IMPRESSIONS OF 
 
 HENRY IRVING 
 
 BY 
 
 WALTER HERRIES POLLOCK
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 IMPRESSIONS OF 
 
 HENRY IRVING
 
 IMPRESSIONS OF 
 
 HENRY IRVING 
 
 GATHERED IN PUBLIC AND 
 PRIVATE DURING A FRIEND- 
 SHIP OF MANY YEARS ^ ^ 
 
 BY 
 
 WALTER HERRIES POLLOCK 
 
 • • a ) 
 
 9 
 > 
 
 
 
 
 
 WITH A PREFACE BY 
 
 
 H. B. IRVING 
 
 LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 
 
 39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON 
 
 NEW YORK, BOMBAY, AND CALCUTTA 
 
 1908 
 
 All rights reserved
 
 • » « c < » 
 
 * « t "t •
 
 % 
 
 PREFACE 
 
 My friend, Walter Pollock, has asked me 
 to write a few words of introduction to his 
 Impressions of my father. But, in writing 
 about Henry Irving, Mr. Pollock stands in no 
 need of introduction. He was himself a very 
 dear and valued friend of my father ; his 
 mother. Lady Pollock, was one of the first to 
 encourage, by the warmth and sincerity of her 
 admiration, the hopes and aspirations of the 
 v^ young actor, who in his earlier years was ever 
 ;^ a welcome guest at Sir Frederick Pollock's 
 y^ .. house. It was natural, therefore, that my 
 ^"^ father should be inclined to speak more un- 
 reservedly than was his habit, of his work, his 
 ^ art, to their son Walter ; for he was always 
 ■^ quick to respond where he believed he found 
 iN sympathy, and a sincere appreciation of his aim 
 \« and endeavour. 
 
 \ An actor's work is in itself so necessarily 
 
 ephemeral that, to a future generation, it 
 
 463847
 
 vi Preface 
 
 cannot speak for itself. To leave behind him 
 any record of his ideas, his methods, his 
 purpose in what he did, or tried to do, an 
 actor must either set down such record for 
 himself, or depend upon those intimate with 
 him in his lifetime, to whom he may, in 
 moments of expansion, have confided some- 
 thing of his inner thoughts and feelings, to 
 give a just account of him to posterity. Had 
 my father lived, he had intended to have 
 written his reminiscences, in which, no doubt, 
 he would have given to those who came after 
 him the fruits of his experience, the lessons 
 learned, the ideas formed in the course of a 
 career of strenuous endeavour and singular 
 achievement. But this was not to be. It 
 rests with those who knew him well, who at 
 different times were his companions, to convey 
 to those who neither saw nor heard him, some 
 idea of a personality, the power and impres- 
 siveness of which none can question. 
 
 I am very sure there are few better qualified, 
 by the ties of friendship and skill of penmanship, 
 to attempt successfully to draw such a picture 
 than Walter Pollock. He knew my father first 
 at that critical time when he had just set his
 
 Preface vii 
 
 foot on the ladder of fame ; and he saw and 
 talked with him during those succeeding years 
 in which, in the teeth of opposition, less 
 scrupulous and considerate than the success- 
 ful actor of to-day is called upon to encounter, 
 the " fashionable tragedian " fought his way to 
 full and general recognition. Mr. Pollock writes 
 as a friend ; his writing will be none the less 
 interesting and trustworthy for that. No man 
 was ever more loved and regarded by a few 
 good and tried friends than my father. It is 
 well that those of them who will, should tell 
 us something of Henry Irving. 
 
 H. B. IRVING.
 
 IMPRESSIONS OF 
 
 HENRY IRVING 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 The first time that I ever met Henry Irving 
 off the stage he had come straight from his 
 dressing-room at the Lyceum, then under the 
 Bateman management, to a restaurant near 
 the Lyceum, where the late Hamilton Aid6 
 and I were awaiting him. Aide, knowing my 
 admiration of the actor, had, with his usual 
 kindliness, thought that I should know some- 
 thing of the man also by means of a perfectly 
 quiet meeting ; and this invitation was the 
 beginning of a great friendship, which lasted 
 without a break or a hitch till the end of 
 Irving's splendid career. 
 
 In my mind's eye I can see as vividly as on 
 that occasion I saw it, the entrance of the then 
 rising actor, with the slight, tall, alert figure, 
 and the face, striking alike in repose and when
 
 2 Impressions of Henry Irving 
 
 the mobile features gave expression to suc- 
 cessive changes of thought and emotion. On 
 that night, as soon as conversation had well 
 begun, the dominant expression in voice and 
 face was of eager and joyful expectation and 
 hope. He could stay, he said with courteous 
 regret, but a short time, since he had to go 
 back to a night rehearsal of a play in which 
 he hoped and thought he had found a part 
 which might be the way he had always desired 
 to a greater and higher career than he had as 
 yet been able to attempt. He was full of hope, 
 and it was clear that he was devoted heart, 
 soul, and intellect to the venture ; but it was 
 equally clear that he did not allow hope and a 
 strong personal conviction to override reason, 
 and that if disappointment came he would be 
 prepared, though very loth, to meet it. But if 
 the speaker did not feel an absolute certainty 
 as to the future result of the new venture, he 
 assuredly inspired his listeners with that cer- 
 tainty ; and this was the first impression I ever 
 got of what has often been called — and I 
 do not know that a more tersely descriptive 
 phrase can be found — the magnetic personality 
 of Henry Irving. At that meeting, as always
 
 Impressions of Henry Irving 3 
 
 afterwards, he made and left an enduring and 
 vivid sense of this quality, and of another which 
 is as rare — perhaps rarer still, among artists in 
 general — that of an absolute sincerity in heart, 
 mind, and speech. I should call it rather 
 simplicity, did not that word seem capable of a 
 misleading interpretation. Both qualities exist, 
 but the latter most especially, in another great 
 actor, of another nation, of whom I shall have 
 to speak presently. 
 
 The play of which Irving spoke, and to the 
 rehearsal of which he had to betake himself all 
 too soon, was, of course, T/ie Bells, the trans- 
 lation rather than version, by Leopold Lewis, 
 of Erckmann-Chatrian's Le Juif Polonais ; and 
 how Irving's hopes, and his listeners' feeling 
 of assurance, were presently fulfilled is ancient 
 history. I do not know, and cannot guess, how 
 many times I have seen this particular play, 
 but every time that I saw it, up to the prota- 
 gonist's last appearances as Mathias in London, 
 I found in it one of many instances of a thing 
 which was characteristic of him, and which 
 one may feel sure had not little to do with his 
 never-waning success as an actor. This thing 
 was that he never rested content with what
 
 4 Impressions of Henry Irving 
 
 he had accomplished. He never docketed a 
 part as completed from his own view : on the 
 contrary, he never rested from trying to im- 
 prove, and again improve, and still always 
 improve on his rendering. In other words, 
 after he had attained, as much as while he 
 was striving to attain, the great position he so 
 long held, he never ceased to be a student, 
 however often, and by however many people, 
 he might be told that he was a scholar and 
 more, a master who had probed scholarship to 
 the utmost. This was markedly the case with 
 his first great success, Mathias in The Bells; 
 but here, as elsewhere, the constant process of 
 improvement inevitably involved the rejection 
 or change of certain effects that one was sorry 
 to miss. One such effect I found in the laugh 
 with which Mathias interrupts his son-in-law 
 to be. Christian, the captain of gendarmes, in 
 expounding a theory which shows him to be 
 perilously close on the truth as to the murder 
 of the Jew. The laugh in question broke in 
 upon, one might say was part of, the burgo- 
 master's speech interrupting the gendarme's 
 analysis of the crime. "Take care. Christian, 
 take care ! I — I myself had a lime-kiln at the
 
 Impressions of Henry Irving 5 
 
 time ! " In the first performances of the play 
 the "take care" seemed wrung from Mathias 
 by the deadly logic of Christian's theory that 
 the Jew's body was consumed in a Hme-kihi ; 
 while the laugh was far more the result, almost 
 hysterical, of a nervous system strained to 
 breaking-point than of an attempt to cover up 
 the impulse of a startled mind and conscience. 
 The effect was thrilling, as I think all who 
 remember it will acknowledge. 
 
 In later representations the whole speech, 
 save for a touch maybe in the two opening 
 words, seemed due to a continued habit of 
 caution and calculation, while the laugh rang 
 hard, dull, mechanical. The latter rendering 
 was undoubtedly the more artistic, as a little 
 reflection on a point to which the actor had 
 doubtless given a great deal will show. For 
 the key to the whole of Mathias's outward life 
 since the murder of the Jew is found in an 
 unremitting preparedness for such a blow as 
 Christian's reasoned reconstitution of the crime, 
 an unceasing repression in all company, even 
 that of his wife alone, of his inward emotions, 
 a watchfulness never relaxed lest by word, 
 look, or action he should betray something
 
 6 Impressions of Henry Irving 
 
 which would lead to his own undoing. There- 
 fore the later interpretation was the right one, 
 though it produced a lesser immediate effect. 
 The change is cited as a good instance, and 
 the first which happened to fall under the 
 writer's observation, of the artistic thought and 
 care which the actor gave continuously to 
 every mood, every phase of emotion, and to 
 the fitting expression of these in any character 
 he undertook, no matter how often he repeated 
 it, or to what extent his audience might sup- 
 pose that he had given the last touch to it. 
 
 The very name of The Bells recalls number- 
 less memories of earlier and later friendship 
 with one whom, apart entirely from his art, it 
 was very good to know. One of these memories 
 may be set down now since it gives a proof 
 that Irving was, in the character of manager, 
 not a whit less thoughtful, less careful, of every 
 detail that helped to make the whole of a play 
 than, as an actor, he was of every impression 
 he wished to produce by word, look, gesture, 
 or stillness. It was in his dressing-room, after 
 the end of another play, that several sets of 
 new sledge-bells attached to miniature collars 
 were brought to him. One of them was to be
 
 Impressions of Henry Irving j 
 
 used in a coming revival of the piece which 
 he had made famous. He had them sounded 
 in succession, with a well-managed indication 
 of the close, distant, and graduated effects, over 
 and over again, while he listened intently before 
 he began to eliminate them one by one until 
 one set was left for final consideration. Then 
 he listened again more carefully than ever to 
 that set, and then he turned to Mr. Loveday, 
 a very accomplished musician, and said, " Now, 
 isn't that the right set ? " a question which pro- 
 duced an emphatic " Not a doubt about it." 
 Details of this kind may at first mention seem 
 mere trifles ; yet it was the minute attention 
 given to them that produced the then singular 
 homogeneousness that marked all performances 
 given at the Lyceum under living's manage- 
 ment. People who happened to see the scene 
 on the Brocken, in the late Mr. Wills's Faust, 
 from the wing will have noticed and remem- 
 bered a score or more of such details. But 
 no care on the manager's part would have 
 secured their being worked up into an artistic 
 whole, an agreement in all things which, as 
 Horace has it, was complete, polished, and 
 rounded off without another quality that was
 
 8 Impressions of Henry Irving 
 
 part and parcel of himself. This was that 
 combination of never questioned authority with 
 perfect simplicity and kindliness which inspired 
 rather than compelled obedience, and with it 
 a real affection, in all — actors, supers, and 
 stage-hands alike, who ever worked with or 
 under him.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 Irving is referred to in the foregoing chapter 
 as a great actor. Whether the adjective is or is 
 not the proper one to be applied is of course 
 a matter purely of opinion, not of criticism, 
 whereupon argument has nothing to say to the 
 question. But it is probable or certain that 
 many of those who might cavil at the par- 
 ticular epithet will yet think that by reason of 
 what he did, both as actor and manager, to 
 raise the then prevailing tone of dramatic 
 performances, and of the intellect, study, en- 
 thusiasm which he brought to bear on every 
 part he undertook, he was in the first rank 
 of players into whose methods it is well worth 
 while to inquire. 
 
 No artist — one might say no man — ever rises 
 or begins to rise to the top of any profession 
 or employment amid universal applause ; pro- 
 bably there are still plenty of people, who, if 
 they spoke out their inmost opinion, would 
 rank Shakespeare with taste and the musical 
 
 9
 
 lo Impressions of Henry Irving 
 
 glasses. To the upholders of any individual 
 fame or success there will always be a reasoned 
 as well as an unreasoning opposition. This 
 would seem to be an immutable law, without 
 which the world would be a place very different 
 from what it is, and, ceteris paribus, a much 
 duller place. The opposition, as above hinted, 
 is not usually very slow in appearing, and cer- 
 tainly it was not long after Irving was on 
 the way to greater ventures in London than 
 playing so-called " character parts " and light 
 comedy, sometimes with a dash of something 
 stronger, to the plaudits of critics, public and 
 private, that some persons of much perception, 
 and many who could not be so described, 
 began to find serious faults in his acting. 
 There were some grave and reverend signiors, 
 with every right that intellect could give to 
 express their opinion, who always maintained 
 that he was no actor ; but that again was a 
 matter of pure opinion and not of criticism. 
 Among those who said that he acted, but 
 acted in many ways badly, the chief points of 
 objection might be summarised in the word 
 mannerism. This word applies equally to the 
 use of the voice and to the use of the limbs.
 
 Impressions of Henry Irving 1 1 
 
 To facial expression it can hardly refer unless, 
 indeed, that should degenerate into grimacing, 
 a decadence of which, so far as I know, Irving 
 was never accused by any considerable critic. 
 Of mannerism one knows, so far as record 
 can tell, every actor who has won his way to 
 the highest distinction has been in his time 
 accused ; nor is the reason for this very far 
 to seek. In this connection it may not be 
 amiss to begin by quoting certain remarks made 
 by Palgrave Simpson, an authority, if ever there 
 was one, on the whole history of plays, play- 
 wrights, and actors, as reported in the late John 
 Coleman's book, " Players and Playwrights." 
 People who knew both men may recognise 
 that if sometimes the manner is Coleman's 
 the matter is Palgrave Simpson's. 
 
 "An actor who would make a great name," 
 said the speaker, "ought to be a mannerist. 
 No man has ever been a popular favourite in 
 my time unless he was a pronounced man- 
 nerist. Charles Young was a mellifluous 
 mouthing mannerist ; Charles Kemble was a 
 silver - toned sententious mannerist ; Edmund 
 Kean was a stuttering spasmodic mannerist ; 
 Macready and Phelps were always grim and
 
 12 Impressions of Henry Irving 
 
 growling over their bones ; Charles Kean had 
 a chronic cold in his head ; Keeley was sleek 
 and sleepy ; Buckstone was a chuckler and loose 
 in the text ; Ben Webster was always imperfect 
 and had a Somerset dialect ... all these actors 
 owed their popularity to their being more or 
 less pronounced mannerists." 
 
 It is not likely that Palgrave Simpson put 
 the last phrase quite so baldly, although, accord- 
 ing to Murdoch, a justly famed American actor 
 who played at the Haymarket, Macready was 
 recognised as a player of level and high merit, 
 but nothing beyond that, until he deliberately 
 adopted a mannerism of intonation with what 
 were called '' Macready pauses." After that, 
 teste Murdoch, he attained greatness. West- 
 land Marston, who had no doubt as to 
 Macready's greatness, described his later method 
 of utterance much as Murdoch did, giving, 
 however, a different explanation of it, and 
 found a special fault in his bearing in moments 
 of repose. Curiously enough this fault was 
 found with an attitude not unusual with Irving, 
 that of standing with one knee bent while the 
 other was rigid. When the grain of salt is 
 added, it will be admitted, probably, that there
 
 Impressions of Henry Irving 1 3 
 
 is a good deal of truth in these pretensions. 
 To the instances adduced it may be added 
 that John Kemble appears to have been always 
 stately and always asthmatic, while he allowed 
 himself strange pranks in pronunciation, as 
 in the well-known case of aitches for aches (in 
 The Tempest). Further, The Times of Friday, 
 January 23, 1807, noticed "Mr. Kemble's revival 
 of" the same play, "only for the sake of pro- 
 testing against" his "inroads upon the terri- 
 tories of English orthoepy," while admitting his 
 " appropriate dignity " as Prospero. Recording 
 by the way that he was "hissed every night" 
 for odd tricks of utterance, it was itself in- 
 clined to good - humoured merriment, but 
 found indignation stealing in at Prospero's 
 call upon his sarevant Ariel. The great paper 
 dwelt distressfully on his habitual misuse of 
 vowels and of consonants, and on his " excess 
 of distinctness." The brief notice ended thus : 
 "But we are totally at a loss to account 
 for the two other monstrosities besides Caliban 
 which were apparent on Wednesday night, 
 the perfijjus and the varetshu for perfidious 
 and virtue; and we accordingly throw down 
 our pen iji despair," The italics on the final
 
 14 Impressions of Henry Irving 
 
 words surely strike a note of grievous hope- 
 lessness. 
 
 To go further back, one is to suppose that 
 Quin's elocution in blank verse was of the 
 most correct and most rotund kind, with, as 
 Mr. Barton Baker says, a "sing-song delivery 
 undoubtedly borrowed from the Parisian stage, 
 where it was the mode during the time of 
 Louis XV.," while his action was of what has 
 been termed the tea-pot order ; in fact, that 
 his method in blank-verse tragedy was a sub- 
 limation of that which was wont, within present 
 memory, to be taught to and learnt by public 
 school boys who figured before an audience 
 on speech days. Of the heretic who, greatly 
 daring, completely overturned Quin's traditions, 
 David Garrick, there is a sort of general idea 
 that he could fly with equal success at any 
 game in comedy or tragedy, and that he had 
 no mannerisms to speak of. On neither point 
 was this in truth the opinion of contemporary 
 critics. Here is a letter, obviously unbiassed, 
 addressed to him by an anonymous corre- 
 spondent at Dublin in August 1742. 
 
 "The first thing I shall mention (and which 
 I insist upon ithat you reform) is your false
 
 Impressions of Henry Irving 1 5 
 
 pronunciation of several words, which can be 
 owing to nothing but custom and prejudice 
 in a man of sense, as I am sure you are. The 
 words that I chiefly remember are these : 
 matron, Israel, villain, appal, Horatio, wind ; 
 which you pronounced metron, Iserel, villin, 
 appeal, Horetio, and the word wind you pro- 
 nounced short. I cannot imagine what your 
 objection can be to the letter a, that you should 
 change it into an e, both in the English lan- 
 guage and the Latin ; or what fault you can 
 find with the English word matron that you 
 should ibe obliged to make it Greek. Does not 
 Horatio sound much better than the little word 
 Horetio? It is said that Horatius Codes, when 
 he could no longer withstand the fury of his 
 enemies, leaped into the Tiber. But what did 
 he this for ? Was it not for a name ? Yes, 
 surely, but never for the name of Horetius." 
 
 Other faultsjwere found with Garrick's acting 
 and elocution. In private life conversation 
 Garrick was given to the same kind of in- 
 articulate interjection that in a later generation 
 belonged to Macready, and, moreover, to a 
 slight stutter at the beginning of a phrase. 
 As time went on some touch of both these
 
 1 6 Impressions of Henry Irving 
 
 tricks found its way into his stage representa- 
 tions. He was always sensitive as to caricatures 
 of his acting, and it is reported that he was 
 specially annoyed by Foote's taking off his 
 dying scene in the part of Lothario, whereof 
 the mimic thus rendered the concluding words : 
 "Adorns my tale, and che-che-che-che-che- 
 cheers my heart in dy-dy-dy-dying." 
 
