He had no trace of personal vanity. He said to me once he only cared for his good looks as the tools of his trade. Hundreds of women flung themselves 261 at him in those days; they sent him notes in verse and prose, flowers, presents of jewels, shawls, feathers, to wear on the stage; they asked for appointments; they invited him to their houses, they offered to go to his; but he cared nothing for any of them. Sometimes they amused, but more often disgusted him. More than once he saved some foolish child from what might have been disgrace, and sent her home to her family. And he never injured a pure woman in his life. Off the stage he had no care for his looks; even in his youth his dress was more than plain; he was positively indifferent to his appearance.
He always continued to have fits of sadness and silence; a feeling that evil was hanging over him, that he could not come to good. These moods would pass, but would return. Still, when he inclined to talk he was profoundly interesting. He had a wonderful fund of stories, and recollected the most minute and the most salient circumstances, showing the actor’s power of observation. He studied character incessantly; not deliberately, but because he could not help seeing peculiar traits of character or peculiar circumstances. He acted all his stories, comic or tragic, without meaning to do it, and often just as well off as on the stage. I used to get him to make the faces he did on the stage, to look like Richelieu in the “curse of Rome,” or Richard in “What do they in the North?” But it was only when he was in a very good humor that he would do this. Once or twice he painted his face to assume his father’s appearance.
But he hated to act off the stage, and even at rehearsal seldom raised his voice above the conversational tone, or struck an attitude. I often went to rehearsal with him and wondered at the calmness of his tones when he struck down Iago, or smothered Desdemona. One morning in Buffalo I missed him when we started, and followed him to the theatre; I entered at the stage door and went to the wings, looking for him. It was a minute or two before I recognized him, with a high hat and a cane, reciting passages from “Macbeth.” But that night he was more tremendous than ever. His first entrance in the play he made by leaping from the rocks, as he exclaimed, “So foul and fair a day I have not seen”; and it was the very Highland thane that came upon the scene—full of his future dignity and oppressed by the feeling of Fate that fills this tragedy as it does the plays of Euripides. That feeling, indeed, almost illustrates the depression that settled over his nature at intervals, and seemed a premonition of some awful future. It was appalling to witness, and must have been still more appalling to endure. Doubtless he inherited it from his father. It was like a veil that shrouded him from other mortals, and he walked behind it, apart. He strove to describe his emotions at such times to me, for he wanted me to know all he felt; but the effort was like those sad ones of his later days, when he attempted to utter words and gave only inarticulate sounds. I cannot portray him unless I make this sadness apparent; it was so strange and weird.
And yet this introspective, distant man, so old when he was young, so cold though gifted with every personal charm—was a warmly affectionate son, devoted to his mother, and generous to his family; he lived with his mother and sister for years, and provided for them after his marriage; he lent money not only to his brothers, but to hosts of friends, actors and others, for his profession brought him in large sums, and he gave away much in charity, especially to actors. His friendships, though steadfast, were not usually ardent or demonstrative. He who was gifted with such wonderful power to express the emotions of others was often unable or unwilling to give utterance to his own. When he was called out after the play, the man who had just enthralled an audience as Richard or Othello, or hurled the imprecations of Richelieu or Lear, stood modest and shrinking, only able to stammer a few words of thanks in his own person, on the very boards where he was most at home.
He was not a good hater; when he was injured he felt it keenly, and I am 262 not sure that he ever forgave a wrong, but the memory of it was not always keen, and I doubt if he ever revenged himself—he relented when it came to inflicting pain. In his business relations he more than once fell into foul hands, and he had himself little business faculty; but he was slow in making reprisals, even if opportunity offered. For he had a noble, gentle nature; I never knew him do a mean or vulgar thing. He was no backbiter; he refrained, even with me, from hostile criticism of other actors. I sometimes drew out opinions that were not favorable, but he never offered them, and always seemed to utter them unwillingly, as if he would not refuse to tell me what he thought, and yet was loath to speak severely of a brother artist.
No one ever charged him with desertion of a friend or backwardness in time of need; and I have known of sacrifices that he made for others, greater than most men are capable of. He submitted to much from some members of his family, because he deemed it his duty, or from affectionate pity, and endured even cruel wrongs rather than resent them publicly. He was most averse to bringing his private affairs before the world, and disliked to extend the publicity of the stage to his every-day life. His friendships in his youth were almost confined to members of his own profession. Joseph Jefferson, and John Sleeper Clarke, who married his sister, were always very close to him, and in later years, Barrett. In time, however, he had many associates among artists and cultivated men, who naturally sought his company, and some of these he regarded as personal friends.[1]
His three executors, Messrs. Benedict, Bispham, and McGonigle, were, I suppose, as intimate with him as any one in later years; he certainly showed them the most absolute confidence in his will, and for years had consulted them on the management of his affairs. Mr. McGonigle married the sister of his first wife.
I once visited with him the place where he was born. It was a farmhouse twenty-five or thirty miles from Baltimore. We drove out in a one-horse vehicle, and he was Phaëton. The house was partly furnished but unoccupied, and an old negro in an outbuilding gave us the keys. His father’s library remained, and a part of his stage wardrobe, and we spent hours ransacking them both, studying old play-bills, even English ones of his father, examining rare copies of Shakespeare, and trying on trappings of Shylock or Lear. I made him put on a wig and act the parts for a single auditor. He was very complaisant that day, or night rather, for we sat up till late into the morning, and then made beds out of Cæsar’s mantle and Macbeth’s robes. He picked out three volumes of Shakespeare which he had used in playing, full of his own stage directions written in, and variations of the text, and gave them to me as a memento of the visit, inscribing some lines from one of the sonnets. It was Verplanck’s illustrated edition, and some of the plates were marked: “Form this picture.” I remember afterward noticing that he made the picture on the stage.
Many a night in those days we sat together till morning, for he had the actor’s habit of turning night into day. Playing till nearly midnight, and supping still later, the excitement of the stage kept him awake afterward, and he never wanted to go to bed. He was never more animated in thought and look and gesture than after acting. Of course, he rose late, and during an engagement his only leisure hours were one or two in the afternoon; for in those early days he went regularly to rehearsal. That was before the era of long runs, and he played a range of parts in each engagement, changing them nearly every night. He sometimes slept after his early dinner, so as to be refreshed and ready for evening.