grave and sweet politeness. When we had passed through the iron door—
which had chanced to be open, and so he had found his way in—I said as
nicely as I could, for his fine manner and his diction and his
willingness to obey orders charmed me:
“I trust you will pardon me, sir, in case my request to leave the stage
may have seemed too imperative or in any way wanting in courtesy. But
duty is duty. Now will you kindly give me your name and I will go at
once and ask Mr. Irving’s permission to bring you on the stage, and to
see him if you will!”
“I thank you, sir!” he said; “I am the Grand Duke of Saxe-Meiningen. I
am very pleased with your courtesy; and to see that you carry out orders
so firmly and so urbanely. You are quite right! It is what I like to
see. I wish my people would always do the same!”
LXII
CONSTANT COQUELIN (AINÉ)
Irving and Coquelin first met on the night of April 19, 1888. The
occasion was a supper given for the purpose by M. L. Mayer, the
impresario of French artists in London, at his house in Berners Street.
Previous to this there had been a certain amount of friction between the
two men. Coquelin had written an article in _Harper’s Magazine_ for May
1897 on “Acting and Actors.” In his article he made certain comments on
Irving which were—using the word in its etymological meaning—not
impertinent, but were most decidedly wanting in delicacy of feeling
towards a fellow artist.
Irving replied to the article in an “Actor’s Note” in the _Nineteenth
Century_ for June of the same year. His article was rather a caustic
one, and in it he did not spare the player, turned critic of his fellow
players.
To the “not impertinent” comments on his own method he merely alluded in
a phrase of deprecation of such comments being made by one player on
another. But of the theory advanced by Coquelin, in which he supported
the views of Diderot, he offered a direct negative, commenting freely
himself on such old-fashioned heresies.
It is but right to mention that when, some two years later, Coquelin
re-published his article, with some changes and embellishments, in the
_Revue Illustrée_, December 1889, under the title, “L’Art du Comédien,”
he left out entirely the part relating to Irving.
When the two men met at Mayer’s they at once became friends. The very
fact of having crossed swords brought to each a measure of respect to
the other. At first the conversation was distinctly on the militant
side, the batteries being masked. The others who were present, including
Toole, Coquelin fils, and Sir Squire (then Mr.) Bancroft, had each a
word to say at times. Irving, secure in his intellectual position with
regard to the theory of acting, was most hearty in his manner and used
his rapier with sweet dexterity. Toole, who had his own grievance: that
Coquelin, an artist of first-class position, late a Sociétaire of the
Comédie-Française, should accept fee or emolument for private
performances—a thing not usual to high-grade players of the British
stage—limited himself to asking Coquelin in extremely bad French if it
was possible that this was true. At that time Coquelin did not speak
much English, though he attained quite a proficiency in it before long.
In a very short time the supper party at Mayer’s subsided into gentle
and complete harmony. The actors began to understand each other, and
from that moment became friends. Coquelin gave imitations of certain
French actors, amongst them Frédéric Le Maître and Mounet-Sully. The
performance was a strange comment on his own theory that an actor in
portraying a character must in the so doing divest himself of his own
identity, and quite justified Irving’s remark in his “note”:
“Indeed it is strange to find an actor, with an individuality so
marked as that of M. Coquelin, taking it for granted that his identity
can be entirely lost.”
To us whilst his imitations were remarkably clever, there was no
possibility of forgetting for an instant that the exponent was Coquelin.
Why should we? If an actor entirely loses his own identity the larger
measure of his possible charm is gone!
I find this note in my diary regarding Coquelin on that night of Mayer’s
supper:
“He is a fine actor; essentially a Comedian!”
LXIII
SARAH BERNHARDT
When Irving and Sarah Bernhardt met there already was that
predisposition towards friendship which true artists must feel towards
those who work greatly in their own craft. When the Comédie-Française
came to London in 1879 and played at the Gaiety Theatre, Irving went to
one of the _matinées_ and was immensely struck by Sarah Bernhardt’s
genius. He was taken round on the stage and introduced to the various
members of the Company; but he did not have in that short season any
opportunities of furthering friendships. That was a busy season for
every one, both the London players and the foreigners. We were playing
_répertoire_ and changing the bill every few nights; the rehearsals were
endless. So too with the strangers; they had a great list of plays to
get through, and they also were rehearsing all day. When they could the
various members of the French Company came to the Lyceum, where they
were always made welcome. Indeed, all through his management Irving made
it an imperative rule that his fellow artists should when possible be
made welcome at his theatre. Little people as well as great people, all
were welcome. In those early days the same rule of hospitality did not
hold with the Comédie-Française; actors had to go like any one else—on a
“specie basis.” Even Irving who had thrown his own theatre open to his
French fellow artists had to pay for his own box at the Gaiety. When,
however, Jules Claretie became Director of the Théâtre Français he
changed all that, absolutely.
The next year, 1880, Sarah Bernhardt was playing for a short time in
London—this time her own venture—again at the Gaiety. Irving took a box
for her benefit, a _matinée_ on 16th June. Loveday and I went with him.
The bill was _Jean Marie_, the fourth act of _La Rome vaincue_, and the
fifth act of _Hernani_. Irving was charmed with her playing in _Jean
Marie_, which is a one-act piece with the same note of sentiment in it
as that of the song “Auld Robin Gray.” He was also struck with her
extraordinary tragic force in _La Rome vaincue_.
On Saturday night, 3rd July of that year, 1880, Sarah Bernhardt came to
supper in the Beefsteak Room. The two other guests were both friends of
hers, Bastien Lepage the painter, and Libbotton the violoncellist. This
was a night of extraordinary interest. Irving and Sarah Bernhardt were
both at their best and spoke quite freely on all subjects concerning
their art which came on the _tapis_. Irving was eager to know the
opinion of one so familiar with the working of the French stage and yet
so daring and original in her own life and artistic method. When they
touched on the subject of the value of subsidy she grew excited and
spoke of the value of freedom and independence:
“What use,” she said, “subsidy when a French actress cannot live on the
salary, at even the Comédie-Française!”
On the subject of tradition in art her manner was more pronounced. She
railed against tradition on the stage—as distinguished from the guiding
memory and record of great effective work. Her face lit up and her eyes
blazed; she smote her clenched hand heavily on the table, as, after a
fierce diatribe against the cramping tendency of an artificial method
relentlessly enforced, she hurled out:
“A bas la tradition!”
Then the change to her softer moods was remarkable. She was a being of
incarnate grace, with a soft undertone of voice as wooing as the cooing
of pigeons. As I looked at her—this was my first opportunity of seeing
her close at hand—all the wondrous charm which Bastien Lepage had
embodied in his picture of her seemed at full tide. This picture of
Bastien Lepage—that wherein she is seated holding a distaff—was
exhibited in a silver frame at the first exhibition of the Grosvenor
Gallery and met with universal admiration. With the original before one
and the memory of her wonderful playing ever fresh in one’s mind it was
not possible not to be struck with her serpentine grace. I said to
Bastien Lepage in such French as I could manage:
“In that great picture you seemed to get the true Sarah. You have
painted her as a serpent with all a serpent’s grace!” He seemed much
interested and asked me how I made that out. Again, as well as I could I
explained that all the lines of the picture were curved—there was not a
single straight line in the drawing or shading. He seemed more than
pleased and asked me to go on. I said that it had seemed to me that he
had painted all the shadows in a scheme of yellow, shading them to
represent in a subtle way the scales of the serpent skin.
He suddenly took me by both hands and shook them hard—I thought for a
moment that he was going to kiss me. Then he patted me on the shoulder,
and suddenly shot out the big wide cuff then in vogue in Parisian dress,
and taking a pencil from his pocket drew the picture in little, showing
every line as serpentine, and suggesting the shadows with little curved
and shaded lines. Then he shook hands again.
I have regretted ever since that I did not ask him to cut off that cuff
and give it to me! It was an artistic treasure!
In some of the discussions on art that evening he too got excited. I
remember once the violent way in which he spoke of his own dominant
note:
“Je suis un ré-a-liste!” As he spoke his voice rose and quivered with
that “brool” that marks strong emotion. The short hair of his bulled
head actually seemed to bristle like the hair of an excited cat. He rose
and brought down his raised clenched fist on the table with a mighty
thump. One could realise him at that moment as a possible leader of an
_émeute_. One seemed to see him amid a whirl of drifting powder-smoke
waving a red flag over the top of a barricade.
Another thing which Bastien Lepage said that night has always remained
in my memory. It is so comprehensive that its meaning may be widely
applied:
“In an original artist the faults are brothers to the qualities!”
We sat late that night. It was five o’clock when we broke up, and the
high sun was streaming into our eyes as we left the building. Many a
night after that, Sarah Bernhardt spent pleasant hours at the Lyceum—
pleasant to all concerned. She grew to _love_ the acting of Irving and
of Ellen Terry, and whenever she had an opportunity she would hurry in
by the stage door and take a seat in the wings. Several times when she
arrived in London from Paris she would hurry straight from the station
to the theatre and see all that was possible of the play. It was a
delight and a pride to both Irving and Miss Terry when she came; and
whenever she could do so she would stop to supper. Those nights were
delightful. Sometimes some of her comrades would come with her. Marius,
Garnier, Darmont or Damala. The last time the latter—to whom she was
then married—came he looked like a dead man. I sat next him at supper,
and the idea that he was dead was strong on me. I think he had taken
some mighty dose of opium, for he moved and spoke like a man in a dream.
His eyes, staring out of his white, waxen face, seemed hardly the eyes
of the living.
Sarah Bernhardt was always charming and fresh and natural. Every good
and fine instinct of her nature seemed to be at the full when she was
amongst artistic comrades whom she liked and admired. She inspired every
one else and seemed to shed a sort of intellectual sunshine around her.
LXIV
GENEVIÈVE WARD
I
On the evening of Thursday, 20th November 1873, I strolled into the
Theatre Royal, Dublin, to see what was on. I had been then for two years
a dramatic critic, and was fairly well used to the routine of things.
There was a very poor house indeed; in that huge theatre the few
hundreds scattered about were like the plums in a fo’c’sle duff. The
play was Legouve’s _Adrienne Lecouvreur_, a somewhat machine-made play
of the old school. The lady who played Adrienne interested me at once;
she was like a triton amongst minnows. She was very handsome; of a rich
dark beauty, with clear-cut classical features, black hair, and great
eyes that now and again flashed fire. I sat in growing admiration of her
powers. Though there was a trace here and there of something which I
thought amateurish she was so masterful, so dominating in other ways
that I could not understand it. At the end of the second act I went into
the lobby to ask the attendants if they could tell me anything about her
as the name on the bill was entirely new to me. None of them, however,
could enlighten me on any point except that she had appeared on Monday
in _Lucrezia Borgia_; and that the business was very bad.
When the grand scene of the play came—that between the actress and her
rival, the Princesse de Bouillon—the audience was all afire. Their
enthusiasm and the sound of it recalled the description of Edmund Kean’s
appearance at Drury Lane. I went round on the stage and saw John Harris
the manager. I asked him who was the woman who was playing and where did
she come from.
“She has no right to be playing to an audience like that!” I said
pointing at the curtain which lay between us and the auditorium.
“I quite agree with you!” he answered. “She is fine; isn’t she? I saw
her play in Manchester and at once offered her the date here which was
vacant.” Just then she came upon the stage and he introduced me to her.
When the play was over I went home and wrote my criticism, which duly
appeared in the _Irish Echo_ next evening.
That engagement of nine days was a series of _débuts_. In addition to
_Adrienne Lecouvreur_ she appeared in _Medea_, _Lucrezia Borgia_, _The
Actress of Padua_, the “sleep-walking” scene of _Macbeth_, _The
Honeymoon_. In one and all she showed great power and greater promise.
It is a satisfactory memory to me to find, after her career has been
made and her retirement—all too soon—effected after more than thirty
years of stage success, in my diary of 29th November 1873—the last night
of her engagement—
(“Mem. will be a great actress”).
I was reintroduced to her—this time by a personal friend—and there and
then began a close friendship which has never faltered, which has been
one of the delights of my life and which will I trust remain as warm as
it is now till the death of either of us shall cut it short.
II
Geneviève Ward, both in the choice of her plays and in her manner of
playing, followed at that time the “old” school. I had a good
opportunity of judging the excellence of her method, for that very year,
1873, after an absence of fifteen years, Madame Ristori had visited
Dublin. She was then in her very prime; an actress of amazing power and
finish. She had played _Medea_, _Mary Stuart_, _Queen Elizabeth_ and
_Marie Antoinette_. Her method was of course the “Italian,” of which she
was the finest living exponent—probably the finest that ever had been.
Her speech was a series of cadences; the voice rose and fell in waves—
sometimes ripples, sometimes billows—but always modified with such
exquisite precision as not to attract special attention to the rhythmic
quality. Its effect was entirely unconscious. Indeed it was a method
which in time could, and did, become of itself mechanical—like
breathing—so that it did not in the least degree interfere even with the
volcanic expression of passion. The study was of youth and at the
beginning of art; but when the method was once formed nature could
express herself in it as unfettered as in any other medium. Years
afterwards Miss Ward showed me one of Ristori’s promptbooks; and I could
not but be struck with the accentuation. Indeed the marking above the
syllables ran in such unbroken line as to look like musical scoring.
Miss Ward was a friend of the great Italian and had learned most of her
art from her. She was a fine linguist, speaking French, Italian and
Spanish as easily as her own tongue. At that time Ristori, who was in
private life La Comtessa Campramican del Grillo, lived in her husband’s
ancestral home in Rome, and Miss Ward often stayed with her. Miss Ward
in her private life was also a Countess, having whilst a very young girl
married a Russian, Count de Gerbel of Nicolaeiff. The marriage was a
romance as marked as anything that could appear on the stage. In 1855 at
Nice Count de Gerbel had met and fallen in love with her and proposed
marriage. She was willing and they were duly married at the Consulate at
Nice, the marriage in the Russian church was to follow in Paris. But the
Count was not of chivalrous nature. In time his fancy veered round to
some other quarter, and he declared that by a trick of Russian law which
does not acknowledge the marriage of a Russian until the ceremony in the
Russian church has been performed, the marriage which had taken place
was not legal. His wife and her father and mother, however, were not
those to pass such a despicable act. With her mother she appealed to the
Czar, who having heard the story was furiously indignant. Being an
autocrat, he took his own course. He summoned his vassal Count de Gerbel
to go to Warsaw, where he was to carry out the orders which would be
declared to him. There in due time he appeared. The altar was set for
marriage and before it stood the injured lady, her father, Colonel Ward,
and her mother. Her father was armed, for the occasion was to them one
of grim import. De Gerbel yielded to the mandate of his Czar, and the
marriage—with all needful safeguards this time—was duly effected. Then
the injured Countess bowed to him and moved away with her own kin. At
the church door husband and wife parted, never to meet again.
III
In her first youth Miss Ward was a singer and had great success in Grand
Opera. But overwork in Cuba strained her voice. It was thought that this
might militate against great and final success; so, bowing to the
inevitable, she with her usual courage forsook the lyric for the
dramatic stage. It was when she had prepared herself for the latter and
was ready to make her new venture that I first saw her.
IV
During the holiday season of 1879, whilst Irving was yachting in the
Mediterranean, Miss Ward rented the Lyceum for a short season commencing
2nd August. By the contract Irving had agreed to find, in addition to
the theatre, the heads of departments, box-office and the usual working
staff at an inclusive rent, as he wished to keep all his people
together. So I had to remain in London to look after these matters. Miss
Ward asked me to be manager for her also; but I said I could not do so
as a matter of business as it might be possible that her interests and
Irving’s might clash; but that I would do all I could.
She opened in a play called _Zillah_ written by her friend Palgrave
Simpson and another. It was put in preparation some time before and was
carefully rehearsed. My own work kept me so busy that I did not have any
time to see the rehearsals till the night before the performance when
the dress rehearsal was held. That rehearsal was one which I shall never
forget. It was too late to say anything—there was no time then to make
any radical change; and so I held my peace.
The play was of the oldest-fashioned and worst type of “Adelphi” drama!
