Old Woman's Gossip

XVI.

DUBLIN, August, 1830.

MY DEAR H–: I should have answered your letter sooner had I before been able to give you any certain intelligence of our theatrical proceedings next week, but I was so afraid of some change taking place in the list of the plays that I resolved not to write until alteration was impossible. The plays for next week are on Monday, Venice Preserved; on Wednesday, The Grecian Daughter; Thursday, The Merchant of Venice. I wish your people may be able to come up, the latter end of the week; I think Romeo and Juliet, and The Merchant of Venice, are nice plays for them to see. But you have, I know, an invitation from Mrs. J–-to come into town on Monday. I do not know whether my wishes have at all influenced her in this, but she has my very best thanks for it, and I know that they will have some weight with you in inclining you to accept it; do, my dearest H–, come if you can. I shall certainly not be able to return to Ardgillan, and so my only chance of seeing you depends upon your coming into Dublin. I wish I had been with you, when you sat in the sun and listened to the wind singing over the sea. I have a great admiration for the wind, not so much for its purifying influences only, as for its invisible power, strength, the quality above all others without which there is neither moral nor mental greatness possible. Natural objects endowed with this invisible power please me best, as human beings who possess it attract me most; and my preference for it over other elements of character is because I think it communicates itself, and that while in contact with it one feels as if it were catching ; and whether by the shore, when the tide is coming up fast and irresistible, or in the books or intercourse of other minds, it seems to rouse corresponding activity and energy in one’s self, persuading one, for the time being, that one is strong. I am sure I have felt taller by three inches, as well as three times more vigorous in body and mind, than I really am, when running by the sea. It seemed as if that great mass of waters, as it rushed and roared by my side, was communicating power directly to my mind as well as my bodily frame, by its companionship. I wish I was on the shore now with you. It is surprising (talking of E–) how instantaneously, and by what subtle, indescribable means, certain qualities of individual natures make themselves felt, — refinement, imagination, poetical sensibility. People’s voices, looks, and gestures betray these so unconsciously; and I think more by the manner, a great deal, than the matter of their speech. Refinement, particularly, is a wonderfully subtle, penetrating element; nothing is so positive in its effect, and nothing so completely escapes analysis and defies description. I am glad dear little H– thought I “ grew pretty;” there is a world of discrimination in that sentence of his; and to have made a conquest of Hercules, with my love of and admiration for power, is no mean triumph. To your charge that I should cultivate my judgment in preference to my imagination, I can only answer, “ I am ready and willing to do so;' but it is nevertheless not altogether easy for me to do it. My life in London leaves me neither time nor opportunity for any self-culture, and it seems to me as if uiv best faculties were lying fallow, while a comparatively unimportant talent, and my physical powers, were being taxed to the uttermost. The profession I have embraced is supposed to stimulate powerfully the imagination. I do not find it so; it appeals to mine in a slight degree compared with other pursuits; it is too definite in its object and too confined in its scope to excite my imagination strongly; and, moreover, it carries with it the antidote of its own excitement in the necessary conditions under which it is exercised. Were it possible to act with one’s mind alone, the case might be different; but the body is so indispensable, unluckily, to the execution of one’s mostpoetical conceptions on the stage, that the imaginative powers are under very severe though imperceptible restraint. Acting seems to me rather like dancing hornpipes in fetters. And by no means the least difficult part of the business is to preserve one’s own feelings warm, and one’s imagination excited, whilst one is aiming entirely at producing effects upon others; surrounded, moreover, as one is, by objects which, while they heighten the illusion to the distant spectator, all but destroy it to us of the dramatis personœ. None of this, however, lessens the value and importance of your advice, or my own conviction that “ mental bracing ” is good for me. Mrs. K– and I have exchanged visits and missed one another; she has sent me a delightful book of yours, Sir Humphry Davy’s Consolations in Travel, with which I am enchanted, and about which I want to talk to you; so come and listen to what I have to say, and bring me word how the hay-cutting prospers. My reception on Monday was quite overpowering, and I was escorted back to the hotel, after the play, by a body-guard of about two hundred men, shouting and hurrahing like mad; strange to say, they were people of perfectly respectable appearance. My father was not with us, and they opened the carriage-door and let down the steps, when we got home, and helped us out, clapping, and showering the most fervent expressions of good - will upon me and aunt Dall, whom they took for my mother. One young man exclaimed pathetically, “ Oh, I hope ye 're not too much fatigued, Miss Kemble, by your exertions! ” They formed a line on each side of me, and several of them dropped on their knees to look under my bonnet, as I ran laughing, with my head down, from the carriage to the house. I was greatly confused and a little frightened, as well as amused and gratified, by their cordial demonstration.

