[10] This statement and question were founded upon “The Standard’s” message, previously referred to; but which Mr. Irving himself neither saw nor heard of until within a few days of the close of his New York engagement.
[11] In “Charles the First” Irving confirmed the good impression he had made. Miss Terry received a most cordial reception, and made so excellent an impression upon the audience, both by her charming personality and admirable acting, that long before the evening was over she had firmly established herself in the good graces of her new public, who more than once, at the fall of the curtain, invited her, with every enthusiastic mark of approbation, to come before the house to receive in person its acknowledgments and congratulations. Her success was unquestionable. In the second act the curtain fell on the conclusion of one of the grandest results that any actor has achieved in New York for years. A continued succession of plaudits came from all parts of the house. The performance was profoundly conceived, acted out with infinite care, elaborated with rare skill, and invested with naturalness that deserved all praise. Irving, in his finale, merited fully every word that has been written of his power, intensity, and dramatic excellence; and he was enthusiastically called before the curtain, in order that the audience might assure him of that verdict. Miss Terry made the impression of a charming actress. There was something very captivating in the sweetness of her manner, the grace of her movements, and the musical quality of her tones. In acting, her points were made with remarkable ease and naturalness. There was an entire absence of theatrical effect, there was a simplicity of style in everything she did, a directness of method and sincerity of feeling that, as we have said, was the simplicity of true art, and yet not the exaggeration of the simplicity of nature.—New York Herald.
[12] Miss Terry was born at Coventry, Feb. 27, 1848. Her parents were members of the theatrical profession. Her first appearances on the stage were in “The Winter’s Tale” and “King John” (Mamillius and Arthur), during the Shakespearian revivals of Charles Kean, in 1858. As Prince Arthur she had repeated the success of her eldest sister Kate, who had made her first appearance in the part six years previously. Mr. Irving, during his conversations and speeches in this book of “Impressions,” has referred to the stock companies which, at one time, were the provincial schools which supplied London with its principal actors. When Ellen Terry was a girl, the late Mr. Chute presided over the fortunes of two of the best stock companies in the country. He was the lessee of the Bristol and Bath theatres, and he played his Bristol company at Bath once or twice a week. Some twenty years ago, I remember a stock company at the Bristol theatre, which included Marie Wilton, Miss Cleveland (Mrs. Arthur Sterling) Miss Mandelbert, Madge Robertson (Mrs. Kendall), and her mother, Arthur Sterling, George Rignold, William Rignold, Arthur Wood, Fosbroke, and the fathers, respectively, of Marie Wilton and Madge Robertson. At that time Kate Terry and Ellen Terry had left for London, Ellen having joined the Bristol company at the close of Charles Kean’s management of the Princess’s. She played Cupid to her sister Kate’s Diana in Brough’s extravaganza of “Endymion” at Bristol, in 1862. She made her début in London, March, 1863, as Gertrude, in the “Little Treasure.” The critics of the time recognized in her art “an absence of conventionality and affectation,” and they look back now to trace in her interpretations of “the buoyant spirits, kindly heart, and impulsive emotions” of Gertrude for the undoubted forecast of her present success, more particularly in those characters which give full play to the natural sympathetic and womanly spirit of her art. From March, 1863, till January, 1864, she played Hero, in “Much Ado About Nothing,” Mary Meredith, in “The American Cousin,” and other secondary parts. She married and left the stage while still a mere child, and was not yet twenty when she made her reappearance at the end of October, 1867, in “The Double Marriage,” adapted from the French by Charles Reade for the New Queen’s Theatre, London. She also played Mrs. Mildmay, in “Still Waters,” and Katharine in the ordinary stage version of the “Taming of the Shrew,” known as “Katharine and Petruchio.” It was in this comedy, on the 26th of December, 1867, that she and Mr. Irving first acted together. She left the theatre in January, 1868, and did not reappear on the London stage until 1874, when she succeeded Mrs. John Wood in the part of Phillippa