Part 11

One night during the hundred and sixty on which _The Dead Heart_ was acted, when we had acknowledged the applause which followed the duel, Irving put his arm round me as we walked up the stage together, and said: "What a big name you might have made for yourself had you never come across those Robertson plays! What a pity, for your own sake; for no actor can be remembered long who does not appear in the classical drama."

I fear egotism is getting the better of me. Irving once said:

"One point must strike all in connection with Bancroft's career--before he left the Haymarket, at the age of forty-four, he was the senior theatrical manager of London. In conjunction with that gifted lady who was the genius of English comedy, he popularised a system of management which has dominated our stage ever since, and the principle of which may be described as the harmony of realism and art."

It is to be much regretted that no really satisfactory portrait of Irving exists. The one painted by Millais, and given by him to the Garrick Club in 1884, is a beautiful work of art, but, to my mind, somewhat effeminate in its {188} beauty. A portrait by Sargent, painted when Irving was fifty, and exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1888, was amazingly clever, but a somewhat painful likeness. The great painter showed something in the great actor--as he so often does in his sitters--which his gifted and searching eyes could not help seeing, and which, once having been shown, you cannot afterwards help seeing always. Irving hated the portrait, and when it was taken from the walls of the Academy it was never seen again. I heard Irving, at my table, tell Sir Edward Poynter that he hid it away in a garret, and when he left the old Grafton Street chambers, his solitary home for many years, he hacked the canvas to shreds with a knife. What a treasure lost!

Irving's hospitality was unbounded. At one of his many parties I recollect his saying to Frank Lockwood, when he was Solicitor-General: "The fortunate actor is the actor who works hard." He then pointed across the table to me, and added: "Look at that fellow, and remember what hard work meant in his case. 'B' is the only actor since Garrick who made a fortune purely by management of his own theatre--I mean without the aid of provincial tours and visits to America." After a pause he continued: "But he has paid the {189} penalty of leaving his best work as an actor undone."

[Sidenote: Knighthood]

It will ever be remembered that Henry Irving was the first actor to receive from his Sovereign the honour of State recognition: so placing his calling on a level with the rest, no more to be looked at askance, but recognised as leading to a share of the distinctions enjoyed by his fellow-men.

For a year or more before the end it was manifest to those who loved him that the sword had worn out the scabbard--it hung so listlessly by his side. This I strongly realised the last time he sat at our table, and was struck by his plaintive manner to my wife and to me. He then had a flat in Stratton Street, and left us at midnight, saying that he must be home before the lift ceased running or he would have to be carried upstairs.

In affectionate remembrance I close my tribute to Henry Irving. His remarkable career has taken its place in the history of his country, for he was one of the leaders of men who earned the privilege, given to but few, to become the property of the world.

It may also be truly said of Irving, as of one of the most distinguished of his predecessors: "He who has done a single thing that others never forget, and feel ennobled whenever they {190} think of, need not regret his having been, and may throw aside this fleshly coil like any other worn-out part, grateful and contented."

Although I knew and loved them from their boyhood, I find it difficult to write of Irving's sons, being, as they were, so overpowered by the dominant personality of the father.

[Sidenote: "H.B." and Laurence]

They both went to Marlborough. "H.B." afterwards to New College, Oxford. Laurence left school for Paris, to perfect his knowledge of French, his ambition and inclination being the diplomatic service. He then passed some three years in Russia, acquiring mastery of the difficult language. Unhappily, his wished-for career had to be abandoned for want of the imperative funds. "H.B." was called to the Bar, but lacked the necessary patience, and so abandoned a profession, as was thought by many competent judges, in which he was eminently qualified to take a high position; while his "hobby" until the end was criminology, and he wrote remarkable books on that fascinating subject.

Both sons drifted on to the stage. Before that step was taken I had seen "H.B." at Oxford give a striking performance, for one so young, of _King John_.

Later on, I had no wish to see him act a long round of his father's old parts.

{191}

Towards the end of the War he left his work at the Savoy Theatre and devoted himself to hard work in the Intelligence Department at the Admiralty, which proved to be a great strain upon him. We met frequently at that time, by appointment, at the Athenæum, hard by, and had luncheon together, as he did with his close friend, E. V. Lucas. It was manifest then that his fatal illness had begun.

Laurence was a more frequent guest of ours than Harry, especially at Christmas time, having no children to command his presence at home; he was not so trammelled on the stage as his brother; it was easier for him to escape from perpetual reminders. The performances I remember best on his part are his high-class acting in _Typhoon_ and the admirable drawing of a character he played in _The Incubus_, who is, in point of fact, his mistress and has become sadly in the way. My wife and I saw the play together from a stage box, and were much amused at the end of it by a conversation between what we took to be a young married couple in the stalls, just beneath us.

