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diff --git a/12326-0.txt b/12326-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..82c319c --- /dev/null +++ b/12326-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,13407 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 12326 *** + +[Illustration: Ellen Terry + +drawn from photographs by Albert Sterner] + + + + + +THE STORY OF MY LIFE + +RECOLLECTIONS AND REFLECTIONS + + +BY + +ELLEN TERRY + + +[Illustration] + + +ILLUSTRATED + + +NEW YORK + +DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & CO. + +MCMIX + + + + +_1908, The McClure Company_ + +1907, 1908, The S.S. McClure Company + +1907, 1908, Ellen Terry + + + + +TO + +EDY + + + + +CONTENTS + + +INTRODUCTION + +I. A CHILD OF THE STAGE, 1848-56 + The Charles Keans, 1856 + Training in Shakespeare, 1856-59 + +II. ON THE ROAD, 1859-61 + Life in a Stock Company, 1862-63 + 1864 + +III. ROSSETTI, BERNHARDT, IRVING, 1865-67 + My First Impressions of Henry Irving + +IV. A SIX-YEAR VACATION, 1868-74 + +V. THE ACTRESS AND THE PLAYWRIGHT, 1874. + Portia, 1875 + Tom Taylor and Lavender Sweep + +VI. A YEAR WITH THE BANCROFTS + +VII. EARLY DAYS AT THE LYCEUM + +VIII. WORK AT THE LYCEUM + +IX. LYCEUM PRODUCTIONS + +X. LYCEUM PRODUCTIONS (_continued_) + +XI. AMERICA: THE FIRST OF EIGHT TOURS + What Constitutes Charm + +XII. SOME LIKES AND DISLIKES + +XIII. THE MACBETH PERIOD + +XIV. LAST DAYS AT THE LYCEUM + My Stage Jubilee + Apologia + The Death of Henry Irving + Alfred Gilbert and others + "Beefsteak" Guests at the Lyceum + Bits From My Diary + +INDEX + + + + +LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS + + +Ellen Terry + +Mr. and Mrs. Benjamin Terry + +Charles Kean and Ellen Terry in 1856 + +Ellen Terry in 1856 + +Ellen Terry at Sixteen + +"The Sisters" (Kate and Ellen Terry) + +Ellen Terry at Seventeen + +George Frederick Watts, R.A. + +Ellen Terry as Helen in "The Hunchback" + +Henry Irving + +Head of a Young Girl (Ellen Terry) + +Henry Irving + +Ellen Terry as Portia + +Henry Irving as Matthias in "The Bells" + +Henry Irving as Philip of Spain + +Henry Irving as Hamlet + +Lily Langtry + +William Terriss as Squire Thornhill in "Olivia" + +Ellen Terry as Ophelia + +Ellen Terry as Beatrice + +Sir Henry Irving + +Irving as Louis XI + +Ellen Terry as Henrietta Maria + +Ellen Terry as Camma in "The Cup" + +Ellen Terry as Iolanthe + +Ellen Terry as Letitia Hardy in "The Belle's Stratagem" + +Edwin Thomas Booth + +Ellen Terry as Juliet + +Two Portraits of Ellen Terry as Beatrice + +Ellen Terry's Favourite Photograph as Olivia + +Eleanora Duse with Lenbach's Child + +Ellen Terry as Margaret in "Faust" + +Ellen Terry as Ellaline in "The Amber Heart" + +Miss Ellen Terry in 1883 + +The Bas-relief Portrait of Robert Louis Stevenson + +Miss Terry and Sir Henry Irving + +Sarah Holland, Ellen Terry's Dresser + +Miss Rosa Corder + +Miss Ellen Terry with her Fox-terriers + +Miss Ellen Terry in 1898 + +Sir Henry Irving + +Miss Ellen Terry + +Ellen Terry as Lady Macbeth + +Sir Henry Irving + +Ellen Terry as Lucy Ashton in "Ravenswood" + +Henry Irving as Cardinal Wolsey in "Henry VIII." + +Ellen Terry as Nance Oldfield + +Ellen Terry as Kniertje in "The Good Hope" + +Ellen Terry as Imogen + +Henry Irving as Becket + +Sir Henry Irving + +Ellen Terry as Rosamund in "Becket" + +Ellen Terry as Guinevere in "King Arthur" + +"Olivia" + +Miss Terry's Garden at Winchelsea + +Ellen Terry as Hermione in "The Winter's Tale" + + + + +INTRODUCTION + + "When I read the book, the biography famous, + And is this then (said I) what the author calls a man's life? + And so will some one when I am dead and gone write my life? + (As if any man really knew aught of my life!) + Why even I myself, I often think, know little or nothing of my real + life. + Only a few hints--a few diffused faint clues and indirections + I seek ... to trace out here." + + WALT WHITMAN. + + +For years I have contemplated telling this story, and for years I have +put off telling it. While I have delayed, my memory has not improved, +and my recollections of the past are more hazy and fragmentary than when +it first occurred to me that one day I might write them down. + +My bad memory would matter less if I had some skill in writing--the +practiced writer can see possibilities in the most ordinary events--or +if I had kept a systematic and conscientious record of my life. But +although I was at one time conscientious and diligent enough in keeping +a diary, I kept it for use at the moment, not for future reference. I +kept it with paste-pot and scissors as much as with a pen. My method was +to cut bits out of the newspapers and stick them into my diary day by +day. Before the end of the year was reached Mr. Letts would have been +ashamed to own his diary. It had become a bursting, groaning dust-bin of +information, for the most part useless. The biggest elastic band made +could hardly encircle its bulk, swelled by photographs, letters, +telegrams, dried flowers--the whole making up a confusion in which every +one but the owner would seek in vain to find some sense or meaning. + +About six years ago I moved into a smaller house in London, and I burnt +a great many of my earlier diaries as unmovable rubbish. The few +passages which I shall quote in this book from those which escaped +destruction will prove that my bonfire meant no great loss! + +Still, when it was suggested to me in the year of my stage jubilee that +I ought to write down my recollections, I longed for those diaries! I +longed for anything which would remind me of the past and make it live +again for me. I was frightened. Something would be expected of me, since +I could not deny that I had had an eventful life packed full of +incident, and that by the road I had met many distinguished and +interesting men and women. I could not deny that I had been fifty years +on the stage, and that this meant enough material for fifty books, if +only the details of every year could be faithfully told. But it is not +given to all of us to see our lives in relief as we look back. Most of +us, I think, see them in perspective, of which our birth is the +vanishing point. Seeing, too, is only half the battle. How few people +can describe what they see! + +While I was thinking in this obstructive fashion and wishing that I +could write about my childhood like Tolstoi, about my girlhood like +Marie Bashkirtseff, and about the rest of my days and my work like many +other artists of the pen, who merely, by putting black upon white, have +had the power to bring before their readers not merely themselves "as +they lived," but the most homely and intimate details of their lives, +the friend who had first impressed on me that I ought not to leave my +story untold any longer, said that the beginning was easy enough: "What +is the first thing you remember? Write that down as a start." + +But for my friend's practical suggestion it is doubtful if I should ever +have written a line! He relieved my anxiety about my powers of compiling +a stupendous autobiography, and made me forget that writing was a new +art, to me, and that I was rather old to try my hand at a new art. My +memory suddenly began to seem not so bad after all. For weeks I had +hesitated between Othello's "Nothing extenuate, nor write down aught in +malice," and Pilate's "What is truth?" as my guide and my apology. Now I +saw that both were too big for my modest endeavor. I was not leaving a +human document for the benefit of future psychologists and historians, +but telling as much of my story as I could remember to the good, living +public which has been considerate and faithful to me for so many years. + +How often it has made allowances for me when I was nervous on first +nights! With what patience it has waited long and uncomfortable hours to +see me! Surely its charity would quickly cover my literary sins. + +I gave up the search for a motto which should express my wish to tell +the truth so far as I know it, to describe things as I see them, to be +faithful according to my light, not dreading the abuse of those who +might see in my light nothing but darkness. + +I shut up "Othello" and did not try to verify the remark of "jesting" +Pilate. The only instruction that I gave myself was to "begin at the +beginning." + +E.T. + + + + +THE STORY OF MY LIFE + + + + +I + +A CHILD OF THE STAGE + +1848-1856 + + +This is the first thing I remember. + +In the corner of a lean-to whitewashed attic stood a fine, plain, solid +oak bureau. By climbing up on to this bureau I could see from the window +the glories of the sunset. My attic was on a hill in a large and busy +town, and the smoke of a thousand chimneys hung like a gray veil between +me and the fires in the sky. When the sun had set, and the scarlet and +gold, violet and primrose, and all those magic colors that have no +names, had faded into the dark, there were other fires for me to see. +The flaming forges came out, and terrified while they fascinated my +childish imagination. + +What did it matter to me that I was locked in and that my father and +mother, with my elder sister Kate, were all at the theater? I had the +sunset, the forges, and the oak bureau. + +I cannot say how old I was at this time, but I am sure that it wasn't +long after my birth (which I can't remember, although I have often been +asked to decide in which house at Coventry I was born!). At any rate, I +had not then seen a theater, and I took to the stage before many years +had passed over my head. + +Putting together what I remembered, and such authentic history as there +is of my parents' movements, I gather that this attic was in theatrical +lodgings in Glasgow. My father was an actor, my mother an actress, and +they were at this time on tour in Scotland. Perhaps this is the place to +say that father was the son of an Irish builder, and that he eloped in a +chaise with mother, who was the daughter of a Scottish minister. I am +afraid I know no details of their romance. As for my less immediate +ancestry, it is "wropt in mystery." Were we all people of the stage? +There was a Daniel Terry who was not only a famous actor in his day, but +a friend of Sir Walter Scott's. There was an Eliza Terry, an actress +whose portrait appears in _The Dramatic Mirror_ in 1847. But so far as I +know I cannot claim kinship with either Eliza or Daniel. + +I have a very dim recollection of anything that happened in the attic, +beyond the fact that when my father and mother went to the theater every +night, they used to put me to bed and that directly their backs were +turned and the door locked, I used to jump up and go to the window. My +"bed" consisted of the mattress pulled off their bed and laid on the +floor--on father's side. Both my father and my mother were very kind and +devoted parents (though severe at times, as all good parents are), but +while mother loved all her children too well to make favorites, I was, I +believe, my father's particular pet. I used to sleep all night holding +his hand. + +One night I remember waking up to find a beautiful face bending over me. +Father was holding a candle so that the visitor might see me better, and +gradually I realized that the face belonged to some one in a brown silk +dress--the first silk dress that I had ever seen. This being from +another world had brown eyes and brown hair, which looked to me very +dark, because we were a white lot, very fair indeed. I shall never +forget that beautiful vision of this well-dressed woman with her lovely +complexion and her gold chain round her neck. It was my Aunt Lizzie. + +I hold very strongly that a child's earliest impressions mould its +character perhaps more than either heredity or education. I am sure it +is true in my case. What first impressed me? An attic, an oak bureau, a +lovely face, a bed on the floor. Things have come and gone in my life +since then, but they have been powerless to efface those early +impressions. I adore pretty faces. I can't keep away from shops where +they sell good old furniture like my bureau. I like plain rooms with low +ceilings better than any other rooms; and for my afternoon siesta, which +is one of my institutions, I often choose the floor in preference to bed +or sofa. + +What we remember in our childhood and what we are told afterwards often +become inextricably confused in our minds, and after the bureau and Aunt +Lizzie, my memory is a blank for some years. I can't even tell you when +it was first decided that I was to go on the stage, but I expect it was +when I was born, for in those days theatrical folk did not imagine that +their children _could_ do anything but follow their parents' profession. + +I must depend now on hearsay for certain facts. The first fact is my +birth, which should, perhaps, have been mentioned before anything else. +To speak by the certificate, I was born on the 27th of February, 1848, +at Coventry. Many years afterwards, when people were kind enough to +think that the house in which I was born deserved to be discovered, +there was a dispute as to which house in Market Street could claim me. +The dispute was left unsettled in rather a curious way. On one side of +the narrow street a haberdasher's shop bore the inscription, "Birthplace +of Ellen Terry." On the other, an eating-house declared itself to be +"the original birthplace"! I have never been able to arbitrate in the +matter, my statement that my mother had always said that the house was +"on the right-hand side, coming from the market-place," being apparently +of no use. I have heard lately that one of the birthplaces has retired +from the competition, and that the haberdasher has the field to himself. +I am glad, for the sake of those friends of mine who have bought his +handkerchiefs and ties as souvenirs. There is, however, nothing very +attractive about the house itself. It is better built than a house of +the same size would be built now, and it has a certain old-fashioned +respectability, but that is the end of its praises. Coventry itself +makes up for the deficiency. It is a delightful town, and it was a happy +chance that made me a native of Warwickshire, Shakespeare's own county. +Sarah Kemble married Mr. Siddons at Coventry too--another happy omen. + +I have acted twice in my native town in old days, but never in recent +years. In 1904 I planned to act there again, but unfortunately I was +taken ill at Cambridge, and the doctors would not allow me to go to +Coventry. The morning my company left Cambridge without me, I was very +miserable. It is always hateful to disappoint the public, and on this +occasion I was compelled to break faith where I most wished to keep it. +I heard afterwards from my daughter (who played some of my parts +instead of me) that many of the Coventry people thought I had never +meant to come at all. If this should meet their eyes, I hope they will +believe that this was not so. My ambition to play at Coventry again +shall be realized yet.[1] + +[Footnote 1: Since I wrote this, I have again visited my native +town--this time to receive its civic congratulations on the occasion of +my jubilee, and as recently as March of the present year I acted at the +new Empire Theater.] + +At one time nothing seemed more unlikely than that I should be able to +act in another Warwickshire town, a town whose name is known all over +the world. But time and chance and my own great wish succeeded in +bringing about my appearance at Stratford-on-Avon. + +I can well imagine that the children of some strolling players used to +have a hard time of it, but my mother was not one to shirk her duties. +She worked hard at her profession and yet found it possible not to +_drag_ up her children, to live or die as it happened, but to bring them +up to be healthy, happy, and wise--theater-wise, at any rate. When her +babies were too small to be left at the lodgings (which she and my +father took in each town they visited as near to the theater as +possible), she would bundle us up in a shawl and put us to sleep in her +dressing-room. So it was, that long before I spoke in a theater, I slept +in one. + +Later on, when we were older and mother could leave us at home, there +was a fire one night at our lodgings, and she rushed out of the theater +and up the street in an agony of terror. She got us out of the house all +right, took us to the theater, and went on with the next act as if +nothing had happened. Such fortitude is commoner in our profession, I +think, than in any other. We "go on with the next act" whatever +happens, and if we know our business, no one in the audience will ever +guess that anything is wrong--that since the curtain last went down some +dear friend has died, or our children in the theatrical lodgings up the +street have run the risk of being burnt to death. + +My mother had eleven children altogether, but only nine survived their +infancy, and of these nine, my eldest brother, Ben, and my sister +Florence have since died. My sister Kate, who left the stage at an age +when most of the young women of the present day take to it for the first +time, and made an enduring reputation in a few brilliant years, was the +eldest of the family. Then came a sister, who died, and I was the third. +After us came Ben, George, Marion, Flossie, Charles, Tom, and Fred. Six +out of the nine have been on the stage, but only Marion, Fred, and I are +there still. + +Two or three members of this large family, at the most, were in +existence when I first entered a theater in a professional capacity, so +I will leave them all alone for the present. I had better confess at +once that I don't remember this great event, and my sister Kate is +unkind enough to say that it never happened--to me! The story, she +asserts, was told of her. But without damning proofs she is not going to +make me believe it! Shall I be robbed of the only experience of my first +eight years of life? Never! + +During the rehearsals of a pantomime in a Scottish town (Glasgow, I +think. Glasgow has always been an eventful place to me!), a child was +wanted for the Spirit of the Mustard-pot. What more natural than that my +father should offer my services? I had a shock of pale yellow hair, I +was small enough to be put into the property mustard-pot, and the +Glasgow stage manager would easily assume that I had inherited talent. +My father had acted with Macready in the stock seasons both at Edinburgh +and Glasgow, and bore a very high reputation with Scottish audiences. +But the stage manager and father alike reckoned without their actress! +When they tried to put me into the mustard-pot, I yelled lustily and +showed more lung-power than aptitude for the stage. + +"Pit your child into the mustard-pot, Mr. Terry," said the stage +manager. + +"D--n you and your mustard-pot, sir!" said my mortified father. "I won't +frighten my child for you or anyone else!" + +But all the same he was bitterly disappointed at my first dramatic +failure, and when we reached home he put me in the corner to chasten me. +"_You'll_ never make an actress!" he said, shaking a reproachful finger +at me. + +It is _my_ mustard-pot, and why Kate should want it, I can't think! She +hadn't yellow hair, and she couldn't possibly have behaved so badly. I +have often heard my parents say significantly that they had no trouble +with _Kate_! Before she was four, she was dancing a hornpipe in a +sailor's jumper, a rakish little hat, and a diminutive pair of white +ducks! Those ducks, marked "Kate Terry," were kept by mother for years +as a precious relic, and are, I hope, still in the family archives! + +I stick to the mustard-pot, but I entirely disclaim the little Duke of +York in Richard III., which some one with a good memory stoutly insists +he saw me play before I made my first appearance as Mamilius. Except +for this abortive attempt at Glasgow, I was never on any stage even for +a rehearsal until 1856, at the Princess's Theater, when I appeared with +Charles Kean in "A Winter's Tale." + +The man with the memory may have seen Kate as one of the Princes in the +Tower, but he never saw me with her. Kate was called up to London in +1852 to play Prince Arthur in Charles Kean's production of "King John," +and after that she acted in all his plays, until he gave up management +in 1859. She had played Arthur during a stock season at Edinburgh, and +so well that some one sang her praises to Kean and advised him to engage +her. My mother took Kate to London, and I was left with my father in the +provinces for two years. I can't recall much about those two years +except sunsets and a great mass of shipping looming up against the sky. +The sunsets followed me about everywhere; the shipping was in Liverpool, +where father was engaged for a considerable time. He never ceased +teaching me to be useful, alert, and quick. Sometimes he hastened my +perceptive powers with a slipper, and always he corrected me if I +pronounced any word in a slipshod fashion. He himself was a beautiful +elocutionist, and if I now speak my language well it is in no small +degree due to my early training. + +It was to his elocution that father owed his engagement with Macready, +of whom he always spoke in terms of the most affectionate admiration in +after years, and probably it did him a good turn again with Charles +Kean. An actor who had supported Macready with credit was just the actor +likely to be useful to a manager who was producing a series of plays by +Shakespeare. Kate had been a success at the Princess's, too, in child +parts, and this may have reminded Mr. Kean to send for Kate's father! At +any rate he was sent for towards the end of the year 1853 and left +Liverpool for London. I know I cooked his breakfasts for him in +Liverpool, but I haven't the slightest recollection of the next two +years in London. As I am determined not to fill up the early blanks with +stories of my own invention, I must go straight on to 1856, when +rehearsals were called at the Princess's Theater for Shakespeare's +"Winter's Tale." + + +THE CHARLES KEANS + +1856 + +The Charles Keans from whom I received my first engagement, were both +remarkable people, and at the Princess Theater were doing very +remarkable work. Kean the younger had not the fire and genius of his +wonderful father, Edmund, and but for the inherited splendor of his name +it is not likely that he would ever have attained great eminence as an +actor. His Wolsey and his Richard (the Second, not the Third) were his +best parts, perhaps because in them his beautiful diction had full scope +and his limitations were not noticeable. But it is more as a stage +reformer than as an actor that he will be remembered. The old +happy-go-lucky way of staging plays, with its sublime indifference to +correctness of detail and its utter disregard of archaeology, had +received its first blow from Kemble and Macready, but Charles Kean gave +it much harder knocks and went further than either of them in the good +work. + +It is an old story and a true one that when Edmund Kean made his first +great success as Shylock, after a long and miserable struggle as a +strolling player, he came home to his wife and said: "You shall ride in +your carriage," and then, catching up his little son, added, "and +Charley shall go to Eton!" Well, Charley did go to Eton, and if Eton did +not make him a great actor, it opened his eyes to the absurd +anachronisms in costumes and accessories which prevailed on the stage at +that period, and when he undertook the management of the Princess's +Theater, he turned his classical education to account. In addition to +scholarly knowledge, he had a naturally refined taste and the power of +selecting the right man to help him. PlanchŽ, the great authority on +historical costumes, was one of his ablest coadjutors, and Mr. Bradshaw +designed all the properties. It has been said lately that I began my +career on an unfurnished stage, when the play was the thing, and +spectacle was considered of small importance. I take this opportunity of +contradicting that statement most emphatically. Neither when I began nor +yet later in my career have I ever played under a management where +infinite pains were not given to every detail. I think that far from +hampering the acting, a beautiful and congruous background and +harmonious costumes, representing accurately the spirit of the time in +which the play is supposed to move, ought to help and inspire the actor. + +Such thoughts as these did not trouble my head when I acted with the +Keans, but, child as I was, the beauty of the productions at the +Princess's Theater made a great impression on me, and my memory of them +is quite clear enough, even if there were not plenty of other evidence, +for me to assert that in some respects they were even more elaborate +than those of the present day. I know that the bath-buns of one's +childhood always seem in memory much bigger and better than the buns +sold nowadays, but even allowing for the natural glamor which the years +throw over buns and rooms, places and plays alike, I am quite certain +that Charles Kean's productions of Shakespeare would astonish the modern +critic who regards the period of my first appearance as a sort of +dark-age in the scenic art of the theater. + +I have alluded to the beauty of Charles Kean's diction. His voice was +also of a wonderful quality--soft and low, yet distinct and clear as a +bell. When he played Richard II. the magical charm of this organ was +alone enough to keep the house spellbound. His vivid personality made a +strong impression on me. Yet others only remember that he called his +wife "Delly," though she was Nelly, and always spoke as if he had a cold +in his head. How strange! If I did not understand what suggested +impressions so different from my own, they would make me more indignant. + + "Now who shall arbitrate? + Ten men love what I hate, + Shun what I follow, slight what I receive. + Ten who in ears and eyes + Match me; they all surmise, + They this thing, and I that: + Whom shall my soul believe?" + +What he owed to Mrs. Kean, he would have been the first to confess. In +many ways she was the leading spirit in the theater; at the least, a +joint ruler, not a queen-consort. During the rehearsals Mr. Kean used +to sit in the stalls with a loud-voiced dinner-bell by his side, and +when anything went wrong on the stage, he would ring it ferociously, and +everything would come to a stop, until Mrs. Kean, who always sat on the +stage, had set right what was wrong. She was more formidable than +beautiful to look at, but her wonderful fire and genius were none the +less impressive because she wore a white handkerchief round her head and +had a very beaky nose! How I admired and loved and feared her! Later on +the fear was replaced by gratitude, for no woman ever gave herself more +trouble to train a young actress than did Mrs. Kean. The love and +admiration, I am glad to say, remained and grew. It is rare that it +falls to the lot of anyone to have such an accomplished teacher. Her +patience and industry were splendid. + +It was Mrs. Kean who chose me out of five or six other children to play +my first part. We were all tried in it, and when we had finished, she +said the same thing to us all: "That's very nice! Thank you, my dear. +That will do." + +We none of us knew at the time which of us had pleased her most. + +At this time we were living in the upper part of a house in the Gower +Street region. That first home in London I remember chiefly by its fine +brass knocker, which mother kept beautifully bright, and by its being +the place to which I was sent my first part! Bound in green American +cloth, it looked to me more marvelous than the most priceless book has +ever looked since! I was so proud and pleased and delighted that I +danced a hornpipe for joy! + +Why was I chosen, and not one of the other children, for the part of +Mamilius? some one may ask. It was not mere luck, I think. Perhaps I was +a born actress, but that would have served me little if I had not been +able to _speak_! It must be remembered that both my sister Kate and I +had been trained almost from our birth for the stage, and particularly +in the important branch of clear articulation. Father, as I have already +said, was a very charming elocutionist, and my mother read Shakespeare +beautifully. They were both very fond of us and saw our faults with eyes +of love, though they were unsparing in their corrections. In these early +days they had need of all their patience, for I was a most troublesome, +wayward pupil. However, "the labor we delight in physics pain," and I +hope, too, that my more staid sister made it up to them! + +The rehearsals for "A Winter's Tale" were a lesson in fortitude. They +taught me once and for all that an actress's life (even when the actress +is only eight) is not all beer and skittles, or cakes and ale, or fame +and glory. I was cast for the part of Mamilius in the way I have +described, and my heart swelled with pride when I was told what I had to +do, when I realized that I had a real Shakespeare part--a possession +that father had taught me to consider the pride of life! + +But many weary hours were to pass before the first night. If a company +has to rehearse four hours a day now, it is considered a great hardship, +and players must lunch and dine like other folk. But this was not Kean's +way! Rehearsals lasted all day, Sundays included, and when there was no +play running at night, until four or five the next morning! I don't +think any actor in those days dreamed of luncheon. (Tennyson, by the +way, told me to say "luncheon"--not "lunch.") How my poor little legs +used to ache! Sometimes I could hardly keep my eyes open when I was on +the stage, and often when my scene was over, I used to creep into the +greenroom and forget my troubles and my art (if you can talk of art in +connection with a child of eight) in a delicious sleep. + +At the dress-rehearsals I did not want to sleep. All the members of the +company were allowed to sit and watch the scenes in which they were not +concerned, from the back of the dress-circle. This, by the way, is an +excellent plan, and in theaters where it is followed the young actress +has reason to be grateful. In these days of greater publicity when the +press attend rehearsals, there may be strong reasons against the company +being "in front," but the perfect loyalty of all concerned would dispose +of these reasons. Now, for the first time, the beginner is able to see +the effect of the weeks of thought and labor which have been given to +the production. She can watch from the front the fulfillment of what she +has only seen as intention and promise during the other rehearsals. But +I am afraid that beginners now are not so keen as they used to be. The +first wicked thing I did in a theater sprang from excess of keenness. I +borrowed a knife from a carpenter and made a slit in the canvas to watch +Mrs. Kean as Hermione! + +Devoted to her art, conscientious to a degree in mastering the spirit +and details of her part, Mrs. Kean also possessed the personality and +force to chain the attention and indelibly imprint her rendering of a +part on the imagination. When I think of the costume in which she +played Hermione, it seems marvelous to me that she could have produced +the impression that she did. This seems to contradict what I have said +about the magnificence of the production. But not at all! The designs of +the dresses were purely classic; but then, as now, actors and actresses +seemed unable to keep their own period and their own individuality out +of the clothes directly they got them on their backs. In some cases the +original design was quite swamped. No matter what the character that +Mrs. Kean was assuming, she always used to wear her hair drawn flat over +her forehead and twisted tight round her ears in a kind of circular +sweep--such as the old writing-masters used to make when they attempted +an extra grand flourish. And then the amount of petticoats she wore! +Even as Hermione she was always bunched out by layer upon layer of +petticoats, in defiance of the fact that classical parts should not be +dressed in a superfluity of raiment. But if the petticoats were full of +starch, the voice was full of pathos--and the dignity, simplicity, and +womanliness of Mrs. Charles Kean's Hermione could not have been marred +by a far more grotesque costume. + +There is something, I suppose, in a woman's nature which always makes +her remember how she was dressed at any specially eventful moment of her +life, and I can see myself, as though it were yesterday, in the little +red-and-silver dress I wore as Mamilius. Mrs. Grieve, the +dresser--"Peter Grieve-us," as we children called her--had pulled me +into my very pink tights (they were by no means _tight_ but very baggy, +according to the pictures of me), and my mother had arranged my hair in +sausage curls on each side of my head in even more perfect order and +regularity than usual. Besides my clothes, I had a beautiful "property" +to be proud of. This was a go-cart, which had been made in the theater +by Mr. Bradshaw, and was an exact copy of a child's toy as depicted on a +Greek vase. It was my duty to drag this little cart about the stage, and +on the first night, when Mr. Kean as Leontes told me to "go play," I +obeyed his instructions with such vigor that I tripped over the handle +and came down on my back! A titter ran through the house, and I felt +that my career as an actress was ruined forever. Even now I remember how +bitterly I wept, and how deeply humiliated I felt. But the little +incident, so mortifying to me, did not spoil my first appearance +altogether. _The Times_ of May 1, 1856, was kind enough to call me +"vivacious and precocious," and "a worthy relative of my sister Kate," +and my parents were pleased (although they would not show it too much), +and Mrs. Kean gave me a pat on the back. Father and Kate were both in +the cast, too, I ought to have said, and the Queen, Prince Albert, and +the Princess Royal were all in a box on the first night. + +To act for the first time in Shakespeare, in a theater where my sister +had already done something for our name, and before royalty, was surely +a good beginning. + +From April 28, 1856, I played Mamilius every night for one hundred and +two nights. I was never ill, and my understudy, Clara Denvil, a very +handsome, dark child with flaming eyes, though quite ready and longing +to play my part, never had the chance. + +I had now taken the first step, but I had taken it without any notion of +what I was doing. I was innocent of all art, and while I loved the +actual doing of my part, I hated the labor that led up to it. But the +time was soon to come when I was to be fired by a passion for work. +Meanwhile I was unconsciously learning a number of lessons which were to +be most useful to me in my subsequent career. + + +TRAINING IN SHAKESPEARE + +1856-1859 + +From April 1856 until 1859 I acted constantly at the Princess's Theater +with the Keans, spending the summer holidays in acting at Ryde. My whole +life was the theater, and naturally all my early memories are connected +with it. At breakfast father would begin the day's "coaching." Often I +had to lay down my fork and say my lines. He would conduct these extra +rehearsals anywhere--in the street, the 'bus--we were never safe! I +remember vividly going into a chemist's shop and being stood upon a +stool to say my part to the chemist! Such leisure as I had from my +profession was spent in "minding" the younger children--an occupation in +which I delighted. They all had very pretty hair, and I used to wash it +and comb it out until it looked as fine and bright as floss silk. + +It is argued now that stage life is bad for a young child, and children +are not allowed by law to go on the stage until they are ten years +old--quite a mature age in my young days! I cannot discuss the whole +question here, and must content myself with saying that during my three +years at the Princess's I was a very strong, happy, and healthy child. I +was never out of the bill except during the run of "A Midsummer Night's +Dream," when, through an unfortunate accident, I broke my toe. I was +playing Puck, my second part on any stage, and had come up through a +trap at the end of the last act to give the final speech. My sister Kate +was playing Titania that night as understudy to Carlotta Leclercq. Up I +came--but not quite up, for the man shut the trapdoor too soon and +caught my toe. I screamed. Kate rushed to me and banged her foot on the +stage, but the man only closed the trap tighter, mistaking the signal. + +"Oh, Katie! Katie!" I cried. "Oh, Nelly! Nelly!" said poor Kate +helplessly. Then Mrs. Kean came rushing on and made them open the trap +and release my poor foot. + +"Finish the play, dear," she whispered excitedly, "and I'll double your +salary!" There was Kate holding me up on one side and Mrs. Kean on the +other. Well, I did finish the play in a fashion. The text ran something +like this-- + + "If we shadows have offended (Oh, Katie, Katie!) + Think but this, and all is mended, (Oh, my toe!) + That you have but slumbered here, + While these visions did appear. (I can't, I can't!) + And this weak and idle theme, + No more yielding but a dream, (Oh, dear! oh, dear!) + Gentles, do not reprehend; (A big sob) + If you pardon, we will mend. (Oh, Mrs. Kean!)" + +How I got through it, I don't know! But my salary was doubled--it had +been fifteen shillings, and it was raised to thirty--and Mr. Skey, +President of Bartholomew's Hospital, who chanced to be in a stall that +very evening, came round behind the scenes and put my toe right. He +remained my friend for life. + +I was not chosen for Puck because I had played Mamilius with some +credit. The same examination was gone through, and again I came out +first. During the rehearsals Mrs. Kean taught me to draw my breath in +through my nose and begin a laugh--a very valuable accomplishment! She +was also indefatigable in her lessons in clear enunciation, and I can +hear her now lecturing the ladies of the company on their vowels. "A, E, +I, O, U, my dear," she used to say, "are five distinct vowels, so don't +mix them all up together, as if you were making a pudding. If you want +to say, 'I am going on the river,' say it plainly and don't tell us you +are going on the 'riv_ah_!' You must say _her_, not _har_; it's _God_, +not _Gud_: rem_on_strance, not rem_un_strance," and so forth. No one +ever had a sharper tongue or a kinder heart than Mrs. Kean. Beginning +with her, I have always loved women with a somewhat hard manner! I have +never believed in their hardness, and have proved them tender and +generous in the extreme. + +Actor-managers are very proud of their long runs nowadays, but in +Shakespeare, at any rate, they do not often eclipse Charles Kean's two +hundred and fifty nights of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" at the +Princess's. It was certainly a very fascinating production, and many of +the effects were beautiful. I, by the way, had my share in marring one +of these during the run. When Puck was told to put a girdle round the +earth in forty minutes, I had to fly off the stage as swiftly as I +could, and a dummy Puck was whirled through the air from the point where +I disappeared. One night the dummy, while in full flying action, fell on +the stage, whereupon, in great concern for its safety, I ran on, picked +it up in my arms, and ran off with it amid roars of laughter! Neither of +the Keans was acting in this production, but there was some one in +authority to give me a sound cuff. Yet I had such excellent intentions. +'Tis ever thus! + +I reveled in Puck and his impish pranks, and unconsciously realized that +it was a part in which the imagination could run riot. I believe I +played it well, but I did not _look_ well, and I must contradict +emphatically the kind assumption that I must have been a "delightful +little fairy." As Mamilius I was really a sweet little thing, but while +I was playing Puck I grew very gawky--not to say ugly! My hair had been +cut short, and my red cheeks stuck out too much. I was a sight! + +The parts we play influence our characters to some extent, and Puck made +me a bit of a romp. I grew vain and rather "cocky," and it was just as +well that during the rehearsals for the Christmas pantomime in 1857 I +was tried for the part of the Fairy Dragonetta and rejected. I believe +that my failure was principally due to the fact that Nature had not +given me flashing eyes and raven hair--without which, as everyone knows, +no bad fairy can hold up her head and respect herself. But at the time I +felt distinctly rebuffed, and only the extreme beauty of my dress as the +maudlin "good fairy" Goldenstar consoled me. Milly Smith (afterwards +Mrs. Thorn) was Dragonetta, and one of her speeches ran like this: + + "Ungrateful Simple Simon (darting forward) You thought no doubt to + spite me! + That to this Royal Christening you did not invite me! + BUT--(Mrs. Kean: "_You must plaster that 'but' on the white wall + at the back of the gallery._")-- + But on this puling brat revenged I'll be! + My fiery dragon there shall have her broiled for tea!" + +At Ryde during the previous summer my father had taken the theater, and +Kate and I played in several farces which the Keeleys and the great +comedian Robson had made famous in London. My performances as Waddilove +and Jacob Earwig had provoked some one to describe me as "a perfect +little heap of talent!" To fit my Goldenstar, I must borrow that phrase +and describe myself as a perfect little heap of vanity. + +It was that dress! It was a long dress, though I was still a baby, and +it was as pink and gold as it was trailing. I used to think I looked +_beautiful_ in it. I wore a trembling star on my forehead, too, which +was enough to upset any girl! + +One of the most wearisome, yet essential details of my education is +connected with my first long dress. It introduces, too, Mr. Oscar Byrn, +the dancing-master and director of crowds at the Princess's. One of his +lessons was in the art of walking with a flannel blanket pinned on in +front and trailing six inches on the floor. My success in carrying out +this maneuver with dignity won high praise from Mr. Byrn. The other +children used to kick at the blanket and progress in jumps like young +kangaroos, but somehow I never had any difficulty in moving gracefully. +No wonder then that I impressed Mr. Byrn, who had a theory that "an +actress was no actress unless she learned to dance early." Whenever he +was not actually putting me through my paces, I was busy watching him +teach the others. There was the minuet, to which he used to attach great +importance, and there was "walking the plank." Up and down one of the +long planks, extending the length of the stage, we had to walk first +slowly and then quicker and quicker until we were able at a +considerable pace to walk the whole length of it without deviating an +inch from the straight line. This exercise, Mr. Byrn used to say, and +quite truly, I think, taught us uprightness of carriage and certainty of +step. + +"Eyes right! Chest out! Chin tucked in!" I can hear the dear old man +shouting at us as if it were yesterday; and I have learned to see of +what value all his drilling was, not only to deportment, but to clear +utterance. It would not be a bad thing if there were more "old fops" +like Oscar Byrn in the theaters of to-day. That old-fashioned art of +"deportment" is sadly neglected. + +The pantomime in which I was the fairy Goldenstar was very frequently +preceded by "A Midsummer Night's Dream," and the two parts on one night +must have been fairly heavy work for a child, but I delighted in it. + +In the same year (1858) I played Karl in "Faust and Marguerite," a jolly +little part with plenty of points in it, but not nearly as good a part +as Puck. Progress on the stage is often crab-like, and little parts, big +parts, and no parts at all must be accepted as "all in the day's work." +In these days I was cast for many a "dumb" part. I walked on in "The +Merchant of Venice" carrying a basket of doves; in "Richard II." I +climbed up a pole in the street scene; in "Henry VIII." I was "top +angel" in the vision, and I remember that the heat of the gas at that +dizzy height made me sick at the dress-rehearsal! I was a little boy +"cheering" in several other productions. In "King Lear" my sister Kate +played Cordelia. She was only fourteen, and the youngest Cordelia on +record. Years after I played it at the Lyceum when I was over forty! + +The production of "Henry VIII." at the Princess's was one of Charles +Kean's best efforts. I always refrain from belittling the present at the +expense of the past, but there were efforts here which I have never seen +surpassed, and about this my memory is not at all dim. At this time I +seem to have been always at the side watching the acting. Mrs. Kean's +Katherine of Aragon was splendid, and Charles Kean's Wolsey, his best +part after, perhaps, his Richard II. Still, the lady who used to stand +ready with a tear-bottle to catch his tears as he came off after his +last scene rather overdid her admiration. My mental criticism at the +time was "What rubbish!" When I say in what parts Charles Kean was +"best," I don't mean to be assertive. How should a mere child be able to +decide? I "think back" and remember in what parts I liked him best, but +I may be quite wide of the mark. + +In those days audiences liked plenty for their money, and a Shakespeare +play was not nearly long enough to fill the bill. English playgoers in +the early 'fifties did not emulate the Japanese, who go to the theater +early in the morning and stay there until late at night, still less the +Chinese, whose plays begin one week and end the next, but they thought +nothing of sitting in the theater from seven to twelve. In one of the +extra pieces which these hours necessitated, I played a "tiger," one of +those youthful grooms who are now almost a bygone fashion. The pride +that I had taken in my trembling star in the pantomime was almost +equaled now by my pride in my top-boots! They were too small and caused +me insupportable suffering, but I was so afraid that they would be taken +away if I complained, that every evening I used to put up valorously +with the torture. The piece was called "If the Cap Fits," but my boots +were the fit with which I was most concerned! + +Years later the author of the little play, Mr. Edmund Yates, the editor +of _The World_--wrote to me about my performance as the tiger: + + "When on June 13, 1859 (to no one else in the world would I breathe + the date!) I saw a very young lady play a tiger in a comedietta of + mine called 'If the Cap Fits,' I had no idea that that precocious + child had in her the germ of such an artist as she has since proved + herself. What I think of her performance of Portia she will see in + _The World_." + +In "The Merchant of Venice" though I had no speaking part, I was firmly +convinced that the basket of doves which I carried on my shoulder was +the principal attraction of the scene in which it appeared. The other +little boys and girls in the company regarded those doves with eyes of +bitter envy. One little chorus boy, especially, though he professed a +personal devotion of the tenderest kind for me, could never quite get +over those doves, and his romantic sentiments cooled considerably when I +gained my proud position as dove-bearer. Before, he had shared his +sweets with me, but now he transferred both sweets and affections to +some more fortunate little girl. Envy, after all, is the death of love! + +Mr. Harley was the Launcelot Gobbo in "The Merchant of Venice"--an old +gentleman, and almost as great a fop as Mr. Byrn. He was always smiling; +his two large rows of teeth were so _very_ good! And he had pompous, +grandiloquent manners, and wore white gaiters and a long hanging +eye-glass. His appearance I should never have forgotten anyhow, but he +is also connected in my mind with my first experience of terror. + +It came to me in the greenroom, the window-seat of which was a favorite +haunt of mine. Curled up in the deep recess I had been asleep one +evening, when I was awakened by a strange noise, and, peeping out, saw +Mr. Harley stretched on the sofa in a fit. One side of his face was +working convulsively, and he was gibbering and mowing the air with his +hand. When he saw me, he called out: "Little Nelly! oh, little Nelly!" I +stood transfixed with horror. He was still dressed as Launcelot Gobbo, +and this made it all the more terrible. A doctor was sent for, and Mr. +Harley was looked after, but he never recovered from his seizure and +died a few days afterwards. + +Although so much of my early life is vague and indistinct, I can always +see and hear Mr. Harley as I saw and heard him that night, and I can +always recollect the view from the greenroom window. It looked out on a +great square courtyard, in which the spare scenery, that was not in +immediate use, was stacked. For some reason or other this courtyard was +a favorite playground for a large company of rats. I don't know what the +attraction was for them, except that they may have liked nibbling the +paint off the canvas. Out they used to troop in swarms, and I, from my +perch on the window-seat, would watch and wonder. Once a terrible storm +came on, and years after, at the Lyceum, the Brocken Scene in "Faust" +brought back the scene to my mind--the thunder and lightning and the +creatures crawling on every side, the _grayness_ of the whole thing. + +All "calls" were made from the greenroom in those days, and its +atmosphere was, I think, better than that of the dressing-room in which +nowadays actors and actresses spend their time during the waits. The +greenroom at the Princess's was often visited by distinguished people, +among them PlanchŽ, the archaeologist, who did so much for Charles +Kean's productions, and Macready. One night, as with my usual +impetuosity I was rushing back to my room to change my dress, I ran +right into the white waistcoat of an old gentleman! Looking up with +alarm, I found that I had nearly knocked over the great Mr. Macready. + +"Oh, I _beg_ your pardon!" I exclaimed in eager tones. I had always +heard from father that Macready was the greatest actor of all, and this +was our first meeting. I was utterly abashed, but Mr. Macready, looking +down with a very kindly smile, only answered: "Never mind! You are a +very polite little girl, and you act very earnestly and speak very +nicely." + +I was too much agitated to do anything but continue my headlong course +to my dressing-room, but even in those short moments the strange +attractiveness of his face impressed itself on my imagination. I +remember distinctly his curling hair, his oddly colored eyes full of +fire, and his beautiful, wavy mouth. + +When I first described this meeting with Macready, a disagreeable person +wrote to the papers and said that he did not wish to question my +veracity, but that it was utterly impossible that Macready could ever +have brought himself to go to the Princess's at this time, because of +the rivalry between him and Charles Kean. I know that the two actors +were not on speaking terms, but very likely Macready had come to see my +father or Mr. Harley or one of the many members of Kean's company who +had once served under him. + +The period when I was as vain as a little peacock had come to an end +before this. I think my part in "Pizarro" saw the last of it. I was a +Worshiper of the Sun, and in a pink feather, pink swathings of muslin, +and black arms, I was again struck by my own beauty. I grew quite +attached to the looking-glass which reflected that feather! Then +suddenly there came a change. _I began to see the whole thing._ My +attentive watching of other people began to bear fruit, and the labor +and perseverance, care and intelligence which had gone to make these +enormous productions dawned on my young mind. _One must see things for +oneself._ Up to this time I had loved acting because it was great fun, +but I had not loved the grind. After I began to rehearse Prince Arthur +in "King John," a part in which my sister Kate had already made a great +success six years earlier, I understood that if I did not work, I could +not act. And I wanted to work. I used to get up in the middle of the +night and watch my gestures in the glass. I used to try my voice and +bring it down and up in the right places. And all vanity fell away from +me. At the first rehearsals of "King John" I could not do anything +right. Mrs. Kean stormed at me, slapped me. I broke down and cried, and +then, with all the mortification and grief in my voice, managed to +express what Mrs. Kean wanted and what she could not teach me by doing +it herself. + +"That's right, that's right!" she cried excitedly, "you've got it! Now +remember what you did with your voice, reproduce it, remember +everything, and do it!" + +When the rehearsal was over, she gave me a vigorous kiss. "You've done +very well," she said. "That's what I want. You're a very tired little +girl. Now run home to bed." I shall never forget the relief of those +kind words after so much misery, and the little incident often comes +back to me now when I hear a young actress say, "I can't do it!" If only +she can cry with vexation, I feel sure that she will then be able to +make a good attempt at doing it! + +There were oppositions and jealousies in the Keans' camp, as in most +theaters, but they were never brought to my notice until I played Prince +Arthur. Then I saw a great deal of Mr. Ryder, who was the Hubert of the +production, and discovered that there was some soreness between him and +his manager. Ryder was a very pugnacious man--an admirable actor, and in +appearance like an old tree that has been struck by lightning, or a +greenless, barren rock; and he was very strong in his likes and +dislikes, and in his manner of expressing them. + +"D'ye suppose he engaged me for my powers as an actor?" he used to say +of Mr. Kean. "Not a bit of it! He engaged me for my d----d +archaeological figure!" + +One night during the run of "King John," a notice was put up that no +curtain calls would be allowed at the end of a scene. At the end of my +scene with Hubert there was tremendous applause, and when we did not +appear, the audience began to shout and yell and cheer. I went off to +the greenroom, but even from there I could still hear the voices: +"Hubert! Arthur!" Mr. Kean began the next scene, but it was of no use. +He had to give in and send for us. Meanwhile old Ryder had been striding +up and down the greenroom in a perfect fury. "Never mind, ducky!" he +kept on saying to me; and it was really quite unnecessary, for "ducky" +was just enjoying the noise and thinking it all capital fun. "Never +mind! When other people are rotting in their graves, ducky, you'll be up +there!" (with a terrific gesture indicative of the dizzy heights of +fame). When the message came to the greenroom that we were to take the +call, he strode across the stage to the entrance, I running after him +and quite unable to keep up with his long steps. + +In "Macbeth" I was again associated with Ryder, who was the Banquo when +I was Fleance, and I remember that after we had been dismissed by +Macbeth: "Good repose the while," we had to go off up a flight of steps. +I always stayed at the top until the end of the scene, but Mr. Ryder +used to go down the other side rather heavily, and Mr. Kean, who wanted +perfect quiet for the dagger speech, had to keep on saying: "Ssh! ssh!" +all through it. + +"Those carpenters at the side are enough to ruin any acting," he said +one night when he came off. + +"I'm a heavy man, and I can't help it," said Ryder. + +"Oh, I didn't know it was _you_," said Mr. Kean--but I think he did! One +night I was the innocent cause of a far worse disturbance. I dozed at +the top of the steps and rolled from the top to the bottom with a +fearful crash! Another night I got into trouble for not catching Mrs. +Kean when, as Constance, in "King John," she sank down on to the ground. + +"Here is my throne, bid kings come bow to it!" + +I was, for my sins, looking at the audience, and Mrs. Kean went down +with a _run_, and was naturally very angry with me! + +In 1860 the Keans gave up the management of the Princess's Theater and +went to America. They traveled in a sailing vessel, and, being delayed +by a calm, had to drink water caught in the sails, the water supply +having given out. I believe that although the receipts were wonderful, +Charles Kean spent much more than he made during his ten years of +management. Indeed, he confessed as much in a public announcement. The +Princess's Theater was not very big, and the seats were low-priced. It +is my opinion, however, that no manager with high artistic aims, +resolute to carry them out in his own way, can ever make a fortune. + +Of the other members of the company during my three years at the +Princess's, I remember best Walter Lacy, who was the William Terriss of +the time. He knew Madame Vestris, and had many entertaining stories +about her. Then there were the Leclercqs, two clever sisters, Carlotta +and Rose, who did great things later on. Men, women and children alike +worked hard, and if the language of the actors was more Rabelaisian than +polite, they were good fellows and heart and soul devoted to their +profession. Their salaries were smaller and their lives were simpler +than is the case with actors now. + +Kate and I had been hard at work for some years, but our parents had no +notion of our resting. We were now to show what our training had done +for us in "A Drawing-room Entertainment." + + + + +II + +ON THE ROAD + +1859-1861 + + +From July to September every year the leading theaters in London and the +provincial cities were closed for the summer vacation. This plan is +still adhered to more or less, but in London, at any rate, some theaters +keep their doors open all the year round. During these two months most +actors take their holiday, but when we were with the Keans we were not +in a position to afford such a luxury. Kate and I were earning good +salaries for our age,[1] but the family at home was increasing in size, +and my mother was careful not to let us think that there never could be +any rainy days. I am bound to say that I left questions of thrift, and +what we could afford and what we couldn't entirely to my parents. I +received sixpence a week pocket-money, with which I was more than +content for many years. Poor we may have been at this time, but, owing +to my mother's diligent care and cleverness, we always looked nice and +neat. One of the few early dissipations I can remember was a Christmas +party in Half Moon Street, where our white muslin dresses were equal to +any present. But more love and toil and pride than money had gone to +make them. I have a very clear vision of coming home late from the +theater to our home in Stanhope Street, Regent's Park, and seeing my +dear mother stitching at those pretty frocks by the light of one candle. +It was no uncommon thing to find her sewing at that time, but if she was +tired, she never showed it. She was always bright and tender. With the +callousness of childhood, I scarcely realized the devotion and ceaseless +care that she bestowed on us, and her untiring efforts to bring us up as +beautifully as she could. The knowledge came to me later on when, all +too early in my life, my own responsibilities came on me and quickened +my perceptions. But I was a heartless little thing when I danced off to +that party! I remember that when the great evening came, our hair, which +we still wore down our backs, was done to perfection, and we really +looked fit to dance with a king. As things were, I _did_ dance with the +late Duke of Cambridge! It was the most exciting Christmas Day in my +life. + +[Footnote 1: Of course, all salaries are bigger now than they were then. +The "stars" in old days earned large sums--Edmund Kean received two +hundred and fifty pounds for four performances--but the ordinary members +of a company were paid at a very moderate rate. I received fifteen +shillings a week at the Princess's until I played Puck, when my salary +was doubled.--E.T.] + +Our summer holidays, as I have said, were spent at Ryde. We stayed at +Rose Cottage (for which I sought in vain when I revisited the place the +other day), and the change was pleasant, even though we were working +hard. One of the pieces father gave at the theater to amuse the summer +visitors was a farce called "To Parents and Guardians." I played the +fat, naughty boy Waddilove, a part which had been associated with the +comedian Robson in London, and I remember that I made the +unsophisticated audience shout with laughter by entering with my hands +covered with jam! Father was capital as the French usher Tourbillon; +and the whole thing went splendidly. Looking back, it seems rather +audacious for such a child to have attempted a grown-up comedian's part, +but it was excellent practice for that child! It was the success of +these little summer ventures at Ryde which made my father think of our +touring in "A Drawing-room Entertainment" when the Keans left the +Princess's. + +The entertainment consisted of two little plays "Home for the Holidays" +and "Distant Relations," and they were written, I think, by a Mr. +Courtney. We were engaged to do it first at the Royal Colosseum, +Regent's Park, by Sir Charles Wyndham's father, Mr. Culverwell. Kate and +I played all the parts in each piece, and we did quick changes at the +side worthy of Fregoli! The whole thing was quite a success, and after +playing it at the Colosseum we started on a round of visits. + +In "Home for the Holidays," which came first on our little programme, +Kate played Letitia Melrose, a young girl of about seventeen, who is +expecting her young brother "home for the holidays." Letitia, if I +remember right, was discovered soliloquizing somewhat after this +fashion: "Dear little Harry! Left all alone in the world, as we are, I +feel such responsibility about him. Shall I find him changed, I wonder, +after two years' absence? He has not answered my letters lately. I hope +he got the cake and toffee I sent him, but I've not heard a word." At +this point I entered as Harry, but instead of being the innocent little +schoolboy of Letitia's fond imagination, Harry appears in loud peg-top +trousers (peg-top trousers were very fashionable in 1860), with a big +cigar in his mouth, and his hat worn jauntily on one side. His talk is +all of racing, betting, and fighting. Letty is struck dumb with +astonishment at first, but the awful change, which two years have +effected, gradually dawns on her. She implores him to turn from his +idle, foolish ways. Master Harry sinks on his knees by her side, but +just as his sister is about to rejoice and kiss him, he looks up in her +face and bursts into loud laughter. She is much exasperated, and, +threatening to send some one to him who will talk to him in a very +different fashion, she leaves the stage. Master Hopeful thereupon dons +his dressing-gown and smoking cap, and, lying full length upon the sofa, +begins to have a quiet smoke. He is interrupted by the appearance of a +most wonderful and grim old woman in blue spectacles--Mrs. Terrorbody. +This is no other than "Sister Letty," dressed up in order to frighten +the youth out of his wits. She talks and talks, and, after painting +vivid pictures of what will become of him unless he alters his "vile +ways," leaves him, but not before she succeeds in making him shed tears, +half of fright and half of anger. Later on, Sister Letty, looking from +the window, sees a grand fight going on between Master Harry and a +butcher-boy, and then Harry enters with his coat off, his sleeves tucked +up, explaining in a state of blazing excitement that he "_had_ to fight +that butcher-boy, because he had struck a little girl in the street." +Letty sees that the lad has a fine nature in spite of his folly, and +appeals to his heart and the nobility of his nature--this time not in +vain. + +"Distant Relations" was far more inconsequent, but it served to show our +versatility, at any rate. I was all things by turns, and nothing long! +First I was the page boy who admitted the "relations" (Kate in many +guises). Then I was a relation myself--Giles, a rustic. As Giles, I +suddenly asked if the audience would like to hear me play the drum, and +"obliged" with a drum solo, in which I had spent a great deal of time +perfecting myself. Long before this I remember dimly some rehearsal when +I was put in the orchestra and taken care of by "the gentleman who +played the drum," and how badly I wanted to play it too! I afterwards +took lessons from Mr. Woodhouse, the drummer at the Princess's. Kate +gave an imitation of Mrs. Kean as Constance so beautifully that she used +to bring tears to my eyes, and make the audience weep too. + +Both of us, even at this early age, had dreams of playing all Mrs. +Kean's parts. We knew the words, not only of them, but of every female +part in every play in which we had appeared at the Princess's. "Walking +on is so dull," the young actress says sometimes to me now, and I ask +her if she knows all the parts of the play in which she is "walking on." +I hardly ever find that she does. "I have no understudy," is her excuse. +Even if a young woman has not been given an understudy, she ought, if +she has any intention of taking her profession as an actress seriously, +to constitute herself an understudy to every part in the piece! Then she +would not find her time as a "super" hang heavy on her hands. + +Some of my readers may be able to remember the "Stalactite Caverns" +which used to form one of the attractions at the Colosseum. It was there +that I first studied the words of Juliet. To me the gloomy horror of the +place was a perfect godsend! Here I could cultivate a creepy, eerie +sensation, and get into a fitting frame of mind for the potion scene. +Down in this least imposing of subterranean abodes I used to tremble +and thrill with passion and terror. Ah, if only in after years, when I +played Juliet at the Lyceum, I could have thrilled an audience to the +same extent! + +After a few weeks at the Colosseum, we began our little tour. It was a +very merry, happy time. We traveled a company of five, although only two +of us were acting. There were my father and mother, Kate and myself, and +Mr. Sydney Naylor, who played the very important part of orchestra. With +a few exceptions we made the journeys in a carriage. Once we tramped +from Bristol to Exeter. Oh, those delightful journeys on the open road! +I tasted the joys of the strolling player's existence, without its +miseries. I saw the country for the first time.... When they asked me +what I was thinking of as we drove along, I remember answering: "Only +that I should like to run wild in a wood for ever!" At night we stayed +in beautiful little inns which were ever so much more cheap and +comfortable than the hotels of to-day. In some of the places we were +asked out to tea and dinner and very much fted. An odd little troupe we +were! Father was what we will call for courtesy's sake "Stage Manager," +but in reality he set the stage himself, and did the work which +generally falls to the lot of the stage manager and an army of +carpenters combined. My mother used to coach us up in our parts, dress +us, make us go to sleep part of the day so that we might look "fresh" at +night, and look after us generally. Mr. Naylor, who was not very much +more than a boy, though to my childish eyes his years were quite +venerable, besides discoursing eloquent music in the evenings, during +the progress of the "Drawing-room Entertainment," would amuse us--me +most especially--by being very entertaining himself during our journeys +from place to place. How he made us laugh about--well, mostly about +nothing at all. + +We traveled in this way for nearly two years, visiting a new place every +day, and making, I think, about ten to fifteen pounds a performance. Our +little pieces were very pretty, but very slight, too; and I can only +suppose that the people thought that "never anything can be amiss when +simpleness and duty tender it," for they received our entertainment very +well. The time had come when my little brothers had to be sent to +school, and our earnings came in useful. + +When the tour came to an end in 1861, I went to London with my father to +find an engagement, while Kate joined the stock company at Bristol. We +still gave the "Drawing-room Entertainment" at Ryde in the summer, and +it still drew large audiences. + +In London my name was put on an agent's books in the usual way, and +presently he sent me to Madame Albina de Rhona, who had not long taken +over the management of the Royal Soho Theater and changed its name to +the Royalty. The improvement did not stop at the new play. French +workmen had swept and garnished the dusty, dingy place and transformed +it into a theater as dainty and pretty as Madame de Rhona herself. +Dancing was Madame's strong point, but she had been very successful as +an actress too, first in Paris and Petersburg, and then in London at the +St. James's and Drury Lane. What made her go into management on her own +account I don't know. I suppose she was ambitious, and rich enough for +the enterprise. + +At this time I was "in standing water," as Malvolio says of Viola when +she is dressed as a boy. I was neither child nor woman--a long-legged +girl of about thirteen, still in short skirts, and feeling that I ought +to have long ones. However, when I set out with father to see Madam de +Rhona, I was very smart. I borrowed Kate's new bonnet--pink silk trimmed +with black lace--and thought I looked nice in it. So did father, for he +said on the way to the theater that pink was my color. In fact, I am +sure it was the bonnet that made Madame de Rhona engage me on the spot! + +She was the first Frenchwoman I had ever met, and I was tremendously +interested in her. Her neat and expressive ways made me feel very +"small," or rather _big_ and clumsy, even at the first interview. A +quick-tempered, bright, energetic little woman, she nearly frightened me +out of my wits at the first rehearsal by dancing round me on the stage +in a perfect frenzy of anger at what she was pleased to call my +stupidity. Then something I did suddenly pleased her, and she +overwhelmed me with compliments and praise. After a time these became +the order of the day, and she soon won my youthful affections. "Gross +flattery," as a friend of mine says, "is good enough for me!" Madame de +Rhona was, moreover, very kind-hearted and generous. To her generosity I +owed the first piece of jewelery I ever possessed--a pretty little +brooch, which, with characteristic carelessness, I promptly lost! +Besides being flattered by her praise and grateful for her kindness, I +was filled with great admiration for her. She was a wee thing--like a +toy, and her dancing was really exquisite. When I watched the way she +moved her hands and feet, despair entered my soul. It was all so +precise, so "express and admirable." Her limbs were so dainty and +graceful--mine so big and unmanageable! "How long and gaunt I am," I +used to say to myself, "and what a pattern of prim prettiness she is!" I +was so much ashamed of my large hands, during this time at the Royalty, +that I kept them tucked up under my arms! This subjected me to +unmerciful criticism from Madame Albina at rehearsals. + +"Take down your hands," she would call out. "_Mon Dieu!_ It is like an +ugly young _poulet_ going to roost!" + +In spite of this, I did not lose my elegant habit for many years! I was +only broken of it at last by a friend saying that he supposed I had very +ugly hands, as I never showed them! That did it! Out came the hands to +prove that they were not so _very_ ugly, after all! Vanity often +succeeds where remonstrance fails. + +The greenroom at the Royalty was a very pretty little place, and Madame +Albina sometimes had supper-parties there after the play. One night I +could not resist the pangs of curiosity, and I peeped through the +keyhole to see what was going on! I chose a lucky moment! One of +Madame's admirers was drinking champagne out of her slipper! It was even +worth the box on the ear that mother gave me when she caught me. She had +been looking all over the theater for me, to take me home. + +My first part at the Royalty was Clementine in "Attar Gull." Of the +play, adapted from a story by Eugene Sue, I have a very hazy +recollection, but I know that I had one very effective scene in it. +Clementine, an ordinary fair-haired ingenue in white muslin, has a great +horror of snakes, and, in order to cure her of her disgust, some one +suggests that a dead snake should be put in her room, and she be taught +how harmless the thing is for which she had such an aversion. An Indian +servant, who, for some reason or other, has a deadly hatred for the +whole family, substitutes a live reptile. Clementine appears at the +window with the venomous creature coiled round her neck, screaming with +wild terror. The spectators on the stage think that the snake is dead, +and that she is only screaming from "nerves," but in reality she is +being slowly strangled. I began screaming in a frantic, heartrending +manner, and continued screaming, each cry surpassing the last in +intensity and agony. At rehearsal I could not get these screams right +for a long time. Madame de Rhona grew more and more impatient and at +last flew at me like a wild-cat and shook me. I cried, just as I had +done when I could not get Prince Arthur's terror right, and then the +wild, agonized scream that Madame de Rhona wanted came to me. I +_reproduced_ it and enlarged it in effect. On the first night the +audience applauded the screaming more than anything in the play. Madame +de Rhona assured me that I had made a sensation, kissed me and said I +was a genius! How sweet and pleasant her flattering words sounded in my +young and inexperienced ears I need hardly say. + +Looking back to it now, I know perfectly well why I, a mere child of +thirteen, was able to give such a realistic display of horror. I had the +emotional instinct to start with, no doubt, but if I did it well, it was +because I was able to imagine what would be _real_ in such a situation. +I had never _observed_ such horror, but I had previously _realized_ it, +when, as Arthur, I had imagined the terror of having my eyes put out. + +Imagination! imagination! I put it first years ago, when I was asked +what qualities I thought necessary for success upon the stage. And I am +still of the same opinion. Imagination, industry, and intelligence--"the +three I's"--are all indispensable to the actress, but of these three the +greatest is, without any doubt, imagination. + +After this "screaming" success, which, however, did not keep "Attar +Gull" in the bill at the Royalty for more than a few nights, I continued +to play under Madame de Rhona's management until February 1862. During +these few months new plays were being constantly put on, for Madame was +somehow not very fortunate in gauging the taste of the public. It was in +the fourth production--"The Governor's Wife," that, as Letty Briggs, I +had my first experience of what is called "stage fright." I had been on +the stage more than five years, and had played at least sixteen parts, +so there was really no excuse for me. I suspect now that I had not taken +enough pains to get word-perfect. I know I had five new parts to study +between November 21 and December 26. + +Stage fright is like nothing else in the world. You are standing on the +stage apparently quite well and in your right mind, when suddenly you +feel as if your tongue had been dislocated and was lying powerless in +your mouth. Cold shivers begin to creep downwards from the nape of your +neck and all up you at the same time, until they seem to meet in the +small of your back. About this time you feel as if a centipede, all of +whose feet have been carefully iced, has begun to run about in the roots +of your hair. The next agreeable sensation is the breaking out of a cold +sweat all over. Then you are certain that some one has cut the muscles +at the back of your knees. Your mouth begins to open slowly, without +giving utterance to a single sound, and your eyes seem inclined to jump +out of your head over the footlights. At this point it is as well to get +off the stage as quickly as you can, for you are far beyond human help. + +Whether everybody suffers in this way or not I cannot say, but it +exactly describes the torture I went through in "The Governor's Wife." I +had just enough strength and sense to drag myself off the stage and +seize a book, with which, after a few minutes, I reappeared and +ignominiously read my part. Whether Madame de Rhona boxed my ears or +not, I can't remember, but I think it is very likely she did, for she +was very quick-tempered. In later years I have not suffered from the +fearsome malady, but even now, after fifty years of stage-life, I never +play a new part without being overcome by a terrible nervousness and a +torturing dread of forgetting my lines. Every nerve in my body seems to +be dancing an independent jig on its own account. + +It was at the Royalty that I first acted with Mr. Kendal. He and I +played together in a comedietta called "A Nice Quiet Day." Soon after, +my engagement came to an end, and I went to Bristol, where I gained the +experience of my life with a stock company. + + +LIFE IN A STOCK COMPANY + +1862-1863 + +"I think anything, naturally written, ought to be in everybody's way +that pretends to be an actor." This remark of Colley Cibber's long ago +struck me as an excellent motto for beginning on the stage. The +ambitious boy thinks of Hamlet, the ambitious girl of Lady Macbeth or +Rosalind, but where shall we find the young actor and actress whose +heart is set on being useful? + +_Usefulness!