One of these boxes was rented
annually by the Baroness Burdett-Coutts. It was rather like the toy
cardboard theater which children used to be able to buy for sixpence.
The effect was somber, but I think I liked it better than the cold,
light, shallow, bastard Pompeian decoration of later days.
In Hallam Tennyson's life of his father, I find that I described "The
Cup" as a "great little play." After thirty years (nearly) I stick to
that. Its chief fault was that it was not long enough, for it involved a
tremendous production, tremendous acting, had all the heroic size of
tragedy, and yet was all over so quickly that we could play a long play
like "The Corsican Brothers" with it in a single evening.
Tennyson read the play to us at Eaton Place. There were present Henry
Irving, Ellen Terry, William Terriss, Mr. Knowles, who had arranged the
reading, my daughter Edy, who was then about nine, Hallam Tennyson,
_and_ a dog--I think Charlie, for the days of Fussie were not yet.
Tennyson, like most poets, read in a monotone, rumbling on a low note
in much the same way that Shelley is said to have screamed in a high
one. For the women's parts he changed his voice suddenly, climbed up
into a key which he could not sustain.
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