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Mrs Inchbald >> Nature and Art
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11 This etext was produced by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk,
from the 1886 Cassell & Co. edition.
NATURE AND ART
by Mrs. [Elizabeth] Inchbald
INTRODUCTION
Elizabeth Simpson was born on the 15th of October, 1753, one of the
eight children of a poor farmer, at Standingfield, near Bury St.
Edmunds. Five of the children were girls, who were all gifted with
personal beauty. The family was Roman Catholic. The mother had a
delight in visits to the Bury Theatre, and took, when she could, her
children to the play. One of her sons became an actor, and her
daughter Elizabeth offered herself at eighteen--her father then
being dead--for engagement as an actress at the Norwich Theatre.
She had an impediment of speech, and she was not engaged; but in the
following year, leaving behind an affectionate letter to her mother,
she stole away from Standingfield, and made a bold plunge into the
unknown world of London, where she had friends, upon whose help she
relied. Her friends happened to be in Wales, and she had some
troubles to go through before she found a home in the house of a
sister, who had married a poor tailor. About two months after she
had left Standingfield she married, in London, Mr. Inchbald, an
actor, who had paid his addresses to her when she was at home, and
who was also a Roman Catholic. On the evening of the wedding day
the bride, who had not yet succeeded in obtaining an engagement,
went to the play, and saw the bridegroom play the part of Mr. Oakley
in the "Jealous Wife." Mr. Inchbald was thirty-seven years old, and
had sons by a former marriage. In September, 1772, Mrs. Inchbald
tried her fortune on the stage by playing Cordelia to her husband's
Lear. Beauty alone could not assure success. The impediment in
speech made it impossible for Mrs. Inchbald to succeed greatly as an
actress. She was unable to realise her own conceptions. At times
she and her husband prospered so little that on one day their dinner
was of turnips, pulled and eaten in a field, and sometimes there was
no dinner at all. But better days presently followed; first
acquaintance of Mrs. Inchbald with Mrs. Siddons grew to a strong
friendship, and this extended to the other members of the Kemble
family.
After seven years of happy but childless marriage, Mrs. Inchbald was
left a widow at the age of twenty-six. In after years, when
devoting herself to the baby of one of her landladies, she wrote to
a friend,--"I shall never again have patience with a mother who
complains of anything but the loss of her children; so no complaints
when you see me again. Remember, you have had two children, and I
never had one." After her husband's death, Mrs. Inchbald's beauty
surrounded her with admirers, some of them rich, but she did not
marry again. To one of those who offered marriage, she replied that
her temper was so uncertain that nothing but blind affection in a
husband could bear with it. Yet she was patiently living and
fighting the world on a weekly salary of about thirty shillings, out
of which she helped her poorer sisters. When acting at Edinburgh
she spent on herself only eight shillings a week in board and
lodging. It was after her husband's death that Mrs. Inchbald
finished a little novel, called "A Simple Story," but it was not
until twelve years afterwards that she could get it published. She
came to London again, and wrote farces, which she could not get
accepted; but she obtained an increase of salary to three pounds a
week by unwillingly consenting not only to act in plays, but also to
walk in pantomime. At last, in July, 1784, her first farce, "The
Mogul Tale," was acted. It brought her a hundred guineas. Three
years later her success as a writer had risen so far that she
obtained nine hundred pounds by a little piece called "Such Things
Are." She still lived sparingly, invested savings, and was liberal
only to the poor, and chiefly to her sisters and the poor members of
her family. She finished a sketch of her life in 1786, for which a
publisher, without seeing it, offered a thousand pounds. But there
was more satirical comment in it than she liked, and she resolved to
do at once what she would wish done at the point of death. She
destroyed the record.
In 1791 Mrs. Inchbald published her "Simple Story." Her other tale,
"Nature and Art," followed in 1794, when Mrs. Inchbald's age was
forty-one. She had retired from the stage five years before, with
an income of fifty-eight pounds a year, all she called her own out
of the independence secured by her savings. She lived in cheap
lodgings, and had sometimes to wait altogether on herself; at one
lodging "fetching up her own water three pair of stairs, and
dropping a few tears into the heedless stream, as any other wounded
deer might do." Later in life, she wrote to a friend from a room in
which she cooked, and ate, and also her saucepans were cleaned:-
"Thank God, I can say No. I say No to all the vanities of the
world, and perhaps soon shall have to say that I allow my poor
infirm sister a hundred a year. I have raised my allowance to
eighty; but in the rapid stride of her wants, and my obligation as a
Christian to make no selfish refusal to the poor, a few months, I
foresee, must make the sum a hundred." In 1816, when that sister
died, and Mrs. Inchbald buried the last of her immediate home
relations--though she had still nephews to find money for--she said
it had been a consolation to her when sometimes she cried with cold
to think that her sister, who was less able to bear privation, had
her fire lighted for her before she rose, and her food brought to
her ready cooked.
Even at fifty Mrs. Inchbald's beauty of face inspired admiration.
The beauty of the inner life increased with years. Lively and quick
of temper, impulsive, sensitive, she took into her heart all that
was best in the sentiments associated with the teaching of Rousseau
and the dreams of the French Revolution. Mrs. Inchbald spoke her
mind most fully in this little story, which is told with a dramatic
sense of construction that swiftly carries on the action to its
close. She was no weak sentimentalist, who hung out her feelings to
view as an idle form of self-indulgence. Most unselfishly she
wrought her own life to the pattern in her mind; even the little
faults she could not conquer, she well knew.
Mrs. Inchbald died at the age of sixty-eight, on the 1st of August,
1821, a devout Roman Catholic, her thoughts in her last years
looking habitually through all disguises of convention up to
Nature's God.
H. M.
NATURE AND ART.
CHAPTER I.
At a time when the nobility of Britain were said, by the poet
laureate, to be the admirers and protectors of the arts, and were
acknowledged by the whole nation to be the patrons of music--William
and Henry, youths under twenty years of age, brothers, and the sons
of a country shopkeeper who had lately died insolvent, set out on
foot for London, in the hope of procuring by their industry a scanty
subsistence.
As they walked out of their native town, each with a small bundle at
his back, each observed the other drop several tears: but, upon the
sudden meeting of their eyes, they both smiled with a degree of
disdain at the weakness in which they had been caught.
"I am sure," said William (the elder), "I don't know what makes me
cry."
"Nor I neither," said Henry; "for though we may never see this town
again, yet we leave nothing behind us to give us reason to lament."
"No," replied William, "nor anybody who cares what becomes of us."
"But I was thinking," said Henry, now weeping bitterly, "that, if my
poor father were alive, HE would care what was to become of us: he
would not have suffered us to begin this long journey without a few
more shillings in our pockets."
At the end of this sentence, William, who had with some effort
suppressed his tears while his brother spoke, now uttered, with a
voice almost inarticulate,--"Don't say any more; don't talk any more
about it. My father used to tell us, that when he was gone we must
take care of ourselves: and so we must. I only wish," continued
he, giving way to his grief, "that I had never done anything to
offend him while he was living."
"That is what I wish too," cried Henry. "If I had always been
dutiful to him while he was alive, I would not shed one tear for him
now that he is gone--but I would thank Heaven that he has escaped
from his creditors."
In conversation such as this, wherein their sorrow for their
deceased parent seemed less for his death than because he had not
been so happy when living as they ought to have made him; and
wherein their own outcast fortune was less the subject of their
grief, than the reflection what their father would have endured
could he have beheld them in their present situation;--in
conversation such as this, they pursued their journey till they
arrived at that metropolis, which has received for centuries past,
from the provincial towns, the bold adventurer of every
denomination; has stamped his character with experience and example;
and, while it has bestowed on some coronets and mitres--on some the
lasting fame of genius--to others has dealt beggary, infamy, and
untimely death.
CHAPTER II.
After three weeks passed in London, a year followed, during which
William and Henry never sat down to a dinner, or went into a bed,
without hearts glowing with thankfulness to that Providence who had
bestowed on them such unexpected blessings; for they no longer
presumed to expect (what still they hoped they deserved) a secure
pittance in this world of plenty. Their experience, since they came
to town, had informed them that to obtain a permanent livelihood is
the good fortune but of a part of those who are in want of it: and
the precarious earning of half-a-crown, or a shilling, in the
neighbourhood where they lodged, by an errand, or some such
accidental means, was the sole support which they at present
enjoyed.
They had sought for constant employment of various kinds, and even
for servants' places; but obstacles had always occurred to prevent
their success. If they applied for the situation of a clerk to a
man of extensive concerns, their qualifications were admitted; but
there must be security given for their fidelity;--they had friends,
who would give them a character, but who would give them nothing
else.
If they applied for the place even of a menial servant, they were
too clownish and awkward for the presence of the lady of the house;-
-and once, when William (who had been educated at the free grammar-
school of the town in which he was born, and was an excellent
scholar), hoping to obtain the good opinion of a young clergyman
whom he solicited for the favour of waiting upon him, said
submissively, "that he understood Greek and Latin," he was rejected
by the divine, "because he could not dress hair."
Weary of repeating their mean accomplishments of "honesty, sobriety,
humility," and on the precipice of reprobating such qualities,--
which, however beneficial to the soul, gave no hope of preservation
to the body,--they were prevented from this profanation by the
fortunate remembrance of one qualification, which Henry, the
possessor, in all his distress, had never till then called to his
recollection; but which, as soon as remembered and made known,
changed the whole prospect of wretchedness placed before the two
brothers; and they never knew want more.
Reader--Henry could play upon the fiddle.
CHAPTER III.
No sooner was it publicly known that Henry could play most
enchantingly upon the violin, than he was invited into many
companies where no other accomplishment could have introduced him.
His performance was so much admired, that he had the honour of being
admitted to several tavern feasts, of which he had also the honour
to partake without partaking of the expense. He was soon addressed
by persons of the very first rank and fashion, and was once seen
walking side by side with a peer.
But yet, in the midst of this powerful occasion for rejoicing,
Henry, whose heart was particularly affectionate, had one grief
which eclipsed all the happiness of his new life;--his brother
William could NOT play on the fiddle! consequently, his brother
William, with whom he had shared so much ill, could not share in his
good fortune.
One evening, Henry, coming home from a dinner and concert at the
Crown and Anchor found William, in a very gloomy and peevish humour,
poring over the orations of Cicero. Henry asked him several times
"how he did," and similar questions, marks of his kind disposition
towards his beloved brother: but all his endeavours, he perceived,
could not soothe or soften the sullen mind of William. At length,
taking from his pocket a handful of almonds, and some delicious
fruit (which he had purloined from the plenteous table, where his
brother's wants had never been absent from his thoughts), and laying
them down before him, he exclaimed, with a benevolent smile, "Do,
William, let me teach you to play upon the violin."
William, full of the great orator whom he was then studying, and
still more alive to the impossibility that HIS ear, attuned only to
sense, could ever descend from that elevation, to learn mere sounds-
-William caught up the tempting presents which Henry had ventured
his reputation to obtain for him, and threw them all indignantly at
the donor's head.
Henry felt too powerfully his own superiority of fortune to resent
this ingratitude: he patiently picked up the repast, and laying it
again upon the table, placed by its side a bottle of claret, which
he held fast by the neck, while he assured his brother that,
"although he had taken it while the waiter's back was turned, yet it
might be drank with a safe conscience by them; for he had not
himself tasted one drop at the feast, on purpose that he might enjoy
a glass with his brother at home, and without wronging the company
who had invited him."
The affection Henry expressed as he said this, or the force of a
bumper of wine, which William had not seen since he left his
father's house, had such an effect in calming the displeasure he was
cherishing, that, on his brother offering him the glass, he took it;
and he deigned even to eat of his present.
Henry, to convince him that he had stinted himself to obtain for him
this collation, sat down and partook of it.
After a few glasses, he again ventured to say, "Do, brother William,
let me teach you to play on the violin."
Again his offer was refused, though with less vehemence: at length
they both agreed that the attempt could not prosper.
"Then," said Henry, "William, go down to Oxford or to Cambridge.
There, no doubt, they are as fond of learning as in this gay town
they are of music. You know you have as much talent for the one as
I for the other: do go to one of our universities, and see what
dinners, what suppers, and what friends you will find there."
CHAPTER IV.
William DID go to one of those seats of learning, and would have
starved there, but for the affectionate remittances of Henry, who
shortly became so great a proficient in the art of music, as to have
it in his power not only to live in a very reputable manner himself,
but to send such supplies to his brother, as enabled him to pursue
his studies.
With some, the progress of fortune is rapid. Such is the case when,
either on merit or demerit, great patronage is bestowed. Henry's
violin had often charmed, to a welcome forgetfulness of his
insignificance, an effeminate lord; or warmed with ideas of honour
the head of a duke, whose heart could never be taught to feel its
manly glow. Princes had flown to the arms of their favourite fair
ones with more rapturous delight, softened by the masterly touches
of his art: and these elevated personages, ever grateful to those
from whom they receive benefits, were competitors in the desire of
heaping favours upon him. But he, in all his advantages, never once
lost for a moment the hope of some advantage for his brother
William: and when at any time he was pressed by a patron to demand
a "token of his regard," he would constantly reply--"I have a
brother, a very learned man, if your lordship (your grace, or your
royal highness) would confer some small favour on him!"
His lordship would reply, "He was so teased and harassed in his
youth by learned men, that he had ever since detested the whole
fraternity."
His grace would inquire, "if the learned man could play upon any
instrument."
And his highness would ask "if he could sing."
Rebuffs such as these poor Henry met with in all his applications
for William, till one fortunate evening, at the conclusion of a
concert, a great man shook him by the hand, and promised a living of
five hundred a year (the incumbent of which was upon his death-bed)
to his brother, in return for the entertainment that Henry had just
afforded him.
Henry wrote in haste to William, and began his letter thus: "My
dear brother, I am not sorry you did not learn to play upon the
fiddle."
CHAPTER V.
The incumbent of this living died--William underwent the customary
examinations, obtained successively the orders of deacon and priest;
then as early as possible came to town to take possession of the
gift which his brother's skill had acquired for him.
William had a steady countenance, a stern brow, and a majestic walk;
all of which this new accession, this holy calling to religious
vows, rather increased than diminished. In the early part of his
life, the violin of his brother had rather irritated than soothed
the morose disposition of his nature: and though, since their
departure from their native habitation, it had frequently calmed the
violent ragings of his huger, it had never been successful in
appeasing the disturbed passions of a proud and disdainful mind.
As the painter views with delight and wonder the finished picture,
expressive testimony of his taste and genius; as the physician
beholds with pride and gladness the recovering invalid, whom his art
has snatched from the jaws of death; as the father gazes with
rapture on his first child, the creature to whom he has given life;
so did Henry survey, with transporting glory, his brother, dressed
for the first time in canonicals, to preach at his parish church.
He viewed him from head to foot--smiled--viewed again--pulled one
side of his gown a little this way, one end of his band a little
that way; then stole behind him, pretending to place the curls of
his hair, but in reality to indulge and to conceal tears of
fraternal pride and joy.
William was not without joy, neither was he wanting in love or
gratitude to his brother; but his pride was not completely
satisfied.
"I am the elder," thought he to himself, "and a man of literature,
and yet am I obliged to my younger brother, an illiterate man."
Here he suppressed every thought which could be a reproach to that
brother. But there remained an object of his former contempt, now
become even detestable to him; ungrateful man. The very agent of
his elevation was now so odious to him, that he could not cast his
eyes upon the friendly violin without instant emotions of disgust.
In vain would Henry, at times, endeavour to subdue his haughtiness
by a tune on this wonderful machine. "You know I have no ear,"
William would sternly say, in recompense for one of Henry's best
solos. Yet was William enraged at Henry's answer, when, after
taking him to hear him preach, he asked him, "how he liked his
sermon," and Henry modestly replied (in the technical phrase of his
profession), "You know, brother, I have no ear."
Henry's renown in his profession daily increased; and, with his
fame, his friends. Possessing the virtues of humility and charity
far above William, who was the professed teacher of those virtues,
his reverend brother's disrespect for his vocation never once made
him relax for a moment in his anxiety to gain him advancement in the
Church. In the course of a few years, and in consequence of many
fortuitous circumstances, he had the gratification of procuring for
him the appointment to a deanery; and thus at once placed between
them an insurmountable barrier to all friendship, that was not the
effect of condescension on the part of the dean.
