From Rail to River.—Once more on Board the “Maryland.”—Recollections of President Arthur.—At the White House.—Washington Society.—An Apt Shakespearian Quotation.—Distinguished People.—“Hamlet.”—A Council of War.—Making Out the Route of a New Tour.—A Week in New England Cities.—Brooklyn and Philadelphia Revisited.
We left Boston at about two o’clock in the morning of the 3d of March, and after breakfast, at half-past ten, some of us turn out to stretch our legs on the railroad track by the side of the Harlem river. Once more we are shunted on board the “Maryland,” that is to convey us “down stream, to connect with the Pennsylvania road.” At about eleven o’clock we are afloat. Presently we pass Blackwell’s Island. The pretty villas on the opposite bank are in notable contrast with the hard, prosaic buildings of the island. The morning is grey and cold. The snow is falling lightly and is full of crystals. Most of the company are on deck, which stretches right over the snow-covered cars. Some are promenading and enjoying the change from railway to river travel. Others are breakfasting in the steamer’s spacious saloon. Howe and his wife; Terriss (his hand in a sling); Tyars (in his long Scotch ulster, which was evidently new to the gamins of Philadelphia, where they said, as he passed, “Here’s a dude!”); Mrs. Pauncefort, and others, are defying the sharp weather at the bows of the vessel, which, with its freight, is a continual surprise to them. Miss Millward, the picturesque Jessica of “The Merchant,” is romping merrily with the children of the company, who are quite a feature in the garden and church scenes of “Much Ado.”
We steal quietly along the river without noise, but with a steady progression. Blackwell’s Island prisons are enlivened in color by a little company of women, who are being marched into the penitentiary. They turn to look at the “Maryland” as they enter the stony portals. As we creep along, villas on our left give place to lumber-yards, with coasting-vessels lying alongside. Leaving Blackwell’s on the right, the shore breaks up into picturesque wharfage, backed, in the distance, by the first of the steeples of Fifth avenue. The eye follows them along; wharves and river-craft in front; the spires against the grey sky, until they are repeated, as it were, by forests of masts,—first a few, and then a cluster. We meet another train coming up the river, then another; and now we get glimpses, through the haze, of distant ferry-boats ahead. There is a dull mist on the river, and here and there it hangs about in clouds. We pass Long Island railroad pier. It is very cold; but the children of the company still trot about, ruddy and merry.
“You don’t say so!” exclaims somebody. “Is it true, the train we saw at Harlem, which we thought full of poor emigrants, was the Opera Company on their way to Boston,—the chorus?”
“Quite true.”
“Then I can now understand,” is the rejoinder, “that the passengers on board the ‘Rome,’ when we came out, thought us a most respectable crowd.”
“That has been remarked before,” says the buxom Martha of “Louis XI,” “and in far more complimentary terms.”
Presently, through the mist on the larboard side, we catch a glimpse of the Brooklyn bridge. A few gulls are sweeping down the river before us. On both banks there are wharves and ships. One of the vessels flies the British flag, which is greeted with a cheer from some of our people. On the left bank of the river is a great sugar factory, with a picturesque red brick tower. We have now left the Harlem river, and for some little time have been steaming down the East towards the North river, with Bedloe’s island—a dot in the distant Sound—and Sandy Hook somewhere in the mist beyond. We now pass Hunter’s Point, and slue gradually round towards the North river. We glide along beneath the wonderful bridge, and look up among its net-work of roads and rails; past Piers 50 and 51 on our right, with freight-cars and steamers ready for the river; past the New York, New Haven, and Hartford Railway quays, hugging the South-street docks and ship-repairing yards, Governor’s Island at our bow. Ships and steamers stretch along to Battery Point, which we round into the North river, and pass Castle Garden. It is here that we catch sight of Bedloe’s and other distant islands, and look far in the direction of Sandy Hook, whence fierce tug-boats are steaming along, with great barges in tow. Now we cross the river to Jersey City. It is two o’clock. Our cars are once more on the rails, and, at about nine o’clock that night, we ran into Washington.
“You know the President,” said Irving, while we were travelling from Boston to Washington.
