4 y / .n c. MT LIFE AND SOME LETTERS MY L.lh ND SOMR L ' ERS rRFATRI wn m MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS BY MRS. PATRICK CAMPBELL (BEATRICE STELLA CORNWALLIS-WEST) WITH ILLUSTRATIONS NEW YORK DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY 1922 Copyright. 1922, By DODD, mead AND COJVIPANY, Inc. PRINTED IN U. S. A. DEDICATION I CAME out by the stagedoor of the Duke of York's Theatre at a quarter-past twelve on the first night of the production of Madame Sand, by Phillip Moeller. A girl of about fifteen, bare-headed, was standing against the wall, evidently waiting for some one. I said: "What are you waiting for?" "To see you." "Where do you live?" "At Richmond." "How are you going to get back?" "Walk. I walked here early this morning. I wanted to get a good place to see the play, and I did: and now I have been waiting to see you." Then, with a wild young look of ecstasy, she vanished into the night. To her I dedicate this book. ILLUSTRATIONS Mrs. Patrick Campbell Frontispiece FACING PAGE The faithful Uncle Harry 20 "Pat" Campbell 42 In one of her most famous roles 66 As Clarice in "The Black Domino" 84 As she first appeared in "The Second Mrs. Tanqueray" . 108 With George Alexander in Act I of "The Second Mrs. Tanqueray" 126 "There was a little poem in this play, 'Butterflies,' that he let me recite" 144 In "The Second Mrs. Tanqueray" 164 With Madame Sarah Bernhardt in "Pelleas and Melisande" 180 In "Mrs. Jordan" 196 On her first American tour 216 Touring the United States under the direction of Liebler and Company 230 Again in "The Second Mrs. Tanqueray" 252 As Eliza Doolittle in George Bernard Shaw's "Pygmalion" 270 An impressionistic photo 288 On one of her later tours to America 306 George Bernard Shaw 324 Sir James Barrie (with cup and walking stick) at a coffee stall in England 346 Eliza Doolittle in "Pygmalion" 370 Mrs. Cornwallis-West 376 ILLUSTRATIONS FACING PAGE Beo with officials at Fourth Senior Officers' School . . . 386 Mrs. Patrick Campbell and her two children just before Beo entered the Navy 396 As America remembers her 414 George Sand in "Madame Sand" 432 MT LIFE AND SOME LETTERS MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS CHAPTER I. WITH some little difficulty I have gathered together the following romantic and rather remarkable facts of my family history: — My grandfather, John Tanner, was a descendant of Thomas Tanner, Bishop of St. Asaph; born 1693, died 1735. He had a son, Thomas Tanner, who was Rector of "St. Edmund The King and Martyr," and Rector of Merstham, Surrey; also Prebendary of Canterbury. ■9|f * * * My grandfather went out to India as a very young man, and eventually became Army Contractor to the British East India Company. He made a large for- tune — married Mary Ann Davis in 1823. They lived at Byculla Park, Bombay; seven children were born to them, the eldest — my father — John Tanner; William, Oscar, Fred, Emily, Emma, and my dear "Uncle Harry" (Henry Ward Tanner). My father and my mother, Maria Luigia Gio- vanna Romanini, fell helplessly in love at their first 2 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS meeting: my mother could not speak a word of Eng- lish, and my father not a word of Italian. He was twenty-one, she was seventeen. The marriage caused great excitement in Bombay at the time, my father being the heir of one of the richest Anglo-Indians, my mother the daughter of an Italian political exile. They had six children, three born in India, my two brothers and myself in London. My father, it seems, managed to get through two large fortunes; he was careless with money, excep- tionally generous, delighting in business enterprise and speculation. I had a letter from him in June, 1893, which gives an account of his early financial difficulties. After mentioning some trouble con- nected with a Consular post, he writes: — "I can scarcely imagine how nearly half a million pounds sterling which I possessed in 1864 could have been dissipated, but the fact is that I was overtaken in my vast expectations by two severe crises in London. To this day our Government is owing me £50,000 or more, compensation for valuable services, and losses I sustained, during the Indian Mutiny. All the Execu- tive Offices of our Government in the Ordnance and Com- missariat gave their unqualified endorsement to my claim, but it eventually fell through. I was badly treated, in- deed, and upon appealing to Lord Derby, recently dead, he offered a suggestion to the Local Government as a MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 3 'pis aller' out of the difficulty. There it ended. My good friend, Isaac Butt, M. P., offered to agitate the mat- ter in Parliament, but being very rich on my return from India in 1872, I had destroyed my documents. It was on record and will be found in the Archives of the War Office that 'but for the celerity and magnitude of Mr. Tanner's Ordnance Supplies the guns could not have been brought into position or the capture of Delhi ef- fected.' . . ." People who knew my father well, spoke with much love of his extraordinary kindliness and buoyant spirits. ^ ^ M^ * M^ My Italian grandfather, Count Angelo Romanini, born in Brescia, was at one time a man of consider- able position. We have a tradition that he owned large estates of chestnut groves. During the Austro-Italian War he joined the Democratic Society known as the Carbonari and fell into serious political trouble. Aided by a firman from the Sultan of Turkey, Abdul Medjid, he travelled unmolested over Eastern Europe. My grandmother, Rosa Polinelli, came from Mi- lan. They had eight beautiful daughters, six of whom under the age of eighteen married English- men. My grandfather had a passionate love for horses. We were told when we were children of his going into a stable, where there was a wild, unmanageable 4 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS creature that no one would approach, and of his coming out in twenty minutes leading the animal, feeding from his hand. Owing, no doubt, chiefly to this power and affec- tion he became for a time the proprietor of an equestrian company. Unfortunately, whenever I asked questions about this ''Circus," which interested.me profoundly, I was hushed. Only my mother smiled, and I thought that some day she would tell me about it, but she never did. ***** People say that if they read the old letters of their mothers and grandmothers, it is difficult to realise that they were creatures of flesh and blood; and if the chronicle be enriched with some high adventure or escapade, it only makes an impression as though a brightly coloured foreign bird flew through a quiet garden. My own experience is diflferent. My Italian mother and her beautiful sisters were invested for me with great romantic glamour that has remained with me. And the few stories I was told about their youthful adventures delight me now as they did when I was a child, and felt proud they were my people. My life appeared to me to have sprung from a magical past, in which Italy, Persia, India — white houses with flat roofs, white-robed Arabs, and lovely Arab horses — and my beautiful aunts — were all seen MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 5 through a mist of childish imaginings; built upon stories I was told, photographs and letters I had seen, my mother's sweet singing voice, her delicious Italian accent, her guitar, and the many languages she spoke, among them Greek and Arabic. It is because of the effect these things made upon my childish mind that I record them briefly. These were the names of my aunts: — Regina, Stella, Carolina, Angela, Theresa, and Theodora, and another who died very young. The story of the death of this beloved youngest child shows my grandfather as a man of passionate feeling — he turned her sick room almost into a chapel, with candles and crucifixes: prayers were said continu- ously. The child died — my grandfather blew out the candles, broke the crucifixes, and was never known to pray again. ***** A caravan, with my grandfather and grandmother, their children mounted ahead on Arab horses! This picture was probably fixed in my childish mind by the following anecdote. My aunts, whilst riding, found a poor woman who had just given birth to a child by the roadside; not knowing what to do, they slipped off their petticoats and left them with her, to the dismay of their mother when they returned to the caravan. Eventually my grandfather travelled to India and. 6 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS I believe, settled for some time in Bombay. His eldest daughter, Aunt Regina, married Richard Stevens, British Consul at Tabriz, Persia. My Uncle Richard's official work took him away from Aunt Regina a great deal, and the following story I treasured. One evening, tired of waiting for him, she dressed herself in his uniform, with his sword at her side. When he returned late at night and opened the door of his wife's bedroom, he saw in the dim light a young officer standing with his back to him. His horror and dismay can be imag- ined! The ''young man" turned round, and he met his wife's laughing eyes. They had a son, Hadji Baba Stevens, to whom the then Shah of Persia stood godfather. He worked as a young man on the Indian Pioneer with Mr. Rud- yard Kipling. His sister married an Englishman, Henry Soutar. She with her husband and children were handsomely ransomed by the English Govern- ment from, I believe, Bulgarian brigands, when Mr. 'Gladstone was Prime Minister. There was a touch- ing story connected with this: one of the brigands walked back for many miles to find a doll the youngest child had dropped. . . . 4t * ^ ^ ^ Aunt Stella eloped when she was sixteen with a well-known Bavarian artist, Alexander Svoboda. My grandfather would not tolerate this love affair, and he must, I think, have locked her into a room, MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 7 for we were told she escaped by climbing up the wide chimney of a Moorish house, her sisters help- ing her to drag up a box by a rope, I take it she was successfully helped down into the street, where Svoboda was waiting for her. . . . Svoboda was always painting my Aunt Stella; es- pecially her feet, which were very lovely. The mar- riage was not happy; Svoboda was intensely jealous. Aunt Stella had a bird, which she used to feed from her lips. One day this infuriated Svoboda, who, in a fit of jealousy, wrung the bird's neck before her My Aunt Stella died at twenty-nine, leaving be- hind her just this little sequence: her beauty, her young love, her escape up the chimney, her bird killed to spite her, and her early death. I was named after her; and I wish I could give the mysterious impression this little history made upon my childish thoughts. *^ jle- sk- .ife ^* *F 1* rf* My Aunt Theresa, a light-hearted, merry girl, married an English lawyer, who piously on his wed- ding night knelt on the bed to pray. The gay Theresa, irritated by prayers said in such a way at such a time, pushed him ofif the bed onto the floor. Her wedding night was spent in tears. . . . A year or two afterwards my uncle took his adored young wife and child home to England. She caught a chill on the voyage, and within a few days she and 8 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS her baby died at the Buckingham Palace Hotel. Of Aunt Angela, I know only that she married a certain Mr. Henry Lacey, the son of an English clergyman. Aunt Carolina married a Scotchman, Captain Gunn Eraser. Aunt Dora, my youngest aunt, married a Mr. James Vere Cumins. When I met this uncle in America for the first time a few years ago, I saw an unusually handsome man, with a pointed beard and blue eyes. As a youth he had great expectations : this he could never forget. He worked hard to sup- port my Aunt Dora, a hearty, handsome woman, who sang well and adored her five children. My uncle and aunt are both dead, but their children are still living in Texas. Which of my aunts it was who had a tame crow that used to fly into the woods and when she clapped her hands return to her, I do not know: or which aunt sold her monkey for a basketful of pistachio nuts. I was told she pulled the monkey by its tail into her window, thinking he was falling, and he never forgave her the indignity. This she could not bear, so she sold him for a large basket of her favour- ite nuts. Her sisters refused to share them with hei ; and the story that she ate them all herself in defiance and became ill, I could always understand. My father's eldest sister, Aunt Emily, married MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 9 Baron von Jasmund — closely related to the Imperial House of Hapsburg. The story that has come down to us about this gentleman is rather mysterious. I give it for what it is worth: — Aunt Emily eloped from a school in England where Baron von Jasmund was a professor. In time my grandfather forgave this marriage. They lived in London and entertained largely. I heard that for a season they took Dorchester House, and my eldest brother and sister remember playing with their Ger- man cousins on the great staircase. Von Jasmund and his wife and family eventually went to America. Many years afterwards, when I was acting in America, two young men called to see me, and claimed cousinship — Mortimer and Wasa von Jas- mund. Later I met their charming and pretty sister, Hildegarde, and their youngest brother, Seymour. I cannot resist quoting from letters written by Hildegarde, after our meeting, to my Uncle Harry. They show she inherited a fine sensibility from her mother: " 'Brainerd,' "Minn. "January 25th, 1902. "My dear Uncle, "You will experience surprise, I am sure, at a com- munication from me, but as I am your very own niece I feel that I can take the liberty. My delight at hear- ing from a real live uncle was unbounded. To think that after a lapse of so many years, years of hoping, longing, waiting, we should at last find, in a most unexpected and lo MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS unforeseen way, some of my dear mother's people. . . . "How many times during these long years we have wondered about you all. We have written many letters, but it was impossible to find any of you. All that we knew was that mother had two brothers, John and Fred, and this information we obtained from some old pictures. You who have had your friends and family about you cannot conceive what it means for four helpless, mother- less children, with an irresponsible father, to be dropped in a strange land with absolutely no one to look after them. Thanks to a most merciful Providence, we fell in good hands, and received the best care and kindest treat- ment, and all the advantages it was possible for our new friends to give us. . . . "Write to me of my dearest mother. Do not hesitate for fear of hurting my feelings. I feel that her only re- gret at dying must have been parting with her chil- dren. ,. . . "Most affectionately, "HiLDEGARDE VON J, CoURTNEY "(nee von Jasmund)." "February nth, 1903. "My dear Uncle Harry, "My meeting with Beatrice* was a most pleasant oc- casion for me. I reached Chicago on Saturday, and went alone to the matinee. The first vision I had of Beatrice was as she entered the stage as 'Magda.' It was one of loveliness. I was charmed, delighted! . . . Her chief charm lies, to me, in her sweet unaffectedness and that air of exquisite refinement. . . . Seeing her, brought back strange and sad memories. Memories of that dear mother, whose love I have always missed so sorely, and I wept through the entire performance. I *My family always called me Beatrice. MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS ii was unfit to go out in the evening, so did not see her in The Joys of Living, very much to my regret. I saw her in all her other plays. ... I am doubly anxious to see you all after hearing Beatrice talk of you. She spoke most lovingly and tenderly of you, dear uncle, and I know you must be the nicest and noblest of men. . . . I am glad you could see a little resemblance to mother in my picture. I have always thought the lower part of my face was like her. I am 5 ft. 5 in. in height Was mother as tall? . . ." Extract from letter written by my Uncle Harry to Seymour von Jasmund. "23, Glebe Place, "Chelsea. "26th October, 1902. "My dear Seymour, "Immediately on receipt of your letter of 6th instant, I wrote to a cousin of ours, Mrs. Hogarth; who is about 77 years old, and she, when we were children, took care of us after our mother's death. She lives at some distance out of London. ... I thought she might be able to give me some information in answer to the ques- tions contained in your letter. She replied: " 'I have been locking over some papers I have not seen for years, and am pleased to say I came upon a copy of poor Emily's marriage certificate, with other papers relating to the Baron, which I should like you to see.' "These documents she has now handed to me. They consist of: "i. Copy of Marriage Certificate, 185 1. "2. Do. Document (written in German). "3. Do. Do. Do. 1851. 12 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS "4. Do. Do. Do. 1 85 1. "5. Letter written by your father to his father-in- law. . . . nth January, 1852, St. Goarshausen. " 'I wish to forward the above to one of you, and, as I don't know Wasa's whereabouts, I will send them to your brother Mortimer, who, I suppose, has the first right to them next to Wasa.' " The following is a copy of the christening, certificate of Seymour von Jasmund, the youngest child, who was born in Canada: "Seymour Theodore Algernon Wasa von Jasmund, born at Mooretown, Ontario, September 3rd, 1864. "Son of Charles Albert Theodore and Emily Mathilda Rebecca von Jasmund. "Baptised at the City Hotel, St. Clair, Michigan, on December 24th, 1864, by Rev. B. J. Prichard. "Sponsors (by Proxy) : "Henry Stuart Wortley. "Lady Jane Muncaster. "Capt. Alfred Drummond. "England." 'Ss * * ^ I remember my beloved mother first when I was about three years old — tall, pale, dressed in black, with long, white, delicate hands. I fancy she was mourning my eldest brother, who had died suddenly at school, and two loved sisters she had lost. My father was away in India. My earliest recollection is of her walking up and down a long room, and I walking close behind her, feeling very proud to be following her up and down that long room. MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 13 When my mother sang to me I listened under an enchantment. She gave me her great love of beauty. She could not pass beauty by unnoticed. . . . I never heard her laugh or saw her gay. I re- member no bitterness or harsh speaking, but I know now what as a child I could not guess; sorrow had silenced the song of life in her. Italian women differ from Englishwomen in their reserve: in the Southern heart there is no chill, how- ever great the suffering. My father in these early days I do not recall. I neither remember being caressed by him nor having any sense of his love for me; my whole adoration was for my mother. I remember, when I was a very young girl, talk- ing to her about some new acquaintances with whom she did* not wish me to be intimate — people who were odd, noisy, vulgar, rich, full of gaiety and high spirits. They fascinated me, though in some strange way they ofifended my taste. I remember my mother listening gravely for some time to my questions, and then saying gently: "We have an Italian proverb — 'Only the sweep knows what is up the chimney.' " From my mother I learnt my love of music. Schubert was my first love. She sang his songs in French with a touching unsentimental simplic- ity. 14 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS Dante and Tasso, and Ariosto, together with her Bible, were always by her bed. After her death I found these few lines translated from Dante in her handwriting: — "When the leaves are falling and thou are come "To seek my cross in Camposanto. . . . "In a -humble corner thou wilt find it, "And many flowers near it born. . . . "•Gather thou, then, for thy fair tresses "The flowers born of my heart . . . they are "The songs I thought, but did not write. . . . "The words of love I did not tell thee." My mother spoke to me with enthusiasm of the Italian actors, Salvini, Rossi, and Madame Ristori; also of the singers, Mario and Grisi and Adelina Patti. I do not think she ever saw any of our Eng- lish players; if she did, I never heard her speak of them. She loved her children and her grandchildren. Not a flower or a colour, not a sound, line or move- ment that had loveliness escaped her. She loved animals, especially horses, birds, and dogs; so life must have given her joy: but the impression she has left upon me is one of abiding melancholy and beauty. Her religion was simple, "simple as truth's simplic- ity." She was a Roman Catholic. My father was a cheerful believer in the Darwin- ian theory. MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 15 I remember a story my mother told me about an Arab horse she used to ride in the Row: hearing the music of a regimental band passing, the horse began to lie down and try to roll over. My mother kept her seat, and the people who were standing by, watch- ing, said under their breath: "Circus rider." She smiled as she told me this story, and thrilled me with the idea that the horse must have been a performing horse that had learnt to bow or dance to music, and perhaps roll over "dead" at some given cue. '^' 'i^' Vf! "Tf* ^P I remember clearly my first grief. There was a children's party given by my father — a Christmas tree with a lovely fairy doll holding a golden sceptre in her hand, and with, what appeared to me, a dia- mond crown upon her head, standing on the tips of her toes, with stars all about her and lights — lights everywhere — and toys of all descriptions and colours hanging everywhere beneath her feet. At the foot of the tree were large crackers — bigger than I — and I was told that inside these crackers were dresses, kings' dresses, queens' dresses, princes' and princesses'. A band playing. Crowds of people and children and I, wild with excitement, looking, wondering whether I would have the dress of a queen or a princess. Then someone brought me one of the large crack- ers and said it was mine. I put my arms around i6 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS it, and whispered: "What is inside?" And the answer, I know, was "A cook's dress," and I wept and wept and wept. I remember no more about the Christmas party, only that I was in a room alone. Someone had grown tired of telling me to "stop crying," "not to be a silly little girl." I was full of shame, and my vain little heart was broken. My youngest brother was only ten months older than I, and we were always in the nursery together. He was a sad and nervous child, delicate and silent. He used to sit in a corner making small bags out of little pieces of cloth our nurse gave him. His aloof- ness teased me; my noise and energy teased him; and there are memories of tussles and trying to pull out each other's hair. I believe I used to cry loud and long, and some- one told me that when I was a few months old my nurse said to my mother: "She is not a baby; she is a tiger." The nurse had lain me down in a cup- board, so that my mother should not hear my screams. Perhaps, though still in long clothes, I knew my nurse was unintelligent. I remember no more of these early years — the years that lie between three and nine years of age — • but those things which, I suppose, all children suf- fer — sudden strangeness, shyness, loneliness, a sense of invisible things and people, fears born of ignor- ant nurses' warnings, and their own imaginings. MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 17 The loving, gentle look in my Uncle Harry's eyes remains with me throughout the years. There was the comforting love and joy found in the pets about the house, and the passionate desire to have some day a dog of my own. I never cared for dolls. CHAPTER II. I THINK I was neither a sweet, amiable, nor amenable child. I was physically strong, very affectionate, imaginative, but temperamentally alien to those around me. I believe I was impatient with unintelligent people from the moment I was born: a tragedy — for I am myself three-parts a fool. . . . I was about nine years old when my parents moved into Tulse Dale Lodge, a house situated between Tulse Hill and Dulwich. The place belonged to a Miss Bailey, an old friend of my mother. It was a low, grey stone house with a porch, standing in the middle of a big garden. There were stables and a large field adjoining with some fine trees. Inside the house were long low rooms, a dining room, library, a drawing room and a mysterious room al- ways kept locked, containing things belonging to Miss Bailey — a place of shadows in my memory. My mother's sister, Aunt Dora, and her five chil- dren, had come from India to live with us, her hus- band in the meanwhile having gone to Mexico to look after my father's interests out there in silver mines. The house was full of children. These cousins of mine I fancy had been spoiled by ayahs — we were a strange medley of bickering brats, and 18 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 19 someone called me the "Ugly Duckling," and ugly I believed I was. I have a vague recollection of my eldest sister being proud of me and dressing me up prettily. She taught me my notes on the piano. She tells me I was a very difficult child to understand, and to this day her attitude is one of bewilderment, ques- tion and concern. A tender-hearted woman and a most devoted mother, this sister of mine. There were many happy days spent in the garden at Tulse Dale Lodge; my favorite amusement was to sit alone, high up in a tree, talking to myself and to the leaves — they were little people to me — and my friends. ". . . . like the talking of the trees And voices in the air that knew my name." An especially naughty game of mine was to dig a hole, fill it with water, unplait my long black hair and sit in the mud bath. I called it a "Roman Bath," inspired, I feel sure, by my mother telling me the Ancient Romans taught the Ancient Britons to bathe. One day when an admirer of my elder sis- ter called, he met a wild dishevelled child covered thick with mud, and told my sister of the extraor- dinary little girl he had seen in the garden; and my sister made me feel much ashamed when she told me how I had disgraced myself. There was a day, too, when I sat on a gate watch- 20 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS ing Mr. Gladstone, who was profoundly interested in the working of a newly invented steam saw for cutting down trees. And there was an awful day when I dug up my pet canary that had died and I had wept over; and had buried carefully in cotton wool in a Bryant and May's matchbox. I longed to see my little bird once more. I fancy that I had expected to find the box empty, that he had gone to Heaven, or had become a fairy: I never had the courage to tell anyone what I found — the blankness, the misery, of that first sight of decay. And then there was lying on the hay in the sun, dreaming I was carried away on a cloud to meet someone, who would take me to all the beautiful places in the world. Strangers terrified me — ''the people behind the door." ''They do not say what their faces say" was a remark I made when I was trying to explain my terror to my nurse. True to this day it is, only now their interest lies in the enigma. The desire was always with me to tell a secret. It would come upon me suddenly in a crowd. I did not know what the secret was, but if only people would stand quite still and listen, then I would know right enough. How many years afterwards did I discover that an audience inspires and strengthens, and that to "hold an audience" is a gift from God. At ten years old I was sent to school at Brighton. THE FAITHFUL UNCLE HAKRY MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 21 Nothing remains in my memory but a dull monotony. Governesses that made me feel shy; learning that I found difficult; and the stiffness of school discipline that hurt my sensitive mind. Walking out two by two had tragically depressing effect upon me. I was full of strange fancies, too. I used to amuse myself by putting pennies furtively in odd places, and making up passionate stories to myself of how beggars would find them, and think God had sent them in answer to their prayers. I remember not minding that I was scolded for lagging behind — that was the price I paid for my dreams. Evidently my schoolmistress, Miss Blackmore thought my morbidity was due to physical causes — temperament was scarcely a schoolmistress' busi- ness — she called me to her private room and told me I needed medicine, and I must be a good girl and take it without any fuss. She gave me a grey powder in a cup of coffee. It made me very seriously ill. My father was sent for, and I remember his coming up to my bedroom. His face was so serious, I thought he was cross with me, and I was very un- happy. I learned long afterwards that my eldest brother had died at school after a few days' illness at the age of twelve. I have a sinister remembrance that when I was a child I often thought grown-up people silly, and their voices ugly and their movements ungraceful: when people had beautiful speaking voices, or lovely manners, I was their slave. 22 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS Once in the holidays a cousin came to see us with her very young baby. 1 had never seen such a little baby before. I begged to be allowed to hold her, and someone said, "If you drop her, it will kill her, but if you sit on the ground I will put her on your lap." I sat down and the baby was put on my lap, I remember quite well the sick- ening fear and giddiness that came over me as I held the little bundle. I realized with overpower- ing tenderness the tragedy that had been suggested to iTiy mind. "The child is fainting," I heard my mother say, "None of you understands how sensitive Beatrice is." I was made to lie down on a bed, and I was haunted miserably by a feeling that there was something queer about me. There is a tragic memory, too, of an old nurse, Fanny, who left us when I was old enough to go to school. I used to think of her with great love and longing, often crying myself to sleep. In the holi- days she came to see us, and she did not recognise me — "Surely this big girl isn't Miss Beatrice?" were her respectful words, instead of a hug and a kiss, and a jump into her lap. She did not know me, and I knew her so well, and I loved her so much. The pain I suffered at the sudden baffling of my joy is indescribable. A year or two later, wretched terms were spent in a school at Hampstead. The mistress had cold blue eyes that stared at me — whether in admiration or disgust it was difficult for me to tell. She either MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 23 painted or wore false eyebrows, which made her face funny to me. I know I was afraid to look at her — that I would have to laugh, and then she would frighten me. When she took the class and asked me a question, my mind became a blank. I do not remember learning anything at this school, or mak- ing any school friends. I recollect one of the governesses was very kind to me; a grey haired woman, with a small, sad, tight .face,*and an expression that never changed. I asked her once if she had a sister, and she answered sol- emnly, "Yes, and her beauty was her curse." This answer filled me with awe, and for a long while gravely troubled me. Later from Tulse Dale Lodge my eldest sister Nina married; and soon afterwards my father, with my two brothers and my Aunt Dora and her children, went to America to join my uncle in Texas. My mother, with my sister Lulo and myself, moved into a small, rather nice little house in Dulwich taken by my Uncle Harry; and Miss Catherine Bailey, my mother's friend, came back from Paris to her house, Tulse Dale Lodge. Miss Bailey — "Aunt Kate," as I afterwards called her — attracted me strangely. She was an old spin- ster lady nearly seventy years of age — I wa'S not yet fifteen — the tallest and thinnest person I had ever seen, with a very yellow wrinkled face and an austere manner. But in her youth she had been an inti- mate friend of Lord Byron and Tom Moore. She 24 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS had seen ladies swoon with excitement when Lord Byron appeared at a party! Aunt Kate had a pretty apartement at 34, Avenue de Villers, opposite the Pare Monceau. She took a great interest in me, and begged my mother to let her take me to Paris to live with her for a year, and to have lessons in music and French. My father's financial troubles had gradually crip- pled him-, so this chance for me to "finish my edu- cation," which indeed had not yet begun, came as a great boon to my mother. Being at a most impressionable age, the love I had for grace and distinction- developed here, where a little coterie of French and Italian people constantly came to visit her. Aunt Kate's sister had married General Count van de Meer, a distinguished gentle- man, who had played a courageous part in the Com- mune troubles. There was Marie van de Meer, his lovely daughter, and Count Charles van de Meer and his beautiful Russian wife, Wanda, and their little girl of three, and pretty Countess Alice van de Meer, and many others whom I forget. And then there was Aunt Kate's favourite nephew, with a waxed moustache, Charles de Lorilli, a Manager in Mr. Rothschild's Bank. He used to dine with her almost every night. I had a governess to teach me French and another to give me music lessons, and I think I was taken to every gallery and museum in Paris. MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 25 I can only remember going to a theatre once. It was to see Pailleron's Le Monde ou Von s'ennuie. It was as though some unexpected door opened, and for months afterwards my thoughts gazed beyond. Strangely enough Aunt Kate never took me to a thea- tre again. People used to stare at me out-of-doors, and I re- member feeling rather uncomfortable about my long black plaits. One day a man in passing us pushed a ticket for a box at the opera in my glove. I shall never forget Aunt Kate's face as she called him "Si»nge" and hailed a fiacre. I did not know whether to laugh, or cry. She would not speak to me: I felt somehow that I was to blame. I stayed in Paris a year, getting to know a little about music, and always enjoying the novelty of the slightly artificial atmosphere of Aunt Kate's circle, where an ugly retort or an uncomplimentary truth would have been a breach of good manners. There was an atmosphere of romance about it all that filled me with delight. I fancy, though, what pleased me most was Aunt Kate's vivid manner of telling mc stories of her youth, and of people she had known. Her eyes would sparkle — and she had wonderful dramatic gestures with her large Scotch hands, that impressed and thrilled me. When she told me a love story, she used to murmur "Oh's" and "Ah's," turning her eyes upwards in a most mysterious fash- 26 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS ion. Some sad story had surely left dear Aunt Kate a spinster. When I was sixteen Aunt Kate brought me back to my mother. By this time my father was definitely ruined. My youngest brother Edmund had come back from America. This brother, whom we had always called "Max," had a genius for music, chess problems and figures. My dear Uncle Harry's fortune had melted away in the general ruin. He got some work in the City, and took the burden of my mother, my sister, my brother and myself upon him. I had always loved my Uncle Harry. As a small child he was the one who never frightened me, or made me shy; whose eyes looked at me with love and understanding. Whenever I saw him, I used to go close to him and hold his hand, and he said lovely things that made children laugh and feel happy. His face was dis- figured by smallpox, but we children thought him very handsome, and used to quarrel among ourselves as to which one of us would marry him when we grew up. He was a great reader, a student of literature of all kinds: Italian, French, and Latin were a hobby with him. When I returned from Paris, I developed a pas- sion for reading, and my mother allowed me to turn a little box room into a study. There were some rapturous hours spent alone in that little room, writing out what I particularly loved, and making MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 27 notes of what I did not understand. It was a strange medley of my uncle's books that I took into that roam: — J. W. Cross' ''Life of George Eliot," Lewes' "Life of Goethe," Thackeray's "English Humorists of the Eighteenth Century," "Corinne," Walt Whit- man, Keats, Longfellow, Emerson, Shakespeare, Milton, Tennyson, Daudet, Balzac, and many others. When uncle returned from the City in the evening, we would go through what I had read, and he with his gentle fun was always ready to make difficult things easy and amusing. I asked him once: "What is Heaven really? I know it isn't a place in the sky behind the clouds." He thought for a long time: looking beyond me, he answered "Faithfulness." Our long evenings at home were spent either at the piano or playing chess, or listening to my mother singing to her guitar, or to my uncle reading aloud. We talked a lot of nonsense, too. He was wise and witty and listened with grave eyes full of affection. I think he knew there was something in my heart I could not speak, and he wondered what outlet I would find. We loved arguments and discussions, and there were always beloved cats and dogs and other pets. On my return from Paris, a cousin of my father, Mrs. Eliza Hogarth, a woman of some means, heard me play the piano, and offered to have me trained, so it was arranged that I should go to the Guildhall School of Music twice a week, from Dulwich, for 28 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS my lesson. After the second term my Music Master suggested that I should go in, with 365 other girls, for a scholarship, which would give me three years free musical tuition in Leipzig. I won the scholar- ship : why I never took it up belongs to another chap- ter. The following letter from my Music Master, Mr. Ridley Prentice, shows that I had a little musical talent: — "Kensington Square, W., September 25th, 1882. "My dear Madam, "I much regret to find from your daughter. Miss Bea- trice Tanner, that she will leave the Guildhall School of Music at the half term. Personally, I shall be very sorry to lose her as a pupil, as she is much interested in her work, has great talent, and makes rapid progress. "But I feel that, quite apart from my personal feeling, it is my duty to let you know what a very serious thing it seems to me that Miss Tanner should not complete her musical education. "When she came to me, she had never had any regular musical training at all, and there was much to undo be- fore she could really begin to make sure progress. She has now got over that first difliculty, and there is nothing to stop her from becoming really a fine pianist and musi- cian — but this of course is a work of time and labour and cannot be accomplished all at once. "I have no hesitation in saying that she has a very great talent indeed, and that if she works in a proper spirit, and is properly directed, she is sure of attaining a very high position. It seems to me, therefore, that it MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 29 would be a wrong thing if such talent were not to be pro- perly developed, especially as in the present day no one has any chance of success who has not attained the high- est possible point. "You will see that I look on the matter as a musician, doubtless there are many other different considerations which must weigh with you, but I trust that you will pardon my writing strongly. It is not too often that one meets with real talent, so that it is all the more sad when there seems to be a prospect of its being wasted. "Perhaps I may be allowed to add that the very great pains which I have taken with Miss Tanner give me a right to speak. "Believe me, Dear Madam, "Yours sincerely, "Ridley Prentice." During these two years of my life at Dulwich only a fev^ friends stand out of the shadows, amongst them Mrs. Gifford, her son, and two beautiful daugh- ters. The eldest, Maud, now Lady Gallwey, was my first girl friend. We used to have long walks and talks together. I thought her beautiful; she was in- terested in my year's life spent in Paris and in my music. She had a lovely figure; was always well dressed, and had heaps of admirers. Then there was the charming Bowring Spence, and his Italian mother and sisters. He had a beau- tiful sympathetic voice, and used to sing Tosti's early songs. He married a niece of the Pope and be- came British Consul at Leghorn. One of our most interesting neighbors was Jim 30 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS Bates (Dr. Curling Bates), a very gifted fellow, whose grandfather had been an intimate friend of Handel. He gave me Handel's snufif-box, which I still cherish. Jim Bates * was a good musician, besides being an excellent amateur actor, and he was President of the Anomalies Dramatic Club where I made my first appearance as an amateur actress. Also there was James Nasmyth, afterwards Sir James Nasmyth, a strange creature, a friend of my musical brother Max. I can remember no gaiety such as young people have today. Ours were the most simple of pleasures, music, card parties, country walks, cricket matches and concerts at the Crystal Palace. There were the Urquhart girls, cousins of the Gif- fords, their father was a vicar at Bournemouth. The third daughter, Owney, a lovely gentle girl with a fascinating lisp, very many years afterwards, mar- ried my brother Max. I find in an old copy book the following poems by my uncle, and one by myself written at fifteen: BEATRICE. HER MOTTO VIVE LA BAGATELLE. "A nobler yearning never broke her rest Than but to dance and sing, be gaily drest, * Lady Burne-Jones, who once saw Dr. Curling Bates act at Rotting- dean, told me he was the best comedian she had ever seen. MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 31 And win all eyes with all accomplishment; For ah, the slight coquette, she cannot love. And if you kissed her feet a thousand years She still would take the praise and care no more." H. W. T. "IN THEIR RIGHT PLACES." "The Brewers should to Malta go, The Boobys all to Scilly, The Quakers to the Friendly Isles, The Furriers to Chili. The naughty little squalling babes That break our nightly rest. Should be packed off to Babylon, To Lapland or to Brest. From Spithead Cooks go off to Greece, And while the miser waits His passage to the Guinea Coast Spendthrifts are in the Straits. Let Spinsters to the Needles go, Wine bibbers to Burgundy, Send gluttons to the Sandwich Isles, Wags to the Bay of Fundy. Bachelors to the United States Maids to the Isle of Man, Let Gaideners go to Botany Bay, And Shoe-blacks to Japan. Seek out all other misplaced men. Lest they disturb and vex us, And all who're not provided for, And send them off to Texas." H. W. T. 32 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS TO STELLA'S EYES. SWEETEST EYES WERE EVER SEEN. 'Love hath not eyes they say, Tell me, is that e'en soT Said Stella, one glad day To her fond Angelo. Straightway her dear replies, 'By heav'n and earth, 'tis true; For love's enchanting eyes Were stolen, sweet by you.' " DAWN There is a hushed stillness through the trees. Dawn is breaking. And the transient night wind greeting leaves The Morn awaking; It stoops to tell the new-born flowers Of the Sun. To kiss their lips with dew-drop dowers, Day has come. There is a soft note of the nightingale Passing away Into the sweetest melody to hail The break of day. Aurora comes ! with blushing pride She spreads her charms. Till the pale night gently glides From Neptune's arms. Beatrice, aged 15. Part of a letter I find written to a cousin many years later by my Uncle Harry: MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 33 ". . . During my life I have seen a great deal of Beatrice and have been with her more than with the others; and I took a little part in her bringing up, for when my brother John went away to Texas with his two boys, he left Lulo and Beatrice under my care. Some years after, when Beatrice had married, the time came when her husband went abroad to seek his fortune in 1887, and Beatrice, a year or two later, with his consent, took up the stage as a profession. She left her two dear children under my care. They remained some years in my house along with their grandmother, so my life has been always more in touch with Beatrice's, and she is my favourite. . . ." CHAPTER III. AT a card party at Mrs. Gifford's I first met my future husband, Patrick Campbell. His father had been manager in Hong Kong, of the Chartered Bank of India, Australia, and China. He now owned a large place, "Belmont," Stranraer, also an old-fashioned house with lawns and trees, "Ellerslie," on Sydenham "Hill. I was seventeen when I first met Pat: he was twenty, and had just left Wellington. His brother, Alan Campbell, of the 72nd Highlanders, had dis- tinguished himself at Tel-el-Kebir. Pat was good-looking, with unusually well-bred gentle manners, a great affection for his home and people, and a passionate love for his dead mother. His father had married again, and there were many step-children — all were dear to Pat. A devoted old keeper at Belmont had taught him the names of birds and wild flowers — a black speck in the sky, I could scarcely see, had its name, its character, and its ways for Pat; a flower that to me was just a pretty colour, for him was a little life with its family and its home. Pat managed a boat like a magician. I remem- ber a wonderful long day on the Thames. Pat 34 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 35 looked only at me — the boat went without effort or sound, quick and straight. In the locks even we seemed alone — he spoke little • — the golden glory of the dawn before passion is born was between us — — We picked wild flowers together. I remember a little bird flying into my hand and Pat's words, ''Even the wild birds love you." We eloped within four months of our first meet- ing and were married at St. Helen's Church, Bish- opsgate Street. One thing I can never forget — my mother's face and her heartbroken cry when I told her. After more than thirty-five years of life — with its battles, its wounds, its every ready pain — it is not easy to write of the joy of that first love. Incapable of pause or reckoning, with the divine faith and courage of fearless children, we faced the world we thought ours, and paid the price bravely. Slowly to me came the awakening that the responsibility of the two children, born within three years, was mine. Pat, who had never been very strong, was ordered abroad for his health. . . . I can remember vividly a hot summer night. The moon shone through the open window and I lay trying to see into the future. At about 2 o'clock I was overcome with restless anxiety, I slipped out of 36 MY LIFE AND SOiME LETTERS bed, taking care not to awaken Pat, and, throwing on a wrap, crept downstairs and opened the door leading to a narrow garden. I walked up and down that little garden, now and then looking up at the window of the rooms where my husband and little son were asleep until daylight, thinking and wondering what was to be done. I knew Pat was not strong enough to continue work- ing in the city, and that / must help. I could not imagine what work I could do. I had given up my musical scholarship, and so was not qualified for a musical career. My lovely baby, and another coming in a few weeks, must be provided for. I was bewildered — lost. With the daylight something entered my soul, and has never since left me — it seemed to cover me like a fine veil of steel, giving me a strange sense of security. Slowly I became conscious that within myself lay the strength I needed, and that I must never be afraid. Was it the birth of self-reliance — or that over- whelming spirit "the sense of responsibility" beating against my heart — or the call of my "secret?"^ — I cannot say — I know I crept quietly back to bed in the grey light of the morning with a new courage and determination. Pat was earning less than £ioo a year, and his delicate health was alarming. His mother had died of consumption three years after his birth, and I fancy this preyed on my mind. The failure of the MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS yj Old Oriental Bank had practically ruined my father-in-law. . . . Then my girl was born — "a little queen, with such beautiful hands," my mother said. About two months later I was suddenly asked by Jim Bates to play the leading part at the Anomalies Dramatic Club, one of the members having fallen ill. I felt very unhappy and uncertain. The idea seemed to terrify me. My friends said it would cheer me up, and amuse me. Someone had fixed in my mind when I was very young that Art was a form of prayer, and I could not regard it is an amusement, but my ridiculous seriousness was overcome in the end by Pat, who persuaded me to accept. The Anomalies Dramatic Club was composed of 365 members, who each paid a subscription of £3 3s. a year: the Club gave three performances every year of two plays. The performances took place in the Town Hall. This extract from The Stage shows that I met with some success.* Pat's health became worse, and at last he was ordered by the doctor to take a sea voyage. It was suggested he should go to Brisbane, where a relative *"ln his Poiver, by Mark Quinton, i8th November, 1886. The Anomalies are fortunate in counting Mrs. Campbell as one of their members. It was this lady's first appearance on any stage on Thursday, and her performance was therefore the more extraordinary. Mrs. Campbell possesses a natural depth of pathos and yet a power and earnestness, which, joined to a graceful, easy manner and charming presence render her a most valuable acquisition." 38 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS of his, William Ross, was at the moment. The thought of the parting was misery to us both, but the state of his health made it imperative. It was ar- ranged, if Pat succeeded in finding work, the chil- dren and I would join him. The day he left, my sister and I went to the station to see him off. I don't know how it happened, but we missed him. I fainted. Someone in nurse's uniform lifted my head and gave me water. I can remember well the agony I felt as I realized the tragedy of our parting. The following telegram is among my old pa- pers: — "5th October, 1887. "Good-bye, darling, did my best to see you. Dare not miss another train. Perhaps it was better. "Pat." Had any of us realised the sort of difficulties a boy of Pat's nature would have to encounter, with no capital and delicate health, we would never have let him go on from Brisbane to Sydney and then on to Mashonaland. He and I both believed with the optimism of children in every new venture he under- took. I was sure he would soon make enough money to send for me and the children. And in those first years our dream of the joy of reunion gave our hearts courage. The following are a few extracts from the hun- dreds of letters Pat wrote to me during the six and a MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 39 half years he was away. The world has invented many strange stories about me, so the truth of our young lives and struggle, may be found interesting. "Brisbane, "15th December, 1887. "Fairly good news, my own, own darling. I have got a berth in the B. I. Company's office, £2 a week to com- mence with, and I think it will increase soon. I started to work yesterday. Some of the fellows seem very nice; the hours are from 9 till 5.30. It isn't very much, dar- ling, but anyway it is a start. *'I got all your dear, sweet letters to-day, five for- warded on from Aden and one direct to Brisbane. My darling, do you know what these letters are to me? . . . "The old Duke of Buccleuch went away to-day. It made me quite sad all day. They would willingly have taken me back to England with them. It took all my strength of will not to go. . . . "Act as much as you like. I know you love me; that is enough. . . ." After Pat left England I played again with the Anomalies Dramatic Company in Blow for Blow, and The Money Spinner. "Brisbane, "8th January, 1888. "... Your last letter telling me about the Governor agreeing to stand security for the rent has taken a great load off my mind. Oh, darling, it is awful for me here to think of all the worry and trouble you have at home. It is heart-breaking to think of the long time it will be before I see you again. I try and keep my spirits up, 40 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS but I am utterly miserable without you. . . . Mr. Wood- ward has gone away prospecting for gold with two other fellows who have been most lucky. He has promised to let me know at once if they find anything good. North Queensland seems to abound in gold; they find fresh gold every day. . . ." "Brisbane, "14th January, 1888. "... I have been over head and ears in work all the week, darling, and really have not had time to write you the long letter I promised. "I have sent a cheque this post for £29 15s. 6d. (all I can get together) to an old friend in Kimberley, Harold Ingall, asking him to buy a demand draft for what it will fetch, payable to Mrs. Stella Campbell, and send it on to you. I have asked him to try and send it same mail as this. "Grand reports every day about gold. . M "Brisbane, "21st February, 1888. "My own darling, "I have been laid up in bed for the last ten days with a touch of coloured fever, but I am all right now, only it has left me very weak. You need not be frightened, the climate seems to suit me splendidly. They say most young fellows get a touch of fever when they first come out. . . . "It was awful work being laid up without you to look after me. I was very bad for three days, off my head altogether. One or two people were most kind. I am rather glad I have had it, as one has to go through it, and it might have been much worse. MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 41 "Nothing new out here, . . ." Three months afterwards he wrote :^ "Sydney, "17th May, 1888. u "After an interval of three mails I have just received your sweet letter of 29th March. You may well say I seem miserable. I am always being haunted by the idea that you will learn to hate me, because I am so long in helping you out of your great troubles that your pa- tience and goodness cannot last. . . . "Should I by any chance be able to get a good berth at £35, I will then be able to send you at least £20 a month, and then, my darling, you will be able to live more com- fortably. It will be a blessed day to me when I am able to write and send you the first regular remittance, and I feel sure it will only be a month or so hence now. You will think I am wasting time staying here, but there has not been a single boat going to Africa yet. "What a pet the little girl must be. Do try and send their photos, and, my own wife, send me one of your own. I want that above everything. . . ." "Mauritius, "28th July, 1888. "I feel utterly miserable. I have been stuck here for a month, no possible way of getting on to Africa. At last we are going to start in the Dunbar Castle to-day. I have no heart to write to you. My money has given out, and I am obliged to draw on my father for my pas- sage from here. I can't help it. I am afraid he will be wild, but it is the only thing I could do. I have 42 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS written him a nice letter, and I will pay it back as soon as I get to work. . . . "Stella, darling, don't get disgusted with me. God knows I have done my best. . . . And then, of course, I have had no word from the time I left Sydney and shall not, perhaps find a letter when I get to Kimberley. I do hope Kimberly will be the end of our troubles. "I cannot write more. It is awful to be the means of so much misery to you, for I worship you, my dar- ling. "God bless you and the children. "Pat/' "Kimberley Central Diamond Mining Company, Ltd., "Kimberley, "17th September, 1888. (( "I got your sweet letter on Saturday enclosing the one written to you by my father. I am writing him a long letter by this mail. "You will have got Ross's cable to my father about my billet by now. I do hope, my darling, it was a comfort. "I get £300 a year to start. My predecessor, who was only five months In the Company, and then lost the post through drink, got a rise of £50 at the end of three months. I do hope I get the same. Ross thinks I will be able to get something better soon. Things are very dull just now. The elections are on next month. "This seems a splendid place for making money. I do hope I can only get a start. I know Ross will put me in the way of anything good. . . . "I am so glad to know that the acting has made you happier. . . . "Pat." -^^^ ^i ^^ •^. '^^. ♦> ^. •• . "pat" CAMPBELL MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 43 Then Pat went on to Mashonaland, sometimes prospecting with hopes of concessions and settle- ments, and later I heard of his big game shooting with Selous. How he must have loved that. Then followed many weeks and no letters, and Pat could only send money very irregularly. So at last it was decided that I should take up the stage professionally, and I wrote asking for Pat's per- mission. This he gave, and I started my career. I had already gained some experience and success in my performances at the Anomalies Dramatic Club. "Central Diamond Mfg. Coy., "Stockdale Street, "Kimberley, "i2th November, 1888. "My own Stella wife, "I received your sweet letter telling me of your re- hearsals, and I long to get the long letter next week, which you have promised to send me, telling me all about the first performance, and I do hope it won't knock you up. . . . "I have just heard of a billet going with a salary of £500 a year, and I am going to do my very best to get it. "My life here is very monotonous, but I am getting on very well in this office, and the work is most interesting; the diamonds are simply superb. We are making a collection of curious ones for the Paris Exhibition. There is one most beautiful stone, the palest emerald green and very fiery. Some jet black ones which sparkle splendidly; others amber-coloured, orange, pink, yellow of all shades, and some of the purest water, all shapes and all sizes. One is shaped just like a man's head; 44 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS another is only half-formed, one half a pure diamond and the other a kind of milky pebble; another, a large stone, has a distinct representation of a tiny fern in it, another one is a perfectly round, flat, smooth stone, rather larger than a shilling and about twice as thick, quite clear, you can read print through it. Some of the stones are very valuable. The emerald-green one is only 8 carats and is worth about £700. Many of the white stones are worth £7 to £10 a carat. "God bless you, my own, own blessed wife. Write always; I feel so anxious about you. Promise me not to run risks. Send me all your criticisms. I am so anx- ious to hear. "I know you will be a success. "Think as well as you can of "Daddy." "Kimberley, "January, 1889. ({ tn 'I am beginning to hate Kimberley; what I want is for Rhodes to send me up into the interior to Loben- gula's country, Matabeleland. The general impression here is that the first fellows who are sent up will make their fortunes. I shall do my level best to get sent. . . . "I believe this last scheme of Rhodes' will turn into a company every bit as large and powerful as the old East India Company. From all accounts the country to be opened up is magnificent, and full of minerals far su- perior to anything yet found in Africa. The only dif- ficulty is transport, and Rhodes is going to run a rail- way to the Zambesi. There is a wonderful future for Africa, If Rhodes only lives." ***** MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 45 About this time I received the following, now amusing letter from my dear old friend. "Aunt Kate," which gives a most vivid impression of the prejudiced attitude towards the theatrical profession in those days: — "34, Avenue de Villiers, "Paris, "My dear Beatrice, "Since I received your first letter I have felt almost unable to write. The shock it gave me I could never explain to you, nor would you understand it. Nor did I quite realise before how dear you were to me. I should hardly have believed that losing you would, after all, have caused me such infinite pain. "Poor, unfortunate child, may God help you, if, as you say, the die for evil is cast. I can only pray, as the only chance to save you, that you make too decided a failure ever to try again. "Good God, how could you think I could write and wish you success? How thankful I feel that it was not whilst with me that you took the wrong turning. Mrs. Hogarth is a vulgar mind — she made, too, in one of her letters, observations which decided me about her. I forget, but to the effect that it mattered little about you if you got money. "But your mother ! ! ! I should have thought her the very last to allow you to enter on such a path! ! "Ah, well, I do not think anyone ever loved my poor little child as I did. Although our meetings were diffi- cult, I knew you were there — I felt I had one other tie to earth. And when you were the first-rate musician which I have never doubted your becoming, I hoped you might have played with glory at concerts, and over here. 46 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS what a joy to have heard you — and your praise. For that would have been honest and reputable praise. Whilst gaining which you could have held up your head in any society. Oh, my poor Beatrice, you can form no idea — you have yet to learn — the shame, the humilia- tion of seeing yourself despised by decent people. "Even the admiration of the mob will not make up for it to you. You have too much intelligence for that and, I had thought, too much pride. "I now see your reason for leaving me so many weeks without a letter; you would not hint at it till too late. And yet, of course, no remonstrance would ever stop you. How could they allow and encourage your first home attempts? "How can a woman bid with pleasure farewell to her best and happiest heritage — name, reputation, affection — to allow her every look and movement to be criticised by all the common jeering mouths and minds of the pub- lic. And this was once dear little Beatrice — the poor little girl who spent one happy year in Paris with her Aunt Kate.' "What a dream it will be to you in your future riotous life. In fact I am wretched — such a sorrow and disap- pointment from what I thought was in store for my dar- ling. However, let me have my own feelings alone — they are nothing in the matter; and the past is gone. I must try to forget that dream. Should you succeed, there may at last be money; but is that all to those around you? Is your future noth- ing, your happiness? "Well, Texas would have been better than this. On the receipt of your letter of six weeks back I told Charley you had some secret plan in view of 'exquisite joy.' I said, almost with bated breath, 'Is it the stage — an MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 47 actress?' He looked grave, and said I had no right to imagine such a thing. Beatrice was frivolous, but he knew you better than that your nature would ever let you sink to that, so low. And now he has listened, but answered not a word, and only looked doubly grave. "Oh, think what a charm your music might have cast on all circles where you entered. And I should have felt my poor old heart beat with pleasure when you told me. God forbid I should tell any more than necessary of this, your last horrid fancy. 