In all the lament about the decline of the drama there is one recurring note: the disastrous influence of long runs. If the manager were not a grossly material person, incapable of ideals, he would take off a successful piece at the height of its popularity and start a fresh experiment. [Laughter.] But he is sunk in the base commercialism of the age, and, sad to relate, he has the sympathies of the dramatic author, who wants to see his piece run say a hundred nights, instead of twenty. I don't know how this spirit of greed is to be subdued, though with the multiplication of Play-houses, long runs may tend to become rare. A municipal subsidy or an obliging millionaire might enable a manager to vary his bill with comparative frequency, when he has persuaded the dramatic author that the run of a play till the crack of doom is incompatible with the interest of art. [Laughter.] I cannot help suspecting that the chief difficulty of a manager, under even the most artistic and least commercial conditions, will always be, not to check the inordinate proportions of success, but to secure plays which may succeed at all.
I hope you will not accuse me of taking a too despondent view of the drama, for believe me, I do not. To be sure, we sometimes hear that Shakespeare is to be annihilated, and that the poet's intellect has been overrated. And lately a reverend gentleman at Hampstead announced his intention of putting down the stage altogether. [Laughter.] The atmosphere of Hampstead seems to be intellectually intoxicating; at any rate it has a rather stimulating effect on a certain kind of dogmatic mind. This intolerance has been very eloquently rebuked by a distinguished man who is an ornament of the Church of England. It is Dean Farrar who says that these pharisaical attacks on the stage are inspired only by "concentrated malice." Well, the periodical misunderstanding to which the stage is exposed need cause but little disquiet. I have no doubt it will survive its many adventures, and that it will owe not a little of its tenacious vitality to your unflagging sympathy and hearty and generous encouragement. [Cheers.]
THE FUNCTION OF THE NEWSPAPER
[Speech of Sir Henry Irving, as Chairman, at the thirty-fifth anniversary dinner of the Newspaper Press Fund, London, May 21, 1898.]
Gentlemen:—When I received the great compliment of an invitation to occupy this chair, I was conscious of a certain ironical fitness in my position. The politician and the actor divide between them the distinction of supplying the most constant material for the most intimate and searching vigilance of the newspaper press. [Laughter.] So when this great corporation of the newspaper press fund gives its annual dinner, what more natural and fitting than a politician or an actor in the chair, who illustrates in his person and in his own fortunes both the appreciation and the discipline which it is the function of the press so liberally to bestow? I can imagine that when such a chairman happens to be a pretty old stager like myself, there may be journalists in such a distinguished company as this who will look at him with the moistened eye of emotional reminiscence and murmur: "Ah, it was upon that man I fleshed my maiden pen!" [Laughter.] Thoughts like these shed the mellowing influence of time over the volumes of press cuttings which no actor's library is without. I have heard of public men who say they never read the newspapers. That remark has been attributed to a bishop, and perhaps there are kinds of abstinence quite easy to bishops but difficult to other mortals. [Laughter.] If it were possible for a man whose doings are considered worthy of public notice to avoid the newspaper, he could scarcely hope to make his friends practice the same denial. Even a bishop who is not inquisitive must occasionally meet deans and chapters who are. [Laughter.] There's the rub. You may not read the newspapers, but as soon as you scent the morning air you know whether those proverbial little birds who spread the news with such alacrity, are chirping about yourself, and the first feathered acquaintance that you hit upon is generously eager to share with you the crumb picked from a newspaper with a special flavor for your own palate.
Gentlemen, I mention this, not by way of complaint, but simply to illustrate the futility of that philosophy which fondly imagines that the newspaper can be ignored. But I am chiefly conscious to-night of the debt of gratitude we all owe to the press. The newspaper—say what you will of it—is the immediate recorder and interpreter of life. Morning and evening it offers us that perpetual stimulus which makes the zest of living. Be your interests what they may, though you abstract your mind from the tumult of affairs and devote it to art or science, you cannot open a newspaper without the sensation of laying your hand upon the throbbing pulse of the world. And it has throbbed within but a few days, throbbed with a widespread grief at the passing of a great man [Mr. Gladstone], a great statesman, a great and noble figure in productive and national life, who for more than half a century has helped largely to mould the destinies of the nation and the world. [Loud cheers.] Gentlemen, in a newspaper, at a glance, you are in touch with the elemental forces of nature—war, pestilence and famine; you are transported by this printed sheet, as it were the fairy carpet of the Arabian, from capital to capital, from the exultation of one people to the bitter resentment and chagrin of another. You behold on every scale every quality of humanity, everything that piques the sense of mystery, everything that inspires pity, dread, or anger. It is a vast and ever-changing panorama of the raw material of art and literature. [Cheers.]
Well, there are some complaints, gentlemen, that the raw material is more generally interesting than the artistic product. The newspaper is a dangerous competitor of books, and those of us who write plays and produce them may wish that the circulation of a great daily journal would repeat itself at the box-office. [Laughter.] But it is no use protesting against rivalry, if it be the rivalry of life, and the gentlemen of the press who are engaged in stage-managing and drama which, after all, is the real article, must always command more spectators than the humble artists who seek truth in the garb of illusion. I cannot sufficiently admire the enterprise of these great newspapers which keep the diary of mankind. In time of war their representatives are in the thick of danger; and though he may subscribe to the dictum, so familiar to playgoers, that the pen is mightier than the sword, the war correspondent is always ready to give lessons to the enemy with the less majestic weapon. ["Hear! hear!">[ In our own military annals no little glory shines on the names of civilians who, in the faithful discharge of duty to a multitude of readers, gave their lives as truly for their country as if they had died in the Queen's uniform. There are veteran campaigners of the press still amongst us, one of the most distinguished of whom is my old and valued friend, Sir William Russell [cheers], the vice-president of this fund, by whom I have the pleasure of being seated to-night. I say there are many veterans of the press whose services to the British Army will not be forgotten, though they never set a squadron in the field. I have heard it said that in diplomacy the press is sometimes indiscreetly ahead of events [laughter], but you must remember that nothing is so characteristic of the modern spirit as the art of publishing things before they happen. Nowadays all the world is on tiptoe, and the soul of journalism must be prophetic, because it has to do for a curious and wide-eyed public what was done for a much simpler generation by the alchemists and the astrologer. We ought to be thankful that this somewhat perilous business is conducted, on the whole, with so much discretion and breadth of mind. We have no less admiration, gentlemen, for the judgment of our press than for the enterprise which is born of competition, and, although that judgment has often to be framed under conditions which demand almost breathless rapidity, it does not always bear unfavorable comparison with the protracted meditation of the philosophic recluse. [Cheers.]
But there is one thing which the ubiquitous energies of the press cannot command, and that is immunity for its members from the chances of evil fortune, from sickness and decay. ["Hear! Hear!">[ I suppose there is no profession which makes such heavy calls upon the bodily and mental vigor of its servants as the profession of the journalist. Whoever nods, he must be always fresh and alert. Whoever is content with the ideas of yesterday, the journalist must be equipped with the ideas of to-morrow. In the course of my life it has been my privilege to number many brilliant journalists amongst my dearest friends, and I sorrowfully call to mind now more than one undaunted spirit who has suffered the penalties of overtaxed strength. It is in these cases that this fund should be of special benefit. It is in your power to give that timely help which saves the exhausted brain and restores the broken nerve. I stand to-night in a place which has been occupied by many distinguished advocates of this fund—advocates who have spoken with eloquence to which I can make no pretension. But I would earnestly impress upon you this thought, than which no plea can be more eloquent—remember that whatever you may give out of goodness of heart, from the memories of old comradeship, from the thousand and one associations which bind together fellow-workers in various arts and callings, remember that it may be the means some day of snatching from the last despond some one whose hand you have pressed in friendship, and whose voice has an echo in your hearts. I ask you to drink "Prosperity to the Newspaper Press Fund." [Loud cheers.]