The Story of My Life: Recollections and Reflections - Ellen Terry

What is a diary as a rule? A document useful to the person who keeps it, dull to the contemporary who reads it, invaluable to the student, centuries afterwards, who treasures it!

Whatever interest the few diaries of mine that I have preserved may have for future psychologists and historians, they are for my present purpose almost worthless. Yet because things written at the time are considered by some people to be more reliable than those written years afterwards when memory calls in imagination to her help, I have hunted up a few passages from my diaries between 1887 and 1901; and now I give them in the raw for what they are worth—in my opinion nothing!

July 1887.—E.B.-J. ([Sir Edward Burne-Jones]) sent me a picture he has painted for me—a troop of little angels.
August 2.—(We were in Scotland.) Visited the "Blasted Heath." Behold a flourishing potato field! Smooth softness everywhere. We must blast our own heath when we do Macbeth!
November 29—-(We were in America.) Matinée "[Faust]"—Beecher Memorial. The whole affair was the strangest failure. H.I. himself took heaps of tickets, but the house was half empty.
The following Saturday.—Matinée "Faust." House crammed. Why couldn't they have come when it was to honor Beecher?
January 1890.—In answer to some one who has said that Henry had all his plays written for him, he pointed out that of twenty-eight Lyceum productions only three were written "for" him—"[Charles I].," "[Eugene Aram]," and "[Vanderdecken]."
February 27.—(My birthday.) Henry gave me a most exquisite wreath for the head. It is made of green stones and diamonds and is like a myrtle wreath. I never saw anything so simple and grand. It's lovely.

(During this year our readings of "Macbeth" took place.)

April.—Visit to Trentham after the reading at Hanley. Next day to hotel at Bradford, where there were beetles in the beds!
I see that Bulwer, speaking of Macready's Macbeth, says that Macbeth was a "trembler when opposed by his conscience, a warrior when defied by his foes."
August.—(At Winchelsea.) We drove to Cliffe End. Henry got the old pony along at a spanking rate, but I had to seize the reins now and again to save us from sudden death.
August 14.—Drove to Tenterden. Saw Clowe's [Marionettes].

(Henry saw one of their play-bills in a shop window, but found that the performances only took place in the evening. He found out the proprietor and asked him what were the takings on a good night. The man said £5, I think. Henry asked him if he would give him a special show for that sum. He was delighted. Henry and I and my daughter [Edy] and [Fussie] sat in solemn state in the empty tent and watched the show, which was most ingenious and clever. Clowe's Marionettes are still "on the road," but ever since that "command" performance of Henry's at Tenterden their bill has had two extra lines:

"Patronized by SIR HENRY IRVING
and
MISS ELLEN TERRY.")

September.—"Method," (in last act of "[Ravenswood]"), "to keep very still, and feel it all quietly and deeply." George Meredith, speaking of Romance, says: "The young who avoid that region, escape the title of Fool at the cost of a Celestial Crown." Good!
December.—Mr. [Gladstone] behind the scenes. He likes the last act very much.
January 14, 1892.—Prince Eddie died. [Cardinal Manning] died.

January 18.—(Just after successful production of "Henry VIII.") H.I. is hard at work, studying "[Lear]." This is what only a great man would do at such a moment in the hottest blush of success. No "swelled head"—only fervent endeavor to do better work. The fools hardly conceive what he is.

