PERSONAL
REMINISCENCES
OF
HENRY IRVING
_THE WORLD’S GREATEST ACTRESS_
MY DOUBLE LIFE
MEMOIRS OF
SARAH BERNHARDT
In One Volume, Demy 8vo, with
Illustrations in Colour and Black
and White. Price 15s. net
These Memoirs, written in an easy flowing style, give the story of the
early life and struggles of this celebrated actress down to the time
when her genius was recognised in every civilised country and she became
her own manageress.
Sarah Bernhardt’s Memoirs are not merely an assembly of the stage
stories of the most successful actress of modern times; they are the
faithful record of a most interesting life—a life full of varied
experiences—the reflections of a supremely intelligent mind, the story
of a woman whose reminiscences alone of the celebrities she came into
contact with, throw a vivid side-light on the history of the past fifty
years.
LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN
1907
[Illustration:
THE LAST PICTURE PAINTED OF HENRY IRVING
FROM A PASTEL
BY J. BERNARD PARTRIDGE
(IN THE POSSESSION OF THE AUTHOR)
]
PERSONAL
REMINISCENCES
OF
HENRY IRVING
BY
BRAM STOKER
_ILLUSTRATED_
[Illustration]
LONDON
WILLIAM HEINEMANN
MCMVII
_First printed (2 volumes) October 1906
Revised and Cheaper Edition October 1907_
_Copyright, 1906, by Bram Stoker
Copyright in the United States of America, 1906
by the Macmillan Company_
TO
THE MEMORY OF
JOHN LAWRENCE TOOLE
LOVING COMRADE AND TRUE FRIEND
OF
HENRY IRVING
PREFACE
Were my book a “life” of Henry Irving instead of a grouping of such
matters as came into my own purview, I should probably feel some
embarrassment in the commencement of a preface. Logically speaking, even
the life of an actor has no preface. He begins, and that is all. And
such beginning is usually obscure; but faintly remembered at the best.
Art is a completion; not merely a history of endeavour. It is only when
completeness has been obtained that the beginnings of endeavour gain
importance, and that the steps by which it has been won assume any shape
of permanent interest. After all, the struggle for supremacy is so
universal that the matters of hope and difficulty of one person are
hardly of general interest. When the individual has won out from the
huddle of strife, the means and steps of his succeeding become of
interest, either historically or in the educational aspect—but not
before. From every life there may be a lesson to some one; but in the
teeming millions of humanity such lessons can but seldom have any
general or exhaustive force. The mere din of strife is too incessant for
any individual sound to carry far. Fame, who rides in higher atmosphere,
can alone make her purpose heard. Well did the framers of picturesque
idea understand their work when in her hand they put a symbolic trumpet.
The fame of an actor is won in minutes and seconds, not in years. The
latter are only helpful in the recurrence of opportunities; in the
possibilities of repetition. It is not feasible, therefore, adequately
to record the progress of his work. Indeed that work in its perfection
cannot be recorded; words are, and can be, but faint suggestions of
awakened emotion. The student of history can, after all, but accept in
matters evanescent the judgment of contemporary experience. Of such, the
weight of evidence can at best incline in one direction; and that
tendency is not susceptible of further proof. So much, then, for the
work of art that is not plastic and permanent. There remains therefore
but the artist. Of him the other arts can make record in so far as
external appearance goes. Nay, more, the genius of sculptor or painter
can suggest—with an understanding as subtle as that of the sun-rays
which on sensitive media can depict what cannot be seen by the eye—the
existence of these inner forces and qualities whence accomplished works
of any kind proceed. It is to such art that we look for the teaching of
our eyes. Modern science can record something of the actualities of
voice and tone. Writers of force and skill and judgment can convey
abstract ideas of controlling forces and purposes; of thwarting
passions; of embarrassing weaknesses; of all the bundle of
inconsistencies which make up an item of concrete humanity. From all
these may be derived some consistent idea of individuality. This
individuality is at once the ideal and the objective of portraiture.
For my own part the work which I have undertaken in this book is to show
future minds something of Henry Irving as he was to me. I have chosen
the form of the book for this purpose. As I cannot give the myriad of
details and impressions which went to the making up of my own
convictions, I have tried to select such instances as were
self-sufficient to the purpose. If here and there I have been able to
lift for a single instant the veil which covers the mystery of
individual nature, I shall have made something known which must help the
lasting memory of my dear dead friend. In the doing of my work, I am
painfully conscious that I have obtruded my own personality, but I trust
that for this I may be forgiven, since it is only by this means that I
can convey at all the ideas which I wish to impress.
As I cannot adequately convey the sense of Irving’s worthiness myself, I
try to do it by other means. By showing him amongst his friends, and
explaining who those friends were; by giving incidents with explanatory
matter of intention; by telling of the pressure of circumstance and his
bearing under it; by affording such glimpses of his inner life and mind
as one man may of another. I have earnestly tried to avoid giving pain
to the living, to respect the sanctity of the dead; and finally to keep
from any breach of trust—either that specifically confided in me, or
implied by the accepted intimacy of our relations. Well I know how easy
it is to err in this respect; to overlook the evil force of
irresponsible chatter. But I have always tried to bear in mind the grim
warning of Tennyson’s bitter words:
“Proclaim the faults he would not show;
Break lock and seal; betray the trust;
Keep nothing sacred; ’tis but just
The many-headed beast should know.”
For nearly thirty years I was an intimate friend of Irving; in certain
ways the most intimate friend of his life. I knew him as well as it is
given to any man to know another. And this knowledge is fully in my
mind, when I say that, so far as I know, there is not in this book a
word of his inner life or his outer circumstances that he would wish
unsaid; no omission that he would have liked filled.
