119.
Mrs. Siddons, when looking over the statues in Lord Lansdowne’s gallery, told him that one mode of expressing intensity of feeling was suggested to her by the position of some of the Egyptian statues with the arms close down at the sides and the hands clenched. This is curious, for the attitude in the Egyptian gods is intended to express repose. As the expression of intense passion self-controlled, it might be appropriate to some characters and not to others. Rachel, as I recollect, uses it in the Phêdre:—Madame Rettich uses it in the Medea. It would not be characteristic in Constance.
120.
On a certain occasion when Fanny Kemble was reading Cymbeline, a lady next to me remarked that Imogen ought not to utter the words “Senseless linen!—happier therein than I!” aloud, and to Pisanio,—that it detracted from the strength of the feeling, and that they should have been uttered aside, and in a low, intense whisper. “Iachimo,” she added, “might easily have won a woman who could have laid her heart so bare to a mere attendant!”
On my repeating this criticism to Fanny Kemble, she replied just as I had anticipated: “Such criticism is the mere expression of the natural emotions or character of the critic. She would have spoken the words in a whisper; I should have made the exclamation aloud. If there had been a thousand people by, I should not have cared for them—I should not have been conscious of their presence. I should have exclaimed before them all, ‘Senseless linen!—happier therein than I!’”
And thus the artist fell into the same mistake of which she accused her critic—she made Imogen utter the words aloud, because she would have done so herself. This sort of subjective criticism in both was quite feminine; but the question was not how either A. B. or F. K. would have spoken the words, but what would have been most natural in such a woman as Imogen?
And most undoubtedly the first criticism was as exquisitely true and just as it was delicate. Such a woman as Imogen would not have uttered those words aloud. She would have uttered them in a whisper, and turning her face from her attendant. With such a woman, the more intense the passion, the more conscious and the more veiled the expression.
