comment. There is sometimes talk of jealousy between artists. Of
the spirit of emulation, the spirit of ambition, the desire to do the
best possible under the given conditions--of these, which are part
and parcel of a noble nature, Marie Bancroft had her full share. But
it was always noticed that {224} she had no touch of professional
jealousy. She often sank her own importance as an actress,
cheerfully taking a small part. Both she and you had made up your
minds not to allow consideration of your own parts to bias your
judgment in the refusal or acceptance of plays. You judged the plays
on their merits--not on the ground that parts in them would or would
not suit either of you. With the utmost readiness Marie Bancroft
played second parts to Madame Modjeska, to Mrs. John Wood, to Mrs.
Patrick Campbell, as well as to Mrs. Kendal and to Ellen Terry.
Self-abnegation of this kind is sufficiently rare to be worthy of
comment. Its value, is, of course, obvious. Without it some of your
most successful productions would never have been given.
"Many critics, especially young ones, are inclined to decry the value
of Robertson's plays; but the fact remains that, with those comedies
as your material, Marie Bancroft and you initiated a revolution in
English drama. In those plays she rejoiced in characters exactly
suited to her genius, characters to which she could give all her
laughter and sense of fun, in creating personalities which will
always live in the memories of those who saw them. She not only
acted; she possessed that constructive instinct which enabled her to
pass judgment on and vastly to improve the comedies submitted to her.
Of this, there is no better example than what happened with {225}
Charles Reade's play, _Masks and Faces_, when Reade, moved to tears
by her performance of the ending which at one rehearsal she
substituted for that which he had written, very wisely gave way to
the superior imaginative perception of Marie Bancroft, the actress of
Peg Woffington.
[Sidenote: Personality]
"In final retrospect, we come back to the 'curious eyes' and the
laughter-provoking face which Macready discovered. In all arts we
have to recognise the personal element, which makes the work of one
man so different from that of another. We do not mistake the
inimitable touch of a Millais or confuse it with that of a Sargent.
We do not read a page of Henry James and imagine that it could have
been written by George Meredith. In the same way an actor portraying
a character puts into it so much of himself that we contrast his
representation with that of another actor--quite as good, perhaps,
but of a different quality. This element of personality is called
'style,' and it is by style that an artist lives and betrays his or
her idiosyncrasy. And no one had a more appealing style than Marie
Bancroft, who could do with our hearts what she pleased. The roguish
eyes, the inimitable smile, the sense of humour, the joy of
living--all those were hers; and it was by some wonderful combination
of all dramatic gifts that she won her complete and perfect triumph.
Those (alas! now how few) who in old days {226} sat spellbound, as
they saw her winning the palms of victory in many a famous play, will
confess with unbounded gratitude how much of happy memory they owe to
the grace, the skill, the charm, the sympathy of Marie Bancroft.
"Yours sincerely,
"W. L. COURTNEY."
The second tribute is from Arthur Pinero:
"MY DEAR B.,
"It is my firm belief that the most ardent and persistent lover of
the drama, after a long life of playgoing, and when the footlights
illuminating his own private and personal drama are beginning to burn
low, can, if he be honest with himself, count his red-letter nights
in the theatre, at a liberal estimate, on the fingers of both hands.
Such is the case with me at any rate. Many distinguished and moving
performances, memorable in their way, have I witnessed; but the real,
unmistakeable red-letter nights--heart and brain clutching--how few!
Some premieres at the old Lyceum, under the management of the
Batemans and, subsequently, of Irving himself, two or three
representations at the Théâtre Français--notably Mounet Sully's
acting, as it was thirty years ago, in _Œdipe Roi_--Duse's
earliest appearance in England in _La Dame aux {227} Camélias_; to
recall these things gives one a catch in the breath--these and the
first time I saw Marie Wilton as 'Polly Eccles.'
[Sidenote: A red-letter night]
"This particular red-letter night happened at the Standard Theatre in
Shoreditch in, I think, August, 1873. (You, in whose honour a
University should create the degree of Master of Dates, so curious,
so infallible--occasionally, to the ladies, so disconcerting--is your
memory, will correct me if I am wrong as to the month or year.) The
company of the dainty little Prince of Wales's Theatre had carried
their delicate art to that not too salubrious quarter of the town,
and were delighting the East-enders in Robertson's _Caste_. Nowadays
it is the critical habit to sniff at Robertson and his simple, humane
comedies; but the work of a writer for the stage should be judged in
relation to the period which produced it, and, so judged, Robertson
was a man of vision and courage. There is no dramatist now writing,
'advanced' or otherwise, who is not in a measure indebted to
Robertson. But how lucky he was in the people who interpreted him!
Take _Caste_, for instance. Lydia Foote--her appealing 'Esther
Eccles' was approached in later years only by Olga Brandon in a
revival of the piece at the Criterion--the highly capable Mrs. Leigh
Murray, the unctuous Honey, John Hare, most refined of miniaturists,
the fascinating Coghlan--who had succeeded Frederick Younge, whom I
never {228} saw, as 'George D'Alroy'---yourself as 'Hawtree'--a
monumental picture of Swelldom, unequalled, in its combination of
grotesqueness and good breeding, by any stage Swell of my time--even
Sothern's 'Dundreary' couldn't touch your 'Hawtree'--and, above and
beyond you all, the glorious actress who used to figure in the
playbills as 'Miss Marie Wilton (Mrs. Bancroft),' and was to become
Lady Bancroft; what a wonderful--what an unmatchable--troupe!
[Sidenote: "Enter Polly"]
"That red-letter night in unsavoury Shoreditch! Outside the theatre,
the thick air of a warm evening, presently to be fouled by the fumes
of the naphtha lamps of the gutter tradesmen; the incessant bawling
of those gentry; the garish display of cheap wares in the
shop-windows; the jostling and shoving of the loiterers on the
pavement; and the sensation of complete happiness, almost choking in
its intensity, because one was going to the play! And the fight for
a front seat in the pit; the contentment, after a terrific struggle
resulting in a torn jacket and the limpest of shirt-collars, at
finding oneself in possession of about eight inches of bare board;
and the settling down to enjoy the blended odours, peculiar to the
popular theatre of that day, of gas and stale orange-peel, than which
no more agreeable smell could greet the nostrils of a stage-struck
youth! Then the tuning-up by the orchestra--joyful discord--and the
unheeded playing of a {229} 'selection'; and then the rising of the
curtain, the sudden hush of voices, and lo! there is the poor, shabby
room on the ground-floor of the lodging-house in Stangate! George
appears, followed by Hawtree; they talk, and I wonder that their talk
should be so different from the talk I had heard in other plays; then
comes 'Papa Eccles,' who 'can tell a real gentleman with half a sov';
then, when Papa, the half-sovereign in his dirty fist, has shuffled
away to meet a friend round the corner, Esther steals in; and
then--oh, then!--'Enter Polly, D.R.H.,' as the stage direction says,
and in a moment the audience is enraptured by the brightest,
freshest, sweetest little woman that ever gladdened ears and eyes in
or out of a playhouse!
"Those, my dear B., who can remember Lady Bancroft in the plenitude
of her powers, the fulness of her witchery, are--I speak
feelingly--rapidly growing fewer and fewer; and it is with the aim, I
suppose, of conveying an impression of what she was at the time I
mention, and for at least a decade afterwards, to the theatre-lovers
of to-day--who saw her, if they saw her at all, when age had begun to
weigh upon her--and to the theatre-lovers of the future, that you are
inviting two or three men, old enough so to remember her, and who yet
linger more or less actively on the scene, to contribute to your
forthcoming book. Phew! A pretty difficult task, unless one employs
{230} language which in modern slang I understand is called 'mushy.'
In the first place, of course, she knew her business to her
finger-tips. That a practitioner of any of the arts should have
known his or her business is frequently remarked in disparagement.
