A First Visit behind the Scenes—Cooper and Kean—The University Club—A very Notable Dinner—Chief Justice Davis and Lord Chief Justice Coleridge—A Menu worth Discovering—Terrapin and Canvas-Back Duck—“A Little Family Party”—Florence’s Romance—Among the Lambs—The Fate of a Manuscript Speech—A Story of John Kemble—Words of Welcome—Last Night of the New York Engagement—Au Revoir!

I.

“Turn the gas down a little.”

“Yes, sir,” said the attentive Irish-American waiter at the Brevoort House.

“And don’t let us be disturbed.”

“Very well, sir.”

“The fire-light glows on the walls as if the so-called volcanic sunset had taken possession of the place,” said Irving, stretching his legs upon the hearth; “what a rest it is to sit and talk to a friend and look into the fire!”

“It is, indeed. Let us have a chat in that spirit, and call the chapter ‘A quiet evening.’”

“You mean a talk for the book?”

“Yes; one gets so few opportunities of this kind that it is worth while to avail ourselves of the present one. I think you had better tell me what you have done in New York, and I will chronicle it from your own lips.”

“Do you mean generally, or in detail? There are some things that fix themselves in one’s memory not to be forgotten. Of course, the first night at the Star Theatre—one is not likely to forget that!”

“No, I shall always remember you standing in the door-way of the burgomaster’s inn. It had seemed as if hours were passing between the rise of the curtain and your appearance!”

“Ah! I dare say; we were all more or less anxious.”

“But let us get away from the theatre. What do you look back upon so far, to remember with special pleasure, in the way of social entertainment and American hospitalities?”

“It is difficult to select, is it not? It is bewildering to try to select the incidents. The Lotos dinner,—that was glorious, eh! How well Whitelaw Reid spoke! and Mr. Depew, Dr. Macdonald, General Porter, Mr. Oakey Hall,—everybody, in fact. A great gift to be able to express your thoughts well, standing up in the presence of others! Then the Lambs Club. I felt their reception as a very pleasant thing, because there were so many actors present. I think I got well out of the speech-making there by adopting Florence’s written oration. That amused me greatly, and I think Florence enjoyed it as much as the others. Well, those are two of the New York events. I am endeavoring to think of them in their order, categorically. The breakfast which Mr. Joseph Harper gave me at the University Club,—what a rare lot of men! Mr. George William Curtis[15] struck me as one who might be very eloquent as a speaker.”

“He is.”

“So I should have thought, and he talks of the stage with the unsophistication of one who knows nothing about it mechanically, but is full of the romantic and poetic spirit of it. Let me see, it was at Franklin square where we saw that modern Dutch interior.”

“The private room at Harper Brothers?”

“Yes, and where we again met Mr. Curtis, Mr. Alden, the editor of the magazine, and Mr. Conant of “The Weekly,” I remember. Don’t you think that when America once takes up the work of a complete representation of legitimate and established plays she will go ahead at it as fast as she has done in the production of book-engravings?”

“I do.”

“And they tell me—actors tell me—that they have never had Shakespeare as completely and as worthily represented as at the Star this week. Mr. Gilbert says it will work a revolution in dramatic art in this country.”

“The papers are beginning to say so all round.”

“I confess I am as surprised as I am delighted. I thought more had been done in the way of harmonious representation, grouping, color, painting, lighting, than is evidently the case. By the way, I heard a good deal about this on the night of the Century Club reception.[16] They were very like Garrick men, many of them. An excellent idea having an exhibition of pictures at a club! I suppose it would hardly do in London to allow members such a margin in regard to the friends they introduce as in New York. I wish it could be done, and, especially, that granting of the entire privileges of the club to the stranger whom you invite to dinner. In case of transient membership, the compliment we pay to a stranger at the Garrick does include all the privileges of the club. The Manhattan is a cosey club. We got our first canvas-back in New York there. It was a little too early in the season; but in the way of a terrapin and canvas-back dinner the feast Buck gave us at Sieghortner’s was a triumph.[17] It scored by its simplicity. Let me see, I have the menu here. Now to look at it in comparison with what is called a swell dinner, some people would think its dishes wanting in variety and number. Somebody, I remember, said at the time, ‘This is a man’s dinner! Let us dissect it!’”

He had fetched the menu from his table, had returned to his seat by the fire, and was holding the carte before his face, partly to read it, and partly to ward off the glow of the hot coals.

