A Letter Book

I suppose there is no chance of your being over in England this year, and perhaps as little Chance of my being in Italy. All I can say is, the latter is not impossible, which I suppose I may equally say of the former. But pray write me. You can always direct to me at Donne's, 12, St. James' Square, or at Rev. G. Crabbe's, Bredfield, Woodbridge. Either way the letter will soon reach me. Write soon, Frederic, and let me hear how you and yours are: and don't wait, as you usually do, for some inundation of the Arno to set your pen agoing. Write ever so shortly and whatever-about-ly. I have no news to tell you of Friends. I saw old Spedding in London; only doubly calm after the death of a Niece he dearly loved and whose deathbed at Hastings he had just been waiting upon. Harry Lushington wrote a martial Ode on seeing the Guards march over Waterloo Bridge towards the East: I did not see it, but it was much admired and handed about, I believe. And now my paper is out: and I am going through the rain (it is said to rain very much here) to my Sister's. So Goodbye, and write to me, as I beg you, in reply to this long if not very interesting letter.

FRANCES ANNE KEMBLE (1809-1893)

To what has been said before of this remarkably gifted lady little need be added. The two letters which follow, derived from Further Records (London, 1890), were written rather late in her life, but are characteristic, in ways partly coinciding, partly divergent, of her strong intellect126 and her powers of expression. The note to the ghost-story leaves open the question whether Fanny did or did not know the accepted doctrine that the master and mistress of a haunted house are exempt from actual haunting. The "whiff of grape-shot" (as Carlyle might have called it) on the "Bakespearian" absurdity is one of the best things on the subject that the present writer, in a long and wide experience, has come across.

45. To H – [extract]

York Farm, Branchtown,Philadelphia, Monday May 18th, 1874.

One evening that my maid was sitting in the room from which she could see the whole of the staircase and upper landing, she saw the door of my bedroom open, and an elderly woman in a flannel dressing-gown, with a bonnet on her head, and a candle in her hand come out, walk the whole length of the passage, and return again into the bedroom, shutting the door after her. My maid knew that I was in the drawing-room below in my usual black velvet evening dress; moreover, the person she had seen bore no resemblance either in figure or face to me, or to any member of my household, which consisted of three young servant women besides herself, and a negro man-servant. My maid was a remarkably courageous and reasonable person, and, though very much startled (for she went directly upstairs and found no one in the rooms), she kept her counsel, and mentioned the circumstance to nobody, though, as she told me afterwards, she was so afraid lest I should have a similar visitation, that she was strongly tempted to ask Dr. W – 's advice as to the propriety of mentioning her experience to me. She refrained from doing so, however, and some time later, as she was sitting in the dusk in the same room, the man-servant came in to light the gas and made her start, observing which, he said, "Why, lors, Miss Ellen, you jump as if you had seen a ghost." In spite of her late experience, Ellen very gravely replied, "Nonsense, William, how can you talk such stuff! You don't believe in such things as ghosts, do you?" "Well," he said, "I don't know just so sure what to say to that, seeing it's very well known there was a ghost in this house." "Pshaw!" said Ellen. "Whose ghost?" "Well, poor Mrs. R – 's ghost, it's very well known, walks about this house, and no great wonder either, seeing how miserably she lived and died here." To Ellen's persistent expressions of contemptuous incredulity, he went on, "Well, Miss Ellen, all I can say is, several girls" (i. e. maid-servants) "have left this house on account of it"; and there the conversation ended. Some days after this, Ellen coming into the drawing-room to speak to me, stopped abruptly at the door, and stood there, having suddenly recognized in a portrait immediately opposite to it, and which was that of the dead mistress of the house, the face of the person she had seen come out of my bedroom. I think this a very tidy ghost story; and I am bound to add, as a proper commentary on it, that I have never inhabited a house which affected me with a sense of such intolerable melancholy gloominess as this; without any assignable reason whatever, either in its situation or any of its conditions. My maid, to the present day, persists in every detail (and without the slightest variation) of this experience of hers, absolutely rejecting my explanation of it; that she had heard, without paying any particular attention to it, some talk among the other servants about the ghost in the house, which had remained unconsciously to her in her memory, and reproduced itself in this morbid nervous effect of her imagination.

