The country performances being concluded, nearly ten years passed before the footlights shone again on “The Frozen Deep." In 1866 I accepted a proposal, made to me by Mr. Horace Wigan, to produce the play (with certain alterations and additions) on the public stage, at the Olympic Theatre, London. The first performance took place (while I was myself absent from England) on the 27th of November, in the year just mentioned. Mr. H. Neville acted the part "created" by Dickens. Seven years passed after the production of the play at the Olympic Theatre, and then "The Frozen Deep" appealed once more to public favour, in another country than England, and under a totally new form. I occupied the autumn and winter of 1873-74 most agreeably to myself, by a tour in the United States of America, receiving from the generous people of that great country a welcome which I shall remember proudly and gratefully to the end of my life. During my stay in America I read in public, in the principal cities, one of my shorter stories (enlarged and re-written for the purpose), called "The Dream-Woman." Concluding my tour at Boston, I was advised by my friends to give, if possible, a special attraction to my farewell reading in America, by presenting to my audience a new work. Having this object in view, and having but a short space of time at my disposal, I bethought myself of "The Frozen Deep." The play had never been published, and I determined to re-write it in narrative form for a public reading. The experiment proved, on trial, to be far more successful than I had ventured to anticipate. Occupying nearly two hours in its delivery, the transformed “Frozen Deep" kept its hold from first to last on the interest and sympathies of the audience. I hope to have future opportunities of reading it in my own country, as well as in the United States. Proposals having lately been made to me, in England and in America, to publish my "readings," I here present "The Frozen Deep" and "The Dream-Woman." The stories, as I print them, are in both instances considerably longer than the stories as I read them; the limits of time in the case of a public reading rendering it imperatively necessary to abridge without mercy developments of character and incident which are essential to the due presentation of a work in its literary form. I have only to add, for the benefit of those who may have seen, and who may not have forgotten, the play, that the narrative version of "The Frozen Deep" departs widely from the treatment of the story in the First Act of the dramatic version, but (with the one exception of the Third Scene) follows the play as closely as posible in the succeeding Acts. The third and last story in the present collection (entitled "John Jago's Ghost") was sug gested to me by a printed account of a remarkable trial which took place in America some years since. This little work was written during my stay in New York and was published (periodically) in England in "The Home Journal." W. C. LONDON: THE date is between twenty and thirty years ago. The place is an English sea-port. The time is night. And the business of the moment is-dancing. The The Mayor and Corporation of the town are giving a grand ball, in celebration of the departure of an Arctic expedition from their port. ships of the expedition are two in number-the "Wanderer" and the "Sea-Mew." They are to sail (in search of the North-West Passage) on the next day, with the morning tide. Honour to the Mayor and Corporation! It is a brilliant ball. The band is complete. The room is spacious. The large conservatory opening out of it is pleasantly lit with Chinese lanterns, and beautifully decorated with shrubs and flowers. All officers of the army and navy who are present wear their uniforms in honour of the occasion. Among the ladies the display of dresses (a subject which the men don't understand) is bewildering, and the average of beauty (a subject which the men do understand) is the highest average attainable in all parts of the room. For the moment the dance which is in progress is a quadrille. General admiration selects two of the ladies who are dancing as its favourite objects. One is a dark beauty in the prime of womanhood -the wife of First Lieutenant Crayford, of the "Wanderer." The other is a young girl, pale and delicate, dressed simply in white, with no ornament on her head but her own lovely brown hair. This is Miss Clara Burnham-an orphan. She is Mrs. Crayford's dearest friend, and she is to stay with Mrs. Crayford during the Lieutenant's absence in the Arctic regions. She is now dancing, with the Lieutenant himself for partner, and with Mrs. Crayford and Captain Helding (Commanding Officer of the "Wanderer ") for vis-à-vis-in plain English, for opposite couple. The conversation between Captain Helding and Mrs. Crayford, in one of the intervals of the dance, turns on Miss Burnham. The Captain is greatly interested in Clara. He admires her beauty, but he thinks her manner, for a young girl, strangely serious and subdued. Is she in delicate health? Mrs. Crayford shakes her head, sighs mysteriously, and answers |