“Yes; I met him once or twice during the contest when he was ultimately returned as Vice-President with General Garfield. His likeness had become very familiar to me before I saw him. Candidates for the high offices of state are not only photographed, but their pictures are painted in heroic proportions. You see them everywhere,—on flags and banners, in shop-windows, in the newspapers. But you will be in the thick of it next autumn, since you have really decided to return this year.”
“Oh, yes!—but tell me about your meeting with the President,—what is he like?”
“Tall and handsome; frank and genial in manner; an excellent conversationalist; well read,—a gentleman. I became acquainted with him on the eve of his election to the vice-presidential chair. At his installation hundreds of his personal friends and admirers from eastern and western cities made ‘high festival,’ in his honor at Washington. Two years later I saw him, with sorrowful face and head bowed down, start for the capital, to stand by the bedside of the dying President, with whom he had been elected. Soon afterwards the friends, who had metaphorically flung up their caps for him on the merry day of his installation with Garfield, went, ‘with solemn tread and slow,’ to assist at his inauguration into the chair which, for a second time, the hand of the assassin had rendered vacant. My recollection of Mr. Arthur pictured a stout, ruddy-complexioned man, with dark hair and whiskers, and a certain elasticity in his gait that betokened strong physical health. I remember that we sat together by the taffrail of a Sound steamer, and talked of the vicissitudes of life and its uncertainties, and that I was deeply moved with sympathy for him in regard to the death of his most accomplished and amiable wife, of whom he spoke (apropos of some remark that led up to his bereavement) with a quivering lip and a moistened eye. The day had been a very pleasant one; the bay of New York was sleeping in the sun; the air was balmy; the time gracious in all respects; but, while doing his best to enliven the passing hour, Arthur’s thoughts had wandered to the grave of his wife. She was a very accomplished woman, I am told; musical, a sweet disposition, refined and cultivated in her tastes. Friends of mine who knew her say that she, above all others, would have rejoiced in her husband’s victory; and, while inspiring him with fortitude under the calamity that lay beyond, would have lent a grace to his reign at the White House that alone was necessary to complete the simple dignity of his administration, social and otherwise, which will always be remembered at Washington in connection with the presidentship of Chester A. Arthur.”
“I have letters to the President, which I shall certainly take the first opportunity to deliver,” said Irving.
When I met Mr. Arthur again in his own room, at the Executive Mansion, I was struck with the change which the anxieties and responsibilities of office, entered upon under circumstances of the most painful character, had wrought upon him. His face was careworn; his hair white; his manner subdued. He stooped in his gait; the old brightness had gone out of his eyes, and there was what seemed to be a permanently saddened expression about the corners of his mouth. He did not look sick; there was nothing in his face or figure denoting ill-health or physical weakness; but in the course of four years he appeared to me to have aged twenty. I had not been in Washington a day before he sent for me and my family, with a pleasant reference to the time when last we met. Looking back over these four years, and considering its record of trouble and anxiety, I could well have forgiven him if he had forgotten my very existence. That he recalled the occasion of our meeting, and was still touched with the spirit of it, I mention to do him honor, not myself; though, had it pleased Providence not to have afflicted me with a never-ending sorrow, I could have felt a high sense of personal pride in the homelike reception which the President of the United States gave to me and my family, in his own room at the Executive Mansion, sitting down with us and chatting in a pleasant, unconstrained, familiar way, that is characteristic of American manners, and eminently becomes the chief of a great republic.
Were this book only intended for English readers I would hesitate (even with the friendly approval of my collaborator) about publishing these few sentences, so personal to myself, lest it should be thought I might be “airing my connections”; but a President per se is not held in such profound estimation or reverence in America as in England, where we rank him with the most powerful of reigning monarchs, and give him a royal personality. Moreover, I should be ungrateful did I not take the best possible opportunity to acknowledge a conspicuous act of kindliness and grace on the part of one who, since I last met him, had stepped from the private station of mere citizenship to the chief office of state over fifty millions of people, wielding an individual power in their government that belongs to no constitutional sovereign, nor to any prince or minister in the most despotic courts or cabinets of Europe.
