Behind the
Footlights

BY

MRS. ALEC-TWEEDIE

AUTHOR OF
“MEXICO AS I SAW IT,” “GEORGE HARLEY, F.R.S.,” ETC.

WITH TWENTY ILLUSTRATIONS

NEW YORK
DODD MEAD AND COMPANY
1904

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PRINTED BY

HAZELL, WATSON AND VINEY, LD.,

LONDON AND AYLESBURY,

ENGLAND.

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[Pg xi]

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“I WANT to go on the stage,” declared a girl as she sat one day opposite her father, a London physician, in his consulting-room.

The doctor looked up, amazed, deliberately put down his pen, cast a scrutinising glance at his daughter, then said tentatively:

“Want to go on the stage, eh?”

“Yes, I wish to be an actress. I have had an offer—oh, such a delightful offer—to play a girl’s part in the forthcoming production at one of our best theatres.”

Her father made no comment, only looked again[Pg 2] steadily at the girl in order to satisfy himself that she was speaking seriously. Then he took the letter she held out, read it most carefully, folded it up—in what the would-be actress thought an exasperatingly slow fashion—and after a pause observed:

“So this is the result of allowing you to play in private theatricals. What folly!”

The girl started up—fire flashed from her eyes, and her lips trembled as she retorted passionately:

“I don’t see any folly, I only see a great career opening before me. I want to go on the stage and make a name.”

The doctor looked more grave than ever, but replied calmly:

“You are very young—you have only just been to your first ball; you know nothing whatever about the world or work.”

“But I can learn, and intend to do so.”

“Ah yes, that is all very well; but what you really see at this moment is only the prospect of so many guineas a week, of applause and admiration, of notices in the papers, when at one jump you expect to gain the position already attained by some great actress. What you do not see, however, is the hard work, the dreary months, nay years, of waiting, the many disappointments that precede success—you do not realise the struggle of it all, or the many, many failures.”

She looked amazed. What possible struggle could there be on the stage? she wondered.

[Pg 3]

“Is this to be the end of my having worked for you,” he asked pathetically, “planned for you, given you the best education I could, done everything possible to make your surroundings happy, that at the moment when I hoped you were going to prove a companion and a comfort, you announce the fact that you wish to choose a career for yourself, to throw off the ties—I will not call them the pleasures—of home, and seek work which it is not necessary for you to undertake?”

“Yes,” murmured the girl, by this time almost sobbing, for the glamour seemed to be rolling away like mist before her eyes, while glorious visions of tragedy queens and comic soubrettes faded into space.

“I will not forbid you,” he went on sadly but firmly—“I will not forbid you, after you are twenty-one, for then you can do as you like; but nearly four years stretch between now and then, and during those four years I shall withhold my sanction.”

Tears welled up into her eyes. Moments come in the lives of all of us when our nearest and dearest appear to understand us least. Even in our youth we experience unreasoning sadness.

“I do not wish,” he continued, rising and patting her kindly on the back, “to see my daughter worn to a skeleton, working when she should be enjoying herself, taking upon her shoulders cares and worries which I have striven for years to avert—therefore I must save you from yourself. During the next four years I will try to show you what going[Pg 4] on the stage really means, and the labour it entails.”

She did not answer, exultation had given place to indignation, indignation to emotion, and the aspirant to histrionic fame felt sick at heart.

That girl was the present writer—her father the late Dr. George Harley, F.R.S., of Harley Street.

During those four years he showed me the work and anxiety connection with the stage involves, and as it was not necessary for me to earn my living at that time, I waited his pleasure, and, finally, of my own free will abandoned the girlish determination of becoming an actress. Wild dreams of glory and success eventually gave place to more rational ideas. The glamour of the footlights ceased to shine so alluringly—as I realised that the actor’s art, like the musician’s, is ephemeral, while the work and anxiety are great in both.

The restlessness of youth was upon me when I mooted the project, and an injudicious word then would have sent me forth at a tangent, probably to fail as many another has done before and since.

There may still be a few youthful people in the world who believe the streets of London are paved with gold—and there are certainly numbers of boys and girls who think the stage is strewn with pearls and diamonds. All the traditions of the theatre are founded in mystery and exaggeration; perhaps it is as well, for too much realism destroys illusion.

Boys and girls dream great dreams—they fancy[Pg 5] themselves leading actors and actresses, in imagination they dine off gold, wear jewels, laces, and furs, hear the applause of the multitude—and are happy. But all this, as said, is in their dreams, and dreams only last for seconds, while life lasts for years.

One in perhaps a thousand aspirants ever climbs to the top of the dramatic ladder, dozens remain struggling on the lower rung, while hundreds fall out weary and heart-sore before passing even the first step. Never has the theatrical profession been more overcrowded than at the present moment.

Many people with a wild desire to act prove failures on the stage, their inclinations are greater than their powers. Rarely is it the other way; nevertheless Fanny Kemble, in spite of her talent, hated the idea of going on the stage. At that time acting was considered barely respectable for a woman (1829). She was related to Sarah Siddons and John Kemble, a daughter of Charles and Fanny Kemble, and yet no dramatic fire burned in her veins. She was short and plain, with large feet and hands, her only charm her vivacity and expression. Ruin was imminent in the family when the girl was prevailed upon after much persuasion to play Juliet. Three weeks later she electrified London. Neither time nor success altered her repugnance for the stage, however. When dressed as Juliet her white satin train lying over the chair, she recalled the scene in the following words:

“There I sat, ready for execution, with the palms of my hands pressed convulsively together, and the tears I in vain endeavoured to repress welling up[Pg 6] into my eyes, brimming slowly over, down my rouged cheeks.”

There is a well-known actor upon the stage to-day who feels much as Fanny Kemble did.

“I hate it all,” he once said to me. “Would to Heaven I had another profession at my back. But I never really completed any studies in my youth, and in these days of keen competition I dare not leave an income on the stage for an uncertainty elsewhere.”

To some people the stage is an alluring goal, religion is a recreation, while to others money is a worship. The Church and the Stage cast their fascinating meshes around most folk some time during the course of their existences. It is scarcely strange that such should be the case, for both hold their mystery, both have their excitements, and man delights to rush into what he does not understand—this has been the case at all times and in all countries, and, like love and war, seems likely to continue to the end of time.

We all know the stage as seen from before the footlights—we have all sat breathless, waiting for the curtain to rise, and there are some who have longed for the “back cloth” to be lifted also, that they might peep behind. In these pages all hindrances shall be drawn away, and the theatre and its workings revealed from behind the footlights.

As every theatre has its own individuality, so every face has its own expression, therefore one can only generalise, for it is impossible to treat each theatrical house and its customs separately.

[Pg 7]

The strong personal interest I have always felt for the stage probably originated in the fact that from childhood I had heard stories of James Sheridan Knowles writing some of his plays, notably The Hunchback, at my grandfather’s house, Seaforth Hall, in Lancashire. Charles Dickens often stayed there when acting for some charity in Liverpool. Samuel Lover was a constant visitor at the house, as also the great American tragedian, Charlotte Cushman. Her beautiful sister Susan (the Juliet of her Romeo) married my uncle, Sheridan Muspratt, author of the Dictionary of Chemistry. From all of which it will be seen that theatrical stories were constantly retailed at home; therefore when I was about to “come out,” and my father asked if I would like a ball, I replied:

“No, I should prefer private theatricals.”

This was a surprise to the London physician; but there being no particular sin in private theatricals, consent was given, “provided,” as he said, “you paint the scenery, make your own dresses, generally run the show, and do the thing properly.”

A wise proviso, and one faithfully complied with. It gave an enormous amount of work but brought me a vast amount of pleasure.

Mr. L. F. Austin, a clever contributor to the Illustrated London News, wrote a most amusing account of those theatricals—in which he, Mr. Weedon Grossmith, and Mrs. Beerbohm Tree assisted—in his little volume At Random. Sir William Magnay, then a well-known amateur, and now a novelist,[Pg 8] was one of our tiny company. Sweethearts, Mr. W. S. Gilbert’s delightful little comedy, was chosen for the performance, but at the last moment the girl who should have played the maid was taken ill. Off to Queen’s College, where I was then a pupil, I rushed, dragged Maud Holt—who became Mrs Tree a few weeks later—back with me, and that same night she made her first appearance on any stage. Very shortly afterwards Mrs. Beerbohm Tree adopted acting as a profession, and appeared first at the Court Theatre. Subsequently, when her husband became a manager, she joined his company for many years.

We all adored her at College: she was tall and graceful, with a beautiful figure: she sang charmingly, and read voraciously. In those days she was a great disciple of Browning, and so was Mr. Tree; in fact, the poet was the leading-string to love and matrimony.

Mrs. Beerbohm Tree considers that almost the happiest moments of her life were spent in reciting The Absent-minded Beggar for the War Fund. It came about in this wise. She had arranged to give a recitation at St. James’s Hall on one particular Wednesday. On the Friday before that day she saw announced in the Daily Mail that a new poem by Rudyard Kipling on the Transvaal war theme would appear in the Tuesday issue. This she thought would be a splendid opportunity to declaim a topical song at the concert, so she wrote personally to the editor of the paper, and asked him if he could possibly let her have an advance copy of the poem, so that[Pg 9] she might learn and recite it on Wednesday, as the Tuesday issue would be too late for her purpose.

Through the courtesy of Mr. Harmsworth she received the proof of The Absent-minded Beggar on Friday evening, and sitting in her dining-room in Sloane Street with her elbows on the table she read and re-read it several times. This, she thought, might bring grist to the war mill. Into a hansom she jumped, and off to the Palace Theatre she drove, boldly asking for the manager. Her name was sufficient, and she was ushered into the august presence.

“This is a remarkable poem,” she said, “by Mr. Rudyard Kipling, so remarkable that I think if recited in your Hall nightly it would bring some money to the fund, and if you will give me £100 a week——”

Up went the manager’s hand in horror.

“One hundred pounds a week, Mrs. Tree?”

“Yes, £100 a week, I will come and recite it every evening, and hand over the cheque intact to the War Fund.”

It was a large sum, and the gentleman could not see his way to accepting the offer on his own responsibility, but said he would sound his directors in the morning.

Before lunch-time next day Mrs. Tree received a note requesting her to recite the poem nightly as suggested, and promising her £100 a week for herself or the fund in return. For ten weeks she stood alone every evening on that vast stage, and for ten minutes she recited “Pay, pay, pay.” There never have been such record houses at the Palace either before or since, and at the end of ten weeks she handed over[Pg 10] a cheque for £1,000 to the fund. Nor was this all, large sums were paid into the collecting boxes in the Palace Theatre. In addition Mrs. Tree made £1,700 at concerts, and £700 on one night at a Club. More than that, endless people followed her example, and the War Fund became some £20,000 richer for her inspiration in that dining-room in Sloane Street.

This was one of the plums of the theatrical cake; but how different is the performance and the gold and glitter as seen from the front of the curtain, to the real thing behind. How little the audience entering wide halls, proceeding up pile carpeted stairs, sweeping past stately palms, or pushing aside heavy plush curtains, realise the entrance to the playhouse on the other side of the footlights.

At the back of the theatre is the stage door. Generally up an alley, it is mean in appearance, more like an entrance to some cheap lodging-house than to fairyland. Rough men lounge about outside, those scene-shifters, carpenters, and that odd list of humanity who jostle each other “behind the scenes,” work among “flies,” and adjust “wings” in no ornithological sense, but merely as the side-pieces of the stage-setting.

Just inside this door is a little box-like office; nothing grand about it, oh dear no, whitewash is more often found there than mahogany, and stone stairs than Turkey carpets. Inside this little bureau sits that severe guardian of order, the stage door keeper. He is a Pope and a Czar in one. He is always busy, refuses to listen to explanations; even a card[Pg 11] is not sent in unless that important gentleman feels assured its owner means business.

At that door, which is dark and dreary, the glamour of the stage begins to wane. It is no portal to a palace. The folk hanging about are not arrayed in velvets and satins; quite the contrary; torn cashmeres and shiny coats are more en évidence.

Strange people are to be found both behind and upon the stage, as in every other walk through life; but there are plenty of good men and women in the profession, men and women whose friendship it is an honour to possess. Men and women whose kindness of heart is unbounded, and whose intellectual attainments soar far above the average.

Every girl who goes upon the stage need not enjoy the privilege of marrying titled imbecility, nor obtain the notoriety of the Divorce Court, neither being creditable nor essential to her calling, although both are chronicled with unfailing regularity by the press.

The Divorce Court is a sad theatre where terrible tragedies of human misery are acted out to the bitter end. Between seven and eight hundred cases are tried in England every year—not many, perhaps, when compared with the population of the country, which is over forty millions. But then of course the Divorce Court is only the foam; the surging billows of discontent and unhappiness lie beneath, and about six thousand judicial separations, all spelling human tragedy, are granted yearly by magistrates, the greater number of such cases being undefended. They[Pg 12] record the same sad story of disappointed, aching hearts year in year out.

Divorces are not more common amongst theatrical folk than any other class, so, whatever may be said for or against the morality of the stage, the Divorce Court does not prove theatrical life to be less virtuous than any other.

The fascination of the stage entraps all ages—all classes. Even children sometimes wax warm over theatrical folk. Once I chanced to be talking to a little girl concerning theatres.

“Do you know Mr. A. B. C.?” she asked excitedly, when the conversation turned on actors.

“Yes, he is a great friend of mine.”

“Oh, do tell me all about him,” she exclaimed, seizing my arm.

“Why do you want to know?”

“Because I adore him, and all the girls at school adore him, he is like a real prince; we save up our pocket-money to buy his photographs, and May Smith has actually got his autograph!”

“But tell me why you all adore him?” I asked.

“Because he is so lovely, so tall and handsome, has such a melodious voice, and oh! doesn’t he look too beautiful in his velvet suit as——? He is young and handsome, isn’t he? Oh, do say he is young and handsome,” implored the enthusiastic child.

“I am afraid I cannot, for it would not be true; Mr. A. B. C. is not tall—in fact, he is quite short.” She looked crestfallen. “He has a sallow complexion[Pg 13].”

“Sallow! Oh, not really sallow! but he is handsome and young, isn’t he?”

“I should think he is about fifty-two.”

“Fifty-two!” she almost shrieked. “My A. B. C. fifty-two. Oh no. You are chaffing me; he must be young and beautiful.”

“And his hair is grey,” I cruelly added.

“Grey?”—she sobbed. “Not grey? Oh, you hurt me.”

“You asked questions and I have answered them truthfully,” I replied. She stood silent for a moment, then in rather a subdued tone murmured:

“He is not married, is he?”

“Oh yes, he has been married for five-and-twenty years.”

The child looked so crestfallen I felt I had been unkind.

“Oh dear, oh dear,” she almost sobbed, “won’t the girls at school be surprised! Are you quite, quite sure he is not young and beautiful? he looks so lovely on the stage.”

“Quite, quite sure. You have only seen him from before the footlights. He is a good fellow, clever and charming, and he works hard, but he is no lover in velvet and jerkin, no hero of romance, and the less you worry your foolish little head about him the better, my dear.”

How many men and women believe like this child that there are only princes and princesses on the stage.

There was an old Scotch body—an educated,[Pg 14] puritanical person—who once informed me, “The the-a-ter is very bad, very wicked, ma’am.”

“Why?” I asked, amazed yet interested.

“It’s full of fire and lights like Hell. They just discuss emotions there, ma’am, and it’s morbid to discuss emotions and just silly conceit to think about them. I like deeds, and not talk—I do!”

“You seem to think the theatre a hotbed of iniquity?”

“Aye, indeed I do, ma’am. They even make thunder. Fancy daring to make thunder for amusement as the good God does to show His wrath—thunder with a machine—it’s just dreadful, it is.”

The grosser the exaggeration the more readily it provokes conversation. I was dying to argue, but fearing to hurt her feelings, I merely smiled, wondering what the old lady would say if she knew even prayers were made by a machine in countries where the prayer-wheel is used.

“Have you ever been to a theatre?” I ventured to ask, not wishing to disturb the good dame’s peace of mind.

“The Lord forbid!”

That settled the matter; but I subsequently found that the old body went to bazaars, and did not mind a little flutter over raffles, and on one occasion had even been to hear the inimitable George Grossmith in Inverness, when——

“He was not dressed-up-like, so it wasn’t a regular the-a-ter, and he was just alone, ma’am, wi’ a piano, so there was no harm in that,” added the[Pg 15] virtuous dame, complacently folding her hands across her portly form.

Wishing to change the subject, I asked her how her potatoes were doing.

“Bad, bad,” she replied, “they’re awfu’ bad, the Lord’s agin us the year; but we must jist make the best of it, ma’am.”

She was a thoroughly good woman, and this was her philosophy. She would make the best of the lack of potatoes, as that was a punishment from above; but she could not sanction play-acting any more than riding a bicycle on the Sabbath.

Her horror of the wickedness of the stage was as amusing as the absurd adoration of the enthusiastic child.

Every good-looking man or woman who “play acts” is the recipient of foolish love-letters. Pretty girls receive them from sentimental youth or sensual old age, and handsome men are pestered with them from old maids, or unhappily married women. Some curious epistles are sent across the footlights, even the most self-respecting woman cannot escape their advent, although she can, and, does, ignore them.

Here is a sample of one:

“For five nights I have been to the theatre to see you play in——. I was so struck by your performance last week that I have been back every night since. Vainly I hoped you would notice me, for I always occupy the same seat, and last night I really thought you did smile at me” (she had done nothing of the kind, and had never even seen the man), “so I went[Pg 16] home happy—oh so happy. I have sent you some roses the last two nights, and felt sorry you did not wear them. Is there any flower you like better? I hardly dare presume to ask you for a meeting, but if you only knew how much I admire you, perhaps you would grant me this great favour and make me the happiest man on earth. I cannot sleep for thinking of you. You are to me the embodiment of every womanly grace, and if you would take supper with me one night after the performance you would indeed confer a boon on a lonely man.”

No answer does not mean the end of the matter. Some men—and, alas! some women—write again and again, send flowers and presents, and literally pester the object of their so-called adoration.

For weeks and weeks a man sent a girl violets; one night a diamond ring was tied up in the bunch—those glittering stones began her ruin—she wrote to acknowledge them, a correspondence ensued.

That man proved her curse. She, the once beautiful and virtuous girl, who was earning a good income before she met her evil genius, died lately in poverty and obscurity. The world had scoffed at her and turned aside, while it still smiled upon the man, although he was the villain; but can he get away from his own conscience?

Every vice carries with it a sting, every virtue a balm.

There are many perils on the stage, to which of course only the weak succumb; but the temptations are necessarily greater than in other professions. Its[Pg 17] very publicity spells mischief. There is the horrid man in all audiences who tries to make love and ogle pretty women across the footlights, the class of creature who totally forgets that the best crown a man or woman can wear is a good reputation.

Temptations lie open on all sides for the actor and actress, and those who pass through the ordeal safely are doubly to be congratulated, for the man who meets temptation and holds aloof is surely a finer character than he who is merely “good” because he has never had a chance of being anything else.

Journalism, domestic service, and the stage probably require less knowledge and training for a beginning than any other occupations.

It costs money and time to learn to be a dressmaker, a doctor, an architect, even a shorthand writer; but given a certain amount of cleverness, experience is not necessary to do “scissor-and-paste” work in journalism, rough housework, or to “walk on” on the stage; but oh! what an amount of work and experience is necessary to ensure a satisfactory ending, more particularly upon the boards, where all is not gold that glitters. At best the crown is only brass, the shining silver merely tin, and in nine theatres out of every ten the regal ermine but a paltry rabbit-skin.

Glitter dazzles the eye. Nevertheless behind it beat good hearts and true; while hard work, patient endurance, and courage mark the path of the successful player.

Work does not degrade a man; but a man often degrades his work.

[Pg 18]

If, as the old body said, it be morbid to discuss emotions, and egotistical to feel them, it is still the actor’s art, and that is probably why he is such a sensitive creature, why he is generally in the highest spirits or deepest depths of woe, why he is full of moods and as varying as a weathercock. Still he is charming, and so is his companion in stageland—the actress. Both entertain us, and amusement is absolutely essential to a healthy existence.

When one considers the wonderful success of women upon the stage to-day, and their splendid position socially, it seems almost impossible to believe that they never acted in England until the reign of Charles I., when a French Company which numbered women among its players crossed the Channel, and craved a hearing from Queen Henrietta Maria. One critic of the time called them “unwomanish and graceless”; another said, “Glad am I they were hissed and hooted”; but still they had come to stay, and slowly, very slowly, women were allowed to take part in theatrical performances. We all know the high position they hold to-day.

In 1660 there were only two theatres in London, the King’s and the Duke of York’s, the dearest seats were the boxes at four shillings, the cheapest the gallery at one shilling. Ladies wore masks at the play, probably because of the coarse nature of the performances, which gradually improved with the advent of actresses.

In days gone by the playhouse was not the orderly place it is nowadays, and the unfortunate[Pg 19] “mummers” had to put up with every kind of nuisance until Colley Cibber protested, and Queen Anne issued a Proclamation (1704) against disturbances. In those days folk arrived in sedan chairs, and their noisy footmen were allowed free admission to the upper gallery to wait for their lords and ladies, added to which the orange girls called their wares and did a brisk trade in carrying love-missives from one part of the house to the other. Before the players could be heard they had to fight their way on to the boards, where gilded youth lolled in the wings and even crossed the stage during the rendering of a scene.

It was about this time that Queen Anne made a stand against the shocking immorality of the stage, and ordered the Master of the Revels (much the same post as the Lord Chamberlain now holds) to correct these abuses. All actors, mountebanks, etc., had to submit their plays or entertainments to the Master of the Revels in Somerset House from that day, and nothing could be performed without his permission.

The stage has a curious effect on people. Many a person has gone to see a play, and some line has altered the whole course of his life. Some idea has been put forth, some tender note played upon which has opened his eyes to his own selfishness, his own greed of wealth, his harshness to a child, or indifference to a wife. There is no doubt about it, the stage is a great power, and that is why it is so important the influence should be used for good, and that illicit love and demoralising thoughts should be kept out[Pg 20] of the theatre with its mixed audiences and susceptible youth. According to a recent report:

“The Berne authorities, holding that the theatre is a powerful instrument for the education of the masses, have decided that on two days of the week the seats in the theatre, without exception, shall be sold at a uniform price of fivepence. ‘Under the direction of the manager,’ writes a correspondent, ‘the tickets are enclosed in envelopes, and in this form are sold to the public. The scheme has proved a great success, especially among the working classes, whom it was meant to benefit. To prevent ticket speculators making a “corner,” the principle of one ticket for one person has been adopted, and the playgoer only knows the location of his seat after he enters the theatre. No intoxicants are sold and no passes are given. The expenses exceed the receipts, but a reserve fund and voluntary contributions are more than sufficient to meet the deficit.’”

Constantly seeing vice portrayed tends to make one cease to think it horrible. Love of gain should not induce a manager to put on a piece that is public poison. Some queer plays teach splendid moral lessons—well and good; but some strange dramas drag their audience through mire for no wise end whatever. The manager who puts such upon his stage is a destroyer of public morality.

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LONDON is a great world: it contains three aristocracies:

The aristocracy of blood, which is limited;

The aristocracy of brain, which is scattered;

And the aristocracy of wealth, which threatens to flood the other two.

The most powerful book in the world at the beginning of the twentieth century is the cheque-book. Foreigners are adored, vulgarity is sanctioned; indeed, all are welcomed so long as gold hangs round their skirts and diamonds and pearls adorn their bodies. Wealth, wealth, wealth, that is the modern cry, and there seems nothing it cannot buy, even a transient position upon the stage.

Many of our well-known actors and actresses have,[Pg 22] however, been “born on the stage”—that is to say, they were the children of theatrical folk, and have themselves taken part in the drama almost from babyhood.

The most successful members of the profession are those possessed of inherited talent, or that have gone on the stage from necessity rather than choice, men and women who since early life have had to fight for themselves and overcome difficulties. It is pleasant to give a prominent example of the triumph which may result from the blending of both influences in the person of one of our greatest actresses, Mrs. Kendal, who has led a marvellously interesting life.

She was born early in the fifties, and her grandfather, father, uncles, and brother (T. W. Robertson) were all intimately connected with the stage as actors and playwrights. When quite a child she began her theatrical career, and made her London début in 1865, when she appeared as Ophelia under her maiden name of Madge Robertson, Walter Montgomery playing the part of Hamlet. Little Madge was only three years old when she first trod the boards, whereon she was to portray a blind child, but when she espied her nurse in the distance, she rushed to the wings, exclaiming, “Oh, Nannie, look at my beautiful new shoes!”

Her bringing up was strict; she had no playfellows and never went to school, a governess and her father were her teachers. Every morning that father took her for a walk, explaining all sorts of things as they went along, or teaching her baby lips[Pg 23] to repeat Shelley’s “Ode to a Foxglove.” On their return home, he would read Shakespeare with her, so that the works of the bard were known to her almost before she learnt nursery rhymes.

“I was grown up at ten,” exclaimed Mrs. Kendal, “and first began to grow young at forty.”

When about fourteen, she was living with her parents in South Crescent, off Tottenham Court Road. One Sunday—a dreary heavy, dull, rainy London day—her father and mother had been talking together for hours, and she wearily went to the window to look out, the mere fact of watching a passer-by seeming at the moment to afford relaxation. Tears rolled down the girl’s cheeks—she was longing for companions of her own age, she was leaving the dolls of childhood behind and learning to be a woman. Her father noticed that she was crying, and exclaimed in surprise, “Why, Daisy, what’s the matter?”

“I feel dull,” she said.

“Dull, dear?—dull, with your mother and me?”

A pathetic little story, truly: the parents were so wrapped up in themselves, they never realised that sometimes the rising generation might feel lonely.

“My father and mother were then old,” said Mrs. Kendal, “I was their youngest child. All the others were out in the world, trying to find a place.”

Early struggles, hopes and fears, poverty and luxury, followed in quick succession in this remarkable woman’s life, but any one who knows her must[Pg 24] realise it was her indomitable will and pluck, coupled, of course, with good health and exceptional talent, which brought her the high position she holds to-day.

If Mrs. Kendal makes up her mind to do a thing, by hook or by crook that object is accomplished. She has great powers of organisation, and a capacity for choosing the right people to help her. “Never say die” is apparently her watchword.

She, like Miss Geneviève Ward, was originally intended for a singer, and songs were introduced into her parts in such plays as The Palace of Truth. Unfortunately she contracted diphtheria, which in those days was not controlled and arrested by antitoxin as it is now, and an operation had to be performed. All this tended to weaken her voice, which gradually left her. Consequently she gave up singing, or rather, singing gave her up, and she became a “play-actress.” She so thoroughly realises the disappointments and struggles of her profession that one of Mrs. Kendal’s pet hobbies is to try and counteract the evil arising from the wish of inexperienced girls to “go upon the stage.”

“If only the stage-struck young woman could realise all that an actress’ life means!” she said to me on one occasion. “To begin with, she is lucky if she gets a chance of ‘walking on’ at a pound a week. She has to attend rehearsals as numerous and as lengthy as the leading lady, who may be drawing £40 or £50 for the same period; though, mark you, there are very few leading ladies, while there are thousands and thousands of walkers-on who will never be anything[Pg 25] else. This ill-paid girl has not the interest of a big part, which stimulates the ‘star’ to work; she has only the dreariness of it all. Unless she be in a ballet, chorus, or pantomime, the girl has to find herself in shoes, stockings, and petticoats for the stage—no light matter to accomplish out of twenty shillings a week. Of course, in a character-part the entire costume is found, but in an ordinary case the girl has to board, lodge, dress herself, pay for her washing, and get backwards and forwards to the theatre in all weathers and at all hours on one pound a week, besides supplying those stage necessaries. Thousands of women are starving in the attempt.

“A girl has to dress at the theatre in the same room with others, she is thrown intimately amongst all sorts of women, and the result is not always desirable. For instance, some years ago, a girl was playing with us, and, mentioning another member of the company, she remarked, ‘She has real lace on her under-linen.’

“I said nothing, but sent for that lace-bedecked personage and had a little private talk with her, telling her that things must be different or she must go. I tried to show her the advantages of the straight path, but she preferred the other, and has since been lost in the sea of ultimate despair.”

So spoke Mrs. Kendal, the famous actress, in 1903, standing at the top of her profession; later we will see what a girl struggling at the bottom has to say on the same subject.

“Remember,” continued Mrs. Kendal, “patience,[Pg 26] courage, and talent may bring one to the winning-post, but few ever reach that line; by far the greater number fall out soon after the start—they find the pay inadequate, the hours too long; the back of a stage proves to be no enchanted land, only a dark, dreary, dusty, bustling place; and, disheartened, they wisely turn aside. Many of them drift aimlessly into stupid marriages for bread and butter’s sake, where discontent turns the bread sour and the butter rancid.

“The theatrical profession is not to blame—it is this terrible overcrowding. There are numbers of excellent men and women upon the stage who know that there is nothing so gross but what a good man or woman can elevate, nothing so lofty that vice cannot cause to totter.

“I entirely disapprove of a dress rehearsal,” continued Mrs. Kendal. “It exhausts the actors and takes off the excitement and bloom. One must have one’s real public, and play for them and to them, and not to empty benches. We rehearse in sections. Every one in turn in our company acts in costume, so that we know each individual get-up and make-up is right; but we never dress all the characters of the play at the same time until the night of production.”

Mrs. Kendal is very severe on the subject of overdressing a part.

“Feathers and diamonds,” she said “are not worn upon the river. Why, then, smother a woman with them when she is playing a boating scene?[Pg 27] The dress should be entirely subservient to the character. If one is supposed to be old and dowdy, one should look old and dowdy. I believe in clothing the character in character, and not striving after effect. Overdressing is as bad as over-elaboration of stage-setting: it dwarfs the acting and handicaps the performers.”

Mrs. Kendal is an abused, adored, and wonderful woman. Like all busy people, she finds time for everything, and has everything in its place. Her house is neatness exemplified, her table well arranged, the dishes dainty, and the attendance of spruce parlourmaids equally good. She believes in women and their work and employs them whenever possible.

There is an old-fashioned idea that women who earn their living are untidy in their dress and slovenly in their household arrangements, to say nothing of being unhappy in their home life. Those of us who know women workers can refute the charge: the busier they are, the more method they bring to bear; the more highly educated they are, the more capable in the management of their affairs. Mrs. Kendal is no exception to this rule, and in spite of her many labours, she lately encroached upon her time by undertaking another self-imposed task, namely, some charity work, which entailed endless correspondence, to say nothing of keeping books, and lists, and sorting cheques; but she managed all most successfully, and kept what she did out of the papers.

[Pg 28]

“Dissuade every one you know,” Mrs. Kendal entreated me one day, “from going on the stage. There are so few successes and so many failures! So many lives are shattered and hearts broken by that everlasting waiting for an opportunity which only comes to a few. In no profession is harder work necessary, the pay in the early stages more insignificant or less secure. To be a good actress it is essential to have many qualifications: first of all, health and herculean strength; the sweetest temper and most patient temperament, although my remark once made about having ‘the skin of a rhinoceros’ was delivered in pure sarcasm, which, however, was unfortunately taken seriously.

“I really feel very strongly about this rush to go on the stage. In the disorganisation of this democratic period we have all struggled to ascend one step, and many of us have tumbled down several in the attempt. Domestic servants all want to be shop-girls, and shop-girls want to be actresses—stars, mind you! Everything is upside-down, for are not the aristocracy themselves selling wine, coals, tea-cakes, and millinery?”

