Chapter III (6)

While in these far southern latitudes, Dr. Cook, as anthropologist to the expedition, visited and described a cannibal tribe from whom no previous scientist had escaped alive.

His lecture descriptive of his adventures has proven one of the most interesting yet offered to the lyceum. It is illustrated with photographs taken by the doctor himself, and these are as beautiful as they are unlike any others ever shown to the public.

Dr. Cook is gifted with a fascination of description and a powerful voice which make his lecture even more interesting, if possible, than to read of his thrilling adventures in his book, recently published.

Among polar explorers I do not regard any one as more bold, more to be depended upon for accuracy of statement, or whose scientific training better fits him rightly to appreciate the value of each new fact discovered, than Dr. Frederick A. Cook, our fellow-countryman.

Robert E. Peary, Civil Engineer, U. S. Navy, returned in the autumn of 1892 from his second Arctic exploration, bringing with him a number of dogs, the sledges on which he made his journeys, and a collection of Esquimau souvenirs, such as sledges, dog harness, clothing, tents, spears, fishing tackle, cooking utensils, and furniture, and gave an exhibition in the Academy of Music, Philadelphia, under the auspices of the Academy of Science. I attended the lecture, or rather, exhibition. Mr. Peary appeared in his Arctic costume, with the dogs, sledges, tents, weapons, bear skins, and seal furs in great quantity and variety on the stage--a sort of Esquimau village. It was an interesting exhibit. Mr. Peary gave a delightful lecture, illustrated with some of the finest stereoscopic views of Arctic scenery I had ever seen presented, views which he had himself taken while on the expedition.

I tried my best to secure Mr. Peary for some lectures in New York, Boston, and other cities, but, being an officer of the Government and under orders, it was impossible to secure him. Later on he obtained leave of absence and permission to fit out a second expedition, and he could lecture from January until April, so I arranged for what proved to be one of the most vigorous lecture campaigns that I had ever managed up to that time.

We began in the Academy of Music, Brooklyn, and up to the first of April (one hundred and three days) Mr. Peary gave one hundred and sixty-five lectures. The five dogs were as much a drawing feature as Peary himself, and were a great advertising card, especially where there was sleighing, as Henson, Mr. Peary’s colored servant, who had accompanied him on the expedition, hitched them up and drove them about the cities wherever they went, attracting the attention and wonder of the entire communities. They seemed to take as much interest in the show as they probably had shown in their great overland journeys across the Greenland Ice Cap with their master. The dogs were very fond of being petted, and liked ladies and children. After the lecture they were brought on the stage and the children in the audience were allowed to rush forward and meet them. There was never an instance of the dogs showing the slightest ill temper or of objecting to be caressed or fed by the auditors. One remarkable thing about the dogs was that they would insist upon their rights and their share of the entertainment. They would wait very patiently until the time for Mr. Peary to finish, but if he happened to speak a little longer than the usual time, the dogs would set up a howl so that he would have to stop. They never became uneasy until their own time arrived.

It was a general tour, and Mr. Peary visited most of the large cities, two lectures a day. It was a great combination. Of all the tours I ever had the pleasure of managing none met with greater success on a short notice than this one. The profits for those few weeks were about $18,000. Yet Mr. Peary was disappointed, for he was fitting out a second Arctic expedition and needed something like $80,000 for his scheme. He admitted that under any other circumstances he would have considered the tour one of the most successful in the world, but because he could not make $2,000 or $3,000 a day it seemed a loss of time to him, and he was obliged to resort to other means to raise the funds that he needed. However, Mr. Peary never once complained, I never heard him speak an unkind word either to the employees or to his dogs. He is a great worker. His stenographer and typewriter accompanied him, and he carried on an immense correspondence, together with his other work, perfecting all plans for his expedition.

He met with many misfortunes on the second expedition of twenty-five months’ stay in North Greenland in 1893-95, and his return to the lecture field proved not very remunerative. No doubt this was partly due to the fact that he undertook to give simply illustrated lectures, without the dogs and the other attractions which he had on the previous tour.

Mr. Peary is one of the finest descriptive lecturers we have ever had, with his heart and soul in his work. If he succeeds in reaching the Pole (which we shall probably know before this book goes to press), then he will be the biggest attraction in the world. Otherwise, he will be classed as one of the great Arctic heroes who did his best and knows how to relate the accounts of his heroic adventures to as many auditors as still retain interest in Arctic explorations. Peary is a nineteenth-century hero, and will continue to push on because he cannot stop.

In writing this book, I am not making a programme, preparing a circular, or giving a list of speakers and entertainers. I recall only those names and work that come back most impressively, and any omission is not from lack of appreciation, but one of memory only. Yet though the walls are crowded, there is still room to give a name to one of the bravest. Another of the beloved women yet remains among us. My reference is to Mrs. Peary, the wife of the famous Arctic explorer. She has not intellectual capacity alone, but more than womanly courage, as is proven by the years spent in Greenland wastes of ice and snow, the first woman of Caucasian stock known to have wintered within the Arctic Circle. Later, the same high devotion made her take up the no less exacting task of raising funds for her husband’s relief, the return of his belated expedition and the saving thereby of the important scientific results and personal fruits of the great and toilsome, as well as dangerous exploration work he has set himself to accomplish. Mrs. Peary entered the lecture field to accomplish and achieve this work of relief. She did it, too, and in so doing showed possession of a speaking talent that would have made her a permanent success.

Capt. Joshua Slocum, who conceived the idea that he could sail alone around the world, is about the newest and most remarkable of the small list of hazardous adventurers who have _done something that no other man has succeeded in accomplishing_, and thereby acquired world-wide fame. He is well entitled to a place alongside the heroes Peary, Nansen, and Dr. Cook.

Captain Slocum comes of “a blue-nosed ancestry, with Yankee proclivities,” as he puts it. “Both sides of my family were sailors,” says the captain “and if any Slocum should be found not seafaring, he will show at least an inclination to whittle models of boats and contemplate voyages. My father was the sort of man who, wrecked on a desolate island, would find his way home if he had a jack-knife and could find a tree.”

After following the sea twenty years as a shipmaster and losing his bark, _Aquidneck_, wrecked on the coast of Brazil, and making the voyage home with his family in a canoe, Captain Slocum conceived the idea of building a boat and sailing alone around the world. He accomplished this remarkable feat, built the _Spray_ entirely with his own hands, launched, equipped, and sailed her by himself, over forty thousand miles, visiting many foreign ports, to the great amazement of the natives of every clime. In his voyage around Cape Horn there were over seventy days during which he never heard a sound except his own voice, the wind, and the lapping of the waves.

What is most remarkable of all is that Captain Slocum is able to write and describe the incidents of the entire voyage and his wonderful experiences in a manner so graphic and simple that it absolutely charms and fascinates his hearers as few ever did or ever could do.

The experiences of Captain Slocum have proved him to be one of the greatest navigators of the age.

It is wonderful to listen to the descriptions of some of his hairbreadth escapes and to hear him answer, as quick as a flash, questions of every conceivable sort put to him by expert seafaring auditors. I have listened for hours to these seeming tournaments in navigators’ skill, and never yet did the captain hesitate for an instant for a reply that went straight to the mark like a bullet.

Captain Slocum’s book, “Sailing Alone Around the World,” (published by The Century Company), has had a large sale, which is constantly increasing.

Had all this occurred twenty years ago, it would have meant a fortune for Captain Slocum, and a stimulant for the lyceum such as it is impossible to secure under present conditions. “Because why?” you ask. Because under the present conditions, lecture courses are forced upon the communities by agents representing various lecture bureaus, who start out with sample photographs and circulars (regulation size), round up a committee of enterprising citizens who want to do something for the town, and persuade them to go on a guarantee fund to secure a course of lectures and entertainments. They listen to the bureau agent’s recommendations of “the greatest orator of the times, Mr. Breeze,” and “the great traveller and adventurer, Mr. Push,” “the latest and most original dialect poet, Mr. Verse,” “Miss Wonder, whose dramatic recitations have captivated metropolitan audiences in all the large cities,” and “Miss Good, who is a direct descendant of a great-grandniece of Oliver Wendell Holmes’s cousin.” The course is made up, and contracts are signed before the agent leaves town. Then for six months the course is being talked up. The bureau agent remains for a few days to assist the local canvassers in getting started, telling them who the celebrities are that are to make the town so famous by their visit, etc.

Over fifty such courses are already announced for the State of Michigan the coming autumn, August, 1900, over two hundred in the State of Illinois, nearly as many in Iowa, and so proportionately all over the country. More than $6,000 a week is now being disbursed by bureaus to agents “selling courses.”

So when the newspapers and _The Century Magazine_, _McClure’s Magazine_, and _Harper’s Magazine_ publish the accounts of such heroic adventures as Captain Slocum’s, and a circular is sent out announcing his intention to relate from the lecture platform for the enlightenment of the public the story of his adventures, this local guarantee committee informs the captain that they already have “a course” in their city, which means that an independent lecture or entertainment of any kind, no matter how meritorious, is boycotted by the local committee in every city in the Union of from 2,500 to 40,000.

John L. Stoddard was the most phenomenal success as a professional lecturer, pure and simple, that I have ever known. He began in Boston with the bureau in 1878, together with what he could do for himself, as the bureau did not see enough in his lectures to make him an offer for all of his time. I heard him several times in churches in and about Boston, and declared him a success. I wanted to make him a big offer, but partnership stipulations--that our firm should not speculate--prevented that. I went nightly to hear him and see his pictures. Two young men engaged him for a lecture in Music Hall, Boston, and made a lot of money. They tried it again with the same result; then in suburban towns. Until the warm summer days and short nights set in, crowds were limited to the capacity of the auditorium. I have heard many lecturers whom I thought Stoddard’s superior from a professional point of view, but no other lectures with illustrations have ever drawn one quarter the people to hear them that his did. He has held first place as a stereopticon lecturer for twenty years and has retired with a fortune. Men and women have said to me: “What is the secret of this man’s success?” My only reply is: “The people like to hear him. I like to hear him.”

ACTORS AND DRAMATIC CRITICS

Joseph Jefferson is an actor in whom the romantic ardor of devotion to the dramatic art has never languished. Youth is gone, but not its enthusiasm, its faith, or its fire. He still embodies Rip Van Winkle with a sincerity as intense and with an artistic execution as thorough and as fresh as if the part were new, and as if he were playing it for the first time. The spontaneous drollery, the wildwood freedom, the endearing gentleness, the piquant, quizzical sapience, the unconscious humor, the pathetic blending of forlorn, wistful patience with awestricken apprehension, the dazed, submissive, drifting surrender to the current of fate, and the apparently careless, but clear-cut and beautiful method--all those attributes that bewitched the community long ago remain unchanged, and have lost no particle of their charm.

One Sunday morning, in Plymouth Church, just as Mr. Beecher was about to begin his sermon, and there was a deathly silence all over the house, Mr. Beecher said:

“Yes, I have been to the theatre. Mr. Beecher has been to the theatre. Now if you will all wait until you are past seventy years of age and will then go and see Joseph Jefferson in ‘Rip Van Winkle,’ I venture the risk that it will not affect your eligibility for heaven if you do nothing worse.”

Mr. Jefferson can command $1,000 a night in the large cities, if he will only consent to lecture. He and Sir Henry Irving are overrun with invitations to appear before college audiences.

William Winter was first called to my attention by Henry Ward Beecher, in 1876, while we were on the train between Fall River and Boston. Mr. Beecher was reading the New York _Tribune_. He usually read his morning paper from beginning to end, and this time he had got as far as the dramatic criticism, when he said to me:

“If you want to have the true estimate concerning the drama you should read William Winter in _The Tribune_. He is the most graphic writer there is, and he is a fine critic and absolutely clean. Here’s what he says of this young actress, Mary Anderson, as ‘Juliet.’”

Mr. Beecher then read aloud to me a column prophesying a brilliant success, which proved to be fully realized. Since that time I have read everything Mr. Winter has written. I watched and read and admired the man. I noted the interest that he took in all matters pertaining to the advancement, culture, and education of the community where he lives, his founding of the Arthur Winter Memorial Library at the Staten Island Academy, with a contribution of rare books and gems of literature that could have been collected only by one of fine gifts and refined tastes such as Mr. Winter possesses.

Reading of this acquisition to the academy and the erection of a hall for lectures, etc., I felt an interest in the success of this movement, and wrote my first letter to Mr. Winter, proposing to furnish such of my stars as would contribute lectures and entertainments for his public.

A most gracious and appreciative letter of thanks came in return, which is one of my choicest delights. I so wrote him, and received another characteristic reply. So it has kept up ever since. I now, as far as possible, stipulate with my coming stars that they give one evening during their season to the Winter Memorial Library, and it has come about that they all look forward to that appointment with great expectation, because it is an audience that, for fine appreciation, is not to be excelled anywhere. Marion Crawford, Annie Grey, H. E. Krehbiel, and Ernest Seton-Thompson, all declare the Winter Memorial their ideal audience.

For over thirty-five years (since August, 1865), Mr. Winter has been the dramatic critic of the New York _Tribune_, and during that time he has wielded an influence more potent in the advancement of the drama than that of all the other New York critics combined. He is incorruptible and not afraid of consequences. Once a very prominent manager, knowing that Mr. Winter and I were friends, came into my office and asked for a confidential talk, which was granted. He began like this:

“You know William Winter well, do you not?”

“I have very little association with him. I know him well enough to understand that he is my friend and would go as far to serve me as he would any friend.”

“Is he well fixed or is he poor?” asked the manager.

“He’s not rich. How could he be, with only the resources of his pen as his income, and with a family of sons and a daughter to educate?”

“Major, would $2,500 be any inducement for him to visit the Union Square Theatre to-morrow evening, and give that girl, the greatest actress in the world, a send off?”

I said: “It would be a waste of time and money. You would be as safe in offering $50,000 as any other amount. If Mr. Winter goes there he will write as he sees, and will do the subject justice.”

The manager told me that he had made sure of every paper that he wanted but the _Tribune_, and he would give more for that paper than for all the others, because whatever Winter wrote the public believed. He had already secured the next best dramatic writer for less than half he offered me if I could secure Winter.

While I was writing this book, one of the other New York dramatic critics to whom that manager referred was in my office, and we went out to lunch together. He wanted to borrow $2. He said that the New York newspapers of to-day would accept nothing from his pen, nor from other prominent old journalists, while William Winter seemed to be as much in evidence as ever.

I couldn’t help saying: “I will quote what a theatrical manager said to me twelve years ago: ‘I secured the next best writer in New York for less than half what I would offer to Winter, but the public believes what Winter writes’; and it is true.”

In reply to a letter from him recommending a great Shakespearean scholar and reader, I once wrote Mr. Winter that there was no public demand for a scholarly address on Shakespeare or any literary subject; that there was scarcely a statesman even, or any man of letters, that even colleges and institutions of learning cared to engage for commencements and other public occasions, but that I had letters from many leading colleges offering fabulous prices if I could secure Henry Irving or Joseph Jefferson for them, and on this encouraging symptom I offered each of these great actors $10,000 if they would each give ten addresses on these occasions.

Here is Mr. Winter’s reply:

* * * * *

“September 5, 1896.

“MY DEAR MAJOR POND:

“I observed with some wonder your amazing offer of _$1,000 a night_ to Irving and to Jefferson, for ten lectures, for _college commencements_. There must, of course, be some ‘business’ in this, or you would not think of it, but I should be very glad to know what qualifications are possessed by these gentlemen, or by any other _actors_, which entitled them to this peculiar eminence. A university is _a seat of learning_, and I have always supposed that the honors and rewards of _learning_ are due to great _scholars_, whose lives have been passed in study, in thought, and in labor for the art of literature and the cause of education. Mr. Irving and Mr. Jefferson are masters of the art of acting, and no one admires them more than I do; but I should hardly select either of them as monitors for a university commencement, any more than they would select me as a director of the stage.

“Faithfully yours, “WILLIAM WINTER.”

* * * * *

One of Mr. Winter’s most cherished friends was George William. Curtis, and it is his ambition to add a George William Curtis Memorial Lyceum to the Staten Island Academy. He is sure to accomplish the work if he is spared another five years.

He is the last of his kind. Only by his bravery and his fidelity to his profession could he survive the natural loneliness of his environment.

There has been scarcely a great actor or actress or theatrical manager for the last forty years whom he has not known intimately and who has not been his dear friend. Among this number must be included Joseph Jefferson, Sir Henry Irving, Edwin Booth, Lester Wallack, John McCullagh, Lawrence Barrett, Barney Williams, W. J. Florence, William Weaver, John Gilbert, Adelaide Neilson, Ellen Terry, Charlotte Cushman, and Augustin Daly. One can readily come in touch with the tender vibrations and longings of his heart by reading the following poem in memory of his friend Augustin Daly, which is here reprinted by the kind permission of the Macmillan Co.:

A. D.

Died June 7, 1899.

Long he slumbers; will he waken, greeting, as he used to do,
With his kindly, playful smile, his old companions, me and you?

Long he slumbers--though the wind of morning sweetly blows to sea,
Though his barque has weighed her anchor, and the tide is flowing free.

Long he slumbers; why, so helpless, doth he falter on the shore?
Wherefore stays he in the silence, he that never stayed before?

“Do not wake me!” Oh, the pity! How shall we poor toilers strive
If his strong and steadfast spirit keep not our frail hope alive?

All his days were given to action, all his powers of mind and will:
Now the restless heart is silent, and the busy brain is still.

Gone the fine ideal fancies, glorious, like the summer dawn!
Ev’ry passionate throb of purpose, ev’ry dream of grandeur gone!

Courage, patience, deep devotion, long endurance, manly trust,
Zeal for truth and love for beauty--gone, and buried in the dust!

Ah, what pictures rise in mem’ry and what strains of music flow,
When we think of all the magic times and scenes of Long Ago!

When once more we hear, in Arden, rustling trees and rippling streams;
When on fair Olivia’s palace faint and pale the moonlight beams;

When the storm-clouds break and scatter, and o’er beach, and crag,
and wave,
Angels float, and heavenly voices haunt the gloom of Prosp’ro’s cave!

Well he wrought--and we remember! Faded rainbow! fallen leaf!
All fair things are but as shadows, and all glory ends in grief.

Worn and weary with the struggle, broken with the weight of care,
Low he lies, and all his pageants vanish in the empty air.

Nevermore can such things lure us, nevermore be quite the same;
Other hands may grasp the laurel, other brows be twined with fame.

Far, and less’ning in the distance, dies the music of the Past;
In our ears a note discordant vibrates like an angry blast;

On our eyes the Future rushes, blatant, acrid, fraught with strife,
Arrogant with tinselled youth and rank with flux of sensual life.

Naught avails to stem the tumult--vulgar aims and commonplace,
Greed and vice and dross and folly, frenzied in the frantic race.

Naught avails, and we that linger, sick at heart and old and grim,
Can but pray to leave this rabble, loving Art and following him.

Very lonely seems the pathway; long we journeyed side by side;
Much with kindred hope were solaced, much with kindred anguish tried;

Had our transient jars and murmurs, had our purpose to be blest,
In our brotherhood of travel, in our dreams of age and rest,--

Yonder, where the tinted hawthorns scarlet poppyfields enfold,
And the prodigal laburnum blooms in clust’ring globes of gold.

Ended all--and all is shadow, where but late a glory shone,
And the wanderer, gray and fragile, walks the vacant scene, alone.

Only now the phantom faces that in waking dreams appear!
Only now the aerial voices that the heart alone can hear!

Round and red the sun is sinking, lurid in his misty light;
Faintly sighs the wind of evening, coldly falls the brooding night.

Fare thee well--forever parted, speeding onward in the day
Where, through God’s supernal mercy, human frailties drop away!

Fare thee well; while o’er thy ashes softly tolls the funeral knell--
Peace, and love, and tender memory! so, forever, fare thee well!
WILLIAM WINTER.

Sir Henry Irving’s advancement to the order of knighthood aroused great interest among theatrical people throughout the world. An honor has been conferred upon dramatic art, and it has fallen on the one person in the English-speaking world most fitted to bear it as the representative of all that is best in dramatic art.

Honors of this kind have been bestowed with much freedom on painters, writers, and musicians, but never before accorded to an actor. This instance, therefore, involves an unusual recognition of the acted drama as the peer of its kindred arts.

No actor is held in higher esteem by his fellow-actors than Sir Henry Irving. His high abilities are not more admired on the stage than his personal qualities in private life. The congratulations he has received on this advancement are more general and more sincere than could have been bestowed on any other living actor. For the above reason, Sir Henry Irving is offered fabulous sums if he will lecture or give readings. I offered him $10,000 if he would give ten readings before college societies.

It was my privilege to introduce Henry Irving to Mr. Beecher during the season of the latter’s first visit to this country. I accompanied him and Miss Terry to Plymouth Church; we all sat in Mr. Beecher’s pew with Mrs. Beecher. Two more attentive listeners Mr. Beecher never had. Irving had heard Mr. Beecher lecture once--that memorable lecture in Manchester, England, in 1863, when he stood before that great English mob four hours before they would allow him to be heard. Mr. Irving had told me of having been one of the standees on that occasion, and was so intensely interested that he hadn’t time to be tired.

Mr. Irving listened without moving even a muscle of his face during the sermon.

Of course, no two auditors would have attracted the attention of that great congregation more intensely at that time. After the benediction, everybody seemed fixed in their places with eyes centred on Irving and Terry. Mr. Beecher stepped down from the pulpit and made his way to the pastor’s pew. As he approached Mr. Irving he said in a loud voice that all could hear, “Will the congregation please move out?” He then extended his hand to Mr. Irving, saying to me, “Mr. Pond, please walk with Mr. Irving to my house.” He then shook hands with Miss Terry, who at that time held Mrs. Beecher in her embrace. As the crowd passed out, Mr. Irving and I walked ahead of Mr. Beecher, who had Miss Terry on his left arm and Mrs. Beecher on his right. As we entered Mr. Beecher’s drawing-room, Mr. Irving and Mr. Beecher engaged in topical conversation on the sofa, and Mrs. Beecher sat down in a rocking-chair, and Miss Terry, taking an ottoman, placed it at Mrs. Beecher’s feet and threw herself upon it, with both hands clasping Mrs. Beecher, and her head in Mrs. Beecher’s lap. She was not aware of the capture she had made, to the surprise of all the Beecher family; for of all women that Mrs. Beecher had always shunned and despised, actresses she most abhorred, and Miss Terry was the first one to whom she had even spoken to her knowledge. This was the beginning of a friendship that was more like that of mother and daughter than mere friends, and continued until the end of Mrs. Beecher’s life.

At dinner was such a Sunday scene as was often the custom, one which could occur nowhere else except in the Beecher family. There were present Col. H. B. Beecher, Henry Ward’s eldest son, and his wife; Colonel Beecher’s daughter Kate (the late Mrs. Harper); and Mr. William C. Beecher, the second son, all endowed with Beecher brains. The hour was a display of intellect and wit. I never saw Mr. Irving so delightfully entertaining as on this occasion, and he and Miss Terry told me it was the most interesting and delightful day of their lives.

When Mr. Beecher died, I received a cablegram from Henry Irving, asking me to place a wreath on the casket, with the card, “Adieu, noble friend!--Henry Irving.”

Mr. Irving came into my office one morning in November, 1887, while he and his company were playing at Wallack’s Theatre. He asked if I were busy. Of course I was at his service then and there. He said:

“I see by the papers that a fund is being raised for a statue to Mr. Beecher, in Brooklyn. Can you tell me if the plans are formulated, and if Miss Terry and I can be of assistance? I think my company would gladly contribute their services for an extra matinée of ‘Faust’ for that object.”

I assured Mr. Irving that it would be highly appreciated. I went with him to the theatre, where a rehearsal was on. Mr. Irving asked the attention of the company for a moment. He told them that he and Miss Terry would like to invite them all to join in an extra performance of “Faust,” the entire proceeds to be given to the Henry Ward Beecher Statue Fund. The suggestion met with a very hearty and unanimous approval. The matinée was given, and $3,100 was sent to Ripley Ropes, treasurer of the fund, which was duly acknowledged.

Miss Charlotte Cushman was on the stage forty years. The last twenty-five of these years she was the greatest actress of her time. She died in the Parker House, Boston, February, 1876. I started for Kings Chapel, from where she was buried, at 8:30, and found the little church and neighboring thoroughfares thronged with the sorrowing multitude waiting with the hope of getting just one view of the casket which contained the remains of their departed friend.

Miss Cushman’s memory is still green. Her cottage at Newport and her grave at Mount Auburn are among the first objects inquired for by visitors to these places.

The last few years of her public life were devoted to public reading. In that department she was without a rival,--Fanny Kemble having retired to private life,--and in simplicity, personal magnetism, humor, and stalwart force of execution her readings have never been equalled. In the autumn of 1874 she gave six readings in Chicago for Messrs. Carpenter & Sheldon, managers of the Star Course, for which they paid her $5,000. The readings took place in McCormick’s Hall, on the north side of the city. The gross receipts for those six readings aggregated upward of $17,000.

In 1857 a tramping jour printer had come from Kansas seeking employment on the daily papers in St. Louis. It was the year of the great financial panic. There were so many printers out of work that those having steady employment yielded half of their time to “subs.”

At the house where I boarded I sat next to the prompter of the People’s Theatre, an old man, the most popular prompter ever known to the profession, Jimmie Anderson. I took to the old fellow, and he was very nice to me. One evening he invited me to the theatre, on the stage, where I stood beside him and saw Neafie in the “Corsican Brothers.” I walked home with him after the theatre. Before retiring that night he told me that the office of call-boy in the theatre was vacant, and I might have it--seven dollars a week. I began the following Monday. Charlotte Cushman opened that night with Lady Macbeth. It was the first time I ever saw her.

During the play Miss Cushman came to Mr. Anderson somewhat excited, saying, “Jimmie”--they all called him Jimmie--“the boy who carried my basket to-night loitered by the way. That basket contains most of my jewels. I must have somebody that I can rely upon who will walk faithfully by my side.”

Anxious to earn an extra dollar, I hunched old Jimmie, and he turned around and spoke very savagely to me:

“Will you do it?”

“Yes,” said I.

So that night I walked home with Charlotte Cushman, the great actress, carrying her basket to her room in the Planters’ House.

I did this until Saturday, when I was taken ill and obliged to send a substitute, who brought the basket on Saturday night.

After the play, when the lights were turned off with the exception of the star’s dressing-room, I was curled up on the stage among a lot of scenery. I heard Miss Cushman, coming out of her room, say:

“Where is that boy who carried my basket?”

I replied, “Here.”

She walked across the stage, piloted by the night watchman with his lantern, and reaching out her hand to me said:

“I hope you are not going to be ill,” and placed a coin in my hands.

I hurried to get to where there was sufficient light, to discover that I was the owner of a twenty-dollar gold piece.

That night I changed my lodging.

I did not meet Miss Cushman personally after that until 1874-5. I was giving Sunday-night entertainments in Boston, which were meeting with very great success. I thought of Charlotte Cushman, and telegraphed her at Newport, offering her $1,000 if she would give a reading in the Boston. She accepted.

The night of the reading I was so busy that I did not have an opportunity to place in Miss Cushman’s hands the envelope containing the certified check for $1,000. It was not until after the performance that I went to her hotel and sent up my card. The bell-boy returned with the answer, “Miss Cushman says show the gentleman up.”

Miss Cushman met me very cordially in her room. She was in a very happy mood, as the hall had been crowded with people.

“Miss Cushman,” I said, “I intended to hand this envelope to you on the platform, but I was so busy in front of the house that I could not get an opportunity. Please pardon me.”

“Oh, that is all right, Major Pond. Sit down and have some supper.” (Stars always have supper after their performances.)

During the conversation at the table I said: “Miss Cushman, that $1,000 check of this evening is the interest on twenty dollars that you invested in me in 1857.”

Then I related the incident of the twenty-dollar gold piece which she gave me when I was sick back of the stage in St. Louis.

“Are you that boy?” she asked, with a reminiscent smile.

“Yes,” said I, smiling back, “the very boy.”

“Well, I am glad to see you. I have often wondered if you survived.”

We were both glad.

Miss Ellen Terry, the greatest actress of our times, possesses a remarkable range of powers from low comedy to the highest tragic force, but always suggesting a lovely spirit behind the mask. At one moment she can be a queen of tragedy, at another a boisterous hoyden, at another a gentle, refined, high-bred lady. Her mirth is perfect gladness.

In private or social life, no matter how select or distinguished the surroundings or attractive the company, she eclipses every lady present, and is always the centre of attraction.

No better estimate of the genius of Miss Terry can be given than Mr. William Winter’s description of her in the character of Rosamund, in Tennyson’s “Becket,” which I quote, by permission of the Macmillan Co., from “Shadows of the Stage”:

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“Tennyson’s Rosamund is one of the loveliest creations in English literature. No character could be imagined in more complete unison with the nature and attributes disclosed in the acting of Ellen Terry. She embodied it in a fluent and delicious vein of spontaneity. In that part, as in Goethe’s Margaret, she conquered by simply allowing a rich individuality to show itself through careless glee, confiding abandonment, and a sweet bewilderment of tremulous apprehension, and once through the proud self-assertion of elemental nobility. That seems not difficult in the saying, but, obviously, it must be difficult to do; for whenever, in acting, the effect of nature is most absolute, there the means of art have been applied with the most of glamour, and concealed with the best of disguise. Throughout her performance there was no effort. All was grace. In the fugitive scene with Becket, and in the affectionate prattle--half raillery, half fondness--in the bower scene with Henry, the conditions are so simple that the effect might have become insipid but for her sumptuous personality, her profound sincerity, the plenitude of her enticing and piquant ways, the sunshine of her face, and the music of her delicious voice. During those scenes her preservation of girlish sprightliness never lapsed--till, with the final exclamation, ‘Some dreadful truth is breaking on me,’ she struck the chord of tenderest pathos, and showed herself all woman. Beauty and tenderness, in forlorn apprehension, overshadowed, shaken, and made half wild with nameless dread, constitute a conflicting image of lovely grief, such as Ellen Terry, beyond all the players of our time, is best fitted to impress upon the heart.”

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I have frequently been offered $1,000 if I could secure Miss Terry for an afternoon’s reading in the drawing-rooms of wealthy people in New York, Philadelphia, and Boston.

LITERARY LECTURERS

Matthew Arnold came to this country and gave one hundred lectures. Nobody ever heard any of them, not even those sitting in the front row. At his first appearance in Chickering Hall every seat was sold at a high price. Chauncey M. Depew introduced the speaker. I was looking after the business in the front of the house. There was not a seat to be had excepting a few that were held by speculators on the sidewalk. As Mr. Depew and Matthew Arnold appeared before the audience, somebody told me that General and Mrs. Grant had just arrived and had seats in the gallery, but some other people were occupying them. I immediately got a policeman, and working through the standing crowd, found that they were the last two seats on the aisle in the gallery. We had no difficulty in getting the occupants to vacate as soon as they discovered who held the tickets. We had just heard the last few sentences of Mr. Depew’s introduction when Matthew Arnold stepped forward, opened out his manuscript, laid it on the desk, and his lips began to move. There was not the slightest sound audible from where I stood. After a few minutes General Grant said to Mrs. Grant, “Well, wife, we have paid to see the British lion; we cannot hear him roar, so we had better go home.” They left the hall. A few minutes later there was a stream of people leaving the place. All those standing went away very early. Later on, the others who could not endure the silence moved away as quietly as they could.

Matthew Arnold went to Boston, and some friends there urged him to take lessons in elocution, which he did. He engaged the well-known instructor, Mr. Marshall Wilder (not Marshall P. Wilder of vaudeville fame), but it only helped to make the performance appear more ridiculous than before.

Mr. Arnold had his manuscript copied in very large letters on flat cap paper and bound in portfolio style, which he mounted on an easel at his right. He would throw his eyes on the manuscript and then recite a sentence to the audience, turn his head for the next sentence and recite that in a loud, monotonous voice, and in that way to the end of the show.

Notwithstanding all his eccentricities, the best people of America paid $2 a ticket to see and hear the great poet and critic, and he returned to England with a very handsome sum of money, which he must have needed or he never would have allowed himself to be subjected to so ridiculous a spectacle as he made of his performance.

His own impressions of the success of the lecture are given in the following letter which he wrote to his daughter:

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“THE ST. BOTOLPH CLUB, 85 BOYLSTON STREET, “BOSTON, November 8, 1883.

“MY DEAREST FAN:

“Here is Thursday and my Sunday letter has not yet been written; but you have heard from Flu, and she will have given you some notion of what our life here is. I hope, however, to write once in every week to you. I wrote last from New York, before my first lecture. I was badly heard, and many people were much disappointed; but they remained to the end, were perfectly civil and attentive, and applauded me when I had done. It made me doubtful about going on with the lecturing, however, as I felt I could not maintain a louder pitch of voice than I did in Chickering Hall, where I lectured, and some of the American halls are much larger. There is a good deal to be learned as to the management of the voice, however, and I have set myself to learn it, though I am old to begin; the kindness of the people here makes everything easier, as they are determined to like one. The strength of the feeling about papa, here in New England, especially, would gratify you; and they have been diligent readers of my books for years. The number of people whom, somehow or other, I reach here is what surprises me. Imagine General Grant calling at the _Tribune_ office to thank them for their good report of the main points of my lecture, as he had thought the line taken so very important, but had heard imperfectly! Now I should not have suspected Grant of either knowing or caring anything whatever about me and my productions.

“Your ever affectionate “M. A.”

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John Boyle O’Reilly, the poet, editor of the Boston _Pilot_, the leading Roman Catholic newspaper of New England, and the first weekly devoted to Catholic and Irish interests ever published in this country, was at the time of his death the most popular lecturer of his time with Catholic societies. Boyle O’Reilly had passed an eventful life. Very early in his young manhood he became identified with the Fenian Brotherhood, under James Stevens, the Irish leader who came so nearly organizing a successful rebellion against British rule that it is a matter of record that at one time there was a Fenian Council organized in nearly every regiment in the British army that permitted Irish recruits, as well as in a large majority of all British ships of war. O’Reilly entered the Ninth Hussars in order to learn military life and skill. He became sergeant-major, the highest warrant position obtainable in the rank and file. He was so completely trusted that the Secret Service detective kept on duty in the regiment made him his confidant. The regiment was on duty at Dublin Castle when James Stevens was captured and brought there a prisoner. Besides the Ninth Hussars, there was also a Highland regiment in the garrison. Stevens escaped, aided by the Fenians under O’Reilly and his regimental associates. The young sergeant held high command in the brotherhood. A great commotion followed, and the Highlanders were put on guard with orders to hold every Irishman within the bounds. Before this was made public, O’Reilly attempted to leave, carrying the despatch bag often entrusted to him. He was stopped at the Castle gates, an act which was apologized for at the time. Before night fell it was known that a Fenian Council was in existence there. Its membership was almost defined, but its leader’s name still remained a secret. An order for summary execution of all was promulgated, martial law being in force, unless this name was given. Boyle O’Reilly, to save his associates from this fate, made the announcement himself. His action being treasonable, the penalty was death, and Sergeant O’Reilly was tried at once, found guilty, and condemned. This sentence was commuted to penal transportation for life, and the young soldier was sent to Western Australia, the last of British convict settlements. He remained five years before making his escape and reaching America in safety. The quality of manhood that Boyle O’Reilly possessed was displayed not only in the reckless courage and daring shown in the Fenian incidents, and in the patient, manly endurance exhibited in his years of prison servitude, but it reached a higher plane by far when he settled down to the life of a freeman and citizen in the metropolis of New England. With the maturity of his intellectual life intensified and deepened by the strange experiences through which he had passed, there came to him the conviction that conspiracy was personally demoralizing as well as futile as a policy. He felt that any genuine and sincere agitation could be best achieved in a free community by close adherence to the open ways that equal citizenship afforded. He never assumed, then, any other rôle than that of an American, while faithful always to the better interests of his own people. Boyle O’Reilly easily became one of the most popular men and scholars of Boston. He took an active part in all public affairs, social and political, and soon became as “to the manor born.” He was successful as a lecturer from the outset, for he had the genius of the poet, and the wit and warmth of an Irishman--qualities that, with a most attractive presence, made him popular always. But he cared more for his home, his newspaper, and his library than for the platform. Nevertheless, he was able to do a good deal of lecturing, where the distances would permit, without neglecting his other duties.

