To your influence we owe deeper knowledge and more reverent study
of the master mind of Shakespeare.'
"All very nice indeed!"
I never cared much for Henry's Mephistopheles--a twopence colored part,
anyway. Of course he had his moments--he had them in every part--but
they were few. One of them was in the Prologue, when he wrote in the
student's book, "Ye shall be as gods knowing good and evil." He never
looked at the book, and the nature of the _spirit_ appeared suddenly in
a most uncanny fashion. Another was in the Spinning-wheel Scene when
Faust defies Mephistopheles, and he silences him with, "_I am a
spirit_." Henry looked to grow a gigantic height--to hover over the
ground instead of walking on it. It was terrifying.
I made valiant efforts to learn to spin before I played Margaret. My
instructor was Mr. Albert Fleming, who, at the suggestion of Ruskin, had
recently revived hand-spinning and hand-weaving in the North of England.
I had always hated that obviously "property" spinning-wheel in the
opera, and Margaret's unmarketable thread. My thread always broke, and
at last I had to "fake" my spinning to a certain extent; but at least I
worked my wheel right, and gave an impression that I could spin my pound
of thread a day with the best.
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