350

LETTER TO BISHOP OF MANCHESTER

[1878.

day. But still, I am sure, if ever that tone is to be raised, men must help them. For instance, at a theatre what can a woman do, however offended by what she sees or hears, if the men about her are amused and tolerant? She cannot do what a distinguished lady said to me she wished to do not long since, when she saw a dress worn by the heroine in a modern drama. 'Had I been a man, I should have taken up my hat and left the theatre; but having no hat, and to wait for my carriage, I was obliged to remain until the appointed time.' The offensive dress worn on this occasion was but the usual one-such as we see in our drawingrooms every day since the late ugly, ungraceful fashion has prevailed-but the unfitness was made more obvious on the stage, when in the necessary movements the development of the figure was much more noticeable. Men have much to do even in this matter. Bid fathers, husbands, brothers make a protest, and refuse to be seen with their womenkind so dressed, and milliners would soon know it was their interest to find less tightly fitting and more seemly gowns.

"I have been grieved to find brought up at this Church Congress by the Rev. C. Bullock a sentence of Mr Macready's, which reads, apart from his life, as not worthy of it. Why should he think a profession unworthy of his following, which had numbered in its ranks such names as Garrick and his distinguished predecessors, and, in his own time, the Kembles-great actors and good men? I do not like to think of, or to have dwelt upon, this blot in his honourable, useful career. I wish I could think any word of mine could weigh ever so lightly against such a sweeping unjust censure.

"I have ever found my art a most purifying and ennobling one, and the aim of all my life has been to educate and elevate myself up to it. To live in the contemplation of high thoughts, clothed, as in Shakespeare, in the loftiest language, to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image,' self-sacrificing heroism its own reward, how can this be lowering to a well-regulated mind? Always provided that the life lived is a blameless one.

"As to what are called the temptations of the stage-even for women-I do not believe they exist for those worthy of the name of actors. I doubt not they are to be found, but they must be

1878.]

ON STATE OF THE STAGE.

351

welcomed or sought for, if they do exist. An actor worthy of his art must be a worthy man. All art, if studied worthily, must be elevating. It is not given to all to reach the pinnacle; but with a pure aim and steady purpose, they also serve who only stand and wait.'

"To conclude. I believe so entirely in the enormous power of good in the dramatic art, which in some shape or form was born in us and has existed since the earliest ages, that I feel convinced, had we the same intelligent and willing audiences as we see any day in any theatre on the Continent-notably in Germanywhere it is an education to sit and watch the people during a play of Shakespeare's, that here the Church and the Stage might move together for good, the one the willing servant of the other, and the supposed antagonism be discovered to be fallacious. before this can be hoped for, the general tone of society must be raised, and the desire be felt widely for the advent of the true thing,-life, in short, must be in many ways different from what it is now.

But,

"Forgive me for having trespassed so largely on your time. You will, I am sure, do so for the sake of the cause, and in remembrance of the agreeable hours at Tatton Park, when I had the pleasure of meeting you there three years ago.-Believe me, my Lord, very truly yours, HELENA FAUCIT MARTIN."

"BISHOP'S COURT, MANCHESTER, Oct. 14, 1878. "MY DEAR MRS MARTIN,-I can't tell you with what pleasure I read your pages. I agree, I sympathise fully, heartily, with every word. Why should the drama, which the great philosopher Aristotle, who had seen the noble tragedies of Eschylus and Sophocles, regarded as 'the great purifier of our moral nature through the passions,' be degraded, except that society wills it so to be. I shall be glad, if the occasion should hereafter present itself (I do not seek these occasions, but they come unexpectedly; I had not the least intention of saying anything at Sheffield, but the Archbishop pressed me), to quote your words, or some of them, as one who has a right to be heard, and, as Mr Theodore

352

LETTER OF BISHOP OF MANCHESTER.

[1878.

Martin tells me in his kind letter, I have your permission to do.

"So many good people, in their schemes of reformation, think they can extinguish human nature. I don't desire this. I believe that upon the existing basis, which is not of man's laying, a noble and worthy superstructure can be raised. To have some hand in doing this I try to devote the little power and influence that God has given me.

