“God bless the Little Church Around the Corner.”
Joe Holland is the only member of the family alive to-day, and he retired from the stage a few years ago. He became very deaf and finally paralyzed, but he has in no way let it ruin his life. With grit and persistence to a degree that should be an example to everyone, here is this man, no longer young, learning to read and, although totally deaf, to speak a beautiful French, sailing a boat better than most professionals and becoming the commodore of the yacht club of the seaport town where he lives in the summer, leading a full life where most people would have given up the ghost long ago.
Joe used to ask one or another of us to go out for a drive with him in the evening. I often wondered what pleasure it could give him and once wrote on his paper (which he always carried), “Why do you do this?” A most pathetic look came into his face.
“I know you are all just being good to me and you can’t keep it up long, but somehow, if I can get you to drive in the moonlight where you wouldn’t want to talk, anyway, we are just as much companions in those moments as if I were not deaf.”
Such delicacy of feeling could not help but come out in his actions, and something Joe did once impressed me very much. Frank Worthing, the actor, was going to England, and, although it was not mentioned, he was going to die. Joe bought half a dozen calendars and sent a sheet to everyone of Frank’s friends, asking that they write a note, a poem, or music, and, if they were artists, make a sketch. These he collected, had beautifully bound and put in the stateroom of the steamer so that “every day when Frank wakes up, he will receive a good morning from a friend.” There is something very fine about a man who thinks that way.
The Players sets aside one day a year for the ladies on Shakespeare’s birthday, when the feminine friends of the members are allowed to invade the house between the hours of two and six in the afternoon. Here the stage-struck young girl may come in hopes of meeting her favorite matinee hero, but I am afraid she is often disappointed, as the young actor is generally timid and stays away that day. It is left to the older gallants to offer a substitute and, if it did not seem like boasting of my own generation, I should say that a John Drew, a Francis Wilson, or that dean of the American stage, an F. F. Mackay is still just as capable of holding his own with the modern flapper as he ever was. Every American or visiting actress of importance has been entertained at these receptions, while special days have been given, on rare occasions, to a few. There was one for Clara Louise Kellogg, one for Mrs. Forbes-Robertson, and one for the divine Sarah.
Sarah is easily the one person alive to-day who knows how to give a personal thrill to everyone with whom she comes into contact. I remember seeing her a year or two ago, driving in New York in an open carriage. I did not recognize her at first, but some subtle influence compelled me to raise my hat and bow in homage to—I know not what. I got in return a thrilling smile. When Madame Bernhardt was guest of honor at The Players, she chose the landing of the stairway upon which to hold her court of honor, thereby stopping all progress up or down. It required all the tact of Mr. Booth to get her satellites away from her and finally move her to a more remote spot. How fine to be a queen and calmly acknowledge it to the world!
Once I was standing with Stanhope Forbes, the Royal Academician, and his brother at the Victoria Station. The brother was then the head of the continental affairs of the Chatham and Dover Railway. All of a sudden an official rushed up and asked what he should do about the next train for Dover, saying that there was a lady who was stopping everything by insisting that she must have her dog with her.
“Well, she can’t,” said Forbes.
“But she insists, sir, and she is making an awful row.