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.
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, Calvé, Albani, Sims Reeves, Tamagno, Victor Maurel, and many others.
Calvé! The New York newspapers wrote "Salve Calvé!" 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 Calvé. 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 "câlinerie"! 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 matinée 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 mind16 one could study the world in little.
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 trulee
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!"
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.) Matinée "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.—Matinée "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-Gêne." 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 Aimée. 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 Harding 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."
Abingdon, Mrs., 54
Adelphi Theatre, The, 76
Albert, Prince, 18
Albina, Madame, 41
Alexander, George, 209, 260-61, 300, 302
Alexandra, Queen, 56, 391, 397
"Alice-sit-by-the-Fire," 345
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
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
Calvé, 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,
212-3, 235, 256-7,
266, 284, 347,
378-9, 395, 397
—Edward Gordon, 86 et sqq., 146 et sqq.,
159, 177, 196,
257, 304, 334,
337, 350 et sqq., 396-7
Craigie, Mrs., 390-1
Crane, Walter, 372
Craven, Mr. Hawes, 76
Croisette, 74
Culverwell, Mr., 35
"Cup, The," 178-9, 187, 191,
212 et sqq.
"Cymbeline," 343, 377
Dale, Allan, 286
Dalrymple, Mrs., 58
Daly, Mr., 318 et sqq.