Chapter 59

The extraordinary merriment, however, invariably caused by any mention of the name of Stefano whenever it occurred puzzled me not a little; and when, in the last scene, I came to the lines, "Is not this Stefano your drunken butler? Why, he's drunk now!" I was interrupted with such a universal shout of laughter that I couldn't help inquiring the cause of it; when Mr. Stephen Hawtrey, Dr. Hawtrey's brother and one of the masters, told me that Stephano was the nickname by which he was habitually designated among the lads, which sufficiently accounted for their ecstasy of amusement at all the ludicrous sayings and situations of the Neapolitan "drunken butler." The Eton young gentlemen addressed me with a kind and flattering compliment through their captain, and rewarded whatever pleasure I had been able to give them by a very elegant present, which I hope my children will value, but which, upon the whole, is less precious to me than the recollection of their young faces and voices while I read to them.]

ORCHARD STREET, December 8th. DEAREST HAL,

I was better than I expected to be after my night journey from Hull. Hayes and I had a carriage to ourselves after ten o'clock, and I took advantage of that circumstance to lie on the floor and get some rest. Of course I woke from each of my short naps aching rather severely, but I did sleep the greater part of the night; and the two hours I spent in bed before beginning the day unstiffened my bones and body. The night was beautifully fine when we left Hull, and continued so more than half-way. We made our entrance into London, however, in wretched rain and wind; but the weather has again become fine, and to-day is beautiful....

The detached stanza of French poetry you send me is a rather exaggerated piece of enthusiasm as it stands thus alone; though, incorporated in the poem to which it belongs, the effect of it may be striking. Some of the stanzas of Manzoni's "Ode to Napoleon" (a very noble poem), detached from their context, might appear strained and exaggerated. That which has real merit as a whole seldom gains by being disconnected.

Trouble yourself no more about poor Hero, my dear Hal; I am afraid he is lost. Mrs. Mulliner left him in the area this morning, and as for nearly four hours now we have seen and heard nothing of him, there is no doubt that he has made his escape into the wide world of London, and I fear there is no chance of his finding his way back again. I should not have liked his being at Jenny Wade's [a cottager at Ardgillan, whom Miss S---- pensioned]. In the present condition of Ireland, I should scruple to quarter a dog in a poor person's cabin, giving them for his support what they must needs feel might go some way towards the support of some starving human being. In the stable or kennel of a rich house there is sure to be that much spent, if not wasted, which may warrant the addition of such another member to the establishment; and in your sister's stables and offices there can be no wretch who would look with envy upon the meal eaten by my dog. I would rather a great deal have carried him to America, if I could have managed it, than left him with any one but yourself. At Lenox everything, as well as everybody, has plenty to eat; and he would have been cared for, for his own sake by the young folks, and for mine by the old. But I fear he is so far provided for that I shall never see him again, for his uneducated senses will surely never suffice to guide him back to Orchard Street....

You will be glad, because I am very glad, that poor Hero has come back; and I think his doing so exhibits considerable _nous_ in a brute so brutally brought up as he has been. He returned with a bit of broken string round his neck; so somebody had already appropriated him, and tied him up, and he had effected his escape, and come home--much, I think, to his credit. I was delighted to see him, and poor Mulliner almost did a fit.

Good-bye, dearest Hal. Give Dorothy my best love. You shall have your boots before I come, if Mr. W---- should call for them.

Ever as ever yours, FANNY.

BRADFORD, YORKSHIRE, Thursday, 10th.

It is my opinion, my dear Hal, that you will see me again and again, and several times again, before I leave England. I have just come to this place from Manchester, and have to-day received offers of three new engagements, and have every prospect therefore of being detained until the beginning of next month, and so beholding your well-beloved visage before I set off on my travels; though, whenever I do go, it will certainly be from Folkestone, and not Dover.

I left the Scotts this morning with deep regret. Mr. Scott has not been well during this last visit I have paid them, and I was much shocked to hear that he is threatened with disease of the heart, sudden death at any moment. His wife and her sisters are excellently kind to me; she has but two faults, an excessive _humility_ and an excessive _conscientiousness_; they wouldn't be bad for virtues, would they?

Mr. Scott's intercourse is delightful to me; his mind is deep and high, logical and practical, humorous and tender, and he is as nearly _good_ as a man can be. He has a still, calm manner and slow, quiet speech, very composing to me. I wish it might be my good fortune to see more of him.

Farewell, my dear. I begin to feel as if I never should get off; and instead of the pathetic uncertainty as to when we might meet again, which was beginning to affect me with melancholy, have fallen into a sort of reckless indifference about you: so sure am I that we shall see each other, maybe, _ad nauseam_ mutually, before I go. Give my love to Dorothy.

Ever as ever yours, FANNY.

