ON THE ROAD
Oh, those first tours! Not only was it exceedingly uncomfortable to
travel in the South and West at that time, but it was decidedly risky as
well. Highway robberies were numerous and, although I myself never
happened to suffer at the hands of any desperadoes, I have often heard
first-hand accounts from persons who had been robbed of everything they
were carrying. While I was touring in Missouri, Jesse James and his men
were operating in the same region and the celebrated highway man himself
was once in the train with me. I slipped quietly through to catch a
glimpse of him in the smoking-car. Two of his "aides" were with him and,
although they were behaving themselves peacefully enough for the time
being, I think that most of the passengers were willing to give them a
wide berth. During one concert trip of our company I saw something of a
situation which might have developed dramatically. There was a "three
card monte" gang working on the train. One of their number pretended to
be a farmer and entirely innocent, so as to lure victims into the game.
I saw this particularly tough-looking individual disappear into the
toilet room and come out made up as the farmer. It was like a play. I
also saw him finger a pistol that he was carrying in his right hip
pocket: and I experienced a somewhat blood-thirsty desire that there
might be a genuine excitement in store for us, but the alarm spread and
nobody was snared that trip.
As there were frequently no through trains on Sundays, we had sometimes
to have special trains. I never quite understood the idea of not having
through trains on Sundays, for surely other travellers besides
unfortunate singers need occasionally to take journeys on the Sabbath.
But so it was. And once our "special" ran plump into a big strike of
locomotive engineers at Dayton, Ohio. Our engine driver was held up by
the strikers bivouacked in the railroad yards and we were stalled there
for hours. At last an engineer from the East was found who consented to
take our train through and there was much excitement while he was being
armed with a couple of revolvers and plenty of ammunition, for the
strikers had threatened to shoot down any "scab" who attempted to break
the strike. We were all ordered to get down on the floor of the car to
avoid the stones that might be thrown through the windows when we
started; and when the train began to move slowly our situation was
decidedly trying. We could hear a hail of shots being fired, as the
engine gathered speed, but our volunteer engineer knew his business and
had been authorised to drive the engine at top speed to get us out of
the trouble, so soon the noise of shooting and the general uproar were
left behind. The plucky strike-breaker was barely grazed, but I,
personally, never cared to come any closer to lawlessness than I was
then.
There were some bright spots on these disagreeable journeys. One day as
I was coming out of a hall in Duluth where I had been rehearsing for the
concert we were giving that evening, I ran into a man I knew, an
Englishman whom I had not seen since I was in London.
"There!" he exclaimed, "I knew it was you!"
"Did you see the advertisement?" I asked.
"No," he returned, "I'm just off the yacht that's lying out there in the
Lake. I'm out looking into some mining interests, you know. I heard your
voice from the boat and I knew it must be you, so I thought I'd take a
run on shore and look you up."
But such pleasant experiences were the exception. The South in general
was in a particularly blind and dull condition just then. The people
could not conceive of any amusement that was not intended literally to
"amuse." They felt it incumbent to laugh at everything. My _cheval de
bataille_ was the Polonaise from _Mignon_, at the end of which I had
introduced some chromatic trills. It is a wonderful piece and required a
great deal of genuine technique to master. A portion of the house would
appreciate it, of course, but on one occasion a detestable young couple
thought the trills were intended to be humorous. Whenever I sang a trill
they would poke each other in the ribs and giggle and, when there was a
series of the chromatic trills, they nearly burst. The chromatics
introduced by me were never written. They went like this:
[Illustration: Musical notation.]
One disapproving unit in an audience can spoil a whole evening for a
singer. I recall one concert when I was obsessed by a man in the front
row. He would not even look at me. Possibly he considered that I was a
spoiled creature and he did not wish to aid and abet the spoiling, or,
perhaps, he was really bored and disgusted. At any rate, he kept his
eyes fixed on a point high over my head and not with a beatific
expression, either. He clearly did not think much of my work. Well--I
sang my whole programme to that one man. And I was a failure. Charmed I
ever so wisely, I could not really move him. But I _did_ make him
uncomfortable! He wriggled and sat sidewise and clearly was uneasy. He
must have felt that I was trying to win him over in spite of himself. I
sometimes wonder if other singers do the same with obdurate auditors?
Surely they must, for it is a sort of fetish of the profession that
there is always one person present who is by far the most difficult to
charm. In that clever play _The Concert_ the pianist tells the young
woman in love with him that he was first interested in her when he saw
her in the audience because she did not cry. He played his best in order
to moisten her eyes and, when he saw a tear roll down her cheek, he knew
that he had triumphed as an artist. Our audiences were frequently inert
and indiscriminating. One night an usher brought me a programme from
some one in the audience with a suggestion scribbled on the margin:
"Can't you sing something devilish for a change?"
I believe they really wanted a song and dance, or a tight-rope
exhibition. We had a baritone who sang well "The Evening Star" from
_Tannhauser_ and his performance frequently ended in a chill silence
with a bit of half-hearted clapping. He had a sense of humour and he
used to come off the stage and say:
"That didn't go very well! Do you think I'd better do my bicycle act
next?"
