Saturday, April 30th.—Received a letter from John; he has determined not to leave Spain at present; and were he to return, what is there for him to do here? In the evening to Mrs. C–'s ball; it was very gay, but I am afraid I am turning "exquisite," for I didn't like the music, and my partners bored me, and the dancing tired me, and my journal is getting like K–'s head—full of naked facts, unclothed with a single thought.
Sunday, May 1st.—As sulky a day as ever glouted in an English sky. The "young morn" came picking her way from the east, leading with her a dripping, draggled May, instead of Milton's glorious vision.
After church, sundry callers: Mr. C– bringing prints of the dresses for "Hernani," and the W–s, who seem in a dreadful fright about the present state of the country. I do not suppose they would like to see Heaton demolished.
In the evening we went to the Cartwrights'. It is only in the morning that one goes there to be tortured; in the evening it is to eat delicious dinners and hear delightful music.
Hummel, Moscheles, Neukomm, Horsley, and Sir George Smart, and how they did play! à l'envi l'un de l'autre. They sang, too, that lovely glee, "By Celia's Arbor." The thrilling shudder which sweet music sends through one's whole frame is a species of acute pleasure, very nearly akin to pain. I wonder if by any chance there is a point at which the two are one and the same thing!
Tuesday, May 3d.—I wrote the fourth scene of the fifth act of my play ["The Star of Seville"], and acted Lady Teazle for the first time; the house was very good, and my performance, as I expected, very bad; I was as flat as a lady amateur. I stayed after the play to hear Braham sing "Tom Tug," which was a refreshment to my spirit after my own acting; after I came home, finished the fifth act of "The Star of Seville." "Joy, joy for ever, my task is done!" I have not the least idea, though, that "heaven is won."
Wednesday, May 4th.—A delightful dinner at the B–s', but in the evening a regular crush; however, if one is to be squeezed to death (though 'tis an abolished form of torture), it may as well be in good company, among the fine world, and lots of pleasant people besides: Milman, Sotheby, Lockhart, Sir Augustus Calcott, Harness, Lady Dacre, Joanna Baillie, Lady Calcott, etc.
Friday, May 6th.—Real March weather: cold, piercing, damp, wretched, in spite of which I carried Shakespeare to walk with me in the square, and read all over again for the fiftieth time all the conjectures of everybody about him and his life. How little we know about him, how intimately we seem to know him! I had the square all to myself, and it was delicious: lilac, syringa, hawthorn, lime blossoms, and new-mown grass in the midst of London—and Shakespeare to think about. How grateful I felt for so much enjoyment! When I got home, corrected the proof-sheets of "Francis I.," and thought it looked quite pretty in print.
Out so late dancing, Wednesday and Thursday nights, or rather mornings, that I had no time for journal-writing. What a life I do lead!
Friday, May 13th.—At twelve o'clock to Bridgewater House for our first rehearsal of "Hernani." Lady Francis wants us to go down to them at Oatlands. I should like of all things to see Weybridge once more; there's many a nook and path in those woods that I know better than their owners. The rehearsal lasted till three, and was a tolerably tidy specimen of amateur acting. Mr. Craven is really very good, and I shall like to act with him very much, and Mr. St. Aubin is very fair. Was introduced to Mrs. Bradshaw, whose looks rather disappointed me, because she "did contrive to make herself look so beautiful" on the stage, in Clari and Mary Copp and everything she did; I suppose her exquisite acting got into her face, somehow. Henry Greville is delightful, and I like him very much. When we left Bridgewater House we drove to my aunt Siddons's. Every time I see that magnificent ruin some fresh decay makes itself apparent in it, and one cannot but feel that it must soon totter to its fall.
What a price she has paid for her great celebrity!—weariness, vacuity, and utter deadness of spirit. The cup has been so highly flavored that life is absolutely without savor or sweetness to her now, nothing but tasteless insipidity. She has stood on a pinnacle till all things have come to look flat and dreary; mere shapeless, colorless, level monotony to her. Poor woman! what a fate to be condemned to, and yet how she has been envied, as well as admired!
