I have already said that I never could cope with Pauline Deschapelles, and why Henry wanted to play Melnotte was a mystery. Claude Melnotte after Hamlet! Oddly enough, Henry was always attracted by fustian. He simply reveled in the big speeches. The play was beautifully staged; the garden scene alone probably cost as much as the whole of "Hamlet." The march past the window of the apparently unending army--that good old trick which sends the supers flying round the back-cloth to cross the stage again and again--created a superb effect. The curtain used to go up and down as often as we liked and chose to keep the army marching! The play ran some time, I suppose because even at our worst the public found _something_ in our acting to like. As Ruth Meadowes I had very little to do, but what there was, was worth doing. The last act of "Eugene Aram," like the last act of "Ravenswood," gave me opportunity. It was staged with a great appreciation of grim and poetic effect. Henry always thought that the dark, overhanging branch of the cedar was like the cruel outstretched hand of Fate. He called it the Fate Tree, and used it in "Hamlet," in "Eugene Aram," and in "Romeo and Juliet." In "Eugene Aram," the Fate Tree drooped low over the graves in the churchyard. On one of them Henry used to be lying in a black cloak as the curtain went up on the last act. Not until a moonbeam struck the dark mass did you see that it was a man. He played all such parts well. Melancholy and the horrors had a peculiar fascination for him--especially in these early days. But his recitation of the poem "Eugene Aram" was finer than anything in the play--especially when he did it in a frock-coat. No one ever looked so well in a frock-coat! He was always ready to recite it--used to do it after supper, anywhere. We had a talk about it once, and I told him that it was _too much_ for a room. No man was ever more willing to listen to suggestion or less obstinate about taking advice. He immediately moderated his methods when reciting in _a room_, making it all the less theatrical. The play was a good rŽpertoire play, and we did it later on in America with success. There the part of Houseman was played by Terriss, who was quite splendid in it, and at Chicago my little boy Teddy made his second appearance on any stage as Joey, a gardener's boy. He had, when still a mere baby, come on to the stage at the Court in "Olivia," and this must be counted his _first_ appearance, although the chroniclers, ignoring both that and Joey in "Eugene Aram," _say_ he never appeared at all until he played an important part in "The Dead Heart."