I played the part more stiffly and more slowly at the Prince of Wales’s than I did in later years.  I moved and spoke slowly.  The clothes seemed to demand it, and the setting of the play developed the Italian feeling in it, and let the English Elizabethan side take care of itself.  The silver casket scene with the Prince of Aragon was preserved, and so was the last act, which had hitherto been cut out in nearly all stage versions.

I have tried five or six different ways of treating Portia, but the way I think best is not the one which finds the heartiest response from my audiences.  Has there ever been a dramatist, I wonder, whose parts admit of as many different interpretations as do Shakespeare’s?  There lies his immortality as an acting force.  For times change, and parts have to be acted differently for different generations.  Some parts are not sufficiently universal for this to be possible, but every ten years an actor can reconsider a Shakespeare part and find new life in it for his new purpose and new audiences.

The aesthetic craze, with all its faults, was responsible for a great deal of true enthusiasm for anything beautiful.  It made people welcome the Bancrofts’ production of “The Merchant of Venice” with an appreciation which took the practical form of an offer to keep the performances going by subscription, as the general public was not supporting them.  Sir Frederick and Lady Pollock, James Spedding, Edwin Arnold, Sir Frederick Leighton and others made the proposal to the Bancrofts, but nothing came of it.

Short as the run of the play was, it was a wonderful time for me.  Everyone seemed to be in love with me!  I had sweethearts by the dozen, known and unknown.  Most of the letters written to me I destroyed long ago, but the feeling of sweetness and light with which some of them filled me can never be destroyed.  The task of reading and answering letters has been a heavy one all my life, but it would be ungrateful to complain of it.  To some people expression is life itself.  Half my letters begin:  “I cannot help writing to tell you,” and I believe that this is the simple truth.  I, for one, should have been poorer, though my eyes might have been stronger, if they had been able to help it.

There turns up to-day, out of a long-neglected box, a charming note about “The Merchant of Venice” from some unknown friend.

“Playing to such houses,” he wrote, “is not an encouraging pursuit; but to give to human beings the greatest pleasure that they are capable of receiving must always be worth doing.  You have given me that pleasure, and I write to offer you my poor thanks.  Portia has always been my favorite heroine, and I saw her last night as sweet and lovely as I had always hoped she might be.  I hope that I shall see you again in other Shakespearean characters, and that nothing will tempt you to withhold your talents from their proper sphere.”

The audiences may have been scanty, but they were wonderful.  O’Shaughnessy, Watts-Dunton, Oscar Wilde, Alfred Gilbert, and, I think Swinburne were there.  A poetic and artistic atmosphere pervaded the front of the house as well as the stage itself.