Records of Later Life Part 69

All my remonstrances, however, were in vain. Mr. Macready persisted in his determination to have the stage arranged solely with reference to himself, and I was obliged to satisfy myself with a woman's vengeance, a snappish speech, by at last saying that, since it was evident Mr. Macready's Macbeth depended upon where a table stood, I must contrive that my Lady Macbeth should not do so. But in that scene it undoubtedly did.

As I had been prepared for this sort of thing in Macready, it didn't surprise me; but what did was a conversation I had with him about "Oth.e.l.lo," when he expressed his astonishment at my being willing to play Desdemona; "For," said he, "there is absolutely nothing to be done with it, nothing: n.o.body can produce any effect in it; and really, Emilia's last scene can be made a great deal more of. I could understand your playing that, but not Desdemona, out of which nothing really can be made." "But," said I, "Mr. Macready, it is Shakespeare, and no character of Shakespeare's is beneath my acceptance. I would play Maria in 'Twelfth Night' to-morrow, if I were asked to do so." Whereupon he shrugged his shoulders, and muttered something about "all that being very fine, no doubt," but evidently didn't believe me; and as I should have given him credit for my own feeling with regard to any character in Shakespeare's plays, I was as much surprised at his thinking I should refuse to act any one of them as I was at his coa.r.s.e and merely technical acting estimate of that exquisite Desdemona, of which, according to him, "nothing could be made;" _i.e._, no violent stage effect could be produced. Is not Shakespeare's refusing to let Desdemona sully her lips with the coa.r.s.e epithet of reproach with which her husband brands her, and which no lady in England of his day would have hesitated a moment to use, a wonderful touch of delicacy?

Macready certainly was aware of the feeling of his fellow-actors about his violence and want of personal self-control on the stage; for as he stood at the side scene by me, in the last act of "King Lear," ready to rush on with me, his Cordelia, dead in his arms, he made various prefatory and preparatory excuses to me, deprecating beforehand my annoyance at being dragged and pulled about after his usual fas.h.i.+on, saying that necessarily the scene was a disagreeable one for the "poor corpse." I had no very agreeable antic.i.p.ation of it myself, and therefore could only answer, "Some one must play it with you, Mr. Macready, and I feel sure that you will make it as little distressing to me as you can;" which I really believe he intended to do, and thought he did.]

I have received this morning from Liverpool, in answer to my letter about my readings, a very earnest request that I would give _lectures_ upon Shakespeare. This I have declined doing, not having either the requisite knowledge or ability nor the necessary time properly to prepare a careful a.n.a.lysis of the smallest portion of such over-br.i.m.m.i.n.g subjects as those plays. I should like to study again Hazlitt's and Coleridge's comments upon Shakespeare; the former I used to think excellent.

Mrs. Grote herself wrote those stanzas upon Mendelssohn which you saw in the _Spectator_. She urged me vehemently, while I was with her at the Beeches, to do something of the kind; but I could not. She then showed me her verses, which please me better now than they did then; for then the painful a.s.sociation of his former existence in that place, and the excitement of his beautiful music, which she plays extremely well, had affected my imagination and feelings so much that I should have found it very difficult to be satisfied with any poetical tribute to him that was not of the very highest order.

She and I walked together to the spot in the beautiful woodland where he had lain down to rest, and where she wishes to erect a monument; and I cannot tell you how profoundly I was touched, as we stood silently there, while the great heavy drops, melting in the winter evening's suns.h.i.+ne, fell from the boughs of the beech-trees like slow tears upon the spot where he had lain.

I have read more of Stanley's "Sermons," and quite agree with you in the difference you draw between them and Mr. Furness's book; the spirit of both is kindred....

I don't know anything about the income-tax. I am getting frightfully behind the times, having read no _Times_ for a long time; but as regards income-tax, or any other tax, there is no telling how long one may be free from such galls in America. If they indulge in a few more such national diversions as this war in Mexico, they will have to pay for their whistle, in some shape or other, and in more shapes than one.

It is deplorable to hear the despondency of all public and political men that I see, with regard to the condition of the country. With the Tories, one has long been familiar with their cries that "the sky is falling:" but now the Liberals, at least those who all their lives have been professing Liberals, seem to think "the sky is falling" too; and their lamentable misgivings are really sad to listen to.

