Chapter XVII: Part 17

You do not ask me a single question about a single thing, and therefore I will just tell you how matters in general go on with me. In the first place, I heard yesterday that we are definitely to return to America in August. Some attempt was made to renew our lease of this house for a few months; but difficulties have arisen about it, and we shall probably return to the United States as soon as possible after our lease expires. I do not yet feel at all sure of the fulfilment of this intention, however; but at any rate it is one point of apparent decision indicated....

My feelings and thoughts about the return are far too numerous and various to be contained in a letter. One thing I think--I feel sure of--_that it is right_, and therefore I am glad we are to do it. My father, to whom this intention has not yet been mentioned, is looking wonderfully well, and appears to be enjoying his mode of life extremely. He spends his days at Covent Garden, and finds even now, when the German company are carrying on their _opera_tions there, enough to do to keep him interested and incessantly busy within those charmed and charming precincts. I am pretty well, though not in very good spirits; my life is much more quiet and regular than when you were here, and I enjoy a considerable portion of retiracy.

I have taken possession of Adelaide's little sitting-room, and inhabit it all day, and very often till tea-time in the evening. Owing to our day no longer being cut to pieces by our three-o'clock dinner (on account of Adelaide), I do not run into arrears with my visits, and generally, after discharging one or two recent debts of that sort, am able to get an hour's walk in Kensington Gardens, and come home between four and five o'clock.

We have not been out a great deal lately; we have taken, I am happy to say, to discriminating a little among our invitations, and no longer accept everything that offers.

I spent three delightful days at Oatlands, which is charming to me from its own beauty and the association of the pleasure which I enjoyed there in past years. The hawthorn was just coming into blossom, the wild heaths and moors and commons were one sheet of deep golden gorse and pale golden broom, and nothing could be lovelier than the whole aspect of the country.

The day before yesterday I dined _tete-a-tete_ with Mademoiselle d'Este, for whom I have taken rather a fancy, and who appears to have done the same by me. Her position is a peculiar and trying one, combined with her character, which has some striking and interesting elements. She is no longer young, but has still much personal beauty, and that of an order not common in England: very dark eyes, hair, and complexion, with a freedom and liveliness of manner and play of countenance quite unusual in Englishwomen.... She lives a great deal alone, and reads a great deal, and thinks a little, and I feel interested in her. She has sacrificed the whole comfort and, it appears to me, much of the possible happiness of her life to her notion of being a princess, which, poor thing! she is not; and as she will not be satisfied with, or even accept, the position of a private gentlewoman, she is perpetually obliged to devise means of avoiding situations, which are perpetually recurring, in which her real rank, or rather _no_ rank, is painfully brought home to her. This unfortunate pretension to princess-ship has probably interfered vitally with her happiness, in preventing her marrying, as she considers, below her birth [_i.e._ royally]; and as she is a very attractive woman, and, I should judge, a person of strong feelings and a warm, passionate nature, this must have been a considerable sacrifice; though in marrying, to be sure, she might only have realized another form of disappointment.

Yesterday we went to a fine dinner at Lord F----'s. He and his sisters are good-natured young people of large fortune, whose acquaintance we made at Cranford, and who are very civil and amiable in their demonstrations of good-will towards us. A son of the Duke of Leinster was at this dinner, and invited ---- to go with him this morning and see Prince Albert review the Guards; which he has accordingly done.

To-night we go to Sydney Smith's, which I always enjoy exceedingly; and for next week, I am happy to say, we have at present no engagements but a dinner at the Francis Egertons', and another evening at Sydney Smith's....

I believe I have now told you pretty much all I have to tell. I am working at a translation of a French piece called "Mademoiselle de Belle Isle," by which I hope to make a little money, with which I should be very glad to pay Mademoiselle Devy's bill for my spring finery.

I went to Covent Garden the other day, to see if I could find anything in the theatre wardrobe that I could make use of for "The Hunchback," and did find something; and, moreover, I think Adelaide will be able to get her dress for Helen from there, though it seemed rather a doleful daylight collection of frippery. My first dress I can make one of my own white muslin ones serve for, my last I shall get beautifully out of my Court costume; so that the three will only cost me the price of altering them for the private theatrical occasion.

We met at Oatlands Mrs. G----, the mother of the Member for Dublin, who has been preparing herself, by a twelve years' residence on the Continent, for a plunge into savagedom, by a return to her home in Connemara; and it was both comical and sad to hear her first launch out upon the merits of the dear "wild Irish," and her desire to be among and serviceable to "her people," and then, all in the same breath, declare that the mere atmosphere of England and English society was enough to kill any one with "the blue devils" who had ever been abroad; and this, mind you, is the impression British existence makes upon her in the full height of the gay London season. Fancy what she will find Connemara! She knows you and your people, and gave me a most ardent invitation to the savage Ireland where she lives. Poor woman! I pity her; her case is not absolutely unknown to me, or quite without parallel in my own experience.

Good-bye. God bless you.

Your affectionate
F. A. B.

HARLEY STREET.

This letter has been begun a week; it is now Saturday, May 28th, 1842.

MY DEAREST HARRIET,

Pray give my love to Mrs. Kemble, and tell her that the Queen Dowager sent for me to go and pay her a visit yesterday. For goodness' sake, Harriet, don't misunderstand me, I am only in joke! I live among such very matter-of-fact persons that I really tremble for an hour after every piece of nonsense I utter. You must observe by this that I am in a painfully frequent state of trepidation; but what I meant by this message to Mrs. Kemble is that I have been extremely amused at her taking the trouble to write to Mrs. George Siddons to find out "all about" my going to the Drawing-room, and the rumor which had reached her of the Queen having desired to see me. George Siddons told me this himself, and it struck me as such a funny interest in my concerns on the part of Mrs. Kemble, who takes none whatever in _me_, that I thought I would send her word of the piece of preferment which has occurred to me since, viz. being sent for by the Queen Dowager, who desired my friend Mademoiselle d'Este to bring me to call upon her. But what wonderful gossip it does seem to be writing gravely round and round from Leamington to London, and from London to Leamington, about!

You ask me how it fares with me. Why, busily and wearily enough. We have had a perfect deluge of invitations lately, two or three thick of a night....

We are going to-night to the Duchess of Sutherland's fancy ball at Stafford House, which is to be a less formal, but not less magnificent, show than the Queen's masque.

I have not begun to rehearse "The Hunchback" yet, for _I_ shall not require many rehearsals; but one of our party attended the first this morning, and said all the young amateurs promised very fairly, and that Henry Greville did his part extremely well, which I am very glad to hear. I have had but one visit from him since his return to town, when, of course, he discussed Adelaide's plans with great zeal. He certainly wishes very much that she should sing at the Opera, but his view of the whole matter is so different from mine ... that we are not likely to agree very well, even upon so general a point of discussion as her best professional interests.

I am much concerned at your observations about her exhaustion and hoarseness. I am so anxious that her present life should not be prolonged, so anxious that she should realize her very moderate wishes and leave it, that I cannot bear to think of any possible failure of her precious gift from over-exertion.... I think, begging your pardon, you talk some nonsense when you compare your existence, as an object of rational pity, with my sister's. All other considerations set apart, there are certain conditions of life, which are the result of peculiar states and stages of society, that are indisputably less favorable for the production of happiness, and the exercise of goodness also, than others. Among these results of over-civilization are the careers of public exhibitors of every description. In judging of their conduct or character, we may make every allowance for the peculiar dangers of their position, and the temptations of their peculiar gifts; but I confess I am amazed at any woman who, sheltered by the sacred privacy of a home, can envy the one or desire the other.

Dearest Harriet, this letter has lain so long unfinished, and I am now so engulfed in all sorts of worry, flurry, hurry, row, fuss, bustle, bother, dissipation and distraction, that it is vain hoping to add anything intelligible to it. Good-bye, dearest.

Ever yours,
FANNY.

HARLEY STREET, May 29th, 1842.
DEAREST HARRIET,

This is Sunday, and, owing to my custom of neither paying visits nor going to dinner or evening parties on "the first day of the week," I look forward to a little leisure; though the repeated raps at the door already this morning remind me that it will probably be interrupted often enough to render it of little avail for any purpose of consecutive occupation....

You ask me if I think of "taking to translating." My dear Harriet, if you mean when I return to America, I shall take to nothing there but the stagnant life I led there before, which, in the total absence of any impulse from the external circumstances in which I live and the utter absence of any interest in any intellectual pursuit in those with whom I live, becomes absolutely inevitable; and so I think that, once again in my Transatlantic home, I shall neither originate nor translate anything.

I have "taken to translating" "Mademoiselle de Belle Isle" because my bill at Mademoiselle Devy's is L97, and I am determined _my brains_ shall pay it; therefore, also, I have given my father a ballet on the subject of Pocahontas, and am preparing and altering "Mademoiselle de Belle Isle" for Covent Garden, for both which pieces of work I hope to get something towards my L97. Besides this, I have offered my "Review of Victor Hugo" to John for the _British Quarterly Review_, of which he is, you know, the editor--of course, telling him that it was written for an American magazine--and he has promised me sixteen guineas for it if it suits him. Besides this, I have offered Bentley the beginning of my Southern journal, merely an account of our journey down to the plantation.... Besides this, I have drawn up and sketched out, act by act, scene by scene, and almost speech by speech, a play in five acts, a sequel to the story of Kotzebue's "Stranger," which I hope to make a good work of. Thus, you see, my brains are not altogether idle; and, with all this, I am rehearsing "The Hunchback" with our amateurs, for three and four hours at a time, attending to my own dresses and Adelaide's (who will attend to nothing), returning, as usual, all the visits, and going out to dinners and parties innumerable. This, you will allow, is rather a double-quick-time sort of existence; but the after-lull of the future will be more than sufficient for rest.

Alexandre Dumas is the author of "Mademoiselle de Belle Isle," and I was led to select that piece to work upon, not so much from the interest of the story, which is, however, considerable, as from the dramatic skill with which it is managed, and the circumstances made to succeed each other. There is, unfortunately, an insuperably objectionable incident in it, which I have done my best to modify; but it is one of the most ingeniously constructed pieces I have seen for a long time, and gives admirable opportunities for good acting to almost every member of the _dramatis personae_.

Mademoiselle d'Este has no right to the painful feeling of illegitimacy, for her mother was her father's wife, and therefore she has not, what indeed I can conceive to be, a bitter source of wounded pride and incessant rational mortification. The Duke of Sussex married Lady Augusta Murray, and that, I should think, might satisfy his daughter, in spite of all the Acts of Parliament afterwards devised to restrict and regulate royal marriages. Mademoiselle d'Este's is merely a perpetual protest against an irreversible social decree, and an incessant, unavailing struggle for the observance and respect conventionally due to a rank which is _not_ hers; and though it appears to me as senseless a cause of trouble as ever human being chose to accept, yet as incessant bitterness and mortification and annoyance are its results for her, poor soul! of course to her it is real enough, if not in itself, in the results she gathers from it.

My dinner has intervened, my dear, since this last sentence, and, moreover, a permission from my sister to inform you that _she is engaged to be married_!...

You ask how Adelaide looks after her Dublin campaign. She looks better now, in spite of all her fatigue, than she has done since her return from Italy; her face looks almost fat, to which appearance, however, it is in some degree helped by her hair being already in rehearsal for "The Hunchback," falling in ringlets on each side of her head, which becomes her very much....

I have heard from Elizabeth Sedgwick, and she concurs in the propriety of my _not_ giving Mrs. Child my Southern journal. I shall say no more upon that subject....

Good-bye, dearest Harriet. I look forward with anticipated refreshment to a ride which I have some chance of getting to-morrow, and for which I am really gasping. I got one ride this week, and the escort that came to the door for me touched and flattered me not a little: old Lord Grey and Lady G----, and his two grandsons, and Lord Dacre, and B---- S----, all came up from their part of the town _to fetch me a ride_, which was a great kindness on their part, and an honor, pleasure, and profit to me. God bless you, dear. I feel, as Margery says, "in a kind of bewilder," but ever yours,

FANNY.

[My first meeting with Mademoiselle d'Este took place at Belvoir
Castle, where we were both on a visit to the Duke of Rutland, and
where my attention was drawn to the peculiarity of her conduct by my
neighbor at the dinner-table, who said to me, just after we had
taken our places, "Do you see Mademoiselle d'Este? She will do that
now every day while she remains here." Mademoiselle d'Este at this
moment entered the dining-room alone, and passed down the side of
the table with an inclination to the duke, and a half-muttered
apology about being late. This, it seems, was simply a pretence to
cover her determination not to give precedence to any of the women
in the house by being taken into dinner after them. The Duchesses of
Bedford and Richmond, the Countess of Winchelsea, and other women of
rank being then at the castle, Mademoiselle d'Este's pretensions
stood not the slightest chance of acknowledgment, and she took this
quite ineffectual way of protesting against her social position.

Everybody at Belvoir was sufficiently familiar with her to accept
these sort of proceedings on her part. To me they seemed more
undignified and wanting in real pride and self-respect than a quiet
acquiescence in the inevitable would have been. The conventional
distinction she demanded had been legally refused her, and it was
not in the power of the society to which she belonged to give it to
her, however much they might have felt inclined to pity her position
and excuse her resentment of it. But it was inconceivable to me that
she should not either withdraw absolutely from all society (which is
what I should have done in her place), or submit silently to an
injury against which all protest was vain, which renewed itself, in
some shape or other, daily, and which really involved no personal
affront to her or injustice to the character of her mother. I
thought she made a great mistake, which did not prevent my being
attracted by her; and while we were at Belvoir, and immediately
afterwards at Lord Willoughby's together, and subsequently on our
return to London, we had a good deal of familiar and friendly
intercourse with each other, in the course of which I had many
opportunities of observing the perpetual struggle she maintained
against what she considered the intolerable hardship of her
position.

She occupied a pretty little house in Mount Street, Grosvenor
Square, and never allowed her servants to wear anything but the
undress of the royal household; the scarlet livery being, of course,
out of the question. On one or two occasions I dined with her
_tete-a-tete_, and took no notice of the fact, which I remembered
afterwards, that she invariably sent the servant out of the room,
and helped herself and me with her own hands; but once, when the
Duchess of B---- dined with us, and Mademoiselle d'Este had a
dumb-waiter placed beside her, and, sending the man-servant out of
the room, performed all the table service (except, indeed, bringing
in the dishes), with our assistance only, the duchess assured me
afterwards that this was simply because, in her own house,
Mademoiselle d'Este would not submit to the unroyal indignity of
being waited upon after her guests at her own table by her own
servants.

When the preparations for the fancy ball at the Palace were turning
half the great houses in London into milliners' shops, filled with
stuffs, and patterns, and pictures, and materials for fancy dresses,
and drawings of costumes, and gabbling, shrieking, distracted women,
Mademoiselle d'Este consulted me about her dress, and we passed a
whole morning looking over a huge collection of plates of historical
personages and picturesque portraits of real or imaginary heroines.
Among these I repeatedly put aside several that I thought would be
especially becoming to her dark beauty and fine figure; and as often
was surprised to find that among those I had thus selected she had
invariably rejected a certain proportion, among which were two or
three particularly beautiful and appropriate, one or other of which
I should certainly have chosen for her above the rest. I couldn't
imagine upon what theory of selection she was guiding her
examination of the prints until, upon closer examination, I
perceived that the only portraits from which she had determined to
make her choice of a costume were those of princesses of blood
royal. Poor woman!

