Cymbeline - eTheses Repository - University of Birmingham

as to make mo feel that they entered into
ray conception of her beautiful nature, as
I have here /the letter on Kermione7
endeavoured TO present it...22 ""
33.
Her explanation for the emotive power of her performance
of the statue scene constitutes a more explicit declaration
of her relationship with the "ideal women" whom she portrayed:
In Edinburgh, upon one occasion, I have been
told by a friend who was present that, as I
descended from the pedestal and advanced towards
leontes, the audience simultaneously
rose from their seats, as if drawn out of them
by surprise arid reverential awe at the presence
of one who bore more of heaven than of earth
about her. I can only account for this by
supposing that the soul of Hermione had for the
time entered into mine, and "so divinely v.Tou0ht
that one might almost say," with the old poet,
my "body thought". Of course 1 did not observe
this movement of the audience, for my imagination
was too full of what I thought was then in
Hermione's heart, to leave me eyes for any but
Leontes.
This letter was addressed to Tennyson, and it ends with this
and further intimations that Mss Faucit knew as much about
inspiration as any poet: but the same mixture of transcendental
flummery and simple vanity informs the whole of the
book. If Miss Paucit praises the gentle, womanly, ideal
virtue of a character she has performed, the reader is never
allowed to forget that Helen Faucit was able to perform it.
Her Desdemona dies in agonised reflections on what her husband
will go through when he discovers his hideous mistake, and
Miss Faucit adds in a footnote to the description of Desdemona
f s death Carlyle's praise of her acting -
It was a great pleasure to me, when, talking
with ttr. uarlyle in 1873 about Lr. Macready's
revivals, which he spoke of very warmly, he
referred in glowing terms to my Desdemona.
Amid much else, he said he had never felt the
play so deeply before. One phrase especially
struck me - "It quite hurt me to see the fair,
delicate creature so brutally used." Would