CHAPTER XIV.

1. And lo! it was the fall of the year, and the greatest fall was that of Benjamin.

2. And his lyre was hushed.

3. Yet he stretched his hand out unto the people and cried, “Lo, I like this! I would rather be put under the people, having the suffrages of a hundred and fifty thousand, than be put over them with the suffrages of a hundred and thirty-five thousand.”

4. And the people smote their knees and laughed, and cried “If thou likest it, Benjamin, so we do, also. Go to, and write a Thanksgiving proclamation.”

5. And he did.

(_The stone tablet falls upon a finger-bowl with a crash, and the club votes that the Chronicles be printed at the Prophets expense._)

SPURIUS LARTIUS.—But who is this man, that arises with flashing eye and curling lip? Mayhap he is a Kelt.

MARCENAS.—He is a Kelt, from Keltville, and a poet to boot.

The Poet arises and reads

A BUNCH OF ROSES.

Sweet rose! In thee the summer bides; Thy deep, red breast a secret hides, Which none may know but only she Whose eyes are stars lit up for me.

Red rose! Unto her sweetly speak, And glow against her burning cheek; Ah! breathe this in her shell-like ear,— “Thou makest it summer all the year.”

SPURIUS LARTIUS.—I should imagine the rose to be a waiter, from the instruction to “breathe in her shell-like ear.”

POET.—A moment. There is a third stanza to this poem, written on receiving the florist’s bill:—

Great Scott! List to my heart’s dull thud! Thou hast a dollar cost a bud. She is now my rival’s bride; Again I’ll wear that ulster tried.

The PRESIDENT.—And now the gentleman at the end of the long table will tell one of his inimitable anecdotes.

THE GENTLEMAN AT THE END OF THE LONG TABLE.—Trade is so dull now that the anecdote market is overstocked. The _bon-mot_ and jest mills are rolling up their products; but middlemen are cautious, and consumers wary. The stock of last year’s “chestnuts”[30] is being worked off; and I have one, a little shop-worn, which I have dusted for the occasion:—

_The Fable of the Inquisitive old Broker and the Queer Bundle._

An inquisitive old broker noticed a queer bundle upon the lap of a man sitting opposite him in the horse-car. He looked at the bundle, in wonder as to what it might contain, for some minutes; finally, overmastered by curiosity, he inquired:—

“Excuse me, sir; but would you mind telling me what is in that extraordinary bundle?”

“Certainly; a mongoose,” replied the man, who was reading “Don’t,” and learning how to be a real, true gentleman.

“Ah, indeed!” ejaculated the broker, with unslacked curiosity.... “But what is a mongoose, pray?”

“Something to kill snakes with.”

“But why do you wish to kill snakes with a mongoose?” asked the broker.

“My brother has the _delirum tremens_ and sees snakes all the time. I am going to fix ‘em.”

“But, my dear sir, the snakes which your brother sees in his delirium are not real snakes, but the figments of his diseased imagination,—not real snakes, sir!”

“Well! this is not a real mongoose.”—_Moral. Ask me no questions, and I’ll tell you no lies._

SPURIUS LARTIUS.—I always liked that story. My father used to tell it.

MARCENAS.—Hush, Spurius; the club _Vers de société_ writer is about to favor us.

THE CLUB VERS DE SOCIÉTÉ WRITER.—I have, in my pocket, some dainty verses. I have long written rondeaux, triolets, and pantouns.

I have, however, lately invented two new metres.

The first is called a “cabriolet,” and the other is a combination of a pantoun and a triolet, called a pantalet.

I will read them to you if you will be very, very still, for they are as delicate as porcelain:—

A BRITON’S WAIL IN NEW YORK CITY.

(_A Cabriolet._)

I hired me a hack, I cried out “Alack!” I must dine upon bread; I gave up my purse. Never ride in a hack Unless you are dead; Then ride in a hearse, Lying flat on your back. I hired me a hack! I would I were dead!

“PELLUCID HER EYE.”

(_A Pantalet._)

But, oh! I was dry, And the starved dancers crushed, Till my shirt-front was mushed. The champagne was dry— I cannot say why; But the night-bird was hushed, Yet the throstle-wits thrushed— I cannot say why; (The champagne was dry).

Ah, pellucid her eye! And her oval cheek flushed Like a strawberry crushed. How pellucid her eye! I cannot say why— (The champagne was dry). I sighed, “Let us fly!” She smiled not nor gushed, But from me she rushed. Maphap I seemed “fly” The wine was quite dry. But pellucid her eye, I cannot say why.

This report having been voted correct, and ordered to be inscribed on the minutes, Mr. Howard M. Ticknor then recited, with excellent elocutionary point, the following “Greeting to Ellen Terry”:—

“Honor,” said Cassius, “is my story’s theme.” Honor shall best my verse to-night beseem.

* * * * *

For some, how safe, how permanent, how sure! Written in characters that will endure, Until this world begins to melt away And crumble to its ultimate decay. The picture fades; but color still is there, Even in ruin is the statue fair; The province won, the city burnt or built, The inwrought consequence of good or guilt, Shape after epochs to time’s latest span, And link enduringly a man to man.

But he who is himself artist and art, Whose greatest works are of himself a part; Who, sculptor, moulds his hand, his form, his face; Who, painter, on the air his lines must trace; Musician, make an instrument his voice, And tell, not write, the melody of his choice; Whose eloquence of gesture, pose and eye Flashes aglow, in instant dark to die;— Where are for him the honor and the fame? A face on canvas, and perhaps a name Extolled awhile, and then an empty word At sound of which no real thrill is stirred. What, then, shall recompense his loss? What make Atonement for the ignorant future’s sake? What but the tribute of his honor now, The native wreath to deck his living brow?

Then, as he passes beyond the mortal ken, His glory shall go with him even then, Not as a hope, a doubt, and a desire, But as a spark of his own living fire, Of his eternal self a priceless part, Eternal witness to his mind and heart. And so, to-night, when she who comes from far To show in one what many women are, Sits at our board, and makes our evening shine, Breaks bread with us, and pledges in our wine, Let us be quick to honor in our guest So many a phase of life by her expressed. Portia’s most gracious, yet submissive word— “You are my king, my governor, my lord;” Her courage, dignity, and force, Warning the Jew that justice shall have course; The trenchant wit of Beatrice, and her pride, Her loyalty as friend, her faith as bride; Letitia’s stratagems; the tragic fate Of sweet Ophelia, crushed by madness’ weight.

How many chords of happiness or woe, Her lips that quiver and her cheeks that glow; Her speech now clear, now clouded, and her eyes Filling by turns with anguish, mirth, surprise— Can wake to throb, again to rest can still— Potent her power as Prospero’s magic will!

Present alone is hers—alone is ours, Now, while she plants, must we, too, cull the flowers? For future wreaths she has no time to wait; Unready now, they are for aye too late. Now is the moment our regard to show, Let every face with light of welcome glow; Let smiles shine forth, glad words be spoken; Formality for once be broken. Let hand strike hand, let kerchiefs wave, Keep not her laurels for her grave; Twine our proud chaplet for her fair, smooth brow, And bid her take our share of tribute now; Then shall it be a recollection dear, That we to-night greet Ellen Terry here!

III.

IRVING, who could not be present at the Papyrus Club (it was one of Miss Terry’s “off nights,” when either “The Bells” or “Louis XI.” was performed), was received at the St. Botolph’s Club soon after the Papyrus festivities closed. In the absence of the President, ex-Mayor Green, the Vice-President, and Mr. Secretary Sullivan did the honors of the evening. An interesting meeting on this occasion was the introduction of Irving to Oliver Wendell Holmes, who later, at the _matinée_ performance of “Charles the First,”[31] was quite overcome with the pathos of the play. Apart from the number and enthusiasm of his audiences, Mr. Irving’s personal reception by the leading men of Boston—_littérateurs_, professors, and scholars—might well have given point to the few eloquent words which he addressed to the house on the closing performance of “The Bells” and “The Belle’s Stratagem.” He said:—

Ladies and Gentlemen,—I have the privilege of thanking you, for myself, and in behalf of my comrades, and especially in behalf of my gifted sister, Miss Ellen Terry, for the way in which you have received our tragedy, comedy, and melodrama. In coming to this country I have often said that I felt I was coming among friends; and I have had abundant and most touching proof that I was right. This I have never felt more truly than in your historic city of New England, which seems a veritable bit of old England. In this theatre we have been on classic ground, and if we have, while upon these boards, accomplished anything tending, in your opinion, to the advancement of a great art, in which we are all deeply interested, we are more than repaid and more than content. It affords me great pleasure to tell you that, if all be well, we shall return to Boston in March, when I hope to present, for the first time on our tour, “Much Ado About Nothing.” And now, ladies and gentlemen, in the names of one and all, I gratefully thank you, and respectfully wish you “Good-by, and a Merry Christmas.”

XII.

LOOKING FORWARD TO CHRISTMAS.

Interviewing in England and America—Rehearsing Richard and Lady Ann—Reminiscences of a Christmas Dinner—A Homely Feast—Joe Robins and Guy Fawkes—He would be an Actor—The Luxury of Warmth—“One Touch of Nature.”

I.

THERE is interviewing and interviewing. How it comes out depends upon the interviewer and the interviewed. Every phase of the difficult art is shown in American journalism. Mr. Yates, in the “World,” has given us the best modern form of interviewing in “Celebrities at Home.” Mr. Blowitz, of the “Times,” and other foreign correspondents, have frequently shown England how admirably the American system fits a certain class of news. “The Pall Mall Gazette” has lately adopted the method of our cousins more in detail than has been hitherto popular with the London press. I have always held that interviewing, conducted with discretion and a sense of journalistic responsibility, would be a valuable and entertaining feature of English newspaper work.

I am prompted to these remarks by the contents of this chapter. Said Mr. Stephen Fiske, the dramatic editor of “The Spirit of the Times,” and the author of a clever book on England, “I am anxious to have Mr. Irving write a short story for our Christmas number. Wilkie Collins, as you know, is a constant contributor, and we have the assistance of some of the best pens, English and American. Irving has written for several English publications.”

“He has a wonderful amount of energy, and can do more mental work in a given time than any man I know; but when he is going to get an opportunity to sit down and write a Christmas story is more than I can tell.”

“I only want a personal reminiscence, an anecdote or two,” said Fiske; “but I must have him in the Christmas number.”

“Why don’t you interview him, with Christmas as the pivot of your interrogations?” I asked.

“He has been interviewed almost to death, I should think.”[32]

“Oh, no; I believe he likes it! I am sure he does when a really bright, clever fellow comes along and engages his attention. Though he does not say so, and, perhaps, has not thought about it, he is doing good every time he has a real earnest talk to a reporter about the stage and its mission. No actor ever set people thinking so much in England, and he is proving himself quite an art missionary on this side of the Atlantic.”

“That’s true,” said the dramatic editor; “but for my purpose I only want him to be simply entertaining,—a bit of personal history, _apropos_ of Christmas.”

“Play the rôle of an interviewer, and write the stories yourself,” I suggested.

“I will,” said Fiske. “Your plan has this advantage,—I shall get the copy in proper time for the printer.”

II.

AND this Christmas chat is the result of the dramatic editor’s decision.

“It was a gloomy, rainy, miserable day. The theatre, always a dreary place in the morning, seemed even more depressing than usual. Mr. Irving was rehearsing the first act of ‘Richard III.,’ possibly with a view to Baltimore or Chicago.

“With that infinite patience which some philosophers define as genius, Mr. Irving went over and over the lines of Richard and Lady Ann, and acted all the business of the scene. His street costume and tall silk hat appeared ridiculously incongruous with his sword and his words. He knelt upon the stage and showed Lady Ann how to take hold of the weapon and threaten to kill him. He rose and repeated her speeches with appropriate gestures. He knelt again, gave her the cues, and watched her from under his heavy eyebrows, while she again rehearsed the scene.

“Repeated a dozen times, this performance became as monotonous as the dripping of the rain without, or the slow motions of the cleaners in the front of the theatre. At last, with a few final kindly words, the Lady Ann was dismissed, and Mr. Irving sat down wearily at the prompter’s table.

“‘Where shall you eat your Christmas dinner?’ I inquired.

“‘At Baltimore,’ replied Mr. Irving. ‘Several of my company have brought their home-made Christmas puddings over with them, and are to carry them about, with the rest of the luggage, until the day arrives. I have determined to try the American Christmas puddings, which, I am told, are very good indeed,—like most things American.’

“‘Oh, our people manufacture them by thousands! After all, a Christmas pudding is only a mince-pie boiled.’

“Just so,’ said Mr. Irving, laughing in his silent, interior, Leatherstocking manner. ‘I am thinking,’ he exclaimed, ‘of the Christmas dinner I gave last year, in the room of the old Beefsteak Club, which, you know, is now part of the Lyceum Theatre. We had talked the matter over,—a few friends and myself,—and decided that we were tired of professional cooks and conventional bills of fare, and that the best stimulus for our jaded palates was a return to plain, homely dishes.

“‘You can fancy Stoker saying that. He said it over and over for at least a month, and kept humming, “There’s no place—or no dinner—like home,” in the most disquieting way, whenever the matter was mentioned. He also undertook to arrange the whole affair.

“‘Well, it was arranged. There were to be no professional caterers, no professional waiters, no luxuries of any kind,—except the wines, which I took under my own care, being cast for the part of the butler. Stoker was to buy the material. The property-man’s wife was to roast the beef and the turkey. The mistress of the wardrobe undertook to boil the pudding. An usher, born with a genius for cookery, who was discovered by Stoker, had charge of the soup, fish, and vegetables. We were to wait upon ourselves,—a genuine family party. A suggestion to order ices from Gunter’s, in case the pudding was a failure, was voted down indignantly.

“‘As Christmas approached I became quite interested in this home dinner,—hungry for it days in advance, as one may say. I began by inviting one friend who had a reputation as an epicure; then another asked to be allowed to share our homely feast. Presently our family party grew to thirty. I began to have forebodings. You see, a small family can wait upon themselves, but not a family of thirty.

“‘However, Stoker appeared cheerily satisfied and mysteriously complacent, and seemed to think that our motto should be “The more the merrier!” I imagined that he had secretly tested some of the home cooking beforehand, and rather envied him his position as taster.

“‘The guests were met; the table set. I had made sure that the wines were all right. As I looked along at the happy, friendly faces I felt that a home dinner was the most pleasant, after all. The soup tureen was before me, and I lifted the cover with the anxious pride of a Wellington firing the first gun at Waterloo.

“‘The chance simile of a battle holds good; for the soup was awfully smoky. Somebody said that it tasted like a chimney on fire. The fish was worse. The roast beef was uneatable. Persistent as I naturally am, I gave up the attempt to carve the turkey. The pudding was as hard as a stone. What little appetite remained to us was lost while carving the meats and passing the plates around. I had felt like Wellington before Waterloo; but, when the dinner was over, I could appreciate the despair of the defeated Napoleon.

“‘Had we been only a family party the fiasco would not have been so fatal; but, as I told you, I had invited epicures; I had dragged my friends from their comfortable homes on Christmas Day to partake of this terrible repast. Some of them have never quite forgiven me. Some have forgiven me, because I had a chance to take them aside and put all the blame upon Stoker. But nobody who was present can ever have forgotten it.

“‘Like Napoleon, I retreated to Fontainebleau,—I fell back upon the wines. One of the guests won my heart by loudly eulogizing the cheese and the crackers. They were not home-made. They had not been cooked in the theatre!

“‘Here comes Stoker,’ continued Mr. Irving, relapsing into his curious solemnity of manner; ‘let us ask him about it.

“‘I say, Stoker, do you remember the home dinner you gave us at the Lyceum last Christmas?’

“Mr. Stoker stopped on his way across the stage, and stood like a statue of amazement, of indignation, of outraged virtue. ‘The dinner _I_ gave you?’ he at last exclaimed. Then his loyalty to his chief triumphed, and he added, ‘Well, you may call it my dinner, if you like; but I have the original copy of the bill of fare in your own handwriting.’

“‘Ah!’ resumed Mr. Irving, quite placidly, as his acting manager dashed away, ‘I thought Stoker would remember that dinner!’

“‘This Christmas you will dine upon roast canvas-backs, instead of roast beef, and stewed terrapin, instead of smoked soup,’ I observed.

“‘Yes,’ replied the English actor; ‘I am told that Baltimore is the best place for those delicacies. But they will not seem strange to me; I have eaten canvas-backs at Christmas before.’

“‘In England?’

“‘Certainly. My first American manager—Papa Bateman you used to call him—had many good friends in this country, who kept him liberally supplied with almost all your American luxuries. Under his tuition I learned to like the oysters, the terrapin, and canvas-backs, upon which my generous hosts are feasting me now, long before I ever thought of coming to America.

“‘But perhaps the most remarkable Christmas dinner at which I have ever been present,’ continued Mr. Irving, after reflecting for a few moments, ‘was the one at which we dined upon under-clothing.’

“‘Do you mean upon your under-clothing or in your under-clothing?’ queried the astonished ‘Spirit,’ conjuring up visions of Christmas dinners on uninhabited islands, at which shipwrecked mariners had been known to devour their apparel, and of the tropical Christmas dinners in India and Australia, at which scanty costumes are appropriate to the climate.

“‘Both!’ replied Mr. Irving. ‘It is not a story of wonderful adventure; but I’ll tell it to you, if you have five minutes more to spare. Do you remember Joe Robins,—a nice, genial fellow who played small parts in provinces? Ah, no; that was before your time.

“‘Joe Robins was once in the gentleman’s furnishing business in London city. I think that he had a wholesale trade, and was doing well. However, he belonged to one of the semi-Bohemian clubs; associated a great deal with actors and journalists, and, when an amateur performance was organized for some charitable object, Joe was cast for the clown in a burlesque called “Guy Fawkes.”

“‘Perhaps he played the part capitally; perhaps his friends were making game of him when they loaded him with praises; perhaps the papers for which his Bohemian associates wrote went rather too far when they asserted that he was the artistic descendant and successor of Grimaldi. At any rate, Joe believed all that was said to him and written about him, and when some wit discovered that Grimaldi’s name was also Joe, the fate of Joe Robins was sealed. He determined to go upon the stage professionally and become a great actor.

“‘Fortunately Joe was able to dispose of his stock and good-will for a few hundred pounds, which he invested so as to give him an income sufficient to prevent the wolf from getting inside his door, in case he did not eclipse Garrick, Kean, and Kemble. He also packed up for himself a liberal supply of his wares, and started in the profession with enough shirts, collars, handkerchiefs, stockings, and under-clothing to equip him for several years.

“‘The amateur success of poor Joe was never repeated on the regular stage. He did not make an absolute failure; no manager would entrust him with parts big enough for him to fail in. But he drifted down to general utility, and then out of London, and when I met him he was engaged in a very small way, on a very small salary, at a Manchester theatre.

“‘His income eked out his salary; but Joe was a generous, great-hearted fellow, who liked everybody, and whom everybody liked, and when he had money he was always glad to spend it upon a friend or give it away to somebody more needy. So, piece by piece, as necessity demanded, his princely supply of haberdashery had diminished, and now only a few shirts and under-clothes remained to him.

“‘Christmas came in very bitter weather. Joe had a part in the Christmas pantomime. He dressed with other poor actors, and he saw how thinly some of them were clad when they stripped before him to put on their stage costumes. For one poor fellow in especial his heart ached. In the depth of a very cold winter he was shivering in a suit of very light summer under-clothing, and whenever Joe looked at him the warm flannel under-garments snugly packed away in an extra trunk weighed heavily upon his mind.

“‘Joe thought the matter over, and determined to give the actors who dressed with him a Christmas dinner. It was literally a dinner upon under-clothing; for the most of the shirts and drawers which Joe had cherished so long went to the pawnbroker’s, or the slop-shop, to provide the money for the meal.

“‘The guests assembled promptly, for nobody else is ever so hungry as a hungry actor. The dinner was to be served at Joe’s lodgings, and, before it was placed on the table, Joe beckoned his friend with the gauze under-clothes into a bedroom, and, pointing to a chair, silently withdrew.

“‘On that chair hung a suit of under-wear which had been Joe’s pride. It was of a comfortable scarlet color; it was thick, warm, and heavy; it fitted the poor actor as if it had been manufactured especially to his measure. He put it on, and, as the flaming flannels encased his limbs, he felt his heart glowing within him with gratitude to dear Joe Robins.

“‘That actor never knew—or, if he knew, he never could remember—what he had for dinner on that Christmas afternoon. He revelled in the luxury of warm garments. The roast beef was nothing to him in comparison with the comfort of his undervest; he appreciated the drawers more than the plum-pudding. Proud, happy, warm, and comfortable, he felt little inclination to eat, but sat quietly, and thanked Providence and Joe Robins with all his heart.’

“‘You seem to enter into that poor actor’s feelings very sympathetically,’ I observed, as Mr. Irving paused.

“‘I have good reason to do so,’ replied Mr. Irving, with his gentle, sunshiny smile; ‘for I was that poor actor!’”

XIII.

A WILD RAILWAY JOURNEY.

A Great American Railway Station—Platforms and Waiting-Rooms—A Queer Night—“Snow is as Bad as Fog”—A Farmer who Suggests Mathias in “The Bells”—A Romance of the Hudson—Looking for the “Maryland” and Finding “The Danites”—Fighting a Snow-storm—“A Ministering Angel”—The Publicity of Private Cars—Mysterious Proceedings—Strange Lights—Snowed up—Digging out the Railway Points—A Good Samaritan Locomotive—Trains Ahead of Us, Trains Behind Us—Railway Lights and Bells—“What’s Going On?”

I.

“THE Irving train is expected to arrive at Jersey City from Boston at about seven o’clock,” said a telegraphic dispatch which I received in New York on Sunday. I had left the great New England city two days before Irving’s special train, with the understanding that I should join him at Jersey City, _en route_ for Baltimore.

At half-past six I was on the great steam ferry-boat that plies from the bottom of Desbrosses street, New York, to the other side of the river. A wintry wind was blowing up from the sea. I preferred the open air to the artificial heat of the cabin. In ten minutes I was landed at the station of the Pennsylvania Railroad.

“Inquire for the steamer ‘Maryland,’” continued that dispatch which I have just quoted. “She conveys the train down the Harlem river to connect on the Pennsylvania Road.”

The general waiting-room of the station, or depot, as our American cousins call it, is a characteristic one. Seeing that I was allowed plenty of time to observe it, I propose to describe it. A large square hall, with a high-pitched roof, it has more of a Continental than an English or American appearance. As you enter you find a number of people waiting for the trains. They include a few colored people and Chinamen. The centre of the room is filled with benches, like the stalls of a London theatre. You wonder why two marble tombs have been erected here. They turn out to be heat-distributers. The hot air pours out from their grated sides. In case you should be in danger of suffocation a drinking fountain is in handy proximity to the blasts of heated air. The right-hand side of the hall is filled with booking-offices, and a clock bell tolls, indicating the times at which the various trains start. On the left is a _café_, and an entrance from Jersey City. Opposite to you as you enter from the ferry are two pairs of doors leading to the trains, and the space between the portals is filled in with a handsome book-stall. The door-ways here are jealously guarded by officials who announce the departure of trains and examine your tickets. One of these guards sits near a desk where a little library of city and State directories is placed for the use of passengers. Each volume is chained to the wall. Near the _café_ is a post-office box, and hanging hard by are the weather bulletins of the day. A ladies’ waiting-room occupies a portion of the hall on the booking-office side. The place is lighted with electric lamps, which occasionally fiz and splutter, and once in a while go out altogether. Nobody pays any attention to this. Everybody is used to the eccentricities of the new and beautiful light.

Obtaining permission to pass the ticket portals, I reach the platform, where I am to find the station-master. The outlook here reminds me of the high-level station of the Crystal Palace. A dim gas-light exhibits the outlines of a series of long cars, fenced in with gates, that are every now and then thrown open to receive batches of passengers from the waiting-room.

The Irving train has been delayed. She is reported “to arrive at the Harlem river at half-past eight.” In that case she may be here at a quarter to ten.

I return to the spluttering electric lamps and to the continually coming and going multitudes of passengers. “No Smoking” is one of the notices on the walls. Two men have lighted their cigars right under it. They remind one of the duellists in “Marion de Lorme,” who fight beneath the cardinal’s proclamation. The _café_ is bright and inviting, and its chocolate is as comforting as the literature of the book-stall. The novels of Howells and James and Braddon and Black are here, and the Christmas numbers of the “Illustrated London News” and the “Graphic”; so likewise are the Christmas and New Year’s cards of Marcus Ward, De la Rue, and Lowell. I purchase the latest novelty in books, “John Bull and His Island,” and try to read. I look up now and then to see the crowd file off through the ticket-doors to go to Bethlehem, Catasauqua, Lansdown, New Market, Bloomsbury, Waverly, Linden, Philadelphia, West Point, Catskill, Albans, New Scotland, Port Jackson, Schenectady, and other towns and cities, the names of which stir my thoughts into a strange jumble of reflections, biblical, topographical, and otherwise. Bethlehem and Bloomsbury! Were ever cues for fancy wider apart? “Over here,” I read in “John Bull and His Island,” the writer referring to London, “you are not locked up in a waiting-room until your train comes in. You roam where you like about the station, and your friends may see you off and give you a hand-shake as the train leaves the platform. The functionary is scarcely known. There are more of them at the station of _Fouilly les Epinards_ than in the most important station in London. You see placards everywhere: ‘Beware of Pick-pockets’; ‘Ascertain that your change is right before leaving the booking-desk.’ The Englishman does not like being taken in hand like a baby.” Curiously the American is treated on the railroads very much as in France. As to placard-notices you see cautions against pick-pockets, and the London warning as to change. Some of the other notifications in American stations are curious: “No Loafing allowed in this Depot”; “Don’t Spit on the Floor.” Douglas Jerrold’s joke about the two angry foreigners who exclaimed, “I spit upon you!” has more point here than in England; for no apartment is sacred enough in this free country to keep out the spittoon, which, in some places, is designed in such a way as to indicate a strong intention to make it ornamental as well as useful.

I seek the station-master again.

“Not sooner than a quarter to eleven,” he says.

“Does the weather obstruct the train?”

“Yes, it’s a queer night; snow falling very thickly; makes the river journey slower than usual; snow is as bad as fog.”

The entire train of eight enormous cars, containing the Lyceum company and their baggage, is transported by boat right down the Harlem river, a distance of several miles, the raft and train being attached to a tug-boat. The train is run upon the floating track at Harlem, and connected with the main line again at Jersey City.

“I was to ask for the steamer ‘Maryland.’”

“Yes, her quay is outside the depot. I will let you know when she is reported. You will hear her whistle.”

Trying to return to the waiting-room I find I am locked in. Presently a good-natured official lets me out. In the meantime the _café_ has closed, the book-stall has fastened its windows and put out its lights. The waiters on trains have thinned in numbers. Two poor Chinamen who have been here are talking pigeon English to a porter.

“You missed it at seven,” he says; “no more train till twelve.”

“Twelfy!” says John, calmly counting his fingers; “no morey go tilly twelf.”

“That’s so,” says the porter.

The two celestials sit down quietly to wait; the ferry-boats give out their hoarse signals, and presently a number of other people come in, covered with snow, a bitter wind accompanying them, as the doors open and shut. They stamp their feet and shake the snow from off their garments, and you hear the jingle of sleigh-bells without. A farmer whose dress suggests Mathias, in “The Bells,” comes in. He carries a bundle. There is a slip of green laurel in his button-hole. I avail myself of the supposed privilege of the country, and talk to him.

“Yes,” he says. “Christmas presents; I guess that’s what I’ve been to New York for. I live at Katskill. No, not much in the way of farming. My father had land in Yorkshire. Guess I am an Englishman, as one may say, though born on the Hudson. Did I ever hear of Rip Van Winkle at Katskill? I guess so. Live there now? No, sir; guess it’s a story, aint it? But there was a sort of a hermit feller lived on the Hudson till a year or two ago. He was English. A scholar, they said, and learned. His grandchild, a girl, lived with him. Did nothing but read. Built the hut hisself. Never seen except when he and the girl went to buy stores. It was in the papers, when he died, a year or two back. Broke his heart, ‘cause his girl skipped.”

“‘Skipped!’ I repeated.

“You are fresh, sir, green; as you say in England, run away,—that’s skipping. I bought one of his books when his things were sold, because I have a grandchild, and know what it is. Good-night! A merry Christmas to you!”

No other hint of Christmas in the depot, among the people, or on the walls, except the cards and illustrated English papers inside the book-stall windows. I turn to “John Bull and His Island,” and wonder if any English writer will respond with “Jean Crapeaud and His City.” No country is more open to satire than France; no people accept it with so little patience. There are some wholesome truths in Max O’Rell’s brochure. It is good to see ourselves as others see us.

A quarter to eleven. It is surely time to go forth in search of the “Maryland.”

“Better have a guide,” says a courteous official; “you can’t find it without; and, by thunder, how it snows! See ‘em?”

He points to several new-comers.

“Only a few feet from the ferry,—and they’re like walking snow-drifts. See ‘em!”

The guide, as sturdy as a Derbyshire ploughboy, comes along with his lantern.

“There are three ladies,” I tell him, “in the private waiting-room, who are to come with us.”

II.

I AM taking my wife and two girls to Baltimore for the Christmas week. Last year we had our Christmas dinner with Irving. This year he has said, “Let us all sup together. The theatres are open on Christmas day; we must, therefore, have our pudding for supper after we have seen the last of poor old Louis.”

“Awkward night for ladies getting to the ‘Maryland,’” says the guide.

They are well provided with cloaks and furs and snow-boots, or rubbers (an absolute necessity and a great comfort in America), and we all push along after the guide, across the departure platform, into the snowy night,—the flakes fall in blinding clouds; over railway tracks which men are clearing,—the white carpet soft and yielding; between freight-cars, through open sheds,—the girls enjoying it all, as only young people can enjoy a snow-storm.

The flickering light of our guide’s lantern is at length eclipsed by the radiance of a well-illuminated cabin.

“This is the office; you can wait here; they’ll tell you when the ‘Maryland’s’ reported.”

A snug room, with a great stove in the centre. The men who are sitting around it move to make way for us. They do not disguise their surprise at the arrivals: an English family (one of them very young, with her hair blowing about her face), with snow enough falling from their cloaks to supply material for a snow-balling match. We are evidently regarded as novel visitors. Track laborers and others follow us in. They carry lamps, and their general appearance recalls the mining scene in “The Danites,” at the London Olympic. Our entrance seems as much of a surprise to the others as the arrival of “the school-marm” was to the men in the Californian bar-room.

Presently a smart official (not unlike a guard of the Midland Railway in England as to his uniform) enters. There is a swing in his gait and a lamp in his hand, as a smart writer might put it.

“That gentleman will tell you all about the train,” says one of the Danites, speaking in the shadow of the stove.

“The ‘Maryland,’” I say, addressing the officer; “I want to get on board her special train from Boston.”

“Guess I can’t help that! I want to get some cars off her, that’s all I know,” is the response, the speaker eying me loftily, and then pushing his way towards a lookout window on the other side of the cabin.

“Oh, thank you very much!” I say. “You are really too good. Is there any other gentleman here who is anxious to tell me where I shall find the ‘Maryland’s’ quay, and explain how I am to get on board the special express, which takes a day to do a five hours’ journey?”

“I’ll show you,” says my surly friend, turning round upon me and looking me all over. “I am the guard.”

“Thank you.”

“Here she comes!” he exclaims.

I forgive him, at once, his brusqueness. He, too, has, of course, been waiting six hours for her.

A hoarse whistle is heard on the river. The guard opens the cabin-door. In rushes the snow and the wind. The guard’s lantern casts a gleam of light on the white way.

“Be careful here,” he says, assisting my girls over a rough plank road.

It is an open quay over which we are pushing along. The guard, now full of kind attention, holds up his lamp for us, and indicates the best paths, the snow filling our eyes and wetting our faces. Now we mount a gangway. Then we struggle down a plank. There are bustle and noise ahead of us, and the plash “of many waters.”

“Hatton!” shouts the familiar voice of Bram Stoker, through the darkness.

“Here we are!” is the prompt reply.

A stalwart figure pushes through the snow, and the next moment my wife is under the protection of a new guide. We feel our way along mazy passages,—now upwards, now downwards,—that might be mysterious corridors leading to “dungeons beneath the castle moat,” the darkness made visible by primitive lamps. Presently we are on the floating raft, and thence we mount the steps of a railway car.

What a change of scene it is!—from Arctic cold to summer heat; from snow and rough ways to a dainty parlor, with velvet-pile carpets, easy-chairs, and duplex lamps; and from the Danites to Irving, Abbey, Loveday, and Miss Terry. They welcome us cheerily and with Christmas greetings.

“Oh, don’t mind the snow; shake it off,—it will not hurt us! Come, let me help you. Of course, you all wear snow-boots,—Arctic rubbers, eh? That’s right; off with them first!” And before we have done shaking hands she is disrobing the girls, and helping them off with their wraps and shoes,—this heroine of the romantic and classic drama, this favorite of English play-goers, who is now conquering the New World as surely as she has conquered the Old.

Every one in the theatrical profession knows how kindly and natural and human, as a rule, are, and have ever been, the great women of the English stage. But the outside public has sometimes strange opinions concerning the people of this other side of the curtain, this world of art. Some of them would be surprised if they could see Ellen Terry attending upon my three fellow-travellers; giving them refreshment, and, later on, helping to put them to bed. They would be interested, also, to have seen her dispensing tea to the members of the company, or sitting chatting in their midst about the journey and its incidents. Just as womanly and tender as is her Desdemona, her Portia, her Ophelia; so is she off the stage,—full of sympathy, touched to the quick by a tale of sorrow, excited to the utmost by a heroic story. Hers is the true artistic temperament. She treads the path of the highest comedy as easily and with the same natural grace, as she manifests in helping these girls of mine, from New York, to remove their snowy clothes, and as naturally as she sails through these very practical American cars to make tea for her brother and sister players, who love her, and are proud of her art.

III.

HAVING spent an hour in vainly trying to couple Irving’s private car with another in the centre of the train, the guard decides to attach it to the last one. In this position, which eventually proved an interesting one, we trundle along through Jersey City, past rows of shops and stores, on a level with the sidewalks, the snow falling all the time. Here and there electric arcs are shedding weird illuminations upon the unfamiliar scenes. By the lights in many of the houses we can see that the window-panes are coated with a thick frost. Now and then we stop without any apparent warning, certainly without any explanation. During one of these intervals we take supper, those of us who have not retired to seek such repose as may be found in a railroad sleeping-car,—an institution which some American travellers prefer to a regular bedroom. Irving, Abbey, Stoker, Loveday, and myself, we sit down to a very excellent supper,—oyster-pie, cold beef, jelly, eggs, coffee, cigars.

“It is too late to tell you of our adventures prior to your coming upon the train,” says Irving. “We will have a long chat to-morrow. Good-night; I am going to try and get a little rest.”

He lies down upon a couch adjacent to the apartment in which we have supped. I draw a curtain over him, that shuts off his bunk from the room and the general corridor of the car. You hear a good deal of talk in America about “private cars.” Without disparaging the ingenuity and comfort of the private-car system of American railroad travelling let me say, once for all, that the term private applied to it in any sense is a misnomer. There is no privacy about it,—nothing like as much as you may have in an English carriage, to the sole occupancy of which you have bought the right for a railway journey. On an American train there is a conductor to each car. Then there are one or more guards to the train. Add to these officials, baggage-men, who are entitled to come on at various stations, and news-boys, who also appear to have special claims on the railway company; and you count up quite a number of extra passengers who may appear in your private room at any moment.

It is true that the guard of your car may exclude some of these persons; but, as a rule, he does not. If he should be so inhospitable to his fellow-man there are still left the conductors and guards, who have business all over the train at all hours. There is a passage-way, as you know, right through the train. On a special car there is a room at each end; one is a smoking-room. This apartment, with or without your permission, is occupied by the officials of the train; and on a cold night not even the most exacting traveller would think of objecting to the arrangement. But it is easy to see that this does away with all ideas of privacy.

At 1.30 the train comes to a long stand-still. I am reading. The colored waiter, a negro with a face given over to the permanent expression of wonder, has taken a seat near me, in the opposite corner of the car. The end of the car opens right upon the line; the door is half glass, so that we can see out into the night and away down the track. To keep the outlook clear I occasionally rub the frosty rime from the glass, and now and then open the door and clear it from snow. The negro contemplates me through his wide, staring eyes. He takes a similar interest in the guards and other officers of the train, who come through the cars at intervals, swinging, as they walk, lamps of singularly artistic patterns when compared with the English railway lanterns. These guardians of the train pass out of the door of the room upon the line, and rarely reappear except when they come back again right through the train, passing most of the would-be sleepers. Irving does not, however, appear to be disturbed.

It is 2.35 when the train once more begins to move. For nearly an hour both the colored servant and I have, off and on, been watching a number of curious demonstrations of lights away down the line behind us. First a white light would appear, then a red one, then a green light would be flashed wildly up and down. The negro guesses we must be snowed up. But he doesn’t know much of this line, he says, in a deprecatory tone; only been on it once before; doesn’t take much stock in it. Then he shakes his woolly head mysteriously; and what an air of mystery and amazement is possible on some dark faces of this African race! We move ahead for five minutes, and then we stop again. There is a clock on the inlaid panel of the car over the negro’s head. The time is steadily recorded on the dial. It is 2.45 when we advance once more. A hoarse whistle, like a foghorn at sea, breaks upon the solemnity of the night; then we pass a signal-box, and a patch of light falls upon our window. This is evidently the signal for another pause. “2.50” says the clock. The line behind us is now alive with lanterns. White lights are moving about with singular eccentricity. With my face close against the glass door-way I count six different lights. I also see dark forms moving about. All the lights are suddenly stationary. One comes on towards the train. Our guard frantically waves his light. Presently we stop with a jerk. The lights we have left in the distance now gyrate with the same inconsequential motion as the witch-fires of a fairy tale, or the fiends’ lights in the opera of _Robert le Diable_. Then they remain still again. I open the door. There is a foot of snow on the platform, and the feathery flakes are steadily falling. A solitary light comes towards us. The bearer of it gets upon the platform,—a solitary sentinel. The negro looks up at me, and asks me in a gentle kind of way, if I ever use sticking-plaster. “Yes,” I say, “sometimes.” A strange question. My reply appears to be a relief to him. Do I ever use sticking-plaster! There is a long pause outside and inside the car, as if some mysterious conference were going on. “Was you ever on the cars when they was robbed?” the negro asks. “No,” I say; “I was not.”—“Been on when there was shooting?” he asks. “No.”—“Has you ever heard of Jesse James and the book that was written about him?”—“Yes,” I answer, “but never saw the book.”—“Dark night, eh?”—“Yes, pretty dark.”—“They would stop de train, and get a shooting right away, would dem James boys, I tell you! Perfeck terror dey was. No car was safe. Ise believe dey was not killed at all, and is only waiting for nex’ chance.”—“You are not frightened?” I say. “Well, not zactly; but don’t know who dis man is standing dere on de platform, and nebber was on any train of cars dat stopped so much and in such lonely places; and don’t like to be snowed up eider. I spoke to de brakesman about an hour ago; but he don’t say much.” Thereupon he flattens his broad nose against the window, and I take up “John Bull and His Island” at the description of the Christmas pudding, which sets me thinking of all the gloomy things that may and do happen between one Christmas Day and another; and how once in most lifetimes some overwhelming calamity occurs that makes you feel Fate has done its worst, and cannot hurt you more. This thought is not _apropos_ of the present situation; for, of course, there is nothing to fear in the direction suggested by the negro, who has worked himself up into a condition of real alarm. At the same time the dangers of snow-drifts are not always confined to mere delays. The newspapers, on the day following our protracted journey for example, chronicled the blowing up of a locomotive, and the death of driver and stoker, through running into a snow-drift. The accident occurred not far from the scene of one of our longest stoppages.

2.55. The man on the platform cries “Go ahead!” and as the car moves he steps inside, literally covered with snow. He makes no apology, but shivers and shakes his coat.

“What is wrong?” I ask.

“Train stuck in the snow ahead of us. It is an awful night.”

“What were those lights in our rear?—one in particular.”

“That was me. I have been out there an hour and a half.”

“You are very cold?”

“Frightful.”

“Have a little brandy?”

“Think I’ll break up if I don’t.”

I gave him some brandy. From the other end of the car comes the guard.

“Think we’ll get round her all right now?” he asks.

“Oh, yes,” says the conductor shaking his snowy clothes.

The guard goes out. He, too, carries a weight of snow on his coat.

Says the officer (whom I have just saved from “breaking up”), “I am the conductor; but if anything went wrong they’d blame me, not him; am sent on to this train,—a special job.”

“What were you doing out there so long?”

“Digging the points out of the snow, to push these cars on to another track, and get round ahead of the train that’s broke down.”

“And have you done it?”

“Guess so.”

It is three o’clock as he steps once more upon the platform. At 3.5 the train stops suddenly. I look out into the black and white night. It still snows heavily. At 3.10 the conductor returns.

“When do you think we will get to Baltimore?”

“At about ten.”

“What is the difficulty?”

“Trains in front of us, trains behind us, too. You would be surprised at the depth of the snow. A gang of men clearing the track ahead.”

At 3.10 he goes out again into the wild night; this time the snow on the platform glows red under the light of his lamp, which exhibits the danger signal. A distant whistle is heard. The conductor is pushing the snow off the platform with his feet. He opens the door to tell me it is drifting in places to “any height.” At 3.15 he says we have taken _three_ hours to go _twenty_ miles. Looking back on the track the rails show a black, deep line in the snow. Not a house or a sign of life anywhere around us. “We are a heavy train, eight cars,” says the conductor. The negro stares at us through his wide, great eyes. “At Rahway we hope to get another engine,” says the guard. At 3.25 we are really moving along steadily. “About twelve miles an hour,” says the conductor. The negro smiles contentedly. “We have not met a single train since we left Jersey City,” says the conductor; “must be trains behind us,—not far away, either.” A signal station with green and red lights slips by us. The swinging bell of an approaching train is heard. The conductor stands on the platform and waves his lamp. Our train stops. There looms suddenly out of the darkness behind us a vast globe, white and glowing, like a sun. It comes on, growing larger, and accompanying it is the bang, bang, bang of the engine’s bell, a familiar, but uncanny, sound in America. A number of minor lights dance about on either side of the approaching monster. It does not stop until its great single blazing Cyclopean eye looks straight into our car. Then a voice says, “Don’t you want some assistance?” The monster is a good Samaritan. “A freight-train,” says the conductor, leaping down upon the line. “Yes, push us along.” I follow him into the snow, up to my knees, and the flakes are falling in blinding clouds. A man is altering our signal light. “Are you going to give us another engine?” I ask. “More than I can say,” he replies. “This buffer’s no good; can’t push against that,” says the guard of the other train. Then our conductor goes off with him into the rear. It is 3.40. I turn once more to “John Bull and His Island.” The negro is asleep. We move on again, and gradually leave the locomotive Cyclops behind, its great, sun-like eye getting smaller. A few minutes more, and it follows us. We pull up at a switch-station. There is some difficulty with the posts. I go out and lend a hand at getting them clear of snow. Return very cold and wet. Happily the car is kept at a standing heat of 80° to 90°. “This freight-train started an hour and a half behind us,” says the conductor. “What about the train ahead?”—“Just got clear of it at last,—switched us on to another line. Hope we’ll get on now.” At 3.50 we are really going ahead, quite at a brisk pace. Suddenly another light behind us; suddenly that ominous bell. It reminds me of the storm-bell off Whitby, that Irving and I sat listening to, one autumn night, a year or two ago. The conductor has passed through the cars. Is this new train going to run us down? It comes along swinging its bell. Just as the possibility of a collision seems ominous the new-comer veers to the left and passes us. We are evidently on a single line of rails, with switch-stations at intervals for trains to pass and repass. Our unhappy train stops once more. Another comes pounding along, with its one blazing light and its tolling bell. Passes us defiantly, as the other has done. The new-comer is, however, only an engine this time. “Assistance, no doubt,” I say to myself. I open the door. The snow beats in with a rush of wind. The glass is covered with ice. All else is quiet,—everybody asleep in the train. The negro is dreaming; he pulls ugly faces. I rub the ice off the window. The conductor is out in the snow with several lamps, searching for points. He is kicking at the rails with his boots. A man joins him, with a shovel. They work away. At four o’clock our train groans and screams; it moves very quietly. The conductor plods back through the snow. We stop. At 4.5 the conductor and several others are digging on the line. Clearing points, no doubt. There are switch-lights right and left of them. Now the conductor climbs once more upon the platform, leaving a red lamp away on the track behind him. Another train is heard bellowing; another bell following; another great lamp gleams along the track, smaller red lights showing upon its white beam, over which the snow falls. This other locomotive comes right into us, its great blinding eye blazing like a furnace. The negro wakes up with a cry. “Ah, you fool!” exclaims the conductor, “what’s the matter?”—“Got help now,” he says to me, “at last; this will push, and there is another one in front.” The rear engine pants and pushes, her cow-catcher literally covered with a snow-bank. There is a great fuss about coupling our car upon this panting assistant. “Is it only an engine, or has it cars to draw?”—“It had a train of cars; we have left them on a siding. We shall be all right now.”

