Chapter X: Part 10

In the journalistic literature of modern criticism there is nothing better than some of the essays on Irving and his art that appeared in the papers of Chicago and the West. In this connection it is worth while pointing out that the absence of an international copyright between England and America forces native writers, who otherwise would be writing books, into the press. So long as publishers can steal or buy “for a mere song” the works of popular English authors they will not give a remunerative wage to the comparatively unknown writers of their own country. Therefore, busy thinkers,—men and women with literary inspirations devote themselves to journalism. It would be surprising if, under these circumstances, the western press should not here and there entertain and instruct its readers with literary and critical work as much entitled to respect, and as worthy to live, as the more pretentious and more happily and fortunately placed literature of London, Boston, and New York. The American authors best known to-day, and most praised in both hemispheres, have written for the newspapers, and some of them had their training on the press: Bret Harte, Mark Twain, Howells, Aldrich, John Hay, James, Habberton, Winter, Bryant, Artemus Ward (I leave the reader to complete the list, for I mention these name _en passant_ and at random); and how many others are coming on through the columns of the newspapers to take up the running, who shall say? The Chicago press often sacrifices dignity and good taste in the headings with which it seeks to surprise and excite its readers. But this is a feature of Western journalism that will go out with the disappearance of the lower civilization to which, in covering the entire ground of its circulation, it unhesitatingly appeals. The London press is not free from the charge of pandering to depraved tastes in its reports of sensational murders and divorce cases, though the great body of its writers and contributors no doubt sit down to their work with a higher sense of their responsibility to the public than is felt by their American contemporaries.

“Do you think that is so?” Irving asked, when I was propounding this view to an American colleague.

“Yes,” said the journalist addressed; “but I think our newspapers are far more interesting than yours. At the same time you beat us in essay-writing, for that is what your editorials are,—they are essays.”

“That is true,” said Irving, “and very fine some of them are.”

But to return to Chicago criticism,—I repeat that among the best and most appreciative and most scholarly of the criticisms upon Irving and his art, in England and America, are the writings of the Chicago journalists,—McPhelin, of the “Tribune,” Barron, of the “Inter-Ocean,” McConnell, of the “Times,” and Pierce, of the “Daily News.” The two first mentioned are quite young men, not either of them more than twenty-five. I am tempted to quote, in justification of this opinion, and as an example of Chicago work, the following extracts from one of several equally well-written criticisms in the “Tribune”:—

It is true that in every department of art the power of the imagination has declined with the advance of knowledge. The Greek actors went into convulsions through excess of passion. A Roman actor in the midst of frenzied recitation struck a slave dead. If we have not so much imagination as the ancients (a fact which we need not regret), we have finer sensibilities, more penetrating insight, and a truer consciousness of life’s mystery and meaning. The art of to-day, if less exuberant than that of yesterday, is more serene, and, above all, its methods are more truthful.

They are the great actors who have kept pace with the most advanced thought, who have typified in their art the spirit of their age, who have inaugurated eras. Conservatism is stagnation. In its infancy the art of acting was monstrous exaggeration. This was natural, for it was fostered in the childhood of the world, and children love exaggeration. When, at last, the stilts and masks were thrown away, exaggeration of speech was preserved. Actors recited their lines in loud, monotonous sing-song. The ranters of our stage to-day are the lineal descendants of these men. Le Kain in France, and Garrick in England, made great strides towards natural methods in dramatic representation. The reflective genius of Kemble, at the beginning of this century, did much to complete the revolution in taste begun by Garrick. Kean was noted for the splendor and the volume of his power rather than for innovations in methods of expression. The actors who followed him prided themselves on their adherence to tradition,—tradition for which the rest of the world cared nothing. These artists were content to stand still while the culture of the century passed by them. At last there emerged out of obscurity, out of the jostling multitude of mediocrity, a man who drank in the spirit of his age,—a man who broke down the rotten barriers of tradition; a man who caught the intensity, the poetry, the artistic realism of his time; a man who inaugurated a new epoch in the art of acting. Final success was achieved only after a long and bitter struggle against conservative prejudices.

This man was Henry Irving.

In a broad and comprehensive way his position on the English stage has been defined above. After witnessing his impersonations of Louis XI. and Shylock, some conclusions may be drawn as to his genius and his methods.

There is nothing phenomenal or meteoric about this new actor. Henry Irving is not what Diderot would have us believe a great actor should be, namely, a man without sensibility. Diderot said that sensibility was organic weakness; that it crippled the intelligence, rendering acting alternately warm and cold; and that the great actor should have penetration, without any sensibility whatever. But Talma called sensibility the faculty of exaltation which shakes an actor’s very soul and which enables him to enter into the most tragic situations and the most terrible of passions as if they were his own. In the discussion of these conflicting theories Henry Irving has always taken Talma’s view. He comes nearer realizing Diderot’s ideal of greatness than any other actor of whom we have record.

His imagination is picturesque almost to the verge of sublimity. His fancy is lively and apparently inexhaustible. When he unrolls before us the varied-colored robe of life we look in vain to find one color missing. It is a fancy that is not only vivid, but that is most poetic. How touching is that return of Shylock to his lonely home, walking wearily over the deserted bridge,—the bridge that echoed only a moment before to the shouts and laughter of the merry maskers! The old man walks to the house from which his daughter has fled, knocks twice at the door, and looks up patiently and expectantly towards the casement. Then the curtain falls. The people who do not applaud such a tender touch as this should stop going to the theatre.