“Why have you succeeded?” I asked.

“Because I was born to it, cradled in the profession, my family have been upon the stage for some hundred years. To make a first-class actress, talent, luck, temperament, and opportunity must combine; but, mark you, the position of the stage does not depend upon her. It is those on the second and third rungs of the ladder who do the hardest of the work, and most firmly uphold the dignity of the stage, just as[Pg 29] it is the middle classes which rivet and hold together this vast Empire.”

Although married to an actor-manager, Mrs. Kendal has nothing whatever to do with the arrangements of the theatre. She does not interfere with anything.

“I never signed an agreement in all my life, either for myself or for anyone else. I never engage or dismiss a soul. Once everything is signed, sealed, and delivered, and all is ready, then, but not till then, my work begins, and I become stage-manager. On the stage I supervise everything, and attend to all the smallest details myself. To be stage-manager is not an enviable position, for one is held responsible for every fault.”

The Kendals lived for years in Harley Street, which is chiefly noted for its length, and being the home of doctors. Their house was at the end farthest from Cavendish Square, at the top on the left. I know the street well, for I was born in the house where Baroness Burdett-Coutts spent her girlhood, and have described in my father’s memoirs how, when he settled in Harley Street in 1860 as a young man, there was scarcely a doctor’s plate in that thoroughfare, or, indeed, in the whole neighbourhood. Sir William Jenner, Sir John Williams, Sir Alfred Garrod, Sir Richard Quain, and Sir Andrew Clark became his neighbours; and later Sir Francis Jeune, Lord Russell of Killowen, the present Speaker of the House of Commons (Mr. Gully), Sir William McCormac, Sir William Church, and[Pg 30] Mr. Gladstone settled quite near. Mr. Sothern (the original impersonator of Lord Dundreary and David Garrick) lived for some time in the street; but, so far as I know, he and the Kendals were the only representatives of the stage. A few years ago, not being able to add to the house they then occupied as they wished, the Kendals migrated to Portland Place, which is now their London residence, while Filey claims them for sea air and rest.

The Kendals spent five years in the United States. It was during those long and tedious journeys in Pullman-cars that Mrs. Kendal organised her “Unselfish Club.” It was an excellent idea for keeping every one in a good temper. At one end of the car the women used to meet to mend, make, and darn every afternoon, while one male member of the company was admitted to read aloud, each taking this duty in turn. Many pleasant and useful hours were spent in speeding over the dreary prairie in this manner. Only those who have traversed thousands of miles of desert can have any idea of the weariness of those days passed on the cars. The railway system is excellent, everything possible is done for one’s comfort, but the monotony is appalling.

Two things are particularly interesting about this great actress—her keen sense of humour and her love of soap. She is always merry and cheerful, has endless jokes to tell, has a quick appreciation of the ridiculous, and can be just as amusing off the stage as on it.

Her love of soap-and-water is apparent in all her surroundings; she is always most carefully groomed;[Pg 31] there is nothing whatever artificial about her—anything of that sort which is necessary upon the boards is left behind at the theatre. That is one of her greatest charms. She uses no “make-up,” and, consequently, she looks much younger off the stage than she does upon it.

Her expressions and her voice are probably Mrs. Kendal’s greatest attractions. Speaking of the first, she laughingly remarked, “My face was made that way, I suppose; and as for my acting voice, I have taken a little trouble to train it. We all start in a high key, but as we get older our voices often grow two or three notes lower, and generally more melodious, so that, while we have to keep them down in our youth, we must learn to get them up in our old age, for the head voice of comedy becomes a throat voice if not properly produced, and tends to grow hard and rasping.”

We had been discussing plays, good, bad, and indifferent.

“I have the greatest objection to the illicit love of the modern drama,” she remarked. “It is quite unnecessary. Every family has its tragedy, and many of these tragedies are far more thrilling, far more heart-breaking, than the unfortunate love-scenes put upon the stage.”

The charming impersonator of the “Elder Miss Blossom,” one of the most delightful touches of comedy-acting on record, almost invariably dresses in black. A strong, healthy-looking woman, untouched by art, and gently dealt with by years, Mrs.[Pg 32] Kendal wears her glorious auburn hair neatly parted in front and braided at the back. Fashion in this line does not disturb her; she has always worn it in the same way, and even upon the stage has rarely donned a wig. She tells a funny little story of how a dear friend teased and almost bullied her to be more fashionable about her head. Every one was wearing fringes at the time, and the lady begged her not to be so “odd,” but to adopt the new and becoming mode. Just to try the effect, Mrs. Kendal went off to a grand shop, told the man to dress her hair in the very latest style, paid a guinea for the performance, and went home. Her family and servants were amazed; but when she arrived at her friend’s house that evening her hostess failed to recognise her. So the fashionable hairdressing was never repeated.

“I worked the hardest,” said Mrs. Kendal, in reply to a question, “in America. For months we gave nine performances a week. The booking was so heavy in the different towns, and our time so limited, that we actually had to put in a third matinée, and as occasionally rehearsals were necessary, and long railway journeys always essential, it was really great labour.

“As a rule I was dressed by ten, and managed to get in an hour’s walk before the matinée. Back to the hotel after the performance for a six o’clock meal, generally composed of a cutlet and coffee, quickly followed by a return to the theatre and another performance. To change one’s dress fourteen [Pg 33]times a day, as I did when playing The Ironmaster, becomes a little wearisome when it continues for months.”

“Did you not find that people in America were extraordinarily hospitable?” I inquired, remembering the great kindness I received in Canada and the States.

“Undoubtedly; but we had little time for anything of that sort, which has always been a great regret to me. It is hard lines to be in a place one wants to see, among people one wants to know, and never to have time for play, only everlasting work. We did make many friends on Sundays, however, and I have the happiest recollections of America.”

Pictures are a favourite hobby of the Kendals, and they have many beautiful canvases in their London home. Every corner is filled by something in the way of a picture, every one of which they love for itself, and for the memories of the way they came by it, more often than not as the result of some successful “run.” They have built their home about them bit by bit. Hard work and good management have slowly and gradually attained their ends, and they laugh over the savings necessary to buy such and such a treasure, and love it all the more for the little sacrifices made for its attainment. How much more we all appreciate some end or some thing we have had difficulty in acquiring. That which falls at our feet seems of little value compared with those objects and aims secured by self-denial.

“There is no doubt about it,” Mrs Kendal finished[Pg 34] by saying, “theatrical life is hard; hard in the beginning, and hard in the end.”

Such words from a woman in Mrs. Kendal’s position are of vast import. She knows what she is talking about; she realises the work, the drudgery, the small pay, and weary hours, and when she says, “Dissuade girls from rushing upon the stage,” those would-be aspirants for dramatic fame should listen to the advice of so experienced an actress and capable woman.

As said at the beginning of this chapter, Mrs. Kendal was cradled in the theatre: she was also married on the stage.

Madge Robertson and William Kendal Grimston were playing in Manchester when one fine day they were married by special licence. A friend of Mr. Kendal’s had the Town Hall bells rung in honour of the event, and the young couple were ready to start off for their honeymoon, when Henry Compton, the great actor, who was “billed” for the following nights, was telegraphed for to his brother’s deathbed.

At once the arrangements had to be altered. As You Like It was ordered, and Mr. and Mrs. Kendal were caught just as they were leaving the town, and bidden to play Orlando and Rosalind to the Touchstone of Buckstone. The honeymoon had to be postponed.

The young couple found the house unusually full on their wedding night, although they believed no one knew of their marriage until they came to the words, “Will you, Orlando, have to wife this Rosalind?[Pg 35]” when the burst of applause and prolonged cheering assured them of the good wishes of their public friends.

Another little romance of the stage happened to the Forbes Robertsons. Just before I sailed for Canada, in August, 1900, Mr. Johnston Forbes Robertson came to dinner. He had been away in Italy for some months recruiting after a severe illness, and was just starting forth on an autumn tour of his own.

“Have you a good leading lady?” I inquired.

“I think so,” he replied. “I met her for the first time this morning, and had never seen her before.”

“How indiscreet,” I exclaimed. “How do you know she can act?”

“While I was abroad I wrote to two separate friends in whose judgment I have much confidence, asking them to recommend me a leading lady. Both replied suggesting Miss Gertrude Elliott as suitable in every way. Their opinions being identical, and so strongly expressed, I considered she must be the lady for me, and telegraphed, offering her an engagement accordingly. She accepted by wire, and at our first rehearsal this morning promised very well.”

I left England almost immediately afterwards, and eight or ten weeks later, while in Chicago, saw a big newspaper headline announcing the engagement of a pretty American actress to a well-known English actor. Naturally I bought the paper at once to see who the actor might be, and lo! it was Mr. Forbes Robertson. It seemed almost impossible: but impossible things have a curious knack of being true,[Pg 36] and the signed photograph I had with me of Forbes Robertson, among those of other distinguished English friends, proved useful to the American press, who were glad of a copy for immediate reproduction. Almost as quickly as this handsome couple were engaged, they were married. Was not that a romance?

Mr. Forbes Robertson originally intended to be an artist, and his going on the stage came about by chance. He was a student at the Royal Academy, when his friend the late W. G. Wills was in need of an actor to play the part of Chastelard in his Mary Stuart, then being given at the Princess’s Theatre. It was difficult to procure exactly the type of face he wanted, for well-chiselled features are not so common as one might suppose. Young Forbes Robertson possessed those features, his clear-cut profile being exactly suitable for Chastelard. Consequently, after much talk with the would-be artist, who was loth to give up his cherished profession, W. G. Wills introduced his friend to the beautiful Mrs. Rousby, with the result that young Forbes Robertson undertook the part at four days’ notice.

Thus it was his face that decided his fate. From that moment the stage had been his profession and art his hobby; but a newer craze is rapidly driving paints and brushes out of the field, for, like many another, the actor has fallen a victim to golf.

There is no finer elocutionist on the stage than Forbes Robertson, and therefore it is interesting to know that he expresses it as his opinion that:

“Elocution can be taught.”

[Pg 37]

Phelps was his master, and he attributes much of his success to that master’s careful training. What a pity Phelps cannot live among us again, to teach some of the younger generation to speak more clearly than they do.

Bad enunciation and noisy music often combine to make the words from the stage inaudible to the audience. Why an old farmer should arrive down a country lane to a blare of trumpets is unintelligible: why a man should plot murder to a valse, or a woman die to slow music, is a conundrum, but such is the fashion on the stage. One sometimes sits through a performance without hearing any of what ought to be the most thrilling lines.

Johnston Forbes Robertson has lived from the age of twenty-one in Bloomsbury. His father was a well-known art critic until blindness overtook him, and then the responsibility of the home fell on the eldest son’s shoulders. His father was born and bred in Aberdeen, and came as a young man to London, where he soon got work as a journalist, and wrote much on art for the Sunday Times, the Art Journal, etc. His most important work was The Great Painters of Christendom.

The West Central district of London, with its splendid houses, its Adams ceilings and overmantels, went quite out of fashion for more than a quarter of a century. With the dawn, however, of 1900, people began to realise that South Kensington stood on clay, was low and damp, and consequently they gradually migrated back to the Regent’s Park and those fine old[Pg 38] squares in Bloomsbury. One after another the houses were taken, and among Mr. Forbes Robertson’s neighbours are George Grossmith and his brother Weedon, Mr. and Mrs. Seymour Hicks, Lady Monckton, “Anthony Hope,” and many well-known judges, aldermen, solicitors, and architects.

In the old home in Bloomsbury the artistic family of Forbes Robertson was reared. Johnston, as we know, suddenly neglected his easel for the stage; his sister Frances took up literature as a profession; and his brothers, known as Ian Robertson and Norman Forbes, both adopted the theatrical profession. So the Robertsons may be classed among the theatrical families.

Who in the latter end of the nineteenth century did not weep with Miss Terry?—who did not laugh with her well-nigh to tears? A great personality, a wondrous charm of voice and manner, a magnetic influence on all her surroundings—all these are possessed by Ellen Terry.

In the days of their youth Mrs. Kendal and Miss Ellen Terry played together, but many years elapsed between then and the Coronation year of Edward VII., when they met again behind the footlights, in a remarkable performance which shall be duly chronicled in these pages.

Like Mrs. Kendal, Miss Ellen Terry began her theatrical life as a child. She was born in Coventry in 1848—not far from Shakespeare’s home, which later in life became such an attractive spot for her. Her parents had theatrical engagements at Coventry[Pg 39] at the time of her birth, so that verily she was cradled on the stage. She was one of four remarkable sisters, Kate, Ellen, Marion, and Florence, all clever actresses and sisters of Fred Terry; while another brother, although not himself an actor, was connected with the stage, Miss Minnie Terry being his daughter. Altogether ten or twelve members of the Terry family have been in the profession.

Ellen Terry, like Irving, Wyndham, Hare, Mrs. Kendal, and Lady Bancroft, learnt her art in stock companies.

Miss Ellen Terry has always had the greatest difficulty in learning her parts, and as years have gone on, even in remembering her lines in oft-acted plays; but every one knows how apt she is to be forgetful, and prompt her over her difficulties. Irving, on the other hand, is letter-perfect at the first rehearsal, and rarely wants help of any kind.

Ellen Terry is so clever that even when she has forgotten her words she knows how to “cover” herself by walking about the stage or some other pretty by-play until a friend comes to her aid. Theatrical people are extremely good to one another on these occasions. Somebody is always ready to come to the rescue. After the first week everything goes smoothly as a rule, until the strain of a long run begins to tell, and they all in turn forget their words, much to the discomfiture of the prompter.

Forgetting the words is a common thing during a long run. I remember Miss Geneviève Ward telling me that after playing Forget-Me-Not some five[Pg 40] hundred times she became perfectly dazed, and that Jefferson had experienced the same with Rip van Winkle, which he has to continually re-study. Miss Gertrude Elliott suffered considerably in the same way during the long run of Mice and Men.

Much has been said for and against a long run; but surely the “against” ought to have it. No one can be fresh and natural in a part played night after night—played until the words become hazy, and that dreadful condition “forgetting the lines” arrives.

At a charming luncheon given by Mr. Pinero for the American Gillette, when the latter was creating such a furore in England with Sherlock Holmes, I ventured to ask that actor how long he had played the part of the famous detective.

“For three years,” he replied.

“Then I wonder you are not insane.”

“So do I, ma’am, I often wonder myself, for the strain is terrible, and sometimes I feel as if I could never walk on to the stage at all; but when the theatre is full, go I must, and go I do; though I literally shun the name of Sherlock Holmes.”

We quickly turned to other subjects, and discussed the charm of American women, a theme on which it is easy for an English woman to wax eloquent.

If a man like Gillette, with all his success, all his monetary gain, and no anxiety—for he did not finance his own theatres—could feel like that about a long run, what horrors it must present to others less happily situated.

Long runs, which are now so much desired by[Pg 41] managers in England and America, are unknown on the Continent. In other countries, where theatres are more or less under State control, they never occur. Of course the “long run” is the outcome of the vast sums expended on the production. Managers cannot recoup themselves for the outlay unless the play draws for a considerable while. But is this the real end and aim of acting? Does it give opportunity for any individual actor to excel?

But to return to Ellen Terry. She has played many parts and won the love of a large public by her wonderful personality, for there is something in her that charms. She is not really beautiful, yet she can look lovely. She has not a strong voice, yet she can sway audiences at will to laughter or tears. She has not a fine figure, yet she can look a royal queen or simple maiden. Once asked whether she preferred comedy or tragedy, she replied:

“I prefer comedy, but I should be very sorry if there were no sad plays. I think the feminine predilection for a really good cry is one that should not be discouraged, inasmuch as there are few things that yield us a truer or a deeper pleasure; but I like comedy as the foundation, coping-stone, and pillar of a theatre. Not comedies for the mere verbal display of wit, but comedies of humour with both music and dancing.”

Miss Ellen Terry has a cheery disposition, invariably looks on the bright side of things, and not only knows how to work, but has actually done so almost continuously from the age of eight.

[Pg 42]

One of Miss Terry’s greatest charms is her mastery over expression. It is really strange how little facial and physical expression are understood in England. We are the most undemonstrative people. It is much easier for a Frenchman to act than for an Englishman; the former is always acting; the little shrug of the shoulders, the movement of the hand and the head, or a wink of the eye, accompany every sentence that falls from his lips. He is full of movement, he speaks as much with his body as with his mouth, and therefore it is far less difficult for him to give expression to his thoughts upon the stage than it is for the stolid Britisher, whose public school training has taught him to avoid showing feeling, and squeezed him into the same mould of unemotional conventionality as all his other hundreds of schoolfellows. There is no doubt about it that everything on the stage must be exaggerated to be effective. It is a world of unreality, and the more pronounced the facial and physical expression brought to bear, the more effective the representation of the character.

To realise the truth of these remarks, one should visit a small theatre in France, a theatre in some little provincial town, where a quite unimportant company is playing. They all seem to act, to be thoroughly enamoured of their parts, and to play them with their whole heart and soul. It is quite wonderful, indeed, to see the extraordinary capacity of the average French actor and actress for expressing emotion upon the stage. Of course it is their characteristic; but on the other hand, the German nation is[Pg 43] quite as stolid as our own, and yet the stage is held by them in high esteem, and the amount of drilling gone through is so wonderful that one is struck by the perfect playing of an ordinary provincial German. At home these Teutonic folk are hard and unemotional, but on the boards they expand. One has only to look at the German company that comes over to London every year to understand this remark. They play in a foreign tongue, the dresses are ordinary, one might say poor, the scenery is meagre, there is nothing, in fact, to help the acting in any way; and yet no one who goes to see one of their performances can fail to be impressed by the wonderful thoroughness and the general playing-in-unison of the entire company. Of course they do not aim so high as the Meiningen troupe, for they were a State company and the personal hobby of the Duke whose name they bore. We have no such band of players in England, although F. R. Benson has done much without State aid to accomplish the same result, and in many cases has succeeded admirably.

We have heard a great deal lately about the prospect of a State-Aided Theatre and Opera in London; and there is much to be said for and against the scheme. Municipal administration is often extravagant and not unknown to jobbery, neither of which would be advisable; but the present system leads to actor-managers and powerful syndicates, which likewise have their drawbacks. There is undoubtedly much to be said both for and against each system, and the British public has to decide. Meantime we learn that the six[Pg 44] Imperial theatres in Russia (three in St. Petersburg and three in Moscow), with their schools attached, cost the Emperor some £400,000 a year. “It is possible to visit the opera for 5d., to see Russian pieces for 3d., French and German for 9d.” These cheap seats are supposed to be a source of education to the populace, but there are expensive ones as well.

Some Englishmen understand the art of facial expression. A little piece was played for a short time by Mr. Charles Warner, under the management of Mrs. Beerbohm Tree. The chief scene took place in front of a telephone, through which instrument the actor heard his wife and child being murdered many miles away in the country, he being in Paris. It was a ghastly idea, but Charles Warner’s face was a study from the first moment to the last. He grew positively pale, he had very little to say, and yet he carried off an entire scene of unspeakable horror merely by his facial and physical expression.

Some of our actors are amusingly fond of posing off the stage as well as on. One well-known man was met by a friend who went forward to shake his hand.

“Ah, how do you do?” gushed the Thespian, striking an attitude, “how do you do, old chap? Delighted to see you,” then assuming a dramatic air, “but who the —— are you?”

And this was his usual form of greeting after an effusive handshake.

In a busy life it is of course impossible to remember every face, and the nonentities should surely forgive the celebrities, for it is so easy to recognise a well-known[Pg 45] person owing to the constant recurrence of his name or portrait in the press, and so easy to forget a nonentity whom nothing recalls, and whose face resembles dozens more of the same type.

One often hears actors and actresses abused—that is the penalty of success. Mediocrity is left alone, but, once successful, out come the knives to flay the genius to pieces; in fact, the more abused a man is, the more sure he may feel of his achievements. Abuse follows success in proportion to merit, just as foolish hopes make the disappointments of life.

---

ANOTHER striking instance of hereditary theatrical talent is Miss Winifred Emery, than whom there is no more popular actress in London. This pretty, agreeable little lady—who, like Mrs. Kendal and Miss Terry, may be said to have been born in the theatre—is the only daughter of Samuel Sanderson Emery, a well-known actor, and grand-daughter of John Emery, who was well known upon the stage. Her first appearance was at Liverpool, at the advanced age of eight.

The oldest theatrical names upon the stage to-day are William Farren and Winifred Emery. Miss Emery’s great-grandfather was also an actor, so she is really the fourth generation to adopt that profession, but her grandmother and herself are the[Pg 47] only two women of the name of Emery who have appeared on playbills.

As is well known, Miss Emery is the wife of Mr. Cyril Maude, lessee with Mr. Frederick Harrison—not the world-renowned Positivist writer—of the Haymarket Theatre.

Although Mrs. Maude finds her profession engrossing, she calls it a very hard one, and the necessity of being always up to the mark at a certain hour every day is, she owns, a great strain even when she is well, and quite impossible when she is ill.

Some years ago, when she was even younger than she is now, and not overburdened with this world’s gold, she was acting at the Vaudeville. It was her custom to go home every evening in an omnibus. One particularly cold night she jumped into the two-horse vehicle and huddled herself up in the farthest corner, thinking it would be warmer there than nearer the door in such bitter weather. She pulled her fur about her neck, and sat motionless and quiet. Presently two women at the other end arrested her attention; one was nudging the other, and saying:

“It is ’er, I tell yer; I know it’s ’er.”

“Nonsense, it ain’t ’er at all; she couldn’t have got out of the theayter so quick.”

“It is ’er, I tell yer; just look at ’er again.”

The other looked.

“No it ain’t; she was all laughing and fun, and that ’ere one looks quite sulky.”

The “sulky one,” though thoroughly tired and weary, smiled to herself.

[Pg 48]

I asked Miss Emery one day if she had ever been placed in any awkward predicament on the stage.

“I always remember one occasion,” she replied, “tragedy at the time, but a comedy now, perhaps. I was acting with Henry Irving in the States when I was about eighteen or nineteen, and felt very proud of the honour. We reached Chicago. Louis XI. was the play. In one act—I think it was the second—I went on as usual and did my part. Having finished, as I thought, I went to my room and began to wash my hands. It was a cold night, and my lovely white hands robbed of their paint were blue. The mixture was well off when the call boy shouted my name. Thinking he was having a joke I said:

“‘All right, I’m here.’

“‘But Mr. Irving is waiting for you.’

“‘Waiting for me? Why, the act isn’t half over.’

“‘Come, Miss Emery, come quick,’ gasped the boy, pushing open the door. ‘Mr. Irving’s on the stage and waiting for you.’

“Horrors! In a flash I remembered I had two small scenes as Marie in that act, and usually waited in the wing. Had I, could I have forgotten the second one?

“With wet red hands, dry white arms, my dress not properly fastened at the back, towel in hand, along the passage I flew. On the stage was poor Mr. Irving walking about, talking—I know not what. On I rushed, said my lines, gave him my lobster-coloured wet hand to kiss—a pretty contrast to my[Pg 49] ashen cheeks, and when the curtain fell, I dissolved in tears.

“Mr. Irving sent for me to his room. In fear and trembling I went.

“‘This was terrible,’ he said. ‘How did it happen?’

“‘I forgot, I forgot, why I know not, but I forgot,’ I said, and my tears flowed again. He patted me on the back.

“‘Never mind,’ he said kindly, ‘but please don’t let it occur again.’”

Once when I was talking to this clever little lady the conversation turned on games.

“Games!” she exclaimed. “I know nothing of them: as a child I never had time to play, and when I was sixteen years old I had to keep myself and my family. Of late years I have been far too busy even to take up golf.”

Mrs. Maude has two charming daughters, quaint, old-fashioned little creatures, and some years their junior is a small brother.

The two girls were once invited to a fancy dress ball in Harley Street: it happened to be a Saturday, and therefore matinée day. Their mother arranged their dresses. The elder was to wear the costume of Lady Teazle, an exact replica of the one reproduced in this volume, and which Mrs. Maude wore when playing that part, while the younger was to be dressed as a Dutch bride, also a copy of one of Miss Emery’s dresses in the Black Tulip. They all lunched together, and as the mother was going off[Pg 50] to the theatre, she told the nurse to see that the children were dressed properly, and take them to the house at a certain hour.

“Oh, but, mummy, we can’t go unless you dress us,” exclaimed the elder child; “we should never be right.” And therefore it was settled that the two little people should be arrayed with the exception of the final touches, and then driven round by way of the Haymarket Theatre, so that their mother might attend to their wigs, earrings, hat or cap, as the case might be.

What a pretty idea. The mother, who was attracting rounds of applause from a crowded house every time she went on the stage, running back to her dressing-room between the scenes, to drop down on her knees and attend to her little girls, so that they should be all right for their party.

Admiring the costume of the younger one, I said:

“Why, you have got on your mother’s dress.”

“No, it’s not mother’s,” she replied. “It’s my dress, and my shoes, and my stockings—all my very own; but it’s mother’s gold cap, and mother’s earrings, and mother’s necklace, and mother’s apron—with a tuck in,” and she nodded her wise little head.

This was a simple child, not like the small American girl whose mother was relating wonderful stories of her precocity to an admiring friend, when a shrill voice from the corner called out:

“But you haven’t told the last clever thing I said,[Pg 51] mamma,” evidently wishing none of her brilliant wit to be lost.

They looked sweet, those two children of Mrs. Maude’s, and the way the elder one attended upon her smaller sister was pretty to see.

In a charming little house near the Brompton Oratory Mrs. Maude lived for years, surrounded by her family, perfectly content in their society. She is in every sense a thoroughly domesticated woman, and warmly declares she “loves housekeeping.”

One cannot imagine a happier home than the Maudes’, and no more charming gentleman walks upon the stage than this well-known descendant of many distinguished army men. Mr. Maude was at Charterhouse, one of our best public schools, and is a most enthusiastic old Carthusian. So is General Baden-Powell, whose interest in the old place went so far as to make him spend his last night in England among his old schoolfellows at the City Charterhouse when he returned invalided on short leave from the Transvaal. The gallant soldier gave an excellent speech, referring to Founders’ Day, which they were then commemorating, and delighted his boy hearers and “Ancient Brethren” equally.

On Charterhouse anniversaries Mr. Maude drops his jester’s cap and solemnly, long stick in hand, takes part in the ceremony at the old Carthusian Church made popular by Thackeray’s Newcomes.

Cyril Maude was originally intended for another profession, but, in spite of family opposition, elected to go upon the stage, and as his parents did not[Pg 52] approve of such a proceeding, he commenced his theatrical career in America, where he went through many vicissitudes. He began in a Shakespearian rèpertoire company, playing through the Western mining towns of the States, where he had to rough it considerably.

“I even slept on a bit of carpet on a bar-room floor one night,” he said; “but our beautiful company burst up in ’Frisco, and I had to come home emigrant fashion, nine days and nine nights in the train, with a little straw mattress for my bed, and a small tin can to hold my food. They were somewhat trying experiences, yet most interesting, and gave great opportunities for studying mankind. I have played in every conceivable sort of play, and once ‘walked on’ for months made up as Gladstone in a burlesque, to a mighty dreary comic song.”

So Mr. Maude, like the rest who have climbed to the top, began at the bottom of the ladder, and has worked his way industriously up to his present position, which he has held at the Haymarket since 1896, and where—he laughingly says—he hopes to die in harness.

Cyril Maude gives rather an amusing description of his first theatrical performance. When he was a boy of eighteen his family took a house at Dieppe for six months, and he was sent every day to study French with Monsieur le Pasteur.

“One day, when I had been working with him for three or four weeks, he asked me what I was going to make my profession.

[Pg 53]

“‘Comédien,’ I replied.

“‘Comment? Comédien? Etes-vous fou?’ he exclaimed, horrified and astounded at such a suggestion, and added more gravely, ‘I am quite sure you have not the slightest idea how to act; so, my boy, you had better put such a ridiculous idea out of your head and stick to your books. Besides, you must choose a profession fit for a gentleman.’

“Of course I felt piqued, and as I walked home that evening I just wondered if there were not some way by which I could show the old man that I could act if I chose.

“The Pasteur had a resident pupil of the name of Bishop, a nice young fellow, and to him I related my indignation.

“‘Of course you can act,’ he said; so between us we concocted the brilliant idea that I should dress up as Bishop’s aunt and go and call upon the Pasteur, with the ostensible view of sending another nephew to his excellent establishment. Overjoyed at the scheme I ransacked my mother’s wardrobe, and finally dressed myself up to resemble a somewhat lean, cadaverous English old maid.

“I walked down the street to the house, and to my joy the servant did not recognise me. The old man received me with great cordiality and politeness. I told him in very bad French, with a pronounced Cockney accent, that I was thinking of sending another of my nephews to him if he had room. At this suggestion the Pasteur was delighted, took me upstairs, showed me all the rooms, and made[Pg 54] quite a fuss over me. Then he called ‘my nephew,’ who nearly gave the show away by choking with laughter when I affectionately greeted him with a chaste salute. This was the only part of the business I did not really enjoy! As we were coming downstairs, the Pasteur well in front, I smiled—perhaps I winked—at Bishop, anyhow I slipped, whereupon the polite old gentleman turned round, was most désolé at the accident, gave me his arm, and assisted me most tenderly all the rest of the way to the dining-room, his wife following and murmuring:—

“‘Prenez garde, madame, prenez garde.’

“Having arrived at the salle-à-manger the dear old Pasteur said he would leave me for a moment with his wife, in case there was anything I might like to discuss with her, and to my horror I was left closeted with madame, nervously fearing she might touch on subjects fit only for ladies’ ears, but not for the tender years of my manly youth. Needless to say I escaped from her clutches as quickly as possible.

“For two days I kept up the joke. Then it became too much for me, and as we were busily working at French verbs, in the curé’s study, I changed my voice and returned to the old lady’s Cockney French intonations, which was not in the least difficult, as my own French was none of the brightest. The Pasteur turned round, looked hard at me for a moment, and then went back to the verbs. I awaited another opportunity, and began again. This time he almost glared at me, and then,[Pg 55] clapping his hands to his head and bursting into laughter, he exclaimed:

“‘Mais c’était vous, c’était vous la tante de Bishop?’

“It turned out he had written that morning to Bishop’s real aunt, accepting her second nephew as a pupil, and arranging all the details of his arrival. How surprised the good lady must have been.”

June 3rd, 1899, was the eleventh anniversary of Cyril Maude and Winifred Emery’s wedding day, and they gave a delightful little luncheon party at their pretty house in Egerton Crescent, where they then lived. The host certainly looked ridiculously young to have been married eleven years, or to be the father of the big girl of nine and the smaller one of six who came down to dessert.

Their home was a very cosy one—not big or grand in those days, but thoroughly carried out on a small scale, with trees in the gardens in front, trees in the back-yard behind, and the aspect was refreshing on that frightfully hot Oaks day.

Winifred Emery had a new toy—a tiny little dog, so small that it could curl itself up quite happily in the bottom of a man’s top hat, but yet wicked enough to do a vast amount of damage, for it had that morning pulled a blouse by the sleeves from the bed to the floor, and had calmly dissevered the lace from the cambric.

The Maudes are a most unconventional theatrical pair. They love their home and their children, and seem to wish to get rid of every remembrance of[Pg 56] the theatre once they pass their own front door. And yet it is impossible to get rid of the theatre in the summer, for besides having eight performances a week of The Manœuvres of Jane at that time—which was doing even better business at the end of nine months than it was at the beginning—those unfortunate people were giving charity performances every week for seven consecutive weeks, which of course necessitated rehearsals apart from the performances themselves. Really the charity distributed by the theatrical world is enormous.

