all along one side of it through a laneway made between the bookcases
and the high manifold screen. Tennyson was sitting on a sofa with his
back to the big mullioned window which looked out to the south. He had
on a black skull-cap, his long thin dark hair falling from under it. He
seemed very feeble, a good deal changed in that way during the five
months that had elapsed since I had seen him. His fine brown nervous
hands lay on his lap. Irving had the finest and most expressive hands I
have ever seen; Tennyson’s were something like them, only bigger. When
he began to talk he brightened up. Amongst other things he spoke of the
error in the alteration of _Becket_, “God the Virgin.” We did not stay
very long, as manifestly quietude was best for him, and no one else but
ourselves was allowed to see him that day. Presently we all went for a
walk, Mrs. Allingham, the painter, who was an old and close friend of
the Tennysons, joining us. As we went out we had a glimpse from the
terrace of Tennyson reading; part of his book and the top of his head
were visible. At that time the lawn presented a peculiar appearance.
There had come a sort of visitation of slugs, and the grass was all
brown in patches where paraffin had been poured on it.
VI
After lunch Hallam brought Walter Leaf and me up to the study again.
Tennyson had changed his place and now sat on another sofa placed in the
north-west corner of the room. He was much brighter and stronger and
full of intellectual fire. He talked of Homer with Walter Leaf, and in a
fine deep voice recited, in the Greek, whole passages—of the sea and the
dawn rising from it. He spoke of Homeric song as “the grandest sounds
that can be of the human voice.” He spoke very warmly of Leaf’s book,
and said he would have been proud to have been quoted in it. He
ridiculed the idea of any one holding that there had been no such person
as Homer. He thought Ilium was a “fancy” town—the invention of Homer’s
own imagination. Doubts of Homer brought up doubts as to Shakespeare,
and the Bacon and Shakespeare controversy which was then raging. He
ridiculed the idea:
“What ridiculous stuff!” he said. “Fancy that greatest of all
love-poems, _Romeo and Juliet_, written by a man who wrote: ‘Great
spirits and great business do keep out this weak passion!’” (From
Bacon’s Essay on _Love_.)
I told him the story which I had heard General Horace Porter—the
Ambassador of the United States to France—tell long before. It may be an
old story but I venture to tell it again:
“In a hotel ‘out West’ a lot of men in the bar-room were discussing
the Shakespeare and Bacon question. They got greatly excited and
presently a lot of them had their guns out. Some one interfered and
suggested that the matter should be left to arbitration. The
arbitrator selected was an Irishman, who had all the time sat quiet
smoking and not saying a word—which circumstance probably suggested
his suitability for the office. When he had heard the arguments on
both sides formally stated, he gave his decision:
“‘Well, Gintlemin, me decision is this: Thim plays was not wrote be
Shakespeare! But they was wrote be a man iv the saame naame!’”
Tennyson seemed delighted with the story.
Then he spoke of Shakespeare, commenting on _Henry VIII._, which had
been running all the year at the Lyceum. He mentioned Wolsey’s speech,
speaking the lines:
“Cromwell, I charge thee, fling away ambition.”
Then he added in a very pronounced way:
“Shakespeare never wrote that! I know it! I know it! I know it!” As he
spoke he smote hard upon the table beside him.
After a long chat we left Tennyson to have his afternoon nap, and smoked
in the summer-house. Then we walked to the south-west edge of Blackdown.
The afternoon was very clear and we could see the hills of the Isle of
Wight, which Hallam said he had never before seen from there.
VII
After tea Hallam took Leaf and me again to his father. After a while we
were joined there by Mrs. Tennyson and my wife. Tennyson was then very
feeble, but cheerful. He told us a lot of stories and incidents—his
humour and memory were quick in him that evening.
One was of the landlord of a hotel at Stirling. He had, during a trip in
Scotland, telegraphed to the hotel to have rooms kept. When he arrived
he was delighted with them. They were on the first floor, airy and
spacious, and in all ways desirable. He felt pleased at being treated
with such consideration. After dinner he was sitting by the open window
smoking his pipe when he heard a conversation going on below. One of the
speakers was the landlord, the other a stranger. Said the latter:
“I hear you have Tennyson staying with you to-night?”
“Aye! That’s the man’s name. He telegraphed the day for rooms. Do ye ken
him?”
