Ellen Terry and Her Sisters

by T. Edgar Pemberton

And so it was with all the leading critics, they, and delighted audiences, telling her that in a moment her permanent popularity in London was a thing assured.

Of course she had in due course to support Lord Dundreary in "Our American Cousin," a play which, not very good to begin with, had, for the sake of Sothern's superbly droll performance, been whittled down to a mere nothing. With the exception of the characters of Asa Trenchard (and he had been converted into an absurd caricature of an American) and Mary Meredith, the one sympathetic woman of the piece, the other parts were indeed thankless ones, and it seems impossible to think that Ellen Terry, our greatest living Shakespearean actress, was once wasted on the insipid role of Georgina, the affected girl on whom Dundreary was "spoony." Georgina was simply a foil for the ridiculous fop's unconscious and wonderfully uttered witticisms, and she had little more to do than to keep her countenance while the audiences roared with laughter at Sothern's wild but always coherent absurdities of speech and manner. Under this trying ordeal I have seen many Georginas break down and laugh heartily with their "kind friends in front," and I have reason to know that the mischief-loving Sothern, at the risk of missing his own points, often tried to make them do so.

Of the sweet "Spirit of the Future," as this stage lay figure playing with the restless "Spirit of the Hour," Clement Scott has said:—

"When Ellen Terry played Georgina she was a young girl of enchanting loveliness. She was the ideal of every pre-Raphaelite painter, and had hair, as De Musset says, 'comme le blé.' I always sympathised with Dundreary when he, within whispering distance of Ellen Terry's harvest-coloured hair, said: 'It makes a fellow feel awkward when he's talking to the back of a person's head.'"

In the same inexhaustible play she was called upon, a little later on, to enact the prettily limned Mary Meredith. She says she did it "vilely"; but neither critics nor audiences agreed with her.

Sothern, both on and off the stage, and both with men and women, was one of the most popular beings of his day, and it is therefore all the more surprising to hear Ellen Terry say that she could never like him. She admired him, but she could not understand his mania for practical joking. By some this has been thought odd, for it is known that she herself dearly loves a joke. I think I can explain her prejudice. Having begun one of his "sells," as he called them, Sothern did not know when to leave off, and he never seemed to reflect that it was unkind to practise his pleasantries on nervous young actors.

That he did not mean to be unkind, and that if he felt he had made a mistake or had gone too far he was deeply penitent and anxious to make any atonement in his power, I, who knew him so intimately, can asseverate. But if he saw the chance of a "sell" he could hardly resist temptation, and many of those associated with him on the stage, and who did not understand his bewildering sense of humour, suffered in silence, and were secretly tortured by his odd and incessant pranks. I have no doubt this was poor Ellen Terry's position when she complains that he teased her—made her forget her part, and "look like an idiot." The following anecdote concerning the way in which he treated me (his personal friend!) and a little company of actors and actresses, working their hardest to gain a word of approbation from the great star of the period, will illustrate my meaning.

In the days of many years ago he accepted a comedietta from my pen wildly called (Sothern gave it its title) "My Wife's Father's Sister," and the little piece was produced at the Theatre Royal, Brighton. He was anxious that I should be present at its first night, but I was unable to join him until its second representation. I was to be his guest, but when I entered his room at the Grand Hotel he seemed amazed and discomforted to see me.

"What on earth brings you here?" he exclaimed. "Why, to see you and my piece," I replied. "Then you didn't get my telegram last night?" he inquired. I told him that I had received no telegram and should be glad to know its purport. "Well," he said, in a vexed tone of voice, "I wired to beg you as a personal favour to me not to come to Brighton, but as you are here, we'll say no more about it."

Of course this did not satisfy me, and on being very hard pressed, he reluctantly told me that my poor little play had been a dead failure, and that he had telegraphed to me to stay away because he wanted to spare me humiliation.