330

THANKSGIVING AT ST PAUL'S.

[1872. crowded Cathedral was too much for her, and brought on a headache that lasted for days, and with it the sleeplessness that through life pursued her. In her Diary at this time the following passage occurs: "Oh, sleep, why have you always been so reluctant to come to me? Even in my childhood I remember the want of you vividly, and the looking round on the little beds to see the others asleep, and I alone without you. I fear you will never take to me kindly till you are obliged, and when I drop into my long last one. Oh, sleep, be tender to me then!"

CHAPTER XV.

WHEN it became generally known that my wife had practically bidden adieu to the stage, but would take no formal leave of it, the expression of regret was general. Many kind letters poured in upon her, among them one from Miss Geraldine Jewsbury, in which she writes:

It is grievous to think of all your genius (as regards its exhibition) passing away at its best. Still nothing can take away the Past, and what you have been, and what you have done for the stage in England will endure as long as there is a theatre in existence; and, what you will value still more, your example and career will remain to be a help and support to many in all ranks and professions, of which you will never hear, and who may only live in a humble position, attaining no distinction except that of bravely and honourably doing their best.

This year (1873) was saddened to my wife by the death of several of her valued friends. On April 29 she heard of that of Mr Macready, and writes: "Just heard of the death of dear Mr Macready, which took place last Sunday. May the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, be with him! Wrote to Mrs Macready. How sad it has made me. How all the long ago looks like yesterday! He was a true friend then." She would have gone to his funeral at Kensal Green had not her state of health forbidden. Next year the publication of his Autobiography and Diaries caused her great disappointment. Of it she writes (February 7, 1874): "Finished the Macready Memoirs. Like the latter part by far the best. Still I wish the book had not been given to the world, there are so many objectionable things in it. Alas! for my earliest dramatic hero! He has dethroned himself, and given me a feeling of depression and sadness, which I cannot throw off. My own fault, no doubt.

332

AT BIRMINGHAM FESTIVAL.

[1873.

My youth and inexperience made all seem perfect, where so much was good and worthy of imitation. He should have been a schoolmaster, as his [first] wife used to say."

A visit to Birmingham during the Festival Week was a pleasure for which my wife had longed for years. It was made more pleasant by being with the kindest of hosts, the late Mr and Mrs James Beale of Edgbaston. The singers were Titiens, Trebelli, Albani, Santley, and Sims Reeves. Speaking of the performance of the Elijah, she says: "Think I have heard some of the solo parts better sung. But oh! such a chorus, such a band! Perfect!!" Arthur Sullivan's Light of the World was first heard at this festival, and had a great success. He was living, a guest, in the same house with us. "This morning," she writes, "we had arranged a wreath of laurel leaves (my maid made it), and after supper Mrs Beale made me crown Mr Sullivan, and dub him 'Knight of the Festival.' It was great fun, and all were very happy." There was much given at this festival of unusual interest, but my wife's enthusiasm was roused to the highest point by the execution of the choruses in Handel's Israel in Egypt and Judas Maccabeus. "Too much for one day. Deeply moved and quite exhausted. What wonderful choruses, and how wonderfully executed by all concerned! Words and music wedded in the grandest manner possible. One feels to have half-a-dozen lives moved and throbbing in countless pulses and heart-thrills to it all. How grand life seems while listening! It would be worth while living, if only for this painful sacred joy." It was long before the echo of these magnificent choruses died away. Days after we got back to our quiet home on the Dee "these tremendous choruses," she writes, "keep beating in the brain. Cannot sleep. Still this grand music and the overwhelming choruses throbbing in my head and pressing on my nerves." This ceased in time, but the performance of these choruses at Birmingham lived in the memory as unsurpassable interpretations of the inspired compositions of the great master, whom some call the Shakespeare and others the Michael Angelo of music.1 A favourite

1 Writing (February 19, 1874) after hearing the Messiah at the Albert Hall, she says: "The music was well sung, but the Birmingham Festival choruses have spoiled me for all others. The grand words and the meaning of them you heard and felt."

1873.]

PERFORMS FOR ROYAL THEATRICAL FUND.

333

anecdote with my wife was that of Handel's reply to Lord Kinnaird, when, after the first performance of the Messiah in Dublin, for which it was written, he thanked him for the entertainment which he had given the town. "My Lord," said Handel, "I should be sorry if I only entertained them. I wish to make them better." In this spirit she had always worked in her own art.

My wife had been much pressed by the Drury Lane managers to enter into a short engagement for the autumn. But this she resolutely declined; and indeed her mind was made up to undertake no more professional engagements. She felt it was buying her pleasure in acting too dearly to act with such companies as were alone now available. At the same time she was ready to give her services for any special good purpose. She had always liberally supported the Royal Theatrical Fund, and when its committee came to her representing that their funds were low, and that they urgently needed help, she at once placed her services at their disposal for an afternoon performance, at the Haymarket Theatre, of As You Like It. The other parts were filled by Miss Henrietta Hodson, Miss Kate Bishop, Mrs Fitzwilliam, Mr Compton, Mr Ryder, Mr Chippendale, Mr Charles Wyndham, Mr Henry Neville, Mr J. Clarke, and other experienced actors. Financially the performance was a complete success, yielding, as the secretary of the fund wrote to my wife, a profit of £259, an amount beyond our most sanguine hopes, for which we are entirely indebted to your kind and generous thought." Rosalind herself went to the theatre full of misgiving, having only partially recovered from a severe attack of influenza; but after the play she writes: " Dec. 20.-Slept well. A bright morning, sunshiny and clear. God be praised! Performance began at a little after two o'clock, and finished about five. All went off smoothly. The pit being entirely turned into stalls made the play go off with less vivacity and cheeriness than usual, and then afternoon too! One can never be in the right spirit for any great enjoyment till the evening. Although I was not quite satisfied for my great poet-master-did not think his exquisite wit and deep wisdom thoroughly understood and appreciated-for myself I had only cause for gratitude and pleasure. My voice was my 'delicate spirit,' too, and did all I wished."

66

334

MR WEBSTER'S FAREWELL BENEFIT.

[1873.

The audience were happy in seeing justice done to Shakespeare's work by a company of skilled actors, such as could have been got together only for a special occasion. Of the Rosalind a leading Sunday paper wrote next morning :

...

It was worth walking twenty miles to hear the shout of welcome that greeted Miss Helen Faucit when she entered as Rosalind in the third scene, and the generous and accomplished lady soon proved her capacity to delight an audience as much as ever. Of the many points in this delightful impersonation we hardly know which to praise the most. . . . Rather let us say that in conception and execution the entire performance was an ideal one— something to be treasured up as a lasting remembrance. This we are convinced everybody must have felt when, after speaking the epilogue with winning archness, the curtain fell, to be raised again after long-continued applause, in order that Miss Faucit might be seen once more.

Many letters came of congratulations, but none was more valued than that of Mr S. C. Hall, in which he wrote:

I have known long and well your true copy of the Rosalind that Shakespeare drew, from the first time you acted the part down to yesterday. I never at any time saw you to greater advantage-more true, more perfect. I think I might say I never saw you to so great advantage; for to all that was good has been added something that is better. I fancied I could see a more thorough appreciation of the poet-at all events, a sounder exercise of judgment, a deeper insight into the character depicted, a more entire absorption of art into nature. It was the actual woman I saw in every scene-nay, in every passage. If there had been study, it was not "detectable"; if there was, the mind could not perceive it.

The "merrier" parts, I confess, took me by surprise. I suppose I had forgotten them. But every word, every motion, apparently every thought, gave me an idea of actuality such as I have rarely seen in my long life. Not a word of any sentence was lost from the beginning to the end; and the epilogue was a piece of acting (if acting it must be called) so exquisite, as the stage has seldom witnessed, and never seen surpassed.

It was not long before my wife was again called from her retirement to play in a farewell benefit performance got up for Mr Webster. Lady Teazle, the part assigned to her, she writes, (February 9, 1874) "is quite out of my way, and I have no dresses. But I have been obliged to consent." Her dressmaker had to be called in. "How troublesome and expensive," she writes a few days after, "this getting up dresses for a night." Nor was this all. It was cruel weather, and she caught a severe cold at the rehearsals, so that her chronicle of the performance is