Records of a Girlhood

In 1841 I began a visit of two years and a half in England. During this time I constantly met Mrs. Norton in society. She was living with her uncle, Charles Sheridan, and still maintained her glorious supremacy of beauty and wit in the great London world. She came often to parties at our house, and I remember her asking us to dine at her uncle's, when among the people we met were Lord Lansdowne and Lord Normanby, both then in the ministry, whose good-will and influence she was exerting herself to captivate in behalf of a certain shy, silent, rather rustic gentleman from the far-away province of New Brunswick, Mr. Samuel Cunard, afterwards Sir Samuel Cunard of the great mail-packet line of steamers between England and America. He had come to London an obscure and humble individual, endeavoring to procure from the government the sole privilege of carrying the transatlantic mails for his line of steamers. Fortunately for him he had some acquaintance with Mrs. Norton, and the powerful beauty, who was kind-hearted and good-natured to all but her natural enemies (i.e. the members of her own London society), exerted all her interest with her admirers in high place in favor of Cunard, and had made this very dinner for the express purpose of bringing her provincial protégé into pleasant personal relations with Lord Lansdowne and Lord Normanby, who were likely to be of great service to him in the special object which had brought him to England. The only other individual I remember at the dinner was that most beautiful person, Lady Harriet d'Orsay. Years after, when the Halifax projector had become Sir Samuel Cunard, a man of fame in the worlds of commerce and business of New York and London, a baronet of large fortune, and a sort of proprietor of the Atlantic Ocean between England and the United States, he reminded me of this charming dinner in which Mrs. Norton had so successfully found the means of forwarding his interests, and spoke with enthusiasm of her kind-heartedness as well as her beauty and talents; he, of course, passed under the Caudine Forks, beneath which all men encountering her had to bow and throw down their arms. She was very fond of inventing devices for seals, and other such ingenious exercises of her brains, and she gave – a star with the motto, "Procul sed non extincta," which she civilly said bore reference to me in my transatlantic home. She also told me, when we were talking of mottoes for seals and rings, that she had had engraved on a ring she always wore the name of that miserable bayou of the Mississippi—Atchafalaya—where Gabriel passes near one side of an island, while Evangeline, in her woe-begone search, is lying asleep on the other; and that, to her surprise, she found that the King of the Belgians wore a ring on which he had had the same word engraved, as an expression of the bitterest and most hopeless disappointment.

In 1845 I passed through London, and spent a few days there with my father, on my way to Italy. Mrs. Norton, hearing of my being in town, came to see me, and urged me extremely to go and dine with her before I left London, which I did. The event of the day in her society was the death of Lady Holland, about which there were a good many lamentations, of which Lady T– gave the real significance, with considerable naïveté: "Ah, poore deare Ladi Ollande! It is a grate pittie; it was suche a pleasant 'ouse!" As I had always avoided Lady Holland's acquaintance, I could merely say that the regrets I heard expressed about her seemed to me only to prove a well-known fact—how soon the dead were forgotten. The real sorrow was indeed for the loss of her house, that pleasantest of all London rendezvouses, and not for its mistress, though those whom I then heard speak were probably among the few who did regret her. Lady Holland had one good quality (perhaps more than one, which I might have found out if I had known her): she was a constant and exceedingly warm friend, and extended her regard and remembrance to all whom Lord Holland or herself had ever received with kindness or on a cordial footing. My brother John had always been treated with great friendliness by Lord Holland, and in her will Lady Holland, who had not seen him for years, left him as a memento a copy, in thirty-two volumes, of the English essayists, which had belonged to her husband.

Almost immediately after this transient renewal of my intercourse with Mrs. Norton, I left England for Italy, and did not see her again for several years. The next time I did so was at an evening party at my sister's house, where her appearance struck me more than it had ever done. Her dress had something to do with this effect, no doubt. She had a rich gold-colored silk on, shaded and softened all over with black lace draperies, and her splendid head, neck, and arms were adorned with magnificently simple Etruscan gold ornaments, which she had brought from Rome, whence she had just returned, and where the fashion of that famous antique jewelry had lately been revived. She was still "une beauté triomphante à faire voir aux ambassadeurs."

