In thanking you for the box you kindly sent me the day before yesterday,
let me thank you a thousand times for the delight we derived from the
representation of your beautiful and admirable piece. I have hardly ever
been so affected and interested in any theatre. Its construction is in
the highest degree excellent, the interest absorbing, and the whole
conducted by a masterly hand to a touching and natural conclusion.
Through the whole story from beginning to end, I recognise the true
spirit and feeling of an artist, and I most heartily offer you and your
fellow-labourer my felicitations on the success you have achieved. That
it will prove a very great and a lasting one, I cannot for a moment
doubt.
O my friend! If I could see an English actress with but one hundredth
part of the nature and art of Madame Plessy, I should believe our
English theatre to be in a fair way towards its regeneration. But I have
no hope of ever beholding such a phenomenon. I may as well expect ever
to see upon an English stage an accomplished artist, able to write and
to embody what he writes, like you.
Faithfully yours ever.
[Sidenote: Madame Viardot.]