Part 10

"The sadness I feel at the prospect of never again working under your management is far too genuine for me to endeavour to convey it {179} by any conventional expressions of regret. Although I have always appreciated your unvarying goodness to me, it is only by the depression of spirits and general apathy which I now experience, that I recognise how much my enjoyment of my profession was affected by the kind auspices under which I had the good fortune to practise it."

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IX

THE STAGE

II

"Pity it is that the animated graces of the player can live no longer than the instant breath and motion that presents them, or at best can but faintly glimmer through the memory of a few surviving spectators."

[Sidenote: Henry Irving]

I will now write of the man who was for many years the chief of the English stage, Henry Irving. He was a born leader and had the magnetism which compels the affection of his comrades; he knew that to be well served meant first to be well beloved. Although denied the advantages of early education, Irving had the learning which colleges may fail to teach; and in his later years would have graced, in manner and in aspect, any position in life. This personal attribute came to him gradually, when, as it were, he had recreated himself. Truth to tell, in the early part of his career he had none of it. In those distant days there was a strong smack of the country actor in his appearance, and a suggestion of a {181} type immortalised by Dickens in Mr. Lenville and Mr. Folair.

We soon became friends and remained so throughout his remarkable career--the most remarkable in many respects that ever befell an actor. He told me an interesting incident of his early life. He was engaged, in the summer of 1867, to act in Paris. The enterprise proved a failure. The little troupe of players was disbanded and returned to London, with the exception of Irving, who, finding himself abroad for the first time, lingered in the bright city for a couple of months. He lived in a garret on a few francs a day, and paid nightly visits to the cheap parts of the theatre. Although he had no knowledge of the language, he was all the while studying the art of acting in its different grades and kinds.

When, in later years, he entertained in his princely fashion eminent foreign artists, in answer to compliments showered upon him in French, he would, without the slightest affectation--a failing from which he was free--answer simply: "I am sure all you are saying is very kind, but I don't understand a word of it."

Soon after his success as Digby Grant in James Albery's comedy, _Two Roses_, shortly before what proved to be the turning-point in his career--his becoming a member of the {182} Lyceum company, then under the Bateman management--I had occasion to see a well-known dramatic agent, who, as I was leaving his office, said: "Oh, by the way, would Henry Irving be of use to you next season? I have reason to believe he would welcome such a change." The question was startling. I replied that I should be delighted, but feared it would be difficult, as Hare, Coghlan and myself would be in his way. How possible it is that a different answer might have influenced future events in theatre-land! Then came his memorable performance in _The Bells_, which gave him fame in a single night, followed by other early triumphs, _Charles the First_ and _Hamlet_.

I once saw Irving on horseback, cantering in the Row on a Sunday afternoon: it was a singular experience. His companion was George Critchett, who gave up his practice one day in the week to hunt instead, and who was as much at home on a horse as Irving was plainly uncomfortable.

Later on, Irving was speaking to me of the success of one of our plays. I answered that in my belief the same could be achieved at the Lyceum (the theatre was not yet under his own management), if money were freely and wisely spent. But wide is the difference {183} between spending and wasting. While the disasters which darkened his brilliant reign were sometimes, it must be conceded, the result of errors of judgment in the choice of plays, had he been in partnership with a capable comrade, to whose guidance he would sometimes have submitted, he might have realised a fortune, instead of allowing several to pass like water through his hands. As an artistic asset, Irving was often wasted and thrown away.

Let me turn for a moment from the stage side of this extraordinary man.

[Sidenote: A toy theatre]

In the gloaming of a Christmas Day, full forty years ago, my wife and I were sitting alone, when, to our amazement, Irving was announced. It was a bolt from the blue. After a pleasant talk, we asked him who was to have the pleasure of giving him his pudding and mince-pie. He answered that he should be all alone in Grafton Street with his dog. We told him that ourselves and our son George, then a small boy, comprised our party, and begged him to join us. Irving gladly said he would. At the time he was acting in _The Corsican Brothers_, of which famous melodrama Master George had his own version in his little model theatre, with an elaborate scene of the duel in the snow, represented by masses of salt smuggled from the kitchen; and this, {184} with managerial pride, he told Irving he would act before him after dinner. To an audience of three the performance was solemnly gone through, being subjected to the criticisms, seriously pronounced and respectfully received, of the great man. I seem to hear his voice crying out: "Light not strong enough on the prompt side, my boy." For years a broken blade of one of the rapiers used in the duel at the Lyceum, given to him by Irving, was among the boy's proud possessions. I daresay he has it still. A memorable Christmas evening!

