Charles Brookfield
I think it was Brookfield who, when a friend asked his advice, saying that a member of a club they frequented having called him a "mangy ass," whether he should appeal to the committee or consult a solicitor, quietly told him he thought it a case for a vet to decide.
He wrote various amusing comedies, and, later on, was appointed by the Lord Chamberlain to be joint examiner of plays.
Brookfield had his serious side, and wrote us the following letter, affectionately signed, when we retired from management:
"The sadness I feel at the prospect of never again working under your management is far too genuine for me to endeavour to convey it by any conventional expressions of regret. Although I have always appreciated your unvarying goodness to me, it is only by the depression of spirits and general apathy which I now experience, that I recognise how much my enjoyment of my profession was affected by the kind auspices under which I had the good fortune to practise it."
IX
THE STAGE
II
"Pity it is that the animated graces of the player can live no longer than the instant breath and motion that presents them, or at best can but faintly glimmer through the memory of a few surviving spectators."