A good deal has been left out through want of skill in selection. Some
things have been included which perhaps it would have been wiser to
omit. I have tried my best to tell "all things faithfully," and it is
possible that I have given offence where offence was not dreamed of;
that some people will think that I should not have said this, while
others, approving of "this," will be quite certain that I ought not to
have said "that."
"One said it thundered ... another that an angel spake----"
It's the point of view.
During my struggles with my refractory, fragmentary, and unsatisfactory
memories, I have realised that life itself is a point of view. So if
any one said to me: "And is this, then, what you call your life?" I
should not resent the question one little bit.
"We have heard," continues my imaginary and disappointed interlocutor,
"a great deal about your life in the theatre. You have told us of plays
and parts and rehearsals, of actors good and bad, of critics and of
playwrights, of success and failure, but after all your whole life has
not been lived in the theatre. Have you nothing to tell us about your
different homes, your family life, your social diversions, your friends
and acquaintances? During your long life there have been great changes
in manners and customs; political parties have altered; a great Queen
has died; your country has been engaged in two or three serious wars.
Did all these things make no impression on you? Can you tell us nothing
of your life in the world?"
And I have to answer that I have lived very little in the world. After
all, the life of an actress belongs to the theatre, as the life of a
politician to the State.
* * * * *
The recognition of my fifty years of stage life by the public and by
my profession was quite unexpected. Henry Irving said to me not long
before his death in 1905 that he believed that they (the theatrical
profession) "intended to celebrate our Jubilee." (If he had lived, he
would have completed his fifty years on the stage in the autumn of
1906.) He said that there would be a monster performance at Drury Lane,
and that already the profession were discussing what form it was to
take.
After his death, I thought no more of the matter. Indeed, I did not
want to think about it, for any recognition of my Jubilee which did not
include his seemed to me very unnecessary.
[Illustration: SIR HENRY IRVING