Records of a Girlhood

["Katharine of Cleves," translated from the French play of "Henri Trois et sa Cour," and made the subject of one of Mr. Barham's inimitably comical poems in the "Ingoldsby Legends." Mdlle. Mars acted the part of the heroine in Paris, and it was one of several semi-tragical characters, in which, at the end of her great theatrical career, she reaped fresh laurels in an entirely new field, and showed the world that she might have been one of the best serious, not to say tragic, actresses of the French stage, as well as its one unrivaled female comedian.]

We have spent a wretched Christmas, as you may suppose; a house with its head sick all but to death, and all its members smitten with the direst anxiety, is not the place for a merry one. God bless you, my dear, and send you years of peace of mind and health of body! this is, I suppose, what we mean when we wish for happiness here, either for ourselves or others. Give my love and kindest good wishes to your people.

Have you seen in the papers that poor Torrijos and his little band, consisting of sixty men, several of whom John knew well, have been lured into the interior of Spain, and there taken prisoners and shot? This news has shocked us all dreadfully, especially poor John. You may imagine how grateful we are that he is now among us, instead of having fallen a victim to his chimerical enthusiasm. I hardly know how to deplore the event for Torrijos himself: death has spared him the bitter disappointment of at last being convinced that the people he would have made free are willing slaves, and that the time when Spain is to lift herself up from the dust has not yet come.

I went the other day with John to the Angerstein Gallery.... The delight I find in a fine painting is one of the greatest and most enduring pleasures I have; my mind retains the impression so long and so very vividly.... Good-by, my dearest H–.

Ever affectionately yours,F. A. K.

Saturday, 31st.—After breakfast went to the theater to rehearse "The Grecian Daughter," and Mr. Ward, for whom the rehearsal was principally given, never came till it was over. Pleasant creature!…

The day seemed beautifully fine, and my father and mother took, a drive, while Henry and I rode, that my father might see the horse I had bought for him; but it was bitterly cold, and I could not make my mare trot, so she cantered and I froze. Mr. Power was there, on that lovely horse of his. I think the Park will become bad company, it is so full of the player folk. Frederick Byng called, and I like him, so I went and sat with him and my father and mother in the library till time to dress for dinner. After dinner wrote "The Star of Seville." I have got into conceit with it again, and so poor, dear, unfortunate Dall coming in while I was working at it, I seized hold of her, like the Ancient Mariner of the miserable "Wedding Guest," and compelled her, in spite of her outcries, to sit down, and then, though she very wisely went fast asleep, I read it to her till tea-time.

My mother wished to sit up and see the New Year in, and so we played quadrille till they sat down to supper, which had been ordered for the vigil, and I went fast asleep. At twelve o'clock kisses and good wishes went round, and we were all very merry, in spite of which I once or twice felt a sudden rush of hot tears into my eyes. All the hours of last year are gone, standing at the bar of Heaven, our witnesses or accusers: the evil done, the good left undone, the opportunities vouchsafed and neglected, the warnings given and unheeded, the talents lent and unworthily or not employed, they are gone from us for ever! forever! and we make merry over the flight of Time! O Time! our dearest friend! how is it that we part so carelessly from you, who never can return to us?… A New Year....

A NEW YEAR, 1832

January 1st, Sunday.—When I came down my father wished me a happy New Year, and I am sure we were both thinking of the same thing, and neither of us felt happy.

Thursday 5th.– … Wrote all the afternoon. Mr. Byng dined with us and stayed till one o'clock, having reduced my mother to silence, and my father to sleep, John to snuff, and Henry and I to playing (sotto voce) "What's my thought like?" to keep ourselves from tumbling off the perch.

