Chapter 64

... Mr. Maddox comes here, and worries my life out with haggling and bargaining, but has not yet agreed to any terms, and I am half distracted with all the various advice tendered me.... In the mean time, I am much comforted about my readings; for I received yesterday morning a very courteous letter from the Secretary of the Collegiate Institution at Liverpool, offering me twenty guineas a night if I would go down and read there six nights at the end of March. This I shall be thankful to do, if my engagement at the Princess's Theatre falls through, and if it does not I shall hope to be able to accept the Liverpool invitation later in the season. I have had a visit, too, from one of the directors of the Highgate Institute, to beg I would go and read there. They cannot afford to give me more than ten guineas a night, the institute being a small and not very rich one; but of course I do not expect to be paid for reading as I am for acting, and therefore, whenever I can, shall accept the Highgate offer.

These various proposals have put me in heart once more about the possible success of this reading experiment, and I am altogether much comforted at seeing that employment is not likely to fail me, which I was beginning to fear it might.... Of course, if I apply for engagements to managers, I must expect to take their terms, not to make my own--for beggars must not be choosers, as I learnt long ago; and when I solicit an engagement, I must be prepared to sell myself cheap--and I will. If Maddox won't pay me what I ask, and Webster won't have me at any price, I shall come to you and Dorothy, who, I "reckon," will take me on my own terms: which in these my days of professional humiliation (not personal humility, you know), is quite kind of you.

Yours ever, FANNY.

KING STREET, Friday, 28th. MY DEAREST HAL,

You will be glad to hear that Mr. Maddox has at length come into my terms.... For the next two months this is some anxiety off my mind, and I trust will be off yours for me; and the last two days have shown me that my chance of getting employment, either acting or reading, is likely to last--at any rate till my sister returns, when I shall probably stay with her till my departure for America.... I am most thankful that the depression and discouragement under which I succumbed for a while has been thus speedily relieved. It is a curious sensation to have a certain consciousness of power (which I have, though perhaps it is quite a mistaken notion), and at the same time of absolute helplessness. It seems to me as if I had some sort of strength, and yet I feel totally incapable of coping with the small difficulties of circumstance under which it is oppressed; it's like a sort of wide-awake nightmare. I suppose it's because I am a woman that I am so idiotic and incompetent to help myself.

But when one thinks of it, what a piteous page in the history of human experience is the baffling and defeat of real genius by the mere weight of necessity, the bare exigencies of existence, the need to live from day to day. Think of Beethoven dying, and saying to Hummel, with that most wonderful assertion of his own great gifts, "Pourtant, Hummel, j'avois du génie!"--such transcendent genius as it was too! such pure and perfect and high and deep inspiration! which had, nevertheless, not defended him from the tyranny of poverty, and the petty cares of living, all his life.

Is it not well that people of great genius are always _proud as well as humble_, and that the consciousness of their own nobility spreads, as it were, the wings of an angel between them and all the baseness and barrenness through which they are often compelled to wade up to the lips? Whenever I think of Burns, my heart tightens itself, to use a French expression, for a most painful _physical emotion_. Do you know Schiller's exquisite poem of the "Division of the Earth"? I will send you a translation, if you do not--a rough one I made of it when it was one of my German lessons. My version is harsh and poor enough, but the thoughts are preserved, and _the_ thought is worthy of that noble poet....

29, KING STREET, Saturday, 12th. MY DEAREST HAL,

How many pleasant things I might lament over _if_ I might! I shall not see St. Leonard's again with you. Emily has misunderstood in saying that my engagement at the Princess Theatre does not begin till the 27th; it begins on the 21st, next Monday week, and I shall only just have time to get my wardrobe ready and study Desdemona and Cordelia, which I am asked to play, and re-learn the music of Ophelia, which I have quite forgotten....

I have an engagement offered me in Dublin, and it is rather provoking that I cannot accept it now, for this, I believe, is the height of the gay season there. As it is, I fear I shall not be able to go over there till May; but perhaps then you will go with me, or be there, and that will be some compensation for the less money I shall make.

It's curious all these engagements offering now within these few days: to be sure, it never rains but it pours, so that accounts for it philosophically.

Did I tell you what a nice long visit I had from Thackeray the other day? Oh, have you read that "Vanity Fair" of his? It is wonderful! He was a schoolfellow of my brother John's, you know, and is a very old friend of mine, but I had not seen him for some time. I wrote to ask him for his autograph for Henry Greville, and he wrote me an extremely kind note, and came himself after it, and sat with me a very long time, and was delightful.

Lady Charlotte Greville, who has just removed into a beautiful new house she has arranged for herself, wrote to say she was coming to town immediately, and hoped I would give my first London reading in her drawing-room. Was not that nice and kind and good-natured of her, dear old lady? But of course I declined, at any rate for the present, as I mean to exhaust my natural enemies, the managers, before I have recourse to my friends, in any way whatever. Kiss Dorothy for me, and don't let her break your spirit with inquisitorial and vexatious supervision of your actions. A timely resistance to friendly tyranny is a great saving of trouble.

Good-bye, you bad dear.

I am yours ever, FANNY.

[I wish to record a slight anecdote of my friend William Thackeray, which illustrates his great kindness and amiability, his _sweetness_ of temper and disposition.

I met him at Miss Berry's at dinner, a few days before he began his course of lectures on the English essayists, and he asked me to come and hear him, and told me he was so nervous about it, that he was afraid he should break down.

I had an engagement which prevented my hearing his first lecture, but I promised him to go and see him at his room before he began it, to cheer him.

He was to lecture at Willis Rooms, in the same room where I read, and going thither before the time for his beginning, found him standing like a forlorn disconsolate giant in the middle of the room, gazing about him. "Oh, Lord," he exclaimed, as he shook hands with me, "I'm sick at my stomach with fright." I spoke some words of encouragement to him, and was going away, but he held my hand, like a scared child, crying, "Oh, don't leave me!" "But," said I, "Thackeray, you mustn't stand here. Your audience are beginning to come in," and I drew him from the middle of his chairs and benches, which were beginning to be occupied, into the retiring-room adjoining the lecture-room, my own readings having made me perfectly familiar with both. Here he began pacing up and down, literally wringing his hands in nervous distress. "Now," said I, "what shall I do? Shall I stay with you till you begin, or shall I go, and leave you alone to collect yourself?" "Oh," he said, "if I could only get at that confounded thing" (his lecture), "to have a last look at it!" "Where is it?" said I. "Oh, in the next room on the reading-desk." "Well," said I, "if you don't like to go in and get it, I'll fetch it for you." And remembering well the position of my reading-table, which had been close to the door of the retiring-room, I darted in, hoping to snatch the manuscript without attracting the attention of the audience, with which the room was already nearly full. I had been used to deliver my reading seated, at a very low table, but my friend Thackeray gave his lectures standing, and had had a reading-desk placed on the platform, adapted to his own very tall stature, so that when I came to get his manuscript it was almost above my head. Though rather disconcerted, I was determined not to go back without it, and so made a half jump, and a clutch at the book, when every leaf of it (they were not fastened together), came fluttering separately down about me. I hardly know what I did, but I think I must have gone nearly on all-fours, in my agony to gather up the scattered leaves, and retreating with them, held them out in dismay to poor Thackeray, crying, "Oh, look, look, what a dreadful thing I have done!" "My dear soul," said he, "you couldn't have done better for me. I have just a quarter of an hour to wait here, and it will take me about that to page this again, and it's the best thing in the world that could have happened." With which infinite kindness he comforted me, for I was all but crying, at having, as I thought, increased his distress and troubles. So I left him, to give the first of that brilliant course of literary historical essays with which he enchanted and instructed countless audiences in England and America.

The last time I saw Thackeray, was at a dinner at my dear friend, Mr. Harness'. As we were about to seat ourselves at table, I being between Mr. Harness and Thackeray, his daughter Annie (now Mrs. Ritchie) was going to place herself on the other side of her father. "No, no," said our dear host, "that will not do. I cannot have the daughter next the father." And Miss Thackeray was invited to take another place. She had just published her story, "The History of Elizabeth," in which she showed herself to have inherited some of the fine elements of her father's literary genius. As we sat down, I said to him, "But it appears very evident, I think, that the daughter _is_ to be _next_ to the father." He looked at me for a moment with a beaming face, and then said, "Do you know, I have never read a word of that thing?" "Oh," cried I, "Thackeray! Why don't you? It is excellent! It would give you so much pleasure!" "My dear lady, I couldn't, I couldn't!" said he with tears in his eyes. "It would _tear my guts out_!"--which powerful English description of extreme emotion would have startled me less in French or Italian; "Cela m'arracherait les entrailles," or "mi sois-cerelbero."

In the evening, he talked back to our early times, and my coming out at Covent Garden, and how, "We all of us," said he (and what a noble company of young brains and hearts they were!), "were in love with you, and had your portrait by Lawrence in our rooms"--which made me laugh and cry, and abuse him for tantalizing me with the ghost of a declaration at that late hour of both our days. And so we parted, and I never met him again. On his way home that evening, his daughter told me that he had spoken kind compassionate words of commendation of me. I have kept them in grateful remembrance. Fine genius! and tender gentle heart! the classic writer of the keenest and truest satire of the social vices of our day; the master of English style, as powerful and pure as that of the best models, whose works he has so admirably illustrated.

