Complete Works of Bram Stoker (673 page)

This visit was a somewhat special one, for it was the first time that Mr. Gladstone came to sit behind the scenes in the O.P.’ proscenium corner which then became known as “ Mr. Gladstone’s seat.” The occasion of it was thus: I had the year previously written an Irish novel, ‘The Snake s Pass’, 1 Opposite Prompt. which after running as a serial through the London People and several provincial papers had now been published in book form. I had done myself the pleasure of sending an early copy to Mr. Gladstone whose magnificent power and ability and character I had all my life so much admired. Having met and conversed with him several times I felt in a way justified in so doing. He had at once written; I received his letter the same day  —  that of publication, 18th November 1890. I give his letter, which was in the post-card form then usual to him. I think it is a good example of his method of correspondence, kind and thoughtful and courteous  —  a model of style. I had as may be gathered written with some diffidence, or delicacy of feeling:

“DEAR MR. BRAM STOKER,  —  My social memory is indeed a bad one, yet not so bad as to prevent my recollection of our various meetings. I thank you much for your work, and for your sympathy; and I hope to have perused all your pages before we meet again. When that will be I know not: but I am so fond a lover of The Bride of Lammermoor that I may take the desperate step of asking Mr. Irving whether he will some night, if it is on, let me sit behind the stage pillar  —  a post which C. Kean once gave me, and which alone would make me sure to hear.  —  Yours faithfully, W. E. GLADSTONE.

N. 18. 90.”

Some days later, after a most cordial invitation from Irving, it was arranged that he should choose exactly what date he wished and that all should be ready for him. There could be no difficulty, as Ravenswood was the only play then in the bill and would hold it alone till the beginning of the new year. When he did come I met him and Mrs. Gladstone at the private door and piloted them across the stage, which was the nearest way to Irving’s box. The door to it was beside the corner where Mr. Gladstone would sit.

Possibly it was that as Mr. Gladstone was then full of Irish matters my book, being of Ireland and dealing with Irish ways and specially of a case of oppression by a “ gombeen “ man under a loan secured on land, interested him for he had evidently read it carefully. As we walked across the stage he spoke to me of it very kindly and very searchingly. Of course I was more than pleased when he said:

“That scene at Mrs. Kelligan’s is fine  —  very fine indeed!”

Now it must be remembered that, in the interval between his getting the book and when we met, had occurred one of the greatest troubles and trials of his whole political life. The hopes which he had built through the slow progress of years for the happy settlement of centuries-old Irish troubles had been suddenly almost shattered by a bolt from the blue, and his great intellect. and enormous powers of work and concentration had been for many days strained to the utmost to keep the road of the future clear from the possibility of permanent destruction following on temporary embarrassment. And yet in the midst of all he found time to read  —  and remember, even to details and names  —  the work of an unimportant friend.

When it had been known on the stage that Mr. Gladstone was coming that night to sit behind the scenes the men seemed determined to make it a gala occasion. They had prepared the corner where he was to sit as though it were for Royalty. They had not only swept and dusted but had scrubbed the floor; and they had rigged up a sort of canopy of crimson velvet so that neither dust nor draught should come to the old man. His chair was nicely padded and made comfortable. The stage-men were all, as though by chance, on the stage and all in their Sunday clothes. As the Premier came in all hats went off. I showed Mr. Gladstone his nook and told him, to his immense gratification, how the men had prepared it on their own initiative. We chatted till the time drew near for the curtain to go up. Then I fixed him in his place and showed him how to watch for and avoid the drop scene, the great roller of which would descend guided by the steel cord drawn taut beside him. Lest there should be any danger through his unfamiliarity with the ways of theatres, I signalled the Master Carpenter to come to me and thus cautioned him.

“Would it not be well,” I said, “ if some one stood near here in case of accident?”

“It’s all right, sir, we have provided for that. The two best and steadiest men in the theatre are here ready! “ I looked round and there they were  —  alert and watchful. And there they remained all night. There was not going to be any chance of mishap to Mr. Gladstone that night!

