Fanny Kemble's conception of character and sentiment in this scene was peculiarly and entirely her own. Juliet, as she properly felt, is a young impassioned Italian girl, who has flung her heart, and soul, and existence upon one cast.
"She was not made
Thro' years or moons the inner weight to bear,
Which colder hearts endure till they are laid
By age in earth."
In this view, the pretty coyness, the playful coquetterie, which has sometimes been thrown into the balcony scene, by way of making an effect, is out of place, and false to the poetry and feeling of the part: but in Fanny Kemble's delineation, the earnest, yet bashful tenderness; the timid, yet growing confidence; the gradual swelling of emotion from the depths of the heart, up to that fine burst of enthusiastic passion—
"Swear by thy gracious self,
That art the god of my idolatry,
And I'll believe thee!"
were all as true to the situation and sentiment, as they were beautifully and delicately conveyed. The whole of the speech, "Thou know'st the mask of night is on my face," was in truth "like softest music to attending ears," from the exquisite and various modulation of voice with which it was uttered. Perhaps one of the most beautiful and entirely original points in the whole scene, was the accent and gesture with which she gave the lines—