Charles Reade

“ Woffington sat in Triplet's apartment; and Triplet, palette in hand, painted away upon her portrait.
Mrs. Woffington was in that languid state which comes to women after their hearts have received a blow. She felt as if life was ended, and but the dregs of existence remained; but at times a flood of bitterness rolled over her, and she resigned all hope of perfect happiness in this world—all hope of loving and respecting the same creature; and at these moments she had but one idea—to use her own power, and bind her lover to her by chains never to be broken ”

“ I'm hanged if I do it, Jane!”
“Dear James, to oblige me!”
“That alters the case; you confess it is unreasonable?”
“Oh, yes! it is only to oblige me.
“Enough!” said Triplet, whose tongue was often a flail that fell on friend, foe and self indiscriminately. “Allow it to be unreasonable, and I do it as a matter of course—to please you, Jane.”
Accordingly the good soul wrapped it in green baize; but to relieve his mind he was obliged to get behind his wife, and shrug his shoulders to Lysimachus and the eldest girl, as who should say voila bien une femme votre mere a vous! ”

“ He never could see an actress equal to his Woffington. Mrs. Abington was grace personified, but so was Woffington, said the old man: and Abington's voice is thin, Woffington's was sweet and mellow. When Jordan rose, with her voice of honey, her dewy freshness, and her heavenly laugh, that melted in along with her words, like the gold in the quartz, Triplet was obliged to own her the goddess of beautiful gayety; but still he had the last word: “Woffington was all she is, except her figure. Woffington was a Hebe; your Nell Jordan is little better than a dowdy.” ”

“ He is no friend to a house who calumniates the husband to the wife. Is it the part of a friend to distort dear Ernest's kindliness and gayety into ill morals; to pervert his love of poetry and plays into an unworthy attachment to actors and—oh!” and the tears would come. But she dried them, for now she hated this man; with all the little power of hatred she had, she detested him. “Do you suppose I did not know Mrs. Woffington was to come to us to-day?” cried she, struggling passionately against her own fears and Sir Charles's innuendoes. ”

“ Light itself is not more beautiful than the upright man, whose bosom is open to the day. Oh yes! fear not you will be my superior, dear; for in me honesty has to struggle against the habits of my art and life. Be simple and sincere, and I shall love you, and bless the hour you shone upon my cold, artificial life. Ah, Ernest!” said she, fixing on his eye her own, the fire of which melted into tenderness as she spoke, “be my friend. Come between me and the temptations of an unprotected life—the recklessness of a vacant heart.”
He threw himself at her feet. He called her an angel. ”

“ She was Juno, Psyche, Hebe, by turns, and for aught we know at will.
It must be confessed that a sort of halo of personal grandeur surrounds a great actress. A scene is set; half a dozen nobodies are there lost in it, because they are and seem lumps of nothing. The great artist steps upon that scene, and how she fills it in a moment! Mind and majesty wait upon her in the air; her person is lost in the greatness of her personal presence; she dilates with thought, and a stupid giantess looks a dwarf beside her.
No wonder then that Mr. Vane felt overpowered by this torch in a closet. ”

“ After the usual compliments, some such dialogue as this took place between Telemachus and pseudo Mentor:
“I trust you are not really in the power of this actress?”
“You are the slave of a word,” replied Vane. “Would you confound black and white because both are colors? She is like that sisterhood in nothing but a name. Even on the stage they have nothing in common. They are puppets—all attitude and trick; she is all ease, grace and nature.”
“Nature!” cried Pomander. “Laissez-moi tranquille. They have artifice—nature's libel. She has art—nature's counterfeit.” ”

“ JAMES TRIPLET, water in his eye, but fire in his heart, went home on wings. Arrived there, he anticipated curiosity by informing all hands he should answer no questions. Only in the intervals of a work, which was to take the family out of all its troubles, he should gradually unfold a tale, verging on the marvelous—a tale whose only fault was, that fiction, by which alone the family could hope to be great, paled beside it. He then seized some sheets of paper fished out some old dramatic sketches, and a list of dramatis personae, prepared years ago, and plunged into a comedy. ”

“ Had Heaven bestowed on me this hand, which I take—”
“Oh, please, sir—”
“With the profoundest respect, would I have abandoned such a treasure for an actress?—a Woffington! as artificial and hollow a jade as ever winked at a side box!”
“Is she, sir?”
“Notorious, madam. Your husband is the only man in London who does not see through her. How different are you! Even I, who have no taste for actresses, found myself revived, refreshed, ameliorated by that engaging picture of innocence and virtue you drew this morning; yourself the bright and central figure. Ah, dear angel! ”

“ Then she rose, and showed them how to drink healths a la Francaise; and keen were her little admirers to touch her glass with theirs. And the pure wine she had brought did Mrs. Triplet much good, too; though not so much as the music and sunshine of her face and voice. Then, when their stomachs were full of good food, and the soul of the grape tingled in their veins, and their souls glowed under her great magnetic power, she suddenly seized the fiddle, and showed them another of her enchantments. ”

“ And what have we to do with homes, or hearts, or firesides? Have we not the playhouse, its paste diamonds, its paste feelings, and the loud applause of fops and sots—hearts?—beneath loads of tinsel and paint? Nonsense! The love that can go with souls to heaven—such love for us? Nonsense! These men applaud us, cajole us, swear to us, flatter us; and yet, forsooth, we would have them respect us too.”
“My dear benefactress,” said Triplet, “they are not worthy of you.” ”

“ The poor heart we have both overrated shall be yours again, and yours for ever. In my hands it is painted glass; in the luster of a love like yours it may become a priceless jewel.” She turned her head away and pondered a moment, then suddenly offered to Mrs. Vane her hand with nobleness and majesty; “Can you trust me?” The actress too was divinely beautiful now, for her good angel shone through her. ”

“ This great creature sat expecting Mrs. Woffington, like Olympian Jove awaiting Juno. But he was mortal, after all; for suddenly the serenity of that adamantine countenance was disturbed; his eye dilated; his grace and dignity were shaken. He huddled his handkerchief into one pocket, his snuff-box into another, and forgot his cane. He ran to the door in unaffected terror.
Where are all his fine airs before a real danger? Love, intrigue, diplomacy, were all driven from his mind; for he beheld that approaching, which is the greatest peril and disaster known to social man. ”

“ Vane winced visibly. He quickened his step, as if to get rid of this gadfly.
“I spoke to Mr. Quin,” said he, at last; “and he, who has no prejudice, paid her character the highest compliment.”
“You have paid it the highest it admits,” was the reply. “You have let it deceive you.” Sir Charles continued in a more solemn tone: “Pray be warned. Why is it every man of intellect loves an actress once in his life, and no man of sense ever did it twice?” ”

“ Vane's arms were wreathed round her neck, and that innocent cheek laid sweetly to hers.
Mrs. Woffington strained her to her bosom, and two great hearts, whose grandeur the world, worshiper of charlatans, never discovered, had found each other out and beat against each other. A great heart is as quick to find another out as the world is slow.
Mrs. Woffington burst into a passion of tears and clasped Mabel tighter and tighter in a half-despairing way. Mabel mistook the cause, but she kissed her tears away. ”

“ Listen to me, and learn that really great actors are great in soul, and do not blubber like a great school-girl because Anne Bellamy has two yellow silk dresses from Paris, as I saw Woffington blubber in this room, and would not be comforted; nor fume like Kitty Clive, because Woffington has a pair of breeches and a little boy's rapier to go a playing at acting with. When I was young, two giantesses fought for empire upon this very stage, where now dwarfs crack and bounce like parched peas. ”

“ Triplet,” said Mr. Snarl. “But you are somewhat deficient, at present, in the great principles of your art; the first of which is a loyal adherence to truth. Beauty itself is but one of the forms of truth, and nature is our finite exponent of infinite truth.” ”

“ The jealous always thirst for blood. At any moment when reason is a little weaker than usual, they are ready to kill the thing they hate, or the thing they love.
Any open collision between these ladies would scatter ill consequences all round. Under such circumstances, we are pretty sure to say or do something wicked, silly, or unreasonable. But what tortured Triplet more than anything was his own particular notion that fate doomed him to witness a formal encounter between these two women, and of course an encounter of such a nature as we in our day illustrate by “Kilkenny cats.” ”

“ So! this was a villain, too, the greatest villain of all—a hypocrite! She turned very faint, but she was under an enemy's eye, and under a rival's; the thought drove the blood back from her heart, and with a mighty effort she was Woffington again. Hitherto her liaison with Mr. Vane had called up the better part of her nature, and perhaps our reader has been taking her for a good woman; but now all her dregs were stirred to the surface. The mortified actress gulled by a novice, the wronged and insulted woman, had but two thoughts; to defeat her rival—to be revenged on her false lover. ”

