ELLEN TERRY
AND HER SISTERS
[Illustration:
_Photographed by_ _Window & Grove._
ELLEN TERRY AS PORTIA.
_She first appeared in this part, one of the greatest of her
Shakespearean creations, at the old Prince of Wales's Theatre in 1875,
and resumed it at the Lyceum in 1879._
_Frontispiece._]
ELLEN TERRY
AND HER SISTERS
BY
T. EDGAR PEMBERTON
AUTHOR OF
"THE KENDALS;" "A MEMOIR OF E. A. SOTHERN;" "THE LIFE AND WRITINGS
OF T. W. ROBERTSON;" "CHARLES DICKENS AND THE STAGE;"
"JOHN HARE, COMEDIAN;" "BRET HARTE: A
TREATISE AND A TRIBUTE;"
ETC. ETC.
_WITH TWENTY-FIVE ILLUSTRATIONS_
LONDON
C. ARTHUR PEARSON, LIMITED
HENRIETTA STREET
1902
_BY THE SAME AUTHOR_
"THE KENDALS"
Demy 8vo, with Portraits and numerous Illustrations.
Price 16s.
"One of the most interesting theatrical records that has been penned for
some time."--_Outlook._
"A charming work.... Pithy and well arranged. Turned out with infinite
credit to the publishers."--_Morning Advertiser._
"It leaves an impression like that of a piece in which the Kendals have
played, an impression of pleasure, refinement, refreshment, and of the
value of cherishing sweet and kindly feelings in art as in life. Few
books can do that, and so this work has every prospect of being widely
read."--_Scotsman._
LONDON: C. ARTHUR PEARSON, LIMITED
_April 11, 1901._
MY DEAR FRIEND,--
You tell me that if I give you leave you can weave a story about me that
will interest your readers. If that be so, you have my full permission
to tell it, and it will please me to do anything in my power to assist
you in your work. Whilst writing about me you will, I am sure, speak of
those with whom I have been closely associated in my acting life, and
make mention of the affectionate regard in which I hold them.
Your intimate knowledge of all that concerns the stage will at least
keep you right as to the facts of your pages.
I suppose I must leave the fancy of them in your hands.
Yours cordially,
ELLEN TERRY.
_To_
T. EDGAR PEMBERTON.
[Illustration: _Label designed for his sister by Gordon Craig_]
[Illustration: _Ellen Terry's book-label designed by Gordon Craig_]
CONTENTS
PAGE
I. BEGINNINGS 1
II. FIRST APPEARANCES 29
III. THE BRISTOL STOCK COMPANY 57
IV. AT THE HAYMARKET THEATRE 74
V. KATE TERRY 91
VI. CHIEFLY AT THE QUEEN'S THEATRE 132
VII. IN TOTTENHAM STREET 142
VIII. IN SLOANE SQUARE 156
IX. SOME SPLENDID STROLLING 171
X. MARION AND FLORENCE TERRY 192
XI. HENRY IRVING 208
XII. AT THE LYCEUM THEATRE, 1878-1883 219
XIII. AT THE LYCEUM THEATRE, 1884-1901 252
XIV. ENDINGS 296
INDEX 311
VINE COTTAGE,
KINGSTON VALE.
[Illustration: _Ellen Terry's "Kingston Vale" letter-card heading
designed by Gordon Craig_]
[Illustration: _Ellen Terry's Monogram. Ellen Terry fecit_]
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
ELLEN TERRY AS "PORTIA" _Frontispiece_
ELLEN TERRY WHEN EIGHT YEARS OF AGE _To face page_ 24
TOWER COTTAGE, WINCHELSEA 48
SMALLHYTHE FARM 80
BUST OF ELLEN TERRY BY W. BRODIE, R.S.A. 88
KATE TERRY 102
ELLEN TERRY'S COUNTRY HOME IN KINGSTON VALE 112
KATE TERRY AS "ARIEL" 120
HENRY IRVING IN 1868 136
ELLEN TERRY AS LORD TENNYSON'S "DORA" 174
MARION TERRY 194
ELLEN TERRY IN TRAGEDY AND COMEDY _circa_ 1878 222
ELLEN TERRY AS "OPHELIA" 224
ELLEN TERRY, 1881 242
ELLEN TERRY AS "BEATRICE" 250
ELLEN TERRY AS "VIOLA" 254
ELLEN TERRY AS "ELLALINE" 262
SIR HENRY IRVING AS "CARDINAL WOLSEY" 272
ELLEN TERRY AS "QUEEN GUINEVERE" 282
ELLEN TERRY AS "VOLUMNIA" 292
[Illustration: _Ellen Terry's "Winchelsea" book-plate designed by Gordon
Craig_]
ELLEN TERRY
AND HER SISTERS
CHAPTER I
BEGINNINGS
I know that to the majority of people who merely regard the theatre as a
place for occasional recreation, it is a subject for amazement that
others can exist who, not belonging to the theatrical profession, take
an absorbing and lasting interest in the stage, and in those actors and
actresses who have made its past history glorious, as well as in the
artists who adorn and make it a delight in the present. I wonder how
many of us truly realise the weight of Charles Dickens's words: "If any
man were to tell me that he denied his acknowledgments to the stage, I
would simply put to him one question--whether he remembered his first
play?"
