Chapter XII: Part 12

“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 well as he can with the faulty
material 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 effort 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 Pantheon of
all the Arts.”

XLV
THE RIGHT HON. WILLIAM EWART 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. On July 8 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 April 8, 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, December 2, of coming to the Lyceum.

_Photo Window & Grove_

ELLEN TERRY AS IMOGEN, 1896
]

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.[4] 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_, 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, November 18, 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:

Footnote 4:

Opposite prompt.

“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 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 individually, 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.”

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 January 29 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, May 7, 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.

Another instance of Mr. Gladstone’s visit to the Lyceum: on the evening of February 25, 1893, he came to see _Becket_. He had introduced his second Home Rule Bill on the thirteenth of the month, and as it was being discussed he was naturally full of it—so were we all. By the way the Bill was carried in the Commons at the end of August of that year. That night when speaking of his new Bill, he said to me:

“I will venture to say that in four or five years those who oppose it will wonder what it was that they opposed!”

He was delighted with _Becket_, and seemed specially to rejoice in the success of Tennyson’s work.

IV

He was as usual much interested in matters of cost. Irving talked with him very freely, and amongst other things mentioned the increasing expenses of working a theatre, especially with regard to the salaries of actors which had, he said, almost been doubled of late years. Gladstone seemed instantly struck with this. When Irving had gone to change his dress, Gladstone said to me suddenly:

“You told me, I think, that you are Chancellor of the Exchequer here.”

“Yes!” I said. “As in your own case, Mr. Gladstone, that is one of my functions!”

“Then would you mind answering me a few questions?” On my giving a hearty acquiescence he began to inquire exhaustively with regard to different classes of actors and others, and seemed to be weighing in his mind the relative advances. In fact his queries covered the whole ground, for now and again he asked as to the quality of materials used. I knew he was omnivorous with regard to finance, but to-night I was something surprised at the magnitude and persistence of his interests. The reason came shortly. Three days after the visit, 28th February, Sir Henry Meysey-Thompson, M.P. for Handsworth, voiced in the House the wishes then floating of the Bi-Metallists for an International Monetary Conference. Mr. Gladstone replied to him in a great speech, the immediate effect of which was to relegate the matter to the Greek Kalends. In this speech he began with the standard of value, and by figures arrived at gold as the least variable standard. Then he went on to the values and change of various commodities, leading him to what he called “the greatest commodity of the world—human labour.” This he broadly differentiated into three classes of work which were dependent on ordinary trade laws and conditions, and of a more limited class which seemed to illustrate the natural changes of the laws of value, inasmuch as the earners were not influenced to any degree by the course of events or the cost of materials. This, broadly speaking, was his sequence of ideas. When he had got so far he said:

“Take also the limited class about whom I happened to hear the other
day—the theatrical profession. I have it on unquestionable authority
that the ordinary payments received by actors and actresses have risen
largely.”

With his keen instinct for both finance and argument he had seized at once on Irving’s remark about the increase of salaries, recognising on the instant its suitability as an illustration in the setting forth of his views. And I doubt if he could have found any other class of wage-earning so isolated from commercial changes.

V

Irving told me of an interesting conversation which he had in those days with Lord Randolph Churchill in which the latter mentioned Gladstone in a striking way. Answering a query following on some previous remark, he said:

“The fact is we are all afraid of him!”

“How is that—and why?” asked Irving.

“Well, you see, he is a first-class man. And the rest of us are only second class—at best!”

Mr. Gladstone was a really good playgoer and he seemed to love the theatre. When he came he and Mrs. Gladstone were always in good time. I once asked him, thinking that he might have mistaken the hour, in which case I would have borne it in mind to advise him on another occasion, if he liked to come early, and he said:

“Yes. I have always made it a practice to come early. I like to be in my place, and composed, before they begin to tune the fiddles!”

This is the true spirit in which to enjoy the play. No one who has ever sat in eager expectation can forget the imaginative forcefulness of that acre of green baize which hid all the delightful mysteries of the stage. It was in itself a sort of introduction to wonderland, making all the seeming that came after as if quickened into reality.

XLVI
THE EARL OF BEACONSFIELD

I

I never saw Benjamin Disraeli (except from the Gallery of the House of Commons) but on the one occasion when he came to see _The Corsican Brothers_. Irving, however, met him often and liked to talk about him. He admired, of course, his power and courage and address; but it was, I think, the Actor that was in the man that appealed to him. I think also that Beaconsfield liked him, and gauged his interest and delight in matters of character. Somehow the stories which he told him conveyed this idea.

One was of an ambitious young clergyman, son of an old friend of the statesman, who asked him to use his influence in having him appointed a Chaplain to the Queen. This he had effected in due course. The Premier, to his surprise, some time afterwards received a visit from his protégé, who said he had, on the ground of the kindness already extended to him, to ask a further favour. When asked what it was he answered:

“I have through your kindness—for which I am eternally grateful—been notified that I am to preach before Her Majesty on Sunday week. So I have come to ask you if you would very kindly give me some sort of hint in the matter!” The Premier, after a moment’s thought, had answered:

“Well, you see, I am not much in the habit of preaching sermons myself so I must leave that altogether to your own discretion. But I can tell you this: If you will preach for fifteen minutes the Queen will listen to you. If you will preach for ten minutes she will listen with interest. But if you will preach for five minutes you will be the most popular chaplain that has ever been at Court.”

“And what do you think,” he went on, “this egregious young man said:

“‘But, Mr. Disraeli, how can I do myself justice in five minutes!’” Then came the super cynical remark of the statesman-of-the-world:

“Fancy wanting to do himself justice—and before the Queen!”

II

Sir George Elliott, Bart., M.P., the great coal-owner, was a friend of Irving’s and used to come to the Lyceum. One night—4th December 1890—at supper in the Beefsteak Room, he told us of a visit he paid to Lord Beaconsfield at Hughenden Manor. Disraeli had taken a fancy to the old gentleman, who was, I believe, a self-made man—all honour to him. He was the only guest on that week-end visit. His host took him over the house and showed him his various treasures. In the course of their going about, Beaconsfield asked him:

“How do you like this room?” It was the dining-room, a large and handsome chamber; in it were two portraits, the Queen and the Countess Beaconsfield—Disraeli had had her title conferred whilst he was still in the Commons. At the time of Sir George’s visit he was a widower.

“I thought it odd,” said Sir George, “that the Queen’s picture should hang on the side wall whilst another was over the chimney-piece, which was the place of honour, and asked Dizzy if they should not be changed.” He smiled as he said, after a pause:

“Well, Her Majesty did me the honour of visiting me twice at Hughenden; but _she_ did not make the suggestion!”

“He said it very sweetly. It was a gentle rebuke. I don’t know how I came to make such a blunder.”

There is another reading of the speech which I think he did not see.

III

Disraeli was always good to his Countess, who loved and admired him devotedly. She must, however, have been at times something of a trial to him, for she was outspoken in a way which must now and again have galled a man with his sense of humour; no man is insensitive to ridicule. One night at supper in the Beefsteak Room, a member of Parliament, who knew most things about his contemporaries, told us of one evening at a big dinner-party at which Disraeli and Lady Beaconsfield were present. Some man had been speaking of a new beauty and was expatiating on her charms— the softness of her eyes, her dimples, her pearly teeth, the magnificence of her hair, the whiteness of her skin—here he was interrupted by a remark of Lady Beaconsfield made across the table:

“Ah! you should see my Dizzy in his bath!”

IV

James McHenry told me an anecdote of Disraeli which illustrates his astuteness in getting out of difficulties. The matter happened to a lady of his acquaintance. This lady was very anxious that her husband should get an appointment for which he was a candidate—one of those good things that distinctly goes by favour. One evening, to her great joy, she found that she was to sit at dinner next the Premier. She was a very attractive woman whom most men liked to serve. The opportunity was too good to lose, and as her neighbour “took” to her at once she began to have great hopes. Having “ground-baited” the locality with personal charm she began to get her hooks and tackle ready. She led the conversation to the subject in her mind, Disraeli talking quite freely. Then despite her efforts the conversation drifted away to something else. She tried again; but when just close to her objective it drifted again. Thus attack and repulse kept on during dinner. Do what she would, she could not get on the subject by gentle means. She felt at last that she was up against a master of that craft. Time ran out, and when came that premonitory hush and glance round the table which shows that the ladies are about to withdraw she grew desperate. Boldly attacking once more the arbiter of her husband’s destiny, she asked him point blank to give the appointment. He looked at her admiringly; and just as the move came he said to her in an impressive whisper:

“Oh, you are a darling!”

V

Irving told me this:

He was giving sittings for his bust to Count Gleichen, who was also doing a bust of Lord Beaconsfield. One day when he came the sculptor, looking at his watch, said:

“I’m afraid our sitting to-day must be a short one—indeed it may be interrupted at any moment. You won’t mind, I hope?”

“Not at all!” said Irving. “What is it?”

“The Premier has sent me word that he must come at an earlier hour than he fixed as he has a Cabinet Meeting.” He had already unswathed the clay so as not to waste in preparation the time of the statesman when he should come. Irving was looking at it when something struck him. Turning to Count Gleichen he said:

“That seems something like myself—you know we actors have to study our own faces a good deal, so that we come to know them.”

Just then Disraeli came in. When they had shaken hands, the sculptor said to the new-comer:

“Mr. Irving says that he sees in your bust a resemblance to himself.

Disraeli looked at Irving a moment with a pleased expression. Then he walked over to where Irving’s bust was still uncovered. He examined it critically for a few moments; and then turning to Count Gleichen said:

“What a striking and distinguished physiognomy!”

XLVII
SIR WILLIAM PEARCE, BART.

I

Sir William Pearce—made a Baronet in 1887—was a close friend of Irving. He was the head of the great Glasgow shipbuilding firm of John Elder & Co. In fact he _was_ John Elder & Co., for he owned the whole great business. He went to Glasgow as a shipwright and entered the works at Fairfield. He was a man of such commanding force and ability that he climbed up through the whole concern right up to the top, and in time— and not a long time either for such a purpose—owned the whole thing. He built many superb yachts, notably the _Lady Torfrida_ and the _Lady Torfrida the Second_. The first-named was in his own use when we were playing in Glasgow in the early autumn of 1883. We accepted Mr. Pearce’s invitation to go on a week-end yachting tour, to begin after the play on the following Saturday night, 1st September.

II

The _Lady Torfrida_ was berthed in the estuary of the Clyde off Greenock; so a little after eleven o’clock we all set off for Greenock.

It had been a blustering evening in Glasgow; but here in the open it seemed a gale. I think that the hearts of all the landsmen of our party sank when we saw the black water lashed into foam by the fierce wind. Pearce had met us at the station and came with us. Of the yachting party were his son the present Baronet, and a College friend of his, Mr. Bradbury. With the bluff heartiness of a yachtsman Pearce now assured us that everything was smooth and easy. At the stairs we found a trim boat with its oarsmen fending her off as with every rising wave she made violent dashes at the stonework. One of the men stood on the steps holding the painter; he dared not fasten it to the ring. From near the level of the water the estuary looked like a wide sea and the water so cold and dark and boisterous that it seemed like madness going out on such a night in such a boat _for pleasure_. There were several of us, however, and we were afraid of frightening each other; I do not think that any of us were afraid for ourselves. Ellen Terry whispered to me to take her son, who was only a little chap, next to me, as she knew me and would have confidence in me.

We managed to get into the boat without any of us getting all wet, and pushed off. We drove out into the teeth of the wind, the waves seeming much bigger now we were amongst them and out in the open Firth. Not a sign of yacht could be seen. To us strangers the whole thing was an act of faith. Presently Pearce gave an order and we burned a blue light, which was after a while answered from far off—a long, long distance off, we thought, as we looked across the waste of black troubled water, looking more deadly than ever in the blue light—though it looked even more deadly when the last of the light fell hissing into the wave. By this time matters were getting really serious. Some one had to keep baling all the time, and on the weather side we had to sit shoulder to shoulder as close as we could so that the waves might break on our backs and not over the gunwale. It was just about as unpleasant an experience as one could have. I drew the lad next to me as close as I could, partly to comfort him and more particularly lest he should get frightened and try to leave his place. And yet all the time we were a merry party. Ellen Terry with the strong motherhood in her all awake—a lesson and a hallowed memory—was making cheery remarks and pointing out to her boy the many natural beauties with which we were surrounded: the distant lights, the dim line of light above the shore line, the lurid light of Greenock on the sky. She thought of only one thing, her little boy, and that he might not suffer the pain of fear. The place seemed to become beautiful in the glow of her maternity. He did not say much in answer— not in any enthusiastic way; but he was not much frightened. Cold waves of exceeding violence, driven up your back by a fierce wind which beats the spray into your neck, hardly make a cheerful help to the enjoyment of the æsthetic!

Irving sat stolid and made casual remarks such as he would have made at his own fireside. His quiet calm, I think, allayed nervous tremors in some of the others. I really think he enjoyed the situation—in a way. As for Pearce, who held the tiller himself, he was absolutely boisterous with joviality, though he once whispered in my ear:

“Keep it up! We shall be all right; but I don’t want any of them to get frightened. It is pretty serious!” I think we settled in time into a sort of that calm acceptance of fact which is so real a tribute to Belief. It certainly startled us a little when we heard a voice hailing us with a speaking-trumpet—a voice which seemed close to us. Then a light flashed out and we saw the _Lady Torfrida_ rising high from the water whereon she floated gracefully, just swaying with wave and wind. She was a big yacht with 600 h.p. engines, after the model of those of the _Alaska_, one of Pearce’s building, then known as the “Greyhound of the ocean!”

I think we were all rejoiced; even Pearce, who told me before we went to our cabins in the early morning that all through that miserable voyage in the dark the sense of his responsibility was heavy upon him.

“Just fancy,” he said, “if anything had happened to Irving or Ellen Terry! And it might have, easily! We had no right to come out in such a small boat on such a night; we were absolutely in danger at times!”

We were not long in getting aboard. The whole yacht seemed by comparison with the darkness we emerged from to be blazing with light and filled with alert, powerful men. We were pulled, jerked, or thrown on board, I hardly knew which; and found ourselves hurried down to our luxurious cabins where everything was ready for our dressing. Our things had fortunately been sent on board during the day; anything coming in the boat would have had a poor chance of arriving dry.

III

In a very short time we were sitting in the saloon, light and warm and doing ample justice to one of the most perfect meals I ever sat down to. It was now after one o’clock and we were all hungry. After supper we sat and talked; and after the ladies had retired we sat on still till the September sun began to look in through the silk curtains that veiled the ports.

Pearce was a man full of interesting memories and experiences, and that night he seemed to lay the treasures of them at the feet of his guests. But of all that he told—we listening eagerly—none was so fascinating as his account of the building and trial trip of the _Livadia_.

This was the great yacht which the Czar Alexander II. had built from the designs of Admiral Popoff of his own navy. It was of an entirely new pattern of naval construction; a turtle with a house on its back. The work of building had been entrusted to the Fairfield yard with _carte blanche_ in the doing of it. No expense was to be spared in having everything of the best. Under the circumstances it could not be contracted for; the builder was paid by a fixed percentage of the prime cost. The only thing that the builder had to guarantee was the speed. But that was so arranged that beyond a certain point there was to be a rising bonus; the shipbuilder made an extra £20,000 on this alone. Pearce told us that it was the hope of the Czar to be able to evade the Nihilists, who were then very active and had attempted his life several times. The _Livadia_ was really a palace of the sea whereon he could live in comfort and luxury for long periods; and in which by keeping his own counsel he could go about the world without the knowledge of his enemies. It was known that the Nihilists regarded very jealously the building of the ship, and careful watch was kept in the yard. One day when the ship was finished and was partly coaled, there came a wire from the Russian Embassy that it was reported that there were two Nihilists in the shipyard. When the men were coming back from dinner, tally was kept at the gate where the Russian detectives were on watch. I have seen that return from dinner. Through the great gates seven thousand men poured in like a huge living stream. On this occasion the check showed that _two men were missing_. The Nihilists also had their own Embassy and secret police!

