Records of a Girlhood | Page 6

fool's cap of vast dimensions,
and advised to hide, not my "diminished head," but my horrible
disgrace, from all beholders, I took the earliest opportunity of dancing
down the carriage-drive to meet the postman, a great friend of mine,
and attract his observation and admiration to my "helmet," which I
called aloud upon all wayfarers also to contemplate, until removed
from an elevated bank I had selected for this public exhibition of
myself and my penal costume, which was beginning to attract a small
group of passers-by.
My next malefactions were met with an infliction of bread and water,
which I joyfully accepted, observing, "Now I am like those poor dear
French prisoners that everybody pities so." Mrs. Siddons at that time
lived next door to us; she came in one day when I had committed some
of my daily offenses against manners or morals, and I was led, nothing
daunted, into her awful presence, to be admonished by her.
Melpomene took me upon her lap, and, bending upon me her
"controlling frown," discoursed to me of my evil ways in those accents
which curdled the blood of the poor shopman, of whom she demanded
if the printed calico she purchased of him "would wash." The tragic
tones pausing, in the midst of the impressed and impressive silence of
the assembled family, I tinkled forth, "What beautiful eyes you have!"

all my small faculties having been absorbed in the steadfast upward
gaze I fixed upon those magnificent orbs. Mrs. Siddons set me down
with a smothered laugh, and I trotted off, apparently uninjured by my
great-aunt's solemn moral suasion.
A dangerous appeal, of a higher order, being made to me by my aunt's
most intimate friend, Mrs. F----, a not very judicious person, to the
effect, "Fanny, why don't you pray to God to make you better?"
immediately received the conclusive reply, "So I do, and he makes me
worse and worse." Parents and guardians should be chary of handling
the deep chords upon whose truth and strength the highest harmonies of
the fully developed soul are to depend.
In short, I was as hopelessly philosophical a subject as Madame Roland,
when, at six years old, receiving her penal bread and water with the
comment, "Bon pour la digestion!" and the retributive stripes which
this drew upon her, with the further observation, "Bon pour la
circulation!" In spite of my "wickedness," as Topsy would say, I appear
to have been not a little spoiled by my parents, and an especial pet and
favorite of all their friends, among whom, though I do not remember
him at this early period of our acquaintance, I know was Charles Young,
that most kindly good man and pleasant gentleman, one of whose many
amiable qualities was a genuine love for little children. He was an
intimate friend of Mrs. Siddons and her brothers, and came frequently
to our house; if the elders were not at home, he invariably made his
way to the nursery, where, according to the amusing description he has
often since given me of our early intercourse, one of his great
diversions was to make me fold my little fat arms--not an easy
performance for small muscles--and with a portentous frown, which
puckered up my mouth even more than my eyebrows, receive from him
certain awfully unintelligible passages from "Macbeth;" replying to
them, with a lisp that must have greatly heightened the tragic effect of
this terrible dialogue, "_My handth are of oo tolor_" (My hands are of
your color). Years--how many!--after this first lesson in declamation,
dear Charles Young was acting Macbeth for the last time in London,
and I was his "wicked wife;" and while I stood at the side scenes,
painting my hands and arms with the vile red stuff that confirmed the

bloody-minded woman's words, he said to me with a smile, "Ah ha!
_My handth are of oo tolor._"
Mr. Young's own theatrical career was a sort of curious contradiction
between his physical and mental endowments. His very handsome and
regular features of the Roman cast, and deep, melodious voice, were
undoubtedly fine natural requisites for a tragic actor, and he succeeded
my uncle in all his principal parts, if not with any thing like equal
genius, with a dignity and decorum that were always highly acceptable.
He had, however, no tragic mental element whatever with these very
decided external qualifications for tragedy; but a perception of and
passion for humor, which he indulged in private constantly, in the most
entertaining and surprising manner. Ludicrous stories; personal
mimicry; the most admirable imitation of national accent--Scotch, Irish,
and French (he spoke the latter language to perfection, and Italian very
well); a power of grimace that equaled Grimaldi, and the most
irresistibly comical way of resuming, in the midst of