Great artists, however, will take care to include a knowledge of
their business--i.e. of the tricks of their trade--among other
accomplishments, one of the latter being the faculty for hiding those
tricks from the public. Lady Bancroft knew her business--and other
people's; that is, though a born comedian, she could, if her physique
had allowed of it, have 'gone on,' in theatrical phrase, for Lady
Macbeth, or Juliet, or Ophelia, and have triumphed. (In fact,
occasionally, she did 'go on' for parts for which she was hardly
physically suited, and perhaps it was a pity she didn't do so
oftener. She would have been forgiven.) And her experience,
commencing in babyhood, and her innate cleverness, had taught her
how, while keeping strictly within the picture-frame, to button-hole,
as it were, each individual member of the audience. The man on the
farthest bench of the topmost gallery, as well as the man in the
stalls, was flattered by her skill into believing that she was acting
specially for him. I myself have watched her act from the sixpenny
gallery of a large theatre--that same Standard in Shoreditch, the pit
being beyond my means for a second visit--and felt that she was so
{231} near to me that by stretching out my hand I could have grasped
hers. As for her laugh, I won't--I daren't--attempt to describe it,
because I should have to say that at one moment it was like the trill
of a singing-bird, at another that it seemed not to be the music of
her throat, but to bubble up from her very soul; and that, though
gospel-truth, would be too terribly mushy. Nor her speaking-voice,
because, again, I should have to say that it had something of the
quality of the note of the purest of silver bells; nor her eyes,
because in mirth they twinkled--thrice-hackneyed simile!--like twin
stars, and in expressing sorrow resembled the little rain-pools when
the sun has come out after a summer shower; and to say anything of
the sort, while it would be equally true, would also be mushy to an
insupportable degree. But I will say, because it is just a trifle
less trite and banal, and because to do her justice it ought to be
said, that the secret and source of her genius lay not in her
artistry--which was consummate--but in _herself_. She was a fine,
warm-hearted creature, and her acting was a reflection of the glow of
her innermost nature.
[Sidenote: The secret of genius]
"Patches of shadow becloud every career, however brilliant. The
tragedy of Lady Bancroft's career was that after Robertson's death no
dramatist arose who could, or would, provide her with material worthy
of her talent. For years, therefore, she retained her hold {232}
upon the public mainly by her 'Polly' in _Caste_, 'Naomi Tighe' in
_School_, and 'Mary Netley' in _Ours_. From time to time she acted
in new pieces by other authors, which lacked the attraction of
Robertson at his best; and then, after giving us a captivating Lady
Teazle, and delighting us in revivals of some other old comedies, in
order to extend the repertory of the theatre she gallantly
subordinated herself, when policy demanded it, to playing parts of
minor importance. Towards the end, spurred by a surviving ambition
into trying to make bricks without straw--and it must be confessed
that she made sounder bricks without straw than did many an actress
who was supplied with stacks of that commodity--she took to applying
her ready wit to 'writing up' the tiny parts she was condemned to
play, until at last her rare appearances became not so much those of
an actress engaged in impersonating a character as of a charming lady
determined at all costs to be amusing.
"But she had done enough long before then to win a place in stage
history with the most illustrious of the comic actresses of the past.
Margaret Woffington, Kitty Clive, Frances Abington and Dorothea
Jordan had a legitimate successor in Marie Wilton.
"Thank you for letting me join in your tribute to her.
"Devotedly yours, till my chair is empty,
"ARTHUR PINERO."
{233}
[Sidenote: Truth to nature]
The third tribute is from Johnston Forbes-Robertson:
"MY DEAR B,
"It is a great privilege to comply with your wish. It was in 1878
that I first met Lady Bancroft. She was then about to retire for a
holiday from the part of Zicka in _Diplomacy_. A year later I had
the good fortune to meet her on the stage when you engaged me to act
in _Ours_. In the following year I moved with the celebrated company
from the Prince of Wales's to the Haymarket Theatre, which had been
transformed by you into the most beautiful theatre in London. Here I
was cast for a part in _School_: hence it is my proud boast that I
acted with Marie Bancroft in her prime, and was in personal touch
with Mary Netley and Naomi Tighe!
"Alas! it is not in me to convey to the present generation the powers
of this incomparable actress. The winsomeness, the cajolery, the
sprightly vivacity, the joyousness, and the tenderness of it all!
