he poorer class in this country was about
to be worse off, presently, than it had been yet; and hoped the example
of this new uprising in Paris would not be poisonous to them. It is sad
to think how much, how many suffer; but by the mode of talking and going
on of those who are well off and do not suffer, in England, it seems to
me as if the condition of the poor must become such as to threaten them
with imminent peril, before they will alter either their way of talking
or of going on. Poor people all! but the rich are poorest, for they have
something to lose and everything to fear, which is the reverse of the
case of the poor.

My staircase at the theatre troubles me but little, and I do not sit in
the green-room, which would have troubled me much more. My rehearsal of
Desdemona tried me severely, for I was frightened to death of Macready,
and the horror of the play itself took such hold of me that at the end
I could hardly stand for shaking, or speak for crying; and Macready
seemed quite mollified by my condition, and promised not to rebreak my
little finger, _if he could remember it_. He lets down the bed-curtains
before he smothers me, and, as the drapery conceals the murderous
struggle, and therefore he need not cover my head at all, I hope I shall
escape alive.

Please tell dear Dorothy that Miss ---- called here the day before
yesterday, and left Miss B----'s songs for me. They are difficult,
beyond the comprehension and execution of any but a very good musician;
they show real genius, and a taste imbued with the inspiration of the
great masters, Handel and Beethoven. The only one of them that I could
sing is the only one that is in the least commonplace, "The Bonnet
Blue;" the others are beyond my powers, but I shall get my sister to
sing them for me. They are very remarkable as the compositions of so
young a woman. Did she write the words as well as the music of "The
Spirit of Delight"? [The musical compositions here referred to were
those of Miss Laura Barker, afterwards Mrs. Tom Taylor, a member of a
singularly gifted family, whose father and sisters were all born
artists, with various and uncommon natural endowments, cultivated and
developed to the highest degree, in the seclusion of a country
parsonage.] ...

I wish it was "bedtime, Hal," and I was smothered and over!

God bless you, dear.

Ever yours,
FANN