The Story of My Life

The Story of My Life, by Ellen Terry

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Title: The Story of My Life Recollections and Reflections
Author: Ellen Terry
Release Date: May 11, 2004 [EBook #12326]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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[Illustration: Ellen Terry
drawn from photographs by Albert Sterner]

THE STORY OF MY LIFE
RECOLLECTIONS AND REFLECTIONS
BY
ELLEN TERRY
[Illustration]
ILLUSTRATED
NEW YORK
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & CO.
MCMIX

1908, The McClure Company
1907, 1908, The S.S. McClure Company
1907, 1908, Ellen Terry

TO
EDY

CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
I. A CHILD OF THE STAGE, 1848-56 The Charles Keans, 1856 Training in Shakespeare, 1856-59
II. ON THE ROAD, 1859-61 Life in a Stock Company, 1862-63 1864
III. ROSSETTI, BERNHARDT, IRVING, 1865-67 My First Impressions of Henry Irving
IV. A SIX-YEAR VACATION, 1868-74
V. THE ACTRESS AND THE PLAYWRIGHT, 1874. Portia, 1875 Tom Taylor and Lavender Sweep
VI. A YEAR WITH THE BANCROFTS
VII. EARLY DAYS AT THE LYCEUM
VIII. WORK AT THE LYCEUM
IX. LYCEUM PRODUCTIONS
X. LYCEUM PRODUCTIONS (continued)
XI. AMERICA: THE FIRST OF EIGHT TOURS What Constitutes Charm
XII. SOME LIKES AND DISLIKES
XIII. THE MACBETH PERIOD
XIV. LAST DAYS AT THE LYCEUM My Stage Jubilee Apologia The Death of Henry Irving Alfred Gilbert and others "Beefsteak" Guests at the Lyceum Bits From My Diary
INDEX

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Ellen Terry
Mr. and Mrs. Benjamin Terry
Charles Kean and Ellen Terry in 1856
Ellen Terry in 1856
Ellen Terry at Sixteen
"The Sisters" (Kate and Ellen Terry)
Ellen Terry at Seventeen
George Frederick Watts, R.A.
Ellen Terry as Helen in "The Hunchback"
Henry Irving
Head of a Young Girl (Ellen Terry)
Henry Irving
Ellen Terry as Portia
Henry Irving as Matthias in "The Bells"
Henry Irving as Philip of Spain
Henry Irving as Hamlet
Lily Langtry
William Terriss as Squire Thornhill in "Olivia"
Ellen Terry as Ophelia
Ellen Terry as Beatrice
Sir Henry Irving
Irving as Louis XI
Ellen Terry as Henrietta Maria
Ellen Terry as Camma in "The Cup"
Ellen Terry as Iolanthe
Ellen Terry as Letitia Hardy in "The Belle's Stratagem"
Edwin Thomas Booth
Ellen Terry as Juliet
Two Portraits of Ellen Terry as Beatrice
Ellen Terry's Favourite Photograph as Olivia
Eleanora Duse with Lenbach's Child
Ellen Terry as Margaret in "Faust"
Ellen Terry as Ellaline in "The Amber Heart"
Miss Ellen Terry in 1883
The Bas-relief Portrait of Robert Louis Stevenson
Miss Terry and Sir Henry Irving
Sarah Holland, Ellen Terry's Dresser
Miss Rosa Corder
Miss Ellen Terry with her Fox-terriers
Miss Ellen Terry in 1898
Sir Henry Irving
Miss Ellen Terry
Ellen Terry as Lady Macbeth
Sir Henry Irving
Ellen Terry as Lucy Ashton in "Ravenswood"
Henry Irving as Cardinal Wolsey in "Henry VIII."
Ellen Terry as Nance Oldfield
Ellen Terry as Kniertje in "The Good Hope"
Ellen Terry as Imogen
Henry Irving as Becket
Sir Henry Irving
Ellen Terry as Rosamund in "Becket"
Ellen Terry as Guinevere in "King Arthur"
"Olivia"
Miss Terry's Garden at Winchelsea
Ellen Terry as Hermione in "The Winter's Tale"

INTRODUCTION
"When I read the book, the biography famous, And is this then (said I) what the author calls a man's life? And so will some one when I am dead and gone write my life? (As if any man really knew aught of my life!) Why even I myself, I often think, know little or nothing of my real life. Only a few hints--a few diffused faint clues and indirections I seek ... to trace out here."
WALT WHITMAN.
For years I have contemplated telling this story, and for years I have put off telling it. While I have delayed, my memory has not improved, and my recollections of the past are more hazy and fragmentary than when it first occurred to me that one day I might write them down.
My bad memory would matter less if I had some skill in writing--the practiced writer can see possibilities in the most ordinary events--or if I had kept a systematic and conscientious record of my life. But although I was at one time conscientious and diligent enough in keeping a diary, I kept it for use at the moment, not for future reference. I kept it with paste-pot and scissors as much as with a pen. My method was to cut bits out of the newspapers and stick them into my diary day by day. Before the end of the year was reached Mr. Letts would have been ashamed to own his diary. It had become a bursting, groaning dust-bin of information, for the most part useless. The biggest elastic band made could hardly encircle its bulk, swelled by photographs, letters, telegrams, dried flowers--the whole making up a confusion in which every one but the owner would seek in vain to find some sense or meaning.
About six years ago I moved into a smaller house in London, and I burnt a great many of my earlier diaries as unmovable rubbish. The few passages which I shall quote in this book