“Know him! Why that’s Alfred Tennyson, the poet!”
“The poet! I’m wishin’ I had kent that!”
“Why?” asked the stranger. After a pause the answer came:
“He a poet! I’d ha’ seen him dommed before I had gied him ma best
rooms!”
As he was reminiscent that night his anecdotes were mostly personal.
Another was of a man of the lower class in the Isle of Wight, who spoke
of him in early days:
“He, a great man! Why ’e only keeps one man-servant—an’ ’e don’t sleep
in th’ ’ouse!”
Another was of a workman who was heard to say:
“Shakespeare an’ Tennyson! Well, I don’t think nothin’ of neither on
’em!”
Another was of a Grimsby fishmonger, who said when asked by an
acquisitive autograph hunter if he happened to have any letters from
Tennyson:
“No! His son writes ’em. He still keeps on the business; but he ain’t a
patch on his fayther!”
Tennyson was sitting on the sofa as he had been in the morning. For all
his brightness and his humour, which seemed to bubble in him, he was
very feeble and seemed to be suffering a good deal. He moaned now and
then with pain. Gout was flying through his knees and jaws. He had then
on his black skull-cap, but he presently took it off as though it were
irksome to him. In front of him was a little table with one wax candle
lighted. It was of that pattern which has vertical holes through it to
let the overflow of melted wax fall within, not without. When the fire
of pleasant memory began to flicker, he grew feeble and low in spirits.
He spoke of the coming spring and that he would not live to see it.
Somehow he grew lower in spirits as the light died away and the twilight
deepened, as if the whole man was tuned to nature’s key. Through the
window we could note the changes as evening drew nearer. The rabbits
were stealing out on the lawn, and the birds picking up grubs in the
grass.
Once again Tennyson seemed troubled about the press, and was bitter
against certain newspaper prying. He could not get free from it. It had
been found out during his illness that the beggar-man who came daily for
the broken meat was getting ten shillings a week from a local reporter
to come and tell him the gossip of the kitchen. Turning to me he said:
“Don’t let them know how ill I am, or they’ll have me buried before
twenty-four hours!” Then after a while he added:
“Can’t they all let me alone. What did they want digging up the graves
of my father and mother and my grandfather and grandmother. I sometimes
wish I had never written a line!” I said:
“Ah, don’t say that! Don’t think it! You have given delight to too many
millions, and your words have done too much good for you to wish to take
them back. And the good and the pleasure are to go on for all the
future.” After a moment’s thought he said very softly:
“Well, perhaps you’re right! But can’t they leave me alone!”
We were all very still and silent for a while. The lessening twilight
and the moveless flame of the close-set candle showed out his noble face
and splendid head in full relief. The mullioned window behind him with
the darkening sky and the fading landscape made a fitting background to
the dying poet. We said good-bye with full hearts.
Outside, our tears fell. We knew that we should see him no more; we had
said good-bye for ever!
XXI
TENNYSON AND HIS PLAYS—IV
I
Tennyson died on Thursday, October 6, eleven days after we had seen him.
Two others only saw him after we did—with of course the exception of his
own family—Mr. Craik, of Messrs. Macmillan, his publishers, and Dr.
Dabbs, of the Isle of Wight, his physician.
Before he died he spoke of May—the spring seemed to be for him a time
which the Lords of Life and Death would not allow him to pass. It had
too some connection in his mind with his play _The Promise of May_. He
said to Dr. Dabbs, who wrote to me about it afterwards:
“I suppose I shall never see _Becket_?”
“I fear not!”
“Ah!” After a long pause he said again: “They did not do me justice with
_The Promise of May_—but——” another long pause and then half fiercely:
“I can trust Irving—he will do me justice!”
Tennyson was buried in the Poet’s Corner of Westminster Abbey on October
12. There was a great crowd both in the Abbey and the streets without.
All were still, hushed and solemn. The sense of great loss was over all.
Very solemn and impressive was the service. There was gloom in the great
Cathedral, and the lights were misty. Everywhere the strong odour of
many flowers. A body of distinguished men of letters, science and art
followed the coffin, coming behind his family. Amongst them Henry
Irving, looking as usual, wherever he was, the most distinguished of
all. On that sad day, Tennyson’s poem, _Crossing the Bar_, was sung.
