Chapter 22

You ask me if writing plays is not pleasanter and more profitable than reading Gibbon. Certainly, if one only has the mind to do the one instead of the other, which at present I have not.

I have sometimes fancied it was my duty to work out such talent of that kind as was in me; but I have hitherto not felt at all sure that I had any such gift which, you know, would be necessary before I could determine what was my duty with regard to it. I never write anything but upon impulse--all my compositions are impromptus; and the species of atmosphere I live in is not favorable to that order of inspiration. The outward sameness of my life; its uniformity of color, level surface, and monotonous tone; its unvaried tenor, alike devoid of pleasurable and painful excitement; its wholesome abundance of daily recurring trivial occupations, and absence of any great or varied interests; its entire isolation from all literary and intellectual society, which might strike the fire from the sleepy stone--all these influences prevail against my writing.

I once thought the material lay within me, but it will probably moulder away for want of use; and as long as I am neither the worse woman, wife, nor mother for its neglect, I take it it matters very little, and there is no harm done. My serious interest in life is the care of my children, and my principal recreation is my garden; and though I formerly sometimes imagined I had faculties whose exercise might demand a wider sphere, the consciousness that I discharge very imperfectly the obligations of that which I occupy, ought to satisfy me that its homely duties and modest tasks are more than sufficient for my abilities; and though I am not satisfied with myself, I should be with my existence, since, such as it is, it furnishes me with more work than I do as it should be done.

From the interest you express in Fanny Ellsler, you will be glad to hear that her success here has been triumphant. I believe the great mass of people always recognize and acknowledge excellence when they see it, though their stupid or ignorant toleration of what is mediocre, or even bad, would seem to indicate the contrary.... The general mind of man is capable of perceiving the most excellent in all things, and prompt to seize it, too, when it meets with it. Even in morals it does so theoretically, however the difficulty of adhering to high standards may make the actions of most people conform but little to their best conceptions of right. The idea of perfection is recognized by the spirit of creatures capable of and destined for perfection in all things, whether great or small; and so (since this is _à propos_ of opera dancing) Fanny Ellsler's performances have been appreciated here to a degree that would astonish those who forget that education, though it develops, does not create our finer perceptions, and, moreover, that the finest are commoner than is commonly believed. The possession is almost universal: the cultivation in _any_ degree worth anything comparatively rare, and in a _high_ degree very rare indeed everywhere; and here--well! it does not exist.

I hope we shall see you in England in the autumn; I am using every endeavor not to be sent over alone.... I cannot bear to go to England again a "widow bewitched."

I am ever yours most truly, F. A. B.

BUTLER PLACE, June 8th, 1840. DEAREST HARRIET,

It is not to you that I apologize for talking over-much about my children, but to myself.... For what said the witty Frenchman of a man's love for wife and child? "_Ah! bien c'est de l'égoïsme à trois._" ... I hope you will see my children, both them and me, in a very few months; for I think we are coming to England in September, and I shall surely not leave it without borrowing some of your company from you, let you be where you may....

I must go and dress for dinner, hence the brevity of this letter, which pray accept for "the soul of wit."

Did you ever see a humming-bird? Have they them in Italy? We have a honeysuckle hedge here, where the little jewels of creatures stuff themselves incessantly, early and late, sabbaths and week-days, flickering over the sweet bushes of fragrance, like the diamonds of modern fashion set on elastic wires, to make them quiver and increase their sparkle and brilliancy. I should like to have written some more to you.

I am ever your affectionate F. A. B.

BUTLER PLACE, June 28th, 1840. MY DEAR T----,

Your discoveries in the private character of Sir Samuel Romilly are none to me. I have known those who knew him intimately. My brother was school and college mate of his sons, one of whom I know very well; and their father's character, in all its most endearing aspects, was familiar to me. I think I was once told (not by them, however, of course) that the melancholy induced by the loss of his wife had been the chief cause of his destroying himself, for he was devotedly and passionately attached to her.

We go every night to see Fanny Ellsler; only think what an extraordinary effort of dissipation for me, who hardly ever stir abroad of an evening, and who had almost as much forgotten the inside of a theatre as Falstaff had the inside of a church! My admiration for her grows rather than diminishes, though she is a better actress even than dancer, which I think speaks in favor of her intellect. Did you ever see Taglioni? Who invented and who suggested the expression the "poetry of motion"? It should have been _made_ for her. Her dancing is like nothing but poetic inspiration, and seems as if she was composing while she executed it. I wonder if it is the ballet-master who devises all the steps of these great dancers,--of course, not the national dances, but the inconceivably lovely things that Taglioni does, or whether she orders her own steps, and (given a certain dramatic situation and a certain strain of music) floats or flies, or glides, or gyrates at her own will and pleasure. Did you ever see her in the "Sylphide"? What an exquisite pathetic dream of supernatural sentiment that was! Other dances are as graceful as possible; that woman was grace itself.

I was saying once to my friend, Frederick Rackeman, that Chopin's music made me think of Taglioni's dancing, to which he replied, to my great surprise, that Chopin had said that he had more than once received his inspiration from Taglioni's dancing; a curious instance of influence so strong as to be recognized by one who was perfectly unaware of it. If I remember rightly, Gibson, the sculptor, said that he owed many suggestions to the vigorous and graceful dancing of Cerito; but those, of course, were a suggestion of form to a creator of form, and not an inspiration of exquisite sound gathered from exquisite motion, as in the instance of Taglioni and Chopin.

Certain music suggests the waving of trees, as in the Notturno in Mendelssohn's "Midsummer Night's Dream" and Schubert's exquisite _beckoning_ song of the linden tree.

Certainly dancers deserve to be well paid when one thinks of the mechanical labor, the daily hours of _battements_ and _changements de pieds_, and turning, and twisting, and torturing of the limbs before this apparently spontaneous result of mere movement can be obtained.

Ellsler has great dramatic power. Her Tarentelle and Wylie are really finely tragical in parts; but then she had a first-rate _head_ as well as foot training.

She is a wonderful artist; but there is something unutterably sad to me in the contemplation of such a career. The blending in most unnatural union of the elements of degradation and moral misery with such exquisite perceptions of beauty, grace, and refinement, produces the impression of a sort of monstrosity, a deformity of the whole higher nature, which fills one with poignant compassion and regret. Poor, fair, admired, despised, flattered, forlorn souls!...

Pray come and see us when you can, and

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

BUTLER PLACE, June 26th, 1840. DEAREST HARRIET,

Mr. Combe and Cecilia spent the day with us on their way to New York, and I did rejoice to think her pilgrimage was over. She has gone through what her former habits of life must have made a severe experience in travelling in this country. Her affection for her husband, and her devotion to his views, are unbounded, and have helped her to submit to her trial with a cheerfulness and good humor worthy of all praise; for the luxurious comfort of her life in her mother's house was certainly a bad preparation for roughing it, as she has been doing for some months past, for the sake of the phrenologist and his phrenology.... I never knew any one more improved by the blessed discipline of happiness than she appears to be. I am afraid my incapacity to accept the whole of their system would always prevent our being as good friends as we might otherwise with opportunity become. Perhaps, however, as the opportunity is not likely to offer often, it does not much matter....

Saunders, the miniature-painter, of London celebrity, has come out here to look at the pretty faces on this side of the water.... He told me that he had once executed to order a miniature of me, partly from seeing me on the stage, and partly from memory. I knew nothing whatever of this, and think it is one among the many nuisances of being a "public character," or what the American Minister's wife said her position had made her, "_Une femme publique_," that one's likeness may thus be stolen, and sold or bought by anybody who chooses to traffic in such gear.

I remember my mother telling me of a painful circumstance which had occurred to her from the same cause. A young officer of some distinction, who died in India, left among his effects a miniature of her; and she was disagreeably surprised by receiving from his mother a heartbroken appeal to her, saying that the fact of her son's being in possession of this portrait led her to hope that perhaps my mother might possess one of him, and entreating her, if such were the case, to permit her (his mother) to have a copy of it, as she had no likeness of her son. My mother was obliged to reply that she had no such portrait, and had never known or even heard the name of the gentleman who was in possession of hers....

How many things make one feel as if one's whole life was only a confused dream! Wouldn't it be odd to wake at the end, and find one had not lived at all? Many perhaps will wake at the end, and find it so indeed in one sense,--which brings us back to the more serious aspect of things....

I had some time ago a joint-stock letter from my brother John and his wife, informing me of the birth of their son. I do not think they mentioned who was to be its godmother; but I quite agree with Mrs. Kemble (my Uncle John's widow), as to the inexpediency of undertaking such a sponsorship for any one's child. If it means anything, it means something so serious that I should shrink from such a responsibility; and if it means (as it generally does) nothing, I think it would be better omitted altogether. When I was at home I dissuaded my sister from standing godmother to their little girl; but I do not think any of them understood my motive for doing so....

You ask me whether the specimens of Irish order, neatness, and intelligence which came over here to fill our domestic ranks are beyond training. Truly, training is, for the most part, so far beyond _them_, that it is no easy matter to simplify even the first rudiments of the science of civilization sufficiently to render them intelligible to these fair countrywomen of yours. Patience is a fine thing, and might accomplish something, perhaps; but there are insuperable bars to any hope of their progress in the high wages which they can all command at once, whether they ever saw the inside of a decent house before they came to this country or not; the abundance of situations; and the absence of everything like superior competition. The extraordinary comparative prosperity to which these poor ignorant girls are suddenly introduced on their arrival here, the high pay, the profusely plentiful living, the _equality_ treatment, which must seem almost _quality_ treatment to them, presently make them impertinent and unsteady; and as they can all command a new situation the instant that, for any cause, they leave the one they are in (unfit for the commonest situation in a decent household as they are), it is hardly worth their while, out of a mere abstract love of perfection, to labor at any very great improvement of their powers. A residence of some years in this country generally develops their intelligence into a sort of sharp-sighted calculating shrewdness, which they do not bring with them, but no way improves their own quick native wit and natural national humor. Of course there are exceptions; but the majority of them, after a short stay in America, contrive to combine their own least desirable race qualities with the independent tone of pert familiarity, the careless extravagance, and the passion for dress of American girls of the lower class....

F. A. B.

BUTLER PLACE, July 8th 1840.

Perhaps, dearest Harriet, it might be better for me not to come to England, inasmuch as my roots are beginning to spread in my present soil, and to transplant them, even for a short time, might check the process materially.... But while my father still lives, I shall hope to revisit England once in every few years: when he is gone, I will give up all the rest that I own on the other side of the water, and remain here until it might be thought desirable for us to visit, not England only, but Europe; and should that never appear desirable, why, then, remain here till I die.

My father's health received a beneficial stimulus from the excitement of his temporary return to the stage; but before that, his condition was by all accounts very unsatisfactory; and I am afraid that when the effect of the impulse his physical powers received from the pleasurable exertion of acting subsides, he may again relapse into feebleness, dejection, and general disorder of the system, from which he appeared to be suffering before he made this last professional effort. I _must_ see him once more, and he has written to me to say that as soon as he knows when we are coming to England, he will meet us there. He will, I am pretty sure, bring my sister with him, and this is an additional reason why I am very anxious to be in England this autumn.... I have no doubt that they will both come to England in September, to meet me, and I presume we should remain together until I am obliged to return to America.

I have not expressed to you, my dearest Harriet, my delight at your relief from immediate anxiety about Dorothy. Sorrow seems to me so peculiarly severe in its administration--or discipline, should I call it?--to your spirit, that I thank God that its heavy pressure is lifted from your heart for the present. Dorothy is one of those with whom I always feel sure that all is well, let their circumstances or situation be what they will; but I rejoice that she is spared physical suffering, and preserved to you, to whom she is so infinitely precious....

F. A. B.

LENOX, August 15th, 1840. DEAREST HARRIET,

... You bid me tell you when I shall leave America to pay my promised visit to my father. I have been thrown into a state of complete uncertainty by receiving a letter from my brother John, which informs me of my sister's engagement at Naples and Palermo, and possible further engagements at Malta and _Constantinople_! Think of her going to sing to the Turks!... I am at present alone here, and of course cannot myself determine the question of my going alone all over the Continent to join my father and Adelaide.... It is possible that I may have to renounce my visit to Europe altogether for the present, and, but for my father, I could do so without a moment's hesitation, but I dread postponing seeing him again, and, while I do so, shall live in a perpetual apprehension that I shall _hear_ of his death as I did of that of my poor mother. I consider the visit I contemplated making him our probable last season of reunion, and cannot banish the thought that if it is indefinitely postponed I may perhaps never see him again....

An intense interest is felt by all good Democrats in the coming election, which determines whether Mr. Van Buren is to retain the Presidency or not; and no zealous member of his party would leave the country while that was undetermined. John writes me, too, that he expects my father and sister both in London after Easter next year, and I have no doubt it will be thought best that I should wait till then to join them in England. However, all my plans must remain for the present in utter uncertainty, and I shall surely not meet you and Emily at Bannisters, which I could well have liked to do....

What lots of umbrellas you must wear out at Grasmere! [Miss S---- and Miss W---- were passing the summer at the English lakes.] I am writing pretty late at night, but if the Sedgwicks, whom you know, and those who, through them, know you, were round me, I should have _showers_ of love to send you from them: your rainy lake country suggested that image, but that would be a _warm_ shower, which you don't get in Westmoreland. I am growing very fat, but at the present there is no fatty degeneracy of the heart, so that I still remain

Affectionately yours, F. A. B.

LENOX, MASSACHUSETTS, August 28th, 1840. MY DEAR LADY DACRE,

I have always considered your writing to me a very unmerited kindness towards one who had so little claim on your time and attention; and I need not tell you how much this feeling is increased by your present state of mind, and the effort I am sure it must be to you to remember one so far off, in the midst of your great sorrow [for the death of her daughter, Mrs. Sullivan].... I shall come alone to England; and this is the more dismal, that I have it in prospect to go down to Naples to join my father and sister, and stay with them till her engagements there and at Palermo are ended. This journey (once my vision by day and dream by night) will lose much of its delight by being a solitary pilgrimage to the long-desired Italy. I think of pressing one of my brothers into my service as escort; or if they are not able to go with me, shall write to my father to come to England, as he lately sent me word he would do, at any time that I would meet him there--of course, to return immediately with him to my sister. They will both, I believe, be in England after Easter next year; and then I shall hope to be allowed to see you, my dear Lady Dacre, and express to you how much I have sympathized with you in all you have suffered.

I am not aware of having spoken unjustly or disparagingly of the dramatic profession. You say I am ungrateful to it: is it because I owe many of my friends (yourself among the number) to it that you say so? or do you think that I forget that circumstance? But to value it as an art, simply for the personal advantages or pleasures that it was the means of affording me, would be surely quite as absurd as to forget that it did procure such for me. Then, upon reflection, few things have ever puzzled me more than the fact of people liking _me_ because I pretended to be a pack of Juliets and Belvideras, and creatures who were _not_ me. Perhaps _I was jealous of my parts_; certainly, the good will my assumption of them obtained for me, always seemed to me quite as curious as flattering, or indeed rather more so. I did not think it an unbecoming comment on my father's acting again at the Queen's request, when I said that the excitement to which he had been habituated for so many years had still charms for him; it would be very strange indeed if it had not. It is chiefly from this point of view, and one or two others bearing on the moral health, that I deprecate for those I love the exercise of that profession; the claims of which to be considered as an art I cannot at all determine satisfactorily in my own mind. That we have Shakespeare's plays, written expressly for the interpretation of acting, is a strong argument for the existence of a positive art of acting: nevertheless----. But, if you please, we will settle that point when I have the pleasure of seeing you. I suppose I shall steam for England in October, when I shall endeavor to see you before I go abroad. Give my kindest regards to Lord Dacre, and believe me always

Very affectionately yours, F. A. B.

_Lenox_, September 4th, 1840. _My dearest Harriet_,

... First of all, let me congratulate you, and dear Dorothy, upon her improved health. Good as she is, I am sure she must value life; for those who use it best, best know its infinite worth; and for you, my dearest Harriet, this extension of the precious loan of her existence to you, I am persuaded, must be full of the greatest blessings. Give my affectionate love to her when you write to her or see her again; for, indeed, I suppose you are now at Bannisters, where I should like well to be with you, but I much fear that I shall not see you this winter, though I expect to sail for England next month....

You ask me of the distance between the Virginia Springs and Lenox, and I am ashamed to say I cannot answer; however, almost half the length of the United States, I think. This, my northern place of summer sojourn, is in the heart of the hill country of Massachusetts, in a district inhabited chiefly by Sedgwicks, and their belongings....

Our friends the Sedgwicks reached their homes about a fortnight ago, and the hills and valleys hereabouts rejoiced thereat.... Katharine's health and spirits are much revived by the atmosphere of love by which she is surrounded in her home. She bids me give her love to you. I wonder, with your miserable self-distrust, whether you have any idea of the affectionate regard all these people bear you. Katharine, a short time before leaving Europe, saw in a shop a dark gray stuff which resembled a dress you used to wear; she immediately bought it for herself, and carrying it home asked her brother who it reminded him of. He instantly kissed the stuff, exclaiming, "H---- S----!" Young Kate's journal contains a most affectionate record of their short intimacy with you at Wiesbaden; and you have left a deep impression on these hearts, where as little that is bad or base abides as in any frail human hearts I ever knew....

I have regained so much of my former appearance that I trust when I do see you I shall not horrify you, as you seemed some time ago to anticipate, by an apparition altogether unlike your, ever _essentially_ the same,

F. A. B.

BUTLER PLACE, October 7th, 1840.