clear evidence to those who knew his father in the early fifties, how
closely he inherited his remarkable physiognomy, while much of his
mental power was undoubtedly derived from the mother who doted on him—of
whom she always spoke as “My Boy.”
One later reminiscence may be added. He was met on June 21, 1887,
walking up and down opposite the Horse Guards, studying the holiday
crowd and waiting for the return of the Queen’s Jubilee procession. As
his salutation, his friend asked him “How is it you are not in the
Abbey?” The reply was, “Oh, they have given me a seat, but I don’t think
I shall go in.” The service was then about half over, but his well-known
face appears in the plate published to commemorate the Jubilee, in the
place assigned to him. This is only one out of many illustrations that
might be given of his delight in quiet enjoyment, rather than in any
desire for public notoriety. We know that the laurel pall used over his
coffin in Westminster Abbey covered the ashes not only of a “dominating
personality” but also of a true gentleman.
C. R. F.
XLIV
IRVING’S PHILOSOPHY OF HIS ART
I
Irving and I were alone together one hot afternoon in August 1889,
crossing in the steamer from Southsea to the Isle of Wight, and were
talking of that phase of Stage Art which deals with the conception and
development of character. In the course of our conversation, whilst he
was explaining to me the absolute necessity of an actor’s understanding
the prime qualities of a character in order that he may make it
throughout consistent, he said these words:
“_If you do not pass a character through your own mind it can never be
sincere!_”
I was much struck with the phrase, coming as it did as the crown of an
argument—the explanation of a great artist’s method of working out a
conceived idea. To me it was the embodiment of an artistic philosophy.
Even in the midst of an interesting conversation, during which we
touched upon many subjects of inner mental working, the phrase presented
itself as one of endless possibilities, and hung as such in my mind.
Lest I should forget the exact words I wrote them then and there in my
pocket-book. I entered them later in my diary.
I think that if I had interrupted the conversation at the above words
and asked my friend to expound his philosophy and elaborate it, he would
have been for an instant amused, and on the impulse of the moment would
have deprecated the use of such an important word. Men untrained to
mental science and unfamiliar with its terminology are apt to place too
much importance on abstract, wide-embracing terms, and to find the
natural flow of their true thought interrupted by disconcerting fears.
His amusement would have been only momentary, however. I know now, after
familiar acquaintance with his intellectual method for over a quarter of
a century, that with his mental quickness—which was so marked as now and
again to seem like inspiration—he would have grasped the importance of
the theme as bearing upon the Art to which he had devoted himself and to
his own part in it. He would have tried to explain matters as new and
relevant subjects, causes or consequences, presented themselves. But
such an exposition would have been—must have been—confused and
incomplete. The process of a creative argument is a silent and lonely
one, requiring investigation and guesses; the following up of clues in
the labyrinth of thought till their utility or their falsity has been
proved. The most that a striving mind can do at such a time is to keep
sight of some main purpose or tendency—some perpetual recognition of its
objective. If in addition the thinker has to keep eternally and
consciously within his purview a lot of other subjects bearing on his
main idea, each with its own attendant distractions and divergencies,
his argument would to a listener seem but a jumble of undigested facts,
deductions and imaginings. Moreover, it would leave in the mind of the
latter a belief that the speaker is without any real conviction at all;
a mere groper in the dark. If, on the other hand, the man in thinking
out his problem tries to bear in mind his friend’s understanding—with an
eye to his ultimate approval and acceptance of his argument and
conclusion—he is apt to limit himself to commonplace and accepted
truths. In such case his thought is machine-made, and lacks the
penetrative force which has its origin in intellectual or psychic fire.
A whole history of such thought cannot equal a single glimpse or hint of
an earnest mind working truly.
As Irving on that pleasant voyage spoke the words which seemed to
explain his whole intellectual method I grasped instinctively the
importance of the utterance, though the argument did not then present
itself in its entirety.
