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Life and Letters of Robert Browning-Part16_Mrs.Sutherland Orr(1828-1903)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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at the end of the act' -- to which I replied that the author



had been too sick and sorry at the whole treatment of his play

to do any such thing. Such a call there truly WAS,



and Mr. Anderson had to come forward and `beg the author to come forward

if he were in the house -- a circumstance of which he was not aware:'



whereat the author laughed at him from a box just opposite. . . .

I would submit to anybody drawing a conclusion from one or two facts



past contradiction, whether that play could have thoroughly failed

which was not only not withdrawn at once but acted three nights



in the same week, and years afterwards, reproduced at his own theatre,

during my absence in Italy, by Mr. Phelps -- the person most completely aware



of the untoward circumstances which stood originally in the way of success.

Why not enquire how it happens that, this second time,



there was no doubt of the play's doing as well as plays ordinarily do?

for those were not the days of a `run'.



. . . . .

. . . This `last word' has indeed been an Aristophanic one



of fifty syllables: but I have spoken it, relieved myself,

and commend all that concerns me to the approved and valued friend



of whom I am proud to account myself in corresponding friendship,

His truly ever



Robert Browning.

==



Mr. Browning also alludes to Mr. Phelps's acting as not only

not having been detrimental to the play, but having helped to save it,



in the conspiracy of circumstances which seemed to invoke its failure.

This was a mistake, since Macready had been anxious to resume the part,



and would have saved it, to say the least, more thoroughly. It must,

however, be remembered that the irritation which these letters express



was due much less to the nature of the facts recorded in them

than to the manner in which they had been brought before Mr. Browning's mind.



Writing on the subject to Lady Martin in February 1881,

he had spoken very temperately of Macready's treatment of his play,



while deprecating the injustice towards his own friendship

which its want of frankness involved: and many years before this,



the touch of a common sorrow had caused the old feeling, at least momentarily,

to well up again. The two met for the first time after these occurrences



when Mr. Browning had returned, a widower, from Italy. Mr. Macready, too,

had recently lost his wife; and Mr. Browning could only start forward,



grasp the hand of his old friend, and in a voice choked with emotion say,

`O Macready!'



Lady Martin has spoken to me of the poet's attitude on the occasion

of this performance as being full of generoussympathy for those



who were working with him, as well as of the natural anxiety of a young author

for his own success. She also remains convinced that this sympathy



led him rather to over- than to under-rate the support he received.

She wrote concerning it in `Blackwood's Magazine', March 1881:



==

`It seems but yesterday that I sat by his [Mr. Elton's] side



in the green-room at the reading of Robert Browning's beautiful drama,

`A Blot in the 'Scutcheon'. As a rule Mr. Macready always read the new plays.



But owing, I suppose, to some press of business, the task was entrusted

on this occasion to the head prompter, -- a clever man in his way,



but wholly unfitted to bring out, or even to understand,

Mr. Browning's meaning. Consequently, the delicate, subtle lines



were twisted, perverted, and sometimes even made ridiculous in his hands.

My "cruel father" [Mr. Elton] was a warm admirer of the poet.



He sat writhing and indignant, and tried by gentle asides to make me see

the real meaning of the verse. But somehow the mischief proved irreparable,



for a few of the actors during the rehearsals chose to continue

to misunderstand the text, and never took the interest in the play



which they would have done had Mr. Macready read it.'




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