attempt was made to renew the interruption; but the orderly portion of the audience was strong enough to quell it. She acknowledged the applause when she came on, and endeavoured to appear perfectly indifferent to the hissing; but all the triumphant confidence of the first days of success seemed to have deserted her for the time, and she was again the uncertain, tottering débutante. Her splendid genius was, however, but dimmed, and all her suffering but lent to serve as a stepping-stone to a higher level than she had yet attained. We must give here some letters she wrote to her friends, the Whalleys, as giving an insight into that brave heart of this wonderful woman, whose "victorious faith upheld her" in this and many subsequent trials. What wonder, however, that in later years she grew hard and proud—the first bloom of trust and belief was rubbed off in these her first encounters with the rough judgment of the mob. From henceforth the confiding girlish Ophelia and Juliet vanish from the scene, and Lady Macbeth, with her fierce reliance on intellectual power alone, and indignant scorn of all human judgment, appears. She wrote to the Whalleys:—
"My dearest Friends,
"I hardly dare hope that you will remember me. I know I don't deserve that you should; but I know, also, that you are too steadfast and too good to cast me off for a seeming negligence to which my heart and soul are averse, and the appearance of which I have incessantly regretted. What can I say in my defence? I have been very unhappy; now 'tis over I will venture to tell you so, that you may not 'lose the dues of rejoicing.' 'Envy, malice,
