V
On November 19, 1892, Hall Caine supped with Irving in the Beefsteak Room, bringing his young son Ralph with him. The only other guest was Sir (then Mr.) Alexander Mackenzie. It was a delightful evening, a long, pleasant, home-like chat. Irving was very quiet and listened attentively to all Caine said. The latter told us the story of the novel he had just then projected. The scene was to be laid in Cracow to which he was shortly to make his way.
Irving was hugely interested. Any form of oppression was noxious to him; and certainly the Jewish “Exodus” that was just then going on came under that heading. I think that he had in his mind the possibilities of a new and powerful play. As I said, he was most anxious to have a play by Hall Caine, and after the abortive attempt at Mahomet, he was more set on it than ever.
He had before this suggested to Caine that he should do a play on the subject of the “Flying Dutchman.” The play which he had done in 1878, Vanderdecken, was no good as a play, though he played in it admirably. For my own part I believed in the subject and always wanted him to try it again—the play, of course, being tinkered into something like good shape, or a new play altogether written. The character, as Irving created it, was there fit for any setting; and so long as the play should be fairly sufficient the result ought to be good. Irving had a great opinion of Caine’s imagination, and always said that he would write a great work of weirdness some day. He knew already his ability and his fire and his zeal. He believed also in the convincing force of the man.
VI
In 1894 Hall Caine wrote a poem called The Demon Lover, in which he found material for a play. He made a scenario, which he told rather than read to Irving after supper in the Beefsteak Room on St. Valentine’s day of the next year, 1895. Irving was much impressed by it but thought that the part would of necessity be too young for him—he was then fifty-six. He asked Caine again to try the “Flying Dutchman.”
In the June of next year 1896 we were in Manchester in the course of a tour. Hall Caine came over from the Isle of Man to stay with me, bringing with him the scenario of a play on the “Flying Dutchman” and also the scenario of a new play which he had just completed, Home, Sweet Home. He read, or rather told, me the latter with the MS. open before him. He never, however, turned the pages. The next forenoon we went by previous arrangement to Irving’s rooms at the Queen’s Hotel. There he read—or told from his script—the scenario of his play on the “Flying Dutchman.” We discussed it then, and afterwards during a carriage drive. Irving asked Caine if he could not make the character of Vanderdecken more sympathetic and less brutal at the start. Caine having promised to go into this and see what he could do, then told the story of Home, Sweet Home. Irving feared from the description that the play would not do for him. In Act I. the character was too young; in Act II. too rough; and in Act III. too tall. For his objection in the last case he gave a reason, enlightening in the matter of stagecraft:
“There is no general sympathy on the stage for tall old men!”
Finally Caine told us the story of his coming novel, which was afterwards called The Christian. He knew it in his own mind by the tentative title which he used, “Glory and John Storm.”