"MADAME: With Olivia you have given me pleasure and pain. _Pleasure_ by your noble and sincere art--_pain_ because I feel sad at heart when I see a beautiful and generous woman give her soul to art--as you do--when it is life itself, your heart itself, that speaks tenderly, sorrowfully, nobly beneath your acting. I cannot rid myself of a certain melancholy when I see artists as noble and distinguished as you and Mr. Irving. Although you are strong enough (with continual labor) to make life subservient to art, I, from my standpoint, regard you as forces of nature itself, which should have the right to exist for themselves instead of for the crowd. I would not venture to disturb you, Madame, and moreover I have so much to do that it is impossible for me to tell you personally all the great pleasure you have given me, because I have felt your heart. Will you believe, dear Madame, in mine, which asks no more at this moment than to admire you and to tell you so in any manner whatsoever. "Always yours, "E. Duse."[42] It was worth having lived to get that letter! [Illustration: _From a drawing by the Marchioness of Granby_ H. BEERBOHM TREE WHO PLAYED WITH ELLEN TERRY IN "THE AMBER HEART"] "_Faust_" A claptrappy play "Faust" was, no doubt, but Margaret was the part I liked better than any other--outside Shakespeare. I played it beautifully sometimes. The language was often very commonplace, not nearly as poetic or dramatic as that of "Charles I.," but the character was all right--simple, touching, sublime. The Garden Scene I know was a _bourgeois_ affair. It was a bad, weak love-scene, but George Alexander as Faust played it admirably. Indeed, he always acted like an angel with me; he was so malleable, ready to do anything. He was launched into the part at very short notice, after H. B. Conway's failure on the first night. Poor Conway! It was Coghlan as Shylock all over again. [Illustration: ELEANORA DUSE WITH LENBACH'S CHILD FROM THE PAINTING BY FRANZ VON LENBACH] Conway was a descendant of Lord Byron, and he had a look of the _handsomest_ portraits of the poet. With his bright hair curling tightly all over his well-shaped head, his beautiful figure, and charming presence, he created a sensation in the eighties almost equal to that made by the more famous beauty, Lily Langtry. As an actor he belonged to the Terriss type, but he was not nearly as good as Terriss.