Chapter XXXI: Part 31

I am sorry to say that, yesterday, Mr. Ellis, who sat by me at dinner at Lady Castlereagh's, said that the poorer class in this country was about to be worse off, presently, than it had been yet; and hoped the example of this new uprising in Paris would not be poisonous to them. It is sad to think how much, how many suffer; but by the mode of talking and going on of those who are well off and do not suffer, in England, it seems to me as if the condition of the poor must become such as to threaten them with imminent peril, before they will alter either their way of talking or of going on. Poor people all! but the rich are poorest, for they have something to lose and everything to fear, which is the reverse of the case of the poor.

My staircase at the theatre troubles me but little, and I do not sit in the green-room, which would have troubled me much more. My rehearsal of Desdemona tried me severely, for I was frightened to death of Macready, and the horror of the play itself took such hold of me that at the end I could hardly stand for shaking, or speak for crying; and Macready seemed quite mollified by my condition, and promised not to rebreak my little finger, _if he could remember it_. He lets down the bed-curtains before he smothers me, and, as the drapery conceals the murderous struggle, and therefore he need not cover my head at all, I hope I shall escape alive.

Please tell dear Dorothy that Miss ---- called here the day before yesterday, and left Miss B----'s songs for me. They are difficult, beyond the comprehension and execution of any but a very good musician; they show real genius, and a taste imbued with the inspiration of the great masters, Handel and Beethoven. The only one of them that I could sing is the only one that is in the least commonplace, "The Bonnet Blue;" the others are beyond my powers, but I shall get my sister to sing them for me. They are very remarkable as the compositions of so young a woman. Did she write the words as well as the music of "The Spirit of Delight"? [The musical compositions here referred to were those of Miss Laura Barker, afterwards Mrs. Tom Taylor, a member of a singularly gifted family, whose father and sisters were all born artists, with various and uncommon natural endowments, cultivated and developed to the highest degree, in the seclusion of a country parsonage.] ...

I wish it was "bedtime, Hal," and I was smothered and over!

God bless you, dear.

Ever yours,
FANNY.

KING STREET, Friday, February 28th.
DEAR HAL,

... I got through Desdemona very well, as far as my personal safety was concerned; for though I fell on the stage in real hysterics at the end of one of those horrible scenes with Othello, Macready was more considerate than I had expected, did not rebreak my little finger, and did not really smother me in bed. I played the part fairly well, and wish you had seen it. I was tolerably satisfied with it myself, which, you know, I am not often, with my own theatrical performances....

Faith in God, according to my understanding of it, my dearest Hal, implies faith in man; and have we not good need of both just now? You can well imagine the state of perturbation and excitement London is in with these Parisian events. The universal cry and question is, "What is the news?" People run from house to house to gather the latest intelligence. The streets are filled with bawling paper-vendors, amidst whose indistinct vociferations the attractively appalling words, "Revolution! Republic! Massacre! Bloodshed!" are alone distinguishable. The loss of Saturday night's packet between Calais and Dover, besides the horror of the event itself, is doubly distressing from the intense anxiety felt to receive intelligence of how matters are going on.

Thus far yesterday, dear Hal; but as every hour brings intelligence that contradicts that of the hour before, it is now known that the small boat, going from the shore to the packet, was capsized and lost, and not the steamer itself. Henry Greville belongs to the party of Terrorists, and believes the worst of the worst rumors: but I have just seen his mother, and Lady Charlotte says that Charles is almost enthusiastic in his admiration of the conduct of the French people _hitherto_; but then there is never any knowing exactly how long any fashion, frenzied or temperate, moral or material, may last in France.

In the mean time, the condition of that unfortunate Royal Family is worthy of all compassion, especially the women, who are involved in the retributions of the folly or wickedness of the men they belong to.

It is not known where the Duchesse de Nemours is. Her husband has arrived safely here with one of the children; but neither he nor any one else knows what has become of his wife and the other two children. Of the Duchesse d'Orleans and her two babies nothing is known; and Lady Normanby wrote a letter to the Queen, saying that Louis Philippe and the Queen of France were in safety, but, as her letter would be sure to be opened, she could say no more.

Only think of the Princesse Clementine making her escape from France on board the same packet with her brother, the Duc de Nemours, and neither of them knowing the other was on the same vessel! The suddenness of the whole catastrophe makes it seem like some outrageously impossible dream. What a troubled dream must that king and queen's life seem to them, beginning and ending in such national convulsions!...

I really believe Macready cannot help being as odious as he is on the stage. He very nearly made me faint last night in "Macbeth," with crushing my broken finger, and, by way of apology, merely coolly observed that he really could not answer for himself in such a scene, and that I ought to wear a splint; and truly, if I act much more with him, I think I shall require several splints, for several broken limbs. I have been rehearsing "Hamlet" with him this morning for three hours. I do not mind his tiresome particularity on the stage, for, though it all goes to making himself the only object of everything and everybody, he works very hard, and is zealous, and conscientious, and laborious in his duty, which is a merit in itself. But I think it is rather _mean_ (as the children say) of him to refuse to act in such plays as "King John," "Much Ado about Nothing," which are pieces of his own too, to oblige me; whilst I have studied expressly for him Desdemona, Ophelia, and Cordelia, parts quite out of my line, merely that his plays may be strengthened by my name. Moreover, he has not scrupled to ask me to study new parts, in plays which have been either written expressly only for him, or cut down to suit his peculiar requisitions. This, however, I have declined doing. Anything of Shakespeare's I will act with and for him, because anything of Shakespeare's is good enough, and too good, for me.... I shall have a nausea of fright till after I have done singing in Ophelia to-morrow night.