To me the words became a text of which the whole of his work seemed the
expounding. From him, as an artist, the thought was elementary and
basic; explanatory and illuminative.
II
To “pass a character through your mind” requires a scientific process of
some kind; some process which is natural, and therefore consistent. If
we try to analyse the process we shall find that it is in accord with
any other alimentative process. Nature varies in details, but her
intents and objects are fixed: to fit and sustain each to its appointed
task. In the animal or vegetable kingdoms, so in the mind of man. The
hemlock and the apple take the juices of the earth through different
processes of filtration; the one to noxious ends, the other to
beneficence. Hardness and density have their purpose in the mechanism of
the vegetable world; the wood rejects what the softer and more open
valves or tissues receive. So too in the world of animal life. The wasp
and the viper, the cuttle-fish and the stinging ray work to different
ends from the sheep and the sole, the pheasant and the turtle. But one
and all draw alimentative substance from common sources. But he who
would understand character must draw varying results from common causes.
And the only engine powerful enough in varying purposes for this duty is
the human brain. Again, the worker in imagination is the one who most
requires different types and varying methods of development. And still
again, of all workers in imagination, the actor has most need for
understanding; for on him is imposed the task of re-creating to external
and material form types of character written in abstractions. It behoves
him, then, primarily to understand what exactly it is that he has to
materialise. To this end two forms of understanding are necessary:
first, that which the poet—the creator or maker of the play—sets down
for him; second, the truth of the given individual to the type or types
which he is supposed to represent. This latter implies a large knowledge
of types; for how can any man judge of the truth of things when to him
both the type and the instance are strange. Thus it happens that an
actor should be a judge of character; an understander of those
differences which discriminate between classes and individuals of the
class. This is an actor’s study at the beginning of his work—when he is
preparing to study his Art.
Let me say at the outset of this branch of my subject, that I am trying
to put into words and the words into some sort of ordered sequence, that
knowledge of his craft which in a long course of years Irving conveyed
to me. Sometimes the conveyance was made consciously, sometimes
unconsciously. By words, by inferences, by acting; by what he added to
seemingly completed work, or by what he omitted after fuller thought or
experience. One by one, or group by group, these things were
interesting, though often of seeming unimportance; but taken altogether
they go to make up a philosophy. In trying to formulate this I am not
speaking for myself. I am but following so well as I can the manifested
wisdom of the master of his craft. Here and there I shall be able to
quote Irving’s exact words, spoken or written after mature thought and
with manifest and deliberate purpose. For the rest, I can only
illustrate by his acting, or at worst by the record of the impression
conveyed to my own mind.
III
We may, I think, divide the subject thus:
CHARACTER
_A._—ITS ESSENCE {_x._—_The Dramatist’s setting out of it_
{_y._—_Its truth to accepted type_
{_z._—_The Player’s method of studying these two_
_B._—RETICENCE
_C._—ART AND
TRUTH
THE PLAY
STAGE PERSPECTIVE
DUAL CONSCIOUSNESS
INDIVIDUALITY, AND THE KNOWLEDGE OF IT
IV
CHARACTER
_A._—ITS ESSENCE
We think in abstractions, but we live in concretions. In real life an
individual who is not in any way distinguishable from his fellows is but
a poor creature after all and is not held of much account by anybody.
That law of nature which makes the leaves of a tree or the units of any
genus, any species, any variety all different—which in the animal or the
vegetable world alike makes each unit or class distinguishable whilst
adhering to the type—is of paramount importance to man. Tennyson has
hammered all this out and to a wonderful conclusion in those splendid
stanzas of _In Memoriam_ LIV to LVI beginning “Oh yet we trust that
somehow good” to “Behind the veil, behind the veil.” Let it be
sufficient for us to know and accept that there can be endless
individual idiosyncrasies without violation of type. To understand these
is the study of character. The _differentia_ of each individual is an
endless and absorbing study, not given to all to master. Some at least
of this mastery is a necessary part of the equipment of an actor. Now
there is a common saying that “the eyebrow is the actor’s feature.” This
is largely true; but there is a double purpose in its truth. In the
first place the eyebrow is movable at will; a certain amount of exercise
can give mobility and control. It can therefore heighten expression to a
very marked degree. But in addition it, when in a marked degree, is the
accompaniment of large frontal sinuses—those bony ridges above the
eyebrows which in the terminology of physiognomy imply the power to
distinguish minute differences, and so are credited with knowledge of
“character”—the difference between one and another; divergences within a
common type. With this natural equipment and the study which inevitably
follows—for powers are not given to men in vain—the actor can by
experience know types, and endless variants and combinations of the
same. So can any man who has the quality. But the actor alone has to
work out the ideas given to him by this study in recognisable material
types and differentiated individual instances of the same type.
_x_
The dramatist having, whether by instinct or reason, selected his type
has in the play to give him situations which can allow opportunity for
the expression of his qualities; words in which he can expound the
thoughts material to him in the given situations; and such hints as to
personal appearance, voice and bearing as can assist the imagination of
a reader. All these things must be consistent; there must be nothing
which would show to the student falsity to common knowledge. “Do men
gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?” has a large application
in art, and specially in stage art. It is the ignorance or neglect of
this eternal law which is to my mind the weakness of some writers.
Instance Ibsen who having shown in some character an essential quality
through one or two acts makes the after action of the character quite at
variance with it. A similar fault weakens certain of the fine work of
“Ian Maclaren” when he proceeds to explain away in a later story some
perfectly consistent and understandable quality of mind or action in one
of his powerful and charming character stories. No after-explanation can
supersede the conviction of innate character.
_y_
Now a dramatist is at perfect liberty to choose any type he likes and to
deal with his individual creations just as he chooses. There is no law
against it; however ridiculous it may be, it makes no breach of any code
in accepted morals. But he should at least be true to itself. It is by
such qualities that posterity as well as the juries of the living judge.
The track of literary progress is littered with wreckage from breaches
of this truth.
Of this we may be sure: if a character have in itself opposing qualities
which cannot be reconciled, then it can never have that unity which
makes for strength. Therefore the actor who has to represent the
abstract idea as a concrete reality must at the beginning understand the
dramatist’s intention. He can by emphasis of one kind or another help to
convey the dominant idea. There is an exact instance of this from
Irving’s own work; one which at the same time illustrates how an actor,
howsoever thoughtful and experienced he may be, can learn: For a good
many years he had played Shylock to universal praise; then, all at once,
he altered it. Altered it in the manner of utterances of the first words
he speaks: “Three thousand ducats,—well.” He explained it to me when
having noticed the change I asked him about it. He said that it was due
to the criticism of a _blind_ man—I think it was the Chaplain of the
American Senate, Dr. Milburn.
“What did he say?” I asked. He answered with a thoughtful smile:
“He said: ‘I thought at first that you were too amiable. I seemed to
miss the harsh note of the usurer’s voice!’ He was quite right! The
audience should from the first understand, if one can convey it, the
dominant note of a character!”
This was distinctly in accordance with his own theory; and he always
remembered gratefully the man who so enlightened him. The incident
illustrates one phase of “passing a character through one’s own mind.”
When it has gone through this process it takes a place as an actual
thing—a sort of clothing of the player’s own identity with the
attributes of another. This new-seeming identity must have at first its
own limitations; the clothing does not fit—somewhere too tight,
elsewhere too loose. But at last things become easier. The individuality
within, being of plastic nature, adapts itself by degrees to its
surroundings. And then for purposes of external expression the mastery
is complete.
Experience adds much to this power of mastery. When an actor has played
many parts he learns to express the dominant ideas of various characters
in simple form, so that each, through a sort of artistic metonymy,
becomes a type. In fact, as he goes on studying fresh characters he gets
a greater easiness of expression; he is not creating every time, but is
largely combining things already created. This is true Art. The
etymology of the word shows that its purpose is rather to join than to
create. Were it not that each mind must create the units which have to
be joined, histrionic art would not be primarily a creative art.
