The Story of My Life: Recollections and Reflections

[Illustration: Ellen Terry

drawn from photographs by Albert Sterner]





THE STORY OF MY LIFE

RECOLLECTIONS AND REFLECTIONS


BY

ELLEN TERRY


[Illustration]


ILLUSTRATED


NEW YORK

DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & CO.

MCMIX




_1908, The McClure Company_

1907, 1908, The S.S. McClure Company

1907, 1908, Ellen Terry




TO

EDY




CONTENTS


INTRODUCTION

I. A CHILD OF THE STAGE, 1848-56
   The Charles Keans, 1856
   Training in Shakespeare, 1856-59

II. ON THE ROAD, 1859-61
    Life in a Stock Company, 1862-63
                             1864

III. ROSSETTI, BERNHARDT, IRVING, 1865-67
     My First Impressions of Henry Irving

IV. A SIX-YEAR VACATION, 1868-74

V. THE ACTRESS AND THE PLAYWRIGHT, 1874.
   Portia, 1875
   Tom Taylor and Lavender Sweep

VI. A YEAR WITH THE BANCROFTS

VII. EARLY DAYS AT THE LYCEUM

VIII. WORK AT THE LYCEUM

IX. LYCEUM PRODUCTIONS

X. LYCEUM PRODUCTIONS (_continued_)

XI. AMERICA: THE FIRST OF EIGHT TOURS
    What Constitutes Charm

XII. SOME LIKES AND DISLIKES

XIII. THE MACBETH PERIOD

XIV. LAST DAYS AT THE LYCEUM
     My Stage Jubilee
     Apologia
     The Death of Henry Irving
     Alfred Gilbert and others
     "Beefsteak" Guests at the Lyceum
     Bits From My Diary

INDEX




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS


Ellen Terry

Mr. and Mrs. Benjamin Terry

Charles Kean and Ellen Terry in 1856

Ellen Terry in 1856

Ellen Terry at Sixteen

"The Sisters" (Kate and Ellen Terry)

Ellen Terry at Seventeen

George Frederick Watts, R.A.

Ellen Terry as Helen in "The Hunchback"

Henry Irving

Head of a Young Girl (Ellen Terry)

Henry Irving

Ellen Terry as Portia

Henry Irving as Matthias in "The Bells"

Henry Irving as Philip of Spain

Henry Irving as Hamlet

Lily Langtry

William Terriss as Squire Thornhill in "Olivia"

Ellen Terry as Ophelia

Ellen Terry as Beatrice

Sir Henry Irving

Irving as Louis XI

Ellen Terry as Henrietta Maria

Ellen Terry as Camma in "The Cup"

Ellen Terry as Iolanthe

Ellen Terry as Letitia Hardy in "The Belle's Stratagem"

Edwin Thomas Booth

Ellen Terry as Juliet

Two Portraits of Ellen Terry as Beatrice

Ellen Terry's Favourite Photograph as Olivia

Eleanora Duse with Lenbach's Child

Ellen Terry as Margaret in "Faust"

Ellen Terry as Ellaline in "The Amber Heart"

Miss Ellen Terry in 1883

The Bas-relief Portrait of Robert Louis Stevenson

Miss Terry and Sir Henry Irving

Sarah Holland, Ellen Terry's Dresser

Miss Rosa Corder

Miss Ellen Terry with her Fox-terriers

Miss Ellen Terry in 1898

Sir Henry Irving

Miss Ellen Terry

Ellen Terry as Lady Macbeth

Sir Henry Irving

Ellen Terry as Lucy Ashton in "Ravenswood"

Henry Irving as Cardinal Wolsey in "Henry VIII."

Ellen Terry as Nance Oldfield

Ellen Terry as Kniertje in "The Good Hope"

Ellen Terry as Imogen

Henry Irving as Becket

Sir Henry Irving

Ellen Terry as Rosamund in "Becket"

Ellen Terry as Guinevere in "King Arthur"

"Olivia"

Miss Terry's Garden at Winchelsea

Ellen Terry as Hermione in "The Winter's Tale"




INTRODUCTION

    "When I read the book, the biography famous,
    And is this then (said I) what the author calls a man's life?
    And so will some one when I am dead and gone write my life?
    (As if any man really knew aught of my life!)
    Why even I myself, I often think, know little or nothing of my real
      life.
    Only a few hints--a few diffused faint clues and indirections
    I seek ... to trace out here."

    WALT WHITMAN.


For years I have contemplated telling this story, and for years I have
put off telling it. While I have delayed, my memory has not improved,
and my recollections of the past are more hazy and fragmentary than when
it first occurred to me that one day I might write them down.

My bad memory would matter less if I had some skill in writing--the
practiced writer can see possibilities in the most ordinary events--or
if I had kept a systematic and conscientious record of my life. But
although I was at one time conscientious and diligent enough in keeping
a diary, I kept it for use at the moment, not for future reference. I
kept it with paste-pot and scissors as much as with a pen. My method was
to cut bits out of the newspapers and stick them into my diary day by
day. Before the end of the year was reached Mr. Letts would have been
ashamed to own his diary. It had become a bursting, groaning dust-bin of
information, for the most part useless. The biggest elastic band made
could hardly encircle its bulk, swelled by photographs, letters,
telegrams, dried flowers--the whole making up a confusion in which every
one but the owner would seek in vain to find some sense or meaning.

About six years ago I moved into a smaller house in London, and I burnt
a great many of my earlier diaries as unmovable rubbish. The few
passages which I shall quote in this book from those which escaped
destruction will prove that my bonfire meant no great loss!

Still, when it was suggested to me in the year of my stage jubilee that
I ought to write down my recollections, I longed for those diaries!