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 MT LIFE AND SOME LETTERS
 
 MY L.lh ND 
 SOMR L ' ERS 
 
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 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 
 
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 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</VL OA^tt, Cf^4MJiUA 
 fiUM t(^Ct^ jOC4^ l^CLd^ ' 
 
 170
 
 
 
 171
 
 
 ^^t^ a/t.^ f^'o^ yt^ dpci 
 
 
 172
 
 
 «*^^ 
 
 A/ 
 
 
 173
 
 174 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 
 
 "23, Young Street, 
 "7th November, 1898. 
 "Dearest Stella, 
 
 ". . . James Barrie writes to me 'I don't think I was 
 ever so entranced by a play; I came out of the theatre 
 quite light-hearted with delight. Mrs. Campbell is be- 
 yond comparison; better than she has ever been in any- 
 thing else. . . .' 
 
 "J. M."* 
 
 "Dearest Stella, 
 
 "This performance is what I have been waiting and 
 longing for, for three years; and you may judge what I 
 would have given to see it, but I could not. . . . 
 
 "But I must tell you that one of our people here, an 
 unimpressionable highly educated man of fifty or so has 
 just come back from seeing the last performance to 
 which he went merely from curiosity, and because of my 
 name, fully expecting to be bored. 
 
 "He was carried away with the beauty of it from be- 
 ginning to end, and said he had never believed in you 
 before, but did now, that such a play could not die. . . . 
 
 "Your affectionate, 
 
 "J. M." 
 
 "Limnerslease, 
 "Guildford, 
 "Thursday, 24th Novem'ber. 
 "My dearest Lady Melisande, 
 
 "I must write to tell you what a wonderful pleasure 
 yesterday afternoon was to me. I have come back with 
 a strange feeling of having been rested and smoothed 
 out, and somehow to-day I have been running up little 
 hills in my day's work, that for weeks seemed to me quite 
 
 ♦J. W. Mackail.
 
 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 175 
 
 impossibly high and steep. That is the effect Melisande, 
 Pelleas and Golaud had upon me, and I thank them 
 from my heart. 
 
 "The whole thing lifted one into a new mysterious 
 world, in a way not easy to understand, except that one 
 knows one has been drawn out on a wave of beautiful 
 things, colour, sound, movement, charm, and that one 
 has been passing over the boundaries of reality into a 
 place as living and real, but which one can never touch 
 or reach. 
 
 "I suppose only genius can take one there, and it 
 seemed to me that your acting, and Mr. Forbes Robert- 
 son's was full of it, and indeed every part went without 
 a jarring sound. 
 
 "You have got the spirit of a beautiful Burne-Jones 
 picture into it all; how wonderful it is to have done that 
 for us. 
 
 "I should have liked to come and thank you on the 
 spot, but I felt that no one ought to ask for a minute 
 more of you, you had given so much, and I hear that 
 there is an evening's work to drain you still more. I 
 have told Signor G. F. Watts about it as well as I could, 
 it made him talk again and again of it to-day. 
 
 "Good-bye, dear beautiful Melisande, may all good 
 and blessed things be about you, and may they repay you 
 in your own heart's desires for all you gave to me yester- 
 day. 
 
 "Yours affectionately, 
 "Mary Watts."* 
 
 "133, Gloucester Road, S. W., 
 
 "6th November, 1&98. 
 "Dear Mrs. Campbell, 
 
 "I saw your Melisande yesterday, and it gave me ex- 
 
 * Mrs. Watts, wife of the great artist G. F. Watts.
 
 176 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 
 
 quisite delight. It seemed to me that what you have 
 been trying to do with your art for this last year or two 
 rather hazily, you had suddenly accomplished so trium- 
 phantly that the result Is sheer beauty. The whole thing 
 is a joy to look at, and listen to, a-nd think about, and 
 I can't resist the desire to tell you how It Inspired me. 
 
 "Yours sincerely, 
 "J. M. Barrie.'^ 
 
 Madame Sarah Bernhardt was brought to see the 
 play by Mr. W. Clarkson, the popular wigmaker. 
 She was very much moved by its beauty, expressing 
 a warm wish to play Pelleas with me. I thought it 
 only a pretty compliment she was paying me. 
 
 Six years afterwards on one of her visits to Lon- 
 don for a short season at His Majesty's Theatre, 
 Stella and I went to meet her at the Carlton Hotel. 
 Sarah took me up to her bedroom and pointed to a 
 little cot where a child was asleep, with a roll of 
 parchment tied up with ribbon, at her feet. "Voila 
 'Yniold,' " Sarah said: she had taught the little 
 thing her role in Pelleas and Melisande, and Sarah 
 herself was ready to play Pelleas with me. My dear 
 Sarah. At first I was very nervous at the thought 
 of acting in French. Sarah only laughed at me, 
 saying Melisande would speak French just as I 
 did, and that she could play Pelleas with no one 
 else. 
 
 Lady Eden * lent me her children's French govern- 
 ess, Mademoiselle Drouin, to live in my house for 
 
 *The beautiful wife o" Sir William Eden.
 
 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 177 
 
 two weeks. She talked her perfect French with me 
 practically all day and half the night, besides coach- 
 ing me in the pronunciation of the actual words of 
 Melisande. 
 
 So I ventured — how dared I? 
 
 I took the rehearsals, and the company never 
 smiled as I "directed"! Sarah altered nothing, but 
 asked my permission to turn her back to the wall 
 of the tower that my hair might fall over her face! 
 Her Pelleas was a wonder. She carried her body 
 with such ecstasy and breeding: her voice was the 
 voice of a youthful melancholy spirit, gradually 
 melting into a tenderness, that more than once almost 
 rendered me speechless for fear of breaking the spell. 
 
 Mr. W. L. Courtney, in The Daily Telegr-aph, 
 wrote : — 
 
 "When criticism has nothing to say one may be sure 
 something has been seen rare, and strange and beautiful: 
 Madame Bernhardt, in the very beginning, found her 
 note and kept it, low in tone, and rich in music. Mrs. 
 Campbell's Melisande is known to us from one or two 
 previous representations. We venture to say that in its 
 French form it is more gracious and childlike and poetic 
 than we have ever seen it before. Scene after scene 
 passed with short intervals, and the air of mystery and 
 unreality was never broken. We watched the first meet- 
 ing at the Fountain, we heard the quiet fatalism of old 
 age uttered by the lips of Arkel. We saw the slow 
 development of the unescapable tragedy enveloping all 
 the characters as it were with vague and shadowy nets, 
 and the light was one which never was on sea or land,
 
 lyS MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 
 
 and we were — spectators and actors alike — such stuff 
 as dreams are made of. Once, and once only, did we 
 seem to touch earth. It was in the fine scene where 
 Golaud, in a mad access of jealousy, holds up the little 
 Yniold to the window to watch the two lovers within. 
 
 "We have never seen a better Golaud than that of 
 M. Decoeur. ... As one watches this Melisande the 
 words rise to one's lips: 'Will no one tell me what she 
 sings?' For she too has caught the secret of 'old un- 
 happy far off things and battles long ago.' " 
 
 During a previous season of Sarah's in London the 
 play she produced had not been a success financially 
 (a Napoleonic play, I forget the name), and at the 
 moment Sarah was hard pressed for money: to my de- 
 light she sent M. Pitou* to ask if I could help her. 
 Wonderful to relate, I had a hundred pounds in the 
 bank, and I thanked heaven that I was able to do her 
 a service. 
 
 During one of these performances of Pelleas and 
 Melisande, Sarah Bernhardt returned to me the 
 hundred pounds, in five pound notes, in a little silver 
 casket, before the many people who were in my 
 dressing-room. She said how grateful she was to 
 me — the simple graciousness of her act! Did she 
 ever know, I wonder, how my heart almost choked 
 me? 
 
 Sarah is the most generous of women. I think 
 she feels, as I have often felt, that money belongs to 
 those who need it most. Unfortunately, as this feel- 
 
 * M. Pitou had been Madame Sarah Earnhardt's secretary for some- 
 thing over twenty years.
 
 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 179 
 
 ing slowly beggars us, it changes, alas! or it should! 
 
 A story of a really generous man, told me by Sir 
 Edward Burne-Jones, comes to my mind. 
 
 A friend came to a generous man to borrow twenty- 
 four pounds. The generous man had only twelve 
 pounds in the world. These he gladly gave to his 
 friend ; but afterwards, whenever they met, the gen- 
 erous man hung his head: he felt he owed his friend 
 twelve pounds. 
 
 In July, 1905, a year later, on Madame Bernhardt's 
 next visit to London, she and I went to the provinces 
 meaning to give only a few performances of the play. 
 But we met with such a brilliant success that we 
 played it every day for three w^eeks.* OnJy in. 
 Dublin did one critic demur. He wrote : 
 
 "Mrs. Campbell played Melisande, Madame Bern- 
 hardt Pelleas; they are both old enough to know better." 
 
 There are delicious memories of this three weeks' 
 tour. A little story Madame Bernhardt told me of 
 her first arrival in America touched me very much. 
 She carried a rather large handbag of some soft 
 velvet stuff. On landing, the official insisted on look- 
 ing inside. They found a small bundle tied carefully 
 with ribbon. Sarah implored them not to open it, 
 "je vous en prie. Messieurs, je vous en prie" They 
 insisted. It contained her son's first baby shoes of 
 white patent leather, and his first little baby shirt. 
 
 * Sarah paid me £240 a week, and £35 for each additional perform- 
 ance, and paid all travelling expenses. I provided the scenery and 
 dresses.
 
 i8o MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 
 
 I remember one night a discussion we had on 
 "flirting." Sarah took this word very seriously; she 
 said that flirting stirred and excited animal passion. 
 That flirting was a peculiarity of English men and 
 women. A French woman loves and gives herself; 
 but to excite passion, "pour passer le temps" — 
 "never," she declared. I said she was wrong, that 
 "flirting" and "coquetry" were one and the same 
 thing: the effect it produced depended entirely on 
 the man and woman's moral character. She laughed 
 and shrugged her shoulders unconvinced. She told 
 me that on her first visit to England a supper was 
 given in her honour; she was treated like a queen, 
 and felt a queen. Her host, when seeing her to her 
 carriage "stole a kiss." She did not speak to him 
 again for years. It was abominable^ she said, abom- 
 inable. It showed he had no respect for her. I 
 tried vainly to explain that flirting did not necessar- 
 ily mean kissing, she only repeated abominable. 
 
 Sarah's love of animals is very remarkable, and 
 she was always buying a new pet. One morning at 
 the hotel, when we were playing together at Liver- 
 pool, I heard strange and terrible growls, and coarse 
 men's voices coming from her room. I went in 
 and found two low-looking ruffians. They had in- 
 side a large iron cage a wild tiger-cat. Sarah was 
 saying, "II sera plus heureux si vous ouvrez la porte," 
 pointing to the not very secure iron door of the cage. 
 The men were suggesting that the door could be 
 opened later, and that they wanted £30.
 
 WITH MADAME SARAH BERNHARDT IN "PELLEAS AND MELISANDE"
 
 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS i8i 
 
 It was not till I persuaded Sarah that such animals 
 cannot be tamed, and that it would break out of the 
 cage in an hour or so and probably eat her up, that 
 she said it might be a trouble on tour and she would 
 not keep it. The men were furious, and I had great 
 difficulty in getting rid of them. 
 
 On one occasion I remember Sarah was charged 
 in her hotel bill for thirty or forty bottles of beer 
 for her servants. We had stayed there only one day 
 and night. 
 
 Sarah was tired, and did not stop to think that her 
 servants might have treated friends; she only knew 
 they could not have drunk so many bottles of beer. 
 The manager was sent for, and she argued with him 
 until she raged. Hearing the raised voices I went 
 into the room. The man was white and trembling; 
 and I saw Sarah was almost ill with anger. When 
 I had grasped her argument, I turned to the man- 
 ager, saying: "What matter how many bottles of 
 beer have been drunk, how dare you contradict 
 Madame?" My voice was the loudest, and the man 
 rushed distracted from the room. 
 
 Her company indiscreetly told me that Madame 
 Sarah had never been known to make fun, or to laugh 
 on the stage. In a tobacconist's shop I saw a to- 
 bacco pouch made in the shape of a fish, and painted 
 to represent one. I bought it, took it to the theatre, 
 and tied it down to a bit of canvas at the bottom of 
 the well at the Fountain. 
 
 At the performance, when Sarah came to the sec-
 
 i82 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 
 
 ond act and stood by the fontaine des aveugles, she 
 spied the fish and began improvising about les pois- 
 sons la. . . . She stooped gracefully over the edge 
 to take the fish out; as it was tied, she nearly lost her 
 balance. Without concern she went on calmly 
 with her part. I laughed, spoiling my lovely little 
 scene. 
 
 When the curtain fell Sarah did not allude to what 
 had happened, neither did L The next day when we 
 lunched together she had a strange, preoccupied ex- 
 pression on her face. Later, at the matinee, when 
 we came to the Cave scene, at the point where she 
 tenderly takes my hand and helps me over the rocks, 
 she took hold of my hand, hard — squash — she held 
 a raw tgg in hers. 
 
 I did not smile, but with calm dignity I went on 
 with my part. I can see now the tears of laughter 
 trickling down her cheeks, and her dear body shaking 
 with merriment as I grew more and more dignified to 
 the end of the scene. 
 
 Her company told me afterwards almost with awe, 
 that Madame must love me very, very much. 
 
 The most beautiful performance I have ever seen 
 was a performance Sarah gave of Phedre — she 
 held a crowded house spellbound for over two hours, 
 with scarcely a movement or gesture to detract from 
 the lovely Alexandrines — the great pulsating passion 
 seemed to wind about the audience like a web — it 
 was magic. 
 
 They tell me Sarah had seen the great RachePs
 
 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 183 
 
 performance — what 1 saw was her own: I knew it 
 by the sequence of its beauty. 
 
 The world knows her genius and her colossal 
 courage; but not everyone knows the thought and 
 affection she has always ready in her heart for her 
 friends. 
 
 At a most tragic moment for her, she remembered 
 my anxiety and sent me this cable to America: 
 
 ''Doctor will cut off my leg next Monday. Am very 
 happy. Kisses all my heart. 
 
 "Sarah Bernhardt, Bordeaux." 
 
 To go back to 1 898, Pel leas and Melisande at the 
 Lyceum was followed in September by Mr. Robert- 
 son's production of Macbeth. We had already 
 played it in the English provinces and in Germany. 
 
 I have since learned that it was easier to act 
 Lady Macbeth with Mr. Robertson than with Mr. 
 James Hackett, with whom I played the part after- 
 wards in 1920. 
 
 Perhaps Mr. Robertson was inclined to look upon 
 Lady Macbeth as the "star" part, to use the word of 
 the theatre. Mr. Hackett surely looked upon Mac- 
 beth as the solar system. It seemed to me, he real- 
 ised my presence only at his "cues," and more than 
 once seized the opportunity during a strong speech 
 of mine to turn his back to the audience and clear 
 a troublesome catarrh.
 
 i84 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 
 
 We were all proud of Mr. Hackett's success. It 
 was undeniable: his splendid Salvini-like voice — no 
 perceptible American accent — made a great im- 
 pression. /But he had a strange effect upon me; I 
 could not for one moment forget I was on the stage. 
 On his first night I was suffering from an influenza 
 cold ; an apology to the audience would have de- 
 pressed the occasion; there was nothing to do but 
 get through. 
 
 I wore Melisande's dresses (twelve years old and 
 made of gossamer). The dresses for Lady Macbeth 
 in Mr. Hackett's wardrobe did not fit me, so that in 
 no way was I in tune with Mr. Hackett's overwhelm- 
 ing Macbeth. 
 
 Mr. Bernard Shaw wrote to me at the time as fol- 
 lows: 
 
 Macbeth as a production was an ancient Victorian 
 absurdity. Hackett is still in the eighteenth century. 
 He would have done just as well with Miss R — S — , as 
 you could have done just as well with Mr. A — S — ; 
 the intervals with the entr'acte music played sixteen times 
 over killed the play. People know that it is not Shakes- 
 peare who is the bore, and that B or B A 
 
 could have made a success of it with principals at £15 a 
 week. 
 
 *As it happened, when I saw It, you made only a few 
 blunders: 
 
 "i. You should not have played the dagger scene In 
 that best evening dress of Lady M., but In a black wrap, 
 like a thunder cloud, with a white face. 
 
 "2. You should not have repeated the exit business by
 
 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 185 
 
 which Macbeth conveyed that he was going to see a 
 ghost on every step of the stairs up to Duncan. 
 You should have gone straight off like a woman of 
 iron. 
 
 "3. You should not have forgotten that there was 
 blood on your hand and on his, and that you dared not 
 touch one another for fear of messing your clothes with 
 gore. 
 
 "4. In the sleep-walking scene, you should not have 
 rubbed your hands realistically (drat the blood, it won't 
 come off) , nor worn an idiotic confection that wound your 
 feet up more and more at every step and finally pitched 
 you — off the stage — on your head. That scene needs 
 the whole cavernous depth of the stage and the draperies 
 of a ghost. It was maddening to hear you deliver the 
 lines splendidly and be in a different class to all the 
 others and then throw it all away by half a dozen stu- 
 pidities that the call boy could have corrected. . . . 
 
 "G. B. S." 
 
 As a matter of fact, I was out of gear v^ith Mr. 
 Hackett's method, and by his side my performance 
 was very ineffective. 
 
 But I must not jump the years like this. 
 
 Of the Lyceum performance, I quote Mr. A. B. 
 Walkley's criticism: "Mrs. Campbell's Lady Mac- 
 beth is also novel and interesting, but it is also some- 
 thing more, and something very important — it is a 
 perfectly possible and plausible interpretation of the 
 character. . . . There are reasons a priori why Mrs. 
 Campbell should find no particular difficulty, 'mod- 
 ern' though she be, with the part of Lady Macbeth. 
 Where her modernity comes in is in the substitution
 
 1 86 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 
 
 of a mysterious sensuous charm for the conventional 
 domineering of a virago. I have tried to sum up 
 this type in the words of 'Baudelairean.' I see that 
 my friend, the theatrical critic of The Leader, calls 
 it an Aubrey Beardsley type, which is another way 
 of putting exactly the same thing. The woman 
 clings and kisses and casts a spell, she magnetises 
 her Thane. When words fail she rests her two hands 
 on his shoulders, almost winds herself round him, 
 looks him straight in the eyes with a strange smile, 
 and the poor man melts like wax. It is the 'Baude- 
 laire' enchantress, the 'femme serpent,' and, as I have 
 already said, it delights me — partly because, like 
 every other man in the audience, I cannot but feel 
 something of the fascination that overcomes Macbeth, 
 partly because it appeals to me as true, for Mac- 
 beth was moulded by his wife, not merely by the in- 
 fluence of a strong will over a faltering will, but 
 by the witchery of woman over man."
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 IN June, 1899, I produced Carlyon Sahib, by 
 Professor Gilbert Murray, at the Kennington 
 Theatre. It met with little success, though it 
 seemed to me a very good play. 
 
 At this time some friends of mine, including, 
 among others, Lord Grey,* Dr. Jameson,f and the 
 late Lady Meux, offered to put, under the control of 
 Mr. Bouchier F. Hawksley, £12,000 (at some ar- 
 ranged interest and return of their money) to "back" 
 me in management. 
 
 The enterprise filled me with enthusiasm, but I 
 felt ungrateful at the idea of exploiting myself in- 
 dependently of Mr. Forbes Robertson, after the fine 
 parts I had played under his management, and I 
 begged that he should be included in the venture. 
 
 This at first met with some objection, but finally 
 I won my way. 
 
 Mr. Robertson was under contract to produce a 
 Japanese play, The Moonlight Blossom, by Mr. C. 
 B. Fernald (author of the Cat and the Cherub). As 
 I remember, he agreed to join me if this play was our 
 first production. Though I did not particularly 
 care for Mr. Fernald's play, I accepted the con- 
 
 * Late Governor-General of Canada. 
 t Sir Starr Jameson. 
 
 187
 
 i88 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 
 
 dition, and we started management at the Prince of 
 Wales Theatre in September, 1899, with The Moon- 
 light Blossom. 
 
 The production was a most expensive one; the 
 piece a disastrous failure. The papers said Mr. 
 Robertson looked like "Widow Twankey," Mr. 
 Bernard Shaw wrote that I was "a child playing a 
 tune with one finger"; our attempt at impersonating 
 Japanese met with no success. 
 
