Chapter XIII: Part 13

"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