I never knew why
she dropped it--she used to do it so naturally with a start when
Mephistopheles knocked at the door--until one night when it was in my
way and I picked it up, to the confusion of poor Mrs. Stirling, who
nearly walked into the orchestra.
"Faust" was abused a good deal as a pantomime, a distorted caricature of
Goethe, and a thoroughly inartistic production. But it proved the
greatest of all Henry's financial successes. The Germans who came to see
it, oddly enough, did not scorn it nearly as much as the English who
were sensitive on behalf of the Germans, and the Goethe Society wrote a
tribute to Henry Irving after his death, acknowledging his services to
Goethe!
It is a curious paradox in the theater that the play for which every one
has a good word is often the play which no one is going to see, while
the play which is apparently disliked and run down is crowded every
night.
Our preparations for the production of "Faust" included a delightful
"grand tour" of Germany. Henry, with his accustomed royal way of doing
things, took a party which included my daughter Edy, Mr. and Mrs. Comyns
Carr, and Mr. Hawes Craven, who was to paint the scenery. We bought
nearly all the properties used in "Faust" in Nuremberg, and many other
things which we did not use, that took Henry's fancy.
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