 To try and save the situation we added to the 
 programme, after about three weeks, a one-act play, 
 The Sacrament of Judas; translated from the French 
 of M. Louis Tiercelin by Mr. Louis N. Parker for 
 Mr. Robertson. This one-act play, though success- 
 ful, unfortunately did not help matters financially. 
 
 The next production was The Canary, by George 
 Fleming, (Miss Constance Fletcher), on November 
 15th. Mr. Robertson's personality was not suited 
 to any character in this comedy, and he decided to 
 break our partnership. This seemed to me unfair 
 to the enterprise; so much money having been 
 dropped on The Moonlight Blossom, and the ex- 
 pense of launching the dual management. However, 
 I returned him his plays, and Mr. Gerald du Maur- 
 ier acted the leading part in The Canary. 
 
 My losses, I was told, were over £5,000. There 
 was nothing to do but to get into a smaller theatre 
 and try and pull things through. This I did, taking 
 the Royalty at a rental of £90 a week. I opened
 
 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 189 
 
 there on the 28th of January, continuing the run of 
 The Canary; and retaining the business staff of the 
 Prince of Wales — including Mr. Ian Robertson 
 (Mr. Forbes Robertson's brother) as stage man- 
 ager. 
 
 On February 19th I revived Mag da, and played 
 with it Mrs. Jordan, a charming one-act play by 
 Miss Constance Smedley. The work was hard and 
 my responsibilities great, but I was supported by 
 an excellent company. 
 
 The following letter shows my effort was some- 
 times obvious to the audience: 
 
 "3, Whitehall Gardens, S. W., 
 
 "February 28th, 1900. 
 "Madam, 
 
 "It appears from the papers that you propose playing 
 Magda and Mrs. Jordan at two matinees weekly, in 
 addition to nightly performances. 
 
 "I was fortunate enough to see your impersonation of 
 both characters last night, and the absolute pathos of 
 your appearence at the close of the second act, utterly 
 tired out — 'done,' as you seemed — haunts me still, and 
 led many of those round me to express their fears that the 
 task you had set yourself would prove too heavy. May 
 I, if I may do so without offence, voice what, I am sure, 
 must have been the feeling of the whole house last night, 
 and ask, for the sake of the public, who cannot afford to 
 run any risk of losing you — apart from any considera- 
 tion of yourself — that you spare yourself, if possible, 
 the terrible strain of at least one of the two weekly mat- 
 inees?
 
 190 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 
 
 "Could you have seen yourself as we saw you last 
 night, you would understand how the house felt about 
 you, and would pardon, as I trust you will, the expression 
 of that feeling. 
 
 "Pittite." 
 
 Magda ran five months. An incident of some in- 
 terest occurred during this revival. 
 
 Mr. Albert Gran gave a very remarkable perform- 
 ance in the insignificant part of the young lieutenant, 
 Max von Wendelov^ski — the late Lord Wemyss told 
 me this clever young actor appeared to bring the 
 German army on to the stage with him. 
 
 Mr. Gran had to leave me in a itw weeks to keep 
 a contract he had with another management, but 
 he promised to give in his fortnight's notice after the 
 first week, wishing to return and continue in his suc- 
 cess with me. 
 
 I asked Mr. Ian Robertson to engage Mr. Gran- 
 ville Barker for the period of Mr. Gran's absence, 
 and this he did. 
 
 After Mr. Gran returned to the Royalty, Mr. 
 Granville Barker wrote to me saying he was entitled 
 to his salary for the run of Magda. I discussed the 
 matter with Mr. Bouchier Hawksley, who, after, I 
 believe, some correspondence with Mr. Barker, ad- 
 vised me to take the matter into court, as there was 
 neither letter nor contract to support Mr. Barker's 
 claim. 
 
 I was interested in the idea of being in a court,
 
 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 191 
 
 and dressed myself in my best. Mr. Barker, on the 
 other hand, seemed to me to appear in very shabby 
 clothes and a much worn straw hat. 
 
 Mr. Fred Kerr — that delightful actor — stated that, 
 unless specially stipulated by letter or contract, the 
 precedent was a fortnight's notice. 
 
 I went into the witness-box and explained that I 
 had made it clear to my stage manager, that Mr. 
 Granville Barker's services were required only dur- 
 ing Mr. Gran's absence. 
 
 Mr. Barker, in the witness-box, whilst admitting 
 there w^as no letter or contract said the verbal un- 
 derstanding between him and Mr. Ian Robertson 
 was "for the run of the play," otherwise he would not 
 have accepted the engagement. 
 
 Mr. Ian Robertson, on being called, remarked that 
 he did not remember what he had said in the in- 
 terview with Mr. Barker. He was chided by the 
 judge, who asked him if it was not his business to re- 
 member, or words to that effect. 
 
 The Jury left the court and returned, giving the 
 verdict to the plaintiff — £60 was, I think, the sum 
 claimed. 
 
 I turned to Mr. Hawksley and said: "What do 
 I do now?" 
 
 "Go and shake hands and congratulate him," he 
 replied with a smile. 
 
 Mr. Granville Barker did not look as triumphant 
 as I thought he ought to, and I will go to my grave 
 believing that he owes me £60.
 
 192 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 
 
 My management at the Royalty was a success, 
 both with the critics and the public. My work had 
 become more free, and more assured; but nothing 
 could be done financially, against most disastrous dif- 
 ficulties. 
 
 The Boer War was breaking people's hearts, and 
 then — later — Queen Victoria's death, which emptied 
 the theatres for many weeks. 
 
 At home we were all anxious. Pat had decided 
 to join Lord Chesham's Yeomanry, and he left for 
 Africa towards the middle of March, 1900. 
 
 On April the 5th poor Pat was killed. 
 
 I remember how I heard the news. My uncle 
 met me at the theatre. It was Saturday; there had 
 been two performances. He said: "Let us drive to 
 the War Office and see if there is any news." He 
 told me to wait in the hansom. He returned in a 
 few moments, saying: "There is no news." For the 
 rest of the drive he was silent. 
 
 When we arrived at my house in Kensington 
 Square we went in and sat in the dining room. I 
 noticed how white and drawn his face was and how 
 questioningly he looked at me. I spoke of my plans 
 at the theatre. Suddenly there was a knock at the 
 front door. I opened it. Mr. Shackle — Pat's 
 friend and my acting manager — stood there. He 
 said: "It's true." I asked: "What is true?" He 
 answered: "Pat is killed." I realized that uncle 
 had known all the time.
 
 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 193 
 
 We three sat without speaking; at last uncle said: 
 "I don't like leaving you alone, dear." I answered: 
 "Stella is sleeping with me to-night." 
 
 Then they left — letting themselves out. 
 
 A strange thing happened. I found I could not 
 move from my chair. How long it was before I 
 pulled myself up and was able to get to the foot of 
 the stairs I do not know, but I remember well the 
 climb up the staircase, both hands on the one banis- 
 ter. . . . 
 
 I took Stella in my arms. . . . 
 
 I whispered very gently to her what had hap- 
 pened — "Poor Daddy has been killed" — I felt her 
 little body tremble; she held me tightly. "Oh, 
 mother," she said. . . . 
 
 I kept quite quiet and she fell asleep again. . . . 
 
 I thought of my boy studying for his entrance ex- 
 amination into the Navy — it might put him ofif his 
 work — 
 
 Gradually I fell into a very deep sleep — 
 
 Sunday, the front door bell rang and rang; letters 
 and cards were dropped into the letter-box. Mon- 
 day brought many hundreds more. I saw one or two 
 friends; they seemed strangers to me. The theatre 
 was closed ; it was Holy Week. I went away with 
 Stella into the country. My boy wrote: — 
 
 "H. M. S. Britannia, 
 
 "Dartmouth. 
 "My darling Mother, 
 
 "Thank you so much for your letter. I am so mis-
 
 194 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 
 
 erable about poor, dear daddy. The chaplain has just 
 told me about him. I want to be at home so much now 
 to be able to comfort you. I was confirmed to-day by 
 the Bishop of Exeter. Only one week and four days 
 now to the holidays. All next week is exams. Poor, 
 dear daddy! It was rather hard the news coming on 
 my confirmation day. Don't worry, mummy, dear. I 
 wish I was home to comfort you. 
 
 "With all the world and the stars and seas and sun full 
 of love and kisses and comfort from. 
 
 "Your Loving Son. 
 beo. 
 
 And again he wrote : — ■ 
 
 "Darling Mother, 
 
 "Thank you so much for the telegram. I had a talk 
 with the chaplain, and decided to wait till the end of the 
 term, as two of the exams count in the final examination: 
 but I wish I could come home a day earlier — that is, on 
 the Wednesday, as there will be such a bustle on the last 
 day, and the chaps who are in the carriage I am in will 
 want to fool about, and they might not just because I was 
 there. On Wednesday I could travel down with a very 
 nice boy called FitzGibbon. He was one of the first 
 to hear about poor daddy, and he sent me a letter, which 
 he put in my locker. I enclose it. This boy has to go to 
 France, and, therefore, goes a day earlier. Tell me 
 what you think. 
 
 "Give my lovingest love to Stella. 
 
 "I am glad daddy died fighting and doing his duty, 
 for you have to die some time, and it's much better to die 
 gloriously than at home in bed.
 
 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 195 
 
 "All the world and stars and suns and moons full of 
 love. 
 
 "Your loving son, 
 
 "Beo." 
 
 "Dear Mrs. Campbell, 
 
 "Your son was confirmed by the Bishop of Exeter 
 yesterday, and I was so sorry to have to tell him after- 
 wards of his loss. He is in grief, but, as he says, he can- 
 not realise it fully; it will come with memory later. I 
 have had further talk with him to-day, and he thinks per- 
 haps he had better face his sorrow and just go on with 
 his work and the coming examination, especially as the 
 end of the term is near, when he can join you. Captain 
 O'Callaghan left him free to do what he thought best 
 about coming home, and he has decided in this way. I 
 think that under the circumstances your son has taken 
 a right view of what is best to be done. He is not a 
 boy who loses his balance easily, and, though he is in 
 grief, I think he will acquit himself creditably in his ex- 
 amination.* 
 
 "A. W. Plant (Chaplain)." 
 
 Lord Chesham cabled: — 
 
 "PATRICK CAMPBELL WAS KILLED INSTANTANEOUSLY 
 IN FINAL ATTACK, AND WAS BURIED WITH MILITARY 
 HONOURS IN BOSHOF CEMETERY. I HAVE WRITTEN YOU 
 FULL DETAILS.'^ 
 
 *Beo passed, at his first trial, fifth on the list in his first competi- 
 tive examination in life, out of two hundred competitors of the same age.
 
 196 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 
 
 "Camp Moliens Farm, 
 "Orange Free State, 
 "loth Imperial Yeomanry. 
 "My dear Mrs. Campbell, 
 
 "I write to you in great grief to tell you how sincerely 
 we of the loth Imperial Yeomanry sympathise with you 
 in the terrible affliction which has come to you. We 
 feel with you and for you. We have lost a fine soldier 
 and a good friend, and honour him for himself; at the 
 same time he has ended his short career with the great- 
 est honour that can come to a man. 
 
 "We attacked the enemy. Patrick Campbell was 
 among the first (we were within fifty yards of the Boers 
 with fixed bayonets and charging) when he fell, death 
 being instantaneous. We, his comrades, honour him as a 
 brave soldier, and the ten prisoners (chiefly Frenchmen) 
 also said to me how gallantly our men had fought. No 
 one was doing better in the regiment than your husband, 
 and his loss will be much felt. We lost two officers be- 
 sides, and our three brave comrades now lie in the ceme- 
 tery at Boshof, with the French general (who was killed 
 in the action), Villebois de Mareuil, near to their graves. 
 
 "We buried them by moonlight on April 6th with many 
 a sore heart as the bugles sounded 'The Last Post' over 
 the graves of three as brave Englishmen as had fallen in 
 the war. 
 
 "I hope you will forgive me writing to you as I do. 
 I have had much trouble myself, and so write, knowing 
 how powerless attempts at any comfort are and how little 
 good writing can do, but to assure you of the very deep 
 sympathy all ranks of the regiment offer to you and of the 
 high respect they feel for your gallant husband. 
 
 "Believe me, 
 
 "Yours sincerely 
 "Chesham."
 
 Courtesy Sun and New York Herald Syndicate 
 
 IN "mrs. Jordan"
 
 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 197 
 
 I find my letter to my uncle written during Holy 
 Week : — 
 
 "Sevenoaks. 
 "My darling Uncle, 
 
 "We are quite safe and it's beautiful here, and now I 
 am going to try and write some letters. Don't you, 
 dear uncle, feel torn and worried? Remember all you 
 have done for him and for his children and for me . . . 
 and if you didn't discourage him from going remember 
 his going has brought him glory and peace and the 
 everlasting respect and honour of those he loved. . . . 
 
 "Don't worry about me, dear uncle. When I see 
 you again I shall be quite brave and strong and ready for 
 work. You have helped me bear so much. . . . 
 
 "Your loving 
 "Beatrice/' 
 
 These letters brought their comfort: — 
 
 "Saighton Grange, 
 
 "Chester, 
 "May 17th. 
 "Dearest, 
 
 "I think of you so, and the last letters must be reach- 
 ing you now. I have copied an account of that day from 
 a letter of my brother * to his wife, which I enclose. 
 I daresay you would rather not read it now, dear little 
 one, but I thought you might like to put It by with 
 others for your boy. 
 
 "Do not answer this; it must be such a hard time for 
 
 * Lord Scarborough.
 
 198 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 
 
 you now, but your work will help you. I hope you have 
 seen angel Mrs, Wyndham and George. f 
 
 "Yours Affectionately, 
 t "Sybil Grosvenor." 
 
 These two letters from Lord Wemyss were written 
 within a few hours: 
 
 "23, St. James, Place, 
 
 "Saturday night. 
 
 * • • • 
 
 "You will have heard, why we did not come behind the 
 scenes to see you, and surely no greater compliment 
 could be paid to a great artist, than the tears, the soul- 
 shaken state of my daughter Hilda.* She says she 
 could come every night, and I feel as she does — only, 
 alas! I hear now almost nothing; and thus lose so 
 much that if it were not for your unequalled expressive 
 gestures, I had best stay at home. 
 
 "How delighted your audience is with you. The 
 wonder is your being able to stand a matinee as well; 
 you looked so beautiful throughout. 
 
 "Hope you have good accounts of 'My Pat,' and that 
 your child's knee is well. 
 
 "All good with Stella. 
 
 "Yours, 
 
 "W." 
 
 tThe Right Hon. George Wyndham, M. P. 
 
 t The Countess Grosvenor, wife of Mr. George Wyndham and mother 
 of the present Duke of Westminster. 
 ♦The late Lady Hilda Brodrick.
 
 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 199 
 
 "Sunday morning. 
 "Oh my poor friend, 
 
 "Is there anything it Is possible for me to do? You 
 know how gladly would I help you, body, soul, and 
 spirit, It I could. Send for me If you would like to see 
 me, or If I can be of any use to you or your child. 
 
 "And to think of you last night and this morning! 
 "The enclosed I had written last night to send this 
 mornIng„ 
 
 "I may well say, 'Good with Stella.' 
 
 "Yours, 
 "W." 
 
 "Her Majesty's Theatre. 
 
 "My dear Mrs. Campbell, 
 
 "I saw the report of your husband's death, and am 
 writing to you to express my sincere condolence. You 
 will, I know, be very sad at his loss, but he could not have 
 wished for a better death. I always found him good 
 and kind and full of charm and love of you. 
 
 u 
 
 "Herbert Tree." 
 
 "Fountain Court, 
 "The Temple. 
 "Dear Mrs. Campbell, 
 
 "I cannot help (though at the risk of seeming in- 
 trusive) writing to say how deeply sorry I am at the 
 news I have just heard, coming at the very moment when 
 you have proved to the whole world that you are the 
 only actress on the English stage worth listening to. 
 It Is as though you have thus to suffer to counterbalance 
 that triumph of your art, but do remember, even while 
 you suffer, that only suffering greatens one when one Is
 
 200 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 
 
 an artist, and that you will be a greater artist 'in the 
 future for every bit of suffering that you go through now. 
 There is no other consolation for unhappiness, but may 
 one not accept so much consolation? It is what I wish 
 for you with all my heart. 
 
 "Believe me, dear Mrs. Campbell, 
 
 "Always your most sincere, 
 "Arthur Symons." 
 
 "Strode, 
 
 "Ivybridge, 
 
 "S. Devon. 
 "My dearest Mrs. Campbell, 
 
 "... I am so glad to feel that he was so happy the 
 last few months, and I like to think of how well and 
 happy he looked that last Sunday, when he said 'Good- 
 bye' and he was so full of hope. , . . 
 
 "I will, if you like, talk to you more of the days at 
 Enfield when he used to talk to me of you. He always 
 said, 'if you knew her you would love her.' I do love 
 you, and I would give anything to be able to help you 
 bear this pain. 
 
 "Yours always, 
 "Flo SHACKLE."t 
 
 After joining Lord Chesham, Pat had written to 
 me: — 
 
 "White Hart Hotel, 
 "Dearest Stella, 
 
 "I am hard at work down here and everything looks 
 very bright to me. I messed up with Lard Chesham 
 
 t Mrs. Frank Shackle.
 
 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 201 
 
 and all his officers last night; they were all very nice to 
 me, and I think I shall be of great service to him. I 
 easily passed my riding and shooting test, and see the 
 doctor to-morrow. I understand I shall have no dif- 
 ficulty in passing my medical. 
 
 "Chesham has asked me to stay down to-morrow and 
 help inspect some recruits and horses. They have a 
 splendid lot of men here, and he hopes to get us off 
 by the 20th at latest. 
 
 "I am so glad the recitation goes so well. I knew it 
 would. 
 
 "With love to you and the children. 
 
 "Pat." 
 
 "I really think I'll have a good chance." 
 
 Seven days' quiet and then I returned to play 
 Magda again at the Royalty Theatre. The house 
 was crowded. I was bound to struggle desperately 
 against the sympathetic applause of the audience, or 
 I could not have gone on. Some of them wept, and 
 so did the actors. At the end I was exhausted. 
 
 In my dressing-room I quickly slipped into my 
 black dress — someone had persuaded me to buy 
 heavy mourning; the skirt had a deep hem of crepe 
 — I did not think of changing my stockings, which 
 were pale pink. 
 
 At the stage door, the little dark passage leading 
 to the pavement was full of people, chiefly elderly 
 women dressed in black. As I passed them they 
 whispered, "Poor thing!" I lifted my foot to step 
 into the hansom cab, and I heard a startled and hor- 
 rified "Oh!" from those standing nearest me — my
 
 202 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 
 
 pale pink stockings had looked like bare legs. The 
 humour of it bit into my heart — I felt a clown. 
 
 We started almost at once rehearsing — for a series 
 of matinees — The Fantasticks, cleverly adapted by 
 "George Fleming" from Edmond Rostand's Les 
 Romanesques, Gerald du Maurier playing the lead- 
 ing part. Magda was still in the evening bill. 
 Also we revived for four matinees, Pelleas and Mel- 
 isande, with Mr. Martin Harvey playing his original 
 role. 
 
 My season ended on July 14th with a matinee of 
 Pelleas and Melisande, and an evening perform- 
 ance of Magda. 
 
 Then there was a provincial tour, returning to 
 the Royalty with Mr. and Mrs. Daventry — written 
 by Mr. Frank Harris on a synopsis by Oscar Wilde — 
 both Mr. Frederick Kerr and Mr. du Maurier dis- 
 tinguished themselves in this play. Then matinees 
 of Mr. Max Beerbohm's The Happy Hypocrite; a 
 production of Mariana, by Jose Echegaray; a re- 
 vival of The Notorious Mrs. Ebbsmith; and a re- 
 vival of The Second Mrs. Tanqueray. 
 
 All this work was done in a little over eighteen 
 months against tragic odds, in the vain hope of sav- 
 ing the remaining £6,000 of the "backers" money, 
 but all of it and more had gone. Mr. Bouchier 
 Hawksley explained the calamitous position, and 
 then he and I with a dear friend of mine — Miss 
 Melicent Stone — had a long talk.
 
 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 203 
 
 I would not hear of bankruptcy. I felt I must 
 be allowed to make one more efifort. 
 
 In the end Mr. Hawksley agreed to my plan — to 
 go to America, signing a document with him to give 
 half or three-quarters of my weekly earnings towards 
 paying back my creditors — it was about 3 A. M. when 
 this interview was over. 
 
 I had a telegram from Lord Grey next day; ^'Con- 
 gratulations on all night sitting." 
 
