ELLEN TERRY: AN APPRECIATION

Evening Star, Issue 15538, 7 July 1914, Page 8

ELLEN TERRY: AN APPRECIATION

[By E.H.B.M.]

Ellen Terry has come ami gone, and there are those amongst ns who will carry with us for tht. rest of _ our lives the memory of that brief visit. We cannot ,iy v, c have seen the EDen Terry who, in her vnoth and beauty recreated the heroines'of Shakespeare,' and raa-do them for more than a generation of Shakespeare lovers a revelation, a fascination, and a delight. Wo cannot say we have seen the great artist at work, painting her living pictupper'with the' strength and subtlety of genius- We can hardly even say wo have seen the woman whose appeal of form and pea care, whose dashing eyes and neyer-to-ue-iorgotteu voice moved her audiences to the point where joy touches pain, where tears start unhidden to the eyes _ because of the sheer, unutterable beauty of perishable things. We cannot say that wo have seen these things. But wo can truly say that vva have seen the woman who at the end of a lifetime of triumphant effort is still greater than she knows. We have seen the woman whose simple humanity is greater than the art of the actress. We have seen the woman, as it were, stripped of the splendors ot the world; wo have had a glimpse, more real and true, perhaps, because of the perishing of the perishable qualities of her art, of the understanding woman’s heart that has been the basis of her greatness. We know now why Ellen Terry was not only a great actress, but the best beloved among actresses. For now. in the evening ot her days, she is still what she must have been in the glorious morning youth—an elemental creature, a- woman of such true instinct, such fundamental simplicity, that her appeal is not to the senses, not to the intellect. not to the sense of wonder that genius always evokes, hut directly, always, iuuvitablv to the heart.

Those wl:o saw her on Monday morning, when she planted the first tree in the Dunedin Shakespeare Garden, who listened to th.it still beautiful voice when she played that this tree might grow to he a beau tv and a joy to cur children and our children's children, who heard the simple, loving words about the “ whole alleys ” of sweet-smelling flowers, who, more thau all. heard tho simple " Good-bye, my friends; good-bye my tree"—those who saw and heard her then knew in their hearts that Ellen Terry was more than a great actress, more than a great Shakespearean lover, more than a woman of beauty and genius—they knew that she was a woman who understood the simple, jovful things of life, who understood the great, hungry, loving heart of humanity, rod, understanding, knew how to reach it. There was no need for this great artist to elaborate her farewell, to attempt by trie art of the actress to play on the hearts f her hearers; her simple good-bye. coming from the heart of the woman, brought Itt an instant the answering tears, and made at once all criticism an impertinence ui;d all praise an emptiness.