Chapter XVI: Part 16

The Countess of Berkeley, to whom I have alluded in this letter, was
a woman whose story was a singular romance, which now may be said to
belong to "ancient history." She was the daughter of a butcher of
Gloucester, and an extremely beautiful person. Mr. Henry Berkeley,
the fifth son of Lady Berkeley, for many years Member of Parliament
for Bristol, and as many years the persistent advocate of the system
of voting by ballot, travelled and resided for some time in America,
and formed a close intimacy with ----, who, when we came to England,
accepted Mr. Berkeley's invitation to visit his mother at Cranford,
and took me with him, to make the acquaintance of this remarkable
old lady. She was near eighty years old, tall and stately, with no
apparent infirmities, and great remains of beauty. There was great
originality in all she said, and her manner was strikingly energetic
for so old a woman. I remember, one day after dinner, she had her
glass filled with claret till the liquid appeared to form a rim
above the vessel that contained it, and, raising it steadily to her
lips, looked round the table, where sat all her children but Lord
Fitzhardinge, and saying, "God bless you all," she drank off the
contents without spilling a drop, and, replacing the glass on the
table, said, "Not one of my sons could do that."

One morning, when I was rather indisposed, and unable to join any of
the parties into which the guests had divided themselves on their
various quests after amusement, I was left alone with Lady Berkeley,
and she undertook to give me a sketch of her whole history; and very
strange it was. She gave me, of course, her own version of the
marriage story, and I could not but wonder whether she might have
persuaded herself into believing it true, when she wound up her
curious and interesting account of her life by saying, "And now I am
ready to be carried to my place in the vault, and my place in the
vault is ready for me" (she pointed to the church which adjoined the
old mansion); "and I have the key of it here," and she gave a hearty
slap upon her pocket. She told me of her presentation at Court, and
the uproar it occasioned among the great ladies there, whose
repugnance to admit her of their number she described with much
humor, but attributed solely to the fact of her plebeian descent, of
which she spoke unhesitatingly.

The impression I gathered from her narrative, rather unconsciously
on her part I suspect, was that the Queen, whose strictness upon the
subject of reputation was well known, objected to receiving her
(Lady Berkeley called her, rather disrespectfully, "Old Charlotte"
all the time, but spoke of George III. as "the King"), but was
overruled by the King, who had a personal friendship for Lord
Berkeley.

The strangest thing in her whole account of herself, however, was
the details she gave me of her singular power over her husband. She
said that in a very few years after their marriage (by courtesy) she
perceived that her husband's affairs were in the most deplorable
state of derangement: that he gambled, that he was over head and
ears in debt, that he never had a farthing of ready money, that his
tenantry were worse off than any other in the country, that his
agents and bailiffs and stewards were rogues who ground them and
cheated him, that his farmers were careless and incompetent, and
that the whole of his noble estate appeared to be going
irretrievably to ruin; when the earl complaining one day bitterly of
this state of things, for which he knew no remedy, she told him that
she would find the remedy, and undertake to recover what was lost
and redeem what remained, if he would give her absolute
discretionary power to deal with his property as she pleased, and
not interfere with her management of it for a whole year. He agreed
to this, but, not satisfied with his promise, she made him bind
himself by oath and, moreover, execute documents, giving her legal
power enabling her to act independently of him in all matters
relating to his estate. The earl not unnaturally demurred, but at
length yielded, only stipulating that she should always be prepared
to furnish him with money whenever he wanted it. She bound herself
to do this, and received regular powers from him for the
uninterrupted management of his property and administration of his
affairs for a whole year. She immediately set about her various
plans of reform, and carried them on vigorously and successfully,
without the slightest interference on the part of her dissipated and
careless husband, who had entirely forgotten the whole compact
between them. Some months after the agreement had gone into effect,
she perceived that he was harassed and disturbed about something,
and questioning him, found he had incurred a heavy gambling debt,
which he knew not how to meet. His surprise was extreme when,
recalling the terms of their mutual agreement, she put him in
possession of the sum he required. "He called me an angel," she
said. "You see, my dear, one is always an angel, when one holds the
strings of the purse, and that there is money in it."

She persevered in her twelvemonth's stewardship, and at the end of
that time had redeemed her word, and relieved her husband's estate
from its most pressing embarrassments. The value of the land had
increased; the condition of the tenantry had improved; intelligent
and active farmers had had the farms rented to them, instead of the
previous sleepy set of incumbents; and finally, a competent and
honest agent, devoted to carry out her views, was placed over the
whole. The property never fell from this highly prosperous
condition, for Lord Berkeley never withdrew it from his wife's
supervision; and she continued to administer his affairs till his
death, and maintained an extraordinary influence over all the
members of her family at the time of my acquaintance with her. They
were all rather singular persons, and had a vein of originality
which made them unlike the people one met in common society. I
suppose their mother's unusual character may have had to do with
this.

Lord Fitzhardinge was never at Cranford when I was there, though I
have, at various times, met all the other brothers.