“What’s going on?” is suddenly asked in words and tones not unlike a voice in “The Bells,”—“what’s going on?”—“We are, I hope, soon,” I reply to my friend, who has pushed aside his Astrachan cloak and the car curtains, and is looking curiously at us. The negro attendant wakes up and goes towards him. “What is it?”—“Oh, nothing, sah!” says the colored gentleman. “Only getting another engine,” says the conductor. “What for?” asks Irving (he has really been to sleep). “To check our speed,” I say; “we have been going too fast.”—“Oh, you astonish me!” says Irving. “Good-night, then!” The clock marks 4.30. “Good-night, indeed!” I reply. “So say we all of us,” murmurs Loveday, as I pass his bunk in search of my own; “what a time we are having!”

XIV.

CHRISTMAS, AND AN INCIDENT BY THE WAY.

At Baltimore—Street Scenes—Christmas Wares—Pretty Women in “Rubber Cloaks”—Contrasts—Street Hawkers—Southern Blondes—Furs and Diamonds—Rehearsing under Difficulties—Blacks and Whites—Negro Philosophy—Honest Work—“The Best Company on its Legs I have ever seen”—Our Christmas Supper—“Absent Friends”—Pictures in the Fire and Afterwards—An Intercepted Contribution to Magazine Literature—Correcting a Falsehood—Honesty and Fair Play.

I.

BALTIMORE street is the Broadway of the Monumental City. It also suggests Chestnut street in Philadelphia, more particularly in the matter of signboards. A city of stores and offices, it proclaims its various businesses in signs of every conceivable shape. They swing from ornamental brackets over door-ways, and hang right across the sidewalk. They are of many shapes, but as to color are invariably black and gold. The inscriptions upon them are characteristic; some of them are strange to the non-travelled Englishmen. I note a few of them: “Gent’s Neck Wear,” “Fine Jewelry,” “Men’s Furnishing.” This latter is the general sign of American hosiers and shirt-makers. “Diamonds,” “Fine Shoes,” “Dry Goods,” “Imported Goods,” “Books,” “Cheap Railroad Tickets,” “Cheap Tickets for Chicago,” “Saddlery,” “Adams’ Express.” To these are added the names of the dealers. The “Cheap Railroad Tickets” is a branch of the speculative operations in theatrical admissions. “Adams’ Express” is a familiar sign everywhere. It represents the great and universal system of baggage distribution. Adams and other firms will take charge of a traveller’s luggage, or any other kind of goods, and “check” it through to any part of the United States, possibly to any corner of the world. To-day, in honor of Christmas, the ordinary signs have been supplemented by such attractive proclamations as “Holiday Presents,” “Toys for the Season,” “For Christmas and New Year’s,” “Home-made Christmas Puddings.” At the doors of tobacco stores the figure of a North American Indian, in complete war-paint, offers you a bundle of the finest cigars, and his tomahawk is poised for action in case you decline his invitation to “Try them.” In New York this colored commercial statuary is varied with an occasional “Punch,” and by many buxom ballet-girls in short dresses and chignons. But the taste of Baltimore, Philadelphia, Boston, and Chicago runs in the direction of the Indian. Nowhere do you see the blackamoor, once popular at the door of English tobacconists; nor, except at Brooklyn, have I seen on the American side of the Atlantic the kilted Highlander, with his “mull” as a sign for the information or temptation of snuff-takers. At Chicago there is a Scotch sculptor, who has ornamented the exterior of more than one store with life-size realizations of the heroes of some of Burns’s most popular poems. Several of these are represented as snuff-takers; but the collection includes a few really admirable studies. The city architect, by the way, at Chicago, is a Scotchman, and he is responsible for the fine designs of the chief public buildings. Baltimore is not singular in its habit of pictorial signs, the origin of which may possibly be traced to old English custom. The saddler exhibits the gilded head of a horse; the watchmaker hangs out a clock; the glover a hand; the dry-goods stores display bright rugs and carpets. Now and then the cabinet-makers show their goods on the sidewalks. Many stores erect handsome outside glass-case stands for exhibiting knick-knacks at their door-ways. The fruit shops open their windows on the street. Itinerant dealers in oranges, bananas, and grapes rig up tent-like houses of business under the windows of established traders (for which heavy rents are paid, notably “down-town” in New York), and all this gives a pleasant variety of life and color to the street. One is everywhere reminded of the excellence of English Manufactures, “English Tanned Gloves,” “English Storm-coats,” “English Cloth”; and many other commercial compliments are paid to “Imported Goods.”

It is three o’clock in the day, and while Irving, his lieutenant, Loveday, and his able subalterns, Arnot and Allen, are getting the stage of the Academy of Music into some kind of shape for the Christmas-eve performance, I plod through the rain and slush to make my first acquaintance with this chief street of Baltimore. It is curiously picturesque, in spite of the weather and the dirty snow, which is melting and freezing almost simultaneously. Here and there the sidewalks are slabs of ice; here and there they are sloppy snow-drifts. But a surging crowd covers every foot of them. The roadway presents a continual block of tram-cars, buggies, wagons, carts, and carriages. Women leaving and getting upon the cars plunge in and out of snow-heaps and watery gutters. It is a very democratic institution, the American car. The people crowd it as they please. There is no limit to its capacity. It may carry as many persons as can get into it or stand upon its platforms. This afternoon the cars are human hives on wheels. One notices that the crowd chiefly consists of women. They fill the sidewalks. All of them are shopping. They are all talking, and all at the same time. This is a peculiarity of our charming cousins. Their costume on this wet afternoon is a very sensible one. It might almost be called a uniform. A black water-proof cloak and hood is all the costume you can see. Often it is a pretty, bright face that the hood encases. Now and then some woman, a trifle more vain or reckless than her sisters, wears a hat and feathers with her water-proof cloak. This incongruous arrangement, however, helps to give color to the crowd,—a desirable point on so dull, grey, and cloudy a day as this. The men who move about here are mostly smoking. They do not appear to have any hand in the shopping. The ladies are evidently doing all that, and they are very much in earnest. Not one of them but deigns to carry a parcel. The children are evidently coming in for precious gifts. In one shop window “Father Christmas” himself is busy showing his toys to a numerous audience. He is made up with white flowing locks and beard, and ruddy, though aged, features. His dress is an ermine tippet, scarlet frock trimmed with gold, and top-boots of patent leather,—quite the nursery ideal of his genial majesty. Another store has filled its window with a skating scene. A company of gay dolls are sliding for their very lives. They go through their lively work without any change of expression, and their gyrations never alter; but the spectators change, and the store within is full of bustle. I look around for the poor people we would see in a London group of this character. I seek in vain for the Smikes and Twists who would be feasting their sunken eyes on such a free show in London. I try to find the slipshod women, with infants huddled to their cold bosoms. They are not here. A boy of twelve, with a cigarette in his hand, asks me for a light. Another “guesses” his “papa” will buy “the whole concern” for him if he wants it. No poor people. The Irish are a small community here. How one’s mind goes wandering to the West End of London and to the Strand and Fleet street, to the Seven Dials and to Ratcliffe highway, where (it is five hours later there than here) Christmas eve is being celebrated with such contrasts of fortune and variations of wealth and poverty, of joy and sorrow, as make the heart ache to think upon! Not a single poor-looking person do I note in this long, busy street of Baltimore. Nobody begs from me; and the hawkers on the sidewalk offer me their wares with an air of almost aggressive independence. “Japanese silk, ten cents,” one cries, with a bundle of small handkerchiefs in his hand. “The magic mouse,” says another, vending a mechanical toy. “Now, then, one dime a packet,” is the proposal of a third, offering material for decorating Christmas trees. “Try ‘em!” almost commands a fourth, as I pause opposite his stand of peanuts. If you buy nobody thanks you, and if you thank the vendor he is surprised, and will probably stammer out, “You’re welcome.” Yet “this is the Cavalier city,” a friend reminds me, “and aristocratic to the core.”

The fruit-stores are bright with tropical fruits; but not with the roses, carnations, pinks, and smilax creeper, so plentiful in New York, Boston, and Philadelphia. I pause to scan the faces of the crowd. It is a popular fiction in England that the women of the South are brunettes. The truth is, the further South you go, the fairer the women, and the more delicate their complexions. On Baltimore street I observe quite a number of ladies with red hair. Many of them are blondes, who might have been natives of Lincolnshire. They are all pretty; some are beautiful; and their charms certainly obtained no fictitious aid from their dress or surroundings. Water-proof cloaks and a muddy street could not help them. Baltimoreans may say I should look for beauty in North Charles street, or Mount Vernon place, if I expect to see it _en promenade_. But I am not looking for it. I find it in the great, busy, Christmas crowd, tramping through the snow, and buying toys and candies for the children. The “carriage ladies” wear furs, and those everlasting diamond ear-rings, without which expensive ornament few American women appear to consider themselves “real ladies.” New York and Boston modify the fashion in this respect, though you may still see women sitting down to breakfast at hotel restaurants in silks, satins, and diamonds.

II.

WHILE I have been studying Baltimore street darkness has fallen upon it. The gas-lamps and the electric arcs are beginning their nightly competition as I retrace my steps to the Academy of Music. Irving, who arrived in Baltimore at two, after a journey of forty-two hours, has just left the stage, I am told,—“gone to get a little rest.”

“Have you had a rehearsal?”

“Oh, yes!” says Loveday, who is directing the last finishing touches to the throne-room set for “Louis XI.” “Tight work, eh? Got into the town at two—scenery to unpack—some of it is still on the train. But we get through it. The chief has his rehearsal somehow—finished half an hour ago—in two hours the curtain goes up. Had to do it all ourselves. Shall have to turn Arnot’s men into Burgundians. No help to be had of any kind. It is Christmas, you know, and Christmas comes but once a year, thank goodness! The chief carpenter, who is also the gas-man, has not turned up. Some of the other fellows are ‘Merrie-Christmasing,’ also. Tried to get some additional assistance in the way of labor. Found a few chaps loafing; asked them if they wanted work. Said they did not mind. Offered them good wages. ‘Oh, no,’ they said; ‘get niggers to do that!’ They were above it. I acted on their advice. The moment it was dark the ‘colored boys,’ as they call themselves, knocked off. Said they never worked after dark. ‘Night is the time to rest and sleep,’ they said. ‘For black men, perhaps,’ I said; ‘but not for white.’ Seemed to me as if they said, ‘You had us for slaves a good many years; it is our turn now.’ Funny, eh? They wouldn’t go on working. However, we shall be all right. It’s a good thing I’m not the only Mark Tapley in the company, don’t you know; and the governor, by Jove! he stands it like,—well, like only Henry Irving can!”

Two hours later Irving is received with rapturous applause by a comparatively small audience. “More power to them!” he says, “for they have left cosey hearths to drive or tramp through the slush of the first snow of the Baltimore winter.” And the company, all round, never played with more spirit. “It is the only return we can make to those who have come to see us on such a night,” said Irving to several of them before the curtain went up, “to do our very best.” And they did. Terriss was never more successful as Nemours. The audience was cold at first, but as the dramatic story unravelled itself, under the grip of the master, they caught the infection of its grim interest, and their applause rung out heartily and long. Irving developed the leading character with more than ordinary care, and was called and recalled after every act,—a triple call at the close including Terriss, whose manliness of gait and manner are peculiarly acceptable to every audience.

“There is one thing I observe about this company,” said the Boston manager: “it walks well; it is the best company on its legs I have ever seen. Our young men, as a rule, particularly in costume, turn out their toes too much, or are knock-kneed; all your people stand well on their feet,—it is a treat to see them.”

“Yes,” says Irving, smiling, when this is reported to him. “I engaged them to show me off. But did not Emerson say that the Englishman is, of all other people, the man who stands firmest in his shoes? There is one thing to be said about our cousins on this side,—they do not stand still; they are like young Rapid in ‘A Cure for the Heart-ache,’—always on the move. And when they are behind a trotting-horse how they go! I am a little disappointed, so far, with the sleighing as a matter of speed; but the snow was too soft when we took our first drive at Boston.”

III.

IT is the custom in America to open the theatres on Christmas day. The doors of the Baltimore house could not have been opened in more wretched weather. The streets were impassable, except for carriages, or for pedestrians in “Arctic rubbers,” or on stilts. The snow was melting everywhere. Nothing had been done to clear the sidewalks. They were full of treacherous puddles, or equally treacherous snow-drifts. The Turks blow horns at certain periods of the year, to frighten away evil spirits. I know of no explanation for the blowing of horns at Baltimore; but the boys indulge themselves in this exercise to a bewildering extent at Christmas. Carol-singing is evidently not a custom there, nor “waits.” I heard a boy shouting at the top of his voice the refrain of a popular ditty:—

“In the morning, in the morning, When Gabriel blows his trumpet, In the morning.”

But I conclude that he had only adapted these modern words to what was evidently an old custom at Baltimore; for he blew his horn vigorously at the end of the refrain, as if competing for supremacy with Gabriel himself.

“You are right; it does not seem like Christmas,” said Irving, as we sat down to supper,—close upon midnight,—a section of that same party which, a year previously, had gathered about the round table in the host’s Beefsteak Club room at the Lyceum Theatre.

“It seems so strange,” said Ellen Terry, “to play on Christmas Day; that, to me, makes the time wholly unlike Christmas. On the other hand, there is the snow, and we shall have an English Christmas pudding,—I brought it from home, and my mother made it.”

“Well done; bless her heart!” said Irving; “but I have played before on Christmas Day. They open the theatres in Scotland on Christmas Day. They don’t pay much attention, I am told, to church festivals in Boston and New England; but one would have expected it in the South, where they are observing the social character of Christmas, I learn, more and more every year; and not alone to the snow, but to that fact, I am told, we are to attribute the small houses we had last night and to-night.”

“Small for America and for us,” chimed in Loveday; “but what we should, after our experience, call bad business here would be very good in England.”

“Yes, that’s true,” said Irving; “but here’s holly and mistletoe,—where did they come from?”

He was looking at a very English decoration that swung from the chandelier.

“From London, with the pudding,” said Miss Terry.

The colored attendants took great interest in our celebration of the festival. If they could have put their thoughts into words they would probably have expressed surprise that artists of whom they had heard so much could entertain each other in so simple a fashion.

When the pudding came on the table it was not lighted.

“Who has had charge of this affair?” Irving asked, looking slyly at everybody but Stoker.

“I have,” said the usual delinquent.

“That accounts for it,” said Irving. “Who ever heard of a Christmas pudding without a blaze, except, perhaps, in Ireland?”

“Oh, we’ll soon light it up!” said Stoker. “Waiter, bring some brandy!”

Presently the pudding flamed up, to the delight of the African gentlemen who served it.

“I fear there is no sauce,” said one of the ladies.

“No sauce! Christmas pudding and no sauce!” I exclaimed. “Here’s stage management!”

“Sauce!” said Stoker,—“to plum pudding?”

“Yes, always in England,” said Loveday.

This kind of mild banter was checked by Irving filling his glass with champagne, and observing, “After the experience of last year, of course we ought not to have entrusted Stoker with the pudding. However, let us make the best of it. It seems a very good pudding, after all. I want you all to fill your glasses. Let us wish each other in the old way, ‘A merry Christmas and A happy New Year,’ and ‘God bless our absent friends!’”

Some of us gulped the wine a little spasmodically, and some of us found it hard to keep back our tears. Who can pledge that familiar toast, and not think of the empty chairs that seem so very, very empty at Christmas!

When the women and my girls had been escorted to their carriages, and sent home to their hotel, with flowers and bon-bons on their laps, we three men of the little party sat round the fire and talked of old times. Irving had ordered the biggest logs the hotel’s wood-yard afforded to be heaped into the grate. The fire cracked and spluttered and blazed, and had in the lower bars of the grate a solid, steady glow of white ash that was truly English; and I think we each looked into it for a time, busy with our own individual thoughts and reflections. Presently, under the more cheerful influences of the season, we talked of many things, and finally drifted into “shop.” The chief subject was started by Irving himself, and it dealt with the novel treatment of the next Shakespeare play which he intends to produce at the Lyceum. Irving looked into the fire and saw it there, scene by scene, act by act. As he saw it, he described it.

It was in the glamour of his rosiest pictures that I said good-night, to have the witchery of the fire-light dispelled by the outer bitterness of the weather, and the lonely, desolate appearance of the city. The streets were now as hard as they had been soft; the pools were ice, the snow adamant; and icicles hung down from the eaves of every house. The roadways glistened in the lamp-light. Not a soul was abroad. It might have been a city of the dead. A strain of Christmas music would have redeemed the situation. Even a London “waits” band at its worst, such as one awakens to with a growl on cold nights at home, would have been a God-send. Not a sound; not a footstep; no distant jangle of car-bells; not even a policeman; only the winter night itself, with a few chilly-looking stars above, and the cold, hard, icy streets below.

IV.

IT is a long way from Baltimore to Brooklyn,—five or six hundred miles,—still from Brooklyn to Chicago is over a thousand; yet these were the journeys that followed each other. The company, as you already know, travelled from Boston to Baltimore, close upon a thousand miles; from Baltimore it went to Brooklyn; and from the city of churches its next trip was to the great city on Lake Michigan. But, not to get ahead of events, we will pause at Brooklyn[33]: first, to say that the theatre was crowded there all the week; secondly, for Irving to relate an incident by the way; and, thirdly, to introduce the succeeding chapter, which will describe our departure therefrom.

Irving was a little ruffled during his journey from Baltimore by the sting of one of those vagrant gadflies of the press that are not confined to the American continent; but, as a matter of course, exist in that broader field in large numbers, and are of greater variety than in the narrower limits of Great Britain.

“I promised to write a little gossip of my experiences in America for the—— magazine, and I think the Baltimore incident is a very good subject, told as an episode of the trip, with just a few lines about my reception. What do you think?”

“Very good, indeed,” I said.

“Ah! I’m glad you like the notion, because I have written it. Here it is; I’ll read it to you.”

“The Baltimore man will feel flattered when he learns how much you have taken his ‘Tribune’ despatch to heart,” I said.

“I don’t care for that at all; nor would I, as you know, have thought of answering him, only that he put his falsehood into so ingeniously damaging a shape. But no matter,—this is what I have written.

“AN INCIDENT OF MY AMERICAN TOUR.

“The Sunday newspapers of America are the largest and certainly the most amusing of the week. They were especially welcome to me during the railway journey between Baltimore and Brooklyn. The landscape was striking now and then; but we were travelling literally through a snow world, and the monotony of it was a trifle tedious.

“I turned to the New York papers, a bundle of which had been brought ‘on board’ (this term is applied to railway trains as to ships in America), and was not long in coming upon a surprise. It was in the shape of a special telegraphic despatch from Baltimore to the ‘Tribune,’ of December 30. I read that ‘Henry Irving closed a very successful week at the Academy of Music’; that his ‘audiences were large’; that ‘his success was due to curiosity’; that ’”Hamlet” raised a storm of criticism about his new-fangled ideas, and when the ghost appeared on the stage in a green gown the audience roared at the strange sight, to the evident embarrassment of the ghost’; that ‘individually, however, Henry Irving’s stay in Baltimore was of the pleasantest nature’; and that ‘Dr. W. Crim,[34] the well-known surgeon, gave him a reception, where he proved himself an entertaining conversationalist. He was favorably impressed with Americans, but said they were not yet fully educated to appreciate true artistic ability; they were progressing.’

“As I had never remembered the closet scene in ‘Hamlet’ to have been more impressive, and particularly as regarded the appearance of the ghost; as the question of curiosity, _per se_, had never been raised by the local press; as on our first two nights we had bad houses, and on our last two the theatre was crowded; as the remark attributed to me at Dr. Crim’s was a false report, calculated to injure me in the eyes of the American people,—this newspaper despatch, I confess, annoyed me.

“I consulted my friends on the train as to the advisability of contradicting the latter part of it.

“The general verdict was against me. Said an American journalistic friend, ‘If you get into a controversy of that kind, it will be never-ending.’

“‘But it is not a question for controversy; it is a question of fact. If this man’s statement is allowed to go forth, I simply stand before the American people as a downright prig.’

“‘If you take the trouble to contradict every misrepresentation of what you say and do you will have no other occupation.’

“‘So far this is the only thing I have cared to contradict; for I think the press, as a rule, has been generous to me, and to all of us. As for the point about the “ghost,” that does not matter; it is a lie, and, even if it be malicious, it will be corrected wherever we play “Hamlet.” It is true, our friend of the “Standard” may publish it; but truth will prevail even against his curiously persistent misrepresentations.’

“‘Oh, but,’ said my adviser, and he was backed by others, ‘the London “Standard” will not repeat such obvious nonsense, and the American people will not believe a mere Baltimore correspondent. Take no notice of it.’

“Thus the matter rested until the close of the journey. I hope I endure criticism with becoming fortitude, but a wilful and malicious falsehood reflecting upon my personal conduct frets me. I therefore resolved to send the following letter to the editor of the ‘Tribune’ (who had devoted much valuable space to my work, and whose personal courtesy I shall always remember):—

“‘SIR,—I value so highly the good opinion of the American people that it is painful to me to see any estimate of their education and culture misrepresented. In your journal of to-day a Baltimore despatch states that I have said: “The Americans are not yet fully educated to appreciate true artistic ability; they are progressing.” This statement is utterly untrue; and, while I take this opportunity to contradict it, I feel sure that America by this time knows me sufficiently well to believe that I am incapable of uttering such conceited nonsense, or of the bad taste and ingratitude which the correspondent desires to fix upon me.

“‘Faithfully yours, “‘HENRY IRVING.’

Sometimes instinct is one’s best guide in dealing with mere personal matters. The invidious character of the newspaper report in this case is apparent, and my letter was, in many directions, referred to as a well-advised and necessary rejoinder to a calumny. The ‘Tribune’ mentioned it in the following terms, a day or two afterwards:—

“‘Mr. Irving’s recent card in the “Tribune,” concerning the absurd charge that he had disparaged American audiences, was graceful and manly. An imputation of invidious remarks to those persons who are prosperous in the public esteem is one of the commonest methods of malicious detraction. It has been used, of course, against Mr. Irving, who is altogether too fortunate a man for envy and malice to endure. An old remark, made by the poet Samuel Rogers, applies to this case: “To succeed is no little crime in the eyes of those who fail; and those who cannot climb will endeavor to pull you down by the skirts.“‘

“The ‘absurd charge’ was not too absurd, I learned later, for it appeared in the cable correspondence of the ‘Standard.’ You ask me for a few notes on my work in this great country. I hope you may consider this personal matter of sufficient interest. From the first I have been received with unbounded kindness; from the first I have played to large and enthusiastic audiences. My most sanguine hopes never reached so high as the success I have realized. Here and there, prompted, possibly, by the preliminary appeal of the ‘Standard’ to the American people ‘not to nail my ears to the pump’ (as the ‘Herald’ put it in commenting upon the article), and, encouraged by a parchment pamphlet circulated here, some few pressmen, of the Baltimore stamp, have had their malicious fling at me; but I have reason to be deeply grateful to the American critics and to the American people for judging me and my work in a spirit of honesty and fair play. The study of a lifetime, and the conscientious working out of my own convictions in regard to the representation of stage stories in a natural manner, have been stamped with the approval of the American people; and I shall return to my native land very proud of their artistic endorsement and their personal friendship.

“HENRY IRVING.

“There! What do you think of it?”

“It is excellent,” I said, “and most interesting; but I would rather see it in ‘Henry Irving’s Impressions of America’ than in the”——

And here it is accordingly, an intercepted contribution to an English magazine.

“I thought,” he said, “the editor would publish it as a ‘P.S.,’ after the manner of other contributions about the stage.”

“No doubt,” I replied; “but I think we will sandwich it between our chapters on Baltimore and the trip to Chicago.”

XV.

FROM BROOKLYN TO CHICAGO.

“Fussy”—The Brooklyn Ferry—Crossing the North River—A Picturesque Crowd—Brooklyn Bridge at Night—Warned against Chicago—Conservatism of American Critics—Dangers of the Road—Railway-Train Bandits—An Early Interviewer—A Reporter’s Story—Life on a Private Car—Miss Terry and her “Luck”—American Women.

I.

THE clocks are hammering out the midnight hour on Saturday, January 5th, as several carriages dash over the snowy streets of Brooklyn, one of them made more conspicuous than the rest by the antics of an attendant dog. It is a black and white fox terrier, with a suggestion of the lurcher in its pedigree. Busy with many tram-cars and a variety of other traffic, the streets are bright with gas and electric lamps. “Fussy” is quite a foreigner in Brooklyn; carriage, horses, and driver are strange to him. One looks out to see the sagacious animal leaping along through the crowd, never heeding the calls of boys and men, now making short cuts to head the vehicle, and now dropping behind.

“You will lose him one day,” I say to Fussy’s owner, by way of warning.

“Oh, no!” says Miss Terry. “He follows my carriage everywhere, day or night, going to the theatre or leaving it, strange town or otherwise. I have a small piece of carpet for him to lie upon in my dressing-room. Sometimes, just as we are leaving for the theatre, my maid pretends to forget it. But Fussy will dart back to my room and bring it, dragging it downstairs into the street, and only dropping it by the carriage-door. One day, at New York, he leaped into the hotel elevator with it, and out again on the ground floor, as if he had been accustomed to elevators all his life.”

We are three,—Miss Terry, Irving, and myself. We are making our way to the Brooklyn ferry. The boat belonging to the Pennsylvania Railroad is waiting to convey us across the North river to the Desbrosses-street depot of that well-known corporation. “Fussy” is there as soon as we are, and poor “Charlie,” who is getting blind, has to be carried aboard. Nearly all the members of the company are here already. They are a picturesque group in the somewhat uncertain light of distant lamps, and a world of stars sparkling in a frosty sky that seems further away from the earth than our English firmament. Mr. Terriss looks like a dashing Capt. Hawksley on his travels,—fur coat, cap, self-possessed air, and all. Mr. Tyars wears a “Tam O’Shanter” and ulster. He might be the laird of a Scotch county, just come down from the hills. The grey-haired, pale-faced gentleman, muffled to the eyes in fur cap and comforter, is Mr. Mead, whose imperial stride as “the buried majesty of Denmark” is repeated here in response to the call of a friend in the cabin. Mr. Howe carries his years and experience with an elastic gait, and a fresh, pleasant face. He is a notable figure in the group, dressed in every respect like an English gentleman,—overcoat, hat, gloves. He has a breezy country manner, and, if one did not know him, one might say, “This is a Yorkshire man, who farms his own land, going to the West to have a look at Kansas, and perhaps at Manitoba.” Mr. Ball, the musical conductor, wears his fur collar and spectacles with quite a professional air. Norman Forbes brings with him ideas of Bond street, and Robertson, who sings “Hey, Nonnie,” to the swells in Leonato’s garden, is wrapped up as a tenor should be, though he has the carriage of an athlete. The American winter lends itself to artistic considerations in the matter of cloaks, coats, leggins, scarfs, and “head-gear.” The ladies of the company have sought the hot shelter of the spacious saloon. Miss Terry pushes the swinging-door.

“I shall be stifled in there,” she says, retreating before a blast of hot air.

“And starved to death out here,” says Irving.

“Well, I prefer the latter,” she replies, taking her place among the crowd on the outer platform.

“Our English friends would complain of heat at the North pole,” says an American gentleman to another, as they push their way into the saloon.

It is an impressive sight, this great, rolling flood of the North river at midnight. The reflection of the boat’s lights upon the tide give it an oily appearance.

“Looks harmless enough, eh?” remarks an American friend, answering his own question; “but it aint. The strongest swimmer might fail in breasting the current at this state of the tide.”

Bright electric lamps mark out the graceful lines of the Brooklyn bridge. The twinkling signals of river craft are seen afar off beneath the span of the suspended roadway, along which gay-looking cars are flashing their white and red and green lights. We pass and meet gigantic ferry-boats, as large as the Terrace at Harley-on-Thames would be if converted into a houseboat, but a thousand times brighter, with tier upon tier of illuminated windows. Irving, in his great Astrachan overcoat, contemplates the scene with deep interest.

“It is, indeed, very wonderful,” he says. “We could give an idea of the bridge at night on the Lyceum stage; but these ferry-boats would bother us, eh, Loveday?”

“Not more than they do now with their heat and cold. Don’t you think Miss Terry ought to go inside? It is very bitter here.”

“No, I’ll die first!” says the lady, amidst a general laugh.

II.

PRESENTLY we run into dock, and are as firmly part of it as if the two structures were one, and so we land and struggle along in groups to the platform, where our special train is to start for Chicago, a run of one thousand miles. Mr. Carpenter, the traffic manager of this road, is here to receive us. He and Mr. Abbey exchange some not unpleasant badinage about the tribulations of our previous journey from Boston to Baltimore, and we get aboard. Mr. Blanchard, the president of the Erie Railroad, has lent Mr. Irving his own parlor-car for the journey, although it is necessary that the company shall travel over the Pennsylvania road. He has provisioned it also. It contains a private room for Miss Terry, a special room for Irving, and sections for myself and other friends. There is also a smoking-room and little parlor, besides, of course, a well-appointed kitchen. Mr. Blanchard’s own _chef_ is in the car, with a couple of servants; they are colored gentlemen, and very attentive to our wants. Miss Terry and her maid go straight to bed; so likewise do the other occupants of the car, except Irving and myself. We think there may be much rest for mind and body in a quiet chat before turning in for the night.

“Besides,” says Irving, lighting a cigar, “we may not be in the humor for such recreation after Monday night. I am to get it hot in Chicago, they tell me.”

“I believe you will find the gate of the West wide open to receive you, and the people of Chicago quick to recognize all that is good in your work, and not a whit behind the other cities in its appreciation of it.”

“They can have no prejudices, at all events,” he replied; “there has been no time for tradition to take root there. They will not be afraid to say what they think, one way or the other. I would not feel anxious at all if we had to stay there a month instead of a fortnight.”

“I should not wonder if reporters meet the train and ask for interviews long before we arrive at Chicago.”

“Is it possible? Well, let them come. I am told that if we should be snowed up, there are much worse persons to fear than our friends, the reporters. Mr. Abbey carries pistols, and the conductors and guards are armed. During the Bernhardt tour more than one plot to stop Abbey’s special trains was discovered. A band of masked men were disappointed at one place, and a company of desperadoes from a western camp at another. One of Abbey’s agents was attacked in his sleeping-car, and badly wounded, by men who sneaked on board during a stoppage near a signal station; but he made a good fight, and the guard coming quickly to his aid, the fellows got off. Travelling as we did, even from Boston to Baltimore, pulling up at lonely and unpeopled points, one can understand how easily a gang of reckless robbers might capture a train, the facilities for getting aboard and walking right through the cars being largely in favor of success. It was known, Mr. Abbey tells me, that Madame Bernhardt carried her diamonds about with her; and, acting on reliable information, he found it desirable to have a smart chief of police on the train, who had each end of her car protected at night by an armed guard. No such honor is, I suppose, provided for us; and then we do not go so far West, nor so near the frontiers, as she and her company went. I suppose Abbey is not chaffing us, as Raymond and those other fellows tried to do in London?”[35]

“Oh, no; Abbey’s is a true bill. In the West a detective well known to the thieves sat by Madame Bernhardt’s coachman whenever she went out, to or from the theatre, or anywhere else; and, apart from the weapons he carried, his courage and skill made him a terror to evil-doers. The western bandit is singularly discreet when he knows the reputation of the police is pledged against him in a public enterprise.

III.

THE Chicago press justified my forecast of its enterprise. The story of one of its representatives (he was a baron, by the way, in his German Fatherland, though content to be a reporter in Chicago) is best told in his own way. He begins it with rather a series of “catching” titles, thus:—

A CHAT WITH MR. IRVING.

_A Daily News Reporter climbs into the English Tragedian’s Special Train, and Interviews him._

MISS ELLEN TERRY thinks her AMERICAN SISTERS “Very nice,” but she has not yet seen DAISY MILLER.

Then he goes on to narrate his own adventures, and the results, and without much exaggeration, almost as follows:—

“Mr. Henry Irving, the notable English actor, is in Chicago now, and so is the ‘Daily News’ man, who accompanied him part of the way. The manner in which these two—the great representative of the British stage and its latest and finest fruition, and the modest representative of the ‘Daily News’—met was quite peculiar; and it may be amusing to a discerning public to, for once, learn that the interviewer’s path is not always strewn with roses when he sets out upon his way past the thorny hedges that beset his road. Who doesn’t pity him in his various plights, and concede that naught but the reputation of Chicago for having the pluckiest and most irrepressible reporters did not make him wilt long before accomplishing his task, must bear a stone in his bosom, instead of the usual muscular fibre called a human heart.

“It is well known to the newspaper fraternity that Mr. Irving holds the interviewer in dread, and that nearly all the so-called interviews with him published in the American papers have been spurious. Duly appreciating this fact, the ‘Daily News’ man had not only been munificently fitted out with the requisite lucre by the business department, but had furthermore been furnished with a letter of introduction,—one of the combination sort,—addressed to both Mr. Copleston, Manager Abbey’s representative, and to Mr. Palser,[36] couched in terms to make the flintiest heart melt. Thus attired, then, the emissary boarded at Fort Wayne the train which had carried safely thus far Cæsar and his luck from Jersey City. Entry to the cars was effected with difficulty, the rules proscribing any but the theatrical company for whom the train was chartered from riding in it. Perseverance and gall in equal doses prevailed, however, as they usually do, and the drowsy Senegambian, who was doing the Cerberus act, at the entrance of the car, yielded to an amount of eloquence perhaps never before brought to bear upon his pachydermatous anatomy. As soon as the train had started, a still-hunt was begun for the two prospective victims, Miss Terry and Mr. Irving. Alas! they had both obeyed nature’s call, and were at that moment sweetly slumbering, oblivious even of the Chicago interviewer. Everybody else was likewise sleeping, even unto the dusky porters. Passing up and down the train from end to end, nothing but the cheerful and melodious British snore greeted the attentive ear. Here, to the right, it was the wheezing note of a snore combined with a cold; there, it was the thundering roll of a _snoro basso profundo;_ across the aisle the gentler breathing of some youthful British blonde, struck the expectant senses, and again a confused jumble of snores, of all sexes and ages, would fall ‘with a dull thud’ upon the tympanum of the investigator. It forced itself upon the latter’s conviction that it would be a difficult matter to attain the object for which he had been deputed. It was then after three o’clock. The train was due in Chicago at eight, and it looked very unlikely that Mr. Irving would overcome his aversion to interviewing and grant audience to a stranger at such a time. This was a hiatus which had not been thought of, and the ‘Daily News’ man sat down in an abandoned chair (on which were peacefully reclining some articles of feminine attire), and reflected. Reflecting, he caught himself in a nap, and woke out of it with a slight shudder. He gave himself a poke in the rib and muttered, in grave-like accents: ‘_Nil desperandum_.’

“The next move in the direction of the desired interview was a vigorous rap administered to the saddle-colored individual who in that car discharged the duties of collecting ‘50 cents all ‘round.’ When the kicked one had gathered up his portly limbs he was sent on a search for Mr. Palser first, and, that proving unavailing, on a hunt for Mr. Copleston. The latter, after considerable energy had been expended by the colored brother, awoke and gave vent to his indignation at having been thus rudely snatched from Morpheus’s arms. He did so in rather vigorous style and language, which, under the circumstances, was hardly to be wondered at. He declined to come forth from under his blankets, and not even the cutting repartee of the reporter could rouse him. He said he had been but an hour and a half asleep, he and some friends in another car having played poker till very late, and he, the speaker, having lost quite heavily. He wouldn’t, couldn’t, shouldn’t get up and wake Mr. Irving, and an interview, he concluded, on the train was an impossibility.

“‘Here is a fix,’ was the mental commentary. Poking his hand in here and there into berths, and being startled now by the apparition of a female face, then by a powerful snort of defiance from some male actor, the investigator finally groped his way back into the rear car, one of the palace pattern, placed at Mr. Irving’s disposal by Mr. Blanchard of the Erie road. And there he found, at last, Mr. Irving, who, being duly apprised of the mission of his unwelcome visitor, and having a bit of pasteboard with the latter’s address thrust into his unwilling palm, murmured plaintively, but politely, that he would see him before reaching Chicago. Later on, Mr. Abbey’s services were enlisted in the same cause, and his promise to the same effect obtained. Wearily the time dragged on, till but another twenty-five miles lay between the train and its destination. Just at this opportune moment the great actor’s friend, Mr. Joseph Hatton, stepped up and invited the hungry, wild, and desperate minion of the press to partake of a cup of coffee. Gladly this was accepted, and, being made aware of what was wanted, he, with the sympathizing spirit of a brother journalist, said he would try and have Mr. Irving appear. Mr. Hatton, by the way, is the famous London correspondent of the ‘New York Times,’ and is accompanying Mr. Irving for the purpose of gathering material for a book, in which jointly the impressions of American travel of himself and the eminent actor will be deposited. While he went off to wake Mr. Irving, another trip was taken to Mr. Abbey’s room, in doing which, both coming and returning, the reporter’s modesty underwent the severe ordeal of passing in review a large array of British beauties, all in different stages of evolution—as to dress—and all talking sauce in choice Cockney English at him for his ‘shocking impropriety.’ When the somewhat cowed Daily Newsian returned to his cup of coffee he found not only Mr. Copleston, the surly bear of a few hours ago, transformed into a most amiable gentleman, but also among the other gentlemen, Mr. Irving himself.

“‘After the tedious business of introduction had been gone through with all around; after it had been remarked that the trip had been a trying one to them all, as not being used to these long journeys in their tight little island, where a twelve hours’ ride was considered the utmost,—after saying this, all felt broke up, and, expressing anxiety as to the Siberian climate of Chicago, Mr. Irving took out his cigar-case, invited his _vis-à-vis_ to light one of his choice weeds, and then prepared himself for the torture to be inflicted.

“‘What is your opinion of dramatic art, especially when comparing the English with the American, and both with the French tragedians?’ was the first query.

“‘English dramatic art is improving, I think, and the prospects for it are brightening,’ he said, slowly and reflectively. ‘I’ve seen fine acting in some of your American theatres—very fine acting; very fine.’

“‘What do you think of the custom of mutilating and cutting up and abbreviating the pieces of classical authors when presented on the stage? In “The Merchant of Venice,” for instance, the last act is omitted so as to give Shylock the exit. Do you approve of such methods, Mr. Irving?’

“‘No, I do not; but the custom is such an old one it is very difficult to alter it. The cause of it is, I suppose, that our forefathers didn’t know so well, nor did they read Shakespeare much. It is but very recently, for example, that “Romeo and Juliet,” “Richard III.,” and “King Lear” have been spoken on the stage the way Shakespeare wrote them. Of the last one Garrick’s version has been used for a century. Yet I do not think it right. Shakespeare is difficult to improve upon. Better let him alone.’

“‘How are you pleased with your reception in America?’

“‘Beyond all expectation and desert. I have been treated with a kindness, courteousness, and hospitality that have been really touching to me. And this, you know, has been done despite the fact that my trip to America had not been indorsed by all. While on my way across the Atlantic, for instance, a London daily paper published a leading article on me, suggesting to the Americans not to receive me cordially; and, not satisfied with this, the article was cabled over before our arrival. I thought this unfair and ungenerous. I like America, of course, though like is hardly the proper term. I feel deeply grateful to the American people for the very kind manner in which they have treated me. But you must come to the theatre to-night. I am sorry that Miss Terry will not play to-night.’

“‘I noticed in the papers that you have always expressed yourself in a very chivalrous spirit when speaking of Miss Terry, sir.’

“‘That is because I have the highest respect for the lady, both for her character and her talents.’

“‘Now, Mr. Irving, shirking your modesty for a moment, and assuming as a settled fact that you are one of the most eminent actors living, what made you such? What cause or causes do you attribute your good acting to?’

“‘To acting.’

“‘What do you mean by that? This answer is not quite clear to me.’

“‘I merely want to say that by incessant acting, and love and study of my art, I have attained whatever position I hold in my profession. This is a leading cause, as it is, I believe, in every other art.’

“‘What made you choose “Louis XI.” in preference to “The Bells” as your first piece here, Mr. Irving?’

“‘Because it takes the least amount of stage preparation, that’s all. That reminds me to say that the reports you have heard about my gorgeous scenery, etc., you will find, I think, exaggerated. Our stage decorations are quite simple, and their beauty consists merely in their nice adjustment, and the scrupulous calculation of the effect produced by them on the audience.’

“Meanwhile Miss Terry’s maid had been very busy preparing tea and buttered toast for her mistress, taking out dainty little things for wear out of a big lockbasket. Being repeatedly asked if Miss Terry could not be seen a moment, the train meanwhile arrived in Chicago, and most of the other actors and actresses having got off, she made evasive answers. Suddenly, however, the door opened, and a very pretty lady looked briskly around. This, then, was Miss Ellen Terry! A beautiful woman, indeed! Lustrous eyes of rare azure; a profuseness of wavy blonde hair, long and of a luminous shade and silky texture; the form lithe, yet full, every motion of a natural supple grace. She was shaking hands with the ‘Daily News’ man, even while Mr. Copleston introduced him, and then scurried back into the dark depths of her room, where she continued wailing: ‘I’ve lost my luck! I’ve lost my luck,—my beautiful horseshoe brooch, which I wouldn’t have missed for the world!’ And maid and mistress went down on their knees, peering into every nook and cranny. While still thus employed: ‘You see, Miss Terry, the Chicago reporter is the first introduced to give you a hearty greeting to this city, and to hope you’ll like your stay here as well as I am sure Chicago will like to hold you within her walls.’

“‘Thanks! thanks!’ said Miss Terry, and then continued her search for that obstreperous brooch.

“‘And what do you think of America?’

“Miss Terry held up a round, well-shaped arm appealingly, and merely said. ‘No, no. You mustn’t try to interview me. I won’t stumble into that pitfall.’

“‘How do you like the American women, then?’

“‘Very nice and pretty they are,—those I’ve seen, at least. I think we must say, in this regard, what Lord Coleridge did: ‘They can’t be all so nice and pretty; I suppose I’ve only seen the nicest ones.’ And one thing I’ll tell you which I have not seen; I’ve never set eyes on any Daisy Millers.’

“‘Of course not,’ rejoined the reporter. ‘Who ever heard of or saw a Daisy Miller outside of a book? That’s a character you’ll only find in James’s novel,—not in America, Miss Terry.’

“And thus, still hunting for that unfortunate brooch, which she plaintively called her ‘lost luck,’ and so apparently a kind of voodoo or talisman, the reporter left her, momentarily feeling a ray out of the sun of her glorious eyes lighting up his departure. It was a little after eight o’clock then, and, while she soon after went by carriage to the Leland Hotel, Mr. Irving put up at the Grand Pacific, and was, two hours later, busily arranging things at Haverly’s Theatre.”

XVI.

THE PRAIRIE CITY.

First Impressions of Chicago—A Bitter Winter—Great Storms—Thirty Degrees below Zero—On the Shores of Lake Michigan—Street Architecture—Pullman City—Western Journalism—Chicago Criticism—Notable Entertainments—At the Press Club—The Club Life of America—What America has done—Unfair Comparisons between the Great New World and the Older Civilizations of Europe—Mistaking Notoriety for Fame—A Speech of Thanks—Facts, Figures, and Tests of Popularity, Past and to Come.

I.

