"Thank you very much," he wrote to me after his first night as Paris,
"for writing me a word of encouragement.... I was very much ashamed and
disgusted with myself all Sunday for my poverty-stricken and thin
performance.... I think I was a little better last night. Indeed I was
much touched at the kindness and sympathy of all the company and their
efforts to make the awkward new boy feel at home.... I feel doubly
grateful to you and Mr. Irving for the light you shed from the lamp of
art on life now that I begin to understand the labor and weariness the
process of trimming the Lamp entails."
X
LYCEUM PRODUCTIONS (_continued_)
"MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING" TO "FAUST"
Our success with "The Belle's Stratagem" had pointed to comedy, to
Beatrice and Benedick in particular, because in Mrs. Cowley's old comedy
we had had some scenes of the same type. I have already told of my first
appearance as Beatrice at Leeds, and said that I never played the part
so well again; but the Lyceum production was a great success, and
Beatrice a great personal success for me. It is only in high comedy that
people seem to know what I am driving at!
The stage-management of the play was very good; the scenery nothing out
of the ordinary except for the Church Scene.
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