Records of Later Life

by Fanny Kemble

SIDNEY SMITH. [The occasion of my becoming acquainted with my admirable and very kind friend, the Rev. Sydney Smith, was a dinner at Mr. Rogers's, to which I had been asked to meet Lord and Lady Holland, by special desire, as I was afterwards informed, of the latter, who, during dinner, drank out of her neighbor's (Sydney Smith's) glass, and otherwise behaved herself with the fantastic, despotic impropriety in which she frequently indulged, and which might have been tolerated in a spoilt beauty of eighteen, but was hardly becoming in a woman of her age and "personal appearance." When first I came out on the stage, my father and mother, who occasionally went to Holland House, received an invitation to dine there, which included me; after some discussion, which I did not then understand, it was deemed expedient to decline the invitation for me, and I neither knew the grounds of my parents' decision, nor of how brilliant and delightful a society it had then closed the door to me. On my return to England after my marriage, Lady Holland's curiosity revived with regard to me, and she desired Rogers to ask me to meet her at dinner, which I did; and the impression she made upon me was so disagreeable that, for a time, it involved every member of that dinner-party in a halo of undistinguishing dislike in my mind.

My sister had joined us in the evening, and sat for a few moments by Lady Holland, who dropped her handkerchief. Adelaide, who was as unpleasantly impressed as myself by that lady, for a moment made no attempt to pick it up; but, reflecting upon her age and size, which made it difficult for her to stoop for it herself, my sister picked it up and presented it to her, when Lady Holland, taking it from her, merely said, "Ah! I thought you'd do it." Adelaide said she felt an almost irresistible inclination to twitch it from her hand, throw it on the ground again, and say, "Did you? then now do it yourself!"

Altogether the evening was unsuccessful, if its purpose had been an acquaintance between Lady Holland and myself; and I remember a grotesque climax to my dissatisfaction in the destruction of a lovely nosegay of exquisite flowers which my sister had brought with her, and which, towards the middle of the evening, mysteriously disappeared, and was looked for and inquired for in vain, until poor Lord Holland, who was then dependent upon the assistance of two servants to move from his seat, being raised from the sofa on which he had been deposited when he was brought up from the dining-room, the flowers, which Adelaide had left there, were discovered, pressed as flat as if for preservation in a book of botanical specimens. The kindly, good-natured gentleman departed, luckily, without knowing the mischief he had done, or seeing my sister's face of ludicrous dismay at the condition of her flowers; which Sydney Smith, however, observed, and in a minute exclaimed, "Ah! I see! Oh dear, oh dear, what a pity! Hot-bed! hot-bed!"

It has always been a matter of amazement to me that Lady Holland should have been allowed to ride rough-shod over society, as she did for so long, with such complete impunity. To be sure, in society, well-bred persons are always at the mercy of ill-bred ones, who have an immense advantage over everybody who shrinks from turning a social gathering into closed lists for the exchange of impertinences; and people gave way to Lady Holland's domineering rudeness for the sake of their hosts and fellow-guests, and spared her out of consideration for them. Another reason for the toleration shown Lady Holland was the universal esteem and affectionate respect felt for her husband, whose friends accepted her and her peculiarities for his sake, and could certainly have given no stronger proof of their regard for him.

The most powerful inducement to patience, however, to the London society upon which Lady Holland habitually trampled, was the immense attraction of her house and of the people who frequented it. Holland House was, for a series of years, the most brilliant, charming, and altogether delightful social resort. Beautiful, comfortable, elegant, picturesque,—an ideal house, full of exquisite objects and interesting associations, where persons the most distinguished for birth, position, mental accomplishments, and intellectual gifts, met in a social atmosphere of the highest cultivation and the greatest refinement,—the most perfect civilization could produce nothing more perfect in the way of enjoyment than the intercourse of that delightful mansion. As Lady Tankerville pathetically exclaimed on Lady Holland's death, "Ah! poore, deare Lady 'Olland! what shall we do? It was such a pleasant 'ouse!"—admission to which was, to most of its frequenters, well worth some toleration of its mistress's brusqueries.

LADY HOLLAND. If, as a friend of mine once assured me (a well-born, well-bred man of the best English society), it was quite well worth while to "eat a little dirt" to get the entrée of Stafford House, I incline to think the spoonfuls of dirt Lady Holland occasionally administered to her friends were accepted by them as the equivalent for the delights of her "pleasant 'ouse"; and that I did not think so, and had no desire to go there upon those terms, was, I imagine, the only thing that excited Lady Holland's curiosity about me, or her desire to have me for her guest. She complained to Charles Greville that I would not let her become acquainted with me, and twice after our first unavailing meeting at Rogers's, made him ask me to meet her again: each time, however, with no happier result.

The first time, after making herself generally obnoxious at dinner, she at length provoked Rogers, who, the conversation having fallen upon the subject of beautiful hair, and Lady Holland saying, "Why, Rogers, only a few years ago, I had such a head of hair that I could hide myself in it, and I've lost it all," merely answered, "What a pity!"—but with such a tone that an exultant giggle ran round the table at her expense.

After dinner, when the unfortunate female members of the party had to encounter Lady Holland unprotected, she singled out one of the ladies of the Baring family, to whom, however, she evidently meant to be particularly gracious; not, I think, without some intention of also pleasing me by her patronizing laudation of American people and American things; winding up with, "You know, my dear, we are Americans." The young Baring lady, who may or may not have been as familiar as I was with the Bingham and Baring alliances of early times in Philadelphia, merely raised her eyebrows, and said, "Indeed!" while I kept my lips close and breathed no syllable of Longfellow's house near Boston, which had been not only Washington's temporary abode, but the residence, in colonial days, of the Vassalls, to whom Lady Holland belonged, and where Longfellow showed me one day an iron plate at the back of one of the fire-places, with the rebus, the punning arms (Armoiries parlantes) of the Vassall family: a vase with a sun above it, Vas Sol.

Je suis méchante, ma [chére], as Madame de Sévigné wrote to her daughter; et cela m'a fait plaisir, to suppress the nice little anecdote which might have helped Lady Holland on so pleasantly just at that juncture.

But, holding one's tongue because one chooses, and being compelled to hold one's tongue by somebody else, is quite a different thing; and I am not sure that the main reason of my dislike to Lady Holland is not that I held my tongue to "spite her" during the whole course of the last dinner-party to which Rogers invited me to meet her. The party consisted of fewer men than women, and Lady —— and myself agreed to take each other down to dinner, which we did. Just, however, as we were seating ourselves, Lady Holland called out from the opposite side of the table, "No, no, ladies, I can't allow that; I must have Mrs. Butler by me, if you please." Thus challenged, I could not, without making a scene with Lady Holland, and beginning the poet's banquet with a shock to everybody present, refuse her very dictatorial behest; and therefore I left my friendly neighbor, Lady ——, and went round to the place assigned me by the imperious autocratess of the dinner-table: between herself and Dr. Allen ("the gentle infidel," "Lady Holland's atheist," as he was familiarly called by her familiars).