I dined on Sat.u.r.day at Lady Grey's, with the whole Grey family. Lord Dacre, and all of them, spoke of Cobden and Bright as of another Danton and Mirabeau, likened their corn-law league, and peace protests, to the first measures of the first leaders of the French Revolution; and predicted with woful headshakings a similar end to their proceedings. I do not know whether this is an injustice to the individuals in question, but it seems to me an injustice to the whole people of England collectively, and to their own cla.s.s, the aristocracy of England, which has incurred no such retribution, but which has invariably furnished liberal and devoted leaders to every step of popular progress--their own father an eminent instance of devotion to it. Such misgivings seem to me, too, quite unjust to the powerful, enlightened, and wealthy cla.s.s which forms the sound body of our sound-hearted nation: and equally unjust to those below it, in whom, in spite of much vice and more ignorance, of poverty and degradation, the elements of evil do not exist in the degree and with the virulence that sp.a.w.ned that hideous mob of murderers who became at last the only government of revolutionary France. The antecedent causes have not existed here for such results; and it is an insult to the whole English people to prophesy thus of it.

[Lord Dacre, because of his devotion to the agricultural interest, as he conceives it, and being himself a great practical farmer, seemed to me at once, at the time of the repeal of the corn laws, to renounce his Liberalism; and though one of the most enlightened, generous, and broad-minded politicians I have ever known, _till then_, to become suddenly timid, faithless, and almost selfish, in his fear of the consequences of Sir Robert Peel's measures.]

What a fine thing faith in G.o.d is, even when one's own individual interests must perish, even though the temporary interests of one's country may appear threatened with adversity! What an _uncommonly_ fine thing it is under such circ.u.mstances to do right, and to be able to believe in right doing!... As I listened to the persons by whom I was surrounded, and considered their position and circ.u.mstances--their forks and spoons, their very good dinner, and all their etceteras of luxury and enjoyment,--I thought that, having all they have, if they had faith in G.o.d and in their fellow-creatures besides, they would have the portion of those who have none of the good things of this world--they would have too much.

Will the days ever come when men will see that _Christ_ believed in humanity as none of His followers has ever done since; that _He_, knowing its infirmity better than any other, trusted in its capacity for good more than any other? We are constantly told that people can't be taught this, and can't learn that, and can't do t'other; and _He_ taught them nothing short of absolute perfection: "Be ye perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect." Are we to suppose He did not mean what he said?

"I must eat my dinner," as Caliban says, and, therefore, farewell.

I am ever yours, f.a.n.n.y.

P.S.--I did not impart these sentiments of mine to my fellow-guests at Lady Grey's, but kept them in my bosom, and went to the opera, and saw little Marie Taglioni dance, in a way that clearly shows that she is _la niece de sa tante_, and stands in that wonderful dancer's shoes.

KING STREET, Wednesday, 23d, 1848.

The staircase I have to go up to my dressing-room at the Princess's Theatre is one with which you are unacquainted, my dearest Hal, for it is quite in another part of the house, beyond the green-room, and before you come to the stage.... Not only had I this inconvenient distance and height to go, but the dressing-room appointed for me had not even a fireplace in it; at this I remonstrated, and am now accommodated decently in a room with a fire, though in the same inconvenient position as regards the stage.... Mr. Maddox a.s.sured me that Macready poisoned every place he went into, to such a degree, with musk and perfumes, that if he were to give up his room to me I should not be able to breathe in it. With my pa.s.sion for perfumes, this, however, did not appear to me so certain; but the room I now have answers my purpose quite well enough....

Macready is not pleasant to act with, as he keeps no specific time for his exits or entrances, comes on while one is in the middle of a soliloquy, and goes off while one is in the middle of a speech to him.

He growls and prowls, and roams and foams, about the stage, in every direction, like a tiger in his cage, so that I never know on what side of me he means to be; and keeps up a perpetual snarling and grumbling like the aforesaid tiger, so that I never feel quite sure that he _has done_, and that it is my turn to speak. I do not think fifty pounds a night would hire me to play another engagement with him; but I only say, I don't think,--fifty pounds a night is a consideration, four times a week, and I have not forgotten the French proverb, "Il ne faut pas dire, fontaine jamais de ton eau je ne boirai."

I do not know how Desdemona might have affected me under other circ.u.mstances, but my only feeling about acting it with Mr. Macready is dread of his personal violence. I quail at the idea of his laying hold of me in those terrible pa.s.sionate scenes; for in "Macbeth" he pinched me black and blue, and almost tore the point lace from my head. I am sure my little finger will be rebroken, and as for that smothering in bed, "Heaven have mercy upon me!" as poor Desdemona says. If that foolish creature wouldn't persist in _talking_ long after she has been smothered and stabbed to death, one might escape by the off side of the bed, and leave the bolster to be questioned by Emilia, and apostrophized by Oth.e.l.lo; but she will uplift her testimony after death to her husband's amiable treatment of her, and even the bolster wouldn't be stupid enough for that.

