Ellen Terry

“ As for Ellen Terry, she was facile princeps on our floating city, fascinating everybody, from captain and crew, viâ first and second class passengers, down to the emigrant's crowing baby. There had been a grand gathering to see her and Irving off. Friends had come, laden with parting gifts; golden-haired children were there, bringing baskets full of flowers that should intertwine themselves with their dear Ellen's existence, till others could be gathered to greet her on her arrival. ”

“ Ellen Terry has, indeed, always found favour, not only with French critics, but with her sisters and brothers of the Parisian stage.
Sarah Bernhardt has said of her: "She is perfectly delightful, and is one of my best friends. The greatest treat I can give myself, and a pleasure to which I can look forward for months, is to see her act. She is as near absolute perfection as any one can be. In her, English dramatic art has a splendid exponent." ”

“ Ellen Terry has actually been one of those rare spirits who confer a blessing on a gray world by their mere presence. As a woman she was lovable, simple, whole-heartedly human, generous, high spirited; as an actress, uniquely delightful and in many impersonations, by virtue of nature and instinct, of compelling power, even genius. Small wonder that we must reckon her as one of the great line of English women of the theatre, the last indeed of that small and scattered band, who, each in turn, were the queens of the stage ”

“ To the true artist such truths as these strike home, and I fear they often throw their cloud over the apparently ever sunny-minded Ellen Terry. It is a fact that she often feels she has failed where enthusiastic audiences, and even the most captious critics, testify to the fact that she has triumphed. But she knows that any seeming victory in human life is not final achievement, but a spur (often a cruel one) to endless endeavour. The artistic temperament must be more or less self-tormenting, and those who desire mere personal comfort should never attempt to cultivate it. ”

“ Portia, on the stage, had always been didactic and oratorical until Miss Ellen Terry played the part, liberating all its piquant sweetness, alluring loveliness, and passionate ardour; since which time it has been acted as a lover, not as a preacher. More to her than to any one else the stage of to-day owes the benefits accruing from the growth of a natural style in acting—a style which yet does not sacrifice the ideal, nor degrade poetry to the level of prose. ”

“ My friend, Geneviève Ward, who has taken part with her in several of her memorable Lyceum triumphs, tells me that it is delightful to bear witness to her sweet disposition—a cultivated charm that prompts her to be generous, thoughtful, kind, and considerate to every one, and to make her genuinely anxious that the humblest actresses in the company, as well as the principals, should appear to the best advantage. Thus lovingly thinking of others, Ellen Terry makes herself loved, and by her radiant presence lightens many a weary heart. ”

“ Is not this an exact description of the Ellen Terry movement which others so ludicrously attempt to imitate? She does not run off the stage, or skip up the steps of an Italian garden. She simply floats seemingly on the air. A more exquisitely graceful movement has never been seen from any other actress. But Shakespeare has hit it. She like 'a lapwing runs close by the ground.' It is [250] the skimming of a bird in the air. Ellen Terry did that lapwing run to perfection when she was sent to invite Benedick to dinner, and left him with the famous chaffing rejoinder ”

“ In 1876, the Kendals, having concluded a most prosperous season with him, left to fulfil an engagement in Tottenham Street, and he secured the services of Ellen Terry, whose husband, Charles Kelly, was already serving under his banner.
Before he went to fulfil his first engagement in America, John Hare entrusted me with the task of writing his biography, and, apart from my own observations of them, I became very well acquainted with the history of the series of plays in which Ellen Terry appeared in the dainty Chelsea playhouse. ”

“ And have we not in the heroine of these pages—Ellen Terry—the very embodiment of Fancy,—the true Princess of our Palace, one of the Queens of our little stage world? Other great artists have delighted us with the perfection of their impersonations, but there is in the method or inspiration of Ellen Terry something so ethereal that in many of her characters she stands alone. ”