We had a delightful luncheon: much of my time was spent gazing at Miss Ellaline Terriss, who is even prettier off the stage than she is on.

When Mrs. Maude said she had been married for eleven years, with the proudest air in the world Mrs. Hicks remarked:

“And we have been married nearly six.”

But certainly to look at Ellaline Terriss and Seymour Hicks made it seem impossible to believe that such could be the case. Hard work seems to agree with some people, and the incessant labour of the stage had left no trace on these young couples.

After luncheon the Maudes’ eldest little girl recited a French poem she had learnt at school, and it was quite ridiculous to see the small child already showing inherited talent. She was calm and collected, and when she had done and I congratulated her, she said in the simplest way in the world:

“I am going to be an actress when I am grown up, and so is Baby,” nodding her head at the other small[Pg 57] thing of six, for the boy had not then arrived to usurp “Baby’s” place.

“Oh yes, so am I,” said little six-year-old. But when I asked her to recite something, she said:

“I haven’t learnt yet, but I shall soon.”

The Maudes were then eagerly looking forward to some weeks’ holiday which they always enjoy every autumn.

“I like a place where I need not wear gloves, and a hat is not a necessity,” she said. “I have so much dressing-up in my life that it is a holiday to be without it.”

Somehow the conversation turned on a wedding to which they had just been, and Winifred Emery exclaimed:

“I love going to weddings, but I always regret I am not the bride.”

“Come, come,” said her husband, “that would be worse than the Mormons. However many husbands would you have?”

“Oh, I always want to keep my own old husband, but I want to be the bride.” At which he laughed immoderately, and said:

“I declare, Winifred, you are never happy unless you are playing the leading lady.”

“Of course not,” she retorted; “women always appreciate appreciation.”

They were much amused when I told them the story of my small boy, who, aged about seven, was to go to a wedding as a page in gorgeous white satin with lace ruffles and old paste buttons.

[Pg 58]

“I don’t want to go,” he remarked; “I hate weddings”—for he had officiated twice before. Something he said leading me to suppose he was a little shy, I soothingly answered:

“Oh, well, every one will be so busy looking at the bride that they will never look at you.”

To which the small gentleman indignantly replied:

“If they aren’t even going to look at me, then I don’t see why I need go at all!”

So after all there is a certain amount of vanity even in a small boy of seven.

“I cannot bear a new play,” Mrs. Maude once said. “I am nervous, worried, and anxious at rehearsal, and it is not until I have got on my stage clothes that it ceases to be a trouble to me. Not till I have played it for weeks that I feel thoroughly at home in a new part.

“It is positively the first real holiday I have ever had in my life,” she exclaimed to me at the time of her illness; “for although we always take six weeks’ rest in the summer, plays have to be studied and work is looming ahead, whereas now I have six months of complete idleness in front of me. It is splendid to have time to tidy my drawers in peace, ransack my bookshelves, see to a hundred and one household duties without any hurry, have plenty of time to spend with the children, and actually to see something of my friends, whom it is impossible to meet often in my usually busy life.”

So spoke Miss Winifred Emery, and a year later Mrs. Kendal wrote, “I’ve had ten days’ holiday[Pg 59] this year, and am now rehearsing literally day and night.”

After that who can say the life of the successful actress is not a grind? A maidservant or shopgirl expects her fortnight’s holiday in a twelvemonth, while one of the most successful actresses of modern times has to be content with ten days during the same period. Yet Mrs. Kendal is not a girl or a beginner, she is in full power and at the top of her profession.

All theatrical life is not a grind, however, and it has its brighter moments. For instance, one beautiful warm sunny afternoon, the anniversary of their own wedding day—the Cyril Maudes gave an “At Home” at the Haymarket. Guests arrived by the stage door at the back of the famous theatre, and to their surprise found themselves at once upon the stage, for the back scene and Suffolk Street are almost identical. Mrs. Maude, with a dear little girl on either side, received her friends, and an interesting group of friends they were. Every one who was any one seemed to have been bidden thither. The stage was, of course, not large enough for this goodly throng, so a great staircase had been built down from the footlights to where the stalls usually stand. The stalls, however, had gone—disappeared as though they had never existed—and where the back row generally cover the floor a sumptuous buffet was erected. It was verily a fairy scene, for the dress-circle (which at the Haymarket is low down) was a sort of winter garden of palms and flowers behind which the band was ensconced.

[Pg 60]

What would the players of old, Charles Mathews, Colley Cibber, Edmund Kean, Liston, and Colman, have said to such a sight? What would old Mr. Emery have thought could he have known that one day his grand-daughter would reign as a very queen on the scene of his former triumphs? What would he have said had he known that periwigs and old stage coaches would have disappeared in favour of closely-cut heads, electric broughams, shilling hansoms with C springs and rubber tyres, or motor cars? What would he have thought of the electric light in place of candle dips and smelling lamps? How surprised he would have been to find neatly coated men showing the audience to their seats at a performance, instead of fat rowdy women, to see the orange girls and their baskets superseded by dainty trays of tea and ices, and above all to note the decorous behaviour of a modern audience in contrast to the noisy days when Grandpapa Emery trod the Haymarket boards.

Almost the most youthful person present, if one dare judge by appearances, was the actor-manager, Cyril Maude. There is something particularly charming about Mr. Maude—there is a merry twinkle in his eyes, with a sound of tears in his voice, and it is this combination, doubtless, which charms his audience. He is a low comedian, a character-actor, and yet he can play on the emotional chord when necessity arises. He and his co-partner, Mr. Harrison, are warm friends—a delightful situation for people so closely allied in business.

[Pg 61]

Immediately off the stage is the green-room, now almost unused. Formerly the old green-room on the other side of the stage was a fashionable resort, and the green-rooms at the Haymarket and Drury Lane were crowded nightly at the beginning of the last century with all the fashionable men of the day. Kings went there to be amused, plays began at any time, the waits between the acts were of any length, and general disorder reigned in the candle and oil-lighted theatres—a disorder to which a few visitors did not materially add. All is changed nowadays. The play begins to the minute, and ends with equal regularity. Actors do not fail to appear without due notice, so that the under-study has time to get ready, and order reigns both before and behind the footlights. Therefore at the Haymarket no one is admitted to the green-room, in fact, no one is allowed in the theatre “behind the scenes” at all, except to the dressing-room of the particular star who has invited him thither.

Mrs. Maude made a charming hostess at that party.

I think the hour at which we were told on the cards “to leave” was 6.0, or it may have been 6.30; at any rate, we all streamed out reluctantly at the appointed time, and the stage carpenters streamed in. Away went the palms, off came the bunting, down came the staircase, and an hour later the evening audience were pouring in to the theatre, little knowing what high revelry had so lately ended.

Some people seem to be born old, others live long and die young; judging by their extraordinary[Pg 62] juvenility, Mr. Seymour Hicks and his charming wife, née Ellaline Terriss, belong to the latter category. They are a boyish man and a girlish woman, in the best sense of lighthearted youthfulness, yet they have a record of successes behind them, of which many well advanced in years might be proud. No daintier, prettier, more piquante little lady trips upon our stage than Ellaline Terriss. She is the personification of everything mignonne, and whether dressed in rags as Bluebell in Fairyland, or as a smart lady in a modern play, she is delightful.

It is a curious thing that so many of our prominent actors and actresses have inherited their histrionic talents from their parents and even grandparents, and Mrs. Hicks is no exception, for she is the daughter of the late well-known actor, William Terriss. She was not originally intended for the stage, and her adoption of it as a profession was almost by chance. A letter of her own describes how this came about.

“I was barely sixteen when Mr. Calmour, who wrote The Amber Heart and named the heroine after me, suggested we should surprise my father one day by playing Cupid’s Messenger in our drawing-room, and that I should take the leading part. We had a brass rod fixed up across the room, and thus made a stage, and on the preceding night informed a few friends of the morrow’s performance. The news greatly astonished my father, who laughed. I daresay he was secretly pleased, though he pretended not to be. A couple of months passed, and I heard that Miss Freke was engaged at the Haymarket to play the part I[Pg 63] had sustained. Oh, how I wished it was I! Little did I think my wish was so near fulfilment. I was sitting alone over the fire one day when a telegram was handed to me, which ran:

“‘Haymarket Theatre. Come up at once. Play Cupid’s Messenger, to-night.’

“I rushed to catch a train, and found myself at the stage door of the theatre at 7.15 p.m. All was hurry and excitement. I did not know how to make-up. I did not know with whom I was going to appear, and Miss Freke’s dress was too large for me. The whole affair seemed like a dream. However, I am happy to say Mr. Tree stood by and saw me act, and I secured the honour of a ‘call.’ I played for a week, when Mr. Tree gave me a five-pound note, and a sweet letter of thanks. My father then said that if it would add to my happiness I might go on the stage, and he would get me an engagement.”

How proud the girl must have been of that five-pound note, for any person who has ever earned even a smaller sum knows how much sweeter money seems when acquired by one’s own exertions. Five-pound notes have come thick and fast since then, but I doubt if any gave the actress so much pleasure as Mr. Beerbohm Tree’s first recognition of her talent.

Thus it really was quite by accident Miss Terriss entered on a theatrical career. Her father, knowing the hard work and many disappointments attendant on stage life, had not wished his daughter to follow his own calling. But talent will out. It waits its[Pg 64] opportunity, and then, like love, asserts itself. The opportunity came in a kindly way; the talent was there, and Miss Terriss was clever and keen enough to take her chance when it came and make the most of it. From that moment she has never been idle, even her holidays have been few and far between.

Every one in London must have seen Bluebell in Fairyland, which ran nearly a year. Indeed, at one time it was being played ten times a week. Think of it. Ten times a week. To go through the same lines, the same songs, the same dances, to look as if one were enjoying oneself, to enter into the spirit and fun of the representation, was indeed a herculean task, and one which the Vaudeville company successfully carried through. But poor Mrs. Hicks broke down towards the close, and was several times out of the bill.

It is doubtful whether Seymour Hicks will be better known as an actor or an author in the future, for he has worked hard at both professions successfully. He was born at St. Heliers, Jersey, in 1871, and is the eldest son of Major Hicks, of the 42nd Highlanders. His father intended him for the army, but his own taste did not lie in that direction, and when only sixteen and a half he elected to go upon the stage, and five years later was playing a principal light comedy part at the Gaiety Theatre. Like his wife, he has been several times in America, where both have met with success, and when not acting, at which he is almost constantly employed, this energetic man occupies his time by writing plays, of a light and [Pg 65]musical nature, which are usually successful. One of the Best, Under the Clock, The Runaway Girl, Bluebell in Fairyland, and The Cherry Girl have all had long runs.

When the Hicks find time for a holiday their idea of happiness is an out-of-door existence, with rod or gun for companions. Most of our actors and actresses, whose lives are necessarily so public, love the quiet of the country coupled with plenty of exercise when able to take a change. The theatre is barely closed before they rush off to moor or fen, to yacht or golf—to anything, in fact, that carries them completely away from the glare of the footlights.

Another instance of theatrical heredity is Ben Webster, whose talent for acting doubtless comes from his grandfather. Originally young Ben read for the Bar with that eminent and amusing man, Mr. Montagu Williams. It was just at that time that poor Montagu Williams’s throat began to trouble him: later on, when no longer able to plead in court, he was given an appointment as magistrate. I only remember meeting him once—it was at Ramsgate. When walking along the Esplanade one day—I think about the year 1890—I found my father talking to a neat, dapper little gentleman in a fur coat, thickly muffled about the throat. He introduced his friend as Montagu Williams, a name very well known at that time. Alas! the eminent lawyer was hardly able to speak—disease had assailed his throat well-nigh to death, and the last time I saw that wonderful painter and charming man Sir John Everett Millais,[Pg 66] at a private view at the Royal Academy, he was almost as speechless, poor soul.

Well, Montagu Williams was made a magistrate, and young Ben Webster, realising his patron’s influence was to a certain extent gone, and his own chances at the Bar consequently diminished, gladly accepted an offer of Messrs. Hare and Kendal to play a companion part to his sister in the Scrap of Paper, then on tour. He had often acted as an amateur; and earned some little success during his few weeks’ professional engagement, so that when he returned to town and found Montagu Williams removed from active practice at the Bar, he went at once to Mr. Hare and asked for the part of Woodstock in Clancarty. Thus he launched himself upon the stage, although his grandfather had been dead for three years, and so had not directly had anything to do with his getting there.

Old Grandfather Ben seems to have been a very irascible old gentleman, and a decidedly obstinate one. On one occasion his obstinacy saved his life, however, so his medical man stoutly declared.

The doctor had given Ben Webster up: he was dying. Chatterton and Churchill were outside the room where he lay, and the medico when leaving told them “old Ben couldn’t last an hour.”

“Ah, dear, dear!” said Chatterton; “poor old Ben going at last,” and he sadly nodded his head as he entered the room.

“Blast ye! I’m not dead yet,” roared a voice from the bed, where old Ben was sitting bolt upright. “I’m not going to die to please any of you[Pg 67].”

He fell back gasping; but from that moment he began to get better.

Another eminent theatrical family, the Sotherns, were born on the stage, so to speak, and took to the profession as naturally as ducks to water, while their contemporaries the Irvings and Boucicaults have done likewise.

It must have been towards the end of the seventies that my parents took a house one autumn in Scarborough. We had been to Buxton for my father’s health, and after a driving tour through Derbyshire, finally arrived at our destination. To my joy, Mr. Sothern and his daughter, who was then my schoolfellow in London, soon appeared upon the scene. He had come in consequence of an engagement to play at the Scarborough Theatre in Dundreary and Garrick, and had secured a house near us. Naturally I spent much of my time with my girl friend, and we used often to accompany her father in a boat when he went on his dearly-loved fishing expeditions. Never was there a merrier, more good-natured, pleasanter gentleman than this actor. He was always making fun which we children enjoyed immensely. Practical jokes to him seemed the essence of life, and I vaguely remember incidents which, though amusing to him, rather perturbed my juvenile mind. At the time I had been very little to theatres, but as he had a box reserved every night, I was allowed now and then to go and gaze in wild admiration at Garrick and Dundreary.

One afternoon I went to the Sotherns for a meat[Pg 68] tea before proceeding to the theatre, but the great comedian was not there. “Pops,” for so he was called by his family, had gone out at four o’clock that morning with a fisherman, and still remained absent. The weather had turned rough, and considerable anxiety was felt as to what could have become of him. His eldest son, Lytton, since dead, appeared especially distressed. He had been down to the shore to inquire of the boatmen, but nothing could be heard of his father. We finished our meal—Mr. Sothern’s having been sent down to be kept warm—and although he had not appeared, it was time to go to the theatre. Much perturbed in his mind, Lytton escorted his sister and myself thither, and leaving us in the box, went off once more to inquire if his father had arrived at the stage door; again without success.

This seemed alarming; the wind was still boisterous and the stage manager in a fright because he knew the only attraction to his audience was the appearance of Edward Sothern as Lord Dundreary. It was the height of the season, and the house was packed. Lytton started off again to the beach, this time in a cab; the stage manager popped his head into our box to inquire if the missing hero had by chance arrived, the orchestra struck up, but still no Mr. Sothern. It was a curious experience. The “gods” became uneasy, the pit began to stamp, the orchestra played louder, and at last, dreading a sudden tumult, the stage manager stepped forward and began to explain that “Mr. Sothern, a devoted fisherman, had gone out at four o’clock that morning; but had[Pg 69] failed to return. As they knew, the weather was somewhat wild, therefore, they could only suppose he had been detained by the storm——”

At this juncture an unexpected and dishevelled figure appeared on the scene. The usually spick-and-span, carefully groomed Mr. Sothern, with his white locks dripping wet and hanging like those of a terrier dog over his eyes, hurried up, exclaiming:

“I am here, I am here. Will be ready in a minute,” and the weird apparition disappeared through the opposite wing. Immense relief and some amusement kept the audience in good humour, while with almost lightning rapidity the actor changed and the play began.

In one of the scenes the hero goes to bed and draws the curtain to hide him from the audience. Mr. Sothern went to bed as usual, but when remarks should have been heard proceeding from behind the curtain, no sound was forthcoming. The other player went on with his part; still silence from the bed. The stage manager became alarmed, knowing that Sothern was terribly fatigued and had eaten but little food, he tore a small hole in the canvas which composed the wall of the room, and, peeping through, saw to his horror that the actor was fast asleep. This was an awkward situation. He called him—no response. The poor man on the stage still gagged on gazing anxiously behind him for a response, till at last, getting desperate, the stage manager seized a broom and succeeded in poking Sothern’s ribs with the handle. The actor awoke with a huge yawn, quite[Pg 70] surprised to find himself in bed wearing Dundreary whiskers, which proved a sharp reminder he ought to have been performing antics on the stage.

Actor and fisherman had experienced a terrible time in their boat. The current was so strong that when they turned to come back they were borne along the coast, and as hour after hour passed poor Sothern realised that not only might he not be able to keep his appointment at the theatre, but was in peril of ever getting back any more. He made all sorts of mental vows never to go out fishing again when he was due to play at night; never to risk being placed in such an awkward predicament, never to do many things; but in spite of this experience, when once safe on land, his ardour was not damped, for he was off fishing again the very next day.

When I went to America in 1900 Mrs. Kendal kindly gave me some introductions, and one among others to Mr. Frohman. His is a name to conjure with in theatrical circles on that side of the Atlantic, and is becoming so on this side, for he controls a vast theatrical trust which either makes or mars stage careers.

I called one morning by appointment at Daly’s Theatre, and as there happened to be no rehearsal in progress all was still except at the box office. I gave my card, and was immediately asked to “step along to Mr. Frohman’s room.”

Up dark stairs and along dimly lighted passages I followed my conductor, till he flung open the door of a beautiful room, where at a large writing-table[Pg 71] sat Mr. Frohman. He rose and received me most kindly, and was full of questions concerning the Kendals and other mutual friends, when suddenly, to my surprise, I saw a large photograph hanging on the wall, of a Hamlet whose face I seemed to know.

“Who is that?” I asked.

“Mr. Edward Sothern, the greatest Hamlet in America, the son of the famous Dundreary.”

“I had the pleasure of playing with that Hamlet many times when I was a little girl,” I remarked; “for although ‘Eddy’ was somewhat older, he used often to come to the nursery in Harley Street to have games with us children when his mother lived a few doors from the house in which I was born.”

Mr. Frohman was interested, and so was I, to hear of the great success of young Edward Sothern, for of course Sam Sothern is well known on the English stage.

The sumptuous office of Mr. Frohman is at the back of Daly’s Theatre. It is a difficult matter to gain admittance to that sacred chamber, but preliminaries having been arranged, the attendant who conducts one thither rings a bell to inform the great man that his visitor is about to enter. Mr. Frohman was interesting and affable. He evidently possesses a fine taste, for pieces of ancient armour, old brocade, and the general air of a bric-à-brac shop pervaded his sitting-room.

“English actors are as successful over here,” he said, “as Americans are in London, and the same may be said of plays, the novelty, I suppose, in each case[Pg 72].”

The close alliance between England and America is becoming more emphasised every day. Why, in the matter of acting alone we give them our best and they send us their best in return. So much is this the case that most of the people mentioned in these pages are as well known in New York as in London; for instance, Sir Henry Irving, Miss Ellen Terry, Mr. and Mrs. Kendal, Mr. Weedon Grossmith, Mr. E. S. Willard, Miss Fay Davis, Madame Sarah Bernhardt, Miss Winifred Emery, Mr. Cyril Maude, Miss Ellaline Terriss, Mr. Seymour Hicks, Mr. and Mrs. Beerbohm Tree, Mr. W. S. Gilbert, Mr. Anthony Hope, Mr. A. W. Pinero, and a host of others. Sir Henry Irving has gone to America, for the eighth time during the last twenty years, with his entire company. That company for the production of Dante consists of eighty-two persons, and no fewer than six hundred and seventy-three packages, comprising scenery, dresses, and properties.

“No author should ever try to dramatise his own books: he nearly always fails,” Mr. Frohman added later during our pleasant little chat, after which he took me round his theatre, probably the most celebrated in the United States, for it was built by the famous Daly, and still maintains its position at the head of affairs. On the whole, American theatres are smaller than our own, the entire floor is composed of stalls which only cost 8s. 4d. each, and there is no pit. In the green-room, halls, and passages Mr. Frohman pointed out with evident delight various pictures of Booth as Hamlet, since whose time no one[Pg 73] had been so successful till Edward Sothern junior took up that rôle in 1900. There was also a large portrait of Charlotte Cushman, and several pictures of Irving, Ellen Terry, Jefferson, and others, as well as some photographs of my old friend Mr. Sothern.

I have quoted the Terrys, Kendals, Ellaline Terriss, Ben Webster, Winifred Emery, and the Sotherns as products of the stage, but there are many more, including Dion and Nina Boucicault, whose parents were a well-known theatrical couple, George and Weedon Grossmith, the sons of an entertainer, and George’s son is also on the stage. Both the Irvings are sons of Sir Henry of that ilk, and so on ad infinitum.

From the above list it will be seen that most of our successful actors and actresses were cradled in the profession. They were “mummers” in the blood, if one may be forgiven the use of such a quaint old word to represent the modern exponents of the drama.

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PROBABLY the man who has had the most far-reaching influence on modern drama is Henrik Ibsen. Half the dramatic world of Europe admire his work as warmly as the other half deplore it.

Ibsen has a strange personality. The Norwegian is not tall, on the contrary, rather short and thick-set—one might almost say stout—in build, broad-shouldered, and with a stooping gait. His head is splendid, the long white hair is a glistening mass of tangled locks. He has an unusually high forehead, and in true Norse fashion wears his plentiful hair brushed straight back, so that, being long, it forms a complete frame for the face. He has whiskers, which, meeting in the middle, beneath his chin, leave the chin and mouth bare. Under the upper lip one sees by the indentation the decision of the mouth,[Pg 75] and the determination of those thin lips, which through age are slightly drawn to one side. He has a pleasant smile when talking; but in repose the mouth is so firmly set that the upper lip almost disappears.

The great dramatist has lived for many years in Christiania, and it was in that town, on a cold snowy morning in 1895 I first met him. The streets were completely buried in snow; even the tram-lines, despite all the care bestowed upon them, were embedded six or seven inches below the surface of the frozen mass. It can be very cold during winter in Christiania, and frost-bite is not unknown, for the thermometer runs down many degrees below zero. That is the time to see Norway. Then everything is at its best. The sky clear, the sun shining—all Nature bright, crisp, and beautiful. Icicles many feet long hung like a sparkling fringe in the sunlight as I walked—or rather stumbled—over the snow to the Victorian Terrasse to see the celebrated man. Tall posts leaning from the street gutters to the houses reminded pedestrians that deep snow from the roofs might fall upon them.

The name of Dr. Henrik Ibsen was written in golden letters at the entrance to the house, with the further information that he lived on the first floor. There was nothing grand about his home, just an ordinary Norwegian flat, containing eight or ten good rooms; and yet Ibsen is a rich man. His books have been translated into every tongue, his plays performed on every stage. His work has undoubtedly revolutionised the drama. He started the idea of a[Pg 76] play without plot, a character-sketch in fact, a psychological study, and introduced the “no-ending” system. Much he left to the imagination, and the imagination of various nationalities has run in such dissimilar lines that he himself became surprised at the thoughts he was supposed to have suggested.

Brilliant as much of his work undoubtedly is, there is quite as much which is repellent and certainly has not added to the betterment of mankind. His characters are seldom happy, for they too often strive after the impossible.

The hall of his home looked bare, the maid was capless and apronless, according to Norwegian fashion, while rows of goloshes stood upon the floor. The girl ushered me along a passage, at the end of which was the great man’s study. He rose, warmly shook me by the hand, and finding I spoke German, at once became affable and communicative. He is of Teutonic descent, and in many ways has inherited German characteristics. When he left Norway in 1864—when, in fact, Norway ceased to be a happy home for him—he wandered to Berlin, Dresden, Paris, and Rome, remaining many years in the Fatherland.

“The happiest summer I ever spent in my life was at Berchtesgaden in 1880,” he exclaimed. “But to me Norway is the most lovely country in the world.”

Ibsen’s writing-table, which is placed in the window so that the dramatist may look out upon the street, was strewn with letters, all the envelopes of which [Pg 77]had been neatly cut, for he is faddy and tidy almost to the point of old-maidism. He has no secretary, it worries him to dictate, and consequently all communications requiring answers have to be written by the Doctor himself. His calligraphy is the neatest, smallest, roundest imaginable. It is representative of the man. The signature is almost like a schoolboy’s—or rather, like what a schoolboy’s is supposed to be—it is so carefully lettered; the modern schoolboy’s writing is, alas! ruined by copying “lines” for punishment, time which could be more profitably employed learning thought-inspiring verses.

On the table beside the inkstand was a small tray. Its contents were extraordinary—some little wooden carved Swiss bears, a diminutive black devil, small cats, dogs, and rabbits made of copper, one of which was playing a violin.

“What are those funny little things?” I ventured to ask.

“I never write a single line of any of my dramas unless that tray and its occupants are before me on the table. I could not write without them. It may seem strange—perhaps it is—but I cannot write without them,” he repeated. “Why I use them is my own secret.” And he laughed quietly.

Are these little toys, these fetishes, and their strange fascination, the origin of those much-discussed dolls in The Master Builder? Who can tell? They are Ibsen’s secret.

In manner Henrik Ibsen is quiet and reserved; he speaks slowly and deliberately, so slowly as to[Pg 78] remind one of the late Mr. Bayard, the former American Minister to the Court of St. James, when he was making a speech. Mr. Bayard appeared to pause between each word, and yet the report in the papers the following day read admirably. This slowness may with Ibsen be owing to age, for he was born in 1828 (although in manner and gait he appears at least ten years older), or it may be from shyness, for he is certainly shy. How men vary. Ibsen at seventy seemed an old man; General Diaz, the famous President of Mexico, young at the same age. The one drags his feet and totters along; the other walks briskly with head erect. Ibsen was never a society man in any sense of the word, a mug of beer and a paper at the club being his idea of amusement. Indeed, in Christiania, until 1902, he could be seen any afternoon at the chief hotel employed in this way, for after his dinner at two o’clock he strolled down town past the University to spend a few hours in the fashion which pleased him.

Norwegian life is much more simple than ours. The inhabitants dine early and have supper about eight o’clock. Entertainments are hospitable and friendly, but not as a rule costly, and although Ibsen is a rich man, the only hobby on which he appears to have spent much money is pictures. He loves them, and wherever he has wandered his little gallery has always gone with him.

Ibsen began to earn his own living at the age of sixteen, and for five or six years worked in an apothecary’s shop, amusing himself during the time by[Pg 79] reading curious books and writing weird verses. Only twenty-three copies of his first book were sold, the rest were disposed of as waste paper to buy him food. Those long years of struggle doubtless embittered his life, but relief came when he was made manager of the Bergen Theatre with a salary of £67 a year. For seven years he kept the post, and learnt the stage craft which he later utilised in his dramas.

A strange comedy and tragedy was woven into the lives of Ibsen and Björnson. As young men they were great friends; then politics drove them apart; they quarrelled, and never met for years and years. Strange fate brought the children of these two great writers together, and Björnson’s daughter married Ibsen’s only child. The fathers met after years of separation at the wedding of their children.

Verily a real comedy and tragedy, woven into the lives of Scandinavia’s two foremost writers of tragedy and comedy.

I spent part of two winters in Norway, wandering about on snow-shoes (ski) or in sledges, and during various visits to Christiania tried hard to see some plays by Ibsen or Björnson acted; but, strange as it may seem, plays by a certain Mr. Shakespeare were generally in the bill, or else amusing doggerel such as The Private Secretary.

At last, however, there came a day when Peer Gynt was put on the stage. This play has never been produced in England, and yet it is one of Ibsen’s best, at all events one of his most poetic. The hero is supposed to represent the Norwegian character,[Pg 80] vacillating, amusing, weak, bound by superstition, and lacking worldly balance. The author told me he himself thought it was his best work, though The Master Builder gave him individually most satisfaction.

In 1898 Ibsen declared, “My life seems to me to have slipped by like one long, long, quiet week”; adding that “all who claimed him as a teacher had been wrong—all he had done or tried to do was faithfully, closely, objectively to paint human nature as he saw it, leaving deductions and dogmatism to others.” He declared he had never posed as a reformer or as a philosopher; all he had attempted was to try and work out that vein of poetry which had been born in him. “Poetry has served me as a bath, from which I have emerged cleaner, healthier, freer.” Thus spoke of himself the man who practically revolutionised modern drama.

In the early days of the twentieth century Ibsen finished his life’s work—he relinquished penmanship. The celebrity he had attained failed to interest him, just as attack and criticism had failed to arouse him in earlier years. His social and symbolical dramas done, his work in dramatic reform ended, he folded his hands to await the epilogue of life. It is a pathetic picture. He who had done so much, aroused such enthusiasm and hatred, himself played out—he whose works had been read in every Quarter of the globe, living in quiet obscurity, waiting for that end which comes to all.

It is a proud position to stand at the head of English dramatists; a position many critics allot to Arthur[Pg 81] Wing Pinero. The Continent has also paid him the compliment of echoing that verdict by translating and producing many of his plays: and if in spite of translation they survive the ordeal of different interpretations and strange surroundings, may it not be taken as proof that they soar above the ordinary drama?

About the year 1882 Mr. Pinero relinquished acting as a profession—like Ibsen, it was in the theatre he learnt his stage craft—and devoted himself to writing plays instead. Since that period he has steadily and surely climbed the rungs of that fickle ladder “Public Opinion” and planted his banner on the top.

Look at him. See the strength of the man’s mind in his face. Those great shaggy eyebrows and deep-set, dark, penetrating eyes, that round bald head, within which the brain is apparently too busy to allow anything outside to grow. Though still young he is bald, so bald that his head looks as if it had been shaven for the priesthood. The long thin lips and firm mouth denote strength of purpose, which, coupled with genius make the man. Under that assumed air of self-possession there is a merry mind. His feelings are well under control—part of the actor’s art—but he is human to the core. Pinero is no ordinary person, his face with its somewhat heavy jaw is full of thought and strength. He has a vast fund of imagination, is a keen student of human nature, and above all possesses the infinite capacity for taking pains, no details being too small for him. He and Mr. W. S. Gilbert will,[Pg 82] at rehearsals, go over a scene again and again. They never get angry, even under the most trying circumstances; but politely and quietly show every movement, every gesture, give every intonation of the voice, and in an amiable way suggest:

“Don’t you think that so and so might be an improvement?”

They always get what they want, and no plays were ever more successful or better staged.

Mr. Pinero believes in one-part dramas, and women evidently fascinate him. Think of Mrs. Tanqueray and Mrs. Ebbsmith, for instance, both are women’s plays; in both are his best work. He is always individual; individual in his style, and individual in the working out of his characters. During the whole of one August Mr. Pinero remained in his home near Hanover Square finishing a comedy of which he superintended rehearsals in the September following. He must be alone when he works, and apparently barred windows and doors, and a charwoman and her cat, when all London is out of town, give him inspiration.

London is particularly proud of Arthur Pinero, who was born amid her bustle in 1855. The only son of a solicitor in the City, he was originally intended for the law, but when nineteen he went upon the stage, where he remained for about seven years. One can only presume, however, that he did not like it, or he would not so quickly have turned his attention to other matters. Those who remember his stage life declare he showed great promise as a[Pg 83] young actor. But be this as it may, it is a good thing he turned his back upon that branch of the profession and adopted the rôle of a dramatist, for therein he has excelled. Among his successful plays are The Magistrate, Dandy Dick, Sweet Lavender, The Cabinet Minister, The Second Mrs. Tanqueray, The Notorious Mrs. Ebbsmith, Trelawny of the Wells, The Gay Lord Quex, and Iris.

