mp
out of your head over the footlights. At this point it is as well to get
off the stage as quickly as you can, for you are far beyond human help.

Whether everybody suffers in this way or not I cannot say, but it
exactly describes the torture I went through in "The Governor's Wife." I
had just enough strength and sense to drag myself off the stage and
seize a book, with which, after a few minutes, I reappeared and
ignominiously read my part. Whether Madame de Rhona boxed my ears or
not, I can't remember, but I think it is very likely she did, for she
was very quick-tempered. In later years I have not suffered from the
fearsome malady, but even now, after fifty years of stage-life, I never
play a new part without being overcome by a terrible nervousness and a
torturing dread of forgetting my lines. Every nerve in my body seems to
be dancing an independent jig on its own account.

It was at the Royalty that I first acted with Mr. Kendal. He and I
played together in a comedietta called "A Nice Quiet Day." Soon after,
my engagement came to an end, and I went to Bristol, where I gained the
experience of my life with a stock company.

LIFE IN A STOCK COMPANY

1862-1863

"I think anything, naturally written, ought to be in everybody's way
that pretends to be an actor." This remark of Colley Cibber's long ago
struck me as an excellent motto for beginning on the stage. The
ambitious boy thinks of Hamlet, the ambitious girl of Lady Macbeth or
Rosalind, but where shall we find the young actor and actress whose
heart is set on being useful?

_Usefulness!_ It is not a fascinating word, and the quality is not one
of which the aspiring spirit can dream o' nights, yet on the stage it is
the first thing to aim at. Not until we have learned to be useful can we
afford to do what we like. The tragedian will always be a limited
tragedian if he has not learned how to laugh. The comedian who cannot
weep will never touch the highest levels of mirth.

It was in the stock companies that we learned the great lesson of
usefulness; we played everything--tragedy, comedy, farce, and burlesque.
There was no question of parts "suiting" us; we had to take what we were
given.

The first time I was cast for a part in a burlesque I told the stage
manager I couldn't sing and I couldn't dance. His reply was short and to
the point. "You've got to do it," and so I did it in a way--a very funny
way at first, no doubt. It was admirable training, fo