Complete Works of Bram Stoker

by Bram Stoker

  The Talma articles appeared in The Theatre for the 3oth January and 6th and 13th February 1877. This was before I came to Irving. It was long afterwards when I read them.

  In 1883 Walter Herries Pollock, then editor of the Saturday Review, a _great friend of Irving, produced an edition of the Paradox ofActing to which Irving wrote a preface. In this he set out his own views in his comments on the work of Diderot.

  Irving used his knowledge of the controversy to this effect:

  “I do not recommend actors to allow their feelings to carry them away...; but it is necessary to warn you against the theory, expounded with brilliant ingenuity by Diderot, that the actor never feels.... Has not the actor who can... make his feelings a part of his art an advantage over the actor who never feels, but makes his observations solely from the feelings of others? It is necessary to this art that the mind should have, as it were, a double consciousness, in which all the emotions proper to the occasion may have full swing, while the actor is all the time on the alert for every detail of his method.... The actor who combines the electric force of a strong personality with a mastery of the resources of his art, must have a greater power over his audiences than the passionless actor who gives a most artistic simulation of the emotions he never experiences.”

  The sentence printed in italics is a really valuable addition to the philosophy of acting. It is Irving’s own and is, as may be seen, a development or corollary of Talma’s conclusion. Talma required as a necessity of good acting both sensibility and intelligence. But Irving claimed that in the practice of the art they must exist and act synchronously. This belief he cherished, and on it he acted with excellent result. I have myself seen a hundred instances of its efficiency in the way of protective self-control; of conscious freedom of effort; of self- reliance; of confidence in giving the reins to passion within the set bounds of art.’

  In speaking of other branches of the subject Irving said:

  “An actor must either think for himself or imitate some one else.”

  And again:

  “For the purely monkey arts of life there is no future — they stand only in the crude glare of the present, and there is no softness for them, in the twilight of either hope or memory. With the true artist the internal force is the first requisite — the external appearance being merely the medium through which this is made known to others.”

  I have seen a good many times Irving illustrate and prove the theory of the dual consciousness in and during his own acting: when he has gone on with his work heedless of a fire on the stage and its quelling: when a gas tank underneath the stage exploded and actually dispersed some of the boarding close to him, he all the time proceeding without even a moment’s pause or a falter in his voice. One other occasion was typical. During a performance of The Lyons Mail, whilst Dubose surrounded by his gang was breaking open the iron strong-box conveyed in the mail cart the horses standing behind him began to get restive and plunged about wildly, making a situation of considerable danger. The other members of the murderous gang were quickly off the stage, and the dead body of the postilion rolled away to the wings. But Irving never even looked round. He went calmly on with his work of counting the billets-de-banque, whilst he interlarded the words of the play with admonitions to his comrades not to be frightened but to come back and attend to their work of robbing. Not for an instant did he cease to be Dubosc though in addition he became manager of the theatre.

  VIII

  INDIVIDUALITY, AND THE KNOWLEDGE OF IT

  If an actor has to learn of others — often primarily — through his own emotions, it is surely necessary that he learn first to know himself. He need not take himself as a standard of perfection — though poor human nature is apt to lean that way; but he can accept himself as something that he knows. If he cannot get that far he will never know anything. With himself then, and his self-knowledge as a foothold he may begin to understand others.1 vi;o0t oearnOv: Know thyself! It is, after all, the base of all knowledge — the foothold for all forward thought. Commenting on the speech of Polonius: “ To thine own self be true,” Irving said:

  “But how can a man be true to himself if he does not know himself? ‘ Know thyself ‘ was a wisdom of the Ancients. But how can a man know himself if he mistrusts his own identity, and if he puts aside his special gifts in order to render himself an imperfect similitude of some one else?”

  1 As an instance of the efficacy of the method, let any one try to tell character by handwriting. It is very simple, after all. Let him take the strange writing, and after making himself familiar with it, measure it by himself, asking himself: “ Under stress of what emotion would my own writing most nearly resemble that? “ Let him repeat this with each sign of divergence from his own caligraphy and in a short time he will be astonished with the result. So it is with all studies of character. Without any standard the task is impossible; but weigh each against your own self-knowledge and you at once begin to acquire comparative knowledge of simple qualities capable of being combined endlessly.

  Thus we have come back to Irving’s original proposition:

  “If you do not pass a character through your own mind it can never be sincere.” The logical wheel has gone its full round and is back at the starting place. Begin with the argument where you will it must come sooner or later to the same end: “ To know others know yourself.” Your own identity is that which you must, for histrionic purposes, clothe with attributes not your own. You must have before your mind some definite image of what you would portray; and your own feeling must be ultimately its quickening force.

  So far, the resolution of the poet’s thought into a moving, breathing, visible, tangible character. But that is not the completion of the endeavour. In the philosophy of histrionic art are rarer heights than mere embodiment, mere vitality, mere illusion. The stage is a world of its own, and has its own ambitions, its own duties. Truth either to natural types or to the arbitrary creations of the dramatist is not sufficient. For the altitudes something else is required. Irving set it forth thus:

  “Finally in the consideration of the Art of Acting, it must never be forgotten that its ultimate aim is beauty. Truth itself is only an element of beauty, and to merely reproduce things vile and squalid and mean is a debasement of art.”