Monday, 9th.—Rehearsed "Romeo and Juliet" with all my heart. Oh, light, life, truth, and lovely poetry! I sat on the cold stage, that I might hear them even mumble over their parts as they do. My father seemed to me very weak, and not by any means fit for his work to-night. After dinner went over my part again, and went to the theater at half past five. My new dress was very handsome, though rather burly, in spite of which Dall said it made me look taller, so its rather burliness didn't matter. John Mason played Romeo for the first time; he was beautifully dressed, and looked very well; he acted tolerably well, too. He has a good deal of energy and spirit, but wants feeling and refinement; his voice, unfortunately, is very unpleasant, wiry, harsh, and monotonous; of the last defect he may cure by practice. I came to the side scene just as my father was going on, to hear his reception; it was very great, a perfect thunder of applause; it made the tears start into my eyes. Poor father! They received me with infinite demonstrations of kindness too. I thought I acted very well; I am sure I played the balcony scene well. When the blood keeps rushing up into one's cheeks and neck while one is speaking, I wonder if that ought to be called acting. To be sure, Hamlet's player's face turned pale for Hecuba; so Shakespeare thought acting might make one change color.

I cannot get over the sensibleness of Henry Greville, who was in the pit again to-night. Upon my word! he deserves to see good acting. After the play dear William and Mary Harness came home to supper with us, and we all got into a long discussion about Shakespeare's character, John maintaining that his views of life were gloomy and that he must himself have been an unhappy man. I don't believe a bit of it; no one, I suppose, ever thinks this world, and the life we live in it, absolutely pleasant or good, but the poet's ken, which is as an angel's compared with that of other men, must see more good and beauty, as well as more evil and ugliness, than his short-sighted fellows, and the better elements predominating over the worse (as they do, else the world would fall asunder). The man who takes so wide a view as Shakespeare, whatever his judgment of parts, must, upon the whole, pronounce the whole good rather than bad, and rejoice accordingly. I was too tired and sleepy to talk, or even to listen, much.

Wednesday, 11th.– … Lady Charlotte Greville and General Alaba called. I am always grateful to him for the beautiful copy of Schlegel's "Dramatic Lectures" which he gave me. Lady Charlotte was all curiosity and anxiety about Lord Francis' play. I am afraid the newspapers may not be much inclined to be good-natured about it. I hope he does not care for what may be said of it. In the evening, the boys went to the theater, and I stayed at home, industriously copying "The Star of Seville" till bedtime.

Thursday, 12th.—To the theater to rehearsal, after which I drove to Hayter's (the painter), taking him my bracelets to copy, and permission to apply to the theater wardrobe for any drapery that may suit his purpose. I saw a likeness of Mrs. Norton he is just finishing; very like her indeed, but not her handsomest look. I think it had a slight, curious resemblance to some of the things that have been done of me. I saw a very clever picture of all the Fitzclarences, either by himself or his brother, George Hayter. The women are very prettily grouped, and look picturesque enough; the modern man's dress is an abominable object, of art or nature, and Lord Munster's costume, holding, as he does, the very middle of the canvas, is monstrous (which I don't mean for a rudeness, but a pun). The Right Reverend Father in God (A.F.) is laughably like. They have insisted on having a portrait of their mother introduced in the room in which they are sitting, which seems to me better feeling than taste. Their royal father is absent. I worked at "The Star of Seville" till I went to the theater; as I get nearer the end, I get as eager as a race-horse when in sight of the goal.... The piece was "The School for Scandal;" the house was very full. I did not play well; I spoke too fast, and perceived it, and could not make myself speak slower—an unpleasant sort of nightmare sensation; besides, I was flat, and dull, and pointless—in short, bad was the sum total. How well Ward plays Joseph Surface! The audience were delightful; I never heard such pleasant shouts of laughter.... My father says perhaps they will bring out "The Star of Seville," which notion sometimes brings back my old girlish desire for "fame." Every now and then I feel quite proud at the idea of acting in a play of my own at two and twenty, and then I look again at my "good works," this precious play, and it seems to be no better than "filthy rags." But perhaps I may do better hereafter. Hereafter! Oh dear! how many things are better than doing even the best in this kind! how many things must be better than real fame! but if one has none of those, fame might, perhaps, be pleasant. No actor's fame, or rather celebrity, or rather notoriety, would satisfy me; that is the shadow of a cloud, the echo of a sound, the memory of a dream, nothing come of nothing. The finest actor is but a good translator of another man's work; he does somebody else's thought into action, but he creates nothing, and that seems to me the test of genius, after all.