_ It is not a fascinating word, and the quality is not one +of which the aspiring spirit can dream o' nights, yet on the stage it is +the first thing to aim at. Not until we have learned to be useful can we +afford to do what we like. The tragedian will always be a limited +tragedian if he has not learned how to laugh. The comedian who cannot +weep will never touch the highest levels of mirth. + +It was in the stock companies that we learned the great lesson of +usefulness; we played everything--tragedy, comedy, farce, and burlesque. +There was no question of parts "suiting" us; we had to take what we were +given. + +The first time I was cast for a part in a burlesque I told the stage +manager I couldn't sing and I couldn't dance. His reply was short and to +the point. "You've got to do it," and so I did it in a way--a very funny +way at first, no doubt. It was admirable training, for it took all the +self-consciousness out of me to start with. To end with, I thought it +capital fun, and enjoyed burlesque as much as Shakespeare. + +What was a stock company? I forget that in these days the question may +be asked in all good faith, and that it is necessary to answer it. Well, +then, a stock company was a company of actors and actresses brought +together by the manager of a provincial theater to support a leading +actor or actress--"a star"--from London. When Edmund Kean, the Kembles, +Macready, or Mrs. Siddons visited provincial towns, these companies were +ready to support them in Shakespeare. They were also ready to play +burlesque, farce, and comedy to fill out the bill. Sometimes the "stars" +would come for a whole season; if their magnitude were of the first +order, for only one night. Sometimes they would rehearse with the stock +company, sometimes they wouldn't. There is a story of a manager visiting +Edmund Kean at his hotel on his arrival in a small provincial town, and +asking the great actor when he would rehearse. + +"Rehearse! I'm not going to rehearse--I'm going to sleep!" + +"Have you any instructions?" + +"Instructions! No! Tell 'em to keep at a long arm's length away from me +and do their d----d worst!" + +At Bristol, where I joined Mr. J.H. Chute's stock company in 1861, we +had no experience of that kind, perhaps because there was no Kean alive +to give it to us. And I don't think that our "worst" would have been so +very bad. Mr. Chute, who had married Macready's half-sister, was a +splendid manager, and he contrived to gather round him a company which +was something more than "sound." + +Several of its members distinguished themselves greatly in after years. +Among these I may mention Miss Marie Wilton (now Lady Bancroft) and +Miss Madge Robertson (now Mrs. Kendal). + +Lady Bancroft had left the company before I joined it, but Mrs. Kendal +was there, and so was Miss Henrietta Hodson (afterwards Mrs. +Labouchere). I was much struck at that time by Mrs. Kendal's singing. +Her voice was beautiful. As an example of how anything can be twisted to +make mischief, I may quote here an absurd tarradiddle about Mrs. Kendal +never forgetting in after years that in the Bristol stock company she +had to play the singing fairy to my Titania in "A Midsummer Night's +Dream." The simple fact, of course, was that she had the best voice in +the company, and was of such infinite value in singing parts that no +manager in his senses would have taken her out of them. There was no +question of my taking precedence of her, or of her playing second fiddle +to me. + +Miss Hodson was a brilliant burlesque actress, a good singer, and a +capital dancer. She had great personal charm, too, and was an enormous +favorite with the Bristol public. I cannot exactly call her a "rival" of +my sister Kate's, for Kate was the "principal lady" or "star," and +Henrietta Hodson the "soubrette," and, in burlesque, the "principal +boy." Nevertheless, there were certainly rival factions of admirers, and +the friendly antagonism between the Hodsonites and the Terryites used to +amuse us all greatly. + +We were petted, spoiled, and applauded to our heart's content, but I +don't think it did us any harm. We all had scores of admirers, but their +youthful ardor seemed to be satisfied by tracking us when we went to +rehearsal in the morning and waiting for us outside the stage-door at +night. + +When Kate and I had a "benefit" night, they had an opportunity of coming +to rather closer quarters, for on these occasions tickets could be +bought from members of the company, as well as at the box-office of the +theater. + +Our lodgings in Queen Square were besieged by Bristol youths who were +anxious to get a glimpse of the Terrys. The Terrys demurely chatted with +them and sold them tickets. My mother was most vigilant in her r™le of +duenna, and from the time I first went on the stage until I was a grown +woman I can never remember going home unaccompanied by either her or my +father. + +The leading male members of Mr. Chute's stock company were Arthur Wood +(an admirable comedian), William George Rignold, W.H. Vernon, and +Charles Coghlan. At this time Charles Coghlan was acting magnificently, +and dressing each of his characters so correctly and so perfectly that +most of the audience did not understand it. For instance, as Glavis, in +"The Lady of Lyons," he looked a picture of the Directoire fop. He did +not compromise in any single detail, but wore the long straggling hair, +the high cravat, the eye-glass, bows, jags, and tags, to the infinite +amusement of some members of the audience, who could not imagine what +his quaint dress meant. Coghlan's clothes were not more perfect than his +manner, but both were a little in advance of the appreciation of Bristol +playgoers in the 'sixties. + +At the Princess's Theater I had gained my experience of long rehearsals. +When I arrived in Bristol I was to learn the value of short ones. Mr. +Chute took me in hand, and I had to wake up and be alert with brains +and body. The first part I played was Cupid in "Endymion." To this day I +can remember my lines. I entered as a blind old woman in what is known +in theatrical parlance as a "disguise cloak." Then, throwing it off, I +said: + + "Pity the poor blind--what no one here? + Nay then, I'm not so blind as I appear, + And so to throw off all disguise and sham, + Let me at once inform you who I am! + I'm Cupid!" + +Henrietta Hodson as Endymion and Kate as Diana had a dance with me which +used to bring down the house. I wore a short tunic which in those days +was considered too scanty to be quite nice, and carried the conventional +bow and quiver. + +In another burlesque, "Perseus and Andromeda," I played Dictys; it was +in this piece that Arthur Wood used to make people laugh by punning on +the line: "Such a mystery (Miss Terry) here!" It was an absurd little +joke, but the people used to cheer and applaud. + +At the end of my first season at Bristol I returned to London for a time +to play at the Haymarket under Mr. Buckstone, but I had another season +at Bristol in the following year. While my stage education was +progressing apace, I was, through the influence of a very wonderful +family whose acquaintance we made, having my eyes opened to beautiful +things in art and literature. Mr. Godwin, the architect and +archaeologist, was living in Bristol when Kate and I were at the Theater +Royal, and we used to go to his house for some of the Shakespeare +readings in which our Bristol friends asked us to take part. This house, +with its Persian rugs, beautiful furniture, its organ, which for the +first time I learned to love, its sense of design in every detail, was a +revelation to me, and the talk of its master and mistress made me +_think_. At the theater I was living in an atmosphere which was +developing my powers as an actress and teaching me what work meant, but +my mind had begun to grasp dimly and almost unconsciously that I must do +something for myself--something that all the education and training I +was receiving in my profession could not do for me. I was fourteen years +old at Bristol, but I now felt that I had never really lived at all +before. For the first time I began to appreciate beauty, to observe, to +feel the splendor of things, to _aspire_! + +I remember that in one of the local papers there had appeared under the +headline "Jottings" some very wonderful criticisms of the performances +at the theater. The writer, whoever he was, did not indulge in flattery, +and in particular he attacked our classical burlesques on the ground +that they were ugly. They were discussing "Jottings" one day at the +Godwins' house, and Kate said it was absurd to take a burlesque so +seriously. "Jottings" was all wrong. + +"I don't know," said our host. "Even a burlesque can be beautiful." + +Afterwards he asked me what I thought of "Jottings," and I confessed +that there seemed to me a good deal of truth in what had been said. I +had cut out all that he had written about us, read it several times, and +thought it all very clever, most amusing--and generally right. Later on +I found that Mr. Godwin and "Jottings" were one and the same! + +At the Godwins' I met Mr. Barclay, Mr. Hine, William Burges the +architect, and many other people who made an impression on my young +mind. I accepted their lessons eagerly, and found them of the greatest +value later on. + +In March 1863 Mr. Chute opened the Theater Royal, Bath, when, besides a +specially written play symbolic of the event, his stock company +performed "A Midsummer Night's Dream." Titania was the first Shakespeare +part I had played since I left Charles Kean, but I think even in those +early days I was more at home in Shakespeare than anything else. Mr. +Godwin designed my dress, and we made it at his house in Bristol. He +showed me how to damp it and "wring" it while it was wet, tying up the +material as the Orientals do in their "tie and dry" process, so that +when it was dry and untied, it was all crinkled and clinging. This was +the first lovely dress that I ever wore, and I learned a great deal from +it. + +Almost directly after that appearance at Bath I went to London to +fulfill an engagement at the Haymarket Theater, of which Mr. Buckstone +was still the manager and Sothern the great attraction. I had played +Gertrude Howard in "The Little Treasure" during the stock season at +Bristol, and when Mr. Buckstone wanted to do the piece at the Haymarket, +he was told about me. I was fifteen at this time, and my sense of humor +was as yet ill-developed. I was fond of "larking" and merry enough, but +I hated being laughed _at_! At any rate, I could see no humor in Mr. +Sothern's jokes at my expense. He played my lover in "The Little +Treasure," and he was always teasing me--pulling my hair, making me +forget my part and look like an idiot. But for dear old Mr. Howe, who +was my "father" in the same piece, I should not have enjoyed acting in +it at all, but he made amends for everything. We had a scene together in +which he used to cry, and I used to cry--oh, it was lovely! + +Why I should never have liked Sothern, with his wonderful hands and blue +eyes, Sothern, whom every one found so fascinating and delightful, I +cannot say, and I record it as discreditable to me, not to him. It was +just a case of "I do not like thee, Dr. Fell." I admired him--I could +not help doing that--but I dreaded his jokes, and thought some of them +very cruel. + +Another thing I thought cruel at this time was the scandal which was +talked in the theater. A change for the better has taken place in this +respect--at any rate, in conduct. People behave better now, and in our +profession, carried on as it is in the public eye, behavior is +everything. At the Haymarket there were simply no bounds to what was +said in the greenroom. One night I remember gathering up my skirts (we +were, I think, playing "The Rivals" at the time), making a curtsey, as +Mr. Chippendale, one of the best actors in old comedy I ever knew, had +taught me, and sweeping out of the room with the famous line from +another Sheridan play: "Ladies and gentlemen, I leave my character +behind me!" + +I see now that this was very priggish of me, but I am quite as +uncompromising in my hatred of scandal now as I was then. Quite recently +I had a line to say in "Captain Brassbound's Conversion," which is a +very helpful reply to any tale-bearing. "As if any one ever knew the +whole truth about anything!" That is just the point. It is only the +whole truth which is informing and fair in the long run, and the whole +truth is never known. + +I regard my engagement at the Haymarket as one of my lost opportunities, +which in after years I would have given much to have over again. I might +have learned so much more than I did. I was preoccupied by events +outside the theater. Tom Taylor, who had for some time been a good +friend to both Kate and me, had introduced us to Mr. Watts, the great +painter, and to me the stage seemed a poor place when compared with the +wonderful studio where Kate and I were painted as "The Sisters." At the +Taylors' house, too, the friends, the arts, the refinements had an +enormous influence on me, and for a time the theater became almost +distasteful. Never at any time in my life have I been ambitious, but at +the Haymarket I was not even passionately anxious to do my best with +every part that came in my way--a quality which with me has been a good +substitute for ambition. I was just dreaming of and aspiring after +another world, a world full of pictures and music and gentle, artistic +people with quiet voices and elegant manners. The reality of such a +world was Little Holland House, the home of Mr. Watts. + +So I confess quite frankly that I did not appreciate until it was too +late, my advantages in serving at the Haymarket with comrades who were +the most surpassingly fine actors and actresses in old comedy that I +have ever known. There were Mr. Buckstone, the Chippendales, Mr. +Compton, Mr. Farren. They one and all thoroughly understood Sheridan. +Their bows, their curtseys, their grand manner, the indefinable _style_ +which they brought to their task were something to see. We shall never +know their like again, and the smoothest old-comedy acting of this age +seems rough in comparison. Of course, we suffer more with every fresh +decade that separates us from Sheridan. As he gets farther and farther +away, the traditions of the performances which he conducted become paler +and paler. Mr. Chippendale knew these traditions backwards. He might +even have known Sheridan himself. Charles Reade's mother did know him, +and sat on the stage with him while he rehearsed "The School for +Scandal" with Mrs. Abingdon, the original Lady Teazle in the part. + +Mrs. Abingdon, according to Charles Reade, who told the story, had just +delivered the line, "How dare you abuse my relations?" when Sheridan +stopped the rehearsal. + +"No, no, that won't do at all! It mustn't be _pettish_. That's +shallow--shallow. You must go up stage with, 'You are just what my +cousin Sophy said you would be,' and then turn and sweep down on him +like a volcano. 'You are a great bear to abuse my relations! How _dare_ +you abuse my relations!'" + +I want to refrain, in telling the story of my life, from praising the +past at the expense of the present. It is at best the act of a fogey and +always an easy thing to do, as there are so few people who can +contradict one. Yet even the fear of joining hands with the people who +like every country but their own, and every age except that in which +they live, shall not deter me from saying that although I have seen +many improvements in actors and acting since I was at the Haymarket, I +have never seen artificial comedy acted as it was acted there. + +Not that I was much good at it myself. I played Julia in "The Rivals" +very ill; it was too difficult and subtle for me--ungrateful into the +bargain--and I even made a blunder in bringing down the curtain on the +first night. It fell to my lot to finish the play--in players' language, +to speak the "tag." Now, it has been a superstition among actors for +centuries that it is unlucky to speak the "tag" in full at rehearsal. So +during the rehearsals of "The Rivals," I followed precedent and did not +say the last two or three words of my part and of the play, but just +"mum, mum, mum!" When the first night came, instead of dropping my voice +with the last word in the conventional and proper manner, I ended with +an upward inflection, which was right for the sense, but wrong for the +curtain. + +This unexpected innovation produced utter consternation all round me. +The prompter was so much astounded that he thought there was something +more coming and did not give the "pull" for the curtain to come down. +There was a horrid pause while it remained up, and then Mr. Buckstone, +the Bob Acres of the cast, who was very deaf and had not heard the +upward inflection, exclaimed loudly and irritably: "Eh! eh! What does +this mean? Why the devil don't you bring down the curtain?" And he went +on cursing until it did come down. This experience made me think more +than ever of the advice of an old actor: "Never leave your stage effects +to _chance_, my child, but _rehearse_, and find out all about it!" + +How I wished I had rehearsed that "tag" and taken the risk of being +unlucky! + +For the credit of my intelligence I should add that the mistake was a +technical one, not a stupid one. The line was a question. It _demanded_ +an upward inflection; but no play can end like that. + +It was not all old comedy at the Haymarket. "Much Ado About Nothing" was +put on during my engagement, and I played Hero to Miss Louisa Angell's +Beatrice. Miss Angell was a very modern Beatrice, but I, though I say it +"as shouldn't," played Hero beautifully! I remember wondering if I +should ever play Beatrice. I just _wondered_, that was all. It was the +same when Miss Angell played Letitia Hardy in "The Belle's Stratagem," +and I was Lady Touchwood. I just wondered! I never felt jealous of other +people having bigger parts; I never looked forward consciously to a day +when I should have them myself. There was no virtue in it. It was just +because I wasn't ambitious. + +Louise Keeley, a pretty little woman and clever, took my fancy more than +any one else in the company. She was always merry and kind, and I +admired her dainty, vivacious acting. In a burlesque called "Buckstone +at Home" (in which I played Britannia and came up a trap in a huge +pearl, which opened and disclosed me) Miss Keeley was delightful. One +evening the Prince and Princess of Wales (now our King and Queen) came +to see "Buckstone at Home." I believe it was the very first time they +had appeared at a theater since their marriage. They sat far back in the +royal box, the ladies and gentlemen of their suite occupying the front +seats. Miss Keeley, dressed as a youth, had a song in which she brought +forward by the hand some well-known characters in fairy tales and +nursery rhymes--Cinderella, Little Boy Blue, Jack and Jill, and so on, +and introduced them to the audience in a topical verse. One verse ran: + + "Here's the Prince of Happyland, + Once he dwelt at the Lyceum; + Here's another Prince at hand, + But being _invisible_, you can't see him!" + +Probably the Prince of Wales must have wished the singer at--well, not +at the Haymarket Theater; but the next minute he must have been touched +by the loyal greeting that he received. When the audience grasped the +situation, every one--stalls, boxes, circle, pit, gallery--stood up and +cheered and cheered again. Never was there a more extraordinary scene in +a playhouse--such excitement, such enthusiasm! The action of the play +came to a full stop, but not the cheers. They grew louder and louder, +until the Prince came forward and bowed his acknowledgments. I doubt if +any royal personage has ever been so popular in England as he was. Of +course he is popular as King too, but as Prince of Wales he came nearer +the people. They had more opportunities of seeing him, and they +appreciated his untiring efforts to make up by his many public +appearances for the seclusion in which the Queen lived. + + +1864 + +In the middle of the run of "The American Cousin" I left the stage and +married. Mary Meredith was the part, and I played it vilely. I was not +quite sixteen years old, too young to be married even in those days, +when every one married early. But I was delighted, and my parents were +delighted, although the disparity of age between my husband and me was +very great. It all seems now like a dream--not a clear dream, but a +fitful one which in the morning one tries in vain to tell. And even if I +could tell it, I would not. I was happy, because my face was the type +which the great artist who had married me loved to paint. I remember +sitting to him in armor for hours and never realizing that it was heavy +until I fainted! + +The day of my wedding it was very cold. Like most women, I always +remember what I was wearing on the important occasions of my life. On +that day I wore a brown silk gown which had been designed by Holman +Hunt, and a quilted white bonnet with a sprig of orange-blossom, and I +was wrapped in a beautiful Indian shawl. I "went away" in a sealskin +jacket with coral buttons, and a little sealskin cap. I cried a great +deal, and Mr. Watts said, "Don't cry. It makes your nose swell." The day +I left home to be married, I "tubbed" all my little brothers and sisters +and washed their fair hair. + +Little Holland House, where Mr. Watts lived, seemed to me a paradise, +where only beautiful things were allowed to come. All the women were +graceful, and all the men were gifted. The trio of sisters--Mrs. +Prinsep--(mother of the painter), Lady Somers, and Mrs. Cameron, who was +the pioneer in artistic photography as we know it to-day--were known as +Beauty, Dash, and Talent. There were two more beautiful sisters, Mrs. +Jackson and Mrs. Dalrymple. Gladstone, Disraeli and Browning were among +Mr. Watts' visitors. At Freshwater, where I went soon after my marriage, +I first saw Tennyson. + +As I write down these great names I feel almost guilty of an imposture! +Such names are bound to raise high anticipations, and my recollections +of the men to whom some of the names belong are so very humble. + +I sat, shrinking and timid, in a corner--the girl-wife of a famous +painter. I was, if I was anything at all, more of a curiosity, of a +side-show, than hostess to these distinguished visitors. Mr. Gladstone +seemed to me like a suppressed volcano. His face was pale and calm, but +the calm was the calm of the gray crust of Etna. To look into the +piercing dark eyes was like having a glimpse into the red-hot crater +beneath. Years later, when I met him again at the Lyceum and became +better acquainted with him, this impression of a volcano at rest again +struck me. Of Disraeli I carried away even a scantier impression. I +remember that he wore a blue tie, a brighter blue tie than most men +would dare to wear, and that his straggling curls shook as he walked. He +looked the great Jew before everything. But "there is the noble Jew," as +George Meredith writes somewhere, "as well as the bestial Gentile." When +I first saw Henry Irving made up as Shylock, my thoughts flew back to +the garden-party at Little Holland House, and Disraeli. I know I must +have admired him greatly, for the only other time I ever saw him he was +walking in Piccadilly, and I crossed the road, just to get a good look +at him. I even went the length of bumping into him on purpose. It was a +_very little_ bump! My elbow just touched his, and I trembled. He took +off his hat, muttered, "I beg your pardon," and passed on, not +recognizing me, of course; but I had had my look into his eyes. They +were very quiet eyes, and didn't open wide. + +I love Disraeli's novels--like his tie, brighter in color than any one +else's. It was "Venetia" which first made me see the real Lord Byron, +the real Lady Byron, too. In "Tancred" I recall a description of a +family of strolling players which seems to me more like the real thing +than anything else of the kind in fiction. It is strange that Dizzy's +novels should be neglected. Can any one with a pictorial sense fail to +be delighted by their pageantry? Disraeli was a heaven-born artist, who, +like so many of his race, on the stage, in music, and elsewhere, seems +to have had an unerring instinct for the things which the Gentile only +acquires by labor and training. The world he shows us in his novels is +big and swelling, but only to a hasty judgment is it hollow. + +Tennyson was more to me than a magic-lantern shape, flitting across the +blank of my young experience, never to return. The first time I saw him +he was sitting at the table in his library, and Mrs. Tennyson, her very +slender hands hidden by thick gloves, was standing on a step-ladder +handing him down some heavy books. She was very frail, and looked like a +faint tea-rose. After that one time I only remember her lying on a sofa. + +In the evenings I went walking with Tennyson over the fields, and he +would point out to me the differences in the flight of different birds, +and tell me to watch their solid phalanxes turning against the sunset, +the compact wedge suddenly narrowing sharply into a thin line. He taught +me to recognize the barks of trees and to call wild flowers by their +names. He picked me the first bit of pimpernel I ever noticed. Always I +was quite at ease with him. He was so wonderfully simple. + +A hat that I wore at Freshwater suddenly comes to my remembrance. It was +a brown straw mushroom with a dull red feather round it. It was tied +under my chin, and I still had my hair down. + +It was easy enough to me to believe that Tennyson was a poet. He showed +it in everything, although he was entirely free from any assumption of +the poetical r™le. That Browning, with his carefully brushed hat, smart +coat, and fine society manners was a poet, always seemed to me far more +incomprehensible than his poetry, which I think most people would have +taken straightforwardly and read with a fair amount of ease, if certain +enthusiasts had not founded societies for making his crooked places +plain, and (to me) his plain places very crooked. These societies have +terrorized the ordinary reader into leaving Browning alone. The same +thing has been tried with Shakespeare, but fortunately the experiment in +this case has proved less successful. Coroners' inquests by learned +societies can't make Shakespeare a dead man. + +At the time of my first marriage, when I met these great men, I had +never had the advantage--I assume that it _is_ an advantage!--of a +single day's schooling in a _real school_. What I have learned outside +my own profession I have learned from my environment. Perhaps it is this +which makes me think environment more valuable than a set education, and +a stronger agent in forming character even than heredity. I should have +written the _externals_ of character, for primal, inner feelings are, I +suppose, always inherited. + +Still, my want of education may be partly responsible for the +unsatisfactory blankness of my early impressions. As it takes two to +make a good talker, so it takes two to make a good hero--in print, at +any rate. I was meeting distinguished people at every turn, and taking +no notice of them. At Freshwater I was still so young that I preferred +playing Indians and Knights of the Round Table with Tennyson's sons, +Hallam and Lionel, and the young Camerons, to sitting indoors noticing +what the poet did and said. I was mighty proud when I learned how to +prepare his daily pipe for him. It was a long churchwarden, and he liked +the stem to be steeped in a solution of sal volatile, or something of +that kind, so that it did not stick to his lips. But he and all the +others seemed to me very old. There were my young knights waiting for +me; and jumping gates, climbing trees, and running paper-chases are +pleasant when one is young. + +It was not to inattentive ears that Tennyson read his poems. His reading +was most impressive, but I think he read Browning's "Ride from Ghent to +Aix" better than anything of his own, except, perhaps, "The Northern +Farmer." He used to preserve the monotonous rhythm of the galloping +horses in Browning's poem, and made the words come out sharply like +hoofs upon a road. It was a little comic until one got used to it, but +that fault lay in the ear of the hearer. It was the right way and the +fine way to read this particular poem, and I have never forgotten it. + +In after years I met Tennyson again, when with Henry Irving I acted in +two of his plays at the Lyceum. When I come to those plays, I shall have +more to say of him. Gladstone, too, came into my later life. Browning I +saw once or twice at dinner-parties, but knew him no better than in this +early period, when I was Nelly Watts, and heedless of the greatness of +great men. "To meet an angel and not to be afraid is to be impudent." I +don't like to confess to it, but I think I must have been, according to +this definition, _very_ impudent! + +One charming domestic arrangement at Freshwater was the serving of the +dessert in a separate room from the rest of the dinner. And such a +dessert it always was!--fruit piled high on great dishes in Veronese +fashion, not the few nuts and an orange of some English households. + +It must have been some years after the Freshwater days, yet before the +production of "The Cup," that I saw Tennyson in his carriage outside a +jeweler's shop in Bond Street. + +"How very nice you look in the daytime," he said. "Not like an actress!" + +I disclaimed my singularity, and said I thought actresses looked _very_ +nice in the daytime. + +To him and to the others my early romance was always the most +interesting thing about me. When I saw them in later times, it seemed as +if months, not years, had passed since I was Nelly Watts. + +Once, at the dictates of a conscience perhaps over fastidious, I made a +bonfire of my letters. But a few were saved from the burning, more by +accident than design. Among them I found yesterday a kind little note +from Sir William Vernon Harcourt, which shows me that I must have known +him, too, at the time of my first marriage and met him later on when I +returned to the stage. + + "You cannot tell how much pleased I am to hear that you have been + as happy as you deserve to be. The longer one lives, the more one + learns not to despair, and to believe that nothing is impossible to + those who have courage and hope and youth--I was going to add + beauty and genius." (_This is the sort of thing that made me + blush--and burn my letters before they shamed me!_) + + "My little boy is still the charm and consolation of my life. He is + now twelve years old, and though I say it that should not, is a + perfect child, and wins the hearts of all who know him." + +That little boy, now in His Majesty's Government, is known as the Right +Honorable Lewis Harcourt. He married an American lady, Miss Burns of New +York. + +Many inaccurate stories have been told of my brief married life, and I +have never contradicted them--they were so manifestly absurd. Those who +can imagine the surroundings into which I, a raw girl, undeveloped in +all except my training as an actress, was thrown, can imagine the +situation. + +Of one thing I am certain. While I was with Signor--the name by which +Mr. Watts was known among his friends--I never had one single pang of +regret for the theater. This may do me no credit, but it is _true_. + +I wondered at the new life, and worshiped it because of its beauty. When +it suddenly came to an end, I was thunderstruck; and refused at first to +consent to the separation, which was arranged for me in much the same +way as my marriage had been. + +The whole thing was managed by those kind friends whose chief business +in life seems to be the care of others. I don't blame them. There are +cases where no one is to blame. "There do exist such things as honest +misunderstandings," as Charles Reade was always impressing on me at a +later time. There were no vulgar accusations on either side, and the +words I read in the deed of separation, "incompatibility of temper"--a +mere legal phrase--_more_ than covered the ground. Truer still would +have been "incompatibility of _occupation_," and the interference of +well-meaning friends. We all suffer from that sort of thing. Pray God +one be not a well-meaning friend one's self! + +"The marriage was not a happy one," they will probably say after my +death, and I forestall them by saying that it in many ways was very +happy indeed. What bitterness there was effaced itself in a very +remarkable way. + +I saw Mr. Watts but once face to face after the separation. We met in +the street at Brighton, and he told me that I had grown! I was never to +speak to him again. But years later, after I had appeared at the Lyceum +and had made some success in the world, I was in the garden of a house +which adjoined Mr. Watt's new Little Holland House, and he, in his +garden, saw me through the hedge. It was then that I received from him +the first letter that I had had for years. In this letter he told me +that he had watched my success with eager interest, and asked me to +shake hands with him in spirit. "What success I may have," he wrote, +"will be very incomplete and unsatisfactory if you cannot do what I have +long been hesitating to ask. If you cannot, keep silence. If you can, +one word, 'Yes,' will be enough." + +I answered simply, "Yes." + +After that he wrote to me again, and for two or three years we +corresponded, but I never came into personal contact with him. + +As the past is now to me like a story in a book that I once read, I can +speak of it easily. But if by doing so I thought that I might give pain +or embarrassment to any one else, I should be silent about this +long-forgotten time. After careful consideration it does not seem to me +that it can be either indiscreet or injurious to let it be known that +this great artist honored and appreciated my efforts and strife in my +art; that this great man could not rid himself of the pain of feeling +that he "had spoiled my life" (a chivalrous assumption of blame for what +was, I think, a natural, almost inevitable, catastrophe), and that long +after all personal relation had been broken off, he wrote to me gently, +kindly,--as sympathetically ignoring the strangeness of the position, as +if, to use his own expression, "we stood face to face on the brink of an +universal grave." + +When this tender kindness was established between us, he sent me a +portrait-head that he had done of me when I was his wife. I think it a +very beautiful picture. He did not touch it except to mend the edges, +thinking it better not to try to improve it by the work of another time. + +In one of these letters he writes that "there is nothing in all this +that the world might not know." Surely the world is always the better +for having a little truth instead of a great deal of idle inaccuracy and +falsehood. That is my justification for publishing this, if +justification be needed. + +If I did not fulfill his too high prophecy that "in addition to your +artistic eminence, I feel that you will achieve a solid social position, +make yourself a great woman, and take a noble place in the history of +your time," I was the better for his having made it. + +If I had been able to look into the future, I should have been less +rebellious at the termination of my first marriage. Was I so rebellious, +after all? I am afraid I _showed_ about as much rebellion as a sheep. +But I was miserable, indignant, unable to understand that there could be +any justice in what had happened. In a little more than two years I +returned to the stage. I was practically _driven_ back by those who +meant to be kind--Tom Taylor, my father and mother, and others. _They_ +looked ahead and saw clearly it was for my good. + +It _was_ a good thing, but at the time I hated it. And I hated going +back to live at home. Mother furnished a room for me, and I thought the +furniture hideous. Poor mother! + +For years Beethoven always reminded me of mending stockings, because I +used to struggle with the large holes in my brothers' stockings upstairs +in that ugly room, while downstairs Kate played the "Moonlight Sonata." +I caught up the stitches in time to the notes! This was the period when, +though every one was kind, I hated my life, hated every one and +everything in the world more than at any time before or since. + + + + +III + +ROSSETTI, BERNHARDT, IRVING + +1865-1867 + + +Most people know that Tom Taylor was one of the leading playwrights of +the 'sixties as well as the dramatic critic of _The Times_, editor of +_Punch_, and a distinguished Civil Servant, but to us he was more than +this--he was an institution! I simply cannot remember when I did not +know him. It is the Tom Taylors of the world who give children on the +stage their splendid education. We never had any education in the strict +sense of the word, yet, through the Taylors and others, we _were_ +educated. Their house in Lavender Sweep was lovely. I can hardly bear to +go near that part of London now, it is so horribly changed. Where are +its green fields and its chestnut-trees? We were always welcome at the +Taylors', and every Sunday we heard music and met interesting +people--Charles Reade among them. Mrs. Taylor had rather a hard +outside--she was like Mrs. Charles Kean in that respect--and I was often +frightened out of my life by her; yet I adored her. She was in reality +the most tender-hearted, sympathetic woman, and what an admirable +musician! She composed nearly all the music for her husband's plays. +Every Sunday there was music at Lavender Sweep--quartet playing with +Madame Schumann at the piano. + +Tom Taylor was one of the most benign and gentle of men, a good and a +loyal friend. At first he was more interested in my sister Kate's career +than in mine, as was only natural; for, up to the time of my first +marriage, Kate had a present, I only a future. Before we went to Bristol +and played with the stock company, she had made her name. At the St. +James's Theater, in 1862, she was playing a small part in a version of +Sardou's "Nos Intimes," known then as "Friends and Foes," and in a later +day and in another version as "Peril." + +Miss Herbert--the beautiful Miss Herbert, as she was appropriately +called--had the chief part in the play (Mrs. Union), and Kate, although +not the understudy, was called upon to play it at a few hours' notice. +She had from childhood acquired a habit of studying every part in every +play in which she was concerned, so she was as ready as though she had +been the understudy. Miss Herbert was not a remarkable actress, but her +appearance was wonderful indeed. She was very tall, with pale gold hair +and the spiritual, ethereal look which the aesthetic movement loved. +When mother wanted to flatter me very highly, she said that I looked +like Miss Herbert! Rossetti founded many of his pictures on her, and she +and Mrs. "Janie" Morris were his favorite types. When any one was the +object of Rossetti's devotion, there was no extravagant length to which +he would not go in demonstrating it. He bought a white bull because it +had "eyes like Janie Morris," and tethered it on the lawn of his home in +Chelsea. Soon there was no lawn left--only the bull! He invited people +to meet it, and heaped favors on it until it kicked everything to +pieces, when he reluctantly got rid of it. + +His next purchase was a white peacock, which, very soon after its +arrival, disappeared under the sofa. In vain did Rossetti "shoo" it out. +It refused to budge. This went on for days. + +"The lovely creature won't respond to me," said Rossetti pathetically to +a friend. + +The friend dragged out the bird. + +"No wonder! It's _dead_!" + +"Bulls don't like me," said Rossetti a few days later, "and peacocks +aren't homely." + +It preyed on his mind so much that he tried to repair the failure by +buying some white dormice. He sat them up on tiny bamboo chairs, and +they looked sweet. When the winter was over, he invited a party to meet +them and congratulate them upon waking up from their long sleep. + +"They are awake now," he said, "but how quiet they are! How full of +repose!" + +One of the guests went to inspect the dormice more closely, and a +peculiar expression came over his face. It might almost have been +thought that he was holding his nose. + +"Wake up, little dormice," said Rossetti, prodding them gently with a +quill pen. + +"They'll never do _that_," said the guest. "They're _dead_. I believe +they have been dead some days!" + +Do you think Rossetti gave up live stock after this? Not a bit of it. He +tried armadillos and tortoises. + +"How are the tortoises?" he asked his man one day, after a long spell of +forgetfulness that he had any. + +"Pretty well, sir, thank you.... That's to say, sir, there ain't no +tortoises!" + +The tortoises, bought to eat the beetles, had been eaten themselves. At +least, the shells were found full of beetles. + +And the armadillos? "The air of Chelsea don't suit them," said +Rossetti's servant. They had certainly left Rossetti's house, but they +had not left Chelsea. All the neighbors had dozens of them! They had +burrowed, and came up smiling in houses where they were far from +welcome. + +This by the way. Miss Herbert, who looked like the Blessed Damosel +leaning out "across the bar of heaven," was not very well suited to the +line of parts that she was playing at the St. James's, but she was very +much admired. During the run of "Friends and Foes" she fell ill. Her +illness was Kate's opportunity. From the night that Kate played Mrs. +Union, her reputation was made. + +It was a splendid chance, no doubt, but of what use would it have been +to any one who was not ready to use it? Kate, though only about nineteen +at this time, was a finished actress. She had been a perfect Ariel, a +beautiful Cordelia, and had played at least forty other parts of +importance since she had appeared as a tiny Robin in the Keans' +production of "The Merry Wives of Windsor." She had not had her head +turned by big salaries, and she had never ceased working since she was +four years old. No wonder that she was capable of bearing the burden of +a piece at a moment's notice. The Americans cleverly say that "the lucky +cat _watches_." _I_ should add that the lucky cat _works_. Reputations +on the stage--at any rate, enduring reputations--are not made by chance, +and to an actress who has not worked hard the finest opportunity in the +world will be utterly useless. + +My own opinion of my sister's acting must be taken for what it is +worth--and that is very little. I remember how she looked on the +stage--like a frail white azalea--and that her acting, unlike that of +Adelaide Neilson, who was the great popular favorite before Kate came to +the front, was scientific. She knew what she was about. There was more +ideality than passionate womanliness in her interpretations. For this +reason, perhaps, her Cordelia was finer than her Portia or her Beatrice. + +She was engaged at one time to a young actor, called Montagu. If the +course of that love had run smooth, where should I have been? Kate would +have been the Terry of the age. But Mr. Montagu went to America, and, +after five years of life as a matinŽe idol, died there. Before that, +Arthur Lewis had come along. I was glad because he was rich, and during +his courtship I had some riding, of which in my girlhood I was +passionately fond. + +Tom Taylor had an enormous admiration for Kate, and during her second +season as a "star" at Bristol he came down to see her play Juliet and +Beatrice and Portia. This second Bristol season came in the middle of my +time at the Haymarket, but I went back, too, and played Nerissa and +Hero. Before that I had played my first leading Shakespeare part, but +only at one matinŽe. + +An actor named Walter Montgomery was giving a matinŽe of "Othello" at +the Princess's (the theater where I made my first appearance) in the +June of 1863, and he wanted a Desdemona. The agents sent for me. It was +Saturday, and I had to play it on Monday! But for my training, how could +I have done it? At this time I knew the words and had _studied_ the +words--a very different thing--of every woman's part in Shakespeare. I +don't know what kind of performance I gave on that memorable afternoon, +but I think it was not so bad. And Walter Montgomery's Othello? Why +can't I remember something about it? I only remember that the +unfortunate actor shot himself on his wedding-day! + +Any one who has come with me so far in my life will realize that Kate +Terry was much better known than Ellen at the time of Ellen's first +retirement from the stage. From Bristol my sister had gone to London to +become Fechter's "leading lady," and from that time until she made her +last appearance in 1867 as Juliet at the Adelphi, her career was a blaze +of triumph. + +Before I came back to take part in her farewell tour (she became engaged +to Mr. Arthur Lewis in 1866), I paid my first visit to Paris. I saw the +Empress EugŽnie driving in the Bois, looking like an exquisite waxwork. +Oh, the beautiful _slope_ of women at this period! They sat like lovely +half-moons, lying back in their carriages. It was an age of elegance--in +France particularly--an age of luxury. They had just laid down asphalt +for the first time in the streets of Paris, and the quiet of the +boulevards was wonderful after the rattling London streets. I often went +to three parties a night; but I was in a difficult position, as I could +not speak a word of the language. I met Tissot and Gambard, who had just +built Rosa Bonheur's house at Nice. + +I liked the Frenchmen because they liked me, but I didn't admire them. + +I tried to learn to smoke, but I never took kindly to it and soon gave +it up. + +What was the thing that made me homesick for London? _Household Words._ +The excitement in the 'sixties over each new Dickens can be understood +only by people who experienced it at the time. Boys used to sell +_Household Words_ in the streets, and they were often pursued by an +eager crowd, for all the world as if they were carrying news of the +"latest winner." + +Of course I went to the theater in Paris. I saw Sarah Bernhardt for the +first time, and Madame Favart, Croisette, Delaunay, and Got. I never +thought Croisette--a superb animal--a "patch" on Sarah, who was at this +time as thin as a harrow. Even then I recognized that Sarah was not a +bit conventional, and would not stay long at the ComŽdie. Yet she did +not put me out of conceit with the old school. I saw "Les PrŽcieuses +Ridicules" finely done, and I said to myself then, as I have often said +since: "Old school--new school? What does it matter which, so long as it +is _good enough_?" + +Madame Favart I knew personally, and she gave me many useful hints. One +was never to black my eyes _underneath_ when "making up." She pointed +out that although this was necessary when the stage was lighted entirely +from beneath, it had become ugly and meaningless since the introduction +of top lights. + +The friend who took me everywhere in Paris landed me one night in the +dressing-room of a singer. I remember it because I heard her complain to +a man of some injustice. She had not got some engagement that she had +expected. + +"It serves you damn right!" he answered. "You can't sing a bit." For the +first time I seemed to realize how brutal it was of a man to speak to a +woman like that, and I _hated_ it. + +Long afterwards, in the same city, I saw a man sitting calmly in a +_fiacre_, a man of the "gentlemanly" class, and ordering the _cocher_ to +drive on, although a woman was clinging to the side of the carriage and +refusing to let go. She was a strong, splendid creature of the peasant +type, bareheaded, with a fine open brow, and she was obviously consumed +by resentment of some injustice--mad with it. She was dragged along in +one of the busiest streets in Paris, the little Frenchman sitting there +smiling, easy. How she escaped death I don't know. Then he became +conscious that people were looking, and he stopped the cab and let her +get in. Oh, men! + +Paris! Paris! Young as I was, I fell under the spell, of your elegance, +your cleanness, your well-designed streets, your nonchalant gaiety. I +drank coffee at Tortoni's. I visited the studio of Meissonier. I stood +in the crowd that collected round Rosa Bonheur's "Horse Fair," which was +in the Salon that year. I grew dead sick of the endless galleries of the +Louvre. I went to the Madeleine at Easter time, all purple and white +lilies, and fainted from trying to imagine ecstasy when the Host was +raised.... I never fainted again in my life, except once from _anger_, +when I heard some friends whom I loved slandering another friend whom I +loved more. + +Good-bye to Paris and back to London, where I began acting again with +only half my heart. I did very well, they said, as Helen in "The +Hunchback," the first part I played after my return; but I cared nothing +about my success. I was feeling wretchedly ill, and angry too, because +they insisted on putting my married name on the bills. + +After playing with Kate at Bristol and at the Adelphi in London, I +accepted an engagement to appear in a new play by Tom Taylor, called +"The Antipodes." It was a bad play, and I had a bad part, but Telbin's +scenery was lovely. Telbin was a poet, and he has handed on much of his +talent to his son, who is alive now, and painted most of our Faust +scenery at the Lyceum--he and dear Mr. Hawes Craven, who so loved his +garden and could paint the flicker of golden sunshine for the stage +better than any one. I have always been friendly with the +scene-painters, perhaps because I have always taken pains about my +dresses, and consulted them beforehand about the color, so that I should +not look wrong in their scenes, nor their scenes wrong with my dresses. + +Telbin and Albert Moore together did up the New Queen's Theater, Long +Acre, which was opened in October, 1867, under the ostensible management +of the Alfred Wigans. I say "ostensible," because Mr. Labouchere had +something to do with it, and Miss Henrietta Hodson, whom he afterwards +married, played in the burlesques and farces without which no theater +bill in London at that time was complete. The Wigans offered me an +engagement, and I stayed with them until 1868, when I again left the +stage. During this engagement I acted with Charles Wyndham and Lionel +Brough, and, last but not least, with Henry Irving. + +Mrs. Wigan, _nŽe_ Leonora Pincott, did me the honor to think that I was +worth teaching, and took nearly as much pains to improve me as Mrs. Kean +had done at a different stage in my artistic growth. Her own +accomplishments as a comedy actress impressed me more than I can say. I +remember seeing her as Mrs. Candour, and thinking to myself, "This is +absolutely perfect." If I were a teacher I would impress on young +actresses never to move a finger or turn the eye without being quite +certain that the movement or the glance _tells_ something. Mrs. Wigan +made few gestures, but each one quietly, delicately indicated what the +words which followed expressed. And while she was speaking she never +frittered away the effect of that silent eloquence. + +One of my besetting sins was--nay, still is--the lack of repose. Mrs. +Wigan at once detected the fault, and at rehearsals would work to make +me remedy it. "_Stand still!_" she would shout from the stalls. "Now +you're of value!" "Motionless! Just as you are! _That's_ right." + +A few years later she came to see me at the Court Theater, where I was +playing in "The House of Darnley," and afterwards wrote me the following +very kind and encouraging letter: + +"_December 7, 1877._ + +"Dear Miss Terry,-- + +"You have a very difficult part in 'The House of Darnley.' I know no one +who could play it as well as you did last night--but _you_ could do it +much better. You would vex me much if I thought you had no ambition in +your art. You are the one young actress of my day who can have her +success entirely in her own hands. You have all the gifts for your +noble profession, and, as you know, your own devotion to it will give +you all that can be learned. I'm very glad my stage direction was useful +and pleasant to you, and any benefit you have derived from it is +overpaid by your style of acting. You cannot have a 'groove'; you are +too much of an artist. Go on and prosper, and if at any time you think I +can help you in your art, you may always count on that help from your +most sincere well-wisher + +"LEONORA WIGAN." + +Another service that Mrs. Wigan did me was to cure me of "fooling" on +the stage. "_Did_ she?" I thought I heard some one interrupt me unkindly +at that point! Well, at any rate, she gave me a good fright one night, +and I never forgot it, though I will not say I never laughed again. I +think it was in "The Double Marriage," the first play put on at the New +Queen's. As Rose de Beaurepaire, I wore a white muslin Directoire dress +and looked absurdly young. There was one "curtain" which used to +convulse Wyndham. He had a line, "Whose child is this?" and there was I, +looking a mere child myself, and with a bad cold in my head too, +answering: "It's _bine_!" The very thought of it used to send us off +into fits of laughter. We hung on to chairs, helpless, limp, and +incapable. Mrs. Wigan said if we did it again, she would go in front and +hiss us, and she carried out her threat. The very next time we laughed, +a loud hiss rose from the stagebox. I was simply paralyzed with terror. + +Dear old Mrs. Wigan! The stories that have been told about her would +fill a book! She was exceedingly plain, rather like a toad, yet, +perversely, she was more vain of her looks than of her acting. In the +theater she gave herself great airs and graces, and outside it hobnobbed +with duchesses and princesses. + +This fondness for aristocratic society gave additional point to the +story that one day a blear-eyed old cabman in capes and muffler +descended from the box of a disreputable-looking growler, and inquired +at the stage-door for Leonora Pincott. + +"Any lady 'ere of that name?" + +"No." + +"Well, I think she's married, and changed her name, but she's 'ere right +enough. Tell 'er I won't keep 'er a minute. I'm 'er--old father!" + +In "Still Waters Run Deep" I was rather good as Mrs. Mildmay, and the +rest of the cast were admirable. Mrs. Wigan was, of course, Mrs. +Sternhold. Wyndham, who was afterwards to be such a splendid Mildmay, +played Hawksley, and Alfred Wigan was Mildmay, as he had been in the +original production. When the play is revived now, much of it seems very +old-fashioned, but the office scene strikes one as freshly and strongly +as when it was first acted. I don't think that any drama which is vital +and _essential_ can ever be old-fashioned. + + +MY FIRST IMPRESSION OF HENRY IRVING + +One very foggy night in December 1867--it was Boxing Day, I think--I +acted for the first time with Henry Irving. This ought to have been a +great event in my life, but at the time it passed me by and left "no +wrack behind." Ever anxious to improve on the truth, which is often +devoid of all sensationalism, people have told a story of Henry Irving +promising that if he ever were in a position to offer me an engagement I +should be his leading lady. But this fairy story has been improved on +since. The newest tale of my first meeting with Henry Irving was told +during my jubilee. Then, to my amazement, I read that on that famous +night when I was playing Puck at the Princess's, and caught my toe in +the trap, "a young man with dark hair and a white face rushed forward +from the crowd and said: 'Never mind, darling. Don't cry! One day you +will be queen of the stage.' It was Henry Irving!" + +In view of these legends, I ought to say all the more stoutly that, +until I went to the Lyceum Theater, Henry Irving was nothing to me and I +was nothing to him. I never consciously thought that he would become a +great actor. He had no high opinion of _my_ acting! He has said since +that he thought me at the Queen's Theater charming and individual as a +woman, but as an actress _hoydenish_! I believe that he hardly spared me +even so much definite thought as this. His soul was not more surely in +his body than in the theater, and I, a woman who was at this time caring +more about love and life than the theater, must have been to him more or +less unsympathetic. He thought of nothing else, cared for nothing else; +worked day and night; went without his dinner to buy a book that might +be helpful in studying, or a stage jewel that might be helpful to wear. +I remember his telling me that he once bought a sword with a jeweled +hilt, and hung it at the foot of his bed. All night he kept getting up +and striking matches to see it, shifting its position, rapt in +admiration of it. + +He had it all in him when we acted together that foggy night, but he +could express very little. Many of his defects sprang from his +not having been on the stage as a child. He was stiff with +self-consciousness; his eyes were dull and his face heavy. The piece we +played was Garrick's boiled-down version of "The Taming of the Shrew," +and he, as Petruchio, appreciated the humor and everything else far more +than I did, as Katherine; yet he played badly, nearly as badly as I did; +and how much more to blame I was, for I was at this time much more easy +and skillful from a purely technical point of view. + +Was Henry Irving impressive in those days? Yes and no. His fierce and +indomitable will showed itself in his application to his work. Quite +unconsciously I learned from watching him that to do work well, the +artist must spend his life in incessant labor, and deny himself +everything for that purpose. It is a lesson we actors and actresses +cannot learn too early, for the bright and glorious heyday of our +success must always be brief at best. + +Henry Irving, when he played Petruchio, had been toiling in the +provinces for eleven solid years, and not until Rawdon Scudamore in +"Hunted Down" had he had any success. Even that was forgotten in his +failure as Petruchio. What a trouncing he received from the critics who +have since heaped praise on many worse men! + +I think this was the peculiar quality in his acting afterwards--a kind +of fine temper, like the purest steel, produced by the perpetual fight +against difficulties. Socrates, it is said, had every capacity for evil +in his face, yet he was good as a naturally good man could never be. +Henry Irving at first had everything against him as an actor. He could +not speak, he could not walk, he could not _look_. He wanted to do +things in a part, and he could not do them. His amazing power was +imprisoned, and only after long and weary years did he succeed in +setting it free. + +A man with a will like that _must_ be impressive! To quick-seeing eyes +he must, no doubt. But my eyes were not quick, and they were, moreover, +fixed on a world outside the theater. Better than his talent and his +will I remember his courtesy. In those days, instead of having our +salaries brought to our dressing-rooms, we used to wait in a queue on +Treasury Day to receive them. I was always late in coming, and always in +a hurry to get away. Very gravely and quietly Henry Irving used to give +up his place to me. + +I played once more at the Queen's after Katherine and Petruchio. It was +in a little piece called "The Household Fairy," and I remember it +chiefly through an accident which befell poor Jack Clayton through me. +The curtain had fallen on "The Household Fairy," and Clayton, who had +acted with me in it, was dancing with me on the stage to the music which +was being played during the wait, instead of changing his dress for the +next piece. This dancing during the entr'acte was very popular among us. +Many a burlesque quadrille I had with Terriss and others in later days. +On this occasion Clayton suddenly found he was late in changing, and, +rushing upstairs to his dressing-room in a hurry, he missed his footing +and fell back on his head. This made me very miserable, as I could not +help feeling that I was responsible. Soon afterwards I left the stage +for six years, without the slightest idea of ever going back. I left it +without regret. And I was very happy, leading a quiet, domestic life in +the heart of the country. When my two children were born, I thought of +the stage less than ever. They absorbed all my time, all my interest, +all my love. + + + + +IV + +A SIX-YEAR VACATION + +1868-1874 + + +My disappearance from the stage must have been a heavy blow to my father +and mother, who had urged me to return in 1866 and were quite certain +that I had a great future. For the first time for years they had no +child in the theater. Marion and Floss, who were afterward to adopt the +stage as a profession, were still at school; Kate had married; and none +of their sons had shown any great aptitude for acting. Fred, who was +afterwards to do so well, was at this time hardly out of petticoats. + +Perhaps it was because I knew they would oppose me that I left the stage +quite quietly and secretly. It seemed to outsiders natural, if +regrettable, that I should follow Kate's example. But I was troubling +myself little about what people were thinking and saying. "They are +saying--what are they saying? Let them be saying!" + +Then a dreadful thing happened. A body was found in the river,--the dead +body of a young woman very fair and slight and tall. Every one thought +that it was my body. + +I had gone away without a word. No one knew where I was. My own father +identified the corpse, and Floss and Marion, at their boarding-school, +were put into mourning. Then mother went. She kept her head under the +shock of the likeness, and bethought her of "a strawberry mark upon my +left arm." (_Really_ I had one over my left knee.) That settled it, for +there was no such mark to be found upon the poor corpse. It was just at +this moment that the news came to me in my country retreat that I had +been found dead, and I flew up to London to give ocular proof to my poor +distracted parents that I was alive. Mother, who had been the only one +not to identify the drowned girl, confessed to me that she was so like +me that just for a second she, too, was deceived. You see, they knew I +had not been very happy since my return to the stage, and when I went +away without a word, they were terribly anxious, and prepared to believe +the first bad tidings that came to hand. It came in the shape of that +most extraordinary likeness between me and that poor soul who threw +herself into the river. + +I was not twenty-one when I left the stage for the second time, and I +haven't made up my mind yet whether it was good or bad for me, as an +actress, to cease from practicing my craft for six years. Talma, the +great French actor, recommends long spells of rest, and says that +"perpetual indulgence in the excitement of impersonation dulls the +sympathy and impairs the imaginative faculty of the comedian." This is +very useful in my defense, yet I could find many examples which prove +the contrary. I could never imagine Henry Irving leaving the stage for +six months, let alone six years, and I don't think it would have been of +the slightest benefit to him. But he had not been on the stage as a +child. + +If I was able to rest so long without rusting, it was, I am sure, +because I had been thoroughly trained in the technique of acting long +before I reached my twentieth year--an age at which most students are +just beginning to wrestle with elementary principles. + +Of course, I did not argue in this way at the time! As I have said, I +had no intention of ever acting again when I left the Queen's Theater. +If it is the mark of the artist to love art before everything, to +renounce everything for its sake, to think all the sweet human things of +life well lost if only he may attain something, do some good, great +work--then I was never an artist. I have been happiest in my work when I +was working for some one else. I admire those impersonal people who care +for nothing outside their own ambition, yet I detest them at the same +time, and I have the simplest faith that absolute devotion to another +human being means the greatest _happiness_. That happiness was now mine. + +I led a most unconventional life, and experienced exquisite delight from +the mere fact of being in the country. No one knows what "the country" +means until he or she has lived in it. "Then, if ever, come perfect +days." + +What a sensation it was, too, to be untrammeled by time! Actors must +take care of themselves and their voices, husband their strength for the +evening work, and when it is over they are too tired to do anything! For +the first time I was able to put all my energies into living. Charles +Lamb says, I think, that when he left the East India House, he felt +embarrassed by the vast estates of time at his disposal, and wished that +he had a bailiff to manage them for him, but I knew no such +embarrassment. + +I began gardening, "the purest of human pleasures"; I learned to cook, +and in time cooked very well, though my first essay in that difficult +art was rewarded with dire and complete failure. + +It was a chicken! Now, as all the chickens had names--Sultan, Duke, Lord +Tom Noddy, Lady Teazle, and so forth--and as I was very proud of them as +living birds, it was a great wrench to kill one at all, to start with. +It was the murder of Sultan, not the killing of a chicken. However, at +last it was done, and Sultan deprived of his feathers, floured, and +trussed. I had no idea _how_ this was all done, but I tried to make him +"sit up" nicely like the chickens in the shops. + +He came up to the table looking magnificent--almost turkey-like in his +proportions. + +"Hasn't this chicken rather an odd smell?" said our visitor. + +"How can you!" I answered. "It must be quite fresh--it's Sultan!" + +However, when we began to carve, the smell grew more and more potent. + +_I had cooked Sultan without taking out his in'ards!_ + +There was no dinner that day except bread-sauce, beautifully made, +well-cooked vegetables, and pastry like the foam of the sea. I had a +wonderful hand for pastry! + +My hour of rising at this pleasant place near Mackery End in +Hertfordshire was six. Then I washed the babies. I had a perfect mania +for _washing_ everything and everybody. We had one little servant, and I +insisted on washing her head. Her mother came up from the village to +protest. + +"Never washed her head in my life. Never washed any of my children's +heads. And just look at their splendid hair!" + +After the washing I fed the animals. There were two hundred ducks and +fowls to feed, as well as the children. By the time I had done this, and +cooked the dinner, the morning had flown away. After the midday meal I +sewed. Sometimes I drove out in the pony-cart. And in the evening I +walked across the common to fetch the milk. The babies used to roam +where they liked on this common in charge of a bulldog, while I sat and +read. + +I studied cookery-books instead of parts--Mrs. Beeton instead of +Shakespeare! + +Of course, I thought my children the most brilliant and beautiful +children in the world, and, indeed, "this side idolatry," they were +exceptional, and they had an exceptional bringing up. They were allowed +no rubbishy picture-books, but from the first Japanese prints and fans +lined their nursery walls, and Walter Crane was their classic. If +injudicious friends gave the wrong sort of present, it was promptly +burned. A mechanical mouse in which Edy, my little daughter, showed keen +interest and delight, was taken away as being "realistic and common." +Only wooden toys were allowed. This severe training proved so effective +that when a doll dressed in a violent pink silk dress was given to Edy, +she said it was "vulgar"! + +By that time she had found a tongue, but until she was two years old she +never spoke a word, though she seemed to notice everything with her +grave dark eyes. We were out driving when I heard her voice for the +first time: + +"There's some more." + +She spoke quite distinctly. It was almost uncanny. + +"More what?" I asked in a trembling voice, afraid that having delivered +herself once, she might lapse into dumbness. + +"Birds!" + +The nursemaid, Essie, described Edy tersely as "a piece," while Teddy, +who was adored by every one because he was fat and fair and +angelic-looking, she called "the feather of England." + +"The feather of England" was considered by his sister a great coward. +She used to hit him on the head with a wooden spoon for crying, and +exhort him, when he said, "Master Teddy afraid of the dark," to be a +_woman_! + +I feel that if I go maundering on much longer about my children, some +one will exclaim with a witty and delightful author when he saw "Peter +Pan" for the seventh time: "Oh, for an hour of Herod!" When I think of +little Edy bringing me in minute branches of flowers all the morning, +with the reassuring intelligence that "there are lots more," I could +cry. But why should any one be interested in that? Is it interesting to +any one else that when she dug up a turnip in the garden for the first +time, she should have come running in to beg me to come quick: "Miss Edy +found a radish. It's as big as--as big as _God_!" + +When I took her to her first theater--it was Sanger's Circus--and the +clown pretended to fall from the tightrope, and the drum went bang! she +said: "Take me away! take me away! you ought never to have brought me +here!" No wonder she was considered a dour child! I immediately and +humbly obeyed. + +It was truly the simple life we led in Hertfordshire. From scrubbing +floors and lighting fires, cooking, gardening, and harnessing the pony, +I grew thinner than ever--as thin as a whipping-post, a hurdle, or a +haddock! I went to church in blue-and-white cotton, with my servant in +silk. "I don't half like it," she said. "They'll take you for the cook, +and me for the lady!" + +We kept a goat, a dear fellow whom I liked very much until I caught him +one day chasing my daughter. I seized him by his horns to inflict severe +punishment; but then I saw that his eyes were exactly like mine, and it +made me laugh so much that I let him go and never punished him at all. + +"Boo" became an institution in these days. She was the wife of a doctor +who kept a private asylum in the neighboring village, and on his death +she tried to look after the lunatics herself. But she wasn't at all +successful! They kept escaping, and people didn't like it. This was my +gain, for "Boo" came to look after me instead, and for the next thirty +years I was her only lunatic, and she my most constant companion and +dear and loyal friend. + +We seldom went to London. When we did, Ted nearly had a fit at seeing so +many "we'els go wound." But we went to Normandy, and saw Lisieux, +Mantes, Bayeux. Long afterwards, when I was feeling as hard as sandpaper +on the stage, I had only to recall some of the divine music I had heard +in those great churches abroad to become soft, melted, able to act. I +remember in some cathedral we left little Edy sitting down below while +we climbed up into the clerestory to look at some beautiful piece of +architecture. The choir were practicing, and suddenly there rose a boy's +voice, pure, effortless, and clear.... For years that moment stayed with +me. When we came down to fetch Edy, she said: + +"Ssh! ssh! Miss Edy has seen the angels!" + +Oh, blissful quiet days! How soon they came to an end! Already the +shadow of financial trouble fell across my peace. Yet still I never +thought of returning to the stage. + +One day I was driving in a narrow lane, when the wheel of the pony-cart +came off. I was standing there, thinking what I should do next, when a +whole crowd of horsemen in "pink" came leaping over the hedge into the +lane. One of them stopped and asked if he could do anything. Then he +looked hard at me and exclaimed: "Good God! it's Nelly!" + +The man was Charles Reade. + +"Where have you been all these years?" he said. + +"I have been having a very happy time," I answered. + +"Well, you've had it long enough. Come back to the stage!" + +"No, never!" + +"You're a fool! You ought to come back." + +Suddenly I remembered the bailiff in the house a few miles away, and I +said laughingly: "Well, perhaps, I would think of it if some one would +give me forty pounds a week!" + +"Done!" said Charles Reade. "I'll give you that, and more, if you'll +come and play Philippa Chester in 'The Wandering Heir.'" + +He went on to explain that Mrs. John Wood, who had been playing Philippa +at the New Queen's, of which he was the lessee, would have to relinquish +the part soon, because she was under contract to appear elsewhere. The +piece was a great success, and promised to run a long time if he could +find a good Philippa to replace Mrs. Wood. It was a kind of Rosalind +part, and Charles Reade only exaggerated pardonably when he said that I +should never have any part better suited to me! + +In a very short time after that meeting in the lane, it was announced +that the new Philippa was to be an actress who was returning to the +stage "after a long period of retirement." Only just before the first +night did anyone guess who it was, and then there was great excitement +among those who remembered me. The acclamation with which I was welcomed +back on the first night surprised me. The papers were more flattering +than they had ever been before. It was a tremendous success for me, and +I was all the more pleased because I was following an accomplished +actress in the part. + +It is curious how often I have "followed" others. I never "created" a +part, as theatrical parlance has it, until I played Olivia at the Court, +and I had to challenge comparison, in turn, with Miss Marie Wilton, Mrs. +John Wood and Mrs. Kendal. Perhaps it was better for me than if I had +had parts specially written for me, and with which no other names were +associated. + +The hero of "The Wandering Heir," when I first took up the part of +Philippa, was played by Edmund Leathes, but afterward by Johnston +Forbes-Robertson. Everyone knows how good-looking he is now, but as a +boy he was wonderful--a dreamy, poetic-looking creature in a blue smock, +far more of an artist than an actor--he promised to paint quite +beautifully--and full of aspirations and ideals. In those days began a +friendship between us which has lasted unbroken until this moment. His +father and mother were delightful people, and very kind to me always. + +Everyone was kind to me at this time. Friends whom I had thought would +be estranged by my long absence rallied round me and welcomed me as if +it were six minutes instead of six years since I had dropped out of +their ken. I was not yet a "made" woman, but I had a profitable +engagement, and a delightful one, too, with Charles Reade, and I felt an +enthusiasm for my work which had been wholly absent when I had returned +to the stage the first time. My children were left in the country at +first, but they came up and joined me when, in the year following "The +Wandering Heir," I went to the Bancrofts at the Prince of Wales's. I +never had the slightest fear of leaving them to their own devices, for +they always knew how to amuse themselves, and were very independent and +dependable in spite of their extreme youth. I have often thanked Heaven +since that, with all their faults, my boy and girl have never been lazy +and never dull. At this time Teddy always had a pencil in his hand, when +he wasn't looking for his biscuit--he was a greedy little thing!--and +Edy was hammering clothes onto her dolls with tin-tacks! Teddy said +poetry beautifully, and when he and his sister were still tiny mites, +they used to go through scene after scene of "As You Like It," for their +own amusement, not for an audience, in the wilderness at Hampton Court. +They were by no means prodigies, but it did not surprise me that my son, +when he grew up, should be first a good actor, then an artist of some +originality, and should finally turn all his brains and industry to new +developments in the art of the theater. My daughter has acted also--not +enough to please me, for I have a very firm belief in her talents--and +has shown again and again that she can design and make clothes for the +stage that are both lovely and effective. In all my most successful +stage dresses lately she has had a hand, and if I had anything to do +with a national theater, I should, without prejudice, put her in charge +of the wardrobe at once! + +I may be a proud parent, but I have always refrained from "pushing" my +children. They have had to fight for themselves, and to their mother +their actual achievements have mattered very little. So long as they +were not lazy, I have always felt that I could forgive them anything! + +And now Teddy and Edy--Teddy in a minute white piquŽ suit, and Edy in a +tiny kimono, in which she looked as Japanese as everything which +surrounded her--disappear from these pages for quite a long time. But +all this time, you must understand, they are educating their mother! + +Charles Reade, having brought me back to the stage, and being my manager +into the bargain, was deeply concerned about my progress as an actress. +During the run of "The Wandering Heir" he used to sit in a private box +every night to watch the play, and would send me round notes between +the acts, telling me what I had done ill and what well in the preceding +act. Dear, kind, unjust, generous, cautious, impulsive, passionate, +gentle Charles Reade. Never have I known anyone who combined so many +qualities, far asunder as the poles, in one single disposition. He was +placid and turbulent, yet always majestic. He was inexplicable and +entirely lovable--a stupid old dear, and as wise as Solomon! He seemed +guileless, and yet had moments of suspicion and craftiness worthy of the +wisdom of the serpent. One moment he would call me "dearest child"; the +next, with indignant emphasis, "_Madam_!" + +When "The Wandering Heir" had at last exhausted its great popularity, I +went on a tour with Charles Reade in several of his plays. In spite of +his many and varied interests, he had entirely succumbed to the magic of +the "irresistible theater," and it used to strike me as rather pathetic +to see a man of his power and originality working the stage sea at +nights, in company with a rough lad, in his dramatic version of "Hard +Cash." In this play, which was known as "Our Seaman," I had a part which +I could not bear to be paid twenty-five pounds a week for acting. I knew +that the tour was not a financial success, and I ventured to suggest +that it would be good economy to get some one else for Susan Merton. For +answer I got a fiery "Madam, you are a rat! You desert a sinking ship!" +My dear old companion, Boo, who was with me, resented this very much: +"How can you say such things to my Nelly?" + +"Your Nelly!" said Charles Reade. "I love her a thousand times better +than you do, or any puling woman." + +Another time he grew white with rage, and his dark eyes blazed, because +the same "puling woman" said very lightly and playfully: "Why did poor +Nell come home from rehearsal looking so tired yesterday? You work her +too hard." He thought this unfair, as the work had to be done, and +flamed out at us with such violence that it was almost impossible to +identify him with the kind old gentleman of the Colonel Newcome type +whom I had seen stand up at the Tom Taylors', on Sunday evenings, and +sing "The Girl I Left Behind Me" with such pathos that he himself was +moved to tears. But, though it was a painful time for both of us, it was +almost worth while to quarrel with him, because when we made it up he +was sure to give me some "treat"--a luncheon, a present, or a drive. We +both felt we needed some jollification because we had suffered so much +from being estranged. He used to say that there should be no such word +as "quarrel," and one morning he wrote me a letter with the following +postscript written in big letters: + + "THERE DO EXIST SUCH THINGS AS HONEST MISUNDERSTANDINGS. + + "There, my Eleanora Delicia" (this was his name for me, my real, + full name being Ellen Alicia), "stick that up in some place where + you will often see it. Better put it on _your looking-glass_. And + if you can once get those words into your noddle, it will save you + a world of unhappiness." + +I think he was quite right about this. Would that he had been as right +in his theories about stage management! He was a rare one for realism. +He had _preached_ it in all his plays, and when he produced a one-act +play, "Rachael the Reaper," in front of "The Wandering Heir," he began +to practice what he preached--jumped into reality up to the neck! + +He began by buying _real_ pigs, _real_ sheep, a _real_ goat, and a +_real_ dog. _Real_ litter was strewn all over the stage, much to the +inconvenience of the unreal farm-laborer, Charles Kelly, who could not +compete with it, although he looked as like a farmer as any actor could. +They all looked their parts better than the real wall which ran across +the stage, piteously naked of _real_ shadows, owing to the absence of +the _real_ sun, and, of course, deficient in the painted shadows which +make a painted wall look so like the real thing. + +Never, never can I forget Charles Reade's arrival at the theater in a +four-wheeler with a goat and a lot of little pigs. When the cab drew up +at the stage-door, the goat seemed to say, as plainly as any goat could: +"I'm dashed if I stay in this cab any longer with these pigs!" and while +Charles Reade was trying to pacify it, the piggies escaped! +Unfortunately, they didn't all go in the same direction, and poor dear +Charles Reade had a "divided duty." There was the goat, too, in a nasty +mood. Oh, his serious face, as he decided to leave the goat and run for +the pigs, with his loose trousers, each one a yard wide at least, +flapping in the wind! + +"That's a relief, at any rate," said Charles Kelly, who was watching the +flight of the pigs. "I sha'n't have those d----d pigs to spoil my acting +as well as the d----d dog and the d----d goat!" + +How we all laughed when Charles Reade returned from the pig-hunt to +rehearsal with the brief direction to the stage manager that the pigs +would be "cut out." + +The reason for the real wall was made more evident when the real goat +was tied up to it. A painted wall would never have stood such a strain. + +On the first night, the real dog bit Kelly's real ankles, and in real +anger he kicked the real animal by a real mistake into the orchestra's +real drum. + +So much for realism as practiced by Charles Reade! There was still +something to remind him of the experiment in Rachael, the circus goat. +Rachael--he was no she, but what of that?--was given the free run of the +garden of Reade's house at Knightsbridge. He had everything that any +normal goat could desire--a rustic stable, a green lawn, the best of +food. Yet Rachael pined and grew thinner and thinner. One night when we +were all sitting at dinner, with the French windows open onto the lawn +because it was a hot night, Rachael came prancing into the room, looking +happy, lively, and quite at home. All the time, while Charles Reade had +been fashing himself to provide every sort of rural joy for his goat, +the ungrateful beast had been longing for the naphtha lights of the +circus, for lively conversation and the applause of the crowd. + +You can't force a goat any more than you can force a child to live the +simple life. "N'Yawk's the place," said the child of a Bowery tenement +in New York, on the night of her return from an enforced sojourn in +Arcady. She hated picking daisies, and drinking rich new milk made her +sick. When the kind teacher who had brought her to the country strove to +impress her by taking her to see a cow milked, she remarked witheringly +to the man who was milking: "Gee! You put it in!" + +Rachael's sentiments were of the same type, I think. "Back to the +circus!" was his cry, not "Back to the land!" + +I hope, when he felt the sawdust under his feet again (I think Charles +Reade sent him back to the ring), he remembered his late master with +gratitude. To how many animals, and not only four-footed ones, was not +Charles Reade generously kind, and to none of them more kind than to +Ellen Terry. + + + + +V + +THE ACTRESS AND THE PLAYWRIGHT + +THE END OF MY APPRENTICESHIP + +1874 + + +The relation between author and actor is a very important element in the +life of the stage. It is the way with some dramatists to despise those +who interpret their plays, to accuse us of ruining their creations, to +suffer disappointment and rage because we do not, or cannot, carry out +their ideas. + +Other dramatists admit that we players can teach them something; but I +have noticed that it is generally in "the other fellow's" play that we +can teach them, not in their own! + +As they are necessary to us, and we to them, the great thing is to +reduce friction by sympathy. The actor should understand that the author +can be of use to him; the author, on his side, should believe that the +actor can be of service to the author, and sometimes in ways which only +a long and severe training in the actor's trade can discover. + +The first author with whom I had to deal, at a critical point in my +progress as an actress, was Charles Reade, and he helped me enormously. +He might, and often did, make twelve suggestions that were wrong; but +against them he would make one that was so right that its value was +immeasurable and unforgettable. + +It is through the dissatisfaction of a man like Charles Reade that an +actress _learns_--that is, if she is not conceited. Conceit is an +insuperable obstacle to all progress. On the other hand, it is of little +use to take criticism in a slavish spirit and to act on it without +understanding it. Charles Reade constantly wrote and said things to me +which were not absolutely just criticism; but they directed my attention +to the true cause of the faults which he found in my performance, and +put me on the way to mending them. + +A letter which he wrote me during the run of "The Wandering Heir" was +such a wonderful lesson to me that I am going to quote it almost in +full, in the hope that it may be a lesson to other actresses--"happy in +this, they are not yet so old but they can learn"; unhappy in this, that +they have never had a Charles Reade to give them a trouncing! + +Well, the letter begins with sheer eulogy. Eulogy is nice, but one does +not learn anything from it. Had dear Charles Reade stopped after writing +"womanly grace, subtlety, delicacy, the variety yet invariable +truthfulness of the facial expression, compared with which the faces +beside yours are wooden, uniform dolls," he would have done nothing to +advance me in my art; but this was only the jam in which I was to take +the powder! + +Here followed more jam--with the first taste of the powder: + + "I prefer you for my Philippa to any other actress, and shall do so + still, even if you will not, or cannot, throw more vigor into the + lines that need it. I do not pretend to be as good a writer of + plays as you are an actress [_how naughty of him!_], but I do + pretend to be a great judge of acting in general. [_He wasn't, + although in particular details he was a brilliant critic and + adviser._] And I know how my own lines and business ought to be + rendered infinitely better than any one else, except the + Omniscient. It is only on this narrow ground I presume to teach a + woman of your gifts. If I teach you Philippa, you will teach me + Juliet; for I am very sure that when I have seen you act her, I + shall know a vast deal more about her than I do at present. + + "No great quality of an actress is absent from your performance. + Very often you have _vigor_. But in other places where it is as + much required, or even more, you turn _limp_. You have limp lines, + limp business, and in Act III. limp exits instead of ardent exits." + +Except in the actual word used, he was perfectly right. I was not +_limp_, but I was exhausted. By a natural instinct, I had produced my +voice scientifically almost from the first, and I had found out for +myself many things, which in these days of Delsarte systems and the +science of voice-production, are taught. But when, after my six years' +absence from the stage, I came back, and played a long and arduous part, +I found that my breathing was still not right. This accounted for my +exhaustion, or limpness and lack of vigor, as Charles Reade preferred to +call it. + +As for the "ardent" exits, how right he was! That word set me on the +track of learning the value of moving off the stage with a swift rush. I +had always had the gift of being rapid in movement, but to _have_ a +gift, and to _use_ it, are two very different things. + +I never realized that I was rather quick in movement until one day when +I was sitting on a sofa talking to the famous throat specialist, Dr. +Morell Mackenzie. In the middle of one of his sentences I said: "Wait a +minute while I get a glass of water." I was out of the room and back so +soon that he said, "Well, go and get it then!" and was paralyzed when he +saw that the glass was in my hand and that I was sitting down again! + +_Consider!