At this time we were able to be of the right use to each other. Henry
could never have worked with a very strong woman. I should have
deteriorated in partnership with a weaker man whose ends were less
fine, whose motives were less pure. I had the taste and artistic
knowledge that his upbringing had not developed in him. For years he
did things to please me. Later on I gave up asking him. In "King
Lear" Mrs. Nettleship made him a most beautiful cloak, but he insisted
on wearing a brilliant purple velvet cloak with "glits" all over it
which spoiled his beautiful make-up and his beautiful acting. Poor
Mrs. Nettle was almost in tears.
"I'll never make you anything again," she said. "Never!"
[Illustration: PEGGY, MADAME SANS-GENE, MADAME SANS-GENE, CORDELIA
_Copyrighted by Window and Grove_
_From the collection of Miss_]
_Sargent Paints Ellen Terry as Lady Macbeth_
One of Mrs. Nettle's greatest triumphs was my Lady Macbeth dress,
which she carried out from Mrs. Comyns Carr's design. I am glad to
think it is immortalized in Sargent's picture. From the first I knew
that picture was going to be splendid. In my diary for 1888 I was
always writing about it:
"The picture of me is nearly finished and I think it magnificent.
The green and blue of the dress is splendid, and the expression as
Lady Macbeth holds the crown over her head is quite wonderful."
"Sargent's 'Lady Macbeth' in the New Gallery is a great success.
The picture is the sensation of the year. Of course opinions
differ about it, but there are dense crowds round it day after
day. There is talk of putting it on an exhibition by itself."
Since then it has gone over nearly the whole of Europe, and now is
resting for life at the Tate Gallery. Sargent suggested by this
picture all that I should have liked to be able to convey in my acting
as Lady Macbeth. Of Sargent's portrait of Henry Irving, I wrote in my
dairy:
"Everybody hates Sargent's head of Henry. Henry also. I like it,
but not altogether. I think it perfectly wonderfully painted and
like him, only not at his best by any means. There sat Henry and
there by his side the picture, and I could scarce tell one from
t'other. Henry looked white, with tired eyes, and holes in his
cheeks, and bored to death! And there was the picture with white
face, tired eyes, holes in the cheeks, and boredom in every line.
Sargent tried to paint his smile and gave it up."
[Illustration: IMOGEN, LUCY ASHTON, CATHERINE DUVAL, LUCY ASHTON
_Copyrighted by Window and Grove_]
Sargent said to me, I remember, upon Henry Irving's first visit to
the studio to see the "Macbeth" picture of me, "What a saint!" This to
my mind promised well--that Sargent should see _that_ side of Henry so
swiftly. So then I never left off asking Henry Irving to sit to
Sargent, who wanted to paint him into the bargain, and said to me
continually, "What a head!"
[Illustration: CARDINAL WOLSEY, LADY MACBETH, GUINEVERE, THOMAS BECKET
_Terry and Miss Frances Johnson_
_Copyrighted by Window and Grove and by W. & D. Downey_]
Again from my diary:
"Sargent's picture is almost finished, and it is really splendid.
Burne-Jones yesterday suggested two or three alterations about the
colour, which Sargent immediately adopted, but Burne-Jones raves
about the picture.
"It (Macbeth) is a most tremendous success, and the last three
days' advanced booking has been greater than ever was known, even
at the Lyceum. Yes, it is a success, and I am a success, which
amazes me, for never did I think I should be let down so easily.
Some people hate me in it; some, Henry among them, think it my
best part, and the critics differ, and discuss it hotly, which in
itself is my best success of all! Those who don't like me in it
are those who don't want and don't like to read it fresh from
Shakespeare, and who hold by the 'fiend' reading of the
character.... One of the best things ever written on the subject,
I think, is the essay of J. Comyns Carr. That is as hotly
discussed as the new Lady Mac--all the best people agreeing with
it. Oh dear! It is an exciting time!"
[Illustration: NANCY OLDFIELD, HERMIONE, ALICE-SIT-BY-THE-FIRE, LADY
CICELY, WAYNEFLETE
_Copyrighted by Window and Grove_]
From a letter I wrote to my daughter who was in Germany at the time:
"I wish you could see my dresses. They are superb, especially the
first one: green beetles in it, and such a cloak! The photographs
give no idea of it at all, for it is in colour that it is so
splendid. The dark red hair is fine. The whole thing is
Rossetti--rich stained-glass effects. I play some of it well, but
of course I don't do what I want to do yet. Meanwhile I shall not
budge an inch in the reading of it, for that I know is right. Oh,
it's fun, but it's precious hard work, for I by no means make her
a gentle lovable woman' as some of 'em say. That's all pickles.
She was nothing of the sort, although she was _not_ a fiend, and
_did_ love her husband. I have to what is vulgarly called 'sweat
at it,' each night."
_Burne-Jones at "Macbeth"_
[Illustration: MISS ELLEN TERRY
FROM A PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN ON HER LAST TOUR IN AMERICA
_Copyrighted, 1907 by Helen Lohman_]
The few people who liked my Lady Macbeth, liked it very much. I hope I
am not vain to quote this letter from Lady Pollock:
"... Burne-Jones has been with me this afternoon: he was at
'Macbeth' last night, and you filled his whole soul with your
beauty and your poetry.... He says you were a great Scandinavian
queen, that your presence, your voice, your movement, made a
marvelously poetic harmony, that your dress was grandly imagined
and grandly worn--and that he cannot criticise--he can only
remember."
[Illustration: SIR HENRY IRVING