, and the quiet and soberness of my mind under all this new
excitement. She has borne all her anxieties wonderfully well, and I
now hope she will reap some repayment for them. My dear father is
very happy; indeed, we have all cause for heartfelt thankfulness
when we think what a light has dawned upon our prospects, lately so
dismal and overcast. My own motto in all this must be, as far as
possible, "Beget a temperance in all things." I trust I shall be
enabled to rule myself by it, and in the firm hope that my endeavor
to do what is right will be favored and assisted, I have committed
myself, nothing doubting, to the stormy sea of life. Dearest H----,
the papers will give you a detailed account of my _debut_; I only
wish to assure you that I have not embraced this course without due
dread of its dangers, and a firm determination to watch, as far as
in me lies, over its effect upon my mind. It is, after all, but
lately, you know, that I have become convinced that fame and
gratified ambition are not the worthiest aims for one's exertions.
With affectionate love, believe me ever your fondly attached

FANNY.

I most sincerely hope that your brother's health is improving, and
if we do not meet sooner, I shall now look forward to Dublin as our
_point de reunion_; that will not be the least of the obligations I
shall owe this happy turn of affairs.

I do not know whence I derived the deep impression I expressed in this
letter of the moral dangers of the life upon which I was entering;
certainly not from my parents, to whom, of course, the idea that actors
and actresses could not be respectable people naturally did not occur,
and who were not troubled, I am sure, as I then was, with a perception
of the more subtle evils of their calling. I had never heard the nature
of it discussed, and was absolutely without experience of it, but the
vapid vacuity of the last years of my aunt Siddons's life had made a
profound impression upon me,--her apparent deadness and indifference to
everything, which I attributed (unjustly, perhaps) less to her advanced
age and impaired powers than to what I supposed the withering and drying
influence of the overstimulating atmosphere of emotion, excitement, and
admiration in which she had passed her life; certain it is that such was
my dread