In this engagement she did not play Nancy Sikes, but she gave us her characterization of the part because my Soldier wanted to see it. Lawrence Barrett described it accurately when he said: "It sounded as if she spoke through blood." She was one of the few to whom a set stage with scenery and music and costumes and an audience are not necessary in the production of artistic effects. A private room, or a grassy plot under a tree, or an open space in the sunshine, was all the stage she required, one soul that understood her was audience enough, and when she threw herself into the character she represented no one would have known whether she wore the garb of a beggar or a queen.
I told her of having met Ellen Tree in Canada.
"Oh," she said, "that was worth losing your name for," referring to the fact that in Canada the General and I were known by our middle name of Edwards. "The very fact that she could not keep from acting when off the stage made her interesting. Did you ever see her wipe her nose?"
I never had, so, to illustrate Ellen Tree's manner of performing that ceremony, Miss Cushman slowly and mysteriously drew her handkerchief from her pocket. As she did so her eyes opened wide and glared ominously, as if some scene of tragic import were looming up in the middle distance. Her form was tense and rigid, all her muscles drawn taut as if for a fatal spring. The handkerchief was lifted and applied to each nostril, while the face was stern and uncompromising as might have been that of the noble Roman sentencing his son to death for breaking the law. The handkerchief was returned to her pocket in the same dramatic manner.
"The blood of all the Cæsars was on that handkerchief when it was put away," Charlotte said. "Ellen Tree could not help acting; it was her nature."
Ellen Tree's everyday tragedy was sometimes productive of startling results. Going into Price's dry-goods store in Richmond she asked in her most dramatic voice:
"N-n-no, no, dear Madam," stammered the gallant but startled Virginian, "I--I'm sorry."
One of the clerks came to his assistance with the information that the lady meant calicoes, at the same time taking down some pieces from the shelf. The customer examined them with tragic significance and looked up with eyes filled with fathomless depths of emotion, inquiring in a voice of intense power, dwelling with dramatic force upon each word: