Chapter XI: Part 11

Somehow there is, I suppose—indeed must be—some subtle emanation from both character and experience. The propulsive power of the individuality takes something from the storage of the mind. Certainly some persons who have been down in deep waters of any kind convey to those who see or hear them something of the dominating note of their experience. Stanley had not only the traveller’s look—the explorer’s look; he seemed one whose goings had been under shadow. It may of course have been that the dark face and the still eyes and that irregular white of the hair which speaks of premature stress on vitality conveyed by inference their own lesson; but most assuredly Henry Stanley had a look of the forest gloom as marked as Dante’s contemporaries described of him: that of one who had traversed Heaven and Hell.

After a long time we broke up the set formation of the dinner table, and one by one in informal turn we each had a chat with the great explorer. He told us that he wanted some strong, brave, young men to go with him to Africa, and offered to accept any one whom I could recommend.

II

The next year, on September 14, we met again when Irving had a large dinner-party—sixty-four people—at the Continental Hotel. Of course in so large a party there was little opportunity of general conversation. All that any one—except a very favoured few who sat close at hand—could speak or hear was of the commonplace of life—parting and meeting.

I did not meet Stanley again for six years, but Irving met him several times, and at one of their meetings there was a little matter which gave me much pleasure:

When we had gone to America in 1883 I had found myself so absolutely ignorant of everything regarding that great country that I took some pains to post myself up in things exclusively and characteristically American. Our tour of 1883–4 was followed by another in 1884–5, so that in the space of more than a year which the two visits covered I had fine opportunities of study. In those days Professor James Bryce’s book on _The American Commonwealth_ had not been written—published at all events. And there was no standard source from which an absolutely ignorant stranger could draw information. I found some difficulty then in buying a copy of an Act of Congress so that I might study its form; and it was many months before I could get a copy of the Sessional Orders of Congress. However, before we left at the conclusion of our second visit I had accumulated a lot of books—histories, works on the constitution, statistics, census, school books, books of etiquette for a number of years back, Congressional reports on various subjects—all the means of reference and of more elaborate study. When I had studied sufficiently—having all through the tour consulted all sorts of persons— professors, statesmen, bankers, &c.—I wrote a lecture, which I gave at the Birkbeck Institute in 1885 and elsewhere. This I published as a pamphlet in 1886, as _A Glimpse of America_. Stanley had evidently got hold of it, for one night when we were in Manchester, June 4, 1890, I had supper alone with Irving and he told me that the last time he had met him, Stanley had mentioned my little book on America as admirable. He had said that I had mistaken my vocation—that I should be a literary man! Of course such praise from such a man gave me a great pleasure.

Strangely enough I had a ratification of this a year later. On March 30, 1891, I met at luncheon, in the house of the Duchess of St. Albans, Dr. Parke, who had been with Stanley on his journey _In Darkest Africa_; I had met him before at Edward Marston’s dinner, but we had not had much opportunity of talking together. He told me that it was one of the very few books that Stanley had brought with him in his perilous journey across Africa, and that he had told him that it “had in it more information about America than any other book that had ever been written.”

III

The dinner given to Stanley by Edward Marston, the publisher, on the eve of bringing out Stanley’s great book, _In Darkest Africa_—June 26, 1890— was a memorable affair. Marston had then published two books of mine, _Under the Sunset_, and the little book on America, and as “one of his authors” I was a guest at the dinner. Irving was asked, but he could not go as he was then out of town on a short holiday, previous to commencing an engagement of two weeks at the Grand Theatre, Islington, whilst the Lyceum was occupied by Mr. Augustin Daly’s company from New York. At the dinner I sat at an inside corner close to Sir Harry (then Mr.) Johnston, the explorer and administrator, and to Paul B. du Chaillu, the African explorer who had discovered gorillas. I had met both these gentlemen before; the first in London several times; the latter in New York, in December 1884, in the house of Mr. and Mrs. Tailer, who that night were entertaining Irving and Ellen Terry. There we had sat together at supper and he had told me much of his African experience and of his adventures with gorillas. I had of course read his books, but it was interesting to hear the stories under the magic of the adventurer’s own voice and in his characteristic semi-French intonation. In the course of conversation he had said to me something which I never have forgotten—it spoke volumes:

“When I was young nothing would keep me of out Africa. Now nothing would make me go there!”

In reply to the toast of his health, Stanley spoke well and said some very interesting things:

“In my book that is coming out I have said as little as possible about Emin Pasha. He was to me a study of character. I never met the same kind of character.” Again:

“I have not gone into details of the forest march and return to the sea. It was too dreary and too horrible. It will require years of time to be able to think of its picturesque side.”

At that time Stanley looked dreadfully worn, and much older than when I had seen him last. The six years had more than their tally of wear for him, and had multiplied themselves. He was darker of skin than ever; and this was emphasised by the whitening of his hair. He was then under fifty years of age, but he looked nearer to eighty than fifty. His face had become more set and drawn—had more of that look of slight distortion which comes with suffering and over-long anxiety.