Every note could she play upon, and never was any note forced. The
means by which she attained these varied and subtle emotions were not
to be traced. All appeared so simple, so illusive, that it came home
to one as being absolutely true to nature. She was complete mistress
of all the resources of her art, and yet those resources were never
laid bare, never discoverable {234} by the onlooker. Every movement
was simple, direct and natural; every intonation and inflection true;
every word that fell from her lips clean cut and distinct. No matter
how rapidly a passage was delivered, she was heard even to the
farthest seat of the largest theatre.
"Polly Eccles! Why, the very thought of the name makes my face
pucker with smiles, and it must be bordering on fifty years ago when
first she bewitched me in the part! Yes, 'bewitching Marie Wilton'
was a phrase common amongst us in those days, and in truth the
witchery was there in full measure, and to overflowing.
"Still in my mind is the beautiful farewell to her on the day when
her mortal remains were laid to rest. I was very proud at finding
myself one of the four intimate friends chosen to pay their last
respects at her burial; and when, towards the close of the memorial
service at St. Martin-in-the-Fields which immediately followed it,
that inspired man delivered the farewell address (quite the most
beautiful of the many I have heard), I was shaken with a deep emotion
even to tears.
"Ever your affectionate friend,
"J. FORBES-ROBERTSON."
I will restrict myself to writing of her in one play only, and will
choose W. S. Gilbert's dramatic contrast _Sweethearts_--which, by the
way, I had the good fortune to name.
{235}
[Sidenote: "Sweethearts"]
No play of its length has ever excited more attention than
_Sweethearts_. Pages could be filled with the chorus of praise which
swelled from the press. One leading critic wrote that Gilbert had
determined to test talent by a most difficult stage exercise; and
that my wife had been able to prove the studied grace and polished
elegance of her dramatic scholarship. From the subject set to her,
called _Sweethearts_, she produced the poem of "Jenny." The success
of the creation was complete. No striking or unusually clever
writing, no wit, or epigram, or quaint expression of words, no
telling scene, or passionate speech, taken separately or in
combination, could account for the impression made by the actress.
The audience was fascinated by the detail of the portrait, as
charming in youth as it was beautiful in age.
An accomplished judge of acting, well acquainted with the European
stage, after our retirement from management, said of my wife: "In my
humble opinion, the gem of her repertoire is _Sweethearts_, next to
that, _Masks and Faces_ and _Caste_." Ellen Terry has written that
her performance in _Sweethearts_ was unapproachable.
More perfect acting, I venture to say, has not been seen upon our
stage. The _ars celare {236} artem_ was at its highest and best;
there were tones and touches, hints and suggestions, which were
marvellous in the wealth of meaning they conveyed. Of her acting,
indeed, it might be said, as one of our old poets proclaimed of the
face of his mistress:
"'Tis like the milky way i' the sky,
A meeting of gentle lights without a name!"
I have seen all the finest acting available to me in the last seventy
years--since my boyhood--and still delight in the enjoyment of the
stage. I can summon noble phantoms from the past, and dwell gladly
upon the experiences of more recent days. After searching thought,
the most critical remembrance, I can recall no acting more perfect,
in my judgment, than my wife's performances in _Sweethearts_. The
creatures of the different acts were, from the first line to the
last, absolutely distinct, but equally complete; the one, a portrait
of impetuous girlhood, the other of calm maturity. There was not,
throughout, one movement of the body, one tone of the voice, one look
on the speaking face, to change or amend. There was nothing, it
seemed to me, that could in any way be bettered. There shone
throughout those gleams of genius which in all art are priceless.
{237}
[Sidenote: In peace and war]
The parts she played upon the stage were the sweet romance of life,
but she was ever ready to face its stern realities; and I was proud
of her record in the Great War. In spite of advanced years and
broken health, she lived through it, with brief absences only, and
without a murmur, on the shore of the sea, with all its alarms and
risks; but, then, I have always known her to be brave, even when her
life was in danger. She was unsparing in hospitality--I recall an
occasion when she had the pleasant company of General Sir Arthur
Sloggett and Edward Knoblock, who were hung up with their men for the
night at Folkestone--and untiring in organising and leading in
amusements, helped by her interest in those who were spared, and
those who were maimed and wounded, and by the remembrance of those
who rest in the grave-fields of Flanders and France, or lie deep down
under the sea.
