Of course, Ellen Terry's first stage recollection is her appearance as the infant Mamillius, when she saw "the Queen Victoria, the Prince Consort, the Princess Royal, and the Prince of Wales" in the royal box, and was, as a matter of consequence, so awestruck that she could hardly articulate her words. She played this part for one hundred and two nights without a break—a marvellous record for so young a child. This long run of "The Winter's Tale" showed that even in the "fifties," when long runs were almost unknown, a Shakespearean play, faultlessly staged, and admirably acted, could attract a prolonged succession of audiences.
During their engagement with the Charles Keans, she tells me (by the way, she is never tired of singing the praises of Mrs. Kean), she and her sister Kate studied—ay, and carefully studied—all the feminine characters of each play they acted in. This fact she tries to impress on the countless young ladies who want to adopt acting as a profession, and who apply to her for advice. "What do you know?—what have you studied?" she asks them. "Could you, for example, undertake to play Hero to a Beatrice; Nerissa to a Portia; or Celia to a Rosalind?" Their almost invariable reply is that they have studied nothing—that they have only an ambition to "go on the stage." Then she will advise them to devote themselves to learning and understanding such parts in case an opportunity should come in their way.
Poor young ladies! I don't suppose they like such advice, for assuredly they all want to begin as Beatrice, Portia, or Rosalind. Neither, I am sure, are they aware that they lacerate the tender heart of the great actress because she feels she can do nothing for them.
No one knows better than Ellen Terry that life-long devotion to her art is the only way by which a true actress can reach the goal of her ambition, and there maintain her place. She maintains, moreover, that she should be taught to turn her hand to anything. "When I played Titania at Bath," she says with a laugh, "I made my own dress. It was long, and of transparent, clinging white, all 'crinkled' by washing and wringing."
She limns a pretty little sketch of herself as she set forth with her father to seek her engagement with Mademoiselle Albina di Rhona at the Royalty Theatre. "I borrowed Kate's new bonnet—pink silk, trimmed with black lace—and was engaged at once. I thought I looked nice in that bonnet, and father said pink was my colour."
Evidently she thought that her bonnet rather than herself had found favour with the manageress.
Speaking of her Haymarket engagement she declares that she had no real reason to dislike poor Sothern, and regrets that she ever publicly expressed a feeling with which we are all familiar, and which is best described in the words, "I do not like thee, Dr. Fell." She admits that at this time she was very good as poor, maliciously maligned Hero, but she qualifies this little bit of self-commendation by avowing that she played Lady Touchwood vilely.
Merrily she recalls her appearance as Britannia, making her entrance up a trap in a huge pearl which opened to allow her egress. On this occasion King Edward VII. and Queen Alexandra, then, of course, the Prince and Princess of Wales, came to the theatre for the first time since their marriage, and modestly sat in the shadow of a large stage-box. Louise Keeley (afterwards Mrs. Montague Williams) had to sing a song concerning the "Invisible Prince," and by deftly introducing a few improvised lines contrived to let the audience know the state of affairs. Accordingly the uproarious applause of a loyal house stopped the performance until the Royal bride and bridegroom emerged from their obscurity, came to the front of their box, and gracefully and gratefully bowed their thanks.
It was an exciting moment for Ellen Terry when, in 1878, Henry Irving asked her to accept an engagement at the Lyceum, to play Ophelia. So far, she had not seen his Hamlet, and to do so she travelled to Birmingham. His beautiful, thoughtful, and always human impersonation at once captivated her. "No other Hamlet," she enthusiastically exclaims, "have I seen!—Not in the same hemisphere! And yet I have seen Charles Kean, Fechter, Salvini, and Rossi play the part."
Concerning her own successes she is very reticent, but I think I speak the truth when I say that she very properly plumes herself on her immediate triumph as Ophelia, and that she cherishes the lines of the writer who said:—