  Here he supports the theory of Taine that art, like nature, has its own selective power; and that in the wisdom of its choosing is its power for good. Does it not march with that sublime apothegm of Burke “ Vice itself lost half its evil by losing all its grossness “?

  Finally Irving summed up the whole Philosophy of his Art and of its place amongst the sister Arts in a few sentences:

  “In painting and in the drama the methods of the workers are so entirely opposed, and the materials with which they work are so different, that a mutual study of the other work cannot but be of service to each. Your painter works in mouldable materials, inanimate, not sensitive but yielding to the lightest touch. His creation is the embodiment of the phantasm of his imagination, for in art the purpose is to glorify and not merely to reproduce. He uses forms and facts of nature that he may not err against nature’s laws. But such natural facts as he assimilates are reproduced in his work, deified by the strength of his own imagination. Actors, on the other hand, have to work with materials which are all natural, and not all plastic, but are all sensitive — with some of the strength and all the weakness of flesh and blood. The actor has first to receive in his own mind the phantasmal image which is conveyed to him by the words of the poet; and this he has to reproduce as he can with the faulty materials which nature has given to him. Thus the painter and the poet begin from different ends of the gamut of natural possibilities — the one starts from nature to reach imagination, the other from imagination to reach at reality. And if the means be not inadequate, and if the effect be sincere, both can reach that veritable ground where reality and imagination join. This is the true realism towards which all should aim — the holy ground whereon is reared the Pantheo
n of all the Arts.”

  CHAPTER XLIV

  THE RIGHT HON. WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE

  Visits to the Lyceum — Intellectual stimulus and rest — An interesting post-card — — His memory — ” Mr. Gladstone’s seat “ — Speaks of Parnell — Visit to “Becket” — Special knowledge; its application — Lord Randolph Churchill on Gladstone — Mrs. Gladstone

  I

  FOR fourteen years, from 1881 to 1895, Mr. Gladstone was a visitor at the Lyceum. The first occasion was on the First night of The Cup, January 3, 1881, of which I have already written. He had known Irving before, but this was the first time he had been behind the Lyceum scenes. He was very interested in everything, especially those matters of which up to then he knew little such as the setting of the scenes. His fund of information was prodigious and one could feel that he took a delight in adding to it. He was on that occasion very complimentary about all he saw and very anxious to know of the reality — as distinguished from the seeming — of things such as food and drink used, &c. That night his visit to the stage was only a passing one as he sat through the active part of the play in his own box, except during a part of one scene.

  He seemed ever afterwards to take a great interest in Irving and all he did. At the end of June 1882 he invited Irving to one of his delightful “ Breakfasts “ in Downing Street. On 8th July of the same year he came to the Lyceum and brought Lord Northbrook with him. Whenever he visited the theatre after 1881 he always came and went by the private door in Burleigh Street, and he always managed to visit Irving on the stage or in his dressing-room or both. The public seemed to take a delight in seeing him at the theatre, and he appeared to take a delight in coming. I honestly believe that he found in it, now and again, an intellectual stimulant — either an excitement or a pausing time before some great effort, or a relief of change from fact to fancy after it. For instance: On 8th April 1886, Thursday, he made his great speech in the House of Commons introducing the Home Rule Bill — amid a time of great excitement. Two nights after, Saturday night, he came to the Lyceum — and received an immense ovation. Again, in the time of bitter regret and anxiety when Parnell made the violent attack on him in his Manifesto, November 29, 1890, Saturday, he took his earliest opportunity, Tuesday, 2nd December, of coming to the Lyceum.

  This visit was a somewhat special one, for it was the first time that Mr. Gladstone came to sit behind the scenes in the O.P.’ proscenium corner which then became known as “ Mr. Gladstone’s seat.” The occasion of it was thus: I had the year previously written an Irish novel, ‘The Snake s Pass’, 1 Opposite Prompt. which after running as a serial through the London People and several provincial papers had now been published in book form. I had done myself the pleasure of sending an early copy to Mr. Gladstone whose magnificent power and ability and character I had all my life so much admired. Having met and conversed with him several times I felt in a way justified in so doing. He had at once written; I received his letter the same day — that of publication, 18th November 1890. I give his letter, which was in the post-card form then usual to him. I think it is a good example of his method of correspondence, kind and thoughtful and courteous — a model of style. I had as may be gathered written with some diffidence, or delicacy of feeling:

  “DEAR MR. BRAM STOKER, — My social memory is indeed a bad one, yet not so bad as to prevent my recollection of our various meetings. I thank you much for your work, and for your sympathy; and I hope to have perused all your pages before we meet again. When that will be I know not: but I am so fond a lover of The Bride of Lammermoor that I may take the desperate step of asking Mr. Irving whether he will some night, if it is on, let me sit behind the stage pillar — a post which C. Kean once gave me, and which alone would make me sure to hear. — Yours faithfully, W. E. GLADSTONE.

  N. 18. 90.”

  Some days later, after a most cordial invitation from Irving, it was arranged that he should choose exactly what date he wished and that all should be ready for him. There could be no difficulty, as Ravenswood was the only play then in the bill and would hold it alone till the beginning of the new year. When he did come I met him and Mrs. Gladstone at the private door and piloted them across the stage, which was the nearest way to Irving’s box. The door to it was beside the corner where Mr. Gladstone would sit.

  Possibly it was that as Mr. Gladstone was then full of Irish matters my book, being of Ireland and dealing with Irish ways and specially of a case of oppression by a “ gombeen “ man under a loan secured on land, interested him for he had evidently read it carefully. As we walked across the stage he spoke to me of it very kindly and very searchingly. Of course I was more than pleased when he said:

  “That scene at Mrs. Kelligan’s is fine — very fine indeed!”

  Now it must be remembered that, in the interval between his getting the book and when we met, had occurred one of the greatest troubles and trials of his whole political life. The hopes which he had built through the slow progress of years for the happy settlement of centuries-old Irish troubles had been suddenly almost shattered by a bolt from the blue, and his great intellect. and enormous powers of work and concentration had been for many days strained to the utmost to keep the road of the future clear from the possibility of permanent destruction following on temporary embarrassment. And yet in the midst of all he found time to read — and remember, even to details and names — the work of an unimportant friend.

  When it had been known on the stage that Mr. Gladstone was coming that night to sit behind the scenes the men seemed determined to make it a gala occasion. They had prepared the corner where he was to sit as though it were for Royalty. They had not only swept and dusted but had scrubbed the floor; and they had rigged up a sort of canopy of crimson velvet so that neither dust nor draught should come to the old man. His chair was nicely padded and made comfortable. The stage-men were all, as though by chance, on the stage and all in their Sunday clothes. As the Premier came in all hats went off. I showed Mr. Gladstone his nook and told him, to his immense gratification, how the men had prepared it on their own initiative. We chatted till the time drew near for the curtain to go up. Then I fixed him in his place and showed him how to watch for and avoid the drop scene, the great roller of which would descend guided by the steel cord drawn taut beside him. Lest there should be any danger through his unfamiliarity with the ways of theatres, I signalled the Master Carpenter to come to me and thus cautioned him.

  “Would it not be well,” I said, “ if some one stood near here in case of accident?”

  “It’s all right, sir, we have provided for that. The two best and steadiest men in the theatre are here ready! “ I looked round and there they were — alert and watchful. And there they remained all night. There was not going to be any chance of mishap to Mr. Gladstone that night!

  I went always to join him between the acts, and Irving when he had opportunity from his dressing — of which there was a good deal in Ravenswood would come to talk with him. We were all, whatever our political opinions indivi- dually, full of the Parnell Manifesto and its many bearings on political life. For myself, though I was a philosophical Home-Ruler, I was much surprised and both angry at and sorry for Parnell’s attitude, and I told Mr. Gladstone my opinion. He said with great earnestness and considerable feeling:

  “I am very angry, but I assure you I am even more sorry.”

  I was pleased to think — and need I say proud also — that Mr. Gladstone seemed to like to talk politics with me. In March 1887 when the new Rules of Procedure for the House of Commons were introduced I ventured to write an exhaustive note on one of the suggested new Rules, No. XII., which I sent to him through the kindness of his friend James Knowles. He was good enough to send me a kind message regarding it through his son Mr. W. H. Gladstone. This suggested Rule was shortly dropped altogether, not of course in any way due to my suggestion. I felt, however, gratified that my view was correct. In my University days I had been something of a law maker in a small way, as I had rev
ised and carried out the revision of the laws of order of the College Historical Society, Dublin University — our great debating society founded by Edmund Burke. I had also made the laws for the Actors’ Benevolent Fund, for a hospital, and for numerous societies.

  On that particular night he was very chatty, and in commenting on the play compared, strangely enough, Caleb Balderstone with Falstaff. He was interested and eager about everything round him and asked innumerable questions. In the course of conversation he said that he had always taken it for granted that the stage word “ properties “ included costumes.

  He was seemingly delighted with that visit, and from that time on whenever he came to the theatre he always occupied the same place, Mrs. Gladstone and whoever might be with him sitting in Irving’s box close at hand.

  II

  The next time he came, which was on 29th January of the next year, 1891, he generously brought Irving a cheque for ten pounds for the Actors’ Benevolent Fund. That evening too he was delighted with the play, Much Ado about Nothing, which he had seen before in 1882, in the ordinary way. He applauded loudly, just as he used to do when sitting in the front of the house.

  III

  He came again in 1892, iith May, when we were playing Henry VIII, and in the course of conversation commented on Froude’s estimate of the population of England in the sixteenth century, which according to his ideas had been stated much below the mark. He also spoke of Dante being in Oxford — a subject about which he wrote in the Nineteenth Century in the next month.