Chapter XVIII: Part 18

You bid me write to you immediately upon receiving your letter of the 24th of July, dated from Ulm, but I only received that letter last night on my arrival here from Scotland, and I know not how long its rightful delivery to me has been delayed. I fear, in consequence of this circumstance, this answer to it may miscarry; for perhaps you will have left Munich by the time it gets there. However, I can but do as you bid me, and so I do it, and hope this, for me, rare exercise of the virtue of obedience may find its reward in my letter reaching you.

I am glad your meeting with the Combes was so pleasant. I can bear witness to the truth of their melancholy account of dear Dr. Combe, whom I went to see while I was in Edinburgh. He is so emaciated that the point of his knee-bone, through his trousers, perfectly fascinated me; I couldn't keep my eyes off it, it looked so terribly and sharply articulated that it seemed as if it were coming through the cloth. His countenance, however, was the same as ever, or, if possible, even brighter, sweeter, and more kindly benevolent. I have always had the most affectionate regard and admiration for him, and think him in some respects superior to his brother.

I am delighted to think of your fine weather, and the great enjoyment it must be to you two, so happy in each other, to travel through the lovely summer days together, filling your minds and storing your memories with beautiful things of art and nature, which will be an intellectual treasure in common, and a fountain of delightful retrospective sympathy....

You must continue to direct to Harley Street, for although we were, by our original agreement, to have left it on the 1st of August, I conclude, as it is now the 10th, and I have heard no word of our removing, that some arrangement has been made for our remaining there, at least till our departure, which I understand is fixed for October 21st....

I have received a letter from Elizabeth Sedgwick, informing me that Kate's marriage is to take place about October 10th. I shall not be at it, which I regret very much.

In the same letter she tells me that Dr. Channing is spending the summer at Lenox; and that he had shown her a most interesting letter he had received from a house-builder in Cornwall, England. This man wrote to Channing to thank him for the benefit he had derived from his writings, particularly his lectures on the mental elevation of the working classes. Dr. Channing answered this letter, and the poor man was so overjoyed at this favor, as he esteemed it, that he could not refrain from pouring out his thankfulness in another letter, in which he assured his reverend correspondent that the influence of his writings upon his class of the community in that part of England was and had been very great, and instanced a fellow-artisan of his own, who said that Channing's writings had reconciled him to being a working man. Elizabeth said that Dr. Channing, while reading this letter, was divided between smiles and tears. She also told me that he had talked to her a good deal about Mrs. Child (you know, the abolitionist who wanted to publish my Southern journal; she is a correspondent of his, and a person for whom he has the highest esteem, regarding her as "a most highly principled and noble-minded woman.")

I am so tired, dearest Hal, and feel such a general lassitude and discouragement of mind and body, that I will end my letter. Give my most affectionate love to Dorothy, whom I should love dearly if I saw her much. I wish I was with you, seeing the Danube, that river into which poor Undine carried her immortal soul, and her broken woman's heart, when she faded over the boat's side, saying, "Be true, be true, oh, misery!" God bless you, dearest Hal.

Ever yours,
FANNY.

HARLEY STREET, September 16th, 1842.
MY DEAREST HAL,

You ask me what I am doing. Flying about in every direction, like one distracted, trying to _amuse_ myself; going to evenings at Lady Lansdowne's, and to mornings at the Duchess of Buccleuch's; dining at the Star and Garter at Richmond, in gay and great company, and driving home alone between one and two o'clock in the morning....

I have undertaken to keep and to ride S----'s horse while he is away; and I think, by means of regular exercise, I shall at any rate keep _paroxysms_ aloof. I am going to a ball at Lord Foley's on Monday; to a children's play at the Francis Egertons' on Tuesday; to Richmond again to dine with the Miss Berrys and Lady Charlotte Lindsay on Wednesday; on Thursday to dine at Horace Wilson's, etc.... Perhaps you will wonder, as I do sometimes, that I keep the few senses I have in the life I lead; but so it is, and so it has to be.

Good-bye. God bless you. I keep this letter till I hear from you where to send it, and, with dearest love to Dorothy, am

Ever yours,
FANNY.

HARLEY STREET, September 30th, 1842.
MY DEAREST GRANNY [LADY DACRE],

Yesterday morning we drove down to Chesterfield Street, not without sundry misgivings on my part that Lord Dacre would feel that we persecute him, that he might be busy and not like being interrupted, etc. When the door was opened, however, and while we were still interrogating the footman, his own dear lordship came to it, and graciously bade me alight, which of course I gladly did, and so we sat with him a matter of half an hour, hearing his discourse, which ran at first on you and the dear girls [his granddaughters], and then broadened gradually from private interests to his public experience, and all the varied observation of his honorable political career. "I could have stayed all night to have heard good counsel," but was obliged to drive to the theatre to fetch my sister from rehearsal, and so, most reluctantly, came away. It seemed to me very good, and amiable, and humane, and condescending of Lord Dacre to spare so much of his time and attention to us young and insignificant folk; the courtesy of his reception was as deeply appreciated by me, I assure you, as the interest of his conversation; and so tell my lord, with my best of courtesies.

I went in the evening to hear my sister sing "Norma" for the last time, and cried most bitterly, and, moreover, thought exceedingly often of your ladyship; and why? I'll tell you; it was the _last_ time she was to do it, and when I saw that grace and beauty and rare union of gifts, which were adapted to no other purpose half so well as to this of dramatic representation; when I heard the voice of popular applause, that utterance of human sympathy, break at once simultaneously from all those human beings whose emotions she was swaying at her absolute will,--my heart sank to think that this beautiful piece of art (for such it now is, and very near perfection), would be seen no more; that this rare power (a _talent_, as it verily then seemed to me, in the solemn sense of the word, and a precious one of its own kind) was about to be folded in a napkin, to bear interest no more, of profit or pleasure, to herself or others.

My dear Granny, you will well understand how I came to think of you during that performance; for the first time, I thought _like_ you on this subject. I caught myself saying, while the tears streamed down my face, "If she is only happy, after all!" (But oh, that _if_!) It seemed amazing to abdicate a secure fortune, and such a power--power to do anything so excellently (putting its recognition by the public entirely out of account) for that fearful risk. God help us all! 'Tis a hard matter to judge rightly on any point whatever; and settled and firm as I had believed my opinion on this subject to be, I was surprised to find how terrible it was to me to see my sister, that woman most dear to me, deliberately leave a path where the sure harvest of her labor is independent fortune, and a not unhonorable distinction, and a powerful hold upon the sympathy, admiration, and even kindly regard of her fellow-creatures, while she thus not unworthily ministers to their delight, for a life where, if she does not find happiness, what will atone to her for all this that she will have left? However, I have need to remember, while thinking of her and her future, what I have never forgotten hitherto, that the soul lives neither on fortune, fame, nor happiness; and that which is noblest in her, which is above either her genius, grace, or beauty, and far more precious than all of them united, will thrive, it may be, better in obscurity and the different trials of her different life than in the vocation she is now abandoning. _Amen!_

Thank you, my dear Granny, for all your advice, and still more for the love which dictates it; I lay both to heart. Thank you, too, for the little book. I wish I knew the woman who wrote it; she must be a paragon.

God bless you, dear Granny. I write you a kiss as the children do, and am

Ever your affectionate
FANNY.

HARLEY STREET, October 2nd, 1842.
MY DEAR T----,

It is hardly of any use writing to you, because, unless I am "drowned in the ditch," I shall see you very soon after you get this letter. I have, however, as I believe you know, a very decided principle upon the subject of answering letters, and therefore shall duly reply to your epistle, though I hope to follow this in less than a fortnight.

I am sorry to say that if your ever "feeling young again" is to depend upon your seeing a _Miss Kemble_ once more in America, you are doomed to disappointment, and must decidedly go on, not only growing but feeling old, as _Miss Kembles_ there are now no more--at least at my father's house.... So you see a due regard for her fellow-creatures on the other side of the Atlantic has not existed in my sister's heart, or she would, of course, have postponed all personal prospects of happiness, or rather peace and quiet, to a proper consideration for the gratification of the American public.

I think your observations upon my projected journey to Georgia are taken from an entirely mistaken point of view. I am utterly unconscious of entertaining any inimical feeling towards America or the Americans; on the contrary, I am distinctly conscious of the highest admiration for your institutions, and an affectionate regard for the northern part of your country (where those institutions can alone be said to be put in practice) that is second only to the love and reverence I bear to my own country. This being the case, I cannot think that anything I write about America can, with any sort of propriety, be characterized as "the lashings of a foe."

With regard to Dickens, I do not know exactly what proceedings of his you refer to as exhibiting want of taste or want of temper towards your country-people.... But small counterweights may surely be allowed to such admirable qualities of both head and heart as he possesses. He sent me, on his return to England, a printed circular, which was distributed among all his literary acquaintances and friends, and which set forth his views with regard to the question of international copyright; but except this, I know of nothing that he has publicly put forth upon the matter. His "Notes" upon America come out, I believe, immediately; and I shall be extremely curious to see them, and sorry if they are unfavorable, because his popularity as a writer is immense, and whatever he publishes will be sure of a wide circulation. Moreover, as it is very well known that, before going to America, he was strongly prepossessed in favor of its institutions, manners, and people, any disparaging remarks he may make upon them will naturally have proportionate weight, as the deliberate result of experience and observation. M---- told me, after dining with Dickens immediately on his return, that one thing that had disgusted him was the almost universal want of conscience upon money matters in America; and the levity, occasionally approaching to something like self-satisfaction, for their "sharpness," which he had repeated occasions of observing, in your people when speaking of the present disgraceful condition of their finances and deservedly degraded state of their national credit.... But I do hope (because I have a friend's and not a "foe's" heart towards your country) that Dickens will not write unfavorably about it, for his opinion will influence public opinion in England, and deserves to do so.

As for Lord Morpeth, you need not be afraid of his "booking" you; he is the kindliest gentleman alive, and moreover, I think, far too prudent a person for such a proceeding....

Lord Ashburton's termination of the boundary question is vehemently abused by the Opposition, but that is of course. Some old-school Whigs, sound politicians, and great friends of mine, were agreeing quietly among themselves the other day that _anyhow_ they were heartily glad that there was to be no war between the countries.

I perceive, however, that the question of the right of search (_question brulante_, as the French say) is still untouched, or rather unsettled; yet in my opinion it contains more elements of danger than the other. But I suppose your great diplomatists think one question settled in twenty years is quite enough for the rapid pace at which our Governments pant and puff after public opinion in these steam-speed-thinking times.

We have been in the country till within the last fortnight, but have come up to town to prepare for our departure. London is almost empty, but the only topics that keep alive the sparse population of the club-houses are the dismissal of Baroness L---- from Court and her departure for Germany, and a terrible _esclandre_ in a very high circle, including royal personages.... I treat you to the London scandal, and my doing so is ridiculous enough; but there is nothing I would not sooner write about than myself and my own thoughts, feelings, and concerns, just now. How thankful I shall be when this month is over!...

Believe me yours most truly,
F. A. B.

HARLEY STREET, Saturday, 8th, 1842.
MY DEAR GRANNY,

I dined yesterday at Charles Greville's, where dined also Mr. Byng; both of them, I believe, were your fellow-guests lately, at the Duke of Bedford's. Among other Woburn talk, there is no little discourse about B----. Westmacott, too (the sculptor), who is a very old friend of ours, chimed in, and we had a very pretty chorus on the argument of her fine countenance, striking appearance, intelligence, etc., which I listened to and joined in with great pleasure, because I love the child; thinking, at the same time, how many qualities, of which perhaps her gentlemen eulogists took no cognizance, went to make up the charm of the outward appearance which they admired--the candor, truth, humility, and moral dignity, the "inward and spiritual grace," of which what they praised is but "the outward and visible sign." As I know this, the commendation of her superficial good gifts, by superficial observers, was very agreeable to me.

You ask me if I think you are going to keep up a correspondence with me at this rate. I do not know exactly what that means; but be sure of one thing, that as long as I can succeed in drawing an answer out of you, I shall _persewere_.

My father has a violent lumbago; so, I am sorry to say, has the theatre, which, in spite of my sister's exertions, can hardly keep upon its legs. Her success has to compensate for the deplorable houses on the nights when she does not appear. But great as her success is, it will not make the nights pay on which she does not sing, when the theatre is absolutely empty. What they will do when she goes I cannot in the smallest degree conceive. _We_ are just being sucked into the Maelstrom of bills, parcels, packages, books, pictures, valuables, trumpery, rummaging, heaping together, throwing apart, selecting, discarding, and stowing away that precedes an orderly departure after a two years' disorderly residence; in the midst of all which I have neither leisure nor leave to attend to the heartache which, nevertheless, accompanies the whole process with but little intermission.

Love to your dear lord and the dear girls, and believe me ever, my dear Granny,

Your affectionate
FANNY.

HARLEY STREET, Friday, 14th, 1842.
DEAR GRANNY,

I find there is every probability of our not leaving England until the 4th of November (several people tell me they have been told so), and such is the extreme uncertainty of our movements always that it would not surprise me very violently if we did not go then. I fear, however, this will not afford me any further glimpses of you; and, indeed, at the bottom of my heart, I do not wish for any more "last dying speeches and confessions." To part is very bad, but to keep continually parting is unendurable.

My sister goes on with the "Semiramide," and her attraction in it increases. She acts and sings admirably in it, and, all sisterly prepossessions apart, looks beautiful.

We went the other night to see "As You Like It" at Drury Lane. It was _painfully_ acted, but the scenery, etc., were charming; and though we had neither the caustic humor nor poetical melancholy of Jacques, nor the brilliant wit and despotical fancifulness of the princess shepherd-boy duly given, we _had_ the warbling of birds, and sheep-bells tinkling in the distance, to comfort us. I hope it is not profanation to say, "These should ye have done, and not have left the others undone." Nevertheless, and in spite of all, the enchantment of Shakespeare's inventions is such to me that they cannot be marred, let what will be done to them. As long as those words of profoundest wisdom and those images of exquisite beauty are but uttered, their own perfection swallows up all other considerations and impressions with me, and I bear indifferent and even bad acting of Shakespeare better than most people.

Why did you not make _him_, instead of the stage, the subject of our discussions together? For his works my enthusiasm grows every year of my life into a profounder and more wondering love and admiration.

I am grateful for Lord Dacre's offer, though it was not made to me; and, had it been so, should have closed with it eagerly. To correspond with one who has seen and known and _thought_ so much is a rare privilege.

Good-bye, dear Granny. Give my love to the girls, and my "duty" to my lord, and believe me

Your affectionate
FANNY BUTLER.

HARLEY STREET, Friday, 23rd, 1842.
MY DEAR GRANNY,

That last half-hour before we got off from "The Hoo" the other day was a severe trial to my self-command; but I was anxious not to afflict you, and I was willing, if possible, to begin the bitter series of partings, of which the next month will be one succession, with something like fortitude, however I may end it. Thank you for writing to me, and thank you for all your kindness to me through these many years, now that you have _persevered_ in being fond of me....

Do not be anxious about my happiness, my dear friend, but pray for me, that I maybe enabled to do what is right under all circumstances; and then it cannot fail to be well with me, whether to outward observation I am what the world calls happy or not.

Give my affectionate love to Lord Dacre, and thank him for all his goodness to me and mine. I send my blessing to the girls. I have written to B----. God bless you all, my kind friends, and make life and its vicissitudes minister to your happiness hereafter.

You will hear of me, dear Granny, for the girls will write to me, and I shall answer them, and you will remember, whenever you think of me, how gratefully and affectionately I must

Ever remain yours,
FANNY BUTLER.

[Lady Dacre saw much trouble in store for me in my intemperate
expression of feeling on the subject of slavery in America, and
repeatedly warned me with affectionate solicitude to moderate, if
not my opinions, the vehement proclamation of them. She was wise and
right, as well as kind in her advice.]

[Extract from a letter of Miss Sedgwick's.]

STOCKBRIDGE, October 26th, 1842.

You have no doubt heard and lamented the death of our dear friend, Dr. Channing. Dead he is not; he lives, and will live in the widespreading life he has communicated. He passed the summer at Lenox, occupying with his family your rooms at the hotel. We passed some hours of every day together. He enjoyed our lovely hill country with the freshness of youth, his health was invigorated, and his mind freer, and his spirits more buoyant than I ever knew them; he endured more fatigue than he had been able to encounter since he travelled in Switzerland fifteen years ago. His affectionateness, purity, simplicity--a simplicity so perfect that it seemed divine--surrounded his greatness with an atmosphere of light and beauty. His life has been a most prosperous one, no storms without, and a heavenly calm within. His last work in his office was a discourse which he delivered in our village church on the 1st of August, on the emancipation of the slaves in the British West Indies. I shall send it to you, and pray mark the prophetic invocation with which it concludes. You should have seen the inspired expression of his intellectual brow, and the earnest, spiritual look that seemed to penetrate the clouds that hang over the eternal world and to reflect its light. On the Sundays of his sojourn with us he had domestic worship in our houses, and his last service was in that apartment where his beloved friend Follen officiated....

Eliza Follen is recovering the elasticity of her mind. Time can, I think, do all things, since it has dissipated that horrible image of the burning steamer in which her husband perished, that was ever before her. She is publishing his Memoirs, and, among other things, she read me some patriotic songs which he wrote in Sand's time in Germany; they were in the boldest tone of insurrection, and were, of course, proscribed and suppressed. She had heard her husband occasionally hum a stanza or two of them, and he had once written out a single one for her which she found in her work-basket. This she transmitted to his mother in Germany, and with this clue alone the mother obtained the rest; and eloquent outbreakings they are of a spirit glowing with freedom and humanity....

I have passed lately a day at our State Lunatic Asylum. On my first going there, in the evening the physician invited me into the dancing-hall, where some sixty of the patients were assembled. The two musicians were patients, one utterly _demented_, incapable of any reasonable act except playing a tune on his violin, which he did with accuracy. Except the doctor's children (as beautiful as cherubs, and ministering angels they are), there were no sane persons among the dancers. "There," said the physician, "is a homicide; there, a poor girl who went crazy the day after her brother drowned himself, and who fancies herself that brother; there, the King of England," etc. They were all dancing with the utmost decorum and regularity. They attend chapel on a Sunday without disturbance; they were all (among them maniacs who had been for half a score of years chained in dungeons of our common gaols) "clothed," and, if "not in their right mind," comfortable and cheerful; they _all_ had plants in their rooms and books on their tables. Much depends on individual character, and the physician is, as you would expect, a man of the highest moral power, and the very embodiment of the spirit of benevolence, and if poetry and painting had laid their heads together to give him a fitting form, they could have done nothing better than nature has. My heart was ready to burst with gratitude. Who can say the world does not move some forward steps?

CLARENDON HOTEL, November 6th, 1842.
DEAR GRANNY,

You know that it is now determined that we do not sail by the next steamer....

Dearest Granny, do not you, any more than I do, reckon which love is best worth having, of young or old love; for all love is _inestimable_, and should be gratefully rendered thanks for. There is something charming and _pathetic_ in the _profusion_ with which the young love; it is touching, as one of the magnificent superabundances, one of the generous extravagances, of their prodigal time of life. But the love of the old is as precious as the beggared widow's mite; and in bestowing it they know what they give, from a store that day by day diminishes. The affections of the young are as sudden and soft, as bright and bounteous, as copious and capricious as the showers of spring; the love of the old is the one drop in the cruse, which outlasts the journey through the desert.

You may perhaps see in the papers a statement of the disastrous winding up of the season at Covent Garden, or rather its still more disastrous abrupt termination. After our all protesting and remonstrating with all our might against my father's again being involved in that Heaven-forsaken concern, and receiving the most positive and solemn assurances from those who advised him into it for the sake of having his name at the head of it that _no_ responsibility or liability whatever should rest upon or be incurred by him; and that if the thing did not turn out prosperously, it should be put an end to, and the theatre immediately closed;--they have gone on, in spite of night after night of receipts below the expenses, and now are obliged suddenly to shut up shop, my poor father being, as it turns out, personally involved for a considerable sum.