* * * * *

In saying that Irving is realistic, that word is not used in its grosser sense. Realism should be the union of the ideal and the true. There may be truth in Zola’s realism, but there is no ideality; for ideality rejects the trivial, the vulgar, the earthly, and grasps the essence. There may be ideality in Mrs. Burnett’s novels, but sentiment is substituted for truth. The realism of Howells, for instance, is a union of the ideal and the true. Irving’s ideals are in harmony with the realistic tendency of literary thought, because they are drawn from humanity, and not from Olympus. His are human, not heroic, ideals. His Louis XI. is as true to nature as any impersonation can be; and yet it is ideal, inasmuch as the essence of the character is incorporated in action, and the baseness, the cruelty, the bigotry, of the king are not repugnant. Here is the union of the ideal and the true. If a man like Zola were playing Louis XI. he would shock and disgust us by a portrayal not essential, but of superficial grossness.

In attempting to estimate Irving’s genius one cannot catalogue qualities, but must indicate in a general way the nature of that genius as it is judged from its manifestations. Irving cannot be classified, for he is the leader of a new school of acting, as Tennyson is the leader of a new school of poetry. They who in the future will write of the great Victorian Era will find, perhaps, a resemblance between the actor and the poet, not only because both have opened up new fields of art, but because the chief characteristic of each is originality in form. If Tennyson is the poet who should be read by poets, Irving is the actor who should be studied by actors. The idea intended to be conveyed is, that both Tennyson and Irving excel in perfection of detail; in other words, of technique, or form. The great poet who wishes to be heard in the future must give us the polish and the intensity of Tennyson; the actor who would be great must give us the polish and the intensity of Irving.

Any line in Irving’s acting will illustrate his intensity, by which is meant the grasping of a fuller meaning than appears on the surface. When Shylock is flattering Portia in the trial scene, exclaiming, “A Daniel come to judgment,” etc., it is startling, the manner in which he leans forward suddenly and whispers with venomous unction and cunning the insidious compliment, “How much more elder art thou than thy looks!” The words are very simple, but their effects depend on the intensity of meaning with which they are uttered.

Praise has already been accorded Irving’s Shylock, because it is a type of the medieval Jew, interpreted, not according to the traditions of a bigoted age, but in the light of the liberality of the nineteenth century. This creation is, perhaps, the best proof of the assertion that Henry Irving has embodied in his art the spirit of his age, and therein lies his greatness.

Several lessons American managers will draw from the success of the Irving engagement. One is that Shakespearian plays must not be mutilated to give prominence to one actor. Artistic harmony must not be sacrificed to personal ambition. Another lesson is that an actor must not undertake all alone to act a play; he must have a company of actors, not a company of incompetent amateurs. A third is that Shakespearian plays are the jewels of dramatic literature, and their setting should surely be as rich as that given to the extravagant productions that are doing so much to vitiate popular taste.

In conclusion it may be remarked that it is gratifying that Henry Irving in his American tour has been regarded, not from a fashionable or a national, but from a purely artistic stand-point. In art the Spartan and the Athenian are brothers; the same love of beauty lives in Rome and in Geneva, in London and in New York. In the sunshine of art the national merges into the universal, and the mists of prejudice die away upon the horizon of the world.

III.

ALL the forecasts that warned Irving to expect in Chicago a coarse fibre of civilization and an absence of artistic appreciation were reversed in the Prairie city. Night after night great, generous, enthusiastic audiences crowded Haverly’s Theatre. Quick of perception, frank in their recognition of the best features of Irving’s work, they were cordial in their applause, and hearty in their greetings of the novelty of it. The critics interpreted the sentiments of the audiences, and put their feelings into eloquent sentences. They showed knowledge and sincerity of intention and purpose, and some of them criticised severely the carping spirit in which one or two Eastern contemporaries had dealt with the London actors. The hospitality of Chicago is proverbial. It was made manifest in many ways,—in offers of carriages for sleigh-riding, of ice-boats, of railway cars. Irving and Miss Terry had to decline more invitations than they accepted. Members of the company were also entertained at breakfasts and suppers. After the first night, and the acceptation of Irving as a reformer of the stage, and as the author of what to Chicago was a new pleasure, the city literally opened its doors to Irving and his friends. Among the receptions to Mr. Irving was a breakfast given by Mr. John B. Carson,[38] at which the Mayor spoke of the pleasure Chicago experienced in Irving’s visit, and upon which occasion Mr. Joseph Medill, the editor of the “Tribune,” who had seen Irving in London, as well as in Chicago, proclaimed him the one Shakespearian actor who interprets and exhibits the conceptions of the poet with a proper naturalness, and in such a manner as to make people regret that Shakespeare could not revisit the world to see what had at last been done for his plays. The health of Miss Terry was proposed and drunk with all the honors; as it was, also, at a very dainty reception given one night after the play to Miss Terry herself, at the Calumet Club, by Mr. and Mrs. John B. Jeffery,[39] and, on a later occasion, at the Leland Hotel, at a supper given by Mr. Emery A. Storrs[40] to Mr. Irving. Professor Swing was among the speakers on this occasion, and during the evening pleasant allusion was made to the visit of Lord Chief Justice Coleridge, and to English writers who had not confined their attention solely to the shortcomings of Chicago. Irving, in responding to the toast of his health, described his sensations on entering Chicago: “I came warned against you; but knowing your history. When I saw your great city, and felt how much you had done, and how much that was broad and generous and courageous belonged to such enterprise and ambition, my instinct told me that you would be with me in my work; that you would, at least, respect it; and that if you liked it no jealousies, no prejudices, would stand in the way of your saying so.”