Among other attributes not usually known, Mr. Pinero is an excellent draughtsman, and can make a remarkable caricature of himself in a few moments. His is a strong and striking head which lends itself to caricature, and he is one of those people who, while poking fun at others, does not mind poking fun at himself.

When asked to what he attributed his success, Mr. Pinero replied:

“Such success as I have obtained I attribute to small powers of observation and great patience and perseverance.”

His work is always up-to-date, for Mr. Pinero is modern to his finger-tips.

How delightful it is to see people who have worked together for years remaining staunch friends. One Sunday I was invited to a luncheon the Pineros gave at Claridge’s. The room was marked “Private” for the occasion, and there the hospitable couple received twenty guests, while beyond was a large dining-room, to which we afterwards adjourned. That amusing actor and charming man, John Hare, with whom Pinero has been associated for many years,[Pg 84] was present; Miss Irene Vanbrugh, his Sophy Fullgarney in the Gay Lord Quex, and Letty, in the play of that name, that dainty and fascinating American actress, Miss Fay Davis, and Mr. Dion Boucicault. There they were, all these people who had worked so long together, and were still such good friends as to form a merry, happy little family party.

Gillette, the American hero of the hour, was also present, and charming indeed he proved to be; but he was an outsider, so to speak, for most of the party had acted in Pinero’s plays, and that was what seemed so wonderful; because just as a secretary sees the worst side of his employer’s character, the irritability, the moments of anxious thought and worry, so the actor generally finds out the angles and corners of a dramatist. Only those who live in the profession can realise what such a meeting as that party at Claridge’s really meant, what a fund of good temper it proclaimed, what strength of character it represented, what forbearance on all sides it proved.

That party was representative of friendship, which, like health, is seldom valued until lost.

There are as many ways of writing a play as there are of trimming a hat. Some people, probably most people, begin at the end, that is to say, they evolve some grand climax in their minds and work backwards, or they get hold of the chief situations as a nucleus, from which they work out the whole. Some writers let the play write itself, that is to say, they [Pg 85]start with some sort of idea which develops as they go on, but the most satisfactory mode appears to be for the writer to decide everything even to the minutest detail, and then sketch out each situation. In a word, he ought to know exactly what he means to do before putting pen to paper.

The plots of Mr. Pinero’s plays are all conceived and born in movement. He walks up and down the room. He strolls round Regent’s Park, or bicycles further afield, but the dramas are always evolved while his limbs are in action, mere exercise seeming to inspire him with ideas.

It is long before he actually settles down to write his play. He thinks and ponders, plans and arranges, makes and remakes his plots, and never puts pen to paper until he has thoroughly realised, not only his characters, but the very scenes amid which these characters are to move and have their being.

He knows every room in which they are to enact their parts, he sees in his mind’s eye every one of his personalities, he dresses them according to his own individual taste, and so careful is he of the minutest details that he draws a little plan of the stage for each act, on which he notifies the position of every chair, and with this before him he moves his characters in his mind’s eye as the scene progresses. His play is finished before it is begun, that is to say, before a line of it is really written.

His mastery of stage craft is so great that he can definitely arrange every position for the actor, every gesture, every movement, and thus is able to give[Pg 86] those minute details of stage direction which are so well known in his printed plays.

In his early days he wrote Two Hundred a Year in an afternoon; Dandy Dick occupied him three weeks; but as time went on and he became more critical of his own work, he spent fifteen months in completing The Notorious Mrs. Ebbsmith, nine months over The Second Mrs. Tanqueray, and six months over The Gay Lord Quex, helped in the latter drama, as he said, “by the invigorating influence of his bicycle.”

He is one of the most painstaking men alive, and over Letty he spent two years.

“I think I have done a good day’s work if I can finish a single speech right,” he remarked, and that sums up the whole situation.

Each morning he sees his secretary from eleven to twelve, dictates his letters, and arranges his business; takes a walk or a ride till luncheon, after which he enjoys a pipe and a book, and in the afternoon lies down for a couple of hours’ quiet.

When he is writing a play he never dines out, but after his afternoon rest enjoys a good tea (is it a high tea?), shuts the baize doors of that delightful study overlooking Hanover Square, and works until quite late, when he partakes of a light supper.

No one dare disturb him during those precious hours, when he smokes incessantly, walks about continually, and rarely puts a line on paper until he feels absolutely certain he has phrased that line as he wishes it to remain.

Pinero’s writing-table is as tidy as Ibsen’s; but[Pg 87] while Ibsen’s study is small and simply furnished, Pinero’s is large, contains handsome furniture, interesting books, sumptuous Éditions de luxe, charming sketches, portraits, caricatures, handsome carpets, and breathes an air of the owner’s luxurious taste.

Like his writing-table, his orthography is a model of neatness. When he has completed an act he carefully copies it himself in a handwriting worthy of any clerk, and sends it off at once to the printers. But few revisions are made in the proof, so sure is the dramatist when he has perfected his scheme.

Mr. Pinero keeps a sort of “day-book,” in which he jots down characters, speeches, and plots likely to prove of use in his work. It is much the same sort of day-book as that kept by Mr. Frankfort Moore, the novelist, who has the nucleus of a hundred novels ever in his waistcoat pocket.

Formerly men jotted down notes on their shirt-cuffs, from which the laundress learned the wicked ways of society. The figures now covering wristbands are merely the winnings or losings at Bridge.

The dramatist loves ease and luxury, and his plays represent such surroundings.

“Wealth and leisure,” he remarked, “are more productive of dramatic complications than poverty and hard work. My characters force me in spite of myself to lift them up in the world. The lower classes do not analyse or meditate, do not give utterance either to their thoughts or their emotions, and yet it is easier to get a low life part well played than one of high society[Pg 88].”

Mr. Pinero is a delightful companion and he has the keenest sense of humour. He tells a good story in a truly dramatic way, and his greatest characteristic is his simple modesty. He never boasts, never talks big; but is always a genial, kindly, English gentleman. He rarely enters a theatre; in fact, he could count on his fingers the times he has done so during the last twenty years. Life is his stage, men and women its characters, his surroundings the scenes. He does not wish a State theatre, and thinks Irving has done more for the stage than any man in any time. He has the greatest love for his old master, and considers Irving’s Hamlet the “most intelligent performance of the age.” He waxes warm on the subject of Irving’s “magnetic touch,” which influences all that great actor’s work. Pinero’s love for, and belief in, the powers of the stage for good or ill are deep-seated, and each year finds him more given to careful psychological study, the only drawback to which is the fear that in over-elaboration freshness somewhat vanishes. Ibsen always took two years over a play, and Pinero seems to be acquiring the same habit.

A Pinero first night is looked upon as a great theatrical event, and rightly so. It was on a wet October evening (1903) that the long-anticipated Letty saw the light.

Opposite is the programme.

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[Pg 89]

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[Pg 90]

For once the famous dramatist descended from dukes and duchesses to a typewriter girl and a Bond Street swell. For once he left those high-class folk he finds so full of interest, moods, whims, ideas, self-analysis, and the rest of it, and cajoled a lower stratum of life to his pen.

Almost the first actor to appear was H. B. Irving—what a reception he received, and, brilliant cynic-actor though he be, his nervousness overpowered him to the point of ashen paleness and unrestrained twitching of the fingers. His methods, his tact, his cynicism were wonderful, and as Nevill Letchmere his resemblance to his father was remarkable.

What strikes one most in a Pinero play is the harmony of the whole. Every character is a living being. One remembers them all. The limelight is turned on each in turn, and not as at so many theatres on the actor-manager only. The play is a complete picture—not a frame with the actor-manager as the dominant person. He is so often the only figure on the canvas, his colleagues mere side-show puppets, that it is a real joy to see a play in England where every one is given a chance. Mr. Pinero does that. He not only creates living breathing studies of humanity, but he sees that they are played in a lifelike way. What is the result? A perfect whole. A fine piece of mosaic work well fitted together. We may not altogether care for the design or the colour, but we all admire its aims, its completeness, and feel the touch of genius that permeates the whole.

[Pg 91]

No more discriminating audience than that at the first night of Letty could possibly have been brought together. Every critic of worth was there. William Archer sat in the stalls immediately behind me, W. L. Courtney and Malcolm Watson beyond, J. Knight, A. B. Walkley, and A. E. T. Watson near by. Actors and actresses, artists, writers, men and women of note in every walk of life were there, and the enthusiasm was intense. Mr. Pinero was not in the house, no call of “author” brought him before the footlights, but his handsome wife—a prey to nervousness—was hidden behind the curtains in the stage box.

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ONE of our youngest dramatists, for it was only in 1897 that Captain Robert Marshall’s first important play appeared, has suddenly leapt into the front rank. His earlier days were in no way connected with the stage.

It is not often a man can earn an income in two different professions; such success is unusual. True, Earl Roberts is a soldier and a writer; Forbes Robertson, Weedon Grossmith, and Bernard Partridge are actors as well as artists; Lumsden Propert, the author of the best book on miniatures, was a doctor by profession; Edmund Gosse and Edward Clodd have other occupations besides literature. Although known as a writer, W. S. Gilbert could earn an income at the Bar or in Art;[Pg 93] A. W. Pinero is no mean draughtsman; Miss Gertrude Kingston writes and illustrates as well as acts; and Harry Furniss has shown us he is as clever with his pen as with his brush in his Confessions of a Caricaturist. Still, it is unusual for any one to succeed in two ways.

Nevertheless Captain Robert Marshall, once in the army, is now a successful dramatist. He was born in Edinburgh in 1863, his father being a J.P. of that city. Educated at St. Andrews, the ancient town famous for learning and golf, he later migrated to Edinburgh University. While studying there his brother entered Sandhurst at the top of the list, and left in an equally exalted position. This inspired the younger brother with a desire for the army, and he enlisted in the Highland Light Infantry, then stationed in Ireland. The ranks gave him an excellent training, besides affording opportunities for studying various sides of life. Three years later he entered the Duke of Wellington’s West Riding Regiment as an officer, receiving his Captaincy in 1895, after having filled the post of District Adjutant at Cape Town and A.D.C. to the Governor of Natal, Sir W. Hely-Hutchinson.

No one looking at Captain Marshall now would imagine that ill-health had ever afflicted him; such, however, was the case, and but for the fact that a delicate chest necessitated retiring from the army, he would probably never have become a dramatist by profession. It was about 1898 that he left the Service; but he has made good use of the time since[Pg 94] then, for such plays as His Excellency the Governor, A Royal Family, The Noble Lord, and The Second in Command have followed in quick succession. Then came an adaptation of M.M. Scribe and Legouvé’s Bataille de Dames, which he called There’s Many a Slip, but which T. Robertson translated with immense success as The Ladies’ Battle some years before.

Mrs. Kendal, àpropos of this, writes me the following:

“My dear brother Tom had been dead for years before I ever played in The Ladies’ Battle. He translated and sold it to Lacy, an old theatrical manager and agent, for about £10. Mr. Kendal and Mr. Hare revived it at the Court Theatre when I was under their management.”

What would a modern dramatist say to a £10 note? What, indeed, would Captain Marshall say for such a small reward, instead of reaping a golden harvest as he did with his translation of the very same piece. Times have changed indeed during the last few years, for play-writing is now a most remunerative profession when it proves successful.

I remember once at a charming luncheon given by the George Alexanders at their house in Pont Street, hearing Mr. Lionel Monckton bitterly complaining of the difficulty of getting royalties for musical plays from abroad. Since then worse things have happened, and pirated copies of favourite songs have been sold by hundreds of thousands in the streets of London for which the authors, composers, and publishers have never received a cent. Mr. J. M. Barrie, who was[Pg 95] sitting beside me, joined in, and declared, if I am not mistaken, that he had never got a penny from The Little Minister in America, or The Window in Thrums; indeed, it was not till Sentimental Tommy appeared in 1894 that he ever received anything at all from America, so The Little Minister, like Pinafore, was acted thousands of times without any royalties being paid to the respective authors by the United States.

Of course there was no copyright at all in England till 1833, and until that date a play could be produced by any one at any time without payment. The idea was preposterous, and so much abused that the Royal Assent was given in Parliament to a copyright bill proposed by the Hon. George Lamb, and carried through by Mr. Lytton Bulwer, who afterwards became famous as Lord Lytton. Still, even this, unfortunately, does not prevent piracy. Pirate thieves of other people’s brains have had a good innings lately.

The only way to safeguard against the confiscation of a play without the author receiving any dues is to give a “copyright performance.” With this end in view the well-known writer, Mr. I. Zangwill, gave an amusing representation of his play called Merry Mary Ann, founded on his novel of the same name. The performance took place at the Corn Exchange, Wallingford, and Mr. Zangwill was himself stage manager. This took place a week before it was given with such success in Chicago, and secured the English copyright to its author as well as the American.

[Pg 96]

The modus operandi under these circumstances is:

(1) To pay a two-guinea fee for a licence.

(2) To hire a hall which is licensed for stage performances.

(3) To notify the public by means of posters that the play will take place.

To make some one pay for admission. If only one person pay one guinea, that person constitutes an audience, which, if small, is at least unanimous.

Having arranged all these preliminaries the author and his friends proceed to read, or whenever possible act, the parts of the drama, and a very funny performance it sometimes is.

Mr. Zangwill’s caste was certainly amusing. Mr. Jerome K. Jerome, author of Three Men in a Boat, was particularly good; but then he is an old actor. He lives at Wallingford-on-Thames, where he represents literature and journalism, G. F. Leslie, R.A., representing art; both joined forces for one afternoon at that strange performance which was in many ways a record. Sir Conan Doyle, of Sherlock Holmes fame, was to have played; but was called away at the last moment.

Mr. Zangwill is an old hand at this sort of thing; when a copyright performance of Hall Caine’s Mahdi was given at the Haymarket Theatre he began at first by playing his allotted part; but as one performer after another threw up their rôles he was finally left to act them all. The female parts he played in his shirt-sleeves, with a high pitched voice. Mr. Clement Scott gave a long and favourable notice in the[Pg 97] Daily Telegraph next day. Mr. Zangwill has lately taken unto himself a wife, none too soon, as he was the only member left in his Bachelor Club!

It is rather amusing to contrast the first plays of various men; for instance, Mr. Pinero, writing in the Era Annual, graphically described his beginning thus:

“First play of all: Two Hundred a Year. This was written for my old friends Mr. R. C. Carton and Miss Compton (Mrs. Carton) as a labour of love when I was an actor, and was produced at the Globe in 1877. The love, however, was and is more considerable than the composition, which did not employ me more than a single afternoon. My next venture was in the same year, and entitled Two Can Play at the Game, a farce produced at the Lyceum Theatre by Mrs. Bateman in order really to provide myself with a part. I acted in this many times in London, and afterwards under Mr. Irving, as he then was, throughout the provinces. By the way, Mrs. Bateman paid me five pounds for this piece.”

Mr. Sydney Grundy tells the following story:

“In 1872 I amused myself by writing a comedietta. I had it printed, and across the cover of one copy I scrawled in a large bold hand, “You may play this for nothing,” addressed it to J. B. Buckstone, Esq., Haymarket Theatre, London, posted it, and forgot all about it. A week afterwards I received a letter in these terms: ‘Dear Sir,—Mr. Buckstone desires me to inform you that your comedietta is in rehearsal, and will be produced at his forthcoming Benefit. Mr. and Mrs. Kendal will play the principal parts.—Yours[Pg 98] faithfully, F. Weathersby.’ New authors were such rare phenomena in those days, that Mr. Buckstone did not know how to announce me, so adopted the weird expedient of describing me as ‘Mr. Sydney Grundy, of Manchester.’ The comedietta was a great success and received only one bad review. One critic was so tickled by the circumstance that the author lived in Manchester that he mentioned it no fewer than three times in his ‘notice.’”

G. R. Sims describes his initial attempt thus:

“My first play was produced at the Theatre Royal, 113, Adelaide Road, and was a burlesque of Leah; the parts were played by my brothers and sisters and some young friends. The price of admission to the day nursery, in which the stage was erected, was one shilling, which included tea, but visitors were requested to bring their own cake and jam. The burlesque was in four scenes. Many of the speeches were lifted bodily from the published burlesque of Henry J. Byron.

“That was my first play as an amateur. My first professional play was, One Hundred Years Old, and is now twenty-seven years old. It was produced July 10th, 1875, at a matinée at the Olympic Theatre, by Mr. E. J. Odell, and was a translation or adaptation of Le Centenaire, by D’Ennery and another. It was less successful than my amateur play. It did not bring me a shilling. The burlesque brought me two—one paid by my father and one by my mother.”

Such were the first experiences of three eminent dramatic authors.

[Pg 99]

It must be delightful when author and actor are in unison. Such a thing as a difference of opinion cannot be altogether unknown between them; but no more united little band could possibly be found than that behind the scenes at the Haymarket Theatre, where the rehearsals are conducted in the spirit of a family party. The tyrannical author and the self-assertive representatives of his creations all work in harmony.

“As one gets up in the Service,” amusingly said Captain Marshall, “one receives a higher rate of pay, and has proportionately less to do. Thus it was I found time for scribbling; it was actually while A.D.C. and living in a Government House that I wrote His Excellency the Governor. Three days after it came out I left the army.”

“Was that your first play?” I inquired.

“No. My first was a little one-act piece which Mr. Kendal accepted. It dealt with the flight of Bonnie Prince Charlie from Scotland in 1746. My first acted play appeared at the Lyceum, and was another piece in one act, called Shades of Night, which finally migrated to the Haymarket.”

It is curious how success and failure follow one on the other. No play of Captain Marshall’s excited more criticism than The Broad Road at Terry’s; but nevertheless it was a failure. It was succeeded immediately by A Royal Family at the Court, which proved popular. He has worked hard during the last few years, and deserves any meed of praise that may be given him by the public. Many men on being told to relinquish[Pg 100] the profession they loved because of ill-health would calmly sit down and court death. Not so Robert Marshall. He at once turned his attention elsewhere, chose an occupation he could take about with him when driven by necessity to warmer climes, lived in the fresh air, did as he was medically advised, with the result that to-day he is a comparatively strong man, busy in a life that is full of interest.

As a subaltern in the army the embryo dramatist once painted the scenery for a performance of The Mikado in Bermuda, and was known to write, act, stage-manage, and paint the scenes of another play himself. Enthusiasm truly; but it was all experience, and the intimate knowledge then gained of the difficulties of stage craft have since stood him in good stead.

Captain Marshall is a broad, good-looking man, retiring by disposition, one might almost say shy—for that term applies, although he emphatically denies the charge—and certainly humble and modest as regards his own work. The author of The Second in Command is athletically inclined; he is fond of golf, fencing, and tennis—the love of the first he doubtless acquired in his childhood’s days, when old Tom Morris was so well known on the St. Andrews links.

The playwright is also devoted to music, and nothing gives him greater pleasure than to spend an evening at the Opera. One night I happened to sit in a box between him and Mr. Cyril Maude, and probably there were no more appreciative listeners in[Pg 101] the house than these two men, both intensely interested in the representation of Tannhäuser. Poor Mr. Maude having a sore throat, had been forbidden to act that evening for fear of losing the little voice which remained to him. As music is his delight, and an evening at the Opera an almost unknown pleasure, he enjoyed himself with the enthusiasm of a child, feeling he was having a “real holiday.”

Captain Marshall is so fond of music that he amuses himself constantly at his piano or pianola in his charming flat in town.

“I like the machine best,” he remarked laughingly, “because it makes no mistakes, and with a little practice can be played with almost as much feeling as a pianoforte.”

When in London Captain Marshall lives in a flat at the corner of Berkeley Square; but during the winter he migrates to the Riviera or some other sunny land. The home reflects the taste of its owner; and the dainty colouring, charming pictures, and solid furniture of the flat denote the man of artistic taste who dislikes show without substance even in furniture.

The first time I met Robert Marshall was at W. S. Gilbert’s delightful country home at Harrow Weald. The Captain has a most exalted opinion of Mr. Gilbert’s writings and witticisms. He considers him a model playwright, and certainly worships—as much as one man can worship at the shrine of another—this originator of modern comedy.

One summer, when Captain Marshall found the[Pg 102] alluring hospitality of London incompatible with work, he took a charming house at Harrow Weald, and settled himself down to finish a play. He could not, however, stand the loneliness of a big establishment by himself—a loneliness which he does not feel in his flat. Consequently that peace and quiet which he went to the country to find, he himself disturbed by inviting friends down on all possible occasions, and being just as gay as if he had remained in town. He finished his play, however, between the departure and arrival of his various guests.

Two of the most successful plays of modern times have been written by women; the first, by Mrs. Hodgson Burnett, was founded on her own novel, Little Lord Fauntleroy, of which more anon. The second had no successful book to back it, and yet it ran over three hundred nights.

This as far as serious drama is concerned—for burlesque touched up may run to any length—is a record.

Mice and Men, by Mrs. Ryley, must have had something in it, something special, or why should a play from an almost unknown writer have taken such a hold on the London public? It was well acted, of course, for that excellent artist Forbes Robertson was in it; but other plays have been well acted and yet have failed.

Why, then, its longevity?

Its very simplicity must be the answer. It carried conviction. It was just a quaint little idyllic episode of love and romance, deftly woven together with[Pg 103] strong human interest. It aimed at nothing great, it merely sought to entertain and amuse. Love rules the world, romance enthrals it, both were prettily depicted by a woman, and the play proved a brilliant success. To have written so little and yet made such a hit is rare.

On the other hand, one of our most successful playwrights has been very prolific in his work. Sir Francis Burnand has edited Punch for more than thirty years, and yet has produced over one hundred and twenty plays. ’Tis true one of the most successful of these was written in a night. Mr. Burnand, as he was then, went to the St. James’s Theatre one evening to see Diplomacy, and after the performance walked home. On the way the idea for a burlesque struck him, so he had something to eat, found paper and pens, and began. By breakfast-time next morning Diplomacy was completed, and a few days later all London was laughing over it. There is a record of industry and speed.

The stage, however, has not claimed so much of his attention of late years as his large family and Mr. Punch. Sir Francis is particularly neat and dapper, with a fresh complexion and grey hair. He wears a pointed white beard, but looks remarkably youthful. He is a busy man, and spends hours of each day in his well-stocked library at the Boltons (London, Eng.: as our American friends would say), or at Ramsgate, his favourite holiday resort, where riding and sea-boating afford him much amusement, and time for reflection. He is a charming[Pg 104] dinner-table companion, always full of good humour and amusing stories.

It was when dining one night at the Burnands’ home in the Boltons that I met Sir John Tenniel after a lapse of some years, for he virtually gave up dining out early in the ’90’s in order to devote his time to his Punch cartoon. One warm day in July, 1902, however, John Tenniel was persuaded to break his rule, and proved as kind and lively as ever. Although eighty-two years of age he drew a picture for me after dinner. There are not many men of eighty-two who could do that; but then, did he not draw the Punch cartoon without intermission for fifty years?

“What am I to draw?” he asked. “I have nothing to copy and no model to help me.”

“Britannia,” I replied. “That ever-young lady is such an old friend of yours, you must know every line in her face by heart.” And he did. The dear old man’s hand was very shaky, until he got the pencil on to the paper, and then the lines themselves were perfectly clear and distinct; years of work on wood blocks had taught him precision which did not fail him even when over fourscore.

Every one loves Sir John. He never seems to have given offence with his cartoons as so many have done before and since. Cartoonists and caricaturists ply a difficult trade, for so few people like to be made fun of themselves, although they dearly love a joke at some one else’s expense.

A few doors from the Burnands’ charming house[Pg 105] in Bolton Gardens lives the author of Charley’s Aunt.

When in the city of Mexico, one broiling hot December day in 1900, I was invited to dine and go to the theatre. I had only just arrived in that lovely capital, and was dying to see and do everything.

“Will there be any Indians amongst the audience?” I inquired.

“Si, Señora. The Indians and half-castes love the theatre, and always fill the cheaper places.”

This sounded delightful; a Spanish play acted in Castilian with beautiful costumes of matadors and shawled ladies—what could be better? Gladly I accepted the invitation to dine and go to the theatre afterwards, where, as subsequently proved, they have a strange arrangement by which a spectator either pays for the whole performance, or only to witness one particular act.

We arrived. The audience looked interesting: few, however, even in the best places wore dress-clothes, any more than they do in the United States. The performance began.

It did not seem very Spanish, and somehow appeared familiar. I looked at the programme. “La Tia de Carlos.”

What a sell! I had been brought to see Charley’s Aunt.

One night after my return to London I was dining with William Heinemann, the publisher, to meet the great “Jimmy” Whistler. I was telling Mr. Brandon[Pg 106] Thomas, the author of Charley’s Aunt, this funny little experience, when he remarked:

“I can tell you another. My wife and I had been staying in the Swiss mountains, when one day we reached Zürich. ‘Let us try to get a decent dinner,’ I said, ‘for I am sick of table d’hôtes.’ Accordingly we dined on the best Zürich could produce, and then asked the waiter what play he would recommend.

“‘The theatres are closed just now,’ he replied.

“‘But surely something is open?’

“‘Ah, well, yes, there’s a sort of music hall, but the Herrschaften would not care to go there.’

“‘Why not?’ I exclaimed, longing for some diversion.

“‘Because they are only playing a very vulgar piece, it would not please the gnädige Frau, it is a stupid English farce.’

“‘Never mind how stupid. Tell me its name.’

“‘It is called,’ replied the waiter, ‘Die Tante.’”

Poor Brandon Thomas nearly collapsed on the spot, it was his very own play. They went. Needless to say, however, the author hardly recognised his child in its new garb, although he never enjoyed an evening more thoroughly in his life.

The first draft of this well-known piece was written in three weeks, and afterwards, as the play was considerably cut in the provinces, Mr. Thomas restored the original matter and entirely re-wrote it before it was produced in London, when the author played the part of Sir Francis Chesney himself.

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[Pg 107]

I have another recollection in connection with Charley’s Aunt. It must have been about 1895 that my husband and I were dining with that delightful little gentleman and great Indian Prince, the Gaekwar of Baroda, and the Maharanee (his wife), and we all went on to the theatre to see Charley’s Aunt. At that time His Highness the Gaekwar was very proud of a grand new theatre he had built in Baroda, and was busy having plays translated for production. Several Shakespearian pieces had already been done. He thought Charley’s Aunt might be suitable, but as the play proceeded, turning to me he remarked:

“This would never do, it would give my people a bad idea of English education; no, no—I cannot allow such a mistake as that.”

So good is His Highness’s own opinion of our education that his sons are at Harrow and Oxford as I write.

Charley’s Aunt has been played in every European language—verily a triumph for its author. How happy and proud a man ought to be who has brought so much enjoyment into life; and yet Brandon Thomas feels almost obliged to blush every time the title is mentioned. When Mr. Penley asked him to write a play, in spite of being in sad need of cash, he was almost in despair. His eye fell upon the photograph of an elderly relative, and showing it to Penley he asked:

“How would you like to play an old woman like that?”

“Delighted, old chap; I’ve always wanted to play[Pg 108] a woman’s character.” And when the play was written Penley acted the part made up like the old lady in the photograph which still stands on Brandon Thomas’s mantelshelf.

London is changing terribly, although Charley’s Aunt seems as if it would go on for ever. Old London is vanishing in a most distressing manner. Within a few months Newgate has been pulled down, the Bluecoat School has disappeared, and now Clifford’s Inn has been sold for £100,000 and is to be demolished. Many of the sets of chambers therein contained beautiful carving, and in one of these sets dwelt Frederick Fenn, the dramatist, son of Manville Fenn, the novelist. He determined to have a bachelor party before quitting his rooms, and an interesting party it proved.

I left home shortly after nine o’clock with a friend, and when we reached Piccadilly Circus we found ourselves in the midst of the crowd waiting to watch President Loubet drive past on his way to the Gala performance at Covent Garden (July, 1903). The streets were charmingly decorated, and must have given immense satisfaction not only to the President of France but to the entire Republic he represented. From the Circus through Leicester Square the crowd was standing ten or fifteen deep on either side of the road, and we had various vicissitudes in getting to our destination at all. The police would not let us pass, and we drove round and round back streets, unable to get into either the Strand or St. Martin’s Lane. However, at last a mighty cheer told us the royal party[Pg 109] had passed, and we were allowed to drive on our way to Clifford’s Inn. Up a dark alley beyond the Law Courts we trudged, and rang the big sonorous bell for the porter to admit us to the courtyard surrounded by chambers.

Ascending a spiral stone staircase, carpeted in red for the occasion, we passed through massive oak doors with their low doorways and entered Mr. Fenn’s rooms.

“How lovely! Surely those carvings are by the famous Gibbons?”

“They are,” he said, “or at any rate they are reputed to be, and in a fortnight will be sold by auction to the highest bidder.”

This wonderful decoration had been there for numbers of years, the over-doors, chimneypieces and window-frames were all most beautifully carved, and the whole room was panelled from floor to ceiling. The furniture was in keeping. Beautiful inlaid satinwood tables, settees covered with old-fashioned brocade, old Sheffield cake-baskets, were in harmony with the setting.

It was quite an interesting little party, and I thoroughly enjoyed my chat with James Welsh, the clever comedian, who played in the New Clown for eighteen months consecutively. Such an interesting little man, with dark round eyes and pale eyelashes, and a particularly broad crown to his head.

“I don’t mind a long run at all,” he said, “because every night there is a fresh audience. Sometimes they are so dull we cannot get hold of them at all till the second act, and sometimes it is even the end of the second act before they are roused to enthusiasm;[Pg 110] another time they will see the fun from the first rise of the curtain. Personally I prefer the audience to be rather dull at the beginning, for I like to work them up, and to work up with them myself. The most enthusiastic audiences to my mind are to be found in Scotland—I am of course speaking of low comedy. In Ireland they may be as appreciative, but they are certainly quieter. Londoners are always difficult to rouse to any expression of enthusiasm. I suppose they see too many plays, and so become blasé.”

MADAME SARAH BERNHARDT is an extraordinary woman. A young artist of my acquaintance did much work for her at one time. He designed dresses, and painted the Egyptian, Assyrian, and other trimmings. She was always most grateful and generous. Money seemed valueless to her; she dived her hand into a bag of gold, and holding it out bid him take what would repay him for his trouble. He was a true artist and his gifts appealed to her.

“More, more,” she often exclaimed. “You have not reimbursed yourself sufficiently—you have only taken working-pay and allowed nothing for your talent. It is the talent I wish to pay for.”

And she did.

On one occasion a gorgeous cloak he had designed for her came home; a most expensive production. She tried it on.

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[Pg 112]

“Hateful, hateful!” she cried. “The bottom is too heavy, bring me the scissors,” and in a moment she had ripped off all the lower trimmings. The artist looked aghast, and while he stood—

“Black,” she went on—“it wants black”; and thereupon she pinned a great black scarf her dresser brought her over the mantle. The effect was magical. That became one of her most successful garments for many a day.

“Ah!” said the artist afterwards, “she has a great and generous heart—she adores talent, worships the artistic, and her taste is unfailing.”

Wonderful effects can be gained on the stage by the aid of the make-up box—and the wig-maker.

Madame Sarah Bernhardt declares Clarkson, of London, to be the “king of wig-makers,” and he has made every wig she has worn in her various parts for many years.