After dinner had only just time to go over my part and drive to the theater. My dear, delightful Portia! The house was good, but the audience dull, and I acted dully to suit them; but I hope my last dress, which was beautiful, consoled them. What with sham business and real business, I have had a busy day.
Saturday, May 14th.—Received a note from Theodosia [Lady Monson], and a whole cargo of delicious flowers from Cassiobury. She writes me that poor old Foster [an old cottager who lived in Lord Essex's park and whom my friend and I used to visit] is dying. The last I saw of that "Old Mortality" was sitting with him one bright sunset under his cottage porch, singing to him and dressing his hat with flowers, poor old man! yet after walking this earth upward of ninety-seven years the spirit as well as the flesh must be weary. His cottage will lose half its picturesqueness without his figure at the door; I wonder who will take care now of the roses he was so fond of, and the pretty little garden I used to forage in for lilies of the valley and strawberries! I shall never see him again, which makes me sad; I was often deeply struck by the quaint wisdom of that old human relic, and his image is associated in my thoughts with evening walks and summer sunsets and lovely flowers and lordly trees, and he will haunt Cassiobury always to me. I went with my mother to buy my dresses for "Hernani," which will cost me a fortune and a half.
Great Russell Street, Saturday.
My dearest H–,
You see I have taken your advice, and, moreover, your paper, in order that, in spite of the dispersion of Parliament and the unattainability of franks, our correspondence may lose nothing in bulk, though it must in frequency. I think you are behaving very shabbily in not writing to me. Are you consulting your own pleasure, or my purse? I dedicate so much of my income to purposes which go under the head of "money thrown away;" don't you think the cost of our correspondence may be added to that without seriously troubling my conscience? What shall I say to you? "Reform" is on the tip of my pen, and great as are our private matters of anxiety, they scarcely outweigh in our minds the national interest that is engrossing almost every thinking person throughout the country. You know I am no politician, and my shallow causality and want of adequate information alike unfit me from understanding, much less discussing, public questions of great importance; but the present crisis has aroused me to intense interest and anxiety about the course events are taking. You can have no conception of the state of excitement prevailing in London at this moment. The scene in the House of Lords immediately preceding the dissolution the papers will have described to you, though if the spectators and participators in it may be believed, the tumult, the disorder, the Billingsgate uproar on that occasion would not be easy to describe. Lord Londonderry, it seems, thought that the days of faust-recht had come back again, and I fancy more than he are of that opinion.
An illumination was immediately ordered by the Lord Mayor Donkin (or key, as "t'other side" call him); but, owing to the shortness of the notice he gave, it seems the show of light was not satisfactory to the tallow chandler part of the population, so another was appointed two nights after. My mother and the two Harrys went out in the open carriage to drive through the streets. I was depressed and disinclined for sight-seeing, and did not go, which I regretted afterward, as all strong exhibitions of public feeling are curious and interesting. They say the crowd was immense in all the principal thoroughfares, and of the lowest order. They testified their approbation of the various illuminated devices by shouts and hurrahs and applause; their displeasure against the various non-illuminators was more violently manifested by assailing their houses and breaking their windows.
Sundry were the glass sacrifices offered at the shrine of consistent Tory patriotism at the West End of the town. The mottoes and sentences on some of the illuminations were noteworthy for their democratic flavor: "The king and the people," "The people of England," "The glorious dissolution," "The glorious reform," "The people and the press," "The people's triumph." A man who seemed by his dress to belong to the very lowest class (a cross apparently between a scavenger and a rag-seller), with a branch of laurel waving in his tattered hat, stopped before this last sentence and exclaimed, "No—they don't yet; but they will."
