the frenzied usurer driven mad by thwarted ambition and the loss of his
treasure, feebly spitting at the foes he could not master as he sank
feebly into supporting arms, he turned to me and said:
“He is as good as the best of them!”
Barry Sullivan was a purely traditional actor of the old school. All his
movements and gestures, readings, phrasings, and times were in exact
accordance with the accepted style. It was possible, therefore, for my
father to judge fairly. I saw Barry Sullivan in many plays: _Hamlet_,
_Richelieu_, _Macbeth_, _King Lear_, _The Gamester_, _The Wife’s
Secret_, _The Stranger_, _Richard III._, _The Wonder_, _Othello_, _The
School for Scandal_, as well as playing Sir Giles Overreach, and some
more than once; I had a fair opportunity of comparing his acting over a
wide range with the particular play by which my father judged. _Ab uno
disce omnes_ is hardly a working rule in general, but one example is a
world better than none. I can fairly say that the actor’s general
excellence was fairly represented by his characterisation and acting of
Sir Giles. I had also seen Charles Kean, G. V. Brook, T. C. King,
Charles Dillon, and Vandenhoff. I had therefore in my own mind some kind
of a standard by which to judge of the worth of the old school, tracing
it back to its last great exemplar. When, therefore, I came to contrast
it with the new school of Irving, I was building my opinion not on sand
but upon solid ground. Let me say how the change from the old to the new
affected me; it is allowable, I suppose, in matters of reminiscence to
take personal example. Hitherto I had only seen Irving in two
characters, Captain Absolute and Digby Grant. The former of these was a
part in which for at least ten years—for I was a playgoer very early in
life—I had seen other actors all playing the part in a conventional
manner. As I have explained, I had only in Irving’s case been struck by
his rendering of his own part within the conventional lines. The latter
part was of quite a new style—new to the world in its essence as its
method, and we of that time and place had no standard with regard to it,
no means or opportunity of comparison. It was therefore with very great
interest that we regarded in 1876 the playing of this actor who was
accepted in the main as a new giant. To me as a critic, with the
experience of five years of the work, the occasion was of great moment;
and I am free to confess that I was a little jealous lest the new-comer—
even though I admired so much of his work as I had seen—should overthrow
my friend and countryman. For at this time Barry Sullivan was more than
an acquaintance; we had spent a good many hours together talking over
acting and stage history generally. Indeed, I said in my critical
article thus:
“Mr. Irving holds in the minds of all who have seen him a high place
as an artist, and by some he is regarded as the Garrick of his age;
and so we shall judge him by the highest standard which we know.”
At the first glance, after the lapse of time, this seems if not unfair
at least hard upon the actor; but the second thought shows a subtle
though unintentional compliment: Henry Irving had already raised in his
critic, partly by the dignity of his own fame and partly through the
favourable experience of the critic, the standard of criticism. He was
to be himself the standard of excellence! His present boon to us was
that he had taught us to think. Let me give an illustration.
Barry Sullivan was according to accepted ideas a great Macbeth. I for
one thought so. He had great strength, great voice, great physique of
all sorts; a well-knit figure with fine limbs, broad shoulders, and the
perfect back of a prize-fighter. He was master of himself, and
absolutely well versed in the parts which he played. His fighting power
was immense, and in the last act of the play good to see. The last scene
of all, when the “flats” of the penultimate scene were drawn away in
response to the usual carpenter’s whistle of the time, was disclosed as
a bare stage with “wings” of wild rock and heather. At the back was
Macbeth’s Castle of Dunsinane seen in perspective. It was supposed to be
vast, and occupied the whole back of the scene. In the centre was the
gate, double doors in a Gothic archway of massive proportions. In
reality it was quite eight feet high, though of course looking bigger in
the perspective. The stage was empty, but from all round it rose the
blare of trumpets and the roll of drums. Suddenly the Castle gates were
dashed back, and through the archway came Macbeth, sword in hand and
buckler on arm. Dashing with really superb vigour down to the
footlights, he thundered out his speech:
“They have tied me to a stake; I cannot fly.”
