“Why did you not try to make her acquaintance?”
“I knew nobody in the theatrical world. I was not good at making acquaintances. You might have done it. I am a timid man.”
“Did you make no attempt? You might have written.”
“At last I did write.”
“What did you write?”
“I tried to tell her the exact truth. I told her that I had refrained from writing to her for three years. That I quite understood the folly and the presumption of the effort; but I felt now, as drowning men that clutch at straws, that I must make my condition known to her. I told her I loved her truly and honourably, that my position and fortune would have entitled me to aspire to her hand if fate had been kind enough to allow me to know her. It was a very difficult letter to write, and I just tried to make myself clear. I told her I knew no one in the theatrical world, and that waiting and hoping for some chanceto bring us together would only result in misery long drawn out; that I had some faint hope that this letter might lead her to consider that there might be an exception to the rule that a young lady should not stop to speak to a young man she didn't know. I remember I said 'when men are in deadly earnest, truth seems to shine between the lines they write. I know I am in earnest, and may say that all I hold dear and precious in life is set in the hope that this letter may not appear to you in the light of one of those foolish and wicked letters which I believe men often write to actresses, and of which I suppose you have been the recipient.' Then I said that I would be at the stage door on the following night, and that I hoped she would allow me to speak a few words to her.”
“And did she?”
“I could not speak to her; I lost all courage in that moment. She walked close by me.”
“You mean to say you did not speak to her after writing that letter?”
“Call me a fool, an idiot, what you will; I could not do it. I can only compare my feeling to what Livingstone says he felt when he found himself face to face with a lion. He stood staring in the lion's eyes, unable to move.”