I have been having quite a number of holidays at the theater lately. They have brought out a comedy in which I do not play, and are going to bring out a sort of historical melodrama on the life of Bonaparte, so that I think I shall have easy work, if that succeeds, for the rest of the season. I have just finished correcting the proof-sheets of "Francis I.," and think it looks quite pretty in print, and have dedicated it to my mother, which I hope will please her....
Dear H–, this is Saturday, the 14th, and 'tis now exactly three weeks since I began this letter. I know not what you will think of this, but, indeed, I am almost worn out with the ceaseless occupations of one sort and another that are crowded into every day, and the impossibility of commanding one hour's quiet out of the twenty-four....
I am afraid we shall not come to Ireland this summer, after all, my dear H–. The Dublin manager and my father have not come to terms, and I hear Miss Inverarity (a popular singer) is engaged there, so that I conclude we shall not act there this season. This is so great a disappointment to me that I cannot say anything whatever about it. I have been acting Lady Teazle for Mr. Bartley and my father's benefit. It seems to have pleased the public very well. Without caring for it much myself, I find it light and amusing work, and much easier for me than Lady Townley, because it is a natural and that an entirely artificial character; the whole tone and manners, too, of Sheridan's rustic belle are much more within my scope than those of the woman of fashion of Sir John Vanbrugh's play.
On Friday we had our first rehearsal of "Hernani," at Bridgewater House, and I was greatly surprised with some of the acting, which, allowing for a little want of technical experience, was, in Mr. Craven's instance, really very good. He is the grandson of old Lady Craven, the Margravine of Anspach, and enacts the hero of the piece, which I think he will do very well. The whole play, I think, will be fairly acted for an amateur performance. Lord and Lady Francis have pressed my mother very much to go down for a little while to Oatlands, the beautiful place close to Weybridge, which belonged to the Duke of York, and of which they have taken a lease. My mother has accepted their invitation, and looks forward with great pleasure to revisiting her dear Weybridge. I know a good deal more of that lovely neighborhood and all its wild haunts than the present proprietors of Oatlands. Lady Francis is a famous horsewoman, and told me by way of inducement to go there that we would gallop all over the country together, which sounded very pleasant....
I called on my aunt Siddons the other day, and was shocked to find her looking wretchedly ill; she has not yet got rid of the erysipelas in her legs, and complained of intense headache. Poor woman! she suffers dreadfully.... Cecilia's life has been one enduring devotion and self-sacrifice. I cannot help wishing, for both their sakes, that the period of her mother's infirmity and physical decay may be shortened. I received a charming letter from Theodosia yesterday, accompanying a still more charming basketful of delicious flowers from dear Cassiobury—how much nicer they are than human beings! I don't believe I belong to man (or woman) kind, I like so many things—the whole material universe, for example—better than what one calls one's fellow-creatures. She told me that old Foster (you remember the old cottager in Cassiobury Park) was dying. The news contrasted sadly with the sweet, fresh, living blossoms that it came with. The last time that I saw that old man I sat with him under his porch on a bright sunny evening, talking, laughing, winding wreaths round his hat, and singing to him, and that is the last I shall ever see of him. He was a remarkable old man, and made a strong impression on my fancy in the course of our short acquaintance. There was a strong and vivid remnant of mind in him surviving the contest with ninety and odd years of existence; his manner was quaint and rustic without a tinge of vulgarity; he is fastened to my memory by a certain wreath of flowers and sunset light upon the brook that ran in front of his cottage, and the smell of some sweet roses that grew over it, and I shall never forget him.
I went to the opera the other night and saw Pasta's "Medea" for the first time. I shall not trouble you with any ecstasies, because, luckily for you, my admiration for her is quite indescribable; but I have seen grace and majesty as perfect as I can conceive, and so saying I close my account of my impressions. I fancied I was slightly disappointed in Taglioni, whose dancing followed Pasta's singing, but I suppose the magnificent tragical performance I had just witnessed had numbed as it were my power of appreciation of her grace and elegance, and yet she seemed to me like a dancing flower; so you see I must have like her very much.