Now this was to us all very fine, and was vastly exciting. None of us
ever questioned its accuracy to nature. That Castle with the massive
gates thrown back on their hinges by the rush of a single man came back
to me vividly when I saw the play as Irving did it in 1888, though at
the time we had never given it a thought. Indeed, we gave thought to few
such things; we took them with simplicity and as they were, just as we
accepted the conventional scenes of the then theatre, _the Palace
Arches_, _the Oak Chamber_, _the Forest Glade_ with its added _wood
wings_, and all the machinery of tradition. With Irving all was
different. That “easy” progress of Macbeth’s soldiers returning tired
after victorious battle, seen against the low dropping sun across the
vast heather studded with patches of light glinting on water; the
endless procession of soldiers straggling, singly, and by twos and
threes, filling the stage to the conclusion of an endless array,
conveyed an idea of force and power which impressed the spectator with
an invaluable sincerity. In fact, Irving always helped his audience to
think.
III
FRIENDSHIP
I
That Irving was, in my estimation, worthy of the test I had laid down is
shown by my article on the opening performance of _Hamlet_, and in the
second article written after I had seen him play the part for the third
time running. That he was pleased with the review of his work was proved
by the fact that he asked on reading my criticism on Tuesday morning
that we should be introduced. This was effected by my friend Mr. John
Harris, Manager of the Theatre Royal.
Irving and I met as friends, and it was a great gratification to me when
he praised my work. He asked me to come round to his room again when the
play was over. I went back with him to his hotel, and with three of his
friends supped with him.
We met again on the following Sunday, when he had a few friends to
dinner. It was a pleasant evening and a memorable one for me, for then
began the close friendship between us which only terminated with his
life—if indeed friendship, like any other form of love, can ever
terminate. In the meantime I had written the second notice of his
Hamlet. This had appeared on Saturday, and when we met he was full of
it. Praise was no new thing to him in those days. Two years before,
though I knew nothing of them at that time, two criticisms of his Hamlet
had been published in Liverpool. One admirable pamphlet was by Sir (then
Mr.) Edward Russell, then, as now, the finest critic in England; the
other by Hall Caine—a remarkable review to have been written by a young
man under twenty. Some of the finest and most lofty minds had been
brought to bear on his work. It is, however, a peculiarity of an actor’s
work that it never grows stale; no matter how often the same thing be
repeated, it requires a fresh effort each time. Thus it is that
criticism can never be stale either; it has always power either to
soothe or to hurt. To a great actor the growth of character never stops,
and any new point is a new interest, a new lease of intellectual life.
II
Before dinner Irving chatted with me about this second article. In it I
had said:
“There is another view of Hamlet, too, which Mr. Irving seems to
realise by a kind of instinct, but which requires to be more fully and
intentionally worked out.... The great, deep, underlying idea of
Hamlet is that of a mystic.... In the high-strung nerves of the man;
in the natural impulse of spiritual susceptibility; in his
concentrated action, spasmodic though it sometimes be, and in the
divine delirium of his perfected passion there is the instinct of the
mystic, which he has but to render a little plainer in order that the
less susceptible senses of his audience may see and understand.”
He was also pleased with another comment of mine. Speaking of the love
shown in his parting with Ophelia I had said:
“To give strong grounds for belief, where the instinct can judge more
truly than the intellect, is the perfection of suggestive acting; and
certainly with regard to this view of Hamlet Mr. Irving deserves not
only the highest praise that can be accorded, but the loving gratitude
of all to whom his art is dear.”
