warmed up the story of the old religion to my exacting mind in
that impersonation. I shall think always of dying monarchy in his
Charles--and always of dying hierarchy in his Wolsey. How
Protestant and dull all grew when that noble type had gone!

"I can't go to Church till red cardinals come back (and may they
be of exactly that red), nor to Court till trumpets and banners
come back--nor to evening parties till the dances are like that
dance. What a lovely young Queen has been found. But there was no
you.... Perhaps it was as well. I couldn't have you slighted even
in a play, and put aside. When I go back to see you as I soon
will, it will be easier. Mr. Irving let me know you would not act;
and proposed that I should go later on--wasn't that like him? So I
sat with my children and was right happy, and as usual the streets
looked dirty and all the people muddy and black as we came away.
Please not to answer this stuff.

"Ever yours aff'ly,

"E. B. J.

"I wish that Cardinal could have been made Pope, and sat with his
foot on the Earl of Surrey's neck. Also I wish to be a Cardinal,
but then I sometimes want to be a pirate. We can't have all we
want.

"Your boy was very kind--I thought the race of young men who are
polite and attentive to old fading ones had passed away with
antique pageants--but it isn't so."

When the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire gave the famous fancy-dress
ball at Devonshire House, they attended it in the robes which had
appealed so strongly to Burne-Jones's imaginative eye. I was told by
one who was present at this ball that, as the Cardinal swept up the
staircase, his long train held magnificently over his arm, a sudden
wave of reality seemed to sweep upstairs with him, and reduce to the
pettiest make-believe all the aristocratic masquerade that surrounded
him.

I renewed my acquaintance with "Henry VIII" in 1902, when I played
Queen Katherine for Mr. Benson during the Shakespeare Memorial
performances in April. I was pretty miserable at the time--the
Lyceum reign was dying, and taking an unconscionably long time
about it, which made the position all the more difficult. Henry
Irving was reviving "Faust"--a wise step, as it had been his
biggest "money-maker"--and it was a question whether I could play
Margaret. There are some young parts that the actress can still
play when she is no longer young: Beatrice, Portia, and many others
come to min