During one of my last sojourns in London I met Mrs. Norton at Lansdowne House. There was a great assembly there, and she was wandering through the rooms leaning on the arm of her youngest son, her glorious head still crowned with its splendid braids of hair, and wreathed with grapes and ivy leaves, and this was my last vision of her; but, in the autumn of 1870, Lady C– told me of meeting her in London society, now indeed quite old, but indomitably handsome and witty.

I think it only humane to state, for the benefit of all mothers anxious for their daughters', and all daughters anxious for their own, future welfare in this world, that in the matter of what the lady's-maid in the play calls "the first of earthly blessings—personal appearance," Caroline Sheridan as a girl was so little distinguished by the exceptional beauty she subsequently developed, that her lovely mother, who had a right to be exacting in the matter, entertained occasionally desponding misgivings as to the future comeliness of one of the most celebrated beauties of her day.

At the time of my earliest acquaintance with the Nortons, our friends the Basil Montagus had left their house in Bedford Square, and were also living at Storey's Gate. Among the remarkable people I met at their house was the Indian rajah, Ramohun Roy, philosopher, scholar, reformer, Quaker, theist, I know not what and what not, who was introduced to me, and was kind enough to take some notice of me. He talked to me of the literature of his own country, especially its drama, and, finding that I was already acquainted with the Hindoo theatre through the medium of my friend Mr. Horace Wilson's translations of its finest compositions, but that I had never read "Sakuntalà," the most remarkable of them all, which Mr. Wilson had not included in his collection (I suppose because of its translation by Sir William Jones), Ramohun Roy sent me a copy of it, which I value extremely as a memento of so remarkable a man, but in which I confess I am utterly unable to find the extraordinary beauty and sublimity which he attributed to it, and of which I remember Goethe also speaks enthusiastically (if I am not mistaken, in his conversations with Eckermann), calling it the most wonderful production of human genius. Goethe had not, any more than myself, the advantage of reading "Sakuntalà" in Sanskrit, and I am quite at a loss to account for the extreme and almost exaggerated admiration he expresses for it.

James Street, Buckingham Gate, August 23, –.

My dearest H–,

I received your last on my return from the country, where I had been staying a fortnight, and I assure you that after an uncomfortable and rainy drive into town I found it of more service in warming me than even the blazing fire with which we are obliged to shame the month of August.

I have a great deal to tell you about our affairs, and the effect that their unhappy posture seems likely to produce upon my future plans and prospects. Do you remember a letter I wrote to you a long time ago about going on the stage? and another, some time before that, about my becoming a governess? The urgent necessity which I think now exists for exertion, in all those who are capable of it among us, has again turned my thoughts to these two considerations. My father's property, and all that we might ever have hoped to derive from it, being utterly destroyed in the unfortunate issue of our affairs, his personal exertions are all that remain to him and us to look to. There are circumstances in which reflections that our minds would not admit at other times of necessity force themselves upon our consideration. Those talents and qualifications, both mental and physical, which have been so mercifully preserved to my dear father hitherto, cannot, in the natural course of things, all remain unimpaired for many more years. It is right, then, that those of us who have the power to do so should at once lighten his arms of all unnecessary burden, and acquire the habit of independent exertion before the moment comes when utter inexperience would add to the difficulty of adopting any settled mode of proceeding; it is right and wise to prepare for the evil day before it is upon us. These reflections have led me to the resolution of entering upon some occupation or profession which may enable me to turn the advantages my father has so liberally bestowed upon me to some account, so as not to be a useless incumbrance to him at present, or a helpless one in future time. My brother John, you know, has now determined, to go into the Church. Henry we have good although remote hopes of providing well for, and, were I to make use of my own capabilities, dear little A– would be the only one about whom there need be any anxiety. I propose writing to my father before he returns home (he is at present acting in the provinces) on this subject. Some step I am determined to take; the nature of it will, of course, remain with him and my mother. I trust that whatever course they resolve upon I shall be enabled to pursue steadily, and I am sure that, be it what it may, I shall find it comparatively easy, as the motive is neither my own profit nor reputation, but the desire of bringing into their right use whatever talents I may possess, which have not been given for useless purposes. I hope and trust that I am better fitted for either of the occupations I have mentioned than I was when I before entertained an idea of them. You asked me what inclined John's thoughts to the Church. It would be hard to say; or rather, I ought to say, that Providence which in its own good time makes choice of its instruments, and which I ever firmly trusted would not suffer my brother's fine powers to be wasted on unworthy aims. I am not able to say how the change which has taken place in his opinions and sentiments was effected; but you know one has not done all one's thinking at two and twenty. I have been by circumstances much separated from my brother, and when with him have had but little communication upon such subjects. It was at a time when, I think, his religious principles were somewhat unsettled, that his mind was so passionately absorbed by politics. The nobler instincts of his nature, diverted for a while from due direct intercourse with their divine source, turned themselves with enthusiastic, earnest hope to the desire of benefiting his fellow-creatures; and to these aims—the reformation of abuses, the establishment of a better system of government, the gradual elevation and improvement of the people, and the general progress of the country towards enlightened liberty and consequent prosperity—he devoted all his thoughts. This was the period of his fanatical admiration for Jeremy Bentham and Mill, who, you know, are our near neighbors here, and whose houses we never pass without John being inclined to salute them, I think, as the shrines of some beneficent powers of renovation. And here comes the break in our intercourse and in my knowledge of his mental and moral progress. I went to Scotland, and was amazed, after I had been there some time, to hear from my mother that John had not got his scholarship, and had renounced his intention of going to the bar and determined to study for the Church. I returned home, and found him much changed. His high sense of the duties attending it makes me rejoice most sincerely that he has chosen that career, which may not be the surest path to worldly advancement, but if conscientiously followed must lead, I should think, to the purest happiness this life can offer. I think much of this change may be attributed to the example and influence of some deservedly dear friends of his; probably something to the sobering effect of the disappointment and mortification of his failure at college, where such sanguine hopes and expectations of his success had been entertained. Above all, I refer his present purpose to that higher influence which has followed him through all his mental wanderings, suggesting the eager inquiries of his restless and dissatisfied spirit, and finally leading it to this, its appointed goal. He writes to us in high spirits from Germany, and his letters are very delightful.