Friday.—At eleven to the theater to rehearse "Katharine of Cleves." … We all went to the theater to see "Rob Roy," and I was sorry that I did, for it gave me such a home-sick longing for Edinburgh, and the lovely sea-shore out by Cramond, and the sunny coast of Fife. How all my delightful, girlish, solitary rambles came back to me! Why do such pleasant times ever pass? or why do they ever come? The Scotch airs set me crying with all the recollections they awakened. In spite, moreover, of my knowing every plank and pulley, and scene-shifter and carpenter behind those scenes, here was I crying at this Scotch melodrama, feeling my heart puff out my chest for "Rob Roy," though Mr Ward is, alas! my acquaintance, and I know when he leaves the stage he goes and laughs and takes snuff in the green room. How I did cry at the Coronach and Helen Macgregor, though I know Mrs. Lovell is thinking of her baby, and the chorus-singers of their suppers. How I did long to see Loch Lomond and its broad, deep, calm waters once more, and those lovely green hills, and the fir forests so fragrant in the sun, and that dark mountain well, Loch Long, with its rocky cliffs along whose dizzy edge I used to dream I was running in a whirlwind; the little bays where the sun touched the water as it soaked into cushions of thick, starry moss, and the great tufts of purple heather all vibrating with tawny bees! Beautiful wilderness! how glad I am I have once seen it, and can never forget it; nor the broad, crisping Clyde, with its blossoming bean-fields, its jagged rocks and precipices, its gray cliffs and waving woods, and the mountain streams of clear, bright, fairy water, rushing and rejoicing down between the hills to fling themselves into its bosom; and Dumbarton Castle, with its snowy roses of Stuart memory! How glad I am that I have seen it all, if I should never see it again! And "Rob Roy" brought all this and ever so much more to my mind. If I had been a mountaineer, how I should have loved my land! I wish I had some blood-right to love Scotland as I do. Unfortunately, all these associations did not reconcile me to the cockney-Scotch of our Covent Garden actors, and Mackay's Bailie Nicol Jarvie was not the least tender of my reminiscences. [It was at a public dinner in Edinburgh, at which Walter Scott and Mackay were guests, that, in referring to the admirable impersonation of the Bailie, Scott's habitual caution with regard to the authorship of the Waverley Novels for a moment lost its balance, and in his warm commendation of the great comedian's performances a sentence escaped him which appeared conclusive to many of those present, if they were still in doubt upon the subject, that he was their writer.] Miss Inveraretie was a cruel Diana, but who would not be?…

Saturday, 14th.—I rode at two with my father. Passed Tyrone Power; what a clever, pleasant man he is; Count d'Orsay joined us; he was riding a most beautiful mare; and then James Macdonald, cum multus aliis, and I was quite dead, and almost cross, with cold.... After dinner I came up to my room, and set to work like a little galley slave, and by tea-time I had finished my play. "Oh, joy forever! my task is done!" I came down rather tipsy, and proclaimed my achievement. After tea I began copying the last act, but my father desired me to read it to them; so, at about half-past nine, I began. My mother cried much; what a nice woman she is! My father, Dall, and John agreed that it was beautiful, though I believe the two first excellent judges were fast asleep during the latter part of the reading, which was perhaps why they liked it so much. At the end my mother said to me, "I am proud of you, my dear;" and so I have my reward. After a little congratulatory conversation, I came to bed at two o'clock, and slept before my head touched the pillow. So now that is finished, and I am glad it is finished. Is it as good as a second piece of work ought to be? I cannot tell. I think so differently of it at different times that I cannot trust my own judgment. I will begin something else as soon as possible. I wonder why nowadays we make all our tragedies foreign? Romantic, historical, knightly England had people and manners once picturesque and poetical enough to serve her play-writers' turn, though Shakespeare always took his stories, though not his histories, from abroad; but people live tragedies and comedies everywhere and all time. I think by and by I will write an English tragedy. [I little thought then that I should write a play whose miserable story was of my own day, and call it "An English Tragedy."]

Sunday, 15th.– … In the afternoon hosts of people called; among others Lady Dacre, who stayed a long time, and wants us to go to her on Thursday. Copied "The Star of Seville" all the evening. At ten dear Mr. Harness came in, and stayed till twelve.