 It would be easy to multiply instances of 
 admittedly great actors, English and foreign, 
 who have been full enough of mannerisms. 
 But enough has been said to show at least, 
 if any should hesitate to go quite so far 
 as did Palgrave Simpson and Murdoch, that 
 mannerisms have certainly never impeded an 
 actor's reaching the height that followers of 
 any art are fain to reach.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 Before the decisive day of The Bells I had 
 seen Irving as Bill Sikes in Oliver Twist at the 
 Queen's Theatre, with Toole as the Artful 
 Dodger, the always charming Nelly Moore as 
 Nancy, and John Clayton (a notable perform- 
 ance) as Monks ; and as Digby Grant in Two 
 Roses at the Vaudeville with the excellent cast 
 which many playgoers will still remember. 
 On both these occasions I was still an under- 
 graduate, but old enough as a playgoer to 
 have a vivid recollection of the extraordinary 
 intensity which "little Robson " possessed (or 
 which possessed him) in flashes which he 
 could not, or believed he could not, sustain 
 through a whole part. This intensity was 
 brought to my recollection by passages in 
 Irving's Bill Sikes, which, moreover, was an 
 absolutely life-like and consistent character 
 throughout. Years afterwards, and after he 
 had completely won his spurs as a tragedian 
 
 in Hamlet, I asked him where, if anywhere, he 
 
 17 B
 
 1 8 Impressions of Henry Irving 
 
 had found a model for this striking rendition. 
 He replied, " I got at it by quietly observing 
 certain street corners I know of where fellows 
 of that kind congregate." As he spoke, stand- 
 ing up, he became for the moment one of 
 those fellows, hang-dog, suspicious, truculent, 
 with an air that indicated a desperate daring 
 if he were brought to bay. More than that, 
 in that brief transformation he somehow made 
 one see not only the man himself, but all his 
 surroundings, the minatory tavern corner, and 
 the group of equally cunning but less daring 
 companions hanging on the words and move- 
 ments of the central figure. Those who have 
 seen John Parry will remember how in the 
 light and charming entertainments where the 
 imagined Mrs. Roseleaf was the chief personage, 
 he exhibited the same power, with a difference, 
 of calling up a whole scene with a word, a 
 look, a gesture. The inquiry and prompt 
 answer as to Bill Sikes led to my asking 
 Irving about his performance of Bob Gassitt (in 
 Dearer than Life) which I had never seen, but 
 of which I had heard a great deal. " I think," 
 he said, with the air of absolutely unaffected 
 diffidence, which appeared at times all through
 
 Impressions of Henry Irving 19 
 
 my long intimacy with him, " I can give you 
 some idea of that." In a moment he was 
 sitting on a table, swinging his legs and fold- 
 ing his arms with a sort of hesitating impudence, 
 as he spoke one line of the part, "You might 
 give a fellow a chance, Lucy," and, as I knew 
 the general run of the play though I had not 
 seen it, I saw not only Bob Gassitt in place of 
 Henry Irving, but also the whole surroundings 
 in the illuminating delivery of those few words. 
 The vivid performance of Bill Sikes did not 
 engage popular attention to anything like the 
 same extent as did the subsequent interpreta- 
 tion of Digby Grant, though in both there was 
 to be noted the same sure unfaltering touch 
 of true art whereby the horror inspired by 
 the confessed ruffian was never thrust beyond 
 endurable limits, while the selfish vanity and 
 unbridled meanness of the adventurer Grant 
 becoming a beggar on horseback were never 
 suffered to pass the just limits of real comedy 
 as indicated in the " Essays of Elia." The 
 audience was intensely amused, but so far 
 from being disgusted with the character's base 
 qualities that whenever he left the stage there 
 was a wish to see him re-enter. And so, to
 
 20 Impressions of Henry Irving 
 
 pass to a very different line of character, was 
 it with Mathias in The Bells. It was Irving's 
 keen perception and insight that raised Le Juif 
 Polonais (written originally by MM. Erckmann- 
 Chatrian with no view to stage production) 
 from a sordid to a soul-stirring episode of 
 Alsatian village life. In making such a change 
 he set himself deliberately a very difficult task, 
 wherein he so acquitted himself that repulsion 
 at the murderer of years gone by was over- 
 mastered by pity for the man full of such 
 honours as village life can give, but worn down 
 and out by incessant remorse far more than 
 by fear of detection. 
 
 The only characters other than those men- 
 tioned in which I saw Irving before The Bells 
 were Jingle in a version of Pickwick and 
 Landry (Landry Barbeau was the full name) 
 in Fanchette, a stage version of La Petite Fadette. 
 In the last-named character he had nothing 
 to do in a part out of his line and did that 
 nothing well, and his Jingle, from the first to 
 the last (in another version that he played), 
 was a most vivacious performance, but, to my 
 thinking, not to be compared with his Jeremy 
 Diddler in Raising the Wind. Possibly he felt
 
 Impressions of Henry Irving 21 
 
 a lesser freedom in dealing with a character 
 created by Dickens than he did when dashing 
 through the irresponsible humours of a part 
 sketched with boisterous spirit by Kenny. 
 
 Both Bill Sikes and Digby Grant, with which 
 latter began, I think, the afterwards wide- 
 spread fashion of Irving imitations, were dis- 
 tinctly what are called character parts. The 
 phrase was not to begin with a very happy 
 one, since all good acting is acting of character, 
 but it has acquired a definite meaning and is 
 undeniably convenient. This being so, the 
 mention of these two parts leads naturally to 
 a question which goes almost hand in hand 
 with that of mannerism, that is, how far should 
 an actor endeavour to sink his own personality 
 in that of the personage he is representing ? 
 If one reduces it to its simplest form, that 
 of assumption so complete that the disguise 
 cannot be penetrated, then surely it is an 
 accomplishment for the entertainer or quick- 
 change performer, who shows the superficial 
 aspects of a character for a few minutes, and 
 not for the actor who has to sustain a part of 
 varying moods and feelings throughout a play 
 or the greater part of it. There are, of course,
 
 22 Impressions of Henry Irving 
 
 instances where an actor's disguise is rightly so 
 complete that for a minute or so the audience 
 may be puzzled as to his identity. Such was 
 the case with Charles Fechter when, as Lagar- 
 dere in The Duke's Motto, he assumed the 
 personality of the hunchback, and with Mr. 
 Tree when he played the wily Minister of 
 Police in The Red Lamp. But what could 
 there be of nature or art in an attempt, suc- 
 cessful or not, to keep up the first moments' 
 illusion throughout the course of the play ? 
 The actor would have to concentrate all his 
 thought and energy on that one point, so that 
 his performance would at best be that of a 
 skilfully handled marionette. Yet how often 
 does one hear it said, unthinkingly, in deprecia- 
 tion of this or that distinguished actor, " Oh ! 
 very clever, of course, very clever indeed, but 
 then you know he's always Mr. X." Well, 
 what else should he be, showing you in his 
 own fashion, inimitable save as to surface 
 qualities, the " true inwardness " of Colonel Y 
 or King Z in his habit as he lived. The 
 people who make these remarks are not noted 
 to observe of a first-rate painter's pictures, "An 
 admirable painting, but you can see it's by
 
 Impressions of Henry Irving 23 
 
 N. N." Yet this implied reproof would be just 
 as sensible as the other. The true aspect of 
 the matter is surely to be found in the terse 
 French phrase of an actor who has "got into 
 the skin " of the personage he represents. Just 
 so, indeed, and when the actor himself feels 
 that he has accomplished this, then he calls 
 up and employs every resource of his art, 
 including the mysteries of make-up, to show 
 his audiences a living, thinking, feeling image of 
 the personage as he conceives it. If he fails to 
 do this his art is at fault ; if he succeeds then 
 we have a fine piece of acting. But as for 
 completely and absolutely sinking his own 
 identity, why, what should we make of the 
 skin without the particular man, the particularly 
 accomplished actor, who has got inside it ? As 
 well might one expect a watch to work without 
 a mainspring. Two excellent instances of what 
 the actor's art can and should do in this 
 matter of assumed personality are easily found 
 in Sir John Hare's Lord Kilclare in A Quiet 
 Rubber— Coghlan's clever version of Une Partie 
 de Piquet— ?ind in Sir Henry Irving's Corporal 
 Brewster in Sir A. Conan Doyle's Story of 
 Waterloo. In each case the assumption of a
 
 24 Impressions of Henry Irving 
 
 marked and peculiar personality, to say nothing 
 of the assumption of old age, was complete. 
 The intonation, the walk, the manner, the 
 tricks of gesture were in each case absolutely 
 foreign to those usually associated with the 
 actor, and absolutely proper to the character 
 represented. Yet who that had ever seen 
 either actor before could have doubted, sup- 
 posing he had neither friend nor playbill to 
 inform him, that he was seeing a perform- 
 ance in the one case by Hare, in the other by 
 Irving ? 
 
 As to this matter of impersonation Irving 
 gave a notable illustration of it when he played 
 the two parts of Lesurques, the wrongfully ac- 
 cused hero, and of Dubosc, the forceful villain 
 who leads and imposes his will upon a band 
 of robbers and cut-throats, in The Lyons Mail. 
 There is a little history worth noting about the 
 title, The Lyons Mail, Charles Reade's version 
 of Le Courrier de Lyon was called, like other 
 and inferior versions. The Courier of Lyons, 
 which is absolute nonsense, as there is not a 
 word or a hint about a courier in the whole of 
 the play. Nor, of course, is the English courier 
 in any sense a translation or rendering of the
 
 Impressions of Henry Irving 25 
 
 French courrier. Reade, however, was ignorant 
 of French in his youth, and never acquired a 
 real knowledge of it. Wherefore, like another 
 adapter, who translated feu d'artifice by arti- 
 ficial fire and il ny voit que du feu by his eyes 
 shine like a demon's^ he slapped down The 
 Courier of Lyons as the English title of the 
 play. And to the play this impossible title 
 stuck until Mr. John Willis Clark, who to 
 much distinction in other fields of knowledge 
 adds that of being an accomplished French 
 scholar, wrote in 1870 a special and excellent 
 version of the French piece for the Cambridge 
 A.D.C. To this he naturally gave for the first 
 time the only proper title. The Lyons Mail. A 
 friend of Mr. Clark and of Irving drew the 
 actor's attention to this matter, and in con- 
 sequence the play became known, and will 
 continue to be known to the British public by 
 its right name, in the first instance given to it 
 by Mr. J. W. Clark. Irving's Lesurques was 
 such a representation as a first-rate actor would 
 give of a thoroughly pleasant unaffected gentle- 
 man of the time plunged suddenly, by no fault 
 of his own, into a very sea of troubles. His 
 Dubosc was an absolute impersonation, and
 
 26 Impressions of Henry Irving 
 
 something more than that ; from his first entry 
 to his final disappearance the threatening figure 
 of the swaggering successful ruffian struck a 
 note of terror and yet commanded a kind of 
 admiration for the dare-devil's never - failing 
 resource and courage. To me there was, from 
 the purely, perhaps ultra, artistic point of view, 
 one fault in the double undertaking. That 
 was, that in being bent on differentiating the 
 two men the actor ended by making them, in 
 truth, too little alike for the needs of the 
 story. There was, of course, a strong resem- 
 blance in the outline of the face and one less 
 marked in the general aspect of the figure. 
 But the gait, the gestures, the intonation, the 
 whole behaviour of Dubosc were so totally 
 opposed to anything in Lesurques that it was 
 impossible to understand how any members 
 of Dubosc's gang could really and seriously 
 imagine, as the play makes them do, that 
 Lesurques was, in fact, Dubosc in another 
 dress. This I pointed out to Irving as I was 
 accustomed to tell him exactly how things 
 struck me in his own acting or in his stage- 
 management. I think he agreed with me in 
 theory, but he stuck to his guns in practice.
 
 Impressions of Henry Irving 27 
 
 And, apart from the fact that he certainly 
 revelled in what was a remarkable tour de 
 force, I have little doubt that he was right 
 from the point of view of effect upon his 
 audiences.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 To say that any first-rate actor could play 
 Lesurques thoroughly well is not, of course, 
 to ignore that Irving gave to the part many 
 touches of his own peculiar genius, and these 
 were specially noticeable in the scene of fare- 
 well to the girl he was to marry, and in the 
 gradually approached outburst of bewilder- 
 ment and horror when Lesurques finds himself 
 accused of robbery and murder with, as the 
 final and blasting touch, his own father bearing 
 witness against him. In connection with this 
 scene there was on one occasion an incident 
 illustrating in an odd way the actor's constant 
 attention to every detail of a play. I was sitting 
 in a box close to the stage with my two nearest 
 friends, also great friends of his, and, after the 
 fall of the curtain, we were astonished by a 
 noise and what seemed a strange commotion 
 just behind the curtain, and by hearing Irving's 
 voice reiterating at a high pitch, with short 
 intermissions, " It's monstrous, it's monstrous ! " 
 
 28
 
 Impressions of Henry Irving 29 
 
 When I saw him at the end of the play I asked 
 him what this might portend. He gave the 
 smile which often lit up his face and said, 
 "You forgot, though you had only just heard 
 them, that those words are in my part when 
 the old man denounces me. I was not quite 
 satisfied with Mead's attitude and gesture at 
 that point, and so we went at it hammer and 
 tongs the moment the curtain was down until 
 we got it right for to-morrow night." Many 
 playgoers will remember the always excellent 
 acting of Mead, to whose Richelieu Irving, when 
 a beginner, had played Frangois. 
 
 If the scene just mentioned was the most 
 striking because it offered at once the greatest 
 scope and the greatest difficulties in Irving's 
 Lesurques, for the same reason the capital 
 scene in his Dubosc was the concluding one 
 of drunken triumph ending in final discom- 
 fiture. It was not upon amateurs only that 
 it produced a thrilling effect. Once I witnessed 
 the play with Mounet-Sully, the great French 
 tragedian, as my sole companion. All through 
 the play he was full of admiration for the stage- 
 management, for the general excellence of the 
 representation, and for the protagonist. During
 
 30 Impressions of Henry Irving 
 
 this scene he never relaxed an intent gaze upon 
 the stage, and whenever there was a moment's 
 pause in the dialogue he exclaimed far more 
 to himself than to me, "C'est 6tonnant, c'est 
 6tonnant ! " — words that spoke for themselves 
 without the elaboration he afterwards gave to 
 them. And this I know was a spontaneous 
 tribute to his brother-actor's art and power, 
 entirely apart from the warm friendship and 
 complete understanding which existed between 
 the two men despite the fact that neither could 
 speak the other's language beyond a few 
 words of greeting, farewell, and here and there 
 some word in constant use which gave a help 
 to their mutual comprehension. I fancy in 
 each case it was absorption in dramatic art 
 that had been a bar to linguistic attainment. 
 Mounet has an ear so fine and a tongue so 
 responsive to the ear, that on one occasion 
 when, as he was thinking of a few days' travel 
 in the South of England, he learnt some dozen 
 short complete English phrases (from R. L. 
 Stevenson and myself) to help him through, 
 after twice hearing them repeated he spoke 
 them literally, with the generally puzzling thy 
 like an Englishman to the manner born. I
 
 Impressions of Henry Irving 31 
 
 imagine Irving could have done the same 
 with French phrases, for he, too, had a 
 singularly correct ear, and, moreover, like some, 
 though by no means all, great actors, was 
 -when he chose a perfect mimic. There was 
 another more important likeness between the 
 two men, which no one who saw them together 
 could ifail to note. This was a complete 
 similarity, to which allusion has been made 
 before, in singleness of purpose and in absolute 
 sincerity of heart and mind. This no doubt 
 it was that, along with abounding sympathy in 
 all art matters and a keen sense of humour on 
 both sides, made their curious but hardly 
 halting converse not only possible but extremely 
 interesting and diverting both to themselves 
 and to any fortunate "assistants." I took 
 Mounet-Sully with me once to the Lyceum 
 Henry VIII., when he was delighted with the 
 whole representation, and specially perhaps 
 with Irving's touch of complete art in silent 
 by-play. We went afterwards to Irving's 
 dressing-room where, after one of the curious 
 conversations indicated, the English actor pre- 
 sented the French player with one of Wolsey's 
 birettas. It was accepted with a simple boyish
 
 32 Impressions of Henry Irving 
 
 delight, and when I went back with Mounet 
 to the Hotel Dieudonnd (then a little island 
 of old-fashioned Paris in the midst of St. 
 James's), nothing would serve him but clapping 
 on the cap and seeing its effect from various 
 points of view in a wall-mirror. I was moved 
 to laughter, which, as I had of course to explain 
 to my host, was due entirely to the reflection 
 that he was doing precisely what, if the situation 
 had been reversed, Irving would have done. 
 
 Here it may be said emphatically that in the 
 course of countless intimate talks extending 
 over many years, Irving always showed a full 
 and generous appreciation of other actors, 
 English and foreign, though he had plenty of 
 the critical faculty — and indeed without it how 
 could he have been so excellent a stage- 
 manager ? — which he was as ready to apply 
 to himself as to others. An instance of this 
 self-criticism may perhaps be given. 
 
 When he had decided, after considerable 
 hesitation, to produce Romeo and Juliet, he had 
 further and deeper misgivings as to whether 
 he should himself play Romeo or Mercutio, 
 and his final decision was mainly due to a 
 feeling, probably correct, that the public would
 
 Impressions of Henry Irving 33 
 
 expect to see him as Romeo. His rendering 
 of the part was not one to which as a whole 
 any honest critic could give unqualified ap- 
 proval, although in some scenes, particularly 
 -those with the Friar and with the Apothecary, 
 he played up to his best mark. That he was 
 among the critics who did not think well of 
 the whole performance will now be seen. 
 
 After he had made up his mind he came 
 one evening to see my wife, myself, and my 
 late brother-in-law. Captain Pipon, R.N., who 
 was staying with us. After some talk to which 
 the foregoing observations are due, he sat down 
 to read to us many of the scenes in which 
 Romeo appears. He read at half-tone, yet 
 gave its full force and meaning to every char- 
 acter, and it was evident throughout that his 
 conception of the part of Romeo was instinct 
 with beauty and truth. He indicated fully all 
 the passion, all the moods, all the impulse, and 
 all the weakness of the character, and, in a subtle 
 fashion, brought all the movement and life of 
 the various scenes before one's mind's eye. 
 I doubt if he ever had a more rapt audience, 
 and certainly not the least rapt of the three 
 was the sailor, who was a very keen student
 
 34 Impressions of Henry Irving 
 
 of Shakespeare. When the glamour of the 
 reading had come all too soon to an end the 
 reader put down his book, looked round at us, 
 and said with a half-humorous sigh : " There, 
 that is what I want to make of Romeo. Un- 
 luckily I know that on the stage I cannot come 
 anywhere near it." He waved away all attempts 
 at protest and repeated, " No, no. I know I 
 can't do it. How I wish I could ! But I must 
 do the best I can." When he had gone back 
 to his rooms Captain Pipon expressed the 
 feeling of all three hearers in the words, " If 
 only he could play Romeo as he read it he 
 would set the town ablaze. But what a 
 Mercutio he would make ! " And on this point 
 I fully think that Irving would have been in 
 complete agreement. And surely his Mercutio, 
 had he played the part, would have been a 
 very feather in his cap, and would have 
 divided posthumous fame with the Mercutio 
 of Charles Kemble. One may guess from his 
 Benedick with what enjoyment and with what 
 success he would have shown us the gaiety, 
 the courage, the ready wit of Romeo's friend. 
 Doubtless he would, with Charles Kemble, have 
 thrown over the tradition, whence derived one
 
 Impressions of Henry Irving 35 
 
 may ask vainly, of delivering the Queen Mab 
 speech as "a set piece" flung in the faces of 
 the audience by an actor taking the centre 
 of the stage, well down to the footlights, and 
 would have shown us the gallant imaginative 
 Mercutio started on a train of ever fantastic 
 thought by a chance suggestion, and, so started, 
 finding one witching idea succeed naturally to 
 another until, all unconsciously to himself, one 
 entire and perfect fabric of exquisite gossamer 
 had been woven. 
 
 Among actors of Irving's own time Charles 
 Coghlan took this view, and did with it all that 
 the highest talent can do. One may imagine, 
 without for a moment depreciating the charm 
 and bravery of Coghlan's performance, that 
 Irving, taking the same and the only right line, 
 would have infused certain subtle touches, and 
 lent to the whole part the unique illumination 
 due to a quality which even the highest talent 
 does not quite reach. 
 
 To return for a brief space to the question 
 of criticism mentioned above. It has been said, 
 with a strange perversion, that Irving resented, 
 or at any rate grew to resent, criticism from 
 friends. To me it is difficult to imagine any-
 
 36 Impressions of Henry Irving 
 
 thing more removed from fact. Up to the last 
 moment of his career on the London stage he 
 was more than willing to listen to any sug- 
 gestion concerning either his own acting or 
 the general conduct of any performance under 
 his direction. There must be many friends by 
 whom this trait in him will be remembered, 
 and it is probable that, as one writes of his 
 productions and acting, instances of it only 
 too crowding will recur to the memory. For 
 the present, at least, one may suffice. It was 
 during a " long run " revival of Hamlet that 
 he suddenly adopted the reading in the burial 
 scene, "the cat will mew, the dog will have 
 his bay," instead of "his day." This reading 
 has always struck me as on a par with the 
 famed suggestion that "the child is father to 
 the man " should be changed to " the man is 
 father to the child." This contention I pre- 
 sented to Irving, in his own frequent tone of 
 affectionate banter, in more than one way. He 
 said little ; indeed, I think he only used a 
 habitual and non-committal phrase — " Ah ! you 
 think that, do you ? " — but a few nights later I 
 found that he had gone back to his original 
 reading. I do not doubt that he had had re-
 
 Impressions of Henry Irving 37 
 
 monstrances other than mine, the which com- 
 bined, if he had in truth resented criticism, 
 would only have made him cling more closely 
 than ever to his new departure. 
 
 It seems probable that he first took to the 
 baying dog from sheer desire to break, how- 
 ever little, the monotony of constant repetition. 
 For during this, or a similar, long run of Hamlet, 
 I was with him in his dressing-room just before 
 this burial scene, and noted with surprise that 
 a scarlet feather was being placed in his black 
 hat. To my natural inquiry he answered : 
 " Well, you know very likely that there's reason 
 for supposing that scarlet was in old days the 
 mourning colour of Denmark. But that's not 
 really it — no. The truth is — anything for a 
 change, however little, in these long runs." 
 
 The thing is trivial in itself, but what a com- 
 ment on the inevitable effect of long runs — 
 once, and only once, the reiteration night after 
 night made him for a moment lose his "words" 
 — and what an illustration of the difficulties 
 besetting an actor-manager, who, as an artist, 
 cannot but loathe the continuous repetition of 
 a passionate play and part which, in his mana- 
 gerial capacity, he is compelled to foster ! 
 
 463847
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 The mention of the scarlet feather used for a 
 brief time in Hainlet naturally reminds one of 
 another play and part where such a feather 
 was a constant feature. This was Wills's 
 version or adaptation of Goethe's first part of 
 Fatist, given with the unrivalled performances 
 of Miss Ellen Terry as Gretchen and of Irving 
 as Mephistopheles, with a " cast " at all times 
 chosen with anxious exercise of care and judg- 
 ment, with stage-mounting and stage-manage- 
 ment (in carrying out this Mr. Loveday was 
 indefatigable) that could scarce be over-praised. 
 It would be something more than superfluous 
 to go into criticism of Wills's extremely effective 
 play, but one fault, as many good judges thought 
 it, may be mentioned, as in connection with it 
 there was an instance of a quality which was 
 among Irving's distinguishing characteristics. 
 The passage in question was that wherein Faust 
 announced to Mephistopheles his intention of 
 
 marrying Gretchen. Thereon Mephistopheles, 
 
 38
 
 Impressions of Henry Irving 39 
 
 after a cold menacing delivery of the words, 
 " That is your intention ? " dropped completely 
 the mask of cynical humorous banter, became 
 a fiend unbridled and storming, and let loose 
 upon Faust a flood of vituperation containing 
 threats of the direst physical torment and anni- 
 hilation. The momentary impression of the 
 change, aided by those effects of light which 
 the manager thoroughly understood, was start- 
 ling enough ; but a very little consideration 
 was needed to show its complete incongruity 
 with the positions of Faust and Mephistopheles 
 as conceived by Goethe and adopted through- 
 out the rest of the play by Wills. In a play 
 avowedly following Goethe's ideas, and in many 
 passages well translated from the German, one 
 is bound to regard Mephistopheles as identical 
 with Lucifer, and as " the prince of darkness 
 is a gentleman," it is quite out of the question 
 that he should resort to vulgar threats not 
 unlike those put into the mouth of the fiend 
 absurdly called Lucifer by M. G. Lewis at the 
 end of "The Monk." This is surely enough, 
 without the further consideration that the 
 Mephistopheles of Goethe, and, save for this 
 passage, of Wills, would never have flouted all
 
 40 Impressions of Henry Irving 
 
 the rules of the game by going so grossly out- 
 side and against his agreement with Faust. I 
 believe that Wills founded the scene on some 
 idea found in some version of the Faustus 
 legend, though where it is not easy to imagine, 
 since, of course, there is no hint of it in the 
 German puppet plays. These, which may have 
 come originally from England, served as a point 
 of departure for Goethe, to whose genius the 
 Gretchen episode, which became for theatre 
 purposes the play, is entirely due. However 
 the scene came into Wills's scheme, he no 
 doubt was captivated, as was Irving, by its 
 mere theatrical effectiveness, and so it was 
 thrust into the midst of circumstances with 
 which it was wholly at variance. But now 
 for the matter which has specially fixed its 
 incongruity in my memory. 
 
 When Faust had been played at the Lyceum 
 often enough to leave no doubt as to its success 
 Irving came to supper with us, the only other 
 guest being his dog Fuss. There was naturally 
 a good deal of talk about the piece, and pre- 
 sently, as was his wont, he invited views and 
 criticism. One or two suggestions as to details 
 were put forward and considered, and then
 
 hnpressions of Henry Irving 41 
 
 arose the question of this scene with its sudden 
 and unexpected appearance of a teeth-and- 
 claws fiend. I gave my opinion, doubtless too 
 strongly, for I ought to have known very well 
 that as the thing had made a decided mark 
 with the audience there it would stay. 
 
 Never, certainly, was an objection more 
 rashly and disastrously hazarded. Irving raised 
 his eyebrows, smiled a trifle bitterly, and 
 " That," he said, in tones of the sardonic 
 humour, which appeared rarely in private life, 
 though it served him admirably in Mephis- 
 topheles and some other parts, "that was not 
 your opinion when I gave you a sketch of the 
 scene in my dressing-room some time before 
 the play came out." In a flash the whole 
 thing came back to me. It was absolutely true. 
 He had given an outline of the scene, about 
 which he was enthusiastic, and I had echoed 
 his approval. I was so confounded that I 
 could only murmur the faintest adumbration of 
 what I immediately saw was my only excuse, 
 that I had been completely infected by his 
 enthusiasm and borne out of the realm of 
 judgment by the fiery impetus of his own 
 convictions, as by the dramatic power and
 
 42 Impressions of Henry Irving 
 
 reality that he infused into his brief description, 
 though it was given under his breath. It was 
 a striking instance of the "magnetic person- 
 ahty" which enabled him, as was said of 
 another man of singular fascination, Laurence 
 Oliphant, "to wile the bird off the tree" by 
 the force and attraction of his individuality. 
 
 Two other vivid memories of Faust may be 
 cited as bearing, in different ways, on the 
 question raised by Diderot in Le Paradoxe sur 
 le Comidien. Irving's own opinion on the 
 matter was more than once expressed in print, 
 and might be baldly summed up in the theory, 
 surely sound, that a true actor must have in all 
 the business of the stage " a double conscious- 
 ness." His practice completely bore out this 
 theory. 
 
 On one occasion I was sitting in the audience 
 during the scene in the Witch's Kitchen. The 
 action was just nearing the point where the 
 Witch, failing to recognise Mephistopheles, 
 turns and rends him as an intruding malapert, 
 whereto he gives a fantastical retort. Some- 
 thing had distracted my attention from the 
 stage (I had seen the play a good many times), 
 and when I looked again Mephistopheles was
 
 Impressions of Henry Irving 43 
 
 gabbling some partly intelligible jargon at top 
 speed, and laying much more stoutly than 
 usual about him with a whisk to overturn and 
 shatter the crockery on the shelf above the 
 couch on which he half reclined. Meanwhile 
 the Witch stood aghast and astounded, as well 
 she might. I was puzzled because I had just 
 missed the clue to this unaccustomed departure, 
 which was accepted by the larger part of the 
 audience as a diverting and intentional incident 
 in the scene. What had happened was this. 
 Mead was playing the Witch with his usual 
 excellence. But his memory failed him, as 
 now and then it would do, after he had burst 
 through the cloud of lurid smoke ; and he stood 
 literally struck dumb for the moment. Irving 
 took in the situation at a glance, and spoke 
 as quickly as he could all the words he could 
 remember of the Witch's speech, filling it in 
 with nonsense phrases and giving to the jumble 
 a tone as of one who could read the Witch's 
 thoughts. Here was an instance of the " double 
 consciousness " employed by the actor, who, 
 never forgetting the character he impersonates, 
 is yet at all moments ready to cover up and 
 repair any mishap or mistake in the stage
 
 44 Impressions of Henry Irving 
 
 business by which he is surrounded. A pre- 
 cisely similar incident took place in The Lyons 
 Mail, when the player of Lesurques's father, 
 appearing while the robbery, with murder, 
 of the mail is in full blast, forgot to utter 
 the fateful words addressed to Dubosc, "My 
 son ! " Quick as thought Irving improvised the 
 words, " I am not your son ! " thus implying 
 those which ought to have been spoken, and 
 almost simultaneously with the utterance fired 
 the pistol which wounds the old man. The 
 rapidity and the noise of the whole thing was 
 more than enough to prevent general percep- 
 tion that anything had been slurred or omitted, 
 or that the improvised words were in fact 
 sheer nonsense, since Dubosc was entirely 
 ignorant that his double or his double's father 
 had any existence. 
 
 Another instance from Faust is somewhat 
 different in kind. This was noted in the scene 
 of the sword fight between Faust and Valentine, 
 with Mephistopheles at the back giving, beyond 
 the knowledge of Valentine, the aid of his 
 sword to Faust's. The scene was most care- 
 fully got up, and was in its way a special 
 feature in the whole performance. The swords
 
 Impressions of Henry Irving 45 
 
 when crossed flashed fire, not the "shower of 
 sparks " defined and approved by Mr. Vincent 
 Crummies, but an eerie, lambent, blue flame due 
 to ingenious electrical apparatus. This involved 
 the wearing of special non-conducting gloves 
 by Faust and Valentine. On this occasion 
 the player who was undertaking the part of 
 Valentine at very short notice had, not un- 
 naturally in the circumstances, forgotten when 
 he was called for the stage to put on his 
 glove. Consequently at the first crossing of 
 the blades he got the full shock, and, during the 
 whole of the fight, considerately shortened, had 
 to do his best, bravely enough, under the assault 
 of repeated shocks. The mocking mirth of the 
 aiding and watching Mephistopheles was usually 
 restrained, sometimes was confined to a sar- 
 donic smile. On that night it was very audible, 
 insistent, effective. And here was an instance 
 of the actor's double consciousness merged into 
 unity. Mephistopheles could not properly stop 
 to inquire into Valentine's misfortunes or to 
 express any sympathy. But it was quite in 
 keeping with the character that he should laugh 
 at Valentine's unavailing efforts. Thus, then, 
 the surprise of the actor-manager and the
 
 46 Impressions of Henry Irving 
 
 devilish merriment of Mephistopheles found 
 absolutely common ground in as natural and 
 appropriate a laugh as could be given on any 
 stage. 
 
 There are examples enough in stage-history — 
 French, German, Italian, English — of the dual 
 personality preserved by players, men and 
 women, though I do not remember an exact 
 parallel to this crystallisation of the two in- 
 dividualities into one. There is one curious 
 instance of a first-rate actor being startled into 
 forgetting his stage identity in Goethe's Faust 
 when it was given in London. I do not recall 
 seeing it in print, and it was told to me by 
 an eye and ear witness. It happened when a 
 German company was giving a series of per- 
 formances at the St. James's Theatre with one 
 of the Devrients as the protagonist. He was 
 playing Faust, and when the curtain rose he 
 was discovered seated at a table and lost in 
 meditation with his head bent to his breast. 
 He raised his head, and the air of dejected 
 philosophical musing gave place to a start of 
 surprise followed by lively movements of im- 
 patience. Then he rushed with alacrity unbe- 
 fitting his seeming years to the wing. Then he
 
 Impressions of Henry Irving 47 
 
 was heard to exclaim, "Z?« hast das (expletive) 
 Buck vergessen," and then he returned with a 
 huge tome under his arm. This he placed on 
 the table, at which he then sat down to begin 
 his part of Faust, which I believe he played 
 "excellent well." One can scarce imagine this 
 happening with a first-rate English actor in a 
 first-rate theatre ; but I have noted more than 
 once in a first-rate German theatre that the 
 audience has regarded stage mishaps of this 
 sort as absolutely non-existent. The play was 
 the thing ; and any trivial interruption of its 
 proper course was a mere fantasy, which had 
 no relation to a real and serious undertaking. 
 It was a thing of nought, and whatever false 
 appearance of reality it might have, it was to 
 be treated as invisible and inaudible. 
 
 But to return, one curious instance of the 
 double personality in Irving's case comes back 
 to me from The Corsican Brothers. It may be 
 remembered that at one point of the masked 
 ball scene the Parisian twin, Louis, has to cross 
 the stage with a moody and preoccupied air at 
 the back of the noisy crowd of masks and 
 pierrots. Just before this I had been with him 
 in his dressing-room, eagerly discussing some
 
 48 Impressions of Henry Irving 
 
 matter quite unconnected with theatrical affairs. 
 When we were getting to a crucial point he 
 was called to make this traverse. He gave a 
 slight movement of impatience and then, " Come 
 on," he said, " or we may forget this. We shall 
 just have time to finish it going down and 
 crossing the stage." So down the stairs and 
 across the stage we went, Irving, the moment 
 his foot touched the boards, assuming an air of 
 profound melancholy the while he continued 
 with me a conversation which was perfectly 
 cheerful. And he had timed it exactly; the 
 point at issue had been cleared up just as we 
 reached the opposite wing. 
 
 There was another instance of a more rapid 
 kind in Faust, the great drama which, however 
 transmogrified, exercises a spell on the imagina- 
 tion and memory. Here, too, we had continued 
 a conversation from his dressing-room down 
 the stairs and to the wing, where Mephistopheles 
 waited the cue for his final appearance on the 
 stage, wherefrom he carried off Faust in a blaze 
 of lightning. The talk interested us both, and 
 Irving kept it up till the last possible moment, 
 when the man at the wing, ready with the 
 lightning, urged him on. Then, " Step back
 
 Impressions of Henry Irving 49 
 
 out of the way of the blaze," he cried to me, 
 and in a moment was on the stage saying, in 
 cutting and commanding accents, " My horses 
 shiver in the morning air." His caution, and 
 that almost as hastily given by the lightning- 
 man, came none too soon, as I had become 
 absorbed in the discussion. Then he returned, 
 with Faust half-enwrapped in the cloak of 
 Mephistopheles, and so soon as Faust left him 
 resumed the conversation exactly where he had 
 dropped it. 
 
 One criticism only, besides the unlucky one 
 on the intrusion of the tearing scrunching devil, 
 I had to make on his brilliant and biting re- 
 presentation of Mephistopheles. Before the 
 play was really put in rehearsal he was in con- 
 siderable doubt as to including or omitting 
 the scene between the Student (or Scholar 
 as Schuler is old - fashionedly translated), and 
 Mephistopheles masquerading as the learned 
 Doctor Faust. He spoke to me of his doubts, 
 knowing that I had seen Goethe's play on 
 the German stage. I saw it as a matter of 
 fact at the old State Theatre in Dresden, not 
 long before it was burnt down, given with a 
 
 very remarkable cast. Frl. Ulrich, then in the 
 
 D
 
 5© Impressions of Henry Irving 
 
 zenith of attraction and of dramatic subtlety 
 and power, played Margarethe. Dettmer, who 
 died all too young, was Faust, and, if he lacked 
 some lightness in the love scenes, gave Goethe's 
 full and unforgettable meaning to the first scene 
 (where his delivery of the words, ^' Die Thrdne 
 quillt ! die Erde hat mich wieder," caused a 
 strange thrill to the whole audience), and 
 to all the scenes in which the innermost 
 meaning of Faust's part predominates over 
 the relations with Gretchen. Mephistopheles 
 was played by Jaff^ with wonderful insight 
 and command of stage resource, and with a 
 certain quiet, yet burning, masterfulness which 
 made one forget any lack of " presence " ; 
 while all the other characters were filled 
 as well as is possible in an endowed theatre 
 under judgmatic, kindly, autocratic manage- 
 ment. 
 
 I gave Irving a sketch, as vivid as I could 
 from memory, of the scene with the Student ; 
 at his special request told him how Ja£f6, at 
 the end of the " temptation speech " to the 
 Student, had delivered the words, ^^ Eritis sicut 
 Deus scientes bonuni et malum." The German 
 actor had risen from his seat just before this,
 
 Impressions of Henry Irving 51 
 
 resting his hand in affectionate condescen- 
 sion on the Student's shoulder. As he spoke 
 the Latin words he removed his hand and 
 . pointed heavenwards ; then, turning from the 
 dazzled pupil, gave one smile of diabolical 
 significance, yet so fraught with humour that 
 one was moved to sympathetic mirth, not to 
 horror. 
 
 When in due time I first saw the scene at 
 the Lyceum from the front, I found that Irving 
 had charged the words with the full and terrible 
 significance of which they are capable, pointing 
 upwards at bonum, downwards at malum, and 
 changing with such instantaneous speed back 
 to the Doctor's tone of kindly interest, that one 
 felt the Student was for the moment deaf to any 
 wicked suggestion, the which, however, might 
 well insist on a hearing when some hours later 
 he recalled the interview. In discussing the 
 matter afterwards, Irving told me that he had 
 tried Jaffe's method, and had not found that he 
 could make it as telling as the reading which 
 he adopted. Which was the more artistic of 
 the two ? That seems a question for personal 
 opinion rather than for abstract criticism. I 
 stuck to it that Jaffa's, which may or may not
 
 52 Impressions of Henry Irving 
 
 have been traditional, was the better rendering, 
 but I could not but own that for an average 
 intelligent English audience, with a natural love 
 of quickly apprehensible " points," Irving's was 
 the more effective. And as to stage effect, 
 though he rarely allowed it to override or 
 to oust other considerations, his knowledge 
 was very wide and very accurate. Of his care 
 as to the stage effect and stage management, 
 I recall a characteristic example. I was with 
 him in front at one of the last rehearsals of 
 the Brocken Scene, and was naturally im- 
 pressed by the seemingly spontaneous impulses 
 which stirred the diabolical crew to wild, yet 
 rhythmical movement. Had I known then, as 
 I did much later, the simple-subtle devices by 
 which the sway and rush of the crowd were 
 secured, I might have expressed more admira- 
 tion than I did. As Irving was sitting beside 
 me, the dominating figure of Mephistopheles 
 was, of course, missing in the final picture. 
 To my praises of the whole effect he re- 
 plied : " Very glad you liked it — given a 
 good deal of trouble to it. But you know 
 I can never see it as I should like to." 
 " How do you mean ? " I said. " Why " — this
 
 Impressions of Henry Irving 53 
 
 with a humorous impatience and a pleasant 
 touch of the harmless vanity that most fine 
 artists have — " don't you see ? I want to see 
 the Red Man there, and, of course, I never 
 can."
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 Two curious parallels to the " Red Man " ob- 
 servations occur to me. One was at the last, 
 or maybe the penultimate, rehearsal of the final 
 scene in The Dead Heart. Again I was sitting 
 with Irving in the stalls, and again he deplored 
 that he could not, for want of the dominating 
 figure, realise the whole effect of the picture. 
 This time, however, a colleague volunteered to 
 take the hero's position and pose, and no more 
 than that was wanted, on the platform of the 
 guillotine. Some little time was taken up before 
 the attitude imagined by Irving was accurately 
 indicated, but when that was done he was pro- 
 fuse in thanks to the volunteer, and then said 
 with a satisfied sigh, "Yes, I think that ought 
 to do." The other occasion of parallel was 
 at the Theatre Frangais, Paris, at a rehearsal of 
 Amphitryon. Mounet-Sully, whose likeness of 
 character in some attractive characteristics to 
 Irving has been mentioned, was about to play 
 Jupiter-Amphitryon for the first time, and had a 
 
 54
 
 Impressions of Henry Irving 55 
 
 natural anxiety as to everything concerning the 
 general effect. He did not, on that occasion, 
 rehearse Jupiter's ascent into the clouds at the 
 end. He wanted to see how it would strike the 
 -audience. Therefore he turned to Laroche, who 
 was playing the part of the true Amphitryon, 
 and said : " Would you mind, my dear friend, 
 taking my place in that ascent? I do want to 
 see what it looks like from the front." Laroche, 
 with ready good humour, complied, and Mounet 
 watched the ascent much as a child might watch 
 a fairy tale come alive. When it was done, 
 "Ah!" he said, "that is what it will look like. 
 Nothing could be better. A thousand thanks. 
 I shall make the ascent with a light heart." 
 When he did make it before a critical audience 
 the effect, aided, of course, by the sonorous 
 tones of a voice which he had then learnt to 
 modulate perfectly, was very telling in spite of 
 the simple and old-fashioned mechanism em- 
 ployed. 
 
 There was a touch, too, somewhat akin to 
 that noted about the "Red Man" in one of 
 the few talks I had with Irving on Macbeth 
 before its production. The conversation took 
 place in a hansom cab, not an unusual circum-
 
 56 Impressions of Henry Irving 
 
 stance when he was so full of work, physical 
 and mental, that the only opportunities for a 
 real quiet talk were when the curtain was down 
 at night, and when, all too seldom, he could 
 come to a quiet supper with no other guests. 
 Immensely pleasant, as many friends will re- 
 member, were the gatherings at supper after the 
 play in "the Beefsteak Room" at the Lyceum; 
 but there, of course, there was no opportunity 
 for any intimate talk. One part in which no 
 adverse criticisms were ever launched at him 
 was that of host. 
 
 However, on the occasion which I recall, he 
 was speaking hurriedly, by necessity, of his 
 general views of Macbeth, and a little more 
 particularly as to the costume, which has always 
 been a vexed point, and the facial appearance 
 of Macbeth himself. He mentioned that he 
 proposed to wear a longish fair moustache, 
 whereof it was easy to see the effect in the 
 mind's eye, but there was another question, as 
 it seemed to me, worth considering, and just 
 as I was about to touch on it he seemed to 
 divine my thought — he was always "gleg at 
 the uptak' " in that way. With a curious side 
 glance, half shy, half defiant, and all tinged
 
 Impressions of Henry Irving 57 
 
 with humour, he said hesitatingly, "And — the 
 — you know, the old hair." I had been, as it 
 happened, thinking over the effect of a fair 
 wig, such as might fitly become a Scottish 
 chief, but I saw in a moment that his decision 
 was right. No one wore a wig better than he 
 did, as I remember a brother-player saying in 
 connection with his " Jeremy Diddler " ; but, 
 apart entirely from the score of comfort, 
 his hair, worn longer than was the current 
 fashion, had become a kind of asset, so much 
 so that the absence of its familiar aspect in a 
 tragic part might have distracted the attention 
 of the audience, and so reacted on his own 
 performance. The matter must seem light 
 enough in itself ; yet it is an instance of the 
 care with which he envisaged every side, every 
 point, of the situation he had to face. 
 
 What is by no means light is the witness 
 borne to his unflagging study, and to the fact 
 that his art constantly grew by what it fed on, 
 by the differences between his first and his sub- 
 sequent appearances in the part of Macbeth. 
 
 Looking back upon his earlier Macbeth, I 
 think that, as in the case cited of Romeo, he 
 did not succeed in a complete expression to
 
 58 Impressions Oj Henry Irving 
 
 the audience of what he conceived to be the 
 true meaning of the character. But there was 
 an important difference between the two cases. 
 In that of Romeo he felt that a complete inter- 
 pretation could not be given, that physical diffi- 
 culties must always bar absolute understanding 
 between himself and those on the other side 
 of the footlights. With Macbeth it was other- 
 wise. The actor was not of robust make, but 
 there was no reason why Macbeth should not 
 be, as Irving was, a slight man of great physical 
 endurance. The imaginative side of Macbeth's 
 character had captivated him, that very side 
 by which Macbeth stands and falls. For if he 
 had been a stalwart, unimaginative warrior- 
 ruffian neither superstition nor remorse would 
 have checked him. There would have been no 
 faltering, no gradual change in the course of 
 murderous success from the creature of con- 
 science and remorse to the self-confessed villain, 
 whose one idea is to hold what he has mon- 
 strously got, no matter how many further crimes 
 that holding may involve. 
 
 Partly from excess of nervousness on the 
 first night, when on his first entrance the 
 rattling of his armour must have been audible
 
 Impressions of Henry Irving 59 
 
 throughout the house, he over-emphasised the 
 Chieftain's accessibility to things which appeal 
 only to a poetic temperament, and he failed to 
 indicate with sufficient mark the gradual passage 
 from the state of the seer who, fresh from 
 victory- as a great warrior in his King's cause, 
 is caught in the meshes of " supernatural 
 soliciting," to that of the Monarch through 
 crime who is ready to disregard all, stake all, 
 rather than lose his prize, reft from him at last 
 by the very means which tempted him to 
 grasp it. Partly also his accenting "of those 
 qualities which laid Macbeth so open to the 
 Witches' attack, and made him falter and 
 hesitate at the first terrible crime were yet 
 more accented, in that Lady Macbeth was 
 then played by a fine actress who took very 
 distinctly the masculine view of Lady Macbeth 
 associated with Mrs. Siddons, who, however, 
 was compelled to that view from what she 
 knew would and would not be in keeping with 
 her own physical qualifications. And, again, 
 the impression of a " first night " was then a 
 good deal more than now the key to the last- 
 ing impression to be produced by any new 
 venture. Anyhow, there were critics who saw
 
 6o Impressions of Henry Irving 
 
 much promise in the opening scenes, found 
 much fault in succeeding ones, and were full 
 of admiration for the desperate and command- 
 ing bravery of the conclusion. Yet it was not 
 likely that an actor of unusual intellect and 
 study would set out to show Macbeth as a 
 craven who displays courage only when he is 
 at bay. Thus it may be said that if his inten- 
 tion did not quite reach his critics, they on 
 their side did not go far enough to meet him ; 
 but in this matter every allowance must be 
 made for writers who had to hurry from the 
 theatre in order to sign (practically), seal, and 
 deliver a long dissertation in time for the issue 
 of a morning paper. 
 
 From one unpublished criticism, written 
 during the earlier performances of the tragedy, 
 I may quote a few extracts, because it seems to 
 me to express Irving's intention, and because 
 it was written by my mother, who, a great 
 admirer as well as friend of Macready and not 
 least an admirer of his Macbeth, saw in the then 
 new Macbeth, in spite of some shortcomings 
 in expression, the same qualities of allied in- 
 tellect and genius which had made Macready's 
 Macbeth one of his greatest parts.
 
 Impressions of Henry Irving 6i 
 
 Of the scene directly after the murder, the 
 scene which specially gave rise to the notion 
 that Irving's Macbeth was a craven at heart, 
 this is said : — 
 
 "The actor is not so impressive after the 
 murder as before it. He assumes an attitude 
 of terror, he speaks in a hoarse whisper, his 
 knees are bent, even his jaw dropped ; it would 
 be difficult to point out any deficiency in the 
 details of his representation : it can only be 
 said that it fails to excite general sympathy : it 
 has been said that he is too physically paralysed 
 in this scene. If that were all, and the agony 
 which prostrated him appeared to be real, 
 his spectators would drift on in the current 
 of his passion for the time, and would criti- 
 cise him afterwards. Perhaps there is here an 
 absence of inward emotion sufficient to give 
 truth to the effects attempted." 
 
 This I think was a misapprehension ; it was 
 not the inward emotion, but the carrying 
 power which was then wanting. The actor's 
 idea throughout the tragedy was that which 
 the same critic discerned and noted in the 
 earlier scenes, the idea of an originally great, 
 finely-strung nature dragged down by vaulting
 
 62 Impressions of Henry Irving 
 
 ambition to that very brutality by which alone 
 it would have been possible to plunge scathless 
 into a sea of crime. And this idea was again 
 obvious to the critic in "the final interview 
 with the witches," where Macbeth's aspect was 
 "severe. His voice has lost its sympathetic 
 tones ; his humanity is deserting him ; here 
 his true belief in the dealings of sorcery sets 
 in ; hitherto he has helped himself on by it, 
 but now it has become a paramount influence 
 to which he is made subject by his crimes ; 
 he is wound up to know and confront the worst 
 that the worst can do." The same inspiration 
 is traced by the same critic in the scene pre- 
 ceding the battle ; and that the conception of 
 a character suffering gradual deterioration from 
 the letting loose of evil passions by supernatural 
 interference, then a potent cause, was always 
 Irving's key to Macbeth, I have never doubted. 
 The point, however, is that when he revived 
 Macbeth he had learned, by study and added 
 experience, how to convey his own idea to his 
 audience, or, in a well-found phrase, to project 
 his thought "across the footlights." 
 
 If I have seemed to dwell overmuch on 
 Macbeth, it is because the undertaking of the
 
 Impressmis of Henry Irving 63 
 
 part was, after his discussed but generally 
 admired Hamlet, a crucial test ; and because 
 the first impression was perhaps never fully 
 corrected by the second essay, which went very 
 far to obliterate all former shortcomings. 
 
 A good deal has at all times been, and 
 always will be, said and written as to the hard 
 fate of the great actor in that there is no 
 enduring record of his genius. It might be 
 answered that the fame, to take two instances, 
 of Roscius and of Garrick, are insistent replies 
 to this assertion. But there is, of course, a 
 large amount of truth in the contention. And 
 part of that truth is this, that when an actor 
 of the highest rank has not fully succeeded in 
 showing his public exactly what he means in 
 a great part, then to impress his meaning 
 upon that public in a second and successful 
 rendering is no easy task. The criticisms on 
 the first and greatly daring essay are still 
 remembered ; and even the most scrupulous 
 of critics may be, all unconsciously perhaps, 
 handicapped by previous impressions.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 The story of Irving's Othello was not unlike 
 
 that of the Macbeth in its general lines. It 
 
 was stated certainly by one critic, and, if my 
 
 memory serves me, by several others, that 
 
 Irving's performance of Othello, when, as 
 
 Edwin Booth's host at the Lyceum, he alternated 
 
 the parts of Othello and lago with the great 
 
 American actor, was a new conception of the 
 
 character, differing very importantly from that 
 
 which inspired his first rendering of the noble 
 
 Moor. Critics who took this view were, in my 
 
 judgment, completely misled by confounding 
 
 conception with execution. I have no reason 
 
 to suppose that Irving ever really altered the 
 
 conception of a part when once he had 
 
 thoroughly studied it, save in one truly amazing 
 
 instance. Of this instance I am told by my 
 
 old friend Mr. F. Tyars, a thoroughly excellent 
 
 and accomplished actor, for very many years 
 
 one of Irving's most trusted lieutenants. On 
 
 one occasion he, as Irving's understudy, played 
 
 64
 
 Impressions of He fir y Irving 65 
 
 King Arthur, and a line, dignified, chivalrous 
 performance he made of it. I learn from 
 him that the exception to Jrving's general 
 rule was actually in the tremendous char- 
 acter of King Lear, and that the change 
 was definitely adopted in the time between 
 Irving's arrival at the theatre to dress and the 
 rise of the curtain on the first night of the 
 production. Such a transformation is as be- 
 wildering to the student as one imagines it 
 must have been to Irving's play -fellows. It 
 fully accounts for the strangely hesitating touch 
 which was noticeable in Irving's treatment of 
 the earlier scenes on that night, and which 
 never wholly disappeared afterwards. The 
 swiftness of mind which decided so portentous 
 an alteration in so short a time could hardly 
 meet with an equally swift response from other 
 faculties trained through many rehearsals to 
 obey a different command from heart and 
 intellect. Nor, I think, can this "handy- 
 dandy" process have failed to affect the 
 actor's reflections on the part and on his 
 own performance of it as time went on. 
 Therefore, it may well have had something 
 
 to do with the fact that he never thought 
 
 E
 
 66 Impressions of Henry Irving 
 
 of reviving the play. For his own sake this 
 was matter for rejoicing to those who knew 
 how much "more than common" the acting 
 of the character moved and shook him. 
 
 But nothing here said is in contradiction 
 of what has been put forward as to his 
 never-ceasing study of every part he under- 
 took, whereof a further instance comes into my 
 mind as I write, and may therefore, perhaps, 
 be here mentioned. It was told to me by my 
 mother who, during a revival of Hamlet, ob- 
 served, with friendly concern, that he was 
 looking harassed and worn. "Ah!" he said, 
 " that's nothing ; only want of sleep last night. 
 As you know, with acting and with the 
 management of the theatre I have not too 
 many hours for sleep, and I was kept awake 
 by thinking of that poor young fellow." "Of 
 whom ? " " Why, of Hamlet ! Think of him, 
 all alone with his misery in that abominable 
 court, and you won't wonder that it kept me 
 awake." This is noteworthy, too, as showing 
 that to Irving as to Macready the great char- 
 acters of the drama were not abstract ideas 
 to be dissected, or ingenious imaginations to 
 be turned to the player's account in a showy
 
 Impressions of Henry Irving 67 
 
 performance, but living, thinking, feeling beings 
 to enlist sympathy, study, penetration whereby 
 the actor might call up their semblance as in a 
 mirror to the very best of his power. But to 
 Othello, who is certainly quite as much alive, 
 though in a very different fashion, as is Hamlet, 
 Prince of Denmark. 
 
 As with the part of Romeo, but to a decidedly 
 less degree, I think it undeniable that when 
 Irving first appeared as Othello, he was not 
 able to give complete expression to the emotions 
 and to the passion which in truth he felt and 
 strove to convey to his audiences. He had not 
 then reached the point completely attained in 
 his final stage appearances, when an actor can 
 husband his resources with such supreme art 
 that none can detect moments of weakness or 
 hint that, like Edmund Kean, he is obscuring 
 certain passages in order to make the fire of 
 others spring up with a brighter blaze. There 
 were other difficulties in his way. He was not 
 his own manager, " but that's not much " con- 
 sidering how friendly were the relations between 
 the old management of the L^'ceum and him- 
 self. Still, in no calling can acting as a colleague, 
 even on ideal terms, be quite the same thing as
 
 68 Impressions of Henry Irving 
 
 being one's own master. What is more import- 
 ant is that the actor, in essaying one of the 
 most trying parts, mentally and physically, in 
 the whole roll of drama, ancient and modern, 
 had to face the memory or the shade of great 
 Othellos of the past — Edmund Kean, for in- 
 stance, and Macready — though comparatively 
 few critics ranked Macready's Othello among 
 his finest performances — but Kean especially. 
 Why a tradition as to the surpassing qualities 
 of Kean's Othello should have established itself 
 firmly is not glaringly clear. Hazlitt, certainly 
 no unfriend to Kean's acting, wrote of it, " It 
 is true that in parts it rose as high as human 
 genius can go," but he added, and this seems 
 to have been generally forgotten, that in other 
 parts "though powerful, the whole effect is 
 thrown away in a wrong direction and disturbs 
 our idea of the character. . . . Othello was 
 tall, but that is nothing ; he was black, but 
 that is nothing. But he was not fierce, and 
 that is everything." Hazlitt dwelt on the op- 
 position of "fierceness" to the Moor's nature, 
 and went on to say that Kean, in general all 
 passion, energy, and relentless will, "wants 
 imagination, that faculty that contemplates
 
 Impressions of Henry Irving 69 
 
 events, and broods over feelings with a cer- 
 tain calmness and grandeur; his feelings almost 
 always hurry on to action, and hardly ever 
 repose themselves. He is too often in the 
 highest key of passion, too uniformly on the 
 verge of extravagance, too constantly on the 
 rack. This does very well in certain char- 
 acters, as Zanga or Bajazet, where there is 
 merely a physical passion, a boiling of the 
 blood to be expressed, but it is not so in the 
 lofty-minded and generous Moor." 
 
 William Robson, " the Old Playgoer," wrote 
 of Othello that he had never seen "any one 
 who approached the Othello of Shakespeare. 
 Kemble was, with all his fine conception, 
 correct reading, and noble person, too cold ; 
 Young was too declamatory. . . . Kean, of 
 whom such boast was made, was nothing but 
 a little vixenish black girl in short petticoats." 
 This dismissal may seem somewhat curt, but 
 William Robson was nothing if not critical, and 
 nothing if not sincere. Doubtless, the con- 
 victions and feelings which inspired such short 
 and sharp condemnation v.'erc the same that 
 led Thomas Cooper, the American tragedian, 
 who was an Englishman by birth, to say that
 
 70 Impressions of Henry Irving 
 
 " Kean cannot come within a mile of Othello. 
 His snarling, snappish speech and his gusty 
 flights of vehement passion are all very striking 
 and effective ; but they are directly opposite 
 to the physical and intellectual forces of Othello. 
 This is clearly indicated by the conscious deli- 
 beration and dignity of the language in which 
 Shakespeare has presented the character. . . . 
 Shakespeare's words tell us what kind of pas- 
 sion inflamed the Moor and drove him to 
 desperate action. There was no petulant snap 
 in it or snarlish irritability ; on the contrary it 
 was 'as broad and general as the casing air,' 
 not bright and evanescent as the forked flash." 
 John Kemble expressed the same opinion more 
 tersely in saying that " if the justness of Kean's 
 conception had been equal to the brilliancy of 
 its execution it would have been perfect. But 
 the whole thing is a mistake, the fact being 
 that the Moor was a slow man." 
 
 One may gather then that Kean's Othello, 
 however fiery in certain passages of passion, 
 was not Shakespeare's Moor nor as a whole 
 a great performance. Yet the shadow of its 
 greatness in a tradition that grew by remote- 
 ness lasted long enough to affect the fortunes
 
 Impressions of Henry Irving y i 
 
 of the Othello first shown by Irving, the first 
 actor of foremost rank in many parts who had 
 attempted the character since the days of Mac- 
 ready, and those of Phelps at Sadler's Wells. 
 
 There was another thing which may appear 
 absurdly unimportant until one reflects how 
 often seeming trifles will grow weighty with 
 audiences who are, perhaps, all unconscious of 
 the influence that moves them. Before Irving 
 had fully decided on playing Othello he had 
 talked with me of the part and of the Moor's 
 colour and costume. As to this last we were 
 at one on the point that Othello should wear 
 the dress and armour of his adopted country. 
 The strong reasons for this are excellently put 
 in a footnote to the remarks of William Robson 
 before quoted on Othello : — 
 
 "There can be no question that the dress 
 should be that of a General in the Venetian 
 service and not like his (Kean's), such an 
 habiliment as was never seen anywhere but on 
 the stage, or rather at a booth at a country fair. 
 Soldiers of fortune, of course, assumed the arms 
 and garb of the country they served under." 
 
 To this a hostile critic might reply that in 
 plays so full of anachronisms as Shakespeare's
 
 72 Impressions of He fir y Irving 
 
 it is absurd to insist on correct reproduc- 
 tion of the costume or manners belonging 
 to any particular time, and that the simplest 
 and most satisfactory plan would be that the 
 players should follow the example of their pre- 
 decessors long ago and assume the full dress 
 of their own day to portray Hamlet, Othello, 
 and all the rest. It is not likely, however, that 
 the theory would find favour if put in practice ; 
 and as that is so, surely the best way is to fix 
 on a time which was presumably in Shake- 
 speare's thought, and conform as nearly as 
 possible to its known observances. 
 
 There can be no reasonable doubt that these, 
 in Othello's case, would have enjoined his 
 being apparelled as a Venetian General. Thus 
 apparelled he was shown in a beautiful water- 
 colour sketch by Sir John Tenniel, which before 
 and during the first performance of Othello, and 
 to the best of my recollection ever afterwards, 
 hung in Irving's dressing-room. After this 
 sketch his armour and costume were designed 
 and executed, and very well they became him. 
 
 The effect on the audience, however, was 
 not identical with that produced on some ap- 
 proving critics. Irving seemed always to have,
 
 Impressions of Henry Irving 73 
 
 apart from what reached him by hearsay, a 
 kind of sixth sense as to what an audience was 
 thinking and feeHng — a component part, no 
 doubt, of the magnetic contact he established 
 between them and himself, or, if you will, a 
 corollary to it. Not long after the first night 
 of the play I noted that he had introduced 
 decidedly marked hints of Oriental costume in 
 the scenes where armour was not the only 
 wear. He explained this to me by saying, 
 "The fact is 'they' expect to see Othello as 
 something entirely Eastern and mysterious ; 
 they've always thought of him in that way, and 
 they don't at all understand finding him dressed 
 like the other characters in the play. I ought 
 to have thought of that and given up the idea, 
 which, as you know, I greatly liked, of correct- 
 ness." The concessions made were no doubt 
 judicious from this point of view, but Irving 
 thought, rightly I imagine, that a certain amount 
 of irreparable harm to the production's success 
 had been done by the first surprise or disap- 
 pointment of spectators who had expected to 
 see a thoroughly Moorish Moor.^ The whole 
 
 ' Curiously enough, according to Alexandre Dumas (Afhnoires, 
 iv. 273), the great French tragedian Talma went through exactly
 
 74 Impressions of Henry Irving 
 
 thing was successful enough in a managerial 
 aspect, but so far as Othello was concerned it 
 was not until his own reproduction of the play 
 that Irving's execution unmistakably conveyed 
 his conception of the part to his audiences at 
 large. The occasion on which, as mentioned 
 above, with characteristic courtesy and friendli- 
 ness he offered Edwin Booth, whose genius had 
 been cramped at the Princess's, the hospitality 
 of the Lyceum, was a fortunate one ; but that 
 would have been little in regard to Irving's 
 Othello (who this time assumed an Oriental 
 dignity of robing throughout), had not the 
 actor brought to the representation of Othello 
 a store of new study and experience in trans- 
 mitting to others his own emotion and passion. 
 The conception was the same as it had been 
 before — that the Moor, as Kemble had it, was 
 a slow man, one that is " not easily moved, but 
 who, being moved, is stirred to the very depths," 
 
 the same experience. He also considered, rightly, that Othello 
 should be habited as a Venetian general ; and he wore dresses and 
 armour, as did Irving, designed with absolute correctness. He, 
 too, found that his public resented the innovation and wanted the 
 trappings of the East in all their strangeness. Consequently, after 
 the first performance, he went back to the traditional Moorish 
 costume.
 
 Impressions of Henry Irving j^ 
 
 but on this later occasion the actor's thought 
 and feehng were plain for all folk to see. 
 
 The scene, formerly given, wherein Othello 
 falls in a fit, was now omitted, possibly because 
 Booth, alternating Othello and lago with Irving, 
 was not accustomed to it in either character. 
 It had been one of Irving's finest scenes ; but 
 it is not necessary to the play ; and it must 
 add greatly to the strain, already immense, of 
 playing Othello at all. 
 
 Booth's Othello was somewhat nearer to 
 Kean's, perhaps, than was Irving's ; he was 
 splendid in some bursts of sudden passion, 
 but he missed the significance of the swelling, 
 not sudden, tide "like to the Pontick sea." His 
 lago was more bluff than Irving's ; he dwelt 
 more on the qualities which got for him the 
 name of "honest lago." The scene in which 
 he entices Cassio to drunkenness was a master- 
 piece of busy unobtrusive villainy ; and the 
 performance throughout was as clearly marked 
 by genius as those who had seen him in his 
 best parts at the Princess's expected. With 
 Irving's brilliant, subtle, daring lago I do not 
 remember that any critic found fault, except, 
 perhaps, one who considered that lago ought
 
 76 Impressions of Henry Irving 
 
 to be reposeful, and ought not to wear so 
 handsome a dress. 
 
 Irving's performance of lago was the occasion 
 of the first and only appearance in the part of 
 a dramatic critic of my old friend and then 
 colleague, Mr., now Professor, George Saints- 
 bury, of whom the late Sir Walter Besant said 
 very truly that he was a born critic of all things 
 human. As the occasion was unique it seems 
 to give a reason for departure from the rule 
 I have made for myself against quoting from 
 contemporary criticisms. Mr. Saintsbury then, 
 rather persuaded against his will, for he was 
 no habitual playgoer, went with me to see 
 Irving in lago, and wrote his impressions of 
 the performance in a magazine called Our 
 Times and conducted by A. J. Duffiield, which 
 deserved a longer life than it had. Mr. Saints- 
 bury, in some prefatory words, explained that 
 though as a rule he did not care for play- 
 going, yet he wrote as one who had seen most 
 of the famous players of the preceding twenty- 
 five years, and added, what was familiar to all 
 his friends, that he knew Shakespeare as well 
 as he knew the multiplication table. He went 
 on to a masterly sketch of lago's character as
 
 Impressions of Henry Irving jy 
 
 it had always appeared to him. Protesting 
 against the tradition that he was a sort of 
 human fiend, one who said " Evil, be thou 
 my good" and took "a conspicuous and quite 
 genuine pleasure in harming and hurting every- 
 thing and everybody he encountered," the writer 
 gave various cogent reasons against this estimate 
 of lago. Though, no doubt, something of a 
 soldier of fortune, "he is a gentleman. He is 
 treated as an equal by every one, and 'three 
 great ones of the city' sue to Othello for his 
 lieutenancy." The critic found, partly from 
 close study of Emilia's part as written, that 
 "it is fair to suppose that up to the time of 
 the Cyprus voyage, no one knew anything 
 against lago of a serious kind. Now incar- 
 nate devils, doing harm for harm's sake, do 
 not live till eight-and-twenty without giving 
 some sample of their disposition. lago appears 
 to me to have been a person with a strong 
 sense of humour, darkening into cynicism, 
 no sense of morality, an Italian tendency to 
 revenge and self-indulgence, and an extra- 
 ordinary subtlety of brain. He is mortally 
 offended by the putting of Cassio over his 
 head, and he is certainly jealous, if only in a
 
 78 Impressions of Henry Irvifig 
 
 general and suspicious way, of Cassio and 
 Othello himself." 
 
 Personally I think that in what follows, Mr. 
 Saintsbury made something too much of this 
 special jealousy, but that scarcely affects his 
 general view of the part (which will surely 
 commend itself to most readers), especially for 
 the purposes of dramatic criticism. 
 
 Mr. Saintsbury found with pleasure that 
 Irving's carrying out of the part in the main 
 fitted to the writer's previous conception of it. 
 "The outward presentment of the part pleased 
 me particularly. The rich dress, bought, doubt- 
 less, with some of the unlucky ' snipe's ' gold, 
 was exactly that befitting the gentleman ad- 
 venturer. The manner, at first scornful, and 
 with a slight touch of soldier-like brag about 
 it, hardening gradually into that of the con- 
 spirator, yet without any affectation of mystery 
 or stage fiendishness, was equally appropriate." 
 All, in fact, was consonant with the showing 
 forth of a man unprincipled, seeking pleasure, 
 profit, revenge ; not inevitably a villain, but 
 ready to be one when opportunity came, and 
 ready to pay the stakes without a murmur 
 when his great game was lost.
 
 Impressions of Henry Irving 79 
 
 Irving's manner "generally in the Roderigo 
 scenes, the rapid and fantastic oratory with 
 which he bewilders the poor chuff, his lavish- 
 ness of gesture and pantomime, all calculated 
 to distract his hearer's attention and keep it 
 from unpleasant despondency ; and, still more, 
 unpleasant inquiries as to the employment of 
 the money he spends so freely, appeared to 
 me masterly. The well-known scene with 
 Desdemona on the port, with the matchless 
 character of woman, which sums up in half- 
 a-dozen lines all that had been said from 
 Simonides to the Fabliau-writers, was equally 
 good." Mr. Saintsbury noted, most justly and 
 as was to be expected, that in the modern 
 stage version of Othello, lago is heavily handi- 
 capped by the omission of the Bianca scenes, 
 for want of which the ancient's speeches and 
 proceedings might easily seem to lack plausi- 
 bility ; and he thought it much credit to the 
 actor that, " by reason of the ease, specious- 
 ness, and rapidity of his method, no lack of 
 plausibility was felt." The soliloquies, again, 
 commanded special appreciation. " Mr. Irving," 
 the critic said, " makes the very utmost of the 
 soliloquies of lago, and the successive stages
 
 8o Impressions of Henry Irving 
 
 of the * monstrous birth ' are made absolutely 
 clear." Finally, he singled out for special 
 comment two scenes, beginning with that 
 wherein the feigned consolation of Desdemona 
 "brings upon lago the unintentional weight 
 of his wife's violent language. Nowhere is 
 he more morally detestable, nowhere is he 
 intellectually greater. . . . The actor has to 
 throw in a great deal of expression, and yet 
 to remember that lago is 'honest lago,' a 
 plain, bluff sort of person, not a fawning, 
 wheedling courtier. Mr. Irving does this con- 
 summately, and the single genuine utterance 
 of the scene, the short ' You're a fool ; go to ! ' 
 to Emilia, is given at once with such an ap- 
 parent pooh-poohing of the absurd suggestion 
 of there being a 'cogging knave' somewhere, 
 and at the same time such a hearty intensity 
 of double meaning as make it admirable." 
 
 The other scene was the last, where, when 
 lago is at bay, "the short retort to Othello, 
 ' I bleed, sir, but not killed,' is equally ad- 
 mirable. Stoical composure, outward preser- 
 vation of respect to the general, and yet 
 a covert suggestion of the same ironic kind 
 as that which Othello himself had made
 
 Impressions of Henry Irving 8i 
 
 on the futility of his wrath, are all implied 
 in it." 
 
 This, as has been said, was the one essay 
 in dramatic criticism made by a master in 
 critical science. The opinion of most habitual 
 dramatic critics of the time was that Irving's 
 lago, as deep as he was engaging and versa- 
 tile, was both new and true. Certainly those 
 who saw the alternated performances of Irving 
 and Booth are not likely ever to forget 
 them. 
 
 In both characters the American actor had 
 his own " business " in the scenes where 
 Othello or lago, as the case might be, was the 
 dominating figure ; and it will be seen that 
 this involved a good deal of care and nicety, 
 when it is remembered that the position of 
 Desdemona's bed in the last scene had to be 
 entirely changed every night. I heard from 
 Booth himself the warmest expressions as to 
 the complete thoughtfulness and thoroughness 
 with which the English actor had met, and 
 more than met, all his wishes. 
 
 The mention of the last scene of the play 
 recalls to me yet another illustration of the 
 actor's "dual personality," which reminds one
 
 82 Impressions of Henry Irving 
 
 of Garrick cracking jokes at the wing between 
 the passionate outbursts of Lear, taken from 
 the first representation of Othello at the 
 Lyceum. It was told to me, not by Irving 
 himself, but by the actress who was then 
 playing Desdemona, and who clearly did not 
 believe in the " dual " theory, since she found its 
 exemplification somewhat upsetting. "What," 
 she said in pathetic tones, " what do you think 
 he said when he was supposed to be stifling 
 me behind the curtains ? Can you guess ? " 
 
 I replied, naturally, that I could not. 
 
 " Why, he asked me what my mother had 
 ordered for supper. Think of it ! " 
 
 I did think of it ; and came to the conclusion 
 that with Garrick and with Irving this thrust- 
 ing of trivial matters into the interstices of a 
 great emotion may at first sight seem (as it 
 did to Doctor Johnson with his " Punch has 
 no feelings") evidence of shallowness, but is 
 in fact a temporary and much-needed respite 
 for an actor who has been, and immediately 
 again will be, at the highest strain of mental 
 and physical intensity, in feeling and expressing 
 a storm of passion.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 Irving had a rooted conviction that Garrick, 
 undoubtedly great in comedy, was at any rate 
 less great in tragedy. I do not well know on 
 what precise grounds he rested this belief, for 
 though it was held by some excellent judges 
 in Garrick's own time, it certainly was repudi- 
 ated by as many or more other judges of no 
 less excellence and with equal opportunities. 
 Possibly the story of Garrick saying to a 
 younger actor (Bannister, I think) that a tragic 
 part could be got through well enough by an 
 intelligent actor, but that comedy was a very 
 serious matter, may have had something to 
 do with the idea. Yet one cannot but imagine 
 that this was Garrick's humorous way of 
 stating a proposition in which, on examination, 
 a good deal of truth will be found, though it 
 by no means implies that an actor cannot be 
 equally good in tragedy and comedy. The 
 weight of evidence seems to show that this 
 
 was exemplified by Garrick; and it was suffi- 
 
 83
 
 84 Impressions of Henry Irving 
 
 ciently proved by Irving in his comparatively 
 few appearances in comedy during his London 
 career. As Joseph Surface in The School for 
 Scandal and as Doricourt in The Belles Strata- 
 gem he showed that he could assume the 
 costume, the manners and the manner, of the 
 powder period, as though born to them. His 
 acting in Joseph Surface brought to mind Elia's 
 essay on "The Artificial Comedy of the Last 
 Century," with his remarks on Palmer's Joseph 
 as an example ; his Doricourt was the essence 
 of light and courtly gaiety, while his scene of 
 mock madness moved the whole audience to 
 delighted laughter. 
 
 His greatest essay in comedy at the Lyceum 
 was of course Benedick. The part, a very 
 difficult one, had been played in many ways. 
 Garrick, one may be sure, gave it grace and 
 gaiety enough, but showed a strange miscon- 
 ception of the character in that, at the end of 
 Act iv. scene i, he made his exit, to challenge 
 Claudio, cocking his hat and swaggering de- 
 liberately and self - contentedly off the stage. 
 The mere context, rightly considered, might 
 have prevented an action so out of keeping 
 with the chivalrous and court-bred Benedick's
 
 Impressions of Henry Irving 85 
 
 character. But as to consulting the context, 
 Garrick was no respecter of " Shakespeare " as 
 written by "a person of the same name." Of 
 this his abominable tamperings with Shake- 
 speare's plays are proof more than enough. 
 The other side, that of the tried soldier, has 
 sometimes been made too prominent, as by 
 Dawisen, the celebrated German actor, who, in 
 his day, reigned supreme as Shylock and as 
 Mephistopheles. His Benedick, according to 
 Herman Merivale, was "a most quaint con- 
 ception. He was a rough soldier of fortune 
 out of his element, amusedly puzzled by the 
 fine company he got into." A quaint con- 
 ception indeed, but perhaps Dawisen, compelled 
 by the manager of the State Theatre to play 
 the part, had to do the best he could with his 
 own resources, of which he knew the limita- 
 tions. 
 
 The distinct mark throughout of Irving's 
 Benedick was that he gave full due both to 
 the soldier and to the gentleman of the Court, 
 that he showed Benedick as a man one could 
 imagine successful and honoured ni both capa- 
 cities. The subtlety of his comedy, fine as 
 could be yet never so superfine as to miss its
 
 86 Impressions of Henry Irving 
 
 mark, left an enduring impression, equalled by 
 that which was produced by the moments of 
 deep feeling when Benedick, torn two ways by 
 his friendship for Claudio and his love for 
 Beatrice, ends by going out to challenge Claudio 
 with a manner reminiscent of triumph on the 
 field, but without a hint of levity or bragga- 
 docio. 
 
 One incident connected with Benedick is a 
 proof of Irving's readiness to hear and to profit 
 by reasoned objections. Many actors, when 
 they have to depict emotion without speech 
 assigned by the author, find it a help to 
 murmur to themselves words illustrating the 
 feeling by which they are to be animated. 
 Sometimes, instead of murmuring, they speak 
 unconsciously so loud as to be audible in 
 front. Thus I remember the case of a brilliant 
 singer who just after singing CarmeJi in French 
 in Paris sang it in Italian in London. At a 
 moment when she had to express in by-play 
 the hope and belief that her lover was arriving, 
 she said to herself in French, from recent 
 habit, " Cest lui !" but the words were spoken so 
 loud that they reached the front rows of stalls 
 and produced an odd enough effect.
 
 Impressions of Henry Irving 87 
 
 I am pretty sure that Irving did not habitually 
 resort to this device for smoothing the way of 
 by-play, but he used it during the war of wits 
 with Beatrice in the masked scene, and, by an 
 oversight, fell upon employing an entirely modern 
 phrase to express his discomfiture. The words 
 caught my ear on the first night with a momen- 
 tary impress of uneasy surprise ; but I regarded 
 the matter as an accident and gave it no further 
 thought. For one reason and another it was 
 some time before I paid another visit to the 
 theatre, and, meanwhile, I heard from Clifford 
 Harrison, an admirer of Irving and a keen 
 Shakespearean student, that, on the night of 
 his visit, the same words had been audibly 
 spoken and had disturbed his sense of the 
 fitness of things. Upon this hint I spoke, 
 hurrying my next visit to the Lyceum on pur- 
 pose to do so. Irving was genuinely surprised 
 and distressed by what I told him. " Do I 
 say that really ? " he asked. " Quite wrong of 
 course, quite wrong and out of place. Must 
 be seen to at once." The piece had then been 
 running so long that I suppose he would have 
 found it very difficult to drop altogether the 
 habit of the aside which was no aside ; but
 
 88 Impressions of Henry Irving 
 
 from that moment he brought its phrase- 
 ology into consonance with the surrounding 
 text. 
 
 A part as different as can be from Benedick, 
 MalvoHo in Twelfth Night, is now rightly re- 
 garded in England as a fine comedy part. 
 But so far as one can ascertain Irving was 
 practically the first protagonist and manager 
 who gave to it its right importance. Phelps 
 played it at Sadler's Wells, but there is no 
 record of Garrick, Kean, Macready, regarding 
 it as within their sphere. Charles Lamb saw 
 it in its quiddity, immortalised Bensley's per- 
 formance of it, and recorded, greatly to John 
 Kemble's credit, that in Bensley's absence 
 " black Jack " thought it " no derogation to 
 succeed to the part." But this was obviously 
 brought forward for argumentative reasons. 
 It was not an instance of the part being put 
 habitually in the first rank, but a backing of 
 Lamb's own opinion by the fact that one 
 great actor - manager shared Lamb's opinion 
 of its importance, to the extent of taking it up 
 when an actor who had shown its import was 
 not available. But Elia lamented that after 
 Kemble's days " the very tradition " of Malvolio
 
 Impressions of Henry Irving 89 
 
 as a first-rate part was "worn out from the 
 stage." 
 
 I have never seen the play in Germany, but 
 when it was acted in London by the Meiningen 
 Company, the part, excellently played on broad 
 general lines, was relegated to a secondary 
 rank and shorn of its true dignity, for which 
 was substituted a swelling pomposity. Malvolio 
 was too much, as Lamb has it, " a thing of 
 straw, a jack in office," too little of the "master 
 of the household," with a full "generosity of 
 birth and feeling." Although it is notorious, 
 to some Germans, that Shakespeare is better 
 understood in Germany than in England, this 
 notion of Malvolio's proper place may have 
 come from the English tradition, broken for a 
 time by John Kemble with Bensley's aid, and 
 finally overset by Irving. 
 
 He, one imagines, had assimilated Elia's 
 delightful dissertation on the character before 
 himself undertaking it. At any rate, he had 
 all the well-bred dignity which Charles Lamb 
 rightly thought inseparable from a proper 
 conception of the part : " his bearing " was 
 " lofty, a little above his station, but probably 
 not much above his deserts." He seemed fully
 
 90 Impressions of Henry Irving 
 
 "a man of education," who was "master of 
 the household to a great princess — a dignity 
 probably conferred upon him for other respects 
 than age or length of service " ; all the finer, 
 therefore, was the comedy when "the poison 
 of self-love, in his conceit of the Countess's 
 affection," began to work, and, as with Bensley, 
 " you would have thought that the hero of 
 La Mancha, in person, stood before you." 
 Indeed, there was so strong an infusion of 
 Don Quixote in Irving's Malvolio as to dis- 
 count his subsequent brief appearance as the 
 Don himself in a patchy piece which was too 
 like "a wet cloak ill laid-up." Something to 
 me, personally, he seemed to miss, in Malvolio's 
 bright hour of delusion, of the towering exalta- 
 tion described of Bensley ; but this impression 
 may have been due to a preconceived notion 
 born of a close acquaintance with Lamb's 
 essay from my childhood up. One fault there 
 was in his earliest renderings of the deluded 
 and ill-treated Steward. Lamb said truly that 
 "even in his abused state of chains and dark- 
 ness, a sort of greatness seems never to desert 
 him. He argues highly and well with the 
 supposed Sir Topas, and philosophises gallantly
 
 hnpressions of Henry Irving 91 
 
 on his straw." Elia, however, who knew the 
 true theory of comedy through and through, 
 would scarce have applauded Bensley for 
 striking a truly tragic note in the prison scene. 
 Irving, moved by his quick and wide sympathy, 
 felt so keenly with and for Malvolio in his 
 monstrous ill-usage, that at first his playing 
 in this scene carried one into pathos so real 
 that it killed amusement. But here was yet 
 another instance of his openness to criticism. 
 No sooner was this pointed out to him than 
 he set to work to remodel his performance in 
 this scene, and bring it back to the field of 
 comedy without endangering Malvolio's inborn 
 dignity. The serious meaning given to his 
 exit speech in the last act, " I'll be revenged 
 on the whole pack of you," is amply warranted 
 by the context. 
 
 One great Shakespearean comedy part, in 
 some sense the greatest, he undoubtedly would 
 have played had occasion served ; and it is 
 matter for lasting regret that occasion did not 
 serve. When I was sitting in his dressing- 
 room at the Lyceum one night, he pointed to 
 the wall behind me and said, " I think you'll 
 find something new over there." I looked
 
 92 Impressions of Henry Irving 
 
 round and perceived an amazingly clever 
 sketch, by whom I cannot recall, of Irving, 
 dressed for the part, but with his natural face 
 untouched, and wearing the accustomed pince- 
 nez, as Falstaff. "Yes," he went on as I 
 turned back again, "the make-up is wanting, 
 but you'll be satisfied with that when I play 
 the part." I saw that he was in earnest, and 
 was first surprised, then delighted. I knew 
 well that what he said about the face was 
 thoroughly well founded ; and it may here be 
 mentioned that he always made up with a 
 singular swiftness and an unerring certainty 
 as to the effect which was, doubtless, due to 
 study and practice. When I had expressed 
 my pleasure at the news, I said, "What about 
 the voice, and so on ? " For answer he be- 
 came for the moment Falstaff himself ; his 
 face seemed to broaden and develop into the 
 very semblance of the fat knight ; and he 
 spoke some of Falstaff's words in a deep, rich 
 voice with a wondrous unctuousness of tone 
 and expression ; and, as has been mentioned 
 in other cases, he .'called up for a brief minute 
 not only Falstaff himself, but with him all 
 the strange company at the Boar's Head. In
 
 Impressions of Henry Irving 93 
 
 conversation afterwards on the character, I 
 found he agreed with me that FalstafT, a 
 gentleman by upbringing, bore himself as 
 a gentleman on good occasion, and was in 
 .no kind of way the poltroon he is sometimes 
 represented to be. Henderson was admittedly 
 the Hamlet and the Falstaff of his time, and I 
 believe that Irving's Falstaff might have taken 
 rank with his Prince of Denmark. But the 
 intention of playing the part was naturally 
 dropped for, at any rate, a considerable time 
 to come, when Mr. Tree took up the character, 
 and there came no opportunity for reviving it. 
 
 In modern comedy, Irving's only appearance 
 during his management at the Lyceum was in 
 the revival of Albery's Two Roses. This revival 
 was remarkable in that it introduced for the 
 first time to the London stage, in the character 
 of Caleb Deecie, a since highly and justly dis- 
 tinguished actor, who, during his long stay at 
 the Lyceum, was loyal and devoted to his 
 chief, and in later years has been devoted 
 and loyal to that chief's memory — Mr. George 
 Alexander. It was also remarkable for the 
 proof of advancement in his art which was 
 given by Irving's renewed impersonation of
 
 94 Impressions of Henry Irving 
 
 the callous and vastly entertaining adventurer, 
 Digby Grant, the part in which he had made 
 his first lasting popular impression in London. 
 The very improvement in combined fineness 
 and breadth of execution had, however, its 
 drawbacks, since it seemed to mark unmis- 
 takably the thinness despite the cleverness of 
 the material on which the actor had to work. 
 The slightness again of the piece had been, 
 of course, less perceptible in a theatre very 
 much smaller than the Lyceum. The re- 
 vival was not intended to be more than a 
 stop-gap, and it more than served its turn in 
 that way. Yet it led to Irving telling me, 
 towards the end of the run, that he should 
 never again appear in a coat and trouser 
 piece. "They," he said, "don't care about it, 
 and no more do I, so this will be my last 
 appearance in that way." To this resolution 
 he adhered with only one exception, for I do 
 not count in the unique creation of Corporal 
 Brewster in Sir Conan Doyle's A Story of 
 Waterloo, which would have made its enduring 
 mark in any costume of any century. As to 
 this fine little play, Irving told me | that it first 
 found its way to fame by what seemed like
 
 Impressions of Henry Irving 95 
 
 mischance. It was at Bristol, or, at any rate, 
 somewhere on the "Western Circuit" of 
 Themis, and, in old time, of Thespis, that the 
 sudden illness of one of the company knocked 
 out a one-act play which had been relied on 
 to " fill the bill." Irving luckily remembered 
 the play by Mr. Conan Doyle, as he then was. 
 It wanted even less scenery than Mr. Yates, 
 in Mansfield Park, thought indispensable, and 
 the cast was very easily arranged. It was put 
 in rehearsal at top speed, and produced with 
 a triumphant success, to be afterwards echoed 
 in London. 
 
 In connection with Two Roses, one incident, 
 by force of its oddity, has stuck in my memory. 
 One night (it was probably the first night) in 
 a spirited scene with Jack Wyatt, played by 
 Mr. Charles Warner, one half of Irving's 
 moustache fell off. Deftly, and taking cover 
 under his tall hat, Irving removed the other 
 half, and appeared with a shaven lip through 
 the rest of the play. The person most to be 
 pitied was Mr. Warner, who, facing Irving, 
 saw the whole thing, and preserved gravity 
 enough to prevent any infection of tittering 
 in the audience. Wherefore I presently, in
 
 96 Impressions of Henry Irving 
 
 print, congratulated Irving and Mr. Warner 
 on presence of mind preserved throughout 
 "a stage accident." Thereon a kindly critic, 
 writing of theatrical affairs at large and think- 
 ing that folk might be unduly alarmed, re- 
 assured them in his feuilleton by explaining 
 that the " stage accident " was nothing worse 
 than the loss of half a moustache. I thought 
 that this sequence of notices would amuse 
 Irving, and told it to him at the next oppor- 
 tunity in his dressing-room. " Oh," he said, 
 with dabs of paint and powder interjecting 
 his words, " said that, did he ? Ah ! what an 
 ass he is — what an ass he is ! " Now in this 
 there was not a scrap of ill-nature, or annoy- 
 ance, or anything unkindly. It was simply 
 that his perception of the absurd was as quick 
 as his perception of far higher things ; for the 
 moment the absurd side caught him so com- 
 pletely as to occlude any perception of the 
 kindly feeling which had prompted the writer 
 of the reassuring paragraph.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 The word melodrama "surprises by himself" 
 a good deal of diverse matters. Most English 
 authorities trace the word back to its original 
 meaning of a drama interrupted or accom- 
 panied by music, while M. Pougin, in his Dic- 
 tionnaire du Thedtre, troubles himself in no 
 way about this, and defines melodrame as "an 
 exaggerated kind of drama invented in the 
 early nineteenth century for the greater glory 
 of boulevard theatres." In England it has 
 long borne the meaning defined in Chambers's 
 Encyclopaedia (from which one learns that 
 the word was originally applied, by Ottavio 
 Rinuccini, to opera) — "a romantic play, de- 
 pending mainly on situations and an effective 
 denouement." The definition covers a wide 
 enough field, and, taken according to the letter 
 only, might be pleaded in justification of Charles 
 Reade's dictum that Macbeth is a melodrama. 
 Certainly it does include a number of plays 
 which may fairly be called classics, as well as 
 
 97 G
 
 98 Impressions of Henry Irving 
 
 others to which a very active Hfe has been 
 given by one great actor — such plays, for 
 instance, as The Bells and Rob Roy, the London 
 fame of which latter piece was due mainly to 
 Macready, with whom and with his audiences 
 the hero was a favourite part. In his time 
 " melodrama," in its acquired sense, was a 
 comparatively novel term, and he was practi- 
 cally the first of the line of great actors at 
 whom the reproach was aimed that he was an 
 inferior tragedian, though a master of melo- 
 drama — the very same reproach that in later 
 days was, with others, levelled at Irving. 
 
 Curiously enough G. H. Lewes, on Macready 
 retiring from the stage, wrote a brief, yet 
 elaborate, article in answer to an imagined 
 questioner demanding a reply to the inquiry, 
 " Was Macready a great actor ? " and answered 
 emphatically in the affirmative, although his 
 argument throughout is on the lines of the 
 summing-up at the end, that " Macready was a 
 great actor. Though not a man of genius, he 
 was a man of intellect, of culture, of repre- 
 sentative talent, with decided physical advan- 
 tages, capable of depicting a wide range of 
 unheroic characters with truth and power, an
 
 Impressions of Henry Irving 99 
 
 ornament to his profession, the pride of his 
 friends, and the favourite of the pubHc." It 
 is added that he won his position when Kean 
 and Young were both to be reckoned with, 
 -that after their retirement he stood alone, and 
 that on his own retirement he left no successor. 
 Certain parts of this remarkable passage in an 
 article as odd as it is interesting, might be 
 applied with scarce the change of a word to 
 Irving ; but, emphatically, not those statements 
 which, had they been generally accepted of 
 Macready, would surely have prevented his 
 leaving behind him the name of a great actor. 
 Again, Irving had not the backing of those 
 " decided physical advantages " which Lewes 
 mentioned. On the contrary, as is said to 
 have been the case with the great lyric actor, 
 Ronconi, in certain parts of heroic mould 
 his intellect and genius triumphed over the 
 absence of physical attributes, in voice and 
 build, traditionally associated with those char- 
 acters. The point, however, is that Lewes, 
 who was nothing if not paradoxical, though 
 dubbing Macready great, asserted practically 
 that he was not in truth a tragedian, but was 
 a fine actor of melodrama. There was nothing
 
 loo Impressions of Henry Irving 
 
 surprising, then, in the same thing being said of 
 Irving by some critics of a later generation ; and 
 it is still less surprising that in neither case has 
 the contention been upheld, or seems likely to 
 be upheld in future, by the general verdict. 
 
 There was, however, considering these things, 
 a touch of irony in the facts that to two of 
 the most remarkable " melodramas " known 
 Macready was stage-godfather, and something 
 more, for without him they might never have 
 seen the light, or at least the footlights, and 
 that Irving in due course, and as if obeying 
 an acknowledged law, followed Macready as 
 the hero in the two plays, both of which were 
 written with a strange mixture of genius and 
 finery by Bulwer, afterwards first Lord Lytton. 
 
 When one remembers that Macready, though 
 what used to be called "a fine figure of a 
 man," had a somewhat rugged and decidedly 
 powerful countenance, and still more, when 
 one looks at the portrait sketch of him, by 
 George Scharf, in the part of Claude Melnotte, 
 it is impossible to suppose that he realised 
 Bulwer's fancy picture of the dreamy, self- 
 conscious, aristocratically inclined gardener's 
 son ; though it is easy to imagine that he
 
 Impressions of Henry Irving loi 
 
 infused his own dramatic fire into the telHng 
 situations of a play which is sometimes wishy- 
 washy, sometimes grandiloquent, and not infre- 
 quently both. One cannot but think that without 
 the unique charm which it is clear Miss Faucit 
 gave to the character of the heroine, in itself 
 not especially fascinating, and without the 
 prestige and the hard work which Macready 
 brought to bear on the production. The Lady 
 of Lyons might have failed to make the mark 
 which has endured down to our day. Yet the 
 thought may be mistaken, since the piece cer- 
 tainly does contain good rousing situations, 
 which, if they outrage plausibility and common- 
 sense when considered in cold blood, offer, 
 not the less, striking opportunities to an 
 emotional actor and actress. 
 
 It was partly on this account, no doubt, and 
 partly, it may be supposed, because somehow 
 it seemed part of the curriculum, that Irving 
 produced the play at the Lyceum. In a way 
 he was certainly less handicapped as to appear- 
 ance in the earlier scenes than Macready must 
 have been. He had the true poetic cast of 
 face, and, as he had shown in Hamlet and 
 lesser parts, could so deal with dreams that
 
 I02 Impressions of Henry Irving 
 
 they seemed to his audiences the only true 
 realities. But he could not disguise the un- 
 mistakable air of intellect which was entirely 
 at variance with the frippery of Claude Mel- 
 notte's unscrupulous vapourings. Of course he 
 could have played an intentionally silly part 
 with a silly look throughout. But here the 
 dramatist gave no room for showing the 
 gradations by which Claude is supposed to 
 pass from not very reputable foolishness to 
 wisdom and honour. You cannot play Claude 
 first as a deplorably silly and easily perverted 
 youth and then, quite suddenly, as a man who 
 has won fame and respect; therefore, all the 
 actor can do in the beginning is to dwell as 
 much as possible on Claude's good points, 
 chiefly his devotion to his mother, and to make 
 the ornamentation of the speech describing the 
 fairy palace as plausible as may be. These 
 things Irving did as a fine artist can do them, 
 but one felt that he had a freer hand in the 
 comedy, excellently given, of the scene with 
 Damas, where, of course, it was a distinct 
 advantage to have the accomplished and ex- 
 perienced Walter Lacy as an opponent. And 
 his best moments, those in which the electric
 
 Impressions of Henry Irving 103 
 
 thrill so constant between him and his audiences 
 was most keenly felt, were those of Claude's 
 departure to the war, and those of Claude's 
 return and gradual revelation of himself to 
 Pauline. 
 
 Many playgoers will remember the elabora- 
 tion, never passing into mere extravagant 
 display, which was given to this as it was 
 to all Irving's productions, and will recollect 
 also the minute attention as to accuracy in 
 details of the appointments and the costumes 
 of the time. One of these details had a curious 
 history. Irving frequently talked over plays 
 with my father before their production, and so 
 it was with The Lady of LyonSy as to which 
 the actor was naturally curious concerning 
 Macready's method, "business," and so follow- 
 ing. One night at supper, while the play was 
 but beginning life, my father, remembering some 
 experiences in France, mentioned casually the 
 differences in tone-quality between the French 
 and the English military drum. Irving dis- 
 played a lively interest in this, and asked various 
 questions as to the kind of difference. When 
 The Lady of Lyons was produced the drummers 
 preceding the detachment of troops which is
 
 I04 Impressions of Henry Irving 
 
 enthusiastically if somewhat irregularly joined 
 by Claude, played on French drums, the 
 peculiar and presaging tone of which certainly 
 added to the effect of a scene artistically and 
 carefully worked up to a climax of excitement. 
 It was, I think, on the third night of The 
 Lady of Lyons that I was in Irving's dressing- 
 room talking over this, that, and the other in 
 connection with the play, when I said to him, 
 "Do you know that in the scene of Claude's 
 return you have a wonderful look, according 
 to all the portraits, of Napoleon in his earlier 
 days ? " He waited a moment before saying, 
 " You thought that, did you ? Noticed it ? " I 
 replied that it had struck me on the first night 
 and that the impression was now confirmed. 
 " Ah ! " he said, with his occasional and curious 
 half-shy, half-sly look, "well, if you see no 
 objection you might mention that in what you 
 write about the production." I guessed at 
 once, and I am sure he knew that I guessed, 
 what was in his mind ; and, therefore, I was 
 not in the least surprised when he assigned to 
 himself the part of Bonaparte in Madame Sans- 
 Geney a play produced long after, wherein 
 Miss Ellen Terry, and not the manager, was.
 