Let any one who will read the book through say whether I have tried to
do him honour—and to do it by worthy means: the honour and respect which
I feel; which in days gone I held for him; which now I hold for his
memory.
BRAM STOKER.
4 DURHAM PLACE,
CHELSEA, LONDON.
CONTENTS
PAGE
I. EARLIEST RECOLLECTIONS OF HENRY IRVING 1
Earliest recollection, Dublin, 1867—Captain
Absolute—Impersonation—Distinction—Local
criticism—“Two Roses,” Dublin, 1871—The archetype
of Digby Grant—Chevalier Wikoff.
II. THE OLD SCHOOL AND THE NEW 8
Irving’s early experience in Dublin—A month of
hisses—The old school of acting and the new—
Historical comparison—From Edmund Kean to Irving—
Irving’s work—The thoughtful school.
III. FRIENDSHIP 16
Criticism—My meeting with Irving—A blaze of genius—
The friendship of a life.
IV. HONOURS FROM DUBLIN UNIVERSITY 22
Public Address—University Night—Carriage dragged by
students.
V. CONVERGING STREAMS 27
A reading in Trinity College—James Knowles—Hamlet
the Mystic—Richard III.—The Plantagenet look—“Only
a commercial”—True sportsmen—Coming events.
VI. JOINING FORCES 35
“Vanderdecken”—Visit to Belfast—An Irish bull—I join
Irving—Preparations at the Lyceum—The property
master “getting even.”
VII. LYCEUM PRODUCTIONS 45
VIII. IRVING BEGINS MANAGEMENT 46
The “Lyceum Audience”—“Hamlet”—A lesson in
production—The Chinese Ambassador—Catastrophe
averted—The responsibility of a manager—Not ill
for seven years.
IX. SHAKESPEARE PLAYS—I 53
“The Merchant of Venice”—Preparation—The red
handkerchief—Booth and Irving—“Othello”—A dinner
at Hampton Court—The hat.
X. SHAKESPEARE PLAYS—II 59
“Romeo and Juliet”—Preparation—Music—The way to
carry a corpse—Variants of the bridal chamber—
“Much Ado About Nothing”—John Penberthy—
Hyper-criticism—Respect for feelings.
XI. SHAKESPEARE PLAYS—III 68
“Macbeth”—An amateur scene-painter—Sir Arthur
Sullivan—A lesson in collaboration—“Henry VIII.”—
Lessons in illusion—Stage effects—Reality v.
scenery—A real baby and its consequences.
XII. SHAKESPEARE PLAYS—IV 76
“King Lear”—Illness of Irving—A performance at
sight—“Richard III.”—A splendid first night—A
sudden check.
XIII. IRVING’S METHOD 82
“Eugene Aram”—Sudden change—“Richelieu”—
Impersonation fixed in age—“Louis XI.”—“Up against
it” in Chicago—“The Lyons Mail”—Tom Mead—Stories
of his forgetfulness—“Charles I.”—Dion Boucicault
on politics in the theatre—Irving’s “make-up”—
Cupid as Mephistopheles.
XIV. ART-SENSE 91
“The Bells”—Worn-out scenery—An actor’s judgment of
a part—“Olivia”—“Faust”—A master mind and good
service—A loyal stage manager and staff—Whistler
on business—Twenty-fifth anniversary of “The
Bells”—A presentation—A work of art—“The Bells” a
classic—Visit of illustrious Frenchmen—Sarcey’s
amusement.
XV. STAGE EFFECTS 101
“The Lady of Lyons”—A great stage army—Supers: their
work and pay—“The Corsican Brothers”—Some great
“sets”—A Royal visitor behind scenes—Seizing an
opportunity—A Triton amongst minnows—Gladstone as
an actor—Beaconsfield and coryphées—A double—A
cure for haste.
XVI. THE VALUE OF EXPERIMENT 112
“Robert Macaire”—A great benefit—“Our genial friend
Mr. Edwards”—“Faust”—Application of science—
Division of stage labour—The Emperor Fritz—
Accidental effects—A “top angel”—Educational value
of the stage—“Faust” in America—Irving’s fiftieth
birthday.
XVII. THE PULSE OF THE PUBLIC 120
“Ravenswood”—Delayed presentation—The public pulse—
“Nance Oldfield”—Ellen Terry as a dramatist.
XVIII. TENNYSON AND HIS PLAYS—I 128
Irving on Tennyson—Frankness—Irving’s knowledge of
character—The “fighting” quality—Tennyson on
Irving’s Hamlet—Tennyson’s alterations of his
work—As a dramatist—“First run”—Experts on Greek
Art.
XIX. TENNYSON AND HIS PLAYS—II 136
Before “Becket”—Irving’s preparation of the play—
_Re_ “Robin Hood”—Visit to Tennyson at Aldworth—
Tennyson’s humour—His onomatopœia—Scoffing—
Tennyson’s belief—He reads his new poem—Voice and
phonograph—Irving sees his way to playing
“Becket.”
XX. TENNYSON AND HIS PLAYS—III 146
“Becket” for the stage—My visit to Farringford—“In
the Roar of the Sea”—Tennyson on “interviewers”—
Relic hunters—“God the Virgin”—The hundred best
stories—Message to John Fiske—Walter Map—Last
visit to Tennyson—Tennyson on Homer and
Shakespeare—His own reminiscences—Good-bye.
XXI. TENNYSON AND HIS PLAYS—IV 156
“Becket” produced—Death of Tennyson—“Irving will do
me justice”—“The Silent Voices”—Production of the
play—Irving reads it at Canterbury Cathedral—And
at the King Alfred Millenary, Winchester.
XXII. “WATERLOO”—“KING ARTHUR”—“DON QUIXOTE” 161
Acquisition and production of “Waterloo”—The one man
in America who saw the play—Played for Indian and
Colonial troops, 1897—“King Arthur” plays—
Burne-Jones and the armour—“Don Quixote” plays—A
rhadamanthine decision.