Monday, 16th.—Rehearsed "Katharine of Cleves" at eleven, but as Lord Francis did not come till twelve we had to begin it again, and kept at it until two. The actors seem frightened about it. Mr. Warde quakes about the pinching (an incident in the play taken, I suppose, from Ruthven's proceeding toward Mary Stewart at Lochleven). I am only afraid I cannot do anything with my part; it is a sort of melodramatic, pantomimic part that I have no capacity for. The fact is, that neither in the first nor last scenes are my legs long enough to do justice to this lady. The Douglas woman who barred the door with her arm to save King James's life must have been a strapping lass, as well a heroine in spirit. I am not tall enough for such feats of arms. Copied my play till time to go to the theater. My aunt Victoire came to my dressing-room just as I was going on, and persuaded dear Dall, who has never once seen me act, to go into the front of the house. She came back very soon in a state of great excitement and distress, saying she could not bear it. How odd that seems! Dear old Dall! she cannot bear seeing me make-believe miserable. The house was very good, and I played fairly well.

Tuesday, 17th.—Went to my mother's room before she was down, with Henry. It is her birthday, and I carried her the black velvet dress I have got for her, with which she seemed much pleased. Went to rehearsal at twelve. Lord and Lady Francis were there, and we acted the whole play, of course, to please them, so that I was half dead at the end of the rehearsal. They want us to go to Lady Charlotte's (Greville) to-morrow. My father said we would if we were all well and in spirits (i.e., if the play was not damped).... I wonder how my dear old Newhaven fish-wife does. "Eh! gude gracious, ma'am, it's yer ain sel come back again!" Poor body! I believe I love the very east wind that blows over the streets of Edinburgh.... After dinner Mrs. Jameson's beautiful toy-likeness of me helped off the time delightfully till the gentlemen came up, and then helped it off delightfully till everybody went away. What a misfortune it is to have a broken nose, like poor dear Thackeray! He would have been positively handsome, and is positively ugly in consequence of it. John and his friend Venables broke the bridge of Thackeray's nose when they were schoolboys playing together. What a mishap to befall a young lad just beginning life! [I suppose my friend Thackeray's injury was one that did not admit a surgical remedy, but my father, late in life, fell down while skating, and broke the bridge of his nose, and Liston, the eminent surgeon, urged him extremely to let him raise it—"build it again," as he used to say. My father, however, declined the operation, and not only remained with his handsome nose disfigured, but suffered a much greater inconvenience, which Liston had predicted—very aggravated deafness in old age, from the stopping of the passages in the nose, which helped to transmit sound to the brain.] After all, I suppose, it does not much signify to a man whether he is ugly or not. Wilkes, who was pre-eminently so, but brilliantly agreeable, used always to say that he was only half an hour behindhand with the handsomest man in England.

Wednesday, 18th.—Went to the theater to rehearse "Katharine of Cleves;" we were kept at it till half-past two. Drove home through the park. The day was beautiful, but my poor father could not get released from that hateful theater, and went without his ride.... I had not felt at all nervous about to-night till the carriage came to the door, and then I turned quite faint and sick with fright. At the theater found Madame le Beau (the forewoman of the great fashionable French milliner, Madame Dévy, by whom all my dresses were made) waiting for me. All was in darkness in my dressing-room; neither Mrs. Mitchell nor Jane were come (my two servants, or dressers, as they are called at the theater). Presently in scuttled the former, puffing, and whimpering apologies, and presently the room was filled with the pleasant incense of eight candles that she lighted, and blew out and relighted, and wondered that we didn't enjoy the operation. Then Jane bounced breathless in, and made our discomfort perfect. I sat speechless, terrified, and disconsolate. My fright was increasing every instant, and by the time I was dressed I shook like an aspen leaf from head to foot, and was as sick as no heart could desire. My dresses were most beautiful, and fitted me to perfection. The house was very fine. My poor dear father, who was as perfect in his part as possible this morning, did not speak three words without prompting; he was so nervous and anxious about the success of the piece that his own part was driven literally out of his head. I never saw anything so curious. To be sure, his illness has shattered him very much, and all the worry he has had this week has not mended matters. However, the play went admirably, and was entirely successful, to assist which result I thought I should have broken a blood-vessel in the last scene, the exertion was so tremendous. My voice was weak with nervousness and excitement, and at last I could hardly utter a word audibly. I almost broke my arm, too, in good earnest, with those horrible iron stanchions. However, it did be over at last, and "all's well that ends well." I was so tired that I could scarcely stand; my mother came down from her box and seemed much pleased with me. She went to my father's room to see if I might not go home instead of to Lady Charlotte's, but he seemed to think it would please them if we made the effort of going for a few minutes; and so I dressed and set off, and there we found a regular "swarry," instead of something to eat and drink, and a chair to sit upon in peace and quiet. There was a room full of all the fine folks in London; very few chairs, no peace and quiet, and heaps of acquaintance to talk to.... All the London world that is in London. Lord and Lady Francis took their success very composedly. I don't think they would have cared much if the play had failed. Henry Greville seemed to be much more interested for them than they for themselves, and discussed it all for a long time with me. I liked him very much.... At long last I got home, and had some supper, but what with fatigue and nervousness, and it—i.e., the supper—so late, I had a most wretched night, and kept dreaming I was out in my part and jumping up in bed, and all sorts of agonies. What a life! I don't steal my money, I'm sure.

Thursday, 19th.– … Henry and I rode in the park, and though the day was detestable, it did me good. As we were walking the horses round by Kensington Gardens, Lord John Russell, peering out of voluminous wrappers, joined us. Certainly that small, sharp-visaged gentleman does not give much outward and visible sign of the inward and spiritual power he possesses and wields over this realm of England just now. His bodily presence might almost be described as St. Paul's. This turner inside out and upside down of our body, social and political, this hero of reform, one of the ablest men in England—I suppose in Europe—he rode with us for a long time, and I thought how H– would have envied me this conversation with her idol.... In the evening, at the theater, though I had gone over my part before going there, for the first time in my play-house experience I was out on the stage. I stopped short in the middle of one of my speeches, thinking I had finished it, whereas I had not given Mr. Warde the cue he was to reply to. How disgraceful!… After the play, my mother called for us in the carriage, and we went to Lady Dacre's, and had a pleasant party enough.... C– G– was there, with her mother (the clever and accomplished authoress of several so-called fashionable novels, which had great popularity in their day). Miss G–, now Lady E– T–, used to be called by us "la Dame Blanche," on account of the dazzling fairness of her complexion. She was very brilliant and amusing, and I remember her saying to one of her admirers one evening, when her snowy neck and shoulders were shining in all the unveiled beauty of full dress, "Oh, go away, P–, you tan me." (The gentleman had a shock head of fiery-red hair.)

Friday.– … I am horribly fagged, and after dinner fell fast asleep in my chair. At the theater, in the evening, the house was remarkably good for a "second night," and the play went off very well.... My voice was much better to-night, though it cracked once most awfully in the last scene, from fatigue.... I think Lord Francis, or the management, or somebody ought to pay me for the bruises and thumps I get in this new play. One arm is black and blue (besides being broken every night) with bolting the door, and the other grazed to the bone with falling in fits upon the floor on my elbows. This sort of tragic acting is a service of some danger, and I object to it much more than to the stabbing and poisoning of the "Legitimate Drama;" in fact, "I do not mind death, but I cannot bear pinching."

Saturday.– … Rode in the park with my father. Lord John Russell rode with us for some time, and was very pleasant. He made us laugh by telling us that Sir Robert Inglis (most bigoted of Tory anti-reformers) having fallen asleep on the ministerial benches at the time of the division the other night, they counted him on their side. What good fun! I never saw a man look so wretchedly worn and harassed as Lord John does. They say the ministry must go out, that they dare not make these new peers, and that the Bill will stick fast by the way instead of passing. What frightful trouble there will be!…

Sunday, 22d.– … After church looked over the critiques in the Sunday papers on "Katharine of Cleves." Some of them were too good-natured, some too ill-natured. The Spectator was exceedingly amusing.

By far the best account and criticism of this piece is Mr. Barham's metrical report of it in the "Ingoldsby Legends." Lord Francis himself used to quote with delight, "She didn't mind death, but she couldn't bear pinching." …