Part 2

I remember, too, the humour with which the great lady told and acted an amusing incident that occurred on one of her travelling operatic tours when she appeared at a different place every evening. This was not altogether lost; my wife reproduced it afterwards. All the members of the company were seated in the train except the tenor, a funny-looking little {19} fat man who stammered painfully when speaking, but sang without a trace of his affliction. Just on the point of starting he appeared in a state of excitement at the door of the great songstress's compartment, having discovered that a large black box which contained her wardrobe had been left behind. He hurriedly opened the door and stammered violently: "Mad-ame, Mad-ame." "Yes, yes." The poor tenor got a step further: "The b-b-b-b--" The bewildered lady cried, "What is it? What's the matter?" Still the afflicted tenor, stammering more and more, could only answer, "The b-b-b-----" "Yes, yes, yes, but what is the b-b-b--, my dear fellow?" The stammer nearly choked the wretched creature as he gasped, "The bl-bl-bl-bl----" "Sing it, sing it, for mercy's sake, sing it!" cried the diva. The tenor lapsed dramatically into recitative: "All, I fear, is lost!" "Go on, go on. What's lost?" "I fe-ar--is lost!" "Go on, tell us, go on, what's lost?" The wretched tenor struck an attitude as he sang, "The black box!" "Yes, yes, what about it?" The only answer was, "The black box!" "What of it, man?" cried the poor lady in despair. The tenor reached his highest note as he shrieked, "The black box has been for-got-t-en!" Jenny Lind fell back in her corner and {20} muttered: "Great Heaven! I shall have no clothes!"

The whistle sounded, the tenor was hoisted into his compartment, and the train started.

I recall another story of how when a great composer--I think it was Meyerbeer--died, a pushing musician sent a great musician the score of a funeral march, which he had written in honour of the illustrious man who had passed away, with the hope that it might be played at his burial, and asking for a candid opinion of its merits. He was rebuffed by a judgment to the effect that things would have shaped better had he himself died and Meyerbeer undertaken to compose a funeral march.

It is bewildering to contrast the modest fees earned in Jenny Lind's day, and by gifted creatures like Malibran, Grisi and Mario (the pair sang in large houses for about thirty guineas) with the fabulous figures reached by such artists as Melba, Caruso and Paderewski in recent times.

There is a pretty medallion of Jenny Lind on the walls of Westminster Abbey, and I am glad that a statue has now been erected to her memory in the capital of her native land.

Another glorious songstress, Adelina Patti, was our friend for many years. She invited {21} us to stay at her Welsh castle, but we could not go. She amassed wealth and also charmed the world longer than any of her rivals. It has been truly said that the harp-strings slumber until touched by a magic hand: the echo of her wonderful voice still beats in human hearts, although its music has ended in the silence that waits for us all.

[Sidenote: "Sarah"]

In this little chapter--devoted to honoured women who have been our guests--mention must be made of one so famed as Sarah Bernhardt, the first actress to receive the Legion d'Honneur. My wife and I met her, and sat by her side, at the Mansion House, the occasion being a luncheon given by the then Lord Mayor in 1879 to the members of the Comédie Française, which comprised a group of players no theatre then could equal or has ever equalled since. I recall an amusing incident which occurred at the banquet concerning two busts--one of Nelson, the other of Wellington--which prominently adorned the room we were in, called the Long Parlour. We were obliged to assure "the divine Sarah" and her angry comrades that the Lord Mayor meant no slight to them or to their country in not having the offending busts removed, and also had to defend his lordship for not wearing his robes and chain of office, and for being {22} unaccompanied by sword and mace bearers. Incredible, but true.

The finest piece of acting I ever saw from "Sarah" was at the _répétition générale_ in Paris of Sardou's play _Fédora_. She rose to great heights, and held a brilliantly composed audience under a spell and in her grasp. Among those present, I remember well, were Alexandre Dumas, Alphonse Daudet, and Georges Ohnet; Got and Coquelin; Blanche Pierson and Maria Legault.

Edward Pigott, who was then the official Reader of Plays, wrote to me:

"The English version of _Fédora_ is an admirable piece of literary workmanship. It reads almost like an English original. The part is all Sarah. It is written exactly to her measure--that electric play of feature and gesture, that nervous intensity, that range of power and variety of accent, and sudden changefulness of mood, which belong to the feline instinct or temperament."

Later on, when I saw that great actress--so soon to be a legend, a tradition--Eleanora Duse, play in _Fédora_ I learnt that Sardou and Sarah had left some things unthought of.

Here is a little letter from the brilliant Frenchwoman:

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"BIEN CHÈRE, MADAME,

"Je vous remercie mille fois pour vos si belles roses et l'aimable lettre de Monsieur Bancroft. Je suis très heureuse que vous ayez pris plaiser à m'entendre, et très touchée que deux artistes de votre valeur m'accordent du talent.

"Veuillez me croire reconnaissante, et agréez, Madame, je vous prie, mes meilleurs sentiments.

"SARAH BERNHARDT."

Years afterwards, on the fiftieth anniversary of the great actress's first appearance on the stage, my wife was chosen to present a testimonial which had been prepared in her honour, in the presence of a remarkable gathering in which Monsieur Paul Cambon, the honoured French Ambassador to our Court for so many years, took a prominent part.

These were some of her words:

"Dear Madame Bernhardt, or, as you have so closely fastened yourself to our hearts 'with hoops of steel,' I hope you will allow me to say, dear Sarah. My words will be brief, but they come from my heart--the heart of a comrade and friend. Since my retirement no greater pleasure has befallen me than I feel at this moment, and when I was invited to perform {24} this delightful ceremony I was proud to be remembered and to be thought worthy to have the honour of presenting this tribute to your genius; an endorsement, as it were, of the force and value of the _Entente Cordiale_ which so happily unites our two great countries. Your fame belongs to all the world--the homage of every land is yours. Your name will live with those of Siddons, Rachel and Ristori. You have shed lustre and glory on the beautiful art you have so long and nobly served and in which you reign supreme."

The great woman took the opportunity to repeat her opinion given to a mutual friend, Hamilton Aidé, years before, of my wife's acting as Peg Woffington.

[Sidenote: Aimée Desclée]

But great as she was, unequalled in technique, wonderful in the range of her art, perfect in her command of every tone in her beautiful language, Sarah Bernhardt was never to my mind quite free from the blemish--it may be thought heresy to say so--of being something of a show-woman. The drum was too big in her orchestra, while I always considered her to be surpassed in the reality of emotion and passion by one other woman I have seen upon the stage--Aimée Desclée. No other serious actress, to my mind, took more absolute {25} possession of her audience. I doubt if even Rachel could have eclipsed her. Her acting in _Froufrou_, her original part, was supreme. The quarrel with her sister I can best describe as a whirlwind of dramatic art in its highest form, as was the pathos with which--when she had wrecked her life and gone away with her lover--she moaned: "_Une heure de colère, et voilà ou j'en suis._" Only those who are now quite old can have seen Desclée. Her fame was achieved in a few brief years, as she died in the flower of youth, being little more than thirty, if my memory serves me, in 1873. When Sarah then was asked her opinion of Desclée's acting she answered, "Truth!" She made no claim to beauty, but possessed more "magnetism"--I know no better word--unclouded by exaggeration than any of her rivals. Had Desclée been spared to act for twenty years her name would have lived among the immortals.

Alexandre Dumas thus wrote of her:

"Nothing remains of what was once so dear. Let us regret this great artist, but pity not her death. She has won the rest for which she prayed. Her best reward is death. Of the details of her actual life I have told you nothing. Where was she born? How was she brought up? Where did she first appear? {26} What became of her? What matters it at all? A woman like her has no biography. She touched our souls: and she is dead. There is her history."

