IT WAS through the production of the Shaw plays that I was thrown intimately into the company of Richard Mansfield, one of the greatest geniuses I have ever known. He was always a law unto himself, both in and out of the theatre. He was intellectually brilliant and proverbially irresponsible. His moods were his governing forces.
He refused to be disturbed by financial anxieties. No man believed more than did Mansfield in the advantage of letting the other fellow worry.
One of my earliest recollections of him was before he was married, and when he lived in an apartment opposite Delmonico's on Twenty-sixth Street, near Fifth Avenue.
Royalties had been long overdue, and I went by appointment to see whether I could coax him to make some settlement.
He received me wearing the most wonderful yellow satin brocade dressing gown, lined with a costly mink fur. On his feet were a pair of richly embroidered oriental slippers.
His manners on such occasions were courtly and impressive. Hardly had I been seated when there came a knock at his door. This second visitor was the agent of the apartment house who had come to collect the long delayed rent. Mansfield, looking at him as though he were a worm, said "You consider that I owe you rent A preposterous idea! Cannot you and those you come from, realize that it is 1, Richard Mansfield, whose mere presence in this house has filled it to overflowing, and thus raised the price of these apartments? I have brought the owners fortune and fame, and should be paid by them rather than that I should pay to them."
The agent, needless to say, retired with profuse apologies,
I found him so magnificent on this occasion that I never pressed my own claim. In fact, it often seemed disgraceful to ask Mansfield to pay one for anything. I preferred to have our differences settled in court. I could not bear to introduce into our personal relations such a sordid theme as finance. However, I had begun a suit over "Cyrano de Bergerac," sailing for Europe only after the papers had been served on Mansfield. But when I boarded the steamer, I found a gigantic box of roses in my cabin, with his card and an affectionate message of God-speed.
I often thought that no one I had ever met could owe money so gracefully as did Mansfield.
The circumstances under which he acquired the rights to produce Cyrano were unusual.
Edmond Rostand, its author, had published the text in France without observing the formalities of copyright in this country, for at that time the law required that every play should be simultaneously printed here, set up with American type by American printers in order to be eligible for American copyright.
Therefore, technically speaking, the play was public property. Not so, however, as regards the stage instructions which were confined to the prompt copy.
Mansfield wished to produce the play, and was willing to pay a straight five per cent on all gross receipts, provided that Rostand would furnish him with scenic and costume models, and with the complete stage business and directions.
Thus the agreement was made and thus I gained further reputation among the French authors.
Rostand loudly sung my praises, because he had been informed he could expect no protection for his property in America, whereas he received from Richard Mansfield during the life of this famous play, many thousands of dollars in royalties.
Edmond Rostand was a very fine lyric poet. He stood practically without a rival, and the talent evinced by his only son, Maurice, is a direct inheritance.
Rostand was never physically strong. His nerves were his torment. He suffered constantly from insomnia. For this reason the last years of his life were spent in the South of France, at Cambon, as far removed as possible, from the boulevards of Paris.
The rehearsals of his plays were most exhausting to him. Fortunately he was not a prolific writer, for his only salvation were the long periods of rest between each production.
He was one of the most distinguished men in appearance I have ever seen. His diction was delightful. Rostand was the quintessence of dignity and of refinement.
His poetry and his personality seemed in complete harmony.
"L'Aiglon," in my opinion, was his masterpiece. I recall the deep impression it made when I first received the manuscript and enjoyed the initial reading of the text. It seemed to me as graceful as the Gothic lace work in stone which stretches across the front of the cathedral at Rouen.
Perhaps the greatest value conferred by Napoleon upon art was through the inspiration of this drama revolving around the imperial bee, the fragrant violet and the touching story of his little son.
DURING many years the Atlantic Ocean and the English Channel seemed to me like ferries as I crossed them so frequently. They became a habit. Much time was always spent on the other side, and subsequent to my childhood it was not until the year 1915 that I ever knew how my own country looked during the summer months.
The selection of Versailles as a permanent residence came about in an unexpected fashion, and no one was more surprised than Miss de Wolfe and myself when we finally became property owners in France.
We happened one day to meet Minna, Dowager Marchioness of Anglesey, at the house of a mutual friend in Paris. She kindly invited us to Versailles where she had been living for many years. At that time we were at a French pension in the Avenue Hoche, kept by the wife of an ex-professor of some rural college. We were fairly comfortable there, and after all it was an experience.
Some extremely nice compatriots were fellow lodgers and among them were Mrs. Robert Underwood Johnson and her daughter, who were there awaiting the arrival of their son and brother, Owen, a lad of sixteen, who had been bicycling on the Continent. I remember him so well when he literally dashed up to the door on his wheel. He was redolent of health and of enthusiasm. How little did I think, when I thus saw him twenty-eight years ago, that he was to achieve eminence as one of our best and most popular writers. I must confess, however, that in appearance he was not unlike many of his juvenile heroes.
We found Versailles most attractive and a sincere friendship grew up between Lady Anglesey and ourselves which led to our renting a little pavilion of hers which adjoined her lovely villa. There we settled down. It was simple and required a very small contingent of servants. The expense to run it was trifling. Prices then had not soared to their present proportions.
One advantage was that we were thrown almost at once into a delightful society of thoughtful men and women. We ourselves began to entertain in a modest, but agreeable fashion. Of course at times we had the usual contretemps of young housekeepers.
I remember on one occasion when we expected some distinguished guests that a neighbor urged us to accept for the evening the services of her footman.
Our chief dish, a specialty of our cook's, was a mousse of pâté de foie gras. We had advised our friends of it so that they might enjoy the pleasure of anticipation. At the given moment of its appearance, the door of our tiny dining-room was opened, the borrowed attendant, resplendent in livery, stumbled, fell and the mousse was splashed all over the floor. For a few seconds we were overwhelmed by this tragedy, then our sense of humor came to our rescue. We laughed and Jean Richepin, the poet, who was at the table exclaimed: "It is thus that we are spared indigestion! Let me add that this was the first and last time when our hospitality was bedecked in the borrowed plumage of a neighbor's grandeur.
This little pavilion stood contiguous to the famous historical property known as the Ermitage, the retreat of Madame de Pompadour, when she no longer disputed her ascendency over Louis the Fifteenth. It was from here that the magnificent porphyry bath-tub, cut out of one solid piece, was removed to the Avenue de Neuilly to adorn the charming garden of Robert, Comte de Montesquieu Fezensac.
At this time the Ermitage with all its contents belonged to a religious community. It had been theirs since the Revolution.
When the idea of parting with the bath-tub was first presented to them by de Montesquieu's secretary, the Mother Superior of the convent refused absolutely to sell this treasure, not that the dear lady had any conception of its value, but because on general principles she did not wish to yield any of their possessions, Several visits were paid but without success, when suddenly the persistent buyer returned, this time incidentally, with a roll of banknotes and with a pair of frayed embroidered slippers carefully wrapped in white tissue paper.
Reverently he undid the little package and in a tone of respect mingled with awe, he said: "Reverend Mother, see what I have brought you, a pair of satin slippers which were once worn by our great Holiness, Pope Pius the Ninth. Note the beautiful papal arm; stitched in gold thread upon the vamps."
Trembling with emotion the credulous lady took the slippers into her hands. She turned them over with admiration. At the same time the banknotes, amounting to some four thousand francs, were placed upon the desk.
It was a moment of temptation, but the Pope's slippers proved the disarming influence. Were they not literally shod with sanctity?
The shepherdess of her flock yielded at last. The bargain was closed and the exchange was consummated. Within an hour this superb object of art was hoisted upon a truck and rolled away. I understood that its actual value as appraised by experts was twenty-five thousand francs. Who could ever have imagined that a Pope's slippers would be bartered for a courtesan's bath-tub?
In those days Lady Anglesey entertained delightfully. She was, as I have said, an American by birth, but married twice in England; the first time to Mr. Henry Wodehouse who died, and finally to her second husband, the Marquis of Anglesey.
She was amazingly pretty with a style wholly her own. Hers was an effervescent brain. Some witty Frenchmen described her as always agitating and agitated. She was and is a brilliant woman. She does not temporize with convictions and certainly has never failed in courage once she has decided upon the righteousness of the cause she espouses. In the Dreyfus affair she was so definitely outspoken against his enemies that she was deserted by many of her reactionary friends.
At the same time when Miss de Wolfe and I first became habitués of her circle, there were few drawing rooms so agreeable. Her house was permeated by her personality which was attractive and most interesting. In recent years she has lived almost entirely in the French provinces. Her dread of the ocean has prevented her from ever returning to the land of her birth.
Before many seasons were over we removed from this little house in Versailles to one rather more commodious. This property was near the Porte St. Antoine and practically adjoining the larger place which we afterwards purchased. Our new landlady was also an American, the widow of an artist, Charles Morgan. It was most deceptive in size, and built somewhat like an English cottage. Before the front door there was merely a courtyard, but in the rear was a large English garden which gave directly on the park of Versailles. The furniture was simple yet attractive, and both Miss de Wolfe and I were thoroughly pleased with our new quarters. We were, however, forced to leave there finally as Mrs. Morgan, who had invited a niece to join her, decided to return to Versailles. But their enjoyment in this quaint property was short-lived, because much to the surprise of their friends, both ladies, one after the other, decided to give up the world and to join religious communities, which they did in England. The niece died a professed nun. The aunt, I believe, is still alive, a member of an enclosed order. No one who knew these ladies has ever quite understood the influence which determined their choice of vocation.
LADY ANGLESEY'S was by no means the only salon which became a storm centre during the Dreyfus trial. The most amazing feature of this case was that the men who were his ardent champions, and who devoted their money and time to effect his liberation, were nearly all strangers to Dreyfus. They were frequent visitors at our house. Joseph Reinach, Sardou, Cornely and a dozen others who defended him never laid eyes upon Dreyfus until he returned for his re-examination at Rennes.
At the time feeling ran so high that those who were on his side flatly formulated that for them all honest men were Dreyfusards, whereas all who were anti-Dreyfus were dishonest. As years went by, and as the facts of this astounding miscarriage of justice became better known, it was found that people could remain honest without believing that Dreyfus was wholly innocent.
Politics played too large a part in this extraordinary trial in which race and religion were such potent factors so that even now we may be too near the time of its occurrence to regard it with an impartial and unbiased judgment. That Dreyfus had an unsympathetic and even repellent personality, was generally admitted. At those crucial moments when he should have been eloquent he was disastrously furtive, his speech dry. There was nothing about him which was appealing. The sympathy aroused by the cruel severity of his punishment was cerebral rather than personal. When he appeared before the tribunal at Rennes, hundreds flocked there hoping that he would be compelling in his own defense. He had been so long an exile, his sufferings had been so intense, his martyrdom so poignant that those present felt that at last when he did speak that they would be rocked by their emotions for this was the opportunity he had craved, this was the hearing which he had demanded. Thousands in the nation had asked that Dreyfus should be given the opportunity to tell his story before an impartial bar of justice, so that at least his voice would be heard and the truth become revealed.
Constant Coquelin, that great actor of the Comédie Française was one of our warm personal friends. He had gone to Rennes and from there had wired asking whether he might dine with us en route to Paris.