There were plenty of things in my two criticisms which could hardly have
been pleasurable to the actor, so that my review of his work could not
be considered mere adulation. But I never knew in all the years of our
friendship and business relations Irving to take offence or be hurt by
true criticism—that criticism which is philosophical and gives a reason
for every opinion adverse to that on which judgment is held. When any
one could let Irving believe that he had either studied the subject or
felt the result of his own showing, he was prepared to argue to the last
any point suggested on equal terms. I remember at this time Edward
Dowden, the great Shakespearean critic, then, as now, Professor of
English Literature in Dublin University, saying to me in discussing
Irving’s acting:
“After all, an actor’s commentary is his acting!”—a remark of embodied
wisdom. Irving had so thoroughly studied every phase and application and
the relative importance of every word of his part that he was well able
to defend his accepted position. Seldom indeed was any one able to
refute him; but when such occurred no one was more ready to accept the
true view—and to act upon it.
Thus it was that on this particular night my host’s heart was from the
beginning something toward me, as mine had been toward him. He had
learned that I could appreciate high effort; and with the instinct of
his craft liked, I suppose, to prove himself again to his new,
sympathetic and understanding friend. And so after dinner he said he
would like to recite for me Thomas Hood’s poem _The Dream of Eugene
Aram_.
That experience I shall never—can never—forget. The recitation was
different, both in kind and degree, from anything I had ever heard; and
in those days there were some noble experiences of moving speech. It had
been my good fortune to be in Court when Whiteside made his noble appeal
to the jury in the Yelverton Case; a speech which won for him the unique
honour, when next he walked into his place in the House of Commons, of
the whole House standing up and cheering him.
I had heard Lord Brougham speak amid a tempest of cheers in the great
Round Room of the Dublin Mansion House.
I had heard John Bright make his great oration on Ireland in the Dublin
Mechanics’ Institute, and had thrilled to the roar within, and the
echoing roar from the crowded street without, which followed his
splendid utterance. Like all the others I was touched with deep emotion.
To this day I can remember the tones of his organ voice as he swept us
all—heart and brain and memory and hope—with his mighty periods; moving
all who remembered how in the Famine time America took the guns from her
battleships to load them fuller with grain for the starving Irish
peasants.
These experiences and many others had shown me something of the power of
words. In all these and in most of the others there were natural aids to
the words spoken. The occasion had always been great, the theme far
above one’s daily life. The place had always been one of dignity; and
above all, had been the greatest of all aids to effective speech, that
which I heard Dean (then Canon) Farrar call in his great sermon on
Garibaldi “the mysterious sympathy of numbers.” But here in a
dining-room, amid a dozen friends, a man in evening dress stood up to
recite a poem with which we had all been familiar from our schooldays,
which most if not all of us had ourselves recited at some time.
But such was Irving’s commanding force, so great was the magnetism of
his genius, so profound was the sense of his dominance that I sat
spell-bound. Outwardly I was as of stone; nought quick in me but
receptivity and imagination. That I knew the story and was even familiar
with its unalterable words was nothing. The whole thing was new,
re-created by a force of passion which was like a new power. Across the
footlights amid picturesque scenery and suitable dress, with one’s
fellows beside and all around one, though the effect of passion can
convince and sway it cannot move one personally beyond a certain point.
But here was incarnate power, incarnate passion, so close that one could
meet it eye to eye, within touch of the outstretched hand. The
surroundings became non-existent; the dress ceased to be noticeable;
recurring thoughts of self-existence were not at all. Here was indeed
Eugene Aram as he was face to face with his Lord; his very soul aflame
in the light of his abiding horror. Looking back now, I can realise the
perfection of art with which the mind was led and swept and swayed
hither and thither as the actor wished. How a change of tone or time
denoted the personality of the “Blood-avenging Sprite”—and how the
nervous, eloquent hands slowly moving, outspread fanlike, round the
fixed face—set as doom, with eyes as inflexible as Fate—emphasised it
till one instinctively quivered with pity! Then came the awful horror on
the murderer’s face as the ghost in his brain seemed to take external
shape before his eyes, and enforced on him that from his sin there was
no refuge. After this climax of horror the Actor was able by art and
habit to control himself to the narrative mood whilst he spoke the few
concluding lines of the poem.
Then he collapsed half fainting.
III
There are great moments even to the great. That night Irving was
inspired. Many times since then I saw and heard him—for such an effort
eyes as well as ears are required—recite that poem and hold audiences,
big or little, spell-bound till the moment came for the thunderous
outlet of their pent-up feelings; but that particular vein I never met
again. Art can do much; but in all things even in art there is a summit
somewhere. That night for a brief time, in which the rest of the world
seemed to sit still, Irving’s genius floated in blazing triumph above
the summit of art. There is something in the soul which lifts it above
all that has its base in material things. If once only in a lifetime the
soul of a man can take wings and sweep for an instant into mortal gaze,
then that “once” for Irving was on that, to me, ever memorable night.
As to its effect I had no adequate words. I can only say that after a
few seconds of stony silence following his collapse I burst out into
something like a violent fit of hysterics.
Let me say, not in my own vindication, but to bring new tribute to
Irving’s splendid power, that I was no hysterical subject. I was no
green youth; no weak individual, yielding to a superior emotional force.
I was as men go a strong man—strong in many ways. If autobiography is
allowable in a work of reminiscence, let me say here what has to be said
of myself.
In my earlier years I had known much illness. Certainly till I was about
seven years old I never knew what it was to stand upright. This early
weakness, however, passed away in time and I grew into a strong boy.
When I was in my twentieth year I was Athletic Champion of Dublin
University. When I met Irving first I was in my thirtieth year. I had
been for ten years in the Civil Service, and was then engaged on a
dry-as-dust book on _The Duties of Clerks of Petty Sessions_. I had
edited a newspaper, and had exercised my spare time in many ways—as a
journalist; as a writer; as a teacher. In my College days I had been
Auditor of the Historical Society—a post which corresponds to the
Presidency of the Union in Oxford or Cambridge—and had got medals, or
certificates, for History, Composition, and Oratory. I had been
President of the Philosophical Society; I had got University Honours in
pure Mathematics. I had won numerous silver cups for races of various
kinds—for rowing, weight-throwing, and gymnastics. I had played for
years in the University football team, where I had received the honour
of a “cap!” When, therefore, after his recitation I became hysterical,
it was distinctly a surprise to my friends; for myself surprise had no
part in my then state of mind. Irving seemed much moved by the
occurrence.
On piecing together the causes of his pleasure at finding an
understanding friend, and his further pleasure in realising that that
friend’s capacity for receptive emotion was something akin in
forcefulness to his power of creating it, I can now have some glimpse of
his compelling motive when he went into his bedroom and after a couple
of minutes brought me out his photograph with an inscription on it, the
ink still wet:
“My dear friend Stoker. God bless you! God bless you!! Henry Irving.
Dublin, December 3, 1876.”
In those moments of our mutual emotion he too had found a friend and
knew it. Soul had looked into soul! From that hour began a friendship as
profound, as close, as lasting as can be between two men.
He has gone his road. Now he lies amongst the great dead; his battle
won; the desire of his heart for the advancement of his chosen and
beloved art accomplished: his ambition satisfied; his fame part of the
history and the glory of the nation.
The sight of his picture before me, with those loving words—the record
of a time of deep emotion and full understanding of us both, each for
the other—unmans me once again as I write.
* * * * *
I have ventured to write fully, if not diffusely, about not only my
first meeting with Irving but about matters which preceded it and in
some measure lead to an understanding of its results.
When a man with his full share of ambition is willing to yield it up to
work with a friend whom he loves and honours, it is perhaps as well that
in due season he may set out his reasons for so doing. Such is but just;
and I now place it on record for the sake of Irving as well as of
myself, and for the friends of us both.
For twenty-seven years I worked with Henry Irving, helping him in all
honest ways in which one may aid another—and there were no ways with
Irving other than honourable.
