"Corp is a bit fidgety about it, because he says I have two to love me already, but I feel confident that I can manage more than two.
"Trusting to see you at the Cuttle Well on Saturday when the eight o'clock bell is ringing,
"I am
"Your indulgent Commander,
"T. SANDYS.
"P.S.—Can you bring some of the Lyceum armor with you, and two hard-boiled eggs?"
Henry Irving once thought of producing Mr. Barrie's play "The Professor's Love Story." He was delighted with the first act, but when he had read the rest he did not think the play would do for the Lyceum. It was the same with many plays which were proposed for us. The ideas sounded all right, but as a rule the treatment was too thin, and the play, even if good, on too small a scale for the theater.
One of our playwrights of whom I always expected a great play was [Mrs. Craigie] (John Oliver Hobbes). A little one-act play of hers, "Journeys End in Lovers' Meeting"—in which I first acted with [Johnston Forbes-Robertson] and Terriss at a special matinée in 1894—brought about a friendship between us which lasted until her death. Of her it could indeed be said with poignant truth, "She should have died hereafter." Her powers had not nearly reached their limit.
Pearl Craigie had a man's intellect—a woman's wit and apprehension. "Bright," as the Americans say, she always managed to be even in the dullest company, and she knew how to be silent at times, to give the "other fellow" a chance. Her executive ability was extraordinary. Wonderfully tolerant, she could at the same time not easily forgive any meanness or injustice that seemed to her deliberate. Hers was a splendid spirit.
I shall always bless that little play of hers which first brought me near to so fine a creature. I rather think that I never met any one who gave out so much as she did. To me, at least, she gave, gave all the time. I hope she was not exhausted after our long "confabs." I was most certainly refreshed and replenished.
The first performance of "Journeys End in Lovers' Meeting" she watched from a private box with the Princess of Wales (our present [Queen]) and [Henry Irving]. She came round afterwards just burning with enthusiasm and praising me for work which was really not good. She spoiled one for other women.
Her best play was, I think, ["The Ambassador,"] in which Violet Vanbrugh (now Mrs. Bourchier) played a pathetic part very beautifully, and made a great advance in her profession.
There was some idea of Pearl Craigie writing a play for Henry Irving and me, but it never came to anything. There was a play of hers on the same subject as "The School for Saints," and another about Guizot.
"February 11, 1898.
"My very dear Nell,—
"I have an idea for a real four-act comedy (in these matters nothing daunts me!) founded on a charming little episode in the private lives of Princess Lieven (the famous Russian ambassadress) and the celebrated Guizot, the French Prime Minister and historian. I should have to veil the identity slightly, and also make the story a husband and wife story—it would be more amusing this way. It is comedy from beginning to end. Sir Henry would make a splendid Guizot, and you the ideal Madame de Lieven. Do let me talk it over with you. 'The School for Saints' was, as it were, a born biography. But the Lieven-Guizot idea is a play.
"Yours ever affectionately,
"PEARL MARY THERESA CRAIGIE."
In another letter she writes: