[Illustration: _Copyrighted by W. & D. Downey_
TO WHOM HENRY IRVING GAVE A BIRTHDAY SUPPER IN THE BEEFSTEAK ROOM OF THE LYCEUM IN 1891]
"All this information you are most welcome to use, the next time you are in want of something to talk about. You may say you learned it from 'a distinguished etymologist,' which is perfectly true, since anyone who knows me by sight can easily distinguish me from all other etymologists.
"What parts are you and Polly now playing?
No two men could be more unlike than Mr. Dodgson and Mr. J. M. Barrie, yet there are more points of resemblance than "because there's a 'b' in both!" If "Alice in Wonderland" is the children's classic of the library, and one perhaps even more loved by the grown-up children than by the others, "Peter Pan" is the children's stage classic, and here again elderly children are the most devoted admirers. I am a very old child, nearly old enough to be a "beautiful great-grandmother" (a part that I am sure Mr. Barrie could write for me), and I go and see "Peter" year after year and love him more each time. There is one advantage in being a grown-up child--you are not afraid of the pirates or the crocodile.
[Illustration: MELBA AS MARGUERITE IN "FAUST"]
I first became an ardent lover of Mr. Barrie through "Sentimental Tommy" and I simply had to write and tell him how hugely I had enjoyed it. In reply I received this letter from Tommy himself:
"I just wonder at you. I noticed that Mr. Barrie, the author (so-called), and his masterful wife had a letter they wanted to conceal from me, so I got hold of it, and it turned out to be from you, and _not a line to me in it_! If you like the book, it is _me_ you like, not him, and it is to me you should send your love, not to him. Corp thinks, however, that you did not like to make the first overtures, and if that is the explanation, I beg herewith to send you my warm love (don't mention this to Elspeth), and to say that I wish you would come and have a game with us in the Den (Don't let on to Grizel that I invited you). The first moment I saw you, I said to myself 'This is the kind I like,' and while the people round about me were only thinking of your acting, I was wondering which would be the best way of making you my willing slave, and I beg to say that I believe I have 'found a way,' for most happily the very ones I want most to lord it over are the ones who are least able to resist me.