 

Mrs. Siddons and Cecy are with Mrs. Kemble at Leamington. Mrs. Harry Siddons is, I fear, but little better; she has had another attack of erysipelas, and I am very anxious to get to her, but the distance, and the dependence of all interesting young females in London on the legs and leisure of chaperons, prevents me from seeing her as often as I wish.

German is an arduous undertaking, and I have once more abandoned it, not only on account of its difficulty, but because I do not at present wish to enter upon the study of a foreign language, when I am but just awakened to my radical ignorance of my own. God bless you, dear H–.

Yours ever,

Fanny.

As long as I retained a home of my own, I resisted my friend's half-expressed wish that I should destroy her letters; but when I ceased to have any settled place of habitation, it became impossible to provide for the safe-keeping of a mass of papers the accumulation of which received additions every few days, and by degrees (for my courage failed me very often in the task) my friend's letters were destroyed. Few things that I have had to relinquish have cost me a greater pang or sense of loss, and few of the conditions of my wandering life have seemed to me more grievous than the necessity it imposed upon me of destroying these letters. My friend did not act upon her own theory with regard to my correspondence, and indeed it seems to me that no general rule can be given with regard to the preservation or destruction of correspondence. What revelations of misery and guilt may lie in the forgotten folds of hoarded letters, that have been preserved only to blast the memory of the dead! What precious words, again, have been destroyed, that might have lightened for a whole heavy lifetime the doubt and anguish of the living! In this, as in all we do, we grope about in darkness, and the one and the other course must often enough have been bitterly lamented by those who "did for the best" in keeping or destroying these chronicles of human existence.

Madame Pasta's daughter once said to Charles Young, who enthusiastically admired her great genius, "Vous trouvez qu'elle chante et joue bien, n'est-ce pas?" "Je crois bien," replied he, puzzled to understand her drift. "Well," replied the daughter of the great lyrical artist, "to us, to whom she belongs, and who know and love her, her great talent is the least admirable thing about her; but no one but us knows that."