_ That was one of Charles Reade's favorite expressions, and +just hearing him say the word used to make me consider, and think, and +come to conclusions--perhaps not always the conclusions that he wished, +but suggested by him. + +In this matter of "ardent" exit, he wrote: + + "The swift rush of the words, the personal rush, should carry you + off the stage. It is in reality as easy as shelling peas, if you + will only go by the right method instead of by the wrong. You have + overcome far greater difficulties than this, yet night after night + you go on suffering ignoble defeat at this point. Come, courage! + You took a leaf out of Reade's dictionary at Manchester, and + trampled on two difficulties--impossibilities, you called them. + That was on Saturday, Monday you knocked the poor impossibilities + down. Tuesday you kicked them where they lay. Wednesday you walked + placidly over their prostrate bodies!" + +The difficulty that he was now urging me to knock down was one of +_pace_, and I am afraid that in all my stage life subsequently I never +quite succeeded in kicking it or walking over its prostrate body! + +Looking backward, I remember many times when I failed in rapidity of +utterance, and was "pumped" at moments when swiftness was essential. +Pace is the soul of comedy, and to elaborate lines at the expense of +pace is disastrous. Curiously enough, I have met and envied this gift of +pace in actors who were not conspicuously talented in other respects, +and no Rosalind that I have ever seen has had enough of it. Of course, +it is not a question of swift utterance only, but of swift thinking. I +am able to think more swiftly on the stage now than at the time Charles +Reade wrote to me, and I only wish I were young enough to take advantage +of it. But youth thinks _slowly_, as a rule. + +_Vary the pace._ Charles Reade was never tired of saying this, and, +indeed, it is one of the foundations of all good acting. + + "You don't seem quite to realize," he writes in the letter before + me, "that uniformity of pace leads inevitably to languor. You + should deliver a pistol-shot or two. Remember Philippa is a fiery + girl; she can snap. If only for variety, she should snap James' + head off when she says, 'Do I _speak_ as if I loved them!'" + +My memories of the part of Philippa are rather vague, but I know that +Reade was right in insisting that I needed more "bite" in the passages +when I was dressed as a boy. Though he complimented me on my self-denial +in making what he called "some sacrifice of beauty" to pass for a boy, +"so that the audience can't say, 'Why, James must be a fool not to see +she is a girl,'" he scolded me for my want of bluntness. + + "Fix your mind on the adjective 'blunt' and the substantive + 'pistol-shot'; they will do you good service." + +They did! And I recommend them to anyone who finds it hard to overcome +monotony of pace and languor of diction. + + "When you come to tell old Surefoot about his daughter's love," the + letter goes on, "you should fall into a positive imitation of his + manner: crest, motionless, and hands in front, and deliver your + preambles with a nasal twang. But at the second invitation to + speak out, you should cast this to the winds, and go into the other + extreme of bluntness and rapidity. [_Quite right!_] When you meet + him after the exposure, you should speak as you are coming to him + and stop him in mid-career, and _then_ attack him. You should also + (in Act II.) get the pearls back into the tree before you say: 'Oh, + I hope he did not see me!'" + +Yes, I remember that in both these places I used to muddle and blur the +effect by doing the business and speaking at the same time. By acting on +Reade's suggestion I gained confidence in making a pause. + + "After the beating, wait at least ten seconds longer than you + do--to rouse expectation--and when you do come on, make a little + more of it. You ought to be very pale indeed--even to enter with a + slight totter, done moderately, of course; and before you say a + single word, you ought to stand shaking and with your brows + knitting, looking almost terrible. Of course, I do not expect or + desire to make a melodramatic actress of you, but still I think you + capable of any effect, provided _it is not sustained too long_." + +A truer word was never spoken. It has never been in my power to +_sustain_. In private life, I cannot sustain a hatred or a resentment. +On the stage, I can pass swiftly from one effect to another, but I +cannot fix _one_, and dwell on it, with that superb concentration which +seems to me the special attribute of the tragic actress. To sustain, +with me, is to lose the impression that I have created, not to increase +its intensity. + + "The last passage of the third act is just a little too hurried. + Break the line. 'Now, James--for England and liberty!'" + +I remember that I never could see that he was right about that, and if I +can't see a thing I can't do it. The author's idea must become mine +before I can carry it out--at least, with any sincerity, and obedience +without sincerity would be of small service to an author. It must be +despairing to him, if he wants me to say a line in a certain way, to +find that I always say it in another; but I can't help it. I have tried +to act passages as I have been told, just _because_ I was told and +without conviction, and I have failed miserably and have had to go back +to my own way. + + "Climax is reached not only by rush but by increasing pace. Your + exit speech is a failure at present, because you do not vary the + pace of its delivery. Get by yourself for one half-hour--if you + can! Get by the seaside, if you can, since there it was Demosthenes + studied eloquence and overcame mountains--not mole-hills like this. + Being by the seaside, study those lines by themselves: 'And then + let them find their young gentleman, and find him quickly, for + London shall not hold me long--no, nor England either.' + + "Study to speak these lines with great volubility and fire, and + settle the exact syllable to run at." + +I remember that Reade, with characteristic generosity, gave me ten +pounds and sent me to the seaside in earnest, as he suggests my doing, +half in fun, in the letter. "I know you won't go otherwise," he said, +"because you want to insure your life or do something of that sort. +Here! go to Brighton--go anywhere by the sea for Sunday! Don't thank me! +It's all for Philippa." + +As I read these notes of his on anti-climax, monotony of pace, and all +the other offenses against scientific principles of acting which I +committed in this one part, I feel more strongly than ever how important +it is to master these principles. Until you have learned them and +practiced them you cannot afford to discard them. There is all the +difference in the world between departure from recognized rules by one +who has learned to obey them, and neglect of them through want of +training or want of skill or want of understanding. Before you can be +eccentric you must know where the circle is. + +This is accepted, I am told, even in shorthand, where the pupil acquires +the knowledge of a number of signs, only for the purpose of discarding +them when he is proficient enough to make an individual system. It is +also accepted in music, where only the advanced pianist or singer can +afford to play tricks with _tempo_. And I am sure it should be accepted +in acting. + +Nowadays acting is less scientific (except in the matter of +voice-production) than it was when I was receiving hints, cautions, and +advice from my two dramatist friends, Charles Reade and Tom Taylor; and +the leading principles to which they attached importance have come to be +regarded as old-fashioned and superfluous. This attitude is +comparatively harmless in the interpretation of those modern plays in +which parts are made to fit the actors and personality is everything. +But those who have been led to believe that they can make their own +rules find their mistake when they come to tackle Shakespeare or any of +the standard dramatists in which the actors have to fit themselves to +the parts. Then, if ever, technique is avenged! + +All my life the thing which has struck me as wanting on the stage is +_variety_. Some people are "tone-deaf," and they find it physically +impossible to observe the law of contrasts. But even a physical +deficiency can be overcome by that faculty for taking infinite pains +which may not be genius but is certainly a good substitute for it. + +When it comes to pointing out an example, Henry Irving is the monument, +the great mark set up to show the genius of _will_. For years he worked +to overcome the dragging leg, which seemed to attract more attention +from some small-minded critics (sharp of eye, yet how dull of vision!) +than all the mental splendor of his impersonations. He toiled, and he +overcame this defect, just as he overcame his disregard of the vowels +and the self-consciousness which in the early stages of his career used +to hamper and incommode him. His _self_ was to him on a first night what +the shell is to a lobster on dry land. In "Hamlet," when we first acted +together after that long-ago Katherine and Petruchio period at the +Queen's, he used to discuss with me the secret of my freedom from +self-consciousness; and I suggested a more swift entrance on the stage +from the dressing-room. I told him that, in spite of the advantage in +ease which I had gained through having been on the stage when still a +mere child, I should be paralyzed with fright from over-acute +realization of the audience if I stood at the wing for ten minutes, as +he was in the habit of doing. He did not need me then, nor during the +run of our next play, "The Lady of Lyons"; but when it came to Shylock, +a quite new part to him, he tried the experiment, and, as he told me, +with great comfort to himself and success with the audience. + +Only a great actor finds the difficulties of the actor's art infinite. +Even up to the last five years of his life, Henry Irving was striving, +striving. He never rested on old triumphs, never found a part in which +there was no more to do. Once when I was touring with him in America, at +the time when he was at the highest point of his fame, I watched him +one day in the train--always a delightful occupation, for his face +provided many pictures a minute--and being struck by a curious look, +half puzzled, half despairing, asked him what he was thinking about. + +"I was thinking," he answered slowly, "how strange it is that I should +have made the reputation I have as an actor, with nothing to help +me--with no equipment. My legs, my voice--everything has been against +me. For an actor who can't walk, can't talk, and has no face to speak +of, I've done pretty well." + +And I, looking at that splendid head, those wonderful hands, the whole +strange beauty of him, thought, "Ah, you little know!" + + +PORTIA + +1875 + +The brilliant story of the Bancroft management of the old Prince of +Wales's Theater was more familiar twenty years back than it is now. I +think that few of the youngest playgoers who point out, on the first +nights of important productions, a remarkably striking figure of a man +with erect carriage, white hair, and flashing dark eyes--a man whose +eye-glass, manners, and clothes all suggest Thackeray and Major +Pendennis, in spite of his success in keeping abreast of everything +modern--few playgoers, I say, who point this man out as Sir Squire +Bancroft could give any adequate account of what he did for the English +theater in the 'seventies. Nor do the public who see an elegant little +lady starting for a drive from a certain house in Berkeley Square +realize that this is Marie Wilton, afterward Mrs. Bancroft, now Lady +Bancroft, the comedienne who created the heroines of Tom Robertson, and, +with her husband, brought what is called the cup-and-saucer drama to +absolute perfection. + +We players know quite well and accept with philosophy the fact that when +we have done we are forgotten. We are sometimes told that we live too +much in the public eye and enjoy too much public favor and attention; +but at least we make up for it by leaving no trace of our short and +merry reign behind us when it is over! + +I have never, even in Paris, seen anything more admirable than the +ensemble of the Bancroft productions. Every part in the domestic +comedies, the presentation of which, up to 1875, they had made their +policy, was played with such point and finish that the more rough, +uneven, and emotional acting of the present day has not produced +anything so good in the same line. The Prince of Wales's Theater was the +most fashionable in London, and there seemed no reason why the triumph +of Robertson should not go on for ever. + +But that's the strange thing about theatrical success. However great, it +is limited in its force and duration, as we found out at the Lyceum +twenty years later. It was not only because the Bancrofts were ambitious +that they determined on a Shakespearean revival in 1875: they felt that +you can give the public too much even of a good thing, and thought that +a complete change might bring their theater new popularity as well as +new honor. + +I, however, thought little of this at the time. After my return to the +stage in "The Wandering Heir" and my tour with Charles Reade, my +interest in the theater again declined. It has always been my fate or my +nature--perhaps they are really the same thing--to be very happy or +very miserable. At this time I was very miserable. I was worried to +death by domestic troubles and financial difficulties. The house in +which I first lived in London, after I left Hertfordshire, had been +dismantled of some of its most beautiful treasures by the brokers. +Pressure was being put on me by well-meaning friends to leave this house +and make a great change in my life. Everything was at its darkest when +Mrs. Bancroft came to call on me and offered me the part of Portia in +"The Merchant of Venice." + +I had, of course, known her before, in the way that all people in the +theater seem to know each other, and I had seen her act; but on this +day, when she came to me as a kind of messenger of Fate, the harbinger +of the true dawn of my success, she should have had for me some special +and extraordinary significance. I could invest that interview now with +many dramatic features, but my memory, either because it is bad or +because it is good, corrects my imagination. + +"May I come in?" + +An ordinary remark, truly, to stick in one's head for thirty-odd years! +But it was made in such a _very_ pretty voice--one of the most silvery +voices I have ever heard from any woman except the late Queen Victoria, +whose voice was like a silver stream flowing over golden stones. + +The smart little figure--Mrs. Bancroft was, above all things, +_petite_--dressed in black--elegant Parisian black--came into a room +which had been almost completely stripped of furniture. The floor was +covered with Japanese matting, and at one end was a cast of the Venus +of Milo, almost the same colossal size as the original. + +Mrs. Bancroft's wonderful gray eyes, examined it curiously. The room, +the statue, and I myself must all have seemed very strange to her. I +wore a dress of some deep yellow woolen material which my little +daughter used to call the "frog dress," because it was speckled with +brown like a frog's skin. It was cut like a Viollet-le-Duc tabard, and +had not a trace of the fashion of the time. Mrs. Bancroft, however, did +not look at me less kindly because I wore aesthetic clothes and was +painfully thin. She explained that they were going to put on "The +Merchant of Venice" at the Prince of Wales's, that she was to rest for a +while for reasons connected with her health; that she and Mr. Bancroft +had thought of me for Portia. + +Portia! It seemed too good to be true! I was a student when I was young. +I knew not only every word of the part, but every detail of that period +of Venetian splendor in which the action of the play takes place. I had +studied Vecellio. Now I am old, it is impossible for me to work like +that, but I never acknowledge that I get on as well without it. + +Mrs. Bancroft told me that the production would be as beautiful as money +and thought could make it. The artistic side of the venture was to be in +the hands of Mr. Godwin, who had designed my dress for Titania at +Bristol. + +"Well, what do you say?" said Mrs. Bancroft. "Will you put your shoulder +to the wheel with us?" + +I answered incoherently and joyfully, that of all things I had been +wanting most to play in Shakespeare; that in Shakespeare I had always +felt I would play for half the salary; that--oh, I don't know what I +said! Probably it was all very foolish and unbusinesslike, but the +engagement was practically settled before Mrs. Bancroft left the house, +although I was charged not to say anything about it yet. + +But theater secrets are generally _secrets de polichinelle_. When I went +to Charles Reade's house at Albert Gate on the following Sunday for one +of his regular Sunday parties, he came up to me at once with a knowing +look and said: + +"So you've got an engagement." + +"I'm not to say anything about it." + +"It's in Shakespeare!" + +"I'm not to tell." + +"But I know. I've been thinking it out. It's 'The Merchant of Venice.'" + +"Nothing is settled yet. It's on the cards." + +"I know! I know!" said wise old Charles. "Well, you'll never have such a +good part as Philippa Chester!" + +"No, Nelly, never!" said Mrs. Seymour, who happened to overhear this. +"They call Philippa a Rosalind part. Rosalind! Rosalind is not to be +compared with it!" + +Between Mrs. Seymour and Charles Reade existed a friendship of that rare +sort about which it is easy for people who are not at all rare, +unfortunately, to say ill-natured things. Charles Reade worshiped Laura +Seymour, and she understood him and sympathized with his work and his +whims. She died before he did, and he never got over it. The great +success of one of his last plays, "Drink," an adaptation from the +French, in which Charles Warner is still thrilling audiences to this +day, meant nothing to him because she was not alive to share it. The "In +Memoriam" which he had inscribed over her grave is characteristic of the +man, the woman, and their friendship: + + HERE LIES THE GREAT HEART OF + LAURA SEYMOUR + +I liked Mrs. Seymour so much that I was hurt when I found that she had +instructed Charles Reade to tell Nelly Terry "not to paint her face" in +the daytime, and I was young enough to enjoy revenging myself in my own +way. We used to play childish games at Charles Reade's house sometimes, +and with "Follow my leader" came my opportunity. I asked for a basin of +water and a towel and scrubbed my face with a significant thoroughness. +The rules of the game meant that everyone had to follow my example! When +I had dried my face I powdered it, and then darkened my eyebrows. I +wished to be quite frank about the harmless little bit of artifice which +Mrs. Seymour had exaggerated into a crime. She was now hoist with her +own petard, for, being heavily made up, she could not and would not +follow the leader. After this Charles Reade acquitted me of the use of +"pigments red," but he still kept up a campaign against "Chalky," as he +humorously christened my powder-puff. "Don't be pig-headed, love," he +wrote to me once; "it is because Chalky does not improve you that I +forbid it. Trust unprejudiced and friendly eyes and drop it altogether." + + +Although Mrs. Seymour was naturally prejudiced where Charles Reade's +work was concerned, she only spoke the truth, pardonably exaggerated, +about the part of Philippa Chester. I know no part which is a patch on +it for effectiveness; yet there is little in it of the stuff which +endures. The play itself was too unbusiness like ever to become a +classic. + +Not for years afterwards did I find out that I was not the "first +choice" for Portia. The Bancrofts had tried the Kendals first, with the +idea of making a double engagement; but the negotiations failed. Perhaps +the rivalry between Mrs. Kendal and me might have become of more +significance had she appeared as Portia at the Prince of Wales's and +preferred Shakespeare to domestic comedy. In after years she played +Rosalind--I never did, alas!--and quite recently acted with me in "The +Merry Wives of Windsor"; but the best of her fame will always be +associated with such plays as "The Squire," "The Ironmaster," "Lady +Clancarty," and many more plays of that type. When she played with me in +Shakespeare she laughingly challenged me to come and play with her in a +modern piece, a domestic play, and I said, "Done!" but it has not been +done yet, although in Mrs. Clifford's "The Likeness of the Night" there +was a good medium for the experiment. I found Mrs. Kendal wonderful to +act with. No other English actress has such extraordinary skill. Of +course, people have said we are jealous of each other. "Ellen Terry Acts +with Lifelong Enemy," proclaimed an American newspaper in five-inch +type, when we played together as Mistress Page and Mistress Ford in Mr. +Tree's Coronation production of "The Merry Wives of Windsor." But the +enmity did not seem to worry us as much as the newspaper men over the +Atlantic had represented. + +It was during this engagement in 1902 that a young actor who was +watching us coming in at the stage-door at His Majesty's one day is +reported to have said: "Look at Mr. Tree between his two 'stars'!" + +"You mean Ancient Lights!" answered the witty actress to whom the remark +was made. + +However, "e'en in our ashes burn our wonted fires," or, to descend from +the sublime to the ridiculous, and from the poetry of Gray to the +pantomime gag of Drury Lane and Herbert Campbell, "Better to be a good +old has-been than a never-was-er!" + +But it was long before the "has-been" days that Mrs. Kendal decided not +to bring her consummately dexterous and humorous workmanship to the task +of playing Portia, and left the field open for me. My fires were only +just beginning to burn. Success I had had of a kind, and I had tasted +the delight of knowing that audiences liked me, and had liked them back +again. But never until I appeared as Portia at the Prince of Wales's had +I experienced that awe-struck feeling which comes, I suppose, to no +actress more than once in a lifetime--the feeling of the conqueror. In +homely parlance, I knew that I had "got them" at the moment when I spoke +the speech beginning, "You see me, Lord Bassanio, where I stand." + +"What can this be?" I thought. "_Quite_ this thing has never come to me +before! _This is different!_ It has never been quite the same before." + +It was never to be quite the same again. + +Elation, triumph, being lifted on high by a single stroke of the mighty +wing of glory--call it by any name, think of it as you like--it was as +Portia that I had my first and last sense of it. And, while it made me +happy, it made me miserable because I foresaw, as plainly as my own +success, another's failure. + +Charles Coghlan, an actor whose previous record was fine enough to +justify his engagement as Shylock, showed that night the fatal quality +of _indecision_. + +A worse performance than his, carried through with decision and attack, +might have succeeded, but Coghlan's Shylock was not even bad. It was +_nothing_. + +You could hardly hear a word he said. He spoke as though he had a sponge +in his mouth, and moved as if paralyzed. The perspiration poured down +his face; yet what he was doing no one could guess. It was a case of +moral cowardice rather than incompetency. At rehearsals no one had +entirely believed in him, and this, instead of stinging him into a +resolution to triumph, had made him take fright and run away. + +People felt that they were witnessing a great play with a great part cut +out, and "The Merchant of Venice" ran for three weeks! + +It was a pity, if only because a more gorgeous and complete little +spectacle had never been seen on the English stage. Veronese's "Marriage +in Cana" had inspired many of the stage pictures, and the expenditure in +carrying them out had been lavish. + +In the casket scene I wore a dress like almond-blossom. I was very thin, +but Portia and all the ideal _young_ heroines of Shakespeare ought to +be thin. Fat is fatal to ideality! + +I played the part more stiffly and more slowly at the Prince of Wales's +than I did in later years. I moved and spoke slowly. The clothes seemed +to demand it, and the setting of the play developed the Italian feeling +in it, and let the English Elizabethan side take care of itself. The +silver casket scene with the Prince of Aragon was preserved, and so was +the last act, which had hitherto been cut out in nearly all stage +versions. + +I have tried five or six different ways of treating Portia, but the way +I think best is not the one which finds the heartiest response from my +audiences. Has there ever been a dramatist, I wonder, whose parts admit +of as many different interpretations as do Shakespeare's? There lies his +immortality as an acting force. For times change, and parts have to be +acted differently for different generations. Some parts are not +sufficiently universal for this to be possible, but every ten years an +actor can reconsider a Shakespeare part and find new life in it for his +new purpose and new audiences. + +The aesthetic craze, with all its faults, was responsible for a great +deal of true enthusiasm for anything beautiful. It made people welcome +the Bancrofts' production of "The Merchant of Venice" with an +appreciation which took the practical form of an offer to keep the +performances going by subscription, as the general public was not +supporting them. Sir Frederick and Lady Pollock, James Spedding, Edwin +Arnold, Sir Frederick Leighton and others made the proposal to the +Bancrofts, but nothing came of it. + +Short as the run of the play was, it was a wonderful time for me. +Everyone seemed to be in love with me! I had sweethearts by the dozen, +known and unknown. Most of the letters written to me I destroyed long +ago, but the feeling of sweetness and light with which some of them +filled me can never be destroyed. The task of reading and answering +letters has been a heavy one all my life, but it would be ungrateful to +complain of it. To some people expression is life itself. Half my +letters begin: "I cannot help writing to tell you," and I believe that +this is the simple truth. I, for one, should have been poorer, though my +eyes might have been stronger, if they _had_ been able to help it. + +There turns up to-day, out of a long-neglected box, a charming note +about "The Merchant of Venice" from some unknown friend. + +"Playing to such houses," he wrote, "is not an encouraging pursuit; but +to give to human beings the greatest pleasure that they are capable of +receiving must always be worth doing. You have given me that pleasure, +and I write to offer you my poor thanks. Portia has always been my +favorite heroine, and I saw her last night as sweet and lovely as I had +always hoped she might be. I hope that I shall see you again in other +Shakespearean characters, and that nothing will tempt you to withhold +your talents from their proper sphere." + +The audiences may have been scanty, but they were wonderful. +O'Shaughnessy, Watts-Dunton, Oscar Wilde, Alfred Gilbert, and, I think +Swinburne were there. A poetic and artistic atmosphere pervaded the +front of the house as well as the stage itself. + + +TOM TAYLOR AND LAVENDER SWEEP + +I have read in some of the biographies of me that have been published +from time to time, that I was chagrined at Coghlan's fiasco because it +brought my success as Portia so soon to an end. As a matter of fact, I +never thought about it. I was just sorry for clever Coghlan, who was +deeply hurt and took his defeat hardly and moodily. He wiped out the +public recollection of it to a great extent by his Evelyn in "Money," +Sir Charles Pomander in "Masks and Faces," and Claude Melnotte in "The +Lady of Lyons," which he played with me at the Princess's Theater for +one night only in the August following the withdrawal of "The Merchant +of Venice." + +I have been credited with great generosity for appearing in that single +performance of "The Lady of Lyons." It was said that I wanted to help +Coghlan reinstate himself, and so on. Very likely there was some such +feeling in the matter, but there was also a good part and good +remuneration! I remember that I played Lytton's proud heroine better +then than I did at the Lyceum five years later, and Coghlan was more +successful as Melnotte than Henry Irving. But I was never really _good_. +I tried in vain to have sympathy with a lady who was addressed as +"haughty cousin," yet whose very pride had so much inconsistency. How +could any woman fall in love with a cad like Melnotte? I used to ask +myself despairingly. The very fact that I tried to understand Pauline +was against me. There is only one way to play her, and to be bothered by +questions of sincerity and consistency means that you will miss that way +for a certainty! + +I missed it, and fell between two stools. Finding that it was useless +to depend upon feeling, I groped after the definite rules which had +always governed the delivery of Pauline's fustian, and the fate that +commonly overtakes those who try to put old wine into new bottles +overtook me. + +I knew for instance, exactly how the following speech ought to be done, +but I never could do it. It occurs in the fourth act, where Beauseant, +after Pauline has been disillusioned, thinks it will be an easy matter +to induce the proud beauty to fly with him: + + "Go! (_White to the lips._) Sir, leave this house! It is humble; + but a husband's roof, however lowly, is, in the eyes of God and + man, the temple of a wife's honor. (_Tumultuous applause._) Know + that I would rather starve--aye, _starve_--with him who has + betrayed me than accept _your_ lawful hand, even were you the + prince whose name he bore. (_Hurrying on quickly to prevent + applause before the finish._) _Go!_" + +It is easy to laugh at Lytton's rhetoric, but very few dramatists have +had a more complete mastery of theatrical situations, and that is a good +thing to be master of. Why the word "theatrical" should have come to be +used in a contemptuous sense I cannot understand. "Musical" is a word of +praise in music; why not "theatrical" in a theater? A play in any age +which holds the boards so continuously as "The Lady of Lyons" deserves +more consideration than the ridicule of those who think that the world +has moved on because our playwrights write more naturally than Lytton +did. The merit of the play lay, not in its bombast, but in its +situation. + +Before Pauline I had played Clara Douglas in a revival of "Money," and I +found her far more interesting and possible. To act the _balance_ of the +girl was keen enjoyment; it foreshadowed some of that greater enjoyment +I was to have in after years when playing Hermione--another well-judged, +well-balanced mind, a woman who is not passion's slave, who never +answers on the spur of the moment, but from the depths of reason and +divine comprehension. I didn't agree with Clara Douglas's sentiments but +I saw her point of view, and that was everything. + +Tom Taylor, like Charles Reade, never hesitated to speak plainly to me +about my acting, and, after the first night of "Money," wrote me a +letter full of hints and caution and advice: + +"As I expected, you put feeling into every situation which gave you the +opportunity, and the truth of your intention and expression seemed to +bring a note of nature into the horribly sophisticated atmosphere of +that hollow and most claptrappy of all Bulwerian stage offenses. Nothing +could be better than the appeal to Evelyn in the last act. It was sweet, +womanly and earnest, and rang true in every note. + +"_But_ you were nervous and uncomfortable in many parts for want of +sufficient rehearsal. These passages you will, no doubt, improve in +nightly. I would only urge on you the great importance of studying to be +quiet and composed, and not fidgeting. There was especially a trick of +constantly twiddling with and looking at your fingers which you should, +above all, be on your guard against.... I think, too, you showed too +evident feeling in the earlier scene with Evelyn. A blind man must have +read what you felt--your sentiment should be more masked. + +"Laura (Mrs. Taylor) absolutely hates the play. We both +thought--detestable in his part, false in emphasis, violent and coarse. +Generally the fault of the performance was, strange to say for that +theater, overacting, want of repose, point, and finish. With you in +essentials I was quite satisfied, but _quiet_--not so much movement of +arms and hands. Bear this in mind for improvement; and go over your part +to yourself with a view to it. + +"The Allinghams have been here to-day. They saw you twice as Portia, and +were charmed. Mrs. Allingham wants to paint you. Allingham tells me that +Spedding is going to write an article on your Portia, and will include +Clara Douglas. I am going to see Salvini in 'Hamlet' to-morrow morning, +but I would call in Charlotte Street between one and two, on the chance +of seeing you and talking it over, and amplifying what I have said. + +"Ever your true old friend, + +"TOM TAYLOR." + +A true old friend indeed he was! I have already tried to convey how much +I owed to him--how he stood by me and helped me in difficulties, and +said generously and unequivocally, at the time of my separation from my +first husband, that "the poor child was not to blame." + +I was very fond of my own father, but in many ways Tom Taylor was more +of a father to me than my father in blood. Father was charming, but +Irish and irresponsible. I think he loved my sister Floss and me most +because we were the lawless ones of the family! It was not in his +temperament to give wise advice and counsel. Having bequeathed to me +light-heartedness and a sanguine disposition, and trained me splendidly +for my profession in childhood, he became in after years a very +cormorant for adulation of me! + +"Duchess, you might have been anything!" was his favorite comment, when +I was not living up to his ideas of my position and attainments. And I +used to answer: "I've played my cards for what I want." + +Years afterwards, when he and mother used to come to first nights at the +Lyceum, the grossest flattery of me after the performance was not good +enough for them. + +"How proud you must be of her!" someone would say. "How well this part +suits her!" + +"Yes," father would answer, in a sort of "is-that-all-you-have-to-say" +tone. "But she ought to play Rosalind!" + +To him I owe the gaiety of temperament which has enabled me to dance +through the most harsh and desert passages of my life, just as he used +to make Kate and me dance along the sordid London streets as we walked +home from the Princess's Theater. He would make us come under his cloak, +partly for warmth, partly to hide from us the stages of the journey +home. From the comfortable darkness one of us would cry out: + +"Oh, I'm so tired! Aren't we nearly home? Where are we, father?" + +"You know Schwab, the baker?" + +"Yes, yes." + +"Well, we're _not_ there yet!" + +As I grew up, this teasing, jolly, insouciant Irish father of mine was +relieved of some of his paternal duties by Tom Taylor. It was not Nelly +alone whom Tom Taylor fathered. He adopted the whole family. + +At Lavender Sweep, with the horse-chestnut blossoms strewing the drive +and making it look like a tessellated pavement, all of us were always +welcome, and Tom Taylor would often come to our house and ask mother to +grill him a bone! Such intimate friendships are seldom possible in our +busy profession, and there was never another Tom Taylor in my life. + +When we were not in London and could not go to Lavender Sweep to see +him, he wrote almost daily to us. He was angry when other people +criticised me, but he did not spare criticism himself. + +"Don't be Nelly Know-all," I remember his saying once. "_I_ saw you +floundering out of your depth to-night on the subject of butterflies! +The man to whom you were talking is one of the greatest entomologists in +Europe, and must have seen through you at once." + +When William Black's "Madcap Violet" was published, common report said +that the heroine had been drawn for Ellen Terry, and some of the reviews +made Taylor furious. + +"It's disgraceful! I shall deny it. Never will I let it be said of you +that you could conceive any vulgarity. I shall write and contradict it. +Indiscreet, high-spirited, full of surprises, you may be, but +vulgar--never! I shall write at once." + +"Don't do that," I said. "Can't you see that the author hasn't described +me, but only me in 'New Men and Old Acres'?" As this was Tom Taylor's +own play, his rage against "Madcap Violet" was very funny! "There am I, +just as you wrote it. My actions, manners, and clothes in the play are +all reproduced. You ought to feel pleased, not angry." + +When his play "Victims" was being rehearsed at the Court Theater, an old +woman and old actress who had, I think, been in the preceding play was +not wanted. The day the management gave her her dismissal, she met +Taylor outside the theater, and poured out a long story of distress. She +had not a stocking to her foot, she owed her rent, she was starving. +Wouldn't Mr. Taylor tell the management what dismissal meant to her? +Wouldn't he get her taken back? Mr. Taylor would try, and Mr. Taylor +gave her fifteen pounds in the street then and there! + +Mrs. Taylor wasn't surprised. She only wondered it wasn't thirty! + +"Tom the Adapter" was the Terry dramatist for many years. Kate played in +many of the pieces which, some openly, some deviously, he brought into +the English stage from the French. When Kate married, my turn came, and +the interest that he had taken in my sister's talent he transferred in +part to me, although I don't think he ever thought me her equal. Floss +made her first appearance in the child's part in Taylor's play "A Sheep +in Wolf's Clothing," and Marion her first appearance as Ophelia in his +version of "Hamlet"--perhaps "perversion" would be an honester +description! Taylor introduced a "fool" who went about whacking people, +including the Prince, by way of brightening up the tragedy. + +I never saw my sister's Ophelia, but I know it was a fine send-off for +her and that she must have looked lovely. Oh, what a pretty young girl +she was! Her golden-brown eyes exactly matched her hair, and she was the +winsomest thing imaginable! From the first she showed talent. + +From Taylor's letters I find--and, indeed, without them I could not have +forgotten--that the good, kind friend never ceased to work in our +interests. "I have recommended Flossy to play Lady Betty in the +country." "I have written to the Bancrofts in favor of Forbes-Robertson +for Bassanio." (Evidently this was in answer to a request from me. +Naturally, the Bancrofts wanted someone of higher standing, but was I +wrong about J. Forbes-Robertson? I think not!) "The mother came to see +me the other day. I was extremely sorry to hear the bad news of Tom." +(Tom was the black sheep of our family, but a fascinating wretch, all +the same.) "I rejoice to think of your coming back," he writes another +time, "to show the stage what an actress should be." "A thousand thanks +for the photographs. I like the profile best. It is most Paolo +Veronesish and gives the right notion of your Portia, although the color +hardly suggests the golden gorgeousness of your dress and the blonde +glory of the hair and complexion.... I hope you have seen the quiet +little boxes at ----'s foolish article." (This refers to an article +which attacked my Portia in _Blackwood's Magazine_.) "Of course, if ---- +found his ideal in ---- he must dislike you in Portia, or in anything +where it is a case of grace and spontaneity and Nature against +affectation, over-emphasis, stilt, and false idealism--in short, utter +lack of Nature. How _can_ the same critic admire both? However, the +public is with you, happily, as it is not always when the struggle is +between good art and bad." + +I quote these dear letters from my friend, not in my praise, but in his. +Until his death in 1880, he never ceased to write to me sympathetically +and encouragingly; he rejoiced in my success the more because he had +felt himself in part responsible for my marriage and its unhappy ending, +and had perhaps feared that my life would suffer. Every little detail +about me and my children, or about any of my family, was of interest to +him. He was never too busy to give an attentive ear to my difficulties. +"'Think of you lovingly if I can'!" he writes to me at a time when I had +taken a course for which all blamed me, perhaps because they did not +know enough to pardon enough--_savoir tout c'est tout pardonner_. "Can +I think of you otherwise than lovingly? _Never_, if I know you and +myself!" + +Tom Taylor got through an enormous amount of work. Dramatic critic and +art critic for the _Times_, he was also editor of _Punch_ and a busy +playwright. Everyone who wanted an address written or a play altered +came to him, and his house was a kind of Mecca for pilgrims from America +and from all parts of the world. Yet he all the time occupied a position +in a Government office--the Home Office, I think it was--and often +walked from Whitehall to Lavender Sweep when his day's work was done. He +was an enthusiastic amateur actor, his favorite part being Adam in "As +You Like It," perhaps because tradition says this was a part that +Shakespeare played; at any rate, he was very good in it. Gilbert and +Sullivan, in very far-off days, used to be concerned in these amateur +theatricals. Their names were not associated then, but Kate and I +established a prophetic link by carrying on a mild flirtation, I with +Arthur Sullivan, Kate with Mr. Gilbert! + +Taylor never wasted a moment. He pottered, but thought deeply all the +time; and when I used to watch him plucking at his gray beard, I +realized that he was just as busy as if his pen had been plucking at his +paper. Many would-be writers complain that the necessity of earning a +living in some other and more secure profession hinders them from +achieving anything. What about Taylor at the Home Office, Charles Lamb +at East India House, and Rousseau copying music for bread? It all +depends on the point of view. A young lady in Chicago, who has written +some charming short stories, told me how eagerly she was looking +forward to the time when she would be able to give up teaching and +devote herself entirely to a literary career. I wondered, and said I was +never sure whether absolute freedom in such a matter was desirable. +Perhaps Charles Lamb was all the better for being a slave at the desk +for so many years. + +"Ah, but then, Charles Lamb wrote so little!" was the remarkable answer. + +Taylor did not write "so little." He wrote perhaps too much, and I think +his heart was too strong for his brain. He was far too simple and +lovable a being to be great. The atmosphere of gaiety which pervaded +Lavender Sweep arose from his generous, kindly nature, which insisted +that it was possible for everyone to have a good time. + +Once, when we were rushing to catch a train with him, Kate hanging onto +one arm and I onto the other, we all three fell down the station steps. +"Now, then, none of your jokes!" said a cross man behind us, who seemed +to attribute our descent to rowdyism. Taylor stood up with his soft felt +hat bashed over one eye, his spectacles broken, and laughed, and +laughed, and laughed! + +Lavender Sweep was a sort of house of call for everyone of note. Mazzini +stayed there some time, and Steele Mackaye, the American actor who +played that odd version of "Hamlet" at the Crystal Palace with Polly as +Ophelia. Perhaps a man with more acute literary conscience than Taylor +would not have condescended to "write up" Shakespeare; perhaps a man of +more independence and ambition would not have wasted his really fine +accomplishment as a playwright for ever on adaptations. That was his +weakness--if it was a weakness. He lived entirely for his age, and so +was more prominent in it than Charles Reade, for instance, whose name, +no doubt, will live longer. + +He put himself at the mercy of Whistler, once, in some Velasquez +controversy of which I forget the details, but they are all set out, for +those who like mordant ridicule, in "The Gentle Art of Making Enemies." + +When Tom Taylor criticised acting he wrote as an expert, and he often +said illuminating things to me about actors and actresses which I could +apply over again to some of the players with whom I have been associated +since. "She is a curious example," he said once of an actress of great +conscientiousness, "of how far seriousness, sincerity, and weight will +supply the place of almost all the other qualities of an actress." When +a famous classic actress reappeared as Rosalind, he described her +performance as "all minute-guns and _minauderies_, ... a foot between +every word, and the intensity of the emphasis entirely destroying all +the spontaneity and flow of spirits which alone excuse and explain; ... +as unlike Shakespeare's Rosalind, I will stake my head, as human +personation could be!" + +There was some talk at that time (the early 'seventies) of my playing +Rosalind at Manchester for Mr. Charles Calvert, and Tom Taylor urged me +to do it. "Then," he said charmingly, "I can sing my stage Nunc +Dimittis." The whole plan fell through, including a project for me to +star as Juliet to the Romeo of a lady! + +I have already said that the Taylors' home was one of the most softening +and culturing influences of my early life. Would that I could give an +impression of the dear host at the head of his dinner-table, dressed in +black silk knee-breeches and velvet cutaway coat--a survival of a +politer time, not an affectation of it--beaming on his guests with his +_very_ brown eyes! + +Lavender is still associated in my mind with everything that is lovely +and refined. My mother nearly always wore the color, and the Taylors +lived at Lavender Sweep! This may not be an excellent reason for my +feelings on the subject, but it is reason good enough. + +"Nature repairs her ravages," it is said, but not all. New things come +into one's life--new loves, new joys, new interests, new friends--but +they cannot replace the old. When Tom Taylor died, I lost a friend the +like of whom I never had again. + + + + +VI + +A YEAR WITH THE BANCROFTS + + +My engagement with the Bancrofts lasted a little over a year. After +Portia there was nothing momentous about it. I found Clara Douglas +difficult, but I enjoyed playing her. I found Mabel Vane easy, and I +enjoyed playing her, too, although there was less to be proud of in my +success here. Almost anyone could have "walked in" to victory on such +very simple womanly emotion as the part demanded. At this time friends +who had fallen in love with Portia used to gather at the Prince of +Wales's and applaud me in a manner more vigorous than judicious. It was +their fault that it got about that I had hired a claque to clap me! Now, +it seems funny, but at the time I was deeply hurt at the insinuation, +and it cast a shadow over what would otherwise have been a very happy +time. + +It is the way of the public sometimes, to keep all their enthusiasm for +an actress who is doing well in a minor part, and to withhold it from +the actress who is playing the leading part. I don't say for a minute +that Mrs. Bancroft's Peg Woffington in "Masks and Faces" was not +appreciated and applauded, but I know that my Mabel Vane was received +with a warmth out of all proportion to the merits of my performance, and +that this angered some of Mrs. Bancroft's admirers, and made them the +bearers of ill-natured stories. Any unpleasantness that it caused +between us personally was of the briefest duration. It would have been +odd indeed if I had been jealous of her, or she of me. Apart from all +else, I had met with my little bit of success in such a different field, +and she was almost another Madame Vestris in popular esteem. + +When I was playing Blanche Hayes in "Ours," I nearly killed Mrs. +Bancroft with the bayonet which it was part of the business of the play +for me to "fool" with. I charged as usual; either she made a mistake and +moved to the right instead of to the left, or _I_ made a mistake. +Anyhow, I wounded her in the arm. She had to wear it in a sling, and I +felt very badly about it, all the more because of the ill-natured +stories of its being no accident. + +Miss Marie Tempest is perhaps the actress of the present day who reminds +me a little of what Mrs. Bancroft was at the Prince of Wales's, but +neither nature nor art succeed in producing two actresses exactly alike. +At her best Mrs. Bancroft was unapproachable. I think that the best +thing I ever saw her do was the farewell to the boy in "Sweethearts." It +was exquisite! + +In "Masks and Faces" Taylor and Reade had collaborated, and the exact +share of each in the result was left to one's own discernment. I +remember saying to Taylor one night at dinner when Reade was sitting +opposite me, that I wished he (Taylor) would write me a part like that. +"If only I could have an original part like Peg!" + +Charles Reade, after fixing me with his amused and _very_ glittering +eye, said across the table: "I have something for your private ear, +Madam, after this repast!" And he came up _with_ the ladies, sat by me, +and, calling me "an artful toad"--a favorite expression of his for +me!--told me that _he_, Charles Reade and no other, had written every +line of Peg, and that I ought to have known it. I _didn't_ know, as a +matter of fact, but perhaps it was stupid of me. There was more of Tom +Taylor in Mabel Vane. + +I played five parts in all at the Prince of Wales's, and I think I may +claim that the Bancrofts found me a _useful_ actress--ever the dull +height of my ambition! They wanted Byron--the author of "Our Boys"--to +write me a part in the new play, which they had ordered from him, but +when "Wrinkles" turned up there was no part which they felt they could +offer me, and I think Coghlan was also not included in the cast. At any +rate, he was free to take me to see Henry Irving act. Coghlan was always +raving about Irving at this time. He said that one evening spent in +watching him act was the best education an actor could have. Seeing +other people act, even if they are not Irvings, is always an education +to us. I have never been to a theater yet without learning something. It +must have been in the spring of 1876 that I received this note: + +"Will you come in our box on Tuesday for Queen Mary? Ever yours, + +"CHARLES T. COGHLAN. + +"P.S.--I am afraid that they will soon have to smooth their wrinkled +front of the P. of W. Alas! HŽlas! Ah, me!" + +This postscript, I think, must have referred to the approaching +withdrawal of "Wrinkles" from the Prince of Wales's, and the return of +Coghlan and myself to the cast. + +Meanwhile, we went to see Irving's King Philip. + +Well, I can only say that he never did anything better to the day of his +death. Never shall I forget his expression and manner when Miss Bateman, +as Queen Mary (she was _very_ good, by the way), was pouring out her +heart to him. The horrid, dead look, the cruel unresponsiveness, the +indifference of the creature! While the poor woman protested and wept, +he went on polishing up his ring! Then the tone in which he asked: + +"Is dinner ready?" + +It was the perfection of quiet malignity and cruelty. + +The extraordinary advance that he had made since the days when we had +acted together at the Queen's Theater did not occur to me. I was just +spellbound by a study in cruelty, which seemed to me a triumphant +assertion of the power of the actor to create as well as to interpret, +for Tennyson never suggested half what Henry Irving did. + +We talk of progress, improvement, and advance; but when I think of Henry +Irving's Philip, I begin to wonder if Oscar Wilde was not profound as +well as witty when he said that a great artist moves in a cycle of +masterpieces, of which the last is no more perfect than the first. Only +Irving's Petruchio stops me. But, then, he had not found himself. He was +not an artist. + +"Why did Whistler paint him as Philip?" some one once asked me. How +dangerous to "ask why" about anyone so freakish as Jimmy Whistler. But I +answered then, and would answer now, that it was because, as Philip, +Henry, in his dress without much color (from the common point of view), +his long, gray legs, and Velasquez-like attitudes, looked like the kind +of thing which Whistler loved to paint. Velasquez had painted a real +Philip of the same race. Whistler would paint the actor who had created +the Philip of the stage. + +I have a note from Whistler written to Henry at a later date which +refers to the picture, and suggests portraying him in all his +characters. It is common knowledge that the sitter never cared much +about the portrait. Henry had a strange affection for the wrong picture +of himself. He disliked the Bastien Lepage, the Whistler, and the +Sargent, which never even saw the light. He adored the weak, handsome +picture by Millais, which I must admit, all the same, held the mirror up +to one of the characteristics of Henry's face--its extreme refinement. +Whistler's Philip probably seemed to him not nearly showy enough. + +Whistler I knew long before he painted the Philip. He gave me the most +lovely dinner-set of blue and white Nanking that any woman ever +possessed, and a set of Venetian glass, too good for a world where glass +is broken. He sent my little girl a tiny Japanese kimono when Liberty +was hardly a name. Many of his friends were my friends. He was with the +dearest of those friends when he died. + +The most remarkable men I have known were, without a doubt, Whistler and +Oscar Wilde. This does not imply that I liked them better or admired +them more than the others, but there was something about both of them +more instantaneously individual and audacious than it is possible to +describe. + +When I went with Coghlan to see Henry Irving's Philip I was no stranger +to his acting. I had been present with Tom Taylor, then dramatic critic +of _The Times_, at the famous first night at the Lyceum in 1874, when +Henry Irving put his fortune, counted not in gold, but in years of +scorned delights and laborious days--years of constant study and +reflection, of Spartan self-denial, and deep melancholy--I was present +when he put it all to the touch "to win or lose it all." This is no +exaggeration. Hamlet was by far the greatest part that he had ever +played, or was ever to play. If he had failed--but why pursue it? He +could not fail. + +Yet the success on the first night at the Lyceum in 1874 was not of that +electrical, almost hysterical splendor which has greeted the momentous +achievements of some actors. The first two acts were received with +indifference. The people could not see how packed they were with superb +acting--perhaps because the new Hamlet was so simple, so quiet, so free +from the exhibition of actors' artifices which used to bring down the +house in "Louis XI" and in "Richelieu," but which were really the _easy_ +things in acting, and in "Richelieu" (in my opinion) not especially well +done. In "Hamlet" Henry Irving did not go to the audience. He made them +come to him. Slowly but surely attention gave place to admiration, +admiration to enthusiasm, enthusiasm to triumphant acclaim. + +I have seen many Hamlets--Fechter, Charles Kean, Rossi, Frederick Haas, +Forbes-Robertson, and my own son, Gordon Craig, among them, but they +were not in the same hemisphere! I refuse to go and see Hamlets now. I +want to keep Henry Irving's fresh and clear in my memory until I die. + +When he engaged me to play Ophelia in 1878 he asked me to go down to +Birmingham to see the play, and that night I saw what I shall always +consider the _perfection_ of acting. It had been wonderful in 1874. In +1878 it was far more wonderful. It has been said that when he had the +"advantage" of my Ophelia, his Hamlet "improved." I don't think so. He +was always quite independent of the people with whom he acted. + +The Birmingham night he knew I was there. He played--I say it without +vanity--for me. We players are not above that weakness, if it be a +weakness. If ever anything inspires us to do our best it is the presence +in the audience of some fellow-artist who must in the nature of things +know more completely than any one what we intend, what we do, what we +feel. The response from such a member of the audience flies across the +footlights to us like a flame. I felt it once when I played Olivia +before Eleonora Duse. I felt that she felt it once when she played +Marguerite Gauthier for me. + +When I read "Hamlet" now, everything that Henry did in it seems to me +more absolutely right, even than I thought at the time. I would give +much to be able to record it all in detail--but it may be my +fault--writing is not the medium in which this can be done. Sometimes I +have thought of giving readings of "Hamlet," for I can remember every +tone of Henry's voice, every emphasis, every shade of meaning that he +saw in the lines and made manifest to the discerning. Yes, I think I +could give some pale idea of what his Hamlet was if I read the play. + +"Words! words! words!" What is it to say, for instance, that the +cardinal qualities of his Prince of Denmark were strength, delicacy, +distinction? There was never a touch of commonness. Whatever he did or +said, blood and breeding pervaded him. + +His "make-up" was very pale, and this made his face beautiful when one +was close to him, but at a distance it gave him a haggard look. Some +said he looked twice his age. + +He kept three things going at the same time--the antic madness, the +sanity, the sense of the theater. The last was to all that he imagined +and thought, what charity is said by St. Paul to be to all other +virtues. + +He was never cross or moody--only melancholy. His melancholy was as +simple as it was profound. It was touching, too, rather than defiant. +You never thought that he was wantonly sad and enjoying his own misery. + +He neglected no _coup de thŽ‰tre_ to assist him, but who notices the +servants when the host is present? + +For instance, his first entrance as Hamlet was, what we call in the +theater, very much "worked up." He was always a tremendous believer in +processions, and rightly. It is through such means that Royalty keeps +its hold on the feeling of the public, and makes its mark as a Figure +and a Symbol. Henry Irving understood this. Therefore, to music so apt +that it was not remarkable in itself, but merely a contribution to the +general excited anticipation, the Prince of Denmark came on to the +stage. I understood later on at the Lyceum what days of patient work had +gone to the making of that procession. + +At its tail, when the excitement was at fever heat, came the solitary +figure of Hamlet, looking extraordinarily tall and thin. The lights +were turned down--another stage trick--to help the effect that the +figure was spirit rather than man. + +He was weary--his cloak trailed on the ground. He did _not_ wear the +miniature of his father obtrusively round his neck! His attitude was one +which I have seen in a common little illumination to the "Reciter," +compiled by Dr. Pinches (Henry Irving's old schoolmaster). Yet how right +to have taken it, to have been indifferent to its humble origin! Nothing +could have been better when translated into life by Irving's genius. + +The hair looked blue-black, like the plumage of a crow, the eyes +burning--two fires veiled as yet by melancholy. But the appearance of +the man was not single, straight or obvious, as it is when I describe +it--any more than his passions throughout the play were. I only remember +one moment when his intensity concentrated itself in a straightforward, +unmistakable emotion, without side-current or back-water. It was when he +said: + + "The play's the thing + With which to catch the conscience of the King." + +and, as the curtain came down, was seen to be writing madly on his +tablets against one of the pillars. + +"Oh, God, that I were a writer!" I paraphrase Beatrice with all my +heart. Surely a _writer_ could not string words together about Henry +Irving's Hamlet and say _nothing, nothing_. + +"We must start this play a living thing," he used to say at rehearsals, +and he worked until the skin grew tight over his face, until he became +livid with fatigue, yet still beautiful, to get the opening lines said +with individuality, suggestiveness, speed, and power. + + _Bernardo:_ Who's there? + + _Francisco:_ Nay, answer me; stand, and unfold yourself. + + _Bernardo:_ Long live the King! + + _Francisco:_ Bernardo? + + _Bernardo:_ He. + + _Francisco:_ You come most carefully upon your hour. + + _Bernardo:_ 'Tis now struck twelve; get thee to bed, Francisco. + + _Francisco:_ For this relief much thanks; 'tis bitter cold.... + +And all that he tried to make others do with these lines, he himself did +with every line of his own part. Every word lived. + +Some said: "Oh, Irving only makes Hamlet a love poem!" They said that, I +suppose, because in the Nunnery scene with Ophelia he was the lover +above the prince and the poet. With what passionate longing his hands +hovered over Ophelia at her words: + + "Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind." + +His advice to the players was not advice. He did not speak it as an +actor. Nearly all Hamlets in that scene give away the fact that they are +actors, and not dilettanti of royal blood. Irving defined the way he +would have the players speak as an _order_, an instruction of the merit +of which he was regally sure. There was no patronizing flavor in his +acting here, not a touch of "I'll teach you how to do it." He was +swift--swift and simple--pausing for the right word now and again, as in +the phrase "to hold as 'twere the mirror up to nature." His slight pause +and eloquent gesture was the all-embracing word "Nature" came in answer +to his call, were exactly repeated unconsciously years later by the +Queen of Roumania (Carmen Sylva). She was telling us the story of a +play that she had written. The words rushed out swiftly, but +occasionally she would wait for the one that expressed her meaning most +comprehensively and exactly, and as she got it, up went her hand in +triumph over her head. "Like yours in 'Hamlet,'" I told Henry at the +time. + +I knew this Hamlet both ways--as an actress from the stage, and as an +actress putting away her profession for the time as one of the +audience--and both ways it was superb to me. Tennyson, I know, said it +was not a perfect Hamlet. I wonder, then, where he hoped to find +perfection! + +James Spedding, considered a fine critic in his day, said Irving was +"simply hideous ... a monster!" Another of these fine critics declared +that he never could believe in Irving's Hamlet after having seen "_part_ +(sic) of his performance as a murderer in a commonplace melodrama." +Would one believe that any one could seriously write so stupidly as that +about the earnest effort of an earnest actor, if it were not quoted by +some of Irving's biographers? + +Some criticism, however severe, however misguided, remains within the +bounds of justice, but what is one to think of the _Quarterly_ Reviewer +who declared that "the enormous pains taken with the scenery had ensured +Mr. Irving's success"? The scenery was of the simplest--no money was +spent on it even when the play was revived at the Lyceum after Colonel +Bateman's death. Henry's dress probably cost him about £2! + +My Ophelia dress was made of material which could not have cost more +than 2_s._ a yard, and not many yards were wanted, as I was at the time +thin to vanishing point! I have the dress still, and, looking at it the +other day, I wondered what leading lady now would consent to wear it. + +At all its best points, Henry's Hamlet was susceptible of absurd +imitation. Think of this well, young actors, who are content to play for +safety, to avoid ridicule at all costs, to be "natural"--oh, word most +vilely abused! What sort of _naturalness_ is this of Hamlet's? + + "O, villain, villain, smiling damned villain!" + +Henry Irving's imitators could make people burst with laughter when they +took off his delivery of that line. And, indeed, the original, too, was +almost provocative of laughter--rightly so, for such emotional +indignation has its funny as well as its terrible aspect. The mad, and +all are mad who have, as Socrates put it, "a divine release from the +common ways of men," may speak ludicrously, even when they speak the +truth. + +All great acting has a certain strain of extravagance which the +imitators catch hold of and give us the eccentric body without the +sublime soul. + +From the first I saw this extravagance, this bizarrerie in Henry +Irving's acting. I noticed, too, its infinite variety. In "Hamlet," +during the first scene with Horatio, Marcellus and Bernardo, he began by +being very absent and distant. He exchanged greetings sweetly and +gently, but he was the visionary. His feet might be on the ground, but +his head was towards the stars "where the eternal are." Years later he +said to me of another actor in "Hamlet": "_He_ would never have seen the +ghost." Well, there was never any doubt that Henry Irving saw it, and +it was through his acting in the Horatio scene that he made us sure. + +As a bad actor befogs Shakespeare's meaning, so a good actor illuminates +it. Bit by bit as Horatio talks, Hamlet comes back into the world. He is +still out of it when he says: + + "My father! Methinks I see my father." + +But the dreamer becomes attentive, sharp as a needle, with the words: + + "For God's love, let me hear." + +Irving's face, as he listened to Horatio's tale, blazed with +intelligence. He cross-examined the men with keenness and authority. His +mental deductions as they answered were clearly shown. With "I would I +had been there" the cloud of unseen witnesses with whom he had before +been communing again descended. For a second or two Horatio and the rest +did not exist for him.... So onward to the crowning couplet: + + "... foul deeds will rise, + Though all the earth o'erwhelm them to men's eyes." + +After having been very quiet and rapid, very discreet, he pronounced +these lines in a loud, clear voice, dragged out every syllable as if +there never could be an end to his horror and his rage. + +I had been familiar with the scene from my childhood--I had studied it; +I had heard from my father how Macready acted in it, and now I found +that I had a _fool_ of an idea of it! That's the advantage of study, +good people, who go to see Shakespeare acted. It makes you know +sometimes what is being done, and what you never dreamed would be done +when you read the scene at home. + +As one of the audience I was much struck by Irving's treatment of +interjections and exclamations in "Hamlet." He breathed the line: "O, +that this too, too solid flesh would melt," as one long yearning, and, +"O horrible, O horrible! most horrible!" as a groan. When we first went +to America his address at Harvard touched on this very subject, and it +may be interesting to know that what he preached in 1885 he had +practiced as far back as 1874. + + "On the question of pronunciation, there is something to be said + which I think in ordinary teaching is not sufficiently considered. + Pronunciation should be simple and unaffected, but not always + fashioned rigidly according to a dictionary standard. No less an + authority than Cicero points out that pronunciation must vary + widely according to the emotions to be expressed; that it may be + broken or cut with a varying or direct sound, and that it serves + for the actor the purpose of color to the painter, from which to + draw variations. Take the simplest illustration. The formal + pronunciation of A-h is 'Ah,' of O-h, 'Oh,' but you cannot + stereotype the expression of emotion like this. These exclamations + are words of one syllable, but the speaker who is sounding the + gamut of human feeling will not be restricted in his pronunciation + by dictionary rule. It is said of Edmund Kean that he never spoke + such ejaculations, but always sighed or groaned them. Fancy an + actor saying: + + 'My Desdemona! Oh! oh! oh!' + + "Words are intended to express feelings and ideas, not to bind them + in rigid fetters; the accents of pleasure are different from the + accents of pain, and if a feeling is more accurately expressed as + in nature by a variation of sound not provided by the laws of + pronunciation, then such imperfect laws must be disregarded and + nature vindicated!" + +It was of the address in which these words occur that a Boston hearer +said that it was felt by every one present that "the truth had been +spoken by a man who had learned it through living and not through +theory." + +I leave his Hamlet for the present with one further reflection. It was +in _courtesy_ and _humor_ that it differed most widely from other +Hamlets that I have seen and heard of. This Hamlet was never rude to +Polonius. His attitude towards the old Bromide (I thank you, Mr. Gelett +Burgess, for teaching me that word which so lightly and charmingly +describes the child of darkness and of platitude) was that of one who +should say: "You dear, funny old simpleton, whom I have had to bear with +all my life--how terribly in the way you seem now." With what slightly +amused and cynical playfulness this Hamlet said: "I had thought some of +Nature's journeymen had made men and not made them well; they imitated +humanity so abominably." + +Hamlet was by far his greatest triumph, although he would not admit it +himself--preferring in some moods to declare that his finest work was +done in Macbeth, which was almost universally disliked. + +When I went with Coghlan to see Irving's Philip, this "Hamlet" +digression may have suggested that I was not in the least surprised at +what I saw. Being a person little given to dreaming, and always living +wholly in the present, it did not occur to me to wonder if I should ever +act with this marvelous man. He was not at this time lessee of the +Lyceum--Colonel Bateman was still alive--and I looked no further than my +engagement at the Prince of Wales's, although in a few months it was to +come to an end. + +Although I was now earning a good salary, I still lived in lodgings at +Camden Town, took an omnibus to and from the theater, and denied myself +all luxuries. I did not take a house until I went to the Court Theater. +It was then, too, that I had my first cottage--a wee place at Hampton +Court where my children were very happy. They used to give performances +of "As You Like It" for the benefit of the Palace custodians--old +Crimean veterans, most of them--and when the children had grown up these +old men would still ask affectionately after "little Miss Edy" and +"Master Teddy," forgetting the passing of time. + +My little daughter was a very severe critic! I think if I had listened +to her, I should have left the stage in despair. She saw me act for the +first time as Mabel Vane, but no compliments were to be extracted from +her. + +"You _did_ look long and thin in your gray dress." + +"When you fainted I thought you was going to fall into the +orchestra--you was so _long_." + +In "New Men and Old Acres" I had to play the piano while I conducted a +conversation consisting on my side chiefly of haughty remarks to the +effect that "blood would tell," to talk naturally and play at the same +time. I "shied" at the lines, became self-conscious, and either sang the +words or altered the rhythm of the tune to suit the pace of the speech. +I grew anxious about it, and was always practicing it at home. After +much hard work Edy used to wither me with: + +"_That's_ not right!" + +Teddy was of a more flattering disposition, but very obstinate when he +chose. I remember "wrastling" with him for hours over a little Blake +poem which he had learned by heart, to say to his mother: + + "When the voices of children are heard on the green, + And laughing is heard on the hill, + My heart is at rest within my breast, + And everything else is still. + Then come home, my children, the sun is gone down, + And the dews of the night arise, + Come, come, leave off play, and let us away, + Till morning appears in the skies. + + No, no, let us play, for yet it is day, + And we cannot go to sleep. + Besides, in the sky the little birds fly, + And the hills are all covered with sheep...." + +All went well until the last line. Then he came to a stop. + +_Nothing_ would make him say sheep! + +With a face beaming with anxiety to please, looking adorable, he would +offer any word but the right one. + +"And the hills are all covered with--" + +"With what, Teddy?" + +"Master Teddy don't know." + +"Something white, Teddy." + +"Snow?" + +"No, no--does snow rhyme with 'sleep'?" + +"Paper?" + +"No, no. Now, I am not going to the theater until you say the right +word. What are the hills covered with?" + +"People." + +"Teddy, you're a very naughty boy." + +At this point he was put in the corner. His first suggestion when he +came out was: + +"Grass? Trees?" + +"Are grass or trees white?" said the despairing mother with her eye on +the clock, which warned her that, after all, she would have to go to the +theater without winning. + +Meanwhile, Edy was murmuring: "_Sheep_, Teddy," in a loud aside, but +Teddy would _not_ say it, not even when both he and I burst into tears! + +At Hampton Court the two children, dressed in blue and white check +pinafores, their hair closely cropped--the little boy fat and fair (at +this time he bore a remarkable resemblance to Laurence's portrait of the +youthful King of Rome), the little girl thin and dark--ran as wild as +though the desert had been their playground instead of the gardens of +this old palace of kings! They were always ready to show visitors (not +so numerous then as now) the sights; prattled freely to them of "my +mamma," who was acting in London, and showed them the new trees which +they had assisted the gardeners to plant in the wild garden, and +christened after my parts. A silver birch was Iolanthe, a maple Portia, +an oak Mabel Vane. Through their kind offices many a stranger found it +easy to follow the intricacies of the famous Maze. It was a fine life +for them, surely, this unrestricted running to and fro in the gardens, +with the great Palace as a civilizing influence! + +It was for their sake that I was most glad of my increasing prosperity +in my profession. My engagement with the Bancrofts was exchanged at the +close of the summer season of 1876 for an even more popular one with Mr. +John Hare at the Court Theater, Sloane Square. + +I had learned a great deal at the Prince of Wales's, notably that the +art of playing in modern plays in a tiny theater was quite different +from the art of playing in the classics in a big theater. The methods +for big and little theaters are alike, yet quite unlike. I had learned +breadth in Shakespeare at the Princess's, and had had to employ it again +in romantic plays for Charles Reade. The pit and gallery were the +audience which we had to reach. At the Prince of Wales's I had to adopt +a more delicate, more subtle, more intimate style. But the breadth had +to be there just the same--as seen through the wrong end of the +microscope. In acting one must possess great strength before one can be +delicate in the right way. Too often weakness is mistaken for delicacy. + +Mr. Hare was one of the best stage managers that I have met during the +whole of my long experience in the theater. He was snappy in manner, +extremely irritable if anything went wrong, but he knew what he wanted, +and he got it. No one has ever surpassed him in the securing of a +perfect _ensemble_. He was the Meissonier among the theater artists. +Very likely he would have failed if he had been called upon to produce +"King John," but what better witness to his talent than that he knew his +line and stuck to it? + +The members of his company were his, body and soul, while they were +rehearsing. He gave them fifteen minutes for lunch, and any actor or +actress who was foolish or unlucky enough to be a minute late, was sorry +afterwards. Mr. Hare was peppery and irascible, and lost his temper +easily. + +Personally, I always got on well with my new manager, and I ought to be +grateful to him, if only because he gave me the second great opportunity +of my career--the part of Olivia in Wills's play from "The Vicar of +Wakefield." During this engagement at the Court I married again. I had +met Charles Wardell, whose stage name was Kelly, when he was acting in +"Rachael the Reaper" for Charles Reade. At the Court we played together +in several pieces. He had not been bred an actor, but a soldier. He was +in the 66th Regiment, and had fought in the Crimean War; been wounded, +too--no carpet knight. His father was a clergyman, vicar of Winlaton, +Northumberland--a charming type of the old-fashioned parson, a +friendship with Sir Walter Scott in the background, and many little +possessions of the great Sir Walter's in the foreground to remind one of +what had been. + +Charlie Kelly, owing to his lack of training, had to be very carefully +suited with a part before he shone as an actor. But when he was +suited--his line was the bluff, hearty, kindly, soldier-like +Englishman--he was better than many people who had twenty years' start +of him in experience. This is absurdly faint praise. In such parts as +Mr. Brown in "New Men and Old Acres," the farmer father in "Dora," +Diogenes in "Iris," no one could have bettered him. His most ambitious +attempt was Benedick, which he played with me when I first appeared as +Beatrice at Leeds. It was in many respects a splendid performance, and +perhaps better for the play than the more polished, thoughtful, and +deliberate Benedick of Henry Irving. + +Physically a manly, bulldog sort of a man, Charles Kelly possessed as an +actor great tenderness and humor. It was foolish of him to refuse the +part of Burchell in "Olivia," in which he would have made a success +equal to that achieved by Terriss as the Squire. But he was piqued at +not being cast for the Vicar, which he could not have played well, and +stubbornly refused to play Burchell. + +Alas! many actors are just as blind to their true interests. + +We were married in 1876; and after I left the Court Theater for the +Lyceum, we continued to tour together in the provinces during vacation +time when the Lyceum was closed. These tours were very successful, but I +never worked harder in my life! When we played "Dora" at Liverpool, +Charles Reade, who had adapted the play from Tennyson's poem, wrote: + + "Nincompoop! + + "What have you to fear from me for such a masterly performance! Be + assured nobody can appreciate your value and Mr. Kelley's as I do. + It is well played all round." + + + + +VII + +EARLY DAYS AT THE LYCEUM + + +It is humiliating to me to confess that I have not the faintest +recollection of "Brothers," the play by Coghlan, in which I see by the +evidence of an old play-bill that I made my first appearance under Mr. +Hare's management. I remember another play by Coghlan, in which Henry +Kemble made one of his early appearances in the part of a butler, and +how funny he was, even in those days, in a struggle to get rid of a pet +monkey--a "property" monkey made of brown wool with no "devil" in it, +except that supplied by the comedian's imagination. We trusted to our +acting, not to real monkeys and real dogs to bring us through, and when +the acting was Henry Kemble's, it was good enough to rely upon! + +Charles Coghlan seems to have been consistently unlucky. Yet he was a +good actor and a brilliant man. I always enjoyed his companionship; +found him a pleasant, natural fellow, absorbed in his work, and not at +all the "dangerous" man that some people represented him. + +Within less than a month from the date of the production of "Brothers," +"New Men and Old Acres" was put into the Court bill. It was not a new +play, but the public at once began to crowd to see it, and I have heard +that it brought Mr. Hare £30,000. My part, Lilian Vavasour, had been +played in the original production by Mrs. Kendal, but it had been +written for me by Tom Taylor when I was at the Haymarket, and it suited +me very well. The revival was well acted all round. Charles Kelly was +splendid as Mr. Brown, and Mr. Hare played a small part perfectly. + +H.B. Conway, a young actor whose good looks were talked of everywhere, +was also in the cast. He was a descendant of Lord Byron's, and had a +look of the _handsomest_ portraits of the poet. With his bright hair +curling tightly all over his well-shaped head, his beautiful figure, and +charming presence, Conway created a sensation in the 'eighties almost +equal to that made by the more famous beauty, Lillie Langtry. + +As an actor he belonged to the Terriss type, but he was not nearly as +good as Terriss. Of his extraordinary failure in the Lyceum "Faust" I +shall say something when I come to the Lyceum productions. + +After "New Men and Old Acres," Mr. Hare tried a posthumous play by Lord +Lytton--"The House of Darnley." It was _not_ a good play, and I was +_not_ good in it, although the pleasant adulation of some of my friends +has made me out so. The play met with some success, and during its run +Mr. Hare commissioned Wills to write "Olivia." + +I had known Wills before this through the Forbes-Robertsons. He was at +one time engaged to one of the girls, but it was a good thing it ended +in smoke. With all his charm, Wills was not cut out for a husband. He +was Irish all over--the strangest mixture of the aristocrat and the +sloven. He could eat a large raw onion every night like any peasant, yet +his ideas were magnificent and instinct with refinement. + +A true Bohemian in money matters, he made a great deal out of his +plays--and never had a farthing to bless himself with! + +In the theater he was charming--from an actor's point of view. He +interfered very little with the stage management, and did not care to +sit in the stalls and criticise. But he would come quietly to me and +tell me things which were most illuminating, and he paid me the +compliment of weeping at the wing while I rehearsed "Olivia." + +_I_ was generally weeping, too, for Olivia, more than any part, touched +me to the heart. I cried too much in it, just as I cried too much later +on in the Nunnery scene in "Hamlet," and in the last act of "Charles I." +My real tears on the stage have astonished some people, and have been +the envy of others, but they have often been a hindrance to me. I have +had to _work_ to restrain them. + +Oddly enough, although "Olivia" was such a great success at the Court, +it has never made much money since. The play could pack a tiny theater; +it could never appeal in a big way to the masses. In itself it had a +sure message--the love story of an injured woman is one of the cards in +the stage pack which it is always safe to play--but against this there +was a bad last act, one of the worst I have ever acted in. It was always +being tinkered with, but patching and alteration only seems to weaken +it. + +Mr. Hare produced "Olivia" perfectly. Marcus Stone designed the clothes, +and I found my dresses--both faithful and charming as reproductions of +the eighteenth century spirit--stood the advance of time and the +progress of ideas when I played the part later at the Lyceum. I had not +to alter anything. Henry Irving discovered the same thing about the +scenery and stage management. They could not be improved upon. There was +very little scenery at the Court, but a great deal of taste and care in +selection. + +Every one was "Olivia" mad. The Olivia cap shared public favor with the +Langtry bonnet. That most lovely and exquisite creature, Mrs. Langtry, +could not go out anywhere, at the dawn of the 'eighties, without a crowd +collecting to look at her! It was no rare thing to see the crowd, to ask +its cause, to receive the answer, "Mrs. Langtry!" and to look in vain +for the object of the crowd's admiring curiosity. + +This was all the more remarkable, and honorable to public taste, too, +because Mrs. Langtry's was not a showy beauty. Her hair was the color +that it had pleased God to make it; her complexion was her own; in +evening dress she did not display nearly as much of her neck and arms as +was the vogue, yet they outshone all other necks and arms through their +own perfection. + +"No worker has a right to criticise _publicly_ the work of another in +the same field," Henry Irving once said to me, and Heaven forbid that I +should disregard advice so wise! I am aware that the professional +critics and the public did not transfer to Mrs. Langtry the actress the +homage that they had paid to Mrs. Langtry the beauty, but I can only +speak of the simplicity with which she approached her work, of her +industry, and utter lack of vanity about her powers. When she played +Rosalind (which my daughter, the best critic of acting _I_ know, tells +me was in many respects admirable), she wrote to me: + +"Dear Nellie,-- + +"I bundled through my part somehow last night, a disgraceful +performance, and _no_ waist-padding! Oh, what an impudent wretch you +must think me to attempt such a part! I pinched my arm once or twice +last night to see if it was really me. It was so sweet of you to write +me such a nice letter, and then a telegram, too! + +"Yours ever, dear Nell, + +"LILLIE. + +"P.S.--I am rehearsing, all day--'The Honeymoon' next week. I love the +hard work, and the thinking and study." + +Just at this time there was a great dearth on the stage of people with +lovely diction, and Lillie Langtry had it. I can imagine that she spoke +Rosalind's lines beautifully, and that her clear gray eyes and frank +manner, too well-bred to be hoydenish, must have been of great value. + +To go back to "Olivia." Like all Hare's plays, it was perfectly cast. +Where all were good, it will be admitted, I think, by every one who saw +the production, that Terriss was the best. "As you stand there, whipping +your boot, you look the very picture of vain indifference," Olivia says +to Squire Thornhill in the first act, and never did I say it without +thinking how absolutely _to the life_ Terriss realized that description! + +As I look back, I remember no figure in the theater more remarkable than +Terriss. He was one of those heaven-born actors who, like kings by +divine right, can, up to a certain point, do no wrong. Very often, like +Dr. Johnson's "inspired idiot," Mrs. Pritchard, he did not know what he +was talking about. Yet he "got there," while many cleverer men stayed +behind. He had unbounded impudence, yet so much charm that no one could +ever be angry with him. Sometimes he reminded me of a butcher-boy +flashing past, whistling, on the high seat of his cart, or of Phaethon +driving the chariot of the sun--pretty much the same thing, I imagine! +When he was "dressed up" Terriss was spoiled by fine feathers; when he +was in rough clothes, he looked a prince. + +He always commanded the love of his intimates as well as that of the +outside public. To the end he was "Sailor Bill"--a sort of grown-up +midshipmite, whose weaknesses provoked no more condemnation than the +weaknesses of a child. In the theater he had the tidy habits of a +sailor. He folded up his clothes and kept them in beautiful condition; +and of a young man who had proposed for his daughter's hand he said: +"The man's a blackguard! Why, he throws his things all over the room! +The most untidy chap I ever saw!" + +Terriss had had every sort of adventure by land and sea before I acted +with him at the Court. He had been midshipman, tea-planter, engineer, +sheep-farmer, and horse-breeder. He had, to use his own words, +"hobnobbed with every kind of queer folk, and found myself in extremely +queer predicaments." The adventurous, dare-devil spirit of the roamer, +the incarnate gipsy, always looked out of his insolent eyes. Yet, +audacious as he seemed, no man was ever more nervous on the stage. On a +first night he was shaking all over with fright, in spite of his +confident and dashing appearance. + +His bluff was colossal. Once when he was a little boy and wanted money, +he said to his mother: "Give me £5 or I'll jump out of the window." And +she at once believed he meant it, and cried out: "Come back, come back! +and I'll give you anything." + +He showed the same sort of "attack" with audiences. He made them +believe in him the moment he stepped on to the stage. + +His conversation was extremely entertaining--and, let me add, ingenuous. +One of his favorite reflections was: "Tempus fugit! So make the most of +it. While you're alive, gather roses; for when you're dead, you're dead +a d----d long time." + +He was a perfect rider, and loved to do cowboy "stunts" in Richmond Park +while riding to the "Star and Garter." + +When he had presents from the front, which happened every night, he gave +them at once to the call-boy or the gas-man. To the women-folk, +especially the plainer ones, he was always delightful. Never was any man +more adored by the theater staff. And children, my own Edy included, +were simply _daft_ about him. A little American girl, daughter of +William Winter, the famous critic, when staying with me in England, +announced gravely when we were out driving: + +"I've gone a mash on Terriss." + +There was much laughter. When it had subsided, the child said gravely: + +"Oh, you can laugh, but it's true. I wish I was hammered to him!" + +Perhaps if he had lived longer, Terriss would have lost his throne. He +died as a beautiful youth, a kind of Adonis, although he was fifty years +old when he was stabbed at the stage-door of the Adelphi Theater. + +Terriss had a beautiful mouth. That predisposed me in his favor at once! +I have always been "cracked" on pretty mouths! I remember that I used to +say "Naughty Teddy!" to my own little boy just for the pleasure of +seeing him put out his under-lip, when his mouth looked lovely! + +At the Court Terriss was still under thirty, but doing the best work of +his life. He _never_ did anything finer than Squire Thornhill, although +he was clever as Henry VIII. His gravity as Flutter in "The Belle's +Stratagem" was very fetching; as Bucklaw in "Ravenswood" he looked +magnificent, and, of course, as the sailor hero in Adelphi melodrama he +was as good as could be. But it is as Thornhill that I like best to +remember him. He was precisely the handsome, reckless, unworthy creature +that good women are fools enough to love. + +In the Court production of "Olivia," both my children walked on to the +stage for the first time. Teddy had such red cheeks that they made all +the _rouged_ cheeks look quite pale! Little Edy gave me a bunch of real +flowers that she had picked in the country the day before. + +Young Norman Forbes-Robertson was the Moses of the original cast. He +played the part again at the Lyceum. How charming he was! And how very, +very young! He at once gave promise of being a good actor and of having +done the right thing in following his brother on to the stage. At the +present day I consider him the only actor on the stage who can play +Shakespeare's fools as they should be played. + +Among the girls "walking on" was Kate Rorke. This made me take a special +interest in watching what she did later on. No one who saw her fine +performance in "The Profligate" could easily forget it, and I shall +never understand why the London public ever let her go. + +It was during the run of "Olivia" that Henry Irving became sole lessee +of the Lyceum Theater. For a long time he had been contemplating the +step, but it was one of such magnitude that it could not be done in a +hurry. I daresay he found it difficult to separate from Mrs. Bateman and +from her daughter, who had for such a long time been his "leading lady." +He had to be a little cruel, not for the last time, in a career devoted +unremittingly and unrelentingly to his art and his ambition. + +It was said by an idle tongue in later years that rich ladies financed +Henry Irving's ventures. The only shadow of foundation for this +statement is that at the beginning of his tenancy of the Lyceum, the +Baroness Burdett-Coutts lent him a certain sum of money, every farthing +of which was repaid during the first few months of his management. + +The first letter that I ever received from Henry Irving was written on +July 20, 1878, from 15A, Grafton Street, the house in which he lived +during the entire period of his Lyceum management. + +"Dear Miss Terry,-- + +"I look forward to the pleasure of calling upon you on Tuesday next at +two o'clock. + +"With every good wish, believe me, sincerely, + +"HENRY IRVING." + +The call was in reference to my engagement as Ophelia. Strangely +characteristic I see it now to have been of Henry that he was content to +take my powers as an actress more or less on trust. A mutual friend, +Lady Pollock, had told him that I was the very person for him; that "all +London" was talking of my Olivia; that I had acted well in Shakespeare +with the Bancrofts; that I should bring to the Lyceum Theater what +players call "a personal following." Henry chose his friends as +carefully as he chose his company and his staff. He believed in Lady +Pollock implicitly, and he did not--it is possible that he could +not--come and see my Olivia for himself. + +I was living in Longridge Road when Henry Irving first came to see me. + +Not a word of our conversation about the engagement can I remember. I +did notice, however, the great change that had taken place in the man +since I had last met him in 1867. Then he was really almost ordinary +looking--with a mustache, an unwrinkled face, and a sloping forehead. +The only wonderful thing about him was his melancholy. When I was +playing the piano once in the greenroom at the Queen's Theater, he came +in and listened. I remember being made aware of his presence by his +sigh--the deepest, profoundest, sincerest sigh I ever heard from any +human being. He asked me if I would not play the piece again. + +The incident impressed itself on my mind, inseparably associated with a +picture of him as he looked at thirty--a picture by no means pleasing. +He looked conceited, and almost savagely proud of the isolation in which +he lived. There was a touch of exaggeration in his appearance--a dash of +Werther, with a few flourishes of Jingle! Nervously sensitive to +ridicule, self-conscious, suffering deeply from his inability to express +himself through his art, Henry Irving, in 1867, was a very different +person from the Henry Irving who called on me at Longridge Road in 1878. + +In ten years he had found himself, and so lost himself--lost, I mean, +much of that stiff, ugly, self-consciousness which had encased him as +the shell encases the lobster. His forehead had become more massive, and +the very outline of his features had altered. He was a man of the world, +whose strenuous fighting now was to be done as a general--not, as +hitherto, in the ranks. His manner was very quiet and gentle. "In +quietness and confidence shall be your strength," says the Psalmist. +That was always like Henry Irving. + +And here, perhaps, is the place to say that I, of all people, can +perhaps appreciate Henry Irving least justly, although I was his +associate on the stage for a quarter of a century, and was on the terms +of the closest friendship with him for almost as long a time. He had +precisely the qualities that I never find likable. + +He was an egotist--an egotist of the great type, _never_ "a mean +egotist," as he was once slanderously described--and all his faults +sprang from egotism, which is in one sense, after all, only another name +for greatness. So much absorbed was he in his own achievements that he +was unable or unwilling to appreciate the achievements of others. I +never heard him speak in high terms of the great foreign actors and +actresses who from time to time visited England. It would be easy to +attribute this to jealousy, but the easy explanation is not the true +one. He simply would not give himself up to appreciation. Perhaps +appreciation is a _wasting_ though a generous quality of the mind and +heart, and best left to lookers-on, who have plenty of time to develop +it. + +I was with him when he saw Sarah Bernhardt act for the first time. The +play was "Ruy Blas," and it was one of Sarah's bad days. She was +walking through the part listlessly, and I was angry that there should +be any ground for Henry's indifference. The same thing happened years +later, when I took him to see Eleonora Duse. The play was "La +Locandiera," in which to my mind she is not at her very best. He was +surprised at my enthusiasm. There was an element of justice in his +attitude towards the performance which infuriated me, but I doubt if he +would have shown more enthusiasm if he had seen her at her very best. + +As the years went on he grew very much attached to Sarah Bernhardt, and +admired her as a colleague whose managerial work in the theater was as +dignified as his own, but of her superb powers as an actress, I don't +believe he ever had a glimmering notion! + +Perhaps it is not true, but, as I believe it to be true, I may as well +state it: _It was never any pleasure to him to see the acting of other +actors and actresses._ All the same, Salvini's Othello I know he thought +magnificent, but he would not speak of it. + +How dangerous it is to write things that may not be understood! What I +have written I have written merely to indicate the qualities in Henry +Irving's nature, which were unintelligible to me, perhaps because I have +always been more woman than artist. He always put the theater first. He +lived in it, he died in it. He had none of what I may call my +_bourgeois_ qualities--the love of being in love, the love of a home, +the dislike of solitude. I have always thought it hard to find my +inferiors. He was sure of his high place. He was far simpler than I in +some ways. He would talk, for instance, in such an ingenuous way to +painters and musicians that I blushed for him. But I know now that my +blush was far more unworthy than his freedom from all pretentiousness in +matters of art. + +_He never pretended._ One of his biographers has said that he posed as +being a French scholar. Such a thing, and all things like it, were +impossible to his nature. If it were necessary in one of his plays to +say a few French words, he took infinite pains to learn them and said +them beautifully. + +Henry once told me that in the early part of his career, before I knew +him, he had been hooted because of his thin legs. The first service I +did him was to tell him they were beautiful, and to make him give up +padding them. + +"What do you want with fat, podgy, prize-fighter legs!" I expostulated. + +Praise to some people at certain stages of their career is more +developing than blame. I admired the very things in Henry for which +other people criticized him. I hope this helped him a little. + +I brought help, too, in pictorial matters. Henry Irving had had little +training in such matters--I had had a great deal. Judgment about colors, +clothes and lighting must be _trained_. I had learned from Mr. Watts, +from Mr. Godwin, and from other artists, until a sense of decorative +effect had become second nature to me. + +Before the rehearsals of "Hamlet" began at the Lyceum I went on a +provincial tour with Charles Kelly, and played for the first time in +"Dora," and "Iris," besides doing a steady round of old parts. In +Birmingham I went to see Henry's Hamlet. (I have tried already, most +inadequately, to say what it was to me.) I had also appeared for the +first time as Lady Teazle--a part which I wish I was not too old to play +now, for I could play it better. My performance in 1877 was not finished +enough, not light enough. I think I did the screen scene well. When the +screen was knocked over I did not stand still and rigid with eyes cast +down. That seemed to me an attitude of guilt. Only a _guilty_ woman, +surely, in such a situation would assume an air of conscious virtue. I +shrank back, and tried to hide my face--a natural movement, so it seemed +to me, for a woman who had been craning forward, listening in increasing +agitation to the conversation between Charles and Joseph Surface. + +I shall always regret that we never did "The School for Scandal," or any +of the other classic comedies, at the Lyceum. There came a time when +Henry was anxious for me to play Lady Teazle, but I opposed him, as I +thought that I was too old. It should have been one of my best parts. + +"Star" performances, for the benefit of veteran actors retiring from the +stage, were as common in my youth as now. About this time I played in +"Money" for the benefit of Henry Compton, a fine comedian who had +delighted audiences at the Haymarket for many years. On this occasion I +did not play Clara Douglas as I had done during the revival at the +Prince of Wales's, but the comedy part, Georgina Vesey. John Hare, Mr. +and Mrs. Kendal, Henry Neville, Mr. and Mrs. Bancroft, and, last but not +least, Benjamin Webster, who came out of his retirement to play +Graves--"his original part"--were in the cast. + +I don't think that Webster ever appeared on the stage again, although +he lived on for many years in an old-fashioned house near Kennington +Church, and died at a great age. He has a descendant on the stage in Mr. +Ben Webster, who acted with us at the Lyceum, and is now well known both +in England and America. + +Henry Compton's son, Edward, was in this performance of "Money." He was +engaged to the beautiful Adelaide Neilson, an actress whose brilliant +career was cut off suddenly when she was riding in the Bois. She drank a +glass of milk when she was overheated, was taken ill, and died. I am +told that she commanded £700 a week in America, and in England people +went wild over her Juliet. She looked like a child of the warm South, +although she was born, I think, in Manchester, and her looks were much +in her favor as Juliet. She belonged to the ripe, luscious, pomegranate +type of woman. The only living actress with the same kind of beauty is +Maxine Elliott. + +Adelaide Neilson had a short reign, but a most triumphant one. It was +easy to understand it when one saw her. She was so gracious, so +feminine, so lovely. She did things well, but more from instinct than +anything else. She had no science. Edward Compton now takes his own +company round the provinces in an excellent rŽpertoire of old comedies. +He has done as much to make country audiences familiar with them as Mr. +Benson has done to make them familiar with Shakespeare. + +I come now to the Lyceum rehearsals of November, 1878. Although Henry +Irving had played Hamlet for over two hundred nights in London, and for +I don't know how many nights in the provinces, he always rehearsed in +cloak and rapier. This careful attention to detail came back to my mind +years afterwards, when he gave readings of Macbeth. He never gave a +public reading without first going through the entire play at home--at +home, that is to say, in a miserably uncomfortable hotel. + +During the first rehearsal he read every one's part except mine, which +he skipped, and the power that he put into each part was extraordinary. +He threw himself so thoroughly into it that his skin contracted and his +eyes shone. His lips grew whiter and whiter, and his skin more and more +drawn as the time went on, until he looked like a livid thing, but +beautiful. + +He never got at anything _easily_, and often I felt angry that he would +waste so much of his strength in trying to teach people to do things in +the right way. Very often it only ended in his producing actors who gave +colorless, feeble and unintelligent imitations of him. There were +exceptions, of course. + +When it came to the last ten days before the date named for the +production of "Hamlet," and my scenes with him were still unrehearsed, I +grew very anxious and miserable. I was still a stranger in the theater, +and in awe of Henry Irving personally; but I plucked up courage, and +said: + +"I am very nervous about my first appearance with you. Couldn't we +rehearse _our_ scenes?" + +"_We_ shall be all right!" he answered, "but we are not going to run the +risk of being bottled up by a gas-man or a fiddler." + +When I spoke, I think he was conducting a band rehearsal. Although he +did not understand a note of music, he felt, through intuition, what the +music ought to be, and would pull it about and have alterations made. No +one was cleverer than Hamilton Clarke, Henry's first musical director, +and a most gifted composer, at carrying out his instructions. Hamilton +Clarke often grew angry and flung out of the theater, saying that it was +quite impossible to do what Mr. Irving required. + +"Patch it together, indeed!" he used to say to me indignantly, when I +was told off to smooth him down. "Mr. Irving knows nothing about music, +or he couldn't ask me to do such a thing." + +But the next day he would return with the score altered on the lines +suggested by Henry, and would confess that the music was improved. "Upon +my soul, it's better! The 'Guv'nor' was perfectly right." + +His Danish march in "Hamlet," his Brocken music in "Faust," and his +music for "The Merchant of Venice" were all, to my mind, exactly +_right_. The brilliant gifts of Clarke, before many years had passed, +"o'er-leaped" themselves, and he ended his days in a lunatic asylum. + +The only person who did not profit by Henry's ceaseless labors was poor +Ophelia. When the first night came, I did not play the part well, +although the critics and the public were pleased. To myself I _failed_. +I had not rehearsed enough. I can remember one occasion when I played +Ophelia really well. It was in Chicago some ten years later. At Drury +Lane, in 1896, when I played the mad scene for Nelly Farren's benefit, +and took farewell of the part for ever, I was just _damnable_! + +Ophelia only _pervades_ the scenes in which she is concerned until the +mad scene. This was a tremendous thing for me, who am not capable of +_sustained_ effort, but can perhaps manage a _cumulative_ effort better +than most actresses. I have been told that Ophelia has "nothing to do" +at first. I found so much to do! Little bits of business which, slight +in themselves, contributed to a definite result, and kept me always in +the picture. + +Like all Ophelias before (and after) me, I went to the madhouse to study +wits astray. I was disheartened at first. There was no beauty, no +nature, no pity in most of the lunatics. Strange as it may sound, they +were too _theatrical_ to teach me anything. Then, just as I was going +away, I noticed a young girl gazing at the wall. I went between her and +the wall to see her face. It was quite vacant, but the body expressed +that she was waiting, waiting. Suddenly she threw up her hands and sped +across the room like a swallow. I never forgot it. She was very thin, +very pathetic, very young, and the movement was as poignant as it was +beautiful. + +I saw another woman laugh with a face that had no gleam of laughter +anywhere--a face of pathetic and resigned grief. + +My experiences convinced me that the actor must imagine first and +observe afterwards. It is no good observing life and bringing the result +to the stage without selection, without a definite idea. The idea must +come first, the realism afterwards. + +Perhaps because I was nervous and irritable about my own part from +insufficient rehearsal, perhaps because his responsibility as lessee +weighed upon him, Henry Irving's Hamlet on the first night at the Lyceum +seemed to me less wonderful than it had been at Birmingham. At +rehearsals he had been the perfection of grace. On the night itself, he +dragged his leg and seemed stiff from self-consciousness. He asked me +later on if I thought the ill-natured criticism of his walk was in any +way justified, and if he really said "Gud" for "God," and the rest of +it. I said straight out that he _did_ say his vowels in a peculiar way, +and that he _did_ drag his leg. + +I begged him to give up that dreadful, paralyzing waiting at the side +for his cue, and after a time he took my advice. He was never obstinate +in such matters. His one object was to _find out_, to _test_ suggestion, +and follow it if it stood his test. + +He was very diplomatic when he meant to have his own way. He never +blustered or enforced or threatened. My first acquaintance with this +side of him was made over my dresser for Ophelia. He had heard that I +intended to wear black in the mad scene, and he intended me to wear +white. When he first mentioned the subject, I had no idea that there +would be any opposition. He spoke of my dresses, and I told him that as +I was very anxious not to be worried about them at the last minute, they +had been got on with early and were now finished. + +"Finished! That's very interesting! Very interesting. And what--er--what +colors are they?" + +"In the first scene I wear a pinkish dress. It's all rose-colored with +her. Her father and brother love her. The Prince loves her--and so she +wears pink." + +"Pink," repeated Henry thoughtfully. + +"In the nunnery scene I have a pale, gold, amber dress--the most +beautiful color. The material is a church brocade. It will 'tone down' +the color of my hair. In the last scene I wear a transparent, black +dress." + +Henry did not wag an eyelid. + +"I see. In mourning for her father." + +"No, not exactly that. I think _red_ was the mourning color of the +period. But black seems to me _right_--like the character, like the +situation." + +"Would you put the dresses on?" said Henry gravely. + +At that minute Walter Lacy came up, that very Walter Lacy who had been +with Charles Kean when I was a child, and who now acted as adviser to +Henry Irving in his Shakespearean productions. + +"Ah, here's Lacy. Would you mind, Miss Terry, telling Mr. Lacy what you +are going to wear?" + +Rather surprised, but still unsuspecting, I told Lacy all over again. +Pink in the first scene, yellow in the second, black-- + +You should have seen Lacy's face at the word "black." He was going to +burst out, but Henry stopped him. He was more diplomatic than that! + +"They generally wear _white_, don't they?" + +"I believe so," I answered, "but black is more interesting." + +"I should have thought you would look much better in white." + +"Oh, no!" I said. + +And then they dropped the subject for that day. It _was_ clever of him! + +The next day Lacy came up to me: + +"You didn't really mean that you are going to wear black in the mad +scene?" + +"Yes, I did. Why not?" + +"_Why not!_ My God! Madam, there must be only one black figure in this +play, and that's Hamlet!" + +I did feel a fool. What a blundering donkey I had been not to see it +before! I was very thrifty in those days, and the thought of having been +the cause of needless expense worried me. So instead of the _crpe de +Chine_ and miniver, which had been used for the black dress, I had for +the white dress Bolton sheeting and rabbit, and I believe it looked +better. + +The incident, whether Henry was right or not, led me to see that, +although I knew more of art and archaeology in dress than he did, he had +a finer sense of what was right for the _scene_. After this he always +consulted me about the costumes, but if he said: "I want such and such a +scene to be kept dark and mysterious," I knew better than to try and +introduce pale-colored dresses into it. + +Henry always had a fondness for "the old actor," and would engage him in +preference to the tyro any day. "I can trust them," he explained +briefly. + +In the cast of "Hamlet" Mr. Forrester, Mr. Chippendale, and Tom Mead +worthily repaid the trust. Mead, in spite of a terrible excellence in +"Meadisms"--he substituted the most excruciatingly funny words for +Shakespeare's when his memory of the text failed--was a remarkable +actor. His voice as the Ghost was beautiful, and his appearance +splendid. With his deep-set eyes, hawklike nose, and clear brow, he +reminded me of the Rameses head in the British Museum. + +We had young men in the cast, too. There was one very studious youth who +could never be caught loafing. He was always reading, or busy in the +greenroom studying by turns the pictures of past actor-humanity with +which the walls were peopled, or the present realities of actors who +came in and out of the room. Although he was so much younger then, Mr. +Pinero looked much as he does now. He played Rosencrantz very neatly. +Consummate care, precision, and brains characterized his work as an +actor always, but his chief ambition lay another way. Rosencrantz and +the rest were his school of stage-craft. + +Kyrle Bellew, the Osric of the production, was another man of the +future, though we did not know it. He was very handsome, a tremendous +lady-killer! He wore his hair rather long, had a graceful figure, and a +good voice, as became the son of a preacher who had the reputation of +saying the Lord's Prayer so dramatically that his congregation sobbed. + +Frank Cooper, a descendant of the Kembles, another actor who has risen +to eminence since, played Laertes. It was he who first led me onto the +Lyceum stage. Twenty years later he became my leading man on the first +tour I took independently of Henry Irving since my tours with my +husband, Charles Kelly. + + + + +VIII + +WORK AT THE LYCEUM + + +When I am asked what I remember about the first ten years at the Lyceum, +I can answer in one word: _Work_. I was hardly ever out of the theater. +What with acting, rehearsing, and studying--twenty-five reference books +were a "simple coming-in" for one part--I sometimes thought I should go +blind and mad. It was not only for my parts at the Lyceum that I had to +rehearse. From August to October I was still touring in the provinces on +my own account. My brother George acted as my business manager. His +enthusiasm was not greater than his loyalty and industry. When we were +playing in small towns he used to rush into my dressing-room after the +curtain was up and say excitedly: + +"We've got twenty-five more people in our gallery than the Blank Theater +opposite!" + +Although he was very delicate, he worked for me like a slave. When my +tours with Mr. Kelly ended in 1880 and I promised Henry Irving that in +future I would go to the provincial towns with him, my brother was given +a position at the Lyceum, where, I fear, his scrupulous and +uncompromising honesty often got him into trouble. "Perks," as they are +called in domestic service, are one of the heaviest additions to a +manager's working expenses, and George tried to fight the system. He +hurt no one so much as himself. + +One of my productions in the provinces was an English version of +"Frou-Frou," made for me by my dear friend Mrs. Comyns Carr, who for +many years designed the dresses that I wore in different Lyceum plays. +"Butterfly," as "Frou-Frou" was called when it was produced in English, +went well; indeed, the Scots of Edinburgh received it with overwhelming +favor, and it served my purpose at the time, but when I saw Sarah +Bernhardt play the part I wondered that I had had the presumption to +meddle with it. It was not a case of my having a different view of the +character and playing it according to my imagination, as it was, for +instance, when Duse played "La Dame aux CamŽlias," and gave a +performance that one could not say was _inferior_ to Bernhardt's, +although it was so utterly _different_. No people in their right senses +could have accepted my "Frou-Frou" instead of Sarah's. What I lacked +technically in it was _pace_. + +Of course, it is partly the language. English cannot be phrased as +rapidly as French. But I have heard foreign actors, playing in the +English tongue, show us this rapidity, this warmth, this fury--call it +what you will--and have just wondered why we are, most of us, so +deficient in it. + +Fechter had it, so had Edwin Forrest. When strongly moved, their +passions and their fervor made them swift. The more Henry Irving felt, +the more deliberate he became. I said to him once: "You seem to be +hampered in the vehemence of passion." "I _am_," he answered. This is +what crippled his Othello, and made his scene with Tubal in "The +Merchant of Venice" the least successful _to him_. What it was to the +audience is another matter. But he had to take refuge in speechless rage +when he would have liked to pour out his words like a torrent. + +In the company which Charles Kelly and I took round the provinces in +1880 were Henry Kemble and Charles Brookfield. Young Brookfield was just +beginning life as an actor, and he was so brilliantly funny off the +stage that he was always a little disappointing _on_ it. My old +manageress, Mrs. Wigan, first brought him to my notice, writing in a +charming little note that she knew him "to have a power of _personation_ +very rare in an unpracticed actor," and that if we could give him varied +practice, she would feel it a courtesy to her. + +I had reason to admire Mr. Brookfield's "powers of personation" when I +was acting at Buxton. He and Kemble had no parts in one of our plays, so +they amused themselves during their "off" night by hiring bath-chairs +and pretending to be paralytics! We were acting in a hall, and the most +infirm of the invalids visiting the place to take the waters were +wheeled in at the back, and up the center aisle. In the middle of a very +pathetic scene I caught sight of Kemble and Brookfield in their +bath-chairs, and could not _speak_ for several minutes. + +Mr. Brookfield does not tell this little story in his "Random +Reminiscences." It is about the only one that he has left out! To my +mind he is the prince of storytellers. All the cleverness that he should +have put into his acting and his play-writing (of which since those +early days he has done a great deal) he seems to have put into his life. +I remember him more clearly as a delightful companion than an actor, and +he won my heart at once by his kindness to my little daughter Edy, who +accompanied me on this tour. He has too great a sense of humor to resent +my inadequate recollection of him. Did he not in his own book quote +gleefully from an obituary notice published on a false report of his +death, the summary: "Never a great actor, he was invaluable in small +parts. But after all it is at his club that he will be most missed!" + +In the last act of "Butterfly," as we called the English version of +"Frou-Frou," where the poor woman is dying, her husband shows her a +locket with a picture of her child in it. Night after night we used a +"property" locket, but on my birthday, when we happened to be playing +the piece, Charles Kelly bought a silver locket of Indian work and put +inside it two little colored photographs of my children, Edy and Teddy, +and gave it to me on the stage instead of the "property" one. When I +opened it, I burst into very real tears! I have often wondered since if +the audience that night knew that they were seeing _real_ instead of +assumed emotion! Probably the difference did not tell at all. + +At Leeds we produced "Much Ado About Nothing." I never played Beatrice +as well again. When I began to "take soundings" from life for my idea of +her, I found in my friend Anne Codrington (now Lady Winchilsea) what I +wanted. There was before me a Beatrice--as fine a lady as ever lived, a +great-hearted woman--beautiful, accomplished, merry, tender. When Nan +Codrington came into a room it was as if the sun came out. She was the +daughter of an admiral, and always tried to make her room look as like a +cabin as she could. "An excellent musician," as Benedick hints Beatrice +was, Nan composed the little song that I sang at the Lyceum in "The +Cup," and very good it was, too. + +When Henry Irving put on "Much Ado About Nothing"--a play which he may +be said to have done for me, as he never really liked the part of +Benedick--I was not the same Beatrice at all. A great actor can do +nothing badly, and there was so very much to admire in Henry Irving's +Benedick. But he gave me little help. Beatrice must be swift, swift, +swift! Owing to Henry's rather finicking, deliberate method as Benedick, +I could never put the right pace into my part. I was also feeling +unhappy about it, because I had been compelled to give way about a +traditional "gag" in the church scene, with which we ended the fourth +act. In my own production we had scorned this gag, and let the curtain +come down on Benedick's line: "Go, comfort your cousin; I must say she +is dead, and so farewell." When I was told that we were to descend to +the buffoonery of: + + _Beatrice:_ Benedick, kill him--kill him if you can. + + _Benedick:_ As sure as I'm alive, I will! + +I protested, and implored Henry not to do it. He said that it was +necessary: otherwise the "curtain" would be received in dead silence. I +assured him that we had often had seven and eight calls without it. I +used every argument, artistic and otherwise. Henry, according to his +custom, was gentle, would not discuss it much, but remained obdurate. +After holding out for a week, I gave in. "It's my duty to obey your +orders, and do it," I said, "but I do it under protest." Then I burst +into tears. It was really for his sake just as much as for mine. I +thought it must bring such disgrace on him! Looking back on the +incident, I find that the most humorous thing in connection with it was +that the critics, never reluctant to accuse Henry of "monkeying" with +Shakespeare if they could find cause, never noticed the gag at all! + +Such disagreements occurred very seldom. In "The Merchant of Venice" I +found that Henry Irving's Shylock necessitated an entire revision of my +conception of Portia, especially in the trial scene, but here there was +no point of honor involved. I had considered, and still am of the same +mind, that Portia in the trial scene ought to be very _quiet_. I saw an +extraordinary effect in this quietness. But as Henry's Shylock was +quiet, I had to give it up. His heroic saint was splendid, but it wasn't +good for Portia. + +Of course, there were always injudicious friends to say that I had not +"chances" enough at the Lyceum. Even my father said to me after +"Othello": + +"We must have no more of these Ophelias and Desdemonas!" + +"_Father!_" I cried out, really shocked. + +"They're second fiddle parts--not the parts for you, Duchess." + +"Father!" I gasped out again, for really I thought Ophelia a pretty good +part, and was delighted at my success with it. + +But granting these _were_ "second fiddle" parts, I want to make quite +clear that I had my turn of "first fiddle" ones. "Romeo and Juliet," +"Much Ado About Nothing," "Olivia," and "The Cup" all gave me finer +opportunities than they gave Henry. In "The Merchant of Venice" and +"Charles I." they were at least equal to his. + +I have sometimes wondered what I should have accomplished without Henry +Irving. I might have had "bigger" parts, but it doesn't follow that they +would have been better ones, and if they had been written by +contemporary dramatists my success would have been less durable. "No +actor or actress who doesn't play in the 'classics'--in Shakespeare or +old comedy--will be heard of long," was one of Henry Irving's sayings, +by the way, and he was right. + +It was a long time before we had much talk with each other. In the +"Hamlet" days, Henry Irving's melancholy was appalling. I remember +feeling as if I had laughed in church when he came to the foot of the +stairs leading to my dressing-room, and caught me sliding down the +banisters! He smiled at me, but didn't seem able to get over it. + +"Lacy," he said some days later, "what do you think! I found her the +other day sliding down the banisters!" + +Some one says--I think it is Keats, in a letter--that the poet lives not +in one, but in a thousand worlds, and the actor has not one, but a +hundred natures. What was the real Henry Irving? I used to speculate! + +His religious upbringing always left its mark on him, though no one +could be more "raffish" and mischievous than he when entertaining +friends at supper in the Beefsteak Room, or chaffing his valued +adjutants, Bram Stoker and Loveday. H.J. Loveday, our dear stage +manager, was, I think, as absolutely devoted to Henry as anyone except +his fox-terrier, Fussie. Loveday's loyalty made him agree with everything +that Henry said, however preposterous, and didn't Henry trade on it +sometimes! + +Once while he was talking to me, when he was making up, he absently took +a white lily out of a bowl on the table and began to stripe and dot the +petals with the stick of grease-paint in his hand. He pulled off one or +two of the petals, and held it out to me. + +"Pretty flower, isn't it?" + +"Oh, don't be ridiculous, Henry!" I said. + +"You wait!" he said mischievously. "We'll show it to Loveday." + +Loveday was sent for on some business connected with the evening's +performance. Henry held out the flower obtrusively, but Loveday wouldn't +notice it. + +"Pretty, isn't it?" said Henry carelessly. + +"Very," said Loveday. "I always like those lilies. A friend of mine has +his garden full of them, and he says they're not so difficult to grow if +only you give 'em enough water." + +Henry's delight at having "taken in" Loveday was childish. But sometimes +I think Loveday must have seen through these innocent jokes, only he +wouldn't have spoiled "the Guv'nor's" bit of fun for the world. + +When Henry first met him he was conducting an orchestra. I forget the +precise details, but I know that he gave up this position to follow +Henry, that he was with him during the Bateman rŽgime at the Lyceum, and +that when the Lyceum became a thing of the past, he still kept the post +of stage manager. He was literally "faithful unto death," for it was +only at Henry's death that his service ended. + +Bram Stoker, whose recently published "Reminiscences of Irving" have +told, as well as it ever _can_ be told, the history of the Lyceum +Theater under Irving's direction, was as good a servant in the front of +the theater as Loveday was on the stage. Like a true Irishman, he has +given me some lovely blarney in his book. He has also told _all_ the +stories that I might have told, and described every one connected with +the Lyceum except himself. I can fill _that_ deficiency to a certain +extent by saying that he is one of the most kind and tender-hearted of +men. He filled a difficult position with great tact, and was not so +universally abused as most business managers, because he was always +straight with the company, and never took a mean advantage of them. + +Stoker and Loveday were daily, nay, hourly, associated for many years +with Henry Irving; but, after all, did they or any one else _really_ +know him? And what was Henry Irving's attitude. I believe myself that he +never wholly trusted his friends, and never admitted them to his +intimacy, although they thought he did, which was the same thing to +_them_. + +From his childhood up, Henry was lonely. His chief companions in youth +were the Bible and Shakespeare. He used to study "Hamlet" in the Cornish +fields, when he was sent out by his aunt, Mrs. Penberthy, to call in the +cows. One day, when he was in one of the deep, narrow lanes common in +that part of England, he looked up and saw the face of a sweet little +lamb gazing at him from the top of the bank. The symbol of the lamb in +the Bible had always attracted him, and his heart went out to the dear +little creature. With some difficulty he scrambled up the bank, +slipping often in the damp, red earth, threw his arms round the lamb's +neck and kissed it. + +_The lamb bit him!_ + +Did this set-back in early childhood influence him? I wonder! He had +another such set-back when he first went on the stage, and for some six +weeks in Dublin was subjected every night to groans, hoots, hisses, and +cat-calls from audiences who resented him because he had taken the place +of a dismissed favorite. In such a situation an actor is not likely to +take stock of _reasons_. Henry Irving only knew that the Dublin people +made him the object of violent personal antipathy. "I played my parts +not badly for me," he said simply, "in spite of the howls of execration +with which I was received." + +The bitterness of this Dublin episode was never quite forgotten. It +colored Henry Irving's attitude towards the public. When he made his +humble little speeches of thanks to them before the curtain, there was +always a touch of pride in the humility. Perhaps he would not have +received adulation in quite the same dignified way if he had never known +what it was to wear the martyr's "shirt of flame." + +This is the worst of my trying to give a consecutive narrative of my +first years at the Lyceum. Henry Irving looms across them, reducing all +events, all feelings, all that happened, and all that was suggested, to +pigmy size. + +Let me speak _generally_ of his method of procedure in producing a play. + +First he studied it for three months himself, and nothing in that play +would escape him. Some one once asked him a question about "Titus +Andronicus." "God bless my soul!" he said. "I never read it, so how +should I know!" The Shakespearean scholar who had questioned him was a +little shocked--a fact which Henry Irving, the closest observer of men, +did not fail to notice. + +"When I am going to do 'Titus Andronicus,' or any other play," he said +to me afterwards, "I shall know more about it than A---- or any other +student." + +There was no conceit in this. It was just a statement of fact. And it +may not have been an admirable quality of Henry Irving's, but all his +life he only took an interest in the things which concerned the work +that he had in hand. When there was a question of his playing Napoleon, +his room at Grafton Street was filled with Napoleonic literature. Busts +of Napoleon, pictures of Napoleon, relics of Napoleon were everywhere. +Then, when another play was being prepared, the busts, however fine, +would probably go down to the cellar. It was not _Napoleon_ who +interested Henry Irving, but _Napoleon for his purpose_--two very +different things. + +His concentration during his three months' study of the play which he +had in view was marvelous. When, at the end of the three-months, he +called the first rehearsal, he read the play exactly as it was going to +be done on the first night. He knew exactly by that time what he +personally was going to do on the first night, and the company did well +to notice how he read his own part, for never again until the first +night, though he rehearsed with them, would he show his conception so +fully and completely. + +These readings, which took place sometimes in the greenroom or Beefsteak +Room at the Lyceum, sometimes at his house in Grafton Street, were +wonderful. Never were the names of the characters said by the reader, +but never was there the slightest doubt as to which was speaking. Henry +Irving swiftly, surely, acted every part in the piece as he read. While +he read, he made notes as to the position of the characters and the +order of the crowds and processions. At the end of the first reading he +gave out the parts. + +The next day there was the "comparing" of the parts. It generally took +place on the stage, and we sat down for it. Each person took his own +character, and took up the cues to make sure that no blunder had been +made in writing them out. Parts at the Lyceum were written, or printed, +not typed. + +These first two rehearsals--the one devoted to the reading of the play, +and the other to the comparing of the parts, were generally arranged for +Thursday and Friday. Then there was two days' grace. On Monday came the +first stand-up rehearsal on the stage. + +We then did one act straight through, and, after that, straight through +again, even if it took all day. There was no luncheon interval. People +took a bite when they could, or went without. Henry himself generally +went without. The second day exactly the same method was pursued with +the second act. All the time Henry gave the stage his personal +direction, gave it keenly, and gave it whole. He was the sole +superintendent of his rehearsals, with Mr. Loveday as his working +assistant, and Mr. Allen as his prompter. This despotism meant much less +wasted time than when actor-manager, "producer," literary adviser, stage +manager, and any one who likes to offer a suggestion are all competing +in giving orders and advice to a company. + +Henry Irving never spent much time on the women in the company, except +in regard to position. Sometimes he would ask me to suggest things to +them, to do for them what he did for the men. The men were as much like +him when they tried to carry out his instructions as brass is like gold; +but he never grew weary of "coaching" them, down to the most minute +detail. Once during the rehearsals of "Hamlet" I saw him growing more +and more fatigued with his efforts to get the actors who opened the play +to perceive his meaning. He wanted the first voice to ring out like a +pistol shot. + +"_Who's there?_" + +"Do give it up," I said. "It's no better!" + +"Yes, it's a little better," he answered quietly, "and so it's worth +doing." + +From the first the scenery or substitute scenery was put upon the stage +for rehearsal, and the properties or substitute properties were to hand. + +After each act had been gone through twice each day, it came to half an +act once in a whole day, because of the development of detail. There was +no detail too small for Henry Irving's notice. He never missed anything +that was cumulative--that would contribute something to the whole +effect. + +The messenger who came in to announce something always needed a great +deal of rehearsal. There were processions, and half processions, quiet +bits when no word was spoken. There was _timing_. Nothing was left to +chance. + +In the master carpenter, Arnott, we had a splendid man. He inspired +confidence at once through his strong, able personality, and, as time +went on, deserved it through all the knowledge he acquired and through +his excellence in never making a difficulty. + +"You shall have it," was no bluff from Arnott. You _did_ "have it." + +We could not find precisely the right material for one of my dresses in +"The Cup." At last, poking about myself in quest of it, I came across +the very thing at Liberty's--a saffron silk with a design woven into it +by hand with many-colored threads and little jewels. I brought a yard to +rehearsal. It was declared perfect, but I declared the price +prohibitive. + +"It's twelve guineas a yard, and I shall want yards and yards!" + +In these days I am afraid they would not only put such material on to +the leading lady, but on to the supers too! At the Lyceum _wanton_ +extravagance was unknown. + +"Where can I get anything at all like it?" + +"You leave it to me," said Arnott. "I'll get it for you. That'll be all +right. + +"But, Arnott, it's a hand-woven Indian material. How _can_ you get it?" + +"You leave it to me," Arnott repeated in his slow, quiet, confident way. +"Do you mind letting me have this yard as a pattern?" + +He went off with it, and before the dress rehearsal had produced about +twenty yards of silk, which on the stage looked better than the +twelve-guinea original. + +"There's plenty more if you want it," he said dryly. + +He had had some raw silk dyed the exact saffron. He had had two blocks +made, one red and the other black, and the design had been printed, and +a few cheap spangles had been added to replace the real jewels. My toga +looked beautiful. + +This was but one of the many emergencies to which Arnott rose with +talent and promptitude. + +With the staff of the theater he was a bit of a bully--one of those men +not easily roused, but being vexed, "nasty in the extreme!" As a +craftsman he had wonderful taste, and could copy antique furniture so +that one could not tell the copy from the original. + +The great aim at the Lyceum was to get everything "rotten perfect," as +the theatrical slang has it, before the dress rehearsal. Father's test +of being rotten perfect was not a bad one. "If you can get out of bed in +the middle of the night and do your part, you're perfect. If you can't, +you don't really know it!" + +Henry Irving applied some such test to every one concerned in the +production. I cannot remember any play at the Lyceum which did not begin +punctually and end at the advertised time, except "Olivia," when some +unwise changes in the last act led to delay. + +He never hesitated to discard scenery if it did not suit his purpose. +There was enough scenery rejected in "Faust" to have furnished three +productions, and what was finally used for the famous Brocken scene cost +next to nothing. + +Even the best scene-painters sometimes think more of their pictures than +of scenic effects. Henry would never accept anything that was not right +_theatrically_ as well as pictorially beautiful. His instinct in this +was unerring and incomparable. + +I remember that at one scene-rehearsal every one was fatuously pleased +with the scenery. Henry sat in the stalls talking about everything _but_ +the scenery. It was hard to tell what he thought. + +"Well, are you ready?" he asked at last. + +"Yes, sir." + +"My God! Is that what you think I am going to give the public?" + +Never shall I forget the astonishment of stage manager, scene-painter, +and staff! It was never safe to indulge in too much self-satisfaction +beforehand with Henry. He was always liable to drop such bombs! + +He believed very much in "front" scenes, seeing how necessary they were +to the swift progress of Shakespeare's diverging plots. These cloths +were sometimes so wonderfully painted and lighted that they constituted +scenes of remarkable beauty. The best of all were the Apothecary scene +in "Romeo and Juliet" and the exterior of Aufidius's house in +"Coriolanus." + +We never had electricity installed at the Lyceum until Daly took the +theater. When I saw the effect on the faces of the electric footlights, +I entreated Henry to have the gas restored, and he did. We used gas +footlights and gas limes there until we left the theater for good in +1902. + +To this I attribute much of the beauty of our lighting. I say "our" +because this was a branch of Henry's work in which I was always his +chief helper. Until electricity has been greatly improved and developed, +it can never be to the stage what gas was. The thick softness of +gaslight, with the lovely specks and motes in it, so like _natural_ +light, gave illusion to many a scene which is now revealed in all its +naked trashiness by electricity. + +The artificial is always noticed and recognized as art by the +superficial critic. I think this is what made some people think Irving +was at his best in such parts as Louis XI, Dubosc, and Richard III. He +could have played Louis XI three times a day "on his head," as the +saying is. In "The Lyons Mail," Dubosc the wicked man was easy +enough--strange that the unprofessional looker-on always admires the +actor's art when it is employed on easy things!--but Lesurques, the +_good_ man in the same play ("The Lyons Mail"), was difficult. Any +actor, skillful in the tricks of the business, can play the drunkard; +but to play a good man sincerely, as he did here, to show that double +thing, the look of guilt which an innocent man wears when accused of +crime, requires great acting, for "_the look_" is the outward and +visible sign of the inward and spiritual emotion--and this delicate +emotion can only be perfectly expressed when the actor's heart and mind +and soul and skill are in absolute accord. + +In dual parts Irving depended little on make-up. Make-up was, indeed, +always his servant, not his master. He knew its uselessness when not +informed by the _spirit_. "The letter" (and in characterization +grease-paint is the letter) "killeth--the spirit giveth life." His +Lesurques was different from his Dubosc because of the way he held his +shoulders, because of his expression. He always took a deep interest in +crime (an interest which his sons have inherited), and often went to the +police-court to study the faces of the accused. He told me that the +innocent man generally looked guilty and hesitated when asked a +question, but that the round, wide-open eyes corrected the bad +impression. The result of this careful watching was seen in his +expression as Lesurques. He opened his eyes wide. As Dubosc he kept them +half closed. + +Our plays from 1878 to 1887 were "Hamlet," "The Lady of Lyons," "Eugene +Aram," "Charles I.," "The Merchant of Venice," "Iolanthe," "The Cup," +"The Belle's Stratagem," "Othello," "Romeo and Juliet," "Much Ado About +Nothing," "Twelfth Night," "Olivia," "Faust," "Raising the Wind," and +"The Amber Heart." I give this list to keep myself straight. My mental +division of the years at the Lyceum is _before_ "Macbeth," and _after_. +I divide it up like this, perhaps, because "Macbeth" was the most +important of all our productions, if I judge it by the amount of +preparation and thought that it cost us and by the discussion which it +provoked. + +Of the characters played by Henry Irving in the plays of the first +division--before "Macbeth," that is to say--I think every one knows that +I considered Hamlet to be his greatest triumph. Sometimes I think that +was so because it was the only part that was big enough for him. It was +more difficult, and he had more scope in it than in any other. If there +had been a finer part than Hamlet, that particular part would have been +his finest. + +When one praises an actor in this way, one is always open to accusations +of prejudice, hyperbole, uncritical gush, unreasoned eulogy, and the +rest. Must a careful and deliberate opinion _always_ deny a great man +genius? If so, no careful and deliberate opinions from me! + +I have no doubt in the world of Irving's genius--no doubt that he is +with David Garrick and Edmund Kean, rather than with other actors of +great talents and great achievements--actors who rightly won high +opinions from the multitude of their day, but who have not left behind +them an impression of that inexplicable thing which we call genius. + +Since my great comrade died I have read many biographies of him, and +nearly all of them denied what I assert. "Now, who shall arbitrate?" I +find no contradiction of my testimony in the fact that he was not +appreciated for a long time, that some found him like olives, an +acquired taste, that others mocked and derided him. + +My father, who worshiped Macready, put Irving above him because of +Irving's _originality_. The old school were not usually so generous. +Fanny Kemble thought it necessary to write as follows of one who had had +his share of misfortune and failure before he came into his kingdom and +made her jealous, I suppose, for the dead kings among her kindred: + + "I have seen some of the accounts and critics of Mr. Irving's + acting, and rather elaborate ones of his Hamlet, which, however, + give me no very distinct idea of his performance, and a very hazy + one indeed of the part itself as seen from the point of view of his + critics. Edward Fitzgerald wrote me word that he looked like my + people, and sent me a photograph to prove it, which I thought much + more like Young than my father or uncle. _I have not seen a play of + Shakespeare's acted I do not know when. I think I should find such + an exhibition extremely curious as well as entertaining._" + +Now, shall I put on record what Henry Irving thought of Fanny Kemble! If +there is a touch of malice in my doing so, surely the passage that I +have quoted gives me leave. + +Having lived with Hamlet nearly all his life, studied the part when he +was a clerk, dreamed of a day when he might play it, the young Henry +Irving saw that Mrs. Butler, the famous Fanny Kemble, was going to give +a reading of the play. His heart throbbed high with anticipation, for in +those days TRADITION was everything--the name of Kemble a beacon and a +star. + +The studious young clerk went to the reading. + +An attendant came on to the platform, first, and made trivial and +apparently unnecessary alterations in the position of the reading desk. +A glass of water and a book were placed on it. + +After a portentous wait, on swept a lady with an extraordinary flashing +eye, a masculine and muscular outside. Pounding the book with terrific +energy, as if she wished to knock the stuffing out of it, she announced +in thrilling tones: + + "'HAM--A--LETTE.' + + By + + Will--y--am Shak--es--peare." + +"I suppose this is all right," thought the young clerk, a little +dismayed at the fierce and sectional enunciation. + +Then the reader came to Act I, Sc. 2, which the old actor (to leave the +Kemble reading for a minute), with but a hazy notion of the text, used +to begin: + + "Although of Hamlet, our dear brother's death, + The memory be--memory be--(What _is_ the color?) _green_".... + +When Fanny Kemble came to this scene the future Hamlet began to listen +more intently. + + _Gertrude_: Let not thy mother lose _her_ prayers, _Ham--a--lette_. + + _Hamlet_: I shall in all respects obey _you_, madam (obviously with + a fiery flashing eye of hate upon the King). + +When he heard this and more like it, Henry Irving exercised his +independence of opinion and refused to accept Fanny Kemble's view of the +gentle, melancholy, and well-bred Prince of Denmark. + +He was a stickler for tradition, and always studied it, followed it, +sometimes to his own detriment, but he was not influenced by the Kemble +Hamlet, except that for some time he wore the absurd John Philip +feather, which he would have been much better without! + +Let me pray that I, representing the old school, may never look on the +new school with the patronizing airs of "Old Fitz"[1] and Fanny Kemble. +I wish that I could _see_ the new school of acting in Shakespeare. +Shakespeare must be kept up, or we shall become a third-rate nation! + +[Footnote 1: Edward FitzGerald.] + +Henry told me this story of Fanny Kemble's reading without a spark of +ill-nature, but with many a gleam of humor. He told me at the same time +of the wonderful effect that Adelaide Kemble (Mrs. Sartoris) used to +make when she recited Shelley's lines, beginning: + + "Good-night--Ah, no, the hour is ill + Which severs those it should unite. + Let us remain together still-- + Then it will be _good-night_!" + +I have already said that I never could cope with Pauline Deschapelles, +and why Henry wanted to play Melnotte was a mystery. Claude Melnotte +after Hamlet! Oddly enough, Henry was always attracted by fustian. He +simply reveled in the big speeches. The play was beautifully staged; the +garden scene alone probably cost as much as the whole of "Hamlet." The +march past the window of the apparently unending army--that good old +trick which sends the supers flying round the back-cloth to cross the +stage again and again--created a superb effect. The curtain used to go +up and down as often as we liked and chose to keep the army marching! +The play ran some time, I suppose because even at our worst the public +found _something_ in our acting to like. + +As Ruth Meadowes I had very little to do, but what there was, was worth +doing. The last act of "Eugene Aram," like the last act of "Ravenswood," +gave me opportunity. It was staged with a great appreciation of grim and +poetic effect. Henry always thought that the dark, overhanging branch of +the cedar was like the cruel outstretched hand of Fate. He called it the +Fate Tree, and used it in "Hamlet," in "Eugene Aram," and in "Romeo and +Juliet." + +In "Eugene Aram," the Fate Tree drooped low over the graves in the +churchyard. On one of them Henry used to be lying in a black cloak as +the curtain went up on the last act. Not until a moonbeam struck the +dark mass did you see that it was a man. + +He played all such parts well. Melancholy and the horrors had a peculiar +fascination for him--especially in these early days. But his recitation +of the poem "Eugene Aram" was finer than anything in the +play--especially when he did it in a frock-coat. No one ever looked so +well in a frock-coat! He was always ready to recite it--used to do it +after supper, anywhere. We had a talk about it once, and I told him that +it was _too much_ for a room. No man was ever more willing to listen to +suggestion or less obstinate about taking advice. He immediately +moderated his methods when reciting in _a room_, making it all the less +theatrical. The play was a good rŽpertoire play, and we did it later on +in America with success. There the part of Houseman was played by +Terriss, who was quite splendid in it, and at Chicago my little boy +Teddy made his second appearance on any stage as Joey, a gardener's boy. +He had, when still a mere baby, come on to the stage at the Court in +"Olivia," and this must be counted his _first_ appearance, although the +chroniclers, ignoring both that and Joey in "Eugene Aram," _say_ he +never appeared at all until he played an important part in "The Dead +Heart." + +It is because of Teddy that "Eugene Aram" is associated in my mind with +one of the most beautiful sights upon the stage that I ever saw in my +life. He was about ten or eleven at the time, and as he tied up the +stage roses, his cheeks, untouched by rouge, put the reddest of them to +shame! He was so graceful and natural; he spoke his lines with ease, and +smiled all over his face! "A born actor!" I said, although Joey was my +son. Whenever I think of him in that stage garden, I weep for pride, and +for sorrow, too, because before he was thirty my son had left the +stage--he who had it all in him. I have good reason to be proud of what +he has done since, but I regret the lost actor _always_. + +Henry Irving could not at first keep away from melancholy pieces. +Henrietta Maria was another sad part for me--but I used to play it well, +except when I cried too much in the last act. The play had been one of +the Bateman productions, and I had seen Miss Isabel Bateman as Henrietta +Maria and liked her, although I could not find it possible to follow her +example and play the part with a French accent! I constantly catch +myself saying of Henry Irving, "That is by far the best thing that he +ever did." I could say it of some things in "Charles I."--of the way he +gave up his sword to Cromwell, of the way he came into the room in the +last act and shut the door behind him. It was not a man coming on to a +stage to meet some one. It was a king going to the scaffold, quietly, +unobtrusively, and courageously. However often I played that scene with +him, I knew that when he first came on he was not aware of my presence +nor of any _earthly_ presence: he seemed to be already in heaven. + +Much has been said of his "make-up" as Charles I. Edwin Long painted him +a triptych of Vandyck heads, which he always had in his dressing-room, +and which is now in my possession. He used to come on to the stage +looking precisely like the Vandyck portraits, but not because he had +been busy building up his face with wig-paste and similar atrocities. +His make-up in this, as in other parts, was the process of _assisting +subtly and surely the expression from within_. It was elastic, and never +hampered him. It changed with the expression. As Charles, he was +assisted by Nature, who had given him the most beautiful Stuart hands, +but his clothes most actors would have consigned to the dust-bin! Before +we had done with Charles I.--we played it together for the last time in +1902--these clothes were really threadbare. Yet he looked in them every +inch a king. + +His care of detail may be judged from the fact that in the last act his +wig was not only grayer, but had far less hair in it. I should hardly +think it necessary to mention this if I had not noticed how many actors +seem to think that age may be procured by the simple expedient of +dipping their heads, covered with mats of flourishing hair, into a +flour-barrel! + +Unlike most stage kings, he never seemed to be _assuming_ dignity. He +was very, very simple. + +Wills has been much blamed for making Cromwell out to be such a +wretch--a mean blackguard, not even a great bad man. But in plays the +villain must not compete for sympathy with the hero, or both fall to the +ground! I think that Wills showed himself a true poet in his play, and +in the last act a great playwright. He gave us both wonderful +opportunities, yet very few words were spoken. + +Some people thought me best in the camp scene in the third act, where I +had even fewer lines to speak. I was proud of it myself when I found +that it had inspired Oscar Wilde to write me this lovely sonnet: + + In the lone tent, waiting for victory, + She stands with eyes marred by the mists of pain, + Like some wan lily overdrenched with rain; + The clamorous clang of arms, the ensanguined sky, + War's ruin, and the wreck of chivalry + To her proud soul no common fear can bring; + Bravely she tarrieth for her Lord, the King, + Her soul aflame with passionate ecstasy. + O, hair of gold! O, crimson lips! O, face + Made for the luring and the love of man! + With thee I do forget the toil and stress, + The loveless road that knows no resting place, + Time's straitened pulse, the soul's dread weariness, + My freedom, and my life republican! + +That phrase "wan lily" represented perfectly what I had tried to convey, +not only in this part but in Ophelia. I hope I thanked Oscar enough at +the time. Now he is dead, and I cannot thank him any more.... I had so +much _bad_ poetry written to me that these lovely sonnets from a real +poet should have given me the greater pleasure. "He often has the poet's +heart, who never felt the poet's fire." There is more good _heart_ and +kind feeling in most of the verses written to me than real poetry. + +"One must discriminate," even if it sounds unkind. At the time that +Whistler was having one of his most undignified "rows" with a sitter +over a portrait and wrangling over the price, another artist was +painting frescoes in a cathedral for nothing. "It is sad that it should +be so," a friend said to me, "but _one must discriminate_. The man +haggling over the sixpence is the great artist!" + +How splendid it is that _in time_ this is recognized. The immortal soul +of the artist is in his work, the transient and mortal one is in his +conduct. + +Another sonnet from Oscar Wilde--to Portia this time--is the first +document that I find in connection with "The Merchant," as the play was +always called by the theater staff. + + "I marvel not Bassanio was so bold + To peril all he had upon the lead, + Or that proud Aragon bent low his head, + Or that Morocco's fiery heart grew cold; + For in that gorgeous dress of beaten gold, + Which is more golden than the golden sun, + No woman Veronese looked upon + Was half so fair as thou whom I behold. + Yet fairer when with wisdom as your shield + The sober-suited lawyer's gown you donned, + And would not let the laws of Venice yield + Antonio's heart to that accursed Jew-- + O, Portia! take my heart; it is thy due: + I think I will not quarrel with the Bond." + +Henry Irving's Shylock dress was designed by Sir John Gilbert. It was +never replaced, and only once cleaned by Henry's dresser and valet, +Walter Collinson. Walter, I think, replaced "Doody," Henry's first +dresser at the Lyceum, during the run of "The Merchant of Venice." +Walter was a wig-maker by trade--assistant to Clarkson the elder. It was +Doody who, on being asked his opinion of a production, said that it was +fine--"not a _join_[1] to be seen anywhere!" It was Walter who was asked +by Henry to say which he thought his master's best part. Walter could +not be "drawn" for a long time. At last he said Macbeth. + +[Footnote 1: A "join" in theatrical wig-makers' parlance is the point +where the front-piece of the wig ends and the actor's forehead begins.] + +This pleased Henry immensely, for, as I hope to show later on, he +fancied himself in Macbeth more than in any other part. + +"It is generally conceded to be Hamlet," said Henry. + +"Oh, no, sir," said Walter, "_Macbeth._ You sweat twice as much in +that." + +In appearance Walter was very like Shakespeare's bust in Stratford +Church. He was a most faithful and devoted servant, and was the only +person with Henry Irving when he died. Quiet in his ways, discreet, +gentle, and very quick, he was the ideal dresser. + +The Lyceum production of "The Merchant of Venice" was not so strictly +archaeological as the Bancrofts' had been, but it was very gravely +beautiful and effective. If less attention was paid to details of +costumes and scenery, the play itself was arranged and acted very +attractively and always went with a swing. To the end of my partnership +with Henry Irving it was a safe "draw" both in England and America. By +this time I must have played Portia over a thousand times. During the +first run of it the severe attack made on my acting of the part in +_Blackwood's Magazine_ is worth alluding to. The suggestion that I +showed too much of a "coming-on" disposition in the Casket Scene +affected me for years, and made me self-conscious and uncomfortable. At +last I lived it down. Any suggestion of _indelicacy_ in my treatment of +a part always blighted me. Mr. Dodgson (Lewis Carroll, of the immortal +"Alice in Wonderland") once brought a little girl to see me in "Faust." +He wrote and told me that she had said (where Margaret begins to +undress): "Where is it going to stop?" and that perhaps in consideration +of the fact that it could affect a mere child disagreeably, I ought to +alter my business! + +I had known dear Mr. Dodgson for years and years. He was as fond of me +as he could be of any one over the age of ten, but I was _furious_. "I +thought you only knew _nice_ children," was all the answer that I gave +him. "It would have seemed to me awful for a _child_ to see harm where +harm is; how much more when she sees it where harm is not." + +But I felt ashamed and shy whenever I played that scene. It was the +Casket Scene over again. + +The unkind _Blackwood_ article also blamed me for showing too plainly +that Portia loves Bassanio before he has actually won her. This seemed +to me unjust, if only because Shakespeare makes Portia say _before_ +Bassanio chooses the right casket: + + "One half of me is yours--the other half yours--_All yours!_" + +Surely this suggests that she was not concealing her fondness like a +Victorian maiden, and that Bassanio had most surely won her love, though +not yet the right to be her husband. + +"There is a soul of goodness in things evil," and the criticism made me +alter the setting of the scene, and so contrive it that Portia was +behind and out of sight of the men who made hazard for her love. + +Dr. Furnivall, a great Shakespearean scholar, was so kind as to write me +the following letter about Portia: + + "Being founder and director of the New Shakespeare Society, I + venture to thank you most heartily for your most charming and + admirable impersonation of our poet's Portia, which I witnessed + to-night with a real delight. You have given me a new light on the + character, and by your so pretty by-play in the Casket Scene have + made bright in my memory for ever the spot which almost all critics + have felt dull, and I hope to say this in a new edition of + 'Shakespeare.'" + +(He did say it, in "The Leopold" edition.) + + "Again those touches of the wife's love in the advocate when + Bassanio says he'd give up his wife for Antonio, and when you + kissed your hand to him behind his back in the Ring bit--how pretty + and natural they were! Your whole conception and acting of the + character are so true to Shakespeare's lines that one longs he + could be here to see you. A lady gracious and graceful, handsome, + witty, loving and wise, you are his Portia to the life." + +That's the best of Shakespeare, _I_ say. His characters can be +interpreted in at least eight different ways, and of each way some one +will say: "That is Shakespeare!" The German actress plays Portia as a +low comedy part. She wears an eighteenth-century law wig, horn +spectacles, a cravat (this last anachronism is not confined to Germans), +and often a mustache! There is something to be said for it all, though I +should not like to play the part that way myself. + +Lady Pollock, who first brought me to Henry Irving's notice as a +possible leading lady, thought my Portia better at the Lyceum than it +had been at the Prince of Wales's. + + "Thanks, my dear Valentine and enchanting Portia," she writes to me + in response to a photograph that I had sent her, "but the + photographers don't see you as you are, and have not the poetry in + them to do you justice.... You were especially admirable in the + Casket Scene. You kept your by-play quieter, and it gained in + effect from the addition of repose--and I rejoiced that you did not + kneel to Bassanio at 'My Lord, my governor, my King.' I used to + feel that too much like worship from any girl to her affianced, and + Portia's position being one of command, I should doubt the + possibility of such an action...." + +I think I received more letters about my Portia than about all my other +parts put together. Many of them came from university men. One old +playgoer wrote to tell me that he liked me better than my former +instructress, Mrs. Charles Kean. "She mouthed it as she did most +things.... She was not real--a staid, sentimental 'Anglaise,' and more +than a little stiffly pokerish." + +Henry Irving's Shylock was generally conceded to be full of talent and +reality, but some of his critics could not resist saying that this was +_not_ the Jew that Shakespeare drew! Now, who is in a position to say +what is the Jew that Shakespeare drew? I think Henry Irving knew as +well as most! Nay, I am sure that in his age he was the only person +able to decide. + +Some said his Shylock was intellectual, and appealed more to the +intellect of his audiences than to their emotions. Surely this is +talking for the sake of talking. I recall so many things that touched +people to the heart! For absolute pathos, achieved by absolute +simplicity of means, I never saw anything in the theater to compare with +his Shylock's return home over the bridge to his deserted house after +Jessica's flight. + +A younger actor, producing "The Merchant of Venice" in recent years, +asked Irving if he might borrow this bit of business. "By all means," +said Henry. "With great pleasure." + +"Then, why didn't you do it?" inquired my daughter bluntly when the +actor was telling us how kind and courteous Henry had been in allowing +him to use his stroke of invention. + +"What do you mean?" asked the astonished actor. + +My daughter told him that Henry had dropped the curtain on a stage full +of noise, and light, and revelry. When it went up again the stage was +empty, desolate, with no light but a pale moon, and all sounds of life +at a great distance--and then over the bridge came the wearied figure of +the Jew. This marked the passing of the time between Jessica's elopement +and Shylock's return home. It created an atmosphere of silence, and the +middle of the night. + +"_You_ came back without dropping the curtain," said my daughter, "and +so it wasn't a bit the same." + +"I couldn't risk dropping the curtain for the business," answered the +actor, "_because it needed applause to take it up again_!" + +Henry Irving never grew tired of a part, never ceased to work at it, +just as he never gave up the fight against his limitations. His diction, +as the years went on, grew far clearer when he was depicting rage and +passion. His dragging leg dragged no more. To this heroic perseverance +he added an almost childlike eagerness in hearing any suggestion for the +improvement of his interpretations which commended itself to his +imagination and his judgment. From a blind man came the most +illuminating criticism of his Shylock. The sensitive ear of the +sightless hearer detected a fault in Henry Irving's method of delivering +the opening line of his part: + +"Three thousand ducats--well!" + +"I hear no sound of the usurer in that," the blind man said at the end +of the performance. "It is said with the reflective air of a man to whom +money means very little." + +The justice of the criticism appealed strongly to Henry. He revised his +reading not only of the first line, but of many other lines in which he +saw now that he had not been enough of the money-lender. + +In more recent years he made one change in his dress. He asked my +daughter--whose cleverness in such things he fully recognized--to put +some stage jewels on to the scarf that he wore round his head when he +supped with the Christians. + +"I have an idea that, when he went to that supper, he'd like to flaunt +his wealth in the Christian dogs' faces. It will look well, too--'like +the toad, ugly and venomous,' wearing precious jewels on his head!" + +The scarf, witnessing to that untiring love of throwing new light on his +impersonations which distinguished Henry to the last, is now in my +daughter's possession. She values no relic of him more unless it be the +wreath of oak-leaves that she made him for "Coriolanus." + +We had a beautiful scene for this play--a garden with a dark pine forest +in the distance. Henry was _not_ good in it. He had a Romeo part which +had not been written by Shakespeare. We played it instead of the last +act of "The Merchant of Venice." I never liked it being left out, but +people used to say, like parrots, that "the interest of the play ended +with the Trial Scene," and Henry believed them--for a time. I never did. +Shakespeare _never_ gives up in the last act like most dramatists. + +Twice in "Iolanthe" I forgot that I was blind! The first time was when I +saw old Tom Mead and Henry Irving groping for the amulet, which they had +to put on my breast to heal me of my infirmity. It had slipped on to the +floor, and both of them were too short-sighted to see it! Here was a +predicament! I had to stoop and pick it up for them. + +The second time I put out my hand and cried: "Look out for my lilies," +when Henry nearly stepped on the bunch with which a little girl friend +of mine supplied me every night I played the part. + +Iolanthe was one of Helen Faucit's great successes. I never saw this +distinguished actress when she was in her prime. Her Rosalind, when she +came out of her retirement to play a few performances, appeared to me +more like a _lecture_ on Rosalind, than like Rosalind herself: a lecture +all young actresses would have greatly benefited by hearing, for it was +of great beauty. I remember being particularly struck by her treatment +of the lines in the scene where Celia conducts the mock marriage between +Orlando and Ganymede. Another actress, whom I saw as Rosalind, said the +words, "And I do take thee, Orlando, to be my husband," with a comical +grimace to the audience. Helen Faucit flushed up and said the line with +deep and true emotion, suggesting that she was, indeed, giving herself +to Orlando. There was a world of poetry in the way she drooped over his +hand. + +Mead distinguished himself in "Iolanthe" by speaking of "that immortal +land where God hath His--His--er--room?--no--lodging?