Frederick Berkeley went into the navy, and rose to the important
position of an admiral; Craven Berkeley, Grantley Berkeley, and
Henry Berkeley were all in Parliament. The latter was for many
years Member for the important constituency of Bristol, and,
probably in consequence of opinions acquired during his residence in
the United States, was a consistent advocate for the introduction of
vote by ballot in our elections. This gentleman was an unusually
accomplished person: he had made preparatory studies for two
professions, the Church and the Bar; but though he embraced neither
career (possibly on account of an accident he met with while
hunting, which crippled him for life), the reading he had gone
through for both had necessarily endowed him with a more than common
degree of mental cultivation. He was an excellent musician, played
on the piano and organ with considerable taste and feeling, and had
a much more thorough acquaintance with the science of music than is
usual in an amateur.

Morton Berkeley sought no career; he lived with his mother and
sister, Lady Mary, at Cranford, his principal pleasure and
occupation being the preservation of the game on the estate--an
object of not very easy accomplishment, owing to the proximity of
Cranford to London, the distance being only twelve miles by
railroad, and the facilities thus offered of escape and impunity to
poachers necessarily considerable. The tract immediately round
Cranford was formerly part of the famous, or rather infamous,
Hounslow Heath; and I have heard Mr. Henry Berkeley say that in his
youth he remembered perfectly, when he went to London with his
father, by day or night, loaded pistols were an invariable part of
the carriage furniture.

My first acquaintance with Mr. Morton Berkeley's devotion to the
duties of a gamekeeper was made in a very singular manner, and
accompanied by a revelation of an unexpected piece of sentiment.

---- and myself were visiting at Cranford on one occasion, when the
only strangers there beside ourselves were Lady C----, Lord and Lady
S----, and Lord F---- and his sister, a lady of some pretensions to
beauty, but still more to a certain fashionable elegance of
appearance, much enhanced by her very Parisian elaborateness of
toilette.

One night, when the usual hour for retiring had come, the ladies,
who always preceded the gentlemen by some hours to their sleeping
apartments, had left the large room on the ground-floor, where we
had been spending the evening. As we ascended the stairs, my
attention was attracted by some articles of dress which lay on one
of the window-seats: a heavy, broad-brimmed hat, a large rough
pea-jacket, and a black leather belt and cutlass--a sort of
coastguard costume which, lying in that place, excited my curiosity.
I stopped to examine them, and Lady Mary exclaiming, "Oh, those are
Morton's night-clothes; he puts them on when everybody is gone to
bed, to go and patrol with the gamekeeper round the place. _Do_ put
them on for fun;" she seized them up and began accoutring me in
them.

When I was duly enveloped in these very peculiar trappings, we all
burst into fits of laughter, and it was instantly proposed that we
should all return to the drawing-room, I marching at their head in
my gamekeeper's costume. Without further consideration, I ran
downstairs again, followed by the ladies, and so re-entered the
room, where the gentlemen were still assembled in common council,
and where our almost immediate return in this fashion was hailed by
a universal shout of surprise and laughter. After standing for a
minute, with a huge rough overcoat over my rose-colored satin and
_moire_ skirts, which made a most ludicrous termination to the
pugnacious habit of my upper woman, I plunged my hand into one of
the pockets, and drew forth a pair of hand-cuffs (a prudent
provision in case of an encounter with poachers). Encouraged by the
peals of merriment with which this discovery was greeted, I thrust
my other hand into the other pocket, when Mr. Morton Berkeley,
without uttering a word, rushed at me, and, seizing me by the wrist,
prevented my accomplishing my purpose. The suddenness of this
movement frightened me at first a good deal. Presently, however, my
emotion changed, and I felt nothing but amazement at being thus
unceremoniously seized hold of, and rage at finding that I could not
extricate myself from the grasp that held me. Like a coward and a
woman, I appealed to all the other gentlemen, but they were laughing
so excessively that they were quite unable to help me, and probably
anticipated no great mischief from Mr. Berkeley's proceeding. I was
almost crying with mortification, and actually drew the cutlass and
threatened to cut the fingers that encircled my wrist like one of
the iron handcuffs, but, finding my captor inexorable, I was
obliged, with extreme sulky confusion, to beg to be let go, and
promise to take the coat off without any further attempts to search
the pockets. I divested myself of my borrowed apparel a great deal
faster than I had put it on, and its owner walked off with the
pea-jacket, the right pocket of which remained unexplored. We ladies
withdrew again, rather crestfallen at the termination of our joke, I
rubbing my wrist like Mary Stuart after her encounter with Lord
Ruthven, and wondering extremely what could be the mysterious
contents of that pocket.

The next day Lady Mary told me that her brother had long cherished a
romantic sort of idolatry for Miss F----, and that, as a pendant to
the handcuffs in one pocket of his dreadnought, the other contained
her miniature, which he dreaded the night before that my
indiscretion would produce, to the derision of the men, the distress
and confusion of the young lady herself, and the possible
displeasure of her brother. Mr. Morton Berkeley's manners to me
after that were again, as they always had been, respectful and
rather reserved; the subject of our "fight" was never again alluded
to, and he remained to me a gentle, shy, courteous (and romantic)
gentleman.