There were times when he looked more like a dead man than a living one. Truly the wilderness had revenged upon him the exposal of its mysteries.

XLII
ARMINIUS VAMBÉRY

Amongst the interesting visitors to the Lyceum and the Beefsteak Room was Arminius Vambéry, Professor at the University of Buda-Pesth. On April 30, 1890, he came to see the play, _The Dead Heart_, and remained to supper. He was most interesting, and Irving was delighted with him. He had been to Central Asia, following after centuries the track of Marco Polo and was full of experiences fascinating to hear. I asked him if when in Thibet he never felt any fear. He answered:

“Fear of death—no; but I am afraid of torture. I protected myself against that, however!”

“How did you manage that?”

“I had always a poison pill fastened here, where the lappet of my coat now is. This I could always reach with my mouth in case my hands were tied. I knew they could not torture me; and then I did not care!”

He is a wonderful linguist, writes twelve languages, speaks freely sixteen, and knows over twenty. He told us once that when the Empress Eugénie remarked to him that it was odd that he who was lame should have walked so much, he replied:

“Ah, Madam, in Central Asia we travel not on the feet but on the tongue.”

We saw him again two years later, when he was being given a Degree at the Tercentenary of Dublin University. On the day on which the delegates from the various Universities of the world spoke, he shone out as a star. He soared above all the speakers, making one of the finest speeches I have ever heard. Be sure that he spoke loudly against Russian aggression—a subject to which he had largely devoted himself.

XLIII

Shortly after the publication of this book I received a letter from a gentleman, Mr. Charles Richard Ford, who had in early life been one of Irving’s companions at Thacker’s in Newgate Street. We met and a few days afterwards he sent me the following memorandum which he had written. I give it _in extenso_, as it bears on a period of his life but little known. This reminiscence of one who was a close friend and who had kept and valued for more than fifty years every little souvenir of their companionship—even to his visiting card—is to my mind a valuable enlightenment as to his life and nature in early days.

By Mr. Ford’s kind permission I am able to reproduce the photograph alluded to in the monograph.

AN EARLY REMINISCENCE OF SIR HENRY IRVING

BY MR. C. R. FORD

It seems evident that the numerous memoirs of the late Sir Henry
Irving that have appeared in the newspapers have been intended to
cover only that part of his life since he became famous: it may
therefore be interesting to the many friends who have known and
admired him during that period to hear something of his earlier years
in London while engaged in what he himself described as a “musty City
office.”

He began life at the early age of fifteen, and in 1853 was to be met
most days walking down Cheapside, tall, thin and striking-looking,
with that firm, long stride, since so well known, on his way to the
Bank to pay in the firm’s cash.

The thoroughness and carefulness so consistently displayed in all his
future life were eminently apparent in his short City career: he was
always punctual and regular in his attendance at 87 Newgate Street,
and the whole day saw him hard at work at the books committed to his
keeping. These ledgers were put away among other disused books and
remained unthought of for years; some time after he became famous they
were sought for but have never been found.

One of his memoirs speaks of his giving “us boys a halfpenny for
mis-pronouncing words.” The fact, of which this is a perversion,
really showed his keenness in helping others. The staff at Messrs.
Thacker’s was a mixed one and contained in addition to well-educated
gentlemen some who had never grasped the true pronunciation of their
own language. To help the latter, the following paper was drawn up by
Irving (it is still in existence in his handwriting) and signed by
most of the clerks:

LIST OF FINES

_Fine_ for not aspirating h’s, whether in the beginning or in the
middle of words such as house and behaviour.

Exceptions: Honour, heir, honest, herb, hour, hostler, and their
derivatives.

_Fine_ for misplacing the h such as hart for art.

_Fine_ for not giving the pure sound to the u as dooty for duty, toone
for tune and the like.

Exception: blue.

_Fine_ for omitting the g at the end of words, as shillin for
shilling.

_Fine_ for saying jist for jest, jest for just, instid for instead and
such like cockneyisms.

_Fine_ for using the singular number instead of the plural and all
ungrammatical expressions.

We, the undersigned, agree to pay the fine of one halfpenny for each breach of the foregoing rules and to appoint Mr. J. H. Brodribb as treasurer.

(Signed) JOHN HENRY BRODRIBB,
(and five others).

_March 20th, 1856._

Only two of the other five are known to be living.

While thus most conscientiously discharging his office duties and seeking to improve others, he was hard at work after business hours in self-improvement and in fitting himself for his future career on the stage. He was a frequent attendant at the Old Sadler’s Wells Theatre and often stood for more than an hour at the door in order to secure one particular corner seat in the pit, where he could watch every emotion in the face of Phelps, especially in his Shakespearean parts. His other method was to practise himself in the art of elocution by inviting his relatives and friends to some large rooms placed at his disposal by his father and mother and entertain them by reading a play through, or with a selection of recitations. His favourite play for such occasions was the _Lady of Lyons_, although he more than once read through (somewhat “cut”) one of Shakespeare’s dramas. His two recitations most impressed on the mind after fifty years were _Eugene Aram_ and _Skying the Copper_, evidencing as they undoubtedly did both his remarkable tragic and comic powers. As showing his thoroughness even then in small matters, his “make up” for the servant girl in the latter piece has never been forgotten by one who helped him to rouge his bare arms to the proper red tint for a “slavey’s.”

The efforts he afterwards so constantly made to place the stage in what he considered its proper position in the country and its education—as witness his last speech in favour of a Municipal theatre—were really begun when still in his “teens.” A young friend had promised to open a discussion on his suggestion at a literary debating society on the question of the moral effect of theatrical representations and sought his aid in forming his arguments in their favour. He at once took a great deal of trouble, giving him many authorities and writing out long quotations in favour of the educational value of the stage when properly conducted; in fact, composing a good half of the paper subsequently read.

In 1856 he could no longer endure the privation of being kept away from the profession for which his inner consciousness told him he was fitted. As an illustration of the errors of judgment clever men may make, his old employer went to see him at Manchester some time after he left Newgate Street, and wrote to his son:

“We went to see Brodribb and did not think much of him; he would have done much better to keep to his stool in Newgate Street.”

This use of his old name brings to remembrance the fact that the name he made famous was not the first he thought of adopting: indeed he had cards printed with an entirely different one, J. Hy. Barringtone. The decision for “Irving” was a sudden one and was made known to a friend in a short note saying, “I have decided that the name shall be Irving”; but for some years after this he continued to sign his notes “J. H. B.” to his family and friends.

Nothing he enjoyed more than studying human nature in its various phases of excitement. He was found one day on the hustings of a contested election and much enjoyed pointing out how the passions of those in front of his view-point were delineated in their actions and faces. At another time he happened to be present at a provincial cricket dinner, which ended in a fiasco, and it is not easy to forget how eagerly he watched the physiognomies of those who unhappily contended around him. It was on this occasion, after he had previously electrified the company with one of his powerful recitations (he was still a City clerk), that upon being asked to give a toast, he gave one typical of his own feelings on such occasions, “The Pleasure of Pleasing.”

The time came when he left the City—July 1856—and entered upon his new and loved profession. He was most careful in the selection of articles that would be useful to him in his future career, and the wonderful forethought and adaptation which were afterwards so successful at the Lyceum were foreshadowed in the purchases for his first small wardrobe.

Although he did not look back with much pleasure to his days in the City, he always welcomed most heartily and kindly any of his former companions who called on him at the Lyceum, and in one instance gave employment to one needing it.

One object of these reminiscences is to show his numerous friends that as a youth he developed the same kindly, thoughtful and clever characteristics which they recognised and admired in his later life.

The very early portrait of him in the possession of the writer gives clear evidence to those who knew his father in the early fifties, how closely he inherited his remarkable physiognomy, while much of his mental power was undoubtedly derived from the mother who doted on him—of whom she always spoke as “My Boy.”

One later reminiscence may be added. He was met on June 21, 1887, walking up and down opposite the Horse Guards, studying the holiday crowd and waiting for the return of the Queen’s Jubilee procession. As his salutation, his friend asked him “How is it you are not in the Abbey?” The reply was, “Oh, they have given me a seat, but I don’t think I shall go in.” The service was then about half over, but his well-known face appears in the plate published to commemorate the Jubilee, in the place assigned to him. This is only one out of many illustrations that might be given of his delight in quiet enjoyment, rather than in any desire for public notoriety. We know that the laurel pall used over his coffin in Westminster Abbey covered the ashes not only of a “dominating personality” but also of a true gentleman.

C. R. F.

XLIV
IRVING’S PHILOSOPHY OF HIS ART

I

Irving and I were alone together one hot afternoon in August 1889, crossing in the steamer from Southsea to the Isle of Wight, and were talking of that phase of Stage Art which deals with the conception and development of character. In the course of our conversation, whilst he was explaining to me the absolute necessity of an actor’s understanding the prime qualities of a character in order that he may make it throughout consistent, he said these words:

“_If you do not pass a character through your own mind it can never be
sincere!_”

I was much struck with the phrase, coming as it did as the crown of an argument—the explanation of a great artist’s method of working out a conceived idea. To me it was the embodiment of an artistic philosophy. Even in the midst of an interesting conversation, during which we touched upon many subjects of inner mental working, the phrase presented itself as one of endless possibilities, and hung as such in my mind. Lest I should forget the exact words I wrote them then and there in my pocket-book. I entered them later in my diary.

I think that if I had interrupted the conversation at the above words and asked my friend to expound his philosophy and elaborate it, he would have been for an instant amused, and on the impulse of the moment would have deprecated the use of such an important word. Men untrained to mental science and unfamiliar with its terminology are apt to place too much importance on abstract, wide-embracing terms, and to find the natural flow of their true thought interrupted by disconcerting fears. His amusement would have been only momentary, however. I know now, after familiar acquaintance with his intellectual method for over a quarter of a century, that with his mental quickness—which was so marked as now and again to seem like inspiration—he would have grasped the importance of the theme as bearing upon the Art to which he had devoted himself and to his own part in it. He would have tried to explain matters as new and relevant subjects, causes or consequences, presented themselves. But such an exposition would have been—must have been—confused and incomplete. The process of a creative argument is a silent and lonely one, requiring investigation and guesses; the following up of clues in the labyrinth of thought till their utility or their falsity has been proved. The most that a striving mind can do at such a time is to keep sight of some main purpose or tendency—some perpetual recognition of its objective. If in addition the thinker has to keep eternally and consciously within his purview a lot of other subjects bearing on his main idea, each with its own attendant distractions and divergencies, his argument would to a listener seem but a jumble of undigested facts, deductions and imaginings. Moreover, it would leave in the mind of the latter a belief that the speaker is without any real conviction at all; a mere groper in the dark. If, on the other hand, the man in thinking out his problem tries to bear in mind his friend’s understanding—with an eye to his ultimate approval and acceptance of his argument and conclusion—he is apt to limit himself to commonplace and accepted truths. In such case his thought is machine-made, and lacks the penetrative force which has its origin in intellectual or psychic fire. A whole history of such thought cannot equal a single glimpse or hint of an earnest mind working truly.

As Irving on that pleasant voyage spoke the words which seemed to explain his whole intellectual method I grasped instinctively the importance of the utterance, though the argument did not then present itself in its entirety.

To me the words became a text of which the whole of his work seemed the expounding. From him, as an artist, the thought was elementary and basic; explanatory and illuminative.

II

To “pass a character through your mind” requires a scientific process of some kind; some process which is natural, and therefore consistent. If we try to analyse the process we shall find that it is in accord with any other alimentative process. Nature varies in details, but her intents and objects are fixed: to fit and sustain each to its appointed task. In the animal or vegetable kingdoms, so in the mind of man. The hemlock and the apple take the juices of the earth through different processes of filtration; the one to noxious ends, the other to beneficence. Hardness and density have their purpose in the mechanism of the vegetable world; the wood rejects what the softer and more open valves or tissues receive. So too in the world of animal life. The wasp and the viper, the cuttle-fish and the stinging ray work to different ends from the sheep and the sole, the pheasant and the turtle. But one and all draw alimentative substance from common sources. But he who would understand character must draw varying results from common causes. And the only engine powerful enough in varying purposes for this duty is the human brain. Again, the worker in imagination is the one who most requires different types and varying methods of development. And still again, of all workers in imagination, the actor has most need for understanding; for on him is imposed the task of re-creating to external and material form types of character written in abstractions. It behoves him, then, primarily to understand what exactly it is that he has to materialise. To this end two forms of understanding are necessary: first, that which the poet—the creator or maker of the play—sets down for him; second, the truth of the given individual to the type or types which he is supposed to represent. This latter implies a large knowledge of types; for how can any man judge of the truth of things when to him both the type and the instance are strange. Thus it happens that an actor should be a judge of character; an understander of those differences which discriminate between classes and individuals of the class. This is an actor’s study at the beginning of his work—when he is preparing to study his Art.

Let me say at the outset of this branch of my subject, that I am trying to put into words and the words into some sort of ordered sequence, that knowledge of his craft which in a long course of years Irving conveyed to me. Sometimes the conveyance was made consciously, sometimes unconsciously. By words, by inferences, by acting; by what he added to seemingly completed work, or by what he omitted after fuller thought or experience. One by one, or group by group, these things were interesting, though often of seeming unimportance; but taken altogether they go to make up a philosophy. In trying to formulate this I am not speaking for myself. I am but following so well as I can the manifested wisdom of the master of his craft. Here and there I shall be able to quote Irving’s exact words, spoken or written after mature thought and with manifest and deliberate purpose. For the rest, I can only illustrate by his acting, or at worst by the record of the impression conveyed to my own mind.

III

We may, I think, divide the subject thus:

CHARACTER _A._—ITS ESSENCE {_x._—_The Dramatist’s setting out of it_ {_y._—_Its truth to accepted type_ {_z._—_The Player’s method of studying these two_ _B._—RETICENCE _C._—ART AND TRUTH

THE PLAY STAGE PERSPECTIVE DUAL CONSCIOUSNESS INDIVIDUALITY, AND THE KNOWLEDGE OF IT

IV
CHARACTER

_A._—ITS ESSENCE

We think in abstractions, but we live in concretions. In real life an individual who is not in any way distinguishable from his fellows is but a poor creature after all and is not held of much account by anybody. That law of nature which makes the leaves of a tree or the units of any genus, any species, any variety all different—which in the animal or the vegetable world alike makes each unit or class distinguishable whilst adhering to the type—is of paramount importance to man. Tennyson has hammered all this out and to a wonderful conclusion in those splendid stanzas of _In Memoriam_ LIV to LVI beginning “Oh yet we trust that somehow good” to “Behind the veil, behind the veil.” Let it be sufficient for us to know and accept that there can be endless individual idiosyncrasies without violation of type. To understand these is the study of character. The _differentia_ of each individual is an endless and absorbing study, not given to all to master. Some at least of this mastery is a necessary part of the equipment of an actor. Now there is a common saying that “the eyebrow is the actor’s feature.” This is largely true; but there is a double purpose in its truth. In the first place the eyebrow is movable at will; a certain amount of exercise can give mobility and control. It can therefore heighten expression to a very marked degree. But in addition it, when in a marked degree, is the accompaniment of large frontal sinuses—those bony ridges above the eyebrows which in the terminology of physiognomy imply the power to distinguish minute differences, and so are credited with knowledge of “character”—the difference between one and another; divergences within a common type. With this natural equipment and the study which inevitably follows—for powers are not given to men in vain—the actor can by experience know types, and endless variants and combinations of the same. So can any man who has the quality. But the actor alone has to work out the ideas given to him by this study in recognisable material types and differentiated individual instances of the same type.

_x_

The dramatist having, whether by instinct or reason, selected his type has in the play to give him situations which can allow opportunity for the expression of his qualities; words in which he can expound the thoughts material to him in the given situations; and such hints as to personal appearance, voice and bearing as can assist the imagination of a reader. All these things must be consistent; there must be nothing which would show to the student falsity to common knowledge. “Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?” has a large application in art, and specially in stage art. It is the ignorance or neglect of this eternal law which is to my mind the weakness of some writers. Instance Ibsen who having shown in some character an essential quality through one or two acts makes the after action of the character quite at variance with it. A similar fault weakens certain of the fine work of “Ian Maclaren” when he proceeds to explain away in a later story some perfectly consistent and understandable quality of mind or action in one of his powerful and charming character stories. No after-explanation can supersede the conviction of innate character.

_y_

Now a dramatist is at perfect liberty to choose any type he likes and to deal with his individual creations just as he chooses. There is no law against it; however ridiculous it may be, it makes no breach of any code in accepted morals. But he should at least be true to itself. It is by such qualities that posterity as well as the juries of the living judge. The track of literary progress is littered with wreckage from breaches of this truth.

Of this we may be sure: if a character have in itself opposing qualities which cannot be reconciled, then it can never have that unity which makes for strength. Therefore the actor who has to represent the abstract idea as a concrete reality must at the beginning understand the dramatist’s intention. He can by emphasis of one kind or another help to convey the dominant idea. There is an exact instance of this from Irving’s own work; one which at the same time illustrates how an actor, howsoever thoughtful and experienced he may be, can learn: For a good many years he had played Shylock to universal praise; then, all at once, he altered it. Altered it in the manner of utterances of the first words he speaks: “Three thousand ducats,—well.” He explained it to me when having noticed the change I asked him about it. He said that it was due to the criticism of a _blind_ man—I think it was the Chaplain of the American Senate, Dr. Milburn.

“What did he say?” I asked. He answered with a thoughtful smile:

“He said: ‘I thought at first that you were too amiable. I seemed to miss the harsh note of the usurer’s voice!’ He was quite right! The audience should from the first understand, if one can convey it, the dominant note of a character!”

This was distinctly in accordance with his own theory; and he always remembered gratefully the man who so enlightened him. The incident illustrates one phase of “passing a character through one’s own mind.” When it has gone through this process it takes a place as an actual thing—a sort of clothing of the player’s own identity with the attributes of another. This new-seeming identity must have at first its own limitations; the clothing does not fit—somewhere too tight, elsewhere too loose. But at last things become easier. The individuality within, being of plastic nature, adapts itself by degrees to its surroundings. And then for purposes of external expression the mastery is complete.

Experience adds much to this power of mastery. When an actor has played many parts he learns to express the dominant ideas of various characters in simple form, so that each, through a sort of artistic metonymy, becomes a type. In fact, as he goes on studying fresh characters he gets a greater easiness of expression; he is not creating every time, but is largely combining things already created. This is true Art. The etymology of the word shows that its purpose is rather to join than to create. Were it not that each mind must create the units which have to be joined, histrionic art would not be primarily a creative art.

In Irving’s own words:

“It is often supposed that great actors trust to the inspiration of
the moment. Nothing can be more erroneous. There will, of course, be
such moments when an actor at a white heat illumines some passages
with a flood of imagination (and this mental condition, by the way, is
impossible to the student sitting in his arm-chair); but the great
actor’s surprises are generally well weighed, studied, and
balanced.... And it is this accumulation of such effects which enables
an actor, after many years, to present many great characters with
remarkable completeness.”

And again when he insists upon the _intention_ of effect:

“It is necessary that the actor should learn to think before he
speaks.... Let him remember, first that every sentence expresses a new
thought, and, therefore, frequently demands a change of intonation;
secondly, that the thought precedes the word. Of course, there are
passages in which thought and language are borne along by the streams
of emotion and completely intermingled. But more often it will be
found that the most natural, the most seemingly accidental effects are
obtained when the working of the mind is seen before the tongue gives
it words.”

