vaunted as a great, original, representative American dramatist. The
claim is preposterous. Herne was not a dramatist, he was a playwright
(that is, a mechanic, a _maker_ of plays, mechanically, from stock
material, precisely as a wheelwright is a maker of wheels), and as a
playwright he was less distinctive than as an actor. He adopted the
latter vocation in youth, first as an amateur, then as a member of a
stock company, making his first professional appearance at a theatre in
Troy, New York. He obtained good training. He participated in
performances of standard plays with some of the best actors who have
graced the American Stage,--among them James Booth Roberts (1818-1901),
Edward Loomis Davenport (1815-1877), and the younger James William
Wallack (1818-1873). He did not possess a tithe of the power and
versatility of Davenport, but he was deeply affected by the influence
of that noble actor, and he played several parts in close imitation of
him,--notably _Sikes_, in “Oliver Twist.” His dramatic instinct was
keen, but his mind was not imaginative and the natural bent of it was
toward prosy literalism. He was early, strongly, and continuously
dominated by the literal methods and the humanitarian and reformatory
spirit of the novels of Dickens. He liked the utilitarian and
matter-of-fact embellishments with which some of those novels abound,
and he was attracted by such characters as _Peggotty_, a part which he
acted and of which his performance was creditable. As an actor he aimed
to be photographic, he copied actual life in commonplace aspects as
closely as he could, and often he was slow, dull, and tedious. As a
playwright he was deficient in the faculty of invention and in the
originality of characterization. He tinkered the plays of other writers,
always with a view to the enhancement or introduction of graphic
situations. The principal plays with which his name is associated are
“Hearts of Oak,” “Drifting Apart,” “Sag Harbor,” “Margaret Fleming,”
“Shore Acres,” and “The Rev. Griffith Davenport.” “Hearts of Oak” is
Belasco’s revamp of “The Mariner’s Compass,” modified and expanded. The
characters in it are not American: they are transformed English
characters. It was not Herne’s plan, it was Belasco’s, to rehabilitate
the earlier play by Leslie, shift the places of the action, shuffle the
scenes, change the names of the persons, introduce incidents from other
plays, add unusual “stage effects,” and so manufacture something that
might pass for a novelty. In reply to a question of mine as to Herne’s
share in the making of “Hearts of Oak,” Belasco said “he did _a lot of
good work_ on it,” and when I asked for specification of that work I was
told “he introduced a lot of _Rip Van Winkle_ stuff.” “Drifting Apart”
is based on an earlier play, called “Mary, the Fisherman’s Daughter.”
“Sag Harbor” is a variant of “Hearts of Oak.” “Margaret Fleming” is
mainly the work of Mrs. Herne, and is one of those crude and completely
ineffectual pieces of hysterical didacticism which are from time to time
produced on the stage with a view to the dismay of libertines by an
exhibition of some of the evil consequences of licentious conduct. In
that play a righteously offended wife bares her bosom to the public gaze
in order to suckle a famished infant, of which her dissolute husband is
the father by a young woman whom he has seduced, betrayed, and abandoned
to want and misery: libertines, of course, are always reformed by
spectacles of that kind! (This incident, by the way, occurs, under other
circumstances, in the fourth chapter of “Hide and Seek,” by Wilkie
Collins, published in 1854.) “The Rev. Griffith Davenport” was deduced
from a novel called “The Unofficial Patriot,” by Helen H. Gardner.
“Shore Acres” is, in its one vital dramatic ingredient, derived from a
play by Frank Murdoch, called “The Keepers of Lighthouse Cliff,”--in
which Herne had acted years before “Shore Acres” was written. It
incorporates, also, many of the real stage properties and much of the
stage business,--the real supper, etc.,--used in “Hearts of Oak.” Its
climax is the quarrel of the brothers _Martin_ and _Nathan’l Berry_, the
suddenly illumined beacon, kindled by _Uncle Nat_, and the hairbreadth
escape of the imperilled ship,--taken, without credit, from Murdoch’s
drama. Herne localized his plays in America and, to a certain extent,
treated American subjects, but he made no addition to American Drama,
and his treatment of the material that he “borrowed” or adapted never
rose above respectable mediocrity. It was as an actor that he gained
repute and merited commemoration. He was early impressed by the example
of Joseph Jefferson and was emulative of him: he appeared in Jefferson’s
most famous character, _Rip Van Winkle_, but he did not evince a
particle of that innate charm, that imaginative, spiritual quality,
which irradiated Jefferson’s impersonation of the pictorial vagabond
and exalted it into the realm of the poetic ideal. Herne earnestly
wished for a part in which he might win a popularity and opulence in
some degree commensurate with those obtained by Jefferson as _Rip Van
Winkle_: he eventually found it, or something like it, in _Terry
Dennison_, in “Hearts of Oak,” which he acted, far and wide, for many
years, and by which he accumulated a fortune of about $250,000. The
influence of his acting, at its best, was humanitarian and in that
respect highly commendable.--On April 3, 1878, Herne and Katherine
Corcoran were wedded, in San Francisco,--that being Herne’s second
marriage. His first wife was Helen Western. He was a native of Cohoes,
New York. The true name of this actor was James Ahearn, which, when he
adopted the profession of the Stage, he changed to James A. Herne. It is
given in the great register of San Francisco as James Alfred Herne. His
death occurred, June 2, 1901, at No. 79 Convent Avenue, near 145th
Street, New York.
ANALYSIS OF “HEARTS OF OAK.”
I remember the first performance of “Hearts of Oak” in New York. The
play was a patchwork of hackneyed situations and incidents, culled and
refurbished from such earlier plays as “Little Em’ly,” “Rip Van Winkle,”
“Leah the Forsaken,” and “Enoch Arden.” Some of those situations were
theatrically effective, and the quality of the fabric was instinct with
tender feeling. The articulation of the parts, meaning the mechanism,
indicated, to some extent, an expert hand,--which unquestionably its
chief manipulator, Belasco, possessed, and which he has since more amply
shown. The element of picture, however, exceeded that of action, and the
element of commonplace realism, manifested partly in the drawing of
character, partly in the dialogue, and largely in the accessories and
stage business, was so excessive as to be tiresome. Real water, real
beans, real boiled potatoes, and various other ingredients of a real
supper, together with a real cat and a real (and much discontented)
baby, were among the real objects employed in the representation. Such
things, particularly when profusely used in a play, are injurious to
dramatic effect, because they concentrate attention on themselves and
distract it from the subject and the action to be considered.
Accessories should blend into the investiture of a play and not be
excrescences upon it. There is, however, a large public that likes to
see on the stage such real objects as it customarily sees in the
dwelling or the street,--a real fireplace,
[Illustration:
From a photograph by (Stevens?). The Albert Davis Collection.
JAMES A. HERNE]
a real washtub, a real dog, a real horse, all the usual trappings of
actual life: that is the public which finds its chief artistic pleasure
in _recognition_. It was present on many occasions during the career of
“Hearts of Oak,” and with this plethora of real and commonplace objects
it was much pleased.
In the story of “Hearts of Oak” a young man, _Ruby Darrell_, and a young
woman, _Chrystal_ (_Dennison?_), who love each other and wish to wed,
privately agree to abnegate themselves in order that the young woman may
marry their guardian and benefactor, _Terry Dennison_, out of gratitude
to him. This immoral marriage is accomplished and in time the wife
becomes a mother. In time, also, the injured guardian discovers,--what,
if he had possessed even ordinary discernment, he would have discovered
in the beginning,--that his wife’s affections are fixed on _Darrell_.
The miserable _Dennison_ then goes away, after privately arranging that
if he does not return within five years _Darrell_ shall wed with
_Chrystal_. Six years pass; _Dennison_ is reported to have perished at
sea in the wreck of a Massachusetts ship, and _Chrystal_ and _Ruby_
erect a churchyard monument to his memory. Then _Chrystal_, believing
herself to be a widow, marries her lover. But the desolate husband is
not dead; he reappears, blind, destitute and wretched, on the wedding
day, and in a colloquy with his child, outside of the church within
which the marriage is being solemnized and seated on the base of his
memorial among the graves, he ascertains the existent circumstances and
presently expires, while his wife and little daughter pitifully minister
to him as to a stranger. The misery and pathos of the experience and
situation are obvious. It is also obvious that, in the fulfilment of a
central purpose to create a situation and depict a character instinct
with misery and pathos, the element of probability was disregarded. The
chief part is that of the injured, afflicted, suffering guardian, who,
as a dramatic character, is a variant of _Enoch Arden_ and _Harebell_.
In acting _Dennison_, Herne, while often heavy and monotonous, gained
sympathy and favor by the simplicity of his demeanor, his facile
assumption of manliness, and his expert simulation of deep feeling; but
he did nothing that had not been done before, and much better done, by
other actors,--in particular, by Edwin Adams in _Enoch Arden_, and by
William Rufus Blake and Charles Fisher in _Peggotty_ and kindred parts,
of which the fibre is rugged manliness and magnanimity. Katherine
Corcoran, playing _Chrystal_, gave a performance that was interesting
more by personality than by art. She had not then been long on the
Stage. She was handsome, graceful, and winning, of slender figure, with
an animated, eagerly expressive face, blue-gray eyes, silky brown hair,
and a sweet voice. In calm moments and level speaking she was efficient.
