Actresses -- Great Britain -- Biography; Siddons, Sarah, 1755-1831
As they walked round the hall, Campbell tells us, he saw every eye fixed
upon her. Her stately bearing, her noble expression, made a sensation,
though the crowd evidently did not know who she was, as he heard whispers
of “Who is she? Is she not an Englishwoman?”
Crabb Robinson, in his _Memoirs_, also tells us that he heard someone say
in the Louvre, “Mrs. Siddons is below.” He instantly left the Raphaels
and Titians and went in search of her. She was walking with her sister,
Mrs. Twiss. He noticed her grand air and fascinating smile, but he was
disturbed that so glorious a head should have been covered with a small
chip hat. She knit her brows, also, to look at the pictures, as if her
sight were not good; and he remarked a line or two about her mouth, and
a little coarseness of expression. She remained two months in Paris, and
we hear of her going to a review held by the King. She was seen toiling
along towards the Champs de Mars, heated and flushed, and in clouds of
dust; and a joke is made on the subject of her “saving.”
Further suffering was in store for her in the death of her son Henry. He
died of consumption, like his sisters. Manager of the Edinburgh Theatre,
and in the prime of life, his loss was a great one both to his family and
the Edinburgh public. His poor mother wrote:—
“Westbourne, 1815.
“This third shock has, indeed, sadly shaken me, and, although
in the very depths of affliction, I agree with you that
consolation may be found, yet the voice of nature will for a
time overpower that of reason; and I cannot but remember ‘that
such things were, and were most dear to me.’
“I am tolerably well, but have no voice. This is entirely
nervousness, and fine weather will bring it back to me. Write
to me, and let me receive consolation in a better account of
your precious health. My brother and Mrs. Kemble have been very
kind and attentive, as indeed they always were in all events
of sickness or of sorrow. The little that was left of my poor
sight is almost washed away by tears, so that I fear I write
scarce legibly. God’s will be done!”
Later, she complained:—
“I don’t know why, unless that I am older and feebler, or that I am
now without a profession, which forced me out of myself in my former
afflictions, but the loss of my poor dear Henry seems to have laid a
heavier hand upon my mind than any I have sustained. I drive out to
recover my voice and my spirits, and am better while abroad; but I come
home and lose them both in an hour. I cannot read or do anything else
but puddle with my clay. I have begun a full-length figure of Cecilia;
and this is a resource which fortunately never fails me. Mr. Fitzhugh
approves of it, and that is good encouragement. I have little to complain
of, except a low voice and lower spirits.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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