I have many apologies to offer for my long silence, having been occupied by arrangements relative to my son’s departure for the Hague. You know the dreary vacuity which succeeds the departure of one we love. It is rendered still more striking by the preceding bustle of preparation, and is a faint shadow of
‘That first dark day of nothingness,
The last of danger and distress,’
which most of us have already experienced.
I have received no reply from the Duchess of Dorset. Retirement sadly clips one’s wings as to any power of being useful. For that purpose they certainly grow best ‘in the various bustle of resort.’ I had more influence when I less knew how to make a reasonable use of it.
Your idea that a considerable portion of eternal happiness may arise from seeing the full blow and ripe fruits of any good seed sown in this life, is extremely natural. The converse has presented itself to my imagination more than once as a just representation of ‘the worm that never dies.’
You did me the honour to ask what I thought of Kean. I saw him but once, and imperfectly, being shut up, like a mouse in a telescope, in one of the wretched private boxes, which savour more of self-denial, penance, and privation, than any views of pride or pleasure. The diminutive oval aperture at the end of our long and doleful den gave me no opportunity of seeing him well, as we were a large party, and I was too distant to judge of his countenance. Yet he delighted me in Richard the Third. He carries one’s views forwards and backwards as to the character, instead of confining them, like other actors, within the limits of the present hour; and he gives a breadth of colouring to his part that strongly excites the imagination. He showed me that Richard possessed a mine of humour and pleasantry, with all the grace of high breeding grafted on strong and brilliant intellect. He gave probability to the drama by throwing this favourable light on the character, particularly in the scene with Lady Anne; and he made it more consistent with the varied lot of ‘poor humanity.’ He reminded me constantly of Buonaparte—that restless quickness, that Catiline inquietude, that fearful somewhat resembling the impatience of a lion in his cage. Though I am not a lover of the drama (will you despise me for the avowal?), I could willingly have heard him repeat his part that same evening.