[Sidenote: Réjane]

Another Frenchwoman whose name and fame give her an honoured place among the great ones, was Réjane. Our acquaintance began with a visit she paid us behind the scenes at the Haymarket when she was quite young. My wife at the time was acting the part first played by Réjane in a play by Sardou, called _Odette_.

She was never a guest at our table at home, but only when we met in France. Her art was the embodiment of abiding charm in _Ma Cousine_, in _La Vierge Folle_, in _Madame Sans-Gêne_, and many another play. Paris loved her and she loved Paris. How they must miss each other!

She was proud of her Montmartre origin, where she passed a poor and hard-working youth, painting fans and teaching. She told the company assembled to celebrate her nomination to the _Légion d'Honneur_, that it was at Montmartre she learnt her art and at Montmartre, in contact with lovers of the theatre, that she perfected it.

I remember the days in London when her {27} carriage was drawn by a pair of Spanish mules and people would struggle for a glimpse of her fascinating, though not beautiful, face. The last time I saw Réjane was at the Queen's Hall, during the War, when she recited Émile Cammaerts's poem, _Carillon_, to the music written for it by the composer, Edward Elgar, who conducted it himself. All concerned seemed to be inspired and gave you out of themselves some minutes of ecstasy; just as Karsavina and Nijinsky did in _The Spectre of The Rose_ at Covent Garden, before the War. These are things which are yours while memory lasts.

[Sidenote: Modjeska]

A dear friend and guest was the brilliant Helena Modjeska. Like the distinguished actor, Fechter, she never quite mastered the difficulties of the English tongue, but again, as in the Frenchman, her foreign accent became a fascination. She ran the great Sarah very close in _La Dame aux Camélias_. Her performance was the more spiritual: she seemed to have sacrificed purity only through passion and was ever fighting for Divine forgiveness. You almost had doubts if she could have so sinned, but none as to her salvation. My wife could give a most dramatic imitation of their different treatments of the tragic end, when with difficulty the feeble, outstretched {28} hands reached a table-mirror and they looked upon their dying faces. It was hard to decide if the heart-rending, pitiful wail with which the one murmured, "How changed I am!" was surpassed by the terrifying awe which slowly spread over the emaciated face of the other. Both were supreme moments in their beautiful art.

I recall an incident at a dinner given by Madame Modjeska and her husband, when the subject of an unhappy break-up of what seemed a happy marriage through an unfortunate lapse on the husband's part became the topic. The lady by my side said passionately: "That is an indiscretion, an outrage, a sin, call it what you will, I could never forgive--whoever the woman might be." She paused for a moment and added: "With one exception--Ellen Terry. Any man _ought_ to be forgiven."

Let me say a word about an Irish girl born at Limerick but taken to America in her childhood; the delightful, alluring Ada Rehan. She and Irving were our guests, both for the last time, together, I remember, and when they sat side by side. No words of mine could compete with those I copy, written by one who had followed Ada Rehan's art in every phase:

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"The secret of her allurement was elusive. Among its elements were absolute sincerity, the manifest capability of imparting great happiness, triumphant personal beauty, touched and softened by a wistful and sympathetic sadness, and that controlling and compelling instinct, essentially feminine, which endows with vital import every experience of love, and creates a perfect illusion in scenes of fancied bliss or woe."

[Sidenote: Gifted women]

It has been a pleasant task to pay my tribute to brilliant artists of foreign birth; I do not wish to write of gifted women now before the public, but let me render homage to comrades of the stage in days gone by who were born in these isles, and who reigned in their kingdom with a splendour equal to the great of any land. That mistress of her beautiful art, Madge Kendal; the incomparable Ellen Terry; the glorious and unique Mrs. John Wood; and Marie Bancroft--the salt of the art they adorned, who, in their bright springtime and their affluent summer, filled the scene: all as distinct from one another as Raphael from Rubens, as Watts from Whistler, yet each stamping the mark of her personality on every part she played, and of whom it might be said the deaf could hear them in their eloquent faces: the blind could see them {30} in their vibrant voices. Deep is the debt which never can be paid for the cares they lightened, for the sorrows they soothed; they dragged creatures from the books wherein they were born, making them live, their hearts beating, their pulses throbbing, and enshrined their joyousness in many grateful memories.