He was habitually silent, but when he did speak, he was very apt to
say something apposite, and generally containing the pith of the
matter under discussion. I remember once, when I was reproaching his
brother Henry and his sister with what I thought the unbecoming
manner in which they criticised the deportment and delivery of a
clergyman whose sermon they had just listened to (and who certainly
was rather an unfortunate specimen of outward divinity), Mr. Morton
Berkeley suddenly turned to me, and said, "Why, Mrs. Butler, he is
only the rusty bars the light shines through"--a quotation, in fact,
but a very apposite one, and I am not sure but that it was an
unconscious one, and an original illustration on his part.

Mr. Thomas Duncombe, the notorious Radical Member for Finsbury, very
generally and very disrespectfully designated in the London society
of his day as "Tommy Duncombe," and Mr. Maxse (Lady Caroline
Berkeley's husband), were also among the persons with whom I became
acquainted at Cranford.

Of a curious feat of charioteership performed by the latter
gentleman I was told once by the Duke of Beaufort, who said he had
derived from it the nickname of "Go-along Maxse." Driving late one
night with a friend on a turnpike road after the gates were closed,
he said to his companion, "Now, if the turnpike we are just coming
to is shut, I'll take the horse and gig over the gate." The gig was
light, the horse powerful and swift. As they bowled along and came
in sight of the gate, they perceived that it was closed; when Mr.
Maxse's companion calling out to him, "Go-along, Maxse," that
gentleman fulfilled his threat or promise, whichever it might be,
and put his horse full at the gate, which the gallant creature
cleared, bringing the carriage and its live freight safe to the
ground on the other side; a feat which I very unintentionally
imitated, in a humble degree, many years after, with an impunity my
carelessness certainly did not deserve.

Driving in a state of considerable mental preoccupation out of my
own gate one day at Lenox, in a very light one-horse "wagon" (as
such vehicles are there called), instead of turning my horse's head
either up or down the road, I let him go straight across it, to the
edge of a tolerably wide dry ditch, when, suddenly checking him, the
horse, who was a saddle-horse and a good leaper, drew himself
together, and took the ditch, with me in the carriage behind him,
and brought up against a fence, where there was just room for him to
turn round, which he immediately did, as if aware of his mistake,
and proceeded to leap back again, quite successfully without any
assistance of mine, I being too much amazed at the whole performance
to do anything but sit still and admire my horse's dexterity.

I have adverted to the still existing industry of "gentlemen of the
road," in speaking of Cranford in the days of the Earl of Berkeley,
who used to take pistols in the carriage when he went to London. On
one occasion, when he was riding, unattended but fortunately not
unarmed, over some part of Hounslow Heath, a highwayman rode up to
him, and, saluting him by name, said, "I know, my lord, you have
sworn never to give in to one of us; but now I mean to try if you're
as good as your word." "So I have, you rascal, but there are two of
you here," replied the earl. The robber, thrown off his guard,
looked round for the companion thus indicated, and Lord Berkeley
instantly shot him through the head; owing it to his ready presence
of mind that he escaped a similar fate at the hands of his
assailant.

My mother, I think, had the advantage of a slight personal
acquaintance with one of the very last of these Tyburn heroes. She
lived at one time, before her marriage, with her mother and sisters
and only brother, at a small country house beyond Finchley; to which
suburban, or indeed then almost entirely rural, retreat my father
and other young men of her acquaintance used occasionally to resort
for an afternoon's sport, in the present highly distinguished
diversion of pigeon-shooting. On one of these occasions some one of
her habitual guests brought with him a friend, who was presented to
my mother, and joined in the exercise of skill. He was like a
gentleman in his appearance and manners, with no special peculiarity
but remarkably white and handsome hands and extraordinary dexterity,
or luck, in pigeon-shooting. Captain Clayton was this individual's
name, and his visit, never repeated to my mother's house, was
remembered as rather an agreeable event. Soon after this several
outrages were committed on the high-road which passed through
Finchley; and Moody, the celebrated comic actor, who lived in that
direction, was stopped one evening, as he was driving himself into
town, by a mounted gentleman, who, addressing him politely by name,
demanded his watch and purse, which Moody surrendered, under the
influence of "the better part of valor." Having done so, however, he
was obliged to request his "very genteel" thief to give him enough
money to pay his turnpike on his way into town, where he was going
to act, whereupon the "gentleman of the road" returned him
half-a-crown, and bade him a polite "Good-evening." Some time after
this, news was brought into Covent Garden, at rehearsal one morning,
that a man arrested for highway robbery was at the Bow Street Police
Office, immediately opposite the theatre. Several of the _corps
dramatique_ ran across the street to that famous vestibule of the
Temple of Themis; among others, Mr. Moody and Vincent de Camp. The
latter immediately recognized my mother's white-handed,
gentleman-like pigeon-shooter, and Moody his obliging MacHeath of
the Finchley Common highway. "Halloa! my fine fellow," said the
actor to the thief, "is that you? Well, perhaps as you _are_ here,
you won't object to return me my watch, for which I have a
particular value, and which won't be of any great use to you now, I
suppose." "Lord love ye, Mr. Moody," replied _Captain Clayton_, with
a pleasant smile, "I thought you were come to pay me the half crown
I lent you."]

HARLEY STREET, Friday, April 22nd, 1842.
MY DEAR T----,

_I_ am not in the least indifferent to the advent of L100 sterling....

I am amused with your description of Dickens, because it tallies so completely with the first impression he made upon me the only time I ever met him before he went to America.... I admire and love the man exceedingly, for he has a deep warm heart, a noble sympathy with and respect for human nature, and great intellectual gifts wherewith to make these fine moral ones fruitful for the delight and consolation and improvement of his fellow-beings.

Lord Morpeth is indeed, as we say, another guessman, but quite one of the most amiable in this world or _that_. He is universally beloved and respected, so tenderly cherished, by his own kindred that his mother and sisters seem absolutely miserable with various anxieties about him, and the weariness of his prolonged absence. He is a most worthy gentleman, and "goes nigh to be thought so" by all classes here, I can tell you....

You ask me if I have any warmer friends in England than your people, who are certainly my warmest friends in America. I have some friends in my own country who have known and loved me longer than your family; but I do not think, with one or two exceptions, that they love me better, nor do I reckon upon the faith and affection of my American friends less than upon that of my English ones. But the number of people whom I entirely love and trust is very small anywhere, and yet large enough to make me thank God every day for the share He has given me of worthy friendships--treasures sufficient for me to account myself very rich in their possession; living springs of goodness and affection, in which my spirit finds never-failing refreshment. But I have in my own country a vast number of very kind and cordial acquaintances, and, to tell you the truth, am better understood (naturally) and better liked in society, I think, here than on your side of the water. I fancy I am more popular, upon the whole, among my own people than among yours; which is not to be wondered at, as difference is almost always an element of dislike, and, of course, I am more different from American than English people. Indeed, I have come to consider the difference of nationality a broader, stronger, and deeper difference than that produced by any mere dissimilarity of individual character. It is tantamount to looking at everything from another point of view; to having, from birth and through education, other standards; to having, in short, another intellectual and moral horizon. No personal unlikeness between two individuals of the same nation, however strong it may be in certain points, is equal to the entire unlikeness, fundamental, superficial, and thorough, of two people of different nations.

I am anxious to close this letter before I go out, and shall only add, in replying to your next question of whether I ever feel any desire to return to the stage, _Never_.... My very nature seems to me dramatic. I cannot speak without gesticulating and making faces, any more than an Italian can; I am fond, moreover, of the excitement of _acting_, personating interesting characters in interesting situations, giving vivid expression to vivid emotion, realizing in my own person noble and beautiful imaginary beings, and _uttering the poetry of Shakespeare_. But the stage is not only this, but much more that is not this; and that much more is not only by no means equally agreeable, but positively odious to me, and always was.

Good-by. God bless you and yours.

Believe me always yours most truly,
FANNY BUTLER.

HARLEY STREET, May 1st, 1842.
MY DEAREST HARRIET,

I have just despatched a letter to Emily, from whom I I have had two already since she reached Bannisters. She writes chiefly of her mother, whose efforts to bear her trial are very painful to poor Emily, whose fewer years and excellent mental habits render such exertions easier to her. To no one can self-control under such sorrow ever be easy.

You ask about my going to the Drawing-room, which happened thus: The Duke of Rutland dined some little time ago at the Palace, and, speaking of the late party at Belvoir, mentioned me, when the Queen asked why I didn't have myself presented. The duke called the next day at our house, but we did not see him, and he being obliged to go out of town, left a message for me with Lady Londonderry, to the effect that her Majesty's interest about me (curiosity would have been the more exact word, I suspect) rendered it imperative that I should go to the Drawing-room; and, indeed, Lady Londonderry's authoritative "Of course you'll go," given in her most _gracious_ manner, left me no doubt whatever as to my duty in that respect, especially as the message duly delivered by her was followed up by a letter from the duke, from Newmarket, who, from the midst of his bets, handicaps, sweepstakes, and cups, wrote me over again all that he had bid the marchioness tell me. Wherefore, having no objection whatever to go to Court (except, indeed, the expense of my dress, the idea of which caused me no slight trepidation, as I had already exceeded my year's allowance), I referred the matter to my supreme authority, and it being settled that I was to go, I ordered my tail, and my top, train, and feathers, and went. And this is the whole story, with this postscript, that, not owning a single diamond, I hired a handsome set for the occasion from Abud and Collingwood, every single stone of which darted a sharp point of nervous anxiety into my brain and bosom the whole time I wore them.

As you know that I would not go to the end of the street to see a drawing-room full of full moons, you will easily believe that there was nothing particularly delightful to me in the occasion. But after all, it was very little more of an exertion than I make five nights of the week, in going to one place or another; and under the circumstances it was certainly fitting and proper that I should go.

I suffered agonies of nervousness, and, I rather think, did all sorts of awkward things; but so, I dare say, do other people in the same predicament, and I did not trouble my head much about my various _mis_-performances. One thing, however, I can tell you: if her Majesty has seen me, I have not seen her; and should be quite excusable in cutting her wherever I met her. "A cat may look at _a_ king," it is said; but how about looking at _the_ Queen? In great uncertainty of mind on this point, I did not look at my sovereign lady. I kissed a soft white hand, which I believe was hers; I saw a pair of very handsome legs, in very fine silk stockings, which I am convinced were not hers, but am inclined to attribute to Prince Albert; and this is all I perceived of the whole royal family of England, for I made a sweeping courtesy to the "good remainders of the Court," and came away with no impression but that of a crowded mass of full-dressed confusion, and neither know how I got in nor out of it....

You ask about Liszt. He does not take the management of the German Opera, as was expected; indeed, I wonder he ever accepted such an employment. I should think him most unfit to manage such an undertaking, with his excitable temper and temperament. I do not know whether he will come to London at all this season. Adelaide has been bitterly disappointed about it, and said that she had reckoned upon him in great measure for the happiness of her whole summer....

You ask next in your category of questions after Adelaide's dog, and whether it is led in a string successfully yet; and thereby hangs a tale. T'other morning she was awakened by a vehement knocking at her door, and S---- exclaiming, in a loud and solemn voice, "Adelaide, thy maid and thy dog are in a fit together!" which announcement she continued to repeat, with more and more emphasis, till my sister, quite frightened, jumped out of bed, and came upon the stairs, where she beheld the two women and children just come in from their walk; Anne, looking over the banisters with her usual peculiar air of immovable dignity, slowly ejaculating, "What a fool the girl is!" Caroline followed in her wake, wringing her hands, and alternately shrieking and howling, like all the Despairs in the universe. It was long before anything could be distinguished of articulate speech, among the fraeulein's howls and shrieks; but at length it appeared that she had taken "die Tine" out in the Regent's Park with Anne and the children, who now go out directly after their breakfast. Tiny, it seems, enjoyed the trip amazingly, and became so excited and so very much transported with what we call animal spirits in human beings that it began to run, as the fraeulein thought, away. Whereupon the fraeulein began to run after it; whereupon Tiny, when it heard this Dutch nymph heavy in hot pursuit, ran till it knocked its head against a keeper's lodge, and here, because it shook and trembled and stared, probably at its own unwonted performance, a sympathizing crowd collected, who instantly proclaimed it at first in a _conwulsion_ fit, and then decidedly mad. Water was offered it, which it only stared at and shook its head, evidently dreading the cleansing element. A policeman coming by immediately proposed to kill it. This, however, the fraeulein objected to; and catching the bewildered quadruped in her arms, she set off home, escorted by a running mob of sympathetic curiosity. But about half-way the struggle between herself and "die Tine" became so terrific that it ended by the luckless little brute escaping from her, and precipitating itself down an area, where it remained, invoking heaven with howls, while Caroline ran howling down the street. The man-servant was then sent (twice with a wrong direction) to fetch the poor little creature up, and bring it home. At length Caroline accompanied the footman to the scene of the dog-astrophe (you wouldn't call it _cat_-astrophe, would you?), and "die Tine" was safely lodged in the back-yard here, where, being left alone and not bothered with human solicitude, it presently recovered as many small wits as it ever had, drank voluntarily plenty of water, and gave satisfactory signs of being quite as rational as any lady's little dog need be; but the fraeulein protests she will never take "die Tine" out walking again.

Good-bye dear. God bless you. I am pretty well, if that comports with low spirits and terrible nervous irritability.

Yours ever,
FANNY.

My father desires his love to you.

HARLEY STREET, Friday, May 6th, 1842.

I did ask Emily my botanical questions, but she could tell me no more than you have done, and knew nothing special about the primroses.

You ask me a great deal in your letter about my father again taking the management of Covent Garden, and on what terms he has done so; all which I have told you in the letter I have just despatched to you....

Adelaide has repeatedly said that, as soon as she has realized three hundred a year, she will give up the whole business; and I comfort myself with that purpose of hers; for if at the conclusion of next season she will go to America for a year, she will more than realize the result she proposes to herself.... I cannot, however, help fearing that obstacles may arise to prevent her eventually fulfilling her purpose when the time comes for her retiring, according to her present expectation and wish....

I have not been out a great deal lately, We seem a little less inclined to fly at all quarry than last season; and as I never decide whether we shall accept the invitations that come or not, I am very well pleased that some of them are declined. I believe I told you that Lady Londonderry had asked us to a magnificent ball. This I was rather sorry to refuse, as a ball is quite as great a treat to me as to any "young miss" just coming out. Indeed, I think my capacity of enjoyment and excitement is greater than that of most "young misses" I see, who not only talk of being _bored_, but actually contrive, poor creatures! to look so in the middle of their first season.

I spent two hours with poor Lady Dacre yesterday evening.... After sitting with her, we went to a large party at Sydney Smith's, where I was very much amused and pleased, and saw numbers of people that I know and like--rather.

You ask about my walks.... They are now chiefly confined to my peregrinations in the Square, measuring the enclosed gravel walks of which I have already, since your departure, finished the "Memoires de l'Enfant du Peuple," and brought myself, _mirabile dictu!_ to within twenty pages of the end of Mrs. Jameson's book upon Prussian school statistics....

I do not think Mr. W---- any authority upon any subject. I consider him a perfect specimen of a charlatan, and his opinions with regard to slavery and the abolitionists are particularly little worthy of credit in my mind, because he _used_ America precisely as an actor would, to make money wherever he could by his lectures, which he puffed himself, till he was absolutely laughed at all over the country, and which were, by the accounts of those who heard them, perfectly shallow and often quite erroneous as far as regarded the information they pretended to impart. The Southern States were a lucrative field for his lecturing speculation; the Northern abolitionists were far from being sufficiently numerous or influential for it to be worth his while to conciliate them; and for these reasons I attach little value to his statement upon that or indeed any other subject.

You ask me what was my impression altogether of the Drawing-room. I have told you about my own performances there, of which, however, I dare say I exaggerated the awkwardness to myself. The whole thing wearied me, just as any other large, overcrowded assembly where I could not sit down would; and that is the chief impression it has left upon me. I believe I was flattered by the Queen's expressing any curiosity about me, but I went simply because I was told it was right that I should do so. I am always horribly shy, or nervous, or whatever that foolish sensation ought to be called, at even having to walk across a room full of people; and therefore the fuss and to-do and ceremonial of the presentation (particularly not having been very well drilled beforehand by Lady Francis, who presented me) were disagreeable to me; but I have retained no impression of the whole thing other than of a very large and fatiguing rout. We are advised to go again on the birthday, but that I am sure we shall not do; and now that the Queen--God bless her!--has perceived that I do not go upon all-fours, but am indeed, as Bottom says, "a woman like any other woman," I have no doubt her gracious Majesty is abundantly satisfied with what she saw of me.

Good-bye, dearest Harriet.

Ever yours,
F. A. B.

[The enthusiastic abolitionist, Mrs. Lydia Child, had written to me,
requesting me to give her for publication some portions of the
journal I had kept during my residence in Georgia; and I had
corresponded with my friend Mrs. Charles Sedgwick upon the subject,
deciding to refuse her request. My Georgia journal never saw the
light till the War of Secession was raging in America, and almost
all the members of the society in which I was then living in England
were strongly sympathizing with the Southern cause, when I thought
it right to state what, according to my own observation and
experience, that cause involved.]

HARLEY STREET, May 6th, 1842.
MY DEAREST HARRIET,

The carriage is waiting to take ---- to the _Levee_, and I am waiting till it comes back to go upon my thousand and one daily errands. Adelaide, it being her last day at home, appears anxious to enjoy as much as she can of my society, and has therefore gone fast asleep in the arm-chair by the table at which I am writing, and has expressed her intention of coming out and paying visits with me this morning. She starts at eight o'clock this evening, and will reach Birmingham, I believe, about one. This arrangement, which I should think detestable, pleases her very much....

Mr. Everett, our friend, presents ----, and I thought Anne would have fallen down in a fit when she heard that the ceremony consisted in going down on one knee and kissing the Queen's hand. She did not mind my doing it the least in the world, but her indignation has been unbounded at the idea of a free-born American citizen submitting to such degradation. Poor thing! "Lucifer, son of the morning," was meek and humble to her.

We dined to-day with the Francis Egertons, to meet the young Guardsmen who are to form our _corps dramatique_ for "The Hunchback," which, you know, we are going to act in private. To-morrow evening we go to Sydney Smith's, and on Monday down to Oatlands for a few days. I am always delighted in that place and the lovely wild country round it. Lady Francis will mount me, and I expect my old enjoyment in riding about those beautiful and well-remembered haunts with her....

There has been a grand row at the Italian Opera-House, among the managers, singers, and singeresses. Mario (Mons. Di Candia; I suppose you know who I mean) has, it seems, for some reason or other, been _discharged_. Madame Grisi, who sympathizes with him, refuses to uplift her voice, that being the case; the new singeress, Frezzolini, does not please at all; and the new singer, Rouconi, isn't allowed by his wife to sing with any woman but herself, and she is a perfect _dose_ to the poor audience. Lumley, the solicitor, manager of these he and she divinities, declares that if they don't behave better he'll shut the theatre at the end of the week. In the mean time, underhand proposals have been made to Adelaide to stop the gap, and sing for a few nights for them--a sort of proposal which does not suit her, which she has scornfully rejected, and departed with her tail over her shoulder, leaving the behind scenes of Her Majesty's Theatre with their tails between their legs....

My dearest Harriet, you ask me if I do not think the spirit of martyrdom is often alloyed with self-esteem and wilfulness. God alone knows the measure in which human infirmity and human virtue unite in inducing the sacrifice of life and all that life loves for a point of opinion. I confess, for my own part, self-esteeming and wilful as I am, that to suffer bodily torture for the sake of an abstract question of what one believes to be right is an effort of courage so much above any that I am capable of that I do not feel as if I had a right to undervalue it by the smallest doubt cast upon the merit of those who have shown themselves capable of it. It may be that, without such admixture of imperfection as human nature's highest virtues are still tinged with, the confessors of every good and noble cause would have left unfulfilled their heroic task of witnessing to the truth by their death; but if indeed base alloy did mingle with their great and conscientious sacrifice, let us hope that the pangs of physical torture, the anguish of injustice and ignominy, and the rending asunder of all the ties of earthly affection, may have been some expiation for the imperfection of their most perfect deed....

Will you, my dear, be so good as to remember what a hang-nail is like? or a grain of dust in your eye? or a blister on your heel? or a corn on your toe? and then reflect what the word "torture" implies, when it meant all that the most devilish cruelty could invent. Savonarola! good gracious me! I would have _canted_ and _re_canted, and called black white, and white black, and confessed, and denied! Please don't think of it! God be praised, those days are over! Not but what I edified Mr. Combe greatly once, when I was a girl, by declaring that if, by behaving well under torture, I could have vexed my tormentors very much, and if I might have had plenty of people to see how well I behaved, I thought I could have managed it; to which he replied, "Oh, weel now, Fanny, ye've just got the very spirit of a martyr in you." See if that theory of the matter answers your notion....

You ask me how I managed about diamonds to go to Court in. I hired a set, which I also wore at the _fete_ at Apsley House; they were only a necklace and earrings, which I wore as a bandeau, stitched on scarlet velvet, and as drops in the middle of scarlet velvet bows in my hair, and my dress being white satin and point lace, trimmed with white Roman pearls, it all looked nice enough. The value of the jewels was only L700, but I am sure they gave me L7000 worth of misery; and if her Majesty had but known the anguish I endured in showing my respect for her by false appearances, the very least she could have done would have been to have bought the jewels and given them to me. Madame Devy made my Court dress, which was of such material as, you see, I can use when I play "The Hunchback" at Lady Francis's. I am ruining myself, in spite of my best endeavors to be economical; but if it is any comfort for you to know it, my conscience torments me horribly for it....

God bless you. Good-bye, dear.

Ever yours affectionately,
F. A. B.

HARLEY STREET, Saturday, May 7th, 1842.

... What an immense long talk I am having with you this morning, my dear Hal! I do not believe you are wearied, however; but you will surely wonder why I did not put all these letters under one cover with the three sovereign heads on the one packet; and I am sure I don't know why I have not. But it doesn't matter much my appearing a little more or a little less absurd to you.

You ask who I shall associate with while ---- and Adelaide are away.... I presume with my own writing-table and the carriage cushions, just as I do now, just as I did before, and just as I am likely to do hereafter....

It was not the presence of the Queen that affected my nerves at the Drawing-room, but _my own_ presence, _i.e._, as the French say, I was "tres embarrassee de ma personne." The uncertainty of what I was to do (for Lady Francis had been exceedingly succinct in her instructions), and the certainty of a crowd of people staring all round me,--this, I think, and not the overpowering sense of a royal human being before me, was what made me nervous. Were I to go again to a Drawing-room, now that I know my lesson, I do not think I should suffer at all from any embarrassment. We are not asked to the fancy ball at the Palace, I am told, because of our omission in not attending at the Birthday Drawing-room, which, it seems, is a usual thing after a first presentation. I should like to have seen it; it will be a fine sight. In the mean time, as many of our acquaintances are going, we come in for a full share of the insanity which has taken possession of men's and women's minds about velvets, satins, brocades, etc. You enter no room that is not literally _strewed_ with queer-looking prints of costumes; and before you can say, "How d'ye do?" you are asked which looks best together, blue and green, or pink and yellow; for, indeed, their selections are often as outrageous as these would be. I never conceived people could be so stupid at combining ideas, even upon this least abstruse of subjects; and you would think, to hear these fine ladies talk the inanity they do about their own clothes, now they are compelled to think about them for themselves, that they have no natural perceptions of even color, form, or proportion. The fact is that even their _dressing_-brains are turned over to their French milliners and lady's-maids. I understand Lady A---- says she will make her dress alone (exclusive of jewels) cost L1000.

Some people say this sort of mad extravagance does good; I cannot think it. It surely matters comparatively little that the insane luxury of the self-indulgent feeds the bodies of so many hundred people if at the same time the mischievous example of their folly and extravagance is demoralizing their hearts and minds and injuring a great many more.

Touching Lady A----, she gave the address of one of her milliners to Lady W----, who, complaining to her of the exorbitant prices of this superlative _faiseuse_, and plaintively stating that she had charged her fifty guineas for a simple morning dress, Lady A---- replied, "Ah, very likely, I dare say; I don't know anything about _cheap clothes_."

I do not know where Adelaide is likely to lodge in Dublin, nor do I believe she knows herself; but before this letter reaches you, you will have found out. I had almost a mind to ask her to write to me, but then I knew both how she hates it and how little time she was likely to have, so I forbore. She has left me with the pleasing expectation that any of these days her eccentric musical friend Dessauer may walk in, to be by me received, lodged, entertained, comforted, and consoled, in her absence (in which case, by-the-by, you know, I should associate with him while she is away). From parts of his letters which she has read to me, I feel very much inclined to like him, ... and I imagine I shall find him very amusing....

You ask about our getting up of "The Hunchback" at the Francis Egertons'. I forget whether you knew that Horace Wilson [my kind friend and connection, the learned Oxford Professor of Sanscrit, who to his many important acquirements and charming qualities added the accomplishments of a capital musician and first-rate amateur actor] has been seriously indisposed, and so out of health and spirits as to have declined the part of Master Walter, which he was to have taken in it. This has been a great disappointment to me, for he would have done it admirably, and as he is a person of whom I am very fond, it would have been agreeable to me to have had him among us, and I should have particularly liked him for so important a coadjutor. He failing us, however, Knowles himself has undertaken to play the part, and I shall be glad enough to do it with him again. I have a great deal of compassionate admiration for poor Knowles, who, with his undeniable dramatic genius, his bright fancy, and poetical imagination, will, I fear, end his days either in a madhouse or a poorhouse. The characters beside Sir Thomas Clifford and Modus (which you know are taken by Henry Greville and ----) are filled by a pack of young Guardsmen, with whom I dined, in order to make acquaintance, at Lady Francis's t'other day. Two of them, Captain Seymour and a son of Sir Francis Coles, are acquaintances of yours and your people.

You ask how I am amusing myself. Why, just as usual, which is well enough. I am of too troubled a nature ever to lack excitement, and have an advantage over most people in the diversion I am able to draw from very small sources.

I went last night to the French play, to see a French actress called Dejazet make her first appearance in London. The house was filled with our highest aristocracy, the stalls with women of rank and character, and the performance was, I think, one of the most impudent that I ever witnessed. Dr. Whewell [the celebrated Master of Trinity] and Mrs. Whewell were sitting near us, and left the theatre in the middle of Dejazet's first piece--I suppose from sheer disgust. She is a marvellous actress, and without exception the most brazen-faced woman I ever beheld, and that is saying a great deal. Good-bye.

Ever your affectionate
FANNY.

HARLEY STREET, Saturday, May 14th, 1842.
MY DEAREST HAL,

On my return from Oatlands yesterday, I found no fewer than four letters of yours, and this morning I have received a fifth.... I am most thankful for all your details about Adelaide, who, of course, will not have time to write to any of us herself.... Miss Rainsforth, her mother, and their travelling manager, Mr. Callcott, are her whole party.... Miss Rainsforth is a quiet, gentle, well-conducted, well-bred, amiable person; Mr. Callcott is a son of the composer, and a nephew of our friend Sir Augustus, and has the refinement of mind and manners which one would look for in any member of that family.... I am very sorry that Adelaide cannot see more of you, and you of her....

You ask whether it is a blessing or a curse not to provide one's own means of subsistence. I think it is a great blessing to be able and allowed to do so. But I dare say I am not a fair judge of the question, for the feeling of independence and power consequent upon earning large sums of money has very much destroyed my admiration for any other mode of support; and yet certainly my _pecuniary_ position now would seem to most people very far preferable to my former one; but having _earned_ money, and therefore most legitimately _owned_ it, I never can conceive that I have any right to the money of another person.... I cannot help sometimes regretting that I did not reserve out of my former earnings at least such a yearly sum as would have covered my personal expenses; and having these notions, which impair the comfort of _being maintained_, I am sometimes sorry that I no longer possess my former convenient power of coining. I do not think I should feel so uncomfortable about inheriting money, though I had not worked for it; for, like any other free gift, I think I should consider that legitimately my own, just like any other present that was made me....

"The Hunchback" is to be acted at the Francis Egertons', in London, though I do not very well see how; for Bridgewater House is in process of rebuilding, and their present residence in Belgrave Square, though large enough for all social purposes, is far from being well adapted to theatrical ones; insomuch--or, rather, so little--that it is my opinion we shall be in each other's arms, laps, and pockets throughout the whole performance, which will be inconvenient, and in some of the situations slightly indecorous.

I have received this morning, my dear, your notice of the "Sonnambula," for which we are all very grateful to you. Give my love to my sister. I expected her success as a matter of course, and did not anticipate much annoyance to her from her present mode of life, ... because I have known her derive extreme amusement and diversion from circumstances and associates that would have been utterly distasteful to me. Her love and perception of the ridiculous is not only positive enjoyment, but a protection from annoyance and a mitigation of disgust. My father desires his love to you, and bids me thank you for your kindness in sending him the newspapers. With regard to that last song in the "Amina," of which you speak as of a _tour de force_, it is hardly so much so, in point of fact, as her execution of the whole part, which is too high for her; and though she sings it admirably in spite of that, she cannot give it the power and expression that she would if it lay more easily in her voice. This, however, is the case with other music that she sings, and the consequence is that, though she has great execution, and power, and sweetness, and finish in the use of her artificial voice, it wants the spontaneous force in high music of a naturally high organ.

Pray, did you ever pity me as much as you do Adelaide in the exercise of her profession? You certainly never expressed the same amount of compassion for my strolling destinies, nor did I ever hear you lament in this kind over the fate of John Kemble and Mrs. Siddons, both of whom had impertinences addressed to them by your Dublin gallery humorists. Pray, what is the meaning of this want of feeling on your part for _us others_, or your excess of it for Adelaide? Is it only singing histrions who appear to you objects of compassion? Good-bye, dearest Harriet. I have to write to Emily, and to answer an American clergyman, a friend of mine, who has written to me from Paris; and moreover, being rather in want of money, I am about to endeavor to make practicable for the English stage a French piece called "Mademoiselle de Belle Isle," which, with certain vicious elements, has some very striking and effective situations, and is, dramatically speaking, one of the most cleverly constructed plays I have seen for a long while. Therefore, farewell. If I could _earn_ L200 now, I should be glad.

HARLEY STREET, Thursday, May 19th, 1842.

Thank you, my dearest Harriet, for your long account of Adelaide. She has written to my father, which I was very glad of.... Of course, I have not expected to hear from her, but have been delighted to get all your details. In her letter to my father, she says she gets on extremely well with her companions, that they are gay and merry, and that her life with them is pleasant and amuses her very much.