Edward Irving

“ The prelate was so impatient of rest that he never took more than one sleep, saying it was unbecoming a man to turn from one side to another in bed. He was perpetually, when within his diocese, either riding from one manor to another, or hunting and hawking. Twice he assisted Edward I. with all his force in invading Scotland. In the progress northward with the king, the bishop led the van, marching a day in advance of the main body, with a mercenary force, paid by himself, of one thousand foot and five hundred horse. Besides these he had his feudatories of the palatinate ”

“ A soldier, thinking he was drawing forth a pistol to defend himself, shot him through the hips. He was conveyed a prisoner to the camp, but ultimately died of his wounds.
The baron had really set off from Crown Point to surprise Fort Edward, and, if successful, to push on to Albany and Schenectady; lay them in ashes, and cut off all communication with Oswego. The Canadians and Indians, however, refused to attack the fort, fearful of its cannon; he had changed his plan, therefore, and determined to surprise the camp. ”

“ Cameron, Edward Barr, Colonel Partridge, John Notman, J. S. Noyes, H. E. Ide, Clinton Tucker, Ernest Jackson, Raymond Jenkins, F. Abbott Ingalls, W. T. Lawrence, Frank Hines, Arnold Hastings, Gus. Recknagel, A. Van Sinderen, Joseph Youmans, H. E. Dodge, Dr. Burge, Robert Ogden, Leander Waterbury, Wm. Sanger, Dr. Colton, John King, H. D. Atwater, and John Foord. The reception was arranged for at twenty-four hours’ notice, Mr. Irving’s ability to attend not being known to most of the members of the club before yesterday morning. ”

“ WHITBOURNE, Sir RICHARD (fl. 1579–1626) , writer on Newfoundland, born at Exmouth in Devonshire, was 'a traveler and adventurer into foreign countries' at fifteen years of age. His journeys extended to 'France, Spaine, Italy, Sauoy, Denmarke, Norway, Spruceland, the Canaries, and Soris Hands.' He made his first voyage to Newfoundland about 1579 in a vessel of 300 tons, freighted by Edward Cotton of Southampton. ”

“ No man was ever more written of or talked about in America than Henry Irving; probably no man was ever more misrepresented as to his art and his life. A monster, according to his enemies; an angel, if you took the verdict of his friends; he was a mystery to untravelled American journalists, and an enigma to the great play-going public of the American cities. They were told that people either loved or hated him at first sight. American tourists even carried home contradictory reports of him, though the majority were enthusiastic in praise of him as an actor and as a man. ”

“ He consequently found himself in great financial straits, from which he was only delivered by his marriage with Miss Elizabeth Innes in 1848, a union which placed him beyond anxiety in money matters, and gave him a wife to whom he became sincerely attached. ”

“ He had not, however, acquired much practice when his marriage in 1844 rendered it necessary for him 'to look out for some more remunerative occupation than the periodical donning of a wig and gown by a briefless barrister.' In 1845 Sir Robert Peel offered him the assistant-solicitorship of the excise, with the promise that after a year he should be appointed receiver-general of customs. ”

“ Irving is simply thrilling. The tones, the glances, the approach, the embrace, lift up the words into new light, keen and tender as the brightness of a summer morning. The words themselves are by no means striking, are, indeed, the merest commonplace, but, uttered with the natural pathos of a consummate actor, they carry the play to its most subduing climax. The humanity and the genius satisfy expectation in its most eager and jealous temper. Failure at that point would have ruined the play. Which was better, Lear or Cordelia, in that critical action? ”

“ Open by chance and read almost anywhere in his score of books,—it may be the "Tour on the Prairies," the familiar dream of the Alhambra, or the narratives of the brilliant exploits of New World explorers; surrender yourself to the flowing current of his transparent style, and you are conscious of a beguilement which is the crowning excellence of all lighter literature, for which we have no word but "charm."
The consensus of opinion about Irving in England and America for thirty years was very remarkable. He had a universal popularity rarely enjoyed by any writer. ”

“ Irving was an idealist, fearless of standing by his ideals in any company. He was a scholar in knowledge as in expression, and as an actor had already attained to a great height. His work, like the man himself, was always original. ”

“ The years from 1811 to 1815, when he went abroad for the second time, were passed by Irving in a sort of humble waiting on Providence. His letters to Brevoort during this period are full of the ennui of irresolute youth. He idled away weeks and months in indolent enjoyment in the country; he indulged his passion for the theater when opportunity offered; and he began to be weary of a society which offered little stimulus to his mind. His was the temperament of the artist, and America at that time had little to evoke or to satisfy the artistic feeling. ”

“ Irving is honored with a few of these attendants upon fame. If the people who regard his reputation as a thing that has been “worked” could have visited New York a week before his arrival they could not have failed to be delighted to see how much was being done against him, and how little for him. An ingenious and hostile pamphleteer was in evidence in every bookseller’s window. Villainous cheap photographs of “actor and manager” were hawked in the streets. Copies of an untruthful sketch of his career, printed by a London weekly, were circulated through the mails. ”

“ Cavendish was disinclined to make any concession by returning to England, but as the revenue from his estates was serviceable to his family, his brother Newcastle induced Clarendon to persuade him to make his submission. He accordingly repaired to England in the beginning of November with Lady Newcastle. They stayed in Southwark and afterwards in lodgings at Covent Garden, in great poverty. ”

“ Irving has done more for dramatic art all round than any actor of our time; and it is open to serious question whether any artist of any time has done as much. Not alone on the stage, but in front of it, at the very entrance of his theatre, the dignified influence of his management is felt. Every department has for its head a man of experience and tact, and every person about the place, from the humblest messenger to the highest officer and actor, seems to carry about with him a certain pride of association with the management. ”

“ But after all, as was said of Milton in a different connection, Irving has worn "the garb, but not the clothes, of the ancients." His kinship to them in temper of thought and feeling was closer than his resemblance in manner. Like Addison and Goldsmith, he wins his audience through sheer charm of personality. To open one of his books is like meeting a congenial stranger. You like his looks at first glance, you feel somehow that he likes yours; and while you may be hesitating about advances, he is at your side, and there is nothing more to be said. ”

“ Then, convicted and condemned, the murderer dies under the violent shock to his nerves of this retributive force of imagination,—dies while the church-bells are ringing for his daughter’s marriage,—his last agonizing words, “Take the rope from my throat!”
Only a daring artist would undertake such a part; only a great one could succeed in it. Most of the second and last acts is a monologue; and, in a country like America, which is accustomed to rapidity of thought and action, Irving was courageous in risking the result of so serious a strain upon the mind of a highly strung audience. ”

“ Irving, when particularly moved, likes to tramp about. Whenever the situation allows it he does so upon the stage. Probably recalling the way in which pit and gallery rose at him—and stalls and dress-circle, too, for that matter—on his farewell night at the Lyceum, he paces about the deck, all the interviewers making rapid mental note of his gait, and watching for some startling peculiarity that does not manifest itself.
“He has not got it; why, the man is as natural and as straight and capable as a man can be,” says one to another. ”

“ The data of Irving's literary achievements have been brought near a conclusion; what remains to be said may now deal less with what he wrote, and more with what he did and was. It is luckily unnecessary to try for a sharply drawn distinction between his popularity as a writer and as a man. In his home, in society, and in literature the single charm of his personality had made him beloved in the same way. And he had become, in the best sense of the term, a public character. For many years his name had been better known abroad than that of any other living American ”

“ We dash along, over level crossings, past very continental-looking riverside cabarets and rum-shops, under elevated railroads, and up streets that recall Holland, France, Brighton, and Liverpool, until we reach Washington square. The dead leaves of autumn are beginning to hide the fading grass; but the sun is shining gloriously away up in a blue sky. Irving is impressed with the beauty of the city as we enter Fifth avenue, its many spires marking the long line of street as far as the eye can see. The Brevoort House has proved a welcome, if expensive, haven of rest to many a weary traveller. ”

“ He came to Apethorpe in Northamptonshire, where he possessed a house, and where he had settled his wife and children. On the night of his arrival he was arrested by a troop of horse, under Captain Flaxon, and carried before the parliamentary commissioners at Northampton. ”

“ A public loyalty that can last twenty years is indeed marvellous at any time. The marvel is the more interesting in Irving's case. He served his public with all his power. They knew that. They {191} were conscious, I suppose, of Irving's limitations, but I am not sure that he himself was conscious of them. At any rate, his limitations set no bounds to his endeavours. And he achieved everything,—great fame, adulation, financial success; he was more honoured than any other actor of his century; his life was dignified, his death became the man. ”

“ The London stage has reached that pitch of mediocrity at which Mr. Henry Irving overtops his fellows—Mr. Henry Irving figuring as a great man—c'est tout dire." I hold that there is an essential truth in the proverb that there is no smoke without fire. No reputations are altogether hollow, and no valuable prizes have been easily won. Of course Mr. Irving has a good deal of intelligence and cleverness ”

“ A very pleasant writer is Irving, a man of romantic and somewhat sentimental disposition, but sound of motive, careful of workmanship, invincibly cheerful of spirit. The genial quality of his work may be due to the fact that from joyous boyhood to serene old age he did very much as he pleased, that he lived in what seemed to him an excellent world and wrote with no other purpose than to make it happy. In summarizing his career an admirer of Irving is reminded of what the Book of Proverbs says of wisdom: "Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace." ”

“ His great dinners on the stage of the Lyceum and his lunches at the Beefsteak Club are matters of history. His social engagements are as numerous as ever; often he does not retire until three or four o’clock in the morning, generally to arise in time to conduct a rehearsal at ten, so [235] his duties require an executive genius equal in degree to his artistic endowment.
It is strange to many people that a man of Mr. Irving’s business ability and personal popularity should be in comparatively poor circumstances instead of having acquired a fortune. ”

“ He, since Kean, most fully realises the author’s idea of the style of man best suited to fill the part—‘a man of sable hue, and one in whose soul there’s something o’er which his melancholy sits and broods.’ But the secret of Irving’s success lies in his fine annihilation of self—a rare quality among players—combined with an originality which triumphs over tradition. There is a marked naturalness about his acting of this character, bottomed on enthusiasm. Like genius, he seems at times to have the power of kindling his own fire into any degree of intensity. ”

“ Everybody laughs. Barrett and Florence look on curiously. Bram Stoker, Mr. Irving’s acting manager, cannot disguise his anxiety. Loveday, his stage-manager and old friend, is amused. He has heard many curious things about America from his brother George, who accompanied the famous English comedian, Mr. J. L. Toole (one of Irving’s oldest, and perhaps his most intimate, friend) , on his American tour. Neither Loveday nor Stoker has ever crossed the Atlantic before. They have talked of it, and pictured themselves steaming up the North river into New York many a time ”

“ He almost always wears eyeglasses, which somehow suit him as they rest comfortably on his aquiline nose. His features are clear-cut and clean-shaven, and the heavy jaw and slightly underhanging chin give strength to his face, which is always pale; the lips are thin and strangely pallid in colouring. Irving, though nearing seventy, has a wonderfully erect carriage, his shoulders are well thrust back and his chest forward, and somehow his movements always denote a man of strength and character. ”