ROBSON AND CRANE DINNER.
New York, November 21, 1887.
* The theatre party and supper given by Charles P. Palmer,
brother of Courtlandt Palmer, on Monday evening were
unusually attractive in many ways. Mr Palmer has recently
returned from Europe, and took this opportunity to gather
around him his old club associates and friends, and to show
his admiration of the acting of Messrs. Robson and Crane.
The appearance of Mr. Palmer's fifty guests in the theatre
excited much interest in all parts of the house. It is not
often that theatre-goers have the opportunity of seeing in a
single row, Channcey M. Depew, Gen. William T. Sherman, Gen.
Horace Porter and Robert G. Ingersoll, with Leonard Jerome
and his brother Lawrence, Murat Halstead and other well-
known men in close proximity
The supper table at Delmonico's was decorated with a lavish
profusion of flowers rarely approached even at that famous
restaurant.
Mr. Palmer was a charming host, full of humor, jollity and
attention to every guest. He opened the speaking with a few
apt words. Then Stuart Rodson made some witty remarks, and
called upon William H. Crane, whose well-rounded speech was
heartily applauded General Sherman, Chauncey M. Depew,
General Porter, Lawrence Jerome and Colonel Ingersoll were
all in their best moods, and the sallies of wit and the
abundance of genuine humor in their informal addresses kept
their hearers in almost continuous laughter. Lawrence Jerome
was in especially fine form. He sang songs, told stories and
said: "Depew and Ingersoll know so much that intelligence
has become a drag in the market, and it's no use to tell you
what a good speech I would have made." J. Seaver Page made
an uncommonly witty and effective speech. Murat Halstead
related some reminiscences of his last European tour and of
his experiences in London with Lawrence and Leonard Jerome,
which were received with shouts of laughter. Altogether the
supper was one to be long remembered by all present.—The
Tribune, New York, November 23, 1887;
TOAST: COMEDY AND TRAGEDY.
I BELIEVE in the medicine of mirth, and in what I might call the longevity of laughter. Every man who has caused real, true, honest mirth, has been a benefactor of the human race. In a world like this, where there is so much trouble—a world gotten up on such a poor plan—where sometimes one is almost inclined to think that the Deity, if there be one, played a practical joke—to find, I say, in such a world, something that for the moment allows laughter to triumph over sorrow, is a great piece of good fortune. I like the stage, not only because General Sherman likes it—and I do not think I was ever at the theatre in my life but I saw him—I not only like it because General Washington liked it, but because the greatest man that ever touched this grain of sand and tear we call the world, wrote for the stage, and poured out a very Mississippi of philosophy and pathos and humor, and everything calculated to raise and ennoble mankind.
I like to see the stage honored, because actors are the ministers, the apostles, of the greatest man who ever lived, and because they put flesh upon and blood and passion within the greatest characters that the greatest man drew. This is the reason I like the stage. It makes us human. A rascal never gained applause on the stage. A hypocrite never commanded admiration, not even when he was acting a clergyman—except for the naturalness of the acting. No one has ever yet seen any play in which, in his heart, he did not applaud honesty, heroism, sincerity, fidelity, courage, and self-denial. Never. No man ever heard a great play who did not get up a better, wiser, and more humane man; and no man ever went to the theatre and heard Robson and Crane, who did not go home better-natured, and treat his family that night a little better than on a night when he had not heard these actors.
I enjoy the stage; I always did enjoy it. I love the humanity of it. I hate solemnity; it is the brother of stupidity—always. You never knew a solemn man who was not stupid, and you never will. There never was a man of true genius who had not the simplicity of a child, and over whose lips had not rippled the river of laughter—never, and there never will be. I like, I say, the stage for its wit and for its humor. I do not like sarcasm; I do not like mean humor. There is as much difference between humor and malicious wit as there is between a bee's honey and a bee's sting, and the reason I like Robson and Crane is that they have the honey without the sting.
Another thing that makes me glad is, that I live in an age and generation and day that has sense enough to appreciate the stage; sense enough to appreciate music; sense enough to appreciate everything that lightens the burdens of this life. Only a few years ago our dear ancestors looked upon the theatre as the vestibule of hell; and every actor was going "the primrose way to the everlasting bonfire." In those good old days, our fathers, for the sake of relaxation, talked about death and graves and epitaphs and worms and shrouds and dust and hell. In those days, too, they despised music, cared nothing for art; and yet I have lived long enough to hear the world—that is, the civilized world—say that Shakespeare wrote the greatest book that man has ever read. I have lived long enough to see men like Beethoven and Wagner put side by side with the world's greatest men—great in imagination—and we must remember that imagination makes the great difference between men. I have lived long enough to see actors placed with the grandest and noblest, side by side with the greatest benefactors of the human race.