Ellen Terry and Her Sisters

by T. Edgar Pemberton

It is odd to think of an actor being a Quaker, and yet throughout his long life Howe was a loyal member of the Society of Friends. It was the impression made upon him, when he was a mere boy, by the soul-inspiring acting of Edmund Kean as King Lear, that gave him a passion for the stage. With a cousin of his own age he contrived to take stolen pleasure in the gallery of Drury Lane Theatre, and on his way home, half-choked with enthusiasm and emotion, he said to his comrade, "I am going to be an actor." His family and friends did their utmost to dissuade him from this rash step, but fate willed that it should be taken, and the stage-struck lad became one of the most accomplished and self-respecting of the actors of his day.

Although he never paraded it, I think he was always influenced by his simple religious faith. I well remember how, in the kindest of ways, he would warn the young fellows of those Sothern-Haymarket days against keeping late (and possibly loose) hours in London after curtain-fall. I can hear him now telling us of his long midnight walks to his beloved country home at Isleworth (beyond Brentford!), and of his active morning work in his garden on those days on which rehearsals did not call him to town. "And at such times," he would say, with a good-humoured shake of his head, "some of you are lying in bed trying to cure carefully manufactured head-aches."

Years afterwards he became a notable member of the Lyceum Company, and served until his death under the banner of Henry Irving. During this period, and when with his chief and comrades he was fulfilling a fortnight's engagement in Birmingham, my good old friend, when on a visit to my house, made me his confidant in a little personal trouble. It was this. During the two weeks of his stay in the city he had only been called upon to act twice, and then only in small parts.

I naturally thought that he felt hurt at apparent neglect, and I tried to say a few consolatory words to him. "Oh, it isn't that!" said the fine old gentleman, "I've no feeling on that score; but the fact is, I am being paid a very handsome salary, and doing next to nothing for it. As things are, I know I am not earning it. I must speak to Irving about it, and tell him either my stipend must be reduced, or I must go." Shortly afterwards I saw him again. His fine face was radiant with smiles and his spirits were buoyant. He had had his interview with Irving, and the upshot of it was that no alteration could be made in his emolument, that he would be called upon to act whenever the repertory contained a part that could be suitably allotted to him, and that his "chief" would regard it as a great personal sorrow if his distinguished name did not figure as a member of his company.

Thus did the most tactful and generous of managers make a time-honoured servant of the public easy in his pocket, and supremely happy in the retention of his amour propre.

Frequenters of the Lyceum will remember how, even in the smallest of parts, Henry Howe was always sure of a hearty reception.

This is only one amongst a thousand of the acts of tender consideration and unstinted liberality shown by Henry Irving towards those who have acted for and with him.

But besides "little treasures," Georginas, and Mary Merediths, there were other opportunities for Ellen Terry at the Haymarket. She had the sympathy and encouragement of such sterling actors as Henry Compton and William Farren, the Chippendales, and the always kindly and attentive Walter Gordon, a gentleman who, on his retirement from the stage, resumed his own name, and was well known as William Aylmer Gowing.

She played Julia in "The Rivals" to the Faulkland of Howe, the Sir Anthony Absolute of Chippendale, the Captain Absolute of William Farren, the Bob Acres of Buckstone, and the Mrs. Malaprop of Mrs. Chippendale. In "Much Ado about Nothing" she appeared as Hero to the Beatrice of Louisa Angell, and when that lady appeared as Letitia Hardy in "The Belle's Stratagem," Ellen Terry was the Lady Touchwood. Let it not be forgotten that her own bewitching Letitia was destined to be one of the most attractive of her comedy impersonations at the Lyceum.

Thanks to Sothern, I was in those days quite at home at the Haymarket Theatre, and in "Walter Gordon" I found a true friend and adviser when, later on, I tried to write on things theatrical. He did much admirable work with his own pen, and was full of good stories of famous actors and actresses with whom he had played. I remember how he told me of an ephemeral entertainment by Sterling Coyne, entitled "Buckstone at Home," in which Ellen Terry, being then in a frolicsome mood, made an unexpected effect and sensation. In this wild production she had to appear as Britannia, and she was surrounded by the Knights of the Round Table. These stalwarts were supposed to be unable to remove a certain "property" stone, concerning which there was much superstition to the effect that it was so heavy that mortal could not stir it. The situation was meant to be taken seriously, but the light-hearted Britannia—possibly annoyed with the absurdity of the production and the poverty of her part in it, came forward, took the mock boulder in her hands, "played ball" with the flimsy thing, at the same time gleefully crying out—"Why, a child could toss it!"