d the tight-waisted full-breasted coats.
Such lines as--

"'Tis she! Her footstep beats upon my heart!"

were not absurd from his lips.

The sincerity of the period, he felt, lay in its elegance. A rough
movement, a too undeliberate speech, and the absurdity of the thing
might be given away. It was in fact given away by Terriss at
Chateau-Renaud, who was not the smooth, graceful, courteous villain that
Alfred Wigan had been and that Henry wanted. He told me that he paid
Miss Fowler, an actress who in other respects was not very remarkable,
an enormous salary because she could look the high-bred lady of elegant
manners.

It was in "The Corsican Brothers" that tableau curtains were first used
at the Lyceum. They were made of red plush, which suited the old
decoration of the theater. Those who only saw the Lyceum after its
renovation in 1881 do not realize perhaps that before that date it was
decorated in dull gold and dark crimson, and had funny boxes with high
fronts like old-fashioned church pews. One of these boxes was rented
annually by the Baroness Burdett-Coutts. It was rather like the toy
cardboard theater which children used to be able to buy for sixpence.
The effect was somber, but I think I liked it better than the cold,
light, shallow, bastard Pompeian decoration of later days.

In Hallam Tennyson's life of his father, I find that I described "The
Cup" as a "great little play." After thirty years (nearly) I stick to
that. Its chief fault was that it was not long enough, for it involved a
tremendous production, tremendous acting, had all the heroic size of
tragedy, and yet was all over so quickly that we could play a long play
like "The Corsican Brothers" with it in a single evening.

Tennyson read the play to us at Eaton Place. There were present Henry
Irving, Ellen Terry, William Terriss, Mr. Knowles, who had arranged the
reading, my daughter Edy, who was then about nine, Hallam Tennyson,
_and_ a dog--I think Charlie, for the days of Fussie were not yet.

Tennyson, like most poets, read in a monotone, rumbling on a low note
in much the same way that Shelley is said to have screamed in a high
one. For the women's parts he changed his voice suddenly, climbed up
into a key which he could not sustain. In spite of this I was beginning
to think how impressive it all was, when I looked up and saw Edy, who
was sitting on Henry's knee, looking over his shoulder at young Hallam
and laughing, and Henry, inst