ur_ lawful hand, even were you the
prince whose name he bore. (_Hurrying on quickly to prevent
applause before the finish._) _Go!_"

It is easy to laugh at Lytton's rhetoric, but very few dramatists have
had a more complete mastery of theatrical situations, and that is a good
thing to be master of. Why the word "theatrical" should have come to be
used in a contemptuous sense I cannot understand. "Musical" is a word of
praise in music; why not "theatrical" in a theater? A play in any age
which holds the boards so continuously as "The Lady of Lyons" deserves
more consideration than the ridicule of those who think that the world
has moved on because our playwrights write more naturally than Lytton
did. The merit of the play lay, not in its bombast, but in its
situation.

Before Pauline I had played Clara Douglas in a revival of "Money," and I
found her far more interesting and possible. To act the _balance_ of the
girl was keen enjoyment; it foreshadowed some of that greater enjoyment
I was to have in after years when playing Hermione--another well-judged,
well-balanced mind, a woman who is not passion's slave, who never
answers on the spur of the moment, but from the depths of reason and
divine comprehension. I didn't agree with Clara Douglas's sentiments but
I saw her point of view, and that was everything.

Tom Taylor, like Charles Reade, never hesitated to speak plainly to me
about my acting, and, after the first night of "Money," wrote me a
letter full of hints and caution and advice:

"As I expected, you put feeling into every situation which gave you the
opportunity, and the truth of your intention and expression seemed to
bring a note of nature into the horribly sophisticated atmosphere of
that hollow and most claptrappy of all Bulwerian stage offenses. Nothing
could be better than the appeal to Evelyn in the last act. It was sweet,
womanly and earnest, and rang true in every note.

"_But_ you were nervous and uncomfortable in many parts for want of
sufficient rehearsal. These passages you will, no doubt, improve in
nightly. I would only urge on you the great importance of studying to be
quiet and composed, and not fidgeting. There was especially a trick of
constantly twiddling with and looking at your fingers which you should,
above all, be on your guard against.... I think, too, you showed too
evident feeling in the earlier scene with Evelyn. A blind man must have
read what you felt--your sentiment