The Press Club[41] “received” Irving and Miss Terry and several members of the Lyceum company. “Nothing could have been conceived or carried out in a more frank and friendly spirit than the Press Club reception,” said Irving, on returning to his hotel; “no pretence, no affectation, a hearty crowd. They treated us as if we had known each other all our lives, and I begin to feel as if they were old friends. It is the absence of caste in America, I conclude, that gives a meeting of this kind its real cordiality. Nobody is afraid of anybody else; there is an absence of self-restraint, and, at the same time, of self-consciousness. I liked them, too, for not apologizing for their very unpretentious rooms; and I think they are right in adhering to the principles on which the club is founded, that it shall be purely a press club. Do you remember the evening at the journalists’ club in Philadelphia? But that was a man’s night only. Very delightful too, eh? I thought so. Indeed, the club life of America, from the humblest to the highest, is characterized by a cordiality and freedom that is glorious; I think so. No nonsense, no unnecessary formality; they give you the best, and make you at home at once. So nice to be introduced straightway, and be on terms with all the fellows! I find, by one of the newspapers, that I am keeping a scrap-book,—they have seen Houson’s handiwork, I imagine. I was just thinking that if one indulged in that sort of thing, what a collection of club cards and _menus_ one would have! There is not a city we have visited where we have not been made free of all the clubs, from Boston to Chicago. The Boston clubs are very fine, English-like in many respects. But there is nothing, I suppose, more gorgeous than the Union League, at New York. I’ll tell you what strikes me most about America,—the immensity of the work it has done in regard to the material welfare of its people; in building up a new civilization; providing for the comforts of the thousands who crowd into its ports from the Old World; taking care of them and governing them, giving them a share of their wealth, and welding the incongruous mass into one great people. I don’t wonder that young men who have only their honest hands and hopes as legacies from parents come here to make homes and names, to found families, and lay up for their old age. It is a wonderful country; the thought of it almost inspires me with eloquence, and I think on many a night it has given me a new energy, and a new love for my own work. I notice, by the papers, that some English visitor has been writing in one of the English periodicals what is called ‘a slashing criticism’ upon American habits and customs, and making unfair comparisons between the life objects of the men and women of this great New World and the older civilizations of Europe. This sort of criticism can only be mere surface work; it does not consider and weigh results; it does not count how great a thing has been done in a short time; it does not see how marvellously successful this people has been in making a law unto itself, a civilization unto itself, and how it has not yet had time to rest and tack on to its great, sweeping garments the fringes and ribbons and jewels that belong to an age of rest, and luxury, and art. They are but small critics, and they are not respectfully conscious of the possibilities of the close union of England and America, who discuss America in a petty way, and do not give her the credit she deserves for all she has done in the cause of freedom and of humanity.”

He paced the room as he talked, and I applauded his peroration.

“And you say you cannot ‘orate,’ to use a local phrase, except about acting.”

“It is an easy thing to make a speech in one’s own room, but a different thing standing up before an audience, eh?”

“Anyhow,” I said, “we will make a point about that hap-hazard criticism of irresponsible persons, who do not consider either the truth, or the feelings of a nation, so long as they can put together a few smart things for their own glorification. Nobody ever heard of the writer you mention until he abused America; and some men mistake notoriety for fame.”

IV.

THE pieces produced during the two weeks of Irving’s stay in Chicago were “Louis XI.,” “The Merchant of Venice,” “The Bells,” “The Belle’s Stratagem,” and “The Lyons Mail.” On the last night, being called before the curtain by one of the most crowded houses of the season, he addressed the audience as follows:—

“Ladies and Gentlemen,—It is my privilege to thank you for the hearty and enthusiastic welcome which you have given us during our too short stay amongst you. Many years ago, when a boy in England, I remember a song,—

“‘To the West! to the West!
To the land of the free!’

“I little dreamed in those days I should ever see your fair city—the Queen of the West. For the welcome you have given my colleagues and myself I thank you,—especially I thank you on behalf of Miss Ellen Terry, whose indebtedness to you is equal to my own. I was good-humoredly told the other day that I was too pleased with America, especially with Chicago; and if I were to find some faults it might be a relief, and would vary the monotony a little. (Laughter.)

“Well, I hope I am not naturally a fault-finder; but, if I were, you have afforded me no opening; for you have loaded us with gratitude, and extended to us a welcome as broad as the prairie upon which you stand. I cannot leave you without thanking the press of Chicago for its sympathy, its eloquent and its ungrudging recognition of at least a sincere, although incomplete, effort to bring the dramatic art abreast of the other arts, and not leave the art of the stage behind and out in the cold in the general march of progress.

“I am very glad to tell you that we shall soon meet again; for we shall have the honor of appearing before you on the 11th of next month, when we shall have the gratification of spending another week amongst you. And now I beg to thank you again and again, and I can but hope that we may live in your memories as you will live in ours.” (Applause.)

