Part 25

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.]

RICHARD CLAVERHOUSE JEBB

LITERATURE AND ART

[Speech of Richard Claverhouse Jebb, professor in the University of Cambridge, in responding to the toast, "The Interests of Literature," coupled, according to custom, with "The Interests of Science," at the banquet of the Royal Academy, London, May 4, 1885. Sir Frederic Leighton, President of the Academy, said in introducing him: "I invite you to join me in a tribute, never wanting at this table, to science and to letters. With literature I connect the name of a guest whom his grateful country has brought from the far banks of the Clyde to our table to-night--one among the very foremost and most elegant of our scholars; and a speaker on whose lips we trace, though Latin has been the chief vehicle of his oratory, a savor of those Attic orators with whom his name is associated in our minds--Professor Jebb."]

MR. PRESIDENT, YOUR ROYAL HIGHNESSES, MY LORDS, AND GENTLEMEN:--In responding for the second part of the toast, which has been so eloquently proposed and so graciously received, I trust that I shall have the indulgence of this distinguished company if the words in which the response is tendered are simple and few. It is now just a hundred years since the earliest occupant of the presidential chair which Sir Frederic Leighton so brilliantly adorns, in addressing the students of the Royal Academy, counseled them to practice "the comparison of art with art, and of all arts with the nature of man."

Among the various fields in which literature works, there is none, perhaps, in which the reciprocal influence of art and literature can be more vividly apprehended than in the province of classical study, and especially in the domain of those pursuits which are conversant with the life and thought of ancient Greece. The inheritor of a shapeless mythology and a rude tradition, Homer emerges as the first artist in European poetry, giving clear outline and beautiful form to types of godhead and heroism. The successor to schools which had rather combated than conquered their material, Phidias, is recalled as the first poet in European art, creating a visible embodiment for the Homeric vision of those imperial brows which made Olympus to tremble at their nod.

England has no Academy of Letters. All the more, perhaps, is it desirable that our literature should be penetrated by those regulative lessons of form, those suggestions of a spiritual harmony, which emanate from an Academy such as this ["Hear! Hear!"]--from a true and noble Academy of arts. It has never been better with art, it has never been better with literature than when each has been most willing to receive the highest teachings of the other, acknowledging the bond of an eternal sisterhood in that Hellenic message for which Keats has found an English voice,--"Beauty is truth, truth beauty." [Cheers.]

JOSEPH JEFFERSON

MY FARM IN JERSEY

[Speech of Joseph Jefferson at a dinner given by the Authors' Club, in honor of the tenth anniversary of its founding, New York, February 28, 1893. Edward Eggleston acted as chairman. On rising to speak, Mr. Jefferson received an enthusiastic greeting.]

GENTLEMEN:--I need not say how I thank you for this generous greeting. I am very glad that your worthy chairman has defined my position. I knew I was a guest, but I did not know I was an author--however, I will begin my remarks here because I think it is appropriate at an Authors' Club to quote from so able and so lovely a man as Charles Lamb. Charles Lamb has said that the world is divided into two classes, those who are born to borrow and those who are born to lend, and if you happen to be of the latter class, why, do it cheerfully. Now the world seems to be divided into two other classes, those who are always anxious to make speeches and those who are not. If of the latter one, you are rather uncertain of yourself, as I am now, and you have to make a speech, why, do it cheerfully. [Applause.]

Making a speech cheerfully and making a cheerful speech are two very different matters. [Laughter and applause.] You know how dangerous it is for any man to wander away from the legitimate paths of his profession. I fear I have been over-impertinent; I have even been rude enough to exhibit my pictures, impertinent enough to write a book. I have become an author of one book and the authors have kindly admitted me and invited me to their board. To-morrow night, or after to-morrow night, I presume that the orators will invite me to their board. [Applause.] I am almost ashamed of my presumption, and it would serve me very right if I failed to-morrow night. That will teach me better and I shall extend the field of my operation no further, I assure you.

But it is curious that there is one path in which the actor always wanders--he always likes to be a land-owner. It is a curious thing that the actors of England and--of course in the olden times you must remember that we had none but English actors in this country,--and as soon as they came here, they wanted to own land. They could not do it in England. The elder Booth owned a farm at Bellaire. Thomas Cooper, the celebrated English tragedian, bought a farm near Philadelphia, and it is a positive fact that he is the first man who ever owned a fast trotting horse in America. He used to drive from the farm to rehearsal at the theatre, and I believe has been known on some occasions, when in convivial company, even to drive out at night afterwards. [Laughter.] Following and emulating the example of my illustrious predecessors I became a farmer. I will not allude to my plantation in Louisiana; my overseer takes care of that. I have not heard from him lately but I am told he takes very good care of it. [Laughter.] I trust there was no expression of distrust on my part. But I allude to my farm in New Jersey. I have not been so successful as Mr. Burroughs, but I was attracted by a townsman and I bought a farm in New Jersey. I went out first to examine the soil. I told the honest farmer who was about to sell me this place that I thought the soil looked rather thin; there was a good deal of gravel. He told me that the gravel was the finest thing for drainage in the world. I told him I had heard that, but I had always presumed that if the gravel was underneath it would answer the purpose better. He said: "Not at all; this soil is of that character that it will drain both ways," by what he termed I think catepillary attraction. [Laughter.] I bought the farm and set myself to work to increase the breadth of my shoulders, to help my appetite, and so forth, about work of a farm. I even went so far as to emulate the example set by Mr. Burroughs, and split the wood. I did not succeed at that. Of course, as Mr. Burroughs wisely remarks, the heat comes at both ends; it comes when you split the wood and again when you burn it. But as I only lived at my farm during the summer time, it became quite unnecessary in New Jersey to split wood in July, and my farming operations were not successful.