 An agreement was come to with Messrs. Liebler 
 and Co., for a tour of twenty-two weeks in the United 
 States, with the repertoire I had played at the Roy- 
 alty Theatre on these terms — according to notes I 
 have: 
 
 Messrs. Leibler would pay the salaries of my com- 
 pany and all travelling expenses, paying me £200 a 
 week, and 15 per cent, to £1,000, 20 per cent, to 
 £2,000, and 35 per cent, on all over; on the gross 
 weekly takings. 
 
 It was arranged that I should do a short tour of 
 the English provinces before sailing. This I did, 
 returning to the Royalty Theatre to produce Beyond 
 Human Power by Bjornstjerne Bjornson — transla- 
 ted into English by Miss Jessie Muir for nine mat- 
 inees. 
 
 The play tells the story of the bedridden wife of a 
 Faith-Healer. She cannot move, and for weeks she 
 has not slept. 
 
 The play opens with the visit of an American
 
 204 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 
 
 sister-in-law to the sick woman; who describes her 
 husband's divine "healing" gift. She tells how he 
 goes for miles and miles across the fjords to heal the 
 sick, believing that he "walks with God." 
 
 "Why does he not heal you then?" the visitor asks. 
 The woman answers, "Because I do not believe." 
 Her husband has told her that if she will only have 
 'faith' she will be cured. 
 
 He arranges to have a service in the church, where 
 he will pray until she sleeps. The church bell will 
 continue ringing to let her know that he is praying. 
 He says their two children must also kneel by her 
 bed and pray, until she falls asleep. 
 
 . . . The children come in and kneel by her bed. 
 The church bell rings. Suddenly there is a tremen- 
 dous unearthly noise; a great avalanche falls down 
 the mountain side, destroying everything in its way, 
 but leaving the church untouched. 
 
 The noise is heard of people screaming and shout- 
 ing and running about in fear — the children rush to 
 the window crying out what they see, then back to the 
 bed to comfort the poor bedridden woman, who, 
 they think, is dumb with terror. The noise sub- 
 sides, and as they lean over the bed looking into her 
 face the curtain comes down on the words, "Mother's 
 asleep!" 
 
 It is a miracle — God has answered the prayers. 
 
 In the next act there is a great discussion between 
 various pastors as to the meaning of what has hap- 
 pened. The husband is still praying in the church
 
 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 205 
 
 and the bell is still ringing — he has been praying two 
 days and two nights. 
 
 The neighbours want to see the sleeping woman. 
 The pastor returns, the choir singing follow him into 
 the room. 
 
 The bedroom door opens, his wife enters and walks 
 across the room with her arms stretched out towards 
 him. He comes forward to embrace her, his face 
 radiant with joy, as she drops down dead at his feet. 
 The pastor gives an agonised cry as he says, "This 
 is not what I meant, not this!" 
 
 I quote a few interesting letters: — 
 
 "10 Adelphi Terrace, W.C. 
 "My dear Mrs. Patrick Campbell, 
 
 "That was a really great managerial achievement. 
 In future, when people ask me whether I go to the 
 theatre I shall say, 'To the Royalty, not to any 
 other.' 
 
 "I think the 'Hallelujah Chorus' might be improved 
 by steeping in boiling water for ten minutes or so before 
 the next matinee. And if Rachel must have a scream 
 at the end, it might be well to give her, at rehearsal, 
 something to scream for. Titheradge was so remark- 
 able a parson that you really ought to play Candida 
 {Candida is an old play of my own, with a most parsonic 
 parson in it ) , for his benefit; he would cover himself with 
 glory as Candida's husband; but he is wrong to gurgle 
 like Othello cutting his throat. That scene gets far be- 
 yond the screaming and gurgling kind of realism. 
 These physical obstructions and inconveniences have no 
 business among the spiritual agonies. May I suggest.
 
 2o6 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 
 
 too, that Tithcradge's determination to die parallel to 
 the "floats" with his heels O.P.* and his head P., whilst 
 you occupy the corresponding position P. and O.P., rather 
 spoils the picture? After all, it is not natural that he 
 should die unassisted, especially after gurgling; and it 
 would be a great improvement if he would breath his 
 last in the arms of Horatio — say the sceptical parson 
 who wants the miracle. That would compose the pic- 
 ture much better. It is one of the drawbacks to your 
 power of rousing people's sense of beauty that even 
 trifles jar on it if they are unbecoming. 
 
 "However, all that is nothing. The impression was 
 overwhelming. 
 
 "Yours enthusiastically, 
 
 "G. Bernard Shaw. 
 
 ". . . . I was greatly touched when Mrs. Theodore 
 Wright, who was a friend of Karl Marx, and has been 
 in all sorts of revolutionary circles got so indignant at 
 the conduct of Pastor Lang that she clenched her fists 
 and glared at the wickedness of religion, instead of giv- 
 ing you your cue — the 'My dear' cue. Forgive her — 
 it was a generous slip." 
 
 And in another letter from him: — 
 
 "Thank you for the beautiful photograph; but I should 
 have photographed you in bed, saying, 'It's tempting 
 Providence.' That was the finest passage in the play. 
 After all, there are lots of beautiful people about; and 
 some of them can, perhaps, even thread needles with their 
 toes; but they can't take a filament of grey matter from 
 their brains and thread it through that most elusive of 
 
 * Opposite Prompter.
 
 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 207 
 
 eyelet holes in the top of a dramatist^s needle. Besides, 
 that produces a new sort of beauty, compared to which 
 natural beauty is a mere reach-me-down from Nature's 
 patterns. Long ago, when everybody was maudlin about 
 your loveliness, I snapped my fingers — admired nothing 
 but your deft fingers and toes. Now I admire you 
 enormously. You have picked the work of Nature to 
 pieces and remade it whole heavens finer. It Is the 
 power to do that that is the real gift. . . ." 
 
 "I wish you had a theatre of your own; for if the 
 Lord Chamberlain suspended you, I could make a re- 
 volution within half-an hour of the announcement. 
 
 "The enclosed letter is from one of my Reverend Non- 
 conformist constituents. He wrote to me in great excite- 
 about Beyond Human Power. I wrote back urging him 
 to write to the Times and to get a lot of other Divines 
 to sign with him. 
 
 "Unluckily, Massingham took the words of the Lord 
 out of the Minister's mouth. 
 
 "Yours sincerely, 
 "G. Bernard Shaw." 
 
 "National Liberal Club. 
 "Dear Mrs. Campbell, 
 
 "That was simply glorious this afternoon. It has left 
 me exulting. I go home on Saturday morning, but will 
 write again about this. . . . 
 
 "Gilbert Murray." 
 
 "... I knew nothing whatever of the play before I 
 went, and was taken by storm. ... I thought your 
 acting, if I may say so, even better than I have seen it 
 before — so firm and full of nobility as well as very
 
 2o8 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 
 
 subtle. . . . You must have studied church congresses 
 with a minute care which I should not have expected in 
 you, to arrange those clergymen so beautifully. I 
 though that scene most excellent comedy of a very deli- 
 cate kind. . . . 
 
 "But the whole conception was so fine. I had been 
 three times to the Theatre Franqais the week before, and 
 I enjoyed your Bjornstjerne Bjornson quite infinitely 
 more. . . . 
 
 "Gilbert Murray." 
 
 "17, Hanover Terrace, 
 
 "N.W. 
 "Dear Mrs. Patrick Campbell, 
 
 "Permit me to congratulate you very warmly on your 
 wonderfully delicate and spiritual performance this after- 
 noon. We have come back dazed like people who have 
 seen a vision. . . . 
 
 "Quite apart from the transcendent beauty of your 
 personal part in the piece, you claim the highest applause 
 from every serious-minded person for your courage in 
 presenting a poem, the interest of which is so unusual and 
 so intellectual. Just behind where we sat the critic of 
 one of the biggest newspapers sat snuffling and wriggling, 
 and I heard him mutter (just at the most exquisite 
 point of your third scene), 'Fancy coming to a thing like 
 this! It is about as amusing as a funeral!' 
 
 "Thank you again for an immense pleasure, in which 
 and with kindest remembrances my wife joins me. 
 
 "Yours very sincerely, 
 
 "Edmund Gosse." 
 
 The following letters from my friend, Mr. W. B. 
 Yeats are particularly interesting: —
 
 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 209 
 
 "18 Woburn Buildings. 
 "Dear Mrs. Patrick Campbell, 
 
 ". . . Will you permit me to thank you by letter for 
 the performance? Your acting seemed to me to have 
 the perfect precision and delicacy and simplicity of every 
 art at its best. It made me feel the unity of the arts in 
 a new way. I said to myself, that is exactly what I am. 
 trying to do in writing, to express myself without waste, 
 without emphasis. To be impassioned and yet to have 
 a perfect self-possession, to have a precision so absolute 
 that the slightest inflection of voice, the slightest rhythm 
 of sound or emotion plucks the heart-strings. But do 
 you know that you acted too well; you made me under- 
 stand a defect in Bjornson's play which I had felt but 
 had not understood when I read it. Bjornson's hero 
 could only have done those seen or real miracles by having 
 a religious genius. Now the very essence of genius, of 
 whatever kind, is precision, and that hero of his has 
 no precision. He is a mere zealous man with a vague 
 sentimental mind — the kind of man who is anxious about 
 the Housing of the Working Classes, but not the kind 
 of man who sees what Blake called 'The Divine Vision 
 and Fruition.' I happen to have in my pocket 'The 
 Revelation of Divine Love,' by the Lady Julian, an old 
 mystical book; my hand strayed to it all unconsciously. 
 There was no essential difference between that work and 
 your acting; both were full of fine distinction, of delicate 
 logic, of that life where passion and thought are one. 
 Both were utterly unlike Bjornson's hero. 
 
 "The actor played him to the life; but I was miserable 
 until he was off the stage. He was an unbeliever's dream 
 of a believer, an atheist's Christian. . . . 
 
 u 
 
 "W. B. Yeats."
 
 2IO MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 
 
 "i8, Woburn Buildings. 
 ". . . . Yes, I agree with you that Bjornson's play is 
 a fine thing — living, passionate, touching issues of life and 
 death. In London the subjects which people think 
 suitable for drama get fewer every day. Shelley said 
 that when a social order was in decay, the arts attached 
 themselves to the last things people were interested in — 
 imaginatively interested in. Here people look on the 
 world with more and more prosaic eyes, as Shelley said 
 they did in dying Greece. There, as here, nothing kept 
 its beauty but irregular love-making. He called the po- 
 etry that had irregular love for subject and was called im- 
 moral, 'The Footsteps of Astrea departing from the 
 world.' 
 
 "W. B. Yeats/' 
 
 "... I have no right to criticise the play, but I must 
 say I think the solemnity of it is marred in the second 
 act by a stupid introduction of the comic element when 
 those parsons are met together, and I would give much 
 for that controversy or symposium upon the question of 
 miracles to be re-written up to the present standard of 
 thought. The remarks on both sides are a hundred 
 years behind the age, but the play as a whole will do 
 good, and the first act is one of the most impressive 
 scenes I have ever witnessed on the stage. The dual 
 problem proposed is the most momentous that can oc- 
 cupy the mind of man: — 
 
 "(i) What think ye of Christ? 
 
 "(2) What is answer to prayer? 
 
 " 'Oh, I didn't mean that.' The pathos, the disap- 
 pointment of it! And yet thus it must be if we believe
 
 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 211 
 
 that it is an all-loving and all-knowing Father to whom 
 we pray. 
 
 "Some day I should so like to talk over this play with 
 you. 
 
 "With renewed thanks for giving me this treat. 
 
 "Basil Wilberforce 
 "(Archdeacon of Westminster),"
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 I OPENED in Chicago at the Opera House on 
 the 7th of January, 1902. 
 Again, as on my "first appearance on any 
 stage" so many years before, the audience seemed 
 a hundred miles away. The enormous proscenium 
 opening — the scene on the stage only the few chairs, 
 the table, the bowl of goldfish, the writing-desk, the 
 couch, and the antimacassars of Magda. — 
 
 I could not go out to that huge audience, and so 
 again I "gathered" them up to myself. "How did 
 you do that?" the reader will say; it is very difficult 
 to answer. 
 
 I have heard it called "hypnotic" power, as when 
 an Indian throw a rope up into the air and climbs it 
 before your eyes. 
 
 A certain hesitancy, shaping of pauses, tentative- 
 ness, sudden precision, instinctive rhythmical move- 
 ment, calling with my heart — "Love, and listen, to 
 what I believe true and beautiful" — how much per- 
 sonality helps,. I do not pretend to know; but I am 
 sure my gift is no more than that of a robin redbreast 
 when he sings. . . . 
 
 I remember the applause at the end of the first 
 
 act had an extraordinary quality: it was a roar that 
 
 212
 
 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 213 
 
 seemed to say: ^'Ah! this is true, we are not going to 
 be blufifed" — and I felt I had won. 
 
 Nowhere in the world are artists received with 
 more warmth and enthusiasm than in Chicago — that 
 city where men fight against heat that stifles, and 
 snows that kill : the miles of great, bare, flat front be- 
 tween you and beautiful Lake Michigan: not sand 
 or stone, but black mud. . . .Further along are the 
 great palaces, the "homes" of the millionaires, look- 
 ing on to that gorgeous lake that seems to reach to 
 the end of the world — sometimes calm, sometimes 
 with gigantic opalesque waves. . . . 
 
 Before the curtain was down on the last act, I 
 knew I was wonderfully rich in friends. All that 
 applause could not be for my talent: I felt they 
 had taken a fancy to me! 
 
 And then the good time they gave me — 
 
 The balls, the dinners, the suppers, the luncheons, 
 the musical parties — on the same evening Pader- 
 ewski and Kreisler! — the flowers — roses as tall as 
 girls — the sweets — the books. 
 
 Mrs Arthur Caton, Mrs. Spencer Eddie, Mrs. 
 Franklyn Macveagh ; and many, many others. Their 
 gaiety, their broad, liberal spirit, their unstinted hos- 
 pitality, and their loyalty and frankness — it was in- 
 toxicating. 
 
 How long ago! I have made six visits since, and 
 incidents of this first visit may get mixed up in my 
 mind with incidents of other visits — but one stands 
 distinct.
 
 214 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 
 
 I remember Mrs. Macveagh saying at a luncheon 
 party — where only ladies were present — that the most 
 immoral woman is no worse than the most moral 
 man. I wanted dreadfully to get up and make a 
 speech, but I was young and very uncertain upon 
 questions of life and morals. 
 
 I had been brought up to believe that woman is 
 the Mother of Goodness, so that immorality in a 
 woman is the worst that could happen. 
 
 But I said nothing of this at that luncheon party. 
 I enjoyed the novelty, the fun, and the amusing talk, 
 and the pretty clothes. 
 
 The following letter from Mr. Bertram, my busi- 
 ness man (whom I had taken on from the Prince of 
 Wales Theatre to the Royalty Theatre, and had now 
 brought to America), to my uncle, gives an idea of 
 the financial success of this American tour: 
 
 "C|o Lieblers and Co., Knickerbocker Theatre Buildings, 
 
 "New York City, 
 "21st Jan., 1902. 
 "Dear Mr. Tanner, 
 
 "In reply to your letter of the loth Inst., I am de- 
 lighted to say that Mrs. Campbell is both an artistic 
 and financial success; if I tried to explain how great 
 her success was, I am afraid you would think I was ex- 
 aggerating. We are playing in a small theatre to the 
 same prices as charged only by Sir Henry Irving and 
 Sarah Bernhardt, and you know the amount of scenery 
 and the large company they travel; in our case there 
 is only Mrs. Campbell. Why, in Chicago all records
 
 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 215 
 
 were beaten. Mrs. Campbell holds the record house, 
 the record matinee, the record week, and the record for 
 the city, for no star has played to so much money in two 
 weeks as she did; the gross receipts for the two weeks 
 were nearly £7,000. 
 
 "I am so pleased she is playing her repertoire, for 
 one critic may like her Paula and Magda and run 
 down her Clara Sang, and another critic praise her 
 Clara Sang and not like "her Paula and Magda. 
 Another thing that has to be considered is, we are not 
 playing with the Syndicate, and they try to influence the 
 press against her, but it does not matter, the public 
 buy up the seats, and at every performance the house 
 is sold out and the spectators obtain advanced prices on 
 the side walk. Only last night I saw people buying 
 single seats at $5 (£1) that we had charged $3 (12s.) 
 for. 
 
 "We play Pelleas and Melisande Tuesday and 
 Thursday next week at a larger theatre for two mat- 
 inees only, and the advance sale is enormous. In three 
 weeks Mrs. Campbell has sent over £2,000 to Mr. 
 Hawksley. At this rate we shall very soon have cleared 
 off all the debts of her syndicate, and she will have money 
 of her own to commence work again. 
 
 "I have sent you to-day some more cuttings, both good 
 and bad, but the press here is so different to England, 
 no one takes any notice of it. 
 
 "Yours faithfully, 
 "A. Bertram." 
 
 On our arrival in New York — I took to America 
 my faithful Julia,* my little griffon, and a maid — 
 
 * Dear Julia was my dresser for twenty years. She came to me first 
 as maid to my children.
 
 2i6 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 
 
 two or three hotels refused to take my dog. At last 
 we settled at the Park Avenue Hotel. 
 When I arrived I found twelve men with notebooks 
 waiting for me in the reception-room — "Inter- 
 viewers." 
 
 The fool I felt was beyond words to describe — ■ 
 and I am afraid I said something like this: "How 
 perfectly dreadful, why do you do it? Is it for 
 your living? It seems to me so insulting." 
 
 But they wrote kindly of me, and I grew to like 
 their sharp-cut features and intelligent faces and 
 their eager outlook for something to write about — 
 in their parlance, "a new viewpoint" — "an original 
 stunt." 
 
 As everyone knows. New York is built upon a 
 rock. During this visit.of mine they were construct- 
 ing the subway, and every inch of the tunnel had to 
 be blasted with dynamite. 
 
 I was playing eight and nine performances a week 
 of a repertory of six plays, all tragic, emotional 
 parts. 
 
 The din of New York — the rush, the tall build- 
 ings, and the strange coloured people; Italians, Rus- 
 sians, Chinese — all sorts everywhere — the noise of 
 the elevators, the nasal twang — black boys, bell boys, 
 and the noise of the street cars — I do not want to be 
 unkind, but to me it was demoniacal. 
 
 Then there were all my trunks — those that couldn't 
 fit in the room were in the passage outside — and never 
 a "cup of English tea" for my maids — all this, to
 
 ox HER FIRST AMERICAN TOUR
 
 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 217 
 
 the accompaniment of underground explosions. . . . 
 
 I tried to bear it, but some unknown voice whis- 
 pered in my ear "get out of this hotel." After a 
 week I said to Julia: "Pack up, I must go." She 
 looked more than miserable — demented — she thought 
 of the three hotels that had refused to take me be- 
 cause of "Pinkie." 
 
 She packed up and we went — twenty-four hours 
 afterwards the hotel was blown to smithereens — 
 comic pictures in the papers of headless bodies run- 
 ning searching for their heads, and heads with eyes 
 searching for the rest of their bodies; noses and ears 
 and fingers scattered about ... to help cheer the 
 public up, I suppose, who had shares in the enter- 
 prise. 
 
 In the next hotel — the Majestic, I believe — there 
 was sometimes a shuffling outside my bedroom door. 
 
 My only companion was my little griffon, and to 
 her I would talk my special dog language. The fol- 
 lowing is what appeared in the newspapers: 
 
 "Those who have listened outside the great actress's 
 bedroom door will have heard the words spoken to her 
 by her deceased husband on the phonograph she carries 
 with her always. She turns on the phonograph every 
 night before she goes to sleep." 
 
 "New York. 
 "Darling Uncle, 
 
 "... I work, work, work, all the time — you get the 
 papers, and from them you will know what it is like.
 
 2i8 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 
 
 Mr. Hawksley makes out my debts at nearly £12,000; 
 this includes all the money I want to repay. 
 
 "Expenses are so heavy here it means my coming home 
 without a farthing, however hard I work. . . . 
 
 "The audiences are not so large now; it is so warm 
 and I believe I am in the wrong theatre. 
 
 "I have to play Pelleas and Mclisande in the theatre 
 next door, as the orchestra in our theatre only holds 
 seven performers and is above the proscenium. 
 
 "Chicago was like a wonderful nightmare. Five 
 plays in a fortnight, and nine performances a week, and 
 speeches, and all the parties — but, however great the 
 success, the money must go back to my creditors, which 
 is, to say the least of it, depressing. £500 is added for 
 A. G. 
 
 "Perhaps you will see Mr. Hawksley and suggest that 
 if I pay £8,000 now it will be sufficient, and others must 
 wait. 
 