It then became necessary to examine the ship in every part. Those were the days of the Thomassin “infernal machine,” which was suspected of having been the means by which many ships had been sent to the bottom. These machines were exploded by clockwork set for a certain time, and were made in such fashion as would not excite suspicion. Some were in the form of irregularly shaped lumps of coal. The first thing to be done was therefore to take out all the coal which had already been put in. When the bunkers were empty and all the searchable portions of the ship had been carefully examined inch by inch, a picked staff of men opened and examined the watertight compartments. This was in itself a job, for there were, so well as I remember, something like a hundred and fifty of them. However, as each was done Pearce himself set his own seal upon it. At last he was able to assure the Grand Duke, who was in command and who had arrived to take the boat in charge, that she was so far safe from attack from concealed explosives. When she was starting the Grand Duke told Pearce that the Czar expected that he would go on the trial trip. In his own words:

“It is not any part of a shipbuilder’s business to go on trial trips unless he so wishes. But in this case I could not have thought of refusing. The Czar’s relations with me and his kindness to me were such that I could not do anything but what would please him!”

So the _Livadia_ started from the Clyde with sealed orders. Her first call was at Holyhead. There they met with a despatch which ordered an immediate journey to Plymouth. At Plymouth she was again directed with secret orders to go to Brest, whither she set out at once.

At Brest there was an “easy,” and certain of the officers and men were allowed shore leave. The “easy” should have been for several days; but suddenly word was received to leave Brest at once; it was said that some suspected Nihilists were in the way. The men on shore were peremptorily recalled and in haste preparations were made for an immediate start for the south. Pearce’s own words explain the situation:

“I went at once to the Grand Duke Nicholas and remonstrated with him. ‘I can answer for the workmanship of the _Livadia_,’ I said; ‘but the design is not mine, and so far as I know the principle on which she has been constructed has never been tested. There is no possibility of knowing what a ship of the pattern will do in bad weather, and that we have ahead of us. It is dirty now in the Bay and a storm is reported coming up. Does your Highness really think it wise to attempt the Bay of Biscay under the conditions?’ To my astonishment not only the Grand Duke but some of his officers who were present, who had not hitherto shown any disposition to despise danger, spoke loudly in favour of going on at once. Of course I said no more. I had built the ship, and though I was not responsible for her I felt that if necessary I should go down in her. We had a terrible experience in the Bay, but got through safely to Ferrol. There she was laid up in a land-locked bay, round the shores of which guards were posted night and day for months. It was necessary that she should lie up somewhere as the dock at Sebastopol—the only dock in the world large enough to hold her—was not ready.

“And whilst she lay there the Czar was assassinated.” This was on 13th March, 1881.

IV

Then he went on to tell us how once already the _Livadia_ had been the means of saving the Czar’s life:

“When she was getting on I had a model of her made—in fact, two; one of them,” he said, turning to me, “you saw the other day in my office. These models are troublesome and costly things to make. The one which I intended as a present to the Czar cost five hundred pounds. It was my present to his Majesty on the twenty-fifth anniversary of his succession. It arrived the day before, 17th February—29th February old style. The Czar was delighted with it. That evening there was a banquet in the Winter Palace, where he was then in residence. He had been threatened for some time by means of a black-edged letter finding its way every morning into the Palace, warning him in explicit terms that if his oppression did not cease he would not live past the anniversary of his accession, which would be the following day. When he was leading the way to the dining-hall from the drawing-room he turned to the lady with him—Princess Dolgoruki, his morganatic wife—and said:

“‘By the way I want to show you my new toy!’ The model had been placed in the salon at the head of the grand staircase and they stopped to examine it.

“As they were doing so the staircase down which they would have been otherwise passing was blown up. The Nihilists, knowing the exact routine of the Court and the rigid adherence to hours, had timed the explosion for the passage of the staircase!”

