So, too, though he had a keen sense of humor, and was full of jokes and funny stories off the stage, and told them with a genuine comic power, he could not act a comic part. I once saw him in "Little Toddlekins," in white trousers and a high hat, and I never wanted to see him in farce again. Even in high comedy he was not so interesting as in tragedy. Benedick himself was not to his taste, and his nearest approach to success in comedy was as Don Cæsar de Bazan; but there the fascination was in his superb appearance and irresistible grace quite as much as in dramatic power. His Don Cæsar, however, was a wonderful picture, an embodied romance. He delighted in the caustic speeches of Shylock or Hamlet, or the irony of Iago, but these can hardly be called comedy. His Petruchio was a game of romps; but it was Donatello romping with Miriam, or Bacchus with Ariadne. Yet, I repeat, he was bubbling over with a grim sort of humor in real life, like that which Shakespeare sprinkles over his tragedies. Behind the scenes he would mock and gibe at himself, had odd remarks to make about his face or his costume, and was alive with waggeries and witticisms. I once pulled aside his robes in Richelieu as he sat smoking between the acts, and he shrank back and screamed, "How dare you, sir?" in a shrill tone, exactly like a woman. The next moment he was the stately cardinal again. I was very anxious that Booth should receive a social recognition. Thirty years ago actors had not overleaped the barriers which had existed for centuries, to anything like the extent we know at present, and I wanted him to meet people of distinction, to hold the position which Garrick once occupied in England; but he hardly shared my ambition for him. If people wanted him they had to seek him, and even then were not sure of getting him. Social attentions sometimes gratified, but quite as often bored him. But his genius was so positive and so attractive, that the most prominent people all over the country courted his society. I had the pleasure of putting up his name at the Century Club, where he was more than cordially welcomed. The wits, the scholars, artists, authors, all were glad to know the man who had given them so refined a pleasure. Bancroft, Bryant, Curtis, and their families, Sumner, Mrs. Ward Howe, men and women of the first social position, as well as cultivation, were his personal friends, even at that early day. But he seemed indifferent to his fame.