Return to England.--Offer from Frohman.--A novice’s “cheek.”--Irving’s
kindly wisdom.--David Belasco.--An indigestion-proof genius.--Robert
Mantell and the wasted years.--C. P. Flockton.--“The Fire
Bug.”--New Orleans and a rich uncle.--“Hazel Kirke.”--My brother’s
“hit.”--Pettitt and the play-pirates.--His sense of humour.--A
cable from Terriss.--The Adelphi.--Robert Pateman.--“The Harbour
Lights.”--Miss Mary Rorke and a dream.--Robert Courtneidge’s
“speech.”--Sir Morell Mackenzie and a rival practitioner.--Abingdon’s
“love-letter.”--King Edward VII.--The Prince and Terriss’s shirt.--A
successful filly.--An actor’s _faux pas_.--The musical comedy Peeress
and the Prince.--Lord Londesborough.--Mr. Justice Hawkins.--Terriss as
licensee.--Mr. Bernard Shaw reads “The Devil’s Disciple.”--An awful
moment.--Another awful moment.--A parting shot.--Vindication of Mr.
Shaw.--“Peter Pan.”
On the return of the Lyceum Company to England, “Twelfth Night,” with
Irving, Miss Terry, Miss Rose Leclerq and Terriss in the cast, was put
into rehearsal, and as there was no part for me in the new production
I jumped at a proposal from Daniel Frohman to return to America and
play the part of Pauline in “Called Back,” the play in which Tree, as
Macari, was then drawing all London to the Prince of Wales Theatre.
What ambitious young actress could refuse an offer to “star” in a
proved success!
Although there was no part for me in “Twelfth Night” I was still
engaged to Irving, so with the blissful impudence of youth I sailed
down to the Lyceum one evening--during the performance!--and trembling
with excitement asked him if he could manage to do without me for a
little while.
He reminded me that, although I was not actually playing at that
moment, I was still a member of his company, and then sat silent for a
time, looking at me.
“Yes,” he said at last, quietly, thoughtfully, “you can go; perhaps it
will be better for you to go--for a while. But I want you always to
look upon the Lyceum as your home--a home you can always return to.”
He knew and understood, far better and far more than I myself at that
time.
So on the following Saturday I sailed back to America with Mr.
Frohman’s partner, Dr. Mallory, a clergyman, and his wife.
Once again I had the inconceivable good fortune from the point of view
of the ambitious beginner to find myself in a company of fine artists
whose example and whose precepts were invaluable. The stage manager was
David Belasco, even then a brilliant young man, who looked exactly like
a clergyman and was understood rather to encourage the resemblance.
Shy, eccentric, highly strung, and intensely temperamental, full of
idiosyncrasies--he was, for example, never known to appear in evening
dress--Belasco was even then one of the greatest of stage managers, and
it was said of him that he could train anyone to become great.
After a hard evening’s work he would make a huge supper of cream tarts
and chocolates, and that he escaped indigestion is alone proof that he
was above the ordinary run of mortals.
[Illustration: DAVID BELASCO.]
Later, amongst his first London productions was “The Heart of
Maryland,” in which Mrs. Leslie Carter appeared at the Adelphi in
1897, and which Mr. Terriss had refused to produce, because, as the
heroine, it would have been my uncomfortable “business” to swing from
one side of the stage to the other on a huge bell.
In the American cast of “Called Back” was that fine actor Robert
Mantell. An Irishman by birth, he had played in America for many
years, and endured a long and hard struggle before achieving fame and
making his big hit as Loris Ipanoff to the Fedora of Fanny Davenport.
On his success Frohman had immediately secured him at a large salary
for “Called Back,” but, strange to say, his very success had made him
bitter.
“Here I am,” he told me once, “earning five hundred dollars a week,
while for years I struggled hard at fifty, every bit as good an actor
and doing just as good work as I am doing now!”
And even my youthful assurance that it was better to be recognized late
than never failed to lessen his grievance against fortune.
Another member of the cast was C. P. Flockton--“Flocky,” as
everyone called him--a dear old English gentleman who bore the most
extraordinary likeness to Irving. Indeed he always vowed that he had
been compelled to leave England because Irving was so like him. A
most lovable and quaint personality, Flockton died suddenly in the
train on his way to California, at a great age, and my brother Herbert
and Charles Stevenson--the husband of Kate Claxton, of “Two Orphans”
fame--had the body cremated and the ashes brought to Fortune Bridge,
Prince Edward’s Island, where “Flocky” had a tiny cottage on a lonely
promontory. Over the gentle old man’s ashes a sundial was erected, and
the natives always vowed that the dead actor’s ghost “walked”. If it
did, I’m sure it would never have harmed anybody.
Poor Kate Claxton, by the way, had the reputation of being a “fire
bug,” for it was a curious fact that theatre fires seemed to follow
her wherever she went--and theatre fires in America were usually on a
terrible scale, so the reputation was an unenviable one.
Other members of the Frohman Company were W. Ferguson--whom I saw quite
recently on the films--and Beatrice Cameron (Mrs. Richard Mansfield).
We opened at the Fifth Avenue Theatre and had a big success, but in
spite of success I grew terribly homesick, and implored Mr. Frohman to
let me return to England. (I seem to have been always asking famous
managers to release me in those days!) His answer was to cable to my
brother Herbert to come out and bear me company, so I continued to play
in “Called Back” to the end of the season, and then toured the big
cities, even to New Orleans, a city which I had always longed to visit
for the sake of an uncle whom I loved and whose romantic history as
treasured in the family had always appealed to me.
At twenty he had eloped with a bride of sixteen, my father’s sister.
Somehow or other they had reached America with twenty-five shillings
between them, and eventually settled in New Orleans, where he built
the fortifications and endured the Civil War. He lost his fortune in
the Civil War, regained it and died a very wealthy man. So it is small
wonder that New Orleans had always been invested with a halo of romance
for me, for mysterious, wealthy uncles are treasured possessions in
every well-regulated family.
After the tour I returned to New York to play in “Sealed Instructions”
at the Madison Square Theatre, following the run of “Hazel Kirke,” a
play by Steele Mackaye, which was supposed to have had the longest run
America had known.
I have several reasons to remember “Hazel Kirke.”
Some years afterwards it was produced at a _matinée_ in London for
the benefit of Mr. and Mrs. Whiffen. I played the part of Hazel, Mr.
Fernandez played the father--and a wonderfully fine performance he
gave--and my brother Frank was entrusted with a speech of one line. But
Frank was determined to make that speech “stand out,” and, as he told
me afterwards, he had endeavoured to “put a little character in it.”
So he made his entrance in the big scene, crying excitedly, in an
unknown accent: “Hazel’s droonin’! Hazel’s droonin’!”
“Hazel’s _what_?” gasped Fernandez in astonishment, utterly forgetting
his cue. “My God, what is the matter with the boy?”
Frank had waited patiently all afternoon to make his “hit,” and he made
it by what he called “adding a little character and local colour.”
“Hazel Kirke” did not enjoy a long run in London, for the simple
reason that Henry Pettitt claimed it as his piece “The Green Lanes of
Old England”--which indeed it was, boldly transplanted to America and
re-christened.
It needed all Pettitt’s sense of humour to see the “joke.”
And Pettitt had a sense of humour. No one who heard it--this is
horribly inconsequent, I know, but Pettitt’s name evokes such a host
of memories--can ever forget his description of his adventures with
a music-hall “improvisatore,” as the gentlemen in those days called
themselves whose “speciality” was to improvise a few doggerel lines on
any subject suggested by the audience.