The Mrs. J– whom I have mentioned in this letter was sister of Miss S–’s dearest friend, Miss W–, and wife of that amiable and eminent man, Chief Baron J–. The humors of a Dublin audience, much as I had heard of them before going to Ireland, surprised and diverted me very much. The second night of our acting there, as we were leaving the theatre by the private entrance, we found the carriage surrounded by a crowd eagerly waiting for our coming out. As soon as my father appeared, there was a shout of “ Three cheers for Misther Char-les!” then came Dall, and “ Three cheers for Misthriss Char-les!" then I, and “ Three cheers for Miss Fanny! ” “ Bedad, she looks well by gas-light! ” exclaimed one of my admirers. “ Och, and bedad, she looks well by daylight too! ” retorted another, though what his opportunity for forming that flattering opinion of the genuineness of my good looks had been, I cannot imagine. What further remarks passed upon us I do not know, as we drove off laughing, and left our friends still vociferously cheering. My father told us one day of his being followed up Sackville Street by two beggar-women, between whom the following dialogue passed, evidently with a view to his edification. “Och, but he’s an iligant man, is Misther Char-les Kemble! ” “ An’ ‘deed, so was his brudher Misther John, thin, a moighty foine man! and to see his demanour, puttin’ his hand in his pocket and givin’ me sixpence, bate all the worrld ! ” Lord C—whose tall, lathy figure and prominent teeth were well known to the pauper population of Dublin, having told a tiresome old female beggar, who was pursuing him, to “ go along,’’ received the agreeable rejoinder, “Ah! go ’long wid your own self; ye ’re like an old comb: all back and taath! ” When I was acting Lady Townley, in the scene where her husband complains of her late hours and she insolently retorts, “ I won’t come home till four, to-morrow morning,” and receives the startling reply with which Lord Townley leaves her, “ Then, madam, you shall never come home again,” I was apt to stand for a moment aghast at this threat; and one night during this pause of breathless dismay, one of my gallery auditors, thinking, I suppose, that I was wanting in proper spirit not to make some rejoinder, exclaimed, “ Now thin, Fanny! ” which very nearly upset the gravity produced by my father’s impressive exit, both in me and in the audience.

DUBLIN, FRIDAY,AUGUST 6, 1830.

MY DEAREST H–: I fear I caused you a disappointment by not writing to you yesterday afternoon, but as it was not until between five and six o’clock that I learned we were not going to Cork, when I thought of writing you to that effect, I found I was too late for the post. I hope still that Dall and I may be able to Come to Ardgillan again, but we cannot leave my father alone here, and his departure for Liverpool is at present quite uncertain. I have been trying to reason myself into patience, notwithstanding a very childish inclination to cry about it, which I think I will indulge because I shall be able to be so much more reasonable without this stupid lump in my throat.

I hope I may see you again, dear H–, You are wrong when you say you cannot be of service to me; I can judge better of the value of your intercourse to me than you can, and I wish I could have the advantage of more of it before I plunge back into “ toil and trouble.” I have two very opposite feelings about my present avocation: utter dislike to it and everything connected with it, and an upbraiding sense of ingratitude when I reflect how prosperous and smooth my entrance upon my career has been. I hope, ere long, to be able to remember habitually what only occasionally occurs to me now, as a comfort and support, that since it was right for me to embrace this profession, it is incumbent upon me to banish all selfish regrets about the surrender of my personal tastes and feelings, which must be sacrificed to real and useful results for myself and others. You see. I write as I talk, still about myself; and I am sometimes afraid that my very desire to improve keeps me occupied too much about myself and will make a little moral egotist of me. Will it be inconvenient to you, sister, if I bring my maid with us ? I hope not, as when we go to you we shall have done with Dublin. Perhaps Dall and I could occupy the big room together, and M–the one I had before, if both are empty. I am going to bid good-by to Miss W– this morning; I should like her to like me; I believe I should value her friendship as I ought. Good friends are like the shrubs and trees that grow on a steep ascent: while we toil up and our eyes are fixed on the summit, we unconsciously grasp and lean upon them for support and assistance on our way. God bless you, dear H–. I hope to be with you soon, but cannot say at present how soon that may be.

F. A. K.

A very delightful short visit to my friend at Ardgillan preceded my resuming my theatrical work at Liverpool, whence I wrote her the following letter:

LIERPOOL,AUGUST 19, 1830.

DEAR H–: I received your letter about an hour ago, at rehearsal, and though I read it with rather dim eyes, I managed to swallow my tears and go on with Mrs. Beverley.

The depth and solemnity of your feelings, my dear H–, on those important subjects of which we have so often spoken together, almost make me fear, sometimes, that I am not so much impressed as I ought to be with their awfulness. I humbly hope I fear as I ought, but it is so much easier for me to love than to fear, that my nature instinctively fastens on those aspects of religion which inspire confidence and impart support, rather than those which impress with dread. I was thinking the other day how constantly in all our prayers the loftiest titles of might are added to that name of names, “ Our Father,” and yet his power is always less present to my mind than his mercy and love. You tell me I do not know you, and that may very well be, for one really knows no one; and when I reflect upon and attempt to analyze the various processes of my own rather shallow mind, and find them incomprehensible, I am only surprised that there should be so much mutual affection in a world where mutual knowledge and understanding are really impossible. For your sake I wish my brains were more on a par with yours; though to myself my inferiority is gratifying, rather than otherwise, for it is pleasant to feel weaker and less gifted than those we love, and to be able with reason to look up to and rely upon them. This is no mock humility, dear H–, you know, nor am I at all disposed to quarrel with my own peculiar gifts; but I think my small plot of cultivable ground better fitted to produce flowers, or even fruit (gooseberries, for instance), than the bread which is the staff of life.

