III

As we know, the production of Coriolanus did not take place till twenty-two years later; but all through 1880 and 1881 Alma-Tadema had the matter in hand. In those years the high policy of his theatre management was a good deal changed. When Irving had experience of Ellen Terry’s remarkable powers and gifts he wisely determined to devote to them, so far as was possible, the remaining years of her youth. She had now been twenty-five years on the stage; and though she began in her very babyhood—at eight years old—the flight of time has to be considered, for the future if not for the past. She was now thirty-three years of age; in the very height of her beauty and charm, and to all seeming still in her girlhood. He therefore arranged Romeo and Juliet as the next Shakespearean production. This was followed in time by Much Ado About Nothing, Twelfth Night, Olivia, Faust—all plays that showed her in her brightness and pathos; and so Coriolanus was kept postponed. But well into 1881 it was still being worked on, and in those days I had many visits to the studio of Alma-Tadema.