“H. P.” and two or three friends found themselves in a music-hall one
evening with one of these “turns” on the programme, and determined to
test his poetic powers. The poet advanced to the footlights:
“Ladies and gentlemen,” he announced, “I will now with your kind
permission introduce my celebrated improvisatore song, in which I not
only undertake to spell any word you like to give me, but I will make a
song and verse upon it.” And then he sang:
“I’ll sing you an impromptu song, that you’ve not heard before,
And when I have, then I am sure you’ll want to hear some more.
I’ll spin you rhymes about the times, and soon you all will see
How any word I’ll spell for you in this my spelling-bee.”
Whereupon he stopped singing, advanced to the footlights, and asked:
“Any lady or gen’man give me a word?”
“Parallelogram!” called “H. P.”
“Thank you, sir,” said the poet. “Parliament,” and forthwith began:
“P-a-r----”
“No!” shouted Pettitt, “not ‘parliament’; any fool can spell that!
‘Parallelogram’ I asked for, and if you can’t spell that, try
‘parallelepipedon.’”
“‘Parliament’ was given me by the lady over there, sir, and my rule is
‘ladies first,’” and he burst into song before he could be stopped:
“P-a-r par, l-i-a-m-e-n-t, Parliament,
A place where many d-u-f, duff-e-r-s are sent
The man who interrupts my song in that place he should be,
Instead of interferin’ in this my spelling-bee!”
As soon as the applause ceased the poet asked for another word, and,
undefeated, Pettitt shouted: “Protoplasm!”
But the singer would not have it, and started off on “marriage,” when
his persecutor stopped him by loudly denouncing him as a fraud.
“You say you can spell and sing about any word. I challenge you here
and now to spell and sing a verse on ‘protoplasm’!”
“I refuse!”
“Why do you refuse?”
“Because, sir, it is not a fit subject to spell and sing about before
ladies!”
“Then if you won’t--or can’t--spell and sing ‘protoplasm,’” went on
Pettitt relentlessly, “I will give you one more chance, and if you
don’t take it I declare you to be an impostor. The word I give you is
‘apotheosis.’”
“And I decline it, sir!” retorted the victim with pardonable warmth.
“So long as I, a respectable singer, sing in a respectable hall, before
a highly respectable audience, I will not, under any blackguardly
threat, make up verses on scriptural subjects!”
Whereupon the highly respectable applause was tremendous.
But this is a long way from “Hazel Kirke.”
On my return to New York I was handed a cable from Mr. Terriss asking
me to return at once to London to be “leading lady” at the Adelphi.
While I was in America with Frohman, Terriss had been playing the lead
with Miss Mary Anderson, so for a time we had both left the Lyceum
Company. At first Miss Anderson had not been altogether successful; but
she pluckily struggled on, and in the end became deservedly popular
with London audiences, and never again suffered such an ordeal as
the “voice from the gallery” which, on her first appearance in “The
Hunchback,” countered her line, “I do not feel happy,” with “No, miss,
an’ you don’t look it!”
My reply was: “Sailing in a week,” and once again I got a celebrated
manager to “release” me.
On my arrival in England I found that the production of “The Harbour
Lights” was to be postponed for a few weeks, and I made my first
appearance at the Adelphi in the part of Fanny Power in a short revival
of “Arrah Na Pogue,” which was replaced a few weeks later by “The
Colleen Bawn,” in which I played Ann Chute, and in which I played for
the first time with Mr. Terriss at the famous old theatre.
In the course of these two revivals I also became for the first time
associated with Miss Mary Brough, J. D. Beveridge, Charles Glenney, J.
L. Shine, and Robert Pateman.
Ever a fine actor, Mr. Pateman had in those days acquired quite a
reputation in medical circles for the extraordinary realism with which
he indulged in fits on the stage. By some curious chance he had played
more than one character addicted to these unpleasantnesses, and when I
met him quite recently at the Hammersmith Theatre, enjoying Mr. Bransby
William’s wonderful performance in his Dickens’ play, he reminded me
of an amusing incident in connection with one of these pathological
studies.
Mrs. Pateman had a new maid, and, wishing to give her a little
treat--even in those days it was just as well to keep on the right side
of one’s servants--she gave her a ticket to see her master act.
To her mistress’s intense surprise, the new maid arrived home shortly
before nine in a terrible state of excitement.
“What on earth is the matter?” asked the mistress.
“Oh, mum, I hardly like to tell you, but you must be brave! The poor
dear master’s had a fit, before all those people, and I’ve run home to
have a hot bath ready for him and some warm blankets!”
[Illustration: JESSIE MILLWARD AS ANN CHUTE IN “THE COLLEEN BAWN.”]
It took quite a long time to persuade her that the “fit” was only part
of her evening’s amusement, but how many modern domestics would allow
their master’s indisposition, real or imaginary, to interfere with
their “evening out,” I wonder?
“The Harbour Lights,” by Messrs. Sims and Pettitt, was produced on
December 23, 1886, and was the first of the long series of Adelphi
successes with which Mr. Terriss and I were associated, running at the
one theatre without interruption for five hundred and thirteen nights.
During the whole of that run Mr. Terriss and I were never out of the
cast together. On several occasions he was out of the bill for long
week-ends, from Friday until Monday, and one of my holidays was a sea
voyage to New York and back, for by this time I had grown fond of the
sea.
Acting with us in a play which made its mark in the history of what
came to be called “Adelphi drama,” were Miss Mary Rorke, Miss Clara
Jecks, Mrs. Leigh, Miss Jenny Rogers, E. W. Garden, J. D. Beveridge,
and W. L. Abingdon, all of whom became dear to the regular patrons of
the old Adelphi.
And “The Harbour Lights” also made its mark in the history of Miss Mary
Rorke.
There was a long wait in the second act, and one evening as we were
sitting together I said to her suddenly:
“Mary, I dreamt that you were married!”
I had only just remembered my dream, but to my astonishment she seemed
to take it quite seriously.
“Did you?” she asked quietly. “When?”
“Last Tuesday.”
“I was.”
On the Tuesday she had married Frank St. Aubyn, and they had meant to
keep it a secret for the time.
Another member of the cast who has since filled an important position
in the world of the theatre was Mr. Robert Courtneidge.
Mr. Courtneidge was then a very young man, the “boy” of the company,
and as fate would have it he was cast to play the part of an ancient
villager, and I remember how we used to roar over his line:
“Ah’m the oldest inhabitant in th’ village, and ah ’aven’t a tooth to
me yead!”
Another youthful member of the company who played a tiny part was
Morell Mackenzie, the son of the great surgeon, Sir Morell Mackenzie.
Sir Morell was a true friend to the theatrical profession, and many an
actor and actress of those days had cause to be grateful to him for his
kindness and his skill.
He often visited the theatre, and one evening, noticing from his seat
that I appeared to be suffering from a sore throat, he came round to
my dressing-room and insisted on examining it. It was pretty bad, and
giving me something to relieve it for that evening, he told me to call
to see him the next morning, when he again examined it, and treated it,
telling me that it would be necessary for me to call on him each day
for some little time.
One morning he seemed to take longer than usual in his examination.
“Miss Millward,” he said suddenly. “You have been to some other doctor.”
“Good gracious, _no_!” I replied.
“Well, someone has been tampering with your throat.”
I then told him that each evening after the performance, as my throat
had felt very tired and sore, Mr. Terriss, before leaving the theatre,
had come to my room and painted it with a little brush.
“H’m,” said Sir Morell. “Give my compliments to Mr. Terriss, and tell
him that I say he is a very good actor but a very bad doctor, and that
in future we will stick to our own professions.”
In those palmy days of the old Adelphi there was not quite the same
luxury “behind the scenes” that the modern young actor seems to
expect, and even leading actors did not always have dressing-rooms to
themselves.
For instance, Abingdon and two other principals shared one large room
which was reached by a short staircase from the back of the stage, and
it was their custom to take their letters from the hands of the stage
door-keeper as they entered the theatre each evening, carry them up to
the room, and read them as they dressed.
One evening a letter addressed to Abingdon was handed by accident
to Terriss, who opened it without reading the address, and was very
annoyed when he realized the mistake. He went in search of the proper
owner, who had not, however, arrived at the theatre.
“That idiot at the stage door is always mixing up our letters,” he
said. “He ought to be more careful. This is one of Abingdon’s that he
has given me, and I’ve opened it. Luckily it’s nothing very important,
only a bill from his bootmaker, but I’ll have to explain and apologize,
and Abingdon is a funny-tempered chap.”
“Seal it up and say nothing about it,” suggested an occupant of
Abingdon’s dressing-room. “It isn’t as if it were anything important.
Give it to me, and I’ll send it down to the stage door-keeper.”
The envelope was not torn, so was easily fastened up again, and was
handed back to the stage door-keeper with orders to be more careful in
future.
Soon after Abingdon entered Terriss’s dressing-room with the identical
letter in his hand. He opened it a trifle ostentatiously, read it
through with a tolerant smile, then tore it carefully, if a trifle
melodramatically, into small pieces.
“Silly little fool!” he muttered.
“What’s the matter, old fellow?” asked Terriss.
“Nothing--nothing. Only another silly little fool of a married woman
wants me to take her out to supper.”
And he never understood why his hearer roared with laughter.
Poor Abingdon died by his own hand in 1918 in America, where he had
been for the last twelve years of his life. He was fifty-eight years of
age, and made his first appearance in the West End in 1887 in “Shadows
of a Great City” at the Princess’s; and after playing in several pieces
there, including “The Mystery of a Hansom Cab,” “The Still Alarm,” and
“Hands Across the Sea,” he migrated to the Adelphi, where his successes
as the villain were numerous. It used to be said of “Billy” Abingdon
that he could provoke hisses from a virtuous pit and gallery more
easily than any other “villain” on the stage. Originally he came from
Northampton, where his father, a tailor named Pilgrim, had a shop in
Abingdon Street--hence the stage name “Abingdon.”
Although certain of the “highbrows” of the period affected to despise
the Adelphi drama--the gloom of Ibsen was then the fashionable
cult--the Adelphi had many famous and regular patrons in the ranks of
society, and the late King Edward, then Prince of Wales, was a fairly
frequent visitor. One evening during the run of “Harbour Lights” I had
the honour of being presented to him, and he was kind enough to recall
the success of Hero.
There was always a little extra excitement and nervousness behind the
curtain when it became known that “the Prince”--there was only one
“Prince” in those days--was in front, and this may possibly explain
an appalling slip made one evening by Mr. Terriss as he spoke the
concluding lines of the play.
The lines as they left the author’s hands were:
“And straight before me, like two rays of hope, I see the harbour
lights.”
As they left the actor’s lips that evening the lines ran:
“And straight before me, like two bars of soap, I see the harbour
lights.”
It was in the later Adelphi days, when the Prince visited the theatre
on the eve of Persimmon’s Ascot Gold Cup, that Mr. Terriss in his usual
hearty way wished the Royal owner luck, and added: “We’ve all got our
shirts on Persimmon, sir.” The Prince laughed and thanked him for
his good wishes, and later, when the horse had won, in response to a
telegram of loyal congratulations came a wire from Marlborough House:
“The Prince of Wales thanks Mr. Terriss for his congratulations, and is
glad that Mr. Terriss has retained his shirt.”
If he indeed ventured his shirt it was contrary to his usual principle,
for his invariable answer to the question: “Do you fancy anything for
to-day?” was: “Yes, a little filly I’ve often backed and never lost a
penny over, Common Sense, ridden by little Tommy Let-it-alone.”
