14Constanceʼs character and Mrs. Siddons

1. From Thomas Campbell, Life of Mrs. Siddons (London, 1834). Quoted Candido 82-3.

[Mrs. Siddons] was ere long regarded as so consummate in the part of Constance, that it was not unusual for spectators to leave the house when her part in the tragedy ofKing John was over, as if they could no longer enjoy Shakespeare himself when she ceased to be his interpreter. I could speak as a wonderstruck witness to her power in the character, with almost as many circumstantial recollections of her as there are speeches in the part. I see her in my mind's eye, the embodied image of maternal love and intrepidity; of wronged and righteous feeling; of proud grief and majestic desolation. With what unutterable tenderness was her brow bent over her pretty Arthur at one moment, and in the next how nobly drawn back, in a look at her enemies that dignified her vituperation. When she patted Lewis on the breast, with the words 'Thine honour! -- oh, thine honour!' [TLN 1249] there was a sublimity in the laugh of her sarcasm. I could point out the passages where her vicissitudes of hurried and deliberate gesture would have made you imagine that her very body seemed to think. Her elocution varied its tones from the height of vehemence to the lowest despondency, with an eagle-like power of stooping and soaring, and with the rapidity of thought. But there is a drawback in the pleasure of these recollections, from their being so little communicable to others; and, besides, in attempting to do them justice, I am detaining the reader from more interesting matter which Mrs. Siddons has left me in her Memoranda, namely, her own remarks on the character of Constance.

15'My idea of Constance,' she says, 'is that of a lofty and proud spirit, associated with the most exquisite feelings of maternal tenderness, which is, in truth, the predominant feature of this interesting personage. The sentiments which she expresses, in the dialogue between herself, the King of France, and the Duke of Austria, at the commencement of the second Act of this tragedy, very strongly evince the amiable traits of a humane disposition, and of a grateful heart.

O take his mother's thanks, a widow's thanks,
Till your strong hand shall help to give him strength
To make a more requital to your love.
[TLN 325-7]

16Again, in reply to the King's bloody determination of subjugating the city of Angiers to the sovereignty of her son, she says

Stay for an answer to your embassy,
Lest unadvised you stain your swords with blood.
My Lord Chatillon may from England bring
That right in peace which here we urge in war,
And then we shall repent each drop of blood
That hot rash haste so indirectly shed.
[TLN 337-42]

17The idea one naturally adopts of her qualities and appearance are, that she is noble in mind, and commanding in person and demeanour; that her countenance was capable of all the varieties of grand and tender expression, often agonized, though never distorted by the vehemence of her agitations. Her voice, too, must have been 'propertied like the tuned spheres' [Antony and Cleopatra TLN 3301-2], obedient to all the softest inflections of maternal love, and all the pathos of the most exquisite sensibility, to the sudden burst of heart-rending sorrow, and to the terrifying imprecations of indignant majesty, when writhing under the miseries inflicted on her by her dastardly oppressors and treacherous allies. The actress, whose lot it is to personate this great character, should be richly endowed by nature for its various requirements: yet, even when thus fortunately gifted, much, very much remains to be effected by herself for in the performance of the part of Constance great difficulties, both mental and physical, present themselves. And perhaps the greatest of the former class is that of imperiously holding the mind reined-in to the immediate perception of those calamitous circumstances which take place during the course of her sadly eventful history. The necessity for this severe abstraction will sufficiently appear, when we remember that all those calamitous events occur whilst she herself is absent from the stage; so that this power is indispensable for that reason alone, were there no other to be assigned for it. Because, if the representative of Constance shall ever forget, even behind the scenes, those disastrous events which impel her to break forth into the overwhelming effusions of wounded friendship, disappointed ambition, and maternal tenderness, upon the first movement of her appearance in the third Act, when stunned with terrible surprise she exclaims, --

Gone to be married -- gone to swear a peace!
False blood to false blood joined -- gone to be friends!
[TLN 923-4]

-- if, I say, the mind of the actress for one moment wanders from these distressing events, she must inevitably fall short of that high and glorious colouring which is indispensable to the painting of this magnificent portrait.

