The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections by Ellen Terry
page 166 of 447 (37%)
page 166 of 447 (37%)
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As the years went on he grew very much attached to Sarah Bernhardt, and
admired her as a colleague whose managerial work in the theater was as dignified as his own, but of her superb powers as an actress, I don't believe he ever had a glimmering notion! Perhaps it is not true, but, as I believe it to be true, I may as well state it: _It was never any pleasure to him to see the acting of other actors and actresses._ All the same, Salvini's Othello I know he thought magnificent, but he would not speak of it. How dangerous it is to write things that may not be understood! What I have written I have written merely to indicate the qualities in Henry Irving's nature, which were unintelligible to me, perhaps because I have always been more woman than artist. He always put the theater first. He lived in it, he died in it. He had none of what I may call my _bourgeois_ qualities--the love of being in love, the love of a home, the dislike of solitude. I have always thought it hard to find my inferiors. He was sure of his high place. He was far simpler than I in some ways. He would talk, for instance, in such an ingenuous way to painters and musicians that I blushed for him. But I know now that my blush was far more unworthy than his freedom from all pretentiousness in matters of art. _He never pretended._ One of his biographers has said that he posed as being a French scholar. Such a thing, and all things like it, were impossible to his nature. If it were necessary in one of his plays to say a few French words, he took infinite pains to learn them and said them beautifully. Henry once told me that in the early part of his career, before I knew |
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