The receipts for the first week in Chicago were $17,048, and for the second, $19,117; making a total of $36,166. From a mere box-office point of view the success of his visit is unprecedented; the increase of the receipts at the close of the engagement dissipating the last “weak invention of the enemy,” that Irving only excites curiosity. If this shallow nonsense merited the smallest attention the figures already quoted would be a sufficient answer. A truer test of the genuineness of Irving’s popularity, and the hold his work has obtained upon the intelligent and intellectual public of America, will be the character of his reception when, in the course of the present tour, he begins to pay return visits to Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, and New York; for he goes back to these cities when their enthusiasm may be said to have cooled, and in the Lenten season, which is largely observed in the chief cities of the United States.

XVII.

ST. LOUIS, CINCINNATI, INDIANAPOLIS, COLUMBUS.

Sunshine and Snow—Wintry Landscapes—Fire and Frost—Picturesque St. Louis—“The Elks”—A Notable Reception—“Dime Shows”—Under-studies—Germany in America—“On the Ohio”—Printing under Difficulties—“Baggage-smashing”—Handsome Negroes and Sunday Papers—The Wonders of Chicago.

I.

THERE was a little crowd of friends at the railway station, to see us take our leave of Chicago, at noon on Sunday, January 20, 1884. The weather was cold, but there was a bright, sunny sky. Everybody was in good spirits. The “Edwin Forrest” car, in which we travelled, had now quite a familiar appearance. George, a colored attendant who had charge of it, was there, with a merry grin upon his broad, intelligent features. “A right good fellow, George,” said Irving. “Yes, that’s so,” was George’s response, as he relieved him of his coat and stick, and led the way to the pretty little suite of rooms on wheels allotted to Irving and his friends. The other cars were also admirably appointed. “This is something like a day for travelling,” said one member of the company to another. The sun blazed down upon them as they walked about, awaiting the signal for departure, but there appeared to be very little warmth in it. The sunbeams were bright, but they seemed to have contracted a chill as they fell. Every now and then a gust of icy wind would come along, as if to put truth into this conclusion. Terriss and Tyars, braving the weather without overcoats, as Englishmen delight to do, soon discovered that, after all, the winter was still with us. As the cry “All aboard,” followed by the clanging of the engine-bell, set the train in motion, we entered once more upon severely wintry scenes of ice and snow.

Within a very short time we found ourselves in the midst of snow-drifts, out of which preceding trains had had to cut their way. Gangs of men were clearing the track, flinging up the snow on both sides of the road in solid shovelfuls. The white _débris_ was piled up six and eight feet high, where the snow had settled down in great drifts upon the line. “One train was stuck here five hours yesterday,” said the guard. “It is the heaviest snow in my experience.”

Moving onwards once more, we travelled through a world of snow: through prairie-lands, where the wind came tearing after us, waited upon by scudding clouds of snow, that rose like spray, to fall in its wake as if the prairie were a snow-sea; past forests of oak, with the brown leaves clinging to the tough branches, that moved with a sturdy kind of protest against the boisterous wind; across great rivers, that were closed to navigation. Now and then skating-parties flitted by us in sheltered bends of the great silent water-ways, and at intervals the sun would burst out upon the white world and fill it with icy diamonds.

We met a train with five engines. It came plunging along,—a veritable procession of locomotives. The foremost of them were mighty ploughs, to charge the growing snow-drifts we had left behind us. By and by the sun went down, and when our lamps were lighted, and it was night, as we thought, we looked out to see one of the magnificent sunsets which had been puzzling for many weeks the wise men of both worlds,—a wide red glare in the sky, stretching away as far as the eye could see, with a white foreground, the line of the horizon dotted with the dark configuration of farm buildings and forest trees.

At three o’clock in the morning we arrived at St. Louis, and on the next day I walked across the ice-locked Mississippi. In a street adjacent to the wharves, where steamers and boats of all kinds were frozen up, were the remains of an old hotel, that had been burnt out a short time previously. The thermometer stood at twenty degrees below zero. A first glance at the place, from a short distance, showed a house with what looked like packs of wool thrust out at the windows, and great bundles and entanglements of wool hanging down to the ground from eaves and window-sills. On examination these strange appearances turned out to be excrescences of ice,—part of the water that had been poured upon the flames by the fire-brigades, whose engines had literally been frozen up in the street. Inside the devastated buildings the ruins were hung with icicles many feet in length, with others rising to meet them, mimicking the stalactites and stalagmites of the Cheddar caverns, in England, not to mention the more famous caves of Kentucky.

A picturesque city, St. Louis, smoky and not overclean, but seated grandly upon the broad river which local enterprise has spanned with a roadway that is worthy of the engineering skill of the people whose locomotives climb the Rocky Mountains, and whose bridges are the admiration of the world. One of the picturesque memories of the tour, that will reappear at odd times in “the magic lantern of the mental vision,” will be the procession of carts and wagons drawn by teams of mules, driven by colored drivers, that is continually passing over the bridge, across the Mississippi, at St. Louis. The English government have obtained a great many mules from this part of the United States. There could be no finer breed of this useful animal than the examples one saw at St. Louis. The drivers, almost to a man, appeared to be wearing old army cloaks. The greyish-blue of the cloth and the red linings, toned down to rare “symphonies” of worn color, were in perfect harmony with the atmospheric and material surroundings. Smoke hanging like a pall over the city; a wintry mist creeping along the icy river; the approaches to the bridge lost in the local haze of smoke and snowy clouds; the great mercantile procession of mules, and carelessly laden wagons, bursting with cotton, corn, and hides, made a fine busy foreground to a very novel scene.