My side-ache was much better yesterday. I believe it was caused by the pain of leaving you and Ardgillan; any strong emotion causes it, and I remember when I last left Edinburgh having an attack of it that brought on erysipelas. You say you wish to know how Juliet does. Why, very well, poor thing. She had a very fine first house indeed, and her success has been as great as you could wish it; out of our ten nights’ engagement, Romeo and Juliet is to be given four times; it has already been acted three successive nights to very great houses. To-night it is The Gamester, tomorrow Venice Preserved, and on Saturday we act at Manchester, and on Monday here again. You will hardly imagine how irksome it was to me to be once more in my stage-trappings, and in the glare of the theatre instead of the blessed sunshine in the country, and to hear the murmur of congregated human beings instead of that sound of many waters, that wonderful sea-song, that is to me like the voice of a dear friend. I made a great effort to conquer this feeling of repugnance to my work, and thought of my dear Mrs. Harry, whom I have seen, with a heart and mind torn with anxiety, leave poor Lizzy on what seemed almost a death-bed, to go and do her duty at the theatre. That was something like a trial. There was a poor old lady, of more than seventy years of age, who acted as my nurse, who helped also to rouse me from my selfish morbidness — age and infirmity laboring in the same path with rather more cause for weariness and disgust than I have; she may have been working, too, only for herself, while I am the means of helping my own dear people, and many others ; she toils on, unnoticed and neglected, while my exertions are stimulated and rewarded by success and the approval of every one about me, and yet my task is sadly distasteful to me; it seems such useless work that but for its very useful pecuniary results I think I would rather make shoes. You tell me of the comfort you derive, under moral depression, from picking stones and weeds out of your garden. I am afraid that antidote would prove insufficient for me; the weeds would very soon he in heaps in my lap, and the stones accumulate in little mountains all round me, while my mind was sinking into contemplations of the nature of slow quicksands. Violent bodily exercise, riding, or climbing up steep and rugged pathways are my best remedies for the blue devils.

My father has received a pressing invitation from Lord and Lady W—— to go to their place, Heaton, which is but five miles from Manchester. I believe we shall only go there (if at all) for a day or two, as we can hardly avoid doing so altogether, for they are pressing for the fulfillment of a promise which it seems my father made some time ago, without much expecting that it would be insisted upon.

You say to me in your last letter that you could not live at the rate I do; but my life is very different now from what it was while with you. I am silent and quiet and oppressed with irksome duties, and altogether a different creature from your late companion by the sea-shore. It is true that that was my natural condition, but if you were here with me now, in the midst of all these unnatural sights and sounds, I do not think I should weary you with my overflowing life and spirits, as I fear I did at Ardgillan. I was as happy there as the birds that fly in the clear sky above the Sea, and much happier, for I had your companionship in addition to the delight which mere existence is in such scenes. I am glad Lily made and wore the wreath of lilac blossoms; I was sure it would become her. Give her my love and thanks for having done as I asked her. Remember me to Mrs. K–; I am glad she approved of Bayard’s cerebral development. [Bayard was a favorite horse.] I was won by the expression of his face. I am sorry now you did not put me upon him for a few minutes on the lawn. I should have sat very passively on his back, and he is too noble-natured to have taken advantage of my want of power over him; I have great faith in his looks, and will ride him the next time I am with you. Oh, do not wish Ardgillan fifteen miles from London! Even for the sake of seeing you, I would not bring you near the smoke and dirt and comparative confinement of such a situation; I would not take you from your sea and sky and trees, even to have you within reach of me.

Certainly it is the natural evil of the human mind, and not the supernatural agency in the story of its development, that makes Macbeth so terrible; it is the hideousness of a wicked soul, into which enter more foul ingredients than are held in the witches’caldron of abominations, that makes the play so tremendous. I wish we had read that great work together. How it contrasts with what we did read, The Tempest, that brightest creation of a wholesome genius in its hour of happiest inspiration!

I am so sorry for the loss of Mr. H–’s election and his sister’s disappointment. She must have felt it sadly.

I believe some people think it presumptuous to pray for any one but themselves; but it seems to me strange to share every feeling with those we love and not associate them with our best and holiest aspirations; to remember them everywhere but there where it is of the utmost importance to us all to be remembered; to desire all happiness for them, and not to implore in their behalf the Giver of all good. I think I pray even more fervently for those I love than for myself. Pray for me, my dear H–, and God bless you and give you strength and peace.

Your affectionate

F. A. K.

I have not seen the railroad yet; it you do not write soon to me, we shall be gone to Manchester.

