At four different periods of my life I have been constrained by
circumstances to maintain myself by the exercise of my dramatic faculty;
latterly, it is true, in a less painful and distasteful manner, by
reading, instead of acting. But though I have never, I trust, been
ungrateful for the power of thus helping myself and others, or forgetful
of the obligation I was under to do my appointed work conscientiously in
every respect, or unmindful of the precious good regard of so many kind
hearts that it has won for me; though I have never lost one iota of my
own intense delight in the act of rendering Shakespeare's creations; yet
neither have I ever presented myself before an audience without a
shrinking feeling of reluctance, or withdrawn from their presence
without thinking the excitement I had undergone unhealthy, and the
personal exhibition odious.
Nevertheless, I sat me down to supper that night with my poor, rejoicing
parents well content, God knows! with the issue of my trial; and still
better pleased with a lovely little Geneva watch, the first I had ever
possessed, all encrusted with gold work and jewels, which my father laid
by my plate and I immediately christened Romeo, and went, a blissful
girl, to sleep with it under my pillow.
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