His soul was not more surely in
his body than in the theater, and I, a woman who was at this time caring
more about love and life than the theater, must have been to him more or
less unsympathetic. He thought of nothing else, cared for nothing else;
worked day and night; went without his dinner to buy a book that might
be helpful in studying, or a stage jewel that might be helpful to wear.
I remember his telling me that he once bought a sword with a jeweled
hilt, and hung it at the foot of his bed. All night he kept getting up
and striking matches to see it, shifting its position, rapt in
admiration of it.
He had it all in him when we acted together that foggy night, but he
could express very little. Many of his defects sprang from his
not having been on the stage as a child. He was stiff with
self-consciousness; his eyes were dull and his face heavy. The piece we
played was Garrick's boiled-down version of "The Taming of the Shrew,"
and he, as Petruchio, appreciated the humor and everything else far more
than I did, as Katherine; yet he played badly, nearly as badly as I did;
and how much more to blame I was, for I was at this time much more easy
and skillful from a purely technical point of view.
Was Henry Irving impressive in those days? Yes and no.
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