promising that if he ever were in a position to offer me an engagement I
should be his leading lady. But this fairy story has been improved on
since. The newest tale of my first meeting with Henry Irving was told
during my jubilee. Then, to my amazement, I read that on that famous
night when I was playing Puck at the Princess's, and caught my toe in
the trap, "a young man with dark hair and a white face rushed forward
from the crowd and said: 'Never mind, darling. Don't cry! One day you
will be queen of the stage.' It was Henry Irving!"

In view of these legends, I ought to say all the more stoutly that,
until I went to the Lyceum Theater, Henry Irving was nothing to me and I
was nothing to him. I never consciously thought that he would become a
great actor. He had no high opinion of _my_ acting! He has said since
that he thought me at the Queen's Theater charming and individual as a
woman, but as an actress _hoydenish_! I believe that he hardly spared me
even so much definite thought as this. His soul was not more surely in
his body than in the theater, and I, a woman who was at this time caring
more about love and life than the theater, must have been to him more or
less unsympathetic. He thought of nothing else, cared for nothing else;
worked day and night; went without his dinner to buy a book that might
be helpful in studying, or a stage jewel that might be helpful to wear.
I remember his telling me that he once bought a sword with a jeweled
hilt, and hung it at the foot of his bed. All night he kept getting up
and striking matches to see it, shifting its position, rapt in
admiration of it.

He had it all in him when we acted together that foggy night, but he
could express very little. Many of his defects sprang from his
not having been on the stage as a child. He was stiff with
self-consciousness; his eyes were dull and his face heavy. The piece we
played was Garrick's boiled-down version of "The Taming of the Shrew,"
and he, as Petruchio, appreciated the humor and everything else far more
than I did, as Katherine; yet he played badly, nearly as badly as I did;
and how much more to blame I was, for I was at this time much more easy
and skillful from a purely technical point of view.

Was Henry Irving impressive in those days? Yes and no. His fierce and
indomitable will showed itself in his application to his work. Quite
unconsciously I learned from watching him that to do work well, the
artist must spend his l