I went the next day to see the pictures with Edy. It was the "Briar
Rose" series. They were _beautiful_. The lovely Lady Granby (now Duchess
of Rutland) was there--reminding me, as always, of the reflection of
something in water on a misty day. When she was Miss Violet Lindsay she
did a drawing of me as Portia in the doctor's robes, which is I think
very like me, as well as having all the charming qualities of her
well-known pencil portraits.

The artists all loved the Lyceum, not only the old school, but the young
ones, who could have been excused for thinking that Henry Irving and I
were a couple of old fogeys! William Nicholson and James Pryde, who
began by working together as "The Beggarstaff Brothers," and in this
period did a poster of Henry for "Don Quixote" and another for "Becket,"
were as enthusiastic about the Lyceum as Burne-Jones had been. Mr. Pryde
has done an admirable portrait of me as Nance Oldfield, and his "Irving
as Dubosc" shows the most extraordinary insight.

"I have really tried to draw his _personality_" he wrote to me thanking
me for having said I liked the picture (it was done after Henry's
death).... "Irving's eyes in Dubosc always made my hair stand on end,
and I paid great attention to the fact that one couldn't exactly say
whether they were _shut_ or _open_. Very terrifying...."

Mr. Rothenstein, to whom I once sat for a lithograph, was another of the
young artists who came a good deal to the Lyceum. I am afraid that I
must be a very difficult "subject," yet I sit easily enough, and don't
mind being looked at--an objection which makes some sitters constrained
and awkward before the painter. Poor Mr. Rothenstein was much worried
over his lithograph, yet "it was all right on the night," as actors say.

"Dear Miss Terry,--

"My nights have been sleepless--my drawing sitting gibbering on my
chest. I knew how fearfully I should stumble--that is why I wanted to do
more drawings earlier. I have been working on the thing this morning,
and I believe I improved it slightly. What I want now is a cloak--the
simplest you have (perhaps the green one?), which I think would be
better than the less simple and worrying lace fallalas in the drawing. I
can put it on the lay figure and sketch it into the horror over the old
lines. I think the darker stuff will make the face blonde--more
delicate. Please understand how nervously excited I have been over the
wretched drawing, how short it falls of any sugg