I shall never forget his description of the scene he had left. From an actor's standpoint Dreyfus had proved a miserable failure. His speech in his own advocacy didn't "get over." Legally it scored but emotionally it failed. I can remember Coquelin impersonating Dreyfus for our benefit, and showing us how he, had he been in his stead, would have swayed the audience with laughter and above all with tears, how he would have led up to his climaxes, how he would have visualized each step of his way to that Calvary where he had endured crucifixion during so many cruel months.
"But," cried Coquelin, "he gave us nothing, he stood before us blind to his great moment. He seemed to us no more than a gentleman who had been robbed of his pig by a neighbor, instead of the victim of a nation which had singled him out as the scapegoat of a political conspiracy."
Associated with the trial was a mysterious lady in white who secretly made the nightly trip to Paris, furnishing the Figaro with the inside information. Every precaution was taken by the police to prevent the appearance of these daily articles which were forbidden by the government censorship. Nevertheless every morning saw a full column giving the most minute details of all that had transpired at Rennes. In after years, the secret leaked out, until it was generally admitted that Madame Fred de Gresac, the author of "The Marriage of Kitty", "Orange Blossoms" and many other sparkling comedies was the Figaro correspondent so eagerly sought for during the trial of this celebrated case.
The name of Coquelin reminds me of a story connected with his first tour in this country.
Lillian Russell was at the zenith of her beauty and playing an engagement at Wallack's Theatre, on the corner of Broadway and Thirtieth Street. Coquelin had heard of her charm, and had studied her photographs. He was most anxious to make her acquaintance and with this end in view sought the kind offices of a mutual friend.
An appointment was duly made and it was arranged that upon a certain evening after her performance the gentlemen were to present themselves in the actress's dressing room and escort her to Delmonico's for supper.
Immaculately turned out, Coquelin and his friend drove up to the theatre. They were at once made conscious of some undue excitement. There was an atmosphere of hilarity which was unusual. Arriving in the room, they found flowers, champagne and a dark-eyed young man who was sharing congratulations with the prima donna. Hardly had Coquelin been introduced before the announcement was made that the young man in question was the tenor Signor Perugini, who had that very evening persuaded the fair Lillian to be his affianced bride.
As Coquelin and his friend left the theatre to eat their supper alone, the former remarked with a cynical lifting of his eyebrows: "What fools men are to marry women who are fools enough to marry them."
Coquelin died with his life's dream unfulfilled. The long line of his stage triumphs was incomplete for he had always insisted that given the opportunity he would have proved himself the finest Romeo of his country.
He knew every line of the rôle and was never reconciled to that inexorable fate which prevented the world from realizing that he could be the greatest lover in the history of the stage.
His Cyrano de Bergerac never compensated him for the loss of Romeo of Mantua.
How many must recall with a shudder that awful disaster in Paris, when one hundred and thirty persons lost their lives in the fearful fire which destroyed the Bazaar de la Charité. Like similar entertainments prepared in the interest of some worthy cause, the general style of decoration consisted of a display of inflammable material. Flags, banners, shields, paper festoons and flowers were in evidence. The booths lining the long room at the head of a wooden staircase were constructed with light lathes and stucco which could easily be ignited. It was during the afternoon hours when the place was packed, that this holocaust occurred. The room was full to overflowing with fashionable patrons, the greater part representing the exclusive society of the Faubourg St. Germain.
Suddenly a cigarette, carelessly thrown in a corner amid a heap of rubbish, started the conflagration. The curling flames were detected, panic ensued. Men, women and children beat their way in terror to the doors, they were trampled under foot, walking sticks and parasols lashed the air, screams and curses resounded as the mad crowd rushed on. Fortunately the back windows gave upon the Cours la Reine, so that some escaped into the courtyards of the rear dwellings.
Among those lost was the Duchesse D'Alençon, sister of the ill-fated Empress of Austria, and a member of that family which for many generations has been associated with the historical tragedies of Europe. To-day, in the Royal Chapel at Dreux, this victim of the Bazaar de la Charité is seen carved in marble and stretched upon her tomb, with feet and hands drawn up in agony to eternally remind the world of her death which was so horrible in its struggle and in its suffering.
It was at this time that I became acquainted with Comte Robert de Montesquiou, a direct descendant of that chivalrous D'Artagnan made famous by the elder Dumas.
No one has ever written better verses than this poet. They were as aristocratic in form as though penned with the steel of his picturesque ancestor.
Their wit was caustic, their beauty was all pervading.
His prose, while of excellent quality, could never rival his poetry. For many years he was a prolific writer, and those with whom he did not enjoy popularity, waited with fear the appearance of each new volume, for they knew full well that one line of satire from de Montesquiou's pen would make them the target of ridicule in every salon of Paris. Nor did he ever restrain his venom, which in a few polished phrases wounded with no gentle skill. He was a distinct personality at the time of which I write. His Pavillon des Muses at Neuilly, and later his Pavillon des Roses at Le Pecq, drew together the wits of that most worldly of all societies; artists from every profession were conspicuous. Cecile Sorel was then at the height of her beauty and she was rarely absent from these gatherings. I recall that on one occasion I counted as present twenty-six members of the French Academy.
The host himself, always surrounded by a group of faithful satellites, moved from room to room dispensing a graceful hospitality.
It was literally a feast of reason, for the actual entertainment was of the most frugal description.
Montesquiou's poverty was a proverbially acute condition with him, and had it not been a for his devoted henchman, Gabriel D'Yturri, I fear that he would have been frequently overtaken by dire distress. As it was, his house was so animated by beauty and so replete with anecdote that one was rarely reminded of any vacuum caused by a depleted exchequer.
His subsequent lecture tour in America was under my auspices. He came richly supplied with powerful letters of introduction, but a prejudice of unusual proportion existed against him, fanned to activity by his enemies abroad. I am happy to state, however, that despite this fact these conferences were a pronounced success. It was a clear case of those who went to scoff remaining to pray. Rarely have any lectures in the French language proved more delightful.