 "I am afraid I won't get a new play on, if the ones 
 I am doing continue to draw good audiences. 
 
 "My maid W. has had a bilious attack ever since 
 she left England. She wears a long train! . . . 
 
 "The noise in front of my hotel, in fact all round, is 
 awful. They are building an underground railway. 
 There are the noises of the explosions, and the noises of 
 iron girders being lowered all night long. Fm afraid 
 I will have to move. 
 
 "The two nights in the train from Chicago upset 
 me. I was very sick and jumpy. . . . 
 
 "I am writing in the night, after two performances 
 and a rehearsal. 
 
 "Dear letters from Stella — short ones from Beo — 
 he's young to be away so long. . . . 
 
 "Nine performances last week. I send you my
 
 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 219 
 
 speech, which was a great success, given in my night- 
 gown, after Beyond Human Power. I have been 
 ill, my voice and appetite and my sleep went for days, 
 and have left me rather weak. 
 
 "Mrs. Clarence Mackay sent round all sorts of nice 
 things; I am better, really quite well, only rather hoarse. 
 I have played every performance; I was so afraid I 
 would have to give up. 
 
 "Isn't the enclosed cutting lovely? . . . 
 
 "Beatrice." 
 
 The New York Evening Journal, 
 
 February 4th, 1902. 
 
 "The Lady and the Pup. 
 
 "Here to the left is a very interesting photograph. 
 The writer does not know the lady of the fine, calm, 
 powerful face. He does not even know the dog, the 
 strange, inbred wild little creature. 
 
 "This picture is printed to call attention to the folly 
 which women show in regard to dogs. 
 
 "The picture represents a feature of dog life of an 
 ethical rather than a practical kind. 
 
 "If the lady in the picture — the famous and able 
 actress, Mrs. Patrick Campbell — had this picture taken 
 with a scientific view, it was all right. If she meant to 
 illustrate the marvels of evolution and natural selection 
 by contrasting the wild, crazy, big-eyed snub-nosed face 
 of the little dog with her own high development, morally 
 and mentally, her idea was a good one. 
 
 "But if she meant to indicate in this photograph, af- 
 fection for the animal, and her opinion of his right place 
 in the universe, we are obliged to disagree with and to 
 criticise her.
 
 220 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 
 
 "It is all very well to repeat what one woman said: 
 'The more I see of men, the more I think of dogs.' 
 
 "The dog's place is on the floor, and not in a photo- 
 graph next to a woman's cheek. 
 
 "There are in man and woman whatever qualities we 
 seek for, and the human being that cannot find in one 
 of his own kind the highest companionship, the fullest 
 friendship, and affection, is curiously lacking. 
 
 "There may be exceptions. This picture doubtless por- 
 trays one of them. But in general we venture to say 
 that the woman who likes a dog better than a child or a 
 man, ought not to have a child or a husband. 
 
 "If the lady of this picture will pick up in the streets 
 the poorest little child, and have her photograph taken 
 with that child's face in the place of the dog's face, we 
 think that she will be delighted with the result. We 
 shall be very glad to print such a picture in this same 
 place, and along side of it Mrs. Campbell's views on the- 
 relative satisfactoriness of pups and human chil- 
 dren." 
 
 There is a peculiar gaiety about American women, 
 not usual in Englishwomen. It may be explained by 
 the electricity in the air, or the difference in the 
 clock — it is day here when it is night there — 
 
 At a party everyone is buoyant. It would be 
 infinitely ill-mannered to be morose, critical, silent, 
 self-absorbed, or to appear "out of it." You are 
 there to be happy, and to make others happy. 
 
 It seems noisy and fatiguing at first, but it has its 
 magnetic warmth and charm. There is nothing of 
 that funny cliquishness you find so often in English 
 Society.
 
 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 221 
 
 And then how they dance — and how well they 
 dress! 
 
 Mrs. Dana Gibson's silver legs and her little feet — 
 this lady always wore silver stockings — how they 
 twinkled as she tangoed or cake-walked — whatever 
 the fashionable dance was then. Her irresistible fun 
 too; the gaiety of her passion when she sang French 
 love songs; her gravity when she imitated an Eng- 
 lishwoman and the ''British accent." 
 
 And the kindness of American men! — people 
 would have me think American women have taught 
 them that; I do not believe it. 
 
 The care and the cherishing of the white woman 
 belongs to early days, and the instinct has lasted 
 through. 
 
 I must not write ail the admiration I have for the 
 American Poppa; it might be thought I was hard 
 on the American mother and daughter. . . . 
 
 I remember at a luncheon party a distinguished 
 American, sitting next to me, suddenly looked me 
 straight in the eye and said: "Some man has made 
 you unhappy; it is an insult to your sex to allow it, 
 and it shows a lack of sense of humour." I an- 
 swered : "Do you know why God withheld the sense 
 of humour from women?" He said he could not im- 
 agine. I replied winningly: "That we may love 
 you, instead of laughing at you." I made the re- 
 mark — it was not original, but I have the credit for 
 it — because I disliked what I thought his impertin- 
 ent curiosity; he pretended to think I was flirting
 
 222 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 
 
 with him, and shouted "Fire! Fire! Fire!" and 
 turned the laugh against me. 
 
 *1^ IV *f* 'I* 
 
 To-day a lady who has been in America three or 
 four months announces that the American man makes 
 the "best lover." It is a comic remark. 
 
 Someone has said: "As a man is, so he loves." 
 The dishonourable man dishonourably; the coarse 
 man coarsely; and so on. . . . 
 
 A friend of mine thinks: "The secret of married 
 happiness lies in politeness"; if so, 1 suppose in 
 Europe the palm should be given to the Frenchman; 
 in Asia to the Chinaman. . . . 
 
 I insist that I have found the manners of Ameri- 
 can men more kindly; of Frenchmen more courteous; 
 of Englishmen more sincere; of Irishmen — God de- 
 fend us! . . . 
 
 By February 5th I find in another letter to my 
 uncle that I had sent £3,442 towards my liabilities. 
 
 By the end of the tour, owing to the great heat, 
 the business was not so good, but I paid back in all, 
 just on £7,000 at the end of the tv^enty-two weeks. 
 
 My next tour in America was in September of the 
 same year, and I continued paying up ; so that people 
 who say I have never saved money — it is true I have 
 not the accepted "right sense" of the value of money 
 — must remember this effort of mine. 
 
 In those days in New York Mr. Norman Hap- 
 good was the dramatic critic upon whom the actors'
 
 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 223 
 
 minds centered; and his flattering notice of my work 
 is interesting.* 
 
 There is a very fearsome person in America called 
 the "Press agent." It is his business to see that the 
 newspapers talk about the "star." His power of in- 
 
 * Drama of the Month. 
 
 "For a long time nothing in the theatrical world has done so much 
 good in New York as the visit of Mrs. Patrick Campbell. . . . 
 
 "She was in the city three weeks, her plays received almost the united 
 censure of a Press that thinks Bjornson and Maeterlinck ridiculous, 
 Sudermann dull and The Notorious Mrs. Ebbsmitli, immoral. 
 
 "Nevertheless, it took but a few days for the idea to spread among 
 people who care, that Mrs. Campbell was something that must not be 
 missed, and there were many who were turned away from the theatre 
 every night. . . . 
 
 "Some of them liked Bjornson best, some Maeterlinck, some Pinero, 
 but all cared. They were in the presence of an art which would make 
 a diiference in their feelings and in their ideas. Speaking to them 
 publicly after their enthusiastic reception of Bjornson's intense spiritual 
 drama, Beyond Human Poiver, on her last night, Mrs. Campbell said: 
 'I see no reason why the drama should not be selected for its beauty 
 and truth, its possession of those qualities which give worth to other 
 aspects of life.' It is not only for excitement that we all go to the 
 theatre, not to be carried off our feet by sheer power. It is to have 
 three hours in which the mind and taste are encouraged, pleased, and 
 corrected. 
 
 "Mrs. Campbell prefers omission to fabrication. Such simplification 
 might lead to barrenness, but the more I see it in this actress, the more 
 it appears in the light of harmony and purity, for the methods which 
 she does use are sufficient to paint widely different women with lasting 
 solidity. America has not seen Mrs. Campbell try roles in which much 
 power is needed, or unclouded joy. Her most distinguished work 
 has been deep, clear, pure and in the minor key, yet the future may 
 shows other truths, for nothing in Mariana, Magda, The Second Mrs. 
 Tanqueray, or The Notorious Mrs. Elbsmith could prepare one 
 for the fairy innocence of "Melisande, or the profound devotion of the 
 pastor's wife in Beyond Human Poiver 
 
 "My own opinions have been changed in several ways and always in 
 favour of the author, a characteristic result of Mrs. Campbell's 
 thoroughness of interpretation "
 
 224 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 
 
 vention, contrivance, and ingenuity is beyond con- 
 ception to the normal mind. 
 
 One night at the theatre, just before I was going 
 on the stage in Beyond Human Power, the press 
 agent (this particular man was a German and his 
 name was ''Worms!") put his head in my dressing- 
 room door and said: "If anyone says 'tanbark,' you 
 know nothing." I called him back and asked him 
 what "tanbark" was. He looked delighted and an- 
 swered : "I guess you'd better not know." 
 
 That night the noise outside the theatre ceased. 
 The street cars have one kind of bell that jangles 
 when they start, and another when they stop; and 
 I think there were three sets of tram rails outside 
 this theatre, but on this particular evening all was 
 silent. 
 
 The next morning the mystery of ''tanbark" 
 was explained in the following article in the news- 
 paper: 
 
 "Tanbark 
 
 "Three car loads of Tanbark were dumped in front 
 of the Theatre Republic on West Forty-second Street, 
 just off Broadway, this morning. 
 
 "An army of 'White Wings'* were soon busy spread- 
 ing It In even layers over the granite-blocked pavement. 
 
 * The name of street cleaner and sweeper, who wear white linen 
 coats.
 
 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 225 
 
 "As the street cars approached, the motor men jammed 
 down the brakes and slowed up, and refrained from 
 ringing the gongs. 
 
 "The ill-mannered little boys who eke out an exis- 
 tence crying 'Wuxtra !' 'Wuxtra !' were gagged. 
 
 "The Italian organ-grinders were warned not to go 
 further north than 'West Twenty-ninth Street.' The 
 cries of babies on the block were stifled with paregoric. 
 
 "Even the detectives from the Tenderloin Police Sta- 
 tion wore gum shoes. 
 
 "The patrol men conversed in whispers. 
 
 "The bar-keepers over at the Metropole and Ross- 
 more Cafe's shook up the cocktails and gin fizzes with 
 muffled ice. 
 
 "All was still. All was silent. 
 
 "The man from Sullivan County, who came down to 
 town in a straw hat and a fur-trimmed duster, asked if 
 the Mayor was dead. 
 
 "The peanut vendor at the corner, who had been cau- 
 tioned to plug up the whistle of his roaster, or suffer 
 banishment to 'Little Italy,' leaned over the kerbstone 
 and whispered gently in the off ear of the man from 
 Sullivan County, that Mrs. Patrick Campbell, the fa- 
 mous English actress, was going to play Beyond Human 
 Power to-night at the Theatre Republic, and it was neces- 
 sary that she had absolute quiet. 
 
 "So it was that the streets were tanbarked, and va- 
 rious warnings were issued to various employees of the 
 city and corporation, that quiet must be the order of 
 day and night. 
 
 "And, 'Pinkey Pankey Poo' was as happy as ever a 
 genteel doggy could be. 
 
 "It all began from a request from Mrs. Campbell's 
 manager to President Cantor, of the Borough of Man-
 
 226 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 
 
 hattan, that the city spread tanbark in front of the thea- 
 tre. The manager explained there was so much noise 
 because of the rumbling of wagon wheels and other 
 vehicles that the beauties of the actress's acting were 
 partly lost upon the audience. 
 
 "The manager was referred to Doctor John McGaw 
 Woodbury, Superintendent of Street Cleaning. Doc- 
 tor Woodbury was out, and the plan unfolded to his 
 assistant. Captain Gibson. It sounded real reasonable 
 to the Captain and he said: 'AH right, the tanbark goes 
 down.' 
 
 "Doctor Woodbury was back in his office this morn- 
 ing. 
 
 " 'How about that tanbark?' asked an Evening 
 World reporter. 
 
 " 'What tanbark?' asked the doctor. 
 
 " 'In front of the Theatre Republic' 
 
 " 'I don't know what you're talking about,' said the 
 doctor. 
 
 "Then the secretary explained matters. 'Did Gib- 
 son give permission to the theatre to spread the tan- 
 bark?' the doctor queried. 
 
 " 'He did,' said the secretary. 
 
 " 'Ah!' said the doctor, 'I pass the whole matter up 
 to the Commissioner of Public Works. There is where 
 it should have gone first. My business is to clean the 
 streets, not litter them.' 
 
 "George Livingstone, Commissioner of Public Works, 
 listened patiently. 
 
 " 'If the Street Department has littered up the streets, 
 why, it will have to clean them up again,' said the Com- 
 
 missioner 
 
 I have nothing to do with it. I don't just see why 
 the whole town should sleep while Mrs. Campbell acts.
 
 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 227 
 
 We might just as well put tanbark in front of the other 
 theatres. If Mrs. Campbell is looking for quiet, why 
 doesn't she wait until she gets to Philadelphia?' 
 
 " 'If I find the tanbark around the theatre an obstruc- 
 tion in the street, I shall order the Superintendent of 
 Encumbrances to remove it,' said President Cantor. 
 
 "Mr. Cantor does not actually say he will order the 
 tanbark to be removed, but he intimates that such a 
 step may be taken. 
 
 " 'Captain Gibson had the right to grant such a re- 
 quest, but I do not propose to get into any fight over the 
 matter, but the tanbark may be scattered all over the 
 adjacent blocks and become a nuisance.' 
 
 "But Mrs. Campbell's manager did not rest content 
 with getting the tanbark. He made a request to the 
 Metropolitan Street Car Company, to instruct their mo- 
 tor men to abstain from jangling the gongs, and to slow 
 up when the cars on the cross town lines pass the theatre. 
 This was granted. 
 
 "Then the manager requested that Fire Chief Croker 
 order his firemen to muffle the bells of the fire engine 
 if they should be called upon to run by the theatre. The 
 chief said he would have to refer the matter to the Fire 
 Commissioners, and would get a decision from them. 
 
 "Noting the success of Mrs. Campbell to obtain 
 quiet, the other actresses in the city began to flood the 
 street-cleaning department with letters asking for similar 
 favors. These letters just began to come in at noon. 
 
 "Among them were these epistles: 
 
 " 'Dear Doctor, 
 
 " 'I know you are a real nice man, and are always 
 willing to help on a poor girl. The push-cart man makes 
 •so much noise in front of the Bijou Theatre that I can-
 
 228 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 
 
 not hear my own jokes, and am apt to spring a chestnut 
 on the public. Please send seven cars of tanbark to 
 me by return mail. 
 
 " 'Yours for health, 
 
 " 'May Irvine.' 
 
 " 'Doctor Woodbury, 
 
 " 'I think it awful mean that Mrs. Campbell is getting 
 all the tanbark. Won't you please send me lo or 15 
 cents worth? I am very fond of rest myself. 
 
 " 'Yours truly, 
 
 '"Anna Held.' 
 " 'Dear, dear Doctor Woodbury, 
 " 'Oh ! I should so love to have some genuine tan- 
 bark. I haven't seen any since I played in the back 
 counties of Michigan, when they used to put it on the 
 floor of the Town Hall, so that you couldn't hear the 
 lumber men when they came in. 
 
 " 'Yours hopefully, 
 
 " 'Virginia Harned.' 
 
 " 'Dear Doctor, 
 
 " 'I always did like tanbark, except I hear it makes the 
 skin tough. If you can send me four or five carloads 
 c.o.d. I shall be so grateful. 
 
 " 'Yours respectfully, 
 
 " 'Lillian Russell.' 
 " 'Dear Doctor, 
 
 " 'We do want a lot of tanbark so that we cannot hear 
 the loud suits of clothes of the wicked bald-headed men 
 who sit in the front row at the "New York.'' 
 
 " Yours, 
 " 'A Bunch of Florida Girls.' " 
 
 There are some actors and actresses in America
 
 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 229 
 
 who say that my success was entirely due to "tan- 
 bark." 
 
 At one of the performances of Beyond Human 
 Power a man asked for his dollar back, saying it 
 was a "bum show."* 
 
 When we were playing in St. Louis — it was over 
 100 in the shade, and not a breath of air — I arrived 
 at my hotel exhausted. I lay down and shut my 
 eyes. Something made me open them. On the 
 wall to my right was this: — 
 
 to my left, two of these, on my bed three, and on the 
 ceiling six — at least, so it seemed to me. I jumped 
 up, rang the telephone, and called down: "Send 
 some people to room 174 immediately." A bell 
 boy came. 
 
 I was standing in the middle of the room trem- 
 bling, with Pinkie in my arms. I said "Look!" 
 pointing wildly about me. He grinned, as only a 
 coloured bell boy can, and said : "Why dat's a 'stink 
 bug.' " "Stink bug!" I shouted. "There are hun- 
 dreds all over the room." He continued smiling, 
 
 *"Bum" is the American for "dud."
 
 230 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 
 
 and said: "I guess der are." I screamed "Kill 
 them!" He answered: "Oh, no, Ma'am! dem smell 
 bad if dem killed." 
 
 I do not remember what happened next. 
 
 In September, 1902, I was again in America, and 
 opened at the Garden Theatre under the management 
 of the late Charles Frohman in Aunt Jeannie, by E. 
 F. Benson ("Dodo"). It was a play full of charm 
 and elegance, and received some splendid reviews, 
 but I fancy it was a little trifling, after my serious 
 repertory, in the early part of the year. Mr. Froh- 
 man kept this play on only a few weeks, and I started 
 almost immediately rehearsing Sudermann's Es Lebe 
 Des Leben, translated by Miss Edith Wharton — 
 The Joy of Living. 
 
 This play was a great success, and, with the ex- 
 ception of a few special performances of The Sec- 
 ond Mrs. Tanqueray and Magda, ran to the end of 
 my engagement. 
 
 When I produced it on my return to England at the 
 New Theatre, it was a complete failure. It had al- 
 ready been played excellently in London by a Ger- 
 man Company, but had been condemned by the 
 English critics. I had hoped for the impossible. 
 
 Charles Frohman and I shared the expense of the 
 production in America, which was in every way 
 splendid. I am ashamed to say I remember candle- 
 sticks costing £12! 
 
 Mr. Frohman quarrelled with me over rehearsals.
 
 TOURING THE UNITED STATES UNDER THE DIRECTION OF 
 
 LIEBLER AND COMPANY
 
 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 231 
 
 It was an intensely difficult play to rehearse. 
 Beata was the emotional woman who does not weep : 
 and I fancy he thought my reserve, and constraint, 
 would be dull and ineffective. I remember he 
 wanted to drop the curtain at the end of the 
 scene— when with great dignity, she walks out of 
 the room without noticing a small gilt chair in front 
 of her, almost falling — as the chair topples over — 
 cutting out the scene which followed. I would not 
 hear of it; so Frohman would 'have nothing more 
 to do with the production, and I became solely re- 
 sponsible. 
 
 But for the aid of Prince Hugo von Hohenlohe, 
 who happened to be in New York at the time and 
 gave me some help in the details of German Court 
 etiquette — and the late Mr. Conried,* who attended 
 three rehearsals, giving me the most brilliant assis- 
 tance; I could never have got through the produc- 
 tion of this five-act play in two weeks — Sudermann, 
 too, sent me a very complete prompt book. 
 
 These rehearsals, with eight performances a week 
 of Aunt Jeannie were a tremendous work. In the 
 end the production had to be put off for two days — 
 I was suddenly taken ill and had to lie in bed in the 
 
 *The late Heinrich Conried was at that time manager of the Irving 
 Theatre in New York. He enjoyed the reputation of being the most 
 accomplished stage manager and director of modern plays in the 
 world. Mr. Conried gave as a compliment to me, a professional mat- 
 inee at the Irving Theatre, of acts from four different plays, including 
 Beyond Human Power. All the actors appeared to me to play equally 
 brilliantly. He sent me a gold and silver laurel wreath and said: "If 
 you ever act with a leading man who is a genius, you will reach the 
 heavens."
 
 232 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 
 
 dark for forty-eight hours. The first night went 
 brilliantly, and the papers thought it the best work I 
 had done. 
 
