If this should meet their eyes, I hope they will
believe that this was not so. My ambition to play at Coventry again
shall be realized yet.[1]
[Footnote 1: Since I wrote this, I have again visited my native
town--this time to receive its civic congratulations on the occasion of
my jubilee, and as recently as March of the present year I acted at the
new Empire Theater.]
At one time nothing seemed more unlikely than that I should be able to
act in another Warwickshire town, a town whose name is known all over
the world. But time and chance and my own great wish succeeded in
bringing about my appearance at Stratford-on-Avon.
I can well imagine that the children of some strolling players used to
have a hard time of it, but my mother was not one to shirk her duties.
She worked hard at her profession and yet found it possible not to
_drag_ up her children, to live or die as it happened, but to bring them
up to be healthy, happy, and wise--theater-wise, at any rate. When her
babies were too small to be left at the lodgings (which she and my
father took in each town they visited as near to the theater as
possible), she would bundle us up in a shawl and put us to sleep in her
dressing-room. So it was, that long before I spoke in a theater, I slept
in one.
Pages:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25