“Now, first, oysters on the half shell, and I noticed they were on the half shell. That is the proper way to serve an oyster, and they should be in their own liquor.[18] They were lying on a bed of crushed ice,—did you notice? The dainty half of a lemon was placed in the centre of them. Shall you include this conversation in the book?”

This last question he asked suddenly.

“Oh, yes! I think it will be very interesting.”

“Then they will say I am a gourmand.”[19]

“Who?”

“Some of our friends in London.”

He emphasized the word “friends.”

“They do now; you are reported as giving suppers and banquets in London on a grander scale than ever Lucullus dreamed of?”

“Am I? Well, I like to have my friends around me; but I think they appreciate a mutton-chop, a glass of fine wine, and a good cigar, as much as we do, and, after all, Dr. Johnson says, “The man who can’t take care of his stomach can’t take care of anything else.” If to be a gourmand, or, rather, let us say gourmet,[20] is to enjoy a well-cooked and elegantly served little dinner or supper, then I plead guilty to the soft impeachment; so let us go on eating the Sieghortner banquet over again, just as we shall, I hope, in future years sit down and re-fight our American victories by an English fireside. To return to the bill of fare. Second, soup. A vegetable soup, that reminded me a little of the cock-a-lukie which is so well constructed at the Garrick in London, only that the vegetable basis of it is in an esculent we have not,—the gumbo, or okra, which is so delicious here. Sauterne with the oysters, and a remarkably fine sherry with the soup. Third, terrapin. I am told this came from Baltimore ready for the cook.”

“They are celebrated at Baltimore for the three great American dishes,—oysters, terrapin, and canvas-back ducks. Terrapin is prepared there and shipped to all parts of the United States, and even to Europe. I am told that a Baltimore firm sends in the season supplies of terrapin and canvas-backs to England for the table of the Prince of Wales.”

“Indeed,” he answered, “His Royal Highness knows what is good! I wish he could have tasted the Baltimore terrapin at Sieghortner’s. Buck is a friend of the Duke of Beaufort, and the duke, they say, is up to all the luxurious tricks of American cooking.

“Now we are at the terrapin. It was handed round very hot, and, as your plate was removed, a fresh supply, better still, it seemed to me, was placed before you. It is polite to ask for terrapin twice; but, that no one might be embarrassed, it was served twice. Champagne and Burgundy with the terrapin. I prefer champagne. ‘Next to going to heaven,’ said a friend near me, ‘is to go down to——, Baltimore, and eat terrapin.’ Fourth, canvas-back duck. An entire breast of the bird on each plate. A chip-potato and a little celery; you should eat nothing else with a canvas-back duck, though some persons, I observe, take currant or cranberry jelly with it. As in the case of the terrapin, there were two courses of duck,—the first, roast; the second, grilled and devilled. An excellent notion this. A soufflÉ followed; then cheese; then coffee. That was the dinner; and it was one of the greatest successes I remember, in the way of dining; though I do not forget how perfectly we had terrapin and canvas-back cooked in our own humble little kitchen at the Lyceum Theatre.”

“In responding to the toast of your health, you were very much moved.”

“I was. Chief Justice Davis supplemented the host’s words so eloquently, and with so much heart and earnestness, that he touched me deeply. Then his references to England,—to Lord Coleridge representing the high estate of the Bench, and to myself as being considered worthy in every way to represent my art, as he in his way is to represent his high calling,—and his tender tributes to the old country, and to the deep, sincere friendship that lies at the root of the relations between England and America,—this was all so sympathetic. And when I knew that many of the men around the board who cheered him so warmly had come as far as a thousand miles to meet me, I could not have attempted to say more than to try and thank them. There are occasions when silence is the best, when ‘Gentlemen, I thank you; my heart is too full to say more,’ is about the most eloquent speech you can make. Mr. John B. Lyon came all the way from Chicago in response to Buck’s invitation; Mr. John B. Carson came from Quincy,—a day’s journey further than Chicago; he had been fifty-two hours on the train; Mr. Watterson,—what a bright, witty fellow he is!—came almost as far, from Louisville in the South.”

II.

“The supper given to me by Mr. Florence, at the St. James Hotel, was also an entertainment to remember. Quite a little family party, was it not? Mr. Jerome—Larry, as his friends call him—was splendid; and how many years of local dramatic history he had at his fingers’ ends! We were quite a little family party; Gilbert, Edwards, Jefferson,—God bless him!—they were among the guests. Florence, if you remember, had after supper a great brass urn placed upon the table, sat before it, and made whiskey toddy. How well actors understand the art of sociability! ‘Now, friends, let us gather round the tea-table,’ said Florence, ‘and try the brew!’ We pronounced it ‘nectar for the gods,’ and so it was. Do you remember the interesting episode of his boyish days that Florence told us? I repeated it to some people who supped here the other night. It is worth printing, with his permission.”

“And that of Mrs. Florence?” I suggest.

“Oh, yes, of course! I think I remember it. Florence was a very young man, a boy, in fact, and was filling one of his first engagements on any stage at the Bowery Theatre. A girl about his own age (who is now a wife, and a woman of position, in New York) in the company, was his first love. His adoration was mingled with the most gallant respect. Their salaries were about ten to twelve dollars each a week. For a time they only played in the first piece; for in those days two plays a night were more popular on the American stage than they are now. One evening, at about nine o’clock, after pulling himself together for so daring an effort in his course of courtship, he asked her if she would go to an adjacent restaurant and take something to eat. The house was kept by a person of the name of Shields, or Shiells. The supper-room was arranged something after the manner of the old London coffee-houses. It had compartments divided off from each other. Into one of these Florence escorted his sweetheart. He asked her what she would take. After some hesitation, and a good deal of blushing (more probably on his part than on hers), she said oyster-stew and lemonade. He concluded to have the same,—an incongruous mixture, perhaps; but they were boy and girl. Florence was more than once on the eve of declaring his undying passion and asking her to name the day. Presently, supper being ended, they rose to go, and Florence discovered that he had come away without his purse, or, rather, his pocket-book, as they call it here. He explained to the Irish waiter (and Florence, I suspect, is himself of Irish descent), who cut him short by saying, ‘No money? Oh, that won’t do; you’re not going to damage the moral character of the house, bringing of your girls here, and then say you can’t pay the bill.’—‘How dare you, sir!’ exclaimed Florence, the girl shrinking back. ‘Dare! Oh, bedad, if you put it that way, I’ll just give you a piece of my mind!’ and he did. It was a dirty piece, which hurt the poor young fellow. ‘Take me to your master,’ he said. The girl was crying; Florence was heart-broken. The master was not less rude than the man. ‘Very well,’ said the boy; ‘here’s my watch and ring. I will call and redeem them in the morning with the money. I am a member of the Bowery Company, and I will ask the manager to call and see you also. Your conduct is shameful!’—‘By heaven, it is!’ exclaimed a stranger, who, with some others, was smoking near the desk of the clerk, or landlord. ‘It is infamous! Cannot you understand that this young gentleman is a good, honest young fellow? Damme! you ought to apologize to him, and kick that waiter-fellow out. Don’t frown at me, sir. Give the young gentleman his watch and ring. Here is a fifty-dollar bill; take what he owes, and give me the change.’ The stranger was a well-dressed gentleman, with white hair; not old, but of a venerable appearance. They all went out together, Florence, the young lady, and their benefactor. As they stepped into the street, Florence said, ‘I cannot sufficiently thank you, sir. Where shall I call and leave the money for you?’—‘Oh, don’t trouble yourself about it,’ said the benevolent gentleman; ‘your surly friend won’t make much out of the transaction,—it was a counterfeit bill that he changed for me.’”

III.

Irving did not expect to be called upon for a set speech at the Lambs Club. The President, Mr. Florence, did, and was prepared. He made no secret of his nervousness, nor of his arrangements against failure. The manuscript of his address was lying before him during the dinner. He consulted it occasionally, to the amusement of his neighbors. When the time came he rose, his speech in his hand, his heart in his mouth. The most eminent of actors have felt similar sensations under the influence of an exaggerated sense of the responsibility of making a public speech. This banquet of the Lambs was not reported in the newspapers. As in other instances where I have ventured to annex speeches and incidents for these pages, I have done so with the full consent of all the parties concerned.

“Gentlemen,” said President Florence, “we have met to-night to do honor to a brother actor,—for in that character do we welcome the distinguished guest of the evening,—an artist who has done more to elevate and dignify our calling than any actor that ever trod the stage.”

A ringing cheer greeted these few sentences. The applause evidently disturbed the speaker’s memory. He consulted his MS. and could make nothing of it. Throwing it upon the table, he continued his address. The few unstudied sentences that followed came from the heart, and were sufficiently effective. They commended Irving as an example to all of them,—an example of work, of unostentation, of success worthily won and worn, and expressed the gratification it afforded the Lambs—a club largely composed of actors—to welcome him at their board.

