duty of wine is to be red." Most of the witty things he uttered
{144} have no doubt appeared in print; perhaps the following gem has
not. An old and well-known friend, who dyed his hair and beard so
unnatural a black that even the raven's wing had no chance against
it, was lunching, on a hot day, in the revealing sun's rays, with
some club friends, of whom one was Comyns Carr, and presenting a sad
picture of the struggle between the ravages of time and the
appliances of art. He left the table early, and his departure was
followed by remarks. "How dreadful--what a pity!" "Can't somebody
advise something?" Some one turned to Carr, who had remained silent,
and asked him what he thought. Joe replied that of all his friends
and acquaintances the old fellow was the only one who really was as
black as he was painted.
Carr's gift of eloquence was naturally sought at public banquets,
where his speeches took high rank. But was it not, after all, the
old story of "a rolling stone" which left him best remembered by his
brilliant tongue?
[Sidenote: Cecil Clay]
I could go on writing of other Men of Mark to whom I have had the
good fortune to play the host, and tell again of the great goodness
shown to followers of the stage by members of the healing art, and by
lights in the law; but let me bring this chapter to its close by a
reference to Cecil Clay, who wrote _A Pantomime {145} Rehearsal_ and,
with those who acted his amusing play, gave the old generation much
pleasure. He was beloved in every circle that he moved in, and I
never heard an unkind word pass his lips or saw an unkind look upon
his face. He went so far once as to reproach a fellow-member of one
of his many clubs who swore at the matches because they would not
strike. "My dear fellow, don't be angry; pray remember they are the
only things in the country that don't!"
I have asked Owen Seaman to allow me to reprint some lines which
appeared in _Punch_, written, I feel sure, by the pen of Charles
Graves.
"Athlete and wit, whose genial tongue
Cheered and refreshed but never stung:
Creator, to our endless joy,
Of priceless _Arthur Pomeroy_.
Light lie the earth above his head
Who lightened many a heart of lead;
Courteous and chivalrous and gay,
In very truth no common Clay."
[Sidenote: The Sickles tragedy]
I have alluded to an early visit to New York, when I was a lad of
seventeen. During my stay what was known as "The Sickles Tragedy"
occurred in Washington; the details of which have lingered in my mind
ever since. Many years afterwards my wife {146} and I were at an
evening party given by the Dion Boucicaults to a handsome and
distinguished-looking American, with one leg and a crutch; the other
leg he had lost, valiantly, on the field of Gettysburg. His name was
Daniel Sickles. My interest was at once aroused. He was, or had
been, United States Minister to Spain, being no less eminent in
diplomacy and the civil service than as a volunteer soldier and
general. At one time the tragedy of his life might have robbed his
country of his great abilities. He had married, some six years
before, a beautiful girl of sixteen, Italian by origin, and they were
living in Washington, where Sickles held a Government appointment,
when he learned from an anonymous letter that his young wife was
false to him, clandestinely meeting at a certain house hired from an
old negro woman by her lover, named Philip Barton Key, a widower
nearly twice her age, a Government lawyer, and the son of the author
of "The Star-Spangled Banner." Sickles had the house watched, and
found that the news was true. Charged with the offence, his wife
confessed all, and explained the system of signals by which, from an
upper window, she and Key, watching through an opera-glass from his
club, arranged their meetings. Sickles demanded her wedding-ring,
told {147} her to leave his house and return to her parents. Soon
afterwards, looking out of his window, he saw the seducer walking
towards the house and make a signal with his handkerchief. He went
out, and coming up with Key at the street-corner, accused him to his
face and shot him. Key attempted to defend himself, but Sickles
fired twice more, and then, while Key was on the ground and still
breathing, put his revolver to his own head. Twice it missed fire.
Sickles then walked away and gave himself up to the police. The case
aroused intense excitement, not only in America but in England. The
trial lasted some weeks, and so strong was public opinion in the
prisoner's favour that he was acquitted, and set free to do his
country services in the future. I have been told that, in years
after, husband and wife came together again. It is certain that all
through the affair, Sickles treated her with the greatest
consideration, even allowing her to keep their eldest child, who,
grown into a beautiful girl, was present with her father when we met
at the Boucicaults' and who soon afterwards was our guest.
