shall like her better than any part I have played, except
my dear Portia, who does not need softening.

I am too busy just now to read "Destiny" [Miss Ferrier's admirable
novel]; my new part and dresses and rehearsals will occupy me next
week completely. I have taken a new start about "The Star of
Seville" [the play I was writing], and am working away hard at it.
I begin to see my way through it. I wish I could make anything like
an acting play of it; we want one or two new ones so very much.

My riding goes on famously, and Fozzard thinks so well of my
progress that the other day he put me upon a man's horse--an
Arab--which frightened me half to death with his high spirits and
capers; but I sat him, and what is more, rode him. Tuesday we go to
a very gay ball a little way out of town; Saturday we go to a party
at old Lady Cork's, who calls you Harriet and professes to have
known you well and to remember you perfectly.

Now, H----, as to what you say of fishing, if you are bloody-minded
enough to desire to kill creatures for sport, in Heaven's name why
don't you do it? The sin lies in the inclination (by the bye, I
think that's _half_ a mistake). Never mind, your inclination to
fish and my desire to be the tigress at the Zoological Gardens have
nothing whatever in common. I admire and envy the wild beast's
swiftness and strength, but if I had them I don't think I would
tear human beings to bits unless I were _she_, which was not what I
wished to be, only as strong and agile as she; do you see? I am in
a great hurry, dear, and have written you an inordinately stupid
letter; never mind, the next shall be inconceivably amusing. Just
now my head is stuffed full of amber-colored cashmere and white
satin. My mother begs to be kindly remembered to Mrs. Kemble.
Always affectionately yours,

F. A. K.

My determination to _soften_ the character of Camiola is another
indication of my imperfect comprehension of my business as an actress,
which was not to reform but to represent certain personages. Massinger's
"Maid of Honor" is a stern woman, not without a very positive grain of
coarse hardness in her nature. My attempt to _soften_ her was an
impertinent endeavor to alter his fine conception to something more in
harmony with my o