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  [Illustration: AUGUSTUS SAINT-GAUDENS FROM THE PAINTING BY ELLEN EMMET

  _Copyright, 1908, by Ellen Emmet_]




  McCLURE'S MAGAZINE

  VOL. XXXI      JUNE, 1908       No. 2

  MY FIRST APPEARANCE IN AMERICA
  THE DECREE MADE ABSOLUTE
  PRESIDENT JOHNSON AND HIS WAR ON CONGRESS
  THE CRYSTAL-GAZER
  BOB, DEBUTANT
  TWO PORTRAITS BY GILBERT STUART
  MARY BAKER G. EDDY
  HER FRUITS
  THE KEY TO THE DOOR
  THE WAYFARERS
  THE PROBLEMS OF SUICIDE
  PRAIRIE DAWN
  THE DOINGS OF THE DEVIL
  YOUNG HENRY AND THE OLD MAN
  EDITORIAL

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  Transcriber's Note: The Table of Contents was
                      added by the transcriber.

       *       *       *       *       *




MY FIRST APPEARANCE IN AMERICA[1]

BY

ELLEN TERRY


The first time that there was any talk of my going to America was, I
think, in 1874, when I was playing in "The Wandering Heir." Dion
Boucicault wanted me to go, and dazzled me with figures, but I expect
the cautious Charles Reade influenced me against accepting the
engagement.

When I did go, in 1883, I was thirty-five and had an assured position in
my profession. It was the first of eight tours, seven of which I went
with Henry Irving. The last was in 1907, after his death. I also went to
America one summer on a pleasure trip. The tours lasted three months at
least, seven months at most. After a rough calculation, I find that I
have spent not quite five years of my life in America. Five out of sixty
is not a large proportion, yet I often feel that I am half American.
This says a good deal for the hospitality of a people who can make a
stranger feel so completely at home in their midst. Perhaps it also says
something for my adaptableness!

"When we do not speak of things with a partiality full of love, what we
say is not worth being repeated." That was the answer of a courteous
Frenchman, who was asked for his impressions of a country. In any case
it is almost imprudent to give one's impressions of America. The country
is so vast and complex that even those who have amassed mountains of
impressions soon find that there still are mountains more. I have lived
in New York, Boston, and Chicago for a month at a time, and have felt
that to know any of these great towns even superficially would take a
year. I have become acquainted with this and that class of Americans,
but I realize that there are thousands of other classes that remain
unknown.

[Illustration: _Copyrighted by Window & Grove From the collections of
Miss Frances Johnson and Mrs. Evelyn Smalley_

ELLEN TERRY OPHELIA, AND HENRIETTA MARIA, THREE PARTS WHICH SHE PLAYED
ON THE FIRST AMERICAN TOUR]


_The Unknown Dangers of America_

I set out in 1883 from Liverpool on board the "Britannic" with the fixed
conviction that I should never, never return. For six weeks before we
started the word America had only to be breathed to me, and I burst into
floods of tears! I was leaving my children, my bullfinch, my parrot, my
"aunt" Boo, whom I never expected to see again alive, just because she
said I never would, and I was going to face the unknown dangers of the
Atlantic and of a strange, barbarous land. Our farewell performances in
London had cheered me up a little--though I wept copiously at every
one--by showing us that we should be missed. Henry Irving's position
seemed to be confirmed and ratified by all that took place before his
departure. The dinners he had to eat, the speeches he had to make and to
listen to, were really terrific! One speech at the Rabelais Club had, it
was said, the longest peroration on record. It was this kind of thing:
"Where is our friend Irving going? He is not going like Nares to face
the perils of the far North. He is not going like A---- to face
something else. He is not going to China," etc.--and so on. After about
the hundredth "he is not going," Lord Houghton, who was one of the
guests, grew very impatient and interrupted the orator with: "Of course
he isn't! He's going to New York by the Cunard Line. It'll take him
about a week!"


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