“A JOURNALIST from Chicago is anxious to have your opinion of New
York, and some suggestions about your feelings in regard to your first
appearance in America,” I said; “and if you will talk to him I have
undertaken to collaborate with him in writing the interview, so that I
may revise and adopt it for our book of impressions.”
“Is he here?”
“Yes, he has come over a thousand miles for the purpose, and his chief
is an old friend of mine, the proprietor of ‘The Daily News.’”
“I am quite willing,” he said, “if you think my impressions are of
sufficient importance to record, after only a week of New York.”
“First impressions of a new country are always the most vivid.
I believe in first impressions, at all events, in your case. It
is another matter when one comes to treat them as a basis for
philosophical argument. Your friend, Mr. Matthew Arnold, was not
backward in discussing the American people, their cities, their
institutions, their manners and customs, before he had crossed the
Atlantic at all.”
“Well, let us talk to Chicago then, if you wish it.”
“So far, are you satisfied with your reception in this country?”
“More than satisfied; I am delighted, I might say amazed. It is not
only the press and the public who have shown me so much attention, but
I have received many courtesies privately,—some from American friends
whom I have met in London, some from gentlemen whom I have never seen.”
“What is your general impression of New York, its theatres, hotels,
streets, and its social life?”
“I think Wallack’s, or the Star, as it is called, one of the most
admirable theatres I have ever seen, so far as the auditorium is
concerned, and, in some respects, as to the stage. The appointments
behind the foot-lights are rather primitive; but, as a whole, it is a
fine house.”
“Is it as good as your own in London?”
“Better, in many respects. As for the hotels, they are on a far larger
scale, and seem more complete in their arrangements than ours. The
Brevoort is, I am told, more like an English house than any other in
the city. The genial proprietor evidently desires to make his guests
think so. Portraits of Queen Victoria, the late Prince Consort, and
pictorial reminiscences of the old country, meet you at every turn. As
for social life in New York, what I have seen of it is very much like
social life in London—a little different in its forms and ceremonies,
or, I might say, in the absence of ceremony—with this exception, that
there does not appear to be what you would call an idle class here,—a
class of gentlemen who have little else to do but to be amused and have
what you call ‘a good time.’ Everybody seems to be engaged in business
of some kind or another.”
“Is this your first visit to America?”
“Yes; though I seem to have known it for a long time. American friends
in London have for years been telling me interesting things about your
country. I had heard of the elevated road, Brooklyn bridge, and the
splendid harbor of New York. But they are all quite different to what I
had imagined them. The elevated railway is a marvellous piece of work.
I rode down-town upon the Sixth-avenue line yesterday. They compelled
me to carry my dog Charlie; and I notice, by the way, a remarkable
absence of dogs in the streets. You see them everywhere, you know, in
London. Charlie, an old friend of mine, attracted great attention on
the cars.”
“More than you did?”
“Oh, yes, much more. He’s a well-bred little fellow, and one gentleman,
who took a great interest in him, tried to open negotiations to buy him
from me. Poor Charlie!—he is getting old and blind, though he looks
sprightly enough. He has travelled with me in Europe and Africa, and
now in America; some day we hope to see Asia together.”
“Does he go with you to the theatre?”
“Always; and he knows the pieces I play. I suppose he knows them by
the color of the clothes I wear. During some plays he sniffs about all
night—during the long ones he settles quietly down. When Hamlet is
played he is particularly sedate. He hates the ‘Lyons Mail,’ because
there is shooting in it. When the murder scene comes he hides away in
the furthermost corner he can find.”
“You are fond of animals?”
“Yes, very; and the most characteristic thing I believe I have yet seen
in America is your trotting-horse. I have been twice upon the track
beyond the park; it is a wonderful sight.”
“Have you no trotting-horses in England?”
“Nothing like yours, and no light vehicles such as yours. I could only
think of the old chariot-races as I watched the teams of magnificent
trotters that rushed by me like the wind. I hear you have a fine
race-course at Chicago. Our friend Hatton told me long ago about seeing
the famous Maud S. make her great time there.”
“Oh, yes. I remember how astonished he was. Maud S. and our fire-engine
service captured his fancy. He described the racing in ‘To-day in
America.’ You are coming to Chicago?”
“Yes. I am informed that I shall strike quite a different civilization
in your city to that of New York; that public life with you is even
more ardent than it is in the Empire city, and that the spirit of your
commerce is more energetic. I can hardly understand that; but I long
to see your wonderful streets and your city boundaries that daily push
their way into the prairie. John McCullough, I remember, once gave me a
startling description of Chicago.”
“I see that Mr. Sala, in the ‘Illustrated London News,’ warns you to
expect our press to attack you. Is Mr. Sala a friend of yours?”
“Yes; and a dear friend and a very remarkable man. But we are wandering
a little from the subject you came to talk about.”
“Not much. May I ask if you have any nervousness as to your first
appearance?”
“Yes, the natural nervousness that is part of an actor’s first
appearances everywhere. I cannot think that the taste for the drama is
any different in New York and Chicago from Dublin, Edinburgh, Glasgow,
Liverpool, Birmingham, or London, in my own country.”
“Very much is expected of you. It would be hardly possible for you to
realize the exaggerated ideas of some people. If you were a god you
could not satisfy their expectations.”
“Nor, if I were a demon, could I achieve the attitudes and poses of my
caricaturists. Between the two there is hope.”
“You feel that it is a great ordeal any way?”
“Yes.”
“Some of your methods are new, more particularly as to Shakespearian
productions?”
“I believe so. In my early days I had little opportunity to see other
actors play Shakespeare, except on the stage where I acted with them,
and then I was so occupied with my own work that I had little time
to observe theirs. I had, consequently, to think for myself. It does
not follow, of course, that I have always done the right thing, but
my principle has been to go straight to the author. I have not taken
up the methods of other actors, nor modelled my work on this or that
tradition. A man knows best what he can do; and it seems to me just
as absurd for one actor to imitate another, to recite this speech, or
impersonate that action, as he has seen some other actor recite or
impersonate, as it would be for a writer to print a historical incident
just as some other had done, or for a modern novelist to write his
stories on the lines of Fielding, Richardson, or Thackeray, without
giving play to his own talents, or reins to his own imagination and
conception of character.”
“I will not weary you by going over the old ground concerning your
alleged mannerisms; but I see that a New York paper has already taken
you to task for jesting about the Pilgrim fathers. Did you notice that?”
“Oh, yes; you mean as to the Pilgrim mothers. I had no intention
to jest about Plymouth rock. I only repeated a story told me by an
American friend, the point of which was that the austerity of the
Pilgrim fathers must have made them trying persons for the Pilgrim
mothers. A very harmless bit of fun. One of my interviewers makes me
speak of ‘Americanisms’ too. The word should have been ‘mannerisms.’
In regard to the so-called Americanisms of American actors, all I have
heard in that way have fallen from the lips of Raymond and Florence,
just as you would hear cockneyisms from our humorous comedians, Toole
and Brough. The accent of your great actors does not strike me as
different to our own; though a reporter on board the ‘Britannic,’ last
Sunday, told me he had understood I had a very strange accent, and was
surprised to find that I spoke English as well as he did.”