and down the earth ever since, and seldom continuing in one place,
Jefferson has had uncommon opportunities of noting the development of
the United States and of observing, in both hemispheres, the changeful
aspect of one of the most eventful periods in the history of the world.
Actors, as a class, know nothing but the stage and see nothing but the
pursuit in which they are occupied. Whoever has lived much among them
knows that fact, from personal observation. Whoever has read the various
and numerous memoirs that have from time to time been published by
elderly members of that profession must have been amused to perceive
that, while they conventionally agree that "all the world's a stage,"
they are enthusiastically convinced that the stage is all the world.
Jefferson's book, although it contains much about the theatre, shows him
to be an exception in this respect, even as he is in many others. He has
seen many countries and many kinds of men and things, and he has long
looked upon life with the thoughtful gaze of a philosopher as well as
the wise smile of a humourist. He can, if he likes, talk of something
besides the shop. His account of his life "lacks form a little," and his
indifference to "accurate statistics"--which he declares to be "somewhat
tedious"--is now and then felt to be an embarrassment. One would like to
know, for instance, while reading about the primitive theatrical times,
when actors sailed the western rivers in flatboats, and shot beasts and
birds on the bank, precisely the extent and limits of that period. Nor
is this the only queer aspect of the dramatic past that might be
illumined. The total environment of a man's life is almost equally
important with the life itself--being, indeed, the scenery amid which
the action passes--and a good method for the writing of a biography is
that which sharply defines the successive periods of childhood, youth,
manhood, and age, and, while depicting the development of the individual
from point to point, depicts also the entire field through which he
moves, and the mutations, affecting his life, that occur in the historic
and social fabric around him. Jefferson, while he has painted vigorously
and often happily, on a large canvas, has left many spaces empty and
others but thinly filled. The reader who accompanies him may,
nevertheless, with a little care, piece out the story so as to perceive
it as a sequent, distinct, harmonious, and rounded narrative. Meanwhile
the companionship of this heedless historian is delightful--for whether
as actor, painter, or writer, Jefferson steadily exerts the charm of a
genial personality. You are as one walking along a country road, on a
golden autumn day, with a kind, merry companion, who knows all about
the trees that fringe your track and the birds that flit through their
branches, and who beguiles the way with many a humorous tale and many a
pleasant remembrance, now impressing your mind by the sagacity of his
reflections, now touching your heart by some sudden trait of sentiment
or pathos, and always pleasing and satisfying you with the consciousness
of a sweet, human, broad, charitable, piquant nature. Although an
autobiographer Jefferson is not egotistical, and although a moralist he
is not a bore. There is a tinge of the Horatian mood in him--for his
reader often becomes aware of that composed, sagacious, half-droll,
quizzical mind that indicates, with grave gentleness, the folly of
ambition, the vanity of riches, the value of the present hour, the
idleness of borrowing trouble, the blessing of the golden medium in
fortune, the absurdity of flatterers, and the comfort of keeping a
steadfast spirit amid the inevitable vicissitudes of this mortal state.
Jefferson has memories of a boyhood that was passed in Washington,
Baltimore, and New York. He went to Chicago in 1838, when that place was
scarcely more than a village--making the journey from New York to
Buffalo in a canal-boat, and sailing thence, aboard a steamer, through
the lakes of Erie, Huron, and Michigan. He travelled with his parents,
and they gave dramatic performances, in which he assisted, in western
towns. It was a time of poverty and hardship, but those ills were borne
cheerfully--the brighter side of a hard life being kept steadily in
view, and every comic incident of it being seen and appreciated. His
father was a gentleman of the Mark Tapley temperament, who came out
strong amid adverse circumstances, and the early disappearance from the
book of that delightful person (who died in 1842, of yellow fever, at
Mobile), is a positive sorrow. His mother, a refined and gentle lady, of
steadfast character and of uncommon musical and dramatic talents and
accomplishments, survived till 1849, and her ashes rest in Ronaldson's
cemetery, in Philadelphia. Jefferson might have said much more about his
parents, and especially about his famous grandfather, without risk of
becoming tedious--for they were remarkably interesting people; but he
was writing his own life and not theirs, and he has explained that he
likes not to dwell much upon domestic matters. The story of his long
ancestry of actors, which reaches back to the days of Garrick (for there
have been five generations of the Jeffersons upon the stage), he has not
mentioned; and the story of his own young days is hurried rapidly to a
conclusion. He was brought on the stage, when a child, at the theatre in
Washington, D.C., by the negro comedian Thomas D. Rice, who emptied him
out of a bag; and thereupon, being dressed as "a nigger dancer," in
imitation of Rice, he performed the antics of Jim Crow. He adverts to
his first appearance in New York and remembers his stage combat with
Master Titus; and he thinks that Master Titus must remember it
also,--since one of that boy's big toes was nearly cut off in the fray.
