Chapter IV: Part 4

Altogether the evening was unsuccessful, if its purpose had been an
acquaintance between Lady Holland and myself; and I remember a
grotesque climax to my dissatisfaction in the destruction of a
lovely nosegay of exquisite flowers which my sister had brought with
her, and which, towards the middle of the evening, mysteriously
disappeared, and was looked for and inquired for in vain, until poor
Lord Holland, who was then dependent upon the assistance of two
servants to move from his seat, being raised from the sofa on which
he had been deposited when he was brought up from the dining-room,
the flowers, which Adelaide had left there, were discovered, pressed
as flat as if for preservation in a book of botanical specimens. The
kindly, good-natured gentleman departed, luckily, without knowing
the mischief he had done, or seeing my sister's face of ludicrous
dismay at the condition of her flowers; which Sydney Smith, however,
observed, and in a minute exclaimed, "Ah! I see! Oh dear, oh dear,
what a pity! Hot-bed! hot-bed!"

It has always been a matter of amazement to me that Lady Holland
should have been allowed to ride rough-shod over society, as she did
for so long, with such complete impunity. To be sure, in society,
well-bred persons are always at the mercy of ill-bred ones, who have
an immense advantage over everybody who shrinks from turning a
social gathering into closed lists for the exchange of
impertinences; and people gave way to Lady Holland's domineering
rudeness for the sake of their hosts and fellow-guests, and spared
her out of consideration for them. Another reason for the toleration
shown Lady Holland was the universal esteem and affectionate respect
felt for her husband, whose friends accepted her and her
peculiarities for his sake, and could certainly have given no
stronger proof of their regard for him.

The most powerful inducement to patience, however, to the London
society upon which Lady Holland habitually trampled, was the immense
attraction of her house and of the people who frequented it. Holland
House was, for a series of years, the most brilliant, charming, and
altogether delightful social resort. Beautiful, comfortable,
elegant, picturesque,--an ideal house, full of exquisite objects and
interesting associations, where persons the most distinguished for
birth, position, mental accomplishments, and intellectual gifts, met
in a social atmosphere of the highest cultivation and the greatest
refinement,--the most perfect civilization could produce nothing
more perfect in the way of enjoyment than the intercourse of that
delightful mansion. As Lady Tankerville pathetically exclaimed on
Lady Holland's death, "Ah! poore, deare Lady 'Olland! what shall we
do? It was such a pleasant 'ouse!"--admission to which was, to most
of its frequenters, well worth some toleration of its mistress's
brusqueries.

If, as a friend of mine once assured me (a well-born, well-bred man
of the best English society), it was quite well worth while to "eat
a little dirt" to get the _entree_ of Stafford House, I incline to
think the spoonfuls of dirt Lady Holland occasionally administered
to her friends were accepted by them as the equivalent for the
delights of her "pleasant 'ouse"; and that I did not think so, and
had no desire to go there upon those terms, was, I imagine, the only
thing that excited Lady Holland's curiosity about me, or her desire
to have me for her guest. She complained to Charles Greville that I
would not let her become acquainted with me, and twice after our
first unavailing meeting at Rogers's, made him ask me to meet her
again: each time, however, with no happier result.

The first time, after making herself generally obnoxious at dinner,
she at length provoked Rogers, who, the conversation having fallen
upon the subject of beautiful hair, and Lady Holland saying, "Why,
Rogers, only a few years ago, I had such a head of hair that I could
hide myself in it, and I've lost it all," merely answered, "What a
pity!"--but with such a tone that an exultant giggle ran round the
table at her expense.

After dinner, when the unfortunate female members of the party had
to encounter Lady Holland unprotected, she singled out one of the
ladies of the Baring family, to whom, however, she evidently meant
to be particularly gracious; not, I think, without some intention of
also pleasing me by her patronizing laudation of American people and
American things; winding up with, "You know, my dear, we are
Americans." The young Baring lady, who may or may not have been as
familiar as I was with the Bingham and Baring alliances of early
times in Philadelphia, merely raised her eyebrows, and said,
"Indeed!" while I kept my lips close and breathed no syllable of
Longfellow's house near Boston, which had been not only Washington's
temporary abode, but the residence, in colonial days, of the
Vassalls, to whom Lady Holland belonged, and where Longfellow showed
me one day an iron plate at the back of one of the fire-places, with
the rebus, the punning arms (_Armoiries parlantes_) of the Vassall
family: a vase with a sun above it, _Vas Sol_.

_Je suis mechante, ma chere_, as Madame de Sevigne wrote to her
daughter; _et cela m'a fait plaisir_, to suppress the nice little
anecdote which might have helped Lady Holland on so pleasantly just
at that juncture.

