Records of a Girlhood

Sunday, June 5th. … On my return from afternoon service found Mr. Walpole with my mother; they amused me extremely by a conversation in which they ran over, as far as their memories would stretch (near sixty years), the various fashions and absurd modes of dress which have prevailed during that period. Toupees, fêtes, toques, bouffantes, hoops, bell hoops, sacques, polonaises, levites, and all the paraphernalia of horsehair, powder, pomatum, and pins, in the days when court beauties had their heads dressed over-night for the next day's drawing-room, and sat up in their chairs for fear of destroying the edifice by lying down. No wonder they were obliged to rouge themselves—the days when once in a fortnight was considered often enough for ridding the hair of its horrible paste of flour and grease. We are certainly cleaner than our grandmothers, and much more comfortable, though it is not so long since my own head was dressed à la giraffe, in three bows over pins half a foot high, so that I could not sit upright in the carriage without knocking against the top of it. My mother's and Mr. Walpole's recollections and descriptions were like seeing a set of historical caricatures pass before one.

Monday, June 6th.—The house was very full at the theater this evening, and Miss C– sent me round a delicious fresh bouquet. I acted well, I think; the play was "Romeo and Juliet." It is so very pleasant to return to Shakespeare, after reciting Bianca and Isabella, etc. I reveled in the glorious poetry and the bright, throbbing reality of that Italian girl's existence; and yet Juliet is nothing like as nice as Portia—nobody is as nice as Portia. But the oftener I act Juliet the oftener I think it ought never to be acted at all, and the more absurd it seems to me to try to act it. After the play my mother sent a note with the carriage to say she would not go to the ball, so I dressed myself and drove off with my father from the theater to the Countess de S–'s. At half-past eleven the ball had not begun. Mrs. Norton was there in splendid beauty; at about half-past twelve the dancing began, and it was what is called a very fine ball. While I was dancing with Mr. C–, I saw my father talking to a handsome and very magnificent lady, who my partner told me was the Duchess of B–; after our quadrille, when I rejoined my father, he said to me, "Fanny, let me present you to –" here he mumbled something perfectly inaudible, and I made a courtesy, and the lady smiled sweetly and said some civil things and went away. "Whose name did you mention," said I to my father, with some wickedness, "just now when you introduced me to that lady?" "Nobody's, my dear, nobody's; I haven't the remotest idea who she is." "The Duchess of B–," said I, glibly, strong in the knowledge I had just acquired from my partner. "Bless my soul!" cried the poor man, with a face of the most ludicrous dismay, "so it was! I had quite forgotten her, though she was good enough to remember me, and here I have been talking cross-questions and crooked answers to her for the last half-hour!"

Was ever any thing so terrible! I feared my poor father would go home and remain awake all night, sobbing softly to himself, like the eldest of the nine Miss Simmonses in the ridiculous novel, because in her nervous flurry at a great dinner party she had refused instead of accepting a gentleman's offer to drink wine with her. Lady G– then came up, whom he did remember, and who was "truly gracious;" and I left him consoled, and, I hope, having forgotten his dreadful duchess again. All the world, as the saying is, was at this ball, and it certainly was a very fine assembly. We danced in a splendid room hung with tapestry—a magnificent apartment, though it seemed to me incongruous for the purpose; dim burning lights and flitting ghosts and gusts of wind and distant footfalls and sepulchral voices being the proper furniture of the "tapestried chamber," and not wax candles, to the tune of sunlight and bright eyes and dancing feet and rustling silks and gauzes and laughing voices, and all the shine and shimmer and flaunting flutter of a modern ball....

At half-past two, though the carriage had been ordered at two, my father told me he would not "spoil sport," and so angelically stayed till past four. He is the best of fathers, the most affectionate of parents, the most benevolent of men! There is a great difference between being chaperoned by one's father instead of one's mother: the latter, poor dear! never flirts, gets very sleepy and tired, and wants to go home before she comes; the former flirts and talks with all the pretty, pleasant women he meets, and does not care till what hour in the morning—a frame of mind favorable to much dancing for the youngers. After all, I had to come away in the middle of a delightful mazurka.

Tuesday, June 7th.– … We had a very pleasant dinner at Mr. Harness's. Moore was there, but Paganini was the chief subject discussed, and we harped upon the one miraculous string he fiddles on without pauses.... After dinner I read one of Miss Mitford's hawthorny sketches out of "Our Village," which was lying on the table; they always carry one into fresh air and green fields, for which I am grateful to them.

Wednesday, June 8th.—While I was writing to H– my mother came in and told me that Mrs. Siddons was dead. I was not surprised; she has been ill, and gradually failing for so long.... I could not be much grieved for myself, for of course I had had but little intercourse with her, though she was always very kind to me when I saw her.... She died at eight o'clock this morning—peaceably, and without suffering, and in full consciousness.... I wonder if she is gone where Milton and Shakespeare are, to whose worship she was priestess all her life—whose thoughts were her familiar thoughts, whose words were her familiar words. I wonder how much more she is allowed to know of all things now than she did while she was here. As I looked up into the bright sky to-day, while my father and mother were sadly recalling the splendor of her day of beauty and great public power, I thought of the unlimited glory she perhaps now beheld, of the greater holiness and happiness I trust she now enjoys, and said in my heart, "It must be well to be as she is." I had never thought it must be well to be as she was....

As soon as the news came my father went off to see what he could do for Cecilia, poor thing, and to bring her here, if she can be persuaded to leave Baker Street. He was not much shocked, though naturally deeply grieved by the event; my aunt has now been ill so long that any day might have brought the termination of the protracted process of her death. When he returned he said Cecilia was composed and quiet, but would not leave the house at present. I have written to Lady Francis to decline going to Oatlands, which we were to have done this week.

At dinner my father told me some of the arrangements he has made for the summer. We are to act at Bristol, Bath, Exeter, Plymouth, and Southampton. He then said, "Suppose we take steamer thence to Marseilles, and so on to Naples?" My heart jumped into my mouth at the thought; but how should I ever come back again?… Everything here is so ugly, even without comparison with that which is beautiful elsewhere; from Italy how should one come back to live in London?

Thursday, June 9th.– … And so I am to act Lady Macbeth! I feel as if I were standing up by the great pyramid of Egypt to see how tall I am! However, it must be done; perhaps I may even do it less ill than Constance—the greater intensity of the character may perhaps render majesty less indispensable. Power (if one had enough of it) might atone for insufficient dignity. Lady Macbeth made herself a queen by dint of wickedness; Constance was royal born—a radical difference, which ought to be in my favor. But dear, dear, dear, what a frightful undertaking for a poor girl, let her be never so wicked!

And the Lady Macbeth will never be seen again! I wish just now that in honor of my aunt the play might be forbidden to be performed for the next ten years. My father and myself have a holiday at the theater—but only for the week—because of Mrs. Siddons's death, and we are to go down to Oatlands—nobody being there but ourselves, that is my brother and I—for the rest and quiet and fresh air of these few days.

Friday, June 10th.—Before three the carriage was announced, and we started for the country. We dropped Henry at Lord Waldegrave's and had a very pleasant drive, though the day was as various in its moods as if we were in April instead of June. We arrived at about six, and found Mr. C– had been made an exception to the "positively nobody" who was to meet us....

Saturday, June 11th.—Read the French piece called "Une Faute," which half killed me with crying. It is exceedingly clever, but altogether too true, in my opinion, for real art. It is not dramatic truth, but absolute imitation of life, and instead of the mitigated emotion which a poetical representation of tragic events excites, it produces a sense of positive suffering too acutely painful for an artistic result; it is a perfectly prosaical reproduction of the familiar vice and its inseparable misery of modern everyday life; it wants elevation and imagination—aërial perspective; it is close upon one, and must be agonizing to see well acted. My studies were certainly not of the most cheerful order, for after finishing this morbid anatomy of human hearts I read an article in the Phrenological Journal on Bouilland's "Anatomy of the Brain," which made me feel as if my brain was stuck full of pins and needles.

Perhaps a certain amount of experience must be attained through experiment, and if the wits of the human species are to be better understood, governed, and preserved by the results obtained by cutting and hacking the brains of living animals, perhaps some of our more immediate mercy is to be sacrificed to our humanity in the lump; but if this is not the forbidden doing evil that good may come of it, I do not know what is. One of the effects of Mr. Bouilland's excruciating experiments on his victims was to turn me already sick and give me an agonizing pain in my brain. I hope their beneficial consequences did not end there.

I did all this reading before breakfast, and when I left my room it was still too early for any one to be up, so I set off for a run in the park. The morning was lovely, vivid, and bright, with soft shadows flitting across the sky and chasing one another over the sward, while a delicious fresh wind rustled the trees and rippled the grass; and unable to resist the temptation, bonnetless as I was, I set off at the top of my speed, running along the terrace, past the grotto, and down a path where the syringa pelted me with showers of mock-orange blossoms, till I came under some magnificent old cedars, through whose black, broad-spread wings the morning sun shone, drawing their great shadows on the sweet-smelling earth beneath them, strewed with their russet-colored shedding. I thought it looked and smelt like a Russia-leather carpet. Then I came to the brink of the water, to a little deserted fishing pavilion surrounded by a wilderness of bloom that was once a garden, and then I ran home to breakfast. After breakfast I went over the very same ground with Lady Francis, extremely demure, with my bonnet on my head and a parasol in my hand, and the utmost propriety of decorous demeanor, and said never a word of my mad morning's explorings. A girl's run and a young lady's walk are very different things, and I hold both pleasant in their way. The carriage was ordered to take my mother to Addlestone to see poor old Mrs. Whitelock, and during her absence Lady Francis and I repaired to her own private sitting-room, and we entertained each other with extracts from our respective journals. I was struck with the high esteem she expressed for Lord Carlisle; in one place in her journal she said she wished she could hope her boys would grow up as excellent men as he is, and this in spite of her party politics, for she is a Tory and he a Whig, and she is really a partisan politician.

In the afternoon, after a charming meandering ride, we determined to go to Monks Grove, the place Lady Charlotte Greville has taken on St. Anne's Hill.... In the evening we had terrifical ghost stories, which held, us fascinated till one o'clock in the morning.

"The stones done, to bed they creep,By whispering winds soon lull'd asleep."

Sunday, June 12th.– … It's nearly five years since I said my prayers in that dear old little Weybridge church....

On our return, as the horses are never used on Sunday, we went down to the water and got into the boat. The day was lovely, and as we glided along the bright water my mother and Lady Francis and I murmured, half voice, all sorts of musical memories, which made a nice accompaniment to Lord Francis's occasional oar-dip that just kept the boat in motion. When we landed, my mother returned to the house, and the rest of us set off for a long delightful stroll to the farm, where I saw a monstrous and most beautiful dog whom I should like to have hugged, but that he looked so grave and wise it seemed like a liberty. We walked on through a part of the park called America, because of the magnificent rhododendrons and azaleas and the general wildness of the whole. The mass was so deep one's feet sank into it; the sun, setting, threw low, slanting rays along the earth and among the old tree trunks. It was a beautiful bit of forest scenery; how like America I do not know. Upon the racecourse we emerged into a full, still afternoon atmosphere of brilliant and soft splendor; the whole park was flooded with sunshine, and little creeks of light ran here and there into the woods we had just left, touching with golden radiance a solitary tree, and glancing into leafy nooks here and there, while the mass of woodland was one deep shadow....

Much discussion as to the possibilities and probabilities of our being able to stay here another day. When we came back from our afternoon ride at near eight, found Mr. Greville and Lady Charlotte here, and a letter from my father, saying that I could be spared from my work at the theater a little longer, and promising to come down to us.... In the evening Mr. C– and I acted some of Racine's "Andromaque" for them; my old school part of Hermione which I have not forgotten, and then two scenes from Scribe's pretty piece of "les premières Amours." He acts French capitally, and, moreover, bestowed upon me the two following ridiculous conundrum puns, for which I shall be forever grateful to him:

"Que font les Vaches à Paris?"

"Des Vaudevilles" (des Veaux de Ville).

"Quelle est la sainte qui n'a pas lesoin de Jarretières?"

"Ste. Sébastienne" (ses has se tiennent).

What absurd, funny stuff!

Tuesday, June 14th.—Gardening on the lawn—hay-making in the meadow—delightful ride in the afternoon, the beginning of which, however, was rather spoiled by some very disagreeable accounts Mr. C– was giving us of Lord and Lady –'s mènage. What might, could, would, or should a woman do in such a case? Endure and endure till her heart broke, I suppose. Somehow I don't think a man would have the heart to break one's heart; but, to be sure, I don't know....

We did not return home till near nine, and so, instead of dinner, all sat down to high tea, at which everybody was very cheerful and gay, and the talk very bright....

I wish I could have painted my host and hostess this morning as they stood together on the lawn; she with her beautiful baby in her arms, her bright, fair forehead and eyes contrasting so strikingly with his fine, dark head. I never saw a more charming picture. (Landseer has produced one version of it in his famous "Return from Hawking.") Are not all such groups "Holy Families"? They looked to me holy as well as handsome and happy.

Wednesday, June 15th.– … The races in the park were to begin at one, and we wished, of course, to keep clear of them and all the gay company; so at twelve my mother and I got into the pony carriage, and drove to Addlestone to my aunt Whitelock's pretty cottage there. It rained spitefully all day, and the races and all the fine racing folk were drenched. At about six o'clock my father came from London, bringing me letters; the weather had brightened, and I took a long stroll with him till time to dress for dinner.... In the evening music and pleasant talk till one o'clock.

Thursday, June 16th.—At eight o'clock my mother and I walked with my father to meet the coach, on the top of which he left us for London. After breakfast took my mother down to my "Cedar Hall," and established her there with her fishing, and then walked up the hill to the great trees and amused myself with bending down the big branches, and, seating myself on them, let them spring up with me. Climbing trees, as poor Combe would say, excites one's "wonder" and one's "caution" very agreeably, and I like it. I took Lord Francis's translation of "Henri Trois" back to the "Cedar Hall," where my mother was still watching her float. I was a good deal struck with it. He has not finished the whole of the first act yet, but there is one scene between the Duchess of Guise and St. Megrin that I should think ought to be very effective on the stage; and I can imagine how charming Mdlle. Mars must have been in her sleep-walking gestures and intonations. The situation, which is highly dramatic, is, I think, quite new; I cannot recollect any similar one in any other play....

After lunch my mother, Lady Charlotte, and Mr. Greville drove off to Monks Grove, and we followed them on horse-back; it is a little paradise of a place, with its sunny, smooth sloping lawns and bright, sparkling piece of water, the masses of flowers blossoming in profuse beauty, and the high, overhanging, sheltering woods of St. Anne's Hill rising behind it. On our way home much talk of Naples. I might like to go there, no doubt; the question is how I should like to come back to London after Naples, and I think not at all. In the evening read the pretty French piece of "Michel et Christine" which my father had sent me.

Friday, June 17th.– … My mother, Mr. C–, and I drove together back to town; so good-by, Oatlands.

Monday, June 20th.—Went to rehearsal at half-past ten for John Mason, who is to come out in Romeo to-night; he had caught a dreadful cold and could hardly speak, which was terribly provoking, poor fellow! After my theater rehearsal of "Romeo and Juliet" drove to Bridgewater House to rehearse "Hernani." In the evening the house was very good at Covent Garden; I played well. John Mason was suffering dreadfully from cold and hoarseness; the audience were very good-natured, however, and he got through uncommonly well. My mother said I played "beautifully," which was saying much indeed for her. I was delighted, especially as the Francis Levesons and – were all there.

Tuesday, June 21st.—Went to Bridgewater House to rehearse. Charles Young was among our morning audience; I was so glad to see him, for dear old acquaintanceship. The king was going to the House of Parliament, and Palace Yard was thronged with people, and we sat round one of the Bridgewater House windows to see the show. At about one the royal carriages set out—such lovely cream-colored horses, with blue and silver trappings; such splendid, shining, coal-black ones, with coral-colored trappings. The equipages looked like some enchanted present in a fairy story. The king—God bless him!—cannot, I should think, have been much annoyed by the clamorous greetings of his people. I'm afraid that ominous, sullen silence is a bad sign of the times. We rehearsed very steadily. Lord Francis, who is taking the old duke's part because of Mr. St. Aubin going abroad, is much improved by some teaching Young has bestowed upon him; but still he is by no means so good as Mr. St. Aubin was....

Wednesday, 22d.—Read "La Chronique de Charles Neuf," which is very clever, but the history of that period in France is so revolting that works of fiction founded upon it are as disagreeable as the history itself. Hogarth's pictures and Le Sage's novels are masterpieces, and yet admirable only as excellent representations of what in itself is odious. However, they are satirical works, and so have their raison d'être, which I do not think a serious novel about detestable times and people has. Drove to Bridgewater House, feeling so unwell that I could scarcely stand, and was obliged to lie down till I was called to go on the stage. We had a magnificent audience—all the grandeurs in England except the King. The Queen, the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester, the Duke and Duchess of Cumberland, Princess Elizabeth, Prince Leopold, the Duke of Brunswick. And lesser magnificoes the room full. Such very superior people make a dull audience, of course; the presence of royalty is always understood to bar applause, which is not etiquette when a Majesty is by. I played very ill; my voice was quite unmanageable, and broke twice, to my extreme dismay. The fact is, I am fagged half to death; but as I cannot give up my work and cannot bear to give up my play, the only wonder is that I am not fagged whole to death. Mr. Craven acted really capitally, and I wondered how he could. They put us out terribly in one scene by forgetting the bench on which I have to sit down. Hernani managed with great presence of mind and cleverness in its absence, but it spoilt our prettiest picture. After the play Lady Francis came to fetch me to be presented to the Queen; her Majesty was most gracious in her reception of me, and so were the Princess Elizabeth and the Duke of Gloucester, who came and had quite a long chat with me. When I had received my dismissal from her Majesty I ran to disrobe, and returned to join the crowd in the drawing-room.... When they were all gone we adjourned to Lady Gower's—a most magnificent supper, which we enjoyed in the perfection of comfort, in a small boudoir opening into and commanding the whole length of the supper saloon. Our snuggery just held my mother, Lady Francis, myself, Charles Greville, and three of our corps dramatique, and we not only enjoyed a full view of the royal table, but what was infinitely amusing, poor Lord Francis's disconsolate countenance, which half killed us with laughing. Supper done, we all proceeded downstairs to see the Royalty depart, and looked at a fine picture of Lawrence's of that handsome creature, Lord Clanwilliam. Took leave of my friends for some months, I am sorry to say; took Mr. –home in our carriage and set him down just at day-dawn. It was past four o'clock before I saw my bed; and the life I am leading is really enough to kill any one.

Thursday, June 23d.—Quite unwell, and in bed all day. Mrs. Jameson came and sat with me some time. We talked of marriage, and a woman's chance of happiness in giving her life into another's keeping. I said I thought if one did not expect too much one might secure a reasonably fair amount of happiness, though of course the risk one ran was immense. I never shall forget the expression of her face; it was momentary, and passed away almost immediately, but it has haunted me ever since.

Great Russell Street.

Dear Lady Dacre,

I am commissioned by my mother to request your kind permission to bring my brother to your evening party on Saturday; she hopes you will have no scruple in refusing this request, if for any reason you would rather not comply with it.... I have been thinking much about what you said to me both viva voce and in your note upon that "obnoxious word" in my play. Let me entreat you to put aside conventional regards of age and sex, which have nothing to do with works of art or literature, and view the subject without any of those considerations, which have their own proper domain, doubtless—although I think you have in this instance admitted their jurisdiction out of it.... I hope as long as I live that I shall never write anything offensive to decency or morality, or their pure source, religion; and I hope in my own manners and conversation always to preserve the decorum prescribed by society, good taste, and good feeling; but as a dramatic writer, supposing I am ever to be one, I shall have to depict men as well as women, coarse and common men as well as refined and courtly ones, and all and each, if I fulfill my task, must speak the language that their nature under their several circumstances points out as individually appropriate. But I forget that I am addressing one far better able than I am to say what belongs to all questions of poetry and art. Forgive me, my dear Lady Dacre, and allow me to add that, as when I put my play into your hands I told you that should you find it too intolerably dull and bad I would release you from your kind promise of accepting its dedication to yourself, I can only repeat my readiness to do so if upon any other ground whatever you feel reluctant to grace my title-page with your name. Pray tell me so without hesitation, as I had rather forego that honor than owe it to your courtesy without your entire good-will.