Henry Irving

“ The excitement of that cheerful October evening, last year, when Henry Irving made his first appearance in New York, was repeated last night, at the Star Theatre, where “Much Ado About Nothing” was presented, and where Mr. Irving and Miss Terry effected their reëntrance, and were welcomed by a great and brilliant company, with acclamations, with floral tributes, and in a charmingly manifest spirit of the heartiest admiration and good-will. The scene, indeed, was one of unusual brightness, kindliness, and enjoyment, both before the curtain and upon the stage. ”

“ 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 ”

“ He comes amongst us with a name that is no stranger to our hearts. In his coming here I see the great delineator of romance visiting the land of our most charming creator of romance,—Henry Irving visiting the home of Washington Irving. The American [101] people feel under a deep sense of obligation to our guest, because when that great representative of the American drama set foot upon foreign shores the lips that gave him the warmest greeting, the hands that led him to the boards of London’s most distinguished temple of the drama, were those of Henry Irving. ”

“ HENRY IRVING BEFORE BECOMING AN ACTOR
1856
3To this day I can remember the playing of Henry Irving as Captain Absolute, which was different from any performance of the same part which I had seen. What I saw, to my amazement and delight, was a patrician figure as real as the persons of one’s dreams, and endowed with the same poetic grace. A young soldier, handsome, distinguished, self-dependent, compact of grace and slumbrous energy. A man of quality who stood out from his surroundings on the stage as a being of another social world. ”

“ It has sometimes been thought that the acting of Henry Irving is seen at its best in those impersonations of his that derive their vitality from the grim, ghastly, and morbid attributes of human nature. That he is a unique actor, and distinctively a great actor, in Hamlet, Mathias, Eugene Aram, Louis XI., Lesurque, and Dubosc, few judges will deny. His performances of those parts have shown him to be a man of weird imagination, and they have shown that his characteristics, mental and spiritual, are sombre. ”

“ Only once does he stand at bay and front his destiny with a defiance of desperate will; and even then it is for [Pg 364] the woman's sake rather than for his own. Henry Irving's acting made clear and beautiful that condition of temperament. A noble and affectionate nature, shipwrecked, going to pieces, doomed, but making one last tremendous though futile effort to avert the final and inevitable ruin—this ideal was made actual in his performance. ”

“ Henry Irving was in reality a dying man, and was only kept alive by using great quantities of oxygen, of which a waggon-load of tanks had to be carried for the purpose. The reporter went on to explain how, in order to investigate the matter properly, he had managed to get into the theatre as a stage hand and had seen the tanks scattered about the stage. Further, he went on to tell how difficult it was to get near Irving’s dressing-room as rude servants ordered away any one seen standing close to the door. ”

“ Every one knows when the luck first began to turn against Henry Irving. It was in 1896 when he revived "Richard III." On the first night he went home, slipped on the stairs in Grafton Street, broke a bone in his knee, aggravated the hurt by walking on it, and had to close the theater. It was that year, too, that his general health began to fail. For the ten years preceding his death he carried on an indomitable struggle against ill-health. Lungs and heart alike were weak. Only the spirit in that frail body remained as strong as ever. Nothing could bend it, much less break it. ”

“ It may be wondered at or even asked why Henry Irving was allowed to play at all, being in his then state of weakness.
In the first place, Irving was his own master, and took his own course entirely. He was of a very masterful nature and took on his own shoulders the full responsibility of his acts. He would listen to the advice of those whom he trusted naturally, or had learned to trust; but he was, within the limits of possibility, the final arbiter of matters concerning himself in which there was any power of choice. The forces of a strong nature have to be accepted en bloc ”

“ Irving. Carriages are in waiting for Mr. Barrett and [62] his party. A small crowd, learning who the new-comers were, give them a cheer of welcome, and Henry Irving and Ellen Terry stand upon American soil.
“I am told,” says Mr. Irving, as we drive away, “that when Jumbo arrived in New York he put out his foot and felt if the ground was solid enough to bear his weight. The New Yorkers, I believe, were very much amused at that. They have a keen sense of fun. Where are we going now?”
“To the Customs, at the White Star wharf, to sign your declaration papers,” says Mr. Florence. ”

“ 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. ”

