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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Earthquake Had Been Felt Along The Coast Near Dover. A---- Says The
World Is Coming To An End. We Certainly Live In Strange Times, But
For That Matter So Has Everybody That Ever Lived.
[In The Admirable Letter Of Lord Macaulay To Mr. Ellis, Describing The
Division Of The House On The Second Reading Of The Reform Bill, Given In
Mr. Trevelyan's Life Of His Uncle, The Great Historian Says Horace
Twiss's Countenance At The Liberal Victory Looked Like That Of A "Damned
Soul." If, Instead Of A Lost Soul, He Had Said Poor Horace Looked Like A
_Lost Seat_, He Would Have Been More Accurate, If Not As Picturesque.
Mr. Twiss Sat For One Of Lord Clarendon's Boroughs, And The Passage Of
The Reform Bill Was Sure To Dismiss Him From Parliament; A Serious Thing
In His Future Career, Fortunes, And Position.]
Volume 1 Chapter 19 Pg 132
I Must Now Tell You What I Do Next Week, That You May Know Where To
Find Me. Monday, The King Goes To Hear "Cinderella," And I Have A
Holiday And Go With My Mother To A Party At Dr. Granville's.
Tuesday, I Act Belvidera, And _Afterward_ Go To Lady Dacre's; I Do
This Because, As I Fixed The Day Myself For Her Party, Not
Expecting To Act That Night, I Cannot Decently Get Off. Lady
Macdonald's Dinner Party Is Put Off; So Until Saturday, When I Play
Beatrice, I Shall Spend My Time In Practicing, Reading, Writing
(_Not_ Arithmetic), Walking, Working Cross-Stitch, And Similar
Young-Ladyisms.
Good-By, My Dear H----. Give My Love To Dorothy, If She Will Take
It; If Not, Put It To Your Own Share. I Think This Letter Deserves
A Long Answer. Mrs. Norton, Chantrey, And Barry Cornwall Have Come
In While I Have Been Finishing This Letter; Does Not That Sound
Pretty And Pleasant? And Don't You Envy Us Some Of Our
_Privileges?_ My Mother Has Been Seeing P----'S Picture Of My
Father In Macbeth This Morning, And You Never Heard Anything
Funnier Than Her Rage At It: "A Fat, Red, Round, Staring, _Pudsy_
Thing! The Eyes No More Like His Than Mine Are!" (Certainly, No
Human Eyes Could Be More Dissimilar); "And Then, His Jaw!--Bless My
Soul, How Could He Miss It! The Kemble Jawbone! Why, It Was As
Notorious As Samson's!" Good-By. Your Affectionate
FANNY.
Lady Eleanor Butler And Miss Ponsonby, The Famous Friends Of Llangollen,
Kept During The Whole Life They Spent Together Under Such Peculiar
Circumstances A Daily Diary, So Minute As To Include The Mention Not
Only Of Every One They Saw (And It Must Be Remembered That Their
Hermitage Was A Place Of Fashionable Pilgrimage, As Well As A Hospitable
Refuge), But Also _What They Had For Dinner Every Day_--So I Have Been
Told.
The Little Box On The Stage I Have Alluded To In This Letter As Mrs.
Siddons's Was A Small Recess Opposite The Prompter's Box, And Of Much
The Same Proportions, That My Father Had Fitted Up For The Especial
Convenience Of My Aunt Siddons Whenever She Chose To Honor My
Performances With Her Presence. She Came To It Several Times, But The
Draughts In Crossing The Stage Were Bad, And The Exertion And Excitement
Too Much For Her, And Her Life Was Not Prolonged Much After My Coming
Upon The Stage.
Lord And Lady Dacre Were Among My Kindest Friends. With Lady Dacre I
Corresponded From The Beginning Of Our Acquaintance Until Her Death,
Which Took Place At A Very Advanced Age. She Was Strikingly Handsome,
With A Magnificent Figure And Great Vivacity And Charm Of Manner And
Conversation. Her Accomplishments Were Various, And All Of So Masterly
An Excellence That Her Performances Would Have Borne Comparison With The
Best Works Of Professional Artists. She Drew Admirably, Especially
Animals, Of Which She Was Extremely Fond. I Have Seen Drawings Of Groups
Of Cattle By Her That, Without The Advantage Of Color, Recall The Life
And Spirit Of Rosa Bonheur's Pictures. She Was A Perfect Italian
Scholar, Having Studied Enthusiastically That Divine Tongue With The
Volume 1 Chapter 19 Pg 133Enthusiast Ugo Foscolo, Whose Patriotic Exile And Misfortunes Were
Cheered And Soothed By The Admiring Friendship And Cordial Kindness Of
Lord And Lady Dacre. Among All The Specimens Of Translation With Which I
Am Acquainted, Her English Version Of Petrarch's Sonnets Is One Of The
Most Remarkable For Fidelity, Beauty, And The Grace And Sweetness With
Which She Has Achieved The Difficult Feat Of Following In English The
Precise Form Of The Complicated And Peculiar Italian Prosody. These
Translations Seem To Me As Nearly Perfect As That Species Of Literature
Can Be. But The Most Striking Demonstrations Of Her Genius Were The
Groups Of Horses Which Lady Dacre Modeled From Nature, And Which, Copied
And Multiplied In Plaster Casts, Have Been Long Familiar To The Public,
Without Many Of Those Who Know And Admire Them Being Aware Who Was Their
Author. It Is Hardly Possible To See Anything More Graceful And
Spirited, Truer At Once To Nature And The Finest Art, Than These
Compositions, Faithful In The Minutest Details Of Execution, And Highly
Poetical In Their Entire Conception. Lady Dacre Was The Finest Female
Rider And Driver In England; That Is Saying, In The World. Had She Lived
In Italy In The Sixteenth Century Her Name Would Be Among The Noted
Names Of That Great Artistic Era; But As She Was An Englishwoman Of The
Nineteenth, In Spite Of Her Intellectual Culture And Accomplishments She
Was _Only_ An Exceedingly Clever, Amiable, Kind Lady Of Fashionable
London Society.