St. Louis accepted the plays, the acting, the scenery, and the stage management of the Lyceum with much of the earnest admiration that had characterized the Chicago audiences. The “Republican,” the “Globe-Democrat,” the “Post-Dispatch,” and the “Chronicle” had lengthy and appreciative notices of “The Lyons Mail,” “The Bells,” and “The Merchant of Venice.” The spirit of the criticism is crystallized in the following remarks, which appeared as an editorial in the “Post-Dispatch” of Jan. 22:—

To the delighted audience which hung with rapt attention last night on each word and look, each tone and motion, of Henry Irving, there was only one element of disappointment. This was that they had not been prepared at all for any such magnificent revelation of dramatic genius.... As far as the people of St. Louis are concerned we have only to say that those who miss seeing him will sustain a loss that can never be made good.

II.

AMONG the social events of the visit to St. Louis was a reception given in the lodge and club rooms of the “Elks.”[42] The event was regarded as of so much interest and importance, and the Elks is so excellent an institution, and the affair so different to anything associated with the theatre in England, that it merits special attention. The local reporter will not, I am sure, feel annoyed if I call in his aid to make the record complete:—

The lodge and club rooms, the hall-ways and the corridors, were decorated for the occasion. The lodge-room, where the formal introductions took place, was festooned with flags and evergreens. The yellow light of the chandeliers was in striking contrast with the white rays of two Edison lamps, that were artistically hung at each end of the hall. Two handsome crayon portraits of Irving and Miss Terry were displayed above the platform at the east end of the room. Directly above them was the coat-of-arms of England, draped with the English flag and the Union Jack, while below and immediately over the lounge was a bank of white immortelles, framed in flowers and evergreens, and bearing in the centre the words, “Our Guests,” worked in purple flowers. The platforms at either end of the hall were decorated with rare plants and exotics, interspersed with evergreens.

In one corner of the main room supper was spread upon a table, the decorations of which were very dainty flowers interspersed with culinary trophies. About half-past nine o’clock the guests began to arrive and disperse themselves here and there about the rooms. An orchestra, under the direction of Professor Maddern, furnished the music for promenading; and an agreeable little concert of instrumental and vocal music led up to the entrance of the guests of the evening. “About eleven,” says the local chronicler, “they arrived, and were escorted to the lodge-room, where all the other guests had assembled to receive them. Mr. Irving entered, escorting Mrs. John W. Norton, while Miss Terry was escorted by Mr. John A. Dillon. As they strolled here and there about the hall they were introduced to those present. Mr. Irving’s countenance, when in repose, was rather inclined to be sombre and solemn, but immediately assumed a pleasant expression when he was introduced to the ladies and gentlemen who had assembled to do him honor.” Mr. and Mrs. Howe, Mr. Wenman, and several other members of Irving’s company, were present, and as one strolled through the rooms there was something very homelike in these familiar faces intermingled with the crowd. Says the local chronicler:—

Miss Terry was the soul of life and animation. When she was not chatting gayly with some lady or gentleman, who had just been presented, she walked about with her escort, and commented in a bright and interesting way on the decorations, pictures, etc., that adorned the walls. She was becomingly dressed in white silk, trimmed with Spanish lace, flowing brocade train of white and crushed strawberry. Her only jewelry were gold bracelets and a pearl necklace. On her bosom she wore a bunch of natural flowers.

After a half an hour or so spent in conversation and promenading the guests repaired to the club-room and partook of supper. Here the greatest sociability prevailed. Mr. Irving walked here and there, and conversed pleasantly and informally with all the people he met; while Miss Terry, seated in a large chair, was surrounded by a gay throng of young folk, and appeared the youngest and gayest of them all. A number of beautiful roses were taken from the table and presented to her by ardent admirers, for all of whom she had a pleasant word, and some little coquettish reply for their gallantry. About twelve o’clock they left the rooms, and the guests slowly dispersed.

Upwards of five hundred hosts and guests were present. Among those present[43] were Mr. and Mrs. Wm. H. Thomson, Mr. and Mrs. Albert Todd, Mr. and Mrs. Gus. Ewing, Mr. and Mrs. C. M. Whitney, Mr. and Mrs. J. W. Norton, Mr. and Mrs. Jos. F. Foy, Mr. and Mrs. A. S. Aloe, Mr. and Mrs. Wm. Walsh, Judge McKeighan and wife, Mr. and Mrs. Geo. H. Small, Mr. and Mrs. A. D. Cooper, Mr. and Mrs. E. B. Leigh, Mr. and Mrs. H. Clay Pierce, Miss Alice B. Hart, Mr. and Mrs. R. B. Dakin, Mr. and Mrs. T. W. Wood, Mrs. R. E. Collins, Mrs. C. H. Tyler, Mrs. Bradford Allen, Judge W. C. Jones and wife, Mrs. and Mrs. A. A. Mermod, Mrs. Garlick, of Galveston, Rev. John Snyder, Rev. Father Betts, Mr. and Mrs. Home, Mr. and Mrs. E. R. Norris, Rev. Dr. Sonneschein, Mr. and Mrs. G. Lamar Collins, Mr. and Mrs. H. Clay Sexton, Miss Georgiana MacKenzie, Miss Florence Bevis, Miss Lizzie Bautz, Miss Julia Dean, Miss Kimball, Miss Bogy, Miss Lizzie Reed, Miss Adele Picot, Miss Waples, of Alton, Miss Francis, Miss Roland, of Danville, Ky., Miss Pallen, Miss Olive Harding, Miss Agnes Farrar, Miss Wagstaff, of Kansas City, Miss Ione Aglar, Mr. and Mrs. Blachly, Mr. and Mrs. D. B. Taylor, Miss Bissell, Mr. and Mrs. F. W. Coulter, Miss Fairchild, Mrs. Cramer, Miss Ettie Isaacs, Mr. and Mrs. J. N. Norris, Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Schnaider, Mrs. and Mrs. J. W. Paramore, and Messrs. John A. Dillon, John M. Harney, Charles R. Pope, Dr. P. S. O’Reilly, D. R. Francis Fred Schmiding, John H. Overall, P. Short, B. H. Engelke, R. Maddern, A. F. Shapleigh, Jr., A. C. Bernays, J. J. Kerns, R. W. Humes, H. A. Diamant, W. C. Steigers, John G. Chandler, R. D. Delano, C. M. Napton, W. C. Jones, L. A. Clark, C. D. Colman, L. D. Picot, H. L. Haydel, I. R. Adams, F. A. Beusberg, C. R. Chambers, W. C. Coppleston, John P. Ellis, E. P. Andrews, Louis H. Jones, James H. Palser, Geo. R. Kirgin, Gideon Bantz, John McHenry, Chas. E. Ware, N. M. Ludlow, A. G. Thompson, Col. John M. Bacon, J. L. Isaacs, T. J. Bartholow, Philip Brockman, R. Harbison, A. L. Berry, David Davison, F. W. Humphrey, Chas. F. Joy, E. V. Walsh, G. W. Blachly, John J. Meeker, Atwood Vane, David Prince, A. C. Stocking, H. D. Wilson, C. P. Mason, Henry Ames, H. J. McKellops, J. N. Norris, M. J. Steinberg, C. H. Buck, Jr., D. B. Dakin, Gaston Meslier, E. W. Lansing, Estill McHenry, Dr. T. E. Holland, R. W. Goisan, W. H. Horner, R. J. Delano, Ernest Albert, John J. Pierson, E. B. Leigh, D. H. Stelgers, John A. Scholten, Mr. Sands and ladies, A. C. Bernays and lady, C. D. Johnson, Louis McCall, Arthur H. Merrill, R. W. Shapleigh, D. R. Francis, Charles Wezler, James Hopkins, F. L. Ridgely, J. B. Greensfelder, Meyer Goldsmith, Henry W. Moore.

A newspaper correspondent telegraphed to a Chicago journal the startling information that Irving was dissatisfied with this entertainment, and left early. This was probably the reporter’s sly way of complimenting Chicago. The rivalry between these two cities is often humorously illustrated in the press. St. Louis is the elder and most historical city of the two: but Chicago is the most prosperous, and has, no doubt, the greatest future. St. Louis, nevertheless, claims to have a population of nearly 500,000; it boasts double the park area of New York, and stands “second only to Philadelphia in point of territory devoted to public recreation.”

III.

TWO weeks were spent between St. Louis, Cincinnati, Indianapolis, and Columbus. The New York _repertoire_ was played with excellent results in every way.

“Indianapolis and Columbus,” said Irving, “are evidently behind St. Louis and Cincinnati in their appreciation of the arts; though I have no reason to complain, nor has Miss Terry. They came to the theatre in large numbers, were most excellent audiences, cordial in their reception of us, and flattering in their applause; but in walking through their streets one could not help seeing that there was a good deal too much of the ‘Dime-Museum’ business in these places for art generally to flourish liberally at present. ‘The Fat Lady,’ ‘The Two-headed Pig,’ ‘The Tattooed Man,’ and ‘The Wild Men of the Woods,’ appear to have a great hold on Indianapolis and Columbus. Indeed, they make a fight for it against the theatres, even in St. Louis and Cincinnati. You remember the great wide street, in Birmingham, called the Bull ring? Well, the show-streets of these cities remind me of a concentrated Bull ring in Birmingham, where ‘Living Wonders,’ ‘The Wizard of the North,’ and ‘The Fortune-Telling Pony,’ are always, more or less, challenging public attention. I believe Ball, the leader of our orchestra, had some special trouble at Indianapolis. The violoncello, for example, had only two strings. Ball, on the second night, chaffingly said, ‘I suppose you will consider two strings sufficient for to-night?’—‘No,’ was the reply; ‘I stick to three, on principle.’”

“Did you hear about the manager who gave the extra musicians in his orchestra something less than usual,” I asked, “because, as he said, they would see you for nothing, and that should be considered when every seat was taken? At night they complained; they said, ‘You have swindled us; we have not seen Irving act at all; we have only seen him at rehearsal. We have been playing under the stage, at the back of it, behind flats, or smothered up at the wings, where we could see nothing, and you have got to give us our full pay.’”

It is quite new in American theatres for the orchestra to be put into such frequent requisition behind the scenes, as is the case in Irving’s representations. The special engagement of a tenor (Mr. J. Robertson) to sing the ballad in “Much Ado” is an unheard-of extravagance. Mr. Robertson also gave very valuable assistance in the quartettes and choruses introduced with fine effect in “The Merchant,” “The Bells,” and other plays; which reminds me that among the saddening incidents of the tour were the sudden recall to England of Mr. Johnson, the low comedian, to the sick-bed of his wife; and the withdrawal of Mr. Norman Forbes from the cast of “The Merchant,” through illness. We left Forbes at one of the cities, with a serious attack of rheumatic fever. The “under-studies” had to be employed, necessitating many new rehearsals. Mr. Howe, at a moment’s notice, undertook the part of Dogberry, and played it admirably; while Mr. Carter took the part of Richard in “Louis XI.,” and Mr. Harbury gave extra and efficient service in the graveyard scene in “Hamlet.” Mr. Andrews was cast for the part of Lancelot in “The Merchant,” replacing Mr. Johnson, and Mr. Lyndal played Claudio in “Much Ado” in such a way as to entitle him to the compliments of Irving, which were generously and ungrudgingly given.

