annoys me exceedingly. I shall decide to-morrow what is to be done, and let you know. My date in Brooklyn is May 3,-one week. It has taken me over a month to reply to your inquiry on that head, so I guess it is accurate!

"My wife has been gradually wasting away for several months, and is very feeble, from nervous prostration. A severe cough, from last September, neglected, distresses her very much, and only since the last ten days has she had a doctor. I've been, at times, quite alarmed for her. Her will is something wonderful: she won't give up, but, though ill enough to be in bed, she insists on going out as often as possible. This has kept me on the visiting list pretty much all the time; in the evenings, either at the theatres or at the houses of her acquaintances,-none of which is altogether agreeable to me; but then, you know, I have a daughter, who must have society, &c. Thank God, my boy, that your

daughters are boys, and can go out without an escort, and that your boys can look after 'Ma,' when the 'old man' wants to roost, as I do often—when I'm forced to become a swallow-tail and flit 'hither an' yon,' among the butterflies, for wife and 'darter's' sakes!

"I hope to sail, by the Gallia, in June, but I go without an engagement, and may find all houses closed

PROJECTS OF ACTING

209

to me. I care very little whether or not I act in London. Somehow, I fancy that, like me as much as the public might, the chance for any great success there is gone, for the present, at all events. I have so little energy, less ambition, and still less enthusiasm on the E. Booth subject, that the bare idea of acting there is irksome. Perhaps, after a tour through Ireland and Scotland, I may feel more 'i' the vein'; but I shall then arrive in London too late for the season, and in the midst of fogs and filth, which will depress us all so much that I'll lose heart again. I am going more as a tourist, and chiefly because I believe the change will benefit both wife and daughter-but, of course, I shall, like old Hackett, take my 'fat' along (you know, the old gentleman always carried his Falstaff belly with him, on all his hunting and fishing tours, by mere chance, of course!). I may get an opportunity to act for some charity purpose, for some actor's benefit,to 'play the people in' (or out),-but, unless I take a theatre, which I won't do, I doubt if there'll be an opening for 'a crushed tragedian' at any of the regular shops. Irving has, evidently, determined to keep on his beaten track, which is quite right, and other managers are 'skeery' of Shakespeare. We shall see, when I get on the field.

"I wrote to [Tom] Taylor, and sent him a copy of

"The Fool's Revenge,' apologizing for my change in his play, and offering to pay the damage if I act it in England. I've done more for the play than it ever did for me, however; but that's 'off': I'll make it right with him.

"I believe Abbey has secured Mrs. Bowers and McCullom to 'support' me, but, as I have not seen him since the idea was first suggested, I am not sure. I hope so, at all events, I mean, as to Mrs. B. The gentleman I know nothing of, as an

actor.

"My wife reads the distressing accounts of Ireland's condition, and dreads more than ever the idea of going: the sickness in Ireland and the fogs of England keep her in a constant scare.

"The mention of [Francis A.] Bangs, as one of Abbey's company for me, is incorrect, I am happy to state. He's a good enough actor, in certain parts, but rather cranky to deal with, and, on the whole, is too 'great.' 'Great actors' are very queer cusses to handle; besides, there are so many of 'em! Nearly every company counts a dozen 'sich.'

"Adieu! See me soon.

"Ever yours,

"EDWIN."

THE SUNSET OF LIFE 211

"LAST SCENE OF ALL"

The last days of Edwin Booth afforded a signal illustration of Tennyson's expressive line, "The set gray life and apathetic end." His successful establishment of The Players, upon which his heart had long been fixed and by which, as he said to me, he confidently hoped to cause the actors to hold their profession in higher esteem, had fulfilled his final ambition, and, though for a while he remained on the stage, he neither attempted nor desired to accomplish anything more. His home was in the Club, where his rooms, reverently kept as they were when he left them forever, still remain unoccupied and unused, an impressive and touching memorial. One evening, when I was sitting with him by his fireside, and he was smoking his pipe and ruminating, I commended to him the resources of travel, to break the monotony of custom. "But I have travelled so much," he said, "and wherever I go people want to entertain me, to make me ‘a lion,' and I have no peace. Here is my bed, and here is the fire,

and here are the books, and here you come to see me." Then puffing at his pipe, he added, "I suppose I shall wear out here." So it was to be. Physical pain harassed him: bodily weakness had made him more and more languid: weariness of everything had settled on his mind. The noble patience and the gentleness of his spirit never waned, but his expectation was turned eagerly toward the end. Death, to him, was the crowning mercy and blessing of life, truly "a consummation devoutly to be wished." "I cannot grieve at death," he wrote to me, in a time when I was in deep affliction, "it seems, to me, the greatest boon the Almighty has granted us. Why do you not look at this miserable little life, with all its ups and downs, as I do? At the very worst, 'tis but a scratch, a temporary ill, to be soon cured by that dear old doctor, Death-who gives us a life more healthful and enduring than all the physicians, temporal or spiritual, can give."

His last two years were passed in desultory reading, mostly on religious subjects, and in musing over the past, and so he drifted away.