20, 1898.

DEAR MOTHER:

The Nellie Farren benefit was the finest thing I have seen this year
past. It was more remarkable than the Coronation, or the Jubilee. It
began at twelve o'clock on Thursday, but at ten o'clock Wednesday
night, the crowd began to gather around Drury Lane, and spent the night
on the sidewalk playing cards and reading and sleeping. Ten hours
later they were admitted, or a few of them were, as many as the
galleries would hold. Arthur Collins, the manager of the Drury Lane
and the man who organized the benefit, could not get a stall for his
mother the day before the benefit. They were then not to be had, the
last having sold for twelve guineas. I got TWO the morning of the
benefit for three pounds each, and now people believe that I did get
into the Coronation! The people who had stalls got there at ten
o'clock, and the streets were blocked for "blocks" up to Covent Garden
with hansoms and royal carriages and holders of tickets at fifty
dollars apiece. It lasted six hours and brought in thirty thousand
dollars. Kate Vaughan came back and danced after an absence from the
stage of twelve years. Irving recited The Dream of Eugene Aram, Terry
played Ophelia, Chevalier sang Mrs. Hawkins, Dan Leno gave Hamlet,
Marie Tempest sang The Jewel of Asia and Hayden Coffin sang Tommy
Atkins, the audience of three thousand people joining in the chorus,
and for an encore singing "Oh, Nellie, Nellie Farren, may your love be
ever faithful, may your pals be ever true, so God bless you Nellie
Farren, here's the best of luck to you." In Trial by Jury, Gilbert
played an associate judge; the barristers were all playwrights, the
jury the principal comedians, the chorus girls were real chorus girls
from the Gaiety mixed in with leading ladies like Miss Jeffries and
Miss Hanbury, who could not keep in step. But the best part of it was
the pantomime. Ellaline came up a trap with a diamond dress and her
hair down her back and electric lights all over her, and said, "I am
the Fairy Queen," and waved her wand, at which the "First Boy" in the
pantomime said, "Go long, now, do, we know your tricks, you're Ellaline
Terriss"; and the clown said, "You're wrong, she's not, she's Mrs.
Seymour Hicks." Then Letty Lind came on as Columbine in black tulle,
and Arthur Roberts as the policeman, and Eddy Payne as the clown and
Storey as Pantaloon.

The rest of it brought on everybody. Sam Sothern played a "swell" and
stole a