Read Ebook: Henry Irving's Impressions of America Narrated in a Series of Sketches Chronicles and Conversations by Hatton Joseph

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Going to Meet the "Britannic"--The "Blackbird"--Skirmishers of the American Press--The London "Standard's" Message to New York, Boston, and Chicago--"Working" America--"Reportorial" Experiences--Daylight off Staten Island--At Quarantine under the Stars and Stripes--"God Save the Queen!" and "Hail to the Chief!"--Received and "Interviewed"--"Portia on a Trip from the Venetian Seas"--What the Reporters Think and what Irving Says--The Necessity of Applause--An Anecdote of Forrest--Mr. Vanderbilt and the Mirror--Miss Terry and the Reporters--"Tell them I never loved home so well as now"--Landed and Welcomed--Scenes on the Quay--At the Brevoort 39

Union Square, New York--An Enterprising Chronicler--The Lambs--The Newspapers and the New-comers--"Art must Advance with the Times"--"Romeo and Juliet" at the Lyceum--"Character Parts"--No Real Tradition of Shakespearian Acting--"Mannerisms"--The Stage as an Educator--Lafayette Place--A Notable Little Dinner--The Great American Bird, "Not the Eagle, but the Duck"--A Question of "Appropriate Music"--Speculators in Tickets and their Enormous Profits--Middlemen, the Star Theatre, and the Play going Public 65

The Vividness of First Impressions--New York Hotels--On the Elevated Road with "Charlie"--Trotting Horses--Audiences on both Sides of the Atlantic--"A Man knows best what he can do"--"Americanisms," so called--A Satirical Sketch, entitled "Bitten by a Dog"--Louis and the Duke of Stratford-on-Avon--Macready and the Forrest Riots 108

A Stormy Night in New York--Ticket-Speculators at Work--A First-night Audience--Mathias received with Enthusiasm--Behind the Scenes--Lighting the Stage--Returning Thanks--Criticism of the Crowd--John Gilbert's Opinion--Actor and Audience--English Playgoers and Londoners--Laughter and Applause--An Artistic Triumph 123

Rivalries of American Cities--Boston and Philadelphia--The Real and the Picturesque--Miss Terry's Portia--"Three Kinds of Criticism"--First Appearance as Hamlet--Miss Terry's Ophelia--Journalism and the Stage--Critics, Past and Present--Philadelphia and English Cities--A New Style of Newspaper--Bogus Reports and Interviews; an Example of Them--The Clover Club--A Letter from an Eminent American Tragedian--Presented with Forrest's Watch--The Macready Trouble--Hamlet, and an Invitation from Guest to Hosts 187

Rural Scenes on Both Sides of the Atlantic--First Impressions of Railway Travel--The Cars--One of the Largest Theatres in America--The Drama in Boston--Early Struggles to represent Plays in Public--"Moral Lectures"--Boston Criticisms--Shylock, Portia, Hamlet, and Ophelia--Different Readings of Shylock--Dressing-Room Criticism--Shylock considered--A Reminiscence of Tunis--How Shakespeare should be interpreted on the Stage--Two Methods illustrated--Shylock before the Court of Venice--How Actors should be judged 214

Snow and Sleigh Bells--"Brooks of Sheffield"--In the Boston Suburbs--Smokeless Coal--At the Somerset Club--Miss Ellen Terry and the Papyrus--A Ladies' Night--Club Literature--Curious Minutes--"Greeting to Ellen Terry"--St. Botolph--Oliver Wendell Holmes and Charles the First--"Good-by and a Merry Christmas" 237

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" 254

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?" 264

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 285

"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 305

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 321

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 344

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 363

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 382

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 399

"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 423

"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--Surprise for Agents in Advance--Interesting Technicalities--An Incident of the Mounting of "Much Ado"--The Tomb Scene--A Great Achievement--The End 463

IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA.

AT HOME.

"AND I don't think he believes a word I have said," was Mr. John T. Raymond's own commentary upon a series of romances of "the wild West" which he had related to Mr. Henry Irving with an intensity that was worthy of Col. Sellers himself.

The comedian's reminiscences were graphic narratives of theatrical and frontier life, with six-shooters and bowie-knives in them, and narrow escapes enough to have made the fortunes of what the Americans call a ten-cent novel.

"Oh, yes, I believe it is the duty of the door-keeper at a Western theatre to collect the weapons of the audience before admitting the people to the house; that what we call the cloak-room in London, you might call the armory out West; and that the bowie-knife of a Texan critic never weighs less than fourteen pounds. But I am not going as far as Texas, though one might do worse if one were merely crossing the Atlantic in search of adventures."