"Vanity Fair" will, I suppose, be always considered Thackeray's masterpiece--though everybody loves, beyond all his other portraits, the exquisite one of Colonel Newcome--but it seems to me that "Esmond" is a more extraordinary literary feat than any other of his works--except, indeed, "Lyndon of Barry Lyndon," which is even a more remarkable production of the same order.]

KING STREET, Monday, 14th.

If you begin your letter with such questions as "What do you think of me?" I do not know any reason in life why my answer should ever have an end, even within the liberal limits of the two pages which you extort from me daily. That is a question I cannot answer; although, I must say, I should have expected from you rather more of that constancy and consistency (a male rather than a female quality, however), which, having determined on a certain course as best, does not lament having abided by it when the issue appears unprosperous. I think women are seldom of a sufficiently determined mind to make their opinion or resolution itself their consolation under defeat. They are more liable to mental as well as moral misgivings and regrets than men, and an unfortunate result easily induces them to repent a course they deliberately adopted.

_Sole vales Veritas_ is the motto upon a little pencil-case contained in the small work-case Emily has given me. She had it engraved on the seal, and though it is not altogether so congenial a motto to me as Arnold and Robertson's Christian device "Forward!" (and is moreover axiomatic rather than hortatory), I use it partly for her sake, and partly because it is undeniable.

Pilate wished to know what is truth--or rather pretended that he did--and I have a very general conviction that "What is truth?" is the speech of Pilate to this day; _i.e._, of those who know, but will not do, what they know to be right. It is very seldom, indeed, that the mind earnestly desires a conviction, strives for one, prays for one, and labors to attain one, that it does not acquire what, to all intents and purposes, _is_ truth for that individual soul.

God's perfect and absolute Truth remedies in a thousand ways the defectiveness of the partial truth that we arrive at; and so that the _endeavor_ after truth be true, the highest result of all is reached, _truth towards God_, though, humanly speaking, the mental result may be a failure. What _absolute truth_ is, my dearest Hal, you will certainly not know before you die, and possibly not then. In the mean time, I take it, you have, or may have if you will, that which will serve your turn. At any rate, I have--which is not at all the same thing--but that don't signify.

I am very glad I was welcome in Bedford Place, and that Miss ---- was good enough to be pleased with me.

There is great goodness in her voice and manner, and to have kept her face unwrinkled and her hair unblanched till the present age (as it is no result of selfish insensibility in her), bespeaks a virtuous life, and sweet serene temper.

I wonder more women to whom their good looks are precious, do not ponder upon the _beauty_ of holiness.... I have not heard from Adelaide or E---- for some time, but of them, that they and the children are well; that she is in good looks, and admirable voice; that their house is the pleasantest in Rome, and their parties _the_ thing to which everybody is anxious to be admitted: so all is prosperous and pleasant with them. I have told you of her nice new house in Eaton Place. It is in a considerable state of forwardness, the bedrooms being all papered, and the drawing-rooms nearly painted. Henry Greville has had it all done for her, and in very good taste; the grates are all up, and I should think in another fortnight they might take possession if they were here.

I have read more of Stanley's sermons, and am struck with their resemblance, in tone and spirit, to that book of my friend Mr. Furness, which I do not know if I ever gave you to read, called, "Jesus and His Biographers."

Stanley's sermons are excellent, but they seem to me curiously unorthodox. There is an inletting of new views upon the subject of the Christian Revelation, against which the Protestantism of the Church of England--in many respects illogical and anomalous, as it appears to its opponents--will have to fight a hard and difficult battle.

Lady Ellesmere was absolutely in despair about the bill for admitting the Jews to Parliament, and had influence enough with Lord Ellesmere to make him vote against it. This is sad enough; but she is so excellent that her influence over him, in one case where it is bad is good in a great many others....

God bless you, my dear. Give my love to Dorothy: I am both yours, but yours most particularly,

FANNY.

P.S. My course with regard to my engagement at the Princess Theatre was determined by my father's opinion, and confirmed by the advice of all my friends who spoke to me upon the subject--Emily, Harness, the Grevilles, and others; and all that Mr. Maddox said in his various conversations with me upon the subject, enabled the best experienced among us to form a very fair idea of what he could afford to give, and what I was justified in asking.

29, KING STREET, Friday, February 18th, 1848.

I have been this morning to a rehearsal of Macbeth, at which Macready did not attend; so that in point of fact, as far as I was concerned, it was _nil_. He is, I believe, finishing some country engagements, and I suppose had not returned to town. I have another rehearsal to-morrow, at which it is to be hoped he will attend, as otherwise my being there is really quite a work of supererogation.

My men friends--among whom I include my father--one and all, did what I think women would not have done. The minute Mr. Maddox agreed to the terms I had demanded, they lamented bitterly (even my dear Mr. Harness--who is a good man) that I had not stood out for higher ones, feeling quite sure I should have got them. Now, this I think quite as contemptible, and a great deal more dishonest, than the womanly process (Emily's and yours) of lamenting that I had not taken less than I had demanded, because you feared my doing so had broken off the negotiation altogether. I think, upon the whole, it behooves people to know what they mean, and to abide by it, without either weak regrets at an ill result, or selfish ones that it is not better than what one had made up one's mind to--when it seems that it might have been so. I do wish people would learn to be like my aunt's cook, and "stand upon their own bottom, with fortitude and similarity." (A woman that Mrs. Siddons was engaging as cook, replied to the question, "Can you make pastry?" "Well, no, ma'am--not exactly to say, the very finest of pastry. I can make plain puddings and pies, but--I am not a professed puff pastry cook, and I think it best to say so, as every one should stand upon their own bottom, with fortitude and similarity, I think.")

I act Lady Macbeth on Monday, on Wednesday Queen Katharine, and on Friday Desdemona, for the first time in my life. I have a beautiful and correct dress for her (you know I always liked my clothes), for which, nevertheless, I expect to be much exclaimed against, as our actresses have always thought proper to dress her in white satin. I have arrayed her in black (the only habit of the noble Venetian ladies) and gold, in a dress that looks like one of Titian's pictures.

That smothering scene, my dear Harriet, is most extremely horrible, and like nothing in the world but the catastrophe of poor Madame de Praslin. I think I shall make a desperate fight of it, for I feel horribly at the idea of being murdered in my bed. The Desdemonas that I have seen, on the English stage, have always appeared to me to acquiesce with wonderful equanimity in their assassination. On the Italian stage they run for their lives round their bedroom, Pasta in the opera (and Salvini in the tragedy, I believe), clutching them finally by the hair of the head, and then murdering them. The bedgown in which I had arrayed Desdemona for the night would hardly have admitted of this flight round the stage; besides that, Shakespeare's text gives no hint of any such attempted escape on poor Desdemona's part; but I did think I should like not to be murdered, and therefore, at the last, got up on my knees on my bed, and threw my arms tight round Othello's neck (having previously warned Mr. Macready, and begged his pardon for the liberty), that being my notion of the poor creature's last appeal for mercy.

What do you think of our fine ladies amusing themselves with giving parties, at which they, and their guests, take chloroform as a pastime? Lady Castlereagh set the example, and was describing to me her sensations under the process. I told her how imprudent and wrong I thought such experiments, and mentioned to her the lecture Brand gave upon the subject, in which the poor little guinea-pig, who underwent his illustrations for the benefit of the audience, died on the table during the lecture; to which she replied, "Oh yes; that she knew that, _for she was present_." Can you conceive, after such a spectacle, trying similar experiments upon one's ignorant self? Is it not very brave? or is it only idiotical?...

I have been making a desperate struggle, _giving my reasons_ (four pages of them--think of it!) to the committee of the Liverpool Institution, to induce them to let me read Shakespeare _straight through_ to them; at least, each play I read, divided into two readings, and with only the omissions required by modern manners: but I fear they will not let me. I shall be grievously disappointed....

Was there ever such a to-do as that woman Lola Montez is kicking up? Everybody is turning Catholic as fast as possible, and the good Churchwomen are every way in despair. They already see their sons all circumcised, and their daughters refusing to eat ham, and their brothers and husbands confessing the Real Presence. The lady members of the Established Church, especially the more serious ones, are in great tribulation at all that is going on. Lady Ellesmere is desperate at the Jews coming into Parliament, and Lord Ellesmere has voted against them. He, poor man, has been, within the last few days, all but at death's door with the gout, and perhaps near finding out how different, or _in_different, these differences _really_ are. It is wonderful to hear everybody talk.

Good-bye. I am yours and Dorothy's

Most respectfully, FANNY.

[My first intention in undertaking my readings from Shakespeare was to make, as far as possible, of each play a thorough study in its entireness; such as a stage representation cannot, for obvious reasons, be. The dramatic effect, which of course suffers in the mere delivery from a reading-desk, would, I hoped, be in some measure compensated for by the possibility of retaining the whole beauty of the plays as poetical compositions. I very soon, however, found my project of making my readings "studies of Shakespeare" for the public quite illusory.

To do so would have required that I should take two, and sometimes three, evenings to the delivery of one play; a circumstance which would have rendered it necessary for the same audience, if they wished to hear it, to attend two and three consecutive readings; and in many other respects I found the plan quite incompatible with the demand of the public, which was for a dramatic entertainment, and not for a course of literary instruction.