--no--where God +hath His apartments!" + +The word he could not hit was, I think, "dwelling." He used often to try +five or six words before he got the right one _or_ the wrong one--it was +generally the wrong one--in full hearing of the audience. + + + + +IX + +LYCEUM PRODUCTIONS + +"THE MERCHANT OF VENICE" TO "ROMEO AND JULIET" + + +"The Merchant of Venice" was acted two hundred and fifty consecutive +nights on the occasion of the first production. On the hundredth night +every member of the audience was presented with Henry Irving's acting +edition of the play bound in white velum--a solid and permanent +souvenir, paper, print and binding all being of the best. The famous +Chiswick Press did all his work of this kind. On the title page was +printed: + + "I count myself in nothing else so happy + As in a soul remembering my good friends." + +At the close of the performance which took place on Saturday, February +14, 1880, Henry entertained a party of 350 to supper on the stage. This +was the first of those enormous gatherings which afterwards became an +institution at the Lyceum. + +It was at this supper that Lord Houghton surprised us all by making a +very sarcastic speech about the stage and actors generally. It was no +doubt more interesting than the "butter" which is usually applied to the +profession at such functions, but every one felt that it was rather rude +to abuse long runs when the company were met to celebrate a hundredth +performance! + +Henry Irving's answer was delightful. He spoke with good sense, good +humour and good breeding, and it was all spontaneous. I wish that a +phonograph had been in existence that night, and that a record had been +taken of the speech. It would be so good for the people who have +asserted that Henry Irving always employed journalists (when he could +not get Poets Laureate!) to write his speeches for him! The voice was +always the voice of Irving, if the hands were sometimes the hands of the +professional writer. When Henry was thrown on his debating resources he +really spoke better than when he prepared a speech, and his letters +prove, if proof were needed, how finely he could write! Those who +represent him as dependent in such matters on the help of literary hacks +are just ignorant of the facts. + +During the many years that I played Portia I seldom had a Bassanio to my +mind. It seems to be a most difficult part, to judge by the colorless +and disappointing renderings that are given of it. George Alexander was +far the best of my Bassanio bunch! Mr. Barnes, "handsome Jack Barnes," +as we called him, was a good actor, is a good actor still, as every one +knows, but his gentility as Bassanio was overwhelming. It was said of +him that he thought more of the rounding of his legs than the charms of +his affianced wife, and that in the love-scenes he appeared to be taking +orders for furniture! This was putting it unkindly, but there was some +truth in it. + +He was so very dignified! My sister Floss (Floss was the first Lyceum +Nerissa) and I once tried to make him laugh by substituting two "almond +rings" for the real rings. "Handsome Jack" lost his temper, which made +us laugh the more. He was quite right to be angry. Such fooling on the +stage is very silly. I think it is one of the evils of long runs! When +we had seen "handsome Jack Barnes" imperturbably pompous for two hundred +nights in succession, it became too much for us, and the almond rings +were the result. + +Mr. Tyars was the Prince of Morocco. Actors might come, and actors might +go in the Lyceum company, but Tyars went on for ever. He never left +Henry Irving's management, and was with him in that last performance of +"Becket" at Bradford on October 13, 1905--the last performance ever +given by Henry Irving who died the same night. + +Tyars was the most useful actor that we ever had in the company. I +should think that the number of parts he has played in the same piece +would constitute a theatrical record. + +I don't remember when Tom Mead first played the Duke, but I remember +what happened! + + "Shylock, the world thinks, and I think so too." + +He began the speech in the Trial Scene very slowly. + +Between every word Henry was whispering: "Get on--get on!" Old Mead, +whose memory was never good, became flustered, and at the end of the +line came to a dead stop. + +"Get on, get on," said Henry. + +Mead looked round with dignity, opened his mouth and shut it, opened it +again, and in his anxiety to oblige Henry, did get on indeed!--to the +last line of the long speech. + + "We all expect a gentle answer, Jew." + +The first line and the last line were all that we heard of the Duke's +speech that night. It must have been the shortest version of it on +record. + +This was the play with which the Lyceum reopened in the autumn of 1880. +I was on the last of my provincial tours with Charles Kelly at the time, +but I must have come up to see the revival, for I remember Henry Irving +in it very distinctly. He had not played the dual r™le of Louis and +Fabien del Franchi before, and he had to compete with old playgoers' +memories of Charles Kean and Fechter. Wisely enough he made of it a +"period" play, emphasizing its old-fashioned atmosphere. In 1891, when +the play was revived, the D'Orsay costumes were noticed and considered +piquant and charming. In 1880 I am afraid they were regarded with +indifference as merely antiquated. + +The grace and elegance of Henry as the civilized brother I shall never +forget. There was something in _him_ to which the perfect style of the +D'Orsay period appealed, and he spoke the stilted language with as much +truth as he wore the cravat and the tight-waisted full-breasted coats. +Such lines as-- + + "'Tis she! Her footstep beats upon my heart!" + +were not absurd from his lips. + +The sincerity of the period, he felt, lay in its elegance. A rough +movement, a too undeliberate speech, and the absurdity of the thing +might be given away. It was in fact given away by Terriss at +Ch‰teau-Renaud, who was not the smooth, graceful, courteous villain that +Alfred Wigan had been and that Henry wanted. He told me that he paid +Miss Fowler, an actress who in other respects was not very remarkable, +an enormous salary because she could look the high-bred lady of elegant +manners. + +It was in "The Corsican Brothers" that tableau curtains were first used +at the Lyceum. They were made of red plush, which suited the old +decoration of the theater. Those who only saw the Lyceum after its +renovation in 1881 do not realize perhaps that before that date it was +decorated in dull gold and dark crimson, and had funny boxes with high +fronts like old-fashioned church pews. One of these boxes was rented +annually by the Baroness Burdett-Coutts. It was rather like the toy +cardboard theater which children used to be able to buy for sixpence. +The effect was somber, but I think I liked it better than the cold, +light, shallow, bastard Pompeian decoration of later days. + +In Hallam Tennyson's life of his father, I find that I described "The +Cup" as a "great little play." After thirty years (nearly) I stick to +that. Its chief fault was that it was not long enough, for it involved a +tremendous production, tremendous acting, had all the heroic size of +tragedy, and yet was all over so quickly that we could play a long play +like "The Corsican Brothers" with it in a single evening. + +Tennyson read the play to us at Eaton Place. There were present Henry +Irving, Ellen Terry, William Terriss, Mr. Knowles, who had arranged the +reading, my daughter Edy, who was then about nine, Hallam Tennyson, +_and_ a dog--I think Charlie, for the days of Fussie were not yet. + +Tennyson, like most poets, read in a monotone, rumbling on a low note +in much the same way that Shelley is said to have screamed in a high +one. For the women's parts he changed his voice suddenly, climbed up +into a key which he could not sustain. In spite of this I was beginning +to think how impressive it all was, when I looked up and saw Edy, who +was sitting on Henry's knee, looking over his shoulder at young Hallam +and laughing, and Henry, instead of reproaching her, on the broad grin. +There was much discussion as to what the play should be called, and as +to whether the names "Synorix" and "Sinnatus" would be confused. + +"I don't think they will," I said, for I thought this was a very small +matter for the poet to worry about. + +"I do!" said Edy in a loud clear voice, "I haven't known one from the +other all the time!" + +"Edy, be good!" I whispered. + +Henry, mischievous as usual, was delighted at Edy's independence, but +her mother was unutterably ashamed. + +"Leave her alone," said Henry, "she's all right." + +Tennyson at first wanted to call the play "The Senator's Wife," then +thought of "Sinnatus and Synorix," and finally agreed with us that "The +Cup" was the best as it was the simplest title. + +The production was one of the most beautiful things that Henry Irving +ever accomplished. It has been described again and again, but none of +the descriptions are very successful. There was a vastness, a +spaciousness of proportion about the scene in the Temple of Artemis +which I never saw again upon the stage until my own son attempted +something like it in the Church Scene that he designed for my +production of "Much Ado About Nothing" in 1903. + +A great deal of the effect was due to the lighting. The gigantic figure +of the many-breasted Artemis, placed far back in the scene-dock, loomed +through a blue mist, while the foreground of the picture was in yellow +light. The thrilling effect always to be gained on the stage by the +simple expedient of a great number of people doing the same thing in the +same way at the same moment, was seen in "The Cup," when the stage was +covered with a crowd of women who raised their arms above their heads +with a large, rhythmic, sweeping movement and then bowed to the goddess +with the regularity of a regiment saluting. + +At rehearsals there was one girl who did this movement with peculiar +grace. She wore a black velveteen dress, although it was very hot +weather, and I called her "Hamlet." I used to chaff her about wearing +such a grand dress at rehearsals, but she was never to be seen in any +other. The girls at the theater told me that she was very poor, and that +underneath her black velveteen dress, which she wore summer and winter, +she had nothing but a pair of stockings and a chemise. Not long after +the first night of "The Cup" she disappeared. I made inquiries about +her, and found that she was dying in hospital. I went several times to +see her. She looked so beautiful in the little white bed. Her great +eyes, black, with weary white lids, used to follow me as I left the +hospital ward, and I could not always tear myself away from their dumb +beseechingness, but would turn back and sit down again by the bed. Once +she asked me if I would leave something belonging to me that she might +look at until I came again. I took off the amber and coral beads that I +was wearing at the time and gave them to her. Two days later I had a +letter from the nurse telling me that poor Hamlet was dead--that just +before she died, with closed eyes, and gasping for breath, she sent her +love to her "dear Miss Terry," and wanted me to know that the tall +lilies I had brought her on my last visit were to be buried with her, +but that she had wiped the coral and amber beads and put them in +cotton-wool, to be returned to me when she was dead. Poor "Hamlet"! + +Quite as wonderful as the Temple Scene was the setting of the first act, +which represented the rocky side of a mountain with a glimpse of a +fertile table-land and a pergola with vines growing over it at the top. +The acting in this scene all took place on different levels. The hunt +swept past on one level; the entrance to the temple was on another. A +goatherd played upon a pipe. Scenically speaking, it was not Greece, but +Greece in Sicily, Capri, or some such hilly region. + +Henry Irving was not able to look like the full-lipped, full-blooded +Romans such as we see in long lines in marble at the British Museum, so +he conceived his own type of the blend of Roman intellect and sensuality +with barbarian cruelty and lust. Tennyson was not pleased with him as +Synorix! _How_ he failed to delight in it as a picture I can't conceive. +With a pale, pale face, bright red hair, gold armor and a tiger-skin, a +diabolical expression and very thin crimson lips, Henry looked handsome +and sickening at the same time. _Lechery_ was written across his +forehead. + +The first act was well within my means; the second was beyond them, but +it was very good for me to try and do it. I had a long apostrophe to the +goddess with my back turned to the audience, and I never tackled +anything more difficult. My dresses, designed by Mr. Godwin, one of them +with the toga made of that wonderful material which Arnott had printed, +were simple, fine and free. + +I wrote to Tennyson's son Hallam after the first night that I knew his +father would be delighted with Henry's splendid performance, but was +afraid he would be disappointed in me. + +"Dear Camma," he answered, "I have given your messages to my father, +but believe me, who am not 'common report,' that he will thoroughly +appreciate your noble, _most_ beautiful and imaginative rendering of +'Camma.' My father and myself hope to see you soon, but not while this +detestable cold weather lasts. We trust that you are not now really the +worse for that night of nights. + +"With all our best wishes, + +"Yours ever sincerely, + +"HALLAM TENNYSON." + +"I quite agree with you as to H.I.'s Synorix." + +The music of "The Cup" was not up to the level of the rest. Lady +Winchilsea's setting of "Moon on the field and the foam," written within +the compass of eight notes, for my poor singing voice, which will not go +up high nor down low, was effective enough, but the music as a whole was +too "chatty" for a severe tragedy. One night when I was singing my very +best: + + "Moon, bring him home, bring him home, + Safe from the dark and the cold," + +some one in the audience _sneezed_. Every one burst out laughing, and I +had to laugh too. I did not even attempt the next line. + +"The Cup" was called a failure, but it ran 125 nights, and every night +the house was crowded! On the hundredth night I sent Tennyson the Cup +itself. I had it made in silver from Mr. Godwin's design--a +three-handled cup, pipkin-shaped, standing on three legs. + +"The Cup" and "The Corsican Brothers" together made the bill too heavy +and too long, even at a time when we still "rang up" at 7:30; and in the +April following the production of Tennyson's beautiful tragedy--which I +think in sheer poetic intensity surpasses "Becket," although it is not +nearly so good a play--"The Belle's Stratagem" was substituted for "The +Corsican Brothers." This was the first real rollicking comedy that a +Lyceum audience had ever seen, and the way they laughed did my heart +good. I had had enough of tragedy and the horrors by this time, and I +could have cried with joy at that rare and welcome sight--an audience +rocking with laughter. On the first night the play opened propitiously +enough with a loud laugh due to the only accident of the kind that ever +happened at the Lyceum. The curtain went up before the staff had +"cleared," and Arnott, Jimmy and the rest were seen running for their +lives out of the center entrance! + +People said that it was so clever of me to play Camma and Letitia Hardy +(the comedy part in "The Belle's Stratagem") on the same evening. They +used to say the same kind thing, "only more so," when Henry played +Jingle and Matthias in "The Bells." But I never liked doing it. A _tour +de force_ is always more interesting to the looker-on than to the person +who is taking part in it. One feels no pride in such an achievement, +which ought to be possible to any one calling himself an actor. +Personally, I never play comedy and tragedy on the same night without a +sense that one is spoiling the other. Harmonies are more beautiful than +contrasts in acting as in other things--and more difficult, too. + +Henry Irving was immensely funny as Doricourt. We had sort of Beatrice +and Benedick scenes together, and I began to notice what a lot his +_face_ did for him. There have only been two faces on the stage in my +time--his and Duse's. + +My face has never been of much use to me, but my _pace_ has filled the +deficiency sometimes, in comedy at any rate. In "The Belle's Stratagem" +the public had face and pace together, and they seemed to like it. + +There was one scene in which I sang "Where are you going to, my pretty +maid?" I used to act it all the way through and give imitations of +Doricourt--ending up by chucking him under the chin. The house rose at +it! + +I was often asked at this time when I went out to a party if I would not +sing that dear little song from "The Cup." When I said I didn't think it +would sound very nice without the harp, as it was only a chant on two or +three notes, some one would say: + +"Well, then, the song in 'The Belle's Stratagem'! _That_ has no +accompaniment!" + +"No," I used to answer, "but it isn't a song. It's a look here, a +gesture there, a laugh anywhere, _and_ Henry Irving's face everywhere!" + +Miss Winifred Emery came to us for "The Belle's Stratagem" and played +the part that I had played years before at the Haymarket. She was +bewitching, and in her white wig in the ball-room, beautiful as well. +She knew how to bear herself on the stage instinctively, and could dance +a minuet to perfection. The daughter of Sam Emery, a great comedian in a +day of comedians, and the granddaughter of _the_ Emery, it was not +surprising that she should show aptitude for the stage. + +Mr. Howe was another new arrival in the Lyceum company. He was at his +funniest as Mr. Hardy in "The Belle's Stratagem." It was not the first +time that he had played my father in a piece (we had acted father and +daughter in "The Little Treasure"), and I always called him "Daddy." The +dear old man was much liked by every one. He had a tremendous pair of +legs, was bluff and bustling in manner, though courtly too, and cared +more about gardening than acting. He had a little farm at Isleworth, and +he was one of those actors who do not allow the longest theatrical +season to interfere with domesticity and horticulture! Because of his +stout gaitered legs and his Isleworth estate, Henry called him "the +agricultural actor." He was a good old port and whisky drinker, but he +could carry his liquor like a Regency man. + +He was a walking history of the stage. "Yes, my dear," he used to say to +me, "I was in the original cast of the first performance of 'The Lady of +Lyons,' which Lord Lytton gave Macready as a present, and I was the +original Franois when 'Richelieu' was produced. Lord Lytton wrote this +part for a lady, but at rehearsal it was found that there was a good +deal of movement awkward for a lady to do, so I was put into it." + +"What year was it, Daddy?" + +"God bless me, I must think.... It must have been about a year after Her +Majesty took the throne." + +For forty years and nine months old Mr. Howe had acted at the Haymarket +Theater! When he was first there, the theater was lighted with oil +lamps, and when a lamp smoked or went out, one of the servants of the +theater came on and lighted it up again during the action of the play. + +It was the acting of Edmund Kean in "Richard III." which first filled +Daddy Howe with the desire to go on the stage. He saw the great actor +again when he was living in retirement at Richmond--in those last sad +days when the Baroness Burdett-Coutts (then the rich young heiress, Miss +Angela Burdett-Coutts), driving up the hill, saw him sitting huddled up +on one of the public seats and asked if she could do anything for him. + +"Nothing, I think," he answered sadly. "Ah yes, there is one thing. You +were kind enough the other day to send me some very excellent brandy. +_Send me some more._"[1] + +[Footnote 1: This was a favorite story of Henry Irving's, and for that +reason alone I think it worth telling, although Sir Squire Bancroft +assures me that stubborn dates make it impossible that the tale should +be true.] + +Of Henry Irving as an actor Mr. Howe once said to me that at first he +was prejudiced against him because he was so different from the other +great actors that he had known. + +"'This isn't a bit like Iago,' I said to myself when I first saw him in +'Othello.' That was at the end of the first act. But he had commanded my +attention to his innovations. In the second act I found myself deeply +interested in watching and studying the development of his conception. +In the third act I was fascinated by his originality. By the end of the +play I wondered that I could ever have thought that the part ought to be +played differently." + +Daddy Howe was the first member of the Lyceum company who got a +reception from the audience on his entrance as a public favorite. He +remained with us until his death, which took place on our fourth +American tour in 1893. + +Every one has commended Henry Irving's kindly courtesy in inviting Edwin +Booth to come and play with him at the Lyceum Theater. Booth was having +a wretched season at the Princess's, which was when he went there a +theater on the down-grade, and under a thoroughly commercial management. +The great American actor, through much domestic trouble and bereavement, +had more or less "given up" things. At any rate he had not the spirit +which can combat such treatment as he received at the Princess's, where +the pieces in which he appeared were "thrown" on to the stage with every +mark of assumption that he was not going to be a success. + +Yet, although he accepted with gratitude Henry Irving's suggestion that +he should migrate from the Princess's to the Lyceum and appear there +three times a week as Othello with the Lyceum company and its manager to +support him, I cannot be sure that Booth's pride was not more hurt by +this magnificent hospitality than it ever could have been by disaster. +It is always more difficult to _receive_ than to _give_. + +Few people thought of this, I suppose. I did, because I could imagine +Henry Irving in America in the same situation--accepting the hospitality +of Booth. Would not he too have been melancholy, quiet, unassertive, +_almost_ as uninteresting and uninterested as Booth was? + +I saw him first at a benefit performance at Drury Lane. I came to the +door of the room where Henry was dressing, and Booth was sitting there +with his back to me. + +"Here's Miss Terry," said Henry as I came round the door. Booth looked +up at me swiftly. I have never in any face, in any country, seen such +wonderful eyes. There was a mystery about his appearance and his +manner--a sort of pride which seemed to say: "Don't try to know me, for +I am not what I have been." He seemed broken, and devoid of ambition. + +At rehearsal he was very gentle and apathetic. Accustomed to playing +Othello with stock companies, he had few suggestions to make about the +stage-management. The part was to him more or less of a monologue. + +"I shall never make you black," he said one morning. "When I take your +hand I shall have a corner of my drapery in my hand. That will protect +you." + +I am bound to say that I thought of Mr. Booth's "protection" with some +yearning the next week when I played Desdemona to _Henry's_ Othello. +Before he had done with me I was nearly as black as he. + +Booth was a melancholy, dignified Othello, but not great as Salvini was +great. Salvini's Hamlet made me scream with mirth, but his Othello was +the grandest, biggest, most glorious thing. We often prate of "reserved +force." Salvini had it, for the simple reason that his was the gigantic +force which may be restrained because of its immensity. Men have no need +to dam up a little purling brook. If they do it in acting, it is tame, +absurd and pretentious. But Salvini held himself in, and still his groan +was like a tempest, his passion huge. + +The fact is that, apart from Salvini's personal genius, the foreign +temperament is better fitted to deal with Othello than the English. +Shakespeare's French and Italians, Greeks and Latins, medievals and +barbarians, fancifuls and reals, all have a dash of Elizabethan English +men in them, but not Othello. + +Booth's Othello was very helpful to my Desdemona. It is difficult to +preserve the simple, heroic blindness of Desdemona to the fact that her +lord mistrusts her, if her lord is raving and stamping under her nose! +Booth was gentle in the scenes with Desdemona until _the_ scene where +Othello overwhelms her with the foul word and destroys her fool's +paradise. Love _does_ make fools of us all, surely, but I wanted to make +Desdemona out the fool who is the victim of love and faith; not the +simpleton, whose want of tact in continually pleading Cassio's cause is +sometimes irritating to the audience. + +My greatest triumph as Desdemona was not gained with the audience but +with Henry Irving! He found my endeavors to accept comfort from Iago so +pathetic that they brought the tears to his eyes. It was the oddest +sensation when I said "Oh, good Iago, what shall I do to win my lord +again?" to look up--my own eyes dry, for Desdemona is past crying +then--and see Henry's eyes at their biggest, luminous, soft and full of +tears! He was, in spite of Iago and in spite of his power of identifying +himself with the part, very deeply moved by my acting. But he knew how +to turn it to his purpose: he obtrusively took the tears with his +fingers and blew his nose with much feeling, softly and long (so much +expression there is, by the way, in blowing the nose on the stage), so +that the audience might think his emotion a fresh stroke of hypocrisy. + +Every one liked Henry's Iago. For the first time in his life he knew +what it was to win unanimous praise. Nothing could be better, I think, +than Mr. Walkley's[1] description: "Daringly Italian, a true compatriot +of the Borgias, or rather, better than Italians, that devil incarnate, +an Englishman Italianate." + +[Footnote 1: Mr. A.B. Walkley, the gifted dramatic critic of _The +Times_.] + +One adored him, devil though he was. He was so full of charm, so +sincerely the "honest" Iago, peculiarly sympathetic with Othello, +Desdemona, Roderigo, _all_ of them--except his wife. It was only in the +soliloquies and in the scenes with his wife that he revealed his devil's +nature. Could one ever forget those grapes which he plucked in the first +act, and slowly ate, spitting out the seeds, as if each one represented +a worthy virtue to be put out of his mouth, as God, according to the +evangelist, puts out the lukewarm virtues. His Iago and his Romeo in +different ways proved his power to portray _Italian_ passions--the +passions of lovely, treacherous people, who will either sing you a love +sonnet or stab you in the back--you are not sure which! + +We played "Othello" for six weeks, three performances a week, to guinea +stalls, and could have played it longer. Each week Henry and Booth +changed parts. For both of them it was a change _for the worse_. + +Booth's Iago seemed deadly commonplace after Henry's. He was always the +snake in the grass; he showed the villain in all the scenes. He could +not resist the temptation of making polished and ornate effects. + +Henry Irving's Othello was condemned almost as universally as his Iago +was praised. For once I find myself with the majority. He screamed and +ranted and raved--lost his voice, was slow where he should have been +swift, incoherent where he should have been strong. I could not bear to +see him in the part. It was painful to me. Yet night after night he +achieved in the speech to the Senate one of the most superb and +beautiful bits of acting of his life. It was _wonderful_. He spoke the +speech, beaming on Desdemona all the time. The gallantry of the thing is +indescribable. + +I think his failure as Othello was one of the unspoken bitternesses of +Henry's life. When I say "failure" I am of course judging him by his own +standard, and using the word to describe what he was to himself, not +what he was to the public. On the last night, he rolled up the clothes +that he had worn as the Moor one by one, carefully laying one garment on +top of the other, and then, half-humorously and very deliberately said, +"_Never again_!" Then he stretched himself with his arms above his head +and gave a great sigh of relief. + +Mr. Pinero was excellent as Roderigo in this production. He was always +good in the "silly ass" type of part, and no one could say of him that +he was playing himself! + +Desdemona is not counted a big part by actresses, but I loved playing +it. Some nights I played it beautifully. My appearance was right--I was +such a poor wraith of a thing. But let there be no mistake--it took +strength to act this weakness and passiveness of Desdemona's. I soon +found that, like Cordelia, she has plenty of character. + +Reading the play the other day, I studied the opening scene. It is the +finest opening to a play I know. + +How many times Shakespeare draws fathers and daughters, and how little +stock he seems to take of _mothers_! Portia and Desdemona, Cordelia, +Rosalind and Miranda, Lady Macbeth, Queen Katherine and Hermione, +Ophelia, Jessica, Hero, and many more are daughters of _fathers_, but of +their mothers we hear nothing. My own daughter called my attention to +this fact quite recently, and it is really a singular fact. Of mothers +of sons there are plenty of examples: Constance, Volumnia, the Countess +Rousillon, Gertrude; but if there are mothers of daughters at all, they +are poor examples, like Juliet's mother and Mrs. Page. I wonder if in +all the many hundreds of books written on Shakespeare and his plays this +point has been taken up? I once wrote a paper on the "Letters in +Shakespeare's Plays," and congratulated myself that they had never been +made a separate study. The very day after I first read my paper before +the British Empire Shakespeare League, a lady wrote to me from Oxford +and said I was mistaken in thinking that there was no other contribution +to the subject. She enclosed an essay of her own which had either been +published or read before some society. Probably some one else has dealt +with Shakespeare's patronage of fathers and neglect of mothers! I often +wonder what the mothers of Goneril, Regan, and Cordelia were like! I +think Lear must have married twice. + +This was the first of Henry Irving's great Shakespearean productions. +"Hamlet" and "Othello" had been mounted with care, but, in spite of +statements that I have seen to the contrary, they were not true +reflections of Irving as a producer. In beauty I do not think that +"Romeo and Juliet" surpassed "The Cup," but it was very sumptuous, +impressive and Italian. It was the most _elaborate_ of all the Lyceum +productions. In it Henry first displayed his mastery of crowds. The +brawling of the rival houses in the streets, the procession of girls to +wake Juliet on her wedding morning, the musicians, the magnificent +reconciliation of the two houses which closed the play, every one on the +stage holding a torch, were all treated with a marvelous sense of +pictorial effect. + +Henry once said to me: "'Hamlet' could be played anywhere on its acting +merits. It marches from situation to situation. But 'Romeo and Juliet' +proceeds from picture to picture. Every line suggests a picture. It is a +dramatic poem rather than a drama, and I mean to treat it from that +point of view." + +While he was preparing the production he revived "The Two Roses," a +company in which as Digby Grant he had made a great success years +before. I rehearsed the part of Lottie two or three times, but Henry +released me because I was studying Juliet; and as he said, "You've got +to do all you know with it." + +Perhaps the sense of this responsibility weighed on me. Perhaps I was +neither young enough nor old enough to play Juliet. I read everything +that had ever been written about her before I had myself decided what +she was. It was a dreadful mistake. That was the first thing wrong with +my Juliet--lack of original impulse. + +As for the second and the third and the fourth--well, I am not more +than common vain, I trust, but I see no occasion to write them _all_ +down. + +It was perhaps the greatest opportunity that I had yet had at the +Lyceum. I studied the part at my cottage at Hampton Court in a bedroom +looking out over the park. There was nothing wrong with _that_. By the +way, how important it is to be careful about environment and everything +else when one is studying. One ought to be in the country, but not all +the time.... It is good to go about and see pictures, hear music, and +watch everything. One should be very much alone, and should study early +and late--all night, if need be, even at the cost of sleep. Everything +that one does or thinks or sees will have an effect upon the part, +precisely as on an unborn child. + +I wish now that instead of reading how this and that actress had played +Juliet, and cracking my brain over the different readings of her lines +and making myself familiar with the different opinions of philosophers +and critics, I had gone to Verona, and just _imagined_. Perhaps the most +wonderful description of Juliet, as she should be acted, occurs in +Gabriele d'Annunzio's "Il Fuoco." In the book an Italian actress tells +her friend how she played the part when she was a girl of fourteen in an +open-air theater near Verona. Could a girl of fourteen play such a part? +Yes, if she were not youthful, only young with the youth of the poet, +tragically old as some youth is. + +Now I understand Juliet better. Now I know how she should be played. But +time is inexorable. At sixty, know what one may, one cannot play Juliet. + +I know that Henry Irving's production of "Romeo and Juliet" has been +attributed to my ambition. What nonsense! Henry Irving now had in view +the production of all Shakespeare's actable plays, and naturally "Romeo +and Juliet" would come as early as possible in the programme. + +The music was composed by Sir Julius Benedict, and was exactly right. +There was no _leit-motiv_, no attempt to reflect the passionate emotion +of the drama, but a great deal of Southern joy, of flutes and wood and +wind. At a rehearsal which had lasted far into the night I asked Sir +Julius, who was very old, if he wasn't sleepy. + +"Sleepy! Good heavens, no! I never sleep more than two hours. It's the +end of my life, and I don't want to waste it in sleep!" + +There is generally some "old 'un" in a company now who complains of +insufficient rehearsals, and says, perhaps, "Think of Irving's +rehearsals! They were the real thing." While we were rehearsing "Romeo +and Juliet" I remember that Mrs. Stirling, a charming and ripe old +actress whom Henry had engaged to play the nurse, was always groaning +out that she had not rehearsed enough. + +"Oh, these modern ways!" she used to say. "We never have any rehearsals +at all. How am I going to play the Nurse?" + +She played it splendidly--indeed, she as the Nurse and old Tom Mead as +the Apothecary--the two "old 'uns" romped away with chief honors, had +the play all to nothing. + +I had one battle with Mrs. Stirling over "tradition." It was in the +scene beginning-- + + "The clock struck twelve when I did send the nurse, + And yet she is not here...." + +Tradition said that Juliet must go on coquetting and clicking over the +Nurse to get the news of Romeo out of her. Tradition said that Juliet +must give imitations of the Nurse on the line "Where's your mother?" in +order to get that cheap reward, "a safe laugh." I felt that it was +wrong. I felt that Juliet was angry with the Nurse. Each time she +delayed in answering I lost my temper, with genuine passion. At "Where's +your mother?" I spoke with indignation, tears and rage. We were a long +time coaxing Mrs. Stirling to let the scene be played on these lines, +but this was how it _was_ played eventually. + +She was the only Nurse that I have ever seen who did not play the part +like a female pantaloon. She did not assume any great decrepitude. In +the "Cords" scene, where the Nurse tells Juliet of the death of Paris, +she did not play for comedy at all, but was very emotional. Her parrot +scream when she found me dead was horribly real and effective. + +Years before I had seen Mrs. Stirling act at the Adelphi with Benjamin +Webster, and had cried out: "_That's_ my idea of an actress!" In those +days she was playing Olivia (in a version of the "Vicar of Wakefield" by +Tom Taylor), Peg Woffington, and other parts of the kind. She swept on +to the stage and in that magical way, never, never to be learned, +_filled_ it. She had such breadth of style, such a lovely voice, such a +beautiful expressive eye! When she played the Nurse at the Lyceum her +voice had become a little jangled and harsh, but her eye was still +bright and her art had not abated--not one little bit! Nor had her +charm. Her smile was the most fascinating, irresistible thing +imaginable. + +The production was received with abuse by the critics. It was one of our +failures, yet it ran a hundred and fifty nights! + +Henry Irving's Romeo had more bricks thrown at it even than my Juliet! I +remember that not long after we opened, a well-known politician who had +enough wit and knowledge of the theater to have taken a more original +view, came up to me and said: + +"I say, E.T., why is Irving playing Romeo?" + +I looked at his distraught. "You should ask me why I am playing Juliet! +Why are we any of us doing what we have to do?" + +"Oh, _you're_ all right. But Irving!" + +"I don't agree with you," I said. I was growing a little angry by this +time. "Besides, who would you have play Romeo?" + +"Well, it's so obvious. You've got Terriss in the cast." + +"_Terriss!_" + +"Yes. I don't doubt Irving's intellectuality, you know. As Romeo he +reminds me of a pig who has been taught to play the fiddle. He does it +cleverly, but he would be better employed in squealing. He cannot shine +in the part like the fiddler. Terriss in this case is the fiddler." + +I was furious. "I am sorry you don't realize," I said, "that the worst +thing Henry Irving could do would be better than the best of any one +else." + +When dear Terris did play Romeo at the Lyceum two or three years later +to the Juliet of Mary Anderson, he attacked the part with a good deal of +fire. He was young, truly, and stamped his foot a great deal, was +vehement and passionate. But it was so obvious that there was no +intelligence behind his reading. He did not know what the part was +about, and all the finer shades of meaning in it he missed. Yet the +majority, with my political friend, would always prefer a Terriss as +Romeo to a Henry Irving. + +I am not going to say that Henry's Romeo was good. What I do say is that +some bits of it were as good as anything he ever did. In the big +emotional scene (in the Friar's cell), he came to grief precisely as he +had done in Othello. He screamed, grew slower and slower, and looked +older and older. When I begin to think it over I see that he often +failed in such scenes through his very genius for impersonation. An +actor of commoner mould takes such scenes rhetorically--recites them, +and gets through them with some success. But the actor who impersonates, +feels, and lives such anguish or passion or tempestuous grief, does for +the moment in imagination nearly die. Imagination impeded Henry Irving +in what are known as "strong" scenes. + +He was a perfect Hamlet, a perfect Richard III., a perfect Shylock, +except in the scene with Tubal, where I think his voice failed him. He +was an imperfect Romeo; yet, as I have said, he did things in the part +which were equal to the best of his perfect Hamlet. + +His whole attitude before he met Juliet was beautiful. He came on from +the very back of the stage and walked over a little bridge with a book +in his hand, sighing and dying for Rosaline. In Iago he had been +Italian. Then it was the Italy of Venice. As Romeo it was the Italy of +Tuscany. His clothes were as Florentine as his bearing. He ignored the +silly tradition that Romeo must wear a feather in his cap. In the course +of his study of the part he had found that the youthful fops and +gallants of the period put in their hats anything that they had been +given--some souvenir "dallying with the innocence of love." And he wore +in his hat a sprig of crimson oleander. + +It is not usual, I think, to make much of the Rosaline episode. Henry +Irving chose with great care a tall dark girl to represent Rosaline at +the ball. Can I ever forget his face when suddenly in pursuit of _her_ +he saw _me_.... Once more I reflect that a _face_ is the chiefest +equipment of the actor. + +I know they said he looked too old--was too old for Romeo. In some +scenes he looked aged as only a very young man can look. He was not +boyish; but ought Romeo to be boyish? + +I am not supporting the idea of an elderly Romeo. When it came to the +scenes where Romeo "poses" and is poetical but insincere, Henry _did_ +seem elderly. He couldn't catch the youthful pose of melancholy with its +extravagant expression. It was in the repressed scenes, where the +melancholy was sincere, the feeling deeper, and the expression slighter, +that he was at his best. + +"He may be good, but he isn't Romeo," is a favorite type of criticism. +But I have seen Duse and Bernhardt in "La Dame aux CamŽlias," and cannot +say which is Marguerite Gauthier. Each has her own view of the +character, and each _is_ it _according to her imagination_. + +According to his imagination, Henry Irving was Romeo. + +Again in this play he used his favorite "fate" tree. It gloomed over the +street along which Romeo went to the ball. It was in the scene with the +Apothecary. Henry thought that it symbolized the destiny hanging over +the lovers. + +It is usual for Romeo to go in to the dead body of Juliet lying in +Capulet's monument through a gate on the _level_, as if the Capulets +were buried but a few feet from the road. At rehearsals Henry Irving +kept on saying: "I must go _down_ to the vault." After a great deal of +consideration he had an inspiration. He had the exterior of the vault in +one scene, the entrance to it down a flight of steps. Then the scene +changed to the interior of the vault, and the steps now led from a +height above the stage. At the close of the scene, when the Friar and +the crowd came rushing down into the tomb, these steps were thronged +with people, each one holding a torch, and the effect was magnificent. + +At the opening of the Apothecary Scene, when Balthazar comes to tell +Romeo of Juliet's supposed death, Henry was marvelous. His face grew +whiter and whiter. + + "Then she is well and nothing can be ill; + Her body sleeps in Capulet's monument." + +It was during the silence after those two lines that Henry Irving as +Romeo had one of those sublime moments which an actor only achieves once +or twice in his life. The only thing that I ever saw to compare with it +was Duse's moment when she took Kellner's card in "Magda." There was +absolutely no movement, but her face grew white, and the audience knew +what was going on in her soul, as she read the name of the man who years +before had seduced and deserted her. + +As Juliet I did not _look_ right. My little daughter Edy, a born +archaeologist, said: "Mother, you oughtn't to have a fringe." Yet, +strangely enough, Henry himself liked me as Juliet. After the first +night, or was it the dress rehearsal--I am not quite clear which--he +wrote to me that "beautiful as Portia was, Juliet leaves her far, far +behind. Never anybody acted more exquisitely the part of the performance +which I saw from the front. 'Hie to high fortune,' and 'Where spirits +resort' were simply incomparable.... Your mother looked very radiant +last night. I told her how proud she should be, and she was.... The play +will be, I believe, a mighty 'go,' for the beauty of it is bewildering. +I am sure of this, for it dumbfounded them all last night. Now +you--we--must make our task a delightful one by doing everything +possible to make our acting easy and comfortable. We are in for a long +run." + +To this letter he added a very human postscript: "I have determined not +to see a paper for a week--I know they'll cut me up, and I don't like +it!" + +Yes, he _was_ cut up, and he didn't like it, but a few people knew. One +of them was Mr. Frankfort Moore, the novelist, who wrote to me of this +"revealing Romeo, full of originality and power." + +"Are you affected by adverse criticism?" I was asked once. I answered +then and I answer now, that legitimate adverse criticism has always been +of use to me if only because it "gave me to think" furiously. Seldom +does the outsider, however talented, as a writer and observer, recognize +the actor's art, and often we are told that we are acting best when we +are showing the works most plainly, and denied any special virtue when +we are concealing our method. Professional criticism is most helpful, +chiefly because it induces one to criticize oneself. "Did I give that +impression to anyone? Then there must have been something wrong +somewhere." The "something" is often a perfectly different blemish from +that to which the critic drew attention. + +Unprofessional criticism is often more helpful still, but alas! one's +friends are to one's faults more than a little blind, and to one's +virtues very kind! It is through letters from people quite unknown to me +that I have sometimes learned valuable lessons. During the run of "Romeo +and Juliet" some one wrote and told me that if the dialogue at the ball +could be taken in a lighter and _quicker_ way, it would better express +the manner of a girl of Juliet's age. The same unknown critic pointed +out that I was too slow and studied in the Balcony Scene. She--I think +it was a woman--was perfectly right. + +On the hundredth night, although no one liked my Juliet very much, I +received many flowers, little tokens, and poems. To one bouquet was +pinned a note which ran: + + "To JULIET, + As a mark of respect and Esteem + From the Gasmen of the Lyceum Theater." + +That alone would have made my recollections of "Romeo and Juliet" +pleasant. But there was more. At the supper on the stage after the +hundredth performance, Sarah Bernhardt was present. She said nice things +to me, and I was enraptured that my "vraies larmes" should have pleased +and astonished her! I noticed that she hardly ever moved, yet all the +time she gave the impression of swift, butterfly movement. While +talking to Henry she took some red stuff out of her bag and rubbed it on +her lips! This frank "making-up" in public was a far more astonishing +thing in the 'eighties than it would be now. But I liked Miss Sarah for +it, as I liked her for everything. + +How wonderful she looked in those days! She was as transparent as an +azalea, only more so; like a cloud, only not so thick. Smoke from a +burning paper describes her more nearly! She was hollow-eyed, thin, +almost consumptive-looking. Her body was not the prison of her soul, but +its shadow. + +On the stage she has always seemed to me more a symbol, an ideal, an +epitome than a _woman_. It is this quality which makes her so easy in +such lofty parts as Phdre. She is always a miracle. Let her play +"L'Aiglon," and while matter-of-fact members of the audience are +wondering if she looks _really_ like the unfortunate King of Rome, and +deciding against her and in favor of Maude Adams who did look the boy to +perfection, more imaginative watchers see in Sarah's performance a truth +far bigger than a mere physical resemblance. Rostand says in the +foreword to his play, that in it he does not espouse this cause or that, +but only tells the story of "one poor little boy." In another of his +plays, "Cyrano de Bergerac," there is one poor little tune played on a +pipe of which the hero says: + + "ƒcoutez, Gascons, c'est toute la Gascogne." + +Though I am not French, and know next to nothing of the language, I +thought when I saw Sarah's "L'Aiglon," that of that one poor little boy +too might be said: + + "ƒcoutez, Franais, c'est toute la France!" + +It is this extraordinary decorative and symbolic quality of Sarah's +which makes her transcend all personal and individual feeling on the +stage. No one plays a love scene better, but it is a _picture_ of love +that she gives, a strange orchidaceous picture rather than a suggestion +of the ordinary human passion as felt by ordinary human people. She is +exotic--well, what else should she be? One does not, at any rate one +should not, quarrel with an exquisite tropical flower and call it +unnatural because it is not a buttercup or a cowslip. + +I have spoken of the face as the chief equipment of the actor. Sarah +Bernhardt contradicts this at once. Her face does little for her. Her +walk is not much. Nothing about her is more remarkable than the way she +gets about the stage without one ever seeing her move. By what magic +does she triumph without two of the richest possessions that an actress +can have? Eleonora Duse has them. Her walk is the walk of the peasant, +fine and free. She has the superb carriage of the head which goes with +that fearless movement from the hips--and her face! There is nothing +like it, nothing! But it is as the real woman, a particular woman, that +Duse triumphs most. Her Cleopatra was insignificant compared with +Sarah's--she is not so pictorial. + +How futile it is to make comparisons! Better far to thank heaven for +both these women. + + EXTRACT FROM MY DIARY + + _Saturday, June 11, 1892._--"To see 'Miss Sarah' as 'ClŽop‰tre' + (Sardou superb!). She was inspired! The essence of Shakespeare's + 'Cleopatra.' I went round and implored her to do Juliet. She said + she was too old. She can _never_ be old. 'Age cannot wither her.' + + _June 18._--"Again to see Sarah--this time 'La Dame aux CamŽlias.' + Fine, marvelous. Her writing the letter, and the last act the best. + + _July 11._--"_Telegraph_ says 'Frou-frou' was 'never at any time a + character in which she (Sarah) excelled.' Dear me! When I saw it I + thought it wonderful. It made me ashamed of ever having played it." + +Sarah Bernhardt has shown herself the equal of any man as a manager. Her +productions are always beautiful; she chooses her company with +discretion, and sees to every detail of the stage-management. In this +respect she differs from all other foreign artists that I have seen. I +have always regretted that Duse should play as a rule with such a +mediocre company and should be apparently so indifferent to her +surroundings. In "Adrienne Lecouvreur" it struck me that the careless +stage-management utterly ruined the play, and I could not bear to see +Duse as Adrienne beautifully dressed while the Princess and the other +Court ladies wore cheap red velveteen and white satin and brought the +pictorial level of the performance down to that of a "fit-up" or booth. + +Who could mention "Miss Sarah" (my own particular name for her) as being +present at a supper-party without saying something about her by the way! +Still, I have been a long time by the way. Now for Romeo and Juliet! + +At that 100th-night celebration I saw Mrs. Langtry in evening dress for +the first time, and for the first time realized how beautiful she was. +Her neck and shoulders kept me so busy looking that I could neither +talk nor listen. + +"Miss Sarah" and I have always been able to understand one another, +although I hardly know a word of French and her English is scanty. She +too, liked my Juliet--she and Henry Irving! Well, that was charming, +although I could not like it myself, except for my "Cords" scene, of +which I shall always be proud. + +My dresser, Sarah Holland, came to me, I think, during "Romeo and +Juliet." I never had any other dresser at the Lyceum except Sally's +sister Lizzie, who dressed me during the first few years. Sally stuck to +me loyally until the Lyceum days ended. Then she perceived "a divided +duty." On one side was "the Guv'nor" with "the Guv'nor's" valet Walter, +to whom she was devoted; on the other was a precarious in and out job +with me, for after the Lyceum I never knew what I was going to do next. +She chose to go with Henry, and it was she and Walter who dressed him +for the last time when he lay dead in the hotel bedroom at Bradford. + +Sally Holland's two little daughters "walked on" in "Romeo and Juliet." +Henry always took an interest in the children in the theater, and was +very kind to them. One night as we came down the stairs from our +dressing-rooms to go home--the theater was quiet and deserted--we found +a small child sitting forlornly and patiently on the lowest step. + +"Well, my dear, what are you doing here?" said Henry. + +"Waiting for mother, sir." + +"Are you acting in the theater?" + +"Yes, sir." + +"And what part do you take?" + +"Please, sir, first I'm a water-carrier, then I'm a little page, and +then I'm a virgin." + +Henry and I sat down on the stairs and laughed until we cried! Little +Flo Holland was one of the troop of "virgins" who came to wake Juliet on +her bridal morn. As time went on she was promoted to more important +parts, but she never made us laugh so much again. + +Her mother was a "character," a dear character. She had an +extraordinarily open mind, and was ready to grasp each new play as it +came along as a separate and entirely different field of operations! She +was also extremely methodical, and only got flurried once in a blue +moon. When we went to America and made the acquaintance of that dreadful +thing, a "one-night stand," she was as precise and particular about +having everything nice and in order for me as if we were going to stay +in the town a month. Down went my neat square of white drugget; all the +lights in my dressing-room were arranged as I wished. Everything was +unpacked and ironed. One day when I came into some American theater to +dress I found Sally nearly in tears. + +"What's the matter with you, Sally?" I asked. + +"I 'aven't 'ad a morsel to heat all day, dear, and I can't 'eat my +iron." + +"Eat your iron, Sally! What _do_ you mean?" + +"'Ow am I to iron all this, dear?" wailed Sally, picking up my Nance +Oldfield apron and a few other trifles. "It won't get 'ot." + +Until then I really thought that Sally was being sardonic about an iron +as a substitute for victuals! + +When she first began to dress me, I was very thin, so thin that it was +really a grief to me. Sally would comfort me in my thin days by the +terse compliment: + +"Beautiful and fat to-night, dear." + +As the years went on and I grew fat, she made a change in the +compliment: + +"Beautiful and thin to-night, dear." + +Mr. Fernandez played Friar Laurence in "Romeo and Juliet." He was a very +nervous actor, and it used to paralyze him with fright when I knelt down +in the friar's cell with my back to the audience and put safety pins in +the drapery I wore over my head to keep it in position while I said the +lines, + + "Are you at leisure, holy father, now + Or shall I come to you at evening mass?" + +Not long after the production of "Romeo and Juliet" I saw the +performance of a Greek play--the "Electra," I think--by some Oxford +students. A young woman veiled in black with bowed head was brought in +on a chariot. Suddenly she lifted her head and looked round, revealing a +face of such pure classic beauty and a glance of such pathos that I +called out: + +"What a supremely beautiful girl!" + +Then I remembered that there were no women in the cast! The face +belonged to a young Oxford man, Frank Benson. + +We engaged him to play Paris in "Romeo and Juliet," when George +Alexander, the original Paris, left the Lyceum for a time. Already +Benson gave promise of turning out quite a different person from the +others. He had not nearly so much of the actor's instinct as Terriss, +but one felt that he had far more earnestness. He was easily +distinguished as a man with a purpose, one of those workers who "scorn +delights and live laborious days." Those laborious days led him at last +to the control of two or three companies, all traveling through Great +Britain playing a Shakespearean rŽpertoire. A wonderful organizer, a +good actor (oddly enough, the more difficult the part the better he +is--I like his _Lear_), and a man who has always been associated with +high endeavor, Frank Benson's name is honored all over England. He was +only at the Lyceum for this one production, but he always regarded Henry +Irving as the source of the good work that he did afterwards. + +"Thank you very much," he wrote to me after his first night as Paris, +"for writing me a word of encouragement.... I was very much ashamed and +disgusted with myself all Sunday for my poverty-stricken and thin +performance.... I think I was a little better last night. Indeed I was +much touched at the kindness and sympathy of all the company and their +efforts to make the awkward new boy feel at home.... I feel doubly +grateful to you and Mr. Irving for the light you shed from the lamp of +art on life now that I begin to understand the labor and weariness the +process of trimming the Lamp entails." + + + + +X + +LYCEUM PRODUCTIONS (_continued_) + +"MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING" TO "FAUST" + + +Our success with "The Belle's Stratagem" had pointed to comedy, to +Beatrice and Benedick in particular, because in Mrs. Cowley's old comedy +we had had some scenes of the same type. I have already told of my first +appearance as Beatrice at Leeds, and said that I never played the part +so well again; but the Lyceum production was a great success, and +Beatrice a great personal success for me. It is only in high comedy that +people seem to know what I am driving at! + +The stage-management of the play was very good; the scenery nothing out +of the ordinary except for the Church Scene. There was no question that +it _was_ a church, hardly a question that old Mead was a Friar. Henry +had the art of making ceremonies seem very real. + +This was the first time that we engaged a singer from outside. Mr. Jack +Robertson came into the cast to sing "Sigh no more, ladies," and made an +enormous success. + +Johnston Forbes-Robertson made his first appearance at the Lyceum as +Claudio. I had not acted with him since "The Wandering Heir," and his +improvement as an actor in the ten years that had gone by since then was +marvelous. I had once said to him that he had far better stick to his +painting and become an artist instead of an actor. His Claudio made me +"take it back." It was beautiful. I have seen many young actors play the +part since then, but not one of them made it anywhere near as +convincing. Forbes-Robertson put a touch of Leontes into it, a part +which some years later he was to play magnificently, and through the +subtle indication of consuming and insanely suspicious jealousy made +Claudio's offensive conduct explicable at least. On the occasion of the +performance at Drury Lane which the theatrical profession organized in +1906 in honor of my Stage Jubilee, one of the items in the programme was +a scene from "Much Ado about Nothing." I then played Beatrice for the +last time and Forbes-Robertson played his old part of Claudio. + +During the run Henry commissioned him to paint a picture of the Church +Scene, which was hung in the Beefsteak Room. The engravings printed from +it were at one time very popular. When Johnston was asked why he had +chosen that particular moment in the Church Scene, he answered modestly +that it was the only moment when he could put himself as Claudio at the +"side"! Some of the other portraits in the picture are Henry Irving, +Terriss, who played Don Pedro; Jessie Millward as Hero, Mr. Glenny as +Don John, Miss Amy Coleridge, Miss Harwood, Mr. Mead, and his daughter +"Charley" Mead, a pretty little thing who was one of the pages. + +The Lyceum company was not a permanent one. People used to come, learn +something, go away, and come back at a larger salary! Miss Emery left +for a time, and then returned to play Hero and other parts. I liked her +Hero better than Miss Millward's. Miss Millward had a sure touch; +strength, vitality, interest; but somehow she was commonplace in the +part. + +Henry used to spend hours and hours teaching people. I used to think +impatiently: "Acting can't be taught." Gradually I learned to modify +this conviction and to recognize that there are two classes of actors: + +1. Those who can only do what they are taught. + +2. Those who cannot be taught, but can be helped by suggestion to work +out things for themselves. + +Henry said to me once: "What makes a popular actor? Physique! What makes +a great actor? Imagination and sensibility." I tried to believe it. Then +I thought to myself: "Henry himself is not quite what is understood by +'an actor of physique,' and certainly he is popular. And that he is a +great actor I know. He certainly has both imagination and 'sense and +sensibility.'" After the lapse of years I begin to wonder if Henry was +ever really _popular_. It was natural to most people to dislike his +acting--they found it queer, as some find the painting of Whistler--but +he forced them, almost against their will and nature, out of dislike +into admiration. They had to come up to him, for never would he go down +to them. This is not popularity. + +_Brain_ allied with the instinct of the actor tells, but stupidity +allied with the instinct of the actor tells more than brain alone. I +have sometimes seen a clever man who was not a born actor play a small +part with his brains, and have felt that the cleverness was telling more +with the actors on the stage than with the audience. + +Terriss, like Mrs. Pritchard, if we are to believe what Dr. Johnson said +of her, often did not know what on earth he was talking about! One +morning we went over and over one scene in "Much Ado"--at least a dozen +times I should think--and each time when Terriss came to the speech +beginning: + + "What needs the bridge much broader than the flood," + +he managed to give a different emphasis. First it would be: + +"What! _Needs_ the bridge much broader than the flood!" Then: + +"What needs the bridge _much_ broader than the flood." + +After he had been floundering about for some time, Henry said: + +"Terriss, what's the meaning of that?" + +"Oh, get along, Guv'nor, _you_ know!" + +Henry laughed. He never could be angry with Terriss, not even when he +came to rehearsal full of absurd excuses. One day, however, he was so +late that it was past a joke, and Henry spoke to him sharply. + +"I think you'll be sorry you've spoken to me like this, Guv'nor," said +Terriss, casting down his eyes. + +"Now no hanky-panky tricks, Terriss." + +"Tricks, Guv'nor! I think you'll regret having said that when you hear +that my poor mother passed away early this morning." + +And Terriss wept. + +Henry promptly gave him the day off. A few weeks later, when Terriss and +I were looking through the curtain at the audience just before the play +began, he said to me gaily: + +"See that dear old woman sitting in the fourth row of stalls--that's my +dear old mother." + +The wretch had quite forgotten that he had killed her! + +He was the only person who ever ventured to "cheek" Henry, yet he never +gave offense, not even when he wrote a letter of this kind: + +"My dear Guv.,-- + +"I hope you are enjoying yourself, and in the best of health. I very +much want to play 'Othello' with you next year (don't laugh). Shall I +study it up, and will you do it with me on tour if possible? Say _yes_, +and lighten the drooping heart of yours sincerely, + +"WILL TERRISS." + +I have never seen any one at all like Terriss, and my father said the +same. The only actor of my father's day, he used to tell me, who had a +touch of the same insouciance and lawlessness was Leigh Murray, a famous +_jeune premier_. + +One night he came into the theater soaked from head to foot. + +"Is it raining, Terriss?" said some one who noticed that he was wet. + +"Looks like it, doesn't it?" said Terriss carelessly. + +Later it came out that he had jumped off a penny steamboat into the +Thames and saved a little girl's life. It was pretty brave, I think. + +Mr. Pinero, who was no longer a member of the Lyceum company when "Much +Ado" was produced, wrote to Henry after the first night that it was "as +perfect a representation of a Shakespearean play as I conceive to be +possible. I think," he added, "that the work at your theater does so +much to create new playgoers--which is what we want, far more I fancy +than we want new theaters and perhaps new plays." + +A playgoer whose knowledge of the English stage extended over a period +of fifty-five years, wrote another nice letter about "Much Ado" which +was passed on to me because it had some ridiculously nice things about +me in it. + +SAVILE CLUB, +_January 13, 1883._ + +"My dear Henry,-- + +"I were an imbecile ingrate if I did not hasten to give you my warmest +thanks for the splendid entertainment of last night. Such a performance +is not a grand entertainment merely, or a glorious pastime, although it +was all that. It was, too, an artistic display of the highest character, +elevating in the vast audience their art instinct--as well as purifying +any developed art in the possession of individuals. + +"I saw the Kean revivals of 1855-57, and I suppose 'The Winter's Tale' +was the best of the lot. But it did not approach last night.... + +"I was impressed more strongly than ever with the fact that the plays of +Shakespeare were meant to be _acted_. The man who thinks that he can +know Shakespeare by reading him is a shallow ass. The best critic and +scholar would have been carried out of himself last night into the +poet's heart, his mind-spirit.... The Terry was glorious.... The scenes +in which she appeared--and she was in eight out of the sixteen--reminded +me of nothing but the blessed sun that not only beautifies but creates. +But she never acts so well as when I am there to see! That is a real +lover's sentiment, and all lovers are vain men. + +"Terriss has 'come on' wonderfully, and his Don Pedro is princely and +manful. + +"I have thus set down, my dear Irving, one or two things merely to show +that my gratitude to you is not that of a blind gratified idiot, but of +one whose intimate personal knowledge of the English stage entitles him +to say what he owes to you." + +"I am + +"Affectionately yours, + +"A.J. DUFFIELD." + +In 1891, when we revived "Much Ado," Henry's Benedick was far more +brilliant than it was at first. In my diary, January 5, 1891, I wrote: + + "Revival of 'Much Ado about Nothing.' Went most brilliantly. Henry + has vastly improved upon his _old_ rendering of Benedick. Acts + larger now--not so 'finicking.' His model (of manner) is the Duke + of Sutherland. VERY good. I did some parts better, I think--made + Beatrice a nobler woman. Yet I failed to please myself in the + Cathedral Scene." + + _Two days later._--"Played the Church Scene all right at last. More + of a _blaze_. The little scene in the garden, too, I did better (in + the last act). Beatrice has _confessed_ her love, and is now + _softer_. Her voice should be beautiful now, breaking out into + playful defiance now and again, as of old. The last scene, too, I + made much more merry, happy, _soft_." + + _January 8._--"I must make Beatrice more _flashing_ at first, and + _softer_ afterwards. This will be an improvement upon my old + reading of the part. She must be always _merry_ and by turns + scornful, tormenting, vexed, self-communing, absent, melting, + teasing, brilliant, indignant, _sad-merry_, thoughtful, withering, + gentle, humorous, and gay, Gay, _Gay_! Protecting (to Hero), + motherly, very intellectual--a gallant creature and complete in + mind and feature." + +After a run of two hundred and fifty nights, "Much Ado," although it was +still drawing fine houses, was withdrawn as we were going to America in +the autumn (of 1883) and Henry wanted to rehearse the plays that we were +to do in the States by reviving them in London at the close of the +summer season. It was during these revivals that I played Janette in "The +Lyons Mail"--not a big part, and not well suited to me, but I played it +well enough to support my theory that whatever I have _not_ been, I +_have_ been a useful actress. + +I always associate "The Lyons Mail" with old Mead, whose performance of +the father, Jerome Lesurques, was one of the most impressive things +that this fine actor ever did with us. (Before Henry was ever heard of, +Mead had played Hamlet at Drury Lane!) Indeed when he "broke up," Henry +put aside "The Lyons Mail" for many years because he dreaded playing +Lesurques' scene with his father without Mead. + +In the days just before the break-up, which came about because Mead was +old, and--I hope there is no harm in saying of him what can be said of +many men who have done finely in the world--too fond of "the wine when +it is red," Henry use to suffer great anxiety in the scene, because he +never knew what Mead was going to do or say next. When Jerome Lesurques +is forced to suspect his son of crime, he has a line: + + "Am I mad, or dreaming? Would I were." + +Mead one night gave a less poetic reading: + + "Am I mad or _drunk_? Would I were!" + +It will be remembered by those who saw the play that Lesurques, an +innocent man, will not commit the Roman suicide of honor at his father's +bidding, and refuses to take up his pistol from the table. "What! you +refuse to die by your own hands, do you?" says the elder Lesurques. +"Then die like a dog by mine!" (producing a pistol from his pocket). + +One night, after having delivered the line with his usual force and +impressiveness, Mead, after prolonged fumbling in his coat-tail pockets, +added another: + +"D---, b----! God bless my soul! Where's the pistol? I haven't got the +pistol!" + +The last scene in the eventful history of "Meadisms" in "'The Lyons +Mail" was when Mead came on to the stage in his own top-hat, went over +to the sofa, and lay down, apparently for a nap! Not a word could Henry +get from him, and Henry had to play the scene by himself. He did it in +this way: + +"You say, father, that I," etc. "I answer you that it is false!" + +Mead had a remarkable _foot_. Norman Forbes called it an _architectural_ +foot. Bunions and gout combined to give it a gargoyled effect! One +night, I forget whether it was in this play or another, Henry, pawing +the ground with his foot before an "exit"--one of the mannerisms which +his imitators delighted to burlesque--came down on poor old Mead's foot, +bunion gargoyles and all! Hardly had Mead stopped cursing under his +breath than on came Tyars, and brought down _his_ weight heavily on the +same foot. Directly Tyars came off the stage he looked for Mead in the +wings and offered an apology. + +"I beg your pardon--I'm really awfully sorry, Mead." + +"Sorry! sorry!" the old man snorted. "It's a d----d conspiracy!" + +It was the dignity and gravity of Mead which made everything he said so +funny. I am afraid that those who never knew him will wonder where the +joke comes in. + +I forget what year he left us for good, but in a letter of Henry's dated +September, 1888, written during a provincial tour of "Faust," when I was +ill and my sister Marion played Margaret instead of me, I find this +allusion to him: + +"Wenman does the Kitchen Witch now (I altered it this morning) and Mead +the old one--the climber. Poor old chap, he'll not climb much longer!" + +This was one of the least successful of Henry's Shakespearean +productions. Terriss looked all wrong as Orsino; many other people were +miscast. Henry said to me a few years later when he thought of doing +"The Tempest," "I can't do it without three great comedians. I ought +never to have attempted 'Twelfth Night' without them." + +I don't think that I played Viola nearly as well as my sister Kate. Her +"I am the man" was very delicate and charming. I overdid that. My +daughter says: "Well, you were far better than any Viola that I have +seen since, but you were too simple to make a great hit in it. I think +that if you had played Rosalind the public would have thought you too +simple in that. Somehow people expect these parts to be acted in a +'principal boy' fashion, with sparkle and animation." + +We had the curious experience of being "booed" on the first night. It +was not a comedy audience, and I think the rollickings of Toby Belch and +his fellows were thought "low." Then people were put out by Henry's +attempt to reserve the pit. He thought that the public wanted it. When +he found that it was against their wishes he immediately gave in. His +pride was the service of the public. + +His speech after the hostile reception of "Twelfth Night" was the only +mistake that I ever knew him make. He was furious, and showed it. +Instead of accepting the verdict, he trounced the first-night audience +for giving it. He simply could not understand it! + +My old friend Rose Leclercq, who was in Charles Kean's company at the +Princess's when I made my first appearance upon the stage, joined the +Lyceum company to play Olivia. Strangely enough she had lost the touch +for the kind of part. She, who had made one of her early successes as +the spirit of Astarte in "Manfred," was known to a later generation of +playgoers as the aristocratic dowager of stately presence and incisive +repartee. Her son, Fuller Mellish, was also in the cast as Curio, and +when we played "Twelfth Night" in America was promoted to the part of +Sebastian, my double. In London my brother Fred played it. Directly he +walked on to the stage, looking as like me as possible, yet a _man_ all +over, he was a success. I don't think that I have ever seen anything so +unmistakable and instantaneous. + +In America "Twelfth Night" was liked far better than in London, but I +never liked it. I thought our production dull, lumpy and heavy. Henry's +Malvolio was fine and dignified, but not good for the play, and I never +could help associating my Viola with physical pain. On the first night I +had a bad thumb--I thought it was a whitlow--and had to carry my arm in +a sling. It grew worse every night, and I felt so sick and faint from +pain that I played most of my scenes sitting in a chair. One night Dr. +Stoker, Bram Stoker's brother, came round between the scenes, and, after +looking at my thumb, said: + +"Oh, that'll be all right. I'll cut it for you." + +He lanced it then and there, and I went on with my part for _that_ +night. George Stoker, who was just going off to Ireland, could not see +the job through, but the next day I was in for the worst illness I ever +had in my life. It was blood-poisoning, and the doctors were in doubt +for a little as to whether they would not have to amputate my arm. They +said that if George Stoker had not lanced the thumb that minute, I +_should_ have lost my arm. + +A disagreeable incident in connection with my illness was that a member +of my profession made it the occasion of an unkind allusion (in a speech +at the Social Science Congress) to "actresses who feign illness and have +straw laid down before their houses, while behind the drawn blinds they +are having riotous supper-parties, dancing the can-can and drinking +champagne." Upon being asked for "name," the speaker would neither +assert nor deny that it was Ellen Terry (whose poor arm at the time was +as big as her waist, and _that_ has never been very small!) that she +meant. + +I think we first heard of the affair on our second voyage to America, +during which I was still so ill that they thought I might never see +Quebec, and Henry wrote a letter to the press--a "scorcher." He showed +it to me on the boat. When I had read it, I tore it up and threw the +bits into the sea. + +"It hasn't injured me in any way," I said. "Any answer would be +undignified." + +Henry did what I wished in the matter, but, unlike me, whose heart I am +afraid is of wax--no impression lasts long--he never forgot it, and +never forgave. If the speech-maker chanced to come into a room where he +was--he walked out. He showed the same spirit in the last days of his +life, long after our partnership had come to an end. A literary club, +not a hundred yards from Hyde Park Corner, "blackballed"' me (although I +was qualified for election under the rules) for reasons with which I was +never favored. The committee, a few months later, wished Henry Irving to +be the guest of honor at one of the club dinners. The honor was +declined. + +The first night of "Olivia" at the Lyceum was about the only +_comfortable_ first night that I have ever had! I was familiar with the +part, and two of the cast, Terriss and Norman Forbes, were the same as +at the Court, which made me feel all the more at home. Henry left a +great deal of the stage-management to us, for he knew that he could not +improve on Mr. Hare's production. Only he insisted on altering the last +act, and made a bad matter worse. The division into two scenes wasted +time, and nothing was gained by it. _Never_ obstinate, Henry saw his +mistake and restored the original end after a time. It was weak and +unsatisfactory but not pretentious and bad like the last act he +presented at the first performance. + +We took the play too slowly at the Lyceum. That was often a fault there. +Because Henry was slow, the others took their time from him, and the +result was bad. + +The lovely scene of the vicarage parlor, in which we used a harpsichord +and were accused of pedantry for our pains, did not look so well at the +Lyceum as at the Court. The stage was too big for it. + +The critics said that I played Olivia better at the Lyceum, but I did +not feel this myself. + +At first Henry did not rehearse the Vicar at all well. One day when he +was stamping his foot very much, as if he was Matthias in "The Bells," +my little Edy, who was a terrible child _and_ a wonderful critic, said: + +"Don't go on like that, Henry. Why don't you talk as you do to me and +Teddy? At home you _are_ the Vicar." + +The child's frankness did not offend Henry, because it was illuminating. +A blind man had changed his Shylock; a little child changed his Vicar. +When the first night came he gave a simple, lovable performance. Many +people now understood and liked him as they had never done before. One +of the things I most admired in it was his sense of the period. + +In this, as in other plays, he used to make his entrance in the _skin_ +of the part. No need for him to rattle a ladder at the side to get up +excitement and illusion as Macready is said to have done. He walked on, +and was the simple-minded old clergyman, just as he had walked on a +prince in "Hamlet," a king in "Charles I.," and a saint in "Becket." + +A very handsome woman, descended from Mrs. Siddons and looking exactly +like her, played the gipsy in "Olivia." The likeness was of no use, +because the possessor of it had no talent. What a pity! + +"Olivia" has always been a family play. Edy and Ted walked on the stage +for the first time in the Court "Olivia." In later years Ted played +Moses and Edy made her first appearance in a speaking part as Polly +Flamborough, and has since played both Sophia and the Gipsy. My brother +Charlie's little girl Beatrice made her first appearance as Bill, my +sister Floss played Olivia on a provincial tour, and my sister Marion +played it at the Lyceum when I was ill. + +I saw Floss play it, and took from her a lovely and sincere bit of +"business." In the third act, where the Vicar has found his erring +daughter and has come to take her away from the inn, I had always +hesitated at my entrance as if I were not quite sure what reception my +father would give me after what had happened. Floss in the same +situation came running in and went straight to her father, quite sure +of his love if not of his forgiveness. + + +I did _not_ take some business which Marion did on Terriss's suggestion. +Where Thornhill tells Olivia that she is not his wife, I used to thrust +him away with both hands as I said--"Devil!" + +"It's very good, Nell, very fine," said Terriss to me, "but believe me, +you miss a great effect there. You play it grandly, of course, but at +that moment you miss it. As you say 'Devil!' you ought to strike me full +in the face." + +"Oh, don't be silly, Terriss," I said, "she's not a pugilist." + +Of course I saw, apart from what was dramatically fit, what would +happen. + +However Marion, very young, very earnest, very dutiful, anxious to +please Terriss, listened eagerly to the suggestion during an understudy +rehearsal. + +"No one could play this part better than your sister Nell," said Terriss +to the attentive Marion, "but as I always tell her, she does miss one +great effect. When Olivia says 'Devil!' she ought to hit me bang in the +face." + +"Thank you for telling me," said Marion gratefully. + +"It will be much more effective," said Terriss. + +It was. When the night came for Marion to play the part, she struck out, +and Terriss had to play the rest of the scene with a handkerchief held +to his bleeding nose! + +I think it was as Olivia that Eleonora Duse first saw me act. She had +thought of playing the part herself some time, but she said: "_Never_ +now!" No letter about my acting ever gave me the same pleasure as this +from her: + +"Madame,--Avec Olivia vous m'avez donnŽ bonheur et peine. _Bonheur_ part +votre art qui est noble et sincre ... _peine_ car je sens la tristesse +au coeur quand je vois une belle et gŽnŽreuse nature de femme, donner +son ‰me ˆ l'art--comme vous le faites--quand c'est la vie mme, _votre_ +coeur mme qui parle tendrement, douleureusement, noblement _sous_ votre +jeu. Je ne puis me dŽbarrasser d'une certaine tristesse quand je vois +des artistes si nobles et hauts tels que vous et Irving.... Si vous tes +si forts de soumettre (avec un travail continu) la vie ˆ l'art, il faut +done vous admirer comme des forces de la nature mme qui auraient +pourtant le droit de vivre pour elles-mmes et non pour la foule. Je +n'ose pas vous dŽranger, Madame, et d'ailleurs j'ai tant ˆ faire aussi +qu'il m'est impossible de vous dire de vive voix tout le grand plaisir +que vous m'avez donnŽ, mais puisque j'ai senti votre coeur, veuillez, +chre Madame, croire au mien qui ne demande pas mieux dans cet instant +que de vous admirer et de vous le dire tant bien que mal d'une manire +quelconque. Bien ˆ vous. + +"E. DUSE." + +When I wrote to Madame Duse the other day to ask her permission to +publish this much-prized letter, she answered: + +BUENOS AYRES, +_Septembre 11, 1907._ + +"Chre Ellen Terry,-- + +"Au milieu du travail en AmŽrique, je reois votre lettre envoyŽe ˆ +Florence. + +"Vous me demandez de publier mon ancienne lettre amicale. Oui, chre +Ellen Terry; ce que j'ai donnŽ vous appartient; ce que j'ai dit, je le +peux encore, et je vous aime et admire comme toujours.... + +"J'espre que vous accepterez cette ancienne lettre que j'ai rendue plus +claire et un peu mieux Žcrite. Vous en serez contente avec moi car, +ainsi faisant, j'ai eu le moyen de vous dire que je vous aime et de vous +le dire deux fois. + +"A vous de coeur, + +"E. DUSE." + +Dear, noble Eleanora Duse, great woman, great artist--I can never +appreciate you in words, but I store the delight that you have given me +by your work, and the personal kindness that you have shown me, in the +treasure-house of my heart! + +When I celebrated my stage jubilee you traveled all the way from Italy +to support me on the stage at Drury Lane. When you stood near me, +looking so beautiful with wings in your hair, the wings of glory they +seemed to me, I could not thank you, but we kissed each other and you +understood! + +"Clap-trap" was the verdict passed by many on the Lyceum "Faust," yet +Margaret was the part I liked better than any other--outside +Shakespeare. I played it beautifully sometimes. The language was often +very commonplace--not nearly as poetic or dramatic as that of "Charles +I."--but the character was all right--simple, touching, sublime. + +The Garden Scene I know was unsatisfactory. It was a bad, weak +love-scene, but George Alexander as Faust played it admirably. Indeed he +always acted like an angel with me; he was so malleable, ready to do +anything. He was launched into the part at very short notice, after H.B. +Conway's failure on the first night. Poor Conway! It was Coghlan as +Shylock all over again. + +Henry called a rehearsal the next day--on Sunday, I think. The company +stood about in groups on the stage while Henry walked up and down, +speechless, but humming a tune occasionally, always a portentous sign +with him. The scene set was the Brocken Scene, and Conway stood at the +top of the slope as far away from Henry as he could get! He looked +abject. His handsome face was very red, his eyes full of tears. He was +terrified at the thought of what was going to happen. The actor was +summoned to the office, and presently Loveday came out and said that Mr. +George Alexander would play Faust the following night. Alec had been +wonderful as Valentine the night before, and as Faust he more than +justified Henry's belief in him. After that he never looked back. He had +come to the Lyceum for the first time in 1882, an unknown quantity from +a stock company in Glasgow, to play Caleb Decie in "The Two Roses." He +then left us for a time, returned for "Faust," and remained in the +Lyceum company for some years playing all Terriss's parts. + +Alexander had the romantic quality which was lacking in Terriss, but +there was a kind of shy modesty about him which handicapped him when he +played Squire Thornhill in "Olivia." "Be more dashing, Alec!" I used to +say to him. "Well, I do my best," he said. "At the hotels I chuck all +the barmaids under the chin, and pretend I'm a dog of a fellow for the +sake of this part!" Conscientious, dear, delightful Alec! No one ever +deserved success more than he did and used it better when it came, as +the history of the St. James's Theater under his management proves. He +had the good luck to marry a wife who was clever as well as charming, +and could help him. + +The original cast of "Faust" was never improved upon. What Martha was +ever so good as Mrs. Stirling? The dear old lady's sight had failed +since "Romeo and Juliet," but she was very clever at concealing it. When +she let Mephistopheles in at the door, she used to drop her work on the +floor so that she could find her way back to her chair. I never knew why +she dropped it--she used to do it so naturally with a start when +Mephistopheles knocked at the door--until one night when it was in my +way and I picked it up, to the confusion of poor Mrs. Stirling, who +nearly walked into the orchestra. + +"Faust" was abused a good deal as a pantomime, a distorted caricature of +Goethe, and a thoroughly inartistic production. But it proved the +greatest of all Henry's financial successes. The Germans who came to see +it, oddly enough, did not scorn it nearly as much as the English who +were sensitive on behalf of the Germans, and the Goethe Society wrote a +tribute to Henry Irving after his death, acknowledging his services to +Goethe! + +It is a curious paradox in the theater that the play for which every one +has a good word is often the play which no one is going to see, while +the play which is apparently disliked and run down is crowded every +night. + +Our preparations for the production of "Faust" included a delightful +"grand tour" of Germany. Henry, with his accustomed royal way of doing +things, took a party which included my daughter Edy, Mr. and Mrs. Comyns +Carr, and Mr. Hawes Craven, who was to paint the scenery. We bought +nearly all the properties used in "Faust" in Nuremberg, and many other +things which we did not use, that took Henry's fancy. One beautifully +carved escutcheon, the finest armorial device I ever saw, he bought at +this time and presented it in after years to the famous American +connoisseur, Mrs. Jack Gardiner. It hangs now in one of the rooms of her +palace at Boston. + +It was when we were going in the train along one of the most beautiful +stretches of the Rhine that Sally Holland, who accompanied us as my +maid, said:-- + +"Uncommon pretty scenery, dear, I must say!" + +When we laughed uncontrollably, she added: + +"Well, dear, _I_ think so!" + +During the run of "Faust" Henry visited Oxford and gave his address on +"Four Actors" (Burbage, Betterton, Garrick, Kean). He met there one of +the many people who had recently been attacking him on the ground of too +long runs and too much spectacle. He wrote me an amusing account of the +duel between them: + + "I had supper last night at New College after the affair. A---- was + there, and I had it out with him--to the delight of all. + + "'_Too much decoration_,' etc., etc. + + "I asked him what there was in 'Faust' in the matter of + appointments, etc., that he would like left out?' + + "Answer: Nothing. + + "'Too long runs.' + + "'You, sir, are a poet,' I said. 'Perhaps it may be my privilege + some day to produce a play of yours. Would you like it to have a + long run or a short one?' (Roars of laughter.) + + "Answer: 'Well--er--well, of course, Mr. Irving, you--well--well, a + short run, of course for _art_, but--' + + "'Now, sir, you're on oath,' said I. 'Suppose that the fees were + rolling in £10 and more a night--would you rather the play were a + failure or a success?' + + "'Well, well, as _you_ put it--I must say--er--I would rather my + play had a _long_ run!' + + "A---- floored! + + "He has all his life been writing articles running down good work + and crying up the impossible, and I was glad to show him up a bit! + + "The Vice-Chancellor made a most lovely speech after the + address--an eloquent and splendid tribute to the stage. + + "Bourchier presented the address of the 'Undergrads.' I never saw a + young man in a greater funk--because, I suppose, he had imitated me + so often! + + "From the address: + + "'We have watched with keen and enthusiastic interest the fine + intellectual quality of all these representations from Hamlet to + Mephistopheles with which you have enriched the contemporary stage. + To your influence we owe deeper knowledge and more reverent study + of the master mind of Shakespeare.' + + "All very nice indeed!" + +I never cared much for Henry's Mephistopheles--a twopence colored part, +anyway. Of course he had his moments--he had them in every part--but +they were few. One of them was in the Prologue, when he wrote in the +student's book, "Ye shall be as gods knowing good and evil." He never +looked at the book, and the nature of the _spirit_ appeared suddenly in +a most uncanny fashion. Another was in the Spinning-wheel Scene when +Faust defies Mephistopheles, and he silences him with, "_I am a +spirit_." Henry looked to grow a gigantic height--to hover over the +ground instead of walking on it. It was terrifying. + +I made valiant efforts to learn to spin before I played Margaret. My +instructor was Mr. Albert Fleming, who, at the suggestion of Ruskin, had +recently revived hand-spinning and hand-weaving in the North of England. +I had always hated that obviously "property" spinning-wheel in the +opera, and Margaret's unmarketable thread. My thread always broke, and +at last I had to "fake" my spinning to a certain extent; but at least I +worked my wheel right, and gave an impression that I could spin my pound +of thread a day with the best. + +Two operatic stars did me the honor to copy my Margaret dress--Madame +Albani and Madame Melba. It was rather odd, by the way, that many +mothers who took their daughters to see the opera of "Faust" would not +bring them to see the Lyceum play. One of these mothers was Princess +Mary of Teck, a constant patron of most of our plays. + +Other people "missed the music." The popularity of an opera will often +kill a play, although the play may have existed before the music was +ever thought of. The Lyceum "Faust" held its own against Gounod. I liked +our incidental music to the action much better. It was taken from many +different sources and welded into an effective and beautiful whole by +our clever musical director, Mr. Meredith Ball. + +In many ways "Faust" was our heaviest production. About four hundred +ropes were used, each rope with a name. The list of properties and +instructions to the carpenters became a joke among the theater staff. +When Henry first took "Faust" into the provinces, the head carpenter at +Liverpool, Myers by name, being something of a humorist, copied out the +list on a long thin sheet of paper, which rolled up like a royal +proclamation. Instead of "God save the Queen!" he wrote at the foot, +with many flourishes: "God help Bill Myers!" + +The crowded houses at "Faust" were largely composed of "repeaters," as +Americans call those charming playgoers who come to see a play again and +again. We found favor with the artists and musicians too, even in Faust! +Here is a nice letter I got during the run (it _was_ a long one) from +that gifted singer and good woman, Madame Antoinette Sterling:-- + +"My dear Miss Terry,-- + +"I was quite as disappointed as yourself that you were not at St. +James's Hall last Monday for my concert.... Jean Ingelow said she +enjoyed the afternoon very much.... + +"I wonder if you would like to come to luncheon some day and have a +little chat with her? But perhaps you already know her. I love her +dearly. She has one fault--she never goes to the theater. Oh my! What +she misses, poor thing, poor thing! We have already seen 'Faust' twice, +and are going again soon, and shall take the George Macdonalds this +time. The Holman Hunts were delighted. He is one of the most interesting +and clever men I have ever met, and she is very charming and clever too. +How beautifully plain you write! Give me the recipe. + +"With many kind greetings, + +"Believe me sincerely yours, + +"ANTOINETTE STERLING MACKINLAY." + +My girl Edy was one of the angels in the vision in the last act of +"Faust," an event which Henry commemorated in a little rhyme that he +sent me on Valentine's Day with some beautiful flowers: + + "White and red roses, + Sweet and fresh posies, + One bunch for Edy, _Angel_ of mine-- + One bunch for Nell, my dear Valentine." + +Mr. Toole ran a burlesque on the Lyceum "Faust," called +"Faust-and-Loose." Henry did not care for burlesques as a rule. He +thought Fred Leslie's exact imitation of him, face, spectacles, +voice--everything was like Henry except the ballet-skirt--in the worst +taste. But everything that Toole did was to him adorable. Marie Linden +gave a really clever imitation of me as Marguerite. She and her sister +Laura both had the trick of taking me off. I recognized the truth of +Laura's caricature in the burlesque of "The Vicar of Wakefield" when as +Olivia she made her entrance, leaping impulsively over a stile! + +There was an absurd chorus of girl "mashers" in "Faust-and-Loose," +dressed in tight black satin coats, who besides dancing and singing had +lines in unison, such as "No, no!" "We will!" As one of these girls +Violet Vanbrugh made her first appearance on the stage. In her case "we +will!" proved prophetic. It was her plucky "I will get on" which finally +landed her in her present successful position. + +Violet Barnes was the daughter of Prebendary Barnes of Exeter, who, when +he found his daughter stage-struck, behaved far more wisely than most +parents. He gave her £100 and sent her to London with her old nurse to +look after her, saying that if she really "meant business" she would +find an engagement before the £100 was gone. Violet had inherited some +talent from her mother, who was a very clever amateur actress, and the +whole family were fond of getting up entertainments. But Violet didn't +know quite how far £100 would go, or wouldn't go. I happened to call on +her at her lodgings near Baker Street one afternoon, and found her +having her head washed, and crying bitterly all the time! She had come +to the end of the £100, she had not got an engagement, and thought she +would have to go home defeated. There was something funny in the tragic +situation. Vi was sitting on the floor, drying her hair, crying, and +drinking port wine to cure a cold in her head! + +I told her not to be a goose, but to cheer up and come and stay with me +until something turned up. We packed the old nurse back to Devonshire. +Violet came and stayed with me, and in due course something did turn up. +Mr. Toole came to dinner, and Violet, acting on my instructions to ask +every one she saw for an engagement, asked Mr. Toole! He said, "That's +all right, my dear. Of course. Come down and see me to-morrow." Dear old +Toole! The kindliest of men! Violet was with him for some time, and +played at his theater in Mr. Barrie's first piece "Walker London." Her +sister Irene, Seymour Hicks, and Mary Ansell (now Mrs. Barrie) were all +in the cast. + +This was all I did to "help" Violet Vanbrugh, now Mrs. Arthur Bourchier +and one of our best actresses, in her stage career. She helped herself, +as most people do who get on. I am afraid that I have discouraged more +stage aspirants than I have encouraged. Perhaps I have snubbed really +talented people, so great is my horror of girls taking to the stage as a +profession when they don't realize what they are about. I once told an +elderly aspirant that it was quite useless for any one to go on the +stage who had not either great beauty or great talent. She wrote saying +that my letter had been a great relief to her, as now she was not +discouraged. "I have _both_." + +There is one actress on the English stage whom I did definitely +encourage, of whose talent I was _certain_. + +When my daughter was a student at the Royal Academy of Music, Dr. (now +Sir Alexander) Mackenzie asked me to distribute the medals to the +Elocution Class at the end of the term. I was quite "new to the job," +and didn't understand the procedure. No girl, I have learned since, can +be given the gold medal until she has won both the bronze and the silver +medals--that is, until she has been at the Academy three years. I was +for giving the gold medalists, who only wanted certificates, _bronze_ +medals; and of one young girl who was in her first year and only +entitled to a bronze medal, I said: "Oh, she must have the gold medal, +of course!" + +She was a queer-looking child, handsome, with a face suggesting all +manner of possibilities. When she stood up to read the speech from +"Richard II." she was nervous, but courageously stood her ground. She +began slowly, and with a most "fetching" voice, to _think_ out the +words. You saw her think them, heard her speak them. It was so different +from the intelligent elocution, the good recitation, but bad +impersonation of the others! "A pathetic face, a passionate voice, a +_brain_," I thought to myself. It must have been at this point that the +girl flung away the book and began to act, in an undisciplined way, of +course, but with such true emotion, such intensity, that the tears came +to my eyes. The tears came to her eyes too. We both wept, and then we +embraced, and then we wept again. It was an easy victory for her. She +was incomparably better than any one. "She has to work," I wrote in my +diary that day. "Her life must be given to it, and then she will--well, +she will achieve just as high as she works." Lena Pocock was the girl's +name, but she changed it to Lena Ashwell when she went on the stage. + +In the days of the elocution class there was still some idea of her +becoming a singer, but I strongly advised the stage, and wrote to my +friend J. Comyns Carr, who was managing the Comedy Theater, that I knew +a girl with "supreme talent" whom he ought to engage. Lena was engaged. +After that she had her fight for success, but she went steadily forward. + +Henry Irving has often been attacked for not preferring Robert Louis +Stevenson's "Macaire" to the version which he actually produced in 1883. +It would have been hardly more unreasonable to complain of his producing +"Hamlet" in preference to Mr. Gilbert's "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern." +Stevenson's "Macaire" may have all the literary quality that is claimed +for it, although I personally think Stevenson was only making a +delightful idiot of himself in it. Anyhow, it is frankly a burlesque, a +skit, a _satire_ on the real Macaire. The Lyceum was _not_ a burlesque +house! Why should Henry have done it? + +It was funny to see Toole and Henry rehearsing together for "Macaire." +Henry was always _plotting_ to be funny. When Toole as Jacques Strop hid +the dinner in his pocket, Henry, after much labor, thought of his hiding +the plate inside his waistcoat. There was much laughter later on when +Macaire, playfully tapping Strop with his stick, cracked the plate, and +the pieces fell out! Toole hadn't to bother about such subtleties, and +Henry's deep-laid plans for getting a laugh must have seemed funny to +dear Toole, who had only to come on and say "Whoop!" and the audience +roared! + +Henry's death as Macaire was one of a long list of splendid deaths. +Macaire knows the game is up, and makes a rush for the French windows at +the back of the stage. The soldiers on the stage shoot him before he +gets away. Henry did not drop, but turned round, swaggered impudently +down to the table, leaned on it, then suddenly rolled over, dead. + +Henry's production of "Werner" for one matinŽe was to do some one a good +turn, and when Henry did a "good turn," he did it magnificently.[1] We +rehearsed the play as carefully as if we were in for a long run. +Beautiful dresses were made for me by my friend Alice Carr. But when we +had given that one matinŽe, they were put away for ever. The play may be +described as gloom, gloom, gloom. It was worse than "The Iron Chest." + +[Footnote 1: _From my Diary, June_ 1, 1887.--"Westland-Marston Benefit +at the Lyceum. A triumphant success entirely due to the genius and +admirable industry and devotion of H.I., for it is just the dullest play +to read as ever was! He made it _intensely_ interesting."] + +While Henry was occupying himself with "Werner," I was pleasing myself +with "The Amber Heart," a play by Alfred Calmour, a young man who was at +this time Wills's secretary. I wanted to do it, not only to help +Calmour, but because I believed in the play and liked the part of +Ellaline. I had thought of giving a matinŽe of it at some other theater, +but Henry, who at first didn't like my doing it at all, said: "You must +do it at the Lyceum. I can't let you, or it, go out of the theater." + +So we had the matinŽe at the Lyceum. Mr. Willard and Mr. Beerbohm Tree +were in the cast, and it was a great success. For the first time Henry +saw me act--a whole part and from the "front" at least, for he had seen +and liked scraps of my Juliet from the "side." Although he had known me +such a long time, my Ellaline seemed to come quite as a surprise. "I +wish I could tell you of the dream of beauty that you realized," he +wrote after the performance. He bought the play for me, and I continued +to do it "on and off" here and in America until 1902. + +Many people said that I was good but the play was bad. This was hard on +Alfred Calmour. He had created the opportunity for me, and few plays +with the beauty of "The Amber Heart" have come my way since. "He thinks +it's all his doing!" said Henry. "If he only knew!" "Well, that's the +way of authors," I answered. "They imagine so much more about their work +than we put into it, that although we may seem to the outsider to be +creating, to the author we are, at our best, only doing our duty by +him." + +Our next production was "Macbeth." Meanwhile we had visited America +three times. It is now my intention to give some account of my tours in +America, of my friends there, and of some of the impressions that the +vast, wonderful country made on me. + + + + +XI + +AMERICA + +THE FIRST OF EIGHT TOURS + + +The first time that there was any talk of my going to America was, I +think, in 1874, when I was playing in "The Wandering Heir." Dion +Boucicault wanted me to go, and dazzled me with figures, but I expect +the cautious Charles Reade influenced me against accepting the +engagement. + +When I did go in 1883, I was thirty-five and had an assured position in +my profession. It was the first of eight tours, seven of which I went +with Henry Irving. The last was in 1907 after his death. I also went to +America one summer on a pleasure trip. The tours lasted three months at +least, seven months at most. After a rough calculation, I find that I +have spent not quite five years of my life in America. Five out of sixty +is not a large proportion, yet I often feel that I am half American. +This says a good deal for the hospitality of a people who can make a +stranger feel so completely at home in their midst. Perhaps it also says +something for my adaptableness! + +"When we do not speak of things with a partiality full of love, what we +say is not worth being repeated." That was the answer of a courteous +Frenchman who was asked for his impressions of a country. In any case it +is imprudent to give one's impressions of America. The country is so +vast and complex that even those who have amassed mountains of +impressions soon find that there still are mountains more! I have lived +in New York, Boston and Chicago for a month at a time, and have felt +that to know any of these great cities even superficially would take a +year. I have become acquainted with this and that class of American, but +I realize that there are thousands of other classes that remain unknown +to me. + +I set out in 1882 from Liverpool on board the _Britannic_ with the fixed +conviction that I should never, never return. For six weeks before we +started, the word America had only to be breathed to me, and I burst +into floods of tears! I was leaving my children, my bullfinch, my +parrot, my "aunt" Boo, whom I never expected to see alive again, just +because she said I never would; and I was going to face the unknown +dangers of the Atlantic and of a strange, barbarous land. Our farewell +performances in London had cheered me up a little--though I wept +copiously at every one--by showing us that we should be missed. Henry +Irving's position seemed to be confirmed and ratified by all that took +place before his departure. The dinners he had to eat, the speeches that +he had to make and to listen to, were really terrific! + +One speech at the Rabelais Club had, it was said, the longest peroration +on record. It was this kind of thing: Where is our friend Irving going? +He is not going like Nares to face the perils of the far North. He is +not going like A---- to face something else. He is not going to China, +etc.,--and so on. After about the hundredth "he is not going," Lord +Houghton, who was one of the guests, grew very impatient and +interrupted the orator with: "Of course he isn't! He's going to New York +by the Cunard Line. It'll take him about a week!" + +Many people came to see us off at Liverpool, but I only remember seeing +Mrs. Langtry and Oscar Wilde. It was at this time that Oscar Wilde had +begun to curl his hair in the manner of the Prince Regent. "Curly hair +to match the curly teeth," said some one. Oscar Wilde _had_ ugly teeth, +and he was not proud of his mouth. He used to put his hand to his mouth +when he talked so that it should not be noticed. His brow and eyes were +very beautiful. + +Well, I was not "disappointed in the Atlantic," as Oscar Wilde was the +first to say, though many people have said it since without +acknowledging its source. + +My first voyage was a voyage of enchantment to me. The ship was laden +with pig-iron, and she rolled and rolled and rolled. She could never +roll too much for me! I have always been a splendid sailor, and I feel +jolly at sea. The sudden leap from home into the wilderness of waves +does not give me any sensation of melancholy. + +What I thought I was going to see when I arrived in America I hardly +remember. I had a vague idea that all American women wore red flannel +shirts and carried bowie knives and that I might be sandbagged in the +street! From somewhere or other I had derived an impression that New +York was an ugly, noisy place. + +Ugly! When I first saw that marvelous harbor I nearly cried--it was so +beautiful. Whenever I come now to the unequaled approach to New York I +wonder what Americans must think of the approach from the sea to London! +How different are the mean, flat, marshy banks of the Thames and the +wooden toy lighthouse at Dungeness to the vast, spreading Hudson with +its busy multitude of steamboats, and ferryboats, its wharf upon wharf, +and its tall statue of Liberty dominating all the racket and bustle of +the sea traffic of the world! + +That was one of the few times in America when I did not miss the poetry +of the past. The poetry of the present, gigantic, colossal and enormous, +made me forget it. The "sky-scrapers"--what a brutal name it is when one +comes to think of it!--so splendid in the landscape now, did not exist +in 1883, but I find it difficult to divide my early impressions from my +later ones. There was Brooklyn Bridge though, hung up high in the air +like a vast spider's web. + +Between 1883 and 1893 I noticed a great change in New York and other +cities. In ten years they seemed to have grown with the energy of +tropical plants. But between 1893 and 1907 I saw no evidence of such +feverish increase. It is possible that the Americans are arriving at a +stage when they can no longer beat the records! There is a vast +difference between one of the old New York brownstone houses and one of +the fourteen-storied buildings near the river, but between this and the +Times Square Building or the still more amazing Flat Iron Building, +which is said to oscillate at the top--it is so far from the +ground--there is very little difference. I hear that they are now +beginning to build downwards into the earth, but this will not change +the appearance of New York for a long time. + +I had not to endure the wooden shed in which most people landing in +America have to struggle with the Custom-house officials--a struggle as +brutal as a "round in the ring," as Paul Bourget describes it. We were +taken off the _Britannic_ in a tug, and Mr. Abbey, Laurence Barrett, and +many other friends met us--including the much-dreaded reporters. + +They were not a bit dreadful, but very quick to see what kind of a man +Henry was. In a minute he was on the best of terms with them. He had on +what I used to call his best "Jingle" manner--a manner full of +refinement, bonhomie, elegance and geniality. + +"Have a cigar--have a cigar." That was the first remark of Henry's, +which put every one at ease. He also wanted to be at ease and have a +good smoke. It was just the right merry greeting to the press +representatives of a nation whose sense of humor is far more to be +relied on than its sense of reverence. + +"Now come on, all of you!" he said to the interviewers. He talked to +them all in a mass and showed no favoritism. It says much for his tact +and diplomacy that he did not "put his foot in it." The Americans are +suspicious of servile adulation from a stranger, yet are very sensitive +to criticism. + +"These gentlemen want to have a few words with you," said Henry to me +when the reporters had done with him. Then with a mischievous expression +he whispered: "Say something pleasant! Merry and bright!" + +Merry and bright! I felt it! The sense of being a stranger entering a +strange land, the rushing sense of loneliness and foreignness was +overpowering my imagination. I blew my nose hard and tried to keep back +my tears, but the first reporter said: "Can I send any message to your +friends in England?" + +I answered: "Tell them I never loved 'em so much as now," and burst into +tears! No wonder that he wrote in his paper that I was "a woman of +extreme nervous sensibility." Another of them said that "my figure was +spare almost to attenuation." America soon remedied that. I began to put +on flesh before I had been in the country a week, and it was during my +fifth American tour that I became really fat for the first time in my +life. + +When we landed I drove to the Hotel Dam, Henry to the Brevoort House. +There was no Diana on the top of the Madison Square Building then. The +building did not exist, to cheer the heart of a new arrival as the first +evidence of _beauty_ in the city. There were horse trams instead of +cable cars, but a quarter of a century has not altered the peculiarly +dilapidated carriages in which one drives from the dock, the muddy +side-walks, and the cavernous holes in the cobble-paved streets. Had the +elevated railway, the first sign of _power_ that one notices after +leaving the boat, begun to thunder through the streets? I cannot +remember New York without it. + +I missed then, as I miss now, the numberless _hansoms_ of London plying +in the streets for hire. People in New York get about in the cars, +unless they have their own carriages. The hired carriage has no reason +for existing, and when it does, it celebrates its unique position by +charging two dollars (8_s._) for a journey which in London would not +cost fifty cents (2_s._)! + +I cried for two hours at the Hotel Dam! Then my companion, Miss +Harries, came bustling in with: "Never mind! here's a piano!" and sat +down and played "Annie Laurie" very badly until I screamed with +laughter. Before the evening came my room was like a bower of roses, and +my dear friends in America have been throwing bouquets at me in the same +lavish way ever since. I had quite cheered up when Henry came to take me +to see some minstrels who were performing at the Star Theater, the very +theater where in a few days we were to open. I didn't understand many of +the jokes which the American comedians made that night, but I liked +their dry, cool way of making them. They did not "hand a lemon" or +"skiddoo" in those days; American slang changes as quickly as thieves' +slang, and only "Gee!" and "Gee-whiz!" seem to be permanent. + +There were very few theaters in New York when we first went there. All +that part of the city which is now "up town" did not exist, and what was +then "up" is now more than "down" town. The American stage has changed +almost as much. In those days their most distinguished actors were +playing Shakespeare or old comedy, and their new plays were chiefly +"imported" goods. Even then there was a liking for local plays which +showed the peculiarities of the different States, but they were more +violent and crude than now. The original American genius and the true +dramatic pleasure of the people is, I believe, in such plays, where very +complete observation of certain phases of American life and very real +pictures of manners are combined with comedy almost childlike in its +na•vetŽ. The sovereignty of the young girl which is such a marked +feature in social life is reflected in American plays. + +This is by the way. + +What I want to make clear is that in 1883 there was no living American +drama as there is now, that such productions of romantic plays and +Shakespeare as Henry Irving brought over from England were unknown, and +that the extraordinary success of our first tours would be impossible +now. We were the first and we were pioneers, and we were _new_. To be +new is everything in America. + +Such palaces as the Hudson Theater, New York, were not dreamed of when +we were at the Star, which was, however, quite equal to any theater in +London in front of the footlights. The stage itself, the lighting +appliances, and the dressing-rooms were inferior. + +Henry made his first appearance in America in "The Bells." He was not at +his best on the first night, but he could be pretty good even when he +was not at his best. I watched him from a box. Nervousness made the +company very slow. The audience was a splendid one--discriminating and +appreciative. We felt that the Americans _wanted_ to like us. We felt in +a few days so extraordinarily at home. The first sensation of entering a +foreign city was quickly wiped out. + +The difference in atmosphere disappears directly one understands it. I +kept on coming across duplicates of "my friends in England." "How this +girl reminds me of Alice." "How like that one is to Gill!" We had +transported the Lyceum three thousand miles--that was all. + +On the second night in New York it was my turn. "Command yourself--this +is the time to show you can act!" I said to myself as I went on to the +stage of the Star Theater, dressed as Henrietta Maria. But I could not +command myself. I played badly and cried too much in the last act. But +the people liked me, and they liked the play, perhaps because it was +historical; and of history the Americans are passionately fond. The +audience took many points which had been ignored in London. I had always +thought Henry as Charles I. most moving when he made that involuntary +effort to kneel to his subject, Moray, but the Lyceum audiences never +seemed to notice it. In New York the audience burst out into the most +sympathetic spontaneous applause that I have ever heard in a theater. + +I know that there are some advanced stage reformers who prefer to think +applause "vulgar," and would suppress it in the theater if they could. +If they ever succeed they will suppress a great deal of good acting. It +is said that the American actor, Edwin Forrest, once walked down to the +footlights and said to the audience very gravely and sincerely: "If you +don't applaud, I can't act," and I do sympathize with him. Applause is +an instinctive, unconscious act expressing the sympathy between actors +and audience. Just as our art demands more instinct than intellect in +its exercise, so we demand of those who watch us an appreciation of the +simple unconscious kind which finds an outlet in clapping rather than +the cold, intellectual approval which would self-consciously think +applause derogatory. I have yet to meet the actor who was _sincere_ in +saying that he disliked applause. + +My impression of the way the American women dressed in 1883 was not +favorable. Some of them wore Indian shawls and diamond earrings. They +dressed too grandly in the street and too dowdily in the theater. All +this has changed. The stores in New York are now the most beautiful in +the world, and the women are dressed to perfection. They are as clever +at the _demi-toilette_ as the Parisian, and the extreme neatness and +smartness of their walking-gowns are very refreshing after the floppy, +blowsy, trailing dresses, accompanied by the inevitable feather boa of +which English girls, who used to be so tidy and "tailor-made," now seem +so fond. The universal white "waist" is very pretty and trim on the +American girl. It is one of the distinguishing marks of a land of the +free, a land where "class" hardly exists. The girl in the store wears +the white waist; so does the rich girl on Fifth Avenue. It costs +anything from seventy-five cents to fifty dollars! + +London when I come back from America always seems at first like an +ill-lighted village, strangely tame, peaceful and backward. Above all, I +miss the sunlight of America, and the clear blue skies of an evening. + +"Are you glad to get back?" said an English friend. + +"Very." + +"It's a land of vulgarity, isn't it?" + +"Oh yes, if you mean by that a wonderful land--a land of sunshine and +light, of happiness, of faith in the future!" I answered. I saw no +misery or poverty there. Every one looked happy. What hurts me on coming +back to England is the _hopeless_ look on so many faces; the dejection +and apathy of the people standing about in the streets. Of course there +is poverty in New York, but not among the Americans. The Italians, the +Russians, the Poles--all the host of immigrants washed in daily on the +bosom of the Hudson--these are poor, but you don't see them unless you +go Bowery-ways, and even then you can't help feeling that in their +sufferings there is always hope. The barrow man of to-day is the +millionaire of to-morrow! Vulgarity? I saw little of it. I thought that +the people who had amassed large fortunes used their wealth beautifully. + +When a man is rich enough to build himself a big new house, he remembers +some old house which he once admired, and he has it imitated with all +the technical skill and care that can be had in America. This accounts +for the odd jumble of styles in Fifth Avenue, along the lakeside in +Chicago, in the new avenues in St. Louis and elsewhere. One +millionaire's house is modeled on a French ch‰teau, another on an old +Colonial house in Virginia, another on a monastery in Mexico, another is +like an Italian palazzo. And their imitations are never weak or +pretentious. The architects in America seem to me to be far more able +than ours, or else they have a freer hand and more money. It is sad to +remember that Mr. Stanford White was one of the best of these splendid +architects. + +It was Stanford White with Saint-Gaudens--that great sculptor, whose +work dignifies nearly all the great cities in America--who had most to +do with the Exhibition buildings of the World's Fair in Chicago in 1893. +It was odd to see that fair dream city rising out of the lake, so far +more beautiful in its fleeting beauty than the Chicago of the +stock-yards and the Pit which had provided the money for its beauty. The +millionaires did not interfere with the artists at all. They gave their +thousands--and stood aside. The result was one of the loveliest things +conceivable. Saint-Gaudens and the rest did their work as well as though +the buildings were to endure for centuries instead of being burned in a +year to save the trouble of pulling down! The World's Fair always +recalled to me the story of Michael Angelo, who carved a figure in snow +which, says the chronicler who saw it, "was superb." + +Saint-Gaudens gave me a cast of his medallion of Bastien-Lepage, and +wrote to a friend of mine that "Bastien had '_le coeur au mŽtier_.' So +has Miss Terry, and I will place that saying in the frame that is to +replace the present unsatisfactory one." He was very fastidious about +this frame, and took such a lot of trouble to get it right. It must have +been very irritating to Saint-Gaudens when he fell a victim to that +extraordinary official puritanism which sometimes exercises a petty +censorship over works of art in America. The medal that he made for the +World's Fair was rejected at Washington because it had on it a beautiful +little nude figure of a boy holding an olive branch, emblematical of +young America. I think a commonplace wreath and some lettering were +substituted. + +Saint-Gaudens did the fine bas-relief of Robert Louis Stevenson which +was chosen for the monument in St. Gile's Cathedral, Edinburgh. He gave +my daughter a medallion cast from this, because he knew that she was a +great lover of Stevenson. The bas-relief was dedicated to his friend Joe +Evans. I knew Saint-Gaudens first through Joe Evans, an artist who, +while he lived, was to me and to my daughter the dearest of all in +America. His character was so fine and noble--his nature so perfect. +Many were the birthday cards he did for me, original in design, +beautiful in execution. Whatever he did he put the best of himself into +it. I wrote to my daughter soon after his death:-- + + "I heard on Saturday that our dear Joe Evans is dangerously ill. + Yesterday came the worst news. Joe was not happy, but he was just + heroic, and this world wasn't half good enough for him. I keep on + getting letters about him. He seems to have been so glad to die. It + was like a child's funeral, I am told, and all his American friends + seem to have been there--Saint-Gaudens, Taber, etc. A poem about + the dear fellow by Mr. Gilder has one very good line in which he + says the grave 'might snatch a brightness from his presence there.' + I thought that was very happy, the love of light and gladness being + the most remarkable thing about him, the dear sad Joe." + +Robert Taber, dear, and rather sad too, was a great friend of Joe's. +They both came to me first in the shape of a little book in which was +inscribed, "Never anything can be amiss when simpleness and duty tender +it." "Upon this hint I spake," the book began. It was all the work of a +few boys and girls who from the gallery of the Star Theater, New York, +had watched Irving's productions and learned to love him and me. Joe +Evans had done a lovely picture by way of frontispiece of a group of +eager heads hanging over the gallery's edge, his own and Taber's among +them. Eventually Taber came to England and acted with Henry Irving in +"Peter the Great" and other plays. + +Like his friend Joe, he too was heroic. His health was bad and his life +none too happy--but he struggled on. His career was cut short by +consumption, and he died in the Adirondacks in 1904. + +I cannot speak of all my friends in America, or anywhere, for the matter +of that, _individually_. My personal friends are so many, and they are +all wonderful--wonderfully staunch to me! I have "tried" them so, and +they have never given me up as a bad job. + +My first friends of all in America were Mr. Bayard, afterwards the +American Ambassador in London, and his sister, Mrs. Benoni Lockwood, her +husband and their children. Now after all these years they are still my +friends, and I can hope for none better to the end. + +William Winter, poet, critic and exquisite man, was one of the first to +write of Henry with whole-hearted appreciation. But all the criticism in +America, favorable and unfavorable, surprised us by the scholarly +knowledge it displayed. In Chicago the notices were worthy of the +_Temps_ or the _Journal des DŽbats_. There was no attempt to force the +personality of the writer into the foreground nor to write a style that +should attract attention to the critic and leave the thing criticized to +take care of itself. William Winter, and, of late years, Allan Dale, +have had their personalities associated with their criticisms, but they +are exceptions. Curiously enough the art of acting appears to bore most +dramatic critics, the very people who might be expected to be interested +in it. The American critics, however, at the time of our early visits, +were keenly interested, and showed it by their observation of many +points which our English critics had passed over. For instance, writing +of "Much Ado about Nothing," one of the Americans said of Henry in the +Church Scene that "something of him as a subtle interpreter of doubtful +situations was exquisitely shown in the early part of this fine scene by +his suspicion of Don John--felt by him alone, and expressed only by a +quick covert look, but a look so full of intelligence as to proclaim him +a sharer in the secret with his audience." + +"Wherein does the superiority lie?" wrote another critic in comparing +our productions with those which had been seen in America up to 1884. +"Not in the amount of money expended, but in the amount of brains;--in +the artistic intelligence and careful and earnest pains with which every +detail is studied and worked out. Nor is there any reason why Mr. Irving +or any other foreigner should have a monopoly of either intelligence or +pains. They are common property, and one man's money can buy them as +well as another's. The defect in the American manager's policy +heretofore has been that he has squandered his money upon high salaries +for a few of his actors and costly, because unintelligent, expenditure +for mere dazzle and show." + +William Winter soon became a great personal friend of ours, and visited +us in England. He was one of the few _sad_ people I met in America. He +could have sat upon the ground and told "sad stories of the deaths of +kings" with the best. He was very familiar with the poetry of the +_immediate_ past--Cowper, Coleridge, Gray, Wordsworth, Shelley, Keats, +and the rest. He _liked_ us, so everything we did was right to him. He +could not help being guided entirely by his feelings. If he disliked a +thing, he had no use for it. Some men can say, "I hate this play, but +of its kind it is admirable." Willie Winter could never take that +unemotional point of view. In England he loved going to see graveyards, +and knew where every poet was buried. + +His children came to stay with me in London. When we were all coming +home from the theater one night after "Faust" (the year must have been +1886) I said to little Willie: + +"Well, what do you think of the play?" + +"Oh my!" said he, "it takes the cake." + +"Takes the _cake_!" said his little sister scornfully, "it takes the +ice-cream!" + +"Won't you give me a kiss?" said Henry to the same young miss one night. +"No, I _won't_ with all that blue stuff on your face." (He was made up +for Mephistopheles.) Then, after a pause, "But why--why don't you _take_ +it!" She was only five years old at the time! + +I love the American papers, especially the Sunday ones, although they do +weigh nearly half a ton! As for the interviewers, I never cease to +marvel at their cleverness. I tell them nothing, and the next day I read +their "story" and find that I have said the most brilliant things! The +following delightful "skit" on one of these interviews suggested itself +to my clever friend Miss AimŽe Lowther:-- + + +WHAT CONSTITUTES CHARM + +AN ILLUSTRATED INTERVIEW WITH MISS ELLEN TERRY + +"Yes, I know that I am very charming," said Miss Ellen Terry, "a +perfectly delightful creature, a Queen of Hearts, a regular witch!" she +added thoughtfully, at the same time projecting a pip of the orange she +was chewing, with inimitable grace and accurate aim into + +THE REPORTER'S EYE. + +"You know, at all events, that you have charm?" I said. + +"What do you think, you idiot! I exercise absolute power over my +audiences--I cast over them an irresistible spell--I do with them what I +will.... I am omnipotent, enthralling--and no wonder!" + +I looked at her across the table, wondering at so much simple modesty. + +"But feeling your power, you must often be tempted to experiment with +it," I ventured. + +"Yes, now and then I am," replied Miss Terry. "Once, I remember, when I +was to appear as Ophelia, on making my entrance and seeing the audience +waiting breathlessly--as they always do--for what I was going to do +next, I said to myself, 'You silly fools, you shall have a treat +to-night--I will give you something you will appreciate more than +Shakespeare!' Hastily slipping on a + +FALSE NOSE + +which I always carry in my pocket, I struck an attitude, and then turned + +A SOMERSAULT. + +"Ah! the applause, the delirious, intoxicating applause! That night I +felt my power, that night I knew that I had wished I could have held +them indefinitely! But I am only one of several gifted beings on the +stage who are blessed with this mysterious quality. Dan Leno, Herbert +Campbell, and Little Tich all have it. Dan Leno, in particular, rivets +the attention of his audience by his entrancing by-play, even when he +doesn't speak. And yet it is + +NOT HIS BEAUTY + +precisely that does it." + +At that moment Miss Terry's little grandchild, who was playing about the +room, + +BEGAN TO HOWL + +most dismally. + +"Here is a little maid who was a charmer from her cradle," said the +delightful actress, picking up the child and + +PLAYFULLY TOSSING + +it out of the third-floor window. Seeing me look relieved, though +somewhat surprised, she said merrily: "I have plenty more of them at +home, and they are + +ALL CHARMING, + +every one of them! If you want to be charming you must be natural--I +always am. Even in my cradle I was + +QUITE NATURAL. + +And now, please go. Your conversation bores me inexpressibly, and your +countenance, which is at once vacuous and singularly plain, disagrees +with me thoroughly. Go! or I shall + +BE SICK!" + +So saying the great actress gave me a + +VIGOROUS KICK + +which landed me outside her room, considerably shaken, and entirely +under the spell of her matchless charm. + + * * * * * + +For "quite a while" during the first tour I stayed in Washington with +my friend Miss Olive Seward, and all the servants of that delightful +household were colored. This was my first introduction to the negroes, +whose presence more than anything else in the country, makes America +seem foreign to European eyes. They are more sharply divided into high +and low types than white people, and are not in the least alike in their +types. It is safe to call any colored man "George." They all love it, +perhaps because of George Washington, and most of them are really named +George. I never met such perfect service as they can give. _Some_ of +them are delightful. The beautiful, full voice of the "darkey" is so +attractive, so soothing, and they are so deft and gentle. Some of the +women are beautiful, and all the young appeared to me to be well-formed. +As for the babies! I washed two or three little piccaninnies when I was +in the South, and the way they rolled their gorgeous eyes at me was "too +cute," which means in British-English "fascinating." + +At the Washington house, the servants danced a cake-walk for me--the +colored cook, a magnificent type, who "took the cake," saying, "that was +because I chose a good handsome boy to dance with, Missie." + +They sang too. Their voices were beautiful--with such illimitable power, +yet as sweet as treacle. + +The little page-boy had a pet of a wooly head. Henry once gave him a +tip--"fee," as they call it in America--and said: "There, that's for a +new wig when this one is worn out," gently pulling the astrakhan-like +hair. The tip would have bought him many wigs, I think! + +"Why, Uncle Tom, how your face shines to-night!" said my hostess to one +of the very old servants. + +"Yes, Missie, glycerine and rose-water, Missie!" + +He had taken some from her dressing-table to shine up his face in honor +of me! A shiny complexion is considered to be a great beauty among the +negroes! The dear old man! He was very bent and very old; and looked +like one of the logs that he used to bring in for the fire--a log from +some hoary, lichened tree whose life was long since past. He would +produce a pin from his head when you wanted one; he had them stuck in +his pad of white wooly hair: "Always handy then, Missie," he would say. + +"Ask them to sing 'Sweet Violets,' Uncle Tom." + +He was acting as a sort of master of the ceremonies at the entertainment +the servants were giving me. + +"Don't think they know dat, Miss Olly." + +"Why, I heard them singing it the other night!" And she hummed the tune. + +"Oh, dat was 'Sweet Vio-_letts_,' Miss Olly!" + +Washington was the first city I had seen in America where the people did +not hurry, and where the social life did not seem entirely the work of +women. The men asserted themselves here as something more than machines +in the background untiringly turning out the dollars, while their wives +and daughters give luncheons and teas at which only women are present. + +Beautifully as the women dress, they talk very little about clothes. I +was much struck by their culture--by the evidences that they had read +far more and developed a more fastidious taste than most young +Englishwomen. Yet it is all mixed up with extraordinary na•vetŽ. The +vivacity, the appearance, at least, of _reality_, the animation, the +energy of American women delighted me. They are very sympathetic, too, +in spite of a certain callousness which comes of regarding everything in +life, even love, as "lots of fun." I did not think that they, or the men +either, had much natural sense of beauty. They admire beauty in a +curious way through their intellect. Nearly every American girl has a +cast of the winged Victory of the Louvre in her room. She makes it a +point of her _education_ to admire it. + +There! I am beginning to generalize--the very thing I was resolute to +avoid. How silly to generalize about a country which embraces such +extremes of climate as the sharp winters of Boston and New York and the +warm winds of Florida which blow through palms and orange groves! + + + + +XII + +SOME LIKES AND DISLIKES + + +It is only human to make comparisons between American and English +institutions, although they are likely to turn out as odious as the +proverb says! The first institution in America that distressed me was +the steam heat. It is far more manageable now than it was both in hotels +and theaters, because there are more individual heaters. But how I +suffered from it at first I cannot describe! I used to feel dreadfully +ill, and when we could not turn the heat off at the theater, the plays +always went badly. My voice was affected too. At Toledo once, it nearly +went altogether. Then the next night, after a good fight for it, we got +the theater cool, and the difference that it made to the play was +extraordinary. I was in my best form, feeling well and jolly! + +No wonder the Americans drink ice-water and wear very thin clothes +indoors. Their rooms are hotter than ours ever are, even in the height +of the summer--when we have a summer! But no wonder, either, that +Americans in England shiver at our cold, draughty rooms. They are +brought up in hot-houses. + +If I did not like steam heat, I loved the ice which is such a feature at +American meals. Everything is served on ice, and the ice-water, however +pernicious the European may consider it as a drink, looks charming and +cool in the hot rooms. + +I liked the traveling; but then we traveled in a very princely fashion. +The Lyceum company and baggage occupied eight cars, and Henry's private +parlor car was lovely. The only thing that we found was better +understood in England, so far as railway traveling is concerned, was +_privacy_. You may have a _private_ car in America, but all the +conductors on the train, and there is one to each car, can walk through +it. So can any official, baggage man or newsboy who has the mind! + +The "parlor car" in America is more luxurious than our first class, but +you travel in it (if you have no "private" car) with thirty other +people. + +"What do you want to be private for?" asked an American, and you don't +know how to answer, for you find that with them that privacy means +concealment. For this reason, I believe, they don't have hedges or walls +round their estates and gardens. "Why should we? We have nothing to +hide!" + +In the cars, as in the rooms at one's hotel, the "cuspidor" is always +with you as a thing of beauty! When I first went to America the "Ladies' +Entrance" to the hotel was really necessary, because the ordinary +entrance was impassable! Since then very severe laws against spitting in +public places have been passed, and there is a _great_ improvement. But +the habit, I suppose due to the dryness of the climate, or to the very +strong cigars smoked, or to chronic catarrh, or to a feeling of +independence--"This is a free country and I can spit if I +choose!"--remains sufficiently disgusting to a stranger visiting the +country. + +The American voice is the one thing in the country that I find +unbearable; yet the truly terrible variety only exists in one State, and +is not widely distributed. I suppose it is its very assertiveness that +makes one forget the very sweet voices that also exist in America. The +Southern voice is very low in tone and soothing, like the "darkey" +voice. It is as different from Yankee as the Yorkshire burr is from the +Cockney accent. + +This question of accent is a very funny one. I had not been in America +long when a friend said to me: + +"We like your voice. You have so little English accent!" + +This struck me as rather cool. Surely English should be spoken with an +_English_ accent, not with a French, German, or double-dutch one! Then I +found that what they meant by an English accent was an English +affectation of speech--a drawl with a tendency to "aw" and "ah" +everything. They thought that every one in England who did not miss out +aspirates where they should be, and put them in where they should not +be, talked of "the rivah," "ma brothar," and so on. Their conclusion +was, after all, quite as well founded as ours about _their_ accent. The +American intonation, with its freedom from violent emphasis, is, I +think, rather pretty when the quality of the voice is sweet. + +Of course the Americans would have their jokes about Henry's method of +speech. Ristori followed us once in New York, and a newspaper man said +he was not sure whether she or Mr. Irving was the more difficult for an +American to understand. + +"He pronounces the English tongue as it is pronounced by no other man, +woman or child," wrote the critic, and proceeded to give a phonetically +spelled version of Irving's delivery of Shylock's speech of Antonio. + + "Wa thane, ett no eperes + Ah! um! yo ned m'clp + Ough! ough! Gaw too thane! Ha! um! + Yo com'n say + Ah! Shilok, um! ouch! we wode hev moanies!" + +I wonder if the clever American reporter stopped to think how _his_ +delivery of the same speech would look in print! As for the +ejaculations, the interjections and grunts with which Henry interlarded +the text, they often helped to reveal the meaning of Shakespeare to his +audience--a meaning which many a perfect elocutionist has left perfectly +obscure. The use of "m'" or "me" for "my" has often been hurled in my +face as a reproach, but I never contracted "my" without good reason. I +had a line in Olivia which I began by delivering as-- + + "My sorrows and my shame are my own." + +Then I saw that the "mys" sounded ridiculous, and abbreviated the two +first ones into "me's." + +There were of course people ready to say that the Americans did not like +Henry Irving as an actor, and that they only accepted him as a +manager--that he triumphed in New York as he had done in London, through +his lavish spectacular effects. This is all moonshine. Henry made his +first appearance in "The Bells," his second in "Charles I.," his third +in "Louis XI." By that time he had conquered, and without the aid of +anything at all notable in the mounting of the plays. It was not until +we did "The Merchant of Venice" that he gave the Americans anything of a +"production." + +My first appearance in America in Shakespeare was as Portia, and I could +not help feeling pleased by my success. A few weeks later I played +Ophelia at Philadelphia. It is in Shakespeare that I have been best +liked in America, and I consider that Beatrice was the part about which +they were most enthusiastic. + +During our first tour we visited in succession New York, Philadelphia, +Boston, Baltimore, Brooklyn, Chicago, Cincinnati, St. Louis, Detroit, +and Toronto. To most of these places we paid return visits. + +"To what do you attribute your success, Mr. Irving?" + +"To my acting," was the simple reply. + +We never had poor houses except in Baltimore and St. Louis. Our journey +to Baltimore was made in a blizzard. They were clearing the snow before +us all the way from New Jersey, and we took forty-two hours to reach +Baltimore! The bells of trains before us and behind us sounded very +alarming. We opened in Baltimore on Christmas day. The audience was +wretchedly small, but the poor things who were there had left their warm +firesides to drive or tramp through the slush of melting snow, and each +one who managed to reach the theater was worth a hundred on an ordinary +night. + +At the hotel I put up holly and mistletoe, and produced from my trunks a +real Christmas pudding that my mother had made. We had it for supper, +and it was very good. + +It never does to repeat an experiment. Next year at Pittsburg my little +son Teddy brought me out another pudding from England. For once we were +in an uncomfortable hotel, and the Christmas dinner was deplorable. It +began with _burned hare soup_. + +"It seems to me," said Henry, "that we aren't going to get anything to +eat, but we'll make up for it by drinking!" + +He had brought his own wine out with him from England, and the company +took him at his word and _did_ make up for it! + +"Never mind!" I said, as the soup was followed by worse and worse. +"There's my pudding!" + +It came on blazing, and looked superb. Henry tasted a mouthful. + +"Very odd," he said, "but I think this is a camphor pudding." + +He said it so politely, as if he might easily be mistaken! + +My maid in England had packed the pudding with my furs! It simply reeked +of camphor. + +So we had to dine on Henry's wine and L.F. Austin's wit. This dear, +brilliant man, now dead, acted for many years as Henry's secretary, and +one of his gifts was the happy knack of hitting off people's +peculiarities in rhyme. This dreadful Christmas dinner at Pittsburg was +enlivened by a collection of such rhymes, which Mr. Austin called a +"Lyceum Christmas Play." + +Every one roared with laughter until it came to the verse of which he +was the victim, when suddenly he found the fun rather labored! + +The first verse was spoken by Loveday, who announces that the "Governor" +has a new play which is "_Wonderful_!" a great word of Loveday's. + +_George Alexander_ replies: + + "But I say, Loveday, have I got a part in it, + That I can wear a cloak in and look smart in it? + Not that I care a fig for gaudy show, dear boy-- + But juveniles must _look_ well, don't you know, dear boy. + And shall I lordly hall and tuns of claret own? + And may I murmur love in dulcet baritone? + Tell me at least, this simple fact of it-- + Can I beat Terriss hollow in one act of it?[1] + Pooh for Wenman's bass![2] Why should he make a boast of it?" + +[Footnote 1: Alexander had just succeeded Terriss as our leading young +man.] + +[Footnote 2: Wenman had a rolling bass voice of which he was very proud. +He was a valuable actor, yet somehow never interesting. Young Norman +Forbes-Robertson played Sir Andrew Ague Cheak with us on our second +American tour.] + +_Norman Forbes_: + + "If he has a voice, I have got the ghost of it! + When I pitch it low, you may say how weak it is, + When I pitch it high, heavens! what a squeak it is! + But I never mind; for what does it signify? + See my graceful hands, they're the things that dignify; + All the rest is froth, and egotism's dizziness-- + Have I not played with Phelps? + (_To Wenman_) + I'll teach you all the business!" + +_T. Mead_: + +(Of whom much has already been written in these pages.) + + "What's this about a voice? Surely you forget it, or + Wilfully conceal that _I_ have no competitor! + I do not know the play, or even what the title is, + But safe to make success a charnel-house recital is! + So please to bear in mind, if I am not to fail in it, + That Hamlet's father's ghost must rob the Lyons Mail in it! + No! that's not correct! But you may spare your charity-- + A good sepulchral groan's the thing for popularity!" + +_H. Howe_: + +(The "agricultural" actor, as Henry called him.) + + "Boys, take my advice, the stage is not the question, + But whether at three score you'll all have my digestion. + Why yearn for plays, to pose as Brutuses or Catos in, + When you may get a garden to grow the best potatoes in? + You see that at my age by Nature's shocks unharmed I am! + Tho' if I sneeze but thrice, good heavens, how alarmed I am! + But act your parts like men, and tho' you all great sinners are, + You're sure to act like men wherever Irving's dinners are!" + +_J.H. Allen_ (our prompter): + + "Whatever be the play, _I_ must have a hand in it, + For won't I teach the supers how to stalk and stand in it? + Tho' that blessed Shakespeare never gives a ray to them, + _I_ explain the text, and then it's clear as day to them![1] + Plain as A B C is a plot historical, + When _I_ overhaul allusions allegorical! + Shakespeare's not so bad; he'd have more pounds and pence in him, + If actors stood aside, and let me show the sense in him!" + +[Footnote 1: Once when Allen was rehearsing the supers in the Church +Scene in "Much Ado about Nothing," we overheard him show the sense in +Shakespeare like this: + +"This 'Ero let me tell you is a perfect lady, a nice, innercent young +thing, and when the feller she's engaged to calls 'er an 'approved +wanton,' you naturally claps yer 'ands to yer swords. A wanton is a kind +of--well, you know she ain't what she ought to be!" + +Allen would then proceed to read the part of Claudio: + + "... not to knit my soul to an approved wanton." + +Seven or eight times the supers clapped their "'ands to their swords" +without giving Allen satisfaction. + +"No, no, no, that's not a bit like it, not a bit! If any of your sisters +was 'ere and you 'eard me call 'er a ----, would yer stand gapin' at me +as if this was a bloomin' tea party!"] + +Louis Austin's little "Lyceum Play" was presented to me with a silver +water-jug, a souvenir from the company, and ended up with the following +pretty lines spoken by Katie Brown, a clever little girl who played all +the small pages' parts at this time: + + "Although I'm but a little page, + Who waits for Portia's kind behest, + Mine is the part upon this stage + To tell the plot you have not guessed. + + "Dear lady, oft in Belmont's hall, + Whose mistress is so sweet and fair, + Your humble slaves would gladly fall + Upon their knees, and praise you there. + + "To offer you this little gift, + Dear Portia, now we crave your leave, + And let it have the grace to lift + Our hearts to yours this Christmas eve. + + "And so we pray that you may live + Thro' many, many, happy years, + And feel what you so often give-- + The joy that is akin to tears!" + +How nice of Louis Austin! It quite made up for my mortification over the +camphor pudding! + +Pittsburg has been called "hell with the lid off," and other insulting +names. I have always thought it beautiful, especially at night when its +furnaces make it look like a city of flame. The lovely park that the +city has made on the heights that surround it is a lesson to Birmingham, +Sheffield, and our other black towns. George Alexander said that +Pittsburg reminded him of his native town of Sheffield. "Had he said +Birmingham, now instead of Sheffield," wrote a Pittsburg newspaper man, +"he would have touched our tender spot exactly. As it is, we can be as +cheerful as the Chicago man was who boasted that his sweetheart 'came +pretty near calling him "honey,"' when in fact she had called him 'Old +Beeswax'!" + +When I played Ophelia for the first time in Chicago, I played the part +better than I had ever played it before, and I don't believe I ever +played it so well again. _Why_, it is almost impossible to say. I had +heard a good deal of the crime of Chicago, that the people were a rough, +murderous, sand-bagging crew. I ran on to the stage in the mad scene, +and never have I felt such sympathy! This frail wraith, this poor +demented thing, could hold them in the hollow of her hand.... It was +splendid! "How long can I hold them?" I thought: "For ever!" Then I +laughed. That was the best Ophelia laugh of my life--my life that is +such a perfect kaleidoscope with the people and the places turning round +and round. + +At the risk of being accused of indiscriminate flattery I must say that +I liked _all_ the American cities. Every one of them has a joke at the +expense of the others. They talk in New York of a man who lost both his +sons--"One died and the other went to live in Philadelphia." Pittsburg +is the subject of endless criticism, and Chicago is "the limit." To me, +indeed, it seemed "the limit"--of the industry, energy, and enterprise +of man. In 1812 this vast city was only a frontier post--Fort Dearborn. +In 1871 the town that first rose on these great plains was burned to the +ground. The growth of the present Chicago began when I was a grown +woman. I have celebrated my jubilee. Chicago will not do that for +another fifteen years! + +I never visited the stock-yards. Somehow I had no curiosity to see a +live pig turned in fifteen minutes into ham, sausages, hair-oil, and the +binding for a Bible! I had some dread of being made sad by the spectacle +of so much slaughter--of hating the Chicago of the "abattoir" as much as +I had loved the Chicago of the Lake with the white buildings of the +World's Fair shining on it, the Chicago built on piles in splendid +isolation in the middle of the prairie, the Chicago of Marshall Field's +beautiful palace of a store, the Chicago of my dear friends, the Chicago +of my son's first appearance on the stage! Was it not a Chicago man who +wrote of my boy, tending the roses in the stage garden in "Eugene Aram," +that he was "a most beautiful lad"! + + "His eyes are full of sparkle, his smile is a ripple over his face, + and his laugh is as cherry and natural as a bird's song.... This + Joey is Miss Ellen Terry's son, and the apple of her eye. On this + Wednesday night, January 14, 1885, he spoke his first lines upon + the stage. His mother has high hopes of this child's dramatic + future. He has the instinct and the soul of art in him. Already the + theater is his home. His postures and his playfulness with the + gardener, his natural and graceful movement, had been the subject + of much drilling, of study and practice. He acquitted himself + beautifully and received the wise congratulations of his mother, of + Mr. Irving, and of the company." + +That is the nicest newspaper notice I have ever read! + +At Chicago I made my first speech. The Haverley Theater, at which we +first appeared in 1884, was altered and rechristened the "Columbia" in +1885. I was called upon for a speech after the special performance in +honor of the occasion, consisting of scenes from "Charles I.," "Louis +XI," "The Merchant of Venice," and "The Bells," had come to an end. I +think it must be the shortest speech on record: + + "Ladies and Gentlemen, I have been asked to christen your beautiful + theater. 'Hail Columbia!'" + +When we acted in Brooklyn we used to stay in New York and drive over +that wonderful bridge every night. There were no trolley cars on it +then. I shall never forget how it looked in winter, with the snow and +ice on it--a gigantic trellis of dazzling white, as incredible as a +dream. The old stone bridges were works of _art_. This bridge, woven of +iron and steel for a length of over 500 yards, and hung high in the air +over the water so that great ships can pass beneath it, is the work of +_science_. It looks as if it had been built by some power, not by men at +all. + +It was during our week at Brooklyn in 1885 that Henry was ill, too ill +to act for four nights. Alexander played Benedick, and got through it +wonderfully well. Then old Mr. Mead did (_did_ is the word) Shylock. +There was no intention behind his words or what he did. + +I had such a funny batch of letters on my birthday that year. "Dear, +sweet Miss Terry, etc., etc. Will you give me a piano?"!! etc., etc. +Another: "Dear Ellen. Come to Jesus. Mary." Another, a lovely letter of +thanks from a poor woman in the most ghastly distress, and lastly an +offer of a _two years'_ engagement in America. There was a simple coming +in for one woman acting at Brooklyn on her birthday! + +Brooklyn is as sure a laugh in New York as the mother-in-law in a London +music hall. "All cities begin by being lonesome," a comedian explained, +"and Brooklyn has never gotten over it." + +My only complaint against Brooklyn was that they would not take Fussie +in at the hotel there. Fussie, during these early American tours, was +still _my_ dog. Later on he became Henry's. He had his affections +alienated by a course of chops, tomatoes, strawberries, "ladies' +fingers" soaked in champagne, and a beautiful fur rug of his very own +presented by the Baroness Burdett-Coutts! + +How did I come by Fussie? I went to Newmarket with Rosa Corder, whom +Whistler painted. She was one of those plain-beautiful women who are so +far more attractive than some of the pretty ones. She had wonderful +hair--like a fair, pale veil, a white, waxen face, and a very good +figure; and she wore very odd clothes. She had a studio in Southampton +Row, and another at Newmarket where she went to paint horses. I went to +Cambridge once and drove back with her across the heath to her studio. + +"How wonderfully different are the expressions on terriers' faces," I +said to her, looking at a painting of hers of a fox-terrier pup. "That's +the only sort of dog I should like to have." + +"That one belonged to Fred Archer," Rosa Corder said. "I daresay he +could get you one like it." + +We went out to find Archer. Curiously enough I had known the famous +jockey at Harpenden when he was a little boy, and I believe used to come +round with vegetables. + +"I'll send you a dog, Miss Terry, that won't be any trouble. He's got a +very good head, a first-rate tail, stuck in splendidly, but his legs are +too long. He'd follow you to America!" + +Prophetic words! On one of our departures for America, Fussie was left +behind by mistake at Southampton. He could not get across the Atlantic, +but he did the next best thing. He found his way back from there to his +own theater in the Strand, London! + +Fred Archer sent him originally to the stage-door at the Lyceum. The man +who brought him out from there to my house in Earl's Court said: + +"I'm afraid he gives tongue, Miss. He don't like music, anyway. There +was a band at the bottom of your road, and he started hollering." + +We were at luncheon when Fussie made his dŽbut into the family circle, +and I very quickly saw his _stomach_ was his fault. He had a great +dislike to "Charles I."; we could never make out why. Perhaps it was +because Henry wore armor in one act--and Fussie may have barked his +shins against it. Perhaps it was the firing off of the guns; but more +probably it was because the play once got him into trouble. As a rule +Fussie had the most wonderful sense of the stage, and at rehearsal would +skirt the edge of it, but never cross it. But at Brooklyn one night when +we were playing "Charles I."