He had just produced Mr. Laurence Houseman's
Biblical play "Bethlehem" in the hall of the Imperial Institute, and
every one had spoken highly of the beauty of his work. He had previously
applied the same principles to the mounting of operas by Handel and
Purcell.
It had been a great grief to me when I lost my son as an actor. I have
never known any one with so much natural gift for the stage.
Unconsciously he did everything right--I mean all the technical things
over which some of us have to labor for years. The first part that he
played at the Lyceum, Arthur St. Valery in "The Dead Heart," was good,
and he went on steadily improving. The last part that he played at the
Lyceum--Edward IV. in "Richard III."--was, maternal prejudice quite
apart, a most remarkable performance.
His record for 1891, when he was still a mere boy, was: Claudio (in
"Much Ado about Nothing"), Mercutio, Modus, Charles Surface, Alexander
Oldworthy, Moses (in "Olivia"), Lorenzo, Malcolm, Beauchamp; Meynard,
and the Second Grave-Digger!
Later on he played Hamlet, Macbeth and Romeo on a small provincial
tour. His future as an actor seemed assured, but it wasn't! One day when
he was with William Nicholson, the clever artist and one of the
Beggarstaff Brothers of poster fame, he began chipping at a woodblock in
imitation of Nicholson, and produced in a few hours an admirable
wood-cut of Walt Whitman, then and always his particular hero.
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