We bought an immense quantity of chickens and they all turned out to be roosters [laughter]; but I resolved--I presume as William Nye says about the farm--to carry it on; I would _carry_ on that farm as long as my wife's money lasted. [Laughter.] A great mishap was when my Alderney bull got into the greenhouse. There was nothing to stop him but the cactus. He tossed the flower-pots right and left. Talk about the flowers that bloom in the spring,--why, I never saw such a wreck, and I am fully convinced that there is nothing that will stop a thoroughly well-bred bull but a full-bred South American cactus. [Laughter.] I went down to look at the ruins and the devastation that this animal had made, and I found him quietly eating black Hamburg grapes. I don't know anything finer than black Hamburg grapes for Alderney bulls. A friend of mine, who was chaffing me for my farming proclivities, said: "I see you have got in some confusion here. It looks to me from seeing that gentleman there--that stranger in the greenhouse--that you are trying to raise early bulls under glass." [Laughter.]

Well, I will not tire you with these experiences. I can only congratulate Mr. Burroughs upon his success, and I beg that you will sympathize with me upon my failure; and now then allow me to conclude my crude remarks by thanking you for the very kind manner in which you have listened to my remarks and my experiences. I assure you--they are all of them true. And I thank you, sir, for your kind introduction, which I am afraid I do not deserve. And so, gentlemen, I wish you success and happiness, and long life to your honorable Club. [Long-continued applause.]

* * * * *

IN MEMORY OF EDWIN BOOTH

[Speech of Joseph Jefferson at the annual banquet held on Founders' Night at the Players' Club, New York City, December 30, 1893. This was the first time that Mr. Jefferson, the newly-elected President, spoke to his fellow-players in his official capacity.]

FELLOW-PLAYERS:--Founders' Night should be of joy, unshaded by the slightest tinge of gloom. I know this, but how can I speak to-night without a loving reference to the one whose gift we now hold--a gift in which our children and theirs for many generations will take pride, delight and comfort. It would be a twice-told tale to rehearse the career of Edwin Booth. You are as familiar with it as I am. But there are incidents in his early life that may interest you, and possibly that no one but myself could tell you.

An early remembrance of the stage brings before me the figure of the elder Booth. When I was but five years of age I acted the Duke of York to his Richard III. You may think it strange that I remember this circumstance; but even a child as young as I was could not have stood in the presence of this superb and magnetic actor without being indelibly impressed with the scene. His son, Edwin, was then just born. We first met when he was a handsome youth of sixteen. A lithe and graceful figure, buoyant in spirits, and with the loveliest eyes I ever looked upon. We were friends from the first, and it is a comfort to me to know that our friendship lasted nearly half a century, unbroken by a single act or word. His early performances upon the stage did not give much promise, and there were grave fears that he had not inherited the genius of his father. But after the death of that father young Booth's friends and the public were suddenly startled by the news from across the Continent that a new star had arisen, not in the East, but in the West, and was wending its way homeward.

In 1854 I became the stage manager for Henry C. Jarrett in Baltimore. That gentleman is a member of our Club and now stands before me. He one day brought a young girl who had been given to his care and placed her in mine--a beautiful child, but fifteen years of age. Her family, a most estimable one, had met with some reverse, and she had decided to go upon the stage to relieve them from the burden of her support, and possibly to contribute to the comfort of her father. This loving duty she faithfully performed. She lived in my family as the companion of my wife for three years, and during that time became one of the leading actresses of the stage. One morning I said to her: "To-morrow you are to rehearse Juliet to the Romeo of our new and rising young tragedian." At this distance I can scarcely say whether I had or had not a premonition of the future, but I knew at the conclusion of that rehearsal that Edwin Booth and Mary Devlin would soon be man and wife; and so it came about, for at the end of the week he came to me in the green-room, with his affianced bride by the hand, and with a quaint smile they fell upon their knees in a mock-heroic manner, as though acting a scene in the play, and said: "Father, your blessing," to which I replied in the same mock-heroic vein, extending my hands like the old Friar: "Bless you, my children!" Shortly they were married. We know that his life was filled with histrionic triumphs and domestic bereavements.