A Walking Tragedy
Charles Kean was the son of Edmund Kean, the immortal tragedian whose performances were singularly suited to the sensibilities of the Victorian age. From this letter to his daughter Mary, it would seem fair to judge that Charles—also an actor—had difficulty confining tragedy and pathos to the stage.
22 April 1864—I shall be delighted to get away from these colonies for I neither like the climate or the people.
Patty, strange girl, says she would rather live in St Kilda than any place she has ever seen after Paris! Paris first, St Kilda next!! Why the very insects here are enough to disgust one. The swarms of flies are truly a plague, spiders crawl upon your pillow, some poisonous. The mosquitoes are counted by myriads. I have totally lost all appetite through these wretches.
At breakfast I am compelled to place my saucer over my cup making hasty snatches at my tea to prevent the flies falling into it. The weather is cooler now but yet these disgusting creatures do not diminish. This is town life, but in the country it is truly awful. Snakes and everything horrible you can think of…
Patty has grown very thin. I think her family bother her, her brother John through our influence got a job in the government printing house the other day for a fortnight but was dismissed at the termination of the first week. Patty tells me because there was not sufficient type to supply all the hands. I hope for her sake and for his that may be the true version but I am afraid it is not so. What is to become of him and that fool Maria I do not know, both are out of employment now and nothing seems to offer.
They have one and all, Patty and Nancy excepted, behaved so badly to me that it has destroyed all ties of tenderness and care on my part towards them. Fancy during my illness at Sydney when the daily telegrams intimated I was dying, that girl Maria never wrote one line to her sister inquiring after me, not one word has she written to Uncle and Aunt since our arrival in the colony. Is it not, my dear child enough to harden the kindest heart?
I wish I were at home again safe and sound taking my farewell round of acting.
America will assist my retiring pension I expect by at least £2000 to £3000, perhaps more. The poor little doctor won’t like this Yankee trip.
Did you ever hear of an insect somewhat resembling a grasshopper, called a mantis? Well, one of these gentlemen fell on my newspaper the other morning while reading in bed, in the act of devouring his breakfast which consisted of a good fat fly which he tightly held in his long arms. Such are the pleasures of Australian life. The wind is now howling in the most piteous manner although the sun is shining brightly.