Chester, in Charles Reade’s “Wandering Heir,” which was produced under the author’s management at the Queen’s Theatre. She afterwards joined Mr. and Mrs. Bancroft’s company at the Prince of Wales’s, and was the Portia to Mr. Coughlan’s Shylock, in the ambitious production of “The Merchant of Venice,” which was to be a new departure in the history of the famous little house near Tottenham Court Road. Shakespeare did not prosper, however, at the Prince of Wales’s, though his great comedy was daintily mounted, and Miss Terry’s Portia was as sweet and gracious as the art of the actress could make that sweet and gracious heroine. From the Bancrofts, Miss Terry went to their rivals (Mr. Hare and the Kendalls), at the Court Theatre. The sterling natural qualities which some critics noted in her method when a child, were abundantly apparent in her Olivia, a fresh, graceful, touching performance, of which “Punch” said, January 11,1879, “If anything more intellectually conceived or more exquisitely wrought out than Miss Terry’s Ophelia has been seen on the English stage in this generation, it has not been within ‘Punch’s’ memory.” She closed her engagement at the Court Theatre on the offer of Mr. Irving to take the position of leading lady at the Lyceum Theatre, where she made her first appearance, December 30, 1878, and since which time she has shared with him the honors of a series of such successes as are unparalleled in the history of the stage. They include the longest runs ever known of “Hamlet,” “The Merchant of Venice,” “Romeo and Juliet,” and “Much Ado About Nothing.” This is not the place to do more than give these brief, biographic notes of a brilliant career. But one is tempted to quote a singularly happy sketch of Miss Ellen Terry which appeared on the eve of her departure for America in the “St. Stephen’s Review,” July, 1883: “It is well for the stage that it possesses such a gift as Ellen Terry. The age is, on the whole, terribly unromantic and commonplace; it deals in realism of a very uncompromising form; it calls a spade a spade, and considers sentiment an unpardonable affectation. But Ellen Terry is the one anachronism that the age forgives; she is the one living instance of an ideal being that the purists pardon. As she stands before these cold critics in her classical robes as Camma; as she drags at their heartstrings as the forlorn and abandoned Olivia; as she trips upon the stage as Beatrice; as she appears in a wondrous robe of shot-red and gold, or clothed ‘in white samite, mystic, wonderful,’ as Ophelia, or, as she falls a-weeping as the heart-broken queen on the breast of Charles the First, even these well-balanced natures pronounce her inexplicable but charming. She is the one actress who cannot be criticised; for is she not Ellen Terry?”
[13] All that has been said in recognition of Mr. Irving’s intellectual leadership, and of his puissant genius and beautiful and thorough method of dramatic art, was more than justified by his impersonation of Louis XI., given, yesterday afternoon, before an audience mainly composed of actors, at the Star Theatre. He has not, since the remarkable occasion of his first advent in America, acted with such a noble affluence of power as he displayed in this splendid and wonderful effort. It was not only an expression, most vivid and profound, of the intricate, grisly, and terrible nature of King Louis; it was a disclosure of the manifold artistic resources, the fine intuition, the repose, and the commanding intellectual energy of the actor himself. An intellectual audience—eager, alert, responsive, quick to see the intention almost before it was suggested, and to recognize each and every point, however subtle and delicate, of the actor’s art—seemed to awaken all his latent fire, and nerve him to a free and bounteous utterance of his own spirit; and every sensitive mind in that numerous and brilliant throng most assuredly felt the presence of a royal nature, and a great artist in acting. Upon Mr. Irving’s first entrance the applause of welcome was prodigious, and it was long before it died away. More than one scene was interrupted by the uncontrollable enthusiasm of the house, and eight times in the course of the performance Mr. Irving was called back upon the scene. A kindred enthusiasm was communicated to the other actors, and an unusual spirit of emulation pervaded the entire company and representation.... At the close there was a tumult of applause, and the expectation seemed eager and general that Mr. Irving would personally address the assembly. He retired, however, with a bow of farewell. “Louis XI.” will be repeated to-night.—The Tribune, November 21.
[14] Henry Edwards was born at Ross, Herefordshire, England, August, 1831. He finished his education under the Rev. Abraham Lander, son of the friend of Robert Burns, and studied for the law in his father’s office. In 1848 he became a member of the Western Dramatic Amateur Society. In 1853 he emigrated to Australia, passed three years in the bush, and went on the stage professionally, at the Queen’s Theatre, Melbourne, under the management of Charles Young, then the husband of Mrs. Herman Vezin, who was the leading lady. After supporting the late Gustavus V. Brooke, he went, as leading man, to Tasmania, under the management of Charles Poole. He again joined Brooke, and for six or seven years was his second, playing Iago, Macduff, De Maupry, Icilius, etc., becoming manager of Theatre Royal, Melbourne, for G. V. Brooke, in 1861. He afterwards travelled with Mr. and Mrs. Charles Kean, playing Falconbridge, Henry VIII., Coitier, etc. In 1865 he went to New Zealand, and managed theatres in Auckland and Hokitiki. He left the colonies early in 1866, passed four months in Lima, giving, in all, thirty-three performances in the Peruvian capital, aided by a small company. He also gave entertainments in Panama. Arrived in San Francisco, October, 1866, under an engagement to Thomas Maguire, opened in that city as Othello to the Iago of John McCullough, and afterwards played Pythias, Sir Anthony Absolute, Sir Peter Teazle, Marc Anthony, and Sir John Falstaff. At the opening of the California Theatre he joined Barrett and McCullough’s company, and remained to the close of the latter’s management. He went to New York in 1879, and opened at Wallack’s Theatre (now the Star), in Byron’s comedy of “Our Girls,” and has been ever since a member of Wallack’s company, of which he is now Stage Director. He is an earnest entomologist, and has one of the largest private collections of insects in the world, numbering over 260,000 specimens. Has written much on his favorite study, as well as many magazine and other articles; is the author of “Pacific Coast Lepidoptera,” and a volume of sketches called “A Mingled Yarn”; is engaged to write the article on “Butterflies,” for Kingsley’s Standard Natural History, in association with Asa Gray, Prof. Baird, Prof. Packard, A. Agassiz, and other distinguished naturalists; and was five years President of the Bohemian Club, San Francisco, three years Vice-President of the California Academy of Sciences, and one year President of the Lambs Club, New York.
[15] On a later occasion Mr. Curtis (whose eloquence on the platform and in the press, and whose independent career in politics, are familiar to all Americans and to many English) and Mr. Joseph Harper had a box to see “The Merchant of Venice.” Irving invited them to go behind the scenes, and afterwards to join him at supper in his room at the Brevoort. Mr. Curtis said it was the first time he had been on that side of the foot-lights. “I am not sure whether I regret it or not; I think I am sorry to have the illusion of that last lovely scene at Belmont set aside even for a moment.” While he was talking to Miss Terry in her dress as the Lady of Belmont, Loveday’s men were bringing on some of the scenery of “The Lyons Mail.” Said Harper, “Behind the scenes is always to me a good deal like the ‘tween decks of a ship; the discipline is just as strict, too.” During the evening after supper Mr. Curtis discussed with his host the question of how much an actor may lose himself in a part, and still have full control over it and himself. Irving said circumstances sometimes influenced an actor. An event which had disturbed him during the day might give extra color to his acting at night. In fact an actor is influenced by all sorts of causes,—as all other people are in their daily work,—by health or weather. Sometimes the presence of a friend in front, or some current occurrence of the moment, or piece of bad or good news, might influence him; but, as a rule, after an actor had played a particular part for a long time, he generally played it very much in the same way every night. “There is a story,” he said, “of Kean and Cooper which is to the purpose. A friend met Kean, and told him that on a particular night he was at the theatre, and thought that Kean played Othello better than ever he had seen him play it. ‘Gad, sir,’ he said,’ I thought you would have strangled Iago outright!’ Now we come to the solution of this extra energy which had impressed Kean’s friend. ‘Oh, yes,’ said Kean; ‘it was a Tuesday night, I remember; Cooper tried to get me out of the focus!’ In those days the theatre was lighted with oil lamps, and only at one particular place on the stage could the actors be seen. To be in the light was to be in the focus; and that accounts for the old habit they had of getting into a line along the foot-lights.”
[16] Among the gentlemen present on this occasion were Messrs. Daniel Huntington (the president), Gilbert M. Speir (vice-president), A. R. MacDonough (secretary), Henry A. Oakey (treasurer), F. A. P. Barnard (President of Columbia College), Albert Bierstadt (the artist), Noah Brooks (journalist and author), L. P. di Cesnola, S. S. Conant; Profs. Botta, Dwight, Flint, Alexander, and Lusk; Judges Choate, Brown, and Daily; Bishop Potter, the Rev. Dr. Rylance, the Rev. Dr. Storrs, the Rev. Dr. Brooks; the Honorables John Bigelow, John Hay, J. G. Forrest, and Edward Mitchell; Mr. Joseph Drexel (the banker), ex-Governor William Dorsheimer, ex-Mayor Edward Cooper, Col. Goddard, Gen. Cullum and Gen. Horace Porter, Dr. George Otis, and Messrs. W. Dodge, Wm. M. Evarts, Cyrus W. Field, Swain Gifford, Richard W. Gilder, Quincy A. Gillmore, Parke Godwin, H. H. Gorringe, I. H. Gourlie, G. S. Greene, M. K. Jessup, S. E. Lane, Francis F. Marbury, C. H. Marshall, H. D. Noyes, O. Ottendorfer, H. E. Pellew, Whitelaw Reid, Jas. Renouck, R. G. Remson, A. Thorndike Rice, William Bond, J. F. Ruggles, John O. Sargent, W. Satterlee, Clarence A. Seward, R. H. Stoddard, H. C. Van Vorst, Theodore Weston, Alfred Wilkinson, and many other well-known members of the club and their friends.
[17] This was a very notable gathering on November 18. In nearly every case the guests came from long distances. They were all men of distinction in their several walks of life. Among them were, James H. Rutter, President New York Central & Hudson River Railway; Hon. Noah Davis, Chief Justice Supreme Court, State of New York; Geo. R. Blanchard, Vice-President New York, Lake Erie, & Western Railway; Gen. Horace Porter, President New York, West Shore, & Buffalo Railway; John B. Carson, Vice-President and General Manager Hannibal & St. Joseph Railway, Hannibal, Mo.; Col. P. S. Michie, U.S. Army, West Point; Hon. A. J. Vanderpoel, New York; Hon. Wm. Dorsheimer, Member of Congress and ex-Lieut.-Governor New York; Col. L. M. Dayton, Gen. Sherman’s Chief of Staff during the war, Cincinnati, O.; Jas. N. Matthews, Proprietor Buffalo “Express,” Buffalo, N.Y.; Hon. Henry Watterson, ex-M.C. and editor “Courier Journal,” Louisville, Ky.; Col. Wm. V. Hutchings, Governor’s Staff, Boston, Mass.; Col. H. G. Parker, Proprietor “Saturday Evening Gazette,” Boston, Mass.; Col. Wm. Edwards, Cleveland, O.; Hon. L. J. Powers, Springfield, Mass.; Hon. M. P. Bush, Buffalo, N.Y.; John B. Lyon, Chicago, Ill.; Hon. A. Oakey Hall, ex-Mayor of New York City; Lord Bury, W. J. Florence, William Winter, Stephen Fiske, J. H. French, and Chas. Wyndham. The dinner was not reported in the press; nor were several other entertainments which are briefly sketched in the pages of these “Impressions.”