“She is a wonderful woman,” Mr. Clarkson said, “she knows exactly what she wants, and if she has not time to write and enclose a sketch—which, by the way, she does admirably—she sends a long telegram from Paris, and expects the wig to be despatched almost as quickly as if it went over by a ‘reply-paid process.’”

“But surely you get more time than that usually?”

“Oh yes, of course; but twice I have made wigs in a few hours. Once for Miss Ellen Terry. I think it was the twenty-fifth anniversary of The Bells—at any rate she was to appear in a small first piece for one night. At three o’clock that afternoon [Pg 113]the order came. I set six people to work on six different pieces, and at seven o’clock took them down to the theatre and pinned them on Miss Terry’s head. The other wig I had to make so quickly was for Madame Eleonora Duse. She arrived in London October, 1903, and somehow the wigs went astray. She wired to Paris to inquire who made the one in La Ville Morte with which Madame Bernhardt strangled her victim. When the reply came she sent for me, and the same night Madame Duse wore the new wig in La Gioconda.”

By-the-bye, Madame Duse has a wonderful wig-box. It is a sort of miniature cupboard made of wood, from which the front lets down. Inside are six divisions. Each division contains one of those weird block-heads on which perruques stand when being redressed, and on every red head rests a wig. These are for her different parts, the blocks are screwed tight into the box, and the wigs are covered lightly with chiffon for travelling. When the side of the box falls down those six heads form a gruesome sight!

Most of the hair used in wig-making comes from abroad, principally from the mountain valleys of Switzerland, where the peasant-girls wear caps and sell their hair. A wig costs anything from £2 to £10, and it is wonderful how little the good ones weigh. They are made on the finest net, and each hair is sewn on separately.

When Clarkson was a boy of twelve and a half years old he first accompanied his father, who was a hairdresser, to the opera, and thus the small youth[Pg 114] began his profession. He still works in the house in which he was born, so he was reared literally in the wig trade, and now employs a couple of hundred persons. What he does not know can hardly be worth knowing—and he is quite a character. Not only does he work for the stage; but detectives often employ him to paint their faces and disguise them generally, and he has even decorated a camel with whiskers and grease paint.

The most expensive wig he ever made was for Madame Sarah Bernhardt in La Samaritaine. It had to be very long, and naturally wavy hair, so that she could throw it over her face when she fell at the Saviour’s feet. In L’Aiglon Madame Bernhardt wore her own hair for a long time, and had it cut short for the purpose: but she found it so difficult to dress off the stage that she ultimately ordered a wig.

If Madame Bernhardt is particular about her wigs and her dresses she has done much to improve theatrical costumes—she has stamped them with an individuality and artistic grace.

A well-known musician travelled from a far corner in Europe to ask a wig-maker to make him a wig. He arrived one day in Wellington Street in a great state of distress and told his story. He had prided himself on his beautiful, long, wavy hair, through which he could pass his fingers in dramatic style, and which he could shake with leonine ferocity over a passage which called for such sentiments. But alas! there came a day when the hair began to come out, and the locks threatened to disappear. He travelled[Pg 115] hundreds of miles to London to know if the wig-maker could copy the top of his head exactly before it was too late. Of course he could, and consequently those raven curls were matched, and one by one were sewn into the fine netting to form the toupet. Having got the semi-wig exactly to cover his head, the great musician sallied forth and had his head shaved. Then, with a little paste to catch it down in front and at the sides, the toupet was securely placed upon the bald cranium. For six months that man had his head shaved daily. The effect was magical. When he left off shaving a new crop of hair began to grow with lightning rapidity, and he is now the happy possessor of as beautiful a head of hair as ever.

Little by little the public has been taught to expect the reproduction of correct historical pictures upon the stage, and such being the case, artists have risen to the occasion, men who have given years of their lives to the study of apparel of particular periods.

Designing stage dress is no easy matter; long and ardent research is necessary for old costume pieces, and men who have made this their speciality read and sketch at museums, and sometimes travel to far corners of the world, to get exactly what they want. As a rule the British Museum provides reliable material for historical costume.

Think of the hundreds, aye hundreds, of costumes necessary for a heavy play at the Lyceum or His Majesty’s—think of what peasantry, soldiers, to say nothing of fairies, require, added to which four or five dresses for each of the chief performers, not only[Pg 116] cost months of labour to design and execute, but need large sums of money to perfect. As much as £10,000 has often been spent in the staging of a single play.

This is no meagre sum, and should the play fail the actor-manager who has risked that large amount (or his syndicate) must bear the loss.

Some wonderful stage pictures have been produced within the last few years—and not a few of them were the work of Mr. Percy Anderson, Sir Alma-Tadema, and Mr. Percy Macquoid. It is an interesting fact that, while the designs for Ulysses cost Mr. Anderson six months’ continual labour, he managed to draw the elaborate costumes for Lewis Waller’s production of The Three Musketeers in three days, working eighteen hours out of the twenty-four, because the dresses were wanted immediately.

Percy Anderson did not start as an artist in his youth, he was not born in the profession, but as a mature man allowed his particular bent to lead him to success. He lives in a charming little house bordering on the Regent’s Park, where he works with his brush all day, and his pencil far into the night. His studio is a pretty snuggery built on at the back of the house, which is partly studio, partly room, and partly greenhouse. Here he does his work and accomplishes those delightfully sketchy portraits for which he is famous, his innumerable designs for theatrical apparel.

When I asked Mr. Anderson which costumes were most difficult to draw, he replied:

“Either those in plays of an almost prehistoric period,[Pg 117] when the materials from which to work are extremely scanty, or those that introduce quite modern and up-to-date ceremonial.

“As an instance of the former Ulysses proved an exceedingly difficult piece for which to design the costumes, because the only authentic information obtainable was from castes and sketches of remains found during the recent excavations at Knossus, in Crete, that have since been exhibited at the Winter Exhibition at Burlington House, but which were at the time reposing in a private room at the British Museum, where I was able to make some rough sketches and notes by the courtesy of Mr. Sidney Colvin.”

“How did you manage about colour?”

“My guide as to the colours in use at that remote period of time was merely a small fragment of early Mycenean mural decoration from Knossus, in which three colours, namely, yellow, blue, and a terra-cotta-red, together with black and white, were the only tones used, and to these three primary colours I accordingly confined myself, but I made one introduction, a bright apple-green dress which served to throw the others into finer relief. From these extremely scanty materials I had to design over two hundred costumes, none of which were exactly alike.”

The brilliancy of the result all playgoers will remember. The frontispiece shows one of the designs.

As an instance of a play introducing intricate modern ceremonial for which every garment worn had some special significance, The Eternal City may[Pg 118] be mentioned. In that Mr. Anderson had the greatest difficulty in discovering exactly what uniform or vestment would be worn by the Pope’s entourage on important private occasions, such as the scene in the Gardens of the Vatican, where His Holiness was carried in and saluted by the members of his guard before being left to receive his private audiences.

Mr. Anderson, however, received invaluable assistance in these matters from Mr. De La Roche Francis, who, besides having relatives in high official positions in Rome, had himself been attached to the Papal Court. All orders and decorations worn by the various characters in The Eternal City were modelled from the originals. Mr. Anderson usually makes a separate sketch for every costume to be worn by each character, in order to judge of the whole effect, which picture he supplements by drawings of the back and side views, reproductions of hats, head-dresses, hair, and jewellery.

This is thoroughness—but after all thoroughness is the only thing that really succeeds. From these sketches the articles are cut out and made after Mr. Anderson has passed the materials as satisfactory submitted to him. Sometimes nothing proves suitable, and then something has to be woven to meet his own particular requirements.

Mr. Anderson received orders direct from Beerbohm Tree for King John, Midsummer Night’s Dream, Herod, Ulysses, Merry Wives of Windsor, Resurrection, and The Eternal City, but in some cases the orders come from the authors. For instance, Mr.[Pg 119] Pinero wrote asking him to design those delightful Victorian costumes for Trelawny of the Wells. Captain Basil Hood arranged with him about the dresses for Merrie England, and J. M. Barrie for those in Quality Street.

Some of the old-style dresses do not allow of much movement, and therefore it is sometimes necessary to make the garments in such a way that, while the effect remains, the actor has full play for his limbs. For instance, much adaptation of this sort was necessary for Richard II. at His Majesty’s. Mr. Anderson was about three months designing the two hundred and fifty dresses for this marvellous spectacle. He sought inspiration at the British Museum and Westminster, the Bluemantle at the Heralds’ College giving him valuable information with regard to the heraldry. All this shows the pains needed and taken to produce an accurate and harmonious stage picture.

The designer is given a free hand, he chooses his own materials to the smallest details—often a guinea a yard is paid for silks and velvets—and he superintends everything, even the grouping of the crowds, so as to give most effect to his colouring. “Dress parades,” of which there are several, are those in which all the chorus and crowds have to appear, therefore their dresses are usually made first, so as to admit of ample study of colour before the “principals” receive theirs. The onlooker hardly recognises the trouble this entails, nor how well thought out the scheme of colour must be, so that when the crowd breaks up into groups the dresses shall not clash.[Pg 120] The artist must always work up to one broad effect in order to make a decorative scene.

It may be interesting to note that there is one particular colour—French blue—practically the shade of hyacinths, which is particularly useful for stage effect as it does not lose any of its tint by artificial light. It can only be dyed in one river at Lyons, in France, where there is some chemical in the water which exactly suits and retains the particular shade desired. We are improving in England, however, and near Haslemere wonderful fabrics and colours are now produced. There are excellent costumiers in England, some of the best, in fact, many of whom lay themselves out for work of a particular period; but all the armour is still made in France. That delightful singer and charming man, Eugene Oudin, wore a beautiful suit of chain armour as the Templar in Ivanhoe, which cost considerably over £100, and proved quite light and easy to wear. (During the last five years armour has become cheaper.) It was a beautiful dress, including a fine plumed helmet, and as he and my husband were the same size and build he several times lent it to him for fancy balls. It looked like the old chain armour in the Tower of London or the Castle of Madrid, and yet did not weigh as many ounces as they do pounds, so carefully had it been made to allow ease and movement to the singer.

After all, it is really a moot question whether tremendous elaboration of scenery is a benefit to dramatic production. At the present time much[Pg 121] attention is drawn from the main interest, and instead of appreciating the acting or the play, it is the stage carpentering and gorgeous “mounting” that wins the most applause.

This is all very well to a certain extent, but it is hardly educating the public to grasp the real value of play or acting if both be swamped by scenery and silks. Lately we had an opportunity of seeing really good performances without their being enhanced by scenic effect, such as Twelfth Night, by the Elizabethan Stage Society, and Everyman. These representations were an intellectual treat, such as one seldom enjoys, and were certainly calculated to raise the standard of purely theatrical work. Strictness of detail may do much to make the tout ensemble perfect, but does not the piece lose more than it gains?

Again, the careful rehearsing which is now in fashion tends to make the performers more or less puppets in the hands of the stage manager or author, rather than real individual actors. Individuality except in “stars” is not wanted nor appreciated. Further, long runs are the ruin of actors. Instead of being kept up to the mark, alert, their brains active by constantly learning and performing new rôles, they simply become automata, and can almost go through their parts in their sleep. Surely this is not acting.

Every important rôle has an understudy. Generally some one playing a minor part in the programme is allowed the privilege of understudying a star. By this arrangement he is at the theatre every night, and if[Pg 122] the star cannot shine, the minor individual goes on to twinkle instead, his own part being played by some lesser luminary. Many a man or woman has found an opening and ultimate success in this way, through the misfortune of another.

At some theatres the understudy is paid for performing, or is given a present of some sort in recognition of his services, while at others, even good ones, he gets nothing at all, the honour being considered sufficient reward.

No one misses a performance if he can possibly help it; there are many reasons for not doing so; and sometimes actors go through this strain when physically unfit for work, rather than be out of the bill for a single night. Theatrical folk go through many vicissitudes in their endeavour to keep faith with the public.

For instance, one terribly foggy night in 1902 during the run of Iris all London was steeped in blackness. It was truly an awful fog, just one of those we share with Chicago and Christiania. Miss Fay Davis, that winsome American actress, was playing the chief part in Pinero’s play and went down to the theatre every night from her home in Sloane Square in a brougham she always hired, with an old coachman she knew well.

She ate her dinner in despair at the fog, her mother fidgeted anxiously and wondered what was to happen, when the bell rang, long before the appointed time, and the carriage was announced.

“Oh, we’ll get there somehow, miss,” the old[Pg 123] coachman remarked; so, well wrapped up in furs, the daring lady started for her work. They did get there after an anxious journey, assisted by policemen and torches, Miss Davis alighted, saying:

“I daresay it will be all right by eleven, but anyway you must fetch me on foot if you can’t drive.”

“Aye, aye, ma’am,” replied her worthy friend, and off he drove. Miss Davis went to her dressing-room, feeling a perfect heroine for venturing forth, and when she was half ready there came a knock at the door.

“No performance to-night, miss.”

“What?”

“Only half the actors have turned up, and there isn’t a single man or woman in the theatre—pit empty, gallery empty, everything empty—so they’ve decided not to play Iris to-night. No one can see across the footlights.”

It was true; so remarkable was that particular fog, several of the playhouses had to shut-up-shop for the night. How Miss Davis got home remains a mystery.

A very beautiful actress of my acquaintance rarely has an engagement. She acts well, she looks magnificent, and has played many star parts in the provinces, yet she is constantly among the unemployed. “Why,” I once asked, “do you find it so difficult to get work?”

“Because I’m three inches too tall. No man likes to be dwarfed by a woman on the stage. In a ball-room the smaller the man the taller the partner he chooses, and this sometimes applies to matrimony, but on the stage never[Pg 124].”

“Can you play with low heels?” she is often asked when seeking an engagement.

“Certainly,” is the reply.

“Would you mind standing beside me?”

“Delighted.”

“Too tall, I’m afraid,” says the man.

“But I can dress my hair low and wear small hats.”

“Too tall all the same, I’m afraid.”

And for this reason she loses one engagement after another. Most of the actor-managers have their own wives or recognised “leading ladies,” so that in London, openings for new stars are few and far between, and when the actress, however great her talent or her charm, makes the leading actor look small, she is waved aside and some one inferior takes her place.

On one occasion it was a woman who refused to act with my friend. She had been engaged for a big part—but when this woman—once the darling of society, and a glittering star upon the stage—saw her fellow-worker, she said:

“I can’t act with you, you would make me look insignificant; besides, you are too good-looking.”

---

ONE of the most delightful theatrical entertainments I ever remember was held by Mr. George Alexander on the stage of the St. James’s Theatre. It was in honour of the Coronation of Edward VII., and given to the Indian Princes and Colonial visitors.

The play preceding the reception was that charming piece Paolo and Francesca. I sat in the stalls, and on my right hand was a richly attired Indian, who wore a turban lavishly ornamented with jewels. I had seen him a short while previously at a Court at Buckingham Palace, one of those magnificent royal evening receptions Queen Alexandra has instituted instead of those dreary afternoon Drawing-rooms. This gentleman[Pg 126] had been there when the Royalties received the Indian Princes in June, 1902, the occasion when the royal cortége promenaded through those spacious rooms with such magnificent effect. It was the Court held a few days prior to the date first fixed for the Coronation—a ceremony postponed, as all the world knows, till some weeks later in consequence of the King’s sudden illness.

My princely neighbour was very grand. He wore that same huge ruby at the side of his head, set in diamonds and ornamented with an osprey, which had excited so much admiration at Buckingham Palace. Although small he was a fine-looking man and had charming manners. He read his programme carefully and seemed much interested in the performance, then he looked through his opera-glasses and appeared puzzled; suddenly I realised he wanted to know something.

“You follow the play?” I asked; “or can I explain anything to you?”

“Thank you so much,” he replied in charming English. “I can follow it pretty well, but I cannot quite make out whether the lovely young lady is really going to marry that hump-backed man. Surely she ought to marry the handsome young fellow. She is so lily-lovely.”

“No, Francesca marries Giovanni.”

“Ah, it is too sad, poor thing,” answered the Indian gentleman, apparently much grieved. He turned to his neighbour, who did not speak English, and retailed the information. Their distress was really amusing. Evidently the lovely white lady (Miss Millard) deserved[Pg 127] a better fate according to their ideas, for he repeatedly expressed his distress as the play proceeded. Before he left the theatre that night he crossed the stage, and making a profound bow, thanked me for helping him to understand the play. His gratitude and Oriental politeness were charming.

The St. James’s presented a gay scene. The Indian dresses, the diamonds, and extra floral decorations rendered it a regular gala performance. At the usual hour the curtain descended. The general public left; but invited guests remained. We rose from our seats and conversed with friends, while a perfect army of stage carpenters and strange women, after moving out the front row of stalls, brought flights of steps and made delightfully carpeted staircases lead up to either side of the stage. Huge palms and lovely flowers banked the banisters and hid the orchestra. Within a few moments the whole place resembled a conservatory fitted up as for a rout. It was all done as if by magic. Methinks Mr. Alexander must have had several “stage rehearsals” to accomplish results so admirable with such rapidity.

The curtain rose, the stage had been cleared, and there at the head of the staircase stood the handsome actor-manager in plain dress clothes, washed and cleaned from his heavy make-up, and with his smiling wife ready to receive their guests.

At the back of the stage the scenery had been arranged to form a second room, wherein supper was served at a buffet.

It was all admirably done. Most of the Colonial[Pg 128] Premiers were there, many of the Indian Princes, and a plentiful sprinkling of the leading lights of London. Of course a stage is not very big and the numbers had to be limited; but about a couple of hundred persons thoroughly enjoyed that supper behind the footlights at the St. James’s Theatre. Many of the people had never been on a stage before, and it was rather amusing to see them peeping behind the flies, and asking weird questions from the scene-shifters. Some were surprised to find the floor was not level, but a gentle incline, for all audiences do not know the necessity of raising the back figures, so that those in front of the house may see all the performers.

A party on the stage is always interesting, and generally of rare occurrence, although Sir Henry Irving and Mr. Beerbohm Tree both gave suppers in honour of the Coronation, so England’s distinguished visitors had several opportunities of enjoying these unique receptions. At the supper at His Majesty’s Theatre a few nights later the chief attractions besides the Beerbohm Trees were Mrs. Kendal and Miss Ellen Terry, the latter still wearing her dress as Mistress Page. Every one wanted to shake hands with her, and not a few were saddened to see her using those grey smoked glasses she always dons when not actually before the footlights.

George Alexander has had a most successful career, but he was not cradled on the stage. His father was an Ayrshire man and the boy was brought up for business. Not liking that he turned to [Pg 129]medicine, and still being dissatisfied he abandoned the doctor’s art at an early stage and took a post in a silk merchant’s office. This brought him to London. From that moment he was a constant theatre-goer, and in September, 1879, made his first bow behind the footlights. He owes much of his success to the training he received in Sir Henry Irving’s Company at the Lyceum. There is no doubt much of the business learned in early youth has stood him in good stead in his theatrical ventures, and much of the artistic taste and desire for perfection in stage-mounting so noticeable at the St. James’s was imbibed in the early days at the Lyceum. It takes a great deal to make a successful actor-manager; he must have literary and artistic taste, business capacity, and withal knowledge of his craft.

In 1891 he took the St. James’s Theatre and began a long series of successes. He has gone through the mill, worked his way from the bottom to the top, and being possessed of an exceptionally clear business head, has made fewer mistakes than many others in his profession.

Mr. Alexander tells a good story about himself:

“For many months I continually received very long letters from a lady giving me her opinion not only on current stage matters, but on the topics of the hour, with graphic descriptions of herself—her doings—her likes and dislikes. She gave no address, but her letters usually bore the postmark of a country town not a hundred miles from London. She confided in me that she was a spinster, and that she did not[Pg 130] consider her relations sympathetic. She was obviously well-to-do—I gathered this from her account of her home and her daily life as she described them. Suddenly her letters ceased, and I wondered what had happened. Almost two months after I received her last letter, I had a communication from a firm of lawyers asking for an appointment. I met them—two very serious-looking gentlemen they were too! After a good deal of preliminary talk they came to their point.

“‘You know Miss ——’ said the elder of the men.

“‘No,’ I replied.

“‘But you do,’ he said. ‘She has written to you continually.’

“This was very puzzling, but following up the slight clue, I asked:

“‘Is her Christian name Mary?’

“‘Yes,’ he replied.

“‘And she lives at——?’

“Then I knew whom they meant. Their mission, it seemed, was to tell me that the lady had been very ill, and fearing she was going to die, had expressed a wish to alter her will in my favour. As the lawyers had acted for her family for many years, and were friends of her relations, they had taken her instructions quietly, but after much discussion in private had decided to call on me and inform me of the facts, and they asked me to write a letter to them stating that such a course would be distasteful to me and unfair to her relations. I did so in strong terms, and so I lost a little fortune[Pg 131].”

When Mr. Alexander learns a new part he and his wife retire to their cottage at Chorley Wood to study. I bicycled thither one day from Chalfont St. Peter’s, when to my disappointment the servant informed me they were “out.”

“Oh dear, how sad!” I said, “for it is so hot, and I’m tired and wanted some tea.”

Evidently this wrung her heart, for she said she would “go and see.” She went, and immediately Mr. Alexander appeared to bid me welcome.

“I’m working,” he said, “and the maid has orders not to admit any one without special permission.”

What a pretty scene. Lying in a hammock in the orchard on that hot summer’s day was the actor-manager of the St. James’s Theatre. Seated on a garden chair was his wife, simply dressed in white serge and straw hat. On her lap lay the new typewritten play in its brown paper covers, and at her feet was Boris, the famous hound. The Alexanders had been a fortnight at the cottage working hard at the play, and at the moment of my arrival Mrs. Alexander was hearing her husband his part. Not only does she do this, but she makes excellent suggestions. She studies the plays, too, and her taste is of the greatest value as regards dresses, stage decorations, or the arrangement of crowds. Although she has never played professionally, Mrs. Alexander knows all the ins and outs of theatrical life, and is of the greatest help to her husband in the productions.

Had a stranger entered a compartment of a train between Chorley Wood and London a few days later,[Pg 132] he might have thought George Alexander and I were about to commit murder, suicide, or both.

“What have you got there?” asked the actor when we met on the platform.

“A gun,” was my reply.

“A gun?”

“Yes, a gun. I’m taking it to London to be mended.”

“Ha ha! I can beat that,” he laughed. “See what I have here,” and opening a little box he disclosed half a dozen razors.

“Razors!” I exclaimed.

“Yes, razors; so be wary with your sanguinary weapon, for mine mean worse mischief.”

He was taking the razors to London to be sharpened.

It was fortunate no accident happened to that train, or a gun and six razors might have formed food for “public inquiry.”

It is a curious thing how many actors and actresses like to shake the dust of the stage from their feet on leaving the theatre. They seem to become satiated with publicity, to long for the country and an outdoor, freer life, and in many instances they not only long for it, but actually succeed in obtaining it, and the last trains on Saturday night are often full of theatrical folk seeking repose far from theatres till Monday afternoon.

Recreation and entire change of occupation are absolutely necessary to the brain-worker, and the man is wise who realises this. If he does, and seeks complete[Pg 133] rest from mental strain, he will probably have a long and successful career; otherwise the breakdown is sure to come, and may come with such force as to leave the victim afflicted for life, so it is far wiser for the brain-worker of whatever profession or business to realise this at an early stage. In this respect actors are as a rule wiser than their fellow-workers, and seek and enjoy recreation on Sunday and Monday, which is more than can be said of many lawyers, doctors, painters, or literary men.

The strain of theatrical life is great. No one should attempt to go upon the stage who is not strong. If there be any constitutional weakness, theatrical life will find it out. Extremes of heat and cold have to be borne. Low dresses or thick furs have to be worn in succeeding acts. The atmosphere of gas and sulphur is often bad, but must be endured.

A heavy part exhausts an actor in a few minutes as much as carrying a hod of bricks all day does a labourer. He may have to change his underclothing two or three times in an evening, in spite of all his dresser’s rubbing down. The mental and physical strain affects the pores of the skin and exhausts the body, that is why one hardly ever finds an actor fat. He takes too much physical exercise, takes too much out of himself, ever to let superfluous flesh accumulate upon his bones.

Yes, the actor’s life is often a mental strain, of which the following is a striking instance. A very devoted couple were once caused much anxiety by[Pg 134] the wife’s serious and protracted illness. Months wore on, and every night the husband played his part, wondering what news would greet him when he returned home. At last it was decided that an operation was necessary. It was a grave operation, one of life and death, but it had to be faced.

One morning the wife bade her bairns and her home good-bye, and drove off with her spouse to a famous surgical home. That night the poor actor had to play his comic part, with sad and anxious heart he had to smile and caper and be amusing. Think of the mockery of it all. Next morning he was up early, toying with his breakfast, in order to be at the home before nine o’clock, when that serious operation was to be performed. He did not see his wife—that would have upset them both—but like a caged lion he walked up and down, up and down in an adjoining room. At last came the glad tidings that it was over, and all had so far gone satisfactorily.

Back to the theatre he went that night, having heard the latest bulletin, and played his part with smiling face, knowing his wife was hovering between life and death. Next morning she was not so well. It was a matinée day, and in an agony of anxiety and excitement that poor man played two performances, receiving wires about her condition between the acts. Think of it! We often laugh at men and women, who may be for all we know, acting with aching hearts. Comedy and tragedy are closely interwoven in life, perhaps especially so in theatrical life.

By way of recreation from work George Alexander[Pg 135] rushes off to his cottage at Chorley Wood to play golf. Sir Charles Wyndham and Sir Squire and Lady Bancroft for many years enjoyed rambles in Switzerland. Sir Henry Irving is a tremendous smoker and never happy without a cigar. Ellen Terry is so devoted to her son and daughter, she finds recreation in their society. Cyril Maude loves shooting and all country pursuits. Winifred Emery never mentions the theatre after she leaves the stage door, and finds relaxation in domesticity. Mrs. Kendal knits. Lewis Waller motors. Dan Leno retires to the suburbs to look after his ducks. Arthur Bourchier is fond of golfing whenever he gets a chance. Miss Marie Tempest lives in a musical set, and is as devoted to her friends as they are to her.

The world is governed by fads. Fads are an antidote to boredom—a tonic to the overworked, and actors enjoy fads like the rest of us; for instance:

Eugene Oudin, that most delightful operatic singer, who was cut off just as he stepped on the top rung of Fame’s ladder, was a splendid photographer. In 1890 photography was not so much the fashion as it is nowadays, but even then his pictures were works of art. He portrayed his contemporaries—the De Reskes, Van Dyck, Calvé, Hans Richter, Mascagni, Joachim, Tosti, Alma-Tadema, John Drew, Melba, and dozens more at their work, or in some way that would make a picture as well as a photograph. Then these worthies signed the copies, which were subsequently hung round the walls of Oudin’s private study.

[Pg 136]

Miss Julia Neilson has a passion for collecting fans. Herbert Waring is a brilliant whist-player. Mrs. Patrick Campbell adores small dogs, and nearly always has one tucked under her arm. Many actresses have particular mascots. Miss Ellen Terry, Miss Lily Hanbury, and a host more have their lucky ornaments which they wear on first nights. Miss Irene Vanbrugh is devoted to turquoises, and has a necklace composed of curious specimens of these stones, presents from her many friends.

Miss Violet Vanbrugh declares she is “one of those people who somehow never contrive actively or passively to be the heroine of any little stage joke.” This is rather an amusing assertion for a lady who is continually playing stage heroines. Her husband, Mr. Arthur Bourchier, however, tells a good story against himself.

“My present servant, or ‘dresser,’ as they are called at the theatre, was one of the original Gallery First Nighters and a member of the celebrated Gaiety Gallery Boys. Of course when he joined me I imagined he had forsaken the auditorium for the stage. One night, however, a play was produced by me, the dress rehearsal of which he had seen, and I noticed that he seemed particularly gloomy and morose at its conclusion. On the first night, when I came back to my dressing-room from the stage, I found the door locked. Here was a pretty predicament. It was clear that he had got the key and had mysteriously disappeared. I had the door broken open, for dress I must as time was pressing, and sent[Pg 137] another man to search for my missing servant. The sequel is as follows. He was caught red-handed in the gallery among his old associates loudly ‘booing’ his master. Arraigned before me, he maintained the firmest attitude possible, and asserted boldly:

“‘No, sir, I am your faithful servant behind the scenes, but as an independent man and honest gallery boy I am bound to express my unbiased opinion either for or against any play which I may happen to see at a first night!’”

Mr. Hare, like most men, has his hobby, and it is racing: he loves a horse, and he loves a race meeting. In fact, on one occasion report says he nearly missed appearing at the theatre in consequence.

John Hare is one of the greatest character-actors of our day. He is a dapper little gentleman, and lives in Upper Berkeley Street, near Portman Square. His house is most tasteful, and while his handsome wife has had much to say to the decoration, the actor-manager has decided views of his own in these matters. He has a delightful study at the back of the house, round the sides of which low book-cases run, while the walls reflect copper and brass pots, and old blue china. It is here he is at his best, as he sits smoking a cigarette, perched on the high seat in front of the fire.

What an expressive face his is. The fine-chiselled features, the long thin lips are like a Catholic priest of æsthetic tendency; but as the expression changes with lightning speed, and the dark deep-set eyes sparkle or sadden, one realises the actor-spirit.

[Pg 138]

Evidence of fads may often be seen in an actor’s dressing-room, where the walls are decorated according to the particular taste of its occupant.

Cyril Maude has a particularly interesting dressing-room at the Haymarket Theatre. It is veritably a studio, for he has persuaded his artistic friends to do sketches for him on the distempered walls, and a unique little collection they make. Phil May, Harry Furniss, Dudley Hardy, Holman Clarke, Bernard Partridge, Raven Hill, Tom Brown, are among the contributors, and Leslie Ward’s portrait of Lord Salisbury is one of the finest ever sketched of the late Prime Minister. It is a quaint and original idea of Mr. Maude’s, but unfortunately those walls are so precious he will never dare to disturb the grime of ages and have them cleaned.

The St. James’s Theatre, as it stands, is very modern, and therefore Mr. Alexander is the proud possessor of a charming sitting-room with a little dressing-room attached. It is quite near the stage, and has first-floor windows which look out on King Street, next door to Willis’s Rooms, once so famous for their dinners, and still more famous at an earlier date as Almack’s, where the beaux and belles of former days disported themselves.

Both Mr. Alexander and his wife are fond of artistic surroundings, and his little room at the theatre is therefore charming. Here on matinée days the actor-manager dines, an arrangement which saves him much time and trouble, and his huge dog Boris—the famous boarhound which appeared in Rupert[Pg 139] of Hentzau—is his companion, unless Mrs. Alexander pops in with some little delicacy to cheer him over his solitary meal.

That is one of the drawbacks of the stage, the poor actor generally has to eat alone. He cannot expect ordinary mortals to dine at his hours, and he cannot accommodate himself to theirs. The artist who appears much in public is forced to live much by himself, and his meals are consequently as lonely as those of a great Indian potentate.

If we are to follow Mr. Pinero’s advice we shall all have to eschew dinner and adopt a “high-tea” principle before the play; but as all the audience are not agreed upon the subject there seems to be some difficulty about it.

Why not have the evening performance as late as usual on matinée days, to allow the players time to take food and rest, and early on other days to suit those folk who prefer the drama from seven to ten instead of nine to twelve? By this means early comers and late diners would both be satisfied. Instead of which, as matters stand in London, the late diners arrive gorged and grumbling half through the first act to disturb every one, and the ’bus and train folk struggle out halfway through the last act, sad and annoyed at having to leave.