Then his last poem, _The Silent Voices_. The exquisite music written for
this by Lady Tennyson and arranged by Sir John Frederick Bridge was
heard for the first time. The noble words ringing through the great
Cathedral seemed like a solemn epitome of the teaching of the poet’s
life. Six years afterwards I heard Irving speak them in the crowded
Senate House at Cambridge with that fervour which seemed a part of his
very life. Now, from that Poet’s Corner where they both rest I seem to
hear the voices of the two great souls in unison, calling to the great
Humanity which each in his own way loved and which was so deep in the
hearts of both:
“Call me rather, silent voices,
Forward to the starry track
Glimmering up the heights beyond me
On, and always on!”
II
_Becket_, having been in preparation since the end of September, was
ready to take its place after the run of _King Lear_. The first dress
rehearsal was held on the evening of February 3, 1893, beginning at 6.30
and lasting till one o’clock. It was an excellent rehearsal and all went
well. The play was produced three nights later, February 6, 1893—
Irving’s fifty-fifth birthday—and was a really enormous success. The
public, who had been waiting since early morning at the pit and gallery,
could not contain themselves; and even the more staid portions of the
house lost their reserve. It was like one huge personal triumph. No one
seemed to compare the play or the character to anything seen before. Not
even to _Henry VIII._ and Cardinal Wolsey, which had held the stage for
eight months the previous year.
_Becket_ was played one hundred and twelve times that season. The entire
scenery was burned in the disastrous fire of 1898. There was a new
production in 1904. Altogether Tennyson’s play was performed three
hundred and eight times, as follows:
London, 147; British Provinces, 92; America, 69.
III
In 1897 Irving gave a remarkable Reading of _Becket_. This was in the
old Chapter House of Canterbury Cathedral, which had been recently
restored exactly to its ancient condition. Farrar was then Dean of
Canterbury, and as Irving had promised to read _Becket_ for the benefit
of the Cathedral Restoration Fund, he and I had three meetings on the
subject for which he came specially from Canterbury to London on April
21 and 28 and May 5. At our first meeting the Dean suggested that the
Reading should be held in the restored Chapter House, which the Prince
of Wales was to open on May 29. Thus Irving’s Reading of _Becket_ would
be on the first occasion which the restored room should be used. I well
remember my host’s dismay when he met me at the doorway of the Athenæum
Club and apologised that there was not a single room in the club to
which a member could ask a stranger. I do not know if that iron-clad
rule still exists; a somewhat similar one existed at that time at the
United Service Club, on the other side of Waterloo Place. There a member
could ask a friend into the hall and there give him a glass of sherry.
Such was the only measure of hospitality allowable at the “Senior.” That
rule has been since abandoned in the “Service” Club; the usual club
hospitalities can now be extended to guests.
At these meetings, as I was authorised to speak for Irving on all
matters, we arranged the necessary details. The Reading was to be given
on Monday, May 31, at two o’clock, the tickets to be a guinea and half a
guinea each. As time was then pressing and publicity with regard to the
undertaking was necessary, we decided at the last meeting that Dean
Farrar was to write a letter to the newspapers calling attention to the
coming event and its beneficent purpose. I undertook if he would send me
the letter to have it facsimiled and sent to four hundred newspapers.
Of course every seat was sold long ahead of the time. A place like
Canterbury cannot—and cannot be expected to—furnish such an audience as
would be required on such an occasion. Most of them would have to come
from London and other cities and towns. When I left the Dean I saw Mr.
William Forbes, one of the powers of the London, Chatham and Dover
Railway, who kindly undertook to arrange trains to and from Canterbury
to suit the convenience of the audience, and especially to look after
accommodation for Irving and his friends.
On the day of the Reading we went down by train from Victoria at 10
A.M., Ellen Terry being one of the party. Sir Henry’s two sons were with
him, as was also Sir John Hassard, the Secretary of the Court of Arches,
and who then was the right hand of the Archbishop of Canterbury—as he
had been to several of his predecessors. At Canterbury, Irving and I
went to see the Chapter House. After a walk through the Cathedral we
went to the County Hotel, where Irving rested for a while. A little
before two o’clock we went to the Chapter House. At two punctually he
stepped on the stage, and was introduced in the usual way by Dean
Farrar. There was a fine audience. Every spot where one could stand was
occupied. Irving got a great reception.
It was a remarkable occasion, and we could not but feel a certain
solemnity from the place as well as from the subject. There were so many
historic associations with regard to the great room that we could not
dissociate them from the occasion.
Irving read magnificently. To the inspiration of the theme was to him
the added force of the place and the occasion. The Reading lasted one
hour and thirty-five minutes—a terrible tax on even the greatest
strength. During all that time he held his audience spell-bound. At the
conclusion he was, naturally, a good deal exhausted; such a _tour de
force_ takes all the strength one has.
We all returned to London by the 4.18 o’clock train.
The result of the Reading was an addition to the Restoration Fund of
over £250.
IV
On one other historic occasion Henry Irving read _Becket_. This was at
the King Alfred Millenary at Winchester in 1901. In the June of that
year he had been selected by the Royal Institution to represent their
body; and thinking that he might in addition give some practical aid to
the cause, he told the authorities at Winchester that he would on the
occasion give a Reading of _Becket_ for the benefit of the Expense Fund.
Wednesday, September 18, was fixed for the event. As the Autumn tour had
been arranged we would be playing in Leeds; but distance nor magnitude
of effort ever came between Irving and his promise. On September 17 he
played _Charles I._ and left for Winchester at the close of the play. At
Winchester he was the guest of the then Mayor, Mr. Alfred Bowker. The
next day he gave in the Castle Hall, to a great audience, a slightly
compressed Reading of _Becket_. Winchester then thronged with strangers
from all parts of the world, a large number of whom were accredited
representatives of some branch or interest of the Anglo-Saxon race. Poor
John Fiske was to have been one of the representatives of America. He
was to have spoken, and when I had seen him last he told me that that
was to be the crowning effort of his life.
At the close of the Reading Irving received an ovation and was compelled
to make a speech. In it he said:
“A thousand years of the memory of a great King, who loved his country
and made her loved and respected and feared, is a mighty heritage for
a nation; one of which not England alone but all Christendom may well
be proud. The work which King Alfred did he did for England, but the
whole world benefited by it. And most of all was there benefit for
that race which he adorned. In the thousand years which have elapsed
since he was laid to rest in that England in whose making he had such
a part, the world has grown wiser and better, and civilisation has
ever marched on with mighty strides. But through all extension and all
advance the land which King Alfred consolidated and the race which
peopled it, have ever been to the front in freedom and enlightenment;
and to-day when England and her many children, east and west and north
and south, are united by one grand aspiration of human advance, it is
well that we should celebrate the memory of him to whom so large a
measure of that advance is due.”
XXII
“WATERLOO”—“KING ARTHUR”—“DON QUIXOTE”
I
One day early in March 1892, whilst we were rehearsing Tennyson’s play,
_The Foresters_, which in accordance with the author’s request was
produced for copyright purposes at the Lyceum, Irving came into the
office in a hurry. He was a little late. He, Loveday and myself always
used the same office, as we found it in all ways convenient for our
perpetual consultations. As he came hurrying out to the stage, after
putting on the brown soft broad-brimmed felt hat for which he usually
exchanged his “topper” during rehearsals, he stopped beside my table
where I was writing, and laying a parcel on it said:
“I wish you would throw an eye over that during rehearsal. It came this
morning. You can tell me what you think of it when I come off!”
I took up the packet and unrolled a number of type-written sheets a
little longer than foolscap. I read it with profound interest and was
touched to my very heart’s core by its humour and pathos. It was very
short, and before Irving came in again from the stage I had read it a
second time. When he came in he said presently in an unconcerned way:
“By the way, did you read that play?”
“Yes!”
“What do you think of it?”
“I think this,” I said, “that that play is never going to leave the
Lyceum. You must own it—at any price. It is made for you.”
“So I think, too!” he said heartily. “You had better write to the author
to-day and ask him what cheque we are to send. We had better buy the
whole rights.”
“Who is the author?”
“Conan Doyle!”
The author answered at once and the cheque was sent in due course. The
play was then named _A Straggler of ’15_. This Irving changed to _A
Story of Waterloo_, when the play was down for production. Later this
was simplified to _Waterloo_.
Irving fell in love with the character, and began to study it right
away. The only change in the play he made was to get Sir Arthur—then
“Dr.” or “Mr.”—Conan Doyle to consolidate the matter of the first few
pages into a shorter space. The rest of the MS. remained exactly as
written.
It was not, however, for nearly two years that he got an opportunity of
playing it. It is a difficult matter to find a place for an hour-long
play in a working bill. _Henry VIII._, _King Lear_, and _Becket_ held
the Lyceum stage till the middle of 1893. Then came a tour in America
lasting up to end of March 1894. The short London season was taken up
with a prearranged reproduction of _Faust_.
Then followed a provincial tour from September to Christmas. Here was
found the opportunity. _The Bells_ is a short play, and for mere length
allows of an addition.
In the first week of the tour at the Princes Theatre, Bristol, on
September 21, 1894, _A Story of Waterloo_ was given. The matter was one
of considerable importance in the dramatic world; not only was Irving to
play a new piece, but that piece was Conan Doyle’s first attempt at the
drama. The chief newspapers of London and some of the greater provincial
cities wished to be represented on the occasion; the American press also
wished to send its critical contingent. Accordingly we arranged for a
special train to bring the critical force. Hearing that so many of his
London journalistic friends were coming an old friend of Irving’s then
resident in Bristol, Mr. John Saunders, arranged to give a supper in the
Liberal Club, to which they were all invited, together with many persons
of local importance.
The play met with a success extraordinary even for Irving. The audience
followed with rapt attention and manifest emotion, swaying with the
varying sentiments of the scene. The brief aid to memory in my diary of
that day runs:
“New play enormous success. H. I. fine and great. All laughed and
wept. Marvellous study of senility. Eight calls at end.”
Unfortunately the author was not present to share the triumph, for it
would have been a delightful memory for him. He was on a tour in
America; “and thereby hangs a tale.”
Amongst the audience who had come specially from London was Mr. H. H.
Kohlsaat, owner and editor of the _Chicago Times Herald_, a close and
valued friend of Irving and myself. He was booked to leave for America
the next day. When the play was over and the curtain finally down, he
hurried away just in time to catch the train for Southampton, whence the
American Line boat started in the morning. He got on board all right.
The following Saturday he arrived in New York, just in time to catch the
“flyer,” as they call the fast train to Chicago on the New York Central
line. On Sunday night a public dinner was given to Conan Doyle to which
of course Kohlsaat had been bidden. He arrived too late for the dining
part; but having dressed in the train he came on to the hotel just as
dinner was finished and before the speeches began. He took a chair next
to Doyle and said to him:
“I am delighted to tell you that your play at Bristol was an enormous
success!”
“So I am told,” said Doyle modestly. “The cables are excellent.”
“They are not half enough!” answered Kohlsaat, who had been reading in
the train the papers for the last week.
“Indeed! I am rejoiced to hear it!” said Conan Doyle somewhat dubiously.
“May I ask if you have had any special report?”
“I didn’t need any report, I saw it!”
“Oh, come!” said Conan Doyle, who thought that he was in some way
chaffing him. “That is impossible!”
“Not to me! But I am in all human probability the only man on the
American continent who was there?” Then whilst the gratified author
listened he gave him a full description of the play and the scene which
followed it.
To my own mind _Waterloo_ as an acting play is perfect; and Irving’s
playing in it was the high-water mark of histrionic art. Nothing was
wanting in the whole gamut of human feeling. It was a cameo, with all
the delicacy of touch of a master-hand working in the fine material of
the layered shell. It seemed to touch all hearts always. When the dying
veteran sprang from his chair to salute the colonel of his old regiment
the whole house simultaneously burst into a wild roar of applause. This
was often the effect at subsequent performances both at home and in
America.
II
In 1897, when representatives of the Indian and Colonial troops were
gathered in London for the “Diamond” Jubilee of Queen Victoria, Irving
gave a special performance for them. It was a _matinée_ on June 25. The
event was a formal one, for it was given by Royal consent, and special
arrangements were made by the public officials. Some two thousand troops
of all kinds and classes and costumes were massed at Chelsea Barracks.
The streets were cleared by the police for their passing as they marched
to the Lyceum to the quickstep of the Guards’ Fife and Drum Band, the
public cheering them all the way. They represented every colour and
ethnological variety of the human race, from coal black through yellow
and brown up to the light type of the Anglo-Saxon reared afresh in new
realms beyond the seas.
Their drill seemed to be perfect, and we had made complete arrangements
for their seating. Section by section they marched into the theatre, all
coming by the great entrance, without once stopping or even marking time
in the street.