Life on the Stage Part 20

And I said, gratefully: "I'll never do it again, sir," and I never have, first from respect to a great actor's opinion, and grat.i.tude for his kindly interest, later having tried his experiment, from the conviction that he was right, and finally because my tears would have sent inky rivulets down my cheeks had I indulged in black-banded eyes. So in all these years of work, just once, in playing a tricky, treacherous, plotting female, that I felt should be a close-eyed, thin-lipped creature, I have painted and elongated my eyes, otherwise I have kept my promise "not to do it again."

I met Mr. Jefferson in Paris at that dreadful time when he was threatened with blindness, and I never shall forget his gentle patience, his marvelous courage. That was a day of real rejoicing to me, when the news came that his sight was saved. Blindness coming upon any man is a horror, but to a man who can see nature as Joseph Jefferson sees her it would have been an almost incredible cruelty.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIFTH

I See an Actress Dethroned--I Make Myself a Promise, for the World Does Move.

To be discarded by the public, that is the _bete noire_, the unconquerable dread and terror of the actor. To fail in the great struggle for supremacy is nothing compared to the agony of falling after the height has once been won.

Few people can think of the infamous casting down of the great column Vendome without a shiver of pain--the smashing of the memorial tablet, the shattering of the statue, these are sights to shrink from, yet what does such shrinking amount to when compared to the pain of seeing a human being thrust from the sunlight of public popularity into the darkness of obscurity?

I was witness once to the discrowning of an actress, and if I could forget the anguish of her eyes, the pallor beneath her rouge, I would be a most grateful woman.

She had been handsome in her prime, handsome in the regular-featured, statuesque fashion so desirable for an actress of tragic parts; but Mrs.

P---- (for I shall call her only by that initial, as it seems to me that naming her fully would be unkind) had reached, yes, had pa.s.sed, middle age and had wandered far into distant places, had known much sorrow, and, alas, for her, had not noticed that her profession, like everything alive, like the great G.o.d-made world itself, moved, moved, moved! So not noticing, she, poor thing, stood still in her method of work, loyally doing her best in the style of acting that had been so intensely admired in her triumphant youth.

She had most successfully starred in Cleveland years before, but at the time I speak of she was returning from distant parts, widowed and poor, yet quite, quite confident of her ability to please the public, and with plans all made to star two, possibly three, years, long enough to secure a little home and tiny income, when she would retire gracefully from the sight of the regretful public. Meantime she entreated Mr. Ellsler, if possible, to give her an engagement, that she might earn money enough to carry her to New York and see the great agents there.

By some unlooked-for chance the very next week was open, and rather tremulously as manager, but kind-heartedly as man, Mr. Ellsler engaged her for that week.

The city was billed accordingly: "Mrs. P----, the Queen of Tragedy!"--"The celebrated Mrs. P----, Cleveland's great favorite!"--"Especial engagement of Mrs. P----!" etc., etc.

I had a tiny part in the old Grecian tragedy she opened in. I came early, as was my wont, and when dressed went out to look at the house--good heavens! I gasped. Poor? it was worse than poor. Bad? it was worse than bad. My heart sank for her as I recalled how, that morning, she had asked, with a little nonchalant air of: "It doesn't really matter, of course, but do the people here throw their flowers still, or do they send them up over the footlights?" Flowers? Oh, poor Mrs. P----!

The overture had ended before she came out of her dressing-room, so she had no warning of what the house was like. She was all alight with pleasant antic.i.p.ation. At a little distance she looked remarkably well; her Grecian robes hung gracefully, her hair was arranged and filleted correctly and becomingly, her movements were a.s.sured; only looking at the deeply drawn lines about her mouth, made one regret that her opening speeches referred so distinctly to her "dewy youth"; but Cleveland was well used to that sort of contradiction, and I might have taken heart of grace for her if only she had not looked so very pleased and happy.

The opening scene of the old-fashioned play was well on when the star appeared, and smiling graciously--faced the almost empty house. She halted--she gave the sort of sudden gasp that a dash of icy water in the face might cause. The humiliating half-dozen involuntary hand-claps that had greeted her fell into silence as she came fully into view, where she stood dismayed, stricken--for she was an old actress and she read the signs aright, she knew this was the great _taboo_.