“ John B. Carson proposed “Health and continued success to Henry Irving,” and welcomed him to the West in terms of hearty friendship. “And I only hope,” he said, “you will one day come to Quincy, which is my head-quarters; we are not a very great population, but we have a fine theatre, and we enjoy a good play.” Quincy has a population of twenty-five thousand, is beautifully situated on a limestone bluff, one hundred and twenty-five feet above the Mississippi river. Mr. Carson and his friends at Quincy sent Mr. Abbey a guarantee of $4,000, for one night’s visit of the Irving Company. ”

“ Remarkable success has attended the performances of Henry Irving, the celebrated English actor, during the present week, at Haverly’s Theatre, Chicago. For once the severest critics in the country have their scalpels blunted and dulled by the perfection of his work combined with the exactness of the stage-setting. There has never appeared an actor on the boards of Chicago who has received such lavish, unreserved praise from the critics and the press. ”

“ Sir Henry Irving’s Position—Miss Geneviève Ward’s Dress—Reformations in Lighting—The most Costly Play ever Produced—Strong Individuality—Character Parts—Irving earned his Living at Thirteen—Actors and Applause—A Pathetic Story—No Shakespeare Traditions—Imitation is not Acting—Irving’s Appearance—His Generosity—The First Night of Dante—First night of Faust—Two Terriss Stories—Sir Charles Wyndham. HENRY IRVING is a name which ought to be revered for ever in stageland. He has done more for the drama than any other actor in any other country. ”

“ 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 curtain having fallen on the first act, Irving received the honor of a triple call, after which I went to his room, and found him reading some of the numerous cables and telegrams from home, and from several distant American and Canadian cities, wishing him success.
“How kind everybody is!” he exclaimed, as he handed me a bundle of despatches. “You should have seen the hundreds of telegrams and letters that were sent to me on board the steamer as I was leaving Liverpool!” ”

“ 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 ”

“ He was not the equal of Irving, either as actor or stage manager. True, he was denied Irving's authorities and the assistance of technicians who lightened Irving's efforts and materially added to his fame. Neither were Mansfield's methods, employed to further his ends, as legitimate as Irving's. Irving never found it necessary to insult his audience for its lack of patronage, or failure of appreciation. Dear benign Henry Irving devoted as much time to beget a friend as Mansfield did [73] to destroy one. ”

“ His red hair, fine and long, and pushed back from his high forehead, is so thin that through it as the flames leap we can see the white line of the head so like to Shakespeare’s. He is himself all aflame. His hands have a natural eloquence—something like Irving’s; they foretell and emphasise the coming thoughts. His large eyes shine like jewels as the firelight flashes. Only my wife and I are present, sitting like Darby and Joan at either side of the fireplace. As he goes on he gets more and more afire till at last he is like a living flame. We sit quite still; we fear to interrupt him. ”

“ During this engagement Irving played Richard III., and his wonderful acting satisfied all the hopes aroused by sample given in his Reading at the University. For myself I can say truly that I sat all the evening in a positive quiver of intellectual delight. His conception and impersonation of the part were so “subtle, complete, and masterly”—these were the terms I used in my criticism written that night—that it seemed to me the power of acting could go no further; that it had reached the limit of human power. Most certainly it raised him still higher in public esteem. ”

“ An intellectual audience—eager, alert, responsive, quick to see the intention almost before it was suggested, and to recognize each and every point, however subtle and delicate, of the actor’s art—seemed to awaken all his latent fire, and nerve him to a free and bounteous utterance of his own spirit; and every sensitive mind in that numerous and brilliant throng most assuredly felt the presence of a royal nature, and a great artist in acting. Upon Mr. Irving’s first entrance the applause of welcome was prodigious, and it was long before it died away. ”

“ During those seventeen years New York had changed almost beyond recognition in size, in appearance, in the tone of its life; but Irving was delighted with everything and everybody. All that he had to regret was the ordeal of a great public dinner in his honor, at which, after a great deal of preliminary nervousness, he made the one speech of his life. It was a good speech, but [70] he could never be prevailed upon to repeat the experiment. He was always at his worst in a large company. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ You strike and demand what you think is right, and you will get it immediately."
The gun company made a huge profit but had to share some of it with their workers. It was an early instance of the introduction of profit-sharing, which has now become common all over the world.
One of the most interesting Englishmen, whom I saw much of both in London and in the United States, was Sir Henry Irving. The world of art, drama, and history owes much to him for his revival of Shakespeare. Irving was a genius in his profession, and in private life perfectly delightful. ”