February 8.—[Morell Mackenzie] died.
March 1.—[Mother] died. Amazing courage in my father and sisters. She looked so lovely when she was dead.
March 7.—Went back to work.
October 6.—[Tennyson] died.
October 26.—A fine day. To call on the young Duchess of S——. What a sweet and beautiful young girl she is! I said I would write and ask [Mrs. Stirling] to give her lessons, but feared she could not as she was ill.
November.—Heard from Mrs. Stirling: "I am too ill and weak to see any one in the way of lessons. I am just alive—in pain and distress always, but always anxious for news from the Lyceum. 'Lear' will be a great success, I am sure. I was Cordelia with Macready."
November 10.—First night of "Lear." Such a foggy day! H. was just marvelous, but indistinct from nervousness. T. spoke out, but who cared! Haviland was very good. My [Ted] splendid in the little bit he had to do as Oswald. I was rather good to-night. It is a wee part, but fine.
December 7.—Poor [Fred Leslie] is dead. Typhoid. A thunderbolt to us all. Poor, bright, charming Fred Leslie!
December 31.—This has been a dark year. Mother died. Illness rife in the family. My son engaged—but that may turn out well if the young couple will not be too hasty. H.I. not well. Business by no means up to the proper point. A death in the Royal Family. Depression—depression!
March 9, 1897.—[Eunice (Mrs. Henry Ward Beecher)] is dead. Poor darling! She was a great friend to me.
April 10.—First night of "Sans-Gêne." A wonderful first-night audience. I acted courageously and fairly well. Extraordinary success.
April 14.—[Princess Louise] (Lorne) came to see the play and told me she was delighted. Little Elspeth Campbell was with her, looking lovely. I did not play well—was depressed and clumsy.
May 13.—It's all off about "[The Man of Destiny]" play with H.I. and [G.B.S.]
May 15.—To "Princess and Butterfly" with Audrey and Aimée. Miss Fay Davis better than ever.
May 17—-Nutcombe Gould has lost his voice, and Ted was called upon at a moment's notice to play Hamlet at the Olympic to-night.
June 20.—Thanksgiving Service at St. Paul's for the [Queen]'s Jubilee. Went with Edy and Henry. Not at all adequate to the occasion was the ceremony. The Te Deum rather good, the sermon sensible, but the whole uninspired, unimpassioned and dull. The Prince and [Princess] looked splendid.
June 22.—To [Lady Glenesk]'s, Piccadilly. Wonderfullest sight I ever saw. All was perfect, but the little Queen herself more dignified than the whole procession put together! [Sarah B.] was in her place at the Glenesks' at six in the morning. [Bancroft] made a Knight. Mrs. Alma-Tadema's "at home." [Paderewski] played. What a divinely beautiful face!
July 14.—The Women's Jubilee Dinner at the Grafton Galleries. Too ill to go. My guests were H.I., [Burne-Jones], [Max Beerbohm], [W. Nicholson], [Jimmy Pryde], [Will Rothenstein], [Graham Robertson], [Richard Harding Davis], [Laurence Irving], Ted and [Edy].
December 11.—(In Manchester.) Poor old [Fussie] dropped down a trap 30 feet and died in a second.
December 16.—[Willie Terriss] was murdered this evening. Newspapers sent me a wire for "expressions of sympathy"!!
January 22, 1901.—(Tenterden.) Nine o'clock evening and the bell is tolling for our dearest Queen—Victoria, who died this evening just before seven o'clock—a grand, wise, good woman. A week ago she was driving out regularly. The courage of it!
January 23.—To Rye (from Winchelsea). The [King] proclaimed in the Market Place. The ceremony only took about five minutes. Very dull and undignified until the National Anthem, which upset us all.
January 26.—London last night when I arrived might have been Winchelsea when the sun goes down on all our wrath and arguments. No one in the streets ... empty buses crawling along. Black boards up at every shop window. All the gas half-mast high as well as the flags. I never saw such a mournful city, but why should they turn the gas down? Thrift, thrift, Horatio!
February 2.—The [Queen]'s Funeral. From a balcony in S. James's I saw the most wonderful sight I have ever seen. The silence was extraordinary.... The tiny coffin on the gun-carriage drawn by the cream-colored ponies was the most pathetic, impressive object in all that great procession. All the grandest carriages were out for the occasion. The King and the German Emperor rode side by side.... The young Duke of Coburg, the Duchess of Albany's son, like Sir Galahad. I slept at Bridgewater House, but on my way to St. James's from there my clothes were torn and I was half squeezed to death. One man called out to me: "Ah, now you know what it feels like at the pit door, Miss Terry."
April 15.—Lyceum. "[Coriolanus]" produced. Went home directly after the play was over. I didn't seem to know a word of my part yesterday at the dress-rehearsal, but to-night I was as firm as if I had played it a hundred times.
April 16.—The critics who wrote their notices at the dress-rehearsal, and complained of my playing pranks with the text, were a little previous. Oh, how bad it makes one feel to find that they all think my Volumnia "sweet," and I thought I was fierce, contemptuous, overbearing. Worse, I felt as if I must be appearing like a cabman rating his Drury Lane wife!
April 20.—Beginning to play Volumnia a little better.
June 25.—Revival of "[Charles I]." The play went marvelously. I played first and last acts well. H. was magnificent. Ted saw play yesterday and says I don't "do Mrs. Siddons well." I know what he means. The last act too declamatory.
June 26.—Changed the "Mrs. Siddons" scene, and like it much better. Simpler—more nature—more feeling.
July 16.—Horrible suicide of Edith and Ida Yeoland. The poor girls were out of an engagement. Unequal to the fight for life.
July 20.—Last day of Lyceum season—"Coriolanus."