But, holding one's tongue because one chooses, and being compelled
to hold one's tongue by somebody else, is quite a different thing;
and I am not sure that the main reason of my dislike to Lady Holland
is not that I held my tongue to "spite her" during the whole course
of the last dinner-party to which Rogers invited me to meet her. The
party consisted of fewer men than women, and Lady ---- and myself
agreed to take each other down to dinner, which we did. Just,
however, as we were seating ourselves, Lady Holland called out from
the opposite side of the table, "No, no, ladies, I can't allow that;
I must have Mrs. Butler by me, if you please." Thus challenged, I
could not, without making a scene with Lady Holland, and beginning
the poet's banquet with a shock to everybody present, refuse her
very dictatorial behest; and therefore I left my friendly neighbor,
Lady ----, and went round to the place assigned me by the imperious
autocratess of the dinner-table: between herself and Dr. Allen ("the
gentle infidel," "Lady Holland's atheist," as he was familiarly
called by her familiars).

But though one man may take the mare to the water, no given number
of men can make her drink; so, having accepted my place, I
determined my complaisance should end there, and, in spite of all
Lady Holland's conversational efforts, and her final exclamation,
"Allen! do get Mrs. Butler to talk! We _really must_ make her talk!"
I held my peace, and kept the peace, which I could have done upon no
other conditions; but the unnatural and unwholesome effort disagreed
with me so dreadfully, that I have a return of dyspepsia whenever I
think of it, which I think justifies me in my dislike of Lady
Holland.... I do not feel inclined to attribute to any motive but a
kindly one, the attention Lady Holland showed my father during a
severe indisposition of his, not long after this; though, upon her
driving to his door one day with some peculiarly delicate jelly she
had had made for him, Frederick Byng (Poodle, as he was always
called by his intimates, on account of his absurd resemblance to a
dog of that species), seeing the remorseful gratitude on my face as
I received her message of inquiry after my father, exclaimed, "Now,
she's done it! now, she's won it! now, she's got you, and you'll go
to Holland House!" "No, I won't," said I, "but I'll go down to the
carriage, and thank her!" which I immediately did, without stopping
to put a bonnet on my head. Lady Holland was held, by those who knew
her, to be a warm and constant friend, and had always been cordially
kind to my father and my brother John.

After Lord Holland's death she left Holland House, and took up her
abode in South Street near the Park. One morning, when I was calling
on Lady Charlotte Lindsay, Lady Morley came in, and being
reproached by Lady Charlotte for not having come to a party at her
house on the previous evening, in which reproach I joined, having
been also a loser by her absence from that same party, "Couldn't,"
said the lively lady, "for I was spending the evening with the
pleasantest, most amiable, gentlest-mannered, sweetest-tempered, and
most charming woman in all London--Lady Holland!" A conversation
then ensued, in which certainly little quarter was shown to the ill
qualities of the former mistress of Holland House. Among several
curious instances of her unaccountably unamiable conduct to some of
even Lord Holland's dearest friends, who, for his sake, opened their
houses to her, allowed her to come thither, bespeaking her own
rooms--her own company, who she would meet and who she would bring,
and in every way consulting her pleasure and convenience, as was
invariably the case on the occasion of her visits to Panshanger and
Woburn,--Lady Morley said that Landseer had told her, that he was
walking one day by the side of Lady Holland's wheel-chair, in the
grounds of Holland House, and, stopping at a particularly pretty
spot, had said, "Oh, Lady Holland! this is the part of your place of
which the Duchess of Bedford has such a charming view from her house
on the hill above." "Is it?" said Lady Holland; and immediately gave
orders that the paling-fence round that part of her grounds should
be raised so as to cut off the Duchess's view into them.

Upon my venturing to express my surprise that anybody should go to
the house of a person of whom they told such anecdotes, Lady Morley
replied, "She is the only woman in the world of whom one does tell
such things and yet goes to see her. She is the most miserable woman
in England; she is entirely alone now, and she cannot bear to be
alone, and, for his sake who was the dearest and most excellent and
amiable creature that ever breathed, one goes on going to her, as I
shall till she or I die." But what a description of the last days of
the mistress of Holland House!

Sidney Smith, with whom I had become well acquainted when I wrote
the letter to Lady Dacre in which I mention him, used to amuse
himself, and occasionally some of my other friends, by teasing me on
the subject of what he called my hallucination with regard to my
having married in America. He never allowed any allusion to the
circumstance without the most comical expressions of regret for
this, as he called it, curious form of monomania. On the occasion to
which I refer in this letter, he and Mrs. Smith had met some friends
at dinner at our house, and I was taking leave of them, previous to
my departure for Liverpool, when he exclaimed, "Now do, my dear
child, be persuaded to give up this extraordinary delusion; let it,
I beg, be recorded of us both, that this pleasing and intelligent
young lady labored under the singular and distressingly insane idea
that she had contracted a marriage with an American; from which
painful hallucination she was eventually delivered by the friendly
exhortations of a learned and pious divine, the Rev. Sydney Smith."
Everybody round us was in fits of laughter, as he affectionately
held my hand, and thus paternally admonished me. I held up my left
hand with its wedding-ring, and began, "Oh, but the baby!" when the
ludicrous look with which my reverend tormentor received this
overwhelming testimony of mine, threw the whole company into
convulsions, and nothing was heard throughout the room but sighs and
sobs of exhaustion, and faint ejaculations and cries for mercy,
while everybody was wiping tears of laughter from their eyes. As for
me, I covered up my face, and very nearly went into hysterics.

