hought he would catch
cold--it was a bitter night--and I lent him my white scarf!

He could always give his whole great mind to the matter in hand. This
made him one of the most comfortable people to talk to that I have ever
met. In everything he was _thorough_, and I don't think he could have
been late for anything.

I contrasted his punctuality, when he came to see "King Lear," with the
unpunctuality of Lord Randolph Churchill, who came to see the play the
very next night with a party of men friends and arrived when the first
act was over.

Lord Randolph was, all the same, a great admirer of Henry Irving. He
confessed to him once that he had never read a play of Shakespeare's in
his life, but that after seeing Henry act he thought it was time to
begin! A very few days later he pulverized us with his complete and
masterly knowledge of at least half a dozen of the plays. He was a
perfect person to meet at a dinner or supper--brilliantly entertaining,
and queerly simple. He struck one as being able to master any subject
that interested him, and once a Shakespeare performance at the Lyceum
had fired his interest, there was nothing about that play, or about past
performances of it, which he did not know! His beautiful wife (now Mrs.
George Cornwallis West) wore a dress at supper one evening which gave me
the idea for the Lady Macbeth dress, afterwards painted by Sargent. The
bodice of Lady Randolph's gown was trimmed all over with green beetles'
wings. I told Mrs. Comyns Carr about it, and she remembered it when she
designed my Lady Macbeth dress and saw to its making by clever Mrs.
Nettleship.

Lady Randolph Churchill by sheer force of beauty of face and
expressiveness would, I venture to prophesy, have been successful on the
stage if fate had ever led her to it.

"BEEFSTEAK" GUESTS AT THE LYCEUM

The present Princess of Wales, when she was Princess May of Teck, used
often to come to the Lyceum with her mother, Princess Mary, and to
supper in the Beefsteak Room. In 1891 she chose to come as her birthday
treat, which was very flattering to us.

A record of those Beefsteak Room suppers would be a pleasant thing to
possess. I have such a bad memory--I see faces round the table--the face
of Liszt among them--and when I try to think when it was, or how it was,
the faces vanish as people might out of a room when, after having
watched them through a dim window-pane, one determines to open the
door--and go in.

Lady