XXIII. ART AND HAZARD 169
“Madame Sans-Gêne”—Size, proportions and
juxtaposition—Evolution of “business”—“Peter the
Great” “Robespierre”—“Dante”—The hazard of
management.
XXIV. VANDENHOFF 180
XXV. CHARLES MATHEWS 181
In early days—A touch of character—Mathews’
appreciation—Henry Russell—The wolf and the lamb.
XXVI. CHARLES DICKENS AND HENRY IRVING 183
XXVII. MR. J. M. LEVY 185
XXVIII. VISITS TO AMERICA 186
Farewell at the Lyceum—Welcome in New York, 1883—A
journalistic “scoop”—Farewell.
XXIX. WILLIAM WINTER 189
XXX. PERFORMANCE AT WEST POINT 191
A National consent—Difficulties of travel—An
audience of steel—A startling finale—Capture of
West Point by the British.
XXXI. AMERICAN REPORTERS 195
High testimony—Irving’s care in speaking—“Not for
publication”—A diatribe—Moribundity.
XXXII. TOURS-DE-FORCE 200
A “Hamlet” reading—A vast “bill.”
XXXIII. CHRISTMAS 203
Christmas geese—Punch in the green room—A dinner in
the theatre—Gambling without risk—Christmas at
Pittsburg.
XXXIV. IRVING AS A SOCIAL FORCE 204
XXXV. VISITS OF FOREIGN WARSHIPS 208
XXXVI. IRVING’S LAST RECEPTION AT THE LYCEUM 211
The Queen’s Jubilee, 1887—The Diamond Jubilee, 1897—
The King’s Coronation, 1902.
XXXVII. THE VOICE OF ENGLAND 218
XXXVIII. RIVAL TOWNS 220
XXXIX. TWO STORIES 221
XL. SIR RICHARD BURTON 224
A face of steel—Some pleasant suppers—Lord Houghton—
Searching for patriarchs—Edmund Henry Palmer—
Desert law—The “Arabian Nights.”
XLI. SIR HENRY MORTON STANLEY 232
An interesting dinner—“Doubting Thomases”—The lesson
of exploration—“Through the Dark Continent”—
Dinner—Du Chaillu—The price of fame.
XLII. ARMINIUS VAMBÉRY 238
A Defence against torture—How to travel in Central
Asia—An orator.
XLIII. EARLY REMINISCENCE BY C. R. FORD 239
XLIV. IRVING’S PHILOSOPHY OF HIS ART 244
The key-stone—The scientific process—Character—The
Play—Stage Perspective—Dual consciousness—
Individuality—The true realism.
XLV. THE RIGHT HON. WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE 260
Visits to the Lyceum—Intellectual stimulus and rest—
An interesting post-card—His memory—“Mr.
Gladstone’s seat”—Speaks of Parnell—Visit to
“Becket”—Special knowledge; its application—Lord
Randolph Churchill on Gladstone—Mrs. Gladstone.
XLVI. THE EARL OF BEACONSFIELD 266
His advice to a Court chaplain—Sir George Elliott
and picture-hanging—As a beauty—As a social
fencer—“A striking physiognomy.”
XLVII. SIR WILLIAM PEARCE, BART. 270
A night adventure—The courage of a mother—The Story
of the “Livadia”—Nihilists after her—Her trial
trip—How she saved the Czar’s life.
XLVIII. STEPNIAK 276
A congeries of personalities—The “closed hand”—His
appearance—“Free Russia”—The gentle criticism of a
Nihilist—Prince Nicolas Galitzin—The dangers of
big game.
XLIX. E. ONSLOW FORD, R.A. 280
Fatherly advice—The design—The meeting—Sittings—
Irving’s hands.
L. SIR LAURENCE ALMA-TADEMA, R.A. 284
“Coriolanus”—Union of the Arts—Archæology—The
re-evolution of the toga—Twenty-two years’ delay—
Alma-Tadema’s house—A lesson in care—“Cymbeline.”
LI. SIR EDWARD BURNE-JONES, BART. 289
“King Arthur”—The painter’s thought—His illustrative
stories from child life.
LII. EDWIN A. ABBEY, R.A. 293
“Richard II.”—“The Kinsmen”—Artistic collaboration—
Mediæval life—The character of Richard.
LIII. J. BERNARD PARTRIDGE 298
Lyceum souvenirs—Partridge’s method—“Putting in the
noses”—The last picture of Irving.
LIV. ROBERT BROWNING 300
Browning and Irving on Shakespeare—Edmund Kean’s
purse—Kean relics—Clint’s portrait of Kean.
LV. WALT WHITMAN 302
Irving meets Walt Whitman—My own friendship and
correspondence with him—Like Tennyson—Visit to
Walt Whitman, 1886—Again in 1887—Walt Whitman’s
self-judgment—A projected bust—Lincoln’s
life-work—G. W. Childs—A message from the dead.
LVI. JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 313
Supper on a car—A sensitive mountaineer—“Good-bye,
Jim.”
LVII. ERNEST RENAN 314
Renan and Haweis—How to converse in a language you
don’t know.
LVIII. HALL CAINE 315
A remarkable criticism—Irving and “The Deemster”—
“Mahomet”—For reasons of State—Weird remembrances—
“The Flying Dutchman”—“Home, Sweet Home”—“Glory
and John Storm”—Irving and the chimpanzee—A
dangerous moment—Unceremonious treatment of a
lion—Irving’s last night at the play.
LIX. IRVING AND DRAMATISTS 325
Difficulty of getting plays—The sources—Actor as
collaborator—A startled dramatist—Plays bought but
not produced—Pinero.
