wrack behind." Ever anxious to improve on the truth, which is often
devoid of all sensationalism, people have told a story of Henry Irving
promising that if he ever were in a position to offer me an engagement I
should be his leading lady. But this fairy story has been improved on
since. The newest tale of my first meeting with Henry Irving was told
during my jubilee. Then, to my amazement, I read that on that famous
night when I was playing Puck at the Princess's, and caught my toe in
the trap, "a young man with dark hair and a white face rushed forward
from the crowd and said: 'Never mind, darling. Don't cry! One day you
will be queen of the stage.' It was Henry Irving!"

In view of these legends, I ought to say all the more stoutly that,
until I went to the Lyceum Theater, Henry Irving was nothing to me and I
was nothing to him. I never consciously thought that he would become a
great actor. He had no high opinion of _my_ acting! He has said since
that he thought me at the Queen's Theater charming and individual as a
woman, but as an actress _hoydenish_! I believe that he hardly spared me
even so much definite thought as this. His soul was not more surely in
his body than in the theater, and I, a woman who was at this time caring
more about love and life than the theater, must have been to him more or
less unsympathetic. He thought of nothing else, cared for nothing else;
worked day and night; went without his dinner to buy a book that might
be helpful in studying, or a stage jewel that might be helpful to wear.
I remember his telling me that he once bought a sword with a jeweled
hilt, and hung it at the foot of his bed. All night he kept getting up
and striking matches to see it, shifting its position, rapt in
admiration of it.

He had it all in him when we acted together that foggy night, but he
could express very little. Many of his defects sprang from his