Not only freely, but with gratitude, I acknowledge my indebtedness to
the theatre, and it is certain that from that magic night when for the
first time I saw the glitter of the footlights and watched the rise of
the curtain, I entered upon a new and most fascinating life. Of course
I was called "stage struck," and those who controlled me shook their
heads, thought it a great pity, and did their best to thwart my
inclinations. Concerning the stage and its attractions the parents of
the "fifties" were less liberal-minded than those of to-day, and they
had an unhappy knack of talking over the tendencies of their children
with uncles and aunts who, without meaning to do the least kindly thing
for them, seemed to regard their nephews and nieces as so many
ready-made reprobates open to their interfering condemnation. Oh! those
terrible uncles and aunts! In his pages the grand old novelist,
Richardson, reflecting the manners of his time, made (apparently well
meaning) ogres of them; the good and ever interesting Jane Austen only
contrived to soften them down; and I hope my "fifties" saw the fag-end
of them, for to-day they prove themselves to be reasonable and generous
beings.
But, as I say, I was set down as "stage struck," and I had to grow
accustomed to the shoulder-shrug greeting of relatives, and the
admonition that my first duty was to consider my father and mother.
Never was anything so unfair. I was not in the ordinary sense of the
word "stage struck." I was not fool enough to think that I could shine
either as tragedian or comedian. I knew that a more prosaic life had
been planned out for me, and I was prepared to enter into it; but, for a
lurking fear that I should "take to the stage" (neither I nor my
parents, nor my uncles and aunts, knew how this was to be done), I found
myself compelled to read my beloved play-books and chronicles of great
actors in private. When it was accidentally discovered that I had
attempted to write a play there was real family trouble, and I am afraid
that some of those who pretended to take interest in me wrote me down as
"no good."
No! It never could be understood that I really wanted to make a study of
an art that appealed to me more strongly than its sisters, music and
painting. Yet the three are so closely allied that in devotedly
following my first love I learnt to appreciate her kith and kin. I pen
these lines because I am certain that many others must have felt as I
did, and do; and, while doing justice to other claims upon their life
energies, have taken their keenest delight in the story of the stage.
Yes; I am sure that to many of us the theatre has formed a little world
of its own--a little world that we can enjoy and grasp--while the great
world outside it is so apt to torture us with its perplexities, and half
kill us with its seeming cruelties.
And I think that the little world in which I and my brother enthusiasts
delight is all the more appreciated when we understand that it, too, is
beset with its anxieties and grievous disappointments, and is far from
the dazzling, soul-soothing elysium we pictured in the halcyon days of
our boyhood. Our hearts go out all the more freely to the actors and
actresses who warm them when we realise that they, too, have their
trials as well as their triumphs. Our admiration is redoubled when it is
leavened with sympathy. It is all the more important, then, that our
entertainers should know that this feeling exists among those for whom
they devote the work of their lives.
The artistic temperament is always more or less self-tormenting, and it
is to be feared that my "little world," which shines so brightly over
our great one, where sorrow has daily to be met and borne, is in itself
a sorely troubled one.
In that strange French play which has our great English tragedian,
Edmund Kean, for its central figure, Alexandre Dumas, who knew
everything that could be known about the theatre, caused his actor-hero
to respond bitterly to the woman who loved him, and who opined that all
his troubles must vanish when he reflects that he is recognised as the
King of the Stage. "King! Yes, three times a week! King with a tinselled
sceptre, paste diamonds, and a pinchbeck crown. I rule a kingdom of
thirty-five feet, and subjects who are jealous of my power." Then, when
she asks, "Why do you not give it up?" he replies with indignation,
"Give up the stage? Ah! you don't realise that he who has once donned
the robe of Nessus cannot take it off without lacerating his flesh. _I_
give up the stage?--renounce its excitement?--its glitter?--its
triumphs? _I_ give up my throne to another? Never! while I've health and
strength to walk the boards, and brains to interpret the poetry I love.
Remember, an actor cannot leave his work behind him. He lives only in
his own lifetime--his memory fades with the generation to which he
belongs, he must finish as he has begun, die as he has lived--die, if
fortune favours him, with the delicious sound of applause in his ears.