John Boyle O’Reilly, an Irishman and a Catholic, has been President of the Papyrus Club in Boston, a chair occupied by Webster, Lowell, Emerson, Whittier, and Oliver Wendell Holmes, and has a memorial niche in the new Public Library of Boston, where is to be found the finest collection of Irish literature in America. The accompanying picture he signed for me only a short time before his death.

Mr. Hamilton W. Mabie, associate editor of _The Outlook_, and author of several books that rank among the finer literature of our land, is one of our very best public speakers. He is one of the first called upon to deliver addresses on nearly all of the most important occasions, and his literary lectures are also in great demand.

If the mantle of Edward Everett has fallen upon any man of this generation, that man is Mr. Mabie. As an orator he is popular in the same sense that Mr Everett was. He possesses more humor than Everett. But in his self command, in his reserve force, in the purity of his language, in his quiet intensity and refinement of appearance on the platform, he belongs to the same school, and to-day heads it.

In dignity of bearing, in clearness of expression, in the finish of his sentences, in the charm of his manner, Mr. Mabie is a model for all public speakers.

Each season on the lecture platform has more firmly established his position as one of the foremost essayists, critics, and orators of this country. He has addressed and delighted the most cultivated audiences wherever he has appeared, and recalls have been numerous. His lectures have been received with special favor before colleges, literary clubs, and wherever substance and form of the very highest order are appreciated.

Ralph Waldo Emerson was a favorite of the lyceum for nearly forty years. He had finished his lecturing career when I took up the business, but his memory was very green to all lecture committees that thronged our office in Boston year after year, and many urgent applications were made for him to appear after he had retired to his home at Concord.

One morning Mrs. Mary A. Livermore came into our office in Boston, somewhat disturbed by the fact that the newspapers that morning had announced that the publishers of the Boston _Herald_ had obtained an option on the Old South Meeting House, and that it was to be torn down, as the society was going to build a new church on the Back Bay and were to sell the old structure. At that time the Redpath Lyceum Bureau was a sort of rendezvous for the leading men and women of letters. Very soon Mrs. Julia Ward Howe came in, accompanied by Father Neil, a patriarchal minister of the Baptist profession, whose great white beard hung down to the skirts of his garments. There was a general feeling of indignation expressed by every one present that this great pile was to be desecrated or demolished. Mr. Redpath came in late, and about the first word he uttered was:

“Do you see the Old South Church is to go? It is sold to the _Herald_ company.”

There was more indignation generally expressed, and Mr. Redpath went out to see the parties and to ascertain if the report was true. When he returned he reported that it was a fact that the parties had the option for sixty days, but were willing to release it if the citizens wished to preserve it. Then and there was an organization formed or talked of for the preservation of the church, and it was decided to get up an entertainment.

Before the day was over some ladies came in and announced to Mr. Redpath that they were going to make the attempt to preserve the old pile, and thought of giving an entertainment in the church as soon as possible in order to start a fund for its preservation. What could the Redpath Bureau furnish that would draw a crowd that would pay a good price? We thought it all over, and it was decided to try Mr. Emerson, as he had not lectured in Boston for a number of years.

It was my fortune to be sent to Concord, at Mr. Redpath’s suggestion, to see if Mr. Emerson would come in and give us a lecture. I went out and met the dear old man at the Manse House. He greeted me very cordially and gladly accepted the invitation to come in and lecture. The date was fixed; it was advertised in the newspapers; tickets were put out at from one to three dollars, and many of the Boston ladies sold them. The afternoon for the lecture came. The Old South was filled with as choice an audience of the blue blood of Boston as has ever assembled in that old chapel. Mr. Emerson came in and was introduced by Father Neil. As he began reading his lecture the audience was very attentive. After a few moments he lost his place, and his grand-daughter, sitting in the front row of seats, gently stepped toward him and reminded him that he was lecturing. He saw at once that he was wandering, and with the most charming, characteristic, apologetic bow he resumed his place--an incident that seemed to affect the audience more than anything that could possibly have occurred. A few moments later he took a piece of manuscript in his hand, and turning around with it, laid it on a side table.

Just then one of the audience said to me (I think it was Mrs. Livermore or Mrs. Howe), “Please have the audience pass right out,” and rushing up to Mr. Emerson, said, “Thank you so much for that delightful lecture,” then turning around, waved the audience to go out.

He probably had been speaking about fifteen minutes. The audience passed out, many of them in tears. It was one of the most pathetic sights that I ever witnessed. It did not attract very much attention just then, and I never read any account of it in the newspapers. I suppose it was out of love and veneration for the dear man that the incident did not receive public mention, but there must be a great many still alive who were witnesses of that memorable scene. It was Ralph Waldo Emerson’s last public appearance.