"Warm greetings to all your home circle from us both. Ever sincerely yours,
Can I add anything to this? I think not. I know that in dealing with books of this description conscientious censors sometimes say they are replete with eulogy, and offer little or no criticism. If I extol Ellen Terry I do so with a clear conscience and a full heart. I can never forget the happy hours and enlightenment she has given me, and I believe that all my fellow-playgoers will think that I have treated my subject from the right point of view. Why should not our great geniuses of art and literature know, whilst they are amongst us, that we appreciate their work, and love them for the sweet lessons that they teach us?
Shakespeare, who never went amiss, caused his Hermione to say--
Happily Ellen Terry is still in the full ripeness of her great and constantly maturing gifts, and no thought of her retirement has yet troubled the lovers and students of the stage. If, in the course of years to come (and may they be far off), she deserts us for her dear country cottages, we might well, in grand chorus, repeat those lovely lines that occur in "Cymbeline"--and, in repeating them, recall the bitter and trembling anxieties that, in order to give us pleasure, she has undergone--
"Fear no more the heat o' the sun, Nor the furious winter's rages; Thou thy worldly task hast done, Home art gone and ta'en thy wages."
[Footnote 1: Fechter did not discard that soliloquy, but expressed to Lester Wallack, who mentioned it to William Winter, his opinion that the omission of that passage would be advantageous to the movement of the play; and he always spoke it as if it were prose.]
[Footnote 2: Here is another proof of a fact I have already emphasised, _i.e._ Ellen Terry's invariable and sweet unselfishness.]
[Footnote 3: This was written for, and appeared in, an evening paper.]
Actors, and first nights, 172; fleeting fame of, 5; generosity of, 159; love to die in harness, 6; nervousness of great, 39
Anderson, Mary (Madame de Navarro), letter of, about Ellen Terry, 307
Bernhardt, Sarah, on Irving and Ellen Terry, 288
Blanchard, Edward Leman, criticism of Ellen Terry by, 76
Bristol Stock Company, famous members of the, 59, 61