“When he heard of my first venture into the United States, Mr. Irving, without telling me of it, wrote a lot of friends over here that I was not a bad sort of chap, and they might look after me a bit. He gathered around me the night before I left London, a lot of his friends whom he knew I would like to meet. When I was about to leave the room he took me aside and said:
“‘If you find when you get to the other side that your plays don’t carry, or that the American people don’t take to them, just cable me one word. Here is my new play at the Lyceum, a beautiful success, and you shall have it—words, music and all, as soon as the steamer can get it to you.’”
“My boy, why do you do it?”
It is not generally known that before being knighted Sir Henry Irving had twice refused a title, and accepted only after he had been convinced, by men prominent in other professions, that his “elevation,” as the English call it, would redound to the benefit of the profession at large. Personally the rank could have placed him no higher socially than he already was, for ever since he became known he has been surrounded by an aristocracy of brains. He will not and cannot be patronized, and, through the lasting respect which he has earned, he has done wonders for the dignity of the actors’ calling. His title has not changed his manner in any way. His great dinners on the stage of the Lyceum and his lunches at the Beefsteak Club are matters of history. His social engagements are as numerous as ever; often he does not retire until three or four o’clock in the morning, generally to arise in time to conduct a rehearsal at ten, so his duties require an executive genius equal in degree to his artistic endowment.
It is strange to many people that a man of Mr. Irving’s business ability and personal popularity should be in comparatively poor circumstances instead of having acquired a fortune. He lives plainly, in hired rooms, not indulging in the luxury of a house of his own, with horses, carriages, etc. He spends money freely for books, and professionally for anything that may enhance the effect of his art and that of his theatre. But the few incidents cited above, are illustrations of the manner in which thousands of pounds have leaked from his pockets and show that it is bigness of heart that keeps Henry Irving from being a rich man.
XVIII
LONDON THEATRES AND THEATRE-GOERS
Why English and American Plays do Best at Home.—The Intelligent Londoner Takes the Theatre Seriously.—Play-going as a Duty.—The High-class English Theatre a Costly Luxury.—American Comedies Too Rapid of Action to Please the English.—Bronson Howard’s “Henrietta” Not Understood in London.—The Late Clement Scott’s Influence and Personality.
I believe I can explain why most English plays have failed to please American audiences, and that I have discovered the reason of the appalling apathy with which Londoners usually receive an American play.