Life and Literary Remains of L. E. L./1830-1834
1830 to 1834.
In a letter, which it will be necessary to introduce presently, L. E. L. remarks—"I have lived all my life since childhood with the same people. The Misses Lance were strict, scrupulous, and particular; moreover, from having kept a school so long, with habits of minute observation. The affection they feel for me can hardly be undeserved. I would desire nothing more than to refer to their opinion." Under the roof of these respectable ladies she had been long residing. In her conduct and manners there had never been the slightest change. She pursued her literary tasks with unabated spirit; and though precluded, by her unprotected position, from going into society to the extent of the facilities created for her, she was yet enabled so far to extend the circle of her friends as to secure, by a short visit here and there, and by literary acquaintanceship, a fair share of relief from the monotony of her pursuits.
Nobody who might happen to see her for the first time about this period, enjoying the little quiet dance (of which she was fond), or the snug corner of the room where the little lively discussion (which she liked still better) was going on, could possibly have traced in her one feature of the Sentimentalist which popular error reputed her to be. The listener might only hear her running on from subject to subject, and lighting up each with a wit never ill-natured, and often brilliant—scattering quotations as thick as hail—opinions as wild as the winds—defying fair argument to keep pace with her, and fairly talking herself out of breath. He would most probably hear from her lips many a pointed and sparkling aphorism, the wittiest things of the night, let who might be around her—he would be surprised, pleased; but his heroine of song, as painted by anticipation, he would be unable to discover. He would see her looking younger than she really was; and perhaps, struck by her animated air, her expressive face, and her slight but elegant figure, his impression would at once find utterance in the exclamation which a year or two afterwards escaped from the lips of the Ettrick Shepherd, on being first presented to her whose romantic fancies had often charmed him in the wild mountains—"Hey! but I did na think ye'd been sae bonnie!"—staring at the same time with all a poet's capacity of eye.*[1]
Without attempting an elaborate description of the personal appearance of L. E. L., we cite this expression of surprise as some indication that she was far prettier than report allowed her to be, at the period we are speaking of: and never perhaps did she look better than about this time. Her easy carriage and careless movements would seem to imply an insensibility to the feminine passion for dress; yet she had a proper sense of it, and never disdained the foreign aid of ornament, always provided it was simple, quiet, and becoming. Her hair was "darkly brown," very soft and beautiful, and always tastefully arranged; her figure, as before remarked, slight, but well formed and graceful; her feet small, but her hands especially so, and faultlessly white and finely shaped; her fingers were fairy fingers; her ears, also, were observably little. Her face, though not regular in "every feature," became beautiful by expression; every flash of thought, every change and colour of feeling, lightened over it as she spoke, when she spoke earnestly. The forehead was not high, but broad and full; the eyes had no overpowering brilliancy, but their clear intellectual light penetrated by its exquisite softness; her mouth was not less marked by character, and, besides the glorious faculty of uttering the pearls and diamonds of fancy and wit, knew how to express scorn, or anger, or pride, as well as it knew how to smile winningly, or to pour forth those short, quick, ringing laughs, which, not excepting even her bon-mots and aphorisms, were the most delightful things that issued from it.
To judge of her powers of conversation, it is necessary to consider, not only the qualities already referred to, but her extraordinary memory, and the stores of information and anecdote which an unwearied and diversified course of reading, during many years, had placed at her command. We have seen nothing of the progress of L. E. L.'s acquirements since her childish pursuits came to an end, and the family left Trevor-park, and indeed it would be no easy task to trace her studies in regular order, or to point out the sources of her extensive and varied knowledge. She often exhibited an acquaintance with books which could hardly by accident (it would appear) have been thrown in her way; and how she acquired, so early in life as she did, an insight into those subjects of foreign lore which she afterwards displayed a thorough acquaintance with, was little short of a mystery. At the period to which we have now arrived she was well read in French, and almost equally well in Italian, literature. She had, in truth, been an indefatigable reader; and while triflers in society listened, expecting that her talk would be of moonlight and roses, they were often surprised to hear her—unless mirth happened to be her object, and satire or mystification her choice—discussing the character of a distant age, or the rise of a great nation; the influence of a mighty genius upon his contemporaries; the value of a creed outworn; or some historical event, a judgment of which demanded—what she would not fail to exhibit if she spoke at all—an insight into the actors, the policy, and the manners of the time to which it related. Her studies, in short, put her in possession of great advantages, which her excellent memory enabled her to turn readily to account.
With this picture—most imperfect as it is—before us, a peep into the "boudoir" of L. E. L. may be acceptable. By an amiable female friend of hers, who writes with all the fervour of youth, we have been favoured with some impressions to which we shall recur hereafter; in this place may be introduced her recollections of the scene amidst which the inspiration of poetry had birth;—the description is "graphic." "Genius," says our accomplished informant, "hallows every place where it pours forth its inspirations. Yet how strongly contrasted, sometimes, is the outward reality around the poet, with the visions of his inward being. Is it not D'Israeli, in his 'Curiosities of Literature,' referring to this frequent incongruity, who mentions, among other facts, that Moore composed his 'Lalla Rookh' in a large barn? L. E. L. remarks on this subject, 'A history of the how and where works of imagination have been produced, would often be more extraordinary than the works themselves.' Her own case is, in some degree, an illustration of perfect independence of mind over all external circumstances. Perhaps, to the L. E. L. of whom so many nonsensical things have been said—as 'that she should write with a crystal pen dipped in dew upon silver paper, and use for pounce the dust of a butterfly's wing,' a dilettante of literature would assign, for the scene of her authorship, a fairy-like boudoir, with rose-coloured and silver hangings, fitted with all the luxuries of a fastidious taste. How did the reality agree with this fancy sketch? Miss Landon's drawing-room, indeed, was prettily furnished, but it was her invariable habit to write in her bed-room. I see it now, that homely-looking, almost uncomfortable room, fronting the street, and barely furnished—with a simple white bed, at the foot of which was a small, old, oblong-shaped sort of dressing-table, quite covered with a common worn writing-desk heaped with papers, while some strewed the ground, the table being too small for aught besides the desk; a little high-backed cane-chair which gave you any idea rather than that of comfort—a few books scattered about completed the author's paraphernalia."
While on a visit, about this time, to her uncle James, at Aberford, she addressed the following to Mrs. S. C. Hall. It expresses her old love of London:—
"Delighted am I, my dearest Mrs. Hall, to have an opportunity of writing to you. I think, though postage, in my eyes, is one of the seven deadly sins, I should have committed it, had I anything to say. But if little happens in London, nothing happens in the country. When I have said that I am very well, very comfortable, and that all my friends are as kind to me as possible, my stock of news is exhausted. If it had been summer, I might have treated you with a little description, but the beauty of this part of the country consisting in its woods, what are they without foliage?