God bless you, dear; pray write to me very soon. I want some consolation for not seeing you, nor the dear girls, nor the sea. I could think of that fresh, sparkling, fresh looking, glassy sea till I cried for disappointment.
Ever yours,F. A. K.
The Miss Inverarity mentioned in this letter was a young Scotch singer of very remarkable talent and promise, who came out at Covent Garden just at this time. She was one of the tallest women I ever saw, and had a fine soprano voice as high as herself, and sang English music well. She was a very great favorite during the short time that I remember her on the stage.
My dearest H–,
My mother has just requested me to talk with A– about her approaching first communion, and it troubles me because I fear I cannot do so satisfactorily to her (I mean my mother) and myself. I think my feeling about the sacrament, or rather the preparation necessary for receiving it, is different from hers. It is not so much to me an awful as a merciful institution. One goes to the Lord's Table because one is weak and wicked and wretched, not because one is, or even has striven to be, otherwise. A holy reverence for the holy rite is indispensable, but not, I think, such a feeling as would chill us with fear, or cast us down in despondency. The excess of our poverty and humility is our best claim to it, and therefore, though the previous "preparations," as it is rather technically called, may be otherwise beneficial, it does not seem to me necessary, much less indispensable. Our Lord did not say, "Cleanse yourselves, amend yourselves, strip yourselves of your own burdens and come to me;" but, "Come to me and I will cleanse you, I will cure you, I will help you and give you rest." It is remembering this that I venture to take the sacrament, but I know other people, and I believe my mother among them, think a much more specific preparation necessary, and I am afraid, therefore, that I might not altogether meet my mother's views in what I might say to A– upon the subject. I wish you would tell me what your opinion and feeling is about this.
Your affectionate F. A. K.
Sunday, May 15th.—Walked home from church with Mrs. Montagu and Emily and Mrs. Procter, discussing among various things the necessity for "preparation" before taking the sacrament. I suppose the publican in the parable had not prepared his prayer, and I suppose he would have been a worthy communicant.
They came in and sat a long time with my mother talking about Sir Thomas Lawrence, of whom she spoke as a perfect riddle. I think he was a dangerous person, because his experience and genius made him delightfully attractive, and the dexterity of his flattery amounted in itself to a fine art. The talk then fell upon the possibility of friendship existing between men and women without sooner or later degenerating, on one part or the other, into love. The French rhymster sings—
"Trop tot, hélas, l'amour s'enflamme,
Et je sens qu'il est mal aisé;
Que l'ami d'une belle dame,
Ne soit un amant déguisé."
My father came in while the ladies were still here, and Mrs. Procter behaved admirably well about her husband's play....
I do think it is too bad of the management to have made use of my name in rejecting that piece, when, Heaven knows, so far from rejecting, I never even object to anything I am bidden to do; that is, never visibly or audibly....
Mrs. P– called, and the talk became political and lugubriously desponding, and I suddenly found myself inspired with a contradictory vein of hopefulness, and became vehement in its defense. In spite of all the disastrous forebodings I constantly have, I cannot but trust that the spread of enlightenment and general progress of intelligence in the people of this country—the good judgment of those who have power and the moderation of those who desire improvement—will effect a change without a crash and achieve reform without revolution.
Wednesday, May 18th.—My mother and I started at two o'clock for Oatlands. The day was very enjoyable, for the dust and mitigated east wind were in our backs; the carriage was open, and the sun was almost too powerful, though the earth has not yet lost its first spring freshness, nor the trees, though full fledged, their early vivid green. The turf has not withered with the heat, and the hawthorn lay thick and fragrant on every hedge, like snow that the winter had forgotten to melt, and the sky above was bright and clear, and I was very happy. I had taken "The Abbot" with me, which I had never read; but my mother did not sleep, so we chatted instead of my reading. She recalled all our former times at Weybridge. It was a great pleasure to retrace this well-known road, and again to see dear old Walton Bridge and the bright, broad Thames, with the noble chestnut trees on its banks, the smooth, smiling fields stretching beyond it, and the swans riding in such happy majesty on its bosom. I really think I do deserve to live in the country, it is so delightsome to me. We reached Oatlands an hour before dinner-time and found the party just returned from riding. We sauntered through part of the grounds to the cemetery of the Duchess of York's dogs.... We had some music in the evening. Lady Francis sang and I sang, and was frightened to death, as I always am when asked to do so....
