ep, you are lost!'"[*]

[*] A quotation from "The Bells."

[Illustration: ELLEN TERRY AS LADY MACBETH

FROM THE PAINTING BY SARGENT, IN THE TATE GALLERY, LONDON]

At this time we were able to be of the right use to each other. Henry
could never have worked with a very strong woman. I should have
deteriorated in partnership with a weaker man whose ends were less
fine, whose motives were less pure. I had the taste and artistic
knowledge that his upbringing had not developed in him. For years he
did things to please me. Later on I gave up asking him. In "King
Lear" Mrs. Nettleship made him a most beautiful cloak, but he insisted
on wearing a brilliant purple velvet cloak with "glits" all over it
which spoiled his beautiful make-up and his beautiful acting. Poor
Mrs. Nettle was almost in tears.

"I'll never make you anything again," she said. "Never!"

[Illustration: PEGGY, MADAME SANS-GENE, MADAME SANS-GENE, CORDELIA

_Copyrighted by Window and Grove_
_From the collection of Miss_]

_Sargent Paints Ellen Terry as Lady Macbeth_

One of Mrs. Nettle's greatest triumphs was my Lady Macbeth dress,
which she carried out from Mrs. Comyns Carr's design. I am glad to
think it is immortalized in Sargent's picture. From the first I knew
that picture was going to be splendid. In my diary for 1888 I was
always writing about it:

"The picture of me is nearly finished and I think it magnificent.
The green and blue of the dress is splendid, and the expression as
Lady Macbeth holds the crown over her head is quite wonderful."

"Sargent's 'Lady Macbeth' in the New Gallery is a great success.
The picture is the sensation of the year. Of course opinions
differ about it, but there are dense crowds round it day after
day. There is talk of putting it on an exhibition by itself."

Since then it has gone over nearly the whole of Europe, and now is
resting for life at the Tate Gallery. Sargent suggested by this
picture all that I should have liked to be able to convey in my acting
as Lady Macbeth. Of Sargent's portrait of Henry Irving, I wrote in my
dairy:

"Everybody hates Sargent's head of Henry. Henry also. I like it,
but not altogether. I think it perfectly wonderfully painted and
like him, only not at his best by any means. There sat Henry and
there by his side the picture, and I could scarce tell one from
t'other. Henry looked white, with tired eyes, and holes in his
cheeks, and bored to death! A