How strange it is to those who are in some sense new to the world, to see the way in which time can scar those wounds which we should have imagined that nothing could have healed; wounds which we should have expected to see bleed afresh at the sight of the inflictor, as it was said of old, that those of the murdered did at the approach of the murderer. Sometimes we almost feel as if nothing was real in that singular existence called the world. Like the performers, who laugh and talk behind the scenes after the close of some dreadful tragedy; we see around us men who have ruined the fortunes and destroyed the happiness of others, women who have betrayed and been betrayed, whose existence has been perhaps devoted to misery and to infamy by the first step they have taken in the path of guilt, and whose hearts, if they did not break, grew hard; we see the victims and the destroyers, those who have loved and those who have hated, those who have injured and those who have been injured, mix together in the common thoroughfares of life, meet even in social intimacy, with offered hands and ready smiles; not because "Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy;" not because "To those who forgive, shall much be forgiven;" but because what is genuine and true, what is deep and what is strong, takes no root in that worn-out soil on which we tread, thrives not in that withering air which we breathe, in that fictitious region which we live in, and which we so emphatically and so presumptuously call the world.
I started when Edward turned to me and said, "How very grave you look, Ellen! One would imagine by your face that a tragedy and not a farce was going on."
I smiled and shook my head.
"Mrs. Middleton looks like the Muse of Tragedy herself," observed Mr. Escourt. "Have you ever acted, Mrs. Middleton?"
"Never."
"Indeed, I should think you would excel in it. Such a countenance! Such a play of features! Your thoughts speak in your face! Mr. Lovell, would not Mrs. Middleton make an admirable actress?"
"Where the part suited her."
"That would be no test of talent. I would pledge my existence that she could act to the life the most contrary characters, and enchant us in each. Which of the passions, of love or of hatred, would seem to you most difficult to represent, Mrs. Middleton?"
"Scorn would be easier than either."
"To my mind a sudden transition is finer than anything: an instantaneous change of expression, for instance, from scorn to fear; it is one of the most striking pieces of acting that can occur, and most interesting to observe." He stopped, and fixed his eyes upon me; I riveted mine upon the stage.