tages of their career is more
developing than blame. I admired the very things in Henry for which
other people criticized him. I hope this helped him a little.

I brought help, too, in pictorial matters. Henry Irving had had little
training in such matters--I had had a great deal. Judgment about colors,
clothes and lighting must be _trained_. I had learned from Mr. Watts,
from Mr. Godwin, and from other artists, until a sense of decorative
effect had become second nature to me.

Before the rehearsals of "Hamlet" began at the Lyceum I went on a
provincial tour with Charles Kelly, and played for the first time in
"Dora," and "Iris," besides doing a steady round of old parts. In
Birmingham I went to see Henry's Hamlet. (I have tried already, most
inadequately, to say what it was to me.) I had also appeared for the
first time as Lady Teazle--a part which I wish I was not too old to play
now, for I could play it better. My performance in 1877 was not finished
enough, not light enough. I think I did the screen scene well. When the
screen was knocked over I did not stand still and rigid with eyes cast
down. That seemed to me an attitude of guilt. Only a _guilty_ woman,
surely, in such a situation would assume an air of conscious virtue. I
shrank back, and tried to hide my face--a natural movement, so it seemed
to me, for a woman who had been craning forward, listening in increasing
agitation to the conversation between Charles and Joseph Surface.

I shall always regret that we never did "The School for Scandal," or any
of the other classic comedies, at the Lyceum. There came a time when
Henry was anxious for me to play Lady Teazle, but I opposed him, as I
thought that I was too old. It should have been one of my best parts.

"Star" performances, for the benefit of veteran actors retiring from the
stage, were as common in my youth as now. About this time I played in
"Money" for the benefit of Henry Compton, a fine comedian who had
delighted audiences at the Haymarket for many years. On this occasion I
did not play Clara Douglas as I had done during the revival at the
Prince of Wales's, but the comedy part, Georgina Vesey. John Hare, Mr.
and Mrs. Kendal, Henry Neville, Mr. and Mrs. Bancroft, and, last but not
least, Benjamin Webster, who came out of his retirement to play
Graves--"his original part"--were in the cast.

I don't think that Webster ever appeared on the stage again, although
he lived on for many years in an old-