Did it ever occur to you what a witness to Oth.e.l.lo's agony in murdering his wretched wife his inefficient clumsiness in the process was--his half smothering, his half stabbing her? _That_ man not to be able to kill _that_ woman outright, with one hand on her throat, or one stroke of his dagger, how tortured he must have been, to have bungled so at his work!

I wish I was with you and Dorothy at St. Leonard's, instead of struggling here for my life--livelihood, at any rate--with Macready; but that's foolish. He can't _touch_ me to-night, that's one comfort, for I am Queen Katharine.

Farewell, believe me

Ever yours most respectfully, f.a.n.n.y.

[It was lucky for me, under the circ.u.mstances, that my notion of Queen Katharine's relations with Cardinal Wolsey were different from those of a lady whom I saw in the part, who at the end of the scene where he finds her working among her women affably gave him her hand. Katharine of Arragon would have been more likely (though not likely) to give him her foot.]

KING STREET, Friday, 23d.

DEAR HAL,

... I had heard a very good summary of D'Israeli's speech from Lord Dacre, the day I dined at Lady Grey's, and know why he said Cobden was like Robespierre. Here's goodly work in Paris now! What wonderful difficult people to teach those French are! However, their lesson will, of course, be set them over and over again, till they've learnt it.

Henry Greville had a letter from Adelaide the day before yesterday, in which she says that the people had risen _en ma.s.se_ at Rome, and, with the Princes Borghese and Corsini at their head, had gone to the Quirinal, and demanded of the pope that no ecclesiastic (himself, I suppose, excepted) should have any office in the government, and the pope _had consented_.

She gave a most comical account of the King of Naples, who, it seems, during the late troubles walked up and down his room, wringing his hands, and apostrophizing a figure of the Virgin with "Madonna mia!

Madonna mia! ma che imbroglio che m'ha fatto quel Vicario del figlio tuo!" Isn't that funny?

In a letter posted this morning I have told you my general impression of Macready's Macbeth. It is generally good,--better than good in parts,--but nowhere very extraordinary. It is a fair, but not a fine, performance of the part.

I cannot believe that he is purposely unjust to his fellow-actors: but he is so absorbed in himself and his own effects as to be absolutely regardless of them; which, of course, is just as bad for them, though the _guilt_ of his selfishness must be according to its being deliberate or unconscious.

I played the first scene in Lady Macbeth fairly well; the rest hardly tolerably, I think. Macready's stage arrangements destroyed any possible effect of mine in the banquet scene, and his strange demeanor disturbed and distracted me all through the play. The terrible, great invocation to the powers of evil, with which Lady Macbeth's part opens, was the only thing of mine that was good in the whole performance.

Dear Harriet, I have no time to prepare lectures on Shakespeare, and it makes me smile, a grim, verjuice smile, when you, sitting quietly down there at St. Leonard's, propose to me such an addition to my present work. I have been three hours and a half at rehearsal to-day; to-morrow I act a new part; this evening I try on all my new dresses; Sat.u.r.day I shall be three hours at rehearsal again; and, meantime, I must study to recover Ophelia and her songs, which I have almost forgotten.

A commentary upon Shakespeare deserves rather more leisure and quiet thought than I can now bestow upon it; even such an inadequate one as I am capable of would require much preparatory study, had I the ability which the theme demands, and which no amount of leisure Of study would give me.... I have been in a state of miserable nervousness for the last two days--in terror during my whole performance of Queen Katharine, lest I should forget the words, and yet, while laboring to fix all my attention upon them, distracted with the constant recurrence of _bits_ of Desdemona to my mind, which I fancied I was not perfect in, and then _bits_ of Ophelia's songs, which I had forgotten, and have been trying to recover. The mere apprehension of having to sing that music turns me dead sick whenever I think of it; in short, a perfect nightmare of fright present and future, through which I have had to act every night, _tant bien que mal_, but naturally _bien plus mal que bien_.... I do really believe, as my dear German master used to insist, that people can _prevent themselves_ from going mad.

My dearest Harriet, Arnold believed in eternal d.a.m.nation; and those who do so must have one very desperate corner in their mind--which, however, reserved for the wicked in the next world, must, I should think, sometimes throw lurid reflections over people and things in this.

