by Bram Stoker
That night Irving played The Medicine Man at the Lyceum, and I thought I detected here and there a trace of the influence of Lord Dufferin in the more winning passages of the play.
III
GLASGOW
Irving now held University degrees from Ireland and England. The Scottish degree came in another year. For a long time Professor Herbert Story, D.D., LL.D., the Professor of Ecclesiastical History of the University of Glasgow, had a very high opinion of Henry Irving and of the good work which he had done for education and for humanity. I remember well a talk which Dr. Story had with me in his study after I had lunched with him on 26th June 1896. Incidentally he mentioned that he thought his University should give Irving a degree. Two years after, 22nd October 1898, he told me that it was in contemplation to carry this out in the following year. In that year Professor Story was presented by the Queen to the Principal-ship of the University on the resignation of Dr. Caird from that high position. On the loth July 1899, the honour was actually completed when Irving was invested with his degree of LL.D.
That was, I think, the only honourable occasion of Irving’s life since 1878 at which I was not present. But it was quite impossible; I was then in bed with a bad attack of pneumonia. I had been looking forward to the occasion, for Principal Story and his wife and daughters were friends of mine as well as of Irving. It was the only occasion at which in twenty-seven years I was not present when honour was done to him. I read, however, of the heartiness of his reception, both in the Bute Hall, where the degrees were conferred, and by the great mass of the students without. In his speech introducing him Professor Glaister said:-
“Sir Henry Irving’s name stands as a synonym for the best and highest in dramatic art.... He has acquired an unrivalled fame in this country and in America. His fidelity to the best traditions of the stage, and his exclusion from his repertory of all that is vulgar or prurient, have been recognised as influences which elevate and purify dramatic art, and which have made the Theatre a powerful agent in promoting the general taste and culture of the people. His consummate stage management, his constant interest in the cause of charity and in the progress of education, his high character, his writings upon and his supremacy in his own profession have been already acknowledged by many marks of royal, academic, and popular favour.... This University desires that you will confer upon him in this degree its mark of appreciation of his valuable services.”
In his reply, amongst other things Irving said:
“Nearly forty years ago I played in Glasgow. An ambitious lad I was then. Most young players have their heads in the clouds, but upon no cloud did my aspiring eye ever in its finest frenzy perceive the Senate of Glasgow University sitting for the purpose of crowning my career with academic honours. Had such a vision been vouchsafed to me I should have felt that my opportunities of scholarship in early life made a University degree an ironical chimera.... Standing up before you to-day I am most keenly conscious of the honour you have done to the art which has had the faithful service of my life.... To-day’s incidents, so far as they concern myself as a representative of the stage in your midst, are luminous with more liberal ideas; for this reason above all I am grateful to Professor Story for his eloquent acknowledgment that the drama and its interpreters have their share of the humanities which it is the aim of the highest culture to sustain.”
IV OXFORD
On Sunday, 7th March 1886, Irving and I went to Oxford to stay with W. L. Courtney, then a Don of New College. For some years the two men had been close friends and Courtney whenever he was in London, would come to supper in the Beefsteak Room. This Oxford visit was arranged for some time, for Courtney was anxious to have Irvine meet some of the Heads of Colleges. The dinner was naturally a formal one, for in Oxford a very strict order of procedure rules. The Vice-Chancellor of the University — Dr. Jowett, Master of Balliol College — was there; also the Master of University, the President of Magdalen, and the Warden of Merton, the last three with their wives. Professor Max Muller was also a guest, his wife and daughter completed the party of fourteen. Jowett was in great form that evening. He was always a good and original talker, but he seemed on that evening to be on his mettle. During dinner one of the ladies sounded to Irving the praises of the Ober-Ammergau play, its fine effects, its deep moral teaching, and so forth. Irving listened attentively, and presently said quietly:
“It is so good they ought to bring it to the Crystal Palace.” The lady was quite shocked, and turning to the Vice-Chancellor said:
“Oh, Mr. Vice-Chancellor, do you hear what Mr. Irving says, ‘ That the Ober-Ammergau play should be brought to the Crystal Palace! ‘ “ The pause round the table was marked. All wanted eagerly to hear what the Vice-Chancellor, who in those days ruled Oxford, would say to such a startling proposition. His answer startled them afresh when it came:
“Why not!”
The result of the rapprochement which Courtney had so kindly effected was that Irving was asked to give an Address at the University. He, of course, assented to the honourable request, and the date was fixed for Saturday, 26th June. The subject which he chose for the discourse was, “ English Actors: their Characteristics and their Methods.”
Irving and I with a couple of friends left Paddington on that day at six o’clock. On arriving at Oxford he and I went at once with W. L. Courtney, who had met us at the station, to the New Examination Hall, where the Address was to be given. Irving always liked to see beforehand the place in which he was to act or to speak; a very valuable precaution, for experience enabled him when he knew something of the dimensions and conditions of the place to pitch his voice from the very start in the proper key. From there we drove to Balliol, where we were staying with the Master. At half-past nine o’clock we went to the hall with the Master. In the party were the Earl and Countess of Dalhousie and the Bishop of Ripon and Mrs. Boyd-
Carpenter, who with others were guests at his house. The great hall was crowded to suffocation with an immense audience, and the reception was warm in the extreme. Had I not known it before I could have told that the undergraduate lungs were in excellent condition. The discourse was received with rapt attention pointed with applause; and the conclusion was followed by a salvo of cheers. Then came the presentation of an Address, made by the Vice-Chancellor in a delightful, carefully worded speech. Amongst other things Dr. Jowett said:
“I express... our admiration of him for the great services which he has rendered to the world and to society by improving and elevating the stage.... The life of the great actor is not so bright and pleasant as some of us imagine.... He has his times of depression too, and more than ordinary share of the troubles of human life. There is the fierce light of criticism which is always beating upon him; he has to be above his audience, yet he must also feel with them.”
Then after explaining the views of Plato on whose work he was so supreme an authority, regarding the rhapsodist, and of Socrates on the same subject, he went on, following up the views of the latter with regard to the good company he kept:
“And so of a great English actor we too might say that he lives in the best society, the society of Shakespeare and Goethe, and is a far better interpreter of them than a thousand commentators, for he thinks and feels with them and studies them not out of a book only; they are his personal friends, and his highest ambition is to render back to the world as a living fire the thoughts which they long ago conceived. For things which we hear with our ears:and see with our eyes make a far deeper impression on us than what we read. And the drama is the only form of literature which is not dead, but alive, and is always being brought to life again and again by the genius of the actor.... The indirect influence of the theatre is very great, and tends to permeate all classes of society, so that the condition of the stage is not a bad index or test of a nation’s character. We in England are in part what we have been made by the plays of Shakespeare. Our literature, our manners, our religion, our taste have to a very great extent been affected by them. A
nd those who, regardless of their own pecuniary loss or gain, have brought back Shakespeare to the English stage, who have restored his plays to their original form, who have quickened in the English people the love of his writings and the feelings of his greatness may be truly considered national benefactors.”
Surely a noble tribute this from a man of such personal and official distinction to the worth of the drama, the stage, and the great actor to whom his praise was given.
That night we supped with Courtney in the Common Room of New College. Alfred Austin, afterwards the Poet Laureate, was amongst those present. He and Irving had much conversation about a play, Savonarola, which the former had written some time before.
The next day, Commemoration Sunday, we all attended with the Vice-Chancellor at St. Mary’s Church, where the Bishop of Ripon preached a remarkable sermon on the theme of Moses and the Burning Bush, which he applied with extraordinary dexterity to the political position.
The dinner party that night at the Vice-Chan cellor’s was a large one, and its arrangement the supreme of topsy-turveydom with regard to precedence. As the chief guest had no official rank in a community where all was governed by hard-and-fast rules of procedure, all law of precedence was foregone. The only bishop of the party was assigned to the woman in the room of no official status. The only royal guest of the party, a grandson of the Oueen, was not given a lady at all. And so throughout. Irving sat next to Lady Dalhousie, then in the full tide of her magnificent beauty. I shall never forget the appearance which those two presented. She in a dress of rich silk of the colour then in vogue which was known as sang-de-bceuf; this with splendid old Point de V enise made a fitting shrine for so much loveliness. He so handsome and so dignified looking, with grave, intellectual, refined features and mobile grace of expression. That dinner was in every way delightful; after it we all went over to a concert in the hall. The Vice-Chancellor had originated Sunday night concerts, which were immensely popular.
Breakfast next morning was another pleasant function, at which all the house-party were present. The “ Master,” as Dr. Jowett was called, was in great form. I remember his quoting a remark of Tennyson’s:-
“I would rather get six months than put two S’S together in verse!”
Irving and I, and my wife, who had been staying with the Courtneys for Commemoration, and who had with them attended all the functions of the Vice-Chancellor, went up to town with the Dalhousies. We little thought that we should never see either of them again. About a year afterwards she died of fever, and he who loved her to distraction could not bear his great loss and shot himself.
V
VICTORIA UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER
In 1894 Manchester had no University exclusively its own. Its College, Owens College, was chartered by the Queen in 188o and it was afterwards grouped with the Colleges of Liverpool and Leeds in the Victoria University. It was not till 1904 that it became a University by itself.
Before the time of visiting Manchester, on his tour of 1894, Irving was asked to give a lecture to the Owens College Literary Society. To this he acceded, and chose as his subject “ The Character of Macbeth.”
His reason for the choice was that he had wished to make, under important conditions, a reply to some of the criticisms with which he had been assailed on his re-production of Shakespeare’s play in 1888, but a suitable opportunity had not up to now appeared. Some of these criticisms had been ridiculous, some puerile, some even infantile. I remember Irving telling me that one ingenuous gentleman had gone so far as to suggest that the Messenger who in Scene 5, Act I. announces to Lady Macbeth the coming of the King, should have a bad cold, his contention having been that Lady Macbeth says in her soliloquy:
“The raven himself is hoarse That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan Under my battlements.”