The special and reportable sallies of Sydney Smith have been, of
course, often repeated, but the fanciful fun and inexhaustible
humorous drollery of his conversation among his intimates can never
be adequately rendered or reproduced. He bubbled over with mirth, of
which his own enjoyment formed an irresistible element, he shook,
and his eyes glistened at his own ludicrous ideas, as they dawned
upon his brain; and it would be impossible to convey the faintest
idea of the genial humor of his habitual talk by merely repeating
separate witticisms and repartees.

On that same evening, at my father's house, the comparative
cheapness of living abroad and in England having been discussed,
Sydney Smith declared that, for his part, he had never found foreign
quarters so much more reasonable than home ones, or foreign hotels
less exorbitant in their charges. "I know I never could live under
fifty pounds a week," said he. "Oh, but how did you live?" was the
next question. "Why, as a canon should live," proudly retorted he;
"and they charged me as enemy's ordnance."

A question having arisen one evening at Miss Berry's as to the
welcome Lady Sale would receive in London society after her
husband's heroic conduct, and her heroic participation in it, during
the Afghan war, Miss Berry, who, for some reason or other, did not
admire Lady Sale as much as everybody else did, said she should not
ask her to come to her house. "Oh, yes! pooh! pooh! you will,"
exclaimed Sydney Smith; "you'll have her, he'll have her, they'll
have her, we'll have her. She'll be Sale by auction!" Later on that
same evening, it being asked what Lord Dalhousie would get for his
successful exploit in carrying of the gates of some Indian town,
"Why," cried Lady Morley, "he will be created Duke Samson
Afghanistes." It was pleasant living among people who talked such
nonsense as that.

A party having been made to go and see the Boa Constrictor soon
after its first arrival at the Zooelogical Gardens, Sydney Smith, who
was to have been there, failed to come; and, questioned at dinner
why he had not done so, said, "Because I was detained by the Bore
Contradictor--Hallam"--whose propensity to controvert people's
propositions was a subject of irritation to some of his friends,
less retentive of memory and accurate in statement than himself.

Sydney Smith, not unnaturally, preferred conversation to music; and
at a musical party one evening, as he was stealing on tip-toe from
the concert-room to one more remote from the performance, I held up
my finger at him, when he whispered, "My dear, it's all right. You
keep with the dilettanti; I go with the talkettanti." Afterwards,
upon my expostulating with him, and telling him that by such habits
he was running a risk of being called to order on some future
eternal day with "Angel Sydney Smith, hush!" if he did not learn to
endure music better, he replied, "Oh, no, no! I'm cultivating a
judicious second expressly for those occasions."

Of his lamentations for the "flashes of silence" which, he said, at
one time made Macaulay's intercourse possible, one has heard; but
when he was so ill that all his friends were full of anxiety about
him, M----, having called to see him, and affectionately asking what
sort of night he had passed, Sydney Smith replied, "Oh, horrid,
horrid, my dear fellow! I dreamt I was chained to a rock and being
talked to death by Harriet Martineau and Macaulay."

Rogers's keen-edged wit seemed to cut his lips as he uttered it;
Sydney Smith's was without sting or edge or venomous point of
malice, and his genial humor was really the overflowing of a kindly
heart.

Rogers's helpful benevolence and noble generosity to poor artists,
poor authors, and all distressed whom he could serve or succor, was
unbounded; he certainly had the kindest heart and the unkindest
tongue of any one I ever knew. His benefits remind me of a comical
story my dear friend Harness once told me, of a poor woman at whose
lamentations over her various hardships one of his curates was
remonstrating, "Oh, come, come now, my good woman, you must allow
that Providence has been, upon the whole, very good to you." "So He
'ave, sir; so He 'ave, mostly. I don't deny it; but I sometimes
think He 'ave taken it out in corns." I think Rogers took out his
benevolence, in some directions, in the corns he inflicted, or, at
any rate, trod upon, in others.

Mr. Rogers's inveterate tongue-gall was like an irresistible
impulse, and he certainly bestowed it occasionally, without the
least provocation, upon persons whom he professed to like. He was
habitually kind to me, and declared he was fond of me. One evening
(just after the publication of my stupid drama, "The Star of
Seville"), he met me with a malignant grin, and the exclamation,
"Ah, I've just been reading your play. So nice! young poetry!"--with
a diabolical _dig_ of emphasis on the "_young_." "Now, Mr. Rogers,"
said I, "what did I do to deserve that you should say that to me?" I
do not know whether this appeal disarmed him, but his only answer
was to take me affectionately by the chin, much as if he had been my
father. When I told my sister of this, she, who was a thousand times
quicker-witted than I, said, "Why didn't you tell him that young
poetry was better than old?"

