I acted like a wretch, of course; how could I do otherwise? Oh, Juliet! vision of the south! rose of the garden of the earth! was this the glorious hymn that Shakspeare hallowed to your praise? was this the mingled strain of Love's sweet going forth, and Death's dark victory, over which my heart and soul have been poured out in wonder and ecstasy?--How I do loathe the stage! these wretched, tawdry, glittering rags, flung over the breathing forms of ideal loveliness; these miserable, poor, and pitiful substitutes for the glories with which poetry has invested her magnificent and fair creations--the glories with which our imagination reflects them back again. What a mass of wretched mumming mimicry acting is! Pasteboard and paint, for the thick breathing orange groves of the south; green silk and oiled parchment, for the solemn splendour of her noon of night; woolen platforms and canvass curtains, for the solid marble balconies and rich dark draperies of Juliet's sleeping-chamber, that shrine of love and beauty; rouge, for the startled life-blood in the cheek of that young passionate woman; an actress, a mimicker, a sham creature, me, in fact, or any other one, for that loveliest and most wonderful conception, in which all that is true in nature, and all that is exquisite in fancy, are moulded into a living form. To _act_ this! to _act_ Romeo and Juliet! horror! horror! how I do loathe my most impotent and unpoetical craft! * * * * * * * * * * In the last scene of the play, I was so mad with the mode in which all the preceding ones had been perpetrated, that, lying over Mr. ----'s corpse, and fumbling for his dagger, which I could not find, I, Juliet, thus apostrophised him,--Romeo being dead--"why, where _the_ devil _is_ your dagger, Mr. ----!" What a disgusting travesty. On my return home, I expressed my entire determination to my father to perform the farce of Romeo and Juliet no more. Why, it's an absolute _shame_ that one of Shakspeare's plays should be thus turned into a mockery. I received a note from young Mr. ----, accompanied by a very curious nosegay in shells; a poor substitute for the breathing, fresh, rosy flowers he used to furnish me with, when I was last here. _Thursday, 6th._ The morning was beautifully bright and warm, like a May morning in England. After breakfast, practised for two hours: while doing so, was interrupted by Mr. ----, who came to bid us good-by. He was going on to New York, and thence to England. * * * * * * * * * *