LETTERS OF THE PAST.

Horowhenua Chronicle, 29 April 1931, Page 5

LETTERS OF THE PAST.

MR. SHAW AND ELLEN TERRY

HOMAGE TO GREAT ACTRESS

An agreement for the publication of a work entitled “Ellen Terry and Bernard Shaw: A Correspondence,” with a long introductory preface by himself, was signed by Mr. Bernard Shaw on February 28. The interest of the correspondence is not only the self-revelation in letters never written for publication by the greatest playwright and greatest actress of our time, says the Observer, London, but in it is contained the story of the struggle between Shaw and Irving as protagonists of the old and the new school of drama.

To Shaw, Ellen Terry sacrificed her career through the necessity of supporting. Irving, who was quite impervious to the modern developments in drama, in which alone her genius could have have had its full scope. The profound antagonism between Shaw and Irving has been explained in one fashion by Mr. Gordon Craig. The preface, written by Mr. Shaw, makes clear certain points connected with the career of Ellen Terry as a woman as well as an actress, and constitutes his homage to her memory.

The way these letters came to be published .is interesting. In connection with the settlement of the estate of Ellen Terry, the executors found that among her effects were many autograph letters from prominent persons. The most important were some 110 letters from Mr. Shaw. Upon 'communicating vcith him it was found that he had preserved all Ellen Terry’s letters —some hundreds —and his consent to publication was obtained on condition that the profits should be given to the Ellen Terry memorial fund. * The first letter, written in the early ’9o’s, when he. was musical critic of the World, is a characteristic criticism by Mr. Shaw of a young protege of Ellen Terry’s whom ho had been asked to hear sing. He gives a full critical estimate of her possibilities and ends with thoroughly practical advice. Ellon Terry’s reply is no less characteristic. It ends; “I wish there was something 1 could do for you.” Shaw and Ellen Terry had never met; they do not meet until the correspondence is half over, except that Shaw had watched her night after night and had once, so he tells her, stood beside her in the stalls at a blockfcd exit; and she, in some dream of her own, lifted her eyes and said: ‘‘Good evening, sir,” as if he were the squire and she the gamekeeper’s daughter. He, dumbfounded, none the less respected the dream and answered according to role, and’ let her go. The last letter is from Ellen Terry in her old age. She had come from a luncheon party where she had been made much of by all the great ones. But she comes back to sit down and write to Bernard Shaw —that she loves him so much the best.