[Illustration: <p>Clara Louise Kellogg as Carmen</p>
From a photograph]
Times change and standards with them. The towns where they yearned for
bicycle acts and "something devilish" are to-day centres of musical
taste and cultivation. I never think of the change of standards without
being reminded of an old tale of my father's which is curious in itself,
although I cannot vouch for it nor verify it. He said that somewhere in
Germany there was a bell in a church tower which, when it was first
hung, many years before, was pitched in the key of _C_ and which was
found to ring, in the nineteenth century, according to our present
pitch, at about our _B_ flat. The musical scientists said that the
change was not in the bell but in our own standard of pitch, which had
been gradually raised by the manufacturers of pianos who pitched them
higher and higher to get a more brilliant tone.
My throat was very sensitive in those days. I took cold easily and used,
besides, to be subject to severe nervous headaches. Yet I always managed
to sing. Indeed, I have never had much sympathy with capricious _prime
donne_ who consider themselves and their own physical feelings before
their obligation to the public that has paid to hear them. While, of
course, in fairness to herself, a singer must somewhat consider her own
interests, I do believe that she cannot be too conscientious in this
connection. In _Carmen_ one night I broke my collar bone in the fall in
the last act. I was still determined to do my part and went out, after
it had been set, and bought material to match my costumes so that the
sling the surgeon had ordered should not be noticed. And, for once
fortunately, my audiences were either not exacting or not observing,
for, apparently, no comment was ever made on the fact that I could not
use my right arm. I could not help questioning whether my gestures were
usually so wooden that an arm, more or less, was not perceptible! Our
experiences in general with physicians on the road were lamentable. As a
result my mother carried a regular medicine chest about with her and all
of my fellow-artists used to come to her when anything was the matter
with them.
Another hardship that we all had to endure was the being on exhibition.
It is one of the penalties of fame. Special trains were most unusual,
and so were _prime donne_, and crowds used to gather on the station
platforms wherever we stopped, waiting to catch a glimpse of us as we
passed through.
And the food! Some of our trials in regard to food--or, rather, the lack
of it--were very trying. Voices are very dependent on the digestion;
hence the need of, at least, eatable food, however simple it may be. On
one trip we really nearly starved to death for, of course, there were no
dining-cars and the train did not stop at any station long enough to
forage for a square meal. Finally, in desperation, I told one of the men
in the company that, if he would get some "crude material" at the next
stop and bring it in, I would cook it. So he succeeded in securing a
huge bundle of raw chops, a loaf of bread and some butter. There was a
big stove at one end of the car and on its coals I broiled the chops,
made tea and toast, and we all feasted. Indeed, it seemed a feast after
ten hours with nothing at all! Another time I got off our "special" to
hunt luncheon and was left behind. I raced wildly to catch the train but
could not make it. After a while the company discovered that they had
lost me on the way and backed up to get me. Speaking of food, I shall
never forget the battle royal I once had with a hotel manager on the
road in regard to my coloured maid, Eliza. She was a very nice and
entirely presentable girl and he would not let her have even a cup of
tea in the dining-room. We had had a long, hard journey, and she was
quite as tired as the rest of us. So, when I found her still waiting
after I had lunched, I made a few pertinent remarks to the effect that
her presence at the table was much to be preferred to the men who had
eaten there without table manners, uncouth, feeding themselves with
their knives.
"And what else did we have the war for!" I finally cried. How the others
laughed at me. But Eliza was fed, and well fed, too.
I had always to carry my own bedclothes on the Western tours. When we
first started out, I did not realise the necessity, but later, I became
wiser. Cleanliness has always been almost more than godliness to me.
Before I would use a dressing-room I nearly always had it thoroughly
swept out and sometimes cleaned and scrubbed. This all depended on the
part of the country we were in. I came to know that in certain sections
of the South-west I should have to have a regular house-cleaning done
before I would set foot in their accommodations. I missed my bath
desperately, and my piano, and all the other luxuries that have become
practical necessities to civilised persons. When I could not have a
state-room on a train, my maid would bring a cup of cold water to my
berth before I dressed that was a poor apology for a bath, but that
saved my life on many a morning after a long, stuffy night in a sleeper.
The lesser hardships perhaps annoyed me most. Bad food, bad air, rough
travelling, were worse than the more serious ills of fatigue and
indispositions. But the worst of all was the water. One can, at a pinch,
get along with poor food or with no food at all to speak of, but bad
water is a much more serious matter. Even dirt is tolerable if it can
be washed off afterwards. But I have seen many places where the water
was less inviting than the dirt. When I first beheld Missouri water I
hardly dared wash in it, much less drink it, and was appalled when it
was served to me at the table. I gazed with horror at the brown liquid
in my tumbler, and then said faintly to the waiter:
"Can't you get me some clear water, please?"
"Oh, yes," said he, "it'll be clearer, ma'am, _but it won't be near so
rich_!"
And all the time I was working, for, no matter what the hardships or
distractions that may come an artist's way, he or she must always keep
at work. Singing is something that must be worked for just as hard after
it is won as during the winning process. Liszt is supposed to have said
that when he missed practising one day he knew it; when he missed two
days his friends knew it; on the third day the public knew it. I often
rehearsed before a mirror, so that I could know whether I looked right
as well as sounded right; and, _apropos_ of this, I have been much
impressed by the fact that ways of rehearsing are very different and
characteristic. Ellen Terry once told me that, when she had a new part
to study, she generally got into a closed carriage, with the window
open, and was driven about for two or three hours, working on her lines.
"It is the only way I can keep my repose," she said. "I only wish I had
some of Henry's repose when studying a part!"
[Illustration: =Sir Henry Irving and Ellen Terry as the Vicar and Olivia=
From a photograph by Window & Grove]