But those who have not set foot upon a dangerous path do well to avoid
it."
The actor's complaint that his fame, however great, cannot be
recollected many years beyond the time in which he lived is a very old
one, and it must have been with this mournful view in his mind that
David Garrick wrote:--
"The painter dead, yet still he charms the eye;
While England lives his fame can never die.
But he who struts his hour upon the stage
Can scarce extend his fame for half an age;
Nor pen nor pencil can the actor save,
The art and artist share one common grave."
The volumes of theatrical history and biography that have been written
and become popular since Garrick's day, prove that this is not wholly
true, that we are not ungrateful to those who have instructed and amused
us on the stage, and that we shall not willingly let their honoured
memories die. The fact that the depressing feeling that they and their
work will "soon be forgotten" still exists among members of the
theatrical profession is, I venture to believe, some excuse for records
such as this being issued during the lifetime of the artist, while
memory is green, and appreciation can be written at first hand. Even if
such works give little or no pleasure to their living subjects, it may
be borne in mind that they will probably be of service to those future
stage historians who will permanently inscribe their names on the
tablets of fame.
The passionate declaration of Dumas's Kean that, despite his troubles
and torments, he would never while life was in him leave the stage, is
an old tale. Actors, as a rule, love to die in harness, and it was in
the full knowledge of this that T. W. Robertson caused his stage David
Garrick to reply to Alderman Ingot, when he offered to double or treble
his income if he would abandon his profession, "Leave the stage?
Impossible!" Poor Sothern, who created the part, was staying with me
when his physician wrote saying that if he wished to prolong his life he
must give up all work. After a moment's depression the actor with a
sudden impulse snatched a portrait of himself as Garrick from my wall,
tore it from its frame, and in a large, firm hand, wrote beneath it:
"Leave the stage? Impossible!"
I have no doubt that Charles Wyndham, who, after Sothern's death, took
up the part, and made it one of the greatest successes of the modern
stage, feels the full import of the words every time he speaks them.
And if the actors suffer so do the dramatists, or at all events the
would-be dramatists. In an admirable little book called "Play Writing,"
the author gives sound advice to the ever-growing, ever-complaining army
of the unacted.
"Dramatic authorship," he says, "is to the profession of literature as
reversing is to waltzing--an agony within a misery. A man who means to
be a dramatist must be prepared for a life of never-ending strife and
fret--a brain and heart-exhausting struggle from the hour when, full of
hope, he starts off with his first farce in his pocket to the days when,
involuntarily taking the advice of one of the early masters of his own
craft--to wit, old rare Ben Jonson--he leaves 'the loathed stage and the
more loathsome age.'"
And again, this anonymous but evidently experienced writer (I quote from
him freely) declares that any dramatist could tales unfold of
disappointments and delays, of hopes deferred, of chances dashed from
the grasp at the very moment they seemed clutched, of weary waitings
rewarded by failure, of enterprise and effort leading only to defeat, of
hard work winning only loss. It has been suggested, too, in this
connection, that any one sufficiently interested in such matters should
make a list of the plays that in "preliminary paragraphs" are spoken of
as "about to be produced," and which are never heard of again,--and that
it should then be remembered that each of these unborn plays represents
a very heavy heart being carried about for many a long day under
somebody or other's waistcoat,--and means that somebody or other feels
very sick and hopeless as he moves about his little world, trying to
appear careless and to laugh it off,--that somebody or other grows very
tired and weary of the struggle, and almost wishes now and then that it
was over.
But to the young playgoer who sits in front these troubles are unknown,
and to him the theatre may well appear as the realisation of Fairyland,
and a veritable Palace of Fancy.
I believe there is another reason why men, if they would own it, have
come to be grateful to the stage. Has it not to many been the scene in
which they have first learned what it is to love? They may never have
spoken to the divinities who inspired their boyish ardour, but they have
been better and purer for it, and cherish the sweet recollection of it
to their old age.
Cannot we all enter into the feelings of young virgin-hearted Arthur
Pendennis when he first saw the lovely Miss Fotheringay on the boards?
Cannot we all understand how he followed the woman about and about, and
when she was off the stage the house became a blank? and how, when the
play was over, the curtain fell upon him like a pall? Poor Pendennis!
He hardly knew what he felt that night. "It was something overwhelming,
maddening, delicious; a fever of wild joy and undefined longing."
And then how he woke the next morning, when, at an early hour, the rooks
began to caw from the little wood beyond his bedroom windows; and at
that very instant, and as his eyes started open, the beloved image was
in his mind. "My dear boy," he heard her say, "you were in a sound
sleep, and I would not disturb you: but I have been close by your pillow
all this while; and I don't intend that you shall leave me. I am Love! I
bring with me fever and passion; wild longing, maddening desire;
restless craving and seeking. Many a long day ere this I heard you
calling out for me; and behold now I am come."
