It was a kind of alarm to break off from my work when
there happened to be company to dinner or when I was going to the play.
_That_ was going to the play, indeed, when I went twice a year, and
had not been more than half a dozen times in my life. Even the idea that
any one else in the house was going, was a sort of reflected enjoyment,
and conjured up a lively anticipation of the scene. I remember a Miss
D----, a maiden lady from Wales (who in her youth was to have been
married to an earl,) tantalized me greatly in this way, by talking all
day of going to see Mrs. Siddons' "airs and graces" at night in some
favourite part; and when the Letter-Bell announced that the time was
approaching, and its last receding sound lingered on the ear, or was
lost in silence, how anxious and uneasy I became, lest she and her
companion should not be in time to get good places--lest the curtain
should draw up before they arrived--and lest I should lose one line or
look in the intelligent report which I should hear the next morning! The
punctuating of time at that early period--every thing that gives it an
articulate voice--seems of the utmost consequence; for we do not know
what scenes in the _ideal_ world may run out of them: a world of
interest may hang upon every instant, and we can hardly sustain the
weight of future years which are contained in embryo in the most minute
and inconsiderable passing events.
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