Henry Irving, the actor, was always fond of playing practical jokes. Clement Scott tells of one played by Irving and Harry Montague upon a number of their associates. Irving and Montague, hitherto the best of friends, began to quarrel on their way to a picnic, and their friends feared some tragic consequences. After luncheon both of the men disappeared. Business Manager Smale's face turned pale. He felt that his worst fears had been realized. With one cry, "They're gone! What on earth has become of them?" he made a dash down the Dargle, over the rocks and bowlders, with the remainder of the picnickers at his heels. At the bottom of a "dreadful hollow behind the little wood," a fearful sight presented itself to the astonished friends. There, on a stone, sat Henry Irving, in his shirtsleeves, his long hair matted over his eyes, his thin hands and white face all smeared with blood, and dangling an open clasp-knife. He was muttering to himself, in a savage tone: "I've done it, I've done it! I said I would, I said I would!" Tom Smale, in an agony of fear, rushed up to Irving. "For Heaven's sake, man," he screamed, "tell us where he is!" Irving, scarcely moving a muscle, pointed to a heap of dead leaves, and, in that sepulchral tone of his, cried: "He's there! I've done for him! I've murdered him!" Smale literally bounded to the heap, almost paralyzed with fear, and began pulling the leaves away. Presently he found Montague lying face downward and nearly convulsed with laughter. Never was better acting seen on any stage.
WENDELL PHILLIPS'S TACT
From "Memories of the Lyceum," in "Modern Eloquence," Vol. VI, Geo. L.
Shuman and Company, Chicago, publishers.
BY JAMES BURTON POND
Wendell Phillips was the most polished and graceful orator our country ever produced. He spoke as quietly as if he were talking in his own parlor and almost entirely without gestures, yet he had as great a power over all kinds of audiences as any American of whom we have any record. Often called before howling mobs, who had come to the lecture- room to prevent him from being heard, and who would shout and sing to drown his voice, he never failed to subdue them in a short time. One illustration of his power and tact occurred in Boston. The majority of the audience were hostile. They yelled and sang and completely drowned his voice. The reporters were seated in a row just under the platform, in the place where the orchestra plays in an ordinary theater. Phillips made no attempt to address the noisy crowd, but bent over and seemed to be speaking in a low tone to the reporters. By and by the curiosity of the audience was excited; they ceased to clamor and tried to hear what he was saying to the reporters. Phillips looked at them and said quietly:—
"Go on, gentlemen, go on. I do not need your ears. Through these pencils I speak to thirty millions of people."
Not a voice was raised again. The mob had found its master and stayed whipped until he sat down.
Eloquent as he was as a lecturer, he was far more effective as a debater. Debate was for him the flint and steel which brought out all his fire. His memory was something wonderful, He would listen to an elaborate speech for hours, and, without a single note of what had been said, in writing, reply to every part of it as fully and completely as if the speech were written out before him. Those who heard him only on the platform, and when not confronted by an opponent, have a very limited comprehension of his wonderful resources as a speaker. He never hesitated for a word or failed to employ the word best fitted to express his thought on the point under discussion.
BAKED BEANS AND CULTURE
From "Writings in Prose and Verse, by Eugene Field," with the permission of Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, publishers.