"It may not be amiss here to say one word with regard to the gratitude which audiences in some parts of the world claim from actors, and about which I have lately heard a most alarming out-cry. Do actors generally exercise their profession to please themselves and gratify their own especial delight in self-exhibition? Is that profession in its highest walks one of small physical exertion and fatigue, (I say nothing of mental exertion) and in its lower paths is it one of much gain, glory, or ease? Do audiences, on the other hand, use to come in crowds to play-houses to see indifferent performers? and when there do they out of pure charity and good-will, bestow their applause as well as their money upon tiresome performers?—I will answer these points as far as regards myself, and therein express the gratitude which I feel towards the frequenters of theatres. I individually disliked my profession, and had neither pride nor pleasure in the exercise of it. I exercised it as a matter of necessity, to earn my bread,—and verily it was in the sweat of my brow. The parts which fell to my lot were of a most laborious nature, and occasioned sometimes violent mental excitement, always immense physical exertion, and sometimes both. In those humbler walks of my profession, from whose wearisomeness I was exempted by my sudden favor with the public, I have seen, though not known, the most painful drudgery,—the most constant fatigue,—the most sad contrast between real cares and feigned merriments,—the most anxious penurious and laborious existence imaginable. For the part of my question which regarded the audiences, I have only to say, that I never knew, saw, heard or read of any set of people who went to a play-house to see what they did not like; this being the case it never occurred to me that our houses were full but as a necessary consequence of our own attraction, or that we were applauded, but as the result of our own exertions. I was glad the houses were full, because I was earning my livelihood, and wanted the money; and I was glad the people applauded us, because it is pleasant to please, and human vanity will find some sweetness in praise, even when reason weighs its worth most justly." Vol. ii. pp. 109-110.
2 "Moore talks about Byron's writing with the same pen full of ink, 'Adieu, adieu, my native land,' and 'Hurra, Hodgson, we are going.' It proves nothing, except what I firmly believe, that we must not look for the real feelings of writers to their works—or rather that what they give us, and what we take for heart feeling, is head weaving—a species of emotion engendered somewhere betwixt the bosom and the brain, and bearing the same proportion of resemblance to reality that a picture does—that is—like feeling, but not feeling—like sadness, but not sadness—like what it appears, but not indeed that very thing: and the greater a man's power of thus producing sham realities, the greater his qualification for being a poet." Journal, vol. i., pp. 21-22.
We have read Mrs. Butler's work with untiring interest—indeed the vivacity of its style, the frequent occurrence of beautiful descriptions, of just and forcible observations, and many sound views of the condition of society in this country—the numerous characteristic anecdotes, and some most discriminating criticisms of actors and acting, must stamp her work as one of no ordinary merit. And these attractions in a great measure neutralize, although they cannot redeem, her innumerable faults of language, her sturdy prejudices, her hasty opinions, and her ungenerous sarcasms—These abound in the Journal, and yet it is more than probable that her censorious spirit has to a great extent been suppressed, as almost every page is studded with asterisks, indicating, we may presume, that her sins of hasty censure have been greatly diminished to the public eye, by the saving grace of omission.
The defects of the work are not confined to the exhibition of prejudices and the expression of unjust opinions: the style and language is often coarse, we might say vulgar; and her more impassioned exclamations are often characterized by a vehemence which is very like profanity, an offence that would not be tolerated in a writer of the other sex. We cite a few, from among the many passages which we have noted, as specimens of undignified, unfeminine and unscholarlike phraseology: The word "dawdled" seems a great favorite with Mrs. Butler—as, for instance: "Rose at eight, dawdled about," &c. vol. i. p. 18. "Rose at half past eight, dawdled about as usual," p. 21. "Came up and dawdled upon deck," p. 47. "Came home, daudled about my room," p. 97.—And in numberless other instances this word is used, apparently, to signify loitering or dallying, spelled indiscriminately dawdled, or daudled. Indeed so much does our fair authoress seem to have been addicted to the habit which the word implies—be it what it may—that in the second volume she speaks of having "dressed for once without dawdling," as an uncommon occurrence. She is also fond of the word "gulp," and uses it in strange combinations, as—"My dear father, who was a little elated, made me sing to him, which I greatly gulped at," p. 61. "I gulped, sat down, and was measured," (for a pair of shoes,) p. 103—"on the edge of a precipice, several hundred feet down into the valley: it made me gulp to look at it," &c.
At page 97, she tells us, that "when the gentlemen joined us they were all more or less 'how come'd you so indeed?'" and shortly after, "they all went away in good time, and we came to bed:
| ——————————————To bed—to sleep— To sleep!—perchance to be bitten! aye—there's the scratch: And in that sleep of our's what bugs may come, Must give us pause." |
She thus describes the motions of persons on ship-board, in rough weather: "Rushing hither and thither in all directions but the one they purpose going, and making as many angles, fetches, and ridiculous deviations from the point they aim at, as if the devil had tied a string to their legs, and jerked it every now and then in spite." p. 18.
