“You still feel that you are among friends?”
“I do, indeed.”
“I believe you played that first act to-night better than ever you played it in London.”
“Do you think so? ‘Art is long and life is fleeting.’”
There was in the atmosphere behind the foot-lights something of the electricity of a first night at the Lyceum,—no fuss, but a suppression of feeling, a kind of setting of the teeth and a girding up of the loins. The fine “property” horse of the vision scene, covered with snow that would not melt, had been dragged to the rear, and the stage was being set for the trial scene. Mr. Frank Tyars had donned his ermine as the judge, the mesmerist was ready at the wing, the last nail was being driven into the judicial bench. The local stage-hands and supers were at last evidently impressed with the importance of attention to some little matter of detail which they had daily tried to shirk at rehearsal. There had even been difficulties, on the stage and off, in regard to the regulation of the lights. Prominent gas-brackets had been removed from the auditorium, but the lowering of the lights down nearly to darkness for the last act of “The Bells” had been resisted. Later, however, Mr. Loveday found his New York collaborators in this respect willing allies; and within the first week the man who had charge of the calcium lights said, “I have seen them all; every one of the great actors and stage-managers; and they don’t begin to know as much about lighting the stage as this Mr. Henry Irving has forgotten!”
A breathless silence testified to the impressiveness of the last act. You might almost have fancied you heard, in the car-bells of the streets, faint echoes of the sleigh-bells that jangled in the ears of Mathias. I remember the first night of “The Bells,” at the Lyceum. The stillness in this New York house, as Mathias died of imaginary strangulation, reminded me of the London theatre on that occasion. The sensation in the two houses was the same. Nobody moved until the thud of the drop-curtain roller emphatically announced the end. Then the Star audience, as the Lyceum audience had done before them, gave vent to their enthusiasm.
Called and recalled, Irving appeared before the curtain. Then there was a cry of “Speech!” “Speech!” whereupon, he said:—
“Ladies and Gentlemen,—I believe it is a custom with you to allow an actor to thank you for the pleasure you have given to him; and I will avail myself of that custom now, to say that I thank you with all my heart and soul. It seems to me that the greatness of your welcome typifies the greatness of your nation. I thank you, and, ‘beggar that I am, I am even poor in thanks.’ Let me say that my comrades are also deeply sensible of your kindness, and let me add that I hope you will give a warmer welcome, if such were possible, than I have received, to my associate and friend, Miss Ellen Terry, who will have the honor of appearing before you to-morrow night. And, finally, if it be not a liberty, will you allow me to express the hope ‘that our loves may increase even as our days do grow.’”
As the audience left the theatre, the opinions expressed accentuated the reality of the actor’s success. “The things that have been said about his mannerisms are shameful”; “Why, he has no more mannerisms than Booth!” “I never was more agreeably surprised”; “He speaks like an educated American”; “And in the street looks like a Yale or Harvard professor”; “Never saw anything finer”; “Most awfully impressive scene, that last act”; “Stage magnetism in the highest degree”; “Guess he is safe for the biggest run of popularity of any actor or any man who has ever come to this country”; “Oh, he is immense!” “Did you hear Tony Pastor say it’s the intensest acting he’s ever seen,—that’s a compliment, from what you may call a low comedian”; “Madame Nilsson,—wasn’t she delighted?” “Yes, she wouldn’t sing to-night; would have a box to come and see Irving.” These were some of the remarks one caught as the audience left the theatre, and the most practical criticism is often heard as one leaves a theatre among the crowd.
Coming upon a group of critics and others I learn that the critic of “The Telegram” says, “Irving is, indeed, a revelation!” while Mr. Oakey Hall, of “Truth,” thanks God he has lived to see such an actor. Several members of the Press Club join in the chorus of praise. Buck and Fiske, of “The Spirit of the Times,” smile quietly, as much as to say, “We told you so.” The famous critic of the “Tribune” goes out saying, “Yes, it is great; there is no denying it.” Mr. Wallack, who, too ill to walk, had been carried to his box, expresses his hearty admiration of the actor whom for so many years he had longed to see; and Mr. Gilbert,[9] the veteran comedian and stage-manager at Wallack’s, is “impressed beyond expression, especially with the business of counting the dowry.”