Ever your affectionate
F. A. K.
Monday, 2d.—My father and I went to the theater to rehearse "Romeo and Juliet." In the evening the house was very fair, considering how much the hot weather is against us; but of all the comfortless people to act to, commend me to an Edinburgh audience. Their undemonstrativeness, too, is something more than mere critical difficulty to be pleased; there is a want of kindliness in the cold, discourteous way in which they allow a stranger to appear before them without ever affording him the slightest token of their readiness to accept the efforts made to please them. I felt quite sorry this evening for poor Mr. Didear, to whom not the faintest sign of encouragement was vouchsafed on his first coming on. This is being cold to an unamiable degree, and seems to me both a want of good feeling and good breeding. I acted as well as they would let me. As for poor John Mason, concluding, I suppose, from their frozen silence that he was flat and ineffective, he ranted and roared, and pulled me about in the last scene, till I thought I should have come to pieces in his hands, as the house-maids say of what they break. I was dreadfully exhausted at the end of the play; there is nothing so killing as an ineffectual appeal to sympathy, and, as the Italians know, "ben servire e non gradire" is one of the "tre cose da morire." ...
Tuesday, 3d.—Went to the theater to rehearse.... In the evening the house was good, and the play went off very well. I acted well, in spite of my new dresses, which stuck out all round me portentously, and almost filled the little stage. J—— L—— was like a great pink bird, hopping about hither and thither, and stopping to speak, as if it had been well tamed and taught. The audience actually laughed and applauded, and I should think must have gone home very much surprised and exhausted with the unwonted exertion.
Wednesday, 4th.—Went to the theater to rehearse "Francis I." After I got home, my mother told me she had determined to leave us on Saturday, and go back to London with Sally Siddons; and I am most thankful for this resolution.... How sad it will be in that strange land beyond the sea, among those strange people, to whom we are nothing but strangers! But this is foolish weakness; it must be; and what a world of strength lies in those two little words!... At the theater the house was very good, and I played very well....
Thursday, 5th.—After breakfast went to rehearse "The Gamester." ... In the evening the house was not good. My father acted magnificently; I never played this part well, and am now gone off in it, and play it worse than not well; besides, I cannot bully that great, big man, Mr. Didear; it is manifestly absurd.
Friday, 6th.—To the theater to rehearse "Francis I." On my return found Mr. Liston and his little girl waiting to ride with me.... [This was the beginning of my acquaintance with the celebrated surgeon Liston, who afterward became an intimate friend of ours, and to whose great professional skill my father was repeatedly indebted for relief under a most painful malady. He was a son of Sir Robert Liston, and cousin of the celebrated comedian, between whom and himself, however, there certainly was no family likeness, Liston, the surgeon, being one of the handsomest persons I ever saw. The last time I saw him has left a melancholy impression on my mind of his fine face and noble figure. He had been attending me professionally, but I had ceased to require his care, and had not seen him for some time, when one morning walking, according to my custom in summer, before seven o'clock, as I came to the bridge over the Serpentine in Kensington Gardens, a horseman crossing the bridge stopped by the iron railing, and, jumping off his horse, came toward me. It was Liston, who inquired kindly after my health, and, upon my not answering quite satisfactorily, he said, "Ah! well, you are better than I am." I laughed incredulously, as I looked at a magnificent figure leaning against the great black horse he rode, and looking like a model of manly vigor and beauty. But in less than a week from that day Liston died of aneurism; and I suppose that when I met him he was well aware of the death which had got him literally by the throat.]
Saturday, 7th.—Miserable day of parting! of tearing away and wrenching asunder!... At eleven we were obliged to go to rehearsal, and when we returned found my mother busy with her packing.... When she was gone, I sat down beside my father with a book in my hand, not reading, but listening to his stifled sobbing; and every now and then, in spite of my determination not to do it, looking up to see how far the ship had moved. (Our windows looked over the Forth.) But the white column of steam was rising steadily from close under Newhaven, and for upward of half an hour continued to do so. I had resolved not to raise my eyes again from my book, when a sudden exclamation from my father made me spring up, and I saw the steamer had left the shore, and was moving fast toward Inchkeith, the dark smoky wake that lingered behind it showing how far it had already gone from us, and warning us how soon it would be beyond the ken of our aching eyes.... The carriage was announced, and with a heavy heart and aching head, I drove to the theater.... The play was "Francis I.," for the first time. The house was very fine; I acted abominably, but that was not much to be wondered at. However, I always have acted this part of my own vilely; the language is not natural—mere stilted declamation from first to last, most fatiguing to the chest, and impossible for me to do anything with, as it excites no emotion in me whatever....
Edinburgh, July 8, 1832.
My dearest H——,