In Irving’s own words:
“It is often supposed that great actors trust to the inspiration of
the moment. Nothing can be more erroneous. There will, of course, be
such moments when an actor at a white heat illumines some passages
with a flood of imagination (and this mental condition, by the way, is
impossible to the student sitting in his arm-chair); but the great
actor’s surprises are generally well weighed, studied, and
balanced.... And it is this accumulation of such effects which enables
an actor, after many years, to present many great characters with
remarkable completeness.”
And again when he insists upon the _intention_ of effect:
“It is necessary that the actor should learn to think before he
speaks.... Let him remember, first that every sentence expresses a new
thought, and, therefore, frequently demands a change of intonation;
secondly, that the thought precedes the word. Of course, there are
passages in which thought and language are borne along by the streams
of emotion and completely intermingled. But more often it will be
found that the most natural, the most seemingly accidental effects are
obtained when the working of the mind is seen before the tongue gives
it words.”
I well remember at one of our meetings in 1876 when after dinner we had
some “recitations,” according to the custom of that time, Irving was
very complimentary to my own work because I anticipated words by
expression, particularly by the movement of my eyes.
_z_
So far, the study of natural types and the acceptance of the dramatist’s
ideas. But next the actor has to learn how to show best the development
of character. It is not to the purpose of a high-grade play that each
character can be at the start as though labelled thus or thus. As the
story unfolds itself the new situations bring into view qualities
hitherto unknown; there has been heretofore no necessity for knowing
them. Here it is that the dramatist must not make contradictions. He may
show opposing qualities—such make the struggles of life and passions
which it is the duty of the drama to portray; but the opposing forces,
though they may clash, must not deny each other’s very existence. Honour
and baseness do not synchronously coexist; neither do patriotism and
treachery; nor truth and falshood; nor cruelty and compassion. If it be
necessary in the struggles of good and bad—any of the common phases of
human nature—in the same individual to show that now and again either
dominates for a time, the circumstances must be so arranged as to show
preponderating cause. If the dramatist keeps up to this standard all can
go well. But if his work be crude and not in itself illuminative, the
actor’s work becomes more complex and more difficult. He has in the
manifold ways of his own craft to show from the first the
_possibilities_ of character which later on will have to be dealt with.
He will have to suggest the faintest _beginnings_ of things which later
are to be of perhaps paramount importance.
This it is that Irving meant when he said that a character should be
“sincere.” It must not be self-contradictory. He put this point very
definitely:
“... the actor must before all things form a definite conception of
what he wishes to convey. It is better to be wrong and consistent,
than to be right, yet hesitating and uncertain.”
And thus it is that the actor’s skill can so largely supplement that of
the dramatist. He must add whatever the other has omitted or left
undone. He must make straight the path which is in common to himself,
the dramatist, and the public. He must prepare by subtle means—not too
obtrusive to be distracting to the present purpose, nor too slight to
pass altogether unnoticed—the coming of something as yet below the
horizon. If this be done with care—and care implies both study and
premeditation—the sincerity of the character will from first to last be
unimpaired.
_B._—RETICENCE
On the other side of this phase of the Art of Acting is that fine
undefinable quality of all art which is known as “reticence.” Restraint
is almost as rare as passion. The “reticence” of the actor is perhaps
its most difficult phase. For he has to express that which has in the
others to be concealed; and if his expression be too marked, not only
does the restraint cease to exist, but a wrong idea—that of concealment—
is conveyed.
_C._—ART AND TRUTH
All these things are parts of an integral whole; they all go to the
formation of an Art. Art is in itself only a part of the mechanism of
truth. It is from the inner spirit that the outward seeming must derive.
Rules and laws are but aids, restraints, methods of achievement; but it
is after all to nature that the artist must look. In the words of Pope:
“These laws of old discover’d, not deviz’d,
Are nature still but nature methodiz’d.”
Irving put the idea thus:
“... merely to imitate is not to apply a similar method ... the
greatest of all the lessons that Art can teach is this: that truth is
supreme and eternal. No phase of art can achieve much on a false
basis. Sincerity, which is the very touchstone of Art, is
instinctively recognised by all.”
V
THE PLAY
The play as a whole is a matter of prime consideration for the actor,
though it only comes into his province _quâ_ actor in a secondary way.
In the working of a theatre it is the province of the stage manager to
arrange the play as an entity; the actor has to deal with it only with
reference to his own scenes. But the actor must understand the whole
scheme so as to realise the ultimate purpose; otherwise his limitations
may become hindrances to this. Irving, who was manager as well as actor,
puts the matter plainly from the more comprehensive point of view:
“It is most important that an actor should learn that he is a figure
in a picture, and that the least exaggeration destroys the harmony of
the composition. All the members of the company should work toward a
common end, with the nicest subordination of their individuality to
the general purpose.”
Here we have again the lesson of restraint—of reticence. There are also
various other forms of the same need, to which he has at various times
alluded. For instance, speaking of the presentation of a play he said:
“You want, above all things, to have a truthful picture which shall
appeal to the eye without distracting the imagination from the purpose
of the drama.”
In fact Irving took the broadest possible views of the aims and
possibilities of his chosen art, and of the duties as well as of the
methods of those who follow it. He even put it that the State had its
duty with regard to the art of illusion:
“The mere study of the necessities and resources of theatre art—the
art of illusion—should give the theatre as an educational medium a
place in State economy. Just think for a moment: a comprehensive art
effort which consolidates into one entity which has an end and object
and purpose of its own, all the elements of which any or all of the
arts and industries take cognisance—thought, speech, passion, humour,
pathos, emotion, distance, substance, form, size, colour, time, force,
light, illusion to each or all of the senses, sound, tone, rhythm,
music, motion. Can such a work be undertaken lightly or with
inadequate preparation? Why, the mere patience necessary for the
production of a play might take a high place in the marvels of human
effort.”
VI
STAGE PERSPECTIVE
One of the things on which Irving always insisted was a knowledge and
understanding of stage perspective, and of its application in the
practice not only of the art of the stage in its scenic and illusive
aspect but of the art of acting:
“The perspective of the stage is not that of real life, and the result
of seeming is achieved by means which, judged by themselves, would
seem to be indirect. It is only the raw recruit who tries to hit the
bull’s eye by point-blank firing and who does not allow for elevation
and windage.”
In pointing out the necessity of speaking more loudly on the stage than
in a room, he puts the same idea in a different and perhaps a broader
way:
“This exaggeration applies to everything on the stage. To appear to be
natural, you must in reality be much broader than natural. To act on
the stage as one really would in a room would be ineffective and
colourless.”
He never forgot—and never allowed any one else to forget—that the
purpose of stage art is illusion. Its aim is not to present reality but
its semblance; not to be, but to seem. He puts it thus:
“The function of art is to do and not to create—it is to make to seem,
and not to make to be, for to make to be is the Creator’s work.”
He had before said:
“It must never be forgotten that all art has the aim or object of
seeming and not of being, and to understate is as bad as to overstate
the modesty or the efflorescence of nature.”
Thus we get the higher aim: to seem to be—but always in such wise that
nature shall be worthily represented. Nature
“At once the end and aim and test of art.”
So Pope. Irving put the value nature as against the mere pretence thus:
“To be natural on the stage is most difficult, and yet a grain of
nature is worth a bushel of artifice.... Nature may be overdone by
triviality in conditions that demand exaltation.... Like the practised
orator, the actor rises and descends with his sentiment, and cannot be
always in a fine frenzy.”
How true this is; how consistent with eternal truth! Nature has her
moods, why not man; has her means of expressing them, why not man also?
Nature has her tones; and with these why may not the heart of man
vibrate and express itself?