One of our playwrights from whom I always expected a great play was
Mrs. Craigie (John Oliver Hobbes). A little one-act play of hers,
"Journeys End in Lovers' Meeting," in which I first acted with Johnston
Forbes Robertson and Terriss at a special matinée in 1894, brought
about a friendship between us that lasted until her death. Of her
it could indeed be said with poignant truth, "She should have died
hereafter." Her powers had not nearly reached their limit.
[Illustration: MRS. CRAIGIE (JOHN OLIVER HOBBES)
_From the painting by Miss Maud Porter_]
[Illustration: _Lent by the Press Picture Agency._
C. L. DODGSON (LEWIS CARROLL)
WHO GAVE "ALICE IN WONDERLAND" TO ALL OF ELLEN TERRY'S FAMILY]
Pearl Craigie had a man's intellect, a woman's wit and apprehension.
"Bright," as the Americans say, she always managed to be even in the
dullest company, and she knew how to be silent at times, to give the
"other fellow" a chance. Her executive ability was extraordinary.
Wonderfully tolerant, she could at the same time not easily forgive
any meanness or injustice that seemed to her deliberate. Hers was a
splendid spirit.
I shall always bless that little play of hers which first brought me
near to so fine a creature. I rather think that I never met any one who
_gave out_ so much as she did. To me, at least, she _gave_, _gave_ all
the time. I hope she was not exhausted after our long "confabs." I was
most certainly refreshed and replenished.
[Illustration: _Photograph by the London Autotype Co._
J. M. BARRIE
FROM THE PAINTING BY LESLIE BROOKE. BARRIE'S PLAY,
"ALICE-SIT-BY-THE-FIRE," WHICH HE WROTE FOR MISS TERRY, WAS PRODUCED BY
HER IN 1905]
The first performance of "Journeys End in Lovers' Meeting" she watched
from a private box with the Princess of Wales (our present Queen) and
Henry Irving. She came round afterwards just burning with enthusiasm
and praising me for work which was really not good. She spoiled me for
other women.
Her best play was, I think, "The Ambassador," in which Violet Vanbrugh,
who is now Mrs. Bouchier, played a pathetic part very beautifully, and
made a great advance in her profession. There was some idea of Pearl
Craigie writing a play for Henry Irving and me, but it never came to
anything. There was a play on the same subject as "The School for
Saints," and another about Guizot.
* * * * *
Feb. 11, 1898.
"My very dear Nell:
"I have an idea for a real four-act comedy (in these matters nothing
daunts me!), founded on a charming little episode in the private
lives of Princess Lieven (the famous Russian ambassadress), and
the celebrated Guizot, the French Prime Minister and historian. I
should have to veil the identity _slightly_, and also make the story
a husband-and-wife story; it would be more amusing this way. It is
comedy from beginning to end. Sir Henry would make a splendid Guizot,
and you the ideal Madame de Lieven. Do let me talk it over with you.
'The School for Saints' was, as it were, a born biography. But the
Lieven-Guizot idea is a play.
"Yours ever affectionately,
"PEARL MARY TERESA CRAIGIE."
In another letter she writes:
"I am changing all my views about so-called 'literary' dialogue. It
means pedantry. The great thing is to be lively."
_"Captain Brassbound's Conversion"_
It has always been a reproach against Henry Irving in some mouths that
he neglected the modern English playwright; and of course the reproach
included me to a certain extent. I was glad, then, to show that I could
act in the new plays when Mr. Barrie wrote "Alice-Sit-by-the-Fire"
for me, and after some years' delay I was able to play in Mr. Bernard
Shaw's "Captain Brassbound's Conversion." Of course I could not have
played in "little" plays of this school at the Lyceum with Henry
Irving, even if I had wanted to; they are essentially plays for small
theatres and a single "star."
[Illustration: _Copyrighted by Window & Grove_
ELLEN TERRY AND HER SON, GORDON CRAIG, IN "THE DEAD HEART"]
In Mr. Shaw's "A Man of Destiny" there were two good parts, and Henry,
at my request, considered it, although it was always difficult to fit
a one-act play into the Lyceum bill. For reasons of his own Henry never
produced Mr. Shaw's play, and there was a good deal of fuss made about
it at the time, 1897. But ten years ago Mr. Shaw was not so well known
as he is now, and the so-called "rejection" was probably of use to him
as an advertisement. "A Man of Destiny" has been produced since, but
without any great success. I wonder if Henry and I could have done more
with it?
[Illustration: _Copyrighted by Window & Grove_
ELLEN TERRY AS MISTRESS PAGE IN "MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR" ]
At this time Mr. Shaw and I frequently corresponded. It began by my
writing to ask him as musical critic of the Saturday Review, to tell
me frankly what he thought of the chances of a composer-singer friend
of mine. He answered "characteristically," and we developed a perfect
fury for writing to each other. Sometimes the letters were on business,
sometimes they were not, but always his were entertaining, and mine
were, I suppose, "good copy," as he drew the character of Lady Cecily
Waynflete in "Brassbound" entirely from my letters. He never met me
until after the play was written. In 1902 he sent me this ultimatum:--
"3rd April, 1902.
"Mr. Bernard Shaw's compliments to Miss Ellen Terry.
"Mr. Bernard Shaw has been approached by Mrs. Langtry with a view
to the immediate and splendid production of 'Captain Brassbound's
Conversion.'
"Mr. Bernard Shaw, with the last flash of a trampled-out love, has
repulsed Mrs. Langtry with a petulance bordering on brutality.
"Mr. Bernard Shaw has been actuated in this ungentlemanly and
unbusinesslike course by an angry desire to seize Miss Ellen Terry by
the hair and make her play Lady Cecily.
[Illustration: ELLEN TERRY AS LADY CECILY WAYNFLETE IN "CAPTAIN
BRASSBOUND'S CONVERSION" ]
"Mr. Bernard Shaw would be glad to know whether Miss Ellen Terry wishes
to play Martha at the Lyceum instead.
"Mr. Bernard Shaw will go to the length of keeping a minor part open
for Sir Henry Irving when 'Faust' fails, if Miss Ellen Terry desires it.
"Mr. Bernard Shaw lives in daily fear of Mrs. Langtry recovering
sufficiently from her natural resentment of his ill manners to re-open
the subject.
"Mr. Bernard Shaw begs Miss Ellen Terry to answer this letter.
"Mr. Bernard Shaw is looking for a new cottage or house in the country
and wants advice on the subject.
"Mr. Bernard Shaw craves for the sight of Miss Ellen Terry's once
familiar hand-writing."
Isn't it Horace who says that there is nothing to prevent the man who
laughs from speaking the truth? I think I have heard so, and I always
remember it coupled with the name of Bernard Shaw. He laughs, but he
speaks the truth.[11] The first time he came to my house I was not
present, but a young American lady, who had long adored him from the other
side of the Atlantic, took my place as hostess. I had to be at the
theatre, as usual, but I took great pains to have everything looking
nice; I spent a long time putting out my best blue china, and ordered a
splendid dinner, quite forgetting that the honoured guest usually dined
off a Plasmon biscuit and a bean.
_Mr. Shaw--a Gentle Creature with "Brainstorms"_
Mr. Shaw read "Arms and the Man" to my young American friend, Miss
Sally Fairchild, without even going into the dining-room where the blue
china was spread out to delight his eye. My daughter, Edy, was present
at the reading, and appeared so much absorbed in some embroidery and
paid the reader so few compliments about his play, that he expressed
the opinion that she behaved as if she had been married to him for
twenty years.
The first time I ever saw Mr. Shaw in the flesh--I hope he will pardon
me such an anti-vegetarian expression--was when he took his call after
the first production of "Captain Brassbound's Conversion" by the Stage
Society. He was quite unlike what I had imagined from his letters.
[Illustration: _By permission of Frederick H. Evans_
GEORGE BERNARD SHAW
WHOSE PLAY, "CAPTAIN BRASSBOUND'S CONVERSION," WRITTEN FOR MISS TERRY,
WAS PRODUCED BY HER IN 1906 ]
When at last I was able to play in "Captain Brassbound's Conversion" I
found Bernard Shaw wonderfully patient at rehearsal. I look upon him
as a good, kind, gentle creature whose "brainstorms" are due to the
Irishman's love of a fight; they never spring from malice or anger.
It doesn't answer to take Bernard Shaw seriously. He is not a man of
convictions; that is one of the charms of his plays, to me, at least.
One never knows how the cat is really jumping. But it _jumps_. Bernard
Shaw is alive, with nine lives, like the cat.
_Shakespeare's Rabelaisian Mood_
On Whit Monday, 1902, I received a telegram from Mr. Tree saying that
he was coming down to Winchelsea to see me on "an important matter of
business." I was at the time suffering from considerable depression
about the future.
The Stratford-on-Avon visit had inspired me with the feeling that there
was life in the old 'un yet, and had distracted my mind from the
strangeness of no longer being at the Lyceum permanently with Henry
Irving. But there seemed to be nothing ahead, except two matinées a
week with him at the Lyceum, to be followed by a provincial tour in
which I was only to play twice a week, as Henry's chief attraction
was to be "Faust." This sort of "dowager" engagement did not tempt
me. Besides, I hated the idea of drawing a large salary and doing
next to no work. So when Mr. Tree proposed that I should play Mrs.
Page (Mrs. Kendal being Mrs. Ford) in "Merry Wives of Windsor" at His
Majesty's, it was only natural that I should accept the offer joyfully.
I telegraphed to Henry Irving, asking him if he had any objection to
my playing at His Majesty's. He answered: "Quite willing if proposed
arrangements about matinées are adhered to."
I have thought it worth while to give the facts about this engagement,
because so many people seemed at the time and afterwards to think
that I had treated Henry Irving badly by going on playing in another
theatre, and that theatre one where a certain rivalry with the Lyceum
as regards Shakespearian productions had grown up. There was absolutely
no foundation for the rumors that my "desertion" caused further
estrangement between Henry Irving and me.
"Heaven give you many, many merry days and nights," he telegraphed
to me on the first night, and after that first night, the jolliest
that I ever saw, he wrote delighting in my success. It was a success,
there was no doubt about it. Some people accused the "Merry Wives" of
rollicking and "mafficking" overmuch, but these were the people who
forgot that we were acting in a farce, and that farce is farce, even
when Shakespeare is the author. The audience at first used to seem
rather amazed. This thwacking, rough-and-tumble, Rabelaisian horse-play
Shakespeare? Impossible! But as the evening went on we used to capture
even the most civilized, and force them to return to a simple Jacobian
frame of mind.
In my later career I think I have had no success like this. Letters
rained on me--yes, even love-letters, as if, to quote Mrs. Page, it
were still "the holiday-time of my beauty." As I would always rather
make an audience laugh than see them weep, it may be guessed how much
I enjoyed the hearty laughter at His Majesty's during the run of the
madcap absurdity of "Merry Wives of Windsor."
[Illustration: MISS TERRY'S GARDEN AT WINCHELSEA; FROM A PHOTOGRAPH
GIVEN BY HER TO MISS EVELYN SMALLEY]
On the nineteenth of July, 1902, I acted at the Lyceum for the last
time, although I did not know it then. These last Lyceum days were
very sad. The reception given by Henry to the Indian princes who were
in England for the Coronation was the last flash of the splendid
hospitality which had for so many years been one of the glories of the
theatre.
During my provincial tour with Henry Irving in the autumn of this year
I thought long and anxiously over the proposition that I should play
in "Dante." I heard the play read, and saw no possible part for me in
it. I refused a large sum of money to go to America with Henry Irving,
because I could not consent to play a part even worse than the one that
I had played in "Robespierre." As things turned out, although "Dante"
did fairly well at Drury Lane, the Americans would have none of it, and
Henry had to fall back upon his repertoire.
_Ibsen's_ "_Vikings_"
Having made the decision against "Dante," I began to wonder what I
should do. My partnership with Henry Irving was definitely broken; most
inevitably and naturally "dissolved." There were many roads open to me.
I chose the one which was, from a financial point of view, madness.
Instead of going to America, and earning £12,000, I decided to take a
theatre with my son, and produce plays in conjunction with him.
I hope it will be remembered, when I am spoken of by the youngest
critics after my death as a "Victorian" actress, lacking in enterprise,
an actress belonging to the "old school," that I produced a spectacular
play of Ibsen's in a manner which possibly outstripped the scenic
ideas of to-day by a century; of which at any rate the orthodox
theatre managers of the present age would not have dreamed. At the
Imperial Theatre, where I spent my financially unfortunate season in
April, 1903, I gave my son a free hand. Naturally I am not inclined
to criticise his methods. When I worked with him I found him far from
unpractical. It was the modern theatre which was unpractical when he
was in it. It was wrongly designed, wrongly built. We had to disembowel
the Imperial behind scenes before he could even start, and then the
great height of the proscenium made his lighting lose all its value.
When his idea of dramatic significance clashed with Ibsen's, strange
things would happen. Mr. Bernard Shaw, though impressed by Ted's work
and the beauty that he brought on to the stage of the Imperial, wrote
to me that the symbolism of the first act of "Vikings" was Dawn, youth
rising with the morning sun, reconciliation, rich gifts, brightness,
lightness, pleasant feelings, peace. On to this sunlit scene stalks
Hiördis, a figure of gloom, revenge, of feud eternal, of relentless
hatred and uncompromising unforgetfulness of wrong.