We spent a delightful Sunday going around Arran. We dined at anchor in Wemyss Bay and slept on board. On the forenoon of Monday we went back to Glasgow.

XLVIII
STEPNIAK

I

On the evening of 8th July 1892, after the play, _Faust_, Irving had some friends to supper in the Beefsteak Room. I think that, all told, it was as odd a congeries of personalities as could well be. Sarah Bernhardt, Darmont, Ellen Terry and her daughter, Toole, Mr. and Mrs. T. B. Aldrich of Boston, two Miss Casellas—and Stepniak. It was odd that the man was known only by the one name; no one ever used his first name, Sergius. Other men have second names of some sort; but this one, though he signed himself S. Stepniak, I never heard spoken of except by the one word. I sat next to him at supper and we had a great deal of conversation together, chiefly about the state of affairs in Russia generally and the Revolutionary party in especial. He, who had presumably been in the very heart of the Revolutionary party and in all the secrets of Nihilism, told me some of his views and aspirations and those of the party—or rather the parties—of which he was a unit.

II

Stepniak was a very large man—large of that type that the line of the shoulders is high so that the bulk of the body stands out solid. He had a close beard and very thick hair, and strongly marked features with a suggestion of the Kalmuck type. He was very strong and had a great voice. On 1st May of that year, 1892, I had heard him speak at the great meeting in Hyde Park for the “Eight-hour” movement. There were in the Park that day not far from a quarter of a million of people, so that from any of the tribunes—which were carts—no one could be heard that was not strong of voice. The only three men whom I could hear were John Burns, Stepniak, and Frederick Rogers—the latter a working bookbinder and President of the Elizabethan Society—also one of the very finest speakers—judged by any standard—I have ever heard.

In our conversation at supper that night he told me of the letters which they were receiving from the far-off northern shores of Siberia. It was a most sad and pitiful tale. Men of learning and culture, mostly University professors, men of blameless life and takers of no active part in revolution or conspiracy—simply theorists of freedom, patriots at heart—sent away to the terrible muddy shores of the Arctic sea, ill housed, ill fed, overworked—where life was one long, sordid, degrading struggle for bare life in that inhospitable region. I could not but be interested and moved by his telling. He saw that I was sympathetic, and said he would like to send me something to read on the subject. It came some weeks later, as the following letter will show:

“31 BLANDFORD ROAD,
BEDFORD PARK, W.,
_August 2, 1892_.

“DEAR MR. STOKER,—It is a long time that I wanted to write to you
since that delightful party at the Lyceum. But I was so busy, and the
parcel I wanted to send to you for one reason or another could never
be ready, and so it dragged on. What I send to you is the paper, _Free
Russia_, I am editing. Since you have read all my books and have been
so kind and indulgent for them, and so interested in the Russian
Cause, I suppose you will be interested in the attempt to give a
practical expression to English sympathies. Unfortunately the
collection of _Free Russia_ is incomplete (No. 1 is quite out of
print). But what you will have is quite sufficient to give you an idea
of the whole.

“May I ask whether you live permanently in London and whether I may
hope to see you some day once again?—Yours very truly,

S. STEPNIAK.”

III

In February 1893 Stepniak saw Irving and Ellen Terry play in _King Lear_. The following excerpts are from a letter which he sent to Irving— a long letter of fourteen pages. I was so struck with it when Irving showed it to me that I asked leave to make a copy. Whereupon he gave me the letter.

This was after a habit of his; he generally gave me things which would be of interest to me—and to others. In the letter Stepniak said:

“The actor is a joint creator with the author—even with such an author
as Shakespeare. He has a right of his own in interpretation, and the
only point is how far he makes good his claims, and that you have done
to a wonderful extent. Yours was not acting: it was life itself, so
true, natural and convincing was every word, every shade of expression
upon your face or in your voice. The gradual transformation of the
man, his humbling himself, the revelation of his better, sympathetic
self—it was all a wonder of realism, nature and subtlety. Your acting
reminded me of the pictures of the great Flemish master who seems to
paint not with a brush but with a needle. Yet this astonishing
subtlety was in no way prejudicial to the completeness and the power
and masterliness of the great whole.... I cannot forbear from asking
you to transmit my compliments and admiration to Miss Ellen Terry—if
you think that she may care about such a humble tribute. There is a
passage from ‘I love your Majesty according to my bonds, not more or
less’ and the following monologue, which I am bold enough to say are
the weakest in the play: too cold and dry and forward and elaborate
for Cordelia. But in her rendering there was nothing of that: it was
all simplicity, tenderness, spontaneous emotion. The charm of her
personality and character, which she has such a unique gift of
infusing into everything, has partially improved the original text. I
hope you will not consider my saying so too sacrilegious. There are
spots upon the sun. And the scene in the French camp! Her ‘No cause,
no cause!’ was quite a stroke of genius. I would not believe before I
saw her in that, that words can produce such an emotion.”

And this was the man who stood for wiping tyrants from the face of the earth; who aided in the task, if _Underground Russia_ be even based on truth. This gentle, appreciative, keenly critical, sympathetic man!

Strange it was that he who must have gone through such appalling dangers as beset hourly the workers in the Nihilist cause and come through them all unscathed was finally killed in the commonplace way of being run over by a train on the underground railway.

IV

It reminds me of another experience with Irving and a surprising _dénouement_. When we were in California in 1893 a gentleman called to see Irving at his hotel. He was a countryman of Stepniak, but of quite the opposite degree—a Prince claiming blood kin with the Czar, Nicholas Galitzin. He supped with Irving and some others, forty-five in all, at the Café Riche, 13th September, when he gave Irving a very charming souvenir in the shape of a gold match-box set with gems. Several times after we met at supper and came to be quite friends. Prince Galitzin was a mighty hunter and had slain much big game, including even grizzlies and other bears. He told us many interesting hunting adventures. He had lost one arm. He had not mentioned any adventure bearing on this, and Irving asked him if it was by a mischance in a hunting adventure that he had suffered the loss. He said with a laugh:

“No! No! Nothing of the kind. It was a damn stupid fellow who let a Saratoga trunk fall on me over the staircase of a hotel!”

XLIX
E. ONSLOW FORD, R.A.

One morning—it was 12th January 1880—I got a note from Irving sent down by cab from his rooms. In it he said:

“There is a certain Mr. Onslow Ford coming to the theatre this morning. Please see him for me and give him some fatherly or brotherly advice.”

I left word with the hall-keeper to send for me whenever the gentleman came. I did not know who he was or what he wanted: but I did know what “fatherly or brotherly advice” meant. At that period of his life the demands made on Irving’s time were fearful. There was no end to them; no limit to the range of their wants. And I was the “fatherly adviser” in such cases.

A little after noon I was sent for; the expected stranger had arrived. In those days the stage door in Exeter Street was very small and absolutely inconvenient. There was comfortable room for Sergeant Barry, the hall-keeper, who was a fine, big, bulky man; two in the room crowded it. Barry waited outside and I went in. The stranger was a young man of medium height, thin, dark haired. His hair rose back from his forehead without parting of any kind, in the way which we in those days associated in our minds with French artists. His face was pale, a little sallow, fine in profile and moulding; a nose of distinction with sensitive nostrils. He had a small beard and moustache. His eyes were dark and concentrated—distinctly “seeing” eyes. My heart warmed to him at once. He was young and earnest and fine; I knew at a glance that he was an artist, and with a future. Still I had to be on guard. One of my functions at the theatre, as I had come to know after a year of exceedingly arduous work, was to act as a barrier. I was “the Spirit that Denies!” In fact I had to be. No one likes to say “no!”—a very few are constitutionally able to. I had set myself to help Irving in his work and this was one of the best ways I could help him. He recognised gratefully the utility of the service, and as he trusted absolutely in my discretion. I gradually fell into the habit of using my own decision in the great majority of cases.

When Mr. Onslow Ford told me that he wished to make a statuette of Henry Irving as Hamlet I felt that the time for “advice” had come, and began to pave the way for a _non possumus_, strong in intention though gentle in expression. The young sculptor, however, had thought the matter all over for himself. He knew the demands on Irving’s time and how vastly difficult it would be to get sittings so many and so long as would be required for the work he had projected. I listened of course and thought better of him and his chance in that he knew his difficulties at the beginning.

Presently he put his hand in his pocket and took out something rolled in paper—a parcel about as big as a pork pie. When he had unrolled it he held up a rough clay model of a seated figure.

“This,” said he, “is something of the idea. I have been several times in the front row of the stalls watching as closely as I could. One cannot well model clay in the stalls of a theatre. But I did this after the first time, and I have had it with me on each other occasion. I compared it on such opportunities as I had—you do keep the Lyceum dark all but the stage; and I think I can see my way. I don’t want to waste Irving’s time or my own opportunities if I am so fortunate as to get sittings!”

That was the sort of artist that needed none of my “advice”—fatherly, brotherly, or otherwise. My mind was already made up.

“Would you mind waiting here a while?” I asked. In those early days we had only the one office and no waiting-room except the stage. He waited gladly, whilst I went back to the office. Irving had by this time arrived. I told him I had seen Mr. Ford.

“I hope you put it nicely to him that I can’t possibly give him sittings,” he said.

“That is why I came to see if you had arrived.”

“How do you mean,” he asked again. So I said:

“I think you had better see him, and if you think as I do you will give him sittings!”

“Oh, my dear fellow, I can’t. I am really too pressed with work.”

“Well, see him any way!” I said; “I have asked him to wait on purpose.” He looked at me keenly for an instant as though I had somehow “gone back” on him. Then he smiled:

“All right. I’ll see him now!”

I brought Onslow Ford. When the two men met, Irving _did_ share my opinion. He did give sittings for a bronze statuette. The result was so fine that he gave quite another series of sittings for him to do the life-size marble statue of “Irving as Hamlet” now in the Library of the London Guildhall. It is a magnificent work, and will perhaps best of all his works perpetuate the memory of the great Sculptor who died all too young.

Irving gave many sittings for the statue. With the experience of his first work Onslow Ford could begin with knowledge of the face so necessary in portrait art. I often went with him and it was an intense pleasure to see Onslow Ford’s fine hands at work. They seemed like living things working as though they had their own brains and initiation.

I was even able to be of some little assistance. I knew Irving’s face so well from seeing it so perpetually under almost all possible phases of emotion that I could notice any error of effect if not of measurement. Often either Irving or Onslow Ford would ask me and I would give my opinion. For instance:

“I think the right jowl is not right!” The sculptor examined it thoughtfully for quite a while. Then he said suddenly:

“Quite right! but not in that way. I see what it is!” and he proceeded to add to the left of the forehead.

After all, effect is comparative; this is one of the great principles of art!

On 31st March 1906, one of the Academy view days of those not yet Royal Academicians, I went to Onslow Ford’s old studio in Acacia Road, now in possession of his son, Wolfram the painter, to see his portrait of his beautiful young wife, the daughter of George Henschel. Whilst we were talking of old days he unearthed treasures which I did not know existed: casts from life of Henry Irving’s hands.

No other such relics of the actor exist; and these are of supreme interest. Irving had the finest man’s hands I have ever seen. Later on he sent me a cast of one of them in bronze; a rare and beautiful thing which I shall always value. Size and shape, proportion and articulation were all alike beautiful and distinguished and distinctive. It would be hard to mistake them for those of any other man. With them he could _speak_. It was not possible to doubt the meaning which he intended to convey. With such models to work on a few lines of pencil or brush made for the actor an enlightening identity of character. The weakness of Charles I., which not all the skill of Vandyck could hide; the vulture grip of Shylock; the fossilised age of Gregory Brewster; the asceticism of Becket.

What, after the face, can compare with the hand for character, or intention, or illustration. It can be an index to the working of the mind.

L
SIR LAURENCE ALMA-TADEMA, R.A.

I