Of the distinguished Americans who have been sent to our country as
Ambassadors from their own land I have met Mr. Lowell, Mr. Phelps,
Mr. Bayard, Mr. Choate, Mr. Page, and {148} Mr. Davis. It is a
privilege to have known such men; a greater privilege, in the case of
Mr. Choate, to have been his host. I don't know whether a charming
little story has been in print before--very likely it has--but I can
answer for its exactitude as I now tell it, and where the incident
occurred.
On one of his visits to us the subject was started--I think by Bishop
Boyd-Carpenter--of changing one's identity. My wife turned to her
chief guest and said: "Tell us, Your Excellency, who you would rather
be if you were not Mr. Choate." The Ambassador, slightly rising from
his chair, bowed across the table to his wife, who was at my side,
and at once replied: "Mrs. Choate's second husband."
{149}
VIII
THE STAGE
"Of all amusements the theatre is the most profitable, for there we
see important actions when we cannot act importantly
ourselves."--MARTIN LUTHER.
I
When I was nineteen I ran away from home to become an actor, and have
been stage-struck ever since.
[Sidenote: Charles Mathews]
Of eminent Victorian leaders of my calling the first to be our guest,
in very far-away days, was the accomplished Charles Mathews, the most
conspicuous comedian of his time. The memory of childhood's
play-going days tells me that I once saw Madame Vestris, his first
wife, a beautiful and accomplished woman, in one of Planche's
extravaganzas called _The King of the Peacocks_, at the Lyceum
Theatre. I first met Charles Mathews in 1863, as a star in the
theatrical firmament when I was a struggling young actor in Dublin,
where I had the great advantage of playing with him in a round of his
favourite comedies for a whole {150} month; during which I hope I
learnt something from his delightful personality of the beautiful art
of acting.
Among other accomplishments, he was an amusing after-dinner speaker.
When presiding at a theatrical charity banquet, with his own charm of
manner, he began: "Douglas Jerrold once said to me that he did not
despair of living to see the day when I should be trudging up Ludgate
Hill, with an umbrella under my arm, to invest my funds in the Bank
of England. I am sorry to say that the great humorist did not live
to see that vision realised. The only step I have advanced towards
it is, that I have bought the umbrella."
When Mathews left England for a tour in Australia, a banquet was
given in his honour at which he presided; himself proposing the toast
of his own health in these words:
"The most important task assigned to me has now to be fulfilled, and
I rise to propose what is called the toast of the evening with a
mixture of pleasure and trepidation. I was going to say that I was
placed in a novel but unprecedented position, by being asked to
occupy the chair. But it is not so. There is nothing new in saying
that there is nothing new. In _The Times_ of October 3rd, 1798,
there is an advertisement of a dinner given to Mr. Fox {151} on the
anniversary of his first election for Westminster: 'The Hon. Charles
James Fox in the chair.' Here is a great precedent; and what was
done by Charles James Fox in 1798 is only imitated in 1870 by Charles
James Mathews. I venture to assert that a fitter man than myself to
propose the health of our guest could not be found; for I venture to
affirm that there is no man so well acquainted with the merits and
demerits of that gifted individual as I am. I have been on intimate
terms with him from his earliest youth. I have watched over his
progress from childhood, have shared in his joys and griefs, and I
assert boldly that there is not a man on earth for whom I entertain
so sincere a regard and affection. Nor do I go too far in stating
that he has an equal affection for me. He has come to me for advice
in the most embarrassing circumstances, and what is still more
remarkable, has always taken my advice in preference to that of any
one else."
Needless to say the speech was interrupted at every point by
laughter. Here is a characteristic letter I received from him during
a winter which he was passing at Nice:
"It is hard to be obliged to come indoors on such a heavenly day to
write a letter, and you will no doubt think it harder to be {152}
obliged to read it. But friendship calls, and I sacrifice myself
upon its altar. Do thou likewise.
"A very nice fellow has written a comedy. ('O Lord!' I hear you
say.) All I ask of you is to read it, have the parts copied out and
produce it, playing the principal part yourself--nothing more. Your
new piece, of course, will not run more than two or three years, and
then you will have this ready to fall back upon. The human mind
naturally looks forward, and managers cannot make their arrangements
too soon. If by any unforeseen and improbable chance you may not
fancy the piece (such things have happened), please drop me a sweet
little note, so charmingly worded that the unhappy author may swallow
the gilded pill without difficulty. There is something in the
piece--or I would not inflict it upon you. If well dressed, and
carefully put upon the stage, it _might_ be effective.
