he next time she played Camille,
the artist was able to convince himself by more careful observation that
she was right, and that there was probably no moment of the piece at
which this consummate artist was not aware of the effect produced by
every line and fold of the exquisite costume, of which she had studied
and prepared every detail as carefully as the wonderful movements of her
graceful limbs, the intonations of her awful voice, and the changing
expressions of her terribly beautiful countenance.

In later years, after I became the directress of my own stage costumes,
I adopted one for Juliet, made after a beautiful design of my friend,
Mrs. Jameson, which combined my mother's _sine qua non_ of simplicity
with a form and fashion in keeping with the supposed period of the play.

My frame of mind under the preparations that were going forward for my
_debut_ appears to me now curious enough. Though I had found out that I
could act, and had acted with a sort of frenzy of passion and entire
self-forgetfulness the first time I ever uttered the wonderful
conception I had undertaken to represent, my going on the stage was
absolutely an act of duty and conformity to the will of my parents,
strengthened by my own conviction that I was bound to help them by every
means in my power. The theatrical profession was, however, utterly
distasteful to me, though _acting_ itself, that is to say, dramatic
personation, was not; and every detail of my future vocation, from the
preparations behind the scenes to the representations before the
curtain, was more or less repugnant to me. Nor did custom ever render
this aversion less; and liking my work so little, and being so devoid of
enthusiasm, respect, or love for it, it is wonderful to me that I ever
achieved _any_ success in it at all. The dramatic element inherent in my
organization must have been very powerful, to have enabled me without
either study of or love for my profession to do anything worth anything
in it.

But this is the reason why, with an unusual gift and many unusual
advantages for it, I did really so little; why my performances were
always uneven in themselves and perfectly unequal with each other, never
complete as a whole, however striking in occasional parts, and never at
the same level two nights together; depending for their effect upon the
state of my nerves and spirits, instead of being the result of
deliberate thought and consideration,--study, in short, care