THE ACTOR #• JHE ACTOR AND OTHER SPEECHES CHIEFLY ON THEATRICAL SUBJECTS AND OCCASIONS BY WILLIAM WINTER NEW-YORK THE DUNLAP SOCIETY 1891 9-^ r SANTA BARBARA COLLEGE L. TO ELLEN TERRY, REMEMBERING GREAT KINDNESS IN DARK DAYS, AND WITH GRATITUDE FOR MUCH HAP- PINESS, BESTOWED EQUALLY BY HER GENTLE FRIENDSHIP AND HER ILLUSTRIOUS GENIUS, I DEDICATE THIS BOOK, WHICH, BEARING HUMBLE TRIBUTE TO THE GREATEST ACTRESS OF THE AGE, WILL DE- RIVE WORTH AND DIGNITY FROM ASSOCIATION WITH HER LOVED AND HONORED NAME. WILLIAM WINTER. In praising A more t we can?iot err : No tongue overvalues heaven, or flatters her I' JDrcfacc. IT has been my for time, fnore by chatice than by de- sign, to deliver many speeches and poems on dramatic and other occasions. Many of those speeches were extempo- raneous, and as they were not reported they perished as soon as they were spoken. One of thetn, an oration on " The Press and the Stage," was delivered before The Goethe Society, at the Brunswick Hotel, New- York, January 28, 1889, and it has been piiblished in a sep- arate volume. In compliance with the request of com- rades in The Dunlap Society a few of the others are brought together here. The longest and most important of thcfn relates to " The Actor, and His Duty to His Time." This was read before a large assemblage of actors, at Palmer's Theater, and as it contains unwel- come truths it was received partly with approval and partly with disfavor. An ex-governor of Massachusetts, commenting upoji it, has kindly explained that the admitted evils under which American civilization unde- niably suffers, and which have injuriously affected the American stage, are due to inordinate rapidity in the advancement of art and science among the Americati people. My readers will, no doubt, be as much cheered as I was by that sagacious and patriotic explanation. The companion speeches, having been carefully thought out, were partly improvised and partly spoken from mem- ory. The poems that I have delivered on dramatic occasions ivill be found in the edition of my writings, — including " Wanderers" " Shakspere's England^' and '• Gray Days and Gold" — published by David Douglas, of Edinburgh, and Macmillan, of New -York. IV. W. Fort Hill, Neiu Brighton, Staten Island, June ig, i8gi. CONTENTS. The Actor. The Actor and His Duty to His Time i The Critic 26 The Comedian. A Tribute to Lester Wal- LACK 35 Sir Perceval. A Tribute to Lester Wallack 42 The Comrade. American and English Fel- lowship in Art 44 The Tragedian. A Tribute to Edwin Booth 52 The Poet 57 The Journalist. A Tribute to Whitelaw Reid . ., 62 The Friend. Eulogy upon Henry Edwards 75 Cije Victor AND OTHER SPEECHES. THE ACTOR AND HIS DUTY TO HIS TIME. an address delivered before the actors' fund society, at palmer's theater, N. Y. JUNE 4, 1889. IT is an honorable privilege as well as a great plea- sure to share in the proceedings of this delightful occasion. Dull indeed would be the spirit that could not be impressed by the intrinsic loveliness and the artistic meaning of this imposing scene ; by the pres- ence of this remarkable assemblage, remarkable equally for genius, intellect, beauty, sensibility, noble achieve- ment, exalted character, and auspicious promise; and by conscious and thrilling perception of that noble and beautiful art, the art of acting, of which this assemblage is the visible sign. (Once again is exemplified here the puissant and perpetual charm of the stage, its ever- changing but never-dying sway over the fickle multi- tude, whereby an actor's prosperity is obtained and assured, and its placid dominion, held as with a scepter of roses, over the educated mind, the refined taste, the I 2 €f)c Victor, comprehending spirit, the adequate and responsive heart, whereby an actor's fame is clearly defined and permanently established. Back of this occasion stand the prosperity and renown of the American drama. There are observers who always take a despondent view of the condition of our theater. In each succeed- ing period of dramatic history contemporary writers are found who declare that the stage is in a decline and is much inferior to what it was in earlier and better days. No doubt its condition has always fluc- tuated, and no doubt in this respect the future will re- semble the past. But there never was any warrant for the proclamation of a hopeless theatrical decline. Such lamentations have always proceeded from ideal- ists. Their error consists in the wrong custom of judg- ing exclusively by the standard of the scholar and the man of taste an institution that can only exist when it is made to please and satisfy many classes of people. We do not take the opinion of the multitude upon such a subject, for example, as the poetry of Shelley or the painting of Murillo; but to a certain judicious and well-considered extent we must take it upon the ques- tion of the acted drama. It is the presence of this element which has inspired a long line of Jeremiahs in their irrational moans over the alleged fatal degradation of the drama. If there was an audience for the flippant levity of Foote and the bovine drollery of Tate Wilkin- son, there was also an audience for the aerial intellect, the glittering comedy, the tragic fire, and the exquisite pathos of Garrick. The horse-dramas that were shown at Drury Lane in the palmy days did not finally invali- €j)c sector* date the sovereignty of Mrs. Siddons or the glory of her companion monarchs, the princes of the proud house of Kemble. Edmund Kean held his scepter notwith- standing " Catalini's pantaloons." The same journals of the passing hour that record a long and remuner- ative currency for The Parlor Match, or The Kitchen Poker, or The Old Hen-Coop, or The Hole in Uncle John's Sunday Breeches must also record that Edwin Booth is sometimes paid ten thousand dollars for one week of his Shaksperian acting; that Joseph Jefferson finds throughout America a practical response for dra- matic art as perfect in form as even the best of exigent Paris, and refined with a poetic spirituality to which the stage of Paris is a stranger; that Mary Anderson acts for a whole season to crowded houses at the London Lyceum Theater in a Shaksperian comedy ; that Henry Irving and Ellen Terry have had three long seasons of splendid prosperity upon the