“ The loss of such a Rosalind to the stage as Ellen Terry would, and must have been, has ever formed a subject for regret with her warmest and most enthusiastic admirers. If ever woman lived who displayed in advance the temperament of Rosalind, it was Ellen Terry. ”

“ All that was pathetic enough; but the dramatic effect was bound to follow, and it came with vivid truth in the great scene between Ellen Terry and William Terriss. At that time, both actor and actress were perfect specimens of manly beauty and feminine grace. Terriss was just the dare-devil, defiant creature, handsome to a fault, that women like Olivia love. ”

“ Ellen Terry presented her in this way. The embodiment is fully within her reach, and it is one of the few unmistakably perfect creations with which dramatic art has illumined literature and adorned the stage. Ellen Terry was born to play such a part, and she is perfect in it. There is no other word for such an achievement."
In speaking of her sister artistes she is always generous, and often enthusiastic. She holds that as a pathetic actress there is no one equal to Mrs. ”

“ XVII.—MISS ELLEN TERRY.
Tower Cottage—"Prince" and his mistress.
From a Photo. by Elliott & Fry.
N the course of my chat with Mr. Irving, which appeared in the September number of this Magazine, I casually hinted at a little something which practically amounted to a promise. It was a note from Miss Ellen Terry. That note has been honoured, and it is a pleasurable effort to sit down and endeavour to recollect all that happened during nearly a couple of days spent with her at London and Winchelsea. Eminent people who are homely are positive blessings—and that is just what Ellen Terry is. ”

“ I don't suppose they like such advice, for assuredly they all want to begin as Beatrice, Portia, or Rosalind. Neither, I am sure, are they aware that they lacerate the tender heart of the great actress because she feels she can do nothing for them.
No one knows better than Ellen Terry that life-long devotion to her art is the only way by which a true actress can reach the goal of her ambition, and there maintain her place. She maintains, moreover, that she should be taught to turn her hand to anything. ”

“ Among the pretty schoolgirls who figured in the play a young aspirant for dramatic honours made her first appearance on the stage. This was Kate Rorke. How highly Ellen Terry thought of her sister artist's talents will be seen in the course of these pages. She has ever been ready to recognise merit in her fellow-workers—ever willing to render them a helping hand.
Ellen Terry has modestly declared that it was because of her popularity as Olivia that Henry Irving invited her to be his helpmate in his great projects for his management of the Lyceum Theatre. ”

“ It was a treat to see him once more enjoying his ingeniously and comically conceived interpretation of Jeremy Diddler, but the character of Peggy offered no real opportunity to Ellen Terry. She made a sweet picture, and it was good-natured of her to act in such a piece, and that is all that can be said. But it gives an opportunity of noting how truly great artists are always willing to play small parts. It is only the self-sufficient semi-amateur who must be Hamlet or nothing. "I love to be a useful actress," is Ellen Terry's constant cry. ”

“ It is more than impressive to watch the faces of the patient and expectant pit; and to listen to the sounds in the eager and impulsive gallery; while as to the stalls and boxes, in them you see the cream of those who are distinguished in the paths of art, science, and literature. It is magnificent to be able to command such an audience; on the other hand it must be formidable to face it.
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It was to such an assemblage as this that Ellen Terry had to make her bow when on the evening of December 30, 1878, she first appeared at the Lyceum, playing Ophelia to the Hamlet of Henry Irving. ”

“ I returned to Tower Cottage.
We met again on the turret top, and then I listened to the story of her life. How earnestly she spoke of everything associated with her brilliant career. She has always been in the best circle—theatrically speaking—ever since she began. But she referred to all this very quietly. If Ellen Terry impresses one on the stage as an actress, how much more does she do so when sitting surrounded by one of the fairest of Nature's scenes, as a woman! When she remembers an incident it is indeed remembered. ”

