Last Thursday I went to Frankfort to hear Adelaide sing; she was to perform, en costume, an act from three different operas, a sort of hotchpotch which, as she cares for her profession, I am surprised at her condescending to. We were not in time for the first, which was the last scene of the "Lucia di Lammermoor," but heard her in the last scene of "Beatrice di Tenda," and in the first scene of the "Norma." ... What she does is very perfect, but I think she occasionally falls short of the amount of power that I expected.... And all the time, I cannot help wishing that she would leave the singing part of the business, and take to acting not set to music. I think the singing cramps her acting, and I cannot help having some misgiving as to the effect she will produce in so large a theatre as Covent Garden; although, as she has sung successfully in the two largest theatres in Europe, the Scala at Milan and the San Carlo at Naples, I suppose my nervousness about Covent Garden is unnecessary.... Her movements and gesture are all remarkably graceful and easy; she is perfectly self-possessed, and impresses me even more as an artist than a genius, which I did not expect.
I believe she will not sing to-morrow night, and, in that case, they will all come over and spend the day here, when Henry, Mary Anne Thackeray, and I purpose ascending Wiesbaden horses and riding to the duke's hunting-seat, which perhaps you drove to when you were here....
MALIBRAN. I confess to you, I cannot help sometimes feeling a little anxious about my sister's success in England, especially when I remember how formidable a predecessor she is to succeed—that wonderful Malibran, who added to such original genius and great dramatic power a voice of such uncommon force and brilliancy.
Good-bye. This is the third long letter I have written to you since we came abroad.
Ever yours,
Fanny.
Aix-la-Chapelle, Monday, October 11th.
My dearest Harriet,
I begin to sniff the well-beloved fogs and coal-smoke of that best beloved little island to which I have the honor and glory of belonging, and my spirits are much revived thereby; for, to tell you the truth, England, bad as it is, is good enough for me, and I am grown old and stupid and sleepy and don't-carish, and think more about bugs and greasy food in the way of woe than of vine-clad hills and ruined castles in the way of bliss. Not that I have been by any means dissatisfied with my tower, though rather disappointed in the one fact of the Rhine: but I am incurious and always was, and I do not think that fault mends with age; and knights, squires, and dames too, alas! are no longer to me the interesting folk that they once were.
"But it is past, the glory is congealing,
The fervor of the heart grows dead and dim;
I gaze all night upon a whitewashed ceiling,
And catch no glimpses of the Seraphim."