"This is what is called writing just _one line_. You will of course
say it 'wants cutting,' like the piece. So I will cut it--short.
"On reading this rigmarole, I find I have only used the word 'piece'
four times. When you give my letter to the copyist, you can make the
following alterations: For 'piece' (No. 1) read 'play.' For 'piece'
(No. 2) read 'production.' For 'piece' (No. 3) read 'work.' For
'piece' (No. 4) read 'comedy.'"
{153}
[Sidenote: "Our Boys"]
As an instance of his good judgment, on the first night of Byron's
comedy, _Our Boys_, which had a phenomenal run, I was in the billiard
room of the Garrick Club; a group of men came in who said they had
been to see a new comedy at the Vaudeville Theatre. Various opinions
were expressed, several present thinking the comedy would only have a
moderate run, when Mathews, who was playing pool, said, quietly: "I
don't agree with you fellows. I was there, and haven't laughed so
heartily for a long while. Byron this time--he doesn't always--has
taken his goods to exactly the right shop. That play is sure to run."
Charles Mathews was originally an architect of considerable skill and
promise. Although he did not go upon the stage until he was thirty,
he became one of the most beloved of the public's favourites.
Mathews was distinctly an actor of manners: it was beyond his range
to portray emotion. Later on, Charles Wyndham, at one time in his
career, had some of his attributes, and so, very strongly, had
Kendal. Nowadays, the actor who at times recalls him to me in the
delicacy and refinement of his comedy is Gerald du Maurier.
Pictorially, Charles Mathews lives again in {154} the interesting
series of stage portraits on the walls of the Garrick Club with which
I was first familiar on the staircases when he lived in Pelham
Crescent and Belgrave Road.
In a defence of himself and the view he took of his art, he once
said: "It has been urged against me that I always play the same
characters in the same way, and that ten years hence I should play
the parts exactly as I play them now; this I take as a great
compliment. It is a precision which has been aimed at by the models
of my profession, which I am proud to follow, and shows, at least,
that my acting, such as it is, is the result of art, and study, and
not of mere accident."
[Sidenote: Charles Fechter]
I can also take the reader back to another link with the past and
tell him briefly something of Charles Fechter, also of Victorian
fame, whose name opens up a mine of memories. In our early married
days we lived in St. John's Wood; Fechter was our neighbour and once
our guest. I regard him as the finest actor of the romantic drama I
have ever seen. The eye, the voice, the grace--all so needed--were
at his command. He was the original of the lover in _La Dame aux
Camélias_. I was present at his début in London, so long ago as
1860, when, as Ruy Blas, he forsook the French for the English stage,
and I saw his first {155} performance of _The Corsican Brothers_, in
which play he also acted originally in Paris. This was at the old
Princess's Theatre in Oxford Street, which, a decade earlier, had
been the scene of the Charles Kean Shakespearean revivals, most of
which I saw in my 'teens. They were a great advance scenically on
all that had been done by Macready, while their splendours and
pageantry were in turn eclipsed first by Irving and afterwards by
Tree; but genius has no part in plastering treacle on jam.
So vivid is my remembrance of Fechter's acting in _Hamlet_, which
took the town by storm, that I can describe and illustrate much of it
after a lapse of more than fifty years. He made the Prince a
fair-haired, almost flaxen, Dane. Dickens said: "No innovation was
ever accepted with so much favour by so many intellectuals as
Fechter's Hamlet."
Quite recently I came across the impressions of Clement Scott, for
many years one of the most prominent of our dramatic critics. He
wrote: "Let me candidly own that I never quite understood _Hamlet_
until I saw Fechter play the Prince of Denmark. Phelps and Charles
Kean impressed me with the play, but with Fechter, I loved the play,
and was charmed as well as fascinated by the player." He {156}
afterwards failed as Othello, while his performance of Iago was a
triumph. It is a coincidence that Fechter should have received
valuable help during his reign at the Lyceum from Kate Terry, whose
younger sister, Ellen, in a similar position, did so much for Irving
in the same theatre later on.