American stage, giving only plays of the highest order, and giving them only in the best manner ; that under the management of Albert M. Palmer a single good play, in three seasons out of five, runs through the whole of a theatrical year in New York; that Ada Rehan, playing Shakspere's Shrew, has been as eagerly accepted as ever Peg Woffington was in Wildair or Louisa Nisbett in Rosalind ; and that Augustin Daly not long ago obtained a brilliant career of nearly fourscore nights for that most delicate and evanescent of dramatic compositions, "A Mid- summer Night's Dream." It is true that in the present period, which is one of turbulent democratic upheaval, the social cauldron is boiling with such furious impetu- 4 €ijc %ctot. osity that the dregs often come to the surface and for a while remain there. It is true that a potential factor in contemporary civilization is mediocrity, and that under the influence of that malign and stupefying force venerable and noble ideas are for a while discarded or modified. But when allowance has been made for every qualification it remains a truth that the stage was never so great or so powerful in this republic as it is to-day, and never before so capable of wielding a superb influence upon the advancement of society. The word that ought to be spoken here and now is, nevertheless, a word of warning. In the period of nearly thirty years during which I have been a con- tinuous writer about the stage it has seldom been my fortune to write anything that was intended specially for actors. My writings have been intended for the public, and they have been prompted and guided by an ardent desire to broaden and deepen a thoughtful public interest in the stage. There are many and various benefits to be derived by the community from an appreciative and sympathetic intimacy with the art of acting, and with dramatic literature ; and it seems to me that the duty of a theatrical essayist is to indi- cate what and where those benefits are, and to urge and entice the people to obtain tliem. Many other views are taken of the vocation of criticism, but this will be found a practical and useful one. Every effort is propitious for the general welfare which tends to dignify the popular estimate of the theater; for Tit should never be forgotten that an institution, like an individual, may be prominent and influential without €l)c 311ctor» 5 being either rightly understood or properly respected., In John Gay's comedy of " Three Hours after Mar- riage " it is said that " a parrot and a player can both utter human sounds, but we allow neither of them to be a judge of wit." The old view of the stage — much as the stage was followed and enjoyed — is often a blandly tolerant and half-contemptuous view. To adjust that mistaken estimate — which is still ex- tant — to assist in the education of public opinion respecting the intellectual aspects of the acted drama is a worthy mission for a theatrical writer. He mis- takes his function when he assumes the attitude of an instructor to the players. He should no more under- take to teach an actor the art of acting than he should undertake to teach a doctor the science of medicine or to teach a lawyer the science of law. In address- ing my observations to you, the representatives and guardians of the acted drama, I am speaking not as an instructor but as an observer stationed in the outer circle of theatrical affairs. Great and potent as the stage now is in America, it is not as beneficent as it ought to be, and therefore a word of warning may properly be spoken with reference to the duty of the actor to his time. The period of national development through which we are passing is strongly marked by two character- istics — cynical levity and a studious but insincere and unscrupulous consideration of popular caprice. Almost everybody makes light of almost everything. The young people, upon whom modesty would sit with so much grace and sweetness, are too often 6 €l)c 5Cftor. " smart " and pert. Their elders, whom charity and gentleness should adorn with cheerful composure, are too often fretful and harsh with distrust and sarcasm. No historic career, no personal character, no principle of action, no occurrence of life is so serious that it cannot be made the subject of a jest. Slang is printed in almost every newspaper and spoken in almost every drawing-room. The mind of the nation is tinged with a jocose and vulgar humor, and the voice of the nation is raucous with a rude hilarity. You may hear, indeed, if you will pause to listen, the hum of industry, the fine poetic murmur of reverence and aspiration, and faint and far away the gentle note of worship, the mellow music of the bells of God; but the prevalent and almost the overwhelming sound is the sound of the guffaw. Beneath this boisterous joviality there is a spirit — not universal, but widely diffused — of crafty and sordid selfishness. The tone of our politics is mercenary and mean. Accepted, practised, and ap- proved methods of our business partake of an indirec- tion which certainly is incompatible with a fine sense of honor. Agnosticism has so shaken the fabric not merely of creeds (which can well be spared, and which are destined to perish) but of spiritual faith and love, that to thousands of persons religion, ceasing to be a refuge and an anchor, has become merely a fashion of vacant ceremonial. In many directions luxury is rampant, and in all directions it is passionately desired. The mood of the populace (notwithstanding the awful admonitory fact that the American republic had not existed one hundred years before it was convulsed by the most hideous civil war of which history makes any record) is a mood of vainglorious complacency ; and in this the people are stimulated to the utmost by the American press. We hear continually of the rights of man but almost never of his duties. Foreign elements, seditious, boisterous, dangerous, actively pernicious in many ways, and made potential through abuse of the suffrage, largely affect or entirely control the disposition of our practical affairs. Public office, the chief object of political intrigue, and not infrequently made a commodity for barter and sale, is often perverted in its functions and disgraced in its incumbents. An insane greed for sudden wealth startles the observer by its prevalence and its rapacity. Youth is trained to acquire the rewards of industry and enterprise, not by prudent, patient, and continuous toil, but by craft or the strong hand. Manners — the final and perfect flower of noble character and a fine civilization — are so completely overwhelmed by violent and boisterous vulgarity and insensate hardness that they can scarcely be said to exist; while refinement, which is the essen- tial comfort and charm, and which ought to be prized and guarded as the crown and consummate glory of social life, is oppressed and insulted at every turn. Haste and strife, fiurry and racket convulse the towns and madden the population. Men and women are hustled and packed into the public conveyances as if they were cattle in a pen. The sanctity of the indi- vidual is not merely disregarded, it is unknown: Reckless newspapers print whatever they please, and the honest man, bemired by their abuse, who proceeds 8 €jjc 511ftor» against any of them for libel is ridiculed as an over- sensitive fool. The book-stalls teem with fiction that is either erotic delirium or sentimental rubbish. Thir- ty-five years ago a woman was thought to be courage- ous who dared to read the novel of " Jane Eyre." To- day the loathsome feculence and hideous moral leprosy of the novels of Emile Zola may be seen in public places, borne in the hands even of young girls. The spectacles that are still admired as architecture elude specification and are indeed too terrible for words. The sounds to which we listen unmoved would deafen or would destroy any other people outside of China or Madagascar. The morning, noonday, and evening steam-whistle rising from a thousand able-bodied boilers ; the intermittent tooting of a hundred aerial locomotives ; the clank and rattle of incessant railway trains in the air and tramway cars in the shattered and jagged streets; the pounding of heavy trucks over broken pavements ; the clangor of dissonant church bells ; the strident blast of the ubiquitous and incessant hand-organ; and the rasping yell of the hcensed ven- der — they are all here: so that often, after listening for a day and a night to the infernal din of this capital, I think that New York has become what the great orator Rufus Choate declared Boston Common would become if ever the occupation of it should be granted to the acquisitive desire of the Providence Railway Company, " At present," he said, " it is a peaceful pleasure-ground, wherein your citizens can walk abroad and recreate themselves. Grant it to this cor- poration, and what follows ? ^tna — Vesuvius — Stromboli — Cotopaxi — Hell." €j)c 3llctot» 9 The sentiment of patriotism is a noble and lovely- sentiment, but it cannot be nurtured by self-deception. Undoubtedly the shield has two sides. There are great and auspicious elements in our civilization, and since the web and woof of our time are woven of va- rious colors the fabric shows bright as well as dark. The beautiful observation of Charles Reade is as true of our people as it is of any other : " Not a day passes over the earth but men and women of no note do great deeds, speak great words, and suffer noble sorrows." If it were not so the battle would be lost already, and further struggle would be useless. But these things that I have named exist, and they indicate a tendency in the drift of our time — by no means historically new, but as dangerous as ever — against which every intel- lectual force of the age, either directly or indirectly, ought to be arrayed. (There are two institutions which, beyond all others, indicate the condition of the pubHc mind, and which, equally beyond all others, afifect its tone and influence its movement. Those two institutions are the news- paper and the stage. The supreme and universal rulers of human conduct are woman, vanity, money, political ambition, and religious fanaticism; but among specific social forces the newspaper and the stage tran- scend all others in their reflex bearing and their direct power upon the community; and for that reason a greater responsibility rests upon them than upon any of their associate forces, with reference to the intellectual, moral, and spiritual advancement of the human race. Each stands in the same environment and each is con- fronted by the same problem. When your existence lo Z^c ^ctor. depends upon a perfectly harmonious adjustment of yourself to the needs and the pleasures of the people, to how great an extent will you defer to the drift of the popular mood ? For you who are actors and man- agers, and therefore the representatives and guardians of the acted drama, the question is a vital one. Your temptation is to fool " the many-headed beast " to the top of his bent ; and thereupon your danger is, in the fierce strife of competitive endeavor and under the im- perative need of instant success, that you will end by surrendering your authority altogether into the hands of the mob. To some extent, within the last thirty years, that surrender has already been made. It is about the period of one generation now since Dion Boucicault made the first specimen of the "Sensation Drama " and invented and proclaimed that epithet to designate a new school of art. Next came the lascivious charm and wanton allurement of the Opera Bouflfe, embodied in Tostee and conducted by Bateman. Rapidly after that the semi-nude burlesque was enthroned, with Lydia Thompson for its empress and Samuel Colville for its prophet ; while William Wheatley, with the glit- tering spectacle of the " Black Crook," revived and im- planted upon the American stage the same voluptuous and mischievous pageantry that Sir William Davenant, two hundred and fifty years ago, conveyed into London from the theater of France. Then for a while the drift was in favor of tainted French dramas on the ever- lasting theme of incontinence in the state of marriage. Sentimental farces fcUowed, and after them the deluge. Of late the current runs to horse-play and the " real €1^ %tUit. II tubs " of Mr. Crummies, and the enraptured multitude is thrilled to behold an actual woman swimming in an actual tank of water, or an actual fire-engine dragged across the stage almost as swiftly as it can be dragged in the street, and with almost as much racket. These are some of the results of an uncompromising submis- sion to the popular lead, which almost always is ignoble, irrational, casual, and wrong. In this submission many of the newspapers of America have set a pernicious and deplorable example ; but this fact, while it makes the duty of the actor to his time more arduous, should also make it more evident and more imperative. That duty is to check and withstand as much as possible the gross, leveling, degrading influences of excessive de- mocracy, — which tend to blight everything with the baleful tyranny of the commonplace, — and to instil, to protect, and to maintain purity, sweetness, and re- finement in our feelings, our manners, our language, and our national character. The common precept, the precept of the shopkeeper in dramatic art, is spoken every day: " Give them what they want." The higher and better precept, the precept of the moralist, would enjoin you to " give them what they ought to have." Which is the better counsel ? and to which of these voices will you listen ? Tlhe welfare of the people in every age is committed as a sacred trust to the best in- tellect of the time, ) A part of that responsibility rests on you, and it can only be evatied by the sacrifice of the institution that is your life. If the shopkeeping spirit is permitted absolutely to prevail, if you yield more and more and more to the caprice of the thought- 12 €f)c 3ilctor. less multitude, while you will not destroy the stage (because the art of acting is immortal), you will help to bring upon it another blight of decrepitude, another season of dullness and decay, such as followed the orgies of the Restoration in England toward the end of the seventeenth century, or such as attended the general col- lapse of dramatic art in America about sixty years ago. Vulgus vult decipi : decipiatur ! That was the haughty, unsympathetic, contemptuous doctrine of ancient cyn- ical philosophy (" the common people like to be fooled : fooled let them be"), and under its malign influence, the few taking heed only of themselves and leaving the many to folly and riot, the great Roman Empire slowly crumbled into pieces like a moth-eaten garment. Surely for you, the leaders of thought in your domain, there is a nobler principle than that old Latin sneer. In the lofty elegiac lines that Matthew Arnold wrote ui)on the tomb of his illustrious father in Rugby Chapel none is more touching or more significant than the proud and tender exclamation, " Thou, my father, wouldst not be saved alone." While the late Lord Beaconsfield — a great man — was Prime Min- ister of England, every essential measure of national policy, it is said, was originated and prompted by him ; yet in every case its inception and pursuance appeared to have been suggested to him by her Majesty Queen Victoria. It is within your province undoubtedly, in dealing with the sovereign people, to give them what they want; but it is within the power of your intellect, your knowledge of human nature and of the world, your wisdom and dexterity and tact, to make them €^c Victor. 13 want what they ought to have, and to make them think, when you provide it, that they have asked you to do so. This is the duty of the actor to his time — and his duty is Ukevvise his interest.^) The stage has generally needed popular support, but it has never prospered under popular dominion. In Greece, for example, nearly twenty-three hundred years ago, when the theater established by ^schylus and nurtured by Pericles had reached and passed its high- est phase, there came that memorable period of popular license and misrule when the multitude had supreme power over the state and when the idol of the multi- tude was the ribald Aristophanes. You are familiar with the hideous and pathetic story of the persecution and murder of Socrates. The " Clouds " and the " Birds " have survived to our day, and it is easy to perceive at once their caustic wit and their pernicious influence. Sophocles and Euripides were derided. Everything venerable and noble was covered with ridicule. The reputation of individuals was assailed without truth or mercy and defamed without humanity or limit. The peace of families was ruthlessly destroyed. The very magistrates who sanctioned the appearance of the com- edians were publicly lampooned and insulted. The gods themselves were flouted. The mob had what it wanted, and the theater became a mere conduit for comic libel and vulgar mirth, while dramatic art was submerged in ribald licentiousness and scurrilous in- decency. To such a depth indeed was the Grecian stage degraded by this supremacy of the popular taste, misled by a brilliantly wicked humorist, that even the 14 €1)C %ttot. transcendent genius of Menander, rising in the next age, could scarcely redeem it from settled ignominy and disgrace. In Italy, where the dramatic revival began in the thirteenth and culminated in the fifteenth century, there came a season of democratic experi- ment and disorder about the middle of the seven- teenth, when the theater was left unprotected to the popular caprice ; and from that time onward for fifty years nothing was seen upon it but coarse Spanish farces — the paltry one-act buffooneries with which the Spanish stage began but which in that period it had outgrown. Kindred illustrations might readily be drawn from the history of the theater in France and England. Look into the lives of Fleury and Macklin and Fennell and Edmund Kean; look into Jackson's account of the Scottish stage and Hitch- cock's account of the stage in Ireland, and your right- eous indignation is more than once aroused at the spectacle of popular tyranny overriding and degrading the stage. On the other hand, (the best periods in the history of the drama have been those periods when it has been closely affiliated with the highest, because the ablest and most refined, classes of intellectual society — for these could guide and stimulate and govern its powers and its beauties, and, by the force of fashion and example, could lead the multitude in their train^ The Shaksperian audience was an audience that would listen to poetry, and was capable of understanding and appreciating great and beautiful things. In that fer- tile and sumptuous period of English dramatic liter- ature extending from 1580 to 1640 it accepted and Cjjc ^ctor. 15 enjoyed not only the incomparable grandeur, beauty, and truth of Shakspere, but the stormy splendor of Marlowe, the funeral pomp and somber pageantry of Webster, the lovely simplicity of Heywood, the passion and pathos of Ford, the indolent, affluent grace and music of Dekker, the strong thought and trenchant and vibrant verse of Massinger, the noble repose and copi- ous emotion of Middleton, and, above all, the wonder- ful feeling, depth, eloquence, variety, and loveliness of Beaumont and Fletcher. No such body of litera- ture had been created before, and nothing like it has been created since. Creative art, indeed, is in no sense a result of environment : its impulse proceeds out of the great central heart of Nature. But in those " spacious days of great Elizabeth " the plays were not only written — they were acted and received. They had a public. The stage flourished because the finest intelligence and feeling in the English nation fostered and guarded it, and the multitude was lifted to the level of Spenser and Sidney and Raleigh — "Of those great spirits who went down like suns And left upon the mountain -tops of death A light that made them lovely." Upon that high level the people do not habitually stand, and it would be folly to assume that they do. 'But there are noble elements and grand possibilities in human nature; to that high level the people can be lifted, and it is the duty of every intellectual man, and therefore of the actor, to lead them upward.' Much is accomplished when the stage is made and 1 6 €(jc ^Crtoc, kept important — as Edwin Booth and Henry Irving and Augustin Daly and Albert M. Palmer and Law- rence Barrett have made and kept it — in the esteem of the best contemporary minds. Every student of its his- tory knows that it has always been a thing of moods, now exalted and now depressed, but of late years, when viewed apart from all parasitic entertainments, steadily in the ascendant. The time was when the wise and gentle Charles Lamb expressed a mild astonishment that a person capable of remembering and repeating the words of Shakspere should for that reason be sup- posed to possess a mind congenial with that of the poet. Such an idea surprises nobody now. ^Modern thought has recognized that the actor is a mental and spiritual force ; that he is intimately connected with the cause of public education; that he is not a parrot and not simply an interpreter; that he brings something of his own; that although the poet provides the soul it is the actor who must provide the body ; and that without having the body as well as the soul you can- not have dramatic representations or the benefit of the dramatic art^ This righteous illumination of modern thought, however, with reference to the pro- fession of acting is not yet absolutely complete. The fact that the stage now stands upon the same level with the other learned professions has not yet become permanently imbedded in the spontaneous convic- tions of society. Little denotements frequently occur that the ultra-respectable and conventional mind of our time is still disturbed and twisted upon this sub- ject. Bigotry dies hard. In 1832 the Harrisburg €!jc Victor. 17 clergyman who read the burial service over the re- mains of Joseph Jefferson, the great comedian of that period (an actor as noble and famous as his illustrious and beloved descendant in our generation), altered the text of that service so as to say " this man " instead of " our deceased brother " in the sentence which commits the body to the ground. In 1870 the Rev. Mr. Sabine, of New York, refused to open his church for the funeral of that venerated actor George Holland ; bestowing as he did so, by a single fortunate phrase, a permanent honor upon " the little church around the corner," and making it possible for me to originate the movement known as the Holland Benefit. In 1883 a minister of the gospel in New Jersey pubHcly stigmatized a French actress, then in America, as being " as vile a hag as the sewers of Paris ever spewed into the state-room of an Atlantic steamship" — hags always coming out of sewers and the sewage system of the French capital being directly connected with ocean travel. Clarendon, the old his- torian, said that " clergymen understand the least, and take the worst measure of human affairs, of all man- kind who can read and write " ; .and perhaps you will think there is occasionally some ground for his extreme opinion. In this year 1889 the amiable and admir- able Quaker poet John G. Whittier, in a published letter, wonders whether Mrs. Langtry entertains as strong an objection to an author as he does to an actress. The incisive and trenchant writer of " Obiter Dicta" — one of the few contemporary books of real literature, rich in vital thought and therefore destined 3 i8 €l)c Victor. to survive — dismisses the profession of the actor with a civil sneer. Some of my valued friends among the scholars of this period, reading those volumes of" Brief Chronicles " in which I have endeavored to commemo- rate many of the actors of the last thirty years, have expressed to me their gentle wonder that so much labor should have been expended on such insignifi- cant persons. These are trifles; but all along the current of human life trifles disclose the involuntary views of mankind. These signs, and others like them, indicate that the ancient spirit of commingled big- otry and condescension toward the theatre, while it is dying away, is not yet dead. Seven hundred years ago, when the modem dramatic movement began in Italy and in England with the Miracle Plays, the clergy themselves were frequently the actors ; and perhaps the church has not yet forgiven the regular dramatic profession for having invaded that field and confiscated its forces and its fruits. In every period possibly — in recent times certainly — men of ability and acquirements in other walks of life have been made uncomfortable by the rapid rise, the opulent prosperity, and the dazzling renown of actors. Dr. Johnson, beside whom David Garrick, who had been his schoolboy, remained a schoolboy to the last, pos- sessed no such brilliancy of reputation in his period, and has descended in no such picturesque splendor of fame to ours, as that which David Garrick obtained and transmitted. Lowell and Holmes and Bancroft, as men of letters, have done a work of more radical and abiding value for the public than that of Jefferson or Booth; €l)e %ttot. 19 but the prevalent sentiment toward Lowell and Holmes and Bancroft is cold respect in comparison with the fervor of enthusiasm that stirs in the American heart for Jefferson and Booth. There is no reputation in mighty London at this moment so brilliant as that of Henry Irving; and this is not confined to the capital, for when, as it happened last summer, we were walking over the lonely hills of remote Westmoreland, the passengers upon every carriage that chanced to pass took off their hats to him and often cheered him by name. It is natural that " your royal preparation " should somewhat annoy the doctor of divinity and the man of science and letters. Oliver Goldsmith, it is said, was displeased because the people in somebody's drawing-room, preferring female beauty to poetical genius, looked at the lovely Horneck girls instead of looking at him. This mild competitive resentment of your ascendancy, however, is superficial, transient, and ultimately ineffective. The essential vitality of the remnant of respectable aversion to the actor still extant consists in his faults and is fed by his errors. He has allowed himself sometimes to trifle with his vocation, and in the pursuit and practical adminis- tration of the theater he does not always suffi- ciently assert the dignity and weight of intellectual character. The popular drift of the day, as I have stated, sets in the direction of jocose levity and cynical sarcasm. This note, in its proper time, place, and proportion, is amusing and perhaps salutary, but it may readily be- come immoderate, and when it is permitted in any 20 ^t %tt7- bune editorial staff so lately his — certainly one of his oldest friends — abounding and rejoicing in gentle 70 Cljc 3llctor. memories of an affectionate friendship of twenty years — I may say, with the old poet : " It should be mine to braid it Around his honored brow, — But I 've in vain essayed it. And feel I cannot now." In that enthralling scene of sable splendor which closes the sublime experience of Hamlet — when the last smile has just faded from his beautiful face and his weary heart at length rests from its long trouble — while yet the lovely farewell words of Horatio are trembling in the air — "Good night, sweet Prince! and flights of angels sing thee to thy rest! " — suddenly, to the sound of drums and trumpets, glittering in golden armor and canopied with victorious banners, stands forth the resplendent figure of Fortinbras, triumphant and potent and superb. By that pathetic and eloquent pageant the great poet marks for us, with his imperial touch and his immortal color, the contrast between the man of dreams and the man of deeds. Myself a dreamer all my life, and standing now in the shadow and among the fallen leaves, I view with ever increasing gratitude and delight the victory and prosperity of the man of action. Philos- ophy should do no injustice to that superb type of manhood and of practical force. No doubt it is a world of strife and tumult in which he lives ; but it would be a world of drift and chaos without him. You can muse in security and peace over your Mon- taigne and your Emerson, because you have had your €|)c SouniaIij0ft» ji Washington and your Grant. The career of Whitelaw Reid — a career of intellectual and of practical labor, as a man of action, extending over a period of more than thirty years — has been one incessant warfare for human rights ; and at no moment of it has he neglected to advocate any and every idea tending toward the advancement of the human race. As the animating and guiding and controlling spirit — the brain and the heart — of a great public journal, he has displayed in marvelous affluence the capacity of comprehending every condition of contemporary ex- perience, and of entering into every noble aspiration of the actual life of his time. To do this, and to con- fer upon all these aspects of general vitality and of individual character the utterance of picture and of voice — so that, whether their result be failure and ruin or victory and renown, every phase of humanity shall be shown exactly as it is in its struggle — is to be a great journalist ; and such a journalist is Whitelaw Reid. Nobody can wonder that such a man should be chosen to represent the American Republic in one of the highest and most important diplomatic stations in Europe ; and nobody can doubt that he will repre- sent the Republic there with the same calm wisdom, the same affluent and splendid ability, the same intrepid spirit, and the same unerring taste and grace and re- finement that have marked the whole of his career. Our sorrow is that we lose his guidance and com- panionship. Our joy ought to be that the seal of national approval and admiration is set upon our leader and comrade — that the verdict of our love and our judg- 72 €f)e sector* ment (although we did not need such a tribute and should esteem and cherish him just as much without it) has been ratified by the sentiment of the nation. And our joy should likewise be that a man with faculties so ripe and so superbly trained, and with a nature so re- ceptive to every broadening and ennobling influence of high thought, pure art, and a beautiful civilization, should find the field of his mental activity growing wider and wider, under the happiest auspices of ever fresh experience. No fact of life is more absolute and decisive than that of the gradual but sure isolation of the man of high intellect from the primrose paths of peace and repose. Sometimes, from his mountain height, he may look down with longing eyes into the smiling valley of contentment and rest ; but contentment and rest are not for him. His place is the place of danger and vigil. He is the true " watcher on the threshold," the sentinel on the ramparts of the new age, and into his hands are committed the destinies of his race. There is no other pathway for our friend than that pathway of circumstantial diversity and intellectual growth ; and it ought to make us proud and happy to behold him thus advanced and illustrious, playing a great part, and worthy and able to play it, and to play it greatly, upon a most brilliant theater of modern civilization. Once, at a time now seemingly far distant, it was my privilege and my happiness, in the mellow moonbeams of a beautiful summer night, to stand upon the summit of the Shakspere Cliff, at Dover, and to gaze for a long while, in voiceless reverie, upon that gaunt, mysterious coast and that romantic, shining sea. Overhead the €|)c Sfioumali^t* 73 great constellations hung in the dark blue heaven and among them the full-orbed moon kept her imperial state. Far to the left frowned the somber castle, lonely on its sequestered crag. Beneath nestled the ancient, historic city, sleeping in the moonlight. The winds were hushed. The waves were still. A few ships, floating in the Channel, like spirits seen in dreams, drifted now and then out of the shadow, glimmered a moment across the silver track of the moon, and lapsed into darkness. And far away to the southward I saw for the first time the flash of the watch-fires on the shore of France. It would be long— it would be im- possible — to tell the thoughts that made that hour for- ever glorious and memorable in my life ; but mingled with them all was the inspiring consciousness of look- ing, at last, upon the land of roses and of song, the land of love and wine, the land that was my country's friend when most a friend was needed. France has always been dear to the hearts of Americans. She will be dearer than ever to us now because her bosom will en- shrine the loved and honored friend to whom this night we say farewell. Because in danger's darkest hour. When heart and hope sank low, She nerved our frail and faltering power To brave its mightiest foe; Because our fathers smiled to see Her golden lilies dance O'er the proud field that made us free, We plight our faith to France ! 74 €l)c 5l!ftor. Ah, grand and sweet the holy bond That who gives all is blest ! And Love can give no pledge beyond The life she loves the best ! That pledge these hallowed rites declare Of choice and not of chance, — And he shall cross the sea to bear Our loyal hearts to France ! Strong, tender, gentle, patient, wise, Brave soul and constant mind. True wit, that kindles as it flies And leaves no grief behind, — Be thine to wear the snowy plume And poise the burnished lance — Our rose of chivalry, to bloom Among the knights of France ! Be thine the glorious task to speed The conquering age of gold — Till ravaged peace no more can bleed, And History's muse behold Borne in the vanward, fast and far. Of the free world's advance. Blent with Columbia's bannered star, The triple stripes of France ! €|)e 5Fnatb. EULOGY UPON HENRY EDWARDS* AN ADDRESS DELIVERED AT THE FUNERAL OF HENRY EDWARDS, COMEDIAN, AT 185 EAST Ii6tH STREET, NEW-YORK, JUNE II, 1 89 1. I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me : Write, Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord, from henceforth. Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors ; and their works do follow them. They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more, neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat. There shall be no more death, neither sorrow nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain; for the former things are passed away. Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them. For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of water, and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes. ''I^HE Bible belongs not to the Church, but to the JL world. In those touching words which are taken from it — words which are inspired, precisely as the words of Shakspere are often inspired, with the glow * Henry Edwards, comedian, was born at Ross, in Wales, September 3, 1824, and died at No. 185 East Ii6th Street, New- York, on the night of June 8, 1891. He was an actor almost all 75 76 €lje 3Cctor» and the grandeur of imaginative insight — the old Hebrew poet has expressed the conviction of per- sonal immortality and of an existence of happiness beyond the grave which is at once the consummate product and the sustaining impulse of the human mind. If the voice that here is hushed forever could but speak in these obsequies, if the eyes that here are closed in death could but look upon this scene, the faith that we all ought to cherish would be made a living word; the hope that ought to sustain us would be flashed into every heart. In the religion of creed and dogma — in what is called " revealed religion " — meaning thereby the religion which depends upon printed documents and which might be seriously im- periled, if not overthrown, by typographical mistakes — the friend for whom we mourn did not put his trust. He was, nevertheless, a deeply religious man. He knew that the intuitions of the human soul, the analo- gies of nature, and the testimonies of literature (which is the highest expression of humanity) pomt to one and the same conclusion, personal immortality and his life. In New-York he was associated with Wallack's Theater, from November 7, 1879, to 1887. His last appearance on the stage was made, with Mr. Daly's company, at the Academy of Music, Brooklyn, April 30, 1891, as Adam in "As You Like It." He particularly excelled in the line of old men. He was the author of a book of sketches and addresses entitled, " A Mingled Yarn." It was by his wish and the request of his widow that the funeral services over his remains were conducted by me. His body was taken to the crematory at Fresh Pond, Long Island, immediately after the funeral and there incinerated. €J)c f ricnb, 77 continuous, unending development. He knew that to be the logic of the universe. He believed that, and he lived in accordance with his belief. Purity, charity, kindness, and noble aspiration were the laws of his life. In a conversation about actors and their religious views that I once had with the Rev. Dr. Bellows, he spoke especially of Joseph Jefferson, in whose char- acter and art he was deeply interested, and he asked me this question : " Is he a Christian ? " " He is not," I replied, *' a member of any Christian church, but he has passed his life in helping other people and in doing good." And the Rev. Dr. Bellows answered : " That is the best kind of Christian and good enough for me." I wish that I could say anything that would give even a little comfort to the heart-broken woman who here mourns for her lover, her husband, her friend, her companion of many years, whom in this world she will see no more. We would all comfort her if we could. But all that we can tell her is that we also loved him and that our tears are mingled with hers. We know, and we would beg her to remember, not only that he was tender and loving, but that always, in every hour of their wedded life and love, she was a comfort and blessing to him. No duty was left un- done by her, no word of love unspoken, no kindness unbestowed. She must weep for him because she loved him, and because he is parted from her. But she is spared the most desolate of all sorrow — the remorseful, hopeless, bitter grief that brings its wither- ing roses and its useless tears to a gravestone. 