AustLit

A short poem that appears in a gossip column reporting the recovery of Nellie Farren from a period of paraplegia: Farren, an English actor of the mid nineteenth-century, best known for playing the principal boy in pantomimes (in which her legs would be visible to the audience). She was reported to have suffered an unspecified spinal complaint earlier in her career, and in the early 1890s suffered a bout of rheumatic fever that triggered her spinal issues and caused paralysis of her legs. The poem recalls the 'paralysing' effect her legs had on the audience, and hopes for her recovery.