LX. MUSICIANS 331
Boito—Paderewski—Henschel—Richter—Liszt—Gounod—Sir
Alexander C. Mackenzie.
LXI. LUDWIG BARNAY 338
Meeting of Irving and Barnay—“Fluff”—A dinner on the
stage—A discussion on subsidy—An honour from
Saxe-Meiningen—A Grand-Ducal Invasion.
LXII. CONSTANT COQUELIN (AINÉ) 341
First meeting of Coquelin and Irving—Coquelin’s
comments—Irving’s reply—“Cyrano.”
LXIII. SARAH BERNHARDT 343
Irving sees Sarah Bernhardt—First meeting—Supper in
Beefsteak Club—Bastien Lepage—Tradition—Painting a
serpent—Sarah’s appreciation of Irving and Ellen
Terry.
LXIV. GENEVIÈVE WARD 347
When and how I first saw her—Her romantic marriage—
Plays Zillah at Lyceum—“Forget me not”—Plays with
Irving: “Becket”; “King Arthur”; “Cymbeline”;
“Richard III.”—Argument on a “reading”—Eyes that
blazed—A lesson from Regnier.
LXV. JOHN LAWRENCE TOOLE 353
Toole and Irving—A life-long friendship—Their jokes—
A seeming robbery—An odd Christmas present—Toole
and a sentry—A hornpipe in a landau—Moving
Canterbury Cathedral—Toole and the verger—A joke
to the King—Other jokes—His grief at Irving’s
death—Our last parting.
LXVI. ELLEN TERRY 362
First meet her—Irving’s early playing with her—His
criticism—How she knighted an Attorney-General—A
generous player—Real flowers—Her art—Discussion on
a “gag”—The New School—Last performance with
Irving—The cause of separation—Their comradeship—A
pet name.
LXVII. FRESH HONOURS IN DUBLIN 373
A public reception—Above politics—A lesson in
hand-shaking—A remarkable address—A generous gift.
LXVIII. PERFORMANCES AT SANDRINGHAM AND WINDSOR 375
Sandringham, 1889—First appearance before the Queen—
A quick change—Souvenirs—Windsor, 1893—A blunder
in old days—Royal hospitality—The Queen and the
Press—Sandringham, 1902—The Kaiser’s visit—A
record journey—An amateur conductor.
LXIX. PRESIDENTS OF THE UNITED STATES 384
Chester Arthur—Grover Cleveland—A judgment on taste—
McKinley—The “War Room”—Reception after a Cabinet
Council—McKinley’s memory—Theodore Roosevelt—His
justice as Police Commissioner—Irving at his New
Year Reception.
LXX. KNIGHTHOOD 389
Irving’s intimation of the honour—First State
recognition in any country—A deluge of
congratulations—The Queen’s pleasure—A wonderful
Address—Former suggestion of knighthood.
LXXI. HENRY IRVING AND UNIVERSITIES 393
Dublin—Cambridge—Glasgow—Oxford—Manchester—Harvard—
Columbia—Chicago—Princeton—Learned Bodies and
Institutions.
LXXII. ADVENTURES 405
Over a mine-bed—Fires: Edinburgh Hotel; Alhambra,
London; Star Theatre, New York; Lyceum—How Theatre
fires are put out—Union Square Theatre, New York—
“Fussy” safe—Floods—Bayou Pierre—How to get
supper—On the Pan Handle—Train accidents;
explosions; “Frosted” wheel; A lost driver—Storms
at sea—A reason for laughter—Falling scenery—No
fear of death—Master of himself.
LXXIII. BURNING OF THE LYCEUM STORAGE 423
Difficulty of storing scenery—New storage—A clever
fraud—The fire—Forty-four plays burned—Checkmate
to repertoire.
LXXIV. FINANCE 427
The protection of reticence—Beginning without a
capital—An overdraft—A loan—A legacy—Expenses at
commencement of management—Great running expenses—
Sale to the Lyceum Company—Irving’s position with
them.
LXXV. THE TURN OF THE TIDE 438
High-water mark—A succession of disasters—Pleurisy
and pneumonia—“Like Gregory Brewster”—Future
arrangements decided on—Offer from the Lyceum
Company—Health failing—True heroism—Work and
pressure—His splendid example—The last seven
years—Time of Retirement fixed—Singing at Swansea—
Farewell at Sunderland—Illness at Wolverhampton—
Last performances in London—Last illness—Death—A
city in tears—Lying in state—Public funeral.
INDEX 467
ILLUSTRATIONS
_To face
page_
LAST PORTRAIT OF IRVING, Pastel _Coloured
Frontispiece_
HENRY IRVING BEFORE BECOMING AN ACTOR 2
DIGBY GRANT. _Drawing by Fred Barnard_ 6
SUGGESTION FOR IAGO’S DRESS. _Drawing by Henry Irving_ 58
HENRY IRVING AS CHARLES I. 138
HENRY IRVING BETWEEN ENGLAND AND AMERICA. _Drawing by
Fred Barnard_ 186
ELLEN TERRY AS IMOGEN, 1896 260
CAST OF “DEARER THAN LIFE” 356
HENRY IRVING AND JOHN HARE (last photograph taken) 456
I
EARLIEST RECOLLECTIONS OF HENRY IRVING
I
The first time I ever saw Henry Irving was at the Theatre Royal, Dublin,
on the evening of Wednesday, August 28, 1867. Miss Herbert had brought
the St. James’s company on tour, playing some of the old comedies and
Miss Braddon’s new drama founded on her successful novel, _Lady Audley’s
Secret_. The piece chosen for this particular night was _The Rivals_, in
which Irving played Captain Absolute.