78 Zi^e 5Cctor. I wish that I could express the feehngs of these mourning friends, their grief for the loss of this good man, their deep sense of his nobility, his splendid talents, his worthy achievements in art and literature and science, his potent excellence as an example, his charm as a comrade, his simple dignity and his fidelity and sweetness. But no words are adequate in such moments as this to the craving of love and honor for eulogy of the dead. Let me simply say that the reasons we have for pride in the remembrance of Henry Edwards are reasons for our consolation in the loss of him. He was not cut off in the morning of his days, with all the happiness and renown of a good and great life unrealized and unachieved. He had lived almost to the usual limit of human existence. Born near the birthplace of David Garrick, he early evinced a deep sympathy with the dramatic art, of which Gar- rick still remains the most illustrious representative. While yet a youth he drifted to Australia and there formally adopted the profession of the stage. From Australia he drifted to California, constantly prospering as actor, orator, and scientist, prospering ever more and more in his conquest of the esteem and affection of gentle people. From California he came to this Atlan- tic seaboard, and here he took and steadily held, in the highest of our theaters, his professional rank with the foremost and the best. Not a creative actor, but rather the product of scholarship and tradition, he represented not the original genius of the stage, but its versatile proficiency and fine conservatism. He did not astonish and dazzle ; he satisfied. His attributes were €l)c fticnb. 79 intellectual character, taste, humor, and tenderness, and the blended charm of these was enhanced by a dignified personality and by that fine distinction of manner which is the flower of innate simplicity and courtesy. His career of more than sixty years marks the ample development of his character and the beneficent, beau- tiful, and admirable fulfilment of his destiny. All that it was in him to accomplish had been accomplished. His work in this world was done, and his long life — blessed with love, rewarded with success, and crowned with honor — was without one blemish. What richer legacy than that could talent and virtue leave to be- reaved affection and faithful memory ! Equally in life and in art success is dependent on sincerity and sympathy. Henry Edwards was genuine and human. I do not suppose that any one to whom he was known ever thought of him without a sudden feeling of kindness and pleasure. The mention of his name always brought a smile. Twenty-two days ago I clasped his hand for the last time. He was at once to go away and we were to meet no more. I remember — and I rejoice to remember — that he produced upon my mind then the self-same impression that he had produced at every meeting between us during the many years of our friendship — the impression of absolute goodness, benevolence, simplicity, and truth. He was a man whom it was natural to love, for every impulse of his heart was an impulse of kindly interest in the welfare and happiness of others. And now that the smile is frozen on his face, now that the cheery voice can speak no more, now that the kind hand will never 8o €f)C %ttOt. be stretched forth again in greeting, our way grows lonely and cold. " His memory long will live alone, In all our hearts, as mournful light That broods above the fallen sun And dwells in heaven half the night." In the awful presence of death all vanity is rebuked, all pride becomes humility, all the greatness of the world is a mist that drifts away. Let us endeavor, while there is yet time, to learn the lesson of our bereave- ments, to look at death as a great and solemn fact. It draws nearer and nearer to each one of us every hour we live. " Man goeth to his long home, and the mourners go about the streets." There is no more but this. " Earth to earth. Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust." " Sleep sweetly, tender heart, in peace ! Sleep, holy spirit, blessed soul, While the stars burn, the moons increase, And the great ages onward roll." PUBLICATIONS OF THE DUNLAP SOCIETY 1886— 1887. I. The Contrast. A comedy by Royall Tyler, with an introduction by Thomas J. McKee. II. The Father, or American Shandyism. A comedy by William Dunlap, with an introduc- tion by Thomas J. McKee. III. Opening Addresses. Edited by Laurence Hutton. 1888. IV. Andr6. a tragedy in five acts, by William Dunlap, with an introduction by Brander Matthews. V. Thomas Abthorpe Cooper. A memoir of his professional Hfe, by Joseph Norton Ireland. VI. Biennial reports of the treasurer and secretary of the Dunlap Society. 1889. VII. Brief Chronicles, by William Winter, Part I. VIII. Brief Chronicles, by William Winter. Part II. IX. Charlotte Cushman, A lecture by Lawrence Barrett, with an appendix containing a letter from Joseph N. Ireland. 1890. X. Brief Chronicles, by William Winter, Partlll. XL John Gilbert. A sketch of his life, together with extracts from his letters and souvenirs of his career, by William Winter. XII. Occasional Addresses, Edited by Laurence Hutton and William Carey. 1891. XIIL The Actor and Other Speeches : Chiefly on Theatrical Subjects and Occasions, by William Winter. ?•? THE LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Santa Barbara THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE STAMPED BELOW. Series 9482 3 1205 02382 199 liiiliii AA 001 078 395 9 ^