Sunday, 22d, Liverpool.—I did not think there was such another day in store for me as this. I thought all was past and over, and had forgotten the last drop in the bitter cup.... The day was bitter cold, and we were obliged to have a fire.
Liverpool, July 22.
My dear Mrs. Jameson,
I fear you are either anxious or vexed, or perhaps both, about the arrival of your books, and my non-acknowledgment of them. They reached me in all safety, and but for the many occupations which swallow up my time would have been duly receipted ere this. Thank you very much for them, for they are very elegant outside, and the dedication page, with which I should have been most ungracious to find any fault. The little sketch on that leaf differs from the design you had described to me some time ago, and I felt the full meaning of the difference. I read through your preface all in a breath; there are many parts of it which have often been matters of discussion between us, and I believe you know how cordially I coincide with most of the views expressed in it. The only point in your preliminary chapter on which I do not agree with you is the passage in which you say that humor is, of necessity and in its very essence, vulgar. I differ entirely with you here. I think humor is very often closely allied to poetry; not only a large element in highly poetic minds, which surely refutes your position, but kindred to the highest and deepest order of imagination, and frequently eminently fanciful and graceful in its peculiar manifestations. However, I cannot now make leisure to write about this, but while I read it I scored the passage as one from which I dissented. That, however, of course does not establish its fallacy; but I think, had I time, I could convince you of it. I acted Juliet on Wednesday, and read your analysis of it before doing so. Oh, could you but have seen and heard my Romeo!... I am sure it is just as well that an actress on the English stage at the present day should not have too distinct a vision of the beings Shakespeare intended to realize, or she might be induced, like the unfortunate heroine of the song, to "hang herself in her garters." To be sure there is always my expedient to resort to, of acting to a wooden vase; you know I had one put upon my balcony, in "Romeo and Juliet," at Covent Garden, to assist Mr. Abbott in drawing forth the expression of my sentiments. I have been reading over Portia to-day; she is still my dream of ladies, my pearl of womanhood.... I must close this letter, for I have many more to write to-night, and it is already late. Once more, thank you very much for your book, and believe me,
Ever yours very truly,
F. A. K.
August 1st.—Sailed for America.
The book referred to in this letter was Mrs. Jameson's "Analysis of Shakespeare's Female Characters," which she very kindly dedicated to me. The etching in the title-page was changed from the one she at first intended to have put in it, and represented a female figure in an attitude of despondency, sitting by the sea, and watching a ship sailing toward the setting sun; a design which I know she meant to have reference to my departure. I believe she subsequently changed it again to the one she had first executed, and which was of a less personal significance.... I exchanged no more letters with my friend Miss S——, who joined me at Liverpool, and remained with me till I sailed for America.... "A trip," as it is now called, to Europe or America, is one of the commonest of experiences, involving, apparently, so little danger, difficulty, or delay, that the feelings with which I made my first voyage across the Atlantic must seem almost incomprehensible to the pleasure-seeking or business-absorbed crowds who throng the great watery highway between the two continents.
But when I first went to America, steam had not shortened the passage of that formidable barrier between world and world. A month, and not a week, was the shortest and most favorable voyage that could be looked for. Few men, and hardly any women, undertook it as a mere matter of pleasure or curiosity; and though affairs of importance, of course, drew people from one shore to the other, and the stream of emigration had already set steadily westward, American and European tourists had not begun to cross each other by thousands on the high seas in search of health or amusement.
I was leaving my mother, my brothers and sister, my friends and my country, for two years, and could only hear from them at monthly intervals. I was going to work very hard, in a distasteful vocation, among strangers, from whom I had no right to expect the invariable kindness and indulgence my own people had favored me with. My spirits were depressed by my father's troubled fortunes, and I had just received the first sharp, smarting strokes in the battle of life; those gashes from which poor "unbruised youth," in its infinite self-compassion, fancies its very life-blood must all pour away; little imagining under what gangrened, festering wounds brave life will still hold on its way, and urge to the hopeless end its warfare with unconquerable sorrow. There is nothing more pathetic than the terrified impatience of youth under its first experience of grief, and its vehement appeal of "Behold, and see if any sorrow be like unto my sorrow!" to the patient adepts in suffering such as it has not yet begun to conceive of. Orlando's adjuration to the exiled duke in "As You Like It," and the wise Prince's reply, seem to me one of the most exquisite illustrations of the comparative griefs of youth and age.