“Cincinnati,” said Irving, “has great aims in the direction of art. It has a grand public hall, endowed by a local philanthropist, in which it gives musical, operatic, and dramatic festivals. This year the opera occupies its enormous stage. The Festival Committee gave me a dinner at the Queen City Club. It was a most interesting reunion.[44] The city is very picturesque, I should say, if one could only have seen it; but it was choked with snow, and in a continual mist or fog. The ice in the river broke up before we left,—a wonderful sight it was: a great rising flood, filled with ice and snow,—along the wharves silent ships, and steamers,—surprising to look down upon from the hills. As the city has grown the people have had to build on the heights, and the street-cars are hauled up on elevators—you drive your carriage upon these platforms and are raised to the roads above,—it is something like going up in a balloon. A mist hung over the river, the water was rising rapidly, and people were expressing fears that the place would be flooded, as it had been a year or two previously.[45] There is a German quarter. It is called ‘Germany,’ and has all the characteristics of the Fatherland in its beer-gardens, concert-rooms, theatres, and general mode of life. Next to the native Americans the Germans are the most influential people. They have several newspapers printed in their own language, and in the regular German type.[46] The sudden rises of the Ohio appear to be the chief drawback. They are very philosophical about it, and try to console themselves on the ground that, if they suffer from water, they have not been burned out, as some other cities have. Cincinnati has a noble ambition: it aims at becoming a great centre of culture, more particularly in art and science. It is making a magnificent start in its Schools of Design, its art leagues, its University, and the Museum which is being built in Eden Park. I was struck with an incident related to me by a friend of yours. One of the newspaper offices was burned down. The fire took place while the paper was at press. Seeing that it was impossible to save the machinery they put on the highest speed and worked off the sheets until the place was too hot to hold them; and the men stepped out with the printed sheets almost as the ceiling fell in upon the machinery. By the aid of a neighbor, and the presses of a rival who had failed, they came out the next day with a full report of the calamity, in which, I believe, some lives were lost. An example of American enterprise that, eh?

“At Columbus I went to the State House,[47] while the General Assembly and Senate were sitting. If one were a politician, I can imagine nothing more interesting than to study the details of the American system of government, the question of State rights, and other features of the general administration. Each State seems very distinct and independent of the other. For instance, some States and cities have special laws of their own, and many complications which seem inexplicable would be more easily explained if this were more understood. It is not the government of the United States which can control all matters; it is the State which sometimes plays the principal part. I did not quite understand that until recently. For instance, in New York city or State there is a law giving certain privileges to ticket-speculators; while at Philadelphia, and at Boston, I believe, there is a law against speculators selling tickets on the sidewalks. Talking upon this subject to a lawyer in Baltimore, he told me that baggage-smashing on the railroads had reached such a pitch that a State law had been passed in Maryland making it a misdemeanor. English, and indeed European, travellers generally, who have had no experience of America, can have no conception of the way in which baggage is treated; it seems to me as if the intention often is really to stave in trunks and boxes. The credulous Britisher, who should put on his trunk, ‘This side up, with care,’ would have a fit if he saw the porter throw it down with a crash on the other side, and then pile a ton or two of the heaviest kind of merchandise upon it. When you think of the respect with which a traveller’s trunks are treated on European railways, it is startling to encounter a general sort of conspiracy here to break them up, and in a country which has invented the best system of ‘expressing’ and delivering baggage known to modern travel,—to me this is incomprehensible.

“From Columbus we went back to Chicago, the first of our return visits. I felt quite at home again at the Grand Pacific Hotel,—one of the finest and most comfortable houses of the entire tour. The colored attendant, Walter, who is told off for my service, is the most intelligent and courteous fellow I have ever met in the position he holds. Singularly handsome, too, is he not? Indeed one is struck with the physical beauty of some of these half-breeds, mulattoes, Creoles—wonderful fellows! I remember that Sala describes the Grand Pacific as ‘Wonder Number One’ among the marvels of Chicago, and the newspaper press as ‘Wonder Number Two.’ I should put the press first,—did you ever see such papers as the Sunday journals? Sixteen to twenty and twenty-four pages,—why, it’s marvellous how they get the matter for them together! One of the St. Louis papers I noticed was also a very large one. What a deftness of allusion and adaptation of events to personal criticism there is in these western journals! The Standard oil affair,—I don’t know the merits of it; but charges of unfairness in connection with the enterprise are before the public. Somebody has sent me this paragraph about it, from the ‘Columbus Times’:—

“The members of the General Assembly who looked upon the Standard oil, when it flowed with unction in the recent senatorial struggle, might get a few points on the effects of the remorse of conscience by seeing Henry Irving in ‘The Bells.’

“Flattering, eh?”

XVIII.

CHIEFLY CONCERNING A HOLIDAY AT NIAGARA.

