V
Even the thousand and one details of the business of a theatre need endless work and care—work which would in the long run shatter entirely the sensitive nervous system of an artist. In fact it may be taken for granted that no artist can properly attend to his own business. As an instance I may point to Whistler, who, long after he had made money and lost it again and had begun to build up his fortune afresh, came to me for some personal advice before going to America to deliver his “Five o’clock” discourse. In the course of our conversation he said:
“Bram, I wish I could get some one to take me up and attend to my business for me—I can’t do it myself; and I really think it would be worth a good man’s while—some man like yourself,” he courteously added. “I would give half of all I earned to such a man, and would be grateful to him also for a life without care!”
I think myself he was quite right. He was before his time—long before it. He did fine work and created a new public taste ... and he became bankrupt. His house and all he had were sold; and the whole sum he owed would, I think, have been covered by the proper sale of a few of the pictures which were bought almost en bloc by a picture-dealer who sold them for almost any price offered. He had a mass of them in his gallery several feet thick as they were piled against the wall. One of them he sold to Irving for either £20 or £40, I forget which.
This was the great picture of Irving as King Philip in Tennyson’s drama Queen Mary. It was sold at Christie’s amongst Irving’s other effects after his death and fetched over five thousand pounds sterling.
VI
During the run of Cymbeline a pause of one night was made for a special occasion. November 25, 1896, was the twenty-fifth anniversary of the first performance of The Bells, and on that memorable birth-night the performance was repeated to an immense house enthusiastic to the last degree.
After the curtain had finally fallen the whole of the company and all the employees of the theatre gathered on the stage for a presentation to Irving to commemorate the remarkable occasion. One and all without exception had contributed in proportion to their means. Most of all, Alfred Gilbert, R.A., who had given his splendid genius and much labour as his contribution. Of course on this occasion it was only the model which was formally conveyed. The form of the trophy was a great silver bell standing some two feet high, exquisite in design and with the grace and beauty of the work of a Cellini; a form to be remembered in after centuries. I had the honour of writing the destined legend to be wrought in a single line in raised letters on a band of crinkly gold on the curve of the bell. Gilbert had made a point of my writing it, and be sure I was proud to do so. It ran:
HONOUR TO IRVING THROUGH THE LOVE OF HIS COMRADES I RING THROUGH THE AGES.
Gilbert was enthusiastic about it, for he said it fulfilled all the conditions of the legend on a bell. In the first place, according to the ancient idea, a bell is a person with a soul and a thought and a voice of its own; it is supposed to speak on its own initiative. In the second place, the particular inscription was short and easily wrought and would just go all round the bell. Moreover from its peculiar form the reading of it could begin anywhere. I felt really proud when he explained all this to me and I realised that I had so well carried out the idea.