IRVING'S MANNERISMS.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 33, 2 November 1907, Page 13

IRVING'S MANNERISMS.

When it comes to pointing out nn examplo, says Ellen Terry in her memoirs, Henry Irving is the monument,' tho grent mark set up to show tho genius of will. For years ho worked to overcome the dragging lof!, which soomedto attract more attention from some small-mimled critics (sharp of cyoj yet how dull of vision I) than all the mental splendour of In's impersonations. Ho toiled, and he overcame this defect, just as lie ovorcaine his disregard of the vowols and tho self-consciousness which , , in the early utages of his enrcor, used to hamper and incommode him. His self was to him on n first night what tho shell is to a lobster on dry land. In "Hrimlet," when wo first acted together after that long ago Kathorino and Petruchio period at the Queen' 3, ho used to discuss with mo tho secret of my freedom from self-consciousness, and I suggested a more swift entrance on to tho stago from tho dressing-room. I told him that, in spite of the advantago in ease which I had gained through having been on the stngo * when still a mere child, I should be paralysed with fright from over-acute realisation of the audienco if I stood at tho wing for ten minutes, as ho was in tho habit of doing. Ho did not heed mo then, nor during tho run of our next play, "Tho Lady of Lyons"; but whon it came to Shylock—a quito now part to him —ho tried tho experiment and, as ho told mo, with groat comfort to himself and success with the nmlicnco.