“WELL, gentlemen, you want to talk to me,” he says, lighting a cigar,
and offering his case to his nearest neighbors.
The reporters look at him and smile. They have had a brief consultation
as to which of them shall open the business, but without coming to
any definite arrangement. Irving, scanning the kindly faces, is no
doubt smiling inwardly at the picture which his London friend had
drawn of the interviewers. He is the least embarrassed of the company.
Nobody seems inclined to talk; yet every movement of Irving invites
interrogatory attack.
“A little champagne, gentlemen,” suggests Mr. Florence, pushing his way
before the ship’s steward and waiters.
“And chicken,” says Irving, smiling; “that is how we do it in London,
they say.”
This point is lost, however, upon the reporters, a few of whom sip
their champagne, but not with anything like fervor. They have been
waiting many hours to interview Irving, and they want to do it. I fancy
they are afraid of each other.
“Now, gentlemen,” says Irving, “time flies, and I have a dread of you.
I have looked forward to this meeting, not without pleasure, but with
much apprehension. Don’t ask me how I like America at present. I
shall, I am sure; and I think the bay superb. There, I place myself at
your mercy. Don’t spare me.”
Everybody laughs. Barrett and Florence look on curiously. Bram Stoker,
Mr. Irving’s acting manager, cannot disguise his anxiety. Loveday, his
stage-manager and old friend, is amused. He has heard many curious
things about America from his brother George, who accompanied the
famous English comedian, Mr. J. L. Toole (one of Irving’s oldest, and
perhaps his most intimate, friend), on his American tour. Neither
Loveday nor Stoker has ever crossed the Atlantic before. They have
talked of it, and pictured themselves steaming up the North river into
New York many a time; but they find their forecast utterly unlike the
original.
“What about his mannerisms?” says one reporter to another. “I notice
nothing strange, nothing _outre_ either in his speech or walk.”
“He seems perfectly natural to me,” the other replies; and it is this
first “revelation” that has evidently tongue-tied the “reportorial”
company. They have read so much about the so-called eccentricities
of the English visitor’s personality that they cannot overcome their
surprise at finding themselves addressed by a gentleman whose grace
of manner reminds them rather of the polished ease of Lord Coleridge
than of the _bizarre_ figure with which caricature, pictorially and
otherwise, has familiarized them.
“We are all very glad to see you, sir, and to welcome you to New York,”
says one of the interviewers, presently.
“Thank you with all my heart,” says Irving.
“And we would like to ask you a few questions, and to have you talk
about your plans in this country. You open in ‘The Bells,’—that was
one of your first great successes?”
“Yes.”
“You will produce your plays here just in the same way as in London?”
chimes in a second interviewer.
“With the same effects, and, as far as possible, with the same cast?”
“Yes.”
“And what are your particular effects, for instance, in ‘The Bells’ and
‘Louis XI.,’ say, as regard mounting and lighting?”
“Well, gentlemen,” answers Irving, laying aside his cigar and folding
his arms, “I will explain. In the first place, in visiting America, I
determined I would endeavor to do justice to myself, to the theatre,
and to you. I was told I might come alone as a star, or I might come
with a few members of my company, and that I would be sure to make
money. That did not represent any part of my desire in visiting
America. The pleasure of seeing the New World, the ambition to win its
favor and its friendship, and to show it some of the work we do at
the Lyceum,—these are my reasons for being here. I have, therefore,
brought my company and my scenery. Miss Ellen Terry, one of the most
perfect and charming actresses that ever graced the English stage,
consented to share our fortunes in this great enterprise; so I bring
you almost literally the Lyceum Theatre.”
“How many artists, sir?”
“Oh, counting the entire company and staff, somewhere between sixty
and seventy, I suppose. Fifty of them have already arrived here in the
‘City of Rome.’”
“In what order do you produce your pieces here?”
“‘The Bells,’ ‘Charles,’ ‘The Lyons Mail,’ ‘The Merchant of Venice,’ we
do first.”
“Have you any particular reason for the sequence of them?”
“My idea is to produce my Lyceum successes in their order, as they were
done in London; I thought it would be interesting to show the series
one after the other in that way.”
“When do you play ‘Hamlet?’”
“On my return to New York in the spring.”
“Any special reason for that?”
“A managerial one. We propose to keep one or two novelties for our
second visit. Probably we shall reserve ‘Much Ado’ as well as ‘Hamlet.’
Moreover, a month is too short a time for us to get through our
repertoire.”
“In which part do you think you most excel?”
“Which do you like most of all your range of characters?”
“What is your opinion of Mr. Booth as an actor?”
These questions come from different parts of the crowd. It reminds me
of the scene between an English parliamentary candidate and a caucus
constituency, with the exception that the American questioners are
quite friendly and respectful, their chief desire evidently being to
give Mr. Irving texts upon which he can speak with interest to their
readers.
“Mr. Booth and I are warm friends. It is not necessary to tell you that
he is a great actor. I acted with him many subordinate parts when he
first came to England, about twenty years ago.”
“What do you think is his finest impersonation?”
“I would say ‘Lear,’ though I believe the American verdict would be
‘Richelieu.’ Singularly enough ‘Richelieu’ is not a popular play in
England. Mr. Booth’s mad scene in ‘Lear,’ I am told, is superb. I
did not see it; but I can speak of Othello and Iago: both are fine
performances.”
“You played in ‘Othello’ with Mr. Booth in London you say?”
“I produced ‘Othello’ especially for Mr. Booth, and played Iago for the
first time on that occasion. We afterwards alternated the parts.”
“Shakespeare is popular in England,—more so now than for some years
past, I believe?”