At the Imperial, said Mr. Shaw, the curtain rose on profound gloom.
When you _could_ see anything, you saw eld and severity--old men with
white hair personating the gallant young sons of Ormulf; everywhere
murky cliffs and shadowy spears, melancholy, darkness. Into this
symbolic night enter, in a blaze of limelight, a fair figure robed
in complete fluffy white fur, a gay and bright Hiördis, with a timid
manner and hesitating utterance! The last items in the topsy-turviness
of Ted's practical significance were entirely my fault.
I singed my wings a good deal in the Imperial limelight, which,
although our audiences complained of the darkness on the stage, was
the most serious strain on my purse. But a few provincial tours did
something towards restoring some of the money that I had lost in
management.
On one of these tours I produced "The Good Hope," a play by the Dutch
dramatist, Heijermans, dealing with life in a fishing village. This
was almost as new a departure for me as my season at the Imperial.
The play was essentially modern in construction and development--full
of action, but the action of incident rather than the action of stage
situation. It had no "star" parts, but every part was good, and the
gloom of the story was made bearable by the beauty of the atmosphere,
of the _sea_, which played a bigger part in it than any of the visible
characters. For the first time I played an old woman, a very homely
old peasant woman, too. I flattered myself that I was able to assume a
certain roughness and solidity of the peasantry in "The Good Hope," but
although I stumped about heavily in large sabots, the critics said that
I walked like a fairy instead of like a fisherwoman.
My last Shakespearian part was Hermione in "A Winter's Tale." By some
strange coincidence it fell to me to play it exactly fifty years after
I had played the little boy Mamilius in the same play. I sometimes
think that Fate is the best of stage-managers. Hermione is a gravely
beautiful part, well-balanced, difficult to act, but certain in its
appeal. If only it were possible to put on the play in a simple way and
arrange the scenes to knit up the ravelled interest, I should hope to
play Hermione again.
IN THE SHADOW OF THE SCAFFOLD
BY HARRY GRAHAM
ILLUSTRATIONS BY ANDRÉ CASTAIGNE
"_C'est le crime qui fait la honte, et non pas l'échafaud._"
The clock in the public gardens outside the Conciergerie had just
struck the half hour. Richard, the prison warder, a rough old veteran
whose patient face wore that air of tolerant kindliness which stamps
the features of all whose duty it is to be the daily witness of human
suffering, stirred uneasily in his hard wooden chair. Somewhere in the
huge building a gate clanged noisily, and the old man opened his eyes
with the guilty start of the day-dreamer and looked expectantly round
towards the door.
The room in which he sat, with its simple wooden bed, its plain deal
table in the center, its squalid jug and basin in the corner, was but
one of a score or so of similar cells in the old Conciergerie prison.
To Richard it had always seemed a dingy apartment enough, but even to
his accustomed eye, as it fell upon the little white linen bonnet which
hung from a peg beside the bed and looked so singularly out of place
amid its surroundings, the gloom had never appeared so deep and joyless
as it did upon this warm evening of July, in that time of bloodshed,
of passion, and of terror, that sinister summer of 1793. The dazzling
light which flooded the stone courtyard outside seemed reluctant to
force its way through the high barred window of this dingy cage, as if
timid of intruding its brilliance upon a scene whose atmosphere was
already clouded by the shadow of death.
"Half-past five," said Richard to himself, with a yawn. "My little
captive will soon be back."
He glanced up at the few simple garments that lay neatly folded on
a low shelf beneath the window. "Poor little soul!" he murmured.
"She was surely created for sunnier scenes than this! But there," he
added, after a moment's reflection, "justice can't afford to make
distinctions! Young and old, rich and poor, men and women, we all
suffer alike--when we get found out!"
Richard's reverie was interrupted by a loud knock at the door, which
was immediately flung open, and a short, middle-aged man, dressed
almost entirely in faded black, entered the room.
The newcomer closed the door behind him with a swift, sinuous movement
and, turning noiselessly, confronted the startled veteran with a
malevolent expression in his small, beady eyes.
Richard could not conceal his astonishment.
"The Deputy Chabot!" he exclaimed, with an air of surprise.
"It is indeed the Deputy Chabot," replied the other.
The warder rose awkwardly to his feet.
"I am very sorry," he said apologetically, "but the prison regulations
do not allow admittance to the public. It is against the rules." He
crossed to the door as though to open it. With a quick gesture the
Deputy stopped him.
"I am not of the public," he said in a pompous voice. "I am above
regulations." He took a paper from the pocket of his coat. "See here, I
have a pass signed by the Police Commissioner." And he handed the paper
to Richard.
With great difficulty the old man retrieved a large pair of horn
spectacles from his forehead and adjusted them on the very tip of his
nose.
"'Admit Citizen Chabot,'" he read, spelling out each word laboriously,
"'Deputy of the Department of Loir-et-Cher, member of the Legislative
Assembly ... um ... um ...; signed Guellard, Police Commissioner.'
That seems correct enough," he added, as he re-folded the document and
handed it back to its owner.
The Deputy laughed shortly. "As you see," he said, "your regulations
are of no great value where a man of my position is concerned."
Richard still hesitated. "Perhaps you are not aware that this is the
cell of the prisoner, Charlotte Corday."
[Illustration: "TERRIBLE TALES OF BLOODSHED AND INJUSTICE REACHED THE
LITTLE SUN-KISSED VILLAGE OF CAEN"]
"The criminal, Charlotte Corday?" corrected the other. "Yes, I am
perfectly aware. I have just come from her trial, where I spent a very
dull afternoon, and wasted much valuable time."
"You were at the trial?" exclaimed the warder, with a fresh note
of anxiety in his voice. "Then you can tell me, citizen. What has
happened?"
"What has happened?" repeated the Deputy scornfully. "The only thing
that could possibly have happened, I am thankful to say. Justice has
been done. Marat's, the martyr Marat's death will be avenged. The woman
who struck so foul a blow at liberty and the Constitution has been
sentenced!" He walked up and down the narrow cell in his excitement.
Suddenly, stopping short in front of the old man, "She dies on the
scaffold this evening," he ended in a quiet voice of triumph.
Richard sank heavily into a chair. A troubled look came over his face.
"Ah, I am sorry," he said, after a pause. "The wife will be sorry,
too," he added thoughtfully, "and my little boy, my little Jean, he
will be sorry. The wife has taken a great fancy to this Charlotte
Corday," he explained; "and little Jean, he thinks the world of her.
But there, she spoils him," he continued apologetically. "Well, well,
citizen, I am indeed sorry."
Chabot had not moved during the old man's speech. "You are sorry for a
murderess who receives her just deserts?" he asked.
"I am sorry for a lovely woman," replied the warder. "I am an old
veteran of the Conciergerie," he went on. "I have had many prisoners
pass through my hands; and I judge them by what they are, not by what
they may have done; not by what they may be accused of doing.
"I know nothing of this Charlotte Corday," he continued, "nothing
beyond what I have seen of her during the last few days. I have never
questioned her as to her crime, nor as to her reasons for committing
it. That is none of my business," with a shrug of his shoulders. "My
duty is to keep her here, to take care that she does not escape, to see
that she has whatever is necessary--which is little enough," he added
with a smile. "I judge people as I find them; and I have found this
girl gentle and well-behaved. The wife likes her, and my little Jean
worships the ground she treads on. She gives me no trouble; she is more
than grateful for any small kindness; and Heaven knows there is not
much that I can do."
The old man was quite out of breath. He crossed over to the window,
mopping his brow as he went.
"I see," said the Deputy bitterly; "like the rest of them, you are won
over by her beauty!"
"I am too old for that," replied the warder. "I am won over by her
charm, if you will; by her sweet nature. And the wife, too, and little
Jean; and he is a good judge of character, I can tell you, is little
Jean."
Chabot turned away with an expression of disgust.
"She is a devil," he exclaimed, with a tone of intense hatred in his
voice, "she is a fiend in human form!"
Richard thought for a moment before replying.
"You may be right, citizen," he said, "but to me, at any rate, she
seems a quiet, modest girl enough; and my little Jean, he----"
"Modest!" interrupted Chabot. "Bah! is it modest to force one's way
into a man's bed-room? Is murder, cold-blooded murder, a practice that
commends itself to modest persons?" He turned round with an angry
snarl. "I tell you," he said, "she is a devil!"
The old warder shrugged his shoulders, as he was wont to do when his
powers of argument failed him--and argument was not his strong point.
"Well," he stoutly reiterated. "I am sorry for her, nevertheless. She
is only a girl; so young, so frail, so delicate----"
"Delicate!" burst in the indignant Deputy. "Why, after she had murdered
Marat--and," he smiled sarcastically, "with what delicacy she performed
the deed, eh?--when the porter, Laurent Basse, rushed in to seize her,
it was only after twice striking her with a chair that he was able to
overpower her. Oh, she is a delicate creature, truly!"
For the moment Richard seemed nonplussed.