My objection to the dramatic profession on the score of its uselessness, in this letter, reminds me of what my mother used to tell me of Miss Brunton, who afterwards became Lady Craven; a very eccentric as well as attractive and charming woman, who contrived, too, to be a very charming actress, in spite of a prosaical dislike to her business, which used to take the peculiar and rather alarming turn of suddenly, in the midst of a scene, saying aside to her fellow-actors, “ What nonsense all this is! Suppose we don’t go on with it.” This singular expostulation my mother said she always expected to see followed up by the sudden exit of her lively companion, in the middle of her part. Miss Brunton, however, had self-command enough to go on acting till she became Countess of Craven, and left off the nonsense of the stage for the earnestness of high life.

A very serious cause for depression had added itself to the weariness of spirit with which my distaste for my profession often affected me. While at Liverpool, I received a letter from my brother John which filled me with surprise and vexation. After his return from Germany he had expressed his determination to go into the church; and we all supposed him to be in the country, zealously engaged in the necessary preparatory studies. Infinite, therefore, was my astonishment to receive from him a letter dated from Algeciraz, in Spain, telling me that he and several of his college companions, Sterling, Barton, French, and Boyd among others, had determined to lend the aid of their enthusiastic sympathy to the cause of liberty in Spain. The “ cause of liberty in Spain ” was then represented by the rash and ill-fated rising of General Torridos against the Spanish government, that protean nightmare which in one form or another of bigotry and oppression has ridden that unfortunate country up to a very recent time, when civil war has again interfered with apparently little prospect of any better result. My distress at receiving such unexpected news from my brother was aggravated by his forbidding me to write to him or speak of his plans and proceedings to any one. This concealment, which would have been both difficult and repugnant to me, was rendered impossible by the circumstances under which his letter reached me, and we all bore together, as well as we could, this severe disappointment and the cruel anxiety of receiving no further intelligence from John for a considerable time. I was bitterly grieved by this letter, which clearly indicated that the sacred profession for which my brother had begun to prepare himself, and in which we had hoped to see him erelong honorably and usefully laboring, was as little likely to be steadily pursued by him as the legal career which he had renounced for it. Richard Trench brought home a knowledge of the Spanish tongue which has given to his own some beautiful translations of Calderon’s masterpieces; and his early crusade for the enfranchisement of Spain has not militated against the well-deserved distinction he has achieved in the high calling to which he devoted himself. With my brother, however, the case was different. This romantic expedition canceled all his purposes and prospects of entering the church, and Alfred Tennyson’s fine sonnet addressed to him when he first determined to dedicate himself to the service of the temple is all that bears witness to that short-lived consecration: it was poetry, but not prophecy.

MANCHESTER, September 3, 1830.

MY DEAREST H– I received your letter and the pretty Balbriggan stockings, for which I thank you very much, quite safely. I have not been able to put pen to paper till now, and even now do not know whether I can do more than just tell you that we have heard nothing further whatever from my brother. In his letter to me he said that he would write home whenever he could do so safely, but that no letter of ours would reach him; and indeed I do not now know where he may be. From the first moment of hearing this intelligence, which has amazed us all so much, I have felt less miserable than I could have thought possible under the circumstances; my mind, I think, has hardly taken hold of the truth of what has come so unexpectedly upon me. The very impossibility of relieving one’s suspense, I suppose, compels one not to give way to its worst suggestions, which may, after all, be unfounded. I cannot communicate with him, and must wait patiently till he can write again; he is in God’s hand, and I hope and pray that he may be guided and protected. My great anxiety is to keep all knowledge of his having even gone abroad, if possible, from my mother. She is not in a state to bear such a shock, and I fear that the impossibility of ascertaining anything about him at present, which helps me to remain tolerably collected, would almost drive her distracted. She believes him, as we all did till lately, on a visit to Mr. Donne, in Norfolk; and until my father is with her to prepare and support her for the intelligence, I shall be most anxious it should be kept from her.

The news of the revolt in the Netherlands, together with the fact that one of our dear ones is away from us in scenes of peril and disturbance, has, I think, shaken my father’s purpose of sending Henry to Heidelberg. It is a bad thing to leave a boy of eighteen so far from home control and influences, and he is of a sweet, affectionate, gentle disposition, that makes him liable to be easily led and persuaded by the examples and counsels of others. Moreover, he is at the age when boys are always in some love-scrape or other, and if he is left alone at Heidelberg, in his own unassisted weakness, at such a distance from us all, I should not be surprised to hear that he had constituted himself the lord and master of some blue-eyed fräulein with whom he could not exchange a dozen words in her own vernacular, and had become a dis-respectable pater familias at nineteen. In the midst of all the worry and anxiety which these considerations occasion, we are living here a most unsettled, flurried life of divided work and pleasure. We have gone out to Heaton every morning after rehearsal, and come in with the W–s in the evening, to act. I think to-night we shall sleep there after the play, and come in with the W–s after dinner to-morrow. They had expected us to spend some days with them, and perhaps after our Birmingham engagement we may be able to do so. Heaton is a charming specimen of a fine countryhouse, and Lady W– a charming specimen of a fine lady; she is handsome, stately, and gentle. I like Lord W– better than I did; he is clever, or rather accomplished, and refined. They are both of them very kind to me, and most pressing in their entreaties that we should return and stay as long as we can with them. To-morrow is my last night here; on Monday we act at Birmingham, and my father thinks we shall be able to avail ourselves of the invitation of our Liverpool friends, and witness the opening of the railroad. This would be a memorable pleasure, the opportunity of which should certainly not be neglected. I have been gratified and interested this morning and yesterday by going over one of the largest manufactories of this place, where I have seen a number of astonishing processes, from the fusing of iron in its roughest state to the construction of the most complicated machinery and the work that it performs. I have been examining and watching and admiring power-looms, and spinningjennies, and every species of work accomplished by machinery. But what pleased me most of all was the process of casting iron. Did you know that the solid masses of iron-work which we see in powerful engines were many of them cast in molds of sand? — inconstant, shifting restless sand! The strongest iron of all, though, gets its strength beaten into it.

BIRMINGHAM, September 7, 1830.

You see, my dearest H–, how my conversations are liable to be cut short in the midst; just at the point where I broke off, Lord and Lady W–came to fetch us out to Heaton, and until this moment, when I am quietly seated in Birmingham, I have not been able to resume the thread of my discourse. I once was told of a man who had been weather-bound at some port, whence he was starting for the West Indies; he was standing on the wharf, telling a long story to a friend, when a fair wind sprang up and he had to hurry on board; two years after, returning thence, the first person he met on landing was his friend, whom he accosted with, “ Oh, well, and so, as I was telling you,” etc. But I cannot do that, for my mind has dwelt on new objects of interest since I began this letter, and my visit to Heaton has swept sand and iron and engines all back into the great warehouse at Manchester, for a time, whence I may draw them at some future day for your edification.

Lady W– possesses, to a great degree, beauty, that “tangible good” which you admire so much; she has a bright, serene countenance, and very sweet and noble eyes and forehead. Her manner is peculiarly winning and simple, and to me it was cordially kind, and even affectionate.

During the two days which were all we could spare for Heaton, I walked and rode and sang and talked, and was so well amused and pleased that I hope after our week’s work is over here we may return there for a short time. I must tell you of a curious little bit of ancientry which I saw at Heaton, which greatly delighted me: a “ rush-bearing.” At a certain period of the year, generally the beginning of autumn, it was formerly the wont in some parts of Lancashire to go round with sundry rustic mummeries to all the churches, and strew them with rushes. The religious intention of the custom has passed away, but a pretty rural procession, wliicb I witnessed, still keeps up the memory of it hereabouts. I was sitting at my window, looking out over the lawn, which slopes charmingly on every side down to the house, when the still summer air was suddenly filled with the sound of distant shouts and music, and presently the quaint pageant drew in sight. First came an immense wagon piled with rushes in a stack-like form, on the top of which sat two men holding two huge nosegays. This was drawn by a team of Lord W–’s finest farm-horses, all covered with scarlet cloths and decked with ribbons and bells and flowers. After this came twelve country lads and lasses, dancing the real old morris - dance, with their handkerchiefs flying, and in all the rustic elegance of apparel which they could command for the occasion. After them followed a very good village band, and then a species of flowery canopy, under which walked a man and woman covered with finery, who, Lord W–told me, represented Adam and Eve. The procession closed with a fool fantastically dressed out, and carrying the classical bladder at the end of his stick. They drew up before the house and danced their morris - dance for us. The scraps of old poetry which came into my head, the contrast between this pretty picture of a bygone time and the modern but by no means unpicturesque group assembled under the portico, filled my mind with the pleasantest ideas, and I was quite sorry when the rural pageant wound up the woody heights again, and the last shout and peal of music came back across the sunny lawn. I am very glad I saw it. I have visited, too, Hopwood Hall, an enchanting old house in the neighborhood of Heaton, some parts of which are as old as the reign of Edward the First. The gloomy but comfortable oak rooms, the beautiful and curious carving of which might afford one days of entertaining study, the low, latticed windows and intricate, winding, up - and - down passages, contrasted and combined with all the elegant adornments of modern luxury, and the pretty country in which the house is situated, all delighted me. I must leave off writing to you now; I have to dress, and dine at three, which I am sorry for. Thank you for Mrs. Hemans’s beautiful lines, which made me cry very heartily. I have not been altogether well for the last few days, and am feeling tired and out of spirits; if I can get a few days’ quiet enjoyment of the country at Heaton, I shall feel fitter for my winter work than I do now.

MANCHESTER, September 20, 1830.

MY DEAREST H–: I did not answer your letter which I received at Heaton, because the latter part of my stay there was much engrossed by walking, riding, playing battledore and shuttlecock, singing, and being exceedingly busy all day long about nothing. I have just left it for this place, where we stop to-night on our way to Stafford; Heaton was looking lovely in all the beauty of its autumnal foliage, lighted by bright autumnal skies, and I am rather glad I did not answer you before, as it is a consolatory occupation to do so now.

