I contrasted his punctuality, when he came to see "King Lear," with the
unpunctuality of Lord Randolph Churchill, who came to see the play the
very next night with a party of men friends and arrived when the first
act was over.
Lord Randolph was, all the same, a great admirer of Henry Irving. He
confessed to him once that he had never read a play of Shakespeare's in
his life, but that after seeing Henry act he thought it was time to
begin! A very few days later he pulverized us with his complete and
masterly knowledge of at least half a dozen of the plays. He was a
perfect person to meet at a dinner or supper--brilliantly entertaining,
and queerly simple. He struck one as being able to master any subject
that interested him, and once a Shakespeare performance at the Lyceum
had fired his interest, there was nothing about that play, or about past
performances of it, which he did not know! His beautiful wife (now Mrs.
George Cornwallis West) wore a dress at supper one evening which gave me
the idea for the Lady Macbeth dress, afterwards painted by Sargent. The
bodice of Lady Randolph's gown was trimmed all over with green beetles'
wings. I told Mrs. Comyns Carr about it, and she remembered it when she
designed my Lady Macbeth dress and saw to its making by clever Mrs.
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