In excitement her vocalism became shrill and her action spasmodic.
Scenery of more than common merit, painted by William Voegtlin, was
provided to embellish the play, at the Fifth Avenue Theatre. One
picture, in particular, representing a prospect of a tranquil seacoast,
was excellent in composition, true and fine in color, and poetic in
quality; another effectively portrayed a broad expanse of troubled sea,
darkening ominously under a sombre sky tumultuous with flying scud.
Herne somewhat improved the play in the course of his protracted
repetitions of it, after he parted from Belasco, but he always retained
in it the “real” trappings which Belasco had introduced. Both those
actors, as playwrights, were conjunctive in favor of “limbs and outward
flourishes,”--the “real tubs” of _Mr. Crummles_.
FAILURE AND ITS CONSEQUENCES.
The play, which without Belasco’s consent or knowledge was announced in
New York as “by James A. Herne” (mention being made, in the programme,
that it was remotely based on “The Mariner’s Compass,” but, practically,
was Herne’s original composition!), failed there. Belasco states, in his
“Story,” that it was produced in “the summer time,” and adds that
“notwithstanding the play’s success, we could not combat the intense
humidity.” That statement is incorrect. March is not summer, and it was
not “intense _humidity_” but intense _frost_ that could not be combated.
The business was further injured by the fact that Herne was on several
occasions incapacitated to appear, and Belasco replaced him as _Terry
Dennison_. The initial expenses had been heavy, the profit was soon
almost dissipated, the engagement was ended April 16, and, on going to
Philadelphia, to fulfil an engagement at Mrs. Drew’s Arch Street
Theatre, the partners quarrelled. Herne there expressed to Belasco his
opinion that the play was rubbish, that he was wasting his time by
acting in it, and proposed that Belasco should buy his half interest,
for $1,500, or that he should buy Belasco’s for the same
amount,--“knowing,” Belasco has told me, “that I had not drawn any of my
share of the profits, while there were any; that I had been living and
keeping my family, in San Francisco, on $50 a week (I was allowed that
and talked to all the time about ’the barrels of money “Dave” would have
at the end of the season’!), and also knowing that I didn’t have
fifteen hundred cents!” Herne, after profuse condemnation of the play
and harsh censure of Belasco, in which he was sustained by his business
associate, Frederick W. Burt, finally obtained Belasco’s signature to an
agreement to sell to Herne, for $1,500, all his half-interest in “Hearts
of Oak,” and so that play became Herne’s exclusive property. The
purchase money was not paid, but Herne gave a promissory note for it.
Later, realizing that he had acted imprudently, Belasco called on his
friend Mrs. John Drew, informed her of the business, and asked her
advice. That eminently practical lady was both sympathetic and
indignant. She commended him to her attorneys, Messrs. Shakespeare and
Devlin, and desired that they should see what could be done “for this
boy.” There was, however, little to do. “You are of age,” said Devlin,
“you’ve signed an agreement; you’ll have to stand by it,--but I’ll get
you the $1,500. The first thing is to find where Herne banks.” That
information was easily obtained, and Belasco and Devlin repaired to the
bank,--where they met Herne coming out, and where, a few moments later,
they were told that he had withdrawn his money and closed his account.
The $1,500 was not paid until several years later, when Belasco, then
employed at the Madison Square Theatre, New York, stated the facts to
Marshall H. Mallory, one of the managers of that house, and, with
assistance of his lawyers, obtained from Herne payment of the debt, with
interest.
SAN FRANCISCO AGAIN.
Meantime, Belasco had been left in a painful predicament. “I had,” he
told me, “quite honestly, but very extravagantly, painted our success in
brilliant colors when writing to my dear wife,--and there I was, in
Philadelphia, without enough money to pay my fare back to San Francisco,
and nobody to borrow from. I went, first, to New York, hoping to get
employment, but luck was against me--I could get nothing, and I spent
three nights on the benches in Union Square Park. I met Marcus Mayer, a
friend of mine, in the Park one morning, and he got part of my story
from me, lent me some money, and promised to try to help me further. But
I had to get to San Francisco, and as soon as he lent me a little money
I made up my mind to _start_. It took me eighteen days to make the trip,
but I did it,--paying what I could, persuading conductors and brakemen
to let me ride free, if only for a few miles, and, when I was put off,
stealing rides on anything that was going. I got there, but it was a
pretty wretched homecoming. I had to swallow any pride I had left and
go to work again at the Baldwin,--where I’d been stage manager and
playwright and amounted to something,--and where now I played
anything,--‘bits,’ mostly,--given me: I got only $25 a week.”
The story of Belasco’s venture with “Hearts of Oak” has been told
minutely for the reason that it involves his first determined effort to
break away from what he viewed as thraldom in the Theatre of San
Francisco, and make for himself a position in the metropolis of the
country. The failure of that effort was a bitter humiliation and
disappointment to him. It did not, however, weaken his purpose. After he
rejoined the Baldwin he was not long constrained to occupy a subservient
position.
BELASCO’S RECOLLECTIONS OF ADELAIDE NEILSON.
One of the associations of Belasco’s professional life much prized by
him is that with the lovely woman and great actress Adelaide Neilson.
Miss Neilson first appeared in San Francisco, March 10, 1874, at the
California Theatre, acting _Juliet_,--of which part she was the best
representative who has been seen within the last sixty years. During her
engagement at the California, which lasted till March 30, and in the
course of which she acted _Rosalind_, _Lady Teazle_, _Julia_, in “The
Hunchback,” and _Pauline_, in “The Lady of Lyons,” as well as _Juliet_,
Belasco was employed in the theatre, acting as an assistant to the
prompter, and participating as a super in all the plays that were
presented. “Little a thing as it is,” he has said to me, “I have always
been proud to remember that I danced with her, in the minuet, in ’Romeo
and Juliet,’ the first night she ever played in our city. I never saw
such wonderful eyes, or heard a voice so silver-toned, so full of
pathos, so rich and thrilling. I shall never forget how deeply affected
I was when, in the dance, for the first time I touched her hand and she
turned those wonderful eyes on _me_.”
When Belasco was re-employed at the Baldwin Miss Neilson was acting
there, in the second week of her farewell engagement, which began on
June 8. On July 17 that engagement closed, and one of the brightest yet
saddest of theatrical careers came to an end. Belasco, always closely
attentive to his stage duties, never depended on anybody but himself to
give the signals for raising and lowering the curtain, and, on that
night, he “rang down” on the last performance Adelaide Neilson ever
gave. The bill was the Balcony Scene, from “Romeo and Juliet,” and the
play of “Amy Robsart.” In the course of the performance Belasco, after
the Balcony Scene, went to assist her in descending from the elevated
platform and, as she came down, she laid a hand on his shoulder and
sprang to the stage,--losing a slipper as she did so. Belasco took it
up. “You may keep it,” she said, “for Rosemary,”--and, says Belasco,
“having thanked her I nailed it, then and there, to the wall by the
prompter’s stand and there it stayed, as a mascot, for years.” Referring
to that last night of her stage career, Belasco has written the
following reminiscence:
THE BLACK PEARL.
“Like other stars of the day, Miss Neilson expressed a desire to
give every member of her company a memento. I was waiting at the
green-room door to escort her to the hotel, when she called me into
her dressing-room. ’You are so weird and mysterious, and perhaps I
may never see you again. Look over those things and choose
something for yourself.’ On her dressing-room table she had piled
all her wonderful jewels, a fortune of immense value. I remember
that her maid, a little deformed woman, stood by me as I hesitated.
’Yes, to bring you luck,’ she replied and there was a faint chuckle
in her throat. Rubies, diamonds, emeralds--they dazzled my eyes. I
finally reached forward and picked a black pearl. I said, ’I’ll
take this.’ Miss Neilson’s face turned white, and she closed her
eyes. ’Oh, David, why do you ask for that?’ she cried, and I
dropped it as though I had done an evil thing. ’I’m superstitious,’
she confessed. ’My trunk is full of nails, horseshoes, and the
luckiest thing of all is that little black pearl. I dislike to
refuse you anything, but I know you will understand.’ I hastily
selected a small emerald, and with a feeling almost of temerity I
left the room. All during the farewell supper that followed she
would bring the conversation back to the strangeness of my choice,
until I thought she would never cease, and just on my account. ’If
I gave up that pearl, I shouldn’t live a month. Some one told me
that, and I believe it,’ she said.
“When she left on the morrow she made me promise that if I ever
visited London I would seek her out, but that was the last I saw of
Adelaide Neilson. She had gone no farther than Reno when she wrote
me, sending me a little package in which was buried the black
pearl. ’I cannot get your voice out of my mind,’ she wrote. Six
months afterwards she died in a little French village. She had
returned tired and dusty to the inn from a ramble in the leafy
lanes of Normandy, and, drinking a glass of ice-cold milk, was
suddenly dead in an hour. [She died in less than _one_
month--August 15, 1880, at a châlet, in the Bois de Boulogne,
Paris, becoming ill while driving.--W. W.]
“Of course I had told my family the incident, and one afternoon,
while I was out, my mother went to my room, and, for fear of
ill-luck pursuing me, destroyed the black pearl. Such incidents
have been put into plays and audiences have laughed over the
improbability, but here’s an indisputable fact. Charge it to the
long arm of coincidence, if you will, but in my own career I have
met so many occurrences that are stranger than fiction that I
cannot doubt the workings of coincidence any longer.
“Often during this engagement she had spoken of Mr. William Winter
in terms of gratitude and respect, and that the sentiment must have
been mutual we have ample verification in his many valuable books.
From these pages we of to-day are able to recreate once more the
golden art of the greatest _Juliet_ of all times. ’Dear William
Winter,’ I remember hearing her say, ’how much I have to thank him
for help and advice!’”
MISS NEILSON’S GOOD INFLUENCE.
Adelaide Neilson, whatever may have been the errors of her early life,
was intrinsically a noble woman, and any man might well be proud to have
gained her kindly interest. In the often abused art of acting, to pass,
as she did, from the girlish glee and artless merriment of _Viola_ to
the romantic, passion-touched, tremulous entrancement of _Juliet_,
thence to the ripe womanhood of _Imogen_, and finally to the grandeur of
_Isabella_, is to fill the imagination with an ideal of all that is
excellent in woman and all that makes her the angel of man’s existence
and the chief grace and glory of the world. All acting is illusion: “the
best in this kind are but shadows.” Yet she who could thus fill up the
measure of ideal beauty surely possessed glorious elements. Much for her
own sake is this actress remembered--much, also, for the ever “bright
imaginings” she prompted and the high thoughts that her influence
inspired and justified as to woman’s nature. As the poet bore in his
heart the distant, dying song of the reaper, “long after it was heard
no more,” so and with such feeling is her acting treasured in memory.
Woman, for her sake and the sake of what she interpreted, has ever been,
by those who saw and knew her, more highly prized and reverenced,--a
beneficent result the value of which cannot be overstated. As Byron
wrote:
“The very first
Of human life must spring from woman’s breast;
Your first small words are taught you from her lips;
Your first tears quenched by her, and your last sighs
Breathed out in woman’s hearing.”
“PAUL ARNIFF.”
During Miss Neilson’s engagement at the Baldwin Belasco’s indefatigible
industry had been bestowed on a play, modelled on “The Danicheffs,”--a
drama on a Russian subject which had been produced at the Union Square
Theatre, New York, February 5, 1877. His play, named “Paul Arniff; or,
The Love of a Serf,” was derived in part from “The Black Doctor,” and
was announced as “founded on one of the very best pieces ever produced
at the Porte St. Martin Theatre, Paris.” It was not remarkable, being a
loosely constructed melodrama,--some portions of which were well devised
and
[Illustration: ADELAIDE NEILSON
“_And O, to think the sun can shine,_
_The birds can sing, the flowers can bloom,_
_And she, whose soul was all divine,_
_Be darkly mouldering in the tomb_!”
--W. W.
From a miniature on porcelain.
Author’s Collection.]
cleverly written, while other portions were clumsy and turgid. It
depicted the experience of a Russian serf, _Paul Arniff_, who, loving an
imperious woman of exalted social station, _Marianna Droganoff_, and
finding his passion played with, first forced that disdainful female
into marriage with him (as an alternative to drowning with him, on a
remote tidal island to which he had lured her), and subsequently,
raising himself to distinction by development of his natural talents,
gained her genuine affection, and made her happy. Recalling the
production of that play, Belasco writes: “At the time ’Paul Arniff’ was
put into rehearsal there was in the Baldwin company a tall, slender
young woman of singular complexion and striking appearance, whose stage
name was Adelaide Stanhope. She came from Australia, where she had
gained some reputation, but she had had no good opportunity at the
Baldwin and was discouraged and dissatisfied. She and I had become
friends, she was cast for the heroine of my play and, knowing the cause
of her discontent and wishing to help her, I built up her character all
I could during rehearsals,--O’Neill, ever chivalrous, generous and
sympathetic, acquiescing, though it encroached a good deal on his own
part: but the success she made and her consequent happiness more than
repaid us both. She afterward became the wife of Nelson Wheatcroft,
with whom I was associated at the Lyceum and the Empire, in New
York.”--The Baldwin stock company, succeeding Miss Neilson, presented
“Paul Arniff” on July 19, 1880, and acted in that play for one week.
This was the cast: