Elizabeth bason or box what shall I say?' that is other-people's-business-notes, and now to be placed at the door. I am all for my Babbie! also wants to go-but Pepoli hesitates -from political fears-Pepoli I think needs only to show his face to make Austria entirely at ease respecting his purpose whether he appear as a patron of the school or no. "Dear child, I write you all this wash to-night while I have leisure and one knows not what to-morrow or next day may bring forth. I have generally leisure in the evenings, but when C. is sitting opposite me at the same table, besides his objecting to the 'squirting of my pen,' I feel always as if there was a shadow between me and the person I am addressing-you will understand this feeling better than you once could have done having got accustomed yourself to a certain seclusion while writing or doing anything with your head! To-night C. is gone to Darwin's. To Jeannie Welsh. The anniversary was the grand day of Mazzini's Italian Association. Mrs. Jameson is the writer on Art. "Wednesday [Nov. 17, 1842]. "DARLING The four ill-written pages I sent you yesterday, evinced a more determined concern for your happiness, than twenty well-written would have done under more favourable circumstances! For yesterday was a bad day with me, 'upon my honour,' and the second bad day too which made it the worse to bear up against. Now I am 'pretty well' again and hasten to make hay while the sun shines, that is to write while the rain rains. With dry weather one may foresee there will come a flight of visitors to make up for time lost-to them. I have written a trio of "First of the Anniversary: 'the moral satisfaction was complete, the financial rather disappointing.' Thirteen pounds was the sum collected including the immortal five-from which deduct the expenses and there would remain, I am afraid zero or perhaps even a deficit the supper of itself must have gone with a half-forty-five gallons of beer, fifty pounds of macaroni, and roast beef of unascertained quantity! To be sure there were two hundred and fifty sat down to what the Dumfries Courier would call 'the festive board,' and the fine times of miraculous loaves and fishes are long gone by; tho' God knows if ever there was a time when men had more need of them! Think of the boiled dead dog! The supper transacted itself in a tavern hard-by, at the close of the business-leaving the schoolroom to more poetical purposes to distribution of prizesspeeches of 'the founder' (anglicé the Committee) and 'what shall I say, strange things upon my honour'! You may be sure that old Petrucci would not let slip so fine an occasion of gratifying his melodramatic propensities and accordingly a series of scenas were most unexpectedly introduced which the audience must have been charmed to find themselves 'assisting at'-for nothing-I mean gratis. the first, poor unsuspecting, horrorstruck Mazzini was made at once the hero and the victim! When all had spoken who were to speak, he came forward-very shame-faced, as you may fancy, and 'unveiling himself as the original founder' (in defiance to Baldanoni who had said he dared not) he made a most moving address to the school as learners and as patriots. Of When he had finished amidst shouting a dramatized poem written for the like to bring down the ceiling there stepped forth from the pupils' benches the least boy-some twelve years old who advanced blushing, and laid a bouquet at his feet! then putting his little hand in his breast, he pulled out a little paper, and proceeded to read a little sonnet to his (Mazzini's) honour and glory! Just fancy this! and consider the sort of man! and admire him that he did not turn round and brain old Petrucci on the spot-from whose goose-head of course this coup de théatre must have emanated! nor was that all the trials his modesty had to undergo-an Italian girl next advanced from the pupils' benches (there are nine female pupils some English, the wives of Italian operatives-and some Italian) a very beautiful girl too-came forward in an accès of enthusiasm genuine for this part of the exhibition was spontaneous and humbly besought him to give her one flower of his bouquet!! and an English woman, who would not be behind the foreigner, called God to witness that he was the Prophet of her time!! The moral satisfaction might well be 'complete'more than complete one would say! Nor had Petrucci forgotten himselfwhen the company were about to disperse one of the pupils again stepped forth, and declared that it would make their enjoyment perfect if Mr. Petrucci would favour them with an improvisation-'Oh, impossible, impossible!' with all sorts of coyish grimacing-at length he allowed himself to be so far prevailed upon that 'he would read them a composed poem of his own'which he thereupon drew all ready from his pocket-and calling to him 'the Dr. Rossetti' the two old fools proceeded to deliver in horrible recitative "Mrs. Wright the large Dairy woman at the corner died the other morning, and her husband has been a great object of interest to the neighbourhood especially to Helen ever since it was a sort of Mahomet and Kadijah affair the woman -the woman a prosperous widow advanced in years took him, a poor lad, to keep not her camels but her cows-and finding him a good lad married him. She has died at seventytwo-and he still a young man is inconsolable! 'He cannot be persuaded,' says Helen, 'to taste either meat or drink.' 'How long is it,' said I, 'when did she die?" "This morning at nine o'clock'-it was then eleven!the poor fellow may have loved his old wife, however, very sincerely, and be sincerely to be pitied—altho' the fast was nothing to speak of-à propos of fasts-C. was reading out of one of his big books last night the only fast worth mentioning I ever heard out of them (the old chronicles I mean). A certain Sir John Compton displayed his vocation to holiness at so early an age 'that when he was yet an infant on his mother's breast he fasted two days in the week-on Wednesdays and Fridays he did wholly abstain to suck!!'there's a kid!" To Jeannie Welsh. The fame of Carlyle was high in America, and no American of any literary pretensions thought a pilgrimage to England com plete without a visit to Cheyne Row. For the honestly sympathetic among them Mrs. Carlyle, as appears later, had a great liking: but she had an unfailing flair for empty pretension, and does not spare Mrs. Sigourney. "Monday, [Jan. 9, 1843]. who followed at her heels-the male in an embroidered satin vest-the female also in satin with-fancy it in that room-and in that company!-with a gold tiara on her head! These two never spoke a word but sat with their eyes fixed on Carlyle as if they had paid their shillings at the door. Mrs. Sigourney also made large eyes at him him now and then to make the lion roar, but he was not in the vein-and would not roar finely that night for all she could do. The rest of us meanwhile, feeling ourselves aggrieved at being regarded with no more curiosity or politeness than as many domestic cats in comparison of the Lion, repayed them in their own coin-I never addressed one word to them!-this is a literal fact of 'her who helped to make that evening so pleasant to remembrance.' Faith is it not true that 'we reap not where we have not sown' my harvests are far oftenest of that highly improbable sort." "I send Helen an autograph of the American Poetess Mrs. Sigourney--and she took the liberty of poking at which does infinite credit to her total want of penetration!—the evening of which she makes such grateful mention-would have been remembered by anyone else with feelings of quite another sort even I who do not give much way to remorse, have often had qualms of conscience in thinking about it. Her coming and still more her bringing along with her two geerpoles of the name of 'Johnson or Tomson,' a male and a female (as little Miss Adam would say did I tell you of her asking me in the presence of Mazzini whether Gorgon, whom she styled 'one of the graces,' for my better understanding, 'was a male or a female?') her coming with this tag-ragery quite spoiled a pleasant party that happened to be here the Wedgewoods, Darwin, Mrs. Rich and Julia Smith. We had all set in to be talkative and confidentialwhen this figure of an over-the-waterPoetess-beplastered with rouge and pomatum-bare-necked at an age which had left certainty far behindwith long ringlets that never grew where they hung-smelling marvellously of camphor or hartshorn and oil -all glistening in black satin as if she were an apothecary's puff for black sticking-plaster and staring her eyes out, to give them animation-stalked in and by the very barber-block-ish look of her reduced us all to silence which effect was heightened by the pair To Jeannie Welsh. Gambardella, the Italian artist who was painting Mrs. Carlyle's portrait as a gift to Jeannie Welsh, gets into a domestic tangle through an ill worded advertisement. "[April 4, 1843.] "Great news for thee, 'insinuating' Babbie!-my family has received an addition of four new members! Carlyle made the grave discovery some three weeks ago that the cat—our ‘he cat' was 'all full of kittens'—and accordingly yesterday he or as we must now I suppose call him-she brought forth-modestly-in the coal-hole four little angels of kittens-black-and white-the tender images of their paternal parent whom I observed this morning, sauntering with a melancholy reflective air thro' the back premises as if foreboding the untimely end of his innocent offspring! To be sure they must be drowned in the course of the day; and that is piteous to think of! "For the rest; your picture is finished -I sat again on Friday from ten till two! and he worked at it by himself all the rest of that day! so in point of finishing you may fancy it has had all manner of justice done to it—indeed I think Mrs. Milner Gibson looks coarse beside me! As for the likeness; you are to know for your comfort that he has now worked the estasi pretty well out of it—and it looks simple enough-Carlyle thinks too simple for anything!' (as you say in Lancashire). The eyes, he says, 'want expression' the mouth 'wants character'-but for one person that finds it less inspiredlooking than the original there will be twenty finding it excessively flattered. Gambardella's own criticism on it when finished was, (with a look of ineffable self-complacency) 'it looks too young! I must put in some wrinkles!' The frames are not yet ready-and besides he seems to wish that I should keep it here for a few days that the visitors may see it—a harmless vanity in which it were but fair to indulge him. So be patient-it is not even dry yet. "My last day's sitting was enlivened by the most extraordinary of all excitements he has yet found out for himself. I do not speak of the 'wittels' he produced for me about a hundredweight of rusks in a great paper-bag-a whole hoop of figs Guinness's Porter, Scotch Ale-Indian Ale-Cyder and something else with an incomprehensible Italian name! This gigantic lunch was laughable enough but not to be recorded as in the sphere of the absolutely extraordinary. However, that you may have a clear understanding of what I am about to tell you, we must begin further back. "At my second sitting he was telling me of sundry new household arrangements which he contemplated. He had engaged the two upper rooms in addition to those he had—partly that he might [have] a place to show visitors into besides his studio, and partly because the gentleman and his wife who at present occupied them are so dreadfully ugly that he cannot endure to meet them on the stairs! Then he was going 'to have a gu-l all to himself; the lodging-house gu-ls being vile creatures who left fingermarks on everything'—and this gu-l should wash his brushes, mend his linen, make fancy-dresses for his pictures, according to his own directions, out of 'very rich stoffs' which he intended to buy-and most important of all should have beautiful fo-ms' and sit to him for model whenever he needed one. In fact he had already sent an advertisement for such a person to The Times newspaper! "Poor Mrs. Sterling's two hundred and eighty nursery-governesses rushed thro' my mind-and I thought God help you! you know not what you are bringing on yourself. But as the thing was done I saw no use in frightening him about the consequences beforehand-they would disclose themselves only too soon-I asked merely how his advertisement was worded. ""Wanted a very genteel girl to do very genteel work-not under fifteen nor exceeding eighteen years of agewages from twenty to thirty pounds per annum'!!! "Could there be two ideas as to what sort of functionary this advertisement had in view? I groaned in spirit for the poor blockhead who, without having the smallest ill-meaning (I am very sure) was thus exposing himself to the most atrocious imputations! "I called on Thursday forenoon to ask when I was to be needed againthe door was opened by himself as mad-looking as a March-hare his a March-hare his eyes were gleaming like live coals-his 'hairs' in a state of wildness-his whole figure expressing the most comical excitement blended with perspiring perplexity. "Tho' heretofore so respectful of my years, he on this day flung his arm round my person-as if I had been the reed of a drowning man, and almost carried me up stairs! I sat down and asked, 'Well! what on earth is it?'but he turned his head to a side as if listening, then darted down stairs again to the door-then back-then down again—and so on for half a dozen times before he could find two spare minutes to tell me his story. At length I got it out of him, but with immeasurable parenthesis of opening the street door. That morning at eight gu-ls began to troop into the street from all points of the compass-congregated in groups of threes and fivestill the clock struck nine-and then there was a general rush of fifty to demand admission!-and fresh ones were continuing to pour in-as I saw. "The people of the house were furious' -no wonder! 'Mr. Blore had sent him up a most impertinent note' 'neither mistress nor maids would go to the door any more and so he had to open himself' and then if I could only have seen 'the detestable ugliness' of all that had come!-'vile wretches calling themselves eighteen who were thirty, if they were a day!' To make a long tale short he had from three to four hundred applicants that day and not one of 'beautiful forms' or even passable forms among them!-he had also six and thirty letters from the country! not containing a single enquiry as to the nature of the 'very genteel work'-but all passionately eager to have the place, whatever it was, for some daughter, or sister, or friend! Does not this give one a horrible glance into life as it is at present -even worse it seems to me than the boiling of the dead dog! That at least involved no immorality! On the following day which was that of my last sitting, they were still coming-but not in such numbers-and the people of the house having been heaven knows how restored to good humour, Mrs. Blore was opening the door to them herself-and by his desire showing them all in succession up to the painting room-'that I might just see what ugly wretches they were!' But Fortune favoured me for among the twenty who were thus shown up, I found three very pretty-the rest certainly were hideous! One of the three himself even was pleased with-but tho' she looked to me as improper as improper could be, she expressed some hesitation about sitting as a model-she would consider of it and let him know in a couple of days-the fact was she preferred transacting with him without witnesses, I believe for she came back the same afternoon and declared herself ready to come. But when he (much to her astonishment doubtless) proposed to see her parents on the subject before coming to a final engagement she answered that they were both ill in bed and could not be spoken with |