The room was always crowded and the audience sincerely appreciative.
Many were the amusing comments made by Montesquiou upon American social habits. He could never grasp the psychology of a luncheon at which no men were present. He could not understand business as a controlling force.
To go to a social function, to be asked to mount the stairs and to have one's hat and coat laid upon a bed, which was the common fashion in those days, was something abhorrent and unsanitary.
Goloshes piled around a priceless console table in a hall was a custom which seemed to him as incongruous as it was indecorous. On the other hand he revelled in the press and enjoyed its publicity.
One of his most precious souvenirs was the scrap book which I had carefully prepared for him and which contained columns both of description and of criticism. I believe that this compilation alone would have compensated him for the journey across the Atlantic.
Robert de Montesquiou during the war took. little active interest in its performance. Its victories were hardly more emphasized to him than were its defeats.
He detached himself completely from the vibration of the boulevards and buried himself in his Louis XIII château in the South of France.
On one occasion during this period I offered him his favorite white carnation as a boutonnière. He gracefully waved away my gift, saying: "Ah, dear friend, while the war lasts I shall never wear a flower. That is the sacrifice which I make to my country. The egotism of this seemed to me sublime.
It was at the Pavillon des Muses that I met Gabriel D'Annunzio as a man of letters; the hero of Fiume had still to be revealed. The Russian Ballet had just burst upon Paris in all its pristine glory. The Blue God walked upon the streets while Ida Rubenstein had become the presiding Goddess. The name of Leon Bakst was upon the lips of everyone. Brilliant and blatant, sensuous and scintillating, crushing and clashing, mighty and mysterious, immoral and immortal was this new form of entertainment, which in its journey across Central Europe, had gathered impetus and inspiration. It was the era in which the Dance of Death reigned supreme.
A wild debauchery of mind prevailed, Everything seemed distorted. The spirit of unrest, the soul in distress, the whole morale of mankind perverted were the signals which flashed their searchlights ahead, revealing the approaching confluence with a river of blood.
D'Annunzio with his lyrics created harmony even out of this discord. It is true that he struck the cymbals of his century, but as his background stood that figure of classic romanticism, silent and immutable, Eleanora Duse, the artist whose attachment to him was made the common property of the world only through D'Annunzio's novel "El Fuoco," which should have been one of consecration and not one of desecration. In looking from behind the bars of his soul the stars escaped his vision and the splashes of mud fell upon his pages as he wrote.
But like many others his after achievements as a patriot made the world forget his mistakes as a man.
THE traditions of the French Academy were being frequently attacked, and even though Emile Zola had knocked in vain at its portals, the latter was nevertheless threatened by an invasion of new and ruthless minds. Modernism was rampant, and the chairs of the immortal forty were disputed by destructive forces.
I owe to Sardou my first opportunity to attend a symposium within those sacred precincts. It was on the occasion when de Heredia took his seat. His sponsor was François Coppet.
All along the Quai as one approached the Institute one felt a thrill of excitement. The intellectuals of France were in the ascendant. Every celebrity was in evidence. The chamber in which the function takes place on these occasions is comparatively small. The cards of admission represent the different sections. The seats are arranged in rows of uncomfortable benches towering one upon the other. The floor is filled with the rostrum and the Fauteuils of the Academicians. There is practically no ventilation whatever, and all the light is furnished by a glass roof which on a sunny day makes the heat almost unbearable.
After my first visit I was present at several other sessions, notably the reception of the well-known novelist Paul Bourget, when the Vicomte E. M. de Vogué made the speech of presentation.
There are always two important discourses. One of introduction made by a carefully selected sponsor, and one by the new member who replies in terms that might almost be a profession of faith.
The world owes an eternal gratitude to this august assembly of scholars, for while the literary Bolshevists of France jeer and satirize this group of men, nevertheless they always have been and always will be the defenders of the classic school of form which they represent. They are the keepers of the holy seal of taste, of accuracy and of discretion. They are not easily wooed nor are they casually won. Their standards are inviolate and to be respected, and no facile and sporadic talent shall prevail against them.
The French Academy, like fashionable society, is theoretically spurned by those to whom entrance therein is denied; nevertheless, let these contemptuous critics be given the slightest hope of admission and they will forthwith become sycophantic in their admiration and truculent in their expressions of esteem.
It is a well-known fact that no influence so quickly converts a radical into a reactionary as does his election to power.
I could never quite understand why any writer of comedy should aspire to becoming a member of this very austere body. The atmosphere it exudes is traditionally against the spirit of mirth. Everything savors so intensely of serious responsibility that levity of any kind seems sadly out of place.
One interesting feature is that when in broad daylight the Academicians don their historical costume consisting of a cocked hat and a coat embroidered in gold palms, this is not viewed as an absurdity. It is a part of the traditions which no one would be courageous enough to criticize.
But when this same costume is displayed for sale in some pawn shop window in the Rue de Provence, or worn in a London drawing room as was the case whenever Jules Claretie crossed the channel, then the grotesqueness of this literary livery becomes apparent.
Jules Claretie personally was a gentle and attractive soul in Parisian society. While administrator of the Théâtre Français this very pliability, however, was a crime. He disliked so especially to seem ungracious that he agreed to everything and agreed with everybody. It pained him to say "no." Thus, each author whose play was under consideration, often lived for months in a fool's paradise unmindful of the day when his manuscript might be returned with a letter of sympathetic regret. And when an excellent part was to be distributed it was invariably found that this same part had been promised to each member of the company who had privately been an applicant for it.
Nevertheless Claretie remained in power for many years. His charm was felt even by those who warred against it. His was the soul of hospitality, and to sit at his table was a joy as he gathered there most gifted and agreeable guests. The place of honor, however, was always reserved for his very aged grandmother who delighted the visitors with her personal recollections of Louis the Sixteenth, and of Marie Antoinette. At first glance this did not seem possible, yet the dear old lady could prove the accuracy of her chronology without the slightest difficulty.
Another dominant figure was Jean Richepin, famous as a lyric dramatist, and writer of verse, but above all for his still rarer mind and personal charm.
Many were the tales told of his conquests of the fair sex, which culminated, however, through his elopement with the beautiful wife of a composer, a lady whom he subsequently married owing to the liberation resultant from a dual divorce, for Richepin was also married at the time.
Madame Richepin, the second, was an irregular descendant of Alexander of Russia, and quite one of the most lovely women I have ever seen. Running true to form Richepin, who could have passed anywhere as a Bedouin chief, dragged Madame away from the civilization of Paris, crossed the Mediterranean, landed in Algiers and then headed for the desert where they lived for months in tents or on the backs of Arabian horses. Thus they wandered together recognizing no laws, but those of Richepin's own creation.
However, Richepin's talent seems to have been stimulated by this great experience, although he had already given to the world that most beautiful drama, "Le Chemineau," which became popular in every language.
All this transpired many years ago, and the children of this union have inherited the beauty and the grace of their mother, as well as the artistic soul and the literary talent of their father.
By his contemporaries Jean Richepin was invariably referred to as the "fatal man," for it was proverbially believed that no woman could resist him.
Another member of the French Academy was Paul Hervieu, who always gave one the impression of chronic despondency, yet he too possessed a rare attraction for our sex. For years he had become the habit in a certain household presided over by an aristocratic and titled Châtelaine.
There Hervieu was petted and considered to an incredible extent. There his every wish was anticipated, his every taste gratified.
But once in the latter years of his life he developed the wandering eye which led him temporarily afield.
There was, however, no real rupture so far as his adopted home was concerned, for lady number one instead of overwhelming Hervieu with tears, reproaches and complaints due to his recurrent absences, welcomed lady number two to her own attractive and luxurious villa. For months Hervieu was never invited there without her nor was be ever allowed to enjoy any relief from her society which at best was fairly dull. He was forbidden to relax in the charming and tactful society of lady number one until at last he could simply bear it no longer. (He became bored beyond endurance. Lady number two was thrown over and Hervieu crept back to the quiet haven which he had temporarily deserted for a foolish sail upon a summer sea.
I watched the going and coming and was deeply impressed by the finesse of this very clever Frenchwoman who proved herself a past mistress in the art of having and of holding.
Henri Lavedan, author of the "Duel" and many other successful plays, is another member of the French Academy whose work I personally represented in English speaking countries.
He suffers from the great affliction of incurable deafness, and I remember that once when he spoke with resignation of the crushing noise which was grinding in his head during his waking hours, I felt a sympathy for him beyond utterance. Yet I never knew Henri Lavedan to complain of this burden which he has carried through life. He is a man of unusual taste and culture and surrounds himself with objects of beauty so that he can at least live through his eyes, even though his ears are closed.
To spend an hour with him is a lesson in character. It dwarfs one's puerile complaints and belittles one's trivial burdens. It teaches that in the mystery of pain is the secret of life, and that within a man's soul can be found the real inspiration which insures his achievement. To know Henri Lavedan is indeed a privilege.
As I turn my crystal ball, I see a long line of men and women of note defiling across my memory: Georges Feydeau, whose blood relation to an imperial duke was regarded as a source of pride rather than as a blot on his escutcheon. When comparatively young be married the daughter of Cabanel, the artist. His talent as a writer of jovial farce was unequalled. He was the soul of geniality, and the laughs he produced were but the echoes of his own impulses. He was one of the first collectors who bought modern pictures, and the famous School of Fontainebleau furnished his walls with many of the best paintings by Diaz, Corot, Rousseau and Millet.
Feydeau would have died a very rich man had it not been that he was always a heavy speculator in the stock market.
At the end, as is generally the case, he was beaten by the "ticker." Its constant click lured him on until, when the day of reckoning came, his heavy assets in brains were discounted by his losses in shares and securities.
THE list of men who contributed to the glory of the French stage in those days, would be incomplete without mentioning Pierre Decourcelle, the nephew of d'Ennery, who was the author of the "Two Orphans." Although successful as a dramatist, he has devoted himself in later years to the making of moving pictures, so that he is now preëminent in the world of films.
Decourcelle was and still is a very handsome man. He is a familiar figure everywhere; not only in the theatre, but at every private art view in the Rue de Seize, at the Hotel Drouot when, important auction sales are in progress, at Longchamps on the day of the Grand Prix, at Auteuil, in Deauville when the season is at its height, in the most exclusive salons of Paris, in fact Pierre Decourcelle is in all and over all.
He is noted for his marvelous taste, for his knowledge as a collector, for his own overwhelming energy, and for his universal courtliness.
Another turn of my ball, and I recognize such a master of style, and such an interpreter of emotions, as Maurice Donnay. He in his turn is followed by Tristan Bernard, Pierre Wolf, Pierre Weber, Gaston Caillavet, Maurice Hennequin, Henry Bernstein, Brieux, Curel, Robert de Flers, Francis de Croisset and a score of others, some of whom have passed beyond. Many of the dramatists I have known were amongst the early victims of the War.
Probably Henry Bernstein, whose mother was an American and a Seligman, never wrote better drama during the whole of his brilliant career, than in that supreme moment when he enacted it on the day of that sensational trial when Madame Joseph Caillaux stood charged with the murder of a great journalist, and when her husband, appearing in her defense, was denounced as the influence of her crime.
The rumblings of War were heard even in the Council Chamber. Jules Jaurès, the socialist leader, had been assassinated.
The whole world had become charged with electric currents which for the moment were uncontrolled by any switchboard.
Joseph Caillaux, one of the greatest statesmen in France, stood before the bar accused of high treason. It had been sworn that he had sold his country to a pack of German wolves for which foul deed the traditional thirty pieces of silver had fallen into his band.
To all of which Caillaux had replied with a sweeping denunciation of the entire semitic race, accusing them in turn of cowardice, of disloyalty, of denationalism, and of such despicable qualities of character as would debar him a Frenchman, a gentleman and a patriot of ever consorting with them directly or indirectly in any way or at any time.
His eloquence was so compelling that the audience seemed fairly swept away. The Caillaux verdict was hanging in the balance, when suddenly there was great confusion in the gallery. A young man with wild and flashing eyes, handsome and intense, and of a deathly pallor was forcing his way through the dense crowd.
At last reaching the front row, while throwing back his head with a gesture of defiance, and in a voice that was clear and strident, he cried out:
"I demand the right of speech," to which request after the custom in a French court of justice, the judge replied:
"Speech is granted to Henry Bernstein," for the man who had asked for the right of a hearing, he had recognized as none other than the celebrated dramatist, author of "The Thief ", "Israel," "The Secret," and of many other splendid plays.
A masterpiece of oratory then fell upon the ears of the startled audience.
It embodied the defense of his race coupled with an assurance of his own willingness to be the first to die for his beloved country. As a slur, he insisted that never would he conceal himself behind the skirts of any woman, even were she his own wife!
Each sentence was a staccato of brilliant phrases. Each word was like a spatter of shot upon the head of the man he had gone there to slay. At last in a climax never to be forgotten, Bernstein, leaning far over the rail and looking at Caillaux who was just below, pointed at him with a finger of scathing scorn and hissed out the words:
"Are you there, Caillaux?"
The effect was stupendous. The crowd leapt upon its feet, the applause was deafening. The orator had become the hero. He was literally carried out upon the shoulders of his admirers. Paris rang with the report of his triumph. It was Bernstein's victory and Caillaux's defeat.
In France as elsewhere, the destructive force of so-called realism has penetrated. It has advanced hand in hand with cubist art. It shares with the latter a lack of form and of logic; it ignores dramatic values and spurns dramatic plots. Simplicity becomes an offense. Any understanding of the story is interpreted as its weakness.
Romance and beauty are discarded. The normal struggles of normal humanity are despised. They are replaced by distorted themes which spring from diseased minds, or which are suggested by the same morbid pruriency which gravitates to the dissecting room.
This moral miasma in literature, and in the drama, seems to have spread over the face of Europe. It is not confined to any one country. It is ubiquitous in its influence. The microbes of degeneracy were germinating prior to the Great War. Those who were healthy-minded predicted that this awful Car of Juggernaut would mow down the weeds and purify the soil. They believed that out of the dire disaster, the world would be born again. They thought that from the terrifying darkness an effulgent light would spring. They felt that the rivers of blood would wash away all evil; that the toll of human lives would redeem the loss of human souls; that the Holy Dove of Peace would thereafter descend upon Mankind, and that the glory of God would encompass the earth.
How far away from the bitter reality was this prophecy and this belief!
Instead of love, hatred unchecked stalks in our midst. Instead of mercy, injustice. Instead of forgiveness, revenge. A lust for gold, a greed of conquest, a barrier against fear have been the dreams of the victors. The map of Europe has become the slaughterhouse of the world. The tears of the weak fall unsoothed in the shambles. The wasted hands of the children are raised in a vain appeal. Men have ceased to be human. They are bathed in blood. They are corroded by selfishness.
The women who before were their ministering angels are given over to vanity and to viciousness. They have become mere physical puppets, pandering to their bodies while asphyxiating their souls.
The devil has indeed come into his own, and the prayers that once ascended into Heaven are now drowned in a pæan of sensuous pleasure, of revolting passion and of ruthless extravagance.
The starving and innocent victims of this lust and greed and hatred are dying unheeded by the way, yet God is marching on. The gates of hell shall not prevail against Him, and neither you nor I shall escape the handwriting on our walls, because it has been written in red and the price it has cost the world has made it indelible.
GRADUALLY my business assumed large proportions.
My various foreign branches were open and thriving until 1914. The London office has never been closed. My first associate there was Mr. Addison Bright, who had many very warm friends amongst the literary men of England. At his death I had the extreme good fortune of persuading his younger brother, R. Golding Bright, to replace him, so .that from that time until now; my English interests have been in his hands. Golding Bright will always be a young man at any age. He keeps ahead of his time. He was born a modern. His judgment as to the merit of a manuscript is rarely at fault. However, I am inclined to think that emotional enthusiasm does more to stimulate an author to endeavor than does drastic criticism. If a writer manifests only a germ of talent he should feel a glow of sympathy even as his limitations and defects are helpfully pointed out.
The common idea that the business of an authors' agent is merely an automatic function is most erroneous. The agent who is satisfied in only making contracts, in collecting fees, and in directing his office mechanically, will never rise above the level of mediocrity.
An authors' representative to be of any real use must have a mind that supplements what the author lacks. Added to his experience he must be permeated with an imagination which at times often exceeds that of the creator he would help. He must not wait for opportunity; he must make it. While the author is moving slowly with his story, the intelligent agent must, in his mind, see this same story already produced. It is he who must transfer the characters of the play to the stage. It is he who must watch them move, speak, succeed or fail. He must be familiar with the pitfalls so as to warn the author from tumbling into them. He must follow the pulse of the public with an unerring instinct; above all he must know when to encourage his client and when to dissuade him. He must, while pointing out his defects, be able to inspire him to achievement.
A good authors' agent, one who is really worthy of the name, should indeed be a guide, a philosopher and a friend.
How many successful playwrights came to me in their youth, timidly showing me their first efforts! Amongst them were Hubert Henry Davis, W. Somerset Maugham, Jerome K. Jerome, J. M. Barrie and Stanley Weyman. I can remember the first successes of Arthur Wing Pinero, Henry Arthur Jones, Hall Caine, Sydney Grundy and Cecil Raleigh, then dear old Brandon Thomas whose popular farce, "Charley's Aunt" was in my hands.
In America I can see Rachel Crothers, who had taught school in the middle-west, but who had a craving and a leaning towards all that savored of the theatre.
She had written "Three of Us" and had brought the manuscript to me. I felt certain of its success once we could be assured a production. We tried many doors but our knocking was in vain, until finally the play was produced in the Madison Square Theatre and scored an immense success. Miss Crothers was established. I must recite one little incident which very likely she has forgotten.
After a period of mutual discouragement over this play, we were walking through Thirty-ninth Street when suddenly something fluttered down from a window and fell at Rachel Crothers' feet. It was a clean and crisp dollar bill. She had at that very moment practically made up her mind to quit playwriting and to return to the school-room. At the sight of this money, I seized her arm and insisted that her fate was decided, that this bill was merely a forerunner of the fortune that she was to make in this city. I felt that this was the omen of her future.
Perhaps one of my most useful qualities in my relations to authors is that I never lose faith in their potentialities once I discover in them a germ of talent. I hold on and hold them up. Rejected manuscripts, if I believed in them, have never meant the shelf to me. On the contrary, I work all the harder to prove that my judgment is right. "Nathan Hale," for instance, one of Clyde Fitch's best plays, was written for E. H. Sothern, who threw it back on our hands. Manager after manager refused it until finally Nat Goodwin produced it at the old Garden Theatre.
The reason given for its rejection had been its sad ending. In those days there were stupid formulas which happily, in modern times, have been proved futile and mythical, but it took many years of education before the managers parted with their now obsolete objections.
THE rising American authors were Paul Potter, Charles Hoyt, Vaughan Moody, Rupert Hughes, E. E. Rose, Ramsey Morris, Thompson Buchanan, Louis Vance, Channing Pollock, Austin Strong, Martha Morton, her "little brother Mike," A. E. Lancaster, Margaret Mayo, Fannie Aymar Matthews, Edgar Selwyn, Jules Eckert Goodman, A. E. Thomas, Avery Hopwood, George Middleton, Edward Knoblock, and last but by no means least, Augustus Thomas. There were many others I might mention. Roi Cooper Megrue began his apprenticeship in my office. He and Crosby Gaige had collaborated in a play while running a lunch-room at Columbia College. I had only a vacancy in my office for one. The salary, if I remember correctly, was less than ten dollars a week. I wanted someone who could receive the clients with a radiant good humor. Megrue's round face seemed to me encouraging, so he fell into the job. At this same time, Archibald Selwyn was looking for one. He and Megrue became friends with the result that they asked me to stake them in their first venture.
Coney Island and Dreamland were growing in popularity.
Selwyn had been promised a concession which involved the purchase of a slot weighing machine, but it would take about three hundred dollars to finance the enterprise. I agreed to lend them the money and thus the firm of Megrue and Selwyn was started.
Business began discouragingly. The public did not seem much interested as to whether they were fat or thin. The machine soon rusted as it stood in the open air. Repairs were next in order. These had to be paid for despite the fact that the pennies were only slowly trickling into the slot. However, on one prosperous Saturday, the receipts reached thirteen dollars. Hot and weary after a hard day's work, the boys gathered up the coin, tied it in a large towel and together walked along Surf Avenue to find some place where they could eat at a moderate cost. In sitting down at the counter the heavy load of pennies was dropped upon the floor with a sense of relief. However, when the meal was over the young men, replete with anecdote, and flushed with success and a few glasses of real beer, started to catch the return boat to New York. Arriving on board, they realized that their precious burden had been left behind in the restaurant. Back they ran. The tables and chairs were all upturned. The waiters were vigorously sweeping the floor. The hour for closing had come.
Panting with breathless excitement, Arch Selwyn asked whether anyone had seen a heavy bundle belonging to them. The answer was negative. Despair fell upon the firm of Megrue and Selwyn, when suddenly the bus boy appeared exclaiming: "Gee, I guess that was the stuff I threw out with the rubbish. The durned, thing was so heavy that I thought it was full of shells and stones what some guy was taking away as souvenirs." Selwyn, the energetic, rushed to the garbish heap, brushed aside potato peelings and carrot tops until he sighted the bundle of which he was in quest. Thus were the thirteen hundred pennies rescued for the enterprising owners of the Coney Island weighing machine! Roi Megrue, as the author of "It Pays to Advertise", "Under Cover" and "Tea for Three," has made an independent fortune while Archibald Selwyn has become the part owner of many theatres and one of the leading managers in America.
Another conspicuous influence in the theatrical world is Alice Kauser, who came to me for her first position, acting for several years as my private secretary. She was living in Florida, and had sent me her photograph. She understood and spoke many languages. I felt that provided she had the intelligence which was indicated by her letters, that she was just the young woman I wanted.
My confidence in the experiment was justified, but this was my initial experience in creating a future rival. It was with me that Alice Kauser had her early training. Her knowledge of contracts was acquired in my office. Her introduction to the managers came through me. Therefore, I have every right to be proud of the success she has made in establishing her own agency. She is a brilliant woman and I have always rejoiced in the fact that I was instrumental in aiding her towards the founding of her subsequent career, now of many years' standing.
IT MAY be interesting here to relate how often the writing, or the acceptance of a play hangs upon a very slight thread,
I had met J. M. Barrie in London and both Addison Bright and I had advised him to dramatize "The Little Minister." To this he agreed, and a contract was then entered into between him and Charles Frohman. Finally the play was finished and Barrie came to New York, bringing the precious 'script with him.
He stopped at the Holland House which was then a popular hotel. He had never at that time met Frohman personally. I had been their intermediary. On Wednesday, the day after Barrie's arrival, I called at the hotel for the play which I was to deliver to Charles Frohman. On the following Saturday the latter was to give his verdict. As this was one of my most important transactions, I naturally felt nervous when I returned early that day to learn how the manuscript had impressed Frohman.
When I entered his office, I was greeted with his usual cordiality. "The play is all right," he said. "There is nothing, the matter with it; only it is no good for me." My heart sank. "Why, what is the trouble with it?" I asked. "It is a man's play" replied C. F., "whereas I am looking for a play for Maude Adams. I haven't any young actor I want to star as the Little Minister."
No words can convey the chagrin I felt. My mind was set upon the acceptance and production of this property. I reflected for a few moments and then said:
"How would you feel about it if Barrie would rewrite it and make Lady Babbie the leading part?"
"Oh," answered C. F., "that would be fine; but I don't believe you can get him to do it."
"That is up to me," I said and off I flew. I found Barrie waiting for me, anxious to learn Frohman's opinion. I repeated our conversation and found the author stubbornly opposed to any reconstruction of his material.
I pleaded, I coaxed, I argued. All to no avail. However, realizing that time is often our best advocate, I urged that he would suspend his decision until Monday, when I would call for his final answer.
On Monday I returned to the Holland House. I found that Barrie had weakened to a very considerable extent. I pointed out that a play successfully starring Maude Adams, who at that time was nearing the height of her popularity, would bring fame and fortune to the author. This appeal had the desired effect. Barrie consented to make the necessary changes and Frohman rejoiced at the result of my diplomacy.
"The Little Minister" was produced. It scored a triumph.
Barrie's career as a playwright was established. He became the author in chief who furnished Maude Adams for the remainder of her artistic life with her very best and most popular rôles. A long and lasting friendship between Sir James M. Barrie and the late Charles Frohman was the happy result of their first success together.
Another anecdote revolves around that wonderful humorist, Jerome K. Jerome. He had achieved popularity as a writer of fiction and a few of his comedies had attracted favorable comment in London. Still he had not reached the high water mark of success and I found him one spring very despondent and downhearted.
I urged him to pluck up courage and insisted that he must have many stories in his mind which could be developed into plays. I asked him to bring me some plots so that we might decide together as to which of them he had better attack. Soon Jerome arrived in my office with six sheets of paper covered with his fine handwriting. They were numbered one to six, each representing the theme of a possible drama. The first I remember dealt with Russian Nihilism. This was before the Russians and their theatre possessed the burning interest which they do to-day. I advised against plot number one. The stories which followed presented little more to arouse my enthusiasm.
After the fifth page had been read and rejected by me, Jerome was thoroughly disgruntled while I was equally discouraged; however, the sixth remained. "What is the use of my going on?" said Jerome, "if you haven't cared for the others, you are certain not to like this one. Not a manager in the world would consider this story for a minute."
"Never mind," I said, "I might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb, so go to it and read me the last."
It was the story of "The Passing of the Third Floor Back."
I jumped from my seat with glee. I threw my arms around Jerome with enthusiasm. I knew that we had struck a bonanza.
The play was finished in the autumn, but certain as I was of the value of the material, Jerome had been right so far as the difficulty of persuading a manager to produce this play was concerned.
Golding Bright, however, convinced Johnston Forbes-Robertson to at least try out the property.
His success in both England and America is the convincing proof of the correctness of our judgment.
Forbes-Robertson, who was then in a precarious financial position, made a fortune out of this play, whereas Jerome K. Jerome never before nor since registered a success that was so positive and so permanent.
"The Christian"--that wonderful play of Hall Caine's, scored through a bit of reconstruction which altered its fate and which insured its popularity. When the author completed his original version, there was no prologue. The convent was the opening scene. I persuaded Mr. Caine to introduce Glory and John as boy and girl together, in the very beginning of the play. I felt sure that the audience would want their first impression of them to be one of sunshine and of romance.
The reception of this play in this form again proved that this suggestion was of benefit to the author.
I might add that rarely is a manuscript turned in which cannot be improved through the advice and criticism of the skilled reader and representative.
My principle has always been not to submit a play to a manager until it has been gone over and over and improved from every possible angle. Managers judge by their first impressions. They have not the patience as a rule, to help the author to a successful revision of his material. This is more properly the agent's task.
If an authors' representative had merely to sit at a desk and receive a completed and perfected manuscript, the agency business would be one of ease and certainty.
As it is, however, a play is rarely placed as first written.
It is the rewriting of the play which requires all the help and the encouragement which the agent can give. And even then, when the author has patiently toiled over his manuscript, when the agent has tried with all the confidence and the persistency of which he is capable, to convince the managers of its merit, the result may be one of heartbreaking disappointment and the play may never be produced.
There is no prejudice whatever against a young and unknown writer. That is a mistaken idea. In fact, new authors have a better chance than the veterans. But the average manager is so impressed by his own ability to judge of a play, that he often allows a veritable gold mine to slip through his fingers. It would be a very beneficial thing perhaps to prepare a list not of the successful plays which were finally accepted, but of the successful plays which were primarily rejected.
Some of the very biggest hits with which I have been associated went the rounds to be returned to me over and over again until I found some man who had more confidence in my judgment than in his own. In face of this fact, it is interesting to note that there are still a few managers who refuse absolutely to read any manuscript which has been submitted elsewhere. It seems indeed fortunate that these Napoleons of the Drama have it within their power to make money out of the theatres they build so that they can be independent of the plays they reject.