Yes, I am convinced that most of us have felt, rejoiced, and suffered as
Arthur Pendennis did, and that we first caught the fever from the
footlights. The attack may have been acute, and, in its apparent
hopelessness, painful. But recovery brought with it the sweet knowledge
that we had been permitted to understand the meaning of Heaven's
greatest gift to mankind--Love.
I know that there are many who only go to the theatre to carp and cavil,
and impotently point out that if the management of the playhouse and the
acting of all the parts had been placed in their hands a much better
performance would have been provided; but I believe that even these
would love to recall the dreamy illusions of their youth. Perhaps, in
the hours of their solitude (and silence!), they do so. Why, in their
soured maturity, these unhappy, self-imposed, and absolutely
unconvincing critics go to the theatre to be (on their own declaration)
bored and disgusted is to me a mystery. It is all the more a mystery
when I know that they can thoroughly enjoy a variety hall.
Of course, everything depends on the spirit in which we go to the
theatre.
Do you remember the difference of opinion expressed between Steerforth
and David Copperfield on the night when they renewed the acquaintance of
their boyhood at the Golden Cross Hotel? David had been to Covent Garden
Theatre, and had there seen "Julius Cæsar." "To have," he says, "all
those noble Romans alive before me, and walking in and out for my
entertainment, instead of being the stern task-masters they had been at
school, was a most novel and delightful effect. But the mingled reality
and mystery of the whole show, the influence upon me of the poetry, the
lights, the music, the company; the smooth, stupendous changes of
glittering and brilliant scenery were so dazzling, and opened up such
illimitable regions of delight, that when I came out into the rainy
street I felt as if I had come from the clouds, where I had been leading
a romantic life for ages, to a bawling, splashing, link-lighted,
umbrella-struggling, hackney-coach jostling, patten-clicking, muddy,
miserable world."
And when he told the superior Steerforth of his innocent enjoyment, he
had to listen to the laughing reply:--
"My dear young Davy--you are a very daisy. The daisy of the field, at
sunrise, is not fresher than you are! I have been at Covent Garden, too,
and there never was a more miserable business."
In my own mind I am convinced that if we will we can always, to our
great advantage and delight, keep up the enthusiasm of David
Copperfield;--that to some of us the theatre, even when we know all
about the fret and turmoil of the actor's life together with the tricks
of the stage, may from boyhood to old age remain a Palace of Fancy.
And have we not in the heroine of these pages--Ellen Terry--the very
embodiment of Fancy,--the true Princess of our Palace, one of the Queens
of our little stage world? Other great artists have delighted us with
the perfection of their impersonations, but there is in the method or
inspiration of Ellen Terry something so ethereal that in many of her
characters she stands alone.
If the drama is indeed the Cinderella of the arts, then Ellen Terry must
have been touched by the magic wand of a Fairy Godmother so that she
might dazzle the Prince's ballroom with her beauty, radiance, and ever
fragrant sweetness, and win the admiration of his guests.
But those who thoughtlessly and even contemptuously call the drama
"Cinderella" probably do not know the origin of the familiar
fairy-tale--how the little kitchen maid is Ushas, the Dawn Maiden of the
Aryans, and the Aurora of the Greeks; and how the Prince is the Sun,
ever seeking to make the Dawn his bride; and how the envious stepmother
and sisters are the Clouds and the Night, which vainly strive to keep
the Sun and the Dawn apart. It is pleasant to think of Cinderella as the
Dawn Maiden. Poor little lady! She has suffered considerably in her
transplantation to English soil.
To me the magic word "Fancy" has ever been associated with the pure art
of Ellen Terry, and whenever I see her on the stage the lines of John
Keats comes rippling through my mind:--
"Oh! sweet Fancy! let her loose;
Everything is spoilt by use;
Where's the cheek that doth not fade,
Too much gazed at? Where's the maid
Whose lip mature is ever new?
Where the eye, however blue,
Doth not weary? Where's the face
One would meet in every place?
Where's the voice, however soft,
One would hear so very oft?
At a touch sweet pleasure melteth
Like to bubbles when rain pelteth.
Let, then, winged Fancy find
Thee a mistress to her mind;
Dulcet-eyed as Ceres' daughter
Ere the god of Torment taught her
How to frown and how to chide;
With a waist and with a side
White as Hebe's, when her zone
Slipt its golden clasp, and down
Fell her kirtle to her feet,
While she held the goblet sweet,
And Jove grew languid. Break the mesh
Of the Fancy's silken leash;
Quickly break her prison string,
And such joys as these she'll bring--
Let the winged Fancy roam,
Pleasure never is at home."
But it must be recorded that Fancy, as let loose and impersonated by
Ellen Terry, is taken from the theatre in thousands of hearts, and that
it enters into many a home circle where the memory of it gives unbounded
and enduring pleasure. Into the simple homes of those who elbow each
other in the gallery, as well as into the luxurious mansions of the
wealthy folk who sit at their ease in the stalls. In many a workman's
dwelling I have come across a carefully framed photograph of Ellen
Terry, and a treasured play-bill kept in commemoration of a
never-to-be-forgotten evening enjoyed in her realms of Fancy.
But she did not drop from cloudland to delight us. Her great
achievements have been won--as all great achievements are won--by early
training, deep and constant study, hard work, and possibly, above all,
by family tradition.
In theatrical lore the name of Terry is, indeed, an old and honoured
one. In Lockhart's beautiful biography of Sir Walter Scott, and again in
the happily published Diary of the Magician of the North, we read much
of the energetic Daniel Terry who was for many years connected with the
Edinburgh stage, and who subsequently joined Yates in a memorable
management of the Adelphi Theatre. Daniel Terry, with the appreciative
eye of the true actor, set his heart upon making stage versions of the
Waverley Novels, and though at first Scott (in common with all great
novelists) objected to this process, it was subsequently allowed, and
adapter and author became friends. It was in the spring of 1816 that
Terry produced a dramatic piece entitled "Guy Mannering," which met with
great success, and is still from time to time seen. "What share," says
Lockhart, "the novelist had in this first specimen of what he used to
call the art of 'Terryfying,' I cannot exactly say; but his
correspondence shows that the pretty song of the Lullaby was not his
only contribution to it; and I infer that he had taken the trouble to
modify the plot, and rearrange, for stage purposes, a considerable part
of the original dialogue."
Of the intimacy that commenced and grew between the poet and the
playwright, Lockhart records:--
"It was at a rehearsal of 'The Family Legend of Joanna Baillie' that
Scott was first introduced to another theatrical performer, who ere long
acquired a large share of his regard and confidence--Mr. Daniel Terry.
He had received a good education, and been regularly trained as an
architect; but abandoned that profession at an early period of life, and
was now beginning to attract attention as a valuable actor in Henry
Siddons's company. Already he and the Ballantynes were constant
companions, and through his familiarity with them Scott had abundant
opportunities of appreciating his many excellent and agreeable
qualities. He had the manners and feelings of a gentleman. Like John
Kemble, he was deeply skilled in the old literature of the drama, and he
rivalled Scott's own enthusiasm for the antiquities of _vertu_. Their
epistolary correspondence in after days was frequent, and none so well
illustrates many of the poet's minor tastes and habits. As their letters
lie before me they appear as if they had all been penned by the same
hand. Terry's idolatry of his new friend induced him to imitate his
writing so zealously that Scott used to say, if he were called upon to
swear to any document, the utmost he could venture to attest would be,
that it was either in his own hand or Terry's. The actor, perhaps
unconsciously, mimicked him in other matters with hardly inferior
pertinacity. His small lively features had acquired, before I knew him,
a truly ludicrous cast of Scott's graver expression; he had taught his
tiny eyebrow the very trick of the poet's meditative frown; and, to
crown all, he so habitually affected his tone and accent that, though a
native of Bath, a stranger could hardly have doubted he must be a
Scotchman. These things afforded all their acquaintance much diversion;
but perhaps no Stoic could have helped being secretly gratified by
seeing a clever and sensible man convert himself into a living type and
symbol of admiration."
In the pages of his fascinating Diary (or "Journal") Scott records--
"_October 20, 1826_ (London).--At breakfast, Crofton Croker, author
of the 'Irish Fairy Tales.' Something like Tom Moore. There were
also Terry, Allan Cunningham, Newton, and others."
"_October 21, 1826._--We returned to a hasty dinner in Pall Mall,
and then hurried away to see honest Dan Terry's house, called the
Adelphi Theatre, where we saw 'The Pilot,' from the American novel
of that name. It is extremely popular, the dramatist having seized
on the whole story, and turned the odious and ridiculous parts,
assigned by the original author to the British, against the
Yankees themselves. There is a quiet effrontery in this that is of
a rare and peculiar character. The Americans were so much
displeased, that they attempted a row--which rendered the piece
doubly attractive to the seamen at Wapping, who came up and
crowded the house night after night to support the honour of the
British flag.... I was, however, glad to see honest Dan's theatre
as full seemingly as it could hold. The heat was dreadful, and
Anne was so very unwell that she was obliged to be carried into
Terry's house--a curious dwelling, no larger than a squirrel's
cage, which he has contrived to squeeze out of the vacant spaces
of the theatre, and which is accessible by a most complicated
combination of staircases and small passages. Here we had rare
good porter and oysters after the play, and found Anne much
better. She had attempted too much; indeed, I myself was much
fatigued."
Later comes a sadder note:--
"_February 3, 1827._--Terry has been pressed by Gibson for my debt
to him. That I may get managed."
And again--
"_April 15, 1828._--Got the lamentable news that Terry is totally
bankrupt. This is a most unexpected blow, though his carelessness
about money matters was very great. God help the poor fellow! He
has been ill-advised to go abroad, but now returns to stand the
storm--old debts, it seems, with principal and interest
accumulated, and all the items which load a falling man. And wife,
such a good and kind creature, and children. Alack! alack! I sought
out his solicitor. There are £7000 or more to pay, and the only
fund his share in the Adelphi Theatre, worth £5000 and upwards, and
then so fine a chance of independence lost. That comes of not
being explicit with his affairs. The theatre was a most
flourishing concern. I looked at the books, and since have seen
Yates. The ruin is inevitable, but I think they will not keep him
in prison, but let him earn his bread by his very considerable
talents. I shall lose the whole or part of £5000, which I lent him,
but that is the last of my concern."
And then follow these interesting and touching entries:--
"_May 8, 1828._--I have been of material assistance to poor Terry
in his affairs."
"_June 18, 1829._--Poor Terry is totally prostrated by a paralytic
affection. Continuance of existence not to be wished for."
"_July 9, 1829._--Many recollections die with poor Terry."
Of his semi-partnership with his actor-friend, Sir Walter Scott, in a
humorous mood, wrote:--"I have been made a dramatist whether I would or
no. I believe my muse would be _Terry_fied into treading the stage even
if I should write a sermon."
Benjamin Terry, the father of the clever family who form the subject of
these pages, became in his time very popular in Edinburgh, and it was
there that he attracted the attention of Charles Kean, and obtained his
offer for the actor's Mecca--London. But his experience had no doubt
been earned in some of the old "circuits" that were the theatrical
schools of his early days, and turned out many a true artist. The
actors and actresses who thus served their apprenticeship to the stage
assuredly had rough times of it, but they had for the most part joined
the profession for the love of it--they adored Shakespeare and the
authors of the "legitimate drama,"--and, in spite of tedious journeys
from town to town, poor business, and bad theatrical accommodation at
the end of them, looked forward to and enjoyed the evening's
performance. Enthusiasm and hard work led to their reward, and many a
poor strolling-player became a shining light on the London stage.
When Ben Terry went on circuit, travelling actors were in better plight
than they were in the days of poor Roger Kemble and his devoted wife,
who travelled from town to town, and village to village, after the
manner and under the difficulties and disadvantages of the time,--at
some places being received with gracious favour, and at others treated
like lepers and threatened with the stocks and whipping at the cart's
tail, according as the great people were liberal minded or puritanical.
But this struggling, persecuted Roger Kemble lived to see his daughter,
Mrs. Siddons, and his son, John Philip, the stage idols of their day;
and if sometimes his perturbed spirit could revisit Hereford (one of the
cities of his early sorrows) he would realise the happy fact that the
portraits of his never-to-be-forgotten family hold the places of honour
on the Deanery walls.
Since to the often ridiculed circuits of a bygone day we can trace such
actors as the Kembles, the Robertsons, and the Terrys, surely we should
hold them in honoured memory?
Dickens turned them to comic account when he conceived the impossible
but immortal Crummles family; but he put the true ring into the
warm-hearted old manager's heart and voice when on bidding farewell to
Nicholas, he said, "We were a very happy little company. You and I never
had a word. I shall be very glad to-morrow morning to think that I saw
you again, but now I almost wish you hadn't come."
It is pleasant to think that in their own way the circuit players all
formed happy little companies. To enjoy the work of our choice is, in
spite of any drawbacks, one of the greatest sources of happiness.
My esteemed friend, John Coleman, whose memory carries him back to the
days of long ago, has told me that he met Mr. and Mrs. Ben Terry on the
Worcester Circuit. He remembers the former as a handsome, fine-looking
brown-haired man, and the wife as a tall, graceful creature, with an
abundance of fair hair, and with big blue eyes set in a charming face.
Years and years passed before he met his old-time friend again; but at
the memorable banquet given to Henry Irving on the eve of his departure
for his first tour in America, a grey-haired, dignified old gentleman,
who sat next to him, told him that he was the "Ben Terry" of the dead
and gone Worcester Circuit, and introduced him to his grandson, Gordon
Craig.