At page 99: "Supped, lay down on the floor in absolute meltiness away, and then came to bed." "When I went on, I was all but tumbling down at the sight of my Jaffier, who looked like the apothecary in Romeo and Juliet, with the addition of some devilish red slashes along his thighs and arms," p. 107. "Away walloped the four horses," &c. p. 131. "How they did wallop and shamble about," &c. p. 149. "Now I'll go to bed; my cough's enough to kill a horse," p. 153. "Heaven bless the world, for a conglomerated amalgamation of fools," p. 190. "He talked an amazing quantity of thickish philosophy, and moral and sentimental potter." In truth, "potter" and "pottering," seem to be favorites equally with daudling, and she as frequently makes use of them. For instance, "He sat down, and pottered a little," p. 58. They "took snuff, eat cakes, and pottered a deal," p. 182. "After dinner pottered about clothes," &c. p. 220. "Sat stitching and pottering an infinity," p. 230—and many other varieties of the same word. But of the infinite number of literary novelties of this sort, it would be impossible, within the limits we have prescribed to ourselves, to give more than a few specimens. We will take two or three more at random: "My feet got so perished with the cold, that I didn't know what to do," p. 230. "He was most exceedingly odd and dauldrumish. I think he was a little 'how come'd you so indeed.'" p. 195; "yesterday began like May, with flowers and sun-shine, it ended like December, with the sulks, and a fit of crying. The former were furnished me by my friends and Heaven, the latter by myself and the d——l." p. 198. "At six o'clock, D—— roused me; and grumpily enough I arose." 1b. "At one o'clock, came home, having danced myself fairly off my legs." p. 227.
Such blemishes as these, apparently uniting the slang of the boarding school and the green room, deform the work of Mrs. Butler, and are much to be lamented, became they may have the effect of blinding the hasty, prejudiced or fastidious reader, to the many beauties which are to be found in its pages. Indeed the work has already encountered the severest criticisms from the newspaper press, imbittered by the many censorious remarks of Mrs. B. upon the manners and institutions of the country; her severe, and in many instances just strictures upon the state of society in the cities in which she sojourned; and the supercilious sneers which she has uttered against the editorial fraternity, "the press gang," as she uncourteously denominates that numerous and powerful body. The censures of her book, are doubtless, in the main, well deserved; but in their excess, the merits which the "Journal" unquestionably possesses in great abundance and of a high order, have in many cases been passed by unheeded by her indignant critics. And here we cannot refrain from the utterance of a remark which has frequently occurred to us, and which is brought forcibly to mind by the reception which Mrs. Butler's criticisms upon America have met with: we think that too much sensitiveness is felt by our countrymen, at the unfavorable opinions expressed by foreigners, in regard to our social, political, and moral condition—and that the press, as the organ of public sentiment, is prone to work itself into a superfluous frenzy of indignation, at what are generally considered "foreign libels" upon us. To be indignant at gross misrepresentations of our country, is an exhibition of patriotism in one of its most laudable forms. But the sentiment may be carried too far, and may blind us to evils and deficiencies in our condition, when pointed out by a foreigner, which it would be well for us rather to consider with a view to their amendment. It may so far blunt our sense of the justice of the maxim "fas est, ab hoste doceri," as to induce us to entertain jealousy and aversion for the most judicious suggestions, if offered by others than our own countrymen. Entertaining these views, we have read Mrs. Butler's work, with a disposition to judge of it impartially; and while we have perceived many instances of captious complaints in regard to matters of trifling importance in themselves; and frequently a disposition to build up general censures upon partial, individual causes of disgust, displeasure or disappointment—we feel bound to say, that, taking the work as a whole, we do not think a deliberate disposition to misrepresent, or a desire to depreciate us, can be discovered in it. The strictures upon our modes of living, our social relations, &c. are often unworthy the writer. She complains for instance, that "the things (at the hotel in New York,) were put on the table in a slovenly, outlandish fashion; fish, soup, and meat, at once, and puddings, and tarts, and cheese, at another once; no finger glasses, and a patched table cloth—in short, a want of that style and neatness which is found in every hotel in England. The waiters too, remind us of the half-savage highland lads, that used to torment us under that denomination in Glasgow—only that they were wild Irish instead of Scotch." vol. i. p. 49.
Frequently too, she complains of the audiences before whom she performed, with occasional reproof of their ungracious conduct in not sufficiently applauding her father or herself: She says, of the first appearance of the former at the Park Theatre: