Records Of A Girlhood Volume 1 (1 Of 2), Frances Ann Kemble [i can read book club .txt] 📗
- Author: Frances Ann Kemble
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Alfred Tennyson Had Only Just Gathered His Earliest Laurels. My Brother
John Gave Me The First Copy Of His Poems I Ever Possessed, With A
Prophecy Of His Future Fame And Excellence Written On The Fly-Leaf Of
It. I Have Never Ceased To Exult In My Possession Of That Copy Of The
First Edition Of Those Poems, Which Became The Songs Of Our Every Day
And Every Hour, Almost; We Delighted In Them And Knew Them By Heart, And
Read And Said Them Over And Over Again Incessantly; They Were Our
Pictures, Our Music, And Infinite Was The Scorn And Indignation With
Which We Received The Slightest Word Of Adverse Criticism Upon Them. I
Remember Mrs. Milman, One Evening At My Father's House, Challenging Me
Laughingly About My Enthusiasm For Tennyson, And Asking Me If I Had Read
A Certain Severely Caustic And Condemnatory Article In The _Quarterly_
Upon His Poems. "Have You Read It?" Said She; "It Is So Amusing! Shall I
Send It To You?" "No, Thank You," Said I; "Have You Read The Poems, May
I Ask?" "I Cannot Say That I Have," Said She, Laughing. "Oh, Then," Said
I (Not Laughing), "Perhaps It Would Be Better That I Should Send You
Those?"
It Has Always Been Incomprehensible To Me How The Author Of Those Poems
Ever Brought Himself To Alter Them, As He Did, In So Many Instances--All
(As It Seemed To Me) For The Worse Rather Than The Better. I Certainly
Could Hardly Love His Verses Better Than He Did Himself, But The Various
Changes He Made In Them Have Always Appeared To Me Cruel Disfigurements
Of The Original Thoughts And Expressions, Which Were To Me Treasures Not
To Be Touched Even By His Hand; And His Changing Lines Which I Thought
Perfect, Omitting Beautiful Stanzas That I Loved, And Interpolating
Others That I Hated, And Disfiguring And Maiming His Own Exquisite
Creations With Second Thoughts (None Of Which Were Best To Me), Has
Caused Me To Rejoice, While I Mourn, Over My Copy Of The First Version
Of "The May Queen," "Oenone," "The Miller's Daughter," And All The
Subsequent _Improved_ Poems, Of Which The Improvements Were To Me
Desecrations. In Justice To Tennyson, I Must Add That The Present
Generation Of His Readers Swear By _Their_ Version Of His Poems As We
Did By Ours, For The Same Reason,--They Knew It First.
The Early Death Of Arthur Hallam, And The Imperishable Monument Of Love
Raised By Tennyson's Genius To His Memory, Have Tended To Give Him A
Pre-Eminence Among The Companions Of His Youth Which I Do Not Think His
Volume 1 Chapter 11 Pg 2Abilities Would Have Won For Him Had He Lived; Though They Were
Undoubtedly Of A High Order. There Was A Gentleness And Purity Almost
Virginal In His Voice, Manner, And Countenance; And The Upper Part Of
His Face, His Forehead And Eyes (Perhaps In Readiness For His Early
Translation), Wore The Angelic Radiance That They Still Must Wear In
Heaven. Some Time Or Other, At Some Rare Moments Of The Divine Spirit's
Supremacy In Our Souls, We All Put On The Heavenly Face That Will Be
Ours Hereafter, And For A Brief Lightning Space Our Friends Behold Us As
We Shall Look When This Mortal Has Put On Immortality. On Arthur
Hallam's Brow And Eyes This Heavenly Light, So Fugitive On Other Human
Faces, Rested Habitually, As If He Was Thinking And Seeing In Heaven.
Of All Those Very Remarkable Young Men, John Sterling Was By Far The
Most Brilliant And Striking In His Conversation, And The One Of Whose
Future Eminence We Should All Of Us Have Augured Most Confidently. But
Though His Life Was Cut Off Prematurely, It Was Sufficiently Prolonged
To Disprove This Estimate Of His Powers. The Extreme Vividness Of His
Look, Manner, And Speech Gave A Wonderful Impression Of Latent Vitality
And Power; Perhaps Some Of This Lambent, Flashing Brightness May Have
Been But The Result Of The Morbid Physical Conditions Of His Existence,
Like The Flush On His Cheek And The Fire In His Eye; The Over Stimulated
And Excited Intellectual Activity, The Offspring Of Disease, Mistaken By
Us For Morning Instead Of Sunset Splendor, Promise Of Future Light And
Heat Instead Of Prognostication Of Approaching Darkness And Decay. It
Certainly Has Always Struck Me As Singular That Sterling, Who In His
Life Accomplished So Little And Left So Little Of The Work By Which Men
Are Generally Pronounced To Be Gifted With Exceptional Ability, Should
Have Been The Subject Of Two Such Interesting Biographies As Those
Written Of Him By Julius Hare And Carlyle. I Think He Must Have Been One
Of Those Persons In Whom Genius Makes Itself Felt And Acknowledged
Chiefly Through The Medium Of Personal Intercourse; A Not Infrequent
Thing, I Think, With Women, And Perhaps Men, Wanting The Full Vigor Of
Normal Health. I Suppose It Is Some Failure Not So Much In The Power
Possessed As In The Power Of Producing It In A Less Evanescent Form Than
That Of Spoken Words, And The Looks That With Such Organizations Are
More Than The Words Themselves. Sterling's Genius Was His _Wesen_,
Himself, And He Could Detach No Portion Of It That Retained Anything
Like The Power And Beauty One Would Have Expected. After All, The World
Has Twice Been Moved (Once Intellectually And Once Morally), As Never
Before Or Since, By Those Whose Spoken Words, Gathered Up By Others, Are
All That Remain Of Them. Personal Influence Is The Strongest And The
Most Subtle Of Powers, And Sterling Impressed All Who Knew Him As A Man
Of Undoubted Genius; Those Who Never Knew Him Will Perhaps Always Wonder
Why.
