Page:Romance & Reality 1.pdf/232

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
226
ROMANCE AND REALITY.

way: we go to see a young, rising, inexperienced girl, and we keep talking about Mrs. Siddons. I think it just a debatable point, whether Miss Kemble be most indebted to the attraction flung over her by memories of other days, or injured by the comparison."

Emily.—"I cannot offer an opinion, but I must express my delight; there is something in her voice that fills my eyes with tears, even before I know the sense; and her face is to my taste beautiful,—the finely arched and expressive brow, and the dark, passionate eyes,—what a world of thought and feeling lie in their shadowy depths! She gave to me, at least, an interest in Juliet I never felt before."

Lady Mandeville.—"I agree with you in not placing Juliet among my favourite creations of Shakespeare; her love is too sudden, too openly avowed—it is merely taking a fancy to the first handsome young man she sees; even to her lover she has to say,

'If thou thinkest I am too quickly won.'

Now, among all Shakespeare's heroines, give me Viola. I have always formed a beautiful vision of the lonely and enthusiastic Italian, nursing a wild dream of the noble duke, whose