The girl said: "Good play, isn't it?" The man answered: "Capital. I've only one fault to find with it." "What's that?" "Title." "Title, why it's a perfect title." The man: "Rotten title--it's nothing about an incubus." {192} The girl: "It's all about an incubus." The man: "The thing was never once mentioned." The girl, in amazement: "What is an incubus?" The man: "Why, one of those things in which they hatch chickens."

The sons died at an age that is not closed to hope and promise, which now must be handed on to another generation--Laurence and Elizabeth, the children of Harry Irving, both gifted with good looks and charm. The boy distinguished himself during the War in the Air Force and now shows promise as a painter. My love descends to them.

[Sidenote: J. L. Toole]

Extremes meet; they always do and always will. The closest friend Henry Irving had was J. L. Toole. The strong affection between the two men, which lasted until the end, began when Toole was making a name on the stage in Edinburgh and Irving only a beginner. The famous comedian belonged, as it were, to "the City," and was educated at the City of London School. He was a close second to Sothern in inventing practical jokes, generally harmless, and would take as infinite pains to carry them through. I remember a silly story he loved to tell, how, after a bad baccarat night at Aix-les-Bains, he went to the bank to draw money on his letter of credit. Tapping at the _guichet_, he inquired of the clerk in feeble, {193} broken English how much the bank would advance upon a gold-headed cane which he carried. As might be expected, the little window was slammed in his face. Nothing daunted, Toole made his way to the market-place hard by, and bought from various stalls some small fish, a bunch of carrots, and a child's toy; he then returned to the bank and arranged his purchases on the counter, with the addition of his watch, a half-franc piece and a penknife. When all was ready he again tapped at the window, and, in a tremulous voice, implored the clerk to accept these offerings in pledge for the small sum needed to save him from starvation. The clerk indignantly requested Toole to leave the establishment, explaining, in the best English at his command, that the bank only made advances upon letters of credit. At the last-named word Toole broke into smiles, and, producing his letter of credit, handed it to the astonished clerk, with the explanation that he would have offered it at first had he thought the bank cared about it, but the porter at his hotel had emphatically told him the bankers of Aix preferred fish.

Toole was never the same after the painful death of his son: he became more and more a slave to "late hours," but was still a delightful, {194} buoyant companion, beloved by his comrades and friends.

Wilson Barrett was a good actor of the robust type. He had an adventurous career: sometimes high on the wave of success, at others deep down in the trough of the sea of failure, but always strictly honourable. At the old Princess's Theatre, in Oxford Street, he made large sums by good dramas like _The Silver King_ and _The Lights of London_, and lost them through the failures of ambitious efforts, which included a youthful _Hamlet_, to be wiped out in turn by the enormous success of _The Sign of the Cross_, a religious drama that appealed to a large public which rarely entered theatres. The play provoked Bernard Shaw to say that Wilson Barrett could always bring down the house with a hymn, and had so evident a desire to personate the Messiah that we might depend upon seeing him crucified yet.

[Sidenote: William Terriss]

A restless, untamable spirit was born in William Terriss. He tried various callings before settling down to the one for which he was so eminently fitted. He embarked in the mercantile marine, but the craze only lasted a fortnight. Then came tea-planting in China. The next experiment was made in medicine, to be followed by an attack upon engineering. {195} He then positively bluffed me into giving him an engagement, and made his appearance on the stage. Suddenly he decided to go sheep farming in the Falkland Islands. He made an early marriage, and his beloved Ellaline was born there. Of course he soon came back; returned to and left the stage again; next to Kentucky to try horse-breeding. Another failure brought him to his senses. Five years after he had first adopted the stage he was an actor in earnest and became one of its greatest favourites.

His career was chiefly identified with the Lyceum and the Adelphi; but he first became prominent by his acting as Thornhill in _Olivia_, under Hare's management at the Court Theatre. His bright, breezy nature was a tonic, and, like his daughter and her husband, Seymour Hicks, he carried sunshine about with him and shed it on all he met. He was as brave as a lion and as graceful as a panther.

Alas! one Saturday evening the town was horrified as the tragic news quickly spread that Terriss had been fatally stabbed by a malignant madman as he was entering the Adelphi Theatre to prepare for his evening's work. At his funeral there was an extraordinary manifestation of public sympathy.

Lionel Monckton told me a curious story of {196} how when he reached home he found that a clock which Terriss gave him had stopped at the hour of the murder.