That combat occurred at the Franklin theatre, September 30, 1837--a
useful fact that the autobiographer cares not to mention. He speedily
becomes a young man, as the reader follows him through the first three
chapters of his narrative,--of which there are seventeen,--and he is
found to be acting, as a stock player, in support of James W. Wallack,
Junius Brutus Booth, W.C. Macready, and Mr. and Mrs. J.W. Wallack, Jr.
Upon the powers and peculiarities of those actors, and upon the traits
of many others who, like them, are dead and gone (for there is scarcely
a word in the book about any of his living contemporaries), he comments
freely and instructively. He was "barn-storming" in Texas when the
Mexican war began, and he followed in the track of the American army,
and acted in the old Spanish theatre in Matamoras, in the spring of
1846; and, subsequently, finding that this did no good, he opened a
stall there for the sale of coffee and other refreshments, in the corner
of a gambling hell. He calls to mind the way of domestic life and the
every-day aspect of houses, gardens, people, and manners in Matamoras,
and those he describes with especial skill--deftly introducing the
portraiture of a dusky, black-eyed, volatile Mexican girl, to whom he
lost, temporarily, the light heart of youth, and whom he thinks that he
might have married had he not deemed it prudent to journey northward
toward a cooler clime. In New Orleans, at about that time, he first saw
the then young comedian John E. Owens: and he records the fact that his
ambition to excel as an actor was awakened by the spectacle of that
rival's success. Owens has had his career since then,--and a brilliant
one it was,--and now he sleeps in peace.
After that experience Jefferson repaired to Philadelphia, and during the
next ten years, from 1846 to 1856, he wrought in that city and in New
York, Baltimore, Richmond, and other places, sometimes as a stock actor,
sometimes as a star, and sometimes as a manager. He encountered various
difficulties. He took a few serious steps and many comic ones. He was
brought into contact with some individuals that were eminent and with
some that were ludicrous. He crossed the Allegheny mountains in
mid-winter, from Wheeling to Cumberland, in a cold stage-coach, and
almost perished. He was a member of Burton's company at the Arch Street
theatre, Philadelphia, and was one of the chorus in that great actor's
revival of _Antigone_--which there is little doubt that the chorus
extinguished. He was the low comedian in Joseph Foster's amphitheatre,
where he sang _Captain Kidd_ to fill up the "carpenter scenes," and
where he sported amid the turbulent rhetorical billows of _Timour the
Tartar_ and _The Terror of the Road_. He acted in New York at the
Franklin theatre and also at the Chatham. He managed theatres in Macon
and Savannah, where he brought out the blithe Sir William Don; and one
of the sprightliest episodes of his memoir is the chapter in which he
describes that tall, elegant, nonchalant adventurer. Don was a
Scotchman, born in 1826, who made his first appearance in America in
November 1850 at the Broadway theatre, New York, and afterward drifted
aimlessly through the provincial theatres. Don was married in 1857 to
Miss Emily Sanders, and he died at Tasmania, March 19, 1862, and was
buried at Hobartstown. Jefferson saw the dawn of promise in the career
of Julia Dean,--when that beautiful girl was acting with him, in the
stock--and afterwards he saw the noonday splendour of her prosperity;
and he might have recalled, but that sad touches are excluded from his
biography, her mournful decline. In 1853 he was stage manager of the
Baltimore museum, for Henry C. Jarrett, and in 1854 he was manager of
the Richmond theatre, for John T. Ford. Among the players whom he met,
and who deeply influenced him, were James E. Murdoch, Henry Placide,
Edwin Forrest, Edwin Adams, and Agnes Robertson. But the actor who most
affected the youth of Joseph Jefferson, whose influence sank deepest
into his heart and has remained longest in his memory and upon his
style, was his half-brother, Charles Burke: and certainly, as a
serio-comic actor, it may be doubted whether Charles Burke ever was
surpassed. That comedian was born March 27, 1822, in Philadelphia, and
he died in New York, November 10, 1854. Jefferson's mother, Cornelia
Frances Thomás, born in New York, October 1, 1796, the daughter of
French parents, was married in her girlhood to the Irish comedian Thomas
Burke, who died in 1824; and she contracted her second marriage, with
Jefferson's father, in 1826. Jefferson writes at his best in the
description of scenery, in the analysis of character, and in the
statement of artistic principles. His portraiture of Murdoch, as a
comedian, is particularly clear and fine. His account of Julia Dean's
hit, as Lady Priory, is excellent and will often be cited. His portrayal
of the reciprocal action of Burton and Charles Burke, when they were
associated in the same piece, conveys a valuable lesson. His anecdotes
of Edwin Forrest present that grim figure as yet again the involuntary
cause of mirth. It often was so. Jefferson, however, draws a veil of
gentle charity over those misused powers, that perverse will, that
wasted life. The most striking dramatic portraiture in the book is that
bestowed on Charles Burke, William Warren, George Holland, Tom Glessing,
and Edwin Adams. Those were men who lived in Jefferson's affections, and
when he wrote about them he wrote from the heart. The sketch of
Glessing, whom everybody loved that ever knew him, is in a touching
strain of tender remembrance.
