XIII

America seems to have been always fatal to Fussie. Another time when Henry and I were playing in some charity performance in whichJohn Drewand 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, Henrystandingwhile 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! Hesang, 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 wardrobecat, 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 Barry11and a foreman left. Everything of mine I've moved away, including the Cat!"

I have never been to America yet without going toNiagara. 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 wasfrightenedat 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 inbeauty, with pits of color in its waters, no one color definite—all was wonderment, allurement, fascination. Thelasttime I was there it was wonderful, but not beautiful any more. The merely stupendous, the merely marvelous, have always repelled me. I cannotrealize, and become terribly weak and doddering. No terrific scene gives me pleasure. The great cañons give me unrest, just as the long low lines of my Sussex marshland near Winchelsea give me rest.

Miss Terry's Garden at Winchelsea

MISS TERRY'S GARDEN AT WINCHELSEA

From a photograph given by her to Miss Evelyn Smalley

At NiagaraWilliam Terrissslipped 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 likethatpart 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 leastdiddress, 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 thanMrs. Fieldsof 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 ofThackeray, 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 womanMrs. 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 thepoetryof 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 andOliver 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.

Miss Ellen Terry in 1898

MISS ELLEN TERRY IN 1898

From the collection of Miss Evelyn Smalley

Photographed by T.R. Annan

In New York, how much I miss Mrs. Beecher I could never say. TheBeecherswere 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 toMr. Dalyand said: "You've got a girl in your company who is the most lovely, humorous darling I have ever seen on the stage." It wasAda 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 likeEthel Barrymore's when Miss Ethel is speaking very nicely—her smiles and dimples, and provocative, invitingcoquetterie! 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 matinée. 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. WhenMr. Treecould not persuadeMrs. Kendalto 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 Irwinwas 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 AmericaMaude Adamsis 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—aneducationaleffect upon all American girlhood.

I never sawMary Andersonact. 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 publicityoffthe stage. I personally only knew her as a most beautiful woman—as kind as beautiful—constantly working for her religion—alwayskind, 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." CertainlyshetookEnglandby 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."

Sir Henry Irving

SIR HENRY IRVING

From a portrait given by him to Miss Evelyn Smalley in 1896

Henry and I were so fortunate as to gain the friendship and approval ofDr. 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.Jeffersonthere, sweeter and more interesting than ever—and younger."

Dear Joe Jefferson—actor, painter, courteous gentleman,profoundstudent of Shakespeare! When the Bacon-Shakespeare controversy was raging in America (it reallydidrage 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 likeNorman 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.Henryfetched 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 actorLudwig Barnaywas 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 wasmarried 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.

Miss Ellen Terry

MISS ELLEN TERRY

From a photograph taken on her last tour in America

PerhapsHenry Irvingand 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?

Hisviewof "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! SirArthur 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 attackourscenes.... 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!'"12

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. Nettleshipmade 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 fromMrs. Comyns Carr's design. I am glad to think it is immortalized inSargent'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 ofHenry—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."Ellen Terry as Lady Macbeth by Sargent

Ellen Terry as Lady Macbeth by Sargent

ELLEN TERRY AS LADY MACBETH

From the painting by Sargent, in the Tate Gallery, London

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 seethatside 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 ofJ. 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 wasnota fiend, anddidlove 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-Joneshas 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 hiseye. 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 sonTeddymade 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 andGeorge Vining. Henry engagedBancroftfor the Abbé, 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—redwine, 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!' (Nowfor '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!

Sir Henry Irving

SIR HENRY IRVING

From a photograph in the possession of Miss Evelyn Smalley

Photographed by Crook, Edinburgh

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.Willstook from "The Vicar of Wakefield" an episode and did it right well, but there was noepisodein "The Bride of Lammermoor" forMerivaleto 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.

Ellen Terry as Lucy Ashton in "Ravenswood"

ELLEN TERRY AS LUCY ASHTON IN "RAVENSWOOD"

Seymour Lucasdesigned 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 oldMr. Howewrote to me thatTeddy'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 asMartin Harvey,Laurence Irvingand, more recently,Harcourt Williamshave all played it with me.

Henry's pride asCardinal Wolseyseemed 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 fromBurne-Jonesabout "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 andMackailand 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."

Henry Irving as Cardinal Wolsey in "Henry VIII"

HENRY IRVING AS CARDINAL WOLSEY IN "HENRY VIII"

From the collection of Miss Evelyn Smalley

When the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire gave the famous fancy dress ball atDevonshire 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 forMr. Bensonduring 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 playMartha! Well! well! I didn't quite seethat. So I redeemed a promise given in jest at the Lyceum to Frank Benson twenty years earlier, and went off toStratford-upon-Avonto 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 Elchoshowed 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 strangeIt droppeth asthegentle rain from 'EavenUpontheplace beneath; it is twicet bless.It blesseth in that gives and in that takesIt is in the mightiest—in the mightiestIt becomes the throned monuk better than its crownd.It's an appribute to God inselfIt is in the thorny 'earts of kingsBut 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 naïve compliment to my way of "taking a call"! Further pressed, he volunteered: "When you lay on the bed and died to please the angels."

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