Ever yours,
FANNY.

KING STREET, Tuesday, March 7th, 1848.

Indeed, my dear Hal, I was not satisfied, but profoundly dissatisfied, with my singing in Ophelia; but am thankful to say that I did not sing out of tune, which I dreaded doing, from the miserable nervousness I felt about it. I am entirely misplaced in the character, and can do nothing with it that might not be better done by almost any younger woman with a sweet voice and that order of fair beauty which one cannot separate from one's idea of Ophelia.

I have read Stanley's sermon on St. Peter, and am enchanted with it, and more than ever struck with the resemblance, in its general spirit, and even in actual passages, to my friend Mr. Furness's book. The notes and commentary upon the sermon are the part of Stanley's work that show more erudition and literary power than Mr. Furness's treatise contained, but the manner and matter of the writers shows close kindred when treating of the same subjects.

We overflow here with anecdotes of the hairbreadth escapes of the French fugitives. Guizot and Madame de Lieven, his dear friend and evil genius, arrived both in London on the same day, having travelled from Paris in the same railroad train as far as Amiens; she with the painter Roberts, passing as his wife, and Guizot so disguised that she did not recognize him, and would not believe Lord Holland when he called upon her on Saturday and told her that Guizot had arrived like herself, and by the same train, the day before. Hotels and private houses are thronged with French and English tumbling over, a perfect stampede, from the other side of the Channel. Lady Dufferin, who during her long stay in Paris made many French friends, is exercising hospitality to the tune of having thirty people in her house in Brook Street.

Charles Greville showed me on Saturday a capital letter of Lord Clarendon's upon the subject of his kingdom [he was Lord Lieutenant of Ireland at this time], and the probable and possible effects of this French Revolution on your quiet, orderly, well-principled countrymen. He also showed me a letter he had received from E---- from Rome, in which, I think, the account of the pope is that of a man being carried off his legs by the popular exigencies, which he _cannot_ resist and at the same time remain pope--the head of the priestly Roman Catholic Government.

Yesterday came news that _Metternich had resigned_. If this is true, the forward step Italy is about to take need not, please God! be made in blood and violent social upheaving. I do pray that this news may be true, for it will probably avert a fire-and-sword revolution in the Milanese, and all through Lombardy, in which Piedmont would sympathize too warmly for its own peace and quiet.

Austria, thus deserted by the presiding genius of her hitherto Italian policy, Metternich, will perhaps hesitate to enforce its threatened opposition to the changes which she might have sold at the cost of many lives, but would not have averted, though she overran Italy from end to end with war and desolation.

This retreat of the great political powers of darkness before the advance of freedom in Italy seems to me like a personal happiness to myself. I rejoice unspeakably in it. It is quite another matter in France. It will be another matter here, whenever our turn to be turned upside down or inside out comes.

In Italy the people are rising against foreign tyranny, to get rid of foreign dominion, and to get rightful possession of the government of their own country. In France the revolution against power is past, but that against property is yet to come. As for us, our revolt against iniquitous power ended with the final expulsion of the Stuarts; but we have sundry details of that wholesale business yet to finish, and there will be here some sort of _property_ revolution, in some mode or other, yet.

The crying sin of modern Christian civilization, the monstrous inequalities in the means of existence, will yet be dealt with by us English, among whom it is more flagrant than anywhere else on earth.

It is the one revolution of which our social system seems to me to stand in need, the last that can be directly affected, if not effected, by legislative action upon the tenure of land, the whole system of proprietorship of the soil, the spread of education, and the extension of the franchise: and, as we are the richest and the poorest people in the world, as the extremes of rampant luxury and crawling poverty are wider asunder here than anywhere else on earth, the force must be great--I pray God it may be gradual--that draws those opposite ends of the social scale into more humane nearness.

I cannot believe that any violent convulsions will attend inevitable necessary change here; for, in spite of the selfish passions of both rich and poor, our people do fear God, more, I think, than any other European nation, and recognize a law of duty; and there is good sense and good principle enough in all classes, I believe, to meet even radical change with firmness and temperance.

The noble body politic of England is surely yet so sound and healthy and vigorous as to go through any crisis for the cure of any local disease, any partial decay, without danger to the whole; though not, perhaps, without difficulty and suffering both to classes and individuals.

God is over all, and I do not believe that one of the most Christian of nations will perish in the attempt to follow the last of Christ's commandments, "Love one another."

I am painfully impressed with what constantly seems to me the short-sightedness of the clever worldly-wise people I hear talking upon these subjects, and the deep despondence of those who see a great cloud looming up over the land. Our narrow room and redundant population make any sudden violent political movement dangerous, perhaps; but I have faith in the general wholesome spirit of our people, their good sense and good principle. I have the same admiration for and confidence in our national character that I have in the institutions of the United States.

God keep this precious England safe!...

I am ever yours most truly,
FANNY.

KING STREET, Wednesday, March 8th, 1848.