On that evening the old actor had good reason to be proud, for he could
boast of being the father of one of the most gifted and cultured of
histrionic families. "Think of it," writes Mr. Clement Scott, "Kate,
with her lovely figure and comely features; Ellen, with her quite
indescribable charm; Marion, with a something in her deeper, more
tender, and more feminine than either of them; Florence, who became
lovelier as a woman than as a girl; and the brothers Fred and Charles,
both splendid specimens of the athletic Englishman."
It was while the parent Terrys were fulfilling an engagement at
Coventry--the interesting City of the Three Tall Spires--that their
daughter Ellen was born. This was in the February of 1848, and quite a
little feud has taken place between some of the good people of Coventry
as to the precise house in which the important event took place. That it
was on the 27th day of the second month of the year, and that the street
was Market Street, one and all seem agreed, but several inhabitants of
that thoroughfare have laid claim to be the occupiers, if not the owners
of the shrine. No. 5 and No. 26 are the chief claimants of the honour
(and in all seriousness it is no small honour), but as an "old nurse,"
who should know something about such things, has declared for No. 5, it
stands first favourite; and a fact in its favour is that in the days of
1848 it was a popular lodging-house for actors. One can sympathise with
No. 26, but the general vote must be given to No. 5. After all, it does
not much matter, for who knows what changes have taken place in the old
street during the last fifty years? Perhaps (but for pious pilgrims this
is a dreadful thought!) _even the door numbers may have been changed_!
With a few exceptions the birthplaces of celebrities are apt to be
disappointing. My enthusiasm for famous artists once took me to Brecon
so that I might visit the "Shoulder of Mutton" Inn, in which Sarah
Kemble was born, but, though it was properly inscribed, it was not the
interesting old tavern of my imagination, and manifest modern
"improvements" made me content with a brief gaze at its exterior. It was
at the beautiful Trinity Church at Coventry, on the 26th November 1773,
that Sarah Kemble was married to Henry Siddons, the handsome young actor
from Birmingham; and this brings me back to "leafy Warwickshire"
(Warwickshire-men never forget that it is Shakespeare's county), and the
Coventry of Ellen Terry's birthday in 1848.
Now let me show how easily, by those who care about such things,
theatrical history may be traced.
Ellen Terry, as will soon be seen, was destined to make her earliest
(though childish) successes with Charles Kean. Charles Kean had acted
with his renowned father, Edmund Kean. Edmund Kean had in his childhood
figured as one of the imps who danced around the cauldron in John Philip
Kemble's revival of "Macbeth." Roger Kemble, the father of John Philip
and Sarah Siddons, was the son of a Kemble who had been engaged by and
was associated with Betterton. After "the King had got his own again"
Betterton was acknowledged to be the legitimate successor to Burbage.
Burbage was the first of our great tragic actors, and was the original
performer of the greater number of Shakespeare's heroes--of Coriolanus,
Brutus, Romeo, Hamlet, Othello, Lear, Shylock, Macbeth, Prince Hal,
Henry V., and Richard III. In "Hamlet" Shakespeare enacted the touching
character of the Ghost to the Prince created by Burbage; and so, in a
rough and somewhat "House that Jack Built" fashion, the connection of
such famous histrionic families as the Terrys can be traced back to the
Elizabethan days, to Shakespeare, and the actors of his period.
We may now follow the Ben Terrys and their pretty children to the London
Princess's Theatre, where the experienced actor not only played many
parts but became assistant stage-manager to Charles Kean. Considering
the magnitude of the productions aimed at, this must have been a post of
no small importance and responsibility. When the famous series of
Shakespearean revivals demanded the appearance of clever children, what
was more natural than a conference between Kean and his trusted
lieutenant, and the recommendation by the fond father of the engagement
of his gifted little daughters, Kate and Ellen? Their services were
secured, and at a very early period of their lives they began to make
stage history. Their achievements in the once famous Oxford Street
playhouse will be recorded in the next chapter. In the meantime it is
pleasant to touch upon some of Ellen Terry's impressions of her earliest
childhood.
In a charming series of papers entitled "Stray Memories," contributed by
her to the _New Review_ about ten years ago, she thus delightfully as
well as dutifully recalls memories of her father and mother. "It must be
remembered," she says, "that my sister and I had the advantage of
exceedingly clever and conscientious parents who spared no pains to
bring out and perfect any talents that we possessed. My father was a
very charming elocutionist, and my mother read Shakespeare beautifully,
and then both were very fond of us and saw our faults with eyes of love,
though they were unsparing in their corrections. And, indeed, they had
need of all their patience, for, for my own part, I know I was a most
troublesome, wayward pupil. However, 'the labour we delight in physics
pain,' and I hope, too, that my more staid sister 'made it up to them.'"
Can anything be prettier than this daintily recorded, and no doubt
uncalled for admission?
[Illustration: ELLEN TERRY WHEN EIGHT YEARS OF AGE.
_The autograph shows her signature of to-day._
[_To face page 24._
]
With one more glimpse of her home-life in childhood I will bring this
chapter of "Beginnings" to a close. Some time ago it occurred to those
who are responsible for that always sprightly journal, _The Referee_, to
ask some stage celebrities to contribute to their Yule-tide number their
impressions of Christmas in their early days--of Christmas, the great
and never-to-be-forgotten holiday of little folk.
And this is what Ellen Terry conjured up:--
"Really," she said, "I have no Christmas experience worth recounting.
Ever since I can remember, Christmas Day has been for me at first a day
on which I received a good many keepsakes, and afterwards a day on which
I gave a good many little gifts.
"But well I remember one particular Christmas Day. I don't know that the
remembrance is worth the telling, but I'll tell it all the same, because
I was about seven years old, and went to 'a party.'
"I was much admired, and I in turn admired greatly a dark, thin boy of
about ten, who had recited 'The Burial of Sir John Moore' (so jolly on a
Christmas Day!). This thin boy was always going down to eat something,
and after the recitation he asked me to come down and have an ice.
"You will, of course, understand that this was a _real_ party--a
staying-up-late, low-necked dress, and fan sort of party. When we had
eaten the ices he suggested some lobster salad--which I thought would be
very nice. He went to fetch the salad and left me dreaming of him and of
his beautiful dark hair.
"Suddenly my dream was interrupted.
"A fat boy with stubbly light hair and freckles on his nose stood
grinning at me and asking me to have some lemonade. I didn't want any
lemonade, and told him so. Thereupon he produced a whole bough of
mistletoe from somewhere or another, and without more ado seized me by
my head and kissed me, and kissed me, and kissed me,--grinning all the
while.
"I was in a rage, and flew at him like a little cat. He fled out of the
room, up the stairs, I after him. I caught him on the landing, clawed
him by the hair, and banged him, and dared him to kiss me again.
"He cried, the coward, though he was eight or nine years old. Adding
insult to injury, he said, 'He didn't want to,' and I was 'horrid.'
"I thought he was horrid, for my pretty white frock was torn, and the
thin dark boy, the boy I had fallen in love with, said I should not have
spoken with such a cur, and that it 'served me right.'
"My heart was broken for the first time, and that is why I remember, and
always shall, that miserable Christmas Day."
No doubt the impressionable and impulsive little lady has since
delighted in as many joyous Christmas Days as, in year succeeding year,
she has given happiness to the thousands and thousands who have revelled
in, and been made the better for, the display of her genius. It is to be
feared that the greatest of our stage artists never realise the amount
of good that they do in the world. If they did they would not only have
their reward in applauding audiences, but their re-reward in the
knowledge that they have brought light, understanding, and lasting
pleasure into countless homes. Through simple and cheerful paths the
good Ben Terrys conducted their youthful daughters into the profession
that Mrs. Kendal has humorously summed up as follows:--
So many, she declares, have wrong impressions of the stage. Some think
they can jump into fame, and that there is no hard work; others think it
is all hard work, and there is no reward. But, of course, there are many
drawbacks, and people who only sit in the front of the theatre cannot
possibly comprehend what it is until they have been behind the scenes
and worked at it from childhood, as she has done. Every day, people
write to her and ask the qualifications of an actress. Well, she should
have the face of a goddess, the strength of a lion, the figure of a
Venus, the voice of a dove, the temper of an angel, the grace of a swan,
the agility of an antelope, and the skin of a rhinoceros; great
imagination, concentration, an exquisite enunciation, a generous spirit,
a loyal disposition, plenty of courage, a keen sense of humour, a high
ideal of morality, a sensitive mind, and an original treatment of
everything. She must be capable of being a kind sister, a good daughter,
and an excellent wife; a judicious mother, an encouraging friend, and
an enterprising grandmother! These, according to an undeniable
authority, are the only qualities that are required for the stage!
Mrs. Kendal's dictum reminds me of what her brother, T. W.
Robertson--one of the best and most popular dramatists of his age--who
had gone through a perfect torture of disappointment before the
production of "Society" by the Bancrofts made his name famous and his
path easy, caused one of his characters in a later play from his pen to
say--
"Yes, I want to write a comedy."
And when the answer came--"Well, write one; I should think it is easy
enough--you've only got to be amusing, spirited, bright, and life-like.
That's all!"
"Oh, _that's_ all, is it?" ruefully responded the would-be comedy
writer.