it
was only natural that I should accept the offer joyfully. I telegraphed
to Henry Irving, asking him if he had any objection to my playing at His
Majesty's. He answered: "Quite willing if proposed arrangements about
matinees are adhered to."

I have thought it worth while to give the facts about this engagement,
because so many people seemed at the time, and afterwards, to think that
I had treated Henry Irving badly by going to play in another theater,
and that theater one where a certain rivalry with the Lyceum as regards
Shakespearean productions had grown up. There was absolutely no
foundation for the rumors that my "desertion" caused further
estrangement between Henry Irving and me.

"Heaven give you many, many merry days and nights," he telegraphed to me
on the first night; and after that first night (the jolliest that I ever
saw), he wrote delighting in my success.

It _was_ a success--there was no doubt about it! Some people accused the
Merry Wives of rollicking and "mafficking" overmuch--but these were the
people who forgot that we were acting in a farce, and that farce is
farce, even when Shakespeare is the author.

All the summer I enjoyed myself thoroughly. It was all such _good
fun_--Mrs. Kendal was so clever and delightful to play with, Mr. Tree so
indefatigable in discovering new funny "business."

After the dress-rehearsal I wrote in my diary: "Edy has real genius for
dresses for the stage." My dress for Mrs. Page was such a _real_
thing--it helped me enormously--and I was never more grateful for my
daughter's gift than when I played Mrs. Page.

It was an admirable all-round cast--almost a "star" cast: Oscar Asche as
Ford, poor Henry Kemble (since dead) as Dr. Caius, Courtice Pounds as
Sir Hugh Evans, and Mrs. Tree as sweet Anne Page all rowed in the boat
with precisely the right swing. There were no "passengers" in the cast.
The audience at first used to seem rather amazed! This thwacking
rough-and-tumble, Rabelaisian horse-play--Shakespeare! Impossible! But
as the evening went on we used to capture even the most civilized, and
force them to return to a simple Elizabethan frame of mind.

In my later career I think I have had no success like this! Letters
rained on me--yes, even love-letters, as if, to quote Mrs. Page, I were
still in "the holiday-time of my beauty." As I would always rather make
an audience laugh than see them weep, it may be guessed how much I
enjoyed the hearty laughter at H