My experiences convinced me that the actor must imagine first and observe afterwards. It is no good observing life and bringing the result to the stage without selection, without a definite idea. The idea must come first, the realism afterwards. Perhaps because I was nervous and irritable about my own part from insufficient rehearsal, perhaps because his responsibility as lessee weighed upon him, Henry Irving's Hamlet on the first night at the Lyceum seemed to me less wonderful than it had been at Birmingham. At rehearsals he had been the perfection of grace. On the night itself, he dragged his leg and seemed stiff from self-consciousness. He asked me later on if I thought the ill-natured criticism of his walk was in any way justified, and if he really said "Gud" for "God," and the rest of it. I said straight out that he _did_ say his vowels in a peculiar way, and that he _did_ drag his leg. I begged him to give up that dreadful, paralyzing waiting at the side for his cue, and after a time he took my advice. He was never obstinate in such matters. His one object was to _find out_, to _test_ suggestion, and follow it if it stood his test. He was very diplomatic when he meant to have his own way. He never blustered or enforced or threatened. My first acquaintance with this side of him was made over my dresser for Ophelia. He had heard that I intended to wear black in the mad scene, and he intended me to wear white. When he first mentioned the subject, I had no idea that there would be any opposition. He spoke of my dresses, and I told him that as I was very anxious not to be worried about them at the last minute, they had been got on with early and were now finished. "Finished! That's very interesting! Very interesting. And what--er--what colors are they?" "In the first scene I wear a pinkish dress. It's all rose-colored with her. Her father and brother love her. The Prince loves her--and so she wears pink." "Pink," repeated Henry thoughtfully. "In the nunnery scene I have a pale, gold, amber dress--the most beautiful color. The material is a church brocade. It will 'tone down' the color of my hair. In the last scene I wear a transparent, black dress." Henry did not wag an eyelid. "I see. In mourning for her father." "No, not exactly that. I think _red_ was the mourning color of the period. But black seems to me _right_--like the character, like the situation." "Would you put the dresses on?" said Henry gravely. At that minute Walter Lacy came up, that very Walter Lacy who had been with Charles Kean when I was a child, and who now acted as adviser to Henry Irving in his Shakespearean productions. "Ah, here's Lacy. Would you mind, Miss Terry, telling Mr. Lacy what you are going to wear?" Rather surprised, but still unsuspecting, I told Lacy all over again. Pink in the first scene, yellow in the second, black--