'A painful effort this letter is. But I would not write until a day or two had a little cooled and calmed me. I am anything but strong yet. "I feel deep sympathy for Mr. Hill* — a gentleman in mind, as you have ever described him. He must re- gret that his business prevents him taking his wife and children far off and cutting entirely with her family — for although you will naturally hide your name, bad news always forces its way. "See what it is to let a young child grow up without any guidance. Parents cannot begin too young. Here is a nature, with so much in it loving and good — which might have been turned for happiness to herself and all around. And now lost. Can I, who knew and appreciated it (alas! all too late), be otherwise than sad and miserable? Would that I could have kept you ever here with me. "I must bid you good-bye, Beatrice, believe me with much sorrow and sympathy with you and your ill-gov- erned impulses. I may have said harsh or pain- ful things. I grieve to cause you pain, my dear, but you rightly were expecting it must be so. You know my disgust for that class to which you are going to ally * My eldest sister's husband. 48 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS yourself — our disgust, I might say — and to think that one we loved, and had lately in our midst, goes and with pleasure, into such a set — to be one of them! "Then forgive me if I speak my mind; I never could flatter or pretend what I did not feel. What I do feel most painfully is grief for you. And also much sym- pathy for you in the wretched life which you must have been going through. "But my words and thoughts can matter little now — you will be in too great a state of over-excitement to think of calm lives such as ours over here. "May your health not break down (or, who knows? that might be the best thing). "With heartfelt anguish and sorrow and pity for your- self, dear Beatrice, also much sympathy, for you must suffer deeply. You cannot leave all promise of youth and kindred — all the past — for such a life — and be happy. Oh, no, I feel much for the heart, which I fancied I knew better than others did, and which I surely had found. Poor, dear child, good-bye. I can- not see for my tears. Oh, Beatrice, how could you? I loved you too truly not to grieve bitterly, the breaking of your young life, which to me millions could never make up for. "Your still fond aunt, "Katherine Bailey" CHAPTER IV. 1WAS given an introduction by Mr. F. W. Macklin — a good actor who sometimes played for the Anomalies Dramatic Club, to an agent — Harrington Baily. Mr. Baily's office was in a street ofif the Strand. The idea was, that I should pay him a guinea fee, put my name down on his books, tell him what ex- perience I had had as an amateur or otherwise; he would then make a note of my name and appearance, and let me know when he had any work to offer me. As I was looking for the number of his office, I saw a poor cat in the gutter licking two little drowned kittens: she was mewing over them pitiably. This upset me. I found Mr. Baily's door, went up a flight of stone steps and was shown into his office. He stood up to shake hands with me. I opened my mouth to speak, and I burst into a flood of tears. I suppose I was tired and hungry, and my sJtout heart and stiff upper lip went to pieces at the sight of the drowned kittens — I am not sure that even now I could pass the sight unmoved — I told Mr. Baily what I had seen. He very sympathetically took me into an inner room and rang the bell for his house- keeper, ordering her to bring me some tea. Then he left me. About a quarter of an hour afterwards 49 50 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS he returned, and I remember with what a sympa- thetic smile and manner he told me there was a man, Mr. Green by name, in the next room, who was tak- ing out a play, Bachelors, by Mr. Hermann Vezin; he wanted a leading lady, but he could only pay £2 los. a week, and the actress was to supply her own dresses. I thought it a dazzling offer. I saw Mr. Green, and he seemed to me a wonderful person, for he en- gaged me at once. I went home to my mother with my good news. My friends gave me some dress ma- terials, and I sat up at night making my frocks; the day-time was taken up with rehearsals. The following letter shows the terms of my agree- ment for this play: — "Frank Green's Company, "October i6th, 1888. "Dear Madam, "I hereby engage you for my tour of Bachelors to com- mence at the Alexandria Theatre, Liverpool, on October 22nd, 1888, at a salary of £2 los. per week. Fares paid to join, and while on tour. You to give one week previous to opening for rehearsals. This engagement subject to a fortnight's notice on either side and to the usual playhouse rules and regulations. "Frank Green. To Miss Stella Campbell." * * It was not until I joined Mr. Ben Greet's Company that I called myself Mrs. Patrick Campbell. My father-in-law at first objected, but later we were great friends, and he was proud of my success. MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 51 I was out to fight for my two children, and to try and make enough money to bring Pat home to us more quickly. We were rehearsed for a week at the Mona Hotel, Covent Garden, by Mr. Hermann Vezin, and then on the Sunday we started ofif for Liverpool to open at the Alexandra Theatre, November 20th, 1888. The following was the cast: — Rufus Marrable (a retired Q.C.), Mr. William Lowe, Charles Lovelace (his nephew), Mr. Oswald Yorke. Robert Bromley (a professor of music), Mr. Edgar Smart. Dr. West, Mr. Bruce Henderson. Potts (factotum at Bachelor's Hall), Mr. Sidney Burt. Mrs. Lynne Loseby (a young widow). Miss Stella Campbell. Emmeline Loseby (her cousin), Miss Naomi Neilson. Mrs. Moody (landlady of Bachelor's Hall), Mrs. William Lowe. Sophia Moody (her daughter), Miss Grace Gordon. Susan Stubbs (Mrs. Loseby's maid). Miss Clara Marbrame. I remember on the Monday I went out for a walk in the morning trembling with excitement. I looked in the shop windows, feeling nervous and desolate. I was standing outside a draper's shop, when a kind voice said: "You look very pale, miss; won't you come in and sit down?" It was the draper himself. I went in and sat on a chair by the counter. I told him I was going to act that night at the Alexandra 52 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS Theatre, and that it was the first time in my life that I would be acting in a real theatre. He was very interested, and cheered me by saying that he would come and see the performance. I felt I would have one friend in the house' — the company were all strangers to me — and I had not left my babies before. When I came on to the stage my first feeling was that the audience was too far away for me to reach out to them, so I must, as it were, quickly gather them up to myself: and I think I may say that this has always been the instinctive principle of my act- ing. Whether it is the wrong or the right principle, I leave it for others to decide. I am sure I had no technique, and my voice was the voice of a "singing mouse." The papers praised me, and they also praised my dresses, and I was very proud and happy. My next engagement was on tour in Tares with Mrs. Bandmann-Palmer. I think my contract for this play too, may hold some interest for the young actresses of to-day: — "To Mrs. Patrick Campbell. "I hereby undertake to engage you for my forthcom- ing Spring Tour, commencing on April 22nd, 1889, at a weekly salary of £2 (two pounds) for seven performances (if required) in each week, you undertaking to play the part of "Rachael Denison" in Tares and to understudy and act all other parts for which you may be cast during the said tour; you to find your own dresses, you to at- MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 53 tend rehearsals in London for two clear weeks previous to commencement of tour; and to pay your ov/n rail fare to the opening town, and to be there in time for re- hearsal on the morning of Monday, April 22nd. I to pay your third-class railway fares on each journey taken with the company after joining, "This engagement is to be terminable by a fortnight's notice on either side, and you are to abide by the rules and regulations of the various theatres in which the com- pany may be acting. "Millicent Bandmann-Palmer. 'April 15th, 1889." How was it done? How did we live? And how manage to send money home? We did, and many of us are alive to tell the tale. Tares was a good effective play by Mrs. Oscar Beringer. I had lines something like these, which received frantic applause: — She: ''Leave my house!" I : "My house is truth and honour, and in leav- ing, I turn you out." I was very young, ridiculously thin, and fragile- looking. The manageress was stout, strong, and middle-aged, and I remember in one town shouts of "Jumbo" and "Alice." I do not know the story of these elephants at the Zoo, but I believe one died of a broken heart for the other. Mrs. Bandmann-Palmer did not like me. She told me I belonged to the "school of squirmers." The company were kind, sympathetic people, and 54 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS Mr. Lyall Swete has remained a dear friend of mine to this day. At last Mrs. Bandmann-Palmer offended me deeply and I handed in my notice. The members of the company expressed their feel- ings of sympathy for me in the following letter, showing they were all my faithful allies: — "Grand Theatre, "Cardiff, "2nd June, 1889. "Dear Mrs. Campbell, "We cannot allow you to leave us without express- ing our deep regret in losing a true friend and so ex- cellent an artist. "We should also like to record our admiration of the way in which you have rendered the part of 'Rachael Denlson.' "We hope that the friendship we all have for you will be strengthened and renewed at no very distant date, and in the meantime we sincerely wish you everything that you could possibly wish for yourself, and remain, "Your friendly admirers, "Acton Bond. "Mervyn Herepath. "E. Lyall Swete. "Caleb Porter. "Charles B. West. "Frank Worthing. "Lucca de Rivas. "Ida North. "Hlnnetta Faye. "Alice Carlton. "Tares' Company — Spring Tour." MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 55 They arranged a farewell supper party. We were all to contribute a performance to the entertainment. How excited I was. I remember I trimmed a white dress I had with a border of real green ivy leaves and arranged the dress in Greek fashion. I recited Tennyson's "Two Sisters," pouring out my "secret" to that little company. I felt they all believed in me, and my future, and I was full of gratitude and pride. After this engagement I spent many weeks at home, and received the following letters from Pat: — ■ "Central Company, "Kimberley. "i6th September, 1889. (( "Thank you very much for your dear, long letter, tell- ing me you had a chance of getting on so well. It was a great comfort to me, for I am fairly down in the mouth. I can get no word from the De Beers people, and feel very anxious. I am very well in health, darling, and much stronger than I was. We are just getting the commencement of summer here, and it is very hot. . . . "Rhodes has only just come up here, and I cannot get hold of him; he is so busy. I cannot find out what they are going to do in Matabeleland. . . . "Pat." "Kimberley, "14th October, 1889. "My darling wife, "It was impossible for me to send you money last month. I am out of a billet, and am very miserable 56 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS about it. I do hope to have better news next week. I hoped to have got something to do by to-day, darling; it will be only for a week or two at most. "Thank you so much for your sweet letters. I think I shall have good news for you next mail. I have got a very good name here in Kimberley, but things are very dull just now and few billets going. . . ," "Kimberley, "8th November, 1889 {( "I have news which I am afraid may frighten you. I am going to Matabeleland to-day. I had the chance offered me and, after consulting many friends who are in the know, I made up my mind to go, as I could not get a billet in Kimberley. "There are fifteen of us going, all connected with the De Beers Company, and mostly friends of Rhodes. We are not allowed to know anything yet, and are sworn in and attached to E. Troop of 'Bechuanaland Border Po- lice, with troopers' pay, about £5 a month (and all found), which is all I shall be able to send you for a month or two. "Rhodes and all the De Beers directors tell me to go, and I shall never regret it. What I fancy is that we are to get commissions in the new Chartered Company's forces, with a good interest in the company. We shall probably know more about it when we get further up country. Everybody here seems to think that we are bound to make our fortunes, as we are being sent up by Mr. Rhodes, who is a sort of king out here. We go right through Bechuanaland, via Barkley, Mafeking, and are to receive instructions at a place called Ibili, on the Matabele frontier. We are going in one of the Char- MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 57 tered Company's wagons, and will p'robably be about six weeks or two months before we get to Ibili. "You may think me wrong to go, dear, but I could get nothing to do in Kimberley and was getting into debt, and saw no prospects. Everybody advised me to accept the offer, and seemed to think my fortune is made. "I will write you again when I know more. "Good-bye, darling. God bless you. Don't think badly of me. I am doing my best. "Pat." vpr vpr ^ 1^ My next engagement was with Mr. Ben Greet in his Touring Company, and this was the beginning of really fine experience for me. I was thrown, as it were, into the sea to swim. The salary was £2 los. a week, and I to supply my own dresses. How through the night we used to stitch! Miss Violet Ray — a lovely girl, with whom I made great friends — and I. I remember how she used to coax me to allow her to take my little son — he was then about five years old, and used to come and stay with me for a week or so at a time — out for a walk, and insisted upon his calling her "mother" * in shops or when people pass- ing by could overhear. She thought it so wonder- ful to have a son. We played As you Like It, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Twelfth Night, Love in a Mist, by Louis N. Parker; and once, Ben Greet made me play principal * Violet Ray some years afterwards left the stage and married Mr. Nye Chantj and had lovely children of her own. 58 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS boy in a pantomime, Aladdin. I remember the hor- ror of the boy's velvet suit sent down from London, evidently for a very stout lady; the bust had to be filled with tissue paper for me. I came down to the footlights and sang with the orchestra. The song began: — "They say the years have swallows' wings, But mine have leaden feet." And the refrain was: ''For you, for you, my dar- ling. . . ." I felt so foolish that I wept. Dear Mr. Ben Greet, whose part in the pantomime I forget, laughed merrily at me. I am afraid I gave a shocking per- formance — I know I was never oflfered a pantomime engagement again. I often used to hear Mr. Ben Greet's voice from the prompt corner, "Don't mug, Pat," when I thought I was making a fine facial expression, or, perhaps, I was not thinking at all. Mr. Ben Greet was a great man to me, for it seemed there was not a play he did not know from start to finish, with every bit of "business" connected with it. He was always smiling, cheerful, and cour- ageous, whether it was a big audience or a small one, and won my love by his extraordinary kindness to my children. There was a never-to-be-forgotten day, when Mr. Greet took my little son down to the beach, and al- MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 59 lowed him to help some men who were filling a coal barge. How I remember the little black figure on the sands running to meet me in the evening, wild with joy and excitement. I do not think Ben Greet ever shook my faith, that some day I would be able to act well, and that the pub- lic would love me, and if it were necessary, I should be able to educate and provide for my children. I wish I could remember about the lodgings on tour, the landladies, my fellow actors and actresses. It is foolish of me to have forgotten so much kind- ness — and adventure. I kept no diary. I lived, as it were, in front of the moment, not criticising the hour: actual events did not absorb me, for I have no recollection of disliking anything or finding anything tedious. I suppose I was so grateful for the opportunity; the enterprise: my mind was set on the goal ahead — Pat's return — and his pride in his children and my success. There must have been many dreary hours — ugli- ness that hurt, shabby clothes, insufficient food, ex- haustion; but these things left no sting. Looking back, I remember the actors and actresses as all very kind, clever people, and so grateful to be in an engagement, their warm childish impulses un- harmed by the social ambitions of the London art- ist. Songs in the train, brilliant repartee hurled at tired railway porters, Shakespeare quoted at weary cabmen. 6o MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS Their name on a good position on the hoardings, or their praise in the local paper, took all sense of hardship and care away, and filled them with gaiety and happiness. I recall the following incident clearly :- I had been working very hard, living on a few shillings a week — I always sent money home out of my £2 or £2 los., salary: in those days you could get a nice room and board for i8s. a week; and many actresses lived on £1 a week. One night the management, to save expense, sent us on to our next town by the "milk train." We ar- rived at 5 a. m. on a winter's morning, and I had no room to go to. I asked a kindly-looking old porter if he knew of any rooms, and he advised me to go home with him. His wife, he said, had a little room to let. He looked a most trustworthy individual. As a rule, one asked for addresses at the theatre, if lodgings had not been arranged by letter before- hand, but the theatre was not open at that hour. So I went along with the kindly porter. I remember the small attic under the roof. It looked tidy and clean, so far as I could see by the light of the candle. I got into bed and fell into a deep sleep — I was worn out, I never could sleep in a train. I awoke with a start. The grey morning light came through the little window, which was almost on a level with the floor; the ceiling slanted to the top of the win- dow. At first I could not remember where I was, or where my children were! I was lost in terror, MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 6i and I instinctively screamed "Mother!" The sound of my voice brought me to my senses. With the loss of memory my resistance had snapped, and I knew fear. Pat's letters came seldom. Sometimes he was out of a job, or down with malaria; sometimes succeed- ing for a few months, and then a cheque would come. Sometimes he was cut oflf from all communication with the outer world by the flooded rivers. Then I used to think he had died of fever, or that he had been mauled by a lion. Those hours numbed me and sapped a little of my young life, I think. We had both agreed that Pat should stay away until he could bring money home, or until I had succeeded sufficiently in my work for us to be together again. My uncle's and mother's sympathy and devotion, helped to keep my heart up, and there were my children's happy little visits to me; and sometimes a girl friend would come and stay with me for a week. During this engagement a performance was given by Mr. Ben Greet of The Hunchback, for the debut of Miss Laura Johnson, a pupil of Hermann Vezin and Madame Modjeska, I had to study "Helen" quickly. A straw-coloured wig was sent up for me from London, and a high-waisted pink satin dress. "Modus" was played by Mr. Ben Greet. Dressed up as I was, I enjoyed mightily the comedy scene I played with him. I discovered for the first time that 62 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS when I was amused, the audience laughed. There was great enthusiasm, and I knew I was a success. On my way back from the theatre to my lodgings, I was followed by a man, and, although I hurried till I almost ran, he overtook me, and he introduced him- self to me as Hugh Moss, many years afterwards Sir Hugh Moss, of the Moss Empires. He told me that I had made a great success, that John Hare and Clement Scott had been in the theatre, invited by Mr. Hermann Vezin to see Miss Laura Johnson, but that it was I who had won their hearts. I thanked him shyly, and hurried home, as he stared after me. I never remember meeting him again. One day when we were playing at Folkestone, Laura Johnson and Hermann Vezin thought a sea trip before the theatre would be amusing, so they went in an excursion boat from Folkestone to Boul- ogne, but they were late in getting back for the be- ginning of the evening performance. I was sent for and told that a Lever de Rideau must be played. I went to the theatre, and Mr. Ben Greet said we must give a one-act play he had in his repertoire; about a boys' school next door to a con- vent. A boy climbs over the garden wall and makes love to a girl. A nun discovers them, and is horri- fied. It turns out that the boy and girl are cou- sins and are engaged so the play ends with a merry dance. Ben Greet told me that the parts of the boy and girl were to be played by two members of the company, who knew their roles, but that I must MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 63 play the nun — that I was to make a nun's dress out of some black cloth and white linen with safety-pins at once, and that he would say the words loudly from the prompt corner. All I had to do was to open and shut my mouth, hold up my hands in horror until the dance at the end, in which the nun joins. / did so, and it was a success. Mr. Pinero was in front. Years afterwards I asked him if he had noticed anything odd about the performance, and he said "No." During this tour, Mr. Ben Greet took us to give two pastoral performances for Lord Pembroke at Wilton — As you Like It, and A Midsummer Night's Dream. The company were excited at the idea of going to Wilton, the home of Shakespeare's friend, William Herbert. It is said this family once possessed a letter — now unfortunately lost — from Queen Elizabeth, saying she would like to come and stay at Wilton for three night's and meet "that man Shakespeare who writes plays." Lord Pembroke * was one of the handsomest men of his day. He was very tall, extraordinarily hand- some, with a fine figure and hazel eyes — the colour of the water of a tarn — full of deep, gentle sympathy; beautiful features, and a short, curly beard. He had a singularly winning and sympathetic manner; in- *The late Earl of Pembroke, whose sister, Lady Maud, and her husband. Sir Hubert Parry, lived a few doors from me in Kensington Square, and were my dear friends for twenty years. 64 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS deed, a sympathy in his whole bearing which won everybody's love. A great many people had arrived to see the play from neighbouring houses. Two among the guests, who later became great friends of mine, Mrs. Hor- ner * and Miss Balfour,t told me afterwards of an incident rather typical of the mental attitude in those days towards stage players. Mrs. Horner had come over from Mells, bringing Miss Balfour with her, to see As You Like It. When they arrived, they were met at the hall door by Lady Pembroke, looking very excited and myste- rious. She said they were not to see any of the other guests, but they were to come and be "dressed up" at once to impersonate two ladies in Ben Greet's com- pany. JLady Pembroke would not listen to any hesi- tation. She rang for her maid, and said: "Fetch me some Gainsborough hats and cloaks"; and a wig, and some rouge were found. Frances Horner, with her remarkable face and eyes, was very difficult to disguise, so it was decided to turn her into a very dissipated old harridan. I am not sure she did not have a tooth blacked out. She wore the wig and was highly rouged, and as- sumed an aggressive, vulgar manner. Miss Balfour wore a bonnet, a thick veil, a long red cloak, and she, too, was rouged. She was given some queer French name. Mrs. Horner was called *Lady Horner, of Mells Park, Frome. tThe Hon. Mrs. Alfred Lyttelton. MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 65 "Miss Greet." When they came out on to the lawn with Lady Pembroke, their most intimate friends were sitting and walking about — they did not expect their disguise would last a mo- ment. Miss Balfour was introduced to Lord Pembroke, and Mrs. Horner to Lady Brownlow, and other guests, and nobody recognised them. Lord Pembroke told Miss Balfour afterwards that he was afraid to look at her, she seemed so painted and so shy. She heard someone say: "That one is rather like Miss Balfour, if Miss Balfour were pretty." Mrs. Horner attacked her impersonation with vig- our. She declared, with a hideous grin, that her favourite role was "Juliet," and everyone shunned her except Lord Ribblesdale, whose amused toler- ance of all idiosyncrasy has always helped him to be kind. At luncheon the climax was reached. The real members of Ben Greet's company arrived, and sat with other guests at another table. Miss Balfour had just been invited by Mr. Harry Cust to go for a walk with him in the woods after the performance, and Mrs. Horner had secured the promise from the same young man, that he would take a box at her benefit, when Lady Pembroke rose hurriedly, and said in an agitated whisper: "It's no use going on; that's Frances Horner and that's D. D. Balfour, and you must be quiet about it because of the next table." 66 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS We, at the next table, only thought there were curious people at the other table. They must have been a little surprised by our youth and prettiness; we were both of us only a little over twenty, and Violet Ray was very lovely. I had another impression at this gathering, which surprised and annoyed me. Some of the guests spoke in a curiously patronising way, which made me very uncomfortable. I think I must have shown this, for suddenly a woman with a face full of beauty and intelligence, put her arm about me. Who of the hundreds who loved her can ever forget her, or think of her without a blessing, dear Mrs. Percy Wyndham * — "Aunt Madeline." From that mo- ment she entered my heart, and I held her there until she died in 1920, and I hold her there still. Ignorant of the world, as I was, easily impressed by any external grace and beauty, Aunt Madeline set a standard for me, by which I judged people in- stinctively; later, when I moved among the hetero- geneous crowd which surrounds successful artists, I discerned those whom I thought would be worthy of her friendship, and those who would not be. No doubt it is chiefly to her, I owe a vision of life as it is best to live it. She had no prejudices, all about her was warmth, an intelligent quickness of sympathy, and a lack of curiosity, making explana- *The Hon. Mrs. Percy Wyndham. After her death her son, Colonel Guy Wyndham, brought me all my letters written to her during nearly thirty years. "Aunt Madeline" had kept them with her children's. IN ONE OF HER MOST FAMOUS ROI.ES MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 67 tions unnecessary, leaving the sacred recesses of the heart unhurt. . . . But to go back to Wilton ; the morning had been dull and the afternoon was cloudy, but it was fine enough for us to act. The scene was most beautiful, great spreading trees at the side of a little open glade. At the back, undulating grounds. At my first entrance as Ganymede, Lord Pem- broke's pugs — he had a special breed of his own — suddenly rushed over the grass to a knoll I had reached, and barked furiously at my long boots. I am afraid I was delighted at the interruption — I am most surely a fool over dogs — I stooped down and spoke to them in a special dog language of my own, forgetting for the moment all about Rosalind and the smart audience. Lord Pembroke, with mingled embarrassment, courtesy, and humour, came across the ground and apologised as he called the dogs away. Perhaps the interruption made my "Rosalind" more natural. How I loved the beauty of it all. ^C ^* ^^ ^f^ '*¥* In the evening, to the light of lanterns and the moon, we played A Midsummer Nighfs Dream, lying on the grass, running to and fro, the moths playing about us. The glamour of the night and the cadence of the verse, filled me with their loveli- ness. The following letter from Lord Pembroke, given 68 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS to me many months afterwards by Mr. Ben Greet, is interesting: — "Wilton House, "Salisbury, "27th March, 1891. "My dear Mr. Ben Greet, "I do remember most vividly how charming the whole performance was, and how specially delightful the 'Rosa- lind' of Mrs. Patrick Campbell. She was the best 'Rosalind,' to my mind, that I ever saw, not even except- ing Miss Rehan, admirable as she was. That very gifted and talented actress made more of the part — put more into it — but her impersonation lacked the freshness and spontaneity of Mrs. Campbell's that made hers so de- licious. But comparisons are ungracious between things that are really good. If Mrs. Campbell ever acts 'Rosalind' in London, may I be there to see. "I heard that she played 'Lady Teazle' at a matinee in town not long ago. I wish I had known of it. The part should have suited her admirably, and Beerbohm Tree told me that he had heard the performance spoken of very highly in the acting world. . . ." It was, I believe, shortly after this performance at Wilton that a matinee of A Buried Talent by Louis N. Parker was given at the Vaudeville Theatre, London, by Mr. Ben Greet. The following letter, sent me by the author, shows the success with which it met: — A Buried Talent. "It was on the afternoon of Wednesday, June 5th, MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 69 1890 — thirty-one years ago — that my firstling, A Buried Talent, with you in the female part, was produced by Ben Greet at a single matinee at the Vaudeville Theatre in the Strand. I had seen you play once before in my Love-in-a-Mist — one of the most alluring performances I have ever witnessed — so I knew to some extent what to expect. Your fellow players were Ben Greet, Basset Roe, Roland Atwood, and Murray Hawthorne. As I only got to London in time for lunch — for which I had no appetite — I saw no rehearsal, and, in spite of my previous knowledge of you, you dawned on me as a rev- elation. I have just refreshed my memory by reading the play again, and that has brought your picture vividly before me. You were a pure joy. You radiated beauty and grace; and your voice was music. You represented a girl who was able to act and sing the principal part in a new opera at a moment's notice, and without a re- hearsal. That can be, and has been done, but, as a rule, when a character in a play is described as having such an exceptional gift, the stalls are sceptical and the gallery boos with engaging frankness. This was not so in your case. We felt that such a tour de force would be child's play to you, you convinced us that you could do that, or anything else you chose; and goodness knows you have since shown us we were right. I think that, for both of us, the subject of the playlet had a curious personal application at the moment, which has kept that single performance a more fragrant memory than many much more portentous first nights. At any rate, I can speak for myself." *^ ^ ^ ^ *i* '^ *i* ^1% But, sad to relate, I overworked with Ben Greet. I caught chill upon chill acting in his open-air plays in the wet grass; and at last I had to go home very 70 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS seriously ill. My voice went for seven months, and for many weeks I had to write on a slate. My sing- ing voice never returned. It was dreadful — and I was heartbroken. I could not speak to the children, if I played with them I tired, and I could only take them for very short walks. Grief and loneliness overpowered me — I was very unhappy. The following is Pat's letter, when he heard the news of my illness. It will be seen that from Sep- tember, 1890, to March, 1891, I had had no word from him. My health had broken down, my voice gone, all thought of acting had to be given up, Pat had not been able to send money or write for six months. "c/'o H. H. the Administrator, "Fort Salisbury, "Mashonaland, "7th January, 1891. "My own darling wife, "At last I have time to send you a line. I have been on the rush ever since I last wrote in August, and have only just reached this place. Soon after writing to you I started with Mr. Colquhoun for Manica, went down with him to Mutassa, where he got the treaty with the Manica King, over which so much fuss has been made in the papers. He then sent me post haste by myself to ride to Fort Churter, a distance of 120 miles as the crow flies — through dense bush, over many mountains and across several large rivers — to take a message, re- porting the getting of the treaty, to be forwarded to MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 71 Mr. Rhodes in Kimberley. I had then to return im- mediately and meet him at the Kraal of a chief named Gotos, some eighty miles away from Mutassa. This I did, and was at once sent again by himself with a Bamang- wato boy to go to Mutassa and remain as the Company's representative until Mr. Colquhoun sent someone to re- lieve me. I had only got one day away on my way to Mutassa when a man was sent after me to recall me, ow- ing to a dispatch having been received that the Portuguese Convention had been signed — a mistake, as it happened — Mr. Colquhoun then sent me off to report verbally to Mr. Rhodes, who had started on a tour through Bech- uanaland with the Governor, as to the proceedings of the Manica Mission. In eleven days I rode a distance of 600 miles to Palapye, the chief Mangwato town, where I met Mr. Rhodes and the Governor, Sir Henry Lock. Mr. Rhodes was very kind and very pleased to see me, the first member of the Pioneer Expedition who had come down. I was three days with him, and he then sent me down to Kimberley by post cart, a distance of 700 miles, travelling day and night, to see the Secretary of the Com- pany and report verbally. "I was one week in Kimberley, during which I had not one half-hour to myself, being the first pioneer down from Mashonaland — interviewed by newspapers and individ- uals of all sorts in the very early morning, at the office all day giving information, feted and lionised with dinners, etc., at night — sickening, I can tell you, darling, after the grand free, healthy open-air life I had been leading so long. I was really glad when I turned my back on Kimberley. On my return journey, I was delayed a week at a place called Vryburg, doing business for the Company, travelled on to Palapye by post cart, and be- tween that place and Fort Tuli, Dr. Jamieson, the local 72 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS Managing Director, caught me up, and 1 drove up with him to this place in a Cape cart, and arrived here two days ago. "Sweetheart, I am afraid this is a very egotistical letter, but I am giving you a brief outline of how my life has been spent these last four months. Next mail I hope to be able to send you a long detailed account, for 1 have had many curious experiences. "I have a splendid chance of making a large sum of money In a little time. We, that Is, Mr. Cok]uhoun's staff, have sent out two splendid prospectors, fully equipped to peg out and develop our claims. They have gone out under the wing of Mr. Selous*, who is taking them to a very rich district only known to himself and Mauch, the German Geologist and Explorer, and not dis- covered as yet by the prospectors who came up with us. "Splendid reports are coming in from all round about the gold prospects. "I will give you full particulars next mail. My pros- pects now are a thousand times better than they ever were before, and I believe that in a year or a year and a half I shall be able to come home to you, darling, with, If not a large, at least a fortune. "Darling, I have just had your letters (three) of September 30th, October ist, and November 13th handed me. They terrify me to think how nearly I have lost you, my own true blessed wife. What a brute I am to leave you all alone to fight so hard a battle at home. And now I am afraid that most, If not all, the money due to me for the last six months has been paid towards my share of the expenses of our prospecting party. I have no time to find out before this mail goes, but will see what I can do next mail. I only get £15 a month now and rations. The Company will not pay MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 73 high salaries at first; they promise that in a few months they shall be increased materially. . . . "The postriders are waiting. Tell Beo * that I have seen lots of lions and tigers, too near to be exactly pleasant, but have not had to fight one yet. Perhaps I may kill one some day and send him home the skin. Tell him I have also seen some tremendous elephants and hip- popotami, one of which I shot, ostriches, too, are pretty plentiful. "One poor fellow was killed and eaten by lions the other day, and they have killed innumerable horses, oxen, sheep etc. Eight lions have been shot round about this place alone since the Expedition arrived. . . . "This is a wonderful country. Good-bye my own. "Yours for ever, "Pat. "P. S. — Will write long, long letter next mail, and try and send some money." This letter relieved my mind about Pat, but did not help the financial difficulties. My people became very anxious about my serious state of health. A dear niece of my brother-in-law took me first to Dr. Butler Smyth, who found a patch on the lung, and then to Sir Felix Semon, who at that time was throat Physician to King Edward. Neither Sir Felix nor I ever forgot our first in- terview, for when he told me I had phthisical laryngitis, that I must live abroad and give up my profession, I stood up angrily, saying "You must be a fool." From that moment a warm friendship * Pronounced Bayo — a pet name given to my little son, by his god- mother, Owney Urquhart. 74 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS sprang up between us, and his wife, Giistchen, with the singing voice of an angel, also became a dear friend of mine. By June, 1891, I had received more cheerful letters from Pat, and my health began to improve. I arranged with Mr. Ben Greet — through Mrs. Percy Wyndham's promise to obtain the patronage of royalty, also of many friends of hers — to give a mat- inee of As You Like It at the Shaftesbury The- atre : — Shaftesbury Theatre, Thursday, June i8th, 1891, 2.30 P. M, Under the distinguished patronage of H. R. H. Princess Christian of Schleswig Holstein. Duchess of Abercorn Lady Brassey Earl Pembroke Lady Fitzhardinge Countess of Pembroke Lady Alice Gaisford Earl Brownlow Hon. Percy Wyndham Countess Brownlow Hon. Mrs. Percy Wyndham Countess Grosvenor Mrs. Grenfell of Taplow Countess Spencer Court Countess Yarborough Mrs Grant, of Glen Moris- ton Manager — Mr. Ben Greet. More cheery letters came from Pat. "Fort Salisbury, "22nd March, 1891. "My own darling wife, "I fear you must have been very anxious not having heard a word from me for so long. We have been shut MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 75 off from all communication with the outer world for nearly three months by the flooded rivers, and the last news we had from Kimberley was dated i8th December. I sent a cheque for £30 to a friend of mine at Kimberley, Harold Ingall, on 9th January, asking him to send you a draft on London for proceeds, and I pray God it has reached you; so far as we can learn that was the last mail that got through the rivers. I will send you some more money as soon as communication is opened. It is dangerous sending now as the letters only lie about at one of the rivers, and are likely to get lost. "This letter is being taken right across Matabeleland to Buluwayo with some dispatches from the Adminis- trator to try and get communication that way. The man who is bearing them is a Mr. Usher, who has just come through from Buluwayo, leaving there on the 12th Feb- ruary, bringing some cattle which were purchased from Lobengula for rations, and which we are very glad to see, I can tell you, as we are, owing to the road being closed, completely out of food, and have been living on what we could get from the natives — principally Indian corn, rice, and pumpkins, for some time. "Usher brings very good news from Buluwayo, the capital of the Matabele; he was present at the 'Big Dance of the Nation,' when all war movements for the year are arranged, and although several of the Chiefs asked the King to be allowed to march their impis against us here in Mashonaland, he resolutely refused to allow them, saying that he was well pleased with what the English had done and he would not allow them to be interfered with. We have also letters from Mr. Moffat, the British Resident at Buluwayo, to the same effect. "And now, darling, I have the commencement of some good news for you. I told you in a previous letter that 76 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS we had formed a Syndicate for pegging out the claims we get as pioneers, and had engaged two first-rate pros- pectors named Arndt and Arnold. Well, we had a letter the other day from Arndt to the effect that he had dis- covered the 'Kaiser Wilhelm' goldfields, which have been so much talked about all over the world, which have been only seen by a few white men before, amongst them Mauch, the German Geologist, who was most enthusiastic about their richness. So far as we can understand from Arndt's letter, brought in by a native, the fields lie about 100 or 120 miles to the north-east of this place, and are of very large extent, and Arndt says that having only just seen the fields, he did not like to say much, but he considered that they were of the finest formation that he had ever seen in his experience of over 20 years' prospecting. So, dear, this is very encouraging news, and everybody here is congratulating us, and saying that we are sure to make our fortunes, as owing to the difficul- ties of travelling the rush which at once took place on re- ceipt of the news of the finding of fields cannot possibly get there for two or three weeks, and our men will have the fields a good six weeks to themselves and be able to take the pick of the reefs. "Sweetheart, I pray God I shall be able to make a lot of money to be able to come home and make you comfortable, and give you all the pleasures that I long to, to repay you for all the misery and discomfort I have put you to. . . . "To return to Mashonaland, every day brings in fresh reports of the finding of gold, everybody here is enthus- iastic, and I really think there is a grand future for the country. Silver has also been found, and I am told some rich tin reefs, and the country seems to abound in all kinds of minerals. MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS ^-j "Then it is a magnificent country for farming, and I think will produce everything, and as grazing land it is splendid — an undulating prairie, well wooded arid watered, and with a splendid rich grass, on which cattle grow very fat. The only drawback to the country is the quantity of rain — from end of November to probably end of this month an enormous amount of rain falls, and during these months there is a great deal of malarial fever knocking about. A great many of the men have had severe attacks, and a few have died. Fortunately, I have escaped altogether. It seems healthy all the year round at Fort Salisbury on the high Veldt, but as soon as you get off the high Veldt on to the low ground it becomes very unhealthy. Most of the men have got fever from being down in the low country during the wet season. . . . "Pat Campbell." "Administrator's Office, "Fort Salisbury, "3rd June, 1 89 1. <( "I received your letters of loth and nth March last mail, and loved them so, and my Beo's letter. ... I told you in my last letter of our fight with the Portuguese. I have since had further particulars. We only had 47 men and a seven-pounder, and they had 100 Europeans and 300 black soldiers. We, of course, had the best position and, strange to say, did not have a man wounded. They lost two officers and 13 white men and about 50 black. We took nine quick-firing guns from them; they only managed to take two away with them. "Some of our men had wonderful escapes; they had to go out and cut down trees under a heavy fire to get the 78 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS gun into action. One man had his axe knocked out of his hand by a bullet, another, TuUoch, was chopping down a tree, and the bullets knocked splinters out of it. Young Morier a friend of mine, son of Sir R. Morier, the •Russian Ambassador, was leaning his rifle against a tree to take aim, when a bullet struck the tree, knocking a large splinter into his face, and giving him a bad black eye. A bullet went through the timber of the big gun while they were all standing round working it and entered a cartridge, but fortunately did not explode it. "The Portuguese used the new magazine rifle, which shoots splendidly. They were thoroughly beaten, altho' the fight only lasted two hours, and their officers behaved very well, and cleared off pell-mell during the night, leaving the nine big guns behind them. They may come on again, but it will be some time before they can move, as the natives are afraid to carry for them. "One of our prospectors has pegged out 15 good claims, the first start for my fortune, darling. I hope they will turn out good. The fighting, etc., is keeping the country back fearfully. . . ." After the matinee of As You Like It, in which I was so valiantly helped by Mrs. Percy Wyndham, I was engaged, on the advice of Mr. Clement Scott and Mr. Ben Greet, by the Messrs. Gatti to play at the Adelphi in The Trumpet Call, by Mr. George R. Sims and Mr. Robert Buchanan. On the first night of this play, in a dark scene, my ragged black skirt fell down around my feet for I wore no petticoat. The momentary sounds of levity from the audience made me glare at them in indignation: I continued MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 79 my tragic scene, pulling up my skirt and holding it together, behind me, with one hand, as I went up a narrow flight of stairs along a corridor — too lost in my role to feel dismayed. My exit line — "Oh God, may I never wake again," I hoped had not been spoiled.* Then there were also The Lights of Home, The White Rose, and The Black Domino by the same authors. I was very delicate, and often out of the cast, with the return of loss of voice; once I was away for six weeks. Eventually I fell ill with typhoid fever. I remember how it began. It was a Saturday; we had played two performances; during these per- formances I kept feeling a strange icy sensation on the top of my head, gradually creeping down my spine. I said to some of the company, "Don't come near me, I am sure I am going to be very ill, and it may be something catching." When I went back to my rooms after the perform- ance, these shiverings became wofse. I lay awake all night longing for the daylight. I felt, if the day did not come quickly, I would be too ill ever to get home to my children, and to my mother. When the landlady came to my room in the morn- ing, she helped me into my clothes. I could scarcely * It is characteristic of a certain side of human nature that I received more than one anonymous post-card, saying the writer was sure I had arranged the denouement to make certain of a success. 8o MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS stand or see. She called a hansom cab, helped me into it, and told the man to drive to "Newcote," my uncle's house in Dulwich. The drive seemed interminable, and my eyes shut against my will. When the hansom cab arrived at the gate, I couldn't move my hands or body. The man got down from the box and rang the bell, and the servant and the man helped me out. My mother came into the hall with the children. I remember saying, "Mother, I am ill," and the feeling of not being able to stoop down and kiss the children. Then dark nights followed, people sitting near my bed, shaded candles, doctors standing over me — nine days uncertainty — and then typhoid fever pro- nounced. I can see the frightened faces that de- pressed me, and made me angry. I had a desire to sing as loud as I could to keep alive; and then to listen proudly to myself as I shouted. 