America was at this time a far-off country, about which travellers told Irving strange stories. I recall many a pleasant evening in the Beefsteak Club room, of the Lyceum Theatre, when famous citizens of the United States, actors more particularly, have sat at his round table, and smoked the Havannah of peace and pleasant memories: Booth, Barrett, Boucicault, McCullough, Raymond, Florence, and others of their craft; Generals Horace Porter, Fairchild, Merritt, Mr. Sam. Ward, Mr. Rufus Hatch, Mr. James R. Osgood, Mr. Hurlbert, Mr. Crawford, Col. Buck, Mr. Dan Dougherty, and many others. They all promised him a kindly reception and a great success.

"I question, however," said an English guest, taking the other side, as Englishmen love to do, if only for the sake of argument, "if America will quite care for the naturalness of your effects, the neutral tones of some of your stage pictures, the peaceful character, if I may so style it, of your representations. They like breadth and color and show; they are accustomed to the marvellous and the gigantic in nature; they expect on the stage some sort of interpretation of these things,--great rivers, lofty mountains, and the startling colors of their fall tints. Your gentle meads of Hampton, the poetic grace of "Charles the First," the simplicity of your loveliest sets, and the quiet dignity of your Shylock, will, I fear, seem tame to them."

"Human nature, I fancy," Irving responded, "is the same all the world over, and I have played to many Americans in this very theatre. You will say, perhaps, that they will accept here in London what they would not care for on the other side of the Atlantic. You would say we are an old country, with fairly settled tastes in art, a calm atmosphere, a cultivated knowledge; and that possibly what we, in our narrower ways, regard as a subtilty of art, they may not see. That may be so, though some of their humor is subtle enough, and the best of it leaves a great deal to the imagination. I know many persons, American and English, have talked to me in your strain; yet I never saw quieter or more delicate acting than in Jefferson's Rip Van Winkle. As I said before, human nature is ever the same: it loves and hates, it quarrels and murders, it honors valor, sympathizes with the unfortunate, and delights in seeing human passions delineated on the stage. Moreover, are not the Americans, after all, our own flesh and blood? I never think of them in the sense of foreigners, as one does of the French and Germans, and the other European nations who do not speak our language; and I have yet to learn that there is any difference between us so marked that the jangle of "The Bells," shall not stir their imagination as much as the sorrows of Charles shall move their hearts, and the story of Louis heighten their pulses. We shall see. I cannot exactly say that my soul's in arms and eager for the fray, but I have no doubt about the result. That love of breadth, of largeness, of color, you talk of, should go hand in hand with a catholic taste, devoid of littleness and combined with a liberal criticism that is not always looking for spots on the sun."

"You are not nervous, then, as to your reception?"

"No, I am sure it will be kindly; and, for their criticism, I think it will be just. There is the same honesty of purpose and intention in American as in English criticism, and, above all, there is the great play-going public, which is very much the same frank, generous, candid audience all over the world."

"But there is the American interviewer! You have not yet encountered that interesting individual."

"Oh, yes, I have."

"Has he been here, then?"

"Yes; not in his war-paint, nor with his six-shooter and bowie-knife, as he goes about in Raymond's Texan country, yet an interviewer still."

"And you found him not disagreeable?" asked the travelled guest.

"I found him well informed and quite a pleasant fellow."

"Ah, but he was here under your own control, probably smoking a cigar in your own room. Wait until he boards the steamer off New York. Then you will see the sort of person he is, with his string of questions more personal than the fire of an Old Bailey lawyer at a hostile witness under cross-examination. The Inquisition of old is not in the race with these gentlemen, except that the law, even in America, does not allow them to put you to physical torture, though they make up for that check upon their liberty by the mental pain they can inflict upon you. Apart from the interviewers proper, I have known reporters to disguise themselves as waiters, that they may pry into your secrets and report upon your most trivial actions."

"You have evidently suffered," said Irving.

"No, not I; but I have known those who have. Nothing is sacred from the prying eyes and unscrupulous pens of these men. 'You smile, old friend,' to quote your 'Louis the Eleventh,' but I am not exaggerating nor setting down aught in malice. You will see! The interviewers will turn you inside out."

"You don't say so! Well, that will be a new sensation, at all events," answered Irving; and, when our friend had left, he remarked, "I wonder if Americans, when they visit this country, go home and exaggerate our peculiarities as much as some of our own countrymen, after a first trip across the Atlantic, evidently exaggerate theirs."

"There are many travellers who, in relating their experiences, think it necessary to accentuate them with exaggerated color; and then we have to make allowances for each man's individuality."

"How much certain of our critical friends make of that same 'individuality,' by the way, when they choose to call it 'mannerism'! The interviewers, I suppose, will have a good deal to say on that subject."

"English papers and American correspondents have given them plenty of points for personal criticism."

"That is true. They will be clever if they can find anything new to say in that direction. Well, I don't think it is courage, and I know it is not vanity; yet I feel quite happy about this American tour."

A week or two later and Irving spoke the sentiments of his heart upon this subject, at the farewell banquet given to him by artistic, literary, legal, social, and journalistic London, under the presidency of Lord Chief Justice Coleridge; and it will be fitting, I trust, to close these preliminary paragraphs with his characteristic and touching good-by:--

"My Lord Chief Justice, my lords and gentlemen,--I cannot conceive a greater honor entering into the life of any man than the honor you have paid me by assembling here to-night. To look around this room and scan the faces of my distinguished hosts would stir to its depths a colder nature than mine. It is not in my power, my lords and gentlemen, to thank you for the compliment you have to-night paid me.

"'The friends thou hast, and their adoption tried, Grapple them to thy soul with hooks of steel.'

"Never before have I so strongly felt the magic of those words; but you will remember it is also said, in the same sentence, 'Give thy thoughts no tongue.' And gladly, had it been possible, would I have obeyed that wise injunction to-night. The actor is profoundly influenced by precedent, and I cannot forget that many of my predecessors have been nerved by farewell banquets for the honor which awaited them on the other side of the Atlantic; but this occasion I regard as much more than a compliment to myself,--I regard it as a tribute to the art which I am proud to serve--,--and I believe that feeling will be shared by the profession to which you have assembled to do honor. The time has long gone by when there was any need to apologize for the actor's calling. The world can no more exist without the drama than it can without its sister art,--music. The stage gives the readiest response to the demand of human nature to be transported out of itself into the realms of the ideal,--not that all our ideas on the stage are realized; none but the artist knows how immeasurably he may fall short of his aim or his conception; but to have an ideal in art, and to strive through one's life to embody it, may be a passion to the actor, as it may be to the poet. Your lordship has spoken most eloquently of my career. Possessed of a generous mind and a highly judicial faculty, your lordship has been to-night, I fear, more generous than judicial. But, if I have in any way deserved commendation, I am proud that it is as an actor that I have won it. As the director of a theatre my experience has been short, but as an actor I have been before the London public for seventeen years; and on one thing I am sure you will all agree,--that no actor or manager has ever received from that public more generous and ungrudging encouragement and support. Concerning our visit to America I need hardly say that I am looking forward to it with no common pleasure. It has often been an ambition with English actors to gain the good-will of the English-speaking race,--a good-will which is right heartily reciprocated towards our American fellow-workers, when they gratify us by sojourning here. Your God-speed would alone assure me a hearty welcome in any land; but I am not going amongst strangers,--I am going amongst friends ,--and when I, for the first time, touch American ground, I shall receive many a grip of the hand from men whose friendship I am proud to possess. Concerning our expedition the American people will no doubt exercise an independent judgment,--a prejudice of theirs and a habit of long-standing,--,--as your lordship has reminded us, by the fact that to-day is the fourth of July,--an anniversary rapidly becoming an English institution. Your lordship is doubtless aware, as to-night has so happily proved, that the stage has reckoned amongst its stanchest supporters many great and distinguished lawyers. There are many lawyers, I am told, in America,--,--and as I am sure that they all deserve to be judges, I am in hopes that they will materially help me to gain a favorable verdict from the American people. I have given but poor expression to my sense of the honor you have conferred upon me, and upon the comrades associated with me in this our enterprise,--an enterprise which, I hope, will favorably show the method and discipline of a company of English actors; on their behalf I thank you, and I also thank you on behalf of the lady who has so adorned the Lyceum stage,--,--and to whose rare gifts your lordship has paid so just and gracious a tribute. The climax of the favor extended to me by my countrymen has been reached to-night. You have set upon me a burden of responsibility,--a burden which I gladly and proudly bear. The memory of to-night will be to me a sacred thing,--a memory which will, throughout my life, be ever treasured; a memory which will stimulate me to further endeavor, and encourage me to loftier aim.

"Lives in chambers!" exclaimed an American lady, during an after-dinner conversation in a pleasant eastern home. "I thought he owned a lovely palace."

"Indeed; where, madam?" I asked, "in Utopia?"

"No, sir; on the banks of your Thames river. A little English friend of mine told me so, and described the furnishing of it. I understand that it is as splendid as Claude Melnotte's by the Lake of Como."

"And as real?"

"I don't know what you mean; but, if what she says is true, it is wickeder, any way. You do not say that it is all false about his banquets to the aristocracy, his royal receptions? What about the Prince of Wales, then, and Lord Beaconsfield and Mr. Gladstone and the Poet Laureate visiting him? And his garden parties and the illuminations at night, parterres of flowers mixed up with colored lamps, his collections of rhododendrons and his military bands?"

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