GENIUS is rarely without a sense of humor. Mr. Irving has a broad
appreciation of fun, though his own humor is subtle and deep down.
This is never better shown than in his Richard and Louis. It now and
then appears in his conversations; and when he has an anecdote to
tell he seems to develop the finer and more delicate motives of the
action of the narrative, as if he were dramatizing it as he went along.
We dropped our main subject of audiences presently to talk of other
things. He related to me a couple of stories of a “dresser” who was his
servant in days gone by. The poor man is dead now, and these incidents
of his life will not hurt his memory.
“One night,” said Irving, “when I had been playing a new part, the
old man said, while dressing me, ‘This is your masterpiece, sir!’ How
do you think he had arrived at this opinion? He had seen nothing of
the piece, but he noticed that I perspired more than usual. The poor
fellow was given over to drink at last; so I told him we must part if
he did not mend his ways. ‘I wonder,’ I said to him, ‘that, for the
sake of your wife and children, you do not reform; besides, you look
so ridiculous.’ Indeed, I never saw a sillier man when he was tipsy;
and his very name would set children laughing,—it was Doody. Well, in
response to my appeal, with maudlin vanity and with tears in his eyes,
he answered, ‘They make so much of me!’ It reminded me of Dean Ramsay’s
story of his drunken parishioner. The parson, you remember, admonished
the whiskey-drinking Scot, concluding his lecture by offering his own
conduct as an example. ‘I can go into the village and come home again
without getting drunk.’ ‘Ah, minister, but I’m sae popular!’ was the
fuddling parishioner’s apologetic reply.”
A notable person in appearance, I said just now. Let me sketch the
famous actor as we leave his rooms together. A tall, spare figure in a
dark overcoat and grayish trousers, black neckerchief carelessly tied,
a tall hat, rather broad at the brim. His hair is black and bushy, with
a wave in it on the verge of a curl, and suggestions of gray at the
temples and over the ears. It is a pale, somewhat ascetic face, with
bushy eyebrows, dark dreamy eyes, a nose that indicates gentleness
rather than strength, a thin upper lip, a mouth opposed to all ideas
of sensuousness, but nervous and sensitive, a strong jaw and chin, and
a head inclined to droop a little, as is often the case with men of a
studious habit. There is great individuality in the whole figure, and
in the face a rare mobility which photography fails to catch in all the
efforts I have yet seen of English artists. Though the popular idea is
rather to associate tragedy with the face and manner of Irving, there
is nothing sunnier than his smile. It lights up all his countenance,
and reveals his soul in his eyes; but it is like the sunshine that
bursts for a moment from a cloud, and disappears to leave the landscape
again in shadows, flecked here and there with fleeting reminiscences of
the sun.
The management of the Lyceum Theatre has a moral and classic atmosphere
of its own. A change came over the house with the success of “The
Bells.” “Charles I.” consummated it. You enter the theatre with
feelings entirely different from those which take possession of you at
any other house. It is as if the management inspired you with a special
sense of its responsibility to Art, and your own obligations to support
its earnest endeavors. Mr. Irving has intensified all this by a careful
personal attention to every detail belonging to the conduct of his
theatre. He has stamped his own individuality upon it. His influence is
seen and felt on all hands. He has given the color of his ambition to
his officers and servants. His object is to perfect the art of dramatic
representation, and elevate the profession to which he belongs. There
is no commercial consideration at work when he is mounting a play,
though his experience is that neither expense nor pains are lost on the
public.