liding, graceful feminine presence appears on the stage.
Miss Ellen Terry is attired in black, with a white fichu at her breast
to relieve the monotony of this sombre garb. In her hand she carries a
little black basket, and there is a glimmer of steel at her side as if
she wore a reticule containing the hundred-and-one trifles which ladies
like to carry about with them. So much has been written and said about
Miss Terry that it would seem at first sight utterly impossible to say
anything new. In five minutes, the difficulty is to say enough. The
supreme unconsciousness of Art, or Nature, enables her to assume a
hundred changing attitudes; her voice is heard without effort from one
end of the theatre to the other; she possesses the most exquisite tact.
Watch the skill, for instance, with which she induces some young actor
to realise the true meaning of a passage in the play. She seems to be
thinking it out to herself as if a new idea had been presented to her.
"Yes," she says, musingly, "I wonder if that is what Tennyson meant?"
Or, "Wait a minute," she adds brightly, "How would this do?" Then she
repeats the passage with the right emphasis, action, and intonation,
giving the meaning clearly and fully. "Don't you think that must be what
is meant?" she asks questioningly. "Hum-m," says the actor, looking at
the lines. "Ah, very likely. Perhaps it is." It is agreed that it shall
be spoken that way, and the actor gives a delicate and truthful reading
of the part, which will procure him a pat on the back from the critics
when the play is produced. In the presence of her intuitive perception,
the members of the caste instinctively become energetic and animated. At
one moment she bends over to Mr. Meredith Ball in the orchestra, her
long black skirt sweeping the stage in graceful folds; at another "moves
up" to test a portion of the scenery and confer with Mr. Irving, or,
with chair lightly dragging after, walks towards the wings, sits down,
and rapidly cons her part. Three minutes after, she has crossed the
stage, and is writing a letter. Before the letter is finished, something
else claims her attention. Then she comes back, finishes it, and is
consulted by Mr. Irving and Mr. Terriss as to how he (Mr. Terriss) is
to jump over a table without forfeiting his kingly dignity. Mr. Terriss
has already vaulted over the table some eight times with the agility of
a deer, but Mr. Irving wants it done differently. "I think you'd
better,"