its cause, to receive the answer, "Mrs. Langtry!" and to look in vain
for the object of the crowd's admiring curiosity.

This was all the more remarkable, and honorable to public taste, too,
because Mrs. Langtry's was not a showy beauty. Her hair was the color
that it had pleased God to make it; her complexion was her own; in
evening dress she did not display nearly as much of her neck and arms as
was the vogue, yet they outshone all other necks and arms through their
own perfection.

"No worker has a right to criticise _publicly_ the work of another in
the same field," Henry Irving once said to me, and Heaven forbid that I
should disregard advice so wise! I am aware that the professional
critics and the public did not transfer to Mrs. Langtry the actress the
homage that they had paid to Mrs. Langtry the beauty, but I can only
speak of the simplicity with which she approached her work, of her
industry, and utter lack of vanity about her powers. When she played
Rosalind (which my daughter, the best critic of acting _I_ know, tells
me was in many respects admirable), she wrote to me:

"Dear Nellie,--

"I bundled through my part somehow last night, a disgraceful
performance, and _no_ waist-padding! Oh, what an impudent wretch you
must think me to attempt such a part! I pinched my arm once or twice
last night to see if it was really me. It was so sweet of you to write
me such a nice letter, and then a telegram, too!

"Yours ever, dear Nell,