Of Lord Dacre It Is Not Easy To Speak With All The Praise Which He
Deserved. He Inherited His Title From His Mother, Who Had Married Mr.
Brand Of The Hoo, Hertfordshire, And At The Moment Of His Becoming Heir
To That Estate Was On The Point Of Leaving England With Colonel Talbot,
Son Of Lord Talbot De Malahide, To Found With Him A Colony In British
Canada, Where Arcadia Was To Revive Again, At A Distance From All The
Depraved And Degraded Social Systems Of Europe, Under The Auspices Of
These Two Enthusiastic Young Reformers. Mr. Brand Had Completed His
Studies In Germany, And Acquired, By Assiduous Reading And Intimate
Personal Acquaintance With The Most Enlightened And Profound Thinkers Of
The Philosophical School Of Which Kant Was The Apostle, A Mental
Cultivation Very Unlike, In Its Depth And Direction, The Usual
Intellectual Culture Of Young Englishmen Of His Class.
He Was An Enthusiast Of The Most Generous Description, In Love With
Liberty And Ardent For Progress; The Political As Well As The Social And
Intellectual Systems Of Europe Appeared To Him, In His Youthful Zeal For
The Improvement Of His Fellow-Beings, Belated If Not Benighted On The
Road To It, And He Had Embraced With The Most Ardent Hopes And Purposes
The Scheme Of Emigration Of Colonel Talbot, For Forming In The New World
A Colony Where All The Errors Of The Old Were To Be Avoided. But His
Mother Died, And The Young Emigrant Withdrew His Foot From The Deck Of
The Canadian Ship To Take His Place In The British Peerage, To Bear An
Ancient English Title And Become Master Of An Old English Estate, To
Marry A Brilliant Woman Of English Fashionable Society, And Be
Thenceforth The Ideal Of An English Country Gentleman, That Most
Enviable Of Mortals, As Far As Outward Circumstance And Position Can
Make A Man So.
His Serious Early German Studies Had Elevated And Enlarged His Mind Far
Beyond The Usual Level And Scope Of The English Country Gentleman's
Volume 1 Chapter 19 Pg 134Brain, And Freed Him From The Peculiarly Narrow Class Prejudices Which
It Harbors. He Was An Enlightened Liberal, Not Only In Politics But In
Every Domain Of Human Thought; He Was A Great Reader, With A Wide Range
Of Foreign As Well As English Literary Knowledge. He Had Exquisite
Taste, Was A Fine Connoisseur And Critic In Matters Of Art, And Was The
Kindliest Natured And Mannered Man Alive.
At His House In Hertfordshire, The Hoo, I Used To Meet Earl Grey; His
Son, The Present Earl (Then Lord Howick); Lord Melbourne; The Duke Of
Bedford; Earl Russell (Then Lord John), And Sidney And Bobus Smith--All
Of Them Distinguished Men, But Few Of Them, I Think, Lord Dacre's
Superiors In Mental Power. Altogether The Society That He And Lady Dacre
Gathered Round Them Was As Delightful As It Was Intellectually
Remarkable; It Was Composed Of Persons Eminent For Ability, And
Influential Members Of A Great World In Which Extraordinary Capacity Was
Never An Excuse For Want Of Urbanity Or The Absence Of The Desire To
Please; Their Intercourse Was Charming As Well As Profoundly Interesting
To Me.
During A Conversation I Once Had With Lady Dacre About Her Husband, She
Gave Me The Following Extract From The Writings Of Madame Huber, The
Celebrated Therëse Heyne, Whose First Husband, Johann Georg Forster, Was
One Of The Delegates Which Sympathizing Mentz Sent To Paris In 1793, To
Solicit From The Revolutionary Government The Favor Of Annexation To The
French Republic.
"In The Year 1790 Forster Had Attached To Himself And Introduced In His
Establishment A Young Englishman, Who Came To Germany With The View Of
Studying The German Philosophy [Kant's System] In Its Original Language.
He Was Nearly Connected With Some Of The Leaders Of The Then Opposition.
He Was So Noble, So Simple, That Each Virtue Seemed In Him An Instinct,
And So Stoical In His Views That He Considered Every Noble Action As The
Victory Of Self-Control, And Never Felt Himself Good Enough. The Friends
[Huber And Forster] Who Loved Him With Parental Tenderness Sometimes
Repeated With Reference To Him The Words Of Shakespeare--
'So Wise, So Young, They Say, Do Ne'er Live Long.'
But, Thanks To Fate, He Has Falsified That Prophecy; The Youth Is Grown
Into Manhood; He Lives, Unclaimed By Any Mere Political Party, With The
More Valuable Portion Of His People, And Satisfies Himself With Being A
Good Man So Long As Circumstances Prevent Him From Acting In His Sense
As A Good Citizen. Our Daily Intercourse With This Youth Enabled Us To
Combine A Knowledge Of English Events With Our Participation In The
Proceedings On The Continent. His Patriotism Moderated Many Of Our
Extreme Views With Regard To His Country; His Estimate Of Many
Individuals, Of Whom From His Position He Possessed Accurate Knowledge,
Decided Many A Disputed Point Amongst Us; And The Tenderness
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