“Yes.”
“What has been the motive-power in this revival?”
“England has to-day many Shakespearian societies, and our countrymen
read the poet much more than they did five and twenty years ago. As a
rule our fathers obtained their knowledge of him from the theatre, and
were often, of course, greatly misled as to the meaning and intention
of the poet, under the manipulation of Colley Cibber and others.”
“Which of Shakespeare’s plays is most popular in England?”
“‘Hamlet.’ And, singularly, the next one is not ‘Julius Cæsar,’ which
is the most popular after ‘Hamlet,’ I believe, in your country.
‘Othello’ might possibly rank second with us, if it were not difficult
to get two equally good actors for the two leading parts. Salvini’s
Othello, for instance, suffered because the Iago was weak.”
“You don’t play ‘Julius Cæsar,’ then, in England?”
“No. There is a difficulty in filling worthily the three leading parts.”
By this time Mr. Irving is on the most comfortable and familiar terms
with the gentlemen of the press. He has laid aside his cigar, and
smiles often with a curious and amused expression of face.
“You must find this kind of work, this interviewing, very difficult,”
he says, presently, in a tone of friendly banter.
“Sometimes,” answers one of them; and they all laugh, entering into
the spirit of the obvious fun of a victim who is not suffering half as
much as he expected to do, and who indeed, is, on the whole, very well
satisfied with himself.
“Don’t you think we might go on deck now and see the harbor?” he asks.
“Oh, yes,” they all say; and in a few minutes the “Yosemite’s” pretty
saloon is vacated.
Mr. Irving and his friends go forward; Miss Terry is aft, in charge
of Mr. Barrett. She is looking intently down the river at the far-off
“Britannic,” which is now beginning to move forward in our wake, the
“Yosemite” leaving behind her a long, white track of foam.
The interviewers are again busily engaged with Mr. Irving. He is once
more the centre of an interested group of men. Not one of them takes
a note. They seem to be putting all he says down in their minds. They
are accustomed to tax their memories. One catches, in the expression of
their faces, evidence of something like an inter-vision. They seem to
be ticking off, in their minds, the points as the speaker makes them;
for Irving now appears to be talking as much for his own amusement as
for the public instruction. He finds that he has a quick, intelligent,
and attentive audience, and the absence of note-books and anything like
a show of machinery for recording his words puts him thoroughly at his
ease. Then he likes to talk “shop”; as who does not? And what is more
delightful to hear than experts on their own work?
“Do your American audiences applaud much?” he asks.
“Yes,” they said; “oh, yes.”
“Because, you know, your Edwin Forrest once stopped in the middle of
a scene and addressed his audience on the subject of their silence.
‘You must applaud,’ he said, ‘or I cannot act.’ I quite sympathize with
that feeling. An actor needs applause. It is his life and soul when he
is on the stage. The enthusiasm of the audience reacts upon him. He
gives them back heat for heat. If they are cordial he is encouraged; if
they are excited so is he; as they respond to his efforts he tightens
his grip upon their imagination and emotions. You have no pit in your
American theatres, as we have; that is, your stalls, or parquet, cover
the entire floor. It is to the quick feelings and heartiness of the
pit and gallery that an actor looks for encouragement during his great
scenes in England. Our stalls are appreciative, but not demonstrative.
Our pit and gallery are both.”
Irving, when particularly moved, likes to tramp about. Whenever the
situation allows it he does so upon the stage. Probably recalling the
way in which pit and gallery rose at him—and stalls and dress-circle,
too, for that matter—on his farewell night at the Lyceum, he paces
about the deck, all the interviewers making rapid mental note of
his gait, and watching for some startling peculiarity that does not
manifest itself.
“He has not got it; why, the man is as natural and as straight and
capable as a man can be,” says one to another.
“And a real good fellow,” is the response. “Ask him about Vanderbilt
and the mirror.”
“O Mr. Irving!—just one more question.”
“As many as you like, my friend,” is the ready reply.
“Is it true that you are to be the guest of Mr. Vanderbilt?”
“And be surrounded with ingeniously constructed mirrors, where I can
see myself always, and all at once? I have heard strange stories about
Mr. Vanderbilt having had a wonderful mirror of this kind constructed
for my use, so that I may pose before it in all my loveliest attitudes.
Something of the kind has been said, eh?” he asks, laughing.
“Oh, yes, that is so,” is the mirthful response.
“Then you may contradict it, if you will. You may say that I am here
for work; that I shall have no time to be any one’s guest, though I
hope the day may come when I shall have leisure to visit my friends.
You may add, if you will” (here he lowered his voice with a little air
of mystery), “that I always carry a mirror of my own about with me
wherever I go, because I love to pose and contemplate my lovely figure
whenever the opportunity offers.”
“That will do, I guess,” says a gentleman of the interviewing staff;
“thank you, Mr. Irving, for your courtesy and information.”
“I am obliged to you very much,” he says, and then, having his
attention directed to the first view of New York, expresses his wonder
and delight at the scene, as well he may.
Ahead the towers and spires of New York stand out in a picturesque
outline against the sky. On either hand the water-line is fringed with
the spars of ships and steamers. On the left stretches far away the
low-lying shore of New Jersey; on the right, Brooklyn can be seen,
rising upwards, a broken line of roofs and steeples. Further away,
joining “the city of churches” to Manhattan, hangs in mid-air that
marvel of science, the triple carriage, foot, and rail road known
as the Brooklyn bridge. Around the “Yosemite,” as she ploughs along
towards her quay, throng many busy steamers, outstripping, in the race
for port, fleets of sailing vessels that are beating up the broad
reaches of the river before the autumn wind.