Part 38 (1/2)

I am ever yours, f.a.n.n.y.

PHILADELPHIA, Tuesday, 30th, 1843.

MY DEAR F----,

We are all established in a boarding-house here, where my acquaintances a.s.sure me that I am very comfortable; and so I endeavor to persuade myself that my acquaintances are better judges of that than I am myself.

It is the first time in my life that I have ever lived in any such manner or establishment; so I have no means of trying it by comparison; it is simply detestable to me, but compared with _more_ detestable places of the same sort it is probably _less_ so. ”There are differences, look you!” ...

I am sure your family deserve to have a temple erected to them by all foreigners in America; for it seems to me that you and your people are home, country, and friends to all such unfortunates as happen to have left those small items of satisfaction behind them. The stranger's blessing should rest on your dwellings, and one stranger's grateful blessing does rest there....

Believe me, yours most truly, F. A. B.

_Please to observe_ that the charge of 13_s._ 8_d._ is for personal advice, conferences, and tiresome morning visits; and if you make any such charge, I shall expect you to earn it. 6_s._ 4_d._ is all you are ent.i.tled to for anything but personal communication.

[This postscript, and the beginning of the letter, were jesting references to a lawyer's bill, amounting to nearly 50, presented to me by a young legal gentleman with whom we had been upon terms of friendly acquaintance, and whom we had employed, as he was just beginning business, to execute the papers for the deed of gift I have mentioned, by which my father left me at his death my earnings, the use of which I had given up to him on my marriage for his lifetime.

Our young legal gentleman used to pay us the most inconceivably tedious visits, during which his princ.i.p.al object appeared to be to obtain from us every sort of information upon the subject of all and sundry American investments and securities. Over and over again I was on the point of saying ”Not at home” to these interminably wearisome visitations, but refrained, out of sheer good nature and unwillingness to mortify my _visitant_. Great, therefore, was our surprise, on receiving a _bill of costs_, to find every one of these intolerable intrusions upon our time and patience charged, as personal business consultations, at 13_s._ 8_d._ The thing was so ludicrous that I laughed till I cried over the price of our friend's civilities. On paying the amount, though of course I made no comment upon the price of my social and legal privileges, I suppose the young gentleman's own conscience (he was only just starting in his profession, and may have had one) p.r.i.c.ked him slightly, for with a faint hysterical giggle, he said, ”I dare say you think it rather sharp practice, but, you see, getting married and furnis.h.i.+ng the house is rather expensive,”--an explanation of the reiterated thirteens and sixpences of the bill, which was candid, at any rate, and put them in the more affable light of an extorted wedding present, which was rather pleasant.]

PHILADELPHIA, June 4th, 1843.

DEAREST GRANNY,

You will long ere this have received my grateful acknowledgments of your pretty present and most kind letter, received, with many tears and heart-yearnings, in the middle of that horrible ocean. I will not renew my thanks, though I never can thank you enough for that affectionate inspiration of following me on that watery waste, with tokens of your remembrance, and cheering that most dismal of all conditions with such an unlooked-for visitation of love.

I wrote to you from Halifax, where, on the deck of our steamer, your name was invoked with heartfelt commendations by myself and Major S----.

That was a curious conversation of his and mine, if such it could be called; scarcely more than a breathless enumeration of the names of all of you, coupled indeed with loving and admiring additions, and e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns full of regret and affection. Poor man, how I did pity him!

and how I did pity myself!

I have just written to our B----, and feel sad at the meagre and unsatisfactory account which my letter contains of me and mine; to you, my excellent friend, I will add this much more.... But I shall forbear saying anything about my conditions until they become better in themselves, or I become better able to bear them. G.o.d bless you and those you love, my dear Lady Dacre. Give my affectionate ”duty” to my lord, and believe me ever your gratefully attached

F. A. B.

PHILADELPHIA, June 26th, 1843.

MY DEAREST HAL,

Your sad account of Ireland is only more shocking than that of the newspapers because it is yours, and because you are in the midst of all this wild confusion and dismay. How much you must feel for your people!

However much one's sympathy may be enlisted in any public cause, the private instances of suffering and injustice, which inevitably attend all political changes wrought by popular commotion, are most afflicting.

I hardly know what it is reasonable to expect from, or hope for, Ireland. A separation from England seems the wildest project conceivable; and yet, Heaven knows, no great benefit appears. .h.i.therto to have accrued to the poor ”earthen pot” from its fellows.h.i.+p with the ”iron” one. As for hoping that quiet may be restored through the intervention of military force, at the bayonet's point,--I cannot hope any such thing. Peace so procured is but an earnest of future war, and the victims of such enforced tranquillity bequeath to those who are only temporarily _quelled_, not permanently _quieted_, a legacy of revenge, which only acc.u.mulates, and never goes long unclaimed and unpaid.

England seems to me invariably to deal unwisely with her dependencies; she performs in the Christian world very much the office that Rome did in the days of her great heathen supremacy--carry to the ends of the earth by process of conquest the seeds of civilization, of legislation, and progress; and then, as though her mission was fulfilled, by gradual mismanagement, abuse of power, and insolent contempt of those she has subjugated, is ejected by the very people to whom she had brought, at the sword's point, the knowledge of freedom and of law. It is a singular office for a great nation, but I am not sure that it is not our Heaven-appointed one, to conquer, to improve, to oppress, to be rebelled against, to coerce, and finally to be kicked out, _videlicet_, these United States.

But now to matters personal.... The intense heat affects me extremely; and not having a horse, or any riding exercise, the long walks which I compel myself to take over these burning brick pavements, and under this broiling sun, are not, I suppose, altogether beneficial to me....

I went to church yesterday, and Mr. F---- preached an Abolition sermon.

This subject seems to press more and more upon his mind, and he speaks more and more boldly upon it, in spite of having seen various members of his congregation get up and leave the church in the middle of one of his sermons in which he adverted to the forbidden theme of slavery. Some of these, who had been members of the church from its earliest establishment, and were very much attached to him, expressed their regret at the course they felt compelled to adopt, and said if he would only _give them notice_ when he intended to preach upon that subject they would content themselves with absenting themselves on those occasions only, to which his reply not unnaturally was, ”Why, those who would leave the church on those occasions are precisely the persons who are in need of such exhortations!”--and of course he persevered.

I think it will end by his being expelled by his congregation. It will be well with him wherever he goes; but alas for those he leaves! I expect to be forbidden to take S---- to church, as soon as the report of yesterday's sermon gets noised abroad....

G.o.d bless you, dear. Good-bye. I am heavy-hearted, and it is a great effort to me to write. What would I not give to see you! Love to dear Dorothy, when you see or write to her.