 The action of this play takes place among the 
 higher classes in'Germany, and the theme of the play 
 is that social sin reveals itself, and cannot go un- 
 punished. Fifteen years before the play begins 
 "Countess Beata" has been in love with Richard, 
 her husband's friend, but out of consideration for 
 family ties their liaison has been at an end for twelve 
 years. The spirit of love still exists between them, 
 most deeply upon Beata's side, upon whom the long 
 strain of suppressed emotion has developed heart 
 disease. 
 
 In a most touching scene, Beata says, speaking 
 to Richard: "We've grown old, you and I, there 
 is a layer of ashes on our hearts, a layer of conven- 
 tionality and good behaviour, and weariness, and 
 disappointment, — who knows what we were like be- 
 fore the fire went out? Not a trace is left to tell — 
 not so much as a riband, or a flower. The words 
 are forgotten, the letters are destroyed, the emotions 
 have faded. Here we sit, like two ghosts on our 
 own graves." 
 
 Through Beata's influence and her husband's; 
 Richard's political advancement is secured, and 
 Michael (her husband) resigns his seat in the Reich- 
 stag in favour of Richard. 
 
 But old love-letters have fallen into the hands of
 
 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 233 
 
 a former secretary — a Socialistic agitator — and he 
 uses them as a weapon of political attack. 
 
 Michael hears of the scandal. To preserve the 
 happiness of his daughter — who is in love and en- 
 gaged to Richard's son — and to preserve the honour 
 of the family, a council is held. 
 
 BeatA: You have questioned me, Michael, let me ques- 
 tion you. Must every natural instinct end in 
 remorse and repentance? Sin? I am not con- 
 scious of sinning. I did the best that it was in 
 me to do. I simply refused to be crushed by your 
 social laws. I asserted my right to live, my 
 right to self-preservation, perhaps it was another 
 way of suicide — that's no matter. You know 
 what my life has been since — how I've had to 
 buy it, hour by hour, and drop by drop at the 
 nearest chemist's. Well, wretched as it is, I've 
 loved it too dearly to disown it now ! yes, I've 
 loved everything — everything around me — you 
 too, Michael; ah, don't laugh, yes, you too, 
 even if I've — ah {her breath comes in long gasps 
 and she reels and clutches a chair) . Which one 
 of you will help me to the door? 
 
 Michael: Beata, from now on there will be no one to 
 help you. 
 
 Beata : Thank you {with an intense effort she walks out 
 of the room, nearly falling over the chair which 
 she does not notice). 
 
 Michael {to Richard) : And now ? 
 
 Richard: Do what you like. Say what you like. 
 Curse me — shoot me — I shall not defend myself. 
 
 Michael: You admit that one of us must die? 
 
 Richard: No, I don't admit it, but I am at your service.
 
 234 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 
 
 Michael: A duel between us is impossible. 
 
 Richard: Impossible 
 
 Michael: I have pledged my word not to bring any 
 scandal on the Party. You are under the same 
 obligation. 
 
 Richard: I know a way — but {his son's voice is heard 
 outside) 
 
 -'Michael {with sudden decision) : Norbert! 
 
 Richard: For God's sake, Michael, do you want to 
 disgrace my whole house? 
 
 Michael: You shall see — Norbert. Come in, my boy, 
 come ! 
 
 Norbert: Uncle Michael, what is the matter with 
 Aunt Beata? The doctor Is with her and Ellen 
 has been called. 
 
 Michael: Nothing serious. Don't be alarmed. Nor- 
 bert, your father and I were just talking of last 
 evening. You remember that stupid business 
 interrupted our talk, and we never heard the 
 end of your argument. Let us have it now. 
 Sit down, — sit down, Richard. There was one 
 phrase of yours that struck me. You said — 
 you said — that if 
 
 Richard: You said that if a man of honour has injured 
 another and is called on to atone for it, he is 
 the best judge of his own punishment. 
 
 Norbert {laughing) : Did I? Very likely but my 
 head is so full of other things just now that I 
 couldn't swear to it. 
 
 Michael: That was not quite what I meant, but no 
 matter. Suppose we take such a case. If the 
 injured person says "one of us two must die," 
 what ought the other to answer? 
 
 Norbert: Why, Uncle Michael, I should say that de-
 
 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 235 
 
 pended on the nature of the injury — doesn't 
 it? 
 
 Richard: Let us say, for the sake of argument, that 
 the wrong is the gravest that one man can do 
 another; let us say he has seduced his friend's 
 wife. Has the husband a right to the other 
 man's life? 
 
 NORBERT : Why, father, there can be but one answer to 
 that. And if the other man is a man of hon- 
 our — though I don't see how he could be, do 
 you? — he would be more eager to give his life, 
 than the husband could possibly be to take it. 
 
 Richard: H'm, perhaps you're right. Thank you, my 
 boy. 
 
 NoRBERT : Uncle Michael, at what time to-morrow may 
 I see you? 
 
 Michael: I'll send you word, Norbert. 
 
 Norbert: Thanks. Don't make it too late, will you? 
 Don't keep me waiting too long. Good-bye. 
 Good-bye, father. {Goes out.) 
 
 Richard: Well, are you satisfied? 
 
 Michael: You put the question in a way that suggests 
 suicide. That was not . . . 
 
 Richard: It is your own choice. All I ask is two days' 
 
 respite. You won't refuse it? {Michael 
 
 shrubs his shoulder.) Good-bye. {Goes out.) 
 
 Hearing of Richard's decision, Beata gives an 
 official luncheon, and at this gathering of the no- 
 tabilities she triumphantly drinks to "The Joy of 
 Living." . . . 
 
 Beata, rising from her seat at the luncheon party, 
 speaks: — 
 
 "My dear friends, you all go on wishing each other a
 
 236 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 
 
 long life, but which of us is really alive? Which of us 
 really dares to live? Somewhere, far off in the distance, 
 we catch a glimpse of life — but we hide our eyes and 
 shrink away from it like transgressors. And that's our 
 nearest approach to living. Do you really think you're 
 alive — any of you — or do you think I am? {She springs 
 up with an inspired look.) But I, at least — I — whose 
 life is one long struggle against death — I who never 
 sleep, who hardly breathe, who barely stand — I at least 
 know how to laugh — how to love Hfe, and be thankful 
 for it. (SJie raises her glass, her voice no more than a 
 hoarse whisper.) And as the only living soul among 
 you, I drink to 'The Joy of Living.' " {Her eyes rest 
 on Richard, and then turning to Michael)^ "I think I 
 will take your advice and go into the other room for a 
 little while" {She rises with an effort and with a last look 
 at Richard, says), "I shall be back in a few minutes." 
 {A heavy fall is heard in the next room.) 
 
 She had put an overdose of her heart medicine in 
 her glass. 
 
 Everybody but Richard and her husband, thinks 
 she has died from heart disease. 
 
 Richard's last words at the end of the play are: — • 
 
 You see, Michael, that I live because I must — that I 
 live because I am dead 
 
 The play is full of the finest stage craft, its 
 simplest scenes leading to situations of the most in- 
 tense interest. 
 
 In San Francisco its reception was extraordinary.
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 MY next engagement in London, after the 
 production of The Joy of Living at the 
 New Theatre, was with the late Mr. 
 Lewis Waller at the Imperial Theatre — February, 
 1904 — in A Queen's Romance — a fine translation 
 of Victor Hugo's Ruy Bias, by John Davidson. A 
 generous production, that, unfortunately, ran only a 
 fortnight. 
 
 The critics found it tedious. They called it a 
 piece of literature, rather than a stage play. This 
 was tragic for John Davidson, who had put some of 
 his best work into the play. 
 
 The public, unfortunately, do not think it is their 
 duty — though the play be the work of a distinguished 
 author, produced by a recognised management, and 
 played by artists of quality — to come and see it, and 
 judge for themselves. 
 
 It was the first time I had played with Mr. Lewis 
 Waller and in one review of the play, the criticism of 
 our different method was interesting: ". . . If we 
 are to take Mr. Lewis Waller's fine presentment of 
 the hero by itself, or Mrs. Campbell's gracious and 
 beautiful embodiment of the Queen by itself, there 
 would be nothing but praise to give to each; but the 
 play requires that the two should be combined in one 
 
 237
 
 238 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 
 
 harmony, and harmony is precisely what we do not 
 find. The histrionic method of the two lovers is 
 absolutely distinct. . . ." 
 
 The reason I would give, is that Mr. Waller 
 addressed his blank verse to the universe; I spoke 
 my blank verse to him. 
 
 Mounet-Sully was a superb exponent of this 
 ''speaking to the universe" method. I saw him play 
 only once — in Antigone — at the time I remember 
 I thought "he is mounted on a horse, and rides most 
 gloriously." 
 
 It was during this fortnight's run of A Queen s 
 Romance, that a great sorrow fell upon me. My 
 uncle was very ill — dying. 1 told Mr. Waller all 
 it meant to me, and many times during that fort- 
 night he drove me from the theatre to Chelsea, that 
 I might get back to the care of my uncle more 
 quickly. 
 
 This uncle of mine, of whom the world has 
 never heard, was the most unselfish of men. 
 
 Looking back now, I feel my youth was spent at 
 court in the presence of a king. 
 
 His life taught that a fine sense of rightful re- 
 sponsibility is the soul's best armour. 
 
 He took the sting from poverty, the burden from 
 obligation. 
 
 My people said he spoiled me. I alone know the 
 courage he gave me — he showed me the right door — 
 and I always felt sure of his trust.
 
 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 239 
 
 These few letters show a little, his love and sym- 
 pathy, and that to him my heart was bare: 
 
 "Chelsea, 
 "June, 1898. 
 
 ". . . Will Maeterlinck come to London? Do you 
 think the play will appeal to the general public? Will 
 not its wonderful symbolism be lost upon them? I 
 believe you are the only one who has the power to make 
 it understood and appreciated on the stage. . . . 
 
 "It will be a memorable production if rehearsed with 
 true heart and understanding. I am feeling many shades 
 better, though by no means what you would call fit. I 
 don't know that I ever do. 
 
 "It is so distressing, dear, to hear of your deep un- 
 rest and depression. Would God w^ould put things 
 right for you; but you must do your part, too, and that 
 bravely and loyally. 
 
 "Try to look at life squarely in the face. There is 
 error in Ideals. As we build, so we inhabit. . . . 
 
 "A thousand blessings 
 
 "From your affectionate 
 
 "Uncle Harry." 
 
 Writing to Berlin : — 
 
 "This should reach you a few hours before the curtain 
 rises. How I would love to be there ! I do hope you 
 will be in perfect form — and that the round of receptions, 
 at homes, and suppers will not have taxed your strength 
 and nerves overmuch. Mind you act the mad scene 
 just as you did on the last night at the Lyceum. 
 
 "The Berliners cannot help but love you.
 
 240 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 
 
 "There are long paragraphs in the London newspa- 
 pers about the handsome way in which you are all being 
 treated in Berlin, and the great excitement there. 
 
 "I hope everyone you meet is sympathetic and kind. 
 "Bless you, dear, and may you win all hearts. 
 
 "Your affectionate 
 
 "Uncle Harry." 
 
 "P. S. — I hope they will see that you have a thoroughly 
 good piano for Mrs. Tanqueray. Try it beforehand 
 if you can." 
 
 (( 
 
 "I hope you are feeling better; you wear yourself out 
 too much. There won't be a rag left of you soon. 
 Take rest. I saw Sibyl* yesterday afternoon at the 
 New Gallery. — and I loved her, and you for reading so 
 much into her and telling me. It is the jewel of the 
 gallery. 
 
 "Bless you. . . . 
 
 "Do be firm and give your throat every moment of 
 rest possible. Guard against chills, wrap up warmly — 
 you cannot be too careful. . . ." 
 
 This letter shows how he indulged my vanity — 
 a tender habit of his to shield me from my savage 
 self-criticism. 
 
 * "J'ai voulu representer la Sibelle dans le douloureux devoir; c'est 
 de predire I'avenir — lElle va prophetiser — elle enleve lentement les voiles 
 qui I'entourent, et les malheurs qu'elle ne peut qu'entrevoir la fait souf- 
 frir. 
 
 Fernand Khnopff. 
 This beautiful marble was bought by Mr. Agnew.
 
 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 241 
 
 "Dear . . . 
 
 "I have been thinking about your idea of my writing 
 your life; there is one petition I would place on the 
 knees of the gods, that they would give me the ability to 
 do that in a manner something worthy of your dear, 
 precious self. Oh, if they would grant it! But my life, 
 my daily occupation is so out of harmony with such a 
 sweet, heavenly work. How is it possible? Only a 
 poet could do such a thing full justice. Can you ima- 
 gine a miserable sign-painter producing a 'Botticelli? . . . 
 
 "Your affectionate 
 
 "Uncle Harry." 
 
 "... Am I really philosophical and unselfish? I 
 am very unsociable, and have absolutely lost all taste for 
 mixing with people. I never did learn the art of making 
 friends — you know that you've often told me as much. 
 In one sense I am not philosophical, I am only just dull, 
 and I plod away at my work. . . . 
 
 "What are my attainments in languages and literature, 
 art — echo answers 'What?' My education has just been 
 sufficient for me to secure a clerkship in the city! Such 
 is your uncle, dear, with all his philosophy. Well, but 
 he loves you and your dear Beo and Stella, and longs 
 for your happiness, and would count it a blessing beyond 
 compare if he were able to contribute to it really, and 
 could stay those many things which disquiet the nerves so 
 mercilessly. . . . 
 
 "Your affectionate 
 "Uncle Harry." 
 
 "How mysterious, how strange and unfathomable all 
 is! You said how majestic is death — and he is a king- 
 maker, if only we understood it — and it is only those
 
 242 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 
 
 that are left that are the uncrowned — he plucks out the 
 thorn, and the bitterness passes for ever. It is all too 
 deep and beyond — I am so glad I was at the theatre, and 
 I am happy to think too, that you were glad I was 
 there. . . .* 
 
 'God bless and bless you. 
 
 " juu uiess unu uiess you. 
 
 • • • 
 
 (( 
 
 "Uncle. 
 
 "Chelsea, 
 "21st March, 1903. 
 . From your tour card I see you were this week 
 in Kansas City, and that next week you will give per- 
 formances in five different cities. How strange, and to 
 you who detest travelling, how abominable it must be to 
 have to scour the country, and to bounce into and out of 
 new places day after day in this fashion, like a pea in a 
 frying pan! However, you will be in California on the 
 6th of next month, and there you will enjoy the climate 
 like anything. When you are in San Francisco you will 
 be nearer to Beo than you have been for over two 
 years. . . . 
 
 "Your mother is well and sends fond love. . . . 
 
 "I haven't heard from Stella lately. Expect she's 
 studying hard. She is going to be very clever, I'm 
 sure. 
 
 "Much love. 
 
 • • • 
 
 "Uncle Harry." 
 
 This letter telling me I could bring my little dog 
 home without putting her in quarantine, was a great 
 relief. 
 
 *This letter refers to poor Pat's death.
 
 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 243 
 
 Uncle and my sister Nina understood the comfort 
 the little creature was to me in the long hours in 
 the railway train and in the hotels. 
 
 "Chelsea. 
 "Dear Beatrice, 
 
 "Welcome, and thrice welcome! I hope you have 
 had a pleasant and enjoyable crossing so far, Nina and 
 I will meet you at Liverpool. We go up by the mid- 
 night train. Now as to Pinkie, we sent you a cable 
 which you should have received a few hours before sail- 
 ing from New York, that a concession had been granted, 
 relieving you from the obligations of the new quarantine 
 law. The new Licence is enclosed herein. So you are 
 now entitled to bring Pinkie home and keep her with 
 you, instead of packing her off to Sewell's quarantine 
 quarters. You have to thank Nina for having worked 
 
 the oracle so successfully. She and I called on Mr. 
 
 at the Board of Agriculture, and she made an eloquent 
 appeal to him for Pinkie, her main argument being that 
 when you left England in December last you didn't know 
 that such severe regulations would be made in place 
 of the then existing ones; that Pinkie cost between £40 
 and £50 and would certainly die if separated from you 
 for any length of time. Many other things she also said 
 in a very sweet way, which we will tell you when we 
 
 meet; but the end of it was that Mr. very kindly 
 
 granted the concession; and no words can describe the 
 difference in our feeling when we knew that Pinkie was 
 free; such a burden seemed to roll off our spirits that 
 Nina said she felt as if she could fly in the air like 
 Ariel. . . . 
 
 "Your affectionate uncle 
 
 "Harry."
 
 244 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 
 
 To quote the words of another: — 
 
 Uncle never "exalted material over immaterial things, 
 or claimed any foundation for the Arts hut in moral and 
 in spiritual truths." He knew "compromise is as im- 
 possible in literature and the Arts, as in matters of 
 faith; and that the general public shrinks from the lab- 
 orious and exhaustive ecstasy, in which literature and 
 the Arts are understood." 
 
 Hundreds of my children's school letters lie be- 
 fore me — no different, I suppose, from hundreds 
 of other children's school letters. 
 
 How often the thought was with me — "can it be 
 that they are happy, quite well, and I am not there — 
 the daily, hourly outpourings of love — hushed — and 
 yet the child is well and happy — better perhaps — 
 happier?" 
 
 My art, as it were, became my gift to my children, 
 as well as their daily bread. 
 
 Who will destroy these letters — this heap of early 
 treasures? Not I — they carry the joyous echo of 
 youth and hope — the root and fibre of my endeav- 
 our. . . . 
 
 My boy wanted to be a sailor — the Royal Navy — 
 that meant money, success, social influence — I must 
 work hard — I did — he had his wish. 
 
 How happy he was at school, and on the Britan- 
 nia!
 
 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 245 
 
 "Darling mother, 
 
 "... I am glad the plays were a success. I also 
 had a little success this week, for I got my 'colours' for 
 Rugby football. . . . 
 
 "We had a test exam, in Algebra yesterday, and I got 
 148 out of 150, and two other boys got 150. I hope I 
 do as well in the real exam. . . . 
 
 "With all my heart full of love and kisses, 
 
 "Beo." 
 
 On the Glory in China years afterwards he wrote: 
 
 "H. M. S. Glory, 
 "China Station, 
 "At Wel-Hai-Wei. 
 "Sept. 2nd, 1902. 
 "Darling Uncle Harry, 
 
 "... I have been everywhere, and seen everything 
 since I last wrote: Japan, Manchuria, Wei-Hai-Wei, 
 Malay Peninsular, Corea, practically everywhere on the 
 China Station. The people are absolutely different in 
 each place; up North the Chinese are magnificent speci- 
 mens, all about 6 ft., with tremendous arms and legs and 
 broad, open faces, the remnant of the old fighting race 
 of thousands of years ago. Down South they are small, 
 wizened, and half of them deformed from opium smok- 
 ing, and dissipation in all forms. 
 
 "Before we went our summer cruise with the Fleet 
 we went to Taku, which is the port of Pekin where all 
 the fighting took place. They are still very turbulent 
 there. 
 
 "Then we went to Shang-hai-kwan and Ching Wang 
 Tao. We saw the great wall of China at Shang-hai- 
 kwan; it is wonderful. Thousands of years old, and over
 
 246 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 
 
 a thousand miles long, extending from the Eastern Coast 
 of China to the boundary of Thibet, It has Pagodas or 
 forts about every mile, all communicating with one an- 
 other by underground passages. It was built to keep 
 the northern 'barbarians' from invading China, in her 
 prime. 
 
 "We are at present at Wei-Hai-Wei; we have been 
 here since the Coronation. 
 
 "Shooting is going strong; snipe simply abound on 
 the mainland. 
 
 "Some adventurous mad French millionaire built a 
 magnificent hotel on the mainland at Mahto (or rather 
 Port Edward now), the village opposite Len Kung Tao, 
 the island of Wei-Hai-Wei; thus attracting some few 
 people who come for their health, for Wei-Hai-Wei is a 
 very healthy place. 
 
 "I am enclosing a copy of the W ei-H ai-W ei Gazette, 
 which is our only paper here. We pay 10 cents, or 
 2 5^d., for it. It is the Coronation Number, so extra 
 grand and flashy. 
 
 "I pass for Sub-Lieut, in April, 1904, so don't ex- 
 pect me home till about June, 1904. I then have six 
 weeks' leave and go to Greenwich College for six 
 months, and then to Portsmouth College for six months; 
 I then go to sea again. . . . 
 
 "I am sending this letter by the Siberian Railway, 
 which has just opened, so yours will be one of the first 
 English letters to go by It. It takes exactly three weeks 
 for a letter to go from Wei-Hai-Wei to London. By 
 P. & O. steamer It takes six weeks or more. All we do Is 
 to send our letters to the Russian Consul at Chefoo and 
 ask him to post them with Russian stamps and send them 
 In his mall. It Is very convenient and more novel.
 