Doubtless if letters of Shakespeare's could be found, letters developing the mystery of those sorrowful sonnets, or even letters describing his daily dealings with his children, and Mistress Anne Hathaway, his wife; nay, even the fashion, color, and texture of the hangings of "the second-best bed," her special inheritance, a frenzy of curiosity would be aroused by them. All his glorious plays would not be worth (bookseller's value) some scraps of thought and feeling, or mere personal detail, or even commonplace (he must have been sovereignly commonplace) impartment of theatrical business news and gossip to his fellow-players, or Scotch Drummond, or my Lord Southampton, or the Dark Woman of the sonnets. But we know little about him, thank Heaven! and I am glad that little is not more.

I know he must have sinned and suffered, mortal man since he was, but I do not wish to know how. From his plays, in spite of the necessarily impersonal character of dramatic composition, we gather a vivid and distinct impression of serene sweetness, wisdom, and power. In the fragment of personal history which he gives us in his sonnets, the reverse is the case; we have a painful impression of mournful struggling with adverse circumstances and moral evil elements, and of the labor and the love of his life alike bestowed on objects deemed by himself unworthy; and in spite of his triumphant promise of immortality to the false mistress or friend, or both, to whom (as far as he has revealed them to us) he has kept his promise, we fall to pitying Shakespeare, the bestower of immortality. In the great temple raised by his genius to his own undying glory, one narrow door opens into a secret, silent crypt, where his image, blurred and indistinct, is hardly discernible through the gloomy atmosphere, heavy and dim as if with sighs and tears. Here is no clew, no issue, and we return to the shrine filled with light and life and warmth and melody; with knowledge and love of man, and worship of God and nature. There is our benefactor and friend, simplest and most lovable, though most wonderful of his kind; other image of him than that bright one may the world never know!

The extraordinary development of the taste for petty details of personal gossip which our present literature bears witness to makes it almost a duty to destroy all letters not written for publication; and yet there is no denying that life is essentially interesting—every life, any life, all lives, if their detailed history could be given with truth and simplicity. For my own part, I confess that the family correspondence, even of people utterly unknown to me, always seems to me full of interest. The vivid interest the writers took in themselves makes their letters better worth reading than many books we read; they are life, as compared with imitations of it—life, that mystery and beauty surpassing every other; they are morsels of that profoundest of all secrets, which baffles alike the man of science, the metaphysician, artist, and poet. And yet it would be hard if A, B, and C's letters should therefore be published, especially as, had they contemplated my reading them, they would doubtless never have written them, or written them quite other than they did.

To resume my chronicle. My brother John was at this time traveling in Germany; the close of his career at Cambridge had proved a bitter disappointment to my father, and had certainly not fulfilled the expectations of any of his friends or the promise of his own very considerable abilities. He left the university without taking his degree, and went to Heidelberg, where he laid the foundation of his subsequent thorough knowledge of German, and developed the taste for the especial philological studies to which he eventually devoted himself, but his eminence in which brought him little emolument and but tardy fame, and never in the least consoled my father for the failure of all the brilliant hopes he had formed of the future distinction and fortune of his eldest son. When a man has made up his mind that his son is to be Lord Chancellor of England, he finds it hardly an equivalent that he should be one of the first Anglo-Saxon scholars in Europe.

In my last letter to Miss S– I have referred to some of my brother's friends and their possible influence in determining his choice of the clerical profession in preference to that of the law, which my father had wished him to adopt, and for which, indeed, he had so far shown his own inclination as to have himself entered at the Inner Temple.

Among my brother's contemporaries, his school and college mates who frequented my father's house at this time, were Arthur Hallam, Alfred Tennyson and his brothers, Frederick Maurice, John Sterling, Richard Trench, William Donne, the Romillys, the Malkins, Edward Fitzgerald, James Spedding, William Thackeray, and Richard Monckton Milnes.

These names were those of "promising young men," our friends and companions, whose various remarkable abilities we learned to estimate through my brother's enthusiastic appreciation of them. How bright has been, in many instances, the full performance of that early promise, England has gratefully acknowledged; they have been among the jewels of their time, and some of their names will be famous and blessed for generations to come. It is not for me to praise those whom all English-speaking folk delight to honor; but in thinking of that bright band of very noble young spirits, of my brother's love and admiration for them, of their affection for him, of our pleasant intercourse in those far-off early days,—in spite of the faithful, life-long regard which still subsists between myself and the few survivors of that goodly company, my heart sinks with a heavy sense of loss, and the world from which so much light has departed seems dark and dismal enough.