Then my fly, which had been waiting a long time, enabled me to reach
Hitchin and get three hours' sleep.
All this was hard work, but I was really strong, and in the best of health, so that I enjoyed the labour as well as the pleasure. One cannot now conceive how it was possible to go through so much without breaking down. I attribute it, however, to the attendant excitement, which braced me up, and have always found that excitement will enable you to exceed your normal strength.
I had very many theatrical friends, all of them delightful in every way. Amongst them Wright and Paul Bedford. Such companions as these are not to be met with twice, each with his individuality, while the two in combination were incomparable. They kept one in a perpetual state of laughter. Paul was irresistible in his drollery, and whether it was mimicry or original humour, you could not but revel in its quaint conceits.
Such men are benefactors; they brighten the darkest hours of existence, turn sorrow into laughter, and enable men to forget their troubles and live a little while in the sunshine of humour. Banish philosophy if you please, banish ambition if you must banish something, but leave us humour, the light of the social world. All who have experienced its beautiful influence can appreciate its value, and understand it as one of the choicest blessings conferred on our existence.
The dullest company was enlivened when Wright entered upon the scene. I remember Paul being told one day at the Garrick Club that a certain poor barrister, who had been an actor, was going to marry the daughter of an old friend. "Ah!" said he, "yes, he's a lover without spangles."
Who but Paul would have thought of so grotesque a simile? And yet its applicability was simply due to the language of the stage.
I remember Robson, too, and his wonderful acting; he had no rival. Nature had given him the talent which Art had cultivated to the highest perfection. Next come the Keelys' impersonations of every phase of dramatic life—originals in acting, and actors of originals.
But I must not linger over this portion of my story. It would occupy many pages, and time and space are limited; I therefore take my leave of one of the pleasantest chapters in my reminiscences.
All, alas! have passed away—all I knew and loved, all who made that time so happy; and reluctantly as I say it, it must be said: "Farewell, dear, grand old. Knebworth, with all thy glories and all the glad faces and merry hearts I met within your walls—a long, long, farewell!"