THROUGH piles of lumber, into back streets filled with liquor bars, “side shows,” and decorated with flaming posters, into fine, stately thoroughfares, crowded with people, past imposing buildings marked with architectural dignity, to the Grand Pacific Hotel.

“It is as if Manchester had given Greenwich Fair a blow in the face,” said Irving,—“that is my first impression of Chicago. ‘The Living Skeleton,’ ‘The Tattooed Man,’ ‘The Heaviest Woman in the World,’ ‘The Museum of Wonders,’ with the painted show-pictures of our youth; public houses, old-clothes shops, picturesque squalor. And then great warehouses, handsome shops, and magnificent civic buildings,—what a change! There is something of the ‘go’ of Liverpool and Manchester about it. If I was ever afraid of Chicago, I am afraid no longer. A people that have rebuilt this city within a comparatively few years must be great, broad-minded, and ready in appreciating what is good. We have something to show them in the way of dramatic art,—they will ‘catch on,’ as they say on this side of the Atlantic, I am sure of it.”

The city was more or less snow-bound. Little or no effort had been made to remove the white downfall, either from street or sidewalk. The sun was shining. The air was, nevertheless, very cold. Within a few days of our arrival the thermometer had fallen to twenty and thirty degrees below zero. We had selected for our visit to America what was destined to be the bitterest winter that had been known in the United States for over twenty years. There were storms on sea and land; storms of rain, and snow, and wind, followed by frosts that closed the great rivers, and made even Lake Michigan solid for ice-boats a dozen or twenty miles out. The South Jersey coast was strewn with wreckage. Railway tracks were swept away. At Cape May the principal pier was destroyed. The sea demolished the piles of Coney Island’s iron piers. At Long Branch cottages were undermined by the water, and their contents carried out to sea. The well-known dancing platform and piazza of the Grand Union Hotel, on Rockaway Beach, were washed away. Terrific winds blew over Boston and New England. A little fleet of schooners were driven ashore at Portland. Vessels broke from their moorings in the adjacent harbors. Atlantic City had boarding-houses, stores, and dwellings carried away by high tides.

The mails were delayed for hours, and in some cases for days, on the principal railroads. Where the obstacles were not rain and flood they were wind and snow. Lockport, New York, reported that the snow on that day was four feet on the level, and still falling. Bradford, telegraphing for Pennsylvania generally, announced that fourteen inches of snow had fallen within a few hours, the weight of it crushing in many roofs and awnings. “The narrow-gauge railways,” ran the despatch, “five in number, have been closed all day; the trains are stalled a few miles from the city.” Even at Louisville, in Kentucky, navigation was suspended, and floating ice-blocks were battering in the sides of steamers lying at the wharves of Baltimore. On the Rappahannock river, in Virginia, a ship laden with corn was cut down and sunk by floating ice. These and kindred incidents occurred on or about the day of our arrival in Chicago. The record of the few previous days, judged from the official reports of Washington, and the ordinary chronicles of the times, was a very remarkable one, even for the coldest States of America. In some places the weather had been the coldest known for more than fifty years. Canada had had the most extreme experiences in this respect. At Winnipeg, Manitoba, the thermometer had fallen as low as forty-five degrees below zero.

On the day we were travelling to the prairie city, while the thermometer was rising in that section of the country, it was falling in the eastern and southern States, registering thirty degrees below zero at Whitehall, New York. The Straits of Mackinaw, connecting Lake Michigan and Lake Huron, were navigable only on foot or runners. We arrived in Chicago on Monday, Jan. 7. On the 6th the thermometer registered twenty-two degrees below zero. Monday’s newspapers congratulated their readers that, “the wave had passed over.” Incidents of its severity were curious and numerous. Hundreds of hogs had been frozen to death on freight-trains. The Terre Haute express from Chicago was snowed up for thirty-one hours. At fires which had broken out, water from the engines froze as it fell, and covered the buildings with strange, fantastic shapes.

I had arranged to visit Gunnison (Colorado), and other mining cities, within a reasonable distance from Chicago and St. Louis; but was persuaded to postpone my trip by private and public reports of the storm in those regions. One day’s newspaper (the “Daily-News-Democrat,” of Gunnison) contained startling evidence of the difficulties I should have had to encounter. Within a few days twenty-seven men had been killed by snow-slides in the mountains between Ouray and Telluride. A local mail-carrier was among the victims. All the available snow-ploughs and engines of the various districts were at work on the tracks. Engines were helplessly stuck in the snow on the Rio Grande. “The miner,” remarked the “Daily News” editor, “who goes into the mountains at this season takes his life in his hands.” I remained in Chicago with Irving, and am spared to chronicle these things. The weather was sufficiently cold for both of us in Chicago. It varied, too, with a persistency of variation that is trying to the strongest constitution. One hour the thermometer would be fairly above zero, the next it would be far below it. Men went about the frozen streets in fur coats and caps, carefully protecting their ears and hands. Along the shores of Lake Michigan were barricades of ice; they looked like solid palisades of marble. Here and there, where tiny icebergs had been formed, the polar bear would not have looked out of place. It was strange to see the ice-boats, with their bending sails, literally flying along, while away out lay ships at anchor. Mr. Lyon took Miss Terry, Irving, and myself sleighing along the lake shore and upon the prairie beyond. My friends were delighted with the novel excursion, astonished at the fine boulevards through which we passed, amazed at the possibilities of Chicago, as they realized what had been done and what space had been laid out for the future. A forty-mile drive through great, wide boulevards designed to encompass the city, is the biggest of the city’s schemes, and it is in vigorous course of formation.

“One is forced to admire the pluck of Chicago,” said Irving, after our first drive. “Twice burnt down, twice built up, and laid out anew, on a plan that is magnificent. Some of the houses along Prairie and Michigan avenues are palaces.[37] The art revival in street architecture and house decoration is as actively rife here as in London. And what a superb stone they have for building purposes in their yellow cream-colored marble! It is marvellous to see how they have taken hold of the new ideas. The Calumet and the Chicago club-houses,—nothing could be more chaste than their decorations.”

One day we went to Pullman City, an industrial town, akin to Saltaire, near Bradford, in its scope and enterprise. We were invited and accompanied by Mr. and Mrs. Pullman, Miss Terry, Mr. and Mrs. Dexter, Mr. and Mrs. James Runnion, and several other ladies and gentlemen. Going out in Mr. Pullman’s private car, we lunched with him at the pretty hotel of the novel city, and afterwards inspected the workshops and principal buildings.

“The story of the conception and creation of this Pullman City,” said Irving, “interested me very much, though I confess the method of it all strikes me as somewhat like living by machinery: the private houses being massed, as it were, _en bloc_; the shops collected together like arcades; the whole place laid out with geometrical system; and yet one feels that there are fine principles underlying it; that the scheme is founded upon wise plans; and that, from a moral and sanitary stand-point, the city is an ideal combination of work and rest, of capital and labor. Pullman’s idea was a lofty one, and the result is very remarkable: a centre of industry that should give to labor its best chance, with capital taking its place on a platform as human as labor. That is the notion, as Pullman explained it to me. What a square, level head it is! Just the determined kind of man to be the author of a new city on new lines. He told me that Charles Reade’s novel, ‘Put Yourself in his Place,’ had influenced him greatly in his ambition to found this place; that it has affected all his relations towards the people under his direction. Politically, Pullman City is a paradox. A despotism, it still is very democratic. It owes its successful administration to what may be called a benevolent autocracy. The theatre, I am told, is more prosperous than the church proper, though religion is represented by several earnest communities. The idea of giving the people a chance to buy land and build cottage homes for themselves, at a reasonable distance beyond Pullman, appears to be a good one. Pullman himself may well be proud of his work. It is worthy of Chicago and the West.”

II.

IN spite of “wind and weather” the people of Chicago crowded Haverly’s Theatre, where Irving and Miss Terry appeared, night after night, for two weeks; and the critics of the great papers of the West, the “Times,” “Tribune,” “Inter-Ocean,” and “Daily News,” were equal to the occasion. They showed a knowledge of their work, and an appreciation of dramatic art, as illustrated by Irving, quite in keeping with the spirit and ambition of their new and wonderful city. A news-collector, having in view the prejudices of New York and London, as to the literary and journalistic cultivation of Chicago, selected an enthusiastic line or two from the Chicago notices of Irving and Miss Terry, with a view to cast ridicule upon western criticism. This kind of thing is common to news-collectors on both sides of the Atlantic. A reporter desires to please his editor, and to cater for his public. In London, believing that New York will be stirred with the report of a hostile demonstration against an American artist, he makes the most of the working of a rival American clique there against Lotta. New York looks down loftily upon the art culture of Chicago, and London chiefly knows Chicago through its great fire, borne with so much fortitude, and for its “corners in pork.” The local caterer for the news columns of New York and London panders to these ideas. The best-educated writer, the neatest essayist, might appear foolish by cutting unconnected sentences out of his work, and printing them alone.

In the journalistic literature of modern criticism there is nothing better than some of the essays on Irving and his art that appeared in the papers of Chicago and the West. In this connection it is worth while pointing out that the absence of an international copyright between England and America forces native writers, who otherwise would be writing books, into the press. So long as publishers can steal or buy “for a mere song” the works of popular English authors they will not give a remunerative wage to the comparatively unknown writers of their own country. Therefore, busy thinkers,—men and women with literary inspirations devote themselves to journalism. It would be surprising if, under these circumstances, the western press should not here and there entertain and instruct its readers with literary and critical work as much entitled to respect, and as worthy to live, as the more pretentious and more happily and fortunately placed literature of London, Boston, and New York. The American authors best known to-day, and most praised in both hemispheres, have written for the newspapers, and some of them had their training on the press: Bret Harte, Mark Twain, Howells, Aldrich, John Hay, James, Habberton, Winter, Bryant, Artemus Ward (I leave the reader to complete the list, for I mention these name _en passant_ and at random); and how many others are coming on through the columns of the newspapers to take up the running, who shall say? The Chicago press often sacrifices dignity and good taste in the headings with which it seeks to surprise and excite its readers. But this is a feature of Western journalism that will go out with the disappearance of the lower civilization to which, in covering the entire ground of its circulation, it unhesitatingly appeals. The London press is not free from the charge of pandering to depraved tastes in its reports of sensational murders and divorce cases, though the great body of its writers and contributors no doubt sit down to their work with a higher sense of their responsibility to the public than is felt by their American contemporaries.

“Do you think that is so?” Irving asked, when I was propounding this view to an American colleague.

“Yes,” said the journalist addressed; “but I think our newspapers are far more interesting than yours. At the same time you beat us in essay-writing, for that is what your editorials are,—they are essays.”

“That is true,” said Irving, “and very fine some of them are.”

But to return to Chicago criticism,—I repeat that among the best and most appreciative and most scholarly of the criticisms upon Irving and his art, in England and America, are the writings of the Chicago journalists,—McPhelin, of the “Tribune,” Barron, of the “Inter-Ocean,” McConnell, of the “Times,” and Pierce, of the “Daily News.” The two first mentioned are quite young men, not either of them more than twenty-five. I am tempted to quote, in justification of this opinion, and as an example of Chicago work, the following extracts from one of several equally well-written criticisms in the “Tribune”:—

It is true that in every department of art the power of the imagination has declined with the advance of knowledge. The Greek actors went into convulsions through excess of passion. A Roman actor in the midst of frenzied recitation struck a slave dead. If we have not so much imagination as the ancients (a fact which we need not regret), we have finer sensibilities, more penetrating insight, and a truer consciousness of life’s mystery and meaning. The art of to-day, if less exuberant than that of yesterday, is more serene, and, above all, its methods are more truthful.

They are the great actors who have kept pace with the most advanced thought, who have typified in their art the spirit of their age, who have inaugurated eras. Conservatism is stagnation. In its infancy the art of acting was monstrous exaggeration. This was natural, for it was fostered in the childhood of the world, and children love exaggeration. When, at last, the stilts and masks were thrown away, exaggeration of speech was preserved. Actors recited their lines in loud, monotonous sing-song. The ranters of our stage to-day are the lineal descendants of these men. Le Kain in France, and Garrick in England, made great strides towards natural methods in dramatic representation. The reflective genius of Kemble, at the beginning of this century, did much to complete the revolution in taste begun by Garrick. Kean was noted for the splendor and the volume of his power rather than for innovations in methods of expression. The actors who followed him prided themselves on their adherence to tradition,—tradition for which the rest of the world cared nothing. These artists were content to stand still while the culture of the century passed by them. At last there emerged out of obscurity, out of the jostling multitude of mediocrity, a man who drank in the spirit of his age,—a man who broke down the rotten barriers of tradition; a man who caught the intensity, the poetry, the artistic realism of his time; a man who inaugurated a new epoch in the art of acting. Final success was achieved only after a long and bitter struggle against conservative prejudices.

This man was Henry Irving.

In a broad and comprehensive way his position on the English stage has been defined above. After witnessing his impersonations of Louis XI. and Shylock, some conclusions may be drawn as to his genius and his methods.

There is nothing phenomenal or meteoric about this new actor. Henry Irving is not what Diderot would have us believe a great actor should be, namely, a man without sensibility. Diderot said that sensibility was organic weakness; that it crippled the intelligence, rendering acting alternately warm and cold; and that the great actor should have penetration, without any sensibility whatever. But Talma called sensibility the faculty of exaltation which shakes an actor’s very soul and which enables him to enter into the most tragic situations and the most terrible of passions as if they were his own. In the discussion of these conflicting theories Henry Irving has always taken Talma’s view. He comes nearer realizing Diderot’s ideal of greatness than any other actor of whom we have record.

His imagination is picturesque almost to the verge of sublimity. His fancy is lively and apparently inexhaustible. When he unrolls before us the varied-colored robe of life we look in vain to find one color missing. It is a fancy that is not only vivid, but that is most poetic. How touching is that return of Shylock to his lonely home, walking wearily over the deserted bridge,—the bridge that echoed only a moment before to the shouts and laughter of the merry maskers! The old man walks to the house from which his daughter has fled, knocks twice at the door, and looks up patiently and expectantly towards the casement. Then the curtain falls. The people who do not applaud such a tender touch as this should stop going to the theatre.

* * * * *

In saying that Irving is realistic, that word is not used in its grosser sense. Realism should be the union of the ideal and the true. There may be truth in Zola’s realism, but there is no ideality; for ideality rejects the trivial, the vulgar, the earthly, and grasps the essence. There may be ideality in Mrs. Burnett’s novels, but sentiment is substituted for truth. The realism of Howells, for instance, is a union of the ideal and the true. Irving’s ideals are in harmony with the realistic tendency of literary thought, because they are drawn from humanity, and not from Olympus. His are human, not heroic, ideals. His Louis XI. is as true to nature as any impersonation can be; and yet it is ideal, inasmuch as the essence of the character is incorporated in action, and the baseness, the cruelty, the bigotry, of the king are not repugnant. Here is the union of the ideal and the true. If a man like Zola were playing Louis XI. he would shock and disgust us by a portrayal not essential, but of superficial grossness.

In attempting to estimate Irving’s genius one cannot catalogue qualities, but must indicate in a general way the nature of that genius as it is judged from its manifestations. Irving cannot be classified, for he is the leader of a new school of acting, as Tennyson is the leader of a new school of poetry. They who in the future will write of the great Victorian Era will find, perhaps, a resemblance between the actor and the poet, not only because both have opened up new fields of art, but because the chief characteristic of each is originality in form. If Tennyson is the poet who should be read by poets, Irving is the actor who should be studied by actors. The idea intended to be conveyed is, that both Tennyson and Irving excel in perfection of detail; in other words, of technique, or form. The great poet who wishes to be heard in the future must give us the polish and the intensity of Tennyson; the actor who would be great must give us the polish and the intensity of Irving.

Any line in Irving’s acting will illustrate his intensity, by which is meant the grasping of a fuller meaning than appears on the surface. When Shylock is flattering Portia in the trial scene, exclaiming, “A Daniel come to judgment,” etc., it is startling, the manner in which he leans forward suddenly and whispers with venomous unction and cunning the insidious compliment, “How much more elder art thou than thy looks!” The words are very simple, but their effects depend on the intensity of meaning with which they are uttered.

Praise has already been accorded Irving’s Shylock, because it is a type of the medieval Jew, interpreted, not according to the traditions of a bigoted age, but in the light of the liberality of the nineteenth century. This creation is, perhaps, the best proof of the assertion that Henry Irving has embodied in his art the spirit of his age, and therein lies his greatness.

Several lessons American managers will draw from the success of the Irving engagement. One is that Shakespearian plays must not be mutilated to give prominence to one actor. Artistic harmony must not be sacrificed to personal ambition. Another lesson is that an actor must not undertake all alone to act a play; he must have a company of actors, not a company of incompetent amateurs. A third is that Shakespearian plays are the jewels of dramatic literature, and their setting should surely be as rich as that given to the extravagant productions that are doing so much to vitiate popular taste.

In conclusion it may be remarked that it is gratifying that Henry Irving in his American tour has been regarded, not from a fashionable or a national, but from a purely artistic stand-point. In art the Spartan and the Athenian are brothers; the same love of beauty lives in Rome and in Geneva, in London and in New York. In the sunshine of art the national merges into the universal, and the mists of prejudice die away upon the horizon of the world.

III.

ALL the forecasts that warned Irving to expect in Chicago a coarse fibre of civilization and an absence of artistic appreciation were reversed in the Prairie city. Night after night great, generous, enthusiastic audiences crowded Haverly’s Theatre. Quick of perception, frank in their recognition of the best features of Irving’s work, they were cordial in their applause, and hearty in their greetings of the novelty of it. The critics interpreted the sentiments of the audiences, and put their feelings into eloquent sentences. They showed knowledge and sincerity of intention and purpose, and some of them criticised severely the carping spirit in which one or two Eastern contemporaries had dealt with the London actors. The hospitality of Chicago is proverbial. It was made manifest in many ways,—in offers of carriages for sleigh-riding, of ice-boats, of railway cars. Irving and Miss Terry had to decline more invitations than they accepted. Members of the company were also entertained at breakfasts and suppers. After the first night, and the acceptation of Irving as a reformer of the stage, and as the author of what to Chicago was a new pleasure, the city literally opened its doors to Irving and his friends. Among the receptions to Mr. Irving was a breakfast given by Mr. John B. Carson,[38] at which the Mayor spoke of the pleasure Chicago experienced in Irving’s visit, and upon which occasion Mr. Joseph Medill, the editor of the “Tribune,” who had seen Irving in London, as well as in Chicago, proclaimed him the one Shakespearian actor who interprets and exhibits the conceptions of the poet with a proper naturalness, and in such a manner as to make people regret that Shakespeare could not revisit the world to see what had at last been done for his plays. The health of Miss Terry was proposed and drunk with all the honors; as it was, also, at a very dainty reception given one night after the play to Miss Terry herself, at the Calumet Club, by Mr. and Mrs. John B. Jeffery,[39] and, on a later occasion, at the Leland Hotel, at a supper given by Mr. Emery A. Storrs[40] to Mr. Irving. Professor Swing was among the speakers on this occasion, and during the evening pleasant allusion was made to the visit of Lord Chief Justice Coleridge, and to English writers who had not confined their attention solely to the shortcomings of Chicago. Irving, in responding to the toast of his health, described his sensations on entering Chicago: “I came warned against you; but knowing your history. When I saw your great city, and felt how much you had done, and how much that was broad and generous and courageous belonged to such enterprise and ambition, my instinct told me that you would be with me in my work; that you would, at least, respect it; and that if you liked it no jealousies, no prejudices, would stand in the way of your saying so.”

The Press Club[41] “received” Irving and Miss Terry and several members of the Lyceum company. “Nothing could have been conceived or carried out in a more frank and friendly spirit than the Press Club reception,” said Irving, on returning to his hotel; “no pretence, no affectation, a hearty crowd. They treated us as if we had known each other all our lives, and I begin to feel as if they were old friends. It is the absence of caste in America, I conclude, that gives a meeting of this kind its real cordiality. Nobody is afraid of anybody else; there is an absence of self-restraint, and, at the same time, of self-consciousness. I liked them, too, for not apologizing for their very unpretentious rooms; and I think they are right in adhering to the principles on which the club is founded, that it shall be purely a press club. Do you remember the evening at the journalists’ club in Philadelphia? But that was a man’s night only. Very delightful too, eh? I thought so. Indeed, the club life of America, from the humblest to the highest, is characterized by a cordiality and freedom that is glorious; I think so. No nonsense, no unnecessary formality; they give you the best, and make you at home at once. So nice to be introduced straightway, and be on terms with all the fellows! I find, by one of the newspapers, that I am keeping a scrap-book,—they have seen Houson’s handiwork, I imagine. I was just thinking that if one indulged in that sort of thing, what a collection of club cards and _menus_ one would have! There is not a city we have visited where we have not been made free of all the clubs, from Boston to Chicago. The Boston clubs are very fine, English-like in many respects. But there is nothing, I suppose, more gorgeous than the Union League, at New York. I’ll tell you what strikes me most about America,—the immensity of the work it has done in regard to the material welfare of its people; in building up a new civilization; providing for the comforts of the thousands who crowd into its ports from the Old World; taking care of them and governing them, giving them a share of their wealth, and welding the incongruous mass into one great people. I don’t wonder that young men who have only their honest hands and hopes as legacies from parents come here to make homes and names, to found families, and lay up for their old age. It is a wonderful country; the thought of it almost inspires me with eloquence, and I think on many a night it has given me a new energy, and a new love for my own work. I notice, by the papers, that some English visitor has been writing in one of the English periodicals what is called ‘a slashing criticism’ upon American habits and customs, and making unfair comparisons between the life objects of the men and women of this great New World and the older civilizations of Europe. This sort of criticism can only be mere surface work; it does not consider and weigh results; it does not count how great a thing has been done in a short time; it does not see how marvellously successful this people has been in making a law unto itself, a civilization unto itself, and how it has not yet had time to rest and tack on to its great, sweeping garments the fringes and ribbons and jewels that belong to an age of rest, and luxury, and art. They are but small critics, and they are not respectfully conscious of the possibilities of the close union of England and America, who discuss America in a petty way, and do not give her the credit she deserves for all she has done in the cause of freedom and of humanity.”

He paced the room as he talked, and I applauded his peroration.

“And you say you cannot ‘orate,’ to use a local phrase, except about acting.”

“It is an easy thing to make a speech in one’s own room, but a different thing standing up before an audience, eh?”

“Anyhow,” I said, “we will make a point about that hap-hazard criticism of irresponsible persons, who do not consider either the truth, or the feelings of a nation, so long as they can put together a few smart things for their own glorification. Nobody ever heard of the writer you mention until he abused America; and some men mistake notoriety for fame.”

IV.

THE pieces produced during the two weeks of Irving’s stay in Chicago were “Louis XI.,” “The Merchant of Venice,” “The Bells,” “The Belle’s Stratagem,” and “The Lyons Mail.” On the last night, being called before the curtain by one of the most crowded houses of the season, he addressed the audience as follows:—

“Ladies and Gentlemen,—It is my privilege to thank you for the hearty and enthusiastic welcome which you have given us during our too short stay amongst you. Many years ago, when a boy in England, I remember a song,—

“‘To the West! to the West! To the land of the free!’

“I little dreamed in those days I should ever see your fair city—the Queen of the West. For the welcome you have given my colleagues and myself I thank you,—especially I thank you on behalf of Miss Ellen Terry, whose indebtedness to you is equal to my own. I was good-humoredly told the other day that I was too pleased with America, especially with Chicago; and if I were to find some faults it might be a relief, and would vary the monotony a little. (Laughter.)

“Well, I hope I am not naturally a fault-finder; but, if I were, you have afforded me no opening; for you have loaded us with gratitude, and extended to us a welcome as broad as the prairie upon which you stand. I cannot leave you without thanking the press of Chicago for its sympathy, its eloquent and its ungrudging recognition of at least a sincere, although incomplete, effort to bring the dramatic art abreast of the other arts, and not leave the art of the stage behind and out in the cold in the general march of progress.

“I am very glad to tell you that we shall soon meet again; for we shall have the honor of appearing before you on the 11th of next month, when we shall have the gratification of spending another week amongst you. And now I beg to thank you again and again, and I can but hope that we may live in your memories as you will live in ours.” (Applause.)

The receipts for the first week in Chicago were $17,048, and for the second, $19,117; making a total of $36,166. From a mere box-office point of view the success of his visit is unprecedented; the increase of the receipts at the close of the engagement dissipating the last “weak invention of the enemy,” that Irving only excites curiosity. If this shallow nonsense merited the smallest attention the figures already quoted would be a sufficient answer. A truer test of the genuineness of Irving’s popularity, and the hold his work has obtained upon the intelligent and intellectual public of America, will be the character of his reception when, in the course of the present tour, he begins to pay return visits to Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, and New York; for he goes back to these cities when their enthusiasm may be said to have cooled, and in the Lenten season, which is largely observed in the chief cities of the United States.

XVII.

ST. LOUIS, CINCINNATI, INDIANAPOLIS, COLUMBUS.

Sunshine and Snow—Wintry Landscapes—Fire and Frost—Picturesque St. Louis—“The Elks”—A Notable Reception—“Dime Shows”—Under-studies—Germany in America—“On the Ohio”—Printing under Difficulties—“Baggage-smashing”—Handsome Negroes and Sunday Papers—The Wonders of Chicago.

I.

THERE was a little crowd of friends at the railway station, to see us take our leave of Chicago, at noon on Sunday, January 20, 1884. The weather was cold, but there was a bright, sunny sky. Everybody was in good spirits. The “Edwin Forrest” car, in which we travelled, had now quite a familiar appearance. George, a colored attendant who had charge of it, was there, with a merry grin upon his broad, intelligent features. “A right good fellow, George,” said Irving. “Yes, that’s so,” was George’s response, as he relieved him of his coat and stick, and led the way to the pretty little suite of rooms on wheels allotted to Irving and his friends. The other cars were also admirably appointed. “This is something like a day for travelling,” said one member of the company to another. The sun blazed down upon them as they walked about, awaiting the signal for departure, but there appeared to be very little warmth in it. The sunbeams were bright, but they seemed to have contracted a chill as they fell. Every now and then a gust of icy wind would come along, as if to put truth into this conclusion. Terriss and Tyars, braving the weather without overcoats, as Englishmen delight to do, soon discovered that, after all, the winter was still with us. As the cry “All aboard,” followed by the clanging of the engine-bell, set the train in motion, we entered once more upon severely wintry scenes of ice and snow.

Within a very short time we found ourselves in the midst of snow-drifts, out of which preceding trains had had to cut their way. Gangs of men were clearing the track, flinging up the snow on both sides of the road in solid shovelfuls. The white _débris_ was piled up six and eight feet high, where the snow had settled down in great drifts upon the line. “One train was stuck here five hours yesterday,” said the guard. “It is the heaviest snow in my experience.”

Moving onwards once more, we travelled through a world of snow: through prairie-lands, where the wind came tearing after us, waited upon by scudding clouds of snow, that rose like spray, to fall in its wake as if the prairie were a snow-sea; past forests of oak, with the brown leaves clinging to the tough branches, that moved with a sturdy kind of protest against the boisterous wind; across great rivers, that were closed to navigation. Now and then skating-parties flitted by us in sheltered bends of the great silent water-ways, and at intervals the sun would burst out upon the white world and fill it with icy diamonds.

We met a train with five engines. It came plunging along,—a veritable procession of locomotives. The foremost of them were mighty ploughs, to charge the growing snow-drifts we had left behind us. By and by the sun went down, and when our lamps were lighted, and it was night, as we thought, we looked out to see one of the magnificent sunsets which had been puzzling for many weeks the wise men of both worlds,—a wide red glare in the sky, stretching away as far as the eye could see, with a white foreground, the line of the horizon dotted with the dark configuration of farm buildings and forest trees.

At three o’clock in the morning we arrived at St. Louis, and on the next day I walked across the ice-locked Mississippi. In a street adjacent to the wharves, where steamers and boats of all kinds were frozen up, were the remains of an old hotel, that had been burnt out a short time previously. The thermometer stood at twenty degrees below zero. A first glance at the place, from a short distance, showed a house with what looked like packs of wool thrust out at the windows, and great bundles and entanglements of wool hanging down to the ground from eaves and window-sills. On examination these strange appearances turned out to be excrescences of ice,—part of the water that had been poured upon the flames by the fire-brigades, whose engines had literally been frozen up in the street. Inside the devastated buildings the ruins were hung with icicles many feet in length, with others rising to meet them, mimicking the stalactites and stalagmites of the Cheddar caverns, in England, not to mention the more famous caves of Kentucky.

A picturesque city, St. Louis, smoky and not overclean, but seated grandly upon the broad river which local enterprise has spanned with a roadway that is worthy of the engineering skill of the people whose locomotives climb the Rocky Mountains, and whose bridges are the admiration of the world. One of the picturesque memories of the tour, that will reappear at odd times in “the magic lantern of the mental vision,” will be the procession of carts and wagons drawn by teams of mules, driven by colored drivers, that is continually passing over the bridge, across the Mississippi, at St. Louis. The English government have obtained a great many mules from this part of the United States. There could be no finer breed of this useful animal than the examples one saw at St. Louis. The drivers, almost to a man, appeared to be wearing old army cloaks. The greyish-blue of the cloth and the red linings, toned down to rare “symphonies” of worn color, were in perfect harmony with the atmospheric and material surroundings. Smoke hanging like a pall over the city; a wintry mist creeping along the icy river; the approaches to the bridge lost in the local haze of smoke and snowy clouds; the great mercantile procession of mules, and carelessly laden wagons, bursting with cotton, corn, and hides, made a fine busy foreground to a very novel scene.

St. Louis accepted the plays, the acting, the scenery, and the stage management of the Lyceum with much of the earnest admiration that had characterized the Chicago audiences. The “Republican,” the “Globe-Democrat,” the “Post-Dispatch,” and the “Chronicle” had lengthy and appreciative notices of “The Lyons Mail,” “The Bells,” and “The Merchant of Venice.” The spirit of the criticism is crystallized in the following remarks, which appeared as an editorial in the “Post-Dispatch” of Jan. 22:—

To the delighted audience which hung with rapt attention last night on each word and look, each tone and motion, of Henry Irving, there was only one element of disappointment. This was that they had not been prepared at all for any such magnificent revelation of dramatic genius.... As far as the people of St. Louis are concerned we have only to say that those who miss seeing him will sustain a loss that can never be made good.

II.

AMONG the social events of the visit to St. Louis was a reception given in the lodge and club rooms of the “Elks.”[42] The event was regarded as of so much interest and importance, and the Elks is so excellent an institution, and the affair so different to anything associated with the theatre in England, that it merits special attention. The local reporter will not, I am sure, feel annoyed if I call in his aid to make the record complete:—

The lodge and club rooms, the hall-ways and the corridors, were decorated for the occasion. The lodge-room, where the formal introductions took place, was festooned with flags and evergreens. The yellow light of the chandeliers was in striking contrast with the white rays of two Edison lamps, that were artistically hung at each end of the hall. Two handsome crayon portraits of Irving and Miss Terry were displayed above the platform at the east end of the room. Directly above them was the coat-of-arms of England, draped with the English flag and the Union Jack, while below and immediately over the lounge was a bank of white immortelles, framed in flowers and evergreens, and bearing in the centre the words, “Our Guests,” worked in purple flowers. The platforms at either end of the hall were decorated with rare plants and exotics, interspersed with evergreens.

In one corner of the main room supper was spread upon a table, the decorations of which were very dainty flowers interspersed with culinary trophies. About half-past nine o’clock the guests began to arrive and disperse themselves here and there about the rooms. An orchestra, under the direction of Professor Maddern, furnished the music for promenading; and an agreeable little concert of instrumental and vocal music led up to the entrance of the guests of the evening. “About eleven,” says the local chronicler, “they arrived, and were escorted to the lodge-room, where all the other guests had assembled to receive them. Mr. Irving entered, escorting Mrs. John W. Norton, while Miss Terry was escorted by Mr. John A. Dillon. As they strolled here and there about the hall they were introduced to those present. Mr. Irving’s countenance, when in repose, was rather inclined to be sombre and solemn, but immediately assumed a pleasant expression when he was introduced to the ladies and gentlemen who had assembled to do him honor.” Mr. and Mrs. Howe, Mr. Wenman, and several other members of Irving’s company, were present, and as one strolled through the rooms there was something very homelike in these familiar faces intermingled with the crowd. Says the local chronicler:—

Miss Terry was the soul of life and animation. When she was not chatting gayly with some lady or gentleman, who had just been presented, she walked about with her escort, and commented in a bright and interesting way on the decorations, pictures, etc., that adorned the walls. She was becomingly dressed in white silk, trimmed with Spanish lace, flowing brocade train of white and crushed strawberry. Her only jewelry were gold bracelets and a pearl necklace. On her bosom she wore a bunch of natural flowers.

After a half an hour or so spent in conversation and promenading the guests repaired to the club-room and partook of supper. Here the greatest sociability prevailed. Mr. Irving walked here and there, and conversed pleasantly and informally with all the people he met; while Miss Terry, seated in a large chair, was surrounded by a gay throng of young folk, and appeared the youngest and gayest of them all. A number of beautiful roses were taken from the table and presented to her by ardent admirers, for all of whom she had a pleasant word, and some little coquettish reply for their gallantry. About twelve o’clock they left the rooms, and the guests slowly dispersed.

Upwards of five hundred hosts and guests were present. Among those present[43] were Mr. and Mrs. Wm. H. Thomson, Mr. and Mrs. Albert Todd, Mr. and Mrs. Gus. Ewing, Mr. and Mrs. C. M. Whitney, Mr. and Mrs. J. W. Norton, Mr. and Mrs. Jos. F. Foy, Mr. and Mrs. A. S. Aloe, Mr. and Mrs. Wm. Walsh, Judge McKeighan and wife, Mr. and Mrs. Geo. H. Small, Mr. and Mrs. A. D. Cooper, Mr. and Mrs. E. B. Leigh, Mr. and Mrs. H. Clay Pierce, Miss Alice B. Hart, Mr. and Mrs. R. B. Dakin, Mr. and Mrs. T. W. Wood, Mrs. R. E. Collins, Mrs. C. H. Tyler, Mrs. Bradford Allen, Judge W. C. Jones and wife, Mrs. and Mrs. A. A. Mermod, Mrs. Garlick, of Galveston, Rev. John Snyder, Rev. Father Betts, Mr. and Mrs. Home, Mr. and Mrs. E. R. Norris, Rev. Dr. Sonneschein, Mr. and Mrs. G. Lamar Collins, Mr. and Mrs. H. Clay Sexton, Miss Georgiana MacKenzie, Miss Florence Bevis, Miss Lizzie Bautz, Miss Julia Dean, Miss Kimball, Miss Bogy, Miss Lizzie Reed, Miss Adele Picot, Miss Waples, of Alton, Miss Francis, Miss Roland, of Danville, Ky., Miss Pallen, Miss Olive Harding, Miss Agnes Farrar, Miss Wagstaff, of Kansas City, Miss Ione Aglar, Mr. and Mrs. Blachly, Mr. and Mrs. D. B. Taylor, Miss Bissell, Mr. and Mrs. F. W. Coulter, Miss Fairchild, Mrs. Cramer, Miss Ettie Isaacs, Mr. and Mrs. J. N. Norris, Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Schnaider, Mrs. and Mrs. J. W. Paramore, and Messrs. John A. Dillon, John M. Harney, Charles R. Pope, Dr. P. S. O’Reilly, D. R. Francis Fred Schmiding, John H. Overall, P. Short, B. H. Engelke, R. Maddern, A. F. Shapleigh, Jr., A. C. Bernays, J. J. Kerns, R. W. Humes, H. A. Diamant, W. C. Steigers, John G. Chandler, R. D. Delano, C. M. Napton, W. C. Jones, L. A. Clark, C. D. Colman, L. D. Picot, H. L. Haydel, I. R. Adams, F. A. Beusberg, C. R. Chambers, W. C. Coppleston, John P. Ellis, E. P. Andrews, Louis H. Jones, James H. Palser, Geo. R. Kirgin, Gideon Bantz, John McHenry, Chas. E. Ware, N. M. Ludlow, A. G. Thompson, Col. John M. Bacon, J. L. Isaacs, T. J. Bartholow, Philip Brockman, R. Harbison, A. L. Berry, David Davison, F. W. Humphrey, Chas. F. Joy, E. V. Walsh, G. W. Blachly, John J. Meeker, Atwood Vane, David Prince, A. C. Stocking, H. D. Wilson, C. P. Mason, Henry Ames, H. J. McKellops, J. N. Norris, M. J. Steinberg, C. H. Buck, Jr., D. B. Dakin, Gaston Meslier, E. W. Lansing, Estill McHenry, Dr. T. E. Holland, R. W. Goisan, W. H. Horner, R. J. Delano, Ernest Albert, John J. Pierson, E. B. Leigh, D. H. Stelgers, John A. Scholten, Mr. Sands and ladies, A. C. Bernays and lady, C. D. Johnson, Louis McCall, Arthur H. Merrill, R. W. Shapleigh, D. R. Francis, Charles Wezler, James Hopkins, F. L. Ridgely, J. B. Greensfelder, Meyer Goldsmith, Henry W. Moore.

A newspaper correspondent telegraphed to a Chicago journal the startling information that Irving was dissatisfied with this entertainment, and left early. This was probably the reporter’s sly way of complimenting Chicago. The rivalry between these two cities is often humorously illustrated in the press. St. Louis is the elder and most historical city of the two: but Chicago is the most prosperous, and has, no doubt, the greatest future. St. Louis, nevertheless, claims to have a population of nearly 500,000; it boasts double the park area of New York, and stands “second only to Philadelphia in point of territory devoted to public recreation.”

III.

TWO weeks were spent between St. Louis, Cincinnati, Indianapolis, and Columbus. The New York _repertoire_ was played with excellent results in every way.

“Indianapolis and Columbus,” said Irving, “are evidently behind St. Louis and Cincinnati in their appreciation of the arts; though I have no reason to complain, nor has Miss Terry. They came to the theatre in large numbers, were most excellent audiences, cordial in their reception of us, and flattering in their applause; but in walking through their streets one could not help seeing that there was a good deal too much of the ‘Dime-Museum’ business in these places for art generally to flourish liberally at present. ‘The Fat Lady,’ ‘The Two-headed Pig,’ ‘The Tattooed Man,’ and ‘The Wild Men of the Woods,’ appear to have a great hold on Indianapolis and Columbus. Indeed, they make a fight for it against the theatres, even in St. Louis and Cincinnati. You remember the great wide street, in Birmingham, called the Bull ring? Well, the show-streets of these cities remind me of a concentrated Bull ring in Birmingham, where ‘Living Wonders,’ ‘The Wizard of the North,’ and ‘The Fortune-Telling Pony,’ are always, more or less, challenging public attention. I believe Ball, the leader of our orchestra, had some special trouble at Indianapolis. The violoncello, for example, had only two strings. Ball, on the second night, chaffingly said, ‘I suppose you will consider two strings sufficient for to-night?’—‘No,’ was the reply; ‘I stick to three, on principle.’”

“Did you hear about the manager who gave the extra musicians in his orchestra something less than usual,” I asked, “because, as he said, they would see you for nothing, and that should be considered when every seat was taken? At night they complained; they said, ‘You have swindled us; we have not seen Irving act at all; we have only seen him at rehearsal. We have been playing under the stage, at the back of it, behind flats, or smothered up at the wings, where we could see nothing, and you have got to give us our full pay.’”

It is quite new in American theatres for the orchestra to be put into such frequent requisition behind the scenes, as is the case in Irving’s representations. The special engagement of a tenor (Mr. J. Robertson) to sing the ballad in “Much Ado” is an unheard-of extravagance. Mr. Robertson also gave very valuable assistance in the quartettes and choruses introduced with fine effect in “The Merchant,” “The Bells,” and other plays; which reminds me that among the saddening incidents of the tour were the sudden recall to England of Mr. Johnson, the low comedian, to the sick-bed of his wife; and the withdrawal of Mr. Norman Forbes from the cast of “The Merchant,” through illness. We left Forbes at one of the cities, with a serious attack of rheumatic fever. The “under-studies” had to be employed, necessitating many new rehearsals. Mr. Howe, at a moment’s notice, undertook the part of Dogberry, and played it admirably; while Mr. Carter took the part of Richard in “Louis XI.,” and Mr. Harbury gave extra and efficient service in the graveyard scene in “Hamlet.” Mr. Andrews was cast for the part of Lancelot in “The Merchant,” replacing Mr. Johnson, and Mr. Lyndal played Claudio in “Much Ado” in such a way as to entitle him to the compliments of Irving, which were generously and ungrudgingly given.

“Cincinnati,” said Irving, “has great aims in the direction of art. It has a grand public hall, endowed by a local philanthropist, in which it gives musical, operatic, and dramatic festivals. This year the opera occupies its enormous stage. The Festival Committee gave me a dinner at the Queen City Club. It was a most interesting reunion.[44] The city is very picturesque, I should say, if one could only have seen it; but it was choked with snow, and in a continual mist or fog. The ice in the river broke up before we left,—a wonderful sight it was: a great rising flood, filled with ice and snow,—along the wharves silent ships, and steamers,—surprising to look down upon from the hills. As the city has grown the people have had to build on the heights, and the street-cars are hauled up on elevators—you drive your carriage upon these platforms and are raised to the roads above,—it is something like going up in a balloon. A mist hung over the river, the water was rising rapidly, and people were expressing fears that the place would be flooded, as it had been a year or two previously.[45] There is a German quarter. It is called ‘Germany,’ and has all the characteristics of the Fatherland in its beer-gardens, concert-rooms, theatres, and general mode of life. Next to the native Americans the Germans are the most influential people. They have several newspapers printed in their own language, and in the regular German type.[46] The sudden rises of the Ohio appear to be the chief drawback. They are very philosophical about it, and try to console themselves on the ground that, if they suffer from water, they have not been burned out, as some other cities have. Cincinnati has a noble ambition: it aims at becoming a great centre of culture, more particularly in art and science. It is making a magnificent start in its Schools of Design, its art leagues, its University, and the Museum which is being built in Eden Park. I was struck with an incident related to me by a friend of yours. One of the newspaper offices was burned down. The fire took place while the paper was at press. Seeing that it was impossible to save the machinery they put on the highest speed and worked off the sheets until the place was too hot to hold them; and the men stepped out with the printed sheets almost as the ceiling fell in upon the machinery. By the aid of a neighbor, and the presses of a rival who had failed, they came out the next day with a full report of the calamity, in which, I believe, some lives were lost. An example of American enterprise that, eh?

“At Columbus I went to the State House,[47] while the General Assembly and Senate were sitting. If one were a politician, I can imagine nothing more interesting than to study the details of the American system of government, the question of State rights, and other features of the general administration. Each State seems very distinct and independent of the other. For instance, some States and cities have special laws of their own, and many complications which seem inexplicable would be more easily explained if this were more understood. It is not the government of the United States which can control all matters; it is the State which sometimes plays the principal part. I did not quite understand that until recently. For instance, in New York city or State there is a law giving certain privileges to ticket-speculators; while at Philadelphia, and at Boston, I believe, there is a law against speculators selling tickets on the sidewalks. Talking upon this subject to a lawyer in Baltimore, he told me that baggage-smashing on the railroads had reached such a pitch that a State law had been passed in Maryland making it a misdemeanor. English, and indeed European, travellers generally, who have had no experience of America, can have no conception of the way in which baggage is treated; it seems to me as if the intention often is really to stave in trunks and boxes. The credulous Britisher, who should put on his trunk, ‘This side up, with care,’ would have a fit if he saw the porter throw it down with a crash on the other side, and then pile a ton or two of the heaviest kind of merchandise upon it. When you think of the respect with which a traveller’s trunks are treated on European railways, it is startling to encounter a general sort of conspiracy here to break them up, and in a country which has invented the best system of ‘expressing’ and delivering baggage known to modern travel,—to me this is incomprehensible.

“From Columbus we went back to Chicago, the first of our return visits. I felt quite at home again at the Grand Pacific Hotel,—one of the finest and most comfortable houses of the entire tour. The colored attendant, Walter, who is told off for my service, is the most intelligent and courteous fellow I have ever met in the position he holds. Singularly handsome, too, is he not? Indeed one is struck with the physical beauty of some of these half-breeds, mulattoes, Creoles—wonderful fellows! I remember that Sala describes the Grand Pacific as ‘Wonder Number One’ among the marvels of Chicago, and the newspaper press as ‘Wonder Number Two.’ I should put the press first,—did you ever see such papers as the Sunday journals? Sixteen to twenty and twenty-four pages,—why, it’s marvellous how they get the matter for them together! One of the St. Louis papers I noticed was also a very large one. What a deftness of allusion and adaptation of events to personal criticism there is in these western journals! The Standard oil affair,—I don’t know the merits of it; but charges of unfairness in connection with the enterprise are before the public. Somebody has sent me this paragraph about it, from the ‘Columbus Times’:—

“The members of the General Assembly who looked upon the Standard oil, when it flowed with unction in the recent senatorial struggle, might get a few points on the effects of the remorse of conscience by seeing Henry Irving in ‘The Bells.’

“Flattering, eh?”

XVIII.

CHIEFLY CONCERNING A HOLIDAY AT NIAGARA.

The Return Visit to Chicago—Welcomed Back again—Farewell Speech—Niagara in the Winter—A Sensation at the Hotel—Requisitioning adjacent Towns for Chickens and Turkeys—Ira Aldridge and a Colored Dramatic Club—A Blizzard from the North-west—The Scene of Webb’s Death—“A great Stage-manager, Nature”—Life and Death of “The Hermit of Niagara”—A Fatal Picnic—The Lyceum Company at Dinner—Mr. Howe proposes a Toast—Terriss meets with an Accident that recalls a Romantic Tragedy.

I.

“THE fact of Mr. Irving and Miss Terry and their company attracting an audience to fill Haverly’s Theatre on so speedy a return after leaving us, and that, too, following a rugged strain of grand opera,” said the “Chicago Inter-Ocean,” of February 12, “may be accepted as conclusive evidence of genuine appreciation and admiration of their worth. This testimony is much strengthened by the fact that the plays presented were those most frequently seen during the original engagements,—‘The Bells,’ and ‘The Belle’s Stratagem,’—for, though it is thought Mr. Irving is seen to exceptional advantage as Mathias, mere curiosity would have held off to see him in a new character. It was a generous and highly gratifying welcome back; and it is certainly a great pleasure, as well as an artistic privilege worthy to be acknowledged, that we have Mr. Irving and his superb surroundings again before us. We are in no danger of seeing too much of this sort of work.”

“Hamlet” and “Much Ado” were produced for the first time at Chicago during this second season. Both excited genuine interest, and were received with as much favor by audiences and critics as his previous work. Only two weeks had intervened between his first and second visit. More money was paid at the doors of Haverly’s during the week than had gone into the treasury for a week of grand opera. The programme for the last night was “Much Ado,” and the recitation of Hood’s “Eugene Aram.” After enthusiastic calls for Irving and Miss Terry, at the close of the comedy, there were cries of “Speech! Speech!” Irving, in evening dress for the recitation, presently responded to the wishes of his audience. He said he would be made of sterner stuff—and he was glad that such was not the case—if he failed to feel profoundly the welcome that had been accorded him in Chicago. Not one shadow had fallen across the brightness of that welcome; there was not a jarring note in the generous applause that had greeted the company’s efforts. The encouragement had been most grateful, and it had urged himself and his associates to do their best work. He thanked the press of the city for overlooking shortcomings, and for recognizing so generously what they found to be good. The notices had been most eloquent and sympathetic. He wished to thank the audience on behalf of his associates, and particularly on behalf of Miss Ellen Terry, whose great gifts had been so quickly recognized. If he might be permitted to say so in public, he himself heartily joined in their appreciation of Miss Terry’s work. Parting was “a sweet sorrow,” and the sweet part of his leave-taking was in expressing his deep sense of Chicago’s great welcome. Again he would say good-by to every one; but he hoped circumstances would make it possible to meet a Chicago audience in the future, and he trusted that “you will remember us as we will surely remember you.”

“The speaker,” says the “Tribune,” “was frequently interrupted by applause, his reference to Miss Terry especially awakening enthusiasm. He then recited ‘Eugene Aram’s Dream’ with fine effect, and after inducing him to respond to a fifth and last recall the audience dispersed.”

II.

ON the following Monday and Tuesday the company appeared for two nights at Detroit,[48] the chief city of Michigan, to large and most friendly audiences. I was in New York at this time, and had arranged to meet Irving, Miss Terry, and a few friends, at Niagara, on Wednesday. “If Abbey is agreeable, I shall give the company a holiday, so that they can go to Niagara,[49] spend the day, and sleep in Toronto at night. It will do us all good.” Abbey was agreeable, and Wednesday, February 20, was one of the most memorable days of the tour.

I travelled from New York by the West Shore road, an admirably equipped railway (and having at Syracuse the most picturesque and one of the finest stations in America), to meet my friends at the Falls. At two o’clock, on Tuesday, I arrived on the Canadian side of the river. The country was covered with snow, but a thaw had set in during the morning. Driving from the railway station the scene was wild, weird, and impressive. The steep banks of the Niagara river were seamed and furrowed with ice and snow. The American side of the ravine was ploughed by the weather into ridges. One might say the river banks were corrugated, cracked, grooved into strange lines, every channel ribbed with ice. Here and there tiny falls, that had mimicked the colossal ones beyond, were frozen into columns. Others had been converted into pillars that seemed to be supporting white, ghost-like figures. Further on there was a cluster of fountains gushing out of the rocks beneath a number of mills, the wheels of which they had turned on their way to the river. These waters leaped down some fifty or sixty feet into great ice-bowls. You would think they had found an outlet other than the river but for its discoloration at the base of the great natural urns, or bowls, into which they fell. There were ponderous heaps of ice at the bed of the American falls. A section of them was literally frozen into a curious mass of icicles. The ice was not bright, but had a dull, woolly appearance. Coming upon the two great falls at a slight bend of the river you see them both at once. On this day they were almost enveloped in spray. Our horses splashed through thawing snow, and picked their way over a road broken up with scoriated ice and flooded with water. A strong, but not a cold, wind blew in our faces, and covered us with spray. The water was pouring down the abyss in greater masses it seemed to me than usual; and this was my third visit to Niagara. I had seen the falls in summer and autumn. Their winter aspect had not the fascinating charm of the softer periods of the year, when the banks are green, and the leaves are rustling on the trees of the islands. The Clifton House was closed. The balconies, upon which merry parties are sitting and chatting in summer evenings, were empty. Even the Prospect House looked chilly. The flood fell into its awful gulf with a dull, thudding boom, and the rapids above were white and angry.

I wondered what Irving would think of the scene. Some people profess that they are disappointed with the first sight of Niagara. There are also people who look upon the ocean without surprise; and some who see the curtain go up on a great play, or a grand opera, for the first time in their lives, without experiencing one throb of the sensation which Bulwer, in one of his novels, describes with pathetic eloquence. The Rev. Dr. Thomas, a popular preacher in the Prairie city, went to his first play while Irving was at Chicago, and was greatly impressed; although he half confessed that, on the whole, he liked a good lecture quite as well. A colored man and his wife, at Philadelphia, told me they had always considered the play wicked, and would never have thought to go to a theatre had not one of their clergymen done so. “But,” said the husband, “I see noffin’ wicked nor wrong, and it did my heart good to see all dem white folk bowing to de colored gentleman and making much of him.” It was the casket scene in “The Merchant” that had most delighted these people.

Almost the first thing I did on arriving at Niagara was to send Irving a telegram, asking if he had settled where to stay, advising him that for a brief visit the Prospect House was most conveniently placed for seeing the falls. My response was a request for rooms. This was followed by an inquiry if the house could provide a dinner for seventy; and from that moment I found myself actively engaged, not in reviving my former recollections of Niagara, but in preparing to receive the Irving Company. The landlord of the Prospect House is a land-owner in Manitoba. He was looking after his interests in those distant regions. The landlady, a bright, clever woman of business, however, undertook to “run the dinner.”

“The house is partially closed, as you know,” she said, “and it is small. We have only a few servants during the winter, and it is difficult to get provisions at short notice. But we have the Western Union telegraph in the house, and a telephone. We will do our best.”

The intelligent colored waiter found it impossible to seat seventy persons in the dining-room.

“They must dine at twice,” he said; “that’s the only chance; no help for it.”

It was night before the order for dinner was really closed and settled, many telegrams passing between Detroit and Niagara; and, as I found to my consternation, between Niagara and many adjacent towns.

“Not a turkey nor a chicken to be got for love or money,” said the landlady. “I have telegraphed and telephoned the whole neighborhood,—just going to try Buffalo, as a last resort. You see the hotels here are closed, and it is very quiet in the winter.”

“As good a dinner as can be provided,” was one of Stoker’s latest telegrams, “and it must be ready at half-past three to the minute.”

The excitement at the Prospect House was tremendous. The falls were quite discounted. They were of no moment for the time being, compared with the question of turkeys and the seating of the coming guests.

“You have beef, mutton, ham, you say?”

“Yes, and we can make some excellent soup,—a nice lot of fish has come in from Toronto, lake fish,—but turkeys, no; chickens, no; though I have telegraphed everywhere and offered any price for them. Ah, if we had only known two days ago!” said the landlady.

“Never mind, let it be a plain English dinner, horseradish sauce with the beef,—can you manage that?”

“Yes! Oh, yes!”

“And boiled legs of mutton, eh?”

“Yes, with caper-sauce.”

“Capital. And what do you say to plum-pudding?”

“I fear there will not be time to stone the raisins; but I’ll telephone into the town at once and see.”

While she was gone I surveyed the dining-room once more. “If you moved the stove, and placed forms against the walls, instead of chairs, how would that be?” I asked.

It was a great problem, this. My colored ally and his two assistants set to measuring with a foot-rule. They had their woolly heads together when I looked in upon them an hour later.

“Yes, I believe it can be done,” said the chief waiter; and before midnight the tables were arranged, the stove cleared out, and the room almost ready for the feasters. As he was leaving for the night he said, “The people of my race honor Mr. Irving. He knew our great actor, Ira Aldridge. There was a letter from Mr. Irving about him, and a Dramatic Club started by our folk in the New York papers. Rely on me, sir, to have this dinner a success.”[50]

III.

WEDNESDAY morning was ushered in with a blizzard from the north-west. The roads that had been slushy the day before were hard as adamant. There was ice in the wind. The air was keen as a knife. A traveller who had come in from Manitoba said that during the night it was “as much as your life was worth to pass from one car to another.” Towards noon the weather moderated. The sun came out, the wind changed, the spray from the falls fell into the river. A rainbow stretched its luminous arch over the American falls.

“I have often thought,” I said to Irving, “during this tour, how surprised any English traveller who knew London well would be, if he encountered the Lyceum Company by accident at some wayside American depot, not knowing of this visit to the States.”

“Yes,” he said, “do you remember the people at Amsterdam, in Holland, who followed us in amazement to the hotel there, one of them, a German, making a bet about us, the others ridiculing the idea that I could be out of London, when he had seen me acting there a few days before?”

We were on our way to the falls, driving in a close carriage, Irving, Miss Terry, and myself, and I think we talked on general topics a little, while they were trying to take in the approaches to the great scene of all.

“Toole and his dear boy, Frank, lost their way, one night, about here,” said Irving. “I remember his telling me of it—couldn’t get a carriage—were belated, I remember. There was no fence to the river then, I expect,—a dangerous place to lose your way in. How weird it looks!”

“Oh, there are the falls!” Miss Terry exclaimed, looking through the glass window in front of us. “Surely! Yes, indeed! There they are! How wonderful!”

I had told the driver to pull up at the bend of the river, where we should get the first view of them. Irving turned to look.

“Drive on,” I said, and in a few minutes we pulled up in full view of both falls.

“Very marvellous!” said Irving. “Do you see those gulls sailing through the spray? How regularly the water comes over! It hardly looks like water,—there seems to be no variety in its grand, solid-like roll; and, do you notice, in parts it curls like long, broken ringlets, curls and ripples, but is always the same? What a power it suggests! Of course, the color will vary in the light. It is blue and green in the summer, I suppose; now it is yellowish here and there, and grey. There have been great floods above,—yonder are the rapids above the falls, I suppose? How wonderfully the waters come leaping along,—like an angry sea!”

He stood for some time watching the scene, and noting everything that struck him. Miss Terry joined some members of the company, and went driving. Later a party of us went to the rapids and the whirlpool, where Webb was drowned. Irving discussed the fatal feat, for a long time, with one of the men who saw the swimmer take his courageous header and go bounding through the rapids.

“It was there where he disappeared,” said the man, pointing to a spot where the waters appeared to leap as if clearing an obstruction; “he dived, intending to go through that wave, and never was seen again alive. It is believed his head struck a sunken rock there, which stunned him.”

Irving stood for a long time looking at this part of the river, discussing the various theories as to its depth. “A bold fellow!” he exclaimed, as he left the place; “he deserved to get through it. Imagine the coolness, the daring of it! He takes a quiet dinner, it seems, at his hotel, rests a little, then hires a boat, rows to the place where the rapids fairly begin, strips and dives into this awful torrent,—a great soul, sir, any man who has the nerve for such an enterprise!”

We walked back to the falls, and on our return observed a great change in the color of the scene.

“Quite a transformation in its way, is it not?” said Irving; “let us take in the picture, as a painter might. The horizon, you see, is a bluish-purple; the Canadian falls have a grayish-blue tint, except where the positive golden yellow of the water comes in; then, as it plunges below, the foam is of a creamy whiteness; the mist and spray rise up a warmish-gray in the half-shaded sunlight; the snowy rocks are white against it. The sun is about to set, I suppose, and these are some of its premonitory colors. The river, you see, is now a deep blue,—it was muddy-looking this morning,—and the trees on the banks are a warm greyish-brown. Beyond the American falls, above there, where it is like a lake, the white houses are whiter still, the red ones redder, and the country looks as if it had quite changed its atmosphere. A great stage-manager, Nature! What wonders can be done with effective lighting!”

Then, turning away to go into the house, he said, “Do you remember the lighting of the garden scene in ‘Romeo and Juliet,’—the change from sunset to night, from sunset to moonlight, from moonlight to morning, and the motion of the sunlit trees, as if a zephyr had touched them?”

“I do, indeed!”

“Well, let us talk of something else. Niagara must offer to artist or poet a continual study. Did you notice how the fir-trees on the little island close to the Canadian falls are twisted and warped, as if they had tried to turn away from the tempest, and had been beaten down with the wind and snow? You were telling me one day about a scholarly hermit, who had spent his life at a lonely place on the Hudson. That is also a curious story,—the life and death of Francis Abbott, ‘the hermit of Niagara,’ as they call him in one of the old guide-books. He first appeared here, it seems, on a summer day in 1839,—a young man, tall, well-built, but pale and haggard. He carried a bundle of blankets, a portfolio, a book, and a flute; went to a little out-of-the-way inn and took a room; visited the local library; played his flute, and rambled about the country; got permission to live in a deserted log-house near the head of Goat Island; lived there in a strange seclusion during two winters, then built himself a cabin at Point View, near the American falls, and did not appear to shun his fellow-man so much as formerly. A local judge became quite friendly with him; they would meet and have long talks. Sometimes, too, he would enter into conversation with the villagers, and others whom he encountered on his rambles. He talked well, they say; spoke of Asia and Greece with familiarity, and liked to discuss theological questions. His religious views were akin to quakerism. He was a fine figure, had a sorrowful face, and was attended by a dog, which trotted at his heels always. During the summer he lived in his cabin at Point View; he went down the ferry-steps and bathed in the river, and, on June 10, 1841, he lost his life there,—after two years of this strange solitude. The body had been in the water ten days before it was found at the outlet of the river. The villagers brought it back and buried it. They went to his cabin. His dog guarded the door, a cat lay asleep on his rough sofa, books and music scattered about. There was no writing to be found, though the local judge said he wrote a great deal, chiefly in Latin, and, as a rule, burned his work, whatever it was. In later days friends and relatives of the poor young fellow came to Niagara, and identified him as the son of a Quaker gentleman of Plymouth. Rather a sad story, eh?”

“Yes, very, and there are others, less romantic, but more tragic, in connection with the falls.”

“None more sad, after all, than the death of poor Webb. It is true, he deliberately risked his life. I have seen it stated that the rapids where he dived are by some persons estimated as only twenty or thirty feet deep. Of course nothing can be more absurd. The channel is only three hundred feet wide, and through this gorge rush the waters of five great lakes. Calculating the volume of water, and the velocity of it, the scientists who estimate the depth at two hundred and fifty feet are nearer the mark. The most surprising thing to me about Niagara is the fact—it must be a fact—that this mighty torrent, after falling into the river, ploughs its way along the bottom,—the surface being comparatively calm,—drives along for two miles, and then leaps up from its imprisonment, as it were, into the general view, a wild, fierce torrent, with, further down, that awful whirlpool. Webb knew the force of it all; he had surveyed it,—the cruellest stretch of waters in the world, I suppose,—and yet he took that header, and went along with it hand-over-hand, as the man told us, and with an easy confidence that was heroic,—one would have thought the water would have beaten the life out of him before he had time to rise and fight it!”

“Not long since,” I said, “there was a picnic party on Goat Island. A young fellow, I think the father of the child itself, picked up a little girl, and in fun held it over the rapids above the falls. The child struggled and fell; he leaped in after it, caught it, struggled gallantly in presence of the child’s mother and the distracted friends, but went over the falls. I read the incident in a newspaper chronicle, and have it put away at home with many other notes about the falls, which I hoped to use in this book. Our critics will, of course, recognize the difficulties attending the preparation of these Impressions. We have worked at them in odd places, and at curious times. One wonders how they will come out.”

“Oh, all right, I am sure!” Irving replied: “they are quite unpretentious, and it is delightful to note how they grow up and assume shape and form. I think it was a happy idea.”

IV.

BUT nobody will ever know, except those who took part in the work, how much ingenuity, patience, and enterprise were expended on that dinner. It was ready to the minute. The guests all sat down together. There were turkeys and there were chickens, too. Horsemen had ridden hard half the night to bring them in. There were plum-puddings, also. Lovely maidens at Buffalo and Niagara, had been pressed into the service of stoning them. When Stoker, at midnight, in order to smooth the way, had telegraphed that “rare flowers and hot-house fruits can be dispensed with” (he was thinking of New York, Boston, Chicago, and Philadelphia), the landlady had looked at me in dismay. “There isn’t a flower in the whole neighborhood! I’m afraid they are expecting too much,” she said. “Not at all; it is only Mr. Stoker’s little joke,” I replied, fearing that at the last moment the entire business might fall through. As the reader already understands, it did not fall through; but, on the contrary, was a great and surprising success; for, when Mr. Howe got up to propose the health of the founder of the feast, he said, “This has been the first English dinner we have had since we left home, and, what is more, we have eaten it off English plates,—not those little dishes and saucers they give us everywhere in America. Not, ladies and gentlemen, that I have a word to say against the American food,—not I,—because it is good and abundant; but I do like large plates, and I love to see the joints on the table and carved before our eyes.” Everybody laughed at this and applauded; but the cheering increased, and was followed by “three times three” and the chorus, “He’s a jolly good fellow!” when Mr. Howe thanked their “host and chief, Mr. Irving, for his hospitality and kindness that day, and for his energy and courage in bringing them all from the old country on a tour in the New World.”

It was nearly six when we left Niagara for the railway station, in every kind of vehicle, omnibus, buggy, brougham, and carriage. Mr. McHenry and a party of ladies and gentlemen came to see us off. The members of the company were loud in their expressions of wonder at the falls. “So strange,” said one, “to be sitting down to dinner in view of them.” “What a day to remember!” exclaimed another. Tyars, Andrews, Terriss, Arnot, and some others, had donned the water-proof dress, known to every visitor, and explored the regions below the falls. Terriss had a narrow escape. There were special dangers to be encountered, owing to the accumulations of ice; and, at the hands of a party of Englishmen, the dangers were of course duly attacked. Terriss slipped upon an icy descent, and saved himself from going headlong into the torrent by clutching a jagged rock, which severely lacerated his right hand. He played with his arm in a sling for several nights afterwards.

One of the saddest stories of the falls is the history of a calamity that occurred almost at this very spot, in the autumn of 1875. Miss Philpott, her two brothers, a sister-in-law, and Miss Philpott’s lover, Ethelbert Parsons, went through the Cave of the Winds, and climbed over the rocks towards the American falls. They were residents of Niagara, and knew the ground. The sheltered eddies in the lighter currents under the falls are pleasant bathing-places. The Philpott party took advantage of them. Miss Philpott was venturesome. She bathed near one of the strongest currents. Mr. Parsons, seeing her in danger, went to her rescue. Seeking for a firm foothold for both of them, the girl slipped and fell. Parsons sprang for her, and both were carried into the current. He caught her around the waist. The young lady could swim, and Parsons was an expert; they struck out for the rocks on the other side of the current. The torrent carried them out. By and by Parsons swam on his back, the girl cleverly supporting herself with her hand upon his shoulder. Then she suddenly pushed him away from her,—the inference being that she discovered the impossibility of both being saved,—flung up her arms and sank. Parsons turned and dived after her. They were seen no more until some days afterwards, when the bodies were recovered at the whirlpool.

Terriss and his friends had more reason than they quite realized to congratulate themselves upon the fact that they were enabled to comply with the kindly and considerate programme of the holiday, which arranged that they should sleep that night in Toronto.

XIX.

FROM TORONTO TO BOSTON.

Lake Ontario—Canadian Pastimes—Tobogganing—On an Ice Slide—“Shooting Niagara, and After”—Toronto Students—Dressing for the Theatre—“God Save the Queen”—Incidents of Travel—Locomotive Vagaries—Stopping the Train—“Fined One Hundred Dollars”—The Hotels and the Poor—Tenement Houses—The Stage and the Pulpit—Actors, Past and Present—The Stage and the Bar-room—The Second Visit to Boston—Enormous Receipts—A Glance at the Financial Results of the Tour.

I.

THE blizzard was in full possession of Toronto, but the air was dry, the sky blue and sunny. There was a brief interval for a snow-storm. But it came in a bright, frosty fashion. The sidewalks were hard. Sleighs dashed along the leading thoroughfares. Lake Ontario was a vast plain, upon which disported skaters, walkers, riders, drivers, and that most fairy-like of “white-wings,” the ice-boat. Did you ever fly across the silvery ice on runners, with sails bending before the wind? It is an experience. You may spin along at sixty miles an hour, or more. If you are not wrapped to the eyes in fur you may also freeze to death. The sensation of wild, unchecked motion is intensely exhilarating; but, if you are a novice, want of care or lack of grip may send you flying into space, or scudding over the ice on your own account. A secure seat is only obtained by accommodating yourself all the time to the motion of your most frail, but elegant, arrangement of timbers and skating-irons.

The leading characteristic winter sport of Canada is Tobogganing. The word “toboggan” is Indian for “sled.” The French call it _Traine sauvage_. Two or three light boards deftly fastened together, a mattress laid upon them, a sort of hollow prow in front, into which a lady thrusts her feet,—that is a “toboggan.” It is like a toy canoe, or boat, with a flat bottom and no sides. The lady passenger sits in front; the gentleman behind. He trails his legs upon the ice-slide, and thus guides the machine. It is not necessary, of course, that there should be two passengers; nor, being two, that one of them should be a lady. The contrivance was invented by the North American Indians. They used it for the transportation of burdens. The squaws sometimes made it available for hauling along their children. The pioneer troops of Courcelles, Tracy, and Montcalm, made a kit carriage of it.

There is a famous Tobogganing Club at Toronto. It has a slide of half a mile in length, down the side of a hill in a picturesque suburban valley. The slide starts at an angle of about forty-five degrees; then it runs along a short flat; then it drops, as if going over a frozen Niagara, to shoot out along a great incline, that might be the frozen rapids. To stand at the summit and watch the gay toboggans slip away, and then disappear down the Niagara-like precipice, to shoot out as a bolt from a gun along the remainder of the pass, is to realize the possible terrors of a first trip.

Miss Terry watched the wild-looking business with amazement, and built up her courage on the experiences of the ladies who took the flying leap with delight. They were dressed in pretty flannel costumes, and their faces glowed with healthful excitement. But they were practised tobogganers. Some of them could not remember when they took their first slide. A sturdy officer of the club explained the simplicity of the sport to the famous actress, and offered to let her try half the slide, beginning at the section below Niagara.

“I ought to have made my will first; but you can give my diamond ring to your wife,” she exclaimed, waving her hand to me, as she drew her cloak about her shoulders and stepped into the frail-looking sled.

As she and her stalwart cavalier, in his Canadian flannels, flew safely along the slide, her young English friend and admirer followed. They had not been upon the wintry scene ten minutes, in fact, before both of them were to be seen skimming the mountain-slide at the speed of the Flying Dutchman of the Midland Railway, and at one point, much faster, I expect.

“Oh, it was awful—wonderful—magnificent!” Miss Terry exclaimed, when she had mounted the hill again, ready for a second flight. “I have never experienced anything so surprising,—it is like flying; for a moment you cannot breathe!”

And away she went again, followed at respectful distances, to avoid collision, by other excursionists, the slide fairly flashing with the bright flannels and gay head-dresses of the merry tobogganers.

“Yes,” she said, on her return, “it is a splendid pastime. The Canadians are quite right,—it beats skating, ice-boating, trotting, everything in the way of locomotion; what matters the cold, with such exercise as tobogganing?”[51]

“The Montreal Daily Star,” during this Toronto week, had a brief description of tobogganing, _apropos_ of the winter carnival that was being held in the neighboring city, during our too brief visit to Canada. A proper slide is constructed on “scientific principles, and blends a maximum of enjoyment with a minimum of danger.” “The Star” has a picture of the enjoyment and the danger. It depicts an enormous mountain slide by torchlight. Many sleds are coming down in fine, picturesque style. There are wayside incidents of spills, however, which suggest a good deal of possible discomfort. “Try your luck on one of these sleds,” says the descriptive text. “Take two or three girls with you. That is indispensable; and there is a shrewd suspicion that much of the popularity of tobogganing comes from its almost essential admission of ladies. Let them be well wrapped up. Take a firm seat on the cushions, never stir an inch, and all will be right. They may shut their eyes and utter their little shrieks; but, at their peril, they must not move. You occupy your station at the rear. The position is optional. The general mode is to lie on the left side, propped on one arm, with right leg extended; but some sit, others kneel, and on short, easy inclines some venture to stand. One invariable rule is to hold on to your girl; an occasional squeeze may be allowed; indeed, there are critical moments when it cannot be helped. All is ready; the signal is given, and the descent begins. At first it is gradual, and one might fancy that he could regulate it; but, like a flash, the grand propulsion is given; like an arrow’s, the speed is instantaneous and resistless. A film passes before your eyes; your breath is caught. One moment you feel yourself thrown into space; the next you hear the welcome crunch of the firm snow, and then comes the final tumble, topsy-turvy, higgledy-piggledy, in the fleecy bank at the foot. There is the crisis of the fun, and you must take particular care of the girls just then. The weary ascent next begins, to be followed by another vertiginous descent, and still another, till the whole afternoon, or the whole of the starry evening, is spent in this exquisite amusement.”

II.

THE short season at Toronto was very successful, in every way. A great body of students filled the gallery of the Opera House every night. Stalls, boxes, and dress-circle were crowded, the audience being in full evening dress. The house looked like a London theatre on a first night. Boston and Philadelphia were the only cities that had shown anything like an approach to uniformity in dressing for the theatre in America, though New York made a good deal of display in regard to bonnets, costumes, and diamonds. New York copies the French more than the English in the matter of dressing for the theatre, consulting convenience rather than style,—a very sensible plan.

On the Saturday night, after repeated calls and loud requests for a speech, Irving, in his “Louis XI.” robes, stepped down to the foot-lights, amidst thunders of applause.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, “I regret that I have to appear before you as somebody else, though I feel quite incompetent in my own person to respond to your kindness at all as I could wish, or in such a way as to make you understand how keenly I feel the compliment of your enthusiastic welcome. I thank you with all my heart for myself and comrades, and more especially for my co-worker, Miss Terry, for the right-royal Canadian, I will say British, welcome you have given us. I can only regret that the arrangements of this present tour do not enable me to extend my personal knowledge of Canada beyond Toronto.”

“Come again!” shouted a voice from the gallery, quite after the manner of the London gods; “come again, sir!”

“Thank you very much,” Irving replied, amidst shouts of laughter and applause. “I will accept your invitation.”

“Hurrah!” shouted the gallery; and the house generally applauded Mr. Irving’s prompt and gratifying repartee.

“I would have liked,” said Irving, pulling his “Louis XI.” robes around him, “to have travelled right through the Dominion, and have shaken hands with your neighbors of Montreal, Quebec, and Ottawa. That, however, is only a pleasure deferred. In the Indian language, I am told, Toronto means ‘The place of meeting.’ To you and me, ladies and gentlemen, brother and sister subjects of the English throne”—

A burst of applause compelled the speaker to pause for some seconds.

“To us, ladies and gentlemen, to you before the curtain, to us behind it, I hope Toronto may mean ‘The place of meeting again and again.’”

His last words of thanks were drowned in applause. The students tried to recall him again, even after he had spoken. The band struck up “God save the Queen,” and a few minutes later the audience was on its way home, and Irving was conducting a rehearsal of scenes in “Much Ado,” and “The Merchant of Venice,” rendered necessary by the illnesses which are referred to in another chapter.

III.

TWO hours after midnight we were once more on the cars, bound for Boston.[52]

“These long journeys,” said Irving, “are most distressing. I wonder what sort of a trip this will be. We ought to arrive at Boston, on Sunday, at about six, they say.”

“The agent of the road,” replied Mr. Palser, “tells me he hopes to make good time. But I told him that the only occasion when we have done a long journey on time has been when we had no railroad agent to take care of us. They are very good fellows, and anxious to help us, but they have been unfortunate. Our flat baggage car is a trouble. You will remember that the Erie could not take it, and some of the other companies consider it an extra risk. It affords an excuse for not exceeding a certain speed. Besides this, we have not had so much snow in America for over twenty years as this winter. Our trains have been snowed up, and this has occasioned all sorts of delays, as you know. But I hope we will get through to Boston in good time.”

We did not, “by a large majority,” as Bardwell Slote says. It was a tedious and unsatisfactory journey. So soon as we left the West Shore line we began to have trouble. It was on a short section of an unimportant road that we encountered most delay, the character of which will be best illustrated by a brief conversation between Irving and several other persons:—

“Well, what is the matter now, George?” Irving asked the colored conductor of the private car.

“Oh, this is the third time he’s stopped in the woods to tinker up his darned old engine,” said George; “seems it needs it!”

Everybody laughed at this rough criticism of the engineer and his locomotive.

“Stops in the woods, eh?” says Irving,—“that nobody may see him? But suppose another train comes along?”

“If the brakeman should neglect to go back and flag it, there might be no performance at the Boston Theatre on Monday,” said Palser. “That is how Wagner, the car-builder, lost his life. He was killed in one of his own cars, on the New York Central. The train stopped suddenly,—it is said somebody on board pulled the check-string in joke,[53]—and an oncoming train, not being warned, ran into them, and Mr. Wagner was killed.”

“Ah,” Irving replied, “there must have been a good deal of flag-signalling done on this journey of ours, seeing how often we have stopped.”

“Yes, that’s so; yah, yah!” remarks the privileged colored servant.

“I don’t think any of the tracks we have crossed are as good as the Pennsylvania,” said Irving; “they are certainly not as good as the Midland or Great Western in England. The West Shore road is evidently a fine one; but I have more than once during our travels been reminded of a story I came across recently, relating to a passenger’s question: ‘We’ve struck a smoother strip of road, have we not?’ The Arkansas railway conductor replied, ‘No, we’ve only run off the track.’”

“Yah! yah!” shouted George, as he disappeared to tell the story to Peter in the kitchen.

“The newspaper that told the story added, as American journals are apt to do, a line or two of its own, to the effect that the Arkansas conductor’s reply was almost as uncomplimentary as that of an Eastern conductor, who, upon being discharged, said, ‘Well, I was intending to quit anyway, for there is nothing left of your old road but two streaks of iron rust and a right of way.’”

IV.

DURING one of the very long delays in question Irving and I talked of many things.

“You were speaking of the waste of food at hotels and restaurants one day,” Irving remarked. “I am told that at some of the best houses in Chicago the clean scraps that are left on dishes after each meal are collected and given to poor families every day. Children with large baskets call for them. Another class of scraps go to charitable institutions, more particularly Roman Catholic establishments. These are the leavings of the carver’s tables in the kitchens. One is glad to know this, for I, too, have often been struck with the abundance that is taken away untouched from tables where I have dined; though I have seen nothing of the public breakfast and dining rooms. It is quite a system in England, I believe, the collection of food for the humbler ‘homes’ and charities; but one does not see in America any poor of the abject, poverty-stricken class that is familiar at home. Life to many must, nevertheless, be a bitter struggle.

“There are many who are well off; thousands who would be happier even in the most wretched districts of Ireland. An Irish friend of mine, in New York, said to me only the other day, ‘The worst hut in Connemara is a palace to some of the tenement-house dens where my countrymen herd together in New York.’”

“They don’t go West, I am told, as the Germans and Swedes and Norwegians do. It is a little odd that they do not take full advantage of the unrestricted freedom of the West, and the gift of land which can be obtained from the American government. Sixty acres, is it not?”

“Yes, that is the endowment America offers to settlers in some of her finest territory; and it is true that, as a rule, the Irish do not become farmers on this side of the Atlantic. They prefer city life, even with its disabilities. When I was in America one hot summer, two years ago, children of the poor, who live in the common tenement-houses down-town in New York, were dying of the heat at the rate of hundreds a day. In her most crowded alleys London has nothing to compare with the lodging-houses in the poorer districts of New York for squalor and misery. But human nature is alike all the world over; more than one rich man collects heavy rents from these death-traps.”

“Just as a few of our fellow-countrymen in London supplement their rents by the contributions of infamous tenants. I dare say some of these hypocrites make speeches against the stage, and go ostentatiously to church; otherwise they would be found out by their associates. Religion is, indeed, a useful cloak for these gentry. It is gratifying to find that in some American cities, that are noted for their church discipline, the preachers are not afraid to tell their flocks that, properly used, the stage, as a moral teacher, is not unworthy of alliance with the pulpit.

“Did Mr. Beecher talk about the morality of the stage, or its relations to the public?”

“No, but one of the writers for a Brooklyn journal asked me some questions on the subject. I told him that the world has found out that they live just like other people, and that, as a rule, they are observant of all that makes for the sweet sanctities of life, and they are as readily recognized and welcomed in the social circle as the members of any other profession. The stage has literally lived down the rebuke and reproach under which it formerly cowered, and actors and actresses receive in society, as do the members of other professions, exactly the treatment which is earned by their personal conduct. He asked me about the morality of attending the theatre, and I said I should think the worst performances seen on any of our stages cannot be so bad as drinking for a corresponding time in what you call here a bar-room, and what we term a gin-palace. The drinking is usually done in bad company, and is often accompanied by obscenity. Where drink and low people come together these things must be. The worst that can come of stage pandering to the corrupt tastes of its basest patrons cannot be anything like this, and, as a rule, the stage holds out long against the invitation to pander; and such invitations, from the publicity and decorum that attend the whole matter, are neither frequent nor eager. He informed me that the clergy, as a rule,—he used the term dissenting clergy, I suppose, as an explanation to me to denote the class who are not Episcopalians, that I might the better compare them with the ministers at home,—he told me that they are opposed to theatres. He asked me what I felt about this. I told him I thought that both here and in England the clerical profession are becoming more liberal in their views. Some people think they can live and bring up their children in such a way as to avoid all temptation of body and mind, and be saved nine-tenths of the responsibility of self-control. But that seems to me to be a foolish notion. You must be in the world, though you need not be of it. The best way for the clergy to make the theatre better is not to stay away from it, and shun the people who play in it, but to bring public opinion to bear upon it,—to denounce what is bad and to encourage what is good. When I was a boy I never went to the theatre except to see a Shakespearian play, and I endeavored to make my theatrical experiences not only a source of amusement, but of instruction.’”

V.

“IT was a glorious audience,” said the “Boston Daily Globe,” of February 26, “that welcomed Irving and Terry back to Boston last evening. No better evidence of the great popularity of the English artists could have been given than that which was implied in the presence of such an assemblage. The Boston was thronged, and the gathering represented the best class of our play-goers,—a company that accorded the stars a cordial greeting both, and that was appreciative of all the excellences that marked the entertainment.”

The theatre was crowded in all parts. “Louis XI.” and “The Belle’s Stratagem” were played. “Much Ado” closed the engagement. It was received by the audience as if it were a revelation of stage work, and criticised in the press in a similar spirit. At the end of the play the audience summoned the leading actors before the curtain over and over again. It was a scene of the most unaffected excitement. At last there arose cries of “A speech!” “A speech!” to which Irving responded, visibly moved by the enthusiasm of his Boston admirers and friends. He said:—

“Gentlemen and Ladies,—I have no words in which to express my thanks for your kindness; ‘only my blood speaks to you in my veins.’ A few weeks since we came here, and you received us with unbounded hospitality, and gave us a welcome that touched us deeply,—a true Boston welcome. (Applause.) We come back, and you treat us not as strangers, but as old friends. (Applause.) Again, I say, I can find no words adequately to convey our thanks. I need not tell you that this is to us a matter of the deepest gratitude and pleasure, for it is a proof that we have perhaps realized some of your expectations, and have not absolutely disappointed you. (Applause.) I say ‘we,’ because I speak in behalf of all,—not for myself alone, but for my comrades, and especially for one who has, I am sure, won golden opinions; you know to whom I allude (Applause, and cries of ‘Yes!’ ‘Yes!’)—my friend, and fellow-artist, Miss Ellen Terry. (Applause and cheers.) When we have recrossed the Atlantic, and are in our homes, we shall ever bear you in our kindliest memories. I hope to be here again. (Applause, cheers, and shouts, ‘Come again!’ ‘That’s right!’) Even before the present year closes I hope to be with you. (Cheers.) Once more I thank you with all my heart, and bid you good-night, only hoping that your memories of us may be as agreeable as those we shall cherish of you.” (Applause and cheers.)

This second visit, it is agreed on all hands, brought more money into the treasury of the Boston than had ever before been taken during one week at that or any other theatre in the city, namely, $24,087,—and this was the largest sum that had been received during any previous week of the Irving engagement.

It will be interesting, at this period of the tour, to glance at its financial results. The following figures are taken from the cash-book of Mr. J. H. Palser, the business manager and treasurer, who supplied them to the “Boston Herald,” and “vouched for their absolute accuracy”:—

New York—first week $15,772 00 New York—second week 18,714 00 New York—third week 18,880 00 New York—fourth week 22,321 50 Philadelphia—first week 16,128 50 Philadelphia—second week 16,780 50 Boston—first week 18,845 50 Boston—second week 16,885 00 Baltimore—one week 9,952 00 Brooklyn—one week 12,468 00 Chicago—first week 17,048 75 Chicago—second week 19,117 50 St. Louis—one week 13,719 00 Cincinnati—one week 11,412 00 Indianapolis (4 nights) and Columbus (2 nights) 8,700 50 Chicago (return)—one week 18,308 75 Detroit (2 nights) and Toronto (3 nights)[54] 13,430 50 Boston (return)—one week 24,087 00

The total receipts in cities where Mr. Irving has played more than one week were as follows:—

New York—four weeks $75,687 50 Boston—three weeks 59,817 50 Chicago—three weeks 54,475 00 Philadelphia—two weeks 32,909 00

The total receipts of the tour, thus far, have been $292,571.

XX.

WASHINGTON, NEW ENGLAND, AND SOME “RETURN VISITS.”

From Rail to River.—Once more on Board the “Maryland.”—Recollections of President Arthur.—At the White House.—Washington Society.—An Apt Shakespearian Quotation.—Distinguished People.—“Hamlet.”—A Council of War.—Making Out the Route of a New Tour.—A Week in New England Cities.—Brooklyn and Philadelphia Revisited.

I.

WE left Boston at about two o’clock in the morning of the 3d of March, and after breakfast, at half-past ten, some of us turn out to stretch our legs on the railroad track by the side of the Harlem river. Once more we are shunted on board the “Maryland,” that is to convey us “down stream, to connect with the Pennsylvania road.” At about eleven o’clock we are afloat. Presently we pass Blackwell’s Island. The pretty villas on the opposite bank are in notable contrast with the hard, prosaic buildings of the island. The morning is grey and cold. The snow is falling lightly and is full of crystals. Most of the company are on deck, which stretches right over the snow-covered cars. Some are promenading and enjoying the change from railway to river travel. Others are breakfasting in the steamer’s spacious saloon. Howe and his wife; Terriss (his hand in a sling); Tyars (in his long Scotch ulster, which was evidently new to the gamins of Philadelphia, where they said, as he passed, “Here’s a dude!”); Mrs. Pauncefort, and others, are defying the sharp weather at the bows of the vessel, which, with its freight, is a continual surprise to them. Miss Millward, the picturesque Jessica of “The Merchant,” is romping merrily with the children of the company, who are quite a feature in the garden and church scenes of “Much Ado.”

We steal quietly along the river without noise, but with a steady progression. Blackwell’s Island prisons are enlivened in color by a little company of women, who are being marched into the penitentiary. They turn to look at the “Maryland” as they enter the stony portals. As we creep along, villas on our left give place to lumber-yards, with coasting-vessels lying alongside. Leaving Blackwell’s on the right, the shore breaks up into picturesque wharfage, backed, in the distance, by the first of the steeples of Fifth avenue. The eye follows them along; wharves and river-craft in front; the spires against the grey sky, until they are repeated, as it were, by forests of masts,—first a few, and then a cluster. We meet another train coming up the river, then another; and now we get glimpses, through the haze, of distant ferry-boats ahead. There is a dull mist on the river, and here and there it hangs about in clouds. We pass Long Island railroad pier. It is very cold; but the children of the company still trot about, ruddy and merry.

“You don’t say so!” exclaims somebody. “Is it true, the train we saw at Harlem, which we thought full of poor emigrants, was the Opera Company on their way to Boston,—the chorus?”

“Quite true.”

“Then I can now understand,” is the rejoinder, “that the passengers on board the ‘Rome,’ when we came out, thought us a most respectable crowd.”

“That has been remarked before,” says the buxom Martha of “Louis XI,” “and in far more complimentary terms.”

Presently, through the mist on the larboard side, we catch a glimpse of the Brooklyn bridge. A few gulls are sweeping down the river before us. On both banks there are wharves and ships. One of the vessels flies the British flag, which is greeted with a cheer from some of our people. On the left bank of the river is a great sugar factory, with a picturesque red brick tower. We have now left the Harlem river, and for some little time have been steaming down the East towards the North river, with Bedloe’s island—a dot in the distant Sound—and Sandy Hook somewhere in the mist beyond. We now pass Hunter’s Point, and slue gradually round towards the North river. We glide along beneath the wonderful bridge, and look up among its net-work of roads and rails; past Piers 50 and 51 on our right, with freight-cars and steamers ready for the river; past the New York, New Haven, and Hartford Railway quays, hugging the South-street docks and ship-repairing yards, Governor’s Island at our bow. Ships and steamers stretch along to Battery Point, which we round into the North river, and pass Castle Garden. It is here that we catch sight of Bedloe’s and other distant islands, and look far in the direction of Sandy Hook, whence fierce tug-boats are steaming along, with great barges in tow. Now we cross the river to Jersey City. It is two o’clock. Our cars are once more on the rails, and, at about nine o’clock that night, we ran into Washington.

II.

“YOU know the President,” said Irving, while we were travelling from Boston to Washington.

“Yes; I met him once or twice during the contest when he was ultimately returned as Vice-President with General Garfield. His likeness had become very familiar to me before I saw him. Candidates for the high offices of state are not only photographed, but their pictures are painted in heroic proportions. You see them everywhere,—on flags and banners, in shop-windows, in the newspapers. But you will be in the thick of it next autumn, since you have really decided to return this year.”

“Oh, yes!—but tell me about your meeting with the President,—what is he like?”

