business, talked to his mother about his mamma, the handkerchiefs waved
everywhere, and a chorus of sympathetic sniffings and throat clearings
almost drowned the fustian rubbish of the dialogue. I played Lord
Somebody in the piece one night. I forget the unreal wretch's name; but
he will be remembered as taking money to Isabel. He appears in one scene
only and has some twenty or thirty lines to speak; but he contrives
to go further and oftener away from nature than any stage person whose
acquaintance I have practically made. Nothing but the good old-fashioned
'moo-cow' style could possibly have suited him. I believe I can boast
a tolerable imitation of that antiquated elocutionary method, and I
certainly spared no effort.

'And you, Isabel, the daughter of an earl! how have you fallen!'

That is one of the gems of the old humbug's speech, and I mouthed it
as it was made to be mouthed. The house took the burlesque with
perfect seriousness and good faith--chiefly, I suppose, because it was
impossible to make the vulgar rant too clap-trappy and stagy. But as I
was leaving, and as the house was already in a roar of applause, I came
to grief. There was a dreadful draught at the back of the stage, and one
of the ladies had been so careful against it as to pin the green-baize
linings of the stage together so as to leave no place for an exit; and
I was compelled to grope about for a minute or two in search of a way of
escape whilst the applause changed to boisterous laughter.

And the memory of that little incident helps me to a reflection on one
detail of the actor's art which is more effective when fitly used, and
more disastrous when neglected, than any other of the multitudinous
things he has to know and to bear in mind. An exit is half the business
of the most important scene ever written. You may play like an angel,
you may hold the stage for half an hour and thrill your audience; but,
after all, you may kill your supremest efforts by getting off clumsily.
I write, of course, for the ignorant. The actor knows these things,
and more than I can teach him into the bargain. But I had a singular
instance of the fact in my own experience. It came early and gave me
a lesson to be laid to heart. I never played before a more friendly
audience. Good reports had gone ahead, and the house was willing, and
I think was even eager, to be pleased. I had settled to that bright
and happy confidence which is the actor's most blissful exp