Walking one day in the Green Park, I met Mr. Rogers and Wordsworth,
who took me between them, and I continued my walk in great glory and
exultation of spirit, listening to Rogers, and hearing
Wordsworth,--the gentle rill of the one speech broken into and
interrupted by sudden loud splashes of the other; when Rogers, who
had vainly been trying to tell some anecdote, pathetically
exclaimed, "He won't let me tell my story!" I immediately stopped,
and so did Wordsworth, and during this halt Rogers finished his
recital. Presently afterwards, Wordsworth having left us, Rogers
told me that he (Mr. Wordsworth), in a visit he had been lately
paying at Althorpe, was found daily in the magnificent library, but
never without a volume of his own poetry in his hand. Years after
this, when I used to go and sit with Mr. Rogers, I never asked him
what I should read to him without his putting into my hands his own
poems, which always lay by him on his table.

A comical instance of the rivalry of wits (surely as keen as that of
beauties) occurred one day when Mr. Rogers had been calling on me
and speaking of that universal social favorite, Lady Morley, had
said, "There is but one voice against her in all England, and that
is her own." (A musical voice was the only charm wanting to Lady
Morley's delightful conversation.) I was enchanted with this pretty
and appropriate epigram, so unlike in its tone to Mr. Rogers's usual
_friendly_ comments; and, very soon after he left me, Sydney Smith
coming in, I told him how clever and how pleasant a remark the
"departed" poet (Sydney Smith often spoke of Rogers as dead, on
account of his cadaverous complexion) had made on Lady Morley's
voice. "He never said it," exclaimed my second illustrious visitor.
"But he did, Mr. Smith, to me, in this room, not half an hour ago."
"He never _made_ it; it isn't his, it isn't a bit like him." To all
which I could only repeat that, nevertheless, he _had_ said it, and
that, whether he made it or not, it was extremely well made.
Presently Sydney Smith went away. I was living in upper Grosvenor
Street, close to Park Lane; and he in Green Street, in the near
neighborhood. But I believe he must have run from my house to his
own, so short was the interval of time, before I received the
following note: "Dans toute l'Angleterre il n'y a qu'une voix contre
moi, et c'est la mienne." Then followed the signature of a French
lady of the eighteenth century, and these words: "What a dear,
innocent, confiding, credulous creature you are! and how you _do_
love Rogers!

"SYDNEY SMITH."

When I was leaving England, I received two most kind and
affectionate letters from him, bidding me farewell, and exhorting
me, in a most comical and yet pathetic manner, to be courageous and
of good cheer in returning to America. One of these epistles ended
thus: "Don't forget me, whatever you do; talk of me sometimes, call
me Butler's Hudibras, and believe me always.

"Affectionately yours,
"SYDNEY SMITH."]

LIVERPOOL, Monday, September 11th, 1837.

Here we are again, dearest Harriet, returned from our ship, after a wretched day and night spent on board of her most unnecessarily. When we reached the quay yesterday morning, we saw the vessel lying under close-reefed sails; the favorable wind had died away, and the captain, whom we found standing on the wharf, said that, it being Sunday morning, he did not know how he should get a steamboat to tow us out. All this seemed to me very much like not sailing, and I begged not to go on board; at all events, I proposed, if we did not sail, that we should return to shore, and received a promise that we certainly should do so; so we went off in a small boat to the ship. She is crowded to excess, and the greater proportion of passengers are emigrant women and children.... I busied myself in stowing away everything in our state-room, and removing the upper berth so as to secure a little more breathing space. I even was guilty of the illicit proceeding--committed the outrage, in fact--of endeavoring to break one of my bull's-eyes, preferring being drenched to dry suffocation in foul air; but my utmost violence, even assisted with an iron rod, was ineffectual, and I had to give up breaking that window as a bad job. I found Margery's state-room one chaos of confusion, she at the same time protesting that everything was as tidily disposed of as possible; so I had to stand by and show her where to put every individual article, and having cleared the small space of the heap of superfluous things with which it was crammed, and removed the upper berth, I left it to her option whether she or baby should occupy the floor at night.

At about half-past ten the captain came on board to say that we should not sail then, but if the wind grew fair, we _might perhaps_ sail in the afternoon. He then took himself off the vessel, the wind was fast veering to dead ahead, ... and, with an aching heart and head, I remained in my berth all day long. In the night a perfect gale arose, the ship dragged her anchor for two miles, and we had thus much consolation that, had we put to sea, we should have encountered a violent storm, and, in all probability been driven back into the Mersey. This morning the wind was still contrary, and so we at length exerted ourselves to return to shore. Had we done so yesterday in good time--or, rather, not gone on board at all, you and I might have spent two more days together, and the baby and myself been spared considerable misery. But lamenting cures nothing; ... but I wish we never had left the quay yesterday morning, for everything showed against the probability of our sailing, and so here we are back in our old quarters at the Star and Garter, and you are gone.

We have taken places at the theater for this evening, to see Macready in "Macbeth." The Captain says we are to sail to-morrow morning, but I shall do my utmost this time to avoid going on board except in his company; and then, I think, we shall perhaps have some chance of not spending another day in vain in our sea-prison.

Ever your affectionate,
F. A. B.

[The foregoing letter gives some idea of the difference between
crossing from England to the United States in those days, and in
these; when a telegram bears the defiance to fate of this message:
"We sail in the _Russia_ on the 3d; have dinner for us at the
Adelphi on the 11th."]

PHILADELPHIA, Sunday, October 29th, 1837.
MY DEAREST HARRIET,

We landed in New York, ten days ago, _i.e._, on Friday, the 20th October; and had we come on immediately hither, your letter would have been just in time to greet me on my arrival here; but our passage was of thirty-seven days, stormy as well as tedious, and I was so ill that I did not leave my bed six times during the crossing; the consequence was, that on landing I looked more like a ghost than a living creature, and was so reduced in strength as hardly to be able to stand, so we remained in New York a few days, till I was able to travel.... Our fellow-passengers, the women, I mean, were rather vulgar, commonplace people, with whom I should not have had much sympathy, had I been well. As it was, I saw but little of them, and may consider that one of the counterbalancing advantages of having suffered so much.

One of them was in circumstances which interested me a good deal, though there was little in herself to do so. Her husband was a Staffordshire potter, and had gone to the United States to establish a pottery there; to begin the building up of a large concern, and lay the foundation for probable future wealth and prosperity. He had been gone two years, and she was now going out to join him with their four children. In his summons to her after this long separation, he told her that all had prospered with him, that he had bought a large tract of land, found excellent soil, water, and means of every description for his manufacturing purposes, obtained a patent, and established his business, and was every way likely to thrive and be successful.

What hope, what energy, what enterprise, what industry, in but two years of one human existence! What a world of doubt, of distressful anxiety and misgiving in the heart of the woman, left to patient expectation, to prayerful, tearful hopes and fears! What trust in man and faith in God during those two years! And now, with her children, she was coming to rejoin her helpmate, and begin life all over again, with him and them, in a strange country, in the midst of strangers, with everything strange about her. I lay thinking with much sympathy of this poor woman and her feelings, during my miserable confinement to my berth through that dismal voyage. She was an uneducated person, of the lower middle class, and not in herself interesting: though I do not know why I say that, when I was deeply interested about her, and I do not know that any creature endowed with a heart and soul can fail to be an object of interest in some way or other; and human existence, with all its marvelous developments, going on round one, must always furnish matter for admiration, pity, or sympathy. Moreover, this woman was carrying out with her the wives of several of her husband's workmen, who had accompanied him out on his experimental voyage; and, being settled in his employment, had got their master's wife to bring their partners out to them. Think what a meeting for all these poor people, dear Harriet, in this little hive of English industry and energy in the far west, the fertile wildernesses of Indiana! How often I thought of the fears and misgivings of these poor women in the steerage, when our progress was delayed by tempestuous, contrary winds, when the heavy seas leaped over our laboring vessel's sides, and when, during a violent thunderstorm, our masts were tipped with lambent fire, which played round them like a halo of destruction.

All this while I have forgotten to tell you why I have not written sooner; and I suppose my accusation is yet bitter in your heart while you are reading this. I told you on my first page I was obliged to stay in New York to recruit my strength; the first time I went out, after walking about a quarter of a mile, I was obliged to sit down and rest, for half an hour, in a public garden, before I could crawl back again to the hotel.

On Monday, when I was a little better, we came on here. I am every day now expecting to be fetched to Harrisburg.... A woman should be her husband's friend, his best and dearest friend, as he should be hers: but friendship is a relation of equality, in which the same perfect respect for each other's liberty is exercised on both sides; and that sort of marriage, if it exists at all anywhere, is, I suspect, very uncommon everywhere. Moreover, I am not sure that marriage ever is, can be, or ought to be, such an equality; for even "When two men ride on one horse," you know, etc. In the relation of friendship there is perfect freedom, and an undoubted claim on each side to be neither dependent on, nor controlled by, each other's will. In the relation of marriage this is impossible; and therefore certainly marriage is not friendship.... A woman should, I think, love her husband better than anything on earth except her own soul; which, I think, a man should respect above everything on earth but his own soul: and there, my dear, is a very pretty puzzle for you, which a good many people have failed to solve. It is, indeed, a pretty difficult problem; and perhaps you have chosen, if not the wiser and better, at any rate the easier and safer part.

God bless you, dear friend.

Ever affectionately yours,
F. A. B.

HARRISBURG, Friday, November 14th, 1837.

Thank you, dearest Harriet, for your epitome of the history of the New Testament. I have read the same things, in greater detail, more than once.... I have repeatedly gone over accounts of the history and authenticity of the Gospel narratives; but I have done so as a duty, and in order to be able to give to others some reason for the faith that is in me,--not really because I desired the knowledge for its own sake; and therefore my memory had gradually lost its hold of what I had taken into my mind, chiefly for the satisfaction of others, to enable me to make sufficient answers upon a subject whose best evidence of truth seems to me to reside in itself, and to be altogether out of the region of logic.... Christ received the last and perfect revelation of moral truth, brought it into the world, preached it by his practice, and bore witness to it by his death; and since he came, every holy life and death, in those portions of the globe where his name is known, has been moulded upon his teaching and example; and those individuals least inclined to acknowledge it have unconsciously imbibed the influence of the inspiration which he breathed into the soul of humanity. He has saved, and is daily and hourly saving, the world: and so far from imagining the possibility of any end to the work he has begun, or any superseding of his revelation by any other, it appears to me that civilized societies and nations calling themselves Christian have hardly yet begun to comprehend, believe, or adopt his teaching; under the influence of which I look for the regeneration of the race through the coming ages: it will extend above and beyond all discoveries of science and developments of knowledge, and more and more approve itself the only moral and spiritual theory that will at once carry forward and keep pace with the progress of humanity....

If, by telling you that my mind dwelt more upon religious subjects now than formerly, I have led you to suppose that I ever investigate or ponder creeds, theologies, dogmas, or systems of faith, I have given you a false impression. But I live alone--much alone bodily, more alone mentally; I have no intimates, no society, no intellectual intercourse whatever; and I give myself up, as I never did in my life before, to mere musing, reverie, and speculation--I cannot dignify the process by the title of thought or contemplation.

My mind is much less active than it was: I read less, write less, study little, plan no work, and accomplish none. It is curious how, immediately upon my return to England, my mind seemed to flow back into its former channels; how my thoughts were roused and awakened; and how my imagination revived, and with what ease and rapidity I wrote, almost _currente calamo_, the only thing worth anything that I ever have written, my "English Tragedy." Here, all things tend to check any utterance of my thoughts, spoken or written; and while in England I could not find time enough to write, I here have no desire to do so, and lament my inability to force myself to mental exertion as a mere occupation and fill-time: _I dare not say kill-time, "for that would be a sin."_ ... I ride and walk, and pass my days alone; and lacking converse with others, have become much addicted to desultory thinking (almost as bad a thing as desultory reading), which is indeed no thinking at all. Real thinking is what Cleopatra calls "sweating labor," to which the hewing of wood and drawing of water is a joke; but this I carefully avoid, knowing my own incapacity for it; so I dawdle about my mind, and, naturally, arrive at few conclusions; and among those few, no doubt, many false ones....

We are established here during the rest of the Session of the Convention, which is a gain to me, as here I get companionship. There is a recess of a couple of hours, too, in the middle of the day, which the members avail themselves of for their very early dinner, but which we employ, and I enjoy immensely, in riding about the neighboring country. It is not thought expedient that I should ride alone about this strange region, on a strange horse, so I am escorted, at which I rejoice for all sakes, as everybody's health here would be the better for more exercise than they take.

This place, which is the seat of Government of the State of Pennsylvania, is beautifully situated in a valley locked round by purple highlands, through which runs the Susquehanna; in some parts broad, bright, rapid, shallow, brawling, and broken by picturesque reefs of rock; in others, deep and placid, bearing on its bosom beautiful wood-crowned islands, whose autumnal foliage, through which the mellow sunshine is now pouring, gives them the appearance of fairyland planted with golden woods.

The beautiful river is bountifully provided, too, with a most admirable species of trout, weighing from two to four pounds, silvery white without, and pale pink within (just the complexion of a fresh mushroom), and very excellent to eat, as well as lovely to behold.

Many of the members of the Convention have been kind enough to come and see me, and I have attended one of their debates. They are for the most part uncultivated men, unlettered and ungrammared; and those among them who are the best educated, or rather the least ignorant, carry their small _lore_ much as a school-boy carries his, stiffly, awkwardly, and ostentatiously: an Eton sixth-form lad would beat any one of them in classical scholarship. But though in point of intellectual acquirement, I do not find much here to excite my sympathy, there is abundant matter of interest, as well as much that is curious and amusing to me in their intercourse. The shrewdness, the sound sense, the original observations, and the experience of life of some of these men are striking and remarkable. Though not one of them can speak grammatically, they all speak fluently, boldly, readily, easily, without effort or hesitation. There is, of course, among them, the usual proportion of well, and less well, witted individuals; and perhaps the contrast is the more apparent because the education has here covered no natural deficiencies and developed no natural gifts; so that there is not the usual superficial, civilized level produced by a common intellectual training. The questions they discuss are often in themselves interesting, though I cannot say that they often treat them in the most interesting manner....

Ever your affectionate,
F. A. B.

[The play which I have called an "English Tragedy," was suggested by
an incident in the life of Lord de Ros, which my father heard at
dinner at Lady Blessington's, and, on his return from Gore House,
related it to us. I wrote the principal scene of the third act the
same evening, under the impression of the story I had just heard;
and afterwards sketched out and wrote the drama, of which I had
intended, at first, to write only that one scene.

The whole fashionable world of London had been thrown into
consternation by the discovery that Lord de Ros, premier Baron of
England, cheated at cards. He was, notoriously, one of the most
worthless men of his day; which circumstance never prevented his
being perfectly well received by the men and women of the best
English society. That he was an unprincipled profligate made him
none the less welcome to his male associates, or their wives,
sisters, and daughters; but when Lord de Ros cheated his
fellow-gamblers at the Club, no further toleration of his wickedness
was, of course, possible; and then every infamous story, which, if
believed, should have made him intolerable to decent people before,
was told and re-told; and it seemed to me, that of all the evil
deeds laid to his charge, his cheating at cards was quite the least
evil.

Lady Ellesmere, from whom I heard a story of his cold-blooded
profligacy far more dreadful than that on which I founded my
"English Tragedy," told me that she thought Lord de Ros's influence
had been exceedingly detrimental to her brother, Charles Greville,
who was his most intimate friend; and who, she said, burst into
tears in speaking to her of it, when the fact of his cheating was
discovered,--certainly a strong proof of affection from such a man
to such a man; and I remember how eagerly and earnestly he
endeavored to persuade me that the incident on which I had founded
my "English Tragedy" had not been so profoundly base on Lord de
Ros's part as I supposed.

Besides the revival of these tragical stories of his misdeeds, the
poor man's disgrace gave rise to some bitter jokes among his friends
of the club-house and gambling-table. An epitaph composed for him to
this effect was circulated among his intimates:--

"Here lies Henry, twenty-sixth Baron de Ros, in joyful expectation
of the last trump."

Of course he was cut by all his noble associates; and Lord Alvanley,
being hailed one day by some of them with an inquiry as to whether
it was true that he had called on De Ros, replied, "I left a card on
Lord de Ros, and I marked it, that he might know it was an honor."]

HARRISBURG, Saturday, November 11th, 1837.
MY DEAR MRS. JAMESON,

It seems useless for me to wait any longer for the chance of giving you some definite idea of our plans, for day after day passes without their assuming anything like a decided form, and I am now as uncertain of what is to become of us when the Convention leaves this place, as I was when I saw you in New York.

From the date of your last, I perceive that you have taken your intended trip [to the Sault St. Marie, and some of the then little frequented Canadian Lake scenery]. I rejoice at this, as your health must, of course, be better than when you wrote to me before, and I think the scenery and people you are now amongst fit to renovate a sick body and soothe a sore mind. [Mrs. Jameson was staying at Stockbridge, with the Sedgwick family.] Catherine Sedgwick is my best friend in this country, but the whole family have bestowed more kindness upon me than I can ever sufficiently acknowledge.... They have all been exceedingly good to me, and the place of their dwelling combines for me the charms of great natural beauty with the associations that belong to the intellect and the affections.

After your first letter from New York, I never rested till I got Mrs. Griffith's review of your book. The composition itself did not surprise me, but what did a little--only a little (for I am growing old, and have almost done with being surprised at anything), was that such a production should have gained admission into one of the principal magazines of this country; it is a sad specimen, truly, of the periodical literature it accepts.... Criticism in periodical journals is apt to be slightly malignant, ... and more often the result of personal sentiment than impartial literary or artistic judgment: so that I rather admired the article in question for its ignorance and vulgarity than the qualities which it exhibited in common with other criticisms to be met with in our own periodical literature, which, however unjust or partial in their censures and commendations, are decidedly inferior to Mrs. Griffith's composition in the two qualities I have specified....

My baby acquired a cough in coming from Philadelphia to this place in a railroad carriage (car, as they are called here), which held sixty-four persons in one compartment, and from which we were all obliged to alight, and walk a quarter of a mile through the woods, because the railroad, though traveled upon, is not finished.

We are here upon the banks of the Susquehanna, and surrounded by fine blue outlines of mountainous country. How thankful I am that God did not despise beauty! He is the sole provider of it here.

Believe me ever yours very truly,
F. A. B.

P. S.--"A change has come o'er the spirit of my dream" since yesterday; upon due deliberation, it is determined that when the Convention goes to Philadelphia we shall take possession of Butler Place; and therefore (however uncomfortably), I shall be able to receive you there after the first of next month. If a half-furnished house and half-broken household do not deter you, you will find me the same you have ever known me, there, as elsewhere,

Yours most truly,
F. A. B.

PHILADELPHIA, Thursday, November 20th, 1837.
MY DEAR MRS. JAMESON,

I write in haste, for I find our garden-cart is just starting for town, and I wish this to be taken immediately to the post-office. I was beginning to be almost anxious about you, when your letter from Boston arrived, to remove the apprehension of your being again ill, which I feared must be the case.

You tell me that you will let me know the day on which to expect you in Philadelphia, and bid me, if I cannot receive you in my house, seek out a shelter for you. The inconveniences, I fear, are yours, and not mine; though a residence of even a few days in an American boarding-house, must, I should think, make even the discomforts of my housekeeping seem tolerable. But that you are yourself likely to be a sufferer in so doing, I should not be sorry to show you the quite indescribable difference between an English and an American home and household; which, I assure you, nothing less than seeing is believing.

