I would not go to see, for fear of weakening the impression made by the queen of tragedians. When I read Lady Macbeth’s part, I have Mrs. Siddons before me, and imagination even supplies her voice, whose tones were superhuman, and power over the heart supernatural.
“It is pleasant enough sometimes to take a peep behind, as well as to look before the scenes.
I remember one leg of an elephant saying to another, ‘D—n your eyes, move a little quicker;’ and overhearing at the Opera two people in love, who were so distraits that they made the responses between the intervals of the recitation[errata 1], instead of during the recitation[errata 2] itself. One said to the other, ‘Do you love me?’ then came the flourish of music, and the reply sweeter than the music, ‘Can you doubt it?’”
“I have just been reading Lamb’s Specimens,” said he, “and am surprised to find in the extracts from the old dramatists so many ideas that I thought exclusively my own. Here is a passage, for instance, from ‘The Duchess of Malfy,’ astonishingly like one in ‘Don Juan.’
S 2
