Fanny Burney hears of Mme de Staël’s courage during the September Massacres in Paris from one of the French exiles in London (November 1792):
“[M. de Jaucourt was] thrown into the prison of the Abbaye, where, had it not been for the very extraordinary and admirable exertions of Madame de Staël (M. Necker’s daughter, and the Swedish ambassador’s wife), he would infallibly have been massacred.
I must here tell you that this lady, who was at that time seven months gone with child, was indefatigable in her efforts to save every one she knew from this dreadful massacre. She walked daily (for carriages were not allowed to pass in the streets) to the Hôtel de Ville, and was frequently shut up for five hours together with the horrible wretches that composed the Comité de Surveillance, by whom these murders were directed; and by her eloquence, and the consideration demanded by her rank and her talents, she obtained the deliverance of above twenty unfortunate prisoners, some of whom she knew but slightly.”
Charlotte Brontë, watches the French actress, Rachel, perform (June 1851):
“I have seen Rachel—her acting was something apart from any other acting it has come in my way to witness—her soul was in it—and a strange soul she has—I shall not discuss it—it is my hope to see her again. She and Thackeray are the two living things that have a spell for me in this great London—and one of these is sold to the Great Ladies—and the other—I fear—to Beelzebub...”
“Thackeray and Rachel have been the two points of attraction for me in town: the one, being a human creature, great, interesting, and sometimes good and kind; the other, I know not what, I think a demon. I saw her in Adrienne Lecouvreur and in [the part of] Camilla [Camille in Corneille’s Horace]—in the last character I shall never forget her—she will come to me in sleepless nights again and yet again. Fiends can hate, scorn, rave, writhe, and agonize as she does, not mere men and women. I neither love, esteem, nor admire this strange being; but (if I could bear the high mental stimulus so long), I would go every night for three months to watch and study its manifestations.”
Virginia Woolf goes to a rehearsal of The Prison, an opera by Ethel Smyth (February 1931):
“On Monday I went to hear her rehearse. A vast Portland Place house with the cold wedding cake Adams plaster: shabby red carpets; flat surfaces washed with dull greens. The rehearsal was in a long room with a bow window looking on, in fact in, to other houses—iron staircases, chimneys, roofs—a barren brick outlook. There was a roaring fire in the Adams grate... Ethel stood at the piano in the window, in her battered felt, in her jersey and short skirt conducting with a pencil... She sang now and then, and once, taking the bass, made a cat squalling sound—but everything she does with such forthrightness, directness, that there is nothing ridiculous. She loses self-consciousness completely. She seems all vitalised; all energised. She knocks her hat from side to side. Strides rhythmically down the room to signify... that this is the Greek melody; strides back. Now the furniture moving begins, she said, referring to some supernatural gambols connected with the prisoner’s escape, or defiance or death. I suspect the music is too literary—too stressed—too didactic for my taste... What if she should be a great composer? This fantastic idea is to her the merest commonplace: it is the fabric of her being. As she conducts, she hears music like Beethoven’s. As she strides and turns and wheels about to us perched mute on chairs she thinks this is about the most important event now taking place in London. And perhaps it is.”
Barbara Castle, Labour health secretary, on Margaret Thatcher, who was standing for the leadership of the Conservative party (February 1975):
“The papers are full of Margaret Thatcher. She has leant herself with grace and charm to every piece of photographer’s gimmickry, but don’t we all when the prize is big enough? What interests me is how blooming she looks—she has never been prettier. I am interested because I understand the phenomenon. She may have been up late on the Finance Bill Committee; she is beset by enemies and has to watch every gesture and word. But she sails through it all looking her best. I understand why. She is in love: in love with power, success—and with herself. She looks as I looked when Harold [Wilson] made me Minister of Transport. If we have to have Tories, good luck to her!”
Brigid Brophy writes about Martina Navratilova at Wimbledon, recorded later in her book Baroque ‘n’ Roll (July 1978):
“Ms Navratilova has considerable power over a spectator’s heart, including that of drawing [it] into the mouth. Her semi-final with Ms Goolagong afforded the purest pleasure lyric tennis can give. Even her final, though seldom lovely tennis, was a much more intellectually and emotionally engaging contest than finals usually are. As a match player, she has only two disabilities. She won’t make an ungainly stroke even when nothing else will do; and she’d sooner forfeit a point than play a banal, merely bread-and-butter shot. She and Ilie Nastase are players of the (to my taste) most exciting kind, because they are always in danger of losing through sheer talent.”