Forty years ago provincial playgoers did not have much opportunity of
seeing great acting, except in the star parts. It was the day of the
stock companies, when the chief theatres everywhere had _good_ actors
who played for the whole season, each in his or her established class;
but notable excellence was not to be expected at the salaries then
possible to even the most enterprising management. The “business”—the
term still applied to the minor incidents of acting, as well as to the
disposition of the various characters and the entrances and exits—was,
of necessity, of a formal and traditional kind. There was no time for
the exhaustive rehearsal of minor details to which actors are in these
days accustomed. When the bill was changed five or six times a week it
was only possible, even at the longest rehearsal, to get through the
standard outline of action, and secure perfection in the cues—in fact,
those conditions of the interdependence of the actors and mechanics on
which the structural excellence of the play depends. Moreover, the
system by which great actors appeared as “stars,” supported by only one
or two players of their own bringing, made it necessary that there
should be in the higher order of theatres some kind of standard way of
regulating the action of the plays in vogue. It was a matter of
considerable interest to me to see, when some fourteen years later Edwin
Booth came to play at the Lyceum, that he sent his “dresser” to
represent him at the earlier rehearsals, so as to point out to the stage
management the disposition of the characters and general arrangement of
matured action to which he was accustomed. I only mention this here to
illustrate the conditions of stage work at an earlier period.
This adherence to standard “business” was so strict, though unwritten, a
rule that no one actor could venture to break it. To do so without
preparation would have been to at least endanger the success of the
play; and “preparation” was the prerogative of the management, not of
the individual player. Even Henry Irving, though he had been, as well as
a player, the stage manager of the St. James’s company, and so could
carry out his ideas partially, could not have altered the broad lines of
the play established by nearly a century of usage.
As a matter of fact, _The Rivals_ had not been one of Miss Herbert’s
productions at the St. James’s, and so it did not come within the scope
of his stage management at all.
Irving had played the part of Captain Absolute in the Theatre Royal,
Edinburgh, during three years of his engagement there, 1856–59, where he
had learned the traditional usage. Thus the only possibility open to
him, as to any actor with regard to an established comedy, was to
improve on the traditional method of acting it within the established
lines of movement; in fact, to impersonate the character to better
advantage.
On this particular occasion the play as an entity had an advantage not
always enjoyed in provincial theatres. It was performed by a company of
comedians, several of whom had acted together for a considerable time.
The lines of the play, being absolutely conventional, did not leave any
special impress on the mind; one can only recall the actors and the
acting.
[Illustration:
HENRY IRVING BEFORE BECOMING AN ACTOR
1856
]
To this day I can remember the playing of Henry Irving as Captain
Absolute, which was different from any performance of the same part
which I had seen. What I saw, to my amazement and delight, was a
patrician figure as real as the persons of one’s dreams, and endowed
with the same poetic grace. A young soldier, handsome, distinguished,
self-dependent, compact of grace and slumbrous energy. A man of quality
who stood out from his surroundings on the stage as a being of another
social world. A figure full of dash and fine irony, and whose ridicule
seemed to _bite_; buoyant with the joy of life; self-conscious; an
inoffensive egoist even in his love-making; of supreme and unsurpassable
insolence, veiled and shrouded in his fine quality of manner. Such a
figure as could only be possible in an age when the answer to offence
was a sword-thrust, when only those dare be insolent who could depend to
the last on the heart and brain and arm behind the blade. The scenes
which stand out most vividly are the following: His interview with Mrs.
Malaprop, in which she sets him to read his own intercepted letter to
Lydia wherein he speaks of the old lady herself as “the old
weather-beaten she-dragon.” The manner with which he went back again and
again, with excuses exemplified by action rather than speech, to the
offensive words—losing his place in the letter and going back to find
it—seeming to try to recover the sequence of thought—innocently trying
to fit the words to the subject—was simply a triumph, of well-bred, easy
insolence. Again, when Captain Absolute makes repentant obedience to his
father’s will his negative air of content as to the excellences or
otherwise of his suggested wife was inimitable. And the shocked
appearance, manner and speech of his hypocritical submission: “Not to
please your father, sir?” was as enlightening to the audience as it was
convincing to Sir Anthony. Again, the scene in the Fourth Act, when in
the presence of his father and Mrs. Malaprop he has to make love to
Lydia in his own person, was on the actor’s part a masterpiece of
emotion—the sort of thing to make an author grateful. There was no
mistaking the emotions which came so fast, treading on each other’s
heels: his mental perturbation; his sense of the ludicrous situation in
which he found himself; his hurried, feeble, ill-concealed efforts to
find a way out of the difficulty. And through them all the sincerity of
his real affection for Lydia which actually shone, coming straight and
convincingly to the hearts of the audience.
But these scenes were all of acting a part. The reality of his character
was in the scene of Sir Lucius O’Trigger’s quarrel with him. Here he was
real. Man to man the grace and truth of his character and bearing were
based on no purpose or afterthought. Before a man his manhood was
sincere; before a gallant gentleman his gallantry was without flaw, and,
as the dramatist intended, outshone even the chivalry of that perfect
gentleman Sir Lucius O’Trigger.
The acting of Henry Irving is, after nearly forty years, so vivid in my
memory that I can recall his movements, his expressions, the tones of
his voice.
And yet the manner in which his acting in the new and perfect method was
received in the local press may afford an object-lesson of what the
pioneer of high art has, like any other pioneer, to endure.
During the two weeks’ visit to Dublin the repertoire comprised, as well
as _The Rivals_, _The School for Scandal_, _The Belle’s Stratagem_, _The
Road to Ruin_, _She Stoops to Conquer_, and _Lady Audley’s Secret_.