The idea occurred to me to give a supper to Irving before his first visit to America in 1883, and to let it have a distinctive character by inviting none but actors. Feeling that nowhere could be it so appropriately given as in the Garrick Club, I wrote to my fellow-members of the Committee to ask if, in the special circumstances, it might take place in the dining-room. Greatly to my delight, my request was granted, with the remark, that it was "an honour to the Club." The attractive room, so suitable for the purpose, its walls being lined with the portraits of those whose names recall all that is famous in the great past of our stage, was arranged to accommodate a party of a hundred, of whom there are but very few {185} survivors. A humorous drawing of a supposed wind-up to the supper--Irving, Toole and myself staggering home, arm-in-arm--was among the early successes of Phil May. He made two copies of it. One of the three belonged to King Edward, which I afterwards saw at Sandringham, the others are owned by Pinero and myself.

In acknowledgment of a little present I sent Irving at this time he wrote:

"I shall wear your gift--and a rare one it is--as I wear you, the giver, in my heart. My regard for you is not a fading one. In this world there is not too much fair friendship, is there? And I hope it is a gratification to you--it is to me, old friend--to know that we can count alike upon a friend in sorrow and in gladness."

[Sidenote: "The Dead Heart"]

When Irving contemplated a production of _The Dead Heart_, he flattered me by saying that unless I appeared with him as the Abbé Latour he would not carry out the idea. I was then free from management, and tried to persuade him to let me undertake the part as a labour of love, but he would not listen. After a long talk--neither of us, I remember it all so well, looking at the other, but each gazing separately at different angles into Bond Street {186} from the windows of the rooms he so long occupied at the corner of Grafton Street--he said that I must content him by being specially engaged, on terms which soon were settled.

It was a strange experience to re-enter a theatre to serve instead of to govern; and in one where the policy was so different. My wife and I had so often been content to choose plays without regard to ourselves: the policy of the Lyceum was upon another plane. _The Dead Heart_ is a story of the French Revolution, on the lines of _A Tale of Two Cities_. The best scene in the play was between Irving and myself, in which we fought a duel to the death. A clever drawing of the scene--I regret failing to secure it when it was sold at Christie's--was made by Bernard Partridge. From all I have heard said of it, the fight must have been well done--real, brief, and determined. It was a grim business, in the sombre moonlit room, and forcibly gave the impression that one of the two combatants would not leave it alive. I confess that I had not the courage of Terriss, who found himself in a similar position with Irving when they fought a duel in _The Corsican Brothers_, and boldly attacked his chief by suggesting that a little of the limelight might fall on his side of the stage, as Nature was impartial.

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[Sidenote: A tribute from Irving]

One night during the hundred and sixty on which _The Dead Heart_ was acted, when we had acknowledged the applause which followed the duel, Irving put his arm round me as we walked up the stage together, and said: "What a big name you might have made for yourself had you never come across those Robertson plays! What a pity, for your own sake; for no actor can be remembered long who does not appear in the classical drama."

I fear egotism is getting the better of me. Irving once said:

"One point must strike all in connection with Bancroft's career--before he left the Haymarket, at the age of forty-four, he was the senior theatrical manager of London. In conjunction with that gifted lady who was the genius of English comedy, he popularised a system of management which has dominated our stage ever since, and the principle of which may be described as the harmony of realism and art."

It is to be much regretted that no really satisfactory portrait of Irving exists. The one painted by Millais, and given by him to the Garrick Club in 1884, is a beautiful work of art, but, to my mind, somewhat effeminate in its {188} beauty. A portrait by Sargent, painted when Irving was fifty, and exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1888, was amazingly clever, but a somewhat painful likeness. The great painter showed something in the great actor--as he so often does in his sitters--which his gifted and searching eyes could not help seeing, and which, once having been shown, you cannot afterwards help seeing always. Irving hated the portrait, and when it was taken from the walls of the Academy it was never seen again. I heard Irving, at my table, tell Sir Edward Poynter that he hid it away in a garret, and when he left the old Grafton Street chambers, his solitary home for many years, he hacked the canvas to shreds with a knife. What a treasure lost!

Irving's hospitality was unbounded. At one of his many parties I recollect his saying to Frank Lockwood, when he was Solicitor-General: "The fortunate actor is the actor who works hard." He then pointed across the table to me, and added: "Look at that fellow, and remember what hard work meant in his case. 'B' is the only actor since Garrick who made a fortune purely by management of his own theatre--I mean without the aid of provincial tours and visits to America." After a pause he continued: "But he has paid the {189} penalty of leaving his best work as an actor undone."

[Sidenote: Knighthood]

It will ever be remembered that Henry Irving was the first actor to receive from his Sovereign the honour of State recognition: so placing his calling on a level with the rest, no more to be looked at askance, but recognised as leading to a share of the distinctions enjoyed by his fellow-men.

For a year or more before the end it was manifest to those who loved him that the sword had worn out the scabbard--it hung so listlessly by his side. This I strongly realised the last time he sat at our table, and was struck by his plaintive manner to my wife and to me. He then had a flat in Stratton Street, and left us at midnight, saying that he must be home before the lift ceased running or he would have to be carried upstairs.

In affectionate remembrance I close my tribute to Henry Irving. His remarkable career has taken its place in the history of his country, for he was one of the leaders of men who earned the privilege, given to but few, to become the property of the world.

It may also be truly said of Irving, as of one of the most distinguished of his predecessors: "He who has done a single thing that others never forget, and feel ennobled whenever they {190} think of, need not regret his having been, and may throw aside this fleshly coil like any other worn-out part, grateful and contented."

Although I knew and loved them from their boyhood, I find it difficult to write of Irving's sons, being, as they were, so overpowered by the dominant personality of the father.

[Sidenote: "H.B." and Laurence]

They both went to Marlborough. "H.B." afterwards to New College, Oxford. Laurence left school for Paris, to perfect his knowledge of French, his ambition and inclination being the diplomatic service. He then passed some three years in Russia, acquiring mastery of the difficult language. Unhappily, his wished-for career had to be abandoned for want of the imperative funds. "H.B." was called to the Bar, but lacked the necessary patience, and so abandoned a profession, as was thought by many competent judges, in which he was eminently qualified to take a high position; while his "hobby" until the end was criminology, and he wrote remarkable books on that fascinating subject.

Both sons drifted on to the stage. Before that step was taken I had seen "H.B." at Oxford give a striking performance, for one so young, of _King John_.

Later on, I had no wish to see him act a long round of his father's old parts.

{191}

Towards the end of the War he left his work at the Savoy Theatre and devoted himself to hard work in the Intelligence Department at the Admiralty, which proved to be a great strain upon him. We met frequently at that time, by appointment, at the Athenæum, hard by, and had luncheon together, as he did with his close friend, E. V. Lucas. It was manifest then that his fatal illness had begun.

Laurence was a more frequent guest of ours than Harry, especially at Christmas time, having no children to command his presence at home; he was not so trammelled on the stage as his brother; it was easier for him to escape from perpetual reminders. The performances I remember best on his part are his high-class acting in _Typhoon_ and the admirable drawing of a character he played in _The Incubus_, who is, in point of fact, his mistress and has become sadly in the way. My wife and I saw the play together from a stage box, and were much amused at the end of it by a conversation between what we took to be a young married couple in the stalls, just beneath us.

The girl said: "Good play, isn't it?" The man answered: "Capital. I've only one fault to find with it." "What's that?" "Title." "Title, why it's a perfect title." The man: "Rotten title--it's nothing about an incubus." {192} The girl: "It's all about an incubus." The man: "The thing was never once mentioned." The girl, in amazement: "What is an incubus?" The man: "Why, one of those things in which they hatch chickens."

The sons died at an age that is not closed to hope and promise, which now must be handed on to another generation--Laurence and Elizabeth, the children of Harry Irving, both gifted with good looks and charm. The boy distinguished himself during the War in the Air Force and now shows promise as a painter. My love descends to them.

[Sidenote: J. L. Toole]

Extremes meet; they always do and always will. The closest friend Henry Irving had was J. L. Toole. The strong affection between the two men, which lasted until the end, began when Toole was making a name on the stage in Edinburgh and Irving only a beginner. The famous comedian belonged, as it were, to "the City," and was educated at the City of London School. He was a close second to Sothern in inventing practical jokes, generally harmless, and would take as infinite pains to carry them through. I remember a silly story he loved to tell, how, after a bad baccarat night at Aix-les-Bains, he went to the bank to draw money on his letter of credit. Tapping at the _guichet_, he inquired of the clerk in feeble, {193} broken English how much the bank would advance upon a gold-headed cane which he carried. As might be expected, the little window was slammed in his face. Nothing daunted, Toole made his way to the market-place hard by, and bought from various stalls some small fish, a bunch of carrots, and a child's toy; he then returned to the bank and arranged his purchases on the counter, with the addition of his watch, a half-franc piece and a penknife. When all was ready he again tapped at the window, and, in a tremulous voice, implored the clerk to accept these offerings in pledge for the small sum needed to save him from starvation. The clerk indignantly requested Toole to leave the establishment, explaining, in the best English at his command, that the bank only made advances upon letters of credit. At the last-named word Toole broke into smiles, and, producing his letter of credit, handed it to the astonished clerk, with the explanation that he would have offered it at first had he thought the bank cared about it, but the porter at his hotel had emphatically told him the bankers of Aix preferred fish.