However briefly, I must record grateful thanks for past enjoyment given us by Corney Grain, as great a master in his branch of art as that friend of my youth, John Parry. His odd name was often wrongly thought to be assumed, as was that of a dramatist of those days, Stirling Coyne, who rejoiced in the nickname of "Filthy Lucre."

I always remember the stifled laughter of my wife and Corney Grain, who was present with ourselves at a dinner party, when a distinguished foreigner, accredited by Spain to the Court of St. James, was announced by a nervous manservant as the "Spanish Ham..."--a long pause being followed by a trembling sotto voce--"bassador."

[Sidenote: "Gee Gee" and "Wee Gee"]

George Grossmith, the elder--"Gee Gee"--is of course best remembered by his long connection with the Gilbert and Sullivan operas. To their great success he contributed a share of which he was justly proud. After he left the Savoy Theatre he toured as an entertainer, with excellent financial results, both here and from two visits to the United States. When he returned for the second time, I remember his saying to me, in his funny, {197} plaintive way: "Do you know, my dear 'B,' things are really very sad. The first time I came back from America I found myself spoken of as 'Weedon Grossmith's brother,' and now, after my second visit, I am only 'George Grossmith's father.'"

I have always looked upon Weedon Grossmith--"Wee Gee"--as an admirable actor, and his death as bringing a personal loss, having valued his friendship and his company. On the stage I best remember him in Pinero's comedies, _The Cabinet Minister_ and _The Amazons_, in _A Pantomime Rehearsal_, and, towards the end of his career, in a remarkable performance of a demented odd creature, who believed himself to be the great Napoleon. My wife was so impressed by the acting that she wrote to our little friend about it in a way which delighted him beyond words. Weedon was educated as a painter, and became an exhibitor at the Academy and other galleries. I have two charming examples from his brush, which I bought at Christie's.

The Great War dealt severe blows to the stage, many a young life of promise being taken. The toll was heavy; but they are honoured always by their comrades and remembered for their valour, as are those who served so bravely and survived. During those {198} terrible years the stage also lost E. S. Willard, Lewis Waller, Herbert Tree, William Kendal and George Alexander--all men in the front rank; every one hard to replace.

I associate Willard with his success in _The Silver King_, and afterwards in Henry Arthur Jones's plays, _The Middleman_ and _Judah_. In these he had a prosperous career through the United States--as in the part in which I best remember him--the old man in Barrie's comedy, _The Professor's Love Story_, a charming piece of artistic work. He owed a modest fortune to the appreciation he met with in America.

Willard had an ambition to build a theatre at the top of Lower Regent Street, where the County Fire Office, so long a London landmark, stood; but, granting the site to have been available, it had no depth: the theatre could only have been erected on a part of the Regent Palace Hotel, and reached by burrowing under the road--so far as my architectural knowledge serves me. With the demolition of the County Fire Office the last fragment of the old colonnade disappeared, which, I remember, in my boyhood extended on both sides of the Quadrant from the Circus to Vigo Street.

Early retirement from management prevented intimacy with several prominent actors, who otherwise might have been associated {199} with our work. For instance, Lewis Waller was only once our guest, as things happened. Of his acting, my wife and I were among the warm admirers. The first play in which he commanded our attention was _The Profligate_, which Pinero wrote for Hare when his management of the Garrick Theatre began. One recalls with admiration his acting as Hotspur, Brutus, Faulconbridge, and King Henry V.

I am sorry I did not know him better, or see more of him. He was a great loss to the stage he loved.

[Sidenote: Too many windows]

It was, naturally, a satisfaction to my wife, as to me, when Herbert Tree became our successor at the Haymarket. We felt the future of the theatre to be secure for a while, and that its traditions would be worthily maintained. He did all sorts of good work there, ranging from _Hamlet_ and _Henry V_ to _The Dancing Girl_ and _Trilby_, until he was responsible for building its beautiful opposite neighbour, the present His Majesty's Theatre, where he migrated. During its erection I was walking one day on the opposite side with Comyns Carr, who asked me what I thought of it. He seemed to be greatly amused by my answer: "Too many windows to clean."

Good fortune continued to smile upon the smaller house under the joint management of {200} Frederick Harrison and Cyril Maude. Much of its deserved success was due, in those days, to the art of Winifred Emery, which was then approaching its best, before cruel disease came in the plenitude of her powers and robbed her of that very front position which is reached by so few, and which I think she would surely have attained in her maturity.

Herbert Tree was for many years a power and an authority upon our stage: he rendered its alluring profession great service. I still trust in the hope that successors may be found with something of his splendid courage, his boundless imagination, to follow in his firmest footsteps and leave as memorable marks.

In private life he was an amusing creature, a delightful companion, a perfect host. It was once said of him, not altogether without truth, that he walked in a dream, talked in a dream, ate in a dream, drank in a dream, smoked in a dream, and acted in a dream.

He had enormous energy in starting things, but less strength in carrying his ideas through: he grew tired quickly through his love of change.

I will end with a comic note, for which I am indebted to Pinero. It so happened that the names of Arthur Pinero and Herbert Tree were announced for knighthood in the same Honours {201} List. A man who was an old friend of both wrote a letter of felicitation to each of them; but unfortunately he put his letters into the wrong envelopes. The one Pinero received was as follows: "My dear Tree. Hearty congratulations. You ought to have had it long ago. But why Pinero?" The distinguished dramatist sent this letter to the distinguished actor with the necessary explanation, and in return had from him the note intended for himself. This was it: "My dear Pinero. Hearty congratulations. You ought to have had it long ago. But why Tree?"

[Sidenote: The Kendals]

"Will" Kendal, until he "passed into the night," chanced to be my oldest theatrical friend. We first met at Birmingham, in our early struggling days, and not again until he had planted his feet firmly at the Haymarket. Mrs. Kendal I knew in the following year, when we acted together in the country. She was Madge Robertson then, and a "flapper" of fifteen, already foreshadowing her brilliant future. After the Kendals married, my wife and I had the great advantage of their services in our company for two seasons. When, later on, their successful partnership with Hare came to an end, they travelled much in America, where they became special favourites and amassed a large fortune.

{202}

Kendal was an actor in the foremost rank, being trained by some years of hard work in the provincial "stock companies," as we of the "old brigade" all were. There were certain parts he played to perfection. I never saw his equal as Captain Absolute in _The Rivals_, young Marlow in _She Stoops to Conquer_, and Charles Courtly in _London Assurance_.

It must be full five and forty years since George Alexander called upon my wife one Sunday afternoon with a letter of introduction from our dear friend, Sir Morell Mackenzie. We were sorry, for all our sakes, that we could only offer him encouragement. He had much in his favour; was acting with a travelling company in the Robertson comedies, and warmly recommended for a London engagement, which he soon received from Irving at the Lyceum. Many pleasant tributes from Ellen Terry were paid to him during his stay there, and he rendered yeoman service to his chief. Alexander's long and successful management of the St. James's Theatre was beyond reproach, and for years gave stability to the stage and good repute to those who worked with him. He was a staunch friend to English dramatists and produced plays written by Arthur Pinero, Henry Arthur Jones, Alfred Sutro, Anthony Hope, Claude Carton, Haddon Chambers, Louis {203} Parker, Stephen Phillips, Oscar Wilde, and Henry James: a worthy record.

[Sidenote: "Mrs. Tanqueray"]

The finest feather in Alexander's managerial cap--his _panache_--was the production of Pinero's great play, _The Second Mrs. Tanqueray_. He alone had the courage--a quality most essential in theatrical enterprise--to risk what thirty years ago was a dangerous undertaking, the truth and humanity of the play, which has kept it vigorously alive, being at the time of its production lost sight of in the sensation caused by the selection of such a daring scheme and subject for the stage. That fears existed for the success of the play on that score may now excite wonder in the minds of the present advanced generation.

The part of Paula has been a vehicle for the widely differing genius and conceptions of so many eminent actresses--Mrs. Patrick Campbell, Duse, Jane Hading, Mrs. Kendal, Miss Gladys Cooper, and numerous other distinguished foreigners--that special interest attaches to the curious incidents surrounding the first production of the play and the original casting of the heroine.

The play was in the first instance offered to Hare, who very decidedly refused it. On Hare's rejection, it was offered to Alexander, who, though greatly impressed by its strength, {204} also, but reluctantly, declined it. Pinero then proposed to Alexander that he should do the play at a _matinée_, without being asked for any author's fee. This proposal was agreed to; and the play was announced for a series of morning performances. It happened, however, that Alexander's forthcoming production was _Liberty Hall_, a comedy written by Claude Carton, who, not unnaturally, represented to Alexander that the performances of _The Second Mrs. Tanqueray_ in the afternoons might militate against the success of the regular evening bill. (An odd little coincidence is that one of the characters in _Liberty Hall_ was originally named Tanqueray--a name which Carton, out of consideration for Pinero, changed to Harringay.) Alexander thereupon undertook that, if Pinero would release him from his agreement to give morning performances of _The Second Mrs. Tanqueray_, he would at the earliest opportunity put the play into the evening bill. In these circumstances the play was produced towards the end of the season of 1893.

[Sidenote: The first Paula]