Note 200 — Chapter V

Before he saw this he wrote: "That piece you spoke of (the Médecin des Enfants) is one of the very best melodramas I have ever read. Situations, admirable. I will send it to you by Landseer. I am very curious indeed to go and see it; and it is an instance to me of the powerful emotions from which art is shut out in England by the conventionalities." After seeing it he writes: "The low cry of excitement and expectation that goes round the house when any one of the great situations is felt to be coming is very remarkable indeed. I suppose there has not been so great a success of the genuine and worthy kind (for the authors have really taken the French dramatic bull by the horns, and put the adulterous wife in the right position), for many years. When you come over and see it, you will say you never saw anything so admirably done. There is one actor, Bignon (M. Delormel), who has a good deal of Macready in him; sometimes looks very like him; and who seems to me the perfection of manly good sense." 17th of April 1856.