indistinct recesses of its mysterious depths, which seemed to stretch indefinitely behind me.  In front, the great amphitheater, equally empty and silent, wrapped in its gray holland covers, would have been absolutely dark but for a long, sharp, thin shaft of light that darted here and there from some height and distance far above me, and alighted in a sudden, vivid spot of brightness on the stage.  Set down in the midst of twilight space, as it were, with only my father’s voice coming to me from where he stood hardly distinguishable in the gloom, in those poetical utterances of pathetic passion I was seized with the spirit of the thing; my voice resounded through the great vault above and before me, and, completely carried away by the inspiration of the wonderful play, I acted Juliet as I do not believe I ever acted it again, for I had no visible Romeo, and no audience to thwart my imagination; at least, I had no consciousness of any, though in truth I had one.  In the back of one of the private boxes, commanding the stage but perfectly invisible to me, sat an old and warmly attached friend of my father’s, Major D——­, a man of the world—­of London society,—­a passionate lover of the stage, an amateur actor of no mean merit, one of the members of the famous Cheltenham dramatic company, a first-rate critic in all things connected with art and literature, a refined and courtly, courteous gentleman; the best judge, in many respects, that my father could have selected, of my capacity for my profession and my chance of success in it.  Not till after the event had justified my kind old friend’s prophecy did I know that he had witnessed that morning’s performance, and joining my father at the end of it had said, “Bring her out at once; it will be a great success.”  And so three weeks from that time I was brought out, and it was a “great success.”  Three weeks was not much time for preparation of any sort for such an experiment, but I had no more, to become acquainted with my fellow actors and actresses, not one of whom I had ever spoken with or seen—­off the stage—­before; to learn all the technical business, as it is called, of the stage; how to carry myself toward the audience, which was not—­but was to be—­before me; how to concert my movements with the movements of those I was acting with, so as not to impede or intercept their efforts, while giving the greatest effect of which I was capable to my own.

I do not wonder, when I remember this brief apprenticeship to my profession, that Mr. Macready once said that I did not know the elements of it.  Three weeks of morning rehearsals of the play at the theater, and evening consultations at home as to colors and forms of costume, what I should wear, how my hair should be dressed, etc., etc.,—­in all which I remained absolutely passive in the hands of others, taking no part and not much interest in the matter,—­ended in my mother’s putting aside all suggestions of innovation like the adoption