“ When she was in London she was a constant guest at Irving’s little suppers at the Lyceum, where she evinced the warmest admiration for the genius of Miss Ellen Terry. One evening, when Miss Terry was protesting that she was no longer young enough to undertake some rôle that Irving was pressing her to interpret, Sarah leant across the table and said, “My dearling, there are two peoples who shall never be old—you and me.” And, indeed, it may be allowed that in both cases the boast has won some warrant from nature. The{280} youth of Miss Terry seems to be an indestructible gift. ”

“ Pleasure never is at home."
But it must be recorded that Fancy, as let loose and impersonated by Ellen Terry, is taken from the theatre in thousands of hearts, and that it enters into many a home circle where the memory of it gives unbounded and enduring pleasure. Into the simple homes of those who elbow each other in the gallery, as well as into the luxurious mansions of the wealthy folk who sit at their ease in the stalls. ”

“ It may be heresy to the old school to hear an actress interpolating asides and adding remarks and breaking in upon the text with charming gestures, but Ellen Terry does it, and every one loves her for doing it. ”

“ Her initial popularity in the character continued throughout the long and, I believe, unprecedented run of the play.
No wonder that Ellen Terry is fond of saying that she is a "useful" actress to her manager. That, she declares, has always been her desire, and while under an engagement she considers it her duty to play any part that is offered to her and to do her best with it. ”

“ Well did Joseph Knight say of Ellen Terry and that famous night at the pleasant little theatre in Tottenham Street, "She had revealed the gifts which are the rarest on the English stage."
Continuing, he wrote: "More adequate expression has seldom been given to the light-heartedness of maidenhood, the perplexities and hesitations of love, and the inevitable content of gratified aspirations and ambitions. Not less successful were the scenes of badinage. Portia's address before the court was excellent, and the famous speech on mercy assumed new beauties from a correct and exquisite delivery. ”

“ Unhappy princesses are not the only people in the world. You need rest; get thee to bed, and if you oversleep yourself you are already forgiven.' All this," continues the writer, "is suggested by Ellen Terry's delivery of this simple speech."
In his interesting book on the English stage the same critic says: "Ellen Terry has not only been an incarnation, delicate, moving, impassioned, of Shakespeare's heroines, but has in her pure and sweet elocution set the poet's dream to music." ”

“ And not only celebrated men. There have been countless lowly, unknown devotees. “That much-used word ‘only’ can be used literally in regard to Ellen Terry,” again says Mr. Shaw with unusual enthusiasm. “If Shakespeare had met Irving on the street he would have recognized in him immediately a distinguished type of the family of artists; if he had met116 Ellen Terry he would have stared at her as at a new and irresistibly charming type of woman.”
It seems clear that Ellen Terry’s success was after all one largely of personality. ”

“ MISS ELLEN TERRY.
HERE is an old Wives' saying, that pretty children often grow up plain, and vice versâ; but, as our readers may determine for themselves, Miss Ellen Terry has been always charming. ”

“ Tennyson read the play to us at Eaton Place. There were present Henry Irving, Ellen Terry, William Terriss, Mr. Knowles, who had arranged the reading, my daughter Edy, who was then about nine, Hallam Tennyson, and a dog—I think Charlie, for the days of Fussie were not yet.
Tennyson, like most poets, read in a monotone, rumbling on a low note in much the same way that Shelley is said to have screamed in a high one. For the women's parts he changed his voice suddenly, climbed up into a key which he could not sustain. ”

“ In the present days of genuine heroine-worship, with recollections full upon us of Beatrice, Viola, Olivia, and Camma, it seems odd to read, in connection with this slight comedietta, that Miss Ellen Terry is worthy of praise for the spirit and point with which she played the part of a youthful groom. ”

“ It should be noted that this was written in 1879, long before Ellen Terry had made her subsequent triumphs in that long list of great characters [290] chronicled in these pages. On April 10, 1897, Ellen Terry was called upon to pit herself against another famous French actress—Réjane. This was as Madame Sans-Gêne in Comyns Carr's excellent English adaptation of Victorien Sardou and Emile Moreau's play bearing that name. ”