Her face whitened beneath her rouge, her lips moved silently. One moment she turned her back squarely upon the audience, for she knew her face was anguished, and moved by the same instinct that makes an Indian draw the blanket across his dying face, or the wounded animal seek deepest solitude, she sought to hide _her_ suffering from the coldly observant few.

With the light stricken from her eyes they looked dull and sunken, while every nerve and muscle of her poor face seemed a-quiver. It was a dreadful moment for us who looked on and understood.

Presently she clinched her hands, drew a long breath, and facing about, took up the burden of the play, and in cold, flat tones began her part.

She did her best in the old, stilted declamatory style, that was as dead as many of the men and women were who used to applaud it. Once only the audience warmed to her a trifle, and as she accepted their half-hearted "call," her sad eyes roved over the empty s.p.a.ces of the house, a faint, tired smile touched her lips, while two great tears coursed down her cheeks. It was the moment of renunciation! They denied her right to the crown of popularity, and she, with that piteous smile, bowed to their verdict, as an actress must.

At the curtain's final fall her stardom was over. She went very quietly to Mr. Ellsler and gave him back the engagement he had granted her, saying, simply: "They do not want me any longer."

A short time after that, she sat one evening in Mr. Ellsler's family box, and with wide, astonished eyes gazed at the packed house which greeted the jig, the clog, the song, the banjo of Miss Lotta, whose innocent deviltries were bringing her a fortune, and when, in response to a "call," instead of appearing, Miss Lotta thrust her foot and ankle out beyond the curtain and wriggled them at the delighted crowd, poor Mrs.

P---- drew her hand across her forehead and said, in bewildered tones: "But--I don't understand!"

No, she could not understand, and Miss Lotta had not yet faced New York, hence John Brougham, the witty, wise, and kindly Irish gentleman, had not yet had his opportunity of summing up the brilliant and erratic star, as he did later on in these words: "Act, acting, actress? what are you thinking of? she's no actress, she's--why, she's a little dramatic c.o.c.ktail!" which was a delicious Broughamism and truthful withal.

But that sad night, when Mrs. P---- first set her feet in the path of obscurity, I took to myself a lesson, and said: "While I live, I will move. I will not stand still in my satisfaction, should success ever come to me--but will try to keep my harness bright by action, in at least an effort to keep abreast with the world, for verily, verily, it does move!"

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIXTH

Mr. Lawrence Barrett the Brilliant and his Brother Joseph the Unfortunate.

There were few stars with whom I took greater pleasure in acting than with Mr. Lawrence Barrett. I sometimes wonder if even now this profession really knows what great reason it has to be proud of him. He was a man respected by all, admired by many, and if loved but by few, theirs was a love so profound and so tender it amply sufficed.

We are a censorious people, and just as our greatest virtue is generosity in giving, so our greatest fault is the eagerness with which we seek out the mote in our neighbor's eye, without feeling the slightest desire for the removal of the beam in our own eye. Thus one finds that the first and clearest memory actors have of Mr. Barrett is of his irascible temper and a certain air of superiority, not of his erudition, of the high position he won socially as well as artistically, of the almost t.i.tanic struggle of his young manhood with adverse circ.u.mstances.

Nor does that imply the slightest malice on their part. Actors, as a family trait, have a touch of childishness about them which they come by honestly enough. We all know the farther we get from infancy the weaker the imagination grows. Now it is imagination that makes the man an actor, so it is not wonderful if with the powerful creative fancy of childhood he should also retain a touch of its petulance and self-consciousness.

Thus to many actors Mr. Barrett's greatness is lost sight of in the memory of some dogmatic utterance or sharp reproval that wounded self-love.

It would seem like presumption for me to offer any word of praise for the artistic work of his later years; the world remembers it; the world knows, too, how high he climbed, how secure was his position; but twice I have heard the stories of his earlier years--some from the lips of his brave wife, once from the lips of that beloved brother Joe, who was yet his dread and sorrow--and at each telling my throat ached at the pain of it, while my nerves thrilled with admiration for such endurance, such splendid determination.

A paradox is, I believe, something seemingly absurd, yet true in fact. In that case I was not so very far wrong, in spite of general laughter, when, after my first rehearsal with him, I termed Mr. Barrett a man of cold enthusiasm. "But," one cried to me, "you stupid--that's a paradox!

don't you see your words contradict each other?"