“And I can only say,” remarked Irving, as we left the White House together, after his first interview with the President, “that, if his reëlection depended on my vote, he should have it. I know nothing about the political situation; but the man we have just left has evidently several qualities that I should say fit him for his office,—foremost among them is patience. I would also say that he has the virtue of self-denial, and he is certainly not impulsive. A kind-hearted man, I am sure, capable of the highest sentiment of friendship, of a gentle disposition, and with great repose of character.”
“You have made quite a study of him,” I said; “and I am glad you like him, for I am sure he likes you.”
They had had a long chat at the White House. Mr. Congressman Phelps accompanied Irving, and introduced him to the Secretary of the Navy, and to other ministers who came and went during the first part of the informal reception. The President talked of plays and general literature; regretted that Washington, which had so many fine buildings, did not yet possess a theatre worthy of the city.
“A beautiful city, Mr. President,” said Irving. “I had heard much of Washington, but am agreeably surprised at its fine buildings, its handsome houses, its splendid proportions; and the plan of it seems to be unique.”
“The original design was the work of a French engineer,” said the President, “who served under Washington. His idea, evidently, was that a republic would have continually to contend with revolutions at the capital. He, therefore, kept in view the military exigencies of the government. The main streets of the city radiate upon a centre that is occupied by the legislative and executive buildings, like the spokes of a wheel, so that they could be dominated by artillery. This was the French idea of the dangers and duties of that republican form of government, which has never been contested here, nor is ever likely to be. While but a village Washington was laid out for a great city, and, without any seeming prospect of the grand idea being realized, the original lines have, nevertheless, always been adhered to.”
“And with glorious results,” said Irving. “Washington is one of the most beautiful cities I have ever seen. There is no reason why the highest architectural ambition should not be realized in such broad avenues and boulevards, and with such a site.”
“Many Americans underrate the beauty of Washington,” I said. “Comparatively few of them have seen it, and hundreds who criticise it have not been south for a number of years. The growth of Washington is not only modern, it is of yesterday. The city was really little more than a village up to the date of the late war; and it was only in 1871 that the impetus was given to the public enterprise that has covered it with palaces, private and public. It is the only city of America in which the streets are kept as cleanly and as orderly as London and Paris. The streets are asphalted, and you may drive over them everywhere without inconvenience or obstruction. There is an individuality about the houses that is one of Washington’s most notable architectural characteristics.”
“Yes,” said Irving, “that is a great point. New York is lacking in that respect, the reason being, I suppose, its want of space. Some of the houses in Washington suggest Bedford Park, Fitzjohn’s avenue, and the street of artists’ houses at Kensington. The same may be said of portions of Chicago and Boston. The so-called Queen Anne order of architecture is very prevalent in Washington,—take Pennsylvania avenue, for instance. On a fine summer’s day it must be a picture, with its trees in leaf and its gardens in bloom.”
Irving went more than once to the White House, and was greatly impressed with the dignified informality of one of its evening receptions.
“No ceremonious pomp, no show, and yet an air of conscious power,” he said; “the house might be the modest country-seat of an English noble, or wealthy commoner, the President the host receiving his intimate friends. No formal announcements; presentations made just as if we were in a quiet country-house. Soon after supper, when the ladies took their leave, and most of the gentlemen with them, I and one or two others went into the President’s room, and chatted, I fear, until morning. It was to me very enjoyable. President Arthur would shine in any society. He has a large acquaintance with the best literature, dramatic and general, is apt at quotation, an excellent storyteller, a gentleman, and a good fellow. When I had said good-night, and was on my way to the hotel, I could not help my own thoughts wandering back to thoughts of Lincoln and Garfield, whose portraits I had noticed in prominent positions on the walls of the executive mansion. I remember Mr. Noah Brooks, of New York, telling us the story of Lincoln’s death, and how he was to have been in the box with him at the theatre that same night, and how vividly he recounted the chief incidents of the tragedy. And Garfield,—I can quite understand that terrible business making his successor prematurely old, called as he was into office under such painful circumstances, and with so great a responsibility. A distinguished American was telling me yesterday that only the wisest discretion and personal self-denial in regard to the filling of offices saved America from the possibilities of riot and bloodshed. He said Arthur’s singularly quiet administration of affairs—the one necessity of the time—would be taken into account at the polls, if he is nominated for reëlection.”
Washington society made itself most agreeable to both Irving and Miss Terry, though “Portia, on a trip from the Venetian seas,” to quote the New York reporter, made her visit to the capital an opportunity for rest. Electing this city for a holiday, being relieved of a week’s journey through New England, she remained at the capital on a visit to her friend, Miss Olive Seward, the adopted daughter of the famous minister of Lincoln’s administration.
Among the social entertainments given in Irving’s honor were two notable little suppers,—one at the Metropolitan Club, by Mr. H. L. Nelson, Secretary to the Speaker, and a journalist of well-won renown. There were present, the Speaker (the Hon. John G. Carlisle), Senator Bayard, Representatives Dorsheimer (ex.-Lieut. Governor of the State of New York), T. B. Reed, Dr. George B. Loring (Commissioner of Agriculture), and Messrs. John Davis (Assistant Secretary of State), and F. E. Leupp. The other “evening after the play” was spent at Mr. Dorsheimer’s house, in Connecticut avenue, where the guests included several distinguished judges, senators, and government officials. The conversation on both occasions was chiefly about plays. It was a great relief from law and politics, one of the learned judges said, to discuss Shakespeare and the stage. They all talked well upon the drama; some of them had known Forrest; others, the elder Booth. Irving was more than usually talkative in such congenial company. He related many reminiscences of the English stage, none of which interested his Washington friends more than his anecdotes of Macready. Several instances of apt Shakespearian quotations were given; but they were all capped by a story which Nelson told of Judge Jeremiah S. Black, Mr. Buchanan’s Attorney-General and Secretary of State. Judge Black was holding court at Chambersburgh, Pa., when he was on the circuit in that State, forty years or more ago. His manners were rough, but more from absent-mindedness than any other cause, for he was one of the kindest of men. He would almost invariably find the strong point in a cause that was on trial before him, and go on thinking about it without reference to the point which counsel might be considering; so that his questions often seemed impertinent to the bar. One of the lawyers of Chambersburgh was a man of the name of Chambers, a soft-spoken, mild-mannered kind of man. Chambers suffered especially from what he supposed was Black’s intentional rudeness to him, and, one day, he came to the conclusion that his burdens were intolerable; therefore he stopped in the midst of his argument, and expostulated with the judge, telling him that he always tried to treat the court deferentially, but the judge did not reciprocate. The judge sat smiling through Chambers’s long reproof, and briefly answered:—
“Haply, for I am black,
And have not those soft parts of conversation
That chamberers have.”
During the week Irving visited the capitol, and was introduced to the highest officers of state. He heard debates in both houses, visited the law courts, and received many kindly attentions, public and private. The theatre was crowded every night. On the first night the President sat in the stalls, and the Russian ambassador contented himself with quite a back seat. Mr. Bancroft, the white-haired historian, was a constant attendant. Mr. Charles Nordhoff (whose graphic stories are not sufficiently well known) was in the stalls; so, also, were the authors of “Democracy.” (It is rumored that they are a society syndicate; but there is more authority in the statement that they are two, and I could give their names. I forbear, for the sake of the American lady who was pointed out to me in London, last year, as the undoubted author of the “scurrilous burlesque”). Mr. Blaine (one of the most famous and learned of American statesmen) was also present, and he was one of the prominent men who showed Irving much social attention.[55] A list of the distinguished people present, would include a majority of the great personages at Washington during the season of 1884. All the plays were enthusiastically received.[56]
Called on, as usual, to speak when the curtain had gone down for the last time (after three recalls), Irving thanked the audience for the kind reception and liberal patronage which had been accorded himself and his company. They had during the past few months appeared in all the leading cities of the country, and he felt that this cordial welcome in the beautiful capital of the Union might fairly be regarded as the crowning engagement of a most happy and prosperous tour. He returned heartfelt thanks, not alone for himself, but for his company; and especially for his fair comrade and friend, Miss Ellen Terry, of whom he felt he could heartily say: “She came, she saw, she conquered.” He said farewell with the greater ease in the expectation of having the privilege of again appearing in Washington early in the coming season. Again returning thanks, and saying good-by, Mr. Irving bowed himself off the stage amid very demonstrative applause.