My little finger has recovered from Macready. It is gradually getting much better, but he certainly did it an injury. With regard to his "relenting," he is, I am told, quite uncommonly gracious and considerate to me....

I was told by a friend of mine who was at "Hamlet" the other evening, that in the closet scene with his mother he had literally knocked the poor woman down who was playing the Queen. I thought this an incredible exaggeration, and asked her afterwards if it was true, and she said so true that she was bruised all across her breast with the blow he had given her; that, happening to take his hand at a moment when he did not wish her to do so, he had struck her violently and knocked her literally down; so I suppose I may consider it "relenting" that he never yet has knocked me down....

We are quite lively now in London with riots of our own--a more exciting process than merely reading of our neighbors' across the Channel. Last night a mob, in its playful progress though this street, broke the peaceful windows of this house. There have been great meetings in Trafalgar Square these two last evenings, in which the people threw stones about, and made a noise, but that was all they did by all accounts. They have smashed sundry windows, and the annoyance and apprehension occasioned by their passage wherever they go is very great. Nothing serious, however, has yet occurred; and I suppose, if the necessity for calling out the military can be avoided, nothing serious will occur. But if these disorderly meetings increase in number and frequency the police will not be sufficient to moderate and disperse them, and the troops will have to be called out, and we shall have terrible mischief, for our soldiers will not fraternize with the London mob, the idea of duty--of which the French soldiers or civilians have but a meagre allowance (glory, honor, anything else you please, in abundance)--being the _one_ idea in the head of an English soldier and of most English civilians, thank God!

The riots in Glasgow have been very serious; the population of that city, especially the women, struck me as the most savage and brutal looking I had ever seen in this country; and I remember frequently, while I was there, thinking what a terrible mob the lowest class of its inhabitants would make.

Metternich's resignation, of which I wrote you yesterday, is, alas! uncertain. I had rejoiced at it for the sake of that beautiful Italy, and all her political martyrs past and to come.

Good-bye, God bless you. I shall go and see some of those great mobs of ours. It must be a curious and interesting spectacle.

Believe me ever yours,
FANNY.

KING STREET, Saturday and Sunday,
March 11th and 12th, 1848.
DEAREST HAL,

The "uses of adversity," which are assuredly often "sweet," should help to reconcile us both to our own sorrows and those which are sometimes harder to bear, the sorrows of those we love.... I have not yet been able to accomplish my intention of seeing anything of our great political mobs; and they are now beginning to subside, having been rather _rackets_ than riots in their demonstrations, I am happy to say, and therefore not very curious or interesting in any point of view.

But there is to be a very large meeting at Kennington on Monday, and Alfred Potocki said he would take me to it, but as I have to act that night I am afraid it would be hardly conscientious to run the risk of an accidental blow from a brickbat that might disable me for my work, which is my duty, though, I confess, it is a great temptation. My friend, Comte Potocki, is young and tall and strong and active, but I would a great deal rather have paid a policeman to look after me, as I did when I went to see a fire, than have depended upon the care of a gentleman who would feel himself hampered by having me to care for. After all, I shall probably give it up, and not go....

My father tells me he has definitely renounced all idea of reading again, so I took heart of grace to ask him to lend me the plays he read from, to mark mine by. The copy he used is a Hanmer, in six large quarto volumes, and belongs to Lane, the artist, who has very kindly lent it to me. My father's marks are most elaborate, but the plays are cruelly sacrificed to the exigencies of the performance--as much maimed, I think, as they are for stage representation. My father has executed this inevitable mangling process with extreme good judgment and taste; but it gives me the heart-ache, for all that. But he was _timed_, and that impatiently, by audiences who would barely sit two hours in their places, and required that the plays should be compressed into the measure of their intellectual _short_-suffering capacity.

However, it was at the Palace that he had to _compress_ or rather _compel_ the five acts of "Cymbeline" into a reading of three quarters of an hour: and how he performed that feat is still incomprehensible to me....

Everything is black and sad enough as far as I can see, but, thank God, I cannot see far, and every day has four-and-twenty hours, and in every minute of every hour live countless seeds of invisible events. I heard a very good sermon to-day upon Christian liberty, and have been reading Stanley's sermon upon St. Paul, which made my heart burn within me.... I am reading an immensely thick book by Gioberti, one of the Italian reformers, a devout and eloquent Catholic priest, and it enchants me.

Good-bye, my dear.

I am ever yours,
FANNY.

KING STREET, Wednesday, 16th, 1848.

Of course you have heard of the murder of the soldier by that poor girl in the park. I have heard nothing more special about it, and have not seen the newspapers lately, so you probably know more about it than I do. Emily tells me this morning that there were some excellent observations upon the circumstance, either in the _Examiner_ or _Spectator_. It will be long before women are justly dealt with by the social or civil codes of Christian communities to which they belong, longer still before they are righteously dealt with by the individuals to whom they belong; but it will not be _for ever_. With the world's progress that reform will come, too; though I believe it will be the very last before the millennium.

I hope this poor unfortunate will be recommended to the Queen's mercy, and escape hanging, unless, as might be just possible, she prefers depending on a gibbet to the tender mercies of Christian society--especially its women--towards a woman who, after being seduced by a man, murdered him.