Toole was never the same after the painful death of his son: he became more and more a slave to "late hours," but was still a delightful, {194} buoyant companion, beloved by his comrades and friends.

Wilson Barrett was a good actor of the robust type. He had an adventurous career: sometimes high on the wave of success, at others deep down in the trough of the sea of failure, but always strictly honourable. At the old Princess's Theatre, in Oxford Street, he made large sums by good dramas like _The Silver King_ and _The Lights of London_, and lost them through the failures of ambitious efforts, which included a youthful _Hamlet_, to be wiped out in turn by the enormous success of _The Sign of the Cross_, a religious drama that appealed to a large public which rarely entered theatres. The play provoked Bernard Shaw to say that Wilson Barrett could always bring down the house with a hymn, and had so evident a desire to personate the Messiah that we might depend upon seeing him crucified yet.

[Sidenote: William Terriss]

A restless, untamable spirit was born in William Terriss. He tried various callings before settling down to the one for which he was so eminently fitted. He embarked in the mercantile marine, but the craze only lasted a fortnight. Then came tea-planting in China. The next experiment was made in medicine, to be followed by an attack upon engineering. {195} He then positively bluffed me into giving him an engagement, and made his appearance on the stage. Suddenly he decided to go sheep farming in the Falkland Islands. He made an early marriage, and his beloved Ellaline was born there. Of course he soon came back; returned to and left the stage again; next to Kentucky to try horse-breeding. Another failure brought him to his senses. Five years after he had first adopted the stage he was an actor in earnest and became one of its greatest favourites.

His career was chiefly identified with the Lyceum and the Adelphi; but he first became prominent by his acting as Thornhill in _Olivia_, under Hare's management at the Court Theatre. His bright, breezy nature was a tonic, and, like his daughter and her husband, Seymour Hicks, he carried sunshine about with him and shed it on all he met. He was as brave as a lion and as graceful as a panther.

Alas! one Saturday evening the town was horrified as the tragic news quickly spread that Terriss had been fatally stabbed by a malignant madman as he was entering the Adelphi Theatre to prepare for his evening's work. At his funeral there was an extraordinary manifestation of public sympathy.

Lionel Monckton told me a curious story of {196} how when he reached home he found that a clock which Terriss gave him had stopped at the hour of the murder.

However briefly, I must record grateful thanks for past enjoyment given us by Corney Grain, as great a master in his branch of art as that friend of my youth, John Parry. His odd name was often wrongly thought to be assumed, as was that of a dramatist of those days, Stirling Coyne, who rejoiced in the nickname of "Filthy Lucre."

I always remember the stifled laughter of my wife and Corney Grain, who was present with ourselves at a dinner party, when a distinguished foreigner, accredited by Spain to the Court of St. James, was announced by a nervous manservant as the "Spanish Ham..."--a long pause being followed by a trembling sotto voce--"bassador."

[Sidenote: "Gee Gee" and "Wee Gee"]

George Grossmith, the elder--"Gee Gee"--is of course best remembered by his long connection with the Gilbert and Sullivan operas. To their great success he contributed a share of which he was justly proud. After he left the Savoy Theatre he toured as an entertainer, with excellent financial results, both here and from two visits to the United States. When he returned for the second time, I remember his saying to me, in his funny, {197} plaintive way: "Do you know, my dear 'B,' things are really very sad. The first time I came back from America I found myself spoken of as 'Weedon Grossmith's brother,' and now, after my second visit, I am only 'George Grossmith's father.'"

I have always looked upon Weedon Grossmith--"Wee Gee"--as an admirable actor, and his death as bringing a personal loss, having valued his friendship and his company. On the stage I best remember him in Pinero's comedies, _The Cabinet Minister_ and _The Amazons_, in _A Pantomime Rehearsal_, and, towards the end of his career, in a remarkable performance of a demented odd creature, who believed himself to be the great Napoleon. My wife was so impressed by the acting that she wrote to our little friend about it in a way which delighted him beyond words. Weedon was educated as a painter, and became an exhibitor at the Academy and other galleries. I have two charming examples from his brush, which I bought at Christie's.

The Great War dealt severe blows to the stage, many a young life of promise being taken. The toll was heavy; but they are honoured always by their comrades and remembered for their valour, as are those who served so bravely and survived. During those {198} terrible years the stage also lost E. S. Willard, Lewis Waller, Herbert Tree, William Kendal and George Alexander--all men in the front rank; every one hard to replace.

I associate Willard with his success in _The Silver King_, and afterwards in Henry Arthur Jones's plays, _The Middleman_ and _Judah_. In these he had a prosperous career through the United States--as in the part in which I best remember him--the old man in Barrie's comedy, _The Professor's Love Story_, a charming piece of artistic work. He owed a modest fortune to the appreciation he met with in America.