I well remember at one of our meetings in 1876 when after dinner we had some “recitations,” according to the custom of that time, Irving was very complimentary to my own work because I anticipated words by expression, particularly by the movement of my eyes.

_z_

So far, the study of natural types and the acceptance of the dramatist’s ideas. But next the actor has to learn how to show best the development of character. It is not to the purpose of a high-grade play that each character can be at the start as though labelled thus or thus. As the story unfolds itself the new situations bring into view qualities hitherto unknown; there has been heretofore no necessity for knowing them. Here it is that the dramatist must not make contradictions. He may show opposing qualities—such make the struggles of life and passions which it is the duty of the drama to portray; but the opposing forces, though they may clash, must not deny each other’s very existence. Honour and baseness do not synchronously coexist; neither do patriotism and treachery; nor truth and falshood; nor cruelty and compassion. If it be necessary in the struggles of good and bad—any of the common phases of human nature—in the same individual to show that now and again either dominates for a time, the circumstances must be so arranged as to show preponderating cause. If the dramatist keeps up to this standard all can go well. But if his work be crude and not in itself illuminative, the actor’s work becomes more complex and more difficult. He has in the manifold ways of his own craft to show from the first the _possibilities_ of character which later on will have to be dealt with. He will have to suggest the faintest _beginnings_ of things which later are to be of perhaps paramount importance.

This it is that Irving meant when he said that a character should be “sincere.” It must not be self-contradictory. He put this point very definitely:

“... the actor must before all things form a definite conception of
what he wishes to convey. It is better to be wrong and consistent,
than to be right, yet hesitating and uncertain.”

And thus it is that the actor’s skill can so largely supplement that of the dramatist. He must add whatever the other has omitted or left undone. He must make straight the path which is in common to himself, the dramatist, and the public. He must prepare by subtle means—not too obtrusive to be distracting to the present purpose, nor too slight to pass altogether unnoticed—the coming of something as yet below the horizon. If this be done with care—and care implies both study and premeditation—the sincerity of the character will from first to last be unimpaired.

_B._—RETICENCE

On the other side of this phase of the Art of Acting is that fine undefinable quality of all art which is known as “reticence.” Restraint is almost as rare as passion. The “reticence” of the actor is perhaps its most difficult phase. For he has to express that which has in the others to be concealed; and if his expression be too marked, not only does the restraint cease to exist, but a wrong idea—that of concealment— is conveyed.

_C._—ART AND TRUTH

All these things are parts of an integral whole; they all go to the formation of an Art. Art is in itself only a part of the mechanism of truth. It is from the inner spirit that the outward seeming must derive. Rules and laws are but aids, restraints, methods of achievement; but it is after all to nature that the artist must look. In the words of Pope:

“These laws of old discover’d, not deviz’d,
Are nature still but nature methodiz’d.”

Irving put the idea thus:

“... merely to imitate is not to apply a similar method ... the
greatest of all the lessons that Art can teach is this: that truth is
supreme and eternal. No phase of art can achieve much on a false
basis. Sincerity, which is the very touchstone of Art, is
instinctively recognised by all.”

V
THE PLAY

The play as a whole is a matter of prime consideration for the actor, though it only comes into his province _quâ_ actor in a secondary way. In the working of a theatre it is the province of the stage manager to arrange the play as an entity; the actor has to deal with it only with reference to his own scenes. But the actor must understand the whole scheme so as to realise the ultimate purpose; otherwise his limitations may become hindrances to this. Irving, who was manager as well as actor, puts the matter plainly from the more comprehensive point of view:

“It is most important that an actor should learn that he is a figure
in a picture, and that the least exaggeration destroys the harmony of
the composition. All the members of the company should work toward a
common end, with the nicest subordination of their individuality to
the general purpose.”

Here we have again the lesson of restraint—of reticence. There are also various other forms of the same need, to which he has at various times alluded. For instance, speaking of the presentation of a play he said:

“You want, above all things, to have a truthful picture which shall
appeal to the eye without distracting the imagination from the purpose
of the drama.”

In fact Irving took the broadest possible views of the aims and possibilities of his chosen art, and of the duties as well as of the methods of those who follow it. He even put it that the State had its duty with regard to the art of illusion:

“The mere study of the necessities and resources of theatre art—the
art of illusion—should give the theatre as an educational medium a
place in State economy. Just think for a moment: a comprehensive art
effort which consolidates into one entity which has an end and object
and purpose of its own, all the elements of which any or all of the
arts and industries take cognisance—thought, speech, passion, humour,
pathos, emotion, distance, substance, form, size, colour, time, force,
light, illusion to each or all of the senses, sound, tone, rhythm,
music, motion. Can such a work be undertaken lightly or with
inadequate preparation? Why, the mere patience necessary for the
production of a play might take a high place in the marvels of human
effort.”

VI
STAGE PERSPECTIVE

One of the things on which Irving always insisted was a knowledge and understanding of stage perspective, and of its application in the practice not only of the art of the stage in its scenic and illusive aspect but of the art of acting:

“The perspective of the stage is not that of real life, and the result
of seeming is achieved by means which, judged by themselves, would
seem to be indirect. It is only the raw recruit who tries to hit the
bull’s eye by point-blank firing and who does not allow for elevation
and windage.”

In pointing out the necessity of speaking more loudly on the stage than in a room, he puts the same idea in a different and perhaps a broader way:

“This exaggeration applies to everything on the stage. To appear to be
natural, you must in reality be much broader than natural. To act on
the stage as one really would in a room would be ineffective and
colourless.”

He never forgot—and never allowed any one else to forget—that the purpose of stage art is illusion. Its aim is not to present reality but its semblance; not to be, but to seem. He puts it thus:

“The function of art is to do and not to create—it is to make to seem,
and not to make to be, for to make to be is the Creator’s work.”

He had before said:

“It must never be forgotten that all art has the aim or object of
seeming and not of being, and to understate is as bad as to overstate
the modesty or the efflorescence of nature.”

Thus we get the higher aim: to seem to be—but always in such wise that nature shall be worthily represented. Nature

“At once the end and aim and test of art.”

So Pope. Irving put the value nature as against the mere pretence thus:

“To be natural on the stage is most difficult, and yet a grain of
nature is worth a bushel of artifice.... Nature may be overdone by
triviality in conditions that demand exaltation.... Like the practised
orator, the actor rises and descends with his sentiment, and cannot be
always in a fine frenzy.”

How true this is; how consistent with eternal truth! Nature has her moods, why not man; has her means of expressing them, why not man also? Nature has her tones; and with these why may not the heart of man vibrate and express itself?

In this connection and with the same illustration—the orator compared with the actor—Irving put a new phase of the same idea:

“It matters little whether the actor sheds tears or not, so long as he
can make his audience shed them; but if tears can be summoned at will
and subject to his control it is true art to utilise such a power, and
happy is the actor whose sensibility has at once such delicacy and
discipline. In this respect the actor is like the orator. Eloquence is
all the more moving when it is animated and directed by a fine and
subtle sympathy which affects the spectator though it does not master
him.”

VII
DUAL CONSCIOUSNESS

The last-mentioned utterance of Irving’s brings us at once to the deepest problem in the art of acting: the value and use of sensibility. Throughout his later life, from the time he first entered the polemics of his art, he held consistently to one theory. To him the main disputants were Diderot and Talma; any other was merely a supporter of the theory of either.

Diderot in his _Paradox of Acting_ held that for good acting there must be no real feeling on the part of the actor:

“Extreme sensibility makes middling actors; middling sensibility makes
the ruck of bad actors; in complete absence of sensibility is the
possibility of a sublime actor.”

Irving’s comment on this theory is:

“The exaltation of sensibility in Art may be difficult to define, but
it is none the less real to all who have felt its power.”

Talma[1] held quite the opposite view to that of Diderot. To him one of the first qualifications of an actor is sensibility, which indeed he considered the very source of imagination. To this quality, he held, there must be added intelligence:

Footnote 1:

When Irving began to consider this branch of the “true inwardness” of
his work he was so much struck with the argument of Talma that he had
it translated and inserted in _The Theatre_. This was easy of
accomplishment, for with regard to that magazine he had only to ask.

As a matter of fact _The Theatre_ at that time belonged to him. He had
long considered it advisable that there should be some organ in which
matters deeply concerning the stage could be set forth. He accordingly
arranged with the late Mr. F. W. Hawkins, then a sub-editor of the
_Times_, to take the work in hand. Hawkins had already by his work
shown his interest in the stage; Irving had a high opinion of his
“Life of Edmund Kean” and of his book on the French stage which he had
then well in hand. He trusted Hawkins entirely; gave him a free hand,
and never interfered with him in any possible way except to suggest
some useful article of a neutral kind. He would never even give a hint
of his own opinion regarding any one of his own profession, but kept
studiously out of the theatrical party-politics of the day. Hawkins
had his own views which he was perfectly well able to support; he
could take care of himself. Irving was content that the magazine
should exist, and footed the bills. Later on when the editorship was
vacant Irving made a present of the whole thing to Clement Scott who
said that he would like to see what he could do with it.

The Talma articles appeared in _The Theatre_ for the 30th January and
6th and 13th February 1877. This was before I came to Irving. It was
long afterwards when I read them.

In 1883 Walter Herries Pollock, then editor of the _Saturday Review_,
a great friend of Irving, produced an edition of the _Paradox of
Acting_ to which Irving wrote a preface. In this he set out his own
views in his comments on the work of Diderot.

“To form a great actor ... the union of sensibility and intelligence
is required.”

Irving used his knowledge of the controversy to this effect:

“I do not recommend actors to allow their feelings to carry them
away ...; but it is necessary to warn you against the theory,
expounded with brilliant ingenuity by Diderot, that the actor never
feels.... Has not the actor who can ... make his feelings a part of
his art an advantage over the actor who never feels, but makes his
observations solely from the feelings of others? _It is necessary to
this art that the mind should have, as it were, a double
consciousness, in which all the emotions proper to the occasion may
have full swing, while the actor is all the time on the alert for
every detail of his method...._ The actor who combines the electric
force of a strong personality with a mastery of the resources of his
art, must have a greater power over his audiences than the passionless
actor who gives a most artistic simulation of the emotions he never
experiences.”

The sentence printed in italics is a really valuable addition to the philosophy of acting. It is Irving’s own and is, as may be seen, a development or corollary of Talma’s conclusion. Talma required as a necessity of good acting both sensibility and intelligence. But Irving claimed that in the practice of the art they must exist and act synchronously. This belief he cherished, and on it he acted with excellent result. I have myself seen a hundred instances of its efficiency in the way of protective self-control; of conscious freedom of effort; of self-reliance; of confidence in giving the reins to passion within the set bounds of art.[2]

Footnote 2:

I have seen a good many times Irving illustrate and prove the theory
of the dual consciousness in and during his own acting; when he has
gone on with his work heedless of a fire on the stage and its
quelling: when a gas-tank underneath the stage exploded and actually
dispersed some of the boarding close to him, he all the time
proceeding without even a moment’s pause or a falter in his voice. One
other occasion was typical. During a performance of _The Lyons Mail_,
whilst Dubose surrounded by his gang was breaking open the iron
strong-box conveyed in the mail-cart the horses standing behind him
began to get restive and plunged about wildly, making a situation of
considerable danger. The other members of the murderous gang were
quickly off the stage, and the dead body of the postillion rolled away
to the wings. But Irving never even looked round. He went calmly on
with his work of counting the _billets de banque_, whilst he
interlarded the words of the play with admonitions to his comrades not
to be frightened but to come back and attend to their work of robbing.
Not for an instant did he cease to be Dubose though in addition he
became manager of the theatre.

In speaking of other branches of the subject Irving said:

“An actor must either think for himself or imitate some one else.”

And again:

“For the purely monkey arts of life there is no future—they stand only
in the crude glare of the present, and there is no softness for them,
in the twilight of either hope or memory. With the true artist the
internal force is the first requisite—the external appearance being
merely the medium through which this is made known to others.”

VIII
INDIVIDUALITY, AND THE KNOWLEDGE OF IT

If an actor has to learn of others—often primarily—through his own emotions, it is surely necessary that he learn first to know himself. He need not take himself as a standard of perfection—though poor human nature is apt to lean that way; but he can accept himself as something that he knows. If he cannot get that far he will never know anything. With himself then, and his self-knowledge as a foothold, he may begin to understand others.[3]

Footnote 3:

As an instance of the efficacy of the method, let any one try to tell
character by handwriting. It is very simple, after all. Let him take
the strange writing, and after making himself familiar with it,
measure it by himself, asking himself: “Under stress of what emotion
would my own writing most nearly resemble that?” Let him repeat this
with each sign of divergence from his own caligraphy: and in a short
time he will be astonished with the result. So it is with all studies
of character. Without any standard the task is impossible; but weigh
each against your own self-knowledge and you at once begin to acquire
comparative knowledge of simple qualities capable of being combined
endlessly.

Γνῶθι σεαυτὸν Know thyself! It is, after all, the base of all knowledge— the foothold for all forward thought. Commenting on the speech of Polonius: “To thine own self be true,” Irving said:

“But how can a man be true to himself if he does not know himself?
‘Know thyself’ was a wisdom of the Ancients. But how can a man know
himself if he mistrusts his own identity, and if he puts aside his
special gifts in order to render himself an imperfect similitude of
some one else?”

IX

Thus we have come back to Irving’s original proposition:

“If you do not pass a character through your own mind it can never be sincere.” The logical wheel has gone its full round and is back at the starting-place. Begin with the argument where you will it must come sooner or later to the same end: “To know others know yourself.” Your own identity is that which you must, for histrionic purposes, clothe with attributes not your own. You must have before your mind some definite image of what you would portray; and your own feeling must be ultimately its quickening force.

So far, the resolution of the poet’s thought into a moving, breathing, visible, tangible character. But that is not the completion of the endeavour. In the philosophy of histrionic art are rarer heights than mere embodiment, mere vitality, mere illusion. The stage is a world of its own, and has its own ambitions, its own duties. Truth either to natural types or to the arbitrary creations of the dramatist is not sufficient. For the altitudes something else is required. Irving set it forth thus:

“Finally in the consideration of the Art of Acting, it must never be
forgotten that its ultimate aim is beauty. Truth itself is only an
element of beauty, and to merely reproduce things vile and squalid and
mean is a debasement of art.”

Here he supports the theory of Taine that art, like nature, has its own selective power; and that in the wisdom of its choosing is its power for good. Does it not march with that sublime apothegm of Burke: “Vice itself lost half its evil by losing all its grossness”?

Finally Irving summed up the whole Philosophy of his Art and of its place amongst the sister Arts in a few sentences: