Before the curtain went up his heroine wrote to the dramatist:--
"You will have a great success, I hope and pray. I believe in this, and nobody will be so glad then as your sincere friend, Ellen Terry."
After the first act (which had gone splendidly) he went behind the scenes. "Oh, dear, dear! how bad I am!" she said, suffering (quite unnecessarily) from her usual "first performance" misgivings. "My tongue is parched, and I can't get a smile out of the part." She was terribly anxious to make a great success for her author.
At the end of the second act, which was received with rare enthusiasm, he again saw her. She was crying, for she was still "Ellaline"--the heart-broken maiden, whose lover had tired of her. After a while she smiled through her tears, and said, "I think I was a little better in that act." Her modest appreciation of what was acknowledged to be a noble dramatic achievement showed the true nature of the woman. The effect on the audience in the parting scene at the end of this act was greater than written description can convey. Mrs. Keeley declared that, with all her experience, she had never witnessed anything so fine, and she afterwards wrote to the author: "I am glad to have lived to see such grand acting as Miss Terry's was yesterday afternoon."
Then Ellen Terry wrote to him: "I hope you are pleased. I am so sorry about one thing yesterday. From nervousness my acting of the first act was strained and artificial, and I confess that I entirely ruined and _missed_ your first beautiful soliloquy in the second act! I am _truly_ sorry! I know that you are a good creature, and view all my efforts from the point of view of my _intentions_ since I succeeded better in some bits. Although I may never play the part again, I never will cease to love the play for its own sake, and to regard and esteem my friend who wrote it--_for me_--I do believe."
_In Alfred C. Calmont's Poetical Fancy, "The Amber Heart." Lyceum, June 7, 1887._
Poor self-tormenting lady! From first to last she had played the part to perfection--and every one but herself knew it. However, in that charming letter, so characteristic of her modesty, she unwittingly endowed the author with one of his most esteemed possessions.