“Tall and handsome; frank and genial in manner; an excellent conversationalist; well read,—a gentleman. I became acquainted with him on the eve of his election to the vice-presidential chair. At his installation hundreds of his personal friends and admirers from eastern and western cities made ‘high festival,’ in his honor at Washington. Two years later I saw him, with sorrowful face and head bowed down, start for the capital, to stand by the bedside of the dying President, with whom he had been elected. Soon afterwards the friends, who had metaphorically flung up their caps for him on the merry day of his installation with Garfield, went, ‘with solemn tread and slow,’ to assist at his inauguration into the chair which, for a second time, the hand of the assassin had rendered vacant. My recollection of Mr. Arthur pictured a stout, ruddy-complexioned man, with dark hair and whiskers, and a certain elasticity in his gait that betokened strong physical health. I remember that we sat together by the taffrail of a Sound steamer, and talked of the vicissitudes of life and its uncertainties, and that I was deeply moved with sympathy for him in regard to the death of his most accomplished and amiable wife, of whom he spoke (_apropos_ of some remark that led up to his bereavement) with a quivering lip and a moistened eye. The day had been a very pleasant one; the bay of New York was sleeping in the sun; the air was balmy; the time gracious in all respects; but, while doing his best to enliven the passing hour, Arthur’s thoughts had wandered to the grave of his wife. She was a very accomplished woman, I am told; musical, a sweet disposition, refined and cultivated in her tastes. Friends of mine who knew her say that she, above all others, would have rejoiced in her husband’s victory; and, while inspiring him with fortitude under the calamity that lay beyond, would have lent a grace to his reign at the White House that alone was necessary to complete the simple dignity of his administration, social and otherwise, which will always be remembered at Washington in connection with the presidentship of Chester A. Arthur.”

“I have letters to the President, which I shall certainly take the first opportunity to deliver,” said Irving.

When I met Mr. Arthur again in his own room, at the Executive Mansion, I was struck with the change which the anxieties and responsibilities of office, entered upon under circumstances of the most painful character, had wrought upon him. His face was careworn; his hair white; his manner subdued. He stooped in his gait; the old brightness had gone out of his eyes, and there was what seemed to be a permanently saddened expression about the corners of his mouth. He did not look sick; there was nothing in his face or figure denoting ill-health or physical weakness; but in the course of four years he appeared to me to have aged twenty. I had not been in Washington a day before he sent for me and my family, with a pleasant reference to the time when last we met. Looking back over these four years, and considering its record of trouble and anxiety, I could well have forgiven him if he had forgotten my very existence. That he recalled the occasion of our meeting, and was still touched with the spirit of it, I mention to do him honor, not myself; though, had it pleased Providence not to have afflicted me with a never-ending sorrow, I could have felt a high sense of personal pride in the homelike reception which the President of the United States gave to me and my family, in his own room at the Executive Mansion, sitting down with us and chatting in a pleasant, unconstrained, familiar way, that is characteristic of American manners, and eminently becomes the chief of a great republic.

Were this book only intended for English readers I would hesitate (even with the friendly approval of my collaborator) about publishing these few sentences, so personal to myself, lest it should be thought I might be “airing my connections”; but a President _per se_ is not held in such profound estimation or reverence in America as in England, where we rank him with the most powerful of reigning monarchs, and give him a royal personality. Moreover, I should be ungrateful did I not take the best possible opportunity to acknowledge a conspicuous act of kindliness and grace on the part of one who, since I last met him, had stepped from the private station of mere citizenship to the chief office of state over fifty millions of people, wielding an individual power in their government that belongs to no constitutional sovereign, nor to any prince or minister in the most despotic courts or cabinets of Europe.

III.

“AND I can only say,” remarked Irving, as we left the White House together, after his first interview with the President, “that, if his reëlection depended on my vote, he should have it. I know nothing about the political situation; but the man we have just left has evidently several qualities that I should say fit him for his office,—foremost among them is patience. I would also say that he has the virtue of self-denial, and he is certainly not impulsive. A kind-hearted man, I am sure, capable of the highest sentiment of friendship, of a gentle disposition, and with great repose of character.”

“You have made quite a study of him,” I said; “and I am glad you like him, for I am sure he likes you.”

They had had a long chat at the White House. Mr. Congressman Phelps accompanied Irving, and introduced him to the Secretary of the Navy, and to other ministers who came and went during the first part of the informal reception. The President talked of plays and general literature; regretted that Washington, which had so many fine buildings, did not yet possess a theatre worthy of the city.

“A beautiful city, Mr. President,” said Irving. “I had heard much of Washington, but am agreeably surprised at its fine buildings, its handsome houses, its splendid proportions; and the plan of it seems to be unique.”

“The original design was the work of a French engineer,” said the President, “who served under Washington. His idea, evidently, was that a republic would have continually to contend with revolutions at the capital. He, therefore, kept in view the military exigencies of the government. The main streets of the city radiate upon a centre that is occupied by the legislative and executive buildings, like the spokes of a wheel, so that they could be dominated by artillery. This was the French idea of the dangers and duties of that republican form of government, which has never been contested here, nor is ever likely to be. While but a village Washington was laid out for a great city, and, without any seeming prospect of the grand idea being realized, the original lines have, nevertheless, always been adhered to.”

“And with glorious results,” said Irving. “Washington is one of the most beautiful cities I have ever seen. There is no reason why the highest architectural ambition should not be realized in such broad avenues and boulevards, and with such a site.”

IV.

“MANY Americans underrate the beauty of Washington,” I said. “Comparatively few of them have seen it, and hundreds who criticise it have not been south for a number of years. The growth of Washington is not only modern, it is of yesterday. The city was really little more than a village up to the date of the late war; and it was only in 1871 that the impetus was given to the public enterprise that has covered it with palaces, private and public. It is the only city of America in which the streets are kept as cleanly and as orderly as London and Paris. The streets are asphalted, and you may drive over them everywhere without inconvenience or obstruction. There is an individuality about the houses that is one of Washington’s most notable architectural characteristics.”

“Yes,” said Irving, “that is a great point. New York is lacking in that respect, the reason being, I suppose, its want of space. Some of the houses in Washington suggest Bedford Park, Fitzjohn’s avenue, and the street of artists’ houses at Kensington. The same may be said of portions of Chicago and Boston. The so-called Queen Anne order of architecture is very prevalent in Washington,—take Pennsylvania avenue, for instance. On a fine summer’s day it must be a picture, with its trees in leaf and its gardens in bloom.”

Irving went more than once to the White House, and was greatly impressed with the dignified informality of one of its evening receptions.

“No ceremonious pomp, no show, and yet an air of conscious power,” he said; “the house might be the modest country-seat of an English noble, or wealthy commoner, the President the host receiving his intimate friends. No formal announcements; presentations made just as if we were in a quiet country-house. Soon after supper, when the ladies took their leave, and most of the gentlemen with them, I and one or two others went into the President’s room, and chatted, I fear, until morning. It was to me very enjoyable. President Arthur would shine in any society. He has a large acquaintance with the best literature, dramatic and general, is apt at quotation, an excellent storyteller, a gentleman, and a good fellow. When I had said good-night, and was on my way to the hotel, I could not help my own thoughts wandering back to thoughts of Lincoln and Garfield, whose portraits I had noticed in prominent positions on the walls of the executive mansion. I remember Mr. Noah Brooks, of New York, telling us the story of Lincoln’s death, and how he was to have been in the box with him at the theatre that same night, and how vividly he recounted the chief incidents of the tragedy. And Garfield,—I can quite understand that terrible business making his successor prematurely old, called as he was into office under such painful circumstances, and with so great a responsibility. A distinguished American was telling me yesterday that only the wisest discretion and personal self-denial in regard to the filling of offices saved America from the possibilities of riot and bloodshed. He said Arthur’s singularly quiet administration of affairs—the one necessity of the time—would be taken into account at the polls, if he is nominated for reëlection.”

V.

WASHINGTON society made itself most agreeable to both Irving and Miss Terry, though “Portia, on a trip from the Venetian seas,” to quote the New York reporter, made her visit to the capital an opportunity for rest. Electing this city for a holiday, being relieved of a week’s journey through New England, she remained at the capital on a visit to her friend, Miss Olive Seward, the adopted daughter of the famous minister of Lincoln’s administration.

Among the social entertainments given in Irving’s honor were two notable little suppers,—one at the Metropolitan Club, by Mr. H. L. Nelson, Secretary to the Speaker, and a journalist of well-won renown. There were present, the Speaker (the Hon. John G. Carlisle), Senator Bayard, Representatives Dorsheimer (ex.-Lieut. Governor of the State of New York), T. B. Reed, Dr. George B. Loring (Commissioner of Agriculture), and Messrs. John Davis (Assistant Secretary of State), and F. E. Leupp. The other “evening after the play” was spent at Mr. Dorsheimer’s house, in Connecticut avenue, where the guests included several distinguished judges, senators, and government officials. The conversation on both occasions was chiefly about plays. It was a great relief from law and politics, one of the learned judges said, to discuss Shakespeare and the stage. They all talked well upon the drama; some of them had known Forrest; others, the elder Booth. Irving was more than usually talkative in such congenial company. He related many reminiscences of the English stage, none of which interested his Washington friends more than his anecdotes of Macready. Several instances of apt Shakespearian quotations were given; but they were all capped by a story which Nelson told of Judge Jeremiah S. Black, Mr. Buchanan’s Attorney-General and Secretary of State. Judge Black was holding court at Chambersburgh, Pa., when he was on the circuit in that State, forty years or more ago. His manners were rough, but more from absent-mindedness than any other cause, for he was one of the kindest of men. He would almost invariably find the strong point in a cause that was on trial before him, and go on thinking about it without reference to the point which counsel might be considering; so that his questions often seemed impertinent to the bar. One of the lawyers of Chambersburgh was a man of the name of Chambers, a soft-spoken, mild-mannered kind of man. Chambers suffered especially from what he supposed was Black’s intentional rudeness to him, and, one day, he came to the conclusion that his burdens were intolerable; therefore he stopped in the midst of his argument, and expostulated with the judge, telling him that he always tried to treat the court deferentially, but the judge did not reciprocate. The judge sat smiling through Chambers’s long reproof, and briefly answered:—

“Haply, for I am _black,_ And have not those soft parts of conversation That _chamberers_ have.”

During the week Irving visited the capitol, and was introduced to the highest officers of state. He heard debates in both houses, visited the law courts, and received many kindly attentions, public and private. The theatre was crowded every night. On the first night the President sat in the stalls, and the Russian ambassador contented himself with quite a back seat. Mr. Bancroft, the white-haired historian, was a constant attendant. Mr. Charles Nordhoff (whose graphic stories are not sufficiently well known) was in the stalls; so, also, were the authors of “Democracy.” (It is rumored that they are a society syndicate; but there is more authority in the statement that they are two, and I could give their names. I forbear, for the sake of the American lady who was pointed out to me in London, last year, as the undoubted author of the “scurrilous burlesque”). Mr. Blaine (one of the most famous and learned of American statesmen) was also present, and he was one of the prominent men who showed Irving much social attention.[55] A list of the distinguished people present, would include a majority of the great personages at Washington during the season of 1884. All the plays were enthusiastically received.[56]

Called on, as usual, to speak when the curtain had gone down for the last time (after three recalls), Irving thanked the audience for the kind reception and liberal patronage which had been accorded himself and his company. They had during the past few months appeared in all the leading cities of the country, and he felt that this cordial welcome in the beautiful capital of the Union might fairly be regarded as the crowning engagement of a most happy and prosperous tour. He returned heartfelt thanks, not alone for himself, but for his company; and especially for his fair comrade and friend, Miss Ellen Terry, of whom he felt he could heartily say: “She came, she saw, she conquered.” He said farewell with the greater ease in the expectation of having the privilege of again appearing in Washington early in the coming season. Again returning thanks, and saying good-by, Mr. Irving bowed himself off the stage amid very demonstrative applause.

VI.

IT was quite like a council of war to see Irving, Loveday, Palser, and Stoker, bending over a map of the United States, during the journey from Washington to New York, _en route_ for several New England cities. The chart was scanned with careful interest, Irving passing his finger over it here and there, not with the intensity of the overthrown monarch in “Charles the First,” but with a close scrutiny of routes. The chief was sketching out his next tour in America.

“No more long journeys,” he said.

“They are not necessary,” Loveday replied.

“No jumping from Brooklyn to Chicago, and from Chicago to Boston. This sort of thing may have been necessary by our relinquishment of the one-night places set down for us in the original plan of the tour; but we’ll reform that altogether.”

Then all the heads went down upon the chart; and pencil-marks begin to appear, dotting out a route which began at Quebec, and traversed, by easy stages, Canada and the United States,—from Quebec to Toronto, from Toronto to New York, and thence to Chicago, and, by easy calls, back again to the Empire city.

An hour or two later and the route was settled, Palser remarking, “It is the most complete and easiest tour that has ever been mapped out.”

“And we will begin it in the autumn of this year. We have sowed the seed; we are entitled to reap the harvest. All my American friends say so; and the great American play-going public would like me to do so. I am sure of it. My pulses quickened at the great cheer that went up at Boston when I said I hoped to come back this year. Let us consider it settled. We will come in September.”

The map was folded up, and the work of organizing the next tour was at once commenced. Telegraphic “feelers,” in regard to “dates,” had already been sent to the leading theatres. The best of them were ready to accept for the time proposed; and a week or so later the business was settled.

Meanwhile we arrived at New York (the trees in Washington and Union squares, and Fifth avenue were crystal trees; every house was coated with ice that sparkled under the electric lamps), and the next day “Louis XI.” was given at New Haven. The week was spent between this picturesque city and Worcester, Springfield, Hartford, and Providence. Only “Louis XI.” and “The Bells” were played, Miss Terry taking a week’s rest at Washington. The New England audiences were as cordial at these cities as they had been at Boston; the critics interpreted their sentiments. At Hartford, Mark Twain (S. L. Clemens) entertained Irving under his hospitable roof, and at Springfield there was a memorable gathering at the Springfield Club,—in fact, Irving was welcomed everywhere with tokens of respect and esteem. One regrets that these pages and the time of the patient reader are not sufficiently elastic to allow of one devoting a volume to the New England cities, so interesting as they are, historically and otherwise, from American as well as English points of view.

VII.

FOLLOWING the New England cities come the last of the return visits,—Philadelphia, Brooklyn,[57] New York. They reindorsed the previous successes, and fully justified the decision of a second visit next season.

One of the most interesting incidents of the second visit to Philadelphia was Irving’s entertainment in the new rooms of the “Clover Club.”[58] Accustomed to play the host, the club found itself in a novel position when it accepted that of guest. The occasion was one not likely to be forgotten in the annals of an institution which interprets the best and highest social instincts of an eminently hospitable city. The club-room was decorated with its characteristic taste.

Mr. Dion Boucicault, in a brief address, spoke of the beneficent change which Irving had wrought in the methods of the English stage; Mr. McClure, the popular and powerful director of the “Times,” thanked him, in the name of all lovers of art, for extending that reformation to the American stage; Col. Snowden depicted his high place in the history of the best civilization of America; and Irving, while accepting with pride the honors which had been conferred upon him, defended the great actors of America’s past and present from the criticism of several speakers, who complained of their adherence to what Boucicault called “the pedestal style” of acting Shakespeare. Irving described to them how, in years gone by, both England and America had possessed provincial schools of acting, in the stock companies that had flourished in such cities as Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, and other cities on one side of the Atlantic, and Bristol, Bath, Manchester, Birmingham on the other; how these had been broken up by “combinations” in travelling companies; and how the leading actors of America had thus been disabled from presenting the dramas of the great masters in a manner they would, no doubt, have desired to present them. He said he had found similar difficulties in his own country; but, actuated by the resolute purpose of a sense of duty to his art, and a devoted love for it, he had overcome them. For some eight or ten years he had worked with a company, trained with the object of interpreting, to the best of their ability, the work of the dramatist. They subordinated themselves to the objects and intentions of the play they had to illustrate, and only by such self-abnegations to the harmony of the entire play, he said, could anything like an approach be made to the realization of a dramatic theme. He disclaimed any such ambition as to be ranked foremost among the great actors whose names had been mentioned; but he confessed to a feeling of intense satisfaction that America should have accepted with a generous, and he must say a remarkable, spontaneity, the methods which he had inaugurated at the Lyceum Theatre.

Among other “sight-seeing” and calls which we made together in Philadelphia was a visit to Mr. Childs, at the “Ledger” office, and an hour or two spent at Independence Hall. Irving was much interested in the new private office of Mr. Childs. Decorated in the so-called style of Queen Anne, it is a fine example of the progress in art which America has made within the past few years. “It contains many precious reminiscences of the Centennial Exhibition. A screen in front of the street windows is not the least artistic feature of the apartment. It is formed by six square pillars, with arched openings, which, save the centre, are closed to the height of three feet from the floor, the space between the back of these and the windows forming a kind of recess, where have been gathered some very valuable specimens of plastic and mechanical art. Over the screen, or arcade, are ten painted glass panels; the centre one contains the portraits of Gutenberg, Faust, and Sch[oe]ffer, inventors of the art of printing with type; the other four contain figures representing the art of bookmaking. The left-hand panel contains a sitting figure, intently engaged on an article for the press, which, with two figures, a man and a boy, the latter of singularly fine action, forms the second panel. Passing over the centre, the story is continued by the proofreader, and concluded in the last panel, which represents a standing figure perusing the finished book in the shape of a Bible, chained to a lectern. The centre panel of five smaller panels, over those just mentioned, exhibits Mr. Childs’s motto, ‘_Nihil sine labore_,’ and on the remaining four, in old English, is painted the command, ‘Let there be light, and there was light.’”

Mr. Childs is one of the best-known and one of the most popular journalists in the United States. His name is familiar to the newspaper men of England, and his offices are models, both as regards the mechanical departments and the rooms set apart for his editorial associates and writers. Mr. Cooke, the able and trusted correspondent of the “London Times,” is the financial editor of the “Ledger.”

The porter at Independence Hall was glad to get the English actor’s signature in the visitor’s book. From the moment that Irving entered the place he attracted more attention than even “the bell of liberty” itself. Long before American independence was even dreamed of, this bell (originally cast at Whitechapel, London, and afterwards recast in Philadelphia) bore the inscription, “Proclaim Liberty throughout all the Land, to all the Inhabitants thereof!” Having taken in the historic room which was formerly the Judicial Hall of the English colony of Pennsylvania, Irving said, “How English it all is! how typical of the revolt the portraits of these great fellows who headed it!” Then he traced likeness to living Englishmen in several of the pictures. “One hundred and thirty portraits by one artist!” he exclaimed. “He has done wonderfully, I think, to get such variety of style, and yet so much individuality.” In modern days this chamber has been the scene of the lying-in-state of several prominent statesmen, on the way to burial. Among them were John Quincy Adams, Henry Clay, Abraham Lincoln.

American history proudly recalls that “here, on the 3d of November, 1781, twenty-four British standards and colors, taken from the army under Cornwallis, which had surrendered at Yorktown, were laid at the feet of Congress, amidst the shouts of the people and volleys of musketry, for they had been escorted to the door of the State-House by the volunteer cavalry of the city, and greeted by the huzzas of the people.” “But let us not forget,” said an American speaker, discoursing on this theme at an Irving entertainment, “that we were all British until we had signed that Declaration of Independence!”

XXI.

“BY THE WAY.”

“My Name is Mulldoon, I live in the Twenty-fourth Ward”—Protective Duties and the Fine Arts—“The General Muster”—A Message from Kansas City—American Cabmen—Alarming Notices in Hotels—The Chicago Fire Service—What a Fire Patrol can do in a few Seconds—Marshalling the Fire Brigades—William Winter—“Office Rules”—The Reform Club and Politics—Enterprising Reporters—International Satire—How a Man of “Simple and Regular Habits” Lives—Secretaries in Waiting—The Bisbee Murders—“Hunted Down”—Outside Civilization—“The Bazoo”—The Story of a Failure—A Texan Tragedy—Shooting in a Theatre—Evolutions of Towns.

I.

“YES,” said Irving, “I, too, have made a few notes of ‘things to be remembered,’ as we passed together some of the last proofs of these chronicles and impressions. For instance, here is a memorandum, ‘Politics’; and it refers to General Horace Porter’s anecdotical illustration of ward politics, and to Mr. Millett’s letter on art and tariffs.”

“Let us take the story first,” I suggested.

We both remembered it; so, likewise, will several American friends of that excellent _raconteur_, Horace Porter, one of New York’s brightest post-prandial orators.

Irving had been making inquiries about the city government of New York, and remarking upon the curious little wooden houses away up at the further end of New York city.

“Oh,” said Porter, “those places belong to the last of the Manhattan squatters. Most of them are occupied by families, who, as a rule, pay little or no rent at all. They are on the outskirts of progress. As the city extends into their district they disappear, seeking ‘fresh woods and pastures new.’ Nevertheless some of them become quite firmly established there. They are included, for voting purposes, in the Twenty-fourth ward of the city. The houses, as you have observed, are not architecturally beautiful. All the inhabitants keep fowls and animals in their basements or cellars. As a rule nobody repairs or attends to their abodes. Occasionally in wet weather they could bathe in their cellars. Recently one of the most important men in the district was a Mr. Mulldoon, whose very practical views of city politics will be gathered by the story I am going to tell you, which also illustrates the local troubles from a sanitary point of view. Mulldoon’s premises were flooded. He was advised to apply to the Commissioner of Public Works on the subject, and to use his political influence in the matter; and he did. Entering the office of the commissioner, he said:—

“‘My name is Mulldoon. I live in the Twenty-fourth ward; I conthrol forty votes there; I kape hens; the wather has inundated my cellar, and I want it pumped out at the public expinse.’

“‘We have no machinery to do that kind of work; it does not belong to our department,’ said the officer.

“‘And be jabers if I don’t get that wather removed it will go hard wid the party. I’ll cast thim forty votes for a Dutchman.’

“‘You had better go to the fire department.’

“‘Divil a bit; it’s the wather department I’m afther.’

“‘The fire department have appliances for pumping, we have not; I recommend you to see the fire department.’

“He does so.

“Arrived at the proper officer’s desk, he says, ‘My name is Mulldoon; I live in the Twenty-fourth ward; I conthrol forty votes there; I kape hens; the wather has inundated my cellar, and I want it pumped out at the public expinse.’

“‘The work does not belong to this department, Mr. Mulldoon; we put out fires, not water. I’—

“‘Indade,’ said Mulldoon, calmly; “thin let the party look to it, for I’ll rather cast thim forty votes for a nigger than Tammany Hall shall get wan o’ them.’

“‘I was going to say, when you interrupted me, that you had better see the mayor, and get an appropriation for the sum necessary to be expended, and then you’ll have the business done right away.’

“‘An appropriation, is it? Thank ye! I’ve niver gone ag’in’ my party; but I object to having my hens drowned under my very roof.’

“Going straight for the mayor, he said, ‘Mr. Mayor, sorr, my name is Mulldoon; I live in the Twenty-fourth ward; I conthrol forty votes there; I kape hens; the wather has inundated my cellar, and I want it pumped out at the public expinse.’

“‘I am sorry I cannot help you, Mr. Mulldoon; but’—

“‘Not help me!’ exclaimed the chief of the little caucus in the Twenty-fourth ward; ‘then, by my soul, I’ll cast them forty votes for a hathen Chinee’—

“‘If you had not interrupted me, I was going to say that’—

“‘Oh, then, I beg Your Honor’s pardon; it is only just my bare rights that I am saking.’

“‘If you go to the Board of Aldermen and get an appropriation, and bring it to me, I will see that the work you claim shall be done.’

“‘Very well, then, and thank Your Honor,’ said Mulldoon, who in due course presented himself before the principal officer of the board, an Irishman like himself, and having considerable power.

“‘My name is Mulldoon; I live in the Twenty-fourth ward; I conthrol forty votes there; I kape hens; my cellar is inundated, and I want it pumped out at the public expinse. The mayor’s sent me to you for an appropriation, and, by St. Patrick! if you refuse it, divil a wan o’ them votes will ye ever get. I’ll cast them for a native American first!’

“‘I don’t see how I can get you an appropriation, Mr. Mulldoon.’

“‘You don’t; well, then, the party may go to the divil, and Tammany Hall wid it! I’m ag’in’ the lot o’ ye!’

“‘Don’t lose your temper, Mr. Mulldoon, I’ll see what can be done for you; but, in the meantime, will you allow me to suggest that it would be less dangerous for the party, considering the situation of your residence, if, in the future, _you would arrange to keep ducks_!’”

II.

“WE have not talked much about politics, eh? And a good thing, too. One only got really well into the atmosphere of political life at Washington; and then, after all, one heard more about literary copyright than anything else. I find I have made a note of a letter I read somewhere recently from an American painter, in support of taxing importations of fine art, more particularly pictures. It seems to me this is a grave mistake. I had no idea that protection, as it is called, existed so generally in America.”

“You have here,” I said, “the extreme of protective duties, as we in England have the other extreme of an unreciprocal free trade.”

“I can understand a reasonable protective tariff for a commercial industry; but art should surely go free. For a country that as yet possesses no great school of painting nor sculpture of her own, to obstruct, nay, almost prohibit, the entry of foreign work, must be to handicap her own rising genius. The examples of the famous masters of Greece and Rome, of France, and Holland, and England, are necessary for the American student, and free traffic in the works of great modern artists would have an elevating tendency on public taste.”

“As a rule American artists are favorable to the free importation of foreign pictures. They favor it from your own stand-point, the educational point of view,” I said.

“Moreover, I can quite imagine American artists who are permitted all the privileges of the art schools and galleries of Europe, and who sell their pictures in the Old World without let or hindrance, being annoyed at the inhospitality of their own country in this respect,” he replied; “Boughton, Bierstadt, Whistler, and other well-known American painters, for example.”

“And so they are, no doubt.”

“As a matter of fact public opinion in the United States, if it could be tested, would, I imagine, be on the side of admitting pictures, _bric-à-brac_, and books without duty; though the progress of what is called the modern free-trade movement is likely rather to retard than advance the interests of a free importation of fine-art productions.”

“In what way?” he asked. “The leading idea of a great reduction of tariffs is in the direction of abolition for protective purposes, a tariff for revenue only. In that case luxuries only would be heavily taxed, and the so-called free-traders, who support this view, would probably count in pictures and _bric-à-brac_ with luxuries.”

“I should call them necessities,” Irving replied; “for the mind and the imagination require feeding just as much as the body. Besides, how are the Americans going to judge of the work of their own painters without comparison, and current daily comparison too, with foreign artists? The stage is as much of a luxury as paintings. Why let the English actor and his artistic baggage and belongings come in? It is a pleasant thing to remember that, under all circumstances, whatever the troubles between the two countries, America has always welcomed English players, and that has given her some of the best theatrical families she has,—the Booths, Jeffersons, Wallacks, and others. If the same enlightened policy in regard to painting, pottery, and _bric-à-brac_ had been carried out in the matter of the stage, we should have seen just as fine an art appreciation applied to pictures as to plays and players. I am sure of it. If the musician and his works, if the opera, had been handicapped as art in other directions is, would America hold her high place in respect of choral societies, orchestral bands? And would she enjoy, as she does, the grand operas that are now produced in all her great cities? No. While, as you know, I claim no other credit for my method of presenting Shakespeare and the legitimate drama upon the stage than a performance of managerial duty, I am quite sure that, had European stage-art and artists been hampered for twenty years by restrictive taxes and other fiscal obstructions, the Lyceum Company and work would not have been welcomed as they have been, wherever we have pitched our tent. The same freedom for paintings would have made Watts, Millais, Tadema, Leighton, Pettie, Leader, Cole, Long, not to mention the works of earlier masters, as familiar here as at home, and would have crowded American homes with examples, original and copies, of the best schools of Europe. Would not that have helped American painters? Of course it would.”

III.

“YOUR work among New England cities,” I said, on his return visit to Brooklyn, “should impress upon you the grim quaintness of the story Mr. Emery Storrs told you concerning the annual festival called the ‘General Muster.’”

“Yes; a queer story, was it not? And, no doubt, characteristic of some of the more remote little towns.”

This is the story:—

The militia muster, once a year, is a celebration peculiar more particularly to New England. It is called the “General Muster.” Each little town comes in with its quota of militia; the bands as numerous as the troops. They make a holiday of it. One afternoon an old couple on the hill-side of the little town go out to catch a glimpse of the festivities. They are old and alone, managing to drag a mere subsistence out of the sour soil. Their children have gone West,—a son here, a daughter there. They are content to spend the winter of their days in the old, hard nest where they have reared their young; old folks, so old!—parchment faces, bony hands. They totter to the town, and rest on the way in the cemetery, or church-yard, and look at the graves as such grizzly veterans will. One of the militia fellows, going home,—he had got fuddled rather earlier than usual,—sees them. “Hello!” he shouts. “Go right back, right back, my friends; _this is not the general resurrection, it is the general muster_!”

“By the way,” said Irving, “did I tell you of the amusing incident that occurred at Philadelphia? It was on the last night of the first visit. We were playing ‘The Belle’s Stratagem.’ You know how difficult it is sometimes to keep the wings clear of people,—goodness knows who they are! Well, my way was continually blocked by a strange-looking crowd. I remonstrated with them once, and they moved; but they were back again. The cue for my entrance during the mad scene was at hand, as I said to these fellows, ‘Who are you? What do you want?’ ‘Baggage!’ exclaimed two of them, both in a breath. I did not know what the deuce baggage meant; whether the reply was a piece of information or a piece of impertinence; so I thought I would astonish them a little. Getting my cue on the instant, I stepped back a yard or two, and dashed in among them, yelling my entrance line, ‘Bring me a pickled elephant!’ They scattered right and left, and fell over each other; but before they had time to defend themselves from what they evidently thought was a furious attack I was on the stage.”

IV.

I HAVE referred to the “theatre parties” of ladies and gentlemen who travelled many miles by railway to be present at the Irving performances. Several invitations to visit distant cities were also given, with guarantees of financial profit. Among these the most interesting and complimentary was a requisition from Kansas City, which is worth printing. I append it, with Irving’s reply:—

WARWICK CLUB, KANSAS CITY, MO., Jan. 4, 1884.

MR. HENRY IRVING:—

_Dear Sir_,—We, the citizens of Kansas City, respectfully request that you honor this city and the West with a professional visit before your return to London. We hold in profound admiration your great histrionic ability and success in the legitimate drama, and your reputation as the leading representative of the English stage.

We will endeavor to make the season both pleasant and profitable to yourself and Miss Terry, the brilliant and accomplished tragedienne. On behalf of one hundred members of the Warwick Club,

Yours, respectfully,

T. C. TRUEBLOOD, _President._

F. E. HOLLAND, _Secretary_.

Alden J. Buthen, “Kansas City Journal”; Morrison Mumford, “Kansas City Times”; George W. Warder, John Taylor, Smith & Rieger, Holman & French, Robert Keith, Cady & Olmstead, D. Austin, George H. Conover, M. H. Shepard, W. B. Wright, John H. Worth, Woolf Bros., C. J. Waples, John Cutt, John Walmsley, John Sorg, J. V. C. Kames, Jos. Cahn, H. N. Eps, Milton Moore, R. O. Boggers, Gardiner Lathrop, B. R. Conklin, W. R. Nelson, Homer Reed, Albert C. Hasty, L. E. Irwin, The Irwin & Eaton Ckg. Co., Meyer Bros. Drug Co., Charles L. Dobson, Fred Howard, James Scammon, A. Holland, H. T. Wright, Jr., N. W. McLain, W. B. Grimes and W. B. Grimes Dry Goods Co., Charles S. Wheeler & F. H. Underwood, Merchants’ Nat’l Bank, A. W. Atmour, W. H. Winants, Henry J. Lotshaw, Web. Withers, W. A. M. Vaughan, B. O. Christakker, F. B. Nopinger, John W. Moore, W. H. Miller, Charles E. Hasbrook, H. H. Craige, Levi Hammersleigh, B. R. Bacon, Morse Bros. & Co.

MY DEAR SIR,—Your invitation, on behalf of one hundred members of the Warwick Club, is one of the most gratifying incidents of a very pleasant tour. I cannot sufficiently thank you for the compliment it conveys to myself, to my sister in art, Miss Terry, and to my entire company. We shall all of us treasure it as a delightful memory of the West, and, for my own part, I shall never be content until I can respond to it as I wish. I hope the day is not far distant when I may be able to visit you and your interesting city. I regret, however, that, so far as the present tour is concerned, Mr. Abbey finds it impossible to change our programme so as to make it fit your most kind and hospitable invitation.

With sincere thanks and good wishes, in which Miss Terry joins,

I am,

HENRY IRVING.

ST. LOUIS, January 7.

V.

“ONE thing I notice about the American cabmen and drivers generally,” said Irving,—“they do not chaff each other as the London men in the same positions do. They don’t appear to be cheerful; don’t discuss among themselves the news of the day; they treat each other as if they were strangers. English people, as a rule, complain of the cab-fares here; but they forget, on the other hand, to say that the cabs, or _coupés_, as they call them, are beautifully appointed vehicles; private broughams, in fact. The only inconvenience is, that unless you make a bargain with a driver beforehand he may charge you, it seems, what he likes. Against that, again, is this set-off: you can order your cab at your hotel, or your club, and have it charged in your bill, and in that case there is no extortion. Each leading hotel and club has telephonic communication with livery stables; and what a comfort that is! Then the messenger system,—one almost wonders how we do without it in London. If London can give New York ‘points’ in some things, New York can certainly return the compliment.”

Asked by a Boston journalist “how he considered he had been treated by his American critics,” Irving said, “I am exceedingly gratified by the intelligent and fair manner in which I have been treated by the press wherever I have gone. The Boston critics have been just and generous to me. Of course I read what the press has to say of my work, and, while I think it is not the proper province of an actor to criticise his critics, I will say generally that I have been pleased to note in how very few instances I have had to encounter on this side of the Atlantic anything in the nature of personal or petty feeling. I have been struck, too, by the power, vigor, and critical acumen which your leading papers, both here and elsewhere, have displayed in passing judgment upon my work and that of my company. I have a feeling that an actor should be content with what he gets, and that it is his duty to accept patiently any reproach, and to profit by it if he can. After all, criticism, if unjust, never harms a man; because any final appeal is always to the public, and, if any wrong is done, their ultimate judgment invariably corrects it.”

VI.

THE “Southern Hotel,” at St. Louis, displayed prominently engraven upon a tablet, near the principal staircase, the dates when it had been burned down and rebuilt. The “Tremont,” at Chicago, recorded on its handsome new building the fact that it had been destroyed by fire, Oct. 27, 1839; July 9, 1849; and Oct. 9, 1871. “Having dwelt upon these dates with a little misgiving,” said a member of Mr. Irving’s company, “some of us felt almost alarmed when, on closing our bedroom doors, a card headed ‘Fire!’ printed in red ink, attracted our attention. I have asked permission to carry one of them away with me, thinking you would like to have it.” The notice is as follows:—

_FIRE! FIRE! FIRE!_

There have been placed in the halls of the Tremont House GONGS, which will be rung by electricity, as an

ALARM IN CASE OF FIRE.

They are under control of the office, and will be set going INSTANTLY, on the slightest alarm, and continue to ring.

This ringing, with the system of calling each room by watchmen stationed on the floors, will insure the speediest alarm to guests it is possible to give in case of accident.

On being awakened, guests and employés will protect themselves, each other, and property, to the greatest possible extent.

There are four RED LANTERNS in each hall, at the corners, showing the Stairways, and at the End of every Corridor outside the building there are IRON LADDER FIRE-ESCAPES to the ground.

Passage along the halls and corridors, if dark and filled with smoke, can be made by crawling close to the floor with the face covered, to prevent the inhalation of smoke and consequent suffocation.

From the Roof and the three stories below it there is access from the service stairs to the tops of the adjoining buildings, making a Way of Escape over the roofs, from Dearborn to State street,—a full block.

JOHN A. RICE & Co.

The fire service at Chicago is, no doubt, the finest and most complete organization in the world. Situated as the city is, on a vast plain, with prairie winds and lake winds that sweep the entire country for hundreds of miles without obstruction, the fire department has to consider, not only the question of extinguishing a conflagration, but protecting the property adjacent to a fire from ignition, in regard to which it has a series of wise precautionary measures. In former days Chicago, like many other American cities, was largely built of wood, and there are still outlying districts of timber houses. There are also enormous lumber-yards in Chicago, which are a source of danger during fires that rage when a high wind is blowing. Not long since Capt. Shaw gave an exhibition to a royal party in London, demonstrating how quickly the engines and fire-escapes can be signalled and despatched to a fire. So far as I remember the time was about fifteen minutes. In Chicago they take less than as many seconds to complete a similar operation. The system of fire-alarms in all American cities is superior to ours, and the arrangements for starting ensure far more expedition. We have a less number of fires in England, many conflagrations taking place in America through carelessness in connection with the furnaces that are used for heating the houses; then shingle roofs are not uncommon in America; and in England the party-walls that separate houses are, as a rule, thicker and higher. This was the explanation which the American consul gave me at Birmingham, England, recently, for the fact that during a whole year in Birmingham (with a population equal to Chicago) every fire that had occurred had been extinguished with a hand-engine and hose; it had not been necessary in a single case to use the steam-engines. In Chicago and other cities the electric signal announcing a fire at the same time releases the horses that are tethered close to the engines, alarms the reclining (sometimes sleeping) firemen in their bunks above, withdraws the bolts of trap-doors in the floor; and by the time the horses are in the shafts and harnessed the men drop from their bunks upon the engine. From a calm interior, occupied by an engine with its fire banked up, and one attendant officer, to a scene of bustle and excitement with an engine, fully equipped, dashing out into the street, is a transformation sufficiently theatrical in its effect to make the fortune of an Adelphi drama.

I once engaged to time the operation with a stopwatch, and before I was fairly ready to count the seconds the engine was in the street and away. These exhibitions of skill, speed, and mechanical contrivance can be seen every day at the quarters of the Fire Insurance Patrol. Chief Bulwinkle is one of the most obliging of officers, and many a famous English name has been inscribed in his visitor’s book.[59]

The method of marshalling the forces of the various brigades in case of a serious fire is interesting. Marshal Swenie explains it in a few words, in answer to a journalistic inquiry:—

“‘There is at each fire-station a running-card in connection with a particular fire-alarm box. All these brigades act on the first alarm. If the fire is in the crowded and costly part of the city not only do the nearest companies go to the fire, but the companies farther off move up. Suppose, for instance, that there is a fire at State and Madison streets, and there are four engine-houses in a straight line, extending in any direction to the city limits, and a mile apart. We will call the company nearest the fire No. 1, the next, No. 2, the next, No. 3, and the one farthest away, No. 4. Now, when No. 1 goes to the fire, No. 2 goes to the engine-house of No. 1 and takes possession; No. 3, in like manner, takes possession of No. 2’s house, and No. 4 of No. 3’s house. If there is a second alarm, No. 2 goes to the fire; No. 3 takes No. 1’s house, and No. 4 takes No. 3’s house. If there is a third alarm, No. 3 goes to the fire, and No. 4 takes No. 1’s house. Moreover, what is done in that one direction is done in every direction.”

“‘What is the object of this?’ asks the interviewing reporter from whom I borrow Marshal Swenie’s information.

“‘The object is to watch most closely the most valuable part of the city. A fire in the heart of the city destroys a hundred times as much property in a given time as a fire in the outskirts; therefore we arrange things so that if any part is to be left without protection it shall be the sparsely settled part.’

“‘Who directs the operation of extinguishing a fire?’

“‘The captain of the company that arrives first on the ground takes command of all the companies that arrive after his until a chief of a battalion arrives; and the chief takes command until the marshal or assistant marshal arrives.’

“‘What is the position of the commanding officer at a fire?’

“‘In front of the fire. By the front I mean to the leeward. A fire is always driven by the wind in one particular direction, and the marshal or commanding officer will always be found, therefore, where the fire is the hottest.’

“‘How do you communicate your orders in such a noise and excitement as there were, for instance, at the Bradner Smith & Co. fire?’

“‘Partly by messengers and partly by signals. The signals, however, are very few, and are made with a lantern. If the lantern is moved up and down it means that more pressure is needed on the stream; if it is moved horizontally it means that less is needed; and if it is swung around in a circle it means “take up,” or stop work altogether.’

“‘What does the whistling of the engine mean?’

“‘It means that they need more coal. They take with them fuel enough to last them half an hour, and by that time the coal-wagons are due.’

“‘Do you ever have any difficulty with your men on the score of cowardice?’

“‘Not any; but I have a world of difficulty in the other direction. The ambition, rivalry, and _esprit du corps_ of the force are so great that I have the greatest difficulty in restraining the men from throwing away their lives in the most reckless manner. If I ever need to have a man go into a very dangerous position all I have to do is to send two there. As soon as they start each one insists on going a few feet farther than the other, and the result is that both of them become willing to walk into the fire. There is also very little shirking in the force. Once in a long time a man gets suspected of shirking, and the way that is cured is, he is given the pipe to hold at every fire, and four men are put behind him to shove him in.’

“‘What are the greatest obstacles to be overcome in extinguishing a fire?’

“‘Smoke and hot air. I have known the air in burning buildings to get so hot that two inhalations of it would kill a man. As to smoke, we use a kind of respirator; but it doesn’t do a great deal of good. Our main hope is in ventilating the premises and letting out the smoke. If it wasn’t for the smoke it would be very easy to put out fires.’

“‘Do you find that a fireman is short-lived?’

“‘I can’t say I do. So far as I can see they are a healthy, long-lived class, when they don’t get mangled and killed at their work.’”

VII.

“DO you remember the poetic speech, in verse and prose, that William Winter[60] made at the banquet in Lafayette place?” I asked.

“Yes, indeed,” Irving replied. “The two stanzas with which he introduced it were singularly musical, I thought.”

“Here they are. I wanted him to write out the heads of his speech for me; but he had only written down his verses, and here they are, as dainty as they are fraternal.

I.

“‘If we could win from Shakespeare’s river The music of its murmuring flow, With all the wild-bird notes that quiver Where Avon’s scarlet meadows glow; If we could twine with joy at meeting Their prayers who lately grieved to part, Ah, then, indeed, our song of greeting Might find an echo in his heart!

II.

“‘But since we cannot in our singing That music and those prayers entwine, At least, we’ll set our blue-bells ringing, And he shall hear our whispering pine; And there shall breathe a welcome royal, In accents tender, sweet, and kind, From lips as fond and hearts as loyal As any that he left behind.’”

Among the curious notices, serious and humorous, which were posted in the offices and dressing-rooms of the various theatres, the following satirical regulations are somewhat incongruous when considered with the handsome furniture which generally belongs to managerial rooms in America:—

OFFICE RULES.

1. Gentlemen entering this office will please leave the door open.

2. Those having no business should remain as long as possible, take a chair and lean against the wall,—it will prevent it falling upon us.

3. Gentlemen are requested to smoke, particularly during office hours. Tobacco and cigars will be furnished.

4. Spit on the floor,—the spittoons are merely for ornament.

5. Talk loud or whistle, particularly when we are engaged; if this does not have the desired effect, SING.

6. Put your feet on the table, or lean against the desk; it will be a great benefit to those who are using it.

7. Persons having no business with this office will please call again when they can’t stay so long.

VIII.

“WILL you please tell me about the report, cabled from London to the American press, that you propose to stand for Parliament, in the Liberal interest, on your return to England?” asked a journalistic interviewer, at Boston.

“I can only say that the report is entirely unfounded. It arose, I imagine, from my election to the Reform Club. You know they do occasionally elect out-of-the-way fellows, such as I am, in the matter of politics. The welcome news reached me last night in my dressing-room at the theatre. To be elected in my absence adds to the pleasure of the thing. I have only that interest in politics which all honest men should have, but it exists only under my own roof. I do not think artists should mix up in politics. Art is my vocation, and I confine myself to it.”

“Then, I assume, you have never cherished political aspirations.”

“Oh, no, never! In fact I should be totally unfit for Parliament. I am not eloquent, and should be unfit in other ways. We do not look upon politics in England as you do here. Here political life is an avenue to office and to emoluments, in a broader and deeper sense than is possible in England, and many choose the law as a profession with a view to politics. Do they not? It is not so with us. A seat in the House of Commons, as a rule, involves great expense, as well as a claim upon a man’s time; and he may sit there all his life, if he is returned often enough, and spend every year a large income, socially in London, and locally on charities, hospitals, reading-rooms, churches and chapels, among his constituents. We do not pay our representatives salaries; and I believe, particularly in the country, the constituencies watch with the greatest jealousy every vote a member records. The House of Commons is not a bed of roses.”

I have said, in a previous chapter, that the trouble in respect to the new form of journalism in some of the cities of the United States is, that the reader is left too much in doubt as to the truth of the daily chronicles. The Chicago reporter, who held up the “interviews” of other journals as more or less “bogus,” would himself have found it difficult in this respect to winnow the chaff from the wheat. At St. Louis a reporter professed to have taken an engagement as a “super” in the Irving Company. He wrote a description of “behind the scenes” in that capacity, but “gave himself away,” by making all the company, from the leading actor down to the call-boy, drop their h’s. The American reporter’s leading idea when burlesquing the English is to take every _h_ out of a Britisher’s conversation, and even to make the Queen herself drop the aspirate or misuse it; for instance, here is a summary of the royal speech on the opening of Parliament, which appeared in a Philadelphia journal: “We’re pretty well, I thank you, and we ‘opes to remain so, we does.” If in our stage and journalistic satire we make Jonathan “guess,” “calkalate,” and “lick all creation, you bet,” he “gets even” with “yahs, deah boy,” and “‘ow bar’ you,” and “‘pon my ‘onor, don’t cher know?” But, referring back to the many imaginary interviews and fictitious sketches of Irving and his life behind the scenes, here is an extract from an account of “Irving’s day,” which appeared in one of the light-headed dailies, that is, in some respects, truer than I dare say any of its readers believed it to be. The introduction of “the secretaries” is worthy of “Punch,” and in its earnestness funnier than some of the great humorist’s sketches of the Irving tour in America. Here are the leading points of the article:—

THE METHODICAL WAY IN WHICH IRVING PASSES HIS TIME.

Henry Irving is a man of simple, but regular, habits. He has gained the hearts of everybody in the Bellevue, from the proprietor to the bell-boy, by his courteous demeanor and his desire to give as little trouble as possible. He rises at nine o’clock, and drinks a cup of coffee with milk. Breakfast is served in his private sitting-room at ten o’clock, consisting of tea, boiled eggs, and some other simple dish. The eggs he cooks himself in a little spirit-lamp arrangement of his own. He eats the meal alone, and glances at his mail while at table. The budget of correspondence is usually large, and includes letters from all over the world. After breakfast one or two secretaries pay their respects to him, and receive his instructions in regard to the replies to the missives. The daily papers are then carefully read, and any visitors who call are received.

Between twelve and one he leaves the hotel, generally in a carriage, and always accompanied by a secretary. The theatre is the first destination. In everything concerning the stage arrangements, indeed, even the most minute details, Mr. Irving is consulted. A skye-terrier is also a persistent companion of the English actor, and follows wherever he goes.

Mr. Irving dines at 3.30. A course-dinner is served,—oysters, soup, fish, a cutlet, and a bird. Canvas-back duck has a preference among the feathery food. He dines by himself, does his own carving, and dismisses the servants as soon as the dishes are placed in front of him. From the dinner hour until he goes to the theatre he is denied to everybody. No matter whose card arrives for him there is no passport for the pasteboard through the portals of the actor’s apartments. The interval after dinner is passed in study and meditation. Mr. Irving is, above all, a student, and every gesture and motion he makes on the stage have been previously considered, and a reason found for the change of position or features.

After the theatre Mr. Irving throws off the restraint of the day, and sups at his ease with some of his friends. A secretary or two are included in the party. Supper lasts sometimes until two or three in the morning. Last Sunday, when Attorney-General Brewster was Mr. Irving’s guest, it was three A.M., before the party exchanged adieux.

Among the visitors who have called on Mr. Irving, Viscount Bury, James McHenry, and General Collis were among the favored ones who were admitted to audience. Scores of invitations for every kind of entertainment have overwhelmed him, keeping three or four of his secretaries busy with writing his expression of regrets.

When Irving was at Philadelphia he had a young English friend visiting him. The waiter (who was evidently in the confidence of the local reporter, or might have been the reporter himself masquerading as a waiter) pressed him in as a secretary. Abbey’s manager, Mr. Palser, Mr. Stoker, Mr. Loveday, and another friend, a resident of Philadelphia, were all promoted to the secretarial office. There is a sublime touch of unconscious satire in this staff of secretaries, engaged upon the work of answering Irving’s letters, which will be particularly appreciated in London, where that one special sin of his—neglecting to answer letters—is even commented upon in learned reviews. The after-dinner “study and meditations” is “Jeames’s” view of the siesta, which is a needful incident of every actor’s day. The data of the sketch being fairly correct, the _bona fides_ of it, from the reporter’s point of view, make it interesting as well as characteristic of the “personal” character of some of the clever news journals of the day.

IX.

ONE day, during “this interval after dinner,” which is “passed in study and meditation,” Irving said, “Have you followed out all the story of the Bisbee murderers?”

“Yes,” I said. “It is one of those strange cases of lawlessness, that I have taken out of the newspapers for my scrap-book. Charles Reade[61] would have been interested in it. Have you ever seen his scrap-books?”

“No,” said Irving; “are they very remarkable?”

“Yes, and in my slovenly attempts to save newspaper cuttings I often think of him. I once spent a whole day with him, looking over his journalistic extracts, and he was lamenting all the time the trouble involved in their arrangement and indexing. He subscribed to many odd out-of-the-way newspapers for his collections. If he had ever visited America he would have been tempted to make a very formidable addition to his list.

“Do you know the beginning of the Bisbee business? I have only seen the account of the hunting down of one of the murderers, which has interested me tremendously. Have you seen any accounts of the capture?”

“No.”

“Well, then, curiously enough I have received a San Francisco ‘Chronicle,’ with the entire story of it, and I believe it is worth putting into the book. Can you tell me the nature of this crime?”

“Yes. One day several strangers arrived suddenly in the little town of Bisbee, on the outskirts of Western civilization. They went into the principal store, shot down the owner of it, fired at anybody they saw on the street, killed a woman who was passing the store, and, having generally, as it were, bombarded the little town, left as mysteriously as they came. That is briefly the story, as it was repeated to me a week ago by Dr. Gilman, of Chicago, who has recently returned from the scene of the tragedy, and other mining camps and towns, about which he entertained me with a dozen almost equally startling stories.”

“Well,” said Irving, “the hunt after these Bisbee ruffians is about as dramatic an episode of police work as I ever came across. A reward being offered for the chief of the gang who raided Bisbee, it was soon discovered that ‘Big Dan,’ a notorious ruffian, was the criminal. The entire business was after his most approved method, and it was finally proved, beyond doubt, that this was the latest of ‘Big Dan Dowd’s’ crimes. On the 6th of January, Deputy Sheriff Daniels brought him in custody into Tombstone, and this is the story of the capture:—

“‘On December 23, Daniels learned in Bisbee, from some Mexicans just in from Sonora, that two men, answering the description of ‘Big Dan’ and Billy Delaney, were in Bavispe, Sonora. This place will be remembered as the point from which Crook started on his trip into the defiles of the Sierra Madre, and lies on the western slope of that range. Satisfying himself that the information furnished by the Mexicans was correct, Daniels communicated with the sheriff’s office, and, after making all necessary arrangements, started, on the morning of December 26, for that place. Accompanying the officer was a Mexican named Lucero, on whom Daniels knew he could rely as a guide and a fighter. On the morning of the 30th, after a ride of about two hundred miles, Daniels and his two companions (he having picked up another Mexican at Frontera) reached Bavispe. Here it was learned that Delaney and Dowd had separated five days previously, Dowd remaining in Bavispe, which point he had left that morning, about an hour prior to the arrival of Daniels and his posse. Additional inquiries elicited the information that Dowd had struck across the Sierra Madre for Janos, in the State of Chihuahua, distant about seventy-five miles. After taking a short rest, and perfecting plans for the capture of Delaney, the officer started in pursuit of the other bandit.

“The route of travel led through the defiles of the Sierra Madre, by rocks and precipitous trails, and it was not until the morning of January 1 that Daniels reached Janos, where he learned, as at Bavispe, that the bird had flown, having left Janos a few hours ahead of him for Coralitos, distant about twenty-seven miles. Procuring fresh horses, the posse started at once for Coralitos, which place was reached about eight o’clock that evening. The town is in the centre of a mining country, and is composed principally of Mexicans, there being but half-a-dozen Americans in the place. The whole neighborhood, as described by Daniels, seems to belong to the Coralitos Mining Company, of which Ad Menzenberger is superintendent. Daniels went at once to him, and communicating the object of his visit, learned that ‘Big Dan’ had arrived a short time previously, and was then in what was known as the house of the Americans. The superintendent, having learned the character of Dowd, was only too willing to assist in his capture, and, under the cover of darkness, he and Daniels proceeded to the house. Prior to reaching it, it was agreed that the superintendent should enter in advance of Daniels, in order to prevent any interference by the Americans who were in his employ, in the capture of Dowd.

“‘As agreed the superintendent entered the room first, with Daniels at his heels. Dowd was sitting on a table facing the fire, and the rest of the party were scattered about the room. On the table was standing, also, a bottle of whiskey, which had not been uncorked. Everything indicated that Dowd had no idea of the presence of an officer, and was preparing for a jolly night with his companions. He did not even look around when the men entered the room, and his first knowledge that he was in the clutches of the law was when Menzenberger, who had reached his side, caught hold of his arms, and throwing them above his head, said, ‘Throw up your hands.’ Daniels, at the same time, with a cocked pistol in each hand, made the demand to surrender. A word from the superintendent to the Americans present showed Dowd, who was unarmed at the time, that he was powerless to escape, and he quietly submitted to being manacled. Daniels remained until the following morning, when he was furnished with an ambulance and escort by the superintendent, and driven to San José station, on the line of the Mexican Central Railroad, one hundred and ten miles distant, and about ninety miles south of El Paso del Norte. Here he telegraphed to Sheriff Ward of the capture, and, putting his prisoner on board the train, started for home. Upon nearing Paso del Norte, he feared that Dowd might raise a question of extradition, and put him to much trouble; so he made arrangements with the railroad officials, and, together with his prisoner, was locked in the express car until reaching the American line.’”

Irving recited most of the “Chronicle’s “narrative. The close, terse particulars of its details leave sufficient color of surroundings to the imagination of the reader.

X.

“TOMBSTONE,” he said presently, “is a curious name for a town.”

“Some friends of mine,” I said, “have business interests there. It got its name in this way: a party of young pioneers decided to go there on a prospecting expedition. They were ridiculed, and told by another party, who had refused to join them, that all they would find would be a tomb. The adventurers, however, discovered mineral treasures, of enormous extent, started a town, and, as a derisive answer to their prophetic friend, called it Tombstone. This is the story of only a few years. Tombstone is now a prosperous community, and has a daily paper. What do you think its title is?”

“I cannot guess.”

“Eugene Field, a journalist whose name is well-known throughout the West, gave me a copy of it only yesterday.”

I went to my room and brought down a well-printed four-page paper, entitled “The Tombstone Epitaph.”

“And not a funny paper at all,” said Irving, examining it; “a regular business-like paper, newsy and prosaic, except for the short literary story and the poem that begin its pages.”

“Mr. Field gave me some remarkable newspaper trophies of these mining towns, that may be said to grow up outside the pale of civilization, to be eventually incorporated into the world of law and order. Here, for instance, is a placard issued by ‘The Bazoo,’ a newspaper published at the little town of Sedalia:—

BAZOO NEWS TRAIN! —to— NEVADA, MO.,

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 28, 1883.

_BILL FOX’S PUBLIC EXECUTION_ For the murder of Tom Howard, at Nevada, Mo., May 20,1883.

The “Sedalia Bazoo” has chartered a special train, which will run to Nevada from Joplin on that day. Leaving Jopling at 8.10 o’clock A.M., and returning in thirty minutes after the death-scene at the gallows.

Rate of Fare for TIME-TABLE. Round Trip.

Leave Joplin, 8.10 A.M. $2.00 ” Webb City, 8.25 ” 1.75 ” Edwin, 8.43 ” 1.50 ” Carthage, 8.53 ” 1.45 ” Carey, 9.05 ” 1.25 ” Jasper, 9.15 ” 1.10 ” Carleton, 9.27 ” .95 ” Lamar, 9.40 ” .75 ” Irwin, 9.57 ” .60 ” Sheldon, 10.07 ” .50 ” Milo, 10.20 ” .25 Arrive Nevada, 10.35

[finger]Tickets for Sale at the Depot.[finger]

Returning, the train will leave Nevada thirty minutes after the execution, giving plenty of time for all to get to the train. Tickets sold for this train will not be good on any other but the “Bazoo” News Train, this day only.

_THE BAZOO!_ Is a Daily and Weekly newspaper published at SEDALIA, MO., For the People now on Earth.

TERMS.

Daily, per Annum $10.00 Sunday, ” 2.50 Weekly, ” 1.00

[finger]Subscriptions will be received on the Train by a Solicitor.[finger]

The “Sedalia Morning Bazoo” of Dec. 29 will contain a picture of FOX, who is to be executed, with a full history of his crime, his trial, and the last words of the dying man on the gallows.

Secure a copy of the news agent on the train, or of your news-dealer, for FIVE CENTS.

“And here is the free pass (printed on a mourning card) which accompanied the announcement that was sent to Mr. Field in his journalistic capacity:—

THE BAZOO NEWS TRAIN, Good for Special On the occasion of the News Train only. PUBLIC EXECUTION OF BILL FOX. Pass Miss Eugenia Field, Acc’t of Boss Bog,

TO NEVADA AND RETURN, Dec. 28, 1883. J. WEST GOODWIN.

“Bill Fox, I understood, was a noted criminal, and everybody was glad to have him hanged out of the way.”

XI.

“IT is a lesson in the evolution of towns, these incidents of the pushing out of the frontiers of a great country,” said Irving. “I dare say Denver began its career as a mining-camp.”

“It did; and only a few years ago.”

“And now they tell me it is a beautiful and well-ordered city, with the finest opera-house in all America.”

“That is so; and one day you ought to play there.”

“I hope I may; I would like it very much. By the way, your bill about ‘The Bazoo’ excursion reminds me of two curious placards which the manager of Haverly’s gave me. They tell the story of the fate of a new play that was once produced at his theatre. It was called ‘Hix’s Fix,’ and was a terrible failure. The theatre had been engaged for a short season for ‘Hix’s Fix,’ and the proprietors of it were at their wits’ ends to know what to do. They were not prepared to play any other piece; so they hit upon the expedient of ‘pushing the failure.’ They printed half a million handbills, and circulated them diligently. This is one of them; it reads as follows:—

HAVERLY’S THEATRE.

In obedience to the Unanimous Opinion of the Daily Press

MESTAYER & BARTON

Seriously think of Changing the name of their Play,

HIX’S FIX, to ROT.

In sober truth, this is about the right thing

[hand symbol] BUT [hand symbol]

It is the funniest rot you have ever seen, and stands preeminent and alone the

WORST PLAY OF THE AGE.

OPINIONS OP THE PRESS:

Hix’s Fix is bad enough, but think of the poor audience.—_News._

All that is not idiotic is vile.—_Tribune._

The piece is sheer nonsense, to speak mildly.—_Times._

The most painful dramatic infliction we have suffered this season.—_Evening News._

EVERYBODY’S JUDGMENT WANTED.

TURN OUT AND JOIN THE MOURNERS.

Every Night this Week and Wednesday and Saturday Matinées.

“Under the influence of this extraordinary announcement, the business improved, stimulated by which cheering result the managers issued a new proclamation, to this effect:—

HAVERLY’S THEATRE.

Every Night this Week and usual Matinées.

HIX’S FIX

Is unquestionably the worst Play ever produced.

It is so much worse that no one should miss it!

THIS IS CONFIDENTIAL (?)

To illustrate how good people will sometimes go wrong, read the list of talent engaged in playing this vile trash.

WILLIAM A. MESTAYER, The heaviest of heavy Tragedians.

ROB’T E. GRAHAM, Unequalled in Character Impersonations.

HARRY BLOODGOOD, FRED. TURNER, CHAS. A. STEDMAN, H. A. CRIPPS. MISS KATE FOLEY, As bright as a sunbeam, SOPHIE HUMMELL, HELEN LOWEL, LISLE RIDDELL, with JAMES BARTON, as Manager.

Here you have the novelty of a very Good Company in an unpardonably Bad Play.

AND THEY KNOW IT!

You must admire their Candor, if you will condemn the Play.

“Many curious people were drawn to the theatre in this way; but the attraction of failure only lasted a few nights. The invitation to turn out and join the mourners strikes one as funny. ‘It helped them to pay expenses,’ said the manager; ‘but it is the most novel effort to “turn diseases to commodities,” as Falstaff says, that ever came under my notice.’”

XII.

“AND now,” continued Irving, “to go back to your opening, where we rather discount Raymond’s stories of the wild life of Texas. Have you seen the ‘Herald’s’ latest sensation?”

“No.”

“Not the Texan tragedy?”

“No.”

“Here it is, then; listen to the heads of it: ‘Two Crime-stained Ruffians die with their Boots on—Pistol Shots in a Theatre—Killed in Self-defence by Men whose Lives they sought—The Heroes of many Murders!’”

He handed me the paper, saying, “Read that! And yet we chaffed poor Raymond!”

I read a “special telegram” to the “Herald” (and verified the report at a later day by the records of other journals, local, and of the “Empire city”), reporting that on the 11th of March, between ten and twelve at night, San Antonio, Texas, was “thrown into a state of wild excitement, by the report that Ben Thompson and King Fisher had been shot and killed at the Vaudeville Theatre. An immense crowd thronged around the doors of the theatre, but were denied admission by the officers who had taken possession of the building.

“It seems that Ben Thompson, who is noted throughout Texas as one of the most reckless and desperate characters in the State, and King Fisher, who also had the reputation of a desperado, arrived at San Antonio together, from Austin, by the International train. After enjoying the performance at Turner Hall for a time, they left before the curtain fell, and went to the Vaudeville Theatre, in company with another person. As soon as it became known that Thompson was in the city the police were on the alert, expecting trouble. Fisher and Thompson entered the Vaudeville, and, after taking a drink at the bar, went upstairs and took seats. They engaged in a brief conversation with Simms, one of the proprietors, and the whole party took drinks and cigars together. Thompson and Fisher then rose, and, in company with Simms and Coy, a special policeman at the theatre, started downstairs.

“The party was joined by Joe Foster, another of the Vaudeville proprietors, and an excited and heated conversation followed, during which Thompson called Foster a liar, a thief, and other vile names. Firing then commenced, and some ten or twelve shots were heard in rapid succession. Police Captain Shardein and another officer rushed upstairs, to find Ben Thompson and King Fisher weltering in their blood in the corner of a room near the door leading downstairs. Joe Foster was badly wounded in the leg, and Officer Coy slightly grazed on the shin.

“A scene of the wildest confusion ensued as soon as the shooting commenced. All who were in the theatre knew of the presence of Thompson and Fisher, and were well acquainted with their desperate character. When the first shot was fired the whole crowd seemed to be panic-stricken. The dress circle was quickly cleared, the occupants jumping into the parquet below and through the side-windows into the street. No one seems to know who fired the first shot, or how many were engaged in the shooting. Before the theatre was fairly cleared of its occupants fifteen hundred persons on the outside were clamoring at the closed doors for admittance, which was resolutely denied by the police, who had taken possession of the building. Subsequently the dead bodies of Thompson and Fisher were removed to the City Jail, where they were washed and laid out.

“Bill Thompson, the brother of Ben, was at the White Elephant at the time of the shooting, waiting for Ben to return from Turner Hall. He rushed out as soon as he saw that there was some trouble; but, as he was unarmed, he was stopped at the entrance to the Vaudeville by Captain Shardien, and kept outside the building.

“An immense crowd followed the remains of the two desperadoes when they were carried to the jail, and this morning the plaza around the building was thronged.

“From the statements of those connected with the theatre the killing was unavoidable, as it seemed to be understood when Thompson entered the house that his purpose was to raise a disturbance; but whether King Fisher shared in this design is not known.

“A coroner’s jury was summoned at once. They viewed the bodies, and the inquest was held the next morning. After hearing the testimony of eye-witnesses and others a verdict was returned to the effect that Ben Thompson and J. King Fisher came to their deaths by means of pistol-bullets fired from weapons in the hands of W. Simms, Joseph C. Foster, and Jacob Coy; and, further, that the killing was justifiable, being done in self-defence. Coy, the special policeman on duty at the theatre, testified that Thompson drew his weapon first; but it was seized by witness, who held it in his grasp during the affray. Thompson, however, fired four shots, one of which took effect in Foster’s leg.

“Foster’s leg has been amputated, and there are no hopes of his recovery.”

The newspaper man gives “Thompson’s antecedents” and “Fisher’s record,” as follows:—

Ben Thompson was born in Knottingley, a town in Yorkshire, England, in 1844. His father was a sea-captain. Ben leaves a wife and two children in Austin,—a bright boy of fourteen years and a girl of eleven. He has a brother here, who took charge of his body, and carried it to Austin to-day. Thompson’s record is a bloody one. He is said to have slain probably twenty men. His last victim was Jack Harris, proprietor of the Vaudeville, whom he shot in June, 1882, in the same house in which he himself was slain last night. His death is little regretted here.

King Fisher was a young man of some twenty-eight years, and his record was, if possible, more bloody than Thompson’s. For years he was feared as a frontier desperado, and killed Mexicans almost for pastime. Of late he had reformed a little, and when killed was deputy sheriff of Walde county. Both men were strikingly handsome, and noted as quick dead-shots with six-shooters, or Winchesters. Fisher’s remains were shipped home to-night.

The reporter adds: “The city is now quiet, though the death of two such notorious desperadoes is still a topic of conversation.”

“Thompson was an Englishman, you see,” remarked Irving, “which verifies to some extent what I have often been told, that England has to answer for a full share of the ruffianly element of the States. The mining regions of California at one time were crowded with English adventurers. What a vast country it is that encircles in its territories every climate,—tropical heat and arctic cold! To-day, while we are ice-bound, a journey of two or three days would take us to Florida and orange-groves, and a day’s travel from the heart of a highly civilized city, of refined cultivation and well-ordered society, would carry us into a region where men live in primitive state, so far as the law is concerned, and yet are the pioneers of a great empire. What a story, the history of America, when somebody tells it from its picturesque and romantic side!”

XXII.

“THE LONGEST JOURNEY COMES TO AN END.”

“Our Closing Month in New York”—Lent—At Rehearsal—Finishing Touches—Behind the Scenes at the Lyceum and the Star—The Story of the Production of “Much Ado” in New York—Scenery and Properties on the Tour—Tone—Surprises for Agents in Advance—Interesting Technicalities—An Incident of the Mounting of “Much Ado”—The Tomb Scene—A Great Achievement—The End.

I.

“IT is almost like getting home again,” said Irving, “to find one’s self in New York once more. The first place one stops at in a new country always impresses the imagination and lives in the memory. I should say that is so with pioneers; and more particularly when your first resting-place has been pleasant. Let us get Monday night well over, and we may look for something like a little leisure during our closing month in New York. We shall produce “Much Ado” as completely as it is possible for us to do it, outside of our own theatre. If no hitch occurs I think we will run it for two, Palser even proposes three, weeks. If we have been complimented upon our scenic and stage-managerial work on the other pieces, what may we expect for ‘Much Ado’? Lent is severely kept in New York, I am told; Holy Week being among the churches, if not a fast in regard to food, a fast from amusements. We must therefore be content, I suppose, to let ‘Much Ado’ grow, in time for the restoration of social pleasures at Easter.”[62]

On Monday, at a quarter to eleven, Irving was at his post, on the stage of the Star Theatre, for a complete rehearsal. Scenery, properties, lighting, grouping of supernumeraries, the entire business of the piece, was gone through. Not a detail was overlooked, not a set but was viewed as completely from the stalls as from the stage.

“Pardon me,” says Irving to Claudio; “if you get your hand above your head in that position, you will never get it down again. Suppose you adopt this idea, eh? What do you think?”

“Certainly, it is better,” says Claudio.

Irving, as he speaks, illustrates his own view of the scene.

“Then we will try it again.”

The scene is repeated.

“Yes, very good, that will do.”

The rehearsal goes on.

“No, no,” says Irving, “there must be no wait; the second procession must come on promptly at the cue. Try it again. And hold your halberd like this, my boy; not as if you were afraid of it. There, that’s it.”

The supernumerary accepts his lesson; the music cue is repeated; the halberdiers file in; the military strains cease, the organ peals out, the wedding procession comes on.

“Bow, bow,—don’t nod,” says Irving, stepping forward to instruct a subordinate in the scene; “that’s better—go on.”

The solemn voice of Mead opens the scene, and as it proceeds, Irving calls Loveday aside.

“Too much light at the back there, eh?”

“Do you think so?” says Loveday. “Lower the light there,—the blue medium.”

Steps have been placed as a way from the stage to the stalls. Irving (“Charlie” following at his heels) goes into the third row, Loveday watching and waiting.

“Yes, that will do,” says Irving, at the same time turning to me to remark, “do you see what a difference that makes? You have no difficulty now in imagining the distance the subdued light suggests,—chapels, vestries, dim cathedral vistas. Do you notice what a last touch of reality to the scene the hurried entrance of the pages give?—they break up the measured solemnity of the processions with a different step, a lighter manner, the carelessness of youth; they have no censers to carry, no ecclesiastical robes to wear.”

As he is speaking he strides up the steps and upon the stage once more.

“Mr. Ball! Call Mr. Ball, please.”

The musical director appears.

“The basses are too loud; they spoil the closing movement, which is too quick altogether. Come into the stalls and hear it.”

“Howson!” says Ball, “please give them the time.”

Ball goes into the stalls. The movement is repeated and repeated again, the last time entirely to Irving’s satisfaction.

In these passing notes I merely desire to give the reader a hint at the kind of work which was done at rehearsal on the Monday of the production of “Much Ado.” It lasted until a quarter-past five. Irving was there until the end. Out of sight of the audience he had done enough work to entitle him to a night’s rest; but, so far as the critics and the public were concerned, his labors were only just beginning. Shortly after seven he was on the stage again, and when the play began he was never more heartily engaged in his rôle as actor.

“Yes, I am rather tired,” he said, in his quiet way, when I spoke to him at the wing; “feel inclined to sit down,—hard work, standing about all day,—but this is the reward.”

He pointed to the setting of the garden scene, which was progressing quite smoothly.

“If we pull through with the cathedral set all right, one will not mind being a little tired.”

I waited to see the work done, and, though I am familiar with the business behind the scenes, I was glad to escape from the “rush and tumble” of it on this occasion. At the Lyceum every man knows the piece, or flat, for the position of which he is responsible. He goes about his work silently, and in list slippers; he fetches and carries without hurry; nothing seems more simple; you see the scene grow into completeness, silently but surely. At the Star, on this first night, it was, to all appearance, chaos. Wings were slid about; curtains unrolled; tapestries hauled up by unseen strings; great pillars were pushed here and there; images of saints were launched into space from the flies, to be checked by ropes, just as you might think they were coming to grief; a massive altar-piece was being railed in, while a painted canopy was hoisted over it; a company of musicians were led out of the way of falling scenes to join a chorus party of ladies and gentlemen, who were gradually losing themselves among a picturesque crowd of halberdiers. Everybody seemed to be in everybody’s way; it looked like a general scramble. Irving, with “Less noise, my boys—less noise!” continually on his lips, moved about among the throng; and as Ball, who had made a third and last effort to find a prominent position from which to conduct his band, stepped upon a bench, which was instantly drawn from under him by the stage hands who had it in charge, I went to the front of the house. Ball’s musicians struck up their impressive strains of the “Gloria,” and the curtain slowly rose upon the cathedral at Messina, as if it had been there all the time, only waiting the prompter’s signal. Pandemonium behind the curtain had given place to Paradise in front. It was a triumph of willing hands under intelligent and earnest direction.

II.

NEXT day, when the success of the night had been duly chronicled in the press,[63] I suggested to Irving that we should place on record some account of the manner in which the Lyceum scenery, dresses, and properties had been dealt with on the tour; to what extent the equipment with which he had set out had been used; and, as a concluding chapter, that we should tell the story of the production of “Much Ado” in New York. After a consultation with Loveday, and the verification of some necessary statistics, Irving exhausted the subject in a very pleasant and instructive chat, the points of which are not too technical to mislead the general reader, while they are sufficiently technical to be of special interest to actors and managers.

“After the Philadelphia engagement,” said Irving, “I discussed the question of scenery with Loveday, and we found that it was impossible to carry or to use many of our largest set-pieces. Even if we could have carried them conveniently we would not have got them into many of the theatres. Loveday, therefore, packed a mass of it up and sent it back to New York. What we had left was enormous in its bulk, filling two 62-feet cars, and one huge gondola-car, which was made to carry all the flat scenery. We took on with us, however, all the cloths for our entire _repertoire_, and many of the small practical set-pieces. We carried every property of the entire _repertoire_,—the bedstead of ‘The Belle’s Stratagem,’ the altar of ‘Much Ado,’ the horse of ‘The Bells,’ down to Cattermole’s picture of Letitia Hardy, some Chippendale furniture of the period, and other minor things, that are characteristic or useful decoration in the furnishing of interiors and exteriors. All our dresses were included,—principals and supers. Loveday tells me they filled one hundred and twenty great baskets, the properties being packed in thirty baskets, making a total of one hundred and fifty.

“We took everything to Boston and Philadelphia. It was at the latter city that, as I say, we decided to modify our arrangements. We sent back to New York twenty-seven cloths, eighty flats, sixty wings, ninety set pieces, and twelve framed cloths; so that we had to adapt our requirements to the local situation.

“As regards such of our scenery as is painted in tone, you know that one of the most remarkable we have is the frescoed interior of the hall of justice in ‘The Merchant of Venice,’—a complete reproduction of the period. I had the portraits of the Doges painted by White and Cattermole. I think it is one of the most superb pictures ever seen upon the stage. I understand that some people thought it worn, mistaking the tone for dirt. Here and there, I think we found the tapestries, which we used instead of the frescoes, more acceptable.

“Some of the scenes in ‘Hamlet,’ ‘The Bells,’ and ‘Much Ado,’ we had specially reproduced ahead of us. Indeed, the companies following us will find portions of the cathedral of Messina around the walls of many an American theatre; and in every house where we have played, travelling stage-managers, asking for a cottage scene, will find a reminiscence of ‘The Lyons Mail’ in the inn at Lieursaint. We have left one in each town. As they are fac-similes, they will, I should think, bewilder some of the agents in advance.

“As to our full Lyceum scenery, and what may be called the administration of it, we achieved our greatest triumph this week, presenting ‘Much Ado’ as nearly like the Lyceum production as the space at our disposal would permit. Our stage at home, including the scene dock, which we always use, is seventy feet long, measuring from the foot-lights; the Star-stage is fifty feet. We took possession of the theatre on Sunday morning, March 30, the stage having been occupied until Saturday night. A small army of men, besides our own, aided by the heads of departments in Mr. Wallack’s employment, began work, under Loveday’s direction, at seven o’clock A.M., and by four o’clock on Monday morning every scene had been set, lighted, and rehearsed three times over. At four they adjourned, and came on again to meet me at a quarter to eleven, when we had a full rehearsal of scenery, properties, lighting, and of the entire company. I was impressed and delighted with the earnestness of everybody employed in the work, Wallack’s people showing as great a desire as our own to do their best to achieve the success we were all striving for. This is very gratifying; and it has been our experience, wherever we have reappeared, that the employés have thoroughly entered into our work, and shown something like pride in being associated with us. Our experience was not as pleasant at first. Here and there they thought our labors affected, and considered that we gave them unnecessary trouble. In one or two instances they put great and serious difficulties in our way. When, however, they saw the results of our labors they became more amenable to orders; and when we returned to Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, and now to New York, there was no trouble too great for them to undertake for us. I thank all these good fellows heartily.”

III.

“BUT to return to ‘Much Ado,’” I said; “let us go a little into detail as to the number of scenes, cloths, flats, properties, and changes there are in the work. To have got through the piece, without a hitch, within three hours on the first night, is a very remarkable performance.”

“Well, then, there are five acts in the play, thirteen scenes. Every scene is a set, except two, and they are front cloths; there is not a carpenter’s scene proper in the entire representation. To begin with, there is the opening scene,—the bay, with Leonatas’ palace, built out twenty-four feet high,—a solid-looking piece, that has all the appearance of real masonry. I am giving you these details now from a cold, practical stage-manager’s point of view,—fact without color. Well, this scene—the outside of Leonatas’ house—has to be closed in, in two minutes and a half, discovering the inside,—the ball-room, which extends right round the walls of the theatre. This finishes the first act.

“Now, the second act was rung up in eight minutes, showing Craven’s beautiful garden scene,—terraces, glades, and arbors,—in which set the business of the entire act occurs.

“The next act opens in front of Craven’s cloth,—the terrace, which changes to the morning view of the garden, which, in its turn, is covered with the cedar cloth; thus accounting for three scenes. After the last one, in two minutes the change was made to the effective representation of the town at night; the riverside street; the quay with its boats moored; the houses on the other side of the river illuminated, Leonatas’ palace among them. This closes the second act.

“Our great anxiety, as you know, centred in the cathedral set. We calculated that a wait of eighteen to twenty minutes would be required to send the curtain up on that, no doubt, very remarkable scene. It was rung up in fifteen minutes, displaying Telbin’s masterpiece,—the cathedral at Messina, with its real, built-out, round pillars, thirty feet high; its canopied roof of crimson plush, from which hung the golden lamps universally used in Italian cathedrals; its painted canopy overhanging the altar; its great iron-work gates (fac-similes of the originals); its altar, with vases of flowers and flaming candles, rising to a height of eighteen feet; its stained-glass windows and statues of saints; its carved stalls, and all the other details that are now almost as well known in New York as in London. What a fine, impressive effect is the entrance of the vergers!”

“Yes, you were telling me once, when we were interrupted, how you came to introduce this body of men into the scene; it might be worth while to mention the incident along with these practical details of the working of the piece.”

“It came about in this wise. I went into Quaritch’s bookstore one day, and among other curious books I picked up an old, black-letter volume. It was a work on ‘Ceremonies,’ with four large illustrations. I went into the shop to spend four or five pounds; I spent eighty-four or five, and carried off the black-letter book on ‘Ceremonies,’—all Italian. I was at the time preparing ‘Much Ado’ for the Lyceum. In the picture of a wedding ceremony I saw what struck me at once as a wonderful effect, and of the period too,—the Shakespeare period. The effect was a mass of vergers, or javelin men,—officers of the church, I should imagine. They were dressed in long robes, and each carried a halberd. I pressed these men at once into the service of Shakespeare and his cathedral scene at Messina, and got that impressive effect of their entrance and the background of sombre color they formed for the dresses of the bridal party. And it is right too,—that’s the best of it. Not long ago I was at Seville, and saw a church ceremony there, where the various parties came on in something like the fashion of our people on the stage; but we never did anything so fine in that way as the entrances of the visitors at the Capulets in ‘Romeo and Juliet.’ Do you remember the different companies of maskers, with their separate retainers and torch-bearers? But I see you are about to suggest that we get back to the stage of the Star Theatre; and so we will.

“The last act of ‘Much Ado’ was rung up in seven minutes, disclosing the scene where Dogberry holds his court; this is withdrawn upon the garden scene. Then we come to the tomb of Hero, never before presented, except by us, I believe, since Shakespeare’s own time. This scene, with its processions of monks, vergers, and mourners, and the few lines that are spoken, gives us four minutes to make a remarkable change, back to the ball-room in Leonatas’ house, where the story is concluded. As you say, to have moved all this scenery, and represented the piece with its many characters, smoothly and without a blemish, in the various pictures,—and when you think what trifling mistakes will upset the effect of the finest scenes,—to have done all this within three hours is a great achievement. The theatre was handed over to us on Sunday morning; on Monday night at a quarter-past eight the curtain rose on ‘Much Ado,’ mounted and set with our Lyceum effects,—scenery, properties, company,—and fell at twelve minutes past eleven.”

* * * * *

“And the longest journey comes to an end,” said Irving.

FINIS.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] John Henry Brodripp Irving was born at Keinton, near Glastonbury (the scene of the tradition of the sacred thorn), February 6, 1838. In 1849 his father sent him to the private school of Dr. Pinches, in George Yard, Lombard street, London. During his school days he evinced a taste for dramatic poetry. He was placed in the office of an East India house, and might, had he liked his occupation, have become a prosperous merchant; but his ambition gravitated towards the stage. He made personal sacrifices in many ways to educate himself in the direction of his taste for dramatic work. He read plays, studied the theatre and dramatic literature, became an expert fencer, practised elocution with a famous actor, and in 1855 left London and obtained an engagement in a provincial theatre. An earnest student always, he fought his way through a world of troubles, and made his first success at the St. James Theatre, London, October 6, 1866, as Doricourt in “The Belle’s Stratagem.” He afterwards played in eccentric comedy with Toole; made a hit in melodrama at the now defunct Queen’s Theatre; then went to Paris with Sothern, and played Abel Murcot in “Our American Cousin.” Returning to London, he filled important engagements at the Gaiety and Vaudeville Theatres. His appearance at the Lyceum Theatre, London, followed. Here, after his friend, Manager Bateman, had staked and lost everything on “Fanchette,” Mr. Irving advised the production of “The Bells,” which restored the fortunes of the house, and was the beginning of a series of artistic and financial successes, both for the management and the leading actor. On the death of Mr. Bateman, and the withdrawal of his widow from the lesseeship of the theatre, Mr. Irving entered upon management. One day I hope to tell the story of his life and adventures. Placidly as the river of his fortunes may seem to have flowed since he became lessee of the Lyceum, in October, 1878, the incidents of his early struggles are not more interesting than his managerial battles and victories in these latter days of London. Pending a more complete biography, the sketch entitled “Henry Irving,” by Austin Brereton, may be consulted with advantage; its data are well founded, and its figures are correct.

[2] The following cablegram appeared in the “Herald,” on October the 18th, and it was alluded to in the editorial columns as “a hint” which “will not be lost upon the theatrical critics”:—

“LONDON, Oct. 17, 1883.

“The ‘Standard,’ in an editorial this morning, thus appeals to America for a dispassionate judgment of Henry Irving:—

“American audiences have a favorable opportunity of showing that they can think for themselves, and do not slavishly echo the criticisms of the English press. We confess that, though one has read many eulogistic notices of Mr. Irving and listened in private to opinions of different complexions, it is difficult to find anything written respecting him that deserves to be dignified with the description of serious criticisms. Cannot New York, Boston, and Chicago supply us with a little of this material? Are we indulging vain imaginings if we hope that our cousins across the water will forget all that has been said or written about Irving and the Lyceum company this side of the ocean, and will go to see him in his chief performances with unprejudiced eyes and ears, and send us, at any rate, a true, independent, inconventional account of his gifts and graces, or the reverse?

“Most Englishmen naturally will be gratified if the people of the United States find Irving as tragic, and Miss Terry as charming, as so many people in this country consider them. But the gratification will be increased should it be made apparent that a similar conclusion has been arrived at by the exercise of independent judgment, and if in pronouncing it fresh light is thrown upon the disputed points of theatrical controversy.”

[3] The “Tribune’s” reporter drew Miss Terry’s picture with studied elaboration:—

“As she stepped with a pretty little shudder over the swaying plank upon the yacht she showed herself possessed of a marked individuality. Her dress consisted of a dark greenish-brown cloth wrap, lined inside with a peculiar shade of red; the inner dress, girt at the waist with a red, loosely folded sash, seemed a reminiscence of some eighteenth-century portrait, while the delicate complexion caught a rosy reflection from the loose flame-colored red scarf tied in a bow at the neck. The face itself is a peculiar one. Though not by ordinary canons beautiful, it is nevertheless one to be remembered, and seems to have been modelled on that of some pre-Raphaelitish saint,—an effect heightened by the aureole of soft golden hair escaping from under the plain brown straw and brown velvet hat.”

[4] These simple facts prove that, aside from his acting, with which it is not our duty to deal at present, Mr. Irving is one of the most remarkable men of this or any other age. But he is unquestionably right when he asserts that he owes his success to his acting alone. It has been said that the splendid manner in which he puts his plays upon the stage is the secret of his popularity; but he first became popular in plays which were not splendidly mounted, and his greatest financial and artistic successes have been made in pieces upon which he expended no unusual decorations. It has been said that Manager Bateman made Irving; but, as we shall presently prove, Irving made Manager Bateman in London, and has been doubly successful since Manager Bateman’s death. It has been said that his leading lady, Ellen Terry, is the Mascot of Irving’s career; but his fame was established before Miss Terry joined his company, and he has won his proudest laurels in the plays in which Miss Terry has not appeared. It has been said that the financial backing of the Baroness Burdett-Coutts gave Irving his opportunity; but he had been overcrowding the London Lyceum for years before he made the acquaintance of the Baroness. No; the unprecedented and unrivalled success of Mr. Irving has been made by himself alone. He became popular as an actor in a stock company; his popularity transformed him into a star and a manager; and, as a star and a manager, he has widened, deepened, and improved his popularity. He has won his position fairly, by his own talents and exertions, against overwhelming odds, and he has nobody to thank for it but himself, in spite of the theories which we have exploded.—_Spirit of the Times, New York, Oct. 27, 1883._

[5] Speculation in theatre tickets seems now to have reached its height. Folks thought it had come to a lively pass when Sarah Bernhardt was here and some $23,000 worth of seats were disposed of for her engagement on the opening day of the sale. But, bless you, that was a mere drop in the bucket. A man named McBride, who has from keeping a small news-stand gradually come forward until he is now one of the richest of the ticket speculators, “got left,” as he picturesquely observed, on the Bernhardt affair. In other words, rival speculators got all the best seats. So McBride put twelve men on duty in front of the Star Theatre box-office three days before the Irving sales were to open, and there they stayed on duty day and night, until the window was finally thrown open. Each one of these men got ten season-tickets for the Irving engagement, which is to last four weeks. In other words, every one of these men bought two hundred and eighty tickets of admission to the Star Theatre, so that McBride now holds for the Irving season a neat little pile of three thousand three hundred and sixty tickets. They were bought at season-ticket prices of $60 per set of twenty-eight, and, therefore, cost the speculator the sum of $7,200. Now you will see how the speculator happens to have the bulge on the Irving management. The box-office price of a ticket for a single performance is $3, and even if the demand should not happen to be as immense as to warrant a long advance on the box-office tariff, McBride can sell his tickets at the regular price of $3 apiece and get the sum of $10,080 for them, which will leave him a profit of nearly $3,000 upon his short investment. There is, however, little or no likelihood that he will be obliged to resort to this manner of doing business. For the first night he has already sold seats for $10 and $15 each, and it is quite reasonable to suppose that as the time approaches, and tickets become scarce, he can advance to a still higher price. These ticket-speculators have regular customers, who willingly pay them the ordinary price they ask rather than bother about going to the box-office. When Anna Dickinson wants to visit a theatre in New York she invariably buys her tickets of Tyson, who charges her $2 for a $1.50 seat. So it is with a good many other people, particularly the rich and reckless down-town brokers, who purchase their tickets during the day, and who, rather than take the trouble to send a messenger away up to the theatre they intend to visit, go to the speculator’s branch office and pay the advance demanded for whatever they want. There are only a few regular ticket-speculators in New York. Old Fred Rullman, a Dutchman, was for a long time the chief operator in theatre tickets, but he seldom appears nowadays in any of the big deals. He works mostly in opera tickets, and is contented not to take heavy risks. McBride is the longest chance-taker of the lot. Tyson is not a risky buyer, but confines his purchases pretty closely to the demands of his regular customers.—_New York Correspondent of St. Louis Spectator._

[6] This story was reprinted in several American papers. A dentist of some note in a leading city, not appreciating its satire, wrote a long letter to Mr. Irving, offering to make him a new set of teeth, on a patented system of his own, which had given great pleasure to a number of eminent American ladies and gentlemen. He enclosed a list of his clients, and the price of their teeth. As an inducement for Irving to accept his proposals, he quoted “very moderate terms,” on condition that “if satisfactory” he should “have the use of his name” in public, thus “acting up to the liberal principles of the English practitioner.”

