The device of the “ladder of angels” was of course an old one; it was its suitable perfection in this instance that made it remarkable. For this ladder it is advisable to get the prettiest and daintiest young women and children possible, the point of honour being the apex. A year before, during the run of Henry VIII., a box was occupied by a friend of Irving’s whose three little girls were so beautiful that between the acts the people on the stage kept peeping out at them. Then the Master Carpenter asked Ellen Terry to look out from the prompt entrance. As she did so he whispered to her:
“Oh, miss! Wouldn’t that middle one make a lovely ‘top angel’!”
Even children as well as grown-ups have their vanities. It became a nightly duty of the Wardrobe Mistress to inspect the “ladder” when arranged. She had to make each of the angels in turn show their hands so that they should not wear the little rings to which they were prone.
V
The educational effect of Faust was very great. Every edition of the play in England was soon sold out. Important heavy volumes, such as Anster’s, which had grown dusty on the publisher’s shelves were cleared off in no time. New editions were published and could hardly be printed quick enough. We knew of more than a hundred thousand copies of Goethe’s dramatic poem being sold in the first season of its run.
One night early in the run of the play there was a mishap which might have been very serious indeed. In the scene where Mephistopheles takes Faust away with him after the latter had signed the contract, the two ascended a rising slope. On this particular occasion the machinery took Irving’s clothing and lifted him up a little. He narrowly escaped falling into the cellar through the open trap—a fall of some fifteen feet on to a concrete floor.
VI
When we played Faust in America, it was curious to note the different reception accorded to it undoubtedly arising from traditional belief.
In Boston, where the old puritanical belief of a real devil still holds, we took in one evening four thousand eight hundred and fifty-two dollars—more than a thousand pounds—the largest dramatic house up to then known in America. Strangely the night was that of Irving’s fiftieth birthday. For the rest the lowest receipts out of thirteen performances was two thousand and ten dollars. Seven were over three thousand, and three over four thousand.
In Philadelphia, where are the descendants of the pious Quakers who followed Penn into the wilderness, the average receipts were even greater. Indeed at the matinée on Saturday, the crowd was so vast that the doors were carried by storm. All the seats had been sold, but in America it was usual to sell admissions to stand at one dollar each. The crowd of “standees,” almost entirely women, began to assemble whilst the treasurer, who in an American theatre sells the tickets, was at his dinner. His assistant, being without definite instructions, went on selling till the whole seven hundred left with him were exhausted. It was vain to try to stem the rush of these enthusiastic ladies. They carried the outer door and the checktaker with it; and broke down by sheer weight of numbers the great inner doors of heavy mahogany and glass standing some eight feet high. It was impossible for the seat-holders to get in till a whole posse of police appeared on the scene and cleared them all out, only readmitting them when the seats had been filled.