Of these other plays I can say nothing, for I did not see them. Lately,
however, on looking over the newspapers, I found hardly a word of even
judicious comment; praise there was not. According to the local
journalistic record, his Joseph Surface was “lachrymose, coarse,
pointless, and ineffective. Nothing could be more ludicrously deficient
of dramatic power than his acting in the passage with Lady Teazle in the
screen scene. The want of harmony between the actual words and gesture,
emphasis and expression, was painfully palpable.”
And yet to those who can read between the lines and gather truth where
truth—though not perhaps the same truth—is meant, this very criticism
shows how well he played the hypocrite who meant one thing whilst
conveying the idea of another. Were Joseph’s acts and tones and words
all in perfect harmony he would seem to an audience not a hypocrite but
a reality.
Another critic considered him “stiff and constrained, and occasionally
left the audience under the impression that they were witnessing the
playing of an amateur.”
The only mention of his Young Marlow was in one paper that it was
“carefully represented by Mr. Irving,” and in another that it was
“insipid and pointless.”
Of young Dornton in _The Road to Ruin_ there was one passing word of
praise as an “able impersonation.” But of _The Rivals_ I could find no
criticism whatever in any of the Dublin papers when more than
thirty-eight years after seeing the play I searched them, hoping to find
some confirmation of my vivid recollection of Henry Irving’s brilliant
acting. The following only, in small type, I found in the _Irish Times_
of more than a week after the play had been given:
“Of those who support Miss Herbert, Mr. and Mrs. Frank Matthews are
undoubtedly the best. Mr. Stoyle is full of broad comedy, but now and
then he is not true to nature. Mr. Irving and Mr. Gaston Murray are
painstaking and respectable artists.”
It is good to think that the great player who, as the representative
actor of his nation—of the world—for over a quarter of a century, was
laid to rest in Westminster Abbey to the grief of at least two
Continents, had after eleven years of arduous and self-sacrificing work,
during which he had played over five hundred different characters and
had even then begun quite a new school of acting, been considered by at
least one writer for the press “a painstaking and respectable artist.”
II
I did not see Henry Irving again till May 1871, when with the Vaudeville
company he played for a fortnight at the Theatre Royal Albery’s comedy
_Two Roses_. Looking back to that time, the best testimony I can bear to
the fact that the performance interested me is that I went to see it
three times. The company was certainly an excellent one. In addition to
Henry Irving, it contained H. J. Montague, George Honey, Louise Claire,
and Amy Fawsitt.
Well do I remember the delight of that performance of Digby Grant, and
how well it foiled the other characters of the play.
Amongst them all it stood out star-like—an inimitable character which
Irving impersonated in a manner so complete that to this day I have been
unable to get it out of my mind as a reality. Indeed, it was a reality,
though at that time I did not know it. Years afterwards I met the
original at the house of the late Mr. James McHenry—a villa in a little
park off Addison Road.
This archetype was the late Chevalier Wikoff, of whom in the course of a
friendship of years I had heard much from McHenry, who well remembered
him in his early days in Philadelphia, in which city Wikoff was born. In
his youth he had been a very big, handsome man, and in the days when men
wore cloaks used to pass down Chestnut Street or Locust Street with a
sublime swagger. He was a great friend of Edwin Forrest the actor, and a
great “ladies’ man.” He had been a friend and lover of the celebrated
dancer Fanny Elsler, who was so big and yet so agile that, as my father
described to me, when she bounded in on the stage, seeming to light from
the wings to the footlights in a single leap, the house seemed to shake.
Wikoff was a pretty hard man, and as cunning as men are made. When I
knew him he was an old man, but he fortified the deficiencies of age
with artfulness. He was then a little hard of hearing, but he simulated
complete deafness, and there was little said within a reasonable
distance that he did not hear. For many years he had lived in Europe,
chiefly in London and Paris. There was one trait in his character which
even his intimate friends did not suspect. Every year right up to the
end of his long life he disappeared from London at a certain date. He
was making his pilgrimage to Paris, where on a given day he laid some
flowers on a little grave long after the child’s mother, the dancer, had
died. Wikoff was a trusted agent of the Bonapartes, and he held strange
secrets of that adventurous family. He it was, so McHenry told me, who
had brought in secret from France to England the last treasures of the
Imperial house after the _débâcle_ following Sedan.
This was the person whom Irving had reproduced in Digby Grant. Long
before, he had met him at McHenry’s. With that “seeing eye” of his he
had marked his personality down for use, and with that marvellous
memory, which in my long experience of him never failed him, was able to
reproduce with the exactness of a “Chinese copy” every jot and tittle
appertaining to the man, without and within. His tall, gaunt, slightly
stooping figure; his scanty hair artfully arranged to cover the ravages
of time; the cunning, inquisitive eyes; the mechanical turning of the
head which becomes the habit of the deaf; the veiled voice which can do
everything but express truth—even under stress of sudden emotion. Years
after _Two Roses_ had had its run at the Vaudeville and elsewhere I went
to see Wikoff when he was ill in a humble lodging. In answer to my
knuckle-tap he opened the door himself. For an instant I was startled
out of my self-possession, for in front of me stood the veritable Digby
Grant. I had met him already a good many times, but always in the
recognised costume of morning or evening. Now I saw him as Irving had
represented him; but I do not think he had ever seen him as I saw him at
that moment. I believe that the costume in which he appeared in that
play was the result of the actor’s inductive ratiocination. He had
studied the individuality so thoroughly, and was so familiar with not
only his apparent characteristics but with those secret manifestations
which are in their very secrecy subtle indicators of individuality
grafted on type, that he had re-created him—just as Cuvier or Owen could
from a single bone reconstruct giant reptiles of the Palæozoic age.
There was the bizarre dressing-jacket, frayed at the edge and cuff, with
ragged frogs and stray buttons. There the three days’ beard, white at
root and raven black at point. There the flamboyant smoking-cap with
yellow tassel, which marks that epoch in the history of ridiculous dress
out of which in sheer revulsion of artistic feeling came the
Pre-Raphaelite movement.