William would now begin seriously to remonstrate with his brother
"upon his useless occupation," and would intimate "the degradation
it was to him to hear his frivolous talent spoken of in all
companies." Henry believed his brother to be much wiser than
himself, and suffered shame that he was not more worthy of such a
relation. To console himself for the familiar friend, whom he now
perceived he had entirely lost, he searched for one of a softer
nature--he married.
CHAPTER VI.
As Henry despaired of receiving his brother's approbation of his
choice, he never mentioned the event to him. But William, being
told of it by a third person, inquired of Henry, who confirmed the
truth of the intelligence, and acknowledged, that, in taking a wife,
his sole view had been to obtain a kind companion and friend, who
would bear with his failings and know how to esteem his few
qualifications; therefore, he had chosen one of his own rank in
life, and who, having a taste for music, and, as well as himself, an
obligation to the art--"
"And is it possible," cried the dean, "that what has been hinted to
me is true? Is it possible that you have married a public singer?"
"She is as good as myself," returned Henry. "I did not wish her to
be better, for fear she should despise me."
"As to despise," answered the dean, "Heaven forbid that we should
despise anyone, that would be acting unlike a Christian; but do you
imagine I can ever introduce her to my intended wife, who is a woman
of family?"
Henry had received in his life many insults from his brother; but,
as he was not a vain man, he generally thought his brother in the
right, and consequently submitted with patience; but, though he had
little self-love, he had for his wife an unbounded affection. On
the present occasion, therefore, he began to raise his voice, and
even (in the coarse expression of clownish anger) to lift his hand;
but the sudden and affecting recollection of what he had done for
the dean--of the pains, the toils, the hopes, and the fears he had
experienced when soliciting his preferment--this recollection
overpowered his speech, weakened his arm, and deprived him of every
active force, but that of flying out of his brother's house (in
which they then were) as swift as lightning, while the dean sat
proudly contemplating "that he had done his duty."
For several days Henry did not call, as was his custom, to see his
brother. William's marriage drew near, and he sent a formal card to
invite him on that day; but not having had the condescension to name
his sister-in-law in the invitation, Henry thought proper not to
accept it, and the joyful event was celebrated without his presence.
But the ardour of the bridegroom was not so vehement as to overcome
every other sensation--he missed his brother. That heartfelt
cheerfulness with which Henry had ever given him joy upon every
happy occasion--even amidst all the politer congratulations of his
other friends--seemed to the dean mournfully wanting. This
derogation from his felicity he was resolved to resent; and for a
whole year these brothers, whom adversity had entwined closely
together, prosperity separated.
Though Henry, on his marriage, paid so much attention to his
brother's prejudices as to take his wife from her public employment,
this had not so entirely removed the scruples of William as to
permit him to think her a worthy companion for Lady Clementina, the
daughter of a poor Scotch earl, whom he had chosen merely that he
might be proud of her family, and, in return, suffer that family to
be ashamed of HIS.
If Henry's wife were not fit company for Lady Clementina, it is to
be hoped that she was company for angels. She died within the first
year of her marriage, a faithful, an affectionate wife, and a
mother.
When William heard of her death, he felt a sudden shock, and a kind
of fleeting thought glanced across his mind, that
"Had he known she had been so near her dissolution, she might have
been introduced to Lady Clementina, and he himself would have called
her sister."
That is (if he had defined his fleeting idea), "They would have had
no objection to have met this poor woman for the LAST TIME, and
would have descended to the familiarity of kindred, in order to have
wished her a good journey to the other world."
Or, is there in death something which so raises the abjectness of
the poor, that, on their approach to its sheltering abode, the
arrogant believer feels the equality he had before denied, and
trembles?
CHAPTER VII.
The wife of Henry had been dead near six weeks before the dean heard
the news. A month then elapsed in thoughts by himself, and
consultations with Lady Clementina, how he should conduct himself on
this occurrence. Her advice was,
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