MR. WYNDHAM AS "PEREGRINE PORTER." (Fourteen Days.)
From a Photograph.
"The next scene was a simple drawing-room. The waterfall was gone, thank Heaven, and we could rely upon ourselves. The act began. It was interesting and dramatic: a powerful scene between Miss Herbert and Irving—accusation of murder, defiance, vengeance for my death—all very startling; sufficiently so to drive for the time the slippery knave from everybody's mind. A great scene, well acted and well received; everything going splendidly, and an effect in store bound to please the audience.
"The hero is not dead, for he suddenly appears; appears, as a hero always does, at the back of the stage; great applause at his resuscitation; Miss Herbert backs with joy and surprise right to the footlights, and I prepare to rush towards her; success is in our grasp; the audience are in splendid humour; spite of all difficulties, we have triumphed. Alas, the vanity of human hopes! The waterfall was lying in wait for me. I told you the scene was a drawing-room; but I did not tell you that it was an Italian one—consequently, that the carpet covered only the centre of the stage. Across it I madly rushed towards my faithful love. 'Idalia,' I exclaimed, 'I never expected to see you again!'—reached one of those rivulets, that had trickled in exactly the same direction I was going—reached it unknowingly—slipped, and—well, I sat down.
From a Photo by Falk, New York.
MR. WYNDHAM AS "BOB SACKETT." (Brighton.)
"Never in the whole course of my life have I heard such a roar as went up from that auditorium.
"Need I go on? Need I tell you how, in the next scene, when she and I were supposed to be escaping from the Austrian soldiery, those brave heroes came on, and, as the first slipped over our general enemy, the others came tumbling after? How massive rocks were knocked over by the falling bodies, and how the second act terminated in convulsions on the part of the audience? Need I tell you that, in the last act, the actors had become through sheer helplessness as demoralized as the audience—that I assured my love, in a voice smothered by laughter, that nothing would shake my firmness of belief in her—that she chuckled out she believed me—or that Irving came on to die in a white shirt, a blood-red spot on his breast, and his face all grins, dying the most facetious death actor ever died? Oh, that night—that night of horrors!"