'It is folly to dream of a bower of green
When there is not a leaf on the tree.'
The winter is very severe. Even now the garden is partially covered with snow. However, in the more sunshiny patches, snowdrops, and pink and blue hepaticas are beginning to peep out, and the greenhouse gives handsome promise of hyacinths, roses, &c. Partly from the severity of the weather, partly because it is their custom, we live very much to ourselves; but the family circle is, in itself, large and cheerful, and I do not know a more agreeable woman than my aunt. One of my cousins sings exquisitely—the younger ones were sadly distressed at my want of accomplishments. When I first arrived, Julia and Isabel began to cross-question me—'Can you play?' 'No.' 'Can you sing?' 'No.' 'Can you speak Italian?' 'No.' 'Can you draw?' 'No.' At last they came down to 'Can you write and read?' Here I was able to answer to their great relief, 'Yes, a little.' I believe Julia, in the first warmth of cousinly affection, was going to offer to teach me the alphabet. I have had a very pleasant visit, but I am as constant as ever to London. I would not take five thousand a year to settle down in the country: I miss the new books, the new faces, the new subjects of conversation—and I miss very much the old friends I have left behind."
The following is from the same place, and describes more minutely her country life while visiting, as she occasionly did, the relations she respected. These specimens are from letters somewhat later, addressed to one whose opinions she held in high esteem, and to whose views, in many things, she was anxious to conform.
"l am growing quite rustic—eating my breakfast (that is really an undertaking), walking, and learning to work in worsted. In short, acquiring a taste for innocent pleasures. . . . . I am refreshing my Tory principles, and beginning to doubt whether republics, equality, and our old favourites, are not very visionary, and somewhat reprehensible. You know my mirror-like propensities. The roses are still in blossom, and I have made desperate friends with the cousin who is their special disposer.
"Talk of springs in deserts, roses in December, and stars, when only one is shining in the sky, I believe them to be all allegories, typifying a letter from London. Oh, London! Mr. Leigh Hunt says prettily of some Italian name, that he cannot write it without pleasure. I say the same of London! When I have told you that I stay till five o'clock reading or writing, or getting exceedingly tired of myself, I have exhausted my matins. As to vespers, why I dress for dinner, and am company till bed-time. Ours is a musical house. There are pianos, harps, flutes, psaltery, and dulcimer, besides musical voices, and all played upon. I have not been out of the house, excepting to church; not a creature has even drank tea with us. Now I admit that home is an Englishman's boast and delight—that the enjoyments to be found in the bosom of your family are to be found nowhere else—excepting in every moral essay. Still—still—must not one confess one should like to pepper and salt domestic felicity with a few strangers now and then?
"Never was I so completely out of my element before; for I own I do not consider the theatre to be a sort of open house kept by Lucifer himself. Sorry am I to tell you that I, who pass in London for a decent sort of person, rather inclined (when out of your company) to respectable Toryism, am here held to be somewhat immoral, and rather irreligious. The proof of the first is, I inadvertently quoted a line from one of Mr. Hunt's poems, and said I thought Godwin clever. For the second, I rashly preferred Miss Edgeworth's 'Tales for Children,' to 'Henry Milner,' by Mrs. Sherwood. Yet I am wonderfully popular, and my departure is earnestly deprecated. Indeed, I cannot say too much of the kindness I have received. Still I am too thoroughly London in all my ways to take cordially to the country. I miss the variety, the generality, the freedom of town talk. I miss new books, and I miss new faces (and don't I also miss familiar ones? Say that for me in your prettiest speech.)
"The only modern publication that comes into the house is 'Blackwood's Magazine;' no Gazette; no newspaper; and no book younger than some three years old; at least till it has learnt to go alone. My poetry is certainly very popular, though they wonder I do not emulate Mr.'s polish; and my uncle has looked out for me a vast collection of Oxford prize-poems. My poor dear novels are treated with great contempt. One cousin told me that 'she never wasted her time reading any such trash;' another said, 'she should read it as it was mine, but she preferred more solid works.' Now, is it not curious to note, when intellect has taken one shape, how it retains it? They are all highly educated, and read French, Italian, German, and Spanish. Say something very charming to the pavement of London for me."
Her intimacy with Mrs. S. C. Hall, which commenced in 1828, continued till the close of her life; and among the pleasures which were opened to her by the fame she had established, and the friendships it commanded for her, few were more delightful to her than the social and literary intercourse which for years she enjoyed under the roof of Mr. and Mrs. Hall. They resided near her; she was their frequent guest in Sloane-street and at Fulham; and her talents could not be better known to the public, than her estimable qualities as a companion and a friend were known to them.
A glance at some of the various notes addressed to this lady suggests one observation—that L. E. L.'s opinions about books or about people that she liked, L. E. L. never could keep a secret; if she did not print them, she penned them down as they arose, and dispatched them to the nearest acquaintance who could appreciate them, or to the friend she had last conversed with. Of her mental activity, and the interest she took in authors, actors, and artists, perhaps unknown to her but by their works, we have evidence in innumerable scraps of correspondence with various persons; we cannot make them available for our present purpose, and must be content thus to refer to them; but about nothing that she liked could she be long silent, and if conversation was denied her, she wrote somebody a note describing the novelty that had charmed her, or apostrophising the stranger in whom she had taken an interest.
The following will serve as well as any to give the specimen required. The heartiness of the allusion to Mr. Macready is characteristic, for she never spoke to him in her life, and never saw him but upon the stage.
"So long, my dearest Mrs. Hall, as the north wind continues, I shall consider myself privileged to write you a now-and-then note, by way of a morning call. I looked eagerly this morning at the 'Gazette' for 'Mothers and Daughters;' I liked the extract excessively—a portrait—oh! so very true—taken from nature—the artist's most difficult task. I see, too, or gather I guess, there is a change in the theatrical politics of the 'Gazette;' I am sure, tant mieux in that respect—though I don't dare say as much to Mr. Jerdan—but it gave me downright pleasure to see Macready done justice to. But 'my hour is come;' and it is too disinterested an act of friendship to lose my supper, as I very much doubt your thanking me for so doing."
The supper appears to have been interrupted most agreeably by the arrival of a pretty present from the very lady who was in her thoughts when she sat down to it, and the pen is gaily resumed;—"Don't tell me of Limerick, seeing 'as how,' I feel convinced—
'Never did mortal fingers frame
Tissue of such woven air!'
