Records of Later Life Part 61

Imagine this lady having thought proper to introduce in her story an eccentric vagabond of a woman, whom she has called "f.a.n.n.y Kemble." Upon Lady M----'s asking her--I think with some pardonable indignation, considering that I am her intimate friend--how she came to do such an unwarrantable thing; if she was not aware that "f.a.n.n.y Kemble" was the real name of a live woman at this moment existing in English society, Miss L---- ingenuously replied, "Oh dear! that she'd never thought of that: that she only knew it was a celebrated dramatic name, and so she had put it into her book." _Sancta Simplicitas!_ I should think I might sue her for libel and defamation.

The books that women write now are a curious sign of the times, and an indication of great changes in opinion, as well as alteration in practice.

After all, women are _part_ men, "bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh." As long as they benefited--and they did highly--by the predominance of the conservative spirit in civilized society, they were the most timid and obstinate of conservatives. But emanc.i.p.ation, or, to speak more civilly, freedom, is dawning upon them from various quarters; Democracy is coming to rule the earth; and women are discovering that in _that_ atmosphere they must henceforth breathe, and live, and move, and have their being.

But the beginning of a great deal of male freedom is mere emanc.i.p.ation; and so it will be, I suppose, with women. The drunken exultation of Caliban is no bad ill.u.s.tration of the emanc.i.p.ation of a slave; and the ladies, more gracefully intoxicated with the _elixir vitae_ of liberty, may rejoice no more to "sc.r.a.pe trencher or wash dish," but write books (more or less foolish) instead.

Do you remember that delightful negro song, the "Invitation to Hayti,"

that used to make you laugh so?

"Brudder, let us leave Buckra land for Hayti: Dar we be receive'

Grand as Lafayette!

Make a mighty show, When we land from steams.h.i.+p, You be like Monroe, And I like Louis Philip!"

And when, antic.i.p.ating the elevation of his n.o.ble womankind to the elegant and luxurious _idlesse_ of the favored white female, the poet sings:--

"No more dey dust and scrub, No more dey wash and cookee; But all day long we see Dem read the n.o.bel bookee."

(For _read_, read _write_.)

I am beset with engagements; and, though I am very anxious to get away abroad and rest, it would be both foolish and wrong to reject these offers of money, tendered me on all sides, _speciously_ with such _borrowing_ relations as I enjoy. Good-bye, dear.

Ever as ever yours, f.a.n.n.y.

[My reading at Eton was a memorably pleasant incident of my working days. Dr. Hawtrey at first proposed to me to read "Coriola.n.u.s;" but I always read it very ill, and pet.i.tioned for some other play, giving the name of a tragedy, "Macbeth;" a comedy, the "Merry Wives of Windsor;" and one of the more purely poetical plays, "The Tempest;" suggesting that the "boys" should vote, and the majority determine the choice. This seemed a mighty innovation on all received customs, and was met with numerous objections, which, however, did not prove insuperable; and "The Tempest," my own favorite of all Shakespeare's dramas, was chosen by my young auditors.

A more charming audience to look at I never had than this opening flower of English boyhood, nor a more delightfully responsive one.

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 amus.e.m.e.nt 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 circ.u.mstance 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 n.o.ble 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, f.a.n.n.y.

BRADFORD, YORKs.h.i.+RE, 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, f.a.n.n.y.

[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, princ.i.p.ally, 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 Professors.h.i.+p 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 n.o.ble 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 publis.h.i.+ng, 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 circ.u.mscribed 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, f.a.n.n.y.

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 pa.s.sport 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 epinards," 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 a.s.sume a position of which I felt most a.s.sured while uttering it, without perceiving almost immediately that it was a.s.sailable 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 s.h.i.+lling, 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 Ma.r.s.eilles, as I wish to do.