Page:Costume, fanciful, historical, and theatrical (1906).djvu/300

250 with a mantle of yellow and brown falling from a diadem-shaped head-dress set with turquoise, or when, after her successful pleading with her son, she threw aside her garb of woeful black, and was radiant in a draped tunic embroidered in pink and gold, with gold ornaments round her arms and turquoise chains upon her neck.

The picture of Rome under Nero, Mr. Tree personally invested with a purposeful effeminacy, and his tunics and garlands of flowers accentuated the poet in the man. Mrs. Tree showed Agrippina at her best beneath the influence of many-coloured veils, violet and red being the dominant notes; and two gracious pictures rise before my eyes as I write, of Miss Constance Collier as Poppsa in white, with a thick wreath of scarlet poppies around her dusky head, and of Miss Dorothea Baird in peach colour, with lilacs entwined in her fair hair.

Amongst other notable figures which dwell in my memory is Miss Lily Hanbury as Chorus in Henry V., produced by Lewis Waller, whose mien in armour, bearing a fine cloak lined with Venetian red, breathed the essential spirit of martial force. Miss Hanbury looked wonderful in draperies of brilliant red over white, standing on a pedestal against a black background. And the secret of the admirable conduct of her folds was that the white under-dress of crepe de chine was wrung when wet, and round this were wound seventeen yards of blood-red crepe. With this splendid triumph of personality Miss Hanbury may class her appearance as Lady Blessington in Mr. Tree's production, The Last of the Dandies, when she appeared in a pale-blue satin gown, very full round the waist, with a white chiffon double-frilled fichu over her