I went always to join him between the acts, and Irving when he had opportunity from his dressing  —  of which there was a good deal in Ravenswood would come to talk with him. We were all, whatever our political opinions indivi- dually, full of the Parnell Manifesto and its many bearings on political life. For myself, though I was a philosophical Home-Ruler, I was much surprised and both angry at and sorry for Parnell’s attitude, and I told Mr. Gladstone my opinion. He said with great earnestness and considerable feeling:

“I am very angry, but I assure you I am even more sorry.”

I was pleased to think  —  and need I say proud also  —  that Mr. Gladstone seemed to like to talk politics with me. In March 1887 when the new Rules of Procedure for the House of Commons were introduced I ventured to write an exhaustive note on one of the suggested new Rules, No. XII., which I sent to him through the kindness of his friend James Knowles. He was good enough to send me a kind message regarding it through his son Mr. W. H. Gladstone. This suggested Rule was shortly dropped altogether, not of course in any way due to my suggestion. I felt, however, gratified that my view was correct. In my University days I had been something of a law maker in a small way, as I had revised and carried out the revision of the laws of order of the College Historical Society, Dublin University  —  our great debating society founded by Edmund Burke. I had also made the laws for the Actors’ Benevolent Fund, for a hospital, and for numerous societies.

On that particular night he was very chatty, and in commenting on the play compared, strangely enough, Caleb Balderstone with Falstaff. He was interested and eager about everything round him and asked innumerable questions. In the course of conversation he said that he had always taken it for granted that the stage word “ properties “ included costumes.

He was seemingly delighted with that visit, and from that time on whenever he came to the theatre he always occupied the same place, Mrs. Gladstone and whoever might be with him sitting in Irving’s box close at hand.

II

The next time he came, which was on 29th January of the next year, 1891, he generously brought Irving a cheque for ten pounds for the Actors’ Benevolent Fund. That evening too he was delighted with the play, Much Ado about Nothing, which he had seen before in 1882, in the ordinary way. He applauded loudly, just as he used to do when sitting in the front of the house.

III

He came again in 1892, iith May, when we were playing Henry VIII, and in the course of conversation commented on Froude’s estimate of the population of England in the sixteenth century, which according to his ideas had been stated much below the mark. He also spoke of Dante being in Oxford  —  a subject about which he wrote in the Nineteenth Century in the next month.

Another instance of Mr. Gladstone’s visit to the Lyceum: on the evening of 25th February 1893 he came to see Becket. He had introduced his second Home Rule Bill on the thirteenth of the month, and as it was being discussed he was naturally full of it  —  so were we all. By the way, the Bill was carried in the Commons at the end of August of that year. That night when speaking of his new Bill he said to me:

“I will venture to say that in four or five years those who oppose it will wonder what it was that they opposed!”

He was delighted with Becket, and seemed specially to rejoice in the success of Tennyson’s work.

IV

He was as usual much interested in matters of cost. Irving talked with him very freely, and amongst other things mentioned the increasing expenses of working a theatre, especially with regard to the salaries of actors which had, he said, almost been doubled of late years. Gladstone seemed instantly struck with this. When Irving had gone to change his dress, Gladstone said to me suddenly:

“You told me, I think, that you are Chancellor of the Exchequer here.”

“Yes! “ I said. “ As in your own case, Mr. Gladstone, that is one of my functions!”

“Then would you mind answering me a few questions? “ On my giving a hearty acquiescence he began to inquire exhaustively with regard to different classes of actors and others, and seemed to be weighing in his mind the relative advances.