1 was in raging delirium for days and weeks. At last there was a long silence, and I heard a voice quite close to me say suddenly the words "She is sinking." At the sound of those words something flared like a flame of fire through me; the thought, "I cannot die, there are the children," filled my brain. I was told the doctor did not hesitate, he noticed a change and poured neat brandy from the bottle down my throat. They told me I struggled, fighting back to life, and I am sure this is the truth. I re- member the struggle. Then I began to get better. I slept for hours and MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 8i hours. Gradually I noticed the worn expression in the faces of those who had nursed me. What, in- deed, must my mother, and my dear uncle, and others of the family not have suffered? I was little more than a girl; my children scarcely more than babies; my husband in Africa, not able to send me money. My uncle earned under £200 a year; my mother had no income of her own; and all thought of my» career seemed over. My bodily strength returned, but my nerves were never again the same: something snapped that never mended. The sweetness and the calm strong faith of youth, and the belief that I could depend upon Pat had gone forever. The months and years of parting from him, the hard work, insufficient food, insufficient rest, and the strain of my long illness had killed it all. I realised, too, the closeness of death, and the re- sponsibility of my children tore at my heart. Four months afterwards I played The Second Mrs. Tanqueray, which play, I suppose, is the most successful modern English play of the century. CHAPTER V. IT was necessary for me to act again as soon as possible. I was still physically feeble, white and fragile — my hair only just beginning to grow again — but I could not refuse the Messrs. Gatti when they sent for me to play the role of "Clarice Berton" in The Black Domino, at a salary of £8 a week. The play was badly reviewed, the Messrs. Gatti attributing the failure in great part to me. They said my voice was weak, my gestures ineffective, and nothing I said or did "got over the footlights": and they gave me my fortnight's notice. This was a most tragic moment for me; money was urgently needed, my illness having cost so much, and the load of debt to doctor and chemist had to be lifted. Circumstances were fiercely against me, but it will be seen Fate lent a hand to fight for me. On a certain evening Mr-s. Alexander and Mr. Graham Robertson came to the Adelphi Theatre. Mrs. Alexander knew that her husband was search- ing for an actress to play the part in Mr. Pinero's new play The Second Mrs. Tanqueray. It may have been chance that sent these two to the play that night, or Mrs. Alexander may have read in the paper that I was "beautiful," and "had a rare distinction, ele- gance and power" — I still thought myself scraggy 82 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 83 and plain — this I cannot say. But in spite of my "weak voice" and "feeble gestures," personality, or my looks, or some histrionic talent I possessed, came across the footlights, and sent these two back to Mr. Alexander, with the news that an actress exactly suited to the new play of Mr. Pinero was to be seen at the Adelphi Theatre. Mr. Alexander wrote making an appointment for me to meet both him,, and Mr. Pinero, at the St. James's Theatre. I think my resolution was strengthened by the bitterness of my disappointment at having received my notice at the Adelphi. The mixture of fearless- ness and fragility, the whiteness of my face, some strange and elusive charm, owing to my Italian strain no doubt, interested my future manager. I dressed carefully — I remember only my little yellow straw bonnet trimmed with cherries and a narrow black velvet ribbon under my chin tied under my left ear, with long narrow ends accentuating the length of my neck. In those days most women hid their throats in folds of ecru net in the fashion of the lovely Marchioness of Granby. My throat was always bare, or in American journalistic language "sprang visibly from between her shoulders proud to bear her lovely head." I was tall and exceptionally slight. After a few questions as to what I had done in the way of theatrical work, Mr. Pinero read the play to me, beginning at the famous moment when 84 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS Paula enters after Mr. Tanqueray's farewell din- ner to his friends. The reality of the play after the melodrama I had striven with at the Adelphi, made my heart bound with joy, and no doubt I showed some intelli- gent and vivid appreciation, though I did not at this reading, for a moment understand what Paula's life was. Did I ever grasp it in my interpretation: I wonder? . . . Both Mr. Pinero and Mr. Alexander seemed anx- ious to engage me. Full of enthusiasm I went back to the Messrs. Gatti to tell them of my good fortune, and of the wonderful new role offered me. I remember the worried expression on their kind faces and my sink- ing heart as they said, ''What's good enough for Mr. Pinero is good enough for us." They withdrew their notice, and my contract with them bound me to continue playing my part at the Adelphi in The Black Domino. The days dragged on, the play at the Adelphi re- maining a failure: at last the Messrs. Gatti definitely resolved to take it ofif. They sent for me again and said, "If you are still wanted at the St. James's you can go at the end of a fortnight." Then followed another interview with Mr. Alex- ander, who told me it was too late; my friend Miss Elisabeth Robins had been engaged for the role of "Paula Tanqueray." But Mr. Pinero was determined to get me if pos- AS CLARICE IN ""THE BLACK DOMINO .Tr»" MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 85 sible. The matter was put by them both frankly to Miss Robins, who, with the most remarkable and characteristic generosity, which is shown in the fol- lowing letter, surrendered the role to me : — "May 2nd, 1893. "Dear Stella, "I suppose Mr. Alexander has told you of what oc- curred Sunday and yesterday. I congratulate you upon your splendid fortune in having The Second Mrs. Tan- queray to play. "From what I heard read of the part, it is the kind of thing that comes along once in an actress' lifetime, seldom oftener, and that it has come to yon is my best conso- lation for having lost it myself. You will play it bril- liantly and your loyal service in less congenial roles will find its reward in this glorious new opportunity. There is to my mind no woman in London so enviable at this moment, dear savage, as you. "Keep well and strong. "Yours affectionately always, "E. R." I had met Miss Robins first at the Adelphi, where she played the leading role in The Trumpet Call with me. I delighted in her seriousness and clever- ness. She was the first intellectual I had met on the stage. The peculiar quality of Miss Elizabeth Robins' dramatic gift was the swiftness with which she suc- ceeded in sending thought across the footlights; 86 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS emotion took a second place, personality a third. I thought her finest performance was in The Mas- ter Builder, and it was the most intellectually com- prehensive piece of work I had ever seen on the English stage. Most successful actors and actresses are entirely dependent upon personality for their effect, aided as the case may be, by the charm of their diction or their natural grace of gesture, or personal beauty. Mediocre artists have risen to a considerable position on this quality of "personality." They never tran- scend it. Plays are written around it, and many plays have been sacrificed to it. In an Ibsen play it is a very great misfortune, imprisoning the artist in his own narrow circle of individualism. I was engaged at a salary of £15 a week, at a fort- night's notice, and to rehearse on approval. So I can scarcely flatter myself that either Mr. Pinero or Mr. George Alexander thought anything of me be- yond my looks. The salary seemed very generous to me after my £8 a week at the Adelphi. Both author and manager were worried and anx- ious at rehearsals. I heard afterwards that more than one management had refused The Second Mrs. Tanqueray, considering the play too risque. I was an amateur so far as trained technique went. And I was wilful, self-opinionated, strangely sensi- tive, impatient, easily offended, with nerves strained by illness, No doubt they hoped I was teachable. MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 87 The first rehearsals were very difficult for me. A certain cold "official" manner, which was the pecu- liarity of Mr. Alexander's style, was very unsympa- thetic to me, whilst my unreasonable ways, wanting always to do, instead of to listen — feeling their wishes hindered my own imagination — must have been tiresome beyond words. At first they treated me as a child that must be taught its ABC. I was given no free rein. My passionate longing for beauty, my uncontrollable "sense of humour" — or whatever it was that made me quickly recognise the ludicrous and artificial — was snubbed. A snub shattered me, unless at the moment my spirits were high enough, to give me the courage to go one better. Such remarks as "Don't forget you are not playing at the Adelphi now, but at the St. James's," gave me a wild desire to laugh and play the fool; always an element in me that had to be reckoned with in those days, and which surrounded me in a sea of extrava- gant anecdotes. The Company included among many distinguished artists the lovely Maude Millet, with her rare and sweet nature and eyes "like the heavens in June" — ^ every Eton and Harrow boy of the time could show' you a picture of her pretty face as she looked in Sweet Lavender. I believe she made the fortune of W. Downey, the photographer, — Cyril Maude, sympathetic and chivalrous, and dear Nutcombe 88 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS Gould,* the most gentle and refined of creatures, who in old clothes and patched boots looked the most distinguished man on the stage. Perhaps my youth, my lack of professional tricks, my disposition to laugh and say funny things en- deared me to the company. I know they were all affectionate, kind, and friendly. Artists always feel eager and interested when they come across original work. I remember years later an actor f at a rehearsal I was taking saying to me, "Yes, yes, quite so, thank you, I understand," for at least a quarter of an hour, then my impatient, "Well, why don't you do it?" and his very polite reply, as he looked at me through an eye-glass, "I wonder if you would mind my show- ing you for one moment what I myself would like to do?" And then he showed me. I remember our eyes met, and how merrily I laughed in happy rec- ognition of his skill. There being no part for him in my next production, and wishing to retain his services, I let him cross the stage as Gerald du Maurier's valet, with a coat over his arm, humming a scrap of an Irish song — he brought down the house. I took him in my Company to America at a sal- ary of £15 a week, and I left him there at a salary of £100, and he is there still, at a salary of £200 or £300. * It was a principle with Mr. Nutcombe Gould never to wear new clothes on the stage. t Mr. George Arliss. MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 89 At last the rehearsal of the third act reached the point where the stage direction reads: — "She sits at the piano and strums a valse." Now my mother had never allowed any of her children to strum. She insisted on all art being treated with reverence, and impressed upon us that the piano was not a toy. The painful trifling known as strumming was for- bidden in our home. Many a time have I known the piano locked — someone had been punished. I played rather well and with a passionate love of touch and tone, which gained me my scholarship at the Guildhall School of Music; but I am not a muscian in the true sense of the word. I sat down to the piano hesitatingly, asking twice to be excused, until I had prepared something suit- able. A voice from the stalls: "We would like to hear whether you can play." This oflfended me. Holding my book in my right hand, with my left I played beautifully — and with impertinence — a piece written by a girl friend of mine. This moment changed the whole temper of the rehearsals. Those who listened knew that my playing must be the out- come of serious study, and some understanding of art; above all that my playing would invest the part of "Paula" with not a little glamour. I remember Mr. Bernard Shaw in criticising the play saying something like this: — "It was all about a poor lady who committed suicide because they wouldn't let her finish playing her piece at the piano." I was quite conscious of the effect I was produc- 90 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS ing. I caught sight of Nutcombe Gould's face and Cyril Maude's in the "wings," and I prolonged the surprise for about three minutes. Mr. Pinero and Mr. Alexander were in the stalls; at last from the darkness an expressionless voice said. "That will do Mrs. Campbell, we will go on with the rehearsal, please!" From that moment there was a difference. It seemed to me that Mr. Pinero especially treated me with more confidence. I didn't feel "from the Adelphi" any more. He caught hold of my arm and called me "dear child," and I felt I had his trust. It is this brilliant author's habit to think out and impose upon his interpreters every piece of charac- terisation — every inflection ; very rarely does he al- low the "business" he has conceived to be altered, many characteristic readings, and gestures, which have been attributed to the talent, and sometimes it must be admitted humbly — to the want of sensitive good taste of the actors — have been carefully taught them by the author. It was, therefore, a remark- able evidence of some good impression I had made, when at a certain moment of the play Mr. Pinero said: — "Here in your anger, you sweep off the bric- a-brac and photographs from the piano." I replied in horror, "Oh, I could not make her rough and ugly with her hands, however angry she is." He looked at me gently and replied, "All right, my child, do as you like." The memory of the awful fatigue of the rehears- als remains with me. I used to get in a state of MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 91 alarming exhaustion, a sudden condition that over- came me at times for some years afterwards. This, I suppose, had something to do with the effect on my heart of the typhoid fever. On one occasion Mr. Pinero brought me Brand's Essence of Beef, not forgetting the necessary spoon, and stood by me while I swallowed it, treating me with ever-increas- ing gentleness. The dressing of the part was an important one; the stiffish fashion in which Mrs. Alexander insisted on my arranging my hair was dreadful to me. I argued that no woman could go through four acts of such tumultuous passions, eventually committing sui- cide, with a tidy head, unless she wore a wig. For- tunately my hair as the play proceeded, behaved as it chose. The dresses were beautiful of the time; I could feel natural, and move naturally in them. The rule of the theatre was to wear a cotton wrap over you, until your cue for entrance. It fidgeted me, having a candlesnuffer effect upon me. I was permitted not to wear it, to the amusement of the others. Indeed, I was a most spoiled and difficult creature. What a National Theatre would have done with me I cannot imagine. Then came the first of the two dress rehearsals, no one being permitted into the auditorium except Mr. Pinero, and he was to sit alone in the dress circle with a lantern, a notebook, and a pencil. I implored him not to speak to me, and I would 92 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS play the part for him. I kept my word, and to that dark, silent house and that solitary man I poured out my "secret" with the fire and feeling of my tempera- ment and imagination. I wanted to plead for "Paula," I wanted her to be forgiven and remem- bered. Cyril Maude and Maude Millet implied by a furtive squeeze of my hand, now and then, that I was doing well. Mr. Alexander's official dignity was of priceless value to the play. I tried from the beginning to lift "Paula" a little off the earth, to make her not merely a neurotic type; to give her a conscience, a soul. I think it will be admitted that after the play had run many weeks, I played "Paula" better from this point of view. Some members of the Garrick Club will remember how Mr. Pinero arrived there after this rehearsal, and said wonderful things of "the fragile creature of Italian origin." I knew nothing of this at the time. A second dress rehearsal was called. This time there were other people sitting in the stalls, scattered here and there. With some strange professional in- stinct of self-preservation, I knew I was too nervously exhausted to act the part again before the first night. I was spiritless, flat, dull, and everyone was de- pressed. The actors seemed to understand, and smiled encouragingly as I grew duller, and still more dull and flat. Mr. Pinero did not come near me. He knew that I was worn out, and that so far as I was concerned it was a "toss up." MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 93 When I went back to my rooms in Devonshire Street I slipped into bed in misery, knowing that everyone was disappointed in me, and / could not help it. I lay awake wondering how it was that just physical fatigue made it impossible for me to give of my best — why there had been no radiance, no charm, no swiftness; and I said to myself, now I know why some actors drink — and I had a tragic sense of the snare — of the trap of it all. I wondered what would happen if that awful physical flatness came over me on the first night. I had forgotten, or not counted upon, the inspiration and encourage- ment of a first-night London audience! Towards morning I fell asleep and had a childish dream. There was a door opposite my bed, and I dreamed it was pushed slowly open, and, up near the top, a little black kitten put in its head. I awoke lau'ghing, and when my two children came into my bed, I told them about my lucky dream. And, in- deed, if a black cat walking across the stage, entirely ruining a scene, can be regarded by all actors as a most lucky event, how much more should a black kitten poking its head high up through a door in a dream on the morning of a "first night" augur suc- cess. One other sign of good fortune had also come to me from my pet dog. I had a pug at the time called "She," a devoted creature. One day — while I was studying the part of the play, where "Paula" bursts into a fit of weeping, I could get neither shape nor 94 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS form into my sobbing. I was so eager that the au- dience should feel that "Paula's" words, "Give me another chance," were a cry from her awakening soul to God ; not merely a woman weeping to her husband — the empty noises, the moans and snuffles I made were all false and silly. After much striv- ing I thought of "breaking up" the sounds by a natural blowing of my nose. This so affected poor "She" that she howled and howled, and I could not stop her for quite a long time — I felt perhaps I might move a human audience. Then came the first night. I put my children to bed, leaving them in the care of the landlady. They had covered me with their hugs and kisses and wishes for success, and remembering the black kitten and the pug's tribute, I went down to the theatre with "She" in my arms, and my nerves strung up with that glorious sense of a battle to fight. "How unnecessarily noisy the audience is," I thought, as the play proceeded. After the scene at the second act, it irritated me not a little.* I thought they would have been more silent, if they had been more deeply moved and interested. This is how someone has described the first-night impression in the theatre: * The Globe (May 28, 1893) said: "A new custom seems to have sprung up amongst first nighters. At the fall of the curtain on the second act there was a tremendous outburst of applause. The curtain was raised again and again. Mrs. Campbell had taken the house by storm. Then there were loud calls of 'author!' Mr. Pinero's appear- ance, however, was not made until the final fall of the curtain." MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 9*; "From the moment of 'Paula's' entrance in a beauti- ful cloak she held the audience in a spell — her natural- ness, her truth, her intelligent quickness, her beauty made a marvelous combination — and an utterly unex- pected one to the greater part of the audience, and the effect was cumulative. The character built up by in- numerable small touches, both by the author and the in- terpreter, quickly emerged into a living creature. "As the great moments of the play were reached the audience and the actress were carried beyond imaginative sympathy, into the reality of a human crisis, and into the very heart of passionate emotion." I expect this is what happened that first night; gradually the audience realised the tragedy of poor Paula — how her love for ''Aubrey Tanqueray" had lit up the dark recesses of her nature, illuminating her soul — how in her struggle to subdue her jealousy, her boredom — to forget — to begin life again — she at last, in that terrible moment when she looks at herself in a mirror, and cries out that her past life is written indelibly on her face, and that her husband will always see it there — realises in a flash, her life has unfitted her forever to grasp and hold the simple happiness which her love for "Aubrey" puts within her reach. Her soul is horror-stricken, and because her higher control has been rendered helpless, she, in her anguish, destroys her body. The ovation when the curtain fell, incredible as it may seem, was lost upon me. The tremendous ap- plause stupefied me, and I never for a moment thought a share of it was mine. Had I not been 96 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS playing only a fortnight before at the Adelphi — there had been no enthusiasm then, only my notice from the Messrs. Gatti for "my weak voice" and "feeble gestures." I felt it was all for the author and his remarkable play. In spite of my gratitude to Mr. Pinero I did not realise what his play had done for me — the tremen- dous opportunity it -had given me. Crowds of people flocked on to the stage; shy and terrified I ran up to my dressing-room, dressed quickly, picked up my dog, and went back to my lodgings worn out by fatigue. The next morning my two children climbed into my bed. I told them all about the applause, and that I was sure the play would have a long run; we remembered about the black kitten, and we had breakfast in bed for a treat, where later Mrs. Alex- ander found us. She asked me why I had left the theatre, and told me I had made a great personal success and my name famous. Mr. Pinero tells me that after the first act he went into his wife's box, and asked how I had done; she shook her head and told him to encourage me; then he came to my room and said I had done well, and to keep it up — that I stared at him, looking bewil- dered, and that before the second act he caught me putting a little picture in my bosom. He asked me what it was, and 1 showed him the photograph of my little son taken when he was two years old. How many a first night has it lain against my heart, and MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 97 given me the courage I needed in those days. Sir John Poynter told me months afterwards that when I said Paula's first word, ''Dearest," he leant back comfortably in his stall and knew I was going to be all right. The following little letter from Miss Bessie Hat- ton, who was playing at the Adelphi, was the first letter of congratulation I received \-^ (( "30th May, 1893. "Dear Mrs. Patrick Campbell, "You certainly have walked over all the swells. Bravo, your fortune is made. I must quote a little song which I think peculiarly applicable to your case. A little dirty boy was singing it in the street: — They knocks 'er down And they blacks 'er eye; But she gets there All the sime. "I don't believe the Adelphi is going to open for some time. "Kindest regards and best congratulations on your triumph. "Always yours sincerely, "Bessie Hatton." Out of many hundreds, the letters that follow may be of interest to the reader. I publish them with apologies and blushes. 98 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS "Box F. "Dear Mrs. Campbell, "Mr. Aubrey Beardsley, a very brilliant and wonder- ful young artist and a great admirer of the wonder and charm of your art, says that he must have the honour of being presented to you, if you will allow it. So, with your gracious sanction, I will come round after Act IIL with him, and you would gratify and honour him much if you would let him bow his compliments to you. He has just illustrated my play Salome for me,- and has a copy of the edition de luxe which he wishes to lay at your feet. "His drawings are quite wonderful. "Very sincerely yours, "Oscar Wilde.'^ "63, Hamilton Terrace "Dear Mrs. Campbell, "A thousand congratulations on your great triumph of last Saturday night. I meant to write earlier, but I have been somewhat unwell and out of town, but please forgive me when I assure you your rendering of 'Paula' is perfect. We all feel grateful to you for the pains- taking and kind way in which you rehearsed. You have -made an enormous hit, and thoroughly deserve all the praise bestowed. "Do try and eat nourishing food to keep your strength up, for the part is a hard one, and you must feel in robust health to tackle it! "I hope you will come and see me sometimes. I'm at home on Mondays, and should love to shake you by the hand one Monday when you find yourself in our neighbourhood. "Myra Plnero." MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 99 "Wilton House, "Salisbury. "June 23rd, 1893. "My dear Mrs. Campbell, "... A friend who knows my faith in your future (and I really believe that you should regard me as one of your worst enemies) — I have proclaimed it so per- sistently ever since I saw you act 'Rosalind' and 'Helena' here — writes on my return: 'I hear Mrs. P. Camp- bell is quite wonderful in The Second Mrs. Tanqueray.' "I always felt quite confident that it would come — success with the great public I mean — the other you have had long ago — but circumstances sometimes re- tard a person's talents from getting properly known for a long time — and you became buried in Adelphian melodrama — a line quite unworthy of your powers, how- ever much you might excel in it; and when I took the liberty of making enquiry after you last year, I was told that you were ill and had left the stage. "Please accept my very sincere congratulations, and do not trouble to answer this letter. I do not know whether I shall be able to go and see the play, but I shall certainly do so if I can. . . . "Pembroke." "7, Carlton House Terrace, "S. W.. "Saturday, June 31st, 1893. "Dear Mrs. Campbell, "At the risk of your thinking me impertinent and even fulsome, I can't help writing you a line to express my admiration of your wonderful performance, and yet I don't know how to tell you how clever I thought it — how strong and moving in the tragic passages — how loo MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS charming In the touches both of comedy and of tender- ness — and again how astonishingly clever. "Of many good things, nothing was more true to nature and more completely original on the stage than the piteous flatness,* the absence of all tragic emphasis with which some of the most terrible things were told. "And I suspect that your performance was even better than it seemed, for, in spite of the way it has been praised, the play is weak in many places. . . . Alexander quite took my breath away last night by saying that every word of it was good from end to end. . . . "... Certainly a man would be justified in making any marriage to get rid of such friends — though he didn't succeed in shaking off the most tiresome of them all. "Now I am fulsome. But I am expressing less than my sincere convictions, and If ever the play Is run with- out you, you will see that I am right. So you must for- give me and accept my congratulations. "Pembroke." "Beefsteak Club, "26th December, 1893. "My dear Mrs. Campbell, "I must write to tell you how deeply your performance impressed me to-day. It was even beyond what I ex- pected — and I expected much. You get your effects with consummate ease, and the quality of your acting is en- tirely your own — something which you can neither bor- row nor lend. I thought the play remarkable. "With best wishes, "I remain, "Yours sincerely, "Herbt. Beerbohm Tree.'' * This effective "piteous flatness" of voice was entirely Mr. Pinero's suggestion. MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS loi • • • '"19th Feburary, 1894. "Dear Mrs. Campbell, "Just a line to say how sorry I am that I shan't see you to-morrow — and to say how noble your acting was the other night, just the sort of acting one dreams of, but never expects to see. "It is the plain truth that Shakespeare's 'Cleopatra' would be the only part good enough for you, as you were on Wednesday night, when you played more superbly than any of the times I had seen you be- fore. "The play itself is exasperatingly thin here and there, that is why we want to see you do something where you would not have to say a word that wasn't exactly right. "You must be fearfully tired at the week's end; I hope it won't kill you altogether. It is only those tre- mendous deep-chested Italians that are fit to stand the mere physical part of the strain^ — but you are half- Italian, are you not? "Believe me, "Very truly yours, J. W. Mackail." * "63, Hamilton Terrace, N. W., "21st April, 1894. "Dear Mrs. Campbell, "When you count up^ the minor rewards which your acting in The Second Mrs. Tanqueray has brought you, you will not fail, I hope, to.indude in them the hearty ap- preciation of the author. But I beg your acceptance of this little brooch, as a jog to your memory; for if you ..re * Professor of Poetry in the University of Oxford. I02 MY LIFE AND SOIVIE LETTERS kind enough to wear it occasionally, it may serve as a re- minder of my indebtedness to you. "Believe me, "Yours always truly, "Arthur W. Pinero." "Green Room Club, "20, Bedford Street, W. C. "Monday Evening. "Dear Mrs Campbell, "We think the play should end at the finish of the third act — except that you appear again. "We also think that you are the greatest living ac- tress. "Louis N. Parker. "Philip Burne-Jones." • • • Streatham, S. W., "September, 1901. "My dear Mrs. Campbell, "I had not seen Mrs. Tanqueray before. "It was exceedingly beautiful and powerful, some- times terrible, and of extraordinary sweetness wherever a tender note was struck. " 'Paula' is like an opal of many hues and lustres, with stains of life, and wounds of passion through which the disastrous fires glow that shatter it in the end. "There are no words in which to thank so incompar- able an artist. "Sincerely yours, ' "John Davidson." * ♦Poet, author, and dramatist. MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 103 (( " Mayfair, W., *' loth May. "Dear Mrs. Campbell, " A very old friend of mine, Lord Wemyss, has just been here — early this morning — to rave to me about you! He went last night to see you and says he must know you. He has seen Rachel and Ristori, etc., and none of them could touch you, and you could 'move nations.' I hope you feel flattered. He and Lady Wemyss are going to Scotland for a month, and after that I must arrange a meeting, only I fear you will find him rather deaf — at least I do — but he is artistic in every way, and enthusiastic and sympathetic, so I think you would like to know him, "Yours very sincerely, "Caroline Creyke." "115A, Harley Street, W., "6th June, 1913. ,• • • "You are indeed bountiful to me. I take the books into the country, where they will give me many pleasant hours. As to Wednesday, people are saying that you are acting 'Paula' better than ever. The revival, there- fore, I am glad to think, won't hurt your reputation. But I know it irks you — as it does me — to retread these old paths, and I am grateful to you for this subduing of your spirit. Bless you. "If you need a testimonial at any time to your sweet reasonableness and pretty behaviour at rehearsals don't fail to apply to "Your^s faithfully and affectionately, "A. PiNERO." I04 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS "Marlborough Club, "Pall Mall, S. W., "26th June, 1913. "My dear Friend, "Again I place myself at your feet. Your beautiful acting made me more than once cry like a little child. I wish my Mary had been with me. "Yours always, "Squire Bancroft." "Burley-on-the-Hill, "Oakham, "Rutland. "Dear Beatrice, "I must send you an extract from a letter Edith re- ceived a few days ago. I think it will amuse you. It is not elegantly expressed, but genuine. 'I have had such a treat at last, I have seen lovely Mrs. Pat Camp- bell in The Second Mrs. Tanqtieray. She gave a mat- inee in Clifton. How sweet she is, and her adorable voice! I did envy the people who could hug her. She has fetched me altogether. I went over like a ninepin. She looked most beautiful, but sad, and every woman in the theatre and on the stage looked like common earth- worms and caterpillars beside her. I myself felt just like a slug. . . .' "Sybil Queensberry." CHAPTER VI. I WAS not yet physically fit to enjoy the triumph and gaieties of my success. The fatigue and nervous excitement of the role, with always eight, and sometimes nine performances a week to crowded critical London audiences — the play appeal- ing to all classes — was a tremendous task so soon after my illness. Invitations to luncheons, teas, and Sun- day dinner parties came from all sorts of people. I was surrounded by what seemed to me intol- erable curiosity. There were searching, thrill-seek- ing questions and strange, critical glances; which oflended me; sometimes arousing impertinent cour- age on my part. I remember a certain dinner party given for me by a well-known Jewish financier, and being asked by him at table in an earnest, curious voice, what I kept in a small locket I wore on a chain round my neck. Everyone sto-pped talking and listened for my an- swer. I replied gravely, "One hair of a Jew's mous- tache." Did anyone see me as I was, I wonder? A fragile, unsophisticated young woman, still almost a girl, whose heart and nerves had been torn by poverty, illness, and the cruel strain of a long separation from the husband she loved. Brought up in a little sub- 105 io6 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS urb of London by a religious Italian mother — al- most a recluse — adoring her children with an anxiety that was an obsession; unable to brook patronage in any form whatever, with the tenacity of an Eng- lish bulldog and the tender apprehensiveness of some wild creature: passionately living in a romantic dream-world of her own. Somebody once said of me, "You seem to feel everything from the roots of your hair to the tips of your toes." I felt a curiously isolated being in the world that in those days surrounded the St. James's Theatre : to face it was a far less easy business for me than the stage. Clothes began to matter, and to fuss me. To feel dressed up was misery, and to be dowdy — impossible. No one seemed to really care who I was, or who my people were. What was my age? What did I look like off the stage? Had I a lover? Was it true that I had a husband in Africa, and that he was the father of my children? To these people I was an accident, a sport of lia- ture, someone who could do something that stirred and amused them. They, to me, were just a mass of people. I never realised that one was more impor- tant than another, and might be of social, artistic, or financial service to me. They were an uncomfortable mystery to me, these people — not the mystery that surrounds art and art- ists, but the mystery of the mysterious knowledge of MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 107 the world — of that world of which I was totally ig- norant. I did not behave quite like a dear friend of mine, who rushed upstairs to her bedroom from a smart tea party, and wept bitterly, because the people down- stairs were so different from those she loved and lived amongst. I used to feel angry and on the defensive — savage that I was. For a long while I thought it comic that many people held the attitude — "She could not play 'Mrs. Tanqueray' as she does if she did not know something of that kind of life" — and — "Which is the real act- ing, Taula Tanqueray' on the stage, or the un- worldy creature she appears off?" I recollect a visit from a distinguished lady — dead long ago — ^who asked me so many questions so quickly, that I blushed to the roots of my hair. I thought she was mad. I still remember her bored expression at the end of our meeting. I never saw her again. I like to think some sense of humour, or sense of proportion — mostly one and* the same thing — kept my head a little cool in the subtle, dangerous fascina- tion of it all. Men made love to me, and I was accused of being a wicked flirt. I deny that. In more than one case I cared : but my first love had taught me love's true face. Life was hideou*sly difficult; but deep-rooted in io8 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS my bones was the instinct for true friendship founded on real affection. Then there were the amusing people, who used to talk to me like this: "Oh, you have such an en- thralling personality, Mrs. Tanq , I mean Mrs. Campbell; one .makes the mistake because you are as natural on the stage as you are off." "How can you remember all those words?" "What a memory you must have." "Do you 'make-up' before you go to the theatre?" "Do you like your troupe? You call it 'company,' don't you?" "Are you in love with Mr. Alexander?" "I think you must be in love with Mr. Pinero, and I am sure they are both in love with you." I remember a beautiful woman leaning excitedly across the dinner table on overhearing a remark of mine, and exclaiming, "Have you a mother? How interesting." The criticisms behind my back, I dare say, were something of this nature: "What a disappointment she is when you meet her." "She is quite childish, and rather a bore — she either could not or would not understand what I was talking about." "She does not know how to do her hair — has positively no savoir faire." "No, she is not common, and she is young enough to dare to look sad." "Instincts and emotions, yes; but no information, no certainty." "Her eyes are beautiful, she has wonderful hair, and her jaw line is pre-Raphaelite." "Her upper AS SHE FIRST APPEARED IN "tHE SECOND MRS. TANQUERAY ») MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 109 lip is too long." "Her hands are lovely." "She isn't my type," and so on. I remember hearing of the incredulity of a certain lady on being told that I was an ordinary married woman with two children and very little money. iShe had thought I was a luxurious demi-mondaine. Indeed, she had asked some of the neighbouring tradespeople — who happened also to serve me — what they thought of my reputation, and was greatly sur- prised by their answers. Then there were people who thought me "divine," "exotic," "beautiful," with a "shattering personality." Once at a sale at John Barker's someone shouted, "There's Mrs. Pat." I could not face the expression in the eyes of those who recognised me — curiosity has no feelings — I was nearly suffocated. At the Academy, too, I was .mobbed. I was with Mr. Philip Burne-Jones; he managed my escape through a side door. My portrait as "Mrs. Tan- queray," by Solomon J. Solomon, was one of the popular pictures of the year. Later I will speak of the friends who gradually became, and have remained, dear to me. I remember hearing an actor-manager's wife say of an actor's wife, "She is not in Society, my dear." I repeated this to a friend of mine, and this is some- thing like the clever bit of nonsense he said in re- ply:— "The death of really fine acting in this country is that no MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS actors and actresses want to be thought ladies and gentle- men. Artists must give themselves away. If they want to spit,* they must spit; curse, they must curse; love, they must love; drink, they must drink, or their nerves will be incapable of the necessary elasticity and spontaneity the dramatic art demands; they will be suppressed, heavy, ineffective." The following two letters from the late Lord Pem- broke show in an interesting way how my life at this time struck him, also his views on the modern work I was doing: — "7, Carlton House Terrace, S. W., "August 4th, 1893. "My dear Mrs. Campbell, "You touched me very deeply somehow yesterday, partly, no doubt, because you are so nice to me (for there is a great real of self-love lurking about most of us), but chiefly because seeing you and hearing about your life made me realise how desperately unprotected you are, and how constantly and inevitably difficult your life must be. I can't help realising that, being what you are, and in your circumstances, you must live and will have to live pretty constantly in a state of siege how- ever careful you may be. "It's an extraordinarily difficult life — and if ever men are listened to, they cut a women off from much that is most valuable in life, and give her a very poor compen- sation. "I suppose the best safeguard for a woman placed * It is said of the great Clara Morris that she used to clear her throat and spit on the stage before the audience. MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS in as you are, lies in her passion for her art and her ca- reer, which absorbs her to the exclusion of most other things, and makes her look on men as mere dummies or useful adjuncts in her busy life. "I suspect this is what you would tell me. Don't be angry w'ith me for saying so much, even if it is a trifle unconventional. If you knew the feeling that prompted it, I am sure you would not be. I cannot help under- standing what the difficulty of such a life must be — and don't let it make you shy of me. "I shall not write or talk in this strain again; it's your fault for touching me so much. I hope you will be all the better for rest and fresh air, and that we may meet again next year, if not before. "Sincerely yours, "Pembroke." The Pembrokes were anxious that I should play .Shakespearean roles, and arranged to see Mr. Beer- bohm Tree on the matter. The following letter is amusing: — « "7, Carlton House Terrace, S. W. "December 2nd, 1894 "My dear Mrs. Campbell, "Our interview with Tree was as good as a play — in- deed, better than most. He sat down in a nice, leisurely way, and was in a most agreeable mood*, until Lady P. broached the subject of the sort of parts you ought to play. Then he 'smelt a rat' directly and his anxiety to get out of the house without delay was very funny. "He agreed most amiably and hurriedly with every word we said about you, all the time hunting for his hat and umbrella. In vain I changed the subject and 112 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS made him sit down again, while I told him two very pointless anecdotes in the hopes of quieting his suspicions. He was thoroughly scared, and there was nothing for it but to let him make his escape without saying anything more. "In other words, he was very good to us in our rather presumptuous attempt, but mortally frightened lest he should commit himself to any pledge to give you a chance in a great Shakespearean part. "But I hope it will come and before it's too late. "I am glad you are going to study abroad a little. Nearly all English actors over-act dreadfully, and as the public won't correct them, their only chance of keep- ing to the proper pitch lies in the study of foreign actors. You must educate your audience in England, it won't educate you. "Just off to Wilton. Wishing, you all good luck. "I am, "Sincerely yours, "Pembroke'^ When playing at the Adelphi I had called on Mr. Beerbohm Tree. He was hurried and nervous in manner, and said there was*no opening for me at the moment* I asked a salary of £4 a week. It was not until after the matinee of The Second Mrs. Tanqueray at the St. James's Theatre on Box- ing Day that he made his first offer to me — a salary of £60 a week to play in John-a-Dreams. During the run of The Second Mrs. Tanqueray * He told me charmingly many years afterwards that it was dark and he had not seen my face ! MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 113 my father died in Texas in September, 1893, and the following extract from a letter of my eldest brother Edwin to my uncle shows my success had brought him happiness: — "The day before Papa left us, when almost uncon- scious of all around, though there were many loving ones, he showed recognition of me alone, and then his eyes recovered their old fine brightness. Then again at times he would murmur inaudible things about Eng- land, and once just before dear Papa died I heard the words, 'Mrs, Tanqueray.' " This letter brought me strange comfort. Philip Burne-Jones was among the many new ac- quaintances my success brought me. We soon became warm friends, and what unfor- gettable kindness he showed me. His talent for painting and drawing, his keen appreciation of the comedy of life, his interest in the theatre, and his genuine love of children made him a delightful com- panion. All friends of Phil will remember, as I do, the almost exaggerated devotion and service he offered them. The wonderful day came when he took me to his father's studio. 1 scarcely realised what was in store for me. I suppose we all have a period in art which appeals to us in an intimate way. Perhaps because of my 114 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS Italian blood, the pre-Raphaelite School spoke to me in my own language: my very first visit to "The Grange" seemed a visit to my home. I wanted to stretch my arms in welcome to all that rich colour, pure design, and loveliness. Sir Edward Burne-Jones — "Dearest," I called him — came a little into my life. His genius, his rare wisdom, his richly stored memory, his boundless sym- pathy, and his letters with their precious sketches, made the friendship he gave me one of the greatly prized honours of my life. An unspeakable, enveloping tenderness emanated from him, as though he would shield one and all, from the pain he knew life must surely bring. I never saw him stern, but I knew he could discern in a moment — however cunningly hidden — a monster in the human heart. To my humble thinking, of all his pictures that I have seen, "Avalon" is the most beautiful. Those who have not been to Walpole House and looked at this picture in quietness are to be pitied, for it speaks as only pure beauty can speak, and it fills the heart with thanksgiving. One day I was lunching at "The Grange," perhaps I looked pale and tired, or Lady Burne-Jones, with her gentle, correct manner, was making me feel a little self-conscious; suddenly Dearest gave a quaint look at me, left the table and the room, returning in a few moments dressed as a monk, the cowl over his head, chanting absurdly from some holy book. We MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 115 all broke into merriment, and the atmosphere was magically eased for me. And I treasure this story of him: during a nursery tea with his lovely daughter Margaret and her chil- dren, Angela, a child of rare dignity, was told to stand in the corner for some disobedience. The small, proud figure, with its bowed head and its back to the bright tea-table, was a hard sight for Dearest. Late that night he came with his paint- box and his brushes. The next morning the little punishment corner was the most precious spot in the room; there was a flight of birds, and a kitten playing with its mother's tail, painted upon the wall. Dearest always filled me with a sense of trust in myself; Lady Burne-Jones made me doubt myself; but she had a magical graciousness all the same. Their lovely daughter Margaret and her husband. Jack Mackail, took me to their hearts ; let me through the gate into their garden, as it were — my children too — and later my husband on his return from Africa. There was nothing they did not do for me for many years, to try and ease the strain of the responsibilities, and the hard life which pressed upon me : their praise of my work was unstinted; they pulled me through many a painful doubting, and out of many a silly fault. Jack Mackail's extraordinary serenity, his taste, his magical choice of words, his deep knowledge of literature, and his beautiful mind, made his com- panionship a royal gift. ii6 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS The following most unfortunate incident hap- pened about the end of the run of The Second Mrs. Tanqueray. This newspaper cutting vividly de- scribes what occurred : — "It is extraordinary how men and women who act al- most every night of -their lives suffer from stage fright. Only the other day Mrs. Patrick Campbell in the first act of The Second Mrs. Tanqueray was seized with a sudden fit of nervousness, and for the life of her she could not remember a single word of h^r part. "The prompter unfortunately was either inaudible or absent, and Mr. Alexander was compelled to fetch the book of the words, to which the actress referred until she recovered her self-possession. Once the passing terror overcome, she fairly surpassed herself and acted superbly."* What really happened was this: — On the Satur- day I went home to my uncle's house, and my mother told me my little son was seriously ill, and the doctor was afraid it was diphtheria. I had played two per- formances; it was past twelve o'clock when I got hame. I went up to his room and sat by the bed; and there I sat all night, and all the next day, and Sunday night. He was too ill, and his throat was too painful for him to speak to me. At half-past eleven on Monday morning the doc- tor came and told me it was only tonsilitis, and I need not be alarmed. I was numb with fatigue and anxiety, but it was MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 117 Boxing Day and there were two performances to be played — trains were awkward — I arrived at the theatre just as the Overture struck up. I had the length of Aubrey Tanqueray's first scene with his friends to dress in. I scrambled into my clothes, rushed on to the stage and not one single line of the words of my part could I remember, although I had played it for seven months. I sat on the sofa quite bewildered. Mr. Alex- ander brought me the book, and as he did he he mur- mured half to himself, "The woman's drunk!" When the curtain came down at the end of the act I went upstairs to my room in a white rage and began dressing to go home. My understudy, Miss Gran- ville, was in the theatre ready to go on for me, think- ing I was ill. Dear Maud Millet came into my dressing-room. I told her what had happened and Mr. Alexan- der's remark. All she said was, "Beerbohm Tree's in front; think of your career," and out she went next door to "Willis's Rooms" and brought back a small bottle of champagne and made me drink nearly a tumblerful. I dressed quickly for the second act and went on to the stage. It was at this performance that Mr. Tree came round and offered to engage me at £60 a week to play with him at the Haymarket. I then went to Mr. Alexander and told him I had accepted an offer from Mr. Beerbohm Tree; that I had heard what he, Alexander, had said; and that, ii8 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS though I was bound to keep my contract with him until the end of the season, I would never speak to him again. It is quite dreadful to think of now; but there's the story! People began to say I drank, and this — added to the belief of some people that I was a Mrs. Tanqueray — gave me for a long time a queer reputa- tion. I remember at Stanway* telling this story of my sudden loss of memory to Mr. Arthur Balfour. He said that once something of the same kind had hap- pened to him. Over-tired, he had gone a long journey to address a meeting; when he stood up to speak, not a word could he remember of what he wanted to say, until the heckling of the audience made him angry, and this anger pulled him together. I must not omit, that some months before this, Mr. Alexander, delighted with the success of The Second Mrs. Tanqueray, and to show his apprecia- tion of my share in it, had raised my salary from £15 to £30 a week. By this time my load of debt had been a little lifted. I had written to Pat imploring him to come home, having received a heart-broken letter from him writ- ten before he heard of my success. He had been silent for a long time, and it had greatly alarmed us; as the following letter written to my father-in- law, by my uncle, shows: — * Stanway, the beautiful home of Lady Elcho, now Lady Weymss. MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 119 "6th September, 1893. "Dear Mr. Campbell, "Such a long time having elapsed since your son Pat last wrote to his wife, I began to fear lest some fearful fate had overtaken him in that wild country. I thank heaven it is not so, for Stella has just received a letter from him dated June 25th, from which I send you the following extracts: — " '. . . I am coming home the first moment I have the money. I had collected over £20, but, as is my usual luck, got a very bad dose of fever, which has laid me up for nearly five weeks, and the doctor and medi- cines have taken it all. " 'I am going on contracting on the line and shall get away soon. I long to leave Africa, where I have had nothing but bad luck. I must bring a little money home with me to start things, but it is very hard to make money — the authorities pay so badly. In fact, all over Africa there is depression and nothing doing. My life is quite monotonous — bossing up Kaffirs, making cul- verts, marking out banks and cuttings, etc. At night din- ner, then to bed — dead tired. Sundays are the same as week-days. " 'I fear you will find me greatly changed, ... I pray God you won't turn from me. - , .' " On the 31st December, 1893, Pat wrote: — "Frontisville, "Near Beira. "I have just received your letters of 3rd and 17th November. Thank you, my own Stella wife, for writ- ing such kind, loving letters; they came at a time when I was very miserable. Believe me, darling, I am com- I20 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS ing to you the first moment I have the money. . . ." "I wonder whether you have received my letter telling you of poor Hannay's terrible death. I think I would have been able to have got away this month, but his death has smashed up all my arrangements. ..." The following telegram from me to Pat, dated March 12th, 1894, speaks for itself: — "Just received letter, reply paid whether I shall post money to you at once. Borrow on my name if possible, it will save time. Let me know, dear, where to meet you. So glad you have come. "16, Manchester Street. Stella Campbell." When Pat arrived I saw in his eyes that youth, with all the belief and faith in his own efforts and his luck, had gone: his health and his energies were undermined by fever, failure, and the most bitter disappointments. Nothing had come of his hard work, his hopes, and his sacrifice. The expression in his face wrung my heart, but the old gentleness and tenderness were there — he still loved me. His pride in his beautiful children and in my suc- cess — that was my reward. The abnormal position in which he found himself must have been al-most anguish to him: the girl-wife he had left six-and-a-half years before, now the fash- ionable actress, surrounded by the rush and excite- ment of smart friends, smart parties, smart clothes. MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 121 The curiosity, too, that surrounded the husband of "The Second Mrs. Tanqu'eray" was intolerable to him; also the hospitality extended to us both, which we had not the means to return. He was a great gentleman, Pat, and his position must have been most irksome to him. He longed for his children and his wife to himself away in the country — to drink in England again — to pick up the threads of our old love and youth. He never spoke of those years in Africa, with the ex- ception of one big-game-shooting expedition when his friend was mauled by a lion. Pat carried him for miles; he died in his arms. Pat dug his grave as best he could and buried him. Every few days he was ill with malaria. I had eight performances a week, my two children, house- hold cares, social responsibilities, and never enough money to go round. Dearest and Lady Burne-Jones, at Phil's suggestion, offered their house at Rotting- dean to us for a week's honeymoon. I remember how Miss Mary Moore and Mr. Charles Wyndham came over from Brighton to look at us! •Dearest wrote me a delicious letter, begging me to stay for months and months and suggesting that I should throw any books, furniture or pictures that bothered me out of the window, and that I was to order a piano from Brighton! Lady Burne-Jones wrote saying our visit there 122 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS would be another pleasant memory for them con- nected with the house, it was a letter full of affection and sympathy. This old letter from my uncle alludes to the last night of The Second Mrs. Tanqueray. "Monday, 23rd April, 1894. "Dear Beatrice, "You are really a wonderful woman that you are able to keep from losing your head under the intoxicating in- fluence of all the applause, and praise, and presents, and letters, laurel wreaths, bouquets, and suppers, to which your enthusiastic admirers and friends love to treat you. I was indeed delighted to witness the spon- taneous and splendid tribute of applause which the house paid you on Saturday night. I do believe some in the gallery could have gone on applauding you before the curtain 'till it were morrow.' And you received the hearty applause so gracefully and sweetly. It was all delightful. "I suppose you heard that one young fellow in the centre of the gallery, when all the other people had left their seats and were filing out, remained fixed in his place in a sort of reverie, and when told by the attendant that he must move, cried, 'Oh, no, I am going to wait here for The IM^squeraders.' " On March 28th, 1894, ^^^ Masqueraders was produced at the St. James's Theatre, after nerve- racking rehearsals for both Mr. Alexander, the poor author, and myself. Mr. Alexander and I re- hearsed, only addressing each other in the words of our parts. How fooHsh it all was. MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 123 We made it up years afterwards * *I had recovered from a long illness. Mr. Alexander came with great sympathy to my house and said, "If you want to work again I will revive The Second Mrs. Tanqueray, or Bella Donna, or anything else you like," and he was very kind to ray Stella, giving her more than one fine part at the St. James's. CHAPTER VII. I REMEMBER nothing about The Masquer- aders, excepting that my part struck me as un- real and much of the play in bad taste. I quote from a criticism in The Daily Telegraph. It is amusing reading now, but at the moment it hurt. The Daily Telegraph, April 30th, 1894. ". . . Here we had a play brilliantly mounted, accu- rately presented, a marvel of production even in these days of astounding realism; and behold the whole thing, actors' work, sumptuous decoration, gorgeous mounting, and author's brilliant brain work, within 'an ace of be- ing wasted because the most talked about actress of the day would not, or could not, understand one of the most beautiful, complex, and subtle studies of women that any dramatist has offered us in the whole range of the mod- ern drama. . . . "Dulcie is the same to everyone, incredible and Inert. But even the climax kiss she doe^ not understand. In- stead of giving her patient lover a rapid, startling kiss of wilfulness and mutiny she merely pecks at his fore- head like a discontented bird. (Did Clement Scott know what had happened between us, I wonder?) There is no meaning in the kiss, no sense in the scene so interpreted. The act was saved by a miracle, for the true Dulcie of the author's imagination did not exist. . . . 