46. To H – [extract]

York Farm, Sunday, December 6th, 1874.

My dearest H – ,

It is not possible for me to feel the slightest interest in the sort of literary feat which I consider writing upon "who wrote Shakespeare?" to be. I was very intimate with Harness, Milman, Dyce, Collier – all Shakespearian editors, commentators, and scholars – and this absurd theory about Bacon, which was first broached a good many years ago, never obtained credit for a moment with them; nor did they ever entertain for an instant a doubt that the plays attributed to William Shakespeare of Stratford-on-Avon were really written by him. Now I am intimately acquainted and in frequent communication with William Donne, Edward FitzGerald, and James Spedding, all thorough Shakespeare scholars, and the latter a man who has just published a work upon Bacon, which has been really the labour of his life; none of these men, competent judges of the matter, ever mentions the question of "Who wrote Shakespeare?" except as a ludicrous thing to be laughed at, and I think they may be trusted to decide whether it is or is not so.

I have a slight feeling of disgust at the attack made thus on the personality of my greatest mental benefactor; and consider the whole thing a misapplication, not to say waste, of time and ingenuity that might be better employed. As I regard the memory of Shakespeare with love, veneration, and gratitude, and am proud and happy to be his countrywoman, considering it among the privileges of my English birth, I resent the endeavour to prove that he deserved none of these feelings, but was a mere literary impostor. I wonder the question had any interest for you, for I should not have supposed you imagined Shakespeare had not written his own plays, Irish though you be. Do you remember the servant's joke in the farce of "High Life Below Stairs" where the cook asks, "Who wrote Shakespeare?" and one of the others answers, with, at any rate, partial plausibility, "Oh! why, Colley Cibber, to be sure!"

WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY

(1811-1863)

So much has been said of Thackeray's letter-writing powers in the Introduction that not much need be added here on the general side. But a few words may be allowed on what we may call the conditioning circumstances which affected these powers, and made the result so peculiar. Except in Swift's case – a thing piquant in itself considering the injustice of the later writer to the earlier – hardly any body of letters exhibits these conditions so obviously and in so varied a fashion. In both there was the utmost intellectual satire combined with the utmost tenderness of feeling. Thackeray of course, partly from nature and partly from the influence of time, did not mask his tenderness and double-edge his severity with roughness and coarseness. But the combination was intrinsically not very different. There has also to be taken into account in Thackeray's case domestic sorrow – coming quickly and life-long after it began; means long restricted (partly by his own folly but not so more tolerable); recognition of genius almost as long deferred; and yet other "maladies of the soul." The result was a constant ferment, of which the letters are in a way the relieving valve or tap. That they are often apparently light-hearted has nothing surprising in it: for when a man habitually "eats his heart" it naturally becomes lighter – till there is nothing of it left.

He is, however, not easy to "sample," there being, as has been said, no authorised collection to draw upon and other difficulties in the way. What follows may serve for fault of a better: and the Spectator letter-pastiche referred to above under Walpole, will complete it perhaps more appropriately than may at first appear. For while the latter is quite Addisonian, not merely in dress but in body, its soul is blended of two natures – the model's and the artist's – in the rather uncanny fashion which makes Esmond as a whole so marvellous, except to those stalwarts who hold that, as nobody before the twentieth century knew anything about anything, Thackeray could not know about the eighteenth.

47. To Miss Lucy Baxter

Washington, SaturdayFeb. 19. 1853.

My dear little kind Lucy:

I began to write you a letter in the railroad yesterday, but it bumped with more than ordinary violence, and I was forced to give up the endeavour. I did not know how ill Lucy was at that time, only remembered that I owed her a letter for that pretty one you wrote me at Philadelphia, when Sarah was sick and you acted as her Secretary. Is there going to be always Somebody sick at the brown house? If I were to come there now, I wonder should I be allowed to come and see you in your night-cap – I wonder even do you wear a night-cap? I should step up, take your little hand, which I daresay is lying outside the coverlet, give it a little shake; and then sit down and talk all sorts of stuff and nonsense to you for half an hour; but very kind and gentle, not so as to make you laugh too much or your little back ache any more. Did I not tell you to leave off that beecely jimnayshum? I am always giving fine advice to girls in brown houses, and they always keep on never minding. It is not difficult to write lying in bed – this is written not in bed, but on a sofa. If you write the upright hand it's quite easy; slanting-dicular is not so pleasant, though. I have just come back from Baltimore and find your mother's and sister's melancholy letters. I thought to myself, perhaps I might see them on this very sofa and pictured to myself their 2 kind faces. Mr. Crampton was going to ask them to dinner, I had made arrangements to get Sarah nice partners at the ball – Why did dear little Lucy tumble down at the Gymnasium? Many a pretty plan in life tumbles down so, Miss Lucy, and falls on its back. But the good of being ill is to find how kind one's friends are; of being at a pinch (I do not know whether I may use the expression – whether "pinch" is an indelicate word in this country; it is used by our old writers to signify poverty, narrow circumstances, res angusta) – the good of being poor, I say, is to find friends to help you, I have been both ill and poor, and found, thank God, such consolation in those evils; and I daresay at this moment, now you are laid up, you are the person of the most importance in the whole house – Sarah is sliding about the room with cordials in her hands and eyes; Libby is sitting quite disconsolate by the bed (poor Libby! when one little bird fell off the perch, I wonder the other did not go up and fall off, too!) the expression of sympathy in Ben's eyes is perfectly heart-rending; even George is quiet; and your Father, Mother and Uncle (all 3 so notorious for their violence of temper and language) have actually forgotten to scold. "Ach, du lieber Himmel," says Herr Strumpf – isn't his name Herr Strumpf? – the German master, "die schöne Fräulein ist krank!" and bursts into tears on the Pianofortyfier's shoulder when they hear the news (through his sobs) from black John. We have an Ebony femme de chambre here; when I came from Baltimore just now I found her in the following costume and attitude standing for her picture to Mr. Crowe. She makes the beds with that pipe in her mouf and leaves it about in the rooms. Wouldn't she have been a nice lady's-maid for your mother and Miss Bally Saxter?

But even if Miss Lucy had not had her fall, I daresay there would have been no party. Here is a great snow-storm falling, though yesterday was as bland and bright as May (English May, I mean) and how could we have lionized Baltimore, and gone to Mount Vernon, and taken our diversion in the snow? There would have been nothing for it but to stay in this little closet of a room, where there is scarce room for 6 people, and where it is not near so comfortable as the brown house. Dear old b.h., shall I see it again soon? I shall not go farther than Charleston, and Savannah probably, and then I hope I shall get another look at you all again before I commence farther wanderings – O, stop! I didn't tell you why I was going to write you – well, I went on Thursday to dine with Governor and Mrs. Fish, a dinner in honor of me – and before I went I arrayed myself in a certain white garment of which the collar-button-holes had been altered, and I thought of the kind, friendly little hand that had done that deed for me; and when the Fisheses told me how they lived in the Second Avenue (I had forgotten all about 'em) – their house and the house opposite came back to my mind, and I liked them 50 times better for living near some friends of mine. She is a nice woman, Madam Fish, besides; and didn't I abuse you all to her? Good bye, dear little Lucy – I wish the paper wasn't full. But I have been sitting half an hour by the poor young lady's sofa, and talking stuff and nonsense, haven't I? And now I get up, and shake your hand with a God bless you! and walk down stairs, and please to give everybody my kindest regards, and remember that I am truly your friend.

W. M. T.

48.

The "Trumpet" Coffee-house,Whitehall.

'Mr Spectator —

'I am a gentleman but little acquainted with the town, though I have had a university education, and passed some years serving my country abroad, where my name is better known than in the coffee-houses and St. James's.

'Two years since my uncle died, leaving me a pretty estate in the county of Kent; and being at Tunbridge Wells last summer, after my mourning was over, and on the look-out, if truth must be told, for some young lady who would share with me the solitude of my great Kentish house, and be kind to my tenantry (for whom a woman can do a great deal more good than the best-intentioned man can), I was greatly fascinated by a young lady of London, who was the toast of all the company at the Wells. Everyone knows Saccharissa's beauty; and I think, Mr. Spectator, no one better than herself.

'My table-book informs me that I danced no less than seven-and-twenty sets with her at the assembly. I treated her to the fiddles twice. I was admitted on several days to her lodging, and received by her with a great deal of distinction, and, for a time, was entirely her slave. It was only when I found, from common talk of the company at the Wells, and from narrowly watching one, who I once thought of asking the most sacred question a man can put to a woman, that I became aware how unfit she was to be a country gentleman's wife; and that this fair creature was but a heartless worldly jilt, playing with affections that she never meant to return, and, indeed, incapable of returning them. 'Tis admiration such women want, not love that touches them; and I can conceive, in her old age, no more wretched creature than this lady will be, when her beauty hath deserted her, when her admirers have left her, and she hath neither friendship nor religion to console her.

'Business calling me to London, I went to St. James's Church last Sunday, and there opposite me sat my beauty of the Wells. Her behaviour during the whole service was so pert, languishing and absurd; she flirted her fan, and ogled and eyed me in a manner so indecent, that I was obliged to shut my eyes, so as actually not to see her, and whenever I opened them beheld hers (and very bright they are) still staring at me. I fell in with her afterwards at Court, and at the playhouse; and here nothing would satisfy her but she must elbow through the crowd and speak to me, and invite me to the assembly, which she holds at her house, nor very far from Ch – r – ng Cr – ss.

'Having made her a promise to attend, of course I kept my promise; and found the young widow in the midst of a half-dozen of card-tables, and a crowd of wits and admirers. I made the best bow I could, and advanced towards her; and saw by a peculiar puzzled look in her face, though she tried to hide her perplexity, that she had forgotten even my name.

'Her talk, artful as it was, convinced me that I had guessed aright. She turned the conversation most ridiculously upon the spelling of names and words; and I replied with as ridiculous, fulsome compliments as I could pay her; indeed, one in which I compared her to an angel visiting the sick-wells, went a little too far; nor should I have employed it, but that the allusion came from the Second Lesson last Sunday, which we both had heard, and I was pressed to answer her.

'Then she came to the question, which I knew was awaiting me, and asked how I spelt my name? "Madam," says I, turning on my heel, "I spell it with the y." And so I left her, wondering at the light-heartedness of the town-people, who forget and make friends so easily, and resolved to look elsewhere for a partner for your constant reader.

'Cymon Wyldoats.

'You know my real name, Mr. Spectator, in which there is no such a letter as hupsilon. But if the lady, whom I have called Saccharissa, wonders that I appear no more at the tea-tables, she is hereby respectfully informed the reason y.'

CHARLES DICKENS (1812-1870)

There are few better examples by converse of the saying (familiar in various forms and sometimes specially applied to writing and answering letters) that it is only idle people who have no time to do anything, than Dickens. He was by no means long-lived: and for the last three-fifths – practically the whole busy time – of his life, he was one of the busiest of men. He wrote many universally known books, and not a few, in some cases not so well known, articles. He travelled a great deal; edited periodicals for many years, taking that duty by no means in the spirit of Olympian aloofness which some popular opinion connects with editorship; only sometimes shirked society; and had all sorts of miscellaneous occupations and avocations. His very fancy for long walks might seem one of the least compatible with letter-writing; yet a very large bulk of his letters (by no means mainly composed of editorial ones) has been published, and there are no doubt many unpublished. There have been different opinions as to their comparative rank as letters, but there can be no difference as to the curious full-bloodedness and plenitude of life which, in this as in all other divisions of his writing, characterises Dickens's expression of his thoughts and feelings. Perhaps, as might be generally though not universally expected, the comic ones are the more delightful: at any rate they seem best worth giving here. The first – to a schoolboy who had written to him about Nicholas Nickleby– is quite charming; the second, to the famous actor-manager who after being a Londoner by birth and residence for half a century had just retired, is almost Charles Lamb-like; and the third deserved to have been put in the original mouth of Mrs. Gamp!127

49. To Master Hastings Hughes

Doughty Street, London.Dec. 12th. 1838.

Respected Sir,

I have given Squeers one cut on the neck and two on the head, at which he appeared much surprised and began to cry, which, being a cowardly thing, is just what I should have expected from him – wouldn't you?

I have carefully done what you told me in your letter about the lamb and the two "sheeps" for the little boys. They have also had some good ale and porter, and some wine. I am sorry you didn't say what wine you would like them to have. I gave them some sherry, which they liked very much, except one boy, who was a little sick and choked a good deal. He was rather greedy, and that's the truth, and I believe it went the wrong way, which I say served him right, and I hope you will say so too.

Nicholas had his roast lamb, as you said he was to, but he could not eat it all, and says if you do not mind his doing so he should like to have the rest hashed to-morrow with some greens, which he is very fond of, and so am I. He said he did not like to have his porter hot, for he thought it spoilt the flavour, so I let him have it cold. You should have seen him drink it. I thought he never would have left off. I also gave him three pounds of money, all in sixpences, to make it seem more, and he said directly that he should give more than half to his mamma and sister, and divide the rest with poor Smike. And I say he is a good fellow for saying so; and if anybody says he isn't I am ready to fight him whenever they like – there!

Fanny Squeers shall be attended to, depend upon it. Your drawing of her is very like, except that I don't think the hair is quite curly enough. The nose is particularly like hers, and so are the legs. She is a nasty disagreeable thing, and I know it will make her very cross when she sees it; and what I say is that I hope it may. You will say the same I know – at least I think you will.

I meant to have written you a long letter, but I cannot write very fast when I like the person I am writing to, because that makes me think about them, and I like you, and so I tell you. Besides, it is just eight o'clock at night, and I always go to bed at eight o'clock, except when it is my birthday, and then I sit up to supper. So I will not say anything more besides this – and that is my love to you and Neptune; and if you will drink my health every Christmas Day I will drink yours – come.

I am,Respected Sir,Your affectionate Friend.

P.S. I don't write my name very plain,128 but you know what it is you know, so never mind.

50. To Mr. W. C. Macready

Saturday, May 24th, 1851.

My dear Macready,

We are getting in a good heap of money for the Guild. The comedy has been very much improved, in many respects, since you read it. The scene to which you refer is certainly one of the most telling in the play. And there is a farce to be produced on Tuesday next, wherein a distinguished amateur will sustain a variety of assumption-parts, and in particular, Samuel Weller and Mrs. Gamp, of which I say no more. I am pining for Broadstairs, where the children are at present. I lurk from the sun, during the best part of the day, in a villainous compound of darkness, canvas, sawdust, general dust, stale gas (involving a vague smell of pepper), and disenchanted properties. But I hope to get down on Wednesday or Thursday.

Ah! you country gentlemen, who live at home at ease, how little do you think of us among the London fleas! But they tell me you are coming in for Dorsetshire. You must be very careful, when you come to town to attend to your parliamentary duties, never to ask your way of people in the streets. They will misdirect you for what the vulgar call "a lark," meaning, in this connection, a jest at your expense. Always go into some respectable shop or apply to a policeman. You will know him by his being dressed in blue, with very dull silver buttons, and by the top of his hat being made of sticking-plaster. You may perhaps see in some odd place an intelligent-looking man, with a curious little wooden table before him and three thimbles on it. He will want you to bet, but don't do it. He really desires to cheat you. And don't buy at auctions where the best plated goods are being knocked down for next to nothing. These, too, are delusions. If you wish to go to the play to see real good acting (though a little more subdued than perfect tragedy should be), I would recommend you to see – at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. Anybody will show it to you. It is near the Strand, and you may know it by seeing no company whatever at any of the doors. Cab fares are eightpence a mile. A mile London measure is half a Dorsetshire mile, recollect. Porter is twopence per pint; what is called stout is fourpence. The Zoological Gardens are in the Regent's Park, and the price of admission is one shilling. Of the streets, I would recommend you to see Regent Street and the Quadrant, Bond Street, Piccadilly, Oxford Street, and Cheapside. I think these will please you after a time, though the tumult and bustle will at first bewilder you. If I can serve you in any way, pray command me. And with my best regards to your happy family, so remote from this Babel.