[Illustration:
HENRY IRVING AS DIGBY GRANT IN “TWO ROSES”
_Drawing made in his dressing-room by Fred Barnard_, 1870
]
Irving had asked me to bring with me to Wikoff some grapes and other
creature comforts, for which the poor old man was, I believe, genuinely
grateful; but in the course of our chat he told me that Irving had
“taken him off” for “that fellow in the _Two Roses_.” Wikoff did not
seem displeased at the duplication of his identity, but rather proud of
it.
This wonderful creation in the play “took the town,” as the phrase is,
and for some time the sayings of the characters in it were heard
everywhere. It was truly a “creation”; not merely in the actor’s sense,
where the first player of a character in London is deemed its “creator,”
but in the usual meaning of the word. For it is not enough in acting to
know what to do; it must be done! All possible knowledge of Wikoff, from
his psychical identity to his smoking-cap, could not produce a strong
effect unless the actor through the resources of his art could transform
reality to the appearance of reality—a very different and much more
difficult thing.
When Irving played in _Two Roses_ in Dublin in 1872 there was not a word
in any of the papers of the acting of any of the accomplished players
who took part in it; not even the mention of their names.
What other cities may have said of him in these earlier days I know not,
but I take it that the standard of criticism is generally of the same
average of excellence, according to the assay of the time. In the
provinces the zone of demarcation between bad and good varies less, in
that mediocrity qualifies more easily and superexcellence finds a wider
field for work. Of one thing we may be sure: that success has its own
dangers. Self-interest and jealousy and a host of the lesser and meaner
vices of the intellectual world find their opportunity.
When the floodgates of Comment are opened there comes with the rush of
clean water all the scum and rubbish which has accumulated behind them,
drawn into position by the trickling stream.
II
THE OLD SCHOOL AND THE NEW
I
More than five years elapsed before I saw Henry Irving again. We were
both busy men, each in his own way, and the Fates did not allow our
orbits to cross. He did not come to Dublin; my work did not allow my
going to London except at times when he was not playing there. Those
five years were to him a triumphant progress in his art and fame. He
rose, and rose, and rose. _The Bells_ in 1871 was followed in 1872 by
_Charles I._, in 1873 by _Eugene Aram_, and _Richelieu_, in 1874 by
_Philip_ and _Hamlet_, in 1875 by _Macbeth_, and in 1876 by _Othello_
and _Queen Mary_.
For my own part, being then in the Civil Service, I could only get away
in the “prime of summer time” as my seniors preferred to take their
holiday in the early summer or the late autumn. I had, when we next met,
been for five years a dramatic critic. In 1871 my growing discontent
with the attention accorded to the stage in the local newspapers had
culminated with the neglect of _Two Roses_. I asked the proprietor of
one of the Dublin newspapers whom I happened to know, Dr. Maunsell, an
old contemporary and friend of Charles Lever, to allow me to write on
the subject in the _Mail_. He told me frankly that the paper could not
afford to pay for such special work, as it was, in accordance with the
local custom of the time, done by the regular staff, who wrote on all
subjects as required. I replied that I would gladly do it without fee or
reward. This he allowed me to carry out.
From my beginning the work in November 1871 I had an absolutely free
hand. I was thus able to direct public attention, so far as my paper
could effect it, where in my mind such was required. In those five years
I think I learned a good deal. “Writing maketh an exact man”; and as I
have always held that in matters critical the critic’s personal honour
is involved in every word he writes, the duty I had undertaken was to me
a grave one. I did not shirk work in any way; indeed, I helped largely
to effect a needed reform as to the time when criticism should appear.
In those days of single printings from slow presses “copy” had to be
handed in very early. The paper went to press not long after midnight,
and there were few men who could see a play and write the criticism in
time for the morning’s issue. It thus happened that the critical article
was usually a full day behind its time. Monday night’s performance was
not generally reviewed till Wednesday at earliest; the instances which I
have already given afford the proof. This was very hard upon the actors
and companies making short visits. The public _en bloc_ is a slow-moving
force, and when possibility of result is cut short by effluxion of time
it is a sad handicap to enterprise and to exceptional work.
I do not wish to be egotistical, and I trust that no reader may take it
that I am so, in that I have spoken of my first experiences of Henry
Irving and how, mainly because of his influence on me, I undertook
critical work with regard to his own art. My purpose in doing so is not
selfish. I merely wish that those who honour me by reading what I have
written should understand something which went before our personal
meeting, and why it was that when we did meet we came together with a
loving and understanding friendship which lasted unbroken till my dear
friend passed away.
Looking back now after an interval of nearly forty years, during which
time I was mainly too busy to look back at all, I can understand
something of those root-forces which had so strange an influence on both
Irving’s life and my own, though at the first I was absolutely
unconscious of even their existence. Neither when I first saw Irving in
1867, nor when I met him in 1876, nor for many years after I had been
his close friend and fellow worker, did I know that his first experience
of Dublin had been painful to the last degree. I thought from the way in
which the press had ignored him and his work that they must have been
bad enough in 1867 and 1871. But long afterwards he told me the story to
this effect:
Quite early in his life as an actor—when he was only twenty-one—in an
off season, when the “resting” actor grasps at any chance of work, he
received from Mr. Harry Webb, then Manager of the Queen’s Theatre,
Dublin, and with whom he had played at the Edinburgh Theatre, an offer
of an engagement for some weeks. This he joyfully accepted; and turned
up in due course. He did not know then, though he learned it with
startling rapidity, that he was wanted to fill the place of a local
favourite who had been, for some cause, summarily dismissed. The public
visited their displeasure on the new-comer, and in no uncertain way.
