Eliza Fenwick, London, to Mary Hays, [3] Park Street, Islington, [postmark 25 October 1806].1
My dear friend, I am glad you have brought back
with you the remembrance of pleasant hours pass’d in the country May those to
which you return wear a still better aspect, & make the <–> painful
past, but as the fading impression of a dream. We are still here, for in spite
of my best & constant efforts I cannot yet compass the means of our
removal. It will require some preparations which my friends are unequal to. Nor
shall I be able to do it at earliest before Christmas. The delay is however no
way injurious to Eliza nor to my prospects in her, but it makes the present
full of toil of care & perplexity that gives me many a heart ache. She is
meanwhile making a steady progress in her art; even a more rapid one than with
the disadvantage of her excessive fears & want of reliance on herself I had
hoped for. She has made one comic attempt of Volante in the Honey Moon2 in which
she displayed a considerable portion of that fancy & playfulness which has
always led me to suppose Comedy will be best adapted to her powers. I was very
sorry that owing to a mistake in the delivery of the tickets I could not give Mr H. Robinson3 any the evening she played Volante
as I had promised. He has seen her twice both times under great disadvantages,
the first time, she was under a sort of distraction of mind & thought &
much dissatisfied with those among whom she was playing; the second time she
was more in possession of herself but she disliked her character, exceedingly,
its situation, the play & all attendant circumstances. These things too
often occur in her present school but the advantage of practise in treading the
stage & in the ability to look an audience in the face counterbalances the Eliza joins in affectionate wishes to you Our loves to Leo, in whose renewal of beauty we much rejoice. It does us all credit. Adieu yrs most affectionately E Fenwick Address: Miss Hays | Park Street | Islington Postmark: 25 October 1806 1 Fenwick Family Papers, Correspondence, 1798-1855, New York Historical Library; Wedd, Fate of the Fenwicks 15-16; not in Brooks, Correspondence. 2 A character in The Honeymoon (1805) by John Tobin (1770-1804). 3 Crabb Robinson. 4 Thomas Holcroft, the playwright. 5 Elizabeth Hays Lanfear, whose residence in Upper Terrace, Islington, was not far from that of Mary Hays in Park Street.
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MARY HAYS: LIFE, WRITINGS, AND CORRESPONDENCE > MARY HAYS CORRESPONDENCE > 1800-1809 > 1806 >