Thursday, 19th.—A bright sunny morning, the trees all bowing and bending, and the water chafing and crisping under a fresh, strong, but not cold, wind. I lost my way in the park and walked toward Walton, thinking I was going to Weybridge, but, discovering my mistake, turned about, and crossing the whole park came out upon the common and our old familiar cricketing ground. I flew along the dear old paths to our little cottage, but "Desolate was the dwelling of Morna"—the house closed, the vine torn down, the grass knee-deep, the shrubs all trailing their branches and blossoms in disorderly luxuriance on the earth, the wire fence broken down between the garden and the wood, the gate gone; the lawn was sown with wheat, and the little pine wood one tangled maze, without path, entrance, or issue. I ran up the mound to where John used to stand challenging the echo with his bugle....
O tempo passato!—the absent may return and the distant be brought near, the dead be raised and in another world rejoin us, but a day that is gone is gone, and all eternity can give us back no single minute of the past! I gathered a rose and some honeysuckle from the poor disheveled shrubs for my mother, and ran back to Oatlands to breakfast. After breakfast we went over "Hernani," with Mrs. Sullivan for prompter, and when that was over everybody went out walking; but I was too tired with my morning's tramp, and sat under a tree on the lawn reading a very good little book on the sacrament, which went over the ground of my late discussion with Mrs. Montagu and Mrs. Procter on the subject of "preparation" for taking it.
After lunch there was a general preparation for riding, and just as we were all mounted it began to rain, and persevered till, in despair, Mr. and Mrs. Sullivan rode off without our promised escort. Mr. C– arrived just as we had disequipped, and the gentlemen all dispersed. Lady Francis and I sang together for some time, and suddenly the clouds withholding their tears, she and I, in one of those instants of rapid determination which sometimes make or mar a fate, tore on our habits again, jumped on our horses, and galloped off together over the park. We had an enchanting, gray, soft afternoon, with now and then a rain-drop and sigh of wind, like the last sob of a fit of crying. The earth smelt deliriously fresh, and shone one glittering, sparkling, vivid green. Our ride was delightful, and we galloped back just in time to dress for dinner.
In the evening, sauntering on the lawn and pleasant, bright talk indoors. Lord John (the present venerable Earl Russell) would be quite charming if he wasn't so afraid of the rain. I do not think he is made of sugar, but, politically, perhaps he is the salt of the earth; he certainly succeeds in keeping himself dry.
Friday, Oatlands.—Walked out before breakfast; the night's rain had refreshed the earth and revived every growing thing, the east wind had blown itself away, and a warm, delicious western breeze came fluttering fitfully over the new-mown lawn. After breakfast we rehearsed Mr. Craven's and Captain Shelley's and my scenes in "Hernani." I think they will do very well if they do not shy at the moment of action, or rather acting. We had some music, and then the gentlemen went out shooting. I took "The Abbot" and established myself on a hay-cock, leaving Lady Francis to her own indoor devices. By and by the whole party came out, and we sat on the lawn laughing and talking till the gentlemen's carriage was announced, and our rival heroes took their departure for town, cheek by jowl, in a pretty equipage of Mr. Craven's, in the most amicable mood imaginable. As soon as they were off we mounted and rode out, past our old cottage, down by Brooklands, through the second wood, and by the Fairies' Oak. O Lord King, Lord King (we were riding through the property of the Earl of Lovelace, then Lord King), if I was one of those bishops whom you do not love, I would curse, excommunicate, and anathematize you for cutting down all those splendid trees and laying bare those deep, dark, leafy nooks, the haunts of a thousand "Midsummer Night's Dreams," to the common air and the staring sun. The sight of the dear old familiar paths brought the tears to my eyes, for, stripped and thinned of their trees and robbed of their beauty, my memory restored all their former loveliness. On we went down to Byefleet to the mill, to Langton's through the sweet, turfy meadows, by hawthorn hedges musical as sweet, over the picturesque little bridge and along that deep, dark, sleepy water flowing so silently in its sullen smoothness. On we went a long way over a wide common, where the coarse-grained peaty earth and golden glory of the flowering gorse reminded me of Suffolk's motto—
"Cloth of gold, do not despise
That thou art mix'd with cloth of frieze;
Cloth of frieze, be not too bold
That thou art mix'd with cloth of gold."