[The remarkable man of whom I have spoken in this letter, John Alexander Scott, was one of the most _influential_ persons I have ever known, in the strongest sense of the word. I think the term, "an important human being," by which Sydney Smith described Francis Horner, might justly have been applied to Mr. Scott. The intimate friend of Edward Irving, Carlyle, and Maurice, he affected, to an extraordinary degree, the minds and characters of all those who were familiar with him; and his influence, like all the deepest and most powerful human influence, was personal.

He delivered various courses of lectures, principally, I think, in Edinburgh--Dante being one of his favorite themes; and "Three Discourses" upon religious and moral subjects are, I think, all that remain in printed form of many that he delivered at various times and at various places. They are, as is always the case in the instance of his order of mind and character, though striking and powerful, very inadequate samples of his spirit and intellect.

A very just tribute to his uncommon qualities and extraordinary power of influence appeared, after his death, in the _Spectator_. It was undoubtedly written by one who knew Mr. Scott well, and bore testimony, as all who ever had that privilege have done, to the singular force and virtue of his nature, and its penetrating and vivifying power over others.

My last intercourse with _him_ was a letter from _her_, hailing in his name the hope of seeing me at Montreux, in Switzerland, whither I was going in the expectation of finding them. The letter broke off in the middle, and ended with the news, calamitous to me, as to all who knew him, of his death. At the time when I visited them at Manchester, he had accepted some Professorship in the then newly established Owen's College.]

WOODSLEY HOUSE, Leeds.

I think, my dear Hal, your wish that I might see more of Mr. Scott and his family is likely to be realized. To my great pleasure, I received a note from him the other day, telling me that there was a general desire in Manchester to have the "Midsummer Night's Dream" given with Mendelssohn's music. He wrote of this to me, expressing his hope that it might be done, and that so I might be brought to them again; adding the kind and cordial words, "All here love you"--which expression touched and gratified me deeply; and I hope that the reading may take place, and that I shall have the privilege of a few days' more intercourse with that man.

The name of the noble woman whose impulse of humanity so overcame all self-considerations, of whom he told me, was Miss Coutts-Trotter. [Nursing a person who was in a state of collapse in the last stage of cholera, she had sought to bring back the dying woman's vitality by embracing her closely, and breathing on her mouth her own breath of life and love.] ...

I can tell you of no other publications of Mr. Scott. It is the despair of his wife, sisters, friends, and admirers that so few of his good words have been preserved. But in these days of printing and publishing, proclaiming and producing, I am beginning to have rather a sympathy with those who withhold, than with those who utter, all their convictions.... I have always held that what people could put forth from them in any kind was less valuable than what they could not--what they were compelled to retain--the reserve force of their mind and nature; and thinking this, as I do, more and more, I regret less and less such instances as this of Mr. Scott's apparently circumscribed sphere, by the non-publication of his lectures and discourses. He is daily teaching a body of young men; and to such of them as are able to receive his teaching, he will bequeath some measure of his spirit. It is doubtless a pleasure, and a help too, to read the good books of good men; but there are many good men who write good books, and he is among the few who cannot. He has suffered from ill health, particularly difficulties in the head; and though his gift of extemporaneous speech is remarkable, he cannot compose for printing without labor of the brain which is injurious to him. In this he also resembles Dr. Follen, of whom he reminds me, who wrote little, and published less.

I do not know anything of Miss Muloch--that, I think, is the name of the writer whose book you mention as having notices of my uncle and aunt introduced into it....

Publicity is the safest of all protections, as in some sense freedom is also. Women, I suppose, will find this out, as the people are finding it out; but in the beginning of their working out their newly discovered theories into rational practice, people in general, and women in particular, will do some wonderful things. The women especially, having for the most part had hitherto little positive or practical knowledge of life, will be apt "to make all earth amazed" with the first performances of various kinds of their new experience; but it is all in the day's work of the good old world, which is ordained to see reasonable and good men and women upon its ancient, ever-blooming surface, in greater numbers henceforward than hitherto: but the beginnings are strange....

Yours ever, FANNY.

2, PARK PLACE, HALIWELL LANE, MANCHESTER. MY DEAREST HAL,

At the conclusion of my reading yesterday evening, letters were put into my hands containing no fewer than six offers of new engagements; and, situated as I am, I cannot reject this money. I have endeavored, in answering these invitations, to get the readings all as close to each other as possible, and I now think that I may get off about the 22d; but the same sort of interruption to my plans may occur again, and thus I may be delayed, though I have got my passport and have even written to bespeak rooms at an hotel....