“ Vane was not rich enough, and she really must not give him so many opportunities, Mabel cried and embraced the dragon, and said, “Oh, mother!” The dragon, finding her ferocity dissolving, tried to shake her off, but the goose would cry and embrace the dragon till it melted.
By and by Mr. Vane's uncle died suddenly and left him the great Stoken Church estate, and a trunk full of Jacobuses and Queen Anne's guineas—his own hoard and his father's—then the dragon spake comfortably and said: “My child, he is now the richest man in Shropshire. He will not think of you now; so steel your heart.” ”

“ Triplet, and I have read her too. Did not my heart warm to her among them all? There is a heart at the bottom of all her acting, and that heart is good and noble.”
“She is, madam! she is! and charitable too. I know a family she saved from starvation and despair. Oh, yes! she has a heart—to feel for the poor, at all events.”
“And am I not the poorest of the poor?” cried Mrs. Vane. “I have no father nor mother, Mr. Triplet; my husband is all I have in the world—all I had, I mean.”
Triplet, deeply affected himself, stole a look at Mrs. Woffington. ”

“ What is diplomacy? Is it folly in a coat that looks like sagacity? Had Sir Charles Pomander, instead of watching Mr. Vane and Mrs. Woffington, asked the former whether he admired the latter, and whether the latter responded, straightforward Vane would have told him the whole truth in a minute. Diplomacy therefore was, as it often is, a waste of time. ”

“ Woffington. “Now, children, first let us look at—ahem—a comedy. Nineteen dramatis personae! What do you say, children, shall we cut out seven, or nine? that is the question. You can't bring your armies into our drawing-rooms, Mr. Dagger-and-bowl. Are you the Marlborough of comedy? Can you marshal battalions on a turkey carpet, and make gentlefolks witty in platoons? What is this in the first act? A duel, and both wounded! You butcher!”
“They are not to die, ma'am!” cried Triplet, deprecatingly “upon my honor,” said he, solemnly, spreading his bands on his bosom. ”

“ Vane turned hot and cold by turns, with joy and shame. Pomander's genius came to the aid of their embarrassment.
“Follow my lead,” whispered he. “What! Mrs. Woffington here!” cried he; then he advanced business-like to Triplet. “We are aware, sir, of your various talents, and are come to make a demand on them. I, sir, am the unfortunate possessor of frescoes; time has impaired their indelicacy, no man can restore it as you can.” ”

“ She spoke the epilogue, and, as the curtain fell, she lifted her eyes, he thought, to his box, and made him a distinct, queen-like courtesy; his heart fluttered to his mouth, and he walked home on wings and tiptoe. In short—
Mrs. Woffington, as an actress, justified a portion of this enthusiasm; she was one of the truest artists of her day; a fine lady in her hands was a lady, with the genteel affectation of a gentlewoman, not a harlot's affectation, which is simply and without exaggeration what the stage commonly gives us for a fine lady ”

“ I used to be a very hearty laugher,” whined she; “but I haven't laughed this two years.”
“Oh, indeed!” said the Woffington. “Then the next two years you shall do nothing else.”
“Ah, madam!” said Triplet. “That passes the art, even of the great comedian.”
“Does it?” said the actress, coolly.
Lucy. “She is not a comedy lady. You don't ever cry, pretty lady?”
Woffington (ironically) . “Oh, of course not.”
Lucy (confidentially) . “Comedy is crying. Father cried all the time he was writing his one.” ”

“ She played Sir Harry Wildair like a man, which is how he ought to be played (or, which is better still, not at all) , so that Garrick acknowledged her as a male rival, and abandoned the part he no longer monopolized.
Now it very, very rarely happens that a woman of her age is high enough in art and knowledge to do these things. In players, vanity cripples art at every step. The young actress who is not a Woffington aims to display herself by means of her part, which is vanity; not to raise her part by sinking herself in it, which is art. ”

“ Now the sun was in their hearts, and sorrow and sighing were fled, as fogs disperse before the god of day. It was magical; could a mortal play upon the soul of man, woman and child like this? Happy Woffington! and suppose this was more than half acting, but such acting as Triplet never dreamed of; and to tell the honest, simple truth, I myself should not have suspected it; but children are sharper than one would think, and Alcibiades Triplet told, in after years, that, when they were all dancing except the lady, he caught sight of her face—and it was quite, quite grave, and even sad ”

“ Woffington, without moving, “that I am an actress—a plaything for the impertinence of puppies and the treachery of hypocrites. Fool! to think there was an honest man in the world, and that he had shone on me!”
With these words she turned, and Triplet was shocked to see the change in her face. She was pale, and her black, lowering brows were gloomy and terrible. She walked like a tigress to and fro, and Triplet dared not speak to her. Indeed she seemed but half conscious of his presence. He went for nobody with her. How little we know the people we eat and go to church and flirt with! ”