LITMIR.BIZ

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you.’ I called in due course, and found the author one of a most agreeable family. ‘You will wonder,’ they said at parting, ‘why we wrote and compiled this book. It was simply for this reason: a public critic in a leading journal had said, as nothing was really known of the character, manners, and habits of Louis XI., an actor might take whatever liberties he pleased with the subject. We prepared this little volume to put on record a refutation of the statement, a protest against it, and a tribute to your impersonation of the character.’ Here is another present that I received soon afterward—one of the most beautiful works of its kind I ever remember to have seen.”

      It was an artistic casket, in which was enshrined what looked like a missal bound in carved ivory and gold. It proved, however, to be a beautifully bound book of poetic and other memorials of Charles the First, printed and illustrated by hand, with exquisite head and tail pieces in water-colors, portraits, coats-of-arms, and vignettes, by Buckman, Castaing, Terrel, Slie, and Phillips. The work was “imprinted for the author at London, 30th January, 1879,” and the title ran: “To the Honor of Henry Irving: to cherish the Memory of Charles the First: these Thoughts, Gold of the Dead, are here devoted.” As a work of art, the book is a treasure. The portraits of the Charleses and several of their generals are in the highest style of water-color painting, with gold borders; and the initial letters and other embellishments are studies of the most finished and delicate character.

      “Now these,” said their owner, returning the volumes to the book-shelves over which the raven stretched its wings, “are only two out of scores of proofs that audiences are intellectually active, and that they find many ways of fixing their opinions. These incidents of personal action are evidences of the spirit of the whole. One night, in “Hamlet,” something was thrown upon the stage. It struck a lamp, and fell into the orchestra. It could not be found for some time. An inquiry was made about it by some person in the front—an aged woman, who was much concerned that I had not received it—so I was informed at the box-office. A sad-looking woman, evidently very poor, called the next day; and, being informed that the trinket was found, expressed herself greatly pleased. ‘I often come to the gallery of the theatre,’ she said, ‘and I wanted Mr. Irving to have this family heirloom. I wanted him alone in this world to possess it.’ This is the trinket, which I wear on my watch-chain. The theatre was evidently a solace to that poor soul. She had probably some sorrow in her life; and she may have felt a kind of comfort in Hamlet, or myself, perhaps, possessing this little cross.”

      As he spoke, the actor’s lithe fingers were busy at his watch-chain, and he seemed to be questioning the secret romance of the trinket thrown to him from the gallery.

      “I don’t know why else she let it fall upon the stage; but strange impulses sometimes take hold of people sitting at a play, especially in tragedy.”

      The trinket about which he speculated so much is an old-fashioned gold cross. On two sides is engraved, “Faith, Hope, and Charity”; on the front, “I believe in the forgiveness of sins”; and on the reverse, “I scorn to fear or change.”

      “They said at the box-office,” went on the actor, musingly, “that she was a poor mother who had lost her son;” and then, rousing himself, he returned brightly to the subject of our conversation. “One example,” he said, “of the generous sympathy of audiences serves to point the moral of what I mean; and in every case the motive is the same, to show an earnest appreciation, and to encourage and give pleasure to the actor. At Sheffield one night, during the grouse season, a man in the gallery threw a brace of birds upon the stage, with a rough note of thanks and compliments; and one of the pit audience sent me round a knife which he had made himself. You see, the people who do these things have nothing to gain; they are under no extraneous influence; they judge for themselves; and they are representative of that great Public Opinion which makes or mars, and which in the end is always right. When they are against you it is hard at the time to be convinced that you are wrong; but you are. Take my case. I made my first success at the St. James’s. We were to have opened with ‘Hunted Down.’ We did not. I was cast for Doricourt in ‘The Belle’s Stratagem,’—a part which I had never played before, and which I thought did not suit me. I felt that this was the opinion of the audience soon after the play began. The house appeared to be indifferent, and I believed that failure was conclusively stamped upon my work, when suddenly, on my exit after the mad scene, I was startled by a burst of applause, and so great was the enthusiasm of the audience that I was compelled to reappear on the scene—a somewhat unusual thing, as you know, except on the operatic stage.”

      “And in America,” I said, “where scene-calls are quite usual, and quite destructive of the illusion of the play, I think.”

      “You are right; and, by the way, if there must be calls, I like our modern method of taking a call after an act on the scene itself. But to proceed. I next played ‘Hunted Down,’ and they liked me in that; and when they do like, audiences are no niggards of their confessions of pleasure. My next engagement was at the Queen’s Theatre, where I was successful. Then I went to the Gaiety, where I played Chevenex. I followed at Drury Lane in ‘Formosa,’ and nobody noticed me at all.”

      “Do you think you always understand the silence of an audience? I mean in this way: on a first night, for example, I have sometimes gone round to speak to an actor, and have been met with the remark, ‘How cold the audience is!’ as if excessive quietness was indicative of displeasure, the idea being that when an audience is really pleased, it always stamps its feet and claps its hands. I have seen an artist making his or her greatest success with an audience that manifested its delight by suppressing every attempt at applause.”

      “I know exactly what you mean,” he answered. “I recall a case in point. There was such an absence of applause on the first night of ‘The Two Roses,’ while I was on the stage, that I could not believe my friends when they congratulated me on my success. But with experience one gets to understand the idiosyncrasies and habits of audiences. You spoke of the silence of some audiences. The most wonderful quiet and silence I have ever experienced as an actor, a stillness that is profound, has been in those two great theatres, the one that was burned down at Glasgow, and the Standard, in London, during the court scene of ‘The Bells.’ ”

V.

       Table of Contents

      Genius is rarely without a sense of humor. Mr. Irving has a broad appreciation of fun, though his own humor is subtle and deep down. This is never better shown than in his Richard and Louis. It now and then appears in his conversations; and when he has an anecdote to tell he seems to develop the finer and more delicate motives of the action of the narrative, as if he were dramatizing it as he went along. We dropped our main subject of audiences presently to talk of other things. He related to me a couple of stories of a “dresser” who was his servant in days gone by. The poor man is dead now, and these incidents of his life will not hurt his memory.

      “One night,” said Irving, “when I had been playing a new part, the old man said, while dressing me, ‘This is your masterpiece, sir!’ How do you think he had arrived at this opinion? He had seen nothing of the piece, but he noticed that I perspired more than usual. The poor fellow was given over to drink at last; so I told him we must part if he did not mend his ways. ‘I wonder,’ I said to him, ‘that, for the sake of your wife and children, you do not reform; besides, you look so ridiculous.’ Indeed, I never saw a sillier man when he was tipsy; and his very name would set children laughing—it was Doody. Well, in response to my appeal, with maudlin vanity and with tears in his eyes, he answered, ‘They make so much of me!’ It reminded me of Dean Ramsay’s story of his drunken parishioner. The parson, you remember, admonished the whiskey-drinking Scot, concluding his lecture by offering his own conduct as an example. ‘I can go into the village and come home again without getting drunk.’ ‘Ah, minister, but I’m sae popular!’ was the fuddling parishioner’s apologetic reply.”

      A notable person in appearance, I said just now. Let me sketch the famous actor as we leave his rooms together. A tall, spare figure in a dark overcoat and grayish trousers, black neckerchief

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