part of the heroine of the piece, Elmire. On
one of the very last occasions of her appearing before
her own Parisian audience, when she had passed the
limit at which it was possible for a woman of her
advanced age to assume the appearance of youth, the
part she was playing requiring that she should exclaim
“Je suis jeune! je suis jolie!” a loud,
solitary hiss protested against the assertion with
bitter significance. After an instant’s
consternation, which held both the actors and audience
silent, she added, with the exquisite grace and dignity
which survived the youth and beauty to which she could
no longer even pretend, “Je suis Mademoiselle
Mars!” and the whole house broke out in acclamations,
and rang with the applause due to what the incomparable
artiste still was and the memory of all that she had
been.]
NEW YORK, February 21, 1833.
It is a long time since I have written to you, my dearest H——.... My work is incessant, ... and there is no end to the breathless hurry of occupation we pass our days in. Here is already a break since I began this letter, for we are now in Philadelphia, on our way to Washington, and it is Thursday, the 3d of March.... It has been matter of serious regret to me that I have not, from the very first day of my becoming a worker for wages, looked more into the details of my earnings and spendings. I have felt this particularly lately from circumstances relative to V——’s position, which is a very sad one, from which I have been very anxious to relieve her.... All I know at present is, that since we have been here in America our earnings have already been sufficient to enable us to live in tolerably decent comfort on the Continent.... Do you know, dearest H——, that it is not impossible that I may never return to England to reside there. See it again, I will, please God to grant me life and eyes, but the state of my father’s property in Covent Garden is such that it seems more than likely that he may never be able to return to England without risking the little which these last toilsome years will have enabled him to earn for the support of his own and my mother’s old age. He will be compelled, in all likelihood, to settle and die abroad, as my uncle John did, by the liabilities of that ruinous possession of theirs, the first theater of London. When first my father communicated this chance to me, and expressed his determination, should the affairs of the theater remain in their present situation, to buy a small farm in Normandy, and go and live there, my heart sank terribly. This was very different from my girlish dream of a life of lonely independence among the Alps, or by the Mediterranean; and the idea of living entirely out of England seems to me now very sad for all of us.... However, there are earth and skies out of England. What does Imogen say?—
“I prithee think, there’s livers out of Britain;”