 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 247 
 
 Fancy going home by it! Three weeks in a train with 
 only a Russian Boor as a companion. Ugh! ... I will 
 write again and send you some photographs. 
 
 "We go to Japan soon. Hurrah! Lovely Japan. 
 It instils new life into one to breathe the air and see the 
 scenery there. This Admiral keeps midshipmen well 
 employed. Every month he gives us all a job to do in 
 our 'spare time.' This last month we had to illustrate 
 the fighting power of every nation on the China Station, 
 all of it intelligence work. Mine filled a foolscap-sized 
 book about one inch thick. . . . 
 
 "I have been getting on pretty well with my cricket 
 and games. Ours is a very sporty ship, from Admiral 
 downwards. The Admiral goes bathing every morning 
 and is a keen golfer. Every officer in the ship plays 
 golf. . . . 
 
 "Must end now, and will write longer next time. We 
 are going through our yearly firing at the Range. 
 
 "Give my love to everybody and tell them to write to 
 me. 
 
 "Tons of love, 
 "From your loving nephew, 
 "Alan U. Campbell." 
 
 H. M. S. Glory, 
 "China Station, 
 "August 1 8th, 1903. 
 "Darling Mother, 
 
 "Thank you so much for your last letter. I have 
 plenty of news to tell you this time. To begin with, / 
 shall probably be home by Xmas or soon after. Isn't 
 it lovely? We have been at Wei-Hai-Wei for about 
 three months and leave it for the last time on the 26th 
 of this month. We have been very gay. I have been
 
 248 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 
 
 playing two cricket matches a week. I always play for 
 the 'Navy' in large matches. My batting average is 
 60 now. About two weeks ago I made the record score 
 out on this ground 2/5 not out. 
 
 "I and a few other mids have been creating quite a 
 'furore' by giving magnificent society picnics. Of course, 
 they are very easy to give from a ship, because you can al- 
 ways get a large boat. 
 
 "I am glad the clothes and make-up gear are coming 
 out. We have quite a lot of talent amongst our mid- 
 shipmen, who are a very sporty lot in every way. 
 
 "We sail on the 26th for Vladivostok. Ugh! The 
 average temperature in the year is 36 degrees, I believe. 
 Then we are going to Hakodate in Japan; lovely riding 
 on beautiful ponies. . . , After Hakodate we go to 
 Hong Kong for four days to coal, and then to Singapore 
 to meet Rear-Admiral Curzon Howe. Then we come 
 up to Hong Kong about ist November, and after that 
 we may go home at once, or we may refit out here and 
 go home about February — it is the cause of great argu- 
 ment amongst the officers. 
 
 "I shall have a six week's leave when I go home, and 
 then go to the Channel Squadron for about two months, 
 and then pass and go to Greenwich College, where I 
 shall be near you for about three months at least. . . . 
 
 "I will write again and tell you some more news. 
 
 "Give my love to Stella and tell her to write at 
 once. 
 
 "With all the world, sun, moon, and stars full of love 
 and kisses, 
 
 "From your loving son, 
 
 "Beo Campbell.^' 
 
 Then came a change in his letters.
 
 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 249 
 
 "H. M. S. King Alfred, 
 'Tosted at Port Said, 
 "March 8th, 1904. 
 "Darling Mother, 
 
 "Our mails have gone astray for the last three months, 
 so I have not received a letter from you for a long time. 
 Mind you and Stella are on the Portsmouth Jetty to 
 welcome me home. 
 
 "Fancy, three years and three months. I don't expect 
 you will recognise me. 
 
 "Darling mother, you must withdraw me from the 
 service: bodily, nobody could be better suited to it than 
 myself, but in mind I am miles from it. 
 
 "I expect you will laugh at me ... it sounds rot, I 
 know, but I have that feeling. . . . 
 
 "I have become sick of foreign countries; they all 
 copy, and not one is as good as England. Besides, I feel 
 as if I want to be near you and Stella. . . . 
 
 "Dear mother, do write and let me know what you 
 think. Write to: — 
 
 "H. M. S. King Edward, 
 "On Homeward Passage. 
 
 "I just missed making 1,000 runs last season at cricket. 
 My average was about fifty, and top score 213 not out. 
 I have left my two golf cups to be inscribed, but they 
 will come afterwards. 
 
 "We have a concert on board every Friday night, 
 which helps to pass the time away. . . . 
 
 "Please do write and let me know what you think as 
 soon as you get this, and I shall receive it before I 
 leave Malta. . . . 
 
 "Don't think this letter is written on the impulse of 
 the moment; I have been wanting to write it for a year
 
 250 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 
 
 and a half, but I have waited to see if I changed, but 1 
 did not. 
 
 "Mind you see about it. 
 
 "With all the world, sun, moon and stars full of love 
 and kisses, 
 
 "From you-r loving son, 
 
 "Beo Campbell." 
 
 "P. S. — The Diplomatic Service is the one I should 
 like most of any service. . . . 
 
 "So do, do, do take me out now, at once. . . ." 
 
 I realised he wanted a different life — Oxford — the 
 Diplomatic Service — to write plays. 
 
 When he came home, his old schoolmaster had a 
 long talk with him, and, in the end, on his advice, I 
 withdrew Beo. His schoolmaster said, "the boy has 
 character and determination and has made up his 
 mind; better withdraw him." 
 
 And so we plot and plan for our children's success 
 and happiness, but they take their lives into their 
 own hands, with all the courage and faith and trust 
 in this world's goodness, and its fine chances, with 
 which we have imbued them; and on our side we 
 must have the greater courage and faith to "let go," 
 and the day came when I was glad I did as he wished. 
 
 And here before me are three big bundles of my 
 Stella's letters: 
 
 "Darling, darling Mother, 
 
 "Good night, good morning, and good-bye until next
 
 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 251 
 
 Saturday. I feel a tiny bit sad, but I will cheer up, for 
 next Saturday will come soon again and then I will stay 
 with you until Monday. 
 
 "You do not know how much I love you, my darling 
 mother. I will try my hardest to be good. 
 
 "Your own loving little girl, 
 
 "Stella.'' 
 
 My lovely daughter — she must be well educated — 
 she must be presented at Court — she must have every 
 chance to make a happy marriage, and be able to 
 bring up her children in comfort, without this dread- 
 ful, nerve-shattering toil of mine; and so her letters, 
 like my son's, urged me onwards, and bound "ar- 
 dent hope upon my feet like shoes." 
 
 I sent Stella to four different schools, but she grew 
 restless at them all. And then on the advice of 
 friends, I sent her to Germany, where I felt she 
 would study restfully — and have the fun of the 
 Opera and plays — away from the excitement of my 
 work. 
 
 I went to stay with her in Dresden, and saw how 
 well she was taken care of; but, at the same time, 
 I thought the Frauleins took a little of the "home" 
 love away from the girls — I wonder? 
 
 "Wederstrasse, 16, 
 
 "Dresden, A. 
 "February i6th, 1902. 
 "I am so glad you are having such a success, darling. 
 You can't think how I love being here, and I love my
 
 252 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 
 
 lessons, too; somehow the Dresden air seems to* make 
 one want .to work. I am trying so hard to get on with 
 my music, but I am afraid I shall never be able to play 
 well. I am also drawing hard. Fancy, to think I have 
 been here nearly four months. It feels like four weeks. 
 Only I don't feel a bit strange; but I wish I could just 
 run over to America and give you a hug and then come 
 back again; wouldn't it be just lovely to spend a few 
 hours with you? Are you coming home in the Autumn, 
 or when? Don't tire yourself too much, darling. 
 Eight and nine performances a week and all the parties 
 and things are far too much for you. 
 
 "I want to go to Beyond Human Power (Uber 
 unsere Kraft). It would be very interesting to see how 
 they do it, wouldn't it? I believe the Pastor Sang is 
 dreadful — always wears a beautiful smile all through 
 the piece, like the cat in Alice in Wonderland.' 
 
 "From your own loving daughter, 
 
 "Stella." 
 
 "Dresden. 
 "Thank you a million times for your dear letter. I 
 was wild with joy when I got it. I hadn't heard for so 
 long — but I was ever so much wilder when I heard the 
 news. Darling, I daren't believe it too much in case 
 something happens to prevent your coming. Oh! it 
 would be lovely. You must come to the Albertshof so 
 that you can get me if you want anything. Then at 
 (first you must be regularly lazy and thoroughly rest your- 
 self and lie down a lot, and go for long drives to the 
 woods — they look so lovely just now, all shades of 
 brown and green. And then, when you are quite rested, 
 I must take you to the beautiful statues and pictures and 
 old jewelry and to see Weicke act. Oh, darling, it will
 
 AGAIN IX "the second MRS. TANQUERAY"
 
 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 253 
 
 be glorious, and you really will learn German won't you? 
 You learn so quickly. And if you learn with Fraulein 
 Nachtigal she'll teach it you- very soon. Oh! it will 
 be nice, and I've such a heap of lovely books for you to 
 read when you know German. Oh, mind you come, dar- 
 ling. . . . 
 
 "Best and best love to you, darling, and mind you do 
 come, my darling Mother. 
 
 'Your own Stella." 
 
 "Dresden. 
 "Darling Mother, 
 
 ". . . Lady Elcho took me to see Tristan and Is- 
 olde the other night. It was lovely. I do so want you 
 to hear the music. And this week I went to hear 
 Weicke recite — how I wished you had been there. It 
 was wonderful. You know he interests himself greatly 
 in literature of every nation — and he occasionally gives 
 a sort of lecture; that is, he takes some unknown, or not 
 very well-known, poet and telk you a little about him, 
 and then recites different examples of his poetry. I 
 knew the poetry fairly, and had read everything he re- 
 cited, so I enjoyed it immensely. He read so well that 
 one kept thinking he was speaking his own thoughts. 
 Fraulein Nachtigal was with me, and the whole time we 
 said to one another — if only you had been there ! . . . 
 
 "From your own loving 
 "Stella." 
 
 Then she grew restless in Germany and begged 
 to come home. She wrote to me, saying: — 
 
 "Darling Mother, 
 
 ". . . I'm not despondent, but the only thing I really
 
 254 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 
 
 would care to do, is — act. But, of course, if you think 
 I have no talent, I shouldn't want to — but do give me 
 a chance. . . ." 
 
 When she came, she had a season in London and 
 dances, and much gaiety. D. D. Lyttleton presented 
 her at Court: but social life did not interest her; it 
 was the life of the stage she wanted. 
 
 So again, as with my son, I had to "let go." Was 
 there ever a mother worthy of the name, or a wife 
 either, for the matter of that, who did not feel that if 
 things went wrong in her ambition for those she 
 loves, that she was in some way to blame — such a 
 juggernaut is conscience — if we keep it alive. 
 
 When my boy left the Navy, and when my girl 
 wanted to act — I was quite sure that I had failed in 
 my duty to them in some way. The thought seems 
 foolish en )ugh to me now. 
 
 This letter from the late Lord Charles Beresford, 
 who saw Stella when I was acting at Blackpool, 
 speaks of her beauty: 
 
 "H. M. S. King Edward VII 
 
 "Channel Fleet. 
 "You delightful woman, 
 
 "I am so disappointed and cross that the weather 
 prevented my coming to see you play to-night. I did so 
 want to see you, and that girl. ... I never saw such a 
 beautiful darling in my life as she looked last night. 
 What was the matter with the people; they were as 
 enthusiastic and delighted in their welcome to me as if
 
 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 255 
 
 I had been the King of Ireland. I am sorry the weather 
 prevented either the officers or the men landing, or the 
 people coming to the ship, sea and beach. 
 
 "Bless you, my dear, give my love to tha't infinitely at- 
 tractive and charming girl. 
 
 "Yours ever sincerely, 
 "Charles Beresford." 
 
 ^ * M^ M^ * 
 
 I was very much of a child with my children: 
 feeling, I suppose, that they musthe helped by simple 
 standards, until old enough to form their own opin- 
 ions: so that when the "pull" came it was particu- 
 larly hard for me. . . . 
 
 The awful problem facing us to-day — how far the 
 parents' happiness should be sacrificed to the child's 
 faith in life — is not one to go into here . . . to-day, 
 when we have to repay, rebuild, make our amende 
 honorable, for the faith in the cause, that drove our 
 young to make the greatest sacrifice of all. . . . 
 
 Even as an Ant-Hill. 
 
 In a garden near to a yard was an ant-hill. How 
 long it had been there I do not know; it was a very 
 large ant-hill. There -were palaces, store houses, 
 prison houses: there were theatres, too, where ants 
 used to perform — one 'ant had a trick of impersonat- 
 ing any other ant he chose — they were paid in honey. 
 
 Another ant was able to put the emotions of his
 
 256 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 
 
 heart and head into his little feet, and he could 
 dance as no human being ever danced. There were 
 wonderful buildings, walls, roads, and halting places, 
 little air holes for invalids to breathe in the strength- 
 ening air, and shafts for sunlight, canals for the 
 dew. And there were schools with teachers of mor- 
 als, teachers of philosophy. And there were many 
 prayer houses, where they prayed in silence, and the 
 prayer in their hearts was always against Destruc- 
 tion. 
 
 And this is what happened. 
 
 An enterprising and ambitious ant went on a long 
 expedition of discovery. He climbed many stones, 
 bricks, large pieces of wood — smiling at difficulties 
 that only made him climb higher. 
 
 One day he came to a smooth place, very white; 
 he smelt delicious scents, and there was a warmth 
 beyond his dreams, and all round him was sugar: 
 when he had eaten his fill he went further, and found 
 the other nice things that are kept in a larder. After 
 surfeit and rest, back he went with his little pouch 
 full, over the great distances, up and down bricks, 
 the stones and wood, back to the beautiful ant-hill, 
 and told the emperors and empresses, the kings and 
 the queens, and the councillors all about the good 
 things he had found. There was much debate and 
 grave discussion; he was made a great general and 
 given an army of many millions, and slaves went be- 
 fore him to make the road easier. Yellow sand was 
 found — wonderful sand, which before, only with
 
 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 257 
 
 the greatest labour, could they get, and they needed 
 this sand to make their ant-hill secure. 
 
 And the food and the sand were brought back, and 
 the ants grew lazy; there was no need to work so 
 hard, to store and fetch sweet honey. They spent 
 their time dancing and singing, and dancing devel- 
 oped so, that they could dance any way — on their 
 heads, upside down 
 
 To wander and to get, was the ambition of their 
 hearts, and less and less they prayed their silent 
 prayer. 
 
 One day a lady said to her maid: ''Twice, Mary, 
 I have found a horrid ant in the bread. You are 
 not clean; you do not clean your larder carefully." 
 Mary was offended, and she said to her fellow serv- 
 ants: "I know where those beastly little ants come 
 from ; it is that horrid ant-hill outside the yard by the 
 garden gate." 
 
 With great determination Mary went into the 
 kitchen, and took the kettle of boiling water ofif the 
 hob, walked deliberately into the yard and poured 
 and poured the boiling water on to the beautiful 
 ant-hill. She passed many ants on her way — a bil- 
 lion ants would not have covered her foot, and two 
 billion ants would not have covered the kettle. 
 Ants could not see things so much larger than them- 
 selves. 
 
 They perished and were scattered. Some were 
 filled with the madness of horror that stole their 
 wits away — some were filled only with evil excite-
 
 258 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 
 
 ment — some just ran on, crowding stupidly together 
 — some became inert with grief and died. But the 
 cunning ones quickly began to build another ant-hill. 
 They called their work "progressive"; they had run 
 such a long way. They gave freedom to others, and 
 these thought themselves fine, original fellows. 
 
 And a new religion cropped up that each and every 
 ant was free to live as he chose — to work as he 
 would — for in the scattering and the rush, all selfish- 
 ness came to the surface, and sin and discontent were 
 everywhere, and Destruction was within themselves. 
 
 In time evil became exhausted, as it always does, 
 and what evil bred, perished. The old eternal wis- 
 dom of simple, selfless faith in right-doing, slowly 
 got the upper hand, and the honest workers trium- 
 phed over the lawless ones. 
 
 Another beautiful ant-hill grew. And in the 
 prayer houses silent prayer was again in the hearts 
 of all, against Destruction, but these words were 
 added aloud : "If it come, let it not scatter our wits — 
 blinding our vision."
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 IN June 1904, at the Camden Theatre, I pro- 
 duced Warp and Woof, by Edith Lyttelton.* 
 What a first night it was! The mounted 
 police had to be called to keep the curious crowd 
 from the door. They came to see all the "fine ladies 
 and gentlemen," for it had leaked out that the play 
 was by the wife of a distinguished Member of 
 Parliament, and that all the smart world would be 
 present. 
 
 It was an excellent little play. 
 
 A dreadful thing to contemplate, but a very true 
 thing, is that to produce an intelligent play of a 
 friend, is far more exciting than to produce a play 
 by William Shakespeare, and for many reasons. To 
 begin with, Mr. Shakespeare is not present to blame, 
 to praise, or to please. If his play is a failure it is 
 your fault, if it is a success, you do not really share 
 in it. Every word, every scene is known before- 
 hand; there is never the thrill of surprise; he is 
 covered from his crown to his toes with tradition; 
 it is all a "fly on the wheel" business. And if you 
 want to do things your own way, in Mr. Shakes- 
 peare's play, you are called "difficult" — until you al- 
 most burst with indignation. 
 
 *The Hon. Mrs. Alfred Lyttelton. 
 259
 
 26o MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 
 
 But in the case of a friend's play, what a differ- 
 ence! There is the happiness of helping a friend 
 to success, and it is all such fun. . . . 
 
 Warp and Woof was full of simple, straight- 
 forward sincerity; many characters were well drawn. 
 The papers called it a "tract," a "sermon"; it showed 
 up the thoughtlessness and selfishness of one class, 
 the wicked "sweating system" of another, and the 
 suffering of the helpless. To those who were 
 not aware of it already, there was the discovery that 
 the authoress was a woman of much more than or- 
 dinary intelligence. 
 
 My next venture was a third visit to America, and 
 this time Stella accompanied me, though not to act. 
 
 The fatigue of constant travelling told upon her, 
 and after some weeks she went to stay with friends of 
 mine in Canada. 
 
 On nth October, 1904, I opened in New York, 
 under Charles Frohman's management, in The Sor- 
 ceress, translated by Louis N. Parker, from the 
 French play of Sardou, La Sorciere. The play 
 was a great success in New York, and later on in all 
 the big cities. 
 
 I played nothing else that season from October 
 to April. 
 
 Everywhere the showy, splendid production, and 
 the brilliantly theatrical role of "Zoraya" delighted 
 the audience. This role was entirely different from 
 anything I had played in America before. The
 
 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 261 
 
 statement that had often been made — that most of the 
 women I played were alike — subsided. 
 
 I fancy the human mind naturally notices most 
 actively what is strange to it, and this, perhaps, ex- 
 plains the fact that on my first visit, there were those 
 who found my acting monotonous. 
 
 To an eye unfamiliar with a certain style of paint- 
 ing, an artist's pictures, whether reproducing a hay- 
 stack or a Cathedral, look alike; it sees in all, that 
 style which is novel to it, but when the work is 
 more familiar, it is different. Then the imagination 
 of the artist, and the many different aspects of his 
 mind — his points of feeling and "attack" — are grad- 
 ually recognised. Perhaps it was a little like this 
 with my work. 
 
 In Philadelphia, after I had been on tour for 
 about five weeks, I slipped on the step of the broug- 
 ham, which had come to take me to the theatre. 
 
 I had Pinkie under one arm, and some books un- 
 der the other. The books I dropped, but I did not 
 drop Pinkie — and I broke my knee-cap in two. 
 
 What a happening it was! I remember being 
 carried out of the brougham — in some peculiar way 
 in slipping I had fallen into it. They lifted me 
 out on to a chair with my knee somewhere near my 
 chin, and the broken part of my leg dangling. Doc- 
 tor Martin was sent for. When he came he broke 
 up a wooden hat box to make a splint, and then
 
 262 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 
 
 pulled down my leg and placed it straight. T 
 had noticed in the mirror when I was being carried 
 up in the chair in the lift, that my face was blue. I 
 asked the doctor why that was, and he said, break- 
 ing the knee-cap was the most painful thing in the 
 world. 
 
 I insisted at once on sending a cable to my mother, 
 and as the doctor was getting the splint ready, I 
 dictated it to my dear friend Miss Waldron. She 
 was sitting on my bed as she wrote it down, with 
 her face turned away from me. I asked her why 
 she would not look at me; she would not answer. 
 She told me afterwards that my face was distorted 
 with pain. 
 
 I remember my one dread was, that my mother 
 might be terrified by some awful accounting in the 
 papers. She was very ill at the time. I cabled 
 
 "do not believe exaggerated accounts in papers. 
 Not anything serious." 
 
 Then there was a long drive to the Pennsylvania 
 University Hospital. I was told that fifteen doctors 
 were in the room when Doctor Martin set and wired 
 my knee. They knew the accident meant the loss 
 of a small fortune for me, and perhaps of my ca- 
 reer — and somebody stole my black silk stocking as 
 a memento! 
 
 I remember that kind and most gifted actor, the
 
 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 263 
 
 late Richard Mansfield, telegraphed, asking whether 
 he could take on my company, that he would be de- 
 lighted to do so, if it would help me. 
 "Ouida" sent me the following letter: 
 
 * 
 
 Lucca, 
 
 "loth January, 1905. 
 "Dear Madam, 
 
 "I am unknown to you, but I venture to thank you for 
 the admirable example you give of affection for your 
 dogs. 
 
 "It is most valuable in a world which is so cruelly in- 
 different to the canine race. 
 
 "I was grieved to read of your accident, and hope 
 your captivity will be sooner over than the doctors 
 think. It is a very great misfortune to befall one so 
 gifted and admired. 
 
 "With my sincere sympathy, 
 "I remain, 
 "Faithfully yours, 
 
 "OuiDA." 
 
 Dr. Martin told me that if I could bring myself 
 to realise that I was quite well, and that only my knee 
 was sick, and if I absolutely controlled my nerves, 
 no crutches would be needed, and I would be able 
 to act again in less than five weeks. 
 
 Stella, who was still in Canada with my friends, 
 was sent for. 
 
 Beo wrote from England:
 
 264 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 
 
 "4th January, 1905. 
 "Darling Mother, 
 
 "Poor you! How it must have hurt. I can't bear 
 being so far away from you, and you ill. Is Stella with 
 you? . . . 
 "Do write please. 
 
 "I wish, oh I wish I could come out to you. I am 
 sure if you don't let me come out to you, I shall come as 
 an emigrant for £2. . . . 
 
 "Have you really to abandon the tour? They have 
 huge placards up, bigger than when Port Arthur fell. 
 
 "I wish I was with you to comfort you. . . . 
 
 "Tons and tons of love, 
 
 "Beo." 
 
 "5th January, 1905. 
 "Darling Mother, 
 
 "Do write and let me know everything I am so 
 anxious. The Daily Telegraph says, 'internal injuries 
 are bad,' and that you may be permanently lame. Do 
 tell me all, it is so awful being so far away; I hope Stella 
 is a comfort to you. . . . 
 
 "Tons of love, darling, 
 
 "Beo." 
 
 And how we were spoilt! 
 
 Friends called in battalions, and flowers and sweets 
 and cakes poured in upon us. 
 
 In that Quaker City, the people seemed to me more 
 simple, more home-loving than in other cities in 
 America. They speak differently; they look at you 
 with a deeper glance; they quickly get a little hold 
 of the real feeling in you. . . .
 
 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 265 
 
 But to go on with my story. I was allowed no 
 crutches. The third week two young doctors were 
 allowed to walk each side of me; I hobbled up and 
 down the corridors with them, and we used to sing 
 glees. 
 
 One dying man asked to see Pinkie — my little dog 
 had been allowed in the hospital — and she went in 
 to visit him. He was very ill, and in his delirium 
 he used to say again and again: "Oh, the little dog, 
 the little dog." 
 
 The matron. Miss Marion Smith — never was there 
 such a comforting woman — mothered Stella and 
 me: how did she find time with all her responsibil- 
 ities? I was in my own home in that hospital. 
 
 After two weeks I became depressed. My leg 
 was out of the plaster cast, but I could not move it. 
 I realised all the money I had lost, and would lose, 
 and that perhaps I would never be able to walk prop- 
 erly again. Doctor Martin was sent for. It was 
 about nine o'clock in the evening. He did not 
 listen to more than three words, and then said : '^Oh, 
 well, if you are feeling like that, you must come to 
 the ball to-night. It is the ball in America; the 
 'Philadelphia Ball' " ; and he turned to the nurses and 
 said: "Dress her, make her look beautiful, and I will 
 come back for her in an hour." And they dressed 
 me in a lovely black velvet gown, embroidered 
 with gold thread that Mrs. Osborne had made me — 
 that wonderful dressmaker who died long ago — and 
 they carried me downstairs and laid me in a carriage.
 
 266 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 
 
 Doctor Martin, and a nurse drove with me, and they 
 carried me into the ballroom and put me on a couch, 
 and there I remained until five o'clock in the morn- 
 ing. Needless to say, I forgot all about my broken 
 knee and my worries. 
 
 Doctor Martin pointed out to me a man who wa's 
 dancing in a most high-spirited but odd fashion, 
 and said : "That is one of my patients." I asked what 
 was the matter with him, and he answered: "He was 
 too eager to catch the train to get to his business — 
 he fell, and the train went over his two feet." I 
 said: "But he has two feet." "Oh, yes! They are 
 wooden feet, but, as you see, he dances all right." 
 
 How many friends I have in Philadelphia, and 
 how often I wish they were not so far away! 
 
 I think it was in less than five weeks I was acting 
 The Sorceress again, but for over two years I some- 
 times suffered severe pain in my knee. 
 
 A certain Doctor Chamberlain was in the wings 
 watching me on the night of my return, and when 
 I came ofif the stage after the big act — in which I 
 had a very difficult fall, and had to remember my 
 knee — he felt my pulse and said "Normal ; few artists 
 come off the stage with a normal pulse; you are all 
 right, my dear, knee and head." 
 
 One amusing incident on this tour I remember. 
 
 We had arrived at some town after a long, dreary, 
 and airless journey, and, though it was freezing 
 hard, Stella and I felt we must have a drive before 
 we went to the hotel.
 
 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 267 
 
 We sent the maid on with the boxes, and drove in 
 a large open brougham and pair, that had come to 
 meet us at the station — to see the sights and the park. 
 I may mention that, so far as my memory goes, every 
 town in America has a park. 
 
 As we were driving across a bridge, we saw, in 
 the very centre of the frozen river, a spotted brown 
 and white dog, standing shivering on a piece of 
 loose ice — the most forlorn, miserable object. We 
 stopped, and got out of the carriage, and leant over 
 the bridge gazing at the poor animal, wondering 
 what on earth we could do. 
 
 Some rough-looking boys came up; I said: ''I 
 will give you three dollars if you will go and fetch 
 that dog." They grinned, saying: ''Not much," 
 or "Nothing doing" — "Not if I knows it, not for 
 Joseph," in the American language. "Five dollars," 
 they turned their backs on me. "Ten dollars," 
 they stood still. I turned to Stella, remarking in 
 a voice they could hear: "An English boy would 
 go in for nothing." To them I said: "I -wish my 
 son were here; he would go in fast enough." Stella 
 whispered: "I'm glad he isn't, mother; I know 
 he would not." In despair — "Twelve dollars." One 
 of the boys slowly turned, went round the bridge and 
 down the bank into the river, cracking through the 
 ice, and fetched the dog — to our great relief. 
 
 A few days afterwards Stella and I were in a 
 street car, and the conductor came up to me and 
 said: "Well, you saved Mrs. 's life." I stared,
 
 268 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 
 
 not knowing what he meant. ''Why, that money you 
 gave for that Spot dog got her the doctor, and the 
 medicine she wanted, and she'll be all right now." 
 I am sure I blushed, as the other passengers smiled 
 at us; both Stella and I felt a little uncomfortable, 
 but were glad to hear "Spot" was all right. 
 
 And this reminds me of a "brain wave" that saved 
 Pinkie from being turned out into the cold. 
 
 A fussy official came up to me in a car, and said: 
 "No dogs allowed on this car." Only the tip of 
 Pinkie's nose was showing out of the fur of my 
 coat. With a Sidonian sneer, I said: "DOG? 
 It's a 'Verberduna.' " He paused, looked at her, and 
 then at me, and said: "Better keep it in a cage," and 
 walked on. 
 
 And I remember finding a bird shop kept by some 
 cruel man. Many of the birds were dead, with 
 their heads through the bars of their cages, in their 
 little water troughs. Never was there such a sight, 
 or -such a filthy shop. I spoke to the man. I won- 
 der now what it was I said. He did not answer, and 
 as I turned to go, I saw a bowl of water quite frozen 
 with some goldfish wriggling at the bottom. I 
 lifted it up without a word and walked back to the 
 hotel with it. I then sent for the manager, and told 
 him of the hideous sights I had seen. 
 
 As I placed the bowl of fish on the mantel-piece, 
 he asked me if I had bought it. I said: "No, I 
 took it out of the shop and brought it here, so that 
 the ice might thaw. Look at the poor fish." He
 
 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 269 
 
 said: "They won't hurt, but the man will have you 
 up for theft." I rang the bell for the lift and went 
 up to my room. When I came down the bowl of 
 fish had gone and there was a smile on the manager's 
 face. 
 
 Another incident happened during this tour which 
 was, to say the least of it, startling. 
 
 Returning to my hotel late one afternoon, the ele- 
 vator boy refused to take me up to my floor "be- 
 cause there was a fire on the floor below it." I ex- 
 plained that my daughter was in my room. He said 
 that he could not help that; it was the rule of the 
 hotel. Some expression came into my face, and 
 some sound into my voice as I exclaimed: "Good 
 God! Is my child to be roasted alive for the rules 
 of this hotel? Take me up at once!" — the boy 
 obeyed me like a lamb! 
 
 It was nothing serious; someone had fallen asleep 
 smoking a cigar. 
 
 At Pittsburgh there is a long walk, stretching for 
 I do not know how many miles ; and straight down 
 from the pavement are the thousands of steel in- 
 dustries, a boiling hell, a hund'red and two hundred 
 feet below you. There is no handrail, or any fence 
 between you and the drop, and often there is a 
 dense, black fog from the fumes and the smoke. 
 I asked an American what happened when people 
 fell over. He said: "I guess they don't do it a 
 second time." 
 
 At the end of the tour I had to smuggle Pinkie
 
 270 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 
 
 home to England. How I did it I suppose I ought 
 not to tell. 
 
 There was no possibility of getting another per- 
 mit, and so I bought a Mexican parakeet and took 
 it into my cabin with me. I thought if the sailors 
 heard Pinkie bark I could say it was the parakeet. 
 Unfortunately I told this to Lord Charles Beresford, 
 who was on board, and he amused himself by asking 
 passengers if they had heard Mrs. Campbell's re- 
 markable parakeet "bark." 
 
 People began to soispect. 
 
 I was still lame — not noticeable on the stage — 
 and my knee was very painful going up or down 
 steps. But when the "Donkey" came up to the side 
 of the ship there was a lady who wanted to go to 
 Holyhead, and down the ladder she went; nobody 
 noticed that under her coat was a small black silk 
 bag. Many anxious faces were watching her from 
 the deck above, amongst them her daughter. 
 
 At Holyhead the lady went to an hotel, and in the 
 morning she caught an early train to London, 
 and 
 
 Pinkie was very old, and nearly blind, and I must 
 be forgiven. 
 
 But there was trouble, although I had avoided 
 the quarantine. 
 
 Mr. Bouchier Hawksley appeared in court for me, 
 and he said, I believe, that the little dog was blind 
 and had no teeth, and that I had broken my leg 
 rather than drop her.
 
 :} ' wv ■ ■ ' \ f n^ 
 
 AS ELIZA DOOLITTLE IN GEORGE BERNARD SHAw's "pYGMALIOn"
 
 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 271 
 
 The judge asked Mr. Hawksley what he thought 
 would be the right fine to impose. Mr. Hawksley 
 said gravely. "In view of all the circumstances, 
 thirty shillings." 
 
 I had understood the fine was one hundred pounds, 
 and the captain of the ship also would be fined one 
 hundred pounds. I was much relieved. 
 
 On my return to England I played the tour I have 
 already spoken of with Madame Sarah Bernhardt 
 in Pelleas and Melisande, reappearing with her in 
 London at the Coronet Theatre. 
 
 In May, 1906, I produced at the Criterion Thea- 
 tre The Whirlwind, translated by Mr. Melville 
 from the French play of Mr. Bernstein, La Rafale; 
 also Undine, a poetic one act play by Mr. W. L. 
 Courtney. Neither of these plays met with much 
 success. 
 
 I also produced The Macleans of Bairness, a ro- 
 mantic play by Edith Lyttelton. This play had 
 some charm and imagination, but did not appeal to 
 the public. 
 
 Then came what to me was a nightmare — The 
 Bondman at Drury Lane, by Mr. Hall Caine. 
 
 I remember one or two things about this play — 
 the blowing up of a sulphur mine to "Rachmaninofif's 
 Prelude," Miss Henrietta Watson and I squashed up 
 against the wall in the dark, like flies, quite certain 
 that the next moment we would be killed by the 
 most awful "business," "properties," sulphur fumes.
 
 272 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 
 
 rushing and screaming "supers," "property" walls, 
 earth and stones hurled about. Also there were 
 real cows that I had to lead across the stage. I had 
 a short-sighted dresser of the "hook-scratching- 
 down-the-back-for-eye" kind. My own dresser, 
 Julia, was engaged elsewhere, and was unable to 
 come to me. I remembered saying I could not act, 
 I could not live, I could not breathe in the din and 
 the misery; and dear Miss Henrietta Watson came 
 into my dressing-room, and helped me to dress for 
 the rest of the run of The Bondman. Bless her 
 kindly heart! 
 
 And so it will be seen that some spoiled me utterly, 
 others condemned me eternally. 
 
 I can still hear "Rachmaninoff's Prelude" that I 
 had once thought beautiful. 
 
 POM! 
 
 POM! 
 
 POM! 
 
 I remember, too, at the rehearsals of this play get- 
 ting into great trouble because I suddenly asked, 
 "Whose are these children? Are they mine?" 
 Lots of children were about me, catching hold of 
 my hand and my skirts. I had not read the book, 
 and I could not grasp the plot of the play. I be- 
 lieve now they were my brothers and sisters, but I 
 do not remember. 
 
 On the first night I found Mr. Hall Caine white
 
 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 273 
 
 and trembling behind the scenes. I felt dreadfully 
 sorry for him, and thoughtlessly said, "Is this your 
 first play?" I have been wickedly accused of say- 
 ing it on purpose, and of being heartless, which 
 was just what I was not. Ignorant, impulsive, yes; 
 for, had I stopped to think, I should have remem- 
 bered his many successes. 
 
 These plays were followed by an interesting en- 
 gagement at the Court Theatre in Ibsen's Hedda 
 Gabler, under the management of Messrs. Ved- 
 renne and Barker. I think, perhaps, too, in the 
 background somewhere, Mr. Bernard Shaw. 
 
 Mr. Barker attended the rehearsals, and sometimes 
 Mr. Bernard Shaw; their "basso-relievo" method 
 fidgeted me. However, so far as I remember, they 
 left me alone. 
 
 My Latin "genre" was the very antithesis of 
 "Hedda"; that I knew beforehand, but I hoped I 
 could overcome this. 
 
 The translation used was, I fancy, by Mr. William 
 Archer, but I think it had been tampered with. To 
 me it was unsatisfactory; words here and there, I 
 thought badly chosen, and I regretted more than 
 once that I could not read the play in the original. 
 
 The following are some of the thoughts that came 
 to me as I, for a fortnight, studied "Hedda" into the 
 early hours of the morning. 
 
 Hedda's physical condition should never quite 
 be out of the mind of the audience — she is in the
 
 274 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 
 
 first months of pregnancy, and the child she carries 
 is of a husband who is a figure of ridicule to her, and 
 a man whose voice, whose love, whose presence, tear 
 her nerves to ribands — that "immortal ass Tesman," 
 but "a respectable man," and a man who was "eager 
 to provide for her" — she thought it safe to marry 
 him. . . . 
 
 Eilert Lovborg's nature she scorns — a licentious 
 dreamer, a drinker — such a man she could not marry. 
 She knew him too well through his "confidences" — 
 they had been together mentally in deep dangerous 
 waters — to believe that anything or anyone could 
 save him. 
 
 Hedda was not jealous — in the accepted mean- 
 ing of that word — of the flufify, golden-haired Thea; 
 neither was she spiteful nor malicious. The de- 
 struction of Eilert's manuscript was a psychological 
 and physiological action — Thea and Eilert's "child." 
 
 So dangerously near melodrama, that situation on 
 the stage! . . . 
 
 Hedda hands Lovborg a pistol — she is a "General's 
 daughter." "Do it 'beautifully,' Lovborg." . . . 
 
 "Shoot yourself through the temple like a man; a 
 man who knows the beast in him is his master. . . ." 
 
 A "beautiful" deed — yes, Hedda could respect 
 that — she could respect him then. . . . 
 
 Hedda is essentially a good woman, a proud, in- 
 telligent woman, a well-bred woman in the highest 
 sense. A vital creature, suffocated by the common- 
 place.
 
 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 275 
 
 People have told me Ibsen " hated " Hedda — that 
 she was a " great snob," a " cruel woman." 
 
 Hedda's absurd feeling for " beauty," her warped 
 " sense of honour " defies the word " snob " and the 
 cunning vulgarity the word suggests. 
 
 She is acutely and tragically unhappy — her pride 
 in the dust — this, in her physical condition, explains 
 her neurotic savagery. 
 
 And then the end. 
 
 Morbidly she foresees her child another Tesman 
 — and Tesman closer to that silly, foolish Thea than 
 he could ever be to her. . . . 
 
 Lovborg, the man who has enchained her spirit — 
 dead — and she herself in the power of Judge Brack, 
 a cunning animal, of yet lower strata. . . . 
 
 Again she is the "General's daughter." Better 
 dead. 
 
 She shoots herself through the temple. . . . 
 
 Someone has said Ibsen is never ''unjust," always 
 "intolerably, fatefully true." 
 
 And this means his actors and his audience must 
 think, and think straight. 
 
 My engagement was for seven matinees, to be 
 played within three weeks. I was delighted. I felt 
 sure if I could play "Hedda" with success the play 
 would run for months. I spent on Hedda's ward- 
 robe well over the salary I would receive. 
 
 The Court Theatre was packed at all the matinees, 
 to its capacity.
 
 2/6 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 
 
 Mr. Barker came to my dressing-room and told 
 me I could have the translation to take to America 
 and to the English provinces, but that the Court 
 Theatre was not for "stars," and the play would not 
 be continued after the seven performances agreed 
 upon, and then he remarked, "What beautiful hair 
 you have!" 
 
 I went in misery to Mr. Hawksley, asking if any- 
 thing could be done. He pointed out that my con- 
 tract was for seven matinees only. 
 
 Mr. Heinemann, who held the acting rights, made 
 every effort, but Messrs. Vedrenne and Barker were 
 adamant. 
 
 Hedda Gabler was taken off. If my memory 
 does not fail me. The Silver Box was put on. 
 
 So this play by a giant genius; a play perfectly 
 con'structed — no empty contrivance, no set speeches, 
 every thought, every word, magnificently signifi- 
 cant; demanding the best an artist can give — this 
 play on the eternal tragedy of /mpersonal love un- 
 awakened — ceased, because the management took 
 exception to the "star system" — at least, such was the 
 reason given to me. 
 
 Why I was looked upon as a "star" I do not know. 
 
 The picture in my mind of a "star" is a lady who 
 walks on red carpets between ferns and palm trees, 
 people behind her carrying her bouquets, and 
 elderly, devoted admirers standing each side of her, 
 hat in hand. These good things have never hap- 
 pened to me.
 
 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 277 
 
 An afifectionate letter from that clever artist, Miss 
 Henrietta Watson, chows that some members of my 
 profession were pleased with my performance. 
 
 "Wednesday night. 
 "My dear friend, 
 
 "I wish I could but half tell you the extraordinary 
 impression you made on me yesterday and all of us with 
 your 'Hedda.' I wouldn't have missed it for anything. 
 You stood so utterly alone; you looked and felt the part 
 most wonderfully. I followed your every thought and 
 expression, I believe. You seemed so marvellously real, 
 I quite forgot the dear woman I love and admire, and 
 found myself looking at this curious, fascinating, and un- 
 satisfied creature. Oh, I can't tell you how I have talked 
 about you. I should have liked to have sat with you for 
 a whole hour and talked of nothing but you in your 
 'Kedda.' 
 
 "I loved your level, still voice, but what meaning and 
 what repression ! 
 
 "My dear, you were wonderful, and I kiss your feet. 
 
 "You must be very tired. 
 
 "My thanks and love always, always. 
 
 "Henrietta Watson.'' 
 
 One London critic of repute said: "Mrs. Patrick 
 Campbell's 'Hedda Gambler' was not one hairs- 
 breadth out." On the provincial tour the Manches- 
 ter Guardian said: ". . . By virtue of a perfect 
 sensitiveness, Mrs. Patrick Campbell marked the 
 quality of each separate personal relation. . . ." 
 
 This is just what Ibsen enables one to do.
 
 278 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 
 
 After my losses at the Criterion Theatre and these 
 few matinees at the Court Theatre, there was noth- 
 ing for it but America again, but this time Stella was 
 to come with me to act, for at last I had given in. 
 She had done good work with Miss Rosina Fillipi, 
 the teacher she herself had chosen. 
 
 I find in a letter written by me to my mother at 
 this time: — 
 
 "Darling Mother, 
 
 ". . . . If Stella can do well, life will be much more 
 interesting for me, for I am very tired of being alone in 
 my work. . . ." 
 
 In another letter I say: — 
 
 "... Beo may go as secretary with Mr. Hawksley 
 to Africa. Mr. Hawksley is doing his best to arrange 
 it. If this falls through there is an idea of his doing 
 some work with a man who is making torpedo boats, and 
 to-day I hear from D. D. Lyttelton that both Alfred 
 Lyttelton and she have heard of two things that might 
 suit him . . . and yet D. D. has found time to worry 
 about me and my affairs. She is such a darling .... 
 
 "Catherine Horner's wedding to young Raymond As- 
 quith was very pretty. Stella wore the dress she is 
 wearing in the third act of Tanqueray when 'Ellean' re- 
 turns from Paris. We went to the wedding and to the 
 reception at Mrs. Gladstone's.* Then I had a rehear- 
 sal from 8 p. m. to 11.30 p. m. in the large room at the 
 Cafe Monico. After this I came home, dressed, and 
 
 * viscountess Gladstone.
 
 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 279 
 
 went to the Asqulth's ball. We stayed there until 3 a. m. 
 I found Beo and Stella dancing reels, and everyone so 
 gay and happy, 
 
 "Stella has been rehearsing beautifully. Beo came 
 and was delighted with her and very surprised. I am 
 grateful that I can help her. She is wonderfully obedient 
 and quick, and sees in a moment when she is stiff or in- 
 effective, . . . 
 
 Another letter in which I say: 
 
 ". . . . Mr, Hawksley is doing his best, but it is 
 very difficult. So many want the post — young English- 
 men out there, with plenty of experience. . . ." 
 
 In the end the appointment for Beo fell through, 
 so it was decided that he, too, should come with me 
 to America. 
 
 Stella and I had started the tour in the English 
 provinces to get ready for America, before he joined 
 us. 
 
 From Edinburgh I wrote to my mother: 
 
 "My darling Mother, 
 
 "Beo has joined us as happy as a lark. I will take 
 him with me to America; there are so many opportunities 
 there. He will meet interesting and influential people, 
 and it will be good for him to see the country and look 
 after us. He is at this moment playing bridge with 
 Stella, and I have some young people to be with them 
 this evening while I do some study. I am sure you will 
 think it better for Beo to come with me than to go into 
 an office in London and live in lodgings.
 
 28o MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 
 
 "The Wemyss's are within motoring distance from 
 here, and D. D. We will see them all this week, 
 
 "Let me know if there is anything you particularly 
 want, dearest. 
 
 "My love to you. . . . 
 
 "Your loving 
 "Beatrice/' 
 
 "Cardiff. 
 "Darling Mother, 
 
 "Stella got on splendidly as 'Mrs. Elvsted.' I wish 
 you had been there. She was as plucky as could be. 
 We are rehearsing all day. 
 
 "And now for the great news! 
 
 "Beo is gradually making up his mind to be an actor. 
 What do you think? 
 
 "So there will be him for me to teach, too, and if I 
 haven't learned enough patience by the end of the 
 American tour it will be a strange thing. 
 
 "Beo cannot quite make up his mind, because he first 
 wanted to be an Admiral' and then a 'Prime Minister,' 
 and just an actor seems a 'come down' to him. 
 
 "I am so grateful to the stage, I cannot feel as he does; 
 we talk together about it at night. I think Stella's suc- 
 cess has encouraged him. . . . 
 
 "Your loving 
 "Beatrice.^' 
 
 I remember an early rehearsal on this short tour. 
 
 Our hotel was next to the theatre. Beo arrived in 
 his mackintosh over his pyjamas. The members of 
 the company endeavoured to appear unconcerned, 
 and I tried to keep my dignity. Beo saw my serious
 
 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 281 
 
 face, and said ''Well, mother, I overslept, and I 
 thought it would worry you more if I was late" ; but 
 he had that look in his eye, so sure that his naughti- 
 ness would amuse me. 
 
 As far back as 1902 I had arranged for my mother 
 to live at ''Gensing Lodge," St. Leonards. I found 
 her on my first return from America in apartments 
 alone, circumstances having led my unmarried sister 
 to live with a girl frie'nd in the country. 
 
 ''Oensing Lodge" is a delightfully peaceful con- 
 vent and pension, kept by Augustinian Nuns — 
 French ladies who had come over from Paris some 
 years before. 
 
 My mother lived there until she died at the age 
 of 73 in 1908. 
 
 The Convent and its little chapel and the gentle 
 Nuns pleased my mother, who could never have 
 found peace or happiness in ''apartments." 
 
 She was strangely sensitive to her surroundings, 
 and the religious atmosphere, the gardens, and the 
 view of the sea over the trees from her window, 
 brought her the beauty she needed always. 
 
 Stella and I used to stay with her, and there was 
 something extraordinarily restful, after the life of 
 the theatre, in the simple religious life — hearing 
 the voices of the Nuns singing at early Mass, and 
 the scent of the incense. 
 
 Some of the ladies who lived in the Convent were 
 interesting and amusing, and my mother had many 
 friends.
 
 282 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 
 
 The Nuns, too, were fond of me. I remember 
 the Rev. Mother saying: "It would be wonderful 
 if you would devote your" great energy and gifts to 
 the service of God." 
 
 Very many years afterwards in America, Mrs. 
 Edgar Kent, who had just left "Gensing Lodge" to 
 join her husband — a clever member of my company 
 — told me the Nuns often spoke of me and remem- 
 bered me in their prayers. 
 
 This letter I wrote to mother a few days before 
 sailing t-o America with Beo and Stella: — 
 
 "33, Kensington Square, 
 "28th, October, 1907. 
 "Darling Mother, 
 
 "I cannot tell you how much there is to do here, but 
 I must come to you on Wednesday. If it is late, I will 
 go to the Hotel first, and come to you in the morning. 
 I shall have to be back in town again on Thursday for an 
 afternoon rehearsal. I hope I shall find you looking well. 
 
 "Remember all you want to ask me, darling, for it 
 will be many months before we meet, and I would not 
 like to forget anything. 
 
 "Beo has absolutely gone mad at the idea of America, 
 it is impossible to manage him. I think he is wild with 
 joy at the thought of being on the Lusitania. 
 
 "We have a suite of rooms on the sunny side of the 
 upper deck, quite regal; and all through the tour in 
 America I am to have a private train, brass bedsteads, 
 dressing room, observatory room — so you can see miles 
 down the railway line. Imagine it! Stella and Beo
 
 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 283 
 
 and Pinkie, our man servant as well as a maid, all the 
 company; and we carry a coloured cook, four other 
 coloured servants, and four English 'stage staff.' 
 
 "And now they cable me from New York that they 
 want me to produce there Hoffmannsthal's Electra, 
 together with a little one-act Japanese play called The 
 Moon of Yamato. 
 
 "Good-bye darling, all news when we meet. 
 
 "Your own loving 
 
 "Beatrice." 
 
 My mother answered: 
 
 "My darling Beatrice, 
 
 "I can Imagine how alarmingly busy you must be. I am 
 not surprised at Beo going mad at the Idea of America. 
 When he smells the sea again he will wish he was an 
 Admiral. I hope you will keep well. It is rather a 
 great deal for you to think and plan. . . . 
 
 "The train sounds so pleasant and jolly, with sitting 
 room and observatory car, but I am wondering if you 
 will get any sleep. 
 
 "I cannot tell you how delighted I am at Stella's 
 
 success. Father O' was also pleased, and gave 
 
 me the enclosed cutting of Stella from the Graphic. 
 
 "I cannot think of anything I want, the jacket only, 
 perhaps one or two cushions would look well in my sit- 
 ting room. . . . 
 
 "My love to Stella, to you darling, and Beo. 
 
 "I am better, so don't worry about me. 
 
 "Your loving 
 Mother." 
 
 In a letter to her I say:
 
 284 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 
 
 "It is your beautiful nature that keeps you well and 
 young and lovely." 
 
 My mother was suffering from a fatal illness; my 
 anxiety for her was a vital moment to me, and yet 
 another incentive to hard work. 
 
 She wrote to me more than once: 
 
 "A thousand thanks for all your goodness to me 
 darling, do take care of yourself also," 
 
 Again I find myself writing to Mother: 
 
 ". . . We have begun 'one-night stands,' and the work 
 is rather dreadful, but the thought that I have a little 
 money to spare in case those I love want it, is a great 
 comfort, and you, darling, have first claim always. . . ." 
 
 It must not be thought that I am peculiarly gen- 
 erous; it is in our blood. Every member of the 
 family, if they had it, would give away at once what 
 they thought, at the moment, was needed more by 
 another. 
 
 People will say this leads to the workhouse. I 
 can only speak for myself and say it has found for 
 me very many generous friends.* 
 
 I remember a certain aged Peer telling me in great 
 distress that his son had gambled away all the money 
 he himself had saved, over and above his inheritance, 
 
 * Many years ago Bernard Shaw said to D. D. Lyttelton, "We had 
 better dress up as beggars and go to Stella's door, and what we collect 
 may keep her until she gets another engagement."
 
 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 285 
 
 during his long life. I said, "Why take it so ser- 
 iously? To me that large sum of money only repre- 
 sents the money you have not given to those who 
 may have needed it." He never mentioned the sub- 
 ject to me again. 
 
 The life of the stage is a hard one; the sacrifices 
 it demands are enormous. Peaceful normal life is 
 made almost impossible by the ever over-strained and 
 necessarily over-sensitive nerves — caused by late 
 hours, emotional stress, swift thinking, swift feeling, 
 and that odd reculer pour mieux sauter which comes 
 upon ail public performers: but the reward is no 
 mean one, and my gratitude to my profession is un- 
 bounded. 
 
 To go back to the Lusitania. Every delight and 
 amusement young people could wish for surrounded 
 Beo and Stella, and I was happy, too. They were 
 safe, beautiful, full of eager life, and my heart was 
 full of pride and hope, and above all, they were with 
 me. 
 
 On our arrival we went to the Plaza Hotel and 
 then came the "Interviewers!" 
 
 Beo coming into the room, and seeing the Inter- 
 viewers — with me sitting in the centre. Pinkie on 
 my lap — according to a newspaper, said with a 
 "British drawl: T say, it looks like a game — I 
 haven't had my dinner.' — and the young Englishman 
 strolled out." I do not remember this, but on 
 another occasion, when I was vainly trying to say the 
 right thing to them, Beo strolled into the room and
 
 286 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 
 
 said, ''I say Mother, I can't find my boots. For some 
 extraordinary reason this remark thrilled the Inter- 
 viewers. I suppose no American boy would have 
 said this to his mother at such a moment. 
 
 Hedda Gabler was received with much praise 
 in New York.* 
 
 I remember a performance of Hedda Gabler in 
 Kalamazoo — practically the city had turned out to 
 see it. Ibsen had never been played there before. 
 I wanted to send a cable, but was assured there was no 
 one in the post office. 
 
 In another town I was told by my business man- 
 ager that this serious play, and my quiet method, had 
 filled many of the audience with deep sympathy; 
 they made sure I was an invalid. 
 
 * Nenu York Evening World. — ... It was a merciless, cold per- 
 formance. The smouldering fire in the gloomy eyes flamed brightly 
 only once, when, with figure drawn up and head thrown back, in a 
 pose of magnificent challenge, Mrs. Campbell held out the pistol that 
 was to make an end of the disgraced and drunken Lovborg. Mrs. 
 Campbell's personality seemed to exhale suggestions of some vague, 
 mysterious evil in Hedda's relations with Lovborg. Mrs. Campbell's 
 Hedda seemed to have nothing in common with the stage.
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 IN the middle of this tour I was hurried back to 
 New York to produce Arthur Symons' trans- 
 lation of Hugon von Hofifmannsthal's Electra, 
 and The Moon of Yamato, an original Japanese 
 play of the sixteenth century translated by Comte 
 Robert d'Humiere. 
 
 "Chicago, 
 "February, 1908. 
 "Darling Mother, 
 
 "Just a line to send you my love and to tell you that 
 I am quite well again, but Stella has been ill. 
 
 "I am not taking her on with me for the next seven 
 days of 'one-night stands.' I am leaving her with a 
 dear old lady, Mrs, Franklyn Macveagh, who has a 
 gorgeous house and loves Stella, so she will be happy, eat 
 well, and rest, and have no end of fun. 
 
 "Our tour has been altered, I am glad to say, after 
 these 'one night stands.' I believe we have three days 
 in St. Paul and Minneapolis, and then a season in 
 New York, opening about 7th February. I am to play 
 both the Japanese and Greek heroines. I am very nerv- 
 ous of the work. I wanted Stella to play the Japanese, 
 but the managers want me to do both. Stella will play 
 the sister in the Greek play. I am afraid it will be a 
 strain, for her voice is not matured enough, and the 
 verse is difficult. 
 
 "We gave a dinner party, or, rather, a supper, on 
 
 Beo's 'coming of age' birthday to twenty-five people here, 
 
 287
 
 288 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 
 
 and many of them brought their friends to the dance 
 afterwards, and every one was very happy. Beo and 
 Stella's power of enjoyment is extraordinary. 
 
 "Beo made a speech and drank to his mother of 
 twenty-one ! Every one stood up and toasted him on 
 his 'sixteenth' birthday! I wish you had been there, 
 dearest. 
 
 "Stella looked lovely, but a little delicate, the ex- 
 citement of acting and not eating regularly. I try my 
 best, but it is hard to manage them. 
 
 "My love to you, darling. . . . 
 
 "Your own loving, 
 
 "Beatrice." 
 
 "Canada. 
 "Darling Mother, 
 
 "Just one line of love. I hope it will get to you 
 for Christmas. . . . 
 
 "We are all tired, but we are all three happy. Beo 
 has chosen a difficult part in the Greek play. He plays 
 the Italian manservant in The Notorious Airs. Ebb- 
 smith beautifully. Lord Grey was delighted with him 
 and with Stella. We had a grand house in Ottawa, 
 and Lord Grey and Hanbury Williams came round 
 twice, they were so pleased. Lady Grey wrote asking 
 us to luncheon the next day, but we couldn't go; we had 
 to leave that night. We travelled from 3 a. m. until 
 6 p. m. and then played The Notorious Mrs. Ebbsmith. 
 Think of it ! 
 
 "I told you in my last letter we are no longer living 
 in the train; it was too stuffy. Next week we have a 
 week's rest, no salary, and I rehearse Electra with 
 Beo and Stella and the new little Japanese play that I 
 am going to play with Electra. . . .
 
 AN IMPRESSIONISTIC PHOTO
 
 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 289 
 
 "Pat's sister and her husband and her two children 
 spent a day and night with us — these people who thought 
 my going on the stage a dreadful thing, now envy me and 
 the high spirits of my children ! 
 
 "The Reverend Mother is right, Beo is full of talent, 
 and I believe will make a fine actor. He looks so big 
 and strong, and has a splendid voice. 
 
 "Write when you can and get all you want, and be 
 comfortable in your little sitting-room. 
 
 "From your own loving 
 
 "Beatrice." 
 
 I had asked M. Gabriel Faure to write the music 
 for The Moon of Yamato. He replied: — 
 
 "I am heartbroken over the fact that I am unable to do 
 what you wish me to — I have absolutely no time left, and 
 would not run the risk of delaying your performance. I 
 am generally very busy, but in addition, the Ministry 
 has ordered me to attend to a very important Govern- 
 ment work, and this is what makes it utterly impos- 
 sible for me to undertake a task as pressing as the 
 one you did me the honour to ask me, and which I 
 should have been only too happy to accomplish for the 
 "never-to-be-forgotten' 'Melisande,' had it only been 
 possible. 
 
 "Believe me it causes me true regret. . 
 
 »> 
 
 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^ W<Av^ \'\<'f^\ ^VUl^^^t ^ • M »fu CZT CcU . tv<M 
 
 1U1 ^-tVL u-A^ ^rfta^ U Yrvi ^ Ipra "^ki 
 lv<vU "Wit '^c^s ff\ y^'i "tw^ U.TUn«^ vwa 

 
 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 351 
 
 did it; the hand that wrote them then grandly destroyed 
 its powers, as the true loyalist smashed his glass when 
 he had drunk a royal health. At all events, we scarcely 
 know the right hand nowadays — we pass the time of day 
 and so on, but nothing more. At first the left was but 
 an amanuensis. I dictated to it, but I had to think down 
 the right arm. 
 
 "But now the left is my staff. Also I find that the 
 person who writes with his left is quite another pair of 
 shoes from the one who employs his right; he has other 
 standards, sleeps differently, has novel views on the 
 antology of being, and is a more sinister character. 
 Anything curious or uncomfortable about the play of 
 Mary Rose arises from its having been a product of the 
 left hand. And now the question inevitably pops up: 
 What justification has my left to give permission to pub- 
 lish letters written by that other fellow, my right? 
 They don't agree about you at all (right says you make 
 people love and writhe). They don't agree about me, 
 they even hold contrary opinion as to what the letters 
 are about. Left says that unless there is a cypher in 
 the letters it can't understand why you want to print 
 them. (By the way as that is what this letter is about, 
 you can print them if you like.) Left has the vaguest 
 recollections of the doings, apparently referred to in the 
 letters, when you visited me in order to annoy the 
 blue-eyed one across the way. On the other hand, what 
 memories do these doings recall to right, who is at 
 present jogging me to let it get hold of a pen again. 
 The pretty things it wishes to say to you ! but left won't 
 pass them on. 
 
 'Ah, me! You and G. B. S., and the days when I 
 was a father to you both. 
 
 "But enough of this. I can't pretend any more — not
 
 352 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 
 
 for long. Left likes you every whit as much as right 
 does, as does the somewhat battered frame to which they 
 are for the moment still attached. And we all send you 
 our love, and wish for you the best kind of happiness 
 and courage for any evil hour, and may the book be 
 worthy of you. 
 
 'Tours, 
 "J. M. B." 
 
 "Island of Harris, N. B. 
 "7th September, 19 12 
 "Dear Stella, 
 
 "I thought when I saw your nice little monogram that 
 it meant you no longer adored G. B. S. And that 
 you had crossed the street again to me. You see, I 
 had watched you (a bitter smile on my face) popping in 
 at his door instead of at mine. For the moment I am 
 elated, though well I know that you will soon be off 
 with me again and on with him. He and I live in the 
 weather house with two doors, and you are the figure 
 that smiles on us and turns up its nose at us alternately. 
 However I would rather see you going in at his door 
 than not see you at all, and as you are on elastic I know 
 that the farther you go with him the farther you will 
 have to bound back. I wish I had not thought of this 
 because it suddenly fills me with a scheme for a play 
 called The Weather House. Will stop this letter pres- 
 ently to think scheme out, but as I see it just now I feel 
 G. B. S. and I must write alternate acts (according to 
 which door you go in at). When I wrote that, I meant 
 we should each write the acts in which you were nice 
 to him, but on reflection I am not sure that I would not 
 prefer to write of the scenes which took place across 
 the way and leave him to write those of No. 3. 
 
 *'I have done no work here except a one act play, which
 
 MY LIFE AND SOME LETTERS 353 
 
 striketh me as being no great shakes, for the Duke of 
 York's, where a triple bill is to be done, I daresay I'll 
 go on with the other, but why, oh, why don't you post, 
 or, better, call on Frohman, as it goes to him if it's 
 done? This place is very remote — nothing alive but 
 salmon, deer, and whales, and I return to London in a 
 fortnight, when I hope this comedy of the doors will 
 begin again. 
 
 "Yours, 
 "J. M. B."
 
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 354
 
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 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."
 
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 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
 
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