ch-leaf
curl" when they hear how these silly letters are sometimes passed about
and laughed at. "No gentleman would so betray a confidence!" Of course
not; but once when I made that remark to an actor, who was then flaunting
the food his vanity fed upon, he roughly answered: "And no _lady_ would
so address an unknown man. She cast away her right to respectful
consideration when she thrust that letter in the box." That was brutal;
but there are those who think like him this very day, and oh, foolish
tamperers with fire, who act like him!

Now it is scarcely an exaggeration to say the sex was in love with John
Booth, the name Wilkes being apparently unknown to his family and close
friends. At depot restaurants those fiercely unwilling maiden-slammers of
plates and shooters of coffee-cups made to him swift and gentle offerings
of hot steaks, hot biscuits, hot coffee, crowding round him like doves
about a grain basket, leaving other travellers to wait upon themselves or
go without refreshment. At the hotels, maids had been known to enter his
room and tear asunder the already made-up bed, that the "turn-over" might
be broader by a thread or two, and both pillows slant at the perfectly
correct angle. At the theatre, good heaven! as the sunflowers turn upon
their stalks to follow the beloved sun, so old or young, our faces
smiling, turned to him. Yes, old or young, for the little daughter of the
manager, who played but the _Duke of York_ in "Richard III.," came to
the theatre each day, each night of the engagement, arrayed in her best
gowns, and turned on him fervid eyes that might well have served for
_Juliet_. The manager's wife, whose sternly aggressive virtue no one
could doubt or question, with the aid of art waved and fluffed her hair,
and softened thus her too hard line of brow, and let her keen black eyes
fill with friendly sparkles for us all--yet, 'twas because of him. And
when the old woman made to threaten him with her finger, and he caught
her lifted hand, and uncovering his bonnie head, stooped and kissed it,
then came the wanton blood up in her cheek as she had been a girl again.

His letters then from flirtatious women, and, alas! girls, you may well
believe were legion. A cloud used to gather upon his face at sight of
them. I have of course no faintest idea that he lived the godly,
righteous, and sober life that is enjoined upon us all, but I do remember
with respect that this idolized man, when the letters we