Jefferson visited England and France in 1856, but not to act. At that
time he saw the famous English comedians Compton, Buckstone, Robson, and
Wright, and that extraordinary actor, fine alike in tragedy and comedy,
the versatile Samuel Phelps. In 1857 he was associated with Laura Keene
at her theatre in New York; and from that date onward his career has
been upon a high and sunlit path, visible to the world. His first part
at Laura Keene's theatre was Dr. Pangloss. Then came _Our American
Cousin_, in which he gained a memorable success as Asa Trenchard, and in
which Edward A. Sothern laid the basis of that fantastic structure of
whim and grotesque humour that afterward became famous as Lord
Dundreary. Sothern, Laura Keene, and William Rufus Blake, of course,
gained much of Jefferson's attention at that time, and he has not
omitted to describe them. His account of Blake, however, does not impart
an adequate idea of the excellence of that comedian. In 1858 he went to
the Winter Garden theatre, and was associated with the late Dion
Boucicault. His characters then were Newman Hoggs, Caleb Plummer, and
Salem Scudder--in _Nicholas Nickleby_, _The Cricket on the Hearth_, and
_The Octoroon_. Mr. Boucicault told him not to make Caleb Plummer a
solemn character at the beginning--a deliverance that Jefferson seems to
have cherished as one of colossal wisdom. He made a brilliant hit in
Salem Scudder, and it was then that he determined finally to assume the
position of a star. "Art has always been my sweetheart," exclaims
Jefferson, "and I have loved her for herself alone." No observer can
doubt that who has followed his career. It was in 1859 that he reverted
to the subject of Rip Van Winkle, as the right theme for his dramatic
purpose. He had seen Charles Burke as Rip, and he knew the several
versions of Washington Irving's story that had been made for the theatre
by Burke, Hackett, and Yates. The first Rip Van Winkle upon the stage,
of whom there is any record in theatrical annals, was Thomas Flynn
(1804-1849). That comedian, the friend of the elder Booth, acted the
part for the first time on May 24, 1828, at Albany. Charles B. Parsons,
who afterward acted in many theatres as Rip, and ultimately became a
preacher, was, on that night, the performer of Derrick. Jefferson's
predecessors as Rip Van Winkle were remarkably clever men--Flynn,
Parsons, Burke, Chapman, Hackett, Yates, and William Isherwood. But it
remained for Jefferson to do with that character what no one else had
ever thought of doing--to lift it above the level of the tipsy rustic
and make it the poetical type of the drifting and dreaming
vagrant--half-haunted, half-inspired, a child of the trees and the
clouds. Jefferson records that he was lying on the hay in a barn in
Paradise Valley, Pennsylvania, in the summer of 1859, taking advantage
of a rainy day to read Washington Irving's _Life and Letters_, when that
plan came to him. It proved an inspiration of happiness to thousands of
people all over the world. The comedian made a play for himself, on the
basis of Charles Burke's play, but with one vital improvement--he
arranged the text and business of the supernatural scene so that Rip
only should speak, while the ghosts should remain silent. That stroke of
genius accomplished his object. The man capable of that exploit in
dramatic art could not fail to win the world, because he would at once
fascinate its imagination while touching its heart.
