Punch (7.1844)

36

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

PUNCH'S COMPLETE LETTER-WRITER.

LETTER V.

FROM A VERY YOUNG GENTLEMAN TO A FAVOURITE ACTRESS WHOM
HE HAS ONLY SEEN IN PUBLIC.

s4\

third seat of the pit. Often, for many minutes, I am there alcne.
I like it—I enjoy the solitude. I have often wished that not another
soul would enter the theatre, that I might, a mental epicure, hav-s
all the feast to myself. I seem to grudge every man his seat, as
slowly oue by one drops in. I unwillingly suffer anybody to partici-
pate in your smiles and honied words. No : I would have you act
all to myself. Even applause sometimes throws me into a dangerous
paroxysm : I feel it as an intrusion on my privilege that any one
should dare to applaud but me ; my blood boils to my fingers' ends ;
but I suppress my feelings, and have as yet, though sorely tempted,
knocked no man from his seat.

I have breathed the secret of my love to nobody ; and yet my eyes
must have betrayed me. Forgive me ; I could not control my eyes.
Methinks you ask me, who bas discovered my love ? Smile not, I
will tell you ; the fruit-women. Good creatures ! there is not one
who does not hurry to me with a play-bill, folded down at the
glorious letters that compose your name, her finger—as though by-
accident—pointed at the soul-delighting word. I will not tell you
how I treasure those bills ; no, you shall never know that every such
play-bill is folded beneath my pillow at night, and is resigned to a
morocco portfolio in the morning ; my sensations at the theatre first
briefly marked in the margin. This you shall never know.

Let me, however, return to my third seat. The curtain is down
—the orchestra yet empty. That curtain seems to shut me from
Paradise, for I know you are behind it. The musicians come in, and
I my heart begins to throb at the overture. The play begins; perhaps
Dearest Madam, v,)n ;ire discovered in Scene I., in the depths of misery—how

For these past six months I have pulled | deliriously my brain beats to know it. You speak ; and ail my veins
against my heart—I have resisted my transports— are tiir0Dbing like the tongue of a Jew's harp. Perhaps you sing ;
1 have fought with my passion. Yes—I determined and then j feel a kind of sweet swooning sickness—a sort of death
—1 will die, and my consuming secret shall perish Jllade easy_that I can't describe. At times you dance ; and then
with me. Alas ! silence is no longer possible. Your d() r seem lifted by gome invlsi0ie p0wer, and made to float about
■witcheries of to-night have driven me with whirlwind force to pen you Tuen you leave tlie stage. and all who come after are no
and ink. Your voice is still in my ears—your eyes still upon my n-,ore to me tnan jointed dolls with moving eyes. How I loathe
cheek—I will, I must write ! the miserable buffoon—the comedy-man, as he is called—who, while

Madam, I have long adored you. Love is my witness, that I never 1 am languishing for your next appearance, makes the empty audience
hoped to breathe as much ; but after your devotion of this evening laugh about me : such mirth seems an insult to my feelings—a dese-
—after the heroic sacrifice that you have made for love—after the cration of my love. No ! you from the stage, plot and players are

happy willingness you have shown to give up fortune, rank, and
friends, and retire with your lover from the world, though that lover
was but a woodman, with nothing but his axe to provide for you
both,—after the development of such a feeling (believe it, adored
one, there was not a dry eye in the pit), I should wrong the sweet
susceptibility of your nature, I should wrong myself, to keep

lost to me ; I sit, only thinking of your return—sometimes abstracted
from the scene, mechanically counting the scattered hairs in the
head of the first fiddle.

And thus, until the curtain is about to drop, and then—my heart
with it—I throw a bouquet, that has nestled all the night in my button-
hole, at your fairy feet. Then do 1 rush from the pit to the stage-

silence. No; the way in which you withered the unprincipled j door; and there—the more delighted if it rains—there do I stand, until
nobleman, the tempting seducer in the second act, convinced me sweetly cloaked and shawled, I watch you—see your Adelaide boots
with an electric shock that we were made for one another ! I thought i en)erge iuto the street, and, with a thought, vanish into cab or coach,
-ecstatic thought !—that catching your eye from the third row, you | jja i the door is closed with a slam that seems to snap my heart-
string's. The horse-shoes sound in the distance—I am alone. I
wander to my lodgings, sometimes in despair, and sometimes in
delirious spirits, feeling that I have your arm warm and pressing

read my heart, and, while the theatre rang with plaudits, that our
souls mingled ! Ah ! was it not so 2

But why alone speak of your virtues to-night? Does not every
night show you more than something earthly ? In whatever situa- under mine, and still seeing your eyes look at me, as I thought they
tion of life you are placed, are you not in all equally angelic ? Have j looked at the third row of the pit.

I not known you accused of theft, nay, of murder—and have 1 not j i arrjVe at my cold lodging. Yet, ere I sleep, I look at your dozen

faces—for I have at least a dozen—plain and coloured, hung about
my walls. Yes, my beloved one ! there you are, and though only
published from half-a-crown to five shillings., worlds should not buy
you of me !

If you have played a new part, I touch no breakfast until I read

-witness it, Heaven !—adored you all the more for the charge ? Has
accident or malice thrown a shadow over you, that you have not
burst forth all the brighter for the passing gloom ! And in all these
sorrows I have been with you ! I,from the third row of the pit, have
trembled with you—have visited you in prison—have attended you

to the scaffold's foot, and then, in that delirious moment when the thg papers How my heart goes down upon its knees to the sensible
spoons were found, or the child, thought dead, ran on in a white cHtic wuo tries—although vainly—to sing your full deserts ; whilst
frock,—then have I, though still in the third row, caught you iuuo- | for the wretch who finds taultj or_but enough on this disgusting
cent to my arms, and wept in ecstacy ! theme. There are monsters in the human form who write so-called

criticisms for newspapers.

And now, my dearest love, in the same spirit of frankness—with
that boundless gush of affection—which you have so wonderfully-
developed to-night—with that fervor and truth which prove to me
that we were born for one another,—and that I have too rightly
read your heart to believe that my want of fortune will be any
defect in your eyes—rather, indeed, I should say, from what I have
seen to-night, a recommendation—

1 remain,

Your devoted Lover,
Charles Spoonbill.

As a daughter, have I not seen you all your father ould wish ?
As a wife, have you not cast a lustre upon all your wedding-rings—
as a young and tender mother—pardon me, sweet one,—have you
not been more devoted than the pelican, gentler than the dove {

How was it possible, then, for six months to behold you, moving
in and adorning every sphere—now to see you the polished countess,
now the simple country maid — now smiling at want, and now
giving away an unconsidered number of bank-notes,—how, in the
name of Cupid, I ask it, was it possible even from the third row of
the pit to behold all this, and not as I have done to worship you ?

Shall I, ought I, to attempt to describe to you my feelings for one
night f Will my lovo bear with me while I write? Why do I ask!

Can I doubt it { | P.S. Please, dearest, leave an answer at the stage-door. And,

Exactly at half-past six—my heart, my best watch—I take the [ dearest, pray let me catch your eye in the third row to-morro*-