is one of my choicest delights. I so wrote him, and received another
characteristic reply. So it has kept up ever since. I now, as far as
possible, stipulate with my coming stars that they give one evening
during their season to the Winter Memorial Library, and it has come
about that they all look forward to that appointment with great
expectation, because it is an audience that, for fine appreciation, is
not to be excelled anywhere. Marion Crawford, Annie Grey, H. E.
Krehbiel, and Ernest Seton-Thompson, all declare the Winter Memorial
their ideal audience.
For over thirty-five years (since August, 1865), Mr. Winter has been the
dramatic critic of the New York _Tribune_, and during that time he has
wielded an influence more potent in the advancement of the drama than
that of all the other New York critics combined. He is incorruptible and
not afraid of consequences. Once a very prominent manager, knowing that
Mr. Winter and I were friends, came into my office and asked for a
confidential talk, which was granted. He began like this:
“You know William Winter well, do you not?”
“I have very little association with him. I know him well enough to
understand that he is my friend and would go as far to serve me as he
would any friend.”
“Is he well fixed or is he poor?” asked the manager.
“He’s not rich. How could he be, with only the resources of his pen as
his income, and with a family of sons and a daughter to educate?”
“Major, would $2,500 be any inducement for him to visit the Union Square
Theatre to-morrow evening, and give that girl, the greatest actress in
the world, a send off?”
I said: “It would be a waste of time and money. You would be as safe in
offering $50,000 as any other amount. If Mr. Winter goes there he will
write as he sees, and will do the subject justice.”
The manager told me that he had made sure of every paper that he wanted
but the _Tribune_, and he would give more for that paper than for all
the others, because whatever Winter wrote the public believed. He had
already secured the next best dramatic writer for less than half he
offered me if I could secure Winter.
While I was writing this book, one of the other New York dramatic
critics to whom that manager referred was in my office, and we went out
to lunch together. He wanted to borrow $2. He said that the New York
newspapers of to-day would accept nothing from his pen, nor from other
prominent old journalists, while William Winter seemed to be as much in
evidence as ever.
I couldn’t help saying: “I will quote what a theatrical manager said to
me twelve years ago: ‘I secured the next best writer in New York for
less than half what I would offer to Winter, but the public believes
what Winter writes’; and it is true.”
In reply to a letter from him recommending a great Shakespearean scholar
and reader, I once wrote Mr. Winter that there was no public demand for
a scholarly address on Shakespeare or any literary subject; that there
was scarcely a statesman even, or any man of letters, that even colleges
and institutions of learning cared to engage for commencements and other
public occasions, but that I had letters from many leading colleges
offering fabulous prices if I could secure Henry Irving or Joseph
Jefferson for them, and on this encouraging symptom I offered each of
these great actors $10,000 if they would each give ten addresses on
these occasions.
Here is Mr. Winter’s reply:
* * * * *
“September 5, 1896.
“MY DEAR MAJOR POND:
“I observed with some wonder your amazing offer of _$1,000 a night_ to
Irving and to Jefferson, for ten lectures, for _college commencements_.
There must, of course, be some ‘business’ in this, or you would not
think of it, but I should be very glad to know what qualifications are
possessed by these gentlemen, or by any other _actors_, which entitled
them to this peculiar eminence. A university is _a seat of learning_,
and I have always supposed that the honors and rewards of _learning_
are due to great _scholars_, whose lives have been passed in study, in
thought, and in labor for the art of literature and the cause of
education. Mr. Irving and Mr. Jefferson are masters of the art of
acting, and no one admires them more than I do; but I should hardly
select either of them as monitors for a university commencement, any
more than they would select me as a director of the stage.
“Faithfully yours, “WILLIAM WINTER.”
* * * * *
One of Mr. Winter’s most cherished friends was George William. Curtis,
and it is his ambition to add a George William Curtis Memorial Lyceum to
the Staten Island Academy. He is sure to accomplish the work if he is
spared another five years.
He is the last of his kind. Only by his bravery and his fidelity to his
profession could he survive the natural loneliness of his environment.
