Hamlet was by far his greatest triumph, although he would not admit it himself—­preferring in some moods to declare that his finest work was done in Macbeth, which was almost universally disliked.

When I went with Coghlan to see Irving’s Philip, this “Hamlet” digression may have suggested that I was not in the least surprised at what I saw.  Being a person little given to dreaming, and always living wholly in the present, it did not occur to me to wonder if I should ever act with this marvelous man.  He was not at this time lessee of the Lyceum—­Colonel Bateman was still alive—­and I looked no further than my engagement at the Prince of Wales’s, although in a few months it was to come to an end.

Although I was now earning a good salary, I still lived in lodgings at Camden Town, took an omnibus to and from the theater, and denied myself all luxuries.  I did not take a house until I went to the Court Theater.  It was then, too, that I had my first cottage—­a wee place at Hampton Court where my children were very happy.  They used to give performances of “As You Like It” for the benefit of the Palace custodians—­old Crimean veterans, most of them—­and when the children had grown up these old men would still ask affectionately after “little Miss Edy” and “Master Teddy,” forgetting the passing of time.

My little daughter was a very severe critic!  I think if I had listened to her, I should have left the stage in despair.  She saw me act for the first time as Mabel Vane, but no compliments were to be extracted from her.

“You did look long and thin in your gray dress.”

“When you fainted I thought you was going to fall into the orchestra—­you was so long.”

In “New Men and Old Acres” I had to play the piano while I conducted a conversation consisting on my side chiefly of haughty remarks to the effect that “blood would tell,” to talk naturally and play at the same time.  I “shied” at the lines, became self-conscious, and either sang the words or altered the rhythm of the tune to suit the pace of the speech.  I grew anxious about it, and was always practicing it at home.  After much hard work Edy used to wither me with: 

“That’s not right!”

Teddy was of a more flattering disposition, but very obstinate when he chose.  I remember “wrastling” with him for hours over a little Blake poem which he had learned by heart, to say to his mother: 

    “When the voices of children are heard on the green,
      And laughing is heard on the hill,
    My heart is at rest within my breast,
      And everything else is still. 
    Then come home, my children, the sun is gone down,
      And the dews of the night arise,
    Come, come, leave off play, and let us away,
      Till morning appears in the skies.

    No, no, let us play, for yet it is day,
      And we cannot go to sleep. 
    Besides, in the sky the little birds fly,
      And the hills are all covered with sheep....”