I am going with my mother to stay a day at Stafford with my godmother, an old and attached friend of hers, after which we proceed into Buckinghamshire to join my aunt Dall and Henry and my sister, who are staying there; and we shall all return to London together for the opening of the theatre, which I think will take place on the first of next month. I could have wished to be going immediately to my work; I should have preferred screwing my courage to my professional tasks at once, instead of loitering by way of pleasure on the road. Besides that, in my visit to Buckinghamshire I come in contact with persons whose society is not very agreeable to me. My mother, however, made a great sacrifice in giving up her fishing, which she was enjoying very much, to come and chaperon me at Heaton, where there is no fishing so good as at Aston Clinton, so that I am bound to submit cheerfully to her wishes in the present instance. But I do not like Lady D–, and I do not like that rollicking parson, her son, and I do not like fishing, for a combination of reasons that, I am sure, will make you laugh. I do not think it right to destroy life merely for amusement, and if I did, the wretches don’t come to be killed fast enough to please me.

You probably have by this time heard and read accounts of the opening of the railroad, and the fearful accident which occurred at it, for the papers are full of nothing else. The accident you mention did occur, but though the unfortunate man who was killed bore Mr. Stephenson’s name, he was not related to him. I will tell you something of the events on the 15th, as, though you may be acquainted with the circumstances of poor Mr. Huskisson’s death, none but an eye-witness of the whole scene can form a conception of it. I told you that we had had places given to us, and it was the main purpose of our returning from Birmingham to Manchester to be present at what promised to be one of the most striking events in the scientific annals of our country. We started on Wednesday last, to the number of about eight hundred people, in carriages constructed as I before described to you. The most intense curiosity and excitement prevailed, and, though the weather was uncertain, enormous masses of densely packed people lined the road, shouting and waving hats and handkerchiefs as we flew by them. What with the sight and sound of these cheering multitudes and the tremendous velocity with which we were borne past them, my spirits rose to the true champagne height, and I never enjoyed anything so much as the first hour of our progress. I had been unluckily separated from my mother in the first distribution of places, but by an exchange of seats which she was enabled to make she rejoined me when I was at the height of my ecstasy, which was considerably damped by finding that she was frightened to death, and intent upon nothing but devising means of escaping from a situation which appeared to her to threaten with instant annihilation herself and all her traveling-companions. While I was chewing the cud of this disappointment, which was rather bitter, as I had expected her to be as delighted as myself with our excursion, a man flew by us, calling out through a speaking-trumpet to stop the engine, for that somebody in the directtors’ carriage had sustained an injury. We were all stopped accordingly, and presently a hundred voices were heard exclaiming that Mr. Huskisson was killed; the confusion that ensued is indescribable: the calling out from carriage to carriage to ascertain the truth, the contrary reports which were sent back to us, the hundred questions eagerly uttered at once, and the repeated and urgent demands for surgical assistance, created a sudden turmoil that was quite sickening. At last we distinctly ascertained that the Unfortunate man’s thigh was broken. From Lady W–, who was in the duke’s carriage and within three yards of the spot where the accident happened, I had the following details the horror of witnessing which we were spared through our situation behind the great carriage. The engine had stopped to take in a supply of water, and several of the gentlemen in the directors’ carriage had jumped out to look about them. Lord W–, Count Batthyany, Count Matuseenitz, and Mr. Huskisson among the rest were standing talking in the middle of the road, when an engine on the other line, which was parading up and down merely to show its speed, was seen coming down upon them like lightning. The most active of those in peril sprang back into their seats; Lord W–saved his life only by rushing behind the duke’s carriage, and Count Matuscenitz had but just leaped into it, with the engine all but touching his heels as he did so; while poor Mr. Huskisson, less active from the effects of age and ill health, bewildered too by the frantic cries of “ Stop the engine! Clear the track! ” that resounded on all sides, completely lost his head, looked helplessly to the right and left, and was instantaneously prostrated by the fatal machine, which dashed down like a thunderbolt upon him, and passed over his leg, smashing and mangling it in the most horrible way. (Lady W– said she distinctly heard the crushing of the bone.) So terrible was the effect of the appalling accident that, except that ghastly “ crushing ” and poor Mrs. Huskisson’s piercing shriek, not a sound was heard or a word uttered among the immediate spectators of the catastrophe. Lord W–was the first to raise the poor sufferer, and calling to aid his surgical skill, which is considerable, he tied up the severed artery, and for a time, at least, prevented death by loss of blood. Mr. Huskisson was then placed in a carriage with his wife and Lord W–, and the engine having been detached from the director’s carriage conveyed them to Manchester. So great was the shock produced upon the whole party by this event that the Duke of Wellington declared his intention not to proceed, but to return immediately to Liverpool. However, upon its being represented to him that the whole population of Manchester had turned out to witness the procession, and that a disappointment might give rise to riots and disturbances, he consented to go on, and gloomily enough the rest of the journey was accomplished. We had intended returning to Liverpool by the railroad, but Lady W–, who seized upon me in the midst of the crowd, persuaded us to accompany her home, which we gladly did. Lord W–did not return till past ten o’clock, at which hour he brought the intelligence of Mr. Huskisson’s death. I need not tell you of the sort of whispering awe which this event threw over our whole circle; and yet, great as was the horror excited by it, I could not help feeling how evanescent the effect of it was, after all. The shuddering terror of seeing our fellow-creature thus struck down by our side, and the breathless thankfulness for our own preservation, rendered the first evening of our party at Heaton almost solemn; but the next day the occurrence became a subject of earnest, it is true, but free discussion; and after that was alluded to with almost as little apparent feeling as if it had not passed under our eyes, and within the space of a few hours.

I have heard nothing of my brother; my mother distresses me by talking of him, ignorant as she is of what would give her so much more anxiety about him. I feel, while I listen to her, almost guilty of deceit; and yet I am sure we were right in doing for her what she cannot do for herself, keeping her mind as long as possible in comparative tranquillity about him.

Our Sunday at Heaton terminated with much solemn propriety by Lord W– reading aloud the evening prayers to the whole family, visitors, and servants assembled; a ceremony which, combined and contrasted with so much of the pomps and vanities of the world, gave me a pleasant feeling towards these people, who live in the midst of them without forgetting better things. I mean to make studying German and drawing (and endeavoring to abate my self-esteem) my principal occupations this winter. I have met at Heaton Lord Francis Leveson Gower, the translator of Faust. I like him very much; he is a young man of a great deal of talent, with a charming, gentle manner, and a very handsome, sweet face. Good-by, dear H–. Write to me soon, and direct to No. 79 Great Russell Street, Bloomsbury. I should like to find a letter from you there, waiting for me.

Our arrangement for driving in to the theatre from Heaton compelled me once or twice to sit down to dinner in my theatrical costume, a device for saving time in dressing at the theatre which might have taxed my self-possession unpleasantly; but the persons I was surrounded by were all singularly kind and amiable to me, and my appearing among them in these picturesque fancy-dresses was rather a source of amusement to us all. Many years after, a lady who was not staying in the house but was invited from the neighborhood to dine at Heaton one evening, told me how amazed she had been on the sudden wide opening of the drawing-room doors to see me enter, in full mediæval costume of black satin and velvet, cut Titan fashion, and with a long, sweeping train, for which apparition she had not been previously prepared. Of Lord WæI have already spoken, and have only to add that in spite of his character of a mere dissipated man of fashion he had an unusual taste for and knowledge of music, and had composed some that is not destitute of merit; he played well on the organ, and delighted in that noble instrument, a fine specimen of which adorned one of the drawing-rooms at Heaton. Moreover, he possessed an accomplishment of a very different order, a remarkable proficiency in anatomy, which he had studied very thoroughly. He had made himself enough of a practical surgeon to be able, on the occasion of the fatal accident which befell Mr. Huskisson on the day of the opening of the railroad, to save the unfortunate gentleman from bleeding to death on the spot, by tying up the femoral artery, which had been severed. His fine riding in the hunting-field and on the race-course was a less peculiar talent among his special associates. Lady W– was strikingly handsome in person and extremely attractive in her manners. She was tall and graceful, the upper part of her face, eyes, brow, and forehead were radiant and sweet, and, though the rest of her features were not regularly beautiful, her countenance was noble and her smile had a peculiar charm of expression at once winning and mischievous. My father said she was very like her fascinating mother, the celebrated Miss Farren. She was extremely kind to me, petting me almost like a spoiled child, dressing me in her own exquisite riding-habit and mounting me on her own favorite horse, which was all very delightful to me. My father and mother probably thought the acquaintance of these distinguished members of the highest English society advantageous to me in some respects, as calculated to keep up the fashion of enthusiasm about me; they may have thought it in other ways likely to advance my worldly interests, and I have no doubt they felt both pride and pleasure in the notice bestowed upon me by persons so much my superiors in rank, and had a natural sympathy in my enjoyment of all the gay grandeur and kindly indulgence by which I was surrounded at Heaton. I now take the freedom to doubt how far they were judicious in allowing me to be so taken out of my own proper social sphere. It encouraged my taste for the luxurious refinement and elegant magnificence of a mode of life never likely to be mine, and undoubtedly increased my distaste for the coarse and common details of my professional duties behind the scenes, and the sham splendors of the stage. The guests at Heaton of whom I have a distinct remembrance were Mr. and Lady Harriet Baring, afterwards Lord and Lady Ashburton. I knew them both in after-life, and liked them very much; Mr. Baring was highly cultivated and extremely amiable; his wife was much cleverer than he, and in many respects a remarkable woman. The beautiful sisters, Anne and Isabella Forrester, with their brother Cecil, were at Heaton at this time. They were celebrated beauties: the elder, afterwards Countess of Chesterfield, was a brunette; the younger, who married Colonel Anson, the most renowned lady-killer of his day, was a blonde; and they were both of them exquisitely pretty, and used to remind me of the French quatrain, —

They had beautiful figures as well as faces, and dressed peculiarly and so as to display them to the greatest advantage. Long and very full skirts gathered or plaited all round a pointed waist were then the fashion; these lovely ladies, with a righteous scorn of all disfigurement of their beauty, wore extremely short skirts, which showed their thoroughbred feet and ankles, and were perfectly plain round their waists and over their hips; with bodies so low on the shoulders and bosom that there was certainly as little as possible of the perfections of their beautiful persons concealed. I remember wishing it were consistent with her comfort and the general decorum of modern manners that Isabella Forrester’s gown could only slip entirely off her exquisite bust. I suppose I felt as poor Gibson, the sculptor, who, looking at his friend and pupil’s, Miss Hosmer’s, statue of Beatrice Cenci, the back of which was copied from that of Lady A– T–, exclaimed in his slow, measured, deliberate manner, “And to think that the cursed prejudices of society prevent my seeing that beautiful back!” Count and Countess Batthyany (she the former widow of the celebrated Austrian general, Bubna, a most distinguished and charming woman) were visitors at Heaton at this time, as was also Henry Greville, with whom I then first became acquainted, and who from that time until his death was my kind and constant friend. He was for several years attached to the embassy in Paris, and afterwards had some small nominal post in the household of the Duchess of Cambridge, and was Gentleman Gold-Stick in waiting at court. He was not in any way intellectually remarkable; he had a passion for music and was one of the best society singers of his day, being (that, to me, incomprehensible thing) a mélomane for one kind of music only. Passionately fond of Italian operatic music, he did not understand and therefore cordially detested German music, — Beethoven, its preëminent genius, preëminently. He was absolutely without affectation, and therefore when he protested this to me, I was obliged to believe that he really had but one ear to his head. I do not think that he would have gone even the length of admitting with Costa that Beethoven’s Leonora was “ gran bella cosa,” even with the great Italian leader’s addition, “ é gran seccatura,” He had a passion for the stage; but though he delighted in acting he did not particularly excel in it. He had a taste for everything elegant and refined, and his small house in May-Fair was a perfect casket full of gems. He was a natural exquisite, and perfectly simple and unaffected, a great authority in all matters of fashion both in Paris and in London, and a universal favorite, especially with the women, in the highest society of both capitals. Every one of the various beautiful chairs in his drawing-rooms had been wrought by a different pair of fair hands especially for him, and his great and fine lady friends filled them with exquisite flowers and their own radiant presence whenever he gave one of his delightful little dinners or musical parties. His social position, friendly intimacy with several of the most celebrated musical and dramatic artists of his day, passion for political and private gossip, easy and pleasant style of letter-writing, and general rather supercilious fastidiousness used sometimes to remind me of Horace Walpole. He had a singularly kind heart and amiable nature, for a life of mere frivolous pleasure had not impaired the one or the other. His serviceableness to his friends was unwearied, and his generous liberality towards all whom he could help either with his interest, his trouble, or his purse was unfailing.

I have spoken in my last letter to Miss S–of seeing a rush-bearing, and an exceedingly pretty sight it was. All the information I could obtain with regard to this picturesque mummery was that it had been observed from time immemorial in that part of Lancashire under the name of the rush-bearing, and had originated in the practice of strewing the church with rushes, which obtained in earlier times, when that species of carpet was the only one resorted to on occasions of high state, in the banquet and ball rooms of palaces and at the greatest court and civic festivities.

The whole gay party assembled at Heaton, my mother and myself included, went to Liverpool for the opening of the railroad. The throng of strangers gathered there for the same purpose made it almost impossible to obtain a night’s lodging for love or money; and glad and thankful were we to put up with and be put up in a tiny garret by our old friend, Mr. Radley, of the Adelphi, which many would have given twice what we paid to obtain. The day opened gloriously, and never was an innumerable concourse of sight-seers in better humor than the surging, swaying crowd that lined the railroad with living faces. How dreadfully that brilliant opening was overcast I have described in the letter given above. After this disastrous event the day became overcast, and as we neared Manchester the sky grew cloudy and dark, and it began to rain. The vast concourse of people who had assembled to witness the triumphant arrival of the successful travelers was of the lowest order of mechanics and artisans, among whom great distress and a dangerous spirit of discontent with the government at that time prevailed. Groans and hisses greeted the carriage, full of influential personages, in which the Duke of Wellington sat. High above the grim and grimy crowd of scowling faces, a loom had been erected, at which sat a tattered, starved-looking weaver, evidently set there as a representative man, to protest against this triumph of machinery, and the gain and glory which the wealthy Liverpool and Manchester men were likely to derive from it. The contrast between our departure from Liverpool and our arrival at Manchester was one of the most striking things I ever witnessed. The news of Mr. Huskisson’s fatal accident spread immediately, and his death, which did not occur till the evening, was anticipated by rumor. A terrible cloud covered this great national achievement, and its success, which in every respect was complete, was atoned for to the Nemesis of good fortune by the sacrifice of the first financial statesman of the country.

Frances Anne Kemble.