I never did see anything so delicate as the gloves you have sent me. Many thanks. I shall keep them to wear on my first plan of serious conquest, when I mean it to be a case of downright murder. Do you know"——[and it will be perceived how characteristic of her feelings were such transitions as this which now occurs, from a delightful liveliness, to a touching and serious subject which she well knew would be most welcome and most interesting to the friend she was addressing]—"Do you know I feel quite sorry for Miss Jewsbury! She has a thousand fine qualities, and talents of a very high order indeed; but she has all the exaggerating sensitiveness which I have observed in too many literary people, towards the opinions of those whose good word is valueless, and whose evil one is powerless for the same reason—neither are spoken in sincerity. I am sure I would not take upon myself to say that Mrs.has not spoken ill of her, but I am quite sure if it were my own case, I should not care about it. . . . . . . . I am afraid you will cry out, 'don't be quite so much your own nominative.' Truly, they ought to have placed I instead of A, at the beginning of the alphabet. If anybody can forgive me, you will . . . . . . How do you yourself get on? [with the novel Mrs. Hall was writing.] I have been reading the reign of William and Mary, in Smollett, on purpose to recall the period: but oh! Smollett after Hume! 'It is as dull as howling after music.' I believe Hume is not the fashion, but nothing can be more delightful to read than his history."
It was at the house of this friend, in Sloane- street, that L. E. L. first met
"The prince of the bards of his time,"—
Wordsworth. Miss Edgeworth, Mrs. Jameson, Barry Cornwall, Allan Cunningham, Michael Thomas Sadler, and many others then and since distinguished were present. L. E. L. was delighted with her evening; but with a pretty playfulness of feminine humour, the first thing she thought of the next morning, when noting down her impressions of the brilliant literary party, was Mrs. Hall's velvet dress. In her note she says, "You never looked better; pray be as careful of that black velvet dress as if it were a fairy's gift, and the loss would entail all sorts of misfortune. I never saw anything become you so much." And then for her own particular comfort, she proceeds to express "a little of her liking to Mrs. Jameson, as one of the very few that she quite longs to meet again." Of that accomplished writer she says at another time, "I should think Mrs. Jameson must be a delightful woman. I shall never forget how fascinated I was with her 'Diary of an Ennuyée.'" Of Wordsworth, too, who is alluded to in the subjoined passage, she has elsewhere written, in a spirit of lofty appreciation and admiring regard. "There is a story in Plutarch, I think (I never vouch for the correctness of my classics), that the day after the festival complained bitterly, that its predecessor had left nothing for its portion but weariness and lassitude. I have no such complaint to make. I am so well to-day that I really think I must have been a little la malade imaginaire. Amusement is mighty good for most complaints—I found it very beneficial for mine. By the by, you never duly stated what a handsome young man Mr.is; being a genius, I took it for granted he must be a fright. There is something very impressive in Wordsworth—something rugged and mountainous. He gave me the idea that the statuary suggested to Alexander the Great—Mount Athos cut into a colossal statue of humanity. What a pretty creature Miss Geraldine Jewsbury is! You will have to answer for a revived taste for dissipation. I really gave myself credit for being grown quite recluse and philosophical, but I have found my first party so delightful that I am now longing to go to another. I dare say my next will cure me; one swallow does not make a summer, and a pleasant party is a rarity."
But to return to the subject from which a recollection of that pleasant party, and the letter commemorative of it, have diverted our attention—her constant habit of writing letters of friendly criticism, with all the industry and copiousness of one who had no critical tasks to perform publicly, or no channel for the expression of her opinions. Many writers, those of established reputation equally with the more obscure, can boast of "articles" in acknowledgment of the works they had presented to her—letters, not of mere compliment, but entering at length into the merits of the subject—not merely pointing out what she liked or objected to, but stating why—and stamping a value upon her opinion, by showing how carefully she had read what she had reviewed. By several authors we have been favoured with letters of this description; and their publication here would have been a gratifying duty, had the interest of the various subjects demanded the same remembrance which is due to the motive that prompted the criticism.
It will be enough to show her unweariedness in this respect, and how minutely she would discuss even the smallest contributions to the literature of the time, to refer to her numberless notes upon the publication of any magazine in which she happened to take interest; from these it would appear that no monthly number escaped her critical observation; and that she took as much pains to let the editor (or at least his lady) know what she thought of each contribution in succession, as though she had been called upon to play the critic officially. Many of these notes have reference to the "New Monthly," at the period when it was under the management of Mr. S. C. Hall; and, if it came within the scope of our design to print any of them here, they would prove how unwearied was her application, how interested she was in even the fleeting literature of her day, and how habitual was her anxiety for the welfare of her friends. How many such commentaries would she write, and through how many motley pages would she read, before the materials for her letter were collected! To those who, looking at the quantity of her published prose and poetry, might wonder how she found time for all these private and unproductive exercises of her pen, it may be desirable to explain, not merely that she wrote, but that she read, with remarkable rapidity. Books, indeed, of the highest character, she would dwell upon with "amorous delay;" but those of ordinary interest, or the nine-day wonders of literature, she would run through in a much shorter space of time than would seem consistent with that thorough understanding of their contents at which she always arrived, or with that accurate observation of the less striking features which she would generally prove to have been bestowed, by reference almost to the very page in which they might be noted. Of some work which she scarcely seemed to have glanced through, she would give an elaborate and succinct account, pointing out the gaps in the plot, or the discrepancies in the characters, and supporting her judgment by all but verbatim quotations. The impression left by such a work as "Eugene Aram," would long remain on her mind:
"Since I have been here, I have been reading 'Eugene Aram' through again. Daniel Clarke was a tenant of my aunt's great-grandfather, and they have still a silver tankard which he borrowed. I am even more delighted with it than at first. It is wonderful how the interest is sustained. Perfectly aware of the end, you hope an impossibility—against hope. And then the dialogues are of such perfect beauty. Madeline's letter is the most lovely thing of its kind, in fiction or in fact."
The following refers to some of her own writings, and replies to a friendly comment.
"As to our old point at issue, I am not yet converted. Would not you be the last to say that the likeness of life, like any other likeness (of me, for instance!) ought to be flattered to please? 'Betty, give this cheek a little red,' is the common cry of all death-struck Narcissas. In what do I differ from the actual experience of the past—the future has to teach us its lessons yet—when I paint ambition as a vain delusion, love as a still vainer, and genius as making its own misery? Moreover, who shall deny that wherever Nature has been most prodigal in her gifts, there Fortune has been almost sure to thwart with adverse circumstances? Who are the most contented people you know? The mentally indolent: the money-getting: those whose ideal of happiness is 'being comfortable.' The inherent horror of death is the greatest hold that life has upon us. Let any one look their own past experience steadily in the face, and what a dark and discouraging aspect will it not present? How many enjoyments have passed away for ever! how much warmth and kindness of feeling! how many generous beliefs! As to love—does it dare to treasure its deepest feelings in the presence of what we call the world? As to friendship—how many would weigh your dearest interest for one instant against the very lightest of their own? And as to fame, of what avail is it in the grave?—and during life it will be denied, or dealt forth grudgingly. No, no! To be as indifferent as you can possibly contrive—to aim only at present amusement and passing popularity—is the best system for a steam-coach along the railroad of life. Let who will break the stones, and keep up the fire!"
With the aid of her cousins she once ventured on some German translations, to which she thus alludes:—
"I am hard at work on my 'Count Egmont.' The denouement will require entire alteration, and the Germans must have the patience of Job to stand such long speeches. The lover greatly diverts me. He politely informs the audience, that in his despair he threw himself into the water, but grew frightened, and swam back to the land. Next he gets poison, but he does not at all fancy taking it (should you?), so he retires, declaring he is quite sure he shall die of a broken heart."
The Misses Lance were now about to quit the house in Hans-place: with this reference to the event, we pass to other subjects:—
"Was there ever anything so unlucky as the house in Hans-place letting just when it did? It might have made up its mind before I left, or waited till I returned. How I shall miss the Misses Lance! The more I think over their constant kindness, the more deeply I feel I shall never meet again with such sincere, such disinterested friends. I regret the change, oh! so much! I had adapted myself so completely to their ways. Certainly they will suit no one else—and oh the horror of having to adopt a complete set of new habits! Might one not wish that there were no strangers in the world? Then to return to Hans-place itself! How very contre cœur that will be! A familiar place with new faces sets the teeth of all one's remembrances on edge."
It was during her earlier intimacy with Mrs. Hall, and perhaps influenced by her judgment and advice, that L. E. L. resolved to devote herself seriously to a long-talked-of project—the production of a novel. If there was much to gain, there was something to risk by the attempt. Airy and animated sketches of character, pointed dialogue, richly-coloured descriptions, imagination thrusting out matter of fact when most wanted; in short, digressions of extreme beauty, and without number, were to be looked for by all who knew anything of the qualities of the new novelist; but for the combination of all the principles that enter into a complete character, for the construction of a story, and the skill to conduct it to a triumphant close, her capacity was yet to be tried. She evaded the experiment in "Romance and Reality." This first prose work of L. E. L.'s was commenced—probably without any settled plan—in 1830, and, in the following year, it was published.
A note to the first edition of "Romance and Reality," apologizing for mistakes, contains a confession of carelessness in composition which might not inaccurately be applied to most of L. E. L.'s writings, and to all her earlier works. As an example of it, she admits that, "but for the care of 'the readers' connected with the press through which these pages have passed, both heroine and hero would have undergone that peculiarly English reproach of 'being called out of their names,' (Lord Ethringhame being styled Reginald at first, and afterwards Algernon) in almost every chapter. I do not," she proceeds, "go quite so far as the lively American writer, who, in the amusing tale of the 'Cacoethes Scribendi,' encourages her whole family to write, by the assurance that 'the printers would find them spelling and grammar;' but I do gratefully confess, my obligations have been many to mine. The long sentences made short, the obscure made plain—the favorite words that would, like Monsieur Tonson, come again—the duplicate quotations—for the amendment of all these," &c., the printers were to be thanked. As she remarks, on another occasion, a proof sheet is a terrible reality. With just so much care had she devoted herself to the task of gratifying the public curiosity. Yet, her new work suffered still more, perhaps, from the opposite fault of over-anxiety. Every chapter almost appears to have been written under the influence of an apprehension, lest any one sentence should be thought dull, any portraiture tame, any scene prosaic. Each page has its half-dozen similes, and the purpose of the story, where story may be traced, is continually checked by the spirit of reflection, or of raillery, to which every turn of it gives rise in the author's mind. What her characters fail to say, she is always ready to say for them. The first half of the work, indeed, is little more than a series of discussions upon books and society, life in romance, and life in reality—fashion, manners, motives—love, hope, youth—marriage and disappointment—art and theatricals—the contradictions and mysteries of human character, and philosophy in its endless diversities—all written with freshness and piquancy, and illustrated with sufficient point and anecdote to season twice the number of pages. Amongst the sketches, real and imaginary, we trace resemblances to many of her literary contemporaries; of whom several had to acknowledge in her commentaries the candid critic, or the partial friend. From these gay and sprightly delineations of life, the work deepens, in the last half of it, into a tale of sorrow and sensibility, exhibiting a quick insight into much that is most hidden, as well as a high appreciation of all that is most lofty, in the character of her own sex—a tale written in its lighter parts with natural grace, and in its more elevated passages with earnestness and power. "Romance and Reality" did not, perhaps, exactly fulfil the expectations that had been formed of it; but it did more than this, by giving, not a promise, but the assurance, of greater and stronger powers to penetrate into the philosophy of actual life, than had previously been suspected to exist in companionship with her rich fancy, and her sympathies with the romantic.
To show that the superabundance of simile and illustration, which is, incontestably, a fault in these volumes, was less the result of an excess of anxiety to fill the page with brilliancies, than of an inveterate habit, it was only necessary to hear her converse for five minutes, or to read an ordinary note of five lines about the merest trifle. Here is one, written while this novel was in the course of composition; and, being about the length specified, contains, nevertheless, three distinct similes. With the exception of "My dear Madam," "and yours sincerely,"—this is the entire note:—
"We have a young friend staying in the house, and where there are young ladies, novels are, like lovers, very welcome. We have read through every book in my possession, and now, like beggars, are going about to our neighbours. Can you be charitable? Any of the recent novels would be most thankfully received. I am writing in great haste, for a messenger in our house is like a carrier-pigeon, a rarity, and I must take advantage of the servant's going out."
In the same year, 1831, appeared the first volume of "Fisher's Drawing-room Scrap-book," a handsome quarto, containing upwards of thirty poems illustrative of an equal number of engravings. "It is not an easy thing," L. E. L. remarks, "in the introduction to this first essay, to write illustrations to prints selected rather for their pictorial excellence than their poetic capabilities, and mere description is certainly not the most popular species of composition." The difficulty was gracefully overcome, and immediate popularity was the reward. The Scrap-book became an annual; each year it may be justly said, producing a better series of poems than the preceding. The eighth and last volume by L. E. L. was completed previous to her departure from England in 1838. She had long become accustomed to the task of writing to the subject set before her, whatever it might be, and here the topics presented for poetical illustration were certainly miscellaneous enough. On all of them, or nearly all, she found something pointed, something touching or eloquent to say; investing common-place with beauty—
"Clothing the palpable and the familiar
With golden exhalations;"
while in the higher class of subjects, she found opportunities of exercising her matured powers seemingly unconscious of restraint. Not merely does this work contain unquestionable evidence of the versatility of her talents, and the ease with which she could adapt them to the most unpromising subjects, but it comprises much of her best writing—poems exhibiting a greatly improved taste, a more studious care for the harmonies of versification, a deeper and clearer vein of thought, and a knowledge of "the greatest art, the art to blot."
In addition to various poetical contributions to the "Annuals," and the "New Monthly Magazine," and the composition of another series of poems for the "Drawing-room Scrap-book," L. E. L., in 1832, produced twelve accompaniments to some engravings, issued by the same publisher, under the title of "The Easter Gift, a Religious Offering." These sacred poems are in every way worthy of the feeling with which they were introduced. "They were written," she says, "in a spirit of the deepest humility, but whose fear is not 'of this world;'" and she states that the illustration of these Scriptural subjects had given her the opportunity of embodying many a sad and serious thought which had arisen in hours of solitude and despondency. "I believe I myself am the better for their existence; I wish their effect may be the same on others. In this hurrying and deceitful world, no page will be written utterly in vain, which awakens one earnest or heavenward thought, one hope, or one fear, in the human heart."
Many of the engravings to which L. E. L. was called upon to provide poetical accompaniments, were views of eastern scenery and antiquities; and mellifluously to mention the bare names of the places required something like an effort of genius. To the perplexity this occasioned her, and to a poem on a subject of Indian history, which merits more than a passing note of praise, L. E. L. alludes in one of those rambling and characteristic letters by which she often sought to divert her friends, and in which a friend might always read her thoughts and fancies upon any subject, philosophical or frivolous, just as it occurred to her. The following, addressed to Mrs. S. C. Hall, may serve as a specimen—
"I have been just hurried out of my life with getting my 'Drawing-room Scrap-book' finished. I sent off my last packet of manuscript by yester-noon's post, and to-day I write to you. The volume just completed contains one long poem founded on Indian history; a connected story called the 'Zenana,' and longer than the ' Venetian Bracelet.' How my ingenuity has been taxed to introduce the different places! and, pray, forgive this little tender effusion of vanity, I do pique myself on contriving to get from Dowlutabad to Shusher, and Penawa, and the Triad Figure in the Caves of Elephante, and from thence to Ibrahim Padshah's tomb, &c., &c. But I am too sick of all these hard names to inflict any more upon you. It is four years since I have written a long poem. I cannot describe to you the enjoyment of going back again to 'my first-love and my last.' I can only say that writing poetry is like writing one's native language, and writing prose, writing in a strange tongue. So much for myself; as for others, I have scarcely been out of the house. Yesterday I dined at Lady's, and had a very pleasant evening; there I met sir , one of the most pleasant and intelligent men I have seen for a long time. He was remarking that the Indians have such extreme flexibility of ears that they can move them as easily as we do our eyebrows—and that in all savage nations the toes are so useful, that they can pick up things just as we do with our fingers. It is curious to observe how many bodily faculties lie dormant in a social state. It is as if mind and body were at perpetual variance, and that the perfection of the one must be bought at the expense of the other. Ladyhad on a most picturesque head-dress, an Italian silk net, twisted round the hair, of green ribbon. I am no great admirer of the fanciful in costume generally, but this was very simple and pretty. But, while on the subject of dress, I must tell you of a new style of shawl I saw on Mrs.. It is formed of broad stripes of different coloured velvets; first, a rich dahlia, then orange, then such a green! a golden brown, and the loveliest of blues! It is very large, and lined with amber silk. I never saw anything so magnificent and oriental. Mr. has only just given her a diamond necklace of two thousand guineas, and a diamond bandeau ditto. It is quite enough to make any body wish to be married. . . . The Haymarket has been quite unvisited this season; but I have been once to the Victoria, the prettiest little theatre in London. I was so delighted with Miss Jarman as Jeannie Deans—so sensible, so natural, and so affecting, and speaking, too, the most Doric Scotch. But the principal event, in my late monotonous existence, has been going to see Apsley House, which is fitted up with even more good taste than splendour. There are many portraits of Napoleon, one by David, the most speaking likeness that ever was seen. Indeed, the whole house is a most interesting chapter in the History of England, and the blinds are the moral! As to domestic adventures we have none—only the chimneys were kind enough to be blown down the other day, which did produce a sensation. I thought the whole house was coming, and began to bid myself an affectionate good bye. Also a new pump has been built in the square, and never before did I duly prize the blessings of a rainy morning—for, at five o'clock they begin to water the road, and truly this said pump enacts the part of Macbeth, and murders sleep. . . . I have just married my heroine—a thing very symptomatic of a closing volume. Only three chapters now remain, and glad enough shall I be when they are done."
The heroine whose marriage, as symptomatic of a close, is thus rejoiced in, was "Francesca Carrara;" a performance that wrung from the severest of her critics, and the most prejudiced of her readers, the amplest admission of her great qualifications as a writer of romantic fiction. They could no longer affect to regard her as the mere singer of idle love-songs, or the weaver of fanciful ballads "without a moral;" but while they acknowledged her powerful conceptions of character—her truth and knowledge, which is the truth and knowledge of woman only, in the delineation of woman—the spirit and brilliancy of her set-scenes—her frequent wit and occasional eloquence, they acknowledged too that she was yet unversed in the essential art of using her powers with any proportionate effect. That her real deficiencies were pointed out, however, in some quarters, with temper and discernment, and that the enlargement of her genius, as denoted in many of the scenes and characters of her new work, was ungrudgingly recognized, it may be here a pleasant task to show. The criticism of which the leading passages are about to be laid before the reader, is especially referred to, because it presents in the clearest language, and with admirable ability, all the strength of the objections that might not unfairly be urged against the false direction of her powers, and the inconsistencies, wilful or unconscious, that often defeated her eager search after truth, and disfigured her disquisitions upon life.
Having defined it to be a book "written on the greatest misery-possible principle," and as surpassing most others in its "prodigious capacity for wretchedness"—the actors and the action belonging more to a dream than to life—yet destined to live in a "vague and impassioned remembrance," the critic glances at the more real portions of the work, and these he finds far away from the main conduct and tendency of the story.
"Francesca has nothing in common with the Court of the youthful Louis the Fourteenth, but Miss Landon has. We are, consequently, taken there; and nothing can be better than the scenes we are suffered to have part in. They are a delicious mixture of the imaginative and real. What a gorgeous tapestry she unrolls to introduce us to a more gorgeous company within; and with what brilliant truth she realizes them—what a nice perception of the various shades of character, yet all of the Court—courtly. In the most real things that are said or done, there would seem to be nothing real. Everybody talks with a sort of effort, and yet talks to the point, and with cleverness. Courtiers are not less successful because they strive to be so. Every one of them has something of a heart, though, like the Medecin malgré lui, they have every one of them altered its position. They are human beings, and yet they are courtiers—they seem, on all truthful and material points, to wink and shut their apprehensions up, and yet how full of apprehensions they are—even how wise, 'seeing through all things with their half-shut eyes.' We never saw court-scenes drawn so completely to the life as they are drawn in 'Francesca Carrara.'
"The whole book, indeed, why should we hesitate to say, notwithstanding that we feel its dangerous tendency, is a book of remarkable power and genius. There is a fiery abundance of informing spirit in it that might have served to crowd with meaning fifty ordinary novels. The entire result would have proved very different if the author could have consented to write more with her intellect and less with her will—more with a looking abroad 'into universality,' and less with an intense consciousness of her own existence alone.
"We do not use these words in the common acceptation of selfishness. We believe the consciousness we speak of in Miss Landon, from these evidences of her writing, to be of a much more generous, though of a scarcely less mistaken order. She suffers, in fact, from a sensibility too extreme—from an acute and even morbid feeling of all that relates to her own impressions, or to the objects and events of her own life. No single feeling they may have left seems to have been forgotten. No object or event that has caused her an emotion seems to have been effaced. Every such emotion, indeed, has worked itself into a passion—and over passions how vain is forced control. Hence, it is that they crowd up wilfully into the pages without coherency or proper neighbourhood. Hence, in this Francesca Carrara, the particular truth, and the general falsehood—the remarkable keenness of feeling and penetration, and the equally remarkable want of final truth, or of large comprehension of mind. For so true it is, that the same intense apprehensions which enables us to discern the first principles of things, and, as in the case of some suffering or experience, seize one particular view of it which shall be individually true, and take up a lasting and passionate abode with us—the same intense feeling is precisely that which prevents our admitting the operation of other causes needful to its wise generalization and control, but interfering with the favourite view we have taken; and thus we are involved in contradictions, endless and wilful.
"There are few who will not readily acknowledge this, after reading half of the first volume of this novel. We may add, that to read so far is to read the whole, for the interest and fascination of the book are extreme. The very characteristic we have been mentioning, indeed, secures this, though it interferes with the general keeping and the final truth of the writing. The passions are kept constantly at work—the pulse that agitates them never ceases to beat. We feel this whether we follow the patient yet passionate sufferings of Guido, the divine truth, and the holy affections of Francesca, or the high-aimed coquetry, the sublime selfishness of the Mancini. We yield to them as they severally move us, unable to reason out of influence the genius which gives birth to all—so various in its powers, so complicated and full of contrast in its sympathies. How nobly could it have realized a nobler purpose! Miss Landon never so forcibly illustrated the extent of her genius, proving at the same time how ill-regulated and unworthily directed it may be, as by this novel of 'Francesca Carrara.'"
Nor is the unsparing exposition confined to these inconsistencies alone, for there are others that may be as frankly admitted as they are difficult to account for. Such, for example, are those merely personal remarks and opinions, that, throughout her writings, are carelessly flung out in defiance of reason, and often apparently for the sake of turning some noble passage of sentiment or devotion, in the midst of which they are obtruded, into flat insincerity or affectation. The critic illustrates this from the work we have been considering. "While," he says, "we are dwelling on the unequalled picture of love, of entire trust, of friendship sustained through life, and triumphing over the uncertainties of the grave—all illustrated with so serious, so sweet, and so enduring a truth in the lives of Guido, of Evelyn, and Francesca—we are told in smart and solid phrases by the very author of these noble creatures, that 'consistency expresses nothing human,' and that 'confidence is what no human being ever really had in another.' While we are admiring the sense of justice with which she discriminates the great struggle of the English commoners against the bad faith of the English king, she is good enough to indulge us with a second opinion, that if Charles had given up the bishops, uncurled his hair, and spoken through his nose, he might have been an absolute monarch in all but name!"
Such criticism as this undoubtedly had its influence in exciting L. E. L. to the correction of several of her faults; for the sternness and rigidity of the censure were not unaccompanied by that seductiveness of just praise without which it might have awakened in such a nature as hers, no other feeling than resentment, and an obstinate resolution to cling to errors to the last, as the only things that had been faithful to her. Thus the style of "Francesca Carrara" is admired as extremely elegant, pure, and impassioned, while the book itself is described as that only from which can be drawn the smallest idea of the brilliant truth of its court-dialogue, or of the exalted nature of the fine creations that are bodied forth in it. "Our hearts own them, and they are hereafter consecrated in our imaginations."
Another testimony from a different pen, to the power and the success of this work, will close the notice that it claimed.
"'Francesca Carrara' is of the past—there is both more poetry, and more truth in the work now before us than in the other; we feel the characters to be more real—there is more of consistency both in the plot and in its development, and less crowding of smart and clever things—less show, and more substance. We were, perhaps, more astonished at the first, because we hardly expected such prose from such a poet; but it promised more for the future, and as 'Francesca' is the future of that period, we in some degree looked forward to the beauties we have found. We know not where, or how, the female writers of our time procure their insight into human nature; Miss Landon reads hearts and motives, as men read books and pamphlets, and reads them truly; her delineations are perfect—her sketches full of the truth and vigour of nature.
"Her range in prose is more extensive than her range in poetry. Her lyre is generally tuned to the same purposes—the blight of love, the hollowness of the world; there is a mournful cadence in all it sings of—a wail, a sorrow, or a sigh! But in prose she lives with us—now sanctifying—now satirizing—now glittering with the French in their most brilliant court, playing with diamonds, and revelling in wit—then reposing on one of the finest creations that human genius ever called into existence—the holy friendship of Guido and Francesca. The whole range of modern fiction offers nothing like the portraiture of these two cousins; it is at once beautiful and sublime, and yet perfectly natural and true;—the skill of the woman is admirably developed in this particular creation. A man would have philosophized Guido and Francesca into friendship; and those who read would have immediately discovered that, between two so constituted, the thing would have been impossible, notwithstanding the philosophy; but Miss Landon, by a simple and natural arrangement, sets all doubts at rest, by pre-occupying both hearts. Here, at once, is the prevention of love, and the motive for friendship perceived, without any explanation."— New Monthly, Jan. 1835.
In the summer of 1834, an opportunity had occurred, through Sir A. Farquhar and his daughter, of accomplishing a visit to Paris. L. E. L. had a friend, Miss Turin, staying in the gay city at that time, and this was felt to be an additional convenience. Moreover, she had then determined upon laying the scene of a new novel amidst the French revolution, and to do this it was desirable to know something of the locale. In Paris, then, we find her, in the month of June, seeking and enjoying a sensation of which the following is her hasty, rambling, but characteristic record. It is a letter addressed to the author of the "Sketches of Irish Character."
"I do not know at how many feet from the ground this letter is written—truly, I was never so exalted in my life before; and yet we are less exalted than the generality. Oh, the measureless staircases, longer than life itself!—but you know them. I am delighted with Paris, enchanted with the people, and, horrible as I thought the journey, I must confess I thought the pleasure well worth the pain. Yet I have chosen the worst possible season for my visit. Nobody is in Paris, and nothing is going on. A second visit would be more favourable than a first, as sight-seeing would then form no part of my duty; and, certainly, I am the worst sight-seer in the world. I really do not, in my heart, care for all the articles in marble, stone, or brick, that were ever ushered in with a paragraph in the 'Stranger's Guide'—'This magnificent, &c., well deserves all a stranger's attention.' In my plan of Paradise, people will ride very little, and walk not at all. In revenge, they shall have the most comfortable chairs, and talk from morning to night. Now, if my plan of Paradise does not suit people, they have only to form one according to their own fancy. I cannot tell you what great kindness I have received from everybody, or the charming notes and the too charming speeches. I am sure the French well deserve their character for amiability and politeness, or, I really should rather say, kindness. I shall return with the most pleasant and grateful recollections. I have been reading a great many French works; truly it is well that I wear my hair tightly banded, or it would certainly have risen straight on my head with downright dismay and astonishment. Yet there is extraordinary talent—every page full of new ideas and thoughts—they want nothing but a little religion and a little decency—two trifling wants, to be sure. The whole of French conversation, as far as I can judge, is much more intellectual, with more thought, and less about persons, than in England. . . . . We went to Nôtre Dame—such a fine old church, and such a view of Paris to look down upon; for we went up to the very top, and, hot as it was, I was glad that we had done so. Indeed, I have taken quite a course of old churches, though I am not turned Catholic. The shops are, as the prophet said of Damascus, too delightful; but I cannot say that, excepting two or three slight things, the articles are so cheap as in London. Silks, muslins, prints, ribbons, pelerines, are awfully dear. We have charming lodgings, overlooking two pretty gardens, and the front of Mr. Rothschild's hotel, and then an open view as far as Montmartre and its windmills. We have our dinners from a restaurant's, the Café de Paris; they are delicious, but I find scarcely a dish that I have not previously eaten in England. I am making an experimental voyage through the carte, and have had a different dish every day." . . . .
Her pleasant recollections of Paris, however, were always associated with an adventure of a character more exciting than agreeable, that happened to her on her journey home. Of all the passengers who presented themselves to the notice of the Custom-house authorities, L. E. L., to her surprise and consternation, was selected for the compliment of particular search. Her inexperience in such matters, and a natural timidity on seeing herself in so unusual a situation, perhaps increased the suspicion these authorities had suddenly taken upon themselves to entertain, that she had concealed about her person sundry laces, silks, or trinkets, which had not yielded the lawful tribute to the revenue. She was as innocent of a thought of fraud as the king himself; but her protestations, eloquent as they were, went for nothing, or, possibly, stimulated inquiry. A gold chain, which she wore, was remorselessly detained, and pronounced to be forfeited; what was worse, it was not her own property, it belonged to a friend, and had, in fact, paid the legal duty; it was restored after a few days. L. E. L. used to laugh at this tribulation, afterwards, and made the investigating matron the heroine of a little comic romance. What she suspected, and what, no doubt, was the cause of the very particular attentions which she was singled out to receive on this occasion, was the best part of the comedy. The authorities of the Custom house had received notice of the coming of "a lady," by whose practices, for a considerable time past, the revenue had been defrauded; they were, consequently, on the alert, and ready to receive any hint that might lead to detection. Now, there was every reason to suppose that a fellow-passenger of L. E. L.'s, who had been endeavouring to render herself rather agreeable to her, without knowing whom it was she was conversing with, was the identical "lady" addicted to the illicit propensities in question; and there is scarcely less reason to suppose—so at least L. E. L. used vehemently to insist—that it was this very "lady" who hinted at the proper season to the vigilant officers, that by directing their attention to L. E. L. herself, they would, no doubt, discover the object of their suspicions!
To another intimate and valued friend she also gave an account of her Parisian experiences. Frivolous as the details are with which she commences, it was one of her characteristics that any one she liked should know what objects surrounded her in any new place she visited. The postmark is July, 1834.
"What a waste of time it is ever to make a resolution: my most decided intention, on leaving England, was to keep a journal. I might just as well have decided on keeping a troop of horse. The first fortnight might be comprehended in two words, or, rather, four—feeling very ill, and feeling very tired; and, I may add, very unhappy; everything seemed strange, and I so completely alone. Our lodging is pleasant enough (it was in the Rue Taitbout, Chaussée d'Antin, No. 30). Fancy yourself ascending a staircase twice the height of Miss Lance's; you will then arrive at a huge door. You enter through a little ante-chamber, hung with dark-brown paper, with an orange border, a piano and some chairs being all the furniture. This leads on one side to my room; on the other to the salon, which is hung with blue paper, or rather purple, and has a balcony looking down on a delightful garden. If you furnish this room with a sofa, whose cushions are stuffed with hay, equally hard and sweet, chairs covered with blue velvet, a marble table, a secretaire, two vases filled with flowers, another table covered with books, and myself writing to you, you will have an exact idea of my present position.
"I have seen a good many strangers, and it would take a quire of paper to detail all the little agonies I have suffered from them, all the little 'states' that I have been in. Though all my life I have lived in society, and had to make my own way, I never get accustomed to doing it. I am unconquerably irresolute and shy. The utmost that I can do, and that by force of long habit, is to conceal my embarrassment, and to feel it, for that very concealment, all the more. What hesitation and difficulty does it always cost me to enjoy! . . . . I cannot tell you half the flattering kindness I have met with. M. Odillon Barrot appears to be about thirty; has the most kind, gentle, and encouraging manners; and, perhaps, of all I have seen here, is the one to whom I would apply the term gentlemanlike. He is, you know, a most distinguished person; and, you do not know, has beautiful blue eyes. He went with us, yesterday, to the Pantheon; without an exception, the finest building I ever saw. We ascended some thousands of steps to the top. . . . . Then we went to the Cabinet of Natural History. Such birds, beasts, and fishes! If imitation be the most graceful of flatteries, this building is a delicate attention to Noah's ark. It contains a specimen of every thing on earth, in sea, or air. . . . . The person whom I think the most interesting is a Monsieur Fontaney, a young poet of about four-and-twenty, or less. . . . . He answers very well to my idea of a French genius—pale, dark, sombre, and with a sort of enthusiasm of which we have no idea in England. . . . . He joined our party at the theatre, or, rather, came into the next box. His conversation is very intellectual, and very spirited—or let me use the French word, 'spirituel.' The opera was the Temptation of Saint Anthony, which said temptation is the being made love to by a very beautiful woman, created by his Satanic Majesty for that very worthy purpose. Miranda (Mdlle. Duvernay) danced like an angel, if angels dance, which, I take it, is rather a debateable point. Going to the theatre made me very melancholy, I kept thinking so much of the Victoria! Talk of French vivacity! I don't know in what it consists. All that I have met are peculiarly quiet. Oh, the number of pretty things that there are in the shops! One could spend a fortune in a week. I shall come back with all sorts of new ideas. You, however, must be contented with some old ones."
To the same friend she describes her impressions on the perusal of Victor Hugo's "Lucretia Borgia," which she had been recommended to read.
"What a terrible pleasure I owe you; that 'Lucretia Borgia' has struck me deeply! What a scene that is between her and her husband, where she attempts to make him forget his vengeance by filling his mind with the first fascination of her beauty, which, to be turned upon him for a moment, was such sweet flattery. I like Gennaro's love for his unknown parent. The deepest feelings of the human heart are those given to the unattainable and the mysterious. Love for the known and the possessed takes the more endurable (is it not so?) but less poetical form of affection. The denouement is dreadful. So true! for it is curious to note how constantly vice is punished through some last touch of lingering goodness. Thus
'Soon or late it is its own avenger.'
Some kindly feeling, some dearest sympathy, that would have been happiness to the innocent, becomes torture in its worst shape to the guilty."
From a few of the many notes addressed, almost daily, to various friends about this period, some passages may be taken as exact specimens of the free and careless manner in which L. E. L. invariably wrote to her intimate acquaintances. If, in this respect, their literary interest should appear too slight, let it be observed that they afford the reader some insight into her daily feelings and associations at an important stage of her career, and lead to the gratifying conviction that the prevalent tone of her spirits, notwithstanding all she had undergone, was far less weary and depressed than those who judged her by her writings were accustomed to suppose. And it may be as well to remark that L. E. L., in her epistolary habits, reversed the maxim by which long letters are excused on the score of a want of time to write short ones; she rarely wrote into a second sheet, and scarcely ever in her life crossed her lines, after the approved fashion among lady letter-writers; but, of brief epistles, few people wrote so many. The reason was, that the merest act of courtesy, or an ordinary civility, which others would receive almost as a thing of course, or for which their gratitude might well admit of being reserved for a chance meeting, was sure to produce from her a note of acknowledgment, magnifying it into a marvellous kindness; and this would probably be followed by one or two excuses for writing, each repaying the slightest of obligations by such favours as only the kindliest of natures could bestow, or such anxiety to do so, as only such a nature as hers could feel.
These remarks will, perhaps, render it unnecessary to apologize for the introduction of the following fragments from notes to Mrs. Hall:—
"I hope you mean to be a pattern of propriety, keep within doors, and look upon Sloane-street as if it were the avenue to the castle of the east wind. As for myself, I have no more breath than an apple, on which a philosopher has been trying experiments, by putting it in his pump and extracting the air. I liked your story in the 'Edinburgh Magazine' much. I must say though, in the present state of the country, a premium ought to be given to those who patriotically remain single."—
"It is quite terrible to think how a person's principles may be undermined. What with your cottage and this cottage, I am in dreadful danger of being taken romantic, and of talking about rural felicity—unsophisticated feeling, and the beauties of nature, and those vain prejudices which I have hitherto so entirely abjured . . I enjoyed all the delights of the country in the most resolute manner, for I got ankle-deep in mud yesterday in the wood adjoining. You cannot think how beautiful all is hereabout—so richly wooded, and not a vestige of London, and a perpetual succession of showers driving over the hills, like a flight of arrows sent by some ærial army. A piece of water runs through the grounds; it abounds with fish, and has a fleet of ducks, and two or three islands of water-lilies—some half-dozen falls 'leaping to music,' a bridge, and is in one part overhung with trees. There is also plenty of innocent amusements—bows and arrows, swings, battledores, &c. I cannot say I have recourse to any, holding to mine ancient belief of the super-felicity of talking."
"I was at Mr. Holling's collection of sculpture. There is a superb bust of Mrs. Norton—such a head as might have suited Zenobia, ere she yielded up her desert city to the Roman conqueror. There is also the most lovely statue of a child I ever saw; the very ideal of infancy. I have been to two or three little dances, among so many gay captains, that I cannot decide on which I have lost my heart to, or indeed if I have lost it at all. I have also been exceedingly industrious, and am rapidly progressing with my third volume, ('Francesca.') . . . Thank heaven, Fisher's book is finished—above thirty poems, and only one in which love is even mentioned! There's hard-heartedness for you. Are you not glad to be at home again, to see the pavement! I dare say England has its faults, but it may comfort itself by saying, 'I am a deal better than my neighbours, and comparisons are only odious to those who suffer by them."
The close of the following allusion to the burning of the houses of parliament, amusingly illustrates the insufficiency of the imagination to enable us to hold a fire in the hand by thinking of the frosty Caucasus.
"Could you see the reflection of the fire? I spent nearly an hour at our garret-window watching it. The blaze was far higher than any of the intervening houses; it gave me the idea—at least it was like the idea I have, of a volcano. Nothing could exceed the beauty of the sky, loaded in one part with dense clouds of a most peculiar crimson, while in another the moon was dispersing the lightest of snowy vapours, and the air was of the clearest blue. I do so regret that I did not see it. I should be sorry to have any one's chimney take fire for my express pleasure; but if such a thing was to happen, my seeing it could have done no harm, and it would have greatly delighted,—no, that is not the word—astonished me! I never even saw a crowd in my life. Oh! how cold it is. I am really writing, a little worse than usual—my fingers are so chilled."
Another slight passage will take us by a leap into the next summer.
"A thousand thanks for the loveliest of roses. One is certainly more grateful in summer than at any other time. If there is anything in nature, it warms into life with the sunshine. After the long dreary winter, with nothing but colds, shawls and watergruel, it is quite delicious to feel well and clever again. But I am already beginning to fear the enjoyment of this delightful weather; for I know that Fate will revenge itself, and force Pleasure to take its penalty—pain, in some shape or other."
It is unnecessary to multiply these fragments. To how many would L. E. L. write in this vein! reserving whatever was gloomiest in her views for her own secret meditations, or relieving her mind of its effects by venting it upon the world in verse. As a correspondent she was never disconsolate; she never "bestowed her tediousness" upon her friends, by taking up her pen in ill-humour. If she had her fits of moroseness, she had them in solitude; for there was no sign of asperity, in speech or writing, in her intercourse with the actual world in which she lived. To how many more persons would she address notes like those already described, expressing strong emotion in acknowledging even trivial service; and thanking them for kindness, as though she were not accustomed to rendering every species of kindness and to making all kinds of sacrifices herself. It was because this was the habit of her life, that she thus felt towards others when she experienced their good will. She always received praise as a tribute that laid her under special obligation to the giver; she could never say or do enough in return for it. She always received justice, not as a light, but as a favour.
- ↑ *Mrs. Hall's recollection of the scene, which took place at her house, is, that he said, taking L. E. L.'s hand, and looking earnestly in her face—"Oh dear! I ha' written and thought many a bitter thing about ye, but I'll do sae na mair; I did na think ye'd been sae bonnie."