and attention,
and rigid immobility of position, required of them; that he had
known men succumb to it on a first experiment, but had thought me so
strong, and so little liable to any purely nervous affection, that
it had never occurred to him for a moment that there was any danger
of my being thus overcome.

I recovered almost immediately, the nervous strain being taken off,
and resumed my duty as a model, taking care to vary my expression
and attitude whenever I felt at all weary, and resting myself by
sitting down and lending another aspect of my face to my friend for
his Elijah.

I found, after this experience, no difficulty in understanding the
state of bewildered stupefaction into which the lecturer on
electro-biology had thrown his patients by demanding of them a fixed
attention of mind, look, and attitude to a given point of
contemplation. I think, just before I quite broke down, I could
neither have said where I was, nor who I was, nor contradicted Sir
Frederick Leighton if he had assured me that my name was Polly and
that I was putting the kettle on.]

CLARGES STREET, June, 1844.
DEAREST HARRIET,

I have not a morsel of letter-paper in my writing-book; do not, therefore, let your first glance take offence at the poor narrow note-paper, on which our dear friend Emily is forever writing to me, and which throws me into a small fury every time I get an affectionate communication from her on it. Our drawing-room has only this instant emptied itself of a throng of morning visitors, among whom my brother John and his wife, Mary Anne Thackeray, Dick Pigott, Sydney Smith, and A---- C----....

My letter has suffered an interruption, dear Harriet; I had to go out and return all manner of visits, took a walk with Adelaide in Kensington Gardens, went and dined quietly with M---- M----, and came back at half-past ten, to find Mr. C---- very quietly established here with my father and sister....

This is to-morrow, my dear Harriet, and we are all engaged sitting to Lane, who is making medallion likenesses of us all. John and his wife together in one sphere, their two little children in another, ---- and I in one eternity, and our chicks in another, their two little profiles looking so funny and so pretty, one just behind the other; my father, my sister, and Henry have each their world to themselves in single blessedness. The likenesses are all good, and charmingly executed. I should like to be able to send you mine and my children's, but as he will accept no remuneration for them, and as time and trouble are the daily bread of an artist----

Here I was interrupted again, and obliged to put by my letter, which was begun last Thursday, and it is now Sunday afternoon. Our drawing-room has just emptied itself of A---- M---- and his wife, Mr. and Mrs. Grote, Mr. H----, young Mr. K---- of Frankfort, and Chorley. Mrs. Grote brought with her Fanny Ellsler's little girl, a lovely child about seven years old....

I must tell you something of our event of yesterday. A concert was given for the benefit of the Poles, the Duchess of Sutherland condescending to lend Stafford House, provided the assemblage was quite select and limited to four hundred people; to accomplish which desirable point, and at the same time make the thing answer its charitable purpose, the tickets were sold at first at two guineas apiece, and on the morning itself of the concert at five guineas. Rachel was to recite, Liszt to play, and my sister was requested to sing, which she agreed to do, the occasion being semi-public and private, so to speak. A large assembly of our finest (and bluntest) people was not a bad audience, in a worldly sense, for her _debut_. She sang beautifully, and looked beautiful, and was extremely admired and praised and petted.

The whole scene was one of the gayest and most splendid possible, the entertainment and assembly taking place in the great hall and staircase of Stafford House, with its scarlet floor-cloths, and marble stairs and balustrades, and pillars of scagliola, and fretted roof of gold and white, and skylight surrounded and supported by gigantic gilt caryatides.

The wide noble flights of steps and long broad galleries, filled with brilliantly dressed groups; with the sunlight raining down in streams on the panels and pillars of the magnificent hall, on the beautiful faces of the women, and the soft sheen and brilliant varied coloring of their clothes, and on perfect masses of flowers, piled in great pyramids of every form and hue in every niche and corner, or single plants covered with an exquisite profusion of perfect bloom, standing here and there in great precious china vases stolen from the Arabian Nights; it really was one of the grandest and gayest shows you can imagine, more beautiful than Paul Veronese's most splendid pictures, which it reminded one of.

My sister's singing overcame me dreadfully....

I must close this letter, my dear; my head is in such a state of confusion that I scarcely know what I write; and if I keep it longer, you will never get it.

Yours ever truly----

(I don't know what I am saying; I love you affectionately, but I am almost beside myself with--everything.)

Yours ever,
FANNY.

CLARGES STREET, Sunday, June 20th, 1841.

You know, dearest Harriet, my aversion to writing short letters; I have something of the same feeling about that hateful little note-paper on which I have lately written to you. The sight of these fair large squares laid on my table, and of at least six unanswered letters of yours, prompts me to use this quiet half-hour--quiet by comparison only, for ----, Adelaide, and little F---- are shouting all round me, and a distracting brass band, that I dote upon, is playing tunes to which I am literally writing in time; nevertheless, in this house, this may be called a moment of profoundest quiet.

I do not believe that you will have quarrelled much with the note-paper, because I certainly filled it as well as I could; but I always feel insulted when anybody that I really care for writes to me on those frivolous, insufficient-looking sheets. I suppose, if you have missed Emily's Boswellian records of our sayings and doings here, you have received from her instead epistles redolent of the sweetness of the country, whole nosegays of words, that have made me gasp again for the grass and trees, and the natural enjoyments of life. Her affectionate remembrance reaches me every day by penny post, a little envelope full of delicious orange-blossoms, with which my clothes and everything about me are perfumed for the rest of the day.

You have not said much to me about the daguerreotype, nor did you ask me anything about the process; but that, I suppose, is because Emily furnished you with so many more details than I probably should, and with much more scientific knowledge to make her description clear. I found it better looking than I had expected, but altogether different, which surprised me, because I thought I knew my own face. It was less thick in the outlines than I had thought it would be, but also older looking than I fancied myself, and it gave me a heavy jaw, which I was not conscious of possessing. The process was wonderfully rapid; I think certainly not above two minutes. I have seen several of Charles Young, which are admirable, and do not appear to me exaggerated in any respect....

My father and Adelaide dined with the Macdonalds on Sunday; and Sir John, who, you know, is adjutant-general, made her a kind of half promise that he would give Henry leave to come over from Ireland and see her.

I believe the first time that S---- heard her aunt sing was one night after she was in bed (she sleeps in my room, where one does not lose a note of the music below). When I went up, I found her wide awake, and she started up in her bed, exclaiming, "Well, how many angels have you got down there, I should like to know?"