Complete Works of Bram Stoker (682 page)

“There is no general sympathy on the stage for tall old men!”

Finally Caine told us the story of his coming novel, which was afterwards called The Christian.

He knew it in his own mind by the tentative title which he used, “ Glory and John Storm.”

In the afternoon we all went to the Bellevue Gardens to see a wonderful chimpanzee, “ Jock,” a powerful animal and more clever even than “ Sally,” who was then the great public pet at the “ Zoo “ in Regent’s Park. Ellen Terry came with us and also Comyns Carr, who had arrived from London. Jock was certainly an abnormal brute. He rode about the grounds on a tricycle of his own! He ate his food from a plate with knife and fork and spoon! He slept in a bed with sheets and blankets! He smoked cigarettes! And he drank wine  —  when he could get it! His favourite tipple was port wine and lemonade, and he was very conservative in his rights regarding it. Indeed in this case it was very nearly productive of a grim tragedy.

We went into a little room close to the keeper’s house; a sort of general refreshment room with wooden benches round it and a table in the centre. Jock had his cigarette; then his grog was mixed to his great and anxious interest. The keeper handed him the tumbler, which he held tight in both hands whilst he went through some hanky-panky pantomime of thanks  —  usually, I took it, productive of pennies. Irving said to the keeper:

“Would he give you some of that, now? “ The man shook his head as he answered:

“He doesn’t like to, but he will if I ask him. I have to be careful though.” He asked Jock, who very.unwillingly let him take the tumbler, following it with his hands. The arms stretched out as it went farther from him; but the hands always remained close to the glass. The man just put the edge of the glass to his mouth and then handed it back quickly. The monkey had acted with considerable self-restraint, and looked immensely relieved when he had his drink safe back again. Then Irving said:

“Let me see if he will let me have some! “ The keeper spoke to the monkey, keeping his eye fixedly on him. Irving took the glass from his manifestly unwilling hands and raised it to his own lips. Being a better actor than the keeper he did his part more realistically, actually letting the liquid rise over his shut lips.

The instant the monkey saw his beloved liquor touch the mouth he became a savage  —  a veritable, red-eyed, restrainless demon. With a sudden hideous screech he dashed out his arms, one of them catching Irving by the throat, the other seizing the glass. It made us all gasp and grow pale. The brute was so strong and so savage that it might have torn out his windpipe before a hand could have been raised. Fortunately Irving did instinctively the only thing that could be done; he yelled just as suddenly in the face of the monkey  —  an appalling yell which seemed to push the brute back. At the same moment he thrust away from him the glass in the animal’s other paw. The monkey, loosing its hold on his throat, jumped back across the wide table with incredible quickness without losing its seated attitude, and sat clutching the tumbler close to his breast and showing his teeth whilst he manifested his rage in a hideous trumpeting.

Before that, at our first coming into the room he had nearly frightened the life out of Ellen Terry. She had sat down on the bench along the wall. The monkey looked at her and seemed attracted by her golden hair. He came and sat by her on the bench and, turning over, laid his head in her lap, looking up at her and at the same time putting up his paw as big as a man’s hand and as black and shiny as though covered with an undertaker’s funeral glove. She looked down, saw his eyes, and with a scream made a jump for the doorway. The monkey laughed. He had a sense of humour  —  of his own kind, which was not of a high kind.

A little later he regained his good temper and forgave us all. When we went round the gardens he got on his tricycle and came with us. In the monkey house was a great cage as large as an ordinary room, and here were a large number of monkeys of a mixed kind. Our gorilla  —  for such he really was  —  started to amuse himself with them. He got a great stick and standing close to the cage hammered furiously at the bars, all the while trumpeting horribly. In the midst of it he would look round at us with a grin, as much as to say:

“See how I am frightening these inferior creatures! “ They were in an agony of fear, crouching in the farthest corners of the great cage, moaning and shivering.

VIII

Irving had had an incident with a monkey some years before. On June 16, 1887, we went to Stratford-on-Avon, where he was to open a fountain the next day. We stayed with Mr. C. E. Flower, at Avonbank, his beautiful place on the river. In his conservatory was a somewhat untamed monkey; not a very large one, but with anger enough for a wilderness of monkeys. Frank Marshall, who was of our party, would irritate the monkey when we went to smoke in there after dinner. It got so angry with his puffing his smoke at it that it shook the cage to such an extent that we thought it would topple over. We persuaded Marshall to come away alone, and then Irving, who loved animals, went over to pacify the monkey. The latter, however, did not discriminate between malice and good intent, and when Irving bent down to say soothing things to it a long arm flashed out and catching him by the hair began to drag his head towards the cage, the other paw coming out towards his eyes. It was an anxious moment; but this time, as on the later occasion, a sudden screech of full lung power from the actor frightened the monkey into releasing him.