Back by St. George's Hill, snatching many a leaf and blossom as I rode to carry back to A– mementoes of our dear Weybridge days, and so home by half-past seven, just time to dress for dinner. As we rode along, Lord Francis and I discussed poets and poetry in general—more particularly Byron, Keats, and Shelley; it was a very pretty and proper discourse for such a ride.
In the evening heard all manner of delicious ghost stories; afterward made music, Lady Francis and I trying all sorts of duets, my mother keeping up a "humming" third and Lord Francis listening and applauding with equal zeal and discretion....
Saturday, May 21st.—My brother John come home from Spain....
Sunday, 22d.—What a very odd process dreaming is! I dreamt in the night that John had come home, and flung myself out of bed in my sleep to run downstairs to him, which naturally woke me; and then I remembered that he was come home and that I had seen and welcomed him, which it seems to me I might as well have dreamed too while I was about it, and saved myself the jump out of bed. I hate dreaming; it's like being mad—having one's brain work without the control of one's will.
Dear A– took the sacrament for the first time at the Swiss church. On my return from church in the afternoon found Sir Ralph and Lady Hamilton and Don Telesforo de Trueba. I like that young Spaniard; he's a clever man. It was such fun his telling me all the story of the Star of Seville, little imagining I had just perpetrated a five-act tragedy on that identical subject.
Tuesday, May 24th.—Drove down to Clint's studio to see Cecilia's (Siddons's) portrait. It's a pretty picture of a "fine piece of a woman," as the Italians say, but it has none of the very decided character of her face....
Wednesday, May 25th.—After dinner went over my part, dressed and set off for Bridgewater House for our dressed rehearsal of "Hernani." Found the stage in a state of unfinish, the house topsy-turvy, and every body to the right and left. Sat for an hour in the drawing-room while our very specially small and select audience arrived. Then heard Lady Francis, Henry Greville, Mrs. Bradshaw, and Mr. Mitford try their glee—one of Moore's melodies arranged for four voices—which they sang at the top of their lungs in order to hear themselves, while the carpenters and joiners hammered might and main at the other end of the gallery finishing the theater.
About nine they were getting under way, and we presently began the rehearsal. The dresses were all admirable; they (not the clothes, but the clothes pegs) were all horribly frightened. I was a little nervous and rather sad, and I felt strange among all those foolish lads, taking such immense delight in that which gives me so very little, dressing themselves up and acting. To be sure, "nothing pleaseth but rare accidents." Mr. M–, our prompter, thought fit by way of prompting to keep up a rumbling bass accompaniment to our speaking by reading every word of the play aloud, as the singers are prompted at the opera house, which did not tend much to our assistance. Everything went very smoothly till an unlucky young "mountaineer" rushed on the stage and terrified me and Hernani half to death by inarticulating some horrible intelligence of the utmost importance to us, which his fright rendered quite incomprehensible. He stood with his arms wildly spread abroad, stuttering, sputtering, madly ejaculating and gesticulating, but not one articulate word could he get out. I thought I should have exploded with laughter, but as the woman said who saw the murder, "I knew I mustn't (faint), and I didn't." With this trifling exception it all went off very well. Either I was fagged with my morning's ride or the constitution of the gallery is bad for the voice; I never felt so exhausted with the mere effort of speaking, and thought I should have died prematurely and in earnest in the last scene, I was so tired. When it was over we adjourned with Lord and Lady Francis and the whole dramatis personæ to Mrs. W–'s magnificent house and splendid supper....