It was machine-made and heartless and tiresome to the last degree, and
in addition the language was turgid beyond belief. It was an absolute
failure, and was taken off after a few nights. _Lucrezia Borgia_ was put
up whilst a new play should be got ready. She had not made arrangements
for a second new play, so we all undertook to do what we could to find a
suitable play, a new one. Miss Ward gave me a great parcel of plays sent
to her at various times. I came on one play which at once arrested my
attention. As I shortly afterwards learned, it was one which had been
hawked about unsuccessfully. So soon as I had read it I sent word to
Miss Ward that I thought, with a little alteration in the first act, it
would make a great success. Miss Ward’s judgment agreed with my own. She
knew the author, Hermann Merivale, and wrote to him to see her. He came
to the Lyceum that night. He came in a hurry, passing through London;
she saw him a few minutes after and the agreement was verbally made.
The play was produced on August 21—within a fortnight of the time of its
discovery. It was an enormous success, and ran the whole time of her
tenancy—indeed a week longer than had been decided on as Irving was loth
to disturb the successful run.
The play was _Forget me not_, by Hermann Merivale and F. C. Grove. Miss
Ward played it continuously for _ten years_ and made a fortune with it.
V
Miss Geneviève Ward played in four of Irving’s great productions, of
course always as a special engagement. The first was _Becket_, in which
she “created” the part of Queen Eleanor—by old custom, to “create” a
stage part is to play it first in London; the second was Morgan Le Fay
in _King Arthur_; the third the Queen in _Cymbeline_; and the fourth
Queen Margaret in _Richard III._ In all these parts she was exceedingly
good.
With regard to the last-named play, there was one of the few instances
in which Irving was open to correction with regard to emphasis of a
word. In Act IV. scene 3, of his acting version—Act IV. scene 4, of the
original play—the last two lines of Queen Margaret’s speech to Queen
Elizabeth before her exit:
“Bettering thy loss makes the bad-causer worse;
Revolving this will teach thee how to curse!”
When Miss Ward spoke the last line she emphasised the word _this_—
“Revolving _this_ will teach thee how to curse!” Irving said the
emphasised word should be teach—“Revolving this will _teach_ thee how to
curse!”
They each stuck to their own opinion; but at the last rehearsal he came
to her and said:
“You are quite right, Miss Ward, your reading is quite correct.” I
daresay he had not considered the reading when arranging the play. As a
matter of fact in his original arrangement of the play, at his first
production of it under Mrs. Bateman in 1877, Queen Margaret was not in
the scene at all. In the new version he had restored her to the scene as
he wished to “fatten” Miss Ward’s part and so add to the strength of the
play. Miss Ward was always a particularly _strong_ actress, good at
invective, and as the play had no part for Ellen Terry he wished to give
it all the other help he could.
VI
Miss Ward has one great stage gift which is not given to many: her eyes
can blaze. I can only recall two other actresses who had the same
quality in good degree: Mdlle. Schneider, who forty years ago played the
Grand Duchess of Gerolstein in Offenbach’s Opera; and Christine Nilsson.
The latter I saw in London in 1867, and from where I sat—high up in the
seat just in front of the gallery—I could note the starry splendour of
her blue eyes. Ten years later, in _Lohengrin_ at Her Majesty’s Opera
House, I noticed the same—this time from the stalls. And yet once again
when I sat opposite her at supper on the night of her retirement, June
20, 1888. The supper party was a small one, given by Mr. and Mrs.
Brydges-Willyams at 9 Upper Brook Street. Irving was there and Ellen
Terry, Lord Burnham and Miss Matilda Levy—brother and sister of our
hostess—Count Miranda, to whom Nilsson was afterwards married, and his
daughter, my wife and myself.
Nilsson came in from her triumph at the Albert Hall, blazing with
jewels. She wore that night only those that had been given to her by
Kings and Queens—and other varieties of monarchs.
LXV
JOHN LAWRENCE TOOLE
I
The friendship between Henry Irving and John Lawrence Toole began in
Edinburgh in 1857. Toole was the elder and had already won for himself
the position of a local semi-star. The chances of distinction come to
the “Low” comedian quicker than to the exponent of Tragedy or “High”
Comedy, and Toole had commenced his stage experience at almost as early
an age as Irving—eighteen. On 20th June 1894, during a Benefit at the
Lyceum for the Southwark Eye Hospital, at which he did the wonderfully
droll character sketch, “Trying a Magistrate,” he told me that
forty-five years before, Charles Dickens had heard him do the sketch and
advised him to go on the stage. Wisely he had taken the advice; from the
very start he had an exceptionally prosperous career.