"Well," I answered, with shame-faced obstinacy, "perhaps they do, but they are not contradicted by _him_. You all call him icy-cold, and _I_ know he is truly enthusiastic over the possibilities of this play, so that makes what I call cold enthusiasm, however par-a-paradoxy (?) _it_ sounds."

And now, after all the years, I can approve that childish judgment. He was a man whose intellectual enthusiasm was backed by a cold determination that would never let him say "die" while he had breath in his body and a stage to rehea.r.s.e on.

I have a miserable memory for names, and often in the middle of a remark the name I intended to mention will pa.s.s from my remembrance utterly; so, all my life, I have had the very bad habit of trying to make my hearers understand whom I meant by imitating or mentioning some trait peculiar to the nameless one, and I generally succeeded.

As, for instance, when I wished to tell whom I had seen taking away a certain book, I said: "It was Mr.--er--er, oh, you know, Mr.--er, why this man," and I pulled in my head like a turtle and hitched up my shoulders to my ears, and the anxious owner cried: "Oh, Thompson has it, has he?" Thompson having, so far as _we_ could see, no neck at all--my pantomime suggested his name.

Everyone can recall the enormous brow of Mr. Barrett, and how beneath his great, burning eyes his cheeks hollowed suddenly in, thinning down to his sensitive mouth. I was on the stage in New Orleans, the first morning of my engagement there (I was under Mr. Daly's management, but he had loaned me for a fortnight), and I started out with: "Mr. Daly said to please ask Mr.----," away went the name--goodness gracious, should I forget my own name next!

The stage manager suggested: "Mr. Rogers."

"No, oh, no! I mean Mr.--er--er," and I trailed off helplessly.

"Mr. Seymour?" offered a lady.

"No, no! that's not it!" I cried; "why, goodness mercy me! you all know whom I mean--the--the actor with the _hungry eyes_?"

"Oh, Barrett!" they shouted, all save one voice, that with a mighty laugh cried out: "That's my brother Larry, G.o.d bless him! no one could miss that description, for sure he looks as hungry to-day as ever he did when he felt hungry to his heart's core!"

And so it was that I first met poor Joe Barrett, who worshipped the brother whose sore torment he was. For this great, broad-shouldered, ruddy-faced fellow with the boyish laugh had ever in his veins the craving for liquor--that awful inherited appet.i.te that can nullify prayer and break down the most fixed determination.

"Ah!" he cried to me, "no one, no one can ever know how good Larry has been to me, for while he is fighting and struggling to rise, every little while some lapse of mine drags him back a bit. Yet he never casts me off--never disowns me. He has had to discharge me for the sake of discipline here, but he has re-engaged me. He has sent me away, but he has taken me back again. I promise, and fail to keep my promise. I fall, and he picks me up. Through the cursed papers I have dragged my brother through the mud, but the sweet Saviour could hardly forgive me more fully than Larry does, for, look you, he never forgets that I am the son of my father, who was accursed before me, while he is the son of our poor mother--blessed be her name! It isn't that I don't try. I keep straight until the agony of longing begins to turn into a mad desire to do bodily harm to someone--anyone, and then, fearing worse, I drink my fill, and the papers find me out, and are not content to tell of the disgraceful condition of Joseph Barrett, but must add, always, 'the brother of the prominent actor, Mr. Lawrence Barrett.' Poor Larry! poor little delicate chap that he used to be, with his big, brainy head--too heavy for his weak neck and frail body to carry."

And then he told me of their sorrowful life, their poverty. The often-idle father and his dislike for the delicate boy, whose only moment of happiness was when the weary mother, the poor supper over, sat for a little to breathe and rest, and held his heavy head upon her loving breast, while Joe sang his songs or told all the happenings of the day.

That happy Joe, who had no pride and was quite as satisfied without a seat to his small trousers as with one! Then he told me how hard it was for Lawrence to learn; how he had to grind and grind at the simplest lesson, but once having acquired it, it was his for life.

"Why, even now," said he, "in confidence I'm telling you, my brother is studying like a little child at French, and it does seem that he cannot learn it. He works so desperately over it, a doctor has warned him he must choose between French and his many 'parts' or break down from overwork. But he _will_ go on hammering at his _parlez-vous_ until he learns them or dies trying."

"If you were to live with your brother, might not that help to keep you strong?" I asked.