Page:Elizabeth Barrett Browning (Ingram, 5th ed.).djvu/62

46 dramatic subjects. He had solicited her signature for a memorial to Parliament, petitioning the abolition of the theatrical monopoly, and praying that "every theatre should be permitted to enact the best dramas it could obtain." In the most delicate yet determined way possible, the invalid recluse declined to comply with the request. "I tremble to do it," she says; "take a long breath before I begin, and then beg you to excuse me about the signature." Alluding to his belief that as soon as the monopoly was abolished a career of glory would commence at once for the best drama and the best dramatists, and that the public would immediately flock to those houses where good plays and good actors only were to be seen, Miss Barrett says, "As to the petition . . . you are sure to gain the immediate object, and you ought to do so, even although the ultimate object remain as far off as ever, and more evidently far. There is a deeper evil than licences or the want of licences—the base and blind public taste. Multiply your theatres and licence everyone. Do it to-day, and the day after to-morrow (you may have one night) there will come Mr. Bunn, and turn out you and Shakespeare with a great roar of lions. Well! we shall see."

Reverting to more personal matters, this determined and not to be persuaded invalid is found once more looking with eager eyes to her home in the distant metropolis. "When do you go to Italy?" she asks; "for me, I can't answer. I am longing to go to London, and hoping to the last. For the present—certainly the window has been opened twice, an inch—but I can't be lifted even to the sofa without fainting. And my physician shakes his head, or changes the