The Return Visit to Chicago—Welcomed Back again—Farewell Speech—Niagara in the Winter—A Sensation at the Hotel—Requisitioning adjacent Towns for Chickens and Turkeys—Ira Aldridge and a Colored Dramatic Club—A Blizzard from the North-west—The Scene of Webb’s Death—“A great Stage-manager, Nature”—Life and Death of “The Hermit of Niagara”—A Fatal Picnic—The Lyceum Company at Dinner—Mr. Howe proposes a Toast—Terriss meets with an Accident that recalls a Romantic Tragedy.

I.

“THE fact of Mr. Irving and Miss Terry and their company attracting an audience to fill Haverly’s Theatre on so speedy a return after leaving us, and that, too, following a rugged strain of grand opera,” said the “Chicago Inter-Ocean,” of February 12, “may be accepted as conclusive evidence of genuine appreciation and admiration of their worth. This testimony is much strengthened by the fact that the plays presented were those most frequently seen during the original engagements,—‘The Bells,’ and ‘The Belle’s Stratagem,’—for, though it is thought Mr. Irving is seen to exceptional advantage as Mathias, mere curiosity would have held off to see him in a new character. It was a generous and highly gratifying welcome back; and it is certainly a great pleasure, as well as an artistic privilege worthy to be acknowledged, that we have Mr. Irving and his superb surroundings again before us. We are in no danger of seeing too much of this sort of work.”

“Hamlet” and “Much Ado” were produced for the first time at Chicago during this second season. Both excited genuine interest, and were received with as much favor by audiences and critics as his previous work. Only two weeks had intervened between his first and second visit. More money was paid at the doors of Haverly’s during the week than had gone into the treasury for a week of grand opera. The programme for the last night was “Much Ado,” and the recitation of Hood’s “Eugene Aram.” After enthusiastic calls for Irving and Miss Terry, at the close of the comedy, there were cries of “Speech! Speech!” Irving, in evening dress for the recitation, presently responded to the wishes of his audience. He said he would be made of sterner stuff—and he was glad that such was not the case—if he failed to feel profoundly the welcome that had been accorded him in Chicago. Not one shadow had fallen across the brightness of that welcome; there was not a jarring note in the generous applause that had greeted the company’s efforts. The encouragement had been most grateful, and it had urged himself and his associates to do their best work. He thanked the press of the city for overlooking shortcomings, and for recognizing so generously what they found to be good. The notices had been most eloquent and sympathetic. He wished to thank the audience on behalf of his associates, and particularly on behalf of Miss Ellen Terry, whose great gifts had been so quickly recognized. If he might be permitted to say so in public, he himself heartily joined in their appreciation of Miss Terry’s work. Parting was “a sweet sorrow,” and the sweet part of his leave-taking was in expressing his deep sense of Chicago’s great welcome. Again he would say good-by to every one; but he hoped circumstances would make it possible to meet a Chicago audience in the future, and he trusted that “you will remember us as we will surely remember you.”

“The speaker,” says the “Tribune,” “was frequently interrupted by applause, his reference to Miss Terry especially awakening enthusiasm. He then recited ‘Eugene Aram’s Dream’ with fine effect, and after inducing him to respond to a fifth and last recall the audience dispersed.”

II.

ON the following Monday and Tuesday the company appeared for two nights at Detroit,[48] the chief city of Michigan, to large and most friendly audiences. I was in New York at this time, and had arranged to meet Irving, Miss Terry, and a few friends, at Niagara, on Wednesday. “If Abbey is agreeable, I shall give the company a holiday, so that they can go to Niagara,[49] spend the day, and sleep in Toronto at night. It will do us all good.” Abbey was agreeable, and Wednesday, February 20, was one of the most memorable days of the tour.

I travelled from New York by the West Shore road, an admirably equipped railway (and having at Syracuse the most picturesque and one of the finest stations in America), to meet my friends at the Falls. At two o’clock, on Tuesday, I arrived on the Canadian side of the river. The country was covered with snow, but a thaw had set in during the morning. Driving from the railway station the scene was wild, weird, and impressive. The steep banks of the Niagara river were seamed and furrowed with ice and snow. The American side of the ravine was ploughed by the weather into ridges. One might say the river banks were corrugated, cracked, grooved into strange lines, every channel ribbed with ice. Here and there tiny falls, that had mimicked the colossal ones beyond, were frozen into columns. Others had been converted into pillars that seemed to be supporting white, ghost-like figures. Further on there was a cluster of fountains gushing out of the rocks beneath a number of mills, the wheels of which they had turned on their way to the river. These waters leaped down some fifty or sixty feet into great ice-bowls. You would think they had found an outlet other than the river but for its discoloration at the base of the great natural urns, or bowls, into which they fell. There were ponderous heaps of ice at the bed of the American falls. A section of them was literally frozen into a curious mass of icicles. The ice was not bright, but had a dull, woolly appearance. Coming upon the two great falls at a slight bend of the river you see them both at once. On this day they were almost enveloped in spray. Our horses splashed through thawing snow, and picked their way over a road broken up with scoriated ice and flooded with water. A strong, but not a cold, wind blew in our faces, and covered us with spray. The water was pouring down the abyss in greater masses it seemed to me than usual; and this was my third visit to Niagara. I had seen the falls in summer and autumn. Their winter aspect had not the fascinating charm of the softer periods of the year, when the banks are green, and the leaves are rustling on the trees of the islands. The Clifton House was closed. The balconies, upon which merry parties are sitting and chatting in summer evenings, were empty. Even the Prospect House looked chilly. The flood fell into its awful gulf with a dull, thudding boom, and the rapids above were white and angry.