It blesseth in that gives and in that takes
It is in the mightiest--in the mightiest
It becomes the throned monuk better than its crownd.
It's an appribute to God inself
It is in the thorny 'earts of kings
But not in the fit and dread of kings."
I asked the boy what he meant to be when he was a man. He answered with
decision: "A reciterer."
I also asked him what he liked best in the play ("Henry VIII.").
"When the blind went up and down and you smiled," he replied--surely a
naive compliment to my way of "taking a call"! Further pressed, he
volunteered: "When you lay on the bed and died to please the angels."
XIV
LAST DAYS AT THE LYCEUM
I had exactly ten years more with Henry Irving after "Henry VIII."
During that time we did "King Lear," "Becket," "King Arthur,"
"Cymbeline," "Madame Sans-Gene," "Peter the Great" and "The Medicine
Man." I feel too near to these productions to write about them. The
first night of "Cymbeline" I felt almost dead. Nothing seemed right.
"Everything is so slow, so slow," I wrote in my diary. "I don't feel a
bit inspired, only dull and hide-bound." Yet Imogen was, I think, the
_only_ inspired performance of these later years. On the first night of
"Sans-Gene" I acted _courageously_ and fairly well.
Pages:
407
408
409
410
411
412
413
414
415
416
417
418
419
420
421
422
423
424
425
426
427
428
429
430
431