Looking back I cannot honestly find any moment in my life when I failed
him, or when I put myself forward in any way when the most scrupulous
good taste could have enjoined or even suggested a larger measure of
reticence.
By my dealing with him I am quite content to be judged, now and
hereafter. In my own speaking to the dead man I can find an analogue in
the words of heartbreaking sincerity:
“Stand up on the jasper sea,
And be witness I have given
All the gifts required of me!”
IV
HONOURS FROM DUBLIN UNIVERSITY
During that visit to Dublin, 1876, Irving received at the hands of the
University two honours, one of them unique. Both were accorded by all
grades of the College—for Dublin University is the University of the
College.
Both honours were unofficial and yet both entirely representative. Both
were originated by a few of us the morning after his first performance
of _Hamlet_—before I had the honour of knowing him personally. The first
was an Address to be presented in the Dining Hall by the Graduates and
Undergraduates of the University. The movement came from a few
enthusiasts, of whom the late G. F. Shaw and Professor R. Y. Tyrrell,
both Fellows of the University, were included. As I had originated the
idea I was asked by the Committee to write the draft address.
One of the paragraphs, when completed, ran as follows:
“For the delight and instruction that we (in common with our fellow
citizens) have derived from all your impersonations, we tender you our
sincere thanks. But it is something more than gratitude for personal
pleasure or personal improvement that moves us to offer this public
homage to your genius. Acting such as yours ennobles and elevates the
stage, and serves to restore it to its true function as a potent
instrument for intellectual and moral culture.
“Throughout your too brief engagement our stage has been a school of
true art, a purifier of the passions, and a nurse of heroic
sentiments; you have even succeeded in commending it to the favour of
a portion of society, large and justly influential, who usually hold
aloof from the theatre.”
The Address was signed with the names necessary to show its scope and
wide significance.
To this Irving replied suitably. I give some passages of his speech; for
the occasion was a memorable one, with far-reaching consequences to
himself and his art and calling:
“I believe that this is one of the very rare occasions on which public
acknowledgment has been given by an Academic body to the efforts of a
player, and this belief impresses me with the magnitude of the honour
which you have conferred.... I feel not merely the personal pride of
individual success which you thus avow, but that the far nobler work
which I aim at is in truth begun. When I think that you, the upholders
of the classic in every age, have just flung aside the traditions of
three centuries, and have acknowledged the true union of poet and
actor, my heart swells with a great pride that I should be the
recipient of such acknowledgment. I trust with all my soul that the
reform which you suggest may ere long be carried out, and that that
body to whom is justly entrusted our higher moral education may
recognise in the Stage a medium for the accomplishment of such ends.
What you have done to-day is a mighty stride in this direction. In my
profession it will be hailed with joy and gladness—it must elevate,
not only the aims of individual actors, but our calling in the eyes of
the world. Such honour as you have now bestowed enters not into the
actor’s dreams of success. Our hopes, it is true, are dazzling. We
seek our reward in the approval of audiences, and in the tribute of
their tears and smiles; but the calm honour of academic distinction is
and must be to us, as actors, the Unattainable, and therefore the more
dear when given unsought....
“It is only natural in the presence of gentlemen whose _Alma Mater_
holds such state among institutes of learning that I should feel
embarrassed in the choice of words with which to thank you; but I beg
you to believe this. For my Profession, I tender you gratitude; for my
Art, I honour you; for myself, I would that I could speak all that is
in my soul. But I cannot; and so falteringly tender you my most
grateful thanks.”
The second honour given on the same day—December 11, 1876—was a
“University Night.” Trinity had taken all the seats in the theatre, and
these had been allotted in a sort of rough precedence, University
dignitaries coming first, and public men of light and leading—alumni of
the University—next, and so on to the undergraduates who occupied pit
and gallery. An announcement had been made by the Management of the
theatre that only those seats not required by the University would be
available on the evening for the public. What follows is from the
account of the affair written by myself for the Dublin _Mail_: