But even with all the experience of the expert there are occasions when these inevitable delays approach very nearly to disaster. I remember that the dress rehearsal of _Called Back_, when I had not yet gained a full mastery over the mechanical resources of the theatre, lasted till six o’clock in the morning, and during the small hours one after another of the members of the company came to me and implored that the production might be postponed. But with an audacity that was born of inexperience I persisted that all would be ready in time. We left the theatre at half-past six, and were back again at ten o’clock to renew the rehearsal, and to the astonishment of all,--an astonishment in which I confess I shared,--when the evening came, the play went without mishap to a successful close. But these long rehearsals often result in trials of temper as well as of strength, and now and again it happens that the wearied stagehands are not wholly equal to their work. _King Arthur_ was produced under conditions that were exceptionally trying, for, at the time that the heavy scenic material had to be arranged upon the stage, a pantomime was running at the theatre during the afternoons. Much that was employed in the pantomime had to be daily removed to make room for our own scenery, and replaced again for the performance of the next afternoon. At one of the rehearsals, as Arthur Sullivan and I stood upon the stage listening to his setting of the “May Song,” the high platform upon which Queen Guinevere and her maids were standing suddenly gave way, and to our horror fell with a crash to the stage. For the moment we thought that some grave disaster must have occurred, but with sudden instinct Miss Terry had flung herself prone upon the pedestal where she had been standing, and escaped with nothing more serious than a few bruises. The protest against scenic display in the theatre is constantly renewed, but is not always very intelligently directed. That scenery can be inappropriate in its magnificence is true enough, but it is not less true that it can be equally inappropriate in its inefficiency. The question, when all is said, is one of taste and fitness, and involves no irrefutable principle. To ignore the enlarged resources of the modern scene-painter’s art would, I think, be foolish, even if it were possible. The problem before the theatre now is to control these resources, and to reconsider and to reforge the means which shall set them again in clear subjugation to the essential claims of the drama. It may be conceded that during the last thirty years the need of this subjugation has not always been sufficiently borne in mind, and there have been instances not a few where the eye has been fed at the expense of the ear. But this scenic art is a thing so beautiful in itself that it would be hard indeed if any mere pedantry of taste should force its exclusion from the theatre. INDEX Abbey, Edwin, 150