as _too much_ for a room. No man was ever more willing to listen to
suggestion or less obstinate about taking advice. He immediately
moderated his methods when reciting in _a room_, making it all the less
theatrical. The play was a good repertoire play, and we did it later on
in America with success. There the part of Houseman was played by
Terriss, who was quite splendid in it, and at Chicago my little boy
Teddy made his second appearance on any stage as Joey, a gardener's boy.
He had, when still a mere baby, come on to the stage at the Court in
"Olivia," and this must be counted his _first_ appearance, although the
chroniclers, ignoring both that and Joey in "Eugene Aram," _say_ he
never appeared at all until he played an important part in "The Dead
Heart."

It is because of Teddy that "Eugene Aram" is associated in my mind with
one of the most beautiful sights upon the stage that I ever saw in my
life. He was about ten or eleven at the time, and as he tied up the
stage roses, his cheeks, untouched by rouge, put the reddest of them to
shame! He was so graceful and natural; he spoke his lines with ease, and
smiled all over his face! "A born actor!" I said, although Joey was my
son. Whenever I think of him in that stage garden, I weep for pride, and
for sorrow, too, because before he was thirty my son had left the
stage--he who had it all in him. I have good reason to be proud of what
he has done since, but I regret the lost actor _always_.

Henry Irving could not at first keep away from melancholy pieces.
Henrietta Maria was another sad part for me--but I used to play it well,
except when I cried too much in the last act. The play had been one of
the Bateman productions, and I had seen Miss Isabel Bateman as Henrietta
Maria and liked her, although I could not find it possible to follow her
example and play the part with a French accent! I constantly catch
myself saying of Henry Irving, "That is by far the best thing that he
ever did." I could say it of some things in "Charles I."--of the way he
gave up his sword to Cromwell, of the way he came into the room in the
last act and shut the door behind him. It was not a man coming on to a
stage to meet some one. It was a king going to the scaffold, quietly,
unobtrusively, and courageously. However often I played that scene with
him, I knew that when he first came on he was not aware of my presence
nor of any _earthly_ presence: he seemed to be already in heaven.

Much has