IV.
Taking a quiet stroll along Broad street, and occasionally up and down the thoroughfares right and left, on the first Sunday afternoon of our arrival in Philadelphia, we paused once or twice to note the people coming out of church and chapel.
“You know that part of Manchester called Hulme,” said Irving. “Is not this quarter like that? Could you not fancy we were in almost any suburban part of Manchester? And the people, do you see anything in their appearance to denote that they are any other than English?”
“No; they might be a Birmingham, or a Manchester, or a Liverpool crowd.”
“Better dressed, perhaps, so far as the women go. This absence of strong contrasts between American and English is often noticeable. Nothing in that way struck me more forcibly than the Lotos-Club dinner at New York. They might have been a gathering of London clubmen, only that they all made such singularly humorous speeches. The English after-dinner oratory is more solemn. And the audience here last night,—I could not see their faces, of course; but I felt their influence, and their response to various points was very English. I am told that it is thoroughly American to hurry away the moment the curtain falls on the last act.”
“It certainly is the general practice of American audiences. An English friend of ours, and a popular comedian here, was only telling me yesterday how the habit afflicts him and his company. ‘At first,’ he said, ‘it was terrible. We thought we had utterly failed, and we shall never get used to it.’ He asked me how it affected you. I would not hurt his feelings, of course, by telling him that your audiences, so far, had waited every night to applaud, and to call you and Miss Terry, and frequently other members of your company. I said you seemed to drop into the habits of the country easily.”
“It is very generous, is it not? And I know they are making an exception with us, because my attention has been called to it so often. I drove down Chestnut street yesterday. Have you noticed what a picturesque effect, both in form and color, the signboards give to Chestnut street? And there is something very clean and homelike about the private houses,—red brick mostly, with white marble steps and green blinds. The atmosphere of the place is calmer than New York. I have been reading a new daily paper here, the ‘Evening Call,’—very odd, clever kind of paper.”
“Yes,” I said; “it is a type of quite a new departure in daily journalism. The ‘Morning Journal,’ in New York, and the ‘Evening News,’ in Chicago, are examples in point. Akin to the first idea of the ‘Figaro,’ in London, they are a little in the style of the ‘Cuckoo,’ which croaked in the London streets for a short time. They may be considered as outside the competition of the regular high-class daily journals. They occupy ground of their own. Their leading idea is to amuse, rather than to instruct. They employ humorous versifiers, story-tellers, jesters. They are the cap and bells in print, the jester, or court-fool, in newspapers; and sometimes are as personal as that very strange jester in the American play of ‘Francesca da Rimini.’ How this new form of daily journalism represents American civilization, or what side of it, is a point which Mr. Arnold or Spencer may be left to discuss. I am glad you have noticed it, because I have collected a few Philadelphian examples of its style,—bright, easy, clever, frivolous, perhaps, and sometimes a trifle broad, but full of go.”
We sat down at the hotel to look over my notes, and here are a few items from them:—
Theatre-goer.—“I notice that a favorite device with Irving in a moment of deep feeling is for him to clutch and perhaps tear open the collar or loose scarf that is around his neck.”
Scarf Manufacturer.—“Well, I declare! That is the best news that I have heard for a long time. Three cheers for Irving!”
Theatre-goer.—“Why, man, are you demented?”
Scarf Manufacturer.—“Not at all. Can’t you see? The five hundred thousand amateur actors in this country will all be imitating Irving, and the result will be the biggest kind of a boom in scarfs.”
In the same column it is announced that “James Malley wants to go on the stage,” and the editor adds, “We hope he will wait until eggs are cheaper.” “You cannot convert 15,000 tons into 20,000 tons,” is quoted as a remark of the late Lord Beaconsfield to accentuate the general grievance about short weight in coals. “Dizzy’s remark clearly shows that he knew nothing about the coal business.” Plumbers in America are subjects of much newspaper sarcasm. “Three weeks ago,” says the “Lock Haven Express” “the writer sent for a plumber, who never appeared, but yesterday he sent in his bill.” The “Call” prints this to add, “He must have been a poor sort of plumber to wait three weeks before sending in a bill.” Chicago looks down upon some of the Eastern cities, and there is a rivalry between the journals of Chicago and the cities that are scorned, which is often amusing. “The only cure for love is marriage,” says the “Call”; “the only cure for marriage, divorce. Beware of imitations; none genuine without the word ‘Chicago’ blown on the bottle.”
An imaginary description of Irving’s visit to the Rev. Ward Beecher, with an account of the family dinner and conversation, was started by one of these new daily papers, and it was repeated even by several of the more serious journals in other cities as a genuine thing. It is difficult sometimes to know when the news of some of these papers is true. Ingenious readers will probably ask in what respect they thus differ from other papers. But our satirical friends must always get in their little joke. It strikes me as a weakness, in the programme of some of the new sheets, that you should for a moment be left in doubt as to when they are in earnest and when in fun; when they are recording real events, or when they are chaffing history. Here is an extract from the report of Irving’s visit to Beecher:—
The party rested in the parlor until the dinner was ready. The conversation was of an every-day nature, and did not enter deeply either into theatricals or religion.
The party filed into the dining-room, Mr. Beecher behind, turning his cuffs end for end as he walked. In this room was a palatable show,—a big, fat goose, entrenched in gravy, and flanked by all kinds of vegetables, slept the final sleep in the centre of the table. Everything necessary accompanied the star of the feast.
“Dark meat, Miss Terry?” asked the reverend gentleman as he grasped the carver.
“If you please, with plenty of stuffing,” returned the little lady.
All were helped from the generous goose, and Mr. Beecher sat down to enjoy his reward. He is very fond of onion stuffing, and had taken care that it was not all gone before his turn came.
“This goose,” began Mr. Beecher, the bird’s biographer, “has a history. She is the seventh goose of a seventh”—
Just what the reverend gentleman was going to attribute to the goose will not be known, as just then he tasted the stuffing. There was no onion in it. A stern look came over his face, and he was on the point of saying something when he caught the warning glance from his wife’s eyes and kept quiet. Nothing was heard for ten minutes besides the tuneful play of knives, forks, and dishes. The dinner was topped off with mince and pumpkin pies, in whose favor the guests could not say too much. After dinner a quiet, enjoyable talk was indulged in. Mr. Beecher neglected his Sunday school to entertain the artists. He highly complimented Irving by telling him that he was a born preacher.
“If I were not pastor of Plymouth Church, I would be Henry Irving,” said Mr. Beecher.
“You are a born actor,” said Mr. Irving. “As for myself, there is no one I feel more inclined to envy than the pastor of Plymouth Church.”
Miss Terry was not slighted much in Mr. Beecher’s meed of praise. The topics of discussion momentarily changed from America to England and back again, both of the leading gentlemen having well-stored minds that relieved them from “talking shop.”
At four o’clock the visitors departed, carrying and leaving delightful impressions.
“Newspapers are not allowed to be noisely hawked in the streets here, I find,” said Irving; “and ticket speculators on the sidewalks are also tabooed. A little newsboy offered me a paper yesterday quite confidentially. By the way, you saw the military band belonging to “The Evening Call.” It is composed of the employés of the newspaper. It looked like a band of French guides. It serenaded Miss Terry at her hotel yesterday, and afterwards serenaded me at mine. I was just getting up. It quite affected me to hear “God save the Queen” played as finely almost as if the and of Her Majesty’s Guards were under my window.[23]