Our eyes are beguiled into
accepting age for youth, shabbiness for finery, tinsel for splendour.
Garrick frankly owned that he had once appeared upon the stage so
inebriated as to be scarcely able to articulate, but "his friends
endeavoured to stifle or cover this trespass with loud applause," and
the majority of the audience did not perceive that anything
extraordinary was the matter. What happened to Garrick on that
occasion has happened to others of his profession. And our ears do not
catch much of what is uttered on the stage. Young, the actor, used to
relate that on one occasion, when playing the hero of "The Gamester"
to the Mrs. Beverley of Sarah Siddons, he was so overcome by the
passion of her acting as to be quite unable to proceed with his part.
There was a long pause, during which the prompter several times
repeated the words which Beverley should speak. Then "Mrs. Siddons
coming up to her fellow-actor, put the tips of her fingers upon his
shoulders, and said, in a low voice, 'Mr. Young, recollect yourself.'"
Yet probably from the front of the house nothing was seen or heard of
this.
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