, whom I took to be the sister Sarah,
was something of an actress, but her part was so hateful that no one
could applaud her. I felt in reading 'Phedre,' and in hearing it, that
it was a play of high order, and that I learned some little philosophy
from some of its sentiments; but for 'Adrienne' I have a contempt. The
play was written by Scribe specially for Rachel, and the French acting
was better done by the other performers than the Greek. I have always
disliked to see death represented on the stage. Rachel's representation
was awful! I could not take my eyes from the scene, and I held my breath
in horror; the death was so much to the life. It is said that she
changes color. I do not know that she does, but it looked like a ghastly
hue that came over her pale face.

"I was displeased at the constant standing. Neither as Greeks nor as
Frenchmen did they sit at all; only when dying did Rachel need a chair.
They made love standing, they told long stories standing, they took
snuff in that position, hat in hand, and Rachel fainted upon the breast
of some friend from the same fatiguing attitude.

"The audience to hear 'Adrienne' was very fine. The Unitarian clergymen
and the divinity students seemed to have turned out.

"Most of the two thousand listeners followed with the book, and when the
last word was uttered on the French page, over turned the two thousand
leaves, sounding like a shower of rain. The applause was never very
great; it is said that Rachel feels this as a Boston peculiarity, but
she ought also to feel the compliment of so large an audience in a city
where foreigners are so few and the population so small compared to that
of New York.

"Nov. 14, 1855. Last night I heard Emerson give a lecture. I pity the
reporter who attempts to give it to the world. I began to listen with a
determination to remember it in order, but it was without method, or
order, or system. It was like a beam of light moving in the undulatory
waves, meeting with occasional meteors in its path; it was exceedingly
captivating. It surprised me that there was not only no commonplace
thought, but there was no commonplace expression. If he quoted, he
quoted from what we had not read; if he told an anecdote, it was one
that had not reached us. At the outset he was very severe upon the
science of the age. He said that inventors and discoverers helped
themselves very much, but they did not help the rest of the world; that
a great man was fel