[7] The misunderstanding between Forrest and Macready has been canvassed and discussed in most histories of the modern stage. Forrest believed that his ill-success in London was the result of a plot on the part of Macready to write him down. So fixed in his mind was this view of his failure, that brooding over it evidently unmanned him. He went to the Edinburgh Theatre (shortly before he left England for America) and hissed Macready in Hamlet. In a letter to the _Pennsylvanian_, Nov. 22, 1848, he wrote:—

“On the occasion alluded to, Mr. Macready introduced a fancy dance into his performance of Hamlet, which I designated as a _pas de mouchoir_, and which I hissed, for I thought it a desecration of the scene; and the audience thought so, too; for, a few nights afterwards, when Mr. Macready repeated the part of Hamlet with the same ‘tomfoolery,’ the intelligent audience greeted it with a universal hiss.

“Mr. Macready is stated to have said last night that he ‘had never entertained towards me a feeling of unkindness.’ I unhesitatingly pronounce this to be a wilful and unblushing falsehood. I most solemnly aver, and do believe, that Mr. Macready, instigated by his narrow, envious mind and selfish fears, did secretly—not openly—suborn several writers for the English press to write me down. Among them was one Forster, a ‘toady’ of the eminent tragedian,—one who is ever ready to do his dirty work; and this Forster, at the bidding of his patron, attacked me in print, even before I had appeared upon the London boards, and continued to abuse me at every opportunity afterwards.

“I assert also, and solemnly believe, that Mr. Macready connived, when his friends went to the theatre in London, to hiss me, and did hiss me, with the purpose of driving me from the stage; and all this happened many months before the affair at Edinburgh, to which Mr. Macready refers, and in relation to which he jesuitically remarked, that ‘until that act he never entertained towards me a feeling of unkindness.’”

It is worth while adding in this place the following interesting account of the fatal riot, which is extracted from Barrett’s life of Edwin Forrest published by Jas. R. Osgood & Co., in 1881:—

“On the 7th of May, 1848, Macready began an engagement at the Astor Place Opera House, under the management of J. H. Hackett. The theatre was packed by his enemies, and he was hooted from the stage. He prepared to return to his own country, but was persuaded by his friends to remain, in order that he might see how far the public indorsed the opposition against him. An invitation to this effect, signed by many of the best citizens of New York, was taken as a defiance by the admirers of Forrest, who prepared to meet the issue. Forrest was playing at the Broadway Theatre, and on the 16th of May, Macready, at the Astor Place house, was announced to reappear as Macbeth. The authorities had been called to the aid of the signers of the call, and when the doors were opened the theatre was instantly filled by a crowd of persons favorable to the actor, while the great mass of his enemies were excluded. These filled the street, however, while the few who did gain admission showed their opposition upon the appearance of Macready. At the first attempt the assailants were confronted by a body of Macready’s friends within the theatre too powerful to be resisted; but the majority without added a threatening reinforcement when the decisive moment for violence should arrive.

“The play was stopped. Macready, hustled from the back door in the cloak of a friend, barely escaped with his life, and the mimic tragedy within doors gave way to the approaching real tragedy without. The theatre was attacked on all sides by the mob, and its destruction seemed inevitable. Troops were called out; the order was given to disperse. The angry crowd only hooted a reply of derision. The riot act was read amid the yells and oaths of the blood-seeking rabble; stones and missiles were hurled at the Seventh Regiment; the police gave way before the overpowering numbers of the mob, and at last, the soldiers, sore pressed, wounded, and nearly demoralized by the assaults which they were not allowed to repulse, were called upon to fire. They responded with blank cartridges, which only increased the fury of the crowd. A pause, and then the order was given to load with balls. A volley was fired: the cries were hushed; the smoke cleared away; the ground was red with the blood of some thirty unfortunate men; the rioters vanished into the darkness before that hail of wrath, and the stain of blood was upon that quarrel which began far away in Old England and ended so tragically here.”

[8] Among the audience (says the “Tribune”) were Miss Ellen Terry herself, accompanied by an elderly gentleman, with gray hair, who to some was known to be Felix Moscheles, Mendelssohn’s godson, with his wife, and a young man of boyish appearance, known to many as the son of Lord Coleridge. In the other boxes were W. H. Vanderbilt, Chauncey M. Depew, Judge Brady, Augustus Schell, Algernon S. Sullivan, John H. Starin and Mrs. Starin, Howard Carroll and Mrs. Carroll, Madame Nilsson, Dr. Doremus and Mrs. Doremus, Mrs. Lester Wallack and Mrs. Arthur Wallack, Mr. and Mrs. William Bond, Mr. and Mrs. John Foord, Mrs. Charles Leland, Henry Rosener and Mrs. Rosener, and Mr. and Mrs. Theodore Moss. Among other well-known faces in the audience were noticed those of ex-Judge Horace Russell, General Horace Porter, Colonel and Mrs. Tobias, of Philadelphia; General Winslow, Dr. Fordyce Barker, George J. Gould, John Gilbert, Rafael Joseffy, Dr. Robert Laird Collier, of Chicago; Oscar Meyer and Mrs. Meyer, Mrs. John T. Raymond, Harry Edwards, Daniel Bixby, Charles Dudley Warner, John H. Bird, Mrs. John Nesbitt, Miss Jeffrey Lewis, Laurence Hutton, Mr. E. A. Buck, Mr. Whitelaw Reid, Colonel Knox, ex-Governor Dorsheimer, William Winter, and Dr. Macdonald.

[9] “Twelve Americans,” a graphic series of biographical sketches, by Howard Carroll, devotes some interesting pages to the story of John Gilbert’s life and work. For upwards of fifty years an actor, this veteran of the American stage was born on the 27th of February, 1810, at Boston, in a house “adjoining that in which Miss Cushman, the greatest of American actresses, first saw the light.” His parents were in a good position, and while they were not bigots, they did not altogether hold the theatrical profession as a highly reputable one. Young Gilbert was head of his class in declamation at the Boston High School. When he left school he was sent into a commercial house with a view to his becoming a dry-goods merchant. He disliked business, and after reciting Jaffer, in “Venice Preserved,” to the manager of the Tremont Theatre, he was granted an appearance. After opening the store where he was engaged he read with delight in the newspaper, that in the evening “a young gentleman of Boston” would make his _début_ in the play of “Venice Preserved.” He appeared and “did well,” in spite of his uncle (who was his master), scowling at him in front. “O John! what have you done?” was the broken-hearted exclamation of his mother the next day. John had not dared to go to the store, and felt himself quite an outcast. He was forgiven, however, in due course, and made a second appearance as Sir Edward Mortimer, in “The Iron Chest.” He was successful beyond his expectations, and as “a boy actor” was praised as a phenomenon. Later he joined the stock company, and was reduced to “speaking utility” parts. Though disliking the drudgery of his place, he grew up with his work, and with the physical capacity for leading business he showed that he had also the mental strength for it. He played with Macready and Charlotte Cushman at the Princess’s Theatre, London. At the close of his engagement there he attended the leading English theatres to study actors and their methods. Thence he went to Paris to complete his studies. On his return to America he filled important engagements for some years at the old Park Theatre; then he went for a time to Boston, where he was a great favorite; and finally he joined the Wallacks, in New York, where he has familiarized the Empire city with the best interpretations of Sir Peter Teazle, old Dornton, old Hardy, Sir Anthony Absolute, Major Oakley, Master Walter, Hardcastle, Sir Harcourt Courtley, Adams, and other high-class comedy characters of the century. He is still to New York what the Elder Farren was to London.

[10] This statement and question were founded upon “The Standard’s” message, previously referred to; but which Mr. Irving himself neither saw nor heard of until within a few days of the close of his New York engagement.

[11] In “Charles the First” Irving confirmed the good impression he had made. Miss Terry received a most cordial reception, and made so excellent an impression upon the audience, both by her charming personality and admirable acting, that long before the evening was over she had firmly established herself in the good graces of her new public, who more than once, at the fall of the curtain, invited her, with every enthusiastic mark of approbation, to come before the house to receive in person its acknowledgments and congratulations. Her success was unquestionable. In the second act the curtain fell on the conclusion of one of the grandest results that any actor has achieved in New York for years. A continued succession of plaudits came from all parts of the house. The performance was profoundly conceived, acted out with infinite care, elaborated with rare skill, and invested with naturalness that deserved all praise. Irving, in his finale, merited fully every word that has been written of his power, intensity, and dramatic excellence; and he was enthusiastically called before the curtain, in order that the audience might assure him of that verdict. Miss Terry made the impression of a charming actress. There was something very captivating in the sweetness of her manner, the grace of her movements, and the musical quality of her tones. In acting, her points were made with remarkable ease and naturalness. There was an entire absence of theatrical effect, there was a simplicity of style in everything she did, a directness of method and sincerity of feeling that, as we have said, was the simplicity of true art, and yet not the exaggeration of the simplicity of nature.—_New York Herald._

[12] Miss Terry was born at Coventry, Feb. 27, 1848. Her parents were members of the theatrical profession. Her first appearances on the stage were in “The Winter’s Tale” and “King John” (Mamillius and Arthur), during the Shakespearian revivals of Charles Kean, in 1858. As Prince Arthur she had repeated the success of her eldest sister Kate, who had made her first appearance in the part six years previously. Mr. Irving, during his conversations and speeches in this book of “Impressions,” has referred to the stock companies which, at one time, were the provincial schools which supplied London with its principal actors. When Ellen Terry was a girl, the late Mr. Chute presided over the fortunes of two of the best stock companies in the country. He was the lessee of the Bristol and Bath theatres, and he played his Bristol company at Bath once or twice a week. Some twenty years ago, I remember a stock company at the Bristol theatre, which included Marie Wilton, Miss Cleveland (Mrs. Arthur Sterling) Miss Mandelbert, Madge Robertson (Mrs. Kendall), and her mother, Arthur Sterling, George Rignold, William Rignold, Arthur Wood, Fosbroke, and the fathers, respectively, of Marie Wilton and Madge Robertson. At that time Kate Terry and Ellen Terry had left for London, Ellen having joined the Bristol company at the close of Charles Kean’s management of the Princess’s. She played Cupid to her sister Kate’s Diana in Brough’s extravaganza of “Endymion” at Bristol, in 1862. She made her _début_ in London, March, 1863, as Gertrude, in the “Little Treasure.” The critics of the time recognized in her art “an absence of conventionality and affectation,” and they look back now to trace in her interpretations of “the buoyant spirits, kindly heart, and impulsive emotions” of Gertrude for the undoubted forecast of her present success, more particularly in those characters which give full play to the natural sympathetic and womanly spirit of her art. From March, 1863, till January, 1864, she played Hero, in “Much Ado About Nothing,” Mary Meredith, in “The American Cousin,” and other secondary parts. She married and left the stage while still a mere child, and was not yet twenty when she made her reappearance at the end of October, 1867, in “The Double Marriage,” adapted from the French by Charles Reade for the New Queen’s Theatre, London. She also played Mrs. Mildmay, in “Still Waters,” and Katharine in the ordinary stage version of the “Taming of the Shrew,” known as “Katharine and Petruchio.” It was in this comedy, on the 26th of December, 1867, that she and Mr. Irving first acted together. She left the theatre in January, 1868, and did not reappear on the London stage until 1874, when she succeeded Mrs. John Wood in the part of Phillippa Chester, in Charles Reade’s “Wandering Heir,” which was produced under the author’s management at the Queen’s Theatre. She afterwards joined Mr. and Mrs. Bancroft’s company at the Prince of Wales’s, and was the Portia to Mr. Coughlan’s Shylock, in the ambitious production of “The Merchant of Venice,” which was to be a new departure in the history of the famous little house near Tottenham Court Road. Shakespeare did not prosper, however, at the Prince of Wales’s, though his great comedy was daintily mounted, and Miss Terry’s Portia was as sweet and gracious as the art of the actress could make that sweet and gracious heroine. From the Bancrofts, Miss Terry went to their rivals (Mr. Hare and the Kendalls), at the Court Theatre. The sterling natural qualities which some critics noted in her method when a child, were abundantly apparent in her Olivia, a fresh, graceful, touching performance, of which “Punch” said, January 11,1879, “If anything more intellectually conceived or more exquisitely wrought out than Miss Terry’s Ophelia has been seen on the English stage in this generation, it has not been within ‘Punch’s’ memory.” She closed her engagement at the Court Theatre on the offer of Mr. Irving to take the position of leading lady at the Lyceum Theatre, where she made her first appearance, December 30, 1878, and since which time she has shared with him the honors of a series of such successes as are unparalleled in the history of the stage. They include the longest runs ever known of “Hamlet,” “The Merchant of Venice,” “Romeo and Juliet,” and “Much Ado About Nothing.” This is not the place to do more than give these brief, biographic notes of a brilliant career. But one is tempted to quote a singularly happy sketch of Miss Ellen Terry which appeared on the eve of her departure for America in the “St. Stephen’s Review,” July, 1883: “It is well for the stage that it possesses such a gift as Ellen Terry. The age is, on the whole, terribly unromantic and commonplace; it deals in realism of a very uncompromising form; it calls a spade a spade, and considers sentiment an unpardonable affectation. But Ellen Terry is the one anachronism that the age forgives; she is the one living instance of an ideal being that the purists pardon. As she stands before these cold critics in her classical robes as Camma; as she drags at their heartstrings as the forlorn and abandoned Olivia; as she trips upon the stage as Beatrice; as she appears in a wondrous robe of shot-red and gold, or clothed ‘in white samite, mystic, wonderful,’ as Ophelia, or, as she falls a-weeping as the heart-broken queen on the breast of Charles the First, even these well-balanced natures pronounce her inexplicable but charming. She is the one actress who cannot be criticised; for is she not Ellen Terry?”

[13] All that has been said in recognition of Mr. Irving’s intellectual leadership, and of his puissant genius and beautiful and thorough method of dramatic art, was more than justified by his impersonation of Louis XI., given, yesterday afternoon, before an audience mainly composed of actors, at the Star Theatre. He has not, since the remarkable occasion of his first advent in America, acted with such a noble affluence of power as he displayed in this splendid and wonderful effort. It was not only an expression, most vivid and profound, of the intricate, grisly, and terrible nature of King Louis; it was a disclosure of the manifold artistic resources, the fine intuition, the repose, and the commanding intellectual energy of the actor himself. An intellectual audience—eager, alert, responsive, quick to see the intention almost before it was suggested, and to recognize each and every point, however subtle and delicate, of the actor’s art—seemed to awaken all his latent fire, and nerve him to a free and bounteous utterance of his own spirit; and every sensitive mind in that numerous and brilliant throng most assuredly felt the presence of a royal nature, and a great artist in acting. Upon Mr. Irving’s first entrance the applause of welcome was prodigious, and it was long before it died away. More than one scene was interrupted by the uncontrollable enthusiasm of the house, and eight times in the course of the performance Mr. Irving was called back upon the scene. A kindred enthusiasm was communicated to the other actors, and an unusual spirit of emulation pervaded the entire company and representation.... At the close there was a tumult of applause, and the expectation seemed eager and general that Mr. Irving would personally address the assembly. He retired, however, with a bow of farewell. “Louis XI.” will be repeated to-night.—_The Tribune, November 21._

[14] Henry Edwards was born at Ross, Herefordshire, England, August, 1831. He finished his education under the Rev. Abraham Lander, son of the friend of Robert Burns, and studied for the law in his father’s office. In 1848 he became a member of the Western Dramatic Amateur Society. In 1853 he emigrated to Australia, passed three years in the bush, and went on the stage professionally, at the Queen’s Theatre, Melbourne, under the management of Charles Young, then the husband of Mrs. Herman Vezin, who was the leading lady. After supporting the late Gustavus V. Brooke, he went, as leading man, to Tasmania, under the management of Charles Poole. He again joined Brooke, and for six or seven years was his second, playing Iago, Macduff, De Maupry, Icilius, etc., becoming manager of Theatre Royal, Melbourne, for G. V. Brooke, in 1861. He afterwards travelled with Mr. and Mrs. Charles Kean, playing Falconbridge, Henry VIII., Coitier, etc. In 1865 he went to New Zealand, and managed theatres in Auckland and Hokitiki. He left the colonies early in 1866, passed four months in Lima, giving, in all, thirty-three performances in the Peruvian capital, aided by a small company. He also gave entertainments in Panama. Arrived in San Francisco, October, 1866, under an engagement to Thomas Maguire, opened in that city as Othello to the Iago of John McCullough, and afterwards played Pythias, Sir Anthony Absolute, Sir Peter Teazle, Marc Anthony, and Sir John Falstaff. At the opening of the California Theatre he joined Barrett and McCullough’s company, and remained to the close of the latter’s management. He went to New York in 1879, and opened at Wallack’s Theatre (now the Star), in Byron’s comedy of “Our Girls,” and has been ever since a member of Wallack’s company, of which he is now Stage Director. He is an earnest entomologist, and has one of the largest private collections of insects in the world, numbering over 260,000 specimens. Has written much on his favorite study, as well as many magazine and other articles; is the author of “Pacific Coast Lepidoptera,” and a volume of sketches called “A Mingled Yarn”; is engaged to write the article on “Butterflies,” for Kingsley’s Standard Natural History, in association with Asa Gray, Prof. Baird, Prof. Packard, A. Agassiz, and other distinguished naturalists; and was five years President of the Bohemian Club, San Francisco, three years Vice-President of the California Academy of Sciences, and one year President of the Lambs Club, New York.

[15] On a later occasion Mr. Curtis (whose eloquence on the platform and in the press, and whose independent career in politics, are familiar to all Americans and to many English) and Mr. Joseph Harper had a box to see “The Merchant of Venice.” Irving invited them to go behind the scenes, and afterwards to join him at supper in his room at the Brevoort. Mr. Curtis said it was the first time he had been on that side of the foot-lights. “I am not sure whether I regret it or not; I think I am sorry to have the illusion of that last lovely scene at Belmont set aside even for a moment.” While he was talking to Miss Terry in her dress as the Lady of Belmont, Loveday’s men were bringing on some of the scenery of “The Lyons Mail.” Said Harper, “Behind the scenes is always to me a good deal like the ‘tween decks of a ship; the discipline is just as strict, too.” During the evening after supper Mr. Curtis discussed with his host the question of how much an actor may lose himself in a part, and still have full control over it and himself. Irving said circumstances sometimes influenced an actor. An event which had disturbed him during the day might give extra color to his acting at night. In fact an actor is influenced by all sorts of causes,—as all other people are in their daily work,—by health or weather. Sometimes the presence of a friend in front, or some current occurrence of the moment, or piece of bad or good news, might influence him; but, as a rule, after an actor had played a particular part for a long time, he generally played it very much in the same way every night. “There is a story,” he said, “of Kean and Cooper which is to the purpose. A friend met Kean, and told him that on a particular night he was at the theatre, and thought that Kean played Othello better than ever he had seen him play it. ‘Gad, sir,’ he said,’ I thought you would have strangled Iago outright!’ Now we come to the solution of this extra energy which had impressed Kean’s friend. ‘Oh, yes,’ said Kean; ‘it was a Tuesday night, I remember; Cooper tried to get me out of the focus!’ In those days the theatre was lighted with oil lamps, and only at one particular place on the stage could the actors be seen. To be in the light was to be in the focus; and that accounts for the old habit they had of getting into a line along the foot-lights.”

[16] Among the gentlemen present on this occasion were Messrs. Daniel Huntington (the president), Gilbert M. Speir (vice-president), A. R. MacDonough (secretary), Henry A. Oakey (treasurer), F. A. P. Barnard (President of Columbia College), Albert Bierstadt (the artist), Noah Brooks (journalist and author), L. P. di Cesnola, S. S. Conant; Profs. Botta, Dwight, Flint, Alexander, and Lusk; Judges Choate, Brown, and Daily; Bishop Potter, the Rev. Dr. Rylance, the Rev. Dr. Storrs, the Rev. Dr. Brooks; the Honorables John Bigelow, John Hay, J. G. Forrest, and Edward Mitchell; Mr. Joseph Drexel (the banker), ex-Governor William Dorsheimer, ex-Mayor Edward Cooper, Col. Goddard, Gen. Cullum and Gen. Horace Porter, Dr. George Otis, and Messrs. W. Dodge, Wm. M. Evarts, Cyrus W. Field, Swain Gifford, Richard W. Gilder, Quincy A. Gillmore, Parke Godwin, H. H. Gorringe, I. H. Gourlie, G. S. Greene, M. K. Jessup, S. E. Lane, Francis F. Marbury, C. H. Marshall, H. D. Noyes, O. Ottendorfer, H. E. Pellew, Whitelaw Reid, Jas. Renouck, R. G. Remson, A. Thorndike Rice, William Bond, J. F. Ruggles, John O. Sargent, W. Satterlee, Clarence A. Seward, R. H. Stoddard, H. C. Van Vorst, Theodore Weston, Alfred Wilkinson, and many other well-known members of the club and their friends.

[17] This was a very notable gathering on November 18. In nearly every case the guests came from long distances. They were all men of distinction in their several walks of life. Among them were, James H. Rutter, President New York Central & Hudson River Railway; Hon. Noah Davis, Chief Justice Supreme Court, State of New York; Geo. R. Blanchard, Vice-President New York, Lake Erie, & Western Railway; Gen. Horace Porter, President New York, West Shore, & Buffalo Railway; John B. Carson, Vice-President and General Manager Hannibal & St. Joseph Railway, Hannibal, Mo.; Col. P. S. Michie, U.S. Army, West Point; Hon. A. J. Vanderpoel, New York; Hon. Wm. Dorsheimer, Member of Congress and ex-Lieut.-Governor New York; Col. L. M. Dayton, Gen. Sherman’s Chief of Staff during the war, Cincinnati, O.; Jas. N. Matthews, Proprietor Buffalo “Express,” Buffalo, N.Y.; Hon. Henry Watterson, ex-M.C. and editor “Courier Journal,” Louisville, Ky.; Col. Wm. V. Hutchings, Governor’s Staff, Boston, Mass.; Col. H. G. Parker, Proprietor “Saturday Evening Gazette,” Boston, Mass.; Col. Wm. Edwards, Cleveland, O.; Hon. L. J. Powers, Springfield, Mass.; Hon. M. P. Bush, Buffalo, N.Y.; John B. Lyon, Chicago, Ill.; Hon. A. Oakey Hall, ex-Mayor of New York City; Lord Bury, W. J. Florence, William Winter, Stephen Fiske, J. H. French, and Chas. Wyndham. The dinner was not reported in the press; nor were several other entertainments which are briefly sketched in the pages of these “Impressions.”

The Chief Justice spoke in eloquent terms of Lord Coleridge, whom the American bar and bench had been proud to honor, and who, in his private and public life, realized the highest ideal of the American people. “It is our desire,” he said, “the sincerest wish of America, to like the English people. We are always afraid that our visitors from the old country will not let us like them. When they do, and we can honestly respond, we are glad.” Presently, alluding to Irving, he said, “We have watched your career over a long period of time, through the New York papers. We were prepared to be interested in you, and to bid you welcome. No people are more moved than ours to exercise their free and unbiased judgment. We have done so in your case, and are proud to acknowledge the greatness of the work you have done; to welcome you and to take your hand, not only for what you have achieved in England, but for what you have done for us in America.”

Ex-Mayor Oakey Hall, in the course of some remarks supplementary of the speech of the Lord Chief Justice, said, “A morning cable despatch informs me that the Millais portrait of our guest was yesterday added to the walls of the Garrick Club, in completion of its gallery of David Garrick’s legitimate successors. But on the walls of our memories to-night has been hung the original,—impressive features, poetic eyes and hair, and a face so bright that it this moment reflects our looks of personal affection. I have had the personal felicity, thrice within the past fortnight, of seeing our guest in the serenity of private life. Friends knowing this have said to me, ‘How did you like Henry Irving on the stage?’ And I have answered, ‘I have not yet seen Mr. Irving act.’ True, I had seen on the stage of the Star Theatre, Mathias, and Charles the First, and Louis the Eleventh, and Shylock, and Duboscq and Lesergne, and against these characters I had seen printed on the bills of the play the name of Henry Irving; but never had it otherwise occurred to me, as an auditor, that the guest now before us,—original of the Millais picture,—and whom I saw at the banquets of the Lotos and Manhattan clubs, was representing these characters. On the contrary, I cannot connect Henry Irving, the gentleman of private life, with the actor. If you say he is the same, I must believe you. Indeed, I am now conscious of having lived in the seventeenth century, and of having beheld the veritable Charles as a man caressing his children and his Henrietta Maria,—a wife rather than a queen,—on the banks of the Thames, at Hampton Court, or as Majesty rebuking Oliver Cromwell. Nay, I have stood with Charles himself in the Whitehall Chamber of Death, and with my own streaming eyes I have witnessed his touching farewell of home and earth. I have forgotten the merchants of New York in the boxes, and I have really seen Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice. I have seen the dreaming victim of remorse. I have lived in the war-rent realms of France, while Louis the Eleventh infected his court with his own moral leprosy. I have known in ‘The Lyons Mail,’ the self-respecting and shrinking merchant, and I have known his double, the besotted brute of a murderer. They are all realities to me at this moment. If you again tell me one man personated all these, and that this one man was the original yonder of the Millais portrait, I must believe you, for your honor’s sake. During an active career of a quarter century I never had seen an approach to such a surrender of personal identity in an actor, nor such a surrender of the peculiarities of one representation when the actor grasped another. How all this contradicts a lively writer in the current (November) number of Clement Scott’s ‘Theatre,’ who declares that every great success of the stage is due to a correspondence of the natural peculiarities of an actor with the fictional peculiarities of the character portrayed! Is yonder gentleman a victim to remorse? Is he a Shylock? Is he a Duboscq? Has he the soul of a Charles? Least of all, has he one peculiarity of Louis? No. Then these great successes are won—if yonder guest be the actor—by a destruction of personal peculiarities and by portraying his own precise opposites, in his human nature. You have all seen these recently enacted characters. You now—some of you for the first time—behold the man Henry Irving, and hear him converse. To you as a jury, then, I appeal. Am I not right? Is not my experience yours?” (Aye!—Yes!—Yes!—and great applause.)

[18] “Bathed in their own liquor.”—_Sir Henry Thompson._

[19] In case this charge against Irving should be exploited by the “little English correspondent” who undertakes to describe his “Palace on the Thames,” let me say that for one who talks so well about eating, Irving—next to a great authority on gourmandize—recently dead, alas!—is the most moderate diner I know. He discourses of dishes with the eloquence of Brillat Savarin, and eats as frugally as the “Original Walker” did, and is as easily contented as was my late friend, Blanchard Jerrold (“Fin-Bec”), who wrote so much, and always so well, about the art of dining, that those who did not know him might naturally have regarded him as a gourmand. He knew the literature of “the table” thoroughly, but lived as simply as Irving does. It will be noted that it is the simplicity of the dinner under notice that awakens Irving’s enthusiasm. New York, by the way, has many restaurants, in addition to its most famous one (Delmonico’s) and the house in Lafayette place. The Hoffman House and the Brunswick are well-known for their excellent _cuisine_. Among the hotels that are equally famous for their _chefs_ are the Everett House, the Windsor, the St. James, the Victoria, and the Clarendon. The latter is to New York what such establishments as Morley’s and the oldest West End hotels are to London. It is one of the pleasantest, and certainly the quietest, of New York houses. There are very bad hotels in the United States, and very good ones; dear hotels, and hotels where the charges are fair; but the general idea of uniform excellence and uniform dearness which obtains in England is incorrect. One class of houses which the English traveller misses is the comfortable family inn or tavern (where the landlord and landlady are in evidence all the time), common in England, France, and Germany; and the other absent luxuries, for the lack of which oysters and canvas-back ducks do not altogether compensate him, are the mutton-chop, the beefsteak, the ham and bacon, the sole, salmon, and bloaters of his own country.

[20] “The difference between a _gourmet_ and gourmand we take to be this: a _gourmet_ is he who selects, for his nice and learned delectation, the most choice delicacies, prepared in the most scientific manner; whereas the gourmand bears a closer analogy to that class of great eaters, ill-naturedly (we dare say) denominated or classed with aldermen.”—_Haywood’s Art of Dining._

[21] These lines were written by Mrs. Marion Fortescue, a lady well known in New York society.

[22] Mr. Irving presented a Hamlet last evening that was entirely consistent with itself and with the play, and the most virile, picturesque, and lovable Hamlet that has been seen on the stage. There was great variety in his moods and manners. He realized Goethe’s idea of a born prince,—gentle, thoughtful, and of most moral nature, without the strength of nerve to make a hero, and overcome by the responsibility put upon him by a vision whose message he alternately accepts and doubts. There was, indeed, the fullest variety given to the part; it was dramatically interesting, and a clearly marked, intelligent study that more than realized the expectations that had been formed of the personation.—_Philadelphia Ledger._

[23] DISTINGUISHED VISITORS.—The “Evening Call” band of fifty-one pieces and the “Evening Call” flute and drum corps, numbering thirty-five pieces, making a total of eighty-six performers, formed before the Union League building this morning, and proceeded down Broad street a few yards, to the Hotel Bellevue, and tendered a complimentary serenade to the distinguished English actor, Henry Irving. Several delightful airs, including “God Save the Queen,” were rendered with fine effect. Mr. J. H. Coplestone, Mr. Abbey’s manager for Mr. Irving, acknowledged the compliment on behalf of the eminent tragedian. The band then proceeded to the Aldine Hotel, where Miss Ellen Terry, Mr. Irving’s leading lady, was serenaded, following which the musicians gave a short street parade. At the conclusion of the serenade Mr. Irving sent the following pleasant little note to the office of the “Evening Call”:—

“HOTEL BELLEVUE, PHILADELPHIA, 29th November (‘Thanksgiving Day’), 1883.

“_To the Editor of the Evening Call:—_

“MY DEAR SIR,—Upon this day of universal thankfulness allow me to add a personal item. My thanks to you and your magnificent band for the honor done to me this morning by their serenade. I enjoyed the music much, and beg to add my tribute of praise to the worth of your band which, to my mind, is amongst the best I have heard. To hear the strains of the national anthem of my own dear land here and on such a day touched me much, and assures me again in a forcible manner of the strength of the affection between the two countries, America and England.

“Believe me to be, dear sir, yours very faithfully,

“HENRY IRVING.” —_Evening Call._

[24] The youngest member, who is provided with a tall chair, a rattle, and other things indicative of his “clover” childhood.

[25] The documentary evidence handed to Irving as establishing the identity of the watch are, (1.) a copy of the catalogue of the sale by auction of “the estate of Edwin Forrest, deceased,” at Davis & Harvey’s Art Galleries, No. 1212 Chestnut street, Philadelphia, on Feb. 4, 1883. (2.) A copy of the Supplementary catalogue of “the personal effects of Edwin Forrest,” which sets forth twenty-eight articles, including a silver watch. (3.) The auctioneer’s receipt for “One silver watch, the property of Edwin Forrest,” and (4.) a voucher from Mr. Donaldson, in which he states that, until he presented it to Mr. Irving, the watch had never been out of his possession from the time that he bought it. Mr. Donaldson is a collector of _bric-à-brac_, and possesses many interesting relics of the stage. On Irving’s second visit to Philadelphia we called upon him and inspected some of his miscellaneous treasures. They covered a wide range of interest,—antiquarian, geological, historical, artistic, and literary. A white-haired, picturesque-looking old gentleman was there to meet us. “How like Tennyson!” exclaimed Irving. The interesting visitor was Walt Whitman. He expressed great satisfaction on being told that he was well known in England, and, in an amused way, he stood up, that Irving might judge if he was as tall as Tennyson. It is a milder face, and less rugged in its lines, than the face of the great English poet; but, in other respects, suggests the author of “In Memoriam.”

[26] The Boston was built in 1854 by a stock company. It was opened on the 11th September in that year, under the management of the late Thomas Barry, and for some time was in the hands of Junius Brutus Booth. After a time the company gave up the theatre, and it was acquired by Messrs. Thayer and Tompkins. On the death of Mr. Thayer, Mr. Tompkins associated with himself Mr. Hill, who had been a prominent stockholder, and they have since continued as proprietors. Mr. Eugene Tompkins, son of the chief proprietor, is the general manager.—_King’s Boston._

[27] Mr. Oliver Ditson, General Blackmar and party, Mr. Joseph Thorpe, and Mrs. Ole Bull. In the body of the house were seen General Devens, Colonel Henry Lee, Mr. J. R. Osgood, Colonel Fairchild, Mr. T. B. Aldrich, Mr. Boyle O’Reilly, Mr. Robert Treat Paine, Professor Pierce, of Cambridge, Mr. S. H. Russell, Mr. Charles F. Sherwin, Mr. Thomas G. Appleton, Mr. Hamilton Wild, Mr. B. C. Porter, ex-Mayor Green, Colonel W. V. Hutchins, General Whittier, Mr. A. V. S. Anthony, Mr. Arthur Dexter, Mr. George H. Chickering, Mr. Curtis Guild, Colonel H. G. Parker, Hon. R. M. Morse, Jr., Mr. H. M. Ticknor, Colonel W. W. Clapp, Mr. Martin Brimmer, Signor Ventura, Mr. T. R. Sullivan, Mr. Higginson, Mr. Hemenway, Mr. Matt. Luce, Hon. W. D. Davis, of Plymouth, Mr. George Riddle, Mr. Henry M. Rogers, Mr. Edes, Mr. Ellerton Pratt, Mr. Arthur Dodd, Mr. Alanson Bigelow, and many others of eminent social, literary, and artistic position. William Warren, with many professionals, was present, while, of course, Mr. Henry E. Abbey and his staff, as well as city managers and theatre folk, were represented. Most of the gentlemen who attended were accompanied by ladies, and the house, as seen from the stage, presented a very brilliant appearance.—_The Globe._

[28] As the position which Mr. John Gilbert holds in New York is akin to that which the elder Farren held in London, so the position which Mr. William Warren occupies in Boston is akin to that which Mr. Buckstone (“Bucky,” as his particular friends called him) held in the English metropolis. Mr. Warren’s Dogberry and Paul Pry are among the pleasantest reminiscences of Boston play-goers. It fell to Irving’s lot to meet Mr. Warren frequently, and perhaps no actor ever received greater compliments from two veterans of his craft than Irving received from Gilbert and Warren. While the favorite of New York never missed an Irving performance at the Star Theatre, his famous contemporary of Boston not only attended all the Lyceum performances at Boston, but later, when Irving went to Chicago, Mr. Warren paid his relatives a visit in the western city, and was as constant an attendant at Haverly’s during the Irving engagement as he was at the Boston Theatre.

[29] LADIES’ NIGHT AT THE PAPYRUS.—The Ladies’ Night entertainment of the Papyrus Club, which has come to be accepted as one of the annual features of that organization, took place at the Revere House last night, and the occasion proved to be one of exceptional interest and brilliancy. The Papyrus includes in its membership a large number of clever men, and, with their guests who assembled last evening to partake of the club’s hospitality, the company made up a most delightful and distinguished gathering. The after-dinner exercises, which were not permitted to be reported in full, were of a most entertaining character; the speeches of the distinguished gentlemen guests, and the contributions in prose and verse by some of the members of the club, being very bright and enjoyable. The members and their guests assembled in the hotel parlors at six o’clock, where they were received by the president of the club, Mr. George F. Babbitt, assisted by Miss Fay. Music was furnished by the Germania Orchestra, and, after an hour spent in introductory ceremonies, the members and their guests, numbering altogether one hundred and twenty ladies and gentlemen, proceeded to the dining-hall and sat down to the dinner-table, which was arranged in horseshoe form. The tables were artistically decorated with flowers, and at each plate was placed a dinner-card, bearing the name of each guest, and a _menu_ of an exceedingly artistic design, the front cover bearing a photograph of the club paraphernalia, very cleverly grouped, and bearing the inscription: “Papyrus, Ladies’ Night. December 15th, MDCCCLXXXIII.” President Babbitt sat in the centre, with Miss Fay at his right and Miss Ellen Terry at his left. On either side of the president were seated Miss Alcott, Mr. Joseph Hatton, Dr. Burnett and Mrs. Frances Hodgson Burnett, Gen. Francis A. Walker and Mrs. Walker, Mr. Henry Cabot Lodge, Captain Story, U.S.A.; Mr. Guy Carleton, of New York, editor of “Life,” and Mr. J. A. Mitchell, assistant editor; Rev. and Mrs. Brooke Hereford, Dr. John G. Blake and Mrs. Blake, Mr. W. H. Rideing and Mrs. John Lillie, the author of “Prudence,” and Rev. and Mrs. H. B. Carpenter. Among the other members and guests present were Miss Nora Perry and Miss Noble, the author of “A Reverend Idol”; Mr. and Mrs. Robert Grant, Mr. F. J. Stimson, the author of “Guerndale,” and Mrs. Stimson; Dr. Harold Williams, the author of “Mr. and Mrs. Morton”; Mr. Arthur Rotch and Mrs. Van Renssellaer, Mr. and Mrs. W. F. Apthorp, Mr. A. H. Dodd, Mrs. Dodd, and Miss Dodd; Mr. Henry M. Rogers and Mr. George Abbot James; Miss Gage, Mr. and Mrs. Howard M. Ticknor, and Mrs. S. A. Bigelow; Mrs. C. H. Washburne, Mr. George Snell, Mrs. Bacon, and Mrs. Charles Whitmore; Mr. Alexander Young, Mr. George Roberts, Mr. John T. Wheelwright, Mr. L. S. Ipsen, Mr. Alexander Browne and Miss Edmundson, Mr. Frank Hill Smith, and Mrs. Henry Fay; Mr. Arlo Bates, Dr. and Mrs. James Chadwick, Colonel Theodore A. Dodge, and Mrs. Crowninshield; Mr. and Mrs. F. P. Vinton, Mr Francis Peabody, Jr.; Mr. Russell Sullivan, Mr. and Mrs. Charles Albert Prince, Miss Minot, Mr. and Mrs. Gordon Prince, Mr. and Mrs. F. V. Parker, Mr. and Mrs. E. L. Osgood, Mr. and Mrs. George M. Towle, Mr. H. G. Pickering, Mr. and Mrs. W. H. Sayward, and Mrs. R. G. Shaw; Mr. T. O. Langerfelt, Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Foote, Mr. Sigourney Butler, Miss Butler, and Miss Shimmin; Mr. and Mrs. R. G. Fitch, Mr. and Mrs. George B. Goodwin, Mr. W. B. Clarke, Mr. and Mrs. C. A. Campbell, Mr. G. W. Chadwick, Mr. Preston, Mr. and Mrs. F. E. Wright, Mrs. G. A. Gibson, Mr. and Mrs. L. L. Scaife, and Mr. and Mrs. J. E. Woods. At the conclusion of the dinner the president proposed the health of the assembled company in the loving-cup, in accordance with a time-honored custom of the Papyrus, the cup passing from guest to guest until it had made the rounds of the tables. Many of the gentlemen were merrily cheered as they rose to drink from the cup, as were many of the distinguished ladies, who, without rising, simply touched the cup to their lips. After this interesting ceremony had been gone through with, the president welcomed the company in a brief speech, concluding with a toast to the lady guests, which was drunk standing by the gentlemen present. Rev. H. Bernard Carpenter was called upon to respond to the toast, which he did in a neat speech, in which pleasant allusions were made to the distinguished ladies of the company and their work. He was followed by Mr. John T. Wheelwright, the secretary of the club, who gave a very bright burlesque report of the proceedings of the monthly Papyrus meetings. It was made up of clever imitations of the poetic and prose contributions of the more active members of the Papyrus, and its numerous hits were received with shouts of laughter. Mr. T. R. Sullivan then read a charming bit of prose; and then came a bright and humorous contribution from Mr. Robert Grant, who described, in a very funny way, his experiences as a member of the committee on ladies’ night some years ago. It abounded in witty allusions to the antics of some of the members of the club, and, although the names of the characters who figured in the sketch were assumed for the occasion, the references to the members of the club were readily recognized. Mr. Howard M. Ticknor was then introduced, and read a poem addressed to Miss Terry, concluding with a toast in honor of the distinguished lady, the mention of whose name elicited enthusiastic applause. Mr. Joseph Hatton responded handsomely for Miss Terry, thanking the company for their very cordial welcome, and the Papyrus for their elegant hospitality. Mr. Arlo Bates read some very pretty songs, and Mr. Guy Carleton responded to a toast in honor of “Life,” the clever New York paper. Mr. W. H Sayward gave one of his excellent imitations, and the entertainment concluded with the performance of “a burlesque operatic monodrama,” entitled “Titi.” The sole _dramatis persona_, Titi, was assumed by Mr. Wm. F. Apthorp, who sang and recited the monodrama in costume, being accompanied on the piano by Mr. Arthur Foote. The performance of this bright musical composition occupied nearly half an hour, and it was acted and sung by Mr. Apthorp with exquisite _chic_ and drollery, serving as a fitting finale to the very pleasant after-dinner entertainment. The company arose from the tables at about half-past ten o’clock, and soon after separated, many of the gentlemen going to the St. Botolph Club reception to Mr. Irving, which was appointed for eleven o’clock.—_Boston Saturday Evening Gazette._

[30] In America “chestnut” is a slang phrase for an old story.

[31] In the second act there were occasionally passages where Mr. Irving spoke one or more lines in a manner which so nearly touched the heart with sadness, so closely appealed to the feelings, that nothing but the brilliancy of his art stood between. His interview with Cromwell was something grand. The patience shown could hardly belong to anything less than royalty, and the majestic tone thrown into the line, “Uncover in the presence of your king,” indicated a conception of conscious authority which could hardly be improved. But by far the greatest artistic triumph was his delivery of the short speech at the close of the third act. The tone in which the lines were spoken was simply grand, and when they were finished the pity of the audience was instinctively bestowed upon the betrayer rather than the betrayed. Miss Terry as the queen won a considerable success. Her sincere love and devotion to the king and her children were exhibited by the finest tokens, and with a simplicity which would not admit the thought of extravagance or affection. Her appeal to Cromwell for the life of the king was well worthy a queen; but her disdainful refusal of the offer to release him in case he would abdicate was something remarkable and unique. But her brightest laurel was won in the final parting with the king as he went to the execution. The little shriek she utters at the king when he breaks the embrace in which she holds him, appealed directly to the emotions, and seemed to be the cry of a heart that was breaking.—_Boston Post._

[32] The trouble touching some of the “Interviews” that appeared in the journals was that they were not all genuine. Fiske suggested this fact as discounting a “Christmas chat”; but I undertook to endorse his work by “annexing” his “interview” to these pages, and I have to thank him for his bright contribution.

[33] A very large delegation of the members of the Hamilton Club received Mr. Henry Irving in the rooms of the club last night, after the close of the performance at Haverly’s. The honors of the club were done by its President, Mr. Samuel McLean, and Mr. Irving was introduced by him to the members present. Among those who attended to do honor to the great actor were the Rev. Dr. Putman, the Rev. C. Cuthbert Hall, the Rev. Harry Lacy, Judge Van Cott, Henry E. Pierrepont, H. E. Sanger, S. B. Duryea, Dr. Kissam, Howard Van Sinderen, J. S. T. Stranahan, Gordon L. Ford, Professor West, Alfred C. Barnes, Dr. McCorkle, E. A. Packard, Amos Robbins, J. Spencer Turner, Alex. Cameron, Edward Barr, Colonel Partridge, John Notman, J. S. Noyes, H. E. Ide, Clinton Tucker, Ernest Jackson, Raymond Jenkins, F. Abbott Ingalls, W. T. Lawrence, Frank Hines, Arnold Hastings, Gus. Recknagel, A. Van Sinderen, Joseph Youmans, H. E. Dodge, Dr. Burge, Robert Ogden, Leander Waterbury, Wm. Sanger, Dr. Colton, John King, H. D. Atwater, and John Foord. The reception was arranged for at twenty-four hours’ notice, Mr. Irving’s ability to attend not being known to most of the members of the club before yesterday morning. Mr. Irving, who was accompanied by his stage-manager, Mr. Loveday, and by Mr. Joseph Hatton, expressed himself as extremely gratified by the cordiality of his reception.—_Brooklyn Union, Jan. 4, 1884._

[34] A reception was given to Mr. Henry Irving, the distinguished English actor, by Dr. Wm. H. Crim, at his residence, 185 W. Fayette street, last evening. At the close of the performance at the Academy, Mr. Irving, accompanied by his stage-manager, H. J. Loveday; acting manager, Bram Stoker; J. H. Copleston, and James H. Plaser, representing Manager Abbey, of New York, and Mr. Joseph Hatton, the English author, drove to Dr. Crim’s residence, where they were received by the host, and presented to a number of journalists, representing the city press, and other gentlemen. Among those present were Messrs. John W. McCoy, Wm. T. Croasdale, John V. Hood, Innes Randolph, Harry J. Ford, Henry D. Beall, C. M. Fairbanks, E. N. Vallandigham, Frederick L. Holmes, Prof. Charles G. Edwards, Samuel W. Fort, Manager of the Academy; Harry P. Wilson, Harry F. Powell, Harry J. Conway, Charles F. Meany, John W. Albaugh, of Holliday-street Theatre; Chas. Reynolds and W. I. Cook. The affair was wholly informal, but was apparently all the more agreeable on that account. Mr. Irving, upon being presented, expressed his gratification at meeting the representatives of the Baltimore press, and during the evening manifested the utmost cordiality of manner. He is a delightful conversationalist, and for a couple of hours entertained groups of attentive listeners. His impressions of Baltimore, as far as he had seen, were very favorable, and he was much pleased with the audiences that had greeted him during the week at the Academy. Speaking of the Academy, he remarked that its acoustic properties—a rare quality in a theatre of that size—were among the very best he had ever known. About midnight the visitors repaired to the dining-room, where a tempting repast, with choice wines, was enjoyed. Adjourning thence to the library, the guests indulged in a fragrant Havana, and another hour slipped by almost unconsciously in pleasant social intercourse. During the evening Mr. Irving appeared much interested in the rare collection of antiques, art-works, _bric-à-brac_, and articles of _virtu_ that adorn the parlor and library of the genial host, and in the collection of which he has spent much time and labor.—_The Day (Baltimore), Dec. 28, 1883._

[35] The colored gentleman who asked me, during the “wild railway journey” of a previous chapter, if I used “sticking plaster,” referred to the exploits of the James boys. Their murderous adventures, I find, cover a period of over twenty years, beginning, some people allege, with a sort of guerilla warfare during the war. A reward was offered a few years ago for the capture of the leader, Jesse James, dead or alive, and he was treacherously murdered by one of his confederates, who, being tried and sentenced to death, was reprieved and rewarded in accordance with the State proclamation. He and several other members of the gang are still occasionally before the courts, I believe, on various charges; some appealing to the superior power of the law, others working out their various sentences, and some of them free. One of their most daring adventures is a tragedy that is not likely to be forgotten in the criminal history of America. The story is to railway travel, so far as the mere robbery itself is concerned, what the robbery of “The Lyons Mail” is to the history of posting in France and England a century ago. It is a truly dramatic story, in two acts. The first scene discovers the postmaster and two or three friends of the village of Glendale, at a flag station on the Kansas City branch of the Chicago & Alton Railway. It is a pleasant October evening. Suddenly they are made prisoners by a band of twelve masked and heavily-armed men. They are marched to the little railway station, where the telegraph-operator, an old woman, and the railway auditor, are added to the number. They comprise the entire population of the very picturesque and romantic station. The telegraphic instrument is destroyed, and the station-master compelled to lower his signal lights and stop the mail then due. This ends the first act. The second is the arrival of the train, the sudden and expert seizure of engine-driver and guard (the latter battered almost to death with the but-end of a pistol), the overawing of the passengers with revolvers, and the plunder of the mails. Horses are then brought up to the track, the men mount with their booty, and order the train to proceed. As the cars move away, the robbers write a despatch that the telegraph-operator is directed to send off as soon as his instrument is in order:—“We are the boys who are hard to handle, and we will make it hot for the boys who try to take us. Signed, Jesse and Frank James, Jack Bishop, Irwin Cohens, Cool Carter,” etc. The plunder was thirty thousand dollars in gold.

[36] Mr. Abbey’s excellent business manager and treasurer.

[37] Miss Ellen Terry is said to have a broad knowledge and high appreciation of decorative art. During the past two or three days she has been doing Michigan and Prairie avenues in this city with a critical eye. “I noticed a good many houses,” she says, “that I did not like at all, but many others that are truly beautiful. The red brick ones and the yellow marble fronts are mostly exquisite in design and color. Here and there Michigan avenue reminds me of Brighton in England.”—_Daily News._

[38] The company included His Worship the Mayor of Chicago (the Hon. Carter Harrison); G. M. Pullman (of Pullman City); J. Medill (editor of the “Tribune”); Murray Nelson; Mr. Gage (banker); Major-General Schofield; Marshall Field; Mr. Dexter; George Dunlap; C. R. Cummings; General A. Stager, and J. B. Lyon. The _menu_ was remarkable for its luxurious elegance, and the speaking, though informal, and in no sense prearranged, was notable for being chiefly confined to the arts and their influences on civilization. Mr. John B. Carson proposed “Health and continued success to Henry Irving,” and welcomed him to the West in terms of hearty friendship. “And I only hope,” he said, “you will one day come to Quincy, which is my head-quarters; we are not a very great population, but we have a fine theatre, and we enjoy a good play.” Quincy has a population of twenty-five thousand, is beautifully situated on a limestone bluff, one hundred and twenty-five feet above the Mississippi river. Mr. Carson and his friends at Quincy sent Mr. Abbey a guarantee of $4,000, for one night’s visit of the Irving Company. It will be interesting to add, in this place, that many “theatre parties” came to Chicago, from distant cities, to see Irving. Some of them travelled all day, and several of their newspapers contained reports and criticisms of the performances. The Rockford “Register,” for example, printed the following in its leading columns: “Remarkable success has attended the performances of Henry Irving, the celebrated English actor, during the present week, at Haverly’s Theatre, Chicago. For once the severest critics in the country have their scalpels blunted and dulled by the perfection of his work combined with the exactness of the stage-setting. There has never appeared an actor on the boards of Chicago who has received such lavish, unreserved praise from the critics and the press. It is doubtless true that there is no other actor in the world who has studied so thoroughly all the minor details of every play, arranging every bit of scenery, every position of the most unimportant member of the cast. Nor has there been such an outlay of money elsewhere by any one to secure the completest perfection of every surrounding. The result is, that every play to which this student-actor lends his attention becomes correct and faithful, historically and artistically. He remains in Chicago for another week, and those of our citizens who love art in its highest sense have now an opportunity that is not likely to be offered again for studying the man whose name is a household word in England, and whose fame is world-renowned. Miss Terry likewise is winning well-earned laurels, while the entire company of English actors are Mr. Irving’s continuous and carefully chosen support, and rank high in their respective rôles. A party of prominent citizens to attend in a body one night next week has been formed. In that event, Mr. Perkins states that the North-western road would probably make special rates.

[39] The _menu cards_ on this occasion were gems in the way of printing and binding. They were exquisitely encased in alligator-leather and silver. With each of them was a guest-card, on which was written a poetic welcome, couched in bright, humorous, and complimentary terms—the work of the hostess. Many ladies and gentlemen of position were present, and the affair was one of the pleasantest in the history of the Calumet Club.

[40] At eleven o’clock last evening Mr. Emery A. Storrs gave a supper in honor of Mr. Henry Irving, at the Leland Hotel, and pleasantly entertained thirty-five well-known gentlemen. The guests assembled about ten o’clock, in room twenty, and shortly afterward adjourned to Mr. Storrs’ suite of parlors on the Michigan-avenue front of the hotel. Mr. Irving and Mr. Hatton arrived soon after eleven o’clock, and, after a few minutes’ social chat, the party proceeded to the small dining-hall. The arrangements were elaborate and perfect, and the decorations were very handsome. Lines of flags of all nations extended from the four corners of the room, crossing one another just under the dome in the centre. Hanging by an invisible wire from the electric light in the dome was a double-faced floral circle, edged with smilax, through the centre of which was a floral bar. On one side of this was the name “Irving,” and on the other side “Terry,” in red carnations upon a white ground. The walls were hung with the English and American colors, and directly behind the guest’s seat was a bust of Shakespeare, over which was looped the English flag, caught up by a shield, bearing the arms of Great Britain and Ireland. Above this was a banner bearing the following inscription: “‘One touch of nature makes the whole world kin’—Irving and Booth.” At the opposite end of the room, just above the door, was a similar banner, inscribed as follows: “‘To hold, as ‘twere, the mirror up to nature’—Ellen Terry and Mary Anderson.” Immediately opposite the entrance to the room was the inscription, “Greeting and Welcome,” and over the entrance was inscribed, “Not that we think us worthy such a guest, but that your worth will dignify our feast.” To the left of this was a banner, bearing the following: “Suit the action to the word, the word to the action, with the special observation that you overstep not the modesty of Nature.” And to the right was a banner, inscribed as follows: “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players; they have their exits and their entrances.” The table was arranged in the shape of a “T,” with the host, the guest of the evening, and a few of the more favored sitting at the cross of the “T.” Immediately in front of the seats of Mr. Irving and Mr. Storrs was an immense basket of flowers,—which was sent later in the evening to Miss Terry, with Mr. Storrs’ compliments,—and to the right and left of this was a floral bell, suggesting the actor’s favorite play, “The Bells.” In the body of the “T” was a huge _épergne_ of fruit and flowers, and trails of smilax were laid the length of the cloth. In front of each one of the thirty-five plates was a fragrant _boutonnière_, and a satin-covered card bearing the name of the guest diagonally across a marine scene. Delicate-tinted glasses to the right of each plate suggested liquid enjoyment to follow. The following is a list of the guests as they sat at table:—Emery A. Storrs, Henry Irving, Joseph Hatton, General Schofield, Professor Swing, Perry H. Smith, Professor Fraser, William Balcom, F. B. Wilkie, F. H. Winston, J. D. Harvey, M. E. Stone, Alfred Cowles, D. B. Shipman, W. C. D. Grannis, W. P. Nixon, W. S. Walker, Dr. Jackson, Mr. Phinney, Leonard Hodges, Canon Knowles, A. F. Seeberger, Louis Wahl, S. D. Kimbark, C. P. Kimball, J. L. High, Mr. Clement, Washington Hesing, J. M. Dandy, Mr. Lewis, Mr. Griswold, Mr. Harper, Mr. Dewey, Mr. Thayer, Mr. Hord, Mr. Bacon. After supper Mr. Storrs, in a witty prelude, explaining that there were to be no speeches, proposed the health of Mr. Irving. The famous actor having responded, Joseph Hatton, who, by his works and in his own person, is well known in Chicago, was toasted. Miss Terry was not forgotten during the unstudied and informal eloquence of the evening. A magnificent basket of flowers was sent to her, with the respectful compliments of the host and his friends.—_Tribune and other newspaper reports._

[41] The reception to Henry Irving and Miss Ellen Terry, by the Chicago Press Club last evening, was a brilliant social and professional event. It was a graceful recognition of Great Britain’s greatest histrionic stars. Many professional people, including Mlle. Rhea, Mrs. Jessie Bartlett-Davis, and others of note on the dramatic and operatic stage, were present, and were presented to the distinguished guests of the evening, together with a large number of _litérateurs_, journalists, and members of the bar. Miss Terry came in shortly after eleven o’clock. She was presented to Mlle. Rhea, and the two artists who had thus met in conversation for the first time chatted pleasantly while the other guests gathered about them, and were introduced as occasion permitted. Miss Terry said she had witnessed Mlle. Rhea’s acting in London, when the latter first began to speak English. Miss Terry talked pleasantly to several ladies, who expressed great delight at the opportunity thus afforded them to form the acquaintance of so excellent a woman, and so talented a member of the dramatic profession.

Mr. Irving came in shortly after Miss Terry arrived, accompanied by Joseph Hatton and an escort from the Press Club. The great actor was a centre of attraction, and he submitted in the most kindly manner to the ordeal of introductions and the pressing multitude of guests who moved about the rooms. About midnight lunch was served. It was nearly one o’clock when Mr. Irving, Miss Terry, and Mr. Terriss departed. Most of the company remained, and listened to some fine singing by George Sweet and Miss Lena Hastreiter. It was nearly two o’clock before the other guests dispersed. Among the many present were the following: Mr. and Mrs. Will. J. Davis, Miss Grace Cartland, Mr. and Mrs. James W. Scott, Mr. and Mrs. Franc B. Wilkie, Miss Ada M. Dunne, Mr. and Mrs. Leo Canman, Mr. and Mrs. George Broderick, Professor Swing, Emery A. Storrs, Miss May Waldren, C. P. Dresser, W. D. Eaton, Walter Meadowcroft, E. A. Barron, Elliott Durand, Mr. and Mrs. C. H. McConnell, R. J. Murphy, Judge and Mrs. Bradwell, Mr. and Mrs. John B. Jeffery, John M. Ayer, Professor Bastin, Col. and Mrs. Nat. Reed, John A. Hamlin, John Hambline, Mr. and Mrs. F. A. Rice, Mr. and Mrs. Frank C. Cooper, E. P. Hall, Professor R. Welsh and Mrs. Welsh, Miss Bessie Bradwell, Henry W. Thomson, Miss Kate McPhelin, Mrs. McPhelin, Mr. and Mrs. Wash. Hesing, Miss Gertie Buckley, Miss Lillian Powell, Miss Clark, Al. Clark, H. D. Russell, Mr. and Mrs. F. G. Logan, Miss Van Inwegan, Mr. and Mrs. T. Z. Cowles, J. M. Dandy, and T. C. MacMillan.—_Morning News._

[42] The institution of “The Elks” is one of great influence and importance. Its objects are to promote and advance the material and social interests of the theatrical profession, and to give mutual aid and assistance to the members in case of pecuniary need. Candidates for admission to the order must be “proposed and vouched for” by existing members; and before election they must pass through the ordeal of the ballot “after an investigation as to character by a committee of the lodge.” Membership is a title to relief in distress wherever there is a lodge; but a “Black Book” is kept and circulated containing the names of members who have proved unworthy of their privileges. Members need not necessarily be actors. Many lawyers and journalists are Elks. The charity of the order is secretly dispensed by an executive committee, sworn not to divulge the channels into which it flows, or the names of those who request assistance. Annual performances in aid of the “charity fund” are given at the theatres. One of these “benefits” occurred during Mr. Irving’s first visit to New York. Irving, finding it impossible to accept an invitation to be present, either as a performer or a spectator, sent a donation; and this was acknowledged by a formal resolution of thanks, which, beautifully illuminated and framed, was presented to Irving at the Brevoort House by a deputation of the members, headed by A. C. Morland, Exalted Ruler and Secretary of the lodge; A. L. Heckler, I. Steinfeld, George Clarke, J. W. Hamilton, and James W. Collier, chairman of the Committee of Arrangements. New York City is the head-quarters of the Elks. The New York lodge is No. 1 on the list of lodges, each of them, as in Masonry, being numbered; though practically, I understand, the lodges in the other States are considered to be branches in association with No. 1. Their club-houses in many States and cities are handsome and well-appointed buildings. Among the anecdotes which Mr. Morland related to Irving was the story of an “advance theatrical agent” dying suddenly in a strange place, and his body being laid away in the local morgue. Some persons happening to hear that the only sign of identification found on the body was a bronze badge, with “P.B.O.E.” and an elk’s head upon it, the fact came to the knowledge of a brother Elk, who at once discovered the number of the man’s lodge, the officers of which identified him by name; and, instead of lying in a nameless grave, the poor fellow was conveyed to his home, in a far-distant State, and given “Christian burial” in the presence of his family and friends.

[43] The Irving-Terry reception, by the Elks, “Wednesday evening, was a notable social event. The Elks were there, of course; but it is worthy of notice that, at this testimonial offered to two eminent members of the dramatic profession, the attendance of ladies represented the most exclusive and aristocratic circles of St. Louis society; and quite a number of the most liberal and eminent of the clergymen were there also. “Society” in St. Louis has more good common-sense than in any other city in the Union.—_Post-Dispatch, Jan. 26._

[44] The Dramatic Festival Association tendered a dinner to Mr. Henry Irving, at the Queen City Club-rooms, last evening, after the great actor’s final performance at the Grand Opera House. There were present, besides the distinguished guest, Governor Noyes, ex-president of the association: Manager Henry E. Abbey; Colonel Miles, city dramatic director; Secretary Hall, Mr. Halstead, Judge Force, Colonel Dayton, Mr. Alter, Mr. Huntington, Mr. J. W. Miller, Mr. Nat. H. Davis, Mr. Devereux, Mr. Chatfield, Mr. Bram Stoker, manager for Mr. Irving; Mr. Wetherby, Mr. Stevens, Copleston, agent of Mr. Abbey; Mr. Charles Taft, Mr. Leonard, Colonel Markbreit, Mr. Will. Carlisle, Mr. Frank Alter, and others, to the number of thirty or more. The tables were elegantly decorated, and the _menu_ was, of course, of the choicest and most fastidious description. Governor Noyes introduced Mr. Irving to those present in his usual happy manner, alluded to the great pleasure and benefit the “Paris of America” had enjoyed from his brief sojourn among us, and significantly expressed the hope that he might soon return to us. Mr. Irving responded to the enthusiastic greeting which followed Governor Noyes’s introduction in a manner which won all hearts, by its sensible and modest sincerity. He had been most favorably impressed by his audiences in Cincinnati, finding them keenly responsive and deeply attentive. Allusion had been made to the operatic and other festivals; but he was not yet persuaded that the emulation excited between the artists taking part in them might not have a flavor of the cockpit about it. He was much more inclined to believe in the benefit of sound, permanent dramatic enterprise here, a school of the drama, with a theatre and stock company attached, whence might originate influences of deep and permanent good to the community and country. He paid a high compliment to the quickness and ready grasp of an idea by Americans, and concluded with a graceful acknowledgment of the general and particular courtesies he had met with in Cincinnati, not forgetting the press. Remarks were also made by Judge Force and Mr. Halstead, the latter alluding, with much feeling, to some of Cincinnati’s peculiar claims to the title of “Paris of America.”—_Cincinnati News-Journal, Feb. 3, 1884._

[45] Irving saw the beginning of one of the periodical disasters to which Cincinnati is subjected,—the overflowing of the Ohio. “Within a few days after his visit the city was inundated, thousands of people were homeless, entire families flying from their homes, their houses wrecked, their property floating down the river. Many lives were lost up and down stream. Great floods occurred in other districts, the busy manufacturing city of Pittsburg being among the most serious sufferers. Cincinnati had hardly recovered from the floods, and thought out new devices for dealing with any future trouble of the kind, when she was visited with another disaster,—a great and fatal riot. All countries have their public abuses, their governmental shortcomings. England has plenty of them; the administration of the law in America is far from perfect. As long as judges are elected by popular vote so long will there be serious miscarriages of justice; so long as juries can be packed, intimidated, and bribed, so long will the jury system be found defective. Such glaring instances of malfeasance and failure in the administration of justice had, from time to time, occurred at Cincinnati that (upon the principle that it is the last straw that breaks the camel’s back), when “another notorious murderer was let off,” the populace arose, attacked the jail where a company of other ruffians were imprisoned, with a view to taking the law into their own hands. The militia were called out, and fired into the rioters. Many persons were killed and wounded before order could be restored. The press of the country, while regretting the breach of the peace and the loss of life, generally insist upon the moral that governments must not look for people to respect the law in face of corruption in high places and notorious compromises with thieves and murderers. “The objective point of the mob,” wrote the special correspondent of the “New York Sun,” “was the jail, and the murderers it contained, whom they meant to hang. Twenty-three murderers are in that jail, none of whom have had a trial, except William Hugh, who is to be hanged; and Emil Trompeter, who has had two trials, and is to have a third. In the list are William Hartnett, who murdered his wife with an axe; Joe Palmer, the negro confederate of William Berner in murdering William Kirk, and Allen Ingalls and Ben Johnson, the Avondale negro burkers. In addition to these there are several murderers out on bail and walking the streets. They have not been tried, though the murders for which they were indicted were committed months ago.” The “New York Herald,” editorially discussing “the results of the riot,” says that, in the first place, “no jury in that city for some time to come will outrage justice and public decency by making a mockery of murder trials,” and that, “in the next place, the people of Cincinnati have become deeply impressed with the importance of divorcing partisan politics from the administration of justice and municipal affairs generally. Before the echoes of the riot have died away they have started a citizens’ movement, with the determination to put in the field and elect at the coming municipal election candidates not identified with either party machine, but representative of the highest order of citizenship. When this is done there will be a more effective administration of law and justice and a reform of abuses which contributed, directly or indirectly, in no small degree, to the disastrous events of the past few days.”

[46] “Louis XI.,” “Charles the First,” “The Merchant of Venice,” “The Bells,” and “The Lyons Mail,” drew great and fashionable houses at Cincinnati, and the criticisms in the native press and in the German newspapers were written in a spirit of cordiality, much of it descriptive, and all of it recognizing the possibilities of a speedy reformation in the existing method of representing the classic drama in the West. The following translation of some of the most prominent passages in a lengthy criticism of “The Merchant of Venice” is from “Tagliches Cincinnati Volksblatt,” one of the principal German newspapers of the district:—

“The court-scene is a masterpiece, and is filled with so many details that the spectator follows the action with lively interest, and imagines himself in a real court of law. The decoration of the last act, a wonderful park scene, with moonlight, was ravishing, and the madrigals behind the scene were charmingly melodious, and were also excellently sung; in a word, one saw a great performance of ‘The Merchant of Venice,’ and not only Mr. Irving, as Shylock, or Miss Terry, as Portia. By that we do not mean to say that Henry Irving’s performance was less great; on the contrary, he confirmed and fortified, through his Shylock, the judgment we pronounced upon his ‘Louis XI.’ His reading is entirely the same as Döring’s, who ranked as the best Shylock in Germany, and who has not yet found a successor. It is the covetous, vindictive Jew; but he is rather an object of pity than of scorn. It was the Jew whose passionate temperament and inexorable vengeance naturally seized upon the first opportunity of gratifying his hatred towards the Christians, who heaped mockeries, insults, and injustice upon him, particularly Antonio, who treated him with the utmost scorn. This was the Jew Shakespeare drew, played by Mr. Irving with the refinement of an artist and the sharp observance of a philologist.... His facial expression is mobile and most expressive ... and his speech has only just the accent by which the Jews of that class are known. His acting in the first scene, in the scene with Tubal, and, above all, in the court-scene (particularly the passing from cruel, passionate joy to the consciousness of his own torpid despair), was the true work of a great actor.... Miss Ellen Terry, who plays Portia, was reported from other towns where she had appeared to be a great actress: the audience was, therefore, highly expectant.... She took the public from first to last by storm.... She is one of those endowed actresses, who shine so completely in the character they represent that the spectator forgets the actress, and only sees the person represented in the piece.”

[47] Mr. Henry Irving, in remembrance of distinguished courtesies shown him while in the East by the Hon. Thomas Donaldson, called upon his father, Major Donaldson, to-day. During the afternoon, in company with Mr. Donaldson, Mr. Irving called upon various gentlemen, and was introduced to a great many members of the General Assembly in the House and Senate. He received many warm expressions touching the pleasure he gave our citizens in “The Bells,” at Comstock’s Opera House. During their stay in the State House Mr. Irving was introduced to Governor Hoadly and the State officers.—_Columbus Dispatch, Feb. 5._

[48] Detroit is a handsome and populous city on the banks of a noble river that connects Lake Erie and St. Clair. The company gave two performances at Whitney’s Opera House, to large audiences, by whom they were heartily received. The “Post and Tribune” contained long and complimentary notices of the plays and the actors, with lists of the principal people in the audiences. “The coming of Mr. Irving and Miss Terry,” it says, “was a great event in dramatic circles here, and has long been looked forward to with expectancy. The audience that greeted them completely filled the house, every seat being occupied, while many were content to stand during the entire performance. It was also a fashionable audience, in the fullest sense of the word, all of Detroit’s most pronounced society people being there.”

[49] The “Niagara Falls Courier” has an interesting article on the many orthographical changes of the name of Niagara. In 1687 it was written Oniogoragn. In 1686 Gov. Dongan appeared uncertain about it and spelled it Onniagero, Onyagara, and Onyagro. The French, in 1638 to 1709, wrote it Niaguro, Onyagare, Onyagra and Oneygra. Philip Livingston wrote in 1720 to 1730 Octjagara, Jagera, and Yagerah, and Schuyler and Livingston, Commissioners of Indian Affairs, wrote it in 1720 Onjagerae, Ocniagara, etc. In 1721 it was written Onjagora, Oniagara, and accidentally, probably, Niagara, as at present. Lieut. Lindsay wrote it Niagara in 1751. So did Capt. De Lancey (son of Gov. De Lancey), who was an officer in the English army that captured Fort Niagara from the French in 1759. “These pioneers,” says the local journalist, “may, however, be excused in view of the fact—as will be attested by post-masters—that some letter-writers of to-day seem quite as undecided about the orthography of this world-wide familiar name.”

[50] The following is the correspondence alluded to:—

“NEW YORK, Jan. 20, 1884.

“MR. IRVING:—

“_Dear Sir_,—The creation and development of a taste for true dramatic art among the colored citizens of culture in New York city, having been long regarded as a necessity to their intellectual growth, a number of ladies and gentlemen, selected for their evidences of dramatic ability, which they have shown from time to time, met on the evening of January 7, and perfected the organization of the ‘Irving Dramatic Club.’ In apprising you of this fact we beg leave to assure you, sir, that, in selecting your name for the title of our club, we did not choose it because we felt we were conferring an honor,—far from it,—for we well know that the mere naming of an amateur club could add nothing to the lustre of the laurels so deservedly won by one who so fittingly represents as yourself all that is noble and grand in dramatic art. But, having in our mind the record of past events, we could not fail to recognize that the English stage and its representatives were but the synonyms of equity and justice.

“Thus, in searching for a patron, we naturally reverted to that source from which our efforts were mostly to be regarded with favor; and, acting upon this impulse, we could think of no name that would be a greater incentive to conscientious and praiseworthy effort than that of Irving.

“Hoping that this action will meet with your approval, we remain, with best wishes for your health and prosperity, respectfully yours,

“IRVING DRAMATIC CLUB. “CHARLES G. BOWSER, _Pres’t_. “W. H. A. MOORE, _Sec’y_.”

“ST. LOUIS, Jan. 26, 1884.

“DEAR SIR,—I have received your letter of the 20th, and it gives me great pleasure to have my name associated with so gratifying an intellectual movement among the colored citizens of New York as the establishment of a Dramatic Club. Art is of no country, and has no nationality. Europe is deeply indebted to the artistic culture of the great colored people of the Eastern World, and there is promise of a future for your race, in the fact that you have ceased to feel the disabilities of color in your association with your white fellow-citizens. I once had the pleasure of knowing a very famous actor of your race,—Ira Aldridge. I wish for your club a prosperous career, and beg to subscribe myself,

“Yours truly, HENRY IRVING.”

[51] TOBOGGANING.—Saturday, February 24th, was a gala day in the annals of the Toronto Toboggan Club. The slide was in perfect condition,—glare ice from top to bottom. About eighty members were out with their toboggans, enjoying the slide, the only fault of which is that it is too fast for the length of run at the bottom. The committee are, however, making arrangements to overcome this defect. During the latter part of the afternoon several members of Mr. Irving’s company and friends were present by invitation, escorted by Mr. Bram Stoker. Miss Terry drove a young friend, Miss Helen H. Hatton (who is visiting Toronto with her father), out to the grounds, and they were both initiated into the Canadian winter sport. Miss Terry was completely captivated by this entirely new sensation, and only regretted that she was unable to enjoy it longer. She entered into it with the greatest zest. The ladies and gentlemen of the club gave her a very hearty welcome.—_Newspaper Reports._

[52] Mr. Henry Irving, Miss Ellen Terry, and their company left for Boston early in the morning, by special train, over the “West Shore route.” The train consisted of Mr. Irving’s private car, two Pullmans, and three baggage-cars. The Pullmans, two of those in ordinary use on the West Shore road, are simply magnificent in their internal arrangements, possessing the latest improvements, and affording to the traveller the greatest possible comfort. Among the innovations not found in the ordinary “sleepers” are the racks on which clothes may be deposited; electric call-bells attached to each berth, communicating with the porter’s berth; a small kitchen, where light refreshments may be prepared, and the whole structure running on paper wheels, so that the rattle and jar of the ordinary car is entirely abolished. The train was in charge of Mr. G. J. Weeks, of Buffalo, northern passenger agent of the company, who accompanied the party to Boston.—_Toronto Mail._

[53] During the journey from Boston to Baltimore an inquiring member of Mr. Irving’s company pulled the check-string, “just to see what the thing was.” There was great consternation on board, neither guard nor driver knowing what had happened. The inquiring gentleman offered a frank explanation, and the train went on again; but the monotony of the remainder of the journey was relieved by a little practical joke at our friend’s expense. An official was introduced into the conspiracy, and the delinquent was formally fined a hundred dollars. The rules of the company and the law of the land were quoted against him. Irving explained to him the enormity of his offence, and, after a little outburst against the tyranny of American laws as compared with those of England, the defendant paid twenty dollars on account, and a subscription was started to raise the remainder. “I am glad the affair occurred,” said the offender, an hour or two later, “if only for the pleasure it has given me to find how well I stand with my colleagues; it is quite touching the way they have stood by me in purse and in friendly words.” Alas for the sentiment of the thing!—most of the subscribers were in the secret. At Baltimore imaginary despatches passed between Mr. Abbey and the railway authorities, and the fine was withdrawn, the President, at New York, being satisfied that there was no malice in Mr. ——’s strange interference with the working of the train. The victim thereupon wrote a letter of thanks to Mr. Abbey, had quite a pathetic interview with Irving on the happy termination of the _contretemps_, and insisted upon treating the chief subscribers to champagne, over which he made so cordial and excellent a speech that everybody shook hands with him, and said he was “a real good fellow,”—which is perfectly true, and a good actor to boot. I would not have mentioned this incident but that the opportunity of an appropriate foot-note overbears my self-denial; and, after all, it was a very harmless piece of fun.

[54] One day’s rest was taken at Niagara Falls.

[55] The President went last evening to witness the final performance of Mr. Henry Irving and his company at the National Theatre, in “Louis XI.” and “The Belle’s Stratagem.” Mrs. McElroy and Miss Nellie Arthur were with him in the box. Subsequently he entertained at the White House, Mr. Irving, the members of the President’s cabinet and the ladies of their families; Mrs. McElroy and Miss McElroy, the sister and niece of the President; Colonel and Mrs. Bonaparte; General and Mrs. P. H. Sheridan, United States Army; General E. F. Beale; Mr. and Mrs. Marcellus Bailey; Mr. Walker Blaine; Mr. and Mrs. N. L. Anderson; Lieut. T. B. M. Mason, United States Navy, and Mrs. Mason; Commissioner of Agriculture George B. Loring, Mrs. and Miss Loring; Assistant Attorney-General William A. Maury, Mrs. and Miss Maury; Assistant Secretary of State John Davis and Mrs. Davis; John P. Jones, United States Senate, and Mrs. Jones, Nevada; Senator M. C. Butler, South Carolina; Senator Aldrich, Rhode Island; Mr. and Mrs. H. S. Sanford; Mr. John Field; Mr. F. J. Phillips, secretary to the President; Senator and Mrs. John F. Miller, California; Mr. and Mrs. Theodore Lyman, of Massachusetts, House of Representatives; Mr. and Mrs. William Walter Phelps, New Jersey; House of Representatives; Mr. Clayton McMichael, United States Marshal, and Mrs. McMichael; Mr. and Mrs. Charles Nordhoff, “New York Herald”; Mr. Stillson Hutchings, “Washington Post”; Mr. Albert Pulitzer, “New York Journal”; Mr. and Mrs. Isaac Bell, of New York; Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Hatton, of England.—No actor was ever so entertained in Washington as Mr. Irving has been. He attended a supper at the Metropolitan Club on Wednesday evening; a breakfast given by Mr. Bayard on Thursday; gave a supper to Mr. Blaine and a party of friends on Thursday evening, after the play; was the guest of Mr. William Walter Phelps on Friday morning; attended a supper given to him by Mr. Dorsheimer on Friday evening; and last night was the President’s guest, as stated. Miss Terry has received more social attentions here than in any other American city.—_The Capital, March 9._

[56] We thoroughly believe that the time will never come when any actor can present a Hamlet that will be universally regarded as a correct interpretation of the master poet’s sublime creation. Mr. Irving’s impersonation was brilliantly bold in execution, replete with new readings and stage business, and magnificent bursts of feeling, arising from his changeableness of moods. There does not seem to be a scene in the entire tragedy which he has not touched with his own subtle and delicate refinement, and removed far above the conventionalities of other actors whom we have seen. His first soliloquy, “Oh, that this too, too solid flesh would melt!” was rendered as though it were the unconscious utterance of a thought. He displayed but little interest in the return to earth of his father’s spirit until he met it face to face; and then he surrounded himself with a solemn supernaturalism, tinged with glow of superb filial affection. This, in turn, seemed to give way to a sort of nervous terror, and he became hysterical, which presented to the oath of secrecy an added reverential awe. The first long interview between Hamlet and Ophelia was played with splendid dramatic force and fire. His simulation of passion, his deep longing for its gratification, and his recklessness consequent upon his recollection of the stern duty to which he had devoted himself,—alternately flying from her, and then returning,—was a part of the performance which created a most profound impression upon our mind.—_The National Republican, March 6._

[57] Mr. Henry Irving and Miss Terry were tendered a reception by the Hamilton Club yesterday afternoon. The quaint old mansion on Clinton street was filled between the hours of three and five. The reception, which was informal, was held in the library on the second floor, an inviting apartment papered in old gold, with a frieze of olive-green with conventionalized flowers. The walls are lined with mahogany bookcases filled with well-bound books, largely historical. An oil painting of Alexander Hamilton, in an old-fashioned frame, hangs on the west hall, where it is lighted by the flickering gleams of the wood-fire in a tiled fireplace opposite. An antique chandelier, with imitation candles, completes the effect.

At half-past three Mr. Irving and Miss Terry were found in opposite corners of the room, each surrounded by an animated group. Miss Terry, over whom some of the younger ladies were mad with curiosity, was completely hemmed in, and was given no opportunity to move about, as Irving did. She sat during intervals in an old arm-chair, covered with red plush. She wore an artistic gown, with a Watteau plait. Her fair hair curled from beneath a round French hat, covered with brown velvet, and with a dark feather. At her neck was an eccentric scarf of orange-colored satin. Prior to the reception Mr. Irving and Miss Terry lunched with Mr. Samuel McLean, President of the club, at his residence, 47 Pierrepoint street; among his fourteen guests being Mrs. Buckstone (his sister), Mr. and Mrs. Henry Ward Beecher, and Mr. and Mrs. John Foord. Those present at the club reception included Mr. and Mrs. Bryan H. Smith, Mrs. George Prentiss, Mr. and Mrs. Crowell Hadden, Mrs. S. C. Lynes, Mr. and Mrs. Chas. Ide, Mr. and Mrs. S. B. Chittenden, Captain McKenzie, Alex. Forman, Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Turner, Mr. and Mrs. Alex. Cameron, Mrs. F. P. Bellamy, Mr. and Mrs. William C. De Witt, Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Yeoman, Mr. and Mrs. Charles A. Robbins, Mrs. Hattie Otis, Amos Robbins, A. F. Goodnow, Mr. and Mrs. John T. Howard, Mr. and Mrs. Henry Sheldon, Mr. and Mrs. Charles Phelps, Mrs. Washington A. Roebling, Mrs. Packer, Mr. and Mrs. J. S. T. Stranahan, Mr. and Mrs. Josiah Low, John Winslow, Mrs. P. Lynch, Mrs. Callender, Adrian Van Sinderen, John N. Peet, Mr. Bram Stoker and Mr. H. J. Loveday (of Mr. Irving’s company), Mrs. Joseph Hatton and Miss Helen H. Hatton (of London), Miss Abbie O. Nichols, Mrs. John A. Buckingham, Mrs. Birch, Mr. and Mrs. N. W. C. Hatch, Mr. and Mrs. Gordon L. Ford, the Rev. Dr. Hutton, Mr. and Mrs. Geo. W. Mead and daughter, Mr. and Mrs. McKean, Mr. and Mrs. F. W. Morse, Mr. and Mrs. Robert H. Turle, Mr. and Mrs. Mackie, Charles Bill, Mrs. Ropes, Mr. and Mrs. John Foord, Mr. Samuel McLean, and Mr. and Mrs. Rodman.—_Brooklyn Times, and Brooklyn Union, March 30._

[58] When Henry Irving was here, in December last, the “Clover Club” tendered him a breakfast, and at that time he stated that when he returned to the city he hoped again to meet his genial hosts. Last night he kept his promise. Upwards of sixty gentlemen, members of the club, and friends whom he had met elsewhere, were invited to take supper with him at the Bellevue, after the performance at the Chestnut-street Opera House, and the occasion was a most delightful one. The celebrated table of the club, in the shape of a four-leaved clover, was spread in the banqueting-hall. On it were two lofty forms of flowers, in the midst of which rose two fountains, throwing up crystal streams of water, which fell in spray over the blossoms. There were also several little plots of growing clover, shaped in the form of the quadrifoliate. The company did not assemble until after the performance of “Much Ado About Nothing.” It was 11.30 when they were seated at the table, with Mr. Irving at the head. Among the many present were Ex-Gov. Hoyt, Dion Boucicault, Attorney-General Cassidy, Col. A. Loudon Snowden, A. K. McClure, M. P. Handy, J. H. Heverin, Mr. Joseph Hatton and Mr. Montague Marks, from New York. The occasion was one long to be remembered. Mr. Irving, in proposing the toast of the “Clover Club,” thanked the members for their hospitality, and Philadelphia for its welcome of him, and, with characteristic modesty, spoke of his tour through the country, the welcome which he had everywhere received, and the love of dramatic art which he found among the people. Mr. Handy replied for the “Clover Club,” with his customary felicitous eloquence, and concluded by informing Mr. Irving of his election as an honorary member of the club. While Mr. Irving was bowing his thanks Mr. Handy decorated him with the jewelled badge of membership. Dion Boucicault told how Mr. Irving, to his mind, had banished the pedestal actor from the stage, and presented Shakespeare as the dramatist himself would have wished to see his works given. Mr. A. K. McClure pointed out how the dramatic art had knit the Anglo-Saxon race in a close bond of union. Mr. Howe, the “old man” of Mr. Irving’s company, gave some interesting reminiscences of how he, as a Quaker boy, and dressed in a Quaker garb, applied to Edmund Kean to be allowed to go on the stage. Mr. Terriss, the leading man, gave a recitation. Dr. Bedloe offered a new version of Shakespeare’s “Seven Ages,” and before the close Miss Terry was toasted in a bumper of three times three. Seldom has such a merry party sat down to supper, and the evening, when it is brought to mind, will never call up any but the most delightful recollections.—_The Day, Baltimore, and The Call, Philadelphia, March 20, 1884._

[59] The head-quarters of the Fire-Insurance Patrol, are eighty-five feet wide and one hundred feet long. The first floor or room is sixteen feet eight inches high, with black walnut and maple wainscoting. In the front of the room there are two pairs of stairs, one each side. Under these are the horses’ stalls. Between the stairs and stalls is the patrol-wagon, the pole of which is ten feet from the front doors, which open out in a vestibule by electricity, and are held by weights. On the right of the room, as you enter, are all the telegraphic instruments connected with the patrol, with no wires visible; a raised panelled black-walnut wall, consisting of the Electric Mercurial Fire-Alarm, which is connected with seventy different business buildings, concealing the wires. This is a system which gives the alarm automatically, giving the exact location of the fire in any building. Over this annunciator is a large clock. On panels, on the right and left of the above, are two gongs, one giving the fire-alarms from the city, the other connected with the Mercurial Fire-Alarm Annunciator. Under one gong there are three small gongs, one connecting directly with the Western Union Telegraph Office, one with Marshall, Field, & Co.’s retail store, and the other with the City Fire Department. In another panel are the American District Telegraph connections. In the ceiling over the wagon is a large reflecting gas-light, which shines directly over the horses when hitching. Just in the rear of the reflector are three traps, that work automatically when an alarm is received, opening the floors on the second story, and ceiling of the first, to enable the driver and assistants to have easy access to their seats; two other members, who sleep on the second floor, make use of the same means of ready exit. The same telegraphic instrument sets in motion appliances which take off the bed-clothing from ten beds on the second floor, and four berths on the first, relieving the men from all incumbrances in an instant. On the second floor is the dormitory for the men, which is carpeted with English body Brussels. There are heavy black-walnut bedsteads, with F. I. P. carved in headboard, inlaid with gold. The front part of this room is partitioned off and used as Captain Bulwinkle’s room, which is carpeted with Wilton carpet, bordered with white, papered and frescoed on all sides in handsome style. Conspicuous here are white marble mantels and grates. On a table in the centre of this room is an album, with autographs of noted people from all parts of the world who have been visitors, and left their names as a testimonial of the excellent qualities of this department. The time required by this patrol to get out of bed, dress, hitch the horses, and get out of the building, is four and one-half seconds.—_Stranger’s Guide to the Garden City._

[60] William Winter is probably best known in America and England as the accomplished and scholarly critic of the “New York Tribune.” As an authority on the drama he holds in New York a similar position to that which the late John Oxenford held on the “Times.” While there are other professional critics in the Empire city who write admirably, and with the authority of knowledge and experience about the stage, William Winter is the only one among them who has made for himself a prominent name apart from the paper with which he is associated. There is no other critic sufficiently well-known to be entitled to have his name mentioned in news cables or telegrams aside from the journal which engages his pen. Winter has broken through the anonymous character of his journalistic work as successfully as Oxenford and Sala. He is the author of several volumes of lyrics; he is the biographer of the Jeffersons; and since Washington Irving nothing more charming has been written about “the old country” than his “Trip to England.”

[61] Among the cablegrams that cast English shadows upon the tour was the announcement of Charles Reade’s death. This had already been preceded by obituary notices of Blanchard Jerrold. It was followed, at a later date, by the chronicle that Henry J. Byron had also “joined the majority.” The sudden death of the Duke of Albany was chronicled by the leading American newspapers, with touching sentiments of sympathy for the Queen of England.

[62] “Much Ado” did “grow,” and was played for three weeks, a “mixed bill” closing the last six nights. The receipts during Lent were unprecedentedly large in the history of New York theatres. These pages go to press before the financial returns are completely made up; but it is known to-day (April 25), that the receipts for the entire tour will be more than $400,000. The social hospitalities in honor of Irving and Miss Terry, which characterized their first visit to New York, were continued on their return. Among the notable breakfasts of the time was one given to Irving by Edwin Booth, at Delmonico’s, on April 14. The “Times,” in chronicling it, says: “Mr. Booth sat at the head of the table, with Mr. Irving on his right, and Chief-Justice Charles P. Daly on his left. John McCullough knocked elbows with Parke Godwin. The other guests included Jervis McEntee, Launt Thompson, Charles E. Carryl, Richard Henry Stoddard, William Bispham, Eastman Johnson, William Winter, Bram Stoker, Lawrence Hutton, Frank P. Millett, Junius Henri Browne, H. J. Loveday, and E. C. Benedict. No speeches were made, but in the course of an informal chat Mr. Irving was asked about ‘Hamlet.’ He said that he hardly thought it policy to produce the play for three or four nights at the end of a season, and on the eve of his departure, particularly as he contemplated so speedy a return.”

[63] The excitement of that cheerful October evening, last year, when Henry Irving made his first appearance in New York, was repeated last night, at the Star Theatre, where “Much Ado About Nothing” was presented, and where Mr. Irving and Miss Terry effected their reëntrance, and were welcomed by a great and brilliant company, with acclamations, with floral tributes, and in a charmingly manifest spirit of the heartiest admiration and good-will. The scene, indeed, was one of unusual brightness, kindliness, and enjoyment, both before the curtain and upon the stage. The applause, upon the entrance of Beatrice,—a rare vision of imperial yet gentle beauty!—broke forth impetuously and continued long; and, upon the subsequent entrance of Benedick, it rose into a storm of gladness and welcome.—_Tribune._—The performance at the Star Theatre last evening was one of remarkable interest. “Much Ado About Nothing” was produced, and Mr. Irving and his company furnished a dramatic representation more complete and artistic, and in every way more admirable, than any that has been seen upon our stage. The audience was large and brilliant, and the reappearance of Mr. Irving and Miss Ellen Terry was greeted with every demonstration of pleasure.—_Sun._