IX

Irving loved all animals, and did not, I think, realise the difference between pets and /era naturce. I remember once at Baltimore  —  it was the 1st January1900  —  when he and I went to Hagen-bach’s menagerie which was then in winter quarters. The hall was a big one, the shape of one of those great panorama buildings which used to be so popular in America. There were some very fine lions; and to one of them he took a great fancy.

It was a fine African, young and in good condition with magnificent locks and whiskers and eyebrows, and whatsoever beauties on a hairy basis there are to the lion kind. It was sleeping calmly in its cage with its head up against the bars. The keeper recognised Irving and came up to talk and explain things very eagerly. Irving asked him about the lion; if it was good-tempered and so forth. The man said it was a very good-tempered animal, and offered to make him stand up and show himself off. His method of doing so was the most unceremonious thing of the kind I ever saw, it showed absolutely no consideration whatever for the lion’s amour-propre or fine feelings. He caught up a broom that leaned against the cage  —  a birch broom with the business end not of resilient twigs but of thin branches cut off with a sharp knife. It was the sort of scrubbing broom that would take the surface off an ordinary deal flooring. This he seized and drove it with the utmost violence in his power right into the animal’s face. I should have thought that no eye could have escaped from such an attack. He repeated the assault as often as there was time before the lion had risen and jumped back.

Irving was very indignant, and spoke out his mind very freely. The keeper answered him very civilly indeed I thought. His manner was genuinely respectful as he said:

“That’s all very well, Mr. Irving. But it doesn’t work with lions! There’s only one thing that such animals respect; and that’s force. Why, that treatment that you complain of will save my life some day. It wouldn’t be worth a week’s purchase without it!”

Irving realised the justice of his words  —  he was always just; and when we came away the gratuity was perhaps a little higher than usual, to compensate for any injured feelings.

X

“The Flying Dutchman “ play never, I am sorry to say, materialised. The Christian and The Eternal City and The Prodigal Son, together with his plays, kept Hall Caine busy. As for Irving, his work and the two illnesses in 1897 and 1898 allowed no opportunity for new work other than that to which he was committed. The two men were, however, close friends and met on every possible occasion. One of the last plays  —  if not the very last  —  that Irving went to see was The Prodigal Son at Drury Lane. He was very pleased with George Alexander, who played the part of Oscar. He said tome, when we met after his seeing it:

“From an actor’s point of view he was all-important. He kept the play together!”

He did not mean that the play was loose-knit or disjointed. It was a purely professional criticism, from the acting side. It is possible in any play for an actor or a group of them to let a play lose interest; others can keep it moving and so sustain the interest of the audience.

CHAPTER LVIII

IRVING AND DRAMATISTS

Difficulty of getting plays  —  The sources  —  Actor as collaborator  —  A startled dramatist  —  Plays bought but not produced  —  Pinero

I

ONLY those who are or have been concerned in theatrical management can have the least idea of the difficulty of obtaining plays suitable for acting. There are plenty of plays to be had. When any one goes into management  —  indeed from the time the fact of his intention is announced  —  plays begin to rain in on him. All those rejected consistently throughout a generation are tried afresh on the new victim, for the hope of the unacted dramatist never dies. There is just a sufficient percentage of ultimate success in the case of long-neglected plays to obviate despair. Every one who writes a play sends it on and on to manager after manager. When a player makes some abnormal success every aspirant to dramatic fame tries his hand at a play for him. It is all natural enough. The work is congenial, and the rewards  —  when there are rewards  —  are occasionally great. There is, I suppose, no form of literary work which seems so easy and is so difficult  —  which while seeming to only require the common knowledge of life, needs in reality great technical knowledge and skill. From the experience alone which we had in the Lyceum one might well have come to the conclusion that to write a play of some kind is an instinct of human nature. To Irving were sent plays from every phase and condition of life. Not only from writers whose work lay in other lines of effort; historians, lyric poets, divines from the curate to the bishop, but from professional men, merchants, manufacturers, traders, clerks. He has had them sent by domestic servants, and from as far down the social scale as a workhouse boy.