While we were at table everybody suddenly stood up, my mother and myself reverently with the rest, when the whole company drank my health, and I collapsed down into my chair as red and as limp as a skein of scarlet wool, and my mother with some confusion expressed my obligation and her own surprise at the compliment. I talked a good deal to Captain Shelley, who is a nice lad, and, considering his beauty, and the admiration bestowed on him by all the fine ladies in London, remarkably unaffected. We are asked down to Oaklands again, and I hope my work at the theater will allow of my going. What a shocking mess those young gentlemen actors did make of their greenroom this evening, to be sure! rouge, swords, wine, mustaches, soda water, and cloaks strewed in every direction. I wonder what they would say to the drawing-room decorum of our Covent Garden greenroom.
Thursday, May 26th.—Tried on dresses with Mrs. Phillips, and talked all the while about the characteristics of Shakespeare's women with Mrs. Jameson, who had come to see me. I pity her from the bottom of my heart; she has a heavy burden to carry, poor woman.... Went in the evening to rather a dull dinner, after which, however, I had the pleasure of hearing Mrs. Frere sing, which she did very charmingly, and so as quite to justify her great society musical reputation. After our dinner at the F–s' we went to Mrs. W–'s evening party, where I sat alone, heard somebody sing a song, was introduced to a man, spoke incoherently to several people, got up, was much jostled in a crowd of human beings, and came home—and that's society. We are asked to a great supper at Chesterfield House, after a second representation which is to be given of "Hernani." My mother thinks it is too much exertion and dissipation for me, and as it is not a ball I do not care to go.
Friday, May 27th.—At eight o'clock drove with my mother to Bridgewater House. We went into the library, where there was nobody, and Lady Francis, Henry Greville, and Lady Charlotte came and sat with us. I was literally crying with fright. Lady Francis took me to my dressing-room, my mother rouged me, blessed me, and went off to join the audience assembled in the great gallery. I went over my part once and my room a hundred times in every direction. At nine they began; the audience very wisely were totally in the dark, which threw out the brilliantly illuminated stage to great advantage, and considering that they were the finest folk in England they behaved remarkably well—listened quietly and attentively, and applauded like Covent Garden galleries. It all went well except poor Mr. Craven's first speech, in which he got out. I don't know whether Lady L– was among the spectators, and gave him des éblouissements. It all went off admirably, however, and oh, how glad I was when it was over!
Saturday, May 28th.—I was awakened by a basket of flowers from Cassiobury, and a letter from Theodosia. Old Foster is dead. I wish he might be buried near the cottage. I should like to know where to think of his resting-place, poor old man!…
In the evening Mrs. Jameson, the Fitzhughs, R– P–, and a Mr. K–, a friend of John's, and sundry and several came.... We acted charades, and they all went away in high good humor.
Sunday, May 29th.—An "eternal, cursed, cold, and heavy rain," as Dante sings. My mother, A–, and I went to the Swiss church; the service is shorter and more unceremonious than I like; that sitting to sing God's praise, and standing to pray to Him, is displeasing to all my instincts of devotion.
After church my mother was reading Milton's treatise on Christian doctrine, and read portions of it aloud to me. I always feel afraid of theological or controversial writings, and yet the faith that shrinks from being touched lest it should totter is certainly not on the right foundation. I suppose we ought, on the contrary, to examine thoroughly the reason of the faith that is in us. Declining reading upon religious subjects may be prudent, but it may be indolence, cowardice, or lack of due interest in the matter. I think I must read that treatise of Milton's.
