ious surface of things, and
dealt easily, after the undoubting youthful fashion, with a main result,
without any misgiving as to conflicting causes or painful anxiety about
contradictory component parts. At the beginning of life, the ignorant
moral and intellectual standard alike have definite form and decided
color; time, as it goes on, dissolves the outline into vague
indistinctness, and reveals lights and shades so various and
innumerable, that toward the end of life criticism grows diffident,
opinion difficult, and positive judgment almost impossible.

My first London season was now drawing to an end, and preparations were
begun for a summer tour in the provinces. There had been some talk of my
beginning with Brighton, but for some reason or other this fell through.

BATH, May 31, 1830.
MY DEAR H----,

I have owed you an answer, and a most grateful one, for some time
past, for your kindness in writing me so long a letter as your
last; but when I assure you that, what with leave-taking, trying on
dresses, making purchases, etc., etc., and all the preparations for
our summer tour, this is the first moment in which I have been able
to draw a long breath for the last month, I am sure you will
forgive me, and believe, notwithstanding my long silence, that I
was made very happy indeed by your letter. I bade Covent Garden and
my dear London audience farewell on Friday last, when I acted Lady
Townley for the first time. The house was crammed, and as the
proprietors had fixed that night for a second benefit which they
gave me, I was very glad that it was so. I was very nicely dressed,
and to my own fancy acted well, though I dare say my performance
was a little flat occasionally. But considering my own physical
powers, and the immense size of the theatre, I do not think I
should have done better on the whole by acting more broadly; though
I suppose it would have been more effective, I should have had to
sacrifice something of repose and refinement to make it so. I was
very sorry to leave my London audience: they welcomed my first
appearance; they knew the history of our shipwrecked fortunes, and
though perhaps not one individual amongst them would go a mile out
of his way to serve us, there exists in them, taken collectively, a
kind feeling and respect fo