By her own written request, the hour and place of her funeral were
kept secret, and were only known to immediate members of her family
and four friends who were chosen to represent the calling she had
loved and served. These four friends were Arthur Pinero, Johnston
Forbes-Robertson, Arthur Chudleigh and Gerald du Maurier.
The funeral was conducted by her friend and {238} mine, the Reverend
W. H. Elliott, the Vicar of Holy Trinity, Folkestone, who delivered
the Address at the Memorial Service which, immediately afterwards,
was held at the Church of St. Martin-in-the-Fields by Canon Edgar
Sheppard.
[Sidenote: The spirit of the artist]
This was the address to which Forbes-Robertson refers in his tribute;
and I ask the reader, as a favour to myself, not to pass it by.
"We have come together to remember before God one who, having played
her part bravely and earnestly in this scene that men call life, is
now hidden from us by the curtain that men call death. We do so in
the sure and certain hope that what we know of life here is only the
First Act in a great eternal drama, of the which the end is not yet.
So often we feel, as one by one our friends depart in this mystery of
death, that the curtain has fallen upon a tale that is only half
told, its problems unsolved, its meaning undisclosed, its virtues
unrewarded. But the play is not done. We wait as Christians for the
hour when, at the sounding of celestial trumpets, this great curtain
shall uproll once again and reveal to our amazed eyes that last
tremendous scene, in which all things shall be made new. Such is
death. It is a pause--that is all--and one that does but make more
wonderful the music of an endless life.
"I shall not do more than remind you of {239} those many gifts which
Lady Bancroft possessed, which the years in their passing seemed to
leave almost untouched, which she offered so freely for the public
good. After all, the work and significance of any life depend not so
much upon its natural endowment as upon the spirit in which that
endowment is accepted and used. It is the spirit of the artist that
matters, and it is of this in the lifetime of Lady Bancroft that you
are thinking, I know, at this hour. Without that eager generous
spirit her influence could never have been what it was. I have heard
her say more than once that in her youth she was not a very apt pupil
in the use of the voice, and indeed that she made very little effort
in regard to it, until one day her mother bade her think of the poor
man who, tired out with his day's work, spent a hard-earned sixpence
to see the play, and then went away disappointed, because he could
not hear. From that moment everything for her was changed. And the
thought of that man at the back of the gallery--what she could do for
him, to make him forget his cares and have his part in the sunshine
and merriment of life, to take away the frown and to win the
smile--was for her, I believe, the true motive and the abiding
inspiration of her art. Such a task, one cannot but think, is very
much according to the mind of Him who gives the wayside flower a robe
that Solomon might envy, that we may see it and be glad. And there
are few {240} things, I imagine, that bring so much comfort at the
last, when the time has come to retreat from the active work of the
world, and to reflect quietly in the gathering dusk upon what has
been and what is yet to be, as the thought that one has done
something to make others happy, that now and again one has managed to
light a lamp or to kindle a fire in a cold and darksome room, that
one has done what one could in one's own way to share the burdens of
humanity and to minister to its need.
"I need scarcely say that one of the secrets of such a work as this
is a heart which, in spite of all that time and circumstance can do,
keeps young. The first test of all art is sincerity. It is
impossible, I should suppose, to be in any true sense an interpreter
of emotions that one has ceased to feel. To represent in any way the
vivacity, the buoyancy, the gaiety that belong to youth, its
irrepressible humour, its unquenchable hope, is a task that the years
make difficult enough for us all. To attempt it successfully is only
for those who in themselves have never yet grown old. Lady Bancroft
was a lover of young life. She was beloved by all young people who
knew her. And one felt in talking to her that, as her voice had kept
its magic, so her nature had preserved within a tired body something
of its youth.
[Sidenote: The secret of success]