124 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 125 "The second act has ended, and the audience Is in the same condition of surprise. -Both Mr. George Alexander and Mr. He-rbert Waring are better than ever. . . . But . . . Where is Dulcie? 'She should have been the gaiety and spirit of this act, its life and soul. B-ut she is still the san>e dull, inert, and inaudible personaUty, an epitome of bo*redom. No feverishness, no excite- ment. . . . "The better Mr. Alexander acts, the stronger becomes Mr Waring. Mr. Waring shakes, shiver.s, and grows pale under the excitement. . . . "The audience cannot restrain its excitement. . . . Brilliant acting has made its mark, and why -should it not? But . . . Where Is Dulcie? The men have played the scene without her. Was ever a finer dramatic opportunity given to an actress? But Mrs Patrick Campbell passed it over as insignificant and beneath her notice. A Sarah Bernhardt would have leaped at it. . . ." Other people praised me, condemning Clement Scott for treating me so "brutally, almost cruelly." Letters of sympathy poured in from strangers — how unpleasant it all was. One foolish anecdote of this time has clung to me: — Mr. Alexander in this play by Mr. Jones had to look into my face and tell me I was beautiful and that he adored me, or some such words, and one night he said it with such a look in his eyes, as though he would willingly have wrung my neck, that I burst out laughing. When the curtain fell, his stage manager came with pompous dignity to the 126 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS door of my dressing-room and said, "Mr. Alexan- der's compliments and will you please not laugh at him on the stage?" I replied, "My compliments to Mr. Alexander, and please tell him I never laugh at him until I get home." I was a most horrible leading lady, surely! The following letters from friends show that I had my champions. The first from Lord Pembroke on the fair wig I wore as Dulcie; and the second from him gives his frank opinion after reading the play; also a letter from Sir Edward Burne-Jones filled me with courage and delight. "73, Hertford Street, W. "My dear Mrs. Campbell, "Your letter was full of good news, especially as I detected, if I am not m'istaken, a note of real content- ment in it. Since I have been lying here my two best girl friends have got themselves engaged to be married, and now you have got your husband home again, and it gives me a queer, foolish feeling that if I only lie here a little longer everything in the world would settle itself. "Td like to hear your story very much when we meet, which I hope we may do before long, especially as I shall probably hear some fiction from others. "I am still in bed most of the twenty-four hours, but get out for a drive in the afternoon. .1 shall probably leave this soon, as I fancy I have got all the good out of it that I can get. I'm out of all patience with myself being so long in getting well. I am afraid it's not likely, but it's not absolutely impossible at this moment that I should come to your first night on the 28th. I Of < o u w en o w Hi < o O l-H MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 127 may pick up a bit before then, and I should dearly like to come. "Certainly a sweet, good woman in a fair wig* is satis- factorily unlike the 265th Mrs. Tanqueray. Why is it that in stageland fair hair is essential to goodness? It's rather the other way in real life. . . . "Always yours, "Pembroke." "7, Carlton House Terrace, S W. "May 8th, 1894. "You faithless Lady, "Why didn't you turn up on Sunday? I had been reading The 'Masqueraders and wanted to talk to you. It is full of crudities, absurdities, and anachronisms, with some palpable imitations both of Pinero and Ibsen, but it has some cleverness and go, and is likely, I should think, to please the populace. Nor does your part seem to me altogether a bad one (except that I can't conceive how you get through the Yah, Yah, Yah' busi- ness without sending the audience into -convulsions) if Mrs. Tanqueray had never been written. As it is, it is really cruel — Dulcie is only a weak edition of Paula un- der different circumstances, several shades sillier, and slightly more hysterical, and the only possible result of your acting it, as it is evidently meant to be acted, would be to make the public say that it was only Mrs. T. over again in a slight disguise. "This is really too bad, and I sympathise sincerely. "Always yours, "Pembroke" Sir Edward Burne-Jones wrote giving me the * Referring to Dulcie Larondie in The Masqueraders. 128 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS fruits of his philosophy, and saying that he did not waste precious life on reading what the critics said — and that to real artists only one critic mattered — "one's own savage, bitter self." He also warned me of the greater peril to come, when "everything we d'o is praised" which, he affirmed, would follow my "unparalled suc- cess." At the end of the run of The Masqueraders my contract with Mr. Alexander finished, and I joined Mr. Beerbohm Tree at the Haymarket for John-a- Dreams, by Mr. Haddon Chambers. I believe I was not a failure in this role, but the play did not run, and Mr. Beerbohm Tree went to America, lending me to Mr. John Hare. Mr. Hare produced The Notorious Mrs. Ebb- smith, by Mi Pinero, at the Garrick Theatre on the 13th March, 1895. The role of Agnes Ebbsmith and the first three acts of the play filled me with ecstasy. There was a touch of nobility that fired and inspired me, but the last act broke my heart. I knew that such an Agnes in life could not have drifted into the Bible-reading inertia of the woman she became in the last act: for her earlier vitality, with its mental and emotional activity, gave the lie to it — I felt she would have arisen a phoenix from the ashes. That rounding off of plays to make the audience feel comfortable is a regrettable weakness. To me Agnes was a finer woman, and the part a MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 129 greater one, than Mrs. Tanqueray. In those days, not so long ago, she was a new and daring type, the woman agitator, the pessimist, with original, inde- pendent ideas — in revolt against sham morals. Agnes believes herself freed from the influence and power of sex; and that she loves Lucas as one loves a friend. Lucas does not admit his sen- sual love; but in reality he longs for her to assume some of the graces and allurements of her sex. He orders for her a smart and very decollete evening dress. When she puts in on she feels ashamed. It delights and excites him. Agnes realises with hor- ror that she loves him — just as any woman may love a man — and she surrenders. Later the worldly ones arrive upon the scene, with the compromise suggested by their wisdom — Lucas shall have a sham reconciliation with his wife, on the tacit understanding that his relationship with Agnes will be continued, protected, patronised, even approved. A fine subject for a drama — the resur- gence of ordinary passionate humanity through the- ories, bloodless schemes and thin ideals. Agnes consents, burning the Bible in symbolism of her destroyed ideals; but again, in a moment, pulling it out of the fire. It was the realisation of the truth that freed Agnes — that through the agony of human passion spiritual- ised, lies the path of freedom — not through denial or indulgence. A fourth act — I wanted — with Agnes preaching I30 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS the doctrine of selfless, unexacting love; stern and un- yielding only when baseness, lying, and fear in- vade its purity — her conversion, a sudden revelation of the Love of God ; not a mere creeping back into the shell of a narrow morality — how I should have loved to speak that harangue in Hyde Park if only it had been written. Did Sir Arthur Pinero miss an opportunity, or was he right, the time was not yet ripe? The suffra- gette, with her hammer in her muff, had not yet arisen on the horizon. I played The Notorious Mrs. Ebbsmith in America, and its success there was quite extraordi- nary, people came round to my dressing-room — friends and strangers — and stared speechless with the thoughts Agnes Ebbsmith had inspired. Mr. John Hare's performance in London, as the Duke of St. Olpherts was a gem; his delivery of the line, "I can't approach women — I never could — in the missionary spirit" — said with a most profound and impressive courtesy — for a moment eclipsed the tragedy of the poor heroine's situation. Mr. Hare had a delicious way of looking at you on the stage with an absolutely sane eye. How I admired that steady gaze. Mr. Beerbohm Tree's tour in America had been a financial failure; he returned, claiming me for a production of Fedora at the Haymarket. I was bound by my contract, and he refused to let me break it. And this most brilliant and successful play. The MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 131 Notorious Mrs. Ebbsmith, unfortunately did not survive the change of cast. I played Agnes Ebbsmith eight times a week for a fortnight whilst rehearsing Fedora. It was an impossible feat. I had only time to study the last act — the death scene — of this more than exacting role. After a fortnight the work told on my voice and I was dumb and Mrs. Tree took up the role. From many hundreds of letters referring to Agnes Ebbsmith, these from Mr. Mackail and Mr. Ed- mund Gosse made me very proud. ((n 14th March, 1895. "You are with the Immortals now. I can't begin to talk about it; it seems like an 'insult to praise it; it was like the inner flower of fire. "I am coming to see It again to-morrow night, and Margaret and I on Wednesday. The splendour of you ! "J. W. MacKail.'' "29, Delamere Terrace, W., "ist April, 1895. "My dear Mrs. Campbell, "What I thought of the play? Well, I have a great difficulty in saying, for, to tell the truth, you swamped the play for me. The play was — you. I tell you with- out exaggeration that I never saw on the English stage a piece of acting which seemed to me so brilliantly sus- tained, varied, and vivified. Almost the only thing which seemed to me wrong was the whole 'business' about the Bible. What was that book doing dans cette galere? It jarred upon me as an incoherent and stagey and, there- fore, disturbing element in an otherwise splendid men- 132 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS tal and interior drama — I mean the drama of Mrs. Ebbsmith's inward movings — vicissitudes, apprehen- sions, whirlwind of battling instincts — all mirrored and translated by you in a manner transcendently poetical and thrilling. When it dawned upon you that Lucas was no real comrade, and the project of retaining him by commoner attractions was floating in your mind — now repulsed, now again projected — your acting was so magnificent, the strain of it on me was almost madden- ing, I wanted to scream. In this (I think that I am no dramatic critic, only a recorder of personal impressions) your greatness lies. "You can interpret — you alone on our present stage — the flash and gloom, the swirl and the eddy, of a soul torn by supposed intellectual emotion. "What did I thirik of the play? I am afraid I was thinking only of you. . . . "Edmund Gosse.' ^%2^ Hamilton Terrace, N. W. "My dear Mrs. Campbell, "I saw the play last night, and it was a revelation to me, I enjoyed my evening thoroughly. I can't say more to you, dear, about your performance than I have already told you. It's the finest bit of acting I have ever seen. Now, dear friend, may I venture to chide you? Your acting is perfect, your appearance is perfect, but your voice showed weary fatigue now and again. "May I implore you to take every possible care of yourself, rest as much as possible, and sacrifice pleasure for your art's sake. You are so gifted and have made such a gigantic hit. I don't want your voice to show wear. You can't act a part like 'Agnes' and keep late hours, too. The late hours are bound to tell, and thea MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 133 your great creation will become weakened from sheer physical fatigue. "Forgive me, dear; it's for your good. I don't want people to say a word against your acting or strength of voice. It struck me last night you were tired. Am I right? Do give up late hours and rest all day if you can. ... "Myra Pinero." After Fedora I went from the Haymarket to the Lyceum, and opened with Mr. Forbes Robertson in Romeo and Juliet on September 21st, 1895. With the exception of "Rosalind," "Helena," and "Olivia," which I played with Mr. Ben Greet in his Pastoral Players Company, I had no experience in Shakes- peare. It must be remembered that before my first ap- pearance on any stage, I had been to the theatre but three times in my life; and, not coming from a theatrical family, I had no traditional knowledge to guide me. The "Phelps School" meant nothing to me. Mr. Robertson's work, on the other hand, was built upon it, and upon the influence of Sir Henry Irving; also, he had played Romeo many years before with Madame Modjeska. I played Juliet simply, unpretentiously; I hope with the wonder and the rapture of a romantic, pas- sionate child. In those days, as in these, a declamatory style, ex- aggerated gesture, rhodomontade in any form, were 134 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS to me ridiculous. Pomposity, a sense of one's own importance — slow music, gradually getting louder as the artist appears — the unnatural lifting of the voice at exits, compelling the audience to clap their hands — any meretricious form of stage effects exasperated me. I wanted nothing to interfere with the funda- mental atmosphere of beauty, simplicity, and truth. Whatever the gamut, it must be within reasonable- ness; and the "bottom rock sane." Want of experience, and physical fatigue, many times rendered my performances ineffective; that was unavoidable. The fag of stage life was not in my blood; an un- tidy dressing room; a dresser who called me "my dear," smelt of beer, and scratched with a hook down my back until she happened to come across the eye, wore me out. Oddly enough, I have never been known to weep at rehearsal, however heart-broken and weary I have been. But I am running away from "Juliet." The following article, signed by A. B. Walkely, shows much sympathy with my efforts: — ^'The Alhmn, Oct. 7th, 1895. **.... 'Juliet is a child of fourteen, but eleven years weaned Lammas,' says the nurse. . . . "The whole spirit of the play implies that Juliet is encountered by Romeo as a child at an age when, as the French say, 'The heart has not yet spoken,' but is quite capable of speaking; and the age of fourteen in Italy is MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 135 approximately chosen, for this now and then. It has been said that Mrs. Patrick Campbell looks older. To me she certainly does not; her figure is slim and girlish, her ways are the ways of a child. Throughout the play it is the naive simplicity, the trusting, childlike nature of the girl upon which she dwells. Even when the hot passion wells out from her heart in the balcony scene she is abso- lutely naive. A trace of self-consciousness in her refer- ence to 'a maiden blush,' of coquetry in her 'I have forgot why I did call thee back,' and the scene would be ruined; but there is none. When her father rates her and her mother turns from her and the nurse trifles with her, she is numbed and bewildered — a child who cannot understand. Before she drinks the sleeping draught she shows all the child's natural terror of playing with death, of the dark, of tombs, of ghosts. When she drinks the potion It is with simple obedience — a child who does what she has been told. That Mrs. Campbell should give us with such tenderness and delicacy the child in Juliet Is no surprise to me, for it was the remnant of the child she showed us in Mrs. Tanqueray that was more than half the charm of that performance. "The actress's temperament naturally Inclines her that way. She has taken her own temperament as her sole guide throughout, discarding 'the traditions' of the part. 'The more's the pity' says Mr. Archer, apparently because this and that 'tradition' would have helped her to greater emphasis and variety in certain points, and in the cajolery of the nurse and so forth. For my part, I will confess I care little or nothing about these minor points, even if it were proved, which it Is not, that a study of 'tradition' would have helped Mrs. Campbell to a better understanding of them. I look for an im- pression of sincerity and beauty from the character as 136 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS a whole, and I can only say that Mrs, Campbell gives me this impression in a 'high degree. For me, her Juliet is from first to last an exquisitely truthful and moving performance." I quote, too, what Mr. William Archer wrote in The World. "October 21st, 1895. " My article was written before I had seen other criticisms and without any foresight of the extraordinary divergence of opinion to which Mrs. Pa- rlck Campbell's Juliet has given rise. It was easy enough to foresee that some critics would be readier than others to accept her beauty and charm as compensation for the evident lack of power and apparent lack of understanding and feeling with which she treated the intenser pas- sages of the play, but it did not for a moment cross my mind that anyone who had ever seen a great Shakes- pearean performance or a great performance of any sort would call this a really adequate and competent, much less a poetic and perfect, Juliet. What was my astonishment to find that the majority of critics went into unmeasured and evidently heartfelt raptures over an im- personation in which, after the balcony scene, I have been unable to discover a single luminous ray or a thrill- ing moment! We have here no ordinary difference of opinion over which one can only shrug one's shoulders and say: 'There's no accounting for taste!' ..." Mr. William Winter's — the leading American critic — point of view is also interesting. I was, indeed, up against tradition with a vengeance. MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 137 "Theatre, "December, 1895. "Mr. William Winter has returned from England to New York with some exceedingly definite impressions as to Mrs. Patrick Campbell's Juliet. He found her pos- sessed of certain sensibility and personal charm, al- though she was of an obviously mature, conventional drawing-room order of mind and manner. In the tragic phases of the role she was limp and powerless, and from the potion scene to the close her acting had neither purpose, form, continuity, coherence, visible passion, Impressiveness, nor dramatic effort." One night during the performance this scribbled note was sent round to me from the front of the house from Mr. Edmund Gosse: "I have not dared to come and see you here before. I was afraid of shattering my idol, but you surpass your- self. Your Juliet is an incarnation of girlhood as a poet dreams of it." J. W. Mackail wrote. ''The more I think of your Juliet the finer and more delicately beautiful it seems, and the more eager am I to see it again." The following letter from a girl friend, Diane Creyke,* to her mother, shows a little, what I thought of my performance — or was it the expres- sion of my mother's anxious face that made me want to make her smile? I do not know. "It was very amusing watching the people arrive, only * Mrs. Ker Seyraer, 138 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS I didn't know who they were. One woman was tre- mendously applauded by the gallery, and got up from her stall and bowed. The curtain went up at eight, and when Mrs. Pat came on there were tremendous cheers. It was most exciting. She looked excessively young, with her hair down and a wreath of flowers. Her ball dress was lovely — a mixture of flame colour and cloth of gold with angels round it. She didn't seem a bit nerv- ous, but her voice was not very strong. The audience was tremendously enthusiastic, but I was rather disap- pointed there were so many scenes, and it seemed dis- connected. But Mrs. Pat, except for not speaking loud enough, was perfection. "Mr. Pat came and talked to me between the acts. Mrs. Pat made me go back with all the family to Ashley Gardens to supper. Her sisters were there, and Beo and Stella, Mrs. Pat's mother, uncle, two ladies, Irene .Vanburgh, and myself. We had supper without Mrs. Pat, as she was kept at the theatre, but she arrived in white muslin with her hair down; rushed at her mother, saying: 'Oh, mamma, your daughter has been making such a fool of herself.' Irene* drove me home and was very nice." This letter was written to me after Lord Pem- broke's death by Lady Pembroke: "Ashridge, "August 25th, 1895. (( "This of your acting Juliet is very sad. He wanted you so much to do It, and how interested he would have * Irene Vanbrugh played with me in The Masqueraders, and helped me with her sympathy through my difficulties. MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 139 been — and now he has gone. Perhaps he does see. I am so glad you have Shakespeare's words to say. . . . "I wish I could make everyone feel how near the spirit world is, and how individuality exists and cannot be changed. You have imagination, and can realise this. How the great spirits, as it were, call on us to fit our- selves to join them. You said in one of your letters you were not happy. I wish I could help you. I would . . . "I feel it very blessed to be Intensely quiet here and let the sense of the belief that he is waiting for me enter my soul. "Yours very sincerely and affectionately, "G. Pembroke." "Milford House, "Godalming. "Dear Mrs. Campbell, "I went up last Thursday and saw the play. I was too shy to go and see you afterwards, or to send you a message, though my friends laughed at me for it. . . . "I must tell you how much your Juliet enchanted us. I wish I could tell you or write you the way it interested and thrilled me. I wish I could write it in a way that were worth reading, for I haven't seen yet an adequate notice of it. "You were wonderfully good, by far the best Juliet I ever saw, and I so much admired the quietness of your beginning before the trouble came, and then, when sor- row gathered round the poor lovers and everything goes against them, the way in which you steadily rose with the occasion, more pathetic, deeper, grander, as a fine nature does under trial until the scene of the sleeping draught comes, and there you were splendid and thrilling. 1140 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS "Y.our face In- those last scenes of grief, passion, de- spair, haunts me, and, do you know, you are so like a Madonna by Murillo, with your loose, dark hair, simple, sensuous, and passionate (as I think someone says in poetry). "Well, If It gives you any satisfaction to know that you made people cry and drive home with aching hearts and too excited to sleep, you may have It. • • • • "Barbara Webb." It was during the run of Juliet that Mrs. Wil- liam Morris gave me a lovely photograph of herself, taken by Dante Gabriel Rossetti in her garden. I saw her first when her hair was white; her beauty and her grace took my breath away. I sent her some little seed pearls for her needle- work. I wonder into what work she wove them? I find in my own handwriting across a picture of the balcony scene: "Three months' run, and I so miserable at not having played better on the first night." How well I remember the difficulties at the thea- tre. Sir Henry Irving had let Mr. Robertson have the Lyceum if he "could get Mrs. Patrick Camp- bell. . . ." The flattery of my manager was misleading — I was accused of flirting. What matter, Juliet was over for me, forever! CHAPTER VIII THE next production at the Lyceum was Michael and His Lost Angel. Mr. Rob- ertson begged me to come and hear Mr. Henry Arthur Jones read this play, and so far as my memory can be trusted, this cutting from some comic paper is the true story of what took place, excepting that I did attend a rehearsal or two to please Mr. Robertson. "I won't say that," said Mrs. Pat, A-pointing to the book, "These words must stay," said H. A. J. The lady took her hook. Sweet Marion T. said "Oh, dear me, These words are in a measure, Not 'comme il faut.' " Said Jones, "Quite so, I'll cut 'em out with pleasure." I felt my part in this play was vulgar, and it did not interest me, but I said I would try and play it if some of the lines were cut. Nutcombe Gould, also a member of the company, disliked the play and re- signed his role. The play was not a success, and I was very severely criticised for having resigned my part in it. 141 142 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS I did not like forsaking my manager, or offending Mr. Jones, or foregoing my salary; but there was something in that play I could not stomach. This letter from Pat to me — in the country — shows I was not alone in my uncomfortable feeling. "My darling, "Thank you so much for all your kind thoughts about me. I was obliged to go to the office to-day. I think it is a touch of influenza I have. Dear, I cannot tell you how pleased I am that you are not playing in Jones' play. . . . "All my love to you, my own darling wife, "Daddy." The next production was For the Crown, done into English by John Davidson from the play Pour la Couronne, by Frangois Coppee, produced at the Lyceum under Mr. Robertson's management on Feb- ruary 27th, 1896. It was a fine play and had a fine success. The little part, Militza, appealed to me, and I believe I played it well. During the rehearsals at a moment when an actor delivering a rather big speech "let himself go," John Davidson catching my eye, turned to me and said under his breath, with his grave manner and inimitable Scotch accent, "Now, if he were to be- have like that in Piccadilly, he would be arrested." My merriment at what I could not explain to the company, caused some disturbance. MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 143 How excellent Miss Winifred Emery was in her part, and how well Mr. Robertson played — alto- gether it was a splendid production. John Davidson and I were very friendly, and I remember I talked much to him about Racine's Phedre and what Sarah Bernhardt's performance of Phedre meant to me, and I commissioned him to translate it for me. This he did, but I have never produced it, for he expressed a wish in writing, found after his tragic death, that no work of his should ever be presented again. I do not think he realised his gifts — or perhaps he did — and others did not. There was a little poem, "Butterflies," in this play of Davidson's, that he let me recite instead of sing- ing. The efifect, I believe, was good, and pleased people. "butterflies." At sixteen years she knew no care, How could she, sweet and pure as light, And there pursued her everywhere Butterflies all white. A lover looked, she dropped her eyes That glowed like pansies wet with dew, And lo! there came from out the skies Butterflies all blue. 144 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS Before she guessed her heart was gone The tale of love was swiftly told, And all about her wheeled and shone Butterflies all gold. Then he forsook her one sad morn, She wept and sobbed, "Oh, Love, come back!" There only came to her forlorn Butterflies all black. Friends who loved me sent little cuttings from papers to cheer me, such as these: — "FROM A WOMAN'S STANDPOINT. "By Clara Lemore. "Mrs. Patrick Campbell. "It is a wonderful voice — not wonderful because of its sweetness only, but because of its power of suggestion, be- cause it seems always to be saying so much more than the bare words set down for it. As you listen to the soft, bell-like vibrations, all sorts of sad possibilities present themselves to your mind — possibilities of an intense ca- pacity for suffering, possibilities of much silent heart- bleeding in the past, of some long-endured sorrow in the time gone by, which has left its echo still ringing in the tones of to-day. "This seems to be the dominant note in Mrs. Camp- bell's individuality, this capacity for acute feeling. And when one comes to look into the thing, it is to be easily understood of all men, for is it not this very im- pressibility which gives her her stronghold over her audiences? "there was a little poem in this play, 'butterflies,' THAT HE LET ME RECITe" MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 145 "Quick to feel herself, is it to be wondered at that she should quickly raise feelings in others. Out of the soul's experience the tongue gives forth its interpreta- tion; and so, one queries, with a sharp, hot quiver of in- stinctive sympathy, what has been the sorrow in this gifted woman's life, that it should have produced this curious power of passing on its sense of suffering to her listeners. "And, after all, maybe this suggestion of an old-time grief is but the perfection of her art. It may be that she is of a buoyant nature, that she has a temperament which creates an atmosphere of unbroken sunshine for those fortunate ones who share her daily life! "It may be, but one finds it hard to imagine. Self- sacrificing beyond even the limits of womankind she may be, intense in her affections she should be, tender in her sympathies she must be — but joyous? "That one can hardly conceive of her." On June 2nd, 1896, Sudermann's Magda, * trans- lated by Louis N. Parker, was produced, and proved a failure: I was bitterly disappointed. In a theatre of a more intimate size, and not bur- dened with the traditions of the Lyceum; the play not produced on Derby Day — the day on which this pro- duction was made — would have had a good run, as was eventually proved. "Pastor Hefterdinck," played by Mr. Robertson, was a small and monotonous part. Audiences do not like their favourites in minor roles. * The play had been bought by Mr. George Alexander, and he had handed it on to Mr. Forbes Robertson. 146 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS Then again the Lyceum audiences were not used to the psychological drama. And a curtain rising for three acts on the same scene — a room with a stove, armchair, table, a bowl of g.oldfish, a desk, a horse-hair couch, and a few horse-hair chairs — after all the pageantry and show they had been accustomed to at this theatre for years — was not their "money's worth-." At the Royalty in 1900 Magda ran for many months. In America it was the play I opened with at the Opera House in Chicago, and played in every town during my lon'g tour. The play was well known, and had been played there in German, Eng- lish, French, and Italian. Such is the battle of the theatre. Should there be any who do not know the play, it -may be interesting to give a short account of it, for this play is loved by Sarah Bernhardt, Eleanora Duse, and many others. Magda has run away from her home in a little German town': she has become a famous singer. Her father, a retired colonel, never allows her name to be mentioned: her stepmother and younger sister have given up speaking of her. They hear of the visit of a Prima Donna to the town, and realise that this is their Magda. Magda calls to visit them in her rich clothes, bring- ing her scent, her flowers, her triumph, and her as- surance into their spare home. Her father is quite unimpressed by her success, and MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 147 looks upon her as an erring daughter who must be rescued. Magda loves her little sister and wants to take her back with her to her hotel, but her father and step- mother expect Magda to come and stay with them. She tries to give them some idea of the way she lives, with servants, courier, and secretary; but the Colonel is so deeply hurt that at last she consents. Then a local magnate calls with a bouquet for Magda. He was her first lover and he deserted her : he did not know she had a child by him. She tells him this, and scorns his offer of marriage in repara- tion. Marriage, when she was young, would have saved her from shame and many struggles, but now Her father hears of this. He is extravagantly grateful to the Counsellor, holding the view that a man owes nothing to the woman he has ruined; or to the child she has borne him; and that it is an act of great generosity on the part of the Counsellor to try and make amends for what he has done. The father's hand shakes incessantly; Magda, real- ising that it was her revolt against her home which produced this infirmity, gives way. A message is sent to the Counsellor. He comes back full of fatuous joy and glowing with self-grat- ification over his own nobility. This is intolerable to Magda. Finally he tells her she must be separated from her child. It would ruin his career to have a child in the house. 148 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS Then comes the final scene. Magda indignantly takes back her consent. Her father enters. She tells him of the sacrifice she is asked to make. The father quietly bows the lover out of the room, saying he will speak to his daughter alone. He gets out his pistols, determined to shoot Magda if she disobeys him. He talks of honour saved, and reputation restored. Until he at last goads Magda into asking him what he would say if he found that the Counsellor had not been her only lover. Her father calls her "strum- pet," lifts his pistol to shoot her, and falls dead in a few moments from a paralytic stroke. The characters, all except one, are highly coloured, almost to the point of caricature; but Magda herself in her revolt against a narrow society, with its crude code of morals, is a role vibrant with life. London had seen a German company in the play, and the critics had condemned it. Sarah, too, had played it brilliantly — still they condemned the play. The Telegraph called the play "hopelessly dull, verbose, and commonplace," and said: — "Unfortunately, as we understand the play and the part, Mrs Patrick Campbell totally misunderstood both. She substitutes peevishness for passion, and petulance for force. . . . "There is nothing disagreeable or unlovable or nerve- splitting in the 'Magda' as we understood her, and yet Mrs. Campbell in every line and accent suggests a re- volt, a tirade against constitutional society," MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 149 Referring to the final scene, this paper says: "It is all noise, noise, noise. In all justice, however, let it be said that the clever English actress must not be held wholly accountable for a poor, dull play, and what is after all a wretchedly bad part. . . . Never was such cheering heard in a theatre. Mrs. Campbell was called half a dozen times ... a dull German sermon!" These letters comforted me: iiir Kensington Square, "17th June, 1896. u "In the cold blood of next day I still think your 'Magda' last night was the ablest and finest thing I have ever seen you do. I cannot regret on any account that the play was produced. "Jack. "33, Brompton Crescent, S.W. "My poor Disheartened One, "I know too well all you are feeling about 'Magda.' No one can sympathise with you better than I, and I feel another blow for myself, for to my mind your per- formance was splendid, and as the best authorities say it was not, then maybe I am wrong. Oh, it's a delight- fully simple profession! I only wish the critics would come and play the parts, for it seems to me they are the only people who know how they should be played. "Well, I am aware I am not clever, but I am pig- headed sometimes, and stick to my opinion, and nothing will change my opinion of your Magda that it was ab- *J. W. Mackail. I50 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS solutely true in every phase, and I admire your perform- ance only second to your Paula Tanqueray. 'Them's my sentiments !' Bless you ! "Yours affectionately, "Winifred Maude."* "My love to 'Buttons,'! please!" And this letter was written by that very clever actress, Miss Rosina Filippi, after the revival at the Royalty Theatre in May, 1900: — "Dear Mrs. Campbell, "Please let me add my cry of enthusiasm to the many hundreds which have reached you to-day. You are great — grand — in Magda. The higher the emotions, the higher you rise to them. It is glorious, and I am very grateful to you for having given us all such a triumphant performance. I hope all London will see you and that it may be many and many a day before you piffle again in such horrors as Moonlight Blossom, or even The Canary. Lord! to think that you have Magda in your soul, and that you give us Mrs. Temple Martin! Never, never, never do it again. "Yours affectionately, "Rosina Dowson."'^ According to the notes in front of me, I played Lady Teazle in The School for Scandal, at the Lyceum, seventeen days after Magda. It is true the part was not new to me. I had played it at a mat- • Mrs. Cyril Maude. t My little griflfon. ♦ Miss Rosina Filippi. MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 151 inee four years before. Mr. William Farren — over eighty years of age — played Sir Peter with the traditions of his father and grandfather in the part in his bones. Never once did Sir Peter address himself to me. The audience was his friend, his companion, and to them he confided his emotions. There were in the cast others of this fine old school, and their tradi- tional method **sat on my head" — a green baize over the singing bird's cage. I was tired out, too, the collapse that came later was well on its way, and my work was becoming de- moralised. I let things go. The following letter from my dear uncle alludes to my state of mind: — "Sunday. "Dear Demoralised Thing, "No, not demoralised — never be that. Be different from all others, be the one. If Art has pushed too many over the precipice as being creatures of wretched, lump- ish clay, spite of all their pretended aspirations, still you, walk you safely, securely along the edge; a true god- dess, not less human than they, with every fibre of mind and body as sensitive as theirs, but possessing within yourself an element of supreme fineness, a dignity, a splendid individuality, to which only the truest, the high- est, can attain. "Of one of his great knights, Ariosto says, 'Natura el fare, e poi ruppe la stampa' — 'Him Nature fashioned, then broke the mould.' A peerless knight, the like of whom was never, never to be seen on earth again. Why 152 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS not you as peerless in your own sphere? You can be. Art has placed in your hair the undying laurel. What will you do for the honour of Art? Lay upon her shoulders the golden robe? Or cast over her incom- parable form the rumpled drapery, the chiffonage of demoralisation. 'At least two things remember — do not allow your- self to deceive yourself. Then you can surely pack off demoralisation with her bedraggled skirts back across the Styx into her horrid steaming lair — forever. "But perhaps I have not rightly understood your meaning of demoralisation. If so, then forgive this rhapsody. "Uncle." In November of this year I went to the Avenue Theatre, then under Miss Elisabeth Robins' manage- ment, and played The Rat Wife in Little Eyolf, thankful for the chance of being able to do some- thing for her. Uncle wrote on November 12th: "I understand exactly your feelings. I knew what a gratification it would be to you to do a service to Miss Robins." Miss Janet Achurch, who played the leading char- acter, fell ill, and I was asked at a moment's notice to play her part of Rita in this play. It was an alarming ordeal, for I was unable in the time given me to learn the words — I believe it was only a day. MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 153 I tied the book by a ribbon to my waist and practi- cally read it. I remember Mr. Asquith was in the house and warmly congratulated me, and the following letters show I got through with credit: "4, Whitehall Court, S.W. "My dear friend, "You were divine and the book was scarcely noticed. Mes felicitations! You have scored a triumph, and I know you deserved it. 'Yours most sincerely, "Wm. Heinemann." "Avenue Theatre, "Northumberland Avenue, "loth December, 1896. "My dear Mrs. Campbell, "Being unable to do so personally, I send these few lines to endeavour in some way to thank you for your splendid and timely assistance in coming to our rescue to-night. You are indeed 'true blue,' and should the opportunity ever arise of showing my appreciation of your good nature and courage, I shall gladly welcome it. "Trusting your extraordinary exertions to-day will not produce any ill-effect, and again tendering to you my sincere thanks, "Believe me, "Yours very truly, "F. J. Harris.'' I find also a letter from Mr. Archer praising my performance of The Rat Wife in this play and his 154 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS views as to my playing Rita at so short a notice: "34, Great Ormond Street, W.C. "Dear Mrs. Campbell, "Mr. Heinemann gives me to understand that you wanted to hear my view as to your playing Rita. They are entirely favourable to yaur doing so. Of course, I cannot pretend that I don't regret the circumstances which have thrown the part open; but since they have occurred, I, for my part, can only rejoice in the prospect of seeing you in the character. I have always felt that it is one of the greatest parts ever written, and your rendering of it could not fail to be enormously interest- ing and attractive. If you see your way to undertaking it, you will certainly have all my good wishes. "Let me once more congratulate you upon The Rat Wife. My own feeling about it you already know, but I don't think I have ever heard any performance talked of with such unanimity of admiration. "Wherever I go I hear no dissentient voice. "Yours very truly, "William Archer." In February, 1897, Pat introduced Mr. Robertson to Mr. Horatio Bottomley, who interested himself, I believe, in financing Nelson's Enchantress, a play Mr. Robertson put on at the Avenue Theatre. It was unconvincing, and was not a success. Then the fatigue that had been gradually threat- ening me for many months reached the climax. / could not work any more. The thought of "giving in" was unbearable to me, MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 155 but I was persuaded by my husband, my people, and my friends to stop work altogether for a time. My loved friend, Margaret Mackail, persuaded me to go into a nursing home, and she smiled away my despair at my ''nervous breakdown." As the doctor held my pulse I laughed, with tears pouring down my cheeks, declaring I was all right. He said gravely, "All the acting has done this." Oh, that queer feeling when I was just falling off to sleep, that awful apprehension that "something most important was left undone." That horrible start! — and then the long, wakeful nights, and the everlasting tears. What an odd experience it was. They put me into a little room, with a window out of which I could only see the sky; the door was left wide open, and a nurse or the doctor sat by my bed alternately, I, turning and tossing about, unable to rest. No medicine was given me, only massage, which I could not stand ; no letters, no friends, no name of anyone belonging to me mentioned. The doctor — Dr. Em- bleton, now dead — was an extraordinarily gentle, kind man; he used to hold my hand and tell me I had "worked too hard, and felt too much," and that all I needed was sleep; if I were lonely I could get up and dress, go downstairs and go out. I do not exactly remember what happened. Either they thought me cured, or they were afraid to continue longer such strict quiet. After eight weeks I came away. 156 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS Perhaps if I had been trained in the Dramatic Art, I would have known how to spare my emotional temperament, and to depend a little on skill, tech- nique and "tradition" — that awful word — I won- der The doctors ordered me to Malvern. Then my dear friend, Mrs. Percy Wyndham, hearing of my illness, wrote saying that Lady Queensberry was go- ing abroad and would be delighted to lend me her little house at Salisbury — lovely Hatch House — its beautiful walled garden- with the postern gate — Queen Elizabeth, as a girl, had walked in the rose garden there. Sybil Queensberry left her servants to take care of me; and her carriage for me to drive about in this most beautiful part of England; and she said my children must join me there, and my dogs, and any friends I liked. What a dream of beauty and peace it was. The following letters refer to this time, and show, too, that my spirit was sorely troubled: "It was really comforting news, dear, to hear that you are well enough to write and to receive letters. Your deep seclusion created a cruel blank in the world, that was becoming absolutely painful. If, however, it has helped to give you back to certain health and to calmer and happier views of life, It deserves and It will receive our sincere and heartfelt commendations. The wish in our hearts, however, was that your eight weeks' retire- ment might be succeeded by the invigorating sweets of MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 157 a sea voyage. Think what store of health and strength the sea change would endow you with, and you would re- turn from it to your profession and to the stage, really and truly a 'new woman' indeed, in the worthy sense, of course, not in the 'fin de sickly' significaticwi of the phrase. . . ." ". . . . Of course I understand about your struggle; it could not be otherwise, but I felt sure of you, and that whatsoever fight you might have to fight, you would come out of the struggle, conquering and not conquered. . . . Only be brave. . . ." "Uncle" "Dearest Uncle, "You have been right, you always said I never saw people and things as they were, that I lived in dreams — now I see, now I know, and I think the knowledge has nearly finishe'd me. "Where did you get all your philosophy and unselfish- ness? "I am quite strong again physically — nervously, per- haps, not quite right yet. There are st) many things I cannot bear to think of. . . . "A big dose of my dear Beo and Stella at Hatch House will do me a lot of good. "I do understand about the 'depressing feeling.' You wanted to help me, and you felt you could not, and it made you wretched, but you did help me, all the same. "I wish you were here with me. Don't grudge me letters, say, ask what you like. "I had a long bicycle ride alone yesterday afternoon all through lovely lanes. I found a pretty church built by Earl Beauchamp and went in to rest. Presently the clergyman came, and five people, and there was evensong. 1^8 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS The doors were all open and the birds chirping. The painted window, his droning voice, it was cool and rest- ful. . . . "Beatrice" Pat at this time was working hard in the City and trying his best to help me in my collapse. "Dearest Stella, "Of course if you feel you are able, I think it would be best for you to join Robertson again at the Lyceum. London will be very glad to have you back. Do not start with Shakespeare; cannot Robertson get a new play or a translation from some really good French play? "... I am so glad you have the children with you, they are such dears. "God bless you all. "With love, "Daddy." Mr. Forbes Robertson had written to me saying he was taking the Lyceum in September to open in Hamlet and offering me Ophelia. I felt very nervous. I knew once more I would be up against "tradition": but, I could not afford to refuse. "Killarney House, "Killarney. "Dearest Beatrice, "This is only a line of blessing to you and good wishes for you and your health and for your success in what you are now doing. I hope you are feeling the benefit MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 159 of your rest at Hatch; dear, lovely, restful little Hatch. "I did so enjoy seeing you there, and wish you had had a little bit more of it, but again I say, I think you will feel better when you are working, and you must give your whole heart and soul to it, so as to make the best Ophelia that has ever been! For it is so touchingly beautiful, and your part will not be very long, and you can get away early from the theatre, and early to bed •will be the thing for you for some time to come. "Keep your spirits up. "I believe in an awfully good time to come for you. I prophesy it. "Ever yours most affectionately and believingly, "Madeline Wyndham." One paper, probably The Telegraph, said I had "distinguished" myself, because I was the first actress who had ever made a failure of Ophelia. I remember Mr. George Wyndham* saying he thought I was the best Ophelia he had even seen, and Mr. Sargent, too, paid me many compliments. There were bad notices and good notices and many letters of fulsome praise. One night I was very naughty — egged on by the continual criticism of playing Ophelia in my own hair, I played half the part in my dark hair and half in a fair wig. Miss Ellen Terry was among the audience — I wanted to know which she liked best — I never heard that she alluded to it. ♦The Rt. Hon. George Wyndham, M.P. i6o MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS It was odd to me that my singing was much praised, just as my dancing was praised in Juliet — for I can neither sing nor dance — When Sir Henry Irving came onto the stage after a performance, he put his arm round me and said, "Beautiful, my child, beautiful." But the real truth was that Miss Terry had given such a lovely Ophelia to the world — still fresh in everyone's mem- ory — there was no room for mine. Ui 'Clouds, "Salisbury, "October 21st, 1894. "Dearest Beatrice, "Thank you so much for your dear, kind letter. Think of your being made happier or better by my appreciation of your work — ridiculous! But it comes from your affectionate heart and nature; you place my power of judging far, far too high, as it is only formed on 'a certain instinct, more than on knowledge or learn- ing! To 'be of any real use in the world, to be a 'good or useful critic' (how I hate the word), one ought to have both — instinct for the beautiful and the knowledge of it. Had I to choose one only, I should choose the first — instinct for it — as beauty is the only thing in this world almost, that can be enjoyed without the other ! but can be of no use to others, without learning! One can- not pass it on, knowledge and learning cannot teach it, or make one possess it. But instinct can make one enjoy it. One may read about beauty and learn about it till one is black in the face; but without the instinct for it, never enjoy it. That my simple enjoyment of your work should please and encourage you touches me more than MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS i6i I can say! I wish my opinion were more worth having, yet, as I have been trying to say, I beheve in instinct on such matters in all things beautiful to be the true and a more trustworthy thing than mere knowledge. 'A little knowledge is a dangerous thing,' a true instinct a reliable thing! And I am sure I am right in my opinion of this giving of Hamlet. I cannot help feeling flat- tered, yet more than ever humbled, for I know what you find in me, all comes from yourself, but I thank God, all the same, that He has put something Into me that makes it possible to be as it is, that those who are so far above me in intellect and power should find a resting place in my sympathy for their souls. . . . "Your loving "Madeline Wyndham." CHAPTER IX. I HAVE an idea that it was again Mr. Horatio Bottomley who helped financially with the re- vival of Hamlet at the Lyceum; also with the next interesting venture — a tour Mr. Forbes Robert- son made in Germany. I had a great treasure in my pocket — Maeter- linck's play, Pelleas et Melisande. I accepted the offer to accompany Mr. Robertson, if on our return he would produce Pelleas and Melisande; this he agreed to do. The plays we took to Germany were Hamlet, Macbeth, and The Second Mrs. Tanqueray. There was some talk to the effect that Queen Vic- toria had requested the Emperor not to patronise with his presence this play of Mr. Pinero's. I do not know if it was true, but he certainly did not. During Macbeth the Emperor sent for us and gave us gifts — to Mr. Robertson a scarf pin, to me a bracelet. In the middle of Macbeth there was a long entr'- acte whilst Royalty ate a meal: how hopelessly dis- concerting to the sequence of the performance. I was struck by the Emperor's personality: the impression of intellectual force, the powerful voice — the heavy moustache turned up at the ends — pierc- 162 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 163 ing steel blue eyes — and the little withered hand — a gold bangle on the wrist. I remember he said to me, 'T wish you would teach my actors not to shout." The German criticisms were interesting: they called us "nerve aristocrats"! Also this letter from Lady Edward Cavendish: "British Embassy, "Berlin, "i6th March, 1898. "Dear Mrs. Campbell, "I was sorry to be out when you called on Sunday, 1 should have liked to have told you what a pleasure it has been to see you. I thought Macbeth altogether beauti- ful, and it was a great pleasure to see it so wonderfully given. Besides the great enjoyment of seeing such act- ing, your gowns were gorgeous and lovely, and I must congratulate you heartily on the great success you have had. . . . "The Emperor has just been with my brother. He is loud in the praises of you and Mr. Forbes Robert- son. . . . He thinks the rendering of Hamlet and Mac- beth were the most perfect he had ever seen, and he was full of admiration. • • • • "Emma E. Cavendish." On our return to England Mr. Robertson pro- duced Pelleas and Melisande at the Prince of Wales Theatre on 21st June for nine matinees. Maeterlinck's play came to my notice in this way: 1 64 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS One day Jack Mackail brought me as an offering his translation of this lovely work, written out in his own fine hand. This archaic poem of beauty, passion and loveli- ness, unthumb-marked and un-dog-eared by "tra- dition," gave me peace and certainty — I had come into my own. I knew Melisande as though she had been part of me before my eyes were open. I knew I could put the beauty of the written word into colour, shape, and sound. Mr. Robertson thought the play weak and morbid : his brother, Ian Robertson, said, "Why do you want to make such a damned fool of Forbes?" I was adamant: the contract had to be kept. I cannot remember Mr. Mackail coming to any rehearsal; but with letters of advice, sketches and suggestions he guided me. And the lovely gold dress I wore was suggested by Sir Edward Burne- Jones. I battled through at the theatre, arguing and in- sisting; warmly supported in my enthusiasm and feeling by Mr. Martin HarveyJs full understanding, and appreciation of the beauty of the poem. The incidental music needed was a most important element. I felt sure M. Gabriel Faure was the com- poser needed. My friend, Mr. Frank Schuster, ar- ranged a meeting between us at his house in Queen Anne's Gate. I had not spoken French since my IN THE SECOND MRS. TANQUERAY r" MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 165 visit to Paris seventeen years before, but I stumbled through somehow^, reading those parts of the play to M. Faure which to me called most for music. Dear M. Faure, how sympathetically he listened, and how humbly he said he would do his best! His music came — he had grasped with most tender in- spiration the poetic purity that pervades and en- velops M. Maeterlinck's lovely play. Mr. Martin Harvey's melancholy face, his curious timbre of voice, his scholar's delight in cadence, helped him to invest the part of Pelleas with an un- earthly glamour; and Mr. Robertson's classical pro- file, manly voice and general distinction were in- valuable. It will be remembered that the whole of the ac- tion of this play takes place in one of those gloomy ancient castles, by the sea, which Maeterlinck has always used as symbolical of the prison life is to the soul; their ancient impregnable walls, their long tradition of sorrow, crime and tragedy, stand for life in the flesh: and the sea, the illimitable sea, is al- ways there to speak of eternity, and the wild sea birds, of freedom. Melisande's ignorance of her own birth — her sense of exile — her grief by the pool where she has lost her crown — are all symbolic of the soul in life. Then comes the contact with man's desire, Golaud's love born of passion; a contact which teaches her nothing: which awakens no love — only fear. As the play proceeds, Pelleas and Melisande dravi^ i66 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS nearer and nearer, each finding in the other the yearning of their soul's fulfilment, and in their very purity, deceiving themselves into the shadow of death. Melisande leans out of the window of the tower : — My long hair falls over, all down the tower, My hair waits for my lover, hour after hour, St. Daniel and St. Michael, St. Michael and St. Raphael, I was born on a Sunday, on a Sunday at noon. Pelleas hears her, and comes under the window; as he tries to touch her hand, her hair becomes en- tangled in a bough — human love has caught her — her being is awakening! . . . A scene of extreme beauty is when she goes to meet Pelleas in the wood and he tells her he is go- ing away. Again the two lovers have escaped from the gloom of the prison to say good-bye, and under the moon and stars they cling to one another; they are free, they live, they love. Pelleas: "Tout les etoiles tombent sur mol." Melisande: "Sur moi aussi, sur moi aussi." .But their shadows are still in the world, and Go- laud stands at the edge of their shadows in the wood, and all the jealousy and mad lust of a man possess him, and he kills his brother, Pelleas. The end is all pity, pity for Golaud who does not MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 167 understand : for Melisande who has brought his child into the world and is dying: for Pelleas who is dead. The play ends with the birth of another soul. It is the old grandfather who, lifting the little one, says to Golaud, "It is the child's turn now." In the early morning of the day of the last re- hearsal, Sir Edward Burne-Jones died. I read it first on the placards as I left the theatre. "44, Belgrave Square. "Dearest Beatrice, "I must write to you although I can say nothing. Your heart is with Margaret to-day, this bitterest of days for Margaret and all his, mine is with her also. . . . And I really grieve for you to have to act to-morrow with this on your heart, but so life goes on. "He was to have dined (they were all coming to- night) with me for my birthday, but now he dines in the Courts of Heaven. The King of Kings needed him. "Ever yours affectionately, "Madeline Wyndham." The play had an overwhelming success, M. Maet- erlinck being still more warmly hailed as the Bel- gian Shakespeare. Mr. Robertson was lauded for his discovery and his discernment. I have often wondered why Mr. Robertson, who had been so loth a convert, did not disclaim the hon- our of the enterprise. But the main triumph was that a thing of beauty had been given to the theatre forever. i68 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS There were many hundreds of criticisms. The critics were on their nettle. At the moment I can only find one, the rest must have gone to the Amer- ican manager, when I produced the play in the States. ^''The Guardian. "... One love scene challenges comparison with the most beautiful in the world, where Melisande leans out of the window and Pelleas tries to kiss her hand. She lets her long black hair fall down until it touches his shoulders. He knots it to the branches and makes her a willing prisoner. Whether as a piece of literature it will bear comparison with the balcony scene of Romeo and Juliet I cannot say, for nobody who saw It could judge it merely as literature. It is not given to many women in a generation to be so beautiful as was Mrs. Campbell, when she leant out from the window, her whole body yearning towards her boy lover, yet with un- conscious innocence suggested in some indescribable way: playing it was, play you felt it to be, yet behind every word and gesture of the girl at play, there was the woman latent. . . ." "Golaud: 'Vous etes des enfants. . . . Melisande, ne te penche pas ainsi a la fenetre, tu vas tomber. Vous ne savez pas qu'il est tard. II est pres de minuit. Ne jouez pas ainsi dans I'obscurite. Vous etes des enfants . . . (Riant nerveusement) Quels enfants! . . .Quels enfants!' " I give letters from M. Maeterlinck and others: "Dear Madam, "I need not tell you with what joy I read of your great MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 169 triumph in the papers of yesterday and of the day be- fore. Nearly all have endeavoured to say how su- premely perfect and wonderful you were. Yet the most enthusiastic did not throw into their expressions of ad- miration half that ardour which I could have wished they had done. Maybe that only he whose imagination produced Melisande can appreciate how perfect was your presentment of her, in reality more lovely and more life- like than in his most vivid and beautiful imaginings she had ever been. Before I saw you I did not know that a creature of one's dreams could come to be purer, more harmonious, and more adorable even, in real life. You have taught me that one need never be afraid of dream- ing dreams of too great beauty, since it is our good fortune now and then to meet a privileged being who can render them visible and real. "When you see Mr. Forbes Robertson please convey to him my sentiments of admiration and my thanks. He too was perfect; he was in a word, worthy to stand at your side; and he too redeemed the piece more than once, even as you redeemed it from first to last. "In a few words, you, and the delightful, the ideal Pelleas, filled me with an emotion of beauty the most complete, the most harmonious, the sweetest that I have ever felt to this day. "Thank you once more. It will give me 'infinite pleasure to see you again on Thursday. "M. Maeterlinck." From Maeterlinck on Campbell's "Melisande" to Forbes-Robert- son's "Pelleas". STUPLAHO. WAREHAM. d^ Ui^U^ d I had seen Electra in Germany at the "Kleines Theater," and thought the German performance, though excellent exaggerated the horror with a crass, brutal realism. Arthur Symons' translation, without harming the 290 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS vivid realism of the original play, put a magic mist of loveliness upon it. I am told that Hugo von Hoffmannsthal has "pre- served the dramatic dignity, the fury and passionate hatred, and the melting pathos of the original play as it has been handed down through the centuries." Though, according to a lover of Greek tragedy, Elec- tra played at the Theatre Frangais follows the Greek more closely, and "Orestes" plays a mighty part, which adds potently to the effectiveness of the whole. "The scholar cries out for the Greek chorus." I have seen the freakish effect of the Greek chorus on the English stage; the figures unimpressive, and uninspired, earnest, drab, drear: a certain music, but the imagination of the artists not awake to that keen inner worship of truth and beauty — the true Greek feeling. I wanted very much to play Professor Gilbert Murray's beautiful Electra of Euripides. I do not remember quite what happened about it; there were words in the contract to the effect that I must pro- duce it "as played at the Court Theatre." My spirit rebelled — I wanted a free hand. Under the discouraging obstructions things really worth while are met with in the theatre, it was a difficult feat to bring frivolous New York to Elec- tra, a play so far removed from themselves. The part of "Electra" is nearly as long as "Ham- let," with no exit or "curtain" until the end. One MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 291 particularly touching speech of hers to Orestes and his exclamation: "O my sister!" never failed to make my heart ache and move the audience to tears. Electra : . . . Who then Am I that you should cast such loving looks Upon me? See, I am nothing. All I was I have had to cast away: even that shame Which is more sweet than all things, and like a mist Of milky silver round about the moon Is about every woman, and wards off Things evil from her soul and her. My shame I have offered up, and I am even as one Fallen among thieves, who rend off from my body Even my last garment. Not without bridal-night Am I, as other maidens are; I have felt The pangs of child-bearing; yet have brought forth Nothing into the world, and I am now Become a prophetess perpetually. And nothing has come forth out of my body But curses and despair. I have not slept By night, I have made my bed upon the tower, Cried in the court, and whined among the dogs. I have been abhorred, and have seen everything, I have seen everything as the watchman sees Upon the tower, and day is night and night Is day again, and I have had no pleasure In sun or stars, for all things were to me As nothing for his sake, for all things were A token to me, and every day to me A milestone on the road. Orestes : O my sister ! 292 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS How I worked! One week to create two roles — stage manage and produce, and rehearse Beo and Stella. Much sensitive anxiety is added to our labour, when we rehearse those we love; all producers know this. I cabled to Lady Tree, then Mrs. Tree, to play "Clytemnestra." She came over from England and gave a fine performance, and looked splendid. This clever actress has an odd waggish intelligence that does not fail her — even in tragedy. Stella was lovely as the gentle "Chrysothemis." An interviewer, the day after the opening per- formance of both plays, says, speaking of me: — "The woman is weary, weary, weary — gesture, voice, and soul — all overcome as by an infinite lassitude." * I knew the work I had done was good, but my rival was The Merry Widow, and in spite of the fol- lowing notice in Town Talk, alas! The Merry Widow won! ". . . If the mantle of any past-mistress of the mi- metic art has fallen upon the graceful shoulders of Mrs. Campbell it is one that never before did I see. Her genius is unique; not in method, not in technique does she excel, but in something; perhaps it is nothing more than her individuality that stands out distinct and all- satisfying. It would be absurd to hold that she is the arch-priestess of that academy of acting which holds as * I am afraid, in spite of the happiness of having my children with me, and of our success, I was paying blood-money so far as my nervous system was concerned. MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 293 its cardinal principle, the utter eradication of the player's personal identity. It is not to be seriously argued that the blend of Italian and English blood in her veins has given her a temperament that qualifies her beyond all her contemporaries for great artistic achievement. Per- haps there are some actresses whom she does not sur- pass in imagination, in ingenuity of technique, or in faculty of dramatic invention; but the fact is, she accom- plishes more with her art than any woman of whom I have any knowledge. In the exuberance of my en- thusiasm inspired of her 'Electra' I seriously doubt whether there is any other woman who can hold an au- dience from the beginning to the end of that sombre tragedy as adapted for the modern stage by Hugo von Hoffmannsthal. "With an art that speaks with an electric shock she keeps her audience as much alive as she is herself. How she does it I do not know. . . . ". . . . She creates, one after another, illusions that suspend the power of specific criticism. You see her haunting eyes looking forward to a dreadful consum- mation, and the horror of the spectacle appals you. In the subtle play of her countenance is mirrored emotions that to you are real. Her very anguish is infectious. The dignity of her grief and resentment is so strong in its appeal that you find yourself in league with her in her horrible designs. Never does this wonderful woman in- dulge in that explosion of passion which most actors deem essential to the production of the highest dramatic effects. Never does she produce a harsh note. Smoothly, without a jar, her whole life seems to flow into one harmonious, tragic rhythm which is like the solemn beat of a dead march. ... It is a stern picture of implacable hatred for the living and inextinguishable 294 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS reverence for the dead. It is the perfection of an art that baffles criticism and analysis." Speaking of The Moon of Yamato, one paper said : — "The first hour of the evening is given to a tragedy translated literally from the Japanese and acted in imitation of the Japanese way, with Mrs. Campbell bigger than any Japanese actress, if not greater, as she is nearly six feet tall, while a Jap woman of that stature would be put in a native museum as a giantess. The usually statuesque beauty looked a curiosity, anyway, with her black hair coiffured in the mode of Tokio, her big eyes slanted, her habitually bared arms hidden in the sleeves of a kimono, and her erect poise changed to the hinge-back, toggle-knee, grovel and kow-tow manner- isms of 'Yum Yum' in The Mikado. Not only did she mince and toddle, she spoke in a weak falsetto and cooed softly as she trotted in and out of her bamboo and paper house. It was a more faithful portrayal of a Jap lady than Blanche Bates in Madam Butterfly. For a while the audience was inclined to take her in fun, and to re- gard the unwelcome wooing of a wife by a terrible bandit as comedy; but it developed a tragedy fit to win a medal of originality for its Oriental author." Within a fortnight I was ill from fatigue and for two nights I could not play. Then I thought I would like the theatrical pro- fession in New York to see Electra, so I invited them to a matinee. MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 295 A throng of at least 2,500 people appeared. The theatre was crowded to the last inch. And so the spirit of The Merry Widow drove me once more ''on the road," this time to California. In San Francisco signs of the great earthquake were everywhere, fires were still smouldering- Some stone pillars, stone steps, a bit of iron railing, a few geraniums and ferns, a great mountain of dust and debris — that was once a mansion with beautiful gardens; so on for miles — as far as the eye could see. I played "Electra" in a large, low, corrugated- iron building. For the hour and three-quarters the audience sat breathless — the play appealed to their imagination — and again as so often before, I was overpraised, spoiled, petted and feted. Among the many stories told me about the earth- quake, one carries the character of San Francisco. Immediately New York heard of the catastrophe, she sent a long train loaded with cheap and useful necessities of life. It was sent back with its goods, to bring all the best and finest luxuries — San Fran- cisco would accept no charity. She started building immediately: many made large fortunes by clearing away the dust. A drunken man slept through it all; when he awoke and saw the world flattened out and the roar- ing fires, he went to bed again, thinking he was still drunk. . . . 296 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS And then the story of Caruso, who lifted up his head and sang his highest note, to see if his voice was all right. One of my dearest friends lives near San Fran- cisco — Mrs. Harriet Carolan. And another — Edward Sheldon* — who is loved by many of us. He sent me cables and letters that pulled me through dark hours, and, though I do not want to anticipate what the years brought, I quote a cable that melted my heart: "Los Angeles. "July, 1919. "Stella dear, I love and believe in you. Wish I was there. Sure this cannot conquer you. You are so high above their reach. Tenderest thoughts and affection. "Ned." And a letter: "Los Angeles. "August 30th, 1 9 19. "Stella dear, "Your letter has just come. ... I wish courage and wisdom could keep you from suffering. I know they can't, but they will carry you through it, anyway. . . . Time usually brings out the truth, and I imagine that is what you want. Your bewilderment comes from not being able to see it now. ... I know you hate to walk in darkness, but you won't for long. One thing I am ♦Dramatic author: Romance, Salvation Nell, and other successful plays. MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 297 sure of, you have made no mistake in keeping your ideals high as the stars. Even what you are going through now wouldn't bring you as much suffering as trying to lower them. That is the sort of person you are, and you can never change, thank God! "Ned." But to go back to Electra. The great Modjeska saw Electra in Los Angeles. She wrote to me afterwards: "Orange Co. "Saturday. "Dear Mrs. Campbell — ^beautiful 'Electra,' "I saw the play this afternoon, but could not call on you after the performance, because I came to Los An- geles without my husband and had to catch the train in time for dinner. What a prosaic thing to speak about — trains and dinners, after having seen what I have seen. "What a tremendous part, and what a wonderful achievement! I am so happy to have seen it, because that thing will live with me. I never shall forget the moments of real artistic delight that came to my share this afternoon, and I want to thank you for it. Your 'Electra' is beautiful and most impressive in all details, and I do not know any one who could play this part as you play it. Every pose, every modification of voice was perfect, but, what was most wonderful, the feeling, the passion, your own self animating that classic per- sonage and making it a real — a living — suffering crea- ture. But I must stop in fear of writing too much. I know how tired you must be playing every night and Saturday matinees, and travel, too. 298 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS "The Japanese play was charming, and your daughter very sweet in her part.* *'I was sorry not to be able to say 'good-bye' to you both, but I hope to meet you again some day. "In the meantime I will say 'au revoir' and 'bon voyage.' "With affectionate admiration, "Yours always, "Helen Modjeska." In January, 1908, 1 heard from my mother that she had been very ill. ". . . . I am still in bed, but out of danger. I require to be very careful to. get strong. There is very little cough left. The night before the nurse came the Reverend Mother sat up all night in my room. She is a perfect angel!" . . . I was very anxious to get back to England. In March, Stella was sent for by Sir George Alex- ander — Sir Arthur Pinero wanted her for his play, The Thunderbolt, at the St. James's Theatre — she had done splendidly in America, and I felt, with Sir Arthur's help, she would make a success in Lon- don. I wrote from Chicago to Mother: "I have just had your sad little letter, darling. I am afraid you are not nearly well yet, and I feel very anx- * Stella had bravely taken up my part, as the work was too hard for me. MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 299 ious. ... I will be home, I think, in about five weeks. It will break my heart if I don't find you quite strong. "I hope Stella has seen you. "The air in California — the flowers and the birds — and the palm trees ! How I wished all the time, dearest, you could have enjoyed them, too. The people were wonderful to me. . . . "And now a secret. Beo has fallen in love with a very beautiful young girl, charming in every way. I send you her little note to me, which will show you what a darling, happy thing she is. She is very fair and tall. "The question is, what is to be done? They want to marry. Her people haven't much money. I say noth- ing; he is so proud and happy, I am afraid of interfer- ing. She is in Chicago, and he will see her on our way back. . . . "I will write again. In the meantime get well, dear- est. "Your own loving "Beatrice." On my return from America I found my mother very fragile. I had not realised how ill she had been. In July she died . . . and the world was differ- ent — there was no one left to call me "child" any more. In death she looked a marble figure of a lovely girl; her black hair scarcely tinged with grey, in two plaits around her head. My beautiful Italian mother! My children loved her tenderly, and gratefully. 300 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS My brothers and sisters loved her too, but I know I set her highest. . . . ''You are brave, darley, and you work so hard." That was always her praise of me. . . . Once — how many years ago? — she said to me: "Some people have white blood, some people have red — yours is red!" I remembered those words long afterwards when callousness stunned me. I have so many very obvious faults. Why did my mother never censure me? I often ask myself that question. CHAPTER XV. SIR Arthur Pinero's fine play The Thunder- bolt had been a great success in London, and Sir George and Sir Arthur allowed me later to take it on tour for Stella, who had played her part with much charm; it was a sensitive bit of work and I was very proud of her. In November, 1908, at the New Theatre, I gave a series of matinees of Hofifmannsthal's Electra and Mr. W. B. Yeats' lovely Deirdre. I remember hearing that Sir Charles Wyndham and Miss Mary Moore surreptitiously watched me from a box conducting a rehearsal, and for the first time, I believe, credited me with some good sense. The delicate beauty of Deirdre delighted the audience, and the wild, vivid, passionate tragedy of Electra also caught hold of them. Mr. W. Archer headed his review of these plays, **A New Actress," and with some condescension, re- marked : — "Mrs. Campbell has an imagination which requires the magic spark of poetry to kindle it to a creative glow. ... It is hard to imagine her after such performances as these, relapsing to the mannered prettinesses — the adroit evasions which have so often been her standby in the past. . . ." 301 302 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS The Times wrote with more sympathy: — ". . . Much playgoing, it may be, makes one callous, but it will be long before we shall think without a shudder of the 'Electra' we saw yesterday ... a festered lily — something less than a woman, because it is the wreck of what has been more than most women. ..." But reviews had lost their interest for me now that my mother and my uncle were no longer in this world. . . . After these matinees I went on a tour in the Eng- lish provinces with Deirdre and Electra, and I remember at Southport there was a fearsome oc- currence. In Electra towards the end of the play, when, holding a lighted torch above her head, Electra is waiting for the death cry of Agamemnon — the lighted methylated spirit fell from the torch on to my hair — the scene was very dark — a member of my company, who was sitting in the front of the house, said the little flames dancing about my head made me look like a Christmas pudding! As I endeavoured to put them out with my hands, they trickled down my face and arms, the audience stood up, and among the excited murmurs a woman shrieked: "Will no man save her!" This struck me as ludicrous, and I laughed. The actors standing in the "wings," ready to rush on, seeing me smile, kept back: coming down to the footlights, I said: "Please sit down, this stuff does MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 303 not hurt." By that time the flames were out — my hands were slightly scorched and a little of my hair was burned. On the 19th January, 1909, I played at the Vaude- ville Theatre, under Messrs. Gatti's management, Olive Latimer's Husband, by Mr. Rudolph Besier. Olive was a gentle, tender lady with a dying hus- band upstairs, who never appeared in the play As I recollect it, the lady is in love with the doc- tor, and her love is returned — the husband dies — her heart breaks, and love is over. It was treated simply, realistically, and was very moving. I remember Lord Ribblcsdale liking the play very much; and a delightful letter I had from Miss Rosina Filippi, which unhappily is lost. At home, my son was fretting for the lovely girl he had left in Chicago, and I was troubled about him. One night, after an especially long talk we had, I went to his room and sat on his bed — his eyes were full of affection for me, and love and yearning for beautiful Helen; it was more than I could bear. I said, "Perhaps I could furnish you a little flat with some of the things from here, and make you an allow- ance for a year — you would have to work hard, ever so hard — American girls only look up to men who work for them, and provide for them well; and for their children. I kissed him and went back to bed. In the morning early he came to my room, with 304 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS a smile — "Was it really you, mother, who spoke to me last night, or was it an angel who sat on my bed?" That day he cabled to Chicago that he would come. Before he sailed, a letter arrived from the American father, saying he could not let his girl marry on such conditions Beo only laughed and, full of hope, sailed away. Within a fortnight came a cable, "Marry on the 25th, mind you don't get a stuffy flat, loving Beo." Stella and I set to, and we worked hard. Every- thing that could be spared from our little house we carried into the small flat we had found for them on the other side of Kensington Square. And they came — he, full of pride — she, all loveli- ness and charm. Her delightful manners, and witty way of expressing herself won the heart instantly: and then there were her pretty clothes, her freshness and gaiety, making Kensington Square a garden of flowers. * »!». jIl jAi •11 Tff Tfr ^ Tff In July, 1909, I produced His Borrowed Plumes, by Mrs. George Cornwallis West.* Jenny, at a luncheon party, told me that a London manager had said he would produce the play for her for three hundred pounds. She read the play to me. It had certain points of cleverness, and I considered that, with ingenious *Lady Randolph Churchill. MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 305 production and good actors, it could be pulled to- gether, and perhaps made into a success. Feeling it would be a friendly act and an amus- ing piece of work for me, I offered to produce it for her. So it was eventually arranged. After all, good plays only too often meet with a fortnight's run, and splendid plays, such as Hedda Gabler, Electra, Pelleas and Melisande, Beyond Human Power, and Deirdre, with a few special ma- tinees; perhaps His Borrowed Plumes might attract the public. An exaggerated importance gradually grew around the production, owing to Royalty and many distinguished people being interested in it. Serious work became difficult — but was most nec- essary to hold the play together — some of the ac- tors started calling the play "Sorrowing Blooms" — a dangerous sign. Jenny, I fancy, imagined producing her play would be of some social advantage to all of us: I was intolerant of what I thought nonsense, and showed it quickly. At the first performance everybody who was any- body, and who could procure a seat, was present. The critics enjoyed themselves, the applause was of the heartiest, the play was looked upon as clever. Mr. Waikley, in The Times, was nice about me and funny about hats : — 3o6 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS "When mundane ladies — if the Gallicism may pass — when mundane ladies produce original modern comedies out of their own original modern and quite charming heads, all the other mundane ladies who have written original modern comedies themselves, or might have done so if they had chosen, or are intending to do so the very next wet afternoon, come and look on. These are the occasions that reconcile one to the theatre. For a sudden feminine glory invades it and transfigures it, so that it becomes an exhibition of beauty and elegance; the very latest dialogue on the stage is accompanied by a frou-froM of the very latest Paris fashions in the stalls. An especially pleasing detail is the air of sweet resignation — is it the firm composure of the martyr or the serene smile of the seraph? — with which the ladies remove the wide-brimmed and very high-crowned hats of the present fashion from their heads and pose them very delicately upon their knees. It is with an effort you divert your gaze from this fascinating spectacle to the proceedings on the stage. But this is only to ex- change one pleasure for another of the same sort. For on the stage you have a bevy of ladies supporting — beautiful caryatides that they are! — the same remark- able hats, with the privilege of not having to remove them. In the presence of so many and so beautifully complicated hats it is, of course, impossible to think of them as mere coverings for the human head. They really fulfil the important office of creating an illusion about life, like the poetry of Shelley or the music of De- bussey. With their exaggerated brims and monstrous crowns they completely shut out the dull, the work-a-day, and the disagreeable. Everything you feel is for the best and looking its best, and wearing its best in the best of all Directoire worlds. ON ONE OF HER LATER TOURS TO AMERICA MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 307 "And yet, by a sort of paradox, what was perhaps the most beautiful thing, what was certainly the most suave and distinguished thing in the Hicks' Theatre yesterday afternoon — we mean, of course, Mrs. Patrick Campbell — wore no hat. . . ." Then in the unexpected way things sometimes happen in this world, George Cornwallis West was seriously attracted by me. . . . I believed his life was unhappy, and warmly gave him my friendship and afifection. . . . This caused gossip, misjudgment, and pain, that cannot be gone into here. In September, 1909, I played in a sadly cut play of M. Brieux, False Gods, at his Majesty's Theatre. I was curiously uncomfortable in my work in this theatre: a disturbing mixture of domesticity and art, of Society and Bohemia, of conventionality, and vagary — irritated me. Besides, I always felt the polite thing to do would be to give up my part to Lady Tree. Sir Herbert Tree, in my opinion, was the best character comedian of his day. His slightly foreign manner, distinction and elegance, and fantastic grace, gave an arresting charm to his work. In jeune premier parts, I thought him tiresome; in tragedy insincere; and his "Hamlet" wearied me in its self-obsession; though full of picturesque grace. He was a most lavish producer and a splendid "showman." 3o8 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS There was a strange want of sequential significance in his acting, and in himself, a manner of not unfas- cinating preoccupation. His method on the stage was for "flashes." He loved his profession deeply, and independently of his own success: his friendliness, enthusiasm, and above all his warm hospitality are a household word; and he had culture, wit, and imagination. His saddest mood could be charmed away in a moment by a witty or funny remark. He hated ill- manners and ugliness — youth and beauty led him like a lamb. When his feelings were hurt he blushed and looked bewildered, which was extraordinarily attractive. The gods were good to him; he died unexpectedly in a moment, and many were left to mourn. After False Gods, which was not a success, Bee- thoven was produced. With it I played Expiation, a play rehearsed to precede Beethoven, but on the opening night Sir Herbert had decided that it should come last. Following the death of "Beethoven" and the great Symphony, a Russian spy story was impos- sible. I was told that Tree not only made his speech, but that the orchestra played "God Save the King," and the critics and most of the audience left the theatre before my one-act play commenced! Let us hope this story is an exaggeration. In 1910 I went to America again. I had no en- MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 309 gagement; only a strong desire to get away from England — and gossip. . . . And, as usual, money had to be made. I was full of anxiety over my Stella, too; she had made up her mind to marry a man I scarcely knew, who had lived in Africa for many years. Stella was so sure she was doing right in giving up her profession and life and friends in England that, in my anxiety for her happiness, I appeared wanting in loving sympathy. On a Saturday I decided to sail for America, and on the Wednesday I had left Kensington Square, with Helen, Stella, and Beo in charge. On my arrival in New York I telephoned to Mr. Norman Hapgood, saying: "Here I am. I have quite a good one-act play and a lovely frock, and I would be glad of a vaudeville engagement. What shall I do?" He said : "Ring up Albee, the head of the Vaude- ville circuit." I rang up Mr. Albee, who made an appointment with me. Mr. Albee — one of those American men who make you feel "you are all right" and "he is all right" — saw me, and I told him I had an effective play, Ex- piation, and a beautiful dress, that I would play twice a day, and I wanted £500 a week — a large sal- ary, but I knew well I would never be able to play twice a day and travel on Sundays for any length of time. 310 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS Some other men came into the room during my interview with Mr. Albee, and they consulted to- gether. Eventually it was decided that I should play for a week outside New York, and if I proved worth it, they would engage me at the £500 a week for ten weeks. I played, and they were satisfied. In the meantime Stella was engaged by the late Mr. Harry Irving as his leading lady in London. After a few weeks, first Beo and then Helen joined me in America, and we three travelled together. Oh, those two performances of Expiation! I had to kill a man twice a day and shriek — and it had to be done from the heart — the Americans see through ''blufif" — and I was advertised as a "Great tragic actress"! Later on, Helen and Beo went to her people in Chicago, and I continued the tour alone. One day — I forget in which town — it was time to get up and think about the morning performance. I found I was unable to make any effort to move. My maid rang the telephone for the Hotel doctor — I tried to speak; it was impossible, I could only cry. "No more acting; away to Canada, to St. Agathe des Montes, and stay there until your nerves are mended," said the doctor. And I went, and there I remained alone, unutter- ably sad — walking about that lovely place. Can- aries — sand — glorious sunsets — no paths, planks of wood' — fields of large white daises with millions MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 311 of fireflies — flat patches of water reflecting the sky. . . . After ten weeks' rest I was well. I joined Helen and Beo in Chicago, and produced a little one-act play of Beo's The Ambassador s Wife. It was quite a success in its way, and gave them both great en- couragement. I then received a cable from Mr. Gesier asking me to act in his play Lady Patricia. I arrived in London the day before the first rehearsal, leaving Beo and Helen in Chicago. Lady Patricia was produced at the Haymarket on 22nd March, 191 1. Mr. E. Lyall Sweete — my old friend of Mrs. Bandmann Palmer days — was re- sponsible for the production of this brilliant comedy. After the first night, he sent me the following letter : "Garrick Club, W. C, "23rd March, 191 1. "Wonderful. There is nothing left on that score for me to say. The papers have said it all with one unanimous shout of delight. Oh, but I knew they would. But for the rest, how can I thank you enough for suffer- ing a fool so gladly. . . . "All my congratulations on a great achievement — not greater than I knew it would be, but greater than you would allow it might be. All my gratitude for your forbearance, your patience and help — invaluable in sug- gestion or personal embellishment and my devotion. "T. S. . . ." In the early part of this year Stella went away to 312 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS Africa to get married. I could not refuse my consent to her marriage any longer* — my lovely sensitive girl. . . . I understood at last the cry my mother gave 28 years before. Amongst my papers I find this little letter from Beo whom I had left in America with Helen, written to Stella:— "24th February, 191 1. "Darling Stella, "Just a line to ask you to let me know exactly when you sail for Nairobi. I hope to goodness Helen and I can get back to England at least to say 'good-bye,' and 'good luck and happiness.' "I'm just beginning to realise, old girl, now you're going, how much I love you, and how much I shall miss you. "I went to the Zoo yesterday and looked up all the animals that live in Nairobi. "Be very careful of the Ihtzpmzzes, they are nasty creatures, and don't get bitten under the eyelids by the Hpittopotohhozsh. "Write me a line. "Love from Helen, "Your loving brother, "Beg." In September I went to New York again, very thankful to be out of England. . . . I played La Vierge Folle, translated by Mr. Ru- dolf Besier from the French of M. Henri Bataille. MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 313 At Mr. Frohman's request the play was much al- tered; the religious argument being entirely eradi- cated, thereby making it simply a story of a wife chasing a husband, who was enjoying life away from her with a "foolish virgin." At the end of the play the poor girl, overhearing the wife's appeal to the husband, shoots herself. In the French it is a fine play; the religious argu- ment against the wilful destruction of the virgin soul, and the wife's belief in her duty to be of spirit- ual help to her husband, give dignity and some ex- cuse to the ugliness of the story. The Americans disliked the play intensely. I was back in England again within four months. Bella Donna was sent to me from the St. James's Theatre to read. I did not care for the play, or the part, and refused it. About this time Helen wrote to me from America, begging me to let her and Beo return to Kensington 'Square. I was delighted to send for them, for I was very lonely there. Again Sir George Alexander scut me Bella Donna. This time I accepted the part. On December 9th, 191 1, Bella Donna was pro- duced at the St. James's Theatre. The smart world was interested, and the play made a small fortune. One night during the run of this play, I was driv- ing to the St. James's Theatre; a boy on a bicycle 314 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS coming into the main road from Rutland Gate ran into my taxi. My taxi swerved to get out of the way and smashed into another taxi. My head went through the window opposite me — I saw stars — my hatpin broke in two. Someone picked up the boy and took him to St. George's Hospital. I hailed another taxi and drove on to the theatre. My faithful Julia said "What is the matter, Ma- dam, you look so funny?" "I have been bumped about in a taxi" — but she had gone out of the room. In a few moments George Alexander came in. I told him I was all right and I was going to play. He told me to look in the glass. I looked, and the top of my head resembled Ally Sloper's! Sir George sent for a doctor, who ordered me home at once; and said ice bags were to be put on my head all night. The skin was not broken, the haemorrhage was internal. I was begged not to talk; but I was quite incapable of stopping. Little tiny threads of cotton seemed to be pulling my head up into the air. Next day and for some days afterwards my face was black and blue, and my eyes were imperceptible. Within a fortnight, though still ill, I was per- suaded by my friends. Sir Edward and Lady Stracey, to go with them by boat and motor to Aix. The doctor there said hot baths would soothe my stifif body and do me good. On the contrary, after a week they made me very ill. MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 315 A cable came from America offering me a fine tour with a one-act play of Sir James Barrie's. I hurried home. The night I arrived my son had come up from the country to see me — Beo and Helen had been living away from London; he was busy writing his play, The Dust of Egypt — Gerald du Maurier produced it later at Wyndham's Theatre with suc- cess — he looked into my face and said, "Mother, you are ill ; I'm going to sleep here." I went to bed — he sent for his wife. How glad I was to have them with me! I was in bed for over six months in one position. It was nearly nine months before I could walk. People said I was "blind" "paralysed by the taxi accident"; and the papers said I was "sinking fast." I believe nine doctors were consulted; I used to hear them talking in the room below me. But my mind possessed one feeling only, that I need not trouble about anything any more — even to lift my eyelids or move my hand. I had no sense of time; only a glorious sense of peace. There were whispers of "brain"; candles used to be held in front of me, and my eyelids lifted up. My body was the nearest thing to death that life can hold. My living mind grasped the utter futility and weariness of all this business of life, and I dwelt upon the ineffable quiet of death. At first only when my son or his wife was in the room, or a friend with a frightened face, was I able to make an effort and pull myself together — 3i6 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 33, Kensington Square — a little Queen Anne house, white panelled within, clean, austere almost — where my children had grown up — there I lay, month after month. Outside they placed straw halfway round the Square to drown the noise of the carriages that later brought friends, and many distinguished people anxious to see me, and help me if they could. Some sat by my bed and told me stories to amuse me. From my sick-bed I looked upon them with de- spair. How could these things matter, how could people be amused by them? I remember the day my devoted and beautiful daughter-in-law put her head round the screen of my bed, and whispered, as though she could hardly believe the good news, "You are going to live!" I had not seen her for many hours. To her it seemed such happy news; It only made me wretched. I should have to stand up again, face that looking-glass, think what hat I should put on, worry about George's afifairs — there was talk of bankruptcy and divorce — go to the theatre every night and act. I should have to pick up the sense- less things of life and go on with my ''career." Why? what for? — and there would be ail the bills for this illness to be faced. The old morbidity that had been my life-long enemy had got hold of me, and just to slip into my bed and out of the world seemed a splendid escape. I closed my eyes, and for some weeks MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 317 made no fight of any kind — coward that I was. The following few letters express the concern and affection my friends and others felt for me. The late Lady Savile wrote: "12, Charles Street. **I did so love getting your letter. ... It makes me so miserable to think of your being ill — I love to think of you as always well and happy and prosperous. "I am getting on slowly. I still have terrible nights of pain, but it must take time to wear off, and one must be patient. The moment you can see me and I am al- lowed to go out I shall arrive with two able-bodied men to carry me up to you. At present the doctor won't let me leave my room; so tiresome. "Dearest love. "Your loving "Violet." The day came, when I asked why there were no flowers or letters from Violet — they did not like to answer me — she was dead. Her daughter, Dorothy, wrote: "My darling Stella, "Thank you with all my heart for your dear, dear words of comfort. She loved you and I know you loved her. She was thinking of you all the time, and longing to make you well. "Please take great care of yourself. . . . You were such a help to her and made such happy hours for her. "Your loving "Dorothy." 3i8 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS "Aunt Madeline" was ill and could only come once to see me. "December 7th, 19 12. "Dearest, dearest Beatrice, "What a broken reed am I, not to be able to come to you when you are ill and call for me in your sick- ness. . . . "I have had to stay in bed with a bronchial cold, and have not been out of my room. It is a real heart sorrow to me not to be able to come to you now, to-day. "All this past week I have been thinking of you and wondering and wondering what you were deciding on with the doctors, and praying that all would be and go well with your decisions. "I was so struck with your calmness and braveness when you talked with me that day I saw you, but I don't want you to have to be calm and brave. I want you to be well and strong and happy. You have been such a faithful, loving friend to me ever since we first met. You have made me feel that you have placed me, from the first, on the list of your first and greatest friends and have never changed, and I have always felt you love me, and so I feel sad in failing to be of any use to you now just when you want me. It touched me more than I can say when Helen told me that you would rather see me now than any other friend. God bless you for that — and I do love you, and my spirit, which is strong, is with you to-day, when my worn-out, useless body cannot come ! I am glad that you are writing to me, and I hope it will not tire you. But when you have told me all that you are thinking about yourself, I shall be able to write to MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 319 you better. The first day I can get out I will come to you. "Your loving and oldest friend, "Madeline Wyndham. "God bless you and make you well." I felt, in some way, that I belonged to Aunt Mad- eline — and it was always easy to me to be quite frank with her. The closeness of our friendship began in the old days at "Clouds." When everyone had gone to bed, I would say: "Let us sit up and talk a little, sleep is such a waste of time," and she squeezed my arm and said : "Isn't it?" She gave more sympathy and understanding in an hour than another would give in a lifetime — with her knowledge of this world and of the world of art. She seemed to be in touch, too, with the world beyond. Most people are waiting for miracles. I think Aunt Madeline found miracles every- where. . . . I have never seen in anyone the same eagerness to bring friend and friend together, that each might appreciate the gift or charm of the other. She was all warmth and welcome; in her presence no one could feel "out in the cold." Many of her children and her children's children are blessed with some of her radiance. . . . 320 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS And from Africa, loving, anxious "code" cables came from my Stella. Among a multitude of letters from those in my profession and strangers, this little note from Ellen Terry: "215, King's Road, "Saturday morning. "My dear, "I'm so sorry you are ill — I knew nothing of your accident! I have been at my little cottage in the country with some of my grandchildren, and have been for the last three months so wrapped up in my own ills I had no time to read the newspapers. I, too, have had an accident; must have knocked up against something and broke my heart — at least, it is in a horrid condition and all my vitality gone. Sloth has hold on me, I fear, and I enjoy nothing but sleep ! ! ! Although I get precious little of that! "Do get well — and keep on being lovely Patricia Campbell. "Don't dream of answering this note, I just want you to know I'm sorry you're ill. I hope you have good news of little Stella. "Yours always, "Ellen Terry." D. D. Lyttelton sat with me almost every day! — endeavouring to inspire me with the beauty of life — the desire to live and to believe in life and happiness. MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 321 But directly I was alone there was that feeling that I could not take up life again. One day George came to see me; I had not seen him for a very long time; he seemed deeply moved and unhappy. His words "Live, Stella; live, and help me" touched me to the roots of my being, and the belief that I could help him remained with me. ^ * yf* yf* There was one who perhaps through the intelli- gent grasp of his genius, understood a little the nerve rack of my illness. Himself living in dreams, he made a dream-world for me. Only those who can understand this, can understand the friendship Bern- ard Shaw gave to me by my sick bed — the foolish, ridiculous letters he wrote me, and his pretence of being in love with me. He revelled in the mischievous fun and in the smiles he brought to my face. He did not care a snap of the fingers at the moment what anybody else might say or think. CHAPTER XVI. Mr. Bernard Shaw IN the early days of our acquaintance we had had conversation something like this: I: "What about God?" He: /am God." I: ''Don't be silly." He: "Where would you be without your face?" I: "I'm not going to talk to you any more." He: "Scorn me, scorn me; I don't mind. Two hundred years hence, the world will say that you were my mistress, and was our son!" There is a certain "maiden modesty" about Joey* which, to my mind, is his inimitable charm; but both his genius and his charm, are at the mercy of his Irish mischievousness — disarming and enraging. To be made to hold his tongue is the greatest in- sult you can offer him — though he might be ready with a poker to make you hold yours. His want of consideration for other people's feel- ings, is not from a lack of gentlemanliness; it is necessary sport of his brilliant impudence. But woe betide — should another say a word that belittles! In a trice, the belittled one is lifted high •I always called Mr. Bernard Shaw "Joey." 322 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 323 as the sky: mental catch-if-you-can and leap-frog, are the hobby of his genius. Is it the song of life that Joey sings, with its tragedy and finality? Or is it the song — accompanied by many delicious and sometimes glorious "tra-la-las" — of his pertin- ent intellectual triumph over some human weak- ness: the song of the would-be Superman? I have sometimes thought that perhaps it is only his human heart he hides and fears. With his permission, and braving his "You wanted to show the world that the scalp of a Superman dec- orates your wigwam — wretch that I love." I give only a few of his delightful letters ; letters that helped me through some sad days. "10, Adelphi Terrace, "28th September, 19 12. "How are you? .... "If I had another play ready I should read it to you just to find out whether you are really ill or not; but I have nothing but the Christian martyr play, a bellowing, roaring business, which would unroof your house and leave you naked beneath the worshipping stars. "And, anyhow, I never encourage illness. When I saw you last you were ill in bed, but you had the energy of ten tigresses; and your remarkably fine neck would have carried the pediment of the Parthenon like a feather if you had been snatched from between the sheets and set up as a caryatid. "It is I who need sympathy. I have just had a letter 324 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS from a suffragette, beginning, 'Poor ill-used darling.' "Don't tell Helen to write to me: she must be perfectly sick of the subject of your ridiculous and probably im- aginary illness. Get up and console ME. "Ever, "G. B. S." "Midland AdelphI Hotel, "Liverpool, "23rd October, 1912. "Stella, "You must be either better or dead. Say, oh, fairest, are you up and about? If you are, it is your duty to write to me. I hope you have fost your good looks; for whilst they last any fool can adore you, and the adoration of fools is bad for the soul. No: give me a ruined com- plexion and a lost figure and sixteen chins and a farmyard of crows' feet and an obvious wig. Then you shall see me come out strong. . . . "I haven't been quite the same man since our meeting. I suppose you are a devil: they all tell me so when I go on raving about you. Well, I don't care. I have al- ways said that it is the devil that makes the hell; but here is a devil who makes heaven. Wherefore I kiss your hands and praise Creation for you, and hope you are well, as this leaves me at present, thank God for it. This is the Irish formula, which, by the way, I should have adopted earlier in this letter, as every sentence would then have begun with Dear Stella. I used to write letters for Irish servants when I was a child. 'Dear Mother, I hope you are well, as it leaves me at present, thank God for it. Dear Mother, I saw Bridget on Friday, and she desires to be remembered to you. GEORGE BERNARD SHAW MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 325 Dear Mother, I hope you got the flannel petticoat safely. Dear Mother, etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc' "I shall be here until Sunday morning, I expect. "I have just recovered from one of the famous head- aches, and am not quite sane yet. "G. B. S." "10, Adelphi Terrace, W. C. "30th October, 19 12. "O, beautiful, illustrious, I have mountains of work upon me here, and cannot return to town until Friday morning as ever will be. ... I cannot find Androcles here, and am not quite sure that Gilbert Murray re- turned it to me when I sent it to him to Cromer; but if it be within my reach in London I will come on Friday at four and — unless you write forbidding me — bellow it in your coral ears until Kensington Square shakes down its railings. *'0, brave, high-souled lady and cleanser and inspirer of my trampled spirit, I would the post were in hell, since it will not wait another moment. . . . ''G. B. S." He came and read me Androcles. I was really too ill to listen, and it nearly killed me; in the even- ing my temperature went up dangerously high. We had some conversation about his childhood, and this unfinished letter came : "Court Lodge, "3rd November, 19 12. *'0, glorious, white marble lady, what was done to 326 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS me in my childhood was just nothing at all of an inten- tional kind. I wasn't spoiled; and I wasn't helped. No direct ill-treatment was added by anybody to the horrors of the world. Nobody forbade me to discover what I could of its wonders. 1 was taken — and took myself — for what I was: a disagreeable little beast. No- body concerned himself or herself as to what I was capable of becoming, nor did L I did not know I was different from other people (except for the worse) : far from being conceited, I hadn't even common self- respect. I have discovered all my powers from the out- side, with incredulous astonishment, or, rather, I have discovered that everybody else hasn't got them. My shyness and cowardice have been beyond belief. "G. B. S." I found out afterwards that in the following letter, Joey was treating me to a stale bit out of one of his plays: "lo, Adelphi Terrace, W. C, "8th November, 1912. "Stella, Stella, "Shut your ears tight against this blarneying Irish liar and actor. Read no more of his letters. He will fill his fountain pen with your heart's blood, and sell your most sacred emotions on the stage. He is a mass of imagination with no heart. He is a writing and talking machine that has worked for nearly forty years until its skill is devilish. I should have warned you be- fore; but I thought his white hairs and 56 years had made his philanderings ridiculous. He cares for noth- ing really but his mission, as he calls, it and his work. He Is treacherous as only an Irishman can be; he adores MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 327 you with one eye and sees you with the other as a cal- culated utility. He has been recklessly trying to please you, to delight you, to persuade you to carry him up to heaven for a moment (he Is trying to do it now) ; and when you have done It, he will run away and give It all to the mob. All his goods are in the shop window; and he'll steal your goods and put them there, too. "But don't cut him off utterly. He is really worth something, even to you, if you harden your heart against him. He win tell you that you are too great a woman to belong to any man, meaning, I suppose that he is too great a man to belong to any woman. He will warn you against himself with passionate regard for you — sincerely too, and yet knowing it to be one of his most dangerous tricks. He will warn you against his warn- ing you, not meaning you to take any warning, and he will say later on, 'I told you so.' His notion of a woman in love with him is one who turns white and miserable when he comes into the room, and is all one wretched jealous reproach.* Oh don't, don't, DON'T fall in love with him; but don't grudge him the joy he finds in writing all sorts of wild but heartfelt exquisite lies — lies, lies, lies, lies. "G. B. S." "10, Adelphi Terrace, W. C. "i8th November, 1912. "I am clearly in my second childhood (56 not 54) ; for you might be the Virgin Mary and I an Irish peas- *This is a written variation on a saying of his which ran something like this: "Englishmen are terrors to young Irishmen. If you pay an Irishwoman a gallant compliment, she grins and says, 'Arra g'along with you.' An Englishwoman turns deadly pale, and says, in a strangled voice, 'I hope you meant what you have just said.' And it is devilish difficult to explain that you didn't." 328 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS ant, and my feeling for you could not be more Innocent. "Such concord will make me silly. Let us work to- gether and quarrel and come upon all sorts of incompati- bilities. Our music must have discords in it or you will tire of it. "I think you are getting well. I hear a ring. I see a flash in your letter. The able courageous Stella is stir- ring. And perhaps she will put me away with the arrow- root. No matter, I shall rejoice and glory in her. "Good nightest. "G. B. S." "Ayot, St. Lawrence, "27th November, 1912. "Oh, all they say is true. I have no heart. Here I am with my brains grinding like millstones, writing a preface for my long belated volume of plays, and stop- ping only to bring my quick firers into action by hurling a devastating letter into some public controversy. Grind, grind; bang, bang; broken heads and broken wings everywhere within range; 'and this word Love, which graybeards call divine, be resident in men like one another and not in me: / am myself alone.' (Ap- plause, started by the tragedian himself with his boot heels.) "Stella! Who is Stella? Did I ever know anybody named Stella? Can't remember; what does it matter? I have articles to write and the preface to finish. I have to debate with Hilaire Belloc in the Queen's Hall on the 28th January. Not an advertisement has appeared, and the hall is nearly sold out already. And actresses talk to me of their popularity! I want no Stella; I want my brains, my pen, my platform, my audience, my adversary, my mission. MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 329 "Parents and children : that is the theme of my preface. The tears of countless children have fallen unavenged. I will turn them into boiling vitriol and force it into the sculs of their screaming oppressors. "It is certain that I am a callous creature; for I have let you write to me twice — no, that can't be! I did answer. But would not a man with a grain of heart have written ten times? Oh, I have been as hard as nails for a fortnight past. I was when I began this letter. I shall be so again when I post it. But now, just for a moment — only a moment — before the grind- stones begin again. "Your set-back makes me desperate : I had set my heart on your getting well with a rush this time. Oh, you must, you must, you shall. You shall be torn out of bed and shaken into rude health. Oh, why can't I do anything? What use are grindstones after all? Good- night and forgive my follies. "G. B. S." "8th December, 19 12. "My dear Mrs. Patrick Campbell, "It is so many years since I have heard from you that I have lost all hope of your retaining any kindly feeling for me. I am like a dentist: there is so much that is wounding about my work that I am continually afraid of your going back to hard thoughts of me in my most detestable moments. Mesalliance may have revived all your dislikes. I don't like myself well enough — though I admire myself enormously — to expect anyone else to like me. "I now have a mystic theory of your illness : it is a trap of the Life Force — the Elan Vitale. I once fell into that trap. I will explain viva voce. I recovered. You will 330 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS recover. But these traps of the Life Force sometimes set up a morbid routine out of which the victim has to be shaken. . . . "Now I wonder what would happen if you told the doctors that you distinctly recollect that you swallowed a brooch at rehearsal in a transport of fury and that you can feel it in your appendix. Insist on being X-rayed to detect and locate the foreign body, and see what will happen. Those X-rays are rum things: they will upset the routine that the illness has started, and they won't hurt or harm you (I speak from experience: I have had my inside X-rayed as well as my foot). I am over- whelmingly convinced that you want a change of some sort, or a shake. "I should like to see you if I may come some day next week {this week it will be when you get this). I have a very indelicate question to put to you on a matter of business, which I have put off and off and off; but I have been a little uneasy about it all along, and now I think I had better ask it, and have done with it. Could you spare me a moment on Tuesday afternoon? I had in- tended to chain myself to the gate here and have a week in the country, as my speech at the Irish Meeting on Friday — violently overacted — finished me almost; but now I am forced to produce a hasty revival of John Bull's Other Island for Boxing Day, and this means rehearsing every day from to-morrow on. "If all the saints and all the angels and the Blessed Virgin were all rolled into one beautiful woman and all the prayers and adorations, and loves and worships they drew to themselves were concentrated into one holy passion, it would all be as — no room to finish. Guess the rest. "G. B. S." MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 331 I do not remember his coming and talking to me about this ^'matter of business"; evidently he did, and I was offended. This letter was the outcome : "loth December, 19 12. "Shall I tell you the calculations I have been going over in my head ever since you became ill? Listen. "Money. She must have money to go on with. Has she any? Let me see. £116 a week all through the run of Bella Donna. Half to the bankers to pay off debts. That leaves £58 a week going to her credit. But it also proves that the bankers must have allowed her to overdraw recklessly. For that, the bank manager ought to be sacked; for there are no securities: she told me she had saved nothing. Unless the bank has insured her life, the manager's conduct in permitting the over- draft is unbusinesslike to the verge of malversation. Therefore, either the manager or the firm (or more probably all of them) is in love with her. That being so, they may say: 'Perish the bank; let her have the last sovereign in the safe rather than she should have a mo- ment's anxiety.' In their place I should have that im- pulse. "But business is business: in practice there is a limit to all overdrafts. That limit may be approaching — may be already reached — must be near enough to cause some anxiety. Are there friends? — for pride is no use: when you must have money, you must take it or raise it — must, must, must, must, MUST. If friends didn't offer and insist, she might go to a moneylender. She would. Delicacy. That's the difficulty. A woman is visibly spending money like water and earning nothing; and people talk of delicacy ! Thank God, / have no delicacy, no good taste : she said so. Oh, sweet revenge, to turn 332 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS myself, like Jupiter with Dans, into a shower of gold! Only I haven't gold enough. . . . No: it doesn't run to a shower. "How much will she need? No, I -must be prudent: how little can she scrape through with? There's the rent, the Xmas quarter. The Xmas boxes, bills, nurses, doctors. Of course she is saving a lot by being in bed: no dressing, no taxis. The thought that there might be a bill of sale on that piano is like a dagger. Insistent problem: how much will make her quite free from anx- iety until she is up again? And how much can I afford? No use pretending to be opulent; I'm not. The Xmas fortnight: would £250 get her over it? "Oh, God! To offer Stella a filthy little £250. I spit on myself; but she says she can't keep money; gives it to whoever asks her; despicable weakness. Better, perhaps, dole out a little at a time: other fortnights will follow Xmas. How much can I afford? Ass. Why ask that question over and over again? You know per- fectly well that you want to give her a thousand pounds. Very well, put your cheque book in your pocket and go to her and ask her. If she does not want it there is no harm done? You are no use: that is all. If she does want it, and will not take it, there are ways — artful ways — guileful ways — but the simple way is sincere and will do. True, she will suddenly realize that I am, after all, a stranger to her; but what of that! She is not a stranger to me, and she has forfeited the right to refuse because she has given me money, and would give it to me if I wanted it. Can I seriously believe she will say, 'In- solent stranger: you have violated my pride, my privacy, my feeling that I must be a star and not a candle lighted by a man with a match. Ring the bell, and have yourself turned out'? MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 333 "I wasn't a bit afraid of that. And that is the whole argument that ended yesterday. "My grandfather used to say that no living man, prince or pauper, could refuse a five pound note if you crackled it under his nose? Say what you will, there's something dignified about a thousand pound note. Wouldn't you like to take it and burn it before my face? Quel geste? I could take the number, swear to the burning, get another one, crackle that, too. "Stella, if those bankers — no, don't be angry, I only say IF, IF, IF, IF, IF. And so enough of that. Only, if ever you want anything ever so little, remember — crackle, crackle, crackle crackle. "G. B. S." I am ashamed to say that for a moment this offer made me indignant; later I realised it was a glimpse of Joey's heart, and I was very touched; but whether he was hurt or relieved by my refusal of the thou- sand pounds he has never told me. After about eight months it was finally decided that I should go into a Nursing Home. He wrote: — "This is the day of battle; and when the trumpet sounds, good-bye to dread and terrors; they are for cowards like me (I am your knight of the White Feather, brave Stella) ; you must march with colours flying and the music in D major. And you shall leave me the ad- dress of that home* which will be the home of my heart * Nursing Home. 334 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS while you are there. And I agree that when you are well we shall be Mr, Bernard Shaw and Mrs. Patrick Campbell; for Stella means only Stella, but Mrs. Patrick Campbell will mean my adored, ensainted friend. "A thousand successes, a thousand healings, a thou- sand braveries, a thousand prayers, a thousand beauties, a thousand hopes and faiths and loves and adorations watch over you and rain upon you. Good night, good night, good night, good night. "G. B. S." He was firmly convinced that he had been the kindest of critics during his old exploits as a Satur- day Reviewer of the theatre. "If people had only known the things I didn't say," was one of his ex- cuses. I reminded him of his callous attitude towards my work, and this letter came. "4th January, 1913. "Dearest Liar, I have found you out. You have been tormenting me for weeks because I wrote odious things about you in the past. Well yesterday C wanted a copy of that American reprint of my Saturday Review articles which I so dread, and I got it for him. And be- fore I sent it away I screwed my courage up and forced myself to read the articles about you. And what a revelation! What a relief! What a triumph! Never did a man paint his infatuation across the heavens as I painted mine for you, rapturously and shamelessly. Not a line would have jarred with my wildest letters to you. First Tanqueray. Sweep this silly piece away and let us hear this glorious woman play; it is only an MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 335 unbearable interruption to her. Then Ebbsmith smashed, pulverized, flung into the dustbin: it proves nothing but that Mrs. Campbell is a wonderful woman. Then Romeo and Juliet. Mrs. Campbell danced like 'the daughter of Herodias.' Away with the play, away with Shakespeare, away with 'Juliet': nothing of it re- mains except her dance, and that shall endure for ever. Then I came to Michael and His Lost Angel, and I trembled, for I well remember how Jones read that play to me, and what he had done for you (by this I mean, how much pains he had taken to write the part for you), and what he hoped from you, and how he was at the height of his achievement then, and how heartlessly you flung him aside and trampled on him. And he had been entirely kind and helpful to me. I said to myself, 'I cannot have forgiven her for this: I dare not read the next notice.' But I nerved myself, and did: the notice of For the Crown. Criticism? Just Gods! a mad rapture of adoration. Not even silence about Jones, but an open declaration that the sacrifice was worth it if only it pleased you. Ten thousand Joneses and Pineros and Shakespeares were nothing in comparison. I would not hear even of your acting. 'On the highest plane one does not act, one is.* I would not have even 'Juliet': Stella, Stella, nothing but Stella. Nothing that you could do was wrong: everything was a glory. And you, wretch, dare reproach me for this because I did not say, 'Mrs. Campbell's rendition of the potion scene was sound and scholarly, and her readings of the text were original and profound.' That was what you wanted, Mrs. Crummies. And I rolled Pinero in the dust beneath your feet (the feet I kissed with my pen), and told Jones publicly that he was fortunate to be insulted by you; and these two men are my friends and have never 336 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS breathed a reproach, whilst you say that I treated you shamefully and did not appreciate you. Are you not afraid of drawing down lightning on yourself? I! I, who burnt up Shakespeare so that his sparks might whirl about you in a halo of glory. I challenge you passion- ately to produce one word that has ever been written of you by anybody that is more abandoned in its confession, that shouts more recklessly to all the world that the writer is your utter captive. 'And so good-night, with unfathomable blessings. "G. B. S." Friends used to come and play chess with me at the Nursing Home. I remember Mr. Max Beer- bohm playing so brilliantly that I made up my mind never to touch a chessman again! However, one day I persuaded Joey — in spite of his hatred of all games — to have a game with me: the following letter was the result: "id, Adelphi Terrace, W. C. "29th January, 1913. "It has come back to me that my mother used to say, 'Prise to your queen' when she wanted to warn me that my queen was in danger. I suppose it was prise; but it may have been preeze, or preys (or the analogy of keys), or anything. I can't imagine that I have been playing chess, or that I remembered so much about it. "I enjoyed myself enormously. You are such a jolly playfellow. And such a child! An old-fashioned child! I should like to spend an hour every day with you in the nursery. I no longer want you to act for me : I can't bear the idea of your having to work — you are not MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 337 grown up enough. And you don't want me to be busy, but to come and play. I am so tempted that I must set up a barrier of engagements between us. "There are such wonderful sorts of relations, and close togethernesses, and babes-in-the-woodinesses, be- sides being in love, which, as you point out, my diet and feeble nature forbid. I may have moments of being in love, but you must overlook them. 'And now, having expressed myself with carefully punctuated moderation, I shall go to bed quite calmly, and sign myself, oh, loveliest, doveliest, babiest, "Your gabiest, "G. B. S." "7th February, 19 13. "Now a last line. I wish I could write verses. Why do not rhymes come tumbling into my head naturally, as they did into Morris's? I have to play things, sing things, repeat things, that you set jingling in my head. It seems to me that all the poets have been in love with you; for they seem to have said everything; and my words that would praise thee are impotent things; and I was a child and she (you) was (were) a child in a kingdom by the sea; and it is undeniable that the moon never beams with- out bringing me dreams, and the stars never rise but I see the bright eyes, and so on and so forth; but if I try to make verses for myself I can think of no rhyme to Stella but umbrella, and only too damn well I love Mrs. Camp- bell, and horrors of that sort. The thing should rush into my head or come to my hand as prose does — ready made. I never have to think of how to say anything in prose: the words come with the thought. I often have to argue a thing carefully to get it right; but when I have found the right thing to say it says itself instantly; 338 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS and matters of teeling don't even have to be argued. Yet when I want frightfully to ringle-jingle with words they don't come that way. I suppose it's want of prac- tice : if I had always written in verse I probably couldn't write in anything else, which would be a nuisance. When Morris talked prose in criticism of things he didn't much like, he was often at a loss for a word, and used me as a dictionary. I used to hand him the word he was looking for; and he would snatch it up with relief, though he could sling rhymes without having to think about them, and used to look at me with incredulous dis- gust when I told him that when I wanted a rhyme I had to try down the alphabet: Stella, bella, sella, della, fellah, hella, hell a, quell a, sell a, tell a, well a, yell a, Campbell, bramble, gamble, ramble, etc., etc. He did not consider poetry worth all that trouble — and I agree: I always tell people that if they can't do three-quarters of any art by nature they'd better sweep a crossing. "My mother cut a wisdom tooth when she was eighty. I ask myself sometimes, am I cutting a folly tooth at fifty-six? Still, one has to become as a little child again — in that kingdom by the sea. "I have been reading John Palmer's book on the censorship (he is my successor on the Saturday Review now, and much the cleverest of the lot), and he says: 'Mr. Shaw is a militant Puritan, to whom the West End theatre is definitely the gate of hell.' Am I really a Puritan? 'The beautiful Puritan pansies' — yes, I think I am. Good-night. The birds will cover us up with leaves. "G. B. S." Though he wrote and talked as if no other con- sideration existed in the world except his regard for MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 339 me, his work, his endless political lectures and com- mittees, and his very well regulated house came be- fore everything. Whatever might betide, Charlotte (Mrs. Shaw) must not be kept waiting ten minutes. To me, accustomed to the irregularities and emergen- cies of the theatre, which make all meals movable feasts to be put off or hurried on at a moment's no- tice, Joey's inflexible domesticy seemed absurd; es- pecially as he would have me believe he only ate apples, carrots and potatoes. This letter is an example of his busy life, begin- ning as it does with an explanation that he has some- thing better to do than to see me, and ending with a rhapsody. "26th February, 1913. "Next week will be a week of oratory — two orations, Monday and Thursday. "On Friday and Saturday the afternoons are filled to the last moment. On Sunday I shall be at Ayot. On Monday, committee and oratory as aforesaid will occupy me wholly. On Tuesday you may have fled to Brighton. This seems to justify me in coming to-morrow, if I may? As you must take a drive if you can, I will not come until five. If that is too early, or if you are tired, send me a wire before two. "Remember that I am always your saint, and that my ecstasy will survive disembodiment. You must always sit enthroned in heaven for me. If you stopped doing that, my unbreakable (or perhaps broken) heart would harden. "It is an enormously unreasonable demand to make on 340 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS a mortal woman; but I make it, man-like, because I do not believe in mortality. "G. B. S. "Keep in the clouds with her! You will never educate her on earth, and never tire of her in heaven." "28th February, 1913. "Who mashed Stella? I, that rejoice In a nice Irish voice, / mashed Stella. "Who made her smile? Dis very chile. With my winks and my wile, / made her smile. "Who'll be her man? Why, he that can, Apollo or Pan, I'll be her man. "Who is a fool? I, as a rule, (The happiest fool), / am a fool. "Who is her friend? Stella's true friend, World without end, / am her friend." MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 341 When my recovery was complete and I was at work again, I learnt that his sister Lucy was an in- valid. I said I would like to go and see her: his comment was *'Go; she will tell you lies about my childhood ; the relatives of great men always do." I became very attached to Lucy; he was pleased, but insisted that I must not on any account kiss her, for fear of infection. This struck me as fantastic — an incurable invalid to be made to feel she was too infectious to kiss! Had I murmured "noblesse oblige," he would have grunted "theatrical effect at any price." I always kissed Lucy. "17th June, 1913. (( The enclosed letter from Lucy may please you a little. This marble heart was most affectionately grate- ful to you for that visit. You are my friend and my darling, and I forgive you for not coming down to-day. The country was disappointed. The rabbits and field mice were waiting in the lanes for you; and when they saw it was only me on my reeking, snorting bike, they scuttled away in disgust. The heavens were furious; they thundered and hurled such mouthfuls of rain at me that the lanes became torrents In five minutes. "You can't come to-morrow, because you have a matinee. "If you will come on Thursday, I will not come up until Friday, though I ought to. "If you had come to-day you would have got damp; 342 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS but we should have had tea here, perhaps. There is a little rift in the clouds at last. "G. B. S." Joey and I had some "words" at the theatre — prob- ably over negotiations about Pygmalion — and I spent nearly an hour telling him nothing would ever make a gentleman of him; the next day he wrote as follows: "25th June, 1913. "... I was in heaven yesterday. Spoke to the Queen. A dear woman and frightfully beautiful. "She just slanged me in the most shocking way for a full hour: and I adored her and burnt endless candles to her all the time. In the end my prayers touched her. And now I have a halo inside like this. "G. B. S." At rehearsal, in pressing my hand on a rough wooden table, I had managed to get a splinter under my thumbnail. The next day I went to see Lucy: Joey and her doctor were there: they took me to a chemist, where a surgical instrument was found to remove the splinter. Joey exclaimed with enthusiasm — as my nail was being slowly lifted and the splinter withdrawn, the veins in my neck swelling in my efforts to resist the pain — "By jove! what a throat, 'Michael AngeloM" This time I felt Joey's admiration was sincere. His letter shows he was full of sympathy. MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 343 "6th August, 1913. * ... I think all that was good for my soul because it tore everything that was selfish and imaginary right out of me, and made you a real fellow creature in real pain. (O Lord, my fibres all twist and my heart and bowels torment me when I think of it) : and the more real you become the more I discover that I have a real, real, real kindness for you, and that I am not a mere connoisseur in beauty or a sensualist or a philanderer, but a — but a — a — I don't know what; But something that has deep roots in it that you pluck at. Only why should you have to be hurt to cure me of selfishness and of little fits of acting? Why should it not be an ecstasy of happi- ness for you, that would move me too, perhaps still more deeply? 'Are you very tired and low in the counter-reaction? For in the reaction after the pain I am sure you were wonderful. If I were with you, I would cheat that counter-reaction somehow — say all sorts of things (all true) to make you forget it. "G. B. S." His wildest letters I do not give. Had I asked him why he expressed himself with such frantic intensity, he would most probably have answered, "You may notice the same thing in Shakes- peare." Strong feeling exalted him — but the slightest con- tretemps would turn his fantastic adoration into al- most alarming abuse. When my illness was over, the real friendship which exists to-day was between us. 344 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS This funny incident happened when I was nearly well again, but not yet able to walk. Joey insisted that he could make me walk in five minutes and jump in ten. We went for a drive to Richmond Park, and on the way he told me about physical exercises, and the force of will on the play of human muscles. We drew up before a low bench, he got out, helped me out, and said, "Watch me." With this he doubled himself up, his Aquascutum playing in the wind, and said "You jump like this" as he leapt on to the seat. I bent and tried to spring, but it was no use; I could not move. Again gestic- ulating and explaining, he leaped a second time triumphantly on to the seat! Mr. John Burns, M. P., passed by at this moment in an open brougham. I have never heard whether Mr. Burns has al- luded to this extraordinary exhibition! One day two lovely American girls came to see me. Joey called at the same time. I was out. When I returned all three were lying face down- wards on the floor. He was explaining the beauty and profit of some Swedish exercises. I remember a young society lady asking him at my house humbly and politely if she might act a play of his for a charity performance. "No: no one can play my plays who cannot walk a tight-rope!" She replied sweetly, "I can do double splits," and straightway did them. Joey stared in amaze- ment. Some years later, in his play Pygmaliorij he sue- MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 345 ceeded in making me exclaim ''bloody"* nightly be- fore a thousand people — he thought to conquer my pre-Raphaelite instinct. I invented a Cockney accent and created a human "Eliza Doolittle" f for him: and because the last act of the play did not travel across the footlights with as clear dramatic sequence as the preceeding acts — owing entirely to the fault of the author — he declared I might be able to play a tune with one finger, but a full orchestral score was Greek to me. Some wept at the finish of this play, for no one knew what had happened to the two characters they had grown to love. After all — Elijah, went to heaven in a chariot — you must end your story somehow. Later, he wrote the end of the story of "Eliza Doolittle"; when he found I had not read it. He sent me the following letter: "7th March, 1917 ". . . There are four depths of illiteracy, each deeper than the one before : I. The illiteracy of H I . IL The illiteracy of those illiterate enough not to know that he was illiterate. in. The illiteracy of those who have never read my works. IV. The illiteracy of 'Eliza Doolittle,' who couldn't even read the end of her own story. * Sir Herbert Tree implored me to "cut" the word, but, if I must say it, to say it "beautifully." t The heroine of Pygmalion. 346 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS "There is only one person alive who is such a Monster of Illiteracy as to combine these four illiteracies in her single brain. And I, the greatest living Master of Let- ters, made a Perfect Spectacle of myself with her, before all Europe. "G. B. S." If an artist has a personality that will force its way through, spoiling the effect of Joey's brilliant dia- logue — he shudders and laughs murderously. "Tree old chap, must you be treacly?" he said at a rehearsal of Pygmalion before the company and "stage hands"; nobody laughed; they knew death should have been Joey's punishment. And he thought to cheer me when he remarked, "Good God; you are forty years too old for 'Eliza'; sit still, and it is not so noticeable." To "sit still" with your hands folded in your lap for three-quarters of an hour, a glare of indignation in your eyeballs, while somebody else for the same length of time stands with his back to the fire, and another sits in an armchair — nobody budging ex- cept for some practical purpose of turning up a light, or picking up a newspaper, or ringing a bell — is Joey's idea of perfect stage management. His genius and passion for debate often cut across the rhythmical movement of his drama, harming the natural sequence of emotion, and making the artist feel his own imagination is but an interruption. Don't think: I have thought for you, is Joey's at- titude to us poor players. < CHAPTER XVII. Sir James Barrie 1 CALLED him ^'Jim" when I wrote to him, and when I saw him, I said "Hullo!" I never called him "Mr. Barrie," or "Sir James." I do not know why. I blessed him most at a rehearsal of The Adored One. The producer having put his arm round my waist said, "No, my dear, you go here, and then you turn there, and you say your line like this" : I grew silent as doom, cold as the snows on Fuji-Yama. Out of the stalls on to the stage, with his pipe in his mouth and his hat on the back of his head, came the author, and, with that Scotch accent that leaves you cool and calm, said: "I think perhaps she will do better if you leave her alone." During the first night of The Adored One — what a lovely part Leonora was — he came into my dressing room and told me no one had ever worked for him more beautifully before. Leonora pushed a man out of a railway carriage because her little girl had a cold and he wouldn't shut the window. She says it over and over again during her trial for murder in spite of all the efforts of judge, counsel, 347 348 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS jury, and friends to stop her. In the end she is declared "Not guilty." This little story Barrie made into a play of magical tenderness, fun, and beauty. Pamela Lytton,* Dolly Gladstone, f Beo, and I went to look for him after the performance. We went to his flat; he was not there. We went to the Savoy; he was not there. Then back again to his rooms; he was not there. We looked at Joey's win- dows opposite — all was dark; then back again we went to the Savoy and had supper, then once more to Jim's rooms: this time we found him. With what gentleness and dearness he received us — and how proud we were to talk with him at that time of night! Whenever I am with him I feel a monstrous being. I want to be a little child and have him tell me about things that only he knows. It is the guilelessness and trust of a child he treasures. I fancy he winks one eye at the wisdom of the grown-ups. I have a desire to be without a flaw in his presence. This must be because I love and admire him very much. But it is when life hits you between the eyes that Jim shows the stufif he's made of. The following is his answer to a letter of mine, asking his permission to publish some letters of his to me. * Countess of Lytton. t Viscountess Gladstone. MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 349 "3, Adelphi Terrace House, "November, 192 1. "My dear Stella, "I am much elated to find that you have preserved for so long those two old letters of mine. Is the faint per- fume that I fondly think comes from them really laven- der? And if it is (I wish I hadn't thought of this), is it lavender meant for me, or were my little missives merely kept so near the beautiful G. B. S. budget that in time they stole some of the sweetness in which I am sure his lie wrapped? "This misgiving has come upon me suddenly, and I am rather dashed by it. My two little Benjamins are shrinking before my eyes. All I see clearly now is the sweet Shaw bundle, encircled by a pale blue ribbon. I doubt whether my pair were preserved intentionally. I daresay they got into his lot by mistake, and just fell out one day when the ribbon burst. Or an instinct of self-preservation had made them creep in there. They probably thought that sometime, when you sat in the dusk with the G. B. S. bundle in your lap, you might in- advertently fondle them also. "All this is a bitter pill for me, who in the first thrill of seeing them again had hoped deliriously that you kept them because you could not part from them. I con- ceived you (mad fool that I was) carrying them every- where in a gold bag attached to your wrist, constantly being late for dinner because you must have one more peep at them, climbing ladders for them when the house went on fire. I was proud to feel that (even though you could not read them) they were a solace to you when you were depressed and a big brother if you were almost reckless. A nauseous draught. "Another thing strikes me — that you preserved them 350 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS to ask me to read them to you some day. I tell you flatly that I cannot read them. Even the 'Stella' seems to me (the more I look at it) to have an odd appearance. Hold It sideways and It is more like 'Beatrice.' Were you ever called 'Beatrice'? A horrible sinking comes over me that these letters were never meant for you at all. "Even if they were, there is no proof nowadays that they were written by me, for the handwriting is en- tirely different from that of this letter. I am trusting that my new superb penmanship is amazing you, even as you gaze at It through blinding tears. The explanation is that since the days of these two letters my right hand has gone on strike — writer's cramp — and I have had to learn to indite with the left. Perhaps these letters CL. \^<7^}xMjt. si^^^w^ lo*<^^ cv<£y vKt iKid "Uiie ixAj^ Wr— ^v** * f^^ *>wj f -'? r. • >'^^-,' Cf 354 1 l^^^vf^^a vv*X' S jvm lA*.^^ v^ "^ cu* «•», <^ ^ /^^ vIj^^ ^*'»- ^^' /p^iA^ •- 355 f-v. ^ Vw U'l uA-^ "J w/vJ^' 356 y^ '5 357 358 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS "26th November, 1913. "My dear Beatrice, "It is great that you should be recovering so quickly, and I am very glad. Mr. Frohman arrives in London in a fortnight, so the best plan is to wait until he comes. He knows I want you, and I hope it will all be easily arranged. I expect that after this long rest your energy will be appalling. "I have some relations coming to-day to stay with me for a week, else I would have gone down to see you. I meet the other weather man at times in our street, and ask after you and see him blushing. I used to find him staring in at the window by the florist's shop, but now he gazes at neckties. Any day he may blossom out in socks, slips, and spats: 'all for her,' as the dramatists say. I now pause to draw this picture of him on my blotting paper. "J. M. B." Someone else must write about my faults. They will, perhaps, be kinder to me than I could be to my- self. But I can say this, — I shall die wiser than I was born. I have le.arned a few things. "It is mind that makes man, and soul that makes man angel." .... It is far easier for men and women of the world, with keen knowledge of world-values, to see through the glamour of the artist; than it is for the artist — not concerned about world-values, and hampered by MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 359 imagination — to see through the glamour of the men and women of the world. People we love must be loved as they are. It is a want both of wisdom and courage on our part — a sort of drug — this wilful blindness, to blame them, because they fail our vision of them. . . . I do not like unreal people; but it is dangerous to interfere with their pretence. Slowly a monster may face you, and turn and rend you. I thought once that untruthful people would at least listen to truth — not a bit of it. Want of interest and curiosity in things that are ugly leaves us ignorant of a great deal of useful knowledge. I cannot see the resurrection of cold, callous, and unaffectionate hearts. I feel with Robert Louis Stevenson — I think it was he who said — "The greatest beggar is the man who has no words." Youth is harmed by having wisdom thrust upon it. Youth must gather wisdom slowly, in laughter and tears. 360 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS I remember a little bird beautifully made of wool my mother kept on her window sill. I said, "Dar- ling, that is so dirty and old, why don't you throw it away?" "No; I cannot, someone took so much trouble to make it." It is just that effort to make "beautifully," which Js to "give" and is the greater part of inspiration. "To make," "to take," and "to have" is the devil's luck. This is a good foundation for art criticism. English dignity and reserve do not impress me — but that they are clever without cunning, and meet injury without treachery — that is what I love. I have met a reserved and pompous dignity that hid a murky mind. I like butlers to be official ; and those who nurse the sick, cheerful. Superficial amiability I dislike; but an intelligent, straightforward, and frank manner, backed by instinctive breeding, is the best all over the world. When the animal nature in man is completely dominant, we may be sure that the mind is diseased. An American doctor told me nobody would be evil if their brain molecules were normal. MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 361 I once asked a kind veterinary surgeon why dogs were so much nicer than people. His answer was, "Nearly all bad dogs are drowned, all mad dogs are shot!" And I do believe I heard myself saying, "That is how it should be with us" — but that is God's business. There is an odd selfishness and egotism about ac- tors and actresses, and most public people. Public life forces this upon them. We cannot perform, unless our trust and faith in ourselves, our power, our taste, our looks, our voice, our movements, and our own thought, are for the moment paramount. If we hesitate or feel humili- ated, we are lost; just a few are blessed with the re- bound of the brave creative spirit; they are perhaps less selfish and vain, because they are more sure. There is no doubt artists need much sympathetic and vital companionship, and care of a particular kind. I remember a story a friend told me of a valuable cob she lent to some gay friends with her dogcart. The creature knew she had to go well that day, and off she flew like the wind, with her burden. When they returned in the late afternoon the cob fell at the door. The people were ignorant — selfish — they had over-driven her. 362 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS I would say to everyone, "Cherish your 'cobs,' your racers, your singing birds and your artists. . . ." I agree with a friend of mine who says, we ought to take off our hats to all human beings who have ar- rived at the age of forty, acknowledged sane, morally and mentally. It was Abraham Lincoln who said, the one thing he could not pardon was disloyalty in his own house — It is a dreadful thing, but it can be done. The two best things to know I learned last: the meaning of the Lord's Prayer and the word For- give A friend of mine told me a story of a woman she saw praying in a cathedral abroad, kneeling with upturned face before a crucifix. My friend heard her words: "J'accepte tout! J'accepte tout! J'accepte tout!" When we can say that, we are indeed "gay, and fit for Paradise." DD. Lyttelton is among the friends I love who neither spoil nor flatter me. She never hesitates to tell me my faults: "I wish, Stella darling, people did not call you 'difficult'; but they do, and you are; do be careful." She was the first to encourage me to write, and MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 363 she will be the first to say how amateurish my book is! DD. has a wonderful gift of affection, though I have thought she is sometimes too ready with her "there are faults on both sides." She is extraordinarily generous, but not in the least extravagant. She would pawn her jewels for a friend — but wait until someone she loved grumbled, before buying herself a quite inexpensive hat. To help a friend in grief and trouble, she will take endless and exhaustive pains. My foolish belief that things are what they appear, and my faith in "instinct" — the only gift given us for nothing — and my feeling that compromise is a form of cowardice — she often makes me ashamed of. And yet, when she says, "Stella, you are so absolutely ignorant of the world," I am content. I have heard her criticised; I think this is because she has no patience with affected charm, and takes no interest in the "merely smart," and is very critical. Her joy — when Sir Edwin Lutyens showed her how her house could be divided in half, so that her son might marry the girl he loved, and have a home ready to bring her to — no friend of hers will ever forget. DD. loves the theatre more than I do ; she will go in a 'bus, on a wet night, and sit in the pit, happily watching indifferent actors in an indifferent play. She has genius for organisation — a passionate love 364 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS of literature, and is interested in the whole round world, and — in the echo from the world beyond. Some day, I fancy she will write a fine play — per- haps, for me. Margaret and Jack Mackail were blessed in many ways — a pathway made ready for their feet — a light to guide them. I remember Pamela Wyndham * saying to me at "Clouds": "It would be an honour to black their boots." Intelligence, goodness, and simple beauty ruled their lives, leaving no room for fools and madmen — and the world is full of fools and madmen. I think these few letters show the tenderness of their early love for me, and mine for them. "Rottingdean, "25th December, 1894 "Dearest, "... Are you really thinking of going to America? I suppose there is something to be said for it, though one can't think of anything except how one would miss you and the queer beautiful radiance that goes about with you. "I wish you the best Christmas wishes, and my love to Pat and the dear little boy. "Jack." "30th September, 1895. "Dearest Stella, *'I forgot to give you my book last night. How we bullied you, and how well you bore it! * Now Viscountess Grey of Falloden. MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 365 "When one has lost one's first nerve and audacity (a thing that happens to everybody) it is only by 'style' that it can be replaced. That is the second education in art, and a harder one, but in the end more fruitful, than the first. "My love. "Jack." "i2th May, 1894. "Darling, "We don't come home till Saturday 19th, and the children being at 'The Grange' this house will be empty and glad to receive you and Pat if you should find your- selves houseless a few nights. Please remember that I shall leave my latchkey with mother, who will give it to you if you take shelter here. . . . "About Duse — it was a great disappointment to find that she did not appeal to us at all; her naturalness, if that is what it is, wore one out, and my cry was, 'More art! More art!' I. sat like a stone between two melting spectators whose secret strings vibrated at her every word and gesture; it is so personal, isn't it? I very much want you to see her and to talk about her with you. "Ellen Terry says she is the biggest of all. I feel left out in the cold, not to grasp her greatness. Duval's father was more comic than anything ever before seen on the stage, but the audience behaved with great self- restraint. • • • "Margaret." "20th September, 1896. "My own Girl, "I wonder so much how all is going with you, and how 366 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS Beo IS, and how plans are, and when you will be in Lon- don and we can see you. "Oh I wish I could give you the peace and heavenly happiness Clare makes — I really think it would be happy for you to be with her; like a tender little poultice to your worried heart. She baffles all words. You must come and cuddle her, and see her gay innocent smile, and hear her conversation. . . . "I am in London, can I do anything for you? . . . "Now that we are settled, the summer with its long hot days, and you rushing in, and me in your nightgowns seems all a dream. By the way, give me an address to send them to please, and do you like pink or blue ribbon in them? I entreat you not to say, 'Keep them,' in your generosity, for they are no use to me, now, and not as comfy as my own; but they were just salvation at the time, and it was only you in your wonderful realising sympathy who could have thought of such a thing. The teagowns, too, were a blessing: and oh, the turquoises on that yellow one. . . . "My love and thoughts are all round and about you, and will be with you in that awful country, darling. "Your loving "Margaret." "31st December, 1894. "Darling, "A little line of blessing on you, all next year, and of thankfulness to you for all you have been of illumination and beauty to us both, this year. "Loving "Margaret." Frances Horner* was another friend who never ♦Lady Horner. MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 367 flattered me; and often delighted in teasing me. Long ago, I spent happy days with her at "Mells." I do not fancy she really cared for the theatre, or appreciated the strain and stress of the life. It was simply in the splendid kindness of her heart that she stretched out her arms to me. I admired her tremen- dously and her lovely home. I remember her taking me out in a stanhope and pair in a thunderstorm. The horses stood on their hind legs, while she laughed merrily, assuring me her horses always stood on their hind legs, and they loved thunderstorms, especially the lightning. To swim in the lake at the bottom of the garden, generally at a spot where it was forty feet deep, was the family's great amusement in warm weather. ''It is quite easy, Stella. Here's a bathing dress; jump in!" And Sir John said: "I'll help you; don't be frightened!" I jumped in, and threw my arms tight around his neck; we both nearly drowned. Frances pulled me out amidst peals of laughter from the children. How young we were! She has a readiness and wit amounting to genius, and a gift for housekeeping that beggars descrip- tion. With a smile and a few sweet words she could within a few hours, get her cook to serve a dinner to twelve of the most distinguished people in Lon- don, and every dish could be taken as a personal com- pliment. 368 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS She laughs without noise, and weeps with no sug- gestion of hysterics. She can speak of the dead, making them live before you, and as she smilingly tells of their cleverness, their fun, the tears fill her eyes and roll down her cheeks — dear Frances. And there were our talks at night, too. She is a friend who gives confidence for confidence. I can see her sitting by the fire in my bedroom, with her hair like fairy gold, her hand pushing through it, lifting it, an aureole of sunbeams around her head, as she says: "Stella, life is like that; it's just a matter of fate whom we love. It may be a good man, or it may be a bad man ; it may be a fool, or it may the right one." Mark, her youngest son, as a very small child, made you love and respect the little world of his own, where the coachman was "king," and the maid who used to look after him "queen." I heard him, as quite a little boy, say to the coach- man with inimitable dignity: "And are you a married man?" At a certain large luncheon party at Buckingham Gate the door opened, and Mark came in with a tiny pistol and some small pink caps. He walked solemnly round the table, firing a little cap at each guest. The guests, thinking it polite, no doubt, took no notice of him, much to Mark's disappoint- ment. Frances smiled indulgently. Mark came up to me and fired. I quietly slipped off my chair on to the floor — dead. I remember his mother's MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 369 smile of gratitude. From that moment Mark and I were friends. . . . And the beauty of Edward and Cicely and Kath- erine — The happiness of those days in that lovely garden at '^Mells" is blurred by what lies between. . . . On the afternon of the day, when on every pla- card there was the one word "WAR" I went to see Frances; I remember her bending head on my shoul- der and her heart-breaking tears. . . . Beo was in America. I cabled to him to come and help. He had anticipated me; his answer was: "Have arranged, sailing.' V The late Lord Wemyss was nearly eighty years of age, when I first knew him. His aflfection and his letters, and his interest in my life, and my children meant a great deal to me. I remember once taking a famous actress to lunch with him, and how dreadfully upset he was about her fingernails — pointed, reddened an astonishing vermilion — they caught his eye unmercifully. I explained to him afterwards that it was the fashion, but he was distressed. He said: "Nothing should be a fashion that disturbs conversation and attracts the eye from the human countenance." Courtesy was the breath of his being. I know no one now who makes every woman they address feel a queen. At Gosford, I believe my little dog was the only 370 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS dog that was ever allowed to sit at the table at meals. As a child I always felt I was ugly. When I was about fifteen I remember an old friend of ours saying to me: ''Child, your face is silver like the moon ; if I were a young man, it would make me weep." I thought he was silly; now I think he must have been a very nice man, with the heart of a poet. I remember my mother telling me I had red hair when I was born, and how glad she was. A Canadian lady wrote to me some years ago: — "I do not feel that photographs can do you justice. You will laugh when I tell you that more than half your facial expression comes from the nervous texture of your skin — your face, or, rather, your skin in moments of excitement is luminous, and gives a curiously beautiful contour to your face. There are little reflected lights about brow and eye that no photo can give. I am so puzzled to know if it is the simple beauty of your char- acter, or the subtle complex personality of your artist self, that attracts me." My face is not a "mask" — it speaks as I speak, so I have some respect for it. I look my best when I am very ill, which means the bones of my face are good and my features are placed well. My hands are Italian in shape. "Aunt Madeline" took a plaster cast of one for me and Lord ELIZA DOOLITTLE IN "pygmalion" MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 371 Wemyss had it done into bronze, and the hand looks lovely. The following poem to me was written by a well- known London manager. His wife gave me her per- mission to publish all the poems he wrote to me. Unfortunately, the book they were in has disap- peared — she asked me for it and I thought I gave it to her, but she says "no" : To Beatrice. Come in a dream, beloved, if thy feet Are weary, thro' the valley of the night; Sure are the wings of drowsy thought, and fleet To bear thee through the shadows to the light. Grey is the world between us, let us go Far to the land where only lovers are : All day the hours like laughing waters flow And all the night beneath a patient star. There is a garden where the echoes treasure Thy footfall as an old-remembered song. The ilex and the cypresses will pleasure To swathe thee in their shade. O, stay not long! The oleanders and the roses wait Thy coming, and so soon the night is past, Come, come to-night; wide open stands the gate, And Death must close it, with our lives, at last. Enter, and wander down the winding stair Of moon-kissed marble, shadowy with time; There is thy home, and thou belongest there, 372 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS With all the beauty of the southern clime. The night is warm as kisses to the cheek, Sweet to the ear as when a song is still, Or the thrilled hush when thou hast ceased to speak And all the world is waiting on thy will. O, blind me with thy kisses, let me swoon Into the dark, and glide into a sleep. Till moth-white as the early morning moon Thy face appear, and I behold the peep Of wonder-witching dawn within thine eyes And feel thy breath like soft winds from the South Stir me to shake off slumber and arise And kneel and kiss the daybreak of thy mouth. August, 19 lO. These lines were written by Madame Sarah Bern- hardt and Monsieur Maeterlinck in my birthday book: Je suis tres tres heureuse d'avoir vn I'interieure de cet etre exquis, dont Tame est aussi jolie que le visage, et qui porte le nom de Beatrice Stella Campbell. Sarah Bernhardt. 1902. Elle est un de ces etres qui savent reunir les ames a leur sourse; et lorsqu'elle se trouve la on ne sent plus rien entre lui et ce qui la verite, ('Aglavain et Selysette") M. Maeterlinck. In June, 1913, Sir George Alexander revived The Second Mrs. Tanqueray. MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 373 In the autumn of this year Jenny Cornwallis West divorced George. On April 6th of the following year we married. The decree absolute had been held up for three months, owing to business reasons. It looked odd that we married only a few hours after the decree was finally made absolute, but Pyg- malion was to be produced in five days' time, and then there would be no chance of a few days' quiet together. . . . Amongst hundreds of telegrams and letters of con- gratulation, I quote a few which show friends felt the marriage might bring us happiness. "Wednesday "Oh, my dear, "My joy was great, and I feel so interested in life when I think of you, at last brilliantly contented, too. "Soon I hope to see happy faces. "How glad I am he talked to me at Alice Keppel's. It makes all the difference to have heard from him what adoration and devotion he has for you. "His people must love him because of his 'expression,'' if nothing else, and if they love him they must be glad to know how happy he Is. "Bless you both- "V. R." * "16, Lower Berkeley Street, W. "A thousand loving wishes, darling, and may you have *The Duchess of Rutland. 374 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS much of the happiness you deserve so well. I thought so much of you yesterday, and send you all my love. *'Your loving "Frances." t "Stella, darling, "All my love and thoughts to you. Bless you. Rachel." * Beo loved George w^ith much affection. Stella wrote from Africa : — "East Africa Protectorate, "April loth, 19 14. "Darling Mother, "Your telegram which came on Wednesday, was a great surprise to us, as you can imagine, but I can't tell you how glad it has made us, to be able to think of you as happy, and no longer lonely. "I am very sorry that I do not know George better, but I hope to some day; and I do know, from the little I saw him, how much he loves you. "I have little news, and can think of nothing but your happiness, so T can't write any more now. . . . "Do write when you have time. I enclose a few lines to George. . . . "With very much love and a heart bursting with good wishes for your happiness, and a big hug from little Pat. "Your loving "Stella." We were happy at last — I with my belief in the t Lady Horner. ♦The late Countess of Dudley. MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 375 love I had struggled against for so long — convinced that George had been a very unhappy man — that his unhappiness had been the fault of others — and that I could help him. Five days after our marriage Pygmalion was produced at His Majesty's Theatre. And surely no first night has ever gone with more success, and with such joyousness. The "bloody" almost ruined the play; people laughed too much. Before the first night Joey sent me final orders, which show, I had not been obedient at rehearsals: — "... I could have planned the part so that nine-tenths of it would have gone mechanically, even if your genius had deserted you, leaving only one-tenth to the gods. Even as it is, I have forced half the battle on you; but winning half the battle will not avert defeat. You believe in courage; I say, 'God save me from having to fall back on that desperate resource,' though if it must come to that it must. I don't like fighting; I like conquering. You think you like fighting and now you will have to suc- ceed sword in hand. You have left yourself poorly pro- vided with ideas and expedients, and you must make up for them by dash and brilliancy and resolution. And so, Avanti ! "G. B. S." One paper said, "The house rocked to and fro and shook with laughter — they roared, they cried with laughter!" There was a kind, human element in the play, too. In September I went to America with Pygmal- ion, leaving George in my house at Kensington 376 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS Square. The wrench was hard, but he had to re- main in England to attend to his financial afifairs- As usual I had to make money. After a few months, George came out to me; and learned to know intimately my life and work. This close companionship filled me with happiness. But the rumbling of the war was growing louder — the whole world was on its mettle. Again he had to return to England to take up his military duties. Some months later George came out to me a second time, and I felt still more sure of our future together. This time he insisted on acting with me. I taught him "Doolittle" in Pygmalion, and "Orreyd" in Tanqueray, and he acted well. Everywhere in America we were received with great hospitality. Dear Mrs. Stotesbury lent us her house in Wash- ington, and her servants and motor. We entertained royally in our fine surroundings, and when, at the end of the week, I asked her housekeeper for my bills, she said, "There are no bills!" I telegraphed to Mrs. Stotesbury, who replied, begging me not to deprive her of a' trifling happi- ness! In San Francisco I produced Searchlights, by H. A. Vachell, and taught George the leading part. After some weeks he was called back to England again. Courtesy International Xr~:.'sr,rl i nrp. MRS. CORXWALLIS-WEST MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 377 In New York I managed to get up a matinee for Shelagh's * hospital in France. George had written from England asking me to do this for her. I played The Second Mrs. Tanqueray, and sent She- lagh £500. My mother-in-law wrote to me from England : "Newlands, "Stella dearest, "How truly I wish you were here ! Your beloved has just arrived in his uniform, so good to look at. So glad of your dear telegram. Little Shelagh is here too, and so grateful for your grand work for her hospital. Ah, Stella dear, our silver-lined cloud must turn its silver side to us soon. "As for our beloved — you have made a different man of him, and his men I hear simply worship him. What a wonderful success Shelagh's Benefit must have been. Do send me a good account of it, and your speech. I am going back with Shelagh to her hospital, and then down to Daisy's villa in the South of France. Have you the least notion what your plans are? Do write to me now and then. But not the sort of writing an intoxi- cated snipe would make who had dipped his feet in an inkpot and then danced a mad war dance all over the paper! ! "Stella dear, you know you cabled me to spend £30 on George's hut. But it has not come yet. I only tell you because it may be lost in the post. "God bless you, dearest, in the New Year, and may if bring us peace together. "Loving "Patsy." * George's sister, Constance Duchess of Westminster. 378 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS "Poor little Daisy * in her flat In Berlin, but she has her boy with her." George met me at Falmouth on my return from America. It was the day his bankruptcy was published. We remained away from London a few days — far too happy to worry, and then returned to Kensington Square. At Rushlin Castle, George's old home in Wales, my father-in-law and I went for some long motor drives together, and he talked to me of his youth and the Italian nurse who had nursed him as a baby; and he seemed to link his great love for Italian art in some way with her. His sensitive appreciation of the beauty of nature, shows in the water-colour paintings of his that I have seen. He was a man of absolute integrity, and treated me with afifection. My mother-in-law lived with me at 33, Kensing- ton Square, during a time of severe trial for her, and for us all: I, with other friends, did my best to help George's mother. In May there was a revival of Bella Donna, at the St. James's. In October, 1916, at the London Opera House, I produced The Law of the Sands, by Robert Hich- ens. * Princess Pless, George's eldest sister, a beautiful, fragile woman, who was, during the five years of war in Germany, nursing and bearing bravely a difficult position. She and her son stayed with me in England twice after the war, and I grew fond of them. MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 379 I encouraged George to write plays, and for some time it was an absorbing pleasure to him. In February, 1917, I produced his one-act play Pro Patria, at the Coliseum, which met with some success. Later I took it to the provinces, and in one town his father and mother stayed with us to see the play. The following letter pleased us: — "H. M. S. Vernon, "Portsmouth, "Tuesday night, late, "Mrs. Patrick Campbell, "I feel I must write and tell you of the great pleasure your acting in Pro Patria gave me. "Once in the wilds of Ireland's western side I have often heard my mother speak of you and your splendid acting. I never had the chance of seeing you till to- night. Now I can write home and tell my mother how I have had the good luck of seeing you and hearing you — which was best of all. "I shall always cherish memories of your wonderful elocution and the power that your voice possesses. I just loved the softness in your voice, and its changes, and its power to thrill. "Do excuse me writing to you. I shall carry away with m.e memories and thoughts of a beautiful, good woman gifted with a most wonderful voice. I shall always venerate you. "I suppose I have no right in writing to you — but I feel sure you won't be angry. 380 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS "The pleasure and brief happiness you have given me make me, "Always gratefully yours, "George Cole. "P. S. — It's awful cheek for a sailor to write to you, but I simply can't help it." During the next few months the agony and ner- vous strain that was upon the world had broken up all normal living; and normal thinking. The ser- vant question, and food, had become a tragedy: air raids — the evening's entertainment. In the home, superhuman courage, and calmness, were needed to cope with nerves, that were on edge. If there was no cook, and you could cook, that was a triumph: I felt more proud of my sudden abil- ity to cook — and that George proclaimed my cook- ing as good as the "Ritz" — than I have ever been of my success on the stage. Terrible war news — with the awful awaiting and facing the death roll — seemed more in keeping with the tenseness of the moment, than good news. Companionship in the home was not expected: that your man was alive — your son safe, and sound; happy on his "ten days' leave": that was enough. The long grey line of motor ambulances waiting for the wounded, at Charing Cross — what a sight it was to pass, almost every night coming home from the theatre. . . . MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 381 At the Savoy one day, a tall handsome officer came down the steps of the restaurant, carrying his friend on his shoulder — an armless, legless, trunk, with a gay, handsome, laughing face. . . . In October, 1917, The Thirteenth Chair, was produced at the Duke of York's — a popular play that met with great success, for four months. During the run of this play my heart was lac- erated : — "Admiralty. "Deeply regret Acting Lieutenant-Commander Alan U. Campbell killed in action, 30th December. Letter follows." Beo had been killed in France ! I had not realized this could be. . . . One day's rest to get my heart steady, and then work again! Life was pitiless — the theater, hell. Friends wrote: "Thank God you have George to love and take care of you" — but George was strangely silent; this made the pain harder to bear. . . . I was in deep sea, and there was no light any- where. CHAPTER XVIII LlEUT.-COMMANDER AlAN U. CaMPBELL, M.C. Age, 32. Howe Battalion. Naval and Military Service. H. M. S. Britannia (Training Ship), 1898 to 1900 — Naval Cadet. H. M. S. Endymion, 1900 to 1904. H. M. S. Glory (Flagship China Station), Cadet to Midshipman. Two years Training Ship, three years on China Station. Retired from H. M. Navy and proceeded to Oxford University, 1905. At outbreak of the Great War obtained commission in R. N. V. R. as Sub-Lieut, in December, 19 14; would have obtained one earlier, but was compelled to undergo an operation to enable him to pass Medical Board at Admiralty, which kept him two months in hospital. Served as Sub-Lieutenant in the Anson Battalion at Blandford from January, 19 15, until he proceeded with R. N. Division on original Expeditionary Force to Dar- danelles; was prevented from taking part in the original landing at Cape Helles by reason of wound (caused by operation) reopening; underwent further operation in hospital at Port Said, and when discharged to Base was unfit for service in the field. Egypt. — Became Base Quartermaster at Mustapha Barracks, Alexandria, to R. N. Division for one month. Base Quartermaster to M. E. F. at Base for two weeks. Appointed A. P. M. to M. E. F. at Base, Alexandria, 382 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 383 and carried out these duties for nearly three months, May till beginning of August, when he was pro- nounced fit for active service; proceeded to Gallipoli Peninsula. Gallipoli, — Landed beginning of August, joined up with his old battalion, Anson, found himself in command practically two companies (including reinforcements) at the Cape Helles end in the trench, whilst the remainder of the battalion was at Suvla. Transferred to Howe Battalion, became Trench-Mor- tar Officer, September, 19 15. In October, 19 15, took part in operations carried out by the 52nd Division (Lowland) in taking Vineyard Trenches; employed protecting their left flank, with all available mortars of the division, relieving the French Division on the extreme right of the line. Was put in command of the Divisional Heavy Mortar Battery, 18 guns, afterwards reduced to 12 (Dumezils), firing 1301b. shells, which the French handed over in December, 19 15. He was ordered by the 8th Corps to draw all enemy fire possible from the 52nd Division (on the left), who were taking some trenches near the "Vineyard," which he very effectually did, firing on an average 30 heavy shells from each mortar and having the "Dumezil" gun positions and trenches nearly flattened out. Prior to the "evacuation," acting under orders of the Divisional General, he invented a means of converting the remainder of the large "Dumezil" torpedoes, into electrical contact land mines, by means of tins of am- monal, lashed to the sides of the aerial torpedoes, and trip wires to contact pieces into electric batteries. Using the personnel of the Mortar Battery, and with the help of N. C. O.'s from the Divisional Signal Com- pany (R. E.'s), he laid out 13 mine fields in the di- 384 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS visional area, protecting the withdrawal of troops from the line. The mine fields started from between the firing line and support line and covering the whole front, continued down to the Eski line (or final reserve line). On the night of the evacuation he was placed in command of the last thirty-two men who remained up with Divisional Engineers (who were cutting wires or pulling down ob- structions in the trenches), and when all troops had passed through, his party connected up all the trip wires, completely blocking the way, should the Turks attack. Some of the mine fields had as many as 250 large aerial torpedoes lashed together (about 25,000 lb. of "Melanite"), and from reports of aeroplanes, and news from the Athens papers during the next few days, they appear to have caused great havoc amongst the Turkish patrols (2,000 casualties being admitted by the Turks). Evacuation. — Proceeded with the division to Lem- nos, given leave to England. Received the "Croix de Guerre" with palm from the French. Returned and proceeded to Stavros, on the extreme right of the Saloniki line. Back with Anson Battalion, employed digging trenches and sighting machine gun em- placements, etc. Returned to Lemnos Island with the R. N. Division, and became A. P. M. to R. N. Division for nearly two months until arrival in France. He was practically in trenches all the time. He put up a "box barrage" with the Stokes Battery in two suc- cessful raids in enemy trenches. Took part in the opera- tion north of Ancre on November 13th, 14th, 15th. Ordered by Brigadier down from bombing post in Ger- man Strang point to conduct two tanks up; assaulted strong point with tanks at 6:10 a. m. on November MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 385 14th, and in one hour took position, and witli officers and crews of tanks rounded up nearly 400 prisoners, including seven officers, after which, until relieved on November 15th at 4 P.M., acted as General Brigade liaison officer, keeping touch for Brigadier with all units of brigade. February, March, 19 17, took part in advance on Aisne. April 28th took active part in the operations around Gavrelle. His division held the Oppy-Gavrelle sector until re- lieved on September 24th, 19 17. July, August, September, he came home to Senior Officer School, Aldershot, passed out with a most ex- cellent confidential report. Was secretary of school cricket team. Promoted to Acting Lieutenant-Commander and trans- ferred to Howe Battalion as Second-in-Command. Went through operations in the Ypres Salient, October 26th, throughout the Paschendaele offensive to October 30th, until relieved, November 8th; moved to Cambrai front December i6th, when Boche attacked the position on Welsh Ridge in the La Vacquerie-Marcoing sector. He and the Commander killed instantaneously by a bursting shell at 7 :30 A, M. December 30th. Buried on January ist, 1918; at Metz en Couture. Mentioned in despatches after evacuation by General Munro. Recommended for a promotion by General McGrigor after duties as Base A. P. M., Alexandria, August, 19 15. Recommended for promotion by Major-General Paris, K. C. B., after evacuation, January, 19 15. Recommended for promotion after Stavros. Recommended for a Battalion Commander by Briga- dier-General Prentice, D. S. O., after operations of No- vember 13th, north of Ancre. 386 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS Received Military Cross, January ist, 1917. Received Bar to Military Cross, January 20th, 1917. Egypt, Dardanelles, Salonika, 15 months. France, 17 months. Gazetted as Captain in the H. L. L My Son His hand is on my arm, and he says — "Don't write about me Mother — all the men out there were such splendid chaps." He sees my sad face, and adds — "All right, say what you like, I am going out to play golf." Yes, he is happy somewhere — and I may do as I like. I wanted to be with him at the Investiture at Buckingham Palace when he received his Military Cross * with a bar, but he had left the house early that morning, and when he came back he handed me the case, his arm around me, he said with a smile: "Where were you? — a poor old woman came up to me and said, 'Bravo, my son' — everyone thought she was my mother." We laughed — we understood one another — pic- *This cutting from a daily paper of 14th February, 1917, describes the deed that gained this honour: "He brought his guns into action with good effect. Later, he guided two 'Tanks' to the enemy first line system and materially assisted in taking over 400 prisoners. "The hero of this splendid act of gallantry is Temporary Lt. Alan Urquhart Campbell, M.C., R.N.V.R., and in recognition of his bravery the King has awarded him a bar to his Military Cross." o o W o to o o o W H O P^ -») CO < a »— * KM o s O MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 387 tures in the papers with "Mrs. Patrick Campbell and her brave son" were not to be thought of. Once he slept in the room next to mine; he laughed at his cough, saying he had been "gassed a bit." I heard him talking in his sleep — a deep strong voice — I knew he was giving orders to his men The thought kept passing through my mind in the night — "Beo risks his life hourly — he gives orders to men who obey him with their lives." And I remembered how as a baby he wanted a sword — and his first picture was a drawing of a flag- I saw him, when he was four years old, nodding and smiling at some children he did not know, who were looking at him from a window as we passed. I asked him who they were; he said in his baby voice, "They are my friends" — that was his attitude towards the world : his fellow men were his friends — and they were all worth while — his enemies were the enemies of mankind. I, who hate war with a hatred that makes me feel a fiend, learned through war I had brought a man into the world — that is enough BED'S LETTERS. "Somewhere in Gallipoli, "25th October, 1915. "Darling Mother, "I expect all your letters and all mine have been sunk! 388 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS I love to get your photos — do send me as many as you can, and of anybody, just to make my dug-out look cheer- ful and to remind me that there are others things than dead men, shells and smells. I have been in the actual firing line now nearly three months, and am feeling a bit fed up with it all. Flies, sandstorms, shells and smells describes it! There seems no chance of leave until this 'filthy' war is over, and as the Bulgarians and Germans appear to be making their way down here, we shall wake up one morning to the tune of 'Jack Johnson,' and there will be the devil of a scrap. As it is, the shelling is pretty hot, and I can't remember the time when I didn't have a headache. "Two or three days ago we advanced to within twelve yards of the Turks' line in our sector without a casualty; and as I am now commanding the Brigade Mortar Bat- tery, they seem to think that my beastly heathenish bombs and mortar shells and things helped somewhat. The next night the Turks made an assault with bombs and grenades, etc., but again our fellows bombed them back and my old Battery put the fear of God into them. The mortars are fine, and we fire a shell about the size of St. Paul's, which makes a noise like an earthquake. I direct their fire from the nearest point to the enemy. Our Tommies love them, and the cry is ever — 'Give 'em some more "Delight," Sir!' The R. N. D. out here are splendid, that is to say the remains of our original lot (poor fellows, they've been in the thick of it for six months without a rest), and its always one Englishman equal to three Turks at close quarters. Let us hope the new drafts and reinforcements will soon be as good as the old, and then 'Allah help the Turk!' Of course, we get a good few casualties. One young ofl'icer under my command had his head blown off by a shell just near MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 389 me ! I've felt squeamish ever since. He was such a cheery soul, and only 18! And the Colonel of the was killed by a shell within 50 yards of my dug-out, and also a Major in the was blown to bits by a Turk bomb quite close to me. (Better not name Regiment on account of the Censor.) "I have been extraordinarily lucky so far. Have been hit all over my body, but always with spent bullets, or stray spent shrapnel bullets. How long the luck will last rests with the gods, but we all feel here that none of us will get off the Peninsula with a whole skin. . . . "I am a funny sight in the trenches. My beard's not a success, and I think I'll shave, or my own men will shoot me one night for a Turk. Our average distance from the Turk along the whole line is not more than 75 yards — i. e., from the Aegean Sea across the Peninsula to the Straits — and it is awfully sad to look over our parapet through a periscope, and see all the thousands of dead bodies heaped up between the lines, both Turks and our fellows, killed in the numerous assaults on each side. It is certain death to try and bring them in, even at night, and the stink is awful, and the vultures hop about, and we are not allowed to shoot them — they are USEFUL. And then, when one walks up from the rest camps (rest is only a name, as they are shelled all the time), one passes graveyard after graveyard, and one reads the names of all one's pals and feels sick at heart, but one arrives at the firing line with a firmer determin- ation to beat the enemy to his knees. "Do excuse this rotten letter. Mother dear, but there are so many things happening every day, and all day and night, that it would take an encyclopaedia to record them. 'About 7 :30 A. M. the other mornmg there was a 390 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS pretty aerial duel between a German Taube and a French Voisin. The German was armed with a machine gun, but the Frenchman, though only armed with his pistol, manoeuvred so well that he managed to drive off the Taube. It happened right above our lines, and you should have heard the cheering. "I am writing this letter in my little dug-out in the fir- ing line, about 50 yards from the Turks. I am fairly comfortable. Have pinned blankets all around the walls to make it warm, and waterproof sheets on the ground and roof, and have nothing to fear except shells, centipedes, snakes, and — LICE. If you want to send me anything, send me Keating's! Outside my dug-out is a sentry, who is potting away at snipers opposite. I have been keeping my eye in, earlier this evening, but one has to be pretty nippy. This morning about 6.15 I was taking aim through an iron loophole at another loop- hole in front, when, just as I fired, a bullet from another sniper hit my plate about a quarter inch above the loop- hole. I just had time to see my quarry throw up his hands and fall back, and then I sat down quietly to re- cover my nerves. The bullet had hit the plate with sucb a force as to knock it back on to my head. . . . "I wonder if you received all my letters from Alexan- dria. By Jove, I was glad to get out of that place, and it was just touch-and-go. The doctors wanted to invalid me, but I had made great friends in my capacity of A. P. M. with the Surgeon-General, and I practically implored him to get me passed; and I was, and here I am; and, except for an occasional breakdown, fever, sunstroke, in- fluenza, etc., for a few days, never felt better. I am afraid the men suffer a good deal from dysentery and jaundice. But their spirits are wonderful, and one is proud to be an Englishman, and amongst them. . . . MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 391 "Darling, what wouldn't I give for a long talk with you like we used to have. I wish I was with you and working for you, and helping to make all a success. I get many spare moments to think over my life, and I feel so heartbroken at all the worry I have caused you. . . . "I'm pretty lucky in this job — that is to say, the Briga- dier, and others, seem to think I COUNT, and have made my presence felt. When I first landed I was given com- mand of a company, and then had command of what was left of the 'Anson Batt.' here, the rest being at Suvla Bay. And now I have this command, which is gradually becoming a more and more important factor in the cam- paign. . . . "It is very romantic, sometimes; we have a glorious sunrise, and we hear all the Turks chanting the Koran and praying, and then our Tommies play the bagpipes and sing ragtime and pepper them with bombs and max- ims to annoy them. How they must hate us ! It's like a glimpse of 'Omar Khayyam' suddenly overshadowed by a village fair. "Remember me to all. Was the new play* a success? Do send lots of photos. You don't know how they cheer one up in this God-forsaken Peninsula. All my love, darling Mother, and do forgive me for all my sins. "Your loving son, "Beo." From "Somewhere in the Mediterranean" he writes to Stella: "Sunday, March 7th. "Darling Stella, "The Lord only knows when I shall be able to write * Searchlights. 392 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS to you again, or even If this one will reach you. We are on the most interesting and history-making expedition, and nobody knows if we shall ever come back, as the forces are of unknown strength. But the fact remains we are going to land and occupy the Dardanelles forts — attacking them from the rear (those that the fleet haven't bashed to pieces), and then we go on to Constantinople and endeavour to take it. We have two battalions on board and the Brigadier-General and staff, and the band plays every night at dinner, and as the weather has been delicious, it has been like a yachting trip so far. Not a sign of a submarine, although, of course, we were strongly convoyed through the zone. Now we are alone and all the transports assemble at Malta, where we arrive to- morrow. Thence we proceed to an island called Lem- nos, which is to be our base. "At what point of the Galllpoll Peninsula we land I don't know, but that we shall have to fight our way all the time is certain, as we have to drive every Turk out. All our men are magnificently equipped, and I myself look like a pirate of Penzance when I am fully armed. '"It was very exciting from the moment the King In- spected us. All was done so secretly. We marched out of camp at dead of night, and all the different battal- ions entrained at different stations all round the country, and we all embarked at Avonmouth. We marched nine miles fully equipped, with our transport and mules and horses, etc., and didn't get off till about 2 a. m. "The other battalion with us on board is the Hood Battalion, O. C. Asqulth, Patrick Shaw Stewart, and Lewis Waller's son are all with it and on board. "Violet Asqulth came to see the ship off all alone. "We have a new Colonel in George's place, a fine man. Colonel Moorehouse, C.M.G., D.S.O. He was in MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 393 command in West Africa. There is quite a chance if we finish this job satisfactorily, and there are enough of us left out of the 60,000 who go now, that we shall go and finish off German East Africa. . . . "How is darling little Pat? . . . "Good-bye. Love to all. "Your loving brother, "Beo." And some months later he wrote to her from France : — "Darling Stella, "Thank you so much for the beautiful photo of your- self and Pat. How lovely he is getting. You are a lucky dog! "How is the play going? And how do you think dar- ling Mother is looking? "We have been going through a perfect maze of operations, and the removal of our division from the Salonika front to the French front was a thing of stu- pendous interest and work for us all. "I don't think much of the trenches here — very un- sanitary and no proper cover from shell fire. We'll have to show these troops what some of our men can do in the way of trench digging, etc. "We've had a few casualties, but nothing to speak of. They all regard us as veterans out here, which is pleas- ing, and we have been placed in a regular corps. . . . "Tell Pat that every time I fire my guns at the Boches I say, 'There's one from Pat!' and it's become quite a common expression — my sergeants use it now! "My love to all, darling. "Your loving brother, "Beg." 394 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS "Anson Battalion, "Royal Naval Division, "Eastern Mediterranean Squadron. "Darling, darling Mother, "Your sweet letter has just arrived. You don't know how it cheers one up to get letters from those one loves. "I am sending you my 'Cross' * registered. I do hope it doesn't get lost. There is no opportunity of wearing it out here in the field, and I wear the bit of ribbon on my left breast. "I am anxious to read the despatches on the evac- uation at Cape Helles. I do hope I get an English honour, for your sake, Mother, dear. I only want it for you. I was glad to see my 'Croix' had a laurel spray on it, which is the highest grade and differs from the Legion of Honour in that the 'Croix' can only be won in action, whilst the 'Legion' can be won anywhere, and even by civilians. . . . "Wasn't it rot only getting three weeks' leave after all that time under fire? We are now on the right of General Sarrail's line from Salonika. They must think a lot of the R.N.D., because we have a most important part of the line, practically at the same point where the Greeks beat the Bulgarians in the Balkan War; in fact, we are using some of the old Greek trenches. The Bul- garians are thirty miles off, although we can see their out- posts and fire in the mountains. A Greek Army Corps is in between us, like a man holding two dogs apart. . . . But we are prepared, and strengthen our position night and day. The scenery is magnificent, and such a change to that awful Peninsula. My duties are all on the mountain tops, and I come down to our little bivouac to sleep. * Beo sent me his Croix de Guerre to America. MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 395 "I am looking for good concealed gun positions for my battery, and it is interesting and exciting work. . . . "We have had one man killed by a bear and two torn to bits by jackals, but otherwise we are all very happy and healthy, and the air is wonderful. . . . "All my love, darling. "Your loving son, "Beo." "ist Trench Mortar Battery, "R. N. Division. "July 1 2th, 19 1 6. "My own darling, "Am still in the land of the living, although last night they were 'plastering' us with all kinds of shell and shrapnel. Have just got back to my dug-out, 5 :30 a. m., having been on the 'qui vive' for forty-eight hours, and feel pretty tired and headachy. They have been putting over asphyxiating shells, and one has to be eternally alert not only for one's own safety, but for all one's men. Thank God the prevailing wind or breeze is not favour- able to them for gas! Fifteen men were killed about 2 a. m., this morning by one of their beastly big shells. All asleep in a large dug-out. There is nothing now ex- cept a large hole as big as our back garden and bits of legs and arms. . . . "What a morbid letter, but I expect it is because I am dead beat and must get some sleep, but don't seem to be able to. The battery are behaving splendidly, and I am awfully proud of them. It's fine to feel one has trained them all and that each individual man always rises to the occasion, and the worse the shelling, the more dogged they become. "By Jove I'm glad I'm an Englishman. The Hun is 396 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS a beaten man, and it Is quite a common occurrence for the Tommies and an officer, to go over the parapet, and frighten the life out of the trench opposite, and come back with twenty or thirty prisoners, at night-time. "And we never see a Boche aeroplane now. Our men are always ten or twelve up at a time. "Darling, will you have the photograph films, which I think are in that box of mine, developed and printed? All the stuff is what is called 'Base Kit,' or stuff we can- not be burdened with out here, and I sent it on to you to take charge of. "The things you sent me are fine, and I don't get wet feet now. "My dug-out is in a trench called 'Granby Street.' "Fancy B coming to see you! We always think him a little 'off his chump.' He's got a soft job now as a kind of messenger to the Staff Captain, and always lives miles behind the firing line and gets leave occasionally. It always makes us in the firing line angry, to think of all the staffs who get such an easy time of it, and who do nothing but worry us with returns of men and am- munition; and as soon as a shell comes, run deep into a dug-out and stay there. But still, old B has seen a bit of fighting and has stuck it out, although Jhe always looks as if he were going 'sick.' "I must go to bed now; it Is 6:30 a. m. "Good-bye beloved Mother. "I wish I could see you soon. "Your own "Beo." "63rd R. M. Division, "My darling Mother, "18/8/1916. "How rotten you must think me for not having ans- MRS. PATRICK CAMPBELL AND HER TWO CHILDREN JUST BEFORE BEO ENTERED THE NAVY MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 397 wered all your sweet, dear letters. You don't know how I love to get them, and how they cheer me up. We have been having rather a hard time of it — nearly fifty days and nights in the firing line now, and I spend all my spare moments in trying to get a little sleep. It was terrible the other day — I lost a Corporal and four of my best men by one shell, which completely buried them in the crater it made. "It nearly broke my heart; they had all been with me nearly a year, and I was so fond of them. We held a solemn service in the crater less than fifteen yards form the Boche, and, although they were shelling at the time, our poor little band with their steel helmets off, remained untouched. "The awful part is writing condoling letters to the wives. "No signs of any leave yet. What do you think? While walking along the trenches, I met 'Polly,' * — a full-blown captain of a Scotch regiment, and in kilts. All his men love him, and he looks quite different and has been through a lot, and he is a real good plucked 'un and very fearless. "Do write often, Mother darling, and tell me any scraps of news. I don't think they stop illustrated pa- pers; at least, most of the men get them. "I am writing George a note to-night, and will try and write you a longer letter, darling. I must admit I am getting a little war-worn, and would like to get a cap- taincy or majority in the Scots Guards or Black Watch temporarily — it would give me a little respite. "All my love, darling, "Your own, "Beo." ♦Captain Allan Pollock, a brilliant comedian, who played in my 398 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS *'i88th Light Trench Mortar Battery, "63rd R. N. Division "France. "September, 19 16. "My own darling, "I am so sorry I haven't written for so long, but life has been very full of dangers and excitements, and the only time I have had for writing has to be occupied In sending in reports and despatches. "You will be glad to h.ear all the Generals think very highly of my Battery and I had an awfully nice congratu- latory message from the General over one operation, in which he said that my comrades were grateful to me and the Battery for their magnificent work and devotion to duty; and that it was entirely due to the Battery that the operation was successful. And what do you think? The General sent for me and told me that because I had had such a long, tiring, and strenuous time, and done such good work, he was going to give me ^special leave' soon, that I was too valuable to him at the present moment, but that I could expect it in the near future. "Hurrah! ! Hurrah! ! Til be able to 'pop' at the rabbits yet, and sec 'Beppo' and 'Geeee-n-a' ! ! * . , . "By Jove, we did get a pounding from the big German guns the other day, and hardly any one of my gun posi- tions are standing now, and most of the guns are out of action — but the men were absolutely, superbly magnif- icent. Two of them have gone in for D.C.M.'s, and one ought to get the V.C. Mother, you wouldn't be- lieve how absolutely fearless and wonderful these men of mine are. They are just like young gods, all of them — most of them youngsters — but their eyes sparkle and company in London and made a big success in America; a brave soldier who was severely wounded. • Our dogs. MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 399 their nostrils dilate with excitement when they go into action, and I can rely on them to a man to do exactly what I want. Sometimes they go forty-eight hours with- out an hour's sleep, working day and night. "... Darling, the coat is wonderful, and everybody is envying me. I sleep in it. It's so awfully cold at nights now. And the pie and all the hairwash arrived safely ! "What's the price of eggs? ? ? You couldn't send two dozen hard boiled could you? They are so fright- fully expensive here, and all our money goes on them. "Tell me about Barnes — he, anyhow, is an honest man! "I do love your letters so, Mother, so write often, even if only a line, and send more photos. . . . "Poor Fred. I am writing to him. Fve had some of that 'Sand and Flies' in Gallipoli ! "I am sending you a cutting * I found in the Daily MaU of the 12th — rather nice of Lady Buxton, and brought back memories of Daddy, and how he would have loved to have been with me here. "Tell me the name of your playlet, and also Stella's, and has anything happened about George's? "Is George's Division the 57th or 67th, and what regiments are in it? I hope I get leave before he goes. It will probably only be ten days when I do get it. "My best love, darling, "Your own son, "Beo." * "During their stay in Boshof their Excellencies decorated with al- mond blossoms and violets the grave of Captain Cecil Boyle, a brother- in-law of Lord Buxton, who was killed in action in the neighbourhood in the Boer War, and Lady Buxton, noticing that the next grave was that of Sergeant Patrick Campbell, husband of the actress, laid on it some other blooms. Almond blossoms were placed by the Governor- General upon the tomb of the French soldier, Comte de Villebois Mare- uil, who fought with distinction on the side of the Boers." 400 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS Writing of the Battle of the Ancre he says: "November 28th, 19 16. "My own darling Mother, ". . . Imagine a huge army lying on the grass in massive waves, with nothing but their greatcoats to cover them; no noise — just a few whispers — a few prayers, and last words to pals before the attack at dawn. "I felt that we were In the presence of two gigantic figures, who were sitting minutely gazing at us — one was Death, and the other some Indescribable being — it wasn't exactly life, or Victory or an Angel, but all I knew was that these two figures were silently summing us up and taking the toll for the morrow. I have never felt near to God in my life before. "And the men — one cannot describe their magnificence. They were not excited or downhearted — all feeling the same presence of some mighty Being who was labelling them for the morrow, and all filled with the same feel- ing, that the result to-morrow must be 'Victory' at all costs ! "I went round to my men and to fellows I knew in other regiments, and one felt proud to be amongst them — and not for all the riches in the world would I have given up my place in that mass of men. One literally felt like one big family. Then about 4 a. m. coats were rolled up and stacked away, and a small tot of rum served out, or hot soup — to keep the cold from one's bones, and then a silent wait at the Alert.' Think of it, a whole army — all waiting for the signal. "Then on that misty morning, just before dawn — one couldn't see ten yards in front of one, but all knew ex- actly what to do — a lumbering 15-in. shell came on and burled itself away back in the Hun lines, and imme- MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 401 diately to the second the Artillery started! ! ! Ten sec- onds before, you could have heard a pin drop, and ten seconds after, you had to shout In a man's ear to make him hear. Then, as the barrage lifts, over surge the waves of men — I and my men with them, and the rest is chaos — but Victory ! ! "What a name our dear old Division made for itself — each man was ten times a hero — and they were up against the German Guards Division that day! Those they didn't kill they captured, until they had accounted for the lot. "It would take ten volumes to recount the Incidents — one gets an Impression of blood, bayonets, shells, and blue-grey uniforms! "My men were glorious, and our adventures many. Seventy of us were holding up seven hundred Huns for a whole day. "Then all our guns were knocked out, and every man, killed or wounded at his post. "Then we found the Boche guns, and fired them until all the ammunition was expended. Then we became bombers, machine-gunners, anything that was needed, and we kept fighting for three solid days — with no sleep until we were relieved, when we marched out covered with blood, dust, and smoke, and victory In our eyes. "We marched past guns and gunners, (what was left of us, alas!). "You should have heard the cheering. The dear old Naval Division had made history and an undying name In those three days. But what a cost! It's too dread- ful — all one's pals gone ! "How I got through I cannot say! My life was saved a hundred times by gallant fellows — one of my best pals pulled me down into a shell hole, saying: 'For 402 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS God's sake look out, old man there's a sniper!' And the next minute he had been shot through the head and fell on me, dead! 'And the glorious stretcher-bearers and doctors — ' you just felt that V.C.'s were not good enough for them — the way they worked under murderous fire ! I can tell you the clearing of a battlefield is gruesome work. "My greatest feat was capturing three hundred and eighty odd prisoners with eight men and a 'tank' ! * You may have read the exploits of that dear old 'tank' in the papers. I saw it in the Daily News of the 23rd November, on the second column. "Well, yer 'umble was the galleant horficer who led the way — 'because he knew it so well' — I should jolly well hope I did, considering I had been bombing it with every conceivable kind of bomb for many hours and nearly lost my life a dozen times. "But fancy getting a notice in the papers! That's more than I have ever done as an actor ! "We are now back resting and refitting and getting re- inforcements for the next push. "I have been very lucky, and billeted with my men in a lovely chateau, rather like Frampton* — there is fishing and duck shooting, and the country is magnificent, and it is wonderful to be away from the noise of the guns. •The Times, on the 24th of November, 1916, had said: "One would like to tell at length the tale of the officer of the Trench Mortar Battery, the name of whose father (and still more that of his mother) is known wherever the English language is spoken, who led the 'Tank' into action against the redoubt. It was not strictly his business, but he 'knew the road' (having been putting mortars into the beastly place for half a day) and did most gallantly a service of great danger." *Frampton Court, Dorchester, the home of Sir Algernon Brinsley Sheridan. MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 403 "I expect I shall be able to get leave soon; but, of course, I must first reorganise the Battery. "Tell George the Ansons did magnificently, and as I am still on their establishment, I will consider myself one. I am now the Senior Ofllicer, except the Colonel, on the books. "I shall try and manoeuvre leave for Christmas if possible. "I hope you are keeping well, and don't work too hard ! "All my love, darling, "Your own son, "Beo. "P. S. — Love to George and Stella. "We captured a little dog in the Boche third line — he is so glad to be a prisoner." "My own darling Mother, "I am so anxious to hear about George's play. Just a line from the front trenches — it's bitterly cold and I don't think I have ever felt so miserable, frost-bitten, toes, nose, and fingers — and shelling is increasing every day — but we are continually pressing the Hun back, and fighting keeps one warm. I have had many narrow es- capes, but I always carry our little front-door key, * and clutch it, if I feel rather faint, "A shell burst so close the other day that I was inside the zone of the fragments, which luckily burst upwards, but one jagged bit cut a tree in half, against which I had crouched, just about five feet above my head. "That was four days ago, and my ears are still singing and my nerves are going slightly. I think the fellows who get wounded are the luckiest, you can't imagine the •The key of our home, 33 Kensington Square. 404 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS accumulated strain on one's nerves after two years of it. "The gramophone In our little dug-out Is a source of great joy. Did you get the cheque for It we all sub- scribed? . . . "It Is now 1 1 a. m,, and I am lying down on some sandbags resting and shivering after a hellish 'scrap' last night, as the Boche countered, but we drove them all off and didn't lose an Inch of ground. "Our old Division never has. "Lee, my Irish sub. Is trying to fry some bacon on a candle, and is making us all laugh by his language and Irish brogue. Bragg, another of my subs, who Is a Warwickshire farmer, is making our mouths water by telling us the tale of a ham. Wilcox, my second In com- mand, Is trying to keep himself warm by writing to a lady in the Argentine. We're more or less a happy crowd; we all know each other's worth in a tight corner, and they all love and respect me, which makes me happy, so life isn't so bad. "All my love darling, and love to George; my hands are so cold I can't write. "Your own "Beo." "February 6th, 1917. "Well darling, "After the most awful journey — bitterly cold — which nearly froze us to death, we arrived into the battle area, and found, as I thought, the old Division in the thick of it again. And now you will be glad to hear that It has kept up Its reputation. "But the cold! ! ! It Is Indescribable. Some of the poor wounded — both Boche and ours — who have been MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 405 lying out for days have to have their feet taken off simply because they have become blocks of ice. "I didn't have a minute to write to George, but have done so to-day. My darling, I never realise how won- derful you are, and what a rock of comfort you are to those around you. "The whole way over I have been thinking of your goodness, and hoping that I may be spared to really make you happy in regard to me, and my doings, with money and life in general. . . . "Is George better? I met some of his staff in Bou- logne. His Division will be out soon, I think. I am glad he is not coming. He would die of the cold. Even the water in our water-bottles has two inches of ice on it, and our meat, and even bread freezes. "The Mess are overjoyed with the gramophone. It makes life absolutely different up here in this bleak spot. It took us a long time to get it going, and all the oil had frozen; but now it is playing as I write this, and the guns are booming outside, and we are quite merry and bright, awaiting our turn again! ! "My Brigadier is very sympathetic, and he and the Brigade Major have elected me a member of the Cale- donian Club in London. I expect my commission in the H.L.I, will be through soon. "I think I must write to the Paymaster, Blandford, and increase that monthly remittance to you, to £15. It will teach me to be careful with money. "Did you post the letter for me? It was on your desk. "Do write and let me know the result of George's play I am so excited about it. "Your loving, "Beo." 4o6 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS " 1 88th Trench Mortar Battery, II. 3. 1917. "Darling Stella, "Why don't you write me a line? Here am I, having H — I's own time in a sea of mud — and shells — and not a line from my own sister! ! ! Burghhh! ! ! Boo- hoo! ! ! "Right! I was going to finish a one-act play for you, but now I'll give it to Sally Brough instead, and eat all Pat's sweets, and dirty Nann/s nursery, and — well — nuff said ! ! ! "You will be glad to hear that perhaps I am coming back this month to go to Aldershot, to attend a Battalion Commanders' Course, and that I get from Saturday noon to Monday 9 a. m. off every week. "Our old Division has been doing marvels, and we are very pleased with ourselves, although I think they have given us a full share of fighting, practically scrapping continuously since I came back and that on the top of the big attack in November we have just about beaten the record out here. So far in our Brigade alone since November 13th we have won ten D.S.O.'s twenty-six Military Crosses, and about forty D.C.M. and Military Medals. "Do you see much of mother? I do hope so. I realise so much now what a treasure she is, and what a lot we both owe her in life. "write. "Your own loving brother, "Beo." "Best love to Pat and Nanny, and ask N. to send along any old illustrateds or magazines she doesn't want, as the men love them sOi" MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 407 "i88th Trench Mortar Battery. "Darling, ... I can only tell you that before the end of the war I will make you proud of me. "With all the love in the world. "Your own son, "Beo." "May 1917. "My own darling Mother, "Just a line to tell you I am quite all right. We are back amidst the shelling and noise again; but the weather is warm, and that is the main blessing. . . . "If you ever send any records out again, try and get one of Caruso singing an English song (it is the only one he has sung, and it is divine). "Also some needles and some good songs or violin and Chu Chin Chow records. "I am so sorry George is ill. Can't he get a War Office job on "Q" branch somewhere, where he would not have to run about so? "When I get home you must meet our machine-gun officer, Macgeorge, if we can get home together. He plays the piano divinely. When we were resting in a back area we found quite a good piano belonging to our 'Follies,' and he played for hours, everything from Liszt, Schumann, Strauss, down to Paul Rubens and coon songs. You only have to give him a whisky and soda and a good cigar, and he is a concert in himself — and only twenty-two; but he has studied for ten years all over Europe. He makes a very fine officer, too. He is in the H.L.I, "Do write often. Stella hasn't written. . . . "Give my Ipv^ to George. "Your own loving son, "Beo." 4o8 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS "May, 1917. "My own darling Mother, "Just a few lines to say we have just come out of the stiffest scrap this Division has ever been in. I cannot describe it, except it was all hand-to-hand, and that we had to fend off at least sixteen counter-attacks of Boches ten times our number — one night seven counter-attacks. But the Division came out more glorious than ever — ab- solutely magnificent — and my men were almost super- natural — forty-eight hours without leaving the guns — no food or water — and the Germans seething round like tiger-cats; but our men can be super-tigers, and we never gave one inch of ground. "I am quite well, but dazed and rather weak — the shelling was indescribable. I believe they are going to shower more honours on us, and every man deserves a V.C. ; but anyhow, I have one man in for the V.C. and two for the D.C.M., and five for Military Medals. I do hope they will get them. "Love to all. "Your own son, "Beo." "My own darling Mother, "I have had no time to write. We have been scrap- ping and fighting all the time, and I am so tired and weary, and it is only the thought of how unhappy it would make you and others that prevents me praying for a shell. "I am broken-hearted; one shell came yesterday and knocked out twenty of my men and one ofl^cer. It is too awful to think about. It would have killed me, too, if I hadn't just turned back five minutes before to go and MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 409 telephone from a dug-out to the General. I and the rest of my Battery are so shaken by this horrible loss that we have been relieved from the guns for a day or two, but shall go back soon. "I expect you will read all about the dear old Divi- sion's exploits — we have excelled our last performance. "How did G.'s play go? I am so anxious to know. I have looked in the only papers I can find and can only find my own name ! ! ! "Write soon, please. "Your own loving son, "Beo." "In the Field. "My own darling Mother, "I am afraid my coming home has been knocked on the head for some time, as the worrying of the Boche during his retirement requires the services of all the highly trained officers and men in France. We are still more or less in the thick of it and I am afraid will be for some time, and there Is no leave to be had for a long time. Things are progressing well here, and there is no doubt the Boche is a beaten man on the Western front, but I cannot see any finish to the war until about June, 19 18. "It is rather hard luck on all of us who have been at it practically from the start to be continually kept at it when there are so many thousands of soldiers at home doing nothing. But still, we are all patriots, and if the services of our highly trained and brave men and officers are necessary for the carrying out of successful operations, well, we give our blood cheerfully and will go on doing so until we are all gone. Do you know our 4IO MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS Division has now in its possession more crosses and medals for Bravery and Valour than any other in France? "And it makes your eyes dim to see the brave fellows on the march, some with two, some with three gold stripes, and even a few with four or five ; and nearly every two or three with the Military Medal or D.C.M., and the officer's with their D.S.O.'s and Military Crosses and a V.C. — our V.C., poor devil, is dead. "Do write and tell me all news. I am sorry George is not well. Can't he get a staff job in a Brigade or Divisional H.Q.'s, such as Staff-Captain, where the work would not be so strenuous? I know from experience that an A.P.M.'s job, done keenly and well, is as tiring as anything, and in France, during this advancing busi- ness, one man is never asleep and has three times the amount of mounted police, and all of them at it day and night, guarding prisoners, traffic, wells, etc., besides the usual routine of a Division. . . . "The Germans have just started to bombard us rather heavily, so we must get under cover. "In spite of all discomforts, we are quite a happy crowd, as our Brigadier and staff are perfectly charming and considerate, and such fine soldiers, and so proud of all of us. "Do go on sending papers and kippers or haddocks. The cigarettes were received with joy by the men, and came at the most opportune moment, when I don't think there was one in the whole Battery. "Give my love to George and tell him I will write him a yarning letter soon. "All my love, darling. "Your own son, "Beo." MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 411 "My own darling Mother, "Thank you again and again for the Map Case. It was a lovely one, and it never left me in the last attack, in which I continually had to be referring to my maps. . . . "The old Division is praised on all sides, and really it is a marvel what we do; for forty-eight hours we held off what seemed to me to be the whole German army, but, as a matter of fact, it was two German Army Corps, of ten times our number, and we never gave an inch. There was no souvenir hunting, and the prisoners taken were under 1,000, but all the time it was: kill, kill! ! ! We out here see the Boche as he is — with the veneer of civilisation off, and there is only one thing to do — kill him! as quickly as possible. "So you see, darling Mother, letters from home are the only things that keep us fighting troops from becom- ing ferocious beasts ourselves. So write every day if you can. . . . "One cannot talk of 'after the war.' None of us really expects to come out alive — least of all a Trench Mortar man. It's simply by watching the Boche man- oeuvres and shelling, that I have managed to keep any of my men alive, also myself; but it is weary work. The gassing I got last November is beginning to tell on me — the slightest bad smell makes me sick, and cigar- ettes and cigars are no enjoyment. My left hand was badly lacerated by German barbed wire in the last attack. . . . "I wonder if you could send out my old cricket bag with all my cricket things and a ball or two, and a few old golf balls and iron clubs, for when we do come out of the line we shall probably go back a good way to rest, and the men would love to play cricket. 412 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS "When we get out I am going to finish and send you two little one-act plays. "How is Stella? . . . "Well, darling Mother, I have talked a lot about my- self and my doings. I want to know all about you and yours. Is the tour a success? How wonderfully plucky George acting like that — with you, too! I bet he was nervous. Tell him to keep it up till I come back. I'm dying to see him and will write him a play called 'Beppo * and the Brigand.' Give him my love; I wish he were here. He would have been a Brigadier by now! . . . "The Anson Battalion won the two football cups to- day and yesterday! Fancy, every match of the season has been played under shell-fire and in sight of the enemy ! "My French has become quite good; that is to say, I have been telling stories to the French staff officers to wile away a weary hour or two in the trenches. . . . "All my love, darling. "Your loving son, "Beo." In the summer of 1917 he wrote from the Senior Officers' School: — "Lille Barracks, "Aldershot. "Darling Mother, "I feel so anxious about you in these raids. I do hope you are not suffering from shock or anything. Do be careful. * My husband's dog, a dear, black retriever. MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 413 "I will see you on Saturday. We are having a most strenuous week. "All my love, darling. "Your own son, "Beo." In a letter to George he says: ". . . The more I see of them (women), the more keenly I appreciate what a wonderful person my own Mother is — so far, far above all the rest!" I find a letter from a girl friend of his in Amer- ica, written to him at the Front, about her mar- riage : "Irvington-on-Hudson. "Dear Alan, "My memory of you is precious and beautiful. No one in the world knows the fine, brave Beo better than I do. Your letter makes me know that all the things I have believed about you are absolutely true. . . . "I am happier than I ever thought I would be. . . . "We were married when we had known each other six weeks ! . . . "You are a good man, and a brave one. . . . "Esther." "My darling Mother, "Just a line to let you know I am quite fit. We had a few days' rest and I went some motor rides with a pal. It was funny. I ran up against Phil Carr, a Captain in the Intelligence Corps at St. Pol. He gave me dinner and tea, and we had a long talk about things. 414 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS "We are now off into the thick of it again, and the rest is in God's hands. I know you are praying for me, and that, and the excitement, and my wonderful men keep me going. "Write often. "Your loving son, "Beo." "France. "Darling, "I am all right — awful noise, and we've lost a few men, but have the Boche under our thumb. "Will write when I get a moment, to all. "All my love. "Beo." "i88th. Light Trench Mortar Battery, "France. "My darling Mother, "No news from you for ages. I haven't written for some time because I am in the thick of the fight, and one's nerves are so keyed up that one cannot relax for a moment, knowing that one mistake means not only the loss of one's men, but one's own life as well. "My men are working splendidly, and I am very proud of them; of course, I have had casualties, but mostly wounded, and they are very cheerful when I manage to get down to an advanced dressing station or hos- pital. "There seems no chance of leave for ages. "You will be glad to know I was mentioned in despatches — Sir G H 's belated Gallipoli des- patch, vide Daily Telegraph, July 14th, page 12, 4th AS AMERICA REMEMBERS HER MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 415 col,, under Howe Battalion, next to Colonel Collins. "I was attached to Howe Battalion during latter part of operations. "So, darling Mother, with a lot of luck I may have an English honour to give you to keep with the Croix de Guerre. "Do write and let me know how you are, and do take care of yourself, Mother darling, and don't do too much, "My Battery was lent the other day to one of the finest old regular Divisions, and to my surprise I was placed in command of five Batteries, and went to all the Conferences of the Generals. It was most interest- ing, and they all treated me well and took my views and advice on several matters, which was quite an honour, wasn't it? "I am feeling rather sore about the head and stomach to-day, as I had a very narrow escape yesterday — one of their beastly shells fell about ten yards away. I heard it coming just in time to fling myself down a mine shaft, but I was very sick afterwards; all my stomach seemed to be turned upside down and my head aches. I'd give a lot to be able to have forty-eight hours' sleep in dear old thirty-three. "By the way, do send me some weekly illustrated pa- pers, because, of course, we have no mess now and get no papers except the Daily Mail. "My best love, darling, and do write soon. "Your loving son, "Beo. "Gladys Cooper's photo hasn't arrived yet, but the others brighten up things greatly." 4i6 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS "France, "November 30th, 19 17. "My own darling Mother, ". . . George tells me you are not well and are suf- fering a great deal. Do please take care of yourself — it makes me more nervous than all the shells and bombs in the world. "You must give up all those extra matinees and parties for charity; you will kill yourself. . . . "I wonder if any of us will have any nerves by peace time, if we are alive ! "It's wonderful about the cards* — the padre and I think that we will give one to each man, and if he wants another, or any more, he will pay twenty-five centimes for it and the officers fifty centimes each, the proceeds to go to the Battalion Band Fund! "We are progressing favourably with our Band, and have a real professional Orchestra leader as Bandmaster. "But do tell me what the cards cost, because I feel it must have been such an expense for you. "Gladys Cooper sent me such a lovely new photo of herself, which now adorns my tent and sometimes the mess when we can get one. . . . "Your loving son, "Beo." "Howe Battalion, "17th December, 1917. "My own darling, "The cards are wonderful and a huge success. I have given everybody one. * He made a sketch for a Christmas card. I was able to get i,ooo printed for him in time. MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 417 "We have fifteen Instruments now, and although they have only been going four weeks, they have already given a concert. "I am so afraid we shall be in the trenches for Christ- mas, and I expect the Boche will attack again, but we are ready for him. He has never driven the old R.N.D. back a foot, and never will while any of us old 'uns are alive. The esprit de corps is fine, and I flatter myself the Battalion is in as good fighting trim as it has ever been; but it has been hard work training the new men and lecturing and putting new morale into them — eight solid hours a day, and the weather abominable. . . . "Your loving son, "Beo." Beo and his Commander, were killed instantan- eously by a shell near La Vacquerie, at about half- past seven in the morning of December 30th, and were buried on January ist, at Metz-en-Couture. "Headquarters, 13th Corps, "B. E. F. 6/1/1918. "Dear Mrs. Campbell, "I was indeed grieved to read of the death of your son, and my old comrade, Alan Campbell. We served together in the same Brigade, of which I was Brigade Major from the beginning of Gallipoli till our arrival in France, and in the same Division until the beginning of last year. "You will doubtless know with what gallantry he fought in Gallipoli. Certain arrangements for our final retirement were entirely in his hands, and the 4i8 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS Turk knows best how efficient those arrangements were. "In France he quickly became known as a daring and expert Trench Mortar Officer. I have no hesitation in saying that he was out and away the best I have known, the next best being an officer he had trained, and who later became the officer in my new Brigade. "How he led a Tank into action at the Ancre on November 14th, 19 16 is probably known to you. It was a particularly gallant act, and cleared up a very awkward situation. "As to his later work, you will doubtless hear from his present Commander, but I feel that I cannot let slip this opportunity of expressing my admiration for the gallan- try and leadership shown by my old comrade, and also of expressing my sincerest sympathy with you in your loss. "Yours sincerely, "C. F. Jerram "(Major)." "nth January, 1918. "Dear Mrs. Campbell, ". . . During the short time we served together in the Dardanelles and in France he stood out as one of the very best officers, a splendid character and full of grit. He did fine work all through, more especially in connection with the evacuation, which meant for him a week of danger without rest. "He soon got known in France, where opportunities were, perhaps, greater, and I had hoped to hear of his rapid advancement. His death is a grievous blow to the Division and to the Service. His proud record and ex- MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 419 ample remain — and this must be some little solace in your present great trouble. "Yours sincerely, "A. Paris (Late G.O.C. Naval Division)." "6th January, 19 18. "Dear Mrs. Patrick Campbell, "... I knew him so well, and realise so much what a loss he is to his country, and his regiment. "I was more pleased than I can tell you when I read that he had been gazetted as Captain in the H.L.L, and I had been counting on him at the end of the war as be- ing one of our most tried and trusted officers — and one who, I knew, would be warmly welcomed by all of us who are left. "As his late Brigadier I cannot speak too highly of him. The most gallant fellow I have ever met — always reliable and very capable. "He would very soon have had command of a Bat- talion — and was doing such good work with the Howe Battalion, while his Commander was on leave. "He was beloved by us all — officers and men alike — and he leaves a real blank, and though he never joined our regiment, I can assure you the Highland Light In- fantry will always be proud to have borne his name on their roll. "For myself I feel a better man for having had him as a friend. . . . "Yours most sincerely, "R. E. Prentice (Lt.-Col.), "(High. Lt. Inf.)." 420 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS "6th January, 191 8 "My dear Stella, ". . . Beo has shown himself to be an absolute hero, not once, but many times during the war. Surely he surpassed even your good opinion of him. Certainly he was one of the great soldiers of this war. If we win, it will be due to men of his courage and example. "I know how much you loved him. For such love there is no consolation except, perhaps, the knowledge that all men who know what he has done are moved to the deepest of their feelings with reverence and admira- tion. "Neville Lytton." * "7th January, 19 18. "My dear Beatrice, "I am so sad that you should have this ordeal to go through, and I wish I knew any way to comfort you. How much rather would you have this sorrow than never had a son who would go to the war and die fighting gal- lantly for his country. How good that you have had a son who stood the supreme test of manhood. And in those three years he lived thirty of such lives as mine; he had in them the work he was so fitted to do superlatively well, all the joys — that come to most lives that are spread over many years. He died in great honour. Surely you are a proud woman as well as a sad one. "I shall, of course, come to see you any time you want me. "Yours affectionately, "J. M. Barrie." * Major the Honourable Neville Lytton. MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 421 "Stanway. "Dearest Stella, "How can I write? You are never out of my mind for a second. I heard the sad, sad news yesterday, and knew that the cruel blow which had fallen on so many hearts — the cruellest blow — has fallen upon your poor heart, and I think you will believe that there is no one who feels for you more than I do, for every reason. I know how you adored Beo, and Beo is associated with our happy past. He and Ego*, what happy days they had together here; what fun they had at the stump cricket — their test matches in the barn. "If you have one of the Christmas Cards left, I'd love to have it. Dearest, I can't write more now. I wish I could save you from the suffering — the anguish; but, alas! one can't, except by just deep, loving sympathy, which does strengthen just a little. You have joined the band of those who mourn for heroes — and Beo was a glorious soldier. Bless him! and God comfort you. "Your loving friend, "Mary Wemyss." "Taplow Court, "February 6th, 19 18. "Dearest Stella, "This is only a tiny line to thank you for sending me the card. I think Beo's spirit and his generous braveness are shining through you and helping you ! ! I know, alas ! that nothing can save you from all the agony of longing and missing; disappointment and the long, weary way one has to trudge through ! But I see by the strength and bravery of your beautiful letter that you ♦Lord Elcho, the eldest son of the present Earl of Wemyss, killed in the late action against the Turks at the battle of Katia. 422 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS are, indeed, a worthy mother of your glorious soldier son. I remember a story you used to tell me of Beo, when you were scolding him, falling asleep hugging his cricket bat! * What boys they were! Their eagerness at games; their self-training and courage. Seriousness and fun helped them to be the soldiers they were. "I have a lovely letter to show you some day, that Beo wrote, with pictures of himself and Ego at cricket in the pouring rain, and at golf on Cleeve Hill playing up and down precipices. You must come quickly to see us at Stanway some day when you can leave your work. "Your words are a help to me; each one helps the other, for your courage comes when one feels inclined to flag and fail, and it helps one on again. "God bless you. "Mary Wemyss." A brother officer wrote: "In the trenches, "4th January, 19 18. "My dear Mrs. Cornwallis West, ". . . His indomitable cheerfulness, his faithfulness to his comrades and his own Division, his staunch pa- triotism and lofty ideals, all endeared him to his fellow officers and the men who served with him. "I hope you may see with his own clear vision the Great Cause for which his sacrifice was made, so that the pain of your own sacrifice may be lessened somewhat by the knowledge of how he died — and for whom. "Richard Donaldson, "(Lieut, R. N. V. R.)." * I remember his words, too — "Your voice is so lovely it sends me to sleep !" MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 423 "11, Charles Street, "S. w. "Dear Mrs. Cornwallis West, "I was Brigade Major to the Brigade in which your son was, and saw a great deal of him during the last year. May I tell you how deeply I sympathise with you in your sorrow? Alan was one of the most popular people in the Naval Division, and certainly one of the most plucky people I know. He had done so well, and he is a great loss to the Division. General Prentice and I were very glad when he got his commission in the Highland Light Infantry, and it would have been so nice to have had him in the regiment. "He often used to talk to me of you, and I felt I would like to tell you how very much I feel for you. . . . • • • "Alexander Telfer-Smollett." '3rd Bn. Machine Gun Corps, "Clipstone Camp. "5th January, 19 18. "Dear Mrs. Campbell, "... He was a great friend of mine, and a finer soldier was never born. I crossed to France with him last October, and he saw me off to my Base. My wife, too, asks me to convey her sorrow; she knew him almost as well as L "The tributes I have heard of his work in Gallipoli and France from his brother officers were magnificent. . . . (( "Wm. Goodall, Lieut." 424 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS "lO, Adephia Terrace, W. C. 2. "7th January, 1918. "Never saw it or heard about it until your letter came. It is no use: I can't be sympathetic; these things simply make me furious. I want to swear, I do swear. Killed just because people are blasted fools. A chap- lain, too, to say nice things about it. It is not his busi- ness to say nice things about it, but to shout that the 'voice of thy son's blood crieth unto God from the ground.' "No, don't show me the letter. But I should very much like to have a nice talk with that dear Chaplain, that sweet sky-pilot, that . . . "No use going on like this, Stella. Wait for a week, and then I shall be very clever and broadminded again and have forgotten all about him. I shall be quite as nice as the Chaplain. "Oh, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, DAMN, "And oh, dear, dear, dear, dear, dear, dearest! "G,B,S." I found the following quotation amongst Beo's papers, that came back from France: "To be glad of life because it gives you the chance to love and to work and, to play and to look up at the stars: to be contented with your possessions, but not satisfied with yourself until you have made the best of them; to despise nothing in the world except falsehood and meanness, and to fear nothing except cowardice." CHAPTER XIX. ABOUT six months after my sorrow, life be- gan to teach me its hardest lesson; which must be learned if we are to comprehend in any measure the grace of God : — That there can be a fundamental gulf of gracelessness in a human heart which neither our love nor our courage can bridge. ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ My mother-in-law was brought back very ill from the South of France. For a short time she was in a nursing home in London. Daisy Pless asked me to go and see her. I watched Patsy as she lay in bed; her expression of mysterious defiance touched me: leaning over her, I said: "Is there any- thing in the world I can do for you?" After some moments, in a voice that seemed to come from some other being, she said slowly: "God bless you." I asked her maid whether there was anything I could do. "Tell Major West to come to her." I had not seen George for a long time — I wrote to him begging that he would go to his mother. r^ rffk 4^f 'T* 'T* *^* On February loth, 1920, there was a revival of Mr. Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion, at the Aldwych 425 426 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS Theatre, and again this play went with all the old merriment. On the 3rd of June, the production of Madame Sand, by Phillip Moeller at the Duke of York's Theatre. Dear Madame Sand — she thought it was love that made life worth living. She loved men of genius, and they loved her — and inspired her work — Some people liked the play, some praised me, some laughed at my trousers; some would not be- lieve the cigars I smoked were real. One man came to the stage door and asked how we managed to get the smoke into the "trick" cigar. And these are some of the letters that were written to me : — "Plumpton, "Sussex. "My dear Mrs. Campbell, "I am so sorry if I was rude about your trousers, but quite sincerely they wounded me. If only they had been pretty trousers — but they were not. They may be historically correct. But in a play which outrages history in so many vital points, to outrage it further in the stuff and cut of 'George Sand's' trousers, would have offended nobody, and pleased one person at least. C glared so formidably at me when you complained of my critic- ism, that I did not dare to ask her how she'd like to wear trousers like that. I don't think she would look very nice, do you? .... "Affectionately yours, "Rudolf Besier. MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 427 "P. S. — I hadn't really time to tell you that your performance was pure genius — like everything you do." "62, Cadogan Square, S. W. "Dear Stella, they all told me untruthfully that the play was bad and unnecessary, and that you were no good. "I may have failed to disentangle the respective mer- its, but it seemed to me the play was almost worthy of your acting — more one cannot say. "Many thanks. I enjoyed it enormously. "Yours, "Wemyss. j> * "2 Robert Street, "Adelphi. "Barrie took me to your play the other night, and we both thought you marvellously good and looking too bea- tiful, especially in the last act in your pink dress. "You are a wonder! "I do hope it's going to run. "Bless you. "Loving, "Cynthia." * "10, Adelphi Terrace, "June. "I went on Thursday night. I thought the British public absurdly illiterate and stupid. After the second act I felt inclined to come before the curtain and ex- plain to them that the Coliseum was across the road, and that they had come into the wrong house. If they think that Alfred de Musset's part must be sacred music, * The present Earl of Werayss. *Lady Cynthia Asquith. 428 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS at least Crock will make It clear that they are meant to laugh at him. Pigs! "What induced you to Imitate Oscar Wilde? It was an inspiration, and amazingly like the original. . . . Your lovely performance is too good to be thrown away; it Is a repertory part. Why can you not act as Intelli- gently as that for me, devil that you are? "G. B. S." "Leytonstone. "Dear Madam, "Thank you so much for the very clever and artistic play that I have just seen for a second time in a week, and only wish I had the opportunity of a third visit. In spite of critics and letters, a good many people have enjoyed Madame Sand, and personally I think the play has gone to show a far more pleasing side of her character than one gets from reading her life. "There are, unfortunately, so very many ordinary plays produced nowadays, plays that one sees one day and forgets the next. But Madame Sand Is the only one of the great many I have seen this year, that re- mains with me as a very real enjoyment. "Hoping it will not be a great while before the public have the pleasure of seeing you act again, and with apologies for writing you. 'Yours truly, "M. G." On October nth, 1920 — at the invitation of the British Rhine Army of Occupation — I played Pyg- malion, with the members of their Dramatic Com- pany in Cologne. They played extraordinarily well, and it was an interesting fortnight. I was over- MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 429 praised, over-entertained, and over-photographed. On November 2nd there was Mr. J. K. Hackett's fine production of Macbeth, at the Aldwych Theatre. No doubt I deserved some of the bad re- views I received. I lacked spirit and physical strength at that time. "The Empress Club, "35 Dover Street, W.i. "November 26th, 1920. "Dear Mrs. West, ". . . Now to the sublime! I feel sure that we shall never witness such a great performance of Macbeth in this country in the future unless you give it again to- gether. It is too rare a combination — two geniuses — which makes the whole so powerful. "I think Mr. J. K. H. tremendously strong in his part, and I hope he is as grateful to his Maker, as his audiences are, for that beautiful voice ! But it Is his lovely, wicked wife who sends the thrills all over the house. "You are a wonderfully gifted woman, and it is great art for so gentle a being, to be able to impersonate a fiend of fiends. "The public are intelligent and loyal, and they appre- ciate and love you and expect great things for many, many years to come. Don't let selfish, unkind, and stupid people rob us of a vestige of your vitality. You are too richly endowed by Heaven with such gifts to let the common herd affect or depress you. "Yours very sincerely, "E. H." Then my doctor advised me to make no more ef- 430 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS fort, but to stay quietly in bed — and there he kept me for three months — I am sure it was only my anx- iety about money that made me get up. I had acted so seldom during the last few years — and then only short engagements — that I was hard pressed. A good offer was made to me, to recite a Pro- logue and Epilogue for a film called "The Dawn of the World" — three performances a day — I got out of bed to go and see this film. D. D. Lyttel- ton came with me, and we both thought it was not so bad : thankfully I accepted the engagement. When this engagement was over, my doctor was very severe with me. He said I must go away into the country alone, and speak to no one — for six or eight weeks. I obeyed him. I had waited in London nearly two years, for a miracle to happen. . . . *U^ ^ sif- ^ sit 1^ 1^ i^» ^^* ^^" Publishers asked me to write my *'Life" — a hun- dred thousand words! I laughed, and said I could not write a letter that anyone could read, and I knew only about thirty words — and some of those were ''swear words." How could I write the same words over and over again? But this did not seem to frighten them, and so, after some hesitation, and a few pangs, I agreed. I found a cottage in Lancashire, sold my London house, and settled down to my job. MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 431 On the loth of September I acted at the Play- house, Liverpool, in a very effective little one act play by clever Miss Clemence Dane, called The Terror, for a fortnight — I could not spare more time from my writing: it was a success, and had six and seven calls every night. The country and I have never lived together until now — a week or so, visiting at country houses, that was all, some happy weeks in Dorsetshire, six weeks in Wiltshire, a month in Surrey, and a few months in Wales. Breakfast once in the woods at Long Island — Be- fore me, lay the silver sand — beyond the Atlantic — behind me, the undergrowth, the American white dog-roses, the tall trees: my companions, my Amer- ican girl friends with their intoxicating wild spirits. Nature gives me happiness and beauty every mo- ment — the wild birds in the hedges — the robin in my hall — his hide-and-seek way of greeting me in the garden. And my fifteen Irish ducks, the silly hens, the fresh eggs. The Japanese garden, the Japanese teal — the Irises that will be up in the Spring — the thousand daffodils in the wood — the fritillaries and other lovelinesses that I am awaiting, and that are ready with their many blessings. And the wind blows from the sea, fourteen miles away, into my garden. There is a sunken rose garden in front of my sit- 432 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS ting-room window, where the roses were blooming late into November. On my cottage is a yellow jasmine, and a white jasmine, and two pear trees, that were heavy with fruit when I came here in the autumn. And then there are the privet hedges and the birds' nests — what singing there will be in the Spring! Beautiful hills can be seen far away on the left; on the right, many fields and plowmen with their horses and dogs — their homes and farms in the dis- tance — and crows and seagulls feeding as the earth is turned over. And rooks talk like mad in the morning — and at nine o'clock little feet and children's voices hurrying to school — a small part of my garden and a hedge separating me from the road where they pass. At the back of my cottage, the country road, and a smithy and duck pond — and in front at the end of my wood, an old Manor, empty now, where I saw the picture* of Mrs. Wilbraham Bootle, which makes you say, Mr. Romney was the greatest of por- trait painters. So long as that picture exists, you can meet and know intimately Mrs. Wilbraham Bootle, and the best work of a great master. It is not too quiet here: near by is the beautiful home of the young Lord Lathom: he and his sister come up sometimes from London, and have won- derfully gay parties. * Now at Blythe Hall, the Earl of Lathom's new home. © Farringdon Photo Co., Londtm GEORGE SAXD IN "mADAME SANb" MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 433 And these are a few more things that I have learned : — Religion and love inspire the spirit of martyr- dom — Why? — a profoundly troubling question. It is this spirit of martyrdom against which the world to-day rebels. The limitless martyrdom is martyrdom to self. A man built a temple, high towards the heavens — built it of all the wisdom, knowledge, beauty, art, true speaking, honour, glory, patience, virtue, and goodness that he had gathered together. But the four winds of heaven blew upon the temple and it fell to the ground. "I have made the best I could; with the best that I have found; and all is destroyed," he cried. A voice whispered, "You built in vanity — lay your treasures one before the other on the ground, upon your knees, making a pathway through dark places." He did as he was told, laying his poor wisdom, patience, goodness, and all the virtues he had gath- ered together, humbly upon the ground — one before the other. And behold the pathway led to a great Light that filled his heart with song, and great peace was about him: and he smiled at the memory of the temple that had been destroyed by the four winds of heaven. 434 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS Moral education, not experience, should teach us, instantly to recognise what the Americans call — a "spook." It is never an "instinct" — an artificial fly can catch the finest fish. We only believe the fallacy that love can triumph over the character of another when our own love has failed in the attempt. Callousness never takes the place of love — only of what people are apt to call love. The instinct of self-preservation is an animal in- stinct. The instinct of the preservation of the community is the highest instinct man is capable of — it must in the end lead to the preservation of the individual. There is a strange desire in the world to-day, to speak the truth. It is the wailing that follows war — it cemes in the wake of grief. A child speaks the truth from want of guile. Men and women speak it in despair. Our best loved friend is always in some way our peer. MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 435 I have lain my cheek upon the earth and felt it my mother's bosom. I knew a shy man who told me his timidity was born of his dread lest people should guess how fool- ish he knew them to be. Refinement and breeding in a man or woman will take care of itself. It is the lack of vital energy that so often goes with these qualities that must be looked to continually. We are sensitive to the human eye — I have known a cunning eye in a most intelligent man that made me set little value upon his words, and the principles he laid claim to. A lovely gentle feminine eye in woman has stolen manhood and honour since the beginning of time. The look of trust in the eye of a child and the clasp of its little hand can send the Devil to sleep. To see through a kind but crafty nature we need a super-intelligent knowledge of human character; or else a similar cunning. I have known a lie, built upon a truth, that broke a heart. 436 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS I have known a truth, built around a lie, that saved a soul. Actors and actresses possess a very wonderful honesty in their endeavor to please the author. They would rather brave the censure of critics, the disappointment of dearest friends, than feel the author was dissatisfied with their work. There is a story of an author who at rehearsal, when the actor fell, said: "No, no, that's not the fall I want at all, I want you to fall — inert." The actor said: "Would you mind showing me?" The brave author got up, and threw himself down — hurting himself very much — and the actor said: "That's splendid; would you mind doing it again?" The loveliest performance I ever saw was Ellen Terry as "Imogen." When she entered I felt she had come from the moon: when she left the stage I was sure the stars were greeting her. No one has ever had her magical step — that extra- ordinary happy haste, that made you feel she must presently arrive at the gates of Paradise. The evening I saw her in "Imogen," she forgot her words, and — giving a delicious look at the au- dience and then towards heaven — spoke three times in a voice that melted your bosom, this word: "Be- yond — beyond — beyond " MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 437 There was no "Beyond" in the text, but it was the loveliest word I ever heard, and described her "Imo- gen." I have seen the great Eleanoroa Duse only in modern plays Magda, Hedda Gabler, and The Sec- ond Mrs. Tanqueray. To me she was too sad, and too slow. But in her work there is a great dignity, sincerity, and a fine introspection — and a tremendous appreciation of the nobility of suffering. I wish I had seen her in a poetical play — or in a purely romantic, decorative role. Her personality is not new to me, for she re- sembles strangely an Italian aunt of mine. Sympatica morbidezza is her great charm, and she commands almost slavish attention and admira- tion from her audience. The atmosphere of a Ma- donna was about her work. The Madonna-like at- mosphere of her personality eclipses sometimes the charm of her sincerity in modern neurotic roles. This atmosphere often renders criticism of her technique a small affair. Her beauty pulsates, and never for a moment is there a feeling of "tricks." Though perhaps not aiming at quite such a classic standard, I think there are just as many clever ac- tresses to-day as there were yesterday. The "school" to-day is lighter — the personalities 438 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS have somehow adapted themselves to a more girl- ish, or what is termed a "flapper," style. We were neurotic, weary ladies in teagowns, when Ibsen gripped us. To-day is the day of the girls the soldier boys left behind them, and rightly so. That will pass, and to-morrow the woman who "comes through with a smile" may be asked for — Anyway, surely the enthusiasm for the theatre is greater than ever. *^ ^ 4t 'It '■^ *^ 1* *^ I have never known the "art of acting^' really cared for in this country. It is first the player, then the play — and always, "Who is your favorite actor or actress?" I do not find people discussing exquisite gesture — variety of tone — and above all, that most difficult of technical difficulties, the subtle tones, tempo and manner, which indicate the difference of feeling to- wards each character in the play — or broad human effects — atmosphere breeding and style. Now and then, a critic points out these things, but an English audience does not look for them — or rec- ognise them. When authors produce plays, it seems to me, the absorbing idea is that their words are heard by the audience. I have known it carried to such a point that the MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 439 actors talked at the audience the whole evening, mak- ing one feel not only a fool, but a deaf fool. It is a fault to drop the voice now and again, but it is a worse fault to bawl for two and a half hours unceasingly. When actor-managers produce plays — it is that the play should "go" ; the thrilling scenes thrill ; the com- edy lines call forth laughter; and the tender scenes tears — and they themselves make a personal success. But the real "art of acting" is not considered. This art has nothing to do with impersonation — beyond the means by which the artist impersonates. If a personality suits a role a fine impersonation may be given with little or no knowledge of the "art of acting." It has nothing to do with youth or of age unless the feeling of youth is to be suggested. It has nothing to do with any real thing — only with the technical means, apart from inspiration — by which the real things is given to the imagination of the audience. There is a certain artistic hysteria on the stage, that is exasperating — a stare in the artist's eye as he waits at the wings, a stiffening of his muscles, and a throatiness ready in his voice. Oh, that he would trip, or sneeze, and suddenly become natural, and begin over again — the right way! 440 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS I made the remark to a brilliant writer, before I had heard of the Clarendon Handbook, that I found punctuation very difficult — where to put a semi- colon, and where to put a colon. He replied: "That is not what troubles me, it is what to put between the semicolon and the colon! The gods laugh when man would make his genius confederate with his clay. Art is a form of worship and thanksgiving — the rest is invention, ingenuity, a business, a compromise, an imitation, or a bag of gathered, or stolen articles unpacked. It is a common form of self-indulgence to burden one's friends with confidences; to tell them those things which we would consider a breach of trust on their part if they repeated. How eagerly such confidences are sought — and given. When we lose trust in people — in time we lose in- terest in them. To be tolerant towards sluggish natures and un- responsive minds, is very difficult, and needs Christ- like patience. MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 441 A fine heated discussion is a sort of mental tennis. There are rules to the game, and the more intelligent keep to them. I have hurt a loving friend who wanted to see me off by train, by remarking to her: "I like porters, not sentiment at railway stations." The silly last words as the train starts — the other passengers, dreading the fate of their toes, as you retire backwards from the window to your seat. Or if you shout your familiar farewell, without moving from your corner, you have the impression that you have forced an intimacy upon the rest of the people in the compartment, which they resent, and that secretly they despise your want of self-control. Some time after the train has started you have an odd sensation of nakedness; you cannot clothe your- self quite in the garb of a stranger again. I heard a lady say, in a mysterious voice: "You won't forget, will you my dear, to tell Nora that I left the brown " Her friend interrupted her hastily, blushing furiously, and said, "No, no, I won't." I wasted the better part of an hour wondering whether Nora was her sister, daughter, or maid — and what was the brown 1 did not ask, so I shall never know. ***** There is my beloved grandchild, "Pat"— Stella's 442 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS boy — he calls me ''Mother Beatrice." He has the radiance that goes with a great kindliness of dispo- sition; and a very quick intelligence — an elasticity — without which life is a dreary battle, and possessing which — a battle fit for the gods. And my beloved daughter Stella, a courageous, beautiful woman, full of gentle talent. She has a delicacy and distinction of inestimable value in plays of a certain calibre. Her ''Roxane" in Cyrano de Bergerac is remembered. *:k- :3e, ^ si^ It is not want of gratitude or grace, on my part, that names of some loved friends are omitted from these pages. I have no diary to help me, and so the daily se- quence of events is lost; and with this loss has gone the names of friends; kindly deeds, fun and happy hours. They will come to my mind by and bye, and I know the omission will fill me with regret. *^, jife jjg, jff, 1* *i» #ir "^ And here is the book I have written and dedicated to you, little girl, because you walked all that long way to see me act, and all the long way home again — I hope you arrived home safely. FINIS INDEX Acting, science of, 109-10, 438-9 As You Like It, Matinee of, under Adelphi Theatre, 82, 83, 84 Royal Patronage, 74 Adored One, The, 347-8 Asquith, Right Hon. H. H., 153 ^ix 314 Asquith, Lady Cynthia, letter from, Aladdin, 58-59 on Madame Sand, 428 Albee, 309 Asquith, Raymond, marriage of, Album, The, quoted on "Juliet," 278 i^^-6 Atwood, Roland, 69 Aldwych Theatre, Pymalion re- Aunt Jeannie, 230 vived at, 425, Macbeth at, 429 Avenue Theatre, 152, 154 Alexander, Lady, 82, 91 Alexander, Sir George, engage- Bachelors, 50-1 ments with to play The Second Balfour, Earl of, 118 Mrs. Tanqueray, 82-7, 90, 372; Bancroft, Sir Squire, 104 his offence, 117, 372, increases Bailey, Miss Katherine (Aunt salary, n8; in The Masquerad- Kate), 23, 24, 45-8 ers, 122-23; buys Magda, 145, Bailey, Harrington, 49 n.; sends for Stella, 298; offers Bandmann-Palmer, Mrs., 52-3 Bella Donna, 313; mentioned, Barker, Granville, claim by, 190- 92, 301 91 ; at rehearsals of Hedda Ga- Ambassador's JVife, The, in Chi- bier, 273; stops the play at the cago, 311 Court, 276 America, "Press Agents" in, 223 ; Barrie, Sir James, appreciation of "Interviewers" in, 216, 285 'Telleas," 176-7; offers of, to American Tours, in 1902, 203 seq., play in America, 315; the first 212-236; in 1904, 260 seq., night of The Adored One, 347-8; in 1907, 278-83; in 1910, 308; friendship with and letters from, in 1911, 309-11; in 1914, 376 348-58; his handwriting, 350; American Men and Women con- illustration of, 354; his scheme trasted with others, 222 for a play, The JVeather House, American Parks, 267 352; letter from, on Beo's death, Ancre, Battle of the, Beo in, 392-6, 420; estimate of, 349 4.02 Bates, Dr. Curling, 30, and note 37 Anomalies Dramatic Club, 30, 37, Beardsley, Aubrey, 98, 186 49 Beerbohm, Max, 202 Ant Hill, allegorical story of, 255- Beethoven, 308 58 Bella Donna, 313, 331, 378 Aphorisms, 358-62, 433-40 Benson, E. F. ("Dodo"), 230 Archer, William, on "Juliet," 136; Beresford, Lord Charles, 254-55, 270 appreciation of "The Rat Wife," Bernhardt, Sarah, in Phedre, 143, 153-54; translation of Hedda 182 ; in A/a^y^a, 148 ; as "Pelleas," Gabler by, 273; reviews Electra 176-7; a visit to, 176; a loan to, and Deirdre, 301 and its return, 178; provincial Arliss, George, 88 and note tour with, 179 and note; anec- 443 444 INDEX dote of her visit to America, 179; her attitude to flirting, 180; the story of an hotel bill, 181: her love of animals, 180-81 ; the amputation of her leg, 183; her affection, 177, 182, 372; her genius and courage, 182-83; esti- mate of, 178 Bernstein, M., 271 Besier, Rudolph, Olive Latimer's Husband, by, 303 ; Lady Patricia, by, 311; translation of La Vierge Folle, 312; letter on "George Sand," 426 Bertram, Mr., letter from, on American tour, 1901, 214-15 Beyond Human Poiver, 203-4, 224 Bjornson, B., 203 Black Domino, The, 79, 82-4 Boer War, 191 seg. Bondman, The, 271-72 Bootle, Mrs. Wilbraham, 432 Bottomley, H., 154, 162 Britannia, Beo on, 244, 382 Brodrick, Lady Hilda, 198 Buchanan, Robert, 78 Buried Talent, A, 68, 69 Burne-Jones, Philip, 109; letter of congratulation, 102; at the Academy with, 113 Burne-Jones, Sir Edward (Dear- est) ; friendship with, 114-15; his pictures, 115; letter from, on Rot- tingdean, 121 ; congratulation on "Dulcie," 126; appreciation and warning from, 127-8; mentioned, 164, 167 Burne-Jones, I.ady, 88, i2i-22 Burns, John, M. P., 344 "Futterflies," a poem, 143-44 "Buttons," 150 Buxton, Lady, 399 Cafe Monico, a rehearsal at, 278 Caine, Hall, 271-72 California, 295, 299 Camden Theatre, 259 Campbell, Alan, 34 Campbell, Helen, 299, 303-4, 309 Campbell, Lieut. -Commander Alan U., M. C. (Beo), his childhood, 386-7, 421-22; on H.M.S. Glory and King Alfred, 245-50; letters from, on his father's death, 193- 95 ; on his mother's accident, 263- 64 ; efforts for work, 278 ; goes to America, 279, 280; decides to act, 280; his attitude to the "Interviewers," 285; his com- ing-of-age party in Chicago, 287- 88 ; in The Notorious Mrs. Ebb- smith, and other parts; his marriage, 303-4; in America, 1910, 309-10; The Ambassador's Wife, by, 311; first night of The Adored One, 347-8; return home on outbreak of War, 369; receives Military Cross, 386; Naval and Military Service, 382- 86; letters from the Mediter- ranean and France, 387-95; from R.N. Division, 395-9; describ- ing the Battle of the Ancre, 400- 3; other letters, 403-17; his Christmas Card, 416, 421; sketch of himself, 421-22; killed in France, 417; his recreations, 245- 48; his dramatic talent, 279-83; his letter to Stella on her mar- riage, 312; his affection for George, 374; quotation on life's purpose found among his papers, 424 Campbell, Patrick, his youth, 34-6, marriage, 35; ill-health, 36-8, 70, 118; ordered a sea voyage, 37; in Brisbane and Sydney, 39- 41; in South Africa, 41-3, 51, 55, 70-8; returns home, 119-20; at work in the City, 158; joins Lord Chesham's Yeomanry, 192, 200-1 ; news of his being killed, 192-3; military funeral, 196; his grave, 399; estimate of, i2o-i ; men- tioned 142, 158 Campbell, Stella (daughter), birth, 37; her education in Dresden, 251; presented at Court, 254; wants to act, 254-5; '" America with her mother, 260, 263, 265-66, 278; at Raymond Asquith's wedding, 278; as "Mrs. Elv- sted," 280; as "Chrysothemis," 292 ; in The Moon of Yamato, 298; in The Thunderbolt, 298- 99; leading lady for Harry Irving, 310; wants to marry and give up the stage, 310; goes to Africa to get married, 311-12; her son Pat, 441 ; estimate of, INDEX 445 2i6, 442; letter on her mother's marriage, 374; other letters, 250-53; her beauty, 254; men- tioned, 138, 157, 193, 288 Canary, The, 150, i88 Cantor, President of Manhattan Borough, the "tanbark" incident, 226-27 Carlyon Sahib, igz Carolan, Mrs. Harriet, 296 Caruso, in the Earthquake at San Francisco, 296 Caton, Mrs. Arthur, 213 Cavendish, Lady Edward, 163 Chamberlain, Doctor, 266 Chambers, Haddon, 128 Chesham, Lord, 192, 195-96 Chicago, 212-14, 315 Clarkson, W., 176 Clouds, 314 Creyke, Caroline, 103 Creyke, Diana (Mrs. Ker Seymer), 137-38 Criterion Theatre, 273, 278 Cole, George, a sailor, letter of thanks from, 379-80 Colquhoun, Mr. — ■ — , 71-2 Cologne, Pygmalion at, 428 Coliseum Theatre, 379 Conried, Heinrich, 231 and note Coppee, Frangois, 142 Cornwallis-West, Beatrice Stella, her lineage, 1-4, 89, 113, her name, 10, 50, early years, 15-22 seq.; first visit to a theatre, 25; education, 22-26; appearance as an amateur, 30, 37; youthful poem, 30; marriage to Patrick Campbell and early struggles, 35; first engagements with Frank Green's Company, 49-51 ; with Ben Greet's Touring Company, 57-61 ; overworked and ill (1891), 69-74; at the Adelphi, 82; typhoid fever, 79-81; effects of, 82; back to the Adelphi, 82; engagement with George Alex- ander, 83 seq.; social success and anecdotes, 105-107; imperti- nent criticisms, io8-iio; death of her father, 113; Beo's illness, 116; strained relations with George Alexander, 117-122; her hus- band's return and illness, 119- 121 ; at the Haymarket and at the Garrick, 128-9; voice failure, 130; at the Lyceum (1895), 133 seq.; (1896), 142 seq.; (1898), 162; a supper party, 138; retires from Michael and His Lost An- gel, 141; tired out, 151; at the Avenue (1896-7), 152, 154; breakdown, 156; visit to Hatch House, 156; tour in Germany, 162 seq.; at the Prince of Wales Theatre, 163 seq.; the Dublin critics demur, 162; the Syndi- cate's formation, 187; at the Kennington Theatre and Prince of Wales (1899) and at the Royalty (1900) 187-88; Gran- ville Barker's claim, 190-91; Pat killed in the Boer War, 192 seq.; sympathetic reception on return to work, 201 ; provin- cial tours (1900) and return to the Royalty, 202; bankruptcy threatens, and first American tour arranged, 203; in Chicago (1902), 212-14; in New York, 214 seq.; the Phonograph Story, 219-20; ill, 220; second American tour (September, 1902), 222; "tanbark" in New York, 223- 229; "Stinkbugs" in St. Louis, 230; at Garden Theatre in New York, 230-36; in London again (1904) at the Imperial, 237; death of Uncle Harry, 238; at the Camden Theatre, 259; third visit to America, 260; breaks knee-cap in Philadelphia, 261- 66 ; the rescue of a dog and the frozen birds, 267-8; the hotel fire, 269; the Mexican paraket, 270-71 ; provincial tour in Eng- land (1905) with Sarah Bern- hardt, 179, 271 ; at the Coronet, the Criterion, and Drury Lane (1906), 271-72; at Court The- atre (1907), 273-7; losses, 278; to America again with Beo and Stella (1907), 278; the "inter- viewers," 285; in Canada, 288; the strain over Electra, 291-92 and note; matinee for theatrical profession in New York, 294-95; in San Francisco, 295-98; return 446 INDEX from America and death of her mother, 298-300; on tours and at New Theatre (1908), 301-2; at the Vaudeville (1909), 503; Beo's marriage, 303-4; His Boirovjed Plumes produced, 304-6; e;ossip, 307, 309; at His Majesty's The- atre, 307-8; in America (1910) at ,£500 a week, 308-9; break- down and ordered to St. Agathes des Monies, 310; in Chicago, 315; at the Haymarket (1911), 311-12; Stella's marriage, 311-12; in New York, 309-10; at St. James' Theatre, 313; in a cab accident, 314-15; to Aix, 314; ill in Keiisingion Sijuare, 316 seq.; in a nursing home, 333 seq.; at work again, 341 ; at rehearsal with G. B. Shaw, 342 seq.; in Richmond Park, 344; the pro- duction of The Adored One (1913)) 348 seq.; revival of The Second Mrs. Tanqueray, 373 ; marries George Cornwallis-West (1914), 373-75; the first night of Pygmalion at His Majesty's, 375 ; in America, acting with George, 376; the outbreak of War, 376; visit to Ruthlin Cas- tle, 378; at St. James' The- atre and London Opera House (1916), 378; George's Pro Fatria at the Coliseum (1917), 378-9; the Duke of York's, 379; Beo killed in France, 381 ; George's silence, 381 ; life's hardest lesson, 425; at the Aldwych and the Duke of York's (1920), 425-8; the "Kreek" cigar, 426; Pyg- malion in Cologne and Macbeth at the Aldwych, 428-9; three months' illness, 430; recites Pro- logue and Epilogue for The Daivn of the JVorld Film, 430; in a Lancashire cottage, 430-42; contrasted with Ada Rehan, 68; with Ellen Terry, 159-60. Characters of: — "Agnes Ebbsmith," 128, 129, 131 "Beata," 230-32 "Clarice Berton," iz "Dulcie," 124-5 "Electra," 290-92 "Eliza Doolittle," 345-6 "Fedora," 131 "Hedda," 273-76 "Japanese Lady, A," 298 "Juliet," 133-140 "Magda," 10, 145, 146-49, 189 "Melisande," 162, 165, 178 "Militza," 142 "Ophelia," 159-60 "Paula Tanqueray," 81 seq., 107-8 "Rat Wife, The," 152 "Teazle, Lady," 150 "Rita," 152-53 "Rosalind," 68-9 "Zoraza," 260 And see under titles of Plays in luhich she has acted Her sensitiveness, 94; her won- derful voice, 152; her attitude to flirtation, 179-80; to immo- rality, 214, her humour, 222; her personality, 293 ; her hands and appearance, 370-71; her writing, 379, 430 Cornvvallis-West, George, friend- ship with, 307; gossip concern- ing, 316, his cry for help, 321; his divorce and remarriage, 373; joins his wife and acts in Amer- ica, 376; bankrupt, 378; writes Pro Patria, 379; appreciates his wife's cooking, 380; silent, 381; his wife's letter to him regarding his mother's illness, 425 Cornwallis-West, Colonel William C. 378-9 Cornwalhs-West, Mrs. (Patsy), 377-8, 425 Coronet Theatre, 271 Court Theatre, 273-75 Courtney, W. L., 177, 271 Creyke, Diana, 137-38 Daily Telegraph, The, quoted on Masqueraders, 124-25; on Magda, 148 ; on Pelleas and Melisande, ijft-T, report of the Philadelphia accident, 264 Dane, Miss Clemence, 431 Davidson, John, 102; his transla- tion of Pour la Couronne, 142 ; of Ruy Bias (A Queen's Ro- mance), 237 INDEX 447 Daventry, Mr. and Mrs., 202 Daivn of the World, The, film, 430 d'Humiere, Comte Robert, 287 Deirdre, 301-2 Donaldson, Lieut. Richard, letter from, on Beo's death, 422-3 du Maurier, Gerald, in The Ca- nary, 188; in The Fantasticks, 202 ; in Mr. and Mrs. Daventry, 202; produces The Dust of Egypt, 315 Dudley, Rachel, Countess of, 374 Duke of York's Theatre, 381, 426 Dulwich, 29, 80 Duse, Eleanora, 146, 437 Dust of Egypt, The, by Beo, 315 Drama of the Month, 223 Drury Lane, 271-72 Eddie, Mrs. Spencer, 213 Eden, Lady, 176 E. H., 429 Elcho, Lord, 421 Electra, as played in Germany, France and England, 287, in. New York, 287 ; matinee to the theatrical profession, 288-89; in San Francisco, 294; at New The- atre, 295; on tour, 301, 302; de- scription of, 288-89 ; criticism on, 290-92 Elizabeth, Queen, 63 Embleton, Dr., 155 Emery, Miss Winifred, 142 Es Lebe Das Leben, and see, Joy of Living, 230 Expiation, 309, 310-11 False Gods, 307-8 Fantasticks, The, 202 Farren, William, 151 Faure, M. Gabriel, 164, 165, 289 Fedora, 131 Fernard, C. B., 183 Filippi, Rosina, 303 ; appreciation of "Magda," 150; teaches Stella, 278 Frohman, Charles, 313; at rehear- sals, 227 ; produces The Sorceress in America, 257 Galley, Ladv, 29 Garden Theatre, New York, 230 Garrick Theatre, 128 Gatti, Messrs, 82, 84 "Gensing Lodge," St. Leonards, 281 Gibson, Mrs. Dara, 221 Gladstone, Viscountess, 278, 348 Globe, The, quoted, 94 Glory, H.M.S., 245-6 Goodall, Lieut. Wm., 423 Gosse, Edmund, appreciation of "Agnes Ebbsmith," 131-32; of "Juliet," 137-38; of Beyond Hu- man Poiver, 208 Gould, Nutcombe, 87 and note, 88, 141 Gran, Albert, 190 Green, Frank, 50 Greet, Ben, 62, 63, 69; Pastoral Players Company, 50 and note, 57-63, 133 Grey, Countess, 288 Grey, 4th Earl, 288; in the Syndi- cate, 187, 203 Grey, Viscountess, of Fallodon, 364 Grosvenor, Countess, 198 Guildhall School of Music, 27, 28 \ Hackett, J. K., 183-84, 425 Hapgood, Norman, 222, 309 Happy Hypocrite, The, 202 Hare, Sir John, 62; produces No- torious Mrs. Ebbsmith, 128, 130 Harris, Frank, 153, 202 Harvey, Martin, 164, 203 Hatch House, 156 Hatton, Miss Bessie, 97 Hawksley, Bouchier F., controls the Syndicate, 187; Granville Bar- ker's [claim, 190-91 ; American tour, 202, 203 ; repayments to, 215, 217; in Pinkie's case, 270-71; helps Beo, 278-79 Hawthorne, Murray, 69 Haymarket Theatre, 130, 311 Hedda Gabler, at the Court, and Press criticisms, 273-76; in New York, 286; in Kalamazoo and elsewhere, 286 Heinemann, William, 153, 276 Hichens, Robert, 378 Hicks Theatre, 307 His Borroived Plumes, 304-7 His Majesty's Theatre, 307-8, 375 Horner, Catherine, 278 Horner, Lady, 64-5; anecdotes of 448 INDEX her children, 368-9; wedding con- gratulations, 374; estimate of, 367-8 Horner, Sir John, 367 Hugo, Victor, 237 Ibsen, characteristics of his art 275-76 Ibsen's Hedda Gabler, 273-75. . Illiteracy, G. B. Shaw's definition of, 345 Imperial Theatre, 237 Irving, Sir Henry, 133, 140; his appreciation of "Ophelia," 160 Irving, Harry, engages Stella, 310 Jameson, Sir Starr, 71, 187 Jerram, Major, C. F., 417-18 John-a-Dreams, 86, 128 Johnson, Laura, 67 Jones, Henry Arthur, 125, 141 Jordan, Mrs., 189 Joy of Living, 230-36 Julia, the dresser, 215, 217, 272, 314 Kaiser, the, gift from, 162; his appreciation of Hamlet and Mac- beth, 162-3 "Kaiser Wilhelm" goldfields, 76-7 Kennington Theatre, 187 Kensington Square, 192, 304, 316, 376, 403 Kent, Mrs. Edgar, 282 Kerr, Fredlc., 191, 202 Ker Seymer, Mrs. (Diana Creyke), 137-8 King Alfred, H.M.S., 249-50 La Rafale, 271 La Sorciere (The Sorceress), 260-61 Lady Patricia, 311-12 Lathom, Earl of, 432 La Vacquerie, Beo killed at, Dec. 30, 1917, 417 La Vierge Folle, 312-13 Laiv of the Sands, The, 378 I.emore, Clara, 144 Liebler and Co., 203 Lincoln, A., cited, 362 Little Eyolf, 152 Liverpool, Alexandra Theatre, 51 ; Playhouse, 431 Lock, Sir Henry, 71 London Opera House, 378 Lusitania, life on board, 282, 285 Lutyens, Sir Edwin, 363 Lyceum Theatre, Romeo and Juliet at, 133; Michael and His Lost Angel at, 141; Pour la Couronne at, 142 ; School for Scandal at, 150; Macbeth at, 162; Magda at, 145; psychological drama at, 146 Lyttelton, Hon. Alfred, tries to get Beo work, 278 Lyttelton, Hon. Mrs. Alfred ( D. D.), JVarp and IV oof, by, 259; tries to get Beo work, 260; her devotion, 320; estimate of, 362- 64; mentioned, 64-5, 284 note, 430 Lyttelton, Edith, 271 Lytton, Countess of, 348 Lytton, Major Hon. Neville, letter from, on Beo's heroism, 420 Macbeth, at the Lyceum, 162-63, 183-84; at the Aldwych, 429 Mackail, Prof. J. W., 115; on The Second Mrs. Tanqueray, loi ; "Agnes Ebbsmith," 131; on "Juliet," 137; on "Magda," 149; Pelleas and Melts ande, 164, 169, 170; letters from, 364 Mackail, Margaret, 115, 155; letters from, 365-6 Mackay, Mrs. Clarence, 219 Macklin, F. W., 49 Macleans of Bairness, 271 MacVeagh, Mrs. Franklin, 213-14 Madame Sand, 426 Maeterlinck, M., 165; the Belgian Shakespeare, 168; letters from, 168-69; lines of, in birthday book, 373 Magda, 145-49, 189-90, 230 Manchester Guardian quoted on "Hedda," 277 Mansfield, Richard, 263 Mariana, 202 Martin, Dr., 261-63, 265-66 Masf/ueraders, The, 122 seq. Maude, Cyril, 87, 90, 92 Maude, Winifred, 150 Mells, happy days at, 367-68 Melville, Mr., 271 Merry fVidow, The, 292, 295 Metz-en-Couture, Beo buried at, 417 INDEX 449 Meux, Lady, 187 M. G., letters from, on Madame Sand, 428 Michael and His Lost Angel, 141 Millett, Maude, 87, 92, 117 Modjeska, Madame, 133, 297-98 Moonlight Blossom, The, 150, 187-88 Moon of Yamato, The, 287, 294 Moore, Miss Mary, 301 Morris, Clara, no, note Morris, Mrs. William, 140 Moss, Sir Hugh, 62 Mount-Sully, 238 Murray, Prof. Gilbert, Carlyon Sa- hib, by, 187; his Electra of Euri- pides, 290; on Beyond Human Pouer, 207-8 Nairobi, 312 Nasmyth, Sir James, 30 Nelson's Enchantress, 154 New Theatre, 301 New York, 215-230, and see Amer- ica New York Evening Journal, quoted on dogs, 219,-20 Neqv York Evening World, quoted on "Hedda," 286 Notorious Mrs. Ebbsmith, The, 128- 31, 202, 288 Olive Latimer's Husband, 303 Ottawa, 288 Osborne, Mrs., 265 "Ouida," 263 Paris, A, (late G.O.C. Naval Divi- sion), letter from, on Beo's death, 418-19 Parental responsibility, 254-55 Parker, Louis N., 68, 102 ; transla- tion of Magda, 146; of La Sor- ciere, 260 Parry, Sir Hubert, 63 note Pat, grandson, 441, 442 Pelleas and Melisande, 162-67, 202; with Sarah Bernhardt, 176-7, 271; criticisms of, 168 seq. Pembroke, Countess of, 138-39 Pembroke, 14th Earl of, 63-65; let- ters from, on "Rosalind," 68; on The Second Mrs. Tanqueray, 99- loo; suggesting Shakespearean roles; 110-112; congratulations and criticisms on "Dulcie," 126-7 Pennsylvania University Hospital, 262 Phedre, 143 "Phelps School," 133 Philadelphia, accident in, 261, 265- 66 Philadelphia Ball, 265-266 Pinero, Sir Arthur W., 63, 298; The Second Mrs. Tanqueray, by, 83-7; the first night, 91-92; The Notorious Mrs. Ebbsmith, by, 128-9; letters from, 102-3 Pinero, Lady, 98, 132-33 "Pinkie," 217, 226, 243, 261, 265, smuggled home, 269-70 Pitou, M., 178 Pittsburg, 269 Plant, Rev. A. W., 195 Pless, Princess, 378 and note Polinelli, Rosa, 3 Pour la Couronne, 142 Poynter, Sir John, 97 Prentice, Lieut. -Col. R. E., 415 Prince of Wales Theatre, 164, 188- 89 Pro P atria, 379 Pygmalion, 345-6 ; first night at His Majesty's, 375; in America, 372- 3; revival of at Aldwych, 425; before British Rhine Army of Oc- cupation, 428 QUEENSBERRY, MARCHIONESS of, I04, 156 Queen's Romance, A {Ruy Bias), 237 Ray, Violet, 57, 66 Rehan, Ada, 68 Rhodes, Cecil, 44, 70 Ribblesdale, Lord, 65, 303 Richmond Park, 344 Robertson, Forbes, produces Romeo and Juliet, 133; Pour la Cou- ronne, 141-42; Macbeth, 162-3; The Moonlight Blossom, 187-88; as "Pastor Hefterdinck," 145 and note; offers "Ophelia" in Ham- let, 158; in Germany, 162; atti- tude to Pelleas and Melisande, 163; his acting in, 163-65, 167, 183; breaks the partnership, 187- 88; mentioned, 140, 154 450 INDEX Robertson, Ian, 164, 189; Earker's Claim, 190 Robins, Miss Elisabeth, 84-5 ; esti- mate of her performances, 152 Roe, Basset, 69 Romanini, Count Angelo, 3-4 Romeo and Juliet, 133 Romney, 433 Royal Academy, 109 Royalty Theatre, Magda at, 146, Mrs. Jordan at, 188-89; •^^'■- (^nd Mrs. Daventry at, 202; Beyond Human Power at, 203 ; successful management of, 192 Ruthlin Castle, 378 Rutland, Duchess of, 373 Ruy Bias, 237 St. Agathes des Montes, 310 St. James' Theatre, T/ie Second Airs. Tanqueray at, 87 seq., 372; Masqueraders at, 122; Bella Donna, 313, 378 St. Louis, "stinkbugs" in, 229 Sacrament of Judas, The, 188 San Francisco, The Joy of Living in, 236; Electra, 295; Search- lights, 376; stories of the Earth- quake, 295-96 Savile, Lady, 317 School for Scandal, The, 150 Schuster, Frank, 164 Scott, Clement, 62, 124-5 Searchlights, 376 Second Mrs. Tanqueray, The, at St. James', 82 seq.; 372; at Royalty, 202; in New York, 230, 377 Selous, Mr., 72 Semons, Sir Felix, 73 Shackle, Mr., 192 Shackle, Mrs. Frank (Flo), 200 Shaftesbury Theatre, 74 Shakespearean Plays, production of, 259 Shaw, G. Bernard ("Joey"), criti- cises Macbeth, 184-5; Moonlight Blossom, 188; Beyond Human Poiver, 205-7; Madame Sand, 427-8; at rehearsals of Hedda Gahler, 273 ; his Pygmalion, 342, 375 seq.; 425, 427-8; his friend- ship and letters, 321-46; on Beo's death, 424; Chess with, 336; Swedish exercises, 344; on il- literacy, 345 ; stage management, 375; mentioned, 284 note Shaw, Mrs. Charlotte, 339 Shaw, Lucy, 341-42 "She," 93 Sheldon, Edward, 296-97 Sims, George R., 78 "Sibyl," 240 and note Smedley, Constance, 189 Smith, Marion, 265 Smyth, Dr. Butler, 73 Sorceress, The, 260-61 Solomon, S. J., 109 Southport, a "fearsome occurrence" at, 302 Stage life, 285 "Star System," 276 Stevenson, R. L. cited, 359 "Stinkbugs," story of, 229-30 Stone, Melicent, 202 Stotesbury, Mrs., 376 Stracey, Sir Edward and Lady, 314 Sudermann, 230 Swete, Lyall, 54, 311 Symons, Arthur, 199-200, 287, 289 Syndicate, The, 187-91, 202, 214-15, 218, 22 "Tanbark," story of, 223-229 Tanner family, 1-9 Tanner, Edwin, letter from, quoted. Tanner, Henry Ward (Uncle Harry), i, 7-9, 17, 81; ruined, 26; poem by, 30-31; letters on last night of The Second Mrs. Tanqueray; 122-30; on Pat's death, 192; other letters from and to, 151-52, 156-57, 217, 222, 238-44; Bertram's letter to, on first American Tour, 243; his death, 238; estimate of, 244 Tanner, John (Father), 2, n-12, 24; ruined, death, 113 Tanner, Maria Luigia Giovanna (Mother), 2, 12-15, 35. 81, 262; at Gensing Lodge, 281-82; letters to, on Stella and Beo, 280-84; from Chicago and Canada, 282- 84; her sufferings and death, 298- 300; estimate of, 284 Tanner, Miss (Sister), 243 Tares, 52, 53 ; letter from the Com- pany, 54 INDEX 451 Telfer-Smollett, Major Alexander, letter from, on Beo's death, 423 Terry, Ellen, as "Ophelia," 159-60; as "Imogen," 436; sympathy from, 320 Terror, The, 431 Thirteenth Chair, 381 Thunderbolt, The, 298, 301 Times, The, Electra reviewed by, 301-2 ; playful criticism of His Borrowed Plumes, 305-7; quoted on Beo's Tank feat, 402. See also Walkley, A. B. Toiun Talk, quoted, 292-93 Tree, Sir Herbert Beerbohm, 68; congratulations from, 100; his offer of £4 a week, of £60 a week 112; produces John-a- Dreams, 128; Fedora, 131; his letter on Pat's death, 199; esti- mate of the charm of his acting and personality, 307-8 Tree, Lady, 131, 304; as "Clytem- nestra," 292 Trumpet Call, The, 78 Vachell, H. a., 376 Vanbrugh, Irene, a supper with, in Ashley Gardens, 138 and note Vaudeville Theatre, 68-303 Vedrenne and Barker, 273, 276 Vezin, Hermann, 50-1, 62 Victoria, Queen, 7, 162, 192 Von Hoffmannsthal, Hugo, 290, 301 Von Hohenlohe, Prince Hugo, his assistance in New York, 231 Von Jasmund family, 11-13 Waldron, Miss, 262 Waller, Lewis, 237 Walkley, A. B., sympathetic notice of "Juliet," 134-35; criticises Macbeth, 185-86; quoted in Times, 305 Walpole House, 114 War, the, 369 seq., 376; cooking in, 381 tVarp and Woof, 259 Waring, Herbert, 125 Watson, Henrietta, 271-72, 277 Watts, Mrs. Mary, 170-175 Webb, Barbara (Mrs. Sidney Webb), 140 Wemyss, 10th Earl, cited, 190; let- ters from, on "Magda" and Pat's death, 198-99; an anecdote, 369 Wemyss, Countess of, letter from, on Beo's death, 421-22 W^emyss, Earl of, 427 Westminster, Constance Duchess of, 377 Wharton, Edith, 230 Whirlivind, The, 271 Wilberforce, Archdeacon Basil, quoted on Beyond Human Poiver, 210-11 Wilde, Oscar, 98, 202 Williams, Hanbury, 288 Wilton, pastoral performances at, 67-9 Winter, William, 136-37 Wright, Mrs. Theodore, 206 Wyndham, Right Hon. George, 159 Wyndham, Hon. Mrs. Percy ("Aunt Madeline"), 66, 74, 78, 156; let- ters from, 158-9, 318-19; on "Ophelia." 160-61; on Burne- Jones' death, 167 Wyndham, Sir Charles, attitude of, 301 Wyndham's Theatre, 315 Yeats, W. B., 208-10, 301 University ot Calilofnia, Los Angeles L 007 093 589 5 UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY EACILITY AA 000 412 190 ■' 1 .^&l