John and I quite agreed with her, that it was painful to see gentle
English girls clad, or rather un-clad, after the fashion of our
enemies across the Channel; now, unhappy nation! sunk to zero in
politics, religion, and morals--where high-bred ladies went about
dressed as heathen goddesses, with bare arms and bare sandalled feet,
gaining none of the pure simplicity of the ancient world, and losing
all the decorous dignity of our modern times.

We two--who had all a boy's mysterious reverence for womanhood in its
most ideal, most beautiful form, and who, I believe, were, in our
ignorance, expecting to behold in every woman an Imogen, a Juliet, or
a Desdemona--felt no particular attraction towards the ungracefully
attired, flaunting, simpering belles of Coltham.

But--the play began.

I am not going to follow it: all the world has heard of the Lady
Macbeth of Mrs. Siddons. This, the first and last play I ever
witnessed, stands out to my memory, after more than half a century,
as clear as on that night. Still I can see her in her first scene,
"reading a letter"--that wondrous woman, who, in spite of her modern
black velvet and point lace, did not act, but WAS, Lady Macbeth:
still I hear the awe-struck, questioning, weird-like tone, that sent
an involuntary shudder through the house, as if supernatural things
were abroad--"THEY MADE THEMSELVES--AIR!" And still there quivers
through the silence that piteous cry of a strong heart broken--"ALL
THE PERFUMES OF ARABIA WILL NEVER SWEETEN THIS LITTLE HAND!"

Well, she is gone, like the brief three hours when we hung on her
every breath, as if it could stay even the wheels of time. But they