It was quite like a council of war to see Irving, Loveday, Palser, and Stoker, bending over a map of the United States, during the journey from Washington to New York, en route for several New England cities. The chart was scanned with careful interest, Irving passing his finger over it here and there, not with the intensity of the overthrown monarch in “Charles the First,” but with a close scrutiny of routes. The chief was sketching out his next tour in America.
“No more long journeys,” he said.
“They are not necessary,” Loveday replied.
“No jumping from Brooklyn to Chicago, and from Chicago to Boston. This sort of thing may have been necessary by our relinquishment of the one-night places set down for us in the original plan of the tour; but we’ll reform that altogether.”
Then all the heads went down upon the chart; and pencil-marks begin to appear, dotting out a route which began at Quebec, and traversed, by easy stages, Canada and the United States,—from Quebec to Toronto, from Toronto to New York, and thence to Chicago, and, by easy calls, back again to the Empire city.
An hour or two later and the route was settled, Palser remarking, “It is the most complete and easiest tour that has ever been mapped out.”
“And we will begin it in the autumn of this year. We have sowed the seed; we are entitled to reap the harvest. All my American friends say so; and the great American play-going public would like me to do so. I am sure of it. My pulses quickened at the great cheer that went up at Boston when I said I hoped to come back this year. Let us consider it settled. We will come in September.”
The map was folded up, and the work of organizing the next tour was at once commenced. Telegraphic “feelers,” in regard to “dates,” had already been sent to the leading theatres. The best of them were ready to accept for the time proposed; and a week or so later the business was settled.
Meanwhile we arrived at New York (the trees in Washington and Union squares, and Fifth avenue were crystal trees; every house was coated with ice that sparkled under the electric lamps), and the next day “Louis XI.” was given at New Haven. The week was spent between this picturesque city and Worcester, Springfield, Hartford, and Providence. Only “Louis XI.” and “The Bells” were played, Miss Terry taking a week’s rest at Washington. The New England audiences were as cordial at these cities as they had been at Boston; the critics interpreted their sentiments. At Hartford, Mark Twain (S. L. Clemens) entertained Irving under his hospitable roof, and at Springfield there was a memorable gathering at the Springfield Club,—in fact, Irving was welcomed everywhere with tokens of respect and esteem. One regrets that these pages and the time of the patient reader are not sufficiently elastic to allow of one devoting a volume to the New England cities, so interesting as they are, historically and otherwise, from American as well as English points of view.
Following the New England cities come the last of the return visits,—Philadelphia, Brooklyn,[57] New York. They reindorsed the previous successes, and fully justified the decision of a second visit next season.
One of the most interesting incidents of the second visit to Philadelphia was Irving’s entertainment in the new rooms of the “Clover Club.”[58] Accustomed to play the host, the club found itself in a novel position when it accepted that of guest. The occasion was one not likely to be forgotten in the annals of an institution which interprets the best and highest social instincts of an eminently hospitable city. The club-room was decorated with its characteristic taste.
Mr. Dion Boucicault, in a brief address, spoke of the beneficent change which Irving had wrought in the methods of the English stage; Mr. McClure, the popular and powerful director of the “Times,” thanked him, in the name of all lovers of art, for extending that reformation to the American stage; Col. Snowden depicted his high place in the history of the best civilization of America; and Irving, while accepting with pride the honors which had been conferred upon him, defended the great actors of America’s past and present from the criticism of several speakers, who complained of their adherence to what Boucicault called “the pedestal style” of acting Shakespeare. Irving described to them how, in years gone by, both England and America had possessed provincial schools of acting, in the stock companies that had flourished in such cities as Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, and other cities on one side of the Atlantic, and Bristol, Bath, Manchester, Birmingham on the other; how these had been broken up by “combinations” in travelling companies; and how the leading actors of America had thus been disabled from presenting the dramas of the great masters in a manner they would, no doubt, have desired to present them. He said he had found similar difficulties in his own country; but, actuated by the resolute purpose of a sense of duty to his art, and a devoted love for it, he had overcome them. For some eight or ten years he had worked with a company, trained with the object of interpreting, to the best of their ability, the work of the dramatist. They subordinated themselves to the objects and intentions of the play they had to illustrate, and only by such self-abnegations to the harmony of the entire play, he said, could anything like an approach be made to the realization of a dramatic theme. He disclaimed any such ambition as to be ranked foremost among the great actors whose names had been mentioned; but he confessed to a feeling of intense satisfaction that America should have accepted with a generous, and he must say a remarkable, spontaneity, the methods which he had inaugurated at the Lyceum Theatre.
Among other “sight-seeing” and calls which we made together in Philadelphia was a visit to Mr. Childs, at the “Ledger” office, and an hour or two spent at Independence Hall. Irving was much interested in the new private office of Mr. Childs. Decorated in the so-called style of Queen Anne, it is a fine example of the progress in art which America has made within the past few years. “It contains many precious reminiscences of the Centennial Exhibition. A screen in front of the street windows is not the least artistic feature of the apartment. It is formed by six square pillars, with arched openings, which, save the centre, are closed to the height of three feet from the floor, the space between the back of these and the windows forming a kind of recess, where have been gathered some very valuable specimens of plastic and mechanical art. Over the screen, or arcade, are ten painted glass panels; the centre one contains the portraits of Gutenberg, Faust, and Schœffer, inventors of the art of printing with type; the other four contain figures representing the art of bookmaking. The left-hand panel contains a sitting figure, intently engaged on an article for the press, which, with two figures, a man and a boy, the latter of singularly fine action, forms the second panel. Passing over the centre, the story is continued by the proofreader, and concluded in the last panel, which represents a standing figure perusing the finished book in the shape of a Bible, chained to a lectern. The centre panel of five smaller panels, over those just mentioned, exhibits Mr. Childs’s motto, ‘Nihil sine labore,’ and on the remaining four, in old English, is painted the command, ‘Let there be light, and there was light.’”
Mr. Childs is one of the best-known and one of the most popular journalists in the United States. His name is familiar to the newspaper men of England, and his offices are models, both as regards the mechanical departments and the rooms set apart for his editorial associates and writers. Mr. Cooke, the able and trusted correspondent of the “London Times,” is the financial editor of the “Ledger.”
The porter at Independence Hall was glad to get the English actor’s signature in the visitor’s book. From the moment that Irving entered the place he attracted more attention than even “the bell of liberty” itself. Long before American independence was even dreamed of, this bell (originally cast at Whitechapel, London, and afterwards recast in Philadelphia) bore the inscription, “Proclaim Liberty throughout all the Land, to all the Inhabitants thereof!” Having taken in the historic room which was formerly the Judicial Hall of the English colony of Pennsylvania, Irving said, “How English it all is! how typical of the revolt the portraits of these great fellows who headed it!” Then he traced likeness to living Englishmen in several of the pictures. “One hundred and thirty portraits by one artist!” he exclaimed. “He has done wonderfully, I think, to get such variety of style, and yet so much individuality.” In modern days this chamber has been the scene of the lying-in-state of several prominent statesmen, on the way to burial. Among them were John Quincy Adams, Henry Clay, Abraham Lincoln.
American history proudly recalls that “here, on the 3d of November, 1781, twenty-four British standards and colors, taken from the army under Cornwallis, which had surrendered at Yorktown, were laid at the feet of Congress, amidst the shouts of the people and volleys of musketry, for they had been escorted to the door of the State-House by the volunteer cavalry of the city, and greeted by the huzzas of the people.” “But let us not forget,” said an American speaker, discoursing on this theme at an Irving entertainment, “that we were all British until we had signed that Declaration of Independence!”