“May I tell you who I am?” he asked.
“I am sorry,” I said, “but I fear I cannot ask you till we are outside. You see, I am the person responsible for carrying out the rules of the theatre. And no matter who it may be I have to do the duty which I have undertaken.”
“You are quite right!... I shall come with pleasure!” he said with very grave and sweet politeness. When we had passed through the iron door—which had chanced to be open, and so he had found his way in—I said as nicely as I could, for his fine manner and his diction and his willingness to obey orders charmed me:
“I trust you will pardon me, sir, in case my request to leave the stage may have seemed too imperative or in any way wanting in courtesy. But duty is duty. Now will you kindly give me your name and I will go at once and ask Mr. Irving’s permission to bring you on the stage, and to see him if you will!”
“I thank you, sir!” he said; “I am the Grand Duke of Saxe-Meiningen. I am very pleased with your courtesy; and to see that you carry out orders so firmly and so urbanely. You are quite right! It is what I like to see. I wish my people would always do the same!”
LXII
CONSTANT COQUELIN (AINÉ)
Irving and Coquelin first met on the night of April 19, 1888. The occasion was a supper given for the purpose by M. L. Mayer, the impresario of French artists in London, at his house in Berners Street. Previous to this there had been a certain amount of friction between the two men. Coquelin had written an article in Harper’s Magazine for May 1897 on “Acting and Actors.” In his article he made certain comments on Irving which were—using the word in its etymological meaning—not impertinent, but were most decidedly wanting in delicacy of feeling towards a fellow artist.
Irving replied to the article in an “Actor’s Note” in the Nineteenth Century for June of the same year. His article was rather a caustic one, and in it he did not spare the player, turned critic of his fellow players.
To the “not impertinent” comments on his own method he merely alluded in a phrase of deprecation of such comments being made by one player on another. But of the theory advanced by Coquelin, in which he supported the views of Diderot, he offered a direct negative, commenting freely himself on such old-fashioned heresies.
It is but right to mention that when, some two years later, Coquelin re-published his article, with some changes and embellishments, in the Revue Illustrée, December 1889, under the title, “L’Art du Comédien,” he left out entirely the part relating to Irving.