FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90  
91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   >>   >|  
up to it. A painted wall would never have stood such a strain. On the first night, the real dog bit Kelly's real ankles, and in real anger he kicked the real animal by a real mistake into the orchestra's real drum. So much for realism as practiced by Charles Reade! There was still something to remind him of the experiment in Rachael, the circus goat. Rachael--he was no she, but what of that?--was given the free run of the garden of Reade's house at Knightsbridge. He had everything that any normal goat could desire--a rustic stable, a green lawn, the best of food. Yet Rachael pined and grew thinner and thinner. One night when we were all sitting at dinner, with the French windows open onto the lawn because it was a hot night, Rachael came prancing into the room, looking happy, lively, and quite at home. All the time, while Charles Reade had been fashing himself to provide every sort of rural joy for his goat, the ungrateful beast had been longing for the naphtha lights of the circus, for lively conversation and the applause of the crowd. You can't force a goat any more than you can force a child to live the simple life. "N'Yawk's the place," said the child of a Bowery tenement in New York, on the night of her return from an enforced sojourn in Arcady. She hated picking daisies, and drinking rich new milk made her sick. When the kind teacher who had brought her to the country strove to impress her by taking her to see a cow milked, she remarked witheringly to the man who was milking: "Gee! You put it in!" Rachael's sentiments were of the same type, I think. "Back to the circus!" was his cry, not "Back to the land!" I hope, when he felt the sawdust under his feet again (I think Charles Reade sent him back to the ring), he remembered his late master with gratitude. To how many animals, and not only four-footed ones, was not Charles Reade generously kind, and to none of them more kind than to Ellen Terry. V THE ACTRESS AND THE PLAYWRIGHT THE END OF MY APPRENTICESHIP 1874 The relation between author and actor is a very important element in the life of the stage. It is the way with some dramatists to despise those who interpret their plays, to accuse us of ruining their creations, to suffer disappointment and rage because we do not, or cannot, carry out their ideas. Other dramatists admit that we players can teach them something; but I have noticed that it is generally in "the other fellow's" p
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90  
91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

Rachael

 

Charles

 

circus

 

dramatists

 

lively

 

thinner

 

remembered

 

master

 

sawdust

 

gratitude


generously

 

footed

 

animals

 

taking

 

impress

 

milked

 

strove

 

country

 
teacher
 

strain


brought

 
remarked
 

witheringly

 

sentiments

 

milking

 

disappointment

 

suffer

 

creations

 

ruining

 
accuse

generally
 

noticed

 

fellow

 

players

 
interpret
 
APPRENTICESHIP
 
relation
 

ACTRESS

 
PLAYWRIGHT
 

author


despise

 

element

 

painted

 

important

 

French

 

windows

 

dinner

 

sitting

 

realism

 

orchestra