IT was quite like a council of war to see Irving, Loveday, Palser, and
Stoker, bending over a map of the United States, during the journey
from Washington to New York, _en route_ for several New England cities.
The chart was scanned with careful interest, Irving passing his finger
over it here and there, not with the intensity of the overthrown
monarch in “Charles the First,” but with a close scrutiny of routes.
The chief was sketching out his next tour in America.
“No more long journeys,” he said.
“They are not necessary,” Loveday replied.
“No jumping from Brooklyn to Chicago, and from Chicago to Boston. This
sort of thing may have been necessary by our relinquishment of the
one-night places set down for us in the original plan of the tour; but
we’ll reform that altogether.”
Then all the heads went down upon the chart; and pencil-marks begin to
appear, dotting out a route which began at Quebec, and traversed, by
easy stages, Canada and the United States,—from Quebec to Toronto,
from Toronto to New York, and thence to Chicago, and, by easy calls,
back again to the Empire city.
An hour or two later and the route was settled, Palser remarking, “It
is the most complete and easiest tour that has ever been mapped out.”
“And we will begin it in the autumn of this year. We have sowed the
seed; we are entitled to reap the harvest. All my American friends say
so; and the great American play-going public would like me to do so. I
am sure of it. My pulses quickened at the great cheer that went up at
Boston when I said I hoped to come back this year. Let us consider it
settled. We will come in September.”
The map was folded up, and the work of organizing the next tour was
at once commenced. Telegraphic “feelers,” in regard to “dates,” had
already been sent to the leading theatres. The best of them were ready
to accept for the time proposed; and a week or so later the business
was settled.
Meanwhile we arrived at New York (the trees in Washington and Union
squares, and Fifth avenue were crystal trees; every house was coated
with ice that sparkled under the electric lamps), and the next day
“Louis XI.” was given at New Haven. The week was spent between this
picturesque city and Worcester, Springfield, Hartford, and Providence.
Only “Louis XI.” and “The Bells” were played, Miss Terry taking a
week’s rest at Washington. The New England audiences were as cordial
at these cities as they had been at Boston; the critics interpreted
their sentiments. At Hartford, Mark Twain (S. L. Clemens) entertained
Irving under his hospitable roof, and at Springfield there was a
memorable gathering at the Springfield Club,—in fact, Irving was
welcomed everywhere with tokens of respect and esteem. One regrets that
these pages and the time of the patient reader are not sufficiently
elastic to allow of one devoting a volume to the New England cities, so
interesting as they are, historically and otherwise, from American as
well as English points of view.