Whoever can conceive that idea has certainly touched the bottom of despair. "Lasciate ogni speme voi ch'entrate;" and I do not see why those who despair of their fellow-creatures in the next world should not do so in this. I can do neither--believe in h.e.l.l hereafter, or a preparation for it here.

I am sorry to say that, yesterday, Mr. Ellis, who sat by me at dinner at Lady Castlereagh's, said that the poorer cla.s.s in this country was about to be worse off, presently, than it had been yet; and hoped the example of this new uprising in Paris would not be poisonous to them. It is sad to think how much, how many suffer; but by the mode of talking and going on of those who are well off and do not suffer, in England, it seems to me as if the condition of the poor must become such as to threaten them with imminent peril, before they will alter either their way of talking or of going on. Poor people all! but the rich are poorest, for they have something to lose and everything to fear, which is the reverse of the case of the poor.

My staircase at the theatre troubles me but little, and I do not sit in the green-room, which would have troubled me much more. My rehearsal of Desdemona tried me severely, for I was frightened to death of Macready, and the horror of the play itself took such hold of me that at the end I could hardly stand for shaking, or speak for crying; and Macready seemed quite mollified by my condition, and promised not to rebreak my little finger, _if he could remember it_. He lets down the bed-curtains before he smothers me, and, as the drapery conceals the murderous struggle, and therefore he need not cover my head at all, I hope I shall escape alive.

Please tell dear Dorothy that Miss ---- called here the day before yesterday, and left Miss B----'s songs for me. They are difficult, beyond the comprehension and execution of any but a very good musician; they show real genius, and a taste imbued with the inspiration of the great masters, Handel and Beethoven. The only one of them that I could sing is the only one that is in the least commonplace, "The Bonnet Blue;" the others are beyond my powers, but I shall get my sister to sing them for me. They are very remarkable as the compositions of so young a woman. Did she write the words as well as the music of "The Spirit of Delight"? [The musical compositions here referred to were those of Miss Laura Barker, afterwards Mrs. Tom Taylor, a member of a singularly gifted family, whose father and sisters were all born artists, with various and uncommon natural endowments, cultivated and developed to the highest degree, in the seclusion of a country parsonage.] ...

I wish it was "bedtime, Hal," and I was smothered and over!

G.o.d bless you, dear.

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

KING STREET, Friday, February 28th.

DEAR HAL,

... I got through Desdemona very well, as far as my personal safety was concerned; for though I fell on the stage in real hysterics at the end of one of those horrible scenes with Oth.e.l.lo, Macready was more considerate than I had expected, did not rebreak my little finger, and did not really smother me in bed. I played the part fairly well, and wish you had seen it. I was tolerably satisfied with it myself, which, you know, I am not often, with my own theatrical performances....

Faith in G.o.d, according to my understanding of it, my dearest Hal, implies faith in man; and have we not good need of both just now? You can well imagine the state of perturbation and excitement London is in with these Parisian events. The universal cry and question is, "What is the news?" People run from house to house to gather the latest intelligence. The streets are filled with bawling paper-vendors, amidst whose indistinct vociferations the attractively appalling words, "Revolution! Republic! Ma.s.sacre! Bloodshed!" are alone distinguishable.

The loss of Sat.u.r.day night's packet between Calais and Dover, besides the horror of the event itself, is doubly distressing from the intense anxiety felt to receive intelligence of how matters are going on.

Thus far yesterday, dear Hal; but as every hour brings intelligence that contradicts that of the hour before, it is now known that the small boat, going from the sh.o.r.e to the packet, was capsized and lost, and not the steamer itself. Henry Greville belongs to the party of Terrorists, and believes the worst of the worst rumors: but I have just seen his mother, and Lady Charlotte says that Charles is almost enthusiastic in his admiration of the conduct of the French people _hitherto_; but then there is never any knowing exactly how long any fas.h.i.+on, frenzied or temperate, moral or material, may last in France.

In the mean time, the condition of that unfortunate Royal Family is worthy of all compa.s.sion, especially the women, who are involved in the retributions of the folly or wickedness of the men they belong to.

It is not known where the d.u.c.h.esse de Nemours is. Her husband has arrived safely here with one of the children; but neither he nor any one else knows what has become of his wife and the other two children. Of the d.u.c.h.esse d'Orleans and her two babies nothing is known; and Lady Normanby wrote a letter to the Queen, saying that Louis Philippe and the Queen of France were in safety, but, as her letter would be sure to be opened, she could say no more.