There has been scarcely a great actor or actress or theatrical manager
for the last forty years whom he has not known intimately and who has
not been his dear friend. Among this number must be included Joseph
Jefferson, Sir Henry Irving, Edwin Booth, Lester Wallack, John
McCullagh, Lawrence Barrett, Barney Williams, W. J. Florence, William
Weaver, John Gilbert, Adelaide Neilson, Ellen Terry, Charlotte Cushman,
and Augustin Daly. One can readily come in touch with the tender
vibrations and longings of his heart by reading the following poem in
memory of his friend Augustin Daly, which is here reprinted by the kind
permission of the Macmillan Co.:
A. D.
Died June 7, 1899.
Long he slumbers; will he waken, greeting, as he used to do,
With his kindly, playful smile, his old companions, me and you?
Long he slumbers--though the wind of morning sweetly blows to sea,
Though his barque has weighed her anchor, and the tide is flowing free.
Long he slumbers; why, so helpless, doth he falter on the shore?
Wherefore stays he in the silence, he that never stayed before?
“Do not wake me!” Oh, the pity! How shall we poor toilers strive
If his strong and steadfast spirit keep not our frail hope alive?
All his days were given to action, all his powers of mind and will:
Now the restless heart is silent, and the busy brain is still.
Gone the fine ideal fancies, glorious, like the summer dawn!
Ev’ry passionate throb of purpose, ev’ry dream of grandeur gone!
Courage, patience, deep devotion, long endurance, manly trust,
Zeal for truth and love for beauty--gone, and buried in the dust!
Ah, what pictures rise in mem’ry and what strains of music flow,
When we think of all the magic times and scenes of Long Ago!
When once more we hear, in Arden, rustling trees and rippling streams;
When on fair Olivia’s palace faint and pale the moonlight beams;
When the storm-clouds break and scatter, and o’er beach, and crag,
and wave,
Angels float, and heavenly voices haunt the gloom of Prosp’ro’s cave!
Well he wrought--and we remember! Faded rainbow! fallen leaf!
All fair things are but as shadows, and all glory ends in grief.
Worn and weary with the struggle, broken with the weight of care,
Low he lies, and all his pageants vanish in the empty air.
Nevermore can such things lure us, nevermore be quite the same;
Other hands may grasp the laurel, other brows be twined with fame.
Far, and less’ning in the distance, dies the music of the Past;
In our ears a note discordant vibrates like an angry blast;
On our eyes the Future rushes, blatant, acrid, fraught with strife,
Arrogant with tinselled youth and rank with flux of sensual life.
Naught avails to stem the tumult--vulgar aims and commonplace,
Greed and vice and dross and folly, frenzied in the frantic race.
Naught avails, and we that linger, sick at heart and old and grim,
Can but pray to leave this rabble, loving Art and following him.
Very lonely seems the pathway; long we journeyed side by side;
Much with kindred hope were solaced, much with kindred anguish tried;
Had our transient jars and murmurs, had our purpose to be blest,
In our brotherhood of travel, in our dreams of age and rest,--
Yonder, where the tinted hawthorns scarlet poppyfields enfold,
And the prodigal laburnum blooms in clust’ring globes of gold.
Ended all--and all is shadow, where but late a glory shone,
And the wanderer, gray and fragile, walks the vacant scene, alone.
Only now the phantom faces that in waking dreams appear!
Only now the aerial voices that the heart alone can hear!
Round and red the sun is sinking, lurid in his misty light;
Faintly sighs the wind of evening, coldly falls the brooding night.
Fare thee well--forever parted, speeding onward in the day
Where, through God’s supernal mercy, human frailties drop away!
Fare thee well; while o’er thy ashes softly tolls the funeral knell--
Peace, and love, and tender memory! so, forever, fare thee well!
WILLIAM WINTER.
Sir Henry Irving’s advancement to the order of knighthood aroused great
interest among theatrical people throughout the world. An honor has been
conferred upon dramatic art, and it has fallen on the one person in the
English-speaking world most fitted to bear it as the representative of
all that is best in dramatic art.
Honors of this kind have been bestowed with much freedom on painters,
writers, and musicians, but never before accorded to an actor. This
instance, therefore, involves an unusual recognition of the acted drama
as the peer of its kindred arts.
[Illustration]
No actor is held in higher esteem by his fellow-actors than Sir Henry
Irving. His high abilities are not more admired on the stage than his
personal qualities in private life. The congratulations he has received
on this advancement are more general and more sincere than could have
been bestowed on any other living actor. For the above reason, Sir Henry
Irving is offered fabulous sums if he will lecture or give readings. I
offered him $10,000 if he would give ten readings before college
societies.
