Fascinating Women of the Past: Ellen Terry

Women from the 1700s, 1800s and early 1900s fascinate me, with histories full of both day-to-day life and larger-than-life events that these ladies participated in, affecting others by their leadership in fashion, the arts, education, good works, politics--but above all, how they put themselves forward in times when it was not considered "proper" for a woman to do so.

Ellen Terry was one such woman.  She was born in 1847 into a family of actors, and started her stage career as a child, including Shakespearean works.  She married fairly young to a man almost 30 years older (sounds doomed from the start, doesn't it?), the famous Victorian artist, Frederic Watts.  His fame, however, did allow her to gain associations with many fascinating people, including Oscar Wilde,  Robert Browning, Tennyson, Gladstone, Disraeli, and many of the Pre-Raphaelite artists.  She separated from Watts in less than a year.

Returning successfully to the stage, she became involved with the architect/essayist/Aesthetic Movement designer Edwin William Godwin, and scandalously, moved into a home with him when her divorce with Watts, which took years, was not yet completed.  She had two children with Godwin but eventually their relationship faded and she went back to acting, and Godwin designed costumes for her, so they must have remained friendly.

She married again, briefly, but her acting career was soaring and seems to have taken all her attention by the time she was approaching 30.  She became the leading actress at Henry Irving's Lyceum Theatre in London, and was considered Britain's leading Shakespearean actress.  She toured America and developed a close relationship over the years with Irving.  

I came to know about Terry, however, when I was doing graduate studies of the works of George Bernard Shaw.  Her correspondence with Shaw was amazing, so much correspondence in fact, that it was published in a book after her death.  A love affair on paper only, they wrote for years without ever actually meeting and when they finally did meet, she was a bit surprised--not finding him quite as she had hoped or expected.  Nonetheless, they stayed friends and continued writing back and forth all her life and Terry worked with him in the theater, even trying to start a theatrical venture featuring Shaw and Ibsen plays.

I was reminded about Terry when my friend Heidi alerted me to this fascinating article about the restoration of one of her costumes.  Go have a look:
http://www.pasthorizons.com/index.php/archives/03/2011/the-archaeology-of-a-dress

The letters between Shaw and Terry are found in  Ellen Terry & Bernard Shaw: A Correspondence, 

http://www.amazon.com/Ellen-Terry-Bernard-Shaw-Correspondence/dp/B000IOK7SS

 

Read more about Ellen Terry: 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellen_Terry

http://www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/terry.html

Spring's Promise





We had a break between rainstorms yesterday and I was able to get outside to admire the new growth.  The chickens clucked, the rooster thought of attacking me, but then thought better of it (he took quite a beating the last time, but he just won't learn!), the clouds scudded overhead and the sun shone bravely on a bright landscape full of budding beauty.

The wisteria is not only in bloom, but has climbed high into the tree to join the morning glory up there. I need to cut it all out of the branches...some other day.



Love the pink edges on this bromeliad!

  The beauty, the freshness of the season is a visual promise of what God wants to do in my life--I know it, yet as quick as I am to embrace spring as a season, I wonder if I can embrace a rebirth in myself.  I think I'm like a little plant that hasn't decided whether it's safe to bloom again, or even to push up through the soil and look at the sun.


I feel the weight of the earth on my shoulders, it's cold here--it's very dark and death-like.  Tears/rain water the surrounding area so regularly that it chills and permeates everything.  Yet I know that if I'm not growing, I'm dying.  It's a choice, like so many things in life.


I can feel the work of the Gardener, coaxing me on, not letting me go, not content to let me stay where I am.  I need to grow beyond my boundaries, stretch, reach, believe there is something beyond this cold and darkness.



Deadly yet so very beautiful poison hemlock








 So I'm wondering, what is happening in your life?  How are you growing and changing?  I'll tell if you will!  Let's share what we're doing to get out into the sun!