Complete Works of Bram Stoker (670 page)

III

The dinner given to Stanley by Edward Marston, the publisher, on the eve of bringing out Stanley’s great book, Through the Dark Continent  —  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 have never forgotten  —  it spoke volumes:

“When I was young nothing would keep me out of 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.

CHAPTER XLII

ARMINIUS VAMBERY

A Defence against torture  —  How to Travel in Central Asia  —  An Orator

AMONGST the interesting visitors to the Lyceum and the Beefsteak Room was Arminius Vambery, Professor at the University of Buda-Pesth. On April 3o, 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 1 “ “ However did you manage that? “ “ I had always a poison pill fastened here, where the lappet of my coat now is. This I could ahvays 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 u.s once that when the Empress Eugenie 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.

VOLUME II

Irving in his study, 1892

CHAPTER XLIII

IRVING’S PHILOSOPHY OF HIS ART

The key-stone  —  The scientific process  —  Character  —  The Play  —  Stage Perspective  —  Dual Consciousness  —  Individuality  —  The True Realism

I

IRVING and I were alone together one hot afternoon in August 1889, crossing in the steamer from South-sea 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, whence 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. And would have tried to explain matters as new and relevant subjects, consequences or causes, 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 for present reticence did not 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 anv other alimentative process. Nature varies in details, but her intents and obj ects 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 cuttlefish 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 in it 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:

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 o f In Memoriam LIV to Lvi beginning “ Oh yet we trust that somehow good “ to “ Behind the veil, behind the veil.”