Most theatrical folk dine at five o’clock. Allowing an hour for this meal, they are able to get a little rest before starting for the theatre, which generally has to be reached by seven.

Preparing for the stage is a serious matter. All that can be put on beforehand is of course donned.[Pg 140] Ladies have been known to wear three pairs of stockings, so that a pair might be taken off quickly between each act. Then a long time is required to “make up.” For instance in such a part as Giovanni Malatesta (Paolo and Francesca), Mr. Alexander spent an hour each day painting his face and arranging his wig. He did not look pretty from the front, but the saffron of his complexion and the blue of his eyes became absolutely hideous when beheld close at hand. That make-up, however, was really a work of art.

An actor’s day, even in London, is often a heavy one. Breakfast between nine and ten is the rule, then a ride or some form of exercise, and the theatre at eleven or twelve for a “call,” namely, a rehearsal. This “call” may go on till two o’clock or later, at which hour light luncheon is allowed; but if the rehearsal be late, and the meal consequently delayed, it is impossible to eat again between five and six, consequently the two meals get merged into one. Rehearsals for a new play frequently last a whole month, and during that month the players perform eight times a week in the old piece, and rehearse, or have to attend the theatre nearly all day as well. Three months is considered a good run for a play—so, as will be seen, the company scarcely recover from the exertions of one play before they have to commence rehearsing for another, to say nothing of the everlasting rehearsals for charity performances. The actor’s life is necessarily one of routine, and routine tends to become monotonous.

[Pg 141]

A well-known actor was a very absent-minded man except about his profession, where habit had drilled him to punctuality. One Sunday he was sitting in the Garrick Club when a friend remarked he was dining at A——.

“God bless me, so am I.”

He rushed home, dressed, and went off to the dinner, during the course of which his neighbour asked him if he were going to the B.’s.

“I’d really forgotten it—but if you are going I’ll go too.”

So he went.

About midnight he got home. His wife was sitting in full evening dress with her gloves and cloak on.

“You are very late,” she said.

“Late? I thought it was early. It is only a quarter past twelve.”

“I’ve been waiting for nearly two hours.”

“Waiting—what for?”

“Why, you arranged to fetch me a little after ten o’clock to go to the B’s.”

“God bless me—I forgot I had a dinner-party, forgot there was a soirée, and forgot I had a wife.”

“And where’s your white tie?” asked his wife stiffly.

“Oh dear, I must have forgotten that too! Dear, dear, what a man I am away from the stage and my dresser!”

There is a wonderful bonne camaraderie among all people engaged in the theatrical profession.

[Pg 142]

Theatrical people are as generous to one another in misfortune as the poor. In times of success they are apt to be jealous; but let a comrade fall on evil days, let him be forced to “rest” when he wants to work, and his old colleagues will try and procure him employment, and when work and health fail utterly, they get up a benefit for him. These benefits take much organising; they often entail endless rehearsals and some expense, and yet the profession is ever ready to come forward and help those in need.

People on the stage have warm hearts and generous purses, but to give gracefully requires as much tact as to receive graciously.

It is a curious thing how few actors have died rich men. Many have made fortunes, but they have generally contrived to lose them again. Money easily made is readily lost. He who buys what he does not want ends in wanting what he cannot buy. Style and show begun in flourishing times are hard to relinquish. Capital soon runs away when drawn upon because salary has ceased, even temporarily. Many an actor, once a rich man, has died poor. Kate Vaughan, once a wealthy woman, died in penury, and so on ad infinitum.

Actors, like other people, have to learn there is no disgrace in being poor—it is merely inconvenient.

Theatrical salaries are sometimes enormous, although George Edwardes has informed the public that £100 a week is the highest he ever gives, because he finds to go beyond that sum does not pay him.

It seems a great deal for a pretty woman, not highly[Pg 143] born, nor highly educated, nor highly gifted—merely a pretty woman who has been well drilled by author, stage manager, and conductor, to be able to command £100 a week in a comic opera, but after all it is not for long. It is never for fifty-two weeks in the year, and only for a few years at most. Beauty fades, flesh increases, the attraction goes, and she is relegated to the shelf, a poorer, wiser woman than before. But meanwhile her scintillating success, the glamour around her, have acted as a bait to induce others to rush upon the stage.

The largest salary ever earned by a man was probably that paid to Charles Kean, who once had a short engagement at Drury Lane for £50 a night, and on one occasion he made £2,000 by a benefit. Madame Vestris, however, beat him, for she had a long engagement at the Haymarket at £40 a night, or £240 a week, a sum unheard of to-day.

It may be here mentioned that salaries are doled out according to an old and curious custom.

“Treasury day” is a great event; theatrical folk never speak of “pay”: it is always “salaries” and “treasury day.” Each “house” has its own methods of procedure, but at a great national theatre like Drury Lane the “chiefs” are paid by cheque, while every Friday night the treasurer and his assistants with trays full of “salary” go round the theatre and distribute packets in batches to the endless persons who combine to make a successful performance. The money is sealed up in an envelope which bears the name of the receiver, so no one knows what his[Pg 144] neighbour gets. It takes five or six hours for the treasurer and his two assistants to pay off a thousand people at a pantomime, and check each salary paid.

There is no field where that little colt imagination scampers more wildly than in the matter of salaries. For instance, a girl started as “leading lady” in a well-known play on a provincial tour. Her name, in letters nearly as big as herself, met her on the hoardings of every town the company visited. She was given the star dressing-room, and a dresser to herself. This all meant extra tips and extra expenses everywhere, for she was the “leading lady”! Wonderful notices appeared in all the provincial papers and this girl was the draw. The manager knew that, and advertised her and pushed her forward in every way. All the company thought she began at a salary of £10 a week, and rumour said this sum had been doubled after her success. Such was the story. Now for the truth. She was engaged for the tour at £3 a week, and £3 a week she received without an additional penny, although the tour of weeks extended into months. She was poor, others were dependent on her, and she dared not throw up that weekly sixty shillings for fear she might lose everything in her endeavour to get more.

This is only one instance: there are many such upon the stage.

“I suppose A—— has given more time to rehearsals this year,” said the wife of a well-known actor, “than any man in London, and yet he has only drawn ten weeks’ salary. Everything has turned out badly;[Pg 145] so we have had to live for fifty-two weeks on ten weeks’ pay and thirty-four weeks’ work.”

Large sums and well-earned salaries have, of course, been made—in fact, Sir Henry Irving was earning about £30,000 a year at the beginning of the century, an income very few actor-managers could boast.

Among thrifty theatrical folk the Bancrofts probably take front rank. Marie Wilton and her husband amused England for thirty years, and had the good sense always to spend less than they made. The result was that, while still young enough to enjoy their savings they bought a house in Berkeley Square, retired, and have enjoyed a well-earned rest. More than that, Sir Squire Bancroft stands unique as regards charities. Although not wishing to be tied any more to the stage, he does not mind giving an occasional “Reading” of Dickens’s Christmas Carol, and he has elected to give his earnings to hospitals and other charities, which are over £15,000 the richer for his generosity. Could anything be more delightful than for a retired actor to give his talent for the public good?

I was brought up on Mrs. Bancroft and Shakespeare, so to speak. The Bancrofts at that time had the Haymarket Theatre, and their Robertson pieces were considered suitable to my early teens by way of amusement, while I was taken to Shakespeare’s plays by way of instruction. I remember I thought the Robertson comedies far preferable, and should love to see them again.

It is always averred by old playgoers that Marie[Pg 146] Wilton (Lady Bancroft) was the originator of modern comedy. She and her husband at one time had a little play-house in an unfashionable part of London, to which they attracted society people of that day. The theatre was not then what it is now, the “upper ten” seldom visited the play at that time, and yet the Prince of Wales’ Theatre known as “The Dust-hole” drew all fashionable London to the Tottenham Court Road to laugh with Marie Wilton over Robertson’s comedies.

Her company consisted of men and women who are actor-managers to-day: people went forth well drilled in their profession, accustomed to expending minute care over details, each in their turn to inculcate the same thoroughness in the next generation. These people numbered John Hare, Mr. and Mrs. Kendal (Madge Robertson was the younger sister of the dramatist), H. J. Montague, and Arthur Cecil. Again one finds the best succeeds, and there is always room at the top, hence the Bancroft triumph.

One of their innovations was to rope off the front rows of the pit, which then occupied the entire floor of the house, and call them “stalls,” for which they dared ask 6/-apiece. They got it—more were wanted. Others were added, and gradually the price rose to 10/6, which is now the charge: but half-guinea stalls, though now universal, are a modern institution.

At a dinner given by the Anderson Critchetts in 1891 I sat between Squire Bancroft and G. Boughton, R.A. Mr. Bancroft remarked in the course of conversation that he was just fifty, though he looked[Pg 147] much younger. His tall figure was perfectly erect, and his white hair showed up the freshness of his complexion. I asked him if he did not miss acting, the applause, and the excitement of the theatre.

“No,” he replied. “It will be thirty years this September since I first went on the stage, and it is now nearly six since I gave it up. No, I don’t think I should mind much if I never entered a theatre again, either as spectator or actor—and my wife feels the same. My only regret about our theatrical career is that we never visited America, but no dollars would induce Mrs. Bancroft to cross the sea, so we never went.”

He surprised me by saying that during the latter years of their theatrical life they never took supper, but dined at 6.0 or 6.30 as occasion required, and afterwards usually walked to the theatre. During the performance they had coffee and biscuits, or sometimes, on cold nights, a little soup, and the moment the curtain was down they jumped into their carriage, and were in their own house in Cavendish Square, where they then lived, by 11.30, and in bed a few minutes later. They were always down to breakfast at 9 o’clock year in year out; an early hour for theatrical folk.

I spoke of the autograph photographs which I had seen in the Haymarket green-room.

“How curious,” he said, “that you should mention them to-night. We have always intended to take them away, and only yesterday, after an interval of six years, I gave the order for their removal. This[Pg 148] evening as we started for dinner they arrived in Berkeley Square. A strange coincidence.”

Lady Bancroft has the merriest laugh imaginable. I used to love to see her act when I was quite a girl, and somehow Miss Marie Tempest reminds me strongly of her to-day. She has the same lively manner.

Lady Bancroft’s eyes are her great feature—they are deeply set, with long dark lashes, and their merry twinkle is infectious. When she laughs her eyes seem to disappear in one glorious smile, and every one near her joins in her mirth. Mrs. Bancroft was comparatively a young woman when she retired from the stage, and one of her greatest joys at the time was to feel she was no longer obliged to don the same gown at the same moment every day.

At some theatres a dress rehearsal is a great affair. The term properly speaking means the whole performance given privately right through, without even a repeated scene. The final dress rehearsal, as a rule, is played before a small critical audience, and the piece is expected to run as smoothly as on the first night itself—to be, in fact, a sort of prologue to the first night. This is a dress rehearsal proper, such as is given by Sir Henry Irving, Messrs. Beerbohm Tree, Cyril Maude, George Alexander, or the old Savoy Company.

Before this, however, there are endless “lighting rehearsals,” “scenic rehearsals,” or “costume parades,” all of which are done separately, and with the greatest care. As we saw before, Mrs. Kendal disapproves of a dress rehearsal, but she is almost alone in her opinion.[Pg 149] It is really, therefore, a matter of taste whether the whole performance be gone through in separate portions or whether one final effort be made before the actual first night. As a rule Sir Henry Irving has three dress rehearsals, but the principals only appear in costume at one of them. They took nine weeks to rehearse the operetta The Medal and the Maid, yet Irving put The Merchant of Venice with all its details on the Lyceum stage in twenty-three days.

Sir Henry strongly objects to the public being present at any rehearsal. “The impression given of an incomplete effort cannot be a fair one,” he says. “It is not fair to the artistes. A play to be complete must pass through one imagination, one intellect must organise and control. In order to attain this end it is necessary to experiment: no one likes to be corrected before strangers, therefore rehearsals—or in other words ‘experiments’—should be made in private. Even trained intellect in an outsider should not be admitted, as great work may be temporarily spoiled by some slight mechanical defect.”

In Paris rehearsals used to be great institutions. They were opportunities for meeting friends. In the foyers and green-rooms of the theatres, at répètitions générales, every one talked and chatted over the play, the actors, and the probable success or failure. This, however, gradually became a nuisance, and early in this twentieth century both actors and authors struck. They decided that even privileged persons should be excluded from final rehearsals, which are always in[Pg 150] costume in Paris. As a sort of salve to the offended public, it was agreed that twenty-four strangers should be admitted to the last great dress rehearsal before the actual production of a new piece, hence everybody who is anybody clamours to be there.

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It is not every one who cares to erect his own mausoleum during his life.

There are some quaint and weird people who prefer to do so, however: whether it is to save their friends and relations trouble after their demise, whether from some morbid desire to face death, or whether for notoriety, who can tell? Was it not one of our dukes who built a charming crematorium for the benefit of the public, and beside it one for himself, the latter to be given over to general use after he himself had been reduced to spotless ashes within its walls? He was a public benefactor, for his wise action encouraged cremation, a system which for the sake of health and prosperity is sure to come in time.

[Pg 152]

Madame Sarah Bernhardt has not erected a crematorium, but on one of the highest spots of the famous Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris she has placed her tomb. It is a solid stone structure, like a large sarcophagus, but it is supported on four arches, so that light may be seen beneath, and the solidity of the slabs is thereby somewhat lessened. One word only is engraven on the stone:

BERNHARDT.

This is the mausoleum of one of the greatest actresses the world has ever known. What is lacking in the length of inscription is made up by the size of the lettering.

Upon the tomb lay one enormous wreath on the Jour des Morts, 1902, and innumerable people paid homage to it, or stared out of curiosity at the handsome erection.

Though folk say Madame Bernhardt courts notoriety, there are moments when she seeks solitude as a recreation, and she has a great love of the sea.

Every year for two months she disappears from theatrical life. She forgets that such a thing as the stage exists, she never reads a play, and as far as theatrical matters are concerned she lives in another sphere. That is part of her holiday. It is not a holiday of rest, for she never rests; it is a holiday because of the change of scene, change of thought, change of occupation. Her day at her seaside home is really a very energetic one.

At five the great artiste rises, dons a short skirt, [Pg 153]country boots, and prepares to enjoy herself. Often the early hours are spent in shooting small birds. She rarely misses her quarry, for her artistic eye helps her in measuring distance, and her aim is generally deadly. Another favourite entertainment is to shrimp. She takes off her shoes and stockings and for a couple of hours will stand in the water shrimping, for her “resting” is as energetic as everything else she does. She plies her net in truly professional style, gets wildly enthusiastic over a good catch, and loves to eat her freshly boiled fish at déjeuner. Perhaps she has a game with her ten lovely Russian dogs before that mid-day meal.

Her surroundings are beautiful. She adores flowers—flowers are everywhere; she admires works of art—works of art are about her, for she has achieved her own position, her own wealth, and why should she not have all she loves best close at hand?

After déjeuner the guests, of whom there are never more than two or three, such as M. Rostand (author of Cyrano de Bergerac) and his wife, rest and read. Not so Madame Bernhardt. She sits in the open air, her head covered with a shady hat, and plays Salta with her son. This game is a kind of draughts, and often during their two months’ holiday-making she and her only child Maurice will amuse themselves in this way for two or three hours in the afternoon; generally she wins, much to her joy. She simply loves heat, like the Salamanders, and, even in July, when other people feel too hot, she would gladly wear furs and have a fire. She can never be too[Pg 154] warm apparently. Her own rooms are kept like a hothouse, for cold paralyses her bodily and mentally.

How she adores her son—she speaks of him as a woman speaks of her lover; Maurice comes before all her art, before all else in the world, for Maurice to her is life. He has married a clever woman, a descendant of a Royal house, and has a boy and two girls adored by their grandmother almost as much as their father. She plays with them, gets up games for them, dances with them, throws herself as completely into their young lives as she does into everything else.

About 3.30 au tennis is the cry. Salta is put aside and every one has to play tennis. Away to tennis she trips. Sarah never gets hot, but always looks cool in the white she invariably wears. She wants an active life, and if her brain is not working her body must be, so she plays hard at the game, and when tea is ready in the arbour close at hand, about 6.30, she almost weeps if she has to leave an unfinished “sett.”

She must be interested, or she would be bored; she must be amused, or she would be weary; thus she works hard at her recreations, the enforced rest while reading a novel being her only time of repose during her summer holiday. She walks when she has nothing else to do, and rambles for miles around her seaside home, only occasionally going on long carriage expeditions, with her tents and her servants, to pitch camp for the night somewhere along the coast.

Then comes dinner—dinner served with all the[Pg 155] glories of a Parisian chef, for Madame, although a small eater, believes well-cooked food necessary to existence. There is no hurry over dinner, and “guess” games are all the fashion, games which she cleverly arranges to suit the children. No evening dresses are allowed, nor décolleté frocks; except for flowers and well-cooked food, Madame likes to feel she is in the country and far removed from Paris, therefore a dainty blouse is all that is permitted. Music is often enjoyed in the evening. Sometimes on a fine night Madame will exclaim:

“Let us go and fish,” and off they all go. Down the endless steps cut in the rock the party stumble, and on the seashore they drag their nets. Up those same steps every night toil men with buckets of salt water, for the great actress has a boiling salt water bath every morning, to which she attributes much of her good health. Fishermen throw nets for the evening’s catch, but “Sarah” is most energetic in hauling them in, and gets wildly excited at a good haul. Her unfailing energy is thrown even into the fishing, and she will stay out till the small hours enjoying the sport. One summer Madame Bernhardt caught a devil fish—this delighted her. She took it home and quickly modelled a vase from her treasure. Seaweed and shells formed its stand, the tail its stem. She seldom sculpts nowadays, but the power is still there.

It was in 1880 that she retired from the Comédie Française, not being content with her salary of £1,200 a year, and she then announced her intention of making sculpture and painting her profession. After[Pg 156] a rest, however, she fortunately changed her mind, or the stage would have lost one of the greatest actresses the world has known. Perhaps the apotheosis of her life was in December, 1896, when she was acclaimed Queen of the French stage, and the leading poets of her country recited odes in her honour. On that occasion the heroine of the fête declared:

“For twenty-nine years I have given the public the vibrations of my soul, the pulsations of my heart, and the tears of my eyes. I have played 112 parts, I have created thirty-eight new characters, sixteen of which are the work of poets. I have struggled as no other human being has struggled.... I have ardently longed to climb the topmost pinnacle of my art. I have not yet reached it. By far the smaller part of my life remains for me to live; but what matters it? Every day brings me nearer to the realisation of my dream. The hours that have flown away with my youth have left me my courage and cheerfulness, for my goal is unchanged, and I am marching towards it.”

She was right; there is always something beyond our grasp, and those who think they have seized it must court failure from that moment. Those nearest perfection best know how far they really are from it.

Madame Bernhardt’s mind is penetrating, yet her body never rests. She can do with very little sleep—can live without butcher’s meat, rarely drinks alcohol, and prefers milk to anything. Perhaps this is the reason of her perpetual youth. She loves her holiday, she loves the simple life of the country,[Pg 157] the repose from the world, the knowledge that autograph hunters and reporters cannot waylay her, and in the country she ceases to be an actress and can enjoy being a woman.

In Paris her life is very different. She resides in a beautiful hotel surrounded by works of art, and keeps a table ouverte for her friends. She rises at eleven, when she has her masseuse and her boiling bath, sees her servants, and gives personal orders for everything in the establishment. She is one of those women who find time for all details, and is capable of seeing to most matters well. At 12.30 is déjeuner, rarely finished till 2 o’clock, as friends constantly drop in. Then off to the theatre, where she rehearses till six. There she sits in a little box, from which point of vantage she can see everything and yet be out of draughts. She always wears white, even in the theatre, and looks as smart as though at a party instead of on business bent. Dresses are brought her for inspection, she alters, changes, admires, or deplores as fancy takes her; she arranges the lighting, decides a little more blue or a little less green will give the tone required; but then she has that inner knowledge of harmony and the true painter spirit. She is never out of tune. At six high-tea is served in her dressing-room, for she rarely leaves the theatre. The meal consists mostly of fish—lobster, crab, cray-fish, shrimps, scallops cooked or raw—with a little tea and lots of milk. A chat with a friend, a peep at a new play, and then it is time to dress for the great work of the day. She changes quickly. After the performance is over[Pg 158] she sees her manager, and rarely leaves the theatre in Paris before 1.30, when she returns home to a good hot supper. But her day is not ended even then. She will have a play read to her or read it herself, study a new part, write letters, and do dozens of different things before she goes to bed. She can do with little rest, and seems to have the energy of many persons in one. In spite of this she has never mastered English, although she can read it.

Madame Bernhardt will ever be associated in my mind with a night spent at a theatre behind a French claque. That claque was terrible, but the actress was so wonderful I almost forgot its existence, and sat rapt in admiration of her first night of Hamlet.

Till quite lately there was a terrible institution in France known as the claque, nothing more or less than a paid body of men whose duty it was to applaud actors and actresses at certain points duly marked in their play-books.

At the Comédie Française of Paris a certain individual known as the Chef de Claque had been retained from 1881 for over twenty years at a monthly salary of three hundred francs, that is to say, he received £12 a month, or £3 a week, for “clapping” when required. He was a person of great importance. Though disliked by the public, he was petted and feasted by actors and actresses, for a clap at the wrong moment, or want of applause at the right, meant disaster; besides, there was a sort of superstitious fear that being on bad terms with the Chef de Claque foreboded ill luck.

After performing his duties for twenty-one years[Pg 159] with considerable success, the Chef de Claque was dismissed, and it was decided that professional applause should be discontinued. Naturally the Chef was indignant, and in the autumn of 1902 sued the Comédie Française for 30,000 francs damages or a pension. Paris, however, found relief in the absence of the original claque, and gradually one theatre after another began to dispense with a nuisance it had endured for long. History says that during the early days of the claque there was an equally obnoxious institution, a sort of organised opposition known as siffleurs. It was then as fashionable to whistle a piece out of the world as to clap it into success. There was a regular instrument made for the purpose, known as a sifflet, which was wooden and emitted a harsh creaking noise. No man thought of going to the theatre without his sifflet—but the claque gradually clapped him away. Thus died out the official dispensers of success or failure.

It so chanced that having bicycled through France from Dieppe along the banks of the Seine, my sister and I were leaving Paris on the first occasion of Sarah Bernhardt’s impersonation of Hamlet—that is to say, in May, 1899. We were so anxious to see her first performance, however, that we decided to stay an extra day. So far all was well, but not a single ticket could be obtained. Here was disappointment indeed. Of course our names were not on the first night list in Paris and, as in England, it is well-nigh impossible for any ordinary member of the public to gain admittance on such an occasion.

The gentleman in the box office became sympathetic[Pg 160] at beholding our distress, and finally suggested he might let us have seats upstairs.

“It is very high up, but you will see and hear everything,” he added.

We decided to ascend to the gods, where, instead of finding ourselves beside Jupiter and Mars, Venus or Apollo, we were seated immediately behind the claque.

Never, never shall I forget my own personal experience of the performance of a claque. Six men sat together in the centre of the front row. The middle one had a marked book—fancy Shakespeare’s Hamlet marked for applause!—and according to that book’s instructions the Chef and his friends clapped once, twice, thrice.

On ordinary occasions the claque slept or read, and only woke up to make a noise when called upon by the Chef, who seemed to have free passes for his supporters every night, and took any one he liked to help him in his curious work. The noise those men made at Hamlet was deafening. The excitement of the leader lest the play should not go off well on a first night was terrible—and if their hands were not sore, and their arms did not ache, it was a wonder indeed. They were so appallingly near us, and so overpowering and disturbing, nothing but interest in the divine Sarah could have kept us in our seats during all those hot, stuffy, noisy hours. It was a Saturday night, the piece began at 8 p.m., and ended at 2 a.m.

Think of it, ye London first-nighters! Especially in a French theatre, where the seats are torture racks, the heat equal to Dante’s Inferno, and no sweet music[Pg 161] soothes the savage breast, only long dreary entr’actes and the welcome—if melancholy—three raps French playgoers know so well.

Two years later, when I was again in Paris, there were different excitements in the air, one a strike of coal-miners, the other—and in Paris apparently the more important—a strike of the orchestras at the theatres. A few years previously there could not have been a strike, for the sufficient reason there were no orchestras; but gradually our plan of having music during the long waits crept in. The musicians at first engaged as an experiment were badly paid. When they became an institution they naturally asked for more money, which was promptly refused.

Then came the revolt. From the first violin to the big drum all demanded higher pay. It seems that theatre, music hall, and concert orchestras belong to a syndicate of Artistes Musiciens numbering some sixteen hundred members. During the strike I chanced to be present at a theatre where there was generally an orchestra—that night one small cottage piano played by a lady usurped its place. She managed fairly well—but a piano played by a mediocre musician, does not add to the gaiety of a theatre although it may decrease its melancholy. When November came, the strike ceased. The managers capitulated.

The orchestra in an English theatre is a little world to itself. The performers never mix with the actors, they have their own band-room, and there they live when not before the curtain. At the chief theatres, as is well known, the performers are extremely good,[Pg 162] and that is because they are allowed to “deputise”; when there is a grand concert at the St. James’s Hall or elsewhere, provided they find some one to take their place in their own orchestra, they may go and play. Consequently, when there is a big concert several may be away from their own theatre. Many of these performers remain in the same orchestra for years. For instance, Mr. Alexander told me he met a man one day roving at the back of the stage, so he stopped and asked whom he wanted. The man smiled and replied:

“I am in your orchestra, sir, and have been for eleven years.”

“Ah, yes, so you are; I thought I knew your face; but I am accustomed to look at it from above, you see!”

In many London theatres the orchestra is hidden under the stage, a decided advantage with most plays.

Parisian theatres are strange places. They are very fashionable, and yet they are most uncomfortable. The seats are invariably too small and too high. The result is there is nowhere to lay a cloak or coat, and short people find their little legs dangling high above the ground. All this causes inconvenience which ends in annoyance, and the hangers-on at the theatres are a veritable nuisance. Ugly old women in blue aprons, without caps, pounce upon one on entering and pester for wraps. It is difficult to know which is the worse evil, to cling to one’s belongings in the small space allotted each member of the audience, or to let one of those women take them away. In the latter case before the last act she returns with a great deal of[Pg 163] fuss, hands over the articles, and demands her sous. If the piece be only in three acts, one pays for being free of a garment for two of them and is annoyed by its presence during the third. Again, when one enters a box these irritating ouvreuses demand tips pour le service de la loge, s’il vous plaît, and will often insist on forcing footstools under one’s feet so as to claim the pourboires afterwards. The pourboires of the vestiaire are also a thorn in the flesh, and the system which exacts payment from these women turns them from obliging servants into harpies. How Parisians put up with these disagreeable creatures is surprising, but they do.

The stage is conservative in many ways; for instance, that tiresome plan of charging for programmes still exists in England in some theatres, and even good theatres too. Programmes cost nothing: the expense of printing is paid by the advertisements. Free distribution, therefore, does not mean that the management are out of pocket. Why, then, do they not present them gratis? As things are it is most aggravating. Suppose two ladies arrive; as they are shown to their seats, holding their skirts, opera-bags and fans in their hands, they are asked for sixpence. While they endeavour to extract their money they are dropping their belongings and inconveniencing their neighbours: in the case of a man requiring change the same annoyance is felt by all around, especially if the play has begun.

Programmes and their necessary “murmurings” are annoying, and so is the meagreness of the space[Pg 164] between the rows of stalls. There are people who openly declare they never go to a theatre because they have not got room for their knees. This is certainly much worse in Parisian theatres, where the seats are high and narrow as well; but still, when people pay for a seat they like room to pass to and fro without inconveniencing a dozen persons en route.

Matinée hats and late arrivals are sins on the part of the audience so cruel that no self-respecting person would inflict either upon a neighbour. But some women are so inconsiderate that we shall soon be reduced to an American notice like the following, “Ladies who cannot, or are unwilling to, remove their hats while occupying seats in this theatre, are requested to leave at once; their money will be returned at the box office.” A gentlewoman never wears a picture hat at the play; if she arrives in one she takes it off. In the same way a gentleman makes a point of being in time. People who offend in these respects belong to a class which apparently knows no better, a class which complacently talks, or makes love, through a theatrical entertainment!

Another strange Parisian custom is the advertisement drop-scene. At the end of the act, a curtain descends literally covered with pictures and puffs of pills, automobiles, corsets, or tobacco. After a tragedy the effect is comical, but this is an age of advertisement.

But to return to Madame Bernhardt’s Hamlet. When the great Sarah appeared upon the scene I did not recognise her. Why? Because she looked so young and so small. This woman, who was[Pg 165] nearly sixty, appeared quite juvenile. This famous tragédienne, who had always left an impression of a tall, thin, willowy being in her wonderful scenes in La Tosca, or Dame aux Caméllias, deprived of her train appeared quite tiny. She had the neatest legs, encased in black silk stockings, the prettiest feet with barely any heel to give her height, while her flaxen wig which hung upon her shoulders, made her look a youth, in the sixteenth century clothes she elected to wear. At first I felt woefully disappointed; she did not act at all, and when she saw her father’s ghost, instead of becoming excited, as we are accustomed to Hamlet’s doing in this country, she insinuated a lack of interest, an “Oh, is that really my father’s ghost!” sort of style, which seemed almost annoying; but as she proceeded, I was filled with admiration—her players’ scene was a great coup.

On the left of the stage a smaller one was arranged for the players’ scene, and before it half a dozen torches were stuck in as footlights. On the right there was a high raised daïs with steps leading up on either side—a sort of platform erection. The King and Queen sat upon two seats at the top, the courtiers grouped themselves upon the stairs. Immediately below the Royal pair sat Ophelia, and at her feet, upon a white polar-bear-skin rug, reclined Sarah Bernhardt, with her elbow upon Ophelia’s knee and her hand upon some yellow cushions. As the play went on she looked up to catch a glimpse of the King, but he was too high above her, the wall of the platform hid him from view. Very quietly she rose from[Pg 166] her seat, crawled round to the back, where she gradually and slowly pulled herself up towards the daïs, getting upon a stool in her eagerness to see her victim’s face. The King, in his excitement, rose from his seat at the fatal moment, and putting his hand upon the balustrade, peered downwards upon the play-actors.

At that instant Sarah Bernhardt rose, and the two faces came close together across the barrier in eager contemplation of each other. It was a magnificent piece of acting, one which sent a thrill through the whole house; and as the “divine Sarah” saw the guilt depicted upon her uncle’s face she gave a shriek of triumph, a perfectly fiendish shriek of joy, once heard never to be forgotten, and springing down from her post, rushed to the torch footlights, and seizing one in her hand stood in the middle of the stage, her back to the audience, waving it on high and yelling with wild exultant delight as the King and all his courtiers slunk away, to the fall of the curtain. It was a brilliant ending to a great act, and Sarah triumphed not only in the novelty of her rendering, but in the manner of its execution.

Another hit that struck me as perfectly wonderful in its contrasting simplicity, was, when she sat upon a sofa, her feet straight out before her, a book lying idle upon her lap, and murmured, mots, mots, or again, when she came in through the arch at the back of the stage, and leaning against its pillar repeated quietly and dreamily the lines “To be, or not to be.”

Apropos of Hamlet, Madame Bernhardt wrote to the Daily Telegraph:

[Pg 167]

Madame Bernhardt made Hamlet a man, and a strong man—there was nothing of the halting, hesitating woman about her performance, one which she herself loves to play.