The Prince was nowhere more popular than in theatrical circles, as
guest and as host, but while no one entered more thoroughly into the
spirit of the occasion than he did, or was more solicitous that others
should enjoy themselves in his presence, he knew when and how to
assert his dignity, and a well-known actor had good reason to regret
his egregious taste in inflicting a risky story on a dinner party at
Marlborough House given by the Prince to certain well-known managers
and members of the theatrical profession.
And at one time an amusing story went the rounds of a little _faux pas_
on the part of a certain lady of the lighter stage who had married
into the peerage, and, possibly on the strength of her new rank, had
been invited to meet the Prince. Her husband, probably knowing her
free-and-easy manners only too well, cautioned her most carefully as to
her behaviour in the Royal presence--for she was to sit at the Prince’s
table--and was relieved to see that, so far as he could judge, his wife
was behaving admirably. Above all, he had cautioned her: “Whatever you
do, don’t rise from the table until the Prince rises,” and knowing her
impatience at a long sitting he saw with relief the Prince rise first.
As soon as he reached his wife’s side he congratulated her on her
behaviour.
“Oh, that was all right,” replied the lady. “I remembered what you
told me and sat tight until he rose. But when he did, I couldn’t
help saying, ‘My God, sir, I thought you were going to sit there all
night!’”
Another great patron of the Adelphi was Lord Londesborough, a tall,
distinguished-looking man who had lost one eye, and who used often to
come behind, wearing a long and shabby sealskin coat. And yet another
Adelphi habitué who always interested me greatly was Mr. Justice
Hawkins, later Lord Brampton, who, with his wife, was a frequent
visitor.
It was in the palmy days of the Adelphi that Mr. Terriss--who was the
most abstemious man in the world, and whose passion for bread-and-milk
during the third act of a blood-curdling part would astonish many a
dance club frequenting young actor of to-day--to the astonishment
of everybody bought a licensed house, “The Market House,” in Covent
Garden. When this became known his theatrical friends made a point of
calling, and, pretending to find fault with something, would insist
on seeing the proprietor. When Terriss found that it was no longer
possible to keep the secret he used occasionally to look in after the
theatre and humour his “pals,” who insisted upon being served by the
proprietor himself, whom they would invite to drink with them, taking
no refusal. For these occasions there was a special bottle of gin
reserved for the proprietor, but the gin was undiluted water.
Soon after he had bought the place there was a good deal of chaff over
the regulation which provided that the licensee’s name should be in a
prominent position over the door.
“Think what a fine advertisement it will be for your acting, old chap,”
said one humorist, and when at last Terriss announced that the name was
up his friends trooped down in a body to inspect it.
The name was up, but to their disappointment it was not that of William
Terriss, but of William Charles James Lewin--his real name--which
conveyed little or nothing to the ordinary man in the street.
It was also whispered that he was associated with the host of “The
Mitre” in Chancery Lane--a Devonshire man named Drew, nicknamed “The
Abbot”--in many of his enterprises. In any case, Mr. Terriss made a
good deal of money during the public-house boom in the ’nineties, and
retained for some time his interest in “The Market House,” in the days
when that hostelry kept open practically all night, and did a roaring
trade in early breakfasts for late revellers.
Although he never admitted that he had an interest in “The Mitre” he
frequently lunched there, and fameless dramatists would frequent the
little parlour in the hopes of getting a word with him. Perhaps it was
his taste which decorated the walls of the tavern with a collection of
pictures far above the average to be seen in a city chop-house, amongst
which were studies by Stacey Marks, some drawings of graceful girls by
Kate Greenaway’s father, and some paintings by Beverley.
A sound business man, a very fair judge of pictures, a lover of the
open air, and a devotee of the simple life--“Your public pay you for
the best that is in you,” he once told me when I came down to the
theatre tired after a reception in the afternoon, “and how can you
give them value for money if you spend the time you ought to have been
resting in a vitiated atmosphere?”--Terriss was also a very good judge
of plays, and, what is equally important from the pecuniary point of
view, a very good judge of the public taste in plays.
From his experiences with “Trilby” and “The Man’s Shadow” which I have
already related, the reader will see that in these two instances his
judgment was not far at fault, but I am afraid it was very much at
fault with regard to “The Devil’s Disciple,” by Mr. Bernard Shaw.
For one thing he loathed having plays read to him--“I would not have
a MS. read to me if there were millions in it,” he once wrote to a
friend; “send it on and I will run through it”--and when Mr. Shaw wrote
to ask if he might read a play to Mr. Terriss and myself I feared the
worst. I persuaded Mr. Terriss to consent, but my fears were justified.
From the very first things went badly.
Mr. Shaw arrived about three o’clock and I was much struck by his
appearance: to my unsophisticated eyes he looked more like a farmer
than a famous playwright.
He sat down and in a business-like way began to read, and in a little
while, to my horror, I saw that Mr. Terriss, who was sitting in a
big chair beside the fire, was beginning to nod. Taking advantage of
a pause while the dramatist was turning over a leaf, I suggested to
Terriss that we should change places, saying that I felt rather cold.
We changed places, and the reading went on.
But in ten minutes or so Terriss was indubitably asleep.
Mr. Shaw read on, and when he reached the end of the second act he
stopped for a moment. The sudden silence woke Terriss.
“No, Shaw, no,” he said, shaking his head. “I’m afraid it won’t do. I
don’t like the end. It isn’t suited to Miss Millward and myself.”
“Mr. Terriss,” said Mr. Shaw, “I have not finished the play, and I am
not going to finish it.”
Feeling that if ever there was an uncomfortable moment this was one, I
rang for tea.
“Have a whisky and soda?” suggested Terriss.
“Thank you, I never drink anything but water,” replied Mr. Shaw. Worse
and worse!
Luckily it was now nearly four o clock, and when I was acting I always
dined at four, so I asked the two men to stay to dinner. They both
gloomily accepted.
We sat down to table. The maid handed some dish to Mr. Shaw.
“No, thank you,” he said. “I never eat meat.”
This seemed absolutely the last straw, and I don’t think I completely
recovered until he rose to go.
Before leaving he turned and fired a parting shot.
“I didn’t have you in my mind for the part, Mr. Terriss,” he said
coldly. “I wanted Miss Millward, and I hope that some day she will play
in one of my pieces.”
Mr. Shaw was right in his estimate of his work, and Mr. Terriss was
wrong, for the play was “The Devil’s Disciple,” in which Sir Johnston
Forbes Robertson played so superbly in England, and Mr. Richard
Mansfield in America.
We cannot always foretell the future, which, on the whole perhaps, is
better for our happiness and peace of mind.
But play-reading is an ordeal, both to the reader and the read-to,
and at times the ordeal is more severe than usual. It is, I suppose,
largely a matter of temperament.
There is a very well-known and very temperamental actress who
completely upset a brilliant young playwright on his attempt to read
her a play in her Kensington drawing-room.
Unfortunately her pet dog was in the room, and her anxiety about
the little beast overshadowed her interest in the play. Every
half-minute or so she interrupted the reading by tender little cries
of adoration--to the dog; ardent enquiries after the health and
comfort--of the dog; admiring ejaculations about the cleverness--of the
dog.
At the end of the first act the brilliant young author folded his
manuscript, and, declaring that art could not compete with nature,
stalked out into the sunshine in a state of furious indignation. He
entered Kensington Gardens, boiling with rage and jealousy, and in the
gardens met a very famous dramatist indeed. The great writer, seeing
his perturbed condition, made sympathetic enquiries, and together they
paced the gardens, the older man in silence, the younger man pouring
out his flow of indignation--against the dog.
On they wandered, along the bank of the Serpentine, and at last, by
the statue of Peter Pan, the young man ceased the tale of his woes,
possibly from want of breath.
“My dear boy,” then said the creator of Peter Pan, laying a sympathetic
hand on his young friend’s arm. “_I_ once read a play to that damned
dog.”
And I “tell the tale as ’twas told to me.”