My Life Was Rather Sad At This Time: My Brother's Failure At College Was
A Source Of Disappointment And Distress To My Parents; And I, Who
Admired Him Extremely, And Believed In Him Implicitly, Was Grieved At
His Miscarriage And His Absence From England; While The Darkening
Prospects Of The Theater Threw A Gloom Over Us All. My Hitherto Frequent
Interchange Of Letters With My Dear Friend H---- S---- Had Become
Interrupted And Almost Suspended By The Prolonged And Dangerous Illness
Of Her Brother; And I Was Thrown Almost Entirely Upon Myself, And Was
Finding My Life Monotonously Dreary, When Events Occurred That Changed
Volume 1 Chapter 11 Pg 3Its Whole Tenor Almost Suddenly, And Determined My Future Career With
Less Of Deliberation Than Would Probably Have Satisfied Either My
Parents Or Myself Under Less Stringent Circumstances.
It Was In The Autumn Of 1829, My Father Being Then Absent On A
Professional Tour In Ireland, That My Mother, Coming In From Walking One
Day, Threw Herself Into A Chair And Burst Into Tears. She Had Been
Evidently Much Depressed For Some Time Past, And I Was Alarmed At Her
Distress, Of Which I Begged Her To Tell Me The Cause. "Oh, It Has Come
At Last," She Answered; "Our Property Is To Be Sold. I Have Seen That
Fine Building All Covered With Placards And Bills Of Sale; The Theater
Must Be Closed, And I Know Not How Many Hundred Poor People Will Be
Turned Adrift Without Employment!" I Believed The Theater Employed
Regularly Seven Hundred Persons In All Its Different Departments,
Without Reckoning The Great Number Of What Were Called Supernumeraries,
Who Were Hired By The Night At Christmas, Easter, And On All Occasions
Of Any Specially Showy Spectacle. Seized With A Sort Of Terror, Like The
Lady Of Shallott, That "The Curse Had Come Upon Me," I Comforted My
Mother With Expressions Of Pity And Affection, And, As Soon As I Left
Her, Wrote A Most Urgent Entreaty To My Father That He Would Allow Me To
Act For Myself, And Seek Employment As A Governess, So As To Relieve Him
At Once At Least Of The Burden Of My Maintenance. I Brought This Letter
To My Mother, And Begged Her Permission To Send It, To Which She
Consented; But, As I Afterward Learned, She Wrote By The Same Post To My
Father, Requesting Him Not To Give A Positive Answer To My Letter Until
His Return To Town. The Next Day She Asked Me Whether I Seriously
Thought I Had Any Real Talent For The Stage. My School-Day Triumphs In
Racine's "Andromaque" Were Far Enough Behind Me, And I Could Only
Answer, With As Much Perplexity As Good Faith, That I Had Not The
Slightest Idea Whether I Had Or Not. She Begged Me To Learn Some Part
And Say It To Her, That She Might Form Some Opinion Of My Power, And I
Chose Shakespeare's Portia, Then, As Now, My Ideal Of A Perfect
Woman--The Wise, Witty Woman, Loving With All Her Soul And Submitting
With All Her Heart To A Man Whom Everybody But Herself (Who Was The Best
Judge) Would Have Judged Her Inferior; The Laughter-Loving,
Light-Hearted, True-Hearted, Deep-Hearted Woman, Full Of Keen
Perception, Of Active Efficiency, Of Wisdom Prompted By Love, Of
Tenderest Unselfishness, Of Generous Magnanimity; Noble, Simple, Humble,
Pure; True, Dutiful, Religious, And Full Of Fun; Delightful Above All
Others, The Woman Of Women. Having Learned It By Heart, I Recited Portia
To My Mother, Whose Only Comment Was, "There Is Hardly Passion Enough In
This Part To Test Any Tragic Power. I Wish You Would Study Juliet For
Me." Study To Me Then, As Unfortunately Long Afterward, Simply Meant To
Learn By Heart, Which I Did Again, And Repeated My Lesson To My Mother,
Who Again Heard Me Without Any Observation Whatever. Meantime My Father
Returned To Town And My Letter Remained Unanswered, And I Was Wondering
In My Mind What Reply I Should Receive To My Urgent Entreaty, When One
Morning My Mother Told Me She Wished Me To Recite Juliet To My Father;
And So In The Evening I Stood Up Before Them Both, And With
Indescribable Trepidation Repeated My First Lesson In Tragedy.
They Neither Of Them Said Anything Beyond "Very Well,--Very Nice, My
Dear," With Many Kisses And Caresses, From Which I Escaped To Sit Down
On The Stairs Half-Way Between The Drawing-Room And My Bedroom, And Get
Volume 1 Chapter 11 Pg 4In Floods Of Tears. A Few Days After This My Father Told Me He Wished To
Take Me To The Theater With Him To Try Whether My Voice Was Of
Sufficient Strength
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