This, as you will well believe, is no medicine for his malady. I spend every evening with him, and generally see him in the morning besides. These last few days he suffers less acute pain, but complains more of debility, and hardly leaves his sofa, where he lies silent, with his eyes closed, apparently absorbed in painful sensations and reflections. Yet, though he neither speaks to nor looks at me, he likes to have me there; and, as Horace Twiss said, "to hear the scissors fall" now and then, by way of companionship; and certainly derives some comfort from the mere consciousness of my presence.

My sister has gone to Brighton for a few days, her health having quite given way, what with hard work and harder worry. She returns on Monday, but it is extremely doubtful whether she will resume her performances at all, so that I fear the expectations of the clan Cavendish will be disappointed.

She did act most charmingly in the "Matrimonio Segreto." In point of fact, her comic acting is more perfect than her tragic, although there are not in it, and naturally cannot be, the same striking exhibitions of dramatic power; but it is smoother, more even, better finished.

You must get Lady Callcott's "Scripture Herbal." Lady Grey lent it me, and I read it with great pleasure. It is an interesting, graceful, and learned work, which she has illustrated very exquisitely. There is something very sweet and soothing in the idea of last thoughts having been thus devoted to what is loveliest in nature and holiest in religion.

God bless you, dear Granny. Give my love to the lasses, and my affectionate "duty" to my lord; and believe me

Your loving grandchild,
F. A. B.

[Our departure for America was indefinitely postponed, and the
American nurse I had brought to England with my children left me and
returned home alone.]

THE CLARENDON, Monday, November 28th, 1842.
MY DEAREST GRANNY,

I duly delivered your message, and am desired to tell you that a house is being looked for for us in your neighborhood, and that, as soon as one is found that we think you will approve of, it will be taken. Moreover, I am desired to add that the expensive reputation of the Clarendon is very much exaggerated.... We have been here a fortnight to-day, and I think there is every probability of our being here at least a fortnight longer, even if we get away then.... My father suffers less acutely these last few days, but his debility appears to increase with the decrease of his positive pain....

My sister returned from Brighton to-day, completely set up again; she is to go on with her performances till Christmas, when the whole concern passes into the hands of Mr. Bunn, who perhaps is qualified to manage it.

I think I should like to _act_ with my sister during this month, in order to secure their salaries to the actors, to make up the deficit which now lies at the door of my father's management, to put a good benefit into his poor pocket, to give rather a more cheerful ending to my sister's theatrical career, and, though last, not least, for the pleasure and _fun_ of acting with her. Don't you think we should have good houses? and wouldn't _you_ come and see us?...

God bless you, dear Granny.

Ever your affectionate
F. A. B.

THE CLARENDON, December 1st, 1842.
MY DEAREST HARRIET,

Lord Titchfield, who was here yesterday, begged me to ascertain from you whether it is only _my_ bust that you desire, or whether you would like to have casts from my father's and from the two of Adelaide. Write me word, dear, that the magnificent marquis may fulfil your wishes, which he is only waiting to know in order to send the one or the four heads to you in Ireland....

My sister returned from Brighton on Monday, apparently quite recovered; in good looks, good voice, and good spirits. The horrible mess in which everybody is mixed up who has anything to do with Covent Garden, and in which she is so deeply involved, renewed her annoyances and vexations immediately on her arrival in town; but I passed the evening with her yesterday, and she did not seem the worse for work or worry, for she sang, for her own pleasure and that of her guests, the whole evening....

Give my kind remembrances to all your people, and believe me

Ever yours,
FANNY.

[The Marquis of Titchfield was employing the French sculptor Dantan
to make busts of my father, my sister, and myself, for him; and most
kindly gave me casts of them all, and sent my friend Miss St. Leger
a cast of mine.]

THE CLARENDON, January 5th, 1843.
DEAREST HAL,

I have sent your wishes to Lord Titchfield, and I am sure they will be quickly complied with. I have no idea that he means otherwise than to _give_ you my bust; any other species of transaction being apparently quite out of his line, and _giving_ his especial gift. I have, nevertheless, taken pains to make clear to him your intentions in the matter; I have desired him to have the bust forwarded to the care of Mr. Green, because I thought you would easily find means of transporting it thence to Ardgillan. Was this right?

The houses at Covent Garden are quite full on my sister's nights, but deplorably empty on the others, I believe. I speak from hearsay, for I have not been into the theatre since the terrible business of the late break-up there, and do not think I shall even see her last performances, for I have no means of doing so; I can no longer ask for private boxes, as during my father's management, of course, nor indeed would it be right for me to do so on her nights, because they all let very well; and as for paying for one, or even for a seat in the public ones, I have not a single farthing in the world to apply to such a purpose.... So you see, my dear, I am in no case to treat myself to seats at the play, either private or public.