"I retain a vivid recollection of those three pleasant days at Tatton.-Very sincerely yours, J. MANCHESTER."

More than twenty years have elapsed since these letters were written. What will the historian of these twenty years have to tell of the progress of dramatic art or of public taste? More money has been lavished on the stage than at any previous period, with what results upon the aims of authors or actors towards the production of fine work, either in writing or acting? It is as true as ever, that

"The drama's laws the drama's patrons give."

When society is pervaded by a higher, purer tone, the drama and its professors will feel its influence, and strive to satisfy it, but not till then.

CHAPTER XVI.

THE failure of the City of Glasgow Bank towards the end of 1877 caused widespread distress in the west of Scotland, and especially in the city of Glasgow. Hearing of this, and remembering the uniform kindness, both in public and private, which she had always met with there, my wife wrote to the Lord Provost, offering to give a Reading in aid of the Relief Fund which had been set on foot for the sufferers by the bank failure. The offer was eagerly accepted, and the evening of the 21st of March, 1878, was fixed for the reading. The weather was unusually wintry, making the outlook of a journey from London most unpromising. But the officials of the London and North Western Railway Company, hearing of my wife's charitable purpose, placed at her disposal an entire saloon carriage, to take her to and from Glasgow, and in this way diminished both the fatigue and the risk of catching cold. A hospitable welcome awaited us at the house of the late Dr M'Gregor, on the 18th, and two days' rest under most genial conditions enabled my wife to carry successfully through the very hard task which she had undertaken. The programme included Act i. sc. 5, Act ii. sc. 2 (the balcony scene), scenes 3, 5, and 6 from Romeo and Juliet, and from the Merchant of Venice, Act ii. sc. 2, Act iii. scenes 2 and 4, and the trial scene in Act iv. "All went off well," says the Diary. "Was less nervous than I expected to be. My voice served me as well as ever-not even my long cough has injured it. The Lord Provost led me to the platform, and made a speech of thanks to me from it at the end." The receipts were £470, and the next day my wife sent her cheque for £30 to the Lord Provost, to make up a total of £500,

354

READING AT GLASGOW FOR SUFFERERS

[1878. with a letter, in which she said: "Believe me, I have a great affection for your city, where I have always been received with much warmth and kindness. It has given me great pleasure to come amongst you again, and to show my sympathy with the sufferers from this late sad calamity by contributing my mite to a cause which I know the citizens of this great city have most deeply at heart."

The Glasgow journals expressed a warm appreciation of what had been done. The Evening News writes:

Few persons in Glasgow, and certainly none who knew her, would be surprised when they heard that this good lady and famous artist had offered to come north, and once more play the enchantress for mercy's sake. It would have been easy for her to stay at home and write a cheque for £30. But that was not enough; and she knew that she possessed a secret which could make the scantiest soil blossom in guineas. So she left her comfortable home in the South, and braved the tooth-drawing winds of March, in order to assist in softening the sterner winds of ruin which are now chilling many an unhappy hearth. . . . What we have heard Helen Faucit speak! What we have seen her do! Not in our time shall be seen her like upon the English stage. But in all her actings she never acted so noble a part as that in which she appeared on Friday night, the comforter of widows and orphans stricken by an unmerited calamity.

Of the Reading itself, the Glasgow News says:

Mrs Martin achieved a success, which must have reminded her of her triumphs of former days-with this difference, that in the present case her task was more difficult. To hold the attention of an audience for nearly three hours to a series of dramatic readings, with none of the accessories which go to make up a stage representation, is an achievement of which even Miss Helen Faucit may be justly proud.

It is on an occasion like this, writes another critic, "that one has an opportunity of understanding the strength and melody of the English language, and especially of Shakespeare's English." The characteristics of her mode of reading are well given by the Citizen :

On no occasion did the reader raise her voice beyond a conversational pitch. She never declaimed. Gesture or indeed action of any kind was but sparingly used. But, this restraint of style notwithstanding, she succeeded in discriminating between the various figures in each scene with the utmost nicety. The eager pleadings of Romeo, the lovesick fancies of Juliet, the testy humours of the Nurse, Portia's high-bred courtesy, and