“Determined to do something, I at once began studying singing for the stage on our arrival in Italy, and in a year or two made my appearance in Paris, London, and New York.
“I made a success in opera; but in Cuba I strained my voice by continually singing in three octaves, and one fine day discovered it had gone. Then I took to teaching singing in New York. But, unfortunately, I hated it; most of my pupils had neither voice nor talent; it was like beating my head against a stone wall.
“In my operatic days critics had always mentioned my capacity for acting. Then why not go on the stage? Thus it was at the age of thirty-five I appeared at Manchester, under my maiden name of Geneviève Ward, and in the end, having played Forget-me-not some thousand times, all over the world, I retired from the profession when I was about sixty. I have occasionally appeared since.”
This gifted tragedienne was going to Stratford to play in the Shakespeare week in 1908.
She came to have tea with me, and as she sat beside me looking the picture of strength and dignity, I asked if it took her long to get up her part.
“Good heavens, no!” she replied. “I have never forgotten a Shakespearian character in my life. Every word means something. All I do is to read it through once or twice—perhaps three times—before the night.”
“I own,” she said, “that sitting here now I do not recall a word of Forget-me-not, and yet I played that several thousand times. But then, there is nothing to grip hold of in the modern drama; however, I could undertake to go on the stage letter-perfect even in that after a day’s work. I am sure, after reading it through, it would all come back to me. In Shakespeare I not only know my own part, but most of the other people’s, and I can both remember things I learnt in my youth and have played at intervals during my life, and memorise now more easily than my pupils. I did so last year when I got up those classical plays for Vedrenne and Barker.”
One cold February day Benson’s Company played Coriolanus at the “Coronet.”
As Miss Ward had sent me the following note, I was amongst the pleased spectators.