[In the autumn of 1883, during Henry Irving's fist engagement in New
York, Ellen Terry played a round of characters as his leading lady.
In the _Tribune_, Mr. William Winter said: "Miss Ellen Terry's Portia
is delicious. Her voice is perfect music. Her clear, bell-like
elocution is more than a refreshment, it is a luxury. Her simple
manner, always large and adequate, is a great beauty of the art which
it so deftly conceals. Her embodiment of a woman's loveliness, such
as, in Portia, should he at once stately and fascinating and inspire
at once respect and passion, was felicitous beyond the reach of
descriptive phrases." Then, on her appearance in "Much Ado About
Nothing:" "She permeates the raillery of Beatrice with an
indescribable charm of mischievous sweetness. The silver arrows of
her pungent wit have no barb, for evidently she does not mean that
they shall really wound. Her appearance and carriage are beautiful,
and her tones melt into music. There is no hint of the virago here,
and even the tone of sarcasm is superficial. It is archness playing
over kindness that is presented here." On her Ophelia, Mr. Winter
remarks: "Ophelia is an image, or personification of innocent,
delirious, feminine youth and beauty, and she passes before us in the
two stages of sanity and delirium. The embodiment is fully within
Miss Terry's reach, and is one of the few unmistakably perfect
creations with which dramatic art has illumined literature and adorned
the stage."
By permission the following pages have been taken from "Ellen Terry's
Memoirs," copyright by the S. S. McClure Company, 1908. All rights
reserved. ED.)