Did I never tell you of that unhappy creature in New York, who was in the same situation, except that the villain she stabbed did not die, who was tried and acquitted, and who found a shelter in Charles Sedgwick's house, and who, when the despairing devil of all her former miseries took possession of her, used to be thrown into paroxysms of insane anguish, during which Elizabeth [Mrs. Charles Sedgwick] used to sit by her and watch her, and comfort her and sing to her, till she fell exhausted with misery into sleep? That poor woman used to remind me of my children's nurse....

I receive frequent complaints, not from you only, that I do not write sufficiently in detail about myself. It is on that account that I am always so glad to be _asked questions_, because they remind me of what my friends specially desire to know about me when otherwise I should be apt to write to them about what interested me, rather than what I was doing or saying, and the things and people that surround me, which I do not always find interesting.

You do just the same; your letters are very often indeed discussions upon matters of abstract speculation rather than tidings of yourself,--your doing, being, or suffering,--and I have not objected to this in you, though it has given me a deal of trouble in answering you, because I like people to go their own way in everything; moreover, unless I am reminded by questions of what _is happening to me_, it interests me so little that I should probably forget to mention it....

If my faith, dearest Hal, depended upon my knowledge of the means by which the results in which I have faith will be achieved, I should have some cause for despondency. Do you suppose I imagine that the sudden violence of a national convulsion will make people Christians who are not so?... My answer to all your questions as to how momentous changes for the better are to be brought about in public affairs, in popular institutions, in governments, can only be--I do not know. I believe in them, nevertheless, for I believe in God's law, and in Christ's teaching of it, and the obviously ordained progress of the human race. True it is that Christ's teaching, ruling in every man's heart, can only be the distant climax of this progress; but when that does so rule, all other "governments" will be unnecessary: but though we are far enough off from that yet, we are nearer than we ever yet have been; and until that has become the supreme government of the world, changes must go on perpetually in our temporary and imperfect institutions, by which the onward movement is accelerated, at what speed who can tell? It seems to me that the geological growth of our earth has been rapid, compared to the moral growth of our race; but so it is apparently ordained. Individual goodness is _the_ great power of all,--societies, organizations, combinations, institutions, laws, governments, act from the surface downwards far less efficaciously than from the _root upwards_, and what it does _is done_.

Comparatively cheap forms of government are among the most obvious and reasonable changes to be desired in Europe; but you mistake me if you suppose I am looking for instantaneous Utopias born out of national uproar and confusion. But as long as the love of God is not a sufficiently powerful motive with the nations of the earth to make them seek to know and do His will, revolution, outrage, carnage, fear, and suffering are, I suppose, the spurs that are to goad them on to _bettering_ themselves; and so national agonies seem to me like individual sorrows--dispensations sent to work improvement.

Fourierism was received with extreme enthusiasm in New England, where various societies have been formed upon the plan of Fourier's suggestions, and this not by the poor or lower classes, but by the voluntary association of the rich with the poor in communities where all worldly goods were in common, and labor, too, so foolishly fairly in common that delicately bred and highly educated women took their turn to stand all day at the wash-tub, for the benefit of the society, though surely not of their shirts.

I have conversed much in America with disciples of this school, but am of opinion, in spite of their zeal, that no such scheme of social improvement will be found successful, and that this violent precipitating one's self from the sphere in which one is placed in the scale of civilization is not what is wanted, but much rather the full performance of our several duties at the post where we each of us stand and have been providentially placed. The old English catechism of Christian obligation taught us that we were to do our duty in that state of life into which it had pleased God to call us--and if we did, there would be small need of revolutions.

In America these social experiments were perfectly disinterested and undertaken for the sake of moral good results; for where they were tried, there was neither excessive wealth nor poverty to suggest them, and the excellent and intelligent people thus brought together by pure zeal for social improvement disagreed and grumbled with each other, were so perfectly and uncomfortably unsuccessful in their experiments that their whole scheme collapsed, and dissolved into the older social disorders from which they had thought to raise themselves and others....

MY DEAR HAL,

... I do not see why a much greater subdivision of land would not be beneficial in England. Of course, if to the example of America you retort all its singular and advantageous conditions, I have nothing to say; but how about Belgium, the Netherlands, France, Switzerland? where small proprietorship appears to result in prosperity both to the land and its cultivators. I do not believe that the tenure of land will long continue what it is here, nor do I believe, in spite of the warlike notes of preparation from all sides of the Continent just now, that the day of great standing armies can last much longer--neither in France nor England, surely, can the people consent much longer to be taxed as they are for military purposes....

I told you of my having found, in the theatre at Norwich, a couple of young people whose position had interested me much. They were very poor, but gentlefolks, and sorely as they needed money, I could not offer it to them, so I promised to go down to Lynn, and act for them whenever they could obtain their manager's leave to have me.... And on Saturday, the 18th, I shall go down to Mrs. H----'s, my dear friend Harness's niece, who lives within seven miles of Lynn, and visit her, while I do what I can for them.

Ever yours,
FANNY.

BILNEY, NEAR LYNN, NORFOLK, Monday, March 20th, 1848.
MY DEAREST HARRIET,

I may or may not be very nervous on the occasion of my Saturday's reading at Highgate. [It was the first I ever gave--a mere experiment to test my powers for the purpose; was in a small room, and before an audience in which were some of my intimate friends.] It will probably depend upon whether I am tolerably well or not, but I trust I shall not annoy you, my dear, if you are with me....

Did I tell you that I met Mr. Swinton at Lady Castlereagh's the other evening, and that he very amiably invited me to go and see his pictures before they went to the exhibition?--so perhaps we may see them together when we come to town. I had an application from an artist the other day, who is painting a picture from "Macbeth," to sit for his Lady for him; and I have undertaken to do so, which is a bore, and therefore very good-natured of me.... This place itself is pretty, though the country round it is not. The weather is cold and rainy and uncomfortable, and I shall be almost glad to get back to London, and to see you. "Now, isn't that strange?" as Benedick says.

I am afraid, moreover, that my errand here, which will cost me both trouble and money, will not answer too well to the poor people I wish to serve. Only think of their manager making them _pay_ for the use of the theatre at a rate that will swallow up the best part of what I can bring into it for them. Isn't it a shame?... This is an out-of-the-way part of the world enough, as I think you will allow, when I tell you that _one_ policeman suffices for _three_ parishes, and that his authority is oftenest required to reclaim wandering poultry. Moreover, the curate, who does duty in both this and the adjoining parish for sixty pounds a year, preaches against his patron, whose pew is immediately under the pulpit, designating him by the general exemplary and illustrative title of the "abandoned profligate." The latter thus vaguely indicated individual is a middle-aged widower of perhaps not immaculate morals, but who, as lord of the manor and chief landed proprietor in these parts, is allowed to be charitable and kind enough,--which, however, will not, I am afraid, save him--at least in the opinion of his clergyman. The country people are remarkably ignorant, unenlightened, _unpolitical_, unpoetical rustics, but remarkably well off, paying only three pounds a year for excellent four-roomed cottages, having abundance of cheap and good food, and various rights of common, and privileges which help to make them comfortable. It is an astonishingly sleepy and quiet sort of community and neighborhood, and this is a pretty place, on the edge of a wild common, with fine clumps of fir-wood about it, and a picturesquely _colored_ district of heath, gorse, broom, and pine growth, extending just far enough round the grounds to make one believe one was in a pretty country.

As I hear no more of the present French Revolution down here, I am reading Lamartine's ("Les Girondins") account of their first one. It's just like reading to-day's Paris newspaper.

Ever yours,
FANNY.

You will be glad to hear that, after encountering every possible let and hindrance from their amiable manager, and being made by him to pay _ten pounds_ for the use of the theatre, company, gas, etc, my poor young fellow-actors, for whose sake I came down here, will have cleared a sum that will be an immense help to poor folk living upon L2 a week. I was delighted with having been able to serve them much better than I had feared I might. People's comparative earnings make me reflect. I have been grumbling not a little at my weekly earnings. Thackeray, for that wonderful book, "Vanity Fair," gets L60 a month; the curate who preached to us on Sunday and does duty in two parishes has L60 a year. Perpend! Good-bye, my dear.

Believe me ever yours,
FANNY.

PORTSMOUTH, Wednesday.
DEAR T----,

What a marvellous era in the world's history is this we are living in! Kings, princes, and potentates flying dismayed to the right and left, and nation after nation rising up, demanding a freedom which God knows how few of them seem capable of using.

The last month in Europe has been like the breathless reading of the most exciting novel, and every day and hour almost teems with events that surpass in suddenness and importance all that has gone before.

The Austrians will not give up Italy without a struggle, and I suppose through that channel the floodgates will be thrown open that will deluge all Europe with blood.

Is not the position of the Emperor of Russia awful in its singularity--the solitary despot of the civilized world?

The great body of the Austrian empire is falling asunder, and all its limbs standing up, separate national bodies. Hungary, Bohemia, Poland will again have individual existence, and the King of Prussia will be undoubtedly hereafter the head of a huge German Confederacy.

In the mean time, I am sure you will rejoice that Metternich was mistaken, and that "it," as he was pleased to designate the existing state of Europe, did not even, as he said it would, "last his time."

Our country is wonderful; I mean this, my blessed England receiving into her bosom the exiled minister and dethroned King of France, and the detested Crown Prince of Prussia, with the dispassionate hospitality of a general house of refuge for ruined royalties.

The spirit and temper of this English people is noble in its steadfastness: with much of national grievance to redress and burdens to throw off, the long habit of comparative freedom, and the innately loyal and conservative character of the nation, have produced a popular feeling that at this time of universal disturbance is most striking in its deliberate adherence to established right and good order. Alone of all the thrones in Europe, that of our excellent queen and her admirable consort stands unshaken; alone of all the political constitutions, that of the country they govern is threatened with no fatal convulsion: in the midst of the failing credit and disturbed financial interests of the Continent, our funds have been gradually advancing in value, and our public credit rises as the aspect of affairs becomes more and more involved and threatening abroad.

Ireland is our weak point, and, as we have to _atone_ there for cruelty, and injustice, and neglect, too long persisted in, that will be the quarter from which we shall receive our share of the national judgments which are being executed all over the world.

A short time ago I saw an admirable letter of Lord Clarendon's, who is now Lord Lieutenant; but though he has hitherto conducted his most difficult government with great ability, there is so much real evil in the condition of the Irish that, combined with their folly, their ignorance, and the wickedness of their instigators, I do not think it possible that the summer will pass over without that wretched country again becoming the theatre of anarchy and turbulent resistance to authority.

My brother-in-law has returned from Rome, and my sister will follow him as soon as the weather will admit of her crossing the Alps with her babies. All his property is in the French funds, that seems an insecure security nowadays....

In England we shall have an extended right of suffrage, a smaller army, a cheaper government, reduced taxation, and some modification of the land tenure,--change, but no revolution, and no fits, I think. This people deserve freedom, for they alone, and you, descended from them, have shown that they know what it means. Considerable changes we shall have, but the wisdom and wealth of our middle classes is a feature in our social existence without European parallel; it is the salvation of the country. I know you hate crossed writing, so good-bye. I am afraid these fantastic French fools will bring Republicanism into contempt. France seems to be threatened with national bankruptcy, _et puis--alors--vous verrez_.

Always affectionately yours,
F. A. B.

COLCHESTER.

I came from Yarmouth to-day, having lodged there in a strange old inn that belonged, in our Republican days, to Judge Bradshaw; in one room of which, they say, Cromwell signed Charles I.'s death-warrant; but this, I think, is a mistake. He is said, however to have lived much in the house, which, at that time, belonged to the Bradshaw family. The house is of a much earlier date, though, than that, and was once, undoubtedly, a royal residence; for in a fine old oak room, the carved panelling of which was as black as ebony, the ceiling was all wrought with the roses and the _fleur-de-lys_. The kitchen and bar-room were both made out of an old banqueting-hall, immensely lofty, and with a very fine carved ceiling, and stone-mullioned windows, of capital style and preservation. The staircase was one of those precious, broad, easy-graded ascents, up which you could almost take a carriage, with a fine heavy oak baluster; and on the upper floor three good-sized rooms made out of one, with another elaborately carved ceiling. It was really a most curious and picturesque place, and is now the "Star Inn" at Yarmouth, and will doubtless become gradually changed and modernized and pulled to pieces, till both its remaining fine old characteristics and its traditions are lost--as, in good measure, they already are, for, as I said before, the house bears traces of having been a royal residence long before Cromwell's time....

The older English country-houses are full of quaint and picturesque relics of former times; but I think there is a cruel indifference sometimes to their preservation; _e.g._, think of the Norwich people allowing the house of Sir Thomas Browne to be dismantled of all its wood-carving, which was sent up to London and sold in morsels, I suppose, to the Jews in Wardour Street.

Yours affectionately,
FANNY.

PORTSMOUTH, Friday, March 31st, 1848.

I did not walk on my arrival in Portsmouth, dear Hal, but dined. The day was very beautiful all along, and I enjoyed as much of it as my assiduous study of the _Times_ newspaper would allow.

I am glad you saw Mitchell, because now you can conceive what a funny colloquy that was of mine with him, about the price of the seats at my readings. [Mr. Mitchell, court bookseller, queen's publisher, box-letter to the nobility, general undertaker of pleasures and amusements for the fashionable great world of London, was my manager and paymaster throughout all my public reading career in England.] In making the preliminary arrangements for them he had, in my opinion, put the prices too high, demanding ten shillings for them. When I said they were not worth two, and certainly ought not to be charged more than five, he replied, with much feeling for the British aristocracy, whom he idolized, and whom he thought fit on this occasion to designate, collectively, under the title of my friend Lord Lansdowne, that he couldn't think of insulting him by making him pay only five shillings to hear me read. I wonder why poor dear Lord Lansdowne can't be asked five shillings? I would have charged him, and all the smaller and greater nobility of the realm, half a crown, and been rather ashamed of the pennyworth they got for it. But a thing is worth what it will fetch, and no one knows that better than Mr. Mitchell. I should think any sensible being would prefer paying half a crown to the honor and glory of disbursing twice that sum for a two-hours' reading--even by me, even of Shakespeare. I wish, while you were in personal connection with my manager Mitchell, you had remonstrated with him about those ridiculous dandified advertisements. You might have expressed my dislike of such fopperies, and perhaps saved me a few shillings in pink and blue and yellow note-paper; though it really almost seems a pity to interfere with the elegancies of poor Mitchell, who is nothing if not elegant. However, I wish he would not be so at my expense, who have no particle of that exquisite quality in my whole composition, and find the grovelling one of avarice growing daily upon me.

I have already had a letter from Henry Greville this morning, telling me the result of _two_ interviews _he_ has had with Mitchell about the readings; also--which interests me far more than my own interests--of the utter routing of the Austrians in the Milanese--hurrah!--also of his determination to buy the house in Eaton Place.... Adelaide must come home by sea, for it is impossible that she should travel either through France or Germany without incurring the risk of much annoyance, if nothing worse. The S---- in the dragoon regiment in Dublin is E----'s younger brother....

Ever yours,
FANNY.

BANNISTERS, Tuesday, 14th, 1848.

Liston's [the eminent surgeon] death shocked me very much, and I felt very certain that he was himself aware of his own condition. I observed, during my intercourse with him latterly, a listless melancholy in his manner, a circumstance that puzzled me a good deal in contrast with his powerful frame, and vigorous appearance, and blunt, offhand manner. I think I understand now, and can compassionate certain expressions in his last note to me, which, when I received it, made a painful and unfavorable impression upon me. I suppose he did not believe in a future state of existence, and have no doubt that, latterly, he had a distinct anticipation of his own impending annihilation. His great strength and magnificent physical structure, of course, suggested no such apprehension to persons who knew nothing of his malady [Liston died of aneurism in the throat], but when I saw him last he told me he was much more ill than I was; that he had been spitting up a quantity of blood, and was "all wrong." ...

I cannot take your thanks, my dear Hal, about "Wilhelm Meister." ... I never offer anything to any one; neither would I willingly, when asked for it, withhold anything from any one. I believe the only difference that I really make between my "_friends_" and my "_fellow-creatures_" is one of pure sentiment: I love the former, and am completely indifferent to the latter, but I would _do_ as much for the latter as for the former.

My marks in "Wilhelm Meister" will not, as you expect, "explain themselves," for the passages that I admire for their artistic literary beauty, their keen worldly wisdom, their profound insight, and noble truth, as well as those which charm me only by their brilliant execution, and those which command my whole, my entire feeling of sympathy, are all alike indicated by the one straight line down the side of the text. I think, however, you will distinguish what I agree with from what I only admire. It is a wonderful book, and its most striking characteristic to me is its absolute moral, dispassionate impartiality. Outward loveliness of the material universe, inward ugliness of human nature in its various distortions; the wisdom and the foolishness of man's aims, and the modes of pursuing them; the passions of the senses, the affections of the heart, the aspirations of the soul; the fine metaphysical experiences of the transcendental religionists; the semi-sensual, outward piety of the half-idolatrous Roman Catholic; the great and the little, the shallow and the deep of humanity in this its stage of action and development,--are delineated with the most perfect apparent indifference of sentiment, combined with the most perfect accuracy of observation. He pleads no cause of man or thing, and the absence of all indication of human sympathy is very painful to me in his book. It is only because God is represented as a Being of perfect love that we can endure the idea of Him as also a Being of perfect knowledge. Goethe, as I believe I have told you, always reminds me of Ariel, a creature whose nature--_super_human through power and knowledge of various kinds--is _under_-human in other respects (love and the capacity of sympathy), and was therefore subject to the nobler moral nature of Prospero. Activity seems to be the only principle which Goethe advocates, activity and earnestness--especially in self-culture,--and in this last quality, which he sublimely advocates, I find the only _comfortable_ element in his wonderful writings. _He_ is _in_human, not superhuman.

God bless you. Good-bye.

Ever yours,
FANNY.

KING STREET, St. James, Friday, 17th.
MY DEAREST HAL,

I cannot be making arrangements for going over to Dublin so far ahead as the 22d of May, for by that time Dublin may have been swallowed up by Young Ireland.

Your theory of my reading elegant extracts from Shakespeare is very pretty, but absolutely nothing to the purpose for my purpose.... All that is _merely_ especially beautiful is sedulously cut out in my reading version, in order to preserve the skeleton of the story; because the audiences that I shall address are not familiar with the plays, and what they want is as much as possible of the excitement of a dramatic entertainment to be obtained without entering the doors of a theatre....

You forget to what a number of people Lambs and Bullocks give their names; Hog, which, by the bye, is spelt Hogge, has by no means the pre-eminence in that honor.

I saw Lady Lansdowne the other day, who said the ministers were extremely anxious about Ireland, and that the demonstrations with regard to St. Patrick's day kept them in a state of great alarm. Lord Lansdowne is tolerably well just now, but has been quite ill; and Lord John Russell is so ill and worn out that they say he will be obliged to resign: in which case I suppose Lord Lansdowne would be premier. The position of people at the head of governments in this year of grace is certainly not enviable. D'Israeli said, last night, he couldn't see why Dublin should not be burnt to the ground; that he could understand the use of London, or even of Paris, but that the _use_ of Dublin was a mystery. I suggested its being the spring and source and fountain-head of Guinness's stout, but I don't think he considered even that a sufficient _raison d'etre_ for your troublesome capital, or porter an equivalent for the ten righteous men who might save a city.

Thackeray tells a comical story of having received a letter from his father-in-law in Paris, urging him by all means to send over his daughter there, and indeed go over himself, for that the frightful riots in England, especially those in London, Trafalgar Square, Kennington, etc., must of course make it a most undesirable residence; and that they would find Paris a much safer and quieter one: which reminds me of the equally earnest entreaties of my dear American friends that I should hasten to remove my poor pennies from the perilous guardianship of the Bank of England and convert them with all despatch to the safe-keeping of American securities!

I have been going out a good deal during the last three weeks, and mean to continue to do so while I am in London, partly because, as I am about to go away, I wish to see as much as I can of its pleasant and remarkable society, and partly, too, from a motive of _policy_, though I hate it almost as much as Sir Andrew Aguecheek did. I mean to read in London before I leave it, and a great many of my fine lady and gentlemen acquaintances will come and hear me, provided I don't give them time to forget my existence, but keep them well in mind of it by duly presenting myself amongst them. "Out of sight, out of mind," is necessarily the motto of all societies, and considerations of interest more than pleasure often induce our artists and literary men to produce themselves in the world lest they should be forgotten by it. Nor, indeed, is this merely the calculation of those who expect any profit from society; the very pleasure-hunters themselves find that they must not get thrown out, or withdraw for a moment, or disappear below the surface for an instant, for if they do the mad tide goes over them, and they are neither asked for, nor looked for, called for, nor thought of, "Qui quitte sa place la perd," and there is nothing so easy as to be forgotten....

Besides all this, now that my departure from England approaches, I feel as if I had enjoyed and profited too little by the intercourse of all the clever people I live among, and whose conversation you know I take considerable pleasure in. I begin now, in listening, as I did last night, to D'Israeli and Milnes and Carlyle, and E----'s artist friend, Mr. Swinton, to remember that these are bright lights in one of the brightest intellectual centres in Europe, and that I am within their sphere but for a time....

I called at the Milmans' yesterday, and found Mrs. Austin there, whom I listened to, almost without drawing breath, for an hour. She has just returned from Paris, where she lived with all the leading political people of the day, and she says she feels as if she had been looking at a battle-field strewn with her acquaintances. Her account of all that is going on is most interesting, knowing as she does all the principal actors and sufferers in these events, personally and intimately.

To-day the report is that the Bank of France has suspended payment. The ruin of the Rothschilds is not true, though they are great losers by these catastrophes. The Provisional Government has very wisely and wittily devised, as a means of raising money, to lay a tax of six hundred francs a year upon everybody who _keeps more than one servant_! Can folly go beyond that?

Henry Greville showed me yesterday a letter he had received from Paris from Count Pahlen, saying that, though the guillotine was not yet erected, the reign of terror had virtually commenced; for that the pusillanimous dread that kept the whole nation in awe of a handful of pickpockets could be described as nothing else.

I am much concerned about E----'s fortune, the whole of which is, I believe, lodged in French funds. All property there must be in terrible jeopardy, I fear.

Lady G---- F---- went to Claremont two days ago, and says that Louis Philippe's deportment is that of a servant out of place. She did not add, "Pas de bonne maison." ...

Ever yours,
FANNY.

[On the famous 10th of April, the day of the great Chartist meeting,
I drove from King Street to Westminster Bridge in the morning,
before the monster demonstration took place; and though the shops
were shut and the streets deserted, everything was perfectly quiet
and orderly, and nothing that _appeared_ indicated the political
disturbance with which the city was threatened--the dread of which
induced people, as far as the Regent's Park from the Houses of
Parliament, to pack up their valuables and plate, etc., and prepare
for instant flight from London. In the evening, my friends would
hardly believe my peaceful progress down Whitehall, and I heard two
striking incidents, among the day's smaller occurrences: that Prince
Louis Napoleon had enrolled himself among the special constables for
the preservation of peace and order; and that M. Guizot, standing
where men of every grade, from dandies to draymen, were flocking to
accept the same service of public preservation, kept exclaiming,
with tears in his eyes, "Oh, le brave peuple! le brave peuple!"--a
contrast certainly to his Parisian barricaders.

In the summer of 1848 I returned to America, where my great good
fortune in the success of my public readings soon enabled me to
realize my long-cherished hope of purchasing a small cottage and a
few acres of land in the beautiful and beloved neighborhood of
Lenox.]

THE END.

INDEX

ADELAIDE, Queen Dowager, 335, 340, 341

Albert, Prince, 321, 324, 341

Alexis, his mesmeric powers, 228

Alfieri, 21

Allen, Dr., 62

Alvanley, Lord, 74

America, character of Americans, 4;
no _poor_, 6;
servants in, 8;
society in, 26;
climate, 33;
travel between and England, 39;
scenery, 42;
expression of faces in, 51;
medical treatment in, 82;
overwork of Americans, 91;
medicinal waters in, 96;
bathing in, 97;
railroads in, 104;
the Dismal Swamp, 108;
the "place where a place was intended to be," 109;
American decorum, 110;
corduroy, 112;
North Carolina natives, 116;
tobacco-chewing, 116;
a North Carolina "Colonel," 117;
slavery on Butler's Island, 136;
its influence on the whites, 137;
hotels, 151;
4th of July in Philadelphia, 152;
equality in, 152;
health in, 167;
"carrying on" financially, 176;
Irish servants in, 184, 195;
presidential election, 204;
war with England, 206;
the credit system in, 288;
divorces in, 292;
slavery in, 307;
a story of slavery, 370;
society, 403;
public spirit, 405;
an American on America, 415;
contrasted with Italy, 466;
spirit of conformity, 550

Amistad, 185;
history of, 186

Anne the nurse, on the Rhine, 256;
at Bowood, 273;
objects to be waited on, 275, 279, 296, 297, 321;
her views of presentation, 325

Appleton, Miss, 18, 101, 228

Ardgillan Castle, 13

Arkwrights, 251, 493, 495

Arnold, 420, 424;
his influence, 425;
his opinions, 430;
life of, 432, 434, 444;
character of his pupils, 446, 448;
his "letters," 452, 453, 619, 645

Ashburton, Lady, 219, 281

Ashburton, Lord, 360, 372, 380

Ashley, Lord, 444

Austen, Charles, 281

Austin, Lucy, 578

Austin, Mrs., 3, 578, 666

BABBAGE, 273

Bach, 262

Balzac, 255;
"Recherche de l'Absolu," 451

Banian, Mrs., 271

Barker, Laura, 646

Beaumont, Mr., 183

Beaumont, Mrs. Wentworth, carrying a contested election, 183

Becker, Dr., magnetized, 231

Bedford, Duchess of, 303, 304, 339

Bedford, Duke of, 303, 360, 514

Beecher, Lady, 77

Beethoven, 265, 623

Bendermann, 269

Benedict, 373

Bentley, 337