"I should certainly tread my own ways on the boards, as elsewhere," replied Zelma, quietly,—"move and act from the central force, the instinct and inspiration of Nature,—letting the passion of my part work itself out in its own gestures, postures, looks, and tones,—falling short of, or going beyond, mere stage-traditions. With all due deference for authorities, this would be my art, as it has been the art of all truly great actors. I shall certainly not adopt my husband's profession without his consent,—but I shall never cease importuning him for that consent."
Lawrence "laughed a laugh of merry scorn," and left her to her solitary studies and the patient nursing of her purpose.
It was finally, for Zelma's sake, through the unsolicited influence of Sir Harry Willerton, that "Mr. Lawrence Bury, Tragedian," attained to a high point in a provincial actor's ambition,—a London engagement.
After a disheartening period of waiting and idleness, during which he and his wife made actual face-to-face acquaintance with want, and both came near playing their parts in the high-tragedy of starvation in a garret, he made his first appearance before the audience of Covent Garden, in the part of Mercutio. He was young, shapely, handsome, and clever,—full of flash and dash, and, above all, new. He had chosen well his part,—Mercutio,—that graceful frolic of fancy, which less requires sustained intellectual power than the exaltation of animal spirits,—that brief sunburst of life, that brilliant bubble of character, which reflects, for a moment, a world of beauty and sparkle, and dies in a flash of wit, yet leaves on the mind a want, a tender regret, which follow one through all the storm and woe of the tragedy.
So it was little wonder, perhaps, that he achieved a decided success, though incomparably greater artists had failed where he triumphed, and that, in spite of the doubtful looks and faint praise of the critics, he became at once a public favorite,—the fashion, the rage. Ladies of the highest ton condescended to admire and applaud, and hailed as a benefactor the creator of a new sensation.
Very soon the young actor's aspiring soul rose above all secondary parts, dropped Mercutio and Horatio for Romeo and Hamlet, and had not the sense to see that he was getting utterly out of his element, dashing with silken sails into the tempest of tragedy, soaring on Icarian wings over its profoundest deeps and into the height and heat of its intensest passion.
Yet with the young, the unthinking, the eager, the curious, it was then as it is now and ever shall be,—confidence easily passed for genius, and presumption for power. Tributes of admiration and envy poured in upon him,—anonymous missives, tender and daring, odorous with the atmosphere of luxurious boudoirs, and coarse scrawls, scented with orange-peel and lamp-smoke, and seeming to hiss with the sibilant whisper of green-room spite; and the young actor, valuing alike the sentiments, kindly or malign, which ministered to his egoism, intoxicated with the first foamy draught of fame, grew careless, freakish, and arrogant, as all suddenly adopted pets of the public are likely to do.
At length Mr. Bury played before Royalty, and Royalty was heard to say to Nobility in attendance,—"What!—Who is he? Where did he come from? How old is he? Not quite equal to Garrick yet, but clever,—eh, my Lord?"
This gracious royal criticism, being duly reported and printed, removed the last let to aristocratic favor; fast young bloods of the highest nobility did not acorn to shake off their perfumes and air their profane vocabulary in the green-room, offering snuff and the incense of flattery together to the Tamerlane, the Romeo, or the Lord Hamlet of the night.
Happily, with the actor's fame rose his salary; and as both rose, the actor and his wife descended from their lofty attic-room—into whose one window the stars looked with, it seemed to Zelma, a startling nearness—to respectable lodgings on the second floor.