The Chief Justice spoke in eloquent terms of Lord Coleridge, whom the American bar and bench had been proud to honor, and who, in his private and public life, realized the highest ideal of the American people. “It is our desire,” he said, “the sincerest wish of America, to like the English people. We are always afraid that our visitors from the old country will not let us like them. When they do, and we can honestly respond, we are glad.” Presently, alluding to Irving, he said, “We have watched your career over a long period of time, through the New York papers. We were prepared to be interested in you, and to bid you welcome. No people are more moved than ours to exercise their free and unbiased judgment. We have done so in your case, and are proud to acknowledge the greatness of the work you have done; to welcome you and to take your hand, not only for what you have achieved in England, but for what you have done for us in America.”
Ex-Mayor Oakey Hall, in the course of some remarks supplementary of the speech of the Lord Chief Justice, said, “A morning cable despatch informs me that the Millais portrait of our guest was yesterday added to the walls of the Garrick Club, in completion of its gallery of David Garrick’s legitimate successors. But on the walls of our memories to-night has been hung the original,—impressive features, poetic eyes and hair, and a face so bright that it this moment reflects our looks of personal affection. I have had the personal felicity, thrice within the past fortnight, of seeing our guest in the serenity of private life. Friends knowing this have said to me, ‘How did you like Henry Irving on the stage?’ And I have answered, ‘I have not yet seen Mr. Irving act.’ True, I had seen on the stage of the Star Theatre, Mathias, and Charles the First, and Louis the Eleventh, and Shylock, and Duboscq and Lesergne, and against these characters I had seen printed on the bills of the play the name of Henry Irving; but never had it otherwise occurred to me, as an auditor, that the guest now before us,—original of the Millais picture,—and whom I saw at the banquets of the Lotos and Manhattan clubs, was representing these characters. On the contrary, I cannot connect Henry Irving, the gentleman of private life, with the actor. If you say he is the same, I must believe you. Indeed, I am now conscious of having lived in the seventeenth century, and of having beheld the veritable Charles as a man caressing his children and his Henrietta Maria,—a wife rather than a queen,—on the banks of the Thames, at Hampton Court, or as Majesty rebuking Oliver Cromwell. Nay, I have stood with Charles himself in the Whitehall Chamber of Death, and with my own streaming eyes I have witnessed his touching farewell of home and earth. I have forgotten the merchants of New York in the boxes, and I have really seen Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice. I have seen the dreaming victim of remorse. I have lived in the war-rent realms of France, while Louis the Eleventh infected his court with his own moral leprosy. I have known in ‘The Lyons Mail,’ the self-respecting and shrinking merchant, and I have known his double, the besotted brute of a murderer. They are all realities to me at this moment. If you again tell me one man personated all these, and that this one man was the original yonder of the Millais portrait, I must believe you, for your honor’s sake. During an active career of a quarter century I never had seen an approach to such a surrender of personal identity in an actor, nor such a surrender of the peculiarities of one representation when the actor grasped another. How all this contradicts a lively writer in the current (November) number of Clement Scott’s ‘Theatre,’ who declares that every great success of the stage is due to a correspondence of the natural peculiarities of an actor with the fictional peculiarities of the character portrayed! Is yonder gentleman a victim to remorse? Is he a Shylock? Is he a Duboscq? Has he the soul of a Charles? Least of all, has he one peculiarity of Louis? No. Then these great successes are won—if yonder guest be the actor—by a destruction of personal peculiarities and by portraying his own precise opposites, in his human nature. You have all seen these recently enacted characters. You now—some of you for the first time—behold the man Henry Irving, and hear him converse. To you as a jury, then, I appeal. Am I not right? Is not my experience yours?” (Aye!—Yes!—Yes!—and great applause.)