Great Russell Street, May 29th, 1831.
My dearest H–,
I have but little time for letter-writing, getting daily "deeper and deeper still" in the incessant occupations of one sort and another that crowd upon and almost overwhelm me; and now my care is not so much whether I shall have time to write you a long letter, as how I shall get leisure to write to you at all. You complain that, in spite of the present interest I profess in public affairs, I have given you no details of my opinion about them—my hopes or fears of the result of the Reform movement. I have other things that I care more to write to you about than politics, and am chary of my space, because, though I can cross my letter, I can only have one sheet of paper. "The Bill," modified as it now is, has my best prayers and wishes, for to say that the removal of certain abuses will not give the people bread which they expect is nothing against it; but, at the same time that I sincerely hope this measure will be carried, I cannot conceive what Government will do next, for though trade is at this moment prosperous, great poverty and discontent exist among large classes of the people, and as soon as these needy folk find out that Reform is really not immediate bread and cheese and beer, they will seek something else which they may imagine will be those desired items of existence, and that is what it may be difficult to give them. In the mean time party spirit here has reached a tremendous pitch; old friendships are broken up and old intimacies cease; former cordial acquaintances refuse to meet each other, houses are divided, and the dearest relations disturbed, if not destroyed. Society is become a sort of battle-field, for every man (and woman too) is nothing if not political. In fact, there really appears to be no middle or moderating party, which I think strange and to be deplored. It seems as if it were a mere struggle between the nobility and the mobility, and the middle-class—that vast body of good sense, education, and wealth, and efficient to hold the beam even between the scales—throws itself man by man into one or the other of them, and so only swells the adverse parties on each side.
Parliament meets again in a few days, and then comes the tug of war. Lord John Russell was at Oatlands while we were there, and as the Francis Egertons and their guests were all anti-Reformers, they led him rather a hard life. He bore all their attacks with great good humor, however, and with the well-satisfied smile of a man who thinks himself on the right, and knows himself on the safe side, and wisely forbore to reply to their sallies. Our visit there was delightful.
As the distance is but one and twenty miles, my mother and I posted down in the open carriage. The only guests we found on our arrival were Mr. and Mrs. Sullivan (she is a daughter of Lady Dacre's, and a charming person), Lord John Russell, and two of our corps dramatique, Mr. Craven and Captain Shelley, son of Sir John Shelley, a handsome, good-humored, pleasant young gentleman, who acts Charles V. in "Hernani." I got up very early the first morning I was there and went down before breakfast to our little old cottage. In the lane leading to it I met a poor woman who lived near us, and whom we used to employ. I spoke to her, but she did not know me again. I wonder if these four years can have changed me so much? The tiny house had not been inhabited since we lived there.... My aunt Siddons is better, and Cecy very well.
Your affectionateF. A. K.
[The beautiful domain of Oatlands was only rented at this time by Lord Francis Egerton, who delighted so much in it that he made overtures for the purchase of it. The house was by no means a good one, though it had been the abode of royalty; but the park was charming, and the whole neighborhood, especially the wooded ranges of St. George's Hill, extremely wild and picturesque.... Lord Francis Egerton bought St. George's Hill, at the foot of which he built Hatchford, Lady Ellesmere's charming dower house and residence after his death, and the house of Oatlands became a country inn, very pleasant to those who had never known it as the house of former friends, and therefore did not meet ghosts in all its rooms and garden walks; and the park was cut up into small villa residences and rascally inclined citizen's boxes. Hatchford, the widowed home of Lady Ellesmere and burial-place of her brother, to whose memory she erected there an elaborate mausoleum, has passed out of the family possessions and become the property of strangers. One son of the house lives on St. George's Hill, and has his home where I have so often drawn rein while riding with his father and mother to look over the wild, wooded slopes to the smiling landscape stretching in sunny beauty far below us.]