From your bidding me, if I intended to relinquish your visit (which I do not), seek you a lodging near me, I do not think that you understand that we live six miles from town, and see as little of Philadelphia as if that six were sixty. This circumstance, too, made me hesitate as to whether I ought to remove you from seeing what there is to be seen there--which is little enough, to be sure,--and withdraw you beyond the reach of those civilities which you would receive on all hands in the city. All this, though, is for yourself to determine on; bed, board, and welcome, we tender you freely; your room, and the inkstand you desire in it, shall be ready on the day you name; and we will joyfully meet you when and where you please to be met, and convey you to our abode, where I can positively promise you absolute quiet, which perhaps in itself may not be unacceptable, after all your mind and body have gone through during your stay in this country.

The Reform Convention is now sitting in Philadelphia, and is no mean curiosity of its kind, I assure you; I should like you to see and hear it.

Ever yours truly,
F. A. B.

[Mrs. Jameson paid us a short, sad visit, and returned to Europe
with the bitter disappointment of her early life confirmed, to
resume her honorable and laborious career of literary industry. Her
private loss was the public gain. When next we met, it was in
England.]

BRANCHTOWN, Friday, December 29th, 1837.
MY DEAR LADY DACRE,

Doubtless you have long ago accounted your kind letter lost, for I am sure you would not imagine that I could have received, and yet so long delayed to answer it: yet so it is; and I hardly know how to account for it, for the receipt of your letter gratified and touched me very much; the more so, probably, that my father and mother hardly ever write to any of us, and so a letter from any one much my senior always seems to me a condescension; and though I may have appeared so, believe me, I am not ungrateful for your kindness in making the effort of writing to me....

I wish it were in my power to give you a decent excuse for not having written sooner, but the more I reflect, the less I can think what I have been doing; yet I have been, and am, busy incessantly from morning to night, about nothing. My whole life passes in trifling activities, and small recurring avocations, which do not each seem to occupy an hour, and yet at last weigh down the balance of the twenty-four. I cannot name the thing I do, and but that our thoughts are to be revealed at the Day of Judgment, I should on that occasion be in the knife-grinder's case: "Story! Lord bless you! I have none to tell, sir!" for except ordering my dinner (and eating it), and riding on horseback every day, I have no distinct idea of any one thing I accomplish. Mine is not a life of much excitement, yet the time goes, and all the more rapidly, perhaps, that it flows with uninterrupted monotony. I neither read, write, nor cast up accounts; and shall soon have to begin again with the first elements. Do you not think that an ignorance, unbroken even by the slightest tincture of these, would be rather a fine thing for one's original powers? If one did nothing but a "deal of thinking," perhaps one's thinking might be something worth. Is it not Goethe who says: "Thought expands and weakens the mind; action contracts and strengthens it"? If this be true, mine should be an intellect of vast extent, and too shallow to drown a fly....

Do you know that I consider pain and disease as inventions of our own; and every death _unnatural_, but that gradual decay of all the faculties, and cessation of all the functions, which is, as we manage matters now, the rarest termination of human existence? Therefore, besides pitying people when they are ill, I blame them too, unless their suffering be an inheritance, the visitation of God, even unto the third and fourth generation, for disobedience to His wise and beneficent laws. One would think, if this belief in hereditary retribution was _real_, instead of a mere profession, people would be thoughtful, if not for themselves, at least for those to whom they are to transmit a healthy or diseased nature; one sees so much sin and so much suffering, the manifest causes of which lie at our own doors....

Thank you for your account of Lady Beecher; she always made a most pleasing impression upon me. I think, however you must be mistaken in saying that she and I excited our audiences _alike_: I should think that impossible in such very dissimilar actresses as we must have been. The quantity of effect produced, of course I cannot judge of; but it seems to me, from what I have seen and known of her off the stage, that the quality must have been essentially different. This theme, however, should not be begun in the corner of a letter already too long.

Your letter was brought to me into the Harrisburg Convention, whose sessions I once or twice attended. That Convention was very funny, and very strange, and very interesting too; I've a great mind to write Lord Dacre an account of it, because, you know, you disclaim being a "political lady," though I presume you admit that he is a "political lord." And that reminds me that no democrat would accept your three-legged stool and its inferences [Lady Dacre had compared the stability of our Government, by the Sovereign, the Lords, and the Commons, to a solid, three-legged stool, contrasting it disadvantageously with that of the United States], for nature scorns plurality of means where one suffices; and the broadest shadowing tree needs but one stem, if the root be deep and widespread enough. This is merely by the way, for I am as little "political" as you are.

Give my love to Lord Dacre, if that is respectful enough; and also to Mrs. Sullivan, whose intercourse, briefly as I was able to enjoy it, was very delightful to me.

Affectionately yours,
F. A. B.

PHILADELPHIA, Tuesday, January 8th, 1838.
MY DEAREST HARRIET,

I am not prone to that hungry longing for letters which you have so often expressed to me, yet I was getting heart-sick for some intelligence from some of my dear ones beyond the seas. My own people have not written to me since I left England, and it seemed to me an age since I had heard from you. The day before yesterday, however, brought me letters from you and Emily, and they were dearly welcome.