P.S. It would have been delightful--and terrible--if you had been able
to come. I believe Archer is to come.
P.P.S. I don't return straight to London--don't get there till Tuesday
or Wednesday. I shall have to wait and telegraph you which evening I can
come in.
_To Mrs. Hugh Bell._
34 De Vere Gardens, W.
Jan. 8th [1891].
Dear Mrs. Bell,
Your most kind gratulatory note deserved an answer more gratefully
prompt than this. But I extended my absence from town to a short visit
at Cheltenham, and the whole thing was virtually, till yesterday, a
complete extinction of leisure. Delightful of you to want "details." I
think, if I were to inflict them on you, they would all be illustrative
of the cheering and rewarding side of our feverish profession. The
passage from knock-kneed nervousness (the night of the _premiere_, as
one clings, in the wing, to the curtain rod, as to the _pied des
autels_) to a simmering serenity is especially life-saving in its
effect. I flung myself upon Compton after the 1st act: "In heaven's
name, is it _going_?" "Going?--Rather! You could hear a pin drop!" Then,
after that, one felt it--one _heard_ it--one blessed it--and, at the end
of all, one (after a decent and discreet delay) simpered and gave
oneself up to _courbettes_ before the curtain, while the applausive
house emitted agreeable sounds from a kind of gas-flaring
indistinguishable dimness and the gratified Compton publicly pressed
one's hand and one felt that, really, as far as Southport could testify
to the circumstance, the stake was won. Of course it's only
Southport--but I have larger hopes, inasmuch as it was just the meagre
provincial conditions and the limited provincial interpretation that
deprived the performance of all adventitious aid. And when my hero and
heroine and another friend supped with me at the inn after the battle, I
felt that they were really as radiant as if we were carousing among the
slain. They _seem_ indeed wondrous content. The great feature of the
evening was the way Compton "came out" beyond what he had done or
promised at rehearsal, and acted really most interestingly and
admirably--if not a "revelation" at any rate a very jolly surprise. His
part is one in which I surmise he really counts upon making a large
success--and though I say it who shouldn't, it is one of incontestable
opportunities. However, all this is to come--and we stumble in judgment.
Amen. Voila, ma chere amie. You have been through all this, and more,
and will tolerate my ingenuities....