“I’ll never make another speech as long as I live!” exclaimed the president, as he resumed his seat.

“Give me the manuscript,” said Irving. “Do you mind my using it?”

“Not at all, my dear friend; do what you like with it.”

Irving, rising to reply, stood up with the president’s unspoken speech in his hand. Referring to the difficulties actors often experience in regard to public speaking, he said, “At Edinburgh, recently, looking over the old ‘Courant,’ I came across an incident apropos of the present occasion. It was concerning a dinner given to John Kemble in that city. ‘The chair was taken at six o’clock by Francis Jeffrey, Esq., who was most ably assisted by the croupiers, John Wilson and Walter Scott,’—the creator in fiction of poor, old, wretched King Louis XI.—Walter Scott, the mighty master of romance, who also proposed this night ‘The Memory of Burns.’ (Applause.) In reply to the toast of his health, John Kemble said, ‘I am not successful in extemporaneous delivery; actors are so much more in the habit of giving utterance to the thoughts of others than in embodying their own, that we are much in the same position with those animals who, subsisting by the aid of others are completely lost when abandoned to their own resources.’ Gentlemen, brother actors, I feel that I am in a similar condition to-night. (Cries of ‘No! no!’ and laughter.) But my friend, the president, has given me leave to avail myself of the eloquent speech which he had written, but has not read to you.” (Laughter.)

Irving looked down at the president for his final consent.

“Certainly, go ahead,” was the response.

“The president,” said Irving, reading the MS. amidst shouts of laughter and applause, “was anxious to tell you that ‘the efforts of the guest of the evening have always been to make his dramatic work in every way worthy the respect and admiration of those who honor our art; and at the same time he has been none the less indefatigable in promoting the social and intellectual standing of the profession; this has been to him a labor of love.’”

Irving read these lines with mock-oratorical show; but when the laughter of his hearers changed to loud applause, he laid aside the written speech of his friend, and in a few simple words expressed himself proud of the honor the club had done him, and grateful for the cordiality of its welcome.

“There is one point, however, in that speech which I would like you to hear,” said the president, rising again, “and it is this: ‘We are not here to pass an opinion on Mr. Irving’s qualities as an actor,—the critics have done that already; and, if you had at first any doubts as to the high position he should occupy in our profession, the American critics and your own judgment have removed them. Possibly it was just as well that David Garrick did not live in the White Star epoch, for, had he ever crossed the Atlantic ocean, his bones might not now be reposing so peacefully under the ancient towers of Westminster Abbey.’”

During the evening Mr. Henry Edwards,[21] of Wallack’s, recited with stirring effect the following:—

WELCOME TO HENRY IRVING.

Round about the board of banquet

Blazed the bright wits of the town:

“A royal toast,” and well they drank it—

“‘Tis for a king to wear the crown;

Thrones may totter in the tempest,

Empires, too, may rise and fall;

But a king, by grace of genius,

Sits secure above them all.”

Thus, a grave and graceful poet,

And his glowing glass uplifts

With a warm eye-flash of welcome

To the Man of Many Gifts;

Then a clamor and kindly clinking

Like sudden song breaks round the board,

And the soul of the wine they’re drinking

Seems into their own souls poured.

And, “Huzza for our guest, King Irving;”

From a hundred hearty throats,

And the lovingly lengthened greeting,

Like a chorused chime, up floats—

When more swift than an earthly echo

Bursts a sound over guest and hosts,

Strangely shrill, yet faint and far off,—

“Way there for the coming ghosts!”

Into statued silence stricken,

Stand and gaze the speechless throng,

While the walls slide wide from side to side

As if moved in grooves along,

And a shadowy stage, whose foot-lights

Loom white through a weirdly mist,

Is peopled with phantoms of players

Trooping in as if keeping a tryst.

Then with buskined steps and soundless,

Streaming forward as a tide,

Surge the serried shades of actors

Whose greatness time has testified;

And their brows are bound with bay-leaves,

And their garments’ phantomed fold

Shape out the bygone costumes

Of the parts they played of old.

All the fine and famous faces

In the records of the stage,

Canonized in highest places

On the drama’s brightest page!

Their “brief hour” made eternal,

Where the deathless laurel nods,

And where Shakespeare reigns superral

In the green-room of the gods!

There, each grandly visioned visage,

Looking through a mellow haze

On the spell-bound reverent watchers

With a long, fraternal gaze,

Whose mute and mighty meaning

Seem, like a benediction, cast

O’er the promise of the present,

By the high priests of the past!

Then, at an unseen, silent signal,

Given by some mystic chief,

Each of the ghosts of great ones

From his own wreath plucks a leaf,

And fleeter than arrowed lightning

Through space a chaplet’s sped!

And the brow of the actor living

Is laurelled by actors dead!

And a sigh sweeps over the silence,

And the walls are walls again,

While the lights flash up to brightness,

And sparkles the gold champagne;

And the joyous voice of the poet

Rings out the blended toasts,

“Huzza for our good guest, Irving!”

And “Huzza for our grand old ghosts!”

IV.

For the last night of the New York engagement programme was a novelty, in every respect, to a New York audience. Custom confines the night’s entertainment in American theatres to one piece. On occasion the play-bill contained the first act of “Richard III.”; the Lyceum version of “The Belle’s Stratagem”; the, in England, well-known recitation “Eugene Aram”; and Irving was also expected to make a speech. The programme was played to an enthusiastic audience; and, at the close of “The Belle’s Stratagem,” Mr. Irving addressed them as follows:

“Ladies and Gentlemen,—A month ago, standing before you for the first time, and stimulated by your most kind welcome, I expressed the hope that our loves might increase as our days did grow. You, for your part, have fulfilled my dearest wishes, and I can but hope that we have not disappointed you. On that same first night I bespoke your good-will for my sister artist, Ellen Terry. I felt sure that she would win hearts, and I believe she has. For her, for all comrades, and for myself, I thank you for your enthusiastic and generous indorsement of our work. I sorry that the time has come when I must leave you. I am glad that I have not yet to say ‘Good-by,’ but only ‘Au revoir.’ In April next we shall have the honor—if all be well—of appearing before you again, and I would propose to present to you ‘Much Ado About Nothing’ and ‘Hamlet.’ In my old home, on the other side of the Atlantic, these plays are often performed by us; and I hope they will be welcome in—if I may say so—my new home on this side of the sea. And now, ladies and gentlemen, with a grateful remembrance of your kindness, I must say ‘Au revoir.’ I find no words to adequately express my gratitude to you; indeed, I would feel but little, if I could say how much.”

Retiring for a few minutes, Irving, in evening dress, returned to the stage. A chair was placed in the centre of it. Now standing, now sitting, he recited Hood’s dramatic poem. The audience sat spell-bound. Even as Mathias, with the accessories of the mysterious court-scene, Mr. Irving had not held New York play-goers with a firmer grip. They followed the grim story almost in silence. The ancient mariner’s narrative did not more impress the wedding-guest. I have seen all kinds of audiences in both hemispheres, and under all sorts of circumstances, and never saw a theatre full of people more under the control of a story. At the end the applause was loud and continued for some minutes, the reciter having to bow his acknowledgments again and again. The next day a discriminating critic pointed out to one of Irving’s few opponents, that “the pseudo critic who pronounced Irving’s ‘Bells’ a mere success of lime-lights, properties, scenery, and stage-management,” had been quite extinguished “by the recitation of Hood’s ‘Dream of Eugene Aram,’ delivered in evening dress, without any lime-lights, properties, scenery, or stage-management.”

“And,” added a journalistic writer in the “Herald” “aside from the artistic success Mr. Irving has made here the financial result should be considered very satisfactory. The total amount received from subscriptions and box-office sales for the four weeks’ engagement is $75,687. The receipts for the first week were $15,772; for the second week, $18,714; for the third week, $18,880, and for the week closing last evening, $22,321. It has been estimated that the public paid altogether, to speculators and to the box-office, upwards of $200,000. Judged, therefore, by the financial standard of the box-office, as well as by that of the highest criticism, New York’s answer to the London “Standard” was a full and complete endorsement of the English popularity of Henry Irving and Ellen Terry.”

But it remained for Boston, Philadelphia, and Chicago, to pronounce upon them. The campaign was only in its infancy, though the first stronghold had been won. An advance was made upon Philadelphia, on the day following the recitation of “Eugene Aram.” The reader who follows the fortunes of the campaigners in these pages will find the record justified by independent pens, and supported by the current chronicles of the entire Union.