In fact his queries covered the whole ground, for now and again he asked as to the quality of materials used. I knew he was omnivorous with regard to finance, but to-night I was something surprised at the magnitude and persistence of his interests. The reason came shortly. Three days after the visit, 28th February, Sir Henry Meysey-Thompson, M.P. for Handsworth, voiced in the House the wishes then floating of the Bi-Metallists for an International Monetary Conference. Mr. Gladstone replied to him in a great speech, the immediate effect of which was to relegate the matter to the Greek Kalends. In this speech he began with the standard of value, and by figures arrived at gold as the least variable standard. Then he went on to the values and change of various commodities, leading him to what he called “ the greatest commodity of the world  —  human labour.” This he broadly differentiated into three classes of work which were dependent on ordinary trade laws and conditions, and of a more limited class which seemed to illustrate the natural changes of the laws of value, inasmuch as the earners were not influenced to any degree by the course of events or the cost of materials. This, broadly speaking, was his sequence of ideas. When he had got so far he said:

“Take also the limited class about whom I happened to hear the other day  —  the theatrical profession. I have it on unquestionable authority that the ordinary payments received by actors and actresses have risen largely.”

With his keen instinct for both finance and argument he had seized at once on Irving’s remark about the increase of salaries, recognising on the instant its suitability as an illustration in the setting forth of his views. And I doubt if he could have found any other class of wage-earning so isolated from commercial changes.

V

Irving told me of an interesting conversation which he had in those days with Lord Randolph Churchill in which the latter mentioned Gladstone in a striking way. Answering a query following on some previous remark, he said:

“The fact is we are all afraid of him! “ “ How is that  —  and why? “ asked Irving. “ Well, you see, he is a first-class man. And the rest of us are only second-class  —  at best!”

Mr. Gladstone was a really good playgoer and he seemed to love the theatre. When he came he and Mrs. Gladstone were always in good time. I once asked him, thinking that he might have mistaken the hour, in which case I would have borne it in mind to advise him on another occasion, if he liked to come early, and he said:

“Yes. I have always made it a practice to come early. I like to be in my place, and composed, before they begin to tune the fiddles!”

This is the true spirit in which to enjoy the play. No one who has ever sat in eager expectation can forget the imaginative forcefulness of that acre of green baize which hid all the delightful mysteries of the.stage. It was in itself a sort of introduction to wonderland, making all the seeming that came after as if quickened into reality.

VI

Like her great husband Mrs. Gladstone largely enjoyed the play. She too seemed to wish to be in good time and to be interested in everything. Like him she was incarnate memory and courtesy. I can give a little pleasing instance: Once when stepping from her carriage she dropped her cut glass smelling-bottle. I had met them coming in and saw her loss; so I sent out and got another as like as possible to the fragments that lay on the path. She was greatly pleased at the little attention and did not forget it. Years afterwards, when I went to see her in her box, she held up the scent bottle and said:

“You see I have it still!”

CHAPTER XLV

THE EARL OF BEACONSFIELD

His advice to a Court chaplain  —  Sir George Elliott and picture-hanging  —  As a beauty  —  As a social fencer  —  ” A striking physiognomy”

I

I NEVER saw Benjamin Disraeli (except from the Gallery of the House of Commons) but on the one occasion, when he came to see The Corsican Brothers. Irving, however, met him often and liked to talk about him. He admired, of course, his power and courage and address; but it was, I think, the Actor that was in the man that appealed to him. I think also that Beaconsfield liked him, and gauged his interest and delight in matters of character. Somehow the stories which he told him conveyed this idea.

One was of an ambitious young clergyman, son of an old friend of the statesman, who asked him to use his influence in having him appointed a Chaplain to the Queen. This he had effected in due course. The Premier, to his surprise, some time afterwards received a visit from his protege, who said he had, on the ground of the kindness already extended to him, to ask a further favour. When asked what it was he answered:

“I have through your kindness  —  for which I am eternally grateful  —  been notified that I am to preach before Her Majesty on Sunday week. So I have come to ask you if you would very kindly give me some sort of hint in the matter! “ The Premier, after a moment’s thought, had answered:

“Well, you see, I am not much in the habit of preaching sermons myself so I must leave that altogether to your own discretion. But I can tell you this: If you will preach for fifteen minutes the Queen will listen to you. If you will preach for ten minutes she will listen with interest. But if you will preach for five minutes you will be the most popular chaplain that has ever been at Court.”