Mr. Benson was wonderful to work with. "I am proud to think," he wrote me just before our few rehearsals began, "that I have trained my folk (as I was taught by my elders and betters at the Lyceum) to be pretty quick at adapting themselves to anything that may be required of them, so that you need not be uneasy as to their not fitting in with your business." "My folk," as Mr. Benson called them, were excellent, especially Surrey (Harcourt Williams), Norfolk (Matheson Lang), Caperius (Fitzgerald), and Griffith (Nicholson). "Harcourt Williams," I wrote in my diary on the day of the dress-rehearsal, "will be heard of very shortly. He played Edgar in 'Lear' much better than Terriss, although not so good an actor yet." I played Katherine on Shakespeare's Birthday--such a lovely day, bright and sunny and warm. The performance went finely--and I made a little speech afterwards which was quite a success. I was presented publicly on the stage with the Certificate of Governorship of the Memorial Theater. During these pleasant days at Stratford, I went about in between the performances of "Henry VIII."--which was, I think, given three times a week for three weeks--seeing the lovely country and lovely friends who live there. A visit to Broadway and to beautiful Madame de Navarro (Mary Anderson) was particularly delightful. To see her looking so handsome, robust and fresh--so happy in her beautiful home, gave me the keenest pleasure. I also went to Stanways--the Elchos' home--a fascinating place. Lady Elcho showed me all over it, and she was not the least lovely thing in it. In Stratford I was rebuked by the permanent inhabitants for being kind to a little boy in professionally ragged clothing who made me, as he has made hundreds of others, listen to a long, made-up history of Stratford-on-Avon, Shakespeare, the Merchant of Venice, Julius Caesar and other things--the most hopeless mix! The inhabitants assured me that the boy was a little rascal, who begged and extorted money from visitors by worrying them with his recitation until they paid him to leave them alone. Long before I knew that the child was such a reprobate I had given him a pass to the gallery and a Temple Shakespeare! I derived such pleasure from his version of the "Mercy" speech from "The Merchant of Venice" that I still think he was ill-paid! "The quality of mercy is not strange It droppeth as _the_ gentle rain from 'Eaven Upon _the_ place beneath; it is twicet bless. It blesseth in that gives and in that takes It is in the mightiest--in the mightiest It becomes the throned monuk better than its crownd. It's an appribute to God inself It is in the thorny 'earts of kings But not in the fit and dread of kings." I asked the boy what he meant to be when he was a man. He answered with decision: "A reciterer." I also asked him what he liked best in the play ("Henry VIII.").