Modern Eloquence Volume Ii Part 21

Through the courtesy of the Lotus Club, we are enabled to reproduce this typical dinner card, especially drawn and engraved for a complimentary banquet to Sir Henry Irving. The original card is about three times the size of this reproduction.

DINNER TO

SIR HENRY IRVING

GIVEN BY THE

LOTOS CLUB

SAt.u.r.dAY OCT 28

MDCCCXCIX]

MY LORD CHIEF JUSTICE, MY LORDS AND GENTLEMEN:--I cannot conceive a greater honor entering into the life of any man than the honor you have paid me by a.s.sembling here to-night. To look around this room and scan the faces of my distinguished hosts, would stir to its depths a colder nature than mine. It is not in my power, my lords and gentlemen, to thank you for the compliment you have to-night paid me.

"The friends thou hast, and their adoption tried, Grapple them to thy soul with hooks of steel."

Never before have I so strongly felt the magic of those words; but you will remember it is also said in the same sentence, "Give thy thoughts no tongue." [Laughter.] And gladly, had it been possible, would I have obeyed that wise injunction to-night. [Renewed laughter.]

The actor is profoundly influenced by precedent, and I cannot forget that many of my predecessors have been nerved by farewell banquets for the honor which awaited them on the other side of the Atlantic; but this occasion I regard as much more than a compliment to myself: I regard it as a tribute to the art which I am proud to serve and I believe that feeling will be shared by the profession to which you have a.s.sembled to do honor. [Cheers.] The time has long gone by when there was any need to apologize for the actor's calling. ["Hear! Hear!"] The world can no more exist without the drama than it can without its sister art, music.

The stage gives the readiest response to the demand of human nature to be transported out of itself into the realms of the ideal--not that all our ideals on the stage are realized--none but the artist knows how immeasurably he may fall short of his aim or his conception,--but to have an ideal in art and to strive through one's life to embody it, may be a pa.s.sion to the actor as it may be to the poet.

Your lordship has spoken most eloquently of my career. Possessed of a generous mind and a high judicial faculty, your lordship has been to-night, I fear, more generous than judicial. But if I have in any way deserved commendation, I am proud that it was as an actor that I won it.

As the director of a theatre my experience has been short, but as an actor I have been before the London public for seventeen years; and on one thing I am sure you will all agree--that no actor or manager has ever received from that public more generous and ungrudging encouragement and support. [Cheers.]

Concerning our visit to America, I need hardly say that I am looking forward to it with no common pleasure. It has often been an ambition with English actors to gain the good-will of the English-speaking race, a good-will which is right heartily reciprocated towards our American fellow-workers, when they gratify us by sojourning here. Your G.o.d-speed would alone a.s.sure me a hearty welcome in any land. But I am not going amongst strangers; I am going amongst friends, and when I, for the first time, touch American ground, I shall receive many a grip of the hand from men whose friendship I am proud to possess. [Cheers.] Concerning our expedition the American people will no doubt exercise an independent judgment--a prejudice of theirs and a habit of long standing [laughter], as your lordship has reminded us, by the fact that to-day is the fourth of July, an anniversary rapidly becoming an English inst.i.tution. Your lordship is doubtless aware, as to-night has so happily proved, that the stage has reckoned amongst its staunchest supporters many great and distinguished lawyers. There are many lawyers, I am told, in America, and as I am sure that they all deserve to be judges, I am in hopes that they will materially help me to gain a favorable verdict from the American people. [Cheers and laughter.]

I have given but poor expression to my sense of the honor you have conferred upon me, and upon the comrades a.s.sociated with me in this our enterprise--an enterprise which, I hope, will favorably show the method and discipline of a company of English actors. On their behalf I thank you, and I also thank you on behalf of the lady who has so adorned the Lyceum stage, and to whose rare gifts your lordship has paid so just and gracious a tribute. The climax of the favor extended to me by my countrymen has been reached to-night. You have set upon me a burden of responsibility, a burden which I gladly and proudly bear. The memory of to-night will be to me a sacred thing, a memory which will, throughout my life, be ever treasured, a memory which will stimulate me to further endeavor, and encourage me to loftier aim. [Loud and continued cheers.]

THE DRAMA

[Speech of Sir Henry Irving at the fourteenth annual dinner of the Playgoer's Club, London, February 14, 1898. The toast of "The Drama"

was proposed by B. W. Findon, and Sir Henry Irving was called upon to respond.]

MR. CHAIRMAN AND GENTLEMEN:--It is five years since I had the pleasure of sitting at your hospitable board and listening to that delightfully soothing and digestive eloquence with which we medicine one another after dinner. [Laughter.] In the course of those five years I daresay we have had many differences of opinion. The playgoer does not always agree with the player, still less with that unfortunate object, the poor actor-manager. But whatever you may have said of me in this interval, and in terms less dulcet, perhaps, than those which your chairman has so generously employed, it is a great satisfaction to me to feel that I still retain your esteem and good-will. In a certain sense you are the manager's const.i.tuents. You cannot eject him from the office, perhaps, with that directness which distinguishes the Parliamentary operations. But you can stay away from the theatre, and so eject his play. [Laughter.] On the whole that is a more disconcerting process than the fiercest criticism. One can always argue with the critics, though on the actor's part I know that is gross presumption.

[Laughter.] But you cannot argue with the playgoer who stays away.

I am not making any specific accusations--only remarking that it is staying-power which impresses the importance of the Playgoer's Club upon the managerial mind. Moreover, to meet you like this has the effect of a useful tonic. I can strongly recommend it to some gentlemen who write to the newspapers. [Laughter.] In one journal there was a long correspondence--the sort of thing we generally get at one season of the year--about the condition of the stage, and a well-known writer who, I believe, combines the function of a dramatic critic with the responsibility of a watch-dog to the Navy, informed his readers that the sad decadence of the British Drama was due to the evils of party government. That is certainly an original idea; but I fancy that if the author were to unfold it to this company, he would be told that he had mistaken the Playgoer's Club for the War Office or the Admiralty. Still we ought to be grateful to the man who reveals a perfectly fresh reason for the eternal decline of the drama, though we may not, perhaps, antic.i.p.ate any revolution in theatrical amus.e.m.e.nts even from the most thorough-going reform of the British Const.i.tution.

In the public correspondence to which I have referred, a good deal was said about the need for a dramatic conservatoire. If such an inst.i.tution could be rooted in this country, I have no doubt that it might yield many advantages. Years ago I ventured to suggest that the munic.i.p.al system might be applied to the theatre, as it is on the Continent, though I do not observe that this is yet a burning question in the county council politics, or that any reforming administrator has discovered that the drama ought to be laid on, like gas or water.

[Laughter.] With all our genius for local government we have not yet found, like some Continental peoples, that the munic.i.p.al theatre is as much a part of the healthy life of the community as the munic.i.p.al library or museum. ["Hear! hear!"] Whether that development is in store for us I do not know, but I can imagine certain social benefits that would accrue from the munic.i.p.al incorporation of a dramatic conservatoire. It might check the rush of incompetent persons into the theatrical profession. Some persons who were intended by Nature to adorn an inviolable privacy are thrust upon us by paragraphers and interviewers, whose existence is a dubious blessing--[laughter]--until it is a.s.sumed by censors of the stage that this business is part and parcel of theatrical advertis.e.m.e.nt.

Columns of this rubbish are printed every week, and many an actor is pestered to death for t.i.t-bits about his ox and his a.s.s and everything that is his. [Laughter.] Occasionally you may read solemn articles about the insatiable vanity of the actor, which must be gratified at any cost, as if vanity were peculiar to any section of humanity. But what this organized gossip really advertises is the industry of the gentlemen who collect it, and the smartness of the papers in which it is circulated.

"We learn this," "We have reason to believe"--such forms of intolerable a.s.surance give currency too often to scandalous and lying rumors which I am sure responsible journalism would wish to discourage. But this, I fear, is difficult, for contradiction makes another desirable paragraph, and it is all looked upon as desirable copy. [Laughter.]

Of course, gentlemen, the drama is declining--it always has been declining since the time of Roscius and beyond the palmy days when the famous Elephant Raja was "starred" over the head of W. C. Macready, and the real water tank in the Cataract of the Ganges helped to increase the attractions of John Kemble and Mrs. Siddons. But we ourselves are evidently in a parlous state at the present day, when actors vainly endeavor to struggle through twenty lines of blank verse--when we are told mechanical effects and vast armies of supers make up the production of historical plays--when pathological details, we are told, are always well received--when the "psychonosological" (whatever that may be)--[laughter], is invariably successful--and when Pinero and Grundy's plays do not appeal to men of advanced thought, as I read the other day.

In all the lament about the decline of the drama there is one recurring note: the disastrous influence of long runs. If the manager were not a grossly material person, incapable of ideals, he would take off a successful piece at the height of its popularity and start a fresh experiment. [Laughter.] But he is sunk in the base commercialism of the age, and, sad to relate, he has the sympathies of the dramatic author, who wants to see his piece run say a hundred nights, instead of twenty.

I don't know how this spirit of greed is to be subdued, though with the multiplication of Play-houses, long runs may tend to become rare. A munic.i.p.al subsidy or an obliging millionaire might enable a manager to vary his bill with comparative frequency, when he has persuaded the dramatic author that the run of a play till the crack of doom is incompatible with the interest of art. [Laughter.] I cannot help suspecting that the chief difficulty of a manager, under even the most artistic and least commercial conditions, will always be, not to check the inordinate proportions of success, but to secure plays which may succeed at all.

I hope you will not accuse me of taking a too despondent view of the drama, for believe me, I do not. To be sure, we sometimes hear that Shakespeare is to be annihilated, and that the poet's intellect has been overrated. And lately a reverend gentleman at Hampstead announced his intention of putting down the stage altogether. [Laughter.] The atmosphere of Hampstead seems to be intellectually intoxicating; at any rate it has a rather stimulating effect on a certain kind of dogmatic mind. This intolerance has been very eloquently rebuked by a distinguished man who is an ornament of the Church of England. It is Dean Farrar who says that these pharisaical attacks on the stage are inspired only by "concentrated malice." Well, the periodical misunderstanding to which the stage is exposed need cause but little disquiet. I have no doubt it will survive its many adventures, and that it will owe not a little of its tenacious vitality to your unflagging sympathy and hearty and generous encouragement. [Cheers.]

THE FUNCTION OF THE NEWSPAPER

[Speech of Sir Henry Irving, as Chairman, at the thirty-fifth anniversary dinner of the Newspaper Press Fund, London, May 21, 1898.]

GENTLEMEN:--When I received the great compliment of an invitation to occupy this chair, I was conscious of a certain ironical fitness in my position. The politician and the actor divide between them the distinction of supplying the most constant material for the most intimate and searching vigilance of the newspaper press.

[Laughter.] So when this great corporation of the newspaper press fund gives its annual dinner, what more natural and fitting than a politician or an actor in the chair, who ill.u.s.trates in his person and in his own fortunes both the appreciation and the discipline which it is the function of the press so liberally to bestow? I can imagine that when such a chairman happens to be a pretty old stager like myself, there may be journalists in such a distinguished company as this who will look at him with the moistened eye of emotional reminiscence and murmur: "Ah, it was upon that man I fleshed my maiden pen!" [Laughter.] Thoughts like these shed the mellowing influence of time over the volumes of press cuttings which no actor's library is without. I have heard of public men who say they never read the newspapers. That remark has been attributed to a bishop, and perhaps there are kinds of abstinence quite easy to bishops but difficult to other mortals. [Laughter.] If it were possible for a man whose doings are considered worthy of public notice to avoid the newspaper, he could scarcely hope to make his friends practice the same denial. Even a bishop who is not inquisitive must occasionally meet deans and chapters who are. [Laughter.] There's the rub. You may not read the newspapers, but as soon as you scent the morning air you know whether those proverbial little birds who spread the news with such alacrity, are chirping about yourself, and the first feathered acquaintance that you hit upon is generously eager to share with you the crumb picked from a newspaper with a special flavor for your own palate.

Gentlemen, I mention this, not by way of complaint, but simply to ill.u.s.trate the futility of that philosophy which fondly imagines that the newspaper can be ignored. But I am chiefly conscious to-night of the debt of grat.i.tude we all owe to the press. The newspaper--say what you will of it--is the immediate recorder and interpreter of life. Morning and evening it offers us that perpetual stimulus which makes the zest of living. Be your interests what they may, though you abstract your mind from the tumult of affairs and devote it to art or science, you cannot open a newspaper without the sensation of laying your hand upon the throbbing pulse of the world. And it has throbbed within but a few days, throbbed with a widespread grief at the pa.s.sing of a great man [Mr.

Gladstone], a great statesman, a great and n.o.ble figure in productive and national life, who for more than half a century has helped largely to mould the destinies of the nation and the world. [Loud cheers.]

Gentlemen, in a newspaper, at a glance, you are in touch with the elemental forces of nature--war, pestilence and famine; you are transported by this printed sheet, as it were the fairy carpet of the Arabian, from capital to capital, from the exultation of one people to the bitter resentment and chagrin of another. You behold on every scale every quality of humanity, everything that piques the sense of mystery, everything that inspires pity, dread, or anger. It is a vast and ever-changing panorama of the raw material of art and literature.

[Cheers.]

Well, there are some complaints, gentlemen, that the raw material is more generally interesting than the artistic product. The newspaper is a dangerous compet.i.tor of books, and those of us who write plays and produce them may wish that the circulation of a great daily journal would repeat itself at the box-office. [Laughter.] But it is no use protesting against rivalry, if it be the rivalry of life, and the gentlemen of the press who are engaged in stage-managing and drama which, after all, is the real article, must always command more spectators than the humble artists who seek truth in the garb of illusion. I cannot sufficiently admire the enterprise of these great newspapers which keep the diary of mankind. In time of war their representatives are in the thick of danger; and though he may subscribe to the _dictum_, so familiar to playgoers, that the pen is mightier than the sword, the war correspondent is always ready to give lessons to the enemy with the less majestic weapon. ["Hear! hear!"] In our own military annals no little glory shines on the names of civilians who, in the faithful discharge of duty to a mult.i.tude of readers, gave their lives as truly for their country as if they had died in the Queen's uniform.

There are veteran campaigners of the press still amongst us, one of the most distinguished of whom is my old and valued friend, Sir William Russell [cheers], the vice-president of this fund, by whom I have the pleasure of being seated to-night. I say there are many veterans of the press whose services to the British Army will not be forgotten, though they never set a squadron in the field. I have heard it said that in diplomacy the press is sometimes indiscreetly ahead of events [laughter], but you must remember that nothing is so characteristic of the modern spirit as the art of publishing things before they happen.

Nowadays all the world is on tiptoe, and the soul of journalism must be prophetic, because it has to do for a curious and wide-eyed public what was done for a much simpler generation by the alchemists and the astrologer. We ought to be thankful that this somewhat perilous business is conducted, on the whole, with so much discretion and breadth of mind.

We have no less admiration, gentlemen, for the judgment of our press than for the enterprise which is born of compet.i.tion, and, although that judgment has often to be framed under conditions which demand almost breathless rapidity, it does not always bear unfavorable comparison with the protracted meditation of the philosophic recluse. [Cheers.]

But there is one thing which the ubiquitous energies of the press cannot command, and that is immunity for its members from the chances of evil fortune, from sickness and decay. ["Hear! Hear!"] I suppose there is no profession which makes such heavy calls upon the bodily and mental vigor of its servants as the profession of the journalist. Whoever nods, he must be always fresh and alert. Whoever is content with the ideas of yesterday, the journalist must be equipped with the ideas of to-morrow.

In the course of my life it has been my privilege to number many brilliant journalists amongst my dearest friends, and I sorrowfully call to mind now more than one undaunted spirit who has suffered the penalties of overtaxed strength. It is in these cases that this fund should be of special benefit. It is in your power to give that timely help which saves the exhausted brain and restores the broken nerve. I stand to-night in a place which has been occupied by many distinguished advocates of this fund--advocates who have spoken with eloquence to which I can make no pretension. But I would earnestly impress upon you this thought, than which no plea can be more eloquent--remember that whatever you may give out of goodness of heart, from the memories of old comradeship, from the thousand and one a.s.sociations which bind together fellow-workers in various arts and callings, remember that it may be the means some day of s.n.a.t.c.hing from the last despond some one whose hand you have pressed in friendship, and whose voice has an echo in your hearts. I ask you to drink "Prosperity to the Newspaper Press Fund."

[Loud cheers.]

RICHARD CLAVERHOUSE JEBB

LITERATURE AND ART

[Speech of Richard Claverhouse Jebb, professor in the University of Cambridge, in responding to the toast, "The Interests of Literature,"

coupled, according to custom, with "The Interests of Science," at the banquet of the Royal Academy, London, May 4, 1885. Sir Frederic Leighton, President of the Academy, said in introducing him: "I invite you to join me in a tribute, never wanting at this table, to science and to letters. With literature I connect the name of a guest whom his grateful country has brought from the far banks of the Clyde to our table to-night--one among the very foremost and most elegant of our scholars; and a speaker on whose lips we trace, though Latin has been the chief vehicle of his oratory, a savor of those Attic orators with whom his name is a.s.sociated in our minds--Professor Jebb."]