Woodbridge: Febr: 2/76.

Now, my dear Mrs. Kemble, I have done you a little good turn. Some days ago I was talking to my Brother John (I dared not show him!) of what you had said of my Family in your Gossip. He was extremely interested: and wished much that I [would] convey you his old hereditary remembrances. But, beside that, he wished you to have a Miniature of your Mother which my Mother had till she died. It is a full length; in a white Dress, with blue Scarf, looking and tending with extended Arms upward in a Blaze of Light. My Brother had heard my Mother’s History of the Picture, but could not recall it. I fancy it was before your Mother’s Marriage. The Figure is very beautiful, and the Face also: like your Sister Adelaide, and your Brother Henry both. I think you will be pleased with this: and my Brother is very pleased that you should have it. Now, how to get it over to you is the Question; I believe I must get my little Quaritch, the Bookseller, who has a great American connection, to get it safely over to you. But if you know of any surer means, let me know. It is framed: and would look much better if some black edging were streaked into the Gold Frame; a thing I sometimes do only with a strip of Black Paper. The old Plan of Black and Gold Frames is much wanted where Yellow predominates in the Picture. Do you know I have a sort of Genius for Picture-framing, which is an Art People may despise, as they do the Milliner’s: but you know how the prettiest Face may be hurt, and the plainest improved, by the Bonnet; and I find that (like the Bonnet, I suppose) you can only judge of the Frame, by trying it on. I used to tell some Picture Dealers they had better hire me for such Millinery: but I have not had much Scope for my Art down here. So now you have a little Lecture along with the Picture.

Now, as you are to thank me for this good turn done to you, so have I to thank you for Ditto to me. The mention of my little Quaritch reminds me. He asked me for copies of Agamemnon, to give to some of his American Customers who asked for them; and I know from whom they must have somehow heard of it. And now, what Copies I had being gone, he is going, at his own risk, to publish a little Edition. The worst is, he will print it pretentiously, I fear, as if one thought it very precious: but the Truth is, I suppose he calculates on a few Buyers who will give what will repay him. One of my Patrons, Professor Norton, of Cambridge Mass., has sent me a second Series of Lowell’s ‘Among my Books,’ which I shall be able to acknowledge with sincere praise. I had myself bought the first Series. Lowell may do for English Writers something as Ste. Beuve has done for French: and one cannot give higher Praise. [97a]

There has been an absurd Bout in the AthenÆum [97b] between Miss Glyn and some Drury Lane Authorities. She wrote a Letter to say that she would not have played Cleopatra in a revival of Antony and Cleopatra for £1000 a line, I believe, so curtailed and mangled was it. Then comes a Miss Wallis, who played the Part, to declare that ‘the Veteran’ (Miss G.) had wished to play the Part as it was acted: and furthermore comes Mr. Halliday, who somehow manages and adapts at D. L., to assert that the Veteran not only wished to enact the Desecration, but did enact it for many nights when Miss Wallis was indisposed. Then comes Isabel forward again—but I really forget what she said. I never saw her but once—in the Duchess of Malfi—very well: better, I dare say, than anybody now; but one could not remember a Word, a Look, or an Action. She speaks in her Letter of being brought up in the grand School and Tradition of the Kembles.

I am glad, somehow, that you liked Macready’s Reminiscences: so honest, so gentlemanly in the main, so pathetic even in his struggles to be a better Man and Actor. You, I think, feel with him in your Distaste for the Profession.

I write you tremendous long Letters, which you can please yourself about reading through. I shall write Laurence your message of Remembrance to him. I had a longish Letter from Donne, who spoke of himself as well enough, only living by strict Rule in Diet, Exercise, etc.

We have had some remarkable Alternations of Cold and Hot here too: but nothing like the extremes you tell me of on the other side of the Page.

Lionel Tennyson (second Son), who answered my half-yearly Letter to his father, tells me they had heard that Annie Thackeray was well in health, but—as you may imagine in Spirits.

And I remain yours always
E. F.G.

How is it my Atlantic Monthly is not yet come?