--the last act, and that most pathetic part +of it where Charles is taking a last farewell of his wife and +children--Fussie, perhaps excited by his run over the bridge from New +York, suddenly bounded on to the stage! The good children who were +playing Princess Mary and Prince Henry didn't even smile; the audience +remained solemn, but Henry and I nearly went into hysterics. Fussie knew +directly that he had done wrong. He lay down on his stomach, then rolled +over on his back, whimpering an apology--while carpenters kept on +whistling and calling to him from the wings. The children took him up to +the window at the back of the scene, and he stayed there cowering +between them until the end of the play. + +America seems to have been always fatal to Fussie. Another time when +Henry and I were playing in some charity performance in which John Drew +and Maude Adams were also acting, he disgraced himself again. Henry +having "done his bit" and put on hat and coat to leave the theater, +Fussie thought the end of the performance must have come; the stage had +no further sanctity for him, and he ran across it to the stage door +barking! John Drew and Maude Adams were playing "A Pair of Lunatics." +Maude Adams, sitting looking into the fire, did not see Fussie, but was +amazed to hear John Drew departing madly from the text: + + "Is this a dog I see before me, + His tail towards my hand? + Come, let me clutch thee." + +She began to think that he had really gone mad! + +When Fussie first came, Charlie was still alive, and I have often gone +into Henry's dressing-room and seen the two dogs curled up in both the +available chairs, Henry _standing_ while he made up, rather than disturb +them! + +When Charlie died, Fussie had Henry's idolatry all to himself. I have +caught them often sitting quietly opposite each other at Grafton Street, +just adoring each other! Occasionally Fussie would thump his tail on the +ground to express his pleasure. + +Wherever we went in America the hotel people wanted to get rid of the +dog. In the paper they had it that Miss Terry asserted that Fussie was a +little terrier, while the hotel people regarded him as a pointer, and +funny caricatures were drawn of a very big me with a very tiny dog, and +a very tiny me with a dog the size of an elephant! Henry often walked +straight out of an hotel where an objection was made to Fussie. If he +wanted to stay, he had recourse to strategy. At Detroit the manager of +the hotel said that dogs were against the rules. Being very tired Henry +let Fussie go to the stables for the night, and sent Walter to look +after him. The next morning he sent for the manager. + +"Yours is a very old-fashioned hotel, isn't it?" + +"Yes, sir, very old and ancient." + +"Got a good chef? I didn't think much of the supper last night; but +still--the beds are comfortable enough--I am afraid you don't like +animals?" + +"Yes, sir, in their proper place." + +"It's a pity," said Henry meditatively, "because you happen to be +overrun by rats!" + +"Sir, you must have made a mistake. Such a thing couldn't--" + +"Well, I couldn't pass another night here without my dog," Henry +interrupted. "But there are, I suppose, other hotels?" + +"If it will be any comfort to you to have your dog with you, sir, do by +all means, but I assure you that he'll catch no rat here." + +"I'll be on the safe side," said Henry calmly. + +And so it was settled. That very night Fussie supped off, not rats, but +terrapin and other delicacies in Henry's private sitting-room. + +It was the 1888 tour, the great blizzard year, that Fussie was left +behind by mistake at Southampton. He jumped out at the station just +before Southampton, where they stop to collect tickets. After this long +separation, Henry naturally thought that the dog would go nearly mad +with joy when he saw him again. He described to me the meeting in a +letter. + + "My dear Fussie gave me a terrible shock on Sunday night. When we + got in, J----, Hatton, and I dined at the Cafe Royal. I told Walter + to bring Fussie there. He did, and Fussie burst into the room while + the waiter was cutting some mutton, when, what d'ye think--one + bound at me--another instantaneous bound at the mutton, and from + the mutton nothing would get him until he'd got his plateful. + + "Oh, what a surprise it was indeed! He never now will leave my + side, my legs, or my presence, but I cannot but think, alas, of + that seductive piece of mutton!" + +Poor Fussie! He met his death through the same weakness. It was at +Manchester, I think. A carpenter had thrown down his coat with a ham +sandwich in the pocket, over an open trap on the stage. Fussie, nosing +and nudging after the sandwich, fell through and was killed instantly. +When they brought up the dog after the performance, every man took his +hat off.... Henry was not told until the end of the play. + +He took it so very quietly that I was frightened, and said to his son +Laurence who was on that tour: + +"Do let's go to his hotel and see how he is." + +We drove there and found him sitting eating his supper with the poor +dead Fussie, who would never eat supper any more, curled up in his rug +on the sofa. Henry was talking to the dog exactly as if it were alive. +The next day he took Fussie back in the train with him to London, +covered with a coat. He is buried in the dogs' cemetery, Hyde Park. + +His death made an enormous difference to Henry. Fussie was his constant +companion. When he died, Henry was really alone. He never spoke of what +he felt about it, but it was easy to know. + +We used to get hints how to get this and that from watching Fussie! His +look, his way of walking! He _sang_, whispered eloquently and low--then +barked suddenly and whispered again! Such a lesson in the law of +contrasts! + +The first time that Henry went to the Lyceum after Fussie's death, every +one was anxious and distressed, knowing how he would miss the dog in his +dressing-room. Then an odd thing happened. The wardrobe cat, who had +never been near the room in Fussie's lifetime, came down and sat on +Fussie's cushion! No one knew how the "Governor" would take it. But when +Walter was sent out to buy some meat for it, we saw that Henry was not +going to resent it! From that night onwards the cat always sat night +after night in the same place, and Henry liked its companionship. In +1902, when he left the theater for good, he wrote to me: + + "The place is now given up to the rats--all light cut off, and only + Barry[1] and a foreman left. Everything of mine I've moved away, + including the Cat!" + +[Footnote 1: The stage-door keeper.] + +I have never been to America yet without going to Niagara. The first +time I saw the great falls I thought it all more wonderful than +beautiful. I got away by myself from my party, and looked and looked at +it, and I listened--and at last it became dreadful and I was +_frightened_ at it. I wouldn't go alone again, for I felt queer and +wanted to follow the great flow of it. But at twelve o'clock, with the +"sun upon the topmost height of the day's journey," most of Nature's +sights appear to me to be at their plainest. In the evening, when the +shadows grow long and all hard lines are blurred, how soft, how +different, everything is! It was noontide, that garish cruel time of +day, when I first came in sight of the falls. I'm glad I went again in +other lights--but one should live by the side of all this greatness to +learn to love it. Only once did I catch Niagara in _beauty_, with pits +of color in its waters, no one color definite--all was wonderment, +allurement, fascination. The _last_ time I was there it was wonderful, +but not beautiful any more. The merely stupendous, the merely marvelous, +have always repelled me. I cannot _realize_, and become terribly weak +and doddering. No terrific scene gives me pleasure. The great ca–ons +give me unrest, just as the long low lines of my Sussex marshland near +Winchelsea give me rest. + +At Niagara William Terriss slipped and nearly lost his life. At night +when he appeared as Bassanio, he shrugged his shoulders, lowered his +eyelids, and said to me-- + +"Nearly gone, dear,"--he would call everybody "dear"--"But Bill's luck! +Tempus fugit!" + +What tempus had to do with it, I don't quite know! + +When we were first in Canada I tobogganed at Rosedale. I should say it +was like flying! The start! Amazing! "Farewell to this world," I +thought, as I felt my breath go. Then I shut my mouth, opened my eyes, +and found myself at the bottom of the hill in a jiffy--"over hill, over +dale, through bush, through briar!" I rolled right out of the toboggan +when we stopped. A very nice Canadian man was my escort, and he helped +me up the hill afterwards. I didn't like _that_ part of the affair quite +so much. + +Henry Irving would not come, much to my disappointment. He said that +quick motion through the air always gave him the ear-ache. He had to +give up swimming (his old Cornish Aunt Penberthy told me he delighted in +swimming as a boy) just because it gave him most violent pains in the +ear. + +Philadelphia, as I first knew it, was the most old-world place I saw in +America, except perhaps Salem. Its redbrick side-walks, the trees in the +streets, the low houses with their white marble cuffs and collars, the +pretty design of the place, all give it a character of its own. The +people, too, have a character of their own. They dress, or at least +_did_ dress, very quietly. This was the only sign of their Quaker +origin, except a very fastidious taste--in plays as in other things. + +Mrs. Gillespie, the great-grandchild of Benjamin Franklin, was one of my +earliest Philadelphia friends--a splendid type of the independent woman, +a bit of the martinet, but immensely full of kindness and humor. She had +a word to say in all Philadelphian matters. It would be difficult to +imagine a greater contrast to Mrs. Gillespie of Philadelphia than Mrs. +Fields of Boston, that other great American lady whom to know is a +liberal education. + +Mrs. Fields reminded me of Lady Tennyson, Mrs. Tom Taylor, and Miss +Hogarth (Dickens's sister-in-law) all rolled into one. Her house is full +of relics of the past. There is a portrait of Dickens as a young man +with long hair. He had a feminine face in those days, for all its +strength. Hard by is a sketch of Keats by Severn, with a lock of the +poet's hair. Opposite is a head of Thackeray, with a note in his +handwriting fastened below. "Good-bye, Mrs. Fields; good-bye, my dear +Fields; good-bye to all. I go home." + +Thackeray left Boston abruptly because a sudden desire to see his +children had assailed him at Christmas time! + +As you sit in Mrs. Field's spacious room overlooking the Bay, you +realize suddenly that before you ever came into it, Dickens and +Thackeray were both here, that this beautiful old lady who so kindly +smiles on you has smiled on them and on many other great men of letters +long since dead. It is here that they seem most alive. This is the house +where the culture of Boston seems no fad to make a joke about, but a +rare and delicate reality. + +This--and Fen Court, the home of that wonderful woman Mrs. Jack +Gardiner, who represents the present worship of beauty in Boston as Mrs. +Fields represents its former worship of literary men. Fen Court is a +house of enchantment, a palace, and Mrs. Gardiner is like a great +princess in it. She has "great possessions" indeed, but her best, to my +mind, is her most beautiful voice, even though I remember her garden by +moonlight with the fountain playing, her books and her pictures, the +Sargent portrait of herself presiding over one of the most splendid of +those splendid rooms, where everything great in old art and new art is +represented. What a portrait it is! Some one once said of Sargent that +"behind the individual he finds the real, and behind the real, a whole +social order." + +He has painted "Mrs. Jack" in a tight-fitting black dress with no +ornament but her world-famed pearl necklace round her waist, and on her +shoes rubies like drops of blood. The daring, intellectual face seems to +say: "I have possessed everything that is worth possession, through the +energy and effort and labor of the country in which I was born." + +Mrs. Gardiner represents all the _poetry_ of the millionaire. + +Mrs. Gardiner's house filled me with admiration, but if I want rest and +peace I just think of the houses of Mrs. James Fields and Oliver Wendell +Holmes. He was another personage in Boston life when I first went there. +Oh, the visits I inflicted on him--yet he always seemed pleased to see +me, the cheery, kind man. It was generally winter when I called on him. +At once it was "four feet upon a fender!" Four feet upon a fender was +his idea of happiness, he told me, during one of these lengthy visits of +mine to his house in Beacon Street. + +He came to see us in "Much Ado about Nothing" and, next day sent me some +little volumes of his work with a lovely inscription on the front page. +I miss him very much when I go to Boston now. + +In New York, how much I miss Mrs. Beecher I could never say. The +Beechers were the most wonderful pair. What an actor he would have made! +He read scenes from Shakespeare to Henry and me at luncheon one day. He +sat next to his wife, and they held hands nearly all the while; I +thought of that time when the great preacher was tried, and all through +the trial his wife showed the world her faith in his innocence by +sitting by his side and holding his hand. + +He was indeed a great preacher. I have a little faded card in my +possession now: "Mrs. Henry W. Beecher." "Will ushers of Plymouth Church +please seat the bearer in the Pastor's pew." And in the Pastor's pew I +sat, listening to that magnificent bass-viol voice with its persuasive +low accent, its torrential scorn! After the sermon I went to the +Beechers' home. Mr. Beecher sat with a saucer of uncut gems by him on +the table. He ran his hand through them from time to time, held them up +to the light, admiring them and speaking of their beauty and color as +eloquently as an hour before he had spoken of sin and death and +redemption. + +He asked me to choose a stone, and I selected an aquamarine, and he had +it splendidly mounted for me in Venetian style to wear in "The Merchant +of Venice." Once when he was ill, he told me, his wife had some few +score of his jewels set up in lead--a kind of small stained-glass +window--and hung up opposite his bed. "It did me more good than the +doctor's visits," he laughed out! + +Mrs. Beecher was very remarkable. She had a way of lowering her head and +looking at you with a strange intentness--gravely--kindly and quietly. +At her husband she looked a world of love, of faith, of undying +devotion. She was fond of me, although I was told she disliked women +generally and had been brought up to think all actresses children of +Satan. Obedience to the iron rules which had always surrounded her had +endowed her with extraordinary self-control. She would not allow herself +ever to feel heat or cold, and could stand any pain or discomfort +without a word of complaint. + +She told me once that when she and her sister were children, a friend +had given them some lovely bright blue silk, and as the material was so +fine they thought they would have it made up a little more smartly than +was usual in their somber religious home. In spite of their father's +hatred of gaudy clothes, they ventured on a little "V" at the neck, +hardly showing more than the throat; but still, in a household where +blue silk itself was a crime, it was a bold venture. They put on the +dresses for the first time for five o'clock dinner, stole downstairs +with trepidation, rather late, and took their seats as usual one on each +side of their father. He was eating soup and never looked up. The little +sisters were relieved. He was not going to say anything. + +No, he was not going to say anything, but suddenly he took a ladleful of +the hot soup and dashed it over the neck of one sister; another ladleful +followed quickly on the neck of the other. + +"Oh, father, you've burned my neck!" + +"Oh, father, you've spoiled my dress!" + +"Oh, father, why did you do that?" + +"I thought you might be cold," said the severe father +significantly--malevolently. + +That a woman who had been brought up like this should form a friendship +with me naturally caused a good deal of talk. But what did she care! She +remained my true friend until her death, and wrote to me constantly when +I was in England--such loving, wise letters, full of charity and simple +faith. In 1889, after her husband's death, I wrote to her and sent my +picture, and she replied: + +"My darling Nellie,-- + +"You cannot know how it soothes my extreme heart-loneliness to receive a +token of remembrance, and word of cheer from those I have faithfully +loved, and who knew and reverenced my husband.... Ellen Terry is very +sweet as Ellaline, but dearer far as my Nellie." + +The Daly players were a revelation to me of the pitch of excellence +which American acting had reached. My first night at Daly's was a night +of enchantment. I wrote to Mr. Daly and said: "You've got a girl in your +company who is the most lovely, humorous darling I have ever seen on the +stage." It was Ada Rehan! Now of course I didn't "discover" her or any +rubbish of that kind; the audience were already mad about her, but I did +know her for what she was, even in that brilliant "all-star" company and +before she had played in the classics and won enduring fame. The +audacious, superb, quaint, Irish creature! Never have I seen such +splendid high comedy! Then the charm of her voice--a little like Ethel +Barrymore's when Miss Ethel is speaking very nicely--her smiles and +dimples, and provocative, inviting _coquetterie_! Her Rosalind, her +Country Wife, her Helena, her performance in "The Railroad of Love"! And +above all, her Katherine in "The Taming of the Shrew"! I can only +exclaim, not explain! Directly she came on I knew how she was going to +do the part. She had such shy, demure fun. She understood, like all +great comedians, that you must not pretend to be serious so sincerely +that no one in the audience sees through it! + +As a woman off the stage Ada Rehan was even more wonderful than as a +shrew on. She had a touch of dignity, of nobility, of beauty, rather +like Eleonora Duse's. The mouth and the formation of the eye were +lovely. Her guiltlessness of make-up off the stage was so attractive! +She used to come in to a supper with a lovely shining face which scorned +a powder puff. The only thing one missed was the red hair which seemed +such a part of her on the stage. + +Here is a dear letter from the dear, written in 1890: + +"My dear Miss Terry,-- + +"Of course the first thing I was to do when I reached Paris was to write +and thank you for your lovely red feathers. One week is gone. To-day it +rains and I am compelled to stay at home, and at last I write. I thought +you had forgotten me and my feathers long ago. So imagine my delight +when they came at the very end. I liked it so. It seemed as if I lived +all the time in your mind: and they came as a good-bye. + +"I saw but little of you, but in that little I found no change. That was +gratifying to me, for I am over-sensitive, and would never trouble you +if you had forgotten me. How I shall prize those feathers--Henry +Irving's, presented by Ellen Terry to me for my Rosalind Cap. I shall +wear them once and then put them by as treasures. Thank you so much for +the pretty words you wrote me about 'As You Like It.' I was hardly fit +on that matinŽe. The great excitement I went through during the London +season almost killed me. I am going to try and rest, but I fear my +nerves and heart won't let me. + +"You must try and read between the lines all I feel. I am sure you can +if any one ever did, but I cannot put into words my admiration for +you--and that comes from deep down in my heart. Good-bye, with all good +wishes for your health and success. + +"I remain + +"Yours most affectionately, + +"ADA REHAN." + +I wish I could just once have played with Ada Rehan. When Mr. Tree could +not persuade Mrs. Kendal to come and play in "The Merry Wives of +Windsor" a second time, I hoped that Ada Rehan would come and rollick +with me as Mrs. Ford--but it was not to be. + +Mr. Daly himself interested me greatly. He was an excellent manager, a +man in a million. But he had no artistic sense. The productions of +Shakespeare at Daly's were really bad from the pictorial point of view. +But what pace and "ensemble" he got from his company! + +May Irwin was the low comedian who played the servants' parts in Daly's +comedies from the German. I might describe her, except that she was far +more genial, as a kind of female Rutland Barrington. On and off the +stage her geniality distinguished her like a halo. It is a rare quality +on the stage, yet without it the comedian has uphill work. I should say +that May Irwin and J.B. Buckstone (the English actor and manager of the +Haymarket Theater during the 'sixties) had it equally. Generous May +Irwin! Lucky those who have her warm friendship and jolly, kind +companionship! + +John Drew, the famous son of a famous mother, was another Daly player +whom I loved. With what loyalty he supported Ada Rehan! He never played +for his own hand but for the good of the piece. His mother, Mrs. John +Drew, had the same quiet methods as Mrs. Alfred Wigan. Everything that +she did told. I saw Mrs. Drew play Mrs. Malaprop, and it was a lesson to +people who overact. Her daughter, Georgie Drew, Ethel Barrymore's +mother, was also a charming actress. Maurice Barrymore was a brilliantly +clever actor. Little Ethel, as I still call her, though she is a big +"star," is carrying on the family traditions. She ought to play Lady +Teazle. She may take it from me that she would make a success in it. + +Modjeska, who, though she is a Polish actress, lives in America and is +associated with the American stage, made a great impression on me. She +was exquisite in many parts, but in none finer than in "Adrienne +Lecouvreur." Her last act electrified me. I have never seen it better +acted, although I have seen all the great ones do it since. Her Marie +Stuart, too, was a beautiful and distinguished performance. Her Juliet +had lovely moments, but I did not so much care for that, and her broken +English interfered with the verse of Shakespeare. Some years ago I met +Modjeska and she greeted me so warmly and sweetly, although she was very +ill. + +During my more recent tours in America Maude Adams is the actress of +whom I have seen most, and "to see her is to love her!" In "The Little +Minister" and in "Quality Street" I think she is at her best, but above +all parts she herself is most adorable. She is just worshiped in +America, and has an extraordinary effect--an _educational_ effect upon +all American girlhood. + +I never saw Mary Anderson act. That seems a strange admission, but +during her wonderful reign at the Lyceum Theater, which she rented from +Henry Irving, I was in America, and another time when I might have seen +her act I was very ill and ordered abroad. I have, however, had the +great pleasure of meeting her, and she has done me many little +kindnesses. Hearing her praises sung on all sides, and her beauties +spoken of everywhere, I was particularly struck by her modest evasion of +publicity _off_ the stage. I personally only knew her as a most +beautiful woman--as kind as beautiful--constantly working for her +religion--_always_ kind, a good daughter, a good wife, a good woman. + +She cheered me before I first sailed for America by saying that her +people would like me. + +"Since seeing you in Portia and Letitia," she wrote, "I am convinced you +will take America by storm." Certainly _she_ took _England_ by storm! +But she abandoned her triumphs almost as soon as they were gained. They +never made her happy, she once told me, and I could understand her +better than most since I had had success too, and knew that it did not +mean happiness. I have a letter from her, written from St. Raphael soon +after her marriage. It is nice to think that she is just as happy now as +she was then--that she made no mistake when she left the stage, where +she had such a brief and brilliant career. + +"GRAND HOTEL DE VALESCURE, +"ST. RAPHAEL, FRANCE. + +"Dear Miss Terry,-- + +"I am saying all kinds of fine things about your beautiful work in my +book--which will appear shortly; but I cannot remember the name of the +small part you made so attractive in the 'Lyons Mail.' It was the first +one I had seen you in, and I wish to write my delightful impressions of +it. + +"Will you be so very kind as to tell me the name of your character and +the two Mr. Irving acted so wonderfully in that play? + +"There is a brilliant blue sea before my windows, with purple mountains +as a background and silver-topped olives and rich green pines in the +middle distance. I wish you could drop down upon us in this golden land +for a few days' holiday from your weary work. + +"I would like to tell you what a big darling my husband is, and how +perfectly happy he makes my life--but there's no use trying. + +"The last time we met I promised you a photo--here it is! One of my +latest! And won't you send me one of yours in private dress? DO! + +"Forgive me for troubling you, and believe me your admirer + +"MARY ANDERSON DE NAVARRO." + +Henry and I were so fortunate as to gain the friendship and approval of +Dr. Horace Howard Furness, perhaps the finest Shakespearean scholar in +America, and editor of the "Variorum Shakespeare," which Henry +considered the best of all editions--"the one which counts." It was in +Boston, I think, that I disgraced myself at one of Dr. Furness's +lectures. He was discussing "As You Like It" and Rosalind, and proving +with much elaboration that English in Shakespeare's time was pronounced +like a broad country dialect, and that Rosalind spoke Warwickshire! A +little girl who was sitting in the row in front of me had lent me her +copy of the play a moment before, and now, absorbed in Dr. Furness's +argument, I forgot the book wasn't mine and began scrawling +controversial notes in it with my very thick and blotty fountain pen. + +"Give me back my book! Give me my book!" screamed the little girl. "How +dare you write in my book!" She began to cry with rage. + +Her mother tried to hush her up: "Don't, darling. Be quiet! It's Miss +Ellen Terry." + +"I don't care! She's spoilt my nice book!" + +I am glad to say that when the little girl understood, she forgave me; +and the spoilt book is treasured very much by a tall Boston young lady +of eighteen who has replaced the child of seven years ago! Still, it was +dreadful of me, and I did feel ashamed at the time. + +I saw "As You Like It" acted in New York once with every part (except +the man who let down the curtain) played by a woman, and it was +extraordinarily well done. The most remarkable bit of acting was by +Janauschek, who played Jacques. I have never heard the speech beginning +"All the world's a stage" delivered more finely, not even by Phelps, who +was fine in the part. + +Mary Shaw's Rosalind was good, and the Silvius (who played it, now?) was +charming. + +Unfortunately that one man, poor creature (no wonder he was nervous!), +spoiled the end of the play by failing to ring down the curtain, at +which the laughter was immoderate! Janauschek used to do a little sketch +from the German called "Come Here!" which I afterwards did in England. + +In November, 1901, I wrote in my diary: "_Philadelphia._--Supper at +Henry's. Jefferson there, sweeter and more interesting than ever--and +younger." + +Dear Joe Jefferson--actor, painter, courteous gentleman, _profound_ +student of Shakespeare! When the Bacon-Shakespeare controversy was +raging in America (it really _did_ rage there!) Jefferson wrote the most +delicious doggerel about it. He ridiculed, and his ridicule killed the +Bacon enthusiasts all the more dead because it was barbed with +erudition. + +He said that when I first came into the box to see him as "Rip" he +thought I did not like him, because I fidgeted and rustled and moved my +place, as is my wicked way. "But I'll get her, and I'll hold her," he +said to himself. I was held indeed--enthralled. + +In manner Jefferson was a little like Norman Forbes-Robertson. Perhaps +that was why the two took such a fancy to each other. When Norman was +walking with Jefferson one day, some one who met them said: + +"Your son?" + +"No," said Jefferson, "but I wish he were! The young man has such good +manners!" + +Our first American tours were in 1883 and 1884; the third in 1887-88, +the year of the great blizzard. Henry fetched us at half-past ten in the +morning! His hotel was near the theater where we were to play at night. +He said the weather was stormy, and we had better make for his hotel +while there was time! The German actor Ludwig Barnay was to open in New +York that night, but the blizzard affected his nerves to such an extent +that he did not appear at all, and returned to Germany directly the +weather improved! + +Most of the theaters closed for three days, but we remained open, +although there was a famine in the town and the streets were impassable. +The cold was intense. Henry sent Walter out to buy some violets for +Barnay, and when he brought them in to the dressing room--he had only +carried them a few yards--they were frozen so hard that they could have +been chipped with a hammer! + +We rang up on "Faust" three-quarters of an hour late! This was not bad +considering all things. Although the house was sold out, there was +hardly any audience, and only a harp and two violins in the orchestra. +Discipline was so strong in the Lyceum company that every member of it +reached the theater by eight o'clock, although some of them had had to +walk from Brooklyn Bridge. + +The Mayor of New York and his daughter managed to reach their box +somehow. Then we thought it was time to begin. Some members of Daly's +company, including John Drew, came in, and a few friends. It was the +oddest, scantiest audience! But the enthusiasm was terrific! + +Five years went by before we visited America again. Five years in a +country of rapid changes is a long time, long enough for friends to +forget! But they didn't forget. This time we made new friends, too, in +the Far West. We went to San Francisco, among other places. We attended +part of a performance at the Chinese theater. Oh, those rows of +impenetrable faces gazing at the stage with their long, shining, +inexpressive eyes! What a look of the everlasting the Chinese have! "We +have been before you--we shall be after you," they seem to say. + +Just as we were getting interested in the play, the interpreter rose and +hurried us out. Something that was not for the ears of women was being +said, but we did not know it! + +The chief incident of the fifth American tour was our production at +Chicago of Laurence Irving's one-act play "Godefroi and Yolande." I +regard that little play as an inspiration. By instinct the young author +did everything right. The Chicago folk, in spite of the unpleasant theme +of the play, recognized the genius of it, and received it splendidly. + +In 1901 I was ill, and hated the parts I was playing in America. The +Lyceum was not what it had been. Everything was changed. + +In 1907--only the other day--I toured in America for the first time on +my own account--playing modern plays for the first time. I made new +friends and found my old ones still faithful. + +But this tour was chiefly momentous to me because at Pittsburg I was +married for the third time, and married to an American. My marriage was +my own affair, but very few people seemed to think so, and I was +overwhelmed with "inquiries," kind and otherwise. Kindness and loyalty +won the day. "If any one deserves to be happy, you do," many a friend +wrote. Well, I am happy, and while I am happy, I cannot feel old. + + + + +XIII + +THE MACBETH PERIOD + + +Perhaps Henry Irving and I might have gone on with Shakespeare to the +end of the chapter if he had not been in such a hurry to produce +"Macbeth." + +We ought to have done "As You Like It" in 1888, or "The Tempest." Henry +thought of both these plays. He was much attracted by the part of +Caliban in "The Tempest," but, he said, "the young lovers are +everything, and where are we going to find them?" He would have played +Touchstone in "As You Like It," not Jacques, because Touchstone is in +the vital part of the play. + +He might have delayed both "Macbeth" and "Henry VIII." He ought to have +added to his list of Shakespearean productions "Julius Caesar," "King +John," "As You Like It," "Antony and Cleopatra," "Richard II.," and +"Timon of Athens." There were reasons "against," of course. In "Julius +Caesar" he wanted to play Brutus. "That's the part for the actor," he +said, "because it needs acting. But the actor-manager's part is +Antony--Antony scores all along the line. Now when the actor and +actor-manager fight in a play, and when there is no part for you in it, +I think it's wiser to leave it alone." + +Every one knows when the luck first began to turn against Henry Irving. +It was in 1896 when he revived "Richard III." On the first night he +went home, slipped on the stairs in Grafton Street, broke a bone in his +knee, aggravated the hurt by walking on it, and had to close the +theater. It was that year, too, that his general health began to fail. +For the ten years preceding his death he carried on an indomitable +struggle against ill-health. Lungs and heart alike were weak. Only the +spirit in that frail body remained as strong as ever. Nothing could bend +it, much less break it. + +But I have not come to that sad time yet. + +"We all know when we do our best," said Henry once. "We are the only +people who know." Yet he thought he did better in "Macbeth" than in +"Hamlet"! + +Was he right after all? + +His _view_ of "Macbeth," though attacked and derided and put to shame in +many quarters, is as clear to me as the sunlight itself. To me it seems +as stupid to quarrel with the conception as to deny the nose on one's +face. But the carrying out of the conception was unequal. Henry's +imagination was sometimes his worst enemy. + +When I think of his "Macbeth," I remember him most distinctly in the +last act after the battle when he looked like a great famished wolf, +weak with the weakness of a giant exhausted, spent as one whose +exertions have been ten times as great as those of commoner men of +rougher fiber and coarser strength. + + "Of all men else I have avoided thee." + +Once more he suggested, as he only could suggest, the power of Fate. +Destiny seemed to hang over him, and he knew that there was no hope, no +mercy. + +The rehearsals for "Macbeth" were very exhausting, but they were +splendid to watch. In this play Henry brought his manipulation of crowds +to perfection. My acting edition of the play is riddled with rough +sketches by him of different groups. Artists to whom I have shown them +have been astonished by the spirited impressionism of these sketches. +For his "purpose" Henry seems to have been able to do anything, even to +drawing, and composing music! Sir Arthur Sullivan's music at first did +not quite please him. He walked up and down the stage humming, and +showing the composer what he was going to do at certain situations. +Sullivan, with wonderful quickness and open-mindedness, caught his +meaning at once. + +"Much better than mine, Irving--much better--I'll rough it out at once!" + +When the orchestra played the new version, based on that humming of +Henry's, it was exactly what he wanted! + +Knowing what a task I had before me, I began to get anxious and worried +about "Lady Mac." Henry wrote me such a nice letter about this: + + "To-night, if possible, the last act. I want to get these great + multitudinous scenes over and then we can attack _our_ scenes.... + Your sensitiveness is so acute that you must suffer sometimes. You + are not like anybody else--see things with such lightning quickness + and unerring instinct that dull fools like myself grow irritable + and impatient sometimes. I feel confused when I'm thinking of one + thing, and disturbed by another. That's all. But I do feel very + sorry afterwards when I don't seem to heed what I so much value.... + + "I think things are going well, considering the time we've been at + it, but I see so much that is wanting that it seems almost + impossible to get through properly. 'To-night commence, Matthias. + If you sleep, you are lost!'"[1] + +[Footnote 1: A quotation from "The Bells."] + +At this time we were able to be of the right use to each other. Henry +could never have worked with a very strong woman. I might have +deteriorated, in partnership with a weaker man whose ends were less +fine, whose motives were less pure. I had the taste and artistic +knowledge that his upbringing had not developed in him. For years he did +things to please me. Later on I gave up asking him. In "King Lear" Mrs. +Nettleship made him a most beautiful cloak, but he insisted on wearing a +brilliant purple velvet cloak with spangles all over it which swamped +his beautiful make-up and his beautiful acting. Poor Mrs. Nettleship was +almost in tears. + +"I'll never make you anything again--never!" + +One of Mrs. "Nettle's" greatest triumphs was my Lady Macbeth dress, +which she carried out from Mrs. Comyns Carr's design. I am glad to think +it is immortalized in Sargent's picture. From the first I knew that +picture was going to be splendid. In my diary for 1888 I was always +writing about it: + + "The picture of me is nearly finished, and I think it magnificent. + The green and blue of the dress is splendid, and the expression as + Lady Macbeth holds the crown over her head is quite wonderful. + + "Henschel is sitting to Sargent. His concerts, I hear, can't be + carried on another year for want of funds. What a shame! + + "Mr. Sargent is painting a head of Henry--very good, but mean about + the chin at present. + + "Sargent's picture is talked of everywhere and quarreled about as + much as my way of playing the part. + + "Sargent's 'Lady Macbeth' in the New Gallery is a great success. + The picture is the sensation of the year. Of course opinions differ + about it, but there are dense crowds round it day after day. There + is talk of putting it on exhibition by itself." + +Since then it has gone over nearly the whole of Europe, and now is +resting for life at the Tate Gallery. Sargent suggested by this picture +all that I should have liked to be able to convey in my acting as Lady +Macbeth. + + _My Diary._--"Everybody hates Sargent's head of Henry. Henry also. + I like it, but not altogether. I think it perfectly wonderfully + painted and like him, only not at his best by any means. There sat + Henry and there by his side the picture, and I could scarce tell + one from t'other. Henry looked white, with tired eyes, and holes in + his cheeks and bored to death! And there was the picture with white + face, tired eyes, holes in the cheeks and boredom in every line. + Sargent tried to paint his smile and gave it up." + +Sargent said to me, I remember, upon Henry Irving's first visit to the +studio to see the Macbeth picture of me, "What a Saint!" This to my mind +promised well--that Sargent should see _that_ side of Henry so swiftly. +So then I never left off asking Henry to sit to Sargent, who wanted to +paint him too, and said to me continually, "What a head!" + + _From my Diary._--"Sargent's picture is almost finished, and it is + really splendid. Burne-Jones yesterday suggested two or three + alterations about the color which Sargent immediately adopted, but + Burne-Jones raves about the picture. + + "It ('Macbeth') is a most tremendous success, and the last three + days' advance booking has been greater than ever was known, even at + the Lyceum. Yes, it is a success, and I am a success, which amazes + me, for never did I think I should be let down so easily. Some + people hate me in it; some, Henry among them, think it my best + part, and the critics differ, and discuss it hotly, which in itself + is my best success of all! Those who don't like me in it are those + who don't want, and don't like to read it fresh from Shakespeare, + and who hold by the 'fiend' reading of the character.... One of the + best things ever written on the subject, I think, is the essay of + J. Comyns Carr. That is as hotly discussed as the new 'Lady + Mac'--all the best people agreeing with it. Oh, dear! It is an + exciting time!" + +From a letter I wrote to my daughter, who was in Germany at the time: + + "I wish you could see my dresses. They are superb, especially the + first one: green beetles on it, and such a cloak! The photographs + give no idea of it at all, for it is in color that it is so + splendid. The dark red hair is fine. The whole thing is + Rossetti--rich stained-glass effects, I play some of it well, but, + of course, I don't do what I want to do yet. Meanwhile I shall not + budge an inch in the reading of it, for that I know is right. Oh, + it's fun, but it's precious hard work for I by no means make her a + 'gentle, lovable woman' as some of 'em say. That's all pickles. She + was nothing of the sort, although she was _not_ a fiend, and _did_ + love her husband. I have to what is vulgarly called 'sweat at it,' + each night." + +The few people who liked my Lady Macbeth, liked it very much. I hope I +am not vain to quote this letter from Lady Pollock: + + "... Burne-Jones has been with me this afternoon: he was at + 'Macbeth' last night, and you filled his whole soul with your + beauty and your poetry.... He says you were a great Scandinavian + queen; that your presence, your voice, your movement made a + marvelously poetic harmony; that your dress was grandly imagined + and grandly worn--and that he cannot criticize--he can only + remember." + +But Burne-Jones by this time had become one of our most ardent admirers, +and was prejudiced in my favor because my acting appealed to his _eye_. +Still, the drama is for the eye as well as for the ear and the mind. + +Very early I learned that one had best be ambitious merely to please +oneself in one's work a little--quietly. I coupled with this the +reflection that one "gets nothing for nothing, and damned little for +sixpence!" + +Here I was in the very noonday of life, fresh from Lady Macbeth and +still young enough to play Rosalind, suddenly called upon to play a +rather uninteresting mother in "The Dead Heart." However, my son Teddy +made his first appearance in it, and had such a big success that I soon +forgot that for me the play was rather "small beer." + +It had been done before, of course, by Benjamin Webster and George +Vining. Henry engaged Bancroft for the AbbŽ, a part of quite as much +importance as his own. It was only a melodrama, but Henry could always +invest a melodrama with life, beauty, interest, mystery, by his methods +of production. + + "I'm full of French Revolution," he wrote to me when he was + preparing the play for rehearsal, "and could pass an examination. + In our play, at the taking of the Bastile we must have a starving + crowd--hungry, eager, cadaverous faces. If that can be well carried + out, the effect will be very terrible, and the contrast to the + other crowd (the red and fat crowd--the blood-gorged ones who look + as if they'd been all drinking wine--_red_ wine, as Dickens says) + would be striking.... It's tiresome stuff to read, because it + depends so much on situations. I have been touching the book up + though, and improved it here and there, I think. + + "A letter this morning from the illustrious Blank offering me his + prompt book to look at.... I think I shall borrow the treasure. Why + not? Of course he will say that he has produced the play and all + that sort of thing; but what does that matter, if one can only get + one hint out of it? + + "The longer we live, the more we see that if we only do our own + work thoroughly well, we can be independent of everything else or + anything that may be said.... + + "I see in Landry a great deal of Manette--that same vacant gaze + into years gone by when he crouched in his dungeon nursing his + wrongs.... + + "I shall send you another book soon to put any of your alterations + and additions in. I've added a lot of little things with a few + lines for you--very good, I think, though I say it as shouldn't--I + know you'll laugh! They are perhaps not startling original, but + better than the original, anyhow! Here they are--last act! + + "'Ah, Robert, pity me. By the recollections of our youth, I implore + you to save my boy!' (_Now_ for 'em!) + + "'If my voice recalls a tone that ever fell sweetly upon your ear, + have pity on me! If the past is not a blank, if you once loved, + have pity on me!' (Bravo!) + + "Now I call that very good, and if the 'If and the 'pitys' don't + bring down the house, well it's a pity! I pity the pittites! + + "... I've just been copying out my part in an account book--a + little more handy to put in one's pocket. It's really very short, + but difficult to act, though, and so is yours. I like this 'piling + up' sort of acting, and I am sure you will, when you play the part. + It's restful. 'The Bells' is that sort of thing." + +The crafty old Henry! All this was to put me in conceit with my part! + +Many people at this time put me in conceit with my son, including dear +Burne-Jones with his splendid gift of impulsive enthusiasm. + +"THE GRANGE, +"WEST KENSINGTON, W. +"_Sunday._ + +"Most Dear Lady,-- + +"I thought all went wonderfully last night, and no sign could I see of +hitch or difficulty; and as for your boy, he looked a lovely little +gentleman--and in his cups was perfect, not overdoing by the least touch +a part always perilously easy to overdo. I too had the impertinence to +be a bit nervous for you about him, but not when he appeared--so +altogether I was quite happy. + +"... Irving was very noble--I thought I had never seen his face so +beautified before--no, that isn't the word, and to hunt for the right +one would be so like judicious criticism that I won't. Exalted and +splendid it was--and you were you--YOU--and so all was well. I rather +wanted more shouting and distant roar in the Bastille Scene--since the +walls fell, like Jericho, by noise. A good dreadful growl always going +on would have helped, I thought--and that was the only point where I +missed anything. + +"And I was very glad you got your boy back again and that Mr. Irving was +ready to have his head cut off for you; so it had what I call a good +ending, and I am in bright spirits to-day, and ever + +"Your real friend, + +"E.B.-J." + +"I would come and growl gladly." + +There were terrible strikes all over England when we were playing "The +Dead Heart." I could not help sympathizing with the strikers ... yet +reading all about the French Revolution as I did then, I can't +understand how the French nation can be proud of it when one remembers +how they butchered their own great men, the leaders of the +movement--Camille Desmoulins, Danton, Robespierre and the others. My man +is Camille Desmoulins. I just love him. + +Plays adapted from novels are generally unsatisfactory. A whole story +cannot be conveyed in three hours, and every reader of the story looks +for something not in the play. Wills took from "The Vicar of Wakefield" +an episode and did it right well, but there was no _episode_ in "The +Bride of Lammermoor" for Merivale to take. He tried to traverse the +whole ground, and failed. But he gave me some lovely things to do in +Lucy Ashton. I had to lose my poor wits, as in Ophelia, in the last act, +and with hardly a word to say I was able to make an effect. The love +scene at the well I did nicely too. + +Seymour Lucas designed splendid dresses for this play. My "Ravenswood" +riding dress set a fashion in ladies' coats for quite a long time. Mine +was copied by Mr. Lucas from a leather coat of Lord Mohun's. He is said +to have had it on when he was killed. At any rate there was a large stab +in the back of the coat, and a blood-stain. + +This was my first speculation in play-buying! I saw it acted, and +thought I could do something with it. Henry would not buy it, so I did! +He let me do it first in front of a revival of "The Corsican Brothers" +in 1891. It was a great success, although my son and I did not know a +word on the first night and had our parts written out and pinned all +over the furniture on the stage! Dear old Mr. Howe wrote to me that +Teddy's performance was "more than creditable; it was exceedingly good +and full of character, and with your own charming performance the piece +was a great success." Since 1891 I must have played "Nance Oldfield" +hundreds of times, but I never had an Alexander Oldworthy so good as my +own son, although such talented young actors as Martin Harvey, Laurence +Irving and, more recently, Harcourt Williams have all played it with me. + +Henry's pride as Cardinal Wolsey seemed to eat him. How wonderful he +looked (though not fat and self-indulgent like the pictures of the real +Wolsey) in his flame-colored robes! He had the silk dyed specially by +the dyers to the Cardinal's College in Rome. Seymour Lucas designed the +clothes. It was a magnificent production, but not very interesting to +me. I played Katherine much better ten years later at Stratford-on-Avon +at the Shakespeare Memorial Festival. I was stronger then, and more +reposeful. This letter from Burne-Jones about "Henry VIII." is a +delightful tribute to Henry Irving's treatment of the play: + +"My Dear Lady,-- + +"We went last night to the play (at my theater) to see Henry +VIII.--Margaret and Mackail and I. It was delicious to go out again and +see mankind, after such evil days. How kind they were to me no words can +say--I went in at a private door and then into a cosy box and back the +same way, swiftly, and am marvelously the better for the adventure. No +YOU, alas! + +"I have written to Mr. Irving just to thank him for his great kindness +in making the path of pleasure so easy, for I go tremblingly at present. +But I could not say to him what I thought of the Cardinal--a sort of +shame keeps one from saying to an artist what one thinks of his +work--but to you I can say how nobly he warmed up the story of the old +religion to my exacting mind in that impersonation. I shall think always +of dying monarchy in his Charles--and always of dying hierarchy in his +Wolsey. How Protestant and dull all grew when that noble type had gone! + +"I can't go to church till red cardinals come back (and may they be of +exactly that red) nor to Court till trumpets and banners come back--nor +to evening parties till the dances are like that dance. What a lovely +young Queen has been found. But there was no YOU.... Perhaps it was as +well. I couldn't have you slighted even in a play, and put aside. When +I go back to see you, as I soon will, it will be easier. Mr. Irving let +me know you would not act, and proposed that I should go later +on--wasn't that like him? So I sat with my children and was right happy; +and, as usual, the streets looked dirty, and all the people muddy and +black as we came away. Please not to answer this stuff. + +"Ever yours affectionately, + +"E.B.-J. + +"--I wish that Cardinal could have been made Pope, and sat with his foot +on the Earl of Surrey's neck. Also I wish to be a Cardinal; but then I +sometimes want to be a pirate. We can't have all we want. + +"Your boy was very kind--I thought the race of young men who are polite +and attentive to old fading ones had passed away with antique +pageants--but it isn't so." + +When the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire gave the famous fancy dress +ball at Devonshire House, Henry attended it in the robes which had +appealed so strongly to Burne-Jones's imaginative eye. I was told by one +who was present at this ball that as the Cardinal swept up the +staircase, his long train held magnificently over his arm, a sudden wave +of reality seemed to sweep upstairs with him, and reduce to the +prettiest make-believe all the aristocratic masquerade that surrounded +him. + +I renewed my acquaintance with "Henry VIII." in 1902, when I played +Queen Katherine for Mr. Benson during the Shakespeare Memorial +performances in April. I was pretty miserable at the time--the Lyceum +reign was dying, and taking an unconscionably long time about it, which +made the position all the more difficult. Henry Irving was reviving +"Faust"--a wise step, as it had been his biggest "money-maker"--and it +was impossible that I could play Margaret. There are some young parts +that the actress can still play when she is no longer young: Beatrice, +Portia, and many others come to mind. But I think that when the +character is that of a young girl the betrayal of whose innocence is the +main theme of the play, no amount of skill on the part of the actress +can make up for the loss of youth. + +Suggestions were thrown out to me (not by Henry Irving, but by others +concerned) that although I was too old for Margaret, I might play +_Martha_! Well! well! I didn't quite see _that_. So I redeemed a promise +given in jest at the Lyceum to Frank Benson twenty years earlier, and +went off to Stratford-upon-Avon to play in Henry VIII. + +Mr. Benson was wonderful to work with. "I am proud to think," he wrote +me just before our few rehearsals began, "that I have trained my folk +(as I was taught by my elders and betters at the Lyceum) to be pretty +quick at adapting themselves to anything that may be required of them, +so that you need not be uneasy as to their not fitting in with your +business." + +"My folk," as Mr. Benson called them, were excellent, especially Surrey +(Harcourt Williams), Norfolk (Matheson Lang), Caperius (Fitzgerald), and +Griffith (Nicholson). "Harcourt Williams," I wrote in my diary on the +day of the dress-rehearsal, "will be heard of very shortly. He played +Edgar in 'Lear' much better than Terriss, although not so good an actor +yet." + +I played Katherine on Shakespeare's Birthday--such a lovely day, bright +and sunny and warm. The performance went finely--and I made a little +speech afterwards which was quite a success. I was presented publicly on +the stage with the Certificate of Governorship of the Memorial Theater. + +During these pleasant days at Stratford, I went about in between the +performances of "Henry VIII."--which was, I think, given three times a +week for three weeks--seeing the lovely country and lovely friends who +live there. A visit to Broadway and to beautiful Madame de Navarro (Mary +Anderson) was particularly delightful. To see her looking so handsome, +robust and fresh--so happy in her beautiful home, gave me the keenest +pleasure. I also went to Stanways--the Elchos' home--a fascinating +place. Lady Elcho showed me all over it, and she was not the least +lovely thing in it. + +In Stratford I was rebuked by the permanent inhabitants for being kind +to a little boy in professionally ragged clothing who made me, as he has +made hundreds of others, listen to a long, made-up history of +Stratford-on-Avon, Shakespeare, the Merchant of Venice, Julius Caesar +and other things--the most hopeless mix! The inhabitants assured me that +the boy was a little rascal, who begged and extorted money from visitors +by worrying them with his recitation until they paid him to leave them +alone. + +Long before I knew that the child was such a reprobate I had given him a +pass to the gallery and a Temple Shakespeare! I derived such pleasure +from his version of the "Mercy" speech from "The Merchant of Venice" +that I still think he was ill-paid! + + "The quality of mercy is not strange + It droppeth as _the_ gentle rain from 'Eaven + Upon _the_ place beneath; it is twicet bless. + It blesseth in that gives and in that takes + It is in the mightiest--in the mightiest + It becomes the throned monuk better than its crownd. + + It's an appribute to God inself + It is in the thorny 'earts of kings + But not in the fit and dread of kings." + +I asked the boy what he meant to be when he was a man. He answered with +decision: "A reciterer." + +I also asked him what he liked best in the play ("Henry VIII."). + +"When the blind went up and down and you smiled," he replied--surely a +na•ve compliment to my way of "taking a call"! Further pressed, he +volunteered: "When you lay on the bed and died to please the angels." + + + + +XIV + +LAST DAYS AT THE LYCEUM + + +I had exactly ten years more with Henry Irving after "Henry VIII." +During that time we did "King Lear," "Becket," "King Arthur," +"Cymbeline," "Madame Sans-Gne," "Peter the Great" and "The Medicine +Man." I feel too near to these productions to write about them. The +first night of "Cymbeline" I felt almost dead. Nothing seemed right. +"Everything is so slow, so slow," I wrote in my diary. "I don't feel a +bit inspired, only dull and hide-bound." Yet Imogen was, I think, the +_only_ inspired performance of these later years. On the first night of +"Sans-Gne" I acted _courageously_ and fairly well. Every one seemed to +be delighted. The old Duke of Cambridge patted, or rather _thumped_, me +on the shoulder and said kindly: "Ah, my dear, _you_ can act!" Henry +quite effaced me in his wonderful sketch of Napoleon. "It seems to me +some nights," I wrote in my diary at the time, "as if I were watching +Napoleon trying to imitate H.I., and I find myself immensely interested +and amused in the watchings." + +"The Medicine Man" was, in my opinion, our only _quite_ unworthy +production. + + _From my Diary._--"Poor Taber has such an awful part in the play, + and mine is even worse. It is short enough, yet I feel I can't cut + too much of it.... The gem of the whole play is my hair! Not waved + at all, and very filmy and pale. Henry, I admit, is splendid; but + oh, it is all such rubbish!... If 'Manfred' and a few such plays + are to succeed this, I simply must do something else." + +But I did not! I stayed on, as every one knows, when the Lyceum as a +personal enterprise of Henry's was no more--when the farcical Lyceum +Syndicate took over the theater. I played a wretched part in +"Robespierre," and refused £12,000 to go to America with Henry in +"Dante." + +In these days Henry was a changed man. He became more republican and +less despotic as a producer. He left things to other people. As an actor +he worked as faithfully as ever. Henley's stoical lines might have been +written of him as he was in these last days: + + "Out of the night that covers me, + Black as the Pit from pole to pole, + I thank whatever gods there be + For my unconquerable soul. + + "In the fell clutch of circumstance + I have not winced nor cried aloud: + Beneath the bludgeonings of chance + My head is bloody but unbowed." + +Henry Irving did not treat me badly. I hope I did not treat him badly. +He revived "Faust" and produced "Dante." I would have liked to stay with +him to the end of the chapter, but there was nothing for me to act in +either of these plays. But we never quarreled. Our long partnership +dissolved naturally. It was all very sad, but it could not be helped. + +It has always been a reproach against Henry Irving in some mouths that +he neglected the modern English playwright; and of course the reproach +included me to a certain extent. I was glad, then, to show +that I _could_ act in the new plays when Mr. Barrie wrote +"Alice-sit-by-the-Fire" for me, and after some years' delay I was able +to play in Mr. Bernard Shaw's "Captain Brassbound's Conversion." Of +course I could not have played in "little" plays of this school at the +Lyceum with Henry Irving, even if I had wanted to! They are essentially +plays for small theaters. + +In Mr. Shaw's "A Man of Destiny" there were two good parts, and Henry, +at my request, considered it, although it was always difficult to fit a +one-act play into the Lyceum bill. For reasons of his own Henry never +produced Mr. Shaw's play and there was a good deal of fuss made about it +at the time (1897). But ten years ago Mr. Shaw was not so well known as +he is now, and the so-called "rejection" was probably of use to him as +an advertisement! + +"A Man of Destiny" has been produced since, but without any great +success. I wonder if Henry and I could have done more with it? + +At this time Mr. Shaw and I frequently corresponded. It began by my +writing to ask him, as musical critic of the _Saturday Review_, to tell +me frankly what he thought of the chances of a composer-singer friend of +mine. He answered "characteristically," and we developed a perfect fury +for writing to each other! Sometimes the letters were on business, +sometimes they were not, but always his were entertaining, and mine +were, I suppose, "good copy," as he drew the character of Lady Cecily +Waynflete in "Brassbound" entirely from my letters. He never met me +until after the play was written. In 1902 he sent me this ultimatum: + +"_April 3, 1902._ + +"Mr. Bernard Shaw's compliments to Miss Ellen Terry. + +"Mr. Bernard Shaw has been approached by Mrs. Langtry with a view to the +immediate and splendid production of 'Captain Brassbound's Conversion.' + +"Mr. Bernard Shaw, with the last flash of a trampled-out love, has +repulsed Mrs. Langtry with a petulance bordering on brutality. + +"Mr. Bernard Shaw has been actuated in this ungentlemanly and +unbusinesslike course by an angry desire to seize Miss Ellen Terry by +the hair and make her play Lady Cicely. + +"Mr. Bernard Shaw would be glad to know whether Miss Ellen Terry wishes +to play Martha at the Lyceum instead. + +"Mr. Bernard Shaw will go to the length of keeping a minor part open for +Sir Henry Irving when 'Faust' fails, if Miss Ellen Terry desires it. + +"Mr. Bernard Shaw lives in daily fear of Mrs. Langtry's recovering +sufficiently from her natural resentment of his ill manners to reopen +the subject. + +"Mr. Bernard Shaw begs Miss Ellen Terry to answer this letter. + +"Mr. Bernard Shaw is looking for a new cottage or house in the country, +and wants advice on the subject. + +"Mr. Bernard Shaw craves for the sight of Miss Ellen Terry's once +familiar handwriting." + +The first time he came to my house I was not present, but a young +American lady who had long adored him from the other side of the +Atlantic took my place as hostess (I was at the theater as usual); and I +took great pains to have everything looking nice! I spent a long time +putting out my best blue china, and ordered a splendid dinner, quite +forgetting the honored guest generally dined off a Plasmon biscuit and a +bean! + +Mr. Shaw read "Arms and the Man" to my young American friend (Miss Satty +Fairchild) without even going into the dining-room where the blue china +was spread out to delight his eye. My daughter Edy was present at the +reading, and appeared so much absorbed in some embroidery, and paid the +reader so few compliments about his play, that he expressed the opinion +that she behaved as if she had been married to him for twenty years! + +The first time I ever saw Mr. Shaw in the flesh--I hope he will pardon +me such an anti-vegetarian expression--was when he took his call after +the first production of "Captain Brassbound's Conversion" by the Stage +Society. He was quite unlike what I had imagined from his letters. + +When at last I was able to play in "Captain Brassbound's Conversion," I +found Bernard Shaw wonderfully patient at rehearsal. I look upon him as +a good, kind, gentle creature whose "brain-storms" are just due to the +Irishman's love of a fight; they never spring from malice or anger. It +doesn't answer to take Bernard Shaw seriously. He is not a man of +convictions. That is one of the charms of his plays--to me at least. One +never knows how the cat is really jumping. But it _jumps_. Bernard Shaw +is alive, with nine lives, like that cat! + +On Whit Monday, 1902, I received a telegram from Mr. Tree saying that he +was coming down to Winchelsea to see me on "an important matter of +business." I was at the time suffering from considerable depression +about the future. + +The Stratford-on-Avon visit had inspired me with the feeling that there +was life in the old 'un yet and had distracted my mind from the +strangeness of no longer being at the Lyceum permanently with Henry +Irving. But there seemed to be nothing ahead, except two matinŽes a +week with him at the Lyceum, to be followed by a provincial tour in +which I was only to play twice a week, as Henry's chief attraction was +to be "Faust." This sort of "dowager" engagement did not tempt me. +Besides, I hated the idea of drawing a large salary and doing next to no +work. + +So when Mr. Tree proposed that I should play Mrs. Page (Mrs. Kendal +being Mrs. Ford) in "The Merry Wives of Windsor" at His Majesty's, it +was only natural that I should accept the offer joyfully. I telegraphed +to Henry Irving, asking him if he had any objection to my playing at His +Majesty's. He answered: "Quite willing if proposed arrangements about +matinŽes are adhered to." + +I have thought it worth while to give the facts about this engagement, +because so many people seemed at the time, and afterwards, to think that +I had treated Henry Irving badly by going to play in another theater, +and that theater one where a certain rivalry with the Lyceum as regards +Shakespearean productions had grown up. There was absolutely no +foundation for the rumors that my "desertion" caused further +estrangement between Henry Irving and me. + +"Heaven give you many, many merry days and nights," he telegraphed to me +on the first night; and after that first night (the jolliest that I ever +saw), he wrote delighting in my success. + +It _was_ a success--there was no doubt about it! Some people accused the +Merry Wives of rollicking and "mafficking" overmuch--but these were the +people who forgot that we were acting in a farce, and that farce is +farce, even when Shakespeare is the author. + +All the summer I enjoyed myself thoroughly. It was all such _good +fun_--Mrs. Kendal was so clever and delightful to play with, Mr. Tree so +indefatigable in discovering new funny "business." + +After the dress-rehearsal I wrote in my diary: "Edy has real genius for +dresses for the stage." My dress for Mrs. Page was such a _real_ +thing--it helped me enormously--and I was never more grateful for my +daughter's gift than when I played Mrs. Page. + +It was an admirable all-round cast--almost a "star" cast: Oscar Asche as +Ford, poor Henry Kemble (since dead) as Dr. Caius, Courtice Pounds as +Sir Hugh Evans, and Mrs. Tree as sweet Anne Page all rowed in the boat +with precisely the right swing. There were no "passengers" in the cast. +The audience at first used to seem rather amazed! This thwacking +rough-and-tumble, Rabelaisian horse-play--Shakespeare! Impossible! But +as the evening went on we used to capture even the most civilized, and +force them to return to a simple Elizabethan frame of mind. + +In my later career I think I have had no success like this! Letters +rained on me--yes, even love-letters, as if, to quote Mrs. Page, I were +still in "the holiday-time of my beauty." As I would always rather make +an audience laugh than see them weep, it may be guessed how much I +enjoyed the hearty laughter at His Majesty's during the run of the +madcap absurdity of "The Merry Wives of Windsor." + +All the time I was at His Majesty's I continued to play in matinŽes of +"Charles I." and "The Merchant of Venice" at the Lyceum with Henry +Irving. We went on negotiating, too, about the possibility of my +appearing in "Dante," which Sardou had written specially for Irving, and +on which he was relying for his next tour in America. + +On the 19th of July, 1902, I acted at the Lyceum for the very last time, +although I did not know it then. These last Lyceum days were very sad. +The reception given by Henry to the Indian Princes, who were in England +for the Coronation, was the last flash of the splendid hospitality which +had for so many years been one of the glories of the theater. + +During my provincial tour with Henry Irving in the autumn of this year I +thought long and anxiously over the proposition that I should play in +"Dante." I heard the play read, and saw no possible part for me in it. I +refused a large sum of money to go to America with Henry Irving because +I could not consent to play a part even worse than the one that I had +played in "Robespierre." As things turned out, although "Dante" did +fairly well at Drury Lane, the Americans would have none of it and Henry +had to fall back upon his rŽpertoire. + +Having made the decision against "Dante," I began to wonder what I +should do. My partnership with Henry Irving was definitely broken, most +inevitably and naturally "dissolved." There were many roads open to me. +I chose one which was, from a financial point of view, _madness_. + +Instead of going to America, and earning £12,000, I decided to take a +theater with my son, and produce plays in conjunction with him. + +I had several plays in view--an English translation of a French play +about the patient Griselda, and a comedy by Miss Clo Graves among them. +Finally, I settled upon Ibsen's "Vikings." + +We read it aloud on Christmas Day, and it seemed _tremendous_. Not in my +most wildly optimistic moments did I think Hiordis, the chief female +character--a primitive, fighting, free, open-air person--suited to me, +but I saw a way of playing her more _brilliantly_ and less _weightily_ +than the text suggested, and anyhow I was not thinking so much of the +play for me as for my son. He had just produced Mr. Laurence Houseman's +Biblical play "Bethlehem" in the hall of the Imperial Institute, and +every one had spoken highly of the beauty of his work. He had previously +applied the same principles to the mounting of operas by Handel and +Purcell. + +It had been a great grief to me when I lost my son as an actor. I have +never known any one with so much natural gift for the stage. +Unconsciously he did everything right--I mean all the technical things +over which some of us have to labor for years. The first part that he +played at the Lyceum, Arthur St. Valery in "The Dead Heart," was good, +and he went on steadily improving. The last part that he played at the +Lyceum--Edward IV. in "Richard III."--was, maternal prejudice quite +apart, a most remarkable performance. + +His record for 1891, when he was still a mere boy, was: Claudio (in +"Much Ado about Nothing"), Mercutio, Modus, Charles Surface, Alexander +Oldworthy, Moses (in "Olivia"), Lorenzo, Malcolm, Beauchamp; Meynard, +and the Second Grave-Digger! + +Later on he played Hamlet, Macbeth and Romeo on a small provincial +tour. His future as an actor seemed assured, but it wasn't! One day when +he was with William Nicholson, the clever artist and one of the +Beggarstaff Brothers of poster fame, he began chipping at a woodblock in +imitation of Nicholson, and produced in a few hours an admirable +wood-cut of Walt Whitman, then and always his particular hero. From that +moment he had the "black and white" fever badly. Acting for a time +seemed hardly to interest him at all. When his interest in the theater +revived, it was not as an actor but as a stage director that he wanted +to work. + +What more natural than that his mother should give him the chance of +exploiting his ideas in London? Ideas he had in plenty--"unpractical" +ideas people called them; but what else should _ideas_ be? + +At the Imperial Theater, where I spent my financially unfortunate season +in April 1903, I gave my son a free hand. I hope it will be remembered, +when I am spoken of by the youngest critics after my death as a +"Victorian" actress, lacking in enterprise, an actress belonging to the +"old school," that I produced a spectacular play of Ibsen's in a manner +which possibly anticipated the scenic ideas of the future by a century, +of which at any rate the orthodox theater managers of the present age +would not have dreamed. + +Naturally I am not inclined to criticize my son's methods. I think there +is a great deal to be said for the views that he has expressed in his +pamphlet on "The Art of the Theater," and when I worked with him I found +him far from unpractical. It was the modern theater which was +unpractical when he was in it! It was wrongly designed, wrongly built. +We had to disembowel the Imperial behind scenes before he could even +start, and then the great height of the proscenium made his lighting +lose all its value. He always considered the pictorial side of the scene +before its dramatic significance, arguing that this significance lay in +the picture and in movement--the drama having originated not with the +poet but with the dancer. + +When his idea of dramatic significance clashed with Ibsen's, strange +things would happen. + +Mr. Bernard Shaw, though impressed by my son's work and the beauty that +he brought on to the stage of the Imperial, wrote to me that the +symbolism of the first act according to Ibsen should be Dawn, youth +rising with the morning sun, reconciliation, rich gifts, brightness, +lightness, pleasant feelings, peace. On to this sunlit scene stalks +Hiordis, a figure of gloom, revenge, of feud eternal, of relentless +hatred and uncompromising unforgetfulness of wrong. At the Imperial, +said Mr. Shaw, the curtain rose on profound gloom. When you _could_ see +anything you saw eld and severity--old men with white hair impersonating +the gallant young sons of Ornulf--everywhere murky cliffs and shadowy +spears, melancholy--darkness! + +Into this symbolic night enter, in a blaze of limelight, a fair figure +robed in complete fluffy white fur, a gay and bright Hiordis with a +timid manner and hesitating utterance. + +The last items in the topsy-turviness of my son's practical significance +were entirely my fault! Mr. Shaw was again moved to compliments when I +revived "Much Ado about Nothing" under my son's direction at the +Imperial. "The dance was delightful, but I would suggest the +substitution of trained dancers for untrained athletes," he wrote. + +I singed my wings a good deal in the Imperial limelight, which, although +our audience complained of the darkness on the stage, was the most +serious drain on my purse. But a few provincial tours did something +towards restoring some of the money that I had lost in management. + +On one of these tours I produced "The Good Hope," a play by the Dutch +dramatist, Heijermans, dealing with life in a fishing village. Done into +simple and vigorous English by Christopher St. John, the play proved a +great success in the provinces. This was almost as new a departure for +me as my season at the Imperial. The play was essentially modern in +construction and development--full of action, but the action of incident +rather than the action of stage situation. It had no "star" parts, but +every part was good, and the gloom of the story was made bearable by the +beauty of the atmosphere--of the _sea_, which played a bigger part in it +than any of the visible characters. + +For the first time I played an old woman, a very homely old peasant +woman too. It was not a big part, but it was interesting, and in the +last act I had a little scene in which I was able to make the same kind +of effect that I had made years before in the last act of +"Ravenswood"--an effect of _quiet_ and stillness. + +I flattered myself that I was able to assume a certain roughness and +solidity of the peasantry in "The Good Hope," but although I stumbled +about heavily in large sabots, I was told by the critics that I walked +like a fairy and was far too graceful for a Dutch fisherwoman! It is a +case of "Give a dog a bad name and hang him"--the bad name in my case +being "a womanly woman"! What this means I scarcely apprehend, but I +fancy it is intended to signify (in an actress) something sweet, pretty, +soft, appealing, gentle and _underdone_. Is it possible that I convey +that impression when I try to assume the character of a washerwoman or a +fisherwoman? If so I am a very bad actress! + +My last Shakespearean part was Hermione in "A Winter's Tale." By some +strange coincidence it fell to me to play it exactly fifty years after I +had played the little boy Mamilius in the same play. I sometimes think +that Fate is the best of stage managers! Hermione is a gravely beautiful +part--well-balanced, difficult to act, but certain in its appeal. If +only it were possible to put on the play in a simple way and arrange the +scenes to knit up the raveled interest, I should hope to play Hermione +again. + + +MY STAGE JUBILEE + +When I had celebrated my stage jubilee in 1906, I suddenly began to feel +exuberantly young again. It was very inappropriate, but I could not help +it. + +The recognition of my fifty years of stage life by the public and by my +profession was quite unexpected. Henry Irving had said to me not long +before his death in 1905 that he believed that they (the theatrical +profession) "intended to celebrate our jubilee." (If he had lived he +would have completed his fifty years on the stage in the autumn of +1906.) He said that there would be a monster performance at Drury Lane, +and that already the profession were discussing what form it was to +take. + +After his death, I thought no more of the matter. Indeed I did not want +to think about it, for any recognition of my jubilee which did not +include his, seemed to me very unnecessary. + +Of course I was pleased that others thought it necessary. I enjoyed all +the celebrations. Even the speeches that I had to make did not spoil my +enjoyment. But all the time I knew perfectly well that the great show of +honor and "friending" was not for me alone. Never for one instant did I +forget this, nor that the light of the great man by whose side I had +worked for a quarter of a century was still shining on me from his +grave. + +The difficulty was to thank people as they deserved. Stammering speeches +could not do it, but I hope that they all understood. "I were but little +happy, if I could say how much." + +Kindness on kindness's head accumulated! There was _The Tribune_ +testimonial. I can never forget that London's youngest newspaper first +conceived the idea of celebrating my Stage Jubilee.[1] + +[Footnote 1: I am sorry to say that since I wrote this _The Tribune_, +after a gallant fight for life, has gone to join the company of the +courageous enterprises which have failed.] + +The matinŽe given in my honor at Drury Lane by the theatrical profession +was a wonderful sight. The two things about it which touched me most +deeply were my reception by the crowd who were waiting to get into the +gallery when I visited them at two in the morning, and the presence of +Eleonora Duse, who came all the way from Florence just to honor me. She +told me afterwards that she would have come from South Africa or from +Heaven, had she been there! I appreciated very much too, the kindness of +Signor Caruso in singing for me. I did not know him at all, and the gift +of his service was essentially the impersonal desire of an artist to +honor another artist. + +I was often asked during these jubilee days, "how I felt about it all," +and I never could answer sensibly. The strange thing is that I don't +know even now what was in my heart. Perhaps it was one of my chief joys +that I had not to say good-bye at any of the celebrations. I could still +speak to my profession as a fellow-comrade on the active list, and to +the public as one still in their service. + +One of those little things almost too good to be true happened at the +close of the Drury Lane matinŽe. A four-wheeler was hailed for me by the +stage-door keeper, and my daughter and I drove off to Lady Bancroft's in +Berkeley Square to leave some flowers. Outside the house, the cabman +told my daughter that in old days he had often driven Charles Kean from +the Princess's Theater, and that sometimes the little Miss Terrys were +put inside the cab too and given a lift! My daughter thought it such an +extraordinary coincidence that the old man should have come to the +stage-door of Drury Lane by a mere chance on my jubilee day that she +took his address, and I was to send him a photograph and remuneration. +But I promptly lost the address, and was never able to trace the old +man. + + +APOLOGIA + +I have now nearly finished the history of my fifty years upon the stage. + +A good deal has been left out through want of skill in selection. Some +things have been included which perhaps it would have been wiser to +omit. + +I have tried my best to tell "all things faithfully," and it is possible +that I have given offense where offense was not dreamed of; that some +people will think that I should not have said this, while others, +approving of "this," will be quite certain that I ought not to have said +"that." + + "One said it thundered ... another that an angel spake." + +It's the point of view, for I have "set down naught in malice." + +During my struggles with my refractory, fragmentary, and unsatisfactory +memories, I have realized that life itself is a point of view: is, to +put it more clearly, imagination. + +So if any one said to me at this point in my story: "And is this, then, +what you call your life?" I should not resent the question one little +bit. + +"We have heard," continues my imaginary and disappointed interlocutor, +"a great deal about your life in the theater. You have told us of plays +and parts and rehearsals, of actors good and bad, of critics and of +playwrights, of success and failure, but after all, your whole life has +not been lived in the theater. Have you nothing to tell us about your +different homes, your family life, your social diversions, your friends +and acquaintances? During your life there have been great changes in +manners and customs; political parties have altered; a great Queen has +died; your country has been engaged in two or three serious wars. Did +all these things make no impression on you? Can you tell us nothing of +your life in the world?" + +And I have to answer that I have lived very little in the world. After +all, the life of an actress belongs to the theater as the life of a +soldier belongs to the army, the life of a politician to the State, and +the life of a woman of fashion to society. + +Certainly I have had many friends outside the theater, but I have had +very little time to see them. + +I have had many homes, but I have had very little time to live in them! + +When I am not acting, the best part of my time is taken up by the most +humdrum occupations. Dealing with my correspondence, even with the help +of a secretary, is no insignificant work. The letters, chiefly +consisting of requests for my autograph, or appeals to my charity, have +to be answered. I have often been advised to ignore them--surely a +course that would be both bad policy and bad taste on the part of a +servant of the public. It would be unkind, too, to those ignorant of my +busy life and the calls upon my time. + +Still, I sometimes wish that the cost of a postage stamp were a +sovereign at least! + + * * * * * + +In 1887, the year of Queen Victoria's Jubilee, I find that I wrote in my +diary:--"I am not yet forty, but am pretty well worn out." + +It is twenty years since then, and I am still not worn out. Wonderful! + + +THE DEATH OF HENRY IRVING + +It is commonly known, I think, that Henry Irving's health first began to +fail in 1896. + +He went home to Grafton Street after the first night of the revival of +"Richard III." and slipped on the stairs, injuring his knee. With +characteristic fortitude, he struggled to his feet unassisted and walked +to his room. This made the consequences of the accident far more +serious, and he was not able to act for weeks. + +It was a bad year at the Lyceum. + +In 1898 when we were on tour he caught a chill. Inflammation of the +lungs, bronchitis, pneumonia followed. His heart was affected. He was +never really well again. + +When I think of his work during the next seven years, I could weep! +Never was there a more admirable, extraordinary worker; never was any +one more splendid-couraged and patient. + +The seriousness of his illness in 1898 was never really known. He nearly +died. + + "I am still fearfully anxious about H.," I wrote to my daughter at + the time. "It will be a long time at the best before he gains + strength.... But now I do hope for the best. I'm fairly well so + far. All he wants is for me to keep my health, not my _head_. He + knows I'm doing that! Last night I did three acts of 'Sans-Gne' + and 'Nance Oldfield' thrown in! That is a bit too much--awful + work--and I can't risk it again." + + "A telegram just come: 'Steadily improving....' You should have + seen Norman[1] as Shylock! It was not a bare 'get-through.' It + was--the first night--an admirable performance, as well as a plucky + one.... H. is more seriously ill than anyone dreams.... His look! + Like the last act of Louis XI." + +[Footnote 1: Mr. Norman Forbes-Robertson.] + +In 1902, on the last provincial tour that we ever went together, he was +ill again, but he did not give in. One night when his cough was rending +him, and he could hardly stand up from weakness, he acted so brilliantly +and strongly that it was easy to believe in the triumph of mind over +matter--in Christian Science, in fact! + +Strange to say, a newspaper man noticed the splendid power of his +performance that night and wrote of it with uncommon discernment--a +_provincial_ critic, by the way. + +In London at the time they were always urging Henry Irving to produce +new plays by new playwrights. But in the face of the failure of most of +the new work, and of his departing strength, and of the extraordinary +support given him in the old plays (during this 1902 tour we took £4,000 +at Glasgow in one week!), Henry took the wiser course in doing nothing +but the old plays to the end of the chapter. + +I realized how near, not only the end of the chapter but the end of the +book was, when he was taken ill at Wolverhampton in the spring of 1905. + +We had not acted together for more than two years then, and times were +changed indeed. + +I went down to Wolverhampton when the news of his illness reached +London. I arrived late and went to an hotel. It was not a good hotel, +nor could I find a very good florist when I got up early the next day +and went out with the intention of buying Henry some flowers. I wanted +some bright-colored ones for him--he had always liked bright +flowers--and this florist dealt chiefly in white flowers--_funeral_ +flowers. + +At last I found some daffodils--my favorite flower. I bought a bunch, +and the kind florist, whose heart was in the right place if his flowers +were not, found me a nice simple glass to put it in. I knew the sort of +vase that I should find at Henry's hotel. + +I remembered, on my way to the doctor's--for I had decided to see the +doctor first--that in 1892 when my dear mother died, and I did not act +for a few nights, when I came back I found my room at the Lyceum filled +with daffodils. "To make it look like sunshine," Henry said. + +The doctor talked to me quite frankly. + +"His heart is dangerously weak," he said. + +"Have you told him?" I asked. + +"I had to, because the heart being in that condition he must be +careful." + +"Did he understand _really_?" + +"Oh, yes. He said he quite understood." + +Yet a few minutes later when I saw Henry, and begged him to remember +what the doctor had said about his heart, he exclaimed: "Fiddle! It's +not my heart at all! It's my _breath_!" (Oh the ignorance of great men +about themselves!) + +"I also told him," the Wolverhampton doctor went on, "that he must not +work so hard in future." + +I said: "He will, though,--and he's stronger than any one." + +Then I went round to the hotel. + +I found him sitting up in bed, drinking his coffee. + +He looked like some beautiful gray tree that I have seen in Savannah. +His old dressing-gown hung about his frail yet majestic figure like some +mysterious gray drapery. + +We were both very much moved, and said little. + +"I'm glad you've come. Two Queens have been kind to me this morning. +Queen Alexandra telegraphed to say how sorry she was I was ill, and now +you--" + +He showed me the Queen's gracious message. + +I told him he looked thin and ill, but _rested_. + +"Rested! I should think so. I have plenty of time to rest. They tell me +I shall be here eight weeks. Of course I sha'n't, but still--It was that +rug in front of the door. I tripped over it. A commercial traveler +picked me up--a kind fellow, but d--n him, he wouldn't leave me +afterwards--wanted to talk to me all night." + +I remembered his having said this, when I was told by his servant, +Walter Collinson, that on the night of his death at Bradford, he +stumbled over the rug when he walked into the hotel corridor. + +We fell to talking about work. He said he hoped that I had a good +manager ... agreed very heartily with me about Frohman, saying he was +always so fair--more than fair. + +"What a wonderful life you've had, haven't you?" I exclaimed, thinking +of it all in a flash. + +"Oh, yes," he said quietly ... "a wonderful life--of work." + +"And there's nothing better, after all, is there?" + +"Nothing." + +"What have you got out of it all.... You and I are 'getting on,' as +they say. Do you ever think, as I do sometimes, what you have got out of +life?" + +"What have I got out of it?" said Henry, stroking his chin and smiling +slightly. "Let me see.... Well, a good cigar, a good glass of wine--good +friends." Here he kissed my hand with courtesy. Always he was so +courteous; always his actions, like this little one of kissing my hand, +were so beautifully timed. They came just before the spoken words, and +gave them peculiar value. + +"That's not a bad summing-up of it all," I said. "And the end.... How +would you like that to come?" + +"How would I like that to come?" He repeated my question lightly yet +meditatively too. Then he was silent for some thirty seconds before he +snapped his fingers--the action again before the words. + +"Like that!" + +I thought of the definition of inspiration--"A calculation rapidly +made." Perhaps he had never thought of the manner of his death before. +Now he had an inspiration as to how it would come. + +We were silent a long time, I thinking how like some splendid Doge of +Venice he looked, sitting up in bed, his beautiful mobile hand stroking +his chin. + +I agreed, when I could speak, that to be snuffed out like a candle would +save a lot of trouble. + +After Henry Irving's sudden death in October of the same year, some of +his friends protested against the statement that it was the kind of +death that he desired--that they knew, on the contrary, that he thought +sudden death inexpressibly sad. + +I can only say what he told me. + +I stayed with him about three hours at Wolverhampton. Before I left I +went back to see the doctor again--a very nice man by the way, and +clever. + +He told me that Henry ought never to play "The Bells" again, even if he +acted again, which he said ought not to be. + +It was clever of the doctor to see what a terrible emotional strain "The +Bells" put upon Henry--how he never could play the part of Matthias with +ease as he could Louis XI., for example. + +Every time he heard the sound of the bells, the throbbing of his heart +must have nearly killed him. He used always to turn quite white--there +was no trick about it. It was imagination acting physically on the body. + +His death as Matthias--the death of a strong, robust man--was different +from all his other stage deaths. He did really almost die--he imagined +death with such horrible intensity. His eyes would disappear upwards, +his face grow gray, his limbs cold. + +No wonder, then, that the first time that the Wolverhampton doctor's +warning was disregarded, and Henry played "The Bells" at Bradford, his +heart could not stand the strain. Within twenty-four hours of his last +death as Matthias, he was dead. + +What a heroic thing was that last performance of Becket which came +between! I am told by those who were in the company at the time that he +was obviously suffering and dazed, this last night of life. But he went +through it all as usual. The courteous little speech to the audience, +the signing of a worrying boy's drawing at the stage-door--all that he +had done for years, he did faithfully for the last time. + +Yes, I know it seems sad to the ordinary mind that he should have died +in the entrance to an hotel in a country-town with no friend, no +relation near him. Only his faithful and devoted servant Walter +Collinson (whom, as was not his usual custom, he had asked to drive back +to the hotel with him that night) was there. Do I not feel the tragedy +of the beautiful body, for so many years the house of a thousand souls, +being laid out in death by hands faithful and devoted enough, but not +the hands of his kindred either in blood or in sympathy! + +I do feel it, yet I know it was more appropriate to such a man than the +deathbed where friends and relations weep. + +Henry Irving belonged to England, not to a family. England showed that +she knew it when she buried him in Westminster Abbey. + +Years before I had discussed, half in joke, the possibility of this +honor. I remember his saying to me with great simplicity, when I asked +him what he expected of the public after his death: "I should like them +to do their duty by me. And they will--they will!" + +There was not a touch of arrogance in this, just as I hope there was no +touch of heartlessness in me because my chief thought during the funeral +in Westminster Abbey was: "How Henry would have liked it!" The right +note was struck, as I think was not the case at Tennyson's funeral +thirteen years earlier. + + "Tennyson is buried to-day in Westminster Abbey," I wrote in my + diary, October 12, 1892. "His majestic life and death spoke of him + better than the service.... The music was poor and dull and weak, + while he was _strong_. The triumphant should have been the + sentiment expressed.... Faces one knew everywhere. Lord Salisbury + looked fine. His massive head and sad eyes were remarkable. No face + there, however, looked anything by the side of Henry's.... He + looked very pale and slim and wonderful!" + +How terribly I missed that face at Henry's own funeral! I kept on +expecting to see it, for indeed it seemed to me that he was directing +the whole most moving and impressive ceremony. I could almost hear him +saying, "Get on! get on!" in the parts of the service that dragged. When +the sun--such a splendid, tawny sun--burst across the solemn misty gray +of the Abbey, at the very moment when the coffin, under its superb pall +of laurel leaves,[1] was carried up the choir, I felt that it was an +effect which he would have loved. + +[Footnote 1: Every lover of beauty and every lover of Henry Irving must +have breathed a silent thanksgiving that day to the friends who had that +inspiration and made the pall with their own hands.] + +I can understand any one who was present at Henry Irving's funeral +thinking that this was his best memorial, and that any attempt to honor +him afterwards would be superfluous and inadequate. + +Yet when some further memorial was discussed, it was not always easy to +sympathize with those who said: "We got him buried in Westminster Abbey. +What more do you want?" + +After all it was Henry Irving's commanding genius, and his devotion of +it to high objects, his personal influence on the English people, which +secured him burial among England's great dead. The petition for the +burial presented to the Dean and Chapter, and signed, on the initiative +of Henry Irving's leading fellow-actors, by representative personages of +influence, succeeded only because of Henry's unique position. + +"We worked very hard to get it done," I heard said--more than once. And +I often longed to answer: "Yes, and all honor to your efforts, but you +worked for it between Henry's death and his funeral. _He_ worked for it +all his life!" + +I have always desired some other memorial to Henry Irving than his +honored grave, not so much for _his_ sake as for the sake of those who +loved him and would gladly welcome the opportunity of some great test of +their devotion. + +Henry Irving's profession decided last year, after much belated +discussion, to put up a statue to him in the streets of London. I +believe that it is to take the form of a portrait statue in academic +robes. A statue can never at any time be a very happy memorial to an +actor, who does not do his work in his own person, but through his +imagination of many different persons. If statue it had to be, the work +should have had a symbolic character. My dear friend Alfred Gilbert, one +of the most gifted sculptors of this or any age, expressed a similar +opinion to the committee of the memorial, and later on wrote to me as +follows: + + "I should never have attempted the representation of Irving as a + mummer, nor literally as Irving disguised as this one or that one, + but as _Irving_--the artistic exponent of other great artists' + conceptions--_Irving_, the greatest illustrator of the greatest + men's creations--he himself being a creator. + + "I had no idea of making use of Irving's facial and physical + peculiarities as a means to perpetuate his life's work. The spirit + of this work was worship of an ideal, and it was no fault of his + that his strong personality dominated the honest conviction of his + critics. These judged Irving as the man masquerading, not as the + Artist interpreting, for the single reason that they were + themselves overcome by the magic personality of a man above their + comprehension. + + "I am convinced that Irving, when playing the r™le of whatever + character he undertook to represent, lived in that character, and + not as the actor playing the part for the applause of those in + front--Charles I. was a masterpiece of conception as to the + representation of a great gentleman. His Cardinal Wolsey was the + most perfect presentation of greatness, of self-abnegation, and of + power to suffer I can realize.... Jingle and Matthias were in + Comedy and Tragedy combined, masterpieces of histrionic art. I + could write volumes upon Irving as an actor, but to write of him as + a _man_, and as a very great Artist, I should require more time + than is still allotted to me of man's brief span of life and far, + far more power than that which was given to those who wrote of him + in a hurry during his lifetime.... Do you wonder, then, that I + should rather elect to regard Irving in the abstract, when called + upon to suggest a fitting monument, than to promise a faithful + portrait?... Let us be grateful, however, that a great artist is to + be commemorated at all, side by side with the effigies of great + Butchers of mankind, and ephemeral statesmen, the instigators of + useless bloodshed...." + + +ALFRED GILBERT AND OTHERS + +Alfred Gilbert was one of Henry's sincere admirers in the old Lyceum +days, and now if you want to hear any one talk of those days +brilliantly, delightfully, and whimsically, if you want to live first +nights and Beefsteak Room suppers over again--if you want to have Henry +Irving at the Garrick Club recreated before your eyes, it is only Alfred +Gilbert who can do it for you! + +He lives now in Bruges, that beautiful dead city of canals and Hans +Memlings, and when I was there a few years ago I saw him. I shall never +forget his welcome! I let him know of my arrival, and within a few hours +he sent a carriage to my hotel to bring me to his house. The seats of +the _fiacre_ were hidden by flowers! He had not long been in his house, +and there were packing-cases still lying about in the spacious, desolate +rooms looking into an old walled garden. But on the wall of the room in +which we dined was a sketch by Raffaele, and the dinner, chiefly cooked +by Mr. Gilbert himself,--the Savoy at its best! + +Some people regret that he has "buried" himself in Bruges, and that +England has practically lost her best sculptor. I think that he will do +some of the finest work of his life there, and meanwhile England should +be proud of Alfred Gilbert. + +In a city which can boast of some of the ugliest and weakest statues in +the world, he has, in the fountain erected to the memory of the good +Lord Shaftesbury in Piccadilly Circus, created a thing of beauty which +will be a joy to future generations of Londoners. + +The other day Mr. Frampton, one of the leaders of the younger school of +English sculptors, said of the Gilbert fountain that it could hold its +own with the finest work of the same kind done by the masters of the +past. "They tell me," he said, "that it is inappropriate to its +surroundings. It is. That's the fault of the surroundings. In a more +enlightened age than this, Piccadilly Circus will be destroyed and +rebuilt merely as a setting for Gilbert's jewel." + +"The name of Gilbert is honored in this house," went on Mr. Frampton. We +were at the time looking at Henry Irving's death-mask which Mr. Frampton +had taken, and a replica of which he had just given me. I thought of +Henry's living face, alive with raffish humor and mischief, presiding at +a supper in the Beefsteak Room--and of Alfred Gilbert's Beethoven-like +head with its splendid lion-like mane of tawny hair. Those days were +dead indeed. + +Now it seems to me that I did not appreciate them half enough--that I +did not observe enough. Yet players should observe, if only for their +work's sake. The trouble is that only certain types of men and +women--the expressive types which are useful to us--appeal to our +observation. + +I remember one supper very well at which Bastien-Lepage was present, and +"Miss Sarah" too. The artist was lost in admiration of Henry's face, and +expressed a strong desire to paint him. The Bastien-Lepage portrait +originated that evening, and is certainly a Beefsteak Room portrait, +although Henry gave two sittings for it afterwards at Grafton Street. At +the supper itself Bastien-Lepage drew on a half-sheet of paper for me +two little sketches, one of Sarah Bernhardt and the other of Henry, +which are among my most precious relics. + +My portrait as Lady Macbeth by Sargent used to hang in the alcove in the +Beefsteak Room when it was not away at some exhibition, and the artist +and I have often supped under it--to me no infliction, for I have +always loved the picture, and think it is far more like me than any +other. Mr. Sargent first of all thought that he would paint me at the +moment when Lady Macbeth comes out of the castle to welcome Duncan. He +liked the swirl of the dress, and the torches and the women bowing down +on either side. He used to make me walk up and down his studio until I +nearly dropped in my heavy dress, saying suddenly as I got the +swirl:--"That's it, that's it!" and rushing off to his canvas to throw +on some paint in his wonderful inimitable fashion! + +But he had to give up _that_ idea of the Lady Macbeth picture all the +same. I was the gainer, for he gave me the unfinished sketch, and it is +certainly very beautiful. + +By this sketch hangs a tale of Mr. Sargent's great-heartedness. When the +details of my jubilee performance at Drury Lane were being arranged, the +Committee decided to ask certain distinguished artists to contribute to +the programme. They were all delighted about it, and such busy men as +Sir Laurence Alma-Tadema, Mr. Abbey, Mr. Byam Shaw, Mr. Walter Crane, +Mr. Bernard Partridge, Mr. James Pryde, Mr. Orpen, and Mr. William +Nicholson all gave some of their work to me. Mr. Sargent was asked if he +would allow the first Lady Macbeth study to be reproduced. He found that +it would not reproduce well, so in the height of the season and of his +work with fashionable sitters, he did an entirely new painting of the +same subject, which _would_ reproduce! This act of kind friendship I +could never forget even if the picture were not in front of me at this +minute to remind me of it. "You must think of me as one of the people +bowing down to you in the picture," he wrote to me when he sent the new +version for the programme. Nothing during my jubilee celebrations +touched me more than this wonderful kindness of Mr. Sargent's. + +Burne-Jones would have done something for my jubilee programme too, I +think, had he lived. He was one of my kindest friends, and his +letters--he was a heaven-born letter-writer--were like no one else's; +full of charm and humor and feeling. Once when I was starting for a long +tour in America he sent me a picture with this particularly charming +letter: + +"THE GRANGE, +"_July 14, 1897._ + +"My dear Miss Terry,-- + +"I never have the courage to throw you a huge bouquet as I should like +to--so in default I send you a little sign of my homage and admiration. +I made it purposely for you, which is its only excellence, and thought +nothing but gold good enough to paint with for you--and now it's done, I +am woefully disappointed. It looks such a poor wretch of a thing, and +there is no time to make another before you go, so look mercifully upon +it--it did mean so well--as you would upon a foolish friend, not holding +it up to the light, but putting it in a corner and never showing it. + +"As to what it is about, I think it's a little scene in Heaven (I am +always pretending to know so much about that place!), a sort of patrol +going to look to the battlements, some such thought as in Marlowe's +lovely line: 'Now walk the angels on the walls of Heaven.' But I wanted +it to be so different, and my old eyes cannot help me to finish it as I +want--so forgive it and accept it with all its accompanying crowd of +good wishes to you. They were always in my mind as I did it. + +"And come back soon from that America and stay here, and never go away +again. Indeed I do wish you boundless happiness, and for our sake, such +a length of life that you might shudder if I were to say how long. + +"Ever your poor artist, + +"E.B.-J. + +"If it is so faint that you can scarcely see it, let that stand for +modest humility and shyness--as I had only dared to whisper." + +Another time, when I had sent him a trifle for some charity, he wrote: + +"Dear Lady,-- + +"This morning came the delightful crinkly paper that always means you! +If anybody else ever used it, I think I should assault them! I certainly +wouldn't read their letter or answer it. + +"And I know the check will be very useful. If I thought much about those +wretched homes, or saw them often, I should do no more work, I know. +There is but one thing to do--to help with a little money if you can +manage it, and then try hard to forget. Yes, I am certain that I should +never paint again if I saw much of those hopeless lives that have no +remedy. I know of such a dear lad about my Phil's age who has felt this +so sharply that he has given his happy, lucky, petted life to give +himself wholly to share their squalor and unlovely lives--doing all he +can, of evenings when his work is over, to amuse such as have the heart +to be amused, reading to them and telling them about histories and what +not--anything he knows that can entertain them. And this he has daily +done for about a year, and if he carries it on for his life time he +shall have such a nimbus that he will look top-heavy with it. + +"No, you would always have been lovely and made some beauty about you if +you had been born there--but I should have got drunk and beaten my +family and been altogether horrible! When everything goes just as I +like, and painting prospers a bit, and the air is warm and friends well +and everything perfectly comfortable, I can just manage to behave +decently, and a spoilt fool I am--that's the truth. But wherever you +were, some garden would grow. + +"Yes, I know Winchelsea and Rye and Lynn and Hythe--all bonny places, +and Hythe has a church it may be proud of. Under the sea is another +Winchelsea, a poor drowned city--about a mile out at sea, I think, +always marked in old maps as 'Winchelsea Dround.' If ever the sea goes +back on that changing coast there may be great fun when the spires and +towers come up again. It's a pretty land to drive in. + +"I am growing downright stupid--I can't work at all, nor think of +anything. Will my wits ever come back to me? + +"And when are you coming back--when will the Lyceum be in its rightful +hands again? I refuse to go there till you come back...." + + * * * * * + +"Dear Lady,-- + +"I have finished four pictures: come and tell me if they will do. I have +worked so long at them that I know nothing about them, but I want you to +see them--and like them if you can. + +"All Saturday and Sunday and Monday they are visible. Come any time you +can that suits you best--only come. + +"I do hope you will like them. If you don't you must really pretend to, +else I shall be heartbroken. And if I knew what time you would come and +which day, I would get Margaret here. + +"I have had them about four years--long before I knew you, and now they +are done and I can hardly believe it. But tell me pretty pacifying lies +and say you like them, even if you find them rubbish. + +"Your devoted and affectionate + +"E.B.-J." + +I went the next day to see the pictures with Edy. It was the "Briar +Rose" series. They were _beautiful_. The lovely Lady Granby (now Duchess +of Rutland) was there--reminding me, as always, of the reflection of +something in water on a misty day. When she was Miss Violet Lindsay she +did a drawing of me as Portia in the doctor's robes, which is I think +very like me, as well as having all the charming qualities of her +well-known pencil portraits. + +The artists all loved the Lyceum, not only the old school, but the young +ones, who could have been excused for thinking that Henry Irving and I +were a couple of old fogeys! William Nicholson and James Pryde, who +began by working together as "The Beggarstaff Brothers," and in this +period did a poster of Henry for "Don Quixote" and another for "Becket," +were as enthusiastic about the Lyceum as Burne-Jones had been. Mr. Pryde +has done an admirable portrait of me as Nance Oldfield, and his "Irving +as Dubosc" shows the most extraordinary insight. + +"I have really tried to draw his _personality_" he wrote to me thanking +me for having said I liked the picture (it was done after Henry's +death).... "Irving's eyes in Dubosc always made my hair stand on end, +and I paid great attention to the fact that one couldn't exactly say +whether they were _shut_ or _open_. Very terrifying...." + +Mr. Rothenstein, to whom I once sat for a lithograph, was another of the +young artists who came a good deal to the Lyceum. I am afraid that I +must be a very difficult "subject," yet I sit easily enough, and don't +mind being looked at--an objection which makes some sitters constrained +and awkward before the painter. Poor Mr. Rothenstein was much worried +over his lithograph, yet "it was all right on the night," as actors say. + +"Dear Miss Terry,-- + +"My nights have been sleepless--my drawing sitting gibbering on my +chest. I knew how fearfully I should stumble--that is why I wanted to do +more drawings earlier. I have been working on the thing this morning, +and I believe I improved it slightly. What I want now is a cloak--the +simplest you have (perhaps the green one?), which I think would be +better than the less simple and worrying lace fallalas in the drawing. I +can put it on the lay figure and sketch it into the horror over the old +lines. I think the darker stuff will make the face blonde--more +delicate. Please understand how nervously excited I have been over the +wretched drawing, how short it falls of any suggestion of that +personality of which I cannot speak to you--which I should some day like +to give a shadow of.... + +"You were altogether charming and delightful and sympathetic. Perhaps if +you had looked like a bear and behaved like a harpy, who knows what I +might not have done! + +"... You shall have a sight of a proof at the end of the week, if you +have any address out of town. Meanwhile I will do my best to improve the +stone. + +"Always yours, dear Miss Terry, + +"WILL ROTHENSTEIN." + +My dear friend Graham Robertson painted two portraits of me, and I was +Mortimer Menpes' first subject in England. + +Sir Laurence Alma-Tadema did the designs for the scenery and dresses in +"Cymbeline," and incidentally designed for Imogen one of the loveliest +dresses that I ever wore. It was made by Mrs. Nettleship. So were the +dresses that Burne-Jones designed for me to wear in "King Arthur." + +Many of my most effective dresses have been what I may call "freaks." +The splendid dress that I wore in the Trial Scene in "Henry VIII." is +one example of what I mean. Mr. Seymour Lucas designed it, and there was +great difficulty in finding a material rich enough and somber enough at +the same time. No one was so clever on such quests as Mrs. Comyns Carr. +She was never to be misled by the appearance of the stuff in the hand, +nor impressed by its price by the yard, if she did not think it would +look right on the stage. As Katherine she wanted me to wear steely +silver and bronzy gold, but all the brocades had such insignificant +designs. If they had a silver design on them it looked under the lights +like a scratch in white cotton! At last Mrs. Carr found a black satin +which on the right side was timorously and feebly patterned with a +meandering rose and thistle. On the wrong side of it was a sheet of +silver--just the _right_ steely silver because it was the _wrong_ side! +Mrs. Carr then started on another quest for gold that should be as right +as that silver. She found it at last in some gold-lace antimacassars at +Whiteley's! From these base materials she and Mrs. Nettleship +constructed a magnificent queenly dress. Its only fault was that it was +_heavy_. + +But the weight that I can carry on the stage has often amazed me. I +remember that for "King Arthur" Mrs. Nettleship made me a splendid +cloak embroidered all over with a pattern in jewels. At the +dress-rehearsal when I made my entrance the cloak swept magnificently +and I daresay looked fine, but I knew at once that I should never be +able to act in it. I called out to Mrs. Nettleship and Alice Carr, who +were in the stalls, and implored them to lighten it of some of the +jewels. + +"Oh, do keep it as it is," they answered, "it looks splendid." + +"I can't breathe in it, much less act in it. Please send some one up to +cut off a few stones." + +I went on with my part, and then, during a wait, two of Mrs. +Nettleship's assistants came on to the stage and snipped off a jewel +here and there. When they had filled a basket, I began to feel better! + +But when they tried to lift that basket, their united efforts could not +move it! + +On one occasion I wore a dress made in eight hours! During the first +week of the run of "The Merry Wives of Windsor" at His Majesty's, there +was a fire in my dressing-room--an odd fire which was never accounted +for. In the morning they found the dress that I had worn as Mrs. Page +burnt to a cinder. A messenger from His Majesty's went to tell my +daughter, who had made the ill-fated dress: + +"Miss Terry will, I suppose, have to wear one of our dresses to-night. +Perhaps you could make her a new one by the end of the week." + +"Oh, that will be all right," said Edy, bluffing, "I'll make her a dress +by to-night." She has since told me that she did not really think she +_could_ make it in time! + +She had at this time a workshop in Henrietta Street, Covent Garden. All +hands were called into the service, and half an hour after the message +came from the theater the new dress was started. That was at 10.30. +Before 7 p.m. the new dress was in my dressing-room at His Majesty's +Theater. + +And best of all, it was a great improvement on the dress that had been +burned! It stood the wear and tear of the first run of "Merry Wives" and +of all the revivals, and is still as fresh as paint! + +That very successful dress cost no time. Another very successful +dress--the white one that I wore in the Court Scene in "A Winter's +Tale," cost no money. My daughter made it out of material of which a +sovereign must have covered the cost. + +My daughter says to know what _not_ to do is the secret of making stage +dresses. It is not a question of time or of money, but of omission. + +One of the best "audiences" that actor or actress could wish for was Mr. +Gladstone. He used often to come and see the play at the Lyceum from a +little seat in the O.P. entrance, and he nearly always arrived five +minutes before the curtain went up. One night I thought he would catch +cold--it was a bitter night--and I lent him my white scarf! + +He could always give his whole great mind to the matter in hand. This +made him one of the most comfortable people to talk to that I have ever +met. In everything he was _thorough_, and I don't think he could have +been late for anything. + +I contrasted his punctuality, when he came to see "King Lear," with the +unpunctuality of Lord Randolph Churchill, who came to see the play the +very next night with a party of men friends and arrived when the first +act was over. + +Lord Randolph was, all the same, a great admirer of Henry Irving. He +confessed to him once that he had never read a play of Shakespeare's in +his life, but that after seeing Henry act he thought it was time to +begin! A very few days later he pulverized us with his complete and +masterly knowledge of at least half a dozen of the plays. He was a +perfect person to meet at a dinner or supper--brilliantly entertaining, +and queerly simple. He struck one as being able to master any subject +that interested him, and once a Shakespeare performance at the Lyceum +had fired his interest, there was nothing about that play, or about past +performances of it, which he did not know! His beautiful wife (now Mrs. +George Cornwallis West) wore a dress at supper one evening which gave me +the idea for the Lady Macbeth dress, afterwards painted by Sargent. The +bodice of Lady Randolph's gown was trimmed all over with green beetles' +wings. I told Mrs. Comyns Carr about it, and she remembered it when she +designed my Lady Macbeth dress and saw to its making by clever Mrs. +Nettleship. + +Lady Randolph Churchill by sheer force of beauty of face and +expressiveness would, I venture to prophesy, have been successful on the +stage if fate had ever led her to it. + + +"BEEFSTEAK" GUESTS AT THE LYCEUM + +The present Princess of Wales, when she was Princess May of Teck, used +often to come to the Lyceum with her mother, Princess Mary, and to +supper in the Beefsteak Room. In 1891 she chose to come as her birthday +treat, which was very flattering to us. + +A record of those Beefsteak Room suppers would be a pleasant thing to +possess. I have such a bad memory--I see faces round the table--the face +of Liszt among them--and when I try to think when it was, or how it was, +the faces vanish as people might out of a room when, after having +watched them through a dim window-pane, one determines to open the +door--and go in. + +Lady Dorothy Nevill, that distinguished lady of the old school--what a +picture of a woman!--was always a fine theater-goer. Her face always +cheered me if I saw it in the theater, and she was one of the most +clever and amusing of the Beefsteak Room guests. As a hostess, sitting +in her round chair, with her hair dressed to _become_ her, irrespective +of any period, leading this, that and the other of her guests to speak +upon their particular subjects, she was simply the _ideal_. + +Singers were often among Henry Irving's guests in the Beefsteak +Room--Patti, Melba, CalvŽ, Albani, Sims Reeves, Tamagno, Victor Maurel, +and many others. + +CalvŽ! The New York newspapers wrote "Salve CalvŽ!" and I would echo +them. She is the best singer-actress that I know. They tell me that +Grisi and Mario were fine dramatically. When I saw them, they were on +the point of retiring, and I was a child. I remember that Madame Grisi +was very stout, but Mario certainly acted well. Trebelli was a noble +actress; Maria Gay is splendid, and oh! Miss Mary Garden! Never shall I +forget her acting in "Griselidis." Yet for all the talent of these +singers whom I have named, and among whom I should surely have placed +the incomparable Maurel, whose Iago was superb, I think that the arts of +singing and acting can seldom be happily married. They quarrel all the +while! A few operas seem to have been written with a knowledge of the +difficulty of the conventions which intervene to prevent the expression +of dramatic emotion; and these operas are contrived with amazing +cleverness so that the acting shall have free play. Verdi in "Othello," +and Bizet in "Carmen" came nearest solving the problem. + +To go back to CalvŽ. She has always seemed to me a darling, as well as a +great artist. She was entirely generous and charming to me when we were +living for some weeks together in the same New York hotel. One wonderful +Sunday evening I remember dining with her, and she sang and sang for me, +as if she could never grow tired. One thing she said she had never sung +so well before, and she laughed in her delicious rapturous way and sang +it all over again. + +Her enthusiasm for acting, music, and her fellow-artists was +magnificent. Oh, what a lovable creature! Such soft dark eyes and +entreating ways, such a beautiful mixture of nobility and "c‰linerie"! +She would laugh and cry all in a moment like a child. That year in New +York she was raved about, but all the excitement and enthusiasm that she +created only seemed to please and amuse her. She was not in the least +spoiled by the fuss. + +I once watched Patti sing from behind scenes at the Metropolitan Opera +House, New York. My impression from that point of view was that she was +actually a _bird_! She could not help singing! Her head, flattened on +top, her nose tilted downwards like a lovely little beak, her throat +swelling and swelling as it poured out that extraordinary volume of +sound, all made me think that she must have been a nightingale before +she was transmigrated into a human being! Near, I was amazed by the +loudness of her song. I imagine that Tetrazzini, whom I have not yet +heard, must have this bird-like quality. + +The dear kind-hearted Melba has always been a good friend of mine. The +first time I met her was in New York at a supper party, and she had a +bad cold, and therefore a frightful _speaking_ voice for the moment! I +shall never forget the shock that it gave me. Thank goodness I very soon +afterwards heard her again when she hadn't a cold! + +"All's well that ends well." It ended very well. She spoke as +exquisitely as she sang. She was one of the first to offer her services +for my jubilee performance at Drury Lane, but unfortunately she was ill +when the day came, and could not sing. She had her dresses in "Faust" +copied from mine by Mrs. Nettleship, and I came across a note from her +the other day thanking me for having introduced her to a dressmaker who +was "an angel." Another note sent round to me during a performance of +"King Arthur" in Boston I shall always prize. + +"You are sublime, adorable _ce soir_.... I wish I were a millionaire--I +would throw _all_ my millions at your feet. If there is another +procession, tell the stage manager to see those imps of Satan _don't +chew gum_. It looks awful. + +"Love, + +"MELBA" + +I think that time it was the solemn procession of mourners following the +dead body of Elaine who were chewing gum; but we always had to be +prepared for it among our American "supers," whether they were angels or +devils or courtiers! + +In "Faust" we "carried" about six leading witches for the Brocken Scene, +and recruited the forty others from local talent in the different towns +that we visited. Their general direction was to throw up their arms and +look fierce at certain music cues. One night I noticed a girl going +through the most terrible contortions with her jaw, and thought I must +say something. + +"That's right, dear. Very good, but don't exaggerate." + +"How?" was all the answer that I got in the choicest nasal twang, and +the girl continued to make faces as before. + +I was contemplating a second attempt, when Templeton, the limelight man, +who had heard me speak to her, touched me gently on the shoulder. + +"Beg pardon, miss, she don't mean it. She's only _chewing gum_!" + +One of my earliest friends among literary folk was Mr. Charles +Dodgson--or Lewis Carroll--or "Alice in Wonderland." Ah, _that_ conveys +something to you! I can't remember when I didn't know him. I think he +must have seen Kate act as a child, and having given _her_ "Alice"--he +always gave his young friends "Alice" at once by way of establishing +pleasant relations--he made a progress as the years went on through the +whole family. Finally he gave "Alice" to my children. + +He was a splendid theater-goer, and took the keenest interest in all +the Lyceum productions, frequently writing to me to point out slips in +the dramatist's logic which only he would ever have noticed! He did not +even spare Shakespeare. I think he wrote these letters for fun, as some +people make puzzles, anagrams, or Limericks! + + "Now I'm going to put before you a 'Hero-ic' puzzle of mine, but + please remember I do not ask for your solution of it, as you will + persist in believing, if I ask your help in a Shakespeare + difficulty, that I am only jesting! However, if you won't attack it + yourself, perhaps you would ask Mr. Irving some day how _he_ + explains it? + + "My difficulty is this:--Why in the world did not Hero (or at any + rate Beatrice on her behalf) prove an 'alibi' in answer to the + charge? It seems certain that she did _not_ sleep in her room that + night; for how could Margaret venture to open the window and talk + from it, with her mistress asleep in the room? It would be sure to + wake her. Besides Borachio says, after promising that Margaret + shall speak with him out of Hero's chamber window, 'I will so + fashion the matter that Hero shall be absent.' (_How_ he could + possibly manage any such thing is another difficulty, but I pass + over that.) Well then, granting that Hero slept in some other room + that night, why didn't she say so? When Claudio asks her: 'What man + was he talked with yesternight out at your window betwixt twelve + and one?' why doesn't she reply: 'I talked with no man at that + hour, my lord. Nor was I in my chamber yesternight, but in another, + far from it, remote.' And this she could, of course, prove by the + evidence of the housemaids, who must have known that she had + occupied another room that night. + + "But even if Hero might be supposed to be so distracted as not to + remember where she had slept the night before, or even whether she + had slept _anywhere_, surely _Beatrice_ has her wits about her! And + when an arrangement was made, by which she was to lose, for one + night, her twelve-months' bedfellow, is it conceivable that she + didn't know _where_ Hero passed the night? Why didn't _she_ reply: + + "But good my lord sweet Hero slept not there: + She had another chamber for the nonce. + 'Twas sure some counterfeit that did present + Her person at the window, aped her voice, + Her mien, her manners, and hath thus deceived + My good Lord Pedro and this company?' + + "With all these excellent materials for proving an 'alibi' it is + incomprehensible that no one should think of it. If only there had + been a barrister present, to cross-examine Beatrice! + + "'Now, ma'am, attend to me, please, and speak up so that the jury + can hear you. Where did you sleep last night? Where did Hero sleep? + Will you swear that she slept in her own room? Will you swear that + you do not know where she slept?' I feel inclined to quote old Mr. + Weller and to say to Beatrice at the end of the play (only I'm + afraid it isn't etiquette to speak across the footlights): + + "'Oh, Samivel, Samivel, vy vornt there a halibi?'" + +Mr. Dodgson's kindness to children was wonderful. He _really_ loved them +and put himself out for them. The children he knew who wanted to go on +the stage were those who came under my observation, and nothing could +have been more touching than his ceaseless industry on their behalf. + + "I want to thank you," he wrote to me in 1894 from Oxford, "as + heartily as words can do it for your true kindness in letting me + bring D. behind the scenes to you. You will know without my telling + you what an intense pleasure you thereby gave to a warm-hearted + girl, and what love (which I fancy you value more than mere + admiration) you have won from her. Her wild longing to try the + stage will not, I think, bear the cold light of day when once she + has tried it, and has realized what a lot of hard work and weary + waiting and 'hope deferred' it involves. She doesn't, so far as I + know, absolutely need, as N. does, to earn money for her own + support. But I fancy she will find life rather a _pinch_, unless + she can manage to do something in the way of earning money. So I + don't like to advise her strongly _against_ it, as I would with any + one who had no such need. + + "Also thank you, thank you with all my heart, for all your great + kindness to N. She does write so brightly and gratefully about all + you do for her and say to her." + +"N." has since achieved great success on the music-halls and in +pantomime. "D." is a leading lady! + +This letter to my sister Floss is characteristic of his "Wonderland" +style when writing to children: + +"Ch. Ch., _January, 1874._ + +"My dear Florence,-- + +"Ever since that heartless piece of conduct of yours (I allude to the +affair of the Moon and the blue silk gown) I have regarded you with a +gloomy interest, rather than with any of the affection of former +years--so that the above epithet 'dear' must be taken as conventional +only, or perhaps may be more fitly taken in the sense in which we talk +of a 'dear' bargain, meaning to imply how much it has cost us; and who +shall say how many sleepless nights it has cost me to endeavor to +unravel (a most appropriate verb) that 'blue silk gown'? + +"Will you please explain to Tom about that photograph of the family +group which I promised him? Its history is an instructive one, as +illustrating my habits of care and deliberation. In 1867 the picture was +promised him, and an entry made in my book. In 1869, or thereabouts, I +mounted the picture on a large card, and packed it in brown paper. In +1870, or 1871, or thereabouts, I took it with me to Guilford, that it +might be handy to take with me when I went up to town. Since then I have +taken it two or three times to London, and on each occasion (having +forgotten to deliver it to him) I brought it back again. This was +because I had no convenient place in London to leave it in. But _now_ I +have found such a place. Mr. Dubourg has kindly taken charge of it--so +that it is now much nearer to its future owner than it has been for +seven years. I quite hope, in the course of another year or two, to be +able to remember to bring it to your house: or perhaps Mr. Dubourg may +be calling even sooner than that and take it with him. You will wonder +why I ask you to tell him instead of writing myself. The obvious reason +is that you will be able, from sympathy, to put my delay in the most +favorable light--to make him see that, as hasty puddings are not the +best of puddings so hasty judgments are not the best of judgments, and +that he ought to be content to wait even another seven years for his +picture, and to sit 'like patience on a monument, smiling at grief.' +This quotation, by the way, is altogether a misprint. Let me explain it +to you. The passage originally stood, '_They_ sit like patients on the +Monument, smiling at Greenwich.' In the next edition 'Greenwich' was +printed short, 'Green'h,' and so got gradually altered into 'grief.' The +allusion of course is to the celebrated Dr. Jenner, who used to send all +his patients to sit on the top of the Monument (near London Bridge) to +inhale fresh air, promising them that, when they were well enough, they +should go to 'Greenwich Fair.' So of course they always looked out +towards Greenwich, and sat smiling to think of the treat in store for +them. A play was written on the subject of their inhaling the fresh air, +and was for some time attributed to him (Shakespeare), but it is +certainly not in his style. It was called 'The Wandering Air,' and was +lately revived at the Queen's Theater. The custom of sitting on the +Monument was given up when Dr. Jenner went mad, and insisted on it that +the air was worse up there and that the _lower_ you went the _more airy_ +it became. Hence he always called those little yards, below the +pavement, outside the kitchen windows, '_the kitchen airier_,' a name +that is still in use. + +"All this information you are most welcome to use, the next time you are +in want of something to talk about. You may say you learned it from 'a +distinguished etymologist,' which is perfectly true, since any one who +knows me by sight can easily distinguish me from all other etymologists. + +"What parts are you and Polly now playing? + +"Believe me to be (conventionally) + +"Yours affectionately, + +"L. DODGSON." + +No two men could be more unlike than Mr. Dodgson and Mr. J.M. Barrie, +yet there are more points of resemblance than "because there's a 'b' in +both!" + +If "Alice in Wonderland" is the children's classic of the library, and +one perhaps even more loved by the grown up children than by the others, +"Peter Pan" is the children's stage classic, and here again elderly +children are the most devoted admirers. I am a very old child, nearly +old enough to be a "beautiful great-grandmother" (a part that I have +entreated Mr. Barrie to write for me), and I go and see "Peter" year +after year and love him more each time. There is one advantage in being +a grown-up child--you are not afraid of the pirates or the crocodile. + +I first became an ardent lover of Mr. Barrie through "Sentimental +Tommy," and I simply had to write and tell him how hugely I had enjoyed +it. In reply I had a letter from Tommy himself! + +"Dear Miss Ellen Terry,-- + +"I just wonder at you. I noticed that Mr. Barrie the author (so-called) +and his masterful wife had a letter they wanted to conceal from me, so I +got hold of it, and it turned out to be from you, and _not a line to me +in it_! If you like the book, it is _me_ you like, not him, and it is to +me you should send your love, not to him. Corp thinks, however, that you +did not like to make the first overtures, and if that is the +explanation, I beg herewith to send you my warm love (don't mention this +to Elspeth) and to say that I wish you would come and have a game with +us in the Den (don't let on to Grizel that I invited you). The first +moment I saw you, I said to myself, 'This is the kind I like,' and while +the people round about me were only thinking of your acting, I was +wondering which would be the best way of making you my willing slave, +and I beg to say that I believe I have 'found a way,' for most happily +the very ones I want most to lord it over, are the ones who are least +able to resist me. + +"We should have ripping fun. You would be Jean MacGregor, captive in the +Queen's Bower, but I would climb up at the peril of my neck to rescue +you, and you would faint in my strong arms, and wouldn't Grizel get a +turn when she came upon you and me whispering sweet nothings in the +Lovers' Walk? I think it advisible to say _in writing_ that I would only +mean them as nothings (because Grizel is really my one), but so long as +they were sweet, what does that matter (at the time); and besides, _you_ +could _love me_ genuinely, and I would carelessly kiss your burning +tears away. + +"Corp is a bit fidgety about it, because he says I have two to love me +already, but I feel confident that I can manage more than two. + +"Trusting to see you at the Cuttle Well on Saturday when the eight +o'clock bell is ringing, + +"I am + +"Your indulgent Commander, + +"T. SANDYS. + +"P.S.--Can you bring some of the Lyceum armor with you, and two +hard-boiled eggs?" + +Henry Irving once thought of producing Mr. Barrie's play "The +Professor's Love Story." He was delighted with the first act, but when +he had read the rest he did not think the play would do for the Lyceum. +It was the same with many plays which were proposed for us. The ideas +sounded all right, but as a rule the treatment was too thin, and the +play, even if good, on too small a scale for the theater. + +One of our playwrights of whom I always expected a great play was Mrs. +Craigie (John Oliver Hobbes). A little one-act play of hers, "Journeys +End in Lovers' Meeting"--in which I first acted with Johnston +Forbes-Robertson and Terriss at a special matinŽe in 1894--brought about +a friendship between us which lasted until her death. Of her it could +indeed be said with poignant truth, "She should have died hereafter." +Her powers had not nearly reached their limit. + +Pearl Craigie had a man's intellect--a woman's wit and apprehension. +"Bright," as the Americans say, she always managed to be even in the +dullest company, and she knew how to be silent at times, to give the +"other fellow" a chance. Her _executive_ ability was extraordinary. +Wonderfully tolerant, she could at the same time not easily forgive any +meanness or injustice that seemed to her deliberate. Hers was a splendid +spirit. + +I shall always bless that little play of hers which first brought me +near to so fine a creature. I rather think that I never met any one who +_gave out_ so much as she did. To me, at least, she _gave, gave_ all the +time. I hope she was not exhausted after our long "confabs." _I_ was +most certainly refreshed and replenished. + +The first performance of "Journeys End in Lovers' Meeting" she watched +from a private box with the Princess of Wales (our present Queen) and +Henry Irving. She came round afterwards just _burning_ with enthusiasm +and praising me for work which was really not good. She spoiled one for +other women. + +Her best play was, I think, "The Ambassador," in which Violet Vanbrugh +(now Mrs. Bourchier) played a pathetic part very beautifully, and made a +great advance in her profession. + +There was some idea of Pearl Craigie writing a play for Henry Irving and +me, but it never came to anything. There was a play of hers on the same +subject as "The School for Saints," and another about Guizot. + +"_February 11, 1898._ + +"My very dear Nell,-- + +"I have an idea for a real four-act comedy (in these matters nothing +daunts me!) founded on a charming little episode in the private lives of +Princess Lieven (the famous Russian ambassadress) and the celebrated +Guizot, the French Prime Minister and historian. I should have to veil +the identity _slightly_, and also make the story a husband and wife +story--it would be more amusing this way. It is comedy from beginning to +end. Sir Henry would make a splendid Guizot, and you the ideal Madame de +Lieven. Do let me talk it over with you. 'The School for Saints' was, as +it were, a born biography. But the Lieven-Guizot idea is a play. + +"Yours ever affectionately, + +"PEARL MARY THERESA CRAIGIE." + +In another letter she writes: + + "I am changing all my views about so-called 'literary' dialogue. It + means pedantry. The great thing is to be lively." + +"A first night at the Lyceum" was an institution. I don't think that it +has its parallel nowadays. It was not, however, to the verdict of all +the brilliant friends who came to see us on the first night that Henry +Irving attached importance. I remember some one saying to him after the +first night of "Ravenswood": "I don't fancy that your hopes will be +quite fulfilled about the play. I heard one or two on Saturday night--" + +"Ah yes," said Henry very carelessly and gently, "but you see there were +so many _friends_ there that night who didn't pay--_friends_. One must +not expect too much from friends! The paying public will, I think, +decide favorably." + +Henry never cared much for society, as the saying is--but as host in the +Beefsteak Room he thoroughly enjoyed himself, and every one who came to +his suppers seemed happy! Every conceivable type of person used to be +present--and there, if one had the _mind_[1] one could study the world +in little. + +[Footnote 1: "Wordsworth says he could write like Shakespeare if he had +the _mind_. Obviously it is only the mind that is lacking."--_Charles +Lamb's Letters._] + +One of the liveliest guests was Sir Francis Burnand--who entirely +contradicted the theory that professional comedians are always the most +gloomy of men in company. + +A Sunday evening with the Burnand family at their home in The Bottoms +was a treat Henry Irving and I often looked forward to--a particularly +restful, lively evening. I think a big family--a "party" in itself--is +the only "party" I like. Some of the younger Burnands have greatly +distinguished themselves, and they are all perfect dears, so unaffected, +kind, and genial. + +Sir Francis never jealously guarded his fun for _Punch_. He was always +generous with it. Once when my son had an exhibition of his pictures, I +asked Mr. Burnand, as he was then, to go and see it or send some one on +Mr. Punch's staff. He answered characteristically! + +"WHITEFRIARS, +"London, E.C. + +"My dear Ellen Terry,-- + +"Delighted to see your hand--'wish your face were with it' +(Shakespeare). + +"Remember me (Shakespeare again--'Hamlet') to our Sir Henry. May you +both live long and prosper! + + "GORDON CRAIG'S PICTURES + + He opens his show + A day I can't go. + Any Friday + Is never my day. + + But I'll see his pictures + (Praise and no strictures) + 'Ere this day week; + Yet I can't speak + Of them in print + (I might give a hint) + Till each on its shelf + I've seen for myself. + I've no one to send. + Now I must end. + None I can trust, + So go I must. + Yours most trul_ee_ + V'la F.C.B. + All well here, + All send love. + Likewise misses + Lots of kisses. + From all in this 'ere shanty + To _you_ who don't play in Dante! + + What a pity! + Whuroo-oo + Oo-oo-oo!" + + +BITS FROM MY DIARY + +What is a diary as a rule? A document useful to the person who keeps it, +dull to the contemporary who reads it, invaluable to the student, +centuries afterwards, who treasures it! + +Whatever interest the few diaries of mine that I have preserved may have +for future psychologists and historians, they are for my present purpose +almost worthless. Yet because things written at the time are considered +by some people to be more reliable than those written years afterwards +when memory calls in imagination to her help, I have hunted up a few +passages from my diaries between 1887 and 1901; and now I give them in +the raw for what they are worth--in my opinion nothing! + + _July 1887._--E.B.-J. (Sir Edward Burne-Jones) sent me a picture he + has painted for me--a troop of little angels. + + _August 2._--(We were in Scotland.) Visited the "Blasted Heath." + Behold a flourishing potato field! Smooth softness everywhere. We + must blast our own heath when we do Macbeth! + + _November 29._---(We were in America.) MatinŽe "Faust"--Beecher + Memorial. The whole affair was the strangest failure. H.I. himself + took heaps of tickets, but the house was half empty. + + The following Saturday.--MatinŽe "Faust." House crammed. Why + couldn't they have come when it was to honor Beecher? + + _January 1890._--In answer to some one who has said that Henry had + all his plays written for him, he pointed out that of twenty-eight + Lyceum productions only three were written "for" him--"Charles I.," + "Eugene Aram," and "Vanderdecken." + + _February 27._--(My birthday.) Henry gave me a most exquisite + wreath for the head. It is made of green stones and diamonds and is + like a myrtle wreath. I never saw anything so simple and grand. + It's lovely. + +(During this year our readings of "Macbeth" took place.) + + _April._--Visit to Trentham after the reading at Hanley. Next day + to hotel at Bradford, where there were beetles in the beds! + + I see that Bulwer, speaking of Macready's Macbeth, says that + Macbeth was a "trembler when opposed by his conscience, a warrior + when defied by his foes." + + _August._--(At Winchelsea.) We drove to Cliffe End. Henry got the + old pony along at a spanking rate, but I had to seize the reins now + and again to save us from sudden death. + + _August 14._--Drove to Tenterden. Saw Clowe's Marionettes. + +(Henry saw one of their play-bills in a shop window, but found that the +performances only took place in the evening. He found out the proprietor +and asked him what were the takings on a good night. The man said £5, I +think. Henry asked him if he would give him a special show for that sum. +He was delighted. Henry and I and my daughter Edy and Fussie sat in +solemn state in the empty tent and watched the show, which was most +ingenious and clever. Clowe's Marionettes are still "on the road," but +ever since that "command" performance of Henry's at Tenterden their bill +has had two extra lines: + + "Patronized by SIR HENRY IRVING + and + MISS ELLEN TERRY.") + + _September._--"Method," (in last act of "Ravenswood"), "to keep very + still, and feel it all quietly and deeply." George Meredith, + speaking of Romance, says: "The young who avoid that region, escape + the title of Fool at the cost of a Celestial Crown." Good! + + _December._--Mr. Gladstone behind the scenes. He likes the last act + very much. + + _January 14, 1892._--Prince Eddie died. Cardinal Manning died. + + _January 18._--(Just after successful production of "Henry VIII.") + H.I. is hard at work, studying "Lear." This is what only a great + man would do at such a moment in the hottest blush of success. No + "swelled head"--only fervent endeavor to do better work. The fools + hardly conceive what he is. + + _February 8._--Morell Mackenzie died. + + _March 1._--Mother died. Amazing courage in my father and sisters. + She looked so lovely when she was dead. + + _March 7._--Went back to work. + + _October 6._--Tennyson died. + + _October 26._--A fine day. To call on the young Duchess of S----. + What a sweet and beautiful young girl she is! I said I would write + and ask Mrs. Stirling to give her lessons, but feared she could not + as she was ill. + + _November._--Heard from Mrs. Stirling: "I am too ill and weak to + see any one in the way of lessons. I am just alive--in pain and + distress always, but always anxious for news from the Lyceum. + 'Lear' will be a great success, I am sure. I was Cordelia with + Macready." + + _November 10._--First night of "Lear." Such a foggy day! H. was + just marvelous, but indistinct from nervousness. T. spoke out, but + who cared! Haviland was very good. My Ted splendid in the little + bit he had to do as Oswald. I was rather good to-night. It _is_ a + wee part, but fine. + + _December 7._--Poor Fred Leslie is dead. Typhoid. A thunderbolt to + us all. Poor, bright, charming Fred Leslie! + + _December 31._--This has been a dark year. Mother died. Illness + rife in the family. My son engaged--but that may turn out well if + the young couple will not be too hasty. H.I. not well. Business by + no means up to the proper point. A death in the Royal Family. + Depression--depression! + + _March 9, 1897._--Eunice (Mrs. Henry Ward Beecher) is dead. Poor + darling! She was a great friend to me. + + _April 10._--First night of "Sans-Gne." A wonderful first-night + audience. I acted courageously and fairly well. Extraordinary + success. + + _April 14._--Princess Louise (Lorne) came to see the play and told + me she was delighted. Little Elspeth Campbell was with her, looking + lovely. I did not play well--was depressed and clumsy. + + _May 13._--It's all off about "The Man of Destiny" play with H.I. + and G.B.S. + + _May 15._--To "Princess and Butterfly" with Audrey and AimŽe. Miss + Fay Davis better than ever. + + _May 17._---Nutcombe Gould has lost his voice, and Ted was called + upon at a moment's notice to play Hamlet at the Olympic to-night. + + _June 20._--Thanksgiving Service at St. Paul's for the Queen's + Jubilee. Went with Edy and Henry. Not at all adequate to the + occasion was the ceremony. The Te Deum rather good, the sermon + sensible, but the whole uninspired, unimpassioned and _dull_. The + Prince and Princess looked splendid. + + _June 22._--To Lady Glenesk's, Piccadilly. Wonderfullest sight I + ever saw. All was perfect, but the little Queen herself more + dignified than the whole procession put together! Sarah B. was in + her place at the Glenesks' at six in the morning. Bancroft made a + Knight. Mrs. Alma-Tadema's "at home." Paderewski played. What a + divinely beautiful face! + + _July 14._--The Women's Jubilee Dinner at the Grafton Galleries. + Too ill to go. My guests were H.I., Burne-Jones, Max Beerbohm, W. + Nicholson, Jimmy Pryde, Will Rothenstein, Graham Robertson, Richard + Hardig Davis, Laurence Irving, Ted and Edy. + + _December 11._--(In Manchester.) Poor old Fussie dropped down a + trap 30 feet and died in a second. + + _December 16._--Willie Terriss was murdered this evening. + Newspapers sent me a wire for "expressions of sympathy"!! + + _January 22, 1901._--(Tenterden.) Nine o'clock evening and the bell + is tolling for our dearest Queen--Victoria, who died this evening + just before seven o'clock--a grand, wise, good woman. A week ago + she was driving out regularly. The courage of it! + + _January 23._--To Rye (from Winchelsea). The King proclaimed in the + Market Place. The ceremony only took about five minutes. Very dull + and undignified until the National Anthem, which upset us all. + + _January 26._--London last night when I arrived might have been + Winchelsea when the sun goes down on all our wrath and arguments. + No one in the streets ... empty buses crawling along. Black boards + up at every shop window. All the gas half-mast high as well as the + flags. I never saw such a mournful city, but why should they turn + the gas down? Thrift, thrift, Horatio! + + _February 2._--The Queen's Funeral. From a balcony in S. James's I + saw the most wonderful sight I have ever seen. The silence was + extraordinary.... The tiny coffin on the gun-carriage drawn by the + cream-colored ponies was the most pathetic, impressive object in + all that great procession. All the grandest carriages were out for + the occasion. The King and the German Emperor rode side by side.... + The young Duke of Coburg, the Duchess of Albany's son, like Sir + Galahad. I slept at Bridgewater House, but on my way to St. James's + from there my clothes were torn and I was half squeezed to death. + One man called out to me: "Ah, now you know what it feels like at + the pit door, Miss Terry." + + _April 15._--Lyceum. "Coriolanus" produced. Went home directly + after the play was over. I didn't seem to know a word of my part + yesterday at the dress-rehearsal, but to-night I was as firm as if + I had played it a hundred times. + + _April 16._--The critics who wrote their notices at the + dress-rehearsal, and complained of my playing pranks with the text, + were a little previous. Oh, how bad it makes one feel to find that + they all think my Volumnia "sweet," and _I_ thought I was fierce, + contemptuous, overbearing. Worse, I felt as if I must be appearing + like a cabman rating his Drury Lane wife! + + _April 20._--Beginning to play Volumnia a little better. + + _June 25._--Revival of "Charles I." The play went marvelously. I + played first and last acts well. H. was magnificent. Ted saw play + yesterday and says I don't "do Mrs. Siddons well." I know what he + means. The last act too declamatory. + + _June 26._--Changed the "Mrs. Siddons" scene, and like it much + better. Simpler--more nature--more feeling. + + _July 16._--Horrible suicide of Edith and Ida Yeoland. The poor + girls were out of an engagement. Unequal to the fight for life. + + _July 20._--Last day of Lyceum season--"Coriolanus." + +(On that night, I remember, H.I. for the first time played Coriolanus +_beautifully_. He discarded the disfiguring beard of the warrior that he +had worn during the "run" earlier in the season--and now that one could +see his face, all was well. When people speak of the evils of long runs, +I should like to answer with a list of their advantages. An actor, even +an actor of Henry Irving's caliber, hardly begins to play an immense +part like Coriolanus for what it is worth until he has been doing it for +fifty nights.) + + _November 16._--"New York. Saw delightful Maude Adams in 'Quality + Street'--charming play. She is most clever and attractive. + _Unusual_ above everything. Queer, sweet, entirely delightful." + +From these extracts, I hope it will be seen that by burning most of my +diaries I did not inflict an unbearable loss upon present readers, or +posterity! + +I am afraid that I think as little of the future as I do of the past. +The present for me! + +If my impressions of my friends are scanty, let me say in my defense +that actors and actresses necessarily _see_ many people, but _know_ very +few. + +If there has been more in this book about my life in the theater than +about my life outside it, the proportion is inevitable and natural. The +maxim is well-worn that art is long and life is short, and there is no +art, I think, which is longer than mine! At least, it always seems to me +that no life can be long enough to meet its requirements. + +If I have not revealed myself to you, or succeeded in giving a faithful +picture of an actor's life, perhaps I have shown what years of practice +and labor are needed for the attainment of a permanent position on the +stage. To quote Mrs. Nancy Oldfield:-- + + "Art needs all that we can bring to her, I assure you." + + +THE END + + + + +INDEX + + +Abbey, E.A., 277, 372 +Abingdon, Mrs., 54 +Adams, Maude, 321, 399 +Adelphi Theatre, The, 76 +Albani, Madame, 264, 381 +Albert, Prince, 18 +Albina, Madame, 41 +Alexander, George, 209, 260-61, 300, 302 +Alexandra, Queen, 56, 391, 397 +"Alice-sit-by-the-Fire," 345 +Allen, J.H., 185, 301 +Allingham, William, 122 +--Mrs., 122 +Alma-Tadema, Sir Laurence, 372, 377 +"Ambassador, The," 391 +"Amber Heart, The," 191, 271-2 +Anderson, Mary, 231, 321 _et sqq._ +Angell, Louisa, 56 +Archer, Fred, 306 +Argyll, Duchess of (Princess Louise), 397 +"Arms and the Man," 346-7 +Arnold, Sir Edwin, 117 +Arnott, Mr., 187 _et sqq._, 217 +Asche, Oscar, 349 +Ashwell, Lena, 269 +"Attar Gull," 41-2 +Austin, L.F., 299 _et sqq._ + +Ball, Mr. Meredith, 265 +Bancroft, Lady (Miss Marie Wilton), 47, 91-2, 109 _et sqq._, 125, 131 _et + sqq._, 165, 357 +--Sir Squire, 92, 108 _et sqq._, 125, 165, 334, 397 +Barclay, Mr., 51 +Barnay, Ludwig, 325 +Barnes, J.H., 209-10 +Barnes, Prebendary, 267 +Barrett, Laurence, 277 +Barrie, J.M., 268, 345, 388 _et sqq._ +--Mrs. J.M. (Mary Ansell), 268 +Barrymore, Ethel, 318, 320-1 +Bastien-Lepage, 284, 371 +Bateman, Colonel, 141, 145 +--Mrs., 160 +--Isabel, 196-7 +Bath, 51 +Bayard, Mr., 286 +"Becket," 217, 343, 365 +Beecher, Henry Ward, 315-16 _et sqq._ +--Mrs. Henry Ward, 315-16, 397 +Beefsteak Club, The, 369, 371, 381 _et sqq._, 392 +Beerbohm, Mr. Max, 397 +"Belle's Stratagem, The," 56, 191, 217, 218, 244 +Bellew, Kyrle, 173 +"Bells, The," 217, 280, 331, 365 +Benedict, Sir Julius, 229 +Benson, F., 166, 243, 339-40 +Bernhardt, Sarah, 74, 162-3, 175, 233, 236 _et sqq._, 397 +"Bethlehem," 351 +Bizet, 382 +Black, William, his "Madcap Violet," 124 +Blake, W., 147 +Booth, Edwin, 221 _et sqq._ +Boucicault, Dion, 273 +Bourchier, Arthur, 263, 268 +--Mrs. Arthur. _See_ Irene Vanbrugh +Bourget, Paul, 277 +Bradshaw, Mr., 12, 18 +Bristol, 39, 44, 49-50, 72-3, 76 +Brookfleld, Charles, 176 +"Brothers," 152 +Brough, Lionel, 76 +Brown, Katie, 302 +Browning, Robert, 58-9, 61 _et sqq._ +Buckstone, J.B., 49, 51, 53 _et sqq._ +"Buckstone at Home," 56 +Burdett-Coutts, Baroness, 160, 212, 220, 306 +Burges, William, 51 +Burnand, Sir F.C., 392-3 +Burne-Jones, Sir E., 333 _et sqq._, 337 _et sqq._, 372 _et sqq._, 377, + 394, 397 +Byrn, Oscar, 23-4 +Byron, H.J., 133 +--Lord, 60, 153 + +Calmour, Alfred, 271-2 +CalvŽ, 381 _et sqq._ +Calvert, Charles, 129 +Cambridge, Duke of, 34, 343 +Cameron, Mrs. Julia Margaret, 58 +"Captain Brassbound's Conversion," 52-3, 345 +Carr, J. Comyns, 269, 333 +--Mrs. Comyns, 175, 331, 377 +"Carroll, Lewis" (C.L. Dodgson), 201, 384 _et sqq._ +"Charles I.," 154, 180, 191, 257, 260, 281, 297, 350, 395, 398 +Chippendale, Mr., 52, 53-4, 172 +Churchill, Lady Randolph, 380 +--Lord Randolph, 380 +Chute, J.H., 46 _et sqq._, 51 +Clarke, Hamilton, 168 +Clarkson, Mr., 200 +Coghlan, Charles, 116, 119 _et sqq._, 133, 145, 152, 260 +Collinson, Walter, 200, 363 +Compton, Edward, 166 +--Mr. Henry, 53-4, 165 +Conway, H.B., 153, 260 +Cooper, Frank, 173 +Corder, Rosa, 306 +"Coriolanus," 189, 206, 398 +"Corsican Brothers, The," 212, 217, 337 +Court Theatre, The, 77, 148, 151 +Courtney, Mr., 35 +Coventry, 3-7 +Craig, Edith, 86 _et sqq._, 146 _et sqq._, 158-9, 177, 204, 212-13, 235, + 256-7, 266, 284, 347, 378-9, 395, 397 +--Edward Gordon, 86 _et sqq._, 146 _et sqq._, 159, 177, 196, 257, 304, + 334, 337, 350 _et sqq._, 396-7 +Craigie, Mrs., 390-1 +Crane, Walter, 372 +Craven, Mr. Hawes, 76 +Croisette, 74 +Culverwell, Mr., 35 +"Cup, The," 178-9, 187, 191, 212 _et sqq._ +"Cymbeline," 343, 377 + +Dale, Allan, 286 +Dalrymple, Mrs., 58 +Daly, Mr., 318 _et sqq._ +"Dame aux CamŽlias, La," 175 +"Dante," 344, 350 +Davis, Richard Harding, 397 +"Dead Heart, The," 196, 334, 351 +Delaunay, 74 +Denvil, Clara, 18 +Devonshire House, 339 +Dickens, Charles, 74, 313-4 +Disraeli, Benjamin (Lord Beaconsfield), 58-9, 60 +"Distant Relations," 36 +Doody, Mr., 200 +"Dora," 151, 164 +"Double Marriage, The," 78 +Drew, John, 308, 320 +--Mrs., 320 +Drury Lane Theatre, 356-7 _et seq._ +Duffield, A.J., 249 +Duse, Eleonora, 163, 175, 233-4, 258 _et sqq._ + +Edinburgh, 9 +Edward VII., 56, 398 +Elcho, Lady, 340 +Elliott, Maxine, 166 +Emery, Winifred, 218-9, 245 +"Endymion," 49 +"Eugene Aram," 191, 195, 395 +EugŽnie, Empress, 73 +Evans, Joe, 284-5 + +Fairchild, Miss Satty, 346 +Farren, Mr., 53-4 +--Nelly, 168 +"Faust," 27, 76, 153, 191, 252, 260 _et sqq._, 288, 384, 394-5 +"Faust-and-Loose," 266 +"Faust and Marguerite," 24 +Favart, Madame, 74 +Fechter, C.A., 73, 136, 175, 211 +Fields, Mrs. James T., 313 +Fitzgerald, Edward, 192 +Fleming, Albert, 264 +Forbes-Robertson, Johnston, 92, 125-6, 136, 153, 244 _et sqq._, 390 +--Norman, 159, 300, 324-5, 361 +Forrest, Edwin, 175, 281 +Forrester, Mr., 172 +"Friends and Foes," 69 +"Frou-Frou" ("Butterfly"), 175 +Furness, Dr. Horace Howard, 323 +Furnivall, Dr., 202 +Fussie (Irving's dog), 180, 305 _et sqq._, 395, 397 + +Garden, Miss Mary, 382 +Gardiner, Mrs. Jack, 314-5 +Garrick, David, 192 +Gay, Maria, 382 +Gilbert, Alfred, 118, 368 _et sqq._ +Gilbert, Sir John, 200 +Gilbert, Sir W.S., 127, 270 +Gilder, Mr. R.W., 285 +Gillespie, Mrs., 313 +Gladstone, Right Hon. W.E., 58-9, 379, 396 +Glasgow, 4, 8 +Glenesk, Lady, 397 +Godwin, Mr., 49, 50-1, 111, 164, 216 +Got, 74 +"Governor's Wife, The," 43 +Grieve, Mrs., 17 +Grisi, Madame, 381-2 + +Haas, Frederick, 136 +"Hamlet," 107, 136-7, 166 _et sqq._, 191 +Harcourt, Sir William V., 63-4 +--Right Hon. Lewis, 64 +Hare, John, 148 _et sqq._, 165 +Harley, Mr., 26-7 +Harries, Miss, 279 +Harvey, Martin, 337 +Haymarket Theatre, 49, 53, 72 +"Henry VIII.," 24, 337 _et sqq._, 377 +Herbert, Miss, 69, 71 +Hicks, Seymour, 268 +Hine, Mr., 51 +Hodson, Henrietta (Mrs. Labouchere), 47 _et sqq._, 49, 76 +Holland, Sarah, 240 _et sqq._ +Holmes, O.W., 315 +"Home for the Holidays," 35-6 +Houghton, Lord, 208, 274-5 +"House of Darnley, The," 153 +_Household Words_, 74 +Housman, Mr. Laurence, 351 +Howe, Mr., 52, 219-20, 301, 337 +"Hunchback, The," 75 +Hunt, Holman, 266 + +"If the Cap Fits," 26 +Imperial Theatre, 352 _et sqq._ +Ingelow, Miss Jean, 265 +"Iolanthe," 191, 206 +"Iris," 164 +Irving, Sir Henry, 59; + first appearance with Ellen Terry, 76; + Miss Terry's first impressions of, 79 _et sqq._; + in "The Taming of the Shrew," 80; + in "Hunted Down," 81; + his genius of will, 107; + as King Philip, 134 _et sqq._, 145; + as Hamlet in 1874, 136 _et sqq._; + in "Louis XI." and "Richelieu," 136; + what critics have said of him, 141; + the infinite variety of his acting, 142; + takes the Lyceum Theatre, 160; + his Hamlet in 1878, 166 _et sqq._, 180 _et sqq._; + his musical director, 168; + his characteristics, 169 _et sqq._; + in "Much Ado About Nothing," 178; + in "The Merchant of Venice," 179, 350; + his dog Fussie, 180, 305-6 _et sqq._; + his childhood, 182 _et sqq._; + as stage manager, 188 _et sqq._; + his best parts, 190; + as Claude Melnotte, 194; + as Eugene Aram, 195; + as Charles I., 197, 350; + as Shylock, 203-4; + in "The Corsican Brothers," 212; + in "The Cup," 213 _et sqq._; + in "The Bells," 217; + and Edwin Booth, 221 _et sqq._; + in "Othello," 221 _et sqq._; + his Romeo, 224; + in "The Two Roses," 227; + and Terriss, 246 _et sqq._; + his "Much Ado About Nothing," 244 _et sqq._; + in "Twelfth Night," 254; + in "Olivia," 256 _et sqq._; + in "Faust," 260 _et sqq._, 344; + his address on "Four Actors," 263; + in "Macaire," 270; + in "Werner," 270-1; + touring in America, 273; + American criticism of his accent, 296-7; + his early appearances in America, 280, 298; + his cat, 311; + other tours in America, 325 _et seq_.; + in "Godefroi and Yolande," 326; + produces "Macbeth," 328 _et sqq._; + painted by Sargent, 331; + produces "The Dead Heart," 334; + produces "Ravenswood," 337; + in "Henry VIII.," 338 _et sqq._; + at the Devonshire House fancy dress ball, 339; + in "King Lear," "Becket," "King Arthur," "Cymbeline," "Madame + Sans-Gne," "The Medicine Man," "Peter the Great," 343; + in "Robespierre," 344; + "Dante," 344, 350; + his last illness, 360 _et sqq._; + plays in "The Bells," for the last time, 365; + plays in "Becket"; his death, 365; + buried in Westminster Abbey, 366 _et sqq._; + his death-mask, taken by Mr. Frampton, 371; + his portraits, 371 _et sqq._; + his portrait as Dubosc by Mr. Pryde, 375; + at Mrs. Craigie's play, 391; + and the Marionettes, 395 +Irving, Laurence, 326, 337, 397 +Irwin, May, 320 + +Jackson, Mrs., 58 +Jefferson, Joe, 324-5 +"John, King," 10, 29, 31 +Johnson, Dr., 156 +"Journeys End in Lovers' Meeting," 391 + +Kean, Charles, 10 _et sqq._, 21 _et sqq._, 136, 171, 211, 357 +--Mrs. Charles, 11 _et sqq._, 20 _et sqq._, 29 _et sqq._, 203 +--Edmund, 11-2, 33, 46, 192 +Keeley, Mr. and Mrs., 23 +--Louise, 56 +Kelly, Charles (Mr. Wardell), 96, 150, 153, 164, 173, 176, 177, 211 +Kembles, The, 6, 46 +--Adelaide, 194 +--Henry, 152, 176, 349 +--Fanny, 192 _et sqq._ +Kendal, W.H., 44, 114 _et sqq._, 165 +--Mrs. _See_ Madge Robertson. +"King Arthur," 343, 377, 383 +Knowles, Sir J., 212 + +Labouchere, Henry, 76 +--Mrs. _See_ Henrietta Hodson +Lacy, Walter, 32, 171, 180 +"Lady of Lyons, The," 107, 119, 191 +Lamb, Charles, 128 +Langtry, Mrs., 153 _et sqq._, 275 +Lavender Sweep--Tom Taylor's house, 53, 68 _et sqq._, 123, 127 _et sqq._ +"Lear, King," 24, 343, 396 +Leathes, Edmund, 92 +Leclercq, Carlotta, 20, 32 +--Rose, 32, 253-4 +Leighton, Lord, 117 +Lepage, Bastien, 135 +Leslie, Fred, 266, 396 +Lewis, Mr. Arthur, 72, 73 +Linden, Marie, 266 +Little Holland House, 53, 58 _et sqq._ +"Little Treasure, The," 51-2 +Liverpool, 10-11 +Lockwood, Mrs. Benoni, 286 +Long, Edwin, 197 +"Louis XI.," 136, 190, 297 +Loveday, H.J., 180 _et sqq._, 299 +Lowther, Miss AimŽe, 288 +Lucas, Seymour, 336, 377 +Lyceum Theatre, The, 138, 141, 152 _et sqq._, 159-60 _et sqq._, 188 _et + sqq._; _et passim_, 343 _et sqq._ +"Lyons Mail, The," 190, 250-1 +Lytton, Lord, 119-20, 153, 219 + +"Macaire," 270 _et sqq._ +"Macbeth," 31, 191, 328 _et sqq._ +Macdonald, George, 266 +Mackail, J.W., 338 +Mackaye, Steele, 128 +Mackenzie, Sir Alexander, 268 +--Dr. Morell, 102, 396 +Macready, W.C., 9, 10, 28, 46, 192 +"Madame Sans-Gne," 343 +"Man of Destiny, A," 345, 397 +Manning, Cardinal, 396 +Mario, 381-2 +Martin, Lady (Helen Faucit), 206-7 +Maurel, Victor, 381 +Mazzini, 128 +Mead, Tom, 172, 207, 210, 229, 244, 250 _et sqq._, 300, 305 +"Medicine Man, The," 343 +Meissonier, 75 +Melba, Madame, 264, 381, 383 +"Merchant of Venice, The," 24, 26, 110, 179, 180, 191, 204, 206, 208, 298 +Meredith, George, 59 +Merivale, Herman C., 336 +"Merry Wives of Windsor," 114, 348 +"Midsummer Night's Dream, A," 19, 21 _et sqq._ +Millais, Sir J.E., 135 +Millward, Miss, 245-6 +Modjeska, 321 +"Money," 119, 120-1, 165-6 +Montagu, Mr., 72 +Montgomery, Walter, 72 +Moore, Albert, 76 +--Frankfort, 235 +Morris, Mrs. William, 69 +"Much Ado About Nothing," 56, 72, 150, 177-8, 179, 191, 248 _et sqq._ +Murray, Leigh, 248 + +"Nance Oldfield," 337 +Naylor, Sydney, 38 +Neilson, Adelaide, 72, 166 +Nettleship, Mrs., 331, 377-8, 383 +Nevill, Lady Dorothy, 381 +Neville, Henry, 165 +"New Men and Old Acres," 124, 146, 150, 152 +New Queen's Theatre, 76, 80 _et sqq._ +"Nice Quiet Day, A," 44 +Nicholson, William, 352, 372, 375, 397 + +"Olivia," 150, 153 _et sqq._, 179, 188, 191, 256 +Orpen, William, 372 +O'Shaughnessy, 118 +"Othello," 72, 175, 191, 221 _et sqq._ +"Our Seaman," 94 + +Paderewski, I., 397 +Partridge, Bernard, 372 +Patti, Adelina, 381, 383 +"Peter Pan," 388-9 +"Peter the Great," 285, 343 +Pinches, Dr., 139 +Pinero, A.W., 173, 225, 248-9 +"Pizarro," 29 +PlanchŽ, J.R., 12, 28 +Pollock, Sir Frederick, 117 +--Lady, 117, 160-1, 203 +Pounds, Courtice, 349 +Prince of Wales's Theatre, 92, 108 _et sqq._, 131 _et sqq._, 145, 148-9 +Princess's Theatre, 10, 19, 28, 32, 72, 357 +Prinsep, Mrs., 58 +Pritchard, Mrs., 156 +Pryde, James, 372, 375, 397 + +"Queen Mary," Tennyson's, 133, 134 + +"Raising the Wind," 191 +"Ravenswood," 337, 354, 392, 396 +Reade, Charles, 54, 65, 68, 90 _et sqq._, 99 _et sqq._, 109, 112 _et + sqq._, 121, 149, 273 +--Mrs. Charles, 54 +Reeves, Sims, 381 +Rehan, Ada, 318 _et sqq._ +Rhona, Madame de, 39 _et sqq._ +"Richard II.," 24 +"Richard III.," 9, 190, 329, 351, 360 +"Rivals, The," 52, 55 +Robertson, Graham, 376, 397 +--Madge (Mrs. Kendal), 47, 91, 114 _et sqq._, 152, 320, 348 _et sqq._ +--T., 109 +"Robespierre," 344 +Robson, 23 +"Romeo and Juliet," 37-8, 179, 189, 191, 206 +Rorke, Kate, 159 +Rossetti, D.G., 69 _et sqq._ +Rossi, 136 +Rothenstein, William, 376, 397 +Rousseau, 127 +Royal Colosseum, The, 35 +Royalty Theatre (Royal Soho), 39 _et sqq._ +Ruskin, John, 264 +Rutland, Duchess of, 375 +Ryde, 19, 23, 34 _et sqq._, 39 +Ryder, Mr., 30, 31 + +Saint-Gaudens, 283 _et sqq._ +St. James's Theatre, 69, 71 +Salvini, 122, 163, 222-3 +Sargent, J.S., 135, 331-2, 371-2 +"School for Scandal, The," 165 +Schumann, Madame, 68 +Scott, Sir Walter, 4, 150 +Seward, Miss Olive, 291 +Seymour, Mrs., 112 _et sqq._ +_Shakespeare_: + "Coriolanus," 189, 206, 398; + "Cymbeline," 343, 377; + "Hamlet," 107, 136-7, 166 _et sqq._, 191; + "Henry VIII.," 24-5, 338 _et sqq._, 377; + "John, King," 10, 29, 31; + "Lear, King," 24, 343, 396; + "Macbeth," 31, 191, 328 _et sqq._; + "Merchant of Venice," 24, 26, 110, 179-80, 191, 204, 206, 208, 298, 350; + "Merry Wives of Windsor," 114-5, 348; + "Midsummer Night's Dream," 19, 21 _et sqq._, 51; + "Much Ado About Nothing," 56, 72, 150, 177-8, 179, 191, 248 _et sqq._; + "Othello," 72, 175, 191, 221 _et sqq._; + "Richard II.," 24-5; + "Richard III.," 9, 190, 329, 351, 360; + "Romeo and Juliet," 37-8,179, 189, 191, 206; + "Taming of the Shrew," 80, 107; + "Twelfth Night," 191, 253; + "Winter's Tale, A," 10, 15, _et sqq._, 355 +Shaw, Byam, 372 +--G. Bernard, 345 _et sqq._, 353, 397 +--Mary, 324 +Sheridan, R.B., 54 +Siddons, Mrs., 6, 46 +Skey, Mr., 20 +Smith, Milly (Mrs. Thorn), 22 +Somers, Mrs., 58 +Sothern, E.A., 51-2 +Spedding, James, 117, 122 +Sterling, Madame Antoinette, 265-6 +Stevenson, Robert Louis, 270, 284 +"Still Waters Run Deep," 79 +Stirling, Mrs., 229 _et sqq._, 261, 396 +Stoker, Bram, 180-1-2 +Stoker, Dr., 254-5 +Stratford-on-Avon, 7, 339 +Sue, Eugene, 41 +Sullivan, Sir Arthur, 127, 330 +Swinburne, A.C., 118 + +Taber, Robert, 285 +Tamagno, Sig., 381 +"Taming of the Shrew," 80, 107 +Taylor, Tom, 53, 67 _et sqq._, 76, 95, 106, 121 _et sqq._, 152 +--Mrs. Tom, 68, 121-2, 125 +Teck, Princess Mary of, 265, 381 +Telbin, 76 +Tennyson, Lord, 16, 59, 60 _et sqq._, 141, 151, 212-3, 367, 396 +--Lady, 60 +--Hallam, 62, 212-3, 216 +--Lionel, 62 +Terriss, William, 32, 151, 153, 156 _et sqq._, 196, 211, 212, 231 _et + sqq._, 247, 258, 300, 312, 397 +Terry, B., Ellen Terry's father, 3, 4, 5, 9 _et sqq._, 18, 122-3, 179, 192 +--Ben, Ellen Terry's brother, 8 +--Mrs. B., Ellen Terry's mother, 3, 4, 8, 10, 48, 67, 396 +--Charles, 8 +--Daniel, 4 +--Ellen, early recollections + her birth, 3-5; + acts at Stratford-on-Avon, 7; + impersonates a mustard-pot, 8-9; + her first appearance as Mamilius in "A Winter's Tale," 10, 15 _et + sqq._; + and Mrs. Charles Kean, _13 et sqq._; + training in Shakespeare, _19 et sqq._; + hurts her foot, 20; + plays Puck, 20 _et sqq._, 33; + learns about vowels, 21; + plays in the Christmas pantomime for 1857, 22; + learns to walk, plays in "Faust and Marguerite," "Merchant of Venice," + "Richard II.," and "Henry VIII.," 24; + plays in "If the Cap Fits," 26; + and Macready, 28; + plays in "Pizarro" and "King John," 29; + in "A Drawing-room Entertainment," 32, 35 _et sqq._; + her salary, 33; + in "To Parents and Guardians," 34; + at the Royal Soho Theatre, 39 _et sqq._; + in "Attar Gull," 41-2; + in "The Governor's Wife," 43; + in "A Nice Quiet Day," 44; + life in a stock company, 46 _et sqq._; + at Bristol in Mr. Chute's company, 46 _et sqq._; + as Cupid in "Endymion," 49; + as Dictys in "Perseus and Andromeda," 49; + at the Haymarket Theatre, 49; + plays Titania at Bath, 51; + in "The Little Treasure" and "The Rivals," 51-2, 55; + meets Mr. G.F. Watts, and painted by him with Kate Terry as "The + Sisters," 53; + as Hero in "Much Ado About Nothing," 56, 72; + in "The Belle's Stratagem," 56; + in "Buckstone at Home," playing to royalty, 56; + in "The American Cousin," 57; + married to Mr. Watts, 58-9 _et sqq._; + returns to the stage, 67; + and the Tom Taylors, 68 _et sqq._, + plays Desdemona, 72-3; + visits Paris, 73 _et sqq.; + plays Helen in "The Hunchback," 75; + plays in "The Antipodes," 76; + first appearance with Henry Irving, 76; + plays in "The House of Darnley," 77; + and Mrs. Wigan, 76 _et sqq._; + plays in "The Double Marriage," 78; + plays in "Still Waters Run Deep," 79; + first impressions of Henry Irving, 79 _et sqq._; + plays in "The Taming of the Shrew," 80; + plays in "The Household Fairy," 82; + withdraws from the stage, 83 _et sqq._; + adventures in cooking, 86; + her children, 86 _et sqq., 146 _et sqq._; + and Charles Reade, 90 _et sqq._; + returns to the stage, 91 _et sqq._; + plays in "The Wandering Heir," 91 _et sqq._; + engagement with the Bancrofts, 92; + lives at Hampton Court, 93, 146; + plays in Charles Reade's "Our Seamen," 94; + and Charles Reade, 99 _et sqq._; + plays in "The Lady of Lyons," 107, 119; + engagement with the Bancrofts, plays Portia, 110 _et sqq._; + performs in "The Merry Wives of Windsor," 1902, 114, 348 _et sqq._; + playing to aesthetic audiences, 117; + plays in "Money," 119, 120-1; + and Tom Taylor, 121 _et sqq._; + in "New Men and Old Acres," 124, 146, 152; + and the Bancrofts, 131; + as Mabel Vane, 131; + as Blanche Hayes in "Ours," 132; + goes to see Irving act, 133, 134, 137; + and Irving's Hamlet, 136 _et sqq._; + as Ophelia, 137-41; + engagement with John Hare, 148 _et sqq._; + her marriage with Mr. Wardell (Charles Kelly), 150; + acts with him, 150 _et sqq._; + in "Olivia," 150, 153_ et sqq._, 159 _et sqq._; + in "Dora," 151; + in "Brothers," 152; + in "The House of Darnley," 153; + a visit from Henry Irving, 161; + Ellen Terry's description of him, 161 _et sqq._; + on tour with Charles Kelly in "Dora" and "Iris," 164; + in "The School for Scandal," 165; + plays in "Money," 165; + in Irving's "Hamlet," 166 _et sqq._; + touring in the provinces, 174 _et sqq._; + in "Butterfly," 175; + in "Much Ado About Nothing," 177-8; + her dress for "The Cup," 187; + in plays at the Lyceum, 191; + in "Charles I.," 197; + and "Lewis Carroll," 201; + as Portia, 201 _et sqq._, 209; + in "Othello," 222-3 _et sqq._; + her "Letters in Shakespeare's Plays," 226; + as Juliet, 227 _et sqq._; + and Terriss, 231; + her opinion of Sarah Bernhardt, 236-7 _et sqq._; + her Jubilee, 245; + in "Much Ado About Nothing," 250 _et sqq._; + in "The Lyons Mail," 250-1; + in "Twelfth Night," 253; + as Olivia, 256; + in "Faust," 260 _et sqq._, 344; + in "The Amber Heart," 271; + First Tour in America, 273 _et sqq._; + first appearance in America, 280-1; + an "American" interview, 288-9; + on colored servants, 291; + some opinions on America, 294 _et sqq._; + her first speech, 304-5; + at Niagara, 311-12; + other tours in America, 325 _et sqq._; + in "Godefroi and Yolande," 326; + her third marriage, 327; + in "Macbeth," 328 _et sqq._; + painted as Lady Macbeth by Sargent, 331-2, 371-2; + plays in the "Dead Heart," 334; + plays in "Ravenswood," 337; + plays in "Nance Oldfield," 337 _et sqq._; + in "Henry VIII.," 338; + at Stratford-on-Avon, 339 et sqq._; + in "King Lear," "Becket," "King Arthur," "Cymbeline," "Madame + Sans-Gne," "The Medicine Man," "Peter the Great," 343; + in Robespierre, 344; + in "Alice Sit-by-the-Fire," 345; + in "Captain Brassbound's Conversion," 345; + in "The Merry Wives of Windsor," 114, 348 _et sqq._; + in Ibsen's "Vikings," at the Imperial Theatre, 351; + produces "The Good Hope," 354; + in "Ravenswood," 354; + her last Shakespearean part, Hermione, 355; + her Stage Jubilee, 355 _et sqq._; + her theatre dresses, 377 _et sqq._, 383; + in "Journeys End in Lovers' Meeting," 391; + "Bits from her Diary," 394 _et sqq._; + and the Marionettes, 395 +--Eliza, 4 +--Florence, 8, 83, 122, 125, 209, 257-8, 387 +--Fred, 8, 83 +--George, 8, 174-5 +--Kate (Mrs. Arthur James Lewis), 3, 8, 9, 10, 11, 18, 20, 24 _et sqq._, + 29 _et sqq._, 35, 47, 48 _et sqq._, 67 +--Marion, 8, 83, 125, 257 +--Tom, 8, 126 +Tetrazzini, 383 +Thackeray, W.M., 314 +_Times, The_, 18 +Toole, J.L., 266, 270 +"To Parents and Guardians," 34 +Trebelli, Madame, 382 +Tree, H. Beerbohm, 114, 271, 320, 348 _et sqq._ +--Mrs., 349 +"Twelfth Night," 191, 253 +"Two Roses, The," 227 +Tyars, Mr., 210, 252 + +Vanbrugh, Irene, 268 +Vanbrugh, Violet (Mrs. Arthur Bourchier), 267 _et sqq._, 391 +"Vanderdecken," 395 +Verdi, 382 +Victoria, Queen, 18, 57, 110, 397, 398 +Victoria (Princess Royal), 18 +"Vikings," Ibsen's, 351 +Vining, George, 334 + +Wales, Princess of, 381 +Walkley, A.B., 224 +"Wandering Heir, The," 91 _et sqq._, 100, 109, 244, 273 +Wardell, Charles. _See_ Charles Kelly +Warner, Charles, 113 +Watts, George Frederick, R.A., 53, 58 _et sqq._, 164 +Watts-Dunton, T., 118 +Webster, Benjamin, 165, 230, 334 +Wenman, 300 +"Werner," 270-1 +Whistler, J.M., 129, 134-5, 199, 306 +White, Stanford, 283 +Wigan, Alfred, 76, 79, 211-2 +--Mrs., 76 _et sqq._, 176 +Wilde, Oscar, 118, 134-5, 198-9, 275 +Williams, Harcourt, 337, 340 +Wills, W.G., 150, 152, 336 +Wilton, Miss Marie. _See_ Lady Bancroft +Winchilsea, Lady, 177, 216 +Winter, William, 158, 286 _et sqq._ +"Winter's Tale, A," 10, 15 _et sqq._, 355 +Wood, Arthur, 48 +--Mrs. John, 91 +Woodhouse, Mr., 37 +_World, The_, 26 +Wyndham, Charles, Sir, 76 _et sqq._ + +Yates, Edmund, 26 + + + + +[Illustration: _From a photograph by Lewis Carroll_ + +MR. AND MRS. BENJAMIN TERRY + +The father and mother of Ellen Terry] + +[Illustration: CHARLES KEAN AND ELLEN TERRY IN 1856 + +As they appeared in "The Winter's Tale." This was Miss Terry's dŽbut on +the stage.] + +[Illustration: ELLEN TERRY IN 1856] + +[Illustration: ELLEN TERRY AT SIXTEEN] + +[Illustration: _Photograph by the Autotype Company, London_ + +"THE SISTERS" (KATE AND ELLEN TERRY) + +From the painting by George Frederick Watts] + +[Illustration: _From a photograph by Julia Margaret Cameron_ + +ELLEN TERRY AT SEVENTEEN + +After her marriage to George Frederick Watts] + +[Illustration: GEORGE FREDERICK WATTS, R.A. + +From a photograph by Julia Margaret Cameron, made about the time of his +marriage to Ellen Terry] + +[Illustration: ELLEN TERRY AS HELEN IN "THE HUNCHBACK"] + +[Illustration: _Photograph by the London Stereoscopic Co._ + +HENRY IRVING AS JINGLE IN "MR. PICKWICK"] + +[Illustration: _Photograph by Braun, Clement & Co._ + +HEAD OF A YOUNG GIRL (ELLEN TERRY) + +From the painting by George Frederick Watts, in the collection of +Alexander Henderson, Esq., M.P.] + +[Illustration: HENRY IRVING + +From a photograph in the collection of Miss Evelyn Smalley] + +[Illustration: ELLEN TERRY AS PORTIA + +From the collection of Miss Evelyn Smalley] + +[Illustration: HENRY IRVING AS MATTHIAS IN "THE BELLS" + +The part in which Irving made his first appearance in America + +From the collection of Miss Evelyn Smalley] + +[Illustration: HENRY IRVING AS PHILIP OF SPAIN + +From the painting by Whistler] + +[Illustration: HENRY IRVING AS HAMLET + +From the statue by E. Onslow Ford, R.A., in the Guildhall of the City of +London] + +[Illustration: _Photograph by the Vander Weyde Light_ + +LILY LANGTRY] + +[Illustration: WILLIAM TERRISS AS SQUIRE THORNHILL IN "OLIVIA"] + +[Illustration: ELLEN TERRY AS OPHELIA + +From a photograph taken in 1878, in the collection of Miss Evelyn +Smalley] + +[Illustration: ELLEN TERRY AS BEATRICE + +From the collection of Miss Evelyn Smalley] + +[Illustration: SIR HENRY IRVING + +From the painting by Sir John Millais, Bart., P.R.A.] + +[Illustration: IRVING AS LOUIS XI] + +[Illustration: ELLEN TERRY AS HENRIETTA MARIA] + +[Illustration: ELLEN TERRY AS CAMMA IN "THE CUP"] + +[Illustration: ELLEN TERRY AS IOLANTHE] + +[Illustration: ELLEN TERRY AS LETITIA HARDY IN "THE BELLE'S +STRATAGEM"] + +[Illustration: _Photograph by Sarony, in the collection of Robert +Coster_ + +EDWIN THOMAS BOOTH] + +[Illustration: ELLEN TERRY AS JULIET] + +[Illustration: ELLEN TERRY AS BEATRICE + +From the collection of Miss Frances Johnston] + +[Illustration: ELLEN TERRY AS BEATRICE + +From the collection of Miss Frances Johnston] + +[Illustration: ELLEN TERRY'S FAVOURITE PHOTOGRAPH AS OLIVIA + +From the collection of Miss Evelyn Smalley] + +[Illustration: ELEANORA DUSE WITH LENBACH'S CHILD + +From the painting by Franz von Lenbach] + +[Illustration: ELLEN TERRY AS MARGARET IN "FAUST"] + +[Illustration: ELLEN TERRY AS ELLALINE IN "THE AMBER HEART" + +From the collection of Miss Frances Johnston] + +[Illustration: _From the collection of Miss Evelyn Smalley_ + +MISS ELLEN TERRY IN 1883 + +From a photograph taken at the time of her first appearance in America] + +[Illustration: THE BAS-RELIEF PORTRAIT OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON + +Modeled by Augustus Saint-Gaudens for the St. Giles Cathedral, +Edinburgh. Saint-Gaudens gave a cast of this portrait to Miss Terry's +daughter, Edith Craig] + +[Illustration: MISS ELLEN TERRY + +From a snap-shot taken in the United States] + +[Illustration: SIR HENRY IRVING + +From a snap-shot taken in the United States] + +[Illustration: _Photographed by Miss Alice Boughton_ + +SARAH HOLLAND, ELLEN TERRY'S DRESSER] + +[Illustration: MISS ROSA CORDER + +From the painting by James McNeill Whistler] + +[Illustration: ELLEN TERRY + +With her fox-terriers, Dummy and Fussie; from a photograph taken in +1889] + +[Illustration: _Photographed by T.R. Annan_ + +MISS ELLEN TERRY IN 1898 + +From the collection of Miss Evelyn Smalley] + +[Illustration: SIR HENRY IRVING + +From a portrait given by him to Miss Evelyn Smalley in 1896] + +[Illustration: MISS ELLEN TERRY + +From a photograph taken on her last tour in America] + +[Illustration: ELLEN TERRY AS LADY MACBETH + +From the painting by Sargent, in the Tate Gallery, London] + +[Illustration: _Photographed by Crook, Edinburgh_ + +SIR HENRY IRVING + +From a photograph in the possession of Miss Evelyn Smalley] + +[Illustration: ELLEN TERRY AS LUCY ASHTON IN "RAVENSWOOD"] + +[Illustration: HENRY IRVING AS CARDINAL WOLSEY IN "HENRY VIII" + +From the collection of Miss Evelyn Smalley] + +[Illustration: ELLEN TERRY AS NANCE OLDFIELD + +From a hitherto unpublished portrait] + +[Illustration: _From the collection of H. McM. Painter_ + +ELLEN TERRY AS KNIERTJE IN "THE GOOD HOPE" + +Taken on the beach at Swansea, Wales, in 1906, by Edward Craig.] + +[Illustration: ELLEN TERRY AS IMOGEN + +Drawn by Alma-Tadema for Miss Terry's jubilee in 1906] + +[Illustration: _Photographed by H.H. Hay Cameron_ + +HENRY IRVING AS BECKET + +From the collection of Miss Evelyn Smalley] + +[Illustration: SIR HENRY IRVING + +From the painting by Jules Bastien-Lepage] + +[Illustration: ELLEN TERRY AS ROSAMUND IN "BECKET" + +From the collection of Miss Evelyn Smalley] + +[Illustration: ELLEN TERRY AS GUINEVERE IN "KING ARTHUR" + +From the collection of Miss Evelyn Smalley] + +[Illustration: _From the collection of Miss Evelyn Smalley_ + +"OLIVIA" + +Drawn by Sir Edwin Abbey for Miss Terry's Jubilee Programme] + +[Illustration: MISS TERRY'S GARDEN AT WINCHELSEA + +From a photograph given by her to Miss Evelyn Smalley] + +[Illustration: ELLEN TERRY AS HERMIONE IN "THE WINTER'S TALE" + +From the collection of Miss Evelyn Smalley] + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 12326 *** |