Chapter 67

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

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

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

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

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

Good-bye, my dear.

I am ever yours, FANNY.

KING STREET, Wednesday, 16th, 1848.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

MY DEAR HAL,

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

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

Ever yours, FANNY.

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

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

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

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

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

Ever yours, FANNY.

You will be glad to hear that, after encountering every possible let and hindrance from their amiable manager, and being made by him to pay _ten pounds_ for the use of the theatre, company, gas, etc, my poor young fellow-actors, for whose sake I came down here, will have cleared a sum that will be an immense help to poor folk living upon £2 a week. I was delighted with having been able to serve them much better than I had feared I might. People's comparative earnings make me reflect. I have been grumbling not a little at my weekly earnings. Thackeray, for that wonderful book, "Vanity Fair," gets £60 a month; the curate who preached to us on Sunday and does duty in two parishes has £60 a year. Perpend! Good-bye, my dear.

Believe me ever yours, FANNY.

PORTSMOUTH, Wednesday. DEAR T----,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Always affectionately yours, F. A. B.

COLCHESTER.

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

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

Yours affectionately, FANNY.

PORTSMOUTH, Friday, March 31st, 1848.

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

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

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

Ever yours, FANNY.

BANNISTERS, Tuesday, 14th, 1848.