Adelaide is still pretty well. The night before last was her benefit; she had a very fine house, and sang "Norma," and the great scene from "Der Freyschuetz," and "Auld Robin Gray;" and yesterday evening she seemed very tired, but she had people to dinner and to tea nevertheless....

Certainly one had need believe in something better than one sees, or at any rate than I see just now; for such petty selfishnesses and despicable aims, pursued with all the energy and eagerness which should be bestowed upon the highest alone; such cheating, tricking, swindling, lying, and slandering, are enough to turn any Christian cat's stomach....

I must tell you two things about Miss Hall that have given me such an insight into the delights of the position of an English governess as I certainly never had before. When first she joined us here at the Clarendon, Anne was still with us, and she being always accustomed to take her meals with the children, and yet of course not a proper companion for Miss Hall, we thought that till the nurse went to America we would request the governess to dine with us. On Anne's departure, I signified to the head waiter that from that time Miss Hall would take her dinner with the children; whereupon, with a smirk and sniff of the most insolent disdain, and an air of dignity that had been hurt, but was now comforted, the bloated superior servant replied, "Well, ma'am, to be sure, it always was so in _them famullies_ where I have lived; the governess never didn't eat at the table." The fact is natural, and the reason obvious, but oh! my dear, the manner of the fat, pampered porpoise of a man-menial was too horrid. Then, on going for a candle into Miss Hall's room one evening, I found she had been provided with tallow ones, and, upon remonstrating about it with the chambermaid, she replied (with a courtesy at every other word to me), "Oh, ma'am, we always puts _tallow_ for the governesses."

Good-bye, dear. God bless you.
Ever yours,
FANNY.

CRANFORD HOUSE, January 8th, 1843.
DEAREST HAL,

I am spending two days at Cranford--you know, I believe, where I mean, old Lady Berkeley's place.... I came to get the refreshment of the country; old Lady Berkeley is very kind to me, and I like her daughters, Lady Mary particularly. I came down yesterday (Saturday), and shall return early to-morrow, for on Wednesday the children are to have a party of their little friends, and I am making a Christmas-tree for them (rather out of date), and expect to be exceedingly busy both to-morrow and Tuesday in preparing for their amusement.

My father does not suffer nearly as much pain as he did a short time ago, but his strength appears to me to be gradually diminishing....

[Our return to America being once more indefinitely postponed, we
now took a house in Upper Grosvenor Street, close to Hyde Park, to
which we removed from the Clarendon, my sister residing very near
us, in Chapel Street, Grosvenor Square.]

26, UPPER GROSVENOR STREET, Wednesday, March 1st, 1843.

Thank you, my dear T----, for your attention to our interests and affairs.... It seems to me that to have to accept the conviction of the unworthiness of those we love must be even worse than to lay our dearest in the earth, for we may believe that they have risen into the bosom of God. However, each human being's burden is the one whose weight must seem the heaviest to himself, and He alone who lays them on proportions them to our strength and enables us to walk upright beneath them....

[Extract from a letter from Miss Sedgwick.]

NEW YORK, March 3rd, 1843.

The great topic with us just now is the trial of Mackenzie, of whom, as the chief actor in the tragedy of the "Somers," you must have heard. Some of your journals cry out upon him, but, as we think, only the organs of that hostile inhuman spirit that bad minds try to keep alive on both sides of the water. His life has been marked with courage and humanity; all enlightened and unperverted, I may say all sane opinion with us, is in his favor. After the most honorable opinion from the Court of Inquiry, he is now under trial by court-martial, demanded by his friends to save him from a civil suit. S----, the father of the Ohio mutineer, is a man of distinguished talent, of education, and head of the War Department, but a vindictive and unscrupulous man. He is using every means to ruin Mackenzie, to revenge the death of a son, Heaven-forsaken from the beginning of his days, and whose maturest acts (he died at nineteen) were robbing his mother's jewel-case and stealing money from his father's desk. My nephew is acting as Mackenzie's counsel, and his wife, a Roman wife and mother, is a friend of mine....

I heard a story the other day, "a true one," that I treasured for you as racy, as characteristic of slavery and human nature. A most notoriously atrocious, dissolute, _hellish_ slave-owner died, and one of his slaves--an old woman--said to a lady, "Massa prayed God so to forgive him! Oh, how he prayed! And I am afraid God heard him; they say He's so good."

UPPER GROSVENOR STREET, April 17th, 1843.
MY DEAR T----,

I have executed your commission with regard to two of the books you desired me to get, but the modern Italian work, published in 1840, in Florence, and the "Mariana" of 1600, I am very much afraid I shall not be able to procure; the first because it would be necessary to send to Florence for it, which could very easily be done, but then I shouldn't be here to receive it; and the second, the copy of "Mariana," of the edition you specify, because Bohn assures me that it is extremely rare, having been suppressed on account of the king-killing doctrines it inculcates, and the subsequent editions being all garbled and incorrect. As you particularly specified that of 1600, of course I would not take any other, and shall still make further attempts to procure that, though Panizzi, the librarian of the British Museum, and Macaulay, who are both friends of mine, and whom I consulted about it, neither of them gave me much encouragement as to my eventual success. The "Filangieri" and Buchanan will arrive with me. I would send them to G---- A----, but that, as we return on the 4th of May, I think there is every reason to expect that we shall be in America first.

So much for your commission. With regard to your complaint that I give you nothing to do, I think you will have found that fault amended in my last communication, wherein I request you to accept my father's power of attorney, and undertake to watch over his interests in the New Orleans Bank....

As for people's comments on me or my actions, I have not lived on the stage to be cowardly as well as bold; and being decidedly bold, "I thank God," as Audrey might say, that I am not cowardly, which is my only answer to the suggestion of "people saying," etc.

For a year and a half past I have been perfectly wretched at our protracted stay in Europe, and as often as possible have protested against our prolonged sojourn here, and all the consequences involved in it. This being the case, "people" attributing our remaining here to me troubles me but little, particularly as I foresaw from the first that that must inevitably be the result of our doing so.

I seldom read the newspapers, and therefore have not followed any of the details of this Mackenzie trial. The original transaction, and his own report of it, I read with amazement; more particularly the report, the framing and wording of which appeared to me utterly irreconcilable with the fact of his having written, as Lord Ashburton informed me, a very pleasing book, of which certainly the style must have been very different. He, Lord Ashburton, spoke of him as though he knew him, and gave him the same character of gentleness and single-mindedness that you do.

Although our return to America will be made under circumstances of every possible annoyance and anxiety, it gives me heartfelt pleasure to think I shall soon see all my good friends there again, among whom you and yours are first in my regard....

Butler Place is to be let, if possible, and at any rate we are certainly not to go back to it; whereat my poor little S---- cries bitterly, and I feel a tightening at the heart, to think that the only place which I have known as a _home_ in America is not what I am to return to.... The transfer of that New Orleans stock by my father to me--I mean the law papers necessary for the purpose--cost L50 sterling. England is a dear country many ways.

Ellsler is in London now, and, I am assured by those who know, _diviner_ than ever. I think her gone off both in looks and dancing. That rascal W---- has robbed her of the larger portion of her earnings. What a nice lover to have!

Believe me ever

Yours most truly,
F. A. B.

April 15th 1843.
MY DEAREST HAL,

You must not scold if there are letters missing in my words this week, for I have enough to do and to think of, as you well know, to put half the letters of the alphabet out of my head for the next twelvemonth....

Immediately after breakfast on Saturday I went down on my knees and packed till Emily came to walk with me, and packed after I came in till it was time to go shopping and visiting. I went to bid the L----'s good-bye; we dined with the Procters, and had a pleasant dinner: Mr. and Mrs. Grote, Rogers, Browning, Harness and his sister. In the evening I went to Miss Berry's, where Lady Charlotte Lindsay and I discoursed about you, and she pitied you greatly for having, upon the top of all your troubles, forgotten your keys....

Sunday morning I packed instead of going to church, and, in fact, packed the blessed livelong day, with an interval of rest derived from an interminable visit from Frederick Byng (_alias_ Poodle). Yesterday my father and Victoire (my aunt), and Adelaide and E---- (who, to my infinite joy, came home on Saturday), dined with us. My father was better, I think, than the last evening we were with him, though, of course, a good deal out of spirits. Victoire was pretty well, but quite surprised and mortified at hearing that I would not suffer her to pack my things, for fear of its fatiguing her; and told me how she had been turning in her mind her best way of contriving to be here packing all day, and home in Charlotte Street in time to give my father his dinner. She is Dall's own sister!

Yesterday I completed, with Emily's assistance (which nearly drove me mad), the packing of the great huge chest of books, boxes, etc., and she and I walked together, but it was bitter cold and ungenial, regular _beasterly_ wind. (Mrs. Grote says _she_ invented that name for it, and, for reasons which will be obvious to you, I gave it up to her without a blow.) In the afternoon I went shopping with Adelaide, and then flew about, discharging my own commissions.

In the evening our "first grand party of the season came off;" nearly two hundred people came, and seemed, upon the whole, tolerably well amused. Adelaide and Miss Masson and I sang, and Benedict played, and it all went off very well. There were six policeman at the door, and Irish Jack-o'-lanterns without count; "the refreshment table was exceedingly elegantly set out" by _Gunter_--at a price which we do not yet know....

I dread our sea-voyage for myself, for all sorts of physical reasons; morally, I dare say I shall benefit from a season of absolute quiet and the absence of all excitement. The chicks are well; they are to go down to Liverpool on Saturday, in order to be out of the way, for we leave this house on Monday, and their departure will facilitate the verifying of inventories and all the intolerable confusion of our last hours. Mrs. Cooper, as well as Miss Hall, will go with them to Liverpool, and I have requested that, instead of staying in the town, they may go down to Crosby Beach, six miles from it, and wait there for our arrival. This is all my history. I am in one perpetual bustle, and I thank Heaven for it; I have no leisure to think or to feel....

I beg leave to inform you that Miss Hall came to my party in a most elegant black satin dress, with her hair curled in _profuse ringlets_ all over her head.