From the moment of his coming on the stage on the first night of his
engagement until almost its end he was not allowed to say one word
without interruption. Hisses and stamping, cat-calls and the thumping of
sticks were the universal accompaniments of his speech.
Now to an actor nothing is so deadly as to be hissed. Not only does it
bar his artistic effort, but it hurts his self-esteem. Its manifestation
is a negation of himself, his power, his art. It is present death to him
_quâ_ artist, with the added sting of shame. Well did the actors know it
who crowded the court at Bow Street when the vanity-mad fool who
murdered poor William Terriss was arraigned. The murderer was an alleged
actor, and they wanted to punish him. When he was placed in the dock,
with one impulse they _hissed_ him!
In Irving’s case at the Queen’s the audience, with some shameful remnant
of fair play, treated him well the last two nights of his performance,
and cheered him. It was manifestly intended as a proof that it was not
against this particular man that their protest was aimed—though he was
the sufferer by it—but against _any one_ who might have taken the place
of their favourite, whom they considered had been injured.
Of this engagement Irving spoke to an interviewer in 1891 _apropos_ of
an outrage, unique to him, inflicted on Toole shortly before at
Coatbridge—a place of which the saying is, “There is only a sheet of
paper between Hell and Coatbridge.”
“Did you ever have any similar experience in your own career, Mr.
Irving?”
“... I did have rather a nasty time once, and suffered much as Mr.
Toole has done from the misplaced emotions of the house. It was in
this way. When I was a young man—away back about 1859” (should be
1860) “I should say it was—I was once sent for to fulfil an engagement
of six weeks at the Queen’s Theatre, a minor theatre in the Irish
capital. It was soon after I had left here, Edinburgh. I got over all
right, and was ready with my part, but to my amazement, the moment I
appeared on the stage I was greeted with a howl of execration from the
pit and gallery. There was I standing aghast, ignorant of having given
any cause of offence, and in front of me a raging Irish audience,
shouting, gesticulating, swearing probably, and in various forms
indicating their disapproval of my appearance. I was simply
thunderstruck at the warmth of my reception.... I simply went through
my part amid a continual uproar—groans, hoots, hisses, cat-calls, and
all the appliances of concerted opposition. It was a roughish
experience that!”
“But surely it did not last long?”
“That depends,” replied the player grimly, “on what you call long. It
lasted six weeks.... I was as innocent as yourself of all offence, and
could not for the life of me make out what was wrong. I had hurt
nobody; had said nothing insulting; I had played my parts not badly
for me. Yet for the whole of that time I had every night to fight
through my piece in the teeth of a house whose entire energies seemed
to be concentrated in a personal antipathy to myself.”
It was little wonder that the actor who had thus suffered undeservedly
remembered the details, though the time had so long gone by that he made
error as to the year. No wonder that the time of the purgatorial
suffering seemed fifty per cent. longer than its actual duration. Other
things of more moment had long ago passed out of his mind—he had supped
full of success and praise; but the bitter flavour of that month of pain
hung all the same in his cup of memory.
How it hung can hardly be expressed in words. For years he did not speak
of it even to me when telling me of how on March 12, 1860, he played
Laertes to the Hamlet of T. C. King. It was not till after more than a
quarter of a century of unbroken success that he could bear even to
speak of it. Not even the consciousness of his own innocence in the
whole affair could quell the mental disturbance which it caused him
whenever it came back to his thoughts.
II
When, then, Henry Irving came to Dublin in 1876, though it was after a
series of triumphs in London running into a term of years, he must have
had some strong misgivings as to what his reception might be. It is true
that the early obloquy had lessened into neglect; but no artist whose
stock-in-trade is mainly his own personality could be expected to reason
with the same calmness as that Parliamentary candidate who thus
expressed the grounds of his own belief in his growing popularity:
“I am growing popular!”
“Popular!” said his friend. “Why, last night I saw them pelt you with
rotten eggs!”
“Yes!” he replied with gratification, “that is right! But they used to
throw bricks!”
In London the bricks had been thrown, and in plenty. There are some
persons of such a temperament that they are jealous of any new idea—of
any thing or idea which is outside their own experience or beyond their
own reasoning. The new ideas of thoughtful acting which Irving
introduced won their way, in the main, splendidly. But it was a hard
fight, for there were some violent and malignant writers of the time who
did not hesitate to stoop to any meanness of attack. It is extraordinary
how the sibilation of a single hiss will win through a tempest of
cheers! The battle, however, was being won; when Irving came to Dublin
he brought with him a reputation consolidated by the victorious
conclusions of five years of strife. The new method was already winning
its way.
It so happens that I was myself able through a “fortuitous concourse” of
facts to have some means of comparison between the new and the old.
My father, who was born in 1798 and had been a theatre-goer all his
life, had seen Edmund Kean in all his Dublin performances. He had an
immense admiration for that actor, with whom none of the men within
thirty years of his death were, he said, to be compared. When the late
Barry Sullivan came on tour and played a range of the great plays he had
enormous success. My father, then well over seventy, did not go to the
play as often as he had been used to in earlier days; but I was so much
struck with the force of Barry Sullivan’s acting that I persuaded him to
come with me to see him play Sir Giles Overreach in _A New Way to Pay
Old Debts_—one of his greatest successes, as it had been one of Kean’s.
At first he refused to come, saying that it was no use his going, as he
had seen the greatest of all actors in the part, and did not care to see
a lesser one. However, he let me have my way, and went; and we sat
together in the third row of the pit, which had been his chosen locality
in his youth. He had been all his life in the Civil Service, serving
under four monarchs—George III., George IV., William IV., and Victoria—
and retiring after fifty years of service. In those days, as now, the
home Civil Service was not a very money-making business, and it was just
as well that he preferred the pit. I believed then that I preferred it
also, for I too was then in the Civil Service!