18The quality of abstraction has always appeared to me so necessary in the art of acting, that I shall probably, in the course of these remarks, be thought too frequently and pertinaciously to advert to it. I am now, however, going to give a proof of its usefulness in the character under our consideration; and I wish my opinion were of sufficient weight to impress the importance of this power on the minds of all candidates for dramatic fame. Here then is one example among many others which I could adduce. Whenever I was called upon to personate the character of Constance, I never, from the beginning of the play to the end of my part in it, once suffered my dressing-room door to be closed, in order that my attention might be constantly fixed on those distressing events which, by this means, I could plainly hear going on upon the stage, the terrible effects of which progress were to be represented by me. Moreover, I never omitted to place myself, with Arthur in my hand, to hear the march, when, upon the reconciliation of England and France, they enter the gates of Angiers to ratify the contract of marriage between the Dauphin and the Lady Blanch; because the sickening sounds of that march would usually cause the bitter tears of rage, disappointment, betrayed confidence, baffled ambition, and, above all, the agonizing feelings of maternal affection to gush into my eyes. In short, the spirit of the whole drama took possession of my mind and frame, by my attention being incessantly riveted to the passing scenes. Thus did I avail myself of every possible assistance, for there was need of all in this most arduous effort; and I have no doubt that the observance of such circumstances, however irrelevant they may appear upon a cursory view, were powerfully aidant in the representations of those expressions of passion in the remainder of this scene . . .

192. From George Fletcher, Studies of Shakespeare (London, 1847).

Quoted Candido 117-8. Candido points out that the production Fletcher refers to is William Charles Macready's King John at Drury Lane Theatre, performed twenty-six times from October 1842 to May 1843.

20Mr. Campbell, who, in speaking of Mrs. Siddons's performance of this character, professes to have 'almost as many circumstantial recollections of her as there are speeches in the part,' and who saw her enact it when ten years of practice and improvement in it must have brought her performance to its greatest perfection, relates one particular of it which seems to us to exemplify very strikingly the erroneous bias which we have indicated as warping her judgment respecting the essential qualities of the character. 'When,' says her biographer, 'she patted Lewis on the breast with the words, "Thine honour! oh, thine honour!" [TLN 1249] there was a sublimity in the laugh of her sarcasm.' Now, we must affirm, that anything like sarcastic expression of this passage is quite inconsistent with the essential character of Constance, and most inappropriate to the occasion upon which it is delivered. Here we must again insist upon the strict consequentiality and the sterling policy of the heroine's behaviour throughout this agitated scene. Her expressions of indignation and her appeals to heaven, are not only natural in themselves, but the inspiring instinct of maternal solicitude teaches her, that friendless and powerless as she is otherwise left, they are the only instruments, the only weapons, remaining to her. . . .

21What strikes us first of all in Miss Helen Faucit's personation [of Constance], is, her clear and perfect conception that feeling, not pride, is the mainspring of the character; that the dignity of bearing natural to and inseparable from it, and which the advantage of a tall, graceful figure enables this actress to maintain with little effort, is at the same time an easy, unconscious dignity, quite different from that air of self-importance, that acting of majesty, which has been mistakenly ascribed to it by those who have attributed to the heroine an ambitious nature. She makes us feel throughout, not only the depth, the tenderness, and the poetry of the maternal affection, dwelling in a vivid fancy and a glowing heart; but is ever true to that 'constant, loving, noble nature', [Othello, TLN 1249] which is not more sensitive to insult from her foes and falsehood from her friends, than it is ever ready to welcome with fresh gratitude and confidence the return of better feelings in any who have injured her.

22That intimate association, in short, of gracefulness with force, and of tenderness with dignity, which this lady has so happily displayed in other leading characters of Shakespeare, is her especial qualification for this arduous part -- the most arduous, we believe, of all the Shakespearian female characters -- for this plain reason, that while it is one of those exhibiting the highest order of powers, the range of emotions included in it is the widest, and the alternations, the fluctuations, between the height of virtuous indignation and contempt, and the softest depth of tenderness, are the most sudden and the most extreme. The principle of contrast, in fact -- that great element of the romantic drama, as of all romantic art -- which Shakespeare delighted to employ, not only in opposing one character to another, but in developing each character individually, is carried to the highest pitch by the trials to which the course of the dramatic incident subjects the sensitive, passionate, and poetic -- the noble and vigorous nature of Constance.