Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. I.djvu/230

 a manner as made one both laugh and cry, that is to say, one laughed with tears of sheer joy in one's eyes. When she steps forward before her audience, one immediately sees in her a powerful and proud nature, which bows before the public in the consciousness that she will soon have them at her feet. And then—while she reads, yes, then she forgets the public and Fanny Kemble; and the public forget themselves and Fanny Kemble too; and both live and breathe and are thrilled with horror, and bewitched by the great dramatic scenes of life which she with magic power calls forth. Her figure is strong although not large, and of English plumpness; a countenance, which without being beautiful, is yet fine, and particularly rich and magnificent in expression. “In her smile there are fifty smiles,” said Maria Lowell, who always says things beautifully.

Fanny Kemble was extremely amiable and kind to me, and sent me a free admission for myself and a friend to her Readings. She has read to-day my favourite of all the Shakspeare dramas, Julius Cæsar, and she read it so that it was almost more than I could bear. In comparison with these glorious heroic characters and their life, that which at present existed around me, and I myself in the midst of it, seemed so poor, so trivial, so colourless, that it was painful to me. And that which made it still more so, was, that I was obliged between every act, and whilst wholly excited by the reading, to turn to the right hand and to the left to reply to introductions and to shake hands—very possibly with the best people in the world, but I wished them altogether, for the time, in the moon. Besides which, a lady, a stranger to me, who sate by me, gave me every time anything remarkable occurred, either in the piece or in its delivery, a friendly jog with her elbow.

As regards the people around me, I may divide them into two, or rather into three classes. The first is worthy