Like all Ophelias before (and after) me, I went to the madhouse to study wits astray.  I was disheartened at first.  There was no beauty, no nature, no pity in most of the lunatics.  Strange as it may sound, they were too theatrical to teach me anything.  Then, just as I was going away, I noticed a young girl gazing at the wall.  I went between her and the wall to see her face.  It was quite vacant, but the body expressed that she was waiting, waiting.  Suddenly she threw up her hands and sped across the room like a swallow.  I never forgot it.  She was very thin, very pathetic, very young, and the movement was as poignant as it was beautiful.

I saw another woman laugh with a face that had no gleam of laughter anywhere—­a face of pathetic and resigned grief.

My experiences convinced me that the actor must imagine first and observe afterwards.  It is no good observing life and bringing the result to the stage without selection, without a definite idea.  The idea must come first, the realism afterwards.

Perhaps because I was nervous and irritable about my own part from insufficient rehearsal, perhaps because his responsibility as lessee weighed upon him, Henry Irving’s Hamlet on the first night at the Lyceum seemed to me less wonderful than it had been at Birmingham.  At rehearsals he had been the perfection of grace.  On the night itself, he dragged his leg and seemed stiff from self-consciousness.  He asked me later on if I thought the ill-natured criticism of his walk was in any way justified, and if he really said “Gud” for “God,” and the rest of it.  I said straight out that he did say his vowels in a peculiar way, and that he did drag his leg.

I begged him to give up that dreadful, paralyzing waiting at the side for his cue, and after a time he took my advice.  He was never obstinate in such matters.  His one object was to find out, to test suggestion, and follow it if it stood his test.

He was very diplomatic when he meant to have his own way.  He never blustered or enforced or threatened.  My first acquaintance with this side of him was made over my dresser for Ophelia.  He had heard that I intended to wear black in the mad scene, and he intended me to wear white.  When he first mentioned the subject, I had no idea that there would be any opposition.  He spoke of my dresses, and I told him that as I was very anxious not to be worried about them at the last minute, they had been got on with early and were now finished.

“Finished!  That’s very interesting!  Very interesting.  And what—­er—­what colors are they?”

“In the first scene I wear a pinkish dress.  It’s all rose-colored with her.  Her father and brother love her.  The Prince loves her—­and so she wears pink.”

“Pink,” repeated Henry thoughtfully.

“In the nunnery scene I have a pale, gold, amber dress—­the most beautiful color.  The material is a church brocade.  It will ‘tone down’ the color of my hair.  In the last scene I wear a transparent, black dress.”