to be so, as it does not disagree with me, and I am so fond of dancing that a quadrille renders palatable what otherwise would be, I think, disagreeable enough—­the manner in which society is now organized.  I was at a very large party the other night, at the poet Campbell’s, where every material for a delightful evening—­good rooms, pretty women, clever men—­was brought into requisition to make what, after all, appeared to me nothing but a wearisome, hot crowd.  The apartments were overfilled:  to converse with anybody for five minutes was impossible.  If one stood up one was squeezed to death, and if one sat down one was stifled.  I, too (who was the small lioness of the evening), was subjected to a most disagreeable ordeal, the whole night being stared at from head to foot by every one that could pass within staring distance of me.  You probably will wonder at this circumstance distressing a young person who three times a week exhibits herself on the stage to several hundred people, but there I do not distinguish the individual eyes that are fixed on me, and my mind is diverted from the annoyances of my real situation by the distressful circumstances of my feigned one.  Moreover, to add to my sorrows, at the beginning of the evening a lady spilled some coffee over a beautiful dress which I was wearing for the first time.  Now I will tell you what consolations I had to support me under these trials; first, the self-approving consciousness of the smiling fortitude with which I bore my gown’s disaster; secondly, a lovely nosegay, which was presented to me; and lastly, at about twelve o’clock, when the rooms were a little thinned, a dance for an hour which sent me home perfectly satisfied with my fate.  By the bye, I asked Campbell if he knew any method to preserve my flowers from fading, to which he replied, “Give them to me, and I will immortalize them.”  I did so, and am expecting some verses from him in return.

On Thursday next I come out in Mrs. Beverley; I am much afraid of it.  The play wants the indispensable attribute of all works of art—­imagination; it is a most touching story, and Mrs. Beverley is a most admirable creature, but the story is such as might be read in a newspaper, and her character has its like in many an English home.  I think the author should have idealized both his incidents and his heroine a little, to produce a really fine play.  Mrs. Beverley is not one shade inferior to Imogen in purity, in conjugal devotion, and in truth, but while the one is to all intents and purposes a model wife, a poet’s touch has made of the other a divine image of all that is lovely and excellent in woman; and yet, certainly, Imogen is quite as real a conception as Mrs. Beverley.  The absence of the poetical element in the play prevents my being enthusiastic about my part, and I am the more nervous about it for that reason; when I am excited I feel that I can excite others, but in this case—­However, we shall