The delay in his answer to the various feeble or foolish things spoken of his work did not detract from its power. His reasoning on the character from the text and from a study of the authorities which Shakespeare had evidently had before him when he wrote, was absolutely masterly. I venture to say that no student of the play can form any kind of correct estimate of Macbeth’s character without reading it.
The lecture was given on the afternoon of Tuesday, iith December, in the Chemical Theatre, the largest hall then appertaining to the College and holding some eight hundred persons. That the student element manifested itself in no uncertain way is shown by the note in my diary:
“H. I. got enormous reception. Cheers were startling! On leaving, students wanted to take out horses and draw carriage, but wiser counsels prevailed.”
Ellen Terry and Genevieve Ward were both of our little party on the occasion.
VI
HARVARD I
Irving gave addresses at Harvard on two separate occasions.
The first was on 3oth March 1885, on which occasion he took as his subject “ The Art of Acting.”
We were then playing in New York, but as Irving had promised to come to Boston for the occasion, we left on Sunday afternoon. Several friends came with us, amongst whom were William Winter, of the New York Tribune, and Mr. Dorsheimer, ex-Governor of New York State. The train, on which we had a special carriage, was met at Worcester by a deputation of Harvard students, who travelled back with us to Boston. The address was given on the Monday evening, 3oth, in the Sanders Theatre, a beautifully proportioned hall of octagon shape, which though looking not large yet held on that occasion over two thousand people. The crowd was so great at the doors both inside and outside that when we arrived at half-past seven we could not get in. Finally we had to be taken in through the trap-door to the coal cellar, from which by devious ways we were escorted to the platform. The Address went well. My note says:
“Went well. H. I. looked very distinguished.”
That was in reality a mild putting of the fact. Distinguished was hardly an adequate adjective. Even from that sea of fine intellectual heads his noble face shone out like a star.
We were all to sup with the President of the College, Mr. Elliot; but when the time of departure came we could not find Winter. We searched for him high and low, but without avail. As a large party was waiting at the President’s house we had to make up our minds to go without him. I had, however, one more last look and found him.. He was in the coal cellar, which was about the only quiet place in the building. He sat on a heap of coal; on the ground beside him was a lighted candle stuck in the neck of a bottle which he had somehow requisitioned. When I came upon him he was writing furiously — if so rude a word may be applied to an art so gentle. He glanced up when I spoke with an appealing look and, with raised hand, said with passionate entreaty:
“Bram, for God’s sake! “ — I understood, and left him, having secured from a local fireman the promise of unfaltering obedience to my instructions to wait and take him to the carriage which we left for him. I also left a telegraph messenger on guard, for I saw that he was writing on telegraph “ flimsy.”
Any one who will take the trouble to look up the file of the New York Tribune of the following day — March 31, 1885 — will read as fine a piece of descriptive criticism as can well be. I hope that such an one when he finishes the article will spare time for a glance, from the eye of imagination, at the silent figure phrasing it in the gloom of the coal cellar.
ii
Irving’s second Address at Harvard was nine years later. On that occasion his subject was: “ The Value of Individuality,” and the Address was given in the afternoon, the place being the same, the Sanders Theatre. There was again a great audience and a repetition of the old enthusiasm.
That night the Tremont Theatre in Boston, where we were playing, saw an occasion unique to the place, though not to the actor. The University had proclaimed a “ Harvard Night,” and the house was packed with College men, from President to jib. At the end of the performance — Nance Old-field and The Bells — the students presented to Irving a gold medal commemorative of the occasion.
I m
ay perhaps, before leaving the subject of Harvard University, mention a somewhat startling circumstance. It had become a custom during our visit to Boston for a lot of Harvard students to act as “ supers “ in our plays. There seemed to be a brisk demand for opportunities and the local super master grew rich on options. When we played King Arthur in 1895 there were many of these gentlemen who wore armour — the beautiful armour designed by Burne-J ones. The biggest of the men available were chosen for this service, and there were certainly some splendidly stalwart young men amongst them. A few of them got “ skylarking “ amongst themselves on the stage before the curtain went up. Sky-larking in full armour is a hazardous thing both to oneself and to others, and a blow struck in fun with the unaccustomed weight of plate armour behind it had an unexpected result, for the stricken man was knocked head over heels senseless just as Irving had come on to the stage to see that all was correct for the coming scene — ” The Great Hall of Camelot.” He reprimanded the super shortly and told him that if he undertook duties he should respect them, and himself, in performing them gravely. Imagine his surprise when in the morning he received a bellicose cartel from the offended young man challenging him to mortal combat. Irving, who took all things as they were meant, understood that the man was a gentleman who considered himself wronged and wrote him a pleasant letter in which he explained the necessity of taking gravely the work which others considered grave. The young man was a gentleman — in my intercourse with them I have always found Americans to be so — and wrote a handsome letter of apology for his misconduct on the stage and explained that he had had no intention of either breaking rules or hurting any one else.
And so on that occasion no blood was shed.
VII
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY