_ opened to me; I had a distinction in the
little world of the newspaper, which made me like it; began to write;
didn't want money; had never thought of the stage, but as a means of
getting it; gradually left off turning my thoughts that way; and never
resumed the idea. I never told you this, did I? See how near I may have
been, to another sort of life.

"This was at the time when I was at Doctors' Commons as a shorthand
writer for the proctors. And I recollect I wrote the letter from a
little office I had there, where the answer came also. It wasn't a very
good living (though not a _very_ bad one), and was wearily uncertain;
which made me think of the Theatre in quite a business-like way. I went
to some theatre every night, with a very few exceptions, for at least
three years: really studying the bills first, and going to where there
was the best acting: and always to see Mathews whenever he played. I
practised immensely (even such things as walking in and out, and sitting
down in a chair): often four, five, six hours a day: shut up in my own
room, or walking about in the fields. I prescribed to myself, too, a
sort of Hamiltonian system for learning parts; and learnt a great
number. I haven't even lost the habit now, for I knew my Canadian parts
immediately, though they were new to me. I must have done a good deal:
for, just as Macready found me out, they used to challenge me at
Braham's: and Yates, who was knowing enough in those things, wasn't to
be parried at all. It was just the same, that day at Keeley's, when they
were getting up the _Chuzzlewit_ last June.

"If you think Macready would be interested in this Strange news from the
South, tell it him. Fancy Bartley or Charles Kemble _now_! And how
little they suspect me!" In the later letter from Lucerne written as he
was travelling home, he adds: "_Did_ I ever tell you the details of my
theatrical idea, before? Strange, that I should have quite forgotten it.
I had an odd fancy, when I was reading the unfortunate little farce at
Covent-garden, that Bartley looked as if some struggling recollection
and connection were stirring up within him--but it may only have been
his doubts of that humorous composition." The last allusion is to the
farce of the _Lamplighter_ which he read in the Covent-garden
green-room, and to which former allusion was made in speaking of his
wish to give help to Macready's managerial enterprise.

_What Might have Been_ is a history of too li