But from all these multitudinous and varied sources we had very few plays indeed which afforded even a hope or promise. Irving was always anxious for good plays, and spared neither trouble nor expense to get them. Every play that was sent was read and very many commissions were given and purchase money or advance fees paid. In such cases subjects were often suggested, scenario being the basis. In addition to the plays, in which he or Ellen Terry took part, which he produced during his own management he purchased or paid fees or options on twenty-seven plays. Not one of these, from one cause or another could he produce. One of these made success with another man. Some never got beyond the scenario stage. In one case, though the whole purchase money was paid in advance, the play was never delivered; it was finished  —  and then sold under a different title to another manager! One was prohibited  —  by request  —  by the Lord Chamberlain’s department. Of this play, Robert Emmett, were some interesting memories.

In Ireland or by Irish people it had often been suggested to Irving that he should present Robert Emmett in a play. He bore a striking resemblance to the Irish patriot  —  a glance at any of the portraits would to any one familiar with Irving’s identity be sufficient; and his story was full of tragic romance. From the first Irving was taken with the idea and had the character in his mind for stage use. In the first year of his management he suggested the theme to Frank A. Marshall, the dramatist; who afterwards co-operated with him in the editorship of the “ Irving “ Shakespeare. He was delighted with the idea, became full of it, and took the work in hand. In the shape of a scenario it was so far advanced that at the end of the second season Irving was able to announce it as one of the forthcoming plays. As we know the extraordinary success of The Merchant ofVenice postponed the work then projected for more than a year. Marshall, therefore, took his work in a more leisurely fashion, and it was not till the autumn of 1881 that the play appeared in something like its intended shape. But by that time Romeo and Juliet was in hand and a full year elapsed before Robert Emmett could be practically considered. But when that time came the Irish question was acute. Fenianism or certain of its sequela became recrudescent. The government of the day considered that.so marked and romantic a character as Robert Emmett, and with such political views portrayed so forcibly and so picturesquely as would be the case with Irving, might have a dangerous effect on a people seething in revolt. Accordingly a “ request “ came through the Lord Chamberlain’s department that Mr. Irving would not proceed with the production which had been announced. Incidentally I may say that nothing was mentioned in the “ request “ regarding the cost incurred. Irving had already paid to Frank Marshall a sum of L45o.

In the early stages of the building up of the play there was an interesting occurrence which illustrates the influence of the actor on the author, especially when he is a good stage manager. One night Marshall came to supper in the room which antedated the Beefsteak Room for that purpose. The occasion was to discuss the scenario which had by then been enlarged to proportions comprehensive of detail  —  not merely the situations but the working of them out. Only the three of us were present. We were all familiar with the work so far as it was done; for not only used Marshall to send Irving a copy of each act and scene of the scenario as he did it, but he used very often to run in and see me and consult about it. I would then tell Irving at a convenient opportunity and when next the author came I would go over with him Irving’s comments and suggestions. This night we all felt to be a crucial one. The play had gone on well through its earlier parts; indeed it promised to be a very fine play. But at the point it had then reached it halted a little. The scene was in Dublin during a phase or wave of discontent even with the “ patriotic “ party as accepted in the play. Something was necessary to focus in the minds of certain of the characters the fact and cause of discontent and to emphasise it in a dramatic way. After supper we discussed it for a long time. All at once Irving got hold of an idea. I could see it in his face; and he could see that I saw he had something. He glanced at me in a way which I knew well to be to back him up. He deftly changed the conversation and began to speak of another matter in which Marshall was interested. I knew my cue and joined in, and so we drifted away from the play. Presently Irving asked Marshall to look at a play-bill which he had had framed and hung on the wall. It was one in which Macready was “ starred “ along with an elephant called “ Rajah “  —  this used in later years to hang in Irving’s dressing-room. Marshall stood up to look at it closely. Whilst he was doing so, with his back to us, Irving got half-a-dozen wine glasses by the stems in his right hand and hurled them at the door, making a terrific crash and a litter of falling glass. Frank Marshall, a man of the sunniest nature, was not built spiritually in a heroic mould. He gave a cry and whirled round, his face pale as ashes. He sank groaning into a chair speechless. When I had given him a mouthful of brandy he gasped out: