In March 1863 [Mr. Chute] opened the Theater Royal, [Bath], when, besides a specially written play symbolic of the event, his stock company performed "[A Midsummer Night's Dream]." Titania was the first Shakespeare part I had played since I left Charles Kean, but I think even in those early days I was more at home in Shakespeare than anything else. Mr. Godwin designed my dress, and we made it at his house in Bristol. He showed me how to damp it and "wring" it while it was wet, tying up the material as the Orientals do in their "tie and dry" process, so that when it was dry and untied, it was all crinkled and clinging. This was the first lovely dress that I ever wore, and I learned a great deal from it.
Almost directly after that appearance at Bath I went to London to fulfill an engagement at the Haymarket Theater, of which [Mr. Buckstone] was still the manager and [Sothern] the great attraction. I had played Gertrude Howard in "[The Little Treasure]" during the stock season at Bristol, and when Mr. Buckstone wanted to do the piece at the Haymarket, he was told about me. I was fifteen at this time, and my sense of humor was as yet ill-developed. I was fond of "larking" and merry enough, but I hated being laughed at! At any rate, I could see no humor in Mr. Sothern's jokes at my expense. He played my lover in "The Little Treasure," and he was always teasing me—pulling my hair, making me forget my part and look like an idiot. But for dear old [Mr. Howe], who was my "father" in the same piece, I should not have enjoyed acting in it at all, but he made amends for everything. We had a scene together in which he used to cry, and I used to cry—oh, it was lovely!
Why I should never have liked Sothern, with his wonderful hands and blue eyes, Sothern, whom every one found so fascinating and delightful, I cannot say, and I record it as discreditable to me, not to him. It was just a case of "I do not like thee, Dr. Fell." I admired him—I could not help doing that—but I dreaded his jokes, and thought some of them very cruel.
Another thing I thought cruel at this time was the scandal which was talked in the theater. A change for the better has taken place in this respect—at any rate, in conduct. People behave better now, and in our profession, carried on as it is in the public eye, behavior is everything. At the Haymarket there were simply no bounds to what was said in the greenroom. One night I remember gathering up my skirts (we were, I think, playing "[The Rivals]" at the time), making a curtsey, as [Mr. Chippendale], one of the best actors in old comedy I ever knew, had taught me, and sweeping out of the room with the famous line from another Sheridan play: "Ladies and gentlemen, I leave my character behind me!"
I see now that this was very priggish of me, but I am quite as uncompromising in my hatred of scandal now as I was then. Quite recently I had a line to say in "[Captain Brassbound's Conversion]," which is a very helpful reply to any tale-bearing. "As if any one ever knew the whole truth about anything!" That is just the point. It is only the whole truth which is informing and fair in the long run, and the whole truth is never known.
I regard my engagement at the [Haymarket] as one of my lost opportunities, which in after years I would have given much to have over again. I might have learned so much more than I did. I was preoccupied by events outside the theater. [Tom Taylor], who had for some time been a good friend to both Kate and me, had introduced us to [Mr. Watts], the great painter, and to me the stage seemed a poor place when compared with the wonderful studio where Kate and I were painted as "The Sisters." At the [Taylors' house], too, the friends, the arts, the refinements had an enormous influence on me, and for a time the theater became almost distasteful. Never at any time in my life have I been ambitious, but at the Haymarket I was not even passionately anxious to do my best with every part that came in my way—a quality which with me has been a good substitute for ambition. I was just dreaming of and aspiring after another world, a world full of pictures and music and gentle, artistic people with quiet voices and elegant manners. The reality of such a world was [Little Holland House], the home of Mr. Watts.
"THE SISTERS" (KATE AND ELLEN TERRY)
From the painting by George Frederick Watts
Photograph by the Autotype Company, London