It was my privilege to introduce Henry Irving to Mr. Beecher during the
season of the latter’s first visit to this country. I accompanied him
and Miss Terry to Plymouth Church; we all sat in Mr. Beecher’s pew with
Mrs. Beecher. Two more attentive listeners Mr. Beecher never had.
Irving had heard Mr. Beecher lecture once--that memorable lecture in
Manchester, England, in 1863, when he stood before that great English
mob four hours before they would allow him to be heard. Mr. Irving had
told me of having been one of the standees on that occasion, and was so
intensely interested that he hadn’t time to be tired.
Mr. Irving listened without moving even a muscle of his face during the
sermon.
Of course, no two auditors would have attracted the attention of that
great congregation more intensely at that time. After the benediction,
everybody seemed fixed in their places with eyes centred on Irving and
Terry. Mr. Beecher stepped down from the pulpit and made his way to the
pastor’s pew. As he approached Mr. Irving he said in a loud voice that
all could hear, “Will the congregation please move out?” He then
extended his hand to Mr. Irving, saying to me, “Mr. Pond, please walk
with Mr. Irving to my house.” He then shook hands with Miss Terry, who
at that time held Mrs. Beecher in her embrace. As the crowd passed out,
Mr. Irving and I walked ahead of Mr. Beecher, who had Miss Terry on his
left arm and Mrs. Beecher on his right. As we entered Mr. Beecher’s
drawing-room, Mr. Irving and Mr. Beecher engaged in topical conversation
on the sofa, and Mrs. Beecher sat down in a rocking-chair, and Miss
Terry, taking an ottoman, placed it at Mrs. Beecher’s feet and threw
herself upon it, with both hands clasping Mrs. Beecher, and her head in
Mrs. Beecher’s lap. She was not aware of the capture she had made, to
the surprise of all the Beecher family; for of all women that Mrs.
Beecher had always shunned and despised, actresses she most abhorred,
and Miss Terry was the first one to whom she had even spoken to her
knowledge. This was the beginning of a friendship that was more like
that of mother and daughter than mere friends, and continued until the
end of Mrs. Beecher’s life.
At dinner was such a Sunday scene as was often the custom, one which
could occur nowhere else except in the Beecher family. There were
present Col. H. B. Beecher, Henry Ward’s eldest son, and his wife;
Colonel Beecher’s daughter Kate (the late Mrs. Harper); and Mr. William
C. Beecher, the second son, all endowed with Beecher brains. The hour
was a display of intellect and wit. I never saw Mr. Irving so
delightfully entertaining as on this occasion, and he and Miss Terry
told me it was the most interesting and delightful day of their lives.
When Mr. Beecher died, I received a cablegram from Henry Irving, asking
me to place a wreath on the casket, with the card, “Adieu, noble
friend!--Henry Irving.”
Mr. Irving came into my office one morning in November, 1887, while he
and his company were playing at Wallack’s Theatre. He asked if I were
busy. Of course I was at his service then and there. He said:
“I see by the papers that a fund is being raised for a statue to Mr.
Beecher, in Brooklyn. Can you tell me if the plans are formulated, and
if Miss Terry and I can be of assistance? I think my company would
gladly contribute their services for an extra matinée of ‘Faust’ for
that object.”
I assured Mr. Irving that it would be highly appreciated. I went with
him to the theatre, where a rehearsal was on. Mr. Irving asked the
attention of the company for a moment. He told them that he and Miss
Terry would like to invite them all to join in an extra performance of
“Faust,” the entire proceeds to be given to the Henry Ward Beecher
Statue Fund. The suggestion met with a very hearty and unanimous
approval. The matinée was given, and $3,100 was sent to Ripley Ropes,
treasurer of the fund, which was duly acknowledged.
Miss Charlotte Cushman was on the stage forty years. The last
twenty-five of these years she was the greatest actress of her time. She
died in the Parker House, Boston, February, 1876. I started for Kings
Chapel, from where she was buried, at 8:30, and found the little church
and neighboring thoroughfares thronged with the sorrowing multitude
waiting with the hope of getting just one view of the casket which
contained the remains of their departed friend.
[Illustration]
Miss Cushman’s memory is still green. Her cottage at Newport and her
grave at Mount Auburn are among the first objects inquired for by
visitors to these places.
The last few years of her public life were devoted to public reading. In
that department she was without a rival,--Fanny Kemble having retired to
private life,--and in simplicity, personal magnetism, humor, and
stalwart force of execution her readings have never been equalled. In
the autumn of 1874 she gave six readings in Chicago for Messrs.
Carpenter & Sheldon, managers of the Star Course, for which they paid
her $5,000. The readings took place in McCormick’s Hall, on the north
side of the city. The gross receipts for those six readings aggregated
upward of $17,000.
In 1857 a tramping jour printer had come from Kansas seeking employment
on the daily papers in St. Louis. It was the year of the great financial
panic. There were so many printers out of work that those having steady
employment yielded half of their time to “subs.”
At the house where I boarded I sat next to the prompter of the People’s
Theatre, an old man, the most popular prompter ever known to the
profession, Jimmie Anderson. I took to the old fellow, and he was very
nice to me. One evening he invited me to the theatre, on the stage,
where I stood beside him and saw Neafie in the “Corsican Brothers.” I
walked home with him after the theatre. Before retiring that night he
told me that the office of call-boy in the theatre was vacant, and I
might have it--seven dollars a week. I began the following Monday.
Charlotte Cushman opened that night with Lady Macbeth. It was the first
time I ever saw her.
During the play Miss Cushman came to Mr. Anderson somewhat excited,
saying, “Jimmie”--they all called him Jimmie--“the boy who carried my
basket to-night loitered by the way. That basket contains most of my
jewels. I must have somebody that I can rely upon who will walk
faithfully by my side.”
Anxious to earn an extra dollar, I hunched old Jimmie, and he turned
around and spoke very savagely to me:
“Will you do it?”
“Yes,” said I.
So that night I walked home with Charlotte Cushman, the great actress,
carrying her basket to her room in the Planters’ House.
I did this until Saturday, when I was taken ill and obliged to send a
substitute, who brought the basket on Saturday night.
After the play, when the lights were turned off with the exception of
the star’s dressing-room, I was curled up on the stage among a lot of
scenery. I heard Miss Cushman, coming out of her room, say:
“Where is that boy who carried my basket?”
I replied, “Here.”
She walked across the stage, piloted by the night watchman with his
lantern, and reaching out her hand to me said:
“I hope you are not going to be ill,” and placed a coin in my hands.
I hurried to get to where there was sufficient light, to discover that I
was the owner of a twenty-dollar gold piece.
That night I changed my lodging.
I did not meet Miss Cushman personally after that until 1874-5. I was
giving Sunday-night entertainments in Boston, which were meeting with
very great success. I thought of Charlotte Cushman, and telegraphed her
at Newport, offering her $1,000 if she would give a reading in the
Boston. She accepted.
The night of the reading I was so busy that I did not have an
opportunity to place in Miss Cushman’s hands the envelope containing the
certified check for $1,000. It was not until after the performance that
I went to her hotel and sent up my card. The bell-boy returned with the
answer, “Miss Cushman says show the gentleman up.”
Miss Cushman met me very cordially in her room. She was in a very happy
mood, as the hall had been crowded with people.
“Miss Cushman,” I said, “I intended to hand this envelope to you on the
platform, but I was so busy in front of the house that I could not get
an opportunity. Please pardon me.”
“Oh, that is all right, Major Pond. Sit down and have some supper.”
(Stars always have supper after their performances.)
During the conversation at the table I said: “Miss Cushman, that $1,000
check of this evening is the interest on twenty dollars that you
invested in me in 1857.”
Then I related the incident of the twenty-dollar gold piece which she
gave me when I was sick back of the stage in St. Louis.
“Are you that boy?” she asked, with a reminiscent smile.
“Yes,” said I, smiling back, “the very boy.”
“Well, I am glad to see you. I have often wondered if you survived.”
We were both glad.
Miss Ellen Terry, the greatest actress of our times, possesses a
remarkable range of powers from low comedy to the highest tragic force,
but always suggesting a lovely spirit behind the mask. At one moment she
can be a queen of tragedy, at another a boisterous hoyden, at another a
gentle, refined, high-bred lady. Her mirth is perfect gladness.
[Illustration]
In private or social life, no matter how select or distinguished the
surroundings or attractive the company, she eclipses every lady present,
and is always the centre of attraction.
