"Now I should be glad to know what compensation Mr. Elliston would make me, not only for dragging my writings on the stage in _five_ days, but for being the cause that I was kept for _four_ days (from Sunday to Thursday morning, the only post-days) in the _belief_ that the _tragedy_ had been acted and 'unanimously hissed;' and this with the addition that _I_ 'had brought it upon the stage,' and consequently that none of my friends had attended to my request to the contrary. Suppose that I had burst a blood-vessel, like John Keats, or blown my brains out in a fit of rage,--neither of which would have been unlikely a few years ago. At present I am, luckily, calmer than I used to be, and yet I would not pass those four days over again for--I know not what[38].
"I wrote to you to keep up your spirits, for reproach is useless always, and irritating--but my feelings were very much hurt, to be dragged like a gladiator to the fate of a gladiator by that '_retiarius_,' Mr. Elliston. As to his defence and offers of compensation, what is all this to the purpose? It is like Louis the Fourteenth, who insisted upon buying at any price Algernon Sydney's horse, and, on his refusal, on taking it by force, Sydney shot his horse. I could not shoot my tragedy, but I would have flung it into the fire rather than have had it represented.
"I have now written nearly three _acts_ of another (intending to complete it in five), and am more anxious than ever to be preserved from such a breach of all literary courtesy and gentlemanly consideration.
"If we succeed, well: if not, previous to any future publication, we will request a _promise_ not to be acted, which I would even pay for (as money is their object), or I will not publish--which, however, you will probably not much regret.
"The Chancellor has behaved nobly. You have also conducted yourself in the most satisfactory manner; and I have no fault to find with any body but the stage-players and their proprietor. I was always so civil to Elliston personally, that he ought to have been the last to attempt to injure me.
"There is a most rattling thunder-storm pelting away at this present writing; so that I write neither by day, nor by candle, nor torchlight, but by _lightning_ light: the flashes are as brilliant as the most gaseous glow of the gas-light company. My chimney-board has just been thrown down by a gust of wind: I thought that it was the 'Bold Thunder' and 'Brisk Lightning' in person.--_Three_ of us would be too many. There it goes--_flash_ again! but