 Impressions of Henry Irving 105 
 
 from the nature of the play, the deservedly 
 successful attraction. The skill, however, with 
 which Irving, playing admirably, of course, the 
 less important part of Bonaparte, presented 
 not only the face, which was foreseen, but the 
 figure also of the little Corsican, was a feat 
 well worth noting. 
 
 When he was first playing Mephistopheles 
 in Wills's Faust I said to him, "I, and no 
 doubt various other people, noted your resem- 
 blance at the end of The Lady of Lyons to the 
 young Napoleon. Everybody has noticed, as 
 how should they not, your likeness, when you 
 first appear in Faust's study, to Dante." "Yes," 
 he replied, "and, of course, I have noticed 
 it. I have always wanted to appear as Dante 
 himself. But the play ? There is the difficulty. 
 Some day I shall overcome it, but I don't see 
 the way yet." 
 
 As to how the difficulty was finally attacked 
 there may be more to say presently, but, mean- 
 while, I have wandered from melodrama in a 
 lofty line as set forth by Bulwer. 
 
 Richelieu, as a play, differs entirely from the 
 same author's The Lady of Lyons. If the lan- 
 guage is at times overstrained, it always helps
 
 io6 Impressions of Henry Irving 
 
 on the movement of which the drama is full. 
 In the first published version of the play the 
 plot devised by the conspirators, the nature of 
 the missing papers, and the means by which 
 the conspiracy was overthrown in the nick of 
 time, are all made clear enough. But the scenes 
 conveying this lucid information had to be cur- 
 tailed or cut, and as time went on more and 
 more cuts were made until, as the play is given 
 now, the spectator must imagine as best he 
 can for himself why so much depends on 
 Francois gaining possession of a mysterious 
 packet containing things unknown to the 
 audience, and how the persevering Francois 
 manages to put this packet in the Cardinal's 
 hands at the right dramatic moment. Not 
 that it matters very much ; it is enough to 
 see the patriotic and magnetic figure of Riche- 
 lieu struggling against and finally trampling 
 down a conspiracy with the details of which 
 we really need not trouble ourselves. Then 
 the underplot of the loves of Mauprat and 
 Julie is daintily contrived, and is artfully con- 
 nected with the main interest. Altogether it 
 is in no way surprising that actors of the 
 highest rank should, ever since the play's pro-
 
 Impressiofis of Henry Irving 107 
 
 duction, have been glad to find an occasion for 
 appearing as its central personage. 
 
 Looking back upon Irving's appearance as 
 Richelieu I find, in remembering his first and 
 his later performances of the character, an- 
 other striking instance of his always growing 
 mastery over his art in technical science, in 
 the just proportioning of his means to the 
 carrying out of the impression he intended 
 to convey. In his first essay, under the 
 Bateman management, there was a decided 
 inclination to overstraining of voice and of 
 gesture when great efforts were to be com- 
 passed, insomuch that there was a danger, in 
 moments of deep emotion, of extravagance 
 taking the place of dominating strength. 
 Partly this arose from a desire to indicate 
 the victory of a mighty volition over an en- 
 feebled frame, a desire whereof the accom- 
 plishment presented great difficulties. These 
 were not fully overcome until the revival of 
 the play during Irving's management of the 
 Lyceum. Then he overleaped the obstacles 
 which had previously obstructed the way to 
 a complete expression of his meaning, and, 
 to take one instance, the launching of the
 
 io8 Impressions of Henry Irving 
 
 curse of Rome was a complete display of an 
 overmastering force without a hint of violence. 
 On both occasions, I think, and certainly on 
 the later one, he had his dressing-room hung 
 with small and excellent copies of the best- 
 known portraits of Richelieu within easy sight 
 of his dressing-table, as mutatis mutandis was 
 the case when he played Charles I. 
 
 It was interesting to compare his second 
 Richelieu with the rendering of the same part 
 by Edwin Booth, who played it at the 
 Princess's under many disadvantages, but 
 with consummate power and art. I think 
 the most notable difference between the two 
 was that the American's very impressive per- 
 formance had in it less relief than was the 
 case with Irving, who, admirable comedian as 
 he was, gave their full importance to the 
 passages where something of the gay humour 
 which Richelieu must have had in his youth 
 peers out. Booth's smile and tone in such 
 passages were those of a melancholic per- 
 sonage ; they had a distinct charm, but it 
 was not the charm given, as with Irving, by 
 any real lightening of spirit. I gained the 
 impression from the characters which Booth
 
 Impressions of Henry Irving 109 
 
 played during his visit to England, that, as 
 for mirth, where he excelled was in showing 
 its simulation rather than its reality. Thus 
 the mirth of his lago was consistently and 
 persistently sardonic, though assumed with 
 such an air of blunt goodwill that one could 
 well understand his dupes being taken in by 
 him. When he played Bertuccio in The Fool's 
 Revenge, his pretence of merriment to hide 
 a tortured heart was terribly poignant ; and 
 even more might be said of the heart-stirring 
 expression he gave to the distraught humours 
 of King Lear. 
 
 In this character, again, it was a matter 
 of much interest to note the different methods 
 of the two actors. Irving, knowing how 
 greatly I admired Booth's Lear, asked me 
 various questions about it when he himself 
 was about to play the part. I told him, among 
 other things, that I had been deeply moved 
 by Booth's delivery of the half-dozen words, 
 "O fool, I shall go mad." He asked me to 
 describe it, and I replied that the pathos and 
 the tragedy of the thing could not be con- 
 veyed, but that the despairing tone was very 
 quiet, and that the action — that of dropping
 
 1 1 o Impressions of Henry Irving 
 
 the wearied head on the Fool's shoulder — was 
 very simple. He thought for a moment, and 
 then said, " No, no, no ! Never do, never 
 do 1 " It certainly would not have fitted in 
 any way to his reading of Lear, where, as in 
 some other characters, he was inclined generally 
 to an active expression of emotion where Booth 
 leant rather, when it could fitly be expressed, 
 to a lodged melancholy. His own Lear, as 
 to which a strange story has been already re- 
 counted, was in many of its scenes a magnifi- 
 cent and a thrilling performance, at its greatest 
 moments even too poignant. In which con- 
 nection he told me one night that he had been 
 thinking of taking the play off very soon. I 
 counselled him to carry out the intention, 
 saying that King Lear was not, and never 
 would be, a play to run every night. " Ah ! 
 Too painful you mean," he said, "so I think 
 too. And so the audiences think." I answered 
 that I certainly had meant that, but I had in 
 mind also the terrible strain it put upon him. 
 " Well," he said, " you know I have never let 
 that count." 
 
 He certainly never had ; and it is as natural 
 as it is idle to wish that this had been otherwise.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 In another and very different great Shake- 
 spearean part, Richard III., Irving appeared 
 far less frequently than either his audiences 
 or he himself would have wished. There 
 seemed, indeed, to be a touch of malignity in 
 the fate which intervened in the shape of an 
 injured knee-cap to cut short, after one night, 
 the reproduction of a performance which years 
 before had won, deservedly, golden opinions. 
 
 Irving's Richard III. was doubtless among 
 the most perfectly balanced, the most flawless 
 in execution, of his greatest impersonations. 
 And it was one in which he took special 
 delight. He had in one sense a freer hand 
 than usual, that is, he was presenting practi- 
 cally for the first time since Shakespeare's days 
 an unadulterated or, if one may coin the word, 
 uncibberised Richard. No critic professed or 
 amateur could dwell with imaginative rapture 
 on how much more forcibly Edmund Kean 
 or Macready must have delivered such speeches
 
 112 Impressions of Henry Irving 
 
 as "Off with his head, so much for Bucking- 
 ham ! " since the speeches were at last put in 
 their appointed place, never, let us hope, to 
 emerge again. While as for dress and de- 
 meanour, Lyceum audiences certainly did not 
 expect the Skelton-like costume and the un- 
 masked intimation of villainy that had become 
 entwined with the traditions of the part. I 
 well remember with what unaffected glee Irving 
 told me of his intention to do away with the 
 ancient bogey of the Duke of Gloucester, and 
 of the special ways in which enough but by 
 no means too much of deviation from the 
 figure of " a marvellous proper man " would 
 be indicated. I remember also conversations 
 at my father's house when historical and 
 Shakespearean aspects of the character were 
 discussed in a way which was vastly interest- 
 ing then but might seem dry enough in 
 repetition. He took immense pains in search- 
 ing for anything that might illuminate the 
 matter, and his enjoyment of the work was 
 intense. Not that this was a special char- 
 acteristic of his study for this particular part. 
 Years afterwards I found him with a printed 
 form, which he had evidently just filled in
 
 Impressions of Henry Irving 113 
 
 with writing, before him. "A new question 
 from Who's Who," he said — "one's favourite 
 recreation. I have filled it in acting, and I 
 think you'll agree with me that's the only 
 .answer." There was certainly no doubt as 
 to agreement, but it made one look back and 
 reflect how absolute his care for and devotion 
 to his art had always been, and conclude that 
 without that absorption even his innate genius 
 would never have forced (that was for long 
 the only word) its way to the topmost height 
 which at last he held unquestioned. 
 
 In the case of "the crook-back" the success 
 attained by art, thought, and genius combined, 
 was beyond doubt or cavil. Here was a 
 Plantagenet just warped enough in body to 
 account for an unordered though brilliant 
 intellect, yet so gay, princely, fascinating in 
 address and bearing that, while one heard 
 and saw the incredible scene of the Lady 
 Anne's courtship, one was cajoled into believ- 
 ing it, for the moment, to be not only possible 
 but actual. His hypocrisy was polished and 
 perfect : in the scene with the Churchmen the 
 audience was let into the secret just enough 
 
 to appreciate how completely the interlocutors 
 
 H
 
 1 1 4 Impressions of Henry Irving 
 
 were befooled ; his speech was at need per- 
 suasive and honeyed, and at another need, as 
 in the " I am not in the vein " scene with 
 Buckingham, cold and biting as a sword- 
 thrust ; his ambition and his daring were 
 measureless ; the glamour of his personality 
 and his desperate courage in the final scene 
 captured sympathy from judgment. Here, in 
 short, was Shakespeare's, if not history's, Glou- 
 cester, in his habit as he lived, a creature of 
 unscrupulous yet royal strength, without a touch 
 of exaggeration or rant. That the character 
 did not pass into his repertory was a loss to 
 his audiences, and I am pretty sure to him- 
 self. 
 
 There was so large an infusion of mere 
 melodrama in the pre-Irving or cibberised 
 version of Richard that the mention of Richard 
 may, without irreverence, serve for a bridge 
 between Richelieu and a melodrama of a less 
 distinguished cast, Louis XL, in which only 
 one London favourite, Charles Kean, had pre- 
 ceded Irving. According to the late John 
 Coleman, who had the story from Fechter, 
 Kean and Webster were at daggers drawn as 
 to which of the two should first secure and
 
 Impressions of Henry Irving 1 1 5 
 
 produce an English version of Delavigne's 
 clever and telling play, and Kean succeeded in 
 being first in the field. That the part, with its 
 strange grim humour, its curious contrasts and 
 transitions, and the weird ghastly impressive- 
 ness of the scene of terror and of the final 
 scene, should attract Irving was natural enough. 
 The success of the undertaking was practically 
 a foregone conclusion. But not the less 
 Irving, according to his wont, devoted infinite 
 pains to study of the character. As was said 
 by a learned and accomplished French critic, 
 M. Jules Claretie, later, for many years and 
 at the moment while I write, Director of the 
 Com6die Frangaise, "Before playing Louis XI. 
 Mr. Irving studied Commines, Victor Hugo, 
 Walter Scott, and all who have written of the 
 middle-class and avaricious king who wore out 
 the elbows of his woollen doublet on the tables 
 of his gossips, the skin-dressers and shoe- 
 makers." There was an odd sequel to my 
 own criticism at the time on Irving's Louis 
 XL, which, in truth, offered mighty few points 
 for adverse criticism. My account of the per- 
 formance appeared in the Saturday Review, and, 
 on the following Monday, I went as usual to
 
 1 1 6 Impressions of Henry Irving 
 
 call on my then chief, the always considerate 
 and delightful Philip Harwood. After he had 
 discussed the business of the paper for that 
 week, he handed me a letter saying, "Here 
 is something that will interest you." It was 
 a communication from a worthy playgoer who 
 protested vigorously, vehemently, indignantly 
 that he had seen Charles Kean in Louis XL, 
 and that Kean had played the scene of terror 
 on the very same lines which the Saturday 
 had noted with approval in Irving's perfor- 
 mance. " But," I said, as I gave the letter 
 back to my chief, " I never said that Charles 
 Kean did not do so," and "Quite so" said 
 Harwood, with a quiet smile, as he put the 
 letter back on his table. Next time Irving 
 and I met I recounted the incident to him 
 as a curiosity and he said, "Yes, it is curious, 
 isn't it ? No actor of any intelligence could 
 play that scene in any other way; yet it 
 seemed an offence to Charles Kean's admirer 
 that I should interpret it in the same, the only 
 possible, way ! A very strange art to pursue, 
 the actor's, and very strange, sometimes, the 
 ways of expert and lay critics." 
 
 There was another melodrama from the
 
 ImpressiotJs of Henry Irving 1 1 J 
 
 French, a real boulevard melodrama, in which 
 Charles Kean had been famous and which 
 Irving at one time thought of producing — 
 Pauline. Of this I made a new version for 
 Irving, bringing the action up to a date far 
 more modern than that of the original. In 
 the course of working at it I had the idea of 
 giving at least a hint of a sympathetic touch 
 to the principal figure, and communicated this 
 idea to Irving. He damped my desire to 
 humanise the villain at once. " No," he said, 
 " a very natural idea, but it won't do. He 
 must be an out-and-outer." In this he certainly 
 showed the judgment which so seldom failed 
 him. He showed it yet more in completely 
 shelving the play. For an English version, 
 unless it had gone right away from the original, 
 keeping only the central idea, common enough 
 in fiction and drama, of a secret villain and 
 bandit who, to the world and even to his wife, 
 seemed to be a wealthy man of birth, breeding, 
 and charm, could not possibly have appealed 
 to the audiences whose taste had been nurtured 
 by Irving's care and education. The last phrase 
 is not, I think, too strong for use ; and this 
 seems a fitting place for recording an incident
 
 1 1 8 Impressions of Henry Irving 
 
 which, by date, belongs to a very much later 
 period. It was after his return from one of 
 his last tours that I went to see him in the 
 afternoon. While we were talking, his brougham 
 — a luxury which he had long refused to adopt 
 and to which he gave in only from necessity — 
 was announced, and he begged me to come 
 with him as far as might be on the way to the 
 Lyceum. After we had got in he sat for some 
 little time silent and thinking. Presently he 
 said : " You were speaking just now of the 
 very right desire for an endowed theatre, and 
 of the schemes for it which people, who have 
 the thing at heart, from time to time propose. 
 Well, there is, now, one such theatre in London ; 
 but I say now advisedly." For a moment I 
 paused to catch his meaning and he went on — 
 "The Lyceum is an endowed theatre. I make 
 a great deal of money by these tours, in the 
 Provinces, in America, might perhaps make as 
 much or more in Australia some day. What 
 becomes of it all ? You know how much or 
 how little goes in personal expense. Where 
 do the big sums go ? Into the Lyceum Theatre, 
 into my desire to make it what I doubt if the 
 State will ever make any theatre, a play-house
 
 Impressions of Henry Irving 1 1 9 
 
 endowed as the best Continental State Theatres 
 are endowed, but naturally free from their in- 
 evitable disadvantages." 
 
 One thinks of this ; and one thinks of the 
 story feelingly and quietly told by Mr. Bram 
 Stoker in his " Personal Reminiscences of 
 Henry Irving," of the too swift succession of 
 heavy blows, beginning with the destruction by 
 fire of the irreplaceable repertory scenery, which 
 fell upon the great actor and great enthusiast 
 for the drama, and one but can say, "The pity 
 of it, the pity of it." 
 
 To recur to melodrama, there was one boule- 
 vard play in which he made but a short appear- 
 ance — Robert Macaire — which is worth mention 
 for one or two reasons. He played it at the 
 Lyceum, first for an afternoon benefit perform- 
 ance, with his constant and beloved friend, 
 J. L. Toole, as Jacques Strop; and afterwards 
 it was put into the evening programme, when 
 Mr. Weedon Grossmith, then an excellent rising, 
 and now an excellent risen, comedian, took 
 Mr. Toole's place. Irving's Macaire was, first 
 and last, a brilliant piece of extravagant foppery 
 assumed by a reckless brigand and probable 
 cut-throat, with a touch of true melodrama
 
 1 20 Impressions of Henry Irving 
 
 bordering close on tragedy at the conclusion. 
 At the first Lyceum performance I happened 
 to meet Palgrave Simpson in the corridor and 
 was moved to ask him — one would scarce have 
 thought twice before asking him if he had seen 
 Garrick — if he had seen Lemaitre in the part, 
 and what he thought of Irving by comparison. 
 "Oh! yes," he replied, "I saw Fr^d6rick and 
 remember it as vividly as possible ; and I think 
 Irving's a decidedly better performance ; finer, 
 better put together, more impressive." Now 
 Palgrave Simpson was not in the same case 
 with Herman Merivale, who went to a theatre 
 in Paris, surprised and attracted by Frederick's 
 name on the playbill, saw the one scene in 
 which Lemaitre appeared, and was so sur- 
 prised in another sense that he turned to his 
 neighbour and asked if the actor in the scene 
 just ended was really Frederick. *^ Helas ! Out, 
 monsieur," was the answer. '' Voild ce qui en 
 reste." But Palgrave Simpson had seen the 
 great Frederick, for great he undoubtedly was 
 in some ways and in certain parts, before his 
 powers had waned. Therefore his opinion 
 seems worth recording. All the more worth 
 recording because, when all is said and done,
 
 Impressions of Henry Irving 121 
 
 Macaire was, by a chance happy for Frederick 
 but far happier for the authors of VAuberge des 
 Adrets, Lemaitre's creation, a part invented by 
 the actor almost exactly as, in later days. Lord 
 Dundreary was invented by Sothern. These 
 individual and meteoric products of one actor's 
 brain are as a rule best left alone by later 
 players. That Irving by his own striking in- 
 dividuality re-galvanised Macaire might wisely 
 be regarded as an exception to prove a rule.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 I HAVE not in these pages attempted to discuss 
 or even to mention anything Hke the full tale 
 of Irving's noteworthy impersonations at the 
 Lyceum ; have touched, indeed, only on those 
 wherein there seemed room for some special 
 comment, or with which special associations 
 might be recorded. The plays of Lord Tenny- 
 son, however, had a unique interest by their 
 authorship alone, to leave other reasons aside. 
 In Queen Mary, produced under Mrs. Bate- 
 man's management with excellent care and 
 taste, Irving appeared in the brief and, so 
 far as reading the play is concerned, not 
 strikingly dramatic character of King Philip. 
 He, however, informed the poet's masterly 
 sketch of the Spaniard's chief attributes with 
 his own dramatic genius so that it produced a 
 striking and lasting impression, which was 
 admirably seized and preserved on canvas by 
 Whistler in his well-known portrait. It was 
 during the run of this play that Irving first
 
 hnpressions of Henry Irving 1 2 3 
 
 received an invitation to the Royal Academy 
 dinner. I heard of this through his saying to 
 me : " Don't come to the theatre on such-and- 
 such a night, unless you want to see some- 
 body else as Philip. I have been asked to the 
 Royal Academy dinner, and that is an honour 
 that really must be accepted. There will be 
 no difficulty about filling the part for that 
 night." 
 
 In The Cup, produced with great success 
 under his own management, Irving had a 
 part, Synorix, which was not grateful in any 
 sense and did not suit him particularly well. 
 He played it, of course, with the spirit of a 
 thorough artist, but his great part on this 
 occasion was that of manager, stage-manager, 
 general director — what else not ? Mr. Bram 
 Stoker has told us how he sought out the 
 opinions of the most learned antiquarian 
 authorities, and how he himself actually de- 
 vised a ritual for the priests in the Temple 
 of Artemis to follow in the action of the scene. 
 His care for effectiveness combined with cor- 
 rectness, so far as it could possibly be obtained, 
 was to be noted further in the choice of the 
 dogs figuring in the scene where Sinnatus is
 
 1 24 Impressions of Henry Irving 
 
 a-hunting. By an odd chance their daily walks 
 and mine frequently met at a particular point, 
 and, always stopping to say a word to them 
 and their keeper, I was constantly struck by 
 the Etruscan-vase kind of look which they 
 presented even off the stage, whereon their 
 appearance was impressive and entirely in 
 harmony with the excellently devised scene 
 and costumes. 
 
 The mention of these dogs leads excusably 
 to a digression concerning the dogs that 
 were Irving's companions at home and in his 
 dressing-room at the theatre. Of one — I think 
 it was the terrier Charley — a remarkable story 
 has been not infrequently told. How, when 
 Irving and his company were going on a tour 
 in America, Charley was to go with them, but 
 got as far only as Southampton, where some- 
 how he missed the boat. There were grievings, 
 telegrams, anxieties until at New York came 
 the welcome news that Charley had appeared 
 at the stage -door of the Lyceum, woefully 
 travel-stained and emaciated, some four days 
 after he had been missed at Southampton. It 
 was a pathetic and striking illustration of the 
 sense now forgotten by human beings and
 
 Impressions of Henry Irving 1 2 5 
 
 reserved by some domestic animals, and espe- 
 cially dogs ; and it had the advantage of 
 being true. There was, however, one small 
 piece of explanation which Irving gave to me 
 .when I asked him as to the correctness of the 
 history. This was that on a previous occasion 
 Charley had got lost somewhere on the way 
 to Southampton, and had followed the railway 
 line back towards London for some distance 
 until he arrived at a station where he was 
 known and identified and cared for. The 
 explanation, it will be seen, is but partial ; for 
 instance, it does not account for the dog fol- 
 lowing the line on a back track on the first 
 occasion, and it in no way lessens the remark- 
 able nature of the incident. 
 
 Both Charley and Fussy, another favourite 
 terrier, were each in his own day frequent 
 guests of ours in the times when Irving was 
 able to join us at a quiet supper after the 
 play ; and both, it is pleasant to remember, 
 were as courteous and well - bred as befitted 
 their position. His influence over animals was 
 strictly analogous to that which he had on 
 human beings, among those of whom who 
 really knew him, it would have been strange
 
 126 Iinpressto7u of Henry Irving 
 
 to find one who did not fully reciprocate his 
 own constancy in friendship, while mere ac- 
 quaintances mostly felt the same magnetic 
 attraction which was a bond between him and 
 his audiences. One night when he was but 
 just back from an American tour I went to 
 see him at the Lyceum. I was before my time, 
 and, having waited a while in his dressing- 
 room, went down to the wing where I knew he 
 would come off the stage. When he did so we 
 exchanged greetings and went up the stairs to 
 his room, and on the way he gave a peculiar 
 whistle, which excited my curiosity. We sat 
 down and had hardly begun to talk when a 
 very attractive cat entered, and leapt on the 
 table close to Irving, purring all it could and 
 begging for attention, which was readily given. 
 Irving's face had lighted up with a pleased 
 smile at the first sight of the cat, and " You 
 heard me whistle as we came up," he said ; 
 "that was my old signal to her before this 
 last tour. She belongs to the theatre, and we 
 became great friends. But it's a long time 
 since we met, I hoped she would remember 
 the whistle and me, but I couldn't be sure. 
 Well," he continued, with his absolutely un-
 
 Impressions of Henry Irving 1 27 
 
 affected air and tone of joyousness, "she has 
 remembered." There was another touch, in 
 this matter, of his never-failing simplicity and 
 youth of heart. He had told me that the cat, 
 though hostile to no one, was by no means 
 prodigal of its attentions to any individual. 
 Presently, when it had been made much of 
 to its heart's content by the old friend whose 
 chiefship it seemed to acknowledge, the cat 
 came over to me and made the overtures of 
 friendship which all cat-lovers know. "Why," 
 Irving cried, with a tone of some disappoint- 
 ment, " she's beginning to take to you ! " I 
 reminded him that I was thoroughly accus- 
 tomed to cats, and knew their ways as well as 
 a man can. "To be sure," he said, with an 
 air of relief ; " of course, there's a great deal 
 in knowing how to touch them so that they 
 won't be startled. Of course that's it." 
 
 But to leave this divagation and return to 
 the Tennysonian dramas. Of the three in 
 which Irving took part Becket was incompar- 
 ably the highest and greatest in thought and 
 form. As a dramatic poem, without reference 
 to the shape given to it for stage purposes, 
 it rises to an elevation which enables me, as
 
 128 Impressions of Henry Irving 
 
 I look back, to appreciate more than I did, 
 though I may not even now endorse, the 
 exalted estimation to which on one occasion 
 Irving gave full utterance. 
 
 He had been in love with the play, as with 
 the character, of Becket from the first moment 
 of considering its possibilities for his stage. 
 He had been given by Tennyson, a poet whose 
 true nature was as trustful, when once trust 
 was given, and confiding as the actor's own, 
 an absolutely free hand in adaptation to stage 
 purposes. He had accomplished the remark- 
 able feat of making Becket, at any rate with 
 himself as the chief figure, an excellent acting 
 play which still retained the most striking 
 beauties of the original text. He had been 
 doubtful as to the public's verdict ; and he 
 had found that the venture was absolutely and 
 entirely successful. Yet for none of these 
 things did he take any credit to himself ; 
 his one thought was of delight in that he 
 had been able to interpret a work for which 
 he had the deepest admiration in such a way 
 that it reached the minds and hearts of his 
 audiences. 
 
 The occasion to which I have referred was
 
 Impressions of Henry Irving 129 
 
 one of the small and more intimate suppers 
 in the " Beefsteak Room " after the curtain had 
 fallen at the Lyceum, when Becket had been 
 running for so short a time that it was naturally 
 a subject for conversation. Irving was sym- 
 pathetically and generously enthusiastic over 
 Tennyson's work, and, referring to the beauti- 
 ful lines beginning, "There was a little fair- 
 hair'd Norman maid " — a speech which he 
 always delivered as one rapt in it — he ex- 
 pressed a strong doubt if there was anything 
 in Shakespeare to be preferred to it. 
 
 Now, while I will yield to no one in admira- 
 tion for Tennyson's greatest achievements, yet 
 I hold Shakespeare in dearer reverence, and 
 startled, as I might be now, by such a deliver- 
 ance from such a source, I was then young 
 enough to be in the act of beginning a protest 
 when I felt a light, meaning touch on my 
 arm, and, looking round, faced one of Irving's 
 most trusted and confidential marshals, who 
 said to me, " Don't. Of course I understand 
 your impulse, but you don't know how he feels 
 about it." Naturally I left my intended protest 
 unuttered, and truly I did not know or suspect 
 at the time how Irving felt about Becket. I
 
 130 Impressions of Henry Irving 
 
 learnt later, as must be told in the last pages 
 of a volume now nearing its end. And when 
 the learning came to me, in due course, I was 
 more than grateful for that kindly and warning 
 pressure of the arm.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 Between the production of Madame Sans-Gene 
 at the Lyceum under Irving's management and 
 that of Dante at Drury Lane, I lost sight, from 
 force of circumstance, to a great extent of 
 Irving, though I am happy to remember that 
 we never lost sympathy or touch with each 
 other. A friendship which was indestructible 
 had its outward assertion in letters and tele- 
 grams — the telegrams mostly from him, who 
 had the art of putting into a telegram more of 
 meaning than many people put into a letter. 
 
 The time during which we practically never 
 met, was full to me of thoughts and memories 
 — memories, apart from intimate meetings, of 
 private and semi-private functions. Many people 
 will remember the Aladdin-like banquets which 
 he used to give on special occasions under a 
 marquee erected on the stage of the Lyceum 
 after the play had ended. How it was done 
 is still a marvel ; it could not have been ac- 
 complished by any one who had not a genius 
 
 131
 
 132 Impressions of Henry Irving 
 
 for organisation and control. The danger of 
 fire alone would have daunted many courageous 
 people. I spoke to him once of this, and he 
 replied, " Of course you don't suppose I have 
 left that out of sight. But you can't know 
 all the precautions taken," and then he told 
 me of some which alone would have been 
 enough to reassure the most timid. And if 
 the marquee itself had suddenly come crashing 
 down I feel sure it would have been a case 
 not of inipavidunt but of impavidos fet-ient ruincB. 
 His presence and demeanour would have re- 
 assured all who were tempted to panic, while 
 his quiet commands would have brought order 
 from chaos. 
 
 Another remarkable quality of his — tact — was 
 occasionally demanded, and was always ready 
 at such entertainments. Never, perhaps, more 
 so than when at a function celebrating the suc- 
 cess of The Merchant of Venice, one of the most 
 brilliant of after-dinner speakers turned what 
 began like a sparkling speech on conventional 
 lines into a rather acrid criticism of Irving's 
 reading of Shylock. Every one wondered how 
 the actor, when it fell to him to follow this 
 speech with one of his own, would get out
 
 Impressions of Henry Irving 1 3 3 
 
 of the obvious difficulty. He did get out of 
 it without saying a word that could show any 
 resentment of the previous speech, or a word 
 that could be construed as an apology for his 
 own view of Shylock. The same quality of 
 tact was notable at a smaller gathering in the 
 " Beefsteak Room," when the special guest of 
 the night was Mr. Cody, " Buffalo Bill," whom 
 Irving had met and liked in America, and to 
 whom he wished to show special attention in 
 England. Among the other guests was one 
 so rightly appreciated for conversational as 
 for other powers that he was accustomed to 
 have "the table to himself" when he launched 
 out on congenial topics. Now Irving's chief 
 desire was to give Cody, then a very modest 
 relater of his own exploits, a "lead-over" to 
 saying something, however reluctantly, as to 
 his deeds in scouting. More than once Irving 
 tried to turn the current of talk in an un- 
 obtrusive v.-ay ; but at last he felt that there 
 was a knot to be cut, and he gained his object 
 with a skill of double compliment which could 
 not but please both the people chiefly con- 
 cerned, and which gave the rest of the com- 
 pany the pleasure of hearing from Mr. Cody
 
 134 Impressions of Henry Irving 
 
 the simplest, and therefore most effective, recital 
 of his since famous duel with a Red Indian 
 chief. One might fill pages with instances 
 of Irving's ready tact, a quality which is not 
 invariably, but in his case most assuredly was, 
 allied with the best and truest kindliness. 
 
 I have referred in a previous passage to the 
 sardonic humour which he could use at will 
 for stage purposes, and which was seldom 
 visible in private life. He could be sarcastic 
 enough or dominating enough when domination 
 or sarcasm was needed ; but gentleness, with no 
 touch of insipidity, was his habitual mood ; and 
 I remember that, before he had begun to be 
 what is now called elderly, he said to me, 
 speaking of a person known to both of us, 
 " Perhaps much less in the wrong than we are 
 at first inclined to think. I find, and I daresay 
 you find, that as one grows older one grows 
 gentler in judgment of others." 
 
 The only shade of a shadow of difference 
 between us made its faint outline some time 
 before this, and it arose from my taking huff 
 at some fancied slight, and writing to convey 
 a sense of huffiness. The answer, giving in 
 few words a complete explanation, ended with
 
 Impressions of Henry Irving i 3 5 
 
 " I hope to see you at the theatre to-morrow 
 night. And drop, old fellow, the Saturday 
 Review sarcasm when you write to your old 
 friend, Henry Irving." 
 
 As in human afifairs, his judgment in literature 
 was at once catholic and considered. He had 
 on occasions the conviction and the courage 
 of a heretic. One night at my father's house 
 the subject of Otway's tragedy, Venice Preserved, 
 came up in talk. 
 
 There were some who cried down the anti- 
 quated quality of the play : Irving spoke elo- 
 quently in defence of its beauties, and, finding 
 that there was a copy of it easily accessible 
 in the house, proceeded to read from it a 
 passage which was a favourite with him, and 
 which certainly showed the perhaps too-for- 
 gotten Otway at his best. Yet I thought then, 
 as I do now, that Irving read more into it, 
 in a double sense, than one might perceive in 
 quiet perusal. At the time he had a transient 
 thought of reviving the play, but this, for 
 good or for ill, was afterwards abandoned. 
 
 When, on the production of Dante at his 
 first Drury Lane season, we met, after a long 
 interval of personal separation, he greeted me —
 
 136 Impressions of Henry Irving 
 
 and is there any surer touch of sympathy — 
 as if resuming a conversation. " I need not 
 ask you/' he said, "for your opinion of the 
 play. With all respect to the author, it is 
 not a play for English audiences. And its 
 lack of cohesion gives me double and treble 
 work. I can never for a moment take my 
 hands off the reins." 
 
 Yet, fully feeling this, he had such an ad- 
 miration for Sardou's just fame that, as he 
 then told me, he intended to take Dante as 
 his one and only equipment on his forth- 
 coming American tour. 
 
 Dante, admirably translated by Mr. Laurence 
 Irving, had a great success at Drury Lane, 
 where Irving was received as a most honoured 
 guest ; but it was, in truth, a success achieved 
 by the actor in the teeth of the author, and 
 American audiences displayed, I cannot but 
 think, a true critical sense in showing quickly 
 their opinion that a better vehicle for Irving's 
 conception of Dante's personality might have 
 been found. It was, in bald truth, a desperately 
 tedious play, overladen with absolutely incon- 
 sequent characters and situations at such length 
 and to such an extent that I do not believe
 
 Impressions of Henry Irving i 37 
 
 anything short of Irving's determination and 
 dominance could have carried it to the success 
 which it obtained in London. So far as he 
 and students of dramatic art were concerned, 
 it had a particular value in showing the results 
 of his constant study. His Dante was an 
 impressive and living figure wherein was no 
 restlessness either of speech or of gesture. 
 
 It was, however, in his last appearances, 
 again at Drury Lane, in London, that the 
 stride he had made in mastery over his art 
 was most noticeable. In the part of Shylock, 
 to take one instance, he had a new and com- 
 manding tranquillity, and in the great scene 
 with Tubal, where there had been in old days 
 some sense that the actor was obtaining effect 
 at the expense of art, there was now a secured, 
 and for that more masterful, rendering of the 
 bewilderingly changing emotions. In short, 
 strength had completely taken the place of 
 violence. 
 
 But the greatest, and not perhaps the most 
 
 obvious, change was to be seen in his playing 
 
 of Becket. The part was one in which he 
 
 had from the first shown a fine restraint, but 
 
 this was now much more marked than before. 
 
 K
 
 138 Impressions of Henry Irving 
 
 The quiet commanding figure of the great 
 Churchman seemed to fill and hold the whole 
 theatre. The very stillness of repressed passion 
 had a more compelling effect than any out- 
 burst of emotion could have given. 
 
 As regards Becket, I have said before that 
 the play and the part had a strange influence 
 over Irving. It was not to me, but to my 
 wife, that he once said that no dramatic poetry 
 and no character had ever so influenced him. 
 And when asked if this excluded older and 
 greater names he reiterated his faith. "You 
 know," my wife said, " that people talk of your 
 having 'made' the play." His reply was em- 
 phatic. " No, no," he said, " the play made 
 me. It changed my whole view of life." 
 
 The last time we saw Henry Irving was in 
 our little country garden. Walter Collinson, 
 his constant and devoted personal attendant, 
 had come over two days before from Farnham 
 to prepare us for a visit from him, and yet he 
 took us quietly by surprise, finding his way 
 as if by instinct to the garden, which he had 
 never seen, where we were, instead of making 
 his arrival known at the door. For a long 
 time we sat quietly there, talking over old
 
 Impressions of Henry Irving 1 3 9 
 
 times and recent changes. He was rather 
 subdued, but charming as ever, with flashes 
 of his old humour in face and voice, as when 
 he had a momentary difficulty with the spring 
 of his pocket match-box. Thereon I Hghted 
 and handed to him a " flaming vesta " for his 
 cigar. It proved, however, more of an em- 
 barrassment than of a help ; and " I don't 
 understand these fireworks," he said, with a 
 smile, as he dropped the little torch, and 
 then wrestled again, successfully, with his own 
 match-box. 
 
 Presently he carried us off to "The Swan," 
 at Alton, to dinner. It is by no means always 
 the case that the joy of old times can be 
 successfully reproduced. No sooner, however, 
 had we sat down to dinner, luckily served in 
 a room full of really old fittings such as he 
 delighted in, than, as if by a motion of 
 Prospero's staff, he called up from the past, 
 without a change, one of our old meetings of 
 three in the days when he used to come back 
 to our house in London after the theatre. 
 Without a sign of effort he became, as of 
 yore, animated, joyous, full of reminiscence, 
 anecdote, good-humoured mimicry. The ball
 
 140 Impressions of Henry Irving 
 
 of conversation never hung doubtful, and 
 never rolled more smoothly and delightfully. 
 He was to have stayed the night at the hotel, 
 and gone for a drive with us the next 
 morning. Some business, however, connected 
 with his company, for whose welfare he was 
 ever solicitous, took him back to London that 
 night. We saw him to the station, and as 
 we ^drove away he was standing erect and 
 framed, an impressive figure, in the doorway, 
 waving us a good-bye. As we went home my 
 wife and I could not but agree, with mis- 
 giving, that there had been a strange note of 
 presage in his last-spoken farewell. Strange ? 
 Not so maybe, for the men of poetry and 
 power have a vision clearer than that given to 
 the most of mortals. 
 
 FINIS. 
 
 Printed by Ballantyne, Hanson b* Co. 
 Edinburgh ^ London 
 
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