t the dullest play
to read as ever was! He made it _intensely_ interesting."]

While Henry was occupying himself with "Werner," I was pleasing myself
with "The Amber Heart," a play by Alfred Calmour, a young man who was at
this time Wills's secretary. I wanted to do it, not only to help
Calmour, but because I believed in the play and liked the part of
Ellaline. I had thought of giving a matinee of it at some other theater,
but Henry, who at first didn't like my doing it at all, said: "You must
do it at the Lyceum. I can't let you, or it, go out of the theater."

So we had the matinee at the Lyceum. Mr. Willard and Mr. Beerbohm Tree
were in the cast, and it was a great success. For the first time Henry
saw me act--a whole part and from the "front" at least, for he had seen
and liked scraps of my Juliet from the "side." Although he had known me
such a long time, my Ellaline seemed to come quite as a surprise. "I
wish I could tell you of the dream of beauty that you realized," he
wrote after the performance. He bought the play for me, and I continued
to do it "on and off" here and in America until 1902.

Many people said that I was good but the play was bad. This was hard on
Alfred Calmour. He had created the opportunity for me, and few plays
with the beauty of "The Amber Heart" have come my way since. "He thinks
it's all his doing!" said Henry. "If he only knew!" "Well, that's the
way of authors," I answered. "They imagine so much more about their work
than we put into it, that although we may seem to the outsider to be
creating, to the author we are, at our best, only doing our duty by
him."

Our next production was "Macbeth." Meanwhile we had visited America
three times. It is now my intention to give some account of my tours in
America, of my friends there, and of some of the impressions that the
vast, wonderful country made on me.

XI

AMERICA

THE FIRST OF EIGHT TOURS

The first time that there was any talk of my going to America was, I
think, in 1874, when I was playing in "The Wandering Heir." Dion
Boucicault wanted me to go, and dazzled me with figures, but I expect
the cautious Charles Reade influenced me against accepting the
engagement.

When I did go in 1883, I was thirty-five and had an assured position in
my profession. It was the first of eight tours, seven of which I went
with Henry Irving. The last was in 1907 after his death. I also went to
America one summer on a pleasure trip. The t