In 1861 Jefferson went to California and thence to Australia, and in the
latter country he remained four years. He has written a fine description
of the entrance to the harbour at Sydney. His accounts of "the skeleton
dance," as he saw it performed by the black natives of that land; of his
meeting with the haunted hermit in the woods; of the convict audience at
Tasmania, for whom he acted in _The Ticket-of-Leave Man_; and of the
entertainment furnished in a Chinese theatre, are compositions that
would impart to any book the interest of adventure and the zest of
novelty. Such pictures as those have a broad background; they are not
circumscribed within the proscenium frame. The man is seen in those
passages as well as the actor; and he plays his part well, amid
picturesque surroundings of evil and peril, of tragedy and of pathos. In
Australia Jefferson met Charles Kean and his wife (Ellen Tree), of whom
his sketches are boldly drawn and his memories are pleasant. Mr. and
Mrs. Kean afterward made their farewell visit to the United States,
beginning, when they reached New York (from San Francisco, in April
1865), with _Henry VIII._, and closing with _The Jealous Wife_. In 1865
Jefferson went from Australia to South America and passed some time in
Lima, where he saw much tropical luxury and many beautiful ladies--an
inspiriting spectacle, fittingly described by him in some of the most
felicitous of his fervent words. In June 1865 he reached London, and
presently he came forth, at the Adelphi, as Rip Van Winkle,--having
caused the piece to be rewritten by Mr. Boucicault, who introduced the
colloquy of the children, paraphrased for it the recognition scene
between King Lear and Cordelia, and kept Gretchen alive to be married to
Derrick. Mr. Boucicault, however, had no faith in the piece or the
actor's plan, and down to the last moment prophesied failure.
Jefferson's success was unequivocal. Friends surrounded him and in the
gentle and genial record that he has made of those auspicious days some
of the brightest names of modern English literature sparkle on his page.
Benjamin Webster, Paul Bedford, John Billington, John Brougham, and
Marie Wilton were among the actors who were glad to be his associates.
Robertson, the dramatist, was his constant companion--one of the most
intellectual and one of the wittiest of men. Planché, aged yet hearty
and genial (and no man had more in his nature of the sweet spirit of the
comrade), speedily sought him. Charles Reade and Anthony Trollope became
his cronies; and poor Artemas Ward arrived and joined the party just as
Jefferson was leaving it--as bright a spirit, as kind a heart, and as
fine and quaint a humourist as ever cheered this age--from which he
vanished too soon for the happiness of his friends and for the fruition
of his fame. "I was much impressed," says the comedian, "with Ward's
genial manner; he was not in good health, and I advised him to be
careful lest the kindness of London should kill him." That advice was
not heeded, and the kindness of London speedily ended Ward's days.
Jefferson came home in 1866 and passed ten years in America--years of
fame and fortune, whereof the record is smooth prosperity. Its most
important personal incident was his second marriage, on December 20,
1867, at Chicago, to Miss Sarah Warren. In July 1873 he made a voyage to
Europe, with his wife and William Warren, the comedian, and remained
there till autumn. From November 1, 1875 to April 29, 1876 and from
Easter 1877 until midsummer he was again acting in London, where he
redoubled his former success. In October 1877 he returned home, and
since then he has remained in America. The chronicle that he has written
glides lightly over these latter years, only now and then touching on
their golden summits. The manifest wish of the writer has been to people
his pages as much as possible with the men and women of his artistic
circle and knowledge who would be likely to interest the reader. Robert
Browning, Charles Kingsley, and George Augustus Sala come into the
picture, and there is a pleasing story of Browning and Longfellow
walking arm in arm in London streets till driven into a cab by a summer
shower, when Longfellow insisted on passing his umbrella through the
hole in the roof, for the protection of the cab-driver. Jefferson lived
for one summer in an old mansion at Morningside, Edinburgh, and he
dwells with natural delight on his recollections of that majestic city.
He had many a talk, at odd times, with the glittering farceur Charles
Mathews, about dramatic art, and some of this is recorded in piquant
anecdotes. "By many," says the amiable annalist, "he was thought to be
cold and selfish; I do not think he was so." There is a kind word for
Charles Fechter, whose imitations of Frederick Lemaitre, in _Belphegor,
the Mountebank_, live in Jefferson's remembrance as wonderfully graphic.
There are glimpses of James Wallack, Walter Montgomery, Peter Richings,
E.A. Sothern, Laura Keene, James G. Burnett, John Gilbert, Tyrone Power,
Lester Wallack, John McCullough, John T. Raymond, Mr. and Mrs. Barney
Williams, John Drew (the elder), F.S. Chanfrau, Charlotte Cushman, Mrs.
Drake, and many others; and the record incorporates two letters, not
before published, from John Howard Payne, the author of _Home, Sweet
Home_--a melody that is the natural accompaniment of Jefferson's life.
There is a pretty picture of that ancient supper-room at No. 2 Bulfinch
Place, Boston--Miss Fisher's kitchen--as it appeared when William Warren
sat behind the mound of lobsters, at the head of the table, while the
polished pewters reflected the cheerful light, and wit and raillery
enlivened the happy throng, and many a face was wreathed with smiles
that now is dark and still forever. In one chapter Jefferson sets forth
his views upon the art of acting; and seldom within so brief a compass
will so many sensible reflections be found so simply and tersely
expressed. The book closes with words of gratitude for many blessings,
and with an emblematic picture of a spirit resigned to whatever
vicissitudes of fortune may yet be decreed.
Jefferson's memoir is a simple message to simple minds. It will find its
way to thousands of readers to whom a paper by Addison or an essay by
Hume would have no meaning. It will point for them the moral of a good
life. It will impress them with the spectacle of a noble actor,
profoundly and passionately true to the high art by which he lives,
bearing eloquent testimony to its beauty and its worth, and to the fine
powers and sterling virtues of the good men and women with whom he has
been associated in its pursuit. It will display to them--and to all
others who may chance to read it--a type of that absolute humility of
spirit which yet is perfectly compatible with a just pride of intellect.
It will help to preserve interesting traits of famous actors of an
earlier time, together with bright stories that illumine the dry
chronicle of our theatrical history. And, in its simple record of the
motives by which he has been impelled, and the artistic purposes that he
has sought to accomplish, it will remain an eloquent, vital,
indestructible memorial to the art and the character of a great
comedian, when the present reality of his exquisite acting shall have
changed to a dim tradition and a fading memory of the past.
VIII.
ON JEFFERSON'S ACTING.
Fifty years from now the historian of the American stage, if he should
be asked to name the actor of this period who was most beloved by the
people of this generation, will answer that it was Joseph Jefferson.
Other actors of our time are famous, and they possess in various degrees
the affection of the public. Jefferson is not only renowned but
universally beloved. To state the cause of this effect is at once to
explain his acting and to do it the honour to which it is entitled. That
cause can be stated in a single sentence. Jefferson is at once a poetic
and a human actor, and he is thus able to charm all minds and to win all
hearts. His success, therefore, is especially important not to himself
alone but to the people.
Public taste is twofold. It has a surface liking, and it has a deep,
instinctive, natural preference. The former is alert, capricious,
incessant, and continually passes from fancy to fancy. It scarcely knows
what it wants, except that it wants excitement and change. Those persons
in the dramatic world who make a point to address it are experimental
speculators, whose one and only object is personal gain, and who are
willing and ready to furnish any sort of entertainment that they think
will please a passing caprice, and thereby will turn a penny for
themselves. To judge the public entirely by this surface liking is to
find the public what Tennyson once called it--a many-headed beast. With
that animal every paltry and noxious thing can be made, for a time, to
flourish; and that fact leads observers who do not carefully look
beneath the surface to conclude that the public is always wrong. But the
deep preference of the public comes into the question, and observers who
are able to see and to consider that fact presently perceive that the
artist, whether actor or otherwise, who gives to the public, not what it
says it wants but what it ought to have, is in the long run the victor.
The deep preference is for the good thing, the real thing, the right. It
is not intelligent. It does not go with thinking and reasoning. It does
not pretend to have grounds of belief. It simply responds. But upon the
stage the actor who is able to reach it is omnipotent. Jefferson
conspicuously is an actor who appeals to the deep, instinctive, natural
preference of humanity, and who reaches it, arouses it, and satisfies
it. Throughout the whole of his mature career he has addressed the
nobler soul of humanity and given to the people what they ought to have;
and the actor who is really able to do that naturally conquers
everything. It is not a matter of artifice and simulation; it is a
matter of being genuine and not a sham.