It was a fine touch also when she went into her uncle’s room, where, finding him on his knees, she crept up close behind, and taking out her dagger, prepared to kill him. She said nothing, but her play was marvellous, her expression of hatred and loathing, her pause to contemplate, and final decision to let the man alone, were done in such a way as only Sarah Bernhardt could render them.

Another drama took place on this memorable first night of Hamlet. Two famous men when discussing whether Hamlet ought to be fat or thin, struck one another in the face and finally arranged a duel—a duel fought two or three days later, which nearly cost one of them his life.

Opposite is the programme of the first night of Sarah Bernhardt’s Hamlet.

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[Pg 169]

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[Pg 170]

There is a famous Hamlet skull in America, known as Yorick’s skull, which is in the possession of Dr. Horace Howard Furness, of Philadelphia.

Dr. Furness is one of the greatest Shakespearian scholars of the day. Dr. Georg Brandes, of Copenhagen, Mr. Sydney Lee, of London, and he probably know more of the work of this great genius than any other living persons.

When I was in America I had the pleasure of spending a few days at Dr. Furness’s delightful home at Wallingford, on the shores of the Delaware River. The place might be in England, from its appearance—a low, rambling old house with wide balconies, creeper-grown with roses, and honey-suckle hugging the porch. The dear old home was built more than a century ago, by some of Dr. Furness’s ancestors, and one sees the love of those ancestors for the old English style manifest at every turn. The whole interior bespeaks intellectual refinement.

He stood on the doorstep to welcome me, a grey-headed man of some sixty-eight years, with a ruddy complexion, and closely cut white moustache. His manner was delightful; no more polished gentleman ever walked this earth than Horace Howard Furness, the great American writer. His father was an intimate friend of Ralph Waldo Emerson, whose famous portrait at the Philadelphia Art Gallery was painted by the doctor’s brother; so young Horace was brought up amid intellectual surroundings.

At the back of the house is the world-renowned iron-proof Shakespearian library, the collection of[Pg 171] forty ardent years. It is a veritable museum with its upper galleries, its many tables, and its endless cases of treasures. The books which line the walls were all catalogued by the doctor himself. He has many of the earlier editions of Shakespeare besides other rare volumes. Some original MSS. of Charles Lamb, beautifully written and signed Elia, are there; a delightful sketch of Mary Anderson by Forbes Robertson; Lady Martin’s (Helen Faucit) own acting editions of the parts she played marked by herself; and in a special glass case lie a pair of grey gauntlet gloves, richly embroidered in silver, which were worn by Shakespeare himself when an actor. If I remember rightly they came from David Garrick, and the card of authenticity is in the case. Then there are Garrick’s and Booth’s walking-sticks, and on a small ebony stand, the famous Yorick skull handled in the grave-digging scene by all the great actors who have visited Philadelphia, and signed by them—Booth, Irving, Tree, Sothern, etc.

I never spent a more delightful evening than one in October, 1900, when the family went off to Philadelphia to see the dramatisation of one of Dr. Weir Mitchell’s novels by his son, and I was left alone with Dr. Furness for some hours.

What a charming companion. What a fund of information and humour, what a courtly manner, what a contrast to the ruggedness of Ibsen, or the wild energy of Björnsen. Here was repose and strength. Not an originator, perhaps, but a learned disciple. How he loved Shakespeare, with what reverence he spoke of him. He scoffed at the mere[Pg 172] mention of Bacon’s name, and was glad, very glad, so little was known of the private life of Shakespeare.

“He was too great to be mortal; I do not want to associate any of Nature’s frailties with such a mind. His work is the thing, for the man as a man I care nothing.” This was unlike Brandes, whose brilliant books on Shakespeare deal chiefly with the man.

There was something particularly delightful about Horace Furness and his home. Even the dinner-table appointments were his choice. The soup-plates were of the rarest Oriental porcelain, and the meat-plates were of silver with mottoes chosen by himself round the borders.

“I loved my china, but it got broken year by year, until in desperation I looked about for something that could not break—solid and plain, like myself, eh?” he chuckled. The mottoes were well chosen and the idea as original as everything else about Dr. Furness.

It was Mrs. Kemble’s readings that first awakened his love for Shakespeare; but he was nearly forty years old when he gave up law and devoted himself to writing; much the same age as Dr. Samuel Smiles when he exchanged business for authorship.

Dr. Furness loves his Shakespeare and thoroughly enjoys his well-chosen library; but still an Englishwoman cannot help hoping that when he has done with them, he will bequeath his treasures to the Shakespeare Museum at Stratford-on-Avon.

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THE scene was changed.

It was the 1st of June. I remember the date because it was my birthday, and this particular June day is doubly engraven on my mind as the most important Sunday in 1902. It was a warm summer’s evening as I drove down Harley Street to dine with Sir Anderson and Lady Critchett, whose dinners are as famous as his own skill as an oculist.

Most of the company had assembled. Mr. and Mrs. Kendal were already there, Frank Wedderburn, K.C., Mr. Luke Fildes, R.A., who had just completed his portrait of the King, Mr. Orchardson, R.A., Mr. Lewis Coward, K.C., and their wives, Mr. and Mrs. Edward Sassoon, Mr. and Mrs. W. L. Courtney, when the Beerbohm Trees were announced. He bore a telegram in his hand.

[Pg 174]

“Have you heard the news?” he asked.

“No,” every one replied, guessing by his face it was something of importance.

“Peace has been officially signed,” was the reply.

Great was the joy of all present. There had been a possibility felt all day that the good news from South Africa might be confirmed on that Sunday, although it was supposed it could not be known for certain until Monday. Sunday is more or less a dies non in London, but as the tape is always working at the theatre, Mr. Tree had instructed a clerk to sit and watch the precious instrument all day, so as to let him have the earliest information of so important an event. As he was dressing for dinner in Sloane Street, in rushed the clerk, breathless with excitement, bearing the news of the message of Peace that had sped across a quarter of the world.

This in itself made that dinner-party memorable, but it was memorable in more ways than one, as among the twenty people round that table sat four of the chief performers in The Merry Wives of Windsor, which was to electrify London as a Coronation performance ten days later.

Sir Anderson himself is connected with the drama, for his brother is Mr. R. C. Carton, the well-known dramatic author. Sir Anderson is also an indefatigable first-nighter, and being an excellent raconteur, knows many amusing stories of actors of the day. In his early years an exceptionally fine voice almost[Pg 175] tempted him on to the lyric stage, but he has had no cause to regret that his ultimate choice was ophthalmic surgery.

It was a stroke of genius, the genius of the seer, on the part of Beerbohm Tree, to invite the two leading actresses of England to perform at his theatre during Coronation season.

It came about in this way. On looking round the Houses, Mr. Tree noticed that, although Shakespeare was to the fore in the provinces, filling two or three theatres, there happened to be no Shakespearian production—except an occasional matinée at the Lyceum—going on in London during the Coronation month. Of course London without Shakespeare is like Hamlet without the Dane to visitors from the Colonies and elsewhere. Something must be done. He decided what. A good all-round representation, played without any particular star part would suit the purpose, and a record cast would suit the stranger. Accordingly Mr. Tree jumped into a hansom and drove to Mrs. Kendal’s home in Portland Place, where he was announced, and exclaimed:

“I have come to ask you to act for me at His Majesty’s for the Coronation month. Your own tour will be finished by that time.”

For one hour they talked, Mrs. Kendal declaring she had not played under any management save her husband’s for so many years that the suggestion seemed well-nigh impossible.

“Besides,” she added, “you should ask Ellen Terry, who is my senior, and stands ahead of[Pg 176] me in the profession. She has not yet appeared since she returned from America. There is your chance.”

Whereupon there ensued further discussion, till finally Mrs. Kendal laughingly remarked:

“Well, if you can get Ellen Terry to act, I will play with you both with pleasure.”

Off went Mr. Tree to the hansom, and directed the driver to take him at once to Miss Terry’s house, for he was determined not to let the grass grow under his feet. He brought his personal influence to bear on the famous actress for another hour, at the end of which time she had consented to play if Sir Henry Irving would allow her. This permission was quickly obtained, and two hours after leaving Portland Place Mr. Tree was back to claim Mrs. Kendal’s promise. It was sharp work; one morning overcame what at the outset seemed insurmountable obstacles, and thus was arranged one of the best and luckiest performances ever given. For weeks and weeks that wonderful cast played to overflowing houses. The month wore on, but the public taste did not wear out, July found all these stars still in the firmament, and even in August they remained shining in town.

Moral: the very best always receives recognition. The “best” lay in the acting, for as a play the Merry Wives is by no means one of Shakespeare’s best. It is said he wrote it in ten days by order of Queen Elizabeth. How delighted Bouncing Bess would have been if she could have seen the Coronation performance!

[Pg 177]

I passed down the Haymarket early in the morning preceding that famous first night. There, sitting on camp-stools, were people who had been waiting from 5 a.m. to get into the pit and gallery that evening. They had a long wait, over twelve hours some of them, but certainly they thought it worth while if they enjoyed themselves as much as I did. It was truly a record performance.

The house was packed; in one box was the Lord Chief Justice of England, in the stalls below him Sir Edward Clarke, at one time Solicitor-General, and who has perhaps the largest practice at the Bar of any one in London. Then there was Mr. Kendal not far off, watching his wife. Mr. and Mrs. Beerbohm Tree’s daughter—showing a strong resemblance to both parents—was in a box; Princess Colonna was likewise there; together with some of the most celebrated doctors, such as Sir Felix Semon, learned in diseases of the throat, Sir Anderson Critchett, our host of a few nights before, while right in the front sat old Mrs. Beerbohm, watching her son with keen interest and enjoyment, and, a little behind, that actor’s clever brother, known on an important weekly as “Max,” a severe and caustic dramatic critic.

The enthusiasm of the audience was extraordinary. When some one had called for the feminine “stars” at one of the rehearsals, Mrs. Kendal, with ready wit, seized Ellen Terry by the hand, exclaiming:

“Ancient Lights would be more appropriate, methinks[Pg 178]!”

Below is the programme.

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The Merry Wives of Windsor is a comedy, but it was played on the first night as a comedy of comedies, every one, including Lionel Brough as the Innkeeper, being delightfully jovial. Every one seemed in the highest spirits, and all those sedate actors and actresses thoroughly enjoyed a romp. When the two[Pg 179] ladies of the evening appeared on the scene hand in hand, convulsed with laughter, they were clapped so enthusiastically that it really seemed as if they would never be allowed to begin.

What a contrast they were, in appearance and style. They had played together as children, but never after, till that night. During the forty years that had rolled over Ellen Terry’s head since those young days she has developed into a Shakespearian actress of the first rank. Her life has been spent in declaiming blank verse, wearing mediæval robes, and enacting tragedy and comedy of ancient days by turn, and added to her vast experience, she has a great and wonderful personality.

Mrs. Kendal, on the other hand, who stands at the head of the comedians of the day, and is also mistress of her art, has played chiefly modern parts and depicted more constantly the sentiment of the time; but has seldom attacked blank verse; therefore, the two leading actresses of England are distinctly dissimilar in training and style. No stronger contrast could have been imagined; and yet, although neither part actually suited either, the finished actress was evident in every gesture, every tone, every look of both, and it would be hard to say which achieved the greatest triumph, each was so perfect in her own particular way.

Miss Ellen Terry did not know her words—she rarely does on a first night, and is even prone to forget her old parts. Appearing in a new character that she was obliged to learn for the occasion, she had not[Pg 180] been able to memorise it satisfactorily; but that did not matter in the least. She looked charming, she was charming, the prompter was ever ready, and if she did repeat a line a second time while waiting to be helped with the next, no one seemed to think that of any consequence. When she went up the stairs to hide while Mrs. Kendal (Mrs. Ford) made Tree (Falstaff) propose to her, Mrs. Kendal packed her off in great style, and then wickedly and with amusing emphasis remarked:

“Mistress Page, remember your cue,” which of course brought down the house.

Their great scene came in the third act, when they put Falstaff into the basket. Mr. Tree was excellent as the preposterously fat knight—a character verily all stuff and nonsense. He is a tall man, and in his mechanical body reaches enormous girth. Falstaff and the Merry Wives had a regular romp over the upset of the basket, and the audience entering into the fun of the thing laughed as heartily as they did. Oh dear, oh dear! how every one enjoyed it.

A few nights later during this same scene Mr. Tree was observed to grow gradually thinner. He seemed to be going into a “rapid decline,” for his belt began to slip about, and his portly form grew less and less. Ellen Terry noticed the change: it was too much for her feelings. With the light-hearted gaiety of a child she was convulsed with mirth. She pointed out the phenomenon to Mrs. Kendal, who at once saw the humour of it, as did the audience, but the chief actor could not fathom the cause of the immoderate[Pg 181] hilarity until his belt began to descend. Then he realised that “Little Mary”—which in his case was an air pillow—had lost her screw, and was rapidly fading away.

But to return to that memorable first night; as the curtain fell on the last act the audience clapped and clapped, and not content with having the curtain up four or five times, called and called until the entire company danced hand in hand across the stage in front of the curtain. Even that was not enough, although poor Mrs. Kendal lost her enormous horned head-dress during the dance. The curtain had to be rung up again and again, till Mr. Tree stepped forward and said he had no speech to make beyond thanking the two charming ladies for their assistance and support, whereupon these two executed pas seuls on either side of the portly Falstaff.

It was a wonderful performance, and although the two women mentioned stood out pre-eminently, one must not forget Mrs. Tree, who appeared as “Sweet Anne Page.” She received quite an ovation when her husband brought her forward to bow her acknowledgments. Bows on such an occasion or in such a comedy are quite permissible; but was ever anything more disconcerting than to see an actor who has just died before us in writhing agony, spring forward to bow at the end of some tragedy—to rise from the dead to smile—to see a man who has just moved us to tears and evoked our sympathy, stand gaily before us, to laugh at our sentiment and cheerily mock at our enthusiasm? Could anything be more inartistic?[Pg 182] A “call” often spoils a tragedy, not only in the theatre but at the opera. Over zeal on the part of the audience, and over vanity on the side of the actor, drags away the veil of mystery which is our make-believe of reality, and shows glaringly the make-believe of the whole thing.

Mr. Beerbohm Tree never hesitates to tell a story against himself, and he once related an amusing experience in connection with his original production of The Merry Wives of Windsor.

In the final scene at Herne’s oak, where Falstaff is pursued by fairy elves and sprites, the burly knight endeavours to escape from his tormentors by climbing the trunk of a huge tree. In order to render this possible the manager had ordered some pegs to be inserted in the bark, but on the night of the final dress rehearsal these necessary aids were absent. A carpenter was summoned, and Mr. Tree, pointing to his namesake, said in tones of the deepest reproach:

“No pegs! No pegs!”

When the eventful first night came Falstaff found to his annoyance and amazement that he was still unable to compass the climb by which he hoped to create much amusement. On the fall of the curtain the delinquent was again called into the managerial presence and addressed in strong terms. He, however, quickly cut short the reproof by exclaiming:

“’Ere, I say, guvnor, ’old ’ard: what was your words last night at the re-’earsal? ’No pegs,’ you said—’no pegs’—well, there ain’t none,” and he gave[Pg 183] a knowing smack of the lips as if to insinuate another kind of peg would be acceptable.

Experience has shown Mr. Tree that he can give the necessary appearance of bloated inflation to the cheeks of the fat knight by the aid of a paint-brush alone; but then Mr. Tree mixes his paints with brains. When he first essayed the character of Falstaff he relied for his effect on cotton wool and wig-paste. Even now his nose is deftly manipulated with paste to increase its size and shape, and I once saw him give it a tweak after a performance with droll effect. A little lump of nose-paste remained in his hand, while his own white organ shone forth in the midst of a rubicund countenance.

On an early occasion at the Crystal Palace Mr. Tree was delighted at a burst of uproarious merriment on the part of the audience, and flattered himself that the scene was going exceptionally well. Happening to glance downwards, however, he saw that the padding had slipped from his right leg, leaving him with one lean shank while the other leg still assumed gigantic proportions. He looked down in horror. The audience were not laughing with him, but at him. He endeavoured to beat a hasty retreat, but found he could not stir, for one of his cheeks had fallen off when leaning forward, and in more senses than one he had “put his foot in it” and required extra cheek, not less, to compass an exit from the stage.

Such are the drolleries incumbent on a character like Falstaff.

[Pg 184]

Mr. Tree has his serious moments, however, and none are more serious than his present contemplation of his Dramatic School, which he believes “will appeal not only to the profession of actors, but to all interested in the English theatre, the English language, and English oratory, men whose talents are occupied in public life, in politics, in the pulpit, or at the Bar. Unless a dramatic school can be self-supporting it is not likely to survive. Acting cannot be taught—but many things can—such as voice-production, gesture and deportment, fencing and dancing.”

Every one will wish his bold venture success; and if he teaches a few of our “well-known” actors and actresses to speak so that we can follow every word of what they say, which at present we often cannot do, he will confer a vast boon on English playgoers, and doubtless add largely to the receipts of the theatres. It is a brave effort on his part, and he deserves every encouragement.

As this chapter began with a first-night performance, it shall end with first-night thoughts.

Are we not one and all hypercritical on such occasions?

We little realise the awful strain behind the scenes in the working of that vast machinery, the play. Not only is the author anxious, but the actors and actresses are worn out with rehearsals and nervousness: property men, wig-makers, scene-painters, and fly-men are all in a state of extreme tension. The front of the house little realises what a truly awful ordeal [Pg 185]a first night is for all concerned, and while it is kind to encourage by clapping, it is cruel to condemn by hissing or booing.

All behind the footlights do their best, or try so far as nervousness will let them, and surely we in the audience should not expect a perfect or a smooth representation, and should give encouragement whenever possible.

After all, however much the actors may suffer from nervousness and anxiety on a first night, their position is not really so trying as that of the author. If the actor is not a success, it may be “the part does not suit him,” or “it is a bad play,” there may be the excuse of “want of adequate support,” for he is only one of a number; but the poor author has to bear the brunt of everything. If his play fail the whole thing is a fiasco. He is blamed by every one. It costs more to put on another play than to change a single actor. The author stands alone to receive abuse or praise; he knows that, not only may failure prove ruin to him, but it may mean loss to actors, actresses, managers, and even the call boy. Therefore the more conscientious he is, the more torture he suffers in his anxiety to learn the public estimation of his work. The criticism may not be judicious, but if favourable it brings grist to the mill of all concerned.

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FEW authors are so interesting as their work—they generally reserve their wit or trenchant sarcasm for their books. W. S. Gilbert is an exception to this rule, however; he is as amusing himself as his Bab Ballads, and as sarcastic as H.M.S. Pinafore. A sparkling librettist, he is likewise a brilliant talker. How he loves a joke, even against himself. How well he tells a funny story, even if he invent it on the spot as “perfectly true.”

His mind is so quick, he grasps the stage-setting of a dinner-party at once, and forthwith adapts his drama of the hour to exactly suit his audience.

Like all amusing people, he has his quiet moments, of course; but when Mr. Gilbert is in good form he is inimitable. He talks like his plays, turns everything upside-down with wondrous rapidity, and propounds nonsensical theories in delightful language.[Pg 187] He is assuredly the greatest wit of his day, and to him we owe the origin of musical-comedy in its best form.

With a congenial companion Mr. Gilbert is in his element. He is a fine-looking man with white hair and ponderous moustache, and owing to his youthful complexion appears younger than his years. He loves to have young people about him, and is never happier than when surrounded by friends.

In 1901, after an interval of nearly twenty years, his clever comic opera Iolanthe was revived at the Savoy with great success. Not one line, not one word of its original text had been altered, yet it took London by storm, just as did Pinafore when produced for the second time. How few authors’ work will stand so severe a test.

The genesis of Iolanthe is referable, like many of Mr. Gilbert’s libretti, to one of the Bab Ballads. The “primordial atomic globule” from which it traces its descent is a poem called The Fairy Curate, in which a clergyman, the son of a fairy, gets into difficulties with his bishop, who catches him in the act of embracing an airily dressed young lady, whom the bishop supposes to be a member of the corps de ballet. The bishop, reasonably enough, declines to accept the clergyman’s explanation that the young lady is his mother, and difficulties ensue. In the opera, Strephon, who is the son of the fairy Iolanthe, is detected by his fiancée Phyllis in the act of embracing his mother; Phyllis takes the bishop’s view of the situation, and complications arise.

[Pg 188]

Mr. Gilbert has penned such well-known blank verse dramas as The Palace of Truth, Pygmalion and Galatea, The Wicked Worlds, Broken Hearts, besides many serious and humorous plays and comedies—namely, Dan’l Druce, Engaged, Sweethearts, Comedy and Tragedy, and some dozen light operas.

It is a well-known fact that almost every comedian wishes to be a tragedian, and vice versâ, and Mr. Gilbert is said to have had a great and mighty sorrow all his life. He always wanted to write serious dramas—long, five-act plays full of situations and thought. But no; fate ordained otherwise, when, having for a change started his little barque as a librettist, he had to persevere in penning what he calls “nonsense.” The public were right; they knew there was no other W. S. Gilbert; they wanted to be amused, so they continually clamoured for more; and if any one did not realise his genius at the first production, he can hardly fail to do so now, when the author’s plays are again presented after a lapse of years, without an altered line, and still make long runs. Some say the art of comedy-writing is dying out, and certainly no second Gilbert seems to be rising among the younger men of the present day, no humourist who can call tears or laughter at will, and send his audience away happy every night. The world owes a debt of gratitude to this gifted scribe, for he has never put an unclean line upon the stage, and yet provokes peals of laughter while shyly giving his little digs at existing evils. His style has justly created a name of its own.

[Pg 189]

W. S. Gilbert has always had a deep-rooted objection to newspaper interviews, just as he refuses ever to see one of his own plays performed. He attends the last rehearsal, gives the minutest directions up to the final moment, and then usually spends the evening in the green-room or in the wings of the theatre. Very few authors accept fame or success more philosophically than he does. When Princess Ida was produced he was sitting in the green-room, where there was an excitable Frenchman, who had supplied the armour used in the piece. The play was going capitally, and the Frenchman exclaimed, in wild excitement, “Mais savez-vous que nous avons là un succès solide?” To which Mr. Gilbert quietly replied, “Yes, your armour seems to be shining brightly.”

“Ah!” exclaimed the Frenchman, with a gesture of amazement, “mais vous êtes si calme!”

And this would probably describe the outward appearance of the author on a first night; nevertheless nothing will induce him to go in front even with reproductions.

Mr. Gilbert, who was born in 1836, proudly remarks that he has cheated the doctors and signed a new lease of life on the twenty-one years’ principle. During those sixty-eight years he has turned his hand to many trades. After a career at the London University, where he took his B.A. degree, he read for the Royal Artillery, but the Crimean war was coming to an end, and consequently, more officers not being required, he became a clerk in the Privy Council Office, and was subsequently called to the[Pg 190] Bar at the Inner Temple. He was also an enthusiastic militiaman, and at one time an occasional contributor to Punch, becoming thus an artist as well as a writer. His pictures are well known, for the two or three hundred illustrations in the Bab Ballads are all from his clever pencil. Neatly framed they now adorn the billiard-room of his charming country home, and, strange to relate, the originals are not much larger than the reproductions, the work being extremely fine. I have seen him make an excellent sketch in a few minutes at his home on Harrow Weald; but photography has latterly cast its fascinations about him, and he often disappears into some dark chamber for hours at a time, alone with his thoughts and his photographic pigments, for he develops and prints everything himself. The results are charming, more especially his scenic studies.

What a lovely home his is, standing in a hundred and ten acres right on the top of Harrow Weald, with a glorious view over London, Middlesex, Berks, and Bucks. He farms the land himself, and talks of crops and live stock with a glib tongue, although the real enthusiast is his wife, who loves her prize chickens and her roses. Grim’s Dyke has an ideal garden, with white pigeons drinking out of shallow Italian bowls upon the lawn, with its wonderful Egyptian tent, its rose-walks and its monkey-house, its lake and its fish. The newly-made lake is so well arranged that it looks quite old with its bulrushes, water-lilies of pink, white, and yellow hue, and its blue forget-me-nots. The Californian trout have proved a[Pg 191] great success, and are a source of much sport. Everything is well planned and beautifully kept; no better lawns or neater walks, no more prolific glass houses or vegetable gardens could be found than those at Harrow Weald.

The Gilberts give delightful week-end parties, and the brightest star is generally the host himself.

At one of these recent gatherings, for which Grim’s Dyke is famous, some beautiful silver cups and a claret jug were upon the table. They were left by will to Mr. Gilbert by his colleague of so many years, Sir Arthur Sullivan, and are a great pleasure to both the host and hostess of that well-organised country house. I have met many interesting and clever people at Harrow Weald, for the brilliancy of the host and the charm of his wife naturally attract much that is best in this great city. It is a good house for entertaining, the music-room—formerly the studio of F. Goodall, R.A.—being a spacious oak-panelled chamber with a minstrels’ gallery, and cathedral windows. Excellent singing is often heard within those walls. Mr. Gilbert declares he is not musical himself; but such is hardly the case, for he on one or two occasions suggested to Sir Arthur Sullivan the style best suited to his words. His ear for time and rhythm is impeccable, but he fully admits he has an imperfect sense of tune.

The Squire of Harrow Weald is seen at his best at rehearsal.

H.M.S. Pinafore was first performed, I believe, in 1878, and about ten years afterwards it was revived[Pg 192] in London. Ten years later, that is to say 1899, it was again revived, and one Monday morning when I was leaving Grim’s Dyke, Mr. Gilbert, who was coming up to town to attend a rehearsal, asked me if I would care to see it.

“Nothing I should like better,” I replied, “for I have always understood that you and Mr. Pinero are the two most perfect stage managers in England.”

We drove to the stage door of the Savoy, whence down strange and dark stone stairs we made our way to the front of the auditorium itself. We crossed behind the footlights, passing through a small, unpretending iron door into the house, Mr. Gilbert leading the way, to a side box, which at the moment was shrouded in darkness; he soon, however, pushed aside the white calico dust-sheets that hung before it, and after placing chairs for his wife and myself, and hoping we should be comfortable, departed. What a spectre that theatre was! Hanging from gallery to pit were dust-sheets, the stalls all covered up with brown holland wrappers, and gloom and darkness on all things. Verily a peep behind the scenes which, more properly speaking, was before the scenes in this case, is like looking at a private house preparing for a spring cleaning.

Built out over what is ordinarily the orchestra, was a wooden platform large enough to contain a piano brilliantly played by a woman, beside whom sat the conductor of the orchestra, who was naturally the teacher of the chorus, and next to him the ordinary stage manager, with a chair for Mr. Gilbert placed [Pg 193]close by. The librettist, however, never sat on that chair. From 11.30 to 1.30—exactly two hours, he walked up and down in front of the stage, directing here, arranging there; one moment he was showing a man how to stand as a sailor, then how to clap his thighs in nautical style, and the next explaining to a woman how to curtsey, or telling a lover how to woo. Never have I seen anything more remarkable. In no sense a musician, Mr. Gilbert could hum any of the airs and show the company the minutest gesticulations at the same time. Be it understood they were already word and music perfect, and this was the second “stage rehearsal.” He never bullied or worried any one, he quietly went up to a person, and in the most insinuating manner said:

“If I were you, I think I should do it like this.”

And “this” was always so much better than their own performance that each actor quickly grasped the idea and copied the master. He even danced when necessary, to show them how to get the right number of steps in so as to land them at a certain spot at a certain time, explaining carefully:

“There are eight bars, and you must employ so many steps.”

Mr. Gilbert knows every bar, every intonation, every gesture, the hang of every garment, and the tilt of every hat. He has his plans and his ideas, and never alters the situations or even the gestures he has once thought out.

He marched up and down the stage advising an alteration here, an intonation there, all in the kindest[Pg 194] way possible, but with so much strength of conviction that all his suggestions were adopted without a moment’s hesitation. He never loses his temper, always sees the weak points, and is an absolute master of stage craft. His tact on such occasions is wonderful.

The love and confidence of that company in Mr. Gilbert was really delightful, and I have no hesitation in saying he was the best actor in the whole company whichever part he might happen to undertake. If anything he did not like occurred in the grouping of the chorus he clapped his hands and everybody stopped, when he would call out:

“Gentlemen in threes, ladies in twos,” according to a style of his own.

Twenty-five years previously he had been so horrified at chorus and crowd standing round the stage in a ring, that he invented the idea of breaking them up, and thereafter, according to arrangement, when “twos” or “threes” were called out the performers were to group themselves and talk in little clusters, and certainly the effect was more natural.

Mr. Gilbert had no notes of any kind. He brought them with him, but never opened the volume, and yet he knew exactly how everything ought to be done. This was his first rehearsal with the company, who up till then had been in the stage manager’s hands and worked according to printed instructions. The scene was a very different affair after the mastermind had set the pawns in their right squares, and made the bishops and knights move according to his will. In two hours they had gone through the[Pg 195] first act of Pinafore, and he clapped his hands and called for luncheon.

“It is just half-past one,” he said; “I am hungry, and I daresay you are hungry, so we will halt for half an hour. I shall be back by five minutes past two—that is five minutes’ grace, when”—bowing kindly—“I shall hope to see you again, ladies and gentlemen.”

We three lunched at the Savoy next door, and a few minutes before two he rose from the table, ere he had finished his coffee, and said he must go.

“You are in a hurry,” I laughingly said.

“Yes,” he replied, “I have made it a rule never to be late. The company know I shall be there, so the company will be in their places.”

A friend once congratulated him on his punctuality.

“Don’t,” he said; “I have lost more time by being punctual than by anything else.”

One thing in particular struck me as wonderful during the rehearsal. Half a dozen soldiers are supposed to come upon the stage, and at a certain point half a dozen untidily dressed men with guns in their hands marched in. Mr. Gilbert looked at them for a moment, and then he went up to one gallant warrior and said:

“Is that the way you hold your gun?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Really! Well, I never saw a soldier with his thumbs down before—in fact, I don’t think you are a soldier at all.”

“No, sir, I am a volunteer[Pg 196].”

Mr. Gilbert turned to the stage manager hastily, and said:

“I told you I wanted soldiers.”

“But there is a sergeant,” he replied.

“Sergeant,” called Mr. Gilbert, “step forward.” Which the sergeant did.

“You know your business,” the author remarked, watching the man’s movements, “but these fellows know nothing. Either bring me real soldiers, or else take these five men and drill them until at least they know how to stand properly before they come near me again.”

Later in the proceedings a dozen sailors marched on: he went up to them, asked some questions about how they would man the yard-arm, and on hearing their reply said:

“I see you know your business, you’ll do.”

As it turned out, they were all Naval Reserve men, so no wonder they knew their business. Still, Mr. Gilbert’s universal knowledge of all sorts and conditions of men struck me as wonderful on this and many other occasions. No more perfect stage manager exists, and no one gets more out of his actors and actresses.

At one time Patience was being played in the United States by dozens of companies, but that was before the days of copyright, and poor Mr. Gilbert never received a penny from America excepting once when a kindly person sent him a cheque for £100. Had he received copyright fees from the United States his wealth would have been colossal.

[Pg 197]

When Iolanthe was revived in London in 1902 I again attended a “call.” An entirely new company began rehearsing exactly ten days before the first night—any one who knows anything of the stage will realise what this means, and that a master-mind was necessary to drill actors and chorus in so short a time—yet the production was a triumph. This was the first occasion on which Sir Arthur Sullivan did not conduct the dress rehearsal or the first night of one of their joint operas. He had died shortly before.

Mr. Gilbert was delighted with the cast, and declared it was quite as good, and in some respects perhaps better, than the original had been. A few of the people had played principals in the provinces before; but he would not allow any of their own “business” and remarked quietly:

“In London my plays are produced as I wish them; in the provinces you can do as you like.”

And certainly they obeyed him so implicitly that if he had asked them all to stand on their heads in rows, I believe they would have done it smilingly.

When Mr. Gilbert was about thirty-five years old, a matinée of Broken Hearts was arranged for a charity. The author arrived at the theatre about one o’clock, to find Kyrle Bellew, who was to play the chief part, had fallen through a trap and was badly hurt. There was no understudy—and only an hour intervened before the advertised time of representation.

Good Heavens! what was to be done? The audience had paid their money, which the charity wanted badly, and without the hero the play was impossible.

[Pg 198]

He good-naturedly and kind-heartedly decided to play the part himself rather than let the entertainment fall through, wired for wig and clothes, and an hour and a half later walked on to the stage as an actor. He knew every line of the play of course, not only the hero’s, but all the others’, and he had just coached every situation. The papers duly thanked him and considered him a great success. That was his only appearance upon the stage in public.

For twenty-five years he never saw one of his own plays, not caring to sit in front; but once, at a watering-place in the Fatherland where The Mikado was being given, some friends persuaded him to see it in German.

“I know what rubbish these comic operas are, and I should feel ashamed to sit and hear them and know they were mine,” he modestly remarked.

Nevertheless he went, and was rather amused, feeling no responsibility on his shoulders, and afterwards saw The Mikado in England at a revival towards the end of the nineties. He once told me a rather amusing little story about The Mikado. A gentleman who had been many years in the English Legation at Yokohama, attended some of the rehearsals, and was most useful in giving hints as to positions and manners in Japan. Mr. Gilbert wanted some effective music for the entrance of the Mikado—nothing Mr. Arthur Sullivan suggested suited—so turning to the gentleman he said:

“Can’t you hum the national Japanese anthem?”

“Oh yes,” he said cheerily. And he did.

[Pg 199]

“Capital—it’ll just do.”

Mr. Sullivan—for he was not then Sir Arthur—made notes, wrote it up, and the thing proved a great success. Some time afterwards a furious letter came from a Japanese, saying an insult had been offered the Mikado of Japan, the air to which that illustrious prince entered the scene instead of being royal was a music hall tune! Whether this is so or not remains a mystery, anyway it is a delightful melody, and most successful to this day.

Mr. Gilbert has been a great traveller—for many years he wintered abroad in India, Japan, Burmah, Egypt, or Greece, and at one time he was the enthusiastic owner of a yacht; but this amusement he has given up because so few of his friends were good sailors, and so he has taken to motoring instead.

Croquet-playing and motoring are the chief amusements of this “retired humourist,” as a local cab-driver once described the Squire of Grim’s Dyke.

---

EXACTLY nine days before Christmas, 1902, the first rehearsal for the pantomime of Mother Goose took place at Drury Lane. It seemed almost incredible that afternoon that such a thing as a “first night,” with a crowded house packed full of critics, could witness a proper performance nine days later, one of which, being a Sunday, did not count.

The pantomime is one of England’s institutions. It originally came from Italy, but as known to-day is essentially a British production, and little understood anywhere else in the world. For the last three years, however, the Drury Lane pantomime has been moved bodily to New York with considerable success.

What would Christmas in London be without its Drury Lane? What would the holidays be without the clown and harlequin? Young and old enjoy the[Pg 201] exquisite absurdity of the nursery rhyme dished up as a Christmas pantomime.

The interior of that vast theatre, Drury Lane, was shrouded in dust-sheets and darkness, the front doors were locked, excepting at the booking office, where tickets were being sold for two and three months ahead, and a long queue of people were waiting to engage seats for family parties when the pantomime should be ready.

At the stage door all was bustle; children of all ages and sizes were pushing in and out; carpenters, shifters, supers, ballet girls, chorus, all were there, too busy to speak to any one as they rushed in from their cup of tea at the A.B.C., or stronger drink procured at the “pub” opposite. It was a cold, dreary day outside; but it was colder and drearier within. Those long flights of stone steps, those endless stone passages, struck chill and cheerless as a cellar, for verily the back of a theatre resembles a cellar or prison more than anything I know.

Drury Lane contains a little world. It is reckoned that about one thousand people are paid “back and front” every Friday night. One thousand persons! That is the staff of the pantomime controlled by Mr. Arthur Collins. Fancy that vast organisation, those hundreds of people, endless scenery, and over two thousand dresses superintended by one man, and that a young one.

For many weeks scraps of Mother Goose had been rehearsed in drill-halls, schoolrooms, and elsewhere, but never till the day of which I write had the stage[Pg 202] been ready for rehearsal. They had worked hard, all those people; for thirteen-and-a-half hours on some days they had already been “at it.” Think what thirteen-and-a-half-hours mean. True, no one is wanted continuously, still all must be on the spot. Often there is nowhere to sit down, therefore during those weary hours the performers have to stand—only between-whiles singing or dancing their parts as the case may be.

“I’m that dead tired,” exclaimed a girl, “I feel just fit to drop,” and she probably expressed the feelings of many of her companions.

The rehearsal of The Rose of the Riviera, was going on in the saloon, which a hundred years ago was the fashionable resort of all the fops of the town. Accordingly to the saloon I proceeded where Miss Madge Lessing, neatly dressed in black and looking tired, was singing her solos, and dancing her steps with the chorus.

“It is very hard work,” she said. “I have been through this song until I am almost voiceless; and yet I only hum it really, for if we sang out at rehearsal, we should soon be dead.”

The saloon was the ordinary foyer, but on that occasion, instead of being crowded with idlers smoking and drinking during the entr’actes, it was filled with hard-worked ballet girls and small boys who were later to be transformed into dandies. They wore their own clothes. The women’s long skirts were held up with safety-pins, to keep them out of the way when dancing, their shirts and blouses were of every hue;[Pg 203] on their heads they wore men’s hats that did not fit them, as they lacked the wigs they would wear later, and each carried her own umbrella, many of which, when opened, seemed the worse for wear. At the end of the bar was a cottage piano, where the composer played his song for two-and-a-half hours, while it was rehearsed again and again—a small man with a shocking cold conducting the chorus. He is, I am told, quite a celebrity as a stage “producer,” and was engaged in that capacity by Mr. George Edwards at the New Gaiety Theatre. How I admired that small man. His energy and enthusiasm were catching, and before he finished he had made those girls do just what he wanted. But oh! how hard he worked, in spite of frequent resort to his pocket-handkerchief and constant fits of sneezing.

“This way, ladies, please”—he repeated over and over, and then proceeded to show them how to step forward on “Would—you like a—flower?” and to take off their hats at the last word of the sentence. Again and again they went through their task; but each time they seemed out of line, or out of time, not quick enough or too quick, and back they had to go and begin the whole verse once more. Even then he was not satisfied.

“Again, ladies, please,” he called, and again they all did the passage. This sort of thing had been going on since 11 o’clock, the hour of the “call,” and it was then 4 p.m.—but the rehearsal was likely to last well into the night and begin again next morning at 11 a.m. This was to continue all day, and pretty well all night[Pg 204] for nine days, when, instead of a holiday, the pantomime was really to commence with its two daily performances, and its twelve hours per diem attendance at the theatre for nearly four months. Yet there are people who think the stage is all fun and frolic! Little they know about the matter.

Actors are not paid for rehearsals, as we have seen before, and many weeks of weary attendance for the pantomime have to be given gratis, just as they are for legitimate drama. Those beautiful golden fairies, all glitter and gorgeousness, envied by spectators in front, only receive £1 a week on an average for twelve hours’ occupation daily, and that merely for a few weeks, after which time many of them earn nothing more till the next pantomime season. It is practically impossible to give an exact idea of salaries: they vary so much. “Ballet girls,” when proficient, earn more than any ordinary “chorus” or “super,” with the exception of “show girls.” Those in the rank of “principals,” or “small-part ladies,” of course earn more.

Ballet girls begin their profession at eight years of age, and even in their prime can only earn on an average £2 a week.

In the ballet-room an iron bar runs all round the sides of the wall, about four feet from the floor, as in a swimming bath. It is for practice. The girls hold on to the bar, and learn to kick and raise their legs by the hour; with its aid suppleness of movement, flexibility of hip and knee are acquired. Girls spend years of their life learning how to earn that[Pg 205] forty shillings a week, and how to keep it when they have earned it; for the ballet girl has to be continually practising, or her limbs would quickly stiffen and her professional career come to an end.

No girl gets her real training at the Lane. All that is done in one of the dancing schools kept by Madame Katti Lanner, Madame Cavalazzi, John D’Auban, or John Tiller. When they are considered sufficiently proficient they get engagements, and are taught certain movements invented by their teachers to suit the particular production of the theatre itself.

The ballet is very grand in the estimation of the pantomime, for supers, male and female, earn considerably less salary than the ballet for about seventy-two hours’ attendance at the theatre. Out of their weekly money they have to provide travelling expenses to and from the theatre, which sometimes come heavy, as many of them live a long distance off; they have to pay rent also, and feed as well as clothe themselves, settle for washing, doctor, amusements—everything, in fact. Why, a domestic servant is a millionaire when compared with a chorus or ballet girl, and she is never harassed with constant anxiety as to how she can pay her board, rent, and washing bills. Yet how little the domestic servant realises the comforts—aye luxury—of her position.

The dressing-rooms are small and cheerless. Round the sides run double tables, the top one being used for make-up boxes, the lower for garments. In the middle of the floor is a wooden stand with a double row of pegs upon it, utilised for hanging up dresses.[Pg 206] Eight girls share a “dresser” (maid) between them. The atmosphere of the room may be imagined, with flaring gas jets, nine women, and barely room to turn round amid the dresses. The air becomes stifling at times, and there is literally no room to sit down even if the costumes would permit of such luxury, which generally they will not. In this tiny room performers have to wait for their “call,” when they rush downstairs, through icy cold passages, to the stage, whence they must return again in time to don the next costume required.

Prior to the production, as we have seen, there are a number of rehearsals, followed for many weeks by two performances a day, consequently the children who are employed cannot go on with their education, and to avoid missing their examinations a school-board mistress has been appointed, who teaches them their lessons during the intervals. These children must be bright scholars, for they are the recipients at the end of the season of several special prizes for diligence, punctuality, and good conduct.

An attempt was recently made to limit the age of children employed on the stage to fourteen, but the outcry raised was so great that it could not be done. For children under eleven a special licence is required.

Miss Ellen Terry said, on the subject of children on the stage: “I am an actress, but first I am a woman, and I love children,” and then proceeded to advocate the employment of juveniles upon the stage. She spoke from experience, for she acted as a child herself. “I can put my finger at once on the actors[Pg 207] and actresses who were not on the stage as children,” she continued. “With all their hard work they can never acquire afterwards that perfect unconsciousness which they learn then so easily. There is no school like the stage for giving equal chances to boys and girls alike.”

There seems little doubt about it, the ordinary stage child is the offspring of the very poor, his playground the gutter, his surroundings untidy and unclean, his food and clothing scanty, and such being the case he is better off in every way in a well-organised theatre, where he learns obedience, cleanliness, and punctuality. The sprites and fairies love their plays, and the greatest punishment they can have—indeed, the only one inflicted at Drury Lane—is to be kept off the stage a whole day for naughtiness.

They appear to be much better off in the theatre than they would be at home, although morning school and two performances a day necessitate rather long hours for the small folk. They have a nice classroom, and are given buns and milk after school; but their dressing accommodation is limited. Many of the supers and children have to change as best they can under the stage, for there is not sufficient accommodation for every one in the rooms.

The once famous “Green-room” of Drury Lane has been done away with. It is now a property-room, where geese’s heads line the shelves, or golden seats and monster champagne bottles litter the floor.

There have been many changes at Drury Lane. It[Pg 208] was rebuilt after the fire in 1809, and reopened in 1812, but vast alterations have been carried out since then. Woburn Place is now part of the stage. Steps formerly led from Russell Street to Vinegar Yard, but they have been swept away and the stage enlarged until it is the biggest in the world. Most ordinary theatres have an opening on the auditorium of about twenty-five feet; Drury Lane measures fifty-two feet from fly to fly, and is even deeper in proportion. The entire stage is a series of lifts, which may be utilised to move the floor up or down. Four tiers, or “flats,” can be arranged, and the floor moved laterally so as to form a hill or mound. All this is best seen from the mezzanine stage, namely, that under the real one, where the intricacies of lifts and ropes and rooms for electricians become most bewildering. Here, too, are the trap-doors. For many years they went out of fashion, as did also the ugly masks, but a Fury made his entrance by a trap on Boxing Day, 1902, and this may revive the custom again. The actor steps on a small wooden table in the mezzanine stage, and at a given sign the spring moves and he is shot to the floor above. How I loved and pondered as a child over these wonderful entrances of fairies and devils. And after all there was nothing supernatural about them, only a wooden table and a spring. How much of the glamour vanishes when we look below the surface, which remark applies not only to the stage, but to so many things in life.

Every good story seems to have been born a chestnut. Some one always looks as if he had heard[Pg 209] it before. At the risk of arousing that sarcastic smile I will relate the following anecdote, however.

A certain somewhat stout Mephistopheles had to disappear through a trap-door amid red fire, but the trap was small and he was big and stuck halfway. The position was embarrassing, when a voice from the gallery called out:

“Cheer up, guv’nor. Hell’s full.”

Electricity plays a great part in the production of a pantomime, not only as regards the lighting of the scenes, but also as a motive power for the lifts which are used for the stage. Many new inventions born during the course of a year are utilised when the Christmas festival is put on.

The property-room presents a busy scene before a pantomime, and really it is wonderful what can be produced within its walls. Almost everything is made in papier mâché. Elaborate golden chairs and couches, chariots and candelabras, although framed in wood, are first moulded in clay, then covered with papier mâché. Two large fires burned in the room, which when I entered was crowded with workmen, and the heat was overpowering. Amid all that miscellaneous property, every one seemed interested in what he was doing, whether making wire frames for poke bonnets, or larger wire frames for geese, or the groundwork of champagne bottles to contain little boys. Each man had a charcoal drawing on brown paper to guide him, and very cleverly many of the drawings were executed. Some of the men were quite sculptors, so admirably did they model masks and figures in papier mâché.[Pg 210] The more elaborate pieces are prepared outside the theatre, but a great deal of the work for the production is done within old Drury Lane.

What becomes of these extra property-men after the “festive season”? Practically the same staff appear each Christmas only to disappear from “The Lane” for almost another year. Of course there is a large permanent staff of property-men employed, but it is only at Christmas-time that so large an army is required for the gigantic pantomime changes with the transformation scenes.

That nearly everything is made on the premises is in itself a marvel. Of course the grander dresses are obtained from outside; some come from Paris, while others are provided by tradesmen in London. The expense is very great; indeed, it may be roughly reckoned it costs about £20,000 to produce a Drury Lane Pantomime; but then, on the other hand, that sum is generally taken at the doors or by the libraries in advance-booking before the curtain rises on the first night.

An important person at Drury Lane is the wardrobe-woman. She has entire control of thousands of dresses, and keeps a staff continually employed mending and altering, for after each performance something requires attention. She has a little room of her own, mostly table, so far as I could see, on which were piled dresses, poke bonnets, and artists’ designs, while round the walls hung more dresses brought in for her inspection. In other odd rooms and corners women sat busily sewing, some trimming headgear, other spangling[Pg 211] ribbon. Some were joining seams by machinery, others quilling lace; nothing seemed finished, and yet everything had to be ready in nine days, and that vast pile of chaos reduced to order. It seemed impossible; but the impossible was accomplished.

“Why this hurry?” some one may ask.

“Because the autumn drama was late in finishing, the entire theatre had to be cleared, and although everything was fairly ready outside, nothing could be brought into Drury Lane till a fortnight before Boxing Day. Hence the confusion and hurry.”

Large wooden cases of armour, swords and spears, from abroad, were waiting to be unpacked, fitted to each girl, and numbered so that the wearer might know her own.

Among the properties were some articles that looked like round red life-belts, or window sand-bags sewn into rings. These were the belts from which fairies would be suspended. They had leather straps and iron hooks attached, with the aid of which these lovely beings—as seen from the front—disport themselves. What a disillusion! Children think they are real fairies flying through air, and after all they are only ordinary women hanging to red sand-bags, made up like life-belts, and suspended by wire rope. Even those wonderful wings are only worn for a moment. They are slipped into a hole in the bodice of every fairy’s back just as she goes upon the stage, and taken out again for safety when the good lady leaves the wings in the double sense. The wands and other larger properties are treated in the same way.

---

[Pg 212]

Now for the stage and the rehearsal. We could hear voices singing, accompanied by a piano with many whizzing notes.

The place was dimly lighted. Scene-shifters were busy rehearsing their “sets” at the sides, the electrician was experimenting with illuminations from above; but the actors, heeding none of these matters, went on with their own parts. The orchestra was empty and not boarded over; so that the cottage piano had to stand at one side of the stage, and near it I was given a seat. A T-piece of gas had been fixed above the footlights, so as to enable the prompter to follow his book, and—gently be it spoken—allow some of the actors to read their parts. The star was not there—I looked about for the mirth-provoking Dan Leno, but failed to see him. Naturally he was the one person I particularly wanted to watch rehearse, for I anticipated much amusement from this wonderful comedian, with his inspiring gift of humour. Where was he?

A sad, unhappy-looking little man, with his MS. in a brown paper cover, was to be seen wandering about the back of the stage. He appeared miserable. One wondered at such a person being there at all, he looked so out of place. He did not seem to know a word of his “book,” or, in fact, to belong in any way to the pantomime.

It seemed incredible that this could be one of the performers. He wore a thick top coat with the collar turned up to keep off the draughts, a thick muffler and a billycock hat; really one felt sorry[Pg 213] for him, he looked so cold and wretched. I pondered for some time why this sad little gentleman should be on the stage at all.

“Dan, Dan, where are you?” some one called.

“Me? Oh, I’m here,” replied the disconsolate-looking person, to my amazement.

“It’s your cue.”

“Oh, is it? Which cue?” asked the mufflered individual who was about to impersonate mirth.

“Why, so and so——”

“What page is that?”

“Twenty-three.”

Whereupon the great Dan—for it was really Dan himself—proceeded to find number twenty-three, and immediately began reading a lecture to the goose in mock solemn vein, when some one cried:

“No, no, man, that’s not it, you are reading page thirteen; we’ve done that.”

“Oh, have we? Thank you. Ah yes, here it is.”

“That’s my part,” exclaimed Herbert Campbell. “Your cue is——”

“Oh, is it?” and poor bewildered, unhappy-looking Dan made another and happier attempt.

It had often previously occurred to me that Dan Leno gagged his own part to suit himself every night—and really after this rehearsal the supposition seemed founded on fact, for apparently he did not know one word of anything nine days before the production of Mother Goose, in which he afterwards made such a brilliant hit.

“Do I say that?” he would inquire, or, “Are you talking to me[Pg 214]?”

After such a funny exhibition it seemed really wonderful to consider how excellent and full of humour he always is on the stage; but what a strain it must be, what mental agony, to feel you are utterly unprepared to meet your audience, that you do not know your words, and that only by making a herculean effort can the feat be accomplished.

Herbert Campbell differs from Dan Leno not only in appearance but method. He was almost letter-perfect at that rehearsal, he had studied his “book,” and was splendidly funny even while only murmuring his part. He evidently knew exactly what he was going to do, and although he did not trouble to do it, showed by a wave of his hand or a step where he meant business when the time came.

Herbert Campbell’s face, like the milkmaid’s, is his fortune. That wonderful under lip is full of fun. He has only to protrude it, and open his eyes, and there is the comedian personified. Comedians are born, not made, and the funny part of it is most of them are so truly tragic at heart and sad in themselves.

There is a story I often heard my grandfather, James Muspratt, tell of Liston, the comic actor.

Liston was in Dublin early in the nineteenth century, and nightly his performance provoked roars of laughter. One day a man walked into the consulting-room of a then famous doctor.

“I am very ill,” said the patient. “I am suffering from depression.”

“Tut, tut,” returned the physician, “you must[Pg 215] pull yourself together, you must do something to divert your thoughts. You must be cheerful and laugh.”

“Good Heavens! I would give a hundred pounds to enjoy a real, honest laugh again, doctor.”

“Well, you can easily do that for a few shillings, and I’ll tell you how. Go and see Liston to-night, he will make you laugh, I am sure.”

“Not he.”

“Why not?”

“Because I am Liston.”

Collapse of the doctor.

This shows the tragedy of the life of a comic actor. How often we see the amusing, delightful man or woman in society, and little dream how different they are at home. Most of us have two sides to our natures, and most of us are better actors than we realise ourselves, or than our friends give us credit for.

But to return to Drury Lane. Peering backwards across the empty orchestra I saw by the dim light that in the stalls sat, or leaned, women and children. Mr. Collins, who was in the front of the stage, personally attending to every detail, slipped forward.

“Huntsmen and gamekeepers,” he cried. Immediately there was a flutter, and in a few minutes these good women—for women were to play the rôles—were upon the back of the stage.

“Dogs,” he called again. With more noise than the female huntsmen had made, boys got up and began to run about the stage on all fours as “dogs[Pg 216].”

They surrounded Dan Leno.

“I shall hit you if you come near me,” he cried, pretending to do so with his doubled-up gloves.

The lads laughed.

“Growl,” said Mr. Collins—so they turned their laugh into a growl, followed round the stage by Dan, and the performance went on.

It was all very funny—funny, not because of any humour, for that was entirely lacking, but because of the simplicity and hopelessness of every one. Talk about a rehearsal at private theatricals—why, it is no more disturbing than an early stage rehearsal; but the seasoned actor knows how to pull himself out of the tangle, whereas the amateur does not.

About a fortnight after the pantomime began I chanced one afternoon to be at Drury Lane again, and while stopping for a moment in the wings, the great Dan Leno came and stood beside me, waiting for his cue. He was dressed as Mother Goose, and leant against the endless ropes that seemed to frame every stage entrance; some one spoke to him, but he barely answered, he appeared preoccupied. All at once his turn came. On he went, hugging a goose beneath which walked a small boy. Roars of applause greeted his entrance, he said his lines, and a few moments later came out amid laughter and clapping. “This will have cheered him up,” thought I—but no. There I left him waiting for his next cue, but I had not gone far before renewed roars of applause from the house told me Dan Leno was again on the stage. What a power to be able to amuse thousands of people[Pg 217] every week, to be able to bring mirth and joy into many a heart, to take people out of themselves and make the saddest merry—and Dan can do all this.

The object of my second visit was to have a little chat with Miss Madge Lessing, the “principal girl,” who exclaimed as I entered her dressing-room:

“I spend eleven hours in the theatre every day during the run of the pantomime.”

After that who can say a pantomime part is a sinecure? Eleven hours every day dressing, singing, dancing, acting, or—more wearisome of all—waiting. No one unaccustomed to the stage can realise the strain of such work, for it is only those who live at such high pressure, who always have to be on the alert for the “call-boy,” who know what it is to be kept at constant tension for so many consecutive hours.

Matinée days are bad enough in ordinary theatres, but the pantomime is a long series of matinée days extending over three months or more. Of course it is not compulsory to stay in the theatre between the performances; but it is more tiring, for the leading-lady, to dress and go out for a meal than to stay in and have it brought to the dressing-room.

Miss Lessing was particularly fortunate in her room; the best I have ever seen in any theatre. Formerly it was Sir Augustus Harris’s office. It was large and lofty, and so near the stage—on a level with which it actually stood—that one could hear what was going on in front. This was convenient in many ways, although it had its drawbacks. Many of our leading[Pg 218] theatrical lights have to traverse long flights of stairs between every act; while Miss Lessing was so close to the stage she need not leave her room until it was actually time to step upon the boards.

It was a matinée when the pantomime was in full swing that I bearded the lion in her den, and a pretty, dainty little lion I found her. It was a perilous journey to reach her room, but I bravely followed the “dresser” from the stage door. We passed a lilliputian pony about the size of a St. Bernard dog, we bobbed under the heads and tails of horses so closely packed together there was barely room for us to get between. The huntsmen were already mounted, for they were just going on, and I marvelled at the good behaviour of those steeds; they must have known they could not move without doing harm to some one, and so considerately remained still. We squeezed past fairies, our faces tickled by their wings, our dresses caught by their spangles, so closely packed was humanity “behind.” There were about two hundred scene-shifters incessantly at work moving “cloths,” and “flies,” and “drops,” and properties of all kinds. Miss Lessing was just coming off the stage, dressed becomingly in white muslin, with a blue Red Riding Hood cape and poppy-trimmed straw hat.

“Come along,” she said, “this is my room, and it is fairly quiet here.” The first things that strike a stranger are Miss Lessing’s wonderful grey Irish eyes and her American accent.

“Both are correct,” she laughed. “I’m Irish by extraction, although born in London, and I’ve lived[Pg 219] in America since I was fourteen; so you see there is ground for both your surmises.”

Miss Lessing is a Roman Catholic, and was educated at the Convent of the Sacred Heart at Battersea.

“I always wanted to go on the stage as long as ever I can remember,” she told me, “and I positively ran away from home and went over to America, where I had a fairly hard time of it. By good luck I managed to get an engagement in a chorus, and it chanced that two weeks later one of the better parts fell vacant owing to a girl’s illness, and I got it—and was fortunate enough to keep it, as she was unable to return, and the management were satisfied with me. I had to work very hard, had to take anything and everything offered to me for years. Had to do my work at night and improve my singing and dancing by day; but nothing is accomplished without hard work, is it? And I am glad I went through the grind because it has brought me a certain amount of reward.”

One had only to look at Miss Lessing to know she is not easily daunted; those merry eyes and dimpled cheeks do not detract from the firmness of the mouth and the expression of determination round the laughing lips. There was something particularly dainty about the “principal girl” at Drury Lane, and a sense of refinement and grace one does not always associate with pantomime.

“Why, yes,” she afterwards added, “I played all over the States, and after nine years was engaged by Mr. Arthur Collins to return to London and appear[Pg 220] in the pantomime of The Sleeping Beauty. Of course, I felt quite at home in London, although I must own I nearly died of fright the first time I played before an English audience. It seemed like beginning the whole thing over again. Londoners are more exacting than their American cousins; but I must confess, when they like a piece, or an artist, they are most lavish in their applause and approbation.”

It was cold, and Miss Lessing pulled a warm shawl over her shoulders and poked the fire. It can be cold even in such a comfortable dressing-room, with the luxury of a fire, for the draughts outside, either on the stage or round it, in such a large theatre are incredible to an ordinary mind. Frequenters of the stalls know the chilly blast that blows upon them when the curtain rises, so they may form some slight idea of what it is like behind the scenes on a cold night.

“After the performance I take off my make-up and have my dinner,” laughed Miss Lessing. “I don’t think I should enjoy my food if all this mess were left on; at all events I find it a relief to cold-cream it off. One gets a little tired of dinners on a tray for weeks at a time when one is not an invalid; but by the time I’ve eaten mine, and had a little rest, it is the hour to begin again, for the evening performance is at hand.”

“At all events, though, you can read and write between whiles,” I remarked.

“That is exactly what one cannot do. I no sooner settle down to a book or letters than some one wants me. It is the constant disturbance, the everlasting[Pg 221] interruption, that make two performances a day so trying; but I love the life, even if it be hard, and thoroughly enjoy my pantomime season.”

“Have you had many strange adventures in your theatrical life, Miss Lessing?”

“None: mine has been a placid existence on the whole, for,” she added, laughing, “I have not even lost diamonds or husbands!”

---

[Pg 222]

CHAPTER XII

SIR HENRY IRVING AND STAGE LIGHTING

Sir Henry Irving’s Position—Miss Geneviève Ward’s Dress—Reformations in Lighting—The most Costly Play ever Produced—Strong Individuality—Character Parts—Irving earned his Living at Thirteen—Actors and Applause—A Pathetic Story—No Shakespeare Traditions—Imitation is not Acting—Irving’s Appearance—His Generosity—The First Night of Dante—First night of Faust—Two Terriss Stories—Sir Charles Wyndham.

[Pg 240]

CHAPTER XIII

WHY A NOVELIST BECOMES A DRAMATIST

Novels and Plays—Little Lord Fauntleroy and his Origin—Mr. Hall Caine—Preference for Books to Plays—John Oliver Hobbes—J. M. Barrie’s Diffidence—Anthony Hope—A London Bachelor—A Pretty Wedding—A Tidy Author—A First Night—Dramatic Critics—How Notices are Written—The Critics Criticised—Distribution of Paper—“Stalls Full”—Black Monday—Do Royalty pay for their Seats?—Wild Pursuit of the Owner of the Royal Box—The Queen at the Opera.

[Pg 263]

CHAPTER XIV

SCENE-PAINTING AND CHOOSING A PLAY

Novelist—Dramatist—Scene-painter—An Amateur Scenic Artist—Weedon Grossmith to the Rescue—Mrs. Tree’s Children—Mr. Grossmith’s Start on the Stage—A Romantic Marriage—How a Scene is built up—English and American Theatres Compared—Choosing a Play—Theatrical Syndicate—Three Hundred and Fifteen Plays at the Haymarket.

[Pg 275]

CHAPTER XV

THEATRICAL DRESSING-ROOMS

A Star’s Dressing-room—Long Flights of Stairs—Miss Ward at the Haymarket—A Wimple—An Awkward Predicament—How an Actress Dresses—Herbert Waring—An Actress’s Dressing-table—A Girl’s Photographs of Herself—A Grease-paint Box—Eyelashes—White Hands—Mrs. Langtry’s Dressing-room—Clara Morris on Make-up—Mrs. Tree as Author—“Resting”—Mary Anderson on the Stage—An Author’s Opinion—Actors in Society.

[Pg 292]

CHAPTER XVI

HOW DOES A MAN GET ON THE STAGE?

A Voice Trial—How it is Done—Anxious Faces—Singing into Cimmerian Darkness—A Call to Rehearsal—The Ecstasy of an Engagement—Proof Copy; Private—Arrival of the Principals—Chorus on the Stage—Rehearsing Twelve Hours a Day for Nine Weeks without Pay.

[Pg 302]

CHAPTER XVII

A GIRL IN THE PROVINCES

Why Women go on the Stage—How to prevent it—Miss Florence St. John—Provincial Company—Theatrical Basket—A Fit-up Tour—A Theatre Tour—Répertoire Tour—Strange Landladies—Bills—The Longed-for Joint—Second-hand Clothes—Buying a Part—Why Men Deteriorate—Oceans of Tea—E. S. Willard—Why he Prefers America—A Hunt for Rooms—A Kindly Clergyman—A Drunken Landlady—How the Dog Saved an Awkward Predicament.

[Pg 325]

CHAPTER XVIII

PERILS OF THE STAGE

Easy to Make a Reputation—Difficult to Keep One—The Theatrical Agent—The Butler’s Letter—Mrs. Siddons’ Warning—Theatrical Aspirants—The Bogus Manager—The Actress of the Police Court—Ten Years of Success—Temptations—Late Hours—An Actress’s Advertisement—A Wicked Agreement—Rules Behind the Scenes—Edward Terry—Success a Bubble.

[Pg 345]

CHAPTER XIX

“CHORUS GIRL NUMBER II. ON THE LEFT”

A Fantasy Founded on Fact

Plain but Fascinating—The Swell in the Stalls—Overtures—Persistence—Introduction at Last—Her Story—His Kindness—Happiness crept in—Love—An Ecstasy of Joy—His Story—A Rude Awakening—The Result of Deception—The Injustice of Silence—Back to Town—Illness—Sleep.