My dearest Hal, you have written to me three days running, and good part of each of your letters is disquisition on _Calvinism_.... Thus I have here lying by my side nine pages of your handwriting. I have just swallowed my dinner, after travelling from London, and sit down to discharge part of my debt, and in half an hour (I look at the watch, and it says ten minutes) I must go and dress myself for my reading, and here still will be the nine pages unanswered to-morrow morning, when I must set off for Manchester.

You talk of the logic of my mind, my dear friend, but my mind has no logic whatever; and in so far as that is concerned, Calvinism need look for as little help as hindrance from me. I do not believe I can _think_; and from the difficulty, not to say impossibility, I find in doing so, I don't think I would if I could; and if that is not logical, neither is that most admirable of all chains of reasoning, "Je n'aime pas les épinards," etc. There, now, here comes my maid to interrupt me, and there's an end of epistolary correspondence; I must go and dress.

Now it is to-morrow morning, dear Hal, and until the breakfast comes I can talk a few more words with you.... But don't you know that one reason why I appear to you to have positive mental results, is because I have no mental processes? I never think; for, as a lawyer would say, whenever I do, it seems to me as if there was no proposition (a few arithmetical and scientific ones excepted _perhaps_, like two and two are four) which does not admit of its own reverse. I don't say this is so, but it seems so to me; and whenever I attempt to put the notions that float through my brain, on which I float comfortably enough over infinite abysses of inconclusion, into precise form and shape, there is not one of them that does not seem to be quite controvertible; nor did I ever utter or assume a position of which I felt most assured while uttering it, without perceiving almost immediately that it was assailable on many sides. This is extremely disagreeable to me; the labor necessary to establish any mental or moral proposition simply on intellectual grounds, appears to me so great that I hate the very idea of it, and then I hate myself for my laziness, and wonder if some "judgment" does not await wits that will not work because work is tiresome. But if I appear to you to have strong convictions, it is because I have strong mental and moral impulses, instincts, intuitions, and never allow myself to weaken them by that most debilitating process, long-continued questioning, leading to no result.

You ask me what book I read now to put me to sleep--why, Murray's "Handbook for France;" ditto, for Savoy, Switzerland, and Piedmont; ditto, for the North of Italy, and the foreign "Bradshaw." These furnish my lullaby now-a-nights.

I read yesterday, in the railroad carriage, a little story translated from the French by Lady (Lucy) Duff Gordon, with which I was greatly touched and delighted. It costs one shilling, and is called "The Village Doctor," and is one of those pale green volumes headed, "Reading for Travellers," to be found on all the railroad bookstands. I thought it charming, and a most powerful appeal to the imagination in behalf of Roman Catholicism.

I have already told you what route I intend to take, and I think we shall be a week or ten days going from Paris to Turin, coasting all the way from Marseilles, as I wish to do.

I do not read at Manchester to-day, but Hallé, who conducts the music, wishes me to attend a rehearsal, which, of course, I am anxious to do at his request. On Monday I read the "Midsummer Night's Dream," and on Tuesday "Macbeth," at Mr. Scott's desire. To-morrow I shall, I hope, hear Mr. Scott read and comment again on the Bible, and I am looking forward with great pleasure to being with him and Mrs. Scott again.

No doubt there are several more direct ways of getting to Nice than coasting round, as I propose doing, but I wish to see that Mediterranean shore, and have no desire to travel hard....

Adelaide Procter [the daughter of my friends was to be my companion in this journey] has no enthusiasm whatever for me; she does not know me at all, and I do not know her at all well; and I do not think, when we know each other more, that she will like me any better. Her character and intellectual gifts, and the delicate state of her health, all make her an object of interest to me.... I love and respect Mr. Procter very much; and her mother, who is one of the kindest-hearted persons possible, has always been so good to me, that I am too glad to have the opportunity of doing anything to oblige them. I am going to Turin because, as they have entrusted their daughter to me, I will not leave her until I see her safe in the house to which she is going; I owe that small service to the child of her parent.... Dear Harriet, if you will come to Switzerland this summer, nothing but some insuperable impediment shall prevent my meeting you there. If you are "old and stiff," I am _fat, stuffy, puffy, and old_; and you are not of such proportions as to break a mule's back, whereas if I got on one I should expect it to cast itself and me down the first convenient precipice, only to avoid carrying me to the next.

I spent Thursday evening with Mrs. Jameson; she had a whole heap of people at her house, and among them the American minister and his niece--Philadelphians....

I do not pity Mrs. Jameson very much in her relations with Lady Byron. I never thought theirs a real attachment, but a connection made up of all sorts of motives, which was sure not to hold water long, and never to hold it after it had once begun to leak. It was an instance of one of those relationships which are made to _wear out_, and as it always appeared so to me, I have no great sympathy with either party in this foreseen result.

I pity Mrs. Jameson more because she is mortified than because she is grieved, and I pity Lady Byron because she is more afraid of mortifying than of giving her pain. It is all very _uncomfortable_; but real sorrow has as little to do with it now as real love ever had.... I am writing to you at Mr. Scott's, where I arrived yesterday afternoon, the beginning of my letter having been written in London, the middle at Bradford, and the end here.

It is Sunday afternoon: our morning service is over. I am sorry to say I find both Mr. and Mrs. Scott quite unwell, the former with one of those constitutional headaches from which he has suffered so much for many years. They incapacitate him for conversation or any mental exertion, and I am a great loser by it, as well as grieved for his illness.... Farewell.

Ever as ever yours, FANNY.

[Lucy Austin, the clever and handsome daughter of a cleverer and handsomer mother--Mrs. John Austin, wife of the eminent lawyer and writer--excited a great deal of admiration, as the wife of Sir Alexander Duff Gordon, in the London society of my day. Loss of health compelled her to pass the last years of her life in the East; and the letters she wrote during her sojourn there are not only full of charm and interest, but bear witness to a widespread personal influence over the native population among whom she lived, the result of her humane benevolence towards, and kindly sympathy for, them.

One or two amusing incidents occurred with regard to my reading of the "Midsummer Night's Dream" at Manchester. The gentleman who had the management of the performance wrote to me offering me forty pounds for my share of it--a very liberal price, which I declined, my price for one of my readings being invariably _twenty_ pounds. At the end of the performance one of the gentlemen of the committee came to pay me my salary, which having done, he expressed himself, in his own behalf and that of his fellow-managers, greatly obliged to me for the liberality I had exhibited (honesty, it seems to me) in not accepting double my usual terms when they offered it to me. "And," said he, drawing a five-pound note from his pocket-book, "I really--we really--if you would--if you could--allow us to offer you five pounds in addition----" The gentleman's voice died away, and he seemed to be becoming nervous, under the effect of the steadfast seriousness with which, in spite of the greatest inclination to burst out laughing, I listened to this strange proposal. The five-pound note fluttered a little between his finger and thumb, and for one moment I had a diabolical temptation to twitch it from him and throw it into the fire. This prompting of Satan, however, I womanfully resisted, and merely civilly declined the gratuity; and the gentleman left me with profuse acknowledgments of the service I had rendered them and my "extreme liberality."

My friend Charles Hallé, coming in just at this moment, was thrown into fits of laughter at the transaction, and my astonishment at it.

Hallé was a friend of ours, an admirable musician, and a most amiable man, and one of the best masters of our modern day. His style was more remarkable for sensibility, delicacy, and refinement, than for power or brilliancy of execution; but I preferred his rendering of Beethoven to that of all the other virtuosi I ever heard; and some of the hours of greatest musical enjoyment I have had in my life I owe to him, when he and his friend Joachim, playing almost, as it seemed, as much for their own delight as ours, enchanted a small circle of enthusiastic and grateful listeners, gathered round them in my sister's drawing-room.

Mr. Scott's comment upon my reading gave me great pleasure. "It was good," he said, "from beginning to end; but you _are_ Theseus." Oddly enough, a similar compliment was paid me in the same words at the end of a reading that I gave for the Working Men's Institute in Brighton, when my friend, Mr. R----, kindly complimenting me on the performance, said, "It was all delightful: but you _are_ Henry V.," and whatever difference of opinion may have existed among my critics as to my rendering the tragic and comic characters of Shakespeare's plays, I think the heroic ones were those in which I ought to have succeeded best, for they were undoubtedly those with which I had most sympathy.]

FULFORD, YORK, Saturday, 3d. MY DEAREST HAL,

I am amused at your gasping anxiety to be told where I am going, as if I was about to depart into some non-postal region, where letter of yours should never reach me more, instead of spending the next week in Edinburgh, which surely you did know.... My dearest Hal, J---- W---- has just come into my room, bringing the news of the Emperor of Russia's death. It has seized me quite hysterically, and the idea of the possible immediate cessation of carnage and desolation, and war and wickedness (in that peculiar shape), has shaken me inexpressibly, and I am shocked at the tears of joy that are raining from my eyes, so that I can't see the paper on which I am writing to you; and if I can thus weep my thanksgivings for the news of this man's death, who have no dear son, or brother, or husband on that murderous Crimean soil, think of the shout of rejoicing which will be his only dirge throughout France and England. I am shocked at the exclamation of gratitude which escaped my lips when I heard the announcement. Poor human soul, how terrible that its sudden summons from its heavy and difficult responsibilities should thus be hailed by any other human creature! and yet how many will draw a long breath, as of a great deliverance, at this news!

I can hardly write at all, my hand shakes so, and I cannot think of anything else; and yet I had purposed to send dear Dorothy some account of her family here, who are all well and most kind to me. I will wait a while....

DEAREST DOROTHY,