"Listen to her, Ellen! Hang me if she's not getting hot about it, too!" Then he came over to me, and in the gravest, gentlest tone said, "It is like Byron, my girl, but it is not him—you found the picture of my beloved and great father, Edmund Kean," and he kissed me gently on the forehead, and said, "Thank you—thank you!" and as Mrs. Kean came over and put her arm about me and repeated the kiss and thanks, Charles snuffled most distinctly from the corner where he was folding his precious miniature within a silk handkerchief.
They were both at their very best in the tragedy of "Henry VIII." Mr. Kean's Wolsey was an impressive piece of work, and to the eye he was as true a Cardinal as ever shared in an Ecumenical Council in Catholic Rome, or hastened to private audience at the Vatican with the Pope himself; and his superb robes, his priestly splendor had nothing about them that was imitation. Everything was real—the silks, the jewelled cross and ring, and as to the lace, I gasped for breath with sheer astonishment. Never had I seen, even in a picture, anything to suggest the exquisite beauty of that ancient web. Full thirty inches deep, the yellowing wonder fell over the glowing cardinal-red beneath it. I cannot remember how many thousands of dollars they had gladly given for it to the sisters of the tottering old convent in the hills, where it had been created long ago; and though it seemed so fragily frail and useless a thing, yet had it proved strong enough to prop up the leaning walls of its old home, and spread a sound roof above the blessed altar there—so strong sometimes is beauty's weakness.
And Mrs. Kean, what a Catherine she was! Surely nothing could have been taken from the part, nothing added to it, without marring its perfection. In the earlier acts one seemed to catch a glimpse of that Ellen Tree who had been a beauty as well as a popular actress when Charles Kean had come a-wooing. Her clear, strong features, her stately bearing were beautifully suited to the part of Queen Catherine. Her performance of the court scene was a liberal education for any young actress. Her regal dignity, her pride, her passion of hatred for Wolsey held in strong leash, yet now and again springing up fiercely. Her address to the King was a delight to the ear, even while it moved one to the heart, and through the deep humility of her speech one saw, as through a veil, the stupendous pride of the Spanish princess, who knew herself the daughter of a king, if she were not the wife to one. With most pathetic dignity she gave her speech beginning:
"Sir, I desire you do me right and justice;"
maintaining perfect self-control, until she came to the words:
"——Sir, call to mind
That I have been your wife in this obedience
Upward of twenty years and,——"
Her voice faltered, the words trembled on her lips:
"——have been blest
With many children by you."
In that painful pause one remembered with a pang that all those babes were dead in infancy, save only the Princess Mary. Then, controlling her emotion and lifting her head high, she went on to the challenge—if aught could be reported against her honor. It was a great act, her passionate cry to Wolsey:
"——Lord cardinal,
To you I speak."