Fechter died in America in 1879. His last years were sad. But a
decade or so before, the idol of the playgoing public, the compeer of
all distinguished in the arts, the welcome guest of Charles Dickens
at Gad's Hill, he died beyond the seas neglected, friendless, almost
forgotten. Few actors at their zenith have held greater sway; few
could compare with him in romantic parts; fewer still could claim to
have stirred two nations of playgoers in different tongues; but such
is the fleeting nature of our work, so faint the record of it left
behind, that one might ask how many now can speak of Fechter as he
really was, how few will even know his name? "Out, out, brief
candle!" His talent was not confined to the stage, as a spirited
bust of himself, his own work, now in the Garrick Club, will show.
[Sidenote: Salvini]
Later on, there came the eminent Italian actor, Salvini, whose visit
to this country in 1875 may still be remembered by a dwindling few.
He was the greatest tragedian I have {157} seen--he was never a tenor
trying to sing a bass song. On the stage the Italians, to my mind,
have the advantage over other actors in being beyond question the
finest pantomimists in the world--they can say so much without
speaking. Those two great actresses, Ristori and Duse, made masterly
use of this gift.
At an afternoon performance of _Othello_ by Salvini, specially given
at Drury Lane Theatre to the leading representatives of the English
Stage, who chiefly composed the vast assemblage, I was present.
Salvini's superbly delivered address to the Senate at once convinced
the remarkable audience that no ordinary actor was before them--so
calm, so dignified, so motionless--broken only by the portrayal of
love as he caught sight of Desdemona entering on the scene. No
ovation that I have taken part in equalled in enthusiasm the
reception from his up-standing comrades at the close of the third
act. His death scene I took exception to as being too shocking, too
realistic, too like an animal dying in the shambles or on a
battle-field. There I thought the Italian was surpassed by the
Irishman, G. V. Brooke, the only actor I have seen who shared
Salvini's natural gifts of voice and bearing, and who, but for his
unfortunate intemperate habits, might have achieved lasting {158}
fame upon the stage. His death in _Othello_ seemed to me as poetic
in conception as it was pathetic in execution. Acting, although not
speaking, the closing words, "Killing myself, to die upon a kiss," he
staggered towards the bed, dying as he clutched the heavy curtains of
it, which, giving way, fell upon his prostrate body as a kind of
pall, disclosing, at the same time, the dead form of Desdemona. I
agree with the great Frenchman who said: "Even when it assassinates,
even when it strangles, tragedy remembers that it wears the crown and
carries a sceptre."
In a little letter to my wife, Salvini wrote:
"CHÈRE MADAME,--Que vous êtes aimable! Je tiendrai votre joli cadeau
comme un doux souvenir de votre sincère amitié. Ce sera un précieux
talisman qui suivra le reste de ma carrière artistique, et qui, je
suis sûr, m'apportera du bonheur."
[Sidenote: The perfect Hamlet]
In a conversation I had with Salvini, he modestly said his
nationality and Southern blood made it comparatively easy for him to
play the jealous Moor, while they stood in his way when he attempted
the part of the Northern moody Dane, to which his robust physique was
not suited. Salvini's performance, however, of _Hamlet_ has left me
{159} memories almost as keen as those bequeathed by Fechter. In his
arrangement of the play he acted the long speech of his father's
ghost. You only heard, and hardly saw the Phantom. His scene with
his mother was very fine: his management of the foils in the fight
with Laertes as superb as it was original: his death the most
touching I can recall: it was the "Kiss me, Hardy" of Nelson; he felt
for Horatio's head and drew it down to his face as the spirit fled.
To make a perfect Hamlet I should weld together ever to be remembered
portions from the performances of Fechter, Salvini, Irving and
Forbes-Robertson.
It is interesting to read what Macready, the greatest of the
Victorian classic actors, said of this complex, fascinating character:
"It seems to me as if only now at fifty-one years of age, I
thoroughly see and appreciate the artistic power of Shakespeare in
this great human phenomenon: nor do any of the critics, Goethe,
Schlegel, or Coleridge, present to me, in their elaborate remarks,
the exquisite artistical effects which I see in this work, as long
meditation, like long straining after light, gives the minutest
portion of its excellence to my view."
From my childhood I have always looked {160} upon Macready as the
head of my craft, and regarded him with the reverence a young curate
would feel, I suppose, towards the Archbishop of Canterbury.
I regret that I never saw Macready act. I was not ten years old when
he left the stage. I had the pleasure, long afterwards, to know his
son, Jonathan, a clever surgeon, whose son, Major Macready, I now
know; and I rejoice in the friendship of the tragedian's youngest
child, General Sir Nevil Macready, whom I first saw at his father's
funeral, when he was lifted from a mourning coach--a little fellow of
about ten.
My wife was the last stage link with Macready. At one of the
farewell performances he gave when he retired she appeared as the
child apparition in _Macbeth_.
I am wandering from my departed guests, but may mention that in my
boyhood I saw much of that fine actor, Samuel Phelps, who had so wide
a range and to whom no character seemed to come amiss. I have always
felt, however, that he was a disciple of Macready, to whom
undoubtedly he owed much, and whom he followed as Richelieu, Werner
and Virginius.
I may just say that, in my early career, I have acted with Phelps, as
well as with Charles Kean and G. V. Brooke, and it may surprise {161}
young actors of to-day to know that, in my provincial novitiate of
four years and three months, I played no fewer than three hundred and
forty-six different parts, with the advantage of repeating many of
the Shakespearean characters with different leading actors.
[Sidenote: A tribute from Got]
I met and knew the great French comedian Edmond Got, for many years
doyen of the _Comédie française_, in the far-off days of the Commune.
The chief members of the troupe were here in exile for many months,
when it was a privilege to entertain them. It was strange to learn
that Got had served in the French cavalry before he went upon the
stage. I append a gracious letter I received from him:
"Je veux vous remercier de la gracieuse hospitalité que vous avez
bien voulu nous offrir, et vous prier de mettre aux pieds de Mme.
Bancroft l'hommage de mon respect et de ma très sincère admiration.
"Quant à vous, monsieur, vous avez montré ce que peut obtenir de ses
artistes un habile administrateur, doublé d'un parfait comédien,
c'est-à-dire un ensemble que je souhaiterais rencontrer sur beaucoup
de scènes parisiennes, et quelquefois sur la nôtre."
Two often welcomed guests were the brothers Coquelin, _ainé_ and
_cadet_. The elder was a great actor, the younger a good actor and a
{162} brilliant _diseur_. Coquelin, as well as his distinguished
comrade, Mounet-Sully, also his eminent compatriot, Clemenceau,
belonged to "The Vintage."
[Sidenote: Coquelin]
My friendship for Coquelin was one of many years. No stage-struck
youth perhaps was more unlikely to succeed; but his teacher at the
Conservatoire--the great Regnier--always argued that to make a really
fine actor a man should have to fight against some physical drawback.
Coquelin was the most outspoken admirer of my wife's acting. He
said: "her splendid vitality was contagious: her winning magnetism
would fill the largest stage." If my saying so does not detract from
this praise, I may add that he showered encomiums in a Parisian
journal on my performance in _The Dead Heart_, when I acted with
Irving. He once wrote to me:
"CHER BANCROFT,--Vous avez un excellent théâtre que vous dirigez en
maître--et en maître artiste--que pouvez-vous désirer de plus? Ah,
cette fois-ci, Bravo, et sans restriction. Cet orchestre qu'on ne
voit pas, cette rampe presque imperceptible, cette absence du manteau
d'Arlequin, ce cadre contournant la scène! Le spectateur est devant
un tableau dont les personnages parlent et agissent. C'est {163}
parfait pour l'illusion et pour le plaisir artistique. Votre
ami,--C. COQUELIN."
I have a valued souvenir of him in his autographed portrait as Cyrano.
In his home his gaiety was delightful, while his love for his simple
old mother was enshrined in his heart as it would seem always to be
in that of a good Frenchman.
The farewell words of Jules Claretie, the accomplished director of
the _Théâtre français_, spoken by his grave, were indeed a tribute:
"Coquelin was more than a stage king, he was a king of the stage, and
has left a luminous trail in the heaven of art."
I was one of the group of English actors who went to Paris with our
sculptured offering to his genius which is enshrined in the historic
foyer, where, at a luncheon, I had the temerity to make a short
speech in indifferent French, urged to do so by Madame Bartet, a
brilliant actress, who helped me to frame some of its sentences.
And his poor brother. It is painful to think of _cadet's_ bright
nature being quenched by incurable melancholia: distressing indeed to
imagine what his sufferings must have been before the evening when,
in the middle of the play, he rushed through the stage door, clad
{164} as an abbé, to be seen no more at his beloved _Comédie
française_. In an amusing account published in a leading Paris paper
of a visit to see Robertson's comedy, _School_, he wrote: