BEING in New York ahead of Mr. Irving’s arrival, I found much of the
curious fiction of which gossip had made him the hero, crystallized
into definite assertions, that were accepted as undisputed facts.
A day’s sail from the Empire city, in a pretty Eastern villa, I
discovered the London gossip-monger’s influence rampant. But if
a prominent critic in London could publicly credit Mr. Irving’s
success as an actor to his hospitable dispensation of “chicken and
champagne,” one need not be surprised that ordinary gossips should
draw as liberally on their imagination for illustrations of his social
popularity. A leading figure in the world of art, and a person of
distinction in Vanity Fair, it is not to be wondered at that Jealousy
and Mrs. Grundy, standing outside his orbit, should invent many
startling stories about him. I have not exaggerated the following
conversation, and I am glad to use it here, not only as illustrative
of the singular misrepresentations of Irving’s life and habits, but to
bind up in this volume a sketch of the actor and the man which has the
merit of being eminently true, and at the same time not inappropriate
to these pages.
“Lives in chambers!” exclaimed an American lady, during an
after-dinner conversation in a pleasant eastern home. “I thought he
owned a lovely palace.”
“Indeed; where, madam?” I asked, “in Utopia?”
“No, sir; on the banks of your Thames river. A little English friend of
mine told me so, and described the furnishing of it. I understand that
it is as splendid as Claude Melnotte’s by the Lake of Como.”
“And as real?”
“I don’t know what you mean; but, if what she says is true, it is
wickeder, any way. You do not say that it is all false about his
banquets to the aristocracy, his royal receptions? What about the
Prince of Wales, then, and Lord Beaconsfield and Mr. Gladstone and
the Poet Laureate visiting him? And his garden parties and the
illuminations at night, parterres of flowers mixed up with colored
lamps, his collections of rhododendrons and his military bands?”
“Were you ever at a Botanical _Fête_ in Regent’s Park?” I asked.
“I have never crossed the Atlantic.”
“Your little English friend evidently knows the Botanical well.”
“She is acquainted with everything and everybody in London. I wish
she were here now. Perhaps she knows a little more than some of Mr.
Irving’s friends care to admit.”
“Does she know Mr. Irving?”
“She knows his house.”
“By the Lake of Como?”
“No, sir; by the Thames.”
“One comes from home to hear news. Will you not tell us all about it,
then?”
“No, I will not. I think you are positively rude; but that is like you
English. There, I beg your pardon; you made me say it. But, seriously
now, is not Mr. Irving as rich as—”
“Claude Melnotte?”
“No; Cr[oe]sus, or Vanderbilt, or Mackay? And does he not live in that
palace, and have crowds of servants, and visit with the court and
the aristocracy? Why, I read in the papers myself, quite lately, of
an estate he had bought near, let me see,—is there such a place as
Hammersmith?”
“Yes.”
“Is that on the Thames?”
“Yes, more or less.”
“Well, then, is that true? More or less, I suppose. You are thinking
how inquisitive I am. But you started the subject.”
“Did I?”
“You said he lives in chambers.”
“I answered your own question.”
“Ah!” she said, laughing merrily, “now I know my little English friend
spoke the truth, because I remember she said there was a mystery about
Mr. Irving’s lovely house; that he only receives a certain princely and
lordly set there. How could she have described it if she had not seen
it? A baronial castle, a park, lovely gardens, great dogs lying about
on the lawns, wainscoted chambers, a library full of scarce books and
costly _bric-à-brac_, Oriental rugs, baths, stained-glass windows,
suits of armor, and a powerful bell in a turret to call the servants in
to meals.”
“Beautiful! But if there is a mystery about it, what of those gorgeous
receptions?”
“Oh, don’t ask me questions. It is I who am seeking for information.
There is no public person in the world just at this moment in whom I
take a deeper interest. If he were not coming to America I should have
been obliged to go to London, if only to see what you call a first
night at the Lyceum. We read all about these things. We are kept well
informed by our newspaper correspondents—”
“And your little English friend.”
“Yes, she writes to me quite often.”
“Well, now I will tell you the truth about that palace on the Thames,”
I said.
“Ah! he confesses,” exclaimed the bright little lady, whose friends
suspect her of writing more than one of the famous American novels.
An interested and interesting group of ladies and gentlemen brought
their chairs closer to the conversational centre of the company.
“A few years ago, Irving and a friend, strolling through the purlieus
of Brook Green (a decayed village that has been swallowed up by the
progress of West End, London), towards Hammersmith, saw a house to be
sold. It was low and dilapidated, but it had an old-fashioned garden,
and the lease was offered at a small sum. Irving knew the house, and he
had a mind to examine its half-ruined rooms. He did so, and concluded
his investigation by buying the lease. It cost him about half the
money you would pay for an ordinary house off Fifth avenue, in New
York; less than you would pay for a house in Remsen street, Brooklyn;
in Michigan avenue, Chicago; or in Commonwealth avenue, Boston. Since
then it has been one of his few sources of amusement to lay out its
garden, to restore the old house and make it habitable. It is a typical
English home, with low red roofs, ancient trees, oaken stairs, and a
garden with old-fashioned flowers and fruit in it; but it is the home
of a yeoman rather than a prince, the home of a Cincinnatus rather
than the palace of an Alcibiades. The staff of servants consists of
a gardener and his wife, and I have been present at several of the
owner’s receptions. The invitation was given in this wise: ‘I am going
to drive to the Grange, on Sunday afternoon,—will you bring your wife,
and have a cup of tea?’ And that described the feast; but Irving,
looking at his gilliflowers and tulips, watching the gambols of his
dogs, and discussing between whiles the relative cost of carpets and
India matting, illustrated the truth of the philosophy, that there is
real recreation and rest in a mere change of occupation. Those persons
who tell you that Irving’s tastes are not simple, his private life an
honor to him, and his success the result of earnestness of purpose,
clearness of aim, deep study and hard work, neither know him nor
understand how great a battle men fight in England, who cut their way
upwards from the ranks, to stand with the highest at head-quarters.”
Quite a round of applause greeted this plain story.
“Why, my dear sir,” exclaimed my original interlocutor, “I am right
glad to hear the truth. Well, well, and that is Mr. Irving’s real home,
is it? But I thought you said he lives in chambers.”
“One day he hopes to furnish and enjoy the simplicity and quiet of that
cottage in a garden, four miles from his theatre; but he still lives,
where he has lived for a dozen years or more, in very unpretentious
rooms in the heart of London.”
And now, courteous reader, come straightway into this little company of
the friendly and the curious, and I will show you where Henry Irving
lived until he set sail for America, and you shall hear him talk about
his art and his work; for my good friend, the editor of “Harper’s
Magazine,” commissioned me to describe the famous English actor at
home, and here is the result:—