I once saw a curious encounter between her and the Marchioness of
L----, in which the most insolent woman of the London society of
that day was worsted with her own peculiar weapon, by the princess
"claimant," and ignominiously beaten from the field.

The occasion of my being presented to the Queen Dowager was this: I
had been dining one day with Mademoiselle d'Este, when the
Marchioness of Londonderry came in, and read me a note she had
received from the Duke of Rutland, in which the latter said that the
Queen had asked him why I had not been presented at Court. After
Lady Londonderry was gone, I expressed some surprise at this
unexpected honor, and some dismay at finding that it was considered
a matter of course that, under these circumstances, I should go to
the Drawing-room. I felt shy about the ceremony, and sordidly
reluctant to spend the sum of money upon my dress which I knew it
must cost me. All this I discussed with Mademoiselle d'Este, and
expressing my surprise at the Queen's having condescended to ask why
I didn't have myself presented, Mademoiselle d'Este exclaimed, "Oh,
my dear, those people are so curious!" meaning the Queen and Prince
Albert, towards whom she had a great feeling of sore dislike; but
whether she meant by "curious" inquisitive or singular--_queer_--I
didn't ask her, being rather astonished at this "singular" mode of
speaking of our liege lady and her illustrious consort.

Poor Mademoiselle d'Este's feeling of bitterness against the Queen
arose, I have since been told, from various small slights which her
sensitive pride conceived she had received from her. Mademoiselle
d'Este's determination to assert her right to be considered a royal
personage had, perhaps, met with some other rebuffs from the Queen,
besides the one which she herself told me of with great irritation.

On the occasion of Queen Adelaide's Drawing-rooms, she had always
permitted Mademoiselle d'Este to make her entrance by the same
approach, and at the same time, with other members of the royal
family. After the accession of Queen Victoria, Mademoiselle d'Este
claimed the same privilege, which, however, was not granted her. She
told me this with many passionate, indignant comments, and
apparently desirous that I should be impressed by the superior charm
and graciousness of Queen Adelaide, whom she called "her Queen," and
of whom she spoke with the most affectionate regard and respect, she
said, "You must come with me and see _my_ Queen," and accordingly
she solicited permission to present me to the Queen Dowager, which
was granted, and I went with her one morning to pay my respects to
that great and good lady, and was to have done so a second time, but
was prevented by our departure from town.

I drove with Mademoiselle d'Este to Marlborough House in the
morning, and we were ushered through several apartments into a
small-sized sitting-room, where we were left. After a few moments a
lady entered, to whom Mademoiselle d'Este presented me. The Queen
Dowager was then apparently between fifty and sixty years old; a
thin, middle-sized woman, with gray hair and a long face, discolored
by the traces of some eruption. She looked in ill health, and was
certainly very plain, but her manner and the expression of her face
were very gentle and gracious, and her voice, with its German
accent, sweet and agreeable. She asked Mademoiselle d'Este if she
was going to the Duchess of Sutherland's ball, and on her replying
that she was not going, and giving some trifling reason for not
doing so, I couldn't help laughing, because on our way to
Marlborough House she had told me, with what appeared to me very
superfluous wrath and indignation, that she had received an
invitation to the duchess's ball, but that as it was coupled with an
intimation that it was hoped the persons who had been at the Queen's
great fancy ball, given a week before, would wear the same costumes
at Stafford House, Mademoiselle d'Este chose to consider this an
impertinent dictation, and said first "she would go in a plain white
satin gown," then "in a white muslin petticoat," finally, that "she
wouldn't go at all;" and working herself up by degrees into more
fury as she talked, she abused the Duchess of Sutherland vehemently,
mimicking her in a most ludicrous manner, and saying that she always
reminded her of "a great fat, white, trussed turkey," which
comparison and the ridiculous rage in which she made it made me
laugh till I cried, in spite of my admiration for the Duchess of
Sutherland, whose beauty and gracious sweetness of manner always
seemed to me very charming. When therefore, Mademoiselle d'Este
assigned another reason for not going to the Stafford House ball, in
answer to the Queen's inquiry, I couldn't help laughing, and told
the Queen the truth was that Mademoiselle d'Este's pride was hurt at
being requested to come in the fancy dress she had worn at the
Palace; and so, for this imaginary absurd offence, she was going to
give up a very fine and pleasant _fete_. The Queen laughed, and,
turning to Mademoiselle d'Este, said, "Your friend is right. You are
very foolish; you will lose a pleasant evening for nothing."

After this the conversation fell on the French plays and the
performances of Mademoiselle Dejazet, who was then acting at the St.
James's Theatre. The Queen having asked my opinion of these
representations, I said I was unwilling to enter upon the subject,
as I did not know how far the forms of etiquette would permit me to
express what I thought in her Majesty's presence. Upon her pressing
me, however, to state my opinion upon the subject, I reiterated what
I had said in a previous conversation with Mademoiselle d'Este upon
the matter, objecting to the extreme immorality of the pieces, and
expressing my astonishment at seeing decent Englishwomen crowd to
them night after night, since they certainly would not tolerate such
representations on the English stage.

Mademoiselle d'Este replied that that was because, on the English
stage, they would be coarse and vulgar. I denied that the difference
of language made any essential difference in the matter, though she
was certainly right in saying that the less refined style of English
acting might make the offensiveness of such pieces more unpleasantly
obtrusive; but that in looking round the assembly of fine ladies at
Dejazet's performances, I comforted myself by feeling very sure that
half of them did not understand what they were listening to; but I
think it must have been "nuts" to the clever, cynical, witty,
impudent Frenchwoman to see these _dames trois fois respectables_
swallow her performances _sans sourcilliez_.

After some more conversation on general subjects, the Queen Dowager
rose, saying she hoped Mademoiselle d'Este would bring me to visit
her again; and so we received our _conge_.

Mentioning the appearance of some eruption on the good Queen's face
reminds me of a painful circumstance which took place one day when,
meeting a beautiful child of about four years old, the daughter of
one of the ladies of the Court, who was going into the Palace
gardens under the escort of her nurse, the Queen stopped the child,
and, attracted by her beauty, stooped to kiss her, when the little
thing drew back with evident disgust, exclaiming, "No, no; you have
a red face! Mamma says I must never kiss anybody with a red face."
The poor Queen probably seldom received such a plain statement of
facts in return for her condescension. Her unostentatious goodness
and amiable character have now become matter of history. One of the
most characteristic traits of her life was her ordering of her own
funeral with a privacy and simplicity more touching than any royal
pomp, specifying that her coffin should be carried to the grave by
four sailors--a last tribute of affection to her husband's memory.

Among the passages in Charles Greville's Memoirs that shocked me
most, and that I read with the most pain, were the coarse and cruel
terms in which he spoke of Queen Adelaide.

Mademoiselle d'Este, when far advanced in middle life, married Lord
Chancellor Truro. She may have found in so doing a certain
satisfaction to her pride which no other alliance with a commoner
could have afforded her, since the Lord Chancellor of England (no
matter of how lowly an origin), on certain occasions, takes
precedence of the whole aristocracy of the land.]

HARLEY STREET, Monday, May 30th, 1842.
MY DEAREST HARRIET,

I have just finished a letter to you, in which I tell you that I have sketched out the skeleton of another tragedy; but I find Emily has been beforehand with me. You ask me what has moved me to this mental effort. My milliner's bill, my dear; which, being L97 sterling, I feel extremely inclined to pay out of my own brains; for, though they received a very severe shock, and one of rather paralyzing effect, upon my being reminded that whatever I write is not my own legal property, but that of another, which, of course, upon consideration, I know; I cannot, nevertheless, persuade myself that that which I invent--_create_, in fact--can really belong to any one but myself; therefore, if anything I wrote could earn me L97, I am afraid I should consider that I, and no one else, had paid my bill.

In thinking over the position of women with regard to their right to their own earnings, I confess to something very like wrathful indignation; impotent wrath and vain indignation, to be sure--not the less intense for that, however, for the injustice is undoubtedly great. That a man whose wits could not keep him half a week from starving should claim as his the result of a mental process such as that of composing a noble work of imagination--say "Corinne," for example--seems too beneficent a provision of the law for the protection of male _superiority_. It is true that, by our marriage bargain, they feed, clothe, and house us, and are answerable for our debts (not my milliner's bill, though, if I can prevent it), and so, I suppose, have a right to pay themselves as best they can out of all we are or all we can do. It is a pretty severe puzzle, and a deal of love must be thrown into one or other or both scales to make the balance hang tolerably even.

Madame de Stael, I suppose, might have said to Rocca, "If my brains are indeed yours, why don't you write a book like 'Corinne' with them?" You know, though he was perfectly amiable, and she married him for love, he was an intellectual zero; but perhaps the man who, acknowledging her brilliant intellectual superiority, could say, "Je l'aimerai tant, qu'elle finira par m'aimer," deserved to be master even of his wife's brains.... I wish women could be dealt with, not mercifully, nor compassionately, nor affectionately, but _justly_; it would be so much better--for men.

How can you ask me if I despise, as great gossip, Emily's telling you that I am writing another tragedy! Why, my dear, I shouldn't consider it despicable gossip if Emily were to tell you what colored gloves I had on the last time she saw me. Do we not all three love each other dearly? and is not everything, no matter how trifling, of interest in that case? But Mrs. John Kemble does not pretend to love me dearly, I flatter myself, and therefore her writing to inquire into my proceedings, and for minute details of my presentation at Court, did seem to me contemptible gossip. At her age, perhaps, it is pardonable enough, though it appears to me rather inconsistent, when one has no liking for a person, to trouble one's head about where they go or what they do.

You ask me about the subject of my play. It is one that my father suggested to me years ago, and which grew out of a question as to whether the Stranger (in Kotzebue's play so called) does or does not forgive his unfaithful wife in the closing scene. With several other dramatic schemes, it has hovered dimly before my imagination for some time past. The other night, however, as I was brushing my hair before going to bed, my brain, I suppose, receiving some stimulus from the scrubbing of my skull, the whole idea suddenly came towards me with increasing distinctness, till it gradually stood up as it were from head to foot before me--a very mournful figure, whose form and features were all vividly defined. I instantly caught up S----'s copy-books--there was no other paper at hand--and on the covers of two of them wrote out my play, act by act and scene by scene.... The short-lived triumph of this spirit of inspiration died away under the effect of a conversation by which it was interrupted, and I collapsed like a fallen _omelette soufflee_ (not to say _souffletee_).

The story of my piece is a sequel to "The Stranger," the retribution which reaches the faithless wife and mother in her children, after they grow up; which, together with the perpetual struggle on the part of her husband (who has taken her home again) not to wound her conscience, which is so sick and sore that every word, breath, and look _does_ wound it, might form, I think, an interesting dramatic picture, with considerable elements for poetry to work upon.

I went to the Duchess of Sutherland's fancy ball in my favorite costume, a Spanish dress, which suited my finances as well as my fancy, my person, and my purse; for I had nothing to get but a short black satin skirt, having beautiful flounces of black lace, high comb, mantilla, and, in short, all things needful already in my own possession.

I have told you of Adelaide's new prospects, in which I rejoice as much as I can rejoice in anything. She is herself very happy, poor child! and 'tis a pleasure and a positive relief to see her face, with its bright expression of newly dawned hope upon it.

Good-night, dear. My head aches, and I feel weary and worn out; our life just now is one of insane, incessant dissipation. Thank God, I have a bed, and have not lost the secret of sleeping.

Ever yours,
FANNY.

[A long discussion with my wise and excellent friend and connection,
Mr. Horace Wilson, induced me to think a good deal upon the
possibility of a man, in the position of Kotzebue's "Stranger,"
receiving back his wife to the home she had deserted. Mr. Wilson
condemned the idea as absolutely inadmissible and fatally immoral.
In our Saviour's teaching it is said that a man shall put away his
wife for only _one_ cause; but is it said that he shall in every
case put her away for _that_ cause? and is the offence a wife
commits against her husband the one exception to the universal law
of the forgiveness which Christ taught? Men have so considered it;
and in the general interest of the preservation of society, a wife's
fidelity to her duties becomes one of the most important elements of
security; the protection of the family, the integrity of
inheritance, the rightful descent of property, are all involved in
it. But these are questions of social expediency, and, though based
on deep moral foundations, are not of such overwhelming moral force
as to forbid the contemplation of any possible exception to their
authority. I have heard--I know not if it is true--that in some
parts of Germany, formerly, where the practice of divorce obtained
to a degree tolerated nowhere else in Christendom, it occasionally
happened that, after a legal separation and intermediate marriages
(sanctioned also by the law), the original pair, set free once more
by death or _second divorce_, resumed their first ties--a condition
of things which appears monstrous, considered as that which we call
marriage, with the English and American branch of the Anglo-Saxon
family, the holiest of human ties; with Roman Catholic Christians,
an indissoluble bond, sacred as a sacrament of their Church.

Without being able to determine the question satisfactorily in my
own mind with reference to the supposed conclusion of the play of
"The Stranger," in which Mr. Wilson said that the husband, receiving
his repentant wife in his arms, was highly offensive to all
morality, which demanded imperatively her absolute rejection and
punishment, I began to consider what sort of escape from punishment
it might be which would probably follow the forgiveness of her
husband, her readmission to her home, and the renewal of her
intercourse with her children. In Kotzebue's play the persons are
all German, and their nationality has to be borne in mind in
contemplating Waldburg's possible forgiveness of his wife.
Steinforth, his dearest friend, and a man of the highest honor and
morality (as conceived by the author), urges upon Waldburg the
pardon of Adelaide; urges it almost as a duty, and zealously assists
Madame von Wintersen's plan of bringing the unhappy people together,
and effecting a reconciliation between them by means of the
unexpected sight of their children. Moreover, when Waldburg rejects
his friend's advice and entreaties that he will forgive his wife,
it is hardly upon the ground of any deep moral turpitude involved in
such a forgiveness, but upon the score of the insupportable
humiliation of reappearing in the great world of German society to
which they both belong with "his runaway wife on his arm," and the
"whispering, pointing, jeering" of which their reconciliation would
be the object, winding up with the irrevocable "Never! never!
never!"

Nevertheless, in Kotzebue's play he does receive his wife in his
arms as the curtain falls, and the German public go home comforted
in believing her forgiven. I do not know how the dumb-show at the
end of the English play is generally conducted; but in my father's
instance, I know he so far carried out my friend Horace Wilson's
sentiment (which was also his own on the subject) that, while his
miserable wife falls senseless at his feet, he turns again in the
act of flying from her as the curtain drops, leaving the English
public to go home comforted in the belief that he had _not_ forgiven
her.

The result of these discussions, as I said, led me to imagine how
far such a woman would escape her righteous punishment, even if
restored to her home; and in the sequel to "The Stranger," which I
endeavored to construct, I worked out my own ideas upon the subject.

Forgiveness of sin is not remission of punishment; and the highest
justice might rest satisfied with the conviction that God, who
forgives every sinner, punishes every sin; nor can even His mercy
remit the righteous consequence ordained by it. God's punishments
are _consequences_, the results of His all-righteous laws, _never to
be escaped from_, but leaving forever possible the blessed hope of
His forgiveness; but no one ever yet outran his sin or escaped from
its inevitable result.

The grosser human justice, however, which is obliged to execute
itself on the bodies of criminals demands the open degradation and
social ostracism of unfaithful wives as a necessary portion of its
machinery, and the well-being of the society which it maintains.]

HARLEY STREET, Friday, June 10th, 1842.
MY DEAREST HARRIET,

I finished one letter to you last night, and, finding that I cannot obtain tackle to go on the river this morning and fish, I sit down to write you another. And first, dear, about getting an admission for E---- to see our play. I am sorry to say it is not in my power. Thinking I had rather a right to one or two invitations for my own friends on each of the nights, I asked Lady Francis to give me three tickets for the first representation, intending to beg the same number for each night. I gave one to Mr. S----, and another to a nephew of Talma's, a very agreeable French naval officer, with whom we have become acquainted, and who besought one of me. But when I had proceeded thus far in my distribution of admissions, I was told I had committed an indiscretion in asking for any, and that I must return the remaining one, which I did, ... and when your request came about a ticket for E----, I was simply assured that it was "impossible." So, dear, you must be, as I must be, satisfied with this decision--which I am not, for I am very sorry, ... Lady Francis would gladly, I have no doubt, have asked any of my friends had we wished her to do so; she did send an invitation to Horace Wilson and his wife, but that was because he was to have acted for her, and was only prevented by being too unwell to undertake the part.

I am very glad that Captain Seymour likes me, as the liking is very reciprocal. Indeed, I think our whole company presents a very favorable specimen of our young English gentlemen: they are all of them very young, full of good spirits, amiable, obliging, good-humored, good-tempered, and well-mannered; in short, I think, very charming.

How shall I feel, you say, acting that part again?... My dearest Harriet, thus much at Richmond on Monday morning; it is now Thursday evening, and I have been crying and in a miserable state of mind and body all day long. On Monday we acted "The Hunchback" for the third time, and on Tuesday we all went down to Cranford, and drew long breaths as we got into the delicious air, all fragrant with hay and honeysuckle and syringa. I left my children at what was in posting days a famous country inn, at about half a mile from Lady Berkeley's house, but which, since the completion of the railroad, has become much less frequented and important, but is quiet and comfortable and pleasant enough to make it a very nice place of deposit for my chicks.

On Wednesday afternoon, when I went over to see them, I found F----, pale and coughing, and heard with dismay that the measles were pervading the whole neighborhood. I went to town that evening to act "The Hunchback" for the last time, and was haunted by horrid visions of my child ill and suffering, and the very first thing I met on entering London was a child's coffin and funeral. You can better judge than I can express how this sort of omen affected my imagination; and in this frame of mind I went through our last representation of "The Hunchback," and did not reach home till the white face of the morning was beginning to look down from the ends of the streets at us.

We did not get to bed till past three, and were up again at a little after seven, in order to take the railroad to Cranford, where we had promised to breakfast. One of our party was too late for the train, and we posted down with four horses in order to save our time, which on the great Ascot day was not, as you may suppose, a very economical proceeding....

Good-bye, dear. I will answer all your questions about "The Hunchback" another time.

Ever yours,
FANNIE.

HARLEY STREET, June 12th, 1842.
MY DEAREST HAL,

... I am now going to answer your various questions to the best of my ability. You wanted to know how I felt at acting "The Hunchback" again. Why, so horribly nervous the first night that the chair shook under me while my hair was being dressed. I trembled to such a degree from head to foot, and the rustling of the curl-papers as the man twisted them in my hair almost drove me distracted, for it sounded like a forest cracking and rattling in a storm. After the performance, my limbs ached as if I had been beaten across them with an iron bar, and I could scarcely stand or support myself for exhaustion and fatigue. This, however, was only the first night, and I suppose proceeded from the painful uncertainty I felt as to whether I had not utterly forgotten how to act at all. This one representation over, I had neither fright, nervousness, nor the slightest fatigue, and it is singular enough that no recollections or associations whatever of past times were awakened by the performance. I was fully engrossed by the endeavor to do the part as well as I could, and, except in the particular of copying, as well as I could recollect it, my dress of former days, the Julia of nine years ago did not once present herself to my thoughts. The first time I played it, I rather think I was worse than formerly, but after that probably much the same....

How does this dreadfully hot weather agree with you, my dear? For my own part, I am parboiled and stupid beyond all expression. I hate heat always and everywhere, and it seems to me that in our damp climate it is even more oppressive than under the scorching skies of August in Pennsylvania. However, of that I won't be sure, for the present is, with me, always better or worse than the absent.

I think I have nothing more to tell you about "The Hunchback." ... Beyond doing it as well as I could, I cared very little about it; it seemed a sort of routine business, just as it used to be, except for the inevitable unwholesome results of its being amusement instead of business; the late hours--three o'clock in the morning--and champagne and lobster salad suppers, instead of my former professional decent tea and to bed, after my work, before twelve o'clock.

Adelaide acted Helen charmingly, without having bestowed the slightest pains upon it. Had she condescended to give it five minutes' careful study, it would have been a perfect performance of its kind; but as it was, it was delightfully droll, lively, and graceful, and certainly proved her natural powers of comic acting to be very great....

You ask me about my play. I have not touched it since I wrote to you last, and really do not know when I shall have a minute in which to do so, unless, indeed, in this coming week at Oatlands,--and a great deal may be done in a week; but I am altogether quite down about it. Our last representation of "The Hunchback" was, as in duty bound, the best, and everybody was, or pretended to be, in ecstasies with it. Our time and attention have been so engrossed with the dresses, rehearsals, and performances that we absolutely seemed to experience a sudden _lull_ in our daily lives after it was all over.

I shall probably not be in town till the 24th. I am going down to Mrs. Grote's with my sister on the 21st, and as S---- is of the party, it will not, I suppose, be according to "received ideas" that I should leave her there. On the 24th, however, she must be back in town; and as for my departure for America, dear Hal, you do well not to grieve too much beforehand about that.... Therefore, my dear Hal, lament not over my departure, for Heaven only knows when we shall depart, or if indeed we shall depart at all.

Good-bye.

Ever yours,
FANNY.

OATLANDS, June 14th, 1842.
MY DEAREST HAL,

... I return to town this evening in order to go to a party at Mrs. Grote's, to which we have been engaged for some time past, and remain in town all to-morrow, because we dine at Harness's.... The quiet of this place, and very near twelve hours' sleep, and, above all, a temporary relief from all causes of nervous distress, have done me all the good in the world.... I cannot but think mine, in one respect, a curious fate; and perhaps, with the magnifying propensity of egotism, I exaggerate what seems to me its peculiarity. But to be placed for years together out of the reach of all society; to be left day after day to the solitude of an absolutely lonely life; to be deprived of all stimulus from without; to hear no music; to see no works of art; to hear no intellectually brilliant or even tolerably cultivated or interesting conversation; indeed, often to pass days without exchanging a thought or even a word with any grown person but my servants; to ride for hours every day alone through lonely roads and paths, sit down daily to a solitary dinner, and pass most of my evenings listening to the ticking of the clock, or wandering round and round the dark garden-walks;--to lead, I say, such a life for a length of time, and then be plunged into the existence, the sort of social Maelstrom we are living in here now, is surely a great trial to a person constituted like myself, and would be something of one, I think, to a calmer mind and more equable temperament than mine....

You ask if my father has been told of our intended return to America. I have told him, but neither he nor any one else appears to believe in it; and from what I wrote you in my last letter, I think you will agree that they are justified in their incredulity.

You ask how Adelaide is. Flourishing greatly; the annoyance and vexation of the late difficulties with the theatre being past, she has recovered her spirits, and seems enjoying to the full her present hopes of future happiness....

God bless you, my dear Hal.

Ever yours,
FANNY.

OATLANDS, June 16th, 1842.
MY DEAR T----,

An hour's railroading from London has brought me into a lovely country, a perfect English landscape of broad lawns, thick tufted oaks, and placid waters, under my windows. But an hour from that glare, confusion, din, riot, and insanity, to the soothing sights and sounds of this rural paradise! And after looking at it till my spirits have subsided into something like kindred composure and placidity, I open my letter-case, and find your last unanswered epistle lying on the top of it. "If Cunard and Harnden have proved true," you must have received by this time our reply to your proposition touching the Coster business. Thus far on Monday last; and having proceeded thus far, I fell fast asleep, with the pen in my hand, the sound of the rustling trees in my ears, and the smell of the new-mown grass in my nose. Since that noonday nap of mine, I have been back to town for a party at Mrs. Grote's and a dinner at Harness's. I mention names because these worthies are known to Catherine and Kate; and here I am, thanks to the railroad, back again among all these lovely sights and sounds and smells, and pick up my pen forthwith to renew my conversation with you. And first, as in duty bound, business. I wrote you word that we did not disdain the compromise offered by Mr. Coster, and we now further beg that you will receive and keep for us the sum proposed by that gentleman as payment of his debt.

Thank you very much for your kindness to H-----. Kate wrote me a most ludicrous account of the poor singer's first experiment on his voice in your presence. I have not the least idea what his merits really are, having never heard or, to the best of my knowledge, seen him; but, as a pupil of the Royal Academy, his acquirements ought certainly to be those of a competent teacher. However, I need not, I am sure, tell you that, in recommending him to you, I did not contemplate laying the slightest stress upon your conscience, and having heard him you must recommend him or not according to that....

My sister thanks you for your zeal on her behalf, and so do I; but you will not be called upon for any further, or rather, I should say, nearer demonstration of it; for the young lady has lately come to the conclusion that marrying and staying at home is better than wandering singing over the face of the earth; and I suppose by next Christmas she will be married. I have no room for more.

Ever yours,
F. A. B.

[My correspondence with my friend Miss S---- was interrupted by a
visit of several weeks which she paid us, and not resumed on my part
until the month of August, when I was on my way back from Scotland,
and she was travelling on the Continent with her friend Miss W----.]

LIVERPOOL, Wednesday, August 10th, 1842.
MY DEAREST HARRIET,