The mantle of the great must be of their own weaving; on other shoulders it is bound to be a misfit.

It is pleasant to have one's views confirmed; the more so in the judgment of a distinguished American man of letters whose knowledge of people connected with the stage was remarkable.

"Our age indeed has no Colley Cibber to describe their loveliness and celebrate their achievements; but surely if he were living at this hour, that courtly, characteristic, and sensuous writer--who saw so clearly and could portray so well the peculiarities of the feminine nature--would not deem the period of Marie Bancroft and Ellen Terry, of Clara Morris and Ada Rehan, of Sarah Bernhardt and Jane Hading, unworthy of his pen. As often as fancy ranges over those bright names and others that are kindred with them--a glistering sisterhood of charms and talents--the regret must arise that no literary artist with just the {31} gallant spirit, the chivalry, the fine insight and the pictorial touch of old Cibber is extant to perpetuate their glory."

[Sidenote: Ouida]

I turn to another calling, and can say something of two distinguished women whose fame was earned as writers of fiction--Ouida (Louise de la Ramée) and Miss Braddon (Mrs. Maxwell). They were much of an age, but their careers had no other resemblance; except in their enormous vogue and hold upon the public of their day.

The name "Ouida" was a nursery corruption of Louisa. She had an English mother and a French father, but lived chiefly in Italy.

My wife and I first met her at the Langham Hotel, where she stayed when in London--as odd to look upon as she was pleasant to talk with. She had strange large eyes of a sort of dark blue and, in her white satin gown and sandalled shoes, was strangely reminiscent of mid-Victorian days. She always wore white frocks in the summer time and, as I was told, black velvet in the winter months.

We hoped Ouida might, as she earnestly wished, write a play for us, but she got no further than a title. Of her novels, if I remember rightly, quite a fairly good play was {32} concocted from _Moths_. She had a great appreciation of my wife, both on and off the stage, and we valued her friendship. There are few readers nowadays, I suppose, of _Under Two Flags_, _Puck_, or _Two Little Wooden Shoes_, which engrossed the public of her time. She was proud of the fact that Bulwer Lytton read every book she wrote.

As an instance of her "style," here is a description of a young Italian peasant girl:

"The marigolds and the sunflowers had given her their ripe rich gold to tint her hair; the lupins had lent their azure for her eyes; the moss-rose buds had made her pretty mouth; the arum lilies had uncurled their softness for her skin; and the lime blossoms had given her their frank, fresh, innocent fragrance."

Ouida would have had no vogue in these times. She violently opposed female suffrage and expressed her view that "millions of ordinary women have as little of the sage in them as of the angel."

As for the new woman, she wrote of her as "violating every law alike of common sense and of artistic fitness, and yet comes forward as a fit and proper person to make laws for others." She was strong in her views that {33} the private lives of all artists are not fit objects of curiosity, and was firm in declining, in unedited language, to be interviewed. Ouida was undoubtedly an eccentric, with a golden heart, and a passion for dogs. She died in her beloved Italy, alas! in abject poverty, mainly due, I fear, to her unpractical nature and her uncurbed generosities. No one is left to tell us what became of all the lovely things by which she was surrounded in her prosperous days at the Florentine Villa Farinola. I think she rests in peace.

Not long before the end my wife received this letter from her:

"DEAR THALIA,

"I have been and am still very ill. For two days I was near death. I should grieve to leave my dear dogs. Their lives are too short in comparison with their devotion. I got your long letter after some delay and fear many letters are lost between Italy and England. I have seen a bag filled with the contents of pillar-boxes reposing in sweet solitude on the pavement of a deserted street in Florence!

"I am so glad that you and your dear husband are well and happy.... I wish I could come and see you all and the dear old country where its sons and daughters {34} are never content except when they are out of it.

"Love to you and Sir Squire. Believe me, always your and his admirer and friend.

"OUIDA."

[Sidenote: Miss Braddon]

I was a young actor in the country, full sixty years ago, when a new novel appeared which made the writer of it--a girl in her twenties--famous throughout the land. The book was _Lady Audley's Secret_. The girl was Miss Braddon. The fame of the new novel spread like wildfire and the rush for its three volumes--most novels were so published in those days--was extraordinary.

From one of the old Strand Theatre burlesques I recall words like these: "Always a lady's secret I respect, save _Lady Audley's Secret_ which that deep Mudie lets out and won't let people keep."

Dickens and Thackeray were still alive and at work, as were George Eliot, Bulwer Lytton and Wilkie Collins.

Miss Braddon's own share reached more than seventy novels in more than fifty years of work. We knew her for many of those years, and loved her company, here in London, as in Switzerland and Italy.

In a long railway journey we took together {35} from Lugano to Boulogne some anxiety arose as we neared the sea about what the "crossing" would be like. I remember Mrs. Maxwell's amusement at my wife's saying: "I don't feel comfortable about it; the small boats and fishing-smacks in harbour are too polite to each other, with their little bows and curtseys. I fear we shall find things more quarrelsome when we have crossed the bar."

The famous novelist was an open-air woman, at home in a saddle, loved to follow the hounds, and was devoted to her dogs, her cats and her birds. She adored Dickens, had great admiration for Balzac, and placed George Eliot on a lofty pedestal. The way she did her work was the oddest thing in the world. She huddled herself up in a little low chair, made a desk of her knees, and wrote for hours in that position.

Happily, she bountifully bequeathed her power over the pen to her son "Willie," who has the affection of his troops of friends.

I will close this chapter with a reference, full of kind thoughts and remembrances, to one of the most remarkable, as she was one of the most delightful, women my wife and I ever had the privilege to know--Lady Dorothy Nevill. She was a great little lady--happy, blithesome, clever, and so gay.

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At her Sunday luncheon parties in Charles Street, one met everybody worth knowing and heard pretty well everything worth listening to. There assembled folk of all opinions and of every class and calling--honey gathered from many a hive.

[Sidenote: A great little lady]

Few people could have had--and kept--three such different friends as Cobden, Disraeli and Chamberlain; but the little lady knew how to deal with contradictions. Her sense of humour was as keen as a razor.

Happily for us, Lady Dorothy loved a play and rejoiced in visits to our theatre. She had a great affection for my wife. Often and often, generally in the early winter evenings, she would dismiss her carriage at our door, walk upstairs to the second floor, and sit for hours with her. When she left she declined all help or offer to be seen safely home, preferring to walk there in the dark, facing two crossings on her way, and this when she was more than eighty years of age.

Her reminiscences, edited by her son, Ralph Nevill, are delightful reading, while the characteristic portrait painted of her in early life by Watts--so happily reproduced--will tell you what she looked like. It helps you to feel that she uttered no ill of anyone.

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Lady Dorothy once said to me: "One of the greatest treats I can now be given is to be taken by a strong young man to Piccadilly, there to be hoisted on to the top of a 'bus, and driven through the City to Whitechapel, with time to look in at the London Hospital on my way back."

I repeat--a great little lady.

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III

THE CHURCH

"There is, I know not how, in the minds of men, a certain presage, as it were, of a future existence; and this takes the deepest root, and is most discoverable in the greatest geniuses and most exalted souls."--CICERO.

We have not been honoured with the friendship of distinguished members of the Church so intimately as to leave many empty chairs once filled by them, but I can write something in affectionate remembrance of a few.

[Sidenote: J. M. Bellew]