promise you this shall close my chapters of complaints. Keep them, and
remember how ill I have been treated."

Eight days later she wrote to the same friend:

"In wretched spirits I wrote you last week a most melancholy letter.
Your kind answer consoled me. The balsam of pure and disinterested
friendship never fails to cure the mind's sickness, particularly when it
proceeds from disgust at the ingratitude of the world."

The play to which she referred was probably that mentioned in the sequel
to her memoirs, which was unhappily a failure. It is notable that the
principal character in the farce was played by Mrs. Jordan, who was
later to become the victim of a royal prince, who left her to die in
poverty and exile.

The letter of another great actress, Sarah Siddons, written to John
Taylor, shows kindness and compassion toward Perdita.

"I am very much obliged to Mrs. Robinson," says Mrs. Siddons, "for her
polite attention in sending me her poems. Pray tell her so with my
compliments. I hope the poor, charming woman has quite recovered from
her fall. If she is half as amiable as her writings, I shall long for
the possibility of being acquainted with her. I say the possibility,
because one's whole life is one continual sacrifice of inclinations,
which to indulge, however laudable or innocent, would draw down the
malice and reproach of those prudent people who never do ill, 'but feed
and sleep and do observances to the stale ritual of quaint ceremony.'
The charming and beautiful Mrs. Robinson: I pity her from the bottom
of my soul."