Faithfully yours always.
Mr. Henry F. Chorley.
16, Hyde Park Gate, South Kensington Gore, W.,
Saturday, 1st March, 1862.
My dear Chorley,
I was at your lecture[73] this afternoon, and I hope I may venture to tell you that I was extremely pleased and interested. Both the matter of the materials and the manner of their arrangement were quite admirable, and a modesty and complete absence of any kind of affectation pervaded the whole discourse, which was quite an example to the many whom it concerns. If you could be a very little louder, and would never let a sentence go for the thousandth part of an instant until the last word is out, you would find the audience more responsive.
A spoken sentence will never run alone in all its life, and is never to be trusted to itself in its most insignificant member. See it well out—with the voice—and the part of the audience is made surprisingly easier. In that excellent description of the Spanish mendicant and his guitar, as well as the very happy touches about the dance and the castanets, the people were really desirous to express very hearty appreciation; but by giving them rather too much to do in watching and listening for latter words, you stopped them. I take the liberty of making the remark, as one who has fought with beasts (oratorically) in divers arenas. For the rest nothing could be better. Knowledge, ingenuity, neatness, condensation, good sense, and good taste in delightful combination.
Affectionately always.
Mrs. Austin.
Paris, Rue du Faubourg St. Honoré, 27,
Friday, Seventh November, 1862.
My dear Letitia,