7. Persons having no business with this office will please call again when they can’t stay so long.
VIII.
“Will you please tell me about the report, cabled from London to the American press, that you propose to stand for Parliament, in the Liberal interest, on your return to England?” asked a journalistic interviewer, at Boston.
“I can only say that the report is entirely unfounded. It arose, I imagine, from my election to the Reform Club. You know they do occasionally elect out-of-the-way fellows, such as I am, in the matter of politics. The welcome news reached me last night in my dressing-room at the theatre. To be elected in my absence adds to the pleasure of the thing. I have only that interest in politics which all honest men should have, but it exists only under my own roof. I do not think artists should mix up in politics. Art is my vocation, and I confine myself to it.”
“Then, I assume, you have never cherished political aspirations.”
“Oh, no, never! In fact I should be totally unfit for Parliament. I am not eloquent, and should be unfit in other ways. We do not look upon politics in England as you do here. Here political life is an avenue to office and to emoluments, in a broader and deeper sense than is possible in England, and many choose the law as a profession with a view to politics. Do they not? It is not so with us. A seat in the House of Commons, as a rule, involves great expense, as well as a claim upon a man’s time; and he may sit there all his life, if he is returned often enough, and spend every year a large income, socially in London, and locally on charities, hospitals, reading-rooms, churches and chapels, among his constituents. We do not pay our representatives salaries; and I believe, particularly in the country, the constituencies watch with the greatest jealousy every vote a member records. The House of Commons is not a bed of roses.”
I have said, in a previous chapter, that the trouble in respect to the new form of journalism in some of the cities of the United States is, that the reader is left too much in doubt as to the truth of the daily chronicles. The Chicago reporter, who held up the “interviews” of other journals as more or less “bogus,” would himself have found it difficult in this respect to winnow the chaff from the wheat. At St. Louis a reporter professed to have taken an engagement as a “super” in the Irving Company. He wrote a description of “behind the scenes” in that capacity, but “gave himself away,” by making all the company, from the leading actor down to the call-boy, drop their h’s. The American reporter’s leading idea when burlesquing the English is to take every h out of a Britisher’s conversation, and even to make the Queen herself drop the aspirate or misuse it; for instance, here is a summary of the royal speech on the opening of Parliament, which appeared in a Philadelphia journal: “We’re pretty well, I thank you, and we ‘opes to remain so, we does.” If in our stage and journalistic satire we make Jonathan “guess,” “calkalate,” and “lick all creation, you bet,” he “gets even” with “yahs, deah boy,” and “‘ow bar’ you,” and “‘pon my ‘onor, don’t cher know?” But, referring back to the many imaginary interviews and fictitious sketches of Irving and his life behind the scenes, here is an extract from an account of “Irving’s day,” which appeared in one of the light-headed dailies, that is, in some respects, truer than I dare say any of its readers believed it to be. The introduction of “the secretaries” is worthy of “Punch,” and in its earnestness funnier than some of the great humorist’s sketches of the Irving tour in America. Here are the leading points of the article:—
THE METHODICAL WAY IN WHICH IRVING PASSES HIS TIME.
Henry Irving is a man of simple, but regular, habits. He has gained the hearts of everybody in the Bellevue, from the proprietor to the bell-boy, by his courteous demeanor and his desire to give as little trouble as possible. He rises at nine o’clock, and drinks a cup of coffee with milk. Breakfast is served in his private sitting-room at ten o’clock, consisting of tea, boiled eggs, and some other simple dish. The eggs he cooks himself in a little spirit-lamp arrangement of his own. He eats the meal alone, and glances at his mail while at table. The budget of correspondence is usually large, and includes letters from all over the world. After breakfast one or two secretaries pay their respects to him, and receive his instructions in regard to the replies to the missives. The daily papers are then carefully read, and any visitors who call are received.
Between twelve and one he leaves the hotel, generally in a carriage, and always accompanied by a secretary. The theatre is the first destination. In everything concerning the stage arrangements, indeed, even the most minute details, Mr. Irving is consulted. A skye-terrier is also a persistent companion of the English actor, and follows wherever he goes.