God bless you, my dear Hal. Good-bye.

Ever yours,
F. A. B.

Thursday, April 27th, 1843.
DEAREST HAL,

You ask how it goes with me. Why, I think pretty much as it did with the poor gentleman who went up in the flying machine t'other day, which, upon some of his tackle giving way, began, as he describes, to "turn round and round in the air with the most frightful velocity." My condition, I think, too, will find the same climax as his, viz. falling in a state of _senselessness_ into a steam-packet. If the account be true, it was a very curious one. As for me, I am absolutely breathless with things to do and things to think of.... Still, I get on (like a deeply freighted ship in a churning sea, to be sure), but I _do_ make some way, and the days _do_ go by, and I am glad to see the end of this season of trial approaching, for all our sakes.

Any one would suppose I was in great spirits, for I fly about, singing at the top of my voice, and only stop every now and then to pump up a sigh as big as the house, and clear my eyes of the tears that are blinding me. Occasionally, too, a feeling of my last moments here, and my leave-taking of my father and sister, shoots suddenly through my mind, and turns me dead sick; but all is well with me upon the whole, nevertheless.

Adelaide was in great health and spirits on Monday night, and sang for us, and seemed to enjoy herself very much, and gave great delight to everybody who heard her. She sang last night again at Chorley's, but I thought her voice sounded a little tired. To be sure, in those tiny boxes of rooms, the carpets and curtains choke one's voice back into one's throat, and it just comes out beyond one's teeth, with a sort of muffled-drum sound. Thus far, dearest Hal, yesterday. To-day, before I left my dressing-room, I got your present. Thank you a thousand times for the pretty chain [a beautiful gold chain, which, together with a very valuable watch, was stolen from me in a boarding-house in Philadelphia, almost immediately on my return there], which is exquisite, and will be very dear. Yet, though I found the "fine gold," the empty page of letter-paper on each side of it disappointed me more than it would have been grateful to express; but when I came down to breakfast I found your letter, and was altogether happy.... I was wearing my watch again, for I found the risk and inconvenience of always carrying it about very tiresome, but I had it on an old silver chain that I have had for some years. Yours is prettier even than my father's, and I love to feel it round my neck.

You say you hope my sister will be brave on the occasion of our parting, and not try my courage with her grief. I will answer for her. I am sure she will be brave. I know of no one with more determination and self-control than she has....

The secret of helping people every way most efficiently is to stand by and be _quiet_ and _ready_ to do anything you _may be asked to do_. This is the only real way to help people who have any notion of helping themselves.

On Monday evening we had our first party, which went off exceedingly well. On Tuesday morning Emily and I walked together, and I packed till lunch, after which I drove out with Adelaide, shopping for her, and doing my own _do's_. In the evening I went to my father, whom I found in most wretched spirits, but not worse in health. He has determined, I am thankful to say, not to see the children again before they go, which I think is very wise. After leaving him, I went to a party at our friend Chorley's, where dear Mendelssohn was, and where I heard some wonderful music, and read part of "Much Ado about Nothing" to them. Yesterday Emily came, and we walked together, and I packed and did commissions all day. Our second party took place in the evening, and we had all our grandee friends and fine-folk acquaintances....

God bless you, dear Hal. Emily is waiting for me to go out walking with her.

Ever yours,
FANNY.

26, UPPER GROSVENOR STREET.
MY DEAR CHARLES GREVILLE,

I send you back Channing's book, with many thanks. The controversial part of his sermons does not satisfy me. No controversy does; no arguments, whether for or against Christianity, ever appear to me _conclusive_; but as I am a person who would like extremely to have it demonstrated _why_ two and two make four, you can easily conceive that arguments upon any subject seldom seem perfectly satisfactory to me. As for my convictions, which are, I thank God, vivid and strong, I think they spring from a species of intuition, mercifully granted to those who have a natural incapacity for reasoning, _i.e._ the whole female _sect_. And, talking of them, I do not like Dryden, though I exclaim with delight at the glorious beauty and philosophical truth of some of his poetry; but oh! he has nasty notions about women. Did you ever see Correggio's picture of the Gismonda? It is a wonderful portrait of grief. Even Guercino's "Hagar" is inferior to it in the mere expression of misery. Knowing no more of the story years ago than I gathered from a fine print of Correggio's picture, I wrote a rhapsody upon it, which I will show you some day.

The "Leaf and the Flower" is very gorgeous, but it does not touch the heart like earnest praise of a virtue, loved, felt, and practised; and Dryden's "Hymns to Chastity" would scarcely, I think, satisfy me, even had I not in memory sundry sublime things of Spenser, Dante, and Milton on the same theme. Thank you for both the books. Each in its kind is very good.

I am yours very truly,
F. A. B.

[Mr. Greville had lent me a volume of Dr. Channing's "Sermons," and
Dryden's "Fables," which I had never before read.]

26, UPPER GROSVENOR STREET, Saturday, April 29th.
DEAREST GRANNY,

I send you back, with thanks, the critique on Adelaide. It is very civil and, I think, not otherwise than just, except perhaps in comparing my sister _at present_ to Pasta.