No better estimate of the genius of Miss Terry can be given than Mr.
William Winter’s description of her in the character of Rosamund, in
Tennyson’s “Becket,” which I quote, by permission of the Macmillan Co.,
from “Shadows of the Stage”:
* * * * *
“Tennyson’s Rosamund is one of the loveliest creations in English
literature. No character could be imagined in more complete unison with
the nature and attributes disclosed in the acting of Ellen Terry. She
embodied it in a fluent and delicious vein of spontaneity. In that part,
as in Goethe’s Margaret, she conquered by simply allowing a rich
individuality to show itself through careless glee, confiding
abandonment, and a sweet bewilderment of tremulous apprehension, and
once through the proud self-assertion of elemental nobility. That seems
not difficult in the saying, but, obviously, it must be difficult to do;
for whenever, in acting, the effect of nature is most absolute, there
the means of art have been applied with the most of glamour, and
concealed with the best of disguise. Throughout her performance there
was no effort. All was grace. In the fugitive scene with Becket, and in
the affectionate prattle--half raillery, half fondness--in the bower
scene with Henry, the conditions are so simple that the effect might
have become insipid but for her sumptuous personality, her profound
sincerity, the plenitude of her enticing and piquant ways, the sunshine
of her face, and the music of her delicious voice. During those scenes
her preservation of girlish sprightliness never lapsed--till, with the
final exclamation, ‘Some dreadful truth is breaking on me,’ she struck
the chord of tenderest pathos, and showed herself all woman. Beauty and
tenderness, in forlorn apprehension, overshadowed, shaken, and made half
wild with nameless dread, constitute a conflicting image of lovely
grief, such as Ellen Terry, beyond all the players of our time, is best
fitted to impress upon the heart.”
* * * * *
I have frequently been offered $1,000 if I could secure Miss Terry for
an afternoon’s reading in the drawing-rooms of wealthy people in New
York, Philadelphia, and Boston.
LITERARY LECTURERS
[Illustration]
Matthew Arnold came to this country and gave one hundred lectures.
Nobody ever heard any of them, not even those sitting in the front row.
At his first appearance in Chickering Hall every seat was sold at a high
price. Chauncey M. Depew introduced the speaker. I was looking after the
business in the front of the house. There was not a seat to be had
excepting a few that were held by speculators on the sidewalk. As Mr.
Depew and Matthew Arnold appeared before the audience, somebody told me
that General and Mrs. Grant had just arrived and had seats in the
gallery, but some other people were occupying them. I immediately got a
policeman, and working through the standing crowd, found that they were
the last two seats on the aisle in the gallery. We had no difficulty in
getting the occupants to vacate as soon as they discovered who held the
tickets. We had just heard the last few sentences of Mr. Depew’s
introduction when Matthew Arnold stepped forward, opened out his
manuscript, laid it on the desk, and his lips began to move. There was
not the slightest sound audible from where I stood. After a few minutes
General Grant said to Mrs. Grant, “Well, wife, we have paid to see the
British lion; we cannot hear him roar, so we had better go home.” They
left the hall. A few minutes later there was a stream of people leaving
the place. All those standing went away very early. Later on, the others
who could not endure the silence moved away as quietly as they could.
Matthew Arnold went to Boston, and some friends there urged him to take
lessons in elocution, which he did. He engaged the well-known
instructor, Mr. Marshall Wilder (not Marshall P. Wilder of vaudeville
fame), but it only helped to make the performance appear more ridiculous
than before.
Mr. Arnold had his manuscript copied in very large letters on flat cap
paper and bound in portfolio style, which he mounted on an easel at his
right. He would throw his eyes on the manuscript and then recite a
sentence to the audience, turn his head for the next sentence and recite
that in a loud, monotonous voice, and in that way to the end of the
show.
Notwithstanding all his eccentricities, the best people of America paid
$2 a ticket to see and hear the great poet and critic, and he returned
to England with a very handsome sum of money, which he must have needed
or he never would have allowed himself to be subjected to so ridiculous
a spectacle as he made of his performance.
His own impressions of the success